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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

#321

Post by virtualritz »

johnsmith1840 wrote: post #287

So none of them lost on ground in Iran. No US ship was to my knowledge even hit by a drone/missle. Iran has been prepping forever for this with Russian/Chinese equipment. This sounds identical to previous arguments I saw of how hard it would be for US to beat Iran in open conflict. China is different but comparing theoretical ability with reality is different also. The only reality we have as of now is that f35 compl…

The US blockade of the strait does not affect Iran's ability to blockade the strait.

And the latter hurts the US (and the rest of the world) way more that the blockade by the US hurts Iran.

No amount of F35s will change that. Iran has no reason to try to attack US military vessels or aircraft.

Surprisingly (actually unsurprisingly) relevant: https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/

Especially the part about who blinks first ...

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#322

Post by Schiendelman »

peterfirefly wrote: post #188
rawgabbit wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe satellites are usually in an orbit. They can’t follow an carrier for example. The satellites may be in a constellation that can track the carrier. That is why anti-satellites weapons have been developed. E.g., a jet fighter flies straight up and then fires a long range missile. https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Ty... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

Do you think a carrier can very far in the couple of hours it takes for a satellite to orbit around the Earth?

A typical LEO optical satellite has maybe a 60km swath at high resolution. And it isn't just a couple of hours - an orbit doesn't go over the same spot every two hours. You only may get 1-2 passes a day with a given type of constellation.

China would be using their Yaogan-41 (geostationary) to try to track, which might work, in good weather, during daytime, IF the carrier group was south of Japan (it's equatorial). Carriers deliberately transit through weather, strike groups disperse broadly and use decoy behavior in wartime, and a geostationary optical satellite won't know which blip is the carrier and which is a support ship 50km away.

Every night, you lose the carrier group and have to find it again in the morning, if you can. Usually you can't, even with China's layered approach using optical, SAR, ELINT, and OTH radar.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#323

Post by techteach00 »

Skynet

"It’s not Mildred sitting at a switchboard saying ‘Joe, you go to the corner of 42nd and Broadway,’ no it’s the AI. It’s not that hard given the state of current computing to imagine a system where the targeting grid is quote commanding and control itself.”

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#324

Post by 2trill2spill »

dinfinity wrote: post #181
2trill2spill wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "At over eighty million dollars per airframe, with Lockheed Martin delivering fewer than two hundred aircraft per year across all variants and all customers worldwide, there is no surge capacity waiting to be activated and no precedent for accelerating a program of this complexity on wartime timelines. When one side can produce weapons by the hundreds and thousands — missiles, loitering munitions, and one-way attac…

> the f35 can be built at scale Really? Can you indicate how many can be produced yearly?

It says right in the article ~200 a year. The base scenario in recent war games, the US lost 270 aircraft total, of which 206 were USAF. Japan lost 112, Taiwan's air force effectively ceased to exist. Across iterations, Air Force losses ranged from 168 to 372(mostly on the ground)in a fight with China over Taiwan. Those are substantial losses but assuming all the losses were f35(they were not) even at current non wartime production rates the United States could replace that in a few years time.

Also the war games showed that when LRASM supplies were depleted, the f35 became the primary anti ship and strike asset as it was one of the few aircraft that could fulfill the role and survive.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#325

Post by nerdsniper »

carefree-bob wrote: post #239
nerdsniper wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is putting containerized missile launch tubes and drone launch systems on their container ships. If these get widely deployed at some point, there could come a time when there will be weapon systems already on-location in all of the major ports of China's adversaries. Most naval facilities have civilian ports nearby. Despite the nuclear reactor, aircraft carriers won't stay in the fight long if their supply lin…

20,000 drones could hit a carrier and not sink it. 100,000 drones would not sink it. Not if they all landed direct hits. It's like firing a handgun against a tank. You need more oomph. To sink an aircraft carrier you really need like 10 direct hits with hypersonic missiles. Or a couple of hits with a torpedo. If you are lucky, maybe even a single torpedo hit. People underestimate how hard it is to sink a ship. You re…

As you stated, there would be no need to sink the carrier to remove it from service. Heck you don't even have to damage the carrier at all if you damage enough of its fleet. Sufficient damage to the tarmac of the carrier, the bridge, radars, weapon systems, and communications of a sufficient portion of the ships of the carrier group would remove it from service, for a very long time, especially if American/Korean/Japanese ports and dry-docks were also damaged by container ships already docked in/near those facilities (likely too close for our current missile defense systems to defend against).

Missiles are also an option, though carrier groups have some ability to defend themselves against them (less capability against hypersonic missiles, of course). The Chinese container ships are reported to have up to 60 vertical launch systems, which may be insufficient to overwhelm a carrier group and remove the carrier from service. It's reported that carrier groups can defend against "dozens to 100+" missiles.

That's why I'd imagine that it might be easier for a single container ship to disable a carrier group using 10,000+ drones instead of 60+ missiles. Especially as you wouldn't need fiber-optic cables, against ships a COTS AI targeting system would be sufficient (still robust against jamming, but allows for longer range than fiber-optics would).

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#326

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

eek2121 wrote: post #138
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Tell that to the folks on the front lines, along with folks on both sides, military or not, who have had to deal with it. Russia would never nuke Ukraine to begin with. They know that by doing so, most of the world would unite against them, and many, including Putin, would be on the chopping block.

Russian self-image is protector of the family of Slavic people and nations. Resorting openly to destruction of a Slavic people would be an incoherent tactic.

That self-perception lowered the gate for interference in Ukrainian affairs in the first place, but also set a ceiling on escalation.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#327

Post by Schiendelman »

space_fountain wrote: post #160
phainopepla2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Satellites can definitely do things, but they're not magical and people can track where they're looking and just... sail in a different direction I know nothing about this really, so forgive my ignorance. Assuming a carrier is found and tracked by a satellite in the ocean, how could it possibly escape the satellite's detection before being targeted by a drone or some other type of munition? If the ship starts saili…

Some quick Googling implies China has satellites capable of tracking shipping via radar from geostationary orbit. I'm not really convinced that aircraft carriers can hide these days?

Those satellites KNOW where the freighters are going, and check in every day on progress. They aren't looking for something that's intentionally sailing in an unpredictable direction (with no radio emissions in wartime).

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#328

Post by jandrewrogers »

peterfirefly wrote: post #192
wredcoll wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've looked recently, but the pacific is, likev pretty big. Maybe even bigger than that. The primary problem with killing carriers is, has been, and will be, finding the things.[1] Drone strikes on oil refineries work because, with few exceptions, the refineries rarely move. You can literally program a drone to go x miles in a specific direction and then drop a bomb. It's also considerably harder to…

If a network of hydrophones can track submarines, why can't they also track carriers?

The oceans are unreasonably large, you would need an astronomical number of hydrophones to get any type of coverage. Hydrophones are primarily placed in choke points for this reason.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#329

Post by donavanm »

santoshalper wrote: post #305
johnsmith1840 wrote: post #287

So none of them lost on ground in Iran. No US ship was to my knowledge even hit by a drone/missle. Iran has been prepping forever for this with Russian/Chinese equipment. This sounds identical to previous arguments I saw of how hard it would be for US to beat Iran in open conflict. China is different but comparing theoretical ability with reality is different also. The only reality we have as of now is that f35 compl…

So we should expect the Strait of Hormuz to be open tomorrow, then?

You're conflating operational efficacy and strategic incompetence.

Operationally, and tactically AFAIK, the US has been dominant. Strategically it appears to be a massive failure, mainly because there was no actual achievable strategic goals going in to this war. Read some of the reporting on JCS advice and cabinet level decision making leading up to the war. It's illuminating (again and again) of the risks on overly loyal advisors and getting the advice you want, not the advice you need.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#330

Post by [deleted] »

peterfirefly wrote: post #192
wredcoll wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've looked recently, but the pacific is, likev pretty big. Maybe even bigger than that. The primary problem with killing carriers is, has been, and will be, finding the things.[1] Drone strikes on oil refineries work because, with few exceptions, the refineries rarely move. You can literally program a drone to go x miles in a specific direction and then drop a bomb. It's also considerably harder to…

If a network of hydrophones can track submarines, why can't they also track carriers?

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