Agent.X7 wrote on Jul 25, 2012, 17:10:

jdreyer wrote on Jul 25, 2012, 16:00:

Beamer wrote on Jul 25, 2012, 15:25:

5 billion wasn't designing, 5 billion was total. Not really too surprising, given that they had to make how many uniforms? A lot of that money would have been spent, anyway, even if they'd not bothered looking into new camo.

Still, that seems extremely excessive. Let's assume $1b (!) for design and testing, and $4b for production. The army currently has 560,000 active soldiers but let's use 700,000 to account for rotation in and out of the army over the past few years since the design was implemented. That's about $5700 per soldier for uniforms. A full ACU is less than $100 on Amazon, and I'm sure the army gets a better deal buying in bulk, so I'm wondering where all the money went?

Big Army, man. Big Army. The money gets taken back if they don't spend it and the budget gets lowered, so they spend it anyway they can. They knew from the start that the ACU was shit, but they fielded it anyway. Many, many soldiers in the sandbox have been injured and killed because ACU is a fucking walking target. It doesn't blend with anything. (Except old couch patterns.)