"If you win it, obviously you're in the capital receipt for the next 25 years, but I have a feeling competing for it's going to be a little bit like being hit against a brick wall, and you'll feel real good when you stop," he said.
So true, so funny.
I had the chance to help with a quote package for a product that was part of an assembly for a USN submarine project. One single, mandatory test fixture for testing impact resistance would have cost more than all the profit our parts would have earned for 5 years. Having see the DODs tendency to quote 50 ships and build three, or quote 300 planes and build 25, it seemed like a huge risk with little return.