USAF Tanker competition: CANCELLED

[Thanas]

Yes, European nations do develop and buy "Made in [insert European nation here]," but this is like a street racer devoting thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars customizing and upgrading a Mitsubishi Lancer to go from 0-60 mph within 5 seconds, when a Porsche dealership is just a couple of miles away.

I consider that analogy to be wrong, considering that the European nations do have a technological advanted in some fields and that the European defence industry is quite able to fulfill almost all of the needs of the various European militaries.

[Sidewinder]

Yes, European nations do develop and buy "Made in [insert European nation here]," but this is like a street racer devoting thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars customizing and upgrading a Mitsubishi Lancer to go from 0-60 mph within 5 seconds, when a Porsche dealership is just a couple of miles away.

I consider that analogy to be wrong, considering that the European nations do have a technological advanted in some fields and that the European defence industry is quite able to fulfill almost all of the needs of the various European militaries.

Although the European nations' arms industries are quite advanced, in many cases, they're more or less "reinventing the wheel" to fulfill their needs; the resulting "wheel" may be superior in many aspects to the original, but reaching this point requires considerable investments in time, money, and resources; many people would rather just stick with the original instead of bothering with this.

To reuse the analogy of race cars, you can modify a Mitsubishi Lancer to have superior speed and acceleration than a Chevrolet Corvette, but many people would rather just go to the nearest Chevy dealership, pay $50,000, and drive the Corvette home, instead of paying $30,000 for a Mitsubishi, paying another $10,000 for high performance upgrades, pay a garage more money to install those upgrades, and wait several weeks for the garage to finish upgrading the Lancer into a Corvette-killer.

[Wicked Pilot]

You guys are reading way too into it, it isn't about hardware or nationalism, it's just election year politics. When Boeing officially pulled out it would have become a sole source contract, and thus the buy would find itself under further congressional scrutiny. (something about sole sourcing and the Bush administration just makes people suspicious, don't ask me why) Who's going to champion the KC-30 in congress? Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida Republicans. Who's going to champion Boeing? Washington State Democrats. Who's in the majority right now, and who's about to have their and their presidential nominee's asses handed to them Nov 4th? Take a guess, anyone. The fact of the matter is there's no way, not in an election year, that the Republicans are going to get a 35 billion dollar, sole sourced, oversees tanker contract, in the middle of the worse economic crisis in half a century, with the GAO screaming bloody murder over the selection process. No way.

What the hell is the Air Force suppose to do, proceed and try to by Airbus anyway? The only way forward is to try once again to get our shit together and get the right goddamn tanker. We don't care if it's Airbus or Boeing, otherwise the -30 wouldn't have been picked to begin with.

[Thanas]

Yes, European nations do develop and buy "Made in [insert European nation here]," but this is like a street racer devoting thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars customizing and upgrading a Mitsubishi Lancer to go from 0-60 mph within 5 seconds, when a Porsche dealership is just a couple of miles away.

I consider that analogy to be wrong, considering that the European nations do have a technological advanted in some fields and that the European defence industry is quite able to fulfill almost all of the needs of the various European militaries.

Although the European nations' arms industries are quite advanced, in many cases, they're more or less "reinventing the wheel" to fulfill their needs; the resulting "wheel" may be superior in many aspects to the original, but reaching this point requires considerable investments in time, money, and resources; many people would rather just stick with the original instead of bothering with this.

Your ignorance of the European defense industry is stunning if you think that all they are doing is trying to catch up with the americans and that they are wasting money as they do that. Just look at the German defense industry, in particular the Leopard 2 and the Type 212 submarine for that, which are just a few examples out of many.

[K. A. Pital]

I can't believe you're saying Europe is "reinventing" shit when they have their own arms industries which are producing prime examples of modern weapons. Their markets may be smaller, but it does not signify inferiority of weapons - the US has marketing club to beat.

[phongn]

I can't believe you're saying Europe is "reinventing" shit when they have their own arms industries which are producing prime examples of modern weapons. Their markets may be smaller, but it does not signify inferiority of weapons - the US has marketing club to beat.

Well, Europe hasn't really been able to match the "high end" (probably due to lack of market).

[Sidewinder]

I can't believe you're saying Europe is "reinventing" shit when they have their own arms industries which are producing prime examples of modern weapons. Their markets may be smaller, but it does not signify inferiority of weapons - the US has marketing club to beat.

Okay, so "reinventing the wheel" was a bad analogy, but the comparison of a customized Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution to a Chevrolet Corvette or a Porsche IS valid because my point was NOT about how advanced Europe's arms industries are, it was about how CHEAP and AVAILABLE their products are when compared to American products. The Dassault Rafale is superior in many respects to the F-16, but it's also more expensive, and while Dassault's factories may be more efficient than Lockheed Martin's, they can never hope to match the Americans' productivity, i.e., the answer a customer gets when he or she asks, "When will can I expect the first delivery, and when will the contract be completed? When will I get the last of the [insert number here] [insert product here]s I ordered?"

Perhaps I should've compared a US military surplus M16 rifles and M1911A1 pistols to the Heckler & Koch G36 and USP. The German products ARE superior in many respects to the American ones, but the fact that the M16 and M1911A1 are ALREADY AVAILABLE in large numbers and for considerably lower prices, means Heckler & Koch will never sell as many rifles and pistols.

