The F-35 is the Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) player of war machines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnpX8d8zRIA
Perfect for the era development started in, but useless for the era when it was finally shippable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnpX8d8zRIA
Perfect for the era development started in, but useless for the era when it was finally shippable.
I'm not saying it's a bad argument, but since the hypothesis space is vast (what kind of future conflicts the US/NATO will engage in, what intensity, what kind of economics, what kind of arms race will those bring, etc), and data is sparse, it seems like HN/pundits are not great at really reducing the uncertainty.
Sure, it's still a fuckload of money, and probably it could be better spent on providing new skill training to unemployed/at-risk-workers in those states where the F35 money goes right now, but that's a hard sell, and doesn't really move the needle with regards to air-force capacity.
Are you any good at lottery numbers?
Traditional fighters will probably lull in use in between the proliferation of drones, and the proliferation of countermeasures to those drones.
I do not believe for a second the F-35 was ever designed to be an actual combat jet, I think is was all just a giant smoke screen to serve several political goals on both the domestic and Foreign fronts.
It is simultaneously a prime example of a Jet designed by committee, a 1 Trillion + dollar program that will never serve the purpose it was sold to the taxpayers for...
Do you really think that an aircraft not meant to do something would be fielded by those nations and used to do that very thing?
And of course the program has political goals, every defense acquisition program does, to pretend otherwise would be silly.
It is mediocre in all roles for which was designed to replace. It is not as good at dog-fighting as its counter parts, it is not as good at close air support as its counter parts, it does not have as good of stealth has it counter parts.
It is a 1 Trillion+ Dollar "ok" fighter jet, which is not what we were sold
It was to replace almost all of the jetfighter platforms from the A-10 to the F15 and to replace some of the bomber platforms
The F-15Cs are all pushing 40, Hornets are 30+ and because they're used by the Navy they're used hard, the A-10 is totally obsolete, and no bomber is being replaced by the F-35.