Youtube comments of LRRPFco52 (@LRRPFco52).
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One of my former Recon Team Leaders who went JSOC reports it’s a total abortion, and he has hands-on with it. Same thing every other experienced guy with decades of deployments said. Too heavy, imbalanced, not enough ammo, stock is a piece of trash, ammo costs will kill training, 4+ MOA (so much for DM weapon), and the XM157 optic computer is breaking at 1000rds of fire. Once configured, it’s more like 14lbs, not 12. They didn’t mention Surefire scout light or sling in this video. All that weight is forward, total disregard for pointability/shootability. We already know from generations of experience with the M14 and SR-25 what it’s like to try to hump 20rd mags in this size of cartridge. It’s a NO-GO out of the gate. Base of fire and you can run black on ammo before even bounding sometimes.
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The interesting facts about this whole issue to me are:
Luftwaffe Chief Karl Müllner supported the German acquisition of the F-35, and was quickly fired after that because of concerns over the loss of German aerospace jobs. After he got the classified capabilities briefing on some of the things the JSF program is doing, he immediately recommended strongly that Germany become an F-35 partner or customer because of the unfair advantages that come with JSF, like the UK, Denmark, Norway, Italy, and Netherlands are already realizing.
Now some email leaks that the Luftwaffe will be buying Super Hornets and Growlers? This seems like a shot across the bow of the German aerospace industry and parliament to get its act together and increase orders for a newer tranche Typhoon with Air-to-Ground and ISR capabilities, but that puts Germany in the position of cooperating with B61 Tactical Nuclear integration onto the Typhoon.
Also, when looking at Boeing, you need to separate Boeing Defense from Boeing commercial airline programs, Boeing Global Services, and Boeing Capital Corp. Boeing Defense contracts have been increasing with a wide range of major, multi-billion dollar and mid-high hundreds of millions contracts just with several US services alone. These include Super Hornet Block III, T-7A jet trainers, A-10C re-winging, P-8A Poseidon, KC-46, MV-22 tilt rotor major assemblies, and contracts that make it the 2nd largest defense contractor in the US.
This need to replace the Tornados in Luftwaffe service will force Germany into a strange position of appearing even more out of sync with the NATO alliance I think. It is a very interesting turn of events that could have been avoided if Germany had funded a viable replacement and began the process long ago, but procrastinated on for the past 2 decades.
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One thing I've noticed in the Russian TV stations that Russian ex-pats watch while living abroad is that every time some international mention of US technology or especially aerospace was prominent in the news, Russian news would show their equivalent, which is always physically bigger, and how they are leaders in this field. A specific example was something going on with one of the Space Shuttle missions. Russia then showed file footage of their Buran recoverable shuttle vehicle, how much bigger it is than the Yankee shuttle, and what an engineering marvel it is. It never took a single Cosmonaut into space, did one test mission that was automated (which is a legitimate accomplishment for certain), but the program died because they couldn't afford it even in the Soviet times.
The whole information flow in that culture is top-down, "Trust us, our tech is better than the Yankees." The people willingly believe it, because the alternative is too harsh to accept.
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@JammyDodger45 Edgar Brothers are the Prime Contractor for the UK as an importer, not manufacturer.
They arrange for all the carbines, optics, scope mounts, magazines, blank firing adaptors, simunition kits, protective gear, and all associated items to be bundled, then delivered. In their own words:
"As the Prime Contractor and UK Distributors, Edgar Brothers will be utilising a range of battle-proven products from suppliers from around the world to deliver the chosen solution."
Edgar Brothers is acting as a privatised military procurement agency, not a manufacturer of weapons. They have no ability to manufacture KAC weapons, Vortex optics, LAMs, etc.
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Gangs ruled much of the big US cities since the early 1800s. They were synonymous with volunteer fire departments who competed with each other to be first on scene for the insurance company bonuses, plus being able to loot people's valuables. They fought each other regularly, especially as the waves of Irish flowed in to the Eastern cities like New York.
Those gangs worked for the politicians until Prohibition in 1920. During the first few years of Prohibition, the gangs were drowning in billions in cash-flow from alcohol, prostitution, gambling, and racketeering.
They bought the politicians, judges, legitimate businesses, and formed much of the institutions in their images, especially the Congress, FBI, and Federal bureaucracy to act as jobs programs for their deadbeat friends and loyal relatives.
The 1934 NFA was not a response to these original gangs, who held many levers of power by that point and were fully invested in the financial system.
They didn't like small-time Midwestern bank robbers like John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, and Ma Barker's boys.
The NFA was specifically targeted at their rivals, like a National Sullivan Act. They mentioned John Dillinger repeatedly during the 1934 NFA Hearings. He really rubbed the Mafia establishment and the corporatist cleptocrats the wrong way because he burned mortgage records when he robbed banks at the height of the Depression.
The history we learn is all wrong, a simplified fabrication to conceal the demons in our midst.
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@bigbramel My family was part of the ongoing international scientific exchange between NATO allies in the aerospace sector, where we left the USAF Flight Test Center and moved to West Germany to work with the Luftwaffe and German/UK/Italian engineers on what would become the Eurofighter.
All 3 of those nations had exceptional mathematicians and engineers, but dealing with multiple languages, cultures, work ethics, and parliaments funding the project is a microcosm of the challenges any mutual economic and defense pacts in Europe face.
Germany itself is another microcosm of very factional regions with their historic independent cultures and politics.
If you look at a UK Typhoon vs a Luftwaffe Typhoon, there are major multirole capabilities integrated into the UK birds, whereas Germany has primarily focused on the interceptor mission profile only.
Looking at the Panavia Tornado variants and the multinational Eurifighter project, you realize that even 4 decades ago, a modern tactical combat aircraft for UK, West German, and Italian service required at least 3 nations to combine their R&D budgets in order to just develop the aircraft.
In contrast, France and Sweden independently (with US engine technology) developed their own 4th Gen multirole fighters, with the Rafale being an exceptional program that has achieved high levels of systems integration, manufacturing quality, and actual multirole pivot mission set capabilities ranging from networked air superiority to carrier-borne anti-ship and ISR.
The biggest factor I see that handicaps European nations in aerospace defense is really coming from their parliaments, who have become something other than traditional assemblies that prioritize defense first.
Instead, these parliaments have been populated with people who place more emphasis on domestic programs, social safety nets, and more bureaucracy, under the assumption that the US will continue to carry the bulk of the weight of European defense, which has been true since the 1940s, but is increasingly being questioned by US politicians after the Eurozone has been able to realize high levels of consistent economic growth.
This has greatly contributed to the neglect of dealing with the Tornado replacement in Germany, while the UK and Italy have been JSF partners and significant JSF industrial base nodes in JSF manufacturing. This provides tens of thousands of jobs (25,000 in the UK with BAE and subcontractors), a full assembly line in Italy, and billions of Euros worth of economic activity in Europe. The negotiations and legwork that underlies these contracts started over 2 decades ago in some cases, so it's now too late to say Germany should have or could have done this, or done that.
JSF has already evolved dramatically and is in multi-year orders now, with the 500th F-35 delivered earlier this year.
Nations who were initial F-16 MSIP partners in NATO have already converted to the F-35A and have been developing their JSF squadron capabilities for years, working in conjunction with the UK and US.
6th Gen technologies are already being prepared for testing and integration into upcoming production blocks of the JSF, starting with the ADVENT variable cycle propulsion system, where we will see a 47,300-50,000lb thrust fighter motor in reheat, and well over 30,000lb in mil power.
Meanwhile, one of the most capable aerospace and scientific communities in the history of man is talking about upgrading their Typhoons with a CAPTOR-E AESA radar......if they could just get the funding.
Germany is way better than this, and something has gone awry.
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@nwj03a "Common defense" means a man and his family able to protect themselves from thieves, murderers, local politicians abusing their power (thieving and murdering), and foreign invasion.
One of the only enumerated powers mentioned in the Constitution is "to provide for the common defense".
At the time of the Nation's founding, individual able-bodied citizens possessed all types of arms for that purpose, to include firearms, cannons, and naval vessels.
They dismantled the standing army to one regiment just in case, which was focused on the Western territories (borderland between the 13 States and the interior, which was the Mississippi River Valley at the time, previously occupied by the French in the mid-1700s, with various indigenous tribes warring with each other.
