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F-35 Might Be Outperformed By Fourth-Generation Fighters

Posted by samzenpus on from the that's-not-good dept.

savuporo writes: Defensetech.org posted a story relaying a report from National Security Network titled "Thunder without Lightning: The High Costs and Limited Benefits of the F-35 Program". According to the story, F-35 is outperformed or showing only slight advantages in simulations and limited real-life tests by decades old 4th-generation fighters like F-16 and F18, but also MiG-29 Fulcrum and Su-27 Flanker, that are of course made by Russia and latter also produced in China. The story also refers back to earlier report last month of F-35 performing poorly in dogfights. "In one simulation subcontracted by the RAND Corporation, the F-35 incurred a loss exchange ratio of 2.4–1 against Chinese Su-35s. That is, more than two F-35s were lost for each Su-35 shot down."

56 of 732 comments (clear)

  1. I dern't believe it! by WSOGMM · · Score: 3, Funny

    America surely has a better fighter jet up its sleeve!!!1! The pentagon must be secretly spending the money elsewhere!

    1. Re:I dern't believe it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually they do. It was called the F-22. It was killed in favor of the (supposedly cheaper and as effective) F-35.

      Of course the problem with both jets is that they're way too expensive compared to earlier jets the US already has. Plus the F-22 only works in clear, cloudless skies (rain ablates the stealth paint) and only if you never cross the International Date Line.

      So while there was a 5th generation jet that could take on 4th generation jets, it was killed due to be an overpriced boondoggle. Its replacement is a new overpriced boondoggle that doesn't even manage to fill the role it was supposed to.

      My personal favorite F-35 issue is that the F-35B model can't fly in areas where it might be struck by lightning, because that could cause the fuel tanks to explode.

    2. Re:I dern't believe it! by tsotha · · Score: 4, Informative

      The F-22 wasn't "killed". They just decided not to make as many as they originally intended. That happens with every big ticket military program - they always pad the numbers so they can divide out the development costs over more units to make it look cheaper than it really is.

    3. Re:I dern't believe it! by Karmashock · · Score: 4, Informative

      The F35 is a merely a demonstration of the fallacy that combining everything into a single platform or department reduces costs or makes things more efficient.

      Often things work better broken up with different things specializing in different things.

      A tank, that is also an artillery piece, that is also a troop carrier, that is also a scout, that is also... its going to be shitty at everything and very expensive.

      What killed the F35 was the inclusion of two very difficult features.

      Stealth and VTOL. both of these things make a plane slower, less maneuverable in dog fights, and able to carry less weaponry.

      The F35 should have been about five or six different airplanes.

      First, the value of the stealth appears to be debatable. If the F15 eagle can see the F35 and engage it then where is the stealth? The need for that feature in a work horse is debatable in and of itself.

      Second, the only people that care about VTOL are the marines and the british navy.

      So those are two separate planes. Have a stealth plane for stealth stuff. Have a VTOL workhorse for the marines and the brits. I think Boeing was pitching one as a replacement to the harrier.

      We go on from there. But the notion that you save money by having one plane is false. Look at the old Vietnam era planes. They are relatively cheap to maintain, cheap to replace if we want to do that, still very effective, and each one only suffers attrition when it is employed in what it does best. Which means the plane suffers LESS attrition than a generalized plane because a specialized plane is designed to take certain threats. A warthog is going to take more punishment than an F35 before being dropped by ground fire.

      So yeah... split the plane up. Realize what we need version of... because a lot of our old hardware is actually fine. And then do the thing we need a new version of.

      The big thing of US military doctrine is getting air superiority. We get that, its game over. Our old heavy ground support planes can come in and just pound the shit out of the ground targets with impunity. And while that's happening our armor rolls in if required... not confronting enemy armor, but largely disorganized ground troops.

      The focus should be on getting air superiority. That's where you need the high tech hardware. After that... the enemy is meat.

      --
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    4. Re:I dern't believe it! by segedunum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually they do. It was called the F-22. It was killed in favor of the (supposedly cheaper and as effective) F-35.

      The F-22 has all the same problems unfortunately and a totally misguided idea that stealth will solve everything. It's certainly not been used in any conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq and to be honest they can't keep the thing maintained so that it can spend any reasonable time in the air.

