Comments on: Defense Budget Duck and Weave

By: jtw

jtw — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 01:54:45 +0000

I would like to see their justification for all of this money. I would like to see the rundown of how each dollar is spent.
I think we are going on 300+ billion for the war in Iraq. I would like to see how that money was spent.
Example:
10 billion for small arms and ammunition.
40 billion for total air transport flights — 111,000 total flights.
30 billion for sea transport operations — 2500 total transports.
15 billion for rockets.
9 billion for guided missiles.
And then an average cost per item. If you spent 9 billion on guided missiles and you have exhausted 4000 missiles in operation, what is the total cost of each weapon.
I would really like some insight into all of this because to me it seems like a conspiracy and all of this money is getting dumped somewhere. Or we are way overcharging ourselves and someone is making massive PROFIT.

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 01:35:02 +0000

Yay, a overmechanized force. I can see the motive behind the push for robots.
It’s difficult to see the need for new equipment in time of peace and when you’re a superpower, but history tells tales of woe, of those who were armed with tankettes when the enemy had panzers. Or people who expected to fight in static war when they got hit with blitz war (and lost with better equipment).
Rummy was going to “skip the next generation” and go with the next-next generation of gear. That was fine with most of us. It is unlikely that we are going to war against a major power anytime soon, so it would seem fruitless to keep having four of every class of new generation of ship.
For example is our sub force. We have a bunch of LA class. Then SeaWolf during the Cold War, program terminating with…what was it, two subs? Then the Virginia, terminating with a unknown number of ships. It is silly to increment so quickly and have so few of each ship, when we should be testing technologies and then building en masse once we are, quote, “ready”. Otherwise funding every generation of military system would give us a jalopy of weapons of varying “Generation” cycle.

By: Byron Skinner

Byron Skinner — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:30:49 +0000

Good Afternoon Folks,
Nothing like the fiction of a QDR to lively things up a little. A few items not quite mentioned but should be.
The Navy currently has a fleet of 261 ship according to non-pentagon sources not the 281 the CNO Mullens claim to have. Of course there could be a ghost fleet some where, but I doubt it.
I think the Admiral is just repeating what he has been scripted for and didn’t bother to count ships. When interested parties finally get around to counting boats and the Admiral come up short he can always plead he was just following orders. After all we know that CNO’s are not paid to count boats.
To expand the U.S. Navy to 315 ships with only a net gain of two ships a year, Admiral Mullens figures, none of us will be around to see 315 ships again. That is unless you count the “Rubber Duckie” Zodiacs as comissioned ships of the U.S. Navy.
DD51’s are being build at a pace that the last one will yet to be build when the first of the class is being retired from service. The net loss to the submarine fleet of new boats vs. boats retired is such that by 2020 the U.S. will have no submarines.
An interesting point regarding submarines is that right now there is no “next generation” of submarines in the drawing and design stage of development. That is a first since the Navy started buying submarines with the U.S.S. Holland.
Found out why the big rush for the F-22. The F-15’s are no longer considered by the USAF to be combat capable. The reason being “…cracks and metal fatigue, they are flown only under speed restrictions for fear of losing their vertical fins…” It appears that this “problem” shows up after about fifteen years of service, the average age of an F-15C is now eighteen years old.
The F-15 will still be ok to bring down and air liner now and then though.
The fix is known but is way to expensive, the problem is a design flaw not really material weakness. To fix the problem the back half of the airframe would have to be rebuilt. The hedge right now is the current budget has been to reopened the F-15 line in St. Louis and to keep it open till at least 2009, all depending on the F-22 buys.
So the next time we read where two Euro Fighters jumping a couple of F-15’s and bettering them we have a reason or when the Indian build SU-27’s kick F-15 bu** again.
The U.S. Army is so confident in the FCS that it spent almost a $100Million last calender year to reopen the Abrams and Bradley lines and the current budget includes 100 more Strykers, you know the Interm Fughting Vehicle. To pay for all this the administration wants to cut another 30K troops from the Army.
A future Army might look like a motor pool full of new Armored Vehicles but no soldiers to crew them.
Is this a great country or what?
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 18:05:55 +0000

Regarding new F-22: If I actually knew about it, it wouldn’t be top secret anymore. During the Cold War Americans didn’t know about the U-2 until it was blasted out of the sky.
For the DoD number, it appears to be a seriously flawed figure (which I will retract now). In 2003, about 93.9 million out of 365 million of Discretionary Budget Authority (discounting supplementals) went to personnel. Emergency and Non-Emergency Supplementals is the 72 million that Kerry “voted for before [he] voted against it”. The calculation pegs the 2003 figure as only 25%.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/defense.htmlhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/defense.html

By: Murc

Murc — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 05:44:07 +0000

Charles — 40%!!! are you sure about that…that seems rediculously high.
And any links or info on the “supposed” top secret jet better then the F-22A
I’ve never heard that.
oh and “d.l. greening” — I often wonder if liberals and left wing can even talk without bush bashing spewing our of there ignorant mouths.

By: d.l. greening

d.l. greening — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 05:12:15 +0000

what do you expect from our misbegotten chicken hawk republican polititions. if it does not benifit big business and the wealthy, it is not needed or necesary.

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:49:20 +0000

Something’s gotta go, and maybe it’ll be the F-22 (soon to be superseded by top secret Skunk Works prototype).
The DoD needs to start shifting more and more jobs to civilians to reduce the amount of government workers, and in the long run, government benefits etc.; and more bases should be consolidated and people let go. Carlton Meyer has (or used to have) a list of possible savings, including some force redeployments, closing of obsolete headquarters and so forth.
Rumsfeld knows full well it’s easier to get a bigger bucket of water than wring it out of a towel, even one as big and wet as the DoD (of course, around 40% of the DoD’s budget is human resources like payroll and healthcare, which for the moment remains untouchable)