[TML] Ship shapes

[Garry Ward]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leon Wu" <Leon.Wu at newswire.ca>
To: "The Traveller Mailing List" <tml at travellercentral.com>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 4:19 PM
Subject: Re: [TML] Ship shapes


>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com 
>> [mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of Antony Farrell
>> Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 4:01 PM
>> To: 'The Traveller Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [TML] Ship shapes
>> 
>> > A small disagreement. A good war system is based on costs also. How 
>> > many others can I kill for a given buck. Sure the 
>> manufacturers want 
>> > to sell expensive one time use stuff but the winners of 
>> real wars need 
>> > to get the max kill for the amount spent. A perfect example 
>> of this is 
>> > Trillion credit squadron.
>> > 
>> > --
>> Of course the military has budgets and cost is very 
>> important. How else could we work out the cost overruns on projects. 
> 
> However don't forget the effect of politics. An example is the Canadian
> government's boneheaded handling of our aging helicopter fleet.
> Originally the conservative government in the late 80's ordered a bunch
> of helicopters to replace our aging fleet of Sea Kings. Unfortunately
> the opposition Liberal party campaigned against them as extravagent
> totally ignoring the fact that they were desperately needed. Once the
> Liberals were in power they immediatly cancelled the deal and re-started
> the search process. Which after a year came back with the same
> helicopters the previous Conservative government ordered. Due to this
> embarrassing result, the government sat on the report for some time.
> Eventually a new Liberal leader was able to get the order in and after
> more than a decade since it was originally ordered Canada put in the
> order. Which is now facing further setbacks pushing deliver to 2010. 
> 
> This is just one example of politics triumphing over commonsense. A lot
> of nations will re-invent the wheel just so they can have their own
> wheel. If the Germans built the ultimate tank tomorrow does anyone
> believe the US government would purchase those? Or would it begin the
> expensive process of building their version of it?

IIRC, the main gun on the M1 is of German manufacture...

Garry
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