Anyone guess who is 3rd largest arms exporter in the World?

[Replicant]

Originally posted by Toad
Not suprised; the Israelis make some truly cosmic stuff that works. They take stuff we initially made and make it MUCH better.

Still wondering why we have to give them ~$3 BILLION a year in military aid when they are as good as they are and are doing so well in the arms market themselves.

Anyone else (US) thinking this? Because with the deficit we're running, I'm going to renew my letter writing to our Representatives about US aid to Israel.

Besides, we're about to eliminate one of the threats they worry about. And give the rest pause for thought.

Quite true Toad.  I remember seeing a programme on Discovery Wings and it featured unmanned recon planes and Israel were way ahead of any other country in the 80s.  One fantastic piece of tactics included launching a mass unmanned recon raid - the enemy switched their SAM radars on to engage thinking it was a major strike but little did they know that following the recon planes were squadrons of Wild Weasel aircraft who then locked onto the SAM radar sites and took them all out.  Nice piece of tactics!

[Montezuma]

Originally posted by davidpt40
I saw "Pentagon Wars".  Made me lose confidence in our military.

The soldiers deciding not to fake the test was inspiring.

[Major_Hans]

I actually beleave that things like what is depicted in Pentagon Wars is possible.

Just take NASA.  Everyone complains that each Shuttle launch costs 500 million dollars.  So why can't we make it cheaper?  Russian Soyuz rockets only cost 3 million.

Well, the problem is the contractors.  They absolutley want the cost to be high.  They get paid on a "cost plus" system.  The cost of the vehicle plus a 10% extra for profit for the manufacturer.

So, the more expensive the rocket, the better.  That is why all those X-plane vehicles that NASA was working on in the early '90s were all canceled.  What corporation in their right mind would switch from building 100 million dollar expendable rockets like the Titan rockets (plural) to a 50 million dollar, reuseable vehicle like the X-33, of which you only build two or three of them....ever.

Defense contracts and other big government contracts shouldn't have an unlimited budget.  You either build the vehicle for the price specified, or you lose the contract.