The US has delivered “industrial-size 3D printers” to Ukraine which are capable of printing spare parts for equipment on the battlefield.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition William LaPlante has said the printers speeds up the process of repairing military equipment and opens up new opportunities in the battlefields.
He said that after the Russian invasion started in February 2022 the Ukrainians were initially 3D printing their own parts.
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LaPlante suggested Ukraine did not have the appropriate permissions to do this, but allied countries helped them with this situation.
LaPlante told the Center for a New American Security, Voice of America reported, “Then we just finally last month we got them these industrial-size 3D printers into country.
“And this last week, we trained them on it… I mean, we’re talking like a truck size that the Ukrainians have finished training on. It’s going right in theater and they’re printing all their repair parts.”
He added that they will be able to do amazing things with 3D printing and they will actually make parts that you couldn’t make normally.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition said, “Ukrainians were initially 3D printing their own parts before they even had the tech data packages.
“And as [Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment] Chris Lowman says, ‘When your country is under existential attack, intellectual property laws are just mildly interesting.
“So, but we’ve cleaned that up, we’ve gotten them – with other countries – gotten them all the tech data packages.”
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