U.S. Boats Delayed Because Of Many Manufacturing Defects

strategy page ^ | 09-06-09 | staff

[Ole Okie]

Do the $12 mil include that lethal looking weepon? If he fires that, the pram will be propelled backwards at terminal velocity (whatever that may be).

[_Jim]

Never forget that your ship/aircraft/weapon was built by the lowest bidder.

And a lot of the 'winning' designs were the result of competitions between Aerospace companies/contractors, in a lot of cases are the result of decades, if not centuries worth of experience on the part of the design staff, and also that so-called 'lowest bidder' contract might turn out to be a cost-plus contract on new technology/development stuff ...

I think it is unfair to simply label equipment deisgned for out fighting military as 'built by the lowest bidder'. Some competance is also expected by those bidding on such contracts, especially on the higher-performance or performance-critical platforms (think aircraft, satellites).

[magslinger]

Everything you say is true. The US aquires some of the finest weapon systems in the world and it is unfair to refer to them as being made by the lowest bidder, but when you are in the field and run up against the technical limitations of aforementioned system, fair ain’t in it.