[Kanastrous]

Does any military still issue new M1911A1s?

[TheMuffinKing]

Does any military still issue new M1911A1s?

Only to SF units. M9 Beretta is still the gold standard.

[Kanastrous]

Does any military still issue new M1911A1s?

Only to SF units. M9 Beretta is still the gold standard.

Mm. Much as I enjoy my 1911A1, I think for anti-social purposes I'd prefer my .40 USP...

[Thanas]

Okay, so "reinventing the wheel" was a bad analogy, but the comparison of a customized Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution to a Chevrolet Corvette or a Porsche IS valid because my point was NOT about how advanced Europe's arms industries are, it was about how CHEAP and AVAILABLE their products are when compared to American products. The Dassault Rafale is superior in many respects to the F-16, but it's also more expensive, and while Dassault's factories may be more efficient than Lockheed Martin's, they can never hope to match the Americans' productivity, i.e., the answer a customer gets when he or she asks, "When will can I expect the first delivery, and when will the contract be completed? When will I get the last of the [insert number here] [insert product here]s I ordered?"

Perhaps I should've compared a US military surplus M16 rifles and M1911A1 pistols to the Heckler & Koch G36 and USP. The German products ARE superior in many respects to the American ones, but the fact that the M16 and M1911A1 are ALREADY AVAILABLE in large numbers and for considerably lower prices, means Heckler & Koch will never sell as many rifles and pistols.

Which means jackshit when comparing the merits of the various industries. And your Porsche analogy is still wrong, because a Porsche is a technologically superior product.

[Sidewinder]

Which means jackshit when comparing the merits of the various industries.

And the points I was emphasizing, i.e., US industries' ability to produce LARGE NUMBER of products in a relatively SHORT amount of TIME, for a relatively LOW PRICE, aren't merits?

If you don't like the Porsche analogy, fine, let's compare an all-American sports car to a European one. The Chevrolet Corvette is a relatively high-performance car. Do European companies produce superior products? Yes; Ferrari and Lamborghini have superior speed, acceleration, and handling. Does that mean more Ferraris and Lamborghinis are sold each year than Corvettes? No; in 2007, 2,580 Lamborghinis of various models were sold, while 6,400 Ferraris were sold. In the same year, 40,561 Corvettes were produced, and the fact that 35,310 more were produced this year, suggests they sold fairly well.

Why? As I noted, Ferrari and Lamborghini had to invest a significant amount of time, money, and resources to create supercars, and these development costs are passed onto customers in the form of high prices and time on waiting lists. Most people don't want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and months on a waiting list for a Ferrari or Lamborghini, when the Corvette is readily available for a lower price. This ready availability also means maintenance and repair costs are lower for the Corvette.

The same issues dog Dassault and Eurofighter, namely, price and availability of their products. When the Saudis decided to buy Typhoons, Eurofighter had to divert 24 aircraft from an RAF contract to fulfill the Royal Saudi Air Force one; not a good sign when a customer says he or she wants the aircraft "very soon," and one reason Singapore decided not to buy Typhoons. Meanwhile, the fact that the arguably inferior F-15E is already in service in large numbers, means a prospective buyer can easily obtain training for its flight and maintenance crews, and easily obtain weapons and upgrades compatible with the aircraft.

[Sea Skimmer]

The same issues dog Dassault and Eurofighter, namely, price and availability of their products. When the Saudis decided to buy Typhoons, Eurofighter had to divert 24 aircraft from an RAF contract to fulfill the Royal Saudi Air Force one; not a good sign when a customer says he or she wants the aircraft "very soon," and one reasonSingapore decided not to buy Typhoons.

The US did the exact same thing to supply F-16s to Egypt, and F-4s and F-16s to Israel at various times. I think a couple other nations got F-16s bumped from US orders too and those are the two most heavily produced western supersonic jet fighters ever! In this case it matters even less because the RAF is already buying almost twice as many Typhoons as it plans to operate at any one time. Hell if anything Eurofighter suffers from way too much production capacity because it uses four separate assembly lines, that has a lot to do with why it’s so expensive.

Meanwhile, the fact that the arguably inferior F-15E is already in service in large numbers, means a prospective buyer can easily obtain training for its flight and maintenance crews, and easily obtain weapons and upgrades compatible with the aircraft.

The F-15SG has almost totally different avionics from the F-15E, and that’s why it won. It was simply the most advanced electronics package being offered. Availability of Typhoon was not an issue, but what was an issue was the spiral development of the aircrafts capabilities. Singapore wanted certain things, mainly air to ground capabilities, which couldn’t be available until 2011. At the time they were very paranoid about Flanker mania in south East Asia. This really has no bearing on anything when you consider how many decades it took to evolve the F-16 and F-15 to the point they are now.

Yeah America builds better weapons on average, but that doesn’t not mean it makes any sense at all for the Europeans to just throw in the towel. They have different requirements, and frankly they’d just lose out on capabilities if everything required sending tens of billions of dollars worth of much smaller defence budgets overseas. Projects would be canceled left and right since it becomes adventurous to cut them, no lost jobs, no political or serious economic penalties at all to deal with.