And if it's a "failed experiment" why the requirement to dismantle? If all it is is a curious looking ship, who cares what happens to it after it leaves the Navy's hands?

This sounds more like something you'd do with a successful prototype that nevertheless was not militarily useful due to factors relating to the fact that it is a prototype and not a full blown warship....

Unless crippling bureaucracy prevents taking the sensible option, of course....

Go and read Ben Rich's Skunk Works for the history of the Sea Shadow. Lockheed-Martin developed this one on their own and the Navy rejected the design because it didn't look like a ship an admiral would be seen dead in. Like the Royal Navy still insisting on sails and sail drill in the mid to latter days of steam.

As far as their stealth was concerned, Skunk Works had to increase the radar reflectivity profile because the effect was so good, it appeared as a flat line against the shifting waves on radar and was visible as a result.

Exactly, the Navy scraps boats all the time, not a big deal. What DOES piss me off about the military is how many old choppers and warbirds we have wrapped in plastic out at the boneyard. Now if it is useful for parts then yes, i can see it, but frankly all those early to late 60s choppers and warbirds are so hopelessly out of date the military is never gonna want to fly those again and they would fetch a damned good price on the civilian market. the huey is still used quite a bit today by civilian pilots and of course old warbirds are seriously prized by collectors. Oh and before anyone says some third world country would buy them...so what? Frankly you can buy better birds from Russia that aren't nearly as out of date and as we saw in desert storm without top notch pilots you get another turkey shoot anyway, not to mention we know exactly how these old birds handle and what their weaknesses were.

When we are drowning in red ink its just retarded to let billions of dollars worth of aircraft just sit and rot out in the desert when they could fetch good money on the civilian market. We should sell a few to test the waters and then if they fetch good prices then see about selling more. i know this won't take away the debt but every little bit helps and they certainly aren't doing us any good wrapped in plastic out in the desert. Hell you could even give a discount to small hospitals on the choppers for those that don't have lifeflight and might even save some lives, better than just letting them rot.

Except other than crazy military scenarios that could NEVER EVER happen...why? Nukes. You only really have two kinds of war anymore, those with nukes and those without. Now looking at the state of the world's militaries right this minute there are only two countries that could actually wage a war long enough for your scenario to be plausible, and that is Russia and China, and guess what? they both got nukes. There is no such things as "gentlemen's agreements" in total war and I seriously doubt if we had Russia or China backed against the wall they wouldn't fire off a few, hence why the threat of actual war with either country is virtually nil. They know we would launch, we know they would launch, so the best you are gonna get is proxy wars.

So I'm sorry but that argument simply no longer holds. it did during the cold war simply because other than sat pics we honestly didn't know what the USSR could do as far as production, that is no longer true. And as for China? they can royally fuck us economically by dumping all their US currency on the market so a war with them would be frankly suicidal, so again no real threat there. Oh we'll bitch at them occasionally, and they will bitch at us, but in the end we want to buy and they want to sell so that's that.

Besides do you HONESTLY think if we managed to toast our ENTIRE inventory of front line fighters, which considering we have 11 carriers to the next biggest guys 2 is no small task, that a bunch of mid 50s to mid 60s planes would make a difference? hell the time it would take to get them back into fighting shape and to the front would take too long anyway!

No the boneyard is just another cold war relic that needs to be gotten rid of. like I said where we still have craft in service and thus need the parts? yes, all for it, please keep those. But I can't picture the military suddenly wanting to go back to flying F-5s and Hueys and remember just because they are wrapped does NOT make them some sort of instant 'just unwrap and use" because the rubber is gonna get brittle, parts are gonna lock up, its just not good on an aircraft. better to sell those that we no longer have any use for to the civilian market. hell if we need them back at least then they'll be in running condition and we can always get them back just as we drafted boats and planes for service in WWII.