Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold • Hacker News Board

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#241

Post by chipsa » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #49

guscost wrote: post #11

Weird theory of mine: The DoD ultimately picks these winning planes based on which one “looks cooler” or basically has better aesthetics. I think the F-35 has better aesthetics than the Boeing X-32, just like the F-22 has better aesthetics than the YF-23. You could say I’m used to seeing the winning designs as “normal”, but I distinctly remember having this reaction before the JSF competition was over.

The F-35 also has a better (lower) radar cross section than the X-32 which had exposed turbine blades. And crucially, the prototype X-32 failed to demonstrate simultaneous VTOL and supersonic flight, while the X-35 did. Seeing as this was the main characteristic the military wanted, this is a pretty significant shortcoming. It's true that more conservative designs have historically prevailed over technically more imp…

The production version of the X-32 was supposed to have a radar blocker fitted over the front of the turbine to hide the blades. Probably not quite as effective as the serpentine duct seen on the F-22 and F-35, but it would significantly reduce returns.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#242

Post by chipsa » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 12:34 PM UTC

rch wrote: post #107

strictnein wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which plane, exactly, is superior to the F-35?

An unmanned combat aerial vehicle would probably win in a dogfight, but that's irrelevant given the anti-access/area denial strategy evolving in e.g. Crimea and the South China Sea.

Almost all (if not all) UCAVs are for "strike", at this point in time. Which is to say, they drop bombs or missiles on ground targets. The control loop has too much latency for air to air combat right now. Closest that is likely in the near future is robot wingmen, where the UCAV is under the control of a nearby stealthy fighter.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#243

Post by chipsa » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

ultrasaurus wrote: post #215

strictnein wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting how you heard about that one dogfight, but not its record since then. Again, places like The Drive have been pushing bad F-35 news because it draws lots of clicks. The F-35's k/d ratio since that dogfight in 2015, when pilots were just figuring the plane out: 15-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-once-beaten-by-f-16s-sh... > Since then, the F-35 has mopped up in simulated dogfights with a 15-1 kill ra…

I can't speak to what we should expect from a competition between planes with 30+ years of technology that cost 5x as much, but this sounds a lot like a demo for foreign buyers. It could easily be something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002#Exer... where the contest was tweaked until the correct outcome happened.

If you just read the wiki article, you get a distorted view of the exercise. Gen Van Riper was more interested in "winning" than he was in following the requirements to actually have the exercise result in usable data.

Examples: the wiki article mentions small boats. As in about the size of your average fishing boat. No, not your commercial fishing boat, your weekend fisherman fishing boat (Boston Whaler). And it would be carrying a conventional Soviet era anti-ship missile, weighing some 3 tons. This is not only enough to swamp the boat, but launching the missile would result in the boat turning into shrapnel. Or it mentions motorcycle couriers. But the sim wasn't setup to include the latency they involved, so he got effectively instant, unjammable comms.

There were simulation issues, like the Blue Force navy showed up teleported into being next to the coast, due to model limitations. Due to the fact that the real life location of this was in fact a very busy set of air and sea lanes, Blue Force navy also started with no defensive capabilities.

And of course, the whole point isn't for the red team to sink the blue force, but to see how the blue force can adapt to the red team during an amphibious/airborne invasion. It doesn't do much good to have tens of thousands of guys sitting around doing nothing because their ship got "blown up" or their landing zone got covered in "chemical weapons". MC2002 wasn't just a couple guys in a room doing a war game. It involved real ships, real people, real aircraft, and real money.

https://www.navalgazing.net/Millennium-Challenge-2002 https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/4qfoiw/mil...

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#244

Post by chipsa » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 1:51 PM UTC

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #99

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #2

Good. The whole thing should be shut down.

You're exactly right. Not sure why you're downvoted. Not only is the F-35 a giant lemon, but US defense spending should be cut considerably. The world is changing, air combat is changing, and the F-35 addresses none of those changes. The F-35 is nothing more than an expensive boondoggle. It's purpose, like most DoD spending, is to transfer money from public coffers into the hands of well connected private companies.

Not only is the King Edward VII a giant lemon, but UK defense spending should be cut considerably.

The world is changing, naval combat is changing, and the King Edward VII addresses none of those changes. The King Edward VII is nothing more than an expensive boondoggle. It's purpose, like most Royal Navy spending, is to transfer money from public coffers into the hands of well connected private companies.

