The U.S. is reindustrializing. This brings visions of factories and steel mills, hot sparks flying, and durable goods rolling off production lines. But manufacturing is just one — albeit very important — dimension of industrial capability. Instead, industrialization requires three fundamental capabilities: the ability to design complex systems, manufacture them at scale, and operate them effectively.

Each of these three categories has many tiers. In manufacturing, we naturally think of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and their Tier 1-4 suppliers. Design has the same depth. A company might perform overall system design while outsourcing subsystem and component work to specialist firms.

Operations spawns its own ecosystem. The final user might be the manufacturer itself, or an entirely separate company using the hardware to deliver services. Additionally, someone must maintain these systems, whether it be the operator, manufacturer, or third-party specialists.

The pattern of who owns what across these three phases—what we’ll call the “shape” of industrialization—determines everything from development speed to capital requirements to competitive resilience. Mapping the shapes can illuminate where a company fits, what role it can play, and what challenges it will face as it scales.

Making a Map

We can arrange the three phases — design, manufacturing, and operations — on a map, along with their respective subgroups. In doing so, we start to see how the industrialized ecosystem works, noting that the mission activity under operations (top right) is ultimately where end-user value is delivered.

Besides these three phases, testing and logistics also play critical supporting roles. Every part that’s built must be validated through via test, which can have significant infrastructure requirements and other costs. Likewise, transporting and warehousing the hardware can drive substantial operations. While these activities are critical, for this discussion, we’ll consider them as elements within the three main phases above.

The Shapes of Industry

This map becomes powerful when we use it to visualize real organizations. The cells each company occupies — and avoids — tell a story about strategy, capability, and competitive positioning. We’ll consider five examples to illustrate how different programs position themselves through different shapes.

Boeing 737 Aircraft

Consider the Boeing 737. Its mission is to deliver transportation services to traveling customers.

Boeing designs the top-level aircraft. They do some subsystem design (structures) but outsource much of it. For example, the engines come from CFM International, which is a joint venture between GE and Safran. At the component level, most design is outsourced to vendors that make commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts, such as pressure sensors or connectors.

When it comes time to manufacture the plane, Boeing does the final aircraft integration as the OEM. Tier 1 systems are mostly outsourced. Engines come from CFM. Spirit AeroSystems makes the fuselage. Down at Tier 2, Collins Aerospace provides components and mechanisms. In total, the 737 reportedly has 600 suppliers across the Tier 1 & 2 levels, and even more are expected at the lower levels. Tier 4 materials are mostly outsourced, with companies such as Hexcel and Toray Industries supplying composites and other materials for the structural assemblies.

This arrangement positions Boeing on top of the design and manufacturing phases, performing the most integrated work, while outsourcing much of the rest.

The operations phase reveals a key distinction. Boeing is no longer at the top. Instead, airlines such as Southwest and Alaska Airlines provide mission services by flying customers around the world.

Some support activities are outsourced. Refueling services are procured from airports. Food and beverages restocking often comes from vendors. Pilot training is a mix. Boeing runs a training division that some airlines rely on. Conversely, Southwest operates its own flight training center.

When it comes to maintenance, refurbishment, and overhaul (MRO), the industry also diverges. Southwest operates its own MRO facilities and performs heavy maintenance on its 737 fleet, which is one of the largest in the world. At the other end of the spectrum, Alaska Airlines performs light repairs but outsources heavy MRO activities to companies such as AAR Corporation.

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch Vehicle

The shape of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 program is dramatically different. SpaceX is both highly verticalized from a design and manufacturing standpoint, and they are the end service provider. In Boeing’s case, it builds the 737 and sells it to airlines to operate. In SpaceX’s case, they build Falcon 9 and operate it themselves, transporting customer satellites to space.

In the design phase, SpaceX performs most engineering work in-house. This starts with the vehicle-level design for Falcon 9. It extends to the subsystem design of the Merlin engines, the avionics suite, and the primary structure (equivalent to an airplane’s fuselage). At the component level, SpaceX also performs significant design of mechanisms, valves, and sensors, though some of these are procured as COTS.

The manufacturing phase mimics the verticalization of design. For most hardware, SpaceX serves as the OEM and the Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers. At Tier 3, it’s a mix. Machined parts are split between in-house and outsourced. Some COTS items are procured. At Tier 4, SpaceX generally procures raw materials but has also done some in-house metallurgical work.

In the operations phase, SpaceX again is verticalized. They launch the rocket, and for several years, I was fortunate to be an operator in mission control for Falcon 9 launches. They also manage their own launch sites and handle refueling and other support activities. Finally, SpaceX performs all refurbishment for boosters that have landed before they’re relaunched.

United Launch Alliance Vulcan Launch Vehicle

United Launch Alliance (ULA) provides a good contrast to Falcon 9. ULA operates the Vulcan launch vehicle and performs the top-level design, build, and launch operations.

However, they tend to procure more Tier 1-3 components from vendors. In particular, ULA buys engines from Blue Origin to power Vulcan. As a result, their shape takes on a different form in the mid tiers of design and manufacturing.

U.S. Navy Virginia-class Submarine

The Virginia-class submarine program creates yet another distinct shape: distributed industrial capability integrated by government oversight, with exclusive military operations.

In the design phase, the submarine program splits responsibilities. General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding share the system-level design under Navy oversight. Major subsystems are designed by specialists — nuclear reactors by BWX Technologies, combat systems by Lockheed Martin, and sonar by Northrop Grumman.

Ultimately, the Navy maintains final design authority, even if through contractors. For this reason, here we’ll categorize them as the system design owner.

Manufacturing follows a similar distributed pattern. Electric Boat builds the bow, engine rooms, and command and control systems, while Newport News builds the stern, habitability, and machinery spaces. The yards alternate responsibility for the final assembly of each submarine.

Tier 1 suppliers span many of the traditional defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, as well as specialists like BWX Technologies for the reactor components and Kollmorgen for the mast. This industrial base represents thousands of suppliers across all tiers, carefully managed to maintain the strategic capability.

The operations phase is where the shape becomes unique. Unlike commercial models, the Navy operates these submarines exclusively. The Navy trains all crews and conducts all missions. Contractors support maintenance and modernization, but under Navy supervision. This shape exists to ensure production of a key national security system, that has little commercial overlap.

Omega Aerial Refueling Services

Omega Aerial Refueling Services is a unique, lesser known case study. During combat operations, the military provides aerial refueling. However, Omega has carved out a niche in providing aerial refueling for training, exercises, flight testing, and long cross-country or overwater movements.

The firm operates a fleet of six KC-707 and KDC-10 aircraft that can provide contract aerial refueling to military aviation. When we look at Omega’s industrialization map, they occupy just the mission support cell under the operations phase.

Note that shapes shift with perspective. We could map this differently, showing the Navy operating fighters that Lockheed Martin designs and builds. But viewing Omega alone best illustrates this specialized model.

Likewise, we could even draw an organization’s domain-specific shape — its map for propulsion or avionics. Often these shapes diverge for the same company.

How Shape Determines Performance

Why do these shapes matter? The form they take influences how the organization operates across a variety of dimensions. Six of the most important are considered below.

Control, Responsiveness, and Insulation

A bigger shape means greater control. For example, a team can design the exact system they need without compromising for vendor availability.

It also enhances responsiveness. During development, there will be learnings. A part might break or not fit as expected. Verticalized groups can respond rapidly. Designs can be quickly modified, and new parts machined.

During heavy engine development at ABL, this was a big enabler for the program. We could run an engine test, identify the need for a new turbopump impeller, design and machine that new impeller, and get the engine back on the stand all within two days. If this were outsourced, it would take weeks, if not months.

Verticalized businesses also often have a degree of insulation that protects them from things like short-term shocks. If there aren’t many vendors in the supply chain, then global disruptions won’t have a big impact.

Speed

Many often cite verticalization as a speed enabler. While true in some scenarios, it can be detrimental in others.

As illustrated above, vertical integration can mean more control and responsiveness, accelerating the program. The designers of the Sten gun carefully prescribed every feature of every component in the weapon. This extreme degree of design for manufacturing led to legendary build times.

However, verticalization also means that there’s more that must be done. If we want to machine parts in-house, we need to build a machine shop, hire a team, and get it running smoothly, all before we can machine your first part. If we outsource, parts arrive in weeks. Both paths have their benefits, and speed must be considered case by case.

Intellectual Property and Competitive Moats

Vertical integration can create stronger intellectual property protection and deeper competitive moats. When organizations build in-house, innovations remain proprietary, and competitors cannot access the same capabilities simply by working with shared suppliers.

This dynamic explains why traditional aerospace companies often compete on system integration rather than component innovation.

Capital Requirements

Capital requirements generally increase with the size of the shape. Every activity performed requires facilities and infrastructure, so highly verticalized businesses face large upfront capital requirements. They also maintain larger teams, driving operational expenses.

For example, cutting new turbopump impellers meant we had to build and staff an entire machine shop, operating nearly around the clock.

However, in the longer term, vertically integrated entities should achieve better margins, resulting in lower long-term capital needs.

Financial Opportunity

Larger shapes typically create higher financial opportunity. If this weren’t true, expansion wouldn’t make sense.

Increased financial opportunities come in several forms. Performing more activities enables the company to capture what would otherwise be its vendors’ profit margins. Additionally, operational efficiencies often reduce costs across the operations. Finally, a larger shape may create new revenue streams. Some verticalized capabilities can themselves become business units.

Risk

Industrial efforts face a variety of different types of risks, and a company’s shape determines its risk exposure. There’s engineering risk: does the design work? Build risk: can we make parts to the required quality? Team risk: can we hire and develop the right people? Capital risk: can we finance it all? The more a program does in-house, the more risks fall into its portfolio.

When we outsource, these risks don’t disappear—they transfer to our vendors. These risks consolidate to become supply chain risk from our perspective. Vendor delivery becomes the critical uncertainty.

In many cases, a smaller shape reduces risk exposure. Airlines carry fuel cost risk. When aviation fuel prices spike, their margins suffer. Boeing avoids this immediate exposure, though sustained high fuel costs eventually impact aircraft sales.

What Shape is Right?

There’s no universal answer. The optimal shape depends entirely on an organization’s specific context and constraints. If there’s time and resources to run an in-house spiral development program, that could make sense. If not, it might be best to start by buying COTS hardware.

Most founders coming out of SpaceX highly verticalize their startups. This has clear and proven advantages, but strictly pattern-matching can be a fatal flaw.

SpaceX’s shape works for SpaceX because of Elon, access to capital, first mover momentum, and many other SpaceX-specific factors. Trying to emulate SpaceX’s exact shape without the same foundation doesn’t work, as many have discovered.

Instead, it’s helpful to consider the current market dynamics, the resources the company can bring to bear, and the program’s end goal — to maximize market share, achieve profitability quickly, limit technical risk, or something else entirely.

Many shapes can succeed. Ultimately, what these case studies show is that intentionality matters the most.

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It reveals distinct defensive challenges. For drones, sheer volume dominates. For ballistic missiles, interceptor capability, battery coverage, and interceptor availability all drive outcomes.

Drones

First, we’ll take a look at how drone launches have scaled and their corresponding intercept rate.

• Attack volume has increased nearly 12x since the beginning of 2024. In Q1 2024, an average of 452 drones were launched each month. In Q3 2025, this reached 5,360 per month.

• Most drones are intercepted. Monthly intercept rates have varied between 80% and 97%, with an average of 89%. Defensive systems have scaled proportionally to attacks.

• But many still break through. While the intercept rates remain high, the rising launch rate has led to a higher hit rate. In Q1 2024, just 71 drones per month hit their targets. In Q3 2025, 725 per month did so. That’s more drones breaking through than were even launched in early 2024.

• Three (potentially diplomatic) events interrupted the ramping trend. Attack volume dropped notably in three months: April 2025 (-42% versus the prior month, coinciding with ceasefire discussions), August 2025 (-34%, aligned with the Trump-Putin Alaska summit), and December 2024 (-23%, cause unclear). While we can’t establish a direct link between these diplomatic events and the reduction in attacks, it seems Russia may have reduced attack volumes around these engagements.

• Defenses must keep up. Excluding the three diplomatic outliers, attack volume is accelerating. Defenses have largely matched the scaling. However, if attack scaling outpaces defensive measures by just a few percentage points, it translates to hundreds more successful strikes monthly.

Ballistic Missiles

Next, we’ll contrast the drone dynamics with those of ballistic missiles. Markedly different trends emerge.

• Lower volume, higher stakes. Since January 2024, Russia has launched between 17 and 97 ballistic missiles per month. The average attack volume over the period is 45 per month, but with significant monthly variability.

• Most are not intercepted. Only 8% of ballistic missiles were intercepted in Q1 2024. This improved to 36% between June and August 2025. However, the intercept rate plummeted to 6% in September 2025. The drop is partly attributed to enhanced terminal maneuvering by the Russian munitions.

• More than one ballistic missile hits Ukraine every day. In Q3 2025, an average of 42 ballistic missiles evaded defenses per month. This equates to an average of just under 1.5 missiles per day.

• Maneuvering defeats current interceptors. Russia is primarily using short-range ballistic missiles: the Iskander and Kinzhal systems. These weapons recently implemented enhanced terminal maneuvering specifically designed to evade Patriot interceptors. The warheads steer just before impact, causing interceptors to miss.

• Limited coverage is a fundamental factor. Ukraine operates seven Patriot batteries. With each battery defending approximately 100-200 square kilometers, total coverage represents less than 1% of Ukraine’s territory. Practically, seven batteries mean seven defended locations, such as major cities or critical infrastructure sites. Ballistic missiles launched into uncovered areas cannot be intercepted.

• Changing the calculus requires more batteries and interceptors, with enhanced capabilities. Additional batteries expand defended areas. Improved interceptors’ counter maneuvering systems. More of them enable Ukraine to keep up with a potential ramp of ballistic missile attacks.

Implications

This dataset illustrates divergent defensive challenges. Ukrainian data scientist Petro Ivaniuk maintains a more detailed dataset breaking down strikes by platform. It’s updated nearly daily and provides the foundation for more detailed analyses.

One key data gap is the number of intercepts attempted. This would reveal how many defensive munitions are expended per successful intercept and to what degree the low ballistic missile interception rates stem from interceptor shortages or failures. In other words, how many missiles go unengaged simply because no interceptors are available?

The contrast is stark between the situation in Ukraine and the performance of Israel’s missile defense. During conflicts with Iran and Hamas, Israeli defenses routinely intercepted 75%+ of cruise and ballistic missiles. This is accomplished using multilayered defense systems with numerous interceptor platforms and complete territorial coverage.

For defense programs under development, these patterns define focus areas. Drone defense demands high-volume, cost-effective interceptors that can scale elastically. Ballistic missile defense requires both expanded coverage (more batteries), enhanced capability against maneuvering threats (better interceptors), and increased magazine depth (more interceptors).

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Note: My company, Long Wall, develops missile defense technology, but it is not related to the systems or statistics presented here.

Before we begin, a quick request. As Built is still young, and I’m working to grow awareness. I would be forever appreciative if you could share the blog with one person you think might find it interesting. Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy!

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The Sten gun exemplifies rapid engineering and design for manufacturing. With limited resources, this World War II era program accomplished what many modern defense production efforts strive to achieve. In about a month, British engineers created a low cost, mass producible weapon that would eventually arm millions.

The story offers many insights for modern efforts. But to truly understand how the British made this happen, we first need to contextualize the crisis that made it necessary.

Slow Beginnings

Britain’s involvement in what would become World War II began as a gradual diplomatic effort before a sharp inflection transformed it into a wartime crisis. The origin traced back to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. It was highly punitive, requiring Germany to disarm, pay reparations, and surrender territory.

As a result, Germany was forced to grapple with an extreme sense of defeat and humiliation. This was inherently destabilizing. Separately, political and social unrest presented across Europe, which was further exacerbated by a highly strained international economy. This led to the period between the world wars being unstable and insecure.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and quickly began to rearm the country. While such development of the German military was prohibited under the Treaty of Versailles, the action drew relatively little international resistance. This set the stage for German territorial expansion.

In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria. Six months later, Hitler demanded possession of the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia. Britain and France appeased and compelled Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland in an effort to achieve peace in Europe. Yet, in March 1939, Hitler violated this agreement and moved to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia.

Alarms sounded across Europe, and Britain shifted its policy. In an attempt to curb German expansion, Britain and France provided security guarantees to Poland, which were promptly invoked. On September 1st, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Seven years of diplomacy had failed.

Phoney War

Britain deployed an expeditionary force to mainland Europe, but the war’s initial phase left observers bewildered. From September 1939 to May 1940, virtually no Allied military land operations occurred on the Western Front. There was so little military activity that this period became known as the “Phoney War.” Years of slow diplomacy gave way to slow battle.

In sharp contrast, at sea, German U-boats were active. Over the course of 1940, they would sink 563 ships in what was referred to as a “happy time” for the German submarine force. This prowess would later serve as a significant factor behind the Sten’s development.

Blitzkrieg Inflection

The slow Phoney War came to an abrupt end on May 10th, 1940. German troops, tanks, and aircraft poured into Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Within days, German forces advanced over a hundred miles. The Blitzkrieg — lightning war — had arrived in Western Europe with devastating effect.

The Allied response crumbled. Forces rushed north to meet what they expected would be the main German thrust through Belgium, as had happened in World War I. However, the German attack traversed the Ardennes Forest in southeastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg — terrain the French had previously considered impassable for armor. German tanks broke through French defensive lines and raced toward the coast.

Over the next two weeks, Allied forces were forced backwards at an astonishing rate. Quickly, the retreat turned catastrophic. British and French troops found themselves trapped against the English Channel. Rapidly advancing German forces led to the famous Dunkirk evacuation, where British civilians crossed the Channel to aid the Navy in rescuing the trapped soldiers.

Seven years of failed diplomacy had evolved into eight months of largely inactive war, which then collapsed into three weeks of devastating retreat. Britain was stunned.

Outgunned

While the May 1940 Dunkirk evacuation successfully rescued 338,000 Allied soldiers from the shores of France, most of their equipment was left behind. Britain lost an estimated 2,500 artillery pieces, 85,000 vehicles, 75,000 tons of ammunition, and thousands of machine guns on French beaches.

These equipment losses were only half the problem. Even before Dunkirk, British forces had been outgunned. Their bolt-action rifles were no match for German submachine guns that could deliver 500 rounds per minute. The British had neither the right weapons nor enough of them.

The German forces’ lightning speed, coupled with persistent air raids, made an invasion of Britain seem inevitable. Britain prepared by mobilizing 1.5 million volunteers into the Home Guard. Their first mission was to interfere with and slow down invading forces until the regular army could respond. Their second mission was to continue the resistance in the event of an occupation.

But while Britain was long on militia volunteers, it was short on weapons to arm them.

Three Bets

To address this problem, Britain launched three parallel efforts, which is itself a case study in parallel pathing and risk management.

Emergency Weapons
The first effort was to get weapons — any weapons — into soldiers’ hands. Britain pulled together about 300,000 Lee Enfield rifles and 59,000 Lewis guns from World War I stores. The regular army took most of the rifles, while the Home Guard received the Lewis guns, as well as about 50,000 shotguns collected from the civilian population. This approach had minimal cost and lead time, but the weapons were outdated and the quantities were relatively low.

Imports
Second, Britain bought whatever it could find. Canada sent 75,000 Ross Mark III rifles — a World War I era weapon that had been withdrawn from the front lines in 1916 for jamming. The United States sold 785,000 M1917 rifles and 108,000 Thompson submachine guns.

The Tommy guns were a step up in terms of technology, but this strategy was expensive and uncertain. At this point, each Tommy gun cost $4,600, and the total purchase topped $800 million, both in modern dollars. Notably, the Lend-Lease program had not yet been established, so this was a cash-and-carry deal structure, which drained British resources.

Even after the purchase, the weapons still had to cross the Atlantic, and this was the U-boat “happy time”. The German Navy was now operating from French ports, further extending its maritime dominance. Every shipment risked sending desperately needed weapons to the ocean floor.

Domestic Production
Third, Britain sought to develop its own weapons domestically. Some designs were in production, but they weren’t quite what was needed. For example, the Bren was a highly favored British machine gun that was developed throughout the late 1930s. It was reliable and accurate. But it was a large squad-level weapon, expensive, and required precision manufacturing. By the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, only about 30,000 had been produced, and the majority had been lost in France.

Britain needed something different: individual weapons for every soldier, rapidly mass produced at low cost. As the British Small Arms Committee framed the problem, “The most important consideration at the moment seems to be to get some form of machine carbine acceptable to all three services into production as quickly as possible.”

The first attempt was to reverse engineer and copy German weapons. The British designed the Lanchester submachine gun, which was a direct adaptation of the German MP 28. It was considered to be well made but required skilled craftsmen and precision parts. While cheaper than the Bren and the Tommy gun, it was still expensive. This was a step in the right direction, but still not quite what Britain needed.

36 Days to Save the Country

In December 1940, Lanchester manufacturing was scaling up at the Royal Small Arms Factory. There, a draftsman named Harold Turpin was supposed to be creating production drawings for the Lanchester gun.

However, he saw another way. Working after hours with Major Reginald Shepherd, a World War I veteran recalled from retirement, Turpin started sketching a different kind of weapon. Not better. Simpler.

The design philosophy was fundamentally different than other weapons programs. What if you designed a gun specifically for people who had never built guns before? What would the program look like with a focus on production over precision?

Turpin’s first insight came with the trigger mechanism. Where the Lanchester had complex machined parts, he designed a trigger that needed just two pieces of bent metal. This thinking spread to every component. The grip was a bent steel tube. The barrel’s protective shroud was made of stamped metal with holes cut into it.

By January 1941, just 36 days after starting, Turpin had built the first prototype. By many accounts, he made most of the parts himself. Some were even done in his home workshop. The weapon looked as if it had been assembled in someone’s garage, because, essentially, it had.

Looks aside, the Sten embodied three key design principles:

1. Minimal precision machining: Of the Sten’s 59 parts, only the bolt and barrel required precision work. Semi-skilled workers could stamp or weld everything else from stock metal. This eliminated the bottleneck of specialized machine tools and expert machinists.

2. Distributed, low infrastructure production: The simple components could be manufactured nearly anywhere. Britain set up production lines in converted furniture workshops, bicycle factories, and even private homes. Famously, the Tri-Ang toy factory was converted into a 24-hour Sten production line. Hundreds of small operations emerged across the country. Bomb one, and production continued elsewhere.

3. Widely available ammunition: The Sten fired 9mm rounds, the same ammunition used by German forces. This decision was strategic. Captured enemy ammunition could be used immediately, meaning resistance fighters across occupied Europe could resupply from German sources. This reduced the pressure to scale ammunition production.

Throughout early 1941, Britain tested a variety of prototypes. By March, less than ten months after Dunkirk, they placed an order for 100,000 Sten guns. Yet, the designers kept simplifying. Version after version, they chopped every non-essential feature: flash hiders, wooden handguards, folding foregrips. If it didn’t help the gun shoot, it disappeared.

These decisions drove serious results. Eventually, the Sten could be built in five and a half hours and for $10 ( $220 in modern dollars). This was a stark contrast to the Tommy gun, which took days to make and cost thousands of dollars. Over the course of World War II, Britain would produce 4.5 million Stens.

The Gun They Could Build

The Sten delivered submachine gun capability at rifle-like prices and was churned out by the thousands in bicycle shops and furniture factories. By many measures, this was a success.

However, the design choices that enabled mass production created predictable problems. A simple blowback operation led to frequent jams. Minimal safety mechanisms caused accidental discharges. While easy to manufacture, the side-mounted magazine made handling awkward. Accuracy beyond 100 yards was negligible. Critiques vocally pointed all this out.

Yet, none of this mattered strategically. The Sten was designed for urban combat, resistance operations, and last ditch defense. Two factors matter in these scenarios. First, having a gun at all, and second, maximizing the volume of fire. The Sten checked both boxes.

High rate production also meant commanders could issue Stens more liberally than other weapons. Resistance groups across occupied Europe received them via airdrop. The weapon’s compatibility with captured German ammunition made it ideal for guerrilla operations behind enemy lines. Flaws existed, but in the calculus of total war, they were acceptable.

Decades of Service

Some of the most telling validation came decades later. While it was designed in 36 days as an emergency stopgap, the Sten remained in service with the British military until the 1960s and with other forces worldwide until the 1980s. The “proper” weapons it was meant to temporarily replace were retired decades earlier.

Britain’s 1940 crisis forced a fundamental question: do you want the best weapon or the weapon you can actually build? Britain did the latter, and they weren’t the last to face this choice.

Today, Ukraine is building drones in distributed Kyiv apartments using 3D printers and commercial components. At first, they crashed, were jammed, and had a limited range. However, Ukraine has built thousands of them while rapidly iterating on the technology. Now these systems have proven formidable against a better armed adversary.

The lesson of 1940 keeps teaching itself. In existential conflicts, given the resources on hand, the weapon you can build will always beat the weapon you can’t.

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A few days ago, SpaceX scrubbed a Starship launch. The culprit wasn't engine trouble or a technical malfunction. It was a violation of the anvil cloud rule. To most observers, the Texas sky looked clear enough for flight. But somewhere nearby, a flat-topped anvil cloud lurked.

These far-reaching cloud structures can deliver devastating lightning blows from miles away, threatening vehicles in flight. Understanding the invisible risks presented by these weather features contextualizes why some launches go and others scrub — even on clear sunny days.

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Why lightning matters

First, why do lightning strikes matter? When lightning hits a vehicle in flight — such as a rocket or an airplane — it delivers a significant charge. Ideally, the vehicle's skin and structure act as a Faraday cage, keeping the electrical charge on the exterior. And for this reason, flight vehicles often use conductive paint and take care to ground all components.

If electrical bonds are poor or the magnitude of the charge is simply high enough to overcome the protections, damage can occur. Gaps in bonding can become arc paths, which pose an ignition risk if they’re near fuel tanks. Additionally, electronics can be upset, impacting the mission.

Aviation lightning strikes are relatively common. A commercial aircraft is typically struck about once every 3000 flight hours, or about twice a year. These vehicles are highly engineered to direct the current to specific exit points on the aircraft and down to the ground.

Launch vehicle strikes are less frequent, largely because operators go to great lengths to avoid them after a string of notorious accidents. In 1969, Apollo 12 was famously struck by lightning, temporarily knocking out power and threatening what would become the second moon landing mission.

Later, in 1987, a lightning strike on the Atlas Centaur 67 mission disabled the control system, resulting in the complete loss of the mission — one of the worst possible outcomes.

In 2019, a Soyuz vehicle was struck on ascent. It continued with its mission, but provided some of the most stunning imagery of a launch vehicle lightning strike.

Most of the strikes discussed above came from "triggered lightning," which is a separate phenomenon where a plane or rocket induces lightning. However, they're illustrative of the impact any lightning can have on a vehicle in flight. As a result, mission planners take significant precautions to avoid all types of lightning, some of which can originate from anvil clouds.

How clouds get charged

We often take for granted that electrical strikes can come from clouds. However, it's helpful to examine how exactly they become charged in the first place.

Clouds start with transparent water vapor in the air. As relative humidity approaches 100%, water vapor condenses and droplets form around tiny dust or aerosol particles, called cloud condensation nuclei. These water droplets are opaque and create clouds.

As temperatures drop below freezing, some water droplets freeze. However, temperature alone isn't enough to turn water to ice. Similar to droplet formation, ice also requires an ice nuclei particle to seed and initiate growth. These are not as common, which means not every water droplet will turn into an ice crystal. Instead, as temperatures drop, some water droplets become supercooled and can be as cold as -40°F while still in liquid form.

When the supercooled water droplets touch the surface of an ice crystal, they will freeze to it and expand in size. This creates soft hail balls, known as graupel.

At this point, we have three types of moisture floating around in the clouds:

• Small ice crystals

• Supercooled water droplets

• Soft hail known as graupel

Winds are constantly blowing these components around in the cloud, causing them to bump into each other. When ice crystals and graupel collide, they build an electrical charge via friction. At temperatures below approximately 5°F, the ice crystals become positively charged, while the graupel acquires a negative charge.

Usually, in cumulonimbus clouds, there is a strong updraft in the central part of the cloud base, driving air upward. The small ice crystals (positively charged) get caught in this updraft and are carried upwards. The larger and denser graupel (negatively charged) tends to fall or stay suspended in place.

As a result, the cloud begins to take on a charge structure. The upper portion is positively charged, and the central lower region is negatively charged. This dipole charge structure is the simplest way to understand cloud electrification. However, in reality, the charging process can be more complex, sometimes with other small portions of the cloud also acquiring a positive charge.

Lightning strikes

The ground beneath a storm is induced to be positive by the cloud's negative charge center. The air gap between the cloud and the Earth serves as an electrical insulator, allowing a significant charge to accumulate.

If the potential exceeds the insulating capacity of the air, a lightning strike happens. Usually, the threshold is about 3,000,000 Volts/meter. When a strike does occur, it's known as a "negative strike," given that the lightning originated in negatively charged clouds.

This is your everyday lightning variety that accompanies thunderstorms. Rockets typically won't launch with an active lightning storm like this overhead.

How anvils take shape

But the launch scrub of interest occurred with a clear blue sky. Few clouds were in sight, except for a large anvil formation. To understand its threat, let's first figure out what it is.

