schurem
1654
Stealth is insanely expensive to keep up. Every panel that gets opened up must be sealed up with sealant that’s about as expensive as the equivalent in gold. It’s just insane. They should design them to fly around “degraded” and shine them up for that first-day-of-the-war where stealth really matters.
If you look closely at the Su-57 Felon, that’s what the Russians went for.
Ironically, one of the big reasons the US government encouraged all the mergers and consolidation in the defense industry in the 90s was the fear that too many contractors were going to chase too few defense dollars due to reduced spending with the Cold War won.
rolls eyes
We need to break them up.
vyshka
1656
It sounds like it the main problem (not including cost) is maintenance and keeping it operational. I wonder what they will cap the fleet at.
Menzo
1657
We should stop looking at these huge military expenditures as ways to address a particular defense need and instead as a jobs program. It’s how Congress looks at it.
schurem
1658
Have you seen an F-35 up close? That skin finish is out of this world compared to any other plane.
I remember on an airshow where I first saw one. There were also a MiG-29, an F-16 and a Eurofighter on static display. The Fulcrum’s skin looked agricultural. Big fucking rivets, panels seemingly banged into place with a hammer and hardly lining up. The F-16 looked a lot better. At least the panels fit. The Eurofighter looked like plastic. Because it is. But the panther… Covered in silk. So smooth. So perfect.
Keeping perfection like that must be hella wasteful. Every scratch means a ton of work. And that golden tape. Yeah maintenance is a bitch on stealth planes. 21st century dreadnaught race.
vyshka
1659
If they kill the program does the Navy and USMC keep soldiering on with the F-18? Or will they be designing something for them as well.
schurem
1660
They won’t be killing it. Just re-roling the machine and buying a whole lot less of 'em. No longer a fighter viper-replacement but a specialist knock-the-door-down attacker. Because it’s really freakishly good at that.
Menzo
1661
I’m not a war-fighting-guy, but it does seem like there’s less of a need for stealth once you’ve knocked out the enemy’s radar and air force. Send in the B2s and F35s to do that first, then use swarms of F-15EXs and drones.
Miramon
1662
People have been saying for years and years they should have gone with F-22s and a dedicated carrier plane. But no. Finally reality seems to have caught up with graft. After how many billion dollars have been pissed away on a plane that’s not as good as its competition and is ten times as expensive?
schurem
1663
Not as good at what? Turning tax dollars into noise? Doing snazzy airshows? Being a sweet toy for the boys who get to play with it? Do red baron style dogfights?
There’s a lot of the above that a regular garden variety viper (F-16) is a whole lot better at than the panther (F-35). But when it comes to kicking the everlivin’ snot out of a peer adversary, the panther is pretty dang good.
The reports that come out of large force exercises it took part in, the word from the guys who get to play with them and simulations like CMANO bear that out. It’s gucci.
It’s greatest weakness is how ridiculously expensive it is, both to buy and to fly. That means it will get the same treatment the F-22 got, which ended up being a real sweet fighter, but never in enough numbers to put some strategic weight down.
Four fighters can not win a war. You need a whole lot of them. And then some more. And if they’re too expensive to fly, their pilots will not be as good as they can be.
Aceris
1664
Which is why us brits will invest so much in them (relative to our defence budget), becuase our defence procurement is obsessed with having the best in the world tech at one narrow thing, not havign enough of it, and neglecting basically everything else to afford it.
Type 45 - best radar in the business (when it set sail, the latest AN-SPY should be better, this stuff is super secret for obvious reasons). But too few missiles, the missiles aren’t good enough, no cooperative engagement capability, and basically no capability other than anti-air.
Type 26 - Quietest, best sub detection frigate in the world (which is why the Aussies and Canadians bought the design). Adequate radar, limited anti air, limited anti surface, no actual ability to attack submarines. (The Aussie and Canadian versions fix these obvious defects).
F35B - Great stealth fighter. Limited range. In British service can’t carry either our main AA missile (Meteor), strike missile (Storm shadow), or anti-vehicle missile (Brimstone). (There is some plan to cut bits off meteor to fit it in the missile bay, who knows if that will actually work, and develop a swarm smart missile which will be very cool but is slow and doesn’t bring much bang)
Timex
1665
The biggest thing going up against the F35, and frankly, the Su-57, is that most folks don’t really understand the point of the 5th gen stealth fighters.
They look at them and say, “What’s the big deal? It doesn’t out perform the 4th gen fighters… it can’t carry as many guns and bombs… and it costs so much more. This seems bad.”
It’s not until you see what happens when the 5th gen fighters go up against militaries that don’t have them, that folks are gonna really understand. It’s gonna be like in the gulf war, where most of the world didn’t understand what a network connected military capable of BVR engagements could do…until the Iraqi military was vaporized.
KevinC
1666
Yep. There is no way more primitive militaries will match our Spheres of Annihilation, battle analyzers, etc.
But can they stop a women in a suicide vest or a truck bomb?
I’m not overly concerned about the ability of US to topple, an Iran, Pakistan, or even an Italy gone rogue, even without 5th gen fighters.
quantity has a quality of its own, as Stalin sad sure makes a lot of sense to me, as do a bunch of new F15
Aceris
1668
Right, but that always means taking casualties, which the US can’t easily sustain in anything less than a total war situation.
And in a world where Russian SAM systems are everywhere and India has a better BVR Air to air missile than the US, stealth makes a lot of sense.
Timex
1669
The big issue comes up if you end up going up against 5th gen fighters with your 4th gen ones. You’re gonna lose that one, bad. You’ll lose all the air engagements, and then your enemy will have air superiority, so you’ll lose all the ground engagements.
Now, the question at that point becomes, is there a danger of going up against 5th gen fighters?
I feel like Russia’s not likely to field many… The first Su-57 they serially produced crashed last year. Their country is pretty fucked up.
China’s probably a bigger threat with things like J-20’s. Even given its likely limitations operationally, I feel like it’s more likely China can competently field high end military hardware moving forward.
vyshka
1670
At some point I’d like to play around with some ideas that were in Air Battle: Central Europe in CMANO.
Even if we lose 500 F-15Ex that’s 500 KIA it is not a huge amount in a war. You use the existing stealth fleet to take out the SAMs, while having a large enough force of more expendable planes to gain air superiority.
