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#13794568
As the US military has been tasked with finding saving that would reduce its spending to 2007 levels one of the biggest shake up's to defence is about to hit and many think its long overdue. No programs have been identified yet as on the chopping block but there are several prime candidates such as one or more varients of the F-35 and the marine corps Osprey.

Seen a lot of ideas on deficit reduction that involve in some way or another cuts to defence, heres your opportunity, how would you plan to reduce US defence spending? The first target is to find $350 billion which should be quite easy, the next will be to find a further $600 billion as automatic cuts are triggered.
#13794866
Make in into a purely defensive force. I mean how much did Iraq alone cost? Only invading people who have done something to the US would go a long way towards cutting the deficit.
#13795398
No programs have been identified yet as on the chopping block but there are several prime candidates such as one or more varients of the... marine corps Osprey.


Thank you.

The easiest way is to tell DARPA to go fuck itself. God only knows how much money they throw down the drain every year on projects that even never see the light of day, or take 30 years to complete.
#13797403
Wolfman
The easiest way is to tell DARPA to go fuck itself.


Blasphemy!!!!

Allow me to use Family Guy as a reference: DARPA is Peter. Lois is everyone else.

[youtube]NOrrtQ79HGI[/youtube]

Bottom line: No one tells DARPA to go fuck themselves.

The amount of crazy shit i've seen some of their researchers working on first hand at the National Laboratories with my own eyes was enough to convince me that you simply don't fuck with them and their funding if you want to live past 55 with good health. They literally turn stuff that is/was science-fiction into science-fact (like Lovecraftian Science fact)...and it's very scary.
#13797460
They also routinely dump buckets of money onto companies who only have a concept drawing, and then spend 30 years to develop the blue prints, so we can dump even more buckets of money on them. That we consider this acceptable behavior on any level is simply dumbfounding to me.
#13797830
Save Money?
How about dumping a shit load of Military service contractors they account for 20% of the budget and most of what they do the military did for itself not to long ago. I see no reason for civilian contractors to be running gunnery ranges, building targets, running and staffing mess halls, operating CAST trainers and all of that shit.

I'm with you Piano Red........anyone that thinks DARPA isn't a valuable asset is less than a fool.

Now tell me about the DARPA to ►►ONR ►► Free Electron Laser and Electromagnetic Armor plating for Naval ships programs.....yeah research and development who needs it right. Knowledge Isn't Power...Ignorance Is Power :p
#13797908
yeah research and development who needs it right. Knowledge Isn't Power...Ignorance Is Power


You have this really shitty habit of trying to put words in my mouth. Has anyone told you how stupid that makes you look? It's remarkably like you didn't even try to read or understand my post. How is it a stupid thing to tell DARPA to fuck itself after it dumped huge amounts of money projects that don't have concept art. How is that kind of behavior acceptable?
#13797984
You have this really shitty habit of trying to put words in my mouth. Has anyone told you how stupid that makes you look? It's remarkably like you didn't even try to read or understand my post. How is it a stupid thing to tell DARPA to fuck itself after it dumped huge amounts of money projects that don't have concept art. How is that kind of behavior acceptable?

I have that shitty habit because you have a persistent habit of making such stupid remarks. So now you are miffed because I called you on yet another one of your stupid uninformed comments. Stop making such stupid remarks and I will gladly ignore your silly ass.

Wolfman wrote:The easiest way is to tell DARPA to go fuck itself. God only knows how much money they throw down the drain every year on projects that even never see the light of day, or take 30 years to complete.

Man, that's very fucking deep!!!

I put those dumb fucking words in your suck? No I didn't. First of all DARPA has a 3.5 billion dollar/year budget. And I'm sorry that I have to be the one to inform you that DARPA's GIGANTIC BUDGET represents less than 1/2 of 1% of the military budget....wow! DARPA is a drop in the bucket so how is telling DARPA to fuck off the best way to get military spending under control? If you want to amputate something get rid of crap like the V-22 Osprey, The $700,000,000 Littoral Combat Ship (a lightly armed gunboat).

DARPA is about research, its about taking technological risks and exploring what might be possible in the hope of gaining an advantage over our enemies or preventing us from being surprised by their capabilities. When exploring the edge of technology not every path taken bears fruit immediately and some never pans out at all but failures are valuable as well because they define limits. And that's just the fucking price of doing business in the real world sport. Sometimes its just necessary to let those Eggheads at places like DARPA and ONR run with the ball just to see where they go.

DARPA
#13798015
DARPA is also about dumping huge sums of money on projects like the P-791 between 1984 and now, it only get a working model up in 2009, to probably not get any real deployment in for another decade or two. Assuming you consider KFlint, a contractor who works with DARPA a reliable source on what DARPA has done in the last 30 odd years.

Also, notice I said "easiest" not "most effective". Reading comprehension, trying figuring that one out.
#13798151
In his disturbed state Wolfman wrote: Reading comprehension, trying figuring that one out.

Aww poor Wolfie is trying to defend his idiotic commentary...isn't that special. :lol:

No one bats 1000 not even DARPA did I ever say that they were infallible? But yes, of course eliminating a few DARPA programs that you don't understand and assume are of questionable value because of your inability to grasp their significance and potential is the easiest way to solve our budgetary problems. "Just tell DARPA to fuck off"...that's quite a solution. Especially since DARPA accounts for such a tiny fraction of the defense budget.

You invoked Kflint

But what about Kflint? Did you notice a qualitative difference between Kflint's posts and yours? I sure did. Did you notice that he spoke in specifics and included citations as well as his educated opinion? That is why I take Kflint seriously all the time and give you the gaff most of the time sport.

DARPA's Approach to Innovation and Its Reflection in Industry wrote:Today's world is changing rapidly, providing exceptional challenges and opportunities. As shown by recent events, it is increasingly complex and chaotic with seemingly small actions triggering massive changes. In addition, the rate of technological change is accelerating at what some would say is an exponential pace based on principles such as Moore's law, Metcalf's law, and Schumpeter's waves. An outcome of this change is that our work is becoming more interdisciplinary. Information technology is impacting chemistry, physics is impacting biology, and nanotechnology is pervasive in many disciplines.

How does one manage and control these changes? How does one harness this complexity and growing multidisciplinarity to solve critical problems for society? For approximately 50 years the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a leading role in turning innovations in technology into new military capabilities. In fact, most military and many civilian systems today can trace their origins to funding from DARPA. These include the Internet (ARPANET), high-speed microelectronics, stealth and satellite technologies, unmanned vehicles, and a wide variety of new materials. What are the driving forces, culture, and processes employed by DARPA to accelerate technical innovation, and how can these same techniques be used effectively in academia, national laboratories, and industry? Article

I found this comment of yours to be particularly enlightening Wolfman :roll:
Wolfman wrote:I'm not sure if Drones will be enough of a major aspect of combat in the coming years to make dropping an insane amount of money on it today worth it.

That is an absolutely amazing comment. It reminds me the US Navy's 'enlightened' attitude towards a funny rickety little thing called the airplane in the 1920s especially after the sinking of the SMS Ostfriesland by some rickety old biplanes.
In 1921 Admiral William D. Leahy wrote:"The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs."

Image
Battleships sunk by aircraft in open water WW2.
HMS Repulse, HMS Prince of Wale, Italian battleship Roma, INS Hiei, INS Musashi, INS Yamato, Greek battleships Kilkis, Greek battleships Limnos,
Battleships sunk by aircraft in port WW2.
USS Oklahoma, USS Arizona, USS California, USS West Virginia, Schleswig-Holstein, Admiral Hipper, Conte di Cavour, INS Haruna, INS Ise, Niels Juel, Marat,

In contrast to your analyses of the usefulness and future of UCAVs or Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles the major nations of the the world are pursuing the development of these aggressively with the holy grail being the UCAVs that can operate without human intervention. The Autonomous Air Combat Vehicle.

What will these critters offer in the not too distant future? How about a level of aerobatic performance that would kill a human pilot, the ability to remain on station many times longer than an aircraft with a human pilot can (with the application of in flight refueling one could stay up for days). And this will be delivered at a cost that is only a fraction of what a high performance manned fighter costs.

And once the technology is refined and they start building production line models you can expect a drastic reduction in price (and that isn't even in question). Just imagine for a moment a small highly sophisticated 15 million dollar Autonomous UCAV that can out dance 150 million dollar F-22s or 100 million dollar SU-27s because it isn't limited to the -3g to +9g limits of a human pilot. The operational limits of the aircraft will be the limits of the air frame. And as Kflint said:
Kflint wrote:The price to build one unit, now that it has been designed and built, will be much lower than a single low cost fighter jet. Look at the size of the craft, drone deployment could be in the 1000's....enough to thwart most threats.

Sadly, there will come a day in the near future when a squadron of Autonomous UCAVs configured for Air to Air combat will show up at Nelis AFB and turn the place upside down and leave behind a lot of hombres in aggressor squadron with serious emotional problems. Of course UCAV's will never completely replace conventional fighter aircraft but they will powerfully augment the force...its just a matter of time.

And Wolfman, make sure to tell DARPA to fuck off for me.
#13798982
Wow, Xbow continues to insult me while still not even understanding what I'm saying. After I've said it, what, three times now? I give up, you're being obtuse on purpose simply because you don't care to actually debate.
#13941846
Sorry to bump an old thread, but this is important.

  • Aggressive BRAC, with a particular focus on overseas bases. What the heck are we doing with 50,000 troops in Germany still? "Tripwire" force in South Korea, really? Forward deployed Marines in Okinawa?
  • Cancel the F-35 program. In addition to being wildly over budget, it's a piece of shit.
  • Cancel the V-22 program and get rid of all existing V-22s. Piece of shit, unreliable, expensive, dangerous.
  • Freeze military pay, or better yet cut it. Dirty little secret is that soldiers are overpaid.
  • I like Xbow's suggestion of cutting private military contractors, though I don't know enough to comment.
  • Seriously trim the officer corps. The US has, what, one officer for every five enlisted men? What the fuck?
  • Kick all women out of the armed forces. No-brainer.
  • Scrap the LCS. The naval equivalent of the F-35.
  • Cancel plans for new DDG-51s. DDG-1000 will save money over the long term and is superior.
  • Adopt rational procurement policies. Fixed cost contracts with performance incentives and penalties, combat-ready competitive prototyping, "fly-before-you-buy", series mass production, elimination of dispersed production facilities in as many Congressional districts as possible, etc.
  • Absorb and/or eliminate the Air National Guard. Weekend soldiers should not be flying fighter jets nor taking governors on fun rides.
  • End "up or out". In addition to forcing qualified, experienced personnel out of the military, it forces the needless training of new men every year just to replace turnover.
  • Withdraw from Afghanistan. OBL is dead, so why are we there? Valuable resources of rocks and furious holy men?

Far more changes and much deeper reform are needed, but this is a good start and would significantly slash the budget without harming capability in any way.
#13941853
Kick all women out of the armed forces. No-brainer.



Agreed.


I would add, that the military is far to socialist. Make Generals directly benefit from streamlining the costs of running their bases. I suggest a commision based system including fiscal and honor rewards. My bro worked for the Defence dept, and amount of waste and lack of care on the general part is rampant.
#13941888
-Personnel and bases. Well over three-quarters of the payroll and something like half of all overseas bases (as well as the vast majority of home bases) aren't needed.
-The JSF program.
-Civilian tech replaces military tech wherever this is possible, feasible and cost-efficient.
-Reform the defense contracting procedures.

Beyond that, I wouldn't say I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to say where else it would be smart to cut; though some facets of military spending ought to actually be increased (Navy presence first and foremost -- best tool of power projection against China the US has).
#13941993
All over due/ budget and out of date programs would be scraped. (As needed) Project funds to be placed in an account and given to projects as needed as long as they are on schedule/budget.

This area needs serious oversight.

As a rule of thumb, end programs that:
(A) Are in default.
(B) Have no ability to fulfill their agreements.
(C) Are ran through foreign entities.

Stop all military aid to non allied Countries and trade with allied Countries for like return. (product, service or profit)
Charge the UN for Military services at a premium.

Use the Army Core of Engineers and other such entities, as assets to be hired out to other Countries and the UN for projects.

Streamline Foreign Military Presence:
(A) Withdraw Military presence from out of date and tactically useless Military Base around the world.
(B) Redirect personnel as needed and streamline personnel as needed. (No more triple redundancy)
(C) Close all unneeded international land bases and use Allied Command Bases for all international operations, in favor of Floating Naval Bases and Fortified points for Sea lines of communication.

Remove or end the production of large Naval vessels, in favor of increased numbers in sortie groups.

I could add more but this should effectively cut the fat.
#13942195
Oxymoron wrote:How about a sneak nuclear attack on china...

1. we can stop worrying about them thus can lower overall spending
2.less nukes to maintain.

In the present political climate? You're asking for all kinds of hell to rain down upon the US, and especially upon the administration in place.
#13942440
Oh shit, I hadn't seen Dave's post.

Dave wrote:Aggressive BRAC, with a particular focus on overseas bases. What the heck are we doing with 50,000 troops in Germany still? "Tripwire" force in South Korea, really? Forward deployed Marines in Okinawa?

While I most certainly agree with aggressive BRAC, you don't seem to have much sense of the strategic importance of overseas bases, I'm afraid. The German base certainly is completely useless as are all bases in continental Western Europe, but having a forward position close to China is important -- over the coming decades I'd daresay it will become vital. The South Korea and especially the Okinawa forces are needed.

Which is not to mention Japan essentially pays for the upkeep of the Okinawa base, meaning the positive impact on the budget from closing that one would be slim to nil -- possibly negative.

Withdraw from Afghanistan. OBL is dead, so why are we there? Valuable resources of rocks and furious holy men?

Again, this would be strategic folly. If we withdraw rapidly without stabilizing the area, they will blame us for their country being a worse hellhole than it was when we entered. This will lead to more attacks.

The rest is sensible.
#13942605
Dr House wrote:While I most certainly agree with aggressive BRAC, you don't seem to have much sense of the strategic importance of overseas bases, I'm afraid. The German base certainly is completely useless as are all bases in continental Western Europe, but having a forward position close to China is important -- over the coming decades I'd daresay it will become vital. The South Korea and especially the Okinawa forces are needed.

Which is not to mention Japan essentially pays for the upkeep of the Okinawa base, meaning the positive impact on the budget from closing that one would be slim to nil -- possibly negative.

What importance do the 4,000 combat Marines in Okinawa have to our strategic aims in the Western Pacific? The possible enemies are China and North Korea. Against North Korea 4,000 Marines will make no difference (South Korea's 680,000 man standing army and five million reservists will do the heavy lifting there), and a war against China would primarily aeronaval, at least in the initial phase. If it goes to land combat, that will take massive forces rather than 4,000 Marines. Furthermore, there are no amphibious ships at Okinawa. These are at Sasebo in mainland Japan, and only have capacity for 2,000 troops anyway. The other 13,000 Marines at Okinawa are base, headquarters, and logistics personnel. They make nice targets for Chinese missiles, and their two functions are supporting the 4,000 unnecessary combat Marines along with justifying continued Marine bases on Okinawa (13,000 aren't needed to support 4,000 so lots of them are a total waste).

Kadena Air Force Base is what's valuable on Okinawa. Perhaps they need some troops to secure against Chinese commandos, but they don't need 4,000 combat Marines and 13,000 support Marines for that. And frankly, I see no reason why JGSDF forces can't provide this. It's their country after all.

Japan pays about $2bn a year to defray the costs of US Forces Japan, and there is no way that covers the cost of what are easily America's most expensive overseas bases.

One of our major strategic requirements in the Western Pacific is maintaining a strong relationship with Japan, and removing 17,000 unneeded Marines from Okinawa would improve our bilateral relationship.

I'm not convinced of the strategic utility of keeping forces in South Korea. They are too small to make any serious difference in an inter-Korean conflict, and in any case South Korea is militarily superior to North Korea (aside from in atomic weapons, but we've got their back on that). South Korea is very close to China, which sounds good but exposes our forces in South Korea to Chinese air and missile attacks. But at the very least, the Army and Marine personnel in South Korea (around 20,000) should be removed. And not just removed to Japan, but all the way back to the United States.

And now we're making this problem worse by moving Marines to Australia for...whatever.

Dr House wrote:Again, this would be strategic folly. If we withdraw rapidly without stabilizing the area, they will blame us for their country being a worse hellhole than it was when we entered. This will lead to more attacks.

The rest is sensible.

Cut a deal with the Taliban, leave. Make it clear that if anti-American terrorist organizations take residency in Afghanistan again that they can expect to be showered with JDAMs. Afghanistan will go back to being Afghanistan. We'll lose influence in Afghanistan to Russia, Iran, China, and India, but who cares? Afghanistan is useless, and getting out of Afghanistan allows us to sever ties with Pakistan and improve relations with India.

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