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F-35 is built for the wrong war

warontherocks.com

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Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#211

Post by janalsncm »

vanviegen wrote: post #89

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 un…

The more I read about it, the more firmly I believe it is in the U.S.’s best interest to avoid military conflict with the world’s only manufacturing superpower.

Not that we could afford wars with non-superpowers either.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#212

Post by wahern »

Cider9986 wrote: post #175
wahern wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Iran War never looked good on paper. The only people who thought it would succeed were Trump and the cast of characters he surrounded himself with. I doubt if many congressional Republican chickenhawks thought it would succeed. The only way to oust the regime is with ground troops, ripping out the Revolutionary Guard and its tentacles. For all its corruption, Iran is far from a failed state, and there aren't fact…

It does seem that way based on this article[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa... https://archive.ph/gaHnu

It's just so ridiculous. Nobody is going to be writing books about the mistakes or hubris of US intelligence, military strategists, or political scholars and analysts. Even the most diehard American proponents of regime change in Iran, at least those with any competence, could have predicted (and did predict) this outcome. This was 100% a Trump fiasco, though the whole country shares some culpability for this kind of epic failure by allowing someone like Trump to win the presidency... again.

It's a little ironic that its due in part[1] to Trump's reticence to commit ground forces that we've come to this pass. I hesitate to criticize that disposition, but at the same time it's malfeasance to start a war without being willing and able to fully commit to the objective.

[1] Assuming the war had to happen, which of course it didn't.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#213

Post by spongebobstoes »

jjk166 wrote: post #158

> Meanwhile, modern conflict, from Ukraine’s drone war to naval engagements in the Red Sea to Iran’s own mass missile and drone salvos, increasingly favors systems that can be produced at scale and replaced when lost. The F-35 is a masterpiece. But a force designed around a masterpiece is not designed for long, protracted wars, and U.S. adversaries know this. The problem is that the F-35 was intended to be the low co…

$25k per flight hour is a lot more than what drones cost

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#214

Post by nradov »

peterfirefly wrote: post #188
rawgabbit wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe satellites are usually in an orbit. They can’t follow an carrier for example. The satellites may be in a constellation that can track the carrier. That is why anti-satellites weapons have been developed. E.g., a jet fighter flies straight up and then fires a long range missile. https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Ty... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

Do you think a carrier can very far in the couple of hours it takes for a satellite to orbit around the Earth?

A carrier can likely get far enough to generate a miss. Missiles and drones have very limited sensors so in order to hit anything another platform has to cue them with a fairly precise target location. In other words, an adversary like China would need to have enough satellites, submarines, and/or patrol aircraft to maintain a continuous target track long enough to make a decision, launch the weapons, and have them fly out to the target. Current thinking is that China could probably do this inside the first island chain but would struggle to put the pieces together further out in the open Pacific Ocean.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#215

Post by gozucito »

scottyah wrote: post #198
jjk166 wrote: post #158

> Meanwhile, modern conflict, from Ukraine’s drone war to naval engagements in the Red Sea to Iran’s own mass missile and drone salvos, increasingly favors systems that can be produced at scale and replaced when lost. The F-35 is a masterpiece. But a force designed around a masterpiece is not designed for long, protracted wars, and U.S. adversaries know this. The problem is that the F-35 was intended to be the low co…

The F-35 is a massive success. It is a common design that brought together what would have been three to five different planes into one. Costs doubling is further proof of how amazing it is- inflation has basically outpaced that. Cost per flight hour has more to do with data analytics and the Socialism within the DoW (it's a jobs program) than actual need. A lot of delays were quasi-on purpose. It has crazy supply ch…

But what would you rather have? 2000 Shahed/Lucas drones or a single F35? Same cost for both.

The saying "Quantity has a quality all of its own" is not obsolete in 2026.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#216

Post by Sabinus »

kansface wrote: post #149
ceejayoz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russian nuclear doctrine would have treated that as an existential threat. They claimed that with basically every little sprinkle of new aid for like two years, until everyone realized it was a bluff. Putin is many things, but actively suicidal looks like a no.

Just because he hasn’t pulled the trigger doesn’t mean there isn’t an actual red line.

The red line is an invasion of Moscow or a strike on Russian nuclear capabilities.

Everything else is just an order for preemptive suicide.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#217

Post by vdqtp3 »

vanviegen wrote: post #89

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 un…

> an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario.

Most modern military planning considers it a foregone conclusion. Whether that's accurate or not is arguable, but approaching discussions of military spending from a perspective grounded in current planning is certainly reasonable.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#218

Post by scottyah »

titzer wrote: post #34
tpurves wrote: post #8

The insight here is, that in current warfare, quantity is the quality that matters. And with quantity, cost of replacement needs to be low, platforms expendable, cheap to maintain and resupply. It, and it's support infrastructure, need to not easily be detected and targeted by drones while on the ground. F35 is not these things. It's powerful but brittle, and like many US platforms, too much value packed into too few…

The total cost of the entire program over its projected lifetime is $1.7 trillion. The F-35 is made by one company, Lockheed Martin (with some pieces made by a couple others). This entire program is a massive transfer of taxpayer money into one company. Another data point is that it's estimated that all student debt in the US combined is $1.7 - 1.8 trillion. No wonder America keeps falling behind.

> The F-35 is made by one company, Lockheed Martin (with some pieces made by a couple others)

This isn't even remotely true, who is paying you to post this drivel?

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#219

Post by loglog »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #129
aftbit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shot exchange is indeed a problem, but it's far more complex than this makes it sound. The opportunity cost of _not_ shooting down the drone isn't the cost of the drone, it's the cost of whatever it's going to destroy if you don't shoot it down. Sometimes it makes sense to use a million dollar missile to destroy a $5,000 drone, if that drone would otherwise destroy an even more expensive air defense radar or energy p…

I disagree on air defense inherently being very costly. Old school was guns. Price per round was cheap. But the expensive missile kills the platform holding the cheap gun, you have to go with missiles. But the drone war is a different beast entirely. Drones can't shoot back. Thus the answer is guns. How well will their light drones fare against a Cessna armed with an automatic shotgun? How would the jet drones fare a…

There are videos on the internet of drones being shot down with an assault rifle out of a 50 year old training plane, 1914 style.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#220

Post by analog8374 »

carefree-bob wrote: post #185
analog8374 wrote: post #94

we could do a moonbase for 2 trillion

But why? I'm not against the idea in principle, but there has to be a motivation beyond "It's possible". Even the search for knowledge, which is a good reason to invest in R&D, but how much would we learn on the moon for that 2 trillion that we couldn't learn more cheaply through other means?

"what could we learn?". that's an interesting question. something unexpected I'd guess.

but that's rather beside my point.

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