> I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why?
The availability heuristic [1] plays a role, given the (reasonably) increased media attention given to failures over successes. The F-22 [2] is an amazing plane. The X-37 program challenges the line between plane and spacecraft. The V-22 [4] and V-280 [5] are similarly successful programs.
The A10 was designed to swiss cheese just enough Russian tanks and to buy the time for C5s (designed to transport main battle tanks) full of M1s (meant to kill Russian tanks) to make it to France before the Russians could steamroll Germany.
The F117 was designed to slip past and strike infiltrate Russian air defense systems so our bombers could make it to the target.
All the weapons systems of the cold war era were built to fight a specific peer adversary first and needed to fit into that portfolio. Capability to handle other tasks was pursued (especially during and after Vietnam) but at the end of the day systems had to be able to fit into a strategy in which we fight the Russians or if not they had to have some other specific and narrowly tailored purpose (e.g. AC130).
Right now the armed forces are in this weird state where they have to be able to handle anything from some rowdy poppy farmers to WW3 in no particular order of priority and that manifests itself as poorly thought out feature bloat.
While the C5A has the ability to carry a single M1, it's not really intended for ferrying armored vehicles that large. REFORGER relied largely on both pre-positioned stocks of arms as well as merchant vessels to carry the heavy gear.
You're right. Air is a terrible way to move tanks around because you have to do it one at a time. Being able to do it in a pinch is very important. It won't be cheap or without risk (which you care about for exercises) but when there's T72s pouring through the Fulda gap you pull out all the stops because you don't get a do-over.
You could say in some degree that not only the military needs a purpose. The deteriorating of infrastructure, the lack of vision of politicians, the increasing inequality are probably all the result of a lacking of a purpose.
>make it to France before the Russians could steamroll Germany.
Wat. France left NATO in 1966, there would be no C5s landing in France with anything.
The A10 was in fact intended to offset the Soviet Union's vast advantage in numbers, but there was no believable scenario in the 1980s in which the Soviets would have failed to force the Fulda Gap with armor within 48 hours ... absent use of tactical nukes. This is why the German people were extremely unhappy about the presence of Pershings in West Germany, because the only way to prevent the Russians from overrunning West Germany was to nuke West Germany.
France left the joint military structure in 1966, it was still bound by the military alliance. It would be ridiculous to think they would honour the alliance, but refuse to allow American planes to land in France in the event of war.
One big factor is that defense contractors have been consolidating.
With fewer and fewer contractors that they can go to, and a revolving door where the people approving purchases today get plushy jobs tomorrow with the company that they approved, the incentives are to approve giant projects for lots of money that require a lot of integration, and turn a blind eye towards failure. The result is that we are spending more, but getting less for our money.
> The result is that we are spending more, but getting less for our money.
You're getting jobs in electoral districts somewhere in the outback, which means that the politicians passing the funds in the first place get to keep re-elected.
Cut the shitshow off its lifeline and suddenly you have a lot of representatives with a riled up suddenly job-less workforce.
I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award? The vendor can't say no to that without admitting their products suck. especially since our nation may actually need one of these things to work in order to survive. 99% of the time they're expense toys. Until that one time they're not.
>I wonder why the military doesn't add "it works or else you don't get paid" clauses in these lucrative contracts they award?
Any general or admiral who pushed hard for strict performance-based deliverables in procurement contracts would never get a cushy job at a defence contractor after retiring from the military.
Well, if that happens, then the vendor just inflates the cost of other things you're buying from them. If you don't like that, what are you going to do, go to another vendor? There aren't very many of them left now, only 2 usually.
Overpriced weapon system syndrome predates 9/11 by quite a lot.
IMHO it's a peacetime problem. There's no enemy to fight today, so the motivation to finish the system ASAP and start pumping copies out the door goes away. In fact these protracted construction delays can be seen as a minor cost savings, since if they actually delivered what they promised the military would have to maintain hundreds of vehicles that are really only useful in a war that is not likely to happen soon.
People say the US is fighting the last war, and that's maybe more true than they think. The Cold War was won mostly by convincing the Soviets to outspend on military hardware by spending huge sums on our own military hardware. But then the Soviet Union collapsed and the US failed to draw down production to true peacetime levels and we're stuck with a military that is way too big and too expensive to just keep the peace.
Yet... I keep seeing stories like this coming from US, why?
What changed between the construction of A-10 and the F-117 and the F-35 for example?