And after it is designed, it will only cost $500,000 per cartridge.
It's like the overdesigned/underperforming Shillelagh wire-guided missiles fired from the aluminum-"armored" M551 Sheridan light tank with its 155-mm main gun (the 18-ton tank jumped backwards every time the main gun fired a round of ammunition with its problemmatic semi-combustible cartridge). Designed to allow the gunner to changed the course of the fired missile to stay on a moving target, the Shillelagh missiles, no longer produced, ended up only being fired in combat at immovable bunkers in Desert Storm.
I know very little about weaponry, but yes, the example you gave clearly sounds like Style over Substance or Functionality. And this is the result after years of R&D.
It’s like producing a movie so expensive it could never turn a profit. The same thing happens when the government or the EPA makes certain corporations use ethanol or ‘green based’ fuels that cost many times what easily available fuels would cost.
I hope to take a pistol training course next year as one of my New Years Resolutions.
Alas the poor Sheridan. I always had a soft spot for it. I didn’t know those missiles were ever used except for some training.
There was a demo film of Sheridan on YouTube that was good.
Here is the Youtube clip of the Army intro film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgdA00kZioM
This Sheridan used to sit at the old aviation museum in Charlotte. Not sure of where they put it when they moved.
http://tysonneil.smugmug.com/Military/M551-Sheridan-Tank/i-dpT8MxK/A