F-35

[mthrockmor]

For the next 10-15 years China can be handled like a 5-year old with F-16s, F-15Cs and F/A-18C/D/E/F's, throw in some B-52s, B-1s and B-2s, with cruise missiles opening the holes, it would be a repeat of Sadam circa 1991 and 2003.

IF we went to war with China the F-22 would never be used unless the Chinese mounted an attack on Alaska. The money spent on both the F-22 and F-35...better spent elsewhere.

Boo

[Penguin]

Penguin, while I agree with some of your statement, for your sake make sure you don't mention actual countries as hypothetical enemies, or else you get slapped with a rule 14

It's hard not to, if one is to discuss war.  I have to use some country's fighters.

-Penguin

[BoilerDown]

It's hard not to, if one is to discuss war.  I have to use some country's fighters.

-Penguin

It was a reasonable hypothetical example, I think you're fine.

The best argument towards continuing the F-35 project IMO, despite the upward spiraling costs, is that all the nations we're going to sell them to besides ourselves really want some kind of next generation fighter aircraft.  Better that it comes from us (the US) than from the Russians, French, or Chinese.  Because if the US doesn't supply it, those other countries will, and then they will build their capabilities for creating and maintaining many nation's aircraft while our (the US') capabilities suffer.

According to Wikipedia on the F-35, 3100 are due to be built for nine US allied nations, compared to 2400 being built for the US military itself.  So well over half of the production is going elsewhere, and no matter how expensive the aircraft ends up being, that ratio will probably remain constant.  If the US scraps the project, that's a lot of money being funneled to other nation's military aircraft industries, to the benefit of their economy and not ours.

The question is really whether the aircraft is going to end up like the V-22 and eventually be something that can be built and depended upon, or should it be considered a sunk cost and scrapped.  Before you say sunk cost, you have to consider all the economic elements, including the costs of putting all the people working on the project into the unemployment line, and essentially outsourcing those jobs to the countries I named in the previous paragraph. 

[Nilsen]

I have two questions:

1.) Who needs stealth if your enemy doesn't have radar?
2.) In addition, it seems that those enemies that have radar also have nuclear weapons, thereby making conventional war (or any war for that matter) impossible.

Perhaps I am wrong, but at 3:00 AM, fact and fiction blur into one.

-Penguin

um.... radar is a rather common gizmo these days for all nations with a military. Very few of them have nukular weapons.

F35 is prolly going to be a great plane but i still wish we would have gone for Rafale, Eurofighter, Gripen, F18 or Silent Eagle. We would prolly have ended up paying half of what we will pay for the F35. I just dont see the point for us. IF russia ever becomes an enemy for us again it will not matter if we have the F35 or any other plane. They will kill our airfilelds within a short time anyway whatever plane or air defence we have just by the numbers of russian jets alone. In peace time or smal scale NATO stuff like we do now.. Libya, Bosnia, Afghanistan etc any of the listed planes will do. For going up and meeting Bears, recon and showing flag in the north any of the listed fighters will do just great. They can all do recon, carry ASM missiles. F35? we really dont need them.

[bozon]

The F-35 is a clear overkill for the real needs. The main reason to develop it is to keep the military aviation industry alive. Without continuous development much of the ability to develop will be gone with it - when the time comes and new capable fighters will be needed, this ability will not exist.

The US is basically subsidizing its private industry to keep it working. It is not as bad as it sounds because basically they create jobs and circulate tax money back into the economy. It is not a waste of tax as much as an investment and an employment plan. The US also does that with the "foreign aid" which can only be spent in the US to buy from American companies - so again this is american money circulating back into the US economy for the purpose of subsidizing the industry, plus buying diplomatic currency in this case. This is much easier to "sell" to the public than "we give this money to these companies for nothing, just to exist".

[bj229r]

My guess is F35 will end up being another Phantom...fairly good plane, which is outclassed by dedicated versions (naval attack, land-based fighter, etc) of its potential enemies

[Rich52]

um.... radar is a rather common gizmo these days for all nations with a military. Very few of them have nukular weapons.

F35 is prolly going to be a great plane but i still wish we would have gone for Rafale, Eurofighter, Gripen, F18 or Silent Eagle. We would prolly have ended up paying half of what we will pay for the F35. I just dont see the point for us. IF russia ever becomes an enemy for us again it will not matter if we have the F35 or any other plane. They will kill our airfilelds within a short time anyway whatever plane or air defence we have just by the numbers of russian jets alone. In peace time or smal scale NATO stuff like we do now.. Libya, Bosnia, Afghanistan etc any of the listed planes will do. For going up and meeting Bears, recon and showing flag in the north any of the listed fighters will do just great. They can all do recon, carry ASM missiles. F35? we really dont need them.

First off Norway is a member of NATO and any attack on it by Russia would trigger a massive NATO response, most of all American. Why would they start something they would lose? In 1975 when the F-117 project was started who could have foreseen the war it would end up shining in would be the Desert Storm 15 years later ? You dont buy expensive systems for the wars your going to fight today. You buy them for the wars your going to fight 10 to 20 years from now and do you really want to live in a country that cant control its own airspace?

Let's use real data, the United States has ordered 2,443 JSF's at $132,214,490 each.  For conveience's sake, let's say that the enemy is China.  Their main fighter is the $27,840,000 Chengdu-10.  For each of our JSF's, they can produce 5 Chengdu's.  That means five times the sorties, or five times the firepower, or five times the defense; however you slice it, it spells trouble for the vastly outnumbered JSF's.  However, if the United States used the
$55,000,000 FA-18E Super Hornet, we'd only be outnumberd two to one.  At that point, tactics and superior technology may win the day.

No it doesnt mean "5 times the sorties". The reliability of American engines and tech, along with the much better trained and equipped support personel, will whittle any sortie comparison down far lower then 5 to 1. Not that it matters anyway. Their air bases and CNC could look forward to about a thousand big bangs on opening night alone within 3 meters of where we want them. It wouldnt be like an Aces High furball.

We can thank our Paki "friends" they even have the C-10.

[Nilsen]

Yes Rich we are a NATO member but NATO wont react until all our airfields are bombed anyway. IF they did attack to invade any reaction from NATO would be to slow. Maybe it would take day, weeks or months depending on all the talk that would have to be done first. The idea of a swift response to any NATO members aid within hours may have been possible during sertain periods during the cold war but not now. Unless the US plans to station a couple of CVs off our coast on a permanet basis any aid would at best be hours away IF our southern neighbours had more than a couple of jets each on permanent readyness to be forward deployed to our airfilelds. The distances we are talking about here are huge Rich. IF russia attacks the airfileds would be overwhelmed within an hour or two with cruise missiles and jets. They would lose all their radars and stationary command and control along our borders though. "stuff" have been in place to ensure that for decades. An invasion by them would be alot harder but we are talking about the need for F35s to defend ourself and not any other systems. Best bet would be to fly all fighters to Britain and fight from there.

[curry1]

My guess is F35 will end up being another Phantom...fairly good plane, which is outclassed by dedicated versions (naval attack, land-based fighter, etc) of its potential enemies

Yeah the f-4 was totally outclassed  .  What are you talking about?  I hope you aren't talking about the dedicated naval yak-38s, or mig-17-19-21s for that matter.

[allaire]

He's referring to dedicated platforms within the US inventory at the time and not foreign assets.

[PR3D4TOR]

My guess is F35 will end up being another Phantom...fairly good plane, which is outclassed by dedicated versions (naval attack, land-based fighter, etc) of its potential enemies

[Rich52]

Yes Rich we are a NATO member but NATO wont react until all our airfields are bombed anyway. IF they did attack to invade any reaction from NATO would be to slow. Maybe it would take day, weeks or months depending on all the talk that would have to be done first. The idea of a swift response to any NATO members aid within hours may have been possible during sertain periods during the cold war but not now. Unless the US plans to station a couple of CVs off our coast on a permanet basis any aid would at best be hours away IF our southern neighbours had more than a couple of jets each on permanent readyness to be forward deployed to our airfilelds. The distances we are talking about here are huge Rich. IF russia attacks the airfileds would be overwhelmed within an hour or two with cruise missiles and jets. They would lose all their radars and stationary command and control along our borders though. "stuff" have been in place to ensure that for decades. An invasion by them would be alot harder but we are talking about the need for F35s to defend ourself and not any other systems. Best bet would be to fly all fighters to Britain and fight from there.

The punitive measures taken torwards Russia would be a cost far higher then they would be willing to pay. Russia is a Ghost force compared to the days of the Cold War. NATO has them completely outclassed and they know it. So again, why would they even consider attacking Norway in the first place? Not for the cooking thats for sure.

We have Intel assets that would see an attack coming anyway.And since Ive been to Europe I know there aint there aint no "huge distances" about the place. Try driving from one end of Texas to another. Oslo to Berlin is 841 Klms from each other. Texas is 1,200 Klm wide.

[allaire]

Gah missed that part.  Of course the Phantom did prove a point.  With enough power you can get a brick to fly.

[Penguin]

The punitive measures taken torwards Russia would be a cost far higher then they would be willing to pay. Russia is a Ghost force compared to the days of the Cold War. NATO has them completely outclassed and they know it. So again, why would they even consider attacking Norway in the first place? Not for the cooking thats for sure.

We have Intel assets that would see an attack coming anyway.And since Ive been to Europe I know there aint there aint no "huge distances" about the place. Try driving from one end of Texas to another. Oslo to Berlin is 841 Klms from each other. Texas is 1,200 Klm wide.

Bigger question: why would they attack Europe if they make so much money from selling natural gas to them?  It's a fundamental part of their economy.  In addition, there doesn't seem to be any tension between Russia and NATO, they're just chilling out.  The same applies to China, they make a huge amount of money on the global market, and war would leave them without funds.  Furthermore, in the words of Einstein, even if we don't know what weapons could be necessary in World War III, we know exactly what we'll need in the war directly thereafter-stones!

Nukes and international business interests have made war between major powers an unacceptable risk.  If your country isn't vaporized, you'll run out of money and your government will fail.  Too much rides on international trade and earth that is not radioactive glass to make war survivable, much less profitable.

However, the argument that military R&D projects will stimulate the economy is only partially true.  It will only stimulate the economy in the sense that people get jobs, but no product enters the economy to offset the labor provided to produce it.  Imagine an iPod factory that destroys the iPods as soon as it finishes creating them.  The only other instance in which this could benefit the economy would be if in doing so, the hypothetical company developed a new technology that improved efficiency or became popular elsewhere.

-Penguin

[bj229r]

Yeah the f-4 was totally outclassed  .  What are you talking about?  I hope you aren't talking about the dedicated naval yak-38s, or mig-17-19-21s for that matter.

It went REALLY fast, carried lots of ord, and it went REALLY fast