Just three ships.
We can’t afford the price of these new weapons (ie, the F-35, the new bomber, etc.)
In the end, the US will have a handful of superweapons, while our enemies will have hundreds (or thousands) of attack boats, drones, etc.
“Quantity has a quality all its own.”
“Just three ships.”
The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Marie.
$4 billion for one ship - talk about putting all your eggs in one basket...
Reminds me of WW II where Germany had the fancy, best in the world Tigers, but America had the Sherman and lots and lots and lots of them.
We need to back up the few “Big Boys” with a whole lot of little boys. We need more ships to effectively police the seas.
Doesn’t matter to the Brass what these toys cost - they are cool with all sorts of deficiencies in their respective commands as long as they have the bragging rights to these neat toys. Having toys is what counts, winning wars no so much. You don’t get invited to the best parties just for winning a war, now having a cool toy that’s different.
It is their money not yours, so pay up and be silent - like a good civilian.
I've said the exact same thing. America has the most expensive (and most rigid and bureaucratic) government in the world. Defense procurement is at the top of the government cost pinnacle.
President Thomas Whitmore: I don’t understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?
Julius Levinson: You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?
Nazi tanks vs. Soviet tanks. The Nazis had the quality, the Soviets had the quantity. We all know how that turned out.
When the emphasis is on making large quantities of high-quality weapons, there are fewer money-making opportunities for the big boys. The production gets divided up among multiple companies by competitive bid, and the real valuable information is in techniques for ensuring quality in a cost-effective way, which is less easy to steal.