The unmitigated 1.7 trillion USD failure of the F35. Time to burn some more money

[Ihavewaffles]

Big ass aircraft carriers that carry all that military might are a necessity for US to have presence, seeing America as a continent is thousands kilometers away from just about everything else.

Also nobody crazy enough would attempt to sink it because that would mean all out war vs US - a war that can't be won. You also need actual state actor to be able to do it, it's not going to be sunk by some bearded guys with RPGs and shitty scud missiles.

Iran would fire at it. Also we are living at a different time with a proliferation of cruise missiles we gaven't seen before. You can have the same number of air craft just on 2-3 ships instead of a bigger one which is devestating if it gets hit...more support ships is wiser..

Ofc if u want to bomb a small 3rd world country with no defenses, size of ship don't matter...

[Gaidax]

Iran would fire at it. Also we are living at a different time with a proliferation of cruise missiles we gaven't seen before. You can have the same number of air craft just on 2-3 ships instead of a bigger one which is devestating if it gets hit...more support ships is wiser..

Ofc if u want to bomb a small 3rd world country with no defenses, size of ship don't matter...

Iran won't fire at it, because there won't be any Iran in several weeks from that moment. Iran's military with their ancient hardware is not any more capable of waging war vs US than Saddam was.

Or what, you bought into their silly plays about how they bomb dummy aircraft carrier? At very most, the most audacious thing they can do is have their Houti/Hezbollah proxies take a pot shot at it with their peashooters, which won't do shit.

Persians are not dumb, that's why they use proxies to do all their shit in ME, so they can play dumb, last thing they need is actual war with US they can't win.

[Shalcker]

Iran won't fire at it, because there won't be any Iran in several weeks from that moment. Iran's military with their ancient hardware is not any more capable of waging war vs US than Saddam was.

Or what, you bought into their silly plays about how they bomb dummy aircraft carrier? At very most, the most audacious thing they can do is have their Houti/Hezbollah proxies take a pot shot at it with their peashooters, which won't do shit.

Persians are not dumb, that's why they use proxies to do all their shit in ME, so they can play dumb, last thing they need is actual war with US they can't win.

You're looking at it from perspective of them starting it, but if US would start it (as it always did) shots would definitely get fired.

[Gaidax]

You're looking at it from perspective of them starting it, but if US would start it (as it always did) shots would definitely get fired.

I'll leave that one to the guys who toppled quite a few ME countries to strategize. They got the experience.

How's your tugboat carrier doing, btw? Still billowing smoke or you finally decided to scrap it already? KEKW.

[Shalcker]

I'll leave that one to the guys who toppled quite a few ME countries to strategize. They got the experience.

Experience that produces overpriced crap like F35.

How's your tugboat carrier doing, btw? Still billowing smoke or you finally decided to scrap it already? KEKW.

What is the point if we can just build bases in places we're defending, like Syria? We aren't going to attack anyone outside of our immediate range anytime soon.

And we're working on missiles to expand that range instead.

[Nihilist74]

So, it's starting to look like even the Pentagon is getting to the point where it just can't justify spending more money on the F35.

https://www.defensenews.com/congress...ut-our-losses/

The plane is still plagued by endless lists of issues and even when it manages to fly (not something guaranteed with the F35) it apparently costs too much to fly.

So now, after having burned through 1.7 trillion dollars with very little to show for it, the Pentagon is quietly looking to move onto the next endless money hole.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...-new-comments/

I'm sorry, I just don't fucking care that they have a shit plane. I'm just unwilling to accept my fucking tax money being spent on another pie in the sky "space lazor".

What's the fucking guarantee that they won't just burn another couple of trillion dollars on something that turns out to be a piece of shit. Like the F35, the LCS, the Ford class carriers?

Do the ford carriers have a lot of tech problems too?
I would like them to develop laser weapons because they could be used to shoot down missiles. I am thinking that because a laser moves at the speed of light, they could use it to shoot down ballistic missiles and other missiles.

[Gaidax]

Experience that produces overpriced crap like F35.

Good enough to pound your Syrian friends for years.

How's that Pantsir going? We have some sick memes here from the videos of takedown.

[Shalcker]

Good enough to pound your Syrian friends for years.

You do your thing, we'll do our thing.

How's that Pantsir going? We have some sick memes here from the videos of takedown.

Doing great for it's purpose in capable hands.

You're free to share memes.

[Gaidax]

You do your thing, we'll do our thing.

We will, using F35s your KGBland has no answer to. Worth every penny. As a matter of fact, we ordered some more.

[Rasulis]

Iran would fire at it. Also we are living at a different time with a proliferation of cruise missiles we gaven't seen before. You can have the same number of air craft just on 2-3 ships instead of a bigger one which is devestating if it gets hit...more support ships is wiser..

Ofc if u want to bomb a small 3rd world country with no defenses, size of ship don't matter...

The only chance Iran has of hitting a US aircraft carrier is while it is navigating the Strait of Hormuz. In the Persian Gulf and out in the Arabian Sea it has no chance in hell of hitting a US carrier. A typical US carrier has a cruising speed of low to mid 30 knots, and capable of hitting 40 knots. Despite their size, they are faster than any surface ships (destroyers & frigates), and a match for most submarines. In open water, they are not easy targets to hit.

Also, the US Navy exercise in trying to sink the retired USS America off the coast of Virginia in 2005 showed that US carriers are pretty tough. The Navy spent 25 days throwing their best weapons at USS America. In the end they resorted to sending their underwater demolition team to scuttle the ship.

[Mihalik]

Do the ford carriers have a lot of tech problems too?
I would like them to develop laser weapons because they could be used to shoot down missiles. I am thinking that because a laser moves at the speed of light, they could use it to shoot down ballistic missiles and other missiles.

Yeah, the Fords have issues too. It has issues with it's launch and recovery system and it's elevator design.

Lasers aren't as good at shooting down missiles as you'd think. They require line of sight, and the energy is dissipated by the gases in the atmosphere pretty fast. Missiles are the best for long range interception and kinetic weapons that have high volumes of fire are the best for short range interception.

Lasers do have a role at certain ranges, they are good at disable targeting systems, optics etc.

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Sip

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.

Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

Presumptions of technological invincibility or the superiority of a specific platform/strategy has tendency to backfire spectacularly in the history of naval warfare.

[Easo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Presumptions of technological invincibility or the superiority of a specific platform/strategy has tendency backfire spectacularly in the history of naval warfare.

Who gives targeting to those cruise missiles? Pushkin?
The only way the suicide fleet works is when USA goes full retard and actually sails the carrier battle group close to enemy shores without actually supressing the defences first. Say, Strait of Hormuz...
F-35 is a standoff platform for a reason, works perfectly for carrier operations.

The only chance Iran has of hitting a US aircraft carrier is while it is navigating the Strait of Hormuz. In the Persian Gulf and out in the Arabian Sea it has no chance in hell of hitting a US carrier. A typical US carrier has a cruising speed of low to mid 30 knots, and capable of hitting 40 knots. Despite their size, they are faster than any surface ships (destroyers & frigates), and a match for most submarines. In open water, they are not easy targets to hit.

Also, the US Navy exercise in trying to sink the retired USS America off the coast of Virginia in 2005 showed that US carriers are pretty tough. The Navy spent 25 days throwing their best weapons at USS America. In the end they resorted to sending their underwater demolition team to scuttle the ship.

The only chance Iran has of hitting a US aircraft carrier is while it is navigating the Strait of Hormuz. In the Persian Gulf and out in the Arabian Sea it has no chance in hell of hitting a US carrier. A typical US carrier has a cruising speed of low to mid 30 knots, and capable of hitting 40 knots. Despite their size, they are faster than any surface ships (destroyers & frigates), and a match for most submarines. In open water, they are not easy targets to hit.

Also, the US Navy exercise in trying to sink the retired USS America off the coast of Virginia in 2005 showed that US carriers are pretty tough. The Navy spent 25 days throwing their best weapons at USS America. In the end they resorted to sending their underwater demolition team to scuttle the ship.

1. Carriers are absolutely not faster than destroyers or frigates, top speed is very similar. Water resistance becomes ridiculous at higher speeds for the big ships, IIRC. Also, I am almost sure they cannot launch planes at the maximum speed, unless I am mistaken.
2. AFAIK they are specifically NOT trying to sink the target ships with the first hit, otherwise you would simply just detonate couple of Mark 48's under the heel. Hard to train if the target sinks right away, don't you think? Plus obviously supercarrier tonnage makes it hard to sink, way too many compartments. However, it takes much less to disable flight operations.

