Russia to cut military spending

[Kanastrous]

How about Crusader, Pegasus and Osprey?

I know that Osprey falls short of its original description in some areas, that it's not as safe as it should be and that it's not armed as well as intended.

But has the program entirely failed? Are the aircraft's users not getting any advantage out of flying them, as compared to (well, for the Marines) the CH-46?

[Sea Skimmer]

An Osprey costs more then an F-15 fighter, and five times as much as a UH-60 blackhawk, that’s why it fails. It is better then a CH-46, it damn well could not help but be better given that the CH-46 first flew in 1962, in fact its one of the very earliest helicopters to even use turboshafts. This is why we started the V-22 program all the way back 1983 as a replacement. Yeah, and quite a few Marines have died specifically because the CH-46 is such a piece of crap that should have never had to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the replacement program should not have taken 24 years, and two formal cancellations, one of them 19 years ago now, to get into the limited service it now has.

Never mind the fact that you can’t even fucking patch a bullet hole in it with tape… thanks to its super advanced composite skin (which cracks) almost all damage to the airframe must be repaired by a depot or the manufacture.

[Ryan Thunder]

Never mind the fact that you can’t even fucking patch a bullet hole in it with tape… thanks to its super advanced composite skin (which cracks) almost all damage to the airframe must be repaired by a depot or the manufacture.

Damn. I didn't know it was like that. Would it even be possible to build it with a different material or is that what enables it to work?

I guess that's a pretty good example of what what's-his-face is complaining about.

Wow, two projects of several, one of which isn't actually useless. How damning.

LCS certainly isn't worth the money put into it, especially considering it's piss-poor armament for it's size, necessitated by the ridiculous 50-knot speed requirement.

Yeah, that's pretty retarded. I won't argue with that.

Also, FCS isn't even supposed to begin production for another eight years, and won't even be deployed until 2030.

And yet it has already eaten up more than two and a half times the total program costs of the F-22 (including procurement), despite having not yet produced a single prototype. This for a frickin' armored fighting vehicle, which normally cost a fraction as much as fighter planes to develop and build.[/quote]
Hang on, I'm referring to the Future Combat System, for which there have been several waves of prototypes, last I checked. What are you talking about?

[Sea Skimmer]

Damn. I didn't know it was like that. Would it even be possible to build it with a different material or is that what enables it to work?

It’s already way overweight and fails every performance goal, any other material would either be too weak or too heavy. One of the reasons V-22 took so long and was so damn expensive is we had to invent all sorts of new technology to make it work at all like 5000psi hydraulics. That’s an acceptable means of design (to a point) in say an air superiority fighter or a nuclear missile when every bit of performance is critical, it makes no sense at all in a freaking transport helicopter that will be largely stuck flying sling loads of MREs to starving Indonesians.

It is totally the Marines fault for sticking to unrealistic design goals, and then using there political reputation for running ‘good programs even though they had NEVER EVER ran anything nearly as big as V-22, in ordered to get it uncanacled twice. The USN and US Army dropped out real quick in the 80s precisely because saw that it would be far too expensive to make any sense. As I recall before V-22, the largest R&D project the Marines managed was less then a half billion dollars, V-22 is more like 20 billion in R&D. Unit flyway cost has merely tripled.

Hang on, I'm referring to the Future Combat System, for which there have been several waves of prototypes, last I checked. What are you talking about?

Bullcrap on that, the vast majority of FCS systems have not seen a single physical prototype, certainly not even one complete wave has seen the light of day. They can’t even provide a coherent idea of what half the vehicles will look like on paper, let alone explain what all the money has been wasted on. Only the NLOS-C artillery piece is in anything like a usable form even by the standards of a prototype. That’s in turn only because it was using an existing gun (its an M777 made self propelled, way cheaper means existed to do this, like bolting it to a truck) and it was simply super high priority since Crusader was idiotically canceled. The Army just wouldn't let the contractors get away with swimming in circles on it the way they've gone about 'designing' everything else.

But yeah to give an idea of how insane FCS is, here's some concept art they released like two years ago of what the ‘mounted combat system’ might look like. Take away the Objective Superforce Overmatch jargon, and that means its a light tank. It will likely have less armor then a Bradley and yet not one but two different SATCOMs. Also notice how all the antenna farm on the roof blocks the arc of fire for its unmanned weapons station.

[Ryan Thunder]

Perhaps I had it confused with the Land Warrior stuff. I keep seeing pictures of them testing equipment floating around.