GAO Sting Finds More Fake Military Parts From China

Nidi62 writes "The Government Accountability Office, through a fictitious company, recently requisitioned parts from China in order to determine if the Chinese government was living up to its promises of battling counterfeit parts. The report from the GAO found that '334 of 396 vendors who offered to sell parts to the fictitious company were from China' and that 'all 16 parts eventually purchased by the fake company came from 13 China-based vendors and all were determined by an independent testing laboratory to be counterfeit.' The parts requested were supposedly for use in F-15s, MV-22 Ospreys, and nuclear submarines, and were requested as new parts. The report (PDF) also says that in the past three years, over one million counterfeit parts came from Chinese companies. This stands in sharp contrast to the Chinese government's promise to clamp down on the production of counterfeit parts in China."

Comments

Not sourced in the US?

[JoeCommodore]

I thought there was security issues from buying parts in countries we don't particularly trust.

Re:Not sourced in the US?

[Barbara, not Barbie]

In a new development to this story, a new series of tests run after acquiring new testing equipment (from China) and new software (from China) determined that the parts previously identified as counterfeit were in fact genuine.

Scared yet? You should be.

Re:Not sourced in the US?

[rtfa-troll]

The whole point of this is that even when they are trying not to outsource, but when they attempt to buy "made in USA" parts it turns out that lots of stuff being sold to them is actually sourced indirectly from China and made to look like the US parts. Looking at the parts they are examining it's pretty interesting. For example, bit that protect against anti-static discharge; presumably ones where long term stability is critical and breakdowns like the capacitor plague would be a complete pain.

This is pretty difficult because, in the end, nobody can keep all the parts in stock. You have to go to a shop. The shop has to go to a supplier and so on. At any point in that chain there are people who have a good motive to swap out the good component (which can be sold on at US prices or used to make reliable equipment) for a fake component which costs much less.

The free market selects exactly for components which work for some time but fail shortly after the testing period or guarantee period. I'd be interested to see what the effect of European two year guarantees is on the level of fake components in distribution. Probably not enough; you really need at least five years and a government testing lab willing to prove that inadequate components were used to even have a chance of pushing back against this.

Re:Not sourced in the US?

[Ihmhi]

This is pretty difficult because, in the end, nobody can keep all the parts in stock.

No, that's horseshit.

Look, for all the money we spend on defense we can afford to have secure warehouses of all the stuff we need.

Look at the A-10 Thunderbolt. That airframe is a precise weapon of destruction. It has served faithfully for years and it's tough as all hell. The A-10 is a marvel of engineering in every way.

It's also impossible to build new ones. Why? Because the supply chain doesn't exist anymore. The plans are gone. It'd be like trying to build a brand new shuttle - it just isn't feasible. You'd have to reverse-engineer an existing one.

This is, frankly, idiotic. It's rare to have created a machine so perfect. The A-10 is going to be in service at least through to 2028. That's a testament to its staying power, and it's sad that we're not going to see any new ones created.

Re:The government can blame itself.

[pecosdave]

I know plenty who do less than 40, but I wouldn't exactly consider them the most productive members of society >40 is usually closer to 0 than 40 with most of these people.

You are right about government meddling having a lot to do with that. The administrative cost of an employee to a business owner beyond what an employee immediately sees in many businesses is due to regulations and requirements that prevents companies from hiring more people. In turn they simply demand more of the people they do have. This is part of the reason staffing firms are so popular, they put the burden of the employment paperwork and benefits on someone else and remove much of the legal liability that can be associated with firing someone. They simply tell the staffing firm they don't need this person anymore and the staffing firm is free to lay someone off with the justification their position is gone, even if they're replacing that person with someone else.

Our national debt is established with a "people are the government property" mindset. The US people are the collateral against the loans our debt is financed by. Quite literally our butts belong to China (and other countries) if we default. So glad my butts being sold to other countries to pay for tattoo removal in California.

Re:Hell yeah

[craigminah]

"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin