Quote:
Bishop746 said:
The US military has a terrible track record of spending incredible amounts of money of weapon systems when a cheaper one would be better and more cost effective.
Examples for comment:
Osprey
F23 Raptor
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The F-22 Raptor issue is more of a warfighting philosophy question than a performance one. To America, saving soldier's lives is the most important part of fighting a war. The fact is, equipping your troops with $200 million worth of techno-crap will save at best few hundred lives, while the same money invested in enhancing hospitols or police nations in a neglected area would save thousands. But investing in stuff to protect soldiers has visible effects; you can see soldiers thanking the Army for saving their lives by giving them Kevlar on the evening news. But non-military spending, although more efficient, doesn't usually give a clear advantage. It's not that it dosen't make a difference; it's simply not obvious.
The point is that America buys $300 million (that's the latest price I've heard) Raptors because its military can afford to. The defence budget keeps going up, so it has to spend money on SOMETHING. Buying 6 F-16s for $50 million each might do the job better, but at a greater cost in lives. So it's all about whether you want to get the job done better, or the job done easier. This is why so many American weapon systems are gold-plated; the Bradley, the $10 million M1A3 (as compared to $2 million M1A1s with basically the same capability), and so on.
As for the Osprey, it's had some good news lately. It's too early to tell whether it will flop, or be another surprise (like the M1 tank, which was also criticised a lot before it entered service).
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