On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:11:39 -0700, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

eatfastnoodle wrote:

:On Feb 2, 2:24*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: wrote:
:
: :See:
: :
: :http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Boei..._For_Next_Gene...
: :
: :How much longer will the Navy keep upgrading Harpoon before
: :switching to a newer, possibly supersonic, weapon?
: :
:
: This one seems to fall into the "if it works, don't **** with it"
: category.
:
: What do you want a newer weapon to do that would work better than
: what's already there and in the development plan?
:
:
:F14/F15/F16/F18 certainly work, so why do we spend tens of billions of
:dollars on F22/F35? Why not just buy newer upgraded version of Eagle
:and Falcon? Cause the enemies aren't sitting still, what works today
:might not work tomorrow, you must plan for the future.
:

I'll simply note you dodge the question.

Let me ask again. What do you want a newer weapon to do that would
work better than what's already there and in the development plan?

As for the aircraft you mention, we knew what new requirements we had
(supercruise, stealth, improved maintenance rates, etc).

So what do you want to add to Harpoon that isn't already in the
roadmap?

I thought that the drive for the last few years had been to be
able to deal with numbers of smaller targets and that the
surface-air weapons have been modified in response.

The USN seems to be responding to needs which does not surprise
me all that much.

Peter Skelton