Posted on 05/01/2024 7:18:21 AM PDT by hardspunned
Only 29% are mission capable despite costing $100m each.
(Excerpt) Read more at x.com ...
Much of the defense department expenditures are a “grift” and a complete waste of money. Prove me wrong.
The DoD will “make” it work.
But, at a horrible cost to the tax payer. I’m sure someone is getting rich.
FYI- when the F22 was still being developed and fielded originally, Boeing had their folks gagged regards upgrades to the F15 which were possible. There was an F15 development —where at a fraction of the cost— of the F22, they got to (((near))) the same capabilities.
But is that really what you want? No, you want to sell all new F22s at $350 million a unit. Ironically, now after the F22 program was shut down (further procurement), they are going back and upgrading the F15 after all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F-15EX_Eagle_II (this is not the same as the experimental F15 they developed earlier which had even better signiture reduction and handling).
Defense contractors (the big companies: Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Boeing...) are not the publics friend. They are about making money, and that’s it. It’s questionable how much of this war in Ukraine is driven by their profits, and there is no doubt that when afforded the opportunity to make a buck, they are willing to sell even to our enemies: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/world/middleeast/iran-boeing-airplane-deal.html
I've heard the entire Russian military budget is around $72B now. Since a fair chunk of that must be for things other than the SMO in Ukraine, that means the single "aid" package for the MIC - I mean, Ukraine, is more than the entire Russian expenditure on the other side, not even counting European aid and whatever Ukraine spends on itself. All so the West can fatten a lot of pockets, get a lot of people killed, and I'm quite confident they will still lose in the end (I call it the Western way of war now.)
That money would be far better spent on building fleets of Warthogs v2.0
Multiple attackers in a mission are more likely to succeed than a single unit.
Just to adjust your history presentation, the Hellcat (and the Corsair) had over twice the horsepower, excellent high-speed maneuverability, armor, self-sealing tanks, and excellent pilots coming out of our superior training system.
The Zero had excellent range and low-speed maneuverability, exploded when hit, and experienced heavy ailerons above 250 knots in a dive.
Cold meat for the Hellcats and Corsairs as long as they weren't sucked into a slow-speed, maneuvering fight.
See: Marianas Turkey Shoot and VM-214 Black Sheep.
And there are only 1,500 Tigers and 20,000 or so T-34s (and Shermans).
Wasn’t the F-22 a good all-around plane? Why’d they dump it for the F-35?
> Who is going to enlist only to be subjected to Critical Race Theory bull crap. <
To which I’d add, you enlist to protect your country. And the next thing you know you’re at some base in Syria or in Africa, wondering what the heck you’re doing there.
Turns out DC is not using you to protect the country, but to advance their ill-conceived political objectives.
Little Crappy Ships?
But they could have accomplished more with high flying dirigibles if that was their aim.
It’s that 40,000-42,500lbs of thrust engine
Am not seeing your argument (which is a winner, btw) in the point Gaetz was making.
Yes, I’ve been involved in the procurement and sustainment of some fairly high dollar defense related instrumentation systems used in the test & evaluation side of things, and I can relate to what you’re saying. It’s easy to underestimate just how hard it is to keep complex equipment operational with all the supply chain and other issues that have to be anticipated and coordinated and all that. There is no ideal way to do this, and every approach has its tradeoffs. Our military industrial complex reminds me of the line about democracy that says it’s bad but it’s the least bad of the available options (or something like that). In my tiny little slice of that world I saw lots of dysfunction but also lots of diligence and overcoming of obstacles to make things work within that imperfect system, often with successful outcomes. Sometimes you just have to accept that an ugly win is still a win and that a system that generally produces wins of any kind given the extreme level of difficulty is a pretty good system in this imperfect world of ours.
The arms industry is totally ripping off American taxpayers with the help of corrupt politicians. Russia is able to maintain parity spending 1/10 as much.
I can hear them coming from miles away. My house is right in line with Eglin AFB runway..................................
F-35 is the Swiss Army Knife plane
Tried to build Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps all on the same basic airframe (a bad idea, IMHO)
Still, there are 3 distinct versions - especially the VSTOL Marine Corps version
F-22 is basically only Air Force capable
—”“Mission capable” is a tricky term.”
YES! And zero details were provided.
“As of September 21, 2023, the average mission capable (MC) rate of the US Air Force’s F-35 fleet was 55%. This is below the targets of 90% for the F-35A and 85% for the F-35B and C variants. The MC rate is defined as when an aircraft is able to perform one of its tasks.
The Air Force and Navy F-35s have also exceeded the requirement for “Mean Flight Hours Between Maintenance Events (Unscheduled)” by 110% and 120%, respectively. However, the DOT&E has recommended more investment in spares, especially for F135 engines, to reduce downtime for aircraft waiting for spare parts.”
“ Little Crappy Ships?”
Yep, that’s them!
Don’t forget that the politicians are also getting their palms greased also.
I used to hear the B-2’s climbing out when they were under heavy load during the Afghanistan / Iraq days - you could see them from the side (BION) but you’d hear them from a long ways away - miles and miles
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