My understanding is that its real weakness is that it's designed to fight a war it couldn't possibly win.
Like the AC-130, it's something that just assumes air superiority. What's it going to do if it's outnumbered by jets that are approximately as good but are a tenth or less of the cost? I've heard people dead ass say that it could beat any other jet ten to one, but even if that were literally true, how many can be realistically produced and fielded in an actual total war situation? Is that supply chain even stable?
I dunno, I'm not a war nerd, but all of this gear assumes a kind of warfare that cannot be fucking fought so long as ICBM's exist, or otherwise assume current production capacity could be sustained during a real war, or, worst of all, that we will never again sustain serious losses or something.
how many can be realistically produced and fielded in an actual total war situation?
all of this gear assumes a kind of warfare that cannot be fucking fought so long as ICBM’s exist
I think you're onto something here, but you have it backwards. You don't need to produce a jet that's economical to produce at scale in a total war scenario because such a scenario will never exist as long as nukes do.
My understanding is that its real weakness is that it's designed to fight a war it couldn't possibly win.
Like the AC-130, it's something that just assumes air superiority. What's it going to do if it's outnumbered by jets that are approximately as good but are a tenth or less of the cost? I've heard people dead ass say that it could beat any other jet ten to one, but even if that were literally true, how many can be realistically produced and fielded in an actual total war situation? Is that supply chain even stable?
I dunno, I'm not a war nerd, but all of this gear assumes a kind of warfare that cannot be fucking fought so long as ICBM's exist, or otherwise assume current production capacity could be sustained during a real war, or, worst of all, that we will never again sustain serious losses or something.
I think you're onto something here, but you have it backwards. You don't need to produce a jet that's economical to produce at scale in a total war scenario because such a scenario will never exist as long as nukes do.