Finnish DefMin interested in F-35s, not Gripens
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XanderCrews wrote:magitsu wrote:XanderCrews wrote:CSAF Brown really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Here's his latest. Now trying to redefine readiness with the CMC.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/redef ... s-or-lose/
i don't know if I was ready for that level of "buzzword bingo" this early.
Double speak, and double think, and paradoxes are nothing new to the military, but wow isn't this the same guy who threw his most advanced, least expensive future platform strike fighter under the bus not even a month ago in favor of some dream sheet vapor-ware legacy platform? who is this idiot? Watching this guy blunder into the F-35/Gen plus debacle, gave me zero confidence in his abilities. Real deep strategic thinking there, bud. You can definitely manage this giant force during this "critical time"
Not really happy with the service chiefs. We've spent 15 years screwing around in the sandbox, the military refuses to let go of the middle east, while screaming they don't have enough resources and are behind in everything (geewhiz you boys havn't been distracted by anything have you?) and how we need to prioritize and make tough choices, before once again making that "tough choice" of "D. All of the above". the inability to put Europe over Afghanistan, Japan over Kurdistan, and South Korea over Syria is absolutely spellbinding.
I'm not going to derail this thread anymore, this is about Finland. But boy oh boy am I not impressed with these people.
Not sure what you are complaining about. I found the "War on the Rocks" text from Brown and Berger to be quite good and to the point. For Browns previous comments, I am not sure how much of that was due to the journalists twisting his words, and/or just him being inexperienced with dealing with such a situation.
In any case, F-35 development started ages ago, and clearly things have changed since then. If they had written requirements today of an USAF multirole fighter I think they would have been quite different, in particular when it comes to range, payload, and a few other things. I think we may see an increased focus on drones and "loyal wingmen" in the future. The issue with a "loyal wingman" is that you need a manned aircraft nearby. Currently, the best candidate would be the F-35, however range is inadequate for the Asia-Pacific. Perhaps the fastest quick-fix would be to develop conformal fuel tanks for the F-35 -- this in combination with a new, adaptive/variable cycle engine should considerably increase the range. Alternatively, a stealthy, unmanned tanker should also do the job.
Link an F-35 with 4-5 "loyal wingmen", and off you go.
loke wrote:Not sure what you are complaining about. I found the "War on the Rocks" text from Brown and Berger to be quite good and to the point.
Never change, loke.
For Browns previous comments, I am not sure how much of that was due to the journalists twisting his words, and/or just him being inexperienced with dealing with such a situation.
such a twist is impossible if one knows what they are doing. This is basic stuff and he botched it. if they take a hatchet to the F-35, I don't want to hear the USAF complain about readiness and aging airplanes, they should have learned with F-22 and if they haven't then there's no helping them and I have no sympathy. He walked right into a great big bear trap marked "Danger: Bear trap" he was either the smartest guy in the room and had a great trick up his sleeve, or the dumbest. And him walking back his comments, after a firestorm, signal he was not option A: smartest guy, so that leaves option B
In any case, F-35 development started ages ago, and clearly things have changed since then.
oh horseshit. for nearly 2 decades people have whined the F-35 is unneeded since the future is RPGs and IEDs in whatever-i-stan and the F-35 is gross and expensive overkill. People that have advocated the F-35 have quick to point out that its needed to fight near peer adversaries like Russia and Chine for example. Well now there are near peer adversaries and suddenly "things have changed?" Really? Did the pacific get bigger? Have the USMC not been practicing dispersed operations and the USN not building CVNs and the USAF not recapping tankers with an eye to the pacific all these years? the US Military just never looked at the global map before now?
The F-35 was good to go for 20 years and then one day the boss looked at the map and the range and carriage was a no go? what? The USAF plans to use F-35s into the 2060s but one day in 2021 they were suddenly outdated?
The reasons you list are completely yours and its more complicated than that.
Did everyone just fall for near term propaganda that doesn't add up after taking amnesia pills for a decade? "clearly things have changed" into the exact thing we have been preparing for for decades?
In any case, Gripen NG/E/F development started ages ago, and clearly things have changed since then.
no? oh right...
Loke, it changed to YOU. you discovered loyal wingman and started spamming it everywhere at the same time you were complaining about the iceland detachment and the same time this CSAF scuffle started. We can even pinpoint the date "things have changed" based on your posting history
If they had written requirements today of an USAF multirole fighter I think they would have been quite different, in particular when it comes to range, payload, and a few other things.
not really no, Theres no other fighter out there that can top the F-35s range and carriage. if the USAF wants to get bigger and better its going to have to pay for that. There's a reason the F-16 exists and the USAF didn't go full F-15 and ditto with the Navy's Hornets and not full on Intruders and Tomcats.
the USAF got only a fraction of the F-22s it wanted. but surely if it had developed its own 5th gen strike fighter it would have been better than the F-35, cost less, and been more available. You can look at the Navy's A-12 as a great example of how things would have just worked out. i mean they didn't with the f-22, but in fantasyland I'm sure the USAF would have just nailed it.
People like yourself are getting way ahead of yourself because you woke up one day and decided the future was here and everything is different. We havn't even finished replacing the teen series. The F-35 is the best theyre going to have for the foreseeable future. If the F-35 has range problems and survivability problems then thats really bad news for the thousands of F-15s and F-16s and A-10s in service. And those need to be replaced first and foremost before we start looking at the F-35 follow on, or next gen or whatever. Theyre putting the cart before the horse, and if it all collapses they have no one but themselves to blame.
Luckily its all budget drama, and a lot of other things. but I'll leave you with this. (warning NSFW language) and you can see if you notice any parallels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxQw0VoT538
I think we may see an increased focus on drones and "loyal wingmen" in the future.
What a bold guess
Watching you discover that program that still in its infancy and glob onto it reminds me of the heady days of the Gripen NG in about 2011. good times, downright nostalgic around here.
The issue with a "loyal wingman" is that you need a manned aircraft nearby. Currently, the best candidate would be the F-35, however range is inadequate for the Asia-Pacific.
Disagree, and as I said "Asia pacific" didn't just appear from no where. plus we have tankers, the boring manned variety. The first F-35 squadron in the USMC went straight to Japan. the US has had the "pacific pivot" going on for years now.
I think F-35s range is perfectly adequate for a fighter class airplane, I think bigger than that you're looking at either a revolution in engine tech, or building a fighter that's about just under the size of a strategic bomber, and that's costly. Everything could use more range, the question is can you afford it and what else gets sacrificed? And thats why things are tougher than they look. On paper, F-22 is magnificent, that's not the issue though.
Perhaps the fastest quick-fix would be to develop conformal fuel tanks for the F-35 -- this in combination with a new, adaptive/variable cycle engine should considerably increase the range. Alternatively, a stealthy, unmanned tanker should also do the job.
Link an F-35 with 4-5 "loyal wingmen", and off you go.
neat.
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loke wrote:5. Not surprisingly, they "down-weight" the capabilities of not-yet-finished Gripen, just like Switzerland did. I wonder if they did a similar "down-weighting" of LM's claim of (2012) 25,000 USD CPFH in 2025... I would not be surprised if they "forgot" to do that....
There isn't any 25k number to begin with. They've acquired info about the cost factors and are going to calculate with their own method so it's sure that they are comparable.
Yes, the burden of proof to politicians in case they don't want to follow the recommendation part is smart.
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Another story, now actually F-35 related:
https://www.kaleva.fi/hornetin-seuraaja ... an/3437163
F-35 fighters do not have to be concentrated in one base in Finland, at least because it would be too expensive to adapt two bases to suit the machines.
This is stated by Scott Davis, who is the head of the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics business unit in Finland.
It has been estimated in the public that converting an air base to fit an F-35 would have cost roughly € 400-600 million abroad.
The F-35 is one of five fighter candidates to replace the Air Force F/A-18 Hornets.
“The cost of converting bases is comparable to other candidates,” Davis says.
**
The construction of the bases accounts for just over 300 million euros.
Lauri Puranen, Program Director at the Ministry of Defense, says that the Finnish Defense Forces have calculated the construction needs caused by each of the fighter candidates.
- I trust our calculations.
Puranen doesn't comment on the needs of individual fighter candidates. However, he says the construction costs needed by the different candidates are “amazingly close to each other.”
- Differences are some tens of millions of euros.
**
Concentrating new fighters to one base hasn't even been discussed, Puranen states.
**
According to Lockheed Martin Davis, the maintenance of the fighter is simple, and it's feasible to utilize Finnish conscripts.
**
Finland is able to perform all maintenance and lifecycle upgrades in Finland.
**
Maintenance involves sending the data to the manufacturer for analysis. This is done via the internet and does not require a satellite connection.
- The F-35 produces a huge amount of data, and when it comes from all user countries, it can be used to improve maintenance.
Davis stresses that no operational data is transmitted.
According to Davis, the F-35 is designed to operate for 30 days without the need to connect it to a maintenance data network. In times of crisis, this can be stretched.
https://www.kaleva.fi/hornetin-seuraaja ... an/3437163
loke wrote:1. I don't agree that the "competitions will stay tough until the end". The Finnish Air Force will clearly recommend F-35. As I have stated previously, an air force that is given a free choice between F-35 and a 4.5 gen fighter will choose the F-35.
never say never
2. The Air Force is quite clever in making it clear that they are putting the "burden of proof" on the politicians if they do not choose the Air Force winner -- politicians hate accountability and ending up in a situation where they might be blamed for something. So this gives them a strong incentive to pick the winner the Air Force selected (on a side note, the political climate in Finland seems extremely different from e.g. Germany, where an air force official was fired for "thinking loud" about the F-35)
they didn't pull a Canada
3. Interesting comments about "15 years" -- this is in line with what I have said in previous postings...
4. Interesting comments about "Loyal wingman" -- this is in line with what I have said in previous postings...
You suggested they lease Gripen Es that aren't yet in service or anywhere near being built that Sweden would pay for, buy UAVs, and then buy airplanes not yet in existence with no clue about what their cost or performance or availability will be. "this is in line" LOL yeah, good one.
5. Not surprisingly, they "down-weight" the capabilities of not-yet-finished Gripen, just like Switzerland did.
Yeah, being in service is actually pretty important it turns out. I don't think the swiss "down weighted" them. You have to be there to be "down weighted" right?
I wonder if they did a similar "down-weighting" of LM's claim of (2012) 25,000 USD CPFH in 2025... I would not be surprised if they "forgot" to do that....
not how Finland works and its not 2025 yet-- good try though. 2025 will be just one or two year away from the FOC Gripen E though. so thats nice. its smart for Finland to look at what it will cost for Finland to operate the jet. don't really the implication of what "forgotten" with the Fins in HX, that's pretty nasty and without evidence.
But we do have plenty of evidence of Saab "forgetting" to tell us what their airplane even costs flyway. "forgetting" to update their CPFH numbers. "Forgetting" to not reblog wild claims on the internet "Forgetting to include other maint. costs in their public pitches. No wonder you think everyone "forgets" so often its like a battered wife who thinks all husbands are abusive
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XanderCrews wrote:loke wrote:1. I don't agree that the "competitions will stay tough until the end". The Finnish Air Force will clearly recommend F-35. As I have stated previously, an air force that is given a free choice between F-35 and a 4.5 gen fighter will choose the F-35.
never say never
It's 99.99% certain that Finland will buy F-35. If you had known Finland and Finnish politics a bit better you would have agreed. The probability of Finland buying F-35 is probably higher than the probability of partner Canada buying F-35... although I would put Canada at more than 90%, they are after all a partner country.
3. Interesting comments about "15 years" -- this is in line with what I have said in previous postings...
4. Interesting comments about "Loyal wingman" -- this is in line with what I have said in previous postings...
You suggested they lease Gripen Es that aren't yet in service or anywhere near being built that Sweden would pay for, buy UAVs, and then buy airplanes not yet in existence with no clue about what their cost or performance or availability will be. "this is in line" LOL yeah, good one.
Nope, that's not what I suggested. I suggested they should do a competition 15 years later between F-35 and other modern fighters like the Tempest and NGAD. Perhaps F-35 would have won also 15 years down the line, who knows? The thing is that it's not going away, so delaying the buy with some years would not make them "lose" the opportunity to buy F-35 as you seem to imply, it will still be there, but they would gain the opportunity to compare it against other more modern jets. Also, in 15 years the implications of integrating loyal wingmen and other drones will become more clear. Lease of Gripen E was just an example, and probably the most "realistic" one since I don't think the USN have any Super Hornet to spare -- neither does France have any Rafale to spare. Also, Sweden could have offered a better lease deal. Anyway, it was just a creative "what-if" idea, nothing to get upset about. Finland is on track to purchase the F-35, of that I am sure. It will be interesting to see how many they will buy. Norway will operate 48 F-35, could afford one air base only, with a defense budget much much larger than Finland, and a non-existing army. Wait, we got 4 frigates , that's where the money went!! Strange then that the very capable Finnish corvettes they are building will be equipped at roughly the same level as the tiny Norwegian frigates... )
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XanderCrews wrote:In any case, F-35 development started ages ago, and clearly things have changed since then.
oh horseshit. for nearly 2 decades people have whined the F-35 is unneeded since the future is RPGs and IEDs in whatever-i-stan and the F-35 is gross and expensive overkill. People that have advocated the F-35 have quick to point out that its needed to fight near peer adversaries like Russia and Chine for example. Well now there are near peer adversaries and suddenly "things have changed?" Really? Did the pacific get bigger? Have the USMC not been practicing dispersed operations and the USN not building CVNs and the USAF not recapping tankers with an eye to the pacific all these years? the US Military just never looked at the global map before now?
The F-35 was good to go for 20 years and then one day the boss looked at the map and the range and carriage was a no go? what? The USAF plans to use F-35s into the 2060s but one day in 2021 they were suddenly outdated?
The reasons you list are completely yours and its more complicated than that.
Did everyone just fall for near term propaganda that doesn't add up after taking amnesia pills for a decade? "clearly things have changed" into the exact thing we have been preparing for for decades?
not really no, Theres no other fighter out there that c
Disagree, and as I said "Asia pacific" didn't just appear from no where. plus we have tankers, the boring manned variety. The first F-35 squadron in the USMC went straight to Japan. the US has had the "pacific pivot" going on for years now.
I think F-35s range is perfectly adequate for a fighter class airplane, I think bigger than that you're looking at either a revolution in engine tech, or building a fighter that's about just under the size of a strategic bomber, and that's costly. Everything could use more range, the question is can you afford it and what else gets sacrificed? And thats why things are tougher than they look. On paper, F-22 is magnificent, that's not the issue though.
You seem to miss a big point -- until very recently, people did not really appreciate how quickly China is ramping up, and the capabilities they have built in the last few years, putting all US bases in the region at risk.
This is "new information" and was not known to anybody when the F-35 program started. How could they have known? No doubt the F-35 is the best fighter currently in production, also for the Asia Pacific. However pointing to the fact that the F-16 is even less suited to the Asia Pacific than the F-35 does not really address the issue at hand -- that even the F-35 has some weak points in the Asia Pacific region, in particular range and payload.
Since the F-35 is currently the "best there is" at the moment, I am guessing the USAF will start producing them in large numbers once block 4 becomes available. Does not make much sense to crank up production now, just to upgrade to block 4 a few months later.
However the F-35 does not cut it by itself. It will need support of NGAD and loyal wingmen.
You are clearly underestimating China... in a few years your eyes will open, and you will see the stark realities of the situation. China can outspend the US, just like the US could outspend the USSR. That's why I in a previous post said the US had to be smarter about how they spend money. Loyal wingmen will be very capable, much cheaper than F-35 and help boost numbers.
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XanderCrews wrote:loke wrote:I wonder if they did a similar "down-weighting" of LM's claim of (2012) 25,000 USD CPFH in 2025... I would not be surprised if they "forgot" to do that....
not how Finland works and its not 2025 yet-- good try though. 2025 will be just one or two year away from the FOC Gripen E though. so thats nice. its smart for Finland to look at what it will cost for Finland to operate the jet. don't really the implication of what "forgotten" with the Fins in HX, that's pretty nasty and without evidence.
But we do have plenty of evidence of Saab "forgetting" to tell us what their airplane even costs flyway. "forgetting" to update their CPFH numbers. "Forgetting" to not reblog wild claims on the internet "Forgetting to include other maint. costs in their public pitches. No wonder you think everyone "forgets" so often its like a battered wife who thinks all husbands are abusive
Yes. Each competitor has to prove (with actual and factual data) that the package that they offer can be operated within Finnish defence budget. That's means this must be done in less than about 270 million euros or about 320 million US dollars a year.
Let's calculate. Finnish Hornets fly about 150 hours a year on average. Multiply that with say 60 aircraft. That means the 36,000 dollar CPFH would be about the maximum possible without lowering the number of aircraft or flight hours. Of course both could be done if performance doesn't suffer too much. F-35A CPFH also includes earliest jets, which increase the average flight hour costs due to them needing more maintenance and upgrades. It also seems the trend is downwards and for Finland CPFH would likely be well within reasonable limits. And there is no uncertainty in those numbers as those include currently several hundred F-35s flying operationally around the world all the time. We don't need to trust LM in anything as FAF people can just call any of the dozen F-35 operator organizations and ask them about operational costs. Can we say the same about Gripen E?
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loke wrote:You seem to miss a big point -- until very recently, people did not really appreciate how quickly China is ramping up, and the capabilities they have built in the last few years, putting all US bases in the region at risk.
This is "new information" and was not known to anybody when the F-35 program started. How could they have known? No doubt the F-35 is the best fighter currently in production, also for the Asia Pacific. However pointing to the fact that the F-16 is even less suited to the Asia Pacific than the F-35 does not really address the issue at hand -- that even the F-35 has some weak points in the Asia Pacific region, in particular range and payload.
Since the F-35 is currently the "best there is" at the moment, I am guessing the USAF will start producing them in large numbers once block 4 becomes available. Does not make much sense to crank up production now, just to upgrade to block 4 a few months later.
However the F-35 does not cut it by itself. It will need support of NGAD and loyal wingmen.
You are clearly underestimating China... in a few years your eyes will open, and you will see the stark realities of the situation. China can outspend the US, just like the US could outspend the USSR. That's why I in a previous post said the US had to be smarter about how they spend money. Loyal wingmen will be very capable, much cheaper than F-35 and help boost numbers.
How do you envision such "loyal wingmen" than have long enough range for Pacific, have high payload, be very capable and also be much cheaper? What would make them much cheaper? What capabilties do you envision they would have and how could those be made cheaper? No current project seems to be much more than technology demonstrators and fairly low performance systems compared to say F-35.
Making a fighter that has significantly higher payload and range than F-35 will mean significantly more expensive aircraft to buy and operate. I think F-35 is perfect blend of payload, range and other capabilities while having reasonable costs.
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hornetfinn wrote:loke wrote:You seem to miss a big point -- until very recently, people did not really appreciate how quickly China is ramping up, and the capabilities they have built in the last few years, putting all US bases in the region at risk.
This is "new information" and was not known to anybody when the F-35 program started. How could they have known? No doubt the F-35 is the best fighter currently in production, also for the Asia Pacific. However pointing to the fact that the F-16 is even less suited to the Asia Pacific than the F-35 does not really address the issue at hand -- that even the F-35 has some weak points in the Asia Pacific region, in particular range and payload.
Since the F-35 is currently the "best there is" at the moment, I am guessing the USAF will start producing them in large numbers once block 4 becomes available. Does not make much sense to crank up production now, just to upgrade to block 4 a few months later.
However the F-35 does not cut it by itself. It will need support of NGAD and loyal wingmen.
You are clearly underestimating China... in a few years your eyes will open, and you will see the stark realities of the situation. China can outspend the US, just like the US could outspend the USSR. That's why I in a previous post said the US had to be smarter about how they spend money. Loyal wingmen will be very capable, much cheaper than F-35 and help boost numbers.
How do you envision such "loyal wingmen" than have long enough range for Pacific, have high payload, be very capable and also be much cheaper? What would make them much cheaper? What capabilties do you envision they would have and how could those be made cheaper? No current project seems to be much more than technology demonstrators and fairly low performance systems compared to say F-35.
Making a fighter that has significantly higher payload and range than F-35 will mean significantly more expensive aircraft to buy and operate. I think F-35 is perfect blend of payload, range and other capabilities while having reasonable costs.
First, note that I am not advocating for "replacing" F-35 with loyal wingmen, but rather supplement them. The point is that the US will not be able to afford producing and operating a sufficiently large enough number of F-35 over the next 20-30 years, especially considering the Asia Pacific theater.
Since the loyal wingmen will be much cheaper than the F-35, they do not need to have high payload, that's only needed for manned fighters which tend to be more expensive than unmanned. The loyal wingmen also don't need to have the same sensor suite as the F-35, since the F-35 (or NGAD) can provide that. A large number of cheap loyal wingmen supplementing F-35/NGAD would tip the balance in favor of the US and allies.
If you look at development times of unmanned fighters they are indeed shorter than for manned, in particular using modern "digital twin" technologies. Low cost will come with large numbers produced.
If the US don't have loyal wingmen within 15 years, they will struggle to maintain the status quo in the Asia Pacific region. Necessity is the mother of invention. After the end of the cold war, the US started slacking. Now it's time to gain speed and re-invent. If not, it will be game over for US global dominance, and China will dominate.
Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. forces in the Pacific, warned in testimony to Congress last week that China could invade Taiwan by 2027 — a significant acceleration compared to officials’ previous estimates of 2035.
Despite a global pandemic, in 2020 China commissioned 25 advanced new ships, including cruisers, destroyers and ballistic missile submarines — capabilities designed to keep America and its allies that might interfere on Taiwan’s behalf at bay, a second senior defense official said. Meanwhile, Beijing is integrating its new equipment into an increasingly sophisticated force, demonstrated in a loudly publicized live-fire event last fall in which Chinese forces took out an “enemy” with ballistic missiles, and developing a theater command structure much like that of the U.S. military.
“None of those are definitive and says, ‘We think we’re going to go by here,’ but we think that the circumstances become more viable in the near term,” the second defense official said. “If we look only at the longstanding Chinese messaging of 2035 at the soonest, 2049 realistically for a world class military, we are deceiving ourselves and we run the risk of falling into a misdirection from Beijing.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/1 ... wan-476170
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magitsu wrote:Another story, now actually F-35 related:F-35 fighters do not have to be concentrated in one base in Finland, at least because it would be too expensive to adapt two bases to suit the machines.
This is stated by Scott Davis, who is the head of the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics business unit in Finland.
It has been estimated in the public that converting an air base to fit an F-35 would have cost roughly € 400-600 million abroad.
The F-35 is one of five fighter candidates to replace the Air Force F/A-18 Hornets.
“The cost of converting bases is comparable to other candidates,” Davis says.
**
The construction of the bases accounts for just over 300 million euros.
Lauri Puranen, Program Director at the Ministry of Defense, says that the Finnish Defense Forces have calculated the construction needs caused by each of the fighter candidates.
- I trust our calculations.
Puranen doesn't comment on the needs of individual fighter candidates. However, he says the construction costs needed by the different candidates are “amazingly close to each other.”
- Differences are some tens of millions of euros.
**
Concentrating new fighters to one base hasn't even been discussed, Puranen states.
**
According to Lockheed Martin Davis, the maintenance of the fighter is simple, and it's feasible to utilize Finnish conscripts.
**
Finland is able to perform all maintenance and lifecycle upgrades in Finland.
**
Maintenance involves sending the data to the manufacturer for analysis. This is done via the internet and does not require a satellite connection.
- The F-35 produces a huge amount of data, and when it comes from all user countries, it can be used to improve maintenance.
Davis stresses that no operational data is transmitted.
According to Davis, the F-35 is designed to operate for 30 days without the need to connect it to a maintenance data network. In times of crisis, this can be stretched.
https://www.kaleva.fi/hornetin-seuraaja ... an/3437163
Nice one, thank you magitsu!
Very interesting that all competitors seem to be so close cost-wise all around like stated many times by Puranen for example.
I also have zero doubts about Finnish conscripts doing much of the basic maintenance work. Pretty much all of them are highly educated, smart and motivated people. Of course there are career professionals who oversee what they do and also do the most demanding maintenance tasks.
Whoa whoa whoa! Timeout. Loke you are spreading BS and I'm going to correct it, even if this is not the best thread for it.
loke wrote:You seem to miss a big point -- until very recently, people did not really appreciate how quickly China is ramping up, and the capabilities they have built in the last few years, putting all US bases in the region at risk.