The Progressive Era under Marxists and Organized crime occupying much of US Government since the early 1900s did everything in its power to re-write what the Constitution means:
* Income tax with no constraints
* Federal secret police working for organized crime
* Dewey's Marxist-Darwinist religion disguised as a school system where "teachers are the only true prophet"
* Permanent standing armies used to defend Europe and the Pacific from territorial ambitions of adventures dictators at massive expense to the US people via more taxation
* Government confiscated/funded Medicare for seniors and disabled
* Government/organized crime confiscated retirement plan that has no accountability to those who fund it (Social Security)
* Creation of an unconstitutional "justice department" with 115,000 employees and 40 sub agencies/bureaucracies scamming the people out of $29 billion a year.
You've likely been taught that the above are legitimate, while your core rights as a human being are subject to the permission granted by government.
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The DNC stole the election from her in 2008. She literally won majorities in most of the States when you look at the delegates. Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. Hillary won Florida, Iowa, Michigan, California, New York, Mass, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc.
Howard Dean just ordered the delegates who pledged for Hillary to change to Obama, to include intimidation, threats, and murder of 2 super delegates who refused to change. One walked into the delegate's office in Arkansas and gunned him down. The other died of a "brain aneurysm" days before the convention.
This is why Hillary built her current DNC apparatus in her own image, to prevent 2008 from happening, not that it matters anymore.
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@101wormwood I’ve lived all over the US, from CA to Maine, GA to WA, VA, NC, CO, and UT. Used to do a lot of investigative work 6 days a week mainly on medical fraud claims as well. I have multiple family members in the healthcare industry both in hospitals and nursing homes.
You might find this surprising, but most Americans don’t take the bus or public transportation. So your anecdotes in Omaha don’t represent a broad perspective of the US. I suggest taking a course in statistics, probability, and analysis. It will help you avoid forming invalid ideas about reality. I would also recommend a course in critical thinking, where you learn to avoid ad hominem attacks because of the weakness of your arguments. It will help you out a lot.
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China has better avionics, not better engines. Russia has had access to US patents and materials sample for generations due to treason within the US and exploitation programs, and they still can’t duplicate them because they don’t know how to run production management, supply chain management, or make quality electronics. Their most advanced industry, aerospace, lacks modern manufacturing facilities just in terms of clean floors, intact windows, proper ventilation, and basic safety, let alone modern production line automation, flow-through, and delivery schemes.
Total Quality Management is beyond their culture. It will never happen there. People talk about the Soviet collapse as an event that happened in 1989-1992, but it’s a continual snowball rolling down the hill that never stopped. It actually started in many ways with the Russian Revolution and Civil War, with a little bit of a post-WWII bump, but by the 1970s was well on its way down to failure, camouflaged by them becoming a net oil/NG exporter.
We’re watching the residue of the USSR slowly continue to fall apart in all domains of their society, whether looking at demographics, economics, military, industry, politics, education, infrastructure, and international relations.
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He should be tried for conspiracy to facilitate mass murder and the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and ICE Agent Jaime Zapata, along with thousands of citizens in Mexico. He should also be charged for repeatedly lying to Congress about his oversight of the OCDEF and Fast & Furious, ITAR violations, suborning of perjury, obstruction of justice, delegation of multiple violations of USC 18, all in his effort to undermine the US Bill of Rights as part of a known criminal conspiracy with President Obama, SECSTATE Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Joe Biden. There is literally the blood of thousands of people on his hands. He is a treasonous demonic entity that has zero rights to live in the US and enjoy its freedom, but he will be protected by the criminal elite class in DC as always.
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Norwegians are probably the best-trained and acclimated soldiers to Arctic Conditions, especially their SOF/Recce troops.
UK SBS, Canadian SOF and Infantry, Finns, US Army Alaska, Swedes, 10th SFG Mountain Teams, Danes, German KSK, Austrians, Italian SOF are others.
The Cadre at ITC (formerly ILRRPS) have a phenomenal collection of senior SOF/Recce guys, most of whom have Arctic experience including Norwegians.
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Vince Foster did not commit suicide. I investigated this case for over a decade, spoke with the journalists from WaPo and the Times assigned to the case, Senator Bob Bennett, father of one of the paramedics who were the first responders, and Army Counter Intelligence agents in the DC area. The evidence that blows the whole case open is Foster's travel habits. Once you realize his travel habits, you are on the right path.
He flew to Switzerland 12-20 times per year. Keep in mind this was only 6 months into the Clinton Presidency. The Clinton's fired the FBI Director, William Sessions, the day before on July 19th, who refused to resign over a BS ethics probe that was started in the Bush Justice Department 48 hours after Sessions refused to halt an investigation into banking irregularities involving the Saudi's.
These presstitutes like Kurtz are simply issuign talking points that were given to them by the political elite. The Foster case is more relevant today because he was involved in espionage, selling the upgrades to the NSA's bank monitoring system to foreign governments for years. Think I'm making it up? Search words: Foster, NSA, BCCI, PROMIS
Enjoy your reading....
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I was in 7 different Combat Arms units. I never saw one of my ABs or AGs dump rounds from the ruck, but found several piles in different training areas. These were blanks, not live rounds. Even the blanks weigh so much that you end up with a spine-crushing ruck. When I did my time as an AG, we didn't have any ABs, so I got to carry the combat load in ammo plus tripod, T&E, pintle, Steiner binos, and my packing list. It required my Weapons Squad Leader and Gunner both to lift me up after I had donned my ruck on the ground.
We normally expended all of our live ammo, so I never saw things escalate to Judicial Punishment. My point is that 7.62 NATO is too heavy of a round to carry practically by dismounted Infantry in any significant round count, especially for gun teams and riflemen. Even 5 x 20rd mags of 7.62 NATO is very heavy and bulky for a rifleman to carry. The Army Ordnance Board refused to learn the lessons that had already been learned in The Great War, which drove the development of the .276 Pedersen, and continued to insist on a .30 caliber, high pressure cartridge with over 40gr of case volume. This is a recipe for reduced combat endurance for any dismounted unit trying to prosecute the fight and maneuver.
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@arvont1 There isn't a $1.7 Trillion number. That's made up/guesstimate as to what acquisition, operations, and maintenance will cost into the 2070s, 50 years from now.
It would be like telling someone a particular new car is expensive because of what it will cost in gas, parts replacement, oil changes, dealer services, fender benders, and all costs for you, your kids, and grandkids who drive it in the future.
Makes you wonder what motive is involved behind those numbers.
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@Dr.Westside YF-23 represented several major risks that didn't exist with the proposed F-22A, which were already solved on YF-22 out of the gate.
1. YF-23 PAVs cracked several windscreens during sustained supersonic speeds.
2. Boundary layer diverters didn't allow speed past Mach 1.82, required a total redesign of the intake geometry.
3. Every control surface required 2 hydraulic actuators, laid on their sides.
4. Weapons bay storage and ejector racks were never solved, weapons bay was limited in AAM capacity to 5. Proposed F-23A would add another forward weapons bay, increasing the aircraft overall length even more, limiting g in pitch, yaw, and roll axes, still not reaching the 8 AAM weapons count.
YF-22 PAV1 demonstrated a classified time-to-climb record and Mach 2.2 on the same flight.
YF-22 could carry and separate 6 AAMs, while proposed F-22A would carry 8.
YF-22 could supercruise and maneuver extremely well across the regime.
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@rdarkmind Sling swivels in the photos are on the bottom of the stock.
The rifle in possession that was supplanted (after the 7.65 Mauser disappeared) is an Italian 6.5x52 Carcano with a left side mounted sling, not bottom sling mounts.
You can clearly see the differences between the 2 rifles, so if the photos are authentic, then that isn't the same rifle.
In one of his residences and storage areas, along with a spotting scope, multiple cameras, binos, pace counter, flashlight, compass, pro-Castro pamphlets, and pocket dictionary, was found partial boxes of .303 Enfield rifle cartridges.
The first rifle discovered in the TSBD was a 7.65mm Mauser, and 4 Dallas PD officers who were there filled out sworn statements to that fact.
3 were convinced to change their sworn affidavits (a crime), while the 4th refused. His name was Roger Craig. He was later fired, and shot himself in the chest with a .22LR rifle as his father mowed the lawn in 1975, before he could testify in front of the HSCA during the Church Committee hearings.
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@Honken55 Magnus Skokberg, Saab’s H-X manager, said that the older Gripen C/D costs about 11 000 euros per flight hour to fuel, operate, maintain, replace spares, and pay personnel. They don’t know yet, but he said they think Gripen E/F should be about the same. Gripen E/F take more fuel, are heavier, and have way more systems to maintain, but the AESA should be less of a failure-prone system since it isn’t an MSA like the older Gripen Radar.
