I found it very remarkable as a child when visiting the Hagley Museum (once known as Eleutherian Mills, the old site of powder manufacture used by E. I. du Pont) how the various industrial buildings all had roofs with a dramatic slant on top that was designed to result in the ejection of their contents- equipment and workers- into the Brandywine Creek when the inevitable explosive mishap occurred, so that the unfortunates at least wouldn't kill anyone else in the surrounding buildings when they were destroyed.
The black-powder situation is especially wild. Turns out that the current owner/operator actually bought the plant from rocket-hobby company Estes, which had the last black-powder manufacturing capability in the U.S. and spun out Estes Energetics for the military application, which was then purchased by GOEX.
Without nerdy model-rocket hobbyists, we might not have any black-powder manufacturing (and it's critical as an igniter for the more-sophisticated explosives used in many warheads).
I'm not sure deterrence is real, or maybe they just have a bad website, but their X account has been suspended and a lot of supposed links on their main page loop back to deterrence.com
I think there's some important context missing: What are the outputs of the relevant US facilities (I don't know how to interpret the fact that there is only one factory for a particular energetic in the US). How does that compare to Chinese production? And how much does the US import from allies?
The heading photo certainly underscores the incredibly primitive state of what little that does currently exist. Clearly America does need to become much more independent in a number of areas of military materiel production, including the propellants and explosives.
As far as Taiwan goes, the quickest way to discourage the Chinese might be to ask the Taiwan government if they'd like to buy say a hundred W88 thermonuclear warheads, and some rockets as well.
I found it very remarkable as a child when visiting the Hagley Museum (once known as Eleutherian Mills, the old site of powder manufacture used by E. I. du Pont) how the various industrial buildings all had roofs with a dramatic slant on top that was designed to result in the ejection of their contents- equipment and workers- into the Brandywine Creek when the inevitable explosive mishap occurred, so that the unfortunates at least wouldn't kill anyone else in the surrounding buildings when they were destroyed.
The black-powder situation is especially wild. Turns out that the current owner/operator actually bought the plant from rocket-hobby company Estes, which had the last black-powder manufacturing capability in the U.S. and spun out Estes Energetics for the military application, which was then purchased by GOEX.
Without nerdy model-rocket hobbyists, we might not have any black-powder manufacturing (and it's critical as an igniter for the more-sophisticated explosives used in many warheads).
I'm not sure deterrence is real, or maybe they just have a bad website, but their X account has been suspended and a lot of supposed links on their main page loop back to deterrence.com
yeah i noticed that, but i thought i found some independent reports of their fundraise? could still be fake though. suspicious for sure
I think there's some important context missing: What are the outputs of the relevant US facilities (I don't know how to interpret the fact that there is only one factory for a particular energetic in the US). How does that compare to Chinese production? And how much does the US import from allies?
The heading photo certainly underscores the incredibly primitive state of what little that does currently exist. Clearly America does need to become much more independent in a number of areas of military materiel production, including the propellants and explosives.
As far as Taiwan goes, the quickest way to discourage the Chinese might be to ask the Taiwan government if they'd like to buy say a hundred W88 thermonuclear warheads, and some rockets as well.
No need for the rocket, just display them on the beach
If it runs out of chemical explosives, the US will still have nuclear ones. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
https://legionaus.substack.com/p/what-is-mondaloy-and-why-cant-you
If the US government doesn't read this, at least the Chinese will.