How to Replace US Army M-1 Tanks on the Cheap

The US Army's M-1 tank has inadequate armor protection against modern antitank missiles and IEDs.  However, the Pentagon doesn't have the money to buy a whole new from the ground up tank.  I don't think they have to.

In manned systems, I think that the automotive components can evolve and don't require a separate full platform development. I think the Army could get more bang for the buck by selectively upgrading subsystems with more advanced technology in electronics, composite armor and weapons.

Electronics and software change rapidly, so Army procurement should be geared to taking advantage of upgrades that can be retrofitted into the existing vehicle fleet. More modern electronics generally require less power and give off less heat so this should be a relatively easy engineering task.

Composite armor has advanced quite a lot since the designs of the Abrams tank and Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Some investigation of building versions of the Bradley and Abrams with new composite armor on the existing automotive chassis would seem like a good place to improve vehicle survivability economically. Again, the new composites are lighter than the existing armor, so the existing vehicle chassis will not require changes.

In the history of armored vehicles, mounting new weapons on existing vehicle designs is quite common. Sometimes this involved completely new turrets and sometimes it didn't. For example, the Israelis had a wide assortment of tanks after the 1967 war. They installed one standardized main gun on all of the different turrets of their T-54, T-55, M-4 and M-60 tanks. This solved their logistical problem of ammunition supply. New weapons should be able to be mounted on the existing Abrams and Bradley vehicles.

The advantage of going with upgrades instead of a whole new platform is that the upgrades can be installed on the existing vehicle fleet. This means that instead of a few super vehicles, you have a vastly improved fleet relatively quickly.

Upgrades are also less disruptive to your logistics, maintenance and training. For land vehicles, your big maintenance is probably on the automotive components. If it moves, it breaks. If the automotive components don't change, you don't have to spend big bucks retooling and restocking new parts.

It seems fairly clear that we are in the midst of a big change in remotely piloted vehicles. It's also clear that we are in a period of tight budgets. I think this combination dooms any big new Army vehicle program for at least the next 5 years. But I don't think that means the Army can't explore new components for its existing vehicles. 

Original Article:

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/what-is-the-next-gen-combat-vehicle

Why Liberals Feel Entitled to Rule

Liberals feel entitled to rule. They are "on the right side of history." Liberals are driven by the "fierce urgency of now." This is the modern-day equivalent of the divine right of kings, without the divine participation. Liberals are absolutely certain that their government experts know how to take care of people better than people can take care of themselves. Liberals think this is so obvious that they can't believe anybody can have any doubts about it. So any opposition is preventing liberal government experts from providing people with superior services. These opponents must have self-serving, evil motives because it is so obvious to liberals that the government experts do a superior job. Liberals' faith in government's ability to solve any and every problem is fanatical in their voter base. Any evidence that government has failed just means that the government didn't spend enough money on the problem. Evidence of fraud, corruption or incompetence is discounted because liberals are metaphysically certain that the fraud, corruption and incompetence would be much worse in the private sector. Even though the same individuals work in the private sector and public sector, moving back and forth through the famous revolving door, the liberal equivalent of transubstantiation consecrates these individuals while they work for the government.

As you can see, liberals go almost immediately to ad hominem attacks because they can see no rational reason anyone would oppose them. They also believe government is the best solution, so obstacles like the law or the Constitution are unimportant compared to the "fierce urgency of now." If the law gets broken or the Constitution gets rewritten by a 5 to 4 "living Constitution" decision in the Supreme Court, it's OK because it puts us "on the right side of history." For liberals, the ends completely justify the means. 

Obamacare Death Spiral is Democrats' Plan

Obamacare passed with no Republican votes. Democrats made all of the false promises. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." There was no way either of those statements could be true under the law that the Democrats passed. Everybody except Nancy Pelosi knew it. She "had to pass it to see what's in it." Democrats made all of the enabling regulatory decisions, like the contraceptive mandate. Democrats own Obamacare.

Obamacare is in a death spiral right now. As rates go up, fewer, sicker, people sign up, then rates go up more. Obamacare was designed to be a huge government health subsidy program, but Democrats claimed that it wouldn't need subsidies. So Marco Rubio made them put it in writing. One of the funding bills says that there will be no insurance subsidies from the government. That's why all of the low ball rates have bankrupted the made-for-Obamacare coop insurance companies.

There is no way an individual insurance market can be sustainable without a prior condition exclusion. Everyone just waits until they are sick to sign up. The penalties for no insurance would have to be almost as high as the cost of the insurance to induce people to buy the insurance.

The program also didn't allow rate differences by age. This was designed to force younger and healthier people to subsidize older, sicker people. Unfortunately, the younger and healthier people are having trouble finding jobs in Obama's crummy economy, so they can't afford the over priced insurance.

The Democrats brag that they have a plan. The Democrats say the Republicans don't have a plan. The problem is that the Democrats' plan is a gigantic failure, so it's not a real, sustainable, alternative. The Republicans want to use free market mechanisms to lower the overall costs of healthcare in the economy. The Democrats say that's not a plan, because the government has no active role. Given how badly the government has messed up healthcare under the Democrats' Obamacare plan, do you really want the government to be more involved in any new plan?