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| It seemed like a good idea at the time |
I suppose it could be worse?
Sigh...
Yeah, I got nuthin'...
The musings & rants of 3 retired military (2 USAF, 1 USN), 1 former WSO, and 1 AF brat. Old AF Sarge, Juvat, Tuna, LUSH, and Beans.
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I saw that cartoon when I was at the 5 sided penitentiary for wayward fighter pilots. Except it was the F-22.
ReplyDeleteI think I've seen it for almost every project I've ever been on.
DeleteThe F-35 workspace had those all over the place. Even if you try to avoid it, in large bureaucracies, that seems to be the way of it.
DeleteAye, 'tis sadly true.
DeleteNow how much $ was spent on the LCS? How much on three Zumwalts? Plus how much on the F35? And that plane that is to rely on stealth will have a belly gun pod.....with how much ammo in it?!? Not knocking you Sarge but soooo much waste in the nation's defense, it's depressing. My mood fits the snow now falling.....
ReplyDeleteThe waste in defense procurement is insane. There are better ways but those who profit from it don't want change. (On both sides of the equation!)
DeleteSometimes a double facepalm just ain't enough...
ReplyDeleteTrue dat.
Delete+1
DeleteAt least a +1.
DeleteThere are better ways to do an arsenal ship. Much better ways. Like take an existing design and extend the hull, like an extended Burke. Or a modernized Ticonderoga. Toss in room for latest and best radars, more generator power for lasers and microwave projectors and all the new special stuffs. Make an autoloading 155mm system, oh, like the Danes have for their mobile field artillery, use a navalized version of the US Army's precision-guided round, and toss in a couple of those sweet 76mm gun turrets that the Italians have developed, that are designed to function as both close support weapons against fast movers and incoming missiles and planes, toss in some of those 20mm gun pods and...
ReplyDeleteHoly Crap! We just built a modern Ticonderoga! Wow! Look, it floats, it sails, it fights, it has room to innovate and build, plus it doesn't cost a bazillion dollars and we can build 20 or so for the cost of 3 Zummies! Whooo!
Seriously... What the hell???
Mext thing you know, some smart arse is going to design an electronic catapult system that is so interconnected that when one cat goes down, they all go down... wait... What???
Or a Navy fighter without a gun. Wait... What???
Why don't we design an amphibious assault ship without a wet well...
Or a fleet collier without the ability to do it's job while moving...
Or get rid of all our drydocks and sell them to Chinese backed companies...
The procurement system sucks.
I know you (OldAFSarge) are working on one project, but, dangit, this stuff should have been solved like 10 years ago, and you should be working on the next modular, plug-in, next-gen weapon-of-naval-doom, or the next modular, plug-in, enhancement for current weapon-of-doom, not going back and trying to make non-weapon-of-doom work.
And we need to start prosecuting people who are selling our secrets to foreign governments like, oh, say, the ChiComs. That's treason, or at least espionage. And illegal as far as I know.
Can't argue with any of that, probably because I agree with all of it.
DeleteTreason and espionage should be capital crimes, well they are, but make the penalty death. Always. By hanging.
(Don McCollor)...collective stupidity should also be a capital crime, but if enforced, we wouldn't have much of government left...
ReplyDeleteWhich may or may not be such a bad idea...
DeleteWaste, fraud, and abuse at DOD? Meh. Look at everything else. And it's usually not very valuable to compare today's projects in 2019 monopoly money to the more realer dollars spent on previous generation projects. The Tomcat that cost $30M in 1972 would be north of $200M in today's new and improved dingbatdinero. F6F Hellcat was $60,000 in 1943, $900,000 today. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteYeah, some people need to be hung and multiple thousands of careerist jackwagons need to lose pensions and pay back criminal decision pay, but when you look at every other federal agency...
Meh.
True, DoD is probably the least guilty institutionally.
DeleteHey Sarge. I've been absent around here for several days with an annual conference I run. We've been talking about that very same LCS and the poorly designed/built/documented/engineered and delayed in delivery mission package. We had a new Captain in the room, unfamiliar with its history, but familiar with how well designed/built/documented/engineered and delivered early are the Unmanned Underwater Vehicles we have. He asked why we're screwing around with the delayed stuff and why we don't just fill the ship with the UUVs. Awkward silence ensued. The dirty little secret is that it's too big to fail. Can't change horses mid-race. Yeah, we know it sucks, but we are powerless to stop it. My boss once said the reason we have a military is to fight and win our nation's wars. But the primary reason is to employ the nation's work force. Hence Zumwalt and Little Crappy Ships.
ReplyDeleteEisenhower once remarked upon that military-industrial complex. He wasn't wrong.
DeleteKelly Johnson long ago set up the 14 Rules and Practices when he ran the Skunk Works. They were etched in stone and are still applicable to doing business with the govt. today. Obviously, these dictates have fallen upon deaf ears (and brains) in today's world. When they developed the concept of a super stealthy submarine and presented it to the Navy, the best and brightest minds in the head shed freaked out when he told them that it would only cost the sub a couple of knots in underwater speed. He tried to explain that who needs go fast underwater when nobody knows you're there. To no avail. Since then, Kelly said they would rather starve to death than ever do business with the Navy ever again. If he were alive today, he'd be appalled by what the military-industrial complex are getting away with in their nefarious mechanations. BTW, Skunk Works developed the stealth ship as a feasibility study a while back. Would have made a really lethal arsenal ship loaded with Standard missiles. That, too, was given the cold shoulder. We need right now another Kelly Johnson to step up and show how to get things done. The Zumwalts had great potential until the project got overwhelmed by the morons that kept changing all the specs during the design and build phases. Saw the DD1000 at the Bath Iron Works in Maine a few years ago and was stunned by its appearance and presence. Looks like nothing I've ever seen before. Awesome ! So, google search "Kelly's 14 Rules and Practices" and ask yourself why these aren't posted on every wall in the 5-sided cathedral. I now step down off my soapbox.....
ReplyDeleteThose are good rules, they beat most of the fancy MBA "best practices" hands down. DAMHIK
DeleteWe could really use some destroyers. We haven't got any. The BURKEs are really 21rst Century ATLANTAs. My position on replacing the Little Coffin Ships with license built NANSENs is well known. I have such difficulty with a ship 2/3 the size of a CLEVELAND armed with an optically aimed 57mm gun, as it's main battery.
ReplyDeleteBear in mind that the role of the destroyer has evolved since WWII. These days destroyers are all-purpose ships, not submarine hunters. One hunts submarines with other submarines, one screens surface assets with destroyers, with a submarine or two lurking in the vicinity to cover the underwater approaches. The Arleigh-Burkes have far more capabilities than a light cruiser. They can kill an incoming air strike BVR and destroy incoming ASMs far more efficiently than guns. (The last ditch system is still a gun, the CIWS, when it's installed that is.)
DeleteI have one of those pictures from the '80s. Mine didn't have the documentation panel which is hilarious.
ReplyDeleteAnd typical!
DeleteWhy we have those LCSs, escapes me. We had built up a fleet of nuclear-powered cruisers--destroyer leaders, actually, converted over to CGNs in the mid-70s.
ReplyDeleteSome of those cruisers would just now be retiring, but for the Cold War Dividend (tm), wherein all of 'em were scrapped. Yes, they were labor-intensive, requiring a whole boatload of nukes to man the watchstations. But we didn't have to pull over and buy gas! All our carriers are all nukes; but they have become de facto dirt burners, since all the Ticos and all the Arleighs are gas-powered.
I wager a nuke cruiser or better yet frigate (that was what the Bainbridge (DLGN-25) was called for the first ten years of her career) would make a whole lot of sense to me. But what do I know? I was just a dumb ol' nuke. Aboard Bainbridge (CGN-25). :)
Jim, I remember the nuclear fleet. People's unreasoning fear of nuclear power I think had something to do with decommissioning those ships as well. What you say makes a great deal of sense to me.
DeleteBut what do I know, I'm just the father of a nuke. (None of whom, in my experience, are even remotely dumb.)