[luvtolean]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051017/...ms_spending_dc

How stupid.

We kill the future superiority of our forces to save money to fight a war that is screwing the quality of people going in the army.

Why not close one or two of our wildly unpopular foreign bases instead?

[Mo Noyz]

On the flip side, I 'm sure there is a lot of fat that could be trimmed from the defense budget. I saw nothing in that article that was particularly alarming.

[BDA116]

A Pentagon team on October 5 recommended several steps, such as canceling the DD(X) destroyer being developed by Northrop Grumman Corp.; cutting tactical air forces by nearly a third; further delaying the Army's Future Combat Systems program, led by Boeing Co.; building more fast sealift ships and submarines; and developing a new long-range bomber, according to sources familiar with the briefing.

Cutting the Air Force by a third doesn't alarm you?
Cutting future weapons systems doesn't either?
Yeah, I'm sure there's fat to be trimmed, but do it by closing unneccessary bases both domestic and abroad.

[RRWANTR]

Originally Posted by BDA116

Cutting the Air Force by a third doesn't alarm you?
Cutting future weapons systems doesn't either?
Yeah, I'm sure there's fat to be trimmed, but do it by closing unneccessary bases both domestic and abroad.

+1

[Mo Noyz]

Originally Posted by BDA

Cutting the Air Force by a third doesn't alarm you?

Won't happen. It would never make it past Congress.

Cutting future weapons systems doesn't either?

Delaying and cutting are two completely different things.

[esoteric]

Originally Posted by luvtolean

Why not close one or two of our wildly unpopular foreign bases instead?

Because that's what keeps the oil flowing. One must have bombs in the area in order to drop them.

[Mo Noyz]

And I thought our Australian brothers could come up with some whoppers.

[colryn]

Yeah, lets cut out production of the F22 and F35 fighters. Our F15 and F16 plane are capable enough. The heck with new technology.

[luvtolean]

Originally Posted by colryn

Yeah, lets cut out production of the F22 and F35 fighters. Our F15 and F16 plane are capable enough. The heck with new technology.

I was told recently the B52 fleet would be kept in service until they are 100 years old recently. I dunno if it's true, but I see nothing to contradict it.

[G-Force Junkie]

Thats what I heard on TLC, but his article says it may "only" be 85 years Amazing none the less.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-52-life.htm

[colryn]

Boeing made a great plane. That is for sure. But I dout they had any idea that it would be in service for over 100 years. There are no technological cutting edge advancements in the plane other than it's built like a brick **** house.

The new fighters on the other hand, OMG...... But that's ok, I am sure the pussy dems in the senate and house think these planes are just pork that are not needed....... That is until China tries to take over Taiwan.

[Mojave954]

Originally Posted by luvtolean

I was told recently the B52 fleet would be kept in service until they are 100 years old recently. I dunno if it's true, but I see nothing to contradict it.

This is true.

[Mojave954]

Look at that people who make up our wonderful congress. Now check their backgrounds and see how many are veterans. This number is getting less and less. These people haven't a clue as to what our Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and the Army go through. Any time they go somewhere they are wined and dined by the senior staff and only see the good things. Even if they could see the bad, they would know it was bad. This is the price we pay for ignorance on this level. People are not thinking about tomorrow only today. Anyone who still thinks Russia is our biggest threat needs to be punched in the back of the head, HARD. Need to look a little further south. China is the one we better be worried about now. They are becoming the second largest industrial nation in the world. They are now the leading consumer of oil in the world. When it comes time to feed their ever growing machine... well I think you can fill in the rest.

Next time your local/state elections come up, think about your children's future security.

[ccwilli3]

The SR71 is the fastest, highest flying plane ever made right?

Wasn't that the early 1950s? Technology in semiconductors and research on flight has come 'light years' forward since then, yet we have not done any better than that since then?

I know that we can, and I know that its been thought up a million times over by the guys at lockheed/northrup/boeing... Yet me still gaze over marvels (relics really) that date back to the 1950s...

baffled.

[seamus]

Originally Posted by colryn

Boeing made a great plane. That is for sure. But I dout they had any idea that it would be in service for over 100 years. There are no technological cutting edge advancements in the plane other than it's built like a brick **** house.

