NYT interactive military budget cutter

[Dominus Atheos]

Here's my solution for cutting the budget by $1 trillion dollars.

What's really fascinating is that even if you only select options that have at least 40% support, it still gets cut by $900 billion.

[Chirios]

This is completely useless, since I am not a member of the US military and I have absolutely no clue what is and what isn't necessary, but I'll bite.

I managed to get it down by 916 billion.

[Simon_Jester]

To me, far and away the biggest viable cost-savers would be cutting the size of the Army and Marines. We can always expand those branches again, if we need them, within a relatively small amount of time -just recruit more men. We can allow the Marine Corps to shrink now and hire more Marines in 2025 if we need them more then than we do now.

I dislike doing the same with the Navy and Air Force (fewer ships, fewer fighters and bombers, cutting missile defense or the nuclear forces), because those services use big capital-budget items that we can't replace quickly. So while getting rid of some aircraft carriers or the F-35 might seem like a great deal now, if we realize in 2025 that we need those things and don't have them, we're kind of screwed.

I like how the single most popular option on the list was "Audit the Pentagon..."

[The Grim Squeaker]

My cuts:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012 ... s=42f40tzj

Mainly personnel cuts. Doesn't touch R&D, nukes, long term research (ABM programs) or healthcare. Also doesn't cut down on Pentagon/DOD civilian personnels. Those things tend to bite back as contractors (making 3-4 times as much per hour).
994 Billion.

[Mr Bean]

This is completely useless, since I am not a member of the US military and I have absolutely no clue what is and what isn't necessary, but I'll bite.

Completely useless to you Civvy, to we brave few this a ticket to big screen TV's in the lounge and gold trim on all new minelayers.

My plan is 705 billion

[ChaserGrey]

$562 billion, mostly following the same philosophy as Simon. Soldiers are relatively fast and cheap to train compared to new aircraft and big-ticket items like carriers. I also cut retirement benefits for new recruits- I don't want to leave current retirees in the lurch, but I don't see a problem changing the deal for new folks signing up. Details here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012 ... s=0jn24tn0

[weemadando]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012 ... s=v3d40thj

937b in savings. Keeping all operations side stuff within the military, slimming the Pentagon a bit, but having no reliance on external contractors for admin or operational purposes.

R&D intact, healthcare and education expanded.

[Sidewinder]

My plan: $602 billion.

Some of these ideas would end up GUTTING the US military, and it's incredible how little thought was put into them. Examples:

"Cap increases in basic military pay." Do so, and recruitment and retention will skydive, meaning more money must be spent training personnel to replace those who decided, "I'm not paid enough for this shit!" and left.

"Reduce Army and Marines to 505,000, a cut of 35 percent, over next 10 years." It takes time to train soldiers- when I was in the Army, I spent eight months learning to be a helicopter mechanic- to say nothing of how long it takes to gain experience and expertise. As OEF and OIF demonstrate, you never know when you might need those extra soldiers, so such exteme cuts seem unwise.

"Replace F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with F-16s and F/A-18s." "Cancel Navy and Marine Corps Joint Strike Fighter and replace with F/A-18E/Fs." Considering how much money was ALREADY SPENT on R & D, canceling the F-35 would mean all that money was wasted. The aircraft we have now, will NOT last forever. Besides, while you might be able to reduce the number of F-35s bought, in favor of the F-16 and F/A-18- you don't need a stealth fighter to shoot down a hijacked airliner- those fighters are still less capable than the F-35 in the critical field of electronic warfare. What if the Ayatollahs unexpectedly decide to attack Saudi Arabia, in a bid to remain in power? A sudden war is the WORST time to learn you need stealth fighters, but you don't have them.

"Reduce Navy ship buying." With the People's Liberation Army Navy expanding and improving at the rate it is? What we have now, will NOT last forever, nor will they remain top-of-the-line forever.

"Delay Army Ground Combat Vehicle until 2025. Would delay for a dozen years a new combat vehicle that is larger, more secure and more advanced than the Army's existing tanks." What makes you certain a program to build a better armored vehicle, will materialize in time?

"Cancel the Air Force's “Next Generation” long-range stealth bomber." The last B-52 was built FIFTY YEARS AGO. The last B-1 out of 100 built, TWENTY. The last B-2 out of 20 built, ten. Those aircraft will not last forever.

[Rabid]

Disclaimer : I am not an American citizen and have never served in any armed forces.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012 ... s=00d00j60

$560 Billion saved by cutting back the the number of armed personnel, and consequently the number of administrative personnel. The rest of the cuts come from reducing American presence in Europe and Asia, as well as auditing the Pentagon budget and spending less on recruitment efforts (consistent with the reduction of the Army and Marine Corps).

R&D, equipment budget and veterans benefits are untouched. You could even use the $110 billion over-target cuts to fund supplementary R&D efforts while buying better, more modern equipment for the rest of your armed forces.

[Chirios]

This is completely useless, since I am not a member of the US military and I have absolutely no clue what is and what isn't necessary, but I'll bite.

Completely useless to you Civvy, to we brave few this a ticket to big screen TV's in the lounge and gold trim on all new minelayers.

My plan is 705 billion

Lol, let me rephrase then. My opinion is completely irrelevant, since I am not a member of the US military and I have absolutely no clue what is and what isn't necessary.

Quick question, some of these numbers make no sense out of context, for example:

1) What is the difference between Tricare Prime, Tricare Standard and Tricare Extra?

Introduce minimum out-of-pocket requirements under Tricare-for-Life
Tricare-for-Life would not cover the first $550 of cost-sharing payments under Medicare and would cover only half of the next $4,950 in such payments.

2)Wouldn't the above pretty much beggar families?

Would slow the rate of growth in tax-exempt military allowances for housing and food by combining them with basic pay. The vast majority of military personnel receives these allowances, which have grown at a faster rate than basic military wages.

3) From what I've heard there are privates in the US military who are already on foodstamps, wouldn't this make the situation worse?

Reduce ground forces — Army and Marines — to 657,400, a cut of 15 percent, over next 10 years
By 2020, there would be 482,400 troops in the Army, from 570,000 today. Marines would number 175,000 from 202,000 now. Reducing ground troops would constrict the Pentagon if it faced two major conflicts at the same time.

4) Is there any possibility of integrating the US military with foreign militaries in the vein of the UK? For example, could the US for all future missions involving the Mediterranean (i.e North Africa), procure an agreement with the EU for military assistance? Or is this completely stupid?

Would eliminate one of the three delivery possibilities for nuclear weapons, bomber aircraft, while retaining nuclear weapons based on land and on submarines.

5) Why is getting rid of this a bad thing?

Proponents argue that conventional ground forces stationed in Western Europe and some islands in Asia were originally part of a Cold War strategy.

6) How many troops are there in Western Europe and strategically speaking what is their purpose?

[Rabid]

Would eliminate one of the three delivery possibilities for nuclear weapons, bomber aircraft, while retaining nuclear weapons based on land and on submarines.

5) Why is getting rid of this a bad thing?

Less flexibility, more predictability in you mean of delivering a nuclear weapon.

Hypothetically, imagine if one of your opponent where to have a functional anti-ballistic-missile "shield" ; this is where a force of stealth bombers capable of infiltrating the enemy territory under the shield would come in handy. If not you would have to spam all your missiles in the hope that some of them would get through ; which would leave you defenseless against a second-strike.

The more diverse your means of delivery are, the more difficult it will be for the opposition to counter your forces.

[Mr Bean]

Lol, let me rephrase then. My opinion is completely irrelevant, since I am not a member of the US military and I have absolutely no clue what is and what isn't necessary.

That's a bit more of a response, okay let me take a crack at your questions.

Quick question, some of these numbers make no sense out of context, for example:

1) What is the difference between Tricare Prime, Tricare Standard and Tricare Extra?

In essence your talking about Tricare which is the DoD name for military and military family heathcare. The Prime, Standard and Extra are the different flavors of Tricare. One is specificly for those currently in the military and your direct dependents. While the others are for reservists and veterans. (Veteran=Someone who served in the US military, typically revering to someone who no longer servers in the military not just combat veterans)

Introduce minimum out-of-pocket requirements under Tricare-for-Life
Tricare-for-Life would not cover the first $550 of cost-sharing payments under Medicare and would cover only half of the next $4,950 in such payments.

2)Wouldn't the above pretty much beggar families?

It would be a very nasty shock to military families but then TFL is the Veteran plan not the active duty plan so even with the cost increase it would make our Government healthcare much less attractive than private sector equivalents. Well not less attractive but must less better. IE the current situation is now with TFL you were paying 10 dollars for care that would cost 100 dollars for an equivalent private plan and those cuts would jump that to 60 dollars for 100 dollar plan.

3) From what I've heard there are privates in the US military who are already on foodstamps, wouldn't this make the situation worse?

Privates make shit money but no one in the US military should stay a private long except in the Army. And those are not single individual privates but you get the idiot 18 year olds with a kid and a wife who does not work and who joins the military. In a class of thiry four we had seven in Boot.

And yes the Enlisted ranks get payed shit until you hit E-5, the benefits can make up for that depending on where you live.

4) Is there any possibility of integrating the US military with foreign militaries in the vein of the UK? For example, could the US for all future missions involving the Mediterranean (i.e North Africa), procure an agreement with the EU for military assistance? Or is this completely stupid?

Because this is America that's crazy stupid. We treat even the Canadian military like shit and they are all intents and purposes our smarter colder cousins. The idea of simply running joint exercises with anyone but Britian gets opposition so trying to intergrate "colonial" forces into the American umbrella is crazy from our prospective. Besides our foreign forces are the Canada, the UK and South Korea on our short list of countries that follow us into any war.

5) Why is getting rid of this a bad thing?

Because we need a good bomb truck. We are already scaling back ICBM's to a massive extent, we use boomers for dozens of tasks as it is so that means in reality cutting two legs (ICBM and bombers) of the nuke triangle. And the same planes that drop nukes do an excellent job of dropping lots of bombs, something America needs to do... constantly and our method of warfare involves lots of large scale bombing missions. Something we need the nuke bomber for, it's multi-role.

6) How many troops are there in Western Europe and strategically speaking what is their purpose?

How many troops? Depends on the time of year but the short answer is many and more. Their purpose is to let is invade countries in the middle east easier atm since we have more chance of Turkish invasion than Russian.

[Stofsk]

I got it to over 1.1 trillion dollars in cuts. I am not at all surprised that one of the most popular options is 'cut back on forward deployments in Europe and Asia'. I only wish I could cut it completely.

I also took great pleasure in killing the JSF and limiting naval ship purchases. The USN can get by with 10 carriers instead of 11!

[The Duchess of Zeon]

As someone's who actually been covered by Tricare I have preciously little interest in not slimming it down, as it seemed to be a magic free healthcare card, and short of expanding it to cover the whole US population I don't see a good reason to keep it that way, as it insulates military families from the hardships of civilian life in a completely blinkered and myopic way; one of the reasons I could be so readily libertarian was because I'd grown up under Tricare and never once actually had to pay a dime for even superfluous things like two x-rays, one multi-dimensional x-ray and one CAT scan all just to see if I'd recovered from a mild case of walking pneumonia.

So, looking at the US military budget realistically... I just axed 1,153 billion without cutting pay, but shaving down the allowances which are a major source of resentment for those not eligible for many of them. All without eliminating the crucial naval strike wings and carriers or destroying the new bomber procurement.

Also, as a note, the savings under my ideal solution would be less than what is listed as instead of procuring solely new F-16s, at least 1,000 aircraft replacing the F-35 order would be Boeing Stealth Eagles.

[ChaserGrey]

I wish there was a "halfway" option for the Navy ship cuts. LCS has been a disaster and I'm fine with cutting Ticos and the sub buy, but canceling the new 'phibs would be a Bad Idea IMO. They're what you use when you want to evacuate noncombatants, deal with humanitarian crises, stomp on brushfire wars, and generally intervene somewhere in a manner that doesn't involve raining death down from 10,000 feet. Frankly I think we're going to need more of them in the years to come.

One option I'm surprised isn't on the table is a nuclear posture review and possible drawdown. Do we really need all those warheads? The Air Force and Navy are planning the next generation of bombers and missile subs right about now, so this is a good time to be asking those questions.

[Simon_Jester]

Some of these ideas would end up GUTTING the US military, and it's incredible how little thought was put into them. Examples:

"Cap increases in basic military pay." Do so, and recruitment and retention will skydive, meaning more money must be spent training personnel to replace those who decided, "I'm not paid enough for this shit!" and left.

"Replace F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with F-16s and F/A-18s." "Cancel Navy and Marine Corps Joint Strike Fighter and replace with F/A-18E/Fs." Considering how much money was ALREADY SPENT on R & D, canceling the F-35 would mean all that money was wasted. The aircraft we have now, will NOT last forever. Besides, while you might be able to reduce the number of F-35s bought, in favor of the F-16 and F/A-18- you don't need a stealth fighter to shoot down a hijacked airliner- those fighters are still less capable than the F-35 in the critical field of electronic warfare. What if the Ayatollahs unexpectedly decide to attack Saudi Arabia, in a bid to remain in power? A sudden war is the WORST time to learn you need stealth fighters, but you don't have them.

"Reduce Navy ship buying." With the People's Liberation Army Navy expanding and improving at the rate it is? What we have now, will NOT last forever, nor will they remain top-of-the-line forever.

"Cancel the Air Force's “Next Generation” long-range stealth bomber." The last B-52 was built FIFTY YEARS AGO. The last B-1 out of 100 built, TWENTY. The last B-2 out of 20 built, ten. Those aircraft will not last forever.

Agreed.

"Delay Army Ground Combat Vehicle until 2025. Would delay for a dozen years a new combat vehicle that is larger, more secure and more advanced than the Army's existing tanks." What makes you certain a program to build a better armored vehicle, will materialize in time?

Here, I am not so sure I agree, because the existing heavy vehicles (Abrams, Bradley, Stryker?) seem basically adequate as far as I can tell. It would be desirable to replace them, but not necessarily necessary.

"Reduce Army and Marines to 505,000, a cut of 35 percent, over next 10 years." It takes time to train soldiers- when I was in the Army, I spent eight months learning to be a helicopter mechanic- to say nothing of how long it takes to gain experience and expertise. As OEF and OIF demonstrate, you never know when you might need those extra soldiers, so such exteme cuts seem unwise.

Here we have a couple of tricky problems. One is that maintaining the army's rifle strength is one of the most expensive single items on the budget- a 20% cut in Army strength lets us keep something like half a dozen or more new weapon programs running. While it might take five years or so to rebuild the Marines to their 2010 strength, it would take decades to rebuild the Air Force if we suddenly realize existing planes aren't cutting the mustard anymore.

The invasion of Afghanistan demonstrated that we might need high rifle strength on short notice, yes... but the total number of troops sent into Afghanistan was not really that large. The real manpower hog of this decade has been Iraq- and you can make an excellent policy argument that the US should not engage in manpower-intensive occupation/reconstruction/"nation-building" missions like Iraq, that it is bad for our economy, our standing abroad, and that it does not serve any urgent strategic need if we intend to be a republic rather than an empire.

So scaling back our army and marine units, which are used mostly for long term occupation and garrisoning of hostile foreign countries, might actually be a good strategic call. Especially if the alternative is to hack a similar-sized chunk out of the budget of the navy and air force, the services which we know we will be calling on to excel if we have to fight a peer competitor, or a nation well supplied with modern arms by a peer competitor.

If I have to choose between, say, ten thousand riflemen and one aircraft carrier, I'll take the carrier.

Disclaimer : I am not an American citizen and have never served in any armed forces.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012 ... s=00d00j60

$560 Billion saved by cutting back the the number of armed personnel, and consequently the number of administrative personnel. The rest of the cuts come from reducing American presence in Europe and Asia, as well as auditing the Pentagon budget and spending less on recruitment efforts (consistent with the reduction of the Army and Marine Corps).

R&D, equipment budget and veterans benefits are untouched. You could even use the $110 billion over-target cuts to fund supplementary R&D efforts while buying better, more modern equipment for the rest of your armed forces.

There IS a problem with cutting back administrative personnel- the cuts often turn out not to save money in the long run, because if some of the people who are let go 'by attrition' turn out to be important, you will have to hire expensive contractors to do the job.

Reduce ground forces — Army and Marines — to 657,400, a cut of 15 percent, over next 10 years
By 2020, there would be 482,400 troops in the Army, from 570,000 today. Marines would number 175,000 from 202,000 now. Reducing ground troops would constrict the Pentagon if it faced two major conflicts at the same time.

