You are not going to operate a 65 Million dollar Helicopter out of a hot LZ. Just too vulnerable.
That is an old number. It has gone up. Paying $65 million for a flying truck is an outrage in and of itself. The fact that it is a very small truck makes it ridiculous.
I understand, including development, the actual cost so far is way far north of $100 million per each.
A couple of years ago a new combat ready Chinook cost between $24 - $32 million depending on how many older chinook frame parts were used.
The army's aviation battalions do hot LZ insertions and extractions every day and every night with Chinooks and these birds carry the vehicles the Osprey cannot.
The Chinook can carry an artillery platoon and sling load a howitzer.
The Osprey can carry one growler, one trailer mounted mortar tube, and 4 troops.
In another amazing piece of planning, the growler vehicle designed to tow the mortar can carry only 2 troops.
I guess the other 2 Marines run behind. See picture link below.
The only originally valid argument for the Osprey is it flies longer distances.
Why bother flying longer, if you can't insert anything worth while once you get there.
If you could insert, how many small Marine patrols want to be inserted on foot 250 miles from their back up support?
Notice you don't hear about the distance factor any more.
Now that they added refueling capability to so many army helicopters, the distance factor is no longer relevant.
You can now fly an army Chinook from Norfolk to Baghdad with a rifle squad and 3 upfitted humvees.
The Chinook is a helluva lot cheaper and better armed to protect itself.
Try that with an Osprey.
The Osprey can make it from Norfolk to Bermuda with 4 men and 1 growler.
Here are few more facts about the Osprey.
The army saw it was not appropriate and left the program in 1988.
In the first 2 years, the planned development cost went from an initial estimate of <$3Billion to >$28 Billion and kept rising from there.
If you include that upfront cost and the cost of the early crashes, there is no telling how much these suckers actually cost.
The original Osprey avionics package was outdated when they built it. Now they are all scheduled for an expensive avionics change out in 2014.
They are also planning to change engines because the Osprey does not have the power to fly in the mountains of Afghanistan. The Chinook does those missions.
New avionics and new engines will add $ millions more to cost. No value is given to the down time.
There are some genuine reasons we have been using Chinooks since the 60s. Armies all over the world still buy them.
DOD bought an expensive albatross when they bought the Osprey. They bought useless pieces of junk, that now sit in motorpools and rust, when they bought the growler.
Here are some pictures of the growler. Look at the tiny things. DOD paid over $100,000 each. Look at the little mortar trialer.
Each Osprey can carry one growler, one mortar trailer and 4 troops.
But they can't do that because as soon as they got to Iraq, the growlers were determined to be unsafe for combat ops and all were grounded.
We got screwed.
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