Posted on 04/02/2018 3:49:25 AM PDT by maddog55
Duh. Anytime two first world nation go to war it is a world war.
So your ARE arguing that Carriers have no value because they may be at risk if we go to war...I wont look for you for help when the real fighting starts.
The F4 Phantom had a internal Vulcan (M61A) 20 mm, six-barrel, rotary-cannon with 639 rounds.
Most of the 107 kills were by missiles....when they worked. 15 by gun.
The F-15 Eagle maxed out at 940 rounds rounds.
The F-22 holds the same Vulcan Electric M61A2 cannon that the F-15 does and can hold 500 rounds.
The A10 Warthog’s seven-barrel 30mm GAU-8/A Avenger gun has as many as 1,174 rounds.
F-35A’s internal 25mm gun has 220 rounds.
The U.S. Air Force Promised the F-4 Would Never Dogfight
Now it’s saying the same thing about the F-35
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-air-force-promised-the-f-4-would-never-dogfight-3e1a66da4e73
FTA: The aerial dogfight was not supposed to happen. On May 20, 1967, eight U.S. Air Force F-4C fighters were patrolling over North Vietnam when they spotted as many as 15 enemy MiG-17 fighters a short distance away.
snip: Diving to attack, the twin-engine F-4s fired a staggering 24 Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles, shooting down just four of the single-engine MiGs.
snip: In January 2015, the flying branch pitted a radar-evading F-35A against a 25-year-old F-16D in mock air combat. The F-35 proved too slow and sluggish to defeat the F-16 in a turning fight, according to the official test report that War Is Boring obtained.
You forgot the F-35 doesn’t hit what it’s aimed at with the $400,00.00 - $600,000.00 helmet with S/W issue!
All this being said, and as angry as we taxpayers and Citizens should be...
in the end of it all...
Who will be held accountable? What is the answer?
The Contractors who submitted crap? The same-said contractors who have committed what amounts to fraud?
The DOD brass who have ALLOWED all of this to happen with a wink and a nod?
Former Administrations who pawned this off (Bush and Obama)?
Congress for not stepping in and holding someone accountable before now?
This entire program from inception, has been a money pit that has NOT paid off or given a tangible return on investment. MANY have grown incredibly rich (or exponentially richer) off the taxpayer dollars spent on this - and we still don’t have a fully-operational airframe in service (and we are now 10 years post-deadline).
The system is broken - but yall be honest - what hope is there of EVER holding ANYONE accountable for $billions in literally stolen/waisted taxpayer dollars?
ZERO...
And don’t hold your breath for any tangible changes to prevent such waste and fraud in the future. WAY too many on BOTH sides of the political isle have had not only campaigns enriched, but their own pocketbooks inflated directly and indirectly from defense contractors.
So - pontificate all you want. Bloviate till you are blue in the face - but be intellectually honest - it just doesn’t matter. Our system is every bit as corrupt as Venezuela or any of the despotic hellholes around the world we wring our hands about. We just vote for the crooks...
Other than the massive list of unaddressed safety issues operational inadequacies, and that not a single performance requirement has not been fully met.
Indeed- take the most recent updated F-18 and put it against any fully-operational F-35... both with competent pilots - I just don’t see the superiority of the F-35.
GW didn’t exactly help the cause... as it was his cronies that made a lot of the preliminary decisions and allowed the essentially fake demonstration aircraft to suffice for the competition.
yes to all that you listed and more...
Yeah.. real encouraging...
You’ll be looking for a life raft.
This happened a year before the Japanese recieved thier F-35s, LIGHTNING II STRIKES IWAKUNI, F-35B ARRIVES
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, IWAKUNI, Japan — Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 arrived at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Jan. 18, 2017.
VMFA-121 conducted a permanent change of station to MCAS Iwakuni from MCAS Yuma, Arizona, and now belongs to Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force.
“There’s definitely been a lot of challenges . . . moving our aircraft here, the logistics and we have a lot of people to move,” said U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Vincent Koscienlniak, an avionics technician with VMFA-121. “One of our biggest issues was the physical movement and preparing everything to come here. There has been a lot of cooperation within the unit and most of the Marines here are very good at what they do. They are hand-selected, and it has shown the last few months.”
VMFA-121 consists of the F-35B Lighting II aircraft, which is planned to replace the F/A-18 Hornet and AV-8B Harrier II aircraft currently based at the air station.
The F-35B Lightning II is a fifth-generation fighter, which is the world’s first operational supersonic short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft. The F-35B brings strategic agility, operational flexibility and tactical supremacy to the Pacific with a mission radius greater than that of the F/A-18 Hornet and AV-8B Harrier II in support of the U.S. – Japan alliance.
“The F-35B represents the future of Marine Corps tactical aviation, and bringing it to Japan makes MCAS Iwakuni the second only operational F-35B base,” said U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Jimmy Braudt, a quality assurance officer and pilot with VMFA-121. “One of its capabilities is a powerful sensor suite that fuses together several different sources and provides superior situational awareness to the pilot. It will be the first short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft permanently based in this theater, and it is capable of countering modern threat systems beyond what legacy aircraft were designed to handle.”
Braudt said it impacts the relationship with Japan and other Pacific allies. Bringing the most capable, modern and lethal platform in the U.S. inventory to Iwakuni demonstrates the U.S. Government’s commitment to the defense of Japan.
The Marine Corps conducts the essential training needed to accomplish their assigned mission, including the training and operations required to be ready to defend the Pacific region as necessary.
“VMFA-121 desires to contribute to the readiness of MAG-12, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and III MEF as a whole,” said Braudt. “Our objective is to be highly trained and effective in our platform while learning how to integrate this new capability with the rest of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force and our Pacific partner nations. We are happy to be in Japan and look forward to the culture we will get to experience, and we would like to thank the people of Yamaguchi Prefecture and Iwakuni for being excellent hosts.”
http://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/1052138/lightning-ii-strikes-iwakuni-f-35b-arrives/
This happened a year before the Japanese recieved thier F-35s, LIGHTNING II STRIKES IWAKUNI, F-35B ARRIVES
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, IWAKUNI, Japan — Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 arrived at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Jan. 18, 2017.
VMFA-121 conducted a permanent change of station to MCAS Iwakuni from MCAS Yuma, Arizona, and now belongs to Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force.
“There’s definitely been a lot of challenges . . . moving our aircraft here, the logistics and we have a lot of people to move,” said U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Vincent Koscienlniak, an avionics technician with VMFA-121. “One of our biggest issues was the physical movement and preparing everything to come here. There has been a lot of cooperation within the unit and most of the Marines here are very good at what they do. They are hand-selected, and it has shown the last few months.”
VMFA-121 consists of the F-35B Lighting II aircraft, which is planned to replace the F/A-18 Hornet and AV-8B Harrier II aircraft currently based at the air station.
The F-35B Lightning II is a fifth-generation fighter, which is the world’s first operational supersonic short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft. The F-35B brings strategic agility, operational flexibility and tactical supremacy to the Pacific with a mission radius greater than that of the F/A-18 Hornet and AV-8B Harrier II in support of the U.S. – Japan alliance.
“The F-35B represents the future of Marine Corps tactical aviation, and bringing it to Japan makes MCAS Iwakuni the second only operational F-35B base,” said U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Jimmy Braudt, a quality assurance officer and pilot with VMFA-121. “One of its capabilities is a powerful sensor suite that fuses together several different sources and provides superior situational awareness to the pilot. It will be the first short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft permanently based in this theater, and it is capable of countering modern threat systems beyond what legacy aircraft were designed to handle.”
Braudt said it impacts the relationship with Japan and other Pacific allies. Bringing the most capable, modern and lethal platform in the U.S. inventory to Iwakuni demonstrates the U.S. Government’s commitment to the defense of Japan.
The Marine Corps conducts the essential training needed to accomplish their assigned mission, including the training and operations required to be ready to defend the Pacific region as necessary.
“VMFA-121 desires to contribute to the readiness of MAG-12, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and III MEF as a whole,” said Braudt. “Our objective is to be highly trained and effective in our platform while learning how to integrate this new capability with the rest of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force and our Pacific partner nations. We are happy to be in Japan and look forward to the culture we will get to experience, and we would like to thank the people of Yamaguchi Prefecture and Iwakuni for being excellent hosts.”
http://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/1052138/lightning-ii-strikes-iwakuni-f-35b-arrives/
Seems you’ll be coward with the air chair generals throwing out useless criticism but offering no constructive alternative solutions.
Well - considering the Marines NEED that VTOL capability in much of their operations... The real problem was the insistence on a single, cross-service airframe.
You won’t get much of an argument from me on who will be held accountable because ZERO is correct.
One disagreement is contractors vs government. I don’t blame the contractors so much, they’re just taking advantage of how the government works which is completely ass backwards with no supervision. The government is 99% to blame. They swap Program Managers every ~18 - 30 months and every damn one of them wants their “Look What I Did” on it, so they change requirements constantly and every change cost $$ and time and the contractors just say sure. I’ve been on both ends of Defense Acquisition and it’s a mindset that’s damn near impossible to change and has so many rules and regulations thanks to the 535 asshats in DC you can’t get anything done reasonably... then the DoD PMs become contractor PMs, COOs or CEOs.
If you ask for a 12” X 12” box (the original requirement) and you get that box but the new PM decides he wants a 12” X 6” instead so that cost $$ and delays, you get that back the new PM says great but I need it to fit a 8” sphere without touching any sides so production stops and folks are trying to figure out what to do, new PM comes in and says no he meant four 2” squares... and this is how defense acquisition works.
When construction contractors work on base they get paid union wages (company does.. not the workers) event if they aren’t union and things like a $25k 40’ X 60’ metal building that could be completed in a couple weeks ends up costing $765k and takes a year...
I could go on...
Agreed, let the Marines have the F-35 and then let the AF and Navy develop what they need pronto. Once a new plane is approved cancel production of the F-35 for all but the USMC.
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