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Fun fact: “military-grade” encryption is AES-256.
What’s the joke
Former military member here. There are a couple things at play here.
1.) The military will outline a specific requirement for specific equipment that contractors need to meet. Requirements depend on the mission, usage, tools required, etc. so “military grade” just means “we needed a specific product to perform a specific way.” This does not mean it’s good for any use. Just that it’s what we needed in the moment for a specific job.
2.) We are required to buy from the lowest bidder. We ask contractors to build products for us that meet the specific requirements we outlined, then compare/contrast prices. Every contractor that built our product are in the running to become our supplier for that product… if they can beat every other contractor in price.
So how does a contractor win a government contract while still making money on the product they’re selling? By cutting corners, using cheaper materials, and ensuring the product will last just long enough to meet our requirements before breaking. The cheaper they can build it, the more money they make while also selling cheaper than all their competitors.
So “military grade” just means it’s a cheap piece of crap that met some arbitrary request the military made for a specific tool at one time. If you want quality products, avoid military grade.
Military grade means made by the lowest bidder.
So? Commercial is also made to be the cheapest.
It is kind of an inside joke (not the best description, but close enough). People in the military know how shitty some of their gear is. Military grade used in marketing only makes people who don’t know think it is tough shit. Military folk know it means nothing.
Commercial still has to be somewhat good (in general) to stay in business. Military suppliers just need to supply Trump with pre-teens so they can cut even more corners.
“military grade” sounds way cooler to idiots than “commercial grade”
Private buyers can choose from any number of manufacturers, from shit to actually good stuff. Military is always the lowest bidder.
A budget as possible to meet the bare requirements for military use on bulk. You can consider “military grade” the baseline while most civvy items have higher quality, more feature, more comfort, etc.
Is military grade the same as mil-spec?
No. Mil-spec is an actual certified standard
Military grade is basically just “we made this shit to look like it’d be good as a prop in a movie” no actual standards, just good enough to sorta kinda sometimes work and is made as cheap as possible.
Yup.
EDIT: I see someone else commented that they’re not the same. The truth is… it depends.
When I was serving in the military, we used the two terms interchangeably. They were basically the same thing to us. Although “military grade” is a more common term in the civilian sector, we would still use it when working with contractors on custom military equipment.
So if you want to be pendantic, mil-spec may be the more official term in the military. But in practice, we don’t really differentiate between the two terms.
