[JCDNWarrior]

Strange news again yesterday/today, felt like sharing it; what do you think of this?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8876656/US-weapons-full-of-fake-Chinese-parts.html

I'm a bit appalled if this is -truly- factual. What could be the implications of this?

[karajorma]

I remember once hearing that an audit found that fake parts had made it onto Air Force One.


I did love the whole argument from the US side though, "We've been buying cheaper than usual electronic parts from dodgy dealers in China and now we've found out that they are probably fakes! This is all China's fault!"

[SypheDMar]

 

[Grizzly]

I thought the Americans bought all their guns from the Germans and the Belgians nowadays...

EDIT: oh wait, it was about electronical stuff. But yeah - I get the idea that most of US weapons production is outsourced nowadays, so the news that there is some 'malicious' stuff going on doesn't actually suprise me.

[Colonol Dekker]

This C130J looks freakin TINY!

[Mongoose]

Perspective is fun!

Speaking of, I had the chance to walk through a C-5 Galaxy at an air show once.  You could practically play football (either kind) in that thing.

[Nuke]

well thats what we get for shutting down domestic factories. sure the parts are cheaper but this is because they like to cut corners that we wouldn't have.

[Thaeris]

WHY IS MY GOVERNMENT DESTROYING MY COUNTRY??!!!

[Dilmah G]

well thats what we get for shutting down domestic factories. sure the parts are cheaper but this is because they like to cut corners that we wouldn't have.

Amen. Agree completely with the statement by the Chinese ex-Officer. Interesting contrast over here where the insistence on a home-grown defence industry that just...isn't has resulted in half our Defence hardware not even working anyway. (Collins Class Subs, Seasprite helos, anything Aussie made. The only thing that ****ing works are the fighter jets and we bought them off you lot). You have it bad at both poles.

[Grizzly]

well thats what we get for shutting down domestic factories. sure the parts are cheaper but this is because they like to cut corners that we wouldn't have.

Heh heh. There is a dutch company (forgot it's name, unfortunately) which produces machines to produce top of the line microchips. They once shipped one of their machines to China. Some chinese dudes copied the thing to the exact detail, up to and including the paint.

The copy did not work

--

Amen. Agree completely with the statement by the Chinese ex-Officer. Interesting contrast over here where the insistence on a home-grown defence industry that just...isn't has resulted in half our Defence hardware not even working anyway. (Collins Class Subs, Seasprite helos, anything Aussie made. The only thing that ****ing works are the fighter jets and we bought them off you lot).  You have it bad at both poles.

Really? The Dutch military is quite happy with the Bushmaster APCs (they are quite happy with the Aussie military in general). Aren't those from Australian design?

Mind that the Bushmaster is the only APC which design has not been 'modified' by EU politicians to promote the EU defence industry, so that might be one of the reasons, but still...

[Nuke]

my real concern is that we are being sold parts that have a kill switch in them. i mean you can loose an rf receiver chip on your fingernail these days. you could stick an entire rf receiver circuit on the same die as a microcontroller rigged to shut it down when it catches a particular signal. then china can sell the codes to the highest bidder. then they transmit the codes and our planes control systems cease up and our weapons disarm themselves. not trying to be a conspiracy theorist nutjob, but it can happen, it can be done.

this doesnt even need to happen for military gain, this is something that can find its way into consumer products too. you could make consumer products self destruct so that you have to buy a new one. and hears the beauty of it. these devices work their way back into chinese hands through tech recycling programs, stripped down and the self destruct timers can be reset and the parts resold. id hate to see forced artificial scarcity applied to physical products.

[Dilmah G]

Really? The Dutch military is quite happy with the Bushmaster APCs (they are quite happy with the Aussie military in general). Aren't those from Australian design?

Mind that the Bushmaster is the only APC which design has not been 'modified' by EU politicians to promote the EU defence industry, so that might be one of the reasons, but still...

Well I did say half, the Bushmasters form the other half that actually works. Unfortunately it's in the minority when considering the big picture in the ADF. And the Aussie military isn't bad, it makes do with the equipment they have just like very other military and do a good job of it, it's just screwed over by the politics of it all like every other military. Admittedly we do have it pretty good over here compared to other parts of the world, so I guess a few billions in a wasted helicopter and submarine fleet aren't such big deals compared to a fair few countries who struggle to cobble together a full squadron.

[Thaeris]

I'm a bit confused, Dilmah.

Those projects you mentioned, the Collins-class submarine and the Sea Sprite ASW helo are all licence-built projects. Why you can't get previously functioning weapon systems to work is beyond me, though I would suggest that your defence contractor firms hire some better engineers...

[Dilmah G]

The problem is that the engineers are all Australian. No, but seriously I'm not exactly sure if we have problems in putting the Seasprite together but as far as I recall, Defence has been skewed immensely in their decision making on both of those issues by the possibility of the crafts and vessels being put together in Australia, simply to cultivate industry. The crux of the matter is that the Collins class subs should not have been assembled in Australia, and probably shouldn't have been bought in the first place.

The entire Collins class has been fraught with issues beginning with their assembly over here, since some bright Defence mind decided that if the project ran into cost overrun that the capabilities of the submarine should be scaled back to compensate. This makes things pretty interesting, especially when there was some silly requirement about a certain percentage having to be constructed in Australia. This caused an even more massive cock up when we had to start our own Submarine company just so we could build the thing.

Moral of the story being that Australia should just buy the damn things off the shelf.

[Trivial Psychic]

At least nobody was given a shotty bomb casing filled with used pin-ball machine parts. 

[Luis Dias]

I get the idea that most of US weapons production is outsourced nowadays, so the news that there is some 'malicious' stuff going on doesn't actually suprise me.

Because americans can't make anything malicious, that kind of **** is foreign's territory, right?

[Dragon]

Considering the discussion is about American getting fake parts, it's safe to assume that they don't make malicious things to sell to their own military. They're not quite on the level of Poland yet. 

[karajorma]

Kinda the point I was about to make. Maliciously making parts to sabotage your own military is the sort of thing that get you put in jail for treason.

[z64555]

If the parts pass the specs, then it doesn't matter where the heck they came from.

Problem is, how are you going to filter out the bad eggs from the dozen? Per-chip analysis is very tedious, multiply that by the number of embedded devices that are out there (mil and civil) and their ya go.

[Nuke]

cash saved if you would stick to domestic production in secure facilities.