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

Typhoon502 wrote:
On Jun 14, 7:30 pm, "Paul J. Adam" wrote:
In message , Zombywoof
writes

Now back to the original discussion; the fact that every MIG destroyed
in air-to-air combat (which was fairly lopsided), including the five
Soviet-made MiG-29 Fulcrums, were downed by F-15C's,
Weren't two taken down by F/A-18s?

Doesn't deny the need for capable aircraft, just don't get
platform-obsessed.

I think you're right. And I also think that the Iraqis bagged at least
one US jet...didn't a MiG-25 get a kill on a Hornet?

And to make an aside on the Venezuelan threat scenario, I'm not
entirely confident that the F-15Cs would fight at a parity level with
Su-30s, especially with the latest Russian AAMs. The Eagle drivers
might just find themselves in a sticky situation.

My point exactly. A simple comparison between the U.S.A.A.F. and Nazi
Luftwaffe in early 1945 shows that poorly trained pilots with good
equipment and motivation can still hurt the best air force in the world
albeit with limited effect.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

In article , raymond-
says...

"tankfixer" wrote in message
...
In article , raymond-
says...

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

Yes.

Example: German 1930 to 1940.


the germans didn't have the best stuff. and there was plenty of warning.
the french built the maginot linebefore the german threat was known.
you want to do the same today.
we started then too.
the u.s. built a tank factory and it was producing tanks in less than a
year.

In 1930 Germany was a semi stable democracy that was no danger to her
neighbors.
No one really believe she would be a danger again.
Over the next ten years she build up her airforce and army to the point
that by 1940 she had taken Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France,
Belgium and the Netherlands.
Back then a fighter or tank could be designed and produced in under a
year.
To suggest that any country can do that now is absurd.


--

"Oh Norman, listen! The loons are calling!"
- Katherine Hepburn, "On Golden Pond"

In article , says...
tankfixer wrote:
In article z484k.1094$L03.864@edtnps92,
says...
The unit cost for A-10's is quoted at roughly US $10-15
million on the sites I found. All I know is that the F-22 unit cost is
somewhere north of US $100 million (the Air Force says $142 million on their
factsheet but who knows which unit cost that is) and the F-35 unit cost is
also over US $100 million.

That A-10 cost was probably for the lst ones built, way back when ??

I can FEDLOG the M35 2-1/2 ton truck and get a price. Last Time I
checked a M35A2 was $47,000 or so..
But you can't order any new ones because the production line is long
gone.


My copy of Fed Log is 10 years old. Do they still publish it on
CD-ROM? I'd love to get my hands on a current set.


A 5 disk set of CD-ROM or a single DVD..
Still FOUO

I shudder to remember the days of looking up a part on the fisch.

--

"Oh Norman, listen! The loons are calling!"
- Katherine Hepburn, "On Golden Pond"

"Dan" wrote in message
news
Typhoon502 wrote:
On Jun 14, 7:30 pm, "Paul J. Adam" wrote:
In message , Zombywoof
writes

Now back to the original discussion; the fact that every MIG destroyed
in air-to-air combat (which was fairly lopsided), including the five
Soviet-made MiG-29 Fulcrums, were downed by F-15C's,
Weren't two taken down by F/A-18s?

Doesn't deny the need for capable aircraft, just don't get
platform-obsessed.

I think you're right. And I also think that the Iraqis bagged at least
one US jet...didn't a MiG-25 get a kill on a Hornet?

And to make an aside on the Venezuelan threat scenario, I'm not
entirely confident that the F-15Cs would fight at a parity level with
Su-30s, especially with the latest Russian AAMs. The Eagle drivers
might just find themselves in a sticky situation.

My point exactly. A simple comparison between the U.S.A.A.F. and Nazi
Luftwaffe in early 1945 shows that poorly trained pilots with good
equipment and motivation can still hurt the best air force in the world
albeit with limited effect.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


in 1945 untrained nazies got slaughtered, the luftwaffe didn't come out to
play much anymore and our planes spent their time strafing grounded
fighters.


and venezuela would see its air force slaughtered too.
they don't have sophisticated AWACS needed and they don't and won't have the
numbers.

yeah chavez liked to buddy up with fidel, he makes crazy pronouncements and
he'd be out of business faster than saddam should he try anything with
anybody.

tankfixer wrote:
In article , says...
tankfixer wrote:
In article z484k.1094$L03.864@edtnps92,
says...
The unit cost for A-10's is quoted at roughly US $10-15
million on the sites I found. All I know is that the F-22 unit cost is
somewhere north of US $100 million (the Air Force says $142 million on their
factsheet but who knows which unit cost that is) and the F-35 unit cost is
also over US $100 million.
That A-10 cost was probably for the lst ones built, way back when ??

I can FEDLOG the M35 2-1/2 ton truck and get a price. Last Time I
checked a M35A2 was $47,000 or so..
But you can't order any new ones because the production line is long
gone.


My copy of Fed Log is 10 years old. Do they still publish it on
CD-ROM? I'd love to get my hands on a current set.


A 5 disk set of CD-ROM or a single DVD..
Still FOUO

I shudder to remember the days of looking up a part on the fisch.


Microfiche was a royal pain.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:52:15 -0700, Tiger wrote:


Hell Right now the Pakistaini's & our Nato allies wish we learn to shoot
only the enemy. The Guys in the clouds are ****ing off the friendlies
Again based on yesterdays news.

I'm not so sure I'd call Pakistan an ally. They're closer to the Chinese
as members of the Shanghai Cooperative Organization and a lot closer still
in joint weapons programs to them, than they are us. I'd term our
relationship more of a shotgun marriage with them doing the bare minimum
to not have Washington just set up a black ops squadron and just go flying
strike and interdiction missions in Waziristan that would cause extreme
embarassment to the Pakistanis.
--
"Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral
Elmo Zumwalt, USN.

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:22:15 -0700, Ed Rasimus
wrote:


Who is going to buy this plane for the Army? Train the pilots? The
maintainers? The supply chain? The weapons? Just buy a plane and give
it to the Army?

Funny thing, but there may be a way around that.

Let me draw a parallel here starting with a WW-I trick that we should be
looking at.

Prior to WW-I, we had this thing called "The Preparedness Movement." One
of the interesting things about that, is that you had rich folks on the
East Coast buying power boats from outfits like Herreshoff's which had an
interesting attribute. In the event of war, they could be quickly
converted to small gunboats for coastal patrol. The Navy termed these
"Section Patrol Boats." And as it happened, they turned out to be rather
useful. You can see pics of them at the Hazegray site.

Not only did those boats provide a quickly convertible patrol boat force,
but also a pool of men experienced in handling small power boats.

Now fast forward to 2008. The FAA and the EAA have come up with a new
class of pilot's license, called Sport Pilot, and have created a new class
of plane weighing between 255 and 1300 pounds. Thus far, the offerings
from various manufacturers like the Diamond Katana and Cessna's new, and
Chinese built, Skycatcher, are all in the $80,000.00 per unit range, but
they don't have to be. I did some cost analysis about four years ago, and
came to the conclusion that a plane capable of rough field operation
within the Sport Pilot parameters set up by FAA could be produced for
about $12,000.00 each using an automotive conversion engine like a
Suzuki-Geo. It would not be
hard to design such a plane so that it could handle light close support
and interdiction after it's converted. For example, you could do
machinegun mounts similar to the ones used by French with their T-28
Fennecs in Algeria.
Bomb racks for small bombs, rocket launchers or even small missiles could
be carried.

There is precident for this. Count Carl Gustav Von Rosen operated with
planes like these in the Biafran Civil War and did quite well with them.
The CIA was attacking Nicaraguan oil facilities for a time using similar
aircraft.

And with the development of some of the new diesel aircraft engines, the
options for tactical employment are greatly improved.

The pilots skills one gets from a Sport Pilot certificate, roughly is
equivalent to the skills of a Huey or Aircobra pilot from Vietnam who was
carrying a TAC Ticket, if one excludes weapons delivery.

Such planes, if designed for rough field use, could provide several Army
Brigades, with a couple of Aeroweapons Companies, say, with twenty
aircraft a piece and the necessary support organization, for very little.

The planes could be designed for air delivery, truck transport, or going
back to Operation Torch, launch from Escort and Merchant aircraft carriers
with the intention of having them land at airstrips in the lodgement area
of an amphibious operation to provide TACAIR for troops thereon.

They could also function as FACs, light air support for air rescue,
patrol of lines of communication, ect. In short, they'd be useful. Not the
glamorous jets that one usually thinks of, but very, very useful
nonetheless.

And at twelve grand a pop, they'd be dirt cheap.

If nothing else, they're worth consideration given that our offshoring of
existing industrial base and the merge & RIF mania we've had since 1947,
doesn't leave us with much in the way of excess aircraft production
capacity.

In short, they're worth thinking about.

You also seem woefully ignorant about the entire concept of joint
operations.

No, actually I don't think that joint operations are all they're cracked
up to be. For example, in Afghanistan, the Air Force told the Army that
they couldn't even deliver towed artillery and that all heavy weapons
support would have to come from the air. That's okay until weather goes
below Air Force weather minimums like they did during Operation Anaconda,
when the Air Force called the game and the troops on the mountain had
nothing heavier than 81mm mortars for support. Artillery is an all weather
weapon, but the Air Force would neither deliver, nor support it.

At least towed artillery and light planes would belong to the Army
commander and he could operate them as the situation dictated without
having to worry about what REMFs in some rear line Air Force billet
thought about it.

Best of all, the industrial base needed to produce these things is a
whole lot more modest than what we'd need for something as advanced as
we'd like to have.

BTW, I've been reading about the Blitzfighter for years, but I've never
seen a picture of one. Usually Air Material Command's guys will do artists
renderings of various proposals at the drop of a hat, but I've never been
able to locate a drawing of Burton's Blitzfighter. Does one exist? I'd
dearly love to see what the base proposal was, coming out of Wright
Patterson's concepts shop.


"Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral
Elmo Zumwalt, USN.

"tankfixer" wrote in message
...
In article , raymond-
says...

"tankfixer" wrote in message
...
In article , raymond-
says...

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

Yes.

Example: German 1930 to 1940.


the germans didn't have the best stuff. and there was plenty of warning.
the french built the maginot linebefore the german threat was known.
you want to do the same today.
we started then too.
the u.s. built a tank factory and it was producing tanks in less than a
year.

In 1930 Germany was a semi stable democracy that was no danger to her
neighbors.
No one really believe she would be a danger again.
Over the next ten years she build up her airforce and army to the point
that by 1940 she had taken Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France,
Belgium and the Netherlands.
Back then a fighter or tank could be designed and produced in under a
year.
To suggest that any country can do that now is absurd.


in 1930 everybody was mired in a worldwide depression. england and france
were bankrupt.
the situation is not at all analogous. and germany was a concievable enemy.
and the fact is the allies didn't lack better weapons than the germans.
hurricanes and DW520s were capable and the spitfire maybe better than the
ME109.
british tanks had better armour and french tanks had better armour and
bigger guns.

you are carrying on like we are defenseless and falling behind.

and you also refuse to acknowledge the fact we are embroiled in 2 wars that
are straining the economy and which show no sign of ending anytime soon. .
we just can't keep spending on things that aren't needed now,

tankfixer wrote in
:

[snip]

When the dust clears there is only rubble...

Of course Hollywierd being what it is the building will probably
be labelled "Kindergarten".

Well at least when the VRWC starts stringing the usual suspects up
I can jump on the Metro with my rope and be in Hollywierd in an
hour.

Reality though is so much better. Anybody remember "the luckiest
man in Iraq" from GW1.

IBM

"Tiger" wrote in message
...
eatfastnoodle wrote:
On Jun 13, 12:15 am, Jack Linthicum
wrote:

On Jun 12, 11:58 am, Zombywoof wrote:

Maybe the Pentagon should give the whole CAS to the Army, army will
select the plane, army pilot will fly the mission, I'm sure more
attention would be paid to it under the Army. USAF hates it anyway,

I know it's not gonna happen because USAF wants to control every
flyable asset in the military. But secretary of defense, the president
should show the leadership and just order it to be done. It's always
better to have something under the control of somebody who actually
have the incentive to develop it.

Hell Right now the Pakistaini's & our Nato allies wish we learn to shoot
only the enemy. The Guys in the clouds are ****ing off the friendlies
Again based on yesterdays news.



every army has friendly fire incidents, even the pakis and our nato allies.
its just a way to america bash.