Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Ken, at the risk of incurring your ire, I'll buy that with regard to mortars but not tank guns. No way. If you just look at a 105 round meant to be fired from a rifled gun vs. a 115 round meant to be fired from a smoothbore gun it just doesn't seem like there is any way. You'll have to provide some references before I'll accept that.
No ire, not least because I wasn't clear -- the tank guns are a question of effectiveness and engineering, not ability to use captured ammo. The 82mm Mortar and 152mm Artillery were the only ones so sized for that purpose. The 120mm Mortar which both the Germans and Russians used was not nor was the (hat tip to Fuchs) 122mm Gun and Howitzer -- that added size was to equal or surpass the German 105mm in effectiveness, which it did. So the tanks, the 120 mortar and the 122 mm had nothing to do with captured ammo.

It's also noteworthy that the primary tank gun in the USSR during WW II was an 85mm. Toward the end of the war, they want to a 100mm, both ten mm bigger than the US and German 75mm and later in the war US 90mm. The wild card is the German 88mm -- that probably killed more USSR tanks than anything, yet they didn't develop a 98mm...
What works for guns doesn't work for airplanes. For your comparison to be valid the aircraft would have to be designed for the same mission and requirements..,.
I know. I also know that applies equally to your comparison of the J-20 and F-35 which was my point...
Once a line is closed, that's basically it. You ain't going to get it going again in anything less than years and beaucoup bucks. The people all scatter to the four winds. The suppliers all are doing something else and their tooling may be gone. Their people are scattered to the four winds. That line isn't coming back
No it isn't -- but a new line with a better bird based on the old bird experience can appear given a need. Absent that need, as at the present time and in the foreseeable future, no way -- too expensive, etc. etc. . Given a need, it'll be "Hang the expense..."

We do a lot of dumb stuff lazily and with little coordination and often at cross purposes -- until there's pressure. Then we still do dumb stuff, just more of it, faster and harder with adequate coordination and some real SOBs appear and are allowed to eliminate most of the cross purpose stuff.