Additive manufacturing goes to war

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I hope that this blog post is irrelevant by the time it’s posted. That the Russian invaders have left Ukraine and retreated to their home country, national tail between their legs, their despotic leader deposed or dead. It’s unlikely, but we can always hope for this favorable and morally correct outcome, and not one in which the war expands to other European countries and beyond.

Hope. It’s a word that bears repeating these days.

Whatever the outcome, it seems that 3D printing will play an increasingly important role in military conflicts going forward. That’s because war depends on manufacturing. And just as additive manufacturing has done and will continue to do in so many aspects of our daily lives, it will change the manner, or at the least the efficiency, with which we wage war upon one another.

Consider a 2015 article from Business Insider titled “3D Printing Could Revolutionize Modern Warfare.” It talks about 3D-printing everything from chameleon-like uniforms and synthetic skin for battlefield wounds to spare parts for military equipment to entire fighter aircraft. Some things, notes the author, could be produced deep inside future war zones by anyone with a 3D printer, the right raw materials, and access to the necessary digital files.

Just one year later, New Atlas published “3D Printing Goes to War,” which raises the terrifying specter of AI-driven, 3D-printed military robots. And a more recent story at Engineering.com offers many examples of how AM “is proving to be a cost-effective, fast, and versatile option for flattening the military supply-chain curve.”

“Additive manufacturing will change the manner, or at the least the efficiency, with which we wage war upon one another.”

On the flip side, 3D printing can also play a more positive, peacekeeping role. The AM community has responded to the Ukrainian conflict much as it 3D-printed PPE and medical supplies during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. For instance, GitHub has posted plans for 3D-printed tourniquets. And a couple in Texas is selling 3D-printed blue and gold rings and donating the proceeds to groups helping Ukrainian refugees, as is Max Manley of Vancouver with his 3D-printed Hero of the Golden Fields.

Meanwhile, management at Nexa3D, TRUMPF, Desktop Metal, EOS, and other 3D printing equipment suppliers have either publicly denounced Russia’s actions or are organizing a campaign to collect donations for the people of Ukraine.

Each of these is an act of hope—hope that reason will soon prevail, hope that there will be a quick end to the ongoing death and destruction, and, above all, hope that this war will not escalate as so many others have before it. If that were to happen, the stories just provided will be but the tip of the additive iceberg.

As I said at the outset, hope is a word worth repeating.