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WorldbyFlow for defense industrial base analysts

A supply chain map that names suppliers it cannot document is fiction with arrows. WorldbyFlow tags each stage as documented, representative or opaque, and names a supplier only where the relationship is on the public record, so the concentration you report is concentration you can show.

Written for Analyzes production capacity, surge, and supplier concentration.·Runs in the Defense domain

Start with this one

Where this fits in your week

Industrial base work is about capacity, surge and where the chain is thin, and most of what you need is scattered across contract announcements, plant news and workforce reports. The scans here gather it by object: a chain from raw input to fielded system, a program brief for the demand side, a workforce read that says what each shortage figure measures, a system profile and a movement read on the flow that carries it.

Lead scan

Supply Chain

3 credits · in-depth · about 2–4 min

A chain map where each stage is tagged documented, representative or opaque, and a supplier is named only where the tie is public. The concentration read, kept honest.

Try it on: a subject you already hold an opinion about, so you can grade the result against what you know.
4 more scans that fit this role

Opportunity Brief

3 credits

The demand side: a program brief with requirements verbatim, quantities where stated, and the solicitation's honest stage. What the base is being asked to produce.

Try it on The Columbia-class submarine · The Patriot missile · The Virginia-class submarine

Defense Workforce

3 credits

The labor behind the plants: whether each shortage figure is a stock, a flow or a projection, and who issued it with what stake. Workforce is the surge constraint most often waved at.

Try it on US shipyard workers · Defense machinists · Submarine welders

Weapon System

2 credits

A system profile from public sources, with production and fielding claims separated from what is documented. The object the chain feeds.

Try it on M777 howitzer · Javelin · Stinger · Virginia-class submarine

Sustainment & Movement

3 credits

Movement of a critical input or a finished system: route, chokepoints, documented capacity, and what the record does not show.

Try it on 155mm shells from US plants to Ukraine · Rare earths from China to US defence primes · Titanium from Russia to Western aerospace
A working path

From a first run to a result you can hand over

The order matters. The first read gives you the structure; the next ones fill the parts that are hardest to source by hand.

01

Run Supply Chain on a system you already understand

Read the stage tags. Where it marks a tier as opaque, ask whether you could document it either; if not, the honesty is the finding.

3 credits
02

Run Defense Workforce on the trade the chain depends on

A shortage figure with its measurement kind and its issuer. The surge constraint stated plainly.

3 credits
03

Add Opportunity Brief for the demand signal

Quantities and stage from the solicitation record, verbatim. The pull the chain has to meet.

3 credits
04

Pin the chain to your Watchboard

A plant announcement, a contract award or a workforce action at a named supplier becomes a watched signal.

Pinning is free; a check costs 2 credits when you ask for one.
The research bill for this path
3 + 3 + 3 = 9 credits · a Standard plan carries 20 a month
What comes back

A result whose claims carry their grades

Sourced, not asserted

Every figure and quote links to where it came from. A claim the scan could not source is marked as such rather than dressed up.

Verified or grounded
Reported or attributed
Contested
Open question

Ready to hand over

Export the chain map as a PDF for the assessment, or share it as a page with the stage tags and sources visible.

Built to be argued with

Ask a follow-up question of any result, or run a Red Team pass that tries to break its own conclusions before someone else does. How the grades work →

See one

Research already published in this shape

US Munitions Industrial Supply Chain: Energetics to Missile Rounds

Read the research →

The US does not make its own TNT: the basic explosive in artillery shells comes from a single European source, while the domestic expansion money has gone into a different explosive, RDX.

Supply Chain · August 9, 2026
Try it

Run Supply Chain on something you already know

The fastest way to judge the result is to pick a subject you know cold and read it against what you know. If a colleague sent you here with an invitation, the credits land on your account when you sign up.

Start with Supply Chain →Standard plan from $10/mo · 20 credits · all plans
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