Maybe that is why I would prefer a larger Air Force with cheaper planes. Then I will have a better chance of getting a fighter. I forgot all about UAVs though. It does make sense then. Use the expensive fighters at the beginning, and then use the cheap UAVs to orbit around for hours looking for anything else that comes up after the initial strikes against other fighters and air defense systems.

On a side note, I heard a while ago that they were sticking more fighter pilots than any other airframe in UAVs because they are both single pilot aircraft. Is that true? I know I am getting ahead of myself, but when it comes time to make a track preference, I would like to select fighter/bomber, but I want to limit my risk to UAVs as much as possible. I would love to fly anything, but the nothing in the civilian worked compares to fighters so it would be my only chance to ever fly an airplane like that ever.

Based on what? We have about 180 Raptors. Situation.. dust up and we deploy the Raptors. We send maybe 3-4 squadrons.. 60 airplanes or 1/3 of the fleet. At any given point the frag calls for maybe 20-30 birds... half the deployed fleet.

Let's say it is the Chinese with J-10s and their SU-27 knock-offs. Lots of 'em. After the initial dump, the Raptors are winchester and still more J-10s and -27s are coming. Launch the rest of the Raptors?

Where are the Raptors based? Japan. Korea? Guam? How about tankers to get them to/from the dust-up?

The Raptor was an easy grape to pick when looking for budget cuts. But enough for a real dust-up? We disagree.

I've read the -35s software is a leap but the airframe is doggy. Somewhere I read the wingloading is approaching that of the Century Series fighters. ???

Yes, quite capable but without the speed, range and lifting capability of the old -14 and if it was so capable, why the SUPER Hornet. :D

The history of the Russians is to build equipment that will stand up in the field, not some gold-plated hangar queen. They do not expect the equipment (or men) to last and if the air has separated at 500kts from the surface, why worry about 1/2in gaps?


In what must have been a double insult, reportedly one of the MiG-29's original test pilots was asked by some US pilots about the -29 in the hands of the Iraqis and why they had done so poorly. His comment was it was "...like pigs wearing a Rolex."

The raptors obviously can't go it alone...I think the idea is high-low. Hopefully the low (f35) will work well and they will buy enough of them.

I don't think we are going to lose an engagement due to raptor shortage, not in the forseeable future.

What do you mean by the bolded part of your statement above?

USMCFLYR

Here is another hypothetical situation, we buy 380 F-22s and train like WWIII is around the corner. 50 years go by, and the cost of maintaining a military capable of destroying other superpowers spending its time in third world countries where only 1% of the aircrafts potential is utilized begins to bring down our economy. Meanwhile, China’s growing economy becomes stronger than ours and then they can afford to produce 100s of 5th generation aircraft more than us.

As you hinted at in your post, the weakest part in our fleet is the tankers. Those are things we really need. Unlike the F-22, they can be fully utilized in nearly every mission. Having a limited number of ultra high end aircraft is nothing new to the military. We only have 59 F-117s, 20 B-2s, and 100 B-1Bs, but we manage just fine. Imagine if the supporters of the F-117, B-2, and B-1A got their way and we had to spend billions to support a huge stealth fleet when we are fighting nations without an air force? Aircraft have become so expensive now that we are gambling as to whether we will need them in the future. Major wars don’t come out of nowhere. There is always a steady period of increasing tension, and that is the time when we commit to building as many of the latest technology fighters we can.

We do disagree, but this is not a new debate. Whenever new military equipment is introduced there are always those that think it is a waste and some that think it is vital. B-1A and M1A1 come to mind each with completely different results.

Kassarine - without enough air superiority fighters or next-generation stealth aircraft that can take out current generation mobile SAMs, you can have all the tankers or airlift you want - but you won't have them long. Do the terms permissive or semi-permissive environment mean anything to you - because that's the only environments those aircraft can fly in.

Unfortunately, we have to plan for all the possibilities from asymmetric to total warfare. We only need so many B-2's because we would only use that asset to strike so many targets. An air superiority fighter, on the other hand, would likely face hundreds of aircraft in a worst-case example. Remember that our Army has been able to operate without worry of enemy air attack since the Korean war, and their continued success depends on that record continuing. The same goes for our logistics tail, also.

It's funny how you seem to be willing to equate 100 B-1's to 100 F-22's, having no consideration of their missions or the how numerous their respective target sets may be.

I never said that 100 B-2s equal 100 F-22s. My point was that we have always had to make choices between capability and cost. In the case of the B-2, the Air Force determined they only needed a few because after the fall of the USSR they could not justify the expense of a large stealth bomber fleet when most of the enemies we would realistically face have small air defense systems. Also, if we went to war with a superpower like China, we would need a large stealth bomber force too. We would also need an even larger ground force, but you don’t hear anyone saying we need to get 2 million more troops ready for combat now.

It would be nice if we could have a military designed for every type of warfare, but we can’t, and we never could. The idea of maintaining a military that can take on every type of enemy possible is not sustainable.

Also, what is with the confrontational attitude? This is a valid debate with equal evidence on both sides. I agree that if we go to war with China right now, I would be wrong and we would desperately need more F-22s. I also agree that sometimes it is better to spend money on an aircraft that is never used because it acts as a deterrent for other countries. Can’t you agree that the F-22 has taken up resources that could be used for more imminent threats? Or that there is a greater chance that the F-22s we have will most likely never be used for the all out total warfare they were designed for?

[quote=III Corps;754082]Yes, quite capable but without the speed, range and lifting capability of the old -14 and if it was so capable, why the SUPER Hornet. :Dquote]

Are you really asking this question?

Kass - those were direct questions, not confrontations. You have to plan using an ORM model - risk to reward. Of course, aircraft like the F-22 cost exponentially more than MQ-9's, but the risk (cost) of not being prepared for the war that the F-22 is designed for is exponentially more than the risk of not being prepared for the war the MQ-9 is designed for. The nation that only prepares for today's war will be woefully unprepared for tomorrow's war, and our nation has been guilty of that on numerous occasions.

For the record, I am not a proponent of the F-22 per se, I am a proponent of a robust air superiority capability (and 189 F-22's are not it). If yo had read any of the F-22 specific threads, you would have seen that I was more a proponent of upgraded F-15's and a smaller contingent of F-22's. Air superiority is not a "nice thing to have", it allows your offensive strike aircraft to operate at will, your ISR aircraft (so important now) to operate at will, and your ground forces to operate at will with no threat of attack by enemy aircraft. Air superiority is an incredible multiplier, so to say that the money could have gone towards better uses - I disagree.

The day before Katrina, it would have seemed a wise use of resources (for someone who could not evacuate) to buy water, food, and generators. Two days after Katrina, it wouldn't have seemed like such a good use when people with guns came and took all of the food, water, and generators. The day before, someone would have said "do you know how much more food and water you can buy instead of a $600 gun and $150 of ammunition?" Afterwards, they would "I wish we still had that smaller stockpile (minus the $750) instead of nothing at all." Same goes here - NO, I do not agree that the resources would be better used for a more imminent threat because I think 5-10 yrs down the road as well as towards tomorrow - even though I am currently actively fighting the war of today. We need to maintain a credible threat to keep potential enemies from piling on or using our distraction to pursue their national goals. And we need to make sure we don't roll from winning today's war into losing tomorrow's. These capabilities can't be built overnight.