Poll. Germany or USA - Which country has the more advanced technology

Actually, you are entirely missing the point.

Since the 1950's, most of our weapon developments have taken decades, and involved multiple companies. This is absolutely nothing new, the only difference is that now people are able to see the process from begining to end, and not the years spent first covered in secrecy.

Think I am kidding? Look at 3 of the biggest developments to come out in the 1980's.

The PATRIOT missile was originally designed as part of a Kennedy administration project, intending to create the "Air Defense System for the 1970's". But like many projects, it changed and adapted, the first launcher being built in 1969, and the first intercept in 1975. And you can see the first launcher, it is at the White Sands museum. It still took another 5 years until it was finally put in the hands of our soldiers.

Then you have the F-117, a Nixon era project, first tested under the Carter administration, finally put into service under Bush.

Then the B-2. Created by the same Nixon era program that created the F-117, it was first tested under the Reagan administration, put into service under Bush.

Seeing a connection here? In pretty much any major weapon project other then ships, it takes decades to go from initial concept to final delivered product. Yet you seem to act like this is some kind of conspiricy. The last time things were done differently then this was World War II. Then the design phase was frequently reduced to weeks or months, and equipment was often already being built before the designs were finalized. That is because they were only making largely incremental changes, and the death of people during testing was accepted because there was a war on.

Of course, that also resulted in a huge number of designs that were scrapped. The Brewster Buccaneer comes immediately to mind here. Then there is the Hughes Hercules. or the famous F-82 "Twin Mustang".

The Twin Mustang was one of my favorites of strange WWII aircraft. The Mustang was no longer as good as it had been when it first came out. It lacked the range, ammo, and speed of the other aircraft it was going against. So to make it better, they basically smashed 2 Mustangs together, and created the Twin Mustang.



So tell me, how long should it take to develop an evolutionary piece of military equipment, and how many companies should be involved? You armchair quarterback the hell out of everything, so tell us, how long and under what conditions should it be done correctly under? Because the last times it was done quickly, I can give you dozens of aircraft that were ultimately utter failures and scrapped.