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British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

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Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#261

Post by callalex »

wonderwonder wrote: post #209

I still have no idea what to expect from the F35. I'm not someone that knows a lot about fighter aircraft. The F22 was quickly hailed as the pinnacle of what it was designed to do, essentially unmatched today. Then they just stopped making them. Reviews of the F35 are vague. Israel is buying them but it's essentially getting them for free. So why not? Anyone have a true read on if the F35 is actually a dominant platf…

It has been hugely successful at what it was designed to do: remove untold dollars from the American taxpayer and put them in the pockets of political donors.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#262

Post by dotnet00 »

linuxftw wrote: post #137
dotnet00 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you're reaching that conclusion from Ukraine. What Ukraine has shown is that war is mostly unchanged, you're still mostly just digging trenches and firing artillery at each other. Sure there are lots of drones, but that's mainly to make up for both side's lack of guided weapons and sufficient air power to establish air supremacy. Neither of which is an issue for NATO. The situation in Ukraine has only…

The Russians aren't risking their planes. They use cruise missiles and drones for behind the lines targets. I don't think the Russians lack guided weapons, they are launching dozens of cruise missiles each week. I think it's quite likely they're rationing their sophisticated weapons in case the conflict escalates. From what I've seen, the drones have been very effective. A $10k drone taking out a $2M tank seems like…

The Russians aren't risking their planes because they have very few pilots, who are under trained and their planes are very vulnerable to air defense without having as good of an ability to counter air defense radars.

Their guided weapons have also been shown to not be as accurate as expected, considering that despite all those cruise missiles, drone and satellite surveillance, they haven't really hit many critical targets, instead mostly just terrorizing civilians. For example, a year into the war, Russia had never hit the trains carrying weapons deliveries in from Poland despite them being a pretty obvious target for a guided missile.

A $10k drone taking out a $2M tank is a good trade, but that is also within the price range of JDAMs, which bolsters my point that this conflict has mostly proven western planning on what kinds of tech they need to conduct a modern war to be right.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#263

Post by 7952 »

fmajid wrote: post #66

Parking lots would make more sense than highways.

A modern industrial estate could be more useful than somewhere more remote. You get large car parks to park vehicles and build things. Warehouses to hide equipment, do maintenance, and provide shelter. You have access to grid power and water. It will be on existing transport networks.

And it might just provide better cover. Western europe has hundreds of places like this. The enemy has to work out which building you are using in a group of fifty other non-descript buildings.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#264

Post by mrguyorama »

jojobas wrote: post #25
imtringued wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your linked weapon has a range of 40km and a payload of 5kg. Meanwhile the US has repurposed their SDB1 program with an M26 motor and now uses it for artillery purposes with 150km range and a warhead weighing 93kg but since it is a bomb from 2006 it is not a threat, right?

GLSDBs are nice but cost ~$50k a pop. Turns out a plastic airframe with a chainsaw motor, RPG warhead and some mostly COTS electronics can inflict similar damage for a small fraction of that. These are more directly comparable to Israel's Harpy/Harop, still costing fortunes are they com from the 80s and carry all of proper military development the red tape.

>Turns out a plastic airframe with a chainsaw motor, RPG warhead and some mostly COTS electronics can inflict similar damage for a small fraction of that.

Specifically in a battlefield that is extremely Anti-Air starved, and with minimal (but growing) EW ability, and in the places they can deploy that EW have done much better against loitering and cheap guided munitions.

The Lancet requires active guidance from a drone over the target. With a busy RF spectrum it can't really do that. The Shahed is inertial guided I believe, which means it won't hit what you aim it at, and flies so slowly that it can only work in a situation where Ukraine cannot afford to intercept it, because we still refuse to give them enough tools to protect their airspace.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#266

Post by sbierwagen »

sklargh wrote: post #221
wongarsu wrote: post #105

Cold-War West Germany had about 30 "Emergency Airstrips", about 3km long Autobahn sections that could be converted to airports for military use. Complete with parking lots designed for aircraft parking, mobile air control towers, etc. Large enough that we landed C-130 Hercules on them. Similar strips exist in Finland, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. Though most of the German locations are now retired and removed.

This is an issue I care deeply about as I believe effective dispersal is a useful conventional deterrent to conflict. To add - this is a more trodden upon path than many realize. The RAF trained extensively on establishing dispersed airfields for the Harrier force. They dedicated a lot of resources to being able to conduct dispersed operations from modified fields (fields, not airfields) https://youtu.be/QOf1AAf1yqc…

Notably, in the recent CSIS wargame of a Taiwan invasion, the US lost 90% of their aircraft on the ground. Even dispersing to civilian airports in Japan doesn't help much (Japan has plenty of airports but PLARF has plenty more missiles) and of course hugely complicates logistics. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publi...

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#267

Post by vdqtp3 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #179
phil21 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is true in the US As far as I could tell after a bar argument, this is more or less an urban legend[0]. While the referenced article only debunks the "Every 5 miles" myth, further (brief) reading led me to believe if there were ever any designed airstrips into the interstate system they were short-lived and likely very one-offish style programs. [0] - https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/mayjune-2000/one-mile…

Bush planes in Alaska can use active highways. Literally merging with road vehicle traffic for takeoff and landing.

> Bush planes in Alaska can use active highways.

That's probably not a useful data point, as bush planes are massively different from warplanes. A Pilatus PC6 is one of the largest "bush planes" and at max weight, is 1/3 the weight of an empty F-18 and needs 1/5 as much runway to takeoff with no jet blast concerns

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#268

Post by mrguyorama »

pessimizer wrote: post #256
smcl wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has only fought with the countries who sought to join a military alliance to protect themselves ... from Russia? Incredible.

You don't think I might have a problem if my roommate joined the anti-pessimizer alliance? Shocking.

You should start asking why ALL of your former roommates seem to join the anti-pessimizer league. Russian sympathetics like to say "what if Russia puts bases in Mexico" but that's actually a great unintentional example. We treat Mexico like GARBAGE, we had a president suggest that most of the Mexicans crossing the border are murderers and rapists. Yet they still consider themselves a strong ally of ours. They don't WANT to stab us in the back.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#269

Post by sbierwagen »

mlinksva wrote: post #239
sklargh wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an issue I care deeply about as I believe effective dispersal is a useful conventional deterrent to conflict. To add - this is a more trodden upon path than many realize. The RAF trained extensively on establishing dispersed airfields for the Harrier force. They dedicated a lot of resources to being able to conduct dispersed operations from modified fields (fields, not airfields) https://youtu.be/QOf1AAf1yqc…

I'm inclined to agree, but am almost totally ignorant, would enjoy pointers to/reading critical takes on the role of dispersal. The reason I'm inclined to agree is that war is a worst case scenario, and very uncertain (bottom of worst could fall quickly) so it seems odd to prepare to fight war under ideal (large intact airfields) rather than very ugly circumstances. Perhaps the cost efficiency in peacetime of central…

Maintenance and munitions. The F-35 needs 9 ground labor hours per flight hour. It's cheap and easy to add a flight apron next to a straight section of highway, but if you only have one maintenance depot then knocking that out will ground your entire fleet.

Setting up redundant hangars and staffing them with trained aircraft mechanics is way, way more expensive than just pouring some extra concrete. Stocking them with the missiles your F-35s are going to need to actually perform missions also requires staffing, perimeter security, hardened bunkers...

It can be done, and is probably a good idea. But it's not a "one easy trick makes your air force invulnerable"-style lifehack.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#270

Post by kcb »

hajile wrote: post #220
koube wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have perfect knowledge of this but disagreeing with military leaders based on a couple videos is definitely non-credible. Linking Russian drone propaganda is useful to let people know that drones exist perhaps, but not for much beyond that. Beyond that central theme, certain things don't pass the smell test in my opinion. For example: - Lancets are winning the war. Who is winning the war is debatable but usua…

Lancet is so powerful in this war that I'd be shocked if we aren't currently working on our own version as fast as we can. CAS is critical to advances. It is somewhat stopped by MANPADS, but stopped very hard by SAMs. When flying close to the trees, physics make it so that a SAM radar can't detect a plane until they are within 5-8 miles. This means intercepting a plane or helicopter attacking the front lines (launchi…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aevex_Phoenix_Ghost

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