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Does anyone knows what's the argument to use manned planes over drones anyway? Turkey, which is kicked out if the F-35 program for political reasons, demonstra

• ncmncm 5y ago
  The "investment" is the whole point of the F-35 program. Any military capability it provides is a distant second. We are lucky that it can (often) take off and land at all. F-35 has subcontracts let in every state, making it organizationally impossible to de-fund. Another similar program is SLS.
  • gameswithgo 5y ago
    The Saturn V was also built this way.
  • ggm 5y ago
    This is definitional for "the military industrial complex" -the most vivid example I have ever seen is manufacturers plates on the (now upgraded) Buenos Aires subway. The cars were made by an Argentinian airforce factory. It's also one of the principle theses of "monopoly capital" by Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran
• rolleiflex 5y ago
  > Though Turkey has a sizeable engineering capacity, it's not a rich country. Well, to add a small clarification to this, you probably mean not rich compared to the US. Turkey, even with its current economic crisis, is still a top 20 world economy, a member of OECD and last I checked, just a couple steps behind Korea in GDP. You mostly don’t get to train and retain engineers capable of a world-leading drone program without some accumulated wealth.
  • mobilefriendly 5y ago
    Korea has a significantly higher per capita GDP and Turkey is in a full blown currency crisis. In terms of societal capacity the two economies aren't comparable.
    • rolleiflex 5y ago
      To be clear, by a couple steps I meant couple steps in the world top economies list. I wasn’t implying comparable GDP, though Turkey shouldn’t be too far on that either.
    • ggm 5y ago
      Not to contradict you to the economic stability but Turkey is capable of having both an economic crisis and the economic and educational and manufacturing capacity to deploy innovative UAV. In fact, it's military spending might be propping up many parts of the economy. Iran is an economic basketcase. You think they have no capacity for research and development? Israel doesn't agree.
    • mcv 5y ago
      But for developing military systems, GDP matters more than GDP per capita. Turkey is a big country.
    • MomoXenosaga 5y ago
      The Netherlands has an annual budget of 300 billion but the military gets less than 2% of that. Ofcourse should global security ever deteriorate the EU can potentially field an army as large and advanced as any in the world. The cold war was not won by the US alone. But every cent spent on missiles can't go to healthcare or education.
• scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  The question of usability is highly dependent on how far up a ladder of escalation a given conflict goes up to. I imagine weapon systems like the F35 are intended for a higher level of conflict and deterrent than the new lower hybrid-war conflicts we're seeing taking place right now. In those cheap home-grown drones can be useful but must rely on satellites and other infrastructure which at a higher level of escalation would be under attack. I'm certain they've done quite a bit of homework on these choices. What I find interesting is how something like the F35 is more meant for asymmetrical warfare. If a real war were to break out I imagine something like the A35 Warthog and other such aircraft being rapidly manufactured and delivered to battlegrounds. But it's all just, like, my opinion man.
  • xwolfi 5y ago
    Is the F35 the american Maginot line though ? As a French Im keenly aware of over investment in traditional defense when war changes shape. Never trust them to have done their homework, trust your enemy to have done more and alreay made your strategy obsolete.
    • scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
      Well, I’m located here in Poland and from our perspective it would seem “they” have already done their homework. They’re using a strategy in which the US/NATO doesn’t even get to use those super-weapons because no open war has even been declared (and probably won’t be). Instead it’s this state of emergency, refugee stand-offs, strategic natural-gas pipeline construction, infiltration, proxies and media manipulation etc. A hybrid-war. However, even just the fact that your opponent is not willing to escalate from words/espionage up to actual violence based on the strange high-tech wizardry you might/might-not have is a pretty good outcome. The Maginot Line is an interesting example. Sure, it functions as the defining joke of WW2 - they just walked around it. But one can imagine other side purposes for building such infrastructure before a war. For instance, just forcing your enemy to declare war against your neighbors (to pass through their territory) could already be seen as a pretty good payoff/deterrent. Or maybe having a large labor force capable of building similar infrastructure based on the experience from building that Maginot line might have been seen as valuable. Hell, maybe it was more about “jobs” and keeping the populace “loyal”. Again - I don’t know the details of the Maginot Line or that history but what I’m getting at is that there are so many unknown factors and results that might be at work behind the curtain that it’s very hard to say. Coming back to the F35 I’m just wondering how they measure the expertise and loyalty of the people who have to know how to design, manufacture and build these things. Engineers are theoretically free to work where they like - so it is of strategic importance to keep them happy and keep them occupied and making progress. Maybe this could be something happening that we don’t know about? A significant amount of money has been pumped into the project, but that money doesn’t just disappear. It goes into a huge strategically crucial supply chain. It might just be worth the political loss off face to keep that healthy and operative.
• rich_sasha 5y ago
  I think we have neither the AI nor the war proof reliable communication to really steer something like a warplane remotely, in a first-world war scenario. The US could fly its drones with pilots comfortably sat in mainland US because the Taliban had no weapons able to shoot drones down. There was no dog fighting, no anti-satellite weaponry deployed etc. Another reason is that warplanes are saturated with expensive kit like crazy. Yes the pilot is a major constructional constraint, but the main reason drones are so much cheaper right now is that they just aren’t designed as equally versatile platforms. If you wanted a full-fledged F35 drone replacement, I’m not sure it would be that much cheaper. A different axis of the question, which came into play in the Azerbaijan-Armenia war recently, is whether we want few super-capable machines or much much more simpler ones. I think the jury is still out, but to me this is the interesting area of development.
  • meimo 5y ago
    Interesting last point. Could be weighted by how each country values their servicemen, ie. culturally, (at the risk of making this political) one american soldier KIA > thousands of iraqis; makes sense that the US would lean towards safety for pilots. Contrasted with say a WW2 russia "defend the motherland" mentality where losses are acceptable.
  • chrisjc 5y ago
    Interesting, wasn't that one of the objectives of the F-35? Penetrate (or come close enough) enemy airspace, then orchestrate a squadron of smaller, simpler unmanned aircraft and weapons that are sent in through other means with no particular expectation of returning after combat?
    • rich_sasha 5y ago
      Possibly, I haven’t seen that past any conceptual stage (I’m an amateur btw, nothing to do with defence). The point stands that the shepherd is a lot more complex than the sheep. F-35 is so packed with sensors: multi purpose radar, IR sensors, I believe there are radio receivers throughout the airframe, turning the whole thing into a phased array receiver. It has sophisticated software and hardware to orchestrate it all. You can configure it to shoot down enemy planes, fight air defences, bomb targets, I’m guessing shoot at ships etc. It can do it all while maintaining stealth and remaining in the air for hours (with aerial refuelling). This is much fancier than any drone can do right now.
• hugh-avherald 5y ago
  Can drones achieve air superiority?
• jollybean 5y ago
  The drones turkey is using and F35's are in completely different class of usage, they're not comparable. We don't have the ability to field highly survivable drones into enemy territory remotely just yet, we still need humans for the time being. The US has a comprehensive drone program and 'lots of drones' to fulfill the kinds of missions the Turkey drones were operating.
• 1cvmask 5y ago
  Despite their success with modern drone technology, they are insistent on trying to buy flying junk like the F35 and now the F16. Clearly their military brass is full of boneheads as well. Seems like a universal attribute or a job requirement. And separate from the technical merits of how bad the F35 and F16 is the only country that has placed arms embargoes on Turkey is the US. And the US openly arms terrorists in northern Syria with weaponry to bomb and attack Turkey. And their military STILL want to buy F16s from the US. Either they are real real dumb or financially incentivized. To paraphrase and mangle Hanlons razor don’t ascribe to stupidity what can be explained by corruption.
  • mrtksn 5y ago
    Maybe they want to buy a few so to improve the relations with US and NATO? Many believe that Turkey bought S-400 for political reasons(to fix the problems with Russia after downing a Russian warplane back in 2015) and not to really use them. Historically, Turkey's primary rival is Russia. Whatever the reason is, I don't like the "If the people in power must know what are they doing" mentality. Many times they don't or do it for way different reasons than the apparent one. Turkey is also developing its own fighter, with support from the UK.
    • 1cvmask 5y ago
      The only open enemy of Turkey is the US. The US has been covertly arming terrorists against Turkey since Kissinger. Since Obama they have been openly arming terrorists against Turkey. Russia may not be an ally but Turkeys enemy has always been the US since Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
• nonameiguess 5y ago
  > It seems to me, the 5th gen plane projects are like trying to breed the next gen horses instead of developing the automobiles. Absolutely not. This isn't an either/or prospect. The USAF employs plenty of drones and DoD and DARPA fund plenty of development of newer and better drones, while also funding manned aircraft improvements.
  • mrtksn 5y ago
    And AOL had 1.5 Million paying Dial-up subscribers by 2015[0]. Just because someone does something doesn't really imply that they are utilising their resources the best way possible. [0]https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/03/aol-1point5-million-people-still-pay-for-service-but-not-for-dial-up-internet.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/03/aol-1point5-million-people-s...
• throwawayffffas 5y ago
  > Does anyone knows what's the argument to use manned planes over drones anyway? Several reasons, Up until now as far as I am aware there has never been a drone used in an air to air combat role in an actual conflict. There is research happening on this but it appears no one has a combat ready system. The fact appears to be that the technology is just not there yet to allow unmanned aircraft to perform an air combat role. It might not even be a technology but a cost thing, drones are cheap because they lack all the technology required for that role, they are essentially light attack aircraft, they are less like an F-16 and more like a Super Tucano, subsonic with very limited payload and no radar. The primary costs of a figher jet are related to the capabilities required for the air to air combat role, maneuverability, super sonic speed, a large radar, stealth capabilities, and missile and radar warning systems. If you tried to build drone with these characteristics you would end up with a price tag similar to a modern jet. They are incredibly susceptible to electronic warfare [1][2]. > Turkey, which is kicked out if the F-35 program for political reasons, demonstrated huge success in battle through it's home grown drone programs. While true you have to take into account that in all these conflicts the drones operated in a virtually uncontested airspace. The air forces of Armenia, Syria, and Libya were comprised of a few strike aircraft. The Armenian air force had available 12 Su-25[3], the Syrian insurgents targeted by Turkey had no air force, and I could not find any sources but I would bet Haftar's air-force could not have more than 20 fighter jets. The effectiveness of drones against a peer with the capability to run 24/7 air superiority missions is still questionable. Certainly a large drone force like Turkeys is a significant force multiplier that can incur outweigh costs and casualties to an opponent but not in itself sufficient to fight against an opponent with a modern air force. In all these cases the deciding factor was not the fact the aircraft were unmanned but the fact there were aircraft with precision weapons. If Azerbaijan had 50 F-16s or A-10s the result would have likely been the same albeit at a much higher cost. Unmanned aircraft in my opinion up until now don't present a radically new proposition they merely make large scale air strike capabilities available to states that could otherwise not afford them. > F-35's were supposed to be the stealth weapons who were to be able to penetrate Russia made air defences etc, but Turkey proved in Syria that relatively cheap drones can do just that. Before the Turkish drones, only Israel was able to hit a Russian made air defence system and that was done when it wasn't operational at that moment. During the conflicts between Azerbaijan-Armenia, Syria, Libya the Turkish made drones hunted down multiple such system and provided very impressive footage of the action. The US air force has flown suppression of enemy air defense missions in almost all the conflicts it fought since Vietnam always against Russian made air defenses[4]. The role of the F-35 is not a new one it's just they needed an new airplane for that role[5]. > It seems to me, the 5th gen plane projects are like trying to breed the next gen horses instead of developing the automobiles. I guess you are referring to all the loyal wingman projects that are around. I think they are being conservative given that a bet on the wrong horse would be catastrophic for them. Their approach gives them all the benefits with very little risk, they get an expendable platform, with long endurance, the characteristics of a drone, along with increased situational awareness, immediacy, and a guarantee that a successful electronic attack won't result in the complete annihilation of their force. [1] https://eurasiantimes.com/russia-shot-down-a-total-of-nine-turkish-bayraktar-drones-near-its-armenia-military-base-russian-media-reports/ https://eurasiantimes.com/russia-shot-down-a-total-of-nine-t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Air_Force#Aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Air_Force#Aircraft [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defenses#Persian_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defen... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Weasel#Current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Weasel#Current