Confusion Surrounds F/A-22 Upgrade Program

Henry J Cobb wrote:
Jeb Hoge wrote:

Huh? What shipbuilding are they killing off? Let's see some
attribution; DDG-51-class and LPD 17-class production alone
invalidates your claim, unless those really aren't ships under
construction that I saw in Bath.

The last DDGs get started next year.

They get ordered next year, but it's a multi-year buy; construction on the
last ships will probably take a bit longer to get rolling.

But the basic point is that even if the Air Force had cancelled F-22 years
ago, that would not translate into more Navy procurement money. It simply
doesn't work that way. In reality, the services each get a nearly fixed
share of the budget (their top-line) and then work out how to spend it. The
relative percentages of service budgets change very slowly and almost never
over single programs.

If the Air Force axed the F/A-22, it would reallocate that money to other
Air Force programs, not to the Navy shipbuilding accounts.

Every now and then the Navy talks about getting a larger fraction of the
overall DoD budget, but the internal politics make this a very hard sell
within OSD, where the top-lines are prepared. The services guard their
total allocations very closely.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872