The new fighters on the other hand, OMG...... But that's ok, I am sure the pussy dems in the senate and house think these planes are just pork that are not needed....... That is until China tries to take over Taiwan.

Sometimes, brick **** house is just what you need. I'm sure an argument can be made for technological prowess, but it doesn't solve everything. That's why, after all's been said and done, A10's and B52's are still laying waste like no other airframe the Air Force has. Both brick shithii to the nth degree.

The problem with the supertechnological warfare devices is that they're just too damn expensive to produce on a scale to actually be effective in a war of attrition, which is what will be fought if we ever (please God, don't let it have to come to that) have to roll on China.

Technology for technology's sake will only get more Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines killed. The focus, for a while, shifted and has corrected itself. The guy on the ground, in the cockpit, or behind the gun is rightly becoming the focus again.

[DUX]

Originally Posted by Mo Noyz

On the flip side, I 'm sure there is a lot of fat that could be trimmed from the defense budget. I saw nothing in that article that was particularly alarming.

I'd be interested to know specifics about where you think more cuts should come from. We're doing more with less every day.

[DUX]

The Buff will be very old by the time it finally retires. 100 yrs is a figure that's been around for some time.

In 1999, I trained in a T-37 that was built in 1957. Granted it's been repaired and overhauled quite a few times, but the fact that it had lasted through 42 years of student's abuse speaks volumes for the plane.

Any airframe that's been around for a long time usually goes through some major structural, systems, and avionics upgrades. Soon, the existing C-5's will be a very different airplane than when they were built a few decades ago.

As for fighters, our current platforms are aging and the new ones will help. F-16's and F-15's still look cool, but they have been around forever. The truth is (and the fighter guys will ) that UAV's are the future in many applications that used to be reserved for the fighter.

[esoteric]

Originally Posted by ccwilli3

The SR71 is the fastest, highest flying plane ever made right?
Wasn't that the early 1950s? Technology in semiconductors and research on flight has come 'light years' forward since then, yet we have not done any better than that since then?
I know that we can, and I know that its been thought up a million times over by the guys at lockheed/northrup/boeing... Yet me still gaze over marvels (relics really) that date back to the 1950s...
baffled.

The SR-71 was an interesting plane and ultimately built for one purpose- spying. It's original intent as the A-12 (CIA project if I recall right) was as a high speed "fighter" but it turns out ordinance delivery at mach 3 as well as turning radius pretty well suck. At high altitude and speed it was able to stay out of the way (like a U-2) but it could move. If you want another intersting plane to look at, research the B-70 Valkyrie (one left at Wright-Patt AFB). SR-71 may have hit mach3, but the F-15 was one of the few planes with a power to weight ration such that it could climb straight up and was specced for atmospheric anti-satellite missions as a result. We've had rocket planes and I think they launched a Scramjet that have easily outdone the SR-71. Going fast or high isn't so much of a big deal now. Speed only has so much utility and that altitude just isn't that high any longer, particularly for taking pictures.

If you look back at those days there were a lot of interesting fighter designs built for when air superiority was an outstanding issue and dogfights were the way to win it (think Korea, the threat of Russia over Europe, etc). Missile technology has improved a lot since then such that air-air combat is much less of an issue now (they never make it off the ground). There are other issues that are more interesting... we have simple satellites that can handle the SR-71's mission, however pretty it is, with a higher factor of safety and certainily a lower cost. Deployability into harsh areas is a major issue with vertical/short-take off capabilities that aren't even derivative of the old Harrier technology. I believe maneuverability on these new systems as well as aspects of stealth are major features- everyone knows these old planes are coming. The mission requirements of modern fighters are very different than in the 60's and 70's. I don't think a lot of that hardware was ever built for deployment in deserts.

Another intersting topic to research is UCAS: Unmanned Combat Air Systems. Airborne semi-autonomous multi-craft systems controlled by just a couple people with an impressive potential in mission variety. Fascinitaing technology and exciting potentials and, although the air combat stories of years gone by are exciting, bringing hardware like this into the field should help improve teh safety factor on ground and in the air while getting a better more accurate job done with less unnecessary loss of life (foreign and domestic).

