Saturday, January 28, 2006
Who are we preparing to fight?
Colonel Mark A. Brilakis, U.S. Marine Corps has an excellent article in the January 2006 issue of Proceedings magazine where he questions the high-tech transformation that is taking place in our military today. A very interesting read at a time when our troops appear to be asking for more, not necessarily better, equipment.
"If the F-15s are too old, then why not just build new ones? The USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), lead ship in its destroyer class, has 40 years of service life remaining. There is still no armored vehicle that can defeat the Abrams tank. These are proven, war-winning weapons. Update the innards, add a frozen custard machine, and get on with it. I'd bet that with the old Essex-class carrier design and the old A-1 Skyraider airframe, plus new radios, GPS, JDAMs, and small diameters bombs, we could get about three quarters of the way we need to go for the next 20 years. Add an old 747 or two with a whole lot of precision-guided stand-off weapons and we are still a hegemonic power. In the meantime, we can take some of these high cost systems, slow the rush to production, define precisely what we need them to do, make sure they work, and save billions of dollars. I hear tax breaks are popular."
Thank you Colonel Brilakis for Naval Institute Proceedings: Martian Alert!.
"If the F-15s are too old, then why not just build new ones? The USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), lead ship in its destroyer class, has 40 years of service life remaining. There is still no armored vehicle that can defeat the Abrams tank. These are proven, war-winning weapons. Update the innards, add a frozen custard machine, and get on with it. I'd bet that with the old Essex-class carrier design and the old A-1 Skyraider airframe, plus new radios, GPS, JDAMs, and small diameters bombs, we could get about three quarters of the way we need to go for the next 20 years. Add an old 747 or two with a whole lot of precision-guided stand-off weapons and we are still a hegemonic power. In the meantime, we can take some of these high cost systems, slow the rush to production, define precisely what we need them to do, make sure they work, and save billions of dollars. I hear tax breaks are popular."
Thank you Colonel Brilakis for Naval Institute Proceedings: Martian Alert!.
