"Chad Irby" wrote
(Tony Williams) wrote:

We know the Mauser works, too - it's been in service in large numbers
for two decades. The initial assessments by the JSF team concluded
that the Mauser was the most cost-effective choice, and they knew all
about the GAU-12/U then.

Part of that "cost effectiveness" appeared to be a lowball pricing
structure that fell through on closer examination.

Here's the prospective from a contractor's point of view: non-incumbents
bidding into a new requirement have the advantage of the valor of ignorance.
Because the contract is cost plus, in the absence of experience, a new
bidder can make bidding assumptions that erm turn out to be different from
reality. The_incumbent_has to know more about the real costs and as a
result, often bids a higher price.

Bidding to fixed price is different. A contractor's management with make
sure the bid price is high enough that they_will_make money. Then there are
disasters like BAE's Nimrod rebuild which scar a generation of managers (the
ones that don't get taken out back and shot). I suspect that BAE will not
bid a fixed price contract again for twenty years.