In the center of a thunderstorm, the warm updraft continues to carry positively charged ice crystals upward, higher and higher. The trend continues until the updraft reaches the tropopause, a layer of air located just above the troposphere. At Texas latitudes, this threshold presents at 35,000 to 40,000 feet. At this point, air temperature stops decreasing with altitude, which causes the tropopause to act as a ceiling.

As a result, a small portion of the cloud will rise vertically above the tropopause, but most of the cloud structure will begin spreading out horizontally. Positively charged clouds spread out expansively and can reach 50 to 100 miles from the original thunderstorm.

Anvils can persist long after their parent storm has weakened, drifting for one to three hours in strong upper winds. Even as the storm below fades, the anvil remains highly charged and capable of producing dangerous lightning.

Anvil lightning strikes

Anvil lightning is a special variety. Recall, the tops of the clouds are positively charged, so this is positive lightning. While much of the ground is induced positive, pockets of negative charge do exist. This lightning finds and strikes them with intensity.

While it only accounts for 5-10% of all strikes, positive lightning tends to be more potent than traditional negative lightning. It exists higher in the atmosphere, which means more charge can accumulate. These strikes are known to travel up to 30 miles away from the cloud and transmit two to ten times more energy than common negative lightning.

This means that not only can an anvil cloud float far away from its parent thunderstorm, it can also strike far away from itself. As a result, if anvil clouds are present, even at a distance, caution is exercised with launch operations.

Some anvil lightning comes downward from the cloud to strike its target. However, other lightning extends out the side of the cloud structure horizontally, before turning down to the Earth. From the ground, this can make it look like the lightning is coming out of a clear blue sky, and these strikes are often referred to as "bolts from the blue."

The anvil rule

Since anvil clouds can strike both far and with fury, they pose a pronounced hazard to launch vehicles. To manage this risk. NASA, the FAA, and launch vehicle operators establish strict rules that dictate when launches can and can't proceed.

These are known as Launch Commit Criteria (LCC), and are constantly evaluated throughout the countdown to determine GO/NO-GO for launch. For anvil clouds, the weather LCCs typically take into account:

• If the anvil cloud is attached or detached from a thunderstorm, and the time since detachment

• Distance to the anvil cloud

• Time since last lightning discharge

The exact distances and thresholds vary by launch operator, location, and mission type. In some cases, more detailed considerations are made for temperature and time-associated distance. However, the overarching goal is to keep the rocket grounded if an anvil could strike it in flight.

And for that reason, sometimes launches scrub under clear blue skies.

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General References

NASA. Falcon 9 Crew Dragon Launch Weather Criteria Fact Sheet. July 2021. https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/falcon9_crewdragon_launch_weather_criteria_fact_sheet.pdf

NASA. NASA Technical Standard: Lightning Protection Requirements for Space Launch Vehicles, NASA-STD-4010. Baseline Edition. https://standards.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/standards/NASA/Baseline/0/nasa-std-4010.pdf

Federal Aviation Administration. Launch Safety: Lightning Criteria for Expendable Launch Vehicles. Federal Register 76, no. 110 (June 8, 2011). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2011/06/08/2011-14146/launch-safety-lightning-criteria-for-expendable-launch-vehicles

National Weather Service. “Lightning Science: How Thunderstorms Electrify and Cause Lightning." NOAA Weather-Ready Nation. https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-science-electrification

National Severe Storms Laboratory. “Lightning Frequently Asked Questions." NOAA NSSL Education. https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/lightning/faq/

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The Positive and Negative Side of Lightning." NOAA JetStream. https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/lightning/positive-and-negative-side-of-lightning

University of Arizona Department of Atmospheric Sciences. "Cloud Electrification and Lightning." ATMO 589 Lecture Notes, February 16, 2015. http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring15/atmo589/lecture_notes/feb16_2015.html.

ZT Research. "Electrification of Clouds." ZT Research Blog (blog). Accessed August 27, 2025. https://ztresearch.blog/education/electrification-of-clouds/.

"Lightning Strike on Emirates A380 During Flight Caught on Video," The National, May 10, 2016, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/transport/lightning-strike-on-emirates-a380-during-flight-caught-on-video-1.370276/.

"Lightning Strikes Airplane in Flight," YouTube video, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jQVsI7erv8.