One reason they keep making those tanks is because there are a lot of specialized skills and equipment needed to produce them . There isn ' t much call for folks who can weld Chobham armor in the civilian world , after all . If you scrap the only factory that makes them , and the workers get other jobs , you ' d better be damned sure the US never needs to produce tanks again . If it turns out you were wrong , there ' s going to be A LOT of very expensive and timeconsuming reinventing the wheel going on . Presumably , we could muddle through with improvised , obsolete , or substandard equipment . but the last time we did that World War II a lot of teenagers burned to death in their M 4 Sherman Tanks . The Germans referred to Shermans as Tommy Cookers after a type of British field stove that used Sternolike fuel to produce heat and flame . Another nickname that ' s been reported for M 4 Shermans was a Ronson , after the popular cigarette lighter , because a Ronson lights every time ! Q 2 mov 9 pQoOcU 8 gha 91 TewIAAAAAAAAB 0 PknSv 4 hQBjks 1600 Ronsonlightseverytime . jpg . As a former infantryman , I know how nice it is to have motivated , aggressive tankers who believe in their equipment around . You give them crappyobsolete tanks and a lot of them are going to burn to death or be maimed . That means guys like me are going to die , too , because they ' re going to send grunts to do the job a good tank should ' ve been doing . To preempt the usual let ' s not have wars , then ! thoughtYou might be sitting there thinking , Well , fuck you , Savage Henry . I don ' t care about that , because I ' d never join the military . I don ' t care much if you die , either , because what you did in the military was evil and wrong ! That ' s cool with me . Keep thinking that if you want . I ' m out now , anyway . I fought my wars and lived . I ' m safe . You ' re safe , too , because you made different choices in life . But . if you have kids , you ' d better hope they have bad asthma or some kind of birth defect , or be very confident in your ability to keep them out of the military like , you ' re a Senator or a billionaire or something . There ' s going to be more wars . bad ones . more tanks used it ' s inevitable . Human population is increasing , the climate is changing , and we ' re using up resources . Humans are the most vicious , terrifying animal our planet has ever seen start destroying their habitats and letting them get too hungry , and they ' ll erupt into the orgy of organized murder called war . Not me , of course . I ' m done with all that . Not you , either , right ? But what about your kids ?