So, IIRC, Hellfires are what the Reaper carries. Drone killings will diminish drastically.
For the Tomahawks, I’m guessing overseas sales won’t suffer so I can envision sometime in the future when one (or many more) come flying in at us.
Somebody here please tell me Obama isn’t really a Muslim hell bent on destroying us. I dare you.
Is the Obama admin cancelling these systems, or is the DoD saying they are no longer needed and want funds and resources deployed on other military systems?
Flexibility.
Meanwhile, in Congress - the largest collection of turds on the planet - .........................
Obummer doesn’t write the checks to pay for this stuff. Congress does.
Wasn’t the B-1 bomber known as “the plane that couldn’t be shot down” because its parts were made in so many different Congressional districts?
I suspect the Tomahawk and Hellfire will be around long after Indonesia’s favorite son retires to the golf course.
The report is a half-truth, because it omits how the Tomahawk has a proposed successor, the Cruise Missile XR (Extended Range). The Russians are marketing increasingly effective anti-cruise missile systems, and the Tomahawk was not suitable for striking moving targets. The new Cruise Missile XR (Extended Range) offers stealth capabilities, the ability to strike moving targets, and other improvements challenging the Russian anti-cruise missile systems.
The Hellfire has long been under consideraton for phasing out as proposed replacements were developed and scheduled for appropriations that were subsequently canceled for budgetary reasons. The latest proposed replacement for the Hellfire is the Joint Air to Ground Missile (JAGM).
The retirement of the Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles after long service is to be expected sooner or later, so the real question is whether or not the Obama Administration is going to proved adequate and timely funding for effective replacement missile systems?
Truthfully, both Tomahawk and Hellfire need to be generationally upgraded. Tomahawk especially needs to be replaced in two directions: high grade and high quantity but lower grade.
The upgrade to the missile is obvious, but the high quantity needs some explanation. In military history, you have to maintain a balance between quality and quantity. If you are using a $1.5 million missile to take out several terrorist goat herders in mud huts, you are wasting money. They would be just as exterminated if you used an “off the shelf”, low tech missile that costs about as much as a new economy car, say $50,000 a pop. And you can buy 30 of them for the same price as one of the high tech wonders.
Or 300 of them for the price of 10 high tech missiles.
Or 3,000 of them for 100. You see where this is going?
If you can field a giant armada of cheap low tech weapons, you can flatten an enemy very quickly, and there is not much they can do about it. They don’t even need a high tech launch platform. Just a cargo ship with some modifications.
The posterior orifice, POS, large POS, must go. Period.
“What happens when a soldier runs out of ammunition during a firefight?” You get Aks and ammo from the dead gooks.
Sure, why not. It’s not like the cold war is still on or anything....