Submarines, stealth, and silver bullets: Low-rate production for high-leverage platforms
Titel:
Submarines, stealth, and silver bullets: Low-rate production for high-leverage platforms
Auteur:
Patton, James H.
Verschenen in:
Comparative strategy
Paginering:
Jaargang 14 (1995) nr. 1 pagina's 59-79
Jaar:
1995-01
Inhoud:
With the end of the cold war has come the uncontested need to scale back both force levels and hardware production rates. A great deal of effort (such as the Bottom-Up Review") has been expended to quantitatively determine just what these force levels should be, and therefore implicitly, the necessary hardware production rates. Simultaneously, however, there has been an equally uncontested requirement for U.S. equipment to maintain a degree of qualitative edge such as that demonstrated in Desert Storm. It is argued in this article that in some cases, where relevant technologies are unique and nontransferable to civilian product lines, the need to maintain a critical mass of industrial capability could be the dominant criteria for setting production rates. For example, US. submarine production is discussed as a case in point where a strategy of continued low-rate production appears to be required and generally accepted. Other possible instances are investigated, such as the unique industrial base associated with the production of very low observables (stealthy) combat aircraft.
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