Cuttnhorse QM2
Posted on 12/06/2017 7:30:02 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
I love your photoshop work and think that it is a big improvement.
If I would have read more of the article before commenting... I would have seen that every objection that I had was already included in the article in greater detail. Your points in previous posts are very valid as well. Occasionally something that looks like a duck and quacks like a duck or looks like a huge waste of taxpayer money actually ends up having redeeming qualities at some point.
Let's look at a quote from the military.com article...
"There are 419 things that we have yet to decide with the war fighters how we're going to fix them, whether we're going to fix them and when we're going to fix them," he said. The figure was three times higher a few years ago and "we think the technical debt that we have -- the deficiencies that we have -- are things that we can handle … within the next two years," he said.My emphasis. And BTW, it's been almost two years since the article was written. Note that the total was "three times higher a few years ago".
Time to read some current articles if you're going to opine.
Time to swallow some more Pentagon propaganda
LOL, I admit to being somewhat skeptical about the utility of the Zumwalt class (I didn’t have much respect for Zumwalt, and the ship is a real challenge for me) but I do know that a lot of money is expended on ship designs to include things like chaff dispensers, radar countermeasures, etc. which all serve to obscure or diminish the target cross section, and all of which may or may not work given the deployment circumstances or changes in technology.
If it is true that they can reduce the RCS small enough that a missile with terminal radar-based homing may have difficulty locking on...maybe it is worth a shot to see at a large scale.
Maybe...
According to the Pentagon, nearly 200 F-35’s will never be combat coded because the software can not be updated.
I will grant him his credit. My error.
Granted, I couldn’t read one link because it requires membership, and I cannot ever regard anything Popular Mechanics prints as fact worthy any more, but the gist I got is that we are building planes to one specification, the build is changing as the time line moves forward, and everyone involved accepts that with the understanding that at some point in the future, the earlier models will be upgraded to meet the specs of the later models?
And the main concern is that the money is never going to be available?
I ask that, because in reading the article, it did not say they COULD NOT be brought up to spec at some point to the current specs as they are being built now because it was a physical impossibility, but because additional funds would need to be spent to make it possible.
Did I read that correctly?
If so, it is interesting, because this is exactly what we did with the B-29’s in WWII. With the B-29, they recognized immediately that with all the changes taking place constantly on the assembly line because the design was so incredibly advanced for the time, that if they waited until everything was set, they would never get the plane in the air dropping bombs over Japan.
So they essentially made the same compromise, and figured out ways to retrofit them, at intermediate way stations as they they were being delivered, or ultimately, even on the runways in the Pacific. So many of them were flown that were inferior (often in dangerous ways) to those coming off the assembly line at a later time (think measures to prevent the engine fires).
If the fear is that no money will EVER be made available, I wouldn’t hang my hat on that.
Really? The article you linked says:
Hundreds of F-35s may now never be made combat-ready due to budget constraints
It's worth discussing whether limited rate production during development is a good idea, but those 200 F-35s could give upgraded given enough money. The question is, is it worth it?
They can still be used for training and spare parts...the total buy here in the US is supposed to be over 2400 F-35s.
I assure you that I am not offended by your comment because I think I understand where you are coming from. But we personally do know a member of the Zumwalt family. We care about her and respect her greatly. We last saw her a month ago at a Veterans Day event put on by one of our local VFWs. The Zumwalts are unquestionably a great and patriotic family. I will not go into detail, but ironically the ship seems to have some parallels with some of the family members which probably only those who are acquainted with them would recognize.
Recently in the news; The five-day drills that began Monday involve more than 200 aircraft, including six U.S. F-22 and 18 F-35 stealth fighters. I guess they are ready for combat now.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-flies-1b-south-show-force-korea-51606409
I don’t have any knowledge what the Admiral was like personally at the time he was making all his changes (acknowledged it was a difficult time) since I was a young teenager, but my dad and his associates were career military and I read the magazines avidly (Proceedings, etc) and they did not (overall) appreciate the direction he took the Navy in or how he did it. (I note that my father was very close-mouthed about these things, or just about anything, but the conversations that took place in his presence were NOT...)
I definitely took my cues from my dad and his associates, and later when I joined, from the lifers there before me.
I should reexamine my stance on him. It is like an opinion made under glass, when one is a child without any context or real world experience.
Those few years he was CNO were among the most difficult faced by our Navy, and I do have to respect a man who rose to that position at such a young age (he didn’t appear to be a total political animal). In thinking of it now, I wonder how much the resistance to his policies were based on that alone.
Those are handsome vessels.
THAT is a Greyhound.
My dad was XO on the USS Bristol (DD 857) during the Cuban Missile Crisis...I have always loved that class of destroyer. They seemed very well designed.
Sigh. That segment of US history and warfighting is virtually unknown to 99.9% of Americans today.
It was brilliant and heroic warfighting in the face of hopeless odds, in a situation on a grand scale, rife with human error, emotion, anger, fear, and joy.
I often wished, with the CGI available today, that they could make a great movie about the Battle of Leyte Gulf in its entirety.
I guess they are too busy making movies about fake superheroes to recognize the real ones that have walked the earth.
Build subs with lots of cruise missiles.
We have no personal knowledge of what the Admiral was like either other than what he wrote and what others have written about him. We have never discussed this with the family member we know. We do know that the Zumwalt family has had members serve in every American War since the Revolutionary War.
The Admiral's surviving son, Lt. Col. (Ret.) James G. Zumwalt has written several good books and many articles on foreign affairs. My favorite quote from him is, “Iranian Nuke Site Like Barack Obama’s Original Birth Certificate – All Inspection Efforts Rejected”.
It is always a good idea to reexamine their long held opinions every once in a while. We were blindsided by the actions of the Bush's and others over the past couple of years. We thought we knew something about their beliefs and character. But then there are other historical figures who we have had low opinions of who turn out to be much better than we originally gave them credit for. It might be the same with the Zumwalt class “destroyers”.
I do apologize for taking the conversation off track.
It’s ALL on track here on FR! And...valuable to me...so thank you.
the Israeli assessment at IOC:
“”It’s all concentrated on one table for us. As we all know, the F-35 can reach places in a way that others can’t. But in addition, it integrates high-level operational capabilities as well as the ability to read and analyze a battle map. The earlier, fourth-generation jets are excellent at maneuvering and activating sophisticated weapons systems, but they are not able to collect intelligence and independently analyze battle movement. The F-35 can do all this by itself in real time, with only one pilot sitting in the cockpit. We have never had such an operational capability until today. Until now, attack aircraft were operated independently of air support aircraft. The former waited to receive analysis of the battle picture that came from the latter. But in the F-35, everything is on the same platform, and this is no less than amazing. When you connect that to several aircraft, you receive strategic capability for the State of Israel.”
This platform was designed as a strike aircraft. And it is superior to any in its class.
Its sensors and fusion technology exceeds that of the F-22, and when flying together the F-22 will leverage the F-35’s view of the battle space.
When flying alone as a fighter it will detect hostile aircraft and launch against them before the bad guy even knows he is there.
But its forte is deep interdiction and strike.
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