Note the blinking yellow lights...
Mmm. Be careful. My observation over many years is that is a flawed assumption. My two pet, if minor, examples of the error of that approach are the testimonies before Congress of then General Louis Wagner as CG AMC that the Sergeant York DivAD was the finest air defense weapon in the world (shortly before it shot up a Latrine on the Range at Fort Bliss at its Press introduction (and shortly before it was cancelled)...Originally Posted by AmericanPride
) and then General Robert RisCassi, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army that the Dragon (LINK)was the greatest anti tank missile in the world just before we canned it and started buying Javs.
Omitted from the Wiki article is the disconcerting tendency of some Dragons to go a few feet out of the launcher and plop on the ground -- and the fact that the gunner had to be unusually well trained and experience in firing the missile to obtain an even marginal hit.
Generals, like all humans, have agendas so be careful...You're probably aware that there are numerous hookers in the defense budget and several blind alleys. There's also a lot of Congressional vote buying concealed therein...Right now, I am focusing on combat power and military expenditures.True and you'll also find other incongruous periods -- the overall trend for a multi decade period, five or more, will I believe give you more accurate data.It would seem, at least superficially, that there is a direct relationship between tax revenue and military expenditures, but the last ten years of a simultaneous increase in military expenditures and decrease in tax revenues calls into question the nature of that relationship.Check the new costs for the F-16 when it appeared in the 1970s and adjust for inflation. Using only current publicly available prices can badly skew your data.The F-35 costs between 197 and 237 million dollars. One of the aircraft it will replace is the F-16, which cost 14 - 18 million dollars per unit.I think that is a bad assumption; that the costs must be very accurately assessed and compared; and that the mechanically derived variance factor all must be approached with great caution. Combat power is a function of both capability and of application not only of the equipment but of its operators and support systems. How much, if any, better trained are today's pilots and how much more capable are all the mission systems? A Sidewinder is a Sidewinder but the AIM-9X is a vastly different creature than an AIM-9B. Mission planning capability? Sortie generation? Maintenance man hours versus flight hours? Sensors? How much is the 'Stealth' feature of the F-35 worth...If we assume that the amount of combat power that a dollar can buy is fixed, then in order for the F-35 to be "worth it", it must provide at least 1,316% more combat power than the F-16. By anyone's definition of combat power, does it?As I'm sure you're aware, many items in the O&M budgets of all the services are spent on things other than supporting elements deployed or in the field -- much of it goes to maintain the massive (and unduly expensive...) garrison and base operation in CONUS. Much also is spent on Exercises and add-on training, on TDY and travel to esoteric meeting in CONUS and around the world. Lot of fluff in there...Operational expenses and the base budget are calculated separately, so we can see clearly in the documentation that the increase in spending is related to the cost of maintaining the forces in the field after they have already been trained and equipped.I suspect you will discover that (a) it is quite true and (b) little is being done about it.The data so far strongly suggests that the cost to maintain forces in the field has far outpaced military appropriations and US economic capacity to finance it. This means, if trends continue, the amount of combat power that the US can deploy or the amount of time such forces can be sustained will diminish. This is a major economic and security problem if true.
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