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F-35 is built for the wrong war

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Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#271

Post by angry_octet »

chrisss395 wrote: post #254

I would just point out that 10-15 years ago Defense executives were talking about drone warfare (search "The Third Offset Strategy"). I recall an executive client being obsessed with this, and in fairness back then they had lost major contracts because their components (think electronic warfare) were designed for max power, i.e., max size and weight. Again, this was 10-15 years ago. Now with the Ukraine war everyone…

It was obvious to many, and it was obvious also that air forces would oppose this because it was a massive shift in thinking.

They have only come around a little at present. US Army is still buying Apache.

The US primes were caught napping in Ukraine, all the new tech is indigenous. They haven't deployed anything new successfully. The traditional exquisite weapons could win the war early, but of course Biden held them back because he's an idiot, and Trump spent them against Iran. Now they are gone. In the mean time, Trump cancelled the infrastructure to design and build armaments during DOGE cuts, now he wants to scale back up, but the money will be wasted because industrial capacity is not there.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#272

Post by wakawaka28 »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #203
dmix wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same issues with fighter jets procurement infect everything these days. Public transit, space, government software, etc.

[flagged]

Are you kidding? Republicans never cut anything meaningfully. They are only a shade more fiscally responsible than Democrats. Your comment totally blames Republicans and does not put any blame on Democrats who are at least 50% responsible for where we are today.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#273

Post by cyberax »

nradov wrote: post #223
cyberax wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It remains to be seen how well F-35s actually perform in that role against an adversary with modern anti-air defense and with modern drone-based tactics. Both Russia and Ukraine learned to avoid concentrating forces, so what are you going to strike? Use an F-35 to attack a single Jeep with a mounted machine gun? F-35 has limited range and carries very limited armament, so you can't just carpet-bomb everything. At som…

Strike the stuff that can't move: government offices, factories, bridges, dams, power plants, ports, logistics hubs. The heavy B-2 bombers are themselves quite survivable, and were in fact used in the initial strikes.

Government offices are hardened against strikes, and they are going to be located beyond the reach of F-35s anyway in case of a war with Russia or China.

> bridges, dams, power plants

A war crime, btw. Bridges and dams are also notoriously hard to destroy.

> The heavy B-2 bombers are themselves quite survivable

They are, but less so compared to lighter aircraft.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#274

Post by lantry »

jfengel wrote: post #143
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…

A general war against China is impossible. But a "limited" war fought over Taiwan isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Which does take it into a kind of Schroedinger's realm. The US takes it seriously, so it develops technology for it, and China doesn't invade. But would China have invaded if the US hadn't prepared for that war? Quite possibly, but you can never know.

aka the preparedness paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#275

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

marklar423 wrote: post #252
carefree-bob wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, political exhaustion is the real constraint. I personally would not be willing to do anything to defend Taiwan from China. But then again, I don't support any of the wars we fought in the middle east, either.

Just want to drop this link to the excellent https://acoup.blog/2026/02/13/collections-against-the-state-... which discusses the different costs of war, including how significantly weaker powers can win by increasing political costs.

JP Morgan is predicting $5/gallon gas. Apparently gas prices are one of the best indicators to predict presidential support. In normal times, this seems unfair-lots of external factors can influence gas prices. Rare that you can so directly point towards administration action causing an effect.

Every day this conflict continues is going to have devastating political outcomes. I largely subscribe to the belief that Kamala losing was a reflection that people were mad at inflation.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#276

Post by marcosdumay »

nradov wrote: post #174
marcosdumay wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran wouldn't have started to work in nuclear weapons if Bush didn't credibly threaten to invade them. Hell, Iran didn't actually work into building them before Trump decided to attack them.

The threat that President Bush issued in 2002 was due to Iran being a state sponsor of terrorist groups, which was true then and is still true today. Historians can argue over whether that threat was a good idea at the time but it's too late to retract it now. We have to deal with the actual situation as it obtains today. As for what Iran's leadership decided and when, we really have very little visibility into that…

That's bullshit. He denounced half of all developing countries for sponsoring terrorism. And forgot to denounce all the ones that sponsored the terrorists that had just attacked the US.

> As for what Iran's leadership decided and when, we really have very little visibility into that so don't believe anything you hear.

The had elections at the time, and voted in the candidate promising nuclear weapons at the next year. So no, that's lying propaganda again.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#277

Post by greedo »

Rover222 wrote: post #238
tdb7893 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think aerospace is a good example of efficiency in the private sector. Lockheed Martin did the F-35 and it's main competition in the US is Boeing... I'm not an expert but from my friends in the industry (including multiple at Lockheed and Boeing), it's definitely not a story about how good and efficient the private sector is. Boeing especially sounds like it's been a real mess with a lot of project management…

Those traditional prime contractors are basically part of the govt bureaucracy with how they operate. SpaceX and Anduril are good counterpoints.

Take a gander at how much SpaceX has benefited from government contracts. And for Anduril, well the phrase "all hat, no cattle" is pretty appropriate. In all my years I've never seen so much hype for a company that really hasn't produced much.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#278

Post by wombatpm »

fpoling wrote: post #60
01100011 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep, apparently Ukraine still cannot affect fuel production in Russia to any significant point. Drones with less than 100 kg of explosives do not do particularly significant damage. One really need to deliver like a ton or more of explosives and for that one needs bombers that can penetrate air defenses or very expensive stealth cruise missiles or big ballistic missiles.

I’m surprised that they are not dropping thermite on oil refineries. Most things there will burn if hit enough.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#279

Post by greedo »

gozucito wrote: post #215
scottyah wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

F-35 can fly more than once...

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#280

Post by angry_octet »

dinfinity wrote: post #181
2trill2spill wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "At over eighty million dollars per airframe, with Lockheed Martin delivering fewer than two hundred aircraft per year across all variants and all customers worldwide, there is no surge capacity waiting to be activated and no precedent for accelerating a program of this complexity on wartime timelines. When one side can produce weapons by the hundreds and thousands — missiles, loitering munitions, and one-way attac…

> the f35 can be built at scale Really? Can you indicate how many can be produced yearly?

Yeah, you're not producing 5000 a year.

But it's a bit irrelevant because we couldn't produce enough pilots either -- the training pyramid means you can only graduate so many new pilots each year, capped by the number of instructors at each level.

There is a similar problem with drone pilots -- it took Ukraine and Russia years to scale up and get to the current level of skill. However, training drone controllers is cheaper because the aircraft cost nothing.

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