Boeing Wins Bid To Build the Navy's Carrier-Launched Tanker Drone (arstechnica.com)

Boeing has been awarded an $805 million contract by the U.S. Navy to build four prototypes of its design for the MQ-25 "Stingray," an unmanned, carrier-based tanker aircraft. The drone "will help extend the range of the Navy's future carrier air wings and keep carriers themselves out of range of coastal defenses," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin and General Atomics for the contract. Northrop Grumman -- which built the Navy's first carrier-based drone prototype, the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System-Demonstration (UCAS-D) -- dropped out of the competition last year. The prototype contract is the first step toward delivering "initial operating capability," a first production run of the drones, by 2024. The MQ-25's design requirements called for an aircraft capable of launching from a carrier deck and delivering 14,000 pounds (6,300kg) of fuel to aircraft 500 nautical miles (926km) away. That capacity and range, along with the low-observable shape of the drone, could essentially double the range of F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-35C Joint Strike Fighter attack missions. Eventually, Boeing could deliver up to 72 Stingrays at a cost of $13 billion.

Comments

$13 billion

[Joce640k]

How much good could be done with $13 billion dollars?

Re: $13 billion

[aleck7]

Hundreds of tons of democracy:)

Re: $13 billion

[Anonymous Coward]

Militarism: building every larger weapons with no enemy targets.

Re: $13 billion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay. Finally a lumbering tanker can be downed, and the low profile coating copied and sold to anyone with enough cash. Differential phased radar arrays are known, so stealthy 20 years ago is not so stealthy today.

I does seem a cheaper solution to refit used commercial jetliners with gas tanks, and have expendable H1B Visa students flying the things remote control.

What problem does this solve? Name one countrry within 900km of another country target that wont allow the USA to operate tankers on? A floating barge on the Caspian sea would also be cheaper and stealthier.

Re:$13 billion

[gweihir]

Indeed. Education, health, culture, etc. The waste is incredible. And if you consider that these things are primarily for killing people and destroying wealth, the price is even higher.

Re:$13 billion

[CaptainDork]

$13 billion dollars could do some good by amping up the US military's capability to fight longer, and more frequent "wars," that keep young men and women employed.

I put "wars" in quotes because there's no exit plan and no intent to actually "win," anything more than money.

Also at stake, is the manufacturer's market of countries outside American borders.

You know, like the painfully inadequate F-35 (Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Australia, Turkey, Norway, Denmark, Israel, Japan, South Korea) and the M1 Abrams Battle Tank (Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Iraq).

World War II brought America out of the Great Depression.

The US is not about to fuck with that universal basic income.

Re:$13 billion

[Alypius]

About a sixth of the "good" that People Who Are Better Than You do.

Re:$13 billion

[Luckyo]

"You need security, because without security, everything else will be taken from you".

Citation: pretty much every country which US decided to use warfare against.

Re:$13 billion

[Patent Lover]

You could provide welfare to U.S. farmers affected by ill advised tariffs.

Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

There is nothing more salient that Eisenhower's warning about the Military Industrial Complex. I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Anonymous Coward]

Money isn't worth a whole lot if the country is overrun by communist, sorry, islamist hordes.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[gtall]

Ermmm...you are familiar with U.S. healthcare costs, yes? According to the numbers in 2017, the U.S. spent a bit over $3 trillion on healthcare.

The U.S. GDP for 2017 was about $18.5 Trillion. The Defense bill for that year was roughly $600 Billion. Of that $600, about half goes for military salaries and healthcare, another $150 for overhead on facilities (bases, etc.). That left about $150 - $200 Billion for procurement. But that procurement covers everything, not just new weapons. There is no swinging a $18.5 Trillion economy on $200 Billion defense procurement.

BTW: The military-industrial complex died during Reagan years. Companies found that the U.S. military was small potatoes compared to the civilian economy and it shifted to it. Now, the Pentagon has to beg companies to produce for it since DoD's market is so small in comparison to the rest of the economy.

Do try to keep up, eh?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[CrimsonAvenger]

I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?

Hmm, 330 megapeople, $13B....

That works out to about $40 per person. So, maybe one doctor's visit per person, at best?

Re: Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Anonymous Coward]

We did not spend 3 trillion on healthcare, we spent 3 trillion on insurance company care. The insurance companies bribed the government to force all americans to give them 150 or so odd bucks a month so they can deny coverage to pay for the artificially inflated cost of seeing the doctor.

