Been there done that, 10 Years joint service. I don't know of any Army Ranger who would turn down an AC-130 of A-10...
Posted on 04/06/2009 10:52:31 AM PDT by jazusamo
In a blow to Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon has decided to purchase to end funding of the F-22 fighter jet.
The decision by Defense Secretary Robert Gates will rouse widespread opposition in Congress and is likely to bog down the 2010 budget approval process, with F-22 supporters maneuvering to secure more money.
The Pentagon will fund four of the radar-evading stealth fighters in the upcoming 2009 emergency war-spending request, but those additional aircraft will do little to keep the production line in Marietta, Ga., open beyond 2011. Lockheed Martin is the main contractor for the F-22, each of which costs about $140 million.
Gates announced the decision at a press conference on the Defense budget on Monday afternoon.
No money will be requested in the fiscal 2010 budget, congressional and industry sources familiar with the budget briefings told The Hill. Gates has been making calls to the chairmen of the congressional defense committees.
The final F-22 of the 183 currently on order will be delivered at the end of 2011. Building another four would keep the line open for only a few months beyond that end date.
Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors, including Boeing, in recent weeks have stepped up their campaign to keep the production line open. They argue that 25,000 people work directly for the 1,000 suppliers of the F-22 in 44 states, and another 70,000 indirectly owe their jobs to this program.
“Some of the same rocketscientists that cried bloody murder when the US Army chose to go with the Stryker instead of the friggin M113.”
Hey now.
The Stryker is a POS that doesn’t come close to performing as what was advertised.
The Army (Shinseki) intentionally skewed the testing to favor the Stryker by pitting it against a less capable M113A3. The Stryker was never tested, in an operational
environment, against the MTVL.
“I think South Korea has a few dozen F-4s in service”
Turkey still has F-4’s IIRC.
I know we still have a ton of them sitting around ready to be blown out of the sky as target drones.
“BTW, the Navy has it’s fair share of screw ups, too.”
Oh yeah they do. The recent collision they had is evidence of that.
I guess you never heard of the AC-130.
Or the A-10 for that matter
Sorry about that.
I was doing three different things at the same time.
Selling the F-22 to Israel would be like giving the blueprints to China.
Sell to Japan and maybe South Korea. Israel? Not until they tighten their export policies.
We are decades away from fielding an unmanned aircraft that can establish air supremacy. Current UAV drones are effective because they operate within a relatively short range and act primarily as surveillance craft. A remotely-controlled drone up against a live pilot in a Sukhoi or MiG would get destroyed in a blink.
Been there done that, 10 Years joint service. I don't know of any Army Ranger who would turn down an AC-130 of A-10...
The Army would LOVE an air wing, like the Corps has. BUT the Key West Agreement forbids them to have a fixed wing combat capability. You should know this.
During my time in Joint Service my CO was always a Marine. I have several medals awarded by Marines. I was with Soldeirs on the Front lines, patrol and all. I spent Float Time on the Enterprise. Helicopter assaults, etc...
When it come to CAS this isn't the Air Force you bad mouth. Ask a Green Beret or a Ranger who got a little CAS from an AC-130. Or an A-10 Pilot Those are the true believers.
If you did a little research, the Army has the most Assault Helicopters. I appreciate those guys. But no-one can't beat an A-10 or AC-130 when it comes to Time Over Target.
We have a winner for silliest assertation on this thread
Of course you can
Most contacts in Iraq and Afghanistan are initiated, prosecuted and completed without resorting to the use of airpower
Airpower is a tool, it gives an advantage
The airpower tools that us groundpounders appreciate the most are AC-130s and A-10s
None of which are in any danger from the Taliban air force
Argue the merits of the F-22 all you want.
But to say we couldn't prosecute CT ops without "air superiority" is just silly. Right now there's no enemy air force to fight against. Is 187 enough? Depends upon what everyone else does in terms of building force structure and where we think we'll be fighting
Normal attrition rate will have that down to about 160 in a decade through operational accidents.
Figure in operational readiness rates and we'd probably have 80-100 available to deploy to combat at any given time.
Enough to fight Iran - without a doubt.
North Korea, certainly
China? Maybe not, but then China doesn't have to go to war with us, they just need to call in their debt.
180 or so O/H may not be as much as the AF wanted but this program probably wouldn't have survived even under McCain.
As an Army guy I'm not busted up about the loss of the FCS. What concerns me more is the money saved on all these systems won't be reinvested in things we need or recapitalization of the worn out equipment. It will go towards Obama's great society.
I look forward to the whole sorry mess of warped thinkers like you are swept from the national scene.
Agreed. And the VERY FACT that this is the only country where a man like him could rise from such humble beginnings as a bi-racial, get an fine education, along with his wife's education at a fine college and become president...is something that should make him LOVE this country for the advantages he has had. But instead - No humbleness on his part, no appreciation from the Obamas. Only hatred and a penchant for destroying the very system that gave them these opportunities. It is disgusting.
It’d be ironic if China contacted Lockheed Martin offering to buy the F-22s the Pentagon doesn’t want.
Maybe.
Obama's been saying for two+ years now that he's not going to raise my taxes. Don't quite believe him yet.
Here I thought the F-22 program was a clear example of a shovel ready defense infrastructure high tech type of job that we all needed to stimulate the economy.
I guess we don’t need high tech manufacturing jobs for the United States, I guess the only jobs we need are one group of folks digging holes and another group to fill them back in....
B'zzzzt. Wrong again.
Your position is frankly worse than silly...and sounds Obama-esque. "Yes we can!"
But to say we couldn't prosecute CT ops without "air superiority" is just silly.
There you go again. Didn't say that. What I would say is that we never could have put your "groundpounders" into a position of utility in the first place but for that air superiority.
Then YOU CONTRADICT YOURSELF, when you admit that the: The airpower tools that us groundpounders appreciate the most are AC-130s and A-10s
Again...those particular tools are only viable under an umbrella of air superiority provided byu still other "tools" which are essential...precursors. In the Korean war ...our air superiority which should have allowed us to pound the Chinese off the northern peninsula...wasn't available...because it wasn't superior, or at least not enough. Because of the Russians sneaking in with their air superiority Migs. Totally changing the equation.
So don't so blithely start taking tools out of the belt...and throwing them away.
“We are decades away from fielding an unmanned aircraft that can establish air supremacy. Current UAV drones are effective because they operate within a relatively short range and act primarily as surveillance craft. A remotely-controlled drone up against a live pilot in a Sukhoi or MiG would get destroyed in a blink.”
You got that right. It seems that many well-meaning folks are under the impression that we are close to fielding all Drone Aircraft fighter squadrons. In reality, we have at least 20 years to make that possible.
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