When a screw breaks, I don’t replace just the broken section, but the whole unit. Judgements aside, I think many people who build products are trying (perhaps unconsciously), to achieve this “screw” level of redundancy and flexibility in their wares, hence soldering and the like. The replaceability of something is usually more reliable than its fixability especially in high stress environments like rock concerts or battlefields.
> The replaceability of something is usually more reliable than its fixability especially in high stress environments like ... battlefields.
I imagine that would depend quite a bit on how close you are to supply lines.
My (admittedly amateur) understanding of most military grade devices is that where possible they reduce them not to the level they can be throw away, but to the level that the number of things that can cause a problem are reduced to a level the average soldier can be trained to diagnose and fix. If your AR-15 jams or gets clogged, you're expected to know how to disassemble and fix it. A few replacements for the parts that are most likely to be unrepairable is likely much easier to carry than full replacement units. I imagine the same is done for their communications equipment.
