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How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

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Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#121

Post by EliRivers »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #119
conformal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the F-35 is one of the largest wastes of government money that is publicly known. by the time the aircraft has all the bugs ironed out, it will have cost USD 1 tln and be easily destroyed by much cheaper drones. the entire contract should be converted into drone development, which will actually pay dividends. trying to argue that we need the F-35 or that it will provide any kind of strategic military value is absurd.

Drones are great, but not failproof. what happens when you command links are taken down? (RF jamming, satellites destroyed, etc) You're gonna need a "human powered" "analog" fallback.

Unless you tell the drone beforehand what you want it to do, so it knows what to do when comms go down.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#122

Post by TsiCClawOfLight »

Nelson69 wrote: post #71
lmg643 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on drones and unmanned aircraft. Manned combat planes are going to be the cavalry of war in a few years (if not already) for the simple fact that a pilot cannot withstand the g-forces that an unmanned plane or missile can. US hasn't realized this yet because we are currently using our military might to pick on folks who are decades if not a century or more behind us technologically but would likely be a differe…

Has it not been realized? I think it has, there is a ton of drone stuff going on. The DoD hasn't rewritten the war fighting manual and strategy yet though so manned fighters and bombers are still part of the plans but I don't think UAVs haven't proven themselves. This is a titanically slow moving organization... lives and deaths are on the line with their decisions. One of the real lesson of the JSF is the amount of…

+1 on the amphibious assault ships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_carrier Also, corvettes and the like can rearm and refuel the helicopters they carry.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#123

Post by s_q_b »

turar wrote: post #118
dkhenry wrote: post #3

I understand the point the article is trying to make, but its not realistic. Having worked with the Navy for a few years I know that the biggest use of airplanes is not air to air combat ( which is what this article is complaining about ) It is air to land bombing. So why are we complaining about making an air force that serves our needs rather then one that might be useful for some other task. As a note he says this…

>> however we still have the F-22 as our air superiority fighter which is still believed to be better then anything out there I'm just going to leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBKvlLzGkvU

There's also this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/olsen_raptor_case_ge...

And the fact that the F-22's stealth coatings, even if they work, ablate in rain.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/f-35-gets-stealthier...

And of course the ludicrous idea that the F-35 can replace the A-10 Warthog in combat.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/a-10-f-35-air-force-...

The A-10 problem bugs me more than the others. The A-10 is a proven warplane that ground troops count on for cover. The F-35 doesn't have the capability to fulfill its role, which could place our troops in greater danger.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#124

Post by rayiner »

jkl32 wrote: post #9

$1 trillion; this is why the US has no health care. Does anyone realistically believe you will go to war with China or Russia anymore? It's time to stop the charade of war, and help your own citizens instead.

It seems unrealistic because the US has such overwhelming firepower. But historically, there have been wars and losing wars has historically been very detrimental to the well being of the citizenry. There is no reason to believe that we've reached some sort of point where war is no longer likely.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#125

Post by andrewflnr »

munin wrote: post #53
pliny wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incide...

what?! that's an argument for more unmanned planes. imagine if the RQ-170 had been a manned spy plane and Iran had captured a human pilot.

A manned plane probably wouldn't have been tricked.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#126

Post by TsiCClawOfLight »

munin wrote: post #53
pliny wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incide...

what?! that's an argument for more unmanned planes. imagine if the RQ-170 had been a manned spy plane and Iran had captured a human pilot.

A human pilot wouldn't have done this.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#127

Post by mikegagnon »

conformal wrote: post #15
dkhenry wrote: post #3

I understand the point the article is trying to make, but its not realistic. Having worked with the Navy for a few years I know that the biggest use of airplanes is not air to air combat ( which is what this article is complaining about ) It is air to land bombing. So why are we complaining about making an air force that serves our needs rather then one that might be useful for some other task. As a note he says this…

the F-35 is one of the largest wastes of government money that is publicly known. by the time the aircraft has all the bugs ironed out, it will have cost USD 1 tln and be easily destroyed by much cheaper drones. the entire contract should be converted into drone development, which will actually pay dividends. trying to argue that we need the F-35 or that it will provide any kind of strategic military value is absurd.

The United States economy is based upon Military Keynesianism.

The federal government does not analyze spending the same way we do because __spending benefits the economy__, which is part of the government's responsibility. They intentionally spend money to stimulate the economy.

So when the military spends $1 trillion on planes, they are really trading $1 trillion for planes plus economic stimulus.

In other words, the planes don't literally cost $1 trillion. Rather the cost of the planes = $1 trillion minus the economic benefit of spending.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Keynesianism

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#128

Post by sshconnection »

mikegagnon wrote: post #127
conformal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the F-35 is one of the largest wastes of government money that is publicly known. by the time the aircraft has all the bugs ironed out, it will have cost USD 1 tln and be easily destroyed by much cheaper drones. the entire contract should be converted into drone development, which will actually pay dividends. trying to argue that we need the F-35 or that it will provide any kind of strategic military value is absurd.

The United States economy is based upon Military Keynesianism. The federal government does not analyze spending the same way we do because __spending benefits the economy__, which is part of the government's responsibility. They intentionally spend money to stimulate the economy. So when the military spends $1 trillion on planes, they are really trading $1 trillion for planes plus economic stimulus. In other words, t…

Not all spending is equal. If they want to pour money into projects, there is plenty of infrastructure that needs to be built here.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#129

Post by bediger4000 »

I think this article glosses over the general "fossilization" of aerospace/defence corporations in the USA, and Lock/Mart in particular.

Before merging, Lockheed and Martin both had the reputation of being really hidebound. From experience, Martin was exceptionally married to processes and procedures and tradition.

If you look at other things that LockMart has (like the Littoral Combat Ship, http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/littoral-combat-ship...) you can see that LockMart has general engineering problems.

General engineering troubles seems to plague LockMart.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#130

Post by jamoes »

mikegagnon wrote: post #127
conformal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the F-35 is one of the largest wastes of government money that is publicly known. by the time the aircraft has all the bugs ironed out, it will have cost USD 1 tln and be easily destroyed by much cheaper drones. the entire contract should be converted into drone development, which will actually pay dividends. trying to argue that we need the F-35 or that it will provide any kind of strategic military value is absurd.

The United States economy is based upon Military Keynesianism. The federal government does not analyze spending the same way we do because __spending benefits the economy__, which is part of the government's responsibility. They intentionally spend money to stimulate the economy. So when the military spends $1 trillion on planes, they are really trading $1 trillion for planes plus economic stimulus. In other words, t…

So, if spending unilaterally stimulates the economy, then why stop at $1 trillion? Why not just spend quadrillions of dollars and really stimulate the economy? The answer is that the there is a very real opportunity cost to their spending. That trillion dollars could have been spend on other infrastructure, or education, or even a more efficient warplane, and all of those expenditures would have resulted in greater value creation.

Hayek originally debunked this line of thinking in the Parable of the Broken Window: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

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