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US Navy Admiral Questions Expensive Stealth Platforms
Trepidity writes "United States Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert stirred a controversy by questioning much of the thinking underlying current U.S. defense technology. He argues that stealth technology is unlikely to retain its usefulness much into the future, and so focus should switch towards standoff weapons. In addition, he criticizes the focus on expensive all-in-one platforms such as the F-35 fighter, arguing for a payload-centric, flexible approach he compares to trucks rather than luxury cars."
We spend entirely too much money on our military. We are so far ahead of the next country in terms of dollars spent it's not even close. We keep bases all around the world, protecting everybody, so that they don't have to spend their own money on a military and instead can spend it domestically. It needs to end. It's no longer 1955.
'interfere with the military industrial complex gravy train'.
How about trying to maintain a foreign policy that encourages peace and free trade? I'm sure that will keep us much safer and will cost us less. But instead we spend our billions on arms and look for conflicts to use them in...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/
"In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.
The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. “We were evenly matched,” Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 and stay there. “They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.”"
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
The Joint Chiefs will view this as an 'insurrection' by a Staff Member of 'questionable' loyalty.
To go public with this complaint means that his shelf-life is down to hours. He's out and maybe
subject to an Executive murder order, if it pleases the Executive.
This is how the 'Professional Military' operate.
Think about the source folks. I'm an ex-Navy man so it pains me to say, but to me it seems obvious what's going on here. Ask yourself, does it benefit the Navy or Marines if we standardize on a subset of airframes? Who do you think would be the major driver of those designs? It's going to be the Air Force, and the needs of the fleet are going to come second to theirs.
Next, the Admiral himself brings up aircraft carriers, a platform not known for its stealthiness. In fact, pretty much any Navy ship designed for stealth is going to be smaller and have a small crew as well. He's defending his turf and his budget, which in a sense is very much his job as CNO. Or at least that's my take.
Go Navy, Beat Army! ;-)
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
You think?
America only brings guns to knife fights, it seems.
Seems cowardice. any budget, except one where we have a fair fight with others.
Thr while purpose of stealth was to convince Americans we could go to war without risking lives. This was considered important by those who like an active foreign policy because after the Vietnam War Americans lost their taste for war. Overwhelming air power in The Gulf War showed Americans are fine with war as long as other people are doing the dying. Stealth fit this purpose.
It seems now after 9/11 Americans are fine with losing thousands of lives in War. If that's the case we should switch back to lots of dumb cheap fighters. If we don't cry over thousands of soldiers a few dozen pilots aren't going to matter. Go back to F-16, F-15, F,18 and A-10's.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
During WWII, they cranked planes out by the 1,000's if not 10's of 1,000's. Nowadays, the number of high performance jets is measured in the hundreds. If there were to be a conflict, due to the complexity of today's aircraft, there is no way to crank out new aircraft by the 1,000's or hundreds or even tens. There may certainly be a need for a much simpler aircraft that can be easily mass produced in significant quantities.
... is to change acquisition strategy every 8-10 years. Cancel lots of programs, start new ones, never finish anything and never hold any company accountable, but simply keep paying the tab. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Combat_Systems for one $340 BILLION debacle.
Another way to do it is to have programs that last 15 years, so the technology is obsolete when it comes out and a new program needs to be started to replace what was just produced. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program for a program that is going to be completely obsolete because unmanned aircraft are going to be much simpler, cheaper and maneuverable. We sent a man to the moon and back in 8 years - these other programs are just white collar welfare.
And his logic is hard to fault. He pointed to the B-52 as an example of a flexible weapons platform that had a wide variety of uses that didn't require stealth technology compared to the limited usefulness of the F-117.
Solid, reliable and flexible is more important than stealth, which was designed for a war we're likely never going to fight.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Calling private property theft as you have invites a few questions:
Do you consider the clothes on your back and the food in your mouth to be private property and therefore theft?
