Boeing Wins Bid To Build the Navy's Carrier-Launched Tanker Drone (arstechnica.com)

Boeing has been awarded an $805 million contract by the U.S. Navy to build four prototypes of its design for the MQ-25 "Stingray," an unmanned, carrier-based tanker aircraft. The drone "will help extend the range of the Navy's future carrier air wings and keep carriers themselves out of range of coastal defenses," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin and General Atomics for the contract. Northrop Grumman -- which built the Navy's first carrier-based drone prototype, the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System-Demonstration (UCAS-D) -- dropped out of the competition last year. The prototype contract is the first step toward delivering "initial operating capability," a first production run of the drones, by 2024. The MQ-25's design requirements called for an aircraft capable of launching from a carrier deck and delivering 14,000 pounds (6,300kg) of fuel to aircraft 500 nautical miles (926km) away. That capacity and range, along with the low-observable shape of the drone, could essentially double the range of F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-35C Joint Strike Fighter attack missions. Eventually, Boeing could deliver up to 72 Stingrays at a cost of $13 billion.

Comments

$13 billion

[Joce640k]

How much good could be done with $13 billion dollars?

Re:$13 billion

[gweihir]

Indeed. Education, health, culture, etc. The waste is incredible. And if you consider that these things are primarily for killing people and destroying wealth, the price is even higher.

Re:$13 billion

[CaptainDork]

$13 billion dollars could do some good by amping up the US military's capability to fight longer, and more frequent "wars," that keep young men and women employed.

I put "wars" in quotes because there's no exit plan and no intent to actually "win," anything more than money.

Also at stake, is the manufacturer's market of countries outside American borders.

You know, like the painfully inadequate F-35 (Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Australia, Turkey, Norway, Denmark, Israel, Japan, South Korea) and the M1 Abrams Battle Tank (Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Iraq).

World War II brought America out of the Great Depression.

The US is not about to fuck with that universal basic income.

Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

There is nothing more salient that Eisenhower's warning about the Military Industrial Complex. I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[gtall]

Ermmm...you are familiar with U.S. healthcare costs, yes? According to the numbers in 2017, the U.S. spent a bit over $3 trillion on healthcare.

The U.S. GDP for 2017 was about $18.5 Trillion. The Defense bill for that year was roughly $600 Billion. Of that $600, about half goes for military salaries and healthcare, another $150 for overhead on facilities (bases, etc.). That left about $150 - $200 Billion for procurement. But that procurement covers everything, not just new weapons. There is no swinging a $18.5 Trillion economy on $200 Billion defense procurement.

BTW: The military-industrial complex died during Reagan years. Companies found that the U.S. military was small potatoes compared to the civilian economy and it shifted to it. Now, the Pentagon has to beg companies to produce for it since DoD's market is so small in comparison to the rest of the economy.

Do try to keep up, eh?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[CrimsonAvenger]

I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?

Hmm, 330 megapeople, $13B....

That works out to about $40 per person. So, maybe one doctor's visit per person, at best?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Joce640k]

Sure, but that's only ONE item on the military budget.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

BTW: The military-industrial complex died during Reagan years. Companies found that the U.S. military was small potatoes compared to the civilian economy and it shifted to it. Now, the Pentagon has to beg companies to produce for it since DoD's market is so small in comparison to the rest of the economy.

Do try to keep up, eh?

Here is a handy visual guide to US budget allocations from 2007.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?

Hmm, 330 megapeople, $13B....

That works out to about $40 per person. So, maybe one doctor's visit per person, at best?

That's a lot of doctors visits. I know it's not a great deal of money however consider it also from another perspective, the amount of money the military wastes with The Washington post exposing $125 Billion in wasted Military spending . That's roughly 10 doctors visits per person, just from the waste spending alone.

Re: Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[LynnwoodRooster]

The Federal Government spent $986 billion directly in 2015, itself. It's beyond $1 trillion now. And that does not include State and local Governments. This does not include individual spending, as well - just Government spending.

The F/A-18 was a mistake

[jfdavis668]

The Navy wanted a dual purpose fighter-attack aircraft. To get it, the sacrificed range. The aircraft it replaced had far longer range, being designed for their task. Ever since, the Navy has been reliant on mid-air refueling to get anywhere. Planes launch with large bomb loads and nearly empty tanks, and have to mid-air refuel before they event start the mission.

Re:DoDâ(TM)s cost structure is a joke

[Freischutz]

These weapon systems are so expensive they try to not expose them.

F-35 = $103 million a copy CH-53E = $136 million a copy

The US armed forces tries to not use CH-53E in hostile territory because of cost.

How about F-35s that will never be combat ready. https://www.popularmechanics.c...

Why do we buy these systems?

We should be building planes with longer ranges or evaluate the need / effectiveness of carriers when weapons like the DF-21 stonefish exist.

If it's any consolation, the Chinese Chengdu J-20 is thought to cost in the vicinity of $120 million per unit. I rather like the Chinese concept behind the Chengdu J-31 better, it is estimated to costs only about $60-70 million per unit. It may not be quite as sophisticated as the F-35 but if you can build it in larger numbers that won't matter too much and if the Chinese can achieve the kind of cost lowering the F-35A has achieved as production of it ramped up, the price tag on a J-31 could drop into the $50 million range or lower. In an all out war my money is always going to be on the guy who can make adequate tanks/guns/planes in huge numbers and not on the guy who goes beyond the point of diminishing returns to include lots of engineering excellence in their designs or wastes resources on bleeding edge projects like the Nazis did (and they did both those things).

True but we also waste ridiculous amounts

[rsilvergun]

of money by not doing single payer. If you take the most anti-single payer stance possible (the Koch Bros) you come up with $2 trillion in savings in 10 years. That's absolute worst case scenario by a right wing think tank trying to torpedo single payer. Other estimates have put it north of $17 trillion. And that's before you start factoring productivity and wage gains from people being healthier and being able to change jobs w/o fear of losing access to their meds and dying.

But heck, lets say we take that $13 billion and just focus on the 45,000 that die every year of preventable illnesses due to lack of healthcare. I think that'd go a long way. It would also help stabilize our country's political situation.

Wages are declining, high paying work's being replaced with McJobs and healthcare and housing are becoming inaccessible. We're in a second gilded age. That's can't continue. Sooner or later it's going to blow up in our faces like it did for Germany in the late 30s/early 40s when the world put those damn reparations on them.