The stats mentioning $4700/hr are bogus and never could be taken seriously by any of us who have been around military tactical aviation for more than a day. They would have you believe Gripens cost less to maintain, fly, fuel, replace spares, and operate than a radar-less A-10 that can only do 285kts cruise speed.
Supersonic fighters are expensive to run. Things like to break quite often. The F-16 has the gold standard for a modern combat aircraft with a low break rate of only 10%.
F-35A across the USAF fleet averages only 6%. Saab and Swedish Air Force never report the Gripen break rate.
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@manofsan My close friends in Finland (I’m half Finnish) had their close family member in the Russian Foreign Ministry. He was running his mouth bragging about how now that Russia has Putin in office, they are taking back Kazakhstan, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Romani, Bulgari, Poland, Baltics, and Finland.
The Russian Foreign Minister told him to shut his mouth and not speak so openly if he wanted to remain healthy. I have lived all over that region of the world and many others, so while it is true that most people suck at geography, that isn’t the case with me. In fact, I like to travel all over different nations and go to places where the people there usually have not gone themselves.
None of what I’m telling you is reported anywhere because it is incidental POLINT.
Your description of Saddam’s precursors to the invasion don’t match up with any story I have heard so far. Saddam was in violation of multiple UN Resolutions he agreed to, and he wanted the world to think he had nukes. He also had purchased Nigerian yellow cake, so it was natural for the UN and his Arab neighbors to be very concerned about what he was doing. This was a dictator who used chemical weapons against Iran and his own people, so obtaining more WMD was setting off alarm bells. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, just what the facts were.
Only 17% of Ukraine are ethnic Russians. 77.5 - 77.8% are Ukrainians. Your numbers are way off. False flag units acting for Putin initiated attacks on ethnic Russians in Donbas/Donetsk region after Ukraine ousted Yanukovych in Feb 2014, who was a Russian puppet for Putin.
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@thelordofcringe Every unit that had the choice of what weapons to carry switched to the AR-15 as soon as they could, while retaining a few 7.62x51 rifles, namely the SLR/FAL, M14, and G3. Examples are British SAS, Australian SAS, US Army SF, US Army LRPs, USMC Force Recon, and British SBS. Airborne and Airmobile units followed after, and the Soviets began development of the AK-74 due to the advantages they saw with the M16 in Vietnam.
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Legacy core nations of NATO began demilitarizing while Eastern Europeans came scrambling and begging to join while they had a chance.
Russia was in near free-fall in the 1990s. The only things keeping their defense production sector open were FMS orders from India, China, and some smaller customers. Most of the Russian defense programs in theftelopment of the late 1980s almost died.
KGB senior Generals took over Russia's oil, NG, telecom, and mining industries under Yeltsin's absentee Kremlin.
They realized they needed new leadership after the failure of the 1st Chechen War of 1994-1995, so they grabbed some former KGB and intelligentsia guys and made them Deputy Prime Ministers under drunken Yeltsin.
One of the 3 Deputy PMs was tasked with kicking the Chechens on the teeth, launching the 2nd Chechen War in 1999 with a scorched-earth policy that leveled Grozny, and filled mass graves with civilians using Su-24 & Su-25 air strikes.
Midway into the 2nd Chechen War, on Dec 31, 1999, Yeltsin went on Russian TV and said, "And now, it is time for me to retire. And why should we have elections when we already know who we all would vote for? So now, Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is your new President. Dasvidanya."
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ANUSH SLAVEIKOV I know most people don't have any familiarity with aerospace concepts, applied physics, and the environmental conditions that aircraft are normally subjected to, so I'll point out something you might not be aware of.
As you increase in altitude, the air temperature gets very cold. At only 3000m above sea level, the air is already -5˚ C. At 7000m, it's roughly -24˚ C.
11000m, it's -56.5˚C
Not only that, but the F-35 development program was subjected to the same Mil-Std protocols for arctic basing requirements, and is being stationed in Alaska as we speak, just like the F-22 has been for many years now.
The F-35's RAM is more robust and weather-resilient than the F-22s, and F-22s have been operating from arctic conditions all this time.
The truth is that any aircraft that is going to fly into the Geopotential of the tropopause needs to be able to operate in -56.5˚ C ambient air. This area is where the F-35 likes to be. Even in hot climates, once it gets into the higher altitude bands, it might as well be in the arctic because these are extremely low temperatures.
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@dontworry2379 If I say something on this subject, it's coming from 5 decades in the field, to include institutional knowledge specific to the F-4 and the aircraft that superceded it, while it continued to serve in NATO and Pacific allied air forces for decades.
The main reasons we divested of the F-4 in favor of the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 was because a single man crew could do the job with 1970s-forward avionics without needing a RIO, and we moved on to turbofan engines, more advanced avionics, and more fuel fraction.
F-4 had turbojets, which don't do well in the low speed, lower altitude regime, but love to be up high and fast (as it was designed for carrierborne BARCAP against Soviet bombers).
While designing the F-4's stores carrying layout, they built it around 4 semi-recessed stations for radar-guided missiles, and 2 hardpoints on the wings for 2 more.
Those hard points got AIM-9 pylons attached to them on each side, giving it a pretty slick 8x AAM A2A load-out even with EFTs on stations 1 & 9.
Additionally, it could still carry MERs or TERs on stations 2, 5, & 8 loaded with bombs without sacrificing any AAMs. It could carry 9-12 500lb bombs in addition to 8x AAMs, which gave it superior self-escort capability to the F-105D.
It really set the bar high for what we expected as a baseline during the design and requirements for F/X and TFX, as well as LWF and what became the F/A-18.
F-14, F-16, and F/A-18 failed to match the payload mix of the F-4. Only the F-15 and later Super Hornet could do it in US 4th Gen fighters.
It also set the bar in payload for the Typhoon and Rafale. It was a very capable platform in this regard, lending itself well to the Wild Weasel mission set with the F-4G in USAF before being replaced by F-16C Block 50/52 with CCIP to HARM Targeting System capability.
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@jtplays7411 Finnish is 100% phonetic. That’s your only freebie. The rest is a brutal undertaking as an adult.
23 different post-positions rather than any prepositional phrases in English, called astevaihtelut. Then you have to use a vocal harmony to change the objects to conform to the post-positional phrasing.
There are no articles, which is harder for Finns to adjust to English and other languages with them.
Instead of saying, “I’m going to the house.”
Minä mennen kotiin. (Dictionary house is “koti”.)
or “I’m from Helsinki.”
Mina olen Helsingistä.
or “I’m going to Helsinki.”
Minä mennen Helsingiin.
Just when you think you’ve figured out the astevaihtelu and vokaaliharmonia, things change.
Seinäjoki the city's astevaihtelu in one form is Seinaäjoelta if someone is "from there", not Seinäjoistä.
“H"s are all pronounced as well.
16 cases for nouns in the singular, 15 in plural. English-speaker: "What are noun cases?"
6 different verb types with concepts that don’t exist in English.
A Finnish-English dictionary or Finnish-any language dictionary is almost worthless, other than maybe Estonian. The words are not usable in most cases because they haven’t been converted through the astevaihtelu or vokaaliharmonia algorithms. In usage, it means if I give you a newspaper and ask you to translate it with your dictionary, you won’t even be able to get the headline in many instances, let along the first sentence of the first paragraph.
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Hey Megyn Kelly. Any half-decent journalist can look at the events in July of 1993 and start to realize that he was murdered.
FBI Director William Sessions, Distinguished Eagle Scout, who refused to resign under pressure from the Clinton's, was fired July 19th after the Clinton's held an emergency meeting that weekend on how to move forward with damage control.
Foster was under sealed indictment for espionage, and had been travelling to Switzerland for the Clinton's for many years during the Arkansas Governor days. He was no white knight. He was a career criminal in the employ of the most corrupt Governor in US History. Fox News = no credibility. You guys are a freaking joke. Internet? I was in DC during the Foster investigation, and spent many man hours on it myself. Everything pointed to murder. The defensive injuries on his hands from the barrel-cylinder gap on the throw-away revolver (which wasn't even on the scene when the paramedics arrived), the testimony of Patrick Knowlton who saw the guys who dumped the body at Fort Marcy Park, the tampering with evidence including the body by White House Counsel William Kennedy III, the prevention of the Park Police from entering Foster's WH office, the mention of X-rays in the autopsy report that were never available for the Senate, you name it. The suicide note was written by a woman according to handwriting experts.
John Kerry did not believe this BS, and repeatedly demanded to see the X-rays in the Senate hearings on Foster, to which he was told, "There are no X-rays, Mr. Senator."
Kerry: "Then why does it say here at the footnotes of the autopsy, 'X-Rays 3'?"
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I've owned many of them, and I had lots of problems with every one.Tried several proven techniques to improve reliability, like throating the breech, different recoil springs, more lube, 230gr ball only, extractor tweaks, still had issues across 4 different pistols, and the failure to go into battery was the most common malfunction with all of them.
After thousands of dollars, I just stuck with modern pistols that actually work out of the box, don't need constant TLC, and haven't looked back.
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Nope. It's an AR10 carbine chambered in .277 Fury, which is an overpressured .277-08 type case configuration with the hybrid case materials, including the steel head, steel internal cup to prevent blowing out primers, and the brass body (heavy). Chamber pressures are in the 80,000psi region, which is 15,000psi higher than any magnum cartridges. Chamber and bore erosion are exacerbated even when using Stellite liners and hard chrome plating of the bore. By choosing an op-rod piston, they just added even more weight to an already-too heavy rifle profile when looking at the AR10 BCG, receiver set, and barrel shank. We know they can't be cutting down the weight of the barrel shank because they're trying to contain 80,000psi, so there are probably some exotic alloys being used for the bolt and extension. Bolt thrust with an 80,000psi cartridge is going to be a nightmare to run through high volume.
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@Dafnessific Trump is infinitely more experienced than former Presidents though when it comes to negotiating, because of decades of business experience.
The closest that could have come to that was Jimmy Carter, but there are limitations to peanut farming talks, though still superior to career politicians who live in a very artificial reality. Carter was also a nuke submarine officer with unparalleled engineering knowledge, that didn't seem to translate well because he kept quiet about certain defense matters like ATB/B-2.
Trump is the only President who brought in multiple black leader panels to implement inner city programs for the fatherless, negotiated more Middle East peace deals than the prior 11 Presidents combined, and didn't start any new wars.
Trump also stopped the insane rate of drug costs by starting a price war between pharmaceutical companies, authorizing 900-1000 generic drugs each through HHS. Pfizer, Merck, GSK, etc. hated that, and they control all the corporate media along with 20 other biggest industries.
The cult of personality/populism shouldn't ignore the practical moves Trump made that benefitted the US.
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Russians see all former territories as belonging to Russia, regardless of what the borders currently are. That includes Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Eastern Poland, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Dagestan, Chechnya, Georgia, etc. They are entitled to those lands under their logic. There has been a resurgence of pro-Stalinist teaching in Russian schools since Putin became the president 22 years ago. They are always afraid of someone attacking them across the historic invasion routes, so by “defending the motherland”, that includes Ukraine. This is the Russian perspective that the West does not understand. My family has lost many to Russia during the Winter War in Finland due to this way of thinking.
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@Rake3577 Russia is not even remotely close to being richest in resources either. Russia has no connected river network and is frozen almost year-round due to its latitude and relatively land-locked position. Nobody cares about Russia's resources other than maybe China and Arabs who rely on Russian grain for their subsidized bread industries.
The US is the richest Nation in resources, connected river networks, largest arable farmland, sea ports, mountains, the inter-coastal waterways, vast tributaries on the Eastern Seaboard and Deep South, with vast forests, minerals, and multifaceted industries that have been built on this natural infrastructure.
If US geography was taught in Russia, Russians would see that the US has no interest in Russian resources.
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@Merecir Nope. Gripen NG demonstrators stripped clean could barely cruise over Mach in mil power. With the larger, heavier Gripen E airframe, Saab went silent on the matter.
Real supercruise was a desire in the mid-1980s set by ATF because they were still thinking about 4th Gen BVR metrics in a stand-off skirmish, where you had mutual detection and whoever saw first and got into parameters first, shot first, then offset preferably from supersonic launch speeds to help the missile pk.
None of that really matters for 5th Gen, and actually hurts you in IR spectrum, so it isn’t really relevant for ATF and JSF.
It’s nice to have on a 4th Gen so you don’t add more IR bloom to your signature with AB, but none of the Eurocanards can really do it effectively in a true combat configuration, especially the anemic Gripen E/F.
I’m basing my statements off of decades of immersion in the US/NATO aerospace community with specific knowledge of certain airframe and sensor characteristics, as well as important weapons metrics relevant to the discussion.
The pylons on Gripen add to the drag index, as do the new AREXIS EW pods on the wingtips. If you look at the QRTs, they add a lot of drag on the wingtips and trailing edges of the wingtip rails with more volume that doesn’t help it at all with transonic or supersonic speeds. Combined with the engine’s limited thrust in dry power, the Gripen E won’t supercruise with 4 AAMs, but the demonstrators did with the old rails.
Saab went suspiciously silent in this regard once the Gripen E got heavier and bulkier.
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@darploin5071 I was in the US military, grew up in it, did 10 years active duty all over the world, then spent 11 years working with a lot of NATO or NATO Partner nations in Europe.
In the serious side of the US Reconnaissance community, we respected and looked up to the UK, learned a great deal from them in that skill set.
A standard British Army Recce unit is typically better trained and disciplined in Recon than most US SOF units, with exceptions in only a few units in SOCOM, and 2 or 3 sub elements within JSOC who specialize in that.
In LRSC, we internalized everything we could from NATO at ILRRPS, a lot of that being driven by UK senior NCO instructors there who cross-pollinated their approach to Recce to other central European NATO partners who comprised ILRRPS.
One of the only units in the US who has emulated British discipline and tenacity for tough, realistic training is Ranger Regiment. They are very much like Para Regiment and Royal Marines.
The UK's military is tiny compared to anything in the US, so they can be really focused on discipline and high standards. The USMC's Air Wings dwarf the UK RAF and Royal Navy Air components, for example. USMC has way more fighter aircraft than RAF and RN combined.
USMC is tiny compared to the other services in the US.
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Medical bankruptcy is one of the most inflated claims in the US to generate hype for political purposes, while not having a very significant influence on bankruptcy filings. Bankruptcy filings are a result of multiple factors, and medical bills are nowhere near the top factor according to all the data I have studied. For starters, Elizabeth Warren’s cherry-picked study went to 2005, where there were only 1.45 million bankruptcies filed in the whole US including Chapter 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15. Only Ch 13 is for wage-earners, while Ch 15 represented the largest % of filings. The study expanded the parameters to include if people had missed 2 weeks of work due to sickness, had medical bills over $1000, and mortgaged their home to pay for bills.
If bankruptcy filers fell into those categories, it was listed as "bankruptcy due to medical expenses", even if that wasn’t true. That’s less than half a percent of the overall population who even filed for bankruptcy. By adding those parameters, they fudged the data to indicate that 61% of the filers filed because of medical expenses.
Another study in 2011 found that only 26% of Ch 13 filers said medical expenses played a role.
Some studies said 57.1% while others said more people filed bankruptcy for medical expenses than overall bankruptcy filings, which is egregiously flawed. Not only can’t all Ch 13 filers be due to medical expenses, but Ch 13 can’t exceed all of the types of Chapter filings due to the dominance of corporate and foreign businesses filing bankruptcy each year. Ch 13 is only 27-38% of bankruptcy filings each year.
Another thing is that personal bankruptcies are not a constant Y2Y. Personal bankruptcies peaked in 2010 at over 434,000 after the financial crisis, then dropped dramatically down to around 299,000 in 2016, 289,000 in 2019, and 194,000 in 2020.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcies in US Year to Year
2008: 353k
2009: 398k
2010: 434.8k
2011: 417k
2012: 375k
2013: 343k
2014: 313k
2015: 302k
2016: 299k
2017: 296k
2018: 288k
2019: 289k
2020: 194k
2021: 117.7k
2022: 149k (.05% of the US population)
Anytime someone presents a claim, automatically question whether that claim is even accurate, then do the research and understand the basic math. In the case of medical bankruptcy, it’s an extremely inflated piece of hype used by proponents of massive change to the overall US system, with no numbers to support it. It’s sensationalist hype really.
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@asianfighter62 You were seriously misled. We did full technical analysis and tactical exploitation of the MiG-29 in Grrmany, UK, and Florida and it was a piece of garbage, very crude, poor human interface, climb rate was between the F-15 and F-16, no persistence, terrible R-27 missile, but great R-73 IR helmet-cued missile.
MiGs and Sukhois do not have armor around the pilot like on the A-10, as they aren't meant to fly low and slow doing CAS and getting shot repeatedly by AAA and MANPADs like the A-10.
There are several great articles and interviews of Fighter Weapons School pilots who did all the exploit work on the MiG-29 that basically blew away the myths that were perpetuated by CIA in the US in the 1980s.
