F-35 Cleared for Full-Rate Production 17 Years After Its First Flight
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War thinky types divide the "battle space" into zones of danger, and stealth platforms justify their cost by being able to penetrate highest threat areas. It's an idea that hasn't really been tested yet, not really, not since 1993. Hopefully we never find out.
Some of the Block 4 mods have been moved up, particularly the necessary avionics stuff, but some of the mods need rework for heat management and other deeper requirements.
Not sure entirely how you mean, as "stealth" has been utilized multiple times since then. For example, using a stealth platform to penetrate high threat areas was tested over Yugoslavia in 1999 with the F-117. Stealth failed that test and it was confirmed that more than just low observability was needed (an issue addressed by the F-22 and F-35).
Speaking personally, I'm skeptical of stealth's utility against a peer power. Automation, very smart software, and cheap electronics will just be too dense, and the attacking platform is too expensive for the elevated level of risk. Some stealth is useful, to break locks . . but I think the ceiling of usefulness might be lower than we suspect. Whatever the real answer is, my own hope is that the powers-that-be will be capable of changing their minds in the face of accurate reports and analysis. "Being able to change your mind quickly" might be the best skill for a peacetime military to have.
On that front, I'm not filled with confidence. This all smells a little bit like the precision bombing advocates of the interwar period (1920-1943). There are many who, to this day, maintain that the pre-1943 daylight precision bombing campaigns were effective in their stated mission, in spite of all findings to the contrary. Pre-1943 (before the H2X "Micky" radar groundmap bombsight) we were extraordinarily lucky if a bomb hit a point target (not helped at all by the near-fraudulent behavior of Norden and the NBoO), and even if it did, it didn't disable it, because factories are pretty tough and enormous. If we can't talk about something after seventy years, how likely are we to see truth of something happening right in front of our faces?
Now, please let me be clear. If I am in the pilot seat, and I have a forty percent lower chance of being blown into flash-fried gibbets, I will be overjoyed. I will be blissful. The technologies are super cool, and, in spite of what could be called a rocky development path, they came out the other side with what looks like a usable platform, maybe even an excellent one. But, big picture, if I have a platform that costs a hundred times more[1], and it improves my rates from 5:1 to 9.2:1, taken on the whole . . that was not an optimal use of treasure and materiel. If it was flown out in 2009? Yeah, probably 20:1 exchange rates. It's not 2009 . . there's been a LOT of tech movement (hence the importance of Block 4).
The bitch of it is, I'm not even complaining against stealth all that much. I'm mostly bitching about the program management, not measuring spares, not checking if a widget worked yet before signing it off. Cheap stealth can be had, especially nowadays. And when it goes below a much lower cost threshold, it's even worth it - look at the NSM, after all, cheap stealth is incredibly deadly on a cruise missile or anything that needs to get in the enemy's face, that needs to close the range. But I'll be surprised if the cost of the 35 turns out to be worth it, as cool as it might be.
Eh, but who knows? Prominent defense talky talky type people have said that you're a fool for having opinions about the 35. So I'll just sit here being a fool, when it undoubtedly spanks the entire mainland PLAN/AF and we fly back home with geostrategic supremacy balanced on a whole squadron of fifty-foot erections. That would be grand - I would be a fool for any length of time to make that happen.
[0] Maybe Beirut, maybe maybe Iraq, although in the second instance there's a question as to who they were actually shooting at. But Gaza for sure - third parties saw that one. None of those are even in the same continent as a peer competitor air defense.
[1] Yes yes yes I know full rate production assuming 1000 units the flyaway cost per unit F35 is super duper ultra Costco cheap, 35m or whatever they're claiming now, but I'm talking "whole program" costs. Even using the Costco metaphor, buying the forty pound sack of tomatoes might be real cheap per tomato, but I'm only using two of those tomatoes - in the end I spend forty bucks for two tomatoes. I got some opinions about the whole concept of "flyaway cost", but that's another conversation.
30 years from now, I think this program will be seen as a massive success. Countries are lining up to order these, which is a massive geopolitical benefit to the US. Drone warfare will be increasingly important, but at least in this decade, I don’t think we’ll see autonomous fighters that have the sorts of capabilities 5th gen fighters have.
The gap between the two has closed so much within the last decade, people just do some hand waving to dismiss china because it gives them some sort of psychological comfort.
In this case for example it’s the cost - sure the US spends billions more on defense, but the gap in spending is way, way smaller than people think. It’s not just a matter of ppp or anything like that, which of course plays a big part, but also just the stage in maturity these organizations are in.
Not even sure what my point here, maybe I was just made uneasy by the person throwing a congratulations out there as if this were some sort of big accomplishment. The Chinese are making bigger strides day-to-day and I don’t see them celebrating.
Even when things are working mind of ok, rather than build alliances and friends (build soft power), China too often acts entitled after coming in to a place & blows the political gains they should have been making. Even when coming with a carrot to the world, China's demands-of-ego get in their own way.
China does have an incredibly fast growing navy. Their military is cranking out enormous amounts of everything, at a dizzying unimaginable pace. And perhaps the Belt & Road will help that nation project power some, will serve as ports and bases. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure why they are so aggressively building their military.
Yes, the US has a global presence but it’s because it has to have one, china does not.
The US doesn’t care about Taiwan just out of principle, it cares about Taiwan because in a way it’s fighting to keep all of Asia from falling under Chinese influence.
China doesn’t have to worry about parking aircraft carriers off the coast of California at a moments notice because it doesn’t have to, what’s at stake is in their backyard where they are more than well prepared for combat.
Also, the US has to spend resources projecting power in Europe for many reasons, which only makes it more vulnerable to a conflict with China. Can you imagine what would happen if russia decided to go to war in Europe with full aid from China while the US was also trying to fight an all out war in Asia?
These aren’t some doomsday scenarios I’m coming up with here, just stating that dismissing China the way Americans do is reminiscent of the same hubris that has come to bite other nations in the ass sooner or later.
The F-16 isn't cheap at $63 per.
EDIT: the above is not from the article, where "cost" appears once in a link to another article.
Lots of discussion on the official Defense post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39685612
Su-27 has a nice sleek look to it but I respected it more when it had all this theoretical capabilities that never materialized in an active theater...
YF-23 would like a word with you.
Kinda like when you realized someone you grow to respect looks more impressive the better you get to know them.
But yea, 9 yrs vs 2 yrs is quite a difference
The SR-71 was a incredibly limited run, extremely expensive, designed to do a VERY specific mission.
The F-35 is designed to do multiple missions, mass manufacturable, exportable to allied countries, and is a general purpose fighter.
Comparing them is pure ignorance.
We'll see how it goes.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/06/19/lockheed-reas...
Are they still making F18s and F16s?
Soon we will have 30,000 autonomous drones delivered via a rocket anywhere on earth in 30 minutes or less. Starlink satellites will monitor the drones as they pick off soldiers one by one.
The future of warfare is terrifying
OISL? How many of them do you expect each Sat to have?
Probably you could control a good amount of drones with a single satellite transciever, and your typical drone would have LOS to many satellites.
There could be multiplexer drones whose purpose would be to mediate between cheap disposable small drones and the satellites themselves.
This is already a thing (not with lasers and sats) - the Russians have the Orlan drones with sophisticated(ish) surveillance equipment that act as spotters and guide the Lancet suicide drones and artillery
The satellite adds an extra vulnerability. You can see the satellite from 1000km away. Just build a big directional antenna well outside the war zone.
Jamming signals in a war zone is hard because you give away your own position when you start jamming.
Ground based jammers are physically not capable of doing this. And I'm pretty sure they use frequency bands that do not reflect off the ionosphere otherwise they couldn't talk to satellites.
Secondly it’s probably easier to jam the satellite, because you know exactly where it is.
If you’re on the ground near the drone you can definitely send noise at the satellite so it can’t receive anything from the drone.
You’d have to do some testing to see if a jammer off to the side (1000km away) works. I think it will.
Good luck defending your airspace with just drones.
Fighter jets can maneuver. For a successful missile launch you need a good enough lock to track the plane precisely as it moves. Just knowing roughly where the plane was a few minutes ago doesn't help all that much when it comes to killing it.
