F-35 Scores Impressive 15:1 Kill Ratio at Red Flag War Games

[Elim Garak]

Ummmm, the Pentagon would like a word with this BS logic.

Pentagon can suck a square for all I care. There's a difference between American and Russian approaches, that is all.

I'm going to give two examples. You probably don't care but it will be educational to others.

These two examples demonstrating the American need for a new shiny thing at a loss of a working perfectly fine but old less-shiny thing.
Plus it demonstrates how corrupt the US Navy is.

Ironically, what you're describing is Russia's greatest problem. It hangs on to shit years after it should. By comparison the US Armed Forces is relentless in retiring systems whose cost-effectiveness going forward becomes questionable.

You just don't understand the Russian approach, that is all. Russians build for ages, with modification/upgrades planned in the future. All so called old antique tech that you see on the outside - is modern on the inside. You are being fooled by the looks and of course projecting the American approach on Russia. The exceptionalism of Americans is just an opinion, mate.

Americans need to have 100% satisfaction for 1000% cost. Russians are content with 80% satisfaction for 10% the cost. Numbers are examples only. You never need 100% in real situations (because it's impossible to achieve in real situations, not talking about theoretical simulations), it's a waste to aim for it.

[Kellhound]

Pentagon can suck a square for all I care. There's a difference between American and Russian approaches, that is all.


These two examples demonstrating the American need for a new shiny thing at a loss of a working perfectly fine but old less-shiny thing.
Plus it demonstrates how corrupt the US Navy is.

You just don't understand the Russian approach, that is all. Russians build for ages, with modification/upgrades planned in the future. All so called old antique tech that you see on the outside - is modern on the inside. You are being fooled by the looks and of course projecting the American approach on Russia. The exceptionalism of Americans is just an opinion, mate.

Americans need to have 100% satisfaction for 1000% cost. Russians are content with 80% satisfaction for 10% the cost. Numbers are examples only. You never need 100% in real situations (because it's impossible to achieve in real situations, not talking about theoretical simulations), it's a waste to aim for it.

The real Russian use case is dont use it very much so it doesnt break.

[Skroe]

But Skroe, if you fly your planes until they finally fall from the sky, you can be sure you got 100% your moneys worth out from it.

LOL It actually happened back in 2008!
http://gizmodo.com/344394/f-15-eagle...breaking-apart

CG of what happened:


Of course when this happened, there were about 400 F-15Cs and 60 F-22s flying. Today that is 254 F-15Cs (on the way to 220) and 183 F-22s. The USAF requirement for Air Superiority is 400 Active Aircraft, with another 300 reserve aircraft. There are hundreds of perfectly good F-15Cs in the boneyard that could be refirbished... if we wanted to pay for them. In truth, one of the most important parts of any F-22 successor (be it a legit F-X, an F-22C or an F-35E) will be to retire both F-15s (at last) and F-22s for good.

The Pentagon, with budget caps, is just not romantic about any of this.

[Extremity]

How the hell does Trump have anything to do with this? Are you kidding me? Any time ANYTHING good happens in this country, Trump's heralded by some as the cause (if he doesn't outright take credit himself, like the unemployment change in January when he'd barely been in office and the change was was directly in-line with Obama's work); yet any time something negative happens related to anything he actually is involved with and it's somebody else's fault or is just fake news, right?

Seriously, maybe I'm overreacting but I can't get how over absurd that statement is - an F35 PILOT gets a good kill ratio, and it's thanks to TRUMP? Taco Bell came out with a new shell made out of fried chicken and I hear it's incredible; looks like Trump is really getting things done, right?

[caervek]

Explain, what plane is great for multirole mission capability when it has no backup?

F-4 Phantom II

I see your point, it have loots of bombs and loots of missiles at the same time fighting inferior enemies in Vietnam. Let change it to a modern plane fighting a reasonably modern enemie.

Hey the F-4 battered ISIS and they have reasonably modern US equipment.

[Crispin]

Pentagon can suck a square for all I care. There's a difference between American and Russian approaches, that is all.


These two examples demonstrating the American need for a new shiny thing at a loss of a working perfectly fine but old less-shiny thing.
Plus it demonstrates how corrupt the US Navy is.

You just don't understand the Russian approach, that is all. Russians build for ages, with modification/upgrades planned in the future. All so called old antique tech that you see on the outside - is modern on the inside. You are being fooled by the looks and of course projecting the American approach on Russia. The exceptionalism of Americans is just an opinion, mate.

Americans need to have 100% satisfaction for 1000% cost. Russians are content with 80% satisfaction for 10% the cost. Numbers are examples only. You never need 100% in real situations (because it's impossible to achieve in real situations, not talking about theoretical simulations), it's a waste to aim for it.

We know

[caervek]

This a puff piece for a garbage plane that will never be used because nobody wants to play dogfight in the sky since topgun.

Well considering the end plot of Topgun was the US invading Russia we will have to see how the Trump presidency plays out before we say it will never be used haha.

- - - Updated - - -

We know

That was actually common practice in both the US and Russia (probably other countries too).

[Skroe]

Well considering the end plot of Topgun was the US invading Russia we will have to see how the Trump presidency plays out before we say it will never be used haha.

- - - Updated - - -


That was actually common practice in both the US and Russia (probably other countries too).

Erm, no. The USAF doesn't do High School Shop class.

[caervek]

Erm, no. The USAF doesn't do High School Shop class.

Back in the day there were also pictures of US planes that were awaiting upgrades (A-10 IIRC) whose pilots were using consumer satnavs in the cockpit. On USAF vet actually posted on a forum about the time he used a marine GPS in a plane to take it to get its instruments fixed.

It was pretty common for both US and Russian pilots (and those of other countries) to improvise when moving older aircraft.

[Crispin]

Back in the day there were also pictures of US planes that were awaiting upgrades (A-10 IIRC) whose pilots were using consumer satnavs in the cockpit. On USAF vet actually posted on a forum about the time he used a marine GPS in a plane to take it to get its instruments fixed.

It was pretty common for both US and Russian pilots (and those of other countries) to improvise when moving older aircraft.

I honestly do prefere pics to backup what people say (especially when pics are mentioned)

[Skroe]

Back in the day there were also pictures of US planes that were awaiting upgrades (A-10 IIRC) whose pilots were using consumer satnavs in the cockpit. On USAF vet actually posted on a forum about the time he used a marine GPS in a plane to take it to get its instruments fixed.

It was pretty common for both US and Russian pilots (and those of other countries) to improvise when moving older aircraft.

The USAF would never have done that. Consumer SatNavs had severely dubbed down accuracy until 2000 and the A-10C has had GPS integrated between 1992 and 2001. The Pentagon, which built GPS, had access to the non-dumbed down signal during this period.

I'm not sure what you saw, but it's far more likely that if it was GPS at all, it was an official government kit, rather than what we see in the Russian picture: shop class frame and a Walmart bought GPS unit.

If there is one thing the USAF and USN spend lavishly over, it is retrofitting older aircraft with new cockpits and screens.



F-15A cockpit.


F-15E cockpit.

[caervek]

The USAF would never have done that. Consumer SatNavs had severely dubbed down accuracy until 2000 and the A-10C has had GPS integrated between 1992 and 2001.

Yeah, this was during the 90's. It was a marine (boat) GPS that was being used (the type that give data not display a map), obviously it wasn't being used as the primary method of navigation just for reference data.

I was just pointing out that the idea wasn't exclusive to Russia, but it's a moot point really as it's not like any country would ever send a plane into combat like that (well, maybe Iran haha).

[Skroe]

Pentagon can suck a square for all I care. There's a difference between American and Russian approaches, that is all.

Correct. The Pentagon equips to fight wars an defend the United States. The Russian Armed Forces equips to put on displays of the power of the state for their own people. It is the difference between functional and for show. Shall we go over again why that ridiculous new Russian ICBM with 15 warheads is a joke?

These two examples demonstrating the American need for a new shiny thing at a loss of a working perfectly fine but old less-shiny thing.
Plus it demonstrates how corrupt the US Navy is.

No. Because building new things is relatively cheap. It's owning things the cost money.

