Trump suggests he would ditch F-35 in favor of cheaper plane

[Vyxn]

Relevant: https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/com...ndous/dbixlo6/

It's a reply from a pilot about why the F-35 shouldn't be scrapped and that Trump trying to stick his nose in where it isn't needed just does more harm than good.

your the type that would buy a brand new car at sticker price and think you was getting a good deal as the salesman laughs at you as you drive away

[Xanjori]

your the type that would buy a brand new car at sticker price and think you was getting a good deal as the salesman laughs at you as you drive away

What, because I listen to people with experience? You're the type that would turn up at the car dealership and walk away with a tricycle as long as it has "TRUMP #1" on it.

[Deleted]

F-18: 60M,
F-35A: 98M
F-35B: 105M
F-35C: 115M

So the F-18 is at least (bare minimum) 40% cheaper than the F-35.

If you put that % against the 1.2Trillion program that the F-35 costs you'll pocket over half a trillion to spend on one of the most mediocre (if not bad) medicare systems of this earth, send lots and lots of kids to college for free, or give each and every American 1 million and still have some insane money left to overhaul completely the army of a small country.

He is in the right path, the cost is just ridiculous.

You do know that money has been spend getting to this point, abandoning that now and starting all over will cost MORE, not LESS... so in essence you will be paying more dollars for inferior hardware just to prove a point (and no guarantees it won't go over budget again, these things usually do)

[Skroe]

I thought it was a multi-role multipurpose fighter? At least that's the way its been billed by some people (in this thread).

It is, but multi-role doesn't mean JUST air superiority + ground attack.

Understanding what the F-35 can do can only come one people understand the history of the F-16 that replaced it.

The US bought the F-16 to be the compliment to the F-15. In the early 1970s the advantages the F-15 design would enjoy over it's Soviet opposites was becoming very clear, but the F-15 was also hugely expensive. The US designed and bought the F-16 to add sheer numbers to our air superiority. The F-16 also took F-15 technology and evolved it (though to a less degree than the jump from F-22 to F-35).

The two later developments - the F-16 as a multirole and mostly strike aircraft, and the F-16 as a hugely successful international aircraft that became the core of our allies air power - came about a decade later and were unintended at the program start. Our allies needed new Aircraft, and the F-16 fit the bill at the right price and right capability. Furthermore the cost and capability of fourth generation fighters made the multirole nature of them integral to purchasing fleets of any size, compared to more specialized third generation fighters.

The final F-16 that our allies bought and the US ended up holding onto the longest could be an effective strike air craft when so armed, or an effective 9G air superiority fighter when so armed. It could also do other roles to limied degrees. Could it compete with a dedicated bomber in the strike role or with an F-15 in the air superiority role? No - it can't haul enough and being single engine, it lacks the energy of an F-15. But it existed in numbers, was economical and our allies, who increasingly didn't have any type bombers got an air frame that can do the jobs well enough.


The F-35 from the get go was planned to replace the F-16 as it was used, not as it was envisioned. If the Air Force wanted to produce a lightweight fighter that derived F-22 tech in a smaller form, F-16 style, the F-35 program would look considerably different and would have been introduced a decade ago. The F-35 itself however was far more ambitious. Rather than modestly improve F-22 tech, the F-35 revolutionized it... it's essentially what comes next. But the international nature of the F-35 was planned from the get go because unlike the F-16 episode, the US didn't want to repeat the tacking on of capability of the F-35 and just have it fall into popularity. The US + allied fleets were all aging simultaneously this time, and would all need to be replaced simultaneously, so there was no time for that kind of roll out, unless the US and allies kept their aging F-16s around longer.

Without a doubt the first use of the F-16 over the years has been ground attack. That's how our allies typically equip their F-16s. That is how the US typically equips theirs. Do they sometimes arm them when an anti-air loadout to patrol their airspace? Absolutely. But the F-35 can do that too. But in actual shooting wars, the role of an aircraft this size, and the role of our allies aircraft, would principally be strike. Air Superiority in the US would be left to the F-22 and F-15, while Europe it would be left to the extremely capable Eurofighter Typhoon.

But in terms of Air Superiority, the F-35 is no slouch. It's sensor system eclipses the F-22 or Eurofighter already and the upgrade rolled out in 2018 will be a huge leap forward. While it won't have the Withing Visual Range agility of an F-22, Typhoon or F-15, like any other aircraft tactics have been developed to exploit it's strengths and minimize its weaknesses. Just as an F-22 pilot would be pretty insane to get into a close in manuevering duel with a Eurofighter (where the Eurofighter is better than the F-22), the F-35 pilot would stay at extreme range and utilize it's sensors + stealth to dart in and out of the enemy's engagement sphere. The F-35 armed with a long range missile, especially the European MBDA Meteor, is a scary, scary thing. But more than anything the pilots would actively avoid engagements where they face disadvantages. The F-35's sensor system + stealth gives them the ability to be more selective about that than their Russian adversaries.

Perhaps though the most forward thinking use of the F-35 is as a sensor + EW platform. The US Navy will be buying F/A-18s for years to come. And the F/A-18's planned successor for around 2020, the F/A-XX, will likely be closer to the F/A-18 than the F-35, and be a different aircraft (with some commonality, such as with engines) with the Air Force's F-22 replacement, NGDA / F-X. They will however, be different programs and different air frames. TO put it another way, the Navy sees the F-35 as a compliment to the F/A-18 (and it's eventual successor) rather than a replacement, and carriers armed with just F-35s and E-2s won't be a thing.

The advantage of the F-35's sensor + EW platform is that it is able to guide extremely long ranged missiles from warships and land, and act as an airborne router to hand off targeting data to drones, other aircraft, ships and ground vehicles. One way the US intends to fight China, for example, is to use the F-22 and F-35 to target enemy aircraft, and send the data to a larger aircraft, such as a F-15C, B-52 or B-1B armed with a ton of air to air missiles, that will then fire those missiles from extreme range. You couldn't do that with a non-stealth aircraft or an aircraft with a less sophisticated sensor / EW solution.

Our allies will make use of this capability as well because network centric warfare is how the West fights now and how it will fight in decades to come. And that's kind of the rub with the F-35. It certainly falls short in certain areas on a purple spec reading versus other aircraft. But comprehensively it is irreplacable in terms of how it fits in the larger web of security. Using the F-35 to pick real time targeting data for long range missiles won't just be an American thing, but an allied thing thing. Using the F-35's absurdly powerful radar to actually fry enemy electronics, will be an allied thing.

Could you develop an aircraft that could do a single job better than the F-35? Probably. Again, if you wanted an F-22-in-a-smaller-package, it would look very different. If you wanted to do JUST strike, throw much of the F-35 tech in a stealthy long range drone. The US could afford to do all that stuff... particularly with the drone, it certainly will. But our allies have smaller taxpayer pools, smaller overall budgets due to their smaller overall size... they chose the F-16 as a compromise of comprehensive capability over specialization, and the F-35 is that as well.

[Vyxn]

You do know that money has been spend getting to this point, abandoning that now and starting all over will cost MORE, not LESS... so in essence you will be paying more dollars for inferior hardware just to prove a point (and no guarantees it won't go over budget again, these things usually do)

the R&D doesn't disappear because you didn't buy as many of the aircraft as originally planned to buy or don't buy at all
so there is no waste

- - - Updated - - -

What, because I listen to people with experience? You're the type that would turn up at the car dealership and walk away with a tricycle as long as it has "TRUMP #1" on it.

why buy a two seater sports car when what you need is a vehicle to take your 4 kids to soccer practice and haul around groceries
the F-35 is over kill for type of aircraft we need to fight in the conflicts we are fighting in and have been fighting in for the last two decades
much better use of that money is up graded A-10 and AC-130
the F-35 is an air superiority aircraft and only two countries that might be future adversaries that could even come close to compete with us in air superiority are Russia and China I don't think we will be getting into any conventional war with anytime soon

[Skroe]

What, because I listen to people with experience? You're the type that would turn up at the car dealership and walk away with a tricycle as long as it has "TRUMP #1" on it.

It's worth noting also that the Pilot in question is almost certainly referencing David Axe when he says "it's most likely shitty Internet posts and blog articles that give him the extent of knowledge on the F-35 or other acquisitions program".

David Axe is Wired, Newsweek's and War is Boring's military procurement front man... and has waged a relentless, decade long campaign against first the F-22 and now the F-35. Because in his mind, the US should only spend money on things like the AirLand Scorpion, A-10 and maybe modernized F-16s. He's a journalist who cut his teeth on the brushfire wars of the 00s and thinks the US should only spend money on arms that are better used in those brushfire wars. He essentially pays no credence to the idea the US should at all invest in advanced weaponry to defend a near-peer level adversary.

So much of the questionable BS and half-truths regarding the F-22 and then the F-35, came from this man, who has conveniently rewrote his own history. With Russia being aggressive, he is now lamenting the F-22 procurement cancellation... despite him being one of the chief propagandists against the F-22 at the time, in the name of, and this is the best part, "the cheaper, better F-35".

http://elementsofpower.blogspot.com/...than-ever.html
https://www.wired.com/2011/12/f-22-real-cost/


Hell here's the New York Times!!!

We Don’t Need the F-22
JUNE 19, 2009

You would think that with all the legitimate and expensive claims on the government pocketbook — including two wars, an economic crisis and desperately needed health care reform — Congress would be extra judicious about how it spends the taxpayers’ money. But no, at least not when it comes to the House Armed Services Committee and lucrative defense contracts.

