- Joined
- Jul 30, 2011
- Messages
- 7,017
- Reaction score
- 2,980
- Location
- The greatest planet in the world.
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Other
Very true. There will always be a need for the military and I believe we should keep as well equiped as we can. I also believe it is well worth the cost of overseas bases so that if attacked we fight on someone elses territory instead of in our own country.
One of the biggest costs in getting updated and new systems is Congress. A good example of this is the Air Forces new F-22 Fighter, role, Air-Superiority/intercepter. Developement for it was started in the 1980s and due to congressional funding issues and other issues it has taken more than 20 years to actually get it into service and even then, at current acquistion rates, it will never actually fully replace the F-15, which first entered service in 1972, and has cost us Billions more than it should. Congress votes on each major system independent of the Defence Budget. As a result of this process, it was neccessary to get a majority of Representatives and Senators to vote for it everytime funding came up. To win the votes neccessary, the contractors had to create jobs in congressional districts, thus it has no real centralized production, parts of it are spread out pretty much through all 50 States. As you can imagine, this greatly increases the cost for the system as you have far more facilities and management personnel than needed. At a rough guesstimate, the system now cost over twice what it would if congress had simply given the Air Force an annual budget for research, development and acquisition and allowed it and the contractors to centralize development and production.
Another fine example of Congress messing with military contracts, the C-130J. The Air Force did not request a new C-130 model. While it did need some new airframes because some were getting very old, they would of been just as happy, probably happier, with the previous C-130H-3 models. The C-130H models cost approximately $40 million each, the C-130J models $80 million each. Congress forced the purchase and delivery of these new Aircraft, even though the service didn't want them.
Congress isn't always to blame. The greatest example of this is the Bradley. 17 years, and 14 billion dollars wasted on a very confused contraption. Congress was very distant at first, but finally had to step in and tell the military to stop ****ing around. It's quite possibly the reason why Congress is so involved with our major weapons systems now.