The following is a letter to the editor that I read in the Airforce Times a few days ago:

I have to agree with the above. Various major airplane manufacturers were absorbed during the cutbacks when we stopped producing new aircraft. This was inevitable because no companies can keep the staff employed for years and years without work. Now we have only two airplane manufacturers in the entire country. It is a monopoly. Lockheed is producing the F22 and will produce the JSF as well. This puts them in a power position over the military, and ultimately taxpayers who foot that tremendous bill, with full support from the most influential politicians who want those planes in their states whether or not it is an efficient way to manage things.

What can be done? Should anything be done? I request in advance for participants on this thread to not spam it will links to conspiracy sites and opinon pieces. Your own thoughts, in your own words, and legitimate links only please.

Well, first off, cost overruns and busted schedules are not new. They've always existed in the defense industry, since Og first contracted with Grok to make a nice new club for him. So, in that sense, the premise of the question is flawed.

There are two solutions.

First,

• change the procurement and equipping process to support multiple different weapon systems for the same mission.
• Utilize less expensive, lower quality, shorter life span systems. This will result in lower development costs and more frequent replacements, giving room for more suppliers.

Second, treat large defense contracts as essentially public utilities. (Although, in truth, that's already the case.)

Unfortunately, the first solution is essentially one of trading quality for quantity, and its going to be our troops who pay the price for that down the road. Furthermore, when compared to the heady days of the 1950s and 1960s, extracting additional performance out of defense systems is a lot harder than it used to be, as the point of diminishing returns nears.

As for the second solution, that's already pretty much how it happens. One problem with much of the defense procurement is it is involving some very cutting edge R&D, which is where 80% of the overruns take place. R&D costs are notoriously difficult to forecast. Furthermore, some of the cost overruns are a result of government decisions in accounting. If the gov't decides to order 300 instead of 800 units of X, the R&D cost now has to be spread over 300 units instead of 800, leading to greatly increased per unit costs for X. Finally, there's the political side of it. Defense contracts equal jobs, jobs = votes, so the political machinations regarding who, where, how long all have odd effects on the contracting. Defense contracts are pretty much always union contracts (where applicable) or "comparable wage", which drives up the production costs in contrast to competitive private sector production.

Last, there's the flip side of the coin, namely even more of a monopoly on the customer side. Even a company such as Lockheed Martin has pretty much only one customer, the US government. Other customers can be engaged only at the pleasure of the US government. If LM wanted to sell a couple dozen F-22s to Hugo Chavez, do you think they could?


Here's an example of the sort of challenges faced, and how its due to problems on both sides of the transactions:

U.S. Coast Guard Running Out of Ships

For what it is worth we here in the UK have constant and vast over runs on MOD contracts and even then when delivery time comes we find they do not do the job or completely unreliable.

There is a problem from purchasing a lot of military equipment from the US in as much the US then holds back on the operational and maintenance software this has happened with recent helicopter purchases and there are rumblings that the US is going to get the same way with the Joint Strike Fighter project.

The you have the other side of the coin where aircraft and equipment are produced by committee, the Euro-fighter is one such example where every nation involved wanted a different mission role for the aircraft.

The you EADS (Airbus) who have on the drawing board a heavy lift aircraft to replace that old workhorse the C-130, but it is bogged down in argument as to who produces what part or the aircraft in the countries that have expressed interest in buying the machine. The result several European nations are now in desperate need of a heavy lift aircraft, but have no where to go to obtain it.

I suspect military contractors see defence contracts as an almost opened ended cheque book, after all the taxpayer will cough up, as always.

I've been pondering this of late myself, though from a different angle. Ever since I read that a possible UN intervention in Darfur was estimated to cost at least a billion dollars a year, I've been wondering at the logistics and costs of western military forces.

Now I understand that the western militaries are a sink for western industry, that goes without saying, but I find it odd that so much of our equipment is so expensive compared to the equipment our enemies have. Especially since they manage to hurt us quite well with their AK's and RPG's. I'm also at odds to understand why billion dollar projects produce machines that still get trashed in third world dirt wars. How many helicopters have the US lost this year?

Considering how useful the some what geriatric A10 still is, I can't but help wonder if the defence industries aren't part of the problem as to why conflicts like Iraq are so hard to get a grip on. I saw a documentary the other day about special forces in Afghanistan and half the western soldiers were carrying AK's. If that rifle is so good, then why haven't we adopted, or at least copied it? And the helicopters in Iraq, how much does an Apache cost compared to a Mil-24? I saw this today and was flabbergasted to learn that one mercenary Mil-24, used well, was able to operate completely alone in Sierra Leone, with no back up at all and completely vulnerable to ground fire. If that one heli was so efficient, then how???

Exactly!

I don't mean any disrespect to Mr P. But just what is the purpose of the F22 anyway. US air power is already light years in advance of anything the USAF is likely to meet in a straight fight. Isn't it just an exersize in futility to build so expensive a war plane when its job can already be done by other, cheaper, aircraft?

edited to add link.

Well Moif, I had a feeling that the debate would turn to this direction- that is why I started the other discussion about the same topic- but I guess they are inseperable- the defense military complex that D Eisenhower warned us about has come to fruition. There is no amount of fraud or corruption that goes punished in this country these days by those that run places like Haliburton, or LM or any of those other uber-huge corporations.

What we need is major reform of the defense industry, a purge from the top down, with a hard core forensic audit of ALL defense appropriations since 2000.

Right now, we have a monopoly, because that is the way the defense industry wants it- real cmopetition is not required in the defense industry- only in lobbying is the entire industry competitive- you lobby for your company more than you need to have a better product.

As moif has pointed out- the defense industry is not giving us our "bang for the buck"- it is NOT a cost effective system, at all.

Right now, we are spending, I believe it has hit over the 1 billion mark already- seeking a replacement for the M-16. Why? Because it is old- not that it is inferior- but that it is old. Even if it ain't broke- we fix it anyway?

Look at the Marine Osprey- OMG what a boondoggle- heck, the marine commander had even been recorded telling crew chiefs to falsify records!

Yet- crazy enough, we are still buying those death traps?

It is all about lobbying and very little what is good for the US anymore. A US military officer can have a pretty nice job in the private sector if he helps out with the "new toys"- as evidenced in the Osprey's example- you don't know if he was on the take or if he was under pressure from someone who was- that stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum.

What we need is a top to bottom review of what is procurred and why. Something where you, if you sit on that commision, can hear testimoney about something in your district- that way, if your plan is on the block, or needs to be, you are automatically recused.

We need to ban officers in charge of weapons programs from having any jobs with the private sector for life in the defense procurment arena- consultants on weapons systems designs, sure- but they must be insulated from any part of the procurment OR retainment of weapons systems.

Something like the base closing commisions, with more autonomy.

Yeah, I was about to make a topic about this type of topic too. It seems like the U.S. is stuck in the last war-the Cold War. We're still spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on Defense and contracting, but there is absolutely no enemy out there that can even compete with the F-16. It's still regarded as the best fighter in the world, still works better than any enemy fighter out there and shoot down planes, but we're spending money on things such as the JSF and F-22, which, as far as I can tell, are just as easy to take an SAM and fire it, hit that billion dollar NEW project, as it is to hit a couple decade year old F-16.
We not only need a "purge of defense contractors", but also some redirection on what we're spending, such as coming up with a machine that can quickly alert soldiers or vehicles of IED's, rather than something we don't necessarily need.

Um, no it isn't as easy. That's the primary reason for the F22...not to win against other aircraft in dogfights, but the stealth technology is necessary when confronted with increasingly advanced surface-to-air missile systems of our larger potential adversaries. They aren't all like Iraq. The next generations of adversary aircraft are extremely advanced as well. Because a fighter takes so long to design and field, defense planners must look to the threat in 2012 and beyond to forecast requirements...we simply can’t produce an advanced fighter in a year or two. The development, testing and training takes several years.

Air superiority is crucial. Technological advantage is everything...as the German blitzkrieg proved. Back then Cavalry journal wrote "The idea of huge armies rolling along roads at a fast pace is a dream Oil and tires cannot like forage be obtained locally" and the Army's cavalry chief assured Congress in 1941 that four well placed horses could charge half a mile across an open field to destroy an enemy machine-gun nest without sustaining a scratch. So much for being stuck in a paradigm. But unlike the second world war, technology is such today that we cannot turn a sewing maching factory into a warplane factory overnight.

That being said, I agree it is a cost to gains equation and we have a finite amount of money to spend. Urgent should come before the might-be-important-some-day, and if our army needs body armor, or whatever else they should get it before the airforce gets a single JSF (or more F22s).

Good point, thanks for that, I didn't think of it in the looking to the future sort of way. After that, I agree with you that yes, we should be looking to advance our technology in the arsenal, but we do need some major redistribution on where the money goes. If we took 1 million out of the 522 billion we spend every year, I am almost certain we could save hundreds of lives by finding a device to alert IED's, etc.

This is an example of the political intrusion into the process, clearly not unique to American defense procurement.


There are a couple of things you need to consider when you look at the BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!!! figure. First, the pay of the troops themselves is much higher for western militaries, especially those that are all volunteer. Second, the cost of operating 4-10,000 miles from your nation are not insubstantial. Third, the costs being tossed about include many costs of the operation, not military costs. 80% of the costs in Iraq are rebuilding, not military. 'Tis likely a similar accounting is projected for Darfur.

Actually, they don't manage to hurt us that much. While you may not hear a lot about it in the media, the truth is that US/MNF casualties in Iraq are at historically low rates. A lot of the reason is the expensive equipment, and also expensive training.

They don't necessarily "get trashed". A better question would be, "are they accomplishing their mission?" For instance, Of the 1,100 American M-1 tanks that have served in Iraq, about seven percent have been badly damaged, at least badly enough to get them shipped back to the factory for rebuilding. Some 70 percent of the Iraqi based M-1s have been in combat. As infantry have known since World War I, tanks draw fire. But they are well protected, and fewer than twenty of the 4,400 tank crewmen involved have been killed, two thirds of those while standing up in a turret hatch, with at least head and shoulders exposed. - M1 Casualties in Iraq - Strategy Page

Our helicopter losses have been at a lower rate than Vietnam, its just that every single loss gets media coverage! Finally, one of the problems with some of these "billion dollar projects" is they designed and produced machines for a different operating environment. In fact, not a single major weapons system deployed thus far in Iraq was designed for sustained operations in a desert environment, although many of them were modified and/or upgraded after Desert Storm. "Well, why didn't they design them for the desert?" Because, just like for the individual infantryman, there's a tradeoff between weight and speed. A weapon system designed to fight the Warsaw Pact across Europe doesn't need to sacrifice the weight and space that air filtration systems appropriate for the desert demand, so they weren't part of the initial design. All the talk about "systems wearing out prematurely" is also bogus, because the "premature" assessment is based on the expected service duration under peacetime usage. When you start using the equipment more intensely like you do with a war, it wears out faster. duh..., but the bean counters don't want to hear that... they just complain that they have to pony up buckets of money for new equipment 2, 5, even 10 years ahead of anticipated.

Yes, and the curious thing about the A10 is the program was scrubbed and the planes were all heading into retirement because their intended targets, the armored divisions of the Soviet Union, were gone! That was a DoD decision, not the defence industry's. As for the AK's, the reason they carry them is because its easy to find ammo for them up in the hills, especially after killing half a dozen Taliban armed with AKs. Also, the AK is a distinctive weapon, easy to spot, so carrying one serves as a form of camouflage. It is not, however that good of a weapon, which, btw, is one reason why the Russians ditched them back in the late 70s! Lots of other folks have been making copies of them since, so they're ubiquitous simply because so many have been produced. Think of them as the Big Mac of assault rifles. "Billions and billions sold"...

a new Apache (used one's are not available) costs $60 million. A used Mil-24 can be had for about $6 million. If the Mil-24 can do the job, then its a deal. However, no other gunship matches the capabilities of the Apache Longbow.


Ah, but that's not exactly true. The Eurofighter, Rafael, latest generation of MiG and Sukhois, and some of the newest toys the Chinese are producing are comparable, or close, to the F-15, F-16 and F-18 series aircraft. One thing that the F-22 does is keeps the bar so high that, hopefully, nobody will think "hey, I can take those guys!" The technology gap itself serves as something of a deterrent. At the moment, nobody thinks that they can match both the American technology and production capacity. The Soviets tried, and it bankrupted them. Desert Storm demonstrated that technology as a force multiplier was far more effective than multiples of forces, i.e., "quantity has a quality all its own" wasn't as cost effective as in the past. Unfortunately, technology costs money, and "economies of scale" when building a couple dozen units doesn't exactly net a whole lot of savings.

We've already replaced the M-16 with the M4. And now, experience in Iraq is pushing towards an upgrade, one that the bean counters shot down before. The upgrade involves changing the charging system from a gas operated (subject to more frequent fouling in the dusty environs) to a short stroke system. SOCOM has adopted the new weapon.


Wrong. The best operational fighter in the world is the F-22. Second best is the F-15 Eagle. The rest of the world has caught up with the our 70's vintage fighter airframes, although upgrades (expensive upgrades) to our avionics still have put us in front.

"couple decades old" is important. Were you aware that the F-14 Tomcats of TopGun and JAG fame, have all been retired? Do you know why? Because they're worn out. The last of the F-111s are being retired by Australia, because they're worn out. Just like your car and shoes, weapon systems wear out. The F-15, F-16 and F-18 fighters were all designed in the 1970s at the latest, except for the F/A-18E Super Hornet, which is 1980s vintage. The F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s will all wear out and need to be replaced.

Oh, you mean stuff like this: IED Hunters Note the dateline on the piece. And check out this one: US spending billions to defeat IEDs


Actually, the primary mission of the F-22 is establishing air superiority, its just that straight up dogfighting is less of a factor than it used to be. The stealth plays into it because "what you can't see, you can't hit", which is just as valid for air to air missiles as it is surface to air missiles. While they may have been 'cooked' somewhat, recent exercises involving F-22s against F-15s resulted in kill ratios by the F-22s that have only one parallel in history. The kill ratio that the F-15s themselves have attained against enemy aircraft in actual combat. That's how much better the F-22 is than anything else in the air.

An old fighter pilot's maxim is: Lose the sight, lose the fight.

Nope. The one billion dollar figure is how much a projected UN peacekeeping force will cost. It will also take nine months to get established.

The point I am making is not that one billion dollars is unaffordable, though I have to say I think its a lot of money to simply be throwing away ...but rather that it demonstrates the inherent weakness of the west when it must shell out such large amounts of money to counter dirt cheap militia like the Janjaweed.

And thats my point. Why spend so much to counter so little when the job can be done, just easily, with local troops armed with cheap weaponry, and who posses better local knowledge? Its a joke that the UN requires a billion dollars a year to counter the Janjaweed who are essentially a few thousand men on horses with those cruddy AK's you think so little of. If local troops need an edge, then give it to them. Pay some mercs to fly some Mil-24's over the area as happened in Sierra Leone and add a few French fighter bombers for heavier back up. The UN could play watch dog to make sure no civilians were killed.

It may not have the drama and flash of the US military, but it is just as effective and consider this. The British established the largest empire ever seen with superior guns and local troops.


Makes no difference because the willingness of western nations to accept casualty's in dubious wars is also at historically low rates. This is just as true for America as for France or any other western nation. We don't like losing our soldiers because they are too precious for us to lose.

And the fact is, we're so heavily out numbered that even at a ten to one kill ratio, we're hardly breaking even against the forces of disorder who call themselves the global jihad.


Okay, granted, its a good tank. But we're talking costs here, not combat effeciency alone. How many tanks has the insurgency lost? None, because they don't have any.

Once Saddam Hussein's army was taken down, the game changed and its this new game thats to debate here, at least as far as I can see. GW Bush got to pose in his pilots gear before a sign that read Mission Accomplished, and maybe that was a form of truth for his mission was accomplished. Saddam was history.

In the meantime however, the fighting continues, not just in Iraq, and for every tank the US loses the insurgents are not losing any. Yeah sure they're losing foot soldiers in sneakers armed with AK's and RPG's, but the bottom line is, they can afford to lose these, they even celebrate their loss! That 17 year old jihadi with the IED who took out an M1 (and that has happened several times) costs the insurgency very little. You can kill a thousand such Iraqi rebels for each M1 you lose and the costs are still stacked heavily against the M1. With the US defence industry so all powefull, and with so little commercial competetion, your looking at an endless imbalance that ultimately threatens the long term stability of your country, and thus also, mine.

Same with the helicopters. Vietnam was a regular war with a regular army wearing uniforms and fighting in the field. Iraq is not even supposed to be a war at all, and yet the faceless enemy is still shooting down multi million dollar Apache's and Blackhawks. In Vietnam, the losses could be balanced against the losses incurred by the NVA. In Iraq, your throwing away valuable resources chasing down well armed, badly trained (if trained at all) street punks.

Any one who thinks there is an equilibrium here needs to take a long rest in the shade. ONE BILLION DOLLARS might be peanuts to you (you must be very rich). It might not buy so many F22's, but I can assure you one billion USD buys a helluva lot of RPG's and AK's!!!


Yes, and why is that do you suppose? Because the media is anti American? Anti Israeli?

No, its because in democratic, non Islamic countries, losing valuable military hardware, almost like losing irreplacable family members hurts.

Hizb'Allah - 100 kills.
Israel - 9,546 kills.

Game to Hizb'allah.

Thats a ironic statement, and the numbers are fictious, but this is the point your not grasping BD. Western military effeciency is not measured in kill ratio's. Its measured in political results and their social consequences, (Vietnam had great kill ratio's but was still a defeat). One of the measures for social decline is actually inflated military spending. Once your military costs start sky rocketing, then your facing a possible social collapse. You might not want to accept this, but some people say its happening already and they need look no further than the division Iraq has caused for evidence. Western birth rates are plummeting, immigration from the third world is swamping the developed world and we're debating how much the next generation of fighter planes must cost...

