"The manufacturer is not going to scrap or sell off the tools and equipment used to produce the F-22, but will store the stuff for a while in the hope that production may resume eventually."

 

If only!  But hardly likely.   Although the F-22 was meant to replace EVERY F-15 in our f leet, we'll force pilots to take to the skies in F-15s that are spang-visible on enemy radar, unable to go supersonic without guzzling fuel in afterburter, unable to to perform evasive maneuvers via vectored thrust in dogfights or attempts to dodge missiles, and unable to exchange data in encrypted form.  The price will be paid in blood, or more likely in American meekness and willingness to be pushed around.

Well 182 Raptors is still no joke by any measure, especially given the capabilities they must add to other air packages which will in due course be UAV and F-35's.

 

I gather there were fundamental limitations in the F-22.

 

R 

 The American Tax payer is not some bottomless pit of money and we have a nation over $16 trillion in debt.  The nation's fiscal heath is just as much a matter of national security as the miltiary equipment it uses.

The US government has takes in more than enough revenue they jus spend it poorly ad that inludes defnse spending.

 

Do we really need to amke a major purchase in F-22s that wil be rendered obsolete by UAVs sooner rather than later?

 

  Do we really need an entirely new class of aircraft carrier when the Nimtiz class far outclasses everything else out there and will  in the future?  Just build new Nimitz ships (with minor upgrades) as needed without the railgun launcher and other nonsense.  I would argue that given the fiscal realities we should look at a new 65,00-70,000 ton design.

 

 Instead of the USS America we build more  cheaper Wasp classes AND KEEP the well deck. (Other wise it is just a light carrier for the Navy). 

 

And the there is stuff like this:  defense spending...

 

"World War II, there were 12 million Americans in uniform with a mere 2,000 flag officers, while today there is only one-fifth the number of troops but more than 1,000 top officers. “The ratio is one admiral for every ship in the Navy,”

 

 "the Air Force spent $300,000 studying a prehistoric flying dinosaur; the Navy spent $450,000 to learn that an infant responds to interactive robots better than it does to a noninteractive robot; the Army diverted funds from a program to improve rifles and ammunition to study how to improve the taste of beef jerky.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency “paid nearly $100,000 for a strategy planning workshop on the 100-Year Starship project last year [that] included an interesting discussion involving the Klingons, a fictional alien species who were villains and then later allies of humanity in the Star Trek series,” the report says. The event included a session called “Did Jesus die for Klingons too?”

"More than $10 billion could be saved by eliminating the Defense Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools along with the Pentagon’s own version of the Education Department’s math and science education initiative. “There are 16 or 17 bases that have schools, all domestic, not overseas,” Coburn said, “and they cost an average of $50,000 per child, or almost four times what it costs in the rest of public education"

 

"Somewhere between $4 billion and $6 billion could be saved by killing the Defense Department’s research into cures for breast and prostate cancer. With world-class programs going on at the National Institutes of Health, Coburn said, “why run it out of the Pentagon with an extra layer of bureaucracy on top? Pentagon research ought to be about things that affect the troops, like post- traumatic stress disorder and other battlefield ailments.”

 

 

 

 

 "The American Tax payer is not some bottomless pit of money and we have a nation over $16 trillion in debt."

Apparently, you didn't pay attention to the election where the majority of Americans voted for more years of reckless socialist spending. Allow me to translate: the people don't care about deficits. As long as their checking account auto-populates money what's the problem? When it doesn't, they'll riot like in Greece.

 

"Somewhere between $4 billion and $6 billion could be saved by killing the Defense Department’s research into cures for breast and prostate cancer."

Why stop there? How about heart disease the number 1 killer? And speaking of cancer, did you know that there are more than two types? And again, the "edjimicated" voters spoke on the government stepping in to run healthscare (sic) just like they do the post office. In fact, knowing how the government operates, the laid off postal employees will be the new medical researchers.