Who did the evil :dev2: Americans nuke after the attacks on 11 September 2001?

In reality, nukes are useless because politicians will not use them. Response to an attack needs to be measured and appropriate.

The Iraqi adventure aside, did the intervention in Afghanistan require F-22, B-2 or F-35? Would it not be a capital waste to have F-35Bs being destroyed by mortar attacks in dissimilar conflicts? Is not an equal waste to use precious and expensive F-35 / F-22 flight hours, doing lazy circles in the sky, to attack an enemy without an Air Force or air defence? Would it have made any difference to 9/11 if the ANG or AF had F-35? Even during the cold war nobody came to the idea, that the USAF should only operate F-15s or the Navy only F-14s. Even then “legacy” (they were not called this) airplanes were kept to make up numbers and take on secondary missions. If one is honest there are only 2 enemies in the world, which might require a large fleet of 5th generation fighters and could field those themselves in any serious numbers. Those are Russia, China and India. The problem is those countries are still taking 4th generation fighters in numbers. And to strike a target that is protected by no CAP, because you are missing planes and pilots, even a 3rd generation plane will do. Same with a carrier. If you only can have a 2×2 BarCap airborne, (with 4 AAMs per plane or 16 in total), you are in trouble even if the enemy just attacks with 16 planes each carrying 2 ASMs. Could you have had 6-8 planes in the air with 6-8 AAMs each, you would look better. And if the enemy manages to attack with 18 fifth generation fighters, you are screwed anyway.

The fault can no longer be corrected. The utilisation rates are way higher than predicted, the replacement projects are taking longer and are more costly, the only thing on schedule is the refusal to take in new legacy airplanes to keep the fleet from getting too old. Only hard cuts can give the Air Force the budget flexibility need to modernize.

Therefore they need to cut hard.

Typical options

1. Withdraw all A-10 + B-1 + F-15C now
2. by the end of 2014 reduces C-17 units by 40% – use the airframes to balance the flight hours over a bigger fleet
3. cut the C-5
4. buy more F-35 and buy them faster
5. withdraw all legacies Herks asap. Sign a multi year contract for C-130J to replace those as needed
6. accelerate the new jet trainer program. The new jet (F-50 for example) could be the used in an armed version for many AFRes und ANG units for air policing duties and light support.

It is not a reduction, the French have made delivery slots available to export customers. Imho a sign that some deals are about to be signed. India, Qatar, Kuwait, Brazil and more probably.

Yes, ALQ-101 in the left front AIM-7 bay.

An MPA based on B737 (i.e. P-8) or A320 would have such a huge installed civilian base to draw on if needed that commonality within the RAF wouldn’t be very important. Spares are available OTS whenever needed. Skills are ubiquitous.

That is a good point. So an ATR-72 (600) based MPA could indeed be more economic than the C-295M which lacks the commercial user base.

Well training missions with the real airframes in use, will be a little complicated if you can not train in European airspace or need a huge exclusion zone for a long time. Currently even the USAF has rated pilots in command of the larger drones. The UK has a training program for drones lighter than 20kg afaik.

It will have to be seen if you can have a non-pilot UAV operator in Europe and be allowed to use civil airspace.

I miss the Britannia livery most. It was so iconic.