Biggest Military white elephant of all time?

Dub13

My vote goes to the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter that the US were developing for years but then finally dropped in 2004. About $8.6 billion was spent on developing and cancelling this project....such a crazy amount of money to waste. It did look cool though and could even fly backwards.

OS119

i dunno, i think the definition of 'white elephant' is something that, regardless of cost, is going to be feck all use to man nor beast.

a stealthy attack helicopter doesn't fit in that catagory IMHO.

i'm somewhat tempted to say the Type 45 Daring Class of anti-Air Warfare destroyers, utterly fabulous pieces of kit, just designed to combat a threat (that of Soviet massed air and cruise missile raids on NATO convoys in the North Atlantic) that disappeared 18 years before the first ship of its class was launched.

and at £1billion a pop not cheap either....

it will be of enormous use in detering any use of Aircraft against any formation the Darings are near, but vessels with a much lower AAW performance would also be able to deal with any realistic Air threat while also being able to complete other tasks - or indeed not suck money from other programs which, in the cold light of day, may be more important than having the massive AAW overkill the Type 45 provides.

cp251

In Irish terms, the PC9's. They are advanced trainers, designed as a lead on to fast jets. We have no fast jets, nor will we ever get them. So their mission is to train pilots whose first operational posting will be on Cessna 172's. Well OK Reims Rockets:eek:

MooseJam

no way the comanche got dropped, I did not know this, 8.6 billion is a lot of cash wasted all right but what about the star wars project, how much did they waste on that and it was definately a white elephant, no use at all

cp251

Actually, not strictly true. The star wars project was always fantasy stuff but most of the industry knew this. They took advantage of the big budget to fund all kinds of projects which they claimed were SDI related but in fact were pet projects they would otherwise never have got funded.

So in fact a lot of good work was done using SDI funds.

Dub13

MooseJam wrote:

no way the comanche got dropped, I did not know this

On February 23, 2004, the U.S. Army announced their decision to cancel the Comanche helicopter program in view of the need to provide funds to renovate the existing helicopter fleet of aging attack, utility, and reconnaissance aircraft. Also a factor was the growing popularity in the military of using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for reconnaissance purposes – in addition to tests, UAVs had proven their worth in Afghanistan and Iraq. About US$8 billion had already been invested in the Comanche program at the time of its termination and an additional US$450-680 million was required in contract termination fees to main program partners

Morlar

I vote for the Maginot line as being the biggest Military white elephant of all time

silverharp

Morlar wrote:

I vote for the Maginot line as being the biggest Military white elephant of all time

I was thinking that as well, how about every battleship in WW2 or the russian nuclear powered bomber programme.

jmayo

A great example of a white elephant eventually becoming useful is the Vasa ship in Stockholm.
She was one of the largest and most heavily armed warships of her time with 64 guns on two decks.
When launched the Vasa sank within one nautical mile of the start of her maiden voyage in 1628, before she even left the Stockholm archipelago.
That has to be a record for any ship.

But now 350 years later, it is the centrepoint of a lovely museum in Stockholm. It really illustrates what seafaring live was like in the seventeen century.
So technically you could say it was a long term sucess?

MooseJam

honourable mention goes to the Japanese super battleships Yamato and Musashi, the largest, heaviest, and most powerful battleships ever constructed, weighing 72,802 tons at full load. The class carried the largest naval artillery ever fitted to any warship, nine 460 mm (18.1 inch) guns, both sunk by airpower confirming the demise of the battleship as capital ship and it's replacement by aircraft carries. They were pretty fantastic ships, it's a shame there are only one or two photos of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato

bullets

Dunno if the Ice mixed with sawdust Aircraft carriers
qualify for this or not but I was always interested in them.

http://jwgibbs.cchem.berkeley.edu/CFGoodeve/pykrete.html

~B

Borzoi

silverharp wrote:

I was thinking that as well, how about every battleship in WW2 or the russian nuclear powered bomber programme.

Or how about the entire Soviet and American nuclear missile program.:eek:

Fratton Fred

Borzoi wrote:

Or how about the entire Soviet and American nuclear missile program.:eek:

You could argue they worked, as they were a deterant.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Fratton Fred wrote:

You could argue they worked, as they were a deterant.

M.A.D.

Fratton Fred

Mairt wrote:

M.A.D.

Thanks.

got anything constructive to say or do you disagree with me.

How many nuclear wars have we had in the last 50 years?

Del2005

^^^^^

Mutual Assured Destruction. He was agreeing with you.

Fratton Fred

Del2005 wrote:

^^^^^

Mutual Assured Destruction. He was agreeing with you.

OH. never head of MAD before. Sorry

(boy do I feel ****ing stupid:D )

arybvtcw0eolkf

Fratton Fred wrote:

OH. never head of MAD before. Sorry

(boy do I feel ****ing stupid:D )

Nah, your not stupid. Just MAD

Manic Moran

silverharp wrote:

I was thinking that as well, how about every battleship in WW2 or the russian nuclear powered bomber programme.

The battleships weren't as useless as all that. Even today, there are still calls for the Iowas to be brought back out of mothballs, or, more realistically, the building of a new class of big-gun ships. They can provide a level of sustained gunfire support which aircraft carriers cannot. Further, it's not as if there were no surface gun duels in WWII, just the vast majority of them happened when there were no battleships about. Had Kurita known how good a position he was in at Leyte Gulf, those old gunships of his might have had a rather entertaining time against the US transport fleet: If they could get close enough, a battleship could sink more shipping faster than a carrier of the time.

The nuclear-powered bombers weren't just a Russian idea: Atomic power was being considered by the US for everything down to tank size.

NTM

Pyr0

Atomic powered tank ? Isn't that just asking for a nifty explosive tank ?

cyrusdvirus

A DIRTY nifty explosive tank!

silverharp

Manic Moran wrote:

The battleships weren't as useless as all that. Even today, there are still calls for the Iowas to be brought back out of mothballs, or, more realistically, the building of a new class of big-gun ships. They can provide a level of sustained gunfire support which aircraft carriers cannot. Further, it's not as if there were no surface gun duels in WWII, just the vast majority of them happened when there were no battleships about. Had Kurita known how good a position he was in at Leyte Gulf, those old gunships of his might have had a rather entertaining time against the US transport fleet: If they could get close enough, a battleship could sink more shipping faster than a carrier of the time.

I am not saying they were totally useless but in the "paper scissors rock" terms they were trumped by aircraft. Your argument seems to be that they could do a better job, but that's not the point, the change that happened in WW2 was that a small number of fighter bombers could sink the biggest battleship, so the opportunity cost was massive.

Fratton Fred

silverharp wrote:

I am not saying they were totally useless but in the "paper scissors rock" terms they were trumped by aircraft. Your argument seems to be that they could do a better job, but that's not the point, the change that happened in WW2 was that a small number of fighter bombers could sink the biggest battleship, so the opportunity cost was massive.

I think the term White Elephant may be a bit harsh, WWII was the end of an era, they were still used with great effect, (the Graf Spea for example) but they had been found out so their effectiveness was coming to an end.

you could argue that the Martello towers were a white elephant as they were obsolete as soon as they were built. They were almost impregnable by cannon shot, but soon after they were built rifling was developed and the towers were as vulnerable as everything else against a rifled shot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martello_towers

Or, what about the Palmerston Follies, a series of very expensive forts defending Portsmouth harbour (which many people thought were built facing the wrong way, hence the name follies). They were never used but cost a fortune. One of which, Fort Nelson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Nelson%2C_Portsmouth houses this little bably, another white elephant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon

Victor

Morlar wrote:

I vote for the Maginot line as being the biggest Military white elephant of all time

Maginot worked, it just wasn't complete. The Italians made little or no advances in the south.

jmayo wrote:

A great example of a white elephant eventually becoming useful is the Vasa ship in Stockholm.
She was one of the largest and most heavily armed warships of her time with 64 guns on two decks.
When launched the Vasa sank within one nautical mile of the start of her maiden voyage in 1628, before she even left the Stockholm archipelago.
That has to be a record for any ship.

Was it the Mary Rose that sank at the pierside?

Capt'n Midnight

Pyr0 wrote:

Atomic powered tank ? Isn't that just asking for a nifty explosive tank ?

haven't you heard of reactive armouur

Borzoi wrote:

Or how about the entire Soviet and American nuclear missile program.:eek:

Fratton Fred wrote:

You could argue they worked, as they were a deterant.

No way could you argue that they were a deterant. Vietnam, Afganistan where tens of thousands of troops were killed rather than use the bomb, Korea is of course the prime example 50,000 dead, not to mention millions of civilians in all those wars.

MooseJam wrote:

Yamato and Musashi, the largest, heaviest,
...
They were pretty fantastic ships, it's a shame there are only one or two photos of them.

If you saw the magazines that gave the Bizmark one piece at at time, well in Italy the same crowd gave the Yamato , so about 100 magazines with pictures in each one.

silverharp wrote:

the russian nuclear powered bomber programme.

oh boy, that was a beaut. The russians convinced the americans they were trying to build one, hoping the americans would research it and they they'd get teh info though spies and leaks. Very cheap reaserch
http://www.aviation-history.com/articles/nuke-american.htm


The big white bird xb-70 www.labiker.org/xb70.html

Star Wars / Missile defense. This became totally obsolete sometime around 1941 when (the Maud commitee ?) they still hadn't figured out what the critical mass was and if the bomb could be carried in a plane. The solution was to transport the bomb by ship.

The brits used the rule of thumb of destroying 5/8th's of Moscow to be enough deterent. At a worst case in the maintainance schedule they would have only one sub on patrol, the others would be in harbour. So any defense that was less than 100% would be useless. It's probably safe to assume the US would be even more picky about casualties on their side. How can they defend NY, LA, Boston and all the other ports, including Chicago and those up the mississippi from a suitcase sized object hidden amongst 3,000 containers, which act as radiation shields unless you scan each one individually ???

MooseJam

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

If you saw the magazines that gave the Bizmark one piece at at time, well in Italy the same crowd gave the Yamato , so about 100 magazines with pictures in each one.

Are you sure they were pictures and not digitally produced, check google images ! it would be cool if they were real pictures though, I'd love to get my hands on them.

jmayo

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

No way could you argue that they were a deterant. Vietnam, Afganistan where tens of thousands of troops were killed rather than use the bomb, Korea is of course the prime example 50,000 dead, not to mention millions of civilians in all those wars.

But the point is American and USSR never went to war with each other.
That is what is meant by the deterrent working, they knew that is was MAD if they did.
Sure they fought proxy wars, where each side in the conflict had links to either superpower. Think about Vietnam, both sides had advisors in the conflict but the US committed troops.
Actually the US never invaded North Vietnam and AFAIK never officially declared war on them either.
Neither side dared used nuclear weapons. Of course MacArthur wanted to in Korea, supposedly Truman did not want to be known as the president that used nuclear weapons twice?

Fratton Fred

Victor wrote:

Was it the Mary Rose that sank at the pierside?

not quite, she sank in the Solent while facing the French who were in the Solent. While coming about, water entered throught the gun ports causing her to capsize, why exactly no one really knows but she still had a lot of supplies on deck so may have been top heavy.

She was no White Elephant though, she had a very succssful career.

Fratton Fred

OS119 wrote:

i'm somewhat tempted to say the Type 45 Daring Class of anti-Air Warfare destroyers, utterly fabulous pieces of kit, just designed to combat a threat (that of Soviet massed air and cruise missile raids on NATO convoys in the North Atlantic) that disappeared 18 years before the first ship of its class was launched.

FYI. I hink they will need a few more to defend the new carriers though.

A warship that can defend the entire city of London from missile and aircraft attack successfully completed its first Royal Navy sea trial yesterday.

HMS Daring: Type-45 destroyer

The £1 billion HMS Daring will become the most advanced warship in the world when it enters service with the Navy in 2009.

The Type-45 destroyer, which is already exceeding targets, will now start taking on board Aster missiles, which are capable of knocking down a cricket ball-sized object travelling at three times the speed of sound.

It is also the most eco-friendly ship ever produced for the Royal Navy, with a unique electric propulsion system that can ferry it from New York and back without refuelling.

The most powerful front-line warship since the Second World War has missiles capable of striking the most advanced "intelligent" anti-ship missiles that can travel at Mach 4.

Daring is crowned by a huge 30-metre high Samson radar that can track more than 1,000 targets at once.

The system is so powerful it can monitor all take-offs and landings from every major European airport within 200 miles of Portsmouth.

The ship can engage 12 air targets and will carry Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Officers claim that if it was stationed in the River Thames, its weapon system would be able to single-handedly destroy any incoming airborne attack on Greater London.

Full article : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...warship115.xml

Capt'n Midnight

jmayo wrote:

But the point is American and USSR never went to war with each other.
That is what is meant by the deterrent working, they knew that is was MAD if they did.
Sure they fought proxy wars, where each side in the conflict had links to either superpower. Think about Vietnam, both sides had advisors in the conflict but the US committed troops.
Actually the US never invaded North Vietnam and AFAIK never officially declared war on them either.
Neither side dared used nuclear weapons. Of course MacArthur wanted to in Korea, supposedly Truman did not want to be known as the president that used nuclear weapons twice?

yeah the american POW's were kept in normal prisons since they wern't legally combatants, Pearl Harbor again.
Americans helped the islamics in afganistan more or less created the boogey man of 911

in 1945 the yanks were able to erase japanese cities with conventional weapons, who has invaded or started a war with them since ?

Pakistan and India have the bomb and they've had wars,
or china and the soviets, again with the bombs and the real deaths in boarder incidents

Victor

Fratton Fred wrote:

A warship that can defend the entire city of London from missile and aircraft attack successfully completed its first Royal Navy sea trial yesterday.

Except if said aricraft are on the far side of tall buildings. :rolleyes: