I don't agree with the apparent ease you're applying to reverse engineering. If someone dumped an F-35 in your back yard, how long would it take you to set up mass production?
This has to be the worst analogy I have every seen. Of course I would not be able to setup mass production
1. I'm not an aerospace engineer. (I'm a network construction and administration specialist)
2. I don't have anywhere near the resources to do it I'm just one man.
Now let me reveres this on you if I was to slap down a new wiring and network diagram how long would it take you to set it up.
Now I could do the same thing to a newly graduated Network engineer and they could have it done fairly quickly.
If someone was to hand over the plans for an F-35 or even just the plane itself to china I would bet they would have one flying in under 2 years.
This type of argument is used all the time and it never is true. Yes you are right if I gave a F-35 to a farmer they would probably not be able to reverse engineer.
But if I gave it to a group of aerospace engineers and funded them, They more then likely could.
It truly depends on the level of tech we are talking about, and contrary to popular belief Clan tech was not that far beyond Star league tech. As the Innersphere was able to copy a bulkier less powerful version of the weapons fairly quickly. Now I would give 5-10 years for that but they did it in less then 4 years. With that out of the way I would at most say it would take 10-20 years for them to duplicate the tech seeing as they not only had the finished equipment in front of them but later on had Clan techs that could help (Nova cat,WIE)
Even on are own planet many nations have got a hold of foreign equipment and reverse engineered it fairly quickly. Russia did it quite a lot during the second wold war, and was able to reverse engineered new forms of aircraft titanium just by visiting a British factory and wearing sticky shoes to collect samples (see the mig- 17). Plus their version on multiple occasions were better they the vehicle they where copying.
Same about recovering lostech. To quote an often-used example, at this present day the US doesn't (to the best of my knowledge) have the infrastructure in place to manufacture Saturn V rockets. That's even when you assume all blueprints for all constituent components are readily accessible.
Another misquoted and misused statement. The issues is not can the US build infrastructure to manufacture Saturn V rockets. The issues is that it is not cost efficient to backwards engineer a single use item for a mission that has no real purpose, as it would not advance science or increase our knowledge of space and space travel.
You'd be surprised to find out how much real-world, currently-in-use military gear is actually "lostech" - even consumables.
I've heard of one case where the manufacturer for radar-obscring chaff "ammo" on a certain aircraft type closed down 15 years ago, and the military in question supposedly only found out when they needed to replenish their stocks.
Another case is shrapnel armor/netting in a cargo airplane that has surpassed its sell-by date but cannot be replaced because it's not manufactured anymore. The military in question supposedly reacted by officially postponing the sell-by date.
Similarly, armor plating for real-world naval battleships isn't made anymore and as far as I gathered, the last people to know the ins and outs of its manufacture are retired long since, and dying off.
No actually I wouldn't, As these are truly not example of in service weapons in that sense. These items you are talking about are export surplus or phased out items.
Or in the case of the battleships, decommissioned vehicles. As a former Air Force crew chief I can tell you that this happens on some of our older planes all the time, and the parts or equipment are not lostech, they are just not mass-produced anymore , an example being one of the bolts on the B-1B (the plane I worked on) having to be specially machined since it was a torque bolt and had special shear tolerances. Now the manufacture no longer made the part or any part for the plane because it was not part of the original contract after the aircraft's were made (got to love government foresight). The part is still able to be made by a machine shop but just cost more now.