USMC. Procurement Doomsday Is Here.

Check out this story from Reuters.

The Marine Corps' decision to proceed with training flights amounts to a vote of confidence in the embattled F-35 fighter program, which has been restructured three times in recent years, slowing production and delaying the plane's operational use.
Marine Corps leaders, increasingly concerned about replacing their current fleet of aging fighters, decided to skip the formal evaluation of the plane's operational utility that the Air Force is completing before proceeding with its own pilot training flights at the base.

Don't be fooled.

Part of this is about the F-35 but most of it has to do with a procurement doomsday that is here now and only going to get worse.

The Marine Corps needs to start clearing the books on some projects....wonder why?  Check out all the programs that the Marine Corps is running now....

*F-35
*AH-1Z
*UH-1Y
*MV-22
*KC-130J
*Marine Personnel Carrier
*AAV Upgrade
*Amphibious Combat Vehicle
*CH-53K
*JLTV
*Internally Transportable Vehicle
*MTVR
*KMAX UAV
*LAV-25 Upgrade

And those are the things that I remembered off the top of my head.  Those are all major programs being done at the same time with the prospect of budget cuts, not increases!

Then notice how many of those programs are big dollar aviation projects.

By rushing the F-35 into the field, they'll essentially wall off the money, will tie in defense jobs to the planes production and will be able to play the old game of asking for supplementals to replace the ancient ground equipment.

Still.  Look for the JLTV to be cancelled (the Marine's buy anyway), expect the AAV upgrade or the ACV to compete for defense dollars...we'll do one but not both and finally (and I hope I'm wrong) but look for the CH-53K to get pushed further out.

The trainwreck is here for the Marines.