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As a former F-18 pilot, I don’t think v2 of the Tomcat is what we need. Unmanned missile trucks are the future. The Joint Strike Turd should be the last manne

As a former F-18 pilot, I don’t think v2 of the Tomcat is what we need. Unmanned missile trucks are the future. The Joint Strike Turd should be the last manned fighter. The services are bankrupting the country with the current crop of do-it-all aircraft. Other countries are on a better track adding the latest tech to older airframes and accepting their expendability. Carriers themselves should be phased out for smaller more expendable ships that can launch and recover the missile trucks.

dforrestwilson 8y ago
100% agree. We have 2 problems which I think are compounding each other: 1. The classic problem of defense: Fighting the Last War 2. An extremely strong defense industry lobby.
- cinquemb 8y ago
  I don't think #2 is a big problem (well from a natsec perspective, deff a problem from keeping down costs perspective), assuming you can get top pentagon officials to push modernization initiative with key industry partnerships. Question is, which DoD brass can see the writing on the wall and push the initiative with the highest probability of success?
- influx 8y ago
  3. It's cool (and promotable!) to be a fighter pilot, and not cool to fly drones remotely or to program automated drones.
  - golergka 8y ago
    Wouldn't that incentivize the high command to abolish figher pilots? It's much easier to manage uncool, replacable and easily trainable drones than expensive rockstars.
    - thrill 8y ago
      Seeing as the US military has been crying out (for 20 years now) of their shortage of fighter pilots, then this could generally be considered as happening. It's a situation that could have been far more easily handled in the late 90's, but is now being "handled" by attempting to reduce the training latency (not viable and quite unwise, IMO, but happening regardless) and by reducing the staff billets demanding fighter pilot backgrounds. Technology will indeed replace (and has been) much of the need to put a highly trained human on the bleeding edge. That doesn't obviate the current significant under-staffing.
kposehn 8y ago
Can you please elaborate? Why is the JSF really the JST? Why and what are unmanned mussel trucks to you? Why should carriers be phased out? I’m not saying you’re wrong - to the contrary, since you are a former pilot I’m actually quite interested in your opinion.
- poof131 8y ago
  There’s a military quote that says, "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."[1] I feel our current military leaders took this too far and forgot about the stupidity of putting all your eggs in one basket. The JSF is down to one engine, which if redlined, will down the whole fleet. If one of our adversaries finds a weakness, then the the whole fleet is vulnerable. Not to mention the crap with development: not getting the launch bar right [2], not getting the hook location right [3], the electronics being a mess. How do you screw up the launch bar, it’s not like carriers have changed. The JSF is going in the wrong direction. We should have aircraft focused on different roles: air-to-air, strike, close-air-support. We should be moving toward unmanned missile trucks for air-to-air and strike. We should focus on cheaper aircraft that can be updated with the latest tech. Unmanned missile trucks are drones that carry missiles that can be guided by other platforms. After the drone launches its missiles, who cares if it blows up. Trying to make drones defensible like expensive fighters is just as stupid as the JSF. Some stealth and defense is good, but expendable and cheap is more important. Carriers are too vulnerable to missiles. Missiles are the future. You can’t defeat something going mach 6 that pulls 25 g’s in the end game. 'The Future of War' does a great job describing the evolution of weapons platforms and how aging ones are depicted by ever increasing costs on defensive measures which are then defeated by new, cheaper weapons. [4] Carriers and fighter jets are becoming the modern battleships which is a bit ironic. 1. https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-quotes-t511.html https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-quotes-t511.... 2. https://news.usni.org/2017/03/23/f-35c-tests-offer-proposed-fixes-catapult-problem-carrier-trials-continue-fall https://news.usni.org/2017/03/23/f-35c-tests-offer-proposed-... 3. https://theaviationist.com/2012/01/09/f-35c-hook-problems/ https://theaviationist.com/2012/01/09/f-35c-hook-problems/ 4. https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-Freedman/dp/1610393058 https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-Freedman/...
latch 8y ago
> The services are bankrupting the country Superficially, it feels like the crux of the problem is that "supporting the troops" has been subverted to mean not questioning civilian-driven military policy. This has given them carte-blanche lest anyone be accused of not supporting our boys. (It's possible to be against a war (and the policies and politicians that set that course) while still honoring/supporting soldiers and their family.)
- FighterMafia 8y ago
  Military policy isn't civilian driven. The Pentagon drives the policy, as well as the weapons decisions. The surprise is when the civilians actually do exert some control--such as in preventing the USAF from scrapping the A-10, fighting the USAF on cancelling the the JSTARs recap, or when they force extra Littoral Combat Ships on the navy against their will :)
  - jacobolus 8y ago
    The weapons producers are where a huge amount of the money goes. From outside, it seems like policy is plenty often decided by what is best for the factory in some influential congressperson’s district (or perhaps to some influential congressperson’s key donor CEOs).
  - latch 8y ago
    Civilians decide the budget (for the DoD and other agencies such as the VA) and when/where to go to war, right? But you're right and I was wrong. The problem isn't only that politicians / civilians have usurped "supporting the troops" as a shield (as I said), but really any decisions (whether it be made by the military or civilians) cannot be criticized / questioned without a high risk of being labeled unpatriotic.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    > Military policy isn't civilian driven Except when a congressman from Ohio decides that they need more tanks so that he can keep his voters employed [1], despite the army saying they have plenty and don't know what to do with them. They have literally thousands of tanks sitting in storage in the desert, and they're rolling tanks straight off the production line into storage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant
dmoy 8y ago
> Carriers themselves should be phased out for smaller more expendable ships Good luck prying those out of the Navy's cold, dead hands. Just look how long it took to finally get rid of battleships. You'd think that after the complete shitshow that was mc02 they would have started to see the light. But I think instead they're just burying their heads in the sand a bit farther.
- twic 8y ago
  > Just look how long it took to finally get rid of battleships. The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in 1941. It was decommissioned in 1958 - the last of its kind. If you take World War II as the proof that carriers had eclipsed battleships, that doesn't seem like long at all. The battleships were recomissioned in the '80s by Reagan as a bizarre act of cold war willy-waving. And once you've paid the money to get them working and put some missiles on them, you might as well keep using them until they fall apart.
  - twic 8y ago
    Readers may enjoy this old-school semi-crank page about the idea of reactivating the battleships yet again: http://www.g2mil.com/battleships.htm http://www.g2mil.com/battleships.htm
  - dmoy 8y ago
    > The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in 1941. It was decommissioned in 1958 - the last of its kind. If you take World War II as the proof that carriers had eclipsed battleships, that doesn't seem like long at all. WW2 was definitely un-ignorable proof that battleships were done. Imo though, given the essentially complete lack of actual success wrought by battleships in ww1, someone should have seen the light in the interwar period. I guess I shouldn't be too harsh, at least we aren't building much else new that's bigger than a destroyer (except carriers).
    - jabl 8y ago
      There's been inflation. A modern destroyer is, in terms of tonnage, more like a cruiser.
liotier 8y ago
> As a former F-18 pilot, I don’t think v2 of the Tomcat is what we need. Unmanned missile trucks are the future. "Tomcat v2" and "unmanned missile trucks" are mutually compatible assertions, considering that standoff use of AN/AWG-9 + Phoenix to cover the outer air defense zone is what the F-14 was all about. A networked mix of active & passive sensor platforms and missile carriers is Tomcat v2 !
cryptonector 8y ago
Unmanned everything. We need unmanned, armed aircraft, we need unmmaned tanks, we need unmanned attack subs. We also need manned aircraft, tanks, and ships, to host controllers close to the action, but not so close that they are vulnerable to attack.

