Forum: General F-35 Forum

Are you actually dumb enough to think that the F/A-18 wasn't substantially more expensive than the F-4 as well?

It might also mean options other than 10 x 100,000 ton carrier based aviation.

Ten to eleven CVs are required to sustain a worldwide presence of credible, mobile, flexible, and visible airpower. Any less and you risk not having options. One way to reduce the CV requirement is to exit a theater of operations permanently - choose one. Not so easy...

503, you're the one that brought the F-4 / F-14 into the discussion. I'm sorry you don't appreciate my sarcasm, but I can't help it if your going to go back 40 years with an example that has virtually no bearing on the present threat situation. News flash....the cold war is over.

The bottom line is, this IS an economic discussion. The Navy has to find the most cost effective way to do its mission going forward within the plausible spectrum of anticipated threats to our national security. They have no choice. That might mean options that don't involve $40 billion in F-35C procurement. It might also mean options other than 10 x 100,000 ton carrier based aviation. You are apparently one of these people out there who is afraid of change and forward thinking. Thank God the CNO is not!

We could agree on that over-view, 503rd... so perhaps only the details then need to be better examined and fairly assessed in order to better enable more reliable and cost-effective strategic value, and less gamble, during the interim uncertainty?

You have plainly shown yourself to have little interest in aircraft or airpower in general. You are, in fact, an internationalist crybaby with a political agenda; and I feel sorry for those who've wasted several paragraphs arguing with you.

You my friend, are WAY off base. I am a huge proponent of air power. Hell, it saved my bacon in Afghanistan. And I am certainly no internationalist. Quite the opposite, I think we should concentrate on our own national security interests and stop trying to police the world. Not to the point of being an isolationist, but some of these spats we are getting involved have very little to do with our security. What I am is a realist.

Let's take the worst POSSIBLE case scenario. Let's assume Russia and China muster every single tactical aircraft they have ten years from now and use them in a coordinated way against us. A 2022 Pearl Harbor if you will. Assume the current modest growth and modernization of both Russian and Chinese air fleets. Let's also assume zero help from any NATO ally or major non-NATO ally (Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea.) How many 4th and 5th gen airframes could the "Reds" throw at our: many hundred legacy active and reserve F-16s, legacy F-18s, F-18 E/Fs, legacy F-15s, F-15Es, F-22s, and how ever many F-35s the USAF and USMC will have procured by then? Would that enemy even be able to come close to matching us in raw numbers in 4th and 5th gen aircraft?

A few small points to add to this equation.

Tanker support - advantage US
AWACS support - advantage US
Space support - advantage US
UAV support - advantage US
Over 40 nuclear submarines with conventional precision cruise missiles to attack airfields, C2, and provide SEAD - advantage US
50+ B1s and 21 B2s with precision conventional stand-off weapons - ditto
10 carrier groups to what? 2 or 3
All the surface ships we have with cruise missile and Aegis capability - ditto

Now consider the number one variable in air combat, pilot proficiency and training. I'll submit to you that current US pilots have booked 100x more combat hours than all the other countries pilots in the world combined (including Israel). How many combat hours do Chinese and Russian pilots have on average?

The bottom line, with zero support from our allies and their very capable aircraft, we would COMPLETELY TOTALLY over-match this SINO-Russian threat even if the NAVY buys zero F-35Cs. IT WOULDN'T EVEN BE CLOSE.

That fact being indisputable, why is it so offensive to some that Navy and the DOD in general may be thinking about putting more money towards asymmetrical threats and less into a system like the F-35?

What I am saying is that we face new threats and asymmetrical threats and that our defense spending should be geared towards that, rather than an area in which already we have a significant over-match superiority. I'm not saying spend less on defense - I am saying spend SMARTER.

Cyberwarefare, counter espionage, C4ISR, anti-ballistic missile capability, space dominance, Special Ops, littoral threats, port and border security, and WMD detection and protection are all areas that require robust funding. I personally don't want to see any of these areas underfunded just so we can be "bigger and scarier" to use your childish words.

Answer these questions seriously:

1) Would a high tech 21st century enemy be more likely to cripple our military through some sort of tactical air attack, or through a space attack aimed at taking out a large number of our critical satellites, along with coordinated cyber attacks, espionage, and special operations actions on critical C2 infrastructure? The answer is obvious and the F-35 provides virtually no deterrence to this threat. Even if you think this kind of attack would be coupled with air attacks, the F-35 is not an optimized air dominance weapon system. The F-22 is, but that is another thread altogether.

2) What is the bigger threat (real threat) to our security over the next 50 years, a tactical air defeat at the hands of some organized enemy air force, or, a WMD being detonated in one of the thousands of un-inspected shipping containers that enter our ports each day? The government claims that it is simply way too expensive to inspect more than a small sample of these containers. Furthermore, even if technology capable of detecting every dangerous item was procured, it would be ineffective unless the nuclear material is brought through the fixed ports of entry where the monitors are located. We have thousand of miles of unguarded borders. These are real vulnerabilities and expensive ones to counter. The F-35 is useless here.

3) Would all the F-35s in the world stop a ballistic missile attack from N Korea, Iran, or some other future enemy state (Venezuela, Pakistan, or xyz)? Yes, I'll accept they could be used preemptively to do so, but so could a lot of other systems. I am talking about stopping missiles that have already been launched, since we are probably not going to preemptively strike every single state than might develop this capability and aim it at us.

In the budget environment that we are entering, at least some of our spending priorities must be directed squarely at what the true threats to our security are, not being "bigger and scarier" on the TAC AIR side.

CNO Ready To Cut Back On F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
By Mackenzie Eaglen / AOL
Published: July 9, 2012

"Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert's recent article in Proceedings announces in public what many have already known in private: The U.S. Navy is not wholly committed to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Admiral Greenert's controversial -- and, potentially, hugely consequential -- article raises several interesting points, among which is the contention that advances in sensing capabilities and electronic and cyber warfare will increasingly degrade America's stealth arsenal.

This is not news. What is news, however, is the head of the U.S. Navy signaling a tepid commitment to the military's largest acquisition program, not to mention the many allied and partner country participants."

Source: http://defense.aol.com/2012/07/09/cno-r ... e-fighter/