The Pentagon recently sent Congress a $1.7 billion reprogramming request. These are areas where the services take fiscal 2007 money away from some programs that can afford to be delayed, canceled or restructured and transfer those dollars to help boost other programs that can be sped up or more robustly fielded.
You can read more in-depth coverage of the reprogramming from the good folks over at Inside Defense, but here are some of the major moves:
Army Decreases:
$155 million in Reserve mobilizations due to reduction in needed forces by about 15,000 troops.
$92 million in Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter funding.
$4.6 in precision guided mortar funding.
Marine Corps Reductions:
$23 million for Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.
$17 million for CH-53K Super Stallion.
Air Force Reductions:
$128 million for B-2 radar modernization.
$123 million cut from CSAR-X due to protest delays.
Army Increases:
$84 million to purchase 40 Strykers.
$38 million to purchase 38 Bradley fighting vehicles.
$16 million to speed up Viper Strike munitions for Hunter UAVs.
$3.9 million for AGM-114 Hellfire missiles to arm Warrior UAVs.
$23 million for Excalibur guided-155mm rounds.
Air Force Increases:
$129 million for increased fuel costs.
$12 million for Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
$6 million for LaserJDAM.
$22 million for Focused Lethality Munitions.
Navy Increases:
$205 million for Littoral Combat Ship.
$10 million for increased biometric equipment purchases.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I have to wonder how much of a dent $4.60 is going to make in the Mortor budget for the army. I mean a standard Mortor round cost more than that….:)
does anyone know why a stryker would cost more than double that of a bradley?? no doubt economy of scale would play into that (making the bradley cost less), but are the electronics in the stryker that much more exspensive?
So the Marines are just get the cuts, while the other branches get to “re direct” there funds. GO FIGURE!
Good Evening Folks,
Good question, “…why is the Stryker costing more then double the price of the Bradley?”
Let’s see the Army contrats with General Dynamics for the Stryker, GD sub contracts the manufacturing to General Motors, who pass along the sub-contract for manufacuring to GM Canada in London Onterio, Stryker production is keepping two plants going 24/7. The reason is that in Canada they pays a lower wage and no health insurence (the Canadian taxpayer is subsidizeing the Stryker).
What this is for someone needing a picture drawn is that both General Dynamics and General Motors USA are makeing there 10% over and above costs for, well doing nothing.
The American worker is getting screwed because his Government won’t have a Canadian style universal single payer healtcare plan so he is not competative with his Canadian brother/sisters.
Thats what you get when the chiel lobyists for the American Healthcare ripoff is the Senate Majority Leader, one Bill Frist.
The real question is why didn’t the Army just award the contract directly to GM Canada and be done with it?
Oh yea, I forgot, the stock holders of GD would see the value of their stock go up as much, after all when you do nothing and get paid for it it’s called profit, sorry why didn’t I see that at the begaining.
ALLONS,
Byron
“The American worker is getting screwed because his Government won’t have a Canadian style universal single payer healtcare plan so he is not competative with his Canadian brother/sisters. ”
You’re absolutely correct-after all we don’t build anything here in the States! Boeing, GM, Toyota, Microsoft, GE, Honda and ALL the world’s companies have left the US!
Get real Byron, the American worker is just as competitive-he just doesn’t need to drive to the border to get competant and timely medical treatment.
The free market rules………
Byron,
I’m a Canadian, and I’m extremely offended by your characterization of Canadian workers as “cheap scab labour.” Do you have any idea of how much cross-border trade takes place between the US and Canada? This is not a case of a trade deficit – just about anything the US buys in Canada, Canada buys an equal sum in return. The US Army is using Stryker armoured vehicles made in Canada because Canada started using them first, and the production capability was already in place. Those workers are still unionized, and the “free” health care you refer to is paid through their taxes, which are significantly higher than what you pay south of the border. The Canadian military has also recently placed orders for C-17s, C-130Js, and Sikorsky helicopters – all American-made. I don’t know what personal issues you’re suffering to warrant an attack on Canadians, but I suggest you deal with it and get your facts straight before trying to sling invective.
byron you are an ignorant fool.
nothing is cheap in canada, especially scabs.
Good Morning Folks,
Gee folks, I’m really sorry for casting disparageing remarks towards our neighbors to the north. After all here is a country that gives safe harbor to American military deserters, lets terroists cross the border who attempt to blow up out airports, refuse to back us in our struggles in Iraq, high Government Official calling our President a moron, put restrictive duties on our goods to protect their noncompetive industries and on and on… How crass of me to protest the loss of from 5-10K American Auto workers jobs by calling the Governement subsidized labor of Canadia “SCABS”.
As far as product quality goes, well if the condoms made in American and sent to Canadia had the same failure rate as the Canadian made Stryker there would be a lot more Canadians.
I mean look what they sent us in return Celion Dion.
Again I’m so sorry, but don’t worry the next time your boutique country tries to play with the big guys of Europe and gets it butt kicked all over the place the big dumb good old boys to the south will be there to cover your six and you can return to being the ungrateful neighbor that we down here have come to love.
As always I’m looking foward to November when the Canadian Snowbirds flock south to live free off my taxes on the public lands (the slabs) of the Southwestern American Desert.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Sure seems like alot of canadians are in my hospital in Minnesota.
Byron Skinner you are a red neck.
lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if this is how americans talk about their allies, no wonder they have so few.
doesn’t know who his friends are, no concept of history.
byron are you running the war in iraq?
I see all services are cutting funds to spend money on more important areas in the war. However the Marine Corps cuts funds but no increase for important programs. All the other services cut programs but then increase funds more than what they initially cut in the beginning. More crap from DOD, why don’t you give funds to the force that is really fighting the war like the Marine Corps. These guys are the only true patriots of this war all the other services are inmaterial. Another thing it just amazes me how easy it is for the DOD to spend unnecessary funds or for some military men to get unbelievable retirement packages. However marines who are on the front lines get wounded, get nothing incompensation for their sacrifice it is disgusting.
Mike,
I think you need to step back and think about what you say before you start typing it for the whole world to see. Let me start off by saying my father is a Marine and always will and I am a Airman and always will. Money is being put into programs so we will not lose the marines on the front lines. Todays wars are not fought with hand to hand combat, that is what makes us not a third world country.
I think the Marines spent to much on the V-22, but it was forced on them whether the wanted it or not. Politics’s force the military to buy a lot of junk or substandard products they don’t want.
$84 million to purchase 40 Strykers.
$38 million to purchase 38 Bradley fighting vehicles.
At half the price you get a lot more vehicle with the Bradleys than the Strykers. of course the Bradleys can’t be transported on a C-130 but news flash: neither can the Strykers. If the choice is between saving a few gallons of gas on the highway and soldiers comming home alive I’d rather take the Bradleys and the survivability that goes with them.
Why do strykers cost twice as much? They have a very innefficient, over complicated, and unrelaible drive train. While the Bradley’s have a very efficient traditional drive train well suited to medium weight combat vehicles. The Bradley drive train is also lighter and lower profile. The Strykers have to compensate for the weight and other problems with expensive materials. Yes there are fancy computers in the Strykers but those same computer systems can go in any vehicle.
And… buying the Strykers was not some mass conspiracy to ship jobs to Canada or pad GMs pockets. General Shinseki said he envisioned an all wheeled force and that is what the Colonels gave him. After all, if the General want the soldiers to be “tired” they get “tired”.
As a soldier who has worked out of both Bradleys and Strykers, I’d take the Stryker eight days a week given the choice. It’s quiet, fast, survivable and roomy, things I cannot say about the Bradley. In addition, it can self-deploy at 60+ MPH versus be transported on a low-boy semi when going any significant distance. Like any military vehicle, the Stryker is a compromise and there are improvements that can (and should) be made.
I don’t understand the anger towards the Canadians. They’re stand-up folks who are there when the rubber meets the road and the crap hits the fan. I have fought beside Canadians in numerous corners of the world and think them to be world class soldiers.
The Stryker was built on an existing production line and was able to be delivered quickly. Why build a redundant factory in the US to produce the same product, resulting in a higher cost?
And I think the “scab job” argument is the standard UAW whine-fest about somebody taking their jobs. The decay of the American auto industry is a result of three factors: global economic forces, greedy unions and poor management that can’t seem to produce a world-class product at the appropriate time.
If a Canadian Deserter fled to the U.S., would we send him or her back upon recieving a request from Canada, YES. Will Canda do the same, NO.
Yes, I am a veteran, a 4 year Navy enlistee. I am
proud of the fact that I served my country and did not run to Canada. I enlisted at a time when the Draft was still in use. Four years and an Honorable discharge as an E-5
To the Canadian. Get real or we will cut off your AID Package.
AS for myself, being from english,scot,irish
and native American stock, plus being married to
a canadian,this is still the best country on earth,sure we have our faults, but at least we are
allowed to have them,have traveled the world,put a few years in the U.S. Army during the last little conflict,that took 158,000 of our best.
WE must protect this country above all else,if we lose a few of our so called civil liberties,so be it. after nam they thought no one would harm us,so they cut our military budgets to the bone,see where that got us, it will work out in the end, I just pray we will still be here
Byron,
Your xenophobia and pride betrays your apology to our Canadian friend. Also, though you have Presbyterian heritage, you do not know anything about the Covenanters (the original Rednecks) who DID not like to kill Indians or French Canadians and who upheld the State including with taxes.
Canada was right to “harbor” Confederate spies and discuss collaboration as the US was not on the moral ground during the Civil War.
My submissions sometimes were too ambitious and therefore it took one of my oldest creations, the Pits of Inferno, several years to be properly added cheap Tibia coins into the game. At some point along the road I turned my hobby into my profession and I was officially hired by the newly founded company CipSoft.