-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
F-35; Is it worth it?
- Thread starter RoninChaos
- Start date
- Status
Dreams-Visions
Member
luckygodzilla
Member
Lack of stealth, these SAM's can detect and engage F-15's from hundreds of kilometers well before the F-15 is anywhere near for weapon release.
Honestly with the way modern air defense is going, if you are not stealth by 2030, you're pretty much dead.
BoilersFan23
Member
These are keeping people jobs in the defense industry...its a big deal to keep this going IMO. If there was no spending going on in these programs, there would be a ton of unemployed people out there (I live near DC so I know how it is).
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
Yeah that's what I figured then if that's the case wouldn't the silent eagle program be more cost effective? It just converts the F-15E's into stealth planes on par with fifth gen fighters like the F-35.
It just seems like a much better solution than continuing to invest in the F-35 at this point, for every 4 F-35s you could make an extra Silent Eagle, and on top of that you've already got people more familiar with the F-15E and they both take the same basic armaments, so the only issue here is that the F-15 may not be able to take the AIM-132's or the hypersonic missile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Eagle
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
Yes, we 100% need F-35s. Though horrific mistakes were made at the outset of the project.
Bogdan seems to have this under control though, and we do need the airframes
Bogdan seems to have this under control though, and we do need the airframes
The drones could have robot pilots with advanced AI.
Look up the f-16 Q
It's not like Iran would invest in stealth if it was an obsolete technology, right guys?
Jokes aside, as many before me has mentioned the F-35 is not designed to be an air superiority fighter (that's the F-22). The F-35 is supposed to be the working horse of the Air Force and Navy and fill a lot of roles, i.e. a multirole fighter. It might have lots of new tech and features but that's basically future proofing.
If the cost is more than it's worth is another question. The deal is getting worse and worse though, for all partners, as long as development and testing keeps dragging on.
Jokes aside, as many before me has mentioned the F-35 is not designed to be an air superiority fighter (that's the F-22). The F-35 is supposed to be the working horse of the Air Force and Navy and fill a lot of roles, i.e. a multirole fighter. It might have lots of new tech and features but that's basically future proofing.
If the cost is more than it's worth is another question. The deal is getting worse and worse though, for all partners, as long as development and testing keeps dragging on.
Silent Eagle does jack for the Navy though. Once you factor in the Navy/USMC requirements(USMC's STOVL especially) they would pretty much need to start over if the F-35 was killed.
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
Oh shit that's right, the F-35 can be launched from carriers no problem right? Yeah, you're right the F-35 needs to be finished.
100% need it?.. in the face of what threat that other air frames could handle perfectly fine...? What world exists where we "need" this? Without costing tax payers billions.. The USAF and its allies have air superiority over any foreseen conflict minus a Russia & China combining. We could half our military budget and still be more advanced than anyone else of an actual threat.
Missile evasion seems to be handled very well by our current air frame systems, as well as drone programs that by concept, already trump the capabilities of manned weapons.We have submarines that can knock out anything within a few minutes. There is so much overkill with the military budget. Our nation is broke, yet this is 100% needed? Seems that the world would be no different if there wasn't currently an f35. The Eurofighter would probably continue to dominate with less arguments. Its not as if older airframes aren't successful against the targets we've been dominating in the past.. my lifetime.
seems like a gigantic stretch to say its needed. all things considered. It didn't seem like it was needed from the get-go.
Delta Assault
Member
Intuitively, it seems hard to believe that you could augment an old design like the F-15 to achieve the same level of stealth as a brand new, built-from-the-ground-up stealth fighter like the F-35. You'd also be lacking the internal bays of the F-35 which contribute to the stealth profile, and the multivariant flexibility of the F-35. Remember, this program is giving us a multirole fighter, as well as a VTOL fighter, and a carrier fighter.
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
the stars all represent the number of times the F-22 killed him though, right?
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Aircraft carriers easily,
helicopter carriers as well which only the Harrier currently can.
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
Existing air frames are ancient compared to what else is out there. We have to replace them with something, and this is going across all three branches and out to allies. Ignore the sunk costs, and it's way cheaper than any other alternative, and those older planes (F-16 etc) are past their useful lifespan.
Thats my point though -- "compared to what else is out there." They've been working quite well for all of our air force needs Completely dominating. In any military situation we have been in. Upgrade and maintain them, and sink the rest of the money into drones that will be superior.
There isn't any pressure from our failing airframes to consider them all defunct, or any threat from any nation.
Its like getting a new car just for the sake of doing so when you're broke. The old one is working fine, and it still walks the actual combat competition. Plus, we have access to all of our allies planes/tech. American military might can afford to size down dramatically, and still be able to nuke anyone off the face of the planet within minutes, or knock out all their AA systems with ease.
Too much is being blown for an enemy that doesn't exist. We could severely cripple russia with non-f22/f35 airframes. Same for China. Sure, it would be the end of the world as we know it. But, its not as if we are hopeless without those programs. I just don't see that large gap that justifies blowing the estimated trillion of its lifetime/production. Unless it cost the same amount to upgrade/maintain older airframes + drone development.
Isn't one of the main features of the Silent Eagle the added internal weapon bays?
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
You don't understand airframes nor are you taking a long-term perspective. These planes address the threats that will exist 15-20 years from now. They'll be in service for 40+ years themselves in all liklihood.
It's not like buying a new car at all. It's a world where you're a race car driver, and you have to build your racecars completely from scratch, and other people are working on faster racecars and building them from scratch too. You can't just be like, oh shit, China is better than us and now have air superiority, stroll on over to Lockheed Martin, and buy a brand new shinier more superior fighter that they have 1000 in stock of like you can a new BMW.
You don't keep Air Superiority by sitting on your laurels and letting everyone else catch up before you invest in your next air frame.
No one is denying that the F-35 program was one of the biggest colossal management failures in Military spending and perhaps even government history. But on the same token, no one should be denying that we NEED F-35s to continue air superiority.
And at this point, the die is cast, so focus on keeping costs under control now (Bogdan is doing a good job with this), and ensuring the fighter is ready to take us forward.
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
Yeah, with four hard points, F-35 has two bays with 2 hard points each, so I guess the advantage there is the F-35 would have more load out diversity?.
Even still with what moist said, the F-35 is an asset to the navy, the F-15 is not.
Unknown Soldier
Member
This kind of arrogance is what brings great empires down.
If anything, the more broke the US gets the stronger our military must be. We are the biggest debtor nation on Earth, what would happen if everyone decided to call in those debts? Unless we want to be the economic slaves of China we better have the military might to back up our words. Also Putin seems to think it's the Cold War still, just because we aren't fighting the Cold War anymore doesn't mean other nations aren't.
Delta Assault
Member
Oh, whoops. I must've missed that part. I didn't think the redesign was quite that extensive.
TacticalFox88
Banned
No. To be perfectly honest, we should've replaced the teens series a decade ago en-masse. Had Afghanistan had access to Air Defenses worth a damn, every single F-15,F-16,F-18 pilot who deployed would be sent back in a coffin.
This is the new Cold War of today. Detecting stealth Airplanes and stealth airplanes staying stealthy.
PdotMichael
Banned
Only that "stealth" is optimized for short wave radars, while modern radar systems operating in long wave bands, especially the Russian stuff, which renders stealth inefficient.
Basicaly the US developed a stealth concept which only work against the own radar systems.
Delta Assault
Member
So you knock out the large obvious long wave band radar systems with cruise missiles, and then you only have to contend with the short wave radars on enemy fighters.
You can't simply assume that the USAF will continue to face MiG-21s and at the worst early versions of MiG-29s or SU-27s when we know for a fact that both Russia and China are developing 5th generation fighters as well as 4++ gen fighters like the Su-35 that they are very eager to sell, to boot. The current fleet was simply never designed to face those kinds of threats.
Drones are not going to be close to be competitive for decades, if ever. There's simply no way to replace the ability of a pilot with an AI and certainly no way to replace a pilot in the aircraft with one in a trailer on the ground. The lag alone is ridiculous. And even if AI becomes comparable to human pilots - is it really that good of an idea to give advanced weaponry to an AI? I'm not talking Skynet here mind you, I'm just pointing out that the AI can and will make mistakes, something people are not likely to get over as easily as the human factor.
Then there's the fact that you need to produce new aircraft in order to just be able to maintain the industry and expertise necessary to design new aircraft when you need them in the future. If you cancel the F-35, Lockheed-Martin is probably going to be out of the game permanently, and that means tons of lost ability.
As for relying solely on the nuclear deterrence for defense - that's just reckless. What are you going to do if say Russia decides to mess around in the Baltics or China gets into a shooting war with Japan? Just nuke them? You got to have access to degrees of escalation. Of course you could argue that NATO should be dissolved and the US focused entirely on the US but as a non-american I urge you, please - that's not a nice world we're talking about here. The world has remained largely peaceful thanks to Pax Americana for a while now. If you throw in the towel in that way we're back to the 19th century again, except with WMDs.
luckygodzilla
Member
Well that's another one who thinks that L-Band is the death of stealth.
Guess I'll just repost what I said in this thread earlier.
Listen, when it comes to L-Band radars, due to their longer wavelength they will reflect more energy off of a target. These are mostly used in IFF or early warning radars. The downsides of L-Band are size (as the wavelength is 10x longer than x-Band then you need an antenna 100x larger in area to have the same gain) and accuracy (even the best Early Warning radars have an accuracy of "it's over there somewhere") and as such they cannot be used by a fighter aircraft to detect, Track, ID, and guide weapons to a VLO aircraft. the array size of fighter borne L-Band arrays is 24 TR modules (compared to 1200-2200 for X-band) on new AESA arays. Large ground based radars (which are also immobile) are easy targets and will be among the first things picked off during SEAD. Hell you don't even need fighters, the installations for L-Band radars are fucking massive, so all you need is a handful of cruise missiles. By the way if the return by a VLO target is 10X stronger then so is the return by a non VLO target.
PdotMichael
Banned
Well, if the enemy isn't capable of destroying slow flying cruise missiles then is stealth kind of pointless in the first place because we would talk about a country like Libya.
I understand where you're coming from, but isn't Air Superiority is changing with drones, as well as satellite weaponry and technology?
It looks like a mistake of not-thinking down the line, to blown the money on these programs, when you realize that technology is going to surpass the capabilities of the f35(there is a debate about it already happened with its stealth capabilities). That is a bad investment, when you consider pilots are going to be a thing of the past with better technology integrating pilots and their craft. 15-20 years, there aren't going to be manned f35's flying in the sky, dominating anything. imo.
No, for any conflict I suggest that we use our weapons that we've been using. Our existing airframes, which in combination with our superior global network of defense, will crush any air threat from China Or Russia.
The future war with China or Russia isn't just american forces in it by ourselves. Our Air superiority is still very much firm, without the f22/f35. Making up a scenario where we need to rely on the capabilities of the f35's alone, isn't realistic. We are talking about Japan/UK/Israel/USA?German air superiority. Its just fear mongering to blow money on a plane to fight the future war with countries that have more to lose from conflict, economically, than anything else in this globalized world. All while blundering every step of quality control along the way. Creating a disaster that pilots are weary of. If we spared no expense, and made sure the F35 was the best airframe out, both of you would have a wonderful point. Unfortunately, we are here with something that isn't exactly worth its price, and will continue to be expensive due to the mistakes in material selections/contractors, everything. Patching together this thing isn't going to be some amazing threat to China/Russia whom have probably stolen the design by now, and will note the mistakes we've made.
I'm not buying the whole, blow billions just in case one day Russia invades a country like we've done in the past. There is no legitimate threat from the Russian \Chinese Airforce, that our current airforce (as well as skunkwork projects) can't trump. Drones are very successful currently, and they are only getting better.
The idea of the Russian pilot taunting the american in the f16 as he hides in the clouds above, immediately before getting his lock and knocking him out of the sky isn't happening in 2014+. All sorts of amazing anti-aircraft/missile technology is already happening. I'm willing to bet that we have either plasma weapons/rail gun/laser/electronic technology that could cripple an entire fleet of enemy planes. Its such an archaic idea to spend trillions on, when it is a low risk of actually happening in anyway that would be detrimental to the US's air superiority.
PdotMichael
Banned
Are we back in the 80s when missiles need endgame illumation by a fire control radar?
All what you need today is mid course guidance and that can be provided by long wave radars without any problems - for the last kilometers missiles using the own radar or IR seeker. Otherwise modern air-defence systems like Sea Viper, S-400, all the BMD stufff wouldn't work.
Defenestrated Donut
Neo Member
Empires rise and fall, America is no exception. We peaked at the right time (post Cold War), and now we're going to endure a steady and inevitable decline. A multipolar world is our future. Here's to hoping the interdependence of a global economy offsets the increased instability that comes with it.
Delta Assault
Member
An enemy might be able to defend against a few cruise missiles, but we have submarines and destroyers capable of launching a whole lot.
Joel Was Right
Member
The helmet is able to see through objects and see an actual real world image? That's insane
PdotMichael
Banned
So, cruise missiles, SEAD, EW... the entire package. Basically the "pre-stealth" package.
luckygodzilla
Member
Oh it's still a threat, but because of the size and massive power output of them, virtually all of these radars will be destroyed via cruise missiles withing the first few hours of a conflict. Besides, I don't think you understand how inaccurate these installations are. If they can detect an aircraft with an RCS of .0015 within an area of 80 square nmi, I'd be floored.
I've always been curious if it would have been a better decision to go with the X-32 instead of the X-35. I know the VTOL capability is largely regarded as the reason why it wasn't selected, but can any aviation buffs comment on it?
Boeing's airframe definitely looks pretty funky, but I have to wonder if it would have been the superior investment. I picture Phantom Works calling the Department of Defense and saying, 'Hey, so just so you know...we can still do the X-32. All of your F-35 problems can be a thing of the past!"
Boeing's airframe definitely looks pretty funky, but I have to wonder if it would have been the superior investment. I picture Phantom Works calling the Department of Defense and saying, 'Hey, so just so you know...we can still do the X-32. All of your F-35 problems can be a thing of the past!"
Had this been a year ago I would have been more optimistic about that, no so much now. Even so, the US isn't exactly in decline - it's the rest of the world catching up. The US tossing in the towel and turning isolationist is a wholly different matter that completely destabilises the world, if done in a short amount of time.
I'm afraid for your American pride not. Eurofighter have been owning F-22 several times, they have a manoeuvrability far superior to F-22 which in a dogfight is the key. The only advantage the F-22 supposedly has is the stealth, but with the electronic counter measures the eurofighter has for missile lock blocking is useless.
Hari Seldon
Member
I was curious about this so I found this article with this quote:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlin...ses-79-billion-advantage-in-dogfights-report/
It seems to me, that if you can dominate the skies without even getting into a dogfight, then drones are far, far, far superior in every way. And they can be developed for a fraction of the cost of a real fighter.
luckygodzilla
Member
Well first off it was only red flag Alaska 2012, and we don't know precisely what the ROE's were for the engagement.
What we do know is that they were within visual range, which allowed the IRST of the Eurofighter to actively track the F-22. This allowed the Eurofighter pilots to engage the F-22 with HOBS missiles thanks to their HMD, a capability that the F-22 sorely lacked. They key here was the the Eurofighter didn't have to maneuver as much as the F-22 to get a successful missile launch.
Furthermore we have no idea how many Eurofighters the F-22 managed to wax, so calling the engagements in favor of the Eurofighter is a little silly.
TacticalFox88
Banned
UGH!
Please stop wanking drones. They are and always will be massively inferior to human pilots.
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
No way is the Eurofighter more maneuverable, thrust vectoring alone gives the F-22 an advantage. The F-22 does things I've never seen an aircraft do before.
And generally, they won't ever even get to that point.
Inferior in what precise way? The guided bombs/missiles the drone shoots are some how not as good as when a pilot hits the button or something?
Gaf told me thrust vectoring is pointless in combat.
I'll never understand how people interprets "Yeah, we were dead meat in BVR but at least after the merge it could go either way" as "Eurofighter pwns F-22 lol": The F-15 doesn't dominate the Su-27 in every aspect ever either but oddly enough I've hard no complaints there.
The Eurofighter is one of the most advanced 4++ generation fighters in the world. The F-22 being able to still go toe to toe with it in a dogfight, which is not what the F-22 is supposed to do even if it is clearly capable, is a testament to the quality of the F-22, not the other way around.
EDIT: That's also why the F-22 is better than a drone. A drone is absolutely worthless in a dog fight. Merges can and will happen: if a squadron of F-22s faces off against a squadron of 4th gen aircraft and kills half of them in BVR they can still cut down the rest in a dogfight. If a drone squadron encountered the same scenario the surviving enemies would kill all of them anyway.
EDIT:
Targeted is not killed. Some enemies will still survive, as per my scenario above.
Hari Seldon
Member
The quoted article says that the Eurofighter could not get within 20 miles of an F-22 without being targeted. So all that F-22 pilot is doing is operating the targeting system. He is not even "dogfighting" in the beach volleyball playing sense of the world.
This is probably one of the most ignorant and arrogant statements I've ever seen on GAF.
And half our military budget?....really? Im not saying it shouldn't be trimmed (with all the "black projects" and knee jerking spending) but jesus.
Epsilon-delta
Banned
That's not what this article states:
http://defenseissues.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/cleaning-up-red-flag-alaska-f-22-vs-typhoon-debate/
- Status