The panel has proved again how the insatiable drive to keep fancy weapons systems alive can trump all good sense. With Representative Rob Bishop of Utah and other Republicans leading the charge, and with the support of six Democrats, the committee this week narrowly voted to keep producing the Air Force’s F-22 stealth fighter jet.

We adamantly opposed Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s proposal to buy four more F-22s in next year’s budget. But at least he wanted to cap the fleet at 187 planes. The House committee has voted to approve a $369 million down payment on 12 more. If all of those are bought, the total price tag would be about $2.8 billion.

The Pentagon budget must be more closely attuned to military and economic reality than the misdirected and undisciplined spending of the last eight years. Mr. Gates has made a compelling case for ending programs that significantly exceed their budgets or use limited tax dollars to buy “more capability than the nation needs.”

No weapons system fits that criteria better than the F-22. It is a cold war relic, designed for defense against the Soviet Union. It has never flown in combat, much less in the wars this country is actually fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force’s new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which begins production in 2012, uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar like the F-22, and should be sufficient.

Lockheed Martin and its partners parceled out work on the plane widely to ensure maximum political protection. And we deeply regret that jobs will be lost by phasing out the F-22. But the United States cannot keep paying for redundant and dubious systems. There are too many other compelling demands on the country’s battered budget — some of which will certainly create new jobs. It is up to House Democratic leaders to make this case to their members and ensure that the committee’s decision on the F-22 is overturned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21sun1.html

How to Pay for a 21st-Century Military
DEC. 20, 2008

In recent weeks, this page has called for major changes in America’s armed forces: more ground forces, less reliance on the Reserves, new equipment and training to replace cold-war weapons systems and doctrines.

Money will have to be found to pay for all of this, and the Pentagon can no longer be handed a blank check, as happened throughout the Bush years.

Since 2001, basic defense spending has risen by 40 percent in real post-inflation dollars. That is not counting the huge supplemental budgets passed — with little serious review or debate — each year to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such unquestioned largess has shielded the Pentagon from any real pressure to cut unneeded weapons systems and other wasteful expenses.

As a result, there is plenty of fat in the defense budget. Here is what we think can be cut back or canceled in order to pay for new equipment and other reforms that are truly essential to keep this country safe:

End production of the Air Force’s F-22. The F-22 was designed to ensure victory in air-to-air dogfights with the kind of futuristic fighters that the Soviet Union did not last long enough to build. The Air Force should instead rely on its version of the new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which comes into production in 2012 and like the F-22 uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar.

Until then, it can use upgraded versions of the F-16, which can outperform anything now flown by any potential foe. The F-35 will provide a still larger margin of superiority. The net annual savings: about $3 billion.

Cancel the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer. This is a stealthy blue water combat ship designed to fight the kind of midocean battles no other nation is preparing to wage. The Navy can rely on the existing DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, a powerful, well-armed ship that incorporates the advanced Aegis combat system for tracking and destroying multiple air, ship and submarine targets. The Navy has sharply cut back the number of Zumwalts on order from 32 to two.

Cutting the last two could save more than $3 billion a year that should be used to buy more of the littoral combat ships that are really needed. Those ships can move quickly in shallow offshore waters and provide helicopter and other close-in support for far more likely ground combat operations.

Halt production of the Virginia class sub. Ten of these unneeded attack submarines — modeled on the cold-war-era Seawolf, whose mission was to counter Soviet attack and nuclear launch submarines — have already been built. The program is little more than a public works project to keep the Newport News, Va., and Groton, Conn., naval shipyards in business.

The Navy can extend the operating lives of the existing fleet of Los Angeles class fast-attack nuclear submarines, which can capably perform all needed post-cold-war missions — from launching cruise missiles to countering China’s expanding but technologically inferior submarine fleet. Net savings: $2.5 billion.

Pull the plug on the Marine Corps’s V-22 Osprey. After 25 years of trying, this futuristic and unnecessary vertical takeoff and landing aircraft has yet to prove reliable or safe. The 80 already built are more than enough. Instead of adding 400 more, the Marine Corps should buy more of the proven H-92 and CH-53 helicopters. Net savings: $2 billion to 2.5 billion.

Halt premature deployment of missile defense. The Pentagon wants to spend roughly $9 billion on ballistic missile defense next year. That includes money to deploy additional interceptors in Alaska and build new installations in central Europe. After spending some $150 billion over the past 25 years, the Pentagon has yet to come up with a national missile defense system reliable enough to provide real security. The existing technology can be easily fooled by launching cheap metal decoys along with an incoming warhead.

We do not minimize the danger from ballistic missiles. We agree there should be continued testing and research on more feasible approaches. Since the most likely threat would come from Iran or North Korea, there should be serious discussions with the Russians about a possible joint missile defense program. (We know the system poses no threat to Russia, but it is time to take away the excuse.) A research program would cost about $5 billion annually, for a net savings of nearly $5 billion.

