Author Topic: F22 cancellation?  (Read 1426 times)


Offline Orig

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2004, 04:04:38 PM »
First he killed the tanker plan, now he's trying to kill the F-22.  McCain probably the single most dangerous hazard the USAF will face this century.  He's totally old-skool and he's a prime example of the old way of thinking the military is trying to evolve away from.

Put his bellybutton on the line like he did in Vietnam, and he'd become an F-22 supporter like every operator in the force.  Put him in an office, and he's just another bean counter with an axe to grind.

Offline _Schadenfreude_

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2004, 04:09:27 PM »
How important is the armed services committee and how important is McCain on it? I mean do they like decide on the budget for the military?

Offline Sixpence

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2004, 04:11:02 PM »
He says it's a matter of where we spend the money. He wants to expand ground forces to make sure we win the war in Iraq. 71 billion is alot of money(although i'm a big on dominating the skies), and we could use that money to pay for the war's future expenses. It's hard to make a stand for lowering taxes and ask for more money at the same time, the money must come from somewhere.
"My grandaddy always told me, "There are three things that'll put a good man down: Losin' a good woman, eatin' bad possum, or eatin' good possum."" - Holden McGroin

(and I still say he wasn't trying to spell possum!)

Offline Lizking

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2004, 04:12:34 PM »
Why do we need the F22 again?  It is cool and all, but current inventory replacement will serve us for 30 more years, won't it?

Offline Replicant

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2004, 04:22:24 PM »
I heard that the Commanche was cancelled earlier in the year as well to make way for more transport helicopters.  That I can understand.
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Offline Nilsen

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2004, 04:47:54 PM »
The F22 is incredibly expencive. Why not use that money to buy more JSF's? They should be more than good enough to rule the skies....especialy with the extra numbers the USAF could buy for the cost of the F22. You would also with that increased number of JSF's have more of them operational at any one time.

The combat UAV's are the future anyway and the JSF would be competitive for alot longer than it will take to develope and mass produce combat UAV's if you look at the current and planned planes of other nations.

Offline Orig

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2004, 05:01:11 PM »
We need the F22 for a few reasons.  First is that every major nation in the world has purchase orders in for fighters that are a generation newer than our F-15s and F-16s.  That puts us at a definate disadvantage.  F-15's can be upgraded to a certain extent, but they will never be even remotely stealthy.  Which brings us to the next reason.  New SAM technology has advanced to the point where the aerial battlefield is no longer survivable.  New Russian designed SAM systems are not only designed to shoot down aircraft at ranges up to 200+ miles, but they are also designed to actually engage and shoot down any weapons aimed at the SAM site.  That includes every single non-stealthy weapon the US has that can be launched at a SAM site before the launch vehicle itself is shot down.  The F-22 is an integral part of the forces required to even begin an air war against any nation with a reasonably modern air defense system.  The ability to press inside the outer edges of the air defense zones and carry out air dominance missions is critical.  The B-2 and F-117 need fighter support in that environment and the F-15's and F-16 would get shot down before they got anywhere close to attacking the defending fighters or SAM sites.

The new SAM sites eat cruise missiles for lunch too, and even older technology integrated air defense systems are becoming more and more difficult to overwhelm, spoof, jam, etc.  The F-22 is again critical in this arena.

Even so, JSF is also required because since the F-22 is so expensive, we'll only have a few and will need to send in cheaper aircraft to carry out missions after the stealth planes have opened up holes in the IADS.  Right now, those planes in the USAF are the F-15 and F-16 (and A-10), but once again the SAM threat is big enough to make this quite risky.  JSF will provide a platform similiar to the F-16 but stealthy enough to operate closer to the SAM threats while carrying out a wide variety of missions.

The USAF doesn't need this capability tomorrow or next week, it needs it today.  China is toying around with the newest Russian SAM systems and Russia is marketing them to a great number of smaller countries as well.  They don't take too long to ship and set up either, so we could face a current-generation threat in any country we may possibly be in conflict with.

A last example of where we need the F-22 is in national defense.  The F-22 can loiter and get to a given area faster than our current fighters.  When there may only be a few minutes to get to an attacking force, whether it's fighters, bombers, cruise missiles, or a terrorist in an airliner, speed matters.  The F-22 is very fast.

The USAF is behind, period.  Only the integration of our entire force structure and the sheer size of our military is keeping us effective, but an opponent with current-generation defenses could make it much much more difficult.

Offline Lizking

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2004, 05:04:22 PM »
You will have to show me facts on that Orig, because the record does not bear out what you are saying.

Offline Nilsen

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2004, 05:52:55 PM »
Orig.... you said:

"The new SAM sites eat cruise missiles for lunch"

Actually the norwegian NASAMS is the only system in the world that has a cabability against cruise missiles.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2004, 06:05:04 PM by Nilsen »

Offline Orig

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2004, 06:05:40 PM »
What record are you talking about?

I'll point out one example - The shootdown of the F-117 during the Kosovo campaign.  An older air defense system using a hacked together but entirely modern (conceptually) network structure managed to whack a stealth fighter.  The USAF and coalition never did manage to take out even 1/2 of that air defense network.  Had there been an appreciable number of enemy fighters, it could have been quite ugly for the coalition.

The French A-A missiles have greater range and maneuverability than the AMRAAM and AIM-9.  The AA-11 is still one of the finest dogfight missiles in the world and the AA-12 development continues with the benefit of knowing what works with the AMRAAM.

Both the Mig-29 and SU-27 (plus variants) are more maneuverable than the F-15.  So are the Eurofighter, Gripen, and Rafale, and they have reduced radar cross-sections.

The SA-10/12/20 systems can engage down below 100 ft at ranges well beyond that of the HARM missile, and they're designed to be able to shoot down the HARM missile and anything else that gets within their range.

There is no record of the US losing because the US hasn't fought against an updated IADS.  Every country in the world has had a chance to see what we did to Iraq however, and they're not just sitting around thinking "maybe our handful of mig-29s, SA-2s, SA-3s, and SA-6s will do better than Iraq's did."  They're buying new stuff, upgrading what they have, and networking it all together with off the shelf hardware.

US fighter development, except for the F-22, has been a series of upgrades made to 1970's technology.  The rest of the world has brand new equipment ready to go, waiting only for the money to kick final production into gear.  JSF is a long way out, and it's not optimized for air dominance in a high threat environment like the F-22 is.

Military parity is for suckers.  It's time to front for our next generation fighter because we're behind.

Nilsen, you're not correct.  The Russian double-digit radar SAMs have those capabilities, as do the US Patriot and US Navy Standard Missile systems.  I have also heard that the Israelis have made a great deal of progress shooting down all types of missiles with their defensive systems.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2004, 06:10:02 PM by Orig »

Offline Nilsen

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2004, 06:32:40 PM »
Sorry..The NASAMS is the only operational  GROUND based system that has a capability. The latest Patriot is not yet operational and tested vs cruise missiles. The NASAMS system passed the tests that the USAF made for it when it was beeing tested in the US a few years back.

If anyone is interested i can post some links on the system tomorrow or you can do a google (+nasams +kongsberg + raytheon....

Offline AdmRose

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #12 on: April 11, 2004, 06:47:00 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Orig
Nilsen, you're not correct.  The Russian double-digit radar SAMs have those capabilities, as do the US Patriot and US Navy Standard Missile systems.


Last I checked, the Patriot was a last ditch defense due to its extreme unreliability and the Navy's anti-missile system was the PHALANX.

Offline GRUNHERZ

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #13 on: April 11, 2004, 06:58:45 PM »
OK McCain is nutz....  I always liked him for being straight forward and kinda different but now I see he is crazy...

Offline SunTracker

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F22 cancellation?
« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2004, 07:00:28 PM »
Patriot is not a very good system.  And it shoots down friendly aircraft.