GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As

"Dan" wrote in message
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Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message
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Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message
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Actually O'Hara is demonstrating his lack of strategic planning and
making a rather poor analogy. WW2 was an all out war for survival.
There were a few people thinking about post war projects, but the
priority was winning the war. Every part of the economy and
infrastructure of the warring parties was dedicated to winning. Iraq
and Afghanistan pale in comparison.



i'm not arguing for the F-22.
You misunderstand, I never said you were.

and there is a lot at stake in tis war. bush has us on the verge of
becoming the UK in the post war period, a former superpower
broken by the enourmous cost of a war.
You underestimate the U.S. economy that is not now on a war footing.
The U.K. was bankrupted by fighting for her life with every penny she
had. There's a huge difference.

nobody is a credible threat.
Maybe not now, but what about 10 years from now?


are they just going to magically appear in 10 years, full blown, armed to
the teeth with ultra-fighters?

In case you haven't noticed several countries are working on advanced
fighters. Some of those countries will export and train. In 10 years a
country with high school and college educated manpower could produce a
viable air force from an existing military.

if we, the worlds most powerful economy need 10 years to get ready so
won't they{whomever thy might be}.

Who said anything about taking 10 years to get ready? I chose the 10
years as a hypothetical since you insist Iraq and Afghanistan are a
template for future wars the U.S. will be involved with.

so who is it? the F-22 has only 2 enemies in sight, china and russia.
during the cold war we never found a reason to fight the ruskis. now that
its over and all russia's allies are nw on our side i see the chance as
even less.

China and Russia may be the only potential enemies YOU see, but you are
thinking of today and Cold War. I don't think that way. For example,
sooner or later petroleum will become rather scarce. The U.S. may need to
either seize or defend petroleum production.


you guys want to build "maginot"fighters. to
fight a war long envisioned in europe but whose conditions have
changed.
there is no more warsaw pact. russia has no aircraft carriers nor does
china. the idealogical divide of commie/capitalism is gone.
even china has gone capitalist.
Again you misunderstand. I never said anything about a Cold War
scenario nor did I imply such a case. I never specified an enemy.


right. because there is no credible enemy.
it's russia ,china or nobody.

Are you positive about that?

hugo chavez can not make venezuela into any
kind of threat.

Are you sure about that?


any war for resources will involve our european allies as they need
thm too.
so a russian attempt to take over the middle east would be looked
askance at by them too.
Again you misunderstand what is going on. Have you noticed the
Europeans aren't agreeing on much as it is? Suppose Iran makes good her
threat to take out Israel and gets a few other local countries to join
in? Are you SURE Europe will unite to ensure a flow of oil? If they
sides against Iran it's a sure thing their supply of oil will be shut
off. The U.S. has to consider going it alone.


its you who are barking up the wrong strategic tree. you keep looking
at it with cold war eyes.

Actually you misunderstand me again. For example Red China is
developing advanced fighters. The Russians are exporting fighters. What
happens if they both supply and train a third party like Iran?

There's no immediate Cold War type threat, but will this still be true
10 years from now? Are you prepared to bet your nation's security on
that? The Russians have been flying Bear missions similar to those they
flew during the Cold War. They may have ideas of becoming a world power
again.




No one can make any better than an educated guess as to what
conflicts may occur 10 years or more into the future. The suggestion
that development and procurement must cease to focus on brush wars is
ludicrous. Recently the U.S. F-15 fleet was grounded due to structural
failures attributable to age. What does O'Hara suggest a war of any
kind be fought with 10 years from now even if the opposition doesn't
have anything more advanced that what is now available? Through normal
attrition how being will the U.S. F-15 and F-16 fleets be? What
happens if the opposition has managed to produce a new fighter type in
the few years prior to that war and the U.S. had stopped procuring and
developing in 2008 because O'Hara says we need to design and procure
only for the present wars?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


we need what we need now.
That's true, tell Congress to foot the bill.

you want to blow off the war we are in for a
really cool imaginary war with imaginary opponents.
On the other hand, you want to be unprepared for a war of a different
kind than the U.S. is currently fighting. It's nice to hope there will
never be another major war, but if you plan on never having another one
you will always be wrong.

Look what happened 5 years after the end of WW2 when the U.S. had to
fight in Korea. The MiG-15 was a bit of a surprise.

100 mil for planes we don't need and can't afford is a waste of
resources.
we already know how to make f-22s,
OK, let's do as O'Hara says and cease production of F-22 immediately.
Now you have to come up with the money to disassemble the production
lines, store the equipment for future use and have a year's advance
notice before some bad guy decides to take you on. You will need the
time to get the lines going again and get new aircraft coming off the
end.



what bad guy?

Does it matter? Read what I wrote for what I meant. Regardless of whom
the bad guy is restarting production from a dead stop isn't an instant
event.


."i don't know" doesn't justify spending a billion dollars on spec.

it won't cast much to mothball the production line, certaily less than
buying and maintaining a slew of planes that will be old by the time
any threat "might"appear

You are thinking small again. The aircraft assembly lines are only final
assembly points. What about all the suppliers of sub-assemblies and parts?
The avionics and engine manufacturers would have to be convinced to start
production again, contracts would have to be let and so on. It isn't like
they assemble Monogram model F-22 kits.


when national survival is at stake and we get serious the F-22 will be
fine. but to just break the bank at the expence of today on a longshot
"might" makes no sense.

As I said before, other nations are developing advanced fighters. The
U.S. may have to face them someday.

anybody we need the F-22 to counter we'll just hit with an ICBMs anyway.

Now who is Cold War thinking? After WW2 "conventional" thinking was that
nuclear weapons made all others obsolete. Korea changed all that. The U.S.
used your theory of "why prepare for the type of war we will never fight
again?" MiG-15 was a big surprise to people who thought the North Koreans,
just as you now think other countries, wouldn't fly front line aircraft.
Granted some MiGs were flown by Soviet pilots, but they trained and
supported North Koreans who weren't all that shabby as combat pilots.


maginot fighters.

Maginot ICBMs? If you are going to use historical comparisons try using
a more appropriate one.





you want to spend for a weapon that will never be used or be obsolete when
the time comes.

the maginot reference is to the fact the F-22 will be as big a waste.
ICBMs are quite viable weapons.