Negotiate deep cuts in nuclear weapons. Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the United States and Russia committed to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 each by 2012. There has been no discussion of any further cuts. A successor treaty should have significantly lower limits — between 1,000 and 1,400, with a commitment to go lower.

President-elect Barack Obama should also take all ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert and commit to reducing the nation’s absurdly large stock of backup warheads. These steps will make the world safer. It will give Mr. Obama a lot more credibility to press others to rein in their nuclear ambitions.

It is hard to say just how much money would be saved with these reductions, but in the long term, the amount would certainly be considerable.

Trim the active-duty Navy and Air Force. The United States enjoys total dominance of the world’s seas and skies and will for many years to come. The Army and the Marines have proved too small for the demands of simultaneous ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are the forces most likely to be called on in future interventions against terrorist groups or to rescue failing states. Reducing the Navy by one carrier group and the Air Force by two air wings would save about $5 billion a year.

Making these cuts will not be politically easy. The services are already talking up remote future threats (most involving a hostile China armed to the teeth with submarines and space-age weapons). Military contractors invoke a different kind of threat: hundreds of thousands of layoffs in a recession-weakened economy. We are all for saving and creating jobs, but not at the cost of diverting finite defense dollars from real and pressing needs — or new programs that will create new jobs.

The cuts above could save $20 billion to $25 billion a year, which could be better used as follows:

Moral of the story? It's past time to basically ignore journalists when it comes to military spending. These creitins don't know shit.

And best of all, get ready for the _exact_same_shit_ when the B-21 Raider program enters public consciousness over the next five years. Get ready for articles from David Axe and other liberal defense henchmen about how the US should militarize a 757 rather than buy an "unaffordable stealth bomber". And get ready for them to engineer some shocking unit sticker price number, like the "$4 billion dollar bomber".

[Vyxn]

It is, but multi-role doesn't mean JUST air superiority + ground attack.

Understanding what the F-35 can do can only come one people understand the history of the F-16 that replaced it.

The US bought the F-16 to be the compliment to the F-15. In the early 1970s the advantages the F-15 design would enjoy over it's Soviet opposites was becoming very clear, but the F-15 was also hugely expensive. The US designed and bought the F-16 to add sheer numbers to our air superiority. The F-16 also took F-15 technology and evolved it (though to a less degree than the jump from F-22 to F-35).

The two later developments - the F-16 as a multirole and mostly strike aircraft, and the F-16 as a hugely successful international aircraft that became the core of our allies air power - came about a decade later and were unintended at the program start. Our allies needed new Aircraft, and the F-16 fit the bill at the right price and right capability. Furthermore the cost and capability of fourth generation fighters made the multirole nature of them integral to purchasing fleets of any size, compared to more specialized third generation fighters.

The final F-16 that our allies bought and the US ended up holding onto the longest could be an effective strike air craft when so armed, or an effective 9G air superiority fighter when so armed. It could also do other roles to limied degrees. Could it compete with a dedicated bomber in the strike role or with an F-15 in the air superiority role? No - it can't haul enough and being single engine, it lacks the energy of an F-15. But it existed in numbers, was economical and our allies, who increasingly didn't have any type bombers got an air frame that can do the jobs well enough.


The F-35 from the get go was planned to replace the F-16 as it was used, not as it was envisioned. If the Air Force wanted to produce a lightweight fighter that derived F-22 tech in a smaller form, F-16 style, the F-35 program would look considerably different and would have been introduced a decade ago. The F-35 itself however was far more ambitious. Rather than modestly improve F-22 tech, the F-35 revolutionized it... it's essentially what comes next. But the international nature of the F-35 was planned from the get go because unlike the F-16 episode, the US didn't want to repeat the tacking on of capability of the F-35 and just have it fall into popularity. The US + allied fleets were all aging simultaneously this time, and would all need to be replaced simultaneously, so there was no time for that kind of roll out, unless the US and allies kept their aging F-16s around longer.

Without a doubt the first use of the F-16 over the years has been ground attack. That's how our allies typically equip their F-16s. That is how the US typically equips theirs. Do they sometimes arm them when an anti-air loadout to patrol their airspace? Absolutely. But the F-35 can do that too. But in actual shooting wars, the role of an aircraft this size, and the role of our allies aircraft, would principally be strike. Air Superiority in the US would be left to the F-22 and F-15, while Europe it would be left to the extremely capable Eurofighter Typhoon.

But in terms of Air Superiority, the F-35 is no slouch. It's sensor system eclipses the F-22 or Eurofighter already and the upgrade rolled out in 2018 will be a huge leap forward. While it won't have the Withing Visual Range agility of an F-22, Typhoon or F-15, like any other aircraft tactics have been developed to exploit it's strengths and minimize its weaknesses. Just as an F-22 pilot would be pretty insane to get into a close in manuevering duel with a Eurofighter (where the Eurofighter is better than the F-22), the F-35 pilot would stay at extreme range and utilize it's sensors + stealth to dart in and out of the enemy's engagement sphere. The F-35 armed with a long range missile, especially the European MBDA Meteor, is a scary, scary thing. But more than anything the pilots would actively avoid engagements where they face disadvantages. The F-35's sensor system + stealth gives them the ability to be more selective about that than their Russian adversaries.

Perhaps though the most forward thinking use of the F-35 is as a sensor + EW platform. The US Navy will be buying F/A-18s for years to come. And the F/A-18's planned successor for around 2020, the F/A-XX, will likely be closer to the F/A-18 than the F-35, and be a different aircraft (with some commonality, such as with engines) with the Air Force's F-22 replacement, NGDA / F-X. They will however, be different programs and different air frames. TO put it another way, the Navy sees the F-35 as a compliment to the F/A-18 (and it's eventual successor) rather than a replacement, and carriers armed with just F-35s and E-2s won't be a thing.

The advantage of the F-35's sensor + EW platform is that it is able to guide extremely long ranged missiles from warships and land, and act as an airborne router to hand off targeting data to drones, other aircraft, ships and ground vehicles. One way the US intends to fight China, for example, is to use the F-22 and F-35 to target enemy aircraft, and send the data to a larger aircraft, such as a F-15C, B-52 or B-1B armed with a ton of air to air missiles, that will then fire those missiles from extreme range. You couldn't do that with a non-stealth aircraft or an aircraft with a less sophisticated sensor / EW solution.

Our allies will make use of this capability as well because network centric warfare is how the West fights now and how it will fight in decades to come. And that's kind of the rub with the F-35. It certainly falls short in certain areas on a purple spec reading versus other aircraft. But comprehensively it is irreplacable in terms of how it fits in the larger web of security. Using the F-35 to pick real time targeting data for long range missiles won't just be an American thing, but an allied thing thing. Using the F-35's absurdly powerful radar to actually fry enemy electronics, will be an allied thing.

Could you develop an aircraft that could do a single job better than the F-35? Probably. Again, if you wanted an F-22-in-a-smaller-package, it would look very different. If you wanted to do JUST strike, throw much of the F-35 tech in a stealthy long range drone. The US could afford to do all that stuff... particularly with the drone, it certainly will. But our allies have smaller taxpayer pools, smaller overall budgets due to their smaller overall size... they chose the F-16 as a compromise of comprehensive capability over specialization, and the F-35 is that as well.

problem with the air force they like Swiss arm knife aircraft but just like a Swiss arm knife that can do a lot of thinks but none of them as well as the single propose tool
Now for the navy a Swiss army knife type of aircraft makes since because of limited space on aircraft carriers but the air force doesn't have that restriction
use the A-10 for example the air force has been trying to get rid of that plane for decades but every time they try they realize they don't have an aircraft that can replace it and do as good of a job in its role as it does

[Skroe]

the R&D doesn't disappear because you didn't buy as many of the aircraft as originally planned to buy or don't buy at all
so there is no waste

- - - Updated - - -



why buy a two seater sports car when what you need is a vehicle to take your 4 kids to soccer practice and haul around groceries
the F-35 is over kill for type of aircraft we need to fight in the conflicts we are fighting in and have been fighting in for the last two decades
much better use of that money is up graded A-10 and AC-130
the F-35 is an air superiority aircraft and only two countries that might be future adversaries that could even come close to compete with us in air superiority are Russia and China I don't think we will be getting into any conventional war with anytime soon

The type of aircraft that we've been using in the brush fire wars are not the type of aircraft we'll need in the wars to come.

Anti-Access / Area Denial is going up all across Eurasia thanks to the Russians, Chinese and Iranians. If the US intends to launch military campaigns into Eurasia for any reason in decades ahead, or in a worse case, AGAINST any one of them (part of our deterrent), it will need aircraft to break the A2/AD shield. Here's Russia's bubbles, that now extend down over most of the Middle East as well.




The A-10 cannot do that.

The AC-130 cannot do that.

The F-16 and F-15E cannot do that.


The only active aircraft in the US inventory that can do that right now is the 20 B-2 bombers and the 125 combat coded F-22s. A decade out, we'll be able to add 40 B-21 Raiders to the mix. That is not nearly enough. A huge amount of US air power relies on the F-16 today and tomorrow it must rely on the F-35. THe stealth+sensors+EW on the F-35 is what comes next to allow an aircraft like that to be able to operate like an improved F-16, in the new, more dangerous A2/AD world.

And for the fiftieth time, the F-35 is NOT an Air Superiority Aircraft. It is first a strike aircraft / sensor+EW platform. It's air superiority role, while effective and capable, is ancillary and will chiefly leverage it's sensor systems. For Air Superiority in the traditional sense, the US has the F-22 for high threat environments and F-15C for permissive environments. Europe has the Eurofighter Typhoon.


Lastly, it's a simple matter of age. A decade ago the US has 1900 F-16s. That is down to 900. In 2024, it'll be down to 400. In 2030 it'll be zero, wat which point the youngest F-16 will be 35 years old. The F-16 is rapidly aging. A decade of orbiting Baghdad and Kabul, something they were never intended to do, shaved many many years of their (and the F/A-18C's) life time.

[Vyxn]

The type of aircraft that we've been using in the brush fire wars are not the type of aircraft we'll need in the wars to come.

Anti-Access / Area Denial is going up all across Eurasia thanks to the Russians, Chinese and Iranians. If the US intends to launch military campaigns into Eurasia for any reason in decades ahead, or in a worse case, AGAINST any one of them (part of our deterrent), it will need aircraft to break the A2/AD shield. Here's Russia's bubbles, that now extend down over most of the Middle East as well.




The A-10 cannot do that.

The AC-130 cannot do that.

The F-16 and F-15E cannot do that.


The only active aircraft in the US inventory that can do that right now is the 20 B-2 bombers and the 125 combat coded F-22s. A decade out, we'll be able to add 40 B-21 Raiders to the mix. That is not nearly enough. A huge amount of US air power relies on the F-16 today and tomorrow it must rely on the F-35. THe stealth+sensors+EW on the F-35 is what comes next to allow an aircraft like that to be able to operate like an improved F-16, in the new, more dangerous A2/AD world.

And for the fiftieth time, the F-35 is NOT an Air Superiority Aircraft. It is first a strike aircraft / sensor+EW platform. It's air superiority role, while effective and capable, is ancillary and will chiefly leverage it's sensor systems. For Air Superiority in the traditional sense, the US has the F-22 for high threat environments and F-15C for permissive environments. Europe has the Eurofighter Typhoon.


Lastly, it's a simple matter of age. A decade ago the US has 1900 F-16s. That is down to 900. In 2024, it'll be down to 400. In 2030 it'll be zero, wat which point the youngest F-16 will be 35 years old. The F-16 is rapidly aging. A decade of orbiting Baghdad and Kabul, something they were never intended to do, shaved many many years of their (and the F/A-18C's) life time.

so when did the air force fly off of aircraft carriers? they don't and they cant

[Skroe]

problem with the air force they like Swiss arm knife aircraft but just like a Swiss arm knife that can do a lot of thinks but none of them as well as the single propose tool
Now for the navy a Swiss army knife type of aircraft makes since because of limited space on aircraft carriers but the air force doesn't have that restriction
use the A-10 for example the air force has been trying to get rid of that plane for decades but every time they try they realize they don't have an aircraft that can replace it and do as good of a job in its role as it does

The Air Force certainly does have that restriction. It's called money and manpower. The more types of aircraft you have, the more complicated a logistics and support chain you need. The more money you spend on a wide array of spare parts, and more money you spend on keeping standing armies of maintainers active for a wider variety of aircraft. Once again: there is cost of ownership on an annual basis, to absolutely everything.

Five years ago the USAF had 400 F-15Cs. Today that's cut down to 191. Now in a perfect world, with unlimited budgeting and manpower, they could just get those 200+ F-15Cs out of storage, refirbish them and increase the size of America's effective air superiority fleet by a third. But that would also involve hugely expanding the spare part supply, standing up air wings, opening bases for these F-15s, retraining maintainers (and taking them AWAY from other aircraft), and retraining / recertifying pilots to populate these wings. The Air Force already has a pilot and maintainer shortage, thanks in part to the Obama Administration's utterly destructive care taking of the Air Force and Navy since 2011. It could not support those 200 F-15Cs without a lot more money and a lot more time.


With the B-21 raider for example, as it comes on line next decade, expect the B-1B to be the first to go, followed by the B-52. Could both aircraft continue to fly for decades to come? Absolutely. There is zero reason why not... in a environment with unconstrained resources. But budgets are lists of priorities, not a wishlist, the Pentagon, lagely rightly in my view, generally prioritizes modernization over hanging onto legacy systems (which is the Russian thing... and look what it's gotten them). The US bomber fleet as the B-21 raider is introduced will largely remain a static size. In fact, don't be surprised if the B-2 is retired before the last B-1B and the last B-52s, because as is usually the case, the similar / evolved model of it in the B-21 will be less expensive to maintain in a larger fleet compared to the mere 20 B-2s. As soon as the B-21 is nuclear certified, the clock starts on the end of the expensive B-2. Not because it is obsolete and not worth paying for... it will just be less worth paying for in terms of money, material and manpower than a pure B-52/B-1B/B-21 fleet, on the way to a largely B-21 dominated fleet in the 2040s.

[Deleted]

the R&D doesn't disappear because you didn't buy as many of the aircraft as originally planned to buy or don't buy at all
so there is no waste

There is no waste? R&D ? That R&D will have to be paid as it is already completed. That is from the military budget. As you are then not buying those planes from manufacturer A but instead start more R&D that has to be paid at manufacturer B.. how is the money spend on A not wasted? You think A will say to the American government "hey guys, nice you changed your minds so far in our timeline, you know what? Cause you are such nice guys we won't charge you for all the work done so far" ??

I would be surprised if they there is no clause in the contract that the government has to pay some sort of cancellation fee if they do decide to abandon manufacturer A (on top of all the money already invested).

[Skroe]

so when did the air force fly off of aircraft carriers? they don't and they cant

I was referring to the Air Force, not the navy, although the same principle applies, just where the aircraft is based is different. The Air Force flies off a multitude of bases and utilized air refueling. This is one way the US would fight China... by using highly distributed "unsinkable aircraft carriers" (islands) in the Pacific.





(this is out of date, from 2011, but shows some locations... many more sites have been opened since).



The Navy would never buy the F-35 without Air Force participation, and neither would the Marines who by far are getting the biggest benefit from the F-35 program. Putting F-35 on any Amphibious Assault Ship makes any Marine Expeditionary Group vastly more capable.

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There is no waste? R&D ? That R&D will have to be paid as it is already completed. That is from the military budget. As you are then not buying those planes from manufacturer A but instead start more R&D that has to be paid at manufacturer B.. how is the money spend on A not wasted? You think A will say to the American government "hey guys, nice you changed your minds so far in our timeline, you know what? Cause you are such nice guys we won't charge you for all the work done so far" ??

I would be surprised if they there is no clause in the contract that the government has to pay some sort of cancellation fee if they do decide to abandon manufacturer A (on top of all the money already invested).

There absolutely would be. The cancellation of the A-12 Avenger II by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in 1991 lead to the collapse of McDonnell Douglas and their buyout by Boeing. Boeing subsequently took much of the A-12 work, and put it in a scaled up air frame that looked very much like the F/A-18 (but really on the inside was an all new aircraft).

However that wasn't the end of the story. Litigation ensued and the US and Boeing were in court for over 20 years. The case was finally resolved in 2014, over 23 years after the demise of the A-12.

Why was the A-12 canceled? A cost overrun of about $1 billion. The US sought to seek repayment for ALL program costs ($2 billion up to that point) and went to court with Boeing. The final settlement has Boeing pay the US $200 million. However the cost of litigation over 23 years was about $2 billion. Each side spent about $50 million per year in legal fees on the case.

And moreover, the US has regretted the demise of MacDonald Douglas every day since. It started the 1990s defense consolidation and closed a major manufacturer of US military aircraft. With one less competitor, the cost of programs went up and up. If Boeing fails to secure more contracts for the F/A-18 beyond 2024 and fails to secure the contract for the F-22 successor/restart and the F/A-18 successor, it will effectively give Lockheed Martin a monopoly on US fighter production. Northrop for it's part is building the B-21 raider. The other major "fighter" program in the pipeline is the T-X Trainer program, which is likely a backdoor Lightweight Fighter II program too (see a bunch of my posts up), but on the merits of the aircraft, while the Boeing offering is strong, there are excellent reasons to go for the Lockheed design there.

[tbrewer333]

Can someone explain how this would affect the economy? It seems like Trump wanted to push for made in america and american jobs, which these contracts provide. So basically he would be putting a lot of Americans out of work or am I understanding this wrong. Seems like these planes/jets are one of the few things still made here and he wants to get ride of them.

[Skroe]

Can someone explain how this would affect the economy? It seems like Trump wanted to push for made in america and american jobs, which these contracts provide. So basically he would be putting a lot of Americans out of work or am I understanding this wrong. Seems like these planes/jets are one of the few things still made here and he wants to get ride of them.

The US makes lots of things.

The F-35 is a large program, but to be fair, it is utterly dwarfed by the size of the US economy, of which just 12% is manufacturing. It is a global program, but with a large domestic componenet. This is true of the entire aviation industry though.



Also there is an independent production line in Italy (operated by Lockheed Martin). The Fort Worth facility isn't large enough for demand and standing up another line would take years. Hell, one of the biggest things with a potential F-22 restart is that another whole line and facility would need to be opened.

[Krawu]

TREMENDOUS!

Also, one of the few sane things he said. These retardedly expensive jet development projects just funnel a ton of money to lobbying companies when it could instead be used to.. you know, actually buying military hardware. Maybe feed a poor kid or two. The US don't need high-tech stealth fighters to drop bombs on a guy with an AK47 in a hole in the desert somewhere.

