The US military chases shiny new things and the ranks suffer

[rangerrebew]

The US military chases shiny new things and the ranks suffer
 
We were told the Osprey, LCS, and F-35 were cutting edge, but they turned out to be boondoggles and deathtraps
 
DAN GRAZIER
JUN 27, 2024

Twenty young Americans have died in a series of V-22 Osprey crashes over the past two years. Since the revolutionary tilt-rotor aircraft began flying in 1989, 57 Ospreys have suffered significant accidents killing a total of 62 service members and injuring another 93.

The House Oversight Committee (notably not the Armed Services Committee) held a hearing on June 12 to listen to testimony about the program’s safety concerns. Members were told the Osprey would continue to fly for short trips in spite of a known faulty part while engineers try to devise a permanent fix.

It is easy to fixate on Osprey crashes when they happen because, as a transport aircraft, they can kill a lot of people in a single instant. What has been overlooked is what the Osprey represents in a larger pattern of DoD acquisition failures.

In many respects, the Osprey led the way in a trend towards ever-increasing complex weapons programs. Instead of iterating on the tried-and-true CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter program it was meant to replace, Marine Corps leaders fully invested themselves on an untested and underdeveloped program based on entirely new and more complex technology.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/osprey-accidents-military/

[rangerrebew]

This is so bogus!  Our POTUS told the world just the other night that he hasn't had any military killed on his watch.  So, who are you going to believe?

[Timber Rattler]

It all goes back to the budget cuts of the 1990s and then Rumsfeld's "Transformation," in which DoD pushed the line that technology was the end all/be all for future warfighting, and would compensate for the "downsized" manpower of the military from those years.

And the first of the debacles was the Navy's failed A-12 project.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0491navy/