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

On Jun 12, 2:43*pm, "Roger Conroy"
wrote:
"Tiger" wrote in message

...



g lof2 wrote:
On Jun 10, 10:03 pm, Tiger wrote:

g lof2 wrote:

On Jun 10, 5:32 pm, Tiger wrote:

William Black wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Inside the Air Force
Next-gen bomber must be adequately funded
YOUNG: GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As

---------------------------------

Given current wars they'd be better off buying a load of Douglas A-1
Skyraiders and a few WWII twin engined bombers.

What they need is something very reliable that lugs a largish bombload
around and can absorb ground fire while dropping it in smallish

quantities

with great precision.

What they don't need right now is large complex jet fighter/bombers

that are

designed to fight a major European war.

In other words."Why pay 2008 Corvette money to do a job your old 1988
F150 could do?" I'm sure there plenty of stuff in the boneyard that
fits
the bill. A-10's, A6's, A-4's, Phantoms, A-7's. Old stuff, but to drop
bombs in zones with no Mig threats they work. I think the A-1 may be
pushing the concept a bit, but I hear you.....

Until the run into the a battery on the latest SAMs , ot a Nex-Gen
Stealth fighter, which are design to handle the latest fighters. At
which point they become so much flying scrap metal. And remember, the
reason we have air conreol is because we have the best fighter to
knock the other sides fighter out before the get to shoot at our
troops.

Frankly what I read in the story reminds me of the old warning about
fighting the last war, and not planning for the next.

The bad guys of late seem to prefer Ied's & rpg's to Radar guided SAm
sites... Nor does most of the world *have the $$$ for next gen Stealth
fighters. Even our Allies can bearly put a decent force together. The
topic point was spending money on a F22 air superiorty fighter. A job it
does well but there is no air threat. That makes it useless when the
current need for the airforce is to supply CAS. The F35 which will do,
said mission is years away. If your planning for the next war, Nethier
plane is *really what you want.- Hide quoted text -

The problem with your argument is your assumion that there cannot be
future threat to US air superiority. The key to US military power over
the last sixty years was your control of the air. It is important for
us to maintain that superiority if we are to remain the top military
power. Therefore we must build enough F-22 to assure we retain that
power while the production lines are still open, else it will become
far more expensive to re open the production lines later when it
becomes necessary.

- Show quoted text -

Going back to the start of this " GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER
CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As." We are not exactly facing any Battles of Britian
from anybody or collection of somebodies. The F-22 is a high end Air
superority fighter. Great! And we are going to buy about 180 of them. At
something like $100 Million each. About the price of 4 F-15's. We never
intended for a whole airforce of them. The volume plane is the F35. Most
our allies or enemies don't even have 180 planes in there whole air force;
let alone fighters. You might like to refuel those F22's? Where are going
to get $$$ for tankers? You might like Transport troops and parts for your
F-22's? Where's the money to upgrade your airlift that has racking up
flight time running back & forth to Kabul & baghdad??? I like the F-22 as
well. But we are not spending the whole DOD budget on it, Hoping to
re-fight Eagle-Day.....

Anyone who bases their armaments aquisition programme on CURRENT wars is an
idiot and is doomed to be on the losing side in the NEXT war. Major
equipment is intended to be used for about 20-30 years.
Take the example of the "Teens" generation of US fighter aircraft. They came
off the drawing boards in the 1970's and are now at the end of their useful
life as first world front-line equipment. It really is not acceptable for a
1st world fighter pilot to be flying the same plane that his father did.
"Shock and Awe" only works if you have a clear margin of superiority over
the enemy. Any leader who sends his forces into battle equipped at parity to
the enemy should be shot for gross incompetence.

it's not unreasonable to expect a new fighter every 30 years or so.
But F22 price tag is simply outrageous, it threatens everything else
the air force needs, remember, fighter by its own doesn't count for
much, you need a integrated force with a balanced procurement policy.
What looks like right now is the air force officials, who all used to
be fighter pilots, seem to be more than ready to scrap everything else
in order for them to have a few more F22s. That's not right and that's
not going to help the force and anybody else in the long run.
Everybody wants to have the best toy in town, but there are only so
much money around, especially with the budget deficit already so high,
so the escalating cost overruns must stop, otherwise, you will end up
with a military so advanced that any war they fight will prove to be a
financial disaster, win or lose. Despite the patriotic rhetoric, war
is and should be considered a investment, and return of investment
should be considered before war, especially oversea military
adventure, is launched. precisely the kind that US will most likely
face in the future, whether it's against a ragtag group of guerrillas
or a great power with high tech weaponry. Countless great powers, with
their best equipped and best trained troops, lost to insurgency and
seemly weak rebellions because the cost of fighting a high cost war
against an enemy with vastly lower cost of waging wars. Take Iraq as
an example, 3 trillions in five years is not sustainable, not even for
the US. That's why I think US will lose the Iraq war no matter how
unwilling the Republican is to accept it. Shiny weapon like F22 is
just the kind of weapon that will further increase the cost, it's very
much likely future adversary will exploit this weakness in a
protracted war.

On Jun 12, 2:43 am, "Roger Conroy"
wrote:
"Tiger" wrote in message

...



g lof2 wrote:
On Jun 10, 10:03 pm, Tiger wrote:

g lof2 wrote:

On Jun 10, 5:32 pm, Tiger wrote:

William Black wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Inside the Air Force
Next-gen bomber must be adequately funded
YOUNG: GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As

---------------------------------

Given current wars they'd be better off buying a load of Douglas A-1
Skyraiders and a few WWII twin engined bombers.

What they need is something very reliable that lugs a largish bombload
around and can absorb ground fire while dropping it in smallish

quantities

with great precision.

What they don't need right now is large complex jet fighter/bombers

that are

designed to fight a major European war.

In other words."Why pay 2008 Corvette money to do a job your old 1988
F150 could do?" I'm sure there plenty of stuff in the boneyard that
fits
the bill. A-10's, A6's, A-4's, Phantoms, A-7's. Old stuff, but to drop
bombs in zones with no Mig threats they work. I think the A-1 may be
pushing the concept a bit, but I hear you.....

Until the run into the a battery on the latest SAMs , ot a Nex-Gen
Stealth fighter, which are design to handle the latest fighters. At
which point they become so much flying scrap metal. And remember, the
reason we have air conreol is because we have the best fighter to
knock the other sides fighter out before the get to shoot at our
troops.

Frankly what I read in the story reminds me of the old warning about
fighting the last war, and not planning for the next.

The bad guys of late seem to prefer Ied's & rpg's to Radar guided SAm
sites... Nor does most of the world have the $$$ for next gen Stealth
fighters. Even our Allies can bearly put a decent force together. The
topic point was spending money on a F22 air superiorty fighter. A job it
does well but there is no air threat. That makes it useless when the
current need for the airforce is to supply CAS. The F35 which will do,
said mission is years away. If your planning for the next war, Nethier
plane is really what you want.- Hide quoted text -

The problem with your argument is your assumion that there cannot be
future threat to US air superiority. The key to US military power over
the last sixty years was your control of the air. It is important for
us to maintain that superiority if we are to remain the top military
power. Therefore we must build enough F-22 to assure we retain that
power while the production lines are still open, else it will become
far more expensive to re open the production lines later when it
becomes necessary.

- Show quoted text -

Going back to the start of this " GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER
CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As." We are not exactly facing any Battles of Britian
from anybody or collection of somebodies. The F-22 is a high end Air
superority fighter. Great! And we are going to buy about 180 of them. At
something like $100 Million each. About the price of 4 F-15's. We never
intended for a whole airforce of them. The volume plane is the F35. Most
our allies or enemies don't even have 180 planes in there whole air force;
let alone fighters. You might like to refuel those F22's? Where are going
to get $$$ for tankers? You might like Transport troops and parts for your
F-22's? Where's the money to upgrade your airlift that has racking up
flight time running back & forth to Kabul & baghdad??? I like the F-22 as
well. But we are not spending the whole DOD budget on it, Hoping to
re-fight Eagle-Day.....

Anyone who bases their armaments aquisition programme on CURRENT wars is an
idiot and is doomed to be on the losing side in the NEXT war. Major
equipment is intended to be used for about 20-30 years.
Take the example of the "Teens" generation of US fighter aircraft. They came
off the drawing boards in the 1970's and are now at the end of their useful
life as first world front-line equipment. It really is not acceptable for a
1st world fighter pilot to be flying the same plane that his father did.
"Shock and Awe" only works if you have a clear margin of superiority over
the enemy. Any leader who sends his forces into battle equipped at parity to
the enemy should be shot for gross incompetence.

Shock and awe has been demonstrated as a concept only. Useful for
Power Point, useless, or more than useless, in terms of actual
application. If you do s&a, and it doesn't, your enemy is encouraged
to resist.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
news
In message , Tiger
writes
William Black wrote:
What they need is something very reliable that lugs a largish bombload
around and can absorb ground fire while dropping it in smallish
quantities
with great precision.

What they don't need right now is large complex jet fighter/bombers
that are
designed to fight a major European war.


In other words."Why pay 2008 Corvette money to do a job your old 1988 F150
could do?" I'm sure there plenty of stuff in the boneyard that fits the
bill. A-10's, A6's, A-4's, Phantoms, A-7's. Old stuff, but to drop bombs
in zones with no Mig threats they work. I think the A-1 may be pushing the
concept a bit, but I hear you.....

Fine until the Bad Guys hit it with a 1960s-vintage SA-7 or similar, which
is cheap and widely proliferated and very effective against such aircraft
(as evidenced by the withdrawal of the A-1 from Vietnam by the end).

By the time you've added the IRCM capability to survive MANPADS, included
the navigation and comms gear needed to hit *that* building to support the
troops, and bolted on the sensors that let you operate at night as well as
by day... your solution is no longer quick, cheap and simple.


It's the old problem of the Blitzfighter: it's an appealing notion to fill
the skies with cheap, simple aircraft armed with a simple but deadly gun
and unburdened by complex electronic boondoggles, but the reality falls
over when many are blotted from the sky by SAMs, others can't be reached
on a swamped VHF voicenet, those that can get to where they're needed get
into long conversations about "I see the street, I think, and some red
smoke, you want me to hit the red smoke?... okay, across the street and
three houses north of the red smoke... I show two red smokes now... was
that you calling 'Check! Check! Check!'?"

The F-16 and A-10 are good examples, both initially hailed by the
Lightweight Fighter Mafia as everything a combat aircraft should be
(though the ideal aircraft, according to the LWF, seems to have been the
A6M Zero...) and both being "ruined" by the addition of the useless,
wasteful electronics that let them do more than excel at range-shooting on
bright sunny days (and both subsequently demonstrating remarkable
effectiveness and longevity...)

When analyzed this way, yes, most reasonable folks would agree - these days
in real-life you do need - minimum - an upgraded A-10 or equivalent to
realistically stand a chance of being survivable, operating in night/adverse
weather, and being able to use smart weapons.

I think what turns most critics' cranks is the sheer obscene cost of the
advanced fighters. 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. Neither is as optimized for CAS as the A-10 is
(criticisms of the F-35 in that role include that it is less able than the
A-10 to find ground targets independently, has less survivability, doesn't
persist/loiter nearly as well as the A-10, and doesn't have a Honking Big
Cannon).

I don't think anyone with a clue is saying please bring back the Skyraider.
But it's a legit complaint to quibble about servicing the ground forces CAS
needs with super-expensive fighter-bombers.

It is of course as much of an issue in Canada as it is elsewhere. There will
always be a camp that favours planes along the lines of the retired
CF-5/CF-116, others who can stomach prices in the CF-18 range, and any
number who are keen to see F-35's replace the CF-18. I myself just can't see
something like a CF-35 (or whatever they call it) as being available in
enough numbers to support a CF deployment similar to Afghanistan...what'll
they have, a couple of ac available in theatre at any given time? The
problem for Canada is we cannot easily support two different fleets. Me, I'd
go with a Saab Gripen NG.

AHS

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:42:02 -0700 (PDT), g lof2 wrote:

And remember, the reason we have air conreol is because we have the best
fighter to knock the other sides fighter out before the get to shoot at
our troops.

It's actually a combined effort. AWACS, Rivet Joint, ground radar assets,
ground-based intelligence assets, sea-based radar assets... you get the
idea. It all goes back to the concept of "First Look, First Kill". If I
see you before you see me, the odds favor the fact that you'll be walking
home.

Modern doctrine isn't to go in and mix it up with the enemy fighters,
today's doctrine is to snipe the hostile aircraft out of the sky. If you
end up in a furball then you screwed up somewhere along the way. Granted,
sometimes you can't anticipate that happening but it's a good
rule-of-thumb.

Current fighters are snipers, and if I see the enemy first, betting odds
say that I win the fight.

--

-Jeff B.
zoomie at fastmail fm

Juergen Nieveler schrieb:

Imagine how many GBU39 you could put inside a B747...

Imagine the militarization costs for comms, data-links, electronic
countermeasures...

add mid-air
refueling, a second flight crew etc. (room wouldn't be much of an
issue), and you'd get a bomb platform that can stay overhead pretty
much all day,

During the Gulf War B-52 made a trip of 35 hours from Louisiana to Iraq
and back.

just waiting for somebody to request for a strike.

And after CAS is requested the ground forces have to wait for a
Jumbo Jet to actually make the strike... A Super Hornet or Strike Eagle
will probably be able to carry about two dozens SDB. That's plenty and
speedy.

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:20:43 -0400, Raymond O'Hara wrote:

we are not going to achieve whatever it is bush was after.

Preempting Sadam before he aquired WMDs? Yeah, we did that. And rather
spectacularly I might add.

Am I the only one who remembers the preemptive war debate?

--

-Jeff B.
zoomie at fastmail fm

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:05:34 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum wrote:

I went through a long discussion on this newsgroup advocating a
carrier-able version of the A-10

Not gonna happen. Increase the strength of the landing gear and you
sacrifice the amount of ordnance you can carry.

or a new design.

Yeah, something with an incredible sensor suite, stealthy, and a good bomb
load. Hey, maybe we could modify the F-35?

Oh.

--

-Jeff B.
zoomie at fastmail fm

On Jun 12, 11:58 am, Zombywoof wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:30:41 GMT, Yeff wrote:
On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:05:34 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum wrote:

I went through a long discussion on this newsgroup advocating a
carrier-able version of the A-10

Not gonna happen. Increase the strength of the landing gear and you
sacrifice the amount of ordnance you can carry.

or a new design.

Yeah, something with an incredible sensor suite, stealthy, and a good bomb
load. Hey, maybe we could modify the F-35?

One of the versions of the F-35 is for Carriers. Part of the whole
design concept behind it. One Aircraft with 80% parts
interchangeability reduces design, production & maintenance costs.

One of my concerns is that with the F-22 & F-35 the USAF once again
appears to be neglecting the Close Air Support role which is always
going to be needed regardless of the amount of Air Superiority. I
know that they are "predicting" that the F-35 will take over some of
that role, but a "Fast-Burner" is not the most effective platform for
the CAS mission, especially at its 100 million+ price tag.

Perhaps the SM-47 Super Machete needs to be given a closer look at
for this role as the A-10 ages. After all it projected that the SM-47
will be produced in manned, as well as unmanned/remote
pilot-in-the-loop and unmanned autonomous configurations. At I think a
projected cost of 10 Million each, a much better alternative to the
100 Million+ F-35. It also doesn't leave our field personnel without
a good strong CAS platform once the A-10 dies of old age.

Seehttp://www.stavatti.com/SM47_OVERVIEW.htmlfor more 411
--
"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
Moderation is for monks."

Yes, an unmanned CAS aircraft would have the same attention to the job
as the manned USAF versions. The USAF hates CAS because it doesn't win
medals and gets them in bar fights.

On Jun 12, 11:24 am, Zombywoof wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:18:07 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum

wrote:

snip



Anyone who bases their armaments aquisition programme on CURRENT wars is an
idiot and is doomed to be on the losing side in the NEXT war. Major
equipment is intended to be used for about 20-30 years.
Take the example of the "Teens" generation of US fighter aircraft. They came
off the drawing boards in the 1970's and are now at the end of their useful
life as first world front-line equipment. It really is not acceptable for a
1st world fighter pilot to be flying the same plane that his father did.
"Shock and Awe" only works if you have a clear margin of superiority over
the enemy. Any leader who sends his forces into battle equipped at parity to
the enemy should be shot for gross incompetence.

Shock and awe has been demonstrated as a concept only. Useful for
Power Point, useless, or more than useless, in terms of actual
application. If you do s&a, and it doesn't, your enemy is encouraged
to resist.

As a concept only? Tell that to the any number of countries that fell
to Blitzkrieg. Tell that to Saddam (after you dig him up) about
Desert Storm (heavy on the Storm). Large massive overwhelming
lightening shook attacks (from land, sea or air) definitely leaves the
Defenders in some version of awe. More times then not with a
resounding "Holy ****, what was that?".

The Air Force retired all 64 F-117's on 22 April 2008,primarily due to
the purchasing and eventual deployment of the more effective F-22
Raptor and F-35 Lightning II. Even though the F-22 is primarily an
air superiority fighter, it has multiple capabilities (as almost all
new USAF Aircraft do) that include ground attack, electronic warfare,
and signals intelligence roles.

Now if you think that purchasing 183 of them is a bit much, note that
the USAF originally planned to order 750 ATFs (the original concept
program that gave birth to the F-22), with production beginning in
1994; however, the 1990 Major Aircraft Review altered the plan to 648
aircraft beginning in 1996. The goal changed again in 1994, when it
became 442 aircraft entering service in 2003 or 2004, but a 1997
Department of Defense report put the purchase at 339. In 2003, the Air
Force said that the existing congressional cost cap limited the
purchase to 277. By 2006, the Pentagon said it will buy 183 aircraft,
which would save $15 billion but raise the cost of each aircraft, and
this plan has been de facto approved by Congress in the form of a
multi-year procurement plan, which still holds open the possibility
for new orders past that point. The total cost of the program by 2006
was $62 billion.

By the time everything is said & done and all 183 fighters have been
purchased & deployed, $34 billion will have been spent on actual
procurement. This will result in a total program cost of $62 billion
or about $339 million per aircraft. The incremental cost for one
additional F-22 is around $138 million; decreasing with larger
volumes. If the Air Force were to buy 100 more F-22s today, the cost
of each one would be less and would continue to drop with additional
aircraft purchases.

Now as to the F-35 Lightning II, one of the primary reasons its costs
(to US Taxpayers) is less is that it is a "Jointly" designed &
produced platform with United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada,
Turkey, Australia, Norway and Denmark contributing US$4.375 billion
toward the development costs of the program. The entire concept
behind the JSF program ( F-35 Lightning II) was created to replace
various aircraft while keeping development, production, and operating
costs down via sharing the development costs with the aforementioned
countries. Cost were also kept down by building three variants of one
aircraft, sharing 80% of their parts.

All-in-all the MORE you build of anything, the overall lower per unit
cost you come up with. When you have other Nations assisting in the
funding of the development phase you also reduce (to the US Taxpayer)
those "sunk" costs.

Just like the F-16 is the cheaper, sleeker one engine version of the
F-15, a similar statement can be made about the F-35 as it is also a
one engine aircraft which in & of itself reduces both production &
operational costs. This is all part of the Hi-Low strategy to have a
mix of two different fighters that was started with the F-15/F-16
program in the USAF and the F-14/F-18 program in the Navy.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question....shtmlexplains the
entire Hi-Low strategy fairly well and in simple terms.
--
"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
Moderation is for monks."

Shock and Awe looked good on TV, looks even better in the briefing
room. IIRC nobody was actual hurt during that display, oh, except for
a few civilians.

addam's bunker, a draw for tourists in Green Zone
Dec 7 01:45 PM US/Eastern



Saddam Hussein's underground bunker, surprisingly undamaged despite
heavy US bombing in 2003, has become an informal tourist attraction
for visitors and residents of Baghdad's downtown Green Zone area.

US forces hurled two 900 kilo (2,000 pound) GBU-28 bunker-busting
bombs at the building on the opening night of the US-led offensive to
invade Iraq, March 19, 2003, according to the US military.

Over the next four days at least six more bunker-busters were dropped
on the building, and the holes they smashed in the roof are still
visible.

The blasts caused impressive damage to the six-story high steel and
concrete structure, known as the Believers Palace, built atop the
bunker.

US soldiers and visitors who tour the site today pose for pictures
near giant craters in the palace, amid heaps of twisted steel rods,
concrete blocks and charred marble slabs.

Souvenir hunters can still find crystals from the giant chandelier
that once hung in the main hall.

Yet despite the whirlwind of destruction, most of the palace is still
structurally sound.

And the bunker, which lies under the rubble, is virtually intact --
more than 20 years after it was built for 66 million dollars by the
German firm Boswau and Knauer (Walter Bau-AG building group).

Deep inside, the only light comes from flashlights carried by
visitors, and the only sounds are their footsteps and a steady drip,
drip, drip of water from a broken water pipe.

"We still cant find the water main," said Sergeant First Class Patrick
McDonald, who works with a civil affairs unit and is the Green Zones
de facto bunker expert.

"Even to this day some of the rooms have an inch of putrid water with
some type of biological life."

Saddam's room is about the size of a small master bedroom in a
suburban house and differs from the other rooms only by its tan
wallpaper.

One of the last images of him as president was televised footage of a
meeting he held with top aides in the 30-square-meter (320-square-
foot) bunker conference room just before the "shock and awe" phase of
the war began.

Karl Bernd Esser, the bunker architect, told Germany's ZDF television
when the war began that the structure he designed could survive
anything short of a direct hit from a Hiroshima-style nuclear weapon.

Overall, the three-level, sprawling bunker is large enough to house
250 people, say US officials. It has an air filtration system, a large
kitchen and was fully prepared for an attack with biological or
chemical weapons.

It also has its own power supply. Its large generators, which are
powerful enough to supply the whole Green Zone area with electricity,
seem brand new.

"The only danger was that Saddam and his people would have been buried
here," said McDonald.

"But there are tunnels to get out that lead to the Tigris River," some
200 meters (yards) away, he said.

Between the Believers Palace and the bunker was even more protection
-- a two-floor "plug" -- a reinforced helmet of sorts to make up for
one of the bunkers shortcomings: it was barely underground.

A reinforced concrete box inside a box, the bunker was long ago
stripped of any valuables, first by Iraqi looters as US troops entered
Baghdad, and later by US troops seeking to furnish outside
headquarters buildings.

Some of the recovered valuables are in storage, said McDonald.

"The high water table in Baghdad makes it difficult to build anything
deep underground," explained McDonald.

The "plug" consisted of two 25 centimetres (10-inch) thick false
floors separated by one meter (three feet) of empty space.

"The false floors served to trick the smart bombs into thinking they
have penetrated into the bunker," McDonald said.

"As far as we know this is the most extensive bunker facility in the
country," McDonald said.

"There are a number of small single, or three and four room bunkers
under different palaces, but this is the biggest one, and the most
extensive."

According to locals, Saddam used the bunker less than eight times
since it was built, McDonald said, although he kept a staff to
maintain its elaborate water, cooling, air filtration and electrical
system.

Iraq's new government, which takes over in late December, will have to
decide what to do with the site.

The structure is so well built it would be difficult to demolish, and
the massive palace above makes it impossible to bury.

"So its left there for people like myself to give tours when I have
the time," said McDonald.

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:15:22 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum wrote:

The USAF hates CAS because it doesn't win
medals and gets them in bar fights.

And you know this how?

--

-Jeff B.
zoomie at fastmail fm