[Zmaniac17]

Completely ignoring whether or not the F-35 is of major strategic value or can be replaced by other cheaper alternatives, I'm at the point that I don't think Trump intends to do any of the things he says.

Primarily because he's picking stuff he has no control over. Congress, as mentioned, has enormous vested interest in these large defense projects and will never allow the president to cancel it. This has been the issue with defense spending for a long time. This is nothing but another distraction by Trump. It makes good headlines. I personally would like to see defense spending curtailed. But that will only start if the congress decides to do it.

[Ulmita]

Completely ignoring whether or not the F-35 is of major strategic value or can be replaced by other cheaper alternatives,

F-35 IS NOT of any major strategic value as it will ONLY fly over countries that can't defend themselves and don't have nukes. I know that you "completely skipped" this part, i am just putting it up here for some other posters to read as well.

[Skroe]

Completely ignoring whether or not the F-35 is of major strategic value or can be replaced by other cheaper alternatives, I'm at the point that I don't think Trump intends to do any of the things he says.

Primarily because he's picking stuff he has no control over. Congress, as mentioned, has enormous vested interest in these large defense projects and will never allow the president to cancel it. This has been the issue with defense spending for a long time. This is nothing but another distraction by Trump. It makes good headlines. I personally would like to see defense spending curtailed. But that will only start if the congress decides to do it.

The exact opposite is likely to happen.

The only man interested in maintaining the current line on defense spending was Barack Obama. Congress has wanted to raise it, on a bipartisan basis, for years. Barack Obama is the man who stopped it from happening.

In truth, Defense spending is about $100 billion underfunded. The budget would be about that higher if Obama hadn't lied to Robert Gates and followed through with Gates' 2011 10 year budget plan. Obama, like many other compromised policies, basically lied and tried to pursue a cut regime, using the Budget Control Act of 2011 as an excuse.

The top line number is missing the point though. When I say "defense spending is $100 billion underfunded" given that the DoD gets $620 Billion a year, that may sound ridiculous, but that assessment is congruent with the requirements that Congress sets upon the military. That is to say, if you want to spend $300 billion on Defense, Congress must order a national defense strategy that costs $300 billion, not a $800 billion strategy and then allocate $300 billion to that. That's the situation we're in right now: We have a 12-13 carrier strategy for a 10 carrier fleet, a 60 army brigade strategy for a 40 brigade army, a 1700 fighter strategy for a 1300 fighter air force, and so forth.

Its unfair to our service members, irresponsible as a nation and delusional as a country, to say "we need to cut defense spending" but that not be preceded by a role back in requirements that reflects that defense spending cut. The problem with any talk of cuts though is the opposite is the case - most in the US security community feel Obama's cut back way too far and left too many openings to Russia, China and Iran. And moreover, historically speaking, the validation of forward defense over territorial defense has been proven time and time again - higher recurring annual defense spending saves money in the longer term by reducing the threat environment overall.

But that's a more complicated matter. The first article of debate is the strategy. If the country doesn't want to drop $1 trillion on new Nuclear weapons over 30 years, or $400 billion on F-35s or $80 billion on B-21s, it needs to make a decision, fully aware of the long term consequences of such a decision, of forsaking those, and molding a defense strategy without them. Cancelling the F-35 and B-21, for example, and saving ~$500 billion would mean that beyond 2030 the US would lose the ability to strike targets at will in Eurasia as anti-air defense make legacy aircraft unsafe to fly, likely for good, without a hugely expensive crash program in an emergency. Does the country "need" to have the ability to strike in Eurasia at will? It depends on how much risk you want the US to assume. The consensus for 100 years, regardless of technology has been that the ability for the US to project power onto that continent is essential to our global role. Giving that up will have major implications, but it is the only responsible way to have a lower defense budget. Any other way is delusional. It would be trying to have a free lunch.

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F-35 IS NOT of any major strategic value as it will ONLY fly over countries that can't defend themselves and don't have nukes. I know that you "completely skipped" this part, i am just putting it up here for some other posters to read as well.

The F-35 is designed for highly defended environments. And the best defended will be at the mercy of the B-21, which is derived from F-35 tech.

If it were low threat environments, F-16s would suffice.

[Ulmita]

The F-35 is designed for highly defended environments. And the best defended will be at the mercy of the B-21, which is derived from F-35 tech.

If it were low threat environments, F-16s would suffice.

The F-35 will be used against middle eastern countries or any other nation that can't retaliate. You are spending 1.3Trillion to bomb in style Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc

[I Push Buttons]

The F-35 will be used against middle eastern countries or any other nation that can't retaliate. You are spending 1.3Trillion to bomb in style Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc

Would you rather get bombed by a cheapo jet from the 60s or a stylish as fuck F35?

I know my answer.