Pentagon bloat, etc. thread

[Vrede too]

TCS (Taxpayers for Common Sense) Awards its Golden Fleece Award to the U.S. Air Force for refusing to release the overall costs of the B-21 bomber program.

I am having a difficult time understanding how the public disclosure of a single contract award value funded from an unclassified budget request is going to give the enemy more information on the capabilities of a new bomber than what the Air Force has already disclosed. All I can see is that keeping it a secret deprives the American taxpayer of the transparency and accountability they deserve.
-- Senator John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Armed Services Committee

[rstrong]

Canada just announced that we're going to pass on the F-35 for now. We're going to replace our F-18 Hornets with the latest generation of Super-Hornets.

This should keep the St. Louis production lines open for a few more years. They were scheduled to close next year.

[Vrede too]

IS conflict: How is it getting hold of weapons from the West?

The more important question is: Why is this a surprise when we've been saying for decades that this will be the certain result of our military-industrial comlex's massive arming of the Middle East?

To be delivered to General Michael Flynn, Incoming National Security Adviser

Urge the incoming Administration to stop helping Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen.

[Vrede too]

Obama legacy: Handing Trump a broad view of war powers



Pentagon buried study that found $125 billion in wasteful spending - Washington Post

[Vrede too]

Even a broken clock . . .

Trump tweet on ‘costly’ F-35 program tanks Lockheed shares

[rstrong]

Boeing lost a billion dollars in market value last week because of a Trump tweet, but gained it all back within hours. Lockheed's shares will probably recover too.

[Vrede too]

Flip-flop Trump will probably reconsider his criticism, too.

[Vrede too]

The Navy's Stealthy, High-Tech USS Zumwalt Just Broke Down (September)
The destroyer has suffered an engineering malfunction, and it will take up to two weeks to repair.

The Navy's New Stealth Destroyer Broke Down in the Panama Canal (November)
The USS Zumwalt experienced an "engineering casualty" and collided with the canal walls.

The USS Zumwalt May Have Found Ammo It Can Actually Afford to Fire

[rstrong]

The Zumwalt is a prototype with MANY things being tested for the first time. Even then the Panama Canal problem - a sea water leak through the lubrication cooling system - sounds like the sort of teething problem you'd find in any first ship of a new class.

The guided projectile problem - besides probably being legitimately over budget - suffers from the standard way Congress drives up the per-item price:

- Develop a system with several entirely new technologies at enormous cost.

- Amortize the cost over the many copies of that system to be built, to keep the cost per item down.

- Cut the number if items to be built in half to save costs. This of course means that you're amortizing the development costs over half the number of items, so the cost per item jumps.

- Faced with the sudden jump in the cost per item, halve the number to be built again. The cost per item jumps again. Cut the number further.

There were originally going to be 32 Zumwalt-class destroyers, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. That 32 was dropped to 24, then 7, and finally 3. The R&D costs for the guided projectile were also spread the number needed for regular use across 32 ships. As the number of ships dropped, the cost per item went up.

[Vrede too]

All or almost all at massively inflated costs from initial projections and commitments, meaning that we could have chosen to spend the money more wisely on other things - military or not. That some were eventually successful, at times marginally so, doesn't mean that they were a good deal.

But we can't since estimates are almost never accurate. This means our choices can't be fully informed and wise.

[rstrong]

Boeing lost a billion dollars in market value last week because of a Trump tweet...

"President-elect Donald Trump issued a single tweet blasting defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. at 8:30 a.m. on Monday. By lunchtime, he had wiped $4 billion off the company's market value."
- from a Politico story

"Everyone now has to keep their Twitter feed right next to their Bloomberg terminal."
- Jack Ablin, CIO at BMO Private Bank

[Vrede too]

It's ironic that President-defect Trump has already done more to damage or try to damage Boeing, Lockheed Martin, the CIA, the generals that he's "smarter than", Shrub's Iraq War, John McCain and other POWs, veterans' families, NATO, our allies, our international reputation and the GOP than any other individual in my lifetime. It's gonna be a wild ride.

[Vrede too]

... There were originally going to be 32 Zumwalt-class destroyers, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. That 32 was dropped to 24, then 7, and finally 3....

You removed a phrase from your unattributed paraphrase or the source you got it from did.

