Nice bumper-sticker arguments, but a bit simplistic.
Originally Posted by VinRouge
Problem is, if its COTS, they dont want to know. Too many overspecifications for kit, when actually, there are some pretty funky commercial solutions to military problems, particularly when it comes to Comms and electronics. It might not be electronically "Hardened" or meet all the mil std requirements, but if it does the job, whats the issue?
MIL-STD kit has an increased temperature range over commercial or industrial electronics standards. Your unhardened little walkie-talkie that's great on a sunny day in UK, might be sod-all use when it's -15 on a hilltop, or at 35C and 100% humidity somewhere sweaty. Still less if you dunk it in a stream before trying to use it. Those cute USB connectors might be great at home, but not play nicely where it's dusty and awful. They might wear down and start to self-disconnect (see "Clansman pressel box").
When it comes to batteries, some terribly helpful Mover or Loadmaster might get all irate about carrying unqualified and potentially flammable kit in the airframe; please remind me what happens when Lithium cells meet water? If Dell and Toshiba can't stop laptops bursting into flames in the homeor office, why would it be any easier after a few extreme trips around pressure or humidity cycles?
"Take walkie-talkie and stick it in a plastic bag" is great if you've got plentiful and close logistic support, but it's rock-all use if you're in a rather primitive platoon FOB at the wrong end of a week's-delay logistic chain. Horses for courses.
Originally Posted by Two's in
...one of the issues against COTS was it threatened all those cosy jobs for the "specialist" advisors from all over the place. They would always manage to whip up a scare story about how the Tempest clearance on a can-opener was an essential requirement...
Having tried to work with COTS on a military project, it isn't that simple.
- What happens in five years, when the kit breaks? The COTS manufacturers and their suppliers aren't going to keep running a production line to support ancient technology, so you still have to do lifetime buys of the kit. (I'm sorry, we don't make memories that small any more)
- What happens in five years, if you discover a problem that was missed because of your "cheap and cheerful" approach to trials? (Of course it will stand repeated hot/cold cycles without any trouble, the manufacturer says so!) And your lifetime buy of parts is being eaten up at twice the rate it should?
- What happens if interoperability suffers (see "cheap and cheerful approach to trials")? The Americans ended up with a combat helmet that wouldn't fit their radio headset in the 1980s. HMS Sheffield allegedly had a satphone that interfered with the EW suite at the wrong moment.
Have a good hard think about maintainability man hours per flying hour, and ask yourself which is more expensive - another million quid on the design/trials cycle, or having to employ another ten maintainers per squadron over the life of the gear.
COTS is useful, and it can be good, but it certainly isn't a magic wand. We had to replace our processor board supplier when we discovered that they had lied to us about the Ethernet performance which was critical to our data transfers. (
"Buy our kit, we already meet your spec". Followed several months of design effort later, after our initial dry-runs at system acceptance testing of the live kit by
"Of course we tested it in point-to-point mode and got those figures". Followed after two weeks of data gathering and measurement by
"Errrr..... actually, no we didn't, and we can't get it to work").