It seems to me that there is a risk that the USA will not need these F22's because if/when the invasion comes, it will be from within.

There is another old maxim that states; Armies are always caught unawares because they constantly prepare for the previous war. The F22 is a symptom of that. Its design anticipates a battle for air superiority in a time when warfare is increasingly conducted within the social environment as opposed to the battlefield and where air superiority, as we saw on 11th Sept 2001, is completely irrellevent.

There is more than one way to understand that old pilots saying: Lose the sight, lose the fight.

I work, at times, with this industry and can tell you that the perception is not really accurate. There is literally NO company that can build a fighter or bomber alone. No single company could possible maintain, in-house, the expertise to build, for example the JSF – so the winners of these contracts are usually teams -

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., a business area of Lockheed Martin Corp. [NYSE:LMT], is developing the F-35 along with along with principal partners Northrop Grumman and BAE SYSTEMS, and the countries that have joined the program this year.
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage...ti=0&sc=400

The GE/Rolls-Royce JSF Team Preparing For First Full-Engine Test In 2004
July 22, 2002 -- FARNBOROUGH, England - The GE/Rolls-Royce F136 engine team for the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter Program (JSF) will undergo a series of rig and subsystems tests this year and in 2003 in preparation for the first full-engine tests in 2004.

http://www.geae.com/aboutgeae/presscenter/..._20020722h.html

Then under each of the main “team members” are hundreds of suppliers of components and software. Thus Lockheed Martin is the “integrator” of the teams parts and this is why it can be said that parts for a fighter come from nearly every state. Far from being “sales ploy” this is now a requirement for winning a contract of this size. Even if a company could build all of the parts of an aircraft their cost would be so high they could never win a contract.


Needless to say when they talk about LM on this program they are really speaking of the McDonald Douglas folks in St Louis they purchased.

The other grim reality is that the military budget cannot sustain many airframe manufacturers. As you might expect the “war” has hurt and not helped them as money goes to “bullets and bombs” and aircraft shipments are pushed out.

The other fact not discussed is that the JSF and the F-22 may be the last “manned aircraft” built by the US. The future will be UCAVs (unmanned combat air vehicles) and there will be lots of companies in this business

I don't see how you can really fix this--are we going to have the govt generate more competitors? I sure don't want overseas nations working on our state of the art stuff--if the military wants to buy boots from China, fine, but I do not want anyone outside of the US working on stealth technology, etc.

Let's talk about a project with which I am somewhat familiar, the F-22, built where I live.

Originally, this plane was to be built, tested, and come online about 1996. It was conceived in the 1980s. About 500 were planned. Instead, the program was stretched over many more years and nearly scrapped, many fewer planes were ordered, and the first F-22s came online in 2005. The price of the plane went from the $90 million per unit range to over $250 million per unit during that time as the number of planes in the order decreased, reducing economies of scale, and a staff of thousands and a large assembly line and supplier staff and lines had to be paid during these multi-year delays, which got allocated on a per unit basis. Lockheed was castigated for cost escalation, but if we had stuck with the original order on the original timetable, the planes would have likely been very close to the original estimate and operational a decade earlier, notwithstanding that they were (and still are) state of art, never-been-built-before kind of technology.

So, at least in this instance, you can blame the wacked-out government procurement process and the "playing of politics" with whether the program was needed much more than Lockheed.

To paraphrase, "state of the art costs money--how state of the art do you want to be?"

What can be done? Should anything be done? I request in advance for participants on this thread to not spam it will links to conspiracy sites and opinon pieces. Your own thoughts, in your own words, and legitimate links only please.

I've spent 30+ years on both the gov't and the industry side of "the procurement system". My conclusion: It's demonstrably a systematic mess, very much broke, and careerismly engineered to be so, and allowed to be so "by politics" (negative meaning, not polis-based of course), and the present style of carrerism games that go on betwixt the two." What I saw was always:

A. The requirements for a system were most often soft and squishy (there is a method to get answers to soft and squishy "questions" within the Federal Acquisiton System Regulations (FARS) and its many derivatives, that Departments are allowed to use to refine the FARS.
Step 1, Don't allow the squishy contracts to have a path to, or be a "guaranteed" part of "any end acquistion" contracts.
Step 2, Don't allow any of these lower level "redefineded FARS" (e.g. Department of Energy (DEER), Defense (DFARS), etc. replace the orriginal, one is enuf, and its Congresssional!

B. Many of the requiremets have Congressional Pork issues, and electioneering, "hidden within them" as supposedly "legit" or "pseudo efficiency in production" needs. They also have mutual "back scratching" careerism built into them, very craftily, e.g. LTC X, works with Company Y's Ph.D. "sales R&D folks" closlely, and each tells the other's "management" the "pseudo needs and realities" (which really ain't all that true or defenseable but are defintaely big $$$$-ish)" and the two advance through their separate pipelined career systems. Obviously, it's investigatable waste, fraud and abuse! So do it! [The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), for the Defense world side of this, which is the biggest $$$$-ish, has provisions allowing/demanding that such be brought forth as court martial investigations!]

C. Almost never are acceptance testing reqirements "really fully reflective" of the "true requirements". (There is a huge compendium of standards though, that can and are used to hide this.) It has occasionally been attempted, by me if no one else, to make the requirementing process into a legitimate "requirements engineering" discipline, equal in quality to all the other engineering disciplines, to fix this! Pure whistle blowing "meat for the press" and many bodies lie dead-ended therefrom. Bring them back form their graves.

D. The requirements folks and the program manager folks are always on different sheets of paper, and neither works "by taxpayer rules" (an invented term) with the other. Controlling the budget and the "maximal turf" is all I ever see/saw. (Cute term no?)

E. The final "acceptance committee" often makes its own sparate and independent "out of the air" weightings of requirements to get a single formula # for acceptance decisons. This invariably is a hidden change in the requirements. Many a truly nefarious game can be played here to get almost any final decision!

F. Almost never is a requirement made to a validated (just the usual, also broke, INTEL system's "opinions" are not enuf) threat or need. Equally, almost never is a "closre the ranks "we gotta have this or disaster" made on legit techie grounds of any kind. Most often it's the exact opposite!

G. Politics and careerism beats out engineering, science, mathematics, threat models, technology, operational lifetime full costs, or systems analysis and operations research studies almost always (the last are techie, but essentiallyare quality "science and engineering mathematical disciplines--tough to do, easy to fake.)

H. And finally, there is this "new thing" that Defense is now Joint (screamingly, thorughly forced, finally, by Congressional oversight--except for the Pork part!) This has led to the Commanders-in Chiefs' (CINCs) "requirements/needs" now being most sacrosanct. Trouble is, they have no "requirements engineering" techies to help them, and they are by nature at the last steps of the careerism game, and are very well schooled in it. Turf, Turf, Turf and inter-agency, inter-service gaming only, just so long as it's not science math engineering or technology and threat real!

The End

Actually, monopolies are the most efficient way to control an industry. Competition only produces lackluster performances by those trying to keep up with the Jonses'. To say monopolies are creating over-budgets and lost/tossed money, you're ignoring an important truism. Over-budgets (black budgets) are a by-effect of a monopoly, not a cause-and-effect of a monopoly. Certainly in an open market all groups will siphon and crop and skim, but it's in a general 'free for all' way. In a monoploy market, they siphon and loot because they can. They have the "accounts receivables" inbox that will be guaranteed to be full later on down the road. Monololies suck for everyone but those involved.

Monopolies are the most efficient way to control an industry, that's true and a given. But it isn't what is the best for the industry. It's pretty simple that monopolies controlling an entire industry all end up in the same way: they either keep going and quality, innovation, and creativity plummets down; or the quality of the products goes so far down that the monopoly implodes upon itself. Example? Take any industry; coal, oil, stone, in the Soviet Union in the 80's until it's dissolution in '91. The industry, never facing competition from any other plants or competitive companies, don't have to make emissions okay, the quality of product produced can stay back in the 1940's level (or whenever built), and eventually the whole structure falls apart because there is no need to improve. The U.S. government is basically giving a legal monopoly to the defense contractors. Given that they are producing quality products now, if competition isn't created, the quality has the possibility of falling way down over time. Who needs to improve the products or make them as good as possible if you can make a half-good one knowing there is no other company which can take the contract? Its a sad reality, but people are lazy and if they can do less work and still get money, they'll take that opportunity. It took the Soviet Union 60-80 years for the whole country to fall apart, and if the competition doesn't appear, I'm afraid our "advanced military" we have here might eventually implode upon itself.

edited to add: Great example of a monopoly of the U.S.S.R. which ended in complete disaster: Chernobyl. The factory "owners" or "runners" never had to improve the safety regulations or measures, come up with new and safer ways of producing nuclear energy (which the U.S. had already done), because there were no competition regulations. How did this end up? Hundreds died, miles and miles around Chernobyl are inhabitable, and nuclear fall-out reached as far as Western Europe.

edited for typo.

I have spent many years on the contractor side (small business – not prime) and tend to agree with you in many respects but lets remember – the “spec” is a moving target and often the government wants, and needs the ‘industry” to define what can be done.

And this - Trouble is, they have no "requirements engineering" techies to help them, and they are by nature at the last steps of the careerism game, and are very well schooled in it. Turf, Turf, Turf and inter-agency, inter-service gaming only, just so long as it's not science math engineering or technology and threat real!” - Is the crux of the matter. All the military has is MITRE, SPAWAR, and the labs and they are limited in their scope.

On the positive side we do have the best weapons systems and hardware in the world. It just costs more than it should – and some of the blame lies squarely with the government procurement system you described so well above!

As I see things, I'm not terribly sure that the problem here is one or two companies having a monopoly on the defense weapons systems market. To the best of my knowledge, there's no real reason for the Air Force to pursue dealings with multiple contractors. After all, isn't the end goal to have just a few different types of planes that can do their respective jobs well? This ensures uniformity, which is a necessity for any military group. I can see particular benefit in having uniformity in military aircraft, just because that eliminiates the need to cross-train ground crews, pilots, etc., on multiple air defense systems.

But, as has been pointed out, when one or two contractors have a monopoly, prices tend to go up while contract fulfillments tend to go down.

So what can be done?

Well, the way I see it, the two major problems are a need for more labor, and a need for our government to maybe play hardball a bit more. I'm sure contractors like Lockheed are making plenty of dough off of their dealings with the government. If they can't meet deadlines, and can't deliver what is asked of them, then maybe they need to put that money behind hiring some more employees. But what incentive is our government giving them to improve? Well, maybe not too much. I'm certainly no expert on dealings with contractors, and maybe some of you can provide more insight into this matter, but there has to be some way for our government to put pressure onto these companies. No product, no money, right?

As far as dying contractors who don't have a monopoly on the market go, that's the beauty of capitalism, and the beauty of intellectual property rights. The contractors who currently have monopolies on the defense market will only maintain these monopolies until someone makes something better. I'm not going to be naive and say that this can happen overnight. It takes huge investments of time and money to create something as intricate as a state-of-the-art jet fighter, and there's no doubt that contractors who are down on their luck don't have as much of these as the current market-jockeys do. But does that mean that it's impossible to bang out something new and good? Of course not. The military in general, and especially the Air Force, is always looking for new gear to give us the edge we need. Heck, that's why America is a super-power, and that's why the USAF can establish complete air supremacy aywhere in the world in not much more than a day. Surely there will be a need for a new jet fighter, long-range bomber, SAM or anti-ICBM system in the future. Hopefully our economy will do what it has always done, and provide incentive for companies to keep striving for their best, and to invent something top-of-the-line, not just comfortably mediocre.

Yet the A10 is very well suited to desert warfare, probably as much or more than it was suited for the cold war. It certainly did a bang-up job during the first gulf war. I can't offer an explanation as to why the Airforce is phasing this aircraft out (other than parochialism and 'the service with the most and best toys wins' attitude), but it seems an uncanny coincidence that the A10 parts are only made in a couple of states, whereas nearly every state has some vested interest in the F22. I don't know the mechanism, but surely politics and Lockheed must have SOMETHING to do with this?

They were phasing it out in favor of faster more nimble planes that could perform the same mission. BUT they have changed their minds based, no doubt in part, on the great performance of the aircraft in the desert wars.
The problem with the aircraft now is the antiquated communications, etc. But there will be addressed.

The original service life of the A/OA-10 was 8,000 hours, equating to approximately to FY2005. The revised service life was projected out to 12,000 hours, equating to approximately FY2016. The most recent long range plan has the A/OA-10 in the fleet through FY2028, which equates to approximately 18,000-24,000 hours.

A/OA-10 modifications are aimed at improving the A/OA-10 throughout the its service life. All modifications are integrated between ACC, AFRC, and ANG, with the Guard and Reserve often funding non-recurring engineering efforts for the modifications and ACC opting for follow-on production buys. Budgetary constraints are often best overcome by this type of arrangement. Two types of modifications are conducted on the A/OA-10, those to systems, structures and engines, and those to avionics. Structure, system and engine modifications aim at improving reliability, maintainability and supportability of the A/OA-10 and reducing the cost of ownership. Avionics modifications continue the metamorphosis of the A/OA-10 from a day visual flight rules (VFR) fighter to a night-capable integrated weapon system.
A/OA-10 avionics modifications provide for greater interoperability between the Army and Air Force by improving situational awareness, tactical communication, navigation and weapon system accuracy, and providing additional capabilities in the areas of threat detection and avoidance, low-level flight safety, stores management and employment of “smart” weapons. In addition, modifications are sought to reduce cost of ownership and to remove supportability quagmires such as obsolete parts. Modifications to the A/OA-10 are nearly always interdependent—interdependence maximizes combat capability of the A/OA-10 by interconnecting modifications in distributed avionics architecture. Integral to the improvement of the A/OA-10 is a new acquisition strategy centered on a recently acquired prime contractor for the weapon system. The prime contractor will be the integrator of all major weapon system modifications and provide the continuity necessary to accommodate the downward trend in organic manpower and relocation of the System Program Office.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/a-10.htm

You've described a classic case of consolidation. Of coarse the larger players will have monopoly over the smaller ones. Should anything be done? I would argue no.

The problem is identifying the conditions in which the consolidation took place whether they are cyclical, economic or political.

The enormous sums of capital needed to make the prototype of the F-22 the viable craft it is today is immense. I'm thinking there are very few companies in a position to risk that much forward capital on a bid. This fact of itself would weed out quite a few players.

I'd also like to point out that with so much emphasis on security (I would argue an inordinate amount) there might be an effort to limit information sharing of sensitive technologies. We are after cutting edge tech right? Such an effort would lend itself to a limited number of players – following the structure of a cartel. Oddly enough, we have something fairly close to a cartel correct?

Now add the rising cost of fuel and other base-building ventures which have shifted priority investment elsewhere. Should more be spent? I leave that question up to you as it strikes me as largely rhetorical.

What I can quantify is that gross military spending is up. link

After reviewing the material, the impression I received from this and a few other reports is fightercraft R & D isn't the top priority from the number of irons in the fire. Essentially what you are after is a more open market for juniors to come in and participate with the majors much like what is happening with gold stocks.

What you need to do Mrs.P is convince congress people that despite a larger than ever budget a repriortization is needed. What is clear is the budget is being bled from a thousand other cuts, all of which take precedence over R and D.

Correct – only the major players can afford to risk this much money – although the government doees “buy” the prototypes the price never covers all costs.




Sort of. Some former major played like Northrop Grumman are out of the new planes but do get to build sub assemblies of systems that they specialize in. Also they are leaders in the craft that will eventually replace all manned aircraft – UAVs http://www.northropgrumman.com/unmanned/ and UCAVs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCAV . So the market is always in flux and very competitive.





Yes the war is sucking money from R&D so we will not build many F-22s and JSF fighters – and worse we are not spending as we should on UAV and UCAVs. In past wars where we “mobilized” R&D was crucial to winning (example WWII and Manhattan Project). In this war and others like it (Vietnam) we do not mobilize and have to cut R&D to fund the war.

There have been about 80 F22s (maybe more, I didn't look it up) produced in the past three years, so they're pumping them out pretty regularly, IMO. When my husband started flying them four years ago, they had two planes total at Nellis training base, now there are four operational squadrons and two training bases filled with them. The JSF might have to wait. And guard unit after guard units are transitioning to UAVs, so I really doubt they have been cut much.

I think the "sharing of sensitive technologies" is a very real concern and related to this topic. Look at what happened to the F16. The UAE and Saudi have F16s that are more souped up than our own. Sometimes we actually sell our best "toys" to foreign countries, the "logic" being this cuts down the manufacturing (and research and development) cost to us. And of course it works out well for Lockheed, so it's pushed by the politicians whose campaigns are funded by those industries. And there is already talk about selling the F22 overseas, which makes me see red....it had better be only to our very very closest allies.

Having worked in the aerospace industry off and on for 20+ years, I can tell you it’s not a monopoly. Yes, Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grumman are the “Big 3” defense contractors (in that order), but there are many other companies that support and/or subcontract with them. Aerospace today is much more streamlined than it was back in the glory days. Back then - talk about waste ($900 toilet seat story, anyone?)!! I think there are more controls now than there were then.

The big boys get the big bucks contracts, and pass it down to their sub and sub-subcontractors. So, more companies than just Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grumman benefit.

And it’s not entirely true that Lockheed is the only one building military jets. Yes, they’ve received the lion’s share of new aircraft contracts, but Boeing still maintains the F/A-18 Hornet, the F-15 Eagle, the C-17 Globemaster III transport, and the AH-64D Apache helicopter. Northrop Grumman has the E-2C Hawkeye, the F-14 Tomcat, and EA-6B Prowler; Airborne Ground Surveillance and Battle Management Systems, which concentrates on the E-8C Joint Stars; and Integrated Systems Western Region, which focuses on the B-2 Spirit, F-5 Tiger, Joint Strike Fighter and F/A-18 Hornet (subcontractor), as well as the Global Hawk, Hunter II, and J-UCAS unmanned vehicles. Sikorsky still builds military helicopters (Blackhawk, Seahawk).

And if it wasn’t for UTC, none of them would ever get off the ground. They manufacture jet engines (formerly Pratt & Whitney).
Source: Hoover's

And there are many satellite, laser, and communication government contractors out there as well.

Raytheon is still a huge government contractor, but I believe its focus has switched from aircraft to missile systems, radar and targeting devises.

There are probably thousands of companies with government/military contracts. Jet aircraft are only one of the myriad products made for the military. Has everyone forgotten the Army and Navy?

Hughes is the saddest story of all; its aircraft business was completely absorbed by Raytheon, and it was strictly satellite/communications…and now that has essentially disappeared, and been renamed DirecTV.

The AK as in original from the soviet union is an awesome assault rifle. Its rugged and reliable, which is something I would like to have personally in a field environment. It also has a heavier round and subsequently it can punch through more cover then the 5.56 can muster. Now I don’t know exactly which rifle wins in regards to ballistics overall, but to say the AK is crud is a crud statement, its simply not true.

The U.S military in regards to buying stuff is sort of weak in my opinion. Troops not only need technology really that matches modern day threats, but they need stuff that’s going to work. What’s the point in a billion dollar piece of equipment if it cant ever defeat RPG-7 really.

Call it adapt and overcome, I personally like the statement, but what keeps getting missed in all of this is that a single armored division of ours could level Iraq as it stands currently, but our troops are not over there fighting a total war scenario. Some of the tools and equipment needed are not in a traditional sense of a better sabot round and denser armor on the front of the tank always.

Really its intelligence based warfare that is the pinnacle of success or failure in such a situation, as in we praise the opportunity when they arrive to destroy a pocket of resistance in Iraq with a guided missile, but it was intelligence that allowed or gave way to that ability in the first place.

Of all places I think it was MTV. It had an ex army soldier who was out of the army because both of his legs were gone. They were part of a security element in an APC. On contact they moved to engage, from a position an rpg round was fired into the front of the vehicle, it knocked the vehicle out and the entire crew became casualties. What an AAR would supply on this really is the importance of intelligence in my opinion, not in the idea of being dumb or smart, but adapting and overcoming, it was a failure that allowed for a common weapon the enemy uses to come to such an effect on a vehicle that cannot repel such an attack, more so in a urban situation with U.S people packing that can like sardines. It is rather john Wayne of us to be like that I guess though, but I don’t know how effective it really is.

Actually there are strict rules and categories (of countries) regarding foreigh sales – and no foreign country ever gets the “latest and greatest” avionics with the possible exception of the UK.





You are right on here except that the F-14 is a retired aircraft and the EA-6B is on the way out as well. The industry is still vibrant with lots of competition – ecp. In UAV and UCAV – and these will be land, sea, air and underwater. We will ultimately IMO build fewer than planned F-22 and F-35 Lightning II (JSF) aircraft because of them. And as you say – with all the subs and sub subs there are millions of us working in this industry.



Only the HUMVEE has been plagued by this weapon and it was never designed to defeat it. New vehicles are being made by the thousands that are capable of defeating the RPG.



http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...ground/jltv.htm

I realize that there are categories and rules regarding foreign military sales. I also know that those rules often depend highly on politics, and I also know that Saudi and the UAE have (or had until at least 2002) F16s with greater capabilities than most of our own F16s. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I simply know this because my husband flew and trained with UAE and Saudi pilots (and Bahrain and Kuwait too, so it's possible I've mixed the countries), in those respective countries, for several months and he told me this. That was in the mid to late 90s, and early 2000 (through the summer of 2002).

We have actually fielded new technology for aircraft by selling it first to the UAE. We did this for reasons I explained above, so that the research and development cost could be absorbed by the UAE (and Saudi). I realize we haven't sold them the F22 yet, but that is how these things go. When the push was made for the creation of the F22 it was a plane we were supposed to never sell. Now it looks like we'll be selling them (but only to "allies"). Well, I wouldn't be surprised if the list of allies we'll sell to gets longer and longer as time goes by.

The way it works is years go by before all our F-16s for example are upgraded to the latest rev. Thus a country could buy a plane with a better “mission computer” for example. But you can be sure that if we had to fight said country the planes they faced would blow them out of the sky.

We need to allow for more aircraft sales or production lines go down and we lose the ability to make the aircraft. With UAE there will be “mission planning” software and avionics updates they will not get. Our latest updates will always be ahead of thieir planes even though not all of our aircraft are the latest rev.

Because we have more of them, and probably better trained pilots. Not because our pilots have better F16s (now with the F22 facing them you are correct). I decided to search google, and quickly found something that backs my claims.

Well, the above article was written in 1998...the F22 program could have been scrapped at that time. I will state again that i don't think this is wise and we are speaking of one particular plane of which I know something about. I don't know how widespread military sales are in other areas but I'd expect the same principle applies. Selling any other country more advanced military equipment than our own soldiers have is a bad idea, and it's particularly daft to sell such items to any country in the middle east...a volatile atmosphere where friends today might be overthrown by enemies tomorrow.



Understood, but doesn't this seem a rather insane cycle? We sell planes to potential adversaries because we need to keep cost production down and manufacturers working, and then we need to fund the creation of more and better planes to combat those planes we sold. It's a bit of an irony to get into an arms race with oneself.

Yes you are correct here but as you say is only because the aircraft is essentially obsolete. One F-22 could shoot down 5- 10 of these planes and they would never see it. For the newer planes like the Hornet foreign countries do not get the “latest and greatest”. And in a battle overseas the plane first on the scene would be the F-18 Hornet and Super Hornet.

Also remember that increasingly aircraft will depend on networks and communications – including our GPS network that the UAE will not have access to.




Planes take years to be delivered and if F-22 was scrapped and the Hornet was not felt to be far superior IMO the deliveries would have been cancelled. In any case the numbers sold are mall in comparison to our forces and we must realize the UAE would have bought an equivalent fighter from France or Russia if we did not sell them the F-16.

This also makes them dependant on the US for parts and support. Iran has a bunch of grounded F-14s – no parts.

The F16 is far, far from obsolete. It is one of the airforce's foremost fighter planes. Have you seen any F22s in Iraq or Afghanistan? Nope. A lot of F16s though.



Agreed, this is true.



The F18 isn't newer than the F16, to my knowledge. Be that as it may, if you are speaking of the newest F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, Kuwait has them, Malaysia has them, and India is likely getting them.



The UAE had those planes several years before we had operational F22 units (which was only last year). The program was several years behind schedule, and it was far from a foregone conclusion at the time those planes arrived in the UAE. I used to think as you do. I found that this reasoning was erroneous, as experience and facts (like I've provided above) indicate otherwise. We do export military equipment that is just as good as, and in certain cases, better than what we have. It's hard to believe, true. We do this usually for political reasons and so that the receiving country will pay a large part of the cost of newest weapons' development, and so that Lockheed and/or Boeing can continue to make sales. The argument that "they'll get aircraft somewhere else" doesn't convince me. Heck, if you feel that way, let's export them everywhere...the Chinese are buying French planes! That could be our vast untapped market!

I agree and I am not saying the plane will not be around for a decade or so but production for the US military has stopped.

The deal you speak of was done by Al Gore. Notice the key words below – “international competitors”. So they fly ours or the Russians – small difference. The only way I can understand this type of sale is by thinking that in a real conflict (with a far inferior military) we feel we would destroy all their planes on the ground with long range missiles early on. I think the operative policy here is sales to countries we would like to have as allies and who have insignificant military power (compared to the US)

Text: Vice President Gore Lauds Sale of F-16 Jets to the UAE
(The sale can help deter aggression in the region, says Gore) (600)

Vice President Al Gore March 5 congratulated Lockheed Martin and the
United Arab Emirates on the announcement from Abu Dhabi that they have
completed terms on the sale of 80 F-16 fighter jets to the UAE.

The sale finalized a purchase announced at the White House in May of
1998 by UAE Crown Prince Khalifa and the Vice President, according to
a White House statement.

Vice President Gore was part of a White House team that encouraged the
UAE to purchase the F-16 as the Gulf country was considering bids from
international competitors.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs...-f-16-usia1.htm

Well, here we go. The Japanese have expressed a strong interest in buying up to 100 F22s.

Now, who wants to place a bet that we will broker said deal.

The F22 would offer a significant tactical advantage to Japan and, I believe, be a destabilizing component to that region. This isn't only a bad idea because the Chinese would start buying and producing arms even faster than they currently do, or because it would spark more tensions with N Korea which would use this as an excuse to turn up the nuclear furnace, but it would effect South Korea as well. For those who don't know, between the Koreans and Japanese there is a heavily disputed Island area called Dokdu. There is irony in the fact that the same day an arms deal on superior air defense missiles was made between South Korea and Raytheon.

Even if we sell them the aircraft with the reduced capability software, I don't think it will take them long to write their own software restoring or improving those capabilities. And once this is done it can open Pandora's box. It was a Japanese company that sold technology to the old Soviet Union enabling them to make a leap in their submarine capability. in fact, we have an actual Obey amendment forbidding the sale of fifth-generation fighters to foreign sources. How long does anyone think it will take for this amendment to be discarded in the interest of making these foreign sales? Right now, the F22s are on their first AEF (air expeditionary force), and that just happens to be to Kadena, Japan. Coincidence?

I am in favor of Japan having the latest technology as China rapidly builds its military – and independent of anything we would do. Japan can be a hedge against China in the decades to come. And FYI the “software” you are speaking of resides in numerous separate systems in the plane which cannot be altered. The companies that write the code, you can bet, protect it well.

"A highly classified intelligence report produced for the new director of national intelligence concludes that U.S. spy agencies failed to recognize several key military developments in China in the past decade, The Washington Times has learned.
The report was created by several current and former intelligence officials and concludes that U.S. agencies missed more than a dozen Chinese military developments, according to officials familiar with the report. - this is from June 2005.

Among the failures highlighted in the study are:
• China's development of a new long-range cruise missile.
• The deployment of a new warship equipped with a stolen Chinese version of the U.S. Aegis battle management technology.

• Deployment of a new attack submarine known as the Yuan class that was missed by U.S. intelligence until photos of the submarine appeared on the Internet.

• Development of precision-guided munitions, including new air-to-ground missiles and new, more accurate warheads.

• China's development of surface-to-surface missiles for targeting U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups.
• The importation of advanced weaponry, including Russian submarines, warships and fighter-bombers.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20...20336-4092r.htm


And note here the “stolen” Aegis system – our best! Our abysmal security has allowed China to steal our nuclear technology and now our best missile defense system. Fortunately it will be upgraded over the next 5 years and it will take China a little longer to steal the new system!


As for South Korea. We are pulling back from the border and they need to be better protected from lightning attack from the North. The systems would be a deterrent IMO and if the South falls in an attack there would be time to destroy them.

What can be done?

In looking at how the government handles and mandates contract approval nothing really can be done unless the temptation of a big payout are removed from contractor to government and military officials. It's an uphill battle since the investigations and prosecutions for any budgetary or contract wrong doings are mostly done either through a military tribunal or a congressional committee. Its a brotherhood/sisterhood environment. Once in a while you will see sacrificial pawns prosecuted but the main architects are still in the mix.

In order to fully address the issue, one item would need to be address. Increasing public knowledge, not necessarily to education, but to information sharing (true - real). Once everyone is well aware of the reality, the control of contract approvals should be done through a referendum. From my understanding the government also controls what can be in a referendum so this should also be changed.