US Politics Doctors begin to refuse osamacare

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by LSUTiga, Aug 4, 2014.

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  1. Winston1

    Winston1 Founding Member

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    No it won't be scrapped and you're partially right it is exceptional...exceptionally poorly conceived. As Halloween Run noted below it multi tasked design leads to issues with each that make it second rate in each. It's software incomplete and is liable for hacking and it isn't stealthy against the latest versions of Russian & Chinese radar. As noted earlier there are airframe cracks that have keep it grounded engine issues.
    It is years behind schedule and couldn't even be sent to Farmsbourough this summer for a static display. It was to be in service now but no one can predict when it will be if ever. It has been as poorly managed weapons acquisition program as any in history and it delays, cost and performance issues are exponentially greater than the norm. In fact the number of F-35s that will be built keeps being reduced as the cost goes up. That is all from openly published information released by the Pentagon & Lockheed Martin...I wonder what the classified stuff says.

    Back to the main point Red it is one of many many examples of poor management and leadership in the Obama administration's record.
     
    Winston1, Aug 6, 2014
    #41
  2. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    This is true, but all the other airpowers had to go to multi-mission aircraft decades ago. The kind of mission-specific planes we had in the 1960's . . . well, those days are just over. The planes this aircraft will go up against will have many of the same limitations. Mostly its going to be a strike fighter anyway.

    I tend to agree with this. I think its because some of our major allies can only afford STOL carriers and we wanted their business. I am sometimes amazed at the pull that the Marines have in the Navy. With our current shortage of surface combatants, its hard to understand why we need a huge amphibious warfare capability anymore. There ain't going to be any more Normandy's and probably not any Iwo Jimas either. Its a big expense better spent elsewhere. We had a division afloat during The Gulf War and they couldn't be used due to risk. But we keep building expensive dock ships and high-tech landing craft.

    The entire defense industry is in league with this kind of politics. One of the reason that every other major weapons system is so expensive is that so many of its components had to be farmed out to manufacturers in local districts to get political support.
     
    red55, Aug 6, 2014
    #42
  3. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    And vice-versa. It only has to be better than the competition and it will be.

    Yes, I heard you the first time. I repeat for you . . . this is business as usual regarding major weapons systems in this era. We developed and deployed the P-51 in less than a year in WWII. Now it takes 20 years. The sophistication of these aircraft is expensive and it evolves over time.

    This another example of the military-industrial complex which had bedeviled every President since Eisenhower. The F-35 preceded Obama by a decade and will be here decades after he is gone. You can't pin all of this entrenched system on him. If he has stopped the F-35, the GOP would scream bloody murder about it and you know it! Look at the crap Obama took when he ended production of the even more expensive F-22, even though we had all that we needed.
     
    red55, Aug 6, 2014
    #43
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  4. LSUsupaFan

    LSUsupaFan Founding Member

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    What choice do they have? The parties are practically identical and nearly equally terrible. If you vote at all you are voting against your best interests.
     
    LSUsupaFan, Aug 6, 2014
    #44
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  5. HalloweenRun

    HalloweenRun Founding Member

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    I don't think you can blame this one on OBAMA. Except tangentially. The Congress is the great Satan here. They want money for their district and their backers and Procurement money is the best. They push for this stuff, not to save America, but to save their sorry asses and get themselves re-elected. The savvy and even not so savvy officer ranks understand that if a Congressman is pushing for a widget, the officer better be for it too, or else stuff he has to have to work will be cut. I did this shit for seven years. I know. It is the Congress that appropriates the money, not Obama.

    Quick story: We had to provide reams of program and budget documentation to the Congress. There was a pet program in one of our organizations, worthless, but it had high congressional support. Guess what, the contractor was in the guy's district. Anyway, we sent over the main, three inch thick book, and within a week, we got a BLAST from the Congressman's aids that we had not included, I think it was called JNIDS, in our submission, and that Naval Intelligence would pay the price for snubbing the Congressman.

    I swear to God this is true. Turns out JNIDS was on the next page of the book. The organization's program started on one page, and continued to the next.

    The assholes had not even turned the friggin page, before they were threatening to cut funding significantly in retaliation. I was banned by several admirals from answering that Congressional Correspondence since they knew, even on my best behavior, it would have been a thinly veiled, "Fuck You." Swear to God.

    So that is the playing field, and this was a chicken shit $10 million program. They are a dime a dozen.
     
    HalloweenRun, Aug 7, 2014
    #45
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  6. HalloweenRun

    HalloweenRun Founding Member

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    The problem Red, is that no other air power has the breadth of our missions. Unfortunately.
     
    HalloweenRun, Aug 7, 2014
    #46
  7. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    Again true. But you can only stretch a dollar so far. More importantly, missions evolve more rapidly than procurement of major weapons systems. 20 years ago, who would have imagined that the strategic bombing mission would be gone and unmanned aircraft flown by sergeants in Kansas would be the teeth of the Air Force? Who imagined now that total stealth was ephemeral and that air superiority fighters will soon be unmanned as well? But it is a fact.

    These F-35's will have to do ground support like an A-10, the STOL versions might actually be pretty good at that. It will have to bomb ground targets like an F-16 and fight other aircraft like an F-15. It will have to operate from ships like the Harrier and the F-18. It will do none of these jobs as well as its predecessor, with the exception of the F-16 and the Harrier, but it will do them all well enough to defeat the competition.

    At least, that is the plan . . . And its probably time for some mission shrink, as well. It's too expensive to be a 1960's type of Superpower and there is not a 1960's kind of threat to deal with.
     
    red55, Aug 7, 2014
    #47
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