Consider a US Supercarrier. The last of the Nimitz-class, the George H.W. Bush, cost $6.2 billion to build, and is projected to have a lifetime cost $29 billion ($400 million a year + $2 billion Refueling + mist maintenance for 50 years). The $10.4 billion unit cost of the Ford class, as they are introduced, will cost $300 million a year over 50 years, and have a lifetime cost of ~$25 billion. That $4 billion per ship adds up when you consider that the Nimitz's will be replaced by Fords 1 to 1 (at least), meaning one day when there is an all-Ford fleet (like there is an all-Nimitz fleet now), the cost of the entire carrier fleet will be sharply lower than today.

Or consider the Columbia class Ballistic Missile sub, the replacement for the Ohio class. The Ohio class require complex and expensive mid-life refueling. The Columbia class is designed with a life-of-the-ship nuclear core, which means it will never need to be refueled over it's 35 year life. Furthermore because 2 ships will never be inactivated at any one time for that refueling, the Navy only needs to procure 12 ships to replace 14, because it will allow each ship to get more deployments over their life time, thus saving the Navy the cost of purchasing two entire subs PLUS the cost of refueling. It's tens of billions of dollars.

You just don't understand the Russian approach, that is all. Russians build for ages, with modification/upgrades planned in the future. All so called old antique tech that you see on the outside - is modern on the inside. You are being fooled by the looks and of course projecting the American approach on Russia. The exceptionalism of Americans is just an opinion, mate.

It's not modern at all. Nevermind the fact that Russia has a minuscule tech base to speak of, you can't retrofit the kind of systems in the F-22 or F-35 into a 4th generation aircraft like the Su-35 (or Su-27, which is its real name). The US, for it's part, DOES attempt to do this to a limited degree, with the latest export variants of the F-15 and F-16, the contemporaries of the Su-27 and MiG-29, and both are a far cry from the F-22 and F-35.

Americans need to have 100% satisfaction for 1000% cost. Russians are content with 80% satisfaction for 10% the cost. Numbers are examples only. You never need 100% in real situations (because it's impossible to achieve in real situations, not talking about theoretical simulations), it's a waste to aim for it.

And yet the US isn't crippled by cost of ownership the way Russia is. We're it right.

[Elim Garak]

Correct. The Pentagon equips to fight wars an defend the United States. The Russian Armed Forces equips to put on displays of the power of the state for their own people. It is the difference between functional and for show. Shall we go over again why that ridiculous new Russian ICBM with 15 warheads is a joke?

I don't really care about your armchair opinion on Russian tech mate. You are in the american patriot mode now.

No. Because building new things is relatively cheap. It's owning things the cost money.

Yeah because you aren't going to own the new things you are building. Because since they are new they are more delicate and thus more expensive to own, you don't need that, right?

Consider a US Supercarrier. The last of the Nimitz-class, the George H.W. Bush, cost $6.2 billion to build, and is projected to have a lifetime cost $29 billion ($400 million a year + $2 billion Refueling + mist maintenance for 50 years). The $10.4 billion unit cost of the Ford class, as they are introduced, will cost $300 million a year over 50 years, and have a lifetime cost of ~$25 billion. That $4 billion per ship adds up when you consider that the Nimitz's will be replaced by Fords 1 to 1 (at least), meaning one day when there is an all-Ford fleet (like there is an all-Nimitz fleet now), the cost of the entire carrier fleet will be sharply lower than today.

Projected costs are projected. I have no trouble seeing navy padding the sheets in favor of building the NEW ones.

Or consider the Columbia class Ballistic Missile sub, the replacement for the Ohio class. The Ohio class require complex and expensive mid-life refueling. The Columbia class is designed with a life-of-the-ship nuclear core, which means it will never need to be refueled over it's 35 year life. Furthermore because 2 ships will never be inactivated at any one time for that refueling, the Navy only needs to procure 12 ships to replace 14, because it will allow each ship to get more deployments over their life time, thus saving the Navy the cost of purchasing two entire subs PLUS the cost of refueling. It's tens of billions of dollars.

You are just demonstrating my point. You built expensive Ohio class in the first place. Why? Because you needed it be 100% right then, no matter the cost. You compare the individual costs of two subs and say the new one is cheaper, while I see that if you had built the first one properly - you wouldn't need to build two different subs and it would've been even more cheap and you would've had MORE subs.

It's not modern at all. Nevermind the fact that Russia has a minuscule tech base to speak of, you can't retrofit the kind of systems in the F-22 or F-35 into a 4th generation aircraft like the Su-35 (or Su-27, which is its real name). The US, for it's part, DOES attempt to do this to a limited degree, with the latest export variants of the F-15 and F-16, the contemporaries of the Su-27 and MiG-29, and both are a far cry from the F-22 and F-35.

As you would know, lol. Who needs F-22/35 stuff in Russian jets? No one. Russia has its own stuff that fits just fine. Yes Russia took Su-27 and turned it into Su-35. Because, hey if the hull works, why build a knew one? Jets are not exactly cutting edge technology. it's the insides - that's the meat. Like you don't need F-35, you could just upgrade F-22. Well you could if you designed F-22 with such capability that is. Did you?

And yet the US isn't crippled by cost of ownership the way Russia is. We're it right.

Yeah yeah, the Titanic is still afloat, so everything's fine.

[Skroe]

I don't really care about your armchair opinion on Russian tech mate. You are in the american patriot mode now.

Quite the opposite. 15 warheads in 100 land based icbm's is a literally "all eggs in one basket". I certainly hope Russia is so stupid.

Yeah because you aren't going to own the new things you are building. Because since they are new they are more delicate and thus more expensive to own, you don't need that, right?

American technology is more expensive, but more rugged. Russia's military hardware is notorious for it's poor reliability and it's poor mission capable rates.

Projected costs are projected. I have no trouble seeing navy padding the sheets in favor of building the NEW ones.

Not at all. Every ship has a fixed number of deployments and a retirement date. That's how this works. Keeping a ship or an aircraft in service an additional year incurs an additional years costs.

You are just demonstrating my point. You built expensive Ohio class in the first place. Why? Because you needed it be 100% right then, no matter the cost. You compare the individual costs of two subs and say the new one is cheaper, while I see that if you had built the first one properly - you wouldn't need to build two different subs and it would've been even more cheap and you would've had MORE subs

Ohios were built to keep ahead of Russian sub hunters and to replace the legacy Benjamin Franklin class with a new Sub design built around the Trident I and Trident II missile from the start. And Russia shouldn't be one to talk: the Ohio's rival program was the utterly ridiculous Typhoon.

And yes, 100% solutions are how we operate. That technical advantage is part of what makes our armed forces the best in the world.

As you would know, lol. Who needs F-22/35 stuff in Russian jets? No one. Russia has its own stuff that fits just fine. Yes Russia took Su-27 and turned it into Su-35. Because, hey if the hull works, why build a knew one? Jets are not exactly cutting edge technology. it's the insides - that's the meat. Like you don't need F-35, you could just upgrade F-22. Well you could if you designed F-22 with such capability that is. Did you?

Well you unexpectedly hit on an odd point. The delays to the F-22 and problems with the F-35 changed the program. The F-16 was an modest evolution of F-15 tech. The F-35 could have been a modest evolution of F-22 tech, but in truth, by 2004, the F-22's internals were outdated, so the F-35 was designed far more ambitiously as a step beyond the F-22. Had the F-22 been procured in full in the 1990s, and the F-35 procured in full in 1999-2005, you'd have a point, but it makes zero sense to base the current F-35 on mid 1990s computing technology. As a result, the F-35 is considerably different.

But once again, this is a good thing, because investments made in the F-35 are paving the way for a host of programs, such as the B-21 and the F-22 successor. This is exactly what happened with the F-16.


The F-16 however, is an aged design. We need stealth and better sensors than it can carry at a better range. That means something very much like the F-35.

[caervek]

Russia's military hardware is notorious for it's poor reliability and it's poor mission capable rates.

In fairness there is a bit of an asterisk there, Soviet hardware was very rugged and very reliable. The issue is (A) that most of the countries who bought the export models didn't maintain them properly, and (B) Russia and Ukraine went bankrupt after the USSR fell so they couldn't maintain theirs either.

Generally speaking anything is unreliable when not maintained properly, I.E Iran's F-14s haven't had a decent mission capable rate in decades.

[Skroe]

In fairness there is a bit of an asterisk there, Soviet hardware was very rugged and very reliable. The issue is (A) that most of the countries who bought the export models didn't maintain them properly, and (B) Russia and Ukraine went bankrupt after the USSR fell so they couldn't maintain theirs either.

