Pentagon Budget: poll

[Chmee]

Force Projection is a must for America to stay on top of the heap,

Well, let me put it this way. More Americans live in poverty today, as a percentage of our population, that at any time since the 1930's. America is not even in the top 10 among the world's nations in child mortality rates.

What heap do you think we're on top of? What 'security' are we maintaining, if we're pissing away funds while our kids are malnourished and our jobs are being Wal-Marted away?

[Knife]

Force Projection is a must for America to stay on top of the heap,

Well, let me put it this way. More Americans live in poverty today, as a percentage of our population, that at any time since the 1930's. America is not even in the top 10 among the world's nations in child mortality rates.

What heap do you think we're on top of? What 'security' are we maintaining, if we're pissing away funds while our kids are malnourished and our jobs are being Wal-Marted away?

What would the 400-500 billion in defense spending do that the trilion dollars a FY doesn't? That and our malnourished kids are malnourished because of all the junk and crap they eat at McDonalds, not from lack of food. Job markets are always shifting. I'm not a %100 capitalist, but dragging those low paying jobs back to America will hurt the economy in other ways, welcome to globalization.

Which is why we need the security.

[weemadando]

The entire US military needs someone independant and "unbiased" to take to it with a FUCKING HUGE axe.

The amount of over-lapping, useless, non-event, non-starter, craptastic, pie-in-the-sky, pork-barrel and just plain stupid projects and allocations in there would likely be nothing short of remarkable.

Like its been said before - heavy trimming based on performance, neccessity, budget and likely result. You'd be able to have a much more efficient military as well as probably have more of the things you need and less of the things that look good on to members of the House.

[Darth Wong]

The problem with that is political: in America, the military is a sacred cow. And even though this argument would be laughed out of the room when applied to any other branch of government spending, it is generally accepted that "more money = moral approval" when it comes to the military, while "less money = moral disdain". So you can't cut the Pentagon's budget and tell them that they'd better find a way to cut some of the waste, because then you won't be "supporting the military".

[Knife]

The problem with that is political: in America, the military is a sacred cow. And even though this argument would be laughed out of the room when applied to any other branch of government spending, it is generally accepted that "more money = moral approval" when it comes to the military, while "less money = moral disdain". So you can't cut the Pentagon's budget and tell them that they'd better find a way to cut some of the waste, because then you won't be "supporting the military".

True, but the same morons who scream at any one trying to get a handle on WF&A are the same who put a yellow ribbon sticker on their car and are proud of themselves for 'supporting the troops'.

[Chmee]

What would the 400-500 billion in defense spending do that the trilion dollars a FY doesn't? That and our malnourished kids are malnourished because of all the junk and crap they eat at McDonalds, not from lack of food. Job markets are always shifting. I'm not a %100 capitalist, but dragging those low paying jobs back to America will hurt the economy in other ways, welcome to globalization.

I'm just saying you have to have priorities. Shaking pom-pom's and saying 'we're #1' while we hold up a big foam finger (you choose the finger) doesn't make it so. Those kids who eat crap, it's all a matter of income. Every study says the same thing, poor people eat lousy diets in this country, and as a result their health is worse. And as a result we have higher health-care costs.

You want another sign of the times? America recently became the world leader in a category nobody would want to be the leader in: we put more of our citizens in prison than any other country on the planet. That's right, the Land of the Free is the land where you're the most likely to be in prison. We had to pass bastions of democracy like Russia and Krzygystan to claim that honor. No other western democracy imprisons its citizens at even *close* to the rate America does.

You think buying another Trident fixes that problem? Because I'm not saying that buying one *less* Trident fixes it either, but I am saying that our 'security' problems, the ones that really threaten what I think of as worth preserving in America, are all at home, not in some overseas boogey-man's war room.

