(check your first paragraph. It’s all over the place)
You don’t get it. In almost all those examples, a small core of basically in the field officers, had to fight AGAINST their own organization, which is the MRAP story, which has cost 25,000 causalities, meanwhile the same organization is often, like in the M4 fight, dicking around and pushing weapons down with marginal increased effectiveness, while telling troops in the field to go to salvage yards and weld on steel to their HMVEES for a counter to the enemy’s main, number one effective weapon.
You don’t seem to get it. The M4 fight is of marginal improvement, you want it. The M1, UAV, F16 were not marginal improvement, they were game changers, and they were either fought against, or late, by the the organization, as a whole, that should of brought them them out. As those troops that spent years with the M4 and no MRAPS what they wanted. I bet it wasn’t a new, un field tested carbine.
Heck ask the troops now what they want, but tell it real world, not your post ‘we are going to cancel Welfare’ and you’ll have everything fantasy;, that they have to trade off, either or, and I bet a new carbine, won’t be high up.
You like to cherry pick.
This started with the notion of Air Superiority and the need for the F22, as say spending 20 billion on MRAPS against IED’s which have killed or wounded 25,000 Americans. I think the Marines, for instance, which have lost 5,000 men, would of better spent the Osprey money on MRAPS, or in your often argument, should wait, yet fight and die, and some day in the mythical future, decades will get money striped politically from WIC, or Section 8. You have said, repeatedly, that you want the very best, even though waiting for the best from the procurement bureaucracy is interminable, and you want it after some sort of major political change, and I suppose while the troops are in the field wanting the good instead of waiting for the perfect years off. What ever.
The first paragraph from the last post isn't all over the place. Print it off and have help reading it if you need to. It is a refutation of your last post. And, a continued rebuttal of your somewhat skewed view of weapons development.
Second. What I ‘get’ is your unsupported and unsubstantiated backing of a weapon with a serious flaw. One stoppage every two magazines is a problem. Real world. The troops are saying this real world. The test was done because of this, real world. The improvement for something like the XM-8 isn't marginal. That is fact,not opinion which is the ONLY thing you have offered and has been repeatedly shown to be faulty.
Read up on the XM-8 because your assertion that it it new and untested is wrong. It is a legacy and a result of modernization of a existing rifle. As for the weld your own armor on a humvee, you are like the mainstream media still showing 2003 Gitmo pictures. That is no longer the case and you know it. Whole companies sprang up to up armor humvees. Remote control turrets and shielded turrets came into being. So much for that.
The M-4 point is finished. After numerous posts without a coherent response of opposition, you have conceded that point by your lack of adequate response.
Moving on. MRAP’s are good. But they are not the only answer. The use of IED’s is the current asymmetrical warfare method chosen by Jihadists. Withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq and in the next conflict that method might not be used at all. The military has to plan for other type conflicts too. Incorporation of MRAP technology in all future vehicles is wise but not at the sacrifice of other needs. For example I read that some MRAP type vehicles are of limited use because of weight due to their inability to cross weight restricted bridges or to go where there is a lack of roads. One size does not fit all.
Now I have also explained the budgetary process several times. I have also differentiated between cutting budgets, proposing budgets, and the pie metaphor and what I would like to do. You are making up the ‘cancel welfare’ by confusing and blending the two. In reality you have been spanked so often on this thread now you are simply devolving into the “I know you are, but what am I” type posting. I really don't have time or the interest for that.
Your final paragraph is simply whining. Your contention that the Osprey money should have been spend differently comes out of left field and now results in moving the goal posts simply because you have lost on all points and will now keep shifting the frame of the argument until you think you won't lose anymore. (You will, of course, unless you improve your arguments.) Now you have begun mischaracterizing my arguments and re framing them to make yourself feel better. The fantasy that I have argued for future dream systems as opposed to fieldable weapons now is purely your invention.
All in all you have failed epically. Since you are now down to unsupported nonsense, if you want to continue this please support your arguments with a reference quote and, if possible, a link to support your assertions. At least I will have facts to discuss.
Good luck.