Choosing guns over detonators leads into a broader procurement lesson. Engineering perfection keeps moving because metallurgy, systems, and design methods improve, so a force can wait forever for the next better version. Even the pencil works as the analogy: a tool can satisfy almost every requirement while engineers continue refining it. Military and naval procurement still has to decide when a design is good enough to build.
Notable Point · 1:02:31-1:04:28
Engineering perfection as a procurement trap
A technology-choice aside warns that chasing engineering perfection can keep naval equipment from ever reaching the fleet.