200 million USD per strike fighter vs. under 17 million per Reaper. No wonder we are broke.
A Reaper has no air to air capability whatsoever and a tiny payload. You're comparing apples and oranges.
How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
291–300 of 347 posts
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does anyone realistically believe you will go to war with China or Russia anymore? Historically there have been military conflicts between superpowers. So I'd say its incumbent on those claiming we won't have wars to explain what's changed and why we won't have anymore major military conflicts.
Globalization, trade, and the nuclear deterrent.
Trade isn't actually a good deterrent to war. Prior to WW II all the combatants had robust trade, particularly France and Germany.
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#293I 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…
Here's the reason that nobody likes to say: at some point, we're going to have a war with China, and then we'll need air superiority.
You should have war with your congress, an entity which borrows money from China and make monopoly crap.
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you tell the drone beforehand what you want it to do, so it knows what to do when comms go down.
Even the military isn't yet on board with the idea of allowing drones to autonomously choose when to kill. In fact that's one of the big reasons the U.S. requires their pilots to be commissioned officers, is because they have to be cognizant of the laws of war, current Rules of Engagement that are in force, the effect of a given attack on the geopolitical framework, etc. and this has to happen in an environment where…
I do believe its your friendly neighborhood JTAC/ANGLICO/JFO/etc who has the picture "on the ground".
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#295Some U.S. allies are almost certainly going to bail out of the F-35 program. Spiraling costs, the ideology requiring VSTOL, and some bizarrely secretive aspects of the JSF project are conspiring to kill the F-35 as a viable option for countries like Canada. A surprising thing is that countries taking part in development are not permitted complete access to program data. The U.S., despite making use of other nations e…
The fact that the F-35 is significantly slower than a 55 year old jet really shines light on how compromised its design is.
This is nonsense. The tradeoffs for speed are fantastically expensive and haven't made sense since the 1950's. You reach Mach 3 only with an extremely high fuel expense, with afterburners, so expensive it limits your combat time to minutes. This made sense in the obsolete 1950's role of interceptors (like Avro Arrow), which chased obsolete 1950's strategic bombers. The adversary is obsolete, the role is obsolete, and the tradeoff is also obsolete.
While we're doing nonsensical comparisons with cold war interceptors -- they also carried air-to-air nuclear missiles [1][2]. The F-35 is not only slower and heavier, it also carries smaller weapons!
(edit: I should clarify I'm not defending the F-35 (I'm ignorant about it), only criticizing the interceptor comparison, which is invalid).
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#296I 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 idea that there is "one F-35" is also part of the problem, there are 3 very different planes that just happen to be named F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C, in actuality they share only 30% of their hardware with each other.
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#297Earlier 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…
Do we have to? In other words are our opponents (strategic only so far) China and Russia have aircraft that would be superior? In other words do we need to improve or it would just be nice to.
Read the article. It covers this. Yes is the answer.
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's the reason that nobody likes to say: at some point, we're going to have a war with China, and then we'll need air superiority.
You should have war with your congress, an entity which borrows money from China and make monopoly crap.
Seriously, the US government is a larger thread to US citizens than China is.
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#299Earlier 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…
> 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?
we did. The F14B ;)
Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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…
How are AWACS defended? Are they too far away for the enemy to engage? Is it possible to stealth a plane that constantly broadcasts radar? Do they have other means of missile/drone defense? I hope that "assume AWACS doesn't get attacked" is not the first assumption in all these war game exercises.
AWACS in combat historically have had fighter (or interceptor) escorts. Sure, I miss the Phoenix, but even without that, you can usually intercept any threat before it reaches the AWACS.