Yeah, that would be a circular firing squad…
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F-35 is cheaper than many think
Around $110 down to $86 million, partners who paid in the development stage pay less.
Compare that to the Eurofighter where the german parliament approved the purchase of the fighter to replace the old Tornado aircraft, at a cost of $125 million each !!
Further the F-35 has all its variants developed, including an Electronic Warfare version. The german government is having to keep tornado in service to fulfill that role until a eurofighter version is developed, which obviously is going to cost.
Brilliant design !!
Ain’t that the truth
As the technology advances, so does the cost. Compare cost for what you get. Find the cost for a P-51, an F-4 and an F-35. How expensive were they for their time? I bet we could make a P-51 for about 1/2 million dollars. Think of how many we could build for the cost of an F-35. However I would not think a few squadrons of P-51s would do well against an F-35. As the technology advances so does the advantage. If you do not keep up then there is a decided advantage to the other guy. You can upgrade for a while but that is only a delaying action. When you start production, you should also start designing its replacement. The cost inflation of technology is what hastened the demise of the old Soviet Union. You reach a point where you can no longer play. We will reach that point one day.
I have a problem with multi-mission planes. They may save money but cannot perform those assorted tasks to the same level of excellence as the specialized planes they replace.
A Leatherman tool is fine if you have nothing else, but I’d rather have a proper knife, saw and screw driver.
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Sad but true. It is a shame that those that come up with these brilliant policy changes aren’t the ones in harm’s way so that they could prove their case with the minimum amount of blood. Or not.
A good friend of mine who was a Marine back in the 1980s is still gnashing his teeth over this one. I think that he would miss the air assets the most, being as he was just a rifleman and appreciated anything that could see and destroy anything up ahead before it got to him. Take care and keep on building!
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just some random side thoughts
does the US really require TWO armies as that is what the current marines set up appears to be, surely a single structure with complementary skill sets makes more sense?
Also reducing the numbers but improving their quality makes sense? I refer here to a recent training exercise between 100 British marines who comprehensively smashed 1500 US marines and the exercise was actually ended DAYS before anticipated such was the speed of the British victory
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I’d be curious to know more about this exercise. Can you be more specific?
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Strike squad of just 100 Brit Marines smashed 1,500 US troops in war games drill (thesun.co.uk)
Only 100 Brit Marine Strike Squads smash 1,500 U.S. forces in war game training - Eminetra.co.uk
of course, Royal Marines are special forces as opposed to US marines being general forces but the thought of reducing numbers to specialise and ths be more effective may be worth considering
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Wow that was very interesting. Something to think about…
I have no dog in this fight so please don’t be offended folks as none is intended, but I would echo Stewart comments on two armies. In addition to the quality versus quantity, does this not also mean more effort into integration and interoperability across all services??
I trust The Sun about as much the National Enquirer. Its trash journalism at its worse so take anything they say with a massive grain of salt.
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cannot argue that !!!
Reminds me of the predetermined ambush training scene in “Heartbreak Ridge”.
I don’t think - at the moment - the Royal Marines qualitfy as SF per se; they have been given a new, dynamic role and have been extensively re-equipped and re-organised, but they are still a Brigade Group with intrinsic support and logistic elements that come from the Regular Army. That they are highly trained and concomitantly motivated is without question, but from my perspective are not SF.
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Yeah I don’t know anything about Brit newspapers but there’s no details of the exercise. I wonder to what degree it was scripted. Not taking anything away from either force when I say that.
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Yes “and always this is where we die” or something to that affect lol
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I didn’t realize til some years after I was in the Army how much our exercises were scripted.
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