Link

Interesting article.  (And I’ve come across several others like it.)  Even the Pentagon realizes that we’re not fighting the Soviet Union anymore and need to strip down and rework how the military functions.  But, you know, lobbyists and whatnot.  So Yay Tanks!

“The $3 billion at stake in this fight is not a large sum in Pentagon terms – it’s roughly what the building spends every 82 minutes. But the fight over the Abrams’ future, still unfolding, illuminates the major pressures that drive the current defense spending debate.”

In talking with a friend who used to be at the Pentagon, he said that quite often the military informs congress that they do
not NEED and do not WANT some given equipment.  However, a congressman works hard to get funding for it so a
company in his district can get the contract to build it. 

I asked what happens to such equipment when delivered, and he said much of it will just sit in storage areas until it’s
obsolete enough to be scrapped.

One more reason that lobbying connected to financial contributions in ANY manner should be a capital offense with a
mandatory death penalty.

Occam

Remember that most of the factories producing this equipment create jobs in the states these congressmen represent.. Voting against a bill to buy more military hardware would be political suicide for these guys. DM, you mentioned tanks, check out the price tag on aircraft, most specifically the F 22 Raptor. The full package runs over 600 million a plane and we produced 196 of them! According to the following article not a single one has seen actual dogfighting combat yet. That’s a lot of taxpayer’s dollars!

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/f-22-real-cost/

Cap’t Jack

So true.  Tanks are just one of many things that need overhaul.

The government and industry have been engaging in hot steamy sex for so long, that these types of issues aren’t likely to be fixed; until we’re all dead.

Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex was not really a warning, it was a call to prepare ourselves for the future.

Thevillageatheist - 30 July 2012 07:47 PM

Remember that most of the factories producing this equipment create jobs in the states these congressmen represent.. Voting against a bill to buy more military hardware would be political suicide for these guys. DM, you mentioned tanks, check out the price tag on aircraft, most specifically the F 22 Raptor. The full package runs over 600 million a plane and we produced 196 of them! According to the following article not a single one has seen actual dogfighting combat yet. That’s a lot of taxpayer’s dollars!

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/f-22-real-cost/

Cap’t Jack

I’ve seen that.  In fact, I think I posted a similar article last year or so.  It’s ridiculous.

Thevillageatheist - 30 July 2012 07:47 PM

Remember that most of the factories producing this equipment create jobs in the states these congressmen represent.. Voting against a bill to buy more military hardware would be political suicide for these guys. DM, you mentioned tanks, check out the price tag on aircraft, most specifically the F 22 Raptor. The full package runs over 600 million a plane and we produced 196 of them! According to the following article not a single one has seen actual dogfighting combat yet. That’s a lot of taxpayer’s dollars!

This burns me up. It’s perfectly acceptable for the government to pay contractors to build stuff they don’t even need or want, in order to keep people working. But try injecting some stimulus into the economy by paying contractors to build infrastructure that is sorely needed and also provides jobs, and that is socialism and completely unacceptable.

mid atlantic - 31 July 2012 03:51 AM

So true.  Tanks are just one of many things that need overhaul.

The government and industry have been engaging in hot steamy sex for so long, that these types of issues aren’t likely to be fixed; until we’re all dead.

Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex was not really a warning, it was a call to prepare ourselves for the future.

Here is a recent update:  http://www.economist.com/node/21559607

“SENIOR serving officers in any country’s armed forces tend to shun public controversy. But Admiral Jonathan Greenert, America’s chief of naval operations, has stoked it in the latest issue of a specialist journal. His article appeared to question the value of the stealth technologies that underpin the biggest weapons project in history, the vast and costly F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme.  . . . Because the F-35 has turned out to be so costly (after years of delays and cost overruns, the bill is now $396 billion), he fears it could blight the development of more capable systems. But whatever reservations the navy may have about the F-35, he notes that the Pentagon has deemed the programme “too big to fail”.

But whatever reservations the navy may have about the F-35, he notes that the Pentagon has deemed the programme “too big to fail”.

And that’s something I have some real issues with. This obsession with overthinking the problems to the nth degree and losing sight of the overall objective to begin with had bedeviled defence RDT&E for decades.

It’s not the need for an airframe to replace the venerable F-16, the AV-8B or the F-18 family that I question. These were and still are fine and capable platforms for the sort of missions for which they were designed. Unfortunately, they’re also old and wearing out. Almost eleven years of sustained combat operations has done nothing to improve the situation.

The problem is that in trying to do three very different missions with a single airframe, (With one being a V/STOL variant!) the Pentagon is trying to cram a gallon into a pint pot and this sort of thing seldom ever works out well. That it did with the old F-4 Phantom was a happy accident, not a design objective.

The Pentagon need to take some lessons from the Russians. “Make it simple, make it rugged, make it work!” has served them well for nearly a century. Their planes may not be quite as sophisticated, but they work when you need them to, they’re damned near unbreakable, and you can throw in the fancy upgrades later on when needed.

Occam. - 30 July 2012 03:01 PM

In talking with a friend who used to be at the Pentagon, he said that quite often the military informs congress that they do
not NEED and do not WANT some given equipment.  However, a congressman works hard to get funding for it so a
company in his district can get the contract to build it. 

I asked what happens to such equipment when delivered, and he said much of it will just sit in storage areas until it’s
obsolete enough to be scrapped.

The price of having so much of our economy dominated by the military industrial complex

Every tank not built, is an few idle workers sitting at the bar.

Sometimes it seems like our society is build on way too many such Faustian bargains. . . and they are coming Due
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The love affairs with privatized prisons and good’ol right wing get tough on crime and send everyone to jail, being another one that popped into my mind as I was getting ready to click enter.
~ ~ ~

And the love affair with everything wacko accumulating weapons stockpiles, because god forbid wouldn’t want to regulate weapons of masses of destruction, and so on and so forth.