Operational testing – fair enough. But that’s not a reason for using something when it really isn’t needed, as there’ll almost certainly be enough cases where it is needed to test it.
The argument that you’re already spending a lot, so the cost of munitions doesn’t matter, is a classic reason for completely unjustifiable waste (e.g. $500 hammers, $14000 coffee pots, to cite just two of many real examples), as is the ‘if it saves lives any expense is justified’.
Let’s attack Russia or China to test the Scalp and ASMP-A as well :p
The latter one deserves explanation as to why it is wrong. It is because total funds are limited. Using the most expensive way now may cost more lives later, when you really need the expensive weapons you’ve just used unnecessarily. Therefore nothing should be done extravagantly. If there is a cheaper way to save a life, it should always be used.
This argument also applies to health care, road design, fire precautions & many other areas of life, e.g. a wood preservative safety regulation in the USA which, when audited, turned out to cost over $1 billion per life saved – and to indirectly cause several other deaths for each person not killed by wood preservative. 🙁
In an ideal world I would agree with you, but god forbid the AdlA managed to make some savings, because the next thing you know the bean counters would use that as a pretext to cut its budget for the next fiscal year.
Besides, AASM is expensive, but it should get cheaper and cheaper as it gets ordered more and as more versions come online. You’re not going to achieve that if you just keep a few hundreds of them stored just in case and use GBUs instead. Or else we will find ourselves again in the situation that the BGL goes out of service and is replaced by GBUs.
Nic
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