Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Grid 88"
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Because no E-6 or E-7 SF guy would have a place in Ranger Regiment unless they went into a Staff job or 4th RTB. You have to earn your way into the NCO Corps in Ranger Regiment, and it is more competitive than any place in the Army. There are only so many E-6 and E-7 slots in Regiment. Keep in mind that an E-4 in Ranger Regiment has kicked in more doors, done more CQB reps, more CQB, more breeching, and more FAST Ropes than most E-8s in SF, to include CIF guys (gone now).
Ranger Regiment just puts in more reps when it comes to kinetic work, whether it be rotary wing ops, Demo, live fires, Airborne Ops, and combined live fire exercises. All the stuff you see in the video on the left Rangers are doing, they are doing right now as I type this. All the action-based stuff shown representing SF is rarely done, as they are more focused on mission-planning for JCETs, getting their phonebook OPORDERs reviewed by 5 levels of officers who have no real jobs other than to make life miserable for ODAs, or deploying to countries within their AORs teaching basic courses to foreign soldiers or doing joint training with their Airborne and SOF units.
I trained and deployed with both and was thoroughly impressed with 2-75. I was very disappointed with what I found in SF and disillusioned with the organization as a whole, though there are many excellent leaders and soldiers within it. SF is not what most people who join it are looking for.
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A PFC or SPC in Ranger Regiment has more CQM, CQB, and CALFEXs under his belt than most E-7s and E-8s in SF. SF lets in a lot of soft skills MOS guys who might have experience in repairing vehicles, generators, and radios, but don’t have the core light infantry mindset built into them. Some adapt very well, but others don’t. Most ODAs have at least 50% of the guys as former 11Bs, but those could be a mix of Mech guys (lol), Light infantry, and maybe a Ranger Regiment guy or 2.
Junior enlisted in Ranger Regiment get far more reps at the basics than SF. SF brings a bunch of different MOSs together to deploy as a self-contained template for linking-up with, organizing, and training guerrillas or partisans in UW. You will absolutely be more lethal and survivable under-fire with a Ranger Squad than an SF ODA, no 2 ways about it. The Rangers will be in much better physical shape, have more endurance, far superior marksmanship, and superior proficiency with their weapons and equipment than a typical SF ODA. This is just the way it is.
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Douglas Jones F-35s have their own Local Area Network with Line-of-sight data link, not omnidirectional Wide Area Network like 4th Gen fighters have.
F-117A combat record:
1271 combat sorties in Desert Storm
850 combat sorties over Bosnia/Serbia
1 shot down
0 combat fatalities
It has no radar, no EW, no radar warning, nothing but a good navigation system and FLIR + laser spot tracker hidden in the belly for guiding its Laser-Guided Bombs.
They were ordered to fly the same corridor multiple nights in a row. The night in question, the EA-6Bs were down for maintenance, and Russian spotters in Italy relayed what aircraft were taking off.
No EA-6Bs with HARM missiles meant SAM sites could search longer, be a bit more bold.
Dani's SA-3 crew set their radars to lower frequency against orders, and got a brief glimmer of the F-117As when bomb bay doors were opened, then disappeared.
They had to turn around and fly over the same area by orders of Clinton's SECDEF, while SAM batteries were scanning actively.
Dani's crew saw them at 13km, manually tracked and fired a Salvo of 2 different SAMs from the site.
One missed, while the other proximity-detonated near the F-117, causing a wing to shear off and go out of control. Pilot ejected and went into E&E mode, got picked up by AFSOF CSAR elements.
Had that been an F-35, the F-35 pilots would have seen every tiny RF and thermal emission overlaid on high resolution AESA ground-mapping imagery from over the horizon, actively looking for SAM sites to smoke.
Totally different ballgame.
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@nathandougg9743 F-117A flew 1271 combat sorties over a much more advanced IADS and radar network in Iraq, and 850 combat sorties over Yugoslavia. 1 combat loss over Serbia, 0 pilot fatalities from combat. That was an F-117A with no RWR, no ECM, no AESA radar with ground-mapping, no ALR-94, no defensive systems at all, flying the same profile every night because the White House ordered them to do so and not approach from different vectors like in ODS.
Meanwhile, F-22A and JSF series have the world’s best AESA radars, EW systems, and ability to see threat radars from hundreds of km away and geo-locate them within 1 sec and share with each other. The comparison between F-22A, F-35A/B/C, and F-117A doesn’t really tell the whole picture. Also, RCS values on the Raptor and F-35s are smaller than on the F-117A. Dani’s SA-3 crew wasn’t able to detect the F-117A until 13km, his own words. 13km on a larger RCS target flying the same profile every night. Good luck.
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@CaptainDangeax When you take the F-35A to Mach 1.6, then go to mil power, it takes a long time before it decelerates back down through Mach, unlike 4.5 Gen with external stores.
With any of the 4.5 Gen fighters, you're not going to accelerate to Mach 1.6 carrying EFTs, FLIR pods, pylons, and bombs. F-35 can do it every sortie if they wanted to.
Russians aren't going to push any of the Flankers there because of their notorious issues with engines.
Even the Su-57 shot a 20m long burst of flame out of its starboard motor in front of everyone at MAKS during take-off and quickly aborted, which was a national embarrassment.
With 4th and 4.5 Gen, the main reasons they go into low supersonic regime is for optimum weapons separation for BVR, and missile evasion techniques in BVR. Even in a Typhoon or Rafale, combat configured, they generally will not exceed Mach 1.2 to Mach 1.4 due to parasitic drag from external stores. You need a slick airframe to reach higher Mach values, like a Typhoon only carrying 4x AIM-120C or Meteors in the recessed stations, nothing else.
The US explored all this in the 1980s with the F-16XL and concluded that it was much better to go with a VLO airframe as a priority. Any airframe that relied on external stores would never perform as well as it did clean.
We had several different conventional designs, including the F-16XL, F-15 STOL/MTD with thrust-vectoring and canards, Agile Falcon (Big Wing F-16 sold to Mitsubishi for their F-2), F-16 VISTA and MATV (Multi-Axis Thrust-Vectoring), X-31 super-maneuverable delta wing with canards and 3D thrust-vectoring.
We could have wasted billions on all those programs for incremental improvements, but none of them addressed real increases in lethality or survivability.
Stealth, AESA radars, LPI data links, and improvements to missiles were found to be far more consequential.
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@CaptainDangeax I’m aware of Rafale’s 838 TRMs in the RBE2 AESA, vs the APG-81’s 1626 TRMs. RBE2 relied originally on US-provided AESA radar semiconductor technology transfer, which is then produced by Thales. I’m also aware of the SPECTRA RF antennae distribution, operating principles, and bandwidth coverage, including MAWS. Now compare that with F-35’s EW suite and integrated DAS/EOTS/AESA that are all closed-loop fed through the CNI/CPU bank with 4, more powerful computers, with mostly fiber-optic signal connectivity.
In each sensor example, you see a significant leap in capability over what’s on the latest Rafale SPECTRA suite, AESA, and OSF. Those are all excellent systems on the Rafale, so don’t think I’m trashing them. It is a far more capable swing-role system compared with every other 1980s/1990s design from the Eurocanards and Flankers. Dassault and Thales also did a superb job on configuring the pilot-interface with the systems in the cockpit, which seems more futuristic and clear-thinking than what is in the Typhoon or Gripen C/D. I like the Typhoon’s stores carriage configuration better in most ways, except for lack of wingtip stations like the Rafale has.
The man-machine interface on JSF is another leap above all that, where the pilot can configure the large panel displays how they want, at various stages of flight, minimize or maximize certain displays, with fused and interleaved sensor data from his and other F-35s in real-time, with far higher data transfer rates than what are in the Rafale.
Data links are a Wide Area Network vs Local Area Network comparison. Unlike an older WAN-based data link that broadcasts omni-directionally on Rafale, the JSF MADL LAN pipes high-saturation data via LPI Line-of-Sight antennae with multiple fallback modes for future-proofing against EW. Only the F-22 and F-35 series have this type of LAN/LOS/LPI/LPD Data link. This is another example of a generational leap over legacy data link architecture. It shows again that 5th Gen really is a thing. We can literally dissect every detail of these fighters and I can point out how each subcomponent and system is a revolutionary leap over the older generational approaches.
In every relevant metric, the JSF is simply a superior system. We can go through it component-by-component, subsystem-by-subsystem, and performance-to-performance. The facts are what they are, but precious few people have the relevant background to recognize and understand it.
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@michaelkeller5008 The only theoretical radars people are talking about are quantum radars, which is based on quantum entanglement theory, and therefore is in a research stage with only very short range laboratory observations made. The laboratory-based short-range quantum photon experiments, use super-cooled liquid nitrogen systems (extremely heavy, require tons of equipment footprint). While you’re working on your quantum radar, stealth technology will be working on how to defeat it with entanglement-transparent RF and photonics-breathing surfaces, with better-funded research underway.
Stealth technology is not static or constrained, just like sensors.
The IR concealment measures on F-35 don’t just “do a little”. They would not have funded and implemented them had they not been game-changing. Already on the F-22, within visual range, you can’t acquire it with a helmet-sight and wide FOV IR missile seeker. Pilots equipped with JHMCS and AIM-9X have complained about this when doing Fox 2 BFM with F-22s.
Engineers all over the world have been working on how to try to deal with the F-117’s RF stealth, while mostly overlooking the IR stealth. Same with the F-22 and F-35. They have not been successful, since improvements in IRST detection range don’t extend that range into significant BVR distances, and leave a pilot with the same problem of flying blind. The pilot never knows what his sensors have not detected because...they haven’t detected anything.
You’re commenting about applied physics matters that require significant study and knowledge of the math behind them, and making a lot of assumptions with no real framework from which to understand the basics.
“Everyone knows about the issues that keep the birds on the ground for most of the time”. No, everybody doesn’t know anything about actual readiness rates of JSF series. They are reading clickbait articles written by total ignoramuses who couldn’t tell the difference between a tow cart and an ordnance load cart, or what FMC vs MC rates are, MTBF vs CPFH, etc. Operational F-35 squadrons are experiencing very high readiness rates, including on deployment.
Red Flag? This is a major oversight, not knowing that F-35s have been at RF for 4 years straight now. F-35s have been attending Red Flag since 17-1. You can watch hours of videos showing F-35s taking off and landing out of Nellis for RFs since early 2017. At RF 17-1, they achieved a 20:1 A2A kill ratio against Red Air, which has only ever been done by F-22As before. The “1” loss in that denominator was from Red Air re-spawning without following the admin ROE and going back to the assigned re-spawn points after they were killed, so they could at least get a chance to see them WVR and claim a kill. So "already dead" Red Air fighters got 1 kill for every 20 of them killed.
No, I don’t remember when Gripen C used IR detection against F-22s to “annihilate” them in 2015, because Gripens have never attended a Red Flag where any F-22A units were there at the same time. Not in RF Alaska (Gripen’s first RF attendance in 2006, second in 2008, third in 2013). None of those RFs had F-22s there for the exercises. The only time Gripens were focused on A2A were in 2006, where they were part of Red Air. The only USAF fighters in attendance of that Red Flag where from an Air National Guard strike-focused F-16C unit, not even active duty Fighter Squadrons who do A2A as a priority. So Gripens working with USAF Red Air F-16Cs and F-15Cs beat up on an Air Guard Viper unit. It’s kind of sad really to think of how many Gripen fans still use that as evidence of Gripen’s "vast superiority" over anything in the US arsenal, but is worth a chuckle.
The Gripen E is not anywhere close to being survivable against F-22 and F-35s, starting with RCS consequences on first-look, followed by the superior sensors on F-22 and F-35, followed by first-shoot into NEZ parameters that the under-powered Gripen won’t even detect until it’s too late, and can’t evade.
F-15EX has nothing to do with F-35 fleet purchasing schedule. F-15EX is because F-15Cs are timed-out (and Boeing had a marketing executive as acting SECDEF until he was fired), with no F-22s to replace them because the prior 2 White Houses (with their enemy-within SECDEFs Rumsfeld and Gates) killed the F-22 program before we even reached 200 airframes.
Typhoon, Rafale F4, Gripen E, Su-35S are a huge generational gap behind the F-22 and F-35 and there isn’t anything they can do to effectively close that gap. Even the Gripen E would have parity or slight advantage over Su-35S since it has a smaller RCS and a GaN based AESA, along with the Meteor. Su-57 is what causes problems for the Eurocanards.
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@alexdarcydestsimon3767 F-35s in all 3 services demonstrate higher readiness rates and dramatically less required maintenance hours than any other fighter, including the F-16.
"F-35 has no range." F-35A has better combat radius than F-15E or Rafale, which were the 2 highest combat radius-capable fighters in the West.
F-35A internal fuel capacity is 18,250lbs, which is huge. All of that fuel is drag-free aerodynamically, unlike any 4th Gen fighter.
A big oversight people make with payload comparisons is that most of the payload on 4th Gen fighters is external fuel, not weapons.
Additionally, you sacrifice weapons stations with podded sensors if you want a useful swing-role fighter that can employ a modern FLIR TGP for ISR and precision strike.
F-35s don't have this problem because they have FLIR integrated with EOTS in the nose, while carrying more internal fuel than any F-15, Rafale, or other 4th Gen fighter can.
We shouldn't be seeing uninformed comments about JSF range in the year 2022 anymore. That myth was busted many years ago.
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@alexdarcydestsimon3767 AIM-120D can match and outperform the Meteor, which has been demonstrated on live drone targets with the longest recorded air intercept in history, not theoretical. Meteor generally out-ranges AIM-120C5 and C7, but -120D has comparable WEZ/NEZ.
The numbers that amateurs look at and think are static don't apply to the real world, and aircraft sensors and kinematics also play a significant role in employment metrics.
An F-35 equipped with older AIM-120Cs is devastatingly-more lethal than Rafale equipped with the next model Meteor upgrade that hasn't been fielded.
The employment envelopes and unfair postures from F-35s or F-22s simply out-class anything you can do in legacy fighters like the Rafale.
He who sees first, gets into unfair parameters first, generally wins.
With F-35s, they remain unseen and no RHAWS or MAWS is triggered pre- and post-separation, so you just die instantly without knowing why.
SPECTRA is not in the same class as 5th Gen EW suites. SPECTRA is more like the US late 1980s-era ASPJ, which is an awesome self-defense suite, but nothing like what is in Raptors or F-35s.
ASPJ-type suites integrate RWR and run algorithmic automated countermeasures employment responses to specific threats.
F-35 has simultaneous offensive EW that can run in-parallel with whatever else it's doing at the time, which can be employed tactically in concert with other F-35s on an LPI data link network.
Rafale simply does not have that, as good as the Rafale is.
F-22 can offensively jam and interfere with RBE2 at its pleasure. F-35's APG-81 has jammed the Raptor's APG-77 and the Raptor community doesn't like being out-Radar'd, so they got a major incremental upgrade.
In terms of jamming and EW:
F-35 > F-22
F-22A >>>>>>> Rafale
Rafale >>> Su-35S
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Not anymore in today's world.
A low hour pilot with good training is superior to a high hr pilot in an inferior fighter.
Examples:
Chinese PLAAF sent their best pilots in Su-27SK against Royal Thai Air Force Gripen C/D in Falcon Strike, 2015.
In BVR, Gripen with its very small RCS, better radar, longer range AIM-120C, and superior pilot interface resulted in extremely heavy losses for Su-27SK.
Now once they let the exercises progress to WVR, the Su-27SK raped the Gripen because it out-maneuvers it easily, and had more WEZ envelope with the helmet-cued HOBS missiles.
But that didn't really matter if they can't make it to the merge.
Frustrated, the Chinese brought their J-10 fighters, and later J-10Cs with smaller RCS, big AESA radar, and very long range PL-15 missiles and erased all of the Gripen's advantages in BVR, while still easily defeating it in WVR again.
Now if you could make a fighter that had an even smaller RCS, give it better sensors, better pilot interface, and better weapons, a less experienced pilot will have an even greater advantage, regardless of the experience of his adversaries.
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@arnobozo9722 The JSF series all out-perform the F-16, Hornet, and Mirage 2000 when combat-configured.
F-16 & F/A-18 wheeze at higher altitude. If you fly a slick Mirage 2000, it will do well but then it has lost combat capability.
F-16s, Hornets, Rafales, Typhoons, whatever...when carrying FLIR, EFTs, bombs, ECM, and missiles, perform nothing like they do when slick. The E-M diagrams shrink considerably.
The F-35, while not as light as a slick/stripped 4th Gen, out-performs them in practice since it doesn't suffer from parasitic drag like the others when configured.
Carrying the same fuel and weapons, it has the same Thrust/Weight as the Rafale.
Rafale is lighter empty, but has 9000lbs less thrust, while also saddled with its external stores.
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@SuperSy99 If Star Wars is your reference, then the Jedi are in CAG. Guess who makes up the majority of Operators there? Ranger Regiment, by about 73-78%. SF is maybe 15% of The Unit, with the rest onesies and twosies from Infantry Recon Platoons, Marines, and other MOSs.
GT Score requirements are the same for Ranger Regiment and SF, but PT standards are much higher in Ranger Battalion. It's why Rangers have such a higher selection rate than SF.
Used to be LRSC & LRSD had the highest selection rates, but Ranger Regiment still made up the bulk of CAG because LRSUs were a small assortment of units throughout the Army before we were disbanded.
Half of LRS guys all came from Ranger Regiment since they were already Airborne Qualified and Ranger tabbed with tons of experience in mission planning, rotary wing ops, and fixed wing ops. Ranger NCOs often were already Pathfinder qualified too, and made great candidates for LRSLC, most moved into ATL and TL slots quickly, were some of the best NCOs in the whole Army.
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@dominique4700 USMC F-35B IOC 2015
USAF F-35A IOC 2016
Israeli Air Force F-35I IOC 2017
USN F-35C IOC 2019.
Israeli AF saw first combat in 2017.
USMC 8 month combat deployment 2018-2019.
USAF F-35A combat deployments 2019-present
UK F-35B combat deployments 2019-present.
You said they aren't operational yet, but they've literally been in constant multinational deployment and combat operations since 2017, flying more combat sorties than Rafale's entire history.
They've been doing everything from gun runs (with the gun you say doesn't work), to armed naval escort in the Mediterranean, to ISR and Defensive Counter-Air all in the same sortie.
They've found SAM sites that dedicated surveillance assets couldn't locate, conducted precision strikes on HVTs, penetrated deep into the WEZ in Syria and Iran, been shot at by SAMs over 100 times and destroyed the SAM sites in response, and intercepted numerous fighters who can't see them, are forced to return home.
OBOGS was a universal problem across the fleet, a new way of O2 generation that requires less ground support equipment, and has been corrected years ago.
HMDS is matured to Gen III helmet, lighter, better, and addressed the complaints from pilots.
Operational unit readiness rates are 70-95% even on F-35B.
Dassault promised India they will work with them to meet 75% readiness rates with Rafale, and $25,000 CPFH.
A lot of your information is old.
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@sigma_frenchie4075 Every Western fighter developed over the past 4 decades has been primarily focused on managing the BVR realm while avoiding WVR. They have all been designed with compromises between the 2 regimes of A2A encounters, with altitude and transonic acceleration being the biggest dividers.
F-14 & F-15 were focused on higher altitude and optimum dash speeds for intercept profiles, with excellent maneuvering against the MiG-21 if they got WVR.
F-16 & F/A-18 were designed for lower altitude with lighter airframes leaning on more maneuverability in thick air against the MiG-21 if they got WVR, which was more likely due to smaller radars. USAF and USN wanted them primarily for strike platforms.
JSF cruises like a slick F-15 or F-14, JSF-A accelerates through transonic better than a slick big mouth Viper, and can reach speeds none of them can while combat-configured.
When you say the F-35 is slow, it doesn't match up with reality, and this is coming from the pilots. F-16 & Hornet pilots immediately notice the excess power and drag less behavior of the slick airframe.
F-16 guys love it because it has so much internal fuel, and when you do aerial refuel with it, you don't have to constantly punch afterburner.
As to BVR, JSF elevates BVR into something much different than even 4.5 Gen. Its networked SA is game-changing and unfair. WVR, it regularly beats F-16s, F-15s, Hornets, and even does well against F-22s. In BVR, none of them can get first-look/first-shoot on F-35s.
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@Jojooooooo The early production, non-deployable, fault-prone, pre-Block 3F F-35As are far more capable than the Rafale F4 or any Rafale serial upgrade will ever be. None of those are in operational squadrons and never will be, as they are only located at USAF weapons test, Flight Test Center, and fighter conversion training squadrons to teach new pilots how to fly the F-35 and manage its systems before they go to an operational unit.
There literally isn’t any aspect of the Rafale that is better, and from what I’ve seen of the Rafale, it’s the most capable of all the European 4.5 Gen Multirole Fighters.
We can look at first-look, first-shoot, AESA, integrated RF antennae suite, IR sensors, EW, human interface, Helmet-cueing, and weapons envelopes, which are the deciding factors in A2A. Every single one of those categories is dominated by the F-35, even when you put Meteor on the Rafale and an older AIM-120C5 on the F-35.
Then we can look at A2G/A2S. Rafale again is the most capable 4.5 Gen Swingrole fighter in this area because only the UK has really pushed the Typhoon as a true multirole, and Gripen is far behind them both, while Rafale F3 and F4 have excellent penetration/strike, EW, and anti-ship capabilities none of the others have.
F-35 also out-performs the Rafale in these key strength areas that the Rafale uniquely possesses because it can penetrate much easier, can get closer to threat emitters for EW and network attack them (with an AESA that is twice the size of the RBE2), and has a more powerful central computing brain that is near real-time linked via LPI data link with other JSF and compatible nodes.
On top of that, the F-35 IR sensor suite has 7 high resolution IR sensors in short, medium, and long wave IR spectrum that are not only fused with each other, but with the AESA and around a dozen RF sensors that span the RF spectrum and spherical coverage around the airframe.
Rafale has excellent sensors in these areas compared to other 4.5 Gen fighters with its Spectra integrated defensive EW suite, but it is at least a generation behind the F-35’s EW suite. One key area is that the Spectra’s SIGINT collection capability is a post-flight analysis affair for geo-locating threats that can be targeted later, according to Thales own statements on Spectra.
The F-35’s EW suite is real-time, shared with other F-35s and anyone who has receive capability with the joint services data link compliance (Link-16, etc.).
If a satellite, spy plane, or other F-35 sees signature that is a known IADS platform, for example, then pipes that imagery and geolocation to the F-35 MADL net, an F-35 4-ship flying out of a location hundreds of nautical miles away will get that data and share it with each other, without the pilots having to do anything.
There is a vast threat library constantly updated with threat signature profiles across the spectrum, so that the fused sensor network can scan those geocoordinates and cross-reference the signatures they see with the library, among each other from multiple aspects.
That is a game-changer and makes survivability of IADS platforms a dead-end affair. We know so much about the target areas before even getting within 200km of them, that multiple attack options are opened up, as well as BDA and swing-role.
If air planners dedicated an 8-ship to go conduct a DEAD mission profile, for example, while sending another 4-ship out for Offensive Counter Air, and the lead 4-ship kills all the mobile SAM launchers with ballistic profiled PGMs, the next 4-ship in that 8-ship package can swing-role to go assist with the OCA mission and really overwhelm an already-overwhelmed threat air interceptor force.
2 of those can switch to AEW&C and guide-in 4.5 Gen strikers like F-15E+, F-16C+, Rafales, Typhoons, and task-organize them on-the-fly where they’re needed, whether that be the next SEAD/DEAD mission sets, follow-on precision strike TGTs on the kill list, airfields, POL facilities, ammunition storage bunkers, C4 nodes, ISR platforms, counter-AWACS A2A missions, etc.
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@Jojooooooo I think that many of the European nations who have historically been involved in conflict due to the actions of larger empires, nations, and alliances, have a fundamental sense that something bad is brewing, and are now scrambling to get prepared after decades of neglecting their defense budgets.
5th Gen is a big part of that because the big European nations with aerospace industries, except for UK and Italy, really allowed themselves to fall behind in modern aerospace system development, while the US, UK, and Italy moved aggressively forward with JSF partnership.
Russia lagged behind during the Yeltsin years while the economy was in near free-fall, until the US bailed them out with Nunn-Lugar.
Russia’s aerospace industry was mainly kept afloat by large orders for Su-30MKI and Su-30MKK fighters to India and China during the mid 1990s through 2000s until Putin could come in and get the ship righted.
In order to make it look like they have a competitive design with the US F-22A and JSF series, Russia began work on the PAK-FA, which has not materialized into a true 5th Gen fighter, but does present problems for all the Eurocanards due to significant RCS reduction with the internal weapons bays and selective use of RAM carbon fiber from frontal RCS.
That means that any Rafale, Typhoon, or Gripen will be at a disadvantage in the first-look, first-shoot BVR realm, since the Su-57 has a much larger AESA radar and 2 side-looking AESAs in the nose. The radome-housed AESA has over 1500 TRMs (still smaller than the JSF series APG-81 with at least 1626 TRMs).
Since the Su-57 will cruise faster than any of the Eurocanards, has a large AESA, and smaller RCS, it enjoys kinematic and detection range advantages that no upgrade to 4.5 Gen airframes can overcome.
So now the UK, Sweden, and Italy are trying to generate the funs to develop a 5th Gen fighter with their combined budgets, but since so many parliaments are filled with Soviet-sympathetic democrat socialists and communists, it will be an uphill battle to get the funding.
If they do get sufficient funding to start actual development & testing, you can always count on European Parliaments to later cut the funding mid-program and drive the costs sky-high.
Then the communists/bolsheviks/digital marxists in the propaganda industry will run continuous articles about how terrible the program is, how it costs too much, and should be cut to pay for social welfare for immigrants from Africa and the Middle Easy, while Russia continues to plan its expansion and sacrifices as much of its domestic infrastructure budget for more Su-57s, attack submarines, stealth drones, cruise missiles, etc.
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@MrHistorian123 2x F-22s use passive RF sensors for almost twice the detection range of the APG-77 AESA, with IFDL connectivity and triangulation detection and tracking like an EW bird. F-22s also have IR stealth, so your 4th Gen IRSTs don’t work well against them. Cut your detection ranges by 2/3, and then try to PID, while you’ve been tracked for the past 150-200nm (278-370km). RF and IR VLO Stealth works for A2A, A2G, EW, AEW&C, and ISR. It isn’t limited to A2G. Nobody thinks that.
Also, you can use LPI radar to work around the bandwidth and sensitivity of almost every 4th Gen RWR system in the world, deceive every 4.5 Gen Digital EW Suite out there that makes it worse for them if they do see something in their threat warning system. You get to control far more aspects of the fight, starting from first-look and ending with first and only kills for you, none for the enemy.
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@CaptainDangeax Everyone in the defense aerospace industry recognizes and uses the 4th and 5th Generation terms, including pilots, air planners, and contractors, but you say it’s BS. Your relevant background is what again? The only people I haven’t heard use the term 5th Gen are politicians.
My history revision? I lived through all of this with a front-row seat at the Air Force Flight Test Center at ED AFB, as well as a brief time at the West German Flight Test Center.
The facts are, the F-35 exceeds everything that was expected of it and when it opens up new capabilities, these are listed as deficiencies by the DOT&E.
When you compare the F-35 to the Rafale, it’s better in far more areas than RF stealth.
JSF IR stealth is far superior to the Rafale, but the Rafale has the best IR stealth of all the 4.5 Gen fighters. It’s the only design that has significant IR stealth built onto it, though after the initial Rafale A design. F-35’s IR stealth designs come from the start, after generations of IR stealth research and development in the US on multiple previous programs (F-117A, Tacit Blue, ATF/F-22.....). Anyone who thinks Rafale IR signature is better than JSF is clearly not well-informed about all the JSF IR signature reduction systems. JSF will always have first-look in the IR spectrum against any current and emerging LO and VLO fighter designs.
Sensors: F-35 has far more IR and RF passive sensors. There are 4 IR sensors on the nose alone with the F-35, with 3 more DAS on the fuselage. EOTS + DAS in unparalleled with anything in the 4th Gen airframes, as you need to build an entirely new airframe to accommodate them.
F-35 is superior in speed for the reasons I mentioned. You have to strip a Rafale down to get it to reach Mach 1.8, and that means a non-capable airframe with zero combat stores. Put a normal load on the Rafale and its max V0 decreases significantly. A lot of the Rafale multirole stores configurations are subsonic. Meanwhile, F-35 can carry up to 8 bombs internal and toss them for long range ballistic arc profiles from supersonic speeds at high altitude. None of the 4.5 Gen fighters can do that because they can’t break through Mach with even 6 bombs due to parasitic drag and EFTs. Don’t look at book speeds, look at actual combat-configured speeds and performance that matters.
Maneuverability: Combat-configured, they are very similar but pilots who have flown both the Typhoon and F-35 say the F-35 has comparable or better EM diagram against a configured Typhoon. You can go argue with the few pilots who have flown both, as it’s their words, not mine. Typhoon is more maneuverable and has more excess thrust than the Rafale. F-35A and Rafale C have about the same Thrust-to-weight ratio. F-35 has yaw axis capabilities the Rafale can never have due to delta wing compromise. High yaw rate in a delta wing is bad ju-ju.
Connon efficiency? In over 40 years in the defense aerospace sector, I’ve never heard anyone use that term. Also, in 2021, anyone talking about the gun indicates they haven’t studied the history of air combat in the jet era. The gun was already barely relevant in Vietnam, on its way out. The "Last Gunfighter", the F-8 Crusader, used AIM-9 missiles for at least 15 of its 19 kills in Vietnam, one maneuvering kill where the MiG pilot ejected upon closing with the F-8.
Operating costs: India’s assessment of CTOL Rafale operating costs is projected at $20,000-$25,000 CPFH. Operational USAF F-35A squadrons are seeing $21,000 CPFH.
Reliability: F-35A squadrons have seen 72-92% readiness rates on deployment. Dassault promised India they can help India maintain a 75% readiness rate with the Rafale.
Number of Weapons: Maybe you’re confusing the EFTs for weapons. Rafale is almost always configured with 3 EFTs, which take up weapons stations. It needs EFTs when carrying weapons because of the parasitic drag caused by weapons hanging from pylons. F-35A carries 18,250lbs of internal fuel so it doesn’t need EFTs, and can use ALL of its weapons stations for carrying....weapons. F-35 also never needs to sacrifice weapons stations to carry FLIR pods because it has the EOTS already built into the nose. Rafale has to have FLIR and Recce pods attached to it if it wants those capabilities. They are already built into the F-35 airframe, so if you want to carry 18,000lbs of pure ordnance, you can. Rafale can carry over 20,000lbs of external stores, but most of that is fuel, not weapons.
Range of missiles: F-35 can separate Air-to-Air missiles at superior kinematics and NEZ profiles that the Rafale can’t even enter into. Both can carry long-range stand-off cruise missiles, but F-35 can get far closer to targets than the Rafale.
Combat missions: USMC F-35Bs, USAF F-35As, Israeli Air Force F-35Is, and UK Air Force F-35Bs have been flying combat operations for many years now, over one of the most dangerous IADS networks in the world. Israeli F-35Is have been shot at by Syrian SAMs over 100 times years ago, while destroying Syrian SAM and weapons batteries. This continues to this day. Rafale has never flown over a modern, advanced IADS network with SAMs being launched at them. Libya is a low-capability proxy war zone with some IADS platforms like the Pantsir S1, which is a common target for Turkish and Israeli drone strikes. F-35 sorties in high-threat environments exceeds the entire deployment history of the Rafale currently, not that Rafale is bad. If I was choosing any 4.5 Gen, it would be the Rafale.
The only failure here is your familiarity with any of the subject matter.
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@CaptainDangeax Forget the generation designations and just look at capabilities. Rafale doesn’t have the leaps in capabilities that the F-35 has whether looking at integrated sensors, propulsion, VLO, internal weapons, sensor interleaving with LPI data links, networked EW, a massive AESA with twice the TRM count as the Rafale’s RBE2, a vast network of passive RF sensors embedded in the airframe, prognostic systems diagnosis, and onboard maintenance, etc.
I am aware of the Rafale’s deployments to both OEF and Libya. It is an admirable system, so don’t misunderstand me. I recognize and appreciate the Rafale as being better than other 4.5 Gen systems because Dassault and Thales actually got a lot of systems integration worked into the Rafale C and M. I can make a better argument for the Rafale than any of its fans due to my background.
Royal Netherland Air Force, USMC, and USAF pilots and commanders have already briefly discussed how they use the F-35 to perform offensive electronic warfare in ways that could not be done by the EF-111A and EA-6B or EA-18G. The JSF series has far superior capabilities over the Rafale C and M in this area due to VLO, a massive AESA that is better than the RBE2, more RF sensors embedded throughout the airframe like EW birds have, fused with 7 IR sensors for far more passive detection and cooperative geo-locating.
The Rafale C and M are great because they have the SPECTRA antennae added to the basic Rafale airframe, to include the wingtip ECM/ECCM pylons integrated with missile rails (which SAAB copied for the Gripen E). That’s an old approach to distributing EW sensors and antennae on the airframe-innovative for the last generation, but still out-classed by JSF and ATF antennae architecture. You can’t see where all the JSF antennae are because they are embedded into the LEFs, vertical stabs, wings, fuselage, H-stabs, along with a network of LPI data link portals for line-of-sight transmission with extremely high throughput that included video real-time capability, let alone high-resolution imagery.
It cost the same or more to develop the Rafale, something like $30 billion. That includes the Rafale A, B, C, and M. The RDT&E budget for JSF-A/B/C is about the same, but they got a STOVL model as well. Overall procurement and operations costs are far more for JSF because there will be thousands of them, not a few hundred like Rafale. If you see a source that says the Rafale cost 100 times less than the F-35 to develop, go ahead and erase that media from your feed because they are wildly incorrect.
There are currently 620 JSF variants delivered, vs 250 Rafales. By the end of 2021, there will be over 700 JSF.
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@CaptainDangeax F-35A is +9/-3g aircraft.
F-35A's gun is 25mm rotary barreled/181 rounds with a recycle feature. Nobody cares.
No Rafale will ever fly anywhere close to Mach 1.8 with weapons. Let that number fade away from your references because it isn't real.
JSF was not designed to destroy European aerospace industry because a huge impetus and contribution to JSF comes from the UK.
UK RN and RAF started working quietly with USMC, USAF, McDonald Douglas,, and DARPA on a Supersonic STOVL Fighter in 1983 because they knew they would need a replacement for the Harrier down the road.
USAF knew they would eventually need to replace the F-16, and USN/USMC knew they would need to replace the Hornet.
USAF already had a black program at the time with F-117A, and wanted those VLO technologies integrated into future combat airframes, but with integrated IR, Radar, and RF sensors that the -117 didn't have.
The main driving requirements were Soviet IADS threats, basing and take-off, and F-16/Hornet performance capabilities.
The US has helped the French fighter development programs multiple times, to include examples on the Rafale (engines, AESA TRMs, Link-16 protocol sharing, weapons, etc.).
The French & German parliaments didn't fund Airbus, Dassault, MBDA, Safran, and Thales to work on France's own 5th Gen fighter quick enough because of budget. Now there's an FCAS mock-up made out of wood, but the R&D has barely started. Mock-up looks like a cross between F-22 & F-35. Shocker
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@CaptainDangeax I don’t have difficulties with numbers, especially related to this topic. It’s literally why I learned my advanced math.
Russians fear the F-35 more than any other tactical system, because it has so many strategic consequences. It makes their fighters and IADS nets into nothing but targets, while providing a coalition common networked data interface across nations with implications for widespread theater sensor detection of pretty much anything they do.
There are a dozen plus reasons why they’re trying to copy the F-35 avionics architecture on the Su-57, as well as interoperability between Su-57, Su-35S, Su-30SM2, and Su-27SM3.
F-35s working with Typhoons, Rafales, F-16C+/MLU+s, F-15Es, F/A-18Cs, etc. make all the other aircraft far more lethal and capable than they are alone. This is straight out of the mouths of the pilots flying the other types of fighters.
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@CaptainDangeax F-22As and Luftwaffe Typhoons did BFM in Red Flag Alaska, then Luftwaffe pilots went back to Germany talking trash about Raptor Salad, when they had been dominated by the Raptor.
Guess what? Typhoons from RAF, Luftwaffe, Spanish, and Saudi Arabia have been attending Red Flags almost every year, sometimes twice a year.
You can watch Typhoon HUD vids of them getting a few guns kills against the F-22 in BFM.
These are sidebar BFM exercises, not anywhere near the main focus of Red Flag. Red Flag is about getting multiple units to work together in campaigns against a large Red Air force with ground-based SAMs and threat radar nets, CSAR, maintenance under combat conditions, etc.
There are also similar exercises done in Europe, but without the vast Red Air or ground threat simulators.
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@CaptainDangeax John McStain had more time under a T-10 parachute than behind the stick (common joke in US pilot community). He crashed so many planes well before the Vietnam War, that he should have been removed from flights status multiple times, but his dad was an Admiral, so he got special treatment. His comments and observations on US aerospace defense as a member of the Senate Arms Services committee are some of the stupidest I’ve ever heard from a politician in DC, and he really should have known better.
None of the experienced pilots who have flown both 4th Gen and F-35s agree with anything you’ve claimed. We now have scores of examples of their personal experience, including a lot of foreign pilots from UK, Israel, Norway, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, etc.
You’re still not learning.
F-35A is a 9g airframe. No sure why you keep mentioning 7g. Even when it was 7g, if you had watched the video I linked, you would see that it out-performs the slick MiG-35.
Nobody cares though, because you aren’t ever going to need 9g.
Amateurs look at maximum speed values, because pilots and air planners know that you are never going to go anywhere near those speeds in a combat configuration.
You have been extremely resistant to accepting that fact. Rafale will never go Mach 1.8 with stores. F-15 has never gone anywhere near Mach 2.5. F-16s don’t fly Mach 2, and Hornets don’t fly Mach 1.8.
Is there some particular reason why you don’t understand this? It’s basic aerodynamics of parasitic drag. Fatter, draggier birds with all this equipment hanging off of them can’t reach their maximum speeds.
Even if they could, they will burn so much fuel that an immediate return to base is required. That was true in the 3rd Generation as well (F-4, MiG-23, etc.).
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@mikkihintikka7273 The whole point of ATF and JSF is to create such an unfair advantage, that even new pilots are able to outperform very experienced pilots and IADS crews. Russia has always struggled with taking US and European designs, dumbing them down for the older Russian manufacturing industries, and mass-producing them.
Their engineering community bears the burden of reverse-engineering first, while their own designs are not given funding because they can’t afford the RDT&E budget like the US can, so it’s only affordable for them to copy Western tech that politicians/traitors sell or give them.
Their workers in the manufacturing sector live and work in substandard environments where basic things we take for granted in the West simply don’t exist. Their electronics are scoffed at by the Chinese.
So no matter what they do, they will only be a threat to regional neighbors with much smaller armies if and when there is weakness in the US White House, where Russia has a puppet there (Biden, Clintons, Obama, etc.).
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@ivanlagrossemoule Yes. It gives air planners so many more options.
During Desert Storm, only F-117As could fly into the ADZ/MEZ over Baghdad.
We also had at least 13 different Tacair airframes with their own specific jobs, which made setting up strike packages quite complicated.
F-15Cs for escort/OCA, EF-111As for EW, F-4Gs for SEAD, F-15Es and F-111Fs for strike just to hit 1 TGT area.
F-16s. A-10s, AV-8Bs did most of the strikes into Kuwait since they were shorter distances.
F-35s don't need escort, do their own EW, are better at S/DEAD, can go downtown like an F-117A, service their targets, then pivot to A2A, AEW&C, ISR with their extra station time since they have so much internal fuel.
The USMC and USN JSF-B/C are more capable that Hornets, Shornets, D Cats, and A-6Es.
There isn't another airframe on earth that can do all these things. F-22A is the closest, but doesn't have EOTS/DAS or 2000lb JDAM capability and of course is limited to CTOL, no Naval variants.
You end up accomplishing more targets being serviced in a very compressed window of time, even compared to the breathtaking pace of Desert Storm.
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@jingorooroad2559 Rafales have relatively huge RCS, so they show up at extreme BVR long ranges. They also have omnidirectional data link emissions, which advertises their position to anyone with the ability to sniff and triangulate.
Once you combat-configure a Super Hornet, Rafale, or HAVE GLASS Viper, they have terrible RCS that is easily detected at very long range with modern AESAs.
LPI AESAs don't trigger threat warning either. On top of that, if a flight of JSF are only operating in passive mode, they see contacts already at extreme ranges together without emitting any RF energy from their AESAs.
Part of stealth/VLO includes IR signature reduction. F-35s have substantial efforts towards this aspect of stealth, to the extent that IRST detection ranges are basically cut to 1/3 or less against subsonic F-35s. Effectively, the OSF won't see F-35s until on the edge of visual range, which is about 200nm/370km too late in the BVR timeline from which Rafales are already being tracked.
There isn't anything you can do to make a 4.5 Gen overcome any of this.
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@miketheman4341 I'm talking Army SF when I say SF, not Wikipedia answers for kids who have never served in or with any of these units.
Every guy from Ranger Regiment who goes to SFAS gets selected unless they were injured, which is very few and far between. SFAS is business-as-usual for an E-4 or E-5 from Ranger Regiment, more like a vacation from the training cycle in Battalion.
For JSOC, most guys come from Ranger Regiment, not SF, and it has been that way for generations. A guy from Ranger Regiment has a much higher probability of being successful in Unit Selection because the PT standards are so much higher in Battalion than SF. SF has very low standards, technically big army APFT standards, which are a joke.
Ranger elements deploy alongside the others in certain JSOTFs, you just don't hear about it.
SF is a major let-down if you've ever been embedded with them. Lots of fat guys who are broken, marking time until retirement. They suck at SUTs, whereas Batt Boys are always doing SUTs, live-fires, flat range work, demo, breaching, weapons squad work, mortars, rotary wing cycle, and fixed wing airborne ops.
There aren't places for senior NCOs to park themselves and ride it out in Ranger Regiment. SF has ODAs where half the Team could be doing that. I saw this firsthand. Before we deployed, it was like someone tossed an admin grenade into the Team, and none of our critical 18 series MOS guys could go.
Both 18Ds...non-deployable (medical profile from civilian skydiving injuries and the other's wife was on bed rest/high risk pregnancy)
18Es...non-deployable (SOTIC & Golden Knights try-outs)
An ODA is Non-Mission-Capable with at least 1x 18E and 1x 18D. We had to borrow 1 of each from 143 & 145 (Mountain & SCUBA Teams in the Company).
Then the 18F was off to SCUBA School at Key West without even clearing it with the Team Sergeant. I'd never seen anything like it.
Senior 18B was off to SF ANCOC, hadn't even done time on Team, just skipped past the junior B into senior slot. He was a senior E-6 from 2/75 who made E-7 just prior to going SF.
So we had only a handful of dudes to deploy with from an almost-full 11-man ODA.
Something like that would be unimaginable in Ranger Regiment. That was a specialty ODA as well, the paid Level 1 MFF Team.
So I chuckle when dudes who never even served, never caught a glimpse of the Bn area of any of these units try to pontificate about what they do, who they are, and what the culture is like.
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Read about PLAAF exercises against Royal Thai Air Force, Falcon Strike. A Chinese test pilot said that because of the RTAF Gripen low RCS and longer reach AIM-120, the Su-27SK got killed 44 to 2 in BVR, but was opposite in WVR against the under-powered Gripen, and had the helmet-cued R-73 or Chinese copy of the Python-3.
Then they sent J-10s down to even out the odds, especially the later J-10C with DSI inlet and really low RCS, with much longer range PL-15 BVRAAM. PLAAF also did internal tactical exploitation of all its fighters against each other and even the Su-35S did not fair well against the J-10C. Why? Lower RCS and AESA in J-10C equals first-look. PL-15 equals first-shoot.
F-35 has a lower RCS 3 decimal places lower than J-10C, a bigger, superior AESA, and IR stealth. So no matter the distance, the F-35 is superior to any Flanker variant, and there isn’t anything you can do to change that.
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@divoulos5758 4th Gen fighters have been avoiding going anywhere near the merge for over 20 years now because of real improvements in Radars, data-link networks, and HOBS missiles with improved seekers like Python-4/5, R-73, IRIS-T, and AIM-9X.
Multiple senior Fighter Weapons School instructors have been saying dog-fighting is dead, and has been for a long time. The US/NATO still train for it more than anyone else, with more dissimilar aggressor aircraft to that end, but the primary emphasis is on managing a networked BVR Timeline cooperatively.
5th Gen operates with a different set of rules above that, with unique options for EW, deception, closing into NEZ, and other things that no 4.5 Gen fighter formation have.
Su-35 is way behind the power curve even against US/NATO fighters with AESA and AIM-120C7 or D. Pilots are talking in the open like 1950s-1960s comms in the US, without brevity codes. They're an embarrassment.
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@DeepJazzful My mentioning of the F404 in the first Rafales was in response to people trying to compare the development budget for the Rafale to JSF.
The most expensive system in any fighter is the engine.
If someone can find a reputable, accurate accounting of the Rafale development budget (which the French parliament screwed over by delaying it for so long), that would be one place to start.
Then look at the fact that multiple new technologies were being developed for the JSF series, and that there are 3 airframes with major differences, and the JSF RDT&E budget makes perfect sense.
It would have been far worse to have 3 separate tracks for propulsion, radars, RF antennae suites, cockpits, environmental and electrical systems, flight controls, etc.
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@Prasenjit Bist Rafale per unit cost is high because it has 2 modern, high quality engines, an AESA, composite and alloy airframe, modern sensors, an advanced EW suite, cockpit with multiple displays, and application of radar absorbent materials.
There is a French documentary that mentioned a €120 million price years ago for the latest Rafale, well before the Indian deal. 2 engines plus AESA puts any modern fighter over the $100 million mark, except for the Super Hornet and MiG-35. I have major questions about Russia's capacity to even deliver AESA radars for FMS market since they can't meet the demand for their own Su-57 radars, and their semiconductor company went bankrupt in Dec, 2019.
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@user-jo7dd2jn5s My maternal grandfather and my great uncles fought the Russians when Stalin invaded Finland in 1939, while nobody was on Finland’s side. During the Continuation War, they even saw Russian soldiers with US supplies, which really hurt. “Why is the US supporting Stalin, who invaded us without provocation?”
Then after the War, Finland was ordered to pay war reparations to Russia to the tune of $300 million dollars. At least they still had most of their country, though 400,000 Karelians lost their homeland to the Russians.
My great aunt Irma and one of my great uncles, Lenni, were lost. Irma was actually kidnapped by the Germans and thrown into the sea. Lenni disappeared during the war, was never seen again.
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@yohann8517 2/3 of the Wermacht was dedicated to the Eastern Front in Ukraine and Russia for sure.
Don’t forget about Lend-Lease. Very few Russians are aware of it, but it was substantial in the logistics effort to prop-up the Soviet Union. 30% of all Russia’s fighters and bombers were built in the US and England, and if it hadn’t been for US-built trucks (428,000 of them), Russia’s logistics would have been almost non-existent and vulnerable to what limited transportation it had after German attacks on key hubs and rails.
The US supplied 9,456 fighters like the Bell P-39 and Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum and copper, aviation fuel, 14,793,000 pairs of boots, 35 000 radio stations, 380,000 field telephones, and 956,000 miles of telephone cable. Food, medical supplies, uniforms, ammunition, explosives, trains, etc. It was the largest transfer of war material from one Nation to another in history.
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@bakixavirists4561 USMC has been totally re-vamped and modernized with several major sweeping initiatives. They used to be very dated, driving around tanks, LAVs, doing OTB amphibious assaults like it’s WWII but with helicopter support and high maintenance Harriers flying CAS and Armed Recon in-depth, then GWOT happened and then Net-Centric Force modernization happened.
Now they’re a data-linked force with F-35Bs and F-35Cs, Ospreys, M777 Precision Artillery, ditched the tanks, have lots of drones, have modernized Force Recon, added Marine Raider MSOBs 1, 2, and 3 for each Division, and are more agile, connected, and lethal as a result. Sounds like buzzwords, but is all true.
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@kisstamas7760 The facts are actually opposite of what you stated:
Su-35 sales to China were $85 million per airframe.
F-35A is $77.9 million
Su-35 requires far more maintenance since it has 2 engines, outdated avionics, legacy hydraulic actuators, and Russian construction.
F-35A has the lowest Maintenance Man Hours Per Flight Hour of any modern fighter in history averaging 4-6 hours. For comparison, the F-16 averages 11+ hours, and it has been the easiest modern fighter to maintain until the F-35s came along. Even the F-35B takes less MMHPFH than the F-16.
F-35s have the lowest mishap rate of any modern fighter, even when you include the F-35B and F-35C. Flankers blow engines and catch fire regularly when not in war. During the past few months, Flankers have been shot down as if it were a sport, including Su-35S, Su-30SM, and Su-34M.
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@spartanx9293 One topic I noticed conspicuously missing from the PLAAF and RTAF air combat exercises was any mention of IRST.
Gimbaled IRSTs in the nose are generally radar-slaved for initial cueing, so without a wide Field of Regard, trying to use them in a rapid BVR timeline seems extremely difficult for a single seat fighter with federated avionics architecture.
Only the JSF with fused AESA/DAS/EOTS has such a wide and deep detection envelope, followed by the Chinese J-20, which copies the F-35 sensor scheme.
The JSF pilot isn't a systems technician trying to collate data from a RWR, radar, & IRST like in a federated system with independent, parallel displays.
They're using a simplified "sensor-fusion" approach in the later variants of Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen, while the JSF program seems to have picked up some of the Star Trek promises from the original ATF program (that were cut) and implemented them after a very difficult development period.
They dropped the side-looking AESAs and AIRST from ATF because they knew that would escalate costs. The AESA it was getting was so capable anyway, so why do you need side AESAs and AIRST if you can't be seen already, have brutal kinematic advantages, and are able to snipe people out of the air with impunity?
Rafale F3R dropped the IRST, while F4 is getting a new one.
The baseline Rafale IRST/OSF system is unique among 4.5 Gen in that it has 2 IR/Optical spectrum forward-looking sensors that operate in different spectrums.
The JSF series have 4 different IR sensors in the nose.
Forward-looking and 2 side-looking DAS, plus the EOTS under the nose, which are all fused with the extensive RF sensor network including the AESA.
The IR sensor capabilities of JSF are truly a generational leap over anything in 4.5 Gen. That gap is quite large.
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@michaelkeller5008 Another interesting thing about the initial tactics development of several generations of fighters.
With the F-15A in the mid-1970s, they did initial tactics development out at Nellis since RF and aggressor units were there, along with actual MiGs north of there.
Against the F-5E, the F-15A flown by combat-experienced pilots (F-4D/E guys from SEA), the F-15 had about a 1:1 exchange ratio, later about 2:1 in AIMVAL/ACEVAL.
The F-22A initial tactics development at the same place in the late 1990s/early 2000s had basically an undefeated exchange ratio, no matter what they threw at it. The pilots for F-22 tactics development were all F-15C Weapons Instructor Course grads, high-hr, and even MiG-killers with real-world shoot-downs.
They were very skeptical of the stealth technology even working. After their first sorties against multi-ship F-15Cs vs 2-ship F-22As, they came back huge believers because the F-15C drivers were never able to see them no matter what angles they set up intercepts from.
One of the pilots described setting up head-on, from low-to-high, from high-to-low, oblique, left, right, didn’t matter. Keep in mind the F-15C at the time had the world’s best fighter radar and enjoyed a 104:0 A2A kill ratio against the MiG-29, MiG-25PD, MiG-23MF, Mirage F1, and MiG-21.
The F-22s simply made mince meat of them and even did 2vs 12 with all 12 killed in 2 minutes, 22 seconds.
The difference between F-35 and F-22 in A2A for threat air isn’t really measurable, since they just die without knowing why. Nobody is max-performing the jets for speed or using the supercruise anyway, so the raw performance isn’t as much of a factor as people assume.
RCS and sensors with networking are what matter more.
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@michaelkeller5008 Typhoons from Spain and Italy, along with Italian F-35As did a Red Flag last year, all part of Blue Air.
Red Flag isn't a fighter competition, but a massive coalition joint campaign-based series of missions that integrate all the air crews, maintenance, planners, search and rescue, special ops, aerial refuelers, AWACS, transport, and rotary wing assets together to fight against Red Air and Red SAM batteries as well.
5th Gen has totally changed things with Red Flag and opened up a whole new set of missions and possibilities.
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@pharmika I’ve looked at the Rafale and don’t see any strengths it can play against greater strengths in the F-35’s corner in every relevant metric. You can take the best, most experienced fighter pilots in the world and pit them against very new F-35 pilots, and the outcome is still the same. This has been done already hundreds of times in Large Force Exercises, including multinational partners. That’s a huge indicator that something massive has changed with 5th Gen, which isn’t marketing hype, but an actual relevant term that means something.
5th Gen isn’t just Very Low Observables. It’s integrated systems, superior man-machine interface, fused sensors, interleaved sensors between ships, using LPI data links with line-of-sight secure/high transmission rates. On top of all that is superior combat-configured raw performance in climb rate, cruise speed, acceleration through the Mach, and maneuvering in the worst-case for when more VLO airframes become more common down the road.
I actually do know many things about the capabilities of JSF and 4th Gen, since I’ve been in defense aerospace since the 1970s, spent several years studying the NATO Aerospace Engineering course material, and have a 741 page book on JSF written by all the lead systems engineers and some test pilots.
JSF RF VLO systems have already evolved after Lot 4 into something different, reducing the RCS even more. Multibandwidth RCS reduction has been something people have been chasing for decades, but that certainly isn’t openly discussed since it’s pretty cutting edge.
APG-81 isn’t the primary detection system on JSF. Primary early detection is totally passive in the RF spectrum, followed by different approaches to assessing contacts cooperatively using minimal RF emissions, very controlled LPI RF emissions, as well as IR spectrum cooperative TGT PID. The passive RF detection and tracking is far ahead of what people think, and overlooked by most amateur AvGeeks. They took the same approach from the F-22’s passive RF detection framework.
Since F-22 and F-35 are VLO in the IR spectrum, IRST and OSF sensors don’t see any real discernible contrast until right on the edge or within visual range. There are some really good OSF photos from Rafale against F-22A showing this, even with the F-22A in afterburner. Seems like fantasy at first, until you understand how cold air is managed around the exhaust plumes, as well as surfaces. F-35 has LOAN technology integrated into the engine nozzles and around the engine to mitigate IR signature from engine heat, as well as coatings integrated with the RAM that cover several spectra of IR.
The Super Hornet's APG-79 can detect 1m2 TGTs at around 134nm in just volume search mode, and 220nm for cued search. APG-81 is a superior AESA with higher TRM count, more processing power, better integrated cooling, and better freq hop/LPI modes, just for starters. This is where trying to understand a 5th Gen Fighter vs 4.5 Gen really sticks out. The AESA is not a separate sensor in the F-35. It’s part of the passive RF sensors distributed all over the airframe, part of the EOTS, DAS, and EW suite. It’s part of a closed-loop avionics architecture that performs a certain set of functions as needed, depending on what the pilot and wingmen are doing.
The RBE2 is an excellent radar, the only AESA in operational service among the Eurocanards and well ahead of France’s peers who tried to develop the Typhoon together, and for that France should be recognized. It just isn’t on the same level of the integrated avionics on JSF.
The short story is that a flight of JSF will always have first-look and first-shoot decisions against fighters who don’t even know they are there.
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Have you ever heard of a concept called Low Probability of Intercept/Detection Radar?
It's literally one of the foundational operating principles of AESAs. In addition to reducing, (not increasing) peak power output from the antennae TRMs, they frequency-hop around their relevant spectrum at insane cycles per second to avoid triggering any RF detection sensors.
That's if an F-35 pilot even chooses to actively search & track in RF spectrum. The AESA is fused with over a dozen other frequency-wide sensors embedded in the F-35 so it really gets its first hits passively. F-22 is the same way. Those passive RF systems have almost 2x the detection range in the RF spectrum compared with the AESA.
The moment any signature emits from your aircraft in both RF and IR spectrums, you risk populating yourself into the new kill web with JSF.
If F-35 gets a hint of anything, the super-computing brain directs other passive sensors to pay particular attention to those directions/contacts, and does everything within its power to know what's out there, cross-referenced with a vast threat library that has up-to-date signatures of all known threats.
The pilot manages signature carefully to gain weapons-grade tracks, and sets up for an unfair, unseen VLO approach, while staying out of the detection envelopes of the threats.
So unlike a 4th Gen encounter, mutual awareness does not happen in BVR at any point until the threat system detects an active missile seeker within a few seconds before impact. That's the extent of the threat pilot's awareness of anybody else out there.
You need an entirely new airplane with a more saturated and multi-spectral/wide bandwidth sensor suite, with more processing power. Good luck with that.
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@miketheman4341 Guys in Ranger Batt have done more reps in CQM and CQB because they don’t have to train for any of the UDT and Combat Swimmer skill sets, none of the VBSS, and don’t have to do as much methods of insertion training that is very time-consuming.
2 main aerial methods of insertion in Battalion are rotary wing and Static Line Airborne.
If a kid joins at 17-18, they will still go through 6 months of Infantry OSUT, 2 months of RASP if they make it straight through, and 3 weeks of Airborne school before going on PCS leave in-between Benning and Hunter AAF, Ft. Lewis, or staying at Benning for 3rd Batt.
Once they show up, they go right into training cycle with tons of CQM, CQB, rotary wing, fixed wing, and specialized training pre-deployment, then deploy somewhere for a JRX, JRTC, Jungle Ops, Desert, the UK, Thailand, etc.
You see a very rapid climb in maturity in Ranger Regiment because guys that can’t perform are booted out quickly via RFS or injury.
When you witness how a Squad or Platoon of Ranger Batt guys execute SUTs vs SEALs, it’s night a day. I’ve done OPFOR against both and deployed among CJSOTF or other composite units of each, and it’s just a brutal harsh reality that Rangers are far more competent in CQM and CQB, IADs, and SUTs. I would never want to face them with live ammo. SEALs I would happily face day or night, and skull-drag them with the kinds of guys I was used to running with. They were very lax/undisciplined with their SUTs and it showed.
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@miketheman4341 Incorrect. The vast majority of SEAL training is dive, hydrographic Recon, underwater demo, and method of insertion focused. A lot of tasks they hate doing (water).
Ranger pipeline training starts with 6 months Infantry OSUT, 8 weeks of RASP suckfest, SUTs, breaching, demo, flat range work/CQM, and CQB, and Airborne School.
Within SEAL Platoons, they have to keep training on all the waterborne and maritime operations that are specifically tied to support of USMC Amphibious operations, as well as maintaining free fall proficiency, which is very resource, time, and risk-intense-especially doing water jumps.
Rangers go into cycle of more flat range work, demo, CQB, Rotary Wing, and Fixed Wing Ops/Airfield Seizure.
Ranger Regiment has one of the most capable, longest pipeline Tier 1 units as well that is relatively-unknown.
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@miketheman4341 All JSOC elements are small. RRD used to be just a Detachment like LRSD, then got expanded into a Company-sized element like LRSC.
RRC Pipeline is longer than OTC or ST6 training, and more extensive due to the man-tracking. It's more like OTC + Man-Tracking in the Pacific.
If you're a civilian with zero relevant experience in this space and haven't been around any of these units, It's best not to comment on them.
I've deployed with and done OPFOR against most of the ones being mentioned.
CAG was the scariest from an OPFOR perspective because one minute everything is quiet, the next minute our guys were flex-cuffed & hooded on an MH-47 flying away in the night.
Rangers were the next, someone you don't ever want to face in SUTs, to include the jungle. We spent literally 28 days doing OPFOR against every Platoon & Squad in 2/75 in Panama, and they fire & maneuvered on us, chasing us down like pit bulls on cocaine.
Doing OPFOR against SEALs at JRTC / Fort Polk and Ft AP Hill was like clubbing rich ROTC cadets who had all kinds of Gucci gear, but sucked at SUTs.
They got compromised trying to conduct Point Target Recce all the time, because they planned their rotary wing insertions too close to their OBJs.
It was like they watched Hollywood B Movies for their planning. Not kidding.
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@Greasy__Bear The AESA in the F-35 isn’t the primary initial detection system, and neither is the APG-77 in the F-22. There are passive EW sensors that see electronic emissions first, then cue the other sensors to those targets. The pilots manage how much signature they want to emit in RF spectrum.
APG-81 and APG-77 absolutely are very long range detection and tracking-capable AESA Radars, with farther effective range than AWACS because AWACS have to stay away from the skirmish zones due to vulnerability. AWACS are less and less a critical C4 node due to the emergence of 5th Gen. People talking about AWACS as a central node for C4ISR are thinking in 1970s-1990s metrics pre- Link-16 JTIDS.
F-22 IFDL (Inter Fighter Data Link) is miles ahead of JTIDS, and F-35 MADL is miles ahead of IFDL. The gap between ATF/JSF and 4.5 Gen is huge.
Iraq had 768 tactical combat aircraft and were better trained and experienced than Russia will ever be (Iraq fought Iran for 8 years, and the Iranians had F-14A/AWG-9/Phoenix, F-4Es, F-5E/F, AIM-7E4, AIM-9J, AIM-9P). East Germans were the best Air Force in the Soviet Union, followed by the Poles. Russians are defunct and have been for generations-not even a remotely-competent air power. We’re talking about an Air Force that practices firing rockets into the mud for their Large Force Exercises even to this day-total tards.
They were handicapping China with those LFEs too, as PLAAF thought that’s how you do LFEs. After Chicoms got exposed to a small LFE with Royal Thai Air Force, PLAAF switched gears and started actually learning.
Russian Air Force would be curb-stomped by any of NATO nations in Air-to-Air. This is why NATO is trying to keep the Ukrainian conflict limited to Ukraine, because a humiliating defeat by Russian forces vs NATO would increase the likelihood of them letting loose with nukes.
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@divoulos5758 To give another set of answers to your questions though, the US built several fighter weapons schools in the 1970s and 1980s and regional aggressor squadrons to provide dissimilar air combat training for operational units around the world. That means huge portions of the USAF, USN, and USMC were specifically dedicated to acting as aggressors or adversaries, emulating threat tactics, radio procedures, and emissions.
The Soviets never did this because they believed their own propaganda about how much better their fighters were, and that their pilots were blessed with some type of innate skill from the patrimony.
If you read Vladimir Kondaurov’s book, he talks about flying the captured F-5E against the MiG-21 and MiG-23, where the F-5E beat them both in BFM repeatedly, and they had to report this personally to the Moscow Central Aviation Research Bureau with great apprehension. The F-5E was a low cost fighter the US sold to poor nations who weren’t authorized to buy top-line US technology, and the Russians knew it. The F-5E handily beat their top-line fighters at the time, even though all their data said the MiG-21 should have beat the F-5.
With Red Flag and TOPGUN, the US maintains fighters that emulate Russian threat capabilities. We have already established an F-35A Aggressor Squadron at Nellis AFB recently to emulate emerging Chinese and Russian threats. That’s how serious the US takes aggressor trainers. We have more F-35A Aggressors than Russia has Su-57s, for example.
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@АлександрШершнёв-р6с Was it claimed to be through the display from an Su-35 using OLS-35 IRST? If so, it wasn’t an F-22. Thoroughly debunked. There are some pics of the Rafale’s OSF display showing actual F-22As both in afterburner and military power, which are extremely low contrast images against the background. F-22A has extensive IR concealment stealth technologies integrated into the airframe and engines.
In reality, a 2-ship of F-22s aren’t going to let an Su-35 near them, while they will be observing the Su-35s the entire time. There isn’t anything the Su-35 can do about it because they have such a huge RCS and IR signature. This is applied physics, not patriotism. Su-35 has excellent range and endurance with no need for external fuel tanks, and a reduced RCS compared to the Su-27 due to extensive use of composites and Radar blockers in front of the engines, but the RCS is still so large as to not matter in the long run.
Radar blockers help defeat certain Positive Identification (PID) features of modern Radars, but 5th Gen work around that with multiple data point analysis of the airframe using passive sensors and LPI AESA modes, with data-linked image sharing between ships. If anything looks like a 1970s 4th gen design, it is easily detected, tracked, and PID’d from significant Beyond Visual Range distances.
These are the rules of the road, and why Russia began work on the PAK-FA.
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@ramirezyzz6748 Yes, AWACS don’t have the detection range that JSF do collectively, because they have to maintain stand-off distance from threat weapons and interceptors.
As soon as the F-22A started playing in Large Force Exercises (LFEs), AWACS no longer had the edge on initial detection, TGT sorting, PID, etc. AWACS controllers would come over the net and give BRA for 4 contacts, F-22s would come back and call out what each contact was, and what altitude they were at down to 100ft.
AWACS is lucky to get distance within +/- 19nm and 3000ft Flight Level, can’t PID in most cases.
F-22A can count their weapons.
JSF can tell what their estimated fuel state is, what airfield they launched from, what type of sub-variant fighter they are, weapons, etc.
JSF get initial cueing from any number of ISR nodes, including themselves, then that fused data is shared over the MADL net so that every JSF operator on the net sees the same thing, even if they are beyond their sensor range.
This includes low earth orbit satellites, airlines, fighters, bombers, tankers, drones, SAMs, tanks, APCs, trucks, ships, and even sub-surface platforms.
JSF are like a networked hive of spyplanes, that are also VLO fighters, stealth strike/attack, Electronic Warfare nodes, and stealth anti-ship fighters.
JSF is really a 5.5 Gen system of systems that link allies in ways that have never been done before.
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@MDP1702 The Rafale development benefitted from all the years and hundreds of millions of $ of RDT&E that went into the F404 with GE. US GE and France have worked together for decades on the commercial airline engine sector as well.
We typically start engine development in advance in the US as new fighter programs are being researched, so that by the time prototype airframe designs are being cut, the engines are ready.
There were 4 different types of new generation engines available for the ATF program, for example, one of which was far ahead of its time (GE YF120 variable cycle motor).
We've been working on the 6th Generation motors quietly for the past decade or more, and they are currently flying in the 6th Generation prototype(s).
These are ADVENT 3-flowpath motors with variable cycle geometry, alloy-ceramic composites, with advanced manufacturing techniques even compared with the F-119 & F-135, neither of which have been remotely duplicated by any other nation.
The YF-119L & N, and YF-120L & N were ready after extensive ground testing in the late 1980s.
Rafale would benefit from an F414 IPE type motor with 26400lb thrust each, giving it better climb rate than the Typhoon, but there aren't a lot of complaints about Rafale performance.
My youngest son and I were building a rudimentary Rafale model last night.
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@MDP1702 The US and NATO countries have all kinds of exchanges going on. That includes engineers, test pilots, operational pilots, special forces, joint exercises, etc.
You won’t find anything online about most of what went on during those times, and a lot of the current exchange programs will never have openly-published articles because they are more boring nuts and bolts things.
