Posted on 12/03/2016 9:08:33 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
The custom-designed F-35 striker jets cost more than $100 million each ...
It is a military showdown that could prove to be very embarrassing. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the world's most expensive weapon, is set to face off in upcoming testing with the Air Force's 40 year old A-10 Thunderbolt II...
The F-35 is supposed to to take over the A-10's 40 year role of supporting ground forces with its titanium armor and powerful nose cannon. However, now experts believe that for many missions, the older aircraft may actually perform better - and say the two could even fly together in some missions.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Truly, part of the reason is that is is cheap and was designed a long time ago, and does not need to be replaced.
DoD, in large part, exists to spend money and provide jobs. They need to support a defense instrastructure (Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc.) For this to happen, money must flow. Lots of money.
What this means is that there is a strong incentive to always buy NEW things which are EXPENSIVE and which MAY NOT WORK. If you do this, money will flow and flow and flow.
A rock solid, cheap aircraft that was designed 40 years ago and doesn’t need to be replaced??? Who the heck wants that??
I can see the f35 in a wild weasel role. Maybe replacing the F16. But close ground support? Nothing like an A10 with a Spooky complement.
“The issue is with what the Department of Defense officials call the ‘brains’ of plane, also known as the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). A Government Accountability Office report says a failure ‘could take the entire fleet offline’ because there is no backup system.”
uh, so hasn’t EVERY alien-invader science fiction movie for the last 50 years shown that if you take out the centralized control of the “mother ship”, the mother’s duckling warships become helpless, either falling out of the sky or becoming helpless targets for the inferior earthling warships?
the perfect plane for bureaucrats. a multi pourpose plane seems good to bean counters but when youn try to do everything all you do is do it poorly.
Not long ago the F-35 went head to head air to air with the F-16. The 16 waxed the 35.
What *I* think:
The air force likes its sexy fast movers. It accepts bomb trucks. It HATES actually getting down and dirty.
Ground support is for some reason considered by some in the hierarchy to be far less glamorous.
The F35 can do some of the glamorous high speed at altitude stuff.
The system is in serial production for the Russian Armed Forces, with several ground forces and airborne formations receiving Verbas since 2014.[4] It first appeared with the Ivanovo VDV division after passing Army testing in the summer of 2011 and being confirmed for production in late 2011.[5] As of 2015, KBM has equipped the Russian army with three brigade and two divisional sets. MANPADS “Verba” passed state tests in 2011.[6][7] Officially, it entered service in 2015.[8] KBM signed a long term contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense to supply Verba and carries out its production.[9]
Just watched a show about the development of the F-16.
They recently had a Dogfight exercise against the F-35.
The F-35 lost handily. It couldn’t shoot down one F-16, but the F-16 could shoot down the F-35 with ease.
If the F-35 is supposed to attack other Fighters from miles away utilizing Missiles and its Stealth capabilities, why are they bothering fitting a Gun on it, ground attack?
Absolutely ridiculous using the $100 Million F-35 in a Ground Attack role. They might as well resurrect the P-47 if they kill off the A-10.
It was really neat to see it going down the runway, seeming way to slow to take to the air, have the gear retract from under it while it remained at the same level above the runway then do a hard bank as it began its climb.
If the replacement for the A-10 has a pilot’ seat (or any current generation combat aircraft for that matter), we are doing it wrong.
Then what about the B-52? That's positively prehistoric! And yet its future is almost unlimited.
Too bad we can't focus on military considerations and leave the politics out of weapons procurement.
“Cheap” is the operative word. Things that work AND are cheap tend to get short shrift in defense spending circles.
This is silly.
Once the deep penetration aircraft like the F-35 have taken out all air defense, and while the F-22 is flying for air supremacy, you can bring in the A-10 and B-52 and B-1B with heavy ordnance to take out armor and troop formations.
For congress to dictate a “fly off” between two aircraft with entirely different missions is nothing but absurd.
Also, the F-35 in a ground attack role can probably take out as many tanks as a single A-10 due to it’s precision weaponry.
6-8 at least.
I’m rooting for the A-10 a truly frightening aircraft...
“The F-35 has been bad from Day One. So the Air Force is desperate to keep it at all costs. Hey ... it’s multi-mission!”
The F-35 is the best deep interdiction and light attack aircraft in the world, and will be for decades.
Don’t measure it by any other standard.
Want to take out all the air defense installations and airfields near Pyongyang? No problem.
The F-35 will pave the way for B-52’s and B-1B’s.
The USAF does not want to do Close-Air-Support. Never have. They want to fly fast, and usually high. They will fly low if they are doing it very fast.
But the USAF is so parochial they will NOT give the US Army the A-10 and let them operate it. With the exception of one or two highly specialized aircraft for the Army, the USAF owns and pilots everything with fixed wings.
“Don’t measure it by any other standard.”
What? A self declaration is not how an aircraft is measure, it is by results. And how other aircraft achived similar results.
Has an F-35 flown a single combat mission yet?
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