[Mihalik]

Who gives targeting to those cruise missiles? Pushkin?
The only way the suicide fleet works is when USA goes full retard and actually sails the carrier battle group close to enemy shores without actually supressing the defences first. Say, Strait of Hormuz...
F-35 is a standoff platform for a reason, works perfectly for carrier operations.

"Cruise missile" for developed nations usually means some sort of guided fancy pants munitions. Cruise missiles needn't be guided. They can just be straight up dumb munitions with some semi decent range of a few hundred km, mass produced and mass fired specific at coordinates guided by simple analog guidance methods. Munitions like that can be easily produced by countries like Iran.

It's unlikely that the Iranians would be as spectacularly successful as Van Riper was in that war game, but what Van Ripper has done was demonstrate the potential risks of coming up against an opponent that applies asymmetric tactics with any degree of competence. The Iranians wouldn't need to sink 1 carrier and 10 cruisers, but sinking 1 carrier or a couple of cruisers would already be "too high a price".

We can armchair admiral/general as much as we want. The fact is that when the people who are actually competent at this run this simulations, like what an F35 could do, or what the risks are to a fleet carrier etc, the simulations tend to come out rather unfavorably, so we just tend to ignore them.

The same happened literally last year with a study the navy was doing about the future viability of carriers, when the study started to look decidedly unfavorable the navy just shut the down the entire thing before they could produce a final report.

[Rasulis]

Who gives targeting to those cruise missiles? Pushkin?
The only way the suicide fleet works is when USA goes full retard and actually sails the carrier battle group close to enemy shores without actually supressing the defences first. Say, Strait of Hormuz...
F-35 is a standoff platform for a reason, works perfectly for carrier operations.





1. Carriers are absolutely not faster than destroyers or frigates, top speed is very similar. Water resistance becomes ridiculous at higher speeds for the big ships, IIRC. Also, I am almost sure they cannot launch planes at the maximum speed, unless I am mistaken.
2. AFAIK they are specifically NOT trying to sink the target ships with the first hit, otherwise you would simply just detonate couple of Mark 48's under the heel. Hard to train if the target sinks right away, don't you think? Plus obviously supercarrier tonnage makes it hard to sink, way too many compartments. However, it takes much less to disable flight operations.

The newest US guided missile frigates, the FFG(X), have a top speed in excess 27 knots. US Arleigh Burke class destroyers have top speed in excess of 30 knots. Maintaining their top speed for extended period of time will reduce their range considerably. Their cruising speed to maximize range is around 15 to 20 knots. The average nuclear powered US carriers can maintain a cruising speed of low to mid 30 knots indefinitely. For all practical purpose anyway since those nuclear powered carriers only need to refuel once in 25 years. Top speed is around 40 knots. Although from what I understand, at that speed everything on the carrier started vibrating like crazy.

[Easo]

"Cruise missile" for developed nations usually means some sort of guided fancy pants munitions. Cruise missiles needn't be guided. They can just be straight up dumb munitions with some semi decent range of a few hundred km, mass produced and mass fired specific at coordinates guided by simple analog guidance methods. Munitions like that can be easily produced by countries like Iran.

It's unlikely that the Iranians would be as spectacularly successful as Van Riper was in that war game, but what Van Ripper has done was demonstrate the potential risks of coming up against an opponent that applies asymmetric tactics with any degree of competence. The Iranians wouldn't need to sink 1 carrier and 10 cruisers, but sinking 1 carrier or a couple of cruisers would already be "too high a price".

We can armchair admiral/general as much as we want. The fact is that when the people who are actually competent at this run this simulations, like what an F35 could do, or what the risks are to a fleet carrier etc, the simulations tend to come out rather unfavorably, so we just tend to ignore them.

The same happened literally last year with a study the navy was doing about the future viability of carriers, when the study started to look decidedly unfavorable the navy just shut the down the entire thing before they could produce a final report.

Did you just said you want to carpet bomb a fleet with dumb missiles? Brah, wtf?
1. You still need targetting - you need to know where the enemy is. Who is gonna give that?
2. Sea is big. Very big. In just few minutes it takes for the missile to arrive ships will be miles ahead. You are trying to hit a specific grain of sand in the playground, for lack of better comparision.
This is not how it works, at all.

USA keeps building carriers for more than just a show of force - they are actual capable combat units (nor China, nor why Russia tries to keep Kuznetsov afloat). Those reports all have been, let's call them, one sided (at best). No mosquito fleet is going to sink one. Forget about it.

The newest US guided missile frigates, the FFG(X), have a top speed in excess 27 knots. US Arleigh Burke class destroyers have top speed in excess of 30 knots. Maintaining their top speed for extended period of time will reduce their range considerably. Their cruising speed to maximize range is around 15 to 20 knots. The average nuclear powered US carriers can maintain a cruising speed of low to mid 30 knots indefinitely. For all practical purpose anyway since those nuclear powered carriers only need to refuel once in 25 years. Top speed is around 40 knots. Although from what I understand, at that speed everything on the carrier started vibrating like crazy.

1. Frigates are normally not in carrier battle groups, USA uses destroyers and cruisers. New ones, European FREMM's, are as fast as carriers, if need be.
2. Burkes are exactly as fast as carriers themselves.
3. Carriers need to be resupplied too. As much as destroyers, in fact.
4. The only practical purpose is no "fuel" for 25 years. The rest? You need the rest. Starting from something so simple yet critical as engine oil. Then we move on to the food, ammunition, aviation fuel, blah blah...
5. Machinery will die way before 25 years at constant max speed. In fact, I bet both destroyer and carrier engines will go to shit relatively soon. Probably within days, even.
6. You are almost never going to sail on full speed outside of battle, which will be short, making the argument moot. See the 5th point, I cannot imagine situation of max speed even for more than 24h - maybe outside of incredibly important long distance redeployment.

[Rasulis]

Yeah, the Fords have issues too. It has issues with it's launch and recovery system and it's elevator design.

Lasers aren't as good at shooting down missiles as you'd think. They require line of sight, and the energy is dissipated by the gases in the atmosphere pretty fast. Missiles are the best for long range interception and kinetic weapons that have high volumes of fire are the best for short range interception.

Lasers do have a role at certain ranges, they are good at disable targeting systems, optics etc.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002



Presumptions of technological invincibility or the superiority of a specific platform/strategy has tendency to backfire spectacularly in the history of naval warfare.

Van Ripper was defending against an amphibious attack in that scenario. Which placed the blue team ships a lot closer to the coast than they needed to be. In the event of actual conflict with Iran, the US fleet will likely stay at around 1,000 miles out or more, and bombard Iran with Tomahawk missiles and the likes, and aircrafts. Hitting moving targets at that range with dumb cruise missile is challenging to say the least. In the highly unlikely event of an invasion, it will likely be a land invasion. Amphibious invasion would be pretty crazy.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

They'll keep pouring money into it because they're being bribed to do so.

It's never about actually delivering a working product. If it was, then the Osprey project would've been canned decades ago.

[Kellhound]

Iran would fire at it. Also we are living at a different time with a proliferation of cruise missiles we gaven't seen before. You can have the same number of air craft just on 2-3 ships instead of a bigger one which is devestating if it gets hit...more support ships is wiser..

Ofc if u want to bomb a small 3rd world country with no defenses, size of ship don't matter...

The US Navy has been facing swarms of supersonic anti-ship missiles with 1 ton warheads since the 1960s. Smaller carriers have less space for maintenance, fuel, ordnance, and spares; are unlikely to be nuclear powered; often are limited in which planes the can deploy; require the same number of escorts per carrier; and are less likely to survive a hit.

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Experience that produces overpriced crap like F35.

What is the point if we can just build bases in places we're defending, like Syria? We aren't going to attack anyone outside of our immediate range anytime soon.

And we're working on missiles to expand that range instead.

Your ability to defend those bases sucks.

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You do your thing, we'll do our thing.

Doing great for it's purpose in capable hands.

You're free to share memes.

The Pantsir has never shown it is capable in combat, so.....

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Who gives targeting to those cruise missiles? Pushkin?
The only way the suicide fleet works is when USA goes full retard and actually sails the carrier battle group close to enemy shores without actually supressing the defences first. Say, Strait of Hormuz...
F-35 is a standoff platform for a reason, works perfectly for carrier operations.





1. Carriers are absolutely not faster than destroyers or frigates, top speed is very similar. Water resistance becomes ridiculous at higher speeds for the big ships, IIRC. Also, I am almost sure they cannot launch planes at the maximum speed, unless I am mistaken.
2. AFAIK they are specifically NOT trying to sink the target ships with the first hit, otherwise you would simply just detonate couple of Mark 48's under the heel. Hard to train if the target sinks right away, don't you think? Plus obviously supercarrier tonnage makes it hard to sink, way too many compartments. However, it takes much less to disable flight operations.

A Nimitz Class can easily outpace its escorts, and it doesn't have to worry about fuel. The retirement of the CGNs actually really negatively impacted carrier flexibility.

During a SINKEX the target may or may not be in Condition Zebra. They also have no DC teams to respond to damage. History has shown that modern carriers can sustain significant damage and survive. And while a mission kill can be significant, it doesn't carry the same impact that a hard kill does.

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"Cruise missile" for developed nations usually means some sort of guided fancy pants munitions. Cruise missiles needn't be guided. They can just be straight up dumb munitions with some semi decent range of a few hundred km, mass produced and mass fired specific at coordinates guided by simple analog guidance methods. Munitions like that can be easily produced by countries like Iran.

It's unlikely that the Iranians would be as spectacularly successful as Van Riper was in that war game, but what Van Ripper has done was demonstrate the potential risks of coming up against an opponent that applies asymmetric tactics with any degree of competence. The Iranians wouldn't need to sink 1 carrier and 10 cruisers, but sinking 1 carrier or a couple of cruisers would already be "too high a price".

We can armchair admiral/general as much as we want. The fact is that when the people who are actually competent at this run this simulations, like what an F35 could do, or what the risks are to a fleet carrier etc, the simulations tend to come out rather unfavorably, so we just tend to ignore them.

The same happened literally last year with a study the navy was doing about the future viability of carriers, when the study started to look decidedly unfavorable the navy just shut the down the entire thing before they could produce a final report.

By definition, missiles are guided.

When the people who actually know what the F-35 is capable of use it in wargames, they have a very favorable opinion. Oh, and these would be the people who's lives are actually at stake....

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Did you just said you want to carpet bomb a fleet with dumb missiles? Brah, wtf?
1. You still need targetting - you need to know where the enemy is. Who is gonna give that?
2. Sea is big. Very big. In just few minutes it takes for the missile to arrive ships will be miles ahead. You are trying to hit a specific grain of sand in the playground, for lack of better comparision.
This is not how it works, at all.

USA keeps building carriers for more than just a show of force - they are actual capable combat units (nor China, nor why Russia tries to keep Kuznetsov afloat). Those reports all have been, let's call them, one sided (at best). No mosquito fleet is going to sink one. Forget about it.



1. Frigates are normally not in carrier battle groups, USA uses destroyers and cruisers. New ones, European FREMM's, are as fast as carriers, if need be.
2. Burkes are exactly as fast as carriers themselves.
3. Carriers need to be resupplied too. As much as destroyers, in fact.
4. The only practical purpose is no "fuel" for 25 years. The rest? You need the rest. Starting from something so simple yet critical as engine oil. Then we move on to the food, ammunition, aviation fuel, blah blah...
5. Machinery will die way before 25 years at constant max speed. In fact, I bet both destroyer and carrier engines will go to shit relatively soon. Probably within days, even.
6. You are almost never going to sail on full speed outside of battle, which will be short, making the argument moot. See the 5th point, I cannot imagine situation of max speed even for more than 24h - maybe outside of incredibly important long distance redeployment.

1: FFGs were part of carrier battle groups in the past. We don't use them now because we don't have any.
2: No, A Burke is NOT as fast as a carrier at flank speed.
3: Carriers actually resupply their escorts at times. Both the carrier's airwing and its escorts burn JP5.
4: Fuel, not machinery, is the normal limiting factor in how long a ship can maintain flank speed.
5: Carriers can maintain full to flank speeds for days if needed.
6: You would be surprised at what may cause a carrier to leave its escorts behind and proceed at high speed for extended periods.

[CostinR]

F-35 is a disaster of a program, designed and build in an incredibly inefficient way to appease members of Congress into supporting the program.

The problem is that it's pretty much the only solid game in town. Any future fighter jet is years away from even being properly designed let alone built and the capabilities in stealth, flight control, battlefield awareness, V-TOL ( in the case of the B version ) put it far ahead of any competition.

It's also CHEAPER then many other planes. More expensive to fly absolutely but anyone buying a 4th gen plane as the mainstay of their air fleet is nuts right now.

[Shalcker]

We will, using F35s your KGBland has no answer to. Worth every penny. As a matter of fact, we ordered some more.

We certainly have, and always had answers.

But as this thread OP shows, primary answer is that they will be grounded permanently week 2 of any real war.