[Repeater]

Uhhh missle defense system should be cut. IT doesn't work and has been deployed despite that. It's a look what i did system.

As far as high tech systems go. if we do ever get in a war with another (cough china) super power. fat chance in replaceing all those nifty semiconductors. thier all made over somewhere, just not here.

[Mattress]

Cutting DD(X) is a good idea, the current Destroyers are awesome ships, there really is no need for a new model. The military gets nickeled and dimed to death on supplies, I see it every day. For example, on my last ship, my servers monitor took a crap, it was a standard POS 15" flat panel, a commercial model, installed in a rack. I had to order one through the Naval supply system...$4000! I found it on ebay for $100, I asked supply if there was any way we could get it from another source, nope, it has to be through the supply system due to various contracts, etc. I had two of those monitors for two server racks, every ship in the navy has a similar setup, multiply that cost by that many ships, I can't believe it. We have to order the majority of our supplies from a company called "Corporate Express," ridiculously inflated prices, we have to buy CDR's and CDR/W's quite often, we get 5 of them for about $20! It makes me sick. The military is the most wasteful agency I've ever seen. I'd like to meet the top brass who signs off on the majority of computer systems I've had the displeasure of supervising the install of and slap him/her. One of our administrative Unix systems, uses a proprietary HP Unix box called a TAC-4, just a run of the mill outdated Unix machine, running about 1-4 100Mhz RISC CPU's and SIMMS for main memory. If you open this thing it looks similar to the inside of a Nintendo. Guess how much? The box alone is $60K, then there's the SCSI expansion chassis, monitor, etc. It uses 9 GB Seagate SCSI drives the Navy pays about $900 apiece for. Ok, I'm done ranting...

[luvtolean]

Originally Posted by seamus

Technology for technology's sake will only get more Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines killed. The focus, for a while, shifted and has corrected itself. The guy on the ground, in the cockpit, or behind the gun is rightly becoming the focus again.

Though I've never been in the service, I'm nothing more than an armchair quarterback, as an engineer, I couldn't disagree with you more.

We don't have to redesign our B-52 replacement to be a stealth, Mach 3 bomber that carries 100 tons of bombs and can turn as tightly as a Mig.

We have made dramatic improvements in computer and control systems, ergonomics, computer interfaces, armor, survivability, stealth, aerodynamics etc etc over the last 60 years. Integrating these additions to an airplane (rather than tacking them on) does not have to be expensive provided you don't choose to push the state of the art. It all comes from the air force's mission statement and design specs for the new aircraft. You can mandate it be easy to build. I think we can agree these things will all help the soldier fight better!

The A-10 is a "fairly" modern design. It incorporates many of the things I mention above. A well defined aircraft for its mission.

Even our battle rifle, the M16, is the longest running platform in our military's history!

When we came into WWII we were at an advantage because, we had been developing leading edge technology, such as the Garand, air tactics and aircraft, high octane fuels (which when added to the British RR engines was the best combo in the world) and many other things. But we weren't building it in volume, so we weren't running an incredible deficit. There is no better position to be in when fighting a all out war. Modern tactics, modern weapon designs ready to go, and a treasury not bankrupt. This led to the Allies having the best weapons at the height of the war (while by then the Stuka, main battle rifle the Mauser, and even Me109 were all hopelessly outmatched by the allied weapons, Garand, P-51, etc etc) This is to say nothing of being the first with nukes.

Other than sheer manpower, one of the main reasons we did so well was this, our technological advantage that allowed our men to inflict more casualties!

This is how it has to be for the enemies we plan for. Small wars like Iraq aside, our enemies, the USSR, and assumably China in the future, outnumber us. We have to inflict more casualties to win. Many more. So we use our superior technology to get there. It's really the only way. If we had lots of cheap tough equipment like the Soviets, and had went to war against them, we would've lost.

[ND4SPD]

Hopefully the quality of China's war arsenal is similar to the rest of the products that come out of there

[esoteric]