Su-27 is a lot better platform than the MiG-29 in every way, but still suffers the fate of being built by limited Russian manufacturing quality control and the same missiles.
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@markb8468 One of the first priorities Putin undertook was assessing the actual nuclear forces status, as well as the warheads and delivery vehicles, support systems, bases, and personnel. Whatever it was that he learned, he launched a nuclear arsenal revival program with the utmost focus, and used multiple intermediaries in Kazakstan, Belorussia, and Ukraine to funnel millions of dollars of donations into Clinton Global Initiative so that Obama and Hillary would bless off on selling Uranium One mining rights to Russia. That’s also a very damning exposé of Russia’s uranium mining capabilities post-collapse.
Their submarines, SLBMs, bombers, cruise missiles, and ICBMs were in sh*t state even during the Soviet Times, let alone during the collapse, which has never stopped. A huge mistake people make with recent Russian history is thinking that the collapse happened in 1991. It really picked up momentum in the early 1970s, pushed over the edge in the 1980s, and fell hard after 1991. A lot of the core industrial enterprises owned by the state were abandoned once orders ceased coming in, and those personnel collapsed to the major cities where any sign of economic activity was going on. The US actually bailed Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Kazakstan, Georgia, etc. out with Nunn-Lugar, in exchange for gaining control over many of the nuclear warheads, silos, and delivery systems left from the Soviet Times. That series of events is what triggered the rise of Putin to be one of Yeltsin’s Deputy Prime Ministers, teed-up for the 2nd Chechen War in 1999.
Yeltsin resigned on Dec 31, 1999, announcing his retirement and Putin’s new position as President, without any election.
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@A Y EU has encouraged Finland to remain neutral for decades. Finland just wants to be left alone when it comes to conflict, and trade with both East and West while working on domestic problems like population (lack of young workers), aging society, energy, and advanced technology development. Finland has been a reliable trade partner for Russia for centuries.
My family’s region, Pohjanmaa, has been exporting bailed hay to Russia since Czarist times, and they’re in the West, opposite side of the border. When I lived in Russia, I saw several Finnish products on the large store shelves like Globus, which is a German attempt to duplicate the combined business models of Wal-Mart and Costco.
Russia has enjoyed diversity of grocery, personal care, and household products like never before once the collapse’s initial velocity was reduced, and Western firms saw a huge market of 143 million people who had been excluded from Western trade for 50-60 years.
Much of Russia’s domestic construction projects were managed by Finnish, Serbian, and Swedish engineers because the Bolsheviks purged those types of people in the Revolution and Civil War, followed by the horrors of human loss in World War II.
Russia focused its remaining engineers, many of whom were injured during the war (Kalashnikov is one example) on military items, taking Western designs where all the RDT&E had been done already, then scaled those designs for primitive Russian and Ukrainian factories. Ukraine had better technical expertise in many areas, including missile and RADAR components, as well as most of the naval yards for construction of wartime vessels.
EU has promoted trade with Russia though, since Germany is the core of the EU and Germany relies on exports for its economy. They are the last ones who want to see any warfare in Europe.
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@bsastarfire250 Senior KGB officers seized Russia's main industries, namely oil/NG, heavy industries, and minerals. They didn't like the chaos under Yeltsin, so they placed the new leadership under him as 3 Deputy Prime Ministers, one of them Vladimir Putin.
Yeltsin was told to resign and he would suffer no retribution, which he did on Dec 31, 1999, announcing "no need for elections, we already know who we love".
Putin took the Presidency per the plan of the KGB oligarchs, then told them they can't stay in Russia if they plan to be involved in any politics. He took their businesses and gave them to the 2nd Generation of oligarchs, who all owe allegiance to Putin.
Putin was groomed as a strong man, Czar-like figure with the 2nd Chechen War to send the message to Russians and their neighbors that Russia was no longer weak, the days of the 1990s were over.
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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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There have been several generations of high temperature, high pressure turbine blade metallurgical evolutions.
It's all about creating a blade that can withstand and sustain high temps, while spinning at thousands of RPM, without growing or fracturing.
Then consistently form these blades with repeatable performance in thousands of engines.
The US developed a secret technology of single crystal growth using electromagnetism and microscopic orifices in the moulds.
Our HTHP blades are something out of a science fiction novel, with very difficult layers of institutional knowledge to duplicate.
We developed that technology in the 1980s, and have pushed the performance envelope further since that time with F119, F135, and AETP motors now.
China placed moles in GE, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls Royce to steal everything they could, many of whom were arrested for espionage.
Innovators vs imitators....
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Viraqua: It was actually initiated by the USAF soon-to-be Chief of Staff since the Army was no longer procuring spare parts for the M-1 and M-2 carbines that were used by USAF Security Forces and SPs to defend Air Bases. The Army stopped M-1/M-2 Carbine spare parts purchasing after the Korean War, and the USAF didn't want to be manning their posts with Garands or M14s slung on their shoulders.
After the Army Ordnance Board declared the AR15 totally unsuitable for any military use, the USAF Chief of Staff directed the Pentagon to begin type-classification and standardization of the AR15 to become the Air Force's new service rifle. When the Army Ordnance Board received orders to contribute to this process, they were incensed, and began further efforts to sabotage the AR15. Even the sabotaged AR15s out-performed the hand-selected M14s. You can read all about this in great detail in The Black Rifle, Vol I. Excellent book on the technical and drama history behind the AR15.
When Special Forces, SAS, and SEALs got their hands on the AR15, they wanted it immediately. Army Ordnance saw that there was a good possibility now that the AR15 would out-shine their baby, the M14, so they worked even harder to destroy any chances of the AR15 being adopted. Once McNamara and his analysts found out about all this, they inserted themselves into Army Ordnance Board's inner workings and steered much of the program in order to overcome the corruption that was inherent in that team, resulting in the successful adoption of the AR15 for the Army, USAF, and Marines.
Then there was further criminal misconduct with the proofing of production rifles using different ammunition than what was being issued after the initial production lots of the correct M193 with extruded powder were expended in Vietnam, and it was replaced with production lots using ball powder that drove the port pressures around 10,000psi higher than the design was engineered for.
Like everything, the story is a lot more complicated and requires a lot of research to understand.
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@Jimbo-in-Thailand F-35s have been humiliating F-16s, Hornets, and Super Hornets for years now in BFM. The Dutch former F-16 pilots who converted to F-35A gave a great interview of how they dominated F-16C Aggressors out of Nellis for a week straight several years ago.
The Aggressor Vipers showed up Day 1 with 2x370gal EFTs, having heard about the initial test report of F-35A AF-2, which was never produced. Production F-35As are thousands of pounds lighter, while having unrestricted flight control laws relative to AF-2 when it was 4g limited.
They got beat repeatedly Day 1, so Day 2, they showed up with centerline 300gal tanks...still got beat more than not.
This went on all week until they had stripped the F-16s of any external tanks to try to even it out, which helped a bit, but they still weren't dominant.
During de-brief, the Viper drivers asked where the F-35s went after their BFM sorties. The Dutch said they were carrying GBUs the whole time and went out to practice drops in the Nellis training ranges after doing BFM because they had plenty of fuel and time.
F-35A with 2x GBU LGBs, 2xAIM-120s, 2xAIM-9X is more maneuverable with much longer legs than an F-16C with no bombs.
And none of that matters because a WVR fight would start with all-aspect AIM-9X. WVR fight wouldn't happen anyway because the F-16's sensor suite can't detect F-35s at BVR.
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@maniswolftoman So foreign services assets operating overseas in 1963 (average age for those types is in the late 40s to early 50s) who shouldn't be in Dallas, are worried about their identities being revealed?
Let's say they were in their late 20s in 1963 after their military service or Ivy league school, the Farm, language school, special regional orientation and other courses. A 27yr-old in 1963 would be 86 today. The USSR doesn't exist, and any hostile nations from the USSR don't exist anymore as they were then.
A 34yr old operative in '63 (still very young) would be 93 today. Most of these folks are dead, as are the people they interacted with overseas.
This brings us back to Dallas, not overseas operations, unless Oswald was an intelligence operative for the US.
Even still, who cares? I grew up in a highly classified community, held clearances when I was in the military, and some of the things we were involved in have exceeded their NDAs by timing out after 4 decades, very sensitive Unacknowledged programs that never happened officially.
The document dump from 2018 exposed a lot of bombshells, especially commo between LBJ and Hoover, JD Tippit on the overpass, and eye witness testimony seeing Oswald and Ruby together in Miami.
