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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

#291

Post by koube »

hajile wrote: post #220
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…

Lancet is so powerful in this war that I'd be shocked if we aren't currently working on our own version as fast as we can. CAS is critical to advances. It is somewhat stopped by MANPADS, but stopped very hard by SAMs. When flying close to the trees, physics make it so that a SAM radar can't detect a plane until they are within 5-8 miles. This means intercepting a plane or helicopter attacking the front lines (launchi…

Counter battery radar + $50k gmlrs with better range and better time on target and 182k tungsten balls seems more like a winning plan than a spotting drone and $35k drone that flies slowly, has limited range, is vulnerable to to EW, and needs to hit the target directly.

You have made a lot of points why the lancets MIGHT be very good, and certainly it's one of the most effective weapons on the Russian side today. However my central point remains the same: Ukraine is winning the artillery attrition war despite these features. In order to be a game changer you need to actually change the game, if you're losing 3:1 of your artillery pieces or even 2:1 then it calls in to question how much your weapon is changing the nature of warfare.

Some of your speculation I agree with it and some I don't but on the whole I want to avoid making affirmative statements on the direction of the war, since as I said before, I am not an expert on this. Anything I say would just be speculation.

If anyone is curious to know more, Perun on youtube does powerpoint presentations which SEEM mostly level headed:

- Focus on economics, production, and procurement

- Presents statements of multiple sources, does not take any at face value

- Is clear about what information he knows and doesn't know

- Is incredibly boring which fits my mental stereotype of people who know what they're talking about

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

#292

Post by Amiable5326 »

ajuc wrote: post #121
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…

That's what people were complaining about in Poland in 00s when we bought F-16 in addition to our MiG-29. That the airplanes will be hard to maintain, aren't as rugged, can't handle street landing and improvised conditions. There was a huge scandal because one of the F-16 was flown from USA to Poland and did emergency landing on the way because of some minor technical issue. 20 years later and we lost two MiG-29 to b…

No idea where Poland got that idea about F-16s as they have a reputation for being a reliable and robust fighter even before Poland purchased the planes, unlike the MiG-29 which is a maintenance queen (particularly the engines) and has a reputation for being a mediocre plane whose career mainly consists of being shot of out of the sky.

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

#293

Post by nradov »

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 was designed for an all-out conventional war with the Warsaw Pact. It was never considered survivable even then; plans assumed that almost all would be destroyed in the first few days of the conflict and that was considered acceptable.

A few airframes have taken missile hits during Middle East conflicts and made it back to base. Those then took months of extensive maintenance to restore to operational condition, and in some cases were written off entirely. A-10s are not at all survivable against modern Russian air defenses and would be mostly useless in Ukraine.

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

#294

Post by luuurker »

Thoeu388 wrote: post #277
luuurker wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your source for "it also needs extensive overhaul after every flight to maintain stealth coating"?

Different stealth airplanes. Some documentaries that celebrate Raptor and F35 as technical marvel (highly complex). I have not really observed any maintenance difference or break throughout between F22 and F35. And nobody really provided any solid numbers. If numbers are good, it would be easy to prove. There is a lawsuit going in Switzerland. Swiss do not believe official maintenance cost. Other countries (Japan and…

So you don't have any evidence (solid or otherwise) that backs up your claim about the F-35 requiring a "complete overhaul" after each flight. Do we even know where the maintenance costs go to?

I also fail to see how the Russians are in a better position to build a stealth plane (cheaply or otherwise) when historically they've always been behind the US in that regard.

Anyway, opinions aside, big claims should be backed up with evidence and I'm not seeing anything that supports the idea that the F-35 needs that level of maintenance.

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

#295

Post by Pixie_Dust »

7952 wrote: post #276
pessimizer wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

West: mistakes Russia: aggression

Western agression (if you want to put it like that) does not justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nor would it reduce the threat Russia poses. Surely it would increase it!

> Western agression (if you want to put it like that) does not justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nor would it reduce the threat Russia poses. Surely it would increase it!

How many times has Russia invaded western Europe? How many times has Europe launched an invasion of Russia (3).

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

#296

Post by mcpackieh »

hajile wrote: post #280
kcb wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aevex_Phoenix_Ghost

Switchblade is in Ukraine, but has performed quite badly. A new design is needed IMO.

Not a rhetorical question:

Has the switchblade performed poorly because the design is inadequate, or has it performed poorly because the it's not suited for Ukraine's situation? If Ukraine had a supply of Lancet clones, would they be performing well for Ukraine?

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

#298

Post by Thoeu388 »

luuurker wrote: post #294
Thoeu388 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different stealth airplanes. Some documentaries that celebrate Raptor and F35 as technical marvel (highly complex). I have not really observed any maintenance difference or break throughout between F22 and F35. And nobody really provided any solid numbers. If numbers are good, it would be easy to prove. There is a lawsuit going in Switzerland. Swiss do not believe official maintenance cost. Other countries (Japan and…

So you don't have any evidence (solid or otherwise) that backs up your claim about the F-35 requiring a "complete overhaul" after each flight. Do we even know where the maintenance costs go to? I also fail to see how the Russians are in a better position to build a stealth plane (cheaply or otherwise) when historically they've always been behind the US in that regard. Anyway, opinions aside, big claims should be back…

I wrote "extensive overhaul". I guess better wording would be "extensive inspection and coating overhaul". Far from "quick refuel/arm and launch" original post wrote.

F-35 has internal bomb bays, and those have to be opened and closed to add bombs. Those have to be resealed to maintain stealth. It has polymer based coating, how that stuff survives transsonic speeds with friction and heat?

F-22 maintenance cost was quoted at $72000 per flight hour (10 years ago). Stealth used as main cause. Is F-35 somehow different or cheaper?

Russians do not have cost overruns and technical feature creep, the way US does. Go ask on military forums. Problem are finances, not science.

Anyway, I do not believe claim that F-35 needs extensive and expensive maitenance is somehow extraordinary. "Overhaul" of stealth coat cold be some spray on stuff and inspection.

F-35 has a long track of cost overruns and proper maintenance cost is yet unknown.

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

#299

Post by mcpackieh »

hajile wrote: post #224
albertopv wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tank days were numbered, and yet they still are heavily used

Tanks will have a new lease on life when we get a new design with more power (electricity) and a good point defense system (most likely laser based). If we remove drones and ATGMs from the equation, the only viable threats go back to being mines, artillery, and APFSDS tank rounds.

> laser point defense

And then ATGMs get ablative nosecones.

Also if direct energy weapons could neutralize the threat of missiles, then planes would also benefit from this. Planes would be better at tankbusting if MANPADS could be neutralized.

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

#300

Post by hengheng »

madaxe_again wrote: post #49
sillywalk wrote: post #18

"FTA: they would involve placing aluminum AM-2 mats along a strip of highway, up to 1,500 feet long. This will be sufficient for the stealth jets to carry out short takeoffs and vertical landings while protecting the road beneath them." "AM-2 matting consists of 1 1/2" x 2' steel rectangles coated with a epoxy nonskid material, available in both 6 and 12 foot lengths, and are assembled in a brickwork pattern to form…

I can’t help but think it must be about protecting the aircraft rather than protecting the surface, as in ukraine roads are commonly built out of reinforced concrete slabs, and somewhat less commonly, but still frequently, they are built to take the weight of tanks, and are wide and straight enough to accommodate even large aircraft - there’s a strip of highway north of Mariupol that was originally built to accommoda…

Sorry to bother you on a random comment, but is your airship thing still current?
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