GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As

Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Roger Conroy" wrote in message
...

we don't have an unlimited budget.
inWWII we concentrated on WWII not WWIII.


By the end of WW2 development of practically all the major weapons systems
of the cold war had at least been started:
Nuclear bombs/warheads, ballistic missiles, intercontinental range
bombers, tactical missiles (ground and air), jet aircraft, "true"
submarines (rather than submersibles), cruise missiles...





all those weapons were for fighting WWII nobody gave a thought about any
cold wars.
we weren't making anything with a the idea of fighting an hypothetical enemy
30 years in the future in mind.
we weren't building anything that took away from what we were doing.



Your re-writing history. Both sides were looking post war well before
Yalta. That's why everybody went hunting for Nazi tech & scienists even
before VE day.

Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message
...
Actually O'Hara is demonstrating his lack of strategic planning and
making a rather poor analogy. WW2 was an all out war for survival. There
were a few people thinking about post war projects, but the priority was
winning the war. Every part of the economy and infrastructure of the
warring parties was dedicated to winning. Iraq and Afghanistan pale in
comparison.




i'm not arguing for the F-22.

You misunderstand, I never said you were.

and there is a lot at stake in tis war. bush has us on the verge of becoming
the UK in the post war period, a former superpower
broken by the enourmous cost of a war.

You underestimate the U.S. economy that is not now on a war footing.
The U.K. was bankrupted by fighting for her life with every penny she
had. There's a huge difference.


nobody is a credible threat.

Maybe not now, but what about 10 years from now?

you guys want to build "maginot"fighters. to
fight a war long envisioned in europe but whose conditions have changed.
there is no more warsaw pact. russia has no aircraft carriers nor does
china. the idealogical divide of commie/capitalism is gone.
even china has gone capitalist.

Again you misunderstand. I never said anything about a Cold War
scenario nor did I imply such a case. I never specified an enemy.

any war for resources will involve our european allies as they need
thm too.
so a russian attempt to take over the middle east would be looked askance at
by them too.

Again you misunderstand what is going on. Have you noticed the
Europeans aren't agreeing on much as it is? Suppose Iran makes good her
threat to take out Israel and gets a few other local countries to join
in? Are you SURE Europe will unite to ensure a flow of oil? If they
sides against Iran it's a sure thing their supply of oil will be shut
off. The U.S. has to consider going it alone.



its you who are barking up the wrong strategic tree. you keep looking at it
with cold war eyes.


Actually you misunderstand me again. For example Red China is
developing advanced fighters. The Russians are exporting fighters. What
happens if they both supply and train a third party like Iran?

There's no immediate Cold War type threat, but will this still be
true 10 years from now? Are you prepared to bet your nation's security
on that? The Russians have been flying Bear missions similar to those
they flew during the Cold War. They may have ideas of becoming a world
power again.





No one can make any better than an educated guess as to what conflicts
may occur 10 years or more into the future. The suggestion that
development and procurement must cease to focus on brush wars is
ludicrous. Recently the U.S. F-15 fleet was grounded due to structural
failures attributable to age. What does O'Hara suggest a war of any kind
be fought with 10 years from now even if the opposition doesn't have
anything more advanced that what is now available? Through normal
attrition how being will the U.S. F-15 and F-16 fleets be? What happens if
the opposition has managed to produce a new fighter type in the few years
prior to that war and the U.S. had stopped procuring and developing in
2008 because O'Hara says we need to design and procure only for the
present wars?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired



we need what we need now.

That's true, tell Congress to foot the bill.

you want to blow off the war we are in for a
really cool imaginary war with imaginary opponents.

On the other hand, you want to be unprepared for a war of a different
kind than the U.S. is currently fighting. It's nice to hope there will
never be another major war, but if you plan on never having another one
you will always be wrong.

Look what happened 5 years after the end of WW2 when the U.S. had to
fight in Korea. The MiG-15 was a bit of a surprise.

100 mil for planes we don't need and can't afford is a waste of resources.
we already know how to make f-22s,

OK, let's do as O'Hara says and cease production of F-22 immediately.
Now you have to come up with the money to disassemble the production
lines, store the equipment for future use and have a year's advance
notice before some bad guy decides to take you on. You will need the
time to get the lines going again and get new aircraft coming off the end.

In the mean time the current F-22 population will decline due to
accidents and testing. The F-16 and F-15 population is aging rapidly.

Do you really think status quo will stay in effect another 10 years?
To not plan for the future is a tad silly, wouldn't you say?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

"Tiger" wrote in message
...
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Yeff" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:20:43 -0400, Raymond O'Hara wrote:


we are not going to achieve whatever it is bush was after.

Preempting Sadam before he aquired WMDs? Yeah, we did that. And rather
spectacularly I might add.

Am I the only one who remembers the preemptive war debate?



which proved to be based on false{made up} intelligence.




Faulty intel. Also it takes two to dance. Saddam had a chance to give up.
He bluffed and lost.


and we might lose too.

"Andrew Swallow" wrote in message
...
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Andrew Swallow" wrote in message
...
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Andrew Swallow" wrote in message
...
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
[snip]

or maybe a new barbarian invasion or the south will try to secede
again.
OH NO! the sky might fall.
French speaking Quebec may decide to leave.

wars are won by spare parts and what you can replace.
That is long wars.




what other kind are there?

"home before the leaves fall"
popular saying in august 1914
6 Day ones.

Hitler thought he had found a short war strategy.
Churchill had other plans.

Andrew Swallow


it was chamberlain who declared war on hitler.


Chamberlain then appointed Churchill head of the Royal Navy.

Andrew Swallow

and churchill later replaced chamberlain. but it was chamberlain who
declared against hitler.
after hitler reneged on munich it was easy to not make any more deals, it
was obvious they were a waste.
any british leader would have refused to deal with hitler, they act like
everything was all churchill.

the alliwes won WWII despite winnie not because of him.

"Dan" wrote in message ...
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message
...
Actually O'Hara is demonstrating his lack of strategic planning and
making a rather poor analogy. WW2 was an all out war for survival. There
were a few people thinking about post war projects, but the priority was
winning the war. Every part of the economy and infrastructure of the
warring parties was dedicated to winning. Iraq and Afghanistan pale in
comparison.




i'm not arguing for the F-22.

You misunderstand, I never said you were.

and there is a lot at stake in tis war. bush has us on the verge of
becoming the UK in the post war period, a former superpower
broken by the enourmous cost of a war.

You underestimate the U.S. economy that is not now on a war footing. The
U.K. was bankrupted by fighting for her life with every penny she had.
There's a huge difference.


nobody is a credible threat.

Maybe not now, but what about 10 years from now?


are they just going to magically appear in 10 years, full blown, armed to
the teeth with ultra-fighters?
if we, the worlds most powerful economy need 10 years to get ready so won't
they{whomever thy might be}.
so who is it? the F-22 has only 2 enemies in sight, china and russia.
during the cold war we never found a reason to fight the ruskis. now that
its over and all russia's allies are nw on our side i see the chance as even
less.



you guys want to build "maginot"fighters. to
fight a war long envisioned in europe but whose conditions have changed.
there is no more warsaw pact. russia has no aircraft carriers nor does
china. the idealogical divide of commie/capitalism is gone.
even china has gone capitalist.

Again you misunderstand. I never said anything about a Cold War
scenario nor did I imply such a case. I never specified an enemy.


right. because there is no credible enemy.
it's russia ,china or nobody. hugo chavez can not make venezuela into any
kind of threat.





any war for resources will involve our european allies as they need thm
too.
so a russian attempt to take over the middle east would be looked askance
at by them too.

