February 16, 2006
QotD: Military Equipment Purchases
For sake of comparison, the US-built Milverados cost $65,000 each, the Austrian-built G-wagon $150,000 each. In the early 1980s, the Candian Forces wanted to buy German-built Iltis at a cost of $26,500 apiece. But, purchasing policies intended to support Canadian industry resulted in German tools being moved to a Bombardier plant in Quebec instead. Each licence-built Bombardier Iltis ended up costing DND $84,000.
Stephen Priestley, "Canadian Forces Light Utility Vehicle — the milCOTS 'Milverado'", DND 101, 2006
Posted by Nicholas at February 16, 2006 10:07 AM
Of course I cannot tell you how I know but I know that the same applied to the naval destroyer program. Slightly in-depth review of the contemporaneous US and Canadian budgeting would confirm.
Well, it's nice to know that when they come to round us up and ship us out to the Kyoto Camps, they won't get very far. If GM trucks are built like my GM car, we don't have to worry.
Some of the worst things that ever happened to the armed forces were "local offsets" and such. In almost every case, they increase the cost of purchasing the military equipment by greater than the net benefit to the local suppliers, and sometimes even result in poorer quality AND smaller quantities than required.
