F-35

@wildgrass said
I read a book called The New Rules of War by a former paratrooper Sean McFate. It's an easy read without too much jargon. Using lots of historic examples, general patterns of civilization and human nature, he very convincing argues that the world will not return to 'conventional warfare'. If we spent the money on protecting our electrical grids, nuclear reactors and and bac ...[text shortened]... ly safer than with the F-35. We need new methods to advance national interests and improve security.

Interesting idea.
surely a rogue nation or any waring nation can do a lot more damage to the US by shutting down the infrastructure.
Isn't that what the US did to Iraq before the bombing began? If I recall, they sent in the Wild Weasels. Works!

So now we have to think of this generations Wild Weasel. Clearly, top-grade hacking can do a lot of damage
including shutting down the electrical grid, shutting down life-saving medical equipment, killing people etc etc.

@athousandyoung said

Patton: Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. If mountain ranges and oceans can be overcome, then anything built by man can be overcome.

Great quote.

@wildgrass said
I read a book called The New Rules of War by a former paratrooper Sean McFate. It's an easy read without too much jargon. Using lots of historic examples, general patterns of civilization and human nature, he very convincing argues that the world will not return to 'conventional warfare'. If we spent the money on protecting our electrical grids, nuclear reactors and and bac ...[text shortened]... ly safer than with the F-35. We need new methods to advance national interests and improve security.

If the F-35 only fulfilled one function, then you have a good argument that its a waste of money. The reality is that the F-35 is able to be perfectly integrated into a much larger whole in ways that have never been achieved before. Its the forward eyes and ears of an invading force, with the ability to allow its intel gathering capability to be seamlessly passed on to other land and sea and air forces. Its ability to direct traffic, to allow other elements of the force armada to see as it sees, and use its vantage point to trigger naval or land based attack, is light years ahead of what other flight platforms can do. This seeing over the horizon for the rest of the troops is a feature that any generation fighter was good for. But the quality of information fed back by the pilot through his comms, while flying, in older generation jets, is a tiny fraction of the intel the F-35 provides. This is its game changing attribute. The real time actionable data that is integrated into all the data available to the attacking force is nothing short of phenomenal. But this comes at a huge cost. Getting the systems to work and talk/sync to each other in a reliable consistent manner is not easy, but it is worth it.

If you think the F-35 is only about air superiority, to hold its own in dogfights with enemy fighters, then it would seem a total waste of time and money, but if you see its role as the fully integrated leading edge of an advancing army able to exploit situations through the data it generates or receives and act as the man at point or just quarter back the situation, without unduly taxing the capacity of the pilot flying this mobile intel operations centre, then you might appreciate the cost and benefit of this rig. And we haven't even discussed how it will choreograph the movement of drone wingmen...

The post that was quoted here has been removed

You don't seem to have grasped the context of the conversation. This thread is about the F-35 being an overhyped boondoggle.

The fact that fortifications have proved strategically useful in the past is irrelevant... and puerile.

@kmax87 said
If the F-35 only fulfilled one function, then you have a good argument that its a waste of money. The reality is that the F-35 is able to be perfectly integrated into a much larger whole in ways that have never been achieved before. Its the forward eyes and ears of an invading force, with the ability to allow its intel gathering capability to be seamlessly passed on to other l ...[text shortened]... of this rig. And we haven't even discussed how it will choreograph the movement of drone wingmen...

This is a good post. Cheers.

My point throughout this thread is that the talk about a "leading edge of an advancing army able to exploit situations through data... without unduly taxing the capacity of the pilot" seems like an unusual and unlikely future war-time scenario. We're buying the most expensive weapon mankind has ever seen for a low odds scenario.

Meanwhile, the same USA spending all that cash for "actionable data" in a hypothetical weapons-based war just lost control of one of its most important gas pipelines for a week because a foreign entity hacked into the system. This was a huge attack that did not require conventional weapons at all. No guns, no jets, no declaration of war or advancing army or any of that. Just millions of scared people filling plastic garbage bags with gasoline.

This happens all the time. Hospitals are paying ransoms for this kind of stuff almost weekly. Our energy grid is vulnerable. Our medical system is vulnerable. Our pentagon was hacked... successfully and repeatedly. Unfortunately our focus and attention and financial resources were diverted away from real and ongoing national security threats towards hypothetical and very unlikely ones.

The F-35 is a jobs program that does not address any strategic inferiority in our military strength.

@kmax87 - said
Its the forward eyes and ears of an invading force, with the ability to allow its intel gathering capability to be seamlessly passed on to other land and sea and air forces.

this is a contentious subject matter, imo.

we have satellites and other spy craft that can do that such as the E2-C Hawkeye.


OOPS - I got "word too long" on that link. Just google the hawkeye. it looks like a plane with a big disk in the middle of it.

@earl-of-trumps said
@kmax87 - said
Its the forward eyes and ears of an invading force, with the ability to allow its intel gathering capability to be seamlessly passed on to other land and sea and air forces.

this is a contentious subject matter, imo.

we have satellites and other spy craft that can do that such as the E2-C Hawkeye.


OOPS - I got "word too long" on that link. Just google the hawkeye. it looks like a plane with a big disk in the middle of it.

Hawkeyes will get blown out of the sky if they get anywhere near a battlefield without a huge escort.

https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-quarterback-us-marine-corps-navy-2016-9

In the past, the Navy's E-2 Hawkeye played the "quarterback" role in this system as an "elevated sensor" that could see airborne threats at altitude, in orbit, or flying low like a cruise missile.

However the Hawkeye is an unarmed propeller-driven plane that only launches from aircraft carriers.

Now, the F-35 can do everything the Hawkeye did, and much, much more. For one, the F-35 is armed and can take out targets on its own. Secondly it is a stealthy, fast jet fighter that can slip in and out of enemy defenses unnoticed.

Third, it has the Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL), a system originally devised to communicate between F-35s that has now been expanded to participate in the NIFC-CA.

MADL provides significant advantages over traditional systems of transmission, namely that it's very difficult to jam. Adversaries have never seen anything like the MADL, and if they ever do figure out how to disrupt it, it will certainly take some time.

When the F-35 program reaches its maturation point about a dozen US allies will be flying the Joint Strike Fighter. They will all have the ability to contribute targeting data to their own fleets as well as that of allied nations. So an Australian F-35 could transmit data to a nearby South Korean Aegis-equipped destroyer and take out a distant target, no problem.

@AThousandYoung
thanks for that, aty, but let me ask you,, is the extra ability worth the extra cost?

many countries only wish they had a craft such as the hawkeye. It's the cost that has been questioned, not the ability

The post that was quoted here has been removed

we are in here to information share.
you're in here to find ways to take jabs at people, as usual

why don't you get the truck out of this thread and shut up. leave us alone.

@earl-of-trumps said
we are in here to information share.
you're in here to find ways to take jabs at people, as usual

why don't you get the truck out of this thread and shut up. leave us alone.

Some people, no names, no pack drill, have a pathological need to be right about everything and simply have to have the last word. Now who can resist not winding that up?

@earl-of-trumps said
@AThousandYoung
thanks for that, aty, but let me ask you,, is the extra ability worth the extra cost?

many countries only wish they had a craft such as the hawkeye. It's the cost that has been questioned, not the ability

Talk about fighting the last war...