ForumsWEPRThe continuing budget-cutting of...

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Fiends
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Fiends
114 posts
Peasant

The US military:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/25/obama-kill-navys-tomahawk-hellfire-missile-program/

Both of these missiles are the cornerstones of the military. Especially the hellfire (hey dip ****: No hellfire = no missiles for your drones).
Face it he is out to completely destroy this country one way or another.

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FishPreferred
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FishPreferred
3,171 posts
Duke

I believe the correct term is Pyogenesis.

Fiends
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Fiends
114 posts
Peasant

I believe the correct term is Pyogenesis.


Potato, Potato(puhtawtou)(I wish i could record my own **** and put it in here so you could understand me better).
pangtongshu
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pangtongshu
9,815 posts
Jester

I think the comments are what make that article.

But..after wading my way through the infestation of smut, I found this person who seems to actually know his stuff
"You are wrong. Not only is there a series of missile systems that are just as capable as the Tomahawk (ie: SLAM-ER, HARPOON), even the Hellfire has a direct replacement. The Dept. of Defense has recognized the Griffin missile system as the replacement for the Hellfire. The Dept. of Defense also recognizes the LRASM as the next generation replacement to the Tomahawk system. As for the SLAM-ER; like the Tomahawk, it's an all-weather, sub sonic, over the horizon cruise missile whith Land attack and anti-ship capabilities."

09philj
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09philj
2,825 posts
Jester

Face it he is out to completely destroy this country one way or another.


Why does the US need so much weaponry anyway?
Fiends
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Fiends
114 posts
Peasant

Why does the US need so much weaponry anyway?


Because, we should have a huge standing army in place in preparation for the massive conventional war that we will not have to fight anytime in the near future no matter how much of an idiotic waste of money it is. After all, the only reason we won WWII is because we had a massive bloated military on standby before we even knew the war was going to take place.
Freakenstein
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Freakenstein
9,508 posts
Jester

We already have a bigger military budget than the next top 5 countries combined. I think we can cope with 125 million dollars of military cutting out of the 683.7 billion dollars we had in 2010.

we should have a huge standing army in place in preparation for the massive conventional war that we will not have to fight anytime in the near future no matter how much of an idiotic waste of money it is.


Should we tell him how silly this sounds?
FishPreferred
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FishPreferred
3,171 posts
Duke

So, to summarize this entire thread, after more than a week of desperate searching, Fiends manages to locate an article which, to his distorted mind, looks as though it could make a case against the man he blames for his own insecurities. Siezing the opportunity, he forgoes the tedious process of actually looking into the matter in order to get right into making a ridiculous thread on AG. It is met with raucous laughter from all sides, prompting FishPreferred to declare it a success.

FishPreferred
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FishPreferred
3,171 posts
Duke

You are not a judge of WEPR success. Please stop assigning yourself as the decider of when an argument is over.


To declare is not to decide. By my standards, it is a success, so I am free to declare as much. The rest is my own interpretation of the events surrounding the creation and reception of this thread and need not be accurate in every detail. Its being a third person narrative in present tense was meant to convey this idea.
TerminatorXM214
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TerminatorXM214
222 posts
Blacksmith

Because, we should have a huge standing army in place in preparation for the massive conventional war that we will not have to fight anytime in the near future no matter how much of an idiotic waste of money it is. After all, the only reason we won WWII is because we had a massive bloated military on standby before we even knew the war was going to take place.


I'd say this is obvious sarcasm... but I have the feeling he's serious.


On the actual topic, I do believe that completely cutting the Tomahawk missiles is a mistake. BUT, are they really completely cutting them?
Because of how inflammatory and unsupported the OP's article was, though, I decided to do some other research:

[url]http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/04/tomahawk-cancellation-an-error-of-defense-strategy-and-alliance-policy[/url]
[url]http://www.dodbuzz.com/2014/03/27/navy-seeks-next-generation-tomahawk/[/url]
[url]http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/block-iv-xgm-109-tomahawk-chopped-07423/[/url]

The first is anti-cut, the second appears pro-cut, the third is mostly information about the missile itself, and appears neutral.

It seems there is a definite new missile coming to replace the Tomahawk... in 2020 at earliest. Until then, we have the stockpile of one of the most popularized missiles to last us 5-9 years.
Another grievence is the lack of communication with Australia and the England, mainly because they are the only other 2 countries to use the Tomahawk missile (actually, Australia has not used it yet, but they recently set up 3 ships to be able to launch them). According to my first article, the British defense secretary was actually told that "any such suggestion must be speculation." Unfortunately, this part of the article contradicts my second article, which says "In 2016 we will revisit the question [Navy acquisition executive Sean Stackley]... "

Lastly, my third article, they have still, and are continuing to, update the Tomahawk missile, which pretty obviously means it's not going completely out of business.

So, my opinion:

As I said before, I think it would be a mistake to stop replenishing the Tomahawk missile supply. But, I don't know if it is going to stop, making this entire argument moot.
Freakenstein
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Freakenstein
9,508 posts
Jester

As I said before, I think it would be a mistake to stop replenishing the Tomahawk missile supply. But, I don't know if it is going to stop, making this entire argument moot.


Going back to that new missile idea (I saw it too when I looked at the comments section of the OP's article), what they're probably going to do is incrementally-reduce the amount of missiles to zero, and when the arms are depleted, start with a fresh, stockpiled supply of the new missiles within a year afterwards. Even with the standpoint of cutting arms, it's foolish to leave a section of weapon blank (for those rare what-if situations). Then there's the part I already talked about where this cutting of missiles is a paltry 100+ million dollars, something that the Navy, the highest-grossing military branch, can easily deal with and recover from.
FishPreferred
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FishPreferred
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Duke

I understand the concept of halting production to create new ones, but then you still have a ton of the old ones on carriers and attached to jets, and an aircraft carrier isn't about to dump a load of missiles overboard, put them in the garage or transport them back to shore. I'm just curious. It's a billion dollars of high-explosive long-range weaponry, and you can't just make it "go away."


They probably don't need to do anything with them. If it were a recall, they would have this problem, but a production halt simply means that what they have already is the last of them.
09philj
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09philj
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Jester

As of now I'm just curious. What do you do with all those missiles?


My guess is on selling them off.
nichodemus
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nichodemus
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Grand Duke

Most ammo does not become obsolete easily, many kinds of weapons are created, but they often center upon the same kind of cartridges.

What happens to old equipment?

1. Lethal weaponry is sold to allies or friendly governments.

2. Non-lethal/non-sensitive items can be sold as surplus.

3. It is transferred to law enforcement or other federal/state agencies. (1033 Program). The National Guard and Coast Guard in particular get alot of the old equipment.

4. It is destroyed and sold as scrap. The Americans left a fair bit of their equipment in Afghanistan, around 20%~. Nuclear submarines have their radioactive cores removed and sent for processing at a plant whilst the rest of it gets turned to scrap. I would expect that the same goes for missiles.

5. It is put into reserve/storage. The US has quite a few M60s left around.

6. It is recycled. Often, missiles and equipment can be stripped of parts and some of them will be reused. The MX missile for example.

Of course, all of it happens in phases and gradually, so you won't see Tomahawks just being removed immediately at the same time.

Salvidian
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Salvidian
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Farmer

Why does the US need all of this this heavy weaponry anyway? Does it really make sense for a country to destroy others before fixing their problems first? Does the US really need to intervene elsewhere? Does this specific cut even matter?

The majority of the budget goes to 3 areas: Social Security (24%), Medicare/Medicaid (22%), and Defense (19%). SS and M/M are both automatic and cannot be altered by Congress because they're protected by the uncontrollable spending concept. Defense, however, can be altered by Congress. And that's not even the worst part. Congress, mainly Republicans, are letting this continue. If that isn't complete and utter crap, I don't know what is.

09philj
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09philj
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Jester

1. Because other countries also have heavy weaponry and the U.S. is determined to always one-up them. We're not about to toss our guns down in the interest of peace when Iran is working on splitting the atom and NK is testing missiles and both of them hate America.


So the international equivalent of schoolyard one-upmanship then.
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