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Sturgeon's House

Aerospace Pictures and Art Thread


LostCosmonaut

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23 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Piper Enforcer:

 

37028129564_8473339a61_b.jpg

 

One of many from an excellent post at Britmodeller:  http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235028128-piper-enforcer/&tab=comments#comment-2848088

Much as I love it, it came decades too late. 

 

It's all about the "big bux=Big bang" now.

 

 

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Yup, I remember fondly reading a frothy article in one of our UK rags about how the RAF had bravely dropped a £300K Brimstone Missile on three dudes in a Hilux, from a Tornado that had flown from fucking Cyprus! 

 

It would probably be cheaper to kill these c***s by dropping gold bars on them from orbit! 

 

/Rant Over 

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23 minutes ago, Meplat said:

Much as I love it, it came decades too late. 

 

It's all about the "big bux=Big bang" now.

 

3 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Yup, I remember fondly reading a frothy article in one of our UK rags about how the RAF had bravely dropped a £300K Brimstone Missile on three dudes in a Hilux, from a Tornado that had flown from fucking Cyprus! 

 

It would probably be cheaper to kill these c***s by dropping gold bars on them from orbit! 

 

/Rant Over 

 

Not really. Most of the ordnance efforts over the past decade and a half have been devoted to lower cost, more organic fires than higher cost ones. That's why, for example, the Stryker Dragoon has a 30mm cannon on top. As the PM said to me "it's better to fire a $200 round at a truck than a $200,000 missile."

The problem came because all of the ordnance in inventory in the early 2000s was designed to fight a peer threat. A $200,000 missile makes sense if it's taking out a $5 million T-90. It's so cost effective at that, in fact, that it is also worth using against trucks and other less expensive vehicles in that environment, because the trucks are fairly expensive (a truck in a proper military will be $100,000 or more), as are the personnel. So you didn't need smaller, more cost-effective weapons. In the planned environment, versus a peer threat, you could use Javelin, Hellfire, etc pretty liberally without too much issue.

Of course, once you get to Iraq and Afghanistan, the targets are $2,000 trucks manned by freshly recruited nobodies with training costs equivalent to their breakfast that morning. Not only that, but there aren't any more expensive targets balancing them out. Once Saddam's army was toast, that was it. The most costly enemy vehicle you could hope to see was a rusted out surplus T-55 dug up from somewhere in the desert.

 

The cost disparity became obvious pretty quick, which is why programs like APKWS (unit cost less than $30,000), M395 PGMM (unit cost less than $10,000), M1156 PGK (unit cost less than $10,000), and others were begun. Note that all three of those programs were begun in the mid-2000s, all of them offered cost savings versus the ordnance previously being used for that mission, and all of them have been in service for several years now.

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43 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

 

Not really. Most of the ordnance efforts over the past decade and a half have been devoted to lower cost, more organic fires than higher cost ones. That's why, for example, the Stryker Dragoon has a 30mm cannon on top. As the PM said to me "it's better to fire a $200 round at a truck than a $200,000 missile."

The problem came because all of the ordnance in inventory in the early 2000s was designed to fight a peer threat. A $200,000 missile makes sense if it's taking out a $5 million T-90. It's so cost effective at that, in fact, that it is also worth using against trucks and other less expensive vehicles in that environment, because the trucks are fairly expensive (a truck in a proper military will be $100,000 or more), as are the personnel. So you didn't need smaller, more cost-effective weapons. In the planned environment, versus a peer threat, you could use Javelin, Hellfire, etc pretty liberally without too much issue.

Of course, once you get to Iraq and Afghanistan, the targets are $2,000 trucks manned by freshly recruited nobodies with training costs equivalent to their breakfast that morning. Not only that, but there aren't any more expensive targets balancing them out. Once Saddam's army was toast, that was it. The most costly enemy vehicle you could hope to see was a rusted out surplus T-55 dug up from somewhere in the desert.

 

The cost disparity became obvious pretty quick, which is why programs like APKWS (unit cost less than $30,000), M395 PGMM (unit cost less than $10,000), M1156 PGK (unit cost less than $10,000), and others were begun. Note that all three of those programs were begun in the mid-2000s, all of them offered cost savings versus the ordnance previously being used for that mission, and all of them have been in service for several years now.

You're applying "practicality", where I am talking "marketability". 

 

Big projects mean big taxpayer bux., and assured re-election for congresscritters.  Offering "cheap, durable and efficient" is not how you get Mil contracts. 

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1 hour ago, Meplat said:

You're applying "practicality", where I am talking "marketability". 

 

Big projects mean big taxpayer bux., and assured re-election for congresscritters.  Offering "cheap, durable and efficient" is not how you get Mil contracts. 

 

We're talking ordnance so 'durable' doesn't really play into it in the traditional sense. Besides that, you're overemphasizing the role of flashy marketing. Yes, that's a thing, and it's everywhere, and it has an effect (see: ISCR, overmatch, etc), but when you get down to brass tacks there are a lot of checks in procurement that usually put roadblocks in front of that sort of thing. Again, the examples I listed before (APKWS, M395, M1156, Stryker Dragoon) all sprung from studies showing exactly what you're talking about being a directed concern. Requirements were generated from those concerns, which led to procurement of inexpensive (relatively) precision guided weapons.

Of course what you're talking about is a real thing, and it does lead to massive waste and is especially frustrating for someone like me. But think about it: The US military has been driving Abramses (a pretty simple and unambitious design, all things considered!) for almost 40 years, flying AH-64s for 30 years, H-60s for almost 40 years, B-52s and C-130s and a number of other birds for over 50 years, and in small arms they've been using the same family of weapons since the early 1960s continuously upgrading them and renewing the fleet during that time... So thrift, durability, reusability, and "cheap and good enough" are all major factors in military procurement as well.

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2 hours ago, Xlucine said:

Only £80k per brimstone:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-used-18-7m-worth-brimstone-missiles-islamic-state/#

£18.7m / 230 missiles = £81k. Probably talking about dual-mode brimstone, from the timeframe, but it's not certain.

 

Cheap at twice the price!

 

But I stand corrected.....Blame the red-tops.

 

PS - @Sturgeon  Don't forget the .50cal.....Coming up on a century in service depending on how you want to do your dating.  :o

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31 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

We're talking ordnance so 'durable' doesn't really play into it in the traditional sense. Besides that, you're overemphasizing the role of flashy marketing. Yes, that's a thing, and it's everywhere, and it has an effect (see: ISCR, overmatch, etc), but when you get down to brass tacks there are a lot of checks in procurement that usually put roadblocks in front of that sort of thing. Again, the examples I listed before (APKWS, M395, M1156, Stryker Dragoon) all sprung from studies showing exactly what you're talking about being a directed concern. Requirements were generated from those concerns, which led to procurement of inexpensive (relatively) precision guided weapons.

Of course what you're talking about is a real thing, and it does lead to massive waste and is especially frustrating for someone like me. But think about it: The US military has been driving Abramses (a pretty simple and unambitious design, all things considered!) for almost 40 years, flying AH-64s for 30 years, H-60s for almost 40 years, B-52s and C-130s and a number of other birds for over 50 years, and in small arms they've been using the same family of weapons since the early 1960s continuously upgrading them and renewing the fleet during that time... So thrift, durability, reusability, and "cheap and good enough" are all major factors in military procurement as well.

 

Just remind yourself, "someone had to SELL said deigns first. ".

 

And if you don not think that involved everything up to and including ribery and or sodomy , well..

 

I made 5000+ cans for the Canucks. I know the guy pushing them spent ~25K on hookers and booze. 

 

That is how it works.  Sometime,. we get what we pay for.

 

But often, we do not.  (Infinite uniform changes, anyone?)

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10 minutes ago, Meplat said:

 

Just remind yourself, "someone had to SELL said deigns first. ".

 

And if you don not think that involved everything up to and including ribery and or sodomy , well..

 

I made 5000+ cans for the Canucks. I know the guy pushing them spent ~25K on hookers and booze. 

 

That is how it works.  Sometime,. we get what we pay for.

 

But often, we do not.  (Infinite uniform changes, anyone?)

 

Just because those things happen doesn't mean they characterize the whole of military procurement. It's much more complicated than that, with each officer having his or her own motives for what they are doing. Of course, some officers will be evil bastards looking for their next wine and dine, some will be hapless schmucks who got sold a bill of goods, some will be tired and resigned, and some will have their head on straight and have enough energy try to prevent the other kinds from fucking things up too badly.

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Kurt Tank muh Luftwaffle messiah tho. Just going off wiki, but 31 hours of test flights before production seems a little sparse.

 

Also, I feel like the early and mid FW 190s had three different guns (two pairs of two differing 20mm cannons types and a pair of machine guns), but this is just me recalling stuff from War Thunder.  I suppose gun pods don't count towards things here.

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