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To: Paladin2
B-52s didn't cost 2 billion dollars apiece. The next generation bomber is likely to be high and fast (M1+) instead of uber-stealthy.
5 posted on 12/18/2003 2:14:26 PM PST by Poohbah ("Beware the fury of a patient man" -- John Dryden)
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To: Poohbah
B-52s didn't cost 2 billion dollars apiece.

If Boeing had only build 21 B-52s, accounting for inflation they probably would have cost more than that each.

B-2s "cost" 2 billion dollars apiece in that the procurement program cost 44 billion dollars for 21 aircraft. 25 billion of that was one time R&D costs - or more than half the price of each aircraft - and most of the rest of it was production inefficiencies of such a short run.

The full planned run of 133 aircraft would have cost about 80 billion - 600 million apiece, or a little more than 1/4 the price per unit.

We spent 60% of the original pricetage and got 15% of the original product. Pentagon cost cutting at its very best.

8 posted on 12/18/2003 4:06:18 PM PST by CGTRWK
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To: Poohbah
B-52s didn't cost 2 billion dollars apiece. The next generation bomber is likely to be high and fast (M1+) instead of uber-stealthy.

The B-2 doesn't cost an additional $2 billion each to make. You are just repeating the numbers the DemocRATS use to justify the production halt. The $2 billion figure includes the fixed R&D costs allocated to each copy built. Quite a few Republican Congressmen are interested in building 40 new tactical B-2 bombers at a cost of $700 million each. The differences would mostly be due to less extensive EMP shielding in a tactical only version.

11 posted on 12/18/2003 6:04:03 PM PST by Paleo Conservative (Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
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