Posted on 04/27/2016 3:58:00 PM PDT by Chode
will an F-35’s weapons sound like somebody is opening Satan’s fly?
“...A SMART Air Force has three types of aircraft, fighter to fighter, fighter to ground and ground attack only
Under Obama, the world “SMART” has been obliterated from our military planning and leaders.”
MM is behind the times.
Under the leadership [sic] of the fighter pilotry, USAF has been busily turning itself into that three-airframe handmaiden of the backward-gazing, lumpen-traditionalist US Army that MM so worships, since 1992. The rest of USAF candidly derides the Langley Mafia as the overbearing egomaniac nitwits who don’t know their own job, and can’t follow their own rules.
Any modern military that restricts air power to the two-dimensional linear battlefield envisioned by Hudson High grads will eventually lose. Ideas that sprang from the minds of William Mitchell, Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin have yet to be tried.
I managed Mitchell Hall at Lackland AFB for a short time while awaiting appointment to another civil service job.
One time I was going through the attic and noticed a statue of Billy Mitchell. It was painted gold and he had wings like an angel. It was such an oddball thing that it was obvious why it was in the attic and not on display.
I agree. Why they never made an A-10 Thunderbolt III is puzzling.
Then, put ONE F-35 up against that number of A-10s.
AC-130 variants operate only at night due to vulnerability to most ground weapons.
Meanwhile back in the USSR, the A10’s counterpart, the old SU-25 gets upgraded to SU-25SM3
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3425400/posts
“Thus, the Soviet-era Frogfoot is likely to serve well into the 21st Century even while its American counterpart, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Warthog, is phased out of U.S. Air Force service by 2022.”
Agreed. But I don't think that is the point of this exercise.
They want to design tests that the A-10 can't win and the F-35 can't lose in order for them to be able to say, "See? We told you the A-10 is no longer useful. Now give us another $500 million."
What other reason would there be to hold these types of trials if not to drive another nail in the 'Hog's coffin?
Svartalfiar wrote:
The only competition the A10 will be allowed to win (to make it seem fair!) will be loiter time. No way they can fake a F35 win on that one.
Wanna bet? Have a crap ton of KC135 tankers parked over head for quick refueling.
Yes, that is basically what I said in my first post.
They will often show up at dusk and I can hear them circling this area for hours. Every now and then they will fly in the daytime. This one was circling and going in and out of clouds. Patches of blue and patches of clouds. It really was surprising how quickly they could disappear.
I hope this “showdown” is honest and without a pre-planned conclusion. It seems like comparing an apple to an overpriced 3 course meal made by 3 chefs who hate each other.
” ... One time I was going through the attic and noticed a statue of Billy Mitchell. It was painted gold and he had wings like an angel. It was such an oddball thing that it was obvious why it was in the attic and not on display.”
Statues of early airpower proponents are rare. Interesting contrast to USMA/West Point, where there are a number of statues of historical figures.
When Strategic Air Command stood down in 1992, all manner of chaos ensured in custody and positioning of organizational awards, trophies, keepsakes, and other public memorabilia (charges were threatened in one situation). Things grew rapidly worse when the SAC Museum (long an occupant of the east end of a disused WWII vintage runway, hard against the city of Bellevue) pulled up stakes and moved to a more complete facility some 25 miles southwest near Ashland) - on pain of confiscation of historical assets.
Bad blood was scented, though no non-rhetorical blood actually got spilled (that I heard of). Probably near-miraculous, in retrospect.
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