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#11
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On 5 Mar, 18:39, "Ray O'Hara" wrote:
"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message ... On Fri, 5 Mar 2010 11:10:15 -0500, "Ray O'Hara" wrote: "Mike" wrote in message ... http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...an_air_superio... Vanishing American Air Superiority what a load of ****. That's a difficult argument to refute. Penetrating analysis at its finest. What parts? Spit/Hurricane? Sabre/Thunderjet? Century series? Boyd and hi/lo mix? You've given us so much to think about Ray. what better planes being planned never mind actually being built by anybody else. the points the author makes are false strawman types. the Brits on 1940 didn't need two types, they needed more spits, they were building them. What utter rubbish, what the RAF needed in 1940 was more pilots. Comparing the Hurri and Spit with the F-22 and F-35 is absurd, the Hurricane was not a second string cheaper fighter. The RAF had plenty of Hurricanes thanks to the foresight of Tom Sopwith (and despite the Air Ministry - Keep building Hurricanes with Fabric covered wings - and build plenty of metal wings to replace the fabric covered ones - duh) Everyone knows that the Spitfire won the Battle of Britain Anyone with an interest in military aviation knows that the Hurricane achieved more kills than all the other defenses put together during the BoB A few people know that 14000 Hurris achieved 50% of all RAF kills in WW2, 24000 Spits achieved 33% RAF Kills (aprox figs) Guy maybe you can say we have "hurricanes" now but who is building 109s? if there were no 109s then the Hurricane would have ruled the sky. technology is moving past the manned fighter. building the most advanced manned fighter now would be akin to building the most advanced bi-plane in 1935. what we have is better now than what others have now, building a hugely expensive "better" plane that will be obsolete in short order is a waste- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - |
#12
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 6, 4:06*am, guy wrote:
... Anyone with an interest in military aviation knows that the Hurricane achieved more kills than all the other defenses put together during the BoB A few people know that 14000 Hurris achieved 50% of all RAF kills in WW2, 24000 Spits achieved 33% RAF Kills (aprox figs) Guy .... Scroll down to (3) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERbf109.htm "...the Hurricane, though vastly more manoeuvrable than either the Spitfire or the Me 109..." jsw |
#13
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 5, 8:52*pm, 150flivver wrote:
On Mar 5, 6:35*pm, Richard wrote: On Mar 5, 12:39*pm, "Ray O'Hara" wrote: "Ed Rasimus" wrote in message .. . On Fri, 5 Mar 2010 11:10:15 -0500, "Ray O'Hara" wrote: "Mike" wrote in message ... http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...an_air_superio... Vanishing American Air Superiority what a load of ****. That's a difficult argument to refute. Penetrating analysis at its finest. What parts? Spit/Hurricane? Sabre/Thunderjet? Century series? Boyd and hi/lo mix? You've given us so much to think about Ray. what better planes being planned never mind actually being built by anybody else. the points the author makes are false strawman types. the Brits on 1940 didn't need two types, they needed more spits, they were building them. maybe you can say we have "hurricanes" now but who is building 109s? if there were no 109s then the Hurricane would have ruled the sky. technology is moving past the manned fighter. building the most advanced manned fighter now would be akin to building the most advanced bi-plane in 1935. what we have is better now than what others have now, building a hugely expensive "better" plane that will be obsolete in short order is a waste Worse. *Given the cost of the airframe, maintenance, crew training and support vs Drones...its more like bldg BB in 1935 instead of carriers. Aren't y'all making quite a leap saying UAVs have surpassed manned fighters when to my knowledge, not a single UAV has ever successfully engaged a manned fighter. *Suddenly manned fighters are obsolete. There's a bit of difference between firing a hellfire or dropping a GBU on an unsuspecting pickup truck and attacking an IADS. *UAVs may be useful weapons but they hardly are close to having the speed, range, flexibility or firepower of a manned aircraft. Not to mention I'd trust Ed on scene far more than some throttle jockey watching screens at Nellis. Or Yeager. I've heard this we can do it unmanned before. Some stuff, maybe. Dumping manned fighters for UAVs. Stupidity. And you know what, when we need manned fighters in the future, its not a matter of going to wal mart and taking 2 of them. |
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 6, 2:22*am, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote: Ray O'Hara ha scritto: the points the author makes are false strawman types. the Brits on 1940 didn't need two types, they needed more spits, they were building them. maybe you can say we have "hurricanes" now but who is building 109s? if there were no 109s then the Hurricane would have ruled the sky. OK plese try this: Take one of the best and with the most refined flight models WWII a/c sims, and try to fly spitfires and hurricane at low, medium and high altitudes, doing also combat acrobatics, and notice the differences.... Best regards from Italy, Dott. Piergiorgio (mantained the X-post to competent NGs) Be very careful young Skywalker about using sims. Real world much different. Wind tunnel engineers blow much smoke as programmers. Now have another glass of that great vino on me. Sigh, Italia....wine, cheese, women - whoops, scratch the last, I'm married....... |
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 6, 12:51*pm, frank wrote:
.. Not to mention I'd trust Ed on scene far more than some throttle jockey watching screens at Nellis. Or Yeager. I've heard this we can do it unmanned before. Some stuff, maybe. Dumping manned fighters for UAVs. Stupidity. And you know what, when we need manned fighters in the future, its not a matter of going to wal mart and taking 2 of them. Never mind fighters, AI and remote control aren't nearly good enough yet to drive a bus in city traffic. jsw |
#16
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 6, 8:35*am, Ed Rasimus wrote:
Today our real concern is total numbers. With the Raptor buy apparently over, we really don't have a nucleus of a globally effective operational fleet. 187 aircraft, minus not-in-commission frames, minus training aircraft, minus periodic maintenance aircraft leaves you with roughly a half-dozen squadrons. You've got to have more airplanes and that means F-35 numbers in the absence of F-22s. The flexibilty of the F-35 with A/G optimization and reasonable A/A capability makes it the next iteration of F-16 paired with F-15 air superiority. Against which nation will the USAF require more than six squadrons of Raptors to shoot down all of their high end fighters? Either now or anytime in the next two decades. The F-16 comparison is apt. The F-15 and the F-22 were designed for the BVR long range high speed interceptor mission that the USAF has never ever done. The F-16 and the F-35 were designed for the swing missions of dog fighting and ground support that have been very common. The T-50 is a stealth compromised airframe precisely in the way those last generation engines are mounted onto that airframe. The PAK-FA can either go forwards with some RAM spackled onto that cow or start from scratch and have a fifth generation fighter ready to build in two decades. The F-35 will not fly as high, as fast or as far as the PAK-FA. It won't out turn it and it won't be able to chase it down. What will happen is that the F-35 will do its missions and when the PAK-FA comes into range the only thing it will see are incoming missiles mysteriously appearing from out of the blue. Sometimes it may even spot these in time to evade them. -HJC |
#17
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 6, 1:33*pm, hcobb wrote:
On Mar 6, 8:35*am, Ed Rasimus wrote: Today our real concern is total numbers. With the Raptor buy apparently over, we really don't have a nucleus of a globally effective operational fleet. 187 aircraft, minus not-in-commission frames, minus training aircraft, minus periodic maintenance aircraft leaves you with roughly a half-dozen squadrons. You've got to have more airplanes and that means F-35 numbers in the absence of F-22s. The flexibilty of the F-35 with A/G optimization and reasonable A/A capability makes it the next iteration of F-16 paired with F-15 air superiority. Against which nation will the USAF require more than six squadrons of Raptors to shoot down all of their high end fighters? *Either now or anytime in the next two decades. The F-16 comparison is apt. *The F-15 and the F-22 were designed for the BVR long range high speed interceptor mission that the USAF has never ever done. *The F-16 and the F-35 were designed for the swing missions of dog fighting and ground support that have been very common. The T-50 is a stealth compromised airframe precisely in the way those last generation engines are mounted onto that airframe. *The PAK-FA can either go forwards with some RAM spackled onto that cow or start from scratch and have a fifth generation fighter ready to build in two decades. The F-35 will not fly as high, as fast or as far as the PAK-FA. *It won't out turn it and it won't be able to chase it down. What will happen is that the F-35 will do its missions and when the PAK-FA comes into range the only thing it will see are incoming missiles mysteriously appearing from out of the blue. *Sometimes it may even spot these in time to evade them. -HJC More you have to think of any mission/war in which the United States will not be the attacking nation. The Pentagon has been looking for a near-peer, a nation that might want to fight the U.S.. for about 20 years. There do not seem to be any. The F-22 and possibly even the F-35 seem to be over designed for the real probable use, ground support in a distant battlefield. Imagine the current situation in Afghanistan with only those two aircraft for support. The FA-18 can do that job, now. |
#18
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
In message
, Mike writes The high-low mix was pioneered during WWII. Both the British and the U.S. stumbled onto the concept without quite realizing what they were doing. In the years before the war's outbreak, the British embarked on a crash program to build eight-gun fighters for the defense of the home islands. The premier model was the Supermarine Spitfire, one of the legendary combat aircraft of the 20th century. But the Spitfire was supplemented by the lesser-known but still capable Hawker Hurricane. The Hurricane could take on the primary German fighter, the Messerschmidt Bf -109, only with difficulty, Not particularly, as the histories show... the Spitfire 1A had the edge on the 109E, the Hurricane 1A was "merely" its equal. As the war went on and Spitfires appeared in more substantial numbers, the Hurricane took on the fighter-bomber role. So did the Spitfire and Seafi aircraft that had no value once the enemy air force was defeated, were of limited utility. I'd look with interest at the USN aircraft of the time: the newer air superiority fighters (Hellcats and Corsairs, then Bearcats and Tigercats) all got good at strafing, bombing and rocketing ground targets once they had shot down every flyable enemy aircraft. There's also the point that RAF procurement was far less linear of "high and low end fighter". Even during the Battle of Britain we had the Hurricane and Spitfire as fighters... plus unfortunate concepts that didn't work well such as the Defiant and the Blenheim IF, and a few Whirlwinds that were held back by engine trouble from their full potential. Later, we had "fighters" like the Beaufighter and Mosquito VI, which were fighters in the same way the F-105 was: powerful strike aircraft that were ill-advised to turn with a small, agile foe but could cruelly punish any enemy careless enough to get into their sights. We also had the Typhoon, designed as an air-superiority fighter but highly effective as a strike aircraft, the Tempest (was it the "high end" or "low end" compared to the Spitfire?) Coming into the '60s without a fighter to carry out its basic missions, the USAF was forced to purchase the F-4 Phantom II, developed on behalf of the enemy service, the U.S. Navy. While an excellent aircraft, the F-4 was in many ways the apotheosis of the fighter-bomber, too heavy and lacking the agility to fill the air- superiority role. During the liveliest parts of 1972, USN Phantoms killed six NVAF MiGs for every aircraft they lost to them, while the USAF managed a 2:1 ratio. (There are many factors in play for the difference, but it's curious how smiting two enemy for every loss is considered inadequate...) Also strange is describing the F-104 as an "indescribable and dangerous oddity" when it was the 1950s/1960s epitome of John Boyd's Light Weight Fighter designed in response to user requests post-Korea: a pared-down airframe optimised for speed, energy and agility, with useless wasteful boondoggles like long-ranged radar, advanced countermeasures, or sophisticated weapon-aiming systems left out to optimise the aircraft for high-speed dogfighting. Perhaps the USAF had no clear idea what it needed? The F-104 epitomised most of Boyd's ideals, yet its limited combat service in US hands was less than stellar. Similarly, the US operated the F-5, another austere, cheap, agile fighter that should have delighted Boyd, yet chose not to field it in large numbers at the frontline. Together, the F-15 and F-16 stand as the most effective fighter team on record. The F-15 compiled a kill ratio of 105 kills to zero losses. While the F-16's record was only half that, it more than effectively filled the swing role as the primary high-speed attack aircraft in theaters including Serbia and Iraq. Neither aircraft ever suffered a loss in air-to-air combat. However, getting there involved breaking most of Boyd's rules. Curiously, as late as "The Pentagon Paradox", Boyd's supporters were bewailing the manner in which the F-16 and F-18 were "ruined" by putting the "useless rubbish" back on them: the same useless equipment that allowed them to be worldbeating combat aircraft rather than manned target drones. It would appear that the high-low thesis is as well established as any military concept ever gets. What's the "low" option for the US Army's armoured forces? They have a very definite "high end" war-winner in the M1 Abrams, so where is the "low end" tank? Suppose, if things get hot, our 120 planes are facing five hundred, a thousand, or even more fifth-generation enemy fighters? (China today fields roughly 2,000 fighter aircraft.) What happens then? Shades of the 1980s when analysts breathlessly counted every Soviet tank that could possibly ever be fielded, looked at the latest and best, then pronounced that we faced "fifty thousand T-80 tanks". In fact we faced a few hundred T-80s, with a tail of older and less advanced vehicles, and a notional swarm of warehoused T-34s left over from the Second World War. Similarly, China's "2,000 fighters" are largely outdated relics - MiG-21 copies and the like - and China has at least the same constraints on replacing them one-for-one with modern aircraft as the US does with maintaining its 1970s numbers while increasing individual capability. Many of these Chinese aircraft will have trouble flying to Taiwan, let alone menacing any US interests less proximate. Unless the US plans to invade China, then the swarms of elderly Chinese warplanes are prisoners of their limited endurance. The F-22 is a ferociously expensive beast, though very capable with it. However, there is a good argument - though it falls apart against traditional politicans' short-sightedness - that the design and development is the key input to maintain capability, and that limited procurement in the face of a limited threat (what aircraft in hostile hands, flying today or in the next five years, can seriously discomfit a F-22?) is a pragmatic response to reality. The key, which will probably not happen, is to recognise that it's been a quarter-century since work started on the Advanced Tactical Fighter and that the next aircraft type needs to start work *now* to keep that skillbase together and have a candidate ready to buy in 2020 (if hurried) or 2030 (if no urgent issues arise). But simply bleating "buy more F-22s!" reads as industry lobbying rather than rational argument. -- He thinks too much, such men are dangerous. Paul J. Adam |
#19
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 6, 4:35*pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote: In message , Mike writes The high-low mix was pioneered during WWII. Both the British and the U.S. stumbled onto the concept without quite realizing what they were doing. In the years before the war's outbreak, the British embarked on a crash program to build eight-gun fighters for the defense of the home islands. The premier model was the Supermarine Spitfire, one of the legendary combat aircraft of the 20th century. But the Spitfire was supplemented by the lesser-known but still capable Hawker Hurricane. The Hurricane could take on the primary German fighter, the Messerschmidt Bf -109, only with difficulty, Not particularly, as the histories show... the Spitfire 1A had the edge on the 109E, the Hurricane 1A was "merely" its equal. As the war went on and Spitfires appeared in more substantial numbers, the Hurricane took on the fighter-bomber role. So did the Spitfire and Seafi aircraft that had no value once the enemy air force was defeated, were of limited utility. I'd look with interest at the USN aircraft of the time: the newer air superiority fighters (Hellcats and Corsairs, then Bearcats and Tigercats) all got good at strafing, bombing and rocketing ground targets once they had shot down every flyable enemy aircraft. There's also the point that RAF procurement was far less linear of "high and low end fighter". Even during the Battle of Britain we had the Hurricane and Spitfire as fighters... plus unfortunate concepts that didn't work well such as the Defiant and the Blenheim IF, and a few Whirlwinds that were held back by engine trouble from their full potential. Later, we had "fighters" like the Beaufighter and Mosquito VI, which were fighters in the same way the F-105 was: powerful strike aircraft that were ill-advised to turn with a small, agile foe but could cruelly punish any enemy careless enough to get into their sights. We also had the Typhoon, designed as an air-superiority fighter but highly effective as a strike aircraft, the Tempest (was it the "high end" or "low end" compared to the Spitfire?) Coming into the '60s without a fighter to carry out its basic missions, the USAF was forced to purchase the F-4 Phantom II, developed on behalf of the enemy service, the U.S. Navy. While an excellent aircraft, the F-4 was in many ways the apotheosis of the fighter-bomber, too heavy and lacking the agility to fill the air- superiority role. During the liveliest parts of 1972, USN Phantoms killed six NVAF MiGs for every aircraft they lost to them, while the USAF managed a 2:1 ratio. (There are many factors in play for the difference, but it's curious how smiting two enemy for every loss is considered inadequate...) Also strange is describing the F-104 as an "indescribable and dangerous oddity" when it was the 1950s/1960s epitome of John Boyd's Light Weight Fighter designed in response to user requests post-Korea: a pared-down airframe optimised for speed, energy and agility, with useless wasteful boondoggles like long-ranged radar, advanced countermeasures, or sophisticated weapon-aiming systems left out to optimise the aircraft for high-speed dogfighting. Perhaps the USAF had no clear idea what it needed? The F-104 epitomised most of Boyd's ideals, yet its limited combat service in US hands was less than stellar. Similarly, the US operated the F-5, another austere, cheap, agile fighter that should have delighted Boyd, yet chose not to field it in large numbers at the frontline. Together, the F-15 and F-16 stand as the most effective fighter team on record. The F-15 compiled a kill ratio of 105 kills to zero losses. While the F-16's record was only half that, it more than effectively filled the swing role as the primary high-speed attack aircraft in theaters including Serbia and Iraq. Neither aircraft ever suffered a loss in air-to-air combat. However, getting there involved breaking most of Boyd's rules. Curiously, as late as "The Pentagon Paradox", Boyd's supporters were bewailing the manner in which the F-16 and F-18 were "ruined" by putting the "useless rubbish" back on them: the same useless equipment that allowed them to be worldbeating combat aircraft rather than manned target drones. It would appear that the high-low thesis is as well established as any military concept ever gets. What's the "low" option for the US Army's armoured forces? They have a very definite "high end" war-winner in the M1 Abrams, so where is the "low end" tank? Suppose, if things get hot, our 120 planes are facing five hundred, a thousand, or even more fifth-generation enemy fighters? (China today fields roughly 2,000 fighter aircraft.) What happens then? Shades of the 1980s when analysts breathlessly counted every Soviet tank that could possibly ever be fielded, looked at the latest and best, then pronounced that we faced "fifty thousand T-80 tanks". In fact we faced a few hundred T-80s, with a tail of older and less advanced vehicles, and a notional swarm of warehoused T-34s left over from the Second World War. Similarly, China's "2,000 fighters" are largely outdated relics - MiG-21 copies and the like - and China has at least the same constraints on replacing them one-for-one with modern aircraft as the US does with maintaining its 1970s numbers while increasing individual capability. Many of these Chinese aircraft will have trouble flying to Taiwan, let alone menacing any US interests less proximate. Unless the US plans to invade China, then the swarms of elderly Chinese warplanes are prisoners of their limited endurance. The F-22 is a ferociously expensive beast, though very capable with it. However, there is a good argument - though it falls apart against traditional politicans' short-sightedness - that the design and development is the key input to maintain capability, and that limited procurement in the face of a limited threat (what aircraft in hostile hands, flying today or in the next five years, can seriously discomfit a F-22?) is a pragmatic response to reality. The key, which will probably not happen, is to recognise that it's been a quarter-century since work started on the Advanced Tactical Fighter and that the next aircraft type needs to start work *now* to keep that skillbase together and have a candidate ready to buy in 2020 (if hurried) or 2030 (if no urgent issues arise). But simply bleating "buy more F-22s!" reads as industry lobbying rather than rational argument. -- He thinks too much, such men are dangerous. Paul J. Adam I got an email once from someone who had been at Nelles AFB when Boyd was spreading his gospel, both on the ground and in the air. IIRC he said Boyd was a really insufferable ass but a damn good pilot. |
#20
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"Vanishing American Air Superiority"
On Mar 6, 1:55*pm, Jack Linthicum wrote:
On Mar 6, 4:35*pm, "Paul J. Adam" wrote: In message , Mike writes The high-low mix was pioneered during WWII. Both the British and the U.S. stumbled onto the concept without quite realizing what they were doing. In the years before the war's outbreak, the British embarked on a crash program to build eight-gun fighters for the defense of the home islands. The premier model was the Supermarine Spitfire, one of the legendary combat aircraft of the 20th century. But the Spitfire was supplemented by the lesser-known but still capable Hawker Hurricane. The Hurricane could take on the primary German fighter, the Messerschmidt Bf -109, only with difficulty, Not particularly, as the histories show... the Spitfire 1A had the edge on the 109E, the Hurricane 1A was "merely" its equal. As the war went on and Spitfires appeared in more substantial numbers, the Hurricane took on the fighter-bomber role. So did the Spitfire and Seafi aircraft that had no value once the enemy air force was defeated, were of limited utility. I'd look with interest at the USN aircraft of the time: the newer air superiority fighters (Hellcats and Corsairs, then Bearcats and Tigercats) all got good at strafing, bombing and rocketing ground targets once they had shot down every flyable enemy aircraft. There's also the point that RAF procurement was far less linear of "high and low end fighter". Even during the Battle of Britain we had the Hurricane and Spitfire as fighters... plus unfortunate concepts that didn't work well such as the Defiant and the Blenheim IF, and a few Whirlwinds that were held back by engine trouble from their full potential. Later, we had "fighters" like the Beaufighter and Mosquito VI, which were fighters in the same way the F-105 was: powerful strike aircraft that were ill-advised to turn with a small, agile foe but could cruelly punish any enemy careless enough to get into their sights. We also had the Typhoon, designed as an air-superiority fighter but highly effective as a strike aircraft, the Tempest (was it the "high end" or "low end" compared to the Spitfire?) Coming into the '60s without a fighter to carry out its basic missions, the USAF was forced to purchase the F-4 Phantom II, developed on behalf of the enemy service, the U.S. Navy. While an excellent aircraft, the F-4 was in many ways the apotheosis of the fighter-bomber, too heavy and lacking the agility to fill the air- superiority role. During the liveliest parts of 1972, USN Phantoms killed six NVAF MiGs for every aircraft they lost to them, while the USAF managed a 2:1 ratio. (There are many factors in play for the difference, but it's curious how smiting two enemy for every loss is considered inadequate...) Also strange is describing the F-104 as an "indescribable and dangerous oddity" when it was the 1950s/1960s epitome of John Boyd's Light Weight Fighter designed in response to user requests post-Korea: a pared-down airframe optimised for speed, energy and agility, with useless wasteful boondoggles like long-ranged radar, advanced countermeasures, or sophisticated weapon-aiming systems left out to optimise the aircraft for high-speed dogfighting. Perhaps the USAF had no clear idea what it needed? The F-104 epitomised most of Boyd's ideals, yet its limited combat service in US hands was less than stellar. Similarly, the US operated the F-5, another austere, cheap, agile fighter that should have delighted Boyd, yet chose not to field it in large numbers at the frontline. Together, the F-15 and F-16 stand as the most effective fighter team on record. The F-15 compiled a kill ratio of 105 kills to zero losses. While the F-16's record was only half that, it more than effectively filled the swing role as the primary high-speed attack aircraft in theaters including Serbia and Iraq. Neither aircraft ever suffered a loss in air-to-air combat. However, getting there involved breaking most of Boyd's rules. Curiously, as late as "The Pentagon Paradox", Boyd's supporters were bewailing the manner in which the F-16 and F-18 were "ruined" by putting the "useless rubbish" back on them: the same useless equipment that allowed them to be worldbeating combat aircraft rather than manned target drones. It would appear that the high-low thesis is as well established as any military concept ever gets. What's the "low" option for the US Army's armoured forces? They have a very definite "high end" war-winner in the M1 Abrams, so where is the "low end" tank? Suppose, if things get hot, our 120 planes are facing five hundred, a thousand, or even more fifth-generation enemy fighters? (China today fields roughly 2,000 fighter aircraft.) What happens then? Shades of the 1980s when analysts breathlessly counted every Soviet tank that could possibly ever be fielded, looked at the latest and best, then pronounced that we faced "fifty thousand T-80 tanks". In fact we faced a few hundred T-80s, with a tail of older and less advanced vehicles, and a notional swarm of warehoused T-34s left over from the Second World War. Similarly, China's "2,000 fighters" are largely outdated relics - MiG-21 copies and the like - and China has at least the same constraints on replacing them one-for-one with modern aircraft as the US does with maintaining its 1970s numbers while increasing individual capability. Many of these Chinese aircraft will have trouble flying to Taiwan, let alone menacing any US interests less proximate. Unless the US plans to invade China, then the swarms of elderly Chinese warplanes are prisoners of their limited endurance. The F-22 is a ferociously expensive beast, though very capable with it. However, there is a good argument - though it falls apart against traditional politicans' short-sightedness - that the design and development is the key input to maintain capability, and that limited procurement in the face of a limited threat (what aircraft in hostile hands, flying today or in the next five years, can seriously discomfit a F-22?) is a pragmatic response to reality. The key, which will probably not happen, is to recognise that it's been a quarter-century since work started on the Advanced Tactical Fighter and that the next aircraft type needs to start work *now* to keep that skillbase together and have a candidate ready to buy in 2020 (if hurried) or 2030 (if no urgent issues arise). But simply bleating "buy more F-22s!" reads as industry lobbying rather than rational argument. -- He thinks too much, such men are dangerous. Paul J. Adam I got an email once from someone who had been at Nelles AFB when Boyd was spreading his gospel, both on the ground and in the air. IIRC he said Boyd was a really insufferable ass but a damn good pilot. Assholes are the fathers of invention. Those that get along, don't rock the boat. -HJC |
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