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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

#341

Post by greedo »

carefree-bob wrote: post #260
gozucito wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what percentage of THAADs have been used in Iran?

I get what you are saying, and I was sympathetic to this view in the Ukraine war (where we gave orders of magnitude more munitions than have been spent on Iran). At that time, I believed it "We are running out of missiles, we are running out of shells", etc. But it turns out the US adapted. They increased production, they substituted for next best options, they got other countries to produce for us, and still we have…

Take a peek at last year's budget for missile production. It's amazingly small, and the production capacity is limited as well. RTX makes both Patriot and SM2/3 missiles, and production is so low that the Navy is going to be using the Patriot in its VLS launchers.

Lockheed makes THAAD, around 100/year. That's nothing. A veritable drop in the bucket.

PAC-3 production MIGHT hit 650 this year, with a goal of 2000 per annum by 2033!!!

SM-6 is about 300/year, and they're hoping to get to 500/year by roughly the same timeframe.

SM-3 is even lower at maybe 75/year. The USN has just never prioritized filling their weapons magazines.

It's hard to know what missiles were expended in the current Iran War, but you can figure out how many were purchased over the years since it's public info. Then subtract what's been used for training, fighting the Houthis in Yemen etc.

Before the war started, total purchases of all PAC-3 were approximately 2500. Some of these were used in training, some donated to Ukraine, and some were part of FMS.

Approximately 500 SM-3 missiles have been delivered. Approximately 1100 SM-6 missiles have been delivered.The majority of both the SM-3 and SM-6 are used by the USN, though some allies have made small purchases of both.

Unclassified estimates have Iran launching over 3000 ballistic missiles and 4500 drones. US policy for BMs is two missiles each. Not all of these would have been engaged by the US (Israeli systems such as Arrow etc would be tasked with missiles targeting Israel, though Israel also has Patriot through FMS). But it's easy to see where 3000 to 4000 interceptor missiles could have been consumed.

Now add in what the USN burned through in the Red Sea when the Houthis started targeting shipping and it's easy to be concerned about magazine depth.

And this is just interceptors. It doesn't count Tomahawks, JAASM, etc.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#343

Post by gizmondo »

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.…

> IIRC no fewer than 5 naval drones attacked the Moskva missile carrier at once, and successfully sank it eventually.

That's a hallucination, Moskva was by all accounts sunk by a couple of conventional anti-ship cruise missiles.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#344

Post by dinfinity »

carefree-bob wrote: post #239
nerdsniper wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is putting containerized missile launch tubes and drone launch systems on their container ships. If these get widely deployed at some point, there could come a time when there will be weapon systems already on-location in all of the major ports of China's adversaries. Most naval facilities have civilian ports nearby. Despite the nuclear reactor, aircraft carriers won't stay in the fight long if their supply lin…

20,000 drones could hit a carrier and not sink it. 100,000 drones would not sink it. Not if they all landed direct hits. It's like firing a handgun against a tank. You need more oomph. To sink an aircraft carrier you really need like 10 direct hits with hypersonic missiles. Or a couple of hits with a torpedo. If you are lucky, maybe even a single torpedo hit. People underestimate how hard it is to sink a ship. You re…

You do realize that underwater drones exist and have been successfully used against Russian ships, right?

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#345

Post by 2trill2spill »

angry_octet wrote: post #280
dinfinity wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

> 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.

Unlikely that pilots would work for drones in a fight with China over the pacific, the jamming and electronic warfare environment would make remote piloting nearly impossible, which is why CCA efforts are looking at onboard AI piloted aircraft. Even in Ukraine the EW environment is so harsh that FPV drones have resorted to using physical fiber optic cable connections so the drones cant be jammed out of the sky.

Any sort of drone that has the range, speed(shaheds only go ~180 km/h), and survivability to last in or near Chinese airspace is going to be expensive and complicated.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#346

Post by virtualritz »

gpt5 wrote: post #337
virtualritz wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US blockade of the strait does not affect Iran's ability to blockade the strait. And the latter hurts the US (and the rest of the world) way more that the blockade by the US hurts Iran. No amount of F35s will change that. Iran has no reason to try to attack US military vessels or aircraft. Surprisingly (actually unsurprisingly) relevant: https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ Especially the pa…

You are missing the point above - the F35 has enabled complete air dominance over Iran, and ability to perform any operation with impunity over Iran's land. Iran is leveraging its geography and asymmetrical warfare against civilian ship (as done by its proxies), but if the US has build tons of cheap attack drones, that wouldn't have changed anything about this equation. The US already has the ability to strike anywhe…

Maybe re-read the last sentence of parent which my reply was to?

Your presumably Ai-generated reply missed that, unsurprisingly, because you probably just copypasta'd parent and my reply in there?

P.S. air dominance in Iran is meaningless in this conflict. Read e.g. the blog post I linked to for context.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#347

Post by greedo »

poszlem wrote: post #261
carefree-bob wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Iran war is a skirmish by any reasonable measure. It does not exhaust either the US Navy or the Airforce, and the Army isn't even participating. Now I understand it has a large impact because of oil prices and the closing of the strait of hormuz, but don't confuse the economic impact of the closing of shipping lanes with something that "exhausts" the US military. Remember this is the military that spent two decad…

This is a misconception, and honestly it's hubris talking. The US has already burned through a big chunk of its key munitions. More than half of its THAAD interceptors, about a quarter of its Patriot stock, roughly 1,000 total with limited yearly production, and a serious slice of Tomahawks, some of which will take years to replace. Even with ramp ups, you are looking at 3 to 4 years before extra production actually…

I can't see the interceptor burn through being so low. Doctrine is 2-4 missiles per ballistic target. I've know the OSINT kids have a hard time with something like this since it's all classified and compared to Ukraine much harder to get visual confirmation, but I suspect Patriot use much higher. Hopefully the US has been using more of the PAC-2 than PAC-3 but they may have not been that discreet.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#348

Post by jcgrillo »

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…

This feels like what happens when the selection pressure isn't there. Building for "the next war" (or more broadly "the future") is always bound to be an utter boondoggle, because despite your best intentions and the most strenuous furrowing of your eyebrows you'll have literally no fucking idea what the actual demands of that situation will be. You have to react, that's it. Trying to predict is futile. So better to try to set yourself up to react better?

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#349

Post by greedo »

bluGill wrote: post #241
janalsncm wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

the us is a manufacturing superpower. China is visible for cheap, but the us is a major power.

The days of China manufacturing cheap junk is long past. These same arguments were made against Japan. Look at a BYD EV and it will have a fit and finish comparable to any US manufacturer. In aviation, they're catching up quickly to the US, and are arguably ahead of Europe and Russia.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#350

Post by johnsmith1840 »

virtualritz wrote: post #321
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…

The US blockade of the strait does not affect Iran's ability to blockade the strait. And the latter hurts the US (and the rest of the world) way more that the blockade by the US hurts Iran. No amount of F35s will change that. Iran has no reason to try to attack US military vessels or aircraft. Surprisingly (actually unsurprisingly) relevant: https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ Especially the pa…

If US destroys Iran it will be the dominate energy supplier for the next 100 years. Iran will be in shambles for 50 years.

If Iran surrenders US will be the dominate energy supplier for the next 30 years. Iran will be in shambles for 10 years.

The former would cause a worldwide depression but the clear winner of that is the US by a very large margin. If Iran wants to destroy itself and its neighbors US would be happy with the untold billions that would flow into the country and its energy infra investments in venezuela. All the wealth of middle east would leave and not be reinvested as now it's risky to invest in the ME.

Iran has the choice of a deal US likes or to make the middle east a wasteland for Israel to dominate for generations while US grows to a power that is hard to comprehend.

The only thing that has to happen for US to win is not surrender to a country with no military whose only threat they can make is to harm everyone else in the world but the US.

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