RiiI was referring to more recent F-16 variants e.g. those with the reinforced spine, CFTs, etc., not the basic design. I thought that was obvious but apparently not. =/
One may criticise my preoccupation in this area but I would point out that it is not limited to American aircraft – I’m not a fan of the MiG-35 either and would much rather see further development of the MiG-29M2/K platform.
If US companies are able to build power plants that give airframe designers the ability to overcome some of those unavoidable compromises, why is that to be criticised?
It isn’t something to be criticised – or applauded – it simply ‘is’. The American circumstance of being able to solve problems by throwing money at them (a subject of direct relevance to the F-35 program ;)) becomes something to be criticised whenever someone *cough* hopsalot *cough* starts fapping about how American technology and American hardware is so much more amazing than anyone else’s.
And it’s not that non-US companies can’t build such power plants – EuroJet has had an EPE-like program for EJ200 on the cards for ages now – it’s that they don’t have the funds to do so and, secondarily, that there isn’t the same impetus for further development as Typhoon fairly screams as is. That’s the point.
Compare the Gripen and F-18F in terms of the ground attack capability they offer their operators right now.
Typhoon would be a better point of comparison, and this is precisely the point. Typhoon’s limitations relative to Super Hornet – lack of AESA, weapons integration – are a function of money, whereas Super Hornet’s limitations relative to Typhoon are intrinsic to the airframe. Imagine what Typhoon would look like today – or in 2020 – with American money behind it.
RiiWhile there are some exceptions this is not difficult.
I lol’d.
So why do the F-14 and F-15 get to be part of the same generation as the later and FBW- and/or LERX-equipped F-16/F-18/MiG-29/Su-27/Mirage 2000? The answer is because of US force structure and acquisition patterns and nothing more — nothing technological.
The moveable-canard jets are a full generation of themselves and the only reason they are not considered as such is because the US didn’t ultimately field any (although there were of course test programs such as F-15 S/MTD). Certainly the French didn’t bother to create Rafale just for the hell of it, nor would MiG-1.4x have been a mere side-step from Fulcrum/Flanker.
The use of ‘stealth’ as a defining characteristic faces pressure at both the lower and upper bounds: at the lower bound Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen and Super Hornet were all designed with RCS management in mind. At the upper bound all-aspect LO was not a requirement of ATF! Unless the suggestion is that if an aircraft that merely met the ATF requirements had been chosen it would’ve been on a generational par with the F-15 it was to replace! And of course if one over-emphasises stealth as a defining characteristic one ends up with the F-117 as a fifth-generation platform!
RiiTo be fair, Americans using advanced engine technology to compensate for terrible aerodynamics is beginning to be something to be something of a habit: -229/232s for ‘flying brick’ F-16s, F414 and then EPE for Super Hornet, F135 for F-35 and now (possibly) ADVENT.
Indeed, when one considers that said engine technology is a function of money and that said airframe design is largely a function of foolishness, one could say this is almost the quintessential American endeavour — overcoming stupid with money.
RiiThe Iranian account makes far more sense as an explanation for the material facts i.e. that this drone was fired upon on this day. And it’s not like the United States has any credibility in this respect either, with a long record of violating other nation’s territorial integrity incl. Iran (RQ-170 anyone?) and a similarly distinguished record of lying about doing so e.g. Iran Air 655.
RiiObviously they would be less than happy, but at the same time Iran has no legitimate reason to fly there, where as the US does have reasons to be flying in (the very narrow) shipping lanes of the Gulf.
I lol’d. Like they weren’t spying on Iran and wandering all over the border with Iranian airspace just to test the reaction. There’s a reason this drone got fired at and not others. Truth is the United States would absolutely flip its lid if other nations did to it what it does to everyone else on a regular basis. It can barely stand the existence of Cuba or the notion that other nations (e.g. China) are allowed to have their own navies and sail around their own backyards, let alone prowl up and down the US coastline!
Indeed we saw just how well the United States reacts to other nations acting the way it acts towards any number of other nations on a regular basis: we call it the Cuban Missile Crisis.
RiiIt appears to me that we have apparent generations of operational fighter planes based on major aqcuisition programs of the military while technology advances much more gradually and evolutionary.
Bingo. Something to keep in mind is that fighter generations do not exist, and it is not obvious that they should exist. They are an abstraction created to serve a particular purpose — that of allowing us to condense large amounts of information into a form that is easily comprehensible and manipulable (e.g. as a basis for comparison or to aid in the creation of narratives). This may be possible and useful, or it may not. “Make things as simple as possible — and no simpler” is the applicable refrain.
As a matter of historical fact we can observe that the western generation scale is based upon platforms and acquisition programs of the United States and indeed it works quite well within that limited context.
The major problem arises in that the United States fielded no equivalent to the Gripen/Rafale/Typhoon/J-10/1.44 series of aircraft, which certainly represent a generational leap over the teen-series and Fulcrum/Flanker (and of course, the -16/-18 and -27/-29 are themselves arguably of a different generation from the -14/-15), yet are denied the obvious ‘fifth generation’ moniker by virtue of that being reserved for the F-22 — indeed, LM marketing aside it is not obvious that Rafale/Typhoon should not be filed alongside the F-22. Additional complicating factors are layered on top of this by advanced developments of older aircraft such as Super Hornet and Su-35.
So there are serious problems with the generation moniker system. If one wishes to attempt to rectify its deficiencies, I think the first step is to formally dispense with two notions: first, that avionics and other changeable features are useful features of generation differentiation; and second and perhaps more controversially, to dispense with the notion that the generation nomenclature can be used as shorthand for the broad level of capability of a platform. To demonstrate the application of these concepts: F-16 Block 60 is of an older generation than Gripen A, yet this is no way to suggest that Gripen A is more capable than F-16 Block 60. Indeed, this is something we were already pretty comfortable with, but its a notion that tends to break down when we consider so-called fifth generation platforms, where in the case of the Raptor the generation distinction was and is seen to imply superiority over all platforms of an earlier generation. And this in turn is an understanding that many have a problem with when considering the F-35 as a ‘5th gen’ platform : the superiority of the F-35 over e.g. Su-35 or Typhoon is not nearly so uncontentious. There are at least two, possibly three different understandings vying for prominence in the generation moniker system as it is currently understood.
Of course the most compelling argument for retaining the generation moniker scheme in its present form is that there is a broad understanding of it — however problematic it may be upon closer examination. After all, the purpose of language is communication.
RiiBasically it’s the Allies and Axis powers from WW2. The more things change, the more they stay the same. 😉
RiiGee, maybe if the United States hadn’t spent trillions of dollars over the last decade bombing and assassinating brown people, building up a national insecurity state to rival North Korea, and buying useless crap like MRAPs it wouldn’t be in this mess. For some reason I ain’t seeing that angle from Fox. Talk about the kind of government inefficiency their crowd like to go on about tho: the problem has been coming down the pipe for well over a decade, hundreds of billions of additional dollars have been rolling into the department annually, and nothing has been done! :rolleyes:
Fox lobbing to downsize USAF? :dev2:
This is by far the most sensible solution. Don’t spend billions more keeping decrepit -15s and -16s in the air for another decade — get rid of them, get rid of the associated personnel, and get rid of the bases too! It’s a savings bonanza with negligible impact on national security. After all, it’s not like this is a temporary budgetary hiccup that’s going to be over in 5-10 years.
RiiJust wondering where you get that from ? Australia is not buying the US’
C-27J’s, they will be new build aircraft, or have I missed something ?
No, you’re probably right. I had read that the aircraft would be acquired via the US FMS system and put one and two together to get four. :p
RiiAnd your point is…?
There is no point; that was the point. Nobody with even a modicum of sense would suggest a correlation between an aircraft’s ‘quality’ and its export performance. And of course this is doubly true of an aircraft that hasn’t even been fielded yet.
It’s pretty hilarious to observe the circularity of the reasoning involved though: everyone should buy F-35 because everyone is buying F-35. I’d like to see how stevedickson‘s logic deals with Australia’s acquisition of ex-US C-27Js, as it suggests that either the Americans are stupid (for discarding the platform) or the Australians are stupid (for buying into it) or that there are additional contextual issues that need to be considered above and beyond the ‘material facts’, where all three options go to undermine the straight-line connection being drawn here between what various nations are doing re: F-35 and what they should be doing.
RiiThere is a completely different campaign philosophy when using a purpose-built stealth airplane compared to non-stealthy airplane.
And there is a completely different threat and conflict philosophy envisioned in advocating Gripen over F-35.
To quote myself from a few pages back:
On a related note, it often seems to me that when there is a debate here on a particular topic, what is at issue is often not the technical characteristics of the platform in question, but rather these broader issues of context, vision, and ‘agenda’. For example, in the thread about Gripen vs. F-35 for Denmark, inflammatory statements aside (e.g. “Gripen couldn’t penetrate its way out of a paper bag”) there is comparatively little disagreement as to the merits and demerits of the respective platforms; rather what is at issue is precisely those broader issues of national vision which shape the weight — or lack thereof — that one gives to particular technical or quantitative factors. Some people might see my bringing up issues of NATO policy as off-topic or unnecessarily controversial, but in fact I think they strike at the very heart of the debate, and that without this broader context one is forever chasing ghosts.
A four-ship of stealthy airplanes can choose to bypass many IADS elements, forgoing roll back, and go straight to the mission objective.
That’s convenient, because four is about the number of F-35s Denmark will have left after the other half-dozen are destroyed on the ground by enterprising insurgents.
(The point is not at all tangential: notice that I and others are not proposing Gripen for the United States; one of the reasons for that is precisely because even though the United States may not be able to afford the 2000+ F-35s that it wants, the situation for that nation is hardly such that it may not be able to afford enough to field a credible independent air combat force. For others, the costs of this unfolding debacle are more acute.)
RiiIf your only desire is to have an airplane that can haul JASSMs to a launch point while someone else targets for you, then use C-130s to haul your JASSMs.
Sure, the role of stand-off weapons in the limited context I am discussing would largely be limited to fixed, counter-value targets, i.e. deterrence value + infrastructure/logistics targets.
The alternative you propose in the form of the F-35 similarly fails spectacularly at meeting any number of functions — from intercontinental bombing to penetrating an advanced IADS (e.g. China’s) with reasonable probability of success. It does, however, succeed in reducing affordable numbers to the point where the notion of the nation as possessing an independent air arm becomes untenable.
To reiterate the point earlier: there are always trade-offs and limitations. The question of which to accept in preference to others is always a nuanced one.
RiiExit question: If the F-35 cannot handle it without “heavy” EW support, what chance does a 4th gen asset from a country that does not posses “heavy” EW support have? The last time I checked only the US and Australia have it in the F-18 Growler.
I would generally advise Denmark against unilaterally declaring war on Iran with or without the F-35.
RiiEven, playing the standoff game the F-35 is superior.
Of course it is: it’s twice the size.
Having your plane only able to attack with Cruise missiles limits you.
Everything comes with limitations and trade-offs. Responsible planning involves determining which trade-offs and limitations are acceptable. Refusing to accept the notion that maybe, just maybe, one can’t or shouldn’t try to do everything is what produced this mess in the first place.
In the case of F-35 vs. Gripen for small nations such as Denmark, the choice is between a token handful of fighters that can make CNN-worthy contributions to NATO ops — of course the national insignia will have to be painted larger than usual, else the camera folk might mistake one’s aircraft for American F-35s — or a significantly larger fighter force that has real operational relevance for such mundane military tasks as ensuring the territorial integrity of one’s nation and sovereign control over its airspace… and which can still contribute to NATO ops (in less glamorous ways) if and when necessary. Politics aside, it ain’t a tough call.
A Gripen with standoff JASSM/Stormshadow is NOT going to be cheaper than a F-35 with JSOW/JDAM.
No, but it’s cheaper the other 99.97% of the time.
RiiI want to put things into perspective here. We have a fighter that depending on fuel load should be able to carry a 2000-4000 pound A2G load into the heart of enemy air defenses traveling at mach 1.2. I was skeptical at 1st but then I remembered that the requirement for internal Jdam release at mach 1.6. While the F-35 is par for the course with the Griffin in a A2A configuration. It simply blows it away in strike performance. A subject that is hardly mentioned by Griffin supporters.
Supporters of Gripen as an F-35 alternative generally don’t envision much JDAMing, etc. going on. The limited strike requirements such supporters envision are expected to be filled by stand-off weapons e.g. JASSM.
If the claim is that F-35 is a much better aircraft than Gripen at kicking in the door against Iran (or whoever the villain of the week is meant to be) then sure, you’re not going to get much argument there.
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