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Originally Posted by fatty
And IMHO where the U.S. has always been superior to the Russians; man for man, professional forces perform better than conscripted ones.
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Well, while I'm sure that the US Navy's average submariner proficiency is superior to the Russian (unless there's something badly wrong with my worldview), but this explanation is not valid for the submarine force, where the Russians are something like 70-80% professional (michmen and officers) in the newer boats.
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It's difficult for us to imagine how to make these things cheaper. There aren't many details available about what kind of gadgets go into building modern submarines, so it's hard to say "oh, xyz system is kind of superfluous, let's nix that and save $10 million."
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The important thing IMO is STRICT budget control. Congress is soft, and so American equipment keep overrunning their planned cost (by over a hundred percent). Congress concedes, the project overruns the new budget. Congress concedes...
What is really needed is a hard line system - the Navy wants something, they make a budget. They can include a REASONABLE safety margin (20%, not 200%) to account for inflation and a few accidents. If approved, exactly that many dollars are allocated.
Even if the sub is as complete as many of the nearly complete Soviet products that got choked off by the end of the Cold War, it is frozen when the money falls to zero. No extra infusions of money. Just take the hulk and scrap it, so as to remove the temptation.
If the US were Russia, I'd have suggested firing the Chief Designer and the admirals involved, but this is an American scenario so I can't do that.
More likely, if they budget the way they do now, the sub would barely have started the lay-down process when the money runs out. The Navy can take the plans home, then.
This will:
1) Force the Navy to make realistic budgets. At least then Congress and the American people will know the true cost up front. This eliminates ploys on giving the cost in "instalments" so people feel like spitting out the money just to complete it.
2) Force the Navy to take a hard line on economizing every stage of the production, taking real efficiency measures ... etc.
Then America might just have reasonably priced subs.