Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military
From: portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@apple.com
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Stealth bomber
Message-ID: <7826@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 28 Jun 89 12:28:36 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@apple.com
Ed Allen (allen@enzyme.berkeley.edu) questions the cost-efectiveness of
Stealth.  Consider this:  What if it's a fake?

Here's the scenario:  Get a bunch of bright boys together to speculate on
some wild ideas for a bomber.  Build a mock-up that has some external features
which suggest those ideas.  Pretend to keep it a big secret.  One day,
you roll the mock-up out of the hanger so everyone can get a good look.
Then roll it back in and lock the door.

When people ask if it's flying, first you say no.  After a while you start
answering "I can't talk about that."  Maybe a year later you crash an old
airplane into the ground somewhere on a military reservation and report
a B-2 has crashed.  Soviet agents in Southern California go nuts trying to
take a picture of a B-2 in flight.

This would be an incredibly cost-effective weapon.  For a few thousand dollars
you can tie up millions of dollars worth of KGB agents and MoD researchers.
Hopefully, your mock-up contains details (like no vertical stabilizers)
which won't work, so the wasted MoD money doesn't result in a real weapon.

In fact, the production of sham weapons is so cost-effective that it would
be a big mistake if our DoD doesn't practice this technique now and then.
(Can you say "Pershing 2"?  ...)