We also have the memos where investigators asked CIA agent George Bush in Dallas of his Cuban ex-pats had anything to do with it, where he asked them and they said no.
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@geneoh5048 2 years living in a foreign country on their economy, using their transportation, buying your food from their markets, organizing and planning your calendar with locals, scheduling meetings with locals, striking up conversations with people....yeah, you learn to live, eat, speak, think, and breathe in that language.
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I spent 2 decades at the Air Force Flight Test Center from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, in addition to flight test assignments that took us to West Germany and UTTR. I became very familiar with aircraft recognition in the most diversely-represented airspace in the world when it comes to military aircraft, because we had everything in that area between Edwards, Plant 42, China Lake, Point Mugu, El Toro, Nellis, and Miramar.
We used to sit in the jacuzzi at night looking at the stars 2-3x per week. In 1987-1988, we started noticing a large, silent, airliner-sized aircraft with Nav lights flying into the Antelope Valley and into the landing pattern at AF Plant 42 in Palmdale.
This was a fairly-common occurrence, but I could never make out the shape other than the Nav lights.
Maybe it was YB-2A flights pre roll-out, but it was silent, about that size.
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@seraphm6573 I’m blinded by 5 decades of experience in this specific field of aerospace and defense, where we primarily worked on A2A programs. Missile kinematics and separation aircraft performance has been bread and butter for my family for generations.
“Cruising along at Mach .8 and Mach 1.8 don’t make a difference in overall IR signature intensity.” Uh, yes it does. It makes a dramatic difference. You just happen to be conversing with someone who has done extensive analyses on IRST detection ranges on various types of airborne targets in different weather conditions.
90km detection range is for supersonic bombers in optimum atmospheric conditions using 1990s optics. If they’re subsonic, it drops considerably from there by almost half.
For small fighters, it drops even more into much closer ranges.
For Stealth aircraft like the F-22A and F-35s, you aren’t going to detect them with IRST until on the edge of visual range due to the extensive IR concealment systems they incorporate. Supersonic speed blooms them more, but they are still quite stealthy in IR spectrum. There are some interesting photos of the Rafale’s OSF showing F-22 in burner and not in burner. It’s extremely low contrast relative to the background.
Another thing people who never did this kind of work for a living overlook is PID. You don’t just shoot at Unidentified IR contacts. You have to cue other sensors onto them to try to establish PID.
Who do you think has worked on IR concealment longer and incorporated those lessons-learned into the F-35 vs J-20?
Lockheed has been working on RF Stealth and IR concealment since the late 1950s. China just barely got into the game in the 1990s.
That means F-35s will have first-look, first PID, first-shoot. J-20 will be defensive the entire time it spends within WEZ.
AIM-120D has far greater range than you listed. It has demonstrated longer intercept range on a live target drone than the AIM-54C ever did. PL-15 is a paper capability until proven otherwise, and its seeker won’t have tracking capability until within maybe 6nm, assuming F-35s choose to not allow the automated EW system to do its job.
The short story is China is way behind the power curve in all of these spaces, no matter how many people they bribe and steal from.
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@heatblast876 F-35s since Lot 4 have had smaller frontal, oblique, and side RCS values than combat-coded F-22As, according to Lockheed’s own leadership and the materials science analysis if you know what you’re looking at.
If you look at the frontal aspect of the Raptor and F-35s, you will see cavity resonance areas between the intakes of the F-22 and its fuselage/nose root area. That’s bad for stealth. F-35s have no such features, because they use Diverterless Supersonic Inlets. F-35s also have newer generations of RAM, coatings, and layerings of the RAM that are far superior to the Raptors’s (both for performance and maintenance).
From oblique and side aspects, F-35s have RF transparent materials in the tailplane area, including the booms, h-stabs, v-stabs, keel web, their spars, and cores. F-22 has metallic flat surfaces around the TVC engine nozzles, mostly composite structures for the tailplanes, but with some aluminum spars and cores. Lot 4 and later F-35s (basically the entire production lot minus the initial 6 As, Bs, and Cs) dropped the aluminum spars and structures from the tailplane area to reduce weight and increase strength in order to meet the Key Performance Parameters set by the JPO.
F-22 has a lot of titanium construction for Mach 2+ performance and structural integrity for its heavy weight airframe to be able to sustain 9gs. That Titanium construction adds to RF reflectivity. F-35s use a lot less Titanium than the F-22, and a lot more % of carbon fiber/carbon resin epoxy laminates, and carbon Bismaleimide composites. This plus the carbon nanotube RAM contribute to a smaller RCS value set from all aspects. If someone tells you any differently, you can write that source off as incompetent when it comes to this subject.
For the Su-57, they are relying on taping off seams and coating after that, which is a nightmare for maintenance. They also failed miserably with their design from the first bulkhead if you look at it. It’s basic VLO techniques that were somehow ignored on a structure than contributes around 33% of your frontal RCS. They decided to make that a reflector instead of a deflector for some reason. China did not make that gross error with the J-20, and they are even incorporating it on the J-10B/C. They also have incorporate this basic stealth design approach on the J-11D.
We simply don’t know what the production Su-57 RCS values are, nor do we know the J-20, J-11B/C, or J-11D. For the 4.7 Gen designs, they will still be large due to external stores and other bad shaping and materials.
They are not as up-to-speed with this technology set and materials science as Lockheed, and never will be. Lockheed has a head-start dating back to the 1940s, from where they did technical exploration of Nazi Germany’s early stealth systems.
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@dymphnaelsanto5577 The Soviets financed Pennsylvanian Biden’s 1972 campaign in Delaware so they could get moles into the Senate to help pass pro-Soviet treaties. They used The Council for a Livable World environmentalism activist rights front group to funnel the money into his campaign. One of their key targets at the time was the B-1A Strategic Bomber. After Biden was elected and sworn-in, he flew to Leningrad and met with senior Politburo members to get his marching orders to kill the B-1A, came back to the US, and began cheer-leading that effort in the US Senate and Congress, with help from the media. Meanwhile, “someone” transferred the technical data package to the Soviets and they finalized their design for the Tu-160, which they swear isn’t a copy of the B-1 at all (look at the 2).
After Carter and Congress killed the B-1A, Biden flew back to Russia to meet with more Politburo members and the Soviet premier, who sent him back to DC to help push along the SALT II Treaty. Biden was the prime cheer-leader again for SALT II in the Senate.
He has been an enemy to the US his entire political career, and is openly compromised by the Russians, Burisma, and Chinese with a literal money trail and open bragging about his corruption/treason.
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@hellfrogwarrior7470 From introduction of the SAW until the 2000s, we had the green plastic 200rd drums that came 4 per ammo can.
Ranger Regiment had these 100rd Cordura/plastic zippered "nut sacks", which then percolated into the 82nd, 101st, 10th MTN, 25th, 2 ID, etc.
82nd had nut sacks when I got there in 2000, but we didn't have them in any of the 6 units I had been in prior to that from 1994-forward. I think 2/75 had them already in 1997 when we went with them to Panama for JOTC, but I'm not certain on that. They had already mounted ACOGs, Aimpoints, and Surefires to their SAWs at that stage, well before the PIP SAW rail handguards existed.
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@Drew Peacock You should read Pierre Sprey’s statements on the F-15. He lost all credibility right there. Just to make sure his credibility was trashed, he then covered down on the M-1 Abrams and said it would never work, that we needed more M-60 MBTs with a few mods. There is video of him talking about how "the Air Force ruined the F-15, then ruined the F16 by loading them up with all kinds of electronic garbage.” The F-15 and F-16 have demonstrated superb combat performance from the late 1970s to the present because of “their electronic garbage”, not because of any of the metrics he thinks are important. His problem with understanding TACAIR was that he didn’t have access to data that was just being crunched as he was forming his opinions about radars and missiles, if you look at USAF experience in SEA with the F-4D, F-4E, AIM-7E2, and Teaball AWACS. He also would have been surprised to learn that the F-8 Crusader shot down most of its MiGs with missiles, rarely the gun.
The last F-15 gun kill vs another fighter was in 1979. The other 107 A2A kills have been mostly with the AIM-7F and AIM-7M, followed by the Python-3 and AIM-9M, then AIM-120. It has always set itself up for intercepts with its large APG-63 radar.
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F-35A current lot 14 is $77.9 million Unit Flyway, roughly $103.6 million Unit Program, depending on the weapons suite and support contract. The Finnish request for F-35A includes a massive list of weapons greater than most DSCA approvals I’ve ever seen. Lots of stand-off weapons including 500 Small Diameter Bomb IIs, 150 AIM-9X Block II+ (BVR capable/VLO coatings/structures), 100 AGM-154C-1 JSOW missiles, 200 AGM-158B-2 JASSM-ER missiles, 120 JDAM guidance kits, 150 GBU-38 guidance kits (500lb Mk.82 JDAM conversion), 120 BLU-117 2000lb bombs, 32 BLU-109 2000lb penetrators, 150 BLU-111 500lb bombs, EW equipment, test units, support equipment, ALIS/ODIN stations, training missiles, and tanker support. It’s interesting because there are no orders for AIM-120C7 or D AMRAAMs, because they already have ongoing contracts with those for their Hornet fleet, which they will still manage and sustain/upgrade over the next 3 years and transition them over to the F-35As as they come off the line.
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That was just one of dozens of incidents.
Pissed hot on urinalysis trying to get a commission with the Naval Reserves after multiple failed rehabs.
Crashed a rental car with his dead brother's badge, secret service business card for one if his detail agents, a bag of cocaine, driver's license, and a crack pipe. Left it there for police to find after rental agency got him a new car.
Pedophilia, threatening family with handgun, started banging his dead brother's wife while he was still married, partnered with former Moscow first Lady on her human trafficking business, Burisma, Chendong filler up spending account from China, blows through $100k and Chicoms re-fill it repeatedly, etc.
It's as if he has a stay-out-of-jail free card and he's trying to get arrested.
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@nytrol2138 I’ve been flying since the 1970s. We purposely plan flights taking weather into consideration as #1, starting with winds, then Density Altitude checked against aircraft weight. No other fighter has been tested as extensively for harsh weather as the JSF series. Gripen will fail from wx issues before F-35A ever will, but this is really an uninformed argument people make because the layers of the troposphere and stratosphere are extremely cold, getting down well into -40˚ and below. Every fighter has needed to be cold conditions-hardened even dating back to WWII era. The US has led the way in Environment and Electrical systems to deal with extreme low temps. The engines love cold, thick air.
F-35s spend more time in extreme cold at altitude because they don’t need to carry external stores, so they don’t wheeze like 4.5 Gen fighters do up in the higher bands. They average higher speeds for longer durations during their sorties, are able to cruise and refuel without using burner, and have excellent climb rates in their common configurations. Those things change on 4.5 Gen when you configure them with EFTs, FLIR pods, ECM pods, Towed Decoy pylons, and then start hanging weapons.
USAF has more arctic operations experience than Norway and Sweden combined. Look at how many Squadrons have flown from Iceland and Alaska for the past 50+ years. USAF and USMC also have been doing deployments for joint forces exercise with Norway since the Cold War, while we maintained permanent-based F-15s out of Iceland for the Iceland ADIZ mission. This is now a joint NATO mission rotation filled by air forces from Europe, several of which who have already sent F-35s there to fill it.
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@StephenGillie So pronunciation of the city names is what you gathered from this, rather than the actual historical implications and effects on the world moving forward? This is an example of public-schooling and modern universities failing to produce a quality student who understands how to critically think. You need to take a critical thinking course, a formal one. Learn about Logic, Relevance, Significance, Completeness, Precision, Breadth, Depth, Accuracy, and Fairness. Right now, you’re demonstrating to everyone that you don’t have the mental acuity to even approach the important aspects of this subject, and are trying to compensate with an obscure canard that has zero relevance to the meat of the material.
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@asdasdasddgdgdfgdg This is a common misunderstanding of STRATFOR, and now Peter Zeihan's analyses. They are not based on nativist patriotism, especially since George Friedman immigrated to the US from Hungary.
The favorable outlook for the US is dispassionately based on:
1. Geography: better than any nation on earth
2. Climate: temperate zone with long, warm spring-summer-fall seasons, relatively mild winters
3. Population and demographics, positive immigration flow
4. Economy: world's largest economy without peer, mostly driven by domestic consumption, not exports. Even with that so, US is still the 2nd largest exporter in the world, providing technologies and services that other nations can't.
5. Military. The US military is without peer, while two great oceans defend it from any meaningful foreign attacks.
These are just cold, hard facts, not "being bullish" on America. America is the bull that determines markets, trade, energy, technology, and alliances.
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* 19 trillion in debt
* "Affordable Care Act" (raised my family's healthcare 300% which killed our savings)
* Killed the F-22 production line, which was supposed to replace the worn-out F-15C fleet, creating a fighter gap
* Helped fast-track the Uranium One deal to give Russia access to strategic Uranium mining in the US
* Eliminated thousands of tactical nukes from our arsenal while helping Russia revitalize their eroded nuclear fleet
* Handicapped and leashed US domestic energy production while funneling millions to Solyndra
* Appointed radical anti-American activists to senior government positions and judicial benches
* Went on his apology tour against the US, setting off the Arab spring revolt across the Middle East, alienating key allies in the region
* Threw away hard-won victories against foreign insurgents in Iraq after the surge.
* Fired some of our greatest generals like McChrystal, while appointing careerist identity politics deviants into the JCS who have zero war-fighting capacity
* Ousted Qaddafi to steal his gold, then invite MB-loyal terrorists into Libya
* Set up some strange operation with Hillary in Benghazi that got a US ambassador killed, then was blamed on a video
* Presided over a DOJ that gave us the Fast & Furious gun-running scandal into Mexico, resulting in thousands murdered, including US Border Patrol and ICE agents, a Mexican beauty queen, with people being murdered with the weapons to this day
* Supervised radical activist IRS commissioner Louis Lehrner, who targeted conservative political groups illegally with WH protection
He was one of the worst Presidents in US history, engaging in high-level crimes directed against domestic and foreign interests of the US as a matter of policy that seems custom-built for Russian interests.
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Weird. A Russian secretary in the Foreign Ministry said in the early 2000s that Putin was going to take Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, etc. Putin’s goals were re-expansion of the Russian empire to its “rightful territories”.
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Someone leaked a Hillary Campaign internal polling document from Benenson Strategy Group, saying that she was weak in enthusiasm, and they had her losing 19% to his 77% Nationally in the polling they did. I actually called Benenson Strategy Group up and asked about their methodology in polling, and they got very guarded with the responses. That was on November 7th.
Some of the key words in that document that preface their findings were: "NO SKEWS OR NARRATIVE SCREENS WERE EMPLOYED"
They then go on to say:
"Executive Overview: Hillary Clinton Flash-Crash to 12% Favorable, Losing 19-77% Nationally
At this point Donald Trump has both momentum and enthusiasm. Distrust in the mainstream media is blunting the impact of the
collective polling narrative. As Election Day approaches, Hillary Clinton’s favorable ratings have crashed to historic lows (12%) in nonpartisans
and Donald Trump is consolidating support (97% of LV Republican-identifying respondents are either enthusiastic or very
enthusiastic about voting for Trump).
Among independents, Hillary voters who are exposed to any alternative media (73%) are aware of the WikiLeaks emails and find them
either disturbing (54%) or deeply disturbing (18%). Among liberal-identifying whites, support is shifting from Hillary (-27 since October
1
st) to Donald Trump (78%) or Jill Stein (21%).
For voters who solely consume mainstream media only 28% are aware of the WikiLeaks emails and of those, only 8% are aware of the
content. For these voters Clinton leads Trump by +8.
Minority voters are less likely to consume alternative media (only 14%) and are less likely to be aware of the email leak (only 18% for males,
9% for females). Even with this group, enthusiasm is down 63 points compared to October 2008. "
https://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/benenson-strategy-group-salvage-program.pdf
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@SumTinWong01 I’ve been shooting and working with AKs since the 1980s. Have fired and broken down multiple variants since that time, to include Norincos, Russian Type 2s, Romanian PM 63s, East German MPI-AKS-74s, AKMs, North Korean AKs, Egyptian Maadis, Arsenals of all types, Yugoslavian M76s, Valmet Rk62s and Rk76s, SAKO Rk92S and Rk95s, Galil ARMs, Galil SARs, Galil 7.62s, Saigas, and a bunch I’m forgetting.
The Russian variants can be hit-and-miss like most of the others. FSBs are typically never TDC and are difficult to zero. The pins that retain the piston to the bolt carrier have walked loose and started to score the gas tubes on the Romanian PM63s we had when shooting high volume.
East German guns ran really well, don’t recall any issues. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a malfunction with a 5.45x39 rifle.
None of them compare well with the quality of the Finnish guns. The Finns simply out-class all the others, but they are boat anchors to carry, even the stamped steel Rk76 has twice the sheet steel thickness you would need.
I’m only discussing actual military rifles mostly here, with the Saiga and civilian Norincos being the exceptions. I’ve shot plenty of civilian import WASRs and Arsenals in the US. Romanian guns have gone up and down depending on the time period. I generally avoid them like the plague.
As far as assembly methods and materials “quality” among any of the Warsaw Pact guns, the only ones that show attention to detail and upper European hints of quality are the Polish and East German guns. The Czech Vz.58 is a well-made rifle with much better machine work and finish.
Basically all AKM variants are trash in Warsaw Pact outside of the Poles and Eastern Krauts. You get the sense that really depressed people who didn’t give a rip cranked the things out, and it shows.
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Finns have been training actively in CQM, rifle/pistol/sniper marksmanship, and many other military disciplines for a long time now. As to switching shoulders, one of the senior training Det NCOs in The Unit conducted numerous After-Action interviews with operators who had deployed to Iraq to ask them about how well shooting from the opposite shoulder training worked for them downrange. All of them said they never used it, and just leaned over a bit with their strong shoulder. Many of the drills and techniques they were doing got invalidated in actual combat, and they refined their training accordingly.
I went over there in 2005 and worked with their Sniper Community from then until 2016. I thought I would be showing them all kinds of things I learned from all my Sniper Training and experience from 10 years of active duty in the US, including 3 different Scout Sniper Platoons, LRS, SOTIC MTT, etc. They were way ahead of the power curve, already using doppler Radar ballistic data for Lapua’s projectiles, no longer using old G1 drag models, extremely competent in that skill set.
FiAF pilots are among the best in the world, but extremely quiet about anything they do. Finland likes to be silent and underestimated.
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@petesjk US fighter pilots, bomber pilots, and even maintenance crews are considered elite. You have to compete to get into any of those positions. US fighter pilots have operated with autonomy and localized decision-making since the 1940s in actual wartime deployments all over the world, supported by air planners, maintenance, and ordnance crews who have had to prove themselves repeatedly under very hazardous conditions. US/NATO forces have inter-operated almost seamlessly in these spaces while Sweden theorizes on how to do it for real. US/NATO have been running regular exchange programs between pilots, Special Forces, aerospace engineers, test pilots, air planners, Navy duties, etc. for generations. The whole reason we went to West Germany in 1980 was part of an International Scientific Exchange Program working on what eventually became the Eurofighter Typhoon. We ended up helping them with the Tornado too, which was all kinds of nightmares at the time. Just because Sweden has been marginal in that relationship doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist with the mainland European partners.
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Fauci has been working on weaponizing coronaviruses as far back as 1999. The FDA has rejected just one of his applications for mRNA treatments labeled "vaccines" 30 times one year, saying that since the therapy didn't provide protective function, it could not be legally or medically qualified as a vaccine.
Pre-2017 Clinical trials showed all the adverse effects we're seeing now, so it's no surprise to researchers who have been working on these viruses and countermeasures that they cause thrombosis, thrombocytopenia, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, Myocarditis, anaphylaxis, and death, because that's what they saw in the trials before the 2020 rushed trials.
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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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There isn’t any important metric where the Gripen E/F is better, not in capabilities, performance, and especially not in cost. Take off distance is much longer with Gripens, payload is less, sensors are lame in comparison, and it’s still in development after 15 years, not operational. Nothing about the Gripen makes sense for Finland. It would be taking steps backwards from the F/A-18C, which actually has an impressive IFF system from the US, is capable of delivering several stand-off weapons right now, can actually get off the runway with them in hot weather (cold is better, shorter take-off), and is one of the most ironed-out fighter designs already in existence.
Gripens cost way more than F-35As or even F-35Bs and Cs, so it’s a non-starter from a budget perspective. Unit program cost for Gripen E/F is $155 million to Brazil.
F-35A Unit Program Cost is $103.9 million, while unit flyaway is $77.9 million.
A single F-35A could erase 6 Gripens from the sky, and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
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@ssranon The YF-23 didn't have a working weapons bay missile storage and ejection system, just proposals and some initial design work.
The YF-22 already had not only a fully-fumctioning main weapons bay for AIM-120s, but the cheek bays for the AIM-9, both of which were demonstrated with in-flight separations.
The proposed F-23A was going to have an additional forward weapons bay, which would lengthen the already-long fighter, and still not reach the weapons count of the F-22A with its 6x AIM-120 & 2x AIM-9.
Due to the need to redesign the intakes and supersonic airflow management, tight tolerances Northrop demonstrated between control surfaces and the wing, the unresolved continued wind screen fractures, and questions about the viability of their weapons bays proposals, the costs to do extensive RDT&E on all of those were going to be extensive, whereas Lockheed/GD/Boeing already had that figured out on the YF-22.
The F-23A would have added years and another $100 million in R&D easily, with the risk of extending or missing critical deadlines to address all those issues.
It was a beautiful airframe with immense power and graceful handling, just had a lot of loose ends that would require major efforts to correct that the YF-22 had already conquered.
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My question from an industrial scaling standpoint is: Where are they going to get all the semiconductors and TRM elements for all the sensors specified in the Su-57? It’s supposed to have 3 AESA Radars in the nose, various antennae distributed throughout the airframe, missile warning sensors, cameras, nice glass cockpit, DFLCS, FADEC, EW systems, etc. That’s a lot of X-Boxes I guess. They have to buy civilian electronics, process them through a grey market component extraction scheme, then solder the Western microelectronics into their boards. What a horrendous supply chain to try to manage. What happens when someone exploits that supply chain with malware and failure-designed components?
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@anonymousm9113 I remember my first Company formation. 1SG Howard barked out, "I need 2 volunteers!"
I felt myself shoved forward out of my platoon formation along with another private from another platoon as some SPC4 said, "That means you, new dick!"
"Congrats studs, you just got the 2 extra tickets for our Company rafting trip!"
We went to these rapids in West Virginia, had boat-on-boat wars splashing and capsizing each other, just a great time on some genuine rapids.
The only thing that really ruined it was I had an openly-racist black Squad Leader who was a total POS. He came in my room on weekends trying to play Drill Sergeant, and even tore up some of my materials from Church right after I had got back one Sunday.
He would talk about violating and beheading our PSG's wife when we were standing in the bus in our blues between jobs, always trying to agitate some type of response from the EMs.
Back then, H Co had Recon, Mortars, and Caisson Platoons. Recon was one of the best units I was ever in out of 3 Scout Platoons and LRSC in my career. We just trained and trained at AP Hill, did 8-day demo week, tons of IADs with more ammo, pyro, and smoke grenades than I ever saw until OIF. Of the 3 Scout Platoons I was in, that was the only one with a Sniper section where everyone was B4. They even sent 4 of the guys to Quantico USMC Scout Sniper Instructor Course.
Recon Platoon basically got the Regiment's allotment for munitions, including AT4s and other Class V. We did a lot of OPFOR Augmentee or OPFOR duties on-call for other units, which was a blast.
If they had kept that Platoon longer, I wouldn't have volunteered to go to Korea. Once we got notice it was being deactivated, I put in the papers and had orders within a week.
Smithsonian was renovating the barracks as I left for Korea. Went to 1-506th on the DMZ in Korea which I loved, DROS'd to Fort Lewis in I Corps LRSC, which was a dream job for me, got deactivated, sent to 1-24 Inf Scouts in 1st BDE 25th on Lewis, then went to Bragg.
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@dss8345 From 2005 to 2016, I shot a lot of high-volume courses with Finnish Defense Forces and Active Reservists around the seasons. A lot of the courses we did were in the dead of winter. Already in the 2000s, there were a high number of guys with AR-15s and ArmaLite AR-10s. The conclusion I came to for what I would want in this category of weapon based solely on reliability, lightweight, portability, and ergonomics was an 11.5” AR with normal Stoner Internal Expansion Gas System. Nothing wrong with that at all. In course-after-course, I never saw a proper-built 11.5” 5.56 AR-15 have a malfunction.
I did see quite a few malfunctions with Arsenal AKs in 7.62x39mm. I never saw an Rk62 or Rk92 or Rk95 malfunction, but they are boat anchors with almost no optics or LAM-mounting capacity.
Moving forward, I think a 12.5” with a reflex suppressor option would be cool, so no real sacrifice in velocity or portability. All the guns need to be coated in something other than black, preferably OD Green or a two-tone OD and that M05 Grey from the intermediate season camo you see Ian wearing in the beginning of the video. Black weapons are TGT indicators for drones and human eyes.
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The West has delayed and slow-rolled deliveries from the start, for various reasons:
1. At first, everyone thought Ukraine would fall. No reