7 ms·

> OSD, however, refused to tolerate this kind of intransigence and in May 1966 McNamara ordered a joint review of the commonality issue. Conducted over the next

> OSD, however, refused to tolerate this kind of intransigence and in May 1966 McNamara ordered a joint review of the commonality issue. Conducted over the next 18 months, the review confirmed that the needs of the Air Force and Navy could not be met by a single airframe. The two services argued that attempts to merge their requirements would produce, at exorbitant cost, a grotesque mutation with increased weight, and reduced performance. The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced performance.

u320 4y ago
"F-35 is bad" is just an internet meme with little to support it.
- belter 4y ago
  We can revisit it after it is proven in combat, something that still has to happen.
  - enkid 4y ago
    What does proven in combat even mean? Win a war against China?
    - melling 4y ago
      [flagged]
  - jmvoodoo 4y ago
    F-35s have flown over 1,000 combat sorties. When would you consider it "proven"?
    - belter 4y ago
      Bombing ISIS does not count. Here is an example of something that could really hurt. "...The F-35 can only tolerate supersonic speeds at high altitudes for short bursts before it sustains lasting structural damage and the loss of stealth capabilities..." - https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/five-problems-with-americas-f-35s-now-that-canada-is-buying-its-own-f-35s#:~:text=The%20F%2D35%20can%20only,plans%20to%20correct%20the%20problem https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/five-problems-with-amer....
  - chiph 4y ago
    The Israelis have released footage of shooting down two drones, so they have the first kills with the F-35. Obviously this was not against a maneuvering human pilot, but still important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSFEpqwA6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSFEpqwA6Q
    - FridayoLeary 4y ago
      They also have multiple (unproven but everyone knows who did it) strikes against iranian positions in syria and even in iran itself, it is rumoured. The ability to be invisible to radar is an absolute gamechanger.
      - belter 4y ago
        That just make it difficult to lock on with weapons. They are not invisible and any radar operator would tell you that if they would be allowed... "...Stealth designs minimize an aircraft's radar signature, delaying and sometimes even preventing detection, but because of the physical requirements for tactical jets, stealth fighters can be easily spotted by certain low-frequency radar bands. In fact, it's not even uncommon for air traffic control radar to be able to spot stealth fighters on their scopes. And we're not just talking about when these aircraft are carrying external munitions or fuel tanks, rather, even in full-on "stealth mode," F-22s and F-35s aren't as sneaky as you might think." - https://www.businessinsider.com/radars-can-see-best-stealth-jets-but-cant-stop-them-2022-7?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/radars-can-see-best-stealth-...
        giantrobot 4y ago
        While you're not wrong that stealthy ≠ invisible, a proper mission design will render the aircraft effectively invisible to air defenses. If you've got an active radar system you'll bounce signals off anything in the sky. Your ability to actually detect those things is based on the strength of the return and sensitivity/signal processing of the system. Big things can be detected hundreds of miles away, small things only tens of miles away. To protect some high value target you string together multiple radar systems to provide overlapping coverage. With enough systems you can have an unbroken wall of radar directing defending aircraft and SAMs. Stealth lets a big thing (a jet) pretend to be a small thing in the view of an air defense system, essentially cutting the detection range of radar. This means your unbroken radar coverage that would work for an F-15 now has a bunch of holes because each radar can only detect an F-22 twenty miles out instead of two hundred. Your radar is also further compromised because the stand-off range of anti-radiation missiles is outside the range you can detect and intercept the jets carrying them. Being able to see a stealth aircraft after it's fired a weapon to kill you isn't super helpful. A stealth aircraft can also fly through the artificial holes it made in your radar coverage and blow up the thing you're protecting and you only find out about it after the fact.
  - GalenErso 4y ago
    The F-35 has been proven in simulations with aggressor squadrons. The Air Force does that all the time: real aircraft in the air, real pilots, real weapons, they just don't actually shoot them for obvious reasons. But they have other ways of simulating kills. https://www.businessinsider.com/f-22-pilot-describes-going-up-against-f-35-aggressors-2021-8?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/f-22-pilot-describes-going-u... Here's what a F-22 pilot (!) had to say about the F-35. "It is challenging, even flying the Raptor, to have good [situational awareness] on where the F-35s are," he said. Bowlds said that inserting F-35 aggressors into Red Flag made things "more challenging because there is a little bit of an unknown in terms of what they are going to be able to do." Additionally, "red air detects are happening at further ranges," Bowlds explained. "It inherently poses more of a threat to allied blue-air forces than older aggressors," such as the fourth-generation F-16s. The F-35s "have better detection capabilities kind of against everybody just because of their new radar and the avionics they have," he said. "It definitely adds a level of complexity."
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      I think this combined with the carrier capability is the scariest for the enemy. You'll never be sure there aren't F-35s around.
    - belter 4y ago
      Proven in simulations is an oxymoron...
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    “Proven in combat” seems like a tricky concept. I mean the F-15 has that incredible 104:0 record, but that is because 1) it was ahead of the rest of the world when it came out 2) it spent a lot of time fighting older MIGs Which is to say, the circumstances requires to get a real peer fight for a US plane are quite rare. Thankfully!
    - greedo 4y ago
      3) Flown by some of the best combat pilots in the world (at the time).
- tomohawk 4y ago
  It's more like the F35 over promises and under delivers compared to what it is expected to replace. The F15 comes with a 20,000 hour airframe, while the F35 comes with a 8000 hour airframe. The F15 can get to target much faster, much farther, and still have fuel to do something when it gets there. The F15 can carry 12 AIM-120s (or 24 depending), while the F35 can carry 4. The F15's a great interceptor. The F35 is a great aircraft, but too expensive and limited to operate in that role. The following article analyzes the F15EX buy that is being debated as compared to the F35. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/buying-just-80-f-15exs-makes-no-sense https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/buying-just-80-f-15exs...
  - avereveard 4y ago
    The f15 is going to be shoot down 60km from target by s400s, the f35 can get close enough to drop an harm on them at a speed they cannot intercept, so there's that. Also the f15 has speed or range, and if you need one it reduces the other.
  - jghn 4y ago
    Isn’t the F22 the successor to the F15, being air superiority fighters?
    - sandworm101 4y ago
      It was, but since 22 production has stopped and there are plenty of 15s around, the 35 is often paird up with the 15 for wargaming. Doctrine and training is always dictated by practicalities like which aircraft you have to play with.
    - yetanotherloss 4y ago
      It was but production was scaled back so much, and the peer enemy aircraft it was needed to defeat still largely don't exist yet. As a result the production lines were shut down and equipment moved to permanent storage and other multirole fighters that are usually less expensive end up doing the F22's job. In the horrifying event of a US-China war or similar they'd be front line units along with F-35s and other modern fighters, but as is they'll probably end up on service life extension and retired without ever being used much in combat. The F-15 was sold to other nations and IIRC the majority of its air superiority engagements were with the Israeli air force.
avereveard 4y ago
". The first time the opponents showed up [in the training area] they had wing tanks along with a bunch of missiles. I guess they figured that being in a dirty configuration wouldn’t really matter and that they would still easily outmaneuver us. By the end of the week, though, they had dropped their wing tanks, transitioned to a single centerline fuel tank and were still doing everything they could not to get gunned by us. A week later they stripped the jets clean of all external stores, which made the BFM fights interesting, to say the least" (source attached to this post https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54012 https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54012 ) F35 can hold their own quite well. Disregard the 2015 report with the limiting software, this is where they are at, and things will only improve with the new engine
cpgxiii 4y ago
This whole "multi-service aircraft can't work" meme has been going for essentially a century, and has been wrong just as long. The F-4 Phantom, probably deserving the title of greatest Western multi-role aircraft of the cold war, had long successful service with both USAF and USN (and USMC), with fewer inter-service airframe differences than between the F-35A and F-35C. Multi-service aircraft are totally workable, the services just don't like having to play nice with each other. The F-35 is better thought of as a family of tightly-related aircraft which share as many major systems as possible (avionics, sensors, engine, cockpit) while having differing airframes. Doing exactly the kind of reusable engineering a major project should be doing. You can claim that different project management might have been cheaper, but the idea that three separate airplanes, one for each service, could have been engineered and produced for less is just wishful thinking.
- coredog64 4y ago
  I generally agree with your thesis, but: The F-4 was built for the Navy and the other services saw what a great plane it was and bought in. The F-35 is intended as a lightweight multi role aircraft, so it’s full of compromises already. The F-111A/B as a shared USAF/USN aircraft is much harder as there’s not as much margin for compromise in something that is supposed to be the pinnacle of current performance.
  - cpgxiii 4y ago
    I'd say the F-111 is a particularly odd case, given the vastly different initial requirements involved. To be clear, everything that made the F-111 a great long-range interdictor for the USAF would have have also made for a great long-range interceptor and strike platform for the USN. It wouldn't have made a good air superiority fighter, and the experience over Vietnam made it clear that this capability was still very much necessary, and there was nowhere near enough budget (or, more critically, carrier deck and hangar space) for the USN to operate both an air superiority fighter and a dedicated long-range interceptor. There is a very long list of could-have-been multi-service aircraft, though. If you look at the number of ground-based operators of the F-18, clearly the USAF could have been satisfied with it as well. The USN probably could have been satisfied by a navalized F-22 derivative (the story of 1990s/early 2000s procurement is complicated), the USMC definitely could have been satisfied by a navalized AH-64 rather than developing the AH-1Z, etc. The services are just very resistant to ever needing to compromise on procurement issues unless Congress and the DoD make it clear that they have to. The USN feels their needs are special, and that the USAF would dominate any shared procurement and force them to compromise too much, while the USAF feels like every pound added for carrier operation is a direct affront. Neither view is entirely wrong - the development delays and compromises of a navalized platform like the Dassault Rafale are another good example of the costs of shared development - but the simple reality of modern aircraft development costs and defense budgets means joint platforms are here to stay.
wolverine876 4y ago
> The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced performance. For such a poor performer, the F-35 is sought after by almost every country that can afford it and that the US will sell it to. Sales increased even more after Russia invaded Ukraine, when European countries perceiving a new threat switched their plans to the F-35.
- steponlego 4y ago
  It had better be amazing or they’re going to be pissed!

u320 4y ago

"F-35 is bad" is just an internet meme with little to support it.

belter 4y ago
We can revisit it after it is proven in combat, something that still has to happen.
- enkid 4y ago
  What does proven in combat even mean? Win a war against China?
  - melling 4y ago
    [flagged]
- jmvoodoo 4y ago
  F-35s have flown over 1,000 combat sorties. When would you consider it "proven"?
  - belter 4y ago
    Bombing ISIS does not count. Here is an example of something that could really hurt. "...The F-35 can only tolerate supersonic speeds at high altitudes for short bursts before it sustains lasting structural damage and the loss of stealth capabilities..." - https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/five-problems-with-americas-f-35s-now-that-canada-is-buying-its-own-f-35s#:~:text=The%20F%2D35%20can%20only,plans%20to%20correct%20the%20problem https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/five-problems-with-amer....
- chiph 4y ago
  The Israelis have released footage of shooting down two drones, so they have the first kills with the F-35. Obviously this was not against a maneuvering human pilot, but still important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSFEpqwA6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSFEpqwA6Q
  - FridayoLeary 4y ago
    They also have multiple (unproven but everyone knows who did it) strikes against iranian positions in syria and even in iran itself, it is rumoured. The ability to be invisible to radar is an absolute gamechanger.
    - belter 4y ago
      That just make it difficult to lock on with weapons. They are not invisible and any radar operator would tell you that if they would be allowed... "...Stealth designs minimize an aircraft's radar signature, delaying and sometimes even preventing detection, but because of the physical requirements for tactical jets, stealth fighters can be easily spotted by certain low-frequency radar bands. In fact, it's not even uncommon for air traffic control radar to be able to spot stealth fighters on their scopes. And we're not just talking about when these aircraft are carrying external munitions or fuel tanks, rather, even in full-on "stealth mode," F-22s and F-35s aren't as sneaky as you might think." - https://www.businessinsider.com/radars-can-see-best-stealth-jets-but-cant-stop-them-2022-7?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/radars-can-see-best-stealth-...
      - giantrobot 4y ago
        While you're not wrong that stealthy ≠ invisible, a proper mission design will render the aircraft effectively invisible to air defenses. If you've got an active radar system you'll bounce signals off anything in the sky. Your ability to actually detect those things is based on the strength of the return and sensitivity/signal processing of the system. Big things can be detected hundreds of miles away, small things only tens of miles away. To protect some high value target you string together multiple radar systems to provide overlapping coverage. With enough systems you can have an unbroken wall of radar directing defending aircraft and SAMs. Stealth lets a big thing (a jet) pretend to be a small thing in the view of an air defense system, essentially cutting the detection range of radar. This means your unbroken radar coverage that would work for an F-15 now has a bunch of holes because each radar can only detect an F-22 twenty miles out instead of two hundred. Your radar is also further compromised because the stand-off range of anti-radiation missiles is outside the range you can detect and intercept the jets carrying them. Being able to see a stealth aircraft after it's fired a weapon to kill you isn't super helpful. A stealth aircraft can also fly through the artificial holes it made in your radar coverage and blow up the thing you're protecting and you only find out about it after the fact.
- GalenErso 4y ago