[Knife]

I'm just saying you have to have priorities. Shaking pom-pom's and saying 'we're #1' while we hold up a big foam finger (you choose the finger) doesn't make it so. Those kids who eat crap, it's all a matter of income. Every study says the same thing, poor people eat lousy diets in this country, and as a result their health is worse. And as a result we have higher health-care costs.

Its not economic, rather than laziness. Granted, and we're generalizing here, there are poor in America. But those poor kids who are raised on happy meals, the happy meals aren't cheap, at least not in those quantities. Really, America's horrible diet *and I'm guilty* is a cultural thing not economic.

You want another sign of the times? America recently became the world leader in a category nobody would want to be the leader in: we put more of our citizens in prison than any other country on the planet. That's right, the Land of the Free is the land where you're the most likely to be in prison. We had to pass bastions of democracy like Russia and Krzygystan to claim that honor. No other western democracy imprisons its citizens at even *close* to the rate America does.

War on Drugs.

That, and you have the freedom to be a dumb ass, I guess. Comparing it to gulaags is a bit of a stretch. Drop the silly ass 'war on drugs' and see those rates plumet like an air born brick.

You think buying another Trident fixes that problem? Because I'm not saying that buying one *less* Trident fixes it either, but I am saying that our 'security' problems, the ones that really threaten what I think of as worth preserving in America, are all at home, not in some overseas boogey-man's war room.

Our domestic problems are less of an economic one than other reasons (which would be up for debate, I suppose) so gutting the DOD and pouring the cash into domestic programes will do little. Again, what will 500 billion do that the trillion a year in domestic spending doesn't?

[Chmee]

Our domestic problems are less of an economic one than other reasons (which would be up for debate, I suppose) so gutting the DOD and pouring the cash into domestic programes will do little. Again, what will 500 billion do that the trillion a year in domestic spending doesn't?

I wouldn't say 'gutting' is something I'd advocate. But how did we win the Cold War? By some climactic battle with Soviet forces? No. We won because they just couldn't keep up with us in spending, and ultimately their economy collapsed trying to do so.

I'd hope it's an example we could learn from, not repeat. I love my country, but even loving it I have to look at its flaws critically, honestly. We're not heading in the right direction, and I don't want people to have a false sense of security because it's easy for us to kill large numbers of people anywhere on the planet. When the roof is leaking and the toilet is backing up, you don't run out and spend your savings on an electric fence ... much less go deeply into debt to buy the most expensive electric fence on the market.

[Chris OFarrell]

*snip

Effeciency is the keyword, Effeciency is always the keyboard

However I must argue with you on three points
1. B-2s are dandy, don't insult the things we love the heck out of them, with them it means we can bomb 90% of the world without risk to personnel or equipment, which always makes the voters happy

Uh Bean, I said nothing about the B2. I *LIKE* the B2.

2. ABL is flawed to begin with, only in ABL do they base the damn thing off a 100% Accurasy.... 100 @#$@ percent accurasy... Your not going to get that, if you can make a system with 40% accurasy for 50 million or 100% for 500 billion of course we are going with the 40% one

ABL is flawed because the technology in it doesn't work. Ignoring accuray completly, they still havn't gotten the damn thing to have an airborn (or I think even a GROUND bassed) test firing of the laser! They have had plenty of time. Give them a deadline and a budget. If they can't meet it, scrap it.

3. Body armo is nice except its a SCOUT car and we should not be using the damn things as patrol vechicals to begin with!

But we are, so we have to addapt. The US SHOULD get all those M-113's out of storage. Modern varients of them can be upgraded with very good armour and can be made to be almost as quiet as a Striker. THen get THOSE into action.

And my comment about armour was about getting the INFINTRY the armour, I wasn't actualy talking about getting armour on vehicles. For example, only IIRC the line units actualy get the Interceptor armour. The National Guard are often making do with 1970's vintage flack jackets!

Uparmored goes down just as easily because the Insurgants simply use half agian to three times as much in exposivies to insure a kill

Of course then you have the problem that these weapons become harder to hard, harder to assemble, harder to deploy and require far more materials to make. Not to mention are hardly factory quality, they are crude things which are going to start failing mroe as you make them more and more complicated. Even virtual attrition is worth it.

To look at that issue another way I'll quote a Civvy I worked with, "The whole uparmor thing, What there doing... Its like the old Soviet method of mine clearing, Take a bunch of Prisoners, give them eight foot long sticks and march them through the minefield poking ahead of them. We spend all the money on uparmor guess what, The Prisoners got a TWELVE foot long stick now, Woopty frekeady doo, We SHOULD be contrating on creating more devices to find and disarm the damn things!"

Err right. Why bother to put armour on at all then? Afterall any armour can be defeated by any explosives! The point is that the Iraqi insurgents have finite supplies and limited yields of explosives. If you armour the vehicles properly, you WILL have a much greater chance of their crews at least surviving then not surviving. The 'leathal' range of the explosives will shrink accordinly, making it just that much easier. I mean troops are not bulletproof even with Interceptor level armour. So why armour them? Simple, because it saves lives, even if it doesn't save people from injury.

[Mr Bean]

Uh Bean, I said nothing about the B2. I *LIKE* the B2.

Woops! it was someone else Petrosjko not you... My bad

If you want to pick something that's an unneeded money soak, I'd point at the B-2 bomber. Even when the Cold War was on its role had been superseded by ICBMs.

The quote in question I was refering to(Not you but him)

ABL is flawed because the technology in it doesn't work. Ignoring accuray completly, they still havn't gotten the damn thing to have an airborn (or I think even a GROUND bassed) test firing of the laser! They have had plenty of time. Give them a deadline and a budget. If they can't meet it, scrap it.

The ABM was based around Interceptor kill missles not lasers or am I insane?

And my comment about armour was about getting the INFINTRY the armour, I wasn't actualy talking about getting armour on vehicles. For example, only IIRC the line units actualy get the Interceptor armour. The National Guard are often making do with 1970's vintage flack jackets!

Because they are National Guard units not front line fighting forces, the fact they are being used as such means we need to start arming them as such agreeded

Of course then you have the problem that these weapons become harder to hard, harder to assemble, harder to deploy and require far more materials to make. Not to mention are hardly factory quality, they are crude things which are going to start failing mroe as you make them more and more complicated. Even virtual attrition is worth it.

There are photocopyed manuals aviable for SALE on the street over there, there are many folks trained in the Wests as Chemists over there. The What and HOW of how most IED's go from parts to siting on the side of the ride varies from group to group. They don't need to be heavly tested or work 100% of the time, they simply overengineer them(As some of the manuals and lit thats aviable calls for) and use two or three detionators and multiple triggers to insure the fifty pounds of explosives goes off

But as pointed out elsewhere the uparmored HMV's have there own problems from less utility, more expens in gas and repair parts to the biggest worry, Cut down on the vision the occupants making their whole purposes damn near useleses

Err right. Why bother to put armour on at all then? Afterall any armour can be defeated by any explosives! The point is that the Iraqi insurgents have finite supplies and limited yields of explosives. If you armour the vehicles properly, you WILL have a much greater chance of their crews at least surviving then not surviving.The 'leathal' range of the explosives will shrink accordinly, making it just that much easier. I mean troops are not bulletproof even with Interceptor level armour.



So why armour them? Simple, because it saves lives, even if it doesn't save people from injury.

You seem to be missing the great problem of SCALE, why give them Interceptor armor? Because it improves surviabilty by a magintudes, Why not armor them more? Because now they can't move

The problem with the uparmor of the scout cars is they very fact they, A. Need to be able to move fast quickly, something the armor puts a noticble dent, and second they need to be ABLE TO SEE something that Uparmored puts a hellava dent in. So guess what your "Scout Car" Can't see shit, it can survive an explosion or possibly a glancing RPG hit now but can it do its orgional job? No? Got a problem there don't you...

[Petrosjko]

Bean- I would just contend that B-52s are far more useful than B-2s.

[Mr Bean]

Bean- I would just contend that B-52s are far more useful than B-2s.

As was said eariler, the B-2s are the Spec Opps of verison of air power, Say I want to kill a third world Dictator or a World Meeting of Nasty folks, I'm not going to Carpet Bomb the place nor send in a heavly escourted strike mission over several countries they told us we are not allowed to fly through them

No I'm going to send a single four bomber strike mission of B-2s drop two tons worth of explosives on the target and the first clue in ANYONE will have is the fact that they are standing infront of Allah and he looks kinda pissed

Selected destruction is the B-2s secondary mission, after its first strike mission of elimintating the Soviet leadership went away, its ability to destroy any target anywhere without even the slightest warning it one of the single BIGGEST force multipleres we have aviable, WHY IN HELL would you want to get rid of such a thing?

[Chmee]

Bean- I would just contend that B-52s are far more useful than B-2s.

As was said eariler, the B-2s are the Spec Opps of verison of air power, Say I want to kill a third world Dictator or a World Meeting of Nasty folks, I'm not going to Carpet Bomb the place nor send in a heavly escourted strike mission over several countries they told us we are not allowed to fly through them

So, we should spend tens of billions for a weapon system whose primary mission is violating U.S. law? Still illegal to order assassinations in this country, y'know .... I know it's easy to forget, the way the government plays fast and loose with the law and our treaty obligations, but last I looked we're still a nation of laws.

Congress never would have voted the cash to design & build the B-2 as a special ops system, it was the last of the Soviet-penetration strategic bombers at the dieing end of the nuclear triad philosophy .... we've got 'em now, so we might as well make the best possible use of 'em, as we did (and *still* do) with the ancient B-52, but if we had to do it over again, would we spend all that money for the ability to deliver a JDAM in the dead of night over Bumfuckistan? I doubt it.

[Petrosjko]

Well, I have nothing against the assassination of enemy leaders in wartime, but can the same mission not be accomplished with cruise missiles at considerably less expense?

I'm looking at bang for buck here, and those things cost a shitload of bucks for their force multiplication effect.

I'll admit I have a somewhat biased GROPO POV on this. I'm dubious of bombers that aren't useful in tac air roles.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Another problem comes in the form of getting used to cutting the military. Although in the States, this may be a no-no, here it has been custom for cuts to turn up even despite our most massive global distribution of manpower in years and need for newer technology. Once the gov't cuts a few million here and there and sees you deal with it, they assume you can lose a few more million and watch as you (have to) make do with it.

Before you know it, you may have a meagre force with second-rate equipment and still getting budget cuts to the point that the forces fight amongst them selves to avoid them and win funding. I doubt the US military machine will ever see this sorry state anytime soon, but it's one of the risks that come with trimming the fat on the forces.

[Prozac the Robert]

Didn't our last budget actually increase military spending overall?

[MKSheppard]

ABL is flawed because the technology in it doesn't work. Ignoring accuray completly, they still havn't gotten the damn thing to have an airborn (or I think even a GROUND bassed) test firing of the laser! They have had plenty of time. Give them a deadline and a budget. If they can't meet it, scrap it.

Incorrect. Do you even keep up with stuff, in between watching Stargate
SG-1?

Linky

The Airborne Laser (ABL) successfully fired all six modules of the megawatt-class Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL), a landmark achievement

[MKSheppard]

What heap do you think we're on top of? What 'security' are we maintaining, if we're pissing away funds while our kids are malnourished and our jobs are being Wal-Marted away?

The one that really counts; we can affect global change worldwide with
the tanks and aircraft of the US Armed Forces, while Europe is hard put
to affect events in it's own backyard.

[RedImperator]

This is as political as they get. Off to N&P.

[MKSheppard]

So, we should spend tens of billions for a weapon system whose primary mission is violating U.S. law? Still illegal to order assassinations in this country, y'know ....

