Maybe if they hadn't called it the "Eurofighter" it would have taken off . . . that's like naming a weapon after the U.N.

Doesn't this sound like the Motors Company in the book Atlas Shrugged? Seemingly the major reason to build the Eurofighter is for the jobs that it will create.

Then, too, I am wondering who or what this Eurofighter is intended to be fighting against.

A 20 year old design for an obsolete combat role -- this kind of central planning is sure to make the E.U. a dominant military power.

England is a partner on the Joint Strike Fighter, they should cancel the Euro-fighter deal.

The USAF initiated the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program in June of 1981, to eventually replace the F-15.
The F-22 Raptor, the Air Force's next-generation air-superiority fighter, was the result.
So, the US' cutting edge combat aircraft is also a twenty-three year old concept.

The F-15 itself, America's workhorse fighter/bomber, was first delivered in June of '72.

Also, the M1 Abrams, the world's premier tank and the mainstay of US armored forces, began development in '73.

Development, production, and deployment of military equipment just takes a loooooong time; so, it's not really any knock on the "Eurofighter" that it was conceived of twenty years ago.
However, being six years behind schedule is a severe problem.
The F-22 is a year ahead of schedule in its testing.

Michael,

I think the long time frames are a problem in and of themselves. Granted, the equipment is orders of magnitude more complicated than their WWII counterparts, but so are our design tools, are they not? Maybe you could elucidate...

Kirk:

From http://www.lowobservable.com/Raptor.htm :

The F/A-22 "Raptor", Lockheed Martin's super stealthy air superiority fighter, is poised to rule the skies for the foreseeable future. Key advancements in low observable technologies, weapons systems, maneuverability and engine performance make the "Raptor" a superior force in future military conflicts. "Raptor", designed to replace the F-15 "Eagle", is projected to outperform and outstealth current generation and projected air dominance fighters for at least twenty years.

The project has suffered setbacks, however, as congressional spendthrifts tried to cancel the entire program in 1999. [...] Raptor has surpassed all expectations, and has met or exceeded all program goals.

Raptor has taken what we have learned from present stealth aircraft and moved the technology a step further. Utilizing the most advanced composites and radar-absorbing materials, the design of Raptor's external skin make it nearly invisible to most current radar. [...] Raptor is supersonic, unlike the slower F-117 and B-2. In fact, the F/A-22's engines produce more thrust than any current fighter. Raptor also has the the ability to "supercruise", enabling it to cruise at supersonic speeds without the use of an afterburner. Range and fuel efficiency benefit directly from this. Raptor's use of a unique thrust vectoring system make it the most maneuverable fighter aircraft in the world, enabling it to outmaneuver all current and projected aircraft that may be a threat in the future.

Technologically, Raptor is far beyond current aircraft. It utilizes "First look/First shot/First kill" capability, sensors that allow the pilot to track, identify and shoot the enemy before it detects the Raptor. Less visible advancements include a high-speed data bus, fiber-optic data transmission and advanced avionics. Raptor wields computing power equivalent to two Cray supercomputers.
(Emphasis added).

I've bolded the sections that offer the most obvious clues as to why major military equipment costs so much, and takes so long, to develop.

One lesser reason is that funding for long-term projects is uncertain. Congress has to continually authorize and re-authorize appropriations for various projects, and often funding either shrinks, leading to setbacks and delays to re-organize or mothball certain elements of a project, or new specifications and requirements are added to the project, leading to delays as the project is re-engineered.

However, the biggest reason that projects take so long is that the performance specifications are usually barely possible when outlined.
For instance, the F/A-22 Raptor is:
*More stealthy
*Faster
*More maneuverable
*Much more fuel efficient
than any other jet fighter in American history.
All at the same time.

As they say, doing the impossible takes longer.

Maybe I missed something, but I don't recall either the Jaguar or the Tornado to be overwhelming success either....

Does anyone know what advanced features the Euro-Fighter has? Does it have stealth, supercruise, etc? More importantly, what are the capabilities of its weapons systems?

The US cannot afford many of these superduper new fighters, either.

It's a question what they would be used for, anyway.

The current trends in military technology remind me of the situation in the 1870s and '80s in regard to naval technology (the high-tech of its day). It turned out then that more, faster, bigger of what had been developed in the most recent generation was not what was needed in the next war.

But figuring out what was needed was beyond anybody's guess at the time.

Harry:

You've made the exact argument for Calvin Coolidge's vision. Build what you need when you need it--not what the builders are trying to sell you when you don't. Had we done what you demand throughout the 20s we'd have wasted tons of money on equipment that would have been useless when war came. I love it when you stumble into Truth.

Harry:

Depends on what you mean by "afford". Although the Raptor is, indeed, "superduper", it's also true that they cost almost $ 100 million apiece.
However, if the US eventually does end up purchasing 220, which is the current plan, the entire program, from inception to delivery, will only have cost $ 30 billion.
As spelled out in the Project for a New American Century, if the US can avoid a war, by spending $ 30 billion on a fighter that every potential adversary nation acknowledges is vastly superior to anything they have, or have planned to build, then it will have been well worth it.

Similar to the strategy outlined in Robert J. Ringer's 'Winning Through Intimidation'.

OJ, we won't have time to build it when we need it.

Robert, I'd really like to answer your questions about the Eurofighter Typhoon, but no matter how I word the response, I keep getting a "questionable content" error message.

Robert:

We always do--and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles will see us through til then.

Michael and Robert have it exactly right. Speaking as an ex-fighter pilot, you both make very authoritative arguments.

The problem with OJ's analysis is that it is hard to quantify how many wars you didn't fight because the potential enemies knew better than to try.

The potential a squadron of supercruise, invisible F-22s represents just has to cause China to have second thoughts when it comes to Taiwan.

Harry: You sound like my wife claiming that "Because it's cool" is insufficient reason to buy some gadget.

Not being able to afford military hardware is very much a contingent judgment. The UK felt it could not spend much in 1935 but ended up spending hundreds of times as much later.

But Orrin is entirely wrong about time and the military.

First, you don't always have time to catch up.

Second, during the time you starved your military during the long peace, you failed to develop skilled commanders, and while you might, with luck, hurry up the development of plane or a ship, you cannot rush through creation of a skilled officer corps.

Until the Louisiana maueuvers of 1940, no active duty US general had ever directing a formation as large as a division, even in practice.

When we got to N. Africa, Sicily and Europe, it showed. The German generals ran rings around ours.

Lots of GIs died because of that.

Ah, the myth of superior German generalship--it dies hard.

Jeff:

Even a pilot isn't silly enough to think his plance causes deeper thought than nuclear superiority.

It was no myth. It's a good thing the US Army never had to face a more-or-less equal German army.

Though vastly outnumbered and under attack on the opposite flank, they ran your boy Patton almost out of Tunisia; then in Sicily the rear guard held up an entire US army (your boy, again) for 37 days, and withdrew without loss; then in Normandy, your boy, who never did get the part about flank security, nearly had his whole army cut off, and he would have, too, if it hadn't been for the remarkable stand of the 30th Infantry (not one of his formations) against 5 Panzer divisions.

World War II didn't produce and Jacksons or Sheridans, and one of the reasons was having to learn on the job.

Harry:

That's the point I've made a hundred times--they had no prayer of winning the war. Even our ill-equipped incompetents whipped them in record time because they were already so badly overextended that they were falling apart.

They'd have won if they'd kept us out.

Somewhere in Churchill's memoirs, 'End of the Beginning,' I think, he relates how he felt when we did come in.

He realized that it was a war of attrition, and that Britain would lose it alone, being smaller; but would win it with us, being bigger.

He turned out to be right. The USSR crushed most of Germany without subtlety, and we crushed the remainder, also without subtlety.

But the Germans had the better generals.

Won what? They couldn't get to England or Spain and you think the Soviets didn't need any help.

No, the USSR would have lost if Britain had thrown in the towel.

Hitler came very, very close to beating Russia.

Even with Britain in the fight, he still probably would have if the Greeks and Yugoslavs had not made trouble. The German campaign in the Balkans delayed the campaign in Russia just enough, and weakened it just enough, to save Moscow.

There is no inevitability to history.

Beating Russia was a very different matter from controlling it and without controlling it the victory would have been meaningless.

Not an experiment I'd like to have seen run.

According to you, the Bolsheviks had little trouble controlling Russia even though practically the entire population was against them.

It wasn't, but that's your argument, not mine.

Been reading Tadeusz Borowski this week. The Germans would have found plenty of collaborators.

What are you, drunk?

They had to murder 30 million people and establish the Gulag just to control the population. Then they faced periodic risings in their colonies in Eastern Europe. That despite the size imbalance between them and the conquered peoples. Germany, with a mere 80 million, would never have been able to hold the East and West never mind administer it all in any coherent fashion..