Again you misunderstand what is going on. Have you noticed the Europeans
aren't agreeing on much as it is? Suppose Iran makes good her threat to
take out Israel and gets a few other local countries to join in? Are you
SURE Europe will unite to ensure a flow of oil? If they sides against Iran
it's a sure thing their supply of oil will be shut off. The U.S. has to
consider going it alone.



its you who are barking up the wrong strategic tree. you keep looking at
it with cold war eyes.


Actually you misunderstand me again. For example Red China is developing
advanced fighters. The Russians are exporting fighters. What happens if
they both supply and train a third party like Iran?

There's no immediate Cold War type threat, but will this still be true
10 years from now? Are you prepared to bet your nation's security on that?
The Russians have been flying Bear missions similar to those they flew
during the Cold War. They may have ideas of becoming a world power again.





No one can make any better than an educated guess as to what conflicts
may occur 10 years or more into the future. The suggestion that
development and procurement must cease to focus on brush wars is
ludicrous. Recently the U.S. F-15 fleet was grounded due to structural
failures attributable to age. What does O'Hara suggest a war of any kind
be fought with 10 years from now even if the opposition doesn't have
anything more advanced that what is now available? Through normal
attrition how being will the U.S. F-15 and F-16 fleets be? What happens
if the opposition has managed to produce a new fighter type in the few
years prior to that war and the U.S. had stopped procuring and
developing in 2008 because O'Hara says we need to design and procure
only for the present wars?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired



we need what we need now.

That's true, tell Congress to foot the bill.

you want to blow off the war we are in for a
really cool imaginary war with imaginary opponents.

On the other hand, you want to be unprepared for a war of a different
kind than the U.S. is currently fighting. It's nice to hope there will
never be another major war, but if you plan on never having another one
you will always be wrong.

Look what happened 5 years after the end of WW2 when the U.S. had to
fight in Korea. The MiG-15 was a bit of a surprise.

100 mil for planes we don't need and can't afford is a waste of
resources.
we already know how to make f-22s,

OK, let's do as O'Hara says and cease production of F-22 immediately.
Now you have to come up with the money to disassemble the production
lines, store the equipment for future use and have a year's advance notice
before some bad guy decides to take you on. You will need the time to get
the lines going again and get new aircraft coming off the end.



what bad guy?


.."i don't know" doesn't justify spending a billion dollars on spec.

it won't cast much to mothball the production line, certaily less than
buying and maintaining a slew of planes that will be old by the time
any threat "might"appear

when national survival is at stake and we get serious the F-22 will be
fine. but to just break the bank at the expence of today on a longshot
"might" makes no sense.

anybody we need the F-22 to counter we'll just hit with an ICBMs anyway.


maginot fighters.

"Tiger" wrote in message
...
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Roger Conroy" wrote in message
...

we don't have an unlimited budget.
inWWII we concentrated on WWII not WWIII.


By the end of WW2 development of practically all the major weapons
systems of the cold war had at least been started:
Nuclear bombs/warheads, ballistic missiles, intercontinental range
bombers, tactical missiles (ground and air), jet aircraft, "true"
submarines (rather than submersibles), cruise missiles...





all those weapons were for fighting WWII nobody gave a thought about any
cold wars.
we weren't making anything with a the idea of fighting an hypothetical
enemy 30 years in the future in mind.
we weren't building anything that took away from what we were doing.

Your re-writing history. Both sides were looking post war well before
Yalta. That's why everybody went hunting for Nazi tech & scienists even
before VE day.


and they waited post war to build post war.

Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Tiger" wrote in message
...

Raymond O'Hara wrote:

"Yeff" wrote in message
...


On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:20:43 -0400, Raymond O'Hara wrote:



we are not going to achieve whatever it is bush was after.

Preempting Sadam before he aquired WMDs? Yeah, we did that. And rather
spectacularly I might add.

Am I the only one who remembers the preemptive war debate?



which proved to be based on false{made up} intelligence.




Faulty intel. Also it takes two to dance. Saddam had a chance to give up.
He bluffed and lost.



and we might lose too.





The enemy lacks popular support. The Government is taking military ops
independent of the US. Enemy command & control is being eliminated &
rated out. Al Sadir's ceasefire is still holding. Infastructure
improvements continues to improve way of life. US losses are at record
low levels. Oil revenue is helping to stabilise the Government. US
planning to drop combat brigades to back to 15 and reduce tours.

We are not losing......

Mike Williamson wrote:
Tiger wrote:


Hell Right now the Pakistaini's & our Nato allies wish we learn to
shoot only the enemy. The Guys in the clouds are ****ing off the
friendlies Again based on yesterdays news.

According to the news reports I saw on the incident, the Pakistani
military was informed before the strikes took place and informed the
US that there were no Pakistani forces in the area. It seems from the
news stories that there may have been some confusion on the part of
the Pakistani military, due to lack of cooperation between the
regular army and the Frontier Corps.

An investigation has been started, with Afghan and Pakistani
participation in order to find out exactly what happened and how
it can be prevented in the future

Mike

Still the PR is bad. Rule #1, don't **** off the locals. There are too
many knuckleheads who don't seem to be on the same page. See the story
yesterday about the Marines kicking you two dumbasses for throwing
puppies of a cliff on YOU TUBE. Or the guy a few weeks back using the
koran for target practice? The problem in this case is that we have had
one too many airstrikes gone bad. Either hitting civies or other Nato
troops.

Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Tiger" wrote in message
...

Raymond O'Hara wrote:

"Roger Conroy" wrote in message
.. .

and they waited post war to build post war.




Why do I get the feeling When ever folk say the earth is round, you will
post it's flat???? What waiting? Dick Bong was killed testing P-80's in
Aug of 1945. Work on the A bomb never stopped. The race for the Ebe
river was a race gain zones of control postwar. Nobody was waiting.....

Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message ...
Raymond O'Hara wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message
...
Actually O'Hara is demonstrating his lack of strategic planning and
making a rather poor analogy. WW2 was an all out war for survival. There
were a few people thinking about post war projects, but the priority was
winning the war. Every part of the economy and infrastructure of the
warring parties was dedicated to winning. Iraq and Afghanistan pale in
comparison.



i'm not arguing for the F-22.
You misunderstand, I never said you were.

and there is a lot at stake in tis war. bush has us on the verge of
becoming the UK in the post war period, a former superpower
broken by the enourmous cost of a war.
You underestimate the U.S. economy that is not now on a war footing. The
U.K. was bankrupted by fighting for her life with every penny she had.
There's a huge difference.

nobody is a credible threat.
Maybe not now, but what about 10 years from now?


are they just going to magically appear in 10 years, full blown, armed to
the teeth with ultra-fighters?

In case you haven't noticed several countries are working on advanced
fighters. Some of those countries will export and train. In 10 years a
country with high school and college educated manpower could produce a
viable air force from an existing military.

if we, the worlds most powerful economy need 10 years to get ready so won't
they{whomever thy might be}.

Who said anything about taking 10 years to get ready? I chose the 10
years as a hypothetical since you insist Iraq and Afghanistan are a
template for future wars the U.S. will be involved with.

so who is it? the F-22 has only 2 enemies in sight, china and russia.
during the cold war we never found a reason to fight the ruskis. now that
its over and all russia's allies are nw on our side i see the chance as even
less.

China and Russia may be the only potential enemies YOU see, but you
are thinking of today and Cold War. I don't think that way. For example,
sooner or later petroleum will become rather scarce. The U.S. may need
to either seize or defend petroleum production.


you guys want to build "maginot"fighters. to
fight a war long envisioned in europe but whose conditions have changed.
there is no more warsaw pact. russia has no aircraft carriers nor does
china. the idealogical divide of commie/capitalism is gone.
even china has gone capitalist.
Again you misunderstand. I never said anything about a Cold War
scenario nor did I imply such a case. I never specified an enemy.


right. because there is no credible enemy.
it's russia ,china or nobody.

Are you positive about that?

hugo chavez can not make venezuela into any
kind of threat.

Are you sure about that?


any war for resources will involve our european allies as they need thm
too.
so a russian attempt to take over the middle east would be looked askance
at by them too.
Again you misunderstand what is going on. Have you noticed the Europeans
aren't agreeing on much as it is? Suppose Iran makes good her threat to
take out Israel and gets a few other local countries to join in? Are you
SURE Europe will unite to ensure a flow of oil? If they sides against Iran
it's a sure thing their supply of oil will be shut off. The U.S. has to
consider going it alone.


its you who are barking up the wrong strategic tree. you keep looking at
it with cold war eyes.

Actually you misunderstand me again. For example Red China is developing
advanced fighters. The Russians are exporting fighters. What happens if
they both supply and train a third party like Iran?

There's no immediate Cold War type threat, but will this still be true
10 years from now? Are you prepared to bet your nation's security on that?
The Russians have been flying Bear missions similar to those they flew
during the Cold War. They may have ideas of becoming a world power again.




No one can make any better than an educated guess as to what conflicts
may occur 10 years or more into the future. The suggestion that
development and procurement must cease to focus on brush wars is
ludicrous. Recently the U.S. F-15 fleet was grounded due to structural
failures attributable to age. What does O'Hara suggest a war of any kind
be fought with 10 years from now even if the opposition doesn't have
anything more advanced that what is now available? Through normal
attrition how being will the U.S. F-15 and F-16 fleets be? What happens
if the opposition has managed to produce a new fighter type in the few
years prior to that war and the U.S. had stopped procuring and
developing in 2008 because O'Hara says we need to design and procure
only for the present wars?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired


we need what we need now.
That's true, tell Congress to foot the bill.

you want to blow off the war we are in for a
really cool imaginary war with imaginary opponents.
On the other hand, you want to be unprepared for a war of a different
kind than the U.S. is currently fighting. It's nice to hope there will
never be another major war, but if you plan on never having another one
you will always be wrong.

Look what happened 5 years after the end of WW2 when the U.S. had to
fight in Korea. The MiG-15 was a bit of a surprise.

100 mil for planes we don't need and can't afford is a waste of
resources.
we already know how to make f-22s,
OK, let's do as O'Hara says and cease production of F-22 immediately.
Now you have to come up with the money to disassemble the production
lines, store the equipment for future use and have a year's advance notice
before some bad guy decides to take you on. You will need the time to get
the lines going again and get new aircraft coming off the end.



what bad guy?

Does it matter? Read what I wrote for what I meant. Regardless of
whom the bad guy is restarting production from a dead stop isn't an
instant event.


."i don't know" doesn't justify spending a billion dollars on spec.

it won't cast much to mothball the production line, certaily less than
buying and maintaining a slew of planes that will be old by the time
any threat "might"appear

You are thinking small again. The aircraft assembly lines are only
final assembly points. What about all the suppliers of sub-assemblies
and parts? The avionics and engine manufacturers would have to be
convinced to start production again, contracts would have to be let and
so on. It isn't like they assemble Monogram model F-22 kits.


when national survival is at stake and we get serious the F-22 will be
fine. but to just break the bank at the expence of today on a longshot
"might" makes no sense.

As I said before, other nations are developing advanced fighters. The
U.S. may have to face them someday.

anybody we need the F-22 to counter we'll just hit with an ICBMs anyway.

Now who is Cold War thinking? After WW2 "conventional" thinking was
that nuclear weapons made all others obsolete. Korea changed all that.
The U.S. used your theory of "why prepare for the type of war we will
never fight again?" MiG-15 was a big surprise to people who thought the
North Koreans, just as you now think other countries, wouldn't fly front
line aircraft. Granted some MiGs were flown by Soviet pilots, but they
trained and supported North Koreans who weren't all that shabby as
combat pilots.


maginot fighters.

Maginot ICBMs? If you are going to use historical comparisons try
using a more appropriate one.



For the sweet love of humanity try a spell checker.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired