Posted on 02/04/2010 5:54:00 PM PST by Kaslin
Defense: The administration decision to scrap a proven aircraft in favor of a supposedly cheaper, more flexible replacement is proving to be an expensive mistake. We may wind up defenseless and broke.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was supposed to be America's frontline fighter for the foreseeable future is in big trouble. Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the general in charge of the program this week amid concerns of spiraling costs and program delays.
Gates also announced he is withholding $614 million in fees from the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin. Daniel J. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin's project managers, has acknowledged that the program is running at least six months behind schedule.
Gates was questioned about the program at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. He said he was unaware of a report by a special Pentagon assessment team in late 2008 that found development of the plane could be delayed by 2 1/2 years with $16.6 billion in cost overruns. Judging by his decisions, he is not unaware that the F-35 program, designed to fill the needs of all three services, is in trouble.
After hearing Gates' testimony, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said: "I'm still concerned about whether the services will get the (Joint Strike Fighters) when they need them."
He's right to be concerned: Further program delays will drive up per-unit costs, the wings are literally falling off our F-15s and F-16s, and the administration has killed further production of the F-22 Raptor. With what will we fight?
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
The F-35 Navy version is way over weight, over budget and way behind schedule. The F-22 may be the last fighter we ever build.
Thanks for that image.
The problem isn’t Gates, it’s his boss.
I am now in Bizarro World. Forget that the main mandate of the Fedgov is to protect its citizens/nation.
Agreed, from an old aviation sailor.
Really? I thought "Tailhook" just killed the inherent strength/comraderie of the aviation community through political correctness. Didn't realized or I forgot it affected a particular aircraft.
As and ex-aviation flight deck sailor I said, "Gawd too bad for the whiny little girls who wanted to be part of the boys club and got their asses swatted in some hallway just like the guys did." Too bad the little girls never got their wings pinned on to their chest (not breast). Then they would have known what it meant to be an Aviator.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they can fly the aircraft. That was never the issue. It was about fitting in.
My first Navy experience with women first being placed on ships. My FF was tied up outside a supply ship (with female crew members) and I was standing in line for the launch to Diego Garcia when a sailor walked by a female sailor and simply said how pretty she was. He didn't stop to flirt, just made the comment and kept walking.
All hell broke out from some female Chief and the tender Master-At-Arms was notified and responded. The poor guy was pulled out of line (forcefully) and taken away. I never found out what happened to him, but we later heard he got a Captains Mast for harassment.
From that point on, I knew it to be the start of the "feminization" of my Navy. Now they are on combat ships. And what has resulted? When they don't want to deploy, they get female problems, or cry family problems, or worse intentionally get pregnant. And who picks up the slack in their divisions? Take a wild quess.
Women were never meant to serve with men on combat ships. We can thank old Patsy Schroeder for that one, and the weak Navy chain of command.
Now they want them on submarines? Let's stop and think about women being billeted on Tridents, our ultimate nuclear deterrent. The close proximity to each other; the distraction between the sexes which adds to sexual distraction; the flirting at the least; the low morale of Men of Honor who have the ultimate respossibility of NUKING a nation/region? As accomplished as the female Sailors could be, the distractions are a real possibility and not something you want on a machine that could destroy half the planet.
Yeah, okay, put females on attack subs, same problem to a lesser extent.
Women should hold down valuable stateside or tender jobs and not distract the men from their jobs. My position and it will always be. Not be cause I'm old school, because I've see problems.
Last point: Gays in the Militay. I stand by DADT! Even after all my years I've been gone from the Militiary, I quarantee that won't work in the confines of a Navy ship.
It might work in the barracks of the Army or AirForce, but Sailors and Marines live and even share bunks and it just won't work. Of course, we're told all the time that the new ships have female quarters. Do our Admirals and Generals, lower Captains/Coronels really believe the teenage boys and girls are not going to connect?
Is our chain of command so clueless or do they just don't care anymore due to political correctness? Either way, they are heading down a road that will negatively affect their operation capabilities.
Glad I left the Navy after 11 years. Wanted to do at least 20, but I saw the writing on the wall and took a better opportunity when I saw it. To bad. I would have been so proud to retired as Chief Petty Officer (E-7) or higher.
Not to mention that the craft it was replacing, the CH-46, was MORE dangerous than even the pre-fix Osprey.
At least when the engines quit, the Osprey can either autorotate or glide to a landing. The CH-46 mostly just falls out of the sky.
A agree totally!
(s)General Patton was sent to Obamacare reeducation sensitivity camp (/s)
Since when were Russia and India our enemies?
It was faster and stealthier.
Why does the F/A-18 suck? The F-4 was not a good choice as a fighter. Too much drag.
Yeah, okay, put females on attack subs, same problem to a lesser extent.
Boomers (Tridents) have two crews and set schedules for the most part. Their quality of life is much, much better. Fast attacks never leave or return on the day they are supposed to. The quarters are more cramped and hotracking is mandatory every time you leave port. For every women you put on a fast attack at least three men are forced to share time in bunks. Probably more since you obviously can't have mixed berthing. Fast attack crews do much more of their own maintenance than boomers, so they have much longer working hours in port. And yes, I was jealous of living conditions on boomers.
MM1(SS)
Absolutley NO legs ya have to tank and tank the thing to get it anywhere!
Don't forget the women who WILL have affairs with superiors for the purpose of using that to get favors and/or escape discipline.
And the sociopathic woman who is deliberately promiscuous so that they can provoke fights among the men and watch them fight over her.
What about China? What if the Chinese were to decide to do something about Taiwan ...you think the A-10 would be worth anything at that point? The A-10 is a wonderful airframe, but against a near-peer adversary, and without air superiority/dominance ensuring that the skies are effectively sanitized, the A-10 would be useless (you read that right). It's amazing success against the Iraqi army/Republican Guard does not mean that that success is scalable anywhere. During the Cold War Apache pilots and A-10 pilots used to quip about which airframe would be the first to be brought down. Against a near-peer adversary the airspace needs to be sanitized, or else even the venerable A-10 (which is great against ZSU cannon rounds and the odd manpad SAM) would be facing double-digit SAMs and BVR AAM shots.
Furthermore, without an advanced IADS penetrator like the F-22 Raptor (the only fighter jet that can penetrate sufficiently double-digit SAM imbued advanced IADS like the S-300 systems in China due to a mix of its stealthiness, which allows it to get closer than other fighters, and its supercruise, which enables it to extend the range of a JDAM for instance significantly), how would the US survive in a region where the Chinese owned (Russian made) S-300 systems have a range that touches Taiwan itself?
I understand that love people have for the A-10, and particularly after what it did in Iraq, but people need to understand that the US will not always be fighting camel-boinking Mecca worshippers. Sometimes you have to fight a real foe that thinks with his head.
China is developing its own 5th generation fighter (the J-12/13/JXX), and even if it is a 10th of what the Raptor is, the sheer numbers of the type (plus enhanced legacy fighters such as advanced variants of the J-10, and the upcoming SU-35 with AESA radar and low supercruise) will make it tough for anything that is not a Raptor.
Bottom line ...if all the US plans to fight is camel boinkers believing in the mothers of all wars, then the A-10 is all that is needed. However, if for a moment there is a chance we may face a near-peer opponent (or even a lower tier nation that has access to modern weapons like double digit sams), then something that has far greater bite and growl is needed, and in such an environment the only thing in the A-10 that would survive is its titanium bathtub.
The A-10's success stems from the fact that there are jets above it that shoot down anything ....way before ....that could have threatened the A-10. That allows the Warthog to go and rout the great unwashed. Take away air dominance and the Warthog wouldn't have survived Saddam's SAMs, let alone advanced double-digit SAMs decades advanced over what Saddam had in 91.
You must be really blind.
Patton was un-PC, even for his day. But our own military knew how good he was, and that the enemy feared him. If you watch the movie with George C. Scott, you will notice some fiction and "Hollywood license" if you compare every detail against the historical record.
But, a lot of that movie was accurate, because General of the Army Omar Bradley was the technical advisor for the movie.
You couldn't get more "from the horses mouth" than that. This makes that movie solid gold, historically. From that, and from many books and diaries on the subject, we know that Patton would not have put up with the PC crap that is being pushed today. Not for a minute. He was a man of ideals, but also great principle who cared about his men, victory, and Western values.
Moreover, Patton wasn't afraid to tell anyone off who he felt was wrong. When Bradley wouldn't let him exploit the German rout from Normandy in the late summer of 1944, Patton told them straight out was a mistake it was. In context, Patton was completely correct, and almost every historian will agree that had Patton's advice been followed, the German army would have been destroyed in the fall of 1944 and the war over shortly after that. Instead, it dragged on for almost another year, with untold human suffering, and the Russians snatching land and enslaving millions.
Patton knew the tank was a weapon of exploitation. He wrote in his diaries he stated flat out that other generals were "such nothings" for pushing all along the front, but never breaking out and exploiting the US Army's greatest assets of mobility and airpower.
It disgusts me to see "leaders" who peddle "diversity" Über Alles, and who have allowed ridiculous rules of engagement to paralyze our forces. These same "leaders" are now beating up combat officers who are trying to win even with both arms tied behind their backs.
U.S. commanders in Afghanistan face tougher discipline for battlefield failures
Ridiculous.
Where are the Patton's of this age?
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