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Two things strike me: 1. If it ain't broke, don't fix it 2. The military/red-tape bureaucracy/contracting/bid system behemoth that has been created in the meant

Two things strike me: 1. If it ain't broke, don't fix it 2. The military/red-tape bureaucracy/contracting/bid system behemoth that has been created in the meantime disallows any innovation that could ever take its place

toomuchtodo 11y ago
I'd argue your first point directly contradicts your second point. I don't want the military failing hard and failing fast. Make it work, make it work well, and then don't mess with it. The B-52s are a shining example of this. Behold: "The unexpectedly long career is due in part to a rugged design that has allowed the B-52 to go nearly anywhere and drop nearly anything the Pentagon desires, including both atomic bombs and leaflets. But it is also due to the decidedly underwhelming jets put forth to take its place." "“There have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed,” said Owen Coté, a professor of security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Turns out whenever we try to improve on the B-52, we run into problems, so we still have the B-52.”"
- parasubvert 11y ago
  "I don't want the military failing hard and failing fast. Make it work, make it work well, and then don't mess with it." This presumes the mission, terrain, and enemy remains static, which has really never been the case. What worked in WW2 isn't often going to be effective for today's problems. Sure there are jobs that are nearly eternal, from which we should pick proven designs, doctrines. But especially in wartime, a "fail fast, fail cheap, and learn quickly" is exactly what I would want in a military to complement the decades of bureaucratic planning that preceded in peacetime.
justinator 11y ago
If you RTFA, you'll see that it is broken. This article is silly. The replacement of the B-52 isn't a better bomber, it's a different tech; ICBMs, drones, etc. - which the article doesn't even mention. The article also mentions the amount of B 52s there are, and were. Today's fleet could be described as, "small" in comparison.
- chrisseaton 11y ago
  I think the US considered using ICBMs to deliver conventional strikes (and in fact they didn't even contain a warhead - just the kinetic energy of the missile was enough), but decided against it as they couldn't be differentiated from a nuclear strike by early warning systems. As for drones - the B-52s are very long range aren't they? As in they take off from the US to strike in the middle east or anywhere else? Can any drone do that? So if you don't have a drone in theatre, it can't replace what the B-52 does.
  - snerbles 11y ago
    Conventional ICBMs are being considered under the Prompt Global Strike project [1]. From the summary: > Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) weapons would allow the United States to strike targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour. This capability may bolster U.S. efforts to deter and defeat adversaries by allowing the United States to attack high-value targets or “fleeting targets” at the start of or during a conflict. > Some analysts, however, have raised concerns about the possibility that U.S. adversaries might misinterpret the launch of a missile with conventional warheads and conclude that the missiles carry nuclear weapons. [1] https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    > As for drones - the B-52s are very long range aren't they? Wikipedia says the B-52 has a 8,764 nmi range. The RQ-4 Global Hawk has a range of 12,299 nmi. The X47-B recently demonstrated mid-air refueling (which B-52s need to go from the US to the ME and back), too.
  - toyg 11y ago
    Is this the first time in history where an army wants to make crystal clear that the weapons it is using are not as powerful as they could be? From a historical perspective, it sounds bizarre: "you want to kill us and we want to kill you, but not so much that you might decide to bring the world to an end".
- Sanddancer 11y ago
esaym 11y ago
As someone that used to be an aircraft mechanic on military planes, the running motto was "If it ain't broke, fix it 'till it is!"

toomuchtodo 11y ago

I'd argue your first point directly contradicts your second point. I don't want the military failing hard and failing fast. Make it work, make it work well, and then don't mess with it. The B-52s are a shining example of this. Behold: "The unexpectedly long career is due in part to a rugged design that has allowed the B-52 to go nearly anywhere and drop nearly anything the Pentagon desires, including both atomic bombs and leaflets. But it is also due to the decidedly underwhelming jets put forth to take its place." "“There have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed,” said Owen Coté, a professor of security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Turns out whenever we try to improve on the B-52, we run into problems, so we still have the B-52.”"

parasubvert 11y ago
"I don't want the military failing hard and failing fast. Make it work, make it work well, and then don't mess with it." This presumes the mission, terrain, and enemy remains static, which has really never been the case. What worked in WW2 isn't often going to be effective for today's problems. Sure there are jobs that are nearly eternal, from which we should pick proven designs, doctrines. But especially in wartime, a "fail fast, fail cheap, and learn quickly" is exactly what I would want in a military to complement the decades of bureaucratic planning that preceded in peacetime.

justinator 11y ago

If you RTFA, you'll see that it is broken. This article is silly. The replacement of the B-52 isn't a better bomber, it's a different tech; ICBMs, drones, etc. - which the article doesn't even mention. The article also mentions the amount of B 52s there are, and were. Today's fleet could be described as, "small" in comparison.

chrisseaton 11y ago
I think the US considered using ICBMs to deliver conventional strikes (and in fact they didn't even contain a warhead - just the kinetic energy of the missile was enough), but decided against it as they couldn't be differentiated from a nuclear strike by early warning systems. As for drones - the B-52s are very long range aren't they? As in they take off from the US to strike in the middle east or anywhere else? Can any drone do that? So if you don't have a drone in theatre, it can't replace what the B-52 does.
- snerbles 11y ago
  Conventional ICBMs are being considered under the Prompt Global Strike project [1]. From the summary: > Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) weapons would allow the United States to strike targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour. This capability may bolster U.S. efforts to deter and defeat adversaries by allowing the United States to attack high-value targets or “fleeting targets” at the start of or during a conflict. > Some analysts, however, have raised concerns about the possibility that U.S. adversaries might misinterpret the launch of a missile with conventional warheads and conclude that the missiles carry nuclear weapons. [1] https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41464.pdf
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  > As for drones - the B-52s are very long range aren't they? Wikipedia says the B-52 has a 8,764 nmi range. The RQ-4 Global Hawk has a range of 12,299 nmi. The X47-B recently demonstrated mid-air refueling (which B-52s need to go from the US to the ME and back), too.
- toyg 11y ago
  Is this the first time in history where an army wants to make crystal clear that the weapons it is using are not as powerful as they could be? From a historical perspective, it sounds bizarre: "you want to kill us and we want to kill you, but not so much that you might decide to bring the world to an end".
Sanddancer 11y ago

esaym 11y ago

As someone that used to be an aircraft mechanic on military planes, the running motto was "If it ain't broke, fix it 'till it is!"