Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

defense.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 109 posts

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#81

Post by dralley »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #54
leashless wrote: post #10

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/jet-fighter-costs-a-comple... In 20 years they'll manufacture just one plane, and it'll cost a trillion dollars, if current trends continue to hold. Also it'll the weight of an aircraft carrier.

This Much was made of the fact that, once modern western equipment arrives in UK, it will wipe the floor with soviet union relics that serve in the Russian army. Instead, it has hardly made a difference. The difference in price, even of simple non-mobile artillery pieces, is huge. Because they are so expensive, we cannot field as much equipment, and we've been telling ourselves that our modern equipment is worth mult…

It has made a huge difference. Loss rates and survivability of western hardware in Ukraine are vastly better than the Soviet equipment, and the Ukrainians will say as much.

There are caveats, like: a tank that hits a mine is going to be disabled one way or another, and a disabled tank won't survive too long if it's anywhere near the front.

The problem isn't the quantity of equipment, it's the quantity of munitions. For example, Ukraine has only 30 or so HIMARS units but that's more than enough to fully consume every GMLRS munition we can provide them.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#83

Post by zx8080 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71
zx8080 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax money spent on it. Does it effectively make every every taxpayer citizen a shareholder? Shareholders deserve to know project spending and efficiency.

> Shareholders deserve to know project spending and efficiency One, shareholding is a bad analogy for democracy. Two, shareholders—and voters in a republic—delegate responsibility, including the responsibility to protect secrets. Our spooks would kill for China or Russia’s air force service records, and for good reason: it lets you exploit patterns and limitations.

> shareholders—and voters in a republic—delegate responsibility

How about accounability of those who manage?

> shareholding is a bad analogy for democracy.

Why?

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#84

Post by zx8080 »

zx8080 wrote: post #83
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shareholders deserve to know project spending and efficiency One, shareholding is a bad analogy for democracy. Two, shareholders—and voters in a republic—delegate responsibility, including the responsibility to protect secrets. Our spooks would kill for China or Russia’s air force service records, and for good reason: it lets you exploit patterns and limitations.

> shareholders—and voters in a republic—delegate responsibility How about accounability of those who manage? > shareholding is a bad analogy for democracy. Why?

vote => no accountability smells bad. As leads to misfeasance.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#85

Post by actionfromafar »

dralley wrote: post #80
harshreality wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost per flight hour is still much higher than its slightly less capable competitors. I don't know what the argument is for that. Maybe that sim training will be a larger percentage of training in the future, and therefore operating costs don't matter so much? Take whatever jet has the best capabilities, period? I think what that misses is that maintenance of real aircraft will atrophy without constant pilot feedback…

> slightly less capable What competitor is even close to "slightly less capable"? The main driver of the cost is maintaining stealth coatings. On that front it has no real competitors.

I guess it depends on how much one values stealth. I'm just an armchair-most-things, but it seems to me that there are many situations stealth doesn't matter as much as effective robot range, turn-around time and ease of logistics.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#87

Post by Perceval »

curious_cat_163 wrote: post #2

> “Earlier today, the Milestone Decision Authority, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Dr. William A. LaPlante, approved the Milestone C / Full Rate Production (MSC/FRP) of the F-35 Lightning II aircraft with the signing of an Acquisition Decision Memorandum (ADM) after a meeting with the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB).” The language could very well be from some dark humor novel making fun o…

I once worked at the Pentagon, and my co-workers noted that I wasn't really a Pentagon employee until I could string together a sequence of no less than five acronyms back-to-back in a sentence and still have it make sense. My five were "JS J5 GCP VEO IPR."

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#88

Post by leashless »

credit_guy wrote: post #75
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Much was made of the fact that, once modern western equipment arrives in UK, it will wipe the floor with soviet union relics that serve in the Russian army. Instead, it has hardly made a difference. The difference in price, even of simple non-mobile artillery pieces, is huge. Because they are so expensive, we cannot field as much equipment, and we've been telling ourselves that our modern equipment is worth mult…

In this context, by UK do you mean Ukraine? Because I can't see how the United Kingdom would make sense. Anyway, assuming it was Ukraine, then, yes, the western equipment made a lot of difference. In the first months of the war it was the Javelins, and the NLAWs. Then it was the HIMARS. Then the anti-air defenses, like the Patriot. All these things absolutely made a difference. The problem is that there was not more…

Let us not forget: before this war, Russians went on holiday in Odesa. Ukrainians went on holiday in St. Petersburg.

It's not a genocidal war of annihilation. It's not WW2 redux. It's not Holodomor 2.0. I do not think everybody realises how low the stakes of this conflict really are.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#89

Post by Perceval »

gobins wrote: post #50

I wonder how F-35 compares to J-35 in terms of stealth. From the new generation of fighter jets coming out, looks like all the armaments are being loaded in internal bays. Interesting that all these designs are starting to converge and look very similar.

Nothing out there from foreign competitors compares to the F-35. And keep in mind that the F-35 isn't nearly as good as the F-22, B-2, or B-21. You'll have to keep your eyes out for the forthcoming 6th Gen fighter (literally, because you really won't see that one on radar).

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#90

Post by leashless »

dralley wrote: post #81
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Much was made of the fact that, once modern western equipment arrives in UK, it will wipe the floor with soviet union relics that serve in the Russian army. Instead, it has hardly made a difference. The difference in price, even of simple non-mobile artillery pieces, is huge. Because they are so expensive, we cannot field as much equipment, and we've been telling ourselves that our modern equipment is worth mult…

It has made a huge difference. Loss rates and survivability of western hardware in Ukraine are vastly better than the Soviet equipment, and the Ukrainians will say as much. There are caveats, like: a tank that hits a mine is going to be disabled one way or another, and a disabled tank won't survive too long if it's anywhere near the front. The problem isn't the quantity of equipment, it's the quantity of munitions. F…

The crux of it is that the weapons have improved very fast (range and energy density and targeting and rate of fire and other functionality all improving very fast) but protective systems like armour are not nearly keeping pace.

It's looking a bit like the struggle between armoured knights and guns. The place where the rubber really meets the road on this, the Big Problem, is surface navy: what's the lifespan of a floating metal castle in the age of hypersonic missiles?

Nobody wants to talk about that.

Post reply on HN