dforrestwilson 8y ago

100% agree. We have 2 problems which I think are compounding each other: 1. The classic problem of defense: Fighting the Last War 2. An extremely strong defense industry lobby.

cinquemb 8y ago
I don't think #2 is a big problem (well from a natsec perspective, deff a problem from keeping down costs perspective), assuming you can get top pentagon officials to push modernization initiative with key industry partnerships. Question is, which DoD brass can see the writing on the wall and push the initiative with the highest probability of success?
influx 8y ago
3. It's cool (and promotable!) to be a fighter pilot, and not cool to fly drones remotely or to program automated drones.
- golergka 8y ago
  Wouldn't that incentivize the high command to abolish figher pilots? It's much easier to manage uncool, replacable and easily trainable drones than expensive rockstars.
  - thrill 8y ago
    Seeing as the US military has been crying out (for 20 years now) of their shortage of fighter pilots, then this could generally be considered as happening. It's a situation that could have been far more easily handled in the late 90's, but is now being "handled" by attempting to reduce the training latency (not viable and quite unwise, IMO, but happening regardless) and by reducing the staff billets demanding fighter pilot backgrounds. Technology will indeed replace (and has been) much of the need to put a highly trained human on the bleeding edge. That doesn't obviate the current significant under-staffing.

kposehn 8y ago

Can you please elaborate? Why is the JSF really the JST? Why and what are unmanned mussel trucks to you? Why should carriers be phased out? I’m not saying you’re wrong - to the contrary, since you are a former pilot I’m actually quite interested in your opinion.

poof131 8y ago
There’s a military quote that says, "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."[1] I feel our current military leaders took this too far and forgot about the stupidity of putting all your eggs in one basket. The JSF is down to one engine, which if redlined, will down the whole fleet. If one of our adversaries finds a weakness, then the the whole fleet is vulnerable. Not to mention the crap with development: not getting the launch bar right [2], not getting the hook location right [3], the electronics being a mess. How do you screw up the launch bar, it’s not like carriers have changed. The JSF is going in the wrong direction. We should have aircraft focused on different roles: air-to-air, strike, close-air-support. We should be moving toward unmanned missile trucks for air-to-air and strike. We should focus on cheaper aircraft that can be updated with the latest tech. Unmanned missile trucks are drones that carry missiles that can be guided by other platforms. After the drone launches its missiles, who cares if it blows up. Trying to make drones defensible like expensive fighters is just as stupid as the JSF. Some stealth and defense is good, but expendable and cheap is more important. Carriers are too vulnerable to missiles. Missiles are the future. You can’t defeat something going mach 6 that pulls 25 g’s in the end game. 'The Future of War' does a great job describing the evolution of weapons platforms and how aging ones are depicted by ever increasing costs on defensive measures which are then defeated by new, cheaper weapons. [4] Carriers and fighter jets are becoming the modern battleships which is a bit ironic. 1. https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-quotes-t511.html https://www.military-quotes.com/forum/logistics-quotes-t511.... 2. https://news.usni.org/2017/03/23/f-35c-tests-offer-proposed-fixes-catapult-problem-carrier-trials-continue-fall https://news.usni.org/2017/03/23/f-35c-tests-offer-proposed-... 3. https://theaviationist.com/2012/01/09/f-35c-hook-problems/ https://theaviationist.com/2012/01/09/f-35c-hook-problems/ 4. https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-Freedman/dp/1610393058 https://www.amazon.com/Future-War-History-Lawrence-Freedman/...

latch 8y ago

> The services are bankrupting the country Superficially, it feels like the crux of the problem is that "supporting the troops" has been subverted to mean not questioning civilian-driven military policy. This has given them carte-blanche lest anyone be accused of not supporting our boys. (It's possible to be against a war (and the policies and politicians that set that course) while still honoring/supporting soldiers and their family.)

FighterMafia 8y ago
Military policy isn't civilian driven. The Pentagon drives the policy, as well as the weapons decisions. The surprise is when the civilians actually do exert some control--such as in preventing the USAF from scrapping the A-10, fighting the USAF on cancelling the the JSTARs recap, or when they force extra Littoral Combat Ships on the navy against their will :)
- jacobolus 8y ago
  The weapons producers are where a huge amount of the money goes. From outside, it seems like policy is plenty often decided by what is best for the factory in some influential congressperson’s district (or perhaps to some influential congressperson’s key donor CEOs).
- latch 8y ago
  Civilians decide the budget (for the DoD and other agencies such as the VA) and when/where to go to war, right? But you're right and I was wrong. The problem isn't only that politicians / civilians have usurped "supporting the troops" as a shield (as I said), but really any decisions (whether it be made by the military or civilians) cannot be criticized / questioned without a high risk of being labeled unpatriotic.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  > Military policy isn't civilian driven Except when a congressman from Ohio decides that they need more tanks so that he can keep his voters employed [1], despite the army saying they have plenty and don't know what to do with them. They have literally thousands of tanks sitting in storage in the desert, and they're rolling tanks straight off the production line into storage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Army_Tank_Plant

dmoy 8y ago

> Carriers themselves should be phased out for smaller more expendable ships Good luck prying those out of the Navy's cold, dead hands. Just look how long it took to finally get rid of battleships. You'd think that after the complete shitshow that was mc02 they would have started to see the light. But I think instead they're just burying their heads in the sand a bit farther.

twic 8y ago
> Just look how long it took to finally get rid of battleships. The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in 1941. It was decommissioned in 1958 - the last of its kind. If you take World War II as the proof that carriers had eclipsed battleships, that doesn't seem like long at all. The battleships were recomissioned in the '80s by Reagan as a bizarre act of cold war willy-waving. And once you've paid the money to get them working and put some missiles on them, you might as well keep using them until they fall apart.
- twic 8y ago
  Readers may enjoy this old-school semi-crank page about the idea of reactivating the battleships yet again: http://www.g2mil.com/battleships.htm http://www.g2mil.com/battleships.htm
- dmoy 8y ago
  > The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in 1941. It was decommissioned in 1958 - the last of its kind. If you take World War II as the proof that carriers had eclipsed battleships, that doesn't seem like long at all. WW2 was definitely un-ignorable proof that battleships were done. Imo though, given the essentially complete lack of actual success wrought by battleships in ww1, someone should have seen the light in the interwar period. I guess I shouldn't be too harsh, at least we aren't building much else new that's bigger than a destroyer (except carriers).
  - jabl 8y ago
    There's been inflation. A modern destroyer is, in terms of tonnage, more like a cruiser.

liotier 8y ago

> As a former F-18 pilot, I don’t think v2 of the Tomcat is what we need. Unmanned missile trucks are the future. "Tomcat v2" and "unmanned missile trucks" are mutually compatible assertions, considering that standoff use of AN/AWG-9 + Phoenix to cover the outer air defense zone is what the F-14 was all about. A networked mix of active & passive sensor platforms and missile carriers is Tomcat v2 !

cryptonector 8y ago

Unmanned everything. We need unmanned, armed aircraft, we need unmmaned tanks, we need unmanned attack subs. We also need manned aircraft, tanks, and ships, to host controllers close to the action, but not so close that they are vulnerable to attack.