Boeing Offers Additional F/A-18 Sale to U.S. Navy

In message , Flashnews
writes
we need a new platform a cross between the
A-10 and the Apache - a Blitz Fighter as some call it -

Ah, yes. The concept that would darken the skies with its wings on the
morning of Day 1 of the war... and blot out the sun with parachutes by
the afternoon of Day 1.

Getting down low into the AAA and IR-SAM envelope in a slow airframe
without _lots_ of expensive electronics is called "Operation Hasty
Suicide", which is why even the A-10 keeps getting more DAS and more
standoff weapons and why AH-64s rapidly amended their tactics.

In short - the whole shipbuilding world is a mess but it may be more
from the fact that we do not know where our Naval forces are going while
they seem to be on Pluto looking for a mission - the war is right in
front of them ready to make toast of the thin-skinned and under
protected ships

I'd advise a quick review of 1940s and 1950s naval weapon testing. The
reason ships lost their armour plate, was because the threat moved from
gun-armed Sverdlov-class cruisers (lobbing ninety-pound shells to a
dozen miles, with maybe one shot in fifty hitting) to Kynda-class
cruisers (lobbing five-ton missiles to three hundred miles, with most of
them hitting). You can't wear enough armour to ignore hits from post-WW2
weapons: to be confident of remaining capable, you have to "not be hit"
for long enough to take out the enemy's ability to fight. WW2-style
armour plate can actually make things _worse_ on weapon impact...


--
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
-Thucydides


Paul J. Adam - mainbox{at}jrwlynch[dot]demon(dot)codotuk