New stealth destroyer turned over to U.S. Navy, Capt. James Kirk

[shadowmouse]

China can always back down and abandon it's illegal islands before somebody gets hurt or we evict them. The Cops should have loaded guns after all.

And this is where the problem is in terms of mission and deployment. The Chinese claims are about as good as them claiming the British Isles on the basis of the Mccartney Embassy and Qian Long's response to it.

Still, a cop without a badge isn't really a cop either and as muddy as the various claims to "islands" in the area may be (Malaysia also has an airstrip on Swallow Reef and Vietnam has one on Spratly Island that has also been augmented with reclaimed land) the US interests are even further removed. "Before someone gets hurt or we evict them" is really no better than the other saber rattling in the region and smacks of armed thuggery. China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia have at least ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The US, has not.

They'll be able to get in closer than any other destroyer in the world will, and regardless of that, they'll carry more land attack missiles than anything besides an Ohio SSGN.

All fine and well, but exactly why will we be be doing this and who will we do it to? Russia? By the time the Zumwalts are deployed in that role, we'll have much bigger problems because the fit will have hit the shan big time and World War III won't be fun. China? Not much better. North Korea? Well, THAAD may be a fine system, but it probably can't field the amount of artillery aimed at South Korea which would make an attack by the US Navy something of a Pyrrhic victory.

It was controversial, about 8 years ago. That argument is over now.

No, it is somewhat moot now since the things are being built, but the argument won't be over until the Zumwalt's have seen their share of weather. In some senses it won't really be over until we see how they hold up in combat.

The range of the railgun is sufficient that it wouldn't be in a "confined space".

The South China Sea itself is a confined space. The range of the railgun is good, but it is unlikely to keep up with advances in land based missiles. As far as I can tell, railguns have reached the point of almost being useful, but there are still issues like heat that need to be worked out. That's the sort of glitch that seems to get ignored in talk about how the Zumwalts are going to be better than sliced bread.

[Theodarzna]

The only plundering the US is doing is one with voluntary victims via it's trade deficit and inflation - frankly it's the only way I can see the US can keeping up a trade deficit, they just inflate their way out of it so the amount of "goods and services" it owes those that hold it's currency decreases as a function of time.

Well plunder in our context would mean expanding into new markets and gaining control of new trade. After the initial rush of access to all that stored wealth we have to now depend on annual revenues from economic activity versus the initial pay offs of market expansion. What do you do when you've conquored the world and theres nobody on the moon in need of an Iphone or Comcast services?

I am speaking much more long term and broadly.

[Independent voter]

Wouldn't it be more like a Romulan Warbird cause of the stealth part?

[Theodarzna]

Tell me why again did you immigrate to this country? You seem to have nothing but contempt for it (on baseless grounds of course). Maybe you'd be happier someplace else.

My mother met a man who then raised two girls and was a father to us when our birth father was no longer with us.

One is free to criticize a country are they not? What? Is America only great if you suck uncle sams dick every five seconds? What sort of "Land of the Free," doesn't let you ponder if we are careening towards our collective doom? What sort of country does no allow freedom of speech? That's the trouble with you, you pretend to love this land and its people but you don't give two shits about its founding values or its laws or its inhabitants.

[Prothynyas]

i can destroy this tug boat with a pebble

[Slant]

All Empires wealth is based on some sort of plunder and some sort of gold. We may lie to ourselves about it but America heads a global Empire, we've looted and plundered greatly though it isn't called that. Eventually we hit the same problems. Yes, increased complexity costs more and more until the society cannot sustain the cost, as all other societies have faced when their number is up and their problems overwhelm them.

What Skroe was referring to was that the entire economy of the Romans depended on them conquering an enemy, looting and pillaging their country and then expanding their borders to include said looted and plundered country. Problem is, you need to obtain more gold to keep the system working, hence you look for yet another target to invade and so on and so forth. Rome never learned to raid properly. Everytime they raided, they went "Oh, actually... I kinda like it here, let's just plant the flag, build a few cities and pay for it all, too!"

In this the Romans conducted the purest and truest form of expansionism. Something the US is not doing. You can say what you want, but they really show no interest in expanding anywhere. Except economically, and that's something Rome never figured out. That you can actually trade with people, make a bigger profit and still be awesome instead of going in and outright owning everyone and the land they live in when you like something.

[ringpriest]

To put this comment into context for Theodarzna since he doesn't know...

The Navy is buying the LCS, the Littoral Combat Ship, which is a sub-frigate design, as a "show the flag" light and cheap combat ship to perform the green water missions that are currently done using a destroyer (which it is overkill for). It will be cheaper to operate and own and allow the Navy to reserve Destroyers for blue-water missions.

The LCS is built to a different standard than a destroyer. The Independence class-variant is actually a militarized ferry. The LCS nominally is a "Frigate" but really, it's too underarmored and underpowered. A destroyer could survive high intensity combat. The LCS would be a sitting duck.

Moral of the story: you need big, heavily armored and armed, surface ships. You just don't need them for everything. The LCS isn't itself a terrible idea.

A militarized civilian-spec ship for "show the flag" missions and support ops where no one can shoot back is indeed not inherently a terrible idea, but instead we have the LCS (excuse me, "Small Surface Combatant" - which it is not and will never be, save as an overpriced coffin for its unfortunate crews) which is in fact a terrible idea from start to finish.

It was started as the proverbial "horse designed by committee" - it was going to do everything, cheaply, and be amazing and revolutionary even though the Navy had no concept of operations that called for an LCS; in reality it quite literally does nothing, has no prospect of doing anything, and is a rather expensive and over-budget nothing at that. In practice, the LCS is a terrible implementation for a whole host of reasons: the Navy won't actually come out and admit that its purpose is "show the flag against people who can't fight back" and instead keeps trying to cram it into the fleet (where it is truly worse than useless), it probably can't even do that (show the flag) job (in either version) because its so badly designed and non-functional, and their cost is high ($150 million per hull at last count) and going higher. And that last is a huge opportunity cost - we could have bought or built a great many useful frigates or corvettes with the money that we are instead pouring into LCS-shaped holes in the water.

tl;dr - the LCS makes the F-35 look good by comparison.

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For anyone interested in the South China Sea, this (hour-long) speech by Admiral McDevitt is quite good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...9aF4roGI#t=270

[XorMalice]

While it may be interesting, was it a better choice than the two subs would have been?

Probably. When Ohio costs 2 billion, that's dollars from when it was built- in the 90s. It's closer to 3 billion if it was built from an active program right now, but none exists. The idea that you could order up two Ohio class subs for each Zumwalt isn't right. Also the Navy seems to assume it will build subs as needed- and those are looking even more expensive than the Zumwalt, even at the planning stage.

The Zumwalt can project much more force than an SSGN, which generally has ton of Tomahawks, while the Zumwalt has that plus more, plus ludicrously long range guns. It also keeps technology updated and around for a conventional and visible ship.

[Reeve]

But the Zumwalt is sooo pretty.

[shadowmouse]

Probably. When Ohio costs 2 billion, that's dollars from when it was built- in the 90s.

Fair enough points and reasonably presented; however, the quote that I was referring to was:

With an annual defense budget of over $600 billion, the Pentagon can take the liberty of conducting various kinds of experiments, including spending $4.4 billion on a single destroyer. By comparison, one US [Virginia-class] nuclear submarine, the newest in the fleet, costs about $2.2 billion.

The Virginia class submarines are something of a contrast to something like the Zumwalt in that they are an example of successfully holding costs down. See: https://news.usni.org/2014/11/03/opi...marine-program

[XorMalice]

Source: http://thediplomat.com/2016/03/u-s-m...alt-destroyer/

One assessment of Russian comments raises a perfectly valid concern:

Hold up, lets consider the source- the diplomat is quoting Sputnik, which is literally Russian state propaganda. You wouldn't expect them to give a fair shake, right? There are valid critiques- such as the role of a destroyer being called into question- but given that only three ships are currently planned, a lot of this seems to have already been considered, right?

Here's the ACTUAL source of these quotes, on propaganda site Sputnik:

http://sputniknews.com/military/2016...-analysis.html

Also, my earlier response was assuming Ohio class- the article in question is Virginia class. That's a much smaller class of ships, and I'm not sure if it is really comparable.

The truth is probably somewhere in between the media hype and derision, but in the end the Zumwalt class is a concept platform. Their actual performance is limited by the fact there will only be three of them, and at this time it seems only the third may get fitted with a railgun.

I do agree with this. If the Navy was all about this ship, they wouldn't have chopped out 90% of the planned deliveries and switched back to more conventional destroyers. It's slick and awesome, but it doesn't seem to be practical enough for government work. But why all the invective? Why does a Russian talking about our budget, on a government-run propaganda website, get seriously quoted and used as some example of "oooohhhh that military!"? Whose song are we dancing to?

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Fair enough points and reasonably presented; however, the quote that I was referring to was:

Yea, that's my bad. I just assumed they would be comparing to an SSGN- an SSN has way less ability to launch and store Tomahawks. Also assuming that the Zumwalt will be fully geared with Tomahawks seems only useful to make a comparison- it can do other stuff in whole or in part. I think comparing to a Virginia class is very odd.

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One more thing: the sputnik source ends with a dig at the F-35, which implies that the F-35 is a failure. It's certainly overbudget, but it is definitely no failure. Most importantly, the military doesn't believe that it is, which is the assertion in question. This is just line after line of this one Russian military journalist shitting on all the new American technology. Hrm...

[Tierbook]

You've got to realize that to the US dropping 3 billion on a ship isn't that big of a deal, I could be wrong but isn't stocking carriers with their 70+ planes almost twice that expensive.

[Hooked]

Why don't they paint ships camouflage? Its super stealth for radar but sticks out like a sore thumb with a telescope. Bright white ship in a dark blue sea.

[XorMalice]

Naval camo would be awesome to see actually, the old stuff is trippy as hell. I'm sure it isn't considered necessary because the ship is BLOS or whatever, but, I mean, they make the sailors wear blue digital camo, which, if it DID work, seems counterproductive- if your sailors are in the water, you probably want them seen, right? But they may have some other reason related to paint. That's a good question either way.

[Kellhound]

Yea, that's my bad. I just assumed they would be comparing to an SSGN- an SSN has way less ability to launch and store Tomahawks. Also assuming that the Zumwalt will be fully geared with Tomahawks seems only useful to make a comparison- it can do other stuff in whole or in part. I think comparing to a Virginia class is very odd.

The Ohio SSGNs carry 154 TLAMs, the Virginia SSNs can carry a max of 39, the Zumwalt can carry a max of 80. Really, neither sub is a good comparison as the Zumwalt has 2x the missile capacity of the SSN but 1/2 the capacity of the SSGN. Also the Ohio was built as a SSBN and converted to an SSGN after ~20 years of service, so it is not a good comparison cost wise.

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Why don't they paint ships camouflage? Its super stealth for radar but sticks out like a sore thumb with a telescope. Bright white ship in a dark blue sea.

Its actually gray, like all US warships. Haze gray has been found to be the best overall color to paint a warship that isnt location specific.

[Reeve]

What Skroe was referring to was that the entire economy of the Romans depended on them conquering an enemy, looting and pillaging their country and then expanding their borders to include said looted and plundered country. Problem is, you need to obtain more gold to keep the system working, hence you look for yet another target to invade and so on and so forth. Rome never learned to raid properly. Everytime they raided, they went "Oh, actually... I kinda like it here, let's just plant the flag, build a few cities and pay for it all, too!"

In this the Romans conducted the purest and truest form of expansionism. Something the US is not doing. You can say what you want, but they really show no interest in expanding anywhere. Except economically, and that's something Rome never figured out. That you can actually trade with people, make a bigger profit and still be awesome instead of going in and outright owning everyone and the land they live in when you like something.

I don't think that's strictly true. I mean there were certainly times when Rome massively augmented their economy through plunder, but Rome was a going concern for about a thousand years. They certainly didn't keep their economy going through all that time simply by way of conquest. They were a state like any other that had periods of economic expansion and periods of economic contraction. Some of the "reforms" Diocletian brought about to try to fix problems with inflation and taxation were particularly harmful in the long run and probably brought about a lot of the stagnation of the middle ages, but Rome was hardly a one trick pony, and its economy was a hell of a lot more complex than an engine running solely or even primarily on loot.

[Budong]

That seems rather large for a piece of metal unlikely to ever see any practical use IMHO. Will it ever be used?

You build things like this in the hopes that they won't have to be used.

[XorMalice]

The Ohio SSGNs carry 154 TLAMs, the Virginia SSNs can carry a max of 39, the Zumwalt can carry a max of 80. Really, neither sub is a good comparison as the Zumwalt has 2x the missile capacity of the SSN but 1/2 the capacity of the SSGN.

Agreed, but the Zumwalt has both more ordinance and more weaponry than the SSN, so I assumed SSGN because it has less ordinance and more weaponry (the SSGNs don't have a 120 mile gun, etc)- but it isn't like the Russian propaganda guy is trying to be fair.

Also the Ohio was built as a SSBN and converted to an SSGN after ~20 years of service, so it is not a good comparison cost wise.

Yea definitely. The plans for new SSBNs are only to replace old ones going out of service, so I knew that wasn't the comparison.

Its actually gray, like all US warships. Haze gray has been found to be the best overall color to paint a warship that isnt location specific.

Ok but boooooringggg

[shadowmouse]

Hold up, lets consider the source- the diplomat is quoting Sputnik, which is literally Russian state propaganda. You wouldn't expect them to give a fair shake, right? There are valid critiques- such as the role of a destroyer being called into question- but given that only three ships are currently planned, a lot of this seems to have already been considered, right?

I did consider it. Notice an earlier comment of mine:

Yes, as I noted in a later post the truth about the Zumwalt is quite possibly somewhere between the extremes. We can and should expect Russian sources to downplay the Zumwalt, just as we should expect news from the US side to be cherry picked to highlight the most positive aspects of the project.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I give some weight to the Diplomat -- a site that specializes in Asia Pacific coverage -- also being aware that their quotes were from what they described as "Speaking to Russian state-owned media outlet Radio Sputnik".

Why does a Russian talking about our budget, on a government-run propaganda website, get seriously quoted and used as some example of "oooohhhh that military!"? Whose song are we dancing to?

Like it or not, US media coverage can be an echo chamber at times. I understand if you wish to take issue with the Diplomat as a source, but let's look at the article which started this thread.

The program isn't impressing at least one Russian commentator, retired Col. Viktor Baranets, who told state-run Radio Sputnik: "One U.S. nuclear submarine, the newest in the fleet, costs about $2.2 billion. In other words, they used the budget for two nuclear subs to build one Zumwalt. What can be said? Americans love grandiose projects which sometimes go beyond the scope of reason."

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/20/po...alt/index.html

That part didn't get quoted. CNN quoted the same information.

One more thing: the sputnik source ends with a dig at the F-35, which implies that the F-35 is a failure. It's certainly overbudget, but it is definitely no failure. Most importantly, the military doesn't believe that it is, which is the assertion in question.

Take the F-35 example you mention. Really, no problems? How about this: http://www.defensetech.org/2015/01/0...-f-35-vs-a-10/

“There will be no gun until [the Joint Strike Fighter’s Block] 3F [software], there is no software to support it now or for the next four-ish years,” said one Air Force official affiliated with the F-35 program. “Block 3F is slated for release in 2019, but who knows how much that will slip?”

and this: https://www.rt.com/usa/335318-f35-ra...boot-required/

Plans to have the Air Force’s version of the F-35 Lightning II operational sometime this year have hit yet another snag: A software glitch bedeviling the fighter’s active radar system, requiring the pilots to restart it – sometimes even mid-flight.

Defense analysis publication IHS Jane’s reported on the issue last week, though it first cropped up in tests in late 2015. The AN/APG-81 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar system, built by Northrop Grumman, is simply unable to stay up and running in flight on board the F-35A fighters, according to Air Force officials.

or this: http://tacticalinvestor.com/shocking...its-f-35-crap/

The F-35 program is and was a total disaster; it is 6 years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. After spending north of $400 billion, the military is finally coming forward and stating that the F-35 program is not going to live up to expectations.

Not only does the Jet lack maneuverability, the three versions that have been designed are not as compatible as the military lead everyone to believe, in fact, incompatible might be a better word. To put is mildly the program is a total washout.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-is-f-ked.html

Officials previously admitted that the new jet lacks maneuverability, that its testing is way behind schedule and that its software is still incomplete. More recently, military leaders revealed that the three versions of the F-35 jet aren’t nearly as compatible as the military had promised they would be.

Plus, one official conceded that the planes are so expensive that re-equipping all of the Air Force’s fighter squadrons with them would compel the flying branch to first cut a fifth of the squadrons.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology...ighter/126587/

When the F-35 was conceived in the 1990s, the goal was to buy a common plane for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and even America’s allies. The Air Force version would fly from traditional runways, the Navy version would operate from aircraft carriers, and the Marine version would be built to take off from short runways and land vertically. The goal was to have all three have 70 percent of their parts in common, which was meant to save billions of dollars in development and logistics costs.

But engineering changes have produced three variants that have only 20 percent of their parts in common, Bogdan said at a conference sponsored by McAleese and Associates and Credit Suisse.

These aren't Russian propaganda sources, yet one could see why a Russian analyst would draw a comparison between the F-35 and the Zumwalt. Both were pie in the sky programs that fell well short of their aspirations.

[Skroe]

And this is where the problem is in terms of mission and deployment. The Chinese claims are about as good as them claiming the British Isles on the basis of the Mccartney Embassy and Qian Long's response to it.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you clearly, but China's claims are utterly baseless. The Nine Dash line as the basis of the claims, is a work of fiction.

The UNCLOS, which China is party to, will rule to that effect before long. But even if it doesn't, the country's around it all agree that China's claims are baseless, and that is the reality China exists in.

Still, a cop without a badge isn't really a cop either and as muddy as the various claims to "islands" in the area may be (Malaysia also has an airstrip on Swallow Reef and Vietnam has one on Spratly Island that has also been augmented with reclaimed land) the US interests are even further removed. "Before someone gets hurt or we evict them" is really no better than the other saber rattling in the region and smacks of armed thuggery. China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia have at least ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The US, has not.

The US doesn't really do Un Conventions anymore. Generally speaking, we're above that.

Does the US have a badge? No. But as the most powerful navy in the the world's waterways, it's global commons, it gets to set the norm and set the rules.

And again, China is isolated. Nearly every country in the region, most of which are US allies, are against China on the issue. Also US interests are global, and that includes the South China sea. While we don't have a claim, vital trade goes there and it concerns the security of our allies. That makes it our business.

I know China has some delusion they'll be able to push the US back to Hawaii one day. Never going to happen. We're not the British.

All fine and well, but exactly why will we be be doing this and who will we do it to? Russia? By the time the Zumwalts are deployed in that role, we'll have much bigger problems because the fit will have hit the shan big time and World War III won't be fun. China? Not much better. North Korea? Well, THAAD may be a fine system, but it probably can't field the amount of artillery aimed at South Korea which would make an attack by the US Navy something of a Pyrrhic victory.

These ships? In general they were the direction the fleet was though to be moving into about 15 years ago (the Zumwalts were going to replace the Burkes and CG(X) the Ticondergias), but that changed. These ships are all being based in the Pacific, because they're anti-China weapons. Let's be very clear: that is happening, the US is rushing anti-ship, long range weapons, increasing ship building speed, enhancing our technology, basing the newest stuff in the Pacific, because China's arms build up has us spooked. So we're preparing. Just in case. If China tries something, we'll teach them the oldest lesson of all. It's that simple.

A conflict with China wouldn't be World War III. China doesn't have strategic parity to begin with. Second of all it is hugely overmatched.

THAAD is highly scalable.

No, it is somewhat moot now since the things are being built, but the argument won't be over until the Zumwalt's have seen their share of weather. In some senses it won't really be over until we see how they hold up in combat.

Stealth aside, the ship shape will have no effect in combat. The biggest concern was the ships performance in rough seas. Scale models and simulations over years have held up pretty well.

I really take this as yet another case of people being weirded out by something non-traditional. We see the same thing with the LCS. Troubled ships sure. but the very different trimaran Independence Class has more capacity and more dependability than the more conventional Freedom-class. However the Independence is almost never brought up as being modified into the Frigrate, only the Freedom class, despite the fact that the Independence class has more experience ship builders behind it and more capacity for munitions due to internal volume.

The South China Sea itself is a confined space. The range of the railgun is good, but it is unlikely to keep up with advances in land based missiles. As far as I can tell, railguns have reached the point of almost being useful, but there are still issues like heat that need to be worked out. That's the sort of glitch that seems to get ignored in talk about how the Zumwalts are going to be better than sliced bread.

Railguns are ready to go. The heat problem was solved years ago.

THe point we're at in the rail gun is now that the technology development is over, we're going to have a demonstration deployment, followed by a bidding competition for manufacturing of units.

It's worth noting though that the railgun is one half of the weapons package. The other half is the hypervelocity projectile, that the rail gun fires, and is compatible with most Naval guns (including those on the Areligh Burke class).

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/wat...h-t-1705064652





It's one projectile with a different Sabot that can be fired from pretty much anything cannon / artillery sized.

https://news.usni.org/2015/06/01/nav...dard-deck-guns

It's a mach 3 guided round when fired from a Mk 45 5 inch gun (mach 5 with more range from a rail gun). But that's more than double the speed of an unguided regular shell.

It's also capable as an air defense and coastal defense round too, while will allow artillery to (oddly) act as A2/AD platforms.

It's currently in testing. It'll be tested at sea at the end of summer, with widescale deployment expected by Summer 2017.

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I did consider it. Notice an earlier comment of mine:

Man this was a terribly informed post from top to bottom, where to begin.

The Zumwalt's "problem" was it's cost. That's it. "Pie in the sky"? The technology developed for it has been a break through, and all of it works. It passed vigorous sea trials. It suffered few technology related delays.

The Zumwalt's biggest problem was it's cost. $3.1 billion per ship. The Navy needs a minimum of 70 destroyers. Really, it could use well over 100, especially if, as expected, the next class of large surface combatant does away with the destroyer/cruiser distinction (infact the CG(X) would have been a slightly longer Zumwalt with no guns and more VLS tubes and a better air defense radar, but otherwise identical). Replacing a $1.8 billion (was $1.2 at the time) Arligh Burke with a $3.1 billion Zumwalt, ship for ship, was not going to happen. Numbers do matter to some degree. An all Zumwalt fleet would have shrank the Destroyer fleet from 72 Active Ships today (with 9 under construction) to probably around 30 at best. It would have been a catastrophe.


If the Zumwalt could have gotten it's cost down, to about $2 billion per ship, maybe the song would have been diferent. But let's be clear - the run was contracted to 3 ships on cost grounds, not on technology grounds. This is not unusual. The US did the exact same thing with when it traded the super advanced Seawolf for the easier to build, modernized, and affordable Virginia class sub. The US did the same thing with Destroyer classes in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Infact that was Zumwalt's claim to fame: he pushed affordable non-nuclear surface ships over unlimited endurance nuclear surface ships that cost twice as much. Class runs were cut in favor of affordability.

The F-35. Where do I begin with that...


Well first, I normally don't attack journalists, but David Axe (the Daily Beast) is a piece of crap. The only aircraft that joker ever like was the A-10 and the F/A-18. If he had it his way, the USAF would be flying Embraer A-29 Super Tucanos, rather than F-whatevers. The only conflicts he cares about are War on Terror related. Why do I say this? The F-22. He waged a decade long campaign, inflating every single developmental hiccup the F-22 faced into a catastrophe. Why? Because it didn't fit the David Axe philosophy of defense procurement. Nevermind the F-22's problems were all solved as better software was introduced, upgrades were made and hardware fixes implimented... just like any other aircraft. And here we are, 2016, lamenting the end of the F-22 line to the point congress has ordered the Air Force to report in FY2017 about what it would take to restart production. David Axe is pulling the exact same crap on the F-35. He's been pulling it for years.

That's not to say the F-35 hasn't had it's problems. It certainly has. But he is not a credible figure on the F-35 or any other fighter jet program. He doesn't like stealth. He doesn't like computers in airplanes. He doesn't like high performance.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk the F-35. The F-35 is at least two programs. The technology development program and the airplane producing program. Normally this is done seperately but the F-35 foolishly did them all together. By technology I mean the computers, the sensors, the software, the engine and more. We need only look at the F-16/F-15 programs, which mostly implimented established, ready to produce, technology into an airframe whose time had organically come. The F-35 was different. The Air Force submitted a wishlist and contractors gave them an estimate of what it would cost to make it happen.


This is especially true of computers and the engine. The F-35 is the world's first purely software driven combat aircraft. It is the way forward, but moreover, the software developed for it will be the baseline for an entire family of aircraft to come. That is true of much of the F-35s technology. The B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber for example, will likely have non-afterburning variants of the F135 engine that is in the F-35. It's software will almost certainly be derived from the F-35. So will its stealth materials and manufacturing techniques. This is also true of the F-X (F-22 replacement) and F/A-XX (F/A-18 E/F Replacement) whose programs started this year. The F-35 is their technological foundation. IN FACT, the debate about restarting the F-22 is really about the F-35. The F-35 is so much more technologically advanced than the F-22 (compared to the F-15/F-16 high/low predecessor example), that the question is, if F-22 production is restarted, should the F-22 be retrofited with F-35 tech, and if so what would be the costs and timetable of that?

We call F-35 a fifth generation aircraft. It really isn't (the entire scheme is deeply flawed). For both F-35 and F-22 to be of the same "generation" is bizarre. You couldn't have gotten to F-35 without going through F-22, but F-35 is just head and shoulders above everything else being imagined or designed, from a technological standpoint.

It is a massive project - regardless of the air frame. F-35 tech may even make its way into ground combat vehicles. It's that comprehensive. To say that side of it hasn't gotten our money's worth is a joke. It's exactly the kind of technological advancement that gives the US it's military edge, and again, provides a foundation for decades to come. Aircraft, commercial and military, are still being built, utilizing technology that first showed up produced at such scale and cost in the F-15, and then evolved again a few years later in the F-16 (fly-by-wire). The F-35 technology is the exact same thing.


Now let's talk the aircraft. We'll do the easy cases first.

The Marines are replacing their AV-8 Harriers with the F-35B. They're trading a subsonic light attack aircraft for a supersonic multirole penetrating stealth aircraft / sensor platform. Effectively, the US replacing the Harrier fleet with the F-35B turns every Amphibious Assault ship into a true aircraft carrier, able to strike into defended air space. It is impossible to argue that the Marines would be better off with the Harrier, or anything really other than F-35B. Of all the purchasers, they will see the biggest benefit.

The Navy are replacing their ancient and decaying F/A-18C / Ds with the F-35C. The F/A-18C/D is a piece of junk and always has been a piece of junk. They're performance sucks. Their maintence is terrible. Their handling is garbage. The far superior Super Hornet, which was mostly a new aircraft based on A-12 Avenger tech in a body that resembles the F/A-18 (that's how you get things through Congress sometimes), got it right. But the F/A-18C can't be taken out of the fleet fast enough.

The F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets will stick around for years to come, until they are eventually replaced with the F/A-XX after 2030, but will be in the fleet years after that. That means the F-35 and Super Hornet will co-exist on carriers for probably about 20 years, minimum, with Air Wings having:

2 squadrons of 10 F-35Cs (20 total)
1 squadron of 12 F/A-18E (12)
1 squadron of 12 F/A-18F
1 squadron of 5 EA-18G
1 squadron of 5 E-2Ds
1 squadron of 6 UCLASS Drones
19 MH-60R/S

for a carrier air wing of 79. And with hundreds of shore-based F/A-18s and F-35s to add more squdrons should the need arise.

In replacing the F/A-18C/D with the F-35C, the Navy is getting something unambigiously better. The alternative would be more F/A-18E/Fs or EA-18Gs, which it is buying anyway. Yes. The Navy is buying both. However the F/A-18 doesn't have the F-35s sensor and network systems. The F-35s will be using UCLASS drones as a "clip", passing targeting information for long range missiles to them, and to other fighters and even surface ships.

Which brings us to the F-35A and the Air Force. It's the biggest buy, and it's trading a beloved supermanuverable fighter (the F-16) for a troubled one with a fat body. And yet that naive F-16, that only has twin sidewinders, hasn't been a concept for 30 years. The F-35A replaces the F-16 as it was used - as a strike aircraft - with a better strike aircraft, one with better sensor systems, an all internal capacity and stealth. Armed with the right missile (the MBDA Meteor or AIM-120D), the F-35A in simulations is capable of being a scary air superiority aircraft. But if you want a true Air Superiority aircraft, buy more F-22s. Oh wait, David Axe hated that too. That joker's a cunt.

The F-35 reaching its full potential is dependent on future technological developments that are likely to happen. Smaller munitions for example - the Small Diameter Bomb II is a wildly popular and wildly successful munitions program that gains new capabilities every year, and has rapidly become the US's go to smart bomb, replacing JDAMs. Due to their size, planes can carry more, or they can carry fewer at less mass, so need less gas. The same thing is going on right now with an air superiority missile, a replacement for the AIM-120 and AIM-9. It won't be ready for 5 years still, but the plan is to do to missiles what SDB-II did to bombs, which is to make them smaller, lighter and faster so planes can carry more. This will obviously be great for the F-35.

And then there is the engine. Engines are a major technological undertaking and the F135 in the F-35 is no exception. They're very difficult to create and creation of them is a one-in-a-decade event. The late 2000s F135 was presaged by the late 1990s F119, which was presaged by a host of F-100/F101 and other variants for commercial and military applications. The F-15 was re-engined. The F-16 was re-engined. The F/A-18 was re-engined. The F-14 was re-engined. It is likely, that over the course of it's long life, the F-35 will be similarly re-engined, and have it's range issue address. With what? Well the ADVENT engine is probably going to be the engine of choice of the F-X and F/A-XX programs, because they'll offer high performance and high efficiency at different modes of flight. But considering that lets say F/A-XX and F-X enter the fleet in large numbers around 2035 and the F-35 is built through 2040, there will be about 25 years of the two aircraft serving side by side. It will be economical and practical to put both of them on the same maintenance basis. A common engine would solve that. This has been discussed for a decade, but again, because its the F-35, everyone has amnesia about the history of it's predecessors. Don't be surprised if a re-engining next decade turns the 1200nmi range of an F-35 into 2000nmi.



Basically it transforms inside.

The US needs to balance investment in advanced technology and ease of production. It can do both. it does do both. The F-35 will be mass produced. But it is also the foundation for the next 30 years of new military and civilian aircraft. The Zumwalt will not be mass produced, in favor of the Arleigh Burke restart. But the Flight III Arleigh Burkes integrate Zumwalt tech, and the Zumwalt will form the basis of the next class of Large Surface Combatant that will replace the Burke, not to mention the application of it's computer infrastructure and power generation of ships on any size (something that is happening with TAO(X) and LS(X), which implement Zumwalt subsystems.

It is difficult, because they're so high profile, to separate the technology from the deliverable vehicles. And arguably, especially in the F-35s case, the program never should have been structured like that (the Zumwalt was more successful from a technology-on-schedule standpoint). And they wont be in the future - the B-21 being VERY clear evidence of that (essentially a modernized B-2 with F-35 tech, some other new tech, but nothing budget busting by design such as a hypersonic engine).