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

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:16:45 -0700, tankfixer
wrote:


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.

Not at all. Remember the Boeing Bird of Prey demonstrator? They did that
plane in roughly a year. And going full scale development without a lot of
change orders from Wright Patterson, they'd have been able to do in less
than another year.

Here's something for you to factor into your assessment. Back in 1960,
Herman Kahn, of Hudson Institute, (Sort of an East Coast RAND Corporation)
wrote a neat little book called On Thermonuclear War. One of the things
that he noted, that I've always kept in mind, is that by 1960, the primary
business of the Aircraft Industry wasn't designing and building
airplanes-- it was research and development. Lots of paper studies, loads
of really cool artwork, but if you really wanted to screw things up, tell
em to build what they designed.

You can, design airplanes fast. What it takes is shops where a designer
can design, build and test a plane, (I've got Kelly Johnson's rules for
operating a Skunk Works someplace and he is emphatic on the point) and
then the builders need to be able to sell them so that they can build more
planes. An aeronautical engineer these days gets to work on maybe one
project, and because of an insanely long, twenty plus years long product
development cycle, his experience stops there. And he doesn't get to
design more than that because the business is R&D, not building and
selling airplanes.

The Air Force doesn't work that way, because Stewart Symington made the
decision that the atomic bomb made the ability to maintain and expand
aircraft manufacture in wartime, irrelevant. According to him and to
subsequent generations of Air Force Generals, we go with what we have, and
hopefully we win before we run out of goodies.

The real world has pretty much invalidated that assumption.
Unfortunately, we don't have the technological defense in depth that we
once had, because of around sixty years of Merge & RIF as Air Force policy.

What that means is that we buy boutique airplanes that are so expensive
that we don't dare hazard them and if we do, we can't replace them when
they're lost. And we can't in a timely way, replace aircraft that are
irrelevant to our current situation because either conditions are changed
or the situation estimate on which their specifications are based were
found to be in error. The original B-17 was a coast defense weapon. By the
time that the Air Force really got going over Germany, that plane was in
the E model, was a virtually different airplane and was in expanded mass
production. We can't do that anymore.

We also can't supplement or replace planes that aren't relevant to our
situation with new ones, and when we get a bad design, we're stuck with
it, rather than shifting it off to some secondary job and replacing it
with a better one, not least of which because our designer's bench is
very, very short staffed. In the old days, when Donovan Berlin hit his
slump, guys like Lee Atwood and Ed Heinemann and Kelly Johnson could pick
up. And that kind of technological defense in depth is lost to us.

So, in the meantime, we're stuck. And that's scary. If the F-22 and the
F-35 turn out to be either bad or not what we need, what do we replace
them with? Our current situation has us stuck going to war flying the
Brewster Buffalo rather than using the Wildcat and developing the Hellcat.

Its not just the individual platforms that are of concern here. We've got
to change the way that we do business and get back to where we're in the
business of designing and building and flying airplanes, not doing R&D and
substituting paper studies for real world experience.

Rumor has it that Boeing's Phantom Works is designing a new bomber as a
private initiative to compete with something that Northrop's working on
now. I hope that we encourage them and basically encourage everybody to
get back to building and flying airplanes. Right now, the only place you
see any activity like that is in the Drone & UAV business because the Air
Force never got to set that end of the market in concrete. Hopefully what
they're doing will spread to the manned aircraft game.

In the meantime. I think that we can design and build combat capable
aircraft in a year and that's a good time frame to aim for. It imposes
some dicipline on the designers and forces them to look at flight hardware
rather than paper studies and cool artwork.

BTW, speaking of cool artwork, does anybody know where I can get an image
of what the guys at Wright Patterson said that Burton's Blitzfighter was
supposed to look like?

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

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:45:37 -0700, Dean wrote:


I'm curious, where has Russia taken miltary action in Northern Asia?
Does Mongolia or China know?

Yes. They got into a multidivisional spitting match back in 1969 along
the Uri and Ussuri rivers. Border dispute. It's why the Soviets set up the
Fortified Area Troops.

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

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:59:33 -0700, Zombywoof wrote:


In another scrape for survival I think the US could do a whole bunch
of things very quickly, although we would have to ramp up a lot of our
manufacturing capability first though, or out-source the actual
building to the Chinese or somebody.

Unless we're fighting the Chinese, in which case we're gonna really
regret the outsourcing of high tech production equipment that Boeing,
Cessna, (Their new plane, the Skycatcher is actually gonna be built by
Chengdu) and our auto manufacturers gave em. I saw some footage of one of
GM's plants in China a few weeks back and when I saw the level of
automation and the high throughput, my stomach went into a knot. It won't
take much to retool for military production.



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

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:18:47 -0700, Andrew Swallow
wrote:

Airyx wrote:
[snip]

Other potential adversaries with strong air capabilities are China
(conflicts with India, Vietnam, Phillipeans, Taiwan), and Venezuala
(conflicts will all of their neighbors).

Britain may have a defence agreement with Venezuala's neighbour Gyana.

They have for years. The Brits used to practice deploying Harriers there,
mostly as a demonstration to the Venezuelans.

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

On Jun 16, 8:10*am, "Michael Shirley" wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:40:38 -0700, eatfastnoodle *
wrote:



On Jun 15, 12:34*pm, "Michael Shirley" wrote:
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.



* * * * Look at their defense agreements, military history and joint defense *
programs, to include that nice new port the Peoples Liberation Army-Navy's *
building there. China and Pakistan are closer to each other than the US *
and Germany was in the Cold War. And if you look closely at that, what you *
see is that they're defacto members of SCO. And any professional order of *
battle in that coalition will include Pakistan in China's column, not ours..

That's because Chinese has been on their side ever since the Pakistani
independence, both countries has undergone major political and
economic changes ever since. Yet no matter who is in charge in
Pakistan, generals, politicians, good guy, bad guy, crooks, whatever,
China always stands with Pakistan in their fight with India. Their
relation is fundamentally in line with their strategic interests.
That's why it's so strong. As for the US, I guess everybody agrees
that in the eyes of US government, Pakistan is nothing more than a
convenient ally at best, a tool I would say. As for average joes, the
image of Pakistan isn't that much better than Taliban.


* * * * As far as doublecrossing them, I agree. Washington doublescrosses *
everybody. One of the problems with being as big as we are, and having *
decision cycles predicated on the news cycle, the fundraising cycle and *
election cycles, is that it makes for a government that has a rather short *
range view of things. That's bad, and it's going to bite us, and arguably, *
it is biting us. That's what we get for having a political structure *
composed of people who believe that it's possible to act without *
consequences. Welcome to the real world.

* * * * It's one of the reasons that I'm absolutely opposed to handing over the *
Kurds to Baghdad. We've doublecrossed em twice that I can remember and I'd *
just as soon leave things in working order there, than to hand the whole *
mess over to the first pimp that takes a State Department employee to *
lunch.

* * * * From my view though, it's not a matter of why our friends are fast *
becoming our enemies. We're agreed on that point. My point of view has to *
do with maintaining the national security interests of the United States *
in a world where our politicians have created the classiest pack of *
enemies that anybody could ever want, leaving us to deal with them if we *
can.

* * * * And that means some fundamental changes to how we approach things, *
starting with the Middle East. We can't afford sideshows in sandtrap wars, *
period. Our capabilities have shrunken too much. Our industrial base is *
short, our logistics are lousy, (the only reason that Desert Storm was *
possible was because the British Merchant Navy provided critical sealift) *
our military overdepends on boutique weapons that we can neither procure *
consistantly in useful numbers or replace when they are destroyed. In *
short, we've got a mess.

* * * * I'm not gonna argue the point about how we got into the mess that we're *
in. That's obvious, even to a Senator. Chuckle I'm not gonna argue that *
we've made some implacably deadly enemies, starting with the old Weiqi *
players in Beijing. That much is as obvious as a corpse floating in the *
pool.

* * * * No, my point is that having made all of these enemies, we must survive *
having done so, and that means some major shifts in how we base and use *
our military assets, and the Middle East, is a luxury right now that we *
can ill afford, so I'm all for cutting our losses, letting Europe deal *
with their own security issues and shifting our focus to the Carribean, *
the Pacific and our Southern Border, where we've got some critical and *
potentially lethal problems.

One change of approach I would like to say is for the US to give up on
its obsession to stick its noses into other people's business. US used
to be far better a friend during the cold war when Soviet Union used
to send tanks into any of its ally who dared to think about leaving
the Warsaw pact, France kicked American troops out and opened pursued
its own path, US accepted it and worked with France still. Seriously,
the kind of "Manifest Destiny" attitude ****es off everybody.

I'm not an expert on the nitty-gritty details, but please elect
somebody who knows what he's doing and who has at least a little
common sense. WMD issue aside, whether or not the military is
"winning" in Iraq now aside, anybody who has common sense would hope
for the best but plan for the worst even though you are 100% sure the
best case scenario would happen because any sane people would know
that there isn't 100% sure thing. instead, this administration based
its plan on the assumption that US soldiers would be welcomed as
liberators. That's beyond dumb.


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

"Michael Shirley" wrote in message
newsp.uctgnu05ra3qj7@schooner-blue...
On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:59:33 -0700, Zombywoof wrote:


I saw some footage of one of GM's plants in China a few weeks back and
when I saw the level of automation and the high throughput, my stomach
went into a knot. It won't take much to retool for military production.

But it'll probably take a level of project management and technical
sophistication that isn't available in great quantities in China.

The factories may be in China but they're designed in the West, and the
skills for designing such a factory, and the management of the processes
used, aren't available to the Chinese in any great quantity.

That's why they're making Blu Ray players and not top of the range avionics
for export.

The technologies aren't that different.

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:29:42 -0400, Tiger
wrote:

Dan wrote:
Zombywoof wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:43:48 -0500, Dan wrote:

Raymond O'Hara wrote:
snip

Well, the 33rd TFW took out 16 Iraqi MiGs that weren't rolling over or
fleeing. They may not have been anywhere near top notch, but those 16 at
least did put up a fight.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


While not on the O'hara side of the fence, can we aggree more spending
on a f22 means a delay in the F35 program? Also that increasing the
number beyond 183 in the current budget environment means other Air
force programs will robbed to pay for them?

Actually no, we can't agree on that. It is apples/oranges. The F-22
progam is in production with almost 20 years of development and
evolution already as sunk costs. The F-35 program is where F-22 was in
1992.

The incremental unit cost for additional F-22s (which are
multi-mission capable now) is not a trade-off against F-35 development
funding and purchase of an aircraft that won't reach full scale
production and deployment for at least five years.

The only thing being "robbed" in these scenarios is increased social
program spending, the result of political pandering, pork-barreling
and earmarking.


Actually I think 432 F-22's was about right. What robbed USAF of 250 of
them was the 500 billion dollar adventure in Iraq and not increased social
program spending.

Think carefully next time you want to remove a despicable dictator in a
country ripe for insurgency. The present situation in Iraq was very
predictable.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
www.thundertales.blogspot.com
www.thunderchief.org

On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:26:57 -0700, Leadfoot wrote:


Think carefully next time you want to remove a despicable dictator in a
country ripe for insurgency. The present situation in Iraq was very
predictable.

And our future problems with the Chinese, doubly so.

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

"Zombywoof" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:29:42 -0400, Tiger
wrote:

Dan wrote:
Zombywoof wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:43:48 -0500, Dan wrote:

Raymond O'Hara wrote:
snip

Well, the 33rd TFW took out 16 Iraqi MiGs that weren't rolling over or
fleeing. They may not have been anywhere near top notch, but those 16 at
least did put up a fight.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


While not on the O'hara side of the fence, can we aggree more spending
on a f22 means a delay in the F35 program? Also that increasing the
number beyond 183 in the current budget environment means other Air
force programs will robbed to pay for them?

I've not read where there is a proposal to expand beyond the current
project 183, but I don't follow things as closely as I once did.

One of the things that has to be remembered that all USAF kills were
by F-15C's, the very aircraft that the F-22 is slated to replace. The
very first F-16 air-to-air kill was on 27 December 1992, when a F-16D
shot down an Iraqi MiG-25 in UN-restricted airspace over southern Iraq
with an AIM-120 AMRAAM.

First USAF F-16 kill, not first F-16 kill


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-16#Op...lee_.281982.29



Again this was the first USAF F-16 kill since the F-16 was introduced.
So exactly how many projected air-to-air kills do you think the F-35
will have, or at least chances to have? Air Superiority is NOT its
projected "primary" role. The F-22 & F-35 are designed to work in
Tandem with the F-35 performing the current F-16 & A-10 missions.
--
"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
Moderation is for monks."

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:08:18 -0700, eatfastnoodle
wrote:



Â* Â* Â* Â* Look at their defense agreements, military history and joint
defense Â*
programs, to include that nice new port the Peoples Liberation
Army-Navy's Â*
building there. China and Pakistan are closer to each other than the US
Â*
and Germany was in the Cold War. And if you look closely at that, what
you Â*
see is that they're defacto members of SCO. And any professional order
of Â*
battle in that coalition will include Pakistan in China's column, not
ours.

That's because Chinese has been on their side ever since the Pakistani
independence, both countries has undergone major political and
economic changes ever since. Yet no matter who is in charge in
Pakistan, generals, politicians, good guy, bad guy, crooks, whatever,
China always stands with Pakistan in their fight with India. Their
relation is fundamentally in line with their strategic interests.
That's why it's so strong. As for the US, I guess everybody agrees
that in the eyes of US government, Pakistan is nothing more than a
convenient ally at best, a tool I would say. As for average joes, the
image of Pakistan isn't that much better than Taliban.

Yup, that isn't gonna change ever since the Chinese provided weapons
after the West embargoed them back in the 60's.




One change of approach I would like to say is for the US to give up on
its obsession to stick its noses into other people's business. US used
to be far better a friend during the cold war when Soviet Union used
to send tanks into any of its ally who dared to think about leaving
the Warsaw pact, France kicked American troops out and opened pursued
its own path, US accepted it and worked with France still. Seriously,
the kind of "Manifest Destiny" attitude ****es off everybody.

Yup. I think that they do it out of habit. For the most part, not a lot
of thought goes into our foreign policy at the Government level. Mostly
it's farmed out to think tanks and Beltway Bandits and a lot of those are
financed by various tax exempt foundations that front for various moneyed
interests.

Your typical politician tends to be ignorant of everything except
fundraising and media relations. He's overdependant on staff and the staff
is overdependant on whomever takes them to lunch and gives them some piece
of research that they're not all that competent to make assessments of.


I'm not an expert on the nitty-gritty details, but please elect
somebody who knows what he's doing and who has at least a little
common sense. WMD issue aside, whether or not the military is
"winning" in Iraq now aside, anybody who has common sense would hope
for the best but plan for the worst even though you are 100% sure the
best case scenario would happen because any sane people would know
that there isn't 100% sure thing. instead, this administration based
its plan on the assumption that US soldiers would be welcomed as
liberators. That's beyond dumb.

You'll never see it here. Our system selects for the lowest common
denominator of politician and thus the lowest common denominator is what
we get. Anybody with real principles or any kind of actual knowledge will
get filtered out before he can run for city council, let alone Congress or
the Senate. Structurally, this country is totally incapable of producing
somebody like Winston Churchill.

And it gets worse. Most government policy is an outsourced product. That
worked sort of, in the 50's because the universities were actually
producing diciplined intellectuals who could apply a little skepticism and
critically assess information. We're no longer able to produce guys like
James Schlesinger anymore, because our university systems have lost the
ability to do that. We ceded the college campuses to the radical left in
the 60's and 70's and now, as far as producing the technicians who
actually can create viable policy and administer it goes, they can't. They
do a remarkably good job of producing fair copies of the New Soviet Man
though. My youngest is in college now, and she's planning on a career as
an attorney. When I got a look at what they're demanding that she take as
core curriculium, I was appalled. A college education these days have
costs ranging from five to six significant digits and looking at what
they're being asked to pay for, I can tell you that a modern university
education in this country is a fraud and things are deteriorating from
there. Critical thinking skills are out and courses based on the most
schizoid ideology I've ever seen, predominate.

The end result is that the formation of policy is in the hands of an
increasingly incompetent group of people. And the end result of that will
be that the policies in question will be schizoid, self contradictory, and
in general, destructive to the continued maintenance of our national
security.

My guess is that the future is going to be replete with ever more
instances of us shooting ourselves in the ass. And anybody who has to
determine what their relationship is to our government needs to take that
into account. I'm an American. I've lived here my entire life except for
some travel as a member of the military. And I can't predict what our
policy establishment or our politicians will do, simply because they're
too ignorant to come up with a consistant policy on anything. You have
some individuals who are competent, but you'll find that Gresham's Law
applies to government as much as it does anything else-- the bad will
drive out the good and we're seeing that here.

So, if anybody's planning on doing anything to preserve Post Renaissance
Western Civilization in the world, they can expect to do it in spite of
Washington at least as often as they do because of it.

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