Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

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Vonz90
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

Post by Vonz90 »

Vonz90 wrote: Mon Mar 08, 2021 9:31 pm
randy wrote: Mon Mar 08, 2021 3:23 am
We have wasted a spectacular amount of money on weapons systems that either haven’t worked at all or who have not lived up to their promise," Smith said.
Said about every major weapons system the US has deployed since 1945. Usually by someone that's never served one day in uniform.

I don't have the current details about how well the F-35 does or does not do it's job. It came off the drawing board long after I got out.

.......

So excuse me if I take the critics, particularly politicians with no service, and retired Generals telling what will keep their consulting gigs paying, with a large grain of salt.
+ 1, crap like that gets spread around so thick that a lot of people serving even believe it (about systems they don't work with). Remember in GW1 the media was shocked to find out our stuff actually worked better than advertised.

I'm not a brown shoe so no expert on the F35, and I am sure
It has some issues and trade offs because everything does, but I am also sure it is better than the alternatives.
I want to point out that nothing I said applies to the LCS which is a piece of sh** and need to be canceled and the ships sold for scrap. The problem with it is not so much that it does not work (it doesn't) but that the concept is so flawed that even if it worked as advertised it adds no useful capabilities to the fleet.

I say that as a former SWO who has been against it from day 1. The powers that be are slowly catching up to my position but way too late.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... lure-58837
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blackeagle603
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

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Little Crappy Ships
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g-man
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

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Jumping in late here... I loathe the F-35. It's an excellent aircraft, except for the oxygen system killing people, and that it costing WAY. Too. Damn. Much. Additionally, the USAF mortgaged the ENTIRE force structure of the service to pay for that thing, to their detriment. We hammered out the 'least stupid alternative' plan to get down to endstrength in '06/'07, (when I punched out and came to the dark side, btw) SPECIFICALLY for the brass to have ammunition in the budget fight to be able to keep that thing, and then they did that shit again a couple of years later. And now wonder where all their high demand / low density guys are going. They're losing a bunch of people to the space force, and will very soon be reaping the benefits of the pants-on-head stupid break from the 20-year vested retirement incentive. Guys with years of pilot experience, who now have a nest egg to take with them at the 11-year point, are going to be shit-tons harder to retain than they were when they could just entice them with bonuses to string them along to 20.
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randy
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

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At least the AF is consistent with their stupidity.

In 92 Mc<spit>Peak was so focused on protecting the Fighter Mafia and their larvae they hit the non-rated force especially hard in the RIF to avoid touching any pilots.

When they had so many compared to available cockpits that UPT graduates were being stockpiled in non-rated career field positions (without necessarily going to the schools certainly not having any experience) until a slot came along in 2-4 years (IOW just when they might start being productive in the non-rated slot)

Field graders were being put in non-rated staff position slots (again where they had limited to no training or experience), with the likelihood they would never see the inside of cockpit again.

A couple of years later when the Balkans started heating up and the Iraqi No-Fly zones seemingly became as temporary as the Korean DMZ I heard that there were some, issues, with planning for certain operations. When the AF Leadership asked what happened to the guys that did that stuff in DESERT STORM, the answer was that most of them had been RIFed or had punched out due to the limited opportunities to be had with rated guys taking the staff slots and the delightfulness of being in the Clinton era military.
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BDK
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

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Blackeagle, and Vonz, you both bring up my main concerns. I would expect the main costs to be R&D, and production layout, etc - and unless they're made out of gold, it doesn't cost much more to order 1000 assemblies, than 100.

Importantly, how is it a weapon of war, if only a handful of people can be taught to operate/support a weapon, of which only a handful can be built/year. How hard is it, really, for a near peer to shoot one down?
Langenator
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

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What was that short story, where one power tried to build a few super high tech weapons (starships, it was SF), but the R&D was buggy, and they could only afford a few, and their enemy built a whole crap ton of less fancy and high tech ships and killed them?
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Vonz90
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

Post by Vonz90 »

BDK wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:28 am Blackeagle, and Vonz, you both bring up my main concerns. I would expect the main costs to be R&D, and production layout, etc - and unless they're made out of gold, it doesn't cost much more to order 1000 assemblies, than 100.

Importantly, how is it a weapon of war, if only a handful of people can be taught to operate/support a weapon, of which only a handful can be built/year. How hard is it, really, for a near peer to shoot one down?
In an air to air sense, I am not the guy to ask. I know a lot of ink has been spilled about the early versions loosing dogfights to F16s and such, but I also am lead to believe that the early versions did not have a full systems suite either.

I have been disconnected from the surface to air world for a while. I do know that LF radars can track stealth aircraft. They cannot generate fire control quality tracks, but I am sure they have been working on it and I would be surprised if there was no progress made. So maybe, but the other sides keep working on stealth too so presumably they see value in it.

In general though, against a near peer, we would see losses kind of by definition. Any likely war would be close to come as you are unless it ran very long.
Last edited by Vonz90 on Thu Mar 11, 2021 4:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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randy
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

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Langenator wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:54 am What was that short story, where one power tried to build a few super high tech weapons (starships, it was SF), but the R&D was buggy, and they could only afford a few, and their enemy built a whole crap ton of less fancy and high tech ships and killed them?
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...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
Langenator
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

Post by Langenator »

That's the one. My brain kept trying to call it Supremacy and I couldn't find it.
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blackeagle603
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Re: Rep. Adam Smith want to CANX F35

Post by blackeagle603 »

Neighbor is a recently retired Zoomie fighter jock. Last tour was F-35's. May or may not have gone downtown in 117's. He doesn't say much in specifics but is pretty clear he's an F-35 fan.

I don't have a problem with the aircraft so much as I do the system and forces acting to distort the design and procurement so badly. The blind drive for a one size fits all USAF-USN-USMC silliness is the worst of it.
"The Guncounter: More fun than a barrel of tattooed knife-fighting chain-smoking monkey butlers with drinking problems and excessive gambling debts!"

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic;" Justice Story
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