If you want to fix health care you to have the patient paying the doctor directly. You can not have a middle man, whether it be the insurance company bureacrat or a government bureacrate mucking things up.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing more salient that Eisenhower's warning about the Military Industrial Complex. I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?

I think you are missing the point. The American people at large do not want healthcare, they are horrified by the prospect of getting healthcare from anybody but politically connected insurance companies peddling useless healthcare insurance policies at premium prices. This is what the people elected Trump and his stalwart group of patriots to do, to end this socialist healthcare madness. President Trump and his patriots, like a bodyguard throwing himself into the line of fire, are throwing themselves (in a supreme act of patriotic sacrifice that should bring tears to the eyes of any red blooded American) into the path of the poisoned bullet that the diabolical left wing intended to use bring 'socialist' healthcare to the American people.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Joce640k]

Sure, but that's only ONE item on the military budget.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

BTW: The military-industrial complex died during Reagan years. Companies found that the U.S. military was small potatoes compared to the civilian economy and it shifted to it. Now, the Pentagon has to beg companies to produce for it since DoD's market is so small in comparison to the rest of the economy.

Do try to keep up, eh?

Here is a handy visual guide to US budget allocations from 2007.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

I wonder how much healthcare could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion?

Hmm, 330 megapeople, $13B....

That works out to about $40 per person. So, maybe one doctor's visit per person, at best?

That's a lot of doctors visits. I know it's not a great deal of money however consider it also from another perspective, the amount of money the military wastes with The Washington post exposing $125 Billion in wasted Military spending . That's roughly 10 doctors visits per person, just from the waste spending alone.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[LynnwoodRooster]

I wonder of you realize we already spend more on healthcare than defense. Around $1 trillion a year is spent - at the Federal level alone - on healthcare. Given that level of spending (about $3,050 per man, woman, and child in the US), I don't think this amount (about $40 per man, woman and child) would help much, if anything.

Re: Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[LynnwoodRooster]

The Federal Government spent $986 billion directly in 2015, itself. It's beyond $1 trillion now. And that does not include State and local Governments. This does not include individual spending, as well - just Government spending.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[LynnwoodRooster]

Rather, that's the co-pay on one doctor's visit. The cost would be easily 3 to 4 times that amount, meaning, in actual dollars, you'd get to talk to the receptionist and fill out half your forms for this amount of money.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on the last time I had to go to the hospital in the US, 13 billion should be enough to cover three broken arms and a cucumber removal.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[CaptainDork]

"Let's do the math." ~ Sheldon to Leonard's mother, The Big Bang Theory

MEDICARE (Net of Offsetting Receipts): 583
MEDICAID: 383
HEALTH INSURANCE SUBSIDIES AND RELATED SPENDING: 58
CHILDREN’S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM: 16

Total: 1040

13/1040=.0125 or 1.25%.

1.25% additional healthcare expenditure could be provided with the taxpayers $13 Billion slated for the Navy's Carrier-Launched Tanker Drone.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[CaptainDork]

The health care number you provide is not relevant to this discussion.

For analysis, we need to carve out all non-government expenditures.

Your value includes the private sector, while the tanker drone cost is taxpayer-supported.

A more realistic number for governmental health care expenditure is $1,040 billion.

PROJECTIONS FOR MAJOR HEALTH CARE PROGRAMS FOR FY 2018
(As of April 1, 2018 )

MEDICARE (Net of Offsetting Receipts)
583 Billion

MEDICAID
383 Billion

HEALTH INSURANCE SUBSIDIES AND RELATED SPENDING
$58 Billion

CHILDREN’S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM
$16 Billion

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet any social service proposed that's 10% of this cost gets met with right-wing absolute hysteria over the cost. Why is a $600B war funding just a "small part of the US's GDP", while a $10B social service is "financially irresponsible and completely unaffordable".

I'm so sick of the military being above cost concerns while spending that would actually help people gets kicked to the curb even when it's ridiculously cheap compared to military costs.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter. If you make $13 billion available to the health care industry, they will take it without providing any additional services: they just raise the price to absorb the excess supply of money. To get anything for that money, you need a third voice in the transaction, someone looking at what the money pays for and evaluating the performance for price demanded: a customer with skin in the game.
As long as the customer is not the primary payer (insurance or the government is), prices will continue to skyrocket, and any money thrown at healthcare will be thrown away from the payer's perspective. Hospital administrators will continue to grow richer.
It's better to have a $13 billion drone tanker than to transfer more wealth to hospital administrators.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Dutch Gun]

That "visual guide" is very misleading because it's only showing the discretionary budget, making it look like defense spending is by far the largest part of the total budget. Here's a more accurate, if less visually pleasing, set of charts.

2018:
https://www.usgovernmentspendi...

2007:
https://www.usgovernmentspendi...

TL;DR version: the budget for defense spending in 2018 was 21%, and in 2007 was 24%.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

That's comparing apples to oranges. In US, government is the provider of security for all its citizens, but it's not provider of healthcare for all its citizens.

Your comparison would make sense in 100% socialized healthcare. I'm not aware of a single country where such healthcare exists.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

That "visual guide" is very misleading because it's only showing the discretionary budget,

TL;DR version: the budget for defense spending in 2018 was 21%, and in 2007 was 24%.

It's very interesting, thank you. I note that the spending on Education is 4% in 2007 and 3% in 2018.

I seem to remember that a lot of people are chained to education debt, it would seem to me that there are a lot of opportunities to increase spending in that area. educating people is a good thing isn't it? It looks like that waste millitary budget would do a lot of people a lot of good there don't you think?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Why are we even letting Trump bring Russia and Korea into the house?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[MrKaos]

Money isn't worth a whole lot if the country is overrun by communist, sorry, islamist hordes.

I can't say I'm a friend of either or any other ism that trashes Human Rights by torturing people.

You have to be able to point at fundamental characteristics of these violations of human dignity, caused by these groups with their hordes, that go into someone else's country, declare war on the people, spread lasting invasive aggression against their culture and, declare that to be evil.

Thank God we've got the U.S to protect us against such violations.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[DNS-and-BIND]

That's nothing, we give away $150 billion in subsidies to Europe every year in our horrible trade deals. Plus, we subsidize their defense as well, so they don't have to build expensive militaries. All of this for a continent of wealthy, first world democracies. And we get precious little gratitude for it and lots of abuse.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[angel'o'sphere]

I'm not aware of a single country where such healthcare exists.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Cuba, and I'm pretty certain: China.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

I'm Finnish. We do not have 100% public healthcare. You're grossly misinformed on at least all of the Nordics and China. I do not have sufficient information on Cuba to argue the point.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[angel'o'sphere]

So you don't have healthcare included in the taxes like the danish and the other nordics?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

We do, just like US. Just like in US, the coverage offered by public healthcare isn't anywhere close to 100%.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

And btw, our public medical system, to my knowledge, is the most efficient in Nordics. Others have it worse, higher costs and/or worse outcomes. Things like birth tourism from Sweden are very real.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[angel'o'sphere]

How do you mean that?

I don't understand it. If you pay taxes and don't need a health insurance, obviously it is 100% public.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

Depends on what you qualify as "need".

Do you need non-emergency surgery that destroys your quality of life without waiting for it for months and some cases years? You need insurance.

Do you want your child to get to GP in the morning when he feels ill, and not spend entire day being tossed around from receptionist to nurse to GP appointment at just past midday if you're lucky and "come back tomorrow or go wait five hours in queue at central hospital ER, who will just toss you back to us around 15:00 when you finally get to see the doctor having gone there around 10:00?" You need insurance.

Do you want to have a tooth replaced, rather than just pulled? You need insurance. Want to have your teeth checked by a doctor more often than once every two years, and have to wait for this check for six months after asking for it? You need insurance.

Public healthcare around here works on the same base principle as it does in US. It covers "necessary procedures only" and it covers them "in reasonably timely manner for the entire system". That's what makes system efficient as a whole. It's also what makes you wait for that knee surgery that makes it impossible for you to get a job for over a year, with first six months wait for necessary MRI scan, followed by another six months for actual surgery (actual recent case with 19 year old I know through my sports contacts who graduated as a metal worker the previous year and busted his knee in a football game, and for some weird reason he decided not to have private insurance which is actually required to have a licence to play in terms of license of the local sports federation).

Which is why private healthcare is a massive industry in Scandinavian countries. There are enough wealthy people to afford it, who use it instead of underfunded public system with its (comparatively) horrendous queues and conditions. Additionally insurance isn't that expensive compared to income.

The thing that is different between US and us is not the principle. Principle is actually the exact same. What's different is what is considered "covered by public healthcare vs private sector".

Which is why if you have a child who is insured by the state, your healthcare in US will be far superior compared to public care around here. Which is why private health insurance for children is one of the bigger private medical fields. But if you're an adult and out of work, your healthcare around here will be much better. And if you're elderly, it flips again. Horrendous treatment of elderly in the public system is something of a meme at this point around here, as public sector aims at maximum efficiency of the entire system, at the cost of the individual patients who need something beyond basic care. I've witnessed this idiocy personally when my grandmother spent about six months slowly dying a few years ago. Let's just say that it diminished my view of the purported benefits of the system quite severely, as she was bounced around the system with its wonderful queues for over a year, and when she finally got to a necessary specialist, it was too late.

Essentially, public system serves everyone as a whole better, because it can aim at treating "the average" which is running noses and slight fever and extreme cases that are emergency care with maximum efficiency. And when you need specialist non-emergency care, same prioritisation leads to month-long queues for advanced procedures like MRI and non-emergency surgery. Because in any system where public is also the "care of last resort", emergency care must be prioritised above all. Which means that everything that isn't emergency care and general care, you better hope that condition you have doesn't impact your life severely for a few months. Because that's how long you'll be waiting.

Or you can get it done in private sector with no wait period. Which is why law literally mandates that working people get private healthcare paid by the employer, and why private healthcare for children is such a big profit driver in private me

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Pieroxy]

Exactly. Why are we even letting Trump bring Russia and Korea into the house?

Because you elected him as your president ?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[angel'o'sphere]

Interesting.
Never heard something like this from my friends in Denmark or Norway.
How much in relation to a wage would such a private insurance cost?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

Depends on wage. One of the less often stated reasons as to why children from poor families perform significantly worse is in the fact that they have to take significantly more sick days off on average due to inefficiency of the public system. It's something of a meme among the upper middle class in Helsinki that you must really hate your child if you don't get him private health insurance.

As for working people, as I noted above, private insurance system is literally written into law. When you provide someone with employment, you are required by law to provide them with "työterveys", literally "work health". In most cases that means you just buy the services of one of the local major private health care providers like Terveystalo or Mehiläinen who have everything from basic GP services to specialized hospitals.

Even university students have a semi-private semi-public healthcare organisation called YTHS for the same reason as one I list above. Society recognises that most productive people cannot be bounced around in queue for days on end to see a doctor when they're ill.

So clear majority of people in the nation actually have private health insurance of some kind, and don't have to use public healthcare system beyond the deeply specialized central/university hospitals for specialist care and emergency care.

And the current big legislative drive is to allow the said healthcare giants to buy into that sector as well.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[angel'o'sphere]

When you provide someone with employment, you are required by law to provide them with "tyÃterveys", literally "work health".
Yeah, but that is what you claimed Finnland would not have: socialized healthcare. Obviously one has to pay, and in your case it is the company. That is not what we would call "private health insurance", it is still "public health insurance".

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

So in your view, all private health care offered in the US by employers is "public" because [weird and utterly irrelevant spin on what "public" and "private" mean]. Ok. The private companies in question would deny your slanderous claims voraciously, and me not being a postmodernist crazy I'll just point at you and state "how about we don't redefine private as public because you desperately want it" but let's go with your daft redefinition for the sake of argument.

Do you now understand that no matter which way you spin this, it ends exactly at my point that the only difference between our model and US model is how wide the coverage is? Because in the US, the process by which healthcare is delivered to workers with insurance is in principle exactly the same. The only difference is that there are more people who aren't covered.

Now I'm done with this weird word redefinition game, where you redefine words as their polar opposites because of your severe ideological prejudices. Public still means "provided by the state" and private still means "provided by non-state entity".

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[angel'o'sphere]

I don't really care how you define it.

I simply pointed out that the terms private and public are used different in the rest of europe.

If a company is forced by law to provide a health insurance (as it is in germany) it is PUBLIC!

It is up to any citizen to have an additional private one, or not.

On the other hand a car owner is forced to privately insure his car, so obviously the 'naming' is a bit arbitrary.

Why do you always seek an dispute, where we are onky discussing?

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[Luckyo]

Problem being that that's literally how everyone defines it. You're the only one so insane as to contest this, and your statement literally concluded that US worker insurance is public.

But then, you also call yourself and expert in power generation, while making statements like that Germany can control wind. So I guess whenever you go and do your rain dance and whatever in drug addled shamanic trance, words do indeed flip 180 degrees to mean their polar opposites.

Re:Eisenhower's Farewell Address

[angel'o'sphere]

while making statements like that Germany can control wind
Are you retarded?
I never made a statement like this.

Considering thatwe talked in this thread about healthcare in Finnland, you now lost al credibility ... I guess I find one who is more sane.

You've got to be fucking kidding

[Bearhouse]

I wonder how many drones Burt Rutan could punch out for that kind of money....a lot more than 72 I'm guessing

Re: You've got to be fucking kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

Scaled is now owned by Northrop Grumman. The x47 was constructed by them. Ruthâ(TM)s has been retired for a number of years now.

$13 billion of work for the home districts

[Anonymous Coward]

$13 billion of work for the home districts of congress critters.
So, you get smart people working for you instead of your enemies, which are looking for these people on LinkedIn.
Much of military and NASA expenditures are high-priced welfare, since corporations could definitely do these things much more economically, if there wasn't some General/Admiral setting stupid requirements without willing to compromise.

Sometimes a requirement can almost be met for 50% less, but the Admiral will say, X is the requirement, not X-0.0001. This happens more often than people know. There is a plus side, it forces new technologies to be used to get to X + 0.0001 solutions, but at a 2-3x price.

We used to see similar solutions by the EPA raising fuel economy standards every 10 yrs. The car companies would complain that it wasn't possible, then find solutions.

Re:$13 billion of work for the home districts

[Luckyo]

The difference of that fraction of a percent is often the difference between military grade and civilian hardware. In civilian world, it's typically not an issue of life and death to have a failure. And in civilian life, even a catastrophic loss often means life goes on.

In military world, both are reversed, which is why military leaders are such sticklers for details.

The F/A-18 was a mistake

[jfdavis668]

The Navy wanted a dual purpose fighter-attack aircraft. To get it, the sacrificed range. The aircraft it replaced had far longer range, being designed for their task. Ever since, the Navy has been reliant on mid-air refueling to get anywhere. Planes launch with large bomb loads and nearly empty tanks, and have to mid-air refuel before they event start the mission.

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[Freischutz]

The Navy wanted a dual purpose fighter-attack aircraft. To get it, the sacrificed range. The aircraft it replaced had far longer range, being designed for their task. Ever since, the Navy has been reliant on mid-air refueling to get anywhere. Planes launch with large bomb loads and nearly empty tanks, and have to mid-air refuel before they event start the mission.

That sounds like something that would be disastrous in anything other than uncontested airspace. One can only imagine what kind of havoc a few J-20 stealth fighters penetrating a Navy fighter CAP could do if they caught one of those strike packages still suckling fuel from their milker cows. All they'd have to do was burn into the area, hose of a ripple of medium range missiles and haul ass. I'm reminded of stories told by Luftwaffe veterans of flying into huge formations Lancaster/Halifax bombers getting themselves into order for attacks on Germany or coming in after an attack and just tearing one bomber after the others to shreds. Not only could you move more or less undetected among the enormous amount of air traffic, you could just fly down the approach lanes and shoot the big fat things down one by one as they came in for a landing and then finish the job by dropping a few sticks of small bombs or a cluster bomb on the runway. Once you were done the news spread like wildfire among the still airborne bombers turning an already hard to handle air traffic control situation into a glorious mess and if you were lucky some more bombers would be lost to forced landings and mid-air collisions. Eventually Hitler actually forbade intruder missions by German night fighters over the UK in one of his temper tantrums which was a good thing for the RAF, because they were very effective.

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[thrich81]

