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This is just another sign that the US defense establishment has opened its eyes to the reality that the US could lose a war of attrition against a major power.

This is just another sign that the US defense establishment has opened its eyes to the reality that the US could lose a war of attrition against a major power. We have focused too much on high tech weaponry, and we're now vulnerable to being overwhelmed by large numbers of low tech enemies. It doesn't matter if your fighters have a kill ratio of 10:1 if your enemy can replace those 10 fighters faster than each one of yours that you lose.

hef19898 6y ago
And afford to replace them. Just take the UH-1, one engine helicopter of the Vietnam era. One engine, because a second one was considerd waste given the short service live of these birds in Vietnam. And now we have 100 million dollar jets...
onepointsixC 6y ago
There are numerous problems with such logic: Just because you can replace those 10 fighters faster doesn't mean you can replace the pilots with equivalently good ones as quickly. Great power wars in the modern era will have some of the most decisive action happen far sooner than you can get into production capacity battles. At which point one side will lob several hypersonic missiles into the shipyards, factories, and fabs of their opponents and the ability to replace lost platforms will have been neutralized.
- woeirua 6y ago
  You don't need to replace 10 excellent pilots with 10 good pilots to win a war of attrition. You just need 10 pilots that can fly, lock a missile and fire. Because if you're losing 10 planes to every 1 that you're killing the life expectancy of any pilot is going to be really low period. Counterpoints: 1 - Most critical infrastructure is located far inland away from areas that are vulnerable to cruise missiles and the like. 2 - Hypersonic missiles are mostly vaporware still today. Uncertain if people would even use them, as there's a significant risk of escalation to a full nuclear exchange. 3 - Critical infrastructure can be built faster today than it ever could be in the past. Most countries have stockpiles of critical strategic goods with the understanding that they would be able to stand up their own factories before those stockpiles were depleted.
  - onepointsixC 6y ago
    >You don't need to replace 10 excellent pilots with 10 good pilots to win a war of attrition. You just need 10 pilots that can fly, lock a missile and fire. That's not how it works. The F35 will detect those pilots far sooner than they will detect it and shoot them down before they even see them. Combine a battle space with dozens of MALD decoys flying around drawing shots, those poor pilots would have never had a chance because the F-35 pilots would never give their enemy the chance to shoot at them in the first place. > Most critical infrastructure is located far inland away from areas that are vulnerable to cruise missiles and the like I can't find the map now, but just about all of China is within reach of US cruise missiles launched from bombers if the need would arise. > Critical infrastructure can be built faster today than it ever could be in the past You're not going to build a Fab overnight. If you knock out a radar factory, that's going to be offline for months. Same thing with a turbine factory. What I don't think you also appreciate is that of all planes to try to claim that someone could win a production race against, the F35 is a very poor target. There are already produced at rates of ~130 per year and expected to rise to 180. There is no existing line that is manufacturing aircraft that comes close. Not only is US Air power technologically superior but they have the numbers.
    - ddddq 6y ago
      There is a presentation, given by a Ukraine-Russia war observer to new officers at a US academy. The guy had talks with Ukraine generals and was analyzing the war. He said that the ukraine air force was broken and destroyed by the russian system. The same thing happend to Israel, where at the time they had one of the best air force. Any planes and helicopters werr forced to fly really, really low because of the S300 and S400. The information of a incoming object was given to a mobile squad who where anticipating and waiting for the plane. Then they simply shoot the plane down from atleast two sites with their portable and advanced SAMs. He also said, that the US is not ready for that kind of war and is not trained for it. The US had always had the assumption of a given air superiority in any conflict. But air superiority is not given, if fighting close to Russia or China. And the russian system showed how easy it would be to contest it. For that reason, the US would lose air superiority in a conflict close to russian border and because you can't always count on stealth fighters, they are too unreliable, specially if fighting far away without a secured air base close to the conflict.
- jopsen 6y ago
  > Great power wars in the modern era will... We have no clue what will happen... best ideas are pure speculation. IMO, it's very likely that any conflict would be limited to a conflict area like how they did in the Falklands war. Even if there is no formal agreement, both sides might want to limit a conflict zone.

hef19898 6y ago

And afford to replace them. Just take the UH-1, one engine helicopter of the Vietnam era. One engine, because a second one was considerd waste given the short service live of these birds in Vietnam. And now we have 100 million dollar jets...

onepointsixC 6y ago

There are numerous problems with such logic: Just because you can replace those 10 fighters faster doesn't mean you can replace the pilots with equivalently good ones as quickly. Great power wars in the modern era will have some of the most decisive action happen far sooner than you can get into production capacity battles. At which point one side will lob several hypersonic missiles into the shipyards, factories, and fabs of their opponents and the ability to replace lost platforms will have been neutralized.

woeirua 6y ago
You don't need to replace 10 excellent pilots with 10 good pilots to win a war of attrition. You just need 10 pilots that can fly, lock a missile and fire. Because if you're losing 10 planes to every 1 that you're killing the life expectancy of any pilot is going to be really low period. Counterpoints: 1 - Most critical infrastructure is located far inland away from areas that are vulnerable to cruise missiles and the like. 2 - Hypersonic missiles are mostly vaporware still today. Uncertain if people would even use them, as there's a significant risk of escalation to a full nuclear exchange. 3 - Critical infrastructure can be built faster today than it ever could be in the past. Most countries have stockpiles of critical strategic goods with the understanding that they would be able to stand up their own factories before those stockpiles were depleted.
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  >You don't need to replace 10 excellent pilots with 10 good pilots to win a war of attrition. You just need 10 pilots that can fly, lock a missile and fire. That's not how it works. The F35 will detect those pilots far sooner than they will detect it and shoot them down before they even see them. Combine a battle space with dozens of MALD decoys flying around drawing shots, those poor pilots would have never had a chance because the F-35 pilots would never give their enemy the chance to shoot at them in the first place. > Most critical infrastructure is located far inland away from areas that are vulnerable to cruise missiles and the like I can't find the map now, but just about all of China is within reach of US cruise missiles launched from bombers if the need would arise. > Critical infrastructure can be built faster today than it ever could be in the past You're not going to build a Fab overnight. If you knock out a radar factory, that's going to be offline for months. Same thing with a turbine factory. What I don't think you also appreciate is that of all planes to try to claim that someone could win a production race against, the F35 is a very poor target. There are already produced at rates of ~130 per year and expected to rise to 180. There is no existing line that is manufacturing aircraft that comes close. Not only is US Air power technologically superior but they have the numbers.
  - ddddq 6y ago
    There is a presentation, given by a Ukraine-Russia war observer to new officers at a US academy. The guy had talks with Ukraine generals and was analyzing the war. He said that the ukraine air force was broken and destroyed by the russian system. The same thing happend to Israel, where at the time they had one of the best air force. Any planes and helicopters werr forced to fly really, really low because of the S300 and S400. The information of a incoming object was given to a mobile squad who where anticipating and waiting for the plane. Then they simply shoot the plane down from atleast two sites with their portable and advanced SAMs. He also said, that the US is not ready for that kind of war and is not trained for it. The US had always had the assumption of a given air superiority in any conflict. But air superiority is not given, if fighting close to Russia or China. And the russian system showed how easy it would be to contest it. For that reason, the US would lose air superiority in a conflict close to russian border and because you can't always count on stealth fighters, they are too unreliable, specially if fighting far away without a secured air base close to the conflict.
jopsen 6y ago
> Great power wars in the modern era will... We have no clue what will happen... best ideas are pure speculation. IMO, it's very likely that any conflict would be limited to a conflict area like how they did in the Falklands war. Even if there is no formal agreement, both sides might want to limit a conflict zone.