      The only thing that Lockheed had was to create a myth around the F-22 and F-35 and hope that the planes never got seriously tested either in conflict or even in training. If the planes did get found out then the standard response is to say that the plane does not have all of its operational equipment and claim that the planes don't need to dogfight because the enemy will always be destroyed over a hundred miles away.

    5. Re:I dern't believe it! by KGIII · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Stealth technology was used quite a bit at the start of the conflict - when it should be used. Once they are unable to lob missiles at you and can field no planes then, well, stealth really does not play an important role and there are far less expensive solutions.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:I dern't believe it! by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 5, Funny

      WOW! Such savings! - Much cheaper!

      So cheaper! Much savings!
      (FTFY).

    7. Re:I dern't believe it! by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 3, Funny

      My personal favorite F-35 issue is that the F-35B model can't fly in areas where it might be struck by lightning, because that could cause the fuel tanks to explode.

      Well, lets hope the opponent doesn't start an offensive during a thunderstorm :)

      That's what helped Caesar conquer Britain, he figured out that by only fighting at teatime and on weekends, he could easily defeat the English (the cad!).

    8. Re:I dern't believe it! by fnj · · Score: 3, Informative

      The F-22 has all the same problems unfortunately and a totally misguided idea that stealth will solve everything.

      Twit. Stealth is the LEAST of the advantages of the F-22. Stealth is mostly to impress stupid people in headlines.

      Speed: F-22 Mach 2.25, F-35 (A, the better one) Mach 1.6
      Thrust/weight: 1.08, 0.97
      Range: 1600 nmi, 1200 nmi
      Gun: 6000 rpm with 480 rounds, 3000 rpm with 180 rounds

      We fielded 187 F-22s for a total of $67 billion; so far we've built 115 F-35s for $320 billion[1]

      The F-35 isn't even as fast as the F-104 was in 1958, or the superb F-4 Phantom was in 1960 - and the latter was hard-pressed to keep a 1:1 kill ratio against North Vietnamese interceptors.

      But hell, air combat is all about training anyway. We learned in Vietnam when you don't teach and drill (let alone equip) for dogfighting, you embarrass yourself even with excellent airframes. Since then, notably in the Gulf War and Iraq War, we made minced meat out of enemies because our training has been completely out of the ballpark superb. The way defense has gone to pot, and with operations costs through the roof, that's not going to be sustainable.

      [1] $320 billion is the actual cost to date for development + procurement. Higher figures are inane, including "operations and sustainment" and other categories, which while they definitely matter, have nothing to do with build cost.

    9. Re:I dern't believe it! by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's apples and oranges; the F35 and F22 were built to do two different jobs. The F22 is a no-compromises air superiority fighter with very limited (initially *no*) ground attack capabilities. The F35 is supposed to be a versatile multi-role workhorse that can attack ground targets and defend itself on its way to and from those targets. The role for the F22 is to sweep the skies of enemy aircraft at the start of a conflict, after which they have limited utility; you only need so many of them.

      So you can't substitute the F22 for the F35, although if the F35 had lived up to its hype you could go the other way. The F22 could be adapted to *some* of the F35's roles, but that wouldn't save money. The F22 costs more than most WW2 aircraft carriers did, even adjusting for inflation.

      What's more the F22 simply can't be adapted for the Marine Corps's needs. They need a modern, stealthy replacement for the Harrier jump jet that can be operated from amphibious assault ships (aka "helicopter carriers") and hastily improvised forward air bases.

      Here's a crazy scenario: suppose you decide to invade Iran. You can't just sail your carrier up to the northern end of the Persian Gulf to support your drive to Tehran, the way we did on the way to Baghdad. You'd have to sail that carrier past 300 miles of Iraqi shoreline dotted with advanced anti-ship defenses in waters crawling with mini-subs. And it's a long, long way over rough terrain to get from the Gulf of Oman to Tehran in the extreme north of the country. Imagine fighting your way from New York City to Chicago, only the terrain in between was all mountains. So you land a Marine expeditionary force at the Gulf of Oman that fights its way northwest along the Persian Gulf. After they capture the shore batteries, you bring in your destroyers to clear out the mini-subs and then bring in your carriers.

      Now that expeditionary force needs close air support and ground attack capabilities, and it needs to have them in an environment where the enemy has extensive, state of the art anti-aircraft missile installations. The logic for a Marine stealth jump jet in this scenario is compelling; what's questionable is trying to make that aircraft work for everyone else.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. And all they wanted was a faster horse by CxDoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why is dogfight a parameter in assessing 5th generation plane?
    It's like saying my car sucks because I can't use a crank to start the engine like the old cars could.

    --
    "Blah blah blah." - [citation needed]
    1. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hint: if there's one thing military history has shown, it's that the bad guys tend not to fight wars the way you want them to.

    2. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As long as the enemy has superior dogfighters that are outclassed in other modes of combat, the dogfighting capabilities of your planes will be forced into relevancy. Especially when the rules of engagement require visual confirmation before weapons release. We've already had one commercial airliner "accidentally" shot down during a military conflict last year (MH17), so it's unlikely those requirements will be relaxed any time soon.

    3. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by tsotha · · Score: 5, Informative

      That may be, but this is specifically a fighter plane. A plane designed to dogfight. That is the metric upon which it is being judged here.

      Not really, no. That would be the F-22. The F-35 is a multirole fighter - if history is any guide its primarily use will be for bombing.

    4. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by tsotha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That was fifty years ago. To put it in perspective, fifty years before the F-4 people were still using biplanes and the synchronized machine gun was the latest killer technology.

      Things have changed. There's no reason to include a gun any more - it's a waste of space and weight.

    5. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is dogfight a parameter in assessing 5th generation plane?

      If it carries a human it is already out-dated...

    6. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by goodmanj · · Score: 3, Insightful

      this is a fighter plane. A plane designed to dogfight

      No, this is a small stealthy bomber that can defend itself pretty well if someone manages to spot it.

    7. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by N1AK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You completely ignored the fact that rules of engagement don't currently permit firing BVR.

      Which is a pretty reasonable thing to ignore. There's a reason why various nations have spent large amounts of money on designing and manufacturing weapons which are only of benefit over prior weapons when firing BVR. If/when there's a war between the US and someone who can actually harm them if they limit themselves to visual range, they will change the ROE. The same is true of any advanced nation.

    8. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by Carewolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That was fifty years ago. To put it in perspective, fifty years before the F-4 people were still using biplanes and the synchronized machine gun was the latest killer technology.

      Things have changed. There's no reason to include a gun any more - it's a waste of space and weight.

      There is no need for knives in modern combat either, so why do we have bayonets? Because sometimes, and very often in war, things go FUBAR and you need backup weapons better suited for close combat.

    9. Re:And all they wanted was a faster horse by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It does - and technically the aircraft should be designated FA or FB, for Fighter/Attacker or Fighter/Bomber, such as the F/A-18 Hornet, or the FB-111 (an F-111 variant with longer range intended to serve as a strategic bomber). Generally though "B" has referred more to the strategic bombing role, whereas "A" has referred to the tactical ground attack role (a la the A-10, etc). It's not universal though, and some multirole aircraft like the F-15 or F-16 are still referred to as such without a change of designation.

      And speaking of the F-111, this is what happened with the last attempt at a "jack of all trades" aircraft. It was the Tactical Fighter X program, intended to fill the needs of both the Air Force and Navy. It led to the Navy backing out and canceling their part of the project altogether, while the Air Force wound up with the F-111, a "Fighter" in name only that was basically ever only used as a bomber, because it could only defend itself with missiles, and wasn't capable of dogfighting.

      Meanwhile, the Navy, having decided that dogfighting was important after all due to the lessons from Vietnam, went back to the drawing board, free from having to incorporate the Air Force requirements, and came up with the F-14.

  3. Fighter "Generations" is a Lockheed Marketing Term by mykepredko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When reading articles about the F-35, you have to remember that the term "Fourth Generation" and "Fifth Generation" are terms that Lockheed Martin came up with to provide some marketing cachet for the F-22 and F-35.

    There is no strong definition for the term and the best description that I seen is that "Fifth Generation" fighters employ stealth and undetectable communications. This definition is used with the F-35 to indicate that it will sneak up to enemy aircraft and launch missiles before the enemy aircraft know that it is there - the F-35 doesn't have the dog fighting capabilities of the F-22 or that of other fighters.

    People seem to forget that the F-35's capabilities were first defined after the first Gulf War in which F-16s and other fighter-bombers could not detect Scud missile launchers or approach ones that were detected by other platforms before being detected and the launchers moved out of harm's way or camouflaged in such a way that they couldn't be detected. Then deciding that the basic platform could be extended to a SVTOL for the Marines and a carrier aircraft further doomed it's ability to maneuver effectively against other aircraft that were designed for air-air combat.

    Unfortunately, the US(AF) has put all its eggs into the F-35 basket. I don't see there being a lot of opportunities to order more F-16s or F-15s (with the F-22 line shut down).

    This means that in future conflicts, the US may lose the "air dominance" that has been used in war planning over the last fifty years.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
  4. Not Outperformed At All by mentil · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The F-35 (program) generates FAR more pork than competing fighter jets. That's the only performance that matters. This is just like the NASA projects that are legally required to be completed, then mothballed because they're already obsolete, only with a hint of 'design by committee' to help sink it.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  5. This can only be solved by... by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Clearly this can only be solved by immediately investing in a multi-trillion dollar program to develop the next generation of stealthy dogfighting fighter jets.

  6. Probably By Design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not sure the Joint Strike Fighter is designed for dog fights in the first place. I think they're conceived to engage enemy aircraft beyond visible range and function more as a networked fighter platform. In a lecture on flying the F-35, David Berke made the point that to be tactically successful in an F-35 he had to change his approach to combat flying versus his previous experience flying Hornets. He described the learning curve as: 1 month loving it because it was new, followed by 6 months hating it because he felt like he didn't know what he was doing anymore, followed by another 6 months during which he got the hang of the new approach.

    There's also talk that the F-35 could be getting a new engine in the 2020s which will improve its performance.

    1. Re:Probably By Design by muecksteiner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While what you say is technically correct, you should also put this into perspective by adding that since Vietnam, the USAF has never had to fight a sustained air war against an even marginally organised adversary. So there were no real chances of getting gun kills in the first place, because all air wars fought since then were against opponents whose air defence capabilities got all but vaporised in the first 24h of conflict.

      But the kicker is that there are other kinds of adversaries out there as well. Think Iran: if the U.S. had gone to war with those guys, it would most definitely not have been over in 24h (which is arguably why neither they nor the Israelis have bothered recently). In such a conflict, it is all but certain that dogfighting situations would have developed: situations in which fighters without guns on board would have looked just a silly as they did back in Vietnam.

  7. Drones by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The future's probably in souped-up drones anyhow. You don't have to worry about pilot safety etc. and can gamble more in a dog-fight. Manned planes will not go away, but will become a niche.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  8. It is also a poor replacement for Thunderbolt II by blind+biker · · Score: 3, Informative

    The F-35 may have impressive tech, stealth, electronics and advanced missiles, but the Thunderbolt II is literally a flying tank that is able to take a lot of abuse and still keep flying. It also delivers an incredible amount of damage and its operating history is stellar. It's a great morale booster for ground troops, but the US air force wants to get rid of it.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  9. Re:Irrelevant by tchdab1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, the cons outpay the pros.

  10. Unfair T/W ratio and wing loading comparison by hkultala · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So they did their thrust/weight and wing loading comparison by loading all jets with 50% of internal fuel.

    This comparison favours planes with small internal fuel tanks.

    F-35 has huge internal fuel tanks, it can fly much longer with internal fuel than most other jet fighters (which need external fuel tanks, which are NOT calculated in these numbers) to fly as far.

    Load all jets with amount of fuel that makes them fly about equally far and the numbers switch considerably, on favour of F-35.

    1. Re:Unfair T/W ratio and wing loading comparison by hkultala · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So what you're saying is that the plane is incapable of dogfighting unless you throw away one of the design requirements?

      No.

      Here is an example. The numbers are from hat, not actual numbers.

      You go to fight 600 miles away. You load the F-35 to it's full internal fuel load. When you arrive to the fighting location, you now have 50% fuel in your tanks, and you have the same T/W and wing loading ratios than in the report.

      You also go to fight 600 miles away in F-16. You load it's internal tanks full, AND add two drop tanks. When you arrive to the location, your external tanks are empty, and you drop then. You are then fighting with full internal fuel load. Now, your real-world performance is WORSE than the numbers in the report, because you are fighting with full fuel tanks instead of half fuel tanks, and the report used fuel tanks that were half empty, half full.

      Or, you go to fight 300 miles away. You load F-35 to half of it's internal fuel load. When you arrive the fighting location, you have 25% fuel in your fuel tanks, and you have much better T/W and wing loading ratios than in the report, as the report fuel tanks that were half empty, half full.

      or, you load F-16 to it's full internal fuel load, and when you arrive to the fighting locaiton, you have 50% fuel left in your tanks, and you have the same T/W and wing loading ratios than in the report.

      In all real-world cases, you have have smaller relative amount of fuel in your fuel tanks in F-35 than in F-16, and the numbers will shift in favour of F-35.

      The design requirements say that F-35 has to fly a long distance with internal fuel, and that's just to make it stealthy, but not needing to use external fuel tanks.

  11. Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by duckintheface · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The whole anti-F35 argument rests on the report that one (1) F117 was shot down by Serbian forces using VHF technology. Otherwise, they are only talking about the possibility of long range tracking... not fire control radar. And in the case of that F117, there was no mention of the effective RCS.

    The arguments about dependency on forward bases is destroyed by VTOL capability, a fact that was not even touched on in the discussion. Similarly, while it was mentioned that the F18 could drop external fuel tanks in combat, no mention was made of the fact that the F35 could drop (or fire) external munitions in a similar situation.

    Overall, the review seems shallow and slanted against the F35. Personally, I think the military has far too many toys and their budget should be cut in half. But that does not make me blind to the sloppy arguments of this review.

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
    1. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      TFA actually does state the RCS for the F117 (it's about 30x larger than the F35)

      And most F35s are not VTOL, few are. Still, damage to the stealth coating will reduce stealtiness, so operating out of primitive conditions will degrade the aircraft's capabilities, what with gravel chewing up the paint (or ingesting the gravel into the engine)

      What is the price per unit of an F22 v F35, and annual operating cost of an F22 v F35?

      It would have been cheaper to navalize the F22 and expand production, leaving the F35 for only the Marines There's the FB22 proposal

    2. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The whole stealth sales pitch is nonsense. The stealth bomber was tracked by a rapier anti aircraft system at the Farnborough airshow in the UK when it first did a distant fly-by. Stealth is just bollocks. It's a smaller signature but a signature nonetheless.

    3. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, it may be a signature the size of a bird but it's a bird moving at a thousand kilometers an hour...

    4. Re: Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 4, Informative

      No F35 variant is VTOL. One variant is STOVL, but they scrapped the VTOL idea early on because the engineering costs were prohibitive.

      --
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    5. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      OK, try this one. These new expensive planes can't be built in quantities that will make any difference if the US finds itself in a long war, and especially in one where they may have to actually defend our airspace. I don't really care if you have a small number of super fighters that are actually any good if you have to use them to defend the whole of the continental US plus our imperial corporate assets overseas. I'll just go where they're not. Also, I don't care if I can't shoot them down. Fly them enough in those quantities and maintenance or lack of it will shoot them down for me.

      Oh, and building a number of planes and shutting down production lines after that? Stupid. Once the enemy figures out their tricks and starts shooting them down (or worse, figures out their tricks and DOESN'T shoot them down--at first) you'll need more. You'll really be wanting good performance fighters at reasonable cost then too...

      On the other hand, these are the planes for the Internet generation. Full of technology to solve some problems and utterly oblivious to other problems along the way. I mean, money, budgets, geographic coverage--that's so old world and stuff, right?

      On the other hand, both programs have been absolutely stellar successes at their actual mission: to transfer huge amounts of money from the American people to large defense contractor corporations.

    6. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by segedunum · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The whole anti-F35 argument rests on the report that one (1) F117 was shot down by Serbian forces using VHF technology. Otherwise, they are only talking about the possibility of long range tracking... not fire control radar. And in the case of that F117, there was no mention of the effective RCS.

      I'm afraid what happened in Serbia is only one example, and it is something that really should never have happened. The radar used there was not particularly sophisticated. If anyone knows they can track a F-35 or F-22 right now then they are going to keep their cards close to their chest.

      It gets worse for stealth though. In any major conflict radar and detection systems regularly get updated. The only way to respond to that with an aircraft that relies on stealth features is to take it out of service and change its shape and materials. That just isn't acceptable.

      The arguments about dependency on forward bases is destroyed by VTOL capability, a fact that was not even touched on in the discussion.

      Because it is totally irrelevant. VTOL in the F-35 is an even bigger joke because it had made an already ineffectual plane a sitting duck by making it even bulkier, less aerodynamic and heavier.

      Similarly, while it was mentioned that the F18 could drop external fuel tanks in combat, no mention was made of the fact that the F35 could drop (or fire) external munitions in a similar situation.

      The F-35 can carry less payload. It's as simple as that.

    7. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by segedunum · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Similarly, while it was mentioned that the F18 could drop external fuel tanks in combat, no mention was made of the fact that the F35 could drop (or fire) external munitions in a similar situation.

      The F-35 can carry less payload. It's as simple as that.

      I should clarify this and say that if the F-35 carries external munitions it completely loses any stealth advantage it has. So, you have an inferior aircraft that has lost its supposed primary advantage that it almost solely relies on. Not great.

    8. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by meta-monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

      How does that compare to the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    9. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by danbob999 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nonsense. The US spends over $600 billions/year on military. China spends only 216 and Russia 84. The US could still have the most powerful military on earth while cutting the budget by half. France and the UK both have a great military with only 60 billions/year. Last I checked they weren't using slingshots.

    10. Re: Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The ideal situation is to ride that razor's edge between project cancellation and profit

      In politics, there are no "sunk costs" so money squandered in the past, can be used to justify future squandering. The F-35 has been such a colossal waste of money, that it has become essentially unkillable. Any politician that cancelled it would be blamed for waste.

    11. Re: Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by wjsteele · · Score: 4, Informative

      No F35 variant is VTOL.

      Well... except for the STOVL variant. It's not normally used, but it is most definitely capable of VTOL.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Bill

      --
      It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
    12. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Imperial is a matter of debate.

      Are you saying that these forces are hostile to local population. Are they conquering troop? That is a defining characteristic of imperial.

      Would you rather move to (or have grown up in) North Korea (which stayed free from American Imperialism) or move (or have grown up in ) South Korea? You know, according to you, a country under the boot of American Imperialism?

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    13. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Um, you realize that the USAF intentionally equips its stealth aircraft with devices that will make them visible to radar when they perform in airshows and participate in international war games, right? This is not only done for safety reasons, but also to make sure that foreign nations can't get a look at the true radar signature of the aircraft.

      That's not to say that American stealth aircraft can't be tracked by radar, because they can. But normally they're not tracked well enough for a weapons release quality lock, or they don't detect them until they're close enough to be killed first.

    14. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Puerto Rico? I agree that having a protectorate is BS but the choice is theirs as to whether they become their own country. I was born and raised in NY. Been to PR. Know a lot of PRicans and very few want to be independent.

      This is not an imperial relationship. If you can leave at will. If troops aren't controlling your interaction it is not an imperial relationship.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    15. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Funny

      How does that compare to the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

      African or European?

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    16. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by gfxguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The F-16 was built to counter the smaller, cheaper, more nimble fighters we were facing in Vietnam - it's a great fighter, perhaps still one of the best, if not the best fighter for dogfights out there - small, fast, nimble... these other planes have other requirements, though. The F-18 was also built at that time for the same reason - it's ostensibly a better overall plane than the F-16, but if you were in a dogfight, the F-16 was the plane of choice. The Navy went for F-18s because it combined good fighting with better all-around capabilities (distance and payload capacities).

      The problem is that the F-35 shouldn't be in a dogfight with a smaller, more nimble fighter - it's supposed to work in conjunction with other technology to be able to approach stealthily and take out (perhaps even beyond visible range) other aircraft. When it comes down to a dogfight, it's out matched by any number of other planes.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    17. Re:Can the enemy actually shoot down the F35? by afidel · · Score: 3

      France and the UK combined are about the same size as Texas (760k km^2 vs 696k km^2) and each only has a single carrier group vs the US with 11 of which 5 are active at any one time with two on 90 day reserve. If France and the UK weren't part of NATO it's likely that they'd have 3-4 carrier groups each which would significantly increase their spending. Heck, the US typically has more nuclear submarines in docks than the UK has total. The only way we could realistically hope to cut huge percentages from our budget would be to tell our allies in SE Asia and Europe that they need to double or triple their own spending and give them a decade or two worth of warning (at least if we want to have the same balance of power in the world, if you want to have China and Russia exerting more influence in the world then sure unilaterally cut our budget without having our partners increase theirs)

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  12. Re:To be fair by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You are stepping close to the "dirty little secret" of the USAF, that the F15 on up they have had to put limiters on the planes lower than its real abilities because the simple fact is the planes can pull off moves that will kill the pilot, the meatsack behind the stick just can't handle what the plane is actually capable of.

    This is why building new planes (instead of simply building more of the teen series) is not only wasteful its pointless, the planes we have now can already do more than any human body can take. instead of pissing more money down a rathole for the F35 we should simply buy more of the teen series and if the fighter jocks still want their 1980s "stealth" tech? Just buy the F15 Silent Eagle which the last numbers I saw showed you could buy 3 of them for less than the cost of a single F35 and still have change left over.

    And am I the only one who feels like we are taking pages from the playbook of the Axis in WWII and making the same dumb moves? Instead of building affordable planes we keep sinking billions into "wonder weapons" that have the exact same outcome as the 262 and Panther in that they 1.- Cost too much per unit, 2.- Are VERY prone to breakdown so 3.- They spend more time in the shop than they do in battle so 4.- The enemy will always outnumber them by dozens if not hundreds to one. We have gotten lucky that the only ones we have been fighting are goat herders, because if we fought somebody like Russia or China with an abundance of fourth gen fighters? Our new toys would be facing 20+ to 1 odds and probably get spanked right out of the sky.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  13. Stupid story stays stupid by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 5, Insightful
    US air doctrine for quite some time has been to avoid dog fights - period. First shoot down the dangerous enemies with long range AAM, then the rest with short range AAM before they get a single shot at you. Heck, already between the mentioned 4th generation fighters, the US planes always lost against other planes, Russian or European, in dog fights - this is nothing new for the F-35.

    Last but not least: http://breakingdefense.com/201...

    "“a guy with maybe 100 hours in the F-35 versus a guy with 1,500+ Viper hours? I’ve seen thousand-hour F-16 guys in two-bag D-models beat up on brand new wingmen in clean, single-seat jets. It happens. It’s the reality of the amount of experience in your given cockpit.

    “Let’s see how it [the F-35] does when guys who are proficient in developed tactics do [sic] against guys with similar amounts experience–the realm of the bros in the operational test or Weapons School environment.”

    --
    Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
  14. Re:To be fair by swb · · Score: 3, Informative

    And am I the only one who feels like we are taking pages from the playbook of the Axis in WWII and making the same dumb moves?

    And just to have the nation that defeated you take all your research and develop your ideas into practical implementations!

    The Germans larger problem wasn't their innovation, but when most of their ideas came to fruition they were so out of resources and so pressured by Allied bombing that they couldn't further refine them. You can play what-if all day, but what if the Germans had five more years of time to refine many of their (then) far-out ideas?

    We could have been fighting an army with accurate and effective ballistic missiles, jet fighters, an infantry armed with select-fire assault rifles and already highly effective (and probably further refined) man-portable squad automatic weapon (the MG-42).

  15. F-35 is not a Dogfighting airplane by EmagGeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    F-35 is not meant to be a mission-specific airplane. It's meant to do many different things, and do each one of them very poorly in the name of saving cost.

    Oh wait... it doesn't save cost either. In fact it is orders of magnitude more expensive than 4th gen fighters. But, look at the bright said, at least it's an economic boon for certain well-connected congressional districts.

  16. Re:Jack of all trades, master of none by guacamole · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't think anybody in the AF believes that F-35 seriously replaces the A-10. It was just an excuse to get rid of A-10. The Air Force simply wants out of CAS business, hoping that the Army helicopters and precision strike from fighter-bomber jets will be good enough.

    Even though AF's main job for the last 20 years was about trucking the American troops and equipment back and forth to the site of deployment as well as providing CAS operations, the Air Force generals hate to be seen that way. Their minds are flying in the blue skies, where the non-existing glorious dog fights will be happening between super duper high tech fighter jets. That's why they spend their brain power so much on procuring those fighter jets, even though those are the least likely AF aircraft to see any real action.

  17. Re:Might be? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Far fetched claim, you say? Have you read any news, or watched any videos of the air shows around the world? Gen5 and Gen6 aircraft are flying, today. We can't get our shitty Gen5 into service, because it's a non-flying piece of shit. Pilots used to claim that they could fly a brick, if they had enough power. But, I never heard a pilot claim that he could fly a fuckiing turd - and that's the F-35, a huge god-damned turd.

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

    Dang - look at this - I'm way behind, myself. INDIA is a co-developer of a Gen5 fighter!
    http://www.defensenews.com/sto...

    Even Pakistan seems to be in on the act
    http://breakingdefense.com/201...

    This list is interesting, in that there are ten contenders, some of which only offer photos of static model planes.
    http://www.wonderslist.com/fif...
    Note that the Chinese offering is photographed while landing on an AIRCRAFT CARRIER - something the F-35 doesn't seem capable of doing yet.

    http://english.chinamil.com.cn...

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  18. US airpower by sjbe · · Score: 4, Informative

    And that's the point that's being missed in this discussion, the fact that the US hasn't really gone up against anyone in head-to-head air combat since the Vietnam War

    You mean except for the first Gulf War? While it was a huge mismatch the Iraqi air force had plenty of Mig-29, Mig-25, Mig-23 and Mirage F1 fighters which were reasonably modern at the time of the conflict. 36 Iraqi aircraft were shot down in aerial combat. That counts as going head to head even if the outcome was decidedly lopsided.

    Honestly there are only a handful of countries that really could go head to head with US airpower and have a prayer of not getting massacred and even then it would really only be over their home country or close to it. The US has more planes, (generally) better planes and pilots as well trained as any in the world PLUS better infrastructure like AWACS and refueling, not to mention exactly half the worlds supply of aircraft carriers.

  19. Only place left for "glory" by Nidi62 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You are stepping close to the "dirty little secret" of the USAF, that the F15 on up they have had to put limiters on the planes lower than its real abilities because the simple fact is the planes can pull off moves that will kill the pilot, the meatsack behind the stick just can't handle what the plane is actually capable of.

    This is why building new planes (instead of simply building more of the teen series) is not only wasteful its pointless, the planes we have now can already do more than any human body can take. instead of pissing more money down a rathole for the F35 we should simply buy more of the teen series and if the fighter jocks still want their 1980s "stealth" tech? Just buy the F15 Silent Eagle which the last numbers I saw showed you could buy 3 of them for less than the cost of a single F35 and still have change left over.

    And am I the only one who feels like we are taking pages from the playbook of the Axis in WWII and making the same dumb moves? Instead of building affordable planes we keep sinking billions into "wonder weapons" that have the exact same outcome as the 262 and Panther in that they 1.- Cost too much per unit, 2.- Are VERY prone to breakdown so 3.- They spend more time in the shop than they do in battle so 4.- The enemy will always outnumber them by dozens if not hundreds to one. We have gotten lucky that the only ones we have been fighting are goat herders, because if we fought somebody like Russia or China with an abundance of fourth gen fighters? Our new toys would be facing 20+ to 1 odds and probably get spanked right out of the sky.

    With modern combat the way it is, it is very difficult for rising brass to make a name for themselves. In WWII, Korea, even Vietnam, very heavy air- to air combat and massive bombing campaigns allowed officers to build reputations and further their careers. Commanding a squadron with a couple aces in it will fasttrack you for promotion, so will orchestrating the logistics of a 6-month bombing campaign. Hell, even running a bunch of successful Wild Weasel type attacks will get you medals and promotions real quick. But strafing missions against a convoy of technicals or dropping a couple bombs on some mortar or rocket positions, what does that get you? These days, the only way to boost a career and get your name out there is to get it attached to a major acquisition program. What's a couple billion dollars in tax payer money wasted if it gets you an extra star on your collar, makes you powerful friends on Capital Hill, and secures you a good consulting job after you retire?

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil