Can we afford the F-35?

[French G.]

Procurement and design certainly could have been handled better, or at least cheaper. But, if you think this is bad you could have been India waiting to get their MiG- and a carrier to land them on.  

Too many finger in the pie and inter-service fighting over who gets what. And defense contract pork. The F-35 will be a good thing when we finally get it. I am not convinced that the navy needs it, build more super hornets. The F-18A-D series is old and tired so something needs to replace them. The Marines desperately need a Harrier replacement. I've done a little indirect support maintenance on them, right much of a nightmare. When we're buying retired Brit harriers to ensure our spare parts train you know it's bad.

BobR, if we ever get in a submarine fight it's not just the P-3 problem. Fleet ASW now is all in the hands of helos. And my observation ten years ago is that the training for that is way down, probably much worse now that the primary job is supporting shore operations and spec-ops.

[Jamisjockey]

That is one of the main reasons I view the USAF as dimly as I do. In general, as a culture, they are too divorced from the reality of the situation. It would be better if USAF spent more time living in tents and directly integrated with the USA/USMC troops they are supporting. Air or sea power can never win a war. They can achieve a very large percentage of victory, all the way into the 90's, but never 100%. But unless you have boots on ground, you only have a paper victory.

Here was order of fire when it came to trust in accuracy:

Arty (USMC or Army, about equal, Army just had more and bigger stuff)
USMC CAS
USN CAS
USAF CAS

This is not scientific. But I always wondered if the accuracy was equally due to fear of death if they made a mistake, as it was training and doctrine. Arty guys knew I could easily walk to their positions, and shoot them if they dropped rounds on my head instead of the bad guys. I never once had a round go in the wrong place. Off a bit, sure. You may have to walk rounds onto target. That's just implementation accuracy. But they never shorted a round by human error, or put one into my position. Army helo pilots were a bit looser, which some of us chalked up to the platform, but still very accurate.

I had a LOT less experience with USMC, USN or USAF CAS. Decent experience with USMC arty. They tended to have less cannon, but equally accurate. USMC pilots have a reputation of being both a) insane and b) accurate. B being the more important part of this discussion. I never knew, and I suspect no one really does, if it's just part of the culture, the close-contact with forward elements, or conscious/subconscious fear of personal repercussions. USN were slightly more divorced, but still had a fair amount of direct or close indirect contact with ground pounders. USAF, except for forward air controllers or CSAR, tended to be furthest away. In any case, it tracks closely (at least by perception). But correlation is not causation.




Everything zahc said is straight on the money.

There is a culture with Marine pilots.  I've seen it first hand.  The Great Santini was a documentary

[Gewehr98]

To clear up some misconceptions I see in this thread...

The F-22 had a problem with the oxygen delivery system.

Of course, the pilots had concerns.  So did the crew chiefs and flight surgeons. 

The fleet was grounded, they found the cause of the problem, and fixed it. 

F-22 pilots hopped back in, and are having fun converting money into noise again.

That's really no different than the V-22 Osprey's vortex ring state problem wiping out Marines until they came up with a fix.



I also firmly believe that RevDisk seriously underestimates the value of airpower. 

Fat Hermann decried to the end how decimated his Luftwaffe had become.

American day and British night bombing didn't exactly prolong the war.

Nobody wanted to invade Japan. LeMay took care of that.

Linebacker II brought the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table.

Schwarzkopf couldn't have done his Hail Mary maneuver without a huge chunk of the Iraqi army surrendering after our Buffs buried them in their entrenched tanks, and F-117 Nighthawks took out Saddam's command and control. 

Those are all just air-to-ground ordnance, save for the Luftwaffe bit.  Throw Air Superiority, ISR, C3I, AWACS and JSTARS into the equation and look on the right side of the equals sign.   

You can view it as dimly as you want, but without airpower in a conflict, you're gonna send home a lot more ground-pounders in aluminum boxes than with it - guaranteed.

It's also why we have a Joint Chiefs running the show.  They call them Joint Operations, and Coordinated Attacks, for a reason. 

You don't send SEALs on a Wild Weasel mission, and you don't send an Army supply squadron to take out bin Laden.

Could Uncle Sam consolidate all the services' air wings ala' Canada?  I don't doubt it, especially if the economy continues to tank for a while.

Is the F-35 a fustercluck, a compromise because all three branches wanted the little single-engine fighter to do something different?  Oh, definitely.

Will it maintain at least one generation's, if not two, of technological lead over all comers?  Yup.

We've never been a Soviet Union when it comes to the military, with oodles of cheap and simple whatevers to Uncle Sam's smaller amount of advanced counterparts.

The F-16 was about the closest we ever came to that, IMHO.  Well, that and the Jeep.

We always go for the "quality vs. quantity" part of war materiel, time and time again.

That chicken may have come home to roost, because as horked-up as the F-35 program is, we're only gonna get a fraction of what we planned for. 

There will be crashes, groundings, investigations, and return to flight boards.  There will be delays in IOC dates.  That's just the "normal" way the DoD does things.

Now, factor in the massive drawdown that we're approaching.  SecDef's furlough of DoD civilians and contractors is just the start.

End-strength quotas for Active-Duty, Guard, and Reserve will be slashed.  It's happened before, and will happen again.

Davis-Monthan will get more occupants.  O&M budgets will get cut,  training hours will shrink, and equipment will be cannibalized for spare parts.

It's too late in the F-35 program to scrap it and start over with an alternative.  I see it finishing, albeit in a greatly reduced purchase compared to the original plan.

Otherwise, they could scrap it, and do an extension program for existing airframes out there to add X number of hours to their useful life. 

We've done that several times already, witness the 1962-vintage B-52H and 1958-vintage KC-135R still flying now.

If the core capabilities of the USAF/USMC/USN have to shrink in the out years due to the continuation of this "non-Depression", then I'd prefer that it maintain those capabilities with a fleet of F-35s.

That keeps us ahead of the game, especially when it's all we're gonna have for a very long time.

[SADShooter]

Apologies if this has been addressed and I missed it, but FNC just reported another grounding due to engine system cracks identified during inspections...

[Gewehr98]

It's coming.

The Army Chief of Staff just announced that the Army is looking at reducing their troop strength by 200,000.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2013/02/16/odierno-army-stands-to-lose-200000-soldiers/

We'll see how the other branches of the DoD pare their numbers.

[Boomhauer]

It's coming.

The Army Chief of Staff just announced that the Army is looking at reducing their troop strength by 200,000.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2013/02/16/odierno-army-stands-to-lose-200000-soldiers/

We'll see how the other branches of the DoD pare their numbers.

Ah the return to a garrison military. Plenty of rocks to paint and cig butts to police up because there wont be money for real training! And then when the next war breaks out we can suffer casualties by having to relearn how to fight a war. Most excellent!

[Matthew Carberry]

It's coming.

The Army Chief of Staff just announced that the Army is looking at reducing their troop strength by 200,000.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2013/02/16/odierno-army-stands-to-lose-200000-soldiers/

We'll see how the other branches of the DoD pare their numbers.

Hire about 20 more Marines and there'll be no net change in combat effectiveness.

[Gewehr98]

That's true, Carebear, but only if the USMC manning budget will allow that huge an increase in personnel.   

[Matthew Carberry]

That's true, Carebear, but only if the USMC manning budget will allow that huge an increase in personnel.   

They can just cut out luxuries, like heat in the barracks.

[BobR]

They can just cut out luxuries, like heat in the barracks.

Why do they need barracks? They have nice tents and a really sweet modular sleeping bag system. Turn off the heat and the lights. 

[Matthew Carberry]

Why do they need barracks? They have nice tents and a really sweet modular sleeping bag system. Turn off the heat and the lights. 

Great idea, we could enlist another 50 and regain sole superpower status. 

The Pentagon is using local school board tactics, it's always the teacher's jobs that get threatened during budget cuts, not the admin folks.

[French G.]

Ah the return to a garrison military. Plenty of rocks to paint and cig butts to police up because there wont be money for real training! And then when the next war breaks out we can suffer casualties by having to relearn how to fight a war. Most excellent!

No, no, you got it all wrong. We'll bring home all of our evil imperialist troops and spontaneous peace and mutual respect will burst forth around the world. We will never ever have to enter a world conflict 2-10 years behind the preparation curve. 

[HForrest]

Exactly-- The Soviet Union is gone, silly! There will never been any conflict between large nations anymore; we can guarantee this because we have been able to accurately plan for and predict all wars throughout history.

The fact that we have spent the past 25 years fighting small wars and counterinsurgency campaigns means that things will always stay that way forever. The downfall of the Soviet Union obviously means that no superpowers will pose a threat to us ever again, for all of eternity.

[RevDisk]

Exactly-- The Soviet Union is gone, silly! There will never been any conflict between large nations anymore; we can guarantee this because we have been able to accurately plan for and predict all wars throughout history.

The fact that we have spent the past 25 years fighting small wars and counterinsurgency campaigns means that things will always stay that way forever. The downfall of the Soviet Union obviously means that no superpowers will pose a threat to us ever again, for all of eternity.

In fairness, we haven't faced significant land forces invading the US since the War of 1812. Even the USSR, with all of its proxy states, could not have successfully invaded the US. Damage or kill us all? Maybe. Certainly more of a danger than these Islamic fundamentalists. The Soviets were not morons, like the haji are. Powerful enough to conquer the US? Na. Western Europe, maybe. I would give them minimal odds on even being able to take over Asia, see Afghanistan.

PRC is the largest conventional military we face. Except their Navy is a joke, and that's where we'd be fighting them. We're not powerful enough to occupy the PRC, nor they us. So long as we have enough to counter their Navy for control of Pacific shipping lines...  Tis all we need to contain them, when combined with economic situation.

Our military has always been laid out according to politics. Because politicians hold the checkbook, as they should.

I also firmly believe that RevDisk seriously underestimates the value of airpower. 

Fat Hermann decried to the end how decimated his Luftwaffe had become.

American day and British night bombing didn't exactly prolong the war.

Nobody wanted to invade Japan. LeMay took care of that.

Linebacker II brought the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table.

Schwarzkopf couldn't have done his Hail Mary maneuver without a huge chunk of the Iraqi army surrendering after our Buffs buried them in their entrenched tanks, and F-117 Nighthawks took out Saddam's command and control. 

Those are all just air-to-ground ordnance, save for the Luftwaffe bit.  Throw Air Superiority, ISR, C3I, AWACS and JSTARS into the equation and look on the right side of the equals sign.   

You can view it as dimly as you want, but without airpower in a conflict, you're gonna send home a lot more ground-pounders in aluminum boxes than with it - guaranteed.

It's also why we have a Joint Chiefs running the show.  They call them Joint Operations, and Coordinated Attacks, for a reason. 

You don't send SEALs on a Wild Weasel mission, and you don't send an Army supply squadron to take out bin Laden.

At any point, did I say that air power was not a necessity? For all of the examples you used, I would have argued that sea power was equally or more important. Aside from ultra high priority targets, we don't run our bombs from the US straight to the target. We tend to put our stuff in ships, forward deploy it, and then use appropriate services to deliver.

I'm not saying air power or sea power are not important. They are both necessary to fight modern wars. They both can accomplish many things. But at the end of the day, they do not win wars. Our occupation of Japan and Germany was not done by the US Navy or Army Air Corps. The USAF and USN did not seize Baghdad or Kabul. This does not take away from their accomplishments, which are many, as you pointed out.

You may say I seriously underestimates the value of airpower. I actually don't, but I could see your POV.

Could Uncle Sam consolidate all the services' air wings ala' Canada?  I don't doubt it, especially if the economy continues to tank for a while.

Is the F-35 a fustercluck, a compromise because all three branches wanted the little single-engine fighter to do something different?  Oh, definitely.

Will it maintain at least one generation's, if not two, of technological lead over all comers?  Yup.

We've never been a Soviet Union when it comes to the military, with oodles of cheap and simple whatevers to Uncle Sam's smaller amount of advanced counterparts.

The F-16 was about the closest we ever came to that, IMHO.  Well, that and the Jeep.

We always go for the "quality vs. quantity" part of war materiel, time and time again.

That chicken may have come home to roost, because as horked-up as the F-35 program is, we're only gonna get a fraction of what we planned for. 

There will be crashes, groundings, investigations, and return to flight boards.  There will be delays in IOC dates.  That's just the "normal" way the DoD does things.

Now, factor in the massive drawdown that we're approaching.  SecDef's furlough of DoD civilians and contractors is just the start.

End-strength quotas for Active-Duty, Guard, and Reserve will be slashed.  It's happened before, and will happen again.

Davis-Monthan will get more occupants.  O&M budgets will get cut,  training hours will shrink, and equipment will be cannibalized for spare parts.

It's too late in the F-35 program to scrap it and start over with an alternative.  I see it finishing, albeit in a greatly reduced purchase compared to the original plan.

Otherwise, they could scrap it, and do an extension program for existing airframes out there to add X number of hours to their useful life. 

We've done that several times already, witness the 1962-vintage B-52H and 1958-vintage KC-135R still flying now.

If the core capabilities of the USAF/USMC/USN have to shrink in the out years due to the continuation of this "non-Depression", then I'd prefer that it maintain those capabilities with a fleet of F-35s.

That keeps us ahead of the game, especially when it's all we're gonna have for a very long time.

We really did bet the farm on the F-35. Ugh. We really, really need to un-FUBAR that project or we're going to be hurting in 5-15 years as airframes get too old for service. LockMart has probably more endangering the US than al-Qaeda currently is. Sigh.

[Mannlicher]

if we can afford food stamps so that the poor can feed their pets, we can afford the F-35