4) Is there any possibility of integrating the US military with foreign militaries in the vein of the UK? For example, could the US for all future missions involving the Mediterranean (i.e North Africa), procure an agreement with the EU for military assistance? Or is this completely stupid?

Procuring such agreements would be unreliable- one of the reasons the US maintains a large army is so that it does not have to rely on foreign support to do things. Choosing to rely on such support is possible- but it represents a change in the US's grand strategy. I'm not sure it's a bad idea, but it's something we have to realize we're doing.

Would eliminate one of the three delivery possibilities for nuclear weapons, bomber aircraft, while retaining nuclear weapons based on land and on submarines.

5) Why is getting rid of this a bad thing?

Two big reasons.

One is that advances in ABM technology may make nuclear missiles obsolete faster than they make nuclear bombers obsolete. Shooting down ballistic missiles requires specialized hardware, but it is not actually that difficult by modern standards if you spend the money to build the hardware. And improving the technology of the missile will not make it significantly harder to shoot down, because it is still "ballistic:" i.e. moving on a predictable, high altitude path and unable to defend itself or dodge anything coming its way. So ballistic missiles may turn out to be entirely obsolete as a way to deliver a nuclear deterrent by, say, 2030 or 2040, if there is proliferation of ABM systems. If that's the only way we have to deliver our nuclear deterrent, then we're in trouble.

The other problem is that once a ballistic missile (sub-launched or silo-launched) is in the air and on the way to the target, it is going to land with earth-shattering kaboom no matter what you do, unless it misfires (possible) or is shot down by the defender (possible). There is no way to stop the missile in mid-flight, no way to change or update its target. Once the nukes have flown, some millions of people downrange are going to die.

This makes the decision to launch nuclear missiles very difficult, because you don't get to take back the decision once it is made- you have to decide what to do, and if there's doubt about whether there's a false alarm or not you have to decide now. There's no possibility of changing your mind and a hard deadline coming up if it's not. Because if you delay, your missiles may be destroyed on the ground, so the owner of a ballistic missile force is going to be forced to make snap judgments about whether to fight (and how to fight) a nuclear war. Not good.

The irrevocable nature of a ballistic missile launch also makes the consequences of a mistake much worse. With bombers, you can order the planes into the air, then change your mind ten minutes later if it was a false alarm. They come home, and all you've lost is some jet fuel and sleep time for the bomber pilots. With missiles, if you change your mind ten minutes after launch there is nothing you can do, and you are still the greatest mass murderer since Adolf Hitler even if you feel really sorry about it afterwards.

Proponents argue that conventional ground forces stationed in Western Europe and some islands in Asia were originally part of a Cold War strategy.

6) How many troops are there in Western Europe and strategically speaking what is their purpose?

Can't speak to numbers, but purpose...

For one, they're there if we need to do anything involving close cooperation with NATO or the EU in their sphere of influence- say, if they want to occupy Kosovo or bomb Libya. For another, they serve as a 'forward base' for operations in the Middle East: if someone is badly wounded in Iraq, we can fly them to a hospital in Germany instead of a hospital in Baltimore. This saves time, transportation resources, and a lot of other things. There's also a training argument- if we want to work closely with European militaries (which you yourself suggested), it is really helpful to have plenty of troops who are familiar with Europe, have trained alongside European troops in exercises, and to have European militaries be correspondingly familiar with us.

I got it to over 1.1 trillion dollars in cuts. I am not at all surprised that one of the most popular options is 'cut back on forward deployments in Europe and Asia'. I only wish I could cut it completely.

I also took great pleasure in killing the JSF and limiting naval ship purchases. The USN can get by with 10 carriers instead of 11!

If we do those things, Stofsk, I hope from the bottom of my heart that you and your countrymen never regret it. Though I will worry about that.

I wish there was a "halfway" option for the Navy ship cuts. LCS has been a disaster and I'm fine with cutting Ticos and the sub buy, but canceling the new 'phibs would be a Bad Idea IMO. They're what you use when you want to evacuate noncombatants, deal with humanitarian crises, stomp on brushfire wars, and generally intervene somewhere in a manner that doesn't involve raining death down from 10,000 feet. Frankly I think we're going to need more of them in the years to come.

One option I'm surprised isn't on the table is a nuclear posture review and possible drawdown. Do we really need all those warheads? The Air Force and Navy are planning the next generation of bombers and missile subs right about now, so this is a good time to be asking those questions.

The minimum size for the US nuclear deterrent really is "enough to be sure of taking out a peer competitor." That means Russia or China; if the EU went crazy-militarist it would mean them too, but they won't, so it's Russia or China.

To be sure of taking out a great power- hurting them badly enough that even if they've nuked the bejeezus out of your country, they won't be able to follow up effectively and doing enough damage to finish you off... I'm pretty sure you need about 500-1000 warheads. Maybe up towards 2000, it depends on details.

That includes a lot of margins of error- inevitably some of your missiles will not launch, some of your warheads will miss or not explode, so you need to allocate more than one bomb and more than one missile to the targets that Must Die like enemy missile fields and key military bases. It also includes a further margin of error for weapons that might be put out of action in the event of a surprise attack.

One of the risks of letting the deterrent drop below that minimum size is that both sides might throw their nukes, and your enemy might still retain enough military capability left to deliver the last few nukes by unconventional means (say, send them up in cargo planes on one way flights and shove the bomb out the back), thus causing absolutely massive casualties against a nation whose ability to mount an organized defense has been basically neutered by the opening round of the war. Herman Kahn wrote about this at some length in On Thermonuclear War; he called it the 'broken-backed war.' It is nasty to contemplate, and one of the things I think we'd need to make allowance for.

Basically, you need enough stopping power to take down a rampaging superpower, which involves a certain amount of overkill. Personally, I think it's totally reasonable for the Russians and Chinese to maintain deterrent forces of that size too, in case we're the rampaging superpower; turnabout is fair play.

[Stofsk]

I got it to over 1.1 trillion dollars in cuts. I am not at all surprised that one of the most popular options is 'cut back on forward deployments in Europe and Asia'. I only wish I could cut it completely.

I also took great pleasure in killing the JSF and limiting naval ship purchases. The USN can get by with 10 carriers instead of 11!

If we do those things, Stofsk, I hope from the bottom of my heart that you and your countrymen never regret it. Though I will worry about that.

You're such a worrier! My theory is that everything will turn out fine.

Ok seriously I don't mind forward-deployed troops in Asia because I see that less as a 'America is ready for anything hoohah' and more of a 'we are committed to being in the area because we think it's an important and strategic geopolitical region and because not everyone appreciates China wanting to put its fingers into everyone else's pies'. But Europe just strikes me as 'yo wake up and smell the coffee guys, the cold war ended like two decades ago'.

Unless you're talking about the JSF or whatever? Stuff like that is more my desire to punish programs that go constantly overbudget and behind schedule. Retiring a carrier when you've got like 11 of the fucking things doesn't strike me as that huge a loss.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, Stofsk. The only good reasons to maintain bases in Europe is if we want to be able to work with European militaries, and in the Middle East. You tell me if that's important enough.

As to the JSF and the ship purchases, that 'desire to punish' can be a really, really efficient way of shooting yourself in the foot, or somewhere more vital. Remember the Constellation program? At this point, cancelling the JSF when the first models are already rolling off the freaking assembly line, when there's a large force of fighters that is going to reach wings-fall-off old age in the next ten to fifteen years, would be a blunder of the same type as Constellation. Maybe bigger.

The same goes for ship purchases- if you don't keep building new hulls you're fucked when the old ones crap out, and suddenly you don't have the capability to build more fast enough to matter.

You know those cars that get really worn down after a few hundred thousand miles, and wind up costing roughly their trade-in value in maintenance and repairs every year? Ever owned one of those? I don't think the US Navy should consist of ships like that, and I don't think it'd be cost-effective to try to do it that way when the US isn't so hard up for money that it can't buy new ships if it had to.

Except LCS. Fuck LCS.

[Stofsk]

Well I think scaling back forward deployments would be a good compromise, compared to eliminating it entirely. OTOH they're based in another country, so from my point of view I would wonder whether the host country enjoys the arrangement or wishes it changed. So long as things are mutual then I have little problem with it.

But being based in Europe making it easier to strike the Middle-east, I don't think that really compels me as a reason. I think a stronger reason would be 'well if our friends in Europe want us around then that's the primary reason, to make NATO work etc'. Just stick with that.

And yes I know that punishing stuff that goes over budget can result in unintended consequences. On the other hand, stuff like Constellation and Space Telescopes and such the like is more important to me than a couple hundred overhyped strike fighters, whose ONLY utility is dropping bombs on people. Sure it would be nice to have the JSF but it would be even nicer if they didn't have so many problems with making the system work. At least warships will have more than one type of mission, and I agree with the guy who said that cancelling the amphibs is a bad idea. Having ships like that is a good thing, having ships like the LCS? Yeah, fuck that piece of shit.

[ChaserGrey]

To add some numbers to what Simon said- the oldest carrier in the fleet currently is USS Enterprise, by a fair margin. Her last refit was supposed to last 16 months and cost about $450 million. It ended up taking two years, costing $650 million, and causing major problems with some areas being uncovered and other groups having to extend their deployments (which drives up maint costs further when they get in...). And after all that, the refit made her fit to make two more 6-month deployments, after which she'll be retired.

That's what happens with old ships, like old _anything_. You end up spending huge sums in exchange for not very much of a service life extension.

And while 11 carriers sounds like a lot, figure it this way. At any given time, one ship out of the force is going to be out of service for refueling, which is a multiyear process (Please do not rush when stripping down and re-coring multiple nuclear reactors, kthxbai), and one is going to be undergoing some other serious overhaul. For the remaining ships, figure you can have one deployed for every three you have- roughly speaking, one deployed, one that just got back, and one training up to go*. Works out to three carriers deployed at any one time, which- if you distribute them right- means a USN carrier force can get to any given trouble spot within a week or so. We're a maritime nation, heavily dependent on international trade, and I don't think that's a capability we should give up lightly. Otherwise, when an international crisis starts, we may find ourselves reduced to spectator status.

*- The "surge" exercises you see touted sometimes are basically sending the training-up carriers out early while keeping the deployed ones on station for longer, which mirrors what we'd do in a real crisis. It lets us get a lot of ships out there, at the cost of playing Hell with maintainence, material condition, sailors' lives, and retention. This is also why having one carrier in your fleet is, IMO, pretty silly- you get to pay for keeping up the ship, but you can only use it if a crisis happens on your deployment schedule.

And finally, because it deserves to be said one more time, fuck the LCS.

[Rabid]

By curiosity... Why the hate for the LCS ? I ask cause I don't know anything about it.

[Sidewinder]

By curiosity... Why the hate for the LCS ? I ask cause I don't know anything about it.

See here. Long story short, it was an overly ambitious program to squeeze as much capability into the smallest hull possible, like expecting a Mini Cooper to be a NASCAR, tractor-trailer, and off-road vehicle AT ONCE. Predictably, it resulted in an overpriced and overly specialized POS that can't do anything well.

[ChaserGrey]

By curiosity... Why the hate for the LCS ? I ask cause I don't know anything about it.

What Sidewinder said, and:

- The ships were supposed to be "smaller, cheaper alternatives" to existing classes, but ended up costing damn near as much as a destroyer. ($450 to $590 million a copy, depending on whose numbers you believe, vs. $778 million for an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, which is a lot more than twice as capable)

- They were supposed to have swappable modules that could be customized while deployed to give them different capabilities, but now we only have enough to buy about 1.5 per ship due to the overruns, and some are being axed entirely.

- The Navy was going to evaluate two designs before making a final choice to foster competition and save money, but Navy leadership is too gutless to take the political heat of making a choice. End result: we're buying 10 of each, so not only will we have overpriced frigates, we'll have two classes of them with non-common parts.

And finally:

- There are already a ton of successful corvette designs in the world that we could have had customized, designs that already existed and would not have cost nearly as much. Check out the Swedish Visby class corvette- very nice, very stealthy, and costs around a third as much as an LCS. But no, that would have been un-American.

[Zinegata]

That reminds me... why the hell are the Marines making the next Marine carrier (the America) into one without a well deck?

An amphib is supposed to do amphibious ops, not be soley a mini-carrier.

[ChaserGrey]

Because they were going to be better, cheaper carriers with the whiz-bang new F-35, giving amphib groups a huge punch while still being able to land troops via chopper or tiltrotor.

Or at least that was the theory. Notice how they haven't ordered any more America class ships? I think there's a reason for that.