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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

#121

Post by ExoticPearTree »

vanviegen wrote: post #89

It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. Of course I understand wanting to be prepared even for grim scenarios such as these. Military strategists should of course continually be refining such plans. But casual discussions like this, without even so much as a disclaimer about it being a hypothetical and extremely un…

> It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario.

The last few wars started by the US were based on scenarios that looked good on paper and in reality they did not went so well.

Look at the Iran war: "we're gonna kill their supreme leader and the regime will fall". Almost two months later nothing changed in any significant way despite bombing it relentlessly.

Coming back to your concern, I'm pretty sure some people at the Pentagon believe the US can fight China using an expeditionary force and somehow win.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#122

Post by ceejayoz »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #96
varjag wrote: post #20

Somewhat ridiculous piece. Ukraine, 4 years after, still operates a significant number of jets it entered the war with. This is despite hundreds of attempts to eliminate them on the ground with airstrikes, drones, cruise and ballistic missiles. And naturally F-35s on that theatre would have been a game changer making mass strikes on Moscow possible. For all the dysfunctions of American military industrial complex it…

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…

> Russian nuclear doctrine would have treated that as an existential threat.

They claimed that with basically every little sprinkle of new aid for like two years, until everyone realized it was a bluff.

Putin is many things, but actively suicidal looks like a no.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#123

Post by nomadygnt »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #110

> Think of a violin made by a master craftsman: beautiful, precise, capable of extraordinary performance, but impossible to produce quickly or cheaply. It takes time, rare expertise, and materials that cannot be sourced at scale. You would not equip an entire orchestra with instruments like that. Kinda lost me at the first sentence with this metaphor; you can and do equip an orchestra with instruments of similar cali…

I think it is more referring to the quality of craftsmanship of the violin compared to other violins. You can’t make a whole orchestra of Stradivarius violins and their equivalents for other instruments (though what the Stradivarius equivalent is for timpani I couldn’t tell you :)

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#124

Post by protastus »

Calling the F-35 a masterpiece is rage-bait.

The primary goal of this program is not to make a plane, it's to spend $2 trillion in military contracts. As a side effect, it runs as a jobs program for engineers and its US based supply chain. Technology gets developed but with a super low ROI.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#125

Post by wavemode »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #110

> Think of a violin made by a master craftsman: beautiful, precise, capable of extraordinary performance, but impossible to produce quickly or cheaply. It takes time, rare expertise, and materials that cannot be sourced at scale. You would not equip an entire orchestra with instruments like that. Kinda lost me at the first sentence with this metaphor; you can and do equip an orchestra with instruments of similar cali…

He's not talking about the number of violins, he's talking about the quality of them. Top-notch violins cost hundreds of thousands or even millions. But it's mostly famous solo musicians who own such instruments - an entire orchestra is not playing with those.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#126

Post by dralley »

metalman wrote: post #45

Huh?The F35 has flown.more missions against the Palistinians than perhaps ANY aircraft that has ever been use in war, and the F35 is central to commiting genocide on the Palistinian people, and there is very very little they can do about it, so by the logic of obsenity, does war have another?, it plays the "tune" in the keys of screams and horror.

1) you could at least be bothered to spell "Palestinian" correctly

2) not even true, they use F-15E for missions that don't need stealth, they have way more payload capacity

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#127

Post by bayindirh »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #110

> Think of a violin made by a master craftsman: beautiful, precise, capable of extraordinary performance, but impossible to produce quickly or cheaply. It takes time, rare expertise, and materials that cannot be sourced at scale. You would not equip an entire orchestra with instruments like that. Kinda lost me at the first sentence with this metaphor; you can and do equip an orchestra with instruments of similar cali…

Every instrument (brass, woodwind, even a simple triangle), past a certain threshold is expensive, and their sound is different to their lower priced peers, and yes, you can't equip every violinist with a $2MM violin, just because.

Also, saying that instrument X is higher caliber to instrument Y is completely wrong. They all needs immense workmanship to produce, and immense effort to play. This effort can't be compared. A double bassist's finger spread for the first three positions is almost equal to whole keyboard/fretboard of a violin, but a violin can play 8x more notes with a bow when compared to the double bass. Momentum is a strong adversary when you try to change direction with a full size German bow.

You might think woodwinds are easy. A French horn player needs to play adjacent notes with small lip movements. That's an unforgiving blade's edge. A tuba player needs lungs of a whale to keep that long notes, etc. etc.

Also, just because viola, cello and double bass looks like a violin is borderline insult to all of them at once, and ignoring the other heavy lifters like clarinets, oboes and fagots.

Like how the article outlines. An expensive violin is good for a solo performance, but loses its importance in an orchestra. Like how F-35 becomes the wrong thing when the theater of war calls for different conventions and operates with completely different dynamics.

P.S.: Yes, I have played double bass in a symphony orchestra.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#128

Post by aaron695 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #96
varjag wrote: post #20

Somewhat ridiculous piece. Ukraine, 4 years after, still operates a significant number of jets it entered the war with. This is despite hundreds of attempts to eliminate them on the ground with airstrikes, drones, cruise and ballistic missiles. And naturally F-35s on that theatre would have been a game changer making mass strikes on Moscow possible. For all the dysfunctions of American military industrial complex it…

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…

[dead]

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#129

Post by LorenPechtel »

aftbit wrote: post #75
softwaredoug wrote: post #7

Increased defense spending actually makes the US less, not more, safe. Everyone we're going to fight is prepared for an asymmetric, cheap war. We're vulnerable in how much they can make us spend to wage that war. A million dollar patriot missile to shoot down a cheap drone, etc.

Shot exchange is indeed a problem, but it's far more complex than this makes it sound. The opportunity cost of _not_ shooting down the drone isn't the cost of the drone, it's the cost of whatever it's going to destroy if you don't shoot it down. Sometimes it makes sense to use a million dollar missile to destroy a $5,000 drone, if that drone would otherwise destroy an even more expensive air defense radar or energy p…

I disagree on air defense inherently being very costly.

Old school was guns. Price per round was cheap. But the expensive missile kills the platform holding the cheap gun, you have to go with missiles. But the drone war is a different beast entirely. Drones can't shoot back. Thus the answer is guns. How well will their light drones fare against a Cessna armed with an automatic shotgun? How would the jet drones fare against a WWII warbird?

Lots of cheap, mobile guns. No meaningful self defense but doctrine is to always depart after shooting.

The naval one is much harder because you're not free to disperse your ship into many pieces. But, still, consider your cannon. Let's step down a bit, cheaper cannon with a 90% kill rate--but you put several of them.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#130

Post by FpUser »

dinfinity wrote: post #85
01100011 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree to a point. But also look at Ukraine. They are punching well above their weight with asymmetrical tactics, but Russia is not defeated . Drones and other autonomous, cheap weaponry changes a lot. Smaller states and non-state actors can inflict much more serious and expensive damage now more than ever. Large weapons still matter though. If we ever were to enter an existential battle you would quickly see how bi…

> I am sure people will take issue with this comment but look at the relative restraint of Russia in Ukraine [...] vs, say, WWII. They have been bombing civilian infrastructure, abducting children, torturing and executing civilians and POWs, executing deserters or wannabe deserters the entire fucking Ukraine war. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russo-Ukrain... Restraint, my unbleached asshole.

Civilian to military casualty ratio is 1:20 for Russia-Ukraine war and 2:1 for WWII. The difference is huge. Whether this is actual restraint I have no knowledge but if it quacks like a duck ...
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