13 ms·

Military procurement is not about what is the best system, it is about who gets the money. Plus every other party has far inferior fighters to "the West" anywa

by spwa4 1y ago

Military procurement is not about what is the best system, it is about who gets the money. Plus every other party has far inferior fighters to "the West" anyway. And then you calculate ... you are not going to successfully defend against the F-35 in a war with the US. Not going to happen. Against Russia/China or anyone else ... every fighter jet will do fine, so take the cheapest. The US got guaranteed this business because of international treaties ... which Trump has abandoned. But no worries, I'm sure he'll just make a "deal" and fix things again, right? Meanwhile I suggest you invest in EU weapons manufacturers, who are a lot cheaper than the US ones.

slaw 1y ago
None of European jet fighters can stand against Chinese, but China is far away.
cm2187 1y ago
Well, technically Pakistan shot a Indian Rafale with a Chinese made missile a few months ago, which created some consternation in France. I heard the French explaining it away, as India trying to bomb some Pakistani territory without hitting the Pakistani military, hence putting their jet fighters in unecessary harm's way. I am not qualified to draw my own conclusions on the quality of Chinese weapons but it seems to imply they can certainly do significant damage.
- slaw 1y ago
  Rafale was shot down by J-10 plane using PL-15 missile. Rafale, Eurofighter and J-10 are old 20+ years designs. Europe has nothing equivalent to Chinese J-35 or even previous generation J-20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-35
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    To be fair, China doesn't have anything like the J-35 either, it's a prototype.
    - cm2187 1y ago
      And I hope they removed the Lockheed Martin logo from the CAD files before sending them to manufacturing!
      - spwa4 1y ago
        I don't think their manager will allow that, since all their aircraft designers work at Lockheed Martin during the week ...
  - mcphage 1y ago
    > Europe has nothing equivalent to Chinese J-35 or even previous generation J-20. How many J-35s does China have?
    - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
      According to Wikipedia: 8+, so more than eight?
      - mcphage 1y ago
        That’s… not really very many.
        slaw 1y ago
        8+ J-35, 1 prototype J-36, 1 prototype J-50 and 250+ J-20. Europe has nothing like that.
        cm2187 1y ago
        Are you talking about manufacturing or operating? Europe has something like 225 F-35 operational right now with more coming.
        slaw 1y ago
        Manufacturing.
qwytw 1y ago
> Against Russia/China or anyone else ... every fighter jet will do fine Will it though? Underestimating your (potential) enemies might not be the smartest idea. Of course as the war in Ukraine has shown jet fighters might not even be that relevant anymore if you can't take our your opponents air defenses.
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  > jet fighters might not even be that relevant anymore if you can't take our your opponents air defenses One of the design variants of the F-35 is designed to penetrate air support, no?
  - spwa4 1y ago
    One thing I've been wondering about: a jet powered cruise missile is less than $50000. A propeller powered cruise missile can be built for under $10000. Both have ranges over 1000km. The US has, grand total, about something like 40000 interceptors. That means enough propellor powered cruise missiles to guarantee US air defense penetration is (a lot) cheaper than ONE F-35 (and they can still go ~500km/h), jet-powered ones cheaper than 2, maybe 3 and that's not counting equipping the F-35 with something to shoot, and of course there's the suspicions that F-35s have kill switches that Trump half-confirmed (yet another brilliant move there, Mr. Orange President). How many of those interceptor rockets are available to be loaded into actual equipment in less than the 6 hours it takes jet powered cruise missiles to reach the US? I don't know, but let's go with 10%. In other words: the defense that Israel mounted against Iran is pretty much same effective defense the US would have if Russia started ... The US wouldn't be able to shoot down more of those, even if Russia had 100x more rockets than Iran. Oh you want to shoot them down using bullets? Ok, halfway we have those cruise missiles switch to a ballistic trajectory. At that point it will be difficult to shoot them down, but that's not really the point. They're ballistic, and the problem with ballistic rockets is that they're like an (explosive) rock. You can shoot it ... but that only causes momentum exchange ... it doesn't actually give the rocket a different trajectory. In other words: it'll still hit it's target, just with less accuracy (and if the guidance remains intact, not even that). You have to hit it hard enough to get it to break up, which means rockets, which the US doesn't have enough of. Which nobody has enough of. (this is a theme that will come up often once hamas or hezbollah start firing rockets at Israel again. The new laser interceptors have to hit the rockets BEFORE they're ballistic, in other words, what they do is make hamas fired rockets hit Gaza or South Lebanon ... Guess who will be blamed for intercepted rockets hitting houses, hospitals and kindergartens in Gaza and Lebanon?)

by spwa4 1y ago

slaw 1y ago

None of European jet fighters can stand against Chinese, but China is far away.

cm2187 1y ago

Well, technically Pakistan shot a Indian Rafale with a Chinese made missile a few months ago, which created some consternation in France. I heard the French explaining it away, as India trying to bomb some Pakistani territory without hitting the Pakistani military, hence putting their jet fighters in unecessary harm's way. I am not qualified to draw my own conclusions on the quality of Chinese weapons but it seems to imply they can certainly do significant damage.

slaw 1y ago
Rafale was shot down by J-10 plane using PL-15 missile. Rafale, Eurofighter and J-10 are old 20+ years designs. Europe has nothing equivalent to Chinese J-35 or even previous generation J-20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-35
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  To be fair, China doesn't have anything like the J-35 either, it's a prototype.
  - cm2187 1y ago
    And I hope they removed the Lockheed Martin logo from the CAD files before sending them to manufacturing!
    - spwa4 1y ago
      I don't think their manager will allow that, since all their aircraft designers work at Lockheed Martin during the week ...
- mcphage 1y ago
  > Europe has nothing equivalent to Chinese J-35 or even previous generation J-20. How many J-35s does China have?
  - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
    According to Wikipedia: 8+, so more than eight?
    - mcphage 1y ago
      That’s… not really very many.
      - slaw 1y ago
        8+ J-35, 1 prototype J-36, 1 prototype J-50 and 250+ J-20. Europe has nothing like that.
        cm2187 1y ago
        Are you talking about manufacturing or operating? Europe has something like 225 F-35 operational right now with more coming.
        slaw 1y ago
        Manufacturing.

qwytw 1y ago

> Against Russia/China or anyone else ... every fighter jet will do fine Will it though? Underestimating your (potential) enemies might not be the smartest idea. Of course as the war in Ukraine has shown jet fighters might not even be that relevant anymore if you can't take our your opponents air defenses.

Tadpole9181 1y ago
> jet fighters might not even be that relevant anymore if you can't take our your opponents air defenses One of the design variants of the F-35 is designed to penetrate air support, no?
- spwa4 1y ago
  One thing I've been wondering about: a jet powered cruise missile is less than $50000. A propeller powered cruise missile can be built for under $10000. Both have ranges over 1000km. The US has, grand total, about something like 40000 interceptors. That means enough propellor powered cruise missiles to guarantee US air defense penetration is (a lot) cheaper than ONE F-35 (and they can still go ~500km/h), jet-powered ones cheaper than 2, maybe 3 and that's not counting equipping the F-35 with something to shoot, and of course there's the suspicions that F-35s have kill switches that Trump half-confirmed (yet another brilliant move there, Mr. Orange President). How many of those interceptor rockets are available to be loaded into actual equipment in less than the 6 hours it takes jet powered cruise missiles to reach the US? I don't know, but let's go with 10%. In other words: the defense that Israel mounted against Iran is pretty much same effective defense the US would have if Russia started ... The US wouldn't be able to shoot down more of those, even if Russia had 100x more rockets than Iran. Oh you want to shoot them down using bullets? Ok, halfway we have those cruise missiles switch to a ballistic trajectory. At that point it will be difficult to shoot them down, but that's not really the point. They're ballistic, and the problem with ballistic rockets is that they're like an (explosive) rock. You can shoot it ... but that only causes momentum exchange ... it doesn't actually give the rocket a different trajectory. In other words: it'll still hit it's target, just with less accuracy (and if the guidance remains intact, not even that). You have to hit it hard enough to get it to break up, which means rockets, which the US doesn't have enough of. Which nobody has enough of. (this is a theme that will come up often once hamas or hezbollah start firing rockets at Israel again. The new laser interceptors have to hit the rockets BEFORE they're ballistic, in other words, what they do is make hamas fired rockets hit Gaza or South Lebanon ... Guess who will be blamed for intercepted rockets hitting houses, hospitals and kindergartens in Gaza and Lebanon?)