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Army shuns counter-RPG system
Talon Mistsong
Ranger
in Zocalo v2.0
[url]www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14686871[/url]
[quote]OFT officials subjected Trophy to 30 tests and found that it is “more than 98 percent” effective at killing RPGs.[/quote]
Sounds good to me, except...
[quote]As a result, OFT decided to buy several Trophies — which cost $300,000-$400,000 each — for battlefield trials on Strykers in Iraq next year.
That plan immediately ran into a roadblock: Strong opposition from the U.S. Army. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News that the Army brass considers the Israeli system a threat to an Army program to develop an RPG defense system from scratch.
Col. Donald Kotchman, who heads the Army’s program to develop an RPG defense, acknowledges that Raytheon’s system won’t be ready for fielding until 2011 at the earliest. [/quote]
I'm no fan of the war in Iraq, but this is complete bullshit. :mad:
[quote]OFT officials subjected Trophy to 30 tests and found that it is “more than 98 percent” effective at killing RPGs.[/quote]
Sounds good to me, except...
[quote]As a result, OFT decided to buy several Trophies — which cost $300,000-$400,000 each — for battlefield trials on Strykers in Iraq next year.
That plan immediately ran into a roadblock: Strong opposition from the U.S. Army. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News that the Army brass considers the Israeli system a threat to an Army program to develop an RPG defense system from scratch.
Col. Donald Kotchman, who heads the Army’s program to develop an RPG defense, acknowledges that Raytheon’s system won’t be ready for fielding until 2011 at the earliest. [/quote]
I'm no fan of the war in Iraq, but this is complete bullshit. :mad:
Comments
[url]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/[/url]
Jake
With no projects to work on, the knowledge base disappears. Sometimes the military builds things it doesn't really need just to keep companies going, like several in the shipboard nuclear power field. I think there is only one company that has the capability to build a carrier powerplant. What if it went out of business?
Not a single company in the US right now has the capability to manufacture diesel-electric submarines, even though they are much better suited to coastal defense than nuke boats, and far cheaper to operate. When we promised four diesel boats to Taiwan, we had to go asking the European companies to subcontract, and they wouldn't do it. I think in the end, the deal fell through.
By the way, the Russians had something like this working years ago.
Time for a RANT. Asbestos underwear on people.
Right !
Lets look at an example from history.
One lost German fighter pilot lands his Focke-Wolfe 190 at a British airforce base. It's undamaged, it offers the British and allied boffins something to study in detail. Up until that point, the British had nothing that could keep up with, or effectively fight the FW 190. They did eventually pump enough steroids into the Spitfire for it to stand a chance, but that was a long time coming. From this single aircraft was spawned a new specification document and as a direct result, the Typhoon/Fury line of aircraft, one of the best aircraft of WW2, which went on to be the last piston driven aircraft in military service with the British Air Force.
The Allies we're on a war footing, so they swallowed thier pride and followed what was clearly a much better design, to try and catch up with the Luftwaffe in terms of technical prowess.
In short, only a prideful dickhead ignores a better technology in favour of thier old, dated and inadequate designs.
If the US is so concerned about keeping up with the Joneses, do some retro-engineering ! You often learn as much, or more from studying someone elses design. In fact it's often the case where a fresh set of eye's will see the best way forward to make some imporvements to an existing system, because they do not have a vested interest in the work that has gone before, there is not 'preciousness' because the tech isnt 'thier baby'.Get the Israeli tech and make it better ! Save some poor fucking grunts life in the process ! If you're so fucking worried about your research budget walking... spend it on more retro-engineering, or hell... maybe adapt it to other vehicles ! Can you make the bitch light enough and cheap enough to fit to a Humvee ?? Maybe you can sell it off as some sort of gimmicky never-ever-get-used protection for Air Force One...
Is there anyone left in power, in the US whom is genuinely creative or innovative ???
I hate money driven politics. I despise money driven politics involving bone-headed, vision free dickhead politicians, both in public office and in the commerical sector.
Times change I guess.
[B]The...Nazis...Are...BACK [/B][/QUOTE]
[tacky] ...and selling to the Jews no less! :D [/tacky]
;)
Unfortunately, this is not the choice that is presented here to the DoD. They have to decide whether to build a system, thereby accepting a wait of considerable time, but gaining technical knowledge, versus buying one off the shelf from people who already have learned all the lessons from the development cycle.
We can't look at it as a design situation, which the guys at Hawker did with the Typhoon. If we buy Trophy, it makes no sense to design another version from scratch. I think the best thing at this point would be to ask the Israelis for technical advice (like SB is suggesting), and order Raytheon to accept whatever help they are willing to give. Combine that with ramped up deadlines for testing and production, and they might actually do it. The guys at Hawker didn't just copy the Fw 190, they designed their own plane after figuring out what the Germans had done. We need to design our own, after asking what the Israelis have done.