2/10: Defense spending over time

[tw]

Originally posted by CharlieG
Yep, three new carriers, in years 92, 95, and 98 - which brought the average age of the carrier fleet DOWN to 23.5 years - we still have 3 carriers that are 41 years old in the fleet, plus we are down to 12 carriers, and with 2 or 3 in SLEP at any one time, they are stretched thin - there should be about 15

There should be four carriers total. Eight if under threat of war. That is still more than the entire world combined. That 'we fear' mentality is the problem; not shortage of equipment. We spend too much money on ineffective 'big' hardware and the nonsense 'local bases'. There is so little left for real needs such as the Coast Guard or Customs or Immigration or even a respectable passport.

23.5 years is quite young for those ships. Especially when most of those ships have been completely rebuilt numerous times to really be less than 10 years old. Especially when those ships have been so ineffective. Previously posted was a damning summary entitled "In the Navy... You can spend a pretty dime". Maybe others would like to mention how pathetic carrier tasks forces have been?

As for F-14s, they were mostly useless in the Gulf War (1991). The A-6s were even worse - taken off almost all targets. F-18s required too many tanker refueling making them useless. So the Navy conceded - finally sent carriers into the Gulf, so at least some planes could do something. After 1991, F-14s could not deliver ground support weapons. After 1991, all F-14 were refurbished so that they perform ground support - which is the primary function of all military aircraft. This program was still going on in 2000 as I have personally witnessed.

The A-6s were so pathetically worn out that all had severe wing cracks even during the Gulf War. But instead, Admirals built more useless carriers and nuclear subs. Again misallocation of funds. All F-18 C/D, the only true ground attack planes, were built entirely in the 1990s after production of F18 A/B were finished about mid 1990s. But again, we have many more, expensive weapons systems all in the 1990s when the military is spending massively for an enemy that does not exist - except in someone's minds.

Then there is the F-15E, a plane with performance equivalent to the F-16 at three times the cost. But who else has anything nearly approaching either plane - or in quantities? Why do we need so many more fighter bombers? We are getting them anyway only because our planes must 2+ times obsolete an enemy's? At what point do we then have enough? We have no shortage of fighter planes especially if a more responsible political agenda was used. Instead the current administration needs fighters for their political agenda - unilateral, unprovoked attacks on other nations.

We need better when even the F-15 and F-16 are unchallenged by anyone in the next 10+ years? Where are all these terrrorists that will shoot down F-15s in the next 25 years? And again, where did most of the current planes come from? 1990 spending when the DoD was building "almost nothing."

More military is not to solve a terrorist problem. More military is so that war hawks can unilaterally attack other nations without any allied support. Why? Even our allies cannot be trusted? Who did we elect? Ohh... we didn't elect them - sorry.

Remember those Gulf War units such as the 24th Mech? Where is it? Gone? Nope. Many of those units have been completely retooled and given whole new unit numbers. In the 1990s, while spending "almost nothing", we have created a whole new fast response task force known as XVIII Airborne Corps. Much of this include fast response ships and C-17 aircraft - all built since 1990 while we were spending "almost nothing".

The V-22 Osprey - desperately needed. Like the C-17, B-1, B-2, F-15, and all carrier naval aircraft, was screwed up in design. V-22 was a major management failure both in Philly Boeing and the Marines.

Remember the 24th Mech from the Gulf War? Where is it? Gone? Of course not. Completely reequiped and renamed, I believe, 3rd Infantry Mech. All this while we spend "almost nothing".

Again we are back to the same point. Even during that low spending of the 90s, we have way too much military. How do you know? Every other country, except maybe Japan, has severely cut back on military spending because the US has too much. No other allied nation need bother to spend on military since we do it for them for free. Keep military spending in perspective. We spend more than the next HOW MANY nations combined? We have way too much military which is why allied nations don't bother. An now we have the sharpest military budget increase since what war? Why? Where is the enemy?

Where? In Washington. In the minds of those same planners who did not provide Schwartzkopf with necessary support at the end of the Gulf War. In the minds of Dick Cheney who was going to abandon Kuwait to Saddam. Yes, you read that correctly. He said we could not do anything (paranoid?). Then the legendary Margaret Thatcher put a backbone into George Sr while both were in Denver. We have too much military and now have inferior leadership in Washington.

We don't have a shortage of military. We have a presidential staff that sees enemies everywhere. We call them insecure extremists. No wonder they are the friendliest administration that Israel has ever had. They think like the 'mass murder' Sharon?

We don't have a military problem. We have a leadership problem, whose solutions are classic MBA solutions - spend more money like a grenade. Then we have a public that has no idea how much was spent in the 1990s. We spent in the 1990s more than HOW MANY countries combined? And yet would would call that "almost nothing"! Go figure... the numbers.

Sorry, but "almost nothing" can only come from one totally out of touch with reality. Is that also why the Supreme Court voted for George Jr?

[CharlieG]

Originally posted by tw

There should be four carriers total. Eight if under threat of war. ...snip

I'll just leave off here - remember that 3 of those 12 carriers are in that rebuild program at any one time (It's called SLEP BTW), and it takes something like 5 years to build on carrier - to go from your 4 to 8 would ONLY take 20 years - you think people are going to take that long?

It's obvious you and I are never going to agree on what the proper level of defense spending is

(BTW, you say the F-15E has the same performance as the F-16 - Have you looked at the payload and RANGE figures? You sure did on the F-18 (Lot's of tanker support) - That's why the F-15E works better thean the F-16)

[jaguar]

I jsut had a look though defence spending myself, two things stuck me as kinda useless

a: THe crusader self-propelled 155mmhozwitzer, it was designed to taking out tanks, lots of em, and weighs so much it cna't be moved by most transport places....waht sthe point, the cold war is over?

b: F22 Raptor - Once again designed fo the cold war, another big ticket waste of money

At least JDAM is getting abit of a boost and the poiltless jet program which has be very, very useful in afghanistan is getting a very modest boost.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by jaguar
I jsut had a look though defence spending myself, two things stuck me as kinda useless

a: THe crusader self-propelled 155mmhozwitzer, it was designed to taking out tanks, lots of em, and weighs so much it cna't be moved by most transport places....waht sthe point, the cold war is over?

After the weight reduction program, two Crusaders can ride in a C-5 for 3,200nm unrefueled, and in a C-17 for 2,800nm unrefueled. And we have a *lot* of KC-10s. I would think a gun that throws 10 155mm rounds a minute, (incuding eight rounds on one target with the same time-on-target) could be a very useful thing in a Gulf War-like scenario, where there are still high-value targets.

...and the poiltless jet program which has be very, very useful in afghanistan is getting a very modest boost.

Actually, the Predator RPVs used in Afgnanistan aren't jets, they use a prop driven by a Rotax piston engine, just like many ultralights. The Global Hawk is indeed a turbofan...but the main advantage with the new pilotless jets is that they can enter high-G accelerated flight regimes that would be impossible with a human pilot on board. Very different from the long loiter-time missions that Global HAwk and Predator are designed for.

The pilotless jets are best for dogfighting...against an enemy with no air force they're not as useful. But the current fighter jocks are really going to drag their feet around this technology

[jaguar]

Well i pulled the weight stats from time magazine yesterday - a reasonably trustworth source, mabye they are out of date but i doubt it.

As for the pilotless planes program, its recently proven very useful in tracking down individual targets. I didn't know they were prop, interesting naffact, fuel efficiency i assume?

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by jaguar
Well i pulled the weight stats from time magazine yesterday - a reasonably trustworth source, mabye they are out of date but i doubt it.

<shrug> There's certainly more authoritative sources on military tech than Time Magazine. I went and read the article you did...the drift of which seems to be "why spend so much on Raptor and so little on Predator and Global Hawk?" , but I think this may be some of the same tech-rapture a lot of folks went into over the Patriot ground-to-air missile during the Gulf War.

As for the pilotless planes program, its recently proven very useful in tracking down individual targets. I didn't know they were prop, interesting naffact, fuel efficiency i assume?

Sort of. If you want to loiter and watch one area, there's no point in doing it at mach 1.5. That's why the patrol airplane the Chineese played chicken with last year is propeller driven.

I think we're talking about two different programs here. One is for low-speed loitering craft, medium-altitude for the Predator and higher for the Global Hawk (which is still very experimental). The Hawks are still unarmed and recon only, but the CIA has Hellfire antiarmor missles on their Pedators. That's what's flying in Afghanistan ( and probably a few other places that haven't been announced yet). Predator i sbasically based on ultralight tecnology; Global Hawk is a bit more like a tiny business jet. Still not built for speed, though; there's no point to it.

Another quite separate program is to develop supersonic, remotely piloted fighter aircraft. The advantage that remoting these (other than nobody being on board when they're blown up) is that a human pilot is the limiting factor on how much acceleration (basically meaning how tight a turn) the airplane can take. F-16 flight control systems are designed to limit the max acceleration to nine gravities, mostly to protect the airframe. But the pilot can't stand 9Gs for very long, and even though she's got a G-suit squeezing blood from her lower body up to her brain, eventually the intracranial blood pressure will drop low enough that she'll faint, a phenomenon called GLOC.

An unpiloted fighter doesn't have this problem, and thus can be built to maneuver at much higher accelerations...making it more agile, a tremendous advatage in air-to-air combat. Air Combat Mauevering ("dogfighting") has become a game of turn rates, both to dodge missiles (which have limits to their own turning rates) and to evade other aircraft.

This is definately post-Raptor technology, and as I said, many fighter jocks will not take kindly to it. But it won't be ready in time to take Raptor's place, so Raptor will probably still be needed.

[tw]

Originally posted by MaggieL
And we have a *lot* of KC-10s.

Reverse is true. Mid-air refueling tankers are in serious shortage. Had we not fought so many recent wars, the shortage would have been acute - general/admirals love of front line, high glory aircraft over what really gets the work done.

Also making the tanker problem acute is that previously noted conversion of so many units into joint strike, fast response, combat commands. The tanker shortage is so accute that squadrons have been kept separate from those various combat groups - so that the few tankers can be quickly reassigned to activated combat groups.

BTW, Europe is upset with how Bush has decided to unilaterlally solve this tanker problem. Many Boeing 767s, now without customers, are being converted to air tankers - in a contract that had no bidding. In direct violation of agreements we have with other Nato countries. Airbus could have obtained this contract but was denied. Bush has decided to solve Boeing's problem and DoD tanker problems in one stroke - free market competition and international agreements be damned.

Another aircraft short in supply are Awacs especially since we tried to solve drug addiction with Awacs planes - but that is another topic about misallocations of funds.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by tw

Reverse is true. Mid-air refueling tankers are in serious shortage.

Well, point well-taken on a relative basis. I'm sure we could use more...almost any huge force movement by air needs all the tankers you have and then some.

I just meant there are many KC-10s relative to how many C-5's there are. Crusaders *can be* (once some are built) deployed by air; jag's quote made it seem like you had to deploy them by driving them down the autobahn.

Maybe we should un-mothball the KC-135s, if they're not all beer cans already. I logged an hour pilot time (including one landing) in a KC-135 simulator on a SAC base once.

[CharlieG]

More KC-135s flying around than you might think (well, at least a couple of years ago when I last checked)

A good friend's brother was a KC-135 IP

Charlie

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by CharlieG
More KC-135s flying around than you might think A good friend's brother was a KC-135 IP

Doggone...yer right. "AMC manages more than 546 total aircraft inventory Stratotankers, of which the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard fly 292 of those in support of AMC's mission...Inventory: Active duty, 253; Air National Guard, 222; Air Force Reserve, 70", as of last July. My ex-brother-in-law was a KC-135 navigator with SAC, and flew various command desks for AMC after the restructuring until he retired.