>The Apache, like the M-1 tank,spends most >of its life in the service area
>while the A-10, the cheapest plane in the US >inventory and one hated
>unanimously by the brass, wins the war, doing >exactly the mission that the
>Apache should have been doing. I've tried my >hand at A-10 sim games and
I've
>blown up tanks, sunk ships, downed bombers >and even the odd fighter all in
>one mission, frequently making it back safe >and sound with half a wing, a
>stabilizer, and an engine shot off. It's a cheap >($12 G), old, wicked
plane,
>and the world should be glad the Pentagon >hates it :-). The M-1 tank's
unrelability >coupled with its shocking fuel consumption
>allowed Iraqi tanks to hightail it to safety while >M-1's were lined up at
>the gas station.
Oh, boy, the tales I could tell. You could put together a fighting force that could whip the current US's with 1/5 of the $--but you'd have to be able to draw on the same manufacturers they do for the good stuff (though, if you could do a lot to control the air with current Russian stuff and their tanks would kick butt in a lot of terrain). I wonder if some anti-American EU people have actually thought about this?
This is what gets me about military 'successes' like Iraq, Serbia and Afghanistan. The irony is the US wins overwhelmingly while MOST of its expensive equipment proves to be terrible. Most of the stuff doesn't get used, but the wow do the dollars keep on getting spent on all the wrong stuff (except things that explode, destroying and killing indiscriminately, the US is tops in that).
The B-1s go up and one always crashes, but there those B-52s still doing the job. Since Serbia brought down a stealth fighter, the US is probably afraid to fly the stealth bombers. You could almost finance a moon mission with the cost of just one.
What saves the day are things like the A-10. This plane is ugly and not glamorous to fly. It's the plane the US ARMY WANTED for close support of mechanized infantry, armoured cavalry and armour, so it was forced onto the Air Force (the US Army can't have fixed wing attack capability). But because the A-10 is the Air Force's (no sooner had they seen how good it was and they were shutting down production) but the Army HAS to fly something, it goes and blows billions on attack helicopters that .50 calibre rounds can bring down (as Somalia showed).
So the Army has all those whirly bird turkeys (which always work great in the movies) and , by the way, it maintains the world's second largest navy (since the US Navy is about as serious about transport for the Army as the Air Force is for close ground support). I actually thought about taking secondary training to be an Army seaman while in the Reserves since I wanted to get to Virgina Beach for annual training instead of Ft. Pickett (where some of us would die every year from vehicle accidents, or encephalitis from mosquitoes, or the dreaded spotted tick fever!).
The M1 main battle tank is that fiasco that never goes away. It was supposed to have a new type suspenion and gas turbine engines (a good thing that GE never could bring to life). The suspension got scrapped as did the gas turbines, but then the tank, with all its composite armour, was so heavy, neutral steers might throw a track. And even if the diesel engines at least ran, the tank is so heavy that it needs to refuel constantly. You didn't see any of these in Afghanistan, by the way, since the US HAD NO WAY to get them there! They have to go by ship and rail.
When it comes to rating battle tanks or weapons systems, ask yourself, would Israel (or the old South Africa) use them even if you gave the stuff to them--and look, Israel doesn't use the M1 (at least the last time I looked). How much money could have been saved had the US just bought Leopard2s from Germany? The same with the much-vaunted ground-to-air anti-missile missles the US used in the Persian Gulf War. Israel later said they didn't hit anything and didn't want them, not even for free.
Sorry, Hakki, you got me started.
Charles Jannuzi