ELPThe only advantage is that the SH is carrier capable, and the two engine issue and how you feel about that. If I don’t need that, I don’t need to spend extra $$$ on paying for extra engine infrastructure. That also eats into the cost per year to maintain. If you get an F-18E/F and face a modern air threat, you will have to turn right around anyway and buy a jet that can do air domination, cause it ain’t the jet.
F-16 crashes come in a few flavors… many being pilot error or formation mid air. When it comes to engines… like the Italy lease for example. Those old engines were never meant to be completely refirbed 5 and 6 times.
A new off the shelf F-16 of the Block 60 variety has most of the structure stuff figured out. ( Structure issues also came in many flavors ) Make mine a Block 60, CFT capable, redo the hard points on the wings that would take wing tanks and smart bus them so they can take PGM racks ( i.e. no wing tanks ) Quad rack for SDB, and twin rack for GBU-12, JDAM-32-35-38 ), triple rack for JCM ( Joint Common Missile ) when it comes on line. SNIPER-XR / PANTERA for the Pod. Pretty good deal. Cheap to operate if you reduce crash risk by keeping away from formation mid-airs, NVG training, and don’t major overhaul an engine more than 3 times.
Any additional force structure I would add to support the F-16 would be A-45C UCAV and EA-45 UCAV for ECM/ELINT.
ELPTypical hollywood, rip off a story from a dead writer so you don’t have to worry about paying that writer or getting sued by them. 🙂
It was an OK movie.
ELPas for america’s involvment. well that is far from a sure thing mate. the US has little to gain from fighting for taiwan and alot to loose, and only a fool would think that the US will fight for a people halfway around the world regardless of its national interests. do you think the american ppl will stand to have thousands to tens of thousands of body bags come home just to fight for a territory that not even the US accpet as an independent nation? :rolleyes:
if the US was really that committed to fighting for taiwan, then it would have encouraged taiwan to seeker formal independence long ago. instead, you have successive US presidents demanding that both sides maintain the ‘status quo’. why? because its not in america’s best interest to fight china.
Well, as mentioned already, there won’t be any fighting. Reasons as mentioned that too many have too much to lose. Having said that, China if in a complete fantasy ( and it would have to be a fantasy because any overt action is a long term loss ) strike on Taiwan, would mean China would be hurt from a distance, without the need for any U.S. military standoff in the traditional sense. There would be a lot of oil and resources that ship to it by boat that just would no longer get there. It would be economic ruin for the current economic model it has. World banks tied up in China would be goofed bad, so no matter where you are, expect your stock portfolio to take a rather large hit. China would be treated like a leper but other economies around the world would suffer also. Again, a loser scenario all the way around.
ELP“Since 1992 the Pentagon has known that in a close-in dogfight the Su-27 would smear the F-15. That year Russian Sukhois came to Langley AFB and showed us their stuff.
Yet you can’t find anyone that has confirmed this. There is no one in the Eagle community that knows anything about this and more than a few that said this ( BFM, ACM ) never happened that year. Good sensationalism though to sell print space, but short on fact. They may know that the big SU was threat in many areas,but claiming there was organized BFM/ACM that year is pure fabrication.
Oh yeah, the Taiwan straits sabre rattling is not only getting old, but unrealistic.
ELPEven though it didn’t start out as one, it was the first truely successful Joint Strike Fighter.
ELPWas it a new J model ?
ELPYou could do it, the problem is, why would you want to? High-off-bore-sight advanced optical heat seeking missiles made by the U.S., Russia, Israel, etc. etc, make turning to the nth degree in WVR of questionable value.
As we have seen already, the F-22 can lock up and get a reasonable PK against a conventional design jet like the F-15 before the F-15 even detects it. One thing the F-22 allows for is to get closer to get a better chance of a kill. As kill records show, the farther away you shoot, the more you miss. Also though, there isn’t any need to get too close, especially when most big air forces are going to have high-off-bore-sight advanced optical / heat seeking missiles.
ELPHowever, it will not be based on need. It will rather
be based on gestures of goodwill, friendship, “mutual trust”, and it will be
based on warming of relations between the two nation.
Right before Tieniman Square, We had full tours going for the PLAAF here in the states, touring bases and wings. Hung out with some for a few days as we took them around the states on a KC-10. The PLAAF and USAF were on the way to being best buddies. Got a tie clip given to me by the then head of the PLAAF. Post Tieniman, that all ended. The “need” then, was the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Both the U.S. DOD and PLA / PLAAF were willing to play each other to get what each wanted.
ELPYup, pretty poor article. It has power in A2A. Thats nice.
More important though is the range vs. supercruise vs executing several sorties per day to hit ground targets in a stiff air defense environment, to wear down those AD assets so that other jets like B-2 can press. THAT is what is extra important about this system. Again, as part of a complete team, it is very very dangerous in it’s ability to take down certain ground targets in a stiff AD environment those first few nights of a war, and not much will stop that from happening.
ELPGermans had some great engineering.
Project management on the other hand could be a problem-
— RAF hits the dams with the dam busters…. German response- lets waste man hours and resources on testing the circular bomb.
— RAF Mosquito- Germany response- maybe we need one too. 😀
— Allies bomb Schwienfort to reduce ball bearing production — Germans go into a panic and order a complete inventory of all available ball bearing production capacity — answer- Current ball bearing production is too much by as much as 3 times:D
If they didn’t waste so many resources on so many different projects ( many of dubious use ) then they would have been even more of a problem. Their poor project management, fortunately made our job a bit easier.
ELPLike I said. According to that sketch: Poor design- No movable tail ( instead of the separate elevators shown above ) means once you go past mach one you won’t be able to do any course correction with that thing without massive trouble and/or the craft tumbling and breaking up. Not to mention the baby steps you need ( lots and lots of testing) just to get the basics down to where it has a hope of flying. Add to that one of the late war Furher directives that stated, that if you couldn’t R&D a weapon system and get it out into the field in 6 months it wouldn’t be approved. And as mentioned already, ballistic bombing from that altitude would be a miracle; like a dog laying an egg. Good luck. At the end of the day, all it is, is a piece of artwork, with just initial concept, some lab testing and no flying. Herr Dr. Sänger would have found all that out I am sure if it was tested for real. If you have a separate tail like that, it has to be “movable” to control the craft at just under mach one and above. We found this out in 1947.
ELPAgain for the short sighted: Things that would have made any suprise near impossible:
-SLAR recon over the horizon several times a day
-ELINT/COMINT/SIGINT traffic monitored
-Potsdam treaty- Both sides had military people in cars that drove around in east and west germany.
Good luck on there being any suprise.
ELPIf that fantasy art means anything, I guess it was a one way mission. That shape wouldn’t survive the heat/speed/re-entry.
ELP. The X-35 is not needed?? How can you say that? .
Depends what you want. Do you want an endless chain of expeditionary warfare like what has been going on since 1991 or not?
With new technology’s some already being used, we can use mass punitive power against any nations airpower as is. We will still have this for years and years and years without spending money ( 240 plus Billion on JSF ) As shown already, I don’t even need JSF.
Strat strike DMPI’s for first few nights
F-22 JDAM-32, 35, 38, SDB
A-45 JDAM-32, 35, 38, SDB, JCS
EA-45
EB-52
B-2 JDAM, JSOW, GBU-37, SDB
—-
Also, Tomahawk, JASSM and decoys
Killing down conventional forces ( before friendly troops ( if used ) make contact ) after large SAMs, airpower, AD networks have been killed down:
F-16 Blk 5x, Blk 6x
F-18 E/F
EA-45, A45
EB-52 B-52
B-2
Apache/Cobra
— JDAM, LGBs, JCM, WCMD, Dumb iron, M77
CAS same as above ( and as for the “boots on the ground BS”. ) I don’t believe in putting any troops down, anywhere, exept in the case of where we intend to keep the ground permenantly ( unless we are going to start up a 51st state somewhere…. forget troops on the ground ).
A-10 mod’d and used for ( ? ) years.. ( don’t know and don’t really care )
F-15E and B-1 retired by 2020-5, replaced by FB-22
Like I said. We can fight a war without JSF. It is a waste of money. I am sure though that our congress, stupid as they are, will make sure the endless cycle of expeditionary warfare ( read stupid nation building nonsense going on in a very long list of countries today.) and the military industrial complex which kickbacks to congress will go on and on and on, so unfortunately the odds of JSF being canceled might be low. Then again maybe not. I am an optimist.
ELPCrobato, Elp.
After reading on your views on specializatoin versus “joint”, multi-role, etc.
Do you both feel that the Swedes got it right with the Viggen, seeing as how it was essentially the same airframe (or at least similar).. that had multiple models specialized for certain roles?
I couldn’t comment on the Viggen. Don’t have any good first hand knowledge.
I don’t have a problem with joint jets. Sounds like a great idea. I just don’t think the JSF is it, but more important, I am looking at real need over the long haul. We are also reaching the point to where multiple overlap in missions from the services is coming to a head. We have 3 services that engage in some sort of fixed wing CAS. If it is so important for the pork lobby to have JSF and waste tax payer money, then I suggest that the JSF goes only to the USN, the USMC gets out of the fixed wing biz and USAF provides some CAS where possible. Something has to give. And I know ( less JSF means less “savings” because of a lower number. ) I can do better: Cancel it.
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