Posted on 02/04/2010 5:54:00 PM PST by Kaslin
Defense: The administration decision to scrap a proven aircraft in favor of a supposedly cheaper, more flexible replacement is proving to be an expensive mistake. We may wind up defenseless and broke.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was supposed to be America's frontline fighter for the foreseeable future is in big trouble. Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the general in charge of the program this week amid concerns of spiraling costs and program delays.
Gates also announced he is withholding $614 million in fees from the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin. Daniel J. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin's project managers, has acknowledged that the program is running at least six months behind schedule.
Gates was questioned about the program at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. He said he was unaware of a report by a special Pentagon assessment team in late 2008 that found development of the plane could be delayed by 2 1/2 years with $16.6 billion in cost overruns. Judging by his decisions, he is not unaware that the F-35 program, designed to fill the needs of all three services, is in trouble.
After hearing Gates' testimony, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said: "I'm still concerned about whether the services will get the (Joint Strike Fighters) when they need them."
He's right to be concerned: Further program delays will drive up per-unit costs, the wings are literally falling off our F-15s and F-16s, and the administration has killed further production of the F-22 Raptor. With what will we fight?
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
okay
Did you understand what I said?
You seem to be stuck on that one thing. No, I don't see India as an enemy, or even becoming one. But they're not buying from us. They're buying from Russia. And helping Russia keep its production lines working and design teams busy. And don't think for a second Russia is not an adversary. We may not be toe to toe with the Ruskies with ICBM's at 20 paces like we were during the cold war, and the Berlin Wall may have fallen, but we're still adversaries.
And who else do the Russians sell military technology to? China seems to come to mind. Oh and they (China) are licensing and building Russian tech. And engineering their own from the designs and mfg experience.
So lets just throw out a theoretical conflict with China. China has what, 1.5 Billion people. How many under arms? Think maybe they could throw a thousand or two 4th gen fighters against our 187 Raptors?
As I mentioned previously; Russia showed during WWII they could throw shear numbers of basic equipment against a superiorly equipped (technologically) and trained force and drive them back.
BTW: We used a similar tactic with our 8th Airforce over Germany. We lost a lot of aircrews, but we just kept coming. The arsenal of democracy just kept pumping out the machinery.
We're not doing that so much anymore. In fact it seems we're shutting it down. The F-22 is a fine aircraft. They F-35 may end up being an adequate one, but it will never be a jack of all trades, ore even a master of some, or one. And we may never produce it in enough numbers even if it was.
Sure
It mean that the F/A-18 cannot hold enough gas to get it very far and has to be tanked(re-fueled) alot. Also the Navy has really depleted the US Navy tanker force.
The A-10 is essentially a modernized Junkers Ju 87. Its success is scalable because it is something in a unique and highly necessary part of war fighting and territorial occupation - the destruction of heavy ground forces in advance by air - the same role performed by the JU 87 against the Poles and Russians for the WWII Wehrmacht.
What about China? What if the Chinese were to decide to do something about Taiwan
What about China? Haven't we learned about wars in Asia yet and attempts to project power across the ocean?
Why do we need to fight for Taiwan? We didn't fight for Hong Kong and Macau, we certainly didn't fight for KMT control of the rest of China.
This is precisely the problem presented by the F22 and the F35 - a lack of perspective about what is actually important and strategic for the US. There is nothing on Taiwan of any strategic importance to the US (and the same goes for S. Korea and Japan and Singapore). There is nothing there we could not get elsewhere if necessary, except perhaps for Kobe beef.
China itself has more strategic importance to the US than anything else in Asia on account of rare earth minerals and simple potential power except only continued Russian control of Siberia.
What is truly strategically important to the US is the entire western hemisphere, and the mineral wealth in Australia and Africa and south, and sources of oil.
China is developing its own 5th generation fighter (the J-12/13/JXX), and even if it is a 10th of what the Raptor is, the sheer numbers of the type (plus enhanced legacy fighters such as advanced variants of the J-10, and the upcoming SU-35 with AESA radar and low supercruise) will make it tough for anything that is not a Raptor.
The F22 can't work from carriers, so where are you projecting its power from to combat the Chinese? Guam? Diego Garcia? Are you suggesting we are going to forward deploy an aircraft we refuse to export at Osan in Korea?
What the US really needs for force projection are aircraft that work from carriers, not stuff stationed in New Mexico and Alaska. It also needs a plane that carries some real weaponry. Lastly, it needs conventionally armed missle power projected from subs, ships, and airbases since we obviously are not going to use nuclear weaponry in any forseeable conflict.
The F22 carries 8 missles and 480 rounds. Woohoo! Such firepower! Everyone must be quaking in their boots.
The A-10's success stems from the fact that there are jets above it that shoot down anything ....way before ....that could have threatened the A-10.
A role NOT carried out by the F22 to date.
We are adversaries with Russia because we have a government full of people with your mindset, looking out from the borders and seeing enemies and threats everywhere.
If we really thought strategically about things, we’d realize we should be working much closer with Russia to be partners instead of adversaries. A Russo-American partnership, combined with our natural Anglosphere alliance with England, Canada, Australia and India, is an unbeatable combination.
Russia itself has far more value to us as Americans than nonsense like defending “freedom” by poking Russia in the eye in Georgia, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Transnistria, Kosovo, or Bosnia. The easiest way to “defeat” the Russian power threat is to co-opt it to our own joint ends, so that there would not be a reason to ever fight.
Russia in WWII was a much stronger country than now. It had the 60 million people of Ukraine and Byelorussia in it, and the cannon fodder of the Asian Steppes to draw on. All that is now gone.
F35’s, F22’s, etc. Who cares? Why aren’t we developing the equivalent of an AK-47 as an airplane? A plane that is simple, elegant, easily maintained, easily used, easily updated, always works, never out of style. The reason we will have so few F35’s and F22’s and all the rest is because we are constantly burdened wasting money trying for the next techno-gadget airplane hangar queen, instead of producing actual functional weapons that are always available for work.
Imagine if the Army issued light machine guns to its troops that required 30 hours of maintenance and oiling for every hour of firing! You think we would win any wars that way?
Nobody is allowed to be a “Patton” in this day and age.
To bad neither of these fighters will be used much. Our military is decaying, and we are not building the next generation of weapons.
That is easy. We won't sacrifice a few thousand pilots like the Soviets did.
Good for you. Did you have fun pushing kids from behind on the playground too?
The question remains. Where is the Patton of today? Do you see leadership like that?
For that matter, where are the Teddy Roosevelts, the US Grants, or the Ronald Reagans?
We live in very evil times, and we need good men of strong character. They are sorely lacking.
He still refused to be kicked down, and routed the German army out of France, broke through at Bastogne, and pissed in the Rhine river.
I went to a military sponsored breakfast last year, and the invocation was given by a Muslim "chaplain" who berated everyone for 3-4 minutes about how "ignorant" everyone was of Islam, and how they needed to be "educated." Then he gave a meaningless invocation, and the served breakfast. I was never so disgusted.
No, we don't have that many pilots. But, our leadership will send the pilots we do have out to fight new Sukhois in 20 year old fighters instead of building the F-22s the military believes are necessary.
Also, the Russkies and the PRC are more likely to sell their stealth fighters. We could face them being flown by someone, not necessarily the Russkies or the PRC.
It is not scalable anywhere because for it to operate it requires that the battlespace (both in terms of enemy air, and enemy SAM systems) is sanitized. The A-10 would not survive in anything approaching a modern IADS. It would require a better jet to knock out opposition on the air and the ground, enabling the A-10 to do its CAS duties. The only jet that can do so in an modern S-300 IADS environment is the F-22.
What about China? Haven't we learned about wars in Asia yet and attempts to project power across the ocean? Why do we need to fight for Taiwan? We didn't fight for Hong Kong and Macau, we certainly didn't fight for KMT control of the rest of China.
The same could be said about Georgia, or Kuwait. We don't have to fight for them, but that may not be what happened. Also, comparing Hong Kong and Macau to Taiwan is a bit disingenous. Hong Kong reverting to Chinese rule as agreed is quite different from Taiwan being invaded by the Chinese. Furthermore, it is US policy to step in in case Taiwan is threatened.
What is truly strategically important to the US is the entire western hemisphere, and the mineral wealth in Australia and Africa and south, and sources of oil.
My job is a fund manager for a emerging/frontier markets fund, and I can tell you that the Chinese are all over Africa and South America. So, if Africa and S.America are strategically important to the US, well, they already belong to China. So does Australia more and more every 5 years.
The F22 carries 8 missles and 480 rounds. Woohoo! Such firepower! Everyone must be quaking in their boots.
Yes, they are shaking in their boots. Because the AMRAAM-D, matched with the extended range from the Raptor's supercruise, its stealthiness, and its LPI (low probability of intercept) AESA radar, means that each of those missiles is lethal to anything flying out there. They are PETRIFIED to the point of forcing their own 5th generation programs (e.g. the PakFa from Russia and the JXX from China). It also petrifies them because a Raptor with the SBD ...up to 8 of them ...coupled with extended range due to the supercruise launch, can penetrate their vaunted IADS. They are so scared that they are spending billions of Dollars on the issue.
A role NOT carried out by the F22 to date.
Yes, in the same way that the F-15 did not carry out anti Luftwaffe missions in World War 2 ....because it was there for the mission. The Raptor is present now, and it would guarantee USAF air dominance (not superiority ...dominance) for the next 25 to 30 years. The A-10 is a weapon system that while very effective in Iraq, during the Cold War was not expected to survive the Soviets streaming in through the Fulda Gap!
=because it was NOT there for the mission.
Hypersensitive?
Patton barely survived DDE's wrath. Only his USMA classmates saved his ass. Undeniably, he was a unique combat commander. However, he was too egotistical and could never have functioned in true leadership positions such as those occupied by Eisenhower and Marshall.
You’re right. I am sure you are much more accomplished and impressive a person than he ever was.
What the author doesn’t know, or chooses to ignore, is that the F-22 is a pure fighter and not designed or equipped for ground attack. The F-35 is. So buying more F-22s and fewer F-35s is not solving the problem. Maybe the solution is to scrap the F-35, increase the buy of F-22s by another hundred and fifty or so, and buy upgraded versions of the F-15, F-16, and F-18 for Navy and ground attack roles.
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