My family worked on the post-stall maneuvering flight regime algorithms for what became the EFA/Eurofighter. The MiG-29 had everybody scared about post-stall performance, so it became a critical design feature for the next iteration of fighters.
In hindsight, we should have been far more focused on low observability and putting an AESA in the EFA, like France did with Rafale.
25 Billion euros for Rafale development is more than one of the JSF variants, which would probably correlate well for JSF-A and JSF-C programs, much like Rafale C and Rafale M for the Air Force and Navy Rafales. F-22 was $32.4 Billion for RDT&E.
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@missouriresole4726 They are completely different aircframes that share the same radars, basic engine configurations, sensors, CNI/CIP computer bank, and common inspection subsystems where possible. The airframes, wings, vertical tails, canopies, weapons bays, bulkheads, spanners, spars, landing gear, arresting gear (A has USAF arresting gear, B has none, C has carrier arresting gear), and other structural components are quite different.
The Integrated Power Pack is mostly common, and revolutionary. Cockpits are the same.
The best comparison for the Typhoon in terms of budget is the F-35A model. Development costs for the A model are less than the Typhoon, and unit costs are $62 million less per aircraft. F-35A survivability and lethality is superior to the Typhoon across the board, so with Typhoon, you pay way more for less capability up-front and during its service life.
Typhoon development costs were exacerbated by the multinational nature of the program, which we were directly involved in back in 1980-1982. It’s the whole reason we PCS’d to Munich in 1980, to go work with the Germans, Brits, Italians, French, and Spaniards on the new European Combat Aircraft.
Typhoon development and operational costs have gone way over budget, which always happens with these kinds of programs.
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@relativx9257 The Indian price matches the price advertised in a French documentary on Rafale before the Indian deal, as well as the Typhoon price.
Drivers of the cost for Rafale are:
1. Made in France with high labor and materials costs
2. Low production numbers
3. Twin engine
4. AESA radar
5. Advanced avionics
6. High quality construction using lots of carbon fiber and composites
Operational F-35A and B availability rates have been 70-95% and several NATO nations have already fulfilled alert fighter readiness missions in Iceland, deployed from Cyprus, and UAE for real-world operations with very high readiness rates.
Cost Per Flight Hour is the same for operational F-35A and Rafale, with different accounting methods being used for both.
Dassault said they will work hard to meet a $25,000 CPFH and 75% availability rate for India, without stating what the numbers are now.
In the press, F-35 CPFH numbers have been doubled. I looked up the very detailed DoD Comptroller aircraft hourly cost per flight hours, and F-35A was $17,333 including personnel salary.
What they're doing so they can get more money from Congress is inflating the worst-case numbers for what it would take to upgrade the existing Block 2 F-35s up to a future Block 4 or 5 standard, which is never going to happen since Block 2 are used for training and will never go to operational squadrons.
They're taking those estimations, and feeding them back into CPFH with an amortized number that isn't real.
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@eSpace-fr So EU is a unified block, right? Who provides the defense security for the EU States?
Who bails out the EU when the ECB allows loans to Greece, Portugal, and Ireland with the same lending standards given to France, while not even maintaining more than 4.5% minimum reserve requirements before 2008?
In case you haven't noticed, nations are drifting away from EU membership due to massive incompetence in banking, finance, defense, immigration, and EU laws imposed on domestic policies of the member states.
It's more accurate to see the EU as a propped-up continent by the US, across the financial, industrial, and military spheres that is taken for granted by the EU citizenry, who have their media filled with anti-US rhetoric by the Russians...thirsting after European sea ports and trade routes.
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@carthag1574 I’ve been studying acquisition and CPFH/O&M costs since the mid 1980s as reference. First of all, the CPFH figure you’re listing at 44,000 euros is simply so far off from being correct, I wonder where you saw that. If you were to convert that, it would be $52,360/hr. That’s $5,000 more than the F-22A CPFH!
Actual CPFH not including upgrades down the road is $17,963 per the 2021 DoD Comptroller’s extremely detailed reports. So now you would have to find an additional $24,000 to make that number work.
Especially in foreign nations who haven’t bought any of the Block II and early LRIP birds that have high projected (not purchased) upgrade costs to be brought up to Block 4 standards (which there is no reason to do since they are training conversion aircraft), the CPFH is much lower than the average fleet cost for all of US Dod with all its early F-35As, F-35Bs, and F-35Cs. If you try to correlate any of these costs from the whole US fleet, you will get totally false numbers.
Additionally, partner nations have been training in the US at Luke and other bases before even taking delivery of their fighters while waiting in the acquisition schedule.
Your figures for the Rafale are also way off by under $10,000. Dassault promised India that they will work hard with Indian Air Force to get Rafale’s CPFH down to $25,000 over the long-term. That doesn’t include ancillary systems like FLIR or Recce pods.
FLIR and recce are integral to the F-35, so you can’t separate them from operations and maintenance costs like you can with 4th gen fighters to "cook the numbers”.
Right now, operational F-35A squadrons have been seeing $21,000 CPFH, which is about $3,000 over the raw CPFH of $17,963. You can calculate those numbers by the expected service lives of each airframe and draw the long-term conclusions.
You mentioned availability next. Operational, later-production Block 3 F-35As have enjoyed availability rates from 70-95%.
Dassault promised India they will work hard with them to reach a 75% availability rate for the fighter itself, no mention of the ancillary FLIR or Recce pod systems.
Rafale also uses an advanced simulator with 180˚ immersive screen, not as immersive as the F-35 simulator, but still very modern. It is an integral part of the Rafale training process.
Rafale is more useful for a matching enemy? Rafale is not survivable against the F-35 in Air-to-Air, nor can it penetrate saturated IADS nets like the F-35 can. There are 3 times as many F-35s with 3 assembly lines and huge supply chains, as opposed to the Rafale, so the parts availability and long-term supply side is again in the F-35’s favor. This is just reality.
So in conclusion:
F-35 has less O&M costs with full-up systems integral to the air vehicle machine, while Rafale without pods is more expensive.
F-35 has about half the unit cost ($77.9 million vs $144 million).
F-35 has the same or better availability rates (70-95% proven vs 75% promised).
F-35 is more lethal and survivable.
F-35 has more supply-side support and will into the future by a large factor.
But you think Rafale would be a better choice?
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@fred9267 The US built a huge portion of the Russian military equipment. Talk about how Russia won WWII in the Pacific or North Africa or the Middle East.
For those of us who actually have been studying WWII for many decades, we understand that it was a global war with multiple theaters, and while the Germans were slaughtering Russians by the millions, the US was fighting the Japanese in the Pacific for years, AND supplying Russia with our industrial base.
We built 20% of their bombers, hundreds of thousands of trucks, thousands of fighters, tanks, medical supplies, rifles, radios, Avgas, uniforms, and food. If the US had not supported Russia with all those war materials via Lend Lease, one wonders what the duration of the Eastern Front would have been.
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@alexdarcydestsimon3767 F135 is the most reliable fighter engine ever built, not to mention the most powerful. There is cold hard math that supports that if you look at engine failure/flight hours. No other motor comes close. The next closest engine for reliability is the F119 in the F-22A, followed by F100-PW-229. These are indisputable numbers.
Electronics/avionics are the standard to beat for reliability, only a portion of which contribute to the "800 deficiencies" across 3 aircraft types (F-35A/B/C). F-16 has over 1000 deficiencies, not including pods and its ancillary combat systems. F-16 had the highest reliability rate of any fighters in USAF service until F-35A came along. Even the F-35B in USMC, RAF/RN, Italian, and Japanese service has much lower MMHPFH than the F-16. Again, the math in favor of all variants of the F-35 series out-performs the best legacy birds in service.
The cockpit has less failure nodes than any other fighter cockpit in the world, with more redundancy for critical navigation/instrumentation for bring-back, all on separate circuits for power and signals. Voice controls aren’t used much, if at all. Most of the important buttons are on the throttle and stick, while other interfaces are touch screen. In a high-g scenario doing BFM training, you don’t remove your hands from HOTAS anyway.
F-35A airframe structures are much stronger than legacy airframes and rated to 8000 hours service life, but stress-testing has exceeded 27,400 hours years ago without structural failure, so it exceeds the rated service life by greater than a factor of 3. That is not normal. Since it uses CF in many areas instead of Aluminum, it explains the increased durability and resilience to stresses.
You can see each one of these claims is not supported by reality.
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@user-jo7dd2jn5s Every historical source in the US begins with the US staying out of the Great War, other than sending shiploads of supplies.
Woodrow Wilson got reelected on the promise that he would keep America out of the war.
Then we discuss the U-Boats and sinking of ships, including the Lousitania with the passengers.
I've never even heard or seen the low-rate, minimalist info sources remotely claim the US fought throughout the Great War, since that would contradict the prominent political and international events related to the US.
England and France were begging us to do more, but Americans didn't want to get in foreign entanglements, so they set up the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 to cause public anger. That still didn't do the trick. It wasn't until April, 1917 that the US Congress finally declared war on Germany.
Same with WWII. US was attacked in the Pacific at Pearl Harbor, followed by declarations of war against us by Germany and Italy.
The Japanese had victory after victory in the Pacific, and the US still had not activated its industrial power or generated a sufficient military strength for multi-theater operations.
Since I was a kid, it was always about dealing with the Pacific first, then sending forces to North Africa after the British defeat by Rommel in North Africa in 1942, to stop Rommel from reaching the Suez Canal.
It's simple-mindedness on the part of Europeans thinking that the US even had the combat power it did in 1944, superimposed on 1939.
We didn't. The largest awakening of industrial capacity in human history happened after 1941, where the Nation rallied to build factories, tooling, and workforces to manufacture all the war material that would feed the Allied War machine in the coming years.
These are fundamental basics of WWII.
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