F-35 is built for the wrong war • Hacker News Board

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#601

Post by rounce » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:15 PM UTC

krige wrote: post #524

rasz wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a serious drone war a neutral cargo ship off your coast will open hidden flaps and unleash 10K drones all at once erasing couple bases before they even know whats up.

Enough with the ace combat fanfics. In a serious drone war a neutral cargo ship would not be allowed to hang around with potentially a shitload of drones in its containers.

In a serious drone war, the cargo ship wouldn't know it was carrying containers full of drones, as we saw in Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb[0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#602

Post by m4rtink » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:16 PM UTC

breve wrote: post #423

carefree-bob wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones have a limited range and limited capacity to inflict damage. Yes, they are effective at hunting infantry, but you can't reach across an ocean and strike the US with "millions of drones". Relatedly, aircraft carriers are great for beating up on small powers, but they are vulnerable and would not be effective at reaching across the ocean and bombing China. Plus, both nations have nukes, so the idea of either Chi…

> Drones have a limited range and limited capacity to inflict damage. This drone has greater range than an F-35 and is cheaper to make: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_MQ-28_Ghost_Bat https://www.boeing.com.au/products-services/defence-space-se...

Ukraine has been launching aerial drones from drone boats for quite a while now - you can look for a video of a black sea drone platform being engaged like that. A lot of the videos of drones hitting AD in Crimea (that usually just show the terminal phase of flight) might have a drone carrier involved in some way.

And a few days ago they unveiled also unmanned interceptor drone launching drone ships, used to hit Russian Shaheed one-way-drones while still over water.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#603

Post by mcv » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

wredcoll wrote: post #133

expedition32 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US not going full in on drones reminds me of the British ridiculing submarines. The Chinese are going to spam literally MILLIONS of drones all over the Pacific...

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…

The problem with killing a carrier is not finding it. They're not difficult to spot and not very stealthy. They're massive. The only real problem with killing carrier is getting close. They're constantly protected by a fleet and a small air force whose primary purpose is to protect the carrier.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#604

Post by calandoa » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

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Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#605

Post by defrost » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:29 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #603

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…

The problem with killing a carrier is not finding it. They're not difficult to spot and not very stealthy. They're massive. The only real problem with killing carrier is getting close. They're constantly protected by a fleet and a small air force whose primary purpose is to protect the carrier.

Despite which US carriers are frequently "sunk" during war games.

All that protection didn't stop the Swedish diesal-electric HSMS Gotland seamlessly torp'ing the Ronald Reagan in 2005.

France pulled a similar score 2015, Canada "got" a UK carrier in 2007, IIRC even Australia's taken out a US ship or two in various fun ways over the years.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#606

Post by greedo » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

wredcoll wrote: post #400

greedo wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that China is producing two fifth gen stealth fighters, and is flight testing two sixth gen platforms? And that Chinese AAMs are world class? Read up on how Pakistan crushed the Indian Air Force recently flying fourth gen Chinese fighters using their current AAMs.

This is why I specifically didn't say "if china made 10,000 of their current 6th gen air superiority fighter", I said f16s.

The idea that China would lose 10k fighters when we barely have enough AAMs and aircraft in comparison is silly. The days of F-22s clubbing baby seals is long past.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#607

Post by greedo » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:35 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #491

greedo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Booker was a perfect fit for the Army reqs, and filled a genuine need. But it didn't have a sponsor that was willing to pay for it. The Armor Branch didn't like it, and the Infantry Branch, which is the real user couldn't muster enough support in the DoD. The Connie is a good ship and the two under contract will be fine vessels when they're commissioned. Frigates are no longer "cheap" ships, and the sticker shock…

> The Booker was a perfect fit for the Army reqs, and filled a genuine need. But it didn't have a sponsor that was willing to pay for it. The Booker was overweight, meaning it couldn't be air dropped, which was the entire purpose for the program. No one was willing to pay for it because it wasn't what anyone wanted. > Frigates are no longer "cheap" ships The point was to produce a cheap ship. It's a ship that already…

Air dropping was never part of the requirement. It would have been a "nice to have" but not required.

There was no way we were going to be able to take a base model FREMM and use it in the USN without substantial modifications. The Navy screwed up in how they sold this to Congress, and things like wanting to use smaller shipyards for political and logistical reasons doomed it.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#608

Post by greedo » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:36 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #512

greedo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Booker was a perfect fit for the Army reqs, and filled a genuine need. But it didn't have a sponsor that was willing to pay for it. The Armor Branch didn't like it, and the Infantry Branch, which is the real user couldn't muster enough support in the DoD. The Connie is a good ship and the two under contract will be fine vessels when they're commissioned. Frigates are no longer "cheap" ships, and the sticker shock…

The US is converging on a single class of combat ships, which is whatever DDG-X turns into. It converges what was previously destroyers, cruisers, and frigates. It is more capable and has a higher displacement than any of them despite being called a "destroyer". Much of the distinction separation historically was that ship category reflected command officer rank. They have been decoupling that, which honestly makes s…

DDG-X is dead.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#609

Post by dgroshev » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #497

dgroshev wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The development and production lifecycle _has_ to be long for a country not fighting a current war. Ukrainian munitions get used up almost immediately. They don't need to stockpile, they are in a steady state wartime production. On the contrary, peace time countries have to stockpile. A manufacturing line cannot be ramped up from zero to wartime, we need low volume manufacturing to retain the expertise and the supply…

Stockpiling doesn’t really do much vs. investing in manufacturing. Contrast the US in the civil war or wwii to the current situation. In both those wars, civilian factories were rapidly converted for the war and manufacturing capabilities were ramped fast. In Iran, we’ve burned through years or decades of manufacturing capacity and probably used up most of our top tier stockpile. That only exhausted/destroyed about 3…

Being able to stockpile is not the goal, it's a pre-requisite. Having a serious manufacturing capability helps to scale, but you can't convert an iphone assembly line to ballistic missile interceptors, and especially when you don't produce the interceptors at some low rate. There is a lot of technology and know-how that goes into those capabilities, and both get lost if they aren't exercised.

But that means either trashing the output in a few months (emulating Ukraine), or being able to stockpile.

Re: F-35 is built for the wrong war

#610

Post by NickC25 » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

cjbgkagh wrote: post #292

jjk166 wrote: post #158

> Meanwhile, modern conflict, from Ukraine’s drone war to naval engagements in the Red Sea to Iran’s own mass missile and drone salvos, increasingly favors systems that can be produced at scale and replaced when lost. The F-35 is a masterpiece. But a force designed around a masterpiece is not designed for long, protracted wars, and U.S. adversaries know this. The problem is that the F-35 was intended to be the low co…

The program was intended to make money and it did. My university has ties to the military and I was talking to people working on the Joint Strike Fighter about ways to reduce software bugs, I was told candidly that software bugs are job security and they’ll be riding that gravy train all the way to retirement, which they did.

This.

People don't understand that defense contractors are extremely wasteful in their spending, and the contractor's job is not to produce the latest and greatest. They have a dual mandate.

1. To keep supply chains active so we can continue to be able to wage tomorrow's war with yesterday's technology by introducing rent-seekers and middlemen into companies and processes where they shouldn't be.

2. To keep Wall Street, defense contractors, and defense lobbyists happy.

I gotta ask, while I have the attention of HN - why are defense contractors allowed to be public, for-profit corporations that serve Wall Street interests ahead of national defense interests? Am I the only one that sees a massive conflict of interest that can affect (or, probably has affected) our national security in profoundly damaging ways.

It almost feels like Healthcare companies, who are supposed to be focusing on our health and wellbeing, seem to focus on shareholder returns and denying service to the same people that pay the premiums. What's wrong here?