D
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an improvement on a worse POS isn't much of a metric of quality.
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F-35 Program Cutting Corners to “Complete” Development
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an improvement on a worse POS isn't much of a metric of quality.
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Zarathustra[H]
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The M113 was developed by the "Food Machinery Corp". There is a "cannon fodder" joke in here somewhere
I wonder why they went with the Bradley design.
I've always thought the Hagglunds BV206 design type was pretty cool. I also wonder why they added a gun, instead of focusing on just making it a good troop transport vehicle, and leaving the guns to the tanks.
LOL, I just read this and I was thinking SA-4? That was old when I entered service in '81 lol. Glad you caught yourself.
Delicieuxz
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All the same, Israel hasn't been flying near any S-400 systems in Syria.
ok, fyi- southfront is Russian. Note RU
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I won't take a Russian domain as a credible source for shooting down an F-35 when none has been documented anywhere else. You have contradicted yourself by saying there are and there are not s-400 systems in syria. Maybe there are only four, maybe there are more. The intelligence on this is vague for obvious reasons as the Russians are not going to go around saying anything about this. Since there are russian troops in syria, it hardly matters if Syria or Russia own them. that is irrelevant. Maybe so that the F-35's avoided the s-400, maybe not. no parties involved would ever admit to anything on this. the point here is that the F-35 flew in and out of syrian airspace without a hitch and i bet putin and Assad didn't like it one bit. As far as the retaliation of the chemical attacks, it is well documented that the retaliation was limited ON PURPOSE to the originating air base that those attacks were flow from to avoid escalation. So much for the expensive Russian built surface to air systems that the Russians have put in place.
Are you a Russian bot programmed by Putin promoting fake news or what?
lol i just remembered the 4 and oops. : D
Delicieuxz
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Calling accurate information "fake news" shows a particular quality about yourself - and it isn't flattering. Are you really so fragile that a bit of information that corrects your false assertion must be called 'fake news' pushed by bots programmed by Putin? I think, and hope, that most people just respect correcting information on the basis that it is correcting and accurate. But you appear to be trying to defend a right to post propaganda, and fake news - which your claim definitively was.
Are you perhaps working within the US' massive troll farm program, or what?
The South Front article isn't key to the correction of your previous assertion about Israeli jets and the S-400 system, But still, you could look into South Front's information and think about it for yourself, instead of searching for some excuse to trigger confirmation bias for the sake of dismissing the information it showed you. That's what an objective person would do, anyway.
Nice turnaround on that, quoting the one and ONLY source of an F-35 "shootdown" from a RU registered domain shows your inability to filter the truth from Russian propoganda.
Sure it is. Look, no Bradley is supposed to be fighting other armored Vehicles in a brawl. They haul Infantry near to an Objective, the Infantry dismounts, the Bradleys might be called on to support their attack but their targets are going to be suppression fire on a building or a bunker or maybe to engage an enemy helicopter. In the defensive they will be in dug-out positions using their Anti-Tank missiles maybe the Bushmaster against any light vehicles. They shoot, and then drive down into a covered position out of harm's way while they reload. Then they will drive back up into a new firing position to take another shot.
They are decades old vehicles designed for a type of warfare that isn't likely to happen very often, full on combined arms conflict. The only kind of warfare that they are actually applicable to. If you want to say that a BMP II is far better OK, I'm fine with that. If you want to say that because BMP II's are far better than Bradley's that we are at a disadvantage I'll have an argument to make. It's like saying we will win the next war because our trucks are far better than the enemy's trucks, their trucks, so what? They are not the major maneuver piece that has the greater effect on the outcome of combat.
Can a Bradley keep up with an M1 Abrams so that our Infantry can keep pace with our armor?
How reliable are they maintenance wise?
Can they provide Infantry with some fire support and improved Anti-Tank capability if needed?
Does the Thermal Imaging systems provided good night fighting capability?
I was never an Infantryman, I am unsure of the organization but It's probably be pretty accurate to say that each Bradley could transport a Fire Team, two Fire Teams to a Squad, three Squads to a Platoon, three Platoons in a Company. So that is six Bradleys per Platoon and a total of something close to 20 in an Infantry Company. That is a lot of TOW Missile launchers and 25mm Bushmaster guns with very good Thermal Imaging systems for night fighting. In fact, with the scouts, there'll be a few more running around.
Of course the go to vehicle these days seems to be the Stryker. They used to only be assigned to actual Stryker Battalions but I wouldn't be surprised if the plan was to replace all the Bradleys with Stryker vehicles eventually. If they can do it better than a Bradley fine, but no one is ever going to claim that WW3 was won by because of how awesome the Stryker is. An Infantry taxi isn't what wins wars, although not having a ride at all would certainly make it harder.
Delicieuxz
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Again, is your nationalist ego, your nationalist propaganda pride so fragile that it can't handle being confronted with simple accurate information?
The South Front article about a downing of an F-35 by S-200 systems isn't even a part of the correction of your earlier assertion that Israeli jets are flying over S-400 systems (which they aren't), an undetected. The South Front article doesn't even involve S-400 systems, in case that skipped your notice. You seem to be trying to divert attention away from what you claimed (that Israeli jets are flying over S-400s without being shot down, implying they aren't detectable) and the correcting information that I provided to that claim: Israel isn't flying near any of the four S-400s in Syria - and Russia likely wouldn't target an Israeli jet, while Israel would likely coordinate with Russia if they were going to be flying nearby.
Dead Parrot
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Even the Mustangs had teething problems. The A variant was under powered at high altitude, the B & C versions had visibility and gun jamming issues. The D is the one most folks think of when they think of the P-51. Of course, the whole P-51 design cycle lasted less then the time it takes to process the paperwork for a change on the F-35. Which is a large part of the problem with the F-35, the design cycle is too long and the number of changes in design is too high. I wonder how many versions of the plane we really have? Not major letter versions but differences in software due to changes being approved and subtle hardware changes due to problems found with the first few off the line.
Before the Meriin engine, the p-51 was a dog. That change make all the difference.
The M113 was developed by the "Food Machinery Corp". There is a "cannon fodder" joke in here somewhere
I wonder why they went with the Bradley design.
I've always thought the Hagglunds BV206 design type was pretty cool. I also wonder why they added a gun, instead of focusing on just making it a good troop transport vehicle, and leaving the guns to the tanks.
The 25mm is a heavy support weapon capable of engaging attack helicopters from beyond Anti-Tank Missile Range. They are also pretty useful in suppressing enemy crew served weapons positions, buildings and bunkers, although the TOWs work pretty good on buildings too. The 25mm can easily kill any enemy IFV although the reverse is true. This class of vehicle always is more lethal than survivable. By the time you put on enough armor to defeat these weapons you don't have an Infantry transport anymore, you just have another kind of tank.
The game is not rock vs rock or scissors vs scissors, it's rock, paper scissors.
Tanks might fight tanks, but it's better to use helicopters and aircraft to kill tanks. Artillery and aircraft are great against Infantry mounted or dismounted, etc etc. RADAR directed SAM systems have a hard time when you take out the RADAR or jam it. Better still when they can't even "see" your planes at all.
You are correct about the M113, the stories of what happened when they were hit with an RPG are down right grotesque. Melting aluminum turned from armor into a spray of horror is nothing anyone wants to see first hand.
They key to understanding why they wanted a vehicle like the Bradley is rooted in how the US Army envisioned fighting the Warsaw Pact in Europe. Back then everything was centered on that threatened future conflict that never actually came to pass.
First you must imagine NATO Forces deployed as a thin line trying to hold off and delay massed armored assaults while being hammered by heavy artillery, air attack, and even chemical weapons. See, a good way to pin an enemy in place for a few hours is to dump chemicals on them as long as you don't think they'll nuke you for it. Of course, the response was, we'll just use small tactical nukes on your heaviest formations and concentrations. Tit for tat. You will push, we'll float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, bleed you and run before you can pin us down and crush us. By time, time for reinforcements, time for diplomacy, time for something to change.
The best US projections said the Russians would reach the med and NATO in Europe would be done inside of three weeks, no longer. The US Army always has another tank or IFV, or plane in development. Sometimes they get bought and built, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they get built only because fear says we can't make do with the old stuff any longer. Sometimes you get a brain-child General that thinks you don't even need tanks any more;
http://www.combatreform.org/tanklessarmy.htm
I'm glad the good idea faerie isn't always the winner. I am pretty sure he lost the fight for getting rid of tanks all together, but if anyone wants to know why we keep modernizing the M1 Abrams instead of replacing it all together, I think you can point right here for the answer.
I've been following the F-35 from the start. If you were to evaluate it on the runway for the first time, with no knowledge of the program's history, the goals, the costs, and the delays, you'd say it was a good plane, maybe even a fantastic plane. Evaluating it on it's per-unit price is difficult because we're biased - we know the history of the plane and we know that the original goal of the program was to produce a modern, inexpensive, and dependable strike fighter along the lines of the F-16 (the F-16 program was a huge success.) In truth, there weren't any glaring failures in the F-35 program. In spite of the delays and the cost overruns, the plane exists and the plane works, and now we're left with the question of whether or not to buy it.
In my opinion, it's too expensive. It's a great plane, but we don't need it at this moment, and if there's an equal chance to save money and get a better plane by starting over yet again, I'd say we do it. Let Lockheed learn that lesson, too. Sunk costs are a losers game - you have to know when to walk away.
The article touches on the one gigantic, enormous, almost criminal problem within the program - after paying for the development of the plane, we do not own the design or the related software. This must stop.
I was going to write a long essay about why the government should own the designs it has paid for (there's a very comfortable soapbox that has crawled up beneath me, it's a nice place to be and I'm not feeling any hurry to step down), but instead I'll just say this: A big part of the F-35's capabilities lie in it's advanced target acquisition system and it's helmet-based HUD. Every engineering expert has said that these systems would be excellent upgrades for all of our current combat aircraft; several companies have offered to retrofit the system to the F-15's and maybe even the F-22. However, the designers and builders of the system (Lockheed, Rockwell Collins and Elbit Systems) say that it can't be done, and that the Pentagon will have to offer a new contract if they want this capability on existing planes.
In my opinion, it's too expensive. It's a great plane, but we don't need it at this moment, and if there's an equal chance to save money and get a better plane by starting over yet again, I'd say we do it. Let Lockheed learn that lesson, too. Sunk costs are a losers game - you have to know when to walk away.
The article touches on the one gigantic, enormous, almost criminal problem within the program - after paying for the development of the plane, we do not own the design or the related software. This must stop.
I was going to write a long essay about why the government should own the designs it has paid for (there's a very comfortable soapbox that has crawled up beneath me, it's a nice place to be and I'm not feeling any hurry to step down), but instead I'll just say this: A big part of the F-35's capabilities lie in it's advanced target acquisition system and it's helmet-based HUD. Every engineering expert has said that these systems would be excellent upgrades for all of our current combat aircraft; several companies have offered to retrofit the system to the F-15's and maybe even the F-22. However, the designers and builders of the system (Lockheed, Rockwell Collins and Elbit Systems) say that it can't be done, and that the Pentagon will have to offer a new contract if they want this capability on existing planes.
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I can't answer for him, but I'll point a few things out from past experience. For over 40 years we worried about soviet weapons systems and their capabilities. We got to see them in action in the middle east and they were pretty impressive sometimes. Usually more so when they were a surprise, like the SA-3 and the Sagger ATGM, the first deployments of new generations of weapons are often a shock when your enemy has no counter for them and haven't faced them before.
But even with all the hype about Russian made weapons and how they had greater range than US systems, etc, leading up to the Gulf War in 1990. The news played this up and the American public chewed their nails and worried what would happen with our sons and daughters over there. And our Air Force just cleaned their clocks. Total domination in a military conflict rarely happens to this extent when the numbers are fairly even. But even the little we saw of ground warfare showed us more of the same. The Russian made equipment was not up to the fight and was decimated. Hell, more American servicemen lost their lives to friendly fire than from contact with the enemy.
So call me jaded, but if Warsaw Pact era Russian equipment was over hyped back then with the entire economic power of that empire behind it. Why should I place more stock in what Russia can make today?
Even more importantly, material isn't really the deciding factor. A military is far more than that, look at the Israelis. Leadership, training, experience all play a huge role in who is going to win in a knife fight.
I certainly can't claim to have followed this aircraft's development so closely. But the information below is certainly a lot to take in and come to grips with;
https://www.f35.com/about
This is several different air frames being replaced by a single offering in it's variants. And if you look at the service life provided by the F-15 and F-16, if the F-35 can match it, the plane will pay for itself over time I would think. Maybe you have some more insight on that as well. But I must warn you, they just turned out the lights, work is over, and I will return Tuesday, no sooner..
IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
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The joke is on the adversary that underestimates what these aircraft in combination with the air forces and militaries in which they fly.
This aircraft can do everything it needs to do flying in an orbit that would make a 747 comfortable.
No israeli F-35 was shot on Syria , in israel you can't even hide when a pilot gets a paper cut let alone something like that.
As for the Russian presence in Syria, Israel and Russia have an agreement to not interfere in each other's interests
I.e israel will continue to deny Syrian weapon transfer to hizbollah and prevent Iranian forces establishing themselves near israeli borders. And Israel will not interfere with the Civil war there.
Also its widely reported that there is an open channel between the IDF and the Russian forces in Syria to prevent any 'Accidents'
In other words, Russian S400 would not engage any F-35 or even lock on it
P.S
And as for range, S400 covers all of north of Israel , planes don't need get near it for it to pose a threat
P.P.S
Israel has a very advanced electronic warfare industry, trying to threaten israeli planes with S400 only helps in them collecting data for countering it.
As for the Russian presence in Syria, Israel and Russia have an agreement to not interfere in each other's interests
I.e israel will continue to deny Syrian weapon transfer to hizbollah and prevent Iranian forces establishing themselves near israeli borders. And Israel will not interfere with the Civil war there.
Also its widely reported that there is an open channel between the IDF and the Russian forces in Syria to prevent any 'Accidents'
In other words, Russian S400 would not engage any F-35 or even lock on it
P.S
And as for range, S400 covers all of north of Israel , planes don't need get near it for it to pose a threat
P.P.S
Israel has a very advanced electronic warfare industry, trying to threaten israeli planes with S400 only helps in them collecting data for countering it.
IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
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As much as it is a very bad situation for advanced adversary radars to be collecting on US and allied stealth aircraft, I'm surprised that I'd overlooked that this does go both ways
funkydmunky
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I'm not getting what you are stating here. If you care to elaborate I would be interested.
Lateralus
More [H]uman than Human
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Nah, man. I’m sitting behind a keyboard in my underwear, and I have no insight into what went into this project nor any real clue about its actual capabilities, nor any real experience with aircraft of any type, but *I* say it’s a joke.
Zarathustra[H]
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I question this assessment.
The U.S. military has a long history of overstating threats in order to increase their budget.
The Warsaw Pact had greater numbers, but NATO always had the technological edge, the ability to maintain complete and total air superiority, better troop readiness and greater economic strength to back up their military might.
From my perspective the only hope the Warsaw pact had of winning a war in Europe (in the unlikely event it didn't go nuclear) was to take advantage of the inevitable war weariness in democratic nations, something they could completely ignore due to their dictatorial structure.
Robert Klimpt summed it up quite nicely:
What I was trying to say was that the basic performance characteristics like turn and climb rates, acceleration, etc are very similar. Now it all starts changing when you are talking combat range and weapon characteristics, but the way the two aircraft "fly" are very similar. This is what I believed I understood from some source that I can't find anymore. In fact, it's hard for me to find any good source although I haven't tried Jane's yet. I think I am going to find that I am mistaken and the original source was bad or I misunderstood what that source was claiming.
For a long time no one could reproduce the engines from the ME-262. It seems the Czechoslovakia operated some in their air force for a few years, like up until 1951 or so.
But a few years ago a company started building an engine that would fit and they are building "reproduction" ME-262s. I'm not a pilot, but if I wanted a head turner I think this would be it for me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_262_Project
http://www.stormbirds.com/project/
That is the assessment of my fellow MI service members that I worked with at the time. It wasn't in a book, a magazine, and if it was in a briefing then it was a highly classified one. We had at the most, three divisions at partial strength in Europe, that's less than 50,000 combat soldiers for the Army. We were facing 20 time that number and the US Army in Europe was as strong as any single other nation including Germany.
I spent most of my time in those days in Korea which was supposed to be the scary one. Europe was far scarier to me though. If the USSR had attacked, we were hoping that they would use their chemical weapons because that was our excuse to use our tac nukes. The tac nukes were the only way we were going to keep the USSR from kicking us completely off the continent before we could get the rest of our Army over there. The fight would have been over before we could bring any real weight to bear. The guys on the line in Germany, they were there to take the hit and buy time. That's why we practiced and trained the way we did. But if you were assigned to that front line you didn't have much hope of getting out of it with your skin.
In 1940, Germany conquered France in 45 days. Coming not that long after the trench warfare of WWI, 45 days was unbelievable. In 1991, NATO massed over 750 thousand, (500 thousand US),to liberate Kuwait and neuter Iraq's military. Iraq had an army of 300 thousand in Kuwait. Don't you think we would have liked to have a few more to defend against the Warsaw Pact than 50,000 ?
My first tour in Korea was from 1982 to 1984 and the "Reagan money" hadn't gotten to us yet. We couldn't get toilet paper, we had more trucks with flat tires then trucks without. We did monthly inspections with the Company Commander where he would inspect each vehicle slowly, because he had to give us time to pull parts from the one he just finished with, to make the next one he was going to pass. He knew what we were doing, I think everyone knew what we were doing. It was all a game so that no one had to tell the General's in any official manner what everyone knew ..... we were not prepared to fight a war, and Jimmy Carter's administration didn't want to hear any crying about it.
If you haven't experienced something like that then I can understand your reticence to hear something different.
OH, and I never ever believe anyone that uses the term "Military Industrial Complex". It's a term that was made up by people who believe there is an US and a THEM, there is no them.