BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

Poco Deplorevole

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 17:27:05 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 13:20:21 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/16/2017 10:50 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 08:37:05 -0400 (EDT), justan wrote:

Thats a dumb plan. Throwing away potentially good explosive
devices. The old stuff still can be dropped and cause blunt force
trauma even if the explosivefails. Waste not want
not.

It may be a dumb plan but it is how the military operates. This comes
down to chemistry more than politics. Explosives definitely have a
shelf life and beyond that they become unreliable. They may just be
less effective but they can also become more sensitive and that is a
worse problem. The exudate that oozes out of shells loaded with TNT
can be very dangerous.
Military explosives generally have longer shelf lives than commercial
explosives but that is simply more than a few years out to 20 or so.

You keep saying that and I don't disagree with you when it comes to
cheap, WWII era ordnance or .45 rounds that you apparently had some
experience in disposing of in 1965. But, what makes you think or what
evidence do you have that today, 52 years later (half a century) that
the same policy exists for $15M a pop weapons?

Because TNT is still TNT?
I did a lot of reading on this but I can't find anything like the CG
"282" manual online that defined storage and classification of
ordinance. I did see references to explosives like Semtex and RDX
saying they were only at their prime for 10 years. (by a company
selling a replacement)
I also heard the actual production cost of the MOABs was $170k or so
and you get to $16 million by dividing the $340m program cost by the
21 bombs they built. If you recycled the guidance package and just
demilled the barrel bomb it guides, no doubt that would still be
cheaper but I bet there is a better guidance package out there now too
so it is likely to be chucked.

This is DoD, a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon we are
talking about real money. (Proxmire)
Do you really think they are worried about a couple hundred grand?

How many multi billion dollar weapons systems have we built that were
designed, built, deployed and then scrapped without ever firing a shot
in anger? (and I don't just mean ballistic missiles and nukes)

Read the link I posted about MOAB costs. Washington Post, Times, and even Harry got it all wrong.