I thought the F-117 was great for its time.
We have new ways of doing things. Better ways. The slab sides of the F-117 were due to limitations in computer power back then. We don't have those limitations anymore, do we?
While we have made progress, so have our enemies. What worked once, may not work so well the next time.
Back in the 1920s the .50 cal machinegun was developed as a weapon against tanks. It was not effective in that role during WWII. The 37mm Hotchkiss cannon was the next thing. It was by 1942. the 75mm cannon worked in 1942. It was hardly satisfactory in 1943. The 3 inch cannon (aka 76mm) worked great in 1943. It didn't work very well in 1944, unless you worked really hard to get to the sides or rear of your armored enemy. The 90mm cannon worked very well in 1944 to 1973. Technology advances.
Imagine how the Chinese feel. Trying to catch up with minimal capability against a particular platform, then have the US throw it away because better is available. All their tactics (used by Serbs, by the way) and techniques now useless, and they get to start over.
And they get to do that again, and again. They may get discouraged. They may get replaced, after promising year after year that all the sacrifices will lead to some advance, and they year after year they are further behind, and with prospects of being even further behind further in the future.
If I was them, I would vote out the Commies. Wouldn't you?
Don't you think the Commies know that? They must always spend most of their defense budget on "internal defense", to protect the masters from their serfs. That is why they keep the old junkers. The old junkers are useful in putting down insurrections.
Indeed, it does, but the best is often not either deployed, or deployable. Period. And until it is fully deployed, not partially, but fully, we need to take force numbers very seriously as we are looking squarely at a force implosion on the U.S. side as the Defense Holiday continues essentially unabated.
Imagine how the Chinese feel. Trying to catch up with minimal capability against a particular platform, then have the US throw it away because better is available. All their tactics (used by Serbs, by the way) and techniques now useless, and they get to start over.
That would be very nice to frustrate them. I'm not so sure the F-22/35 or UAVs will be any more immune from detection by the passive radar approach. Of course, detection is not the same as accurate fire control. Which is where the F-22 speed comes in as an extra plus. By the time the Chi-Comm supercomputers have a good track on the bird...its already changed vectors, and moved on. No question the F-22/35 will be better than the F-117A. But what is looming is potentially near-term. And numbers will count.
You think the Jihadists are gloating over the U.S. election results? Just what do you think the Chi-Comms are doing?
If I was them, I would vote out the Commies. Wouldn't you? ?
Of course. But we don't get a vote over that. Neither do their people.
But production of those "new ways" is a very real limitation. A limitation which you have continuously ducked.
The F-117 has the virtue of being deployed. It's real. Its there. It has the extra virtue thereto of being a Deterrent. The Chi-Comms have to respect it. Whereas a paper threat...they don't...or at any rate won't. So if you want to prevent their launching war...stop defending the pell- mell...(and unilateral I might add)... disarmament.
Neither the F-22 (which is essentially not deployed for real with at best two wings available)...nor the the F-35 which doesn't even EXIST yet for all practical purposes...are available in the numbers which the F-117 affords us.