The Jeune Ecole never lasts. Combat changes, but it never changes as much as the detractors of the old school believe. It never stays as constant as the proponents of the old school believe either.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#245

Post by syshum » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

k_sze wrote: post #222

syshum wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-35 was never about actual combat I do not believe for a second the F-35 was ever designed to be an actual combat jet, I think is was all just a giant smoke screen to serve several political goals on both the domestic and Foreign fronts. It is simultaneously a prime example of a Jet designed by committee, a 1 Trillion + dollar program that will never serve the purpose it was sold to the taxpayers for...

Was it really sold to the taxpayers? Were taxpayers ever really asked whether they want it?

Well it was certainly sold to the tax payer representatives via the appropriations process as a Joint Strike Fighter that would replace all other Fighter jets....

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#246

Post by syshum » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

euler_angles wrote: post #229

syshum wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-35 was never about actual combat I do not believe for a second the F-35 was ever designed to be an actual combat jet, I think is was all just a giant smoke screen to serve several political goals on both the domestic and Foreign fronts. It is simultaneously a prime example of a Jet designed by committee, a 1 Trillion + dollar program that will never serve the purpose it was sold to the taxpayers for...

...And yet it has served in actual combat with the US, UK, and Israel. Do you really think that an aircraft not meant to do something would be fielded by those nations and used to do that very thing? And of course the program has political goals, every defense acquisition program does, to pretend otherwise would be silly.

No where in my comment did I say it was not capable of combat at all, but it certainly has not lived up to the billed goal of the program nor will be be effective in its billed role of "Fighter jet to replace all Fighter Jets"

It is mediocre in all roles for which was designed to replace. It is not as good at dog-fighting as its counter parts, it is not as good at close air support as its counter parts, it does not have as good of stealth has it counter parts.

It is a 1 Trillion+ Dollar "ok" fighter jet, which is not what we were sold

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#247

Post by euler_angles » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #238

euler_angles wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simulators are used quite regularly to practice combat tactics! In fact, that's one of the intended uses of the Joint Simulation Environment that the article discusses. DCS's missile simulation models are so far from the real thing that DCS is what simulation engineers refer to as "negative training". That is, if you train to fight using DCS, you're training to fight within DCS , not training in a way that's going to…

They didn't have missiles hence why the DCS pilot may have done better as they said at the time the pilot was not practiced on the simulator.

Yes, I'm aware, I followed the Alpha Dogfight trials closely.

If anyone else is wondering, they used a 3000 foot cone with point at the nose of the simulated aircraft, any time the enemy got within 3000 feet and 1 degree of the boresight of the plane, a certain number of hits per simulated frame were counted as hitting. Get X number of hits, that's a kill. For the livestreams they wonderfully represented this as a health bar.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#248

Post by euler_angles » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #235

euler_angles wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was (bad) CGI of an X-35B in that movie. Real F-35Bs don't have an internal gun, and if they did, the guns wouldn't fire from the intakes, and if the aircraft took a large chunk of concrete directly into the LiftFan it wouldn't shudder and slowly fall out of the sky, it would be a catastrophic and near instantaneous loss of aircraft and likely aircrew life.

> There was (bad) CGI of an X-35B in that movie. Models (both miniature and full size) were used.

Ah, my mistake. Shame to put that much effort into putting something on film and have it look so awful that you think it must be CGI

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#249

Post by euler_angles » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

OnlyOneCannolo wrote: post #231

euler_angles wrote: post #154

I'm really surprised on a forum like HN that there isn't more questioning of what the Joint Simulation Environment is really supposed to do and why the development of a simulation should hold up the full production of a tactical aircraft. JSE is really interesting, it's meant to be a high-fidelity electronic warfare simulation with actual aircraft software in the simulation loop. The F-35 that's present in the JSE is…

> what the Joint Simulation Environment is really supposed to do It's for formal verification and validation (V&V). > why the development of a simulation should hold up the full production Why shouldn't it hold up production? The program has requirements for formal V&V that they haven't met yet. In theory, you could start production by accepting the risk that you might need to do some rework, but I don't know if that…

The DoD has done a lot of simulations (some for the purposes of higher fidelity, but that's definitely not the only reason), but this is the first time it's truly tried to fold a simulation into the formal acceptance of an air vehicle, and committed this hard to high fidelity at scale.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#250

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

saltyshake wrote: post #232

euler_angles wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...And yet it has served in actual combat with the US, UK, and Israel. Do you really think that an aircraft not meant to do something would be fielded by those nations and used to do that very thing? And of course the program has political goals, every defense acquisition program does, to pretend otherwise would be silly.

did it engage in dog fights, or only bombing missions?

[deleted]