That is absolute BS. We had war game going on in the late 1990s about China and South Pacific. We have had analysts talking for decades about China. The US Navy has been screeching about China for decades if anything because they needed a new boogie man. This is nothing new in US Military circles. We had the "pacific pivot"
In the fall of 2011, the Obama Administration issued a series of announcements indicating that the United States would be expanding and intensifying its already significant role in the Asia-Pacific, particularly in the southern part of the region. The fundamental goal underpinning the shift is to devote more effort to influencing the development of the Asia-Pacific's norms and rules, particularly as China emerges as an ever-more influential regional power. Given that one purpose of the "pivot" or "rebalancing" toward the Asia-Pacific is to deepen U.S. credibility in the region at a time of fiscal constraint, Congress's oversight and appropriations roles, as well as its approval authority over free trade agreements, will help determine to what extent the Administration's plans are implemented and how various trade-offs are managed. Areas of Continuity. Much of the "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific is a continuation and expansion of policies already undertaken by previous administrations, as well as earlier in President Obama's term. Since President Obama's inauguration in 2009, the United States has given considerable time and emphasis to Southeast Asia and to regional multilateral institutions. Under President George W. Bush, the United States emphasized the strengthening of relations with existing allies in Asia, began moving toward a more flexible and sustainable troop presence in the region, concluded a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, brought the United States into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) FTA negotiations, and forged new partnerships with India and Vietnam. All of these steps have been furthered by the Obama Administration. Transformational Elements. That said, there are a number of new aspects of the shift. The most dramatic lie in the military sphere. As part of a plan to expand the U.S. presence in the southwestern Pacific and make it more flexible, the Obama Administration has announced new deployments or rotations of troops and equipment to Australia and Singapore. U.S. officials have also pledged that planned and future reductions in defense spending will not come at the expense of the Asia-Pacific (nor of the Middle East). Additionally, underlying the "pivot" is a broader geographic vision of the Asia-Pacific region that includes the Indian Ocean and many of its coastal states. Benefits, Costs, and Risks. Underlying the "pivot" is a conviction that the center of gravity for U.S. foreign policy, national security, and economic interests is being realigned and shifting towards Asia, and that U.S. strategy and priorities need to be adjusted accordingly. For many observers, it is imperative that the United States give more emphasis to the Asia-Pacific. Indeed, for years, many countries in the region have encouraged the United States to step up its activity to provide a balance to China's rising influence. There are a number of risks to the "pivot," however. In an era of constrained U.S. defense resources, an increased U.S. military emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region might result in a reduction in U.S. military capacity in other parts of the world. Another budgetary consideration is that plans to restructure U.S. military deployments in Asia and minimize cuts in the Navy may run up against more restrictive funding constraints than plans yet assume. Additionally, the perception among many that the "rebalancing" is targeted against China could strengthen the hand of Chinese hard-liners. Such an impression could also potentially make it more difficult for the United States to gain China's cooperation on a range of issues. Additionally, the prominence the Obama Administration has given to the initiative has raised the costs to the United States if it or successor administrations fail to follow through on public pledges made, particularly in the military realm
People have been talking about China since the fall of the USSR as the next national defense priority. We have augmented and moved more bases to the pacific including a permanent presence in Australia .
And this is before we get into all the Chinese ally, North Korean games that have been on going again for decades as well.
Put simply? We knew China was "ramping up" because we have been watching it happen. We can read a chart. Line go up
This is "new information" and was not known to anybody when the F-35 program started.
Absolutely lying.
How could they have known?
how could they have known the Pacific was big? is this a serious question?
We've known for YEARS. That communist nation of a billion people didn't just spring up. Again you are spreading falsehoods to create a narrative that was never true. People have been calling this for DECADES. In fact people were making fun of the Navy in the 2000s because they desperately wanted a foe to get funding and budget against.
No doubt the F-35 is the best fighter currently in production, also for the Asia Pacific. However pointing to the fact that the F-16 is even less suited to the Asia Pacific than the F-35 does not really address the issue at hand -- that even the F-35 has some weak points in the Asia Pacific region, in particular range and payload.
Again, you're pushing a narrative that doesn't line up with historical facts. Its not any secret the pacific is large. world war II in the pacific was the largest battlefield in human history. we had concerns about the F-22s range in the pacific decades ago. just like all things in the pacific are a range concern... the pacific is "rather big" and we "kind of knew that" to use cheeky british understatement.
Since the F-35 is currently the "best there is" at the moment, I am guessing the USAF will start producing them in large numbers once block 4 becomes available. Does not make much sense to crank up production now, just to upgrade to block 4 a few months later.
hopefully
However the F-35 does not cut it by itself. It will need support of NGAD and loyal wingmen.
You're clearly the expert on China as you think it only suddenly "sprung up overnight" and no one was watching.
You are clearly underestimating China...
BULLSHIT. At any given moment 2/3 of the USMC is oriented on pacific. We haven't been talking about Invading New Zealand the last 20 years. What do you think we've been doing?
in a few years your eyes will open, and you will see the stark realities of the situation.
Yes Loki, as a US Marine who was actually involved in the Pacific I am really happy you could enlighten me on my job from civilian-land, Norway. its serious? you don't say? You really think you're the only guy in the world who sees it? Think people haven't been warning about this for a long, long time?
What do you think the US Navy and Marines have been talking about outside GWOT the last 20 years? What do you think all the budget battles for the "unneeded to fight terror" gear acquisitions are about? what do you think PACAF has been doing or the Korean garrisons? Stark realities of the situation?? What you think we have been preparing for? cookie making? i know better than you the realities of war.
Let me explain to you whats happening. Other than Covid theres not many surprises here. What you're seeing is a military that has for years planned for china (the accuracy of those plans it always up for debate of course) but its now finally "here" and what the military is doing is acting like it came out of nowhere in order to get funding. And you fell for it because you seem really prone to Propaganda like most Gripen fans. Its not your fault, you just don't learn from it. Right now the biggest grift is not the "surprise rise" of china, its whats being pitched to get funds. its taking advantage of the situation to get money in an ever tougher fiscal environment.
That's what you're seeing. And you're reacting to the stimulus like you've been conditioned to do.
with China I didn't "see this coming" I watched it happen, like lots of people. its just finally "ripe" enough to pick. The only thing thats "changed" is that the Pacific that has been on the backburner in the background, has now finally officially moved to the front. But the idea of going to war with China predates the F-35 by a wide margin. You didn't really think we were making the F-35 to fight over Afghanistan did you? F-35 is the first post USSR clean sheet fighter design. We weren't building it to take on Russian Oligarchs. None of this is from "out of nowhere" but the Military sees a political opportunity. What do you think the wargames and intel winning and endless exercises and reams of intel reports are for?
China can outspend the US, just like the US could outspend the USSR. That's why I in a previous post said the US had to be smarter about how they spend money. Loyal wingmen will be very capable, much cheaper than F-35 and help boost numbers.
Have you applied to headquarters? work on your powerpoint slides, or we can just recycle the ones we have been using for years and years already. Dust off the 1999 Shinseki war games and get going. We are sending a helicopter to come pick you up now. Thank goodness you were paying attention for the rest of us sorry lot!! I didn't even realize I had been stationed in the Pacific until yesterday!
Spare me. You can float Gripen propoganda all you want' but don't speak decisively about things you know nothing about and clearly don't understand. You don't get to rewrite history, that's saab's job.
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The F-35’s greatest operational limitations are likely to be exposed in the Indo-Pacific where the distances involved in potential US combat operations against Chinese forces make all tactical fighters uncomfortably dependent on vulnerable tanker support. This is a factor which may reduce F-35 procurement in favour of more B-21s and UCAVs
https://rusi.org/publication/rusi-defen ... xaggerated
In a new report titled “Thunder without Lightning,” (PDF) authored by Bill French and Daniel Edgren for the National Security Network (NSN), argues that the United States’ fifth-generation fighter, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), has major shortcomings that will leave it particularly ill-suited to project air power in the Asia-Pacific region. [...]
In short, the F-35 just doesn’t have the right feature set to thrive in the geographically expansive war-fighting scenarios foreseen in the Asia-Pacific.
Specifically, the authors write that “The F-35’s short range means that it will be of limited use in geographically expansive theaters like the Asia-Pacific or against so-called anti-access threats whereby adversaries can target forward airbases.”
https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/why-the ... a-pacific/
Asked if there will be two variants of the NGAD—one for Europe, where combat ranges are small, and one for the Indo-Pacific, where distances are great—Brown said “the goal is to provide … as much range as possible.” A longer-legged aircraft “provides you additional options” for basing, and will require fewer tankers, adding to the force’s flexibility.
https://www.airforcemag.com/tacair-stud ... ge-needed/
In the long run, if expeditionary operations are truly the future mode
of USAF employment, it may be desirable to acquire a fleet of combat
aircraft that is better suited to the demands of long-range operations.
The current mix of aircraft, designed during the Cold War, is optimized to fight a relatively short-range air campaign in Central Europe or on the Korean peninsula. The next generation of USAF
fighter and attack aircraft, the F-22 and F-35 JSF, will likely have
about the same range as current systems, making them no more capable of conducting extended-range operations without heavy tanker support. The USAF may want to consider whether improving
its flexibility and capability for challenging future expeditionary operations makes it worthwhile to consider a new generation of longer-range, higher-speed combat aircraft
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/p ... MR1216.pdf
Yes the long ranges of Asia Pacific has been known, and F-35 is not really suited. One can argue why (lack of foresight/hindsight, lack of money, lack of technology, lack of imagination) but in any case, here we are.
I suspect that although the US has been aware of the potential of China for a long time, they did not really predict the rapid military growth we've seen recently, and the implications.
China's navy launched 25 major ships in 2020 in spite of the pandemic. They have made a lot of progress on the "carrier killers" but also systems to take out Guam and other bases.
If the USMC has known for decades that China would reach this level in 2021,why did they recently decide to retire attack helicopters from 2005?? Or did they not see this coming in 2005...
loke wrote:First, note that I am not advocating for "replacing" F-35 with loyal wingmen, but rather supplement them.
This was going to happen anyway. Youre advocating for the sun to rise in the East, and then declaring you "Called that" when it inevitably happens.
The point is that the US will not be able to afford producing and operating a sufficiently large enough number of F-35 over the next 20-30 years, especially considering the Asia Pacific theater.
Not worried about F-35 operational cost for a myriad of reasons, not least of which is the same technological breakthroughs you're talking about.
Since the loyal wingmen will be much cheaper than the F-35, they do not need to have high payload, that's only needed for manned fighters which tend to be more expensive than unmanned. The loyal wingmen also don't need to have the same sensor suite as the F-35, since the F-35 (or NGAD) can provide that. A large number of cheap loyal wingmen supplementing F-35/NGAD would tip the balance in favor of the US and allies.
If you look at development times of unmanned fighters they are indeed shorter than for manned, in particular using modern "digital twin" technologies. Low cost will come with large numbers produced.
If the US don't have loyal wingmen within 15 years, they will struggle to maintain the status quo in the Asia Pacific region.
Again this is nothing new under the sun.
Necessity is the mother of invention. After the end of the cold war, the US started slacking. Now it's time to gain speed and re-invent. If not, it will be game over for US global dominance, and China will dominate.
This is where is start to get a little frustrated. The US started slacking?
*we spend about 3 quarters of a trillion dollars annually.
*We are the largest users of armed, combat UAVs on the planet and have been killing people with them in the mideast and southern asia for the last nearly 20 years now along with ISR
*We have been moving with UAVs for decades now and only continue to expand on them
*We created 2 fifth generation fighters, one of them is the largest defense program in history
*of that last 5th generation fighter, the F-35 it features things most people said we would never need or use and came under fire for like STOVL for example
*The USMC went to an "All in" strategy on the pacific from a "mostly in" strategy we have been using for over a decade. (this started in earnest under General Amos, who once again being ahead of his time regarding china was maligned by many)
*we created over 600 Super Hornets, and 100 Growlers. along with ships and a new class of CVN not to mention submarines
*we are SLOWLY evolving out nukes, another "You'll never need those silly things!" program that might come in handy.
*We tried and failed to field the EFV. it was canceled because it couldn't be used to kill terrorists. speaking of:
*every damn program we tried to create and put forward caught a ton of $hit because it wasn't good for fighting terrorists. We had to run uphill the whole damn way, and now every c0ckscuker that questioned what were doing is now shouting that we weren't prepping for big wars is hitting the panic switch on China (though to be fair we want them doing that)
*everyone in the military that was saying "it won't be IEDs and RPGs forever is being vindicated, and everything we fought to keep or advance is luckily around.
*A lot of people in the military impaled their careers advocating for the future big war instead of the present terror war. I mean that. a lot of people took one for the team. General Moseley, General Amos, lots of people big and small pointed out that GWOT was a phase.
Resting on our laurels my a$$. We worked our tails off. We sacrificed, And then people with no clue come in and start saying ridiculous stuff. its one of the reason Trump got elected. The US was spending and building and arming into oblivion, only to have weak allies barely bother to honor their commitments, while chiding us all along the way.
its a no win situation on one hand:
The US is a militaristic empire with a massive runaway MIC that is completely oversized, we outspend the next countries by orders of magnitude, our navy has a weight more than the next 10 combined, we don't need "wonder weapons" and has our allies wondering why we don't have nice things like healthcare and other lollipops, since the US is backward violent and primitive, you americans and your guns
and on the other hand:
We are woefully unprepared, we barely spent any money or developed any new weapons we rested on our laruels, we developed and employed hundreds of UAVs -- but didn't do it hard enough. We upped our military's spending massively while nearly everyone else cut, yet STILL we didn't spend enough. We havn't invested in new weapons, other than all those new weapons. but we should have bought even more, even harder. we've spent over a 10 trillion dollars the last 13 years or so, yet bought absolutely nothing. its like the US didn't even bother building thousands of airplanes that are 4.5 and 5th gen. And luckily bringing our allies into the 21st century along with us. Don't worry boys, we will do all the heavy lifting, but if you could at least help us load the barbell...
This is madness. We can and will do more, but to act like we haven't done anything while eating crap the whole way? give me a break. if "resting on our laurels" is what we've done the last 25 years, we need to "rest" more. Thank god we actually invested and persisted with F-35. if it was up to some people we would be dropping "crates of handgrenades" out of Cessna cubs and bringing back prop jobs to strafe ISIS while letting everything else fall away.
and it was others like me that kept saying not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and the GWOT was a sideshow. That we needed "Waste" like the F-35, we needed Osprey, We needed F-22, we needed EFV, We Needed UAVs for both big and small taskings. Maybe we didn't need MRAPs and A-10s. (remember that? when the mean old USAF tried to get rid of the A-10 because it didn't work for China? was that 2014? 2015?)
Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. forces in the Pacific, warned in testimony to Congress last week that China could invade Taiwan by 2027 — a significant acceleration compared to officials’ previous estimates of 2035.
Despite a global pandemic, in 2020 China commissioned 25 advanced new ships, including cruisers, destroyers and ballistic missile submarines — capabilities designed to keep America and its allies that might interfere on Taiwan’s behalf at bay, a second senior defense official said. Meanwhile, Beijing is integrating its new equipment into an increasingly sophisticated force, demonstrated in a loudly publicized live-fire event last fall in which Chinese forces took out an “enemy” with ballistic missiles, and developing a theater command structure much like that of the U.S. military.
“None of those are definitive and says, ‘We think we’re going to go by here,’ but we think that the circumstances become more viable in the near term,” the second defense official said. “If we look only at the longstanding Chinese messaging of 2035 at the soonest, 2049 realistically for a world class military, we are deceiving ourselves and we run the risk of falling into a misdirection from Beijing.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/1 ... wan-476170[/quote]
yeah they're moving around the arbitrarily set western timelines to create a sense of urgency to get more funding. I have to act surprised by this. In fact if any asks I'm officially terrified and stunned at Chinese military improvements (TM). That's an important part of Military Intelligence. Spending years gathering and analyzing data and briefing your superiors. But then you have to be "surprised" about it. Rome wasn't built in a day, but China sprung up overnight. yes, sir! How could the most sophisticated intelligence apparatus miss this?
Well we didn't. but we have to pretend we did.
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loke wrote:The F-35’s greatest operational limitations are likely to be exposed in the Indo-Pacific where the distances involved in potential US combat operations against Chinese forces make all tactical fighters uncomfortably dependent on vulnerable tanker support. This is a factor which may reduce F-35 procurement in favour of more B-21s and UCAVs
https://rusi.org/publication/rusi-defen ... xaggeratedIn a new report titled “Thunder without Lightning,” (PDF) authored by Bill French and Daniel Edgren for the National Security Network (NSN), argues that the United States’ fifth-generation fighter, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), has major shortcomings that will leave it particularly ill-suited to project air power in the Asia-Pacific region. [...]
In short, the F-35 just doesn’t have the right feature set to thrive in the geographically expansive war-fighting scenarios foreseen in the Asia-Pacific.
Specifically, the authors write that “The F-35’s short range means that it will be of limited use in geographically expansive theaters like the Asia-Pacific or against so-called anti-access threats whereby adversaries can target forward airbases.”
https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/why-the ... a-pacific/Asked if there will be two variants of the NGAD—one for Europe, where combat ranges are small, and one for the Indo-Pacific, where distances are great—Brown said “the goal is to provide … as much range as possible.” A longer-legged aircraft “provides you additional options” for basing, and will require fewer tankers, adding to the force’s flexibility.
https://www.airforcemag.com/tacair-stud ... ge-needed/In the long run, if expeditionary operations are truly the future mode
of USAF employment, it may be desirable to acquire a fleet of combat
aircraft that is better suited to the demands of long-range operations.
The current mix of aircraft, designed during the Cold War, is optimized to fight a relatively short-range air campaign in Central Europe or on the Korean peninsula. The next generation of USAF
fighter and attack aircraft, the F-22 and F-35 JSF, will likely have
about the same range as current systems, making them no more capable of conducting extended-range operations without heavy tanker support. The USAF may want to consider whether improving
its flexibility and capability for challenging future expeditionary operations makes it worthwhile to consider a new generation of longer-range, higher-speed combat aircraft
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/p ... MR1216.pdf
Yes the long ranges of Asia Pacific has been known, and F-35 is not really suited. One can argue why (lack of foresight/hindsight, lack of money, lack of technology, lack of imagination) but in any case, here we are.
its a fighter class airplane, of course its not going to have the reach of a strategic bomber. If you want something not a fighter, then get not a fighter.
We bought a screwdriver, its not conducive to hammering. Yes thats what the hammer is for.
Again none of this is new, and the Range question regarding F-35 and the pacific is nothing new either. Also wasn't aware the cold war was still going on in 1995.
I suspect that although the US has been aware of the potential of China for a long time, they did not really predict the rapid military growth we've seen recently, and the implications.
people have been predicting it for decades
China's navy launched 25 major ships in 2020 in spite of the pandemic. They have made a lot of progress on the "carrier killers" but also systems to take out Guam and other bases.
Chinese missile spam is nothing new
If the USMC has known for decades that China would reach this level in 2021,why did they recently decide to retire attack helicopters from 2005?? Or did they not see this coming in 2005...
Because we also had to fight the war on terror Loki. have you heard of it? Norway is there too. We tried to field EFV, but we got MRAP instead. me and others knew MRAPs were useless going forward even then. We fielded V-22 in 2007. Buckle up for this but the Marines who wanted to get away from GWOT in a big way around 2011 have really been obsessing with their favorite battlefield, the pacific for sometime. What you are seeing with example above is essentially "total commitment" The Marines have prided themselves on being a "multi-tool" we are now going "all in" for better or worse. we just have to hope we don't get "side-showed" again.
The US Military, and especially the Marines are expected to do everything from disaster relief to full scale nuclear war. What that means is that we have to have a "broad portfolio of options" in todays parlance. Attack helicopters are a part of that, and helicopters are pretty critical in COIN ops the way we do them. Fire support. So why didn't the Marines fully invest in anti china ASW options in Afghanistan and Iraq? we can only wonder! Its a balance. The US Military can't can't decide to "mutiny" against civilian officials, leave Afghanistan and start writing itself blank checks to fight China. What doomed the F-22 was the perception that the USAF was pursuing an expensive and unneeded weapon system while the troops were woefully underfunded and under-equipped for Afghanistan. Me and MANY others (I'm not some nostrodomos, we could read timelines) knew this was a near-sighted mistake, but it wasn't even the USAF's call. Now we have fleets of useless MRAPs rotting away (worse being sold to police as surplus at home) while we have to pursue NGAD, F-15EX to make up for the shortfall. So predictable.
A yes, the tiny town of "Afghanistan" between the Norwegian and Russian border...
the USMC has the F-35B which is the variant with the least amount of Range and yet the USMC says its one of the few systems they really like going forward. Schrodingers F-35, where its both great and terrible for the pacific. You're cherry picking. again F-35 and pacific range questions is nothing new. in fact I've seen it discussed many times here on F-16.net
The bottom line is fighters are always going to be "under-ranged compared" to the big boys. The thing with range in the pacific is that it is so vast, Range becomes like money. You can never really have "too much" so everything short of again strategic bombers (and even they have to be tanked), is going to look like "not enough" that's what the tankers are for. its complicated. The B-1R was proposed back in the late 2000s for exactly this scenario. Again a wacky and unnecessary thing for bombing "cave terrorists" And thats the problem. Every"conventional" system we have tried to field the last 20 years has come under ridiculous scrutiny
If we designed the next "fighter" to be a 3G limited, gun-less, flying gas tank the size of a YF-12, but shaped like an A-12 that is not a fighter, but a bomber that happens to plunk AMRAAMs, it would have been DOA. its not a fighter that way. we also compromise it in other areas, like the ability to operate off roads and other improvised areas. Since airplanes cost by the pound it would have made the F-22 look like a bargain, and the export interest would be about zero.
So we decided to make the Joint strike fighter a strike fighter replacement for our strike fighters. complicated I know. The issue is not the "fighter" part. The Fighter is doing exactly what its supposed to, the issue was a lack of investment in Strategic bombers. Don't buy a cat and be mad that its not a dog. if you wanted dogs, buy dogs. So the bigger question is not that fighters are fighters, but why the US shifted away from big-wing bombers toward more fighter-centric only strike forces. Now of course the big wing bombers still do the majority of the damage (in a big way, the stats for strat. bomber vs fighters are insane) but that only begs the question more... Why didn't the USAF pursue B-21 sooner? and why didn't they get it? The F-35 which is already maligned as a "jack of all trade master of none" program trying to do too much was supposed to supplant B-series bombers as well? Really?
Which brings us back to a few other interesting points we have idea if NGAD is even a "fighter" NGAD may be a UAV Swarm, it could a massive YF-12 sized optionally manned fighter. system of systems --we have no idea. because its not a conventional fighter and most of it is classified. theres also competing ideas about what should be included and what should be left out still I know that for certain because I can see the symptoms leak out. In this very thread you're advocating that Finland wait for a fighter we don't even know will be affordable or even exportable. You have no idea the size or the scope. Yet Finland should kick the can down the road? what if it can't operate from road at all? same with Tempest. Whats it going to weigh? cost? infrastructure? size? You have no idea. ops costs? We don't know what an F-35 will cost in 2025, but we know what a tempest will cost in 2040? That's pretty amazing don't you think?
UAVs are not going to be the be all and end all, with cyber and other EW the US is trying to pursue a careful balance. somethings can't be cheated too even when you remove the man from them.
Loki I'm sorry I actually got paid to do this and was involved in it first hand, if you're going to try and "gotcha" me all day with cherry picked internet research, I'm going to tell you, you're wasting your time. You're not going to change my mind, because I was there and actually have the inside info and the experience and first hand knowledge. And since I can't talk about a lot of things, we will run into THAT barrier eventually --and you're not worth my honor or the jail time-- like I said what youre seeing is "accidently on purpose" leaked panic. You're seeing all kinds of studies, think tanks, op-eds and other lets say "stuff" thats being leaked out to drive the narrative that the US Military is woefully under-funded and under-prepared, despite all the funding and all the preperation we've done. the conclusion will inevitably more weapons, and more money.
and I'm not saying that the US military is perfectly prepared because you're never prepared enough for a war, but what I am saying is it not the absolute emergency its being made out to be, and frankly I'm insulted by it, but I understand what they're doing.
They had your number though
Whats happening is an effect that goes all the way back to SECDEF Gates and the F-22 debacle, and subsequent reveal by China of their new stealth fighter to him. The Military is now holding a bullhorn to the politicians ears and screaming "Remember when we kept saying NOW, and you said 'not now, later' well its NOW, NOW"
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