MV-22 Variants...what happened with that?

I was strolling thru my Twitter feed and ran across a conversation that Nicholas Drummond was having with one of his many followers.  The V-22 was the subject and they were talking about what could have been.

They're Brits so their main focus was on the AEW version of the bird...

Drummond's response was funny so I'll toss that in too...

Humor aside it did get me thinking.  What happened to all those promised V-22 variants (or mods if you like)?

From the same thread this one came up.

This one is particularly surprising because it was said that we were one year away from fielding back in 2015 (story here).

I'm a knuckle dragging American so I like to see shit go boom.  What happened to the rocket firing MV-22?

But circling back to the Brit position (which was the focus of Drummond and his pals that I was eavesdropping on)...what about all those palletized modules they were talking about?

Remember the idea of doing the Merlin job to the V-22?

The V-22 is the perfect example of my frustration and at the same time pride in the Marine Corps.

We see out of the box thinking that appears to be awesome...appears to work. Then just as suddenly we see those ideas dropped and HQMC is off chasing the next shiny toy.

Much love.

Much hate.

Much frustration.

We have the thinking.  We have the moxy to try and maximize the gear that we have.

Either we lack the money OR we lack the follow thru to make it work and to carry it to completion.

If its a money thing then Congress be damned.  If its lacking the will, the work and the competence to follow it to completion then we're screwed up and need to do a self assessment.