[Southack]

"DDX (apparently) cancelled ping! Weird, and abrupt, development, considering just some months ago the navy had decided to give the project a go-ahead. Some recent FR threads on the DD(X):"

The DDX was a technical solution (long range **inert** projectile delivery) looking for a problem that doesn't exist (delivering ordnance on target anywhere in the world is **NOT** an issue for U.S. military forces today).

In other words, a cool ego project for the brass/Senate...but hardly something that helps fight terrorists or defend Taiwan/Israel from a blitz.

Likewise, the F35 is freaking **MANNED**!

We've got the F22. We've got the B-2. We've got the B-1 and B-52. We've got F-15's and F-18's and F-16's.

What can the above not do that the F35 could?!

So there again, the F35 is a technical solution looking for a problem that we don't have. We already hvae global air superiority. The F35 gives us nothing that we don't already have.

...And the F35 looks positively antiquated going up against future swarms of thousands of enemy UCAVs.

So the F35 gives us nothing today and is obsolete tomorrow.

Ditto for the whole Eurofighter/JSF nonsense.

Kill those boondoggles; kill them all.

[Rokke]

"(delivering ordnance on target anywhere in the world is **NOT** an issue for U.S. military forces today)."

Good point.

"What can the above not do that the F35 could?!"

Remain maintanable for another 30 years and integrate into current and future theaterwide data and battle management systems.

[PAR35]

We've got the F22. We've got the B-2. We've got the B-1 and B-52. We've got F-15's and F-18's and F-16's.
What can the above not do that the F35 could?!

Short take off/vertical landing.

Do you have any more easy to answer questions?

[burzum]

Likewise, the F35 is freaking **MANNED**!

Isn't the F-22 already limited so that its turns don't knock out the pilots? I agree with you on the UAV idea. Enemy aircraft against a programmed UAV would be like playing against a chess computer on the hardest setting. Every slight mistake from an optimal battle plan against a much more maneuverable UAV would be death for enemy pilots.

A stealth UAV fighter is a very interesting idea. Without the need for life support systems and the willingness to easily perform *suicide* missions if necessary would make it an incredibly lethal aircraft.

The next 30 years of weapon systems are going to be very interesting. U(Aeronautical, Underwater, Nautical, etc.)V's are going to keep programmers busy trying to optimize them. Would you like to have a dogfight if you knew Deep Blue was in the other cockpit?