Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: fiddler@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Best and Worst weapons Message-ID: <8177@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 12 Jul 89 01:24:20 GMT References: <8091@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 82 Approved: military@att.att.com From: fiddler@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) In article <8091@cbnews.ATT.COM>, ps01%gte.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Paul L. Suh) writes: > >%From: Aaron David Herskowitz > >%Has anyone seen the Newsweek that rated America's top and bottom 10 >%weapons? I am not sure how recent the magazine was, just saw it the >%other day at a friends and payed little attension to the date. I >%was kind of surprised at some of the weapons they had rated as our >%worst. > > I have the article. It is in US News and World Report, July 10, 1989, > p.22. A constant thread from the article is that the good weapons are > designed outside of the Pentagon's bureaucratic mess. Some of the example they give to support this contention are just plain wrong... Note that in the article, they list 10 "Worst" and 4 "Best". If that has any bearing on the content. > Worst weapons: > > B-2 Bomber One criticism leveled was that after a while the assertion was made that the B-2 could be used for conventional bombing missions. This "downgrading" of its' mission was an indication of failure of the concept. ? > C-17 STOL transport aircraft > Criticisms: too expensive to be risked ($250 M plane landing on an > unimproved airstrip gives too great a chance for disaster) It's worse: the assertion was made that the rough-field capability of the aircraft would never be used because nobody wuld risk crashing one. I should think that getting troops and equipment in closer to the FEBA would be desirable...losing a war could more expensive than perhaps losing some transports. > AEGIS missile system > Alternatives: conventional radar and C3I > Criticisms: shot down a commercial airliner I don't understand how human error (the proximate cause of the shoot-down) would be done away with with conventional radar and C3I. > V-22 Osprey V/STOL > Alternatives: Transport helicopters > Criticisms: designed to put Marines in further inland, but may also put > them beyond range of naval gunfire support. This is news! I didn't know that conventional transport helicopters were limited to a (roughly) 20 mile range. The V-22 is expensive, yes, but you get greatly increased range and speed, a *much* quieter aircraft (how often did Hueys sneak up on anyone in Viet Nam? We can hear UH-1s, AH-1s, and CH-46s coming from many miles away.), and expected maintainence requirements around 10% or so of roughly equivalent helicopters. (If they *have* to stay within naval gun support, then tell the pilots not to fly so far. You'll still get a greater number of sorties per day with the faster aircraft.) I suppose you could say I wasn't greatly impressed with the article. In part of the introduction, the writers claimed that the P-51 was British-developed, and almost not bought for the USAAF because it used a British engine. This is news to North American and their designers. The NA-72 was developed by NA to sell to the Brits, and almost wasn't taken because it used the Allison V-1710 engine (poor performance at high altitude). Plugging the Rolls Royce Merlin turned a good fighter into a great one. The AAF worry about depending on a foreign engine in a US fighter went away when Packard got the license right to build the Merlin in the US. They goofed in other areas as badly or worse.