re: #496 Targetpractice

You’ve got the lettering right, but while the Navy and Marines are politically joined at the hip, their desires for the B & C are at odds. Marines want it mostly because they badly need a Harrier replacement and have badly wanted a VTOL capable of supersonic flight for decades. The Navy wanted no part of the program to begin with, but got drug along because the DoD told them that it would have bring total costs for the program down and also because tough shit, the Air Force wants it badly and so you’re going to make do.

Thank you for confirming my understanding. As for program costs, those are a matter of long-standing frustration for me and the way the F-35 program was able to evade the oversight regime it was placed under is just sickening. It would have cost a lot less had oversight been kept tight for the whole of the procurement process.