Do you mean that owning ranches the size of countries and denying the locals use to that land is theft?
Where do you draw the line between just, normal, and excessive? A person's house or a person's investment house?
I suspect that you've got the wrong bone here. It is inheritance law that encourages and propogates inequalites on vast scale. When Lenin took power in the Soviet Union he abolished all rights to inheritance beyond personal effects. When Stalin took over after Lenin's stroke the first thing he did was reinstate inheritance rights with the intention of building a clique of families who would do exactly whatever he wanted.
The matter is not easily sorted given that wealth can be passed on before death, owned by companies in lieu, or shared among a family for their mutual benefit among many other possibilites. There is also the issue of what happens to stocks of public companies when the owner dies - does the government take them, the company resume them, the workers share them? None of the answers is satisfactory.
Private property probably is theft but the alternatives are worse.
People have been arguing over the best value in military equipment for standing armies for the better part of 2 centuries, this isn't anything new.
And no one is right. General purpose versatile weapons that are useful against relatively weak powers if the next war you fight is against a relatively weak power, but you can't anticipate which one, where specialized equipment is useful against a specific target when you know who you're fighting.
If you could predict the future and know what enemy you'd have to fight next, and what weapons you'd want for that war then sure, you could reasonably guess what platforms you want, or what payloads you want. His view is that the US can innovate on those things separately fast enough to adapt to any new threat, he might be right of course, but probably for relatively low involvement conflicts he's wrong, and knowing the future mix is tough.
The specific criticism of stealth isn't anything new. By the time you ever have to fight anyone important they'll probably be able to see stealth aircraft so you're not getting much, on the other hand if you have to go into Syria by the end of the month stealth could payoff. Transferring research to longer range weapons (standoff weapons in his parlance) isn't an inherently bad idea, but of course the longer a munition has to travel the easier it is to disrupt or intercept so you could spend a lot of research dollars on something that will just fail to deliver. Electromagnetically launched weapons probably have a place, but that's only one piece of a large puzzle.
Eh, go for straight out WFO speed. If you're the fastest damn thing in the sky, you should need much stealth.... providing you can turn.
1. It's a jobs program that is immune to conservative prejudice against "government jobs". That's why the military shrewdly maintains bases and suppliers in just about every state.
2. It's a stimulus program that is largely immune from GOP deficit hawks; in fact, Reagan blasted the country out of the early '80s recession, through deficit spending on the military (he also made hundreds of cuts in domestic spending programs, but that was window dressing in dollar terms). The stream of expenditures is predictable, so it is arguably a more effective stimulus than, let's say handing consumers a tax rebate and hoping they'll spend some of the proceeds on cars and electronic gadgets.
3. If a foreign government harasses our commercial shipping or citizens, they better be prepared to defend against these weapon systems.
4. It's a recruitment tool for the services. Their soldiers will be flying and operating the latest technological wonders, the sorts of things that people see in video games and action movies.
5. Our officers, soldiers, and engineers get training and experience on the latest technologies; our enemies don't.
6. We have an "ace" that other countries (besides our allies) don't have, which can be used effectively in certain situations, with resulting benefits to our diplomatic position. For example, Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom in Iraq, or the NATO operations against Qaddafi in Libya
7. Other countries have items #4 and #5 and perhaps #3 on their list too, so it's a big ticket export item for the USA that helps our trade balance, and is also a bargaining chip in foreign relations.
8. Politicians can use their record sponsoring and voting for weapons programs as proof that they are "tough on defense" and "standing up against foreign aggressors". Easy to do and doesn't cost them anything, since the taxpayers are footing the bill.
The above list wasn't meant to be facetious - all except the last item arguably help the country, although whether they collectively are worth the cost is debatable.
...who want to shove this stuff down the armed forces' throats. The generals and admirals themselves say they don't want the kit, but the lobbyists and aerospace companies insist on making their billions or even trillions of dollars; and the members of Congress want their kickbacks and 'campaign contributions'.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Ike Eisenhower is spinning in his grave. He warned us about the Military/Industrial Complex - of course he waited until he was leaving office to do so. But he did warn us. And what did we do, nothing. Of course it is in the interests of the arms industry to keep one upping, that guarantees a continual profit scheme for shareholders.
I'm not sure why this big push towards "the One True Airframe" exists in current aircraft design philosophy.
I'm a big fan of cheap, specialized airframes which are given one specific goal and then features are "added on". For example, take one of my favourite aircraft, the A-10 Warthog.
It's one-sentence goal is: "Easily destroy any armoured vehicle that the US could conceivably encounter within the next 50 years."
Which it does. Additional features it has:
- Extremely tough and rugged.
- Very long duration, able to loiter and provide cover for extended durations.
- Cheap in construction and simple to maintain.
- Minimally capable in missile-based air-air combat (it's not a dogfighter but it's not helpless either, like an AC-130 is).
- The A-10's cannon is effective against infantry (duh), buildings, helicopters and small naval assets.
- Able to deliver complex munitions (cluster bombs, air dropped mines, dumb bombs, smart missiles, etc).
- Able to function in electronic warfare/forward command roles.
- Fast enough to get to combat locations fairly quickly (subsonic, but still jet powered and fast compared to things like the AC-130 Spectre).
All of which is good, but are all of these things are secondary to its primary goal; blow the absolute piss and shit out of anything with treads or wheels. If it can't do that, the rest is fairly much window dressing.
The A-10's a perfect example how we should build combat aircraft. An air-supremacy fighter should be built with the goal of "Destroy any fighter aircraft the US could encounter within X years" and all other considerations secondary. A bomber's mission should be "Carry the maximum amount of ordnance to any location the US could want to bomb within X years", a spy plane's (mostly replaced by sats these days) should be "Take photographs of any location in the entire world without being detected or destroyed", etc.
Another way to look at it is: "A soldier should carry a knife for eating, a sword for dueling, a dagger for murdering, a claymore for horses, a razor for shaving, a bowie for skinning, a throwing knife for throwing."
Why are we trying to make The One True Edged Weapon, which if such a thing were built would be too sharp for eating, too short for dueling, too long for murdering, too short for horses, too dangerous for shaving, too awkward for skinning and too heavy to throw? (and cost $27,000,000...)
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
It seems that in air-to-air combat, as in a knife fight, 'the bad guys' don't always play by the rules.
Actually if you bother to read the article where the German pilots were surprised to find themselves on an equal footing in a dog fight you will find that they also said that at long range they did everything they could and basically had little chance against the F22.
Don't quote me but I think an F-22 can carry a maximum of six medium range missiles and two short range missiles. Assuming a 100% hit rate in a fight against multiple non-stealthy bogies the pilot will have his work cut out for him.
Not really. The Germans were flying the $110M (Euro 90M) Eurofigher against the $150M F-22. The Eurofighter is a contemporary of the F-22, only a couple of years older, not something from a previous design generation. The other guy is not going to have some huge numerical advantage.
That said, we should have a more balanced force. We have had long range over the horizon capable jets going back to Vietnam but they are rarely every allowed to engage at such distances. They are almost always required to get visual IDs on the other aircraft. I'm sure there will be specialized missions where the F-22s are the way to go and we should have some. But we should also have modern incarnations of a dedicated fighter and a dedicated close air support aircraft, as we did in the past with the F-16s and A-10s. For those unfamiliar with the origin of these legendary aircraft, the Air Force did not want either one. They were both designed by rouge design teams that did not believe in the concept of multi-mission aircraft, and after demonstrating amazing performance in their respective roles, they were forced upon the Air Force by a cost conscious Congress.
We need diplomacy, not bombs.
In an ideal world, diplomacy should lead the way
Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world
In this world we live in, talking softly while carrying a big stick is still the most practical way of doing things
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Wars are intertwined with cowardice! Terrorize the losers enough and they give up; blitzkrieg is all about the shock of the first blows and how they are a force multiplier and is AKA shock and awe. If your goal is to exterminate, then terrorism is not required. If your goal is to force submission by threat of violence... then the use of terrorism is required. Sure some people are not cowards and will surrender to terrorism on practical grounds but I think most due it out of fear. Now we've summarized the losing side's cowardice, lets talk about winners:
Winners are usually cowards as well. You don't fight fair in a war, it is not about honor, ethics, or civil behavior it is the lowest levels that mankind sinks down to. People just like to fool themselves into thinking they are not acting barbaric or evil by imposing limits of their depravity which creates a false reference point -- since the brain works on relative reasoning this whole behavior is quite organic but it is also heavily exploited and well understood these days. When the enemy does something horrible, you feel like you can do it too but just be 1 hair less evil than them and you are justified; there are hundreds of ways you can rationalize stooping down to their level while feeling you are better or even while feeling you are not degrading yourself !!
There is no justifiable war and when you play the game of justification you have just begun losing to your human flaws and become highly susceptible to false reasoning. This is why some philosophies like Jesus are flatly against even starting such risky reasoning at all with an absolute ban on it -- and just look how easily that is completely lost once people just ignore his teachings with a tiny excuse it turns into horrible acts in his name. Buddhists have similar positions from another angle; more realistic in that you'll pay for it later - you can rationalize there as well; the thing is not the philosophies but the warped reasoning people will employ and easily hijack things especially the organized religions which are highly susceptible to other human flaws.
Cowards bring guns to a knife fight. Totally correct!
The purpose of the fight is not to fight fairly or by any code or rules -- in fact, we view old traditions such as trial by combat to be midevil stupidity when it really is not any worse than how we act today. we have not evolved; do not fool yourself. "Fair" barbaric fights for justice is contradictory which is why trial by combat is gone (replaced by trial by legal mercenaries.) We've become realistic enough to skip the other values because all that matters is who WINS the fight... business thinks along similar metaphors as well...(simply by using war metaphors in language you create a subconscious change in behavior people are not aware of.) The ones who place values above winning end up losing but may get some respect in how they lost for an ideal despite the contradiction; the winner is generally allowed the spoils anyhow because we collectively validate the winner's values even if we like to say otherwise. This promotes those who do not have such values to positions of power, possibly also promoting the lack of those values as a value.
People are overwhelmingly good and want to be. that is the reality. To maintain this self image and goal people invent a whole lot to protect their fragile ego and maintain this.
Ever since Vietnam, we've only chosen the wars we thought we could easily win.
The consequence is that if you don't have the military hardware to fight a war, then you can't use the threat of war against whatever opponent you're not willing to choose a war against.
Put another way, there's a reason we'll regime change Libya but have no balls when it comes to Iran's nukes.
paintball
than the combined total of the seventeen nations next in defense spending. I can recommend David Wessel's book Red Ink as an excellent, informative read on US budgetary matters. The stat I led this post with comes from his book. Also, I suggest listening to Teri Gross's interview with Wessel today. You can find it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=07-31-2012
He points out that new technologies, such as low frequency radar, will eventually overcome the stealth technology of any existing flyer. How much can such a system cost? A few dishes, and a new computer - far less than a new airframe.
Then I had a vision of people scattered all over Iran, with radios and binoculars. As far as I know the so-called "stealth" planes are still visible in the visual spectrum. "What's that? It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a hundred million dollar U.S. Navy Stealth Bomber! Phone home Ahmed!"
bah. stealth is dead with the creation of extremely light, fast, and cheap unmanned aircraft. The only reason they aren't already ubiquitous in the USAF is the "fighter-pilot" culture.
Heads up, an umanned aircraft, designed from the start to be unmanned (no human systems/interfaces/cockpit) would beat the absolute snot out of any modern fighter in ALL categories of performance except one .... budget approvals by sad ex-pilot generals and decision makers.
Where have I heard all this before? Oh right, 30-35 years ago when pretty much everyone was saying the exact same thing about the F-14. Everyone except the taxpayers, that is. We all know it's dumb to buy this stuff, but when they ask us to pay for it, we can't vote for the people who open our wallets, fast enough. Spend more money please, and I'll vote for you.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Will Hussein listen to his OWN generals? Hell no.
What *actually* happens, as you would know if you've been following the current case of the M-1 and a hundred like it before, is that the Pentagon decides that they don't want to spend their money on something that they don't think will help them accomplish their mission, and the the defense contractors who will lose funding run screaming to their congresscritter, who the goes screaming to the public that the {commies,terrorists,aliens} will win if the Pentagon is not allowed to spend all those billions of dollars in their district, so Congress puts in the defense budget even though the Pentagon doesn't want it.
'Cause we got to keep that pork flowing.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Stealth technology certainly did something advantageous in that instance... we effectively landed at least two helicopters right next to a major military installation in the middle of Pakistan without anyone but Osama and his immediate neighbors realizing it until it was all over. I know I wasn't the only one quite impressed with that implementation of stealth technology. Honestly, I'm still having trouble believing it's possible... but it happened.
The Admin and the Engineer
Go Romney! The candidate with the shorter last name deserves to win!
Actually the candidate with the biggest dick deserves to win. (Though I'm not offering to check.)
Of course, politicians don't listen carefully, so they think the rule is that the one who *is* the biggest dick deserves to win.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And jobs are nice too, if you forget.
It is pretty obvious that the US will be unable to keep its insane military funding up. In addition, basically all of these "stealth" tech has failed to deliver. Just think of, e.g., the case of earthquake sensors picking up enough vibration to give a pretty accurate performance profile and localization of an experimental stealth plane.
So what the Admiral is arguing for is not only better bang for the buck, but also effectiveness in the first place.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Neither have a clue about reforming DoD, NOR DOES DoD, within which live many competing cliques.
Kill yourself for making such a stupid post.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
fight an enemy that is willing to take the L and you will be in for a long horrible campaign.
A thousand Sunburns will also do.
OK I know they don't fly low during missions but have you ever heard that thing? Only plane that ever sent me to the windows of our sturdy brick office to find out "what the hell is that flying?". That loud.
I guess it's not a problem when you fly 30,000 feet during overcast conditions (no visible contrail). Under any number of other circumstances though, it seems like it'd be ripe for the picking with some kind of laser guided missile. That's what? A $50,000 shot vs. a $billion dollar plane? Then, nevermind that you still have to put boots on the ground.
The stealth tech saved pilots during the first few months of Iraq. Then over the YEARS that followed it's amazing we didn't lose more ground troops. Air support is a big part of keeping those guys safe. What seems to do the job there is the "burp of death". A-10. Butt ugly, relatively cheap, and very effective.
Germany just demonstrated in June 2012 a military tactic for taking out the vaunted US Stealth F22 Raptor in close combat and it works.
I bet Iran is paying close attention to this.
That expensive US stealth fighter can be had by the more nimble Germans!
It appears United States Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert was proved right, the stealth advantage can be defeated in a real war!
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/
No one is offering to let the Germans try it on the stealth F35 in a mock fight for obvious reasons (Obama's election?) but I bet that tactic may work on the F35 too.
The Wired update for 7/31/2012 has the US military spin doctors claiming the test was flawed as no German Typhoon will ever get close enough for 'close combat' in a real shoot out so you need to read the whole article to see for yourself.
What a waste of money!
"Romney" is shorter than "Obama?"
Go Romney! The candidate with the shorter last name deserves to win!
You mean Ron?
Yeah, jobs are nice. But if we're going to pay taxes to fund things, I say we:
I know, crazy, right? Peaceful spending? To increase the value of our country's infrastructure and manufacturing power??? Cr-----A-zy!
Go Romney! The candidate with the shorter last name deserves to win!
I look forward to president O.
That attitude is what caused the Navy and the Air Force to purchase the F-4 Phantom: The first fighter that only had stand-off weapon (missiles).
After MIGs started shooting them (using their on-board guns) out of the skies like so many pigeons, the error of the brass's stupid fucking idea sunk in and started the mad rush to produce gun pods for the Phantoms.
A fighter that's out of missiles is also defenseless.
The F-4 was the reason that the F-8 Crusader is also known as, "Mig Master" and "The Last of the Gunfighters." The F-8 Crusader had the best kill ratio of the Viet Nam War.
Okay. Class is over.
Iraq was armed with European and Russian aircraft. Libya ... Russian.
North Vietnam ... Russian
North Korea ... Russian
You forgot to mention that those are 2-3 generations behind. NK still mostly flies MiG-15/17/19 (and Chinese clones) in large numbers, for Christ sake. Vietnam mostly uses MiG-21. Libyans had the bulk of their force consist of MiG-23 and Yugoslavian Galebs. Even an F-16 or an F-18 would tear those apart easily.
Apologies for not being clear. I was not referring to those countries in their current state. I was referring to them in the state they were during their respective wars/conflicts with the US. 1950s for NK, 60s for NV, 80s for Libya, 90s for Iraq. They all had comparable aircraft back in their days. Mig-17 v F-86 in NK, Mig-21 v F-4 in NV, etc. Arguably the enemy sometimes had a better aircraft. What made the difference was really pilot training.
The point being that the US has often faced state-of-the art aircraft in the last 60 years, even when going against small nations.
Really? What has diplomacy EVER solved?
Every ceasefire was an act of diplomacy.
Every reunification of a nation was an act of diplomacy.
Every treaty signed by two nations, mutually agreeing to stop fighting, was an act of diplomacy.
If you want an example, then I suggest that you study European history. England versus France, for example. Kings forcing their children into marriage to establish bloodlines to prevent war. The Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War. England and France both had resources to continue fighting the war indefinitely, but at some point both realized that diplomacy and mutual consent was a better approach to managing their differences. And so it is for every group of people that have ever fought and made peace.
Surrender and the subsequent establishment of a legal state of peace is also an act of diplomacy: Treaty of San Francisco. Surrender is usually not one side giving in unconditionally, but instead a delicate balancing act where one side admits it is losing, and is willing to make major concessions to establish peace. That is diplomacy. The alternative would be war without end until one side is completely exterminated.
until we regulated industry out of the US
And it all went to a country that believes in the principle of small government: China.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Will Hussein listen to his OWN generals? Hell no.
What *actually* happens, as you would know if you've been following the current case of the M-1 and a hundred like it before, is that the Pentagon decides that they don't want to spend their money on something that they don't think will help them accomplish their mission, and the the defense contractors who will lose funding run screaming to their congresscritter, who the goes screaming to the public that the {commies,terrorists,aliens} will win if the Pentagon is not allowed to spend all those billions of dollars in their district, so Congress puts in the defense budget even though the Pentagon doesn't want it.
'Cause we got to keep that pork flowing.
Correct. In short, the President has little to do with these decisions. It's almost all Congress (including the Senate). It has been this way for decades.
And yet, all of these military system came from the same set of neo-cons that Romney is bringing in.
In fact, Gates tried to stop a lot of what this general is gripping about, and it was you neo-cons that kept it going.
Sad that neo-cons want to destroy America. They have far more in common with Mao, then with Lincoln.
Windbourne.
Actually, most of these defense systems are built in neo-con territory. Purposely. They will put their's and their party's needs ahead of the nations. 2 case in points would be the NAT GAS act as well as the Space Launch System. The NAT GAS act would allow us to become energy independent, and clean up our air. Yet, they want to continue to import oil. Likewise, the neo-cons continue to fight against private space, esp. new private space. Even now, they would rather see us dependant on Russia, OR that the 2.5 contracts go to established companies and not to the new comers. In addition, they are denying any funding for Bigelow aerospace, so that they can control the launches and the numbers.
Basically, we have a republican party that has more in common with mao and stalin, then they do with Lincoln. The republican members need to get rid of the neo-cons and tea* and return to social moderates with strong fiscal conservative background. I still remember the day that the republican party consider John McCain to be a conservative.
Windbourne.
The Economist showed up in my mailbox on Saturday, but this article is on page 52 of the magazine, so I didn't read it until today -- a few minutes before I saw it here on Slashdot. I guess I read at about the same pace as Soulskill.
Actually the candidate with the biggest dick deserves to win.
Go Hillary!!!
You'll be signing a different tune when we are invaded by Aliens or humans from an alternate dimension. Just because we are faster then every competitor in today's race doesn't preclude a newcomer from cleaning our clock.
Cheap storage VM.
I've worked at one of those jobs, at the rate the US spends on Defense, you could afford to pay an average salary to thousands of people sitting on their arses for years....
End of Line.
Stealth tech is cool, but way old. Military technology is 50 to 100 years ahead of civilians. This guy is simply stating the obvious. Controlled release of information. In 50 years, you'll be seeing the shit that flies in and out of Area 51 at airshows and whatnot. Then a US Navy Admiral will say that this anti-gravity/anti-inertia craft we have is expensive and irrelevant, etc.
This guy I knew that was deployed to North Korea^H^H^H^H Iraq, spoke of some technology that sounds like the gun scope in the movie Eraser. They tested on it by reading the expiration date off a gallon of milk from 200 yards away. Cool, but high powered optics aren't new, you say? Well, the milk jug was behind 12 inches of concrete.
The F-117's mission is now done with the F-22.
It's not just air to air.
If the US is actually threatened, use nuclear weapons.
It is unclear we the US has achieved much in terms of actually protecting the country since 1945 using any other weapon.
arguing for a payload-centric, flexible approach he compares to trucks rather than luxury cars
That might spur some interesting innovation, but the question becomes whether the effectivity of these modular systems are related to the scale of the platform. The usni article uses ships as a reference, but the more physical performance the vehicle has, or the smaller it is relatively to this performance, the more space the essential systems take from the platform. Air planes are mentioned only casually, with the already existing level of modularization used to support the argument.
The cost of training, if a certain level of standardization on user interfaces is not followed, would be something to consider.
Also, the military loves its acronyms
Former Tomcat pilot here. The Tomcat had a lot of problems, maneuverability was not one of them. The basic aerodynamics were great and it could hang with the best of them (with the F-110 engines). In the "D" model, the avionics were at least up to 1990 standards (better than the Hornets of the same era). The real problem from a maintenance standpoint is it had too many darn moving parts, and so many of them were controlled with analog electronics (potentiometers, relays and limit switches) and clockwork mechanisms. Think about those swing wings and full span flaps and slats and all the mechanisms that are needed to keep from driving the flaps into the fuselage. Note the lack of any flap actuator fairings for full length fowler flaps. Yea, it was expensive to maintain.
You'll be signing a different tune when we are invaded by Aliens or humans from an alternate dimension.
That's what we keep the Avengers around for.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm not sure why this big push towards "the One True Airframe" exists in current aircraft design philosophy.
The "One True Airframe" design philosophy dates back to at least 1960 courtesy of then-Defense Secretary McNamara when it was known as the "TFX" airframe. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a440831.pdf has a decent write-up of why it was politically impossible to get the Armed Services to accept a plane designed using a common airframe.
Me, looking at picture on the wall: "Oh, what part of your navy is that?" "That IS our navy."
I worked with DRDC when I was at the USAF Research Lab, which fought for funding with the Army and Navy labs, despite years of trying to force cooperation.
Old joke: "How many people work here?" "About half of 'em."