Posted on 01/23/2015 1:19:39 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
"The moral is to the physical as three is to one," Napoleon said about the elements of military strength. Two signs that would make Napoleon worry.
First, the background. Two military airplanes are getting a lot of attention: the A-10 "Warthog"—"Honey Badger" would be a better name—a kind of flying tank that has been crucial in "close air support" missions from the first Gulf War onwards; and the F-35 "Lightning II," a still-in-development multi-purpose airplane that has been plagued by technical problems, production delays, and cost overruns.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
We should get rid of one and build more of the other.
Only, NOT in the order proposed by the government.
Let’s get rid of a hammer because the design is “old”.
The US Military, at the highest levels, needs a nuclear, A#1, top shelf, industrial strength enema.
How can describing the attributes of a forty year old airplane be ‘treason’? General Post needs to be promoted to ‘Retired’ as soon as is possible.
Three different types of data “massaging” are identified in the report: moving failures from one category to another, less important one; ignoring repetitive failures, thus inflating numbers of failure-free hours; and improper scoring of reliability. In all these instances, data reporting and processing rules were changed during the year for no other reason than to paint a more favorable picture.
How nice! Lying a$$holes.
I’d rather have one A-10 and and one F-4 in my arsenal than two F-35s.
Yes. He should go back to making cereal.
Or was that Mills?
Really? Because a 5th generation fighter would shoot them both down without ever being seen.
The F-35 gave up much in comparison to other fighters in exchange for stealth. As the F-117 proved, stealthiness has a shelf life. The technology of the F-35’s stealth may be obsolete long before we’d ordinarily retire the plane. Radar networking and computer power are increasing geometrically. Those are the enemy of stealth. Also, newer sensors focused on heat signatures and acoustics are coming online. Hooking those in with networked radars and faster computers may leave us with an extremely expensive turkey that can’t fly without an escort. Won’t that be great for stealthiness?
I have not see a proposed aircraft that provides close air support as well as the A-10 does. If I was SecDef, I would ask people to explain why we should by an airplane for that mission that is anything other than a new-construction A-10 built to the old plans. In the absence of justification for buying something new, I would short-circuit the bloated procurement process and request the purchase of 80-100 Warthogs. That part of the Air Force exists to support our ground forces, not as some sort of jobs program for crony capitalists in key congressional districts.
Going to The Atlantic about military affairs is like going to Vogue about animal husbandry.
Congratulations!
Okay.
And a Hummer is better than an old Jeep, but I still prefer the old Jeep.
That is precisely why we must ditch the old-fashioned A-10 and redirect those resources into buying many, many F-35s. Future enemies will be demoralized, deterred even, by a rain of red hot Titanium parts.
Test pilots are calling the F-35 “The Flying Piano” because it is about as airworthy.
About that opening quote, I used the search engine whose name must not be mentioned, and saw it spelled “moral” as well as “morale”. I have no idea which is accurate, but the meaning is different.
That is flaming nonsense, pal, and you are flat out wrong. I read the article. There’s nothing new in it at all except for the opinion of one retired and irrelevant officer. And 9 out of ten articles in The Atlantic are by any measure, nothing but navel-gazing wastes of neurons devoted to proving how intellectually superior the author(s) is/are for being able to so passionately discuss nuances only the author is capable of discerning. It’s intellectual masturbation of zero importance.
Source?
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