

German Army buys 31% fewer helicopters to save 2.2% - lukashed
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tagesschau.de%2Finland%2Fhelikopter110.html

======
tazjin
This is reversed causality according to a friend of mine who is involved in
this. The helicopters got 13 million € more expensive, thus the order was
reduced.

~~~
danmaz74
If confirmed, this would change everything about the sense of the deal...

------
jlgreco
Economies of scale work both ways. If the infrastructure that you need for 100
widgets will get you to 200 widgets with only a little additional work, then
don't be surprised when downsizing from 200 to 100 only saves you a little on
infrastructure.

------
ckozlowski
It's a common problem in defense, especially in the last 20 years. As budgets
continue to shrink, countries are under pressure to cut the number of units
purchased, which increases the per-unit price (design and development, being
fixed costs, have to be spread amongst a smaller number of units.)

For new designs coming about after '91, it's even harder as the design work is
being done at the same time. With systems like the F-35, LCS, AAAV, NH90, and
others, the money is shrinking even as development is taking place, and the
spiraling costs of systems that "can do everything" in an environment where no
one can assume was the nature of the next generation of threats will be has
made procurement something of a disaster.

The last element is national. European nations are reluctant, no matter how
much money it may save, to completely forgo their national defense industries
in favor of larger conglomerates or the U.S. There are many areas of overlap
where there is already a better, proven alternative in the market (Airbus
A400M could be served by the C-17, NH90 can be handled by the SH60 series,
Nimrod MRA4 by the P-8. I note all of the alternatives in favor of U.S. kit,
but there are older examples of this happening in the other direction)

~~~
hef19898
there's one great read that discribes the fundamental flaws of defense
procurement pretty well ([http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/full-labyrinth-
text-w-cove...](http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/full-labyrinth-text-w-
covers.pdf)).

Mainly geared towards the US, but the basics works for Germany, too. As far as
the procurment of the NH90 and Tiger is concerned, there are more flaws in the
specification, design and program that fit in a book. Everybody aims at a
silver bullet solution only to end up with a one made of lead for the price of
a golden one.

One point that dtruck me most when I was still part of the "system" was the
shere amount of spec and design changes that happened AFTER development was
finished. the solution is called Retrofit. That and the important difference
of a design to be able to perform a certain task and a design being allowed to
perform it by the german army.

One example is the NH90 not able to transport troops with combat gear (German
army view pint) and the NH90 being suvvessfully used to airlift troop over
half of Finland. Another one would be the Eurofighter being unable to perform
ground support operations in the german air force and the very same plane
doing just that for the british.

And the A400M would be apretty good plane hadn't politians insisted on a new
prop engine built by a paneuropean consortium that did that for the very first
time. That other planes would be just as good, agree. Even i would have rather
opted for the Antonov An70 :-)

What really sad about the NH90 is the wasted potential. Considering the age of
the Blackhawks, the potential market is HUGE. The situation being what it is,
this ain't gone happen. But that's a point the NH90 has in common with the
F-35, doesn't it?

~~~
ckozlowski
Thanks for the document. I've only started reading it, but it looks rather
good. (I'm astonished and thrilled that in the essays, the authors cite their
sources.) Good find. =)

------
aet
What about maintenance and personnel? Are those included in the price? If not,
maybe there are 2nd order savings we don't see...

------
bgilroy26
How much does helicopter upkeep cost? What are the intangible benefits to
having "buy what you expect to need" instilled as a value throughout a massive
organization?

~~~
dsr_
Helicopter maintenance is expensive, and training mechanics and repair
technicians is also expensive.

Not having a spare machine when you really need it is expensive, too.

And on the gripping hand, how many wars is Germany planning to fight with
helicopters in significant roles?

~~~
hga
Transport helicopters are a _sine qua non_ of a modern military, and combat
ones are really, really handy.

Turn the question around: can you imagine _any_ deployment of the _Bundeswehr_
where they wouldn't need transport helicopters (the NH90 mentioned in the
article)?

This most particularly includes humanitarian missions, e.g. the usual suspects
ridiculed the US for sending a carrier battle group to help survivors of the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, not realizing they have both
"nuclear powered" fresh water distillers and lots of helicopters that can
transport water, food etc. (ADDED:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_20...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_response_to_the_2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake#Americas)
says a total of 48 helicopters were involved in our military relief effort, of
course from many ships.)

------
jhh
wow, google translate really worked pretty well on this article. If this
continues improving, it will be an awesome technology soon.

~~~
thejosh
Google translate works well when the text is grammatically correct, when
running it across comments where people use slang it doesn't work all that
well (obviously).

It's the future where I can translate an article written by someone in another
language on another continent into (semi)-readable text in my own language.

~~~
webreac
Your sentence is perfectly correct, but its translation in french (by google
translate) is far from perfect. The translation toward english is generally
not so bad, but for me, google translate is still very poor.

~~~
obviouslygreen
I think it depends largely on the source and target languages and how similar
they are (in what ways I couldn't say with real certainty). Japanese ->
English translations are pretty much always hilariously bad, but then we get
at least some very good German -> English instances like this. Without
unprecedented advancements I doubt automated translation between two highly
disparate language families will be consistently usable any time soon.

~~~
mtrimpe
Google Translations gets most of it's source data from the regulatory
documents of the European Union which are required to be translated into the
language of every member.

Perhaps if we were to get a similar source for Japanase -> English
translations the accuracy would improve drastically.

------
sn0v
Okay is it just me or does the Defence Minister look like a bobblehead doll in
that pic?

