Comanche program scrapped

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Cold Killer

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http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/02/23/helicopter.cancel.ap/index.html

Army ends 20-year helicopter program

Canceled Comanche program will cost Army at least $10 billion

Monday, February 23, 2004 Posted: 2202 GMT ( 6:02 AM HKT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army has decided to cancel its Comanche helicopter program, a multibillion-dollar project to build a new-generation chopper for armed reconnaissance missions, officials said Monday.

The contractors for Comanche are Boeing Co. and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.

With about $8 billion already invested in the program, and the production line not yet started, the cancellation is one of the largest in the history of the Army. It follows the Pentagon's decision in 2002 to cancel the Crusader artillery program -- against the wishes of Army leaders.

Pentagon officials said a public announcement was planned for Monday afternoon.

Congressional lawmakers and company executives associated with the program were scrambling Monday to figure out the Pentagon's plans.

Sikorsky spokesman Matthew Broder would only say that "we are on track and fully funded until we hear otherwise."

The Sikorsky plant in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the Comanche is being built, opened last year and employs about 400 workers.

The Comanche has been a target of critics who say it was an expensive mistake.

"The Comanche program has been plagued with wildly unrealistic technological expectations and the bugaboo of pay more and get less. Cancellation of this program would free up funds for weapons that work and meet our country's true national security needs," said Eric Miller of the Project on Government Oversight, a private watchdog group.

Loren Thompson, who follows aviation and other defense issues for the Lexington Institute think tank said he believes the Army under new chief of staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker favors ending the Comanche program, even though the service had been counting on it to provide a new reconnaissance capability.

"The Bush administration has now killed the two biggest Army weapons programs it inherited from the Clinton administration," Thompson said, referring to the Crusader and Comanche.

Earlier this year the White House budget office asked the Pentagon to provide independent reviews of the Comanche and another expensive aviation program, the Air Force's F/A-22 Raptor fighter.

Although killing the Comanche project would save tens of billion in future costs, the cancellation decision is expected to require the Army to pay at least $2 billion in contract termination fees.

The Comanche program was started in 1983 and had survived many reviews. Under a restructuring worked out in 2002, a decision on going ahead with initial low-rate production was to be made in 2007, with the first Comanches delivered to the Army in 2009 and full-rate production to begin in 2010.
 

spm1138

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I presume they've decided they can get by with modernised Apache's for the forseable future.

Which is funny because it seems like a lot of them have been getting shot down lately.
 
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DEFkon

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recon? I always thought it was an attack chopper, the evolution of the appache. I guess it sorta makes sense anyhow. I suppose it's probably easier to just do recon via satalite or UAV today anyhow. I think for the time being the US military doesn't really need to do any serious R&D in the aerospace/aviation area because ATM there really isn't any arms race with a major competitor. Not only that but the US miliary's shifting gears right now anyhow. In the 80's they were planing for "wars", now the big threat is "political instability".
 
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kavoN said:
Why wouldn't a helicopter designed just for that purpose be deployed in a combat zone?


I'm assuming that you are responding to CKs post. If that is so, the answer is
simple: during peace time, there are not many apaches deployed in combat
zones, thus few get shot down. Recently, we went to war and thus we have a
more helicopters being deployed and more getting shot down. SO, to answer
your question of why it would not be deployed in a combat zone is simply that a
couple of years ago, there were far fewer combat zones. Another way to deploy
the apache that is not in a combat zone is for training purposes. And to give
another way of deploying them outside of combat duties is for maitenance
testing.

Just because it is a post by CK does not mean that the contents of the post
are nonsense. A year ago, it would, but now it generally does not.
 

novak

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Demosthanese said:
I'm assuming that you are responding to CKs post. If that is so, the answer is
simple: during peace time, there are not many apaches deployed in combat
zones, thus few get shot down. Recently, we went to war and thus we have a
more helicopters being deployed and more getting shot down. SO, to answer
your question of why it would not be deployed in a combat zone is simply that a
couple of years ago, there were far fewer combat zones. Another way to deploy
the apache that is not in a combat zone is for training purposes. And to give
another way of deploying them outside of combat duties is for maitenance
testing.

Just because it is a post by CK does not mean that the contents of the post
are nonsense. A year ago, it would, but now it generally does not.

You're right.

In retrospect, I'm not quite sure what I was trying to imply with my post myself. Note to self: wake up before you post. ;)

Apologies all around.
 

TheShiningWizard

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Demosthanese said:
Such a shame the games generally sucked. I Wish I could find a combat helicopter game that is As Real As It Gets.
Look up Jane's Combat Simulations' AH-64D Longbow games (easiest to find on eBay, nowadays). Absolutely brilliant simulations. Hopefully you'll have time to read the 300-page manuals :)
 
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Aug 12, 2000
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Jane's Longbow2 might be a pain to get to run on your computer, but it usually works out eventually. Bad flight model, fantastic avionics, including handing off pfz to the wingman. Priceless.

'Enemy Enganged: Comanche v. Hokum' is a very viable alternative though. Not so deep in the avionics department, but deeper in the flight model and with a dynamic campaign. Besides: The source code has been released and there are several people working hard on improvements.

Killing the Comanche was probably a good idea. It seems recent conflicts have proven the over-the-hill tankbuster concept to be largely obsolete and inapplicable to the modern, post-cold-war battlefield. Even the Apache - apart from aparent technical shortcomings - needs to be brought away from the Fulda Gap tankbuster closer to the CAS workhorse that the Cobra is.

Basically, the russians showed a lot more foresight with their AH-concepts.