You have to agree that we've never used so many - anyone know the score on this? Will production and new contracts be signed PDQ? Where does the money lead?

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 09, 1999

Answers

If the answer to this question is yes, think about Russia and China's use it or loose it theroy on nukes!

-- SCOTTY (BLehman202@aol.com), April 09, 1999.

What a cheery way to start the weekend :(

-- winna (??@??.com), April 09, 1999.

Have you possibly considered that the cruise missiles are old technology, and that they want to use them all up? I know from listening to some of the reports that they have used "newer" types of missiles over there.

-- (?@??.???), April 09, 1999.

Andy - yeah, probably...

Scotty - I'd recommend you do a little research on nukes, since there is a difference in multiple orders of magnitude between a conventional cruise missile dumping a ton of high explosive on a target and using even a very small nuke. Nukes can be rebuilt - what do you think is done with the plutonium and uranium from old nukes that are taken apart? And remember that the Russians just fielded that new mobile ICBM system...they thus aren't in a use it or lose it situation as long as those are available to them.

If you want to worry about something, try this:

You may have noticed that one of the US systems that has been repeatedly cited in the media as having major y2k problems is the F- 14. Now we (the US) are spending major bucks remediating both our F- 14's and other noncompliant weapons systems. We have big bucks to do that with. Contrawise the Russians do not have the money to remediate their all of their conventional systems...neither do their allies. If you want to talk use it or lose it - try this one on for size: NATO sends in ground forces, and the Russians then supply the Serbs with all the noncompliant high tech weaponry they can use...as well as 'volunteers' to assist them.

nukes? who needs nukes? all they have to do is win (or at least break even) by midnight December 31st.

Just to add to the stew, you might also remember there are some folks in the mideast whose hightech weaponry also comes from Russia, no?

think about it.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 09, 1999.

Arlin, that line of reasoning isn't very reassuring...What do you think the odds are at the present that we will be involved in WWIII before the end of the year? It looks like it's approaching 50-50 to me.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), April 09, 1999.

Nik -

I don't know...too many variables...If anything I'd look for a VERY public demonstration that the US is no longer capable of fighting two regional wars simultaneously...which has a whole lot of interesting implications in and of itself.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 09, 1999.

North Korea has to be salivating over the prospect of the US being engaged in Iraq and Yugoslavia. Seoul food, anyone???

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), April 09, 1999.

You got it. My guess is that pretty much all of our military weapons which rely on GPS are non-compliant after the rollover August 22, unless they were manufactured within the last 2 or 3 years. But from what I understand we've made such reductions in defense spending the last 10 years or so that I don't think we've buying much new stuff at all. Most of our cruise missiles were probably manufactured over 10 years ago.

-- @ (@@@.@), April 09, 1999.

No. Missiles are used now because he doesn't want pilots shot down.

Yes - they will use this as an excuse to re-start production lines, but take some of the money from other DOD sources. There will be some extra money funded, but probably not enough.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 09, 1999.

Robert,

Of course you are correct about protecting pilots, but do you really think it was necessary to send over 100 missiles to the shack in the desert that Bin Laden was supposed to be hiding in last year? They have been depleting our stock and using them for target practice because they are afraid of what they might do after the rollover.

-- @ (@@@.@), April 09, 1999.

? From the tiny bit I know about cruise missles, if they had a problem (which I greatly doubt) they most likely would go out at the GPS rollover.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), April 09, 1999.