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F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

reuters.com

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Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#81

Post by [deleted] »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #61
yborg wrote: post #6

The functioning or non-functioning of the logistics system for the F-35 is largely irrelevant, as just demonstrated Lockheed is paid whether it works or not; and non-functioning is much safer for the program, as non-flying F-35s are safe from combat and accidents. In fact, low availability just provides an excuse for the Air Force to demand additional budget for aircraft. This isn't so much a combat system as a corpo…

>>In practice, the US has already demonstrated that its primary airpower projection is via unmanned systems, the manned combat aircraft is the mounted cavalry c. 1920. 1. The US hasn't had to overcome a first-rate Integrated Air Defense System since the 1970s. UAVs, while hard to detect due to their small RCS, have extremely poor overall survivability. It's part of what makes them so cheap. 2. The US is rarely flying…

[deleted]

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#82

Post by jcranmer »

whatshisface wrote: post #70
CapricornNoble wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>In practice, the US has already demonstrated that its primary airpower projection is via unmanned systems, the manned combat aircraft is the mounted cavalry c. 1920. 1. The US hasn't had to overcome a first-rate Integrated Air Defense System since the 1970s. UAVs, while hard to detect due to their small RCS, have extremely poor overall survivability. It's part of what makes them so cheap. 2. The US is rarely flying…

If history is any indication, the future of air power will be three years of absolutely terrible strategies after the next war starts, where the wrong weapons are being manufactured and the right weapons are being deployed incorrectly, then followed by one month of sanity which sets the military doctrine for the next two decades of peace, to remain in place as it becomes obsolete again...

A serious question here: what history are you drawing this inference from?

Popular history tends to be a distorted view of history that willfully ignores evidence to the contrary to tell a good story, and military history especially tends to fall victim here. As a good case in point, take WWI. In popular history, WWI is a war of unimaginable destruction because generals were idiots fighting Napoleonic-era tactics with modern weaponry. But that's not really sustained by the evidence. The generals and officer class were aware of how much more effective modern guns and gunnery was compared to the Napoleonic wars, and their battle plans accounted for this. Trenches came out of known tactics--on the defensive, digging in is the most effective way to avoid the lethality of opposing weapons, and an underground trench is more effective than an above-ground static fortification.

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#83

Post by whatshisface »

jcranmer wrote: post #82
whatshisface wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If history is any indication, the future of air power will be three years of absolutely terrible strategies after the next war starts, where the wrong weapons are being manufactured and the right weapons are being deployed incorrectly, then followed by one month of sanity which sets the military doctrine for the next two decades of peace, to remain in place as it becomes obsolete again...

A serious question here: what history are you drawing this inference from? Popular history tends to be a distorted view of history that willfully ignores evidence to the contrary to tell a good story, and military history especially tends to fall victim here. As a good case in point, take WWI. In popular history, WWI is a war of unimaginable destruction because generals were idiots fighting Napoleonic-era tactics wit…

Any historical claim can be argued with, and I guess this is an example, but I would maintain that WWI involved a lot of things that wouldn't be repeated with modern knowledge. To offer another example, consider actual Napoleonic-era tactics: why was Napoleon running around and defeating everyone with them when the same guns were basically available everywhere? Ideally everyone would have copied his artillery tactics as soon as he used them once, but military leadership rarely moves that fast. If you sent a general from the era to West Point today, they would probably be able to defeat Napoleon.

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#84

Post by albemuth »

mikorym wrote: post #55
Patient0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nitpick: in this context, you would want to use the word "cue" not "queue". "cue" => signal for an actor to go on stage or whatever. "queue" => orderly line of people waiting to buy a movie ticket.

True, thanks. But in this case it was a fortunate fluke. Their queue is probably pretty long and unresolved as we speak.

It... doesn't really work

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#85

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

p_l wrote: post #63
TheCondor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What all is it supposed to do beyond parts orders?

In a system like that, ordering parts is one of the least important elements. It covers things like tracking wear&tear of components so that you know when to replace parts, and more importantly, know when to schedule repairs - it's crucial that you have well-planned maintenance that ensures maximum availability of aircraft, so you need to stagger them - which is non-trivial to do. That's probably the "MVP" level, whi…

Can you imagine trying to deal with that crap in an actual hot war when things are happening?

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#86

Post by euler_angles »

p_l wrote: post #75
euler_angles wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordering parts should be a fairly simple thing to get right in comparison to all the other things the system should do. And yet...it failed at that.

True, I think back with the unnamed project I mentioned, we had an idea to do basic automation for that, a button that would send a message on JMS to another system that would print it for the mechanics or in future pass it over to procurement directly. But we were stuck moving what was supposed to be just deployment into "actually useful for something" state, including rewriting more and more of the code (because L-…

Also as someone who has used the system, you're right about all the other functions it does. Or is supposed to do. So thank you for posting.

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#87

Post by chipsa »

ptero wrote: post #21
divbyzer0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(with my tin-foil hat securely fastened) I've always had a suspicion that the generous piles of cash thrown at the F-35 program was really going to two programs: 1) A well-publicised cover (F-35) 2) A secret Skunk Works project like F-117, SR-71 But a corporate welfare program as you suggest is more likely.

Real work is (comparably) cheap. With F35 budget well over a trillion dollars this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.

Pay attention to the time frame for that trillion dollars: 55 years.

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#88

Post by fapjacks »

imtringued wrote: post #38
LoSboccacc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> airpower projection is via unmanned systems I'm unconvinced by this assessment, for one they haven't had symmetrical warfare in a long time and a pilot is way harder to jam. for another long range laser ciws systems are getting more and more effective and if you armor cheap unmanned system they stop being cheap. but ultimately they have limited payload option and you can always pack more countermeasures than the en…

Honestly non fully autonomous UAVs are going to drop like flies if they encounter a F-35. People seem to fail to understand that the F-35 is also an advanced ECM platform. What is that drone going to do once its connection to the remote base is cut?

> also an advanced ECM platform

I would suggest they are primarily an ECM platform. It is well known that the F-22 is a superior fighter compared to the F-35. The main feature of the F-35 that puts fear in potential adversaries are the capabilities that become available when multiple F-35 are in the air and linked with one another (or other larger aircraft with comparable systems, e.g. AWACS).

Re: F-35 logistics system to be reinvented and renamed, official says

#89

Post by Aloha »

jcranmer wrote: post #82
whatshisface wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If history is any indication, the future of air power will be three years of absolutely terrible strategies after the next war starts, where the wrong weapons are being manufactured and the right weapons are being deployed incorrectly, then followed by one month of sanity which sets the military doctrine for the next two decades of peace, to remain in place as it becomes obsolete again...

A serious question here: what history are you drawing this inference from? Popular history tends to be a distorted view of history that willfully ignores evidence to the contrary to tell a good story, and military history especially tends to fall victim here. As a good case in point, take WWI. In popular history, WWI is a war of unimaginable destruction because generals were idiots fighting Napoleonic-era tactics wit…

I would argue that WWI was so deadly because it was modern weaponry without modern medicine to go with it. We made huge strides in treating casualties between the two wars.
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