major fire

our house was destroyed on wednesday. more details to follow.

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Using $100 Artillery Shells to Save Money.

But if you are just using simple artillery shells, you are committing yourself to a strategy that sacrifices accuracy, depends on multiple launchers for the shells, and increases the instances of accidental fratricide & collateral damage. That single smart bomb may cost $50,000, but it also requires less manpower to place into combat, is accurate to within feet, and dramatically lowers fratricide & collateral damage.

Plus, the laser guided munition is a one shot to effectiveness weapon. A mass of artillery could be as high as a 50:1 shot effectiveness.

Weapons development runs in terms of decades. Existing systems may be adequate for the most recent combats. And often, these weapons systems will remain a superior technology for many years. The reality however is that militaries that have not innovated weapons technologies often find themselves behind the 8 ball when combat erupts.

It is very rare that a weapons system is developed that is so superior that it can remain the preeminent technology choice for tactical combat use. For example, the B-52 is a system that has undergone continuous modifications to enable it to maintain its tactical value. But while the B-52 program is decades old, oter systems which took decades to deploy have fallen by the wayside. B-36, B-47, B-57, B-58, & B-70 projects all took millions of dollars to develop ( in today's dollars all were billion + projects. Most saw service, and most were withdrawn from service when their tactical benefits were outweighed by expected combat realities.

In some cases prevailing technologies simply made packages obsolete. Eg the B-36. In other cases the expected role for a weapons system vanished. EG B-47 & B-57. Or in some cases the expected need for a system became so remote that keeping the system on program became the equivalent of making sure you had a sledgehammer for every mosquito. Eg. B-70, B-1, and to some extent the B-2 since the intended number of airframes and general missions for the plane were dramatically scaled back.

The costs with the changes can be mind boggling. For example the B-36 was originally developed to replace the then in service B-29, But even though it took half a decade to deploy the B-36 as originally designed, jet propulsion had become necessary for strategic/tactical bombers. The B-52, B-47, & B-49 were in varying phases of development, but were not ready to deploy. To fill the expected mission need, the B-36's were all retrofitted with tandem engine pods which, lead to the description of the B-36 as "Four burning-Six Turning" plane. Four turbojet engines & six turboprop engines being the source of said power for the plane.

The thing is that the development of plane systems sometimes forces such measures. The B-47 was first started in 1945, didn't get fully deployed until 1960, and was withdrawn in 1965 because it was already obsolete. The B-49 of course took years to develop first as a turbo-prop driven bomber. Then it was changed to turbojet powerplants. And then when the B-52 was judged to be "good enough" to do both strategic and tactical bombing- all the B-49 planes were cut up for scrap.

But consider that on average most plane based systems take at least 15 years to move from request for design to an actual flying system. In the case of the B-2, it was first requested in 1981, had its first test flight in 1989, & had its first delivered operation plane in 1994. That is fourteen years from request to delivery. And like the B-52, the system's original role became different by the time it deployed. The expected 100+ airframes wound up being cut to less than 30. And its nuclear only role was changed to both nuclear and conventional strategic/tactical roles.

The cost of a system like the B-2 is assuredly fantastic. But if you are intending to provide your military with the most tactically flexible and effective weapons platforms, you will need a lot of time to make such systems available. In the passage of time, the expected combat reality may change so much that detrimental things can happen. Such as the need for the system no longer exists as happened to the B-49. The combat effectiveness of a system gets over taken making the system ineffectual as happened to the B-47. The costs associated with the system become to excessive to maintain compared to the tactical advantage offered by the system, as happened to the B-70, B-1 & B-2- resulting in outright cancellations or order reductions.

But however you want to look at it, these programs have a very good track record of offering our military systems that were the best at the time. It may be cheaper to build a single system and then simply maintain that system in quantity to offset the effective combat quality decline. The Soviets did that with their Tupolov bomber systems. They were on par with the B-36 in the 1940's. Were already obsolete by the 1950's compared to any American bomber or interceptor aircraft. And while the Russians are still flying the same original design today, no one realistically expects that those bombers could complete a combat mission unless their mission was taking place in an environment of zero air opposition.

Is the Russian bomber better because it has existed for over half a century? Probably not. But the Tupolov bomber sure did save money for the Russian tax payer. But if the Russians needed to use their current bombers in anger, would they be combat effective and sustainable as a weapons platform? Not a chance.

So a lot of people complain about these systems as being too costly, ineffectual, or unneeded for current threats. The reality is that maintaining the superior tactical and strategic advantage is a lot cheaper than showing up with a weapons system that isn't up to the circumstances of the combat it finds itself deployed against.

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