Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution
Why Hacker News recommends it
Linked in nearly every F-35 or procurement thread as the classic illustration of feature creep and design by stakeholder committee, including in software.
What it is
A roughly ten-minute scene from the movie The Pentagon Wars showing how the Bradley Fighting Vehicle's requirements ballooned through committee demands into a compromised design. It is a satirical dramatization of military procurement.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2014 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends kelvin0 · 2015-06 · on “Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight”
Agreed, but more specifically here is the 10 minute video which best distills the whole movie. It's worth watching: [this video]
Recommends urlgrey · 2018-03 · on “The US Army’s costly quest for the perfect radio”
Watch the "Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution" video: [this video] It's a great example of how trying to design a product that works well for every stakeholder in every scenario leads to a Frankenstein of a product that doesn't work well for anybody. This happens all too often in government (typically military) contracts.
Recommends somethoughts · 2023-04 · on “U.S. Navy wants to sell off its troubled littoral combat ships to allies”
Reading this “We weren’t sure LCS was executing the missions it was designed for,” Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener said in January 2022. “And so we … went out to the number of fleet commanders and said, ‘Alright, what do you want it to do? And what missions do you want it to execute based on the environment we’re in now?’” reminds me of this excerpt from a movie: Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution [this video] From the movie "Pentagon Wars". Bradley Fighting Vehicle design and development. Any design engineer will love this scene.
Cites bane · 2014-06 · on “Pierre Sprey on the F-35 [video]”
When you need the absolute best for something, you need to specialize. That's why there have historically been so many different kinds of aircraft, each with relatively discrete missions. The F-35 is a terrible aircraft, and the procurement is deeply suspect. The South Korean acquisition process leaked some surprising information about the acquisition process and the F-35 failed the relatively modest criteria the Koreans had set and an older aircraft (F-15) to be purchased. At the time there was loads of news about the F-35 failing the acquisition and it even made it into Aviation week. Doing a google search now, it looks like it was a smooth process from RFP to acquisition and I can't find
Cites cwyers · 2015-03 · on “U.S. Air Force overstepped bounds in SpaceX certification: report”
This video about the evolution of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle may shed some light on why the Air Force ended up with a report with far more requested changes than SpaceX had anticipated: [this video]
Cites johngalt · 2016-05 · on “Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]”
The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project. A system designed to do everything for everyone. When it should be designed to do one thing better than everything else. Divide the F-35 into three different attack aircraft. Single engine CAS with STOVL capability. Big/fast/stealthy twin engine bomber. Carrier based attack drone. All three would likely fulfill their roles better for lower total cost and be operational on a shorter timeframe. The F-35 reminds me of this short story by A. C. Clarke [LINK] And this scene from pentagon wars: [this video]
Cites Rebelgecko · 2016-12 · on “The world’s worst air force”
It reminded me the feature creep scene in HBO's Pentagon Wars, which is eerily similar to what can happen in the software world: [this video]
Cites Ill_ban_myself · 2019-11 · on “One Reason the U.S. Military Can’t Fix Its Own Equipment”
There's a whole movie about it if you haven't seen it: [this video] unless this was an intentional reference, then, whoosh