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British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

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Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#281

Post by justin66 »

PedroBatista wrote: post #260
justin66 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flexible is right, but with the weird caveat that the company which manufactures the hardware (and the nation in which it's headquartered) generally gets a veto when it comes to any one of its customers sending any given item to Ukraine, if they want it. That's about the contracts and terms military hardware is sold under, and the need for ongoing maintenance contracts. It's why Germany, after gifting Ukraine with so…

Yeah, the Swiss neutrality has the same quirks and hypocrisies of every neutrality that ever existed. Specially when it has a relevant arms industry. With the banking part it was always easier to skate most pressures because at the end of the day the World is controlled by rich people and they all have interest in the "safety" of Switzerland. With weapons they are in this narrow "Buy now from us, because we will not…

I don't have any insight into Swiss politics (and I might not be up to date on the news in this area) but it surprises me that they didn't find a way to make an exception for Germany and Ukraine, given it would have involved a purely defensive weapon system that saves a lot of civilian lives. And it would perhaps have saved their arms export industry.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#282

Post by WeylandYutani »

H8crilA wrote: post #120
koheripbal wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true in the US and Canada as well.

Crucially this is also true in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force has found a new clever way to keep using normal air bases. After a hangar got bombed by cruise/ballistic missiles they would print a 1:1 aerial/satellite picture of the rubble, hang it over the actual rubble and then clean up under the print. It took quite a few weeks for the Russians to understand this ruse. The doctrine of always having air superiority…

I immensely respect Ukraine but a US-China war would involve the best technology this planet has to offer and the Chinese have been preparing for it since the 1970s.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#284

Post by NikkiA »

7952 wrote: post #246
NikkiA wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F35B is also known to have damaged existing aircraft carriers by melting the flight decks during testing. This won't work, it'll fail for the same reasons the proposals to use highways for the Harrier fell apart in reality - too much damage to use it at any time other than wartime, resulting in no training for landing on highways, so it'll never happen even in wartime. Besides which, if you're at war where you ne…

It could get a few extra sorties out of the airplanes before they are all shot down or out of action due to technical difficulties. For a small country with limited external support that could be worth the relatively small cost. Also, the "almost certainly already lost" situation is exactly what small countries are facing if Russia attacks them. Their main air bases are going to be attacked. Regular relocation of equ…

We're talking about the UK though - and I don't think the US has given us the license to sell our F35s to anyone else (not that they're any different from the USMC's F35B) - so if you're at the point where you need to defend from invaded land, we really have 'already lost'.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#285

Post by mcpackieh »

mrguyorama wrote: post #250
koube wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have perfect knowledge of this but disagreeing with military leaders based on a couple videos is definitely non-credible. Linking Russian drone propaganda is useful to let people know that drones exist perhaps, but not for much beyond that. Beyond that central theme, certain things don't pass the smell test in my opinion. For example: - Lancets are winning the war. Who is winning the war is debatable but usua…

>Lancets are winning the war. This is a laughable claim. Lancets are awesome weapons, cost effective, accurate, and productive. But they cannot win the war on their own in any sense. They require certain intelligence to use effectively, intelligence that Russia is getting less of than Ukraine through NATO. More artillery is being destroyed by other artillery than Lancets. They just aren't made in the quantity that 15…

FFS... you're getting confused by koube's botched formatting and making the same formatting mistake at the same time! He put the claims that don't pass his sniff test on the same line as his skeptical remarks about those claims, without any formatting to differentiate the two.

> "- Lancets are winning the war. Who is winning the war is debatable but usually I hear that artillery is the decisive weapon of this war. Additionally Ukraine is winning on artillery attrition, with some claims of a 3:1 ratio of attrition, so drones are not significant on this, at least not significant enough to overturn the attrition rates."

The first sentence is the claim that doesn't pass his sniff test. The rest of that line is his explanation for why it doesn't pass his sniff test. It should be something like

> - "Lancets are winning the war"

> Who is winning the war is debatable but usually I hear that artillery is the decisive weapon of this war. Additionally Ukraine is winning on artillery attrition, with some claims of a 3:1 ratio of attrition, so drones are not significant on this, at least not significant enough to overturn the attrition rates.

And

> "- Western weapons get less useful by the minute. This one is technically true as all armies adapt to new challenges. However I wonder what the condition of the Crimean bridge is today."

Should be formatted like

> - "Western weapons get less useful by the minute."

> This one is technically true as all armies adapt to new challenges. However I wonder what the condition of the Crimean bridge is today.

But then you made the same mistake right here:

">Western weapons get less useful by the minute. Could you provide ANYTHING to back up such an assertion."

That should be formatted as

> "Western weapons get less useful by the minute"

> Could you provide ANYTHING to back up such an assertion.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#286

Post by NikkiA »

ummonk wrote: post #72
Thoeu388 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I know, we only have single military airport capable of supporting F-35. Fully loaded F35 needs 2.5 km of high quality concrete. It also needs extensive overhaul after every flight to maintain stealth coating. There is no "quick refual/arm" with stealth, it is more like operating Space Shuttle! There are also civilian airports, but we would propably run out of those very soon. And using civilian infrastruct…

There's no phenomenon that causes the F-35 to magically lose its stealth coating at the end of exactly one flight. You can obviously delay maintenance for a few flights just fine.

I'm not so sure, the US at one point did talk about how if the F35 wasn't kept in climate controlled hangars then its stealth abilities would be negated rapidly.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#287

Post by Vecr »

hajile wrote: post #187
PedroBatista wrote: post #145

Yeah cool, and can the support necessary to keep an F-35 active be performed on a road? The Harrier and Gripens can and kinda were designed with that in mind. The F-35? I doubt it. I'm sure on paper someone will write and another one will approve, but in reality and in a real war scenario I have serious reservations.

Ukraine has shown that when your airspace and airstrips are contested, the only real answer is limited CAS where you fly in low, drop your load from as far away as possible, then pop flares and head back. A plane that is highly survivable and resistant to MANPADS is going to be superior. For this, the US has the A-10 which was designed with this exact war in mind. It takes off from a short runway (and it can be a pre…

The A-10 is too old at this point and I really doubt anyone is going to make more. The Sky Warden has better electronic systems but who knows if that's actually going to be acquired. The best tactic now is to fly high enough to avoid laser targeting from the ground and avoid radar targeting with stealth.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#288

Post by mcpackieh »

koube wrote: post #22

When I want to know more about the future of warfare as a hacker news reader I base my opinion on a few cherry picked twitter/reddit videos (plus literal Russian propaganda) and this makes me more knowledgable than military leaders and qualified to dictate the direction of military procurement.

I hope you've learned something about the hazards of sarcasm.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#289

Post by consumer451 »

Thoeu388 wrote: post #37

Highway landing and take-off on its own is useless. F35 requires extensive machinery to maintain, in needs proper airport and hangars. It is not possible to operate it somewhere from forest! And vertical landing/takeoff can not support any load, it can not even be fully fuelled! In Czechia we are replacing Gripens that can operate from almost anywhere. It only needs a few hundred meters of road, and single truck to r…

One of the coolest things about the Gripen is the support infra. Even while in the fancy hangers, all support equipment is in 20 foot containers. This makes it very mobile when the fancy runway gets a few holes put into it. Also, only one professional soldier and a few conscripts can service the jet, all while standing on the ground, with mostly automotive style tools.

The efficiency of turnaround is something that is incomparable to all other fast jet systems of which I am aware.

The most informed analyst on this matter appears to be Justin Bronk [0]

If I was an F-35 buyer, I would also buy some more Gripen-C if at all possible. That should be the "High/Low" mix in 2023 and beyond.

If I was king of "The West," I would have had sent all available Gripens to Ukraine months ago.

[0] https://www.rusi.org/news-and-comment/in-the-news/ukraines-t...

[oops, around the Economist paywall] https://archive.is/gOKqZ

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#290

Post by H8crilA »

WeylandYutani wrote: post #282
H8crilA wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crucially this is also true in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force has found a new clever way to keep using normal air bases. After a hangar got bombed by cruise/ballistic missiles they would print a 1:1 aerial/satellite picture of the rubble, hang it over the actual rubble and then clean up under the print. It took quite a few weeks for the Russians to understand this ruse. The doctrine of always having air superiority…

I immensely respect Ukraine but a US-China war would involve the best technology this planet has to offer and the Chinese have been preparing for it since the 1970s.

NATO is not involved with China directly. Some/many member countries probably will get involved if shit hits the fan, depending on why and how exactly it will happen, if it happens.

But yeah you're right, national and collective defense strategies should not rely too much on VKS' weaknesses, that's not the only potential problem.

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