Sorry, but that attitude is absolute rubbish.

That’s not a attitude – it’s a statement of fact.

Sure, I don’t doubt that the USAF would have had a very rigorous “post mortem” analysis after the battle – like any professional organisation would. I never said there was nothing to be learned by studying the performance of men, aircraft and missiles on both sides.

The main thing to remember is, the Serbian air force was effectively neutralised as a threat to NATO air forces in 1999, if it ever was a threat. Who cares how many missiles were fired – they obviously did their job.

Amiga, you’re still claiming that American medium-range AA missiles have been an operational failure in the last 21 years or so – I don’t believe you.

Well, isnt F-16 called the Lawn Dart?

By whom, the people who fly it and work on it every day? Hardly. :rolleyes:

Aside from the obvious question of… WTF does combat experience have to do with his/her ability to engineer?!?
(in a VLO aircraft)

My point is, aerospace engineers don’t set the design requirements/specifications of new combat aircraft (they are usually not qualified to) – they fulfill them.

How’s it turn out? I really do believe the F-35 (and J-20) is the more appropriate comparison since the F-22 is pretty much irrelevant to the T-50. Raptor production has ended and even when it was still built no exports were permitted, so it is a complete non-entity on the international market… … Meanwhile for Russian domestic purposes about the only conceivable scenario where a T-50 would find itself fighting F-22s amounts to WWIII and the rather small fleet of ~180 isn’t going to seriously alter whatever the outcome of that is.

When do you seriously expect to see at least 180+ T-50s or J-20s in service around the world? I dare say a long time?

It surely is the TOTAL amount of money to be spent by 2020. Still TEN TIMES less every year compared to what the yanks are spending.

It maybe the overall complete spending on the “Ministerstvo Oborona” but it’s unlikely to be the amount projected spent on new aircraft.
Will America spend 720 billion dollars on new aircraft in the next 7 years?

Here’s an interesting link:

http://www.ng.ru/editorial/2012-08-14/2_red.html

Certainly – what was the actual life expectancy of a T-34 (or any other tank model on the Eastern Front, for that matter) out on the battle field though? Weeks? Days?

But how many kilometres would a T-34 have to travel under its own power before it was wrote of as a combat loss? How many spare engines, transmissions did they need?

Err, what’s all this got to do with the relative costs of F-35s and T-50s??:eek::eek: