[TML] Personal Armor Noise was Re: Current USAF fleet

[James Ramsay]

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 1:09 PM, Jerry W Barrington <
jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 5/2/08 6:22 PM, "Tom B" <kaladorn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > technological (for a long time, we had crappy crossbows and bows, but
> > eventually standards of manufacture and quality arrived to allow mass
> > manufacture of decent enough military weapons with good penetration)
> > craft-oriented (In Japan, swords were made very particular ways, so
> > they were very expensive...
> OK, I agreed with basically everything you said, but this one bit.  Mass
> production *doesn't* lead to better quality.  In fact, it usually takes
> quality shortcuts.  There's a reason those handmade Japanese swords are so
> famous...  :)


Mass production generally leads to consistent quality, and when machining
is involved it normally leads to better quality then hand made items. The
reason
this didn't happen for swords is that their day as a real military weapon
had
passed by the time machining got good enough, and so there was little reason
to make them as good as possible.

People can hand craft assault rifles without modern machines (the Afghans
are
known to do this for SMLE's and AK's), but I would rather take a mass
produced
one thanks.


-- 
James Ramsay aka the_raptor