Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution

Agreed, but more specifically here is the 10 minute video which best distills the whole movie. It's worth watching: [VIDEO]

Watch the "Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution" video: [VIDEO] It's a great example of how trying to design a product that works well for every stakeholder in every scenario leads to a Frankenstein of a product that doesn't work well for anybody. This happens all too often in government (typically military) contracts.

Reading this “We weren’t sure LCS was executing the missions it was designed for,” Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener said in January 2022. “And so we … went out to the number of fleet commanders and said, ‘Alright, what do you want it to do? And what missions do you want it to execute based on the environment we’re in now?’” reminds me of this excerpt from a movie: Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution [VIDEO] From the movie "Pentagon Wars". Bradley Fighting Vehicle design and development. Any design engineer will love this scene.

When you need the absolute best for something, you need to specialize. That's why there have historically been so many different kinds of aircraft, each with relatively discrete missions. The F-35 is a terrible aircraft, and the procurement is deeply suspect. The South Korean acquisition process leaked some surprising information about the acquisition process and the F-35 failed the relatively modest criteria the Koreans had set and an older aircraft (F-15) to be purchased. At the time there was loads of news about the F-35 failing the acquisition and it even made it into Aviation week. Doing a google search now, it looks like it was a smooth process from RFP to acquisition and I can't find many of the older articles [1] The rumor is that Lockheed bribed the hell out of the Korean National Assembly and "won" the initial round of acquisition, but the agency in Korea responsible for the acquisition (DAPA) saw right through it and awarded the final contract to Boeing. The National Assembly got upset, Lockheed got upset and probably some U.S. congressmen got upset and the entire acquisition was tossed out "recompeted" and of course the F-35 won the second time. It's a sad joke and I can't even begin to guess at the acquisition shenanigans that happened in the U.S. 1 - [LINK] edit a great movie about this is the movie "Pentagon Wars" which includes this great scene. [VIDEO]

This video about the evolution of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle may shed some light on why the Air Force ended up with a report with far more requested changes than SpaceX had anticipated: [VIDEO]

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project. A system designed to do everything for everyone. When it should be designed to do one thing better than everything else. Divide the F-35 into three different attack aircraft. Single engine CAS with STOVL capability. Big/fast/stealthy twin engine bomber. Carrier based attack drone. All three would likely fulfill their roles better for lower total cost and be operational on a shorter timeframe. The F-35 reminds me of this short story by A. C. Clarke [LINK] And this scene from pentagon wars: [VIDEO]

It reminded me the feature creep scene in HBO's Pentagon Wars, which is eerily similar to what can happen in the software world: [VIDEO]

There's a whole movie about it if you haven't seen it: [VIDEO] unless this was an intentional reference, then, whoosh