Well, first of all, there was plenty of mid-air refueling of the Navy's tactical aircraft before the F-18 came along. At introduction in the '80s, the F-18 initially replaced two carrier based aircraft -- the F-4 (on the small carriers not suitable for F-14s) and the A-7. It is a better fighter than the F-4 in almost every respect, including range, and vastly better as a close-in dogfighter for what that's worth. It is better than the A-7 as an attack aircraft in every respect except in range and it is far more survivable than the A-7 in any combat situation. Not needing to hit the tanker on a strike isn't an advantage if you get shot down on ingress. At the time it was designed, the F-18 wasn't intended to replace the F-14, any more than the F-16 was intended to replace the F-15. However the F-14 fleet got old and was always expensive and the F-18 turned out to be "good enough" for the fighter role against the threats the Navy encountered since the time the F-18 entered service so its better flexibility, maintainability, and more modern avionics made it the Navy's selection as an actual replacement for the F-14 when the bigger F-18E and F were proposed (yeah, I know, the E and F are almost new designs, not just derivatives). Same thing happened to the A-6 and EA-6 which eventually got replaced by the F-18F and F-18G -- the old specialized airplanes no longer had enough of an advantage to make up for the overall system wide advantages of an all F-18 fleet. The F-18 (and F-35) are compromised, multirole airplanes, but the Navy really likes that because the carriers don't have room for a bunch of specialized models.

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[Graymalkin]

The point of the Hornet was to reduce the number of planes needed for a sortie. In the first Gulf War a pair of Hornets on a bombing mission shot down two Iraqi fighters sent to intercept them and then continued on with their bombing mission. The planes it replaced could not have done that.

While mid-air refueling is a logistics challenge it's a common aspect of carrier operations. Hornets (or any attack plane) could launch with a full fuel load but it would necessitate a lighter combat load. It's better to launch with less fuel because it can be replenished in flight where weapons can't be.

Carrier-based ground attack missions have changed a lot in the past several decades. In Vietnam bombing missions against static targets required manned attack planes, today those missions are done with cruise missiles. Even when manned planes are needed there's guided stand off weapons that increase attack planes' effective combat radius.

The range for capability trade off seems to have been a good one for the Hornet based on its performance over the past 30 years. It's not the perfect plane but it's made CSGs' air wings more effective since most of the planes can pull double duty.

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[Luckyo]

That is literally the point of aircraft like J-20. They're not fighters per se, so much as they are interceptors. Their mission profile appears to be "avoid detection, get to high value assets like tankers and AWACS aircraft, kill them, avoid defenders and come home".

Notably Soviets/Russians had the same idea, but they have better engine tech for both jets and missiles, so they do it at stand-off range. That's literally what MiG-31 is built for. Stand off range aerial interception of high value targets with minimal dogfighting capability.

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[CanadianMacFan]

You're going to love the F-35!

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[angel'o'sphere]

Easy to imagine. Difficult to pull off.

Stealth fighters/bombers are mostly stealth from below or for other planes flying similar heights, depending on course ofc. That also means that long range radar guided air to air missiles have trouble to lock on a stealth fighter.

But: they are not so invisible from above, e.g. for an carrier based Hawk Eye or an Land based AWACS.

However I have no clue what range heat guided missiles have and how they lock on at a stealth plane (especially if fired over a long distance)

And don't forget, carriers have their own defenses and a screen of support ships around them. Then again, EXOCETs are extremely effective.

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[Agripa]

The Navy wanted a dual purpose fighter-attack aircraft. To get it, the sacrificed range. The aircraft it replaced had far longer range, being designed for their task. Ever since, the Navy has been reliant on mid-air refueling to get anywhere. Planes launch with large bomb loads and nearly empty tanks, and have to mid-air refuel before they event start the mission.

That sounds like something that would be disastrous in anything other than uncontested airspace.

With the demise of the Soviet Union, it was decided that the capabilities of the F-14 did not need to be replaced and that shorter range air defense would be sufficient.

Re:The F/A-18 was a mistake

[Agripa]

The F-18 (and F-35) are compromised, multirole airplanes, but the Navy really likes that because the carriers don't have room for a bunch of specialized models.

The Midway and Nimitz class carriers typically had like 90 aircraft during the the cold war. Since then, carrier air wings have dropped to 60 aircraft or less so space is not a consideration although having fewer aircraft does make operations easier.

This becomes especially relevant considering that operating radius has decreased to half with the loss of longer range fighters and attack aircraft which explains the navy's desire for a dedicated tanker.

DoDâ(TM)s cost structure is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

These weapon systems are so expensive they try to not expose them.

F-35 = $103 million a copy
CH-53E = $136 million a copy

The US armed forces tries to not use CH-53E in hostile territory because of cost.

How about F-35s that will never be combat ready.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a28685/f-35s-unfit-for-combat/

Why do we buy these systems?

We should be building planes with longer ranges or evaluate the need / effectiveness of carriers when weapons like the DF-21 stonefish exist.

Re:DoDâ(TM)s cost structure is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that is untrue.. The F-35 price has been driven down to $89M each, putting it in the same range as MUCH MUCH less capable aircraft such as the F-18, Eurofighter, and F-15s. In combat exercises, the F-35 has suffered 0 losses to 8 F-15 losses.

Similar results are obtained against the venerable F-16, itself a first-rate 4th generation fighter, and the EuroFighter. One F-16 pilot put it like so: "We went to our simulated airfield out in the far part of the airspace. As the two ship from the northern half of the airspace we turned hot, drove for about 30 seconds and we were dead, just like that. We never even saw (the F-35A).”"

That is not a fluke, and it is not because advances are being given to the F-35s: just the opposite in fact. The overall kill ratio of the F-35 in Red Flag exercises against all 4th gen opponents stands at 15 to 1.

This anti-F35 FUD needs to stop. Yes, the F-35 program has had problems. Yes, it was initially overpriced. But if you will recall the early days of the F-16, when it was known as the "Lawn Dart", it too suffered many early technology issues that left pilots dead and aircraft lost, yet the F-16 turned into one of the premier light fighters of the 80's and 90's.

The F-35 is in a similar place. Prices are being driven down to about where a high end 4th generation aircraft cost, and the plane is simply playing a different game than its 4th generation equivalents due to advances in stealth, in sensor integration, in situational awareness for pilots, and more.

So please stop the F-35 FUD. It's flawed, but so is every complex aircraft ever made.

Re:DoDâ(TM)s cost structure is a joke

[Freischutz]

These weapon systems are so expensive they try to not expose them.

F-35 = $103 million a copy CH-53E = $136 million a copy

The US armed forces tries to not use CH-53E in hostile territory because of cost.

How about F-35s that will never be combat ready. https://www.popularmechanics.c...

Why do we buy these systems?

We should be building planes with longer ranges or evaluate the need / effectiveness of carriers when weapons like the DF-21 stonefish exist.

If it's any consolation, the Chinese Chengdu J-20 is thought to cost in the vicinity of $120 million per unit. I rather like the Chinese concept behind the Chengdu J-31 better, it is estimated to costs only about $60-70 million per unit. It may not be quite as sophisticated as the F-35 but if you can build it in larger numbers that won't matter too much and if the Chinese can achieve the kind of cost lowering the F-35A has achieved as production of it ramped up, the price tag on a J-31 could drop into the $50 million range or lower. In an all out war my money is always going to be on the guy who can make adequate tanks/guns/planes in huge numbers and not on the guy who goes beyond the point of diminishing returns to include lots of engineering excellence in their designs or wastes resources on bleeding edge projects like the Nazis did (and they did both those things).

Re:DoDâ(TM)s cost structure is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

The CH-53E is only $24 million per helicopter. The CH-53K will be more like $130 million.

Neither is primarily a combat helicopter: they're heavy lifters, used for logistics and transport, not the air cav. They don't see much combat because that's not the intent of their design.

The F-35 is a whole different story.

Re:DoDâ(TM)s cost structure is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

I, uh, suggest you do not take military readiness advice from Popular Mechanics magazine.

In fact, I suggest you believe nothing you read in Popular Mechanics, since a better example of everything wrong with "science journalism" would be hard to find.

unmanned

[Anonymous Coward]

A twenty percent decrease in the armaments industry would result in a depression worse than the thirtys. I'll wait for the video of this thing crash-landing on a carrier.

Boeing has 2 tanker contracts now

[Anonymous Coward]

The replace,met tanker for the Air Force has been delayed for years, with increasing costs. Airbus originally won the contract but was turned down when Boeing complained. Now the airbus tanker has been in use for a number of years and Boeing is still struggling with issues on their replacements.

Will be interesting to see how quickly the navy tanker will come online. It will be simpler, only requiring probe and droge .

terrible waste of money

[NikeHerc]

Two thoughts on this boondoggle: first, it's a terrible waste of money and second (and well put a few posts above), it's an accident waiting to happen on landing.

Re:terrible waste of money

[Agripa]

Two thoughts on this boondoggle: first, it's a terrible waste of money and second (and well put a few posts above), it's an accident waiting to happen on landing.

Think of it as an opportunity cost. The navy either has to acquire longer range fighters and strike aircraft, buy more of their existing aircraft to use as tankers, or acquire a dedicated tanker aircraft.

