Bishop Steiner, on 12 July 2017 - 12:09 AM, said:
sweet ,1 out of the 4 (5 if you consider the one article with Sprey had a co author)sources you have issue with. Duly noted... and even if a guy is a tool, doesn't mean he's wrong, especially when it seem sot be a pretty common theme about that tugboat.
But go ahead and drink the koolaid...
Murica don't make mistakes amirite?
No need for that sort of post. Sprey isn't just a tool, he is frequently wrong and extremely biased on certain topics, like the F-35.
I don't know if the article you linked (about the Gerald Ford) that he co-authored has anything wrong with it, but his criticism of the F-35 is hilariously bad.
As for the Gerald Ford, it's catapult problems are well known and talked about. I expect they will eventually be able to fix the problems if given enough time and money, although it is quite debatable if it is going to be worth it.
And for the topic of 'real world boondoggles',
every military has had its procurement/development program screwups, the US military really isn't anything special or unusual in that regard.
Eg, look at the British military boondoggles:
L85A1 rifle, only fixed after basically redesigning most of the rifle
Nimrod AEW3, cancelled after a decade of work and over £
1 billion spent
Eurofighter Typhoon, good plane but horribly overpriced (substantially more expensive than even the F-35)
Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier; they decided to be cheap and build the things without a catapult, so they can only operate helicopters and STOVL planes, which means they are limited to the F-35B with much lower fuel and weapons loads than the F-35C, nor will they have fixed-wing early-warning and tanker aircraft available. Final result: the ship's air wing will be as limited as that of the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov class.
Or my own Australia:
Collins class submarines; built in Australia for political reasons (gotta give those ship-builders jobs to do for all those workers!), which resulted in numerous defects.
Anzac class frigate; for some reason, the RAN built the majority of their surface fleet with ships that were armed with just a 5" gun and 8 near worthless Sea Sparrow SAMs, only later spending money to fit them with Harpoon anti-ship missiles and upgrading the SAMs to 32 much better performing Evolved Sea Sparrows... still a bit underarmed, but not as worthless as it used to be.
Hobart class frigate; built in Australia again, severe mismanagement and manufacturing faults has delayed the commissioning of the first ship from 2014 to 2017.
Sea Sprite; 11 helicopters purchased for $667 AUD in 1997, the helicopters ended up being horribly defective and unsuited for their intended role, and were never used before being scrapped.
ARH Tiger; 22 helicopters bought for $1.1 billion AUD in 2001, entered service in 2004 but didn't achieve 'Final Operational Capability' until 2016, and are going to be retired early, just a few years from now. Reasons for that is numerous deficiencies, such as rocket launcher pods dropping off mid-flight, a datalink that isn't compatible with other ADF equipment and horrible reliability.
Edited by Zergling, 12 July 2017 - 02:43 AM.
111
