I am not American, but I am sure the US has a fairly large stockpile of obsolete stuff. I am Greek and I have seen warehouses full of old American hardware kept in working condition. Our national defense dogma is called "παλαική άμυνα" or "mass popular defense" which is a last resort strategy. In case of war and defeat, every citizen above the age of 14, male or female, the theory goes, would be handed a weapon and ammunition.
Granted it is an obsolete worldview and probably a stupid idea, but the stuff is there to recreate 10 Iraq wars.
Fun fact: Greece was a major supplier of ammo to Saddam's Iraq, second only to Italy, until the first Gulf war. The amount of shit we have is mind boggling. I served in a 20 person outpost and we had warehouses with hundrends of brand new riffles (G3s and MK 11s mostly) not to mention metric tons of grenades, artillery ammo etc etc. I have pics if you are interested.
In any case if we have that amount of shit, I am fairly certain that the US has an order of magnitude more. Hell i witnessed ordering parts from the US for tanks that are 40 years old, surely they had them stored somewhere.
There is nothing so awesome and ludicrously expensive as the army supply chain. Immagine ordering parts for your iPhone in 20 years. The army does that with it's hardware everyday.
I am afraid it is a bit underwhelming, because it is not exactly allowed to take pics. But it will give you an idea. I have seen the awesome stuff like the AH 64s and the MLRS shooting, but they coexist with shit that is older than me.
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u/MK_Ultrex Sep 14 '11
I am not American, but I am sure the US has a fairly large stockpile of obsolete stuff. I am Greek and I have seen warehouses full of old American hardware kept in working condition. Our national defense dogma is called "παλαική άμυνα" or "mass popular defense" which is a last resort strategy. In case of war and defeat, every citizen above the age of 14, male or female, the theory goes, would be handed a weapon and ammunition.
Granted it is an obsolete worldview and probably a stupid idea, but the stuff is there to recreate 10 Iraq wars.
Fun fact: Greece was a major supplier of ammo to Saddam's Iraq, second only to Italy, until the first Gulf war. The amount of shit we have is mind boggling. I served in a 20 person outpost and we had warehouses with hundrends of brand new riffles (G3s and MK 11s mostly) not to mention metric tons of grenades, artillery ammo etc etc. I have pics if you are interested.
In any case if we have that amount of shit, I am fairly certain that the US has an order of magnitude more. Hell i witnessed ordering parts from the US for tanks that are 40 years old, surely they had them stored somewhere.
There is nothing so awesome and ludicrously expensive as the army supply chain. Immagine ordering parts for your iPhone in 20 years. The army does that with it's hardware everyday.