And advanced radar probably also can get a lock, if the operators know something is there.
Also, launch parameters for missiles are important. A missile fired from a drone flying at low subsonic speeds has far less energy, and is thus far less of a threat.
The F35 only has a top speed of Mach 1,6 (F16 had Mach 2). And a ground to surface missile also starts at V0 = 0 so less of a threat maybe, but still a great threat. The defense of a stealth jet is not speed, but stealth. When a missile is fired at it, it might survive, but the idea is that there never will be a missile fired in the first place. Drones could negate that.
Good luck defending your air defenses if your opposition can throw hundreds or thousands of drones at you, all of which can travel faster than Mach 10.
We used to just call those cruise missiles. I guess everything needs to just be called a drone now.
"After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory."
The alternative would have been uncomfortable after all.
"The white cell also directed the chief of staff that the red team had to position its air defense assets out in the open so the blue forces could easily destroy them. Even after some were not destroyed, the red team was forbidden to fire upon blue forces as they conducted a live airborne drop. Van Riper asked the white cell if his forces could at least deploy the chemical weapons that he possessed, but he was again denied."[0]
[0] https://warontherocks.com/2015/11/millennium-challenge-the-r...
Sure, but then why add them in the first place?
And no, when everyone is already there, it does not make sense to send them home, after the initial failure. But what they then did, was not a "wargame" anymore. But they still called it like that and still had a US "victory" in the end. That sounds fake to boost moral (while ignoring serious flaws).
Instead of buying one stealth plane, army can buy 5000+ combat drones. And you know who has 5000+ air defense rockets ready to engage? No one!
Multiply and you need a hundred billion USD of investment. And a lot of ammo which is not cheap either. Phalanx auto cannon fire rate is 3000+ USD per second.
> And you know who has 5000+ air defense rockets ready to engage?
Probably most modern militaries with advanced ballistic point defense like the Phalanx CIWS. Mass-produced drones are slow, large, and usually don't carry an effective enough payload to disable your target. A swarm could prove effective, but usually a single supersonic cruise missile is enough to put any modern target in the "it's a gamble" territory of interception. The materiel advantage of multiple drones is vastly outweighed by the capabilities of a well-placed munition.
Cheap (~50k USD) are disabling oil refineries in Russia right now causing losses of a more than a hundred million USD.
Phalanx could cover 3km range meaning you need at least 6 for a single air field. And it has ammo for 30 seconds only. How many drones it can kill? 10? 30? And drone #50 will hit target.
And for some reason navy is not waiting for Phalanx to engage in the last second before impact, they use expensive rockets.
Modern army has no real answer to the attack of 100+ drones at a time.
Swarm warfare isn't irrelevant, but propeller-driven subsonic aircraft usually end up as cannon fodder no matter how many you throw into controlled airspace.
Ghetto 10-50k propellor drones with 2000km+ theatre range are (basically stand off capabilities) now are just (very) poverty mans subsonic TLAMs, which themselves are weaponeered in strike packages to account for interception, ecm, duds etc. But they're still sent in numbers designed to overwhelm finite local defense.
Ground reality right now is most US bases can get away with CIWS and interceptors because current garbage cheap propellor drones (Iran) are limited to dumb bulk drone attacks. But once you add some autonomous intelligence and coordinated swarm ability, a swarm of cheap propellor drone that can do basic evasion can make counter drone warfare unsustainably inefficient. A CIWS with 1500 rounds has 25-30 burst, a remotely reactive propellor drone that bleeds 3 bursts instead of 1, or a longer burst because it's no longer on a predictable trajectory and all of sudden base defense scaled to engage 200 targets goes dry engaging 50. Maybe INS and software enables limitted onboard compute to hug terrain lower, navigate in low covered approachces etc. Now an adversary who can't coordinate a 300 drone attack, can manage to pierce defense with 100. Optmize even more when software improves onboard target recognition and that tiny payload goes strait for vunerable assets. Or if base defense destroyed, it could loiter (because propeller) and lock down base for hours while defenders hide in hardened shelters. Or just glide itself into structures and sit around as unexploded ordnance that goes boom if cheap webcam recognizes motion / battery runs out. IMO there's a lot of capabilities that can be milked from a cheap platform.
The next thing you know the entire economics of said base defense stops being viable. The potential danger with intelligent autonomous swarms is it's feasible that eventually they'll make the cannon fodder to successful attack exchange unfavourable / unsustainable to defenders.
I have a relative who recently (2 years ago) called it a career after roughly 40 years at Lockheed-Martin, and a good chunk of that time was within the Skunk Works division. What I was able to gleam from him is that LHM sees the future of aerial warfare as a hybrid of manned and unmanned vehicles. The idea is that a 6th or 7th gen fighter might be a "mothership" of sorts with much more powerful weapons such as bombs or heavier artillery , but also in control of a number of unmanned drones capable of significantly faster attack abilities but with lighter armaments or laser weapons, all to replace current dogfighting scenarios.
Fascinating, but terrifying at the same time.
here let me fix that for you
> as they pick off every human one by one
yes, yes, we only need to use a few more GPUs to turn automated plagiarism machines into full blown AGI, am I right?
I thought at least Apple getting off the horse because they realized it's just a carnival carousel was a hint. But apparently people are so high on the LLM supply they can't think straight any more.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russia-ukraine-co...
All a drone needs to do in what I just described is target something that looks like a target (ie person with gun). We have that tech today, and it’s not hard.
It's not a popular fact but Russia is excelling at this area right now.
Having a live war to test in and a tight feedback loop between the front lines and the industrial backbone has sped up their weapons development quite a lot.
here's an example of a western admission that Russia is currently ahead in electronic warfare:
What about the datalink? Max distance? Is there a video feed? Does each drone have an operator? If not, how do you know who is being targeted? War is ugly and messy, everything looks like the same shit on the battlefield.
Have you considered weather? Temperature can play a nasty role in drone mobility, not to mention wind. Oh, and they’re not quiet, at all.
Drones are as much of a pain as they can be effective. Everyone just assumes they “just work” and they really don’t.
Which rocket are you imagining as the delivery platform? I hope it is not any of SpaceX's rockets, which probably need 30 min just to fuel them up -- and once they're fueled, they have to be launched in a few days or undergo an expensive disassembly process to prevent corrosion caused by fuel residue.
The US Air Force used liquid-fueled ICBMs for about 10 years, then in the 1960s switched to solid fueled because of the disadvantages described above.
And that’s before Starship comes into play. If successful, they want to be able to fly them much more frequently than Falcon 9s.
They’re not really at risk of having nothing to do with a rocket
What matters for a weapon is the delay between the decision to use the weapon and when the weapon arrives at the target; it would be a mistake to look just at flight time. For an ICBM or a sub-launched ballistic missile, the delay really is about 40 min all in.
Liquid-fueled rocket engines are not used by the US military and haven't been used since about 1970 and that is unlikely to change in my estimation because of this new capability that SpaceX has developed of rockets that can land gently enough that a payload of drones survives the landing. I don't want to guess as to the feasibility of developing a solid-fuel rocket that can land gently.
(Also I think 30 min is unrealistic: a SpaceX rocket would need about an hour IMO to travel to some destination on the other side of Earth from where it launched: an ICBM can do it in about 40 min only because it is still going at about 8 times the speed of sound when it hits.)
If anyone actually in the industry contradicts anything I wrote here, they are probably right and I'm probably wrong.
https://theweek.com/us-military/1020858/the-f-35-fighter-jet...
Lockheed Martin is moving towards drone fighter jets under "Project Carrera" although their ideal is to have a F-35 controlling a swarm of fighter drones that travel with it, which seems like a convenient excuse to keep producing and selling the F-35. Eventually the human fighter pilot will be removed from the system and it'll all be run by an AI called SkyNet.
https://breakingdefense.com/2022/09/lockheed-investing-100m-...
Maybe against asymmetric opponents who can't hit back in space domain.
Peer powers with ASAT capability will just launch a "cheap" kill vehicle to blowup starship + payload worth 100s of million because US put eggs in one platform basket like aircraft carriers where ROI depends on reusability which is ultimately predicated on survivability. Meanwhile resulting kessler syndrome degrades space enviroment for everyone, but US the most because they have the most hardware in space.