Quote Originally Posted by SethB View Post
I tend to pontificate that we should recapitalize with an eye towards long term costs.
Eminently sensible, but the problem is that the defence industry (US and UK) is under pinned by what can be be described as "voodoo economics."

The UK MOD has fallen over itself with a concept of "through life costing" which is predicated on the art of telling the future, with absolute certainty, to a certain point and then guessing at it afterwards.

If you want to see the same in the US, look at F-35. What some clowns are trying to do is take what they know in 2010, and extrapolate that to what the aircraft will have cost in 2035. Could we have done that in 1910 for 1935?
Could the projections made for the F-15C in 1980, adequately predicted costs and capabilities for 2010 - when it is still the majority of the front line fighter fleet?