F-35 Declared Operational

[mutt]

Something I think people fail to realize:

1 US Gen 5 fighter with all the technological wiz-bang...

vs. 5 Chinese Gen 5 fighters (hacked from our blueprints) + 25 Chinese & Russian Gen 4 fighters

= US is going to lose each and every time.

You can have the most technologically advanced flying robot in the world, but if you don't have sufficient numbers of them, you're just pissing away money for no reason.

I'd rather have the 20 "outdated" fighters in production compared to the 1 F-35 for the same cost. I don't see the F-35 ever being cheap enough or produced in sufficient quantity to ever make any tactical difference.

The last I read the US has more fighters and attack aircraft than Russia and China combined. To top it off we're the only ones fielding and operating real 5th generation aircraft. While the Russians and Chinese are working towards fielding their own 5th gen, they are markedly behind the US who is undoubtedly already testing 6th generation fighters. When it comes to air power the US is more than capable of fighting our nearest rivals. Our technology, our training and our tactics are simply better - for now.

No one fields the giant air forces of WWII anymore. Even if the tactics of WWII air warfare still applied (they don''t), no one could afford to field modern warplanes, even gen 4, in those numbers. I don't see the Russians or the Chinese cranking out enough planes to give them a 2 to 1 numerical advantage (which would not give them the edge), let alone 20 to 1. Even with cheaper labor and lesser tech, that would be an incredibly expensive undertaking. Even if they could magically build all those planes, who's going to fly them? You can't crank out competent fighter pilots over night. It takes years, one could argue at least a decade, to train a first class fighter pilot.

[Calculated]

I think it's more of a chest pounding thing than anything else. With the world's economies tied together like they are, I don't see any major power with advanced aircraft wanting to get into it with anyone else. Biting the lip to spite the face or however the saying goes.

Personally I love the new airplanes, but the money could've been spent more wisely like on vets dying in hospitals etc. Also, I hope they don't retire the A-10 for a long time, my favorite plane since I was a kid.

China can't innovate, there's no free thinking in their society so their ability to think outside the box seems to be significantly dulled. The plans for the next badass Merican fighter plane already exist I'd bet, and are not on computers connected to the Internet. When were these programs announced? Was it 20 years ago?

[Irving]

F-35 you bro!

MERICA!
MERICA!
MERICA!

[mutt]

I'm glad you are patriotic and all. I truly am. MERICA.
However, how is MERICA in twenty or forty years?

Patriotism has nothing to do with it. These are the facts as they stand today. In twenty or forty years - who knows.

Chinese hack our plans for our gen 5 fighters. Within six months they already have their own version flying. And if we are developing a gen 6 then we need to allocate 60% of our GDP to it because we have the most inefficient, ungodly costly, and unnecessarily long development program.

As for hacking - hate to break it to you but the best hackers in the world work for the NSA. That's not patriotism talking, it is simply fact. For everything our enemies steal from us we steal as much, if not more, from them. The difference is we don't advertise our ops in the nightly news unlike our rivals.

I highly doubt they'd have it fully operational in 6 months. Even with stolen plans it takes a lot of logistics and know how to make a new 4th gen aircraft fully operational - let alone 5th gen using tech you stole and need to reverse engineer. It took us 15 years to make the F-22 fully operational - and we developed and understood every aspect of the program. It would take the Chinese or the Russians at least that long to field a new design and they are very competent nations. Advanced weapons are the privy of rich and technologically advanced nations for a reason.

As for inefficiency in military procurement programs - all nations suffer from the same problems. Peacetime military programs are as much political and economic kickbacks as they are national security programs. The Russians and Chinese are no different. Quite possibly, due to their political systems, they are worse.

We have scarified our manufacturing economy to convert it to a service economy. China has converted their economy to a manufacturing economy with far cheaper wages and much more output capacity than we could imagine.

Lets stop pounding our chest and saying MERICA while turning a blind eye to the reality of the future... America as the world superpower is coming to an end. That is shifting to the Asian sphere of influence.

The US is still one of the largest manufacturing nations in the world. We just don't do consumer based products anymore. While we don't make any blu-ray players or cellphones, we sure do seem to make a lot of jet liners and heavy industrial equipment. China does indeed have a large output capacity but that's not because they have some massive technological advantage over the rest of the world. They are the world's low cost producer and so the world chooses to build factories and shift cost-sensitive production there. The US was the same in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Just as our economy changed so will China's. Someone will eventually be able to build crap more cheaply than the Chinese. When that day happens they are going to find themselves with a lot of manufacturing over-capacity.

As for our time as a superpower coming to an end - yes it is. The world of two super powers was an odd artifact of WWII. The modern world has always been a multi-polar world with regional powers. It is starting to return to the norm. Whether that is good or bad for the US remains to be seen. I think it will be a good thing. This last 70 years of empire has corrupted us politically.

Also bear in mind, when they have carrier killing ballistic missiles that in effect keep us out of operational range of their coastline, with our present situation we really don't have any fighters that can operate carrier based and hit anything in their mainland (or cover bombers).

Yeah, we're developing stuff. But China is catching up and doing so much more efficiently than we are. Realistically I don't forsee any war with them.

Why the assumption we would not, if we haven't already, develop a counter? We're very good at weaponizing technology. As for your assertion that we can't hit the Chinese mainland using our carriers, long range bombers or guided missiles - simply untrue. We could but it definitely wouldn't be the cake-walk we are used to when dealing with enemies with lesser capabilities. But as you said direct warfare with China, or Russia, is highly unlikely. Nuclear armed enemies tend to not want to engage in direct combat for fear of the eventual, and unwinnable, escalation.

That said, it isn't WW2... technology advances are about at their limits. Double the processing power and 30% more stealth really isn't that much of an advancement. It isn't F15 v Mig 21 anymore. The extra ability that 90% spending gets you on a single plane probably only amounts to a 20% tactical advantage.

Math isn't in the F35's favor.

Every generation always seems to think they have reached the pinnacle of technology. They are always wrong. Technology never reaches a limit. It has some slower periods of advancement but it never stays still. And no this isn't the age of the F-15 vs MiG-21. It's the age of the F-22 vs the Su-35. The difference is as meaningful now as it was then. The F-15 was extraordinarily expensive for its time yet no one will argue it served its purpose and was the premier air superiority fighter of its age.

As for the F-35, only time will tell. It has a lot to live up to considering it is meant to replace the F-16, F-18, A-10 and AV-8.