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Usually military wants cutting edge and precision-ly made tech, that often is also very expensive... Yet... I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why

Usually military wants cutting edge and precision-ly made tech, that often is also very expensive... Yet... I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why? What changed between the construction of A-10 and the F-117 and the F-35 for example?

amerine 7y ago
The War on Terror
- jandrese 7y ago
  Overpriced weapon system syndrome predates 9/11 by quite a lot. IMHO it's a peacetime problem. There's no enemy to fight today, so the motivation to finish the system ASAP and start pumping copies out the door goes away. In fact these protracted construction delays can be seen as a minor cost savings, since if they actually delivered what they promised the military would have to maintain hundreds of vehicles that are really only useful in a war that is not likely to happen soon. People say the US is fighting the last war, and that's maybe more true than they think. The Cold War was won mostly by convincing the Soviets to outspend on military hardware by spending huge sums on our own military hardware. But then the Soviet Union collapsed and the US failed to draw down production to true peacetime levels and we're stuck with a military that is way too big and too expensive to just keep the peace.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
A specific scenario to optimize for. The A10 was designed to swiss cheese just enough Russian tanks and to buy the time for C5s (designed to transport main battle tanks) full of M1s (meant to kill Russian tanks) to make it to France before the Russians could steamroll Germany. The F117 was designed to slip past and strike infiltrate Russian air defense systems so our bombers could make it to the target. All the weapons systems of the cold war era were built to fight a specific peer adversary first and needed to fit into that portfolio. Capability to handle other tasks was pursued (especially during and after Vietnam) but at the end of the day systems had to be able to fit into a strategy in which we fight the Russians or if not they had to have some other specific and narrowly tailored purpose (e.g. AC130). Right now the armed forces are in this weird state where they have to be able to handle anything from some rowdy poppy farmers to WW3 in no particular order of priority and that manifests itself as poorly thought out feature bloat.
- theseadroid 7y ago
  You could say in some degree that not only the military needs a purpose. The deteriorating of infrastructure, the lack of vision of politicians, the increasing inequality are probably all the result of a lacking of a purpose.
  - vincent-toups 7y ago
    Maybe absent the purpose, we don't need quite this much military. Its a rather frightening prospect, the other way round.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    The purpose is jobs. Well functioning results aren't a requirement.
- greedo 7y ago
  While the C5A has the ability to carry a single M1, it's not really intended for ferrying armored vehicles that large. REFORGER relied largely on both pre-positioned stocks of arms as well as merchant vessels to carry the heavy gear.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    You're right. Air is a terrible way to move tanks around because you have to do it one at a time. Being able to do it in a pinch is very important. It won't be cheap or without risk (which you care about for exercises) but when there's T72s pouring through the Fulda gap you pull out all the stops because you don't get a do-over.
    - greedo 7y ago
      In that case I'd be flying over Apache AH-64s (three at a time) instead of a tank with no supporting equipment, fuel or ammo.
- yborg 7y ago
dmitrygr 7y ago
Cold war ended. When you have no real competition, you are less driven to succeed/improve.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago
  I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award? The vendor can't say no to that without admitting their products suck. especially since our nation may actually need one of these things to work in order to survive. 99% of the time they're expense toys. Until that one time they're not.
  - magduf 7y ago
    Well, if that happens, then the vendor just inflates the cost of other things you're buying from them. If you don't like that, what are you going to do, go to another vendor? There aren't very many of them left now, only 2 usually.
  - checktheorder 7y ago
    >I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award? Any general or admiral who pushed hard for strict performance-based deliverables in procurement contracts would never get a cushy job at a defence contractor after retiring from the military.
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award? Because the contract is in reality supposed to provide X jobs for Y time in electoral district Z, not to provide X equipment until deadline Y.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why? The availability heuristic [1] plays a role, given the (reasonably) increased media attention given to failures over successes. The F-22 [2] is an amazing plane. The X-37 program challenges the line between plane and spacecraft. The V-22 [4] and V-280 [5] are similarly successful programs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_V-280_Valor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_V-280_Valor
btilly 7y ago
One big factor is that defense contractors have been consolidating. With fewer and fewer contractors that they can go to, and a revolving door where the people approving purchases today get plushy jobs tomorrow with the company that they approved, the incentives are to approve giant projects for lots of money that require a lot of integration, and turn a blind eye towards failure. The result is that we are spending more, but getting less for our money.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > The result is that we are spending more, but getting less for our money. You're getting jobs in electoral districts somewhere in the outback, which means that the politicians passing the funds in the first place get to keep re-elected. Cut the shitshow off its lifeline and suddenly you have a lot of representatives with a riled up suddenly job-less workforce.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
It goes back a long way. Look up "The Battle Of Wichita". They had enormous difficulty with the B-29 back in World War II.

amerine 7y ago

The War on Terror

jandrese 7y ago
Overpriced weapon system syndrome predates 9/11 by quite a lot. IMHO it's a peacetime problem. There's no enemy to fight today, so the motivation to finish the system ASAP and start pumping copies out the door goes away. In fact these protracted construction delays can be seen as a minor cost savings, since if they actually delivered what they promised the military would have to maintain hundreds of vehicles that are really only useful in a war that is not likely to happen soon. People say the US is fighting the last war, and that's maybe more true than they think. The Cold War was won mostly by convincing the Soviets to outspend on military hardware by spending huge sums on our own military hardware. But then the Soviet Union collapsed and the US failed to draw down production to true peacetime levels and we're stuck with a military that is way too big and too expensive to just keep the peace.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

A specific scenario to optimize for. The A10 was designed to swiss cheese just enough Russian tanks and to buy the time for C5s (designed to transport main battle tanks) full of M1s (meant to kill Russian tanks) to make it to France before the Russians could steamroll Germany. The F117 was designed to slip past and strike infiltrate Russian air defense systems so our bombers could make it to the target. All the weapons systems of the cold war era were built to fight a specific peer adversary first and needed to fit into that portfolio. Capability to handle other tasks was pursued (especially during and after Vietnam) but at the end of the day systems had to be able to fit into a strategy in which we fight the Russians or if not they had to have some other specific and narrowly tailored purpose (e.g. AC130). Right now the armed forces are in this weird state where they have to be able to handle anything from some rowdy poppy farmers to WW3 in no particular order of priority and that manifests itself as poorly thought out feature bloat.

theseadroid 7y ago
You could say in some degree that not only the military needs a purpose. The deteriorating of infrastructure, the lack of vision of politicians, the increasing inequality are probably all the result of a lacking of a purpose.
- vincent-toups 7y ago
  Maybe absent the purpose, we don't need quite this much military. Its a rather frightening prospect, the other way round.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The purpose is jobs. Well functioning results aren't a requirement.
greedo 7y ago
While the C5A has the ability to carry a single M1, it's not really intended for ferrying armored vehicles that large. REFORGER relied largely on both pre-positioned stocks of arms as well as merchant vessels to carry the heavy gear.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  You're right. Air is a terrible way to move tanks around because you have to do it one at a time. Being able to do it in a pinch is very important. It won't be cheap or without risk (which you care about for exercises) but when there's T72s pouring through the Fulda gap you pull out all the stops because you don't get a do-over.
  - greedo 7y ago
    In that case I'd be flying over Apache AH-64s (three at a time) instead of a tank with no supporting equipment, fuel or ammo.
yborg 7y ago

dmitrygr 7y ago

Cold war ended. When you have no real competition, you are less driven to succeed/improve.

JudgeWapner 7y ago
I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award? The vendor can't say no to that without admitting their products suck. especially since our nation may actually need one of these things to work in order to survive. 99% of the time they're expense toys. Until that one time they're not.
- magduf 7y ago
  Well, if that happens, then the vendor just inflates the cost of other things you're buying from them. If you don't like that, what are you going to do, go to another vendor? There aren't very many of them left now, only 2 usually.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  >I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award? Any general or admiral who pushed hard for strict performance-based deliverables in procurement contracts would never get a cushy job at a defence contractor after retiring from the military.
- mschuster91 7y ago
  > I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award? Because the contract is in reality supposed to provide X jobs for Y time in electoral district Z, not to provide X equipment until deadline Y.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why? The availability heuristic [1] plays a role, given the (reasonably) increased media attention given to failures over successes. The F-22 [2] is an amazing plane. The X-37 program challenges the line between plane and spacecraft. The V-22 [4] and V-280 [5] are similarly successful programs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_V-280_Valor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_V-280_Valor

btilly 7y ago

One big factor is that defense contractors have been consolidating. With fewer and fewer contractors that they can go to, and a revolving door where the people approving purchases today get plushy jobs tomorrow with the company that they approved, the incentives are to approve giant projects for lots of money that require a lot of integration, and turn a blind eye towards failure. The result is that we are spending more, but getting less for our money.

mschuster91 7y ago
> The result is that we are spending more, but getting less for our money. You're getting jobs in electoral districts somewhere in the outback, which means that the politicians passing the funds in the first place get to keep re-elected. Cut the shitshow off its lifeline and suddenly you have a lot of representatives with a riled up suddenly job-less workforce.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

It goes back a long way. Look up "The Battle Of Wichita". They had enormous difficulty with the B-29 back in World War II.