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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

#191

Post by zobzu »

tptacek wrote: post #112
nkuttler wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the biggest use of airplanes [...] is air to land bombing But what happens to your bombers when you don't have air superiority?

Didn't he answer that? The A-10 also turns out to be a useful bit of materiel, but it too relies on other equipment to provide air superiority.

yeah.. the A10 will do well against pure fighters... nope, it won't. i'd rather be in a B2 and avoid the fight. The A10 is not made for the same type of missions thought. it can fight helicopters and ground forces, while avoiding light AA and light air support.

funny how the planes here, like on youtube, are rated by reputation, and not by knowledge, experience, or dare i say, facts.

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

#193

Post by jotm »

Indeed, why not make 5 different planes for different purposes instead of one that does everything...

I mean, it's not like they're also building an aircraft carrier that can launch ballistic missiles, cruise at 50 knots, go up rivers and also submerge... or are they :-)?

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

#194

Post by vonmoltke »

rosser wrote: post #146
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #134

"It could be that China doesn’t know how to build a working lift fan and that’s why they left it off, Aboulafia said. But for a country that has unveiled two different radar-evading stealth warplane prototypes in just the last two years, that seems unlikely. It’s more plausible that China could build a lift fan-equipped plane and has chosen not to." The major difference is in posture. The US military wants to be able…

This is the same reason why the Chinese ... have a ton of ballistic missile ships. And many of those ships are carrying large numbers of SS-N-22 Sunburns, only one of which can sink a carrier, and which stand reasonable odds of penetrating even the latest generation point-defense platform. Fire ten at a carrier, maybe one or two get through, no more carrier, battle over.

The Moskit is indeed a very difficult missile to shoot down. However, one is nowhere near enough to sink a carrier. With a 320kg warhead, one hit probably would not even render the ship combat ineffective.

Also, only the four Sovremeny-class destroyers carry that missile.

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

#195

Post by zobzu »

runarb wrote: post #26
coldcode wrote: post #2

Having worked on the F16 at one point in my career it kicks the F35 is the ass every day and twice on Sunday. Plus you can buy 20 of them for every F35. It's all about money though, the F16 is too cheap to keep Lockheed in business no matter how much you upgrade it.

Can you elaborate a little more on which aspects of the 40 year old F-16 design you think is better than the F-35? After looking on the Wikipedia page[0][1] it looks for me that the F-35 outperforms the F-16 in all aspects: |------------------------|-----------|----------| | | F-16 | F-35 | |------------------------|-----------|----------| | Maximum speed | Mach 1.2 | Mach 1.6 | | Combat radius | 550 km | 1 080 km |…

F16 has good reputation. F35 does not.

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

#196

Post by J_ »

rayiner wrote: post #124
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.

The likelihood of total war between any of the great powers is nil because of nuclear deterrent. So why are we wasting trillions of dollars on conventional weapons against enemies that we will never fight? Oh because they'll be sold to non-nuclear powers where there MIGHT be conflict (i.e. Iran)? What a joke. That's a 9 billion dollar defense budget against 682 billion.

The simple truth is that the military-industrial complex is just a giant leech on our economy that has somehow convinced Americans (and other nations) that it's necessary to buy these multi-billion dollar systems because of all the fear-mongering bullshit that's spewed. Roosevelt's line about the only thing we have to fear is fear itself is apt here.

The amount of waste in our system is disgusting. If we had a smart electorate, our defense budget would be much, much smaller.

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

#197

Post by bicknergseng »

brudgers wrote: post #74

I am not saying that the JSF is a good plane, or that VSTOL is a good thing. But the claims of the article are all resting on this: "In the scenario, 72 Chinese jets patrolled the Taiwan Strait. Just 26 American warplanes — the survivors of a second missile barrage targeting their airfields — were able to intercept them, including 10 twin-engine F-22 stealth fighters that quickly fired off all their missiles" To summ…

>when did the straight of Taiwan stop being a nuclear tipping point?

This is always what bothers me about any discussion of the modern US military. It seems like every "war game" or scenario is half baked, where US forces go head to head against a similarly artificial Chinese or Iranian or PRNK force. The winner of the scenario wins the war, and peace is restored to the universe.

So 1: What is the scenario where two nuclear powers engage each other directly that does not end in nuclear war?

2: What non-nuclear nation has the capability to engage the US in conventional warfare after a flurry of cruise missiles and drone strikes? A lot of good an air force will do Iran if it's destroyed on the tarmac.

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

#198

Post by jessaustin »

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…

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.

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

#199

Post by vonmoltke »

greedo wrote: post #99
zokier wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current fly away costs for Block 50+ F-16 are in the 100M range depending on electronics suite. Any sources for this claim? The details on sales deals are scarce, but from what I gather Block50/52 models should be in the $40M range, or maybe even as low as $15M. The major exception being UAEs heavily modified Block60 which seem to go for significantly higher (in the $100M range).

Turkey bought 30 Block 50s at $2.9B, which is a hair under $100M, but I was really referring more to the UAE Block 60. http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/turkey-orders-30-f16c-bl...

This is the key line (key bits in italics):

>On Sept 28/06, the US DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency) notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Turkey of 30 more F-16C Block 50 aircraft external link, as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $2.9 billion.

Thus, the money includes any of spares, ground equipment, special tooling, weapons, and training. I can tell you from my experience on the F-22A program that these items can add significant cost to an overall buy, and I would not be surprised if 1/3 or more of that price was the extras rather than the airplanes.

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

#200

Post by thelucky41 »

>even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and maneuver better

Dogfighting is obsolete as homing missiles fly faster, farther, and are more maneuverable than the plane carrying them. Air superiority belongs to the plane with the more sophisticated radar and stealth that is flying at a higher altitude. Flying faster also aids intercepting incoming aircraft or escaping interception attempts.

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