  The F-35 has been proven in simulations with aggressor squadrons. The Air Force does that all the time: real aircraft in the air, real pilots, real weapons, they just don't actually shoot them for obvious reasons. But they have other ways of simulating kills. https://www.businessinsider.com/f-22-pilot-describes-going-up-against-f-35-aggressors-2021-8?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/f-22-pilot-describes-going-u... Here's what a F-22 pilot (!) had to say about the F-35. "It is challenging, even flying the Raptor, to have good [situational awareness] on where the F-35s are," he said. Bowlds said that inserting F-35 aggressors into Red Flag made things "more challenging because there is a little bit of an unknown in terms of what they are going to be able to do." Additionally, "red air detects are happening at further ranges," Bowlds explained. "It inherently poses more of a threat to allied blue-air forces than older aggressors," such as the fourth-generation F-16s. The F-35s "have better detection capabilities kind of against everybody just because of their new radar and the avionics they have," he said. "It definitely adds a level of complexity."
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    I think this combined with the carrier capability is the scariest for the enemy. You'll never be sure there aren't F-35s around.
  - belter 4y ago
    Proven in simulations is an oxymoron...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- bee_rider 4y ago
  “Proven in combat” seems like a tricky concept. I mean the F-15 has that incredible 104:0 record, but that is because 1) it was ahead of the rest of the world when it came out 2) it spent a lot of time fighting older MIGs Which is to say, the circumstances requires to get a real peer fight for a US plane are quite rare. Thankfully!
  - greedo 4y ago
    3) Flown by some of the best combat pilots in the world (at the time).
tomohawk 4y ago
It's more like the F35 over promises and under delivers compared to what it is expected to replace. The F15 comes with a 20,000 hour airframe, while the F35 comes with a 8000 hour airframe. The F15 can get to target much faster, much farther, and still have fuel to do something when it gets there. The F15 can carry 12 AIM-120s (or 24 depending), while the F35 can carry 4. The F15's a great interceptor. The F35 is a great aircraft, but too expensive and limited to operate in that role. The following article analyzes the F15EX buy that is being debated as compared to the F35. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/buying-just-80-f-15exs-makes-no-sense https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/buying-just-80-f-15exs...
- avereveard 4y ago
  The f15 is going to be shoot down 60km from target by s400s, the f35 can get close enough to drop an harm on them at a speed they cannot intercept, so there's that. Also the f15 has speed or range, and if you need one it reduces the other.
- jghn 4y ago
  Isn’t the F22 the successor to the F15, being air superiority fighters?
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    It was, but since 22 production has stopped and there are plenty of 15s around, the 35 is often paird up with the 15 for wargaming. Doctrine and training is always dictated by practicalities like which aircraft you have to play with.
  - yetanotherloss 4y ago
    It was but production was scaled back so much, and the peer enemy aircraft it was needed to defeat still largely don't exist yet. As a result the production lines were shut down and equipment moved to permanent storage and other multirole fighters that are usually less expensive end up doing the F22's job. In the horrifying event of a US-China war or similar they'd be front line units along with F-35s and other modern fighters, but as is they'll probably end up on service life extension and retired without ever being used much in combat. The F-15 was sold to other nations and IIRC the majority of its air superiority engagements were with the Israeli air force.

avereveard 4y ago

". The first time the opponents showed up [in the training area] they had wing tanks along with a bunch of missiles. I guess they figured that being in a dirty configuration wouldn’t really matter and that they would still easily outmaneuver us. By the end of the week, though, they had dropped their wing tanks, transitioned to a single centerline fuel tank and were still doing everything they could not to get gunned by us. A week later they stripped the jets clean of all external stores, which made the BFM fights interesting, to say the least" (source attached to this post https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54012 https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54012 ) F35 can hold their own quite well. Disregard the 2015 report with the limiting software, this is where they are at, and things will only improve with the new engine

cpgxiii 4y ago

This whole "multi-service aircraft can't work" meme has been going for essentially a century, and has been wrong just as long. The F-4 Phantom, probably deserving the title of greatest Western multi-role aircraft of the cold war, had long successful service with both USAF and USN (and USMC), with fewer inter-service airframe differences than between the F-35A and F-35C. Multi-service aircraft are totally workable, the services just don't like having to play nice with each other. The F-35 is better thought of as a family of tightly-related aircraft which share as many major systems as possible (avionics, sensors, engine, cockpit) while having differing airframes. Doing exactly the kind of reusable engineering a major project should be doing. You can claim that different project management might have been cheaper, but the idea that three separate airplanes, one for each service, could have been engineered and produced for less is just wishful thinking.

coredog64 4y ago
I generally agree with your thesis, but: The F-4 was built for the Navy and the other services saw what a great plane it was and bought in. The F-35 is intended as a lightweight multi role aircraft, so it’s full of compromises already. The F-111A/B as a shared USAF/USN aircraft is much harder as there’s not as much margin for compromise in something that is supposed to be the pinnacle of current performance.
- cpgxiii 4y ago
  I'd say the F-111 is a particularly odd case, given the vastly different initial requirements involved. To be clear, everything that made the F-111 a great long-range interdictor for the USAF would have have also made for a great long-range interceptor and strike platform for the USN. It wouldn't have made a good air superiority fighter, and the experience over Vietnam made it clear that this capability was still very much necessary, and there was nowhere near enough budget (or, more critically, carrier deck and hangar space) for the USN to operate both an air superiority fighter and a dedicated long-range interceptor. There is a very long list of could-have-been multi-service aircraft, though. If you look at the number of ground-based operators of the F-18, clearly the USAF could have been satisfied with it as well. The USN probably could have been satisfied by a navalized F-22 derivative (the story of 1990s/early 2000s procurement is complicated), the USMC definitely could have been satisfied by a navalized AH-64 rather than developing the AH-1Z, etc. The services are just very resistant to ever needing to compromise on procurement issues unless Congress and the DoD make it clear that they have to. The USN feels their needs are special, and that the USAF would dominate any shared procurement and force them to compromise too much, while the USAF feels like every pound added for carrier operation is a direct affront. Neither view is entirely wrong - the development delays and compromises of a navalized platform like the Dassault Rafale are another good example of the costs of shared development - but the simple reality of modern aircraft development costs and defense budgets means joint platforms are here to stay.

wolverine876 4y ago

> The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced performance. For such a poor performer, the F-35 is sought after by almost every country that can afford it and that the US will sell it to. Sales increased even more after Russia invaded Ukraine, when European countries perceiving a new threat switched their plans to the F-35.

steponlego 4y ago
It had better be amazing or they’re going to be pissed!