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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

#301

Post by [deleted] »

dgroshev wrote: post #288
benoau wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's crazy is there's lots of videos of Ukranians shooting drones from open-cockpit propeller planes that barely cost more than the drones! I think in a serious drone war we would just have fleets of Cesnas flying around with a person hanging out the door with a shotgun lol.

In a serious war drone factories are getting bombed (by F-35s) and there is no need to handle a never-ending stream of drones. The war in Ukraine is special because neither side is capable of air supremacy. Note that the original article doesn't say anywhere that F-35-like capability is not needed.

[deleted]

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#302

Post by greedo »

dmix wrote: post #168
BobbyJo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Pretty sure almost all of the functional ones were destroyed or were kept in such reserve for security they weren't being used.

They're still flying SU-27 frequently, and those weren't replaced by donations.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#303

Post by carefree-bob »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #275
marklar423 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ka…

The problem here is that gas prices have bifurcated to the point that an "average" doesn't mean much. I'm pretty sure I know how California will vote regardless of the gas price, but gas in Texas and much of the midwest will remain cheap.

This map should be eye opening. https://gasprices.aaa.com/

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#304

Post by dgroshev »

Animats wrote: post #240
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one was going to launch mass strikes on Moscow. Russian nuclear doctrine would have treated that as an existential threat. The psychology of Ukraine's drone campaign as a response to Russia's original drone launches is very interesting. It's a classic boiling frog move. Drones are seen as an improvised amateur threat. Unlike a bombing campaign, which is seen as "proper war", drones are an annoyance. They're fragil…

Ukraine's top drone commander was interviewed by The Economist.[1] He used to be a commodities trader, and he looks at warfare from that perspective. His goal is to kill Russian soldiers faster than Russia can replace them, until they run out of young men. His drone units are currently doing this, he claims. They supposedly lose one Ukrainian drone unit soldier per 400 Russians dead. Material cost per dead Russian so…

The development and production lifecycle _has_ to be long for a country not fighting a current war.

Ukrainian munitions get used up almost immediately. They don't need to stockpile, they are in a steady state wartime production.

On the contrary, peace time countries have to stockpile. A manufacturing line cannot be ramped up from zero to wartime, we need low volume manufacturing to retain the expertise and the supply lines. But that, in turn, means that we have to either trash the entire manufacturing output every few months (which would be insane), or stockpile. The latter option also requires building more capable systems so that the stockpiles are still relevant in a few years.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#305

Post by santoshalper »

johnsmith1840 wrote: post #287

So none of them lost on ground in Iran. No US ship was to my knowledge even hit by a drone/missle. Iran has been prepping forever for this with Russian/Chinese equipment. This sounds identical to previous arguments I saw of how hard it would be for US to beat Iran in open conflict. China is different but comparing theoretical ability with reality is different also. The only reality we have as of now is that f35 compl…

So we should expect the Strait of Hormuz to be open tomorrow, then?

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#306

Post by Schiendelman »

nine_k wrote: post #282
wredcoll wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've looked recently, but the pacific is, likev pretty big. Maybe even bigger than that. The primary problem with killing carriers is, has been, and will be, finding the things.[1] Drone strikes on oil refineries work because, with few exceptions, the refineries rarely move. You can literally program a drone to go x miles in a specific direction and then drop a bomb. It's also considerably harder to…

Once the big valuable vessel is found, it can be reasonably tracked from orbit. The interesting thing about drones is the ability to attack from many directions at the same time, overwhelming the short-range defenses. IIRC no fewer than 5 naval drones attacked the Moskva missile carrier at once, and successfully sank it eventually. Naval drones are compact, barely visible, and, unlike torpedoes, highly maneuverable.…

On your first point - it is much more difficult than you think to "reasonably track" a vessel. There's no hardware just sitting there to watch what direction the carrier moves next. Satellites have to orbit - that's why you only get new photos of ground targets once or twice during a news cycle. Carrier movement patterns in wartime are designed to avoid reacquisition.

Finding the things is not trivial. Finding them twice is even less trivial.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#307

Post by greedo »

cyberax wrote: post #172
varjag wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are at most used to lob gliding bombs from far behind the front lines. You write that, and literally quote my point about F-35 making deep strikes against dense air defense possible in the very next sentence.

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…

F-35s have done pretty well in both Israeli and US hands against the Russian supplied SAM systems.

And if these vaunted Russian IADs can't stop Ukrainian drones with a RCS the size of a barn, they stand little chance against a stealth fighter.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#308

Post by hkpack »

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.

2000 shaheds are just a regular week in Ukraine.

90% of that are destroyed far away from targets and the other 10% do cause some damage, but it is usually far from being devastating as the drone is far from being very precise.

A single F35 which could penetrate air defense and go into the country would be a real problem. If Russia has 10 of them, I think it would significantly alter the current equation of power as it may allow for air superiority.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#309

Post by Schiendelman »

tempest_ wrote: post #170
wredcoll wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've looked recently, but the pacific is, likev pretty big. Maybe even bigger than that. The primary problem with killing carriers is, has been, and will be, finding the things.[1] Drone strikes on oil refineries work because, with few exceptions, the refineries rarely move. You can literally program a drone to go x miles in a specific direction and then drop a bomb. It's also considerably harder to…

A carrier battle group can easily be seen and tracked by commercial satellite constellations. At minimum they travel with 6 or 7 ships and leave a wake a mile long and they only go tens of miles an hour, it isnt a speed boat. Here is an Indian carrier (formerly Russian) on google maps and the US ones are large https://www.google.com/maps/place/14%C2%B044'30.3%22N+74%C2%... I think people forget how many satellites ar…

Satellites aren't pointed at "all parts of the planet". They're generally taking regular photos of known locations, when the right type of satellite passes over. That's where you get lucky shots like the one you noticed. Then that satellite has to orbit, and there isn't another one nearby just ready to take another photo. Then the carrier changes direction...

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#310

Post by defrost »

chung8123 wrote: post #294
benoau wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that drone swarm costs as much as the Cesna so it neutralizes the cost advantage / disadvantage.

A pilot is pretty expensive.

In convential modern terms, sure.

In WWII terms they come as a function of aircraft production capability as the stategy was to keep putting fresh young faces in trainer cockpits and advancing everybody that didn't crash after a quick run down of controls and a couple of paired instructor flights.

I had a couple of aunts that were both members of the UK/AU Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1939 - 1949) and they each had rudimentary training for spitfires, heavy bombers, jets, etc that came down to mere hours and "see how you go".

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