While it's all not exactly the same, it does show that there's a mindset w/i the bureaucracy that generates a series of events where 'tomorrow is yesterday' & the patterns of problems keep getting generated by the same patterns of thinking. Just look at all the fighter projects that were generated by the uptick in spending fueled by the Korean War. (There was also an uptick/downtick attributable to WWII) The early '60's were a downtick, VietNam caused an uptick in spending but not in development. Then there was a muddled in the '70's (post-VietNam) & then an uptick when during the '80's followed by a downtick after the collapse of the USSR. The one thing that holds true is that certain folks will do all they can to keep their pet projects going & that's where we have the silliness where they want to retire the A-10 to pay for the F-35. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On Tue, 6/16/15, Greg Chalik <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote: Subject: Re: [TML] Question To: "xxxxxx@simplelists.com" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2015, 8:27 PM Phil, thats not quite what happened with the F-35 The F-35 is rally a 'snowball' of a prgram. While the engine projects were re-funded, it became obvious that a 'universal' engine will require other 'universal' solutions to mate it to different airframes. There were dozens of USAF, USN/USMC and US Army projects looking after these requirements during the Cold War era, and the Vietnam war was just a logistic catalyst in that effort. One of the problems not now evident in the F-35 program is that decades were spent in just integrating all the different sub-system projects. The Cold War time integration took a major dive after 2000 when the DoD reduced the number of primes, and the subsequent mergers and hand-overs had to take place. Then the integration of international participants. The greatest ptoblem for the F-35 On 17 June 2015 at 11:43, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote: This email was sent from yahoo.com which does not allow forwarding of emails via email lists. Therefore the sender's email address (xxxxxx@yahoo.com) has been replaced with a dummy one. The original message follows: -------------------------------------------- On Tue, 6/16/15, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU> wrote: Subject: Re: [TML] Question To: "xxxxxx@simplelists.com" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2015, 2:36 PM > On Jun 16, 2015, at 1:12 PM, Grimmund <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> A tank you cannot transport to the battlefield because it’s >> too large/heavy to use your infrastructure is a lump of useless metal. >> Expensive useless metal that will likely cause your troops to get killed >> because you couldn’t afford the tanks that could be transported. > > That's an argument to upgrade your infrastucture, not downgrade your amor. Which may be prohibitively expensive compared to building your tanks, which ARE FINE FOR THE ROLE THEY WERE BUILT FOR (note 'While the TAM would have been effective against any possible South American opponent” ...It’s also illogical that it was ‘helpless against any NATO standard tank'…if it mounted the same gun, it’s not precisely ‘helpless’.) But then this is the very kind of thinking that gets us absurdities like the F-35 as a replacement for both the F-16 as an air superiority fighter and the A-10 as a ground support aircraft. Perhaps we can call the F35 the ‘dallyplane’, to drag it back to the source material. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And *that* sorta' reprises the arguments that US DoD chief Robert McNamara & his 'whiz kids' first proposed way back in the early '60's with their 'one size CAN be made to fit all' push to make the F-4 Phantom the end-all a/c for the US Armed Forces. Now the Phantom did turn out to be a remarkably flexible a/c but by the '70's specialty a/c were back again. It seems to me that what happens is that, as the cost, of a program increases, those who have a stake in it, whether personal, financial or otherwise, start tacking on more & more 'capabilities' to justify the increased cost. In the end a sort of 'cannibalization' starts to take effect as money is taken from a/c already in service to keep a program 'on track'. But retiring an a/c before it's successor is ready for service has always been a bad idea. The first example I can remember is when C-141 production was prematurely ended 'cuz "the C-5 is almost ready to go" in the '60's. ================================================================================================= ----- The Traveller Mailing List Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com To unsubscribe from this list please goto http://archives.simplelists.com ----- The Traveller Mailing List Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml Report problems to xxxxxx@travellercentral.com To unsubscribe from this list please goto http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=EwREIRgLK8vaUEhNlnoNdSGKwnjoID8a
