Quote Originally Posted by tankersteve View Post
We, the U.S. military, have been using and winning with 'good enough' systems for years. Sometimes our greatest advantage is being focused on having sustainable and logistically simple systems to maintain, something I think some nations (Germany in WWII, Russia) forget to emphasize. The Air Force may just have to recognize that the gold-plated objective isn't attainable.
Those good enough systems -- the M4 Tank comes to mind -- allowed us to win because we could produce many thousands of them. That made up, in tanks, for the losses that a 'good enough' tank took because it was out gunned by its opponents.

That doesn't necessarily make up for the excess casualties taken due to 'good enough' as opposed to better.

I'll also point out that the good enough airplanes of today were the 'gold plated' and 'excessively costly' airplanes of yesterday. Quality has a quantity all its own...

You willing to give up the M1A2 SEP(V2) for upgraded Leopard 1A5s or M60A3s