|
|
|
Subject:
Bang For the Buck
PowerPointRanger
9/10/2005 11:47:00 AM
|
I think the biggest concern within our military right now is an impractiacal obsession with sexy, expensive, headline-grabbing projects like the F-22 and the Osprey, at the expense of more mundane but badly-need purchases.
F-22: Okay, I understand that our fighters are getting old and worn from use. I understand that the side with the better weapon system has an advantage (etc...). But does all of that really matter if the things are so darned expensive you can't afford to buy a useful quantity? Does it really help our military to have a hot fighter if we don't have enough transport aircraft to fly in spare to keep the thing flying?
Osprey: This has SNAFU written all over it. It's expensive, suffers from numerous technical problems, and honestly is not that much better than what it replaces. In fact, it is so expensive that we won't be able to produce enough to replace all the helicopters that need to be replaced. Just think about all those Chinooks that went down in Afghanistan. In most cases they weren't even shot down, they just broke down because they built during the Vietnam era.
The US military needs to rethink its purchasing strategies. Okay, we're going to replace Comanches with armed Predators (at a substantial cost savings). That's a start. The F-35 can fill out the Airforce ranks (similar to the way the F-16 balanced the more expensive F-15). That will help. But is the F-22 really that much better than the F-35? It will cost about eight times as much. Do we get that much more for the premium price? |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Latest
News |
Most
Read |
Hot
Topics |
|
|
|
