Any news or updates on the MMRCA purchase?

Contract negotiations are apparently complete. There won’t be any further updates until after the election.

The DOD does not hold the purse strings. I think that one way of cuts occurring will be by Congress restricting funds.

Congress will be a force for maintaining production, much as they are a force in maintaining B-1s, A-10s, etc. that USAF would like to retire. The services can well enough come to the conclusion that there are better things to spend their limited funds on than F-35s, but actually putting that intro practice is difficult because it means some existing aircraft — squadrons, in turn associated with bases — will retire without replacement, which is a problem for any politician with a base in their district, particularly poorer districts where federal funds make an out-sized contribution to the local economy.

It’s kind of ironic that a large proportion of the almost inconceivably enormous resources of the US military is tied up in areas where it is very difficult for the services to make changes even if they wanted to (and to be fair they often don’t). So when they’re forced to cut, the burden falls not where it makes the most sense, but where it makes the least trouble for vested interests, which — once you get past operations-level stuff — is usually R&D.

Of course every other nation deals with the same kinds of problems, but the issue is more acute for the United States precisely because of the incomparable size of their military-industrial-political complex, which hampers the ability of reformers to bring meaningful and lasting change to the system as a whole.

I wonder if this is a permanent reduction in the orders which the DoD was adamant would not happen.

Pretty sure that cut came ages ago (and therefore doesn’t count, in the same way that the program can be said to be on schedule — according to the schedule published last month). I doubt there will be any more official cuts even though the services will end up with far fewer aircraft than planned. They’ll simply produce them, at the rate they can afford, until they don’t. That 2xxx number will be around right up to the point that acquisitions cease and some low-level flunkey crosses it out and replaces it with a different number, by which time everyone involved in the inception/structuring/justifying/selling/etc. of the program will have long since retired.

It’s hardly likely that RCS and thermal signature would be reduced by the same amount is it? The statement is just about useless in terms of assessing what has been achieved with the aircraft I think. That said, it is news to me that they were attempting to reduce thermal signature at all, unless this is simply a welcome side-effect of the switch from RM12 to F414.

Pretty sure the radar and associated systems are to be Indian in origin. No word on how this project affects the prospects for additional orders of either the Phalcon or DRDO/Embraer platforms, but given the likely timeframe I don’t imagine it closes the door on either.

The LCS is a modern imperial gunboat designed to pacify the natives and as such I take no small pleasure in the fact that it seems to be falling flat on its face. But this talk of using it as a ‘real’ warship is something else.

If the LCS can sustain 40knts on the same bearing the torpedo has only a 10knt overtake. So, if its fired from 10 miles away it’ll take an hour (and 50 miles running) to close the gap…

… if the LCS detects and reacts to the torpedo launch instantly, already has the torpedo astern, and accelerates instantly to 40kts, sure…

I’m not trying to be a smartarse: what are some realistic numbers/assumptions to plug in here and how greatly do they affect the scenario you’ve outlined?

USN of course (those modern designs aren’t made in the USA)

I think even USN would prefer to license-produce a more modern design from elsewhere. Still, that would be a lark … a decade of work and billions of dollars down the drain only to return in the end to a forty year-old platform!

Of course that’s basically what happened with Zumwalt… and sort of what happened with Seawolf… and the EFV … hmm, I’m not sure USN is very good at this.

Just Build new ones with 2014 tech….. Move 76mm gun forward. VLS for the rest of the missiles. Magazine in old gun position. Another where the MK13 was.
LCS program.. what a waste of money.

Who would buy when there are any number of more modern designs around?