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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

#261

Post by Daniel_Newby »

moocowduckquack wrote: post #113
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be in a major war. Nothing else can stand up to nukes and lasers.

The only way a battleship would help against nukes is if it somehow fell on whoever is in charge of the nukes.

Battleships can survive close hits by airburst nukes. To defend against this, the opponent must either use massive overkill, or use underwater bursts near their own coasts. Either approach has dreadful economic costs.

War is the art of making the opponent's costs exceed their resources. One way to create costs is to make weapons that are unreasonably durable—the battleship is the extreme end of the spectrum.

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

#262

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

demallien wrote: post #132
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.

"easily destroyed by much cheaper drones" To a certain extent, this has been true for more than two decades. I used to work as a radar engineer for the RAAF, and every time we went on exercises against US forces (both teams flying F 18s, but with different missile payloads, we had AIM9s, the Americans had AMRAAM), we would see our aircraft swatted from the sky before we could even get the bogeys on weapons-system rad…

This is the best comment in this whole thread:

>Modern fighter aircraft need to: a) not be seen b) be fast (time to target is still important!) c) carry a decent payload of weapons. Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need to carry it's own sensor suite. Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is almost inconsequential.

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

#263

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

Modern fighter aircraft need to: a) not be seen b) be fast (time to target is still important!) c) carry a decent payload of weapons.

Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need to carry it's own sensor suite.

Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is almost inconsequential.

(This comment is copy+pasted from demallien's comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6213619 )

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

#264

Post by Daniel_Newby »

JackFr wrote: post #106
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't the air to ground bombing mission be done mostly by drones? Manned aircraft will be increasingly reserved for special operations and dirty little wars, which is pretty much the Marines' job description. Also, the vertical takeoff capability will be mandatory for a hypothetical future war against a major power. Once the huge, lumbering aircraft carriers are sitting on the sea floor, they will be replaced by heav…

Aircraft carriers on the sea floor? Not if they're refitted with megawatt lasers, railguns, UAVs and USVs.

Sea mines and stealth torpedos are still hard to defend against with anything besides a very thick hull. At that point it is a battleship.

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

#265

Post by tlear »

myko wrote: post #202
Zimahl wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we were to face China in a war, we'd own the seas. Once their one (maybe two by now) carrier is sunk, even assuming they sink one of ours, we just bring in one of the other 12. I know people fear China but they are no cold-war Russia. Anything conventional and the US is in the lead by a lot. There's no reason to discuss anything nuclear because everyone loses in that case.

There are two types of ships in the Navy: submarines, and targets. How is a carrier going to protect itself from coordinated submarine attacks?

You need to find the carrier first, ocean is a huge place. If you found and got close you do not need to coordinate single sub will do the job. But getting that sub there is non-trivial. You could ambush the carrier as it transits a straight but that will only work as open strike at the start of the war

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

#266

Post by nl »

hindsightbias wrote: post #86
chiph wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't read it yet, Robert Coram's book "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War" is good. He pissed off a lot of people, but he was right. Which is criminal behavior in the Pentagon. Speaking of which, watch "The Pentagon Wars" sometime. Has Cary Elwes and Kelsey Grammer in it. It's all about the M-2 Bradley. "What it needs is a turret on it!" Col. Burton sacrificed his career to make the Bradley…

He was right? His lightweight fighter isn't so light and has been more utilized in an air-to-ground role than as a fighter. If he'd been right, the F-16 wouldn't have all those hardpoints or a radar (he believed air combat would be managed by ground controllers). You can say the F-16 evolved, but it sure as hell didn't evolve as he thought it should. The AF and Navy/USMC need a plane for dropping bombs. They keep hac…

His lightweight fighter isn't so light

The F16 is around 27,000 lbs (air-to-air loaded)[1], the F15 (which was developed around the same time)is 48,000 pounds[2]

The F16 did develop a pretty decent ground attack capability but it does have a pretty good air-to-air record too: eg, the Israelis used it against the Syrians in the early 80s, the Turks and Greeks used them against each other in non-shooting dogfights[3])

The AF and Navy/USMC need a plane for dropping bombs. They keep hacking fighters to do that. But they're more right than Boyd was.

Meh.. I'm not sure this is a simple right/wrong thing. There have been very limited wars where airforces have been reasonably closely matched since the F16 entered service. In the mid 70s (after Vietnam & the Yom Kippur war in the Middle East) no one predicted that at all. It was only the Yom Kippur war that made planners see what a threat SAMs were on the battlefield (they had been fairly ineffective against fighters during Vietnam)

When one side has air supremacy, then yes - they will use that as much as possible. It's been that way since WW1

[1] http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article9.html

[2] http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blF_15_Eagle.ht...

[3] http://www.f-16.net/news_article1809.html (there are other incidents too)

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

#267

Post by moocowduckquack »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #261
moocowduckquack wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way a battleship would help against nukes is if it somehow fell on whoever is in charge of the nukes.

Battleships can survive close hits by airburst nukes. To defend against this, the opponent must either use massive overkill, or use underwater bursts near their own coasts. Either approach has dreadful economic costs. War is the art of making the opponent's costs exceed their resources. One way to create costs is to make weapons that are unreasonably durable—the battleship is the extreme end of the spectrum.

There was an airburst test that battleships survived, but the nuke was way off target, even well shielded animals onboard died so if it was crewed it would have been a floating coffin and the nuke was a 20 kiloton device. One single Trident missile holds up to twelve 500 kiloton bombs.

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

#268

Post by bradleyjg »

stcredzero wrote: post #255
bradleyjg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to being a crappy fighter the F-35 is also a crappy bomber and close air support aircraft. Not that it's a surprise that a plane designated fighter (or 'strike' or 'fighter/attack') isn't good at these things. We've virtually abandoned A and B line planes because the testosterone blinded fighter mafia in the airforce would rather have fun toys than useful equipment, and the navy is right there with them b…

What about the F-15 Silent Eagle?

I don't mean this in a snarky way, but what about it? Are you saying it will be a good bomber or close air support plane?

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

#269

Post by nknighthb »

bradleyjg wrote: post #137
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…

In addition to being a crappy fighter the F-35 is also a crappy bomber and close air support aircraft. Not that it's a surprise that a plane designated fighter (or 'strike' or 'fighter/attack') isn't good at these things. We've virtually abandoned A and B line planes because the testosterone blinded fighter mafia in the airforce would rather have fun toys than useful equipment, and the navy is right there with them b…

> the navy is right there with them because heavy planes can't take off from aircraft carriers

This seems an inadequate and/or overly-simplified explanation. The F-14 was a beast, far heavier than the F-35 or, for that matter, the A-6. And that was 1960s technology. Surely now we could build a capable, carrier-launched ground-attack craft with weight comparable to an F-14?

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

#270

Post by whatusername »

Spooky23 wrote: post #98
Nelson69 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Marines have "amphibious assault ships" that are sort of like aircraft carriers for helicopters. S/VTOL aircraft can operate from these locations. I was told by a Marine that the Harrier obsession stems from Guadalcanal in WW2. The waters in the Solomons were heavily contested and the Navy basically took off and left the Marines stranded. That institutional memory is hard to shake.

The OP has quite a large section on S/VTOL and Guadalcanal.
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