Apparently you can Free Market™ so hard that it makes a crippled warship

the contractor

Who we dare not name apparently

could milk the development process given that the government would reimburse the company for the research and development costs.

The process incentivized the inclusion of nearly two dozen new, unproven technologies. This complicated the development process and delayed delivery by at least three years and increased costs more than 25%, from $10.5 billion to $13.2 billion.

This spending has done little to improve the vessels’ capabilities. But the inclusion of so many new technologies did create economic opportunities all over the country. More than 200 suppliers, spread across the country, build components for the Ford-class program.

Specifications for the system said it could launch more than 4,000 aircraft before and between any critical failures. But, as with many modern electrical systems, EMALS has proven far less reliable than expected. The Navy and Department of Defense haven’t released specific figures for several years, but reporting in 2021 shows the Ford’s catapults failed after only 181 launch cycles.

That's less than 5% of spec for those keeping score at home

The Ford has four catapults, so the crew can shift from one to another in case of a failure. But the catapult system includes a significant design flaw. Sailors do not have any way to electrically isolate each catapult. To work on one, the entire EMALS system has to be deenergized. That means the crew would have to stop launching aircraft to make repairs. Doing so would be clearly problematic if multiple catapults failed at the same time during combat operations.

Just when I thought it couldn't get more absurd

https://archive.is/96HcC

The tone of this piece makes my head explode

The big scary boogeyman of Conspiracy Theories won't save you from imperial collapse NYT

Background

I have been quite fascinated by Europe's continental suicide in the face of the failure of Project Ukraine and the fracturing of the "transatlantic understanding".

I think Europe still has time to choose strategic autonomy:

• Rapprochement with Russia to restore their energy competitiveness.
• Rapprochement with China to restore their global trade and industrial competitiveness.
• Seek out global markets to blunt the Trump tariffs.
• Pressure Ukraine to hasten their inevitable capitulation before they loose EVEN MORE LAND AND SOLDIERS.

Of course as we all know, the Western media has the complete opposite narrative, a jumble something like "Russia has lost 10 bajillion soldiers and they don't actually have military equipment at all and also advancing on the battlefield counts as losing if it wasn't as fast as we ourselves predicted it would be."

Content for the tribunal:

Mod actions: removed comments, banned from community

Responsible mod: Unknown to me

Link to First Comment (now removed)

First comment with better formatting:

1. This war started in 2008 at the Bucharest NATO summit, when the US announced its intention to expand NATO into Ukraine and Georgia. EVEN EUROPEAN LEADERS like Merkel and Sarkozy noted AT THE TIME that the Russians would view NATO expansion into these countries as tantamount to a declaration of war. Over the next 14 years the West did a "color revolution", the Banderites did an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Donbass, and the West sabotaged and undermined THREE DIFFERENT PEACE AGREEMENTS before the Russians' famous patience finally expired in 2022.
2. Ukraine doesn't need money to win the war, it needs TRAINED INFANTRY and to a lesser extent weapons. MOREOVER, anyone who thinks this money will last Ukraine even a whole year is delusional. The annual BASELINE burn rate of the Ukraine regime is 150B+ annually, and tax receipts are essentially nonexistent.
3. They must be REALLY DESPERATE to risk the CREDIBILITY OF THE ENTIRE EUROPEAN FINANCIAL SYSTEM on this foolish gambit. They are breaking the very "Laws of Capital" that the West itself wrote. The Europeans seem determined to beat the Americans in a race to economic decline and collapse.

Tell me again about the "moral case" for stealing sovereign assets to prop up a stunningly corrupt regime in terminal collapse?

Looking forward to the tortured logic justifying my ban.

My Commentary

I know enough to know that they really don't like contrary narratives about Russia/Ukraine in any of the Euro-comms so I wrote my comments very carefully.

Can you, the esteemed commenters of YPTB, spot the misinformation or rage bait? Perhaps I am just blind to it in my own content. If present, did I "ragebait first" or did the other commenter?

Reminder that "Russia says this, therefore it is misinformation" is not a cogent argument or evidence.