the F-22 order has already been cut from 648 to 183.

in contrast, we operated 730 F-15s.

also, I didn't look up the numbers on this, but I'm pretty sure that the Navy's Super Hornet program is a bigger piece of the budgetary pie than the Raptor, and the Raptor will completely kick any Hornet's ass in a huge way.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 1:39 PM. Reason : asfdasd]

6/9/2008 1:37:16 PM

^funny you mention the f15

all 730 of those have never been shot down

only fighter in US history to fight that long and have a 100% kill/death ratio.

f-15 is the man.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 1:42 PM. Reason : .]

6/9/2008 1:42:38 PM

The F-15 was procured when we had enemies that had air forces-- the higher number seems justified.

Plus, the F-15 had a long run, and many variations were made. I imagine the 730 number is all A-E variations, and not the original procurement.

6/9/2008 1:48:23 PM

We could finance your toys better if we stopped deploying them all over Hell's Half Acre.

Ever think about that? Then we could actually focus on "defending the homeland" instead of "gaining shitloads of foreign liabilities."

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 1:52 PM. Reason : .]

6/9/2008 1:52:35 PM

^good point

i honestly don't give a Rat's ass if we pull out when Obama takes office

I say let Iran invade, let the electric car get produced, and we can all have a big laugh when that whole area makes Darfur look like disneyland


lol

6/9/2008 1:59:26 PM

Tough situation your boys in Washington have backed the country into. Destabilizing a country to the point of pure dependence, and then arguing that pulling out would ruin the country (as opposed to the initial destabilization). I'm curious just what you think this country is capable of financing, especially when quite a lot of people in your corner (including AIPAC and American NeoConservatives) think we should also hop the borders into Syria and Iran.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 2:11 PM. Reason : .]

6/9/2008 2:03:45 PM

Quote :

"The F-15 was procured when we had enemies that had air forces-- the higher number seems justified. Plus, the F-15 had a long run, and many variations were made. I imagine the 730 number is all A-E variations, and not the original procurement. "

you are correct all around. I just offered that number for perspective. I don't think the 183 copies we're looking at right now is excessive at all, though.


actually, i do have one point of contention with what you said--the part about enemies with air forces.

1. we do have enemies with air forces. North Korea, Syria, Iran, yeah, but we could handle them with the F-15s. China, however, has a real no-shit air force. I'm not suggesting that a conflict with China is imminent or anything, but it's something that we should be ready for, with their emergence as a serious world power. See also: Taiwan.

If a scenario presented itself where we needed the Raptors, that would not be the time to start procuring them.

2. Being a Prowler guy, in the business of defeating air defense networks, let me say that it's not all about the air to air threat, either. North Korea's air defense network (to include surface to air threats) is, ummm...very robust. I'm slightly less familiar with China's and Iran's, but I do know enough about them to say that they are pretty serious.

With the F-117 gone, and only a handful of B-2s (which haved pros and cons versus a fighter, anyway), a stealth platform will go a long way towards defeating any IADS (integrated air defense system) we might be tasked with.

3. The F-15s are getting really old, anyway. Fatigue life is become a real factor (for example, the grounding of the entire F-15 fleet a few months ago after one broke apart in midair, and they found fatigue cracks in lots of the other ones). Those planes have been slammed to 9g's on a regular basis for a long time now. What are we going to replace them with? I'll give you a hint: it won't be new F-15s.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 2:33 PM. Reason : but yeah, there's no Cold War.]

6/9/2008 2:33:08 PM

Quote :

"What are we going to replace them with?"

These:

Quote :

"The F-35 is being designed to be the world's premier strike aircraft through 2040. "

lil fuckers clock in at $83 million a pop (compared with 200 million per f22)

and the United States will be putting 2,400 of them into service over the next couple of years.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 2:40 PM. Reason : .]

6/9/2008 2:39:18 PM

Not arguing-- asking:

What does the F-22 offer to viable future battlefields that the F-35 won't offer in a couple years?

Even in the China scenario, the F-35 will outfight China's aircraft, right?

6/9/2008 2:46:54 PM

From what I hear, the low observability on the F/A-22 is superior to that of the F-35, which was an intentional design feature in the F-35, as other nations will be recieving the F-35 as well, and we always want to have the option and capability of defeating the F-35 should it, God forbid, become necessary to. Also, the F-35C will NOT be replacing the F/A-18E/F. The F-35C was designed to complement, rather than supplement, the F/A-18E/F. I think the F-35C will be replacing the F/A-18C/D, not the Super Hornet variant.


Hope that answers your concerns about our aircraft purchases and designs.

Quote :

"Even in the China scenario, the F-35 will outfight China's aircraft, right?"

No. It does not outclass the SU-35 except for the stealth ability. Given classic A2A dogfight, the Su-35 would outgun and outfly the F-35.
However the F-22 would destroy the Su-35. Which the chinese and russians use.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 3:06 PM. Reason : .]

6/9/2008 2:57:51 PM

Quote :

"Homer Hickam made an interesting comment on TV recently. In case you don't know who he is, Homer was a poor West Va miner's son who worked his way up to being an employee/scientist for NASA. He wrote a book called "Rocket Boy" which was later made into a great movie called "October Sky." Recently, he was interviewed and said this, about the one-shot shoot down of the crippled satellite: "If this country's head was on straight, they would be holding a ticker tape parade for the Crew of the Cruiser, USS Lake Erie..." "This one rocket firing boosted our National defense 100 fold . N Korea, Iran, China, Russia, all know now that we have a safety net that can accurately stop their incoming missiles even if they are out of the earth's atmosphere." "Of course, that was the plan all along, and it was a dandy plan. I just hope that the next person in the White House doesn't scrap the system and begin baking cookies for the enemy." If the wrong person wins the race for the presidency, they may do just that and that makes me a little nervous." "At any rate, Kudos to the Officers & Crew of the USS Lake Erie. WELL DONE, BLUE JACKETS!!" Funny, just last week Obama reiterated how when he's elected he will stop all missile technology and push for nuclear disarmament. If he were president now, we wouldn't even have been able to shoot that satellite down AND show the world that we CAN protect ourselves and will do so if the need arises. Obamba doesn't want the rest of the world threatened by the creepy US of A. Something to run through the think-0-matic before you vote. Jack S. Shipley, USN"

7/7/2008 8:53:40 AM

Nice forwarded e-mail.


You know, if I changed the past based on my comments talking about the future we'd have many problems. I'm glad my views only affect the future though!

7/7/2008 9:25:24 AM

I could live with a scaling back of certain expenditures, including R&D. The fact of the matter is that we already have an edge of years, if not decades, over our likely enemies. We also tend to advance faster than them. Given that we have such a lead, all we really need is parity in terms of development. Given our current financial situation, it seems like a fine place to cut a lot of fat from the budget.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm pro-military and beam with pride every time I think about the B-2 or the AEGIS cruiser. But we already have these things which are so much cooler and more advanced than anything in the rest of the world. Do we really need to pour ungodly amounts of money into coming up with more?

7/7/2008 11:50:27 AM

^Agreed

We spend more on weapons than the rest of the world combined, we can probably chill a little bit

7/7/2008 11:56:54 AM

I'm going to be an anarchist fucktard here and point out some things.

1) No nation on Earth has the ability to project force in a serious way across any of the oceans to the East West or North of us.

2) If the most likely candidates to develop such a capability, Russia, Chine or the EU, ever do so, its hard to see what they might ever expect to gain from using it against us.

3) Switzerland hasn't been attacked since when? Keep in mind they're right smack in the center of Europe, until recent times, one of the most contentious places on Earth.

I'm not saying a respectably potent defense isn't essential, but the US military is obscenely over-funded, over-equiped and over-sized to perform that minimal role. Its misadventures overseas mostly just rile up fanatics and make us less safe.

The military is also a government bureaucracy that can extort vast sums of money at gunpoint from the citizenry, completely independent of the performance of its stated job of providing protection. In point of fact, its failures only increase its ability to get loot and start new procurement programs. As the largest remaining soviet-style planned economy on the planet, it's also plagued by epic waste, corruption and inefficiencies.

I say get rid of the US military. We're competent to provide for or contract for our own defense, such as we may need, which is not much,

7/7/2008 12:20:44 PM

Quote :

"I say get rid of the US military."

I agree to reduce funding and such, but defense is one of the major reasons that government exists.

Contracting out mercenaries doesn't work too well either (see: Rome).

7/7/2008 12:30:04 PM

Well, in that case I guess you need to inform the governments that that's why they exist. Otherwise they might just go on attacking the rights and properties of their citizens, like they've been doing for the last 8 or 9 thousand years, instead of defending them.

Contracting out mercenaries might be a bad idea for a government, but in a polycentric society the proliferation of diverse mercenary groups, as well as local, and regional militias, would provide a potent check on any individual one.

7/7/2008 12:35:32 PM

I am sometimes left to wonder if our vast investment into our military is not one of the reasons we seem so quick to use it - i.e., value-added. We're spending the money, and gosh darn it, we better well get something for all that money otherwise going down a black hole. (Because, let's face it - we all understand the value of a national defense, but arming ourselves against a now-extinct Cold War superpower is the very definition of the Broken Window fallacy...)

I thus wonder at times if we were to scale back military expenditures to a more reasonable proportion if our adventures abroad would not also find themselves scaling back in turn.

7/7/2008 12:45:51 PM

Quote :

"Switzerland hasn't been attacked since when? Keep in mind they're right smack in the center of Europe, until recent times, one of the most contentious places on Earth."

They still have a decent military. They were left alone in WWII because they turned their country into a mountain stronghold that would have cost the Nazis dearly had they chosen to invade. In addition they made considerable economic concessions.

7/7/2008 12:50:23 PM

Quote :

"I'm not saying a respectably potent defense isn't essential,"

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 12:54 PM. Reason : /]

7/7/2008 12:54:10 PM

I'm curious-- what's the point of total world hegemony?

Because that's what we're paying for. National defense, regional hegemony, defense against world tyranny, etc... could all be bought at half the price.

I don't see any benefits from it that outweigh the cost.

Quote :

"I thus wonder at times if we were to scale back military expenditures to a more reasonable proportion if our adventures abroad would not also find themselves scaling back in turn."

That's what I'm getting at. Has our ability to unilaterally invade countries really benefited us?

[Edited on July 7, 2008 at 12:58 PM. Reason : ,]

7/7/2008 12:56:00 PM

It's benefited Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, ATK, Honeywell, KBR, Blackwater and a host of others.

Face it, they're a concentrated interest. Together they have trillions in contracts on the line. Individualy, they have billions to hundreds of billions in easy money in the pipeline for which they are wholly dependent on a massive US military and an aggressive, belligerent, meddlesome foreign policy. This is a staus quo they will fight tooth and nail to protect.

The few hundred to a few thousand you and people like you are out each year on their account is not enough to successfully motivate and organize you in opposition.

The few benefit, the many suffer, such is the consequence of statism, in any incarnation. You can complain about this manifestation all you want, but they only cure is to attack the root, the idea that any state is ever justified in taking your money without your consent. Once the legitimacy of plunder is recognized it is a power that can't but fall into the most unscrupulous and rapacious of hands.

7/7/2008 1:19:34 PM

I'm going to stop reading the last paragraph of all your posts so that I can agree with you once in a while.

7/7/2008 1:33:16 PM