Generally speaking anything is unreliable when not maintained properly, I.E Iran's F-14s haven't had a decent mission capable rate in decades.

It's not just money. It's intrinsic to the designs. Russian jet engines, for example, even properly maintained have far higher failure rates then Western counterparts.

[Deleted]

F-35 was designed to do specific role or more to do specific 3 roles. You can design your test to yield the result you want. I don't know the details of this but i know in 2015 F-35 was fit against SU's in Pacific Test. We had a simulation also For F35 specifics with not tied to military industrial complex contractor which was showing it as terrible. Last but not the least it is 7 years after it was suppose to be delivered and way over the budget.

You all need to understand that F35 was designed for a specific role, and it might be best airplane for that role but that role could not be the role we need for airplane of future. Now we see things like JSAM being weapons of choice so the battlefield changed. Also F35 was a mix or many roles including close support and it is too fast for close support. Also there is a lot of technical debt in it eg. "what do we do with fan space in non B versions" etc...

It was a good R&D test bed but i dont think it is a good plane, but future will show us. You can fix a lot with good software.

[Elim Garak]

Quite the opposite. 15 warheads in 100 land based icbm's is a literally "all eggs in one basket". I certainly hope Russia is so stupid.

I don't even know what you are on about anymore. Are those 15 warheads are in fact just 1 warhead that splits into 15 deliverables to increase penetration thru possible enemy counter-measures? And what-based should they be if land is what Russia consists of?

American technology is more expensive, but more rugged. Russia's military hardware is notorious for it's poor reliability and it's poor mission capable rates.

Oh please, if anything, reliable and durable is what always have been said about Russian military equipment. American being too delicate for field repairs and environments it is used in. How do you like them sands? expensive is about right when it comes to US tech. 100% solution when you'd be fine with 50%. Soon to be replaced by another 100% solution.

Not at all. Every ship has a fixed number of deployments and a retirement date. That's how this works. Keeping a ship or an aircraft in service an additional year incurs an additional years costs.

Oh really? I didn't know that if you use something 1 year more you pay for it 1 year more. Now I get it, you need to build new things to not use old things even 1 year more. It's cheaper that way, right? New things are free to use any number of years, until they are old.

Ohios were built to keep ahead of Russian sub hunters and to replace the legacy Benjamin Franklin class with a new Sub design built around the Trident I and Trident II missile from the start. And Russia shouldn't be one to talk: the Ohio's rival program was the utterly ridiculous Typhoon.

So you didn't really need them in the long run, just like I said.

And yes, 100% solutions are how we operate. That technical advantage is part of what makes our armed forces the best in the world.

That's an untested claim. 100% solutions will be your downfall. But I guess when you finally get bitten in the ass by 100% solutions you will change your preferences.

Well you unexpectedly hit on an odd point. The delays to the F-22 and problems with the F-35 changed the program. The F-16 was an modest evolution of F-15 tech. The F-35 could have been a modest evolution of F-22 tech, but in truth, by 2004, the F-22's internals were outdated, so the F-35 was designed far more ambitiously as a step beyond the F-22. Had the F-22 been procured in full in the 1990s, and the F-35 procured in full in 1999-2005, you'd have a point, but it makes zero sense to base the current F-35 on mid 1990s computing technology. As a result, the F-35 is considerably different.

But once again, this is a good thing, because investments made in the F-35 are paving the way for a host of programs, such as the B-21 and the F-22 successor. This is exactly what happened with the F-16.


The F-16 however, is an aged design. We need stealth and better sensors than it can carry at a better range. That means something very much like the F-35.

You can replace F-22 internals with better ones. You have the technology damn it. The rest of F-22 will work just fine and you won't have to retrain the pilots much. And you would've achieved the same goals. But of course it's not about goals, it's just corruption.

[caervek]

I don't even know what you are on about anymore. Are those 15 warheads are in fact just 1 warhead that splits into 15 deliverables to increase penetration thru possible enemy counter-measures? And what-based should they be if land is what Russia consists of?

Russia are allowed X warheads due to treaties, the more they put on each missile to save costs = the more the US will knock out for each missile destroyed in the event of war.