We're not assassinating them. We're merely destroying hardened bunkers.

If it just happens that they're inhabited by the HMFIC, ooh, bonus!

but if we had to do it over again, would we spend all that money for the ability to deliver a JDAM in the dead of night over Bumfuckistan? I doubt it.

Yes. The B-3 is looking like it will be a high mach bomber, since it looks
like the future of US Strategic Air Power is heavy bombers launching from
CONUS, and 30 hour missions are unaccptabul.

[Beowulf]

The reason the B-2 costs $2 billion is because we bought 21 of them, when Northrop thought we were going to be buying 120 of them. So they built a massive assembly line to mass produce them. In addition, all the costs for R&D have to amortized over the planes. Less planes mean more costs more planes. If we had bought the number of planes we were planning on, they'd cost somewhere around $400 million each.

The original mission for them was to hunt down mobile ICBM launchers. These you can't manage to target with ICBMs. The disappearance of this role is what caused the program to get shrunk.

As for the F-22, of course it's not going to be equalled any time soon. That's the entire fucking point! We'd prefer to spend money, not lives. We really should have somewhere over 300 of them.

[Petrosjko]

The reason the B-2 costs $2 billion is because we bought 21 of them, when Northrop thought we were going to be buying 120 of them. So they built a massive assembly line to mass produce them. In addition, all the costs for R&D have to amortized over the planes. Less planes mean more costs more planes. If we had bought the number of planes we were planning on, they'd cost somewhere around $400 million each.

The original mission for them was to hunt down mobile ICBM launchers. These you can't manage to target with ICBMs. The disappearance of this role is what caused the program to get shrunk.

Thanks for the clarification. So what is your opinion on their current role and effectiveness compared to alternative weapons systems?

[Mr Bean]

So, we should spend tens of billions for a weapon system whose primary mission is violating U.S. law? Still illegal to order assassinations in this country, y'know .... I know it's easy to forget, the way the government plays fast and loose with the law and our treaty obligations, but last I looked we're still a nation of laws.

BZZZZT WRONG Sorry play agian but the illegality of killing World Leaders is a Presidential Order know who can overturn those? The President... Know who can order the "assassination" to begin with? Yep you guessed it... The President

Congress never would have voted the cash to design & build the B-2 as a special ops system, it was the last of the Soviet-penetration strategic bombers at the dieing end of the nuclear triad philosophy .... we've got 'em now, so we might as well make the best possible use of 'em, as we did (and *still* do) with the ancient B-52, but if we had to do it over again, would we spend all that money for the ability to deliver a JDAM in the dead of night over Bumfuckistan? I doubt it.

The fact is, we have them, they work dandy, they don't cost damn near anywhere as much to maintain as they do to invent or create and they do there job damn well

And bumfuckistan? We could use them on ANYONE, not just buckfukistan, China getting frisky agian? First clue in they will have is their troop ships sinking, North Korea threating Nukes? Long as we can find them they won't be a danger as they will be vapor before Kimmy can say Death to America twice

[Mr Bean]

Thanks for the clarification. So what is your opinion on their current role and effectiveness compared to alternative weapons systems?

The ability to put steel on target anywhere in the world in under twenty four hours and do it undetected is unequaled

[Petrosjko]

The ability to put steel on target anywhere in the world in under twenty four hours and do it undetected is unequaled

And I'm still left wondering if we can't achieve the same effect with cruise missiles at less expense, greater saturation of the target area with ordinance as needed, no need for expensive pilots, etc.

There are times and places where I'll agree that the fanciest and shiniest is the answer, such as the F/A-22. But I'm also reminded of how the old A-1 Skyraider had an excellent and lengthy career as a ground support craft extending well into Vietnam, hauling more ordinance than anything short of an F-4 and operating at a fraction of a cost.

And really, our record with decap strikes isn't good enough to base a strategy off of.