Is Prague's F-35 Move Checkmate for Europe's 4th Gen Fighters? | Hacker News Reader

Is Prague's F-35 Move Checkmate for Europe's 4th Gen Fighters?

airforce-technology.com

16 pointsGeonode19 comments

So we're theoretically not supposed to complain about back-button breakage, but you really need to know before you click on this that it comprehensively broke my back button. When I tried to go back in my history (mobile FF, holding down back button), it was just endless copies of the site. I had no choice but to close the tab. With abuse that flagrant I'm honestly tempted to flag the article, but at minimum you should open it in a new tab.

It doesn't seem to happen for me on Firefox Windows (with some anti-tracking/js customizations)

I do notice that the reload button goes back and forth a few times, I guess the article continues to load after first visiting?

Time for ublock on my phone, maybe.

I think this breakage is epic enough to warrant calling out.

This website renders properly without any javascript enabled at all. It really seems like javascript mostly exists to make websites worse. Whitelisting useful javascript is less work than blacklisting harmful javascript, because there's more bad than good out there.

It might be just me… but I can’t imagine these planes being effective in large scale combat. Similar to the onset of WWII they quickly developed cheaper, more robust systems. This fighter has a lot of moving parts and would require a LOT of logistics to keep it running and build more. Practically speaking, they’d need a cheaper plane to actually fight any war. Particularly, with the ability to launch missiles and destroy factories. The less parts / reliance on large logistics the better. Might be good in the immediate combat, but anything over a few months I double many planes would be operational.

That said, baring a world war, this plane seems fine. As the US basically has a safe enough logistics train that they can deliver these planes around the world. IE fight in regional conflicts the plane works fine.

One lesson of the Ukraine war so far is that the defender needs a very strong SEAD story, because if you let the invader fight a ground war (under an intact air defense umbrella) it becomes an artillery battle in which your civilians, infrastructure, and ground forces suffer tremendously. Another is the power of deep penetration attacks on logistics. You can have doubts about the F-35 as a fighter as such, but the above is what the F-35 was designed to do.

In the oughties it seemed like the consensus was that the F-35 was a terrible weapon (but a great way to make contractors rich). That still seemed a common view in the 2010s. Now people who get paid to make these decisions and don't have an obvious vested interest seem to be making different decisions. I don't know what changed

Mostly economy of scale dropped flyaway cost of it down to 4th gen level ($80M)

What surprises me is do many countries accepting the high maintenance/flight hour cost. I’d also want something that can operate out of a crappy back road supported by a few conscripts, a few months into a conflict. Or do patrol missions in peacetime for cheap. F-35 ain’t that. But perhaps a mix is also expensive.

The majority view in the 2000s and 2010s was not that the F-35 was overpriced, it was that the F-35 was worse at most tasks than existing aircraft. The fact that it is crazy expensive just made that worse. Something must have changed, because I don't think Boeing has developed mind control rays.

Not a surprising outcome given Europe's underspending on defense. The US has long been subsidizing EU defense via security guarantees and foreign bases and this is the natural outcome of falling behind in domestic R&D spending and relying on US defense.

The F35 might have been a colossal money blackhole but given two equally inefficient defense contractors the one with more money wins.

I think it's the opposite. Now that countries are spending more on their militaries there's more money in the budget for operating costs. The main benefit the Gripen has over the F-35, especially now when F-35s are getting cheaper to buy, is the lower operating cost. If that's not an issue then using the same platform as other NATO countries combined with scoring political points with the US makes it hard for others to compete. These huge military deals are never only about performance and matching the needs of the buyer, they're also political.

Gripen and its predecessors was developed precisely because Sweden was alliance free and needed to not be dependent on security guarantees from the US.

South Korea's KF-21 doubtlessly isn't as good as the F-35 (no internal weapons bay for one thing) but it seems like it should be better, or at least stealthier, than any of the European 4th generation fighters. And South Korea created it for a small fraction of what the F-35 cost to develop. I think there is a lot of room for Europe to produce better fighters without the massive America-style spending. Politics/bureaucracy is probably a major impediment though.

Do Czechia have the same agrement than Belguim, IE they have to be able to carry US tactical nukes?

If so this isn't checkmate at all, it is just than the only plane that can carry those nukes are the F16 and the F35.

Or it can just be a political move.

I still think the F22 have the best design for any stealth fighter, and the Rafale have a better design for multipurpose planes. The F35 tries to be a multipurpose stealth plane, and it suffers greatly. I get that it won't dogfight and will only engage F3 weapons against others gen3+, but i do think the inclusion of drone reconnaissance in the airspace will render stealth harder to obtain (well, not against Russia tbh, so i gess its fine). I do think the operating costs could cripple the airforce of small econ like the Su operating costs crippled the Russian army (less than 80 hours/year on average for their pilots? seriously?), and think the Grippen would be a better choice overall, but it is the cost-saving boring engineer who's talking.

>4th Gen Fighters

can it outrun a manpad? as recent events showed planes arent that great in the presence of AA. The dreams of dogfights are over. Cheap, reliable, plentiful seems to be the ticket. Poland just ordered x50 South Korean FA-50, good enough for 90% of actual needs in a real conflict.

Can fighter jets (air superiority, and multi-role) "outrun" MANPAD? Most of the time, for practical purposes, yes.

MANPAD can't go very far compared to serious AA systems and are generally best for CAS-type fixed wing aircraft or helicoptors. Even the best MANPAD (stinger, or whatever,) get something like 80% contact probability. A reasonably aware fighter jet can evade a MANPAD missile with very basic defensive maneuvers. MANPADs are best for harassing fast moving aircraft and denying full air control with gunships or transports.

On the other hand, dedicated AA systems are another matter entirely

Interesting that US used to have a policy of selling F-35s only to countries that already operate F16s.

OMG.

That site does Very Bad Things to my back button (Safari on iPad).

Same with Firefox on Mac.

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