"In Tomorrow’s Wars, Battles Will Be Fought ..." Topic

…With a 3-D Printer.

"A 3-D printed drone is shot down by insurgents near a far-flung base manned by the U.S. military. Within hours, a small lab dropped onto the base by a helicopter days before churns out a replacement — along with plenty of ammunition and reinforced shelters for the troops. A few miles off a nearby coastline, a naval ship-turned-factory harvests resources from the sea and uses on-board printers to make everything from food to replacement organs.

It's a far-out vision for future combat, but at least one naval officer thinks it could happen. According to Lt. Cmdr. Michael Llenza, who sketched out the scenario in the latest Armed Forces Journal, 3-D printing could arguably "upend the way we think about supply chains, sea basing and even maritime strategy." And by we, Llenza doesn't just mean Americans. The Chinese military is already bragging about how they are printing parts for their next-gen aircraft.…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Got a loooong way to go with the technology before that pipe dream comes true (not withstanding the Chinese's over-hyped brag…).

yeah, but in the last 5 or so years this technology has gone from $40,000 USD machines to $1,000 USD-5000 machines with 10 times the resolution. I can even build one myself with rudimentary electronics engineer training.

these machines are evolving very quickly. while it will be a while before things will be work like this, we might start seeing a slightly less fantastic version of what is mentioned happening inside 20-25 years.

The US military is already using the 3D printing labs it's based in two shipping containers one for the printer & equipment and the other is the "office". There was a article about it posted here a couple of months ago.