Posted on 04/11/2014 2:17:41 PM PDT by blueplum
I’ve worked in defense for thirty years as an employee of contractors. I’ve worked on contracts that built spares for equipment that had been pulled out of service. The spares went from delivery to a depot to scrap. It was purely a way to boost income. Now whether that money was allocated by Congress or somebody in the Pentagon, I can’t say. But I worked on future combat systems. That was a scheme hatched by Boeing and SAIC who were “co-integrators of integrators.” It was a colossal waste of money. Monumental. Only twenty cents of every dollar bought engineering or hardware. And it was, like the Boeing tanker deal, purely a congressional money allocation scheme.
Nothing a (well hidden in the right place) lower than required fuse won’t fix.
Damned Gravity, suck Ya down to Earth everytime
And I worked a career on active duty, too include SAF/AQ, as well as working over a decade in a major defense industry, too include business development and serving as a lobbyist for 5-yrs.
Contracts are contracts. The buy-and-send to scrap scenario, if true, would have made you a rich man if you knew the contracting and acquisition laws and had any experience in that world. All you would had to do was call the fraud/waste/abuse hot-line and collect 10% of the savings.
FCS was a system that the Army put together, a concept their future planners put together. Where do you think services get the ideas what they should buy for an Army decades out? From their deep thinkers and force planners, that’s who.
The Army had a vision, worked their requirements, wrote and released an RFP and let the contractors bid on it. The Army makes the source selection, not the contractor, and if it requires advanced technology, as FCS did, and much of the technology is still in development (like the F-22 when first designed and actually delivered), then there is risk involved.
So, your jab and Boeing (numb-skulls that they are) and SAIC (airheads all) did not tell the Army what to buy, they did not write the RFP, they did not work in service acquisition offices and ghost-write the documents, and Boeing and SAIC did not do the source selection.
I think many people are unaware of the processes and procedures when it comes to force planning and statements of need development. . .let alone the whole RFP and source-selection process.
“So all CONUS Apaches are going to be Federalized?”
All the easier to take over the states from a centralized, military plan with no state gurdsmen defending their states.
Will Vlad send us aid to fight this oppressive regime?
"Please!, Mr. Putin..."
On the other hand when not called into federal service the Air Guard is tasked with providing disaster relief in their local states. When your river is flooded and you’re trying evacuate trapped people or move relieve supplies in then what would do the better job? Apache or Blackhawk?
Active Duty ping.
the 58’s were just all upgraded , they work fine , the air crews are well trained and hot as pistols , they do a fine job . It’s NOT the Army that wants to dump them , all those upgrades and all that specialized training ; it’s the CIV minions in the Regime that are making these calls . The air crews hate it , think it’s insane . They do NOT want to have to re-train on the Apache when they are well trained OH pilots . It’s stupid on ice . And by the way , Apaches burn vastly more fuel than the 58’s . Go figure .
I’ve been seeing a few fly over lately around the midlands. First time in a good while that I’ve noticed.
At the end of this corny video of mine, there was an Apache buzzing around but the quality wasn’t so hot since it was ducking around and coming from different directions. I think my batteries died just as I was getting the hang of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Wm2o-sMKM
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