F-35 is built for the wrong war • Hacker News Board

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#81

Post by fooker » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #55

fooker wrote: post #38

The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets that we can use to win wars. Similar to how NASA's purpose is not to make large rockets that send things to orbit for cheap. It is to investigate new technologies (i.e. how do we control a thousand drones) and preserve domain knowledge in a large number of engineers spanning multiple generations. If all these engineers go work at…

The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets ... It is to investigate new technologies I thought the F-22 investigated the technologies and the F-35 is the mass-produced version. When we have to fight the next serious war ... it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. Not if every jet takes 20 year…

> I thought the F-22 investigated the technologies and the F-35 is the mass-produced version.

Sure, I'd think of it as a mass^2 produced version then ;)

> Not if every jet takes 20 years to develop.

Think of F-35 variants, not entirely new platforms. If I have to guess, one reduced to a barebones autonomous version built for the purpose to commanding drone swarms and dealing with incoming drone swarms.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#82

Post by worik » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

The best defense policy for the USA, any country really, is to be a good neighbor, good "world citizen" and reliable friend

One can dream

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#83

Post by coredog64 » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

freediddy wrote: post #68

XorNot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also just write "magic" and say we should invest in wizards. No DJI sized drone using any available or near future technology is going to have a range of more then whatever 20 to 30 minutes of well-below subsonic flight time can get you.

You could drop them from B2 bombers and they could fall to the ground en masse at hundreds of miles an hour and then the propellers could open up as they get closer to the ground. Or you could launch them in massive containers like in Infinity War and these containers filled with thousands of them would land on the ground and open up and release the drones. You're just not imaginative enough to solve the problem you…

If you want to target a large area, there’s already cluster munitions and/or thermobarics.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#84

Post by jandrewrogers » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #55

fooker wrote: post #38

The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets that we can use to win wars. Similar to how NASA's purpose is not to make large rockets that send things to orbit for cheap. It is to investigate new technologies (i.e. how do we control a thousand drones) and preserve domain knowledge in a large number of engineers spanning multiple generations. If all these engineers go work at…

The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets ... It is to investigate new technologies I thought the F-22 investigated the technologies and the F-35 is the mass-produced version. When we have to fight the next serious war ... it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. Not if every jet takes 20 year…

The F-35 was designed to be a partially-nerfed export version of some of the capabilities in the F-22. It was anticipated that the large production rate would significantly reduce the unit costs, which seems to have panned out. They probably shouldn't have tried to produce three significantly different variations of the same design, since that added materially to the development cost.

The 6th gen platforms appear to be coming in at significantly reduced cost relatively to what they are replacing, which was a major objective.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#85

Post by dinfinity » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #21

softwaredoug wrote: post #7

Increased defense spending actually makes the US less, not more, safe. Everyone we're going to fight is prepared for an asymmetric, cheap war. We're vulnerable in how much they can make us spend to wage that war. A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone, etc.

I agree to a point. But also look at Ukraine. They are punching well above their weight with asymmetrical tactics, but Russia is not defeated . Drones and other autonomous, cheap weaponry changes a lot. Smaller states and non-state actors can inflict much more serious and expensive damage now more than ever. Large weapons still matter though. If we ever were to enter an existential battle you would quickly see how bi…

> I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine [...] vs, say, WWII.

They have been bombing civilian infrastructure, abducting children, torturing and executing civilians and POWs, executing deserters or wannabe deserters the entire fucking Ukraine war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russo-Ukrain...

Restraint, my unbleached asshole.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#86

Post by nickff » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #62

virtue3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is totally false. They have been getting replacement MiG-29s and Su-25s from allies and are starting to use f-16s from NATO nations. "A coalition of NATO countries, primarily the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium, are providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The United States authorized the transfer and is providing training and spare parts, with deliveries having begun in 2024 to strengthen Ukraine's air…

"A significant number of jets it entered the war with" does not mean they haven't also gotten newer jets.

From looking at the sources below, it looks like Ukraine still has about 1/3 of the fighter aircraft it started the war with, though it started with many non-serviceable units (seems that at least 20 aircraft were non-operational), and received many parts from abroad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_warfare_in_the_Russo-Uk...

https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/how-many-aircraft-losse...

I am not sure what is meant by 'a significant number of', and I'm not sure if all commenters have a common definition of that phrase, so I'm unable to judge the veracity of the comments above.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#87

Post by bawolff » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #24

He keeps citing China but the US isn't at war with China. For the wars that the US is fighting, i.e. against Iran and similarly equipped adversaries, the f-35 seems to be performing well.

Yeah, but the war drums are beating for it.

USA is shifting focus to china in lots of their policy documents

China is massively building up arms

Lots of talk about a potential invasion of taiwan at some point.

Its clearly something war planners are worried about.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#88

Post by patrickmcnamara » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #64

bayindirh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet these cheap and effective weapons failed to protect high value targets, esp. radars.

That's a question of deployment, not capability. They've been used widely in the Middle East against drones since the 2010s with considerable success.

Which system are you talking about?

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#89

Post by vanviegen » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario.

Of course I understand wanting to be prepared even for grim scenarios such as these. Military strategists should of course continually be refining such plans. But casual discussions like this, without even so much as a disclaimer about it being a hypothetical and extremely undesirable outcome, may pave the way towards it through normalization.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#90

Post by jandrewrogers » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

fooker wrote: post #67

ceejayoz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we have to fight the next serious war, we are not going to primarily use F-35 jets, it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized. That is, to some extent, what the F-35 is; the mass-produced plane that incorporates what we learned from the F-…

Mass produced means something very different when it comes to wars between comparable powers. There are barely more than a thousand F-35s, the number of US aircrafts used in WW2 was about 300,000. If China produces 100 times or 1000 times their current numbers (and they can), marginal differences in capability are not going to matter.

Quantity has been replaced by precision.

In WW2 the US would send a 1,000 bombers to hit a target and still miss. That's why they needed so many. Now a single attack jet can hit multiple targets with very high probability.