... Originally 32 ships were planned, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. As costs overran estimates, the quantity was reduced to 24, then to 7, and finally to 3, significantly increasing the cost-per-ship to $3.96 billion (excluding R&D costs) – well-exceeding the per-unit cost of a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine ($2.688 billion). The dramatic per-unit cost increases eventually triggered a Nunn-McCurdy Amendment breach, and cancellation of further production. In April 2016, the total program cost was $22.5 billion with an average cost of $7.5 billion per ship.

Fwiw, I wasn't trying to factcheck you. I was just looking up the difference between the ships in the article below and Zumwalt-class destroyers and stumbled on the same statement.

Anyhow, other ships:

McCain blasts Navy warships in report on Pentagon waste

[Vrede too]

... There were originally going to be 32 Zumwalt-class destroyers, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. That 32 was dropped to 24, then 7, and finally 3....

You removed a phrase from your unattributed paraphrase or the source you got it from did.

... Originally 32 ships were planned, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. As costs overran estimates, the quantity was reduced to 24, then to 7, and finally to 3, significantly increasing the cost-per-ship to $3.96 billion (excluding R&D costs) – well-exceeding the per-unit cost of a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine ($2.688 billion). The dramatic per-unit cost increases eventually triggered a Nunn-McCurdy Amendment breach, and cancellation of further production. In April 2016, the total program cost was $22.5 billion with an average cost of $7.5 billion per ship.

More on the programmatic FUBAR: Background and funding.

Fwiw, I wasn't trying to factcheck you. I was just looking up the difference between the ships in the article below and Zumwalt-class destroyers and stumbled on the same statement.

Anyhow, other ships:

McCain blasts Navy warships in report on Pentagon waste

[rstrong]

(excluding R&D costs)

Fair enough, but I still don't doubt for an instant that there are some major fixed costs that were supposed to be amortized across 32 ships, that are now being amortized across three.

McCain blasts Navy warships in report on Pentagon waste

I must admit, this is a man who will know Pentagon waste on Navy warships when he sees it. Being responsible for so much of it....

From Wikipedia:

McCain served as the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate beginning in 1977. In retrospect, he has said that this represented his "real entry into the world of politics and the beginning of my second career as a public servant." His key behind-the-scenes role gained congressional financing for a new supercarrier against the wishes of the Carter administration

[Vrede too]

Yeah, McCain may be the proverbial broken clock, but when even he thinks something military is horrendously wasteful . . .

Fair enough, but I still don't doubt for an instant that there are some major fixed costs that were supposed to be amortized across 32 ships, that are now being amortized across three....

The quote does say that: "... and finally to 3, significantly increasing the cost-per-ship to $3.96 billion ...".

But, the specific cause or excuses (depending on one's perspective) is less important than the whole system being a costly mess.

[Vrede too]

More:

How the Navy’s Zumwalt-Class Destroyers Ran Aground

[Vrede too]

Why Would America Sell Saudi Arabia 15,699 Dangerous Missiles? Now We Know.
The answer seems to be: Because Canada was getting ready to sell them 3,000 brand-new military vehicles.

War crimes in Yemen, what war crimes in Yemen?

Allah akbar.

[Vrede too]

There have been countless abominations perpetrated upon our soldiers - atomic guinea pigs, Agent Orange, all of Vietnam, Gulf War Syndrome, VA scandals, the hundreds of Iraq War lies, depleted uranium munitions, etc. - but this might be among the worst:

Camp Lejeune water contamination

The Camp Lejeune water contamination problem occurred at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune from 1953 to 1987. During that time, United States Marine Corps (USMC) service members and their families living at the base bathed in and ingested tap water that was contaminated with harmful chemicals at concentrations from 240 to 3400 times levels permitted by safety standards. An undetermined number of former base residents later developed cancer or other ailments, which many blame on the contaminated drinking water. Victims claim that USMC leaders concealed knowledge of the problem and did not act properly in trying to resolve it or notify former base residents that their health might be at risk.

In 2009 the U.S. federal government initiated investigations into the allegations of contaminated water and failures by U.S. Marine officials to act on the issue. In August 2012, President Obama signed the Janey Ensminger Act into law to begin providing medical care for people who may have been affected by the contamination. In February 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the contaminated water at Lejeune significantly increased the risk of multiple disease including liver and kidney cancer and ALS.

(up to 900,000) Veterans Exposed To Contaminated Water At Marine Base To Receive Disability Benefits
Veterans, former reservists and former National Guard members who served Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and have been diagnosed with one of eight diseases are eligible.

About time.

[Vrede too]

@HouseDemocrats: Back Lieu-Conyers to End U.S. Aid to Saudi Bombing of Yemen (petition)