A robot was on fire. Again. It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands…
… The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back.
Just the opposite: General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest defense companies, has been showered with new contracts, continuing its track record as one of the greatest beneficiaries of Pentagon spending. The company is still in charge of the factory. It recently announced that it will fix things there by bringing in another much-hyped but little-proven technology.
I dare to armchair general that it might be more than just incompetence.
Ukraine’s military has been saying for a few years that while NATO plans, strategies and tactics were useful at the start of the war, they have been irrelevant and even detrimental for a few years now, small drones have completely changed warfare.
In addition to a country that has been arguably preparing for an assymetrical war for maybe 40-60 years, Iran is one of four countries with the most knowledge of current drone tactics now; the other three being Ukraine, Russia and China.