As far as reliability, I suspect an automated drone will be more reliable than a human pilot in short order for difficult operations like landings.

Re:terrible waste of money

[NikeHerc]

The navy either has to acquire longer range fighters and strike aircraft, buy more of their existing aircraft to use as tankers, or acquire a dedicated tanker aircraft.

There is no need for the navy to do any of the above. Consider:

"A total of 262 KC-135s and 46 KC-10s operating out of 21 locations in 10 countries provided round the clock aerial refueling support to U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and Coalition forces during Desert Storm." (https://archive.org/stream/DTIC_ADA279743/DTIC_ADA279743_djvu.txt with obvious typos in aircraft designations corrected.)

As far as reliability, I suspect an automated drone will be more reliable than a human pilot in short order for difficult operations like landings.

You can suspect all you want, but when was the last time you heard of a tanker crashing on a carrier? Navy pilots are exceptionally good at landing on carriers.

Re:terrible waste of money

[Agripa]

The navy either has to acquire
longer range fighters and strike aircraft, buy more of their existing aircraft to use as tankers, or acquire a dedicated tanker aircraft.

There is no need for the navy to do any of the above. Consider:

"A total of 262 KC-135s and 46 KC-10s operating out of 21 locations
in 10 countries provided round the clock aerial refueling support to U.S.
Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and Coalition forces during
Desert Storm." (https://archive.org/stream/DTIC_ADA279743/DTIC_ADA279743_djvu.txt with obvious typos in aircraft designations corrected.)

Yet the navy still maintains their own in-flight refueling capability using fighter/attack aircraft.

Isn't a majority of the air force's tanker assets reserved for strategic operations?

As far as reliability, I suspect an automated drone will be more reliable than a human pilot in short order for difficult operations like landings.

You can suspect all you want, but when was the last time you heard of a tanker crashing on a carrier? Navy pilots are exceptionally good at landing on carriers.

Using drones for refueling would free up pilots (or the expense of those pilots) for jobs they can currently do better than autonomous aircraft.

a carrier will last 15 mins ...

[captbollocks]

Against a serious foe such as Russia or China.

So a total waste of money.

True but we also waste ridiculous amounts

[rsilvergun]

of money by not doing single payer. If you take the most anti-single payer stance possible (the Koch Bros) you come up with $2 trillion in savings in 10 years. That's absolute worst case scenario by a right wing think tank trying to torpedo single payer. Other estimates have put it north of $17 trillion. And that's before you start factoring productivity and wage gains from people being healthier and being able to change jobs w/o fear of losing access to their meds and dying.

But heck, lets say we take that $13 billion and just focus on the 45,000 that die every year of preventable illnesses due to lack of healthcare. I think that'd go a long way. It would also help stabilize our country's political situation.

Wages are declining, high paying work's being replaced with McJobs and healthcare and housing are becoming inaccessible. We're in a second gilded age. That's can't continue. Sooner or later it's going to blow up in our faces like it did for Germany in the late 30s/early 40s when the world put those damn reparations on them.

I don't see how

[rsilvergun]

We spent just shy of $50 billion on it. I'd say it was a resounding success (for the defense contractors). Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make a payment on some student loans.

This is useful

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a STEALTHY carrier based tanker, to refuel the stealthy F-35 carrier based ground attack aircraft. Used when fighting a decent power with an air defense system and antiship missiles (Iran). I do wish the Navy would keep using the cheaper to operate S-3 Viking when possible.

Re:This is useful

[NikeHerc]

It's a STEALTHY carrier based tanker...

Yes, I can read, thank you. At more than $180 million for *each* tanker ("72 Stingrays at a cost of $13 billion..."), this is just a hideous, hideous waste of money! And that doesn't count the inevitable cost overruns. If the military can't think of some significantly smaller expenditures, then we need some new military leaders.

The F-14 is expensive to operate

[Anonymous Coward]

There are all sorts of aircraft, like the F-14, which are expensive to operate. I'd like to see the cheaper S-3 Viking used for more roles, but hey.

The US Dept of Defense

[Anonymous Coward]

seems hell bent on ever increasing its Offensive capabilities. Too bad America puts so much effort into creating enemies for itself too. The rest of the world would be far happier to just be left alone, and it would save trillions all around. Do you remember the peace dividend we were promised ?

Assassinate Vladimir Putin!

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill the Satanic monster today!