It's beautiful. They merced the A-10 for something that makes an Apache look like a durable fast-mover.
They merced the A-10
The A-10 only has the reputation it does because it happened to be absolutely perfect for the role it found itself in in Iraq and Afghanistan: flying at low speed and low altitude massacring unsupported infantry/literally just civilians who may or may not even have guns, with no AA capability.
From the perspective of natsec strategy ghouls, they needed some hi-tech new toys that could hypothetical deal with modern AA solutions or air superiority fighters. Unfortunately for them, from the perspective of natsec ghouls who are looking forward to cushy private sector jobs, they instead opted to pour an endless torrent of money with no strings attached into lockheed martin's bank account instead, and got something that's incapable of dealing with modern AA or fighters and that can't provide serviceable air support against unsupported light infantry as a result.
It's a beautiful intersection of imperialist hegemony and capitalism: they want a new toy to maintain their empire, Capital wants to devour as much money as possible while giving the least in return, and so Capital undermines its own interests by grifting its pet hegemon so hard that it becomes less able to violently enforce Capital's interests.
No the F-35 was a spectacular success.
Lockheed Martin used it to obliterate Boeing and all other competitors in the bid for that generation of fighter jets.
The key is that they designed a complicated mess of an aircraft (3 actually) and spread out the production of these systems to an obscene number of individual congressional districts, making it impossible for hundreds of grifting lawmakers to refuse the opportunity to "brang the jerbs".
in Soviet Russia factories disingenuously exploit the quota system
Saw a huge thread in the comments of /r/programming of people talking about the variations of "soviet factory overproduces or meets quotas by doing a dumb thing" like making a single 10-ton nail or whatever the fuck, and boy was it annoying
What if the real weapons platform was the half trillion dollars we made along the way
Yep. We've also produced more fighters for less money. The cost per plane is way lower than previous fighter jets. So the program is considered a huge success.
I mean, in raw numbers, yes. But not compared to the F-16 or F-22, for example.
Holy shit, according to this, they sunk $400 billion into this utter failure already, and $1.45 trillion was its projected lifetime cost. Wow. Impressive.
I guess that is why you guys can't have healthcare, huh?
But Jets look better flying then ICU 's . Checkmate !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEe3xfWfkG8 (mute this one)
(Do this as soundtrack , its way better ! --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZraSL45OTk )
Anybody know how you can make a link that plays video of link and the sound of another ? )
I love the F-35 because Western rivet-counting military types get so salty when you point out that their expensive new toy has fallen out of the sky multiple times now.
Bro, this is AMERICA! Who cares about some F-35 when you can get a F-150
"F-150s with rear mounted AA successfully down entire 7 trillion dollar squadron of F-35s"
A headline from 2030
Also put parts factories in as many states as possible so that any representative who votes against funding the project is seen as taking away jobs
Exactly, it was always a transfer of wealth program designed to make defense contractors an obscene amount of money.
That's what happens when you try make a 3 in 1 aircraft. The A variant is supposed to be a multirole fighter, the B variant must do vertical take offs and landings, and the C variant must be a carrier aircraft. There is no way it can do all three
There’s a solution to this. You build three different aircraft. You build a plane for the Air Force, you build a plane for the marines, and you build a plane for the navy. When you make them all the same, you get an inherently bloated project with too much inter service conflict
I mean, the EU managed to make the Tornado, which has its flaws but is better than the F-35 in every way.
Still mad about the F-35 killing our beautiful F-111s. (I mean, it's good because now Indonesia can beat us hands down in a war :aus-delenda-est:, but plane pretty.)
The F-111 is basically the 1960s version of the F-35 with all the development and teething problems it had lol. But it does look cool, and the ejection capsule was a nice Idea.
Depends what you want to do with it. If your goal is to start in Sydney and put a full weapons payload down in Jakata ASAP (and you're getting them a decade later after the issues are ironed out) its the type of aircraft you want
Im referring specifically to the F-111c, which is really fucking good if your use case is a long range escortless heavy strike fighter.
The Aussie version? I guess but it wasn’t a fighter. It was just a tactical bomber
I'd define it as a strike fighter/fighter-bomber. Standard armament carried Air to Air as our F/A18s couldn't keep up with them in speed or range, and most fighters were not really a match for it until SU30s started filtering in, aside a few F-16s that may or may not have been airworthy.
Stealth as a whole is a dead end. Ever increasing processing power combined with the ever increasing number of backscatter sources for passive radars means stealth aircraft will become less survivable over time.
Stealth is very useful when going against outdated anti-air wepaons, which may not even be able to get a lock until the aircraft is practically above them. And since the US tends to mainly pick fights with destitute farmers and not modern organized military forces, I'd say it will be at least partially useful for decades to come.
There will always be a use case for it, yes. But committing to it as our main penetration method (and the AF letting their EW capability run down as part of the F35 anticipation) is very short sighted.
and the AF letting their EW capability run down as part of the F35 anticipation
They did that? If anything I'd think EW would be the one area where F35s would be completely state-of-the-art.
Yeah, because Lockheed Martin said F35s would have built in EW capability, so the AF would no longer need dedicated EW aircraft. Now, the F35 does have a built in EW system, but, because it's EW I can't really find how effective it is, of course. There are upgrades on it being done by the Navy and the Israelis, but honestly that might just be normal for a program.
Oh ok, I get what you mean. I thought you were talking about the EW capability of the F35s themselves.
Lower frequency VHF radar also inherently isn't really subject to stealth at those sizes. It's not as accurate as other bands, but it's accurate enough to guide a missile in the neighborhood of the plane and have it detect it using imaging IR or Radar.
Reading this thread wondering why the fuck chapo knows so much about military hardware
You nerds aren't fooling me!
Another disaster for American Imperialism.
:crab-party: :crab-party: :crab-party:
