Thread: 1.2 billion USD of US Federal money down the drain in Guam!

1.2 billion sure could feed one heck of a lot of starving children, that's for sure.

Obviously, military spending is an important thing for a country, but when military spending is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, you know things have gone too far. The US spends way too much money on its military, even for a country at war. 100 billion could probably help out cancer research too. Actually, it could help a lot of things. An up to date military is fairly necessarry, but a gigantic Godzilla powerhouse of an updated military, is not.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

Though keep in mind that the 1.2 billion unit cost also includes the research and development costs of 'stealth' technology. Had more B-2 bombers been produced, the average cost per unit, spread out over larger numbers, would have gone down... The B-2 proved to be invaluable during the Kosovo War when the Serbian government refused to stop it's ethic cleansing campaign. The B-2, with the support of the US Air Force air-refueling tanker fleet, was the only aircraft which could fly from US bases, and loiter and precision bomb with impunity over a country with advanced air defense systems. The attack aircraft from the carrier task force didn't have the range for strikes in country interior, (with several FA-18s and one stealth fighter being shot down) plus the US didn't have the time to get forward basing permission for larger bomber aircraft from other countries closer to the region. If the B-2 assists weren't available, the only alternative was to send in ground forces in a land invasion, which was something that both President Clinton, and NATO wanted to avoid.

The military power and weapons is needed. We are the biggest super power there is and because of that we will always be on the look out for invasion. If we didn't have all of the weapons that we do have the out comes of alot of conflicts would of ended up differently. We probably wouldn't even be a free country anymore if it wasn't for all the research and technology that we do have. I realize that it is a huge price tag and could be used for something else. But you need to ask yourself, if we had put it towards something else would we still be able to have all the freedoms that we do have?

Hey, wait, wasn't a stealth bomber shot down in back in '99? Oh, wait, yeah, it was.

Is it really worth it to use 1.2billion to just one, Alright the first one may cost that much including the research, but after that, it should cost less, do you know what you could do with that kind of money. donation to the poor, new nature reserve and fixing the road

Grumble Grumble Grumble

Originally Posted by aceman67

Hey, wait, wasn't a stealth bomber shot down in back in '99? Oh, wait, yeah, it was.

Its hard to trust a Internet resource that has a Russian (.ru) domain... This was actually a F-117 Stealth Fighter, (who's wreckage was shown on Serbian TV) that was knocked down...

1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The other thing is that only 21 B-2 Spirit bombers were ever built. And with the individual price tag that they have, its hard to hide a loss from the Congress and the public. With the one lost last week, all 21 are accounted for...

B-2 Spirit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes it may cost 1.2 billion, But i think its well worth it in the end of things.The reasons i say this is, well for one thing it is a stealth aircraft and less visible if not invisible to radar ( which the specs for it are classified ) so i can't say for sure but it has to be a damn small radar cross section.Which is well worth the money if were sending aircraft in deep behind enemy lines and don't want to loss pilots and aircraft to a single hard target.

As for the crash this stuff happens, plus the one that crashed was the AV-12 Spirit of Kansas.