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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (326996)	2/22/2007 11:29:17 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573848

"Apparently the new design is three times as fast in water, with twice the armor, greater firepower, and higher speed on land." When these things are said, we're comparing our NEXT weapons system to our PREVIOUS weapons system. At this point in world military history, we're our own competition..

To: tejek who wrote (326996)	2/22/2007 12:58:14 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573848

The specific program is a tiny part of our defense budget and an very tiny part of our overall budget. Blaming budget deficits on this program don't make a lot of sense. If your dropping the issue of this specific program and blaming the deficits on defense in general you have to deal with the facts like Message 23291457 Apparently the new design is three times as fast in water, with twice the armor, greater firepower, and higher speed on land. Who cares? Tim, who cares? Are we planning to invade an island nation? The marines who have to use them care. The old LVT7s are very vulnerable. We might have some need to deploy forces on island nations in the future. Such capability has been part of the American military since at least WWII. I don't think we should get rid of it. Also amphibious landings are just for island nations, the vehicles are not solely useful for amphibious landings. Why the hell do we need a $1.7 billion amphib. vehicle The vehicles will not cost anywhere near $1.7bil each. If they would I would strongly support your idea of canceling the project, but it would probably be unnecessary as it would probably already be canceled. and it doesn't even work right Its still under development. As for the possibility that it might not ever work right, or that it will take to much time and money to make it work right, I've already responded to that issue - "I don't know a lot about this specific system. I won't try to call it a good system, or the money spent a good deal, because I really don't know if either is true. OTOH $2bil for a major new weapons system isn't a very high amount of money (although perhaps this $2bil was spent with almost nothing accomplished in terms of getting a good workable design, in that case it would be a waste)" Could we benefit from more efficient processes and more cost containment? Yes. Will this program be a success? I don't know. If the weapon isn't going to work, then of course we don't need it. If costs for this particular program spiral out of control, then it probably should be canceled. Both of those things are separate issues from the utility of an amphibious fighting vehicle or whether paying $1.7bil for the development of a new weapon's system is a massive waste of funds if the weapon system does work.