AnotherFairportfan wrote:ShneekeyTheLost wrote:You refer to Military waste, which is also a valid critique of our economic system. However, you are also going way too far in your hyperbole, which makes you sound very polarized on the topic, which does not lend itself to rational discourse. You know that you know what you know, and no amount of evidence could sway your position. I'm not saying that this is the case, merely that this is how you are presenting yourself with these broad sweeping definitive statements.
A large percentage - possibly the majority - of military spending these days is pure pork.
Consider the second engine program for the F35 - pure pork.
Consider the F35 itself - a hangar queen that will almost certainly never be truly operational, and will cost trillions of dollars if it is. (Last i heard, the damned thing can't even fire its main gun.)
Okay, gonna have to stop you here.
The F-35 JSF aircraft is a completely new type of aircraft. It is a VTOL Supercruise Fighter-Bomber with carrier takeoff/landing capability and short-runway takeoff/landing. The engineering challenges involved in doing something like this are enormous. R&D is always stupidly expensive. That doesn't necessarily mean it is money wasted, and it certainly doesn't mean it is pork.
As far as the second engine, the reason it has that is due to the necessary specifications. Specifically, it is supposed to replace the current line of Harrier jets with VTOL (Vertical Takeoff/Landing) capability. However, a major problem with Harriers is that they can suck in the hot air they are pushing down back into the exhaust ports of the jet engines, causing a stall and a crash. To combat this, and to make hover FAR more stable, a second engine is connected via crankshaft to make VTOL much less dangerous. Combined with vectored thrusting, you have an aircraft which can perform VTOL on a pitching carrier deck with ten percent the chance of failure that a conventional Harrier has. That means you are ten times less likely to lose both aircraft and pilot. That's not pork, that's good engineering.
Furthermore, it is the only VTOL aircraft that can Supercruise, meaning it can cruise at speeds in excess of Mach 1 (I believe cruising speed for the F-35 is 1.5-1.7 Mach) without needing to hit the afterburners, which are ludicrously fuel-hogging. In fact, the only other aircraft with Supercruise is the F22 Raptor.
Then we talk about the Stealth aspects of the vehicle. Because it's not enough to create an aircraft which meets the specifications of the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army... let's go ahead and reduce its radar profile to the size of a chicken's. And this is really where the cost comes from. It uses materials that are classified, so you have to go to the only manufacturer of the substance to make your aircraft, that has to be ordered pretty much one-off until the orders start coming in. That ain't cheap.
The F-35 is designed to be able to perform a wide variety of missions in a wide variety of theaters. It beats the pants off of anything the Navy or Marines have. The F22 Raptor will still take them down in a dogfight, but the F22 is designed specifically for air interdiction and doesn't have the role flexibility the F-35 has. However, typically the F-35 is going to be using JDAM-equipped bomb payloads, including the capability of mounting a MOAB internally. Having said that, it's still better than anything anyone else has in terms of dogfighting.
The problem is that media in general is not able to comprehend that when you ask for something new, there are a LOT of entailed costs. You're designing a whole new classification of aircraft, one which fills multiple roles previously filled by several different aircraft. The aircraft does not cost the money you are citing, the R&D to make it does.
Furthermore, the F-35 does not even HAVE a 'main gun'. In fact, most aircraft don't anymore. It does have a 25mm 4-barrel minigun (compare that to the 30mm that the Warthog mounts), but honestly it typically doesn't get close enough to anyone to actually use it. Almost all air engagements are ended with missiles these days, not guns. Heck, they could probably remove the gun entirely and it would be simply saved weight. But I suppose it means the F-35 can fill the role of close air support if no warthogs are in the area.
Is there a reason that the US needs to spend roughly four times annually what the next nearest nation - China - does, or TEN times what Russia - the evil militaristic aggressor does?
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We could cut our military budget in HALF and still outspend any other nation.
I frequently DEFEND the military on money matters - the infamous thousand-dollar-hammer, for instance, which turns out to be bad spec writing by a procurement officer - but that's in cases where they're actually trying to accomplish the mission and not just pump the budget.
{This is my last comment on this}
The guy in front has to work twice as hard to stay in front. As the R&D curve climbs, more and more resources have to be devoted to maintain our edge of superiority.
Again, I'm not saying you were wrong that there's a lot of waste in military spending. In fact, if you recall, I agreed with you on that topic. I'm not even sure why you are getting so defensive about it. But citing incorrect information as 'facts' isn't helping anyone.
