My thoughts exactly . Kind of reminds of those worse than useless stealth warships we built that had cannons that cost $30,000 a shot. Canons not missiles for $30k and they were retired after less than 10 or 20 years. Pathetic . All about money not defending the country.
The Zumwalt class destroyers? Each rifle shot cost wayyyyyyy more than 30k lol. More like 300k. They built 3 of them and then were cancelled for more Arliegh Burkes. (Which are awesome anyway)
it was supposed to cost 30k. But because of they did not get production to scale, before they removed the guns from the ships I think it went to a million per shell.
I hear they will actually salvage the Zumwalts into oversized, overcosted missile boats. Which is just sad - half the price of a carrier for a boat that will carry a couple of big hypersonic missiles :(
Most of the older airframes were designed to be air superiority fighters and evolved into strike or multirole fighters.
The F-35 is the first multirole designed fighter AFAIK. It was a stupid gamble to save money and make one jet for everyone and they still ended up with 3 variants.
The F-15 is hands down one of the best airframes ever designed unless we count the F-117, which had one mission. To fly undetected into Russia and put a single warhead through the Kremlin's window. The SR-71 was also so notable it was hogging every mission, Dick Cheney killed it because it wasn't making his donors enough money.
Notable multi-role fixed wing fighter/attack designed before the F-35?
The TFX. Which became the F-111 and couldn't do air combat to save itself (though it could carry AIM-9 for self-defence). And was too big and heavy for carrier ops, so the Navy pulled out.
Single seat F-15s were the air superiority big brother to the F-16, but it was realised they were spectacular bomb trucks and so became truly multirole. If your task wasn't big enough for a Bone to show up, and too big for rotary, you'd have the F-15 as your plaything.
In that same generation as the USAF, the USN were trying to retire their A6s and A7s, though the A6 found longer life as the EA6B (to eventually be replaced by the EF-18G). They introduced the F-14 (which flew initial combat missions in Vietnam, as did the F-111) as their air superiority and multirole fighter. Air first, but it proved capable as a bomb truck.
Eventually, the F-14 was retired in favour of the F/A-18 which, to be honest, was like a Navy version of the F-16. Cheap, light, but with an extra engine. Again, it was air superiority first, but there was some dedicated bomb truck versions. The "Classic" F/A-18s were eventually replaced by the Supers (F/A-18 E/F) and the Growler variant replaced the EA6B Prowler.
While they share the same designator, these later Hornets are like the 737 Max. They share a designator but are really a completely different airframe. The supers are also MUCH better at carrying ground attack ordnance (and using it with the improved avionics suites).
Why did the USN do this? Trying to consolidate on the number of types they were flying in Carrier Air Wings meant simpler maintenance and logistics chains, and more efficient Carrier operations.
What else did the USN retire in that timeframe? The S-3 Viking ASW in favour of SH-60R and destroyer screen ASW, and the fixed wing P3 (now P8). The venerable E-2 also went through a variety of upgrades and type changes (the -2000 and -D models are nothing like the earlier variants).
The Marines in that timeframe went AV8-B to the F-35, though their AH1s went all the way up to Z variant and, again, look and operate very differently to the initial Cobras from Vietnam.
All of this is largely academic nowadays, as it's rare that a carrier battle group is going to operate air ops in isolation. You're far more likely to be integrated at the Command level under an Air Component Commander, who controls the ISR, Battlefield prep, and all fixed and rotary wing assets in the given theatre / combat region. Thus, bomb trucks or rotary from multiple services (or nations) can be called upon for CAS or other roles. It's really only the super-specialised units (160th SOAR) or super unique roles (ISR for example) that are going to operate the same no matter what.
Read some of the books of combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. They show how this worked in real life with the cohort of who might arrive in response to request for air support. It was far more effective and efficient in Afghanistan, but it was present to a lesser extent over Iraq.
While they share the same designator, these later Hornets are like the 737 Max. They share a designator but are really a completely different airframe. The supers are also MUCH better at carrying ground attack ordnance (and using it with the improved avionics suites).
In my airframe design course we had a few examples that used the Hornet and Super Hornet. The first draft was just a bigger frame. This resulted in some problems like wing rattle that had to be fixed.
Airframe design? Now you're activating braincells that haven't been used in a loooooooooong time.
I vaguely remember using the EA6B and the E2 (I can't remember the variant at the time) as case studies for one of my assignments. It blew my tiny brain finding out about the lifting body effect contribution of the radome on the E2 (and E3).
That and trying to argue the point that my little civil light trainer I'd designed SHOULD be dynamically unstable...
We also had missile design as a course, so that was more fun.
The F-15E is entirely multirole, and you guys don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Aircraft aren't like goddamn World of Warcraft characters where you need DPS, a tank, a priest, etc. and nobody wants a 'jack of all trades' Druid who is shit at everything. That isn't even remotely how aircraft and avionics work.
I won't disagree that the F-15 is incredible, but the F-35 is completely different.
You're literally comparing a heavy bomber, which the Air Force still has, to small-frame fighter aircraft?
Are you fucking stupid?
Did you think the F-35 was going to replace C-5s and KC-135s too, you dumbass, and that's what 'multirole' means? "WELL HOW IS THE F-35 GOING TO REPLACE COMPASS CALL WTF PIECE OF SHIT"
No, penisbreath, I just proved you're a fucking idiot with your "tHiS iSn'T wOrLd Of WaRcrAfT" comment.
EDIT: If "small frame fighter" aircraft are all the same, then what is the mtow and range of an F-15 vs. F-35 and why is one stealth but the Air Force is buying both?
Honestly, fuck off and quit proving to the world how ignorant you are.
50% of the time it's ready to fly 100% of missions that involve only 13 major 1B deficiencies making for a grand total of who gives a crap it's a piece of over priced junk.
The 13 deficiencies include:
The F-35’s logistics system currently has no way for foreign F-35 operators to keep their secret data from being sent to the United States.
The spare parts inventory shown by the F-35’s logistics system does not always reflect reality, causing occasional mission cancellations.
Cabin pressure spikes in the cockpit of the F-35 have been known to cause barotrauma, the word given to extreme ear and sinus pain.
In very cold conditions — defined as at or near minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit — the F-35 will erroneously report that one of its batteries have failed, sometimes prompting missions to be aborted.
Supersonic flight in excess of Mach 1.2 can cause structural damage and blistering to the stealth coating of the F-35B and F-35C.
After doing certain maneuvers, F-35B and F-35C pilots are not always able to completely control the aircraft’s pitch, roll and yaw.
If the F-35A and F-35B blows a tire upon landing, the impact could also take out both hydraulic lines and pose a loss-of-aircraft risk.
A “green glow” sometimes appears on the helmet-mounted display, washing out the imagery in the helmet and making it difficult to land the F-35C on an aircraft carrier.
On nights with little starlight, the night vision camera sometimes displays green striations that make it difficult for all variants to see the horizon or to land on ships.
The sea search mode of the F-35’s radar only illuminates a small slice of the sea’s surface.
When the F-35B vertically lands on very hot days, older engines may be unable to produce the required thrust to keep the jet airborne, resulting in a hard landing.
It's because the entire military supply chain has been running on 30 year old systems and it's not well-integrated into ALIS, which is supposed to be an all-in-one system. ALIS works until you run into something that has to operate outside of ALIS.
Blame the idiots in supply who aren't doing their jobs.
Also worst case that's literally just a 'update the software' issue. Something you're claiming is some kind of mind-melting catastrophic failure.
Not to mention the military supply chain is fucked in entirely different ways for entirely different reasons.
It could run both ways. If our data is being sent it could be picked up too. Because we all know how well government utilizes data integrity and safety.
The logistics system isn't a surprise. I think fixed wing operators globally got used to the C17, which maintains a global logistics and DLM chain back to the US. No one else technically owns their C17s, they're fleet managed by the US.
The offer of having back to supplier logistics chains means smaller operators can buy into the platform, and larger operators were already balls-deep in the acquisition and reach around operations space that there really isn't much that wasn't already known by the US.
The other issues, though, seem to be systemic design and operational issues and need to be remediated.
This isnt new. The delays and all the talk over the years of cancelling orders, delaying, new models of planes out before anyone takes delivery of the previous version. Its all another hole to throw tax payer money down.
It takes 9 man hours to maintain for 1 flight hour of the F-35 at an average operating cost of $42K per flight hour. It is a bloated hangar queen.
The cost for air superiority is a game of diminished returns and turns into putting all your eggs in one basket. We sort of realized this with the F-22 and why we have only half of what we were slated to have. It’s better to have a higher volume of cheaper aircraft than to have small fleets of expensive unicorns, a mosaic approach, like how the 2A as a whole keeps us safe in general. That and the pacing of technology, causes a “wait problem” as money is sunk into projects. Imagine sinking more money in your old “Gateway” computer today, it just cheaper to get something better at this point.
Believe me, I love the blanket of freedom afforded to me by our air superiority, whether it is real or just expensive propaganda. It all comes at a cost though. Seeing as how we have done less and less fighter plane operations through the years, I hope the cost pays off should there be an escalation to WW3, but I also hope to never find out, too.
The F-22 was cancelled under Obama so they could pump the F-35, not because it wasn't effective or because it was too expensive. The development of the F-22 was complete and the tooling was in place. The program was at the stage where the more they made, the lower the cost of each individual jet would be. Cancelling the program made no sense.
While it's true that some aircraft are more expensive than others, the overall purchase and maintenance costs largely are on par with each other. How could this be, you ask, when there are much older jets that should be way cheaper? Well, older jets get constant upgrades so to be honest we don't really have any "old" jets. And upgrading and maintaining previous-gen aircraft costs money just as much as procuring and maintaining new ones.
It is definitely, 100%, without a doubt, WAAAAAY CHEAPER to continue to upgrade currently existing airframes than it is to make a new one. The logistics of developing, producing, and fielding a new jet is staggering.
Unless you want to go back to the days where the US suffers casualties in the thousands per battle, air superiority is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have. And no, it's not expensive propaganda. No country can match what we make and what we do. Some may have the expertise but not the funds, others the reverse. Our training programs are second to none, and our hardware is tested, iterated, reiterated, sharpened, hardened, and tested all over again before the first day it's even fielded -- all these problems you hear about (while bad sounding) happen to ALL aircraft under development, and other countries simply don't have the resources to be as dilligent about fixing them as we do.
I appreciate the respectful discourse, but I too have problems with your argument. For starters, the government realized they would get more bang for their buck from the F-35 program than continuing fulfillment of the F-22. There’s a reason why we can sell the F-35 to allies but not the F-22. But in the end the commitment to the F-22 was too costly and due to the “wait problem” I mentioned better stuff is around the corner and it was more beneficial to reach for that than to bloat an existing platform unnecessarily.
While I partially agree with 1), you go one to immediately go on to contradict yourself in 3).
In 2) yes, block upgrades are like corporate franchise fees having to invest in “refreshes.” There does come a point where the cost of maintenance and availability of parts and service, weighs the platform down. So it either has to fulfill a different role or end up in the boneyard, no matter how sexy it is.
On 4) I agree, but I am skeptical. We’ve had control of the skies wherever we had conflicts, yet ground assets were still required to advance, as always in war. While life saving as a whole, all that superiority didn’t make a dent in places like Vietnam or Afghanistan. The mistakes made in Vietnam thinking we could rule that place from the sky, in Afghanistan we didn’t exactly go top-shelf with the airpower because the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. We could have spent a fortune bombarding that place from the sky and possibly never make forward progress. It would have had the same net effect of burning your house down to kill the ants in your kitchen.
Warfare is nasty and while I want to believe we are on top of the food-chain, I do so with a side of caution knowing we aren’t exactly invincible either. Let me just throw you something out of left field. Supply chain disruption as an example. Go into a full-scale war, if supply chains are disrupted, whether its fuel, armaments, or maintenance related parts or labor, every fancy system you can rattle off becomes paper weights. Which ironically enough, supply chain issue and intentionally making paper weights was the exit strategy from Afghanistan, because I sure as fuck didn’t see us “air superioritying” our equipment or troops out of there. Maybe that was a calculated bean-counter call, poor strategy or both and more.
Bottom line, we are by no means weak, but we do have hard limitations that causes me to question over-all effectiveness in relation to our capability, real or perceived.
I don't feel like 1 and 3 are contradicting. Perhaps the IT was ambiguous? To clarify, I was saying:
The F-22 was cancelled under Obama so they could pump the F-35, not because F-22 wasn't effective or because F-22 was too expensive.
I'm saying that financially it made more sense to continue to produce and refine the F-22 because that's cheaper than making something new like the F-35.
the government realized they would get more bang for their buck from the F-35 program than continuing fulfillment of the F-22.
They wouldn't, they didn't, and they won't. Switching to the F-35 was a political decision rather than a strategic or financial one. At this point if they make and sell enough F-35s it will be OK, buy financially speaking this was a suboptimal choice.
There’s a reason why we can sell the F-35 to allies but not the F-22.
Indeed there is. The F-22 is decidedly more capable in a few key areas. A nation with a dozen of them could wield significant regional power, assuming they had the pilots, resources, and supply line to maintain them. And that's not something in our interests.
It takes 9 man hours to maintain for 1 flight hour of the F-35 at an average operating cost of $42K per flight hour. It is a bloated hangar queen.
I don't see you comparing that to legacy aircraft, kind of like you really don't know what you're talking about. And how much of that is just repainting the LO? Hint: Almost all of it.
Do you have any idea how much shit work the F-15E took to fly? The electronic warfare suite where the ICMS Band 3 CO cost $1M and was guaranteed to die after like 3 flights at most? They literally had all the circuit breakers for the system collared and disabled it entirely because it cost too much to maintain.
There goes that reading and comprehension I mentioned earlier not understanding the mosaic aspect. Unit for unit the F-15 is still cheaper even with the newer EX, to own/operate compared to an F-35. The F-15 still has phenomenal capability for various roles performed, but the F-35 was never slated as a replacement for the F-15 either so this is an apples to oranges comparison.
Now, the F-16 is more comparable. It’s only slightly cheaper for unit, cost per hour is significantly cheaper, but needs more hours of maintenance than the F-35.
whoosh Anyways, seeing is believing. None of our shiny hangar queens or their tranny pilots have seen combat in modern times/theaters. I’m not denying air superiority, it’s just not battle proven, so my skepticism is healthy. I wouldn’t put money on a basketball game with the team with the best looking shoes.
We definitely have the tech and personnel, but it’s how we fuck with the dick we got that proves it. Just look at the Vietnam War. We CLEARLY had all the same type of air superiority for the time period, but our K/D ratio for aircraft would be considered a decisive loss on paper for us.
I’m not shitting on what we have, I’m just saying trust but verify.
Apparently you haven’t seen all the DEI shit going on in the military, maybe you think that is a strength….never mind. That’s what the woosh was for. My point was in Vietnam their short jungle-bound rice farmers ran roughshod over our technological advancements despite their massive handicap. This was just a small shithole country and we sustained heavy loses. The perceived superiority didn’t count for shit. Allied forces lost over 12,000 aircraft in Vietnam and the VC lost less than 200. One. Shithole. Country.
Now our numbers did improve in more modern conflicts, but our aircraft have also become far more advanced and we have even less airframes because of this. Now if we get divided on multiple fronts in a global conflict is that going to bite us in the ass? Are we going to have enough of these advanced fighters to spread around to be effective? I mean, our air superiority should have easily taken on those goat fuckers in Afghanistan, but that didn’t work. We got ran out of down like a bunch of rats.
I’m sorry but all the cool weapons in the world doesn’t make up for bad military strategies. I’m not saying we are soft, but we are definitely not a vicious as we should be.
I bet the Russian planes and tanks are no better or worse than ours. I think a lot of the "greatness" of our planes and tanks are overhyped propaganda by the DOD. They haven't proven shit against enemies that have some parity with us. During WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam we could truly judge which was top tier equipment and garbage equipment.
Take for example the F-105 fighter jet. Overhyped trash that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong embarrassed. Was retired by our military before the end of the Vietnam War.
in Vietnam our special forces MACVSOG suffered 100% casualty rates. it wasnt the equipment or operator it was the leadership making bad decisions.
btw Russia still haven't put their 5th gen fighter the SU57 in combat and we're already moving to 6th gen with the NGAD platform. both China and Russia aircraft are not on par. but they'll be using other tech to try to even thr playing field. most likely more cost effective swarm drones
There's gonna be soooo much guerilla warfare and tactical disruption of US infrastructure on US soil by sleeper cells, we won't even have the ability to fight or manufacture anything or grow food.
For the planes, Russia has almost none of the "current gen" in their fleet due to cost issues since the Soviet Union fell, for the tanks, they are still using the same engine as the T-34, except the Armata, which is using the same engine in the Nazi's Tiger II. There are reasons for why they fight the way they do.
For Chy-na, I'm not familiar with their armor so I won't talk on it, but their planes have had a terrible time staying in the air since they stopped sourcing their engines from Russia and switched to local production.
The more interesting comparisons are the European arms, as the modern Leopard and Challenger are comparable to the Abrams, and Dassault and Eurofighter have planes that could be competitive with ours.
The Eurofighter is pretty old tech already? Isn't the Abrams due a replacement? I remember reading it was already behind Eurotanks. Will be interesting to see what kind of fighter BAE and Saab come up with.
Are there currently two 6th Gen fighter programs in Europe? A French led program that includes Italy and I think Spain and Grrman led one with Sweden and I want to say the UK?
Eurofighter is a company pretty much founded to make and maintain the Typhoon, and if I remember correctly, it's either the source of or has been tabbed to do the same role for the German 6th gen fighter. Dassault is the French manufacturer in charge of their program, and have a history with the Mirage and Rafale.
As for the Abrams, there was the Abrams X prototype that came out a while back, but that was more a tech demo than anything. The thing with it though is that they've been claiming the Eurotanks are better than it for decades, but with continued upgrades it keeps performing just as well as them if not better.
Russian fighters are still running on 40 year old engines that practically are powered by coal because they don't know how to make good ones, and neither does China.
lmao if you guys think 50% MC is bad, go look up something like the B1. Or really any legacy aircraft.
MC rates are affected by a lot of stuff, and the #1 killer of MC rates for the F-35 is the stealth signature. Demanding that it maintain something like 85% of its maximum stealth signature is a relatively recent change to the MC rates and dropped it considerably. Furthermore, there's currently a supply problem because Covid put a pretty fucked-up wave through the system and all new parts go to the production line, leaving shortages for the flying units.
This is yet another thread of people who know literally nothing, listening to people who know literally nothing, and then thinking they know everything.
Hardware or software? … it’s the people in charge of both right now. It’s only capable half the time because our competent forces are halved. It’s nuts. Only a few people know what they are doing and only half of those aren’t delusional.
For the record, I think the writer of this article didn't understand some terms. "Mission capable" doesn't refer to the success rate of the aircraft at completing missions, it refers to whether or not the aircraft is ready, in terms of maintenance, to be used on a mission. Based on the article, about 55% of F-35's are mission capable right now. That compares to I think just under 80% of F-18's, which it's basically replacing. Not great, but possibly something that can be remedied as the infrastructure and technical knowledge around the aircraft improves. Of course, the sheer cost per flight hour is a huge problem with the program.
Every story you want to have about the F-35 almost literally always comes down to "according to sources familiar with ..." that every fake news bullshit runs.
I looked at the people on those podcasts, and there's no reason any of them would know shit. Retired old faggots, NGOs, "watchdog" groups.
And like half of those are from before the F-35 even had a full squadron yet.
These aren't sources. These are rumor mills, and everybody was capitalizing on the MSM's hate-boner for the F-35 to sell books.
In about the same time frame it took to get the F-35 from contract award to active use, we went from the F-101 to the first active deployment (not first flight) of the F-16.
Ya government is shit. Keep this in mind about feds, socalled feds, fed posting, demoralization campaigns and the like. These demons are pathetic and always have been.
Get this. Thanks to a compromised ability to render their fuel tanks inert, F-35A Lighting IIs can’t fly within 25 miles of a thunderstorm or other atmospheric electrical activity.
I laughed at people claiming the recently “lost” F-35 was now in a Chinese chop shop getting reconstructed. Why would China waste its time teying to duplicate such a piece of shit? Especially when they can just keep cranking out more hypersonics.
Clutch our pearls, hallelujah Lord Almighty for the sky is falling! Doom porn for one, and doom porn for all!
Goodness, grow the fuck up already. The F-35 is probably the most capable fighter jet ever created and people here are largely complaining just to complain, that or they're Russian.
They should have kept producing F-22s for the air superiority role, and replace all guard units with the F-15C which still is a very capable fighter in the air superiority role with a radar 2nd to none. The lack of stealth though leaves it vulnerable to advancements in Fox 3 tech. Strike Eagles and A-10s would rule the battlefield once enemy air power is neutralized. All F16’s could be sold off at that point, or relegated to guard units as well. And advance drone tech for SEAD missions which will minimize the risk of losing pilots suppressing air defenses (either KIA or MIA)
mfw the only innovation of the f35 is its network connectivity
and at the F35's program cost, we could purchase the entire nation that is housing these SAMs, like Iran. Mission accomplished! Indeed the actual point of the F35 program has been to buy off various localities.
Anyone praising the A-10 clearly has no idea what they're talking about and only know anything from memes and MSM headlines.
That piece of shit literally wasn't able to do its primary mission when it first started flying, because between the time when the GAU-8 specs were laid out and when it finally took flight, Russia had already gotten rid of most of their T-55s and were cruising around in T-72s with significantly more top armor, and their air defense capabilities expanded a thousandfold due to advances in radar and missile tech.
There's a reason they ended up just slapping Mavericks to it and its mission was to just blow up mud huts or shoot missiles from 12 miles away and run home.
Yeah, there's no value to a heavily armored aircraft with a 30mm cannon that can loiter for hours at a time at low speed and take multiple 23mm Zsu bursts and keep flying.
Let's just do intruder raids on bridges that worked so well in the last 60 years of counter-insurgencies.
Bring back the US Army Air Force and put Tactical Air back in the Army.
The A-10 annoys Lobbyist-Martin because it does a helluva job at a cheap price. Whereas the F-35 needs a simulator because flying one in training - after 100s of hours on trainers - is too damned expensive.
I love how Elon is innovating like crazy and driving United Lobbyist Alliance out of business with their outdated legacy rockets.
I've worked with A-10 pilots, F-16 pilots, F-18 pilots, F-35 pilots, and one retired F-14 pilot. They all say the same thing:
"I love the [insert-my-jet-name-here]. It is the best. The other ones do [insert-some-other-role-here] a little better sometimes, but mine is still preferable because of [insert-platform-specific-advantage-here]."
What I found interesting is while they all talked up their own aircraft, they rarely denegrated the others too badly, all acknowledging the other aircraft indeed had a purpose and a role. (Though I'll say the F-14 pilot, while acknowledging that his aircraft was obsolete, had some mad shit to talk about the F-18)
So when I hear people saying "A-10 is shit" it sounds just as retarded as saying that about the F-16 or the F-35.
Lockheed paid a lot of your money to secure those maintenance contracts.
Lockheed needs to go back to making better versions of F-16s. F-16s are better than shittyass F-35s.
F-22s should never have been stopped from more production. They are far better than F-35s.
Newer models of F-15s for example are being made for our USAF. Shame how we are supposed to retire the F-16 for utter crap like the F-35.
There's a reason they went all globalist with trying to make an international fighter with the F-35
Think about the poor Japs that built their new carrier that will only work with the F35.
My thoughts exactly . Kind of reminds of those worse than useless stealth warships we built that had cannons that cost $30,000 a shot. Canons not missiles for $30k and they were retired after less than 10 or 20 years. Pathetic . All about money not defending the country.
The Zumwalt class destroyers? Each rifle shot cost wayyyyyyy more than 30k lol. More like 300k. They built 3 of them and then were cancelled for more Arliegh Burkes. (Which are awesome anyway)
it was supposed to cost 30k. But because of they did not get production to scale, before they removed the guns from the ships I think it went to a million per shell.
I hear they will actually salvage the Zumwalts into oversized, overcosted missile boats. Which is just sad - half the price of a carrier for a boat that will carry a couple of big hypersonic missiles :(
Most of the older airframes were designed to be air superiority fighters and evolved into strike or multirole fighters.
The F-35 is the first multirole designed fighter AFAIK. It was a stupid gamble to save money and make one jet for everyone and they still ended up with 3 variants.
The F-15 is hands down one of the best airframes ever designed unless we count the F-117, which had one mission. To fly undetected into Russia and put a single warhead through the Kremlin's window. The SR-71 was also so notable it was hogging every mission, Dick Cheney killed it because it wasn't making his donors enough money.
Notable multi-role fixed wing fighter/attack designed before the F-35?
The TFX. Which became the F-111 and couldn't do air combat to save itself (though it could carry AIM-9 for self-defence). And was too big and heavy for carrier ops, so the Navy pulled out.
Single seat F-15s were the air superiority big brother to the F-16, but it was realised they were spectacular bomb trucks and so became truly multirole. If your task wasn't big enough for a Bone to show up, and too big for rotary, you'd have the F-15 as your plaything.
Thanks man. Navy fighters are a bit of a blur for me. Also, you're correct on the F-15.
You're welcome.
As to Naviation...
In that same generation as the USAF, the USN were trying to retire their A6s and A7s, though the A6 found longer life as the EA6B (to eventually be replaced by the EF-18G). They introduced the F-14 (which flew initial combat missions in Vietnam, as did the F-111) as their air superiority and multirole fighter. Air first, but it proved capable as a bomb truck.
Eventually, the F-14 was retired in favour of the F/A-18 which, to be honest, was like a Navy version of the F-16. Cheap, light, but with an extra engine. Again, it was air superiority first, but there was some dedicated bomb truck versions. The "Classic" F/A-18s were eventually replaced by the Supers (F/A-18 E/F) and the Growler variant replaced the EA6B Prowler.
While they share the same designator, these later Hornets are like the 737 Max. They share a designator but are really a completely different airframe. The supers are also MUCH better at carrying ground attack ordnance (and using it with the improved avionics suites).
Why did the USN do this? Trying to consolidate on the number of types they were flying in Carrier Air Wings meant simpler maintenance and logistics chains, and more efficient Carrier operations.
What else did the USN retire in that timeframe? The S-3 Viking ASW in favour of SH-60R and destroyer screen ASW, and the fixed wing P3 (now P8). The venerable E-2 also went through a variety of upgrades and type changes (the -2000 and -D models are nothing like the earlier variants).
The Marines in that timeframe went AV8-B to the F-35, though their AH1s went all the way up to Z variant and, again, look and operate very differently to the initial Cobras from Vietnam.
All of this is largely academic nowadays, as it's rare that a carrier battle group is going to operate air ops in isolation. You're far more likely to be integrated at the Command level under an Air Component Commander, who controls the ISR, Battlefield prep, and all fixed and rotary wing assets in the given theatre / combat region. Thus, bomb trucks or rotary from multiple services (or nations) can be called upon for CAS or other roles. It's really only the super-specialised units (160th SOAR) or super unique roles (ISR for example) that are going to operate the same no matter what.
Read some of the books of combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. They show how this worked in real life with the cohort of who might arrive in response to request for air support. It was far more effective and efficient in Afghanistan, but it was present to a lesser extent over Iraq.
In my airframe design course we had a few examples that used the Hornet and Super Hornet. The first draft was just a bigger frame. This resulted in some problems like wing rattle that had to be fixed.
Airframe design? Now you're activating braincells that haven't been used in a loooooooooong time.
I vaguely remember using the EA6B and the E2 (I can't remember the variant at the time) as case studies for one of my assignments. It blew my tiny brain finding out about the lifting body effect contribution of the radome on the E2 (and E3).
That and trying to argue the point that my little civil light trainer I'd designed SHOULD be dynamically unstable...
We also had missile design as a course, so that was more fun.
The F-15E is entirely multirole, and you guys don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Aircraft aren't like goddamn World of Warcraft characters where you need DPS, a tank, a priest, etc. and nobody wants a 'jack of all trades' Druid who is shit at everything. That isn't even remotely how aircraft and avionics work.
I won't disagree that the F-15 is incredible, but the F-35 is completely different.
The disrespectful handshake comes in again.
You've misread my post and so your opinion on it is invalid.
Your point is also ridiculous. Try putting 50-100 bombs into an F-16 and tell me how you don't need different aircraft.
welcome to pdw
You're literally comparing a heavy bomber, which the Air Force still has, to small-frame fighter aircraft?
Are you fucking stupid?
Did you think the F-35 was going to replace C-5s and KC-135s too, you dumbass, and that's what 'multirole' means? "WELL HOW IS THE F-35 GOING TO REPLACE COMPASS CALL WTF PIECE OF SHIT"
No, penisbreath, I just proved you're a fucking idiot with your "tHiS iSn'T wOrLd Of WaRcrAfT" comment.
EDIT: If "small frame fighter" aircraft are all the same, then what is the mtow and range of an F-15 vs. F-35 and why is one stealth but the Air Force is buying both?
Honestly, fuck off and quit proving to the world how ignorant you are.
arent 22s a bigger cash cow than 35s?
50% of the time it's ready to fly 100% of missions that involve only 13 major 1B deficiencies making for a grand total of who gives a crap it's a piece of over priced junk.
The 13 deficiencies include:
The F-35’s logistics system currently has no way for foreign F-35 operators to keep their secret data from being sent to the United States.
The spare parts inventory shown by the F-35’s logistics system does not always reflect reality, causing occasional mission cancellations.
Cabin pressure spikes in the cockpit of the F-35 have been known to cause barotrauma, the word given to extreme ear and sinus pain.
In very cold conditions — defined as at or near minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit — the F-35 will erroneously report that one of its batteries have failed, sometimes prompting missions to be aborted.
Supersonic flight in excess of Mach 1.2 can cause structural damage and blistering to the stealth coating of the F-35B and F-35C.
After doing certain maneuvers, F-35B and F-35C pilots are not always able to completely control the aircraft’s pitch, roll and yaw.
If the F-35A and F-35B blows a tire upon landing, the impact could also take out both hydraulic lines and pose a loss-of-aircraft risk.
A “green glow” sometimes appears on the helmet-mounted display, washing out the imagery in the helmet and making it difficult to land the F-35C on an aircraft carrier.
On nights with little starlight, the night vision camera sometimes displays green striations that make it difficult for all variants to see the horizon or to land on ships.
The sea search mode of the F-35’s radar only illuminates a small slice of the sea’s surface.
When the F-35B vertically lands on very hot days, older engines may be unable to produce the required thrust to keep the jet airborne, resulting in a hard landing.
Kek
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR8w0w1DdUOXfF9lNlFU-jw
F35, The Jet That Ate The Pentagon
January 30, 2007 – Richard Cummings – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 233
May 19, 2011 – Mark Sheffield – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 1849
June 21, 2012 – Winslow T. Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 2425
March 23, 2012 – Dina Rasor – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 2303
September 19, 2016 – Dan Grazier – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 4263
Mandy Smithberger on the Arms Industry’s Revolving Door
Ep. 5255 – Aaron Mehta on the Unresolved Problems with the F-35
Is The F-35 Worth $115 Million?
It's because the entire military supply chain has been running on 30 year old systems and it's not well-integrated into ALIS, which is supposed to be an all-in-one system. ALIS works until you run into something that has to operate outside of ALIS.
Blame the idiots in supply who aren't doing their jobs.
Also worst case that's literally just a 'update the software' issue. Something you're claiming is some kind of mind-melting catastrophic failure.
Not to mention the military supply chain is fucked in entirely different ways for entirely different reasons.
Helps when you're not bas d on the first database ever invented.
You underestimate how deeply, deeply dysfunctional the military is on this front
Pretty sure this is a feature, not a bug :)
It could run both ways. If our data is being sent it could be picked up too. Because we all know how well government utilizes data integrity and safety.
Also, sometimes they kick the pilot out and fly away.
kek
Meanwhile a chinese remote pilot utilizing an Ali Express special console lands the thing to be quickly disassembled and studied.
The logistics system isn't a surprise. I think fixed wing operators globally got used to the C17, which maintains a global logistics and DLM chain back to the US. No one else technically owns their C17s, they're fleet managed by the US.
The offer of having back to supplier logistics chains means smaller operators can buy into the platform, and larger operators were already balls-deep in the acquisition and reach around operations space that there really isn't much that wasn't already known by the US.
The other issues, though, seem to be systemic design and operational issues and need to be remediated.
Now you know why they are cancelling the Warthog. It's too reliable.
And expecting the F-16 to fulfill the role of Ground Support. A high speed fighter with far less armor and only one engine.
A-10s have been turned into swiss cheese from trash fire and landed back home to fly a few days later.
F-16s can't be launched from improvised airbases made out of section of highway (Autobahn) either.
They are just going to use drones
In the dictionary, under "Sunk Cost Fallacy", is a picture of the F-35.
https://www.businessinsider.com/british-f35b-crash-off-aircraft-carrier-hms-queen-elizabeth-2023-9?r=US&IR=T
Yup they sink
“Put it back in”
"works 50% of the time, every time."
https://youtu.be/pjvQFtlNQ-M?si=Xb5A8wpWyu5QBmVh
ALLLRIGHT.
This isnt new. The delays and all the talk over the years of cancelling orders, delaying, new models of planes out before anyone takes delivery of the previous version. Its all another hole to throw tax payer money down.
It takes 9 man hours to maintain for 1 flight hour of the F-35 at an average operating cost of $42K per flight hour. It is a bloated hangar queen.
The cost for air superiority is a game of diminished returns and turns into putting all your eggs in one basket. We sort of realized this with the F-22 and why we have only half of what we were slated to have. It’s better to have a higher volume of cheaper aircraft than to have small fleets of expensive unicorns, a mosaic approach, like how the 2A as a whole keeps us safe in general. That and the pacing of technology, causes a “wait problem” as money is sunk into projects. Imagine sinking more money in your old “Gateway” computer today, it just cheaper to get something better at this point.
Believe me, I love the blanket of freedom afforded to me by our air superiority, whether it is real or just expensive propaganda. It all comes at a cost though. Seeing as how we have done less and less fighter plane operations through the years, I hope the cost pays off should there be an escalation to WW3, but I also hope to never find out, too.
There's a lot I disagree with in your post.
The F-22 was cancelled under Obama so they could pump the F-35, not because it wasn't effective or because it was too expensive. The development of the F-22 was complete and the tooling was in place. The program was at the stage where the more they made, the lower the cost of each individual jet would be. Cancelling the program made no sense.
While it's true that some aircraft are more expensive than others, the overall purchase and maintenance costs largely are on par with each other. How could this be, you ask, when there are much older jets that should be way cheaper? Well, older jets get constant upgrades so to be honest we don't really have any "old" jets. And upgrading and maintaining previous-gen aircraft costs money just as much as procuring and maintaining new ones.
It is definitely, 100%, without a doubt, WAAAAAY CHEAPER to continue to upgrade currently existing airframes than it is to make a new one. The logistics of developing, producing, and fielding a new jet is staggering.
Unless you want to go back to the days where the US suffers casualties in the thousands per battle, air superiority is a requirement rather than a nice-to-have. And no, it's not expensive propaganda. No country can match what we make and what we do. Some may have the expertise but not the funds, others the reverse. Our training programs are second to none, and our hardware is tested, iterated, reiterated, sharpened, hardened, and tested all over again before the first day it's even fielded -- all these problems you hear about (while bad sounding) happen to ALL aircraft under development, and other countries simply don't have the resources to be as dilligent about fixing them as we do.
I appreciate the respectful discourse, but I too have problems with your argument. For starters, the government realized they would get more bang for their buck from the F-35 program than continuing fulfillment of the F-22. There’s a reason why we can sell the F-35 to allies but not the F-22. But in the end the commitment to the F-22 was too costly and due to the “wait problem” I mentioned better stuff is around the corner and it was more beneficial to reach for that than to bloat an existing platform unnecessarily.
While I partially agree with 1), you go one to immediately go on to contradict yourself in 3).
In 2) yes, block upgrades are like corporate franchise fees having to invest in “refreshes.” There does come a point where the cost of maintenance and availability of parts and service, weighs the platform down. So it either has to fulfill a different role or end up in the boneyard, no matter how sexy it is.
On 4) I agree, but I am skeptical. We’ve had control of the skies wherever we had conflicts, yet ground assets were still required to advance, as always in war. While life saving as a whole, all that superiority didn’t make a dent in places like Vietnam or Afghanistan. The mistakes made in Vietnam thinking we could rule that place from the sky, in Afghanistan we didn’t exactly go top-shelf with the airpower because the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. We could have spent a fortune bombarding that place from the sky and possibly never make forward progress. It would have had the same net effect of burning your house down to kill the ants in your kitchen.
Warfare is nasty and while I want to believe we are on top of the food-chain, I do so with a side of caution knowing we aren’t exactly invincible either. Let me just throw you something out of left field. Supply chain disruption as an example. Go into a full-scale war, if supply chains are disrupted, whether its fuel, armaments, or maintenance related parts or labor, every fancy system you can rattle off becomes paper weights. Which ironically enough, supply chain issue and intentionally making paper weights was the exit strategy from Afghanistan, because I sure as fuck didn’t see us “air superioritying” our equipment or troops out of there. Maybe that was a calculated bean-counter call, poor strategy or both and more.
Bottom line, we are by no means weak, but we do have hard limitations that causes me to question over-all effectiveness in relation to our capability, real or perceived.
I don't feel like 1 and 3 are contradicting. Perhaps the IT was ambiguous? To clarify, I was saying:
I'm saying that financially it made more sense to continue to produce and refine the F-22 because that's cheaper than making something new like the F-35.
They wouldn't, they didn't, and they won't. Switching to the F-35 was a political decision rather than a strategic or financial one. At this point if they make and sell enough F-35s it will be OK, buy financially speaking this was a suboptimal choice.
Indeed there is. The F-22 is decidedly more capable in a few key areas. A nation with a dozen of them could wield significant regional power, assuming they had the pilots, resources, and supply line to maintain them. And that's not something in our interests.
I don't see you comparing that to legacy aircraft, kind of like you really don't know what you're talking about. And how much of that is just repainting the LO? Hint: Almost all of it.
Do you have any idea how much shit work the F-15E took to fly? The electronic warfare suite where the ICMS Band 3 CO cost $1M and was guaranteed to die after like 3 flights at most? They literally had all the circuit breakers for the system collared and disabled it entirely because it cost too much to maintain.
There goes that reading and comprehension I mentioned earlier not understanding the mosaic aspect. Unit for unit the F-15 is still cheaper even with the newer EX, to own/operate compared to an F-35. The F-15 still has phenomenal capability for various roles performed, but the F-35 was never slated as a replacement for the F-15 either so this is an apples to oranges comparison.
Now, the F-16 is more comparable. It’s only slightly cheaper for unit, cost per hour is significantly cheaper, but needs more hours of maintenance than the F-35.
How else can I get under your skin?
You aren't sure if America has air superiority? What are you smoking
I don’t smoke anything. Apparently, you aren’t aware of what the current year is. Superiority isn’t just about equipment.
Huh? Russia doesn't even use US style combined arms with ground and air suppression. They just throw tanks and trench war fare with artillery.
Us air capabilities are better than any other nation in equipment, tactics and personal. It's not deep state propaganda lol
whoosh Anyways, seeing is believing. None of our shiny hangar queens or their tranny pilots have seen combat in modern times/theaters. I’m not denying air superiority, it’s just not battle proven, so my skepticism is healthy. I wouldn’t put money on a basketball game with the team with the best looking shoes.
We definitely have the tech and personnel, but it’s how we fuck with the dick we got that proves it. Just look at the Vietnam War. We CLEARLY had all the same type of air superiority for the time period, but our K/D ratio for aircraft would be considered a decisive loss on paper for us.
I’m not shitting on what we have, I’m just saying trust but verify.
It's not the basketball players shoes. It's one team having all 6'7 guys and the other team having short snd inured players. Easy bet.
Tranny pilots? What are you on about mate
Apparently you haven’t seen all the DEI shit going on in the military, maybe you think that is a strength….never mind. That’s what the woosh was for. My point was in Vietnam their short jungle-bound rice farmers ran roughshod over our technological advancements despite their massive handicap. This was just a small shithole country and we sustained heavy loses. The perceived superiority didn’t count for shit. Allied forces lost over 12,000 aircraft in Vietnam and the VC lost less than 200. One. Shithole. Country.
Now our numbers did improve in more modern conflicts, but our aircraft have also become far more advanced and we have even less airframes because of this. Now if we get divided on multiple fronts in a global conflict is that going to bite us in the ass? Are we going to have enough of these advanced fighters to spread around to be effective? I mean, our air superiority should have easily taken on those goat fuckers in Afghanistan, but that didn’t work. We got ran out of down like a bunch of rats.
I’m sorry but all the cool weapons in the world doesn’t make up for bad military strategies. I’m not saying we are soft, but we are definitely not a vicious as we should be.
I bet the Russian planes and tanks are no better or worse than ours. I think a lot of the "greatness" of our planes and tanks are overhyped propaganda by the DOD. They haven't proven shit against enemies that have some parity with us. During WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam we could truly judge which was top tier equipment and garbage equipment.
Take for example the F-105 fighter jet. Overhyped trash that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong embarrassed. Was retired by our military before the end of the Vietnam War.
in Vietnam our special forces MACVSOG suffered 100% casualty rates. it wasnt the equipment or operator it was the leadership making bad decisions.
btw Russia still haven't put their 5th gen fighter the SU57 in combat and we're already moving to 6th gen with the NGAD platform. both China and Russia aircraft are not on par. but they'll be using other tech to try to even thr playing field. most likely more cost effective swarm drones
There's gonna be soooo much guerilla warfare and tactical disruption of US infrastructure on US soil by sleeper cells, we won't even have the ability to fight or manufacture anything or grow food.
dont worry bro, we got our tactical tranny squads
Drones worry me. I also think Russia will take what they learned and skip stealth 5th generation.
Even now they're relying on hypersonic missiles for deep strikes in Ukraine and not using fighters. Which is kinda the point of stealth?
the hypersonics are a counter to defeat our aircraft carriers. our carriers might end up like the great battleships of ww2. obsolete.
For the planes, Russia has almost none of the "current gen" in their fleet due to cost issues since the Soviet Union fell, for the tanks, they are still using the same engine as the T-34, except the Armata, which is using the same engine in the Nazi's Tiger II. There are reasons for why they fight the way they do.
For Chy-na, I'm not familiar with their armor so I won't talk on it, but their planes have had a terrible time staying in the air since they stopped sourcing their engines from Russia and switched to local production.
The more interesting comparisons are the European arms, as the modern Leopard and Challenger are comparable to the Abrams, and Dassault and Eurofighter have planes that could be competitive with ours.
The Eurofighter is pretty old tech already? Isn't the Abrams due a replacement? I remember reading it was already behind Eurotanks. Will be interesting to see what kind of fighter BAE and Saab come up with.
Are there currently two 6th Gen fighter programs in Europe? A French led program that includes Italy and I think Spain and Grrman led one with Sweden and I want to say the UK?
Eurofighter is a company pretty much founded to make and maintain the Typhoon, and if I remember correctly, it's either the source of or has been tabbed to do the same role for the German 6th gen fighter. Dassault is the French manufacturer in charge of their program, and have a history with the Mirage and Rafale.
As for the Abrams, there was the Abrams X prototype that came out a while back, but that was more a tech demo than anything. The thing with it though is that they've been claiming the Eurotanks are better than it for decades, but with continued upgrades it keeps performing just as well as them if not better.
Did you miss the whole Ukraine war last 2 years
Russian fighters are still running on 40 year old engines that practically are powered by coal because they don't know how to make good ones, and neither does China.
If it ever gets to a proper war we would need a fighter jet that isnt a super expensive thing you cant fly 50% of the time.
No worries, in WWIII, all battles will be scheduled and the Tranny/Non-binary commanders can always reschedule if they have to.
Thanks for clarification. Makes sense that the more features a platform has, the harder it is to keep tip top, logistically.
whatever we got triangle shits
lmao if you guys think 50% MC is bad, go look up something like the B1. Or really any legacy aircraft.
MC rates are affected by a lot of stuff, and the #1 killer of MC rates for the F-35 is the stealth signature. Demanding that it maintain something like 85% of its maximum stealth signature is a relatively recent change to the MC rates and dropped it considerably. Furthermore, there's currently a supply problem because Covid put a pretty fucked-up wave through the system and all new parts go to the production line, leaving shortages for the flying units.
This is yet another thread of people who know literally nothing, listening to people who know literally nothing, and then thinking they know everything.
Well then handshake why don’t you just fuck off and leave then?
Maintaining stealth coating isnt the major hurdle for the F-35 fleet, but rather the shortage of spare parts.
Be careful...
It's hilarious to watch ignorant MAGA and ignorant Redditors in a circle jerk of retarded takes about how bad the F-35 is.
I’m sorry, I was told high standards are always RAYYYYYCISSSSSS!!!
Got to lower the standards for the black jet
Thinking Russian and Chinese military equipment somehow became red pill for some reason?
Total fail
RELEVANT
Hardware or software? … it’s the people in charge of both right now. It’s only capable half the time because our competent forces are halved. It’s nuts. Only a few people know what they are doing and only half of those aren’t delusional.
Our gear is shit.
Talk to anyone recently discharged about uptime for our blackhawks or any piece of equipment.
There is a good reason our shit in Afghanistan is good for scrapping and intel/IP mining by our rivals.
Special lube, special fasteners, supply chains more brittle that a burned crepe pancake.
Private cheap drones in delivery vans could dispatch lot of people in power, quickly, using cell phone data. The fuclk we need these for?
They must need more money!
bet the taliban can do better than our biden u.s. military
The F22 was/is the same way
Source: I worked on them
Someone should follow up with all the stupid asses comments from Trump's once again truth from his crystal ball https://nitter.net/realDonaldTrump/status/808301935728230404?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E808301935728230404%7Ctwgr%5E15940e7bfc1e44fdb4ef5c506310de47fc6db126%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedrive.com%2Fthe-war-zone%2F27541%2Fthese-are-the-briefings-president-elect-trump-got-on-the-f-35-air-force-one-and-nukes
1/2 the time… so that makes them 200 million each. What a deal
Gov also found that all of their F35s would get shot down by hypersonic missiles before they ever got into Taiwan airspace.
For the record, I think the writer of this article didn't understand some terms. "Mission capable" doesn't refer to the success rate of the aircraft at completing missions, it refers to whether or not the aircraft is ready, in terms of maintenance, to be used on a mission. Based on the article, about 55% of F-35's are mission capable right now. That compares to I think just under 80% of F-18's, which it's basically replacing. Not great, but possibly something that can be remedied as the infrastructure and technical knowledge around the aircraft improves. Of course, the sheer cost per flight hour is a huge problem with the program.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR8w0w1DdUOXfF9lNlFU-jw
F35, The Jet That Ate The Pentagon
January 30, 2007 – Richard Cummings – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 233
May 19, 2011 – Mark Sheffield – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 1849
June 21, 2012 – Winslow T. Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 2425
March 23, 2012 – Dina Rasor – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 2303
September 19, 2016 – Dan Grazier – The Scott Horton Show – Episode 4263
Mandy Smithberger on the Arms Industry’s Revolving Door
Ep. 5255 – Aaron Mehta on the Unresolved Problems with the F-35
Is The F-35 Worth $115 Million?
Every story you want to have about the F-35 almost literally always comes down to "according to sources familiar with ..." that every fake news bullshit runs.
I looked at the people on those podcasts, and there's no reason any of them would know shit. Retired old faggots, NGOs, "watchdog" groups.
And like half of those are from before the F-35 even had a full squadron yet.
These aren't sources. These are rumor mills, and everybody was capitalizing on the MSM's hate-boner for the F-35 to sell books.
In about the same time frame it took to get the F-35 from contract award to active use, we went from the F-101 to the first active deployment (not first flight) of the F-16.
The bad guy in Top Gun 3 is going to be mother nature
I bet Rome was a really nice place to live before it fell.
Ya government is shit. Keep this in mind about feds, socalled feds, fed posting, demoralization campaigns and the like. These demons are pathetic and always have been.
Government report cries out for our enemies to attack us, please attack us, we're like totally weak it said.
Get this. Thanks to a compromised ability to render their fuel tanks inert, F-35A Lighting IIs can’t fly within 25 miles of a thunderstorm or other atmospheric electrical activity.
1 flight hour = 1 hour of maintenance is pretty good for stealth aircraft, I think...
I laughed at people claiming the recently “lost” F-35 was now in a Chinese chop shop getting reconstructed. Why would China waste its time teying to duplicate such a piece of shit? Especially when they can just keep cranking out more hypersonics.
the technology inside and outside is worth a lot even if the completed plane kinda sucks.
Flying Range Rovers
British aircraft carriers are fucked then.
But it’s super stealthy and stuff. No one will see it coming, especially if it’s sitting in a hanger in California getting worked on
How often are other planes not mission capable?
Clutch our pearls, hallelujah Lord Almighty for the sky is falling! Doom porn for one, and doom porn for all!
Goodness, grow the fuck up already. The F-35 is probably the most capable fighter jet ever created and people here are largely complaining just to complain, that or they're Russian.
It's a dog. A-10 4 life.
They should have kept producing F-22s for the air superiority role, and replace all guard units with the F-15C which still is a very capable fighter in the air superiority role with a radar 2nd to none. The lack of stealth though leaves it vulnerable to advancements in Fox 3 tech. Strike Eagles and A-10s would rule the battlefield once enemy air power is neutralized. All F16’s could be sold off at that point, or relegated to guard units as well. And advance drone tech for SEAD missions which will minimize the risk of losing pilots suppressing air defenses (either KIA or MIA)
lmao ok
Sure, use drones that are dependent on external command links to attack entrenched SAM networks. Brilliant. What could go wrong.
It's funny watching people jerk their dicks off to the F-22 which has literally only flown one combat mission which was to shoot down a balloon.
Who shit in this cunt’s cornflakes again?
mfw the only innovation of the f35 is its network connectivity
and at the F35's program cost, we could purchase the entire nation that is housing these SAMs, like Iran. Mission accomplished! Indeed the actual point of the F35 program has been to buy off various localities.
The A-10 is an ancient and feeble idol for weak minded retards.
So is your mom but you don’t hear me complaining do you?
Anyone praising the A-10 clearly has no idea what they're talking about and only know anything from memes and MSM headlines.
That piece of shit literally wasn't able to do its primary mission when it first started flying, because between the time when the GAU-8 specs were laid out and when it finally took flight, Russia had already gotten rid of most of their T-55s and were cruising around in T-72s with significantly more top armor, and their air defense capabilities expanded a thousandfold due to advances in radar and missile tech.
There's a reason they ended up just slapping Mavericks to it and its mission was to just blow up mud huts or shoot missiles from 12 miles away and run home.
Yes, clearly, it goes BRRRRTT. What more do we need?
Yeah, there's no value to a heavily armored aircraft with a 30mm cannon that can loiter for hours at a time at low speed and take multiple 23mm Zsu bursts and keep flying.
Let's just do intruder raids on bridges that worked so well in the last 60 years of counter-insurgencies.
Bring back the US Army Air Force and put Tactical Air back in the Army.
The A-10 is a feeble joke propped up by retarded Redditors stroking themselves off while mumbling "leBRRRRRT leBRRRRRT"
The A-10 annoys Lobbyist-Martin because it does a helluva job at a cheap price. Whereas the F-35 needs a simulator because flying one in training - after 100s of hours on trainers - is too damned expensive.
I love how Elon is innovating like crazy and driving United Lobbyist Alliance out of business with their outdated legacy rockets.
A-10 wouldnt survive 10 minutes on the modern battlefield.
But it does survive on the modern battlefield. Quite well in fact.
Right, but F-16s flying at near stall speed (have to to ID tank and infantry targets) with thin metal coating over the same AAA concentration would.
Boomer-tards worship LE-BRRRRRRRRT. You're pathetic. The A-10 is absolutely useless in an actual comflict.
Blowing up ragheads in the desert is so easy a fucking Cessna can do it.
I've worked with A-10 pilots, F-16 pilots, F-18 pilots, F-35 pilots, and one retired F-14 pilot. They all say the same thing:
"I love the [insert-my-jet-name-here]. It is the best. The other ones do [insert-some-other-role-here] a little better sometimes, but mine is still preferable because of [insert-platform-specific-advantage-here]."
What I found interesting is while they all talked up their own aircraft, they rarely denegrated the others too badly, all acknowledging the other aircraft indeed had a purpose and a role. (Though I'll say the F-14 pilot, while acknowledging that his aircraft was obsolete, had some mad shit to talk about the F-18)
So when I hear people saying "A-10 is shit" it sounds just as retarded as saying that about the F-16 or the F-35.