FearlessFreep
Senior Master
the thing about the $400 hammers and such....I remember some of that and a lot of it really came down to two things.
1) Requirements - I remember the coffee maker deal. Thing was, it wasn't an average coffee maker, the requirement was fo a coffee make that could deliver hot coffee in a airplane that was a troop transport that could be banking for a turn like a minute before the troops parachutted out. Silly requirement, but that's why the coffee maker ended up being so expensive
2) Specs - Since the govt. doesn't really make anything, they just spec out what they need to buy and let contractors meet the specs and provide the...whatever.... Everything is spec'd out, all the way down to how many stitches-per-inch in an undershirt. A hammer may still cost $4.95 or something, but going through the process of proving the hammer meets specs kicks the price way up.
I was in the Air Force in the early to mid 90s and people were a lot more cost-concious of the things they bought then in the days of the reported $500 hammer
1) Requirements - I remember the coffee maker deal. Thing was, it wasn't an average coffee maker, the requirement was fo a coffee make that could deliver hot coffee in a airplane that was a troop transport that could be banking for a turn like a minute before the troops parachutted out. Silly requirement, but that's why the coffee maker ended up being so expensive
2) Specs - Since the govt. doesn't really make anything, they just spec out what they need to buy and let contractors meet the specs and provide the...whatever.... Everything is spec'd out, all the way down to how many stitches-per-inch in an undershirt. A hammer may still cost $4.95 or something, but going through the process of proving the hammer meets specs kicks the price way up.
I was in the Air Force in the early to mid 90s and people were a lot more cost-concious of the things they bought then in the days of the reported $500 hammer
