Replies

Technology is better on both sides and we have designed and acquired other platforms that can do the job better, more effectively, with greater survivability.

Cost of airframes is a factor of cost-per-unit. If the B-2 was bought in the numbers it was originally planned for, the cost would have been less than half of what it was. Oh, it is nowhere near being fully retired. Count on it.

Same with the F-22.

So, with you on blaming congress for shorting the defense budget and raising costs for acquisitions. Short-sighted dolts that they are, they can never see their near-term “savings” resulted in wildly “over-priced” platforms.

Mission-creep is the result of congressional meddling mostly, as the companies and engineers are purists and design to spec. Adding additional capabilities raises the bid price and takes away from the spec and lowers the efficiencies of the platform.

Moreover, like I said, it adds COST, and no company wants to propose something the customer did not want and is more costly than RFP conditions demand. Other than price, uncalled for capabilities add nothing to your bid.

Call your congressman on this. Add my name to your call, as I agree with you; mission creep has got to go and we need better platforms to meet the ever-evolving threat.

Those dolts have no clue how R&D is done, how long it takes and how much it costs, and most especially, they have no idea how risky it is to contract with the USG for long-tern acquisitions, as the USG is the most unreliable customer out there and corporations/companies must include “risk” into their pricing, just to ensure they get paid back fast during the initial contract runs. Money to pay for the R&D and engineering, suppliers and manufacturing tooling must be paid for otherwise the infrastructure collapses.

All told, we need newer technologies and more capable platforms than the short-sighted dolts in congress feel we need.

Game-changing technologies are called “game-changing” for a reason. Game-changing technologies require a game-changing response, so your 1946 example, while interesting, is at best metaphorical and in no way can be applied when it comes to todays platforms and future threats and capabilities.

“give me a unique design that will hold up for 50 yrs”

Good luck with that, as technology changes daily, let alone over the course of 50-yrs. I’ll bet your computer has software upgrades all the time. So do the jets and they are built with an open architecture to make integration easier. . .but it still costs and it still takes time. . .but at some time, the ‘ol Commodore 64 has to be replaced.

Heck, if you know of a technology that will last 10-yrs in this world, let alone last 50-yrs, contact Lockheed Martin Skunk Works or Boeing’s Phantom Works. I am sure they will be willing to listen.

“. . . and not cost more that simply firing missiles and not putting American pilots, refueling planes, ground support personnel, rescue teams ect... at risk”

Sounds like you are an unmanned advocate, as that would be the only way to do that. For an unmanned platform to do what you suggest requires substantial investment and decades of effort.

Consider, in the short-or-near-term, we can’t field a 1-G, 25-knot, two-dimensional maneuvering unmanned tank on the battlefield, but yet we think we can develop and quickly deliver a hyper-G, hyper-Mach, 360-degree maneuvering autonomous/semi-autonomous platform capable of operating in uncontested and contested airspace, and survive such a place for the next 50-yrs.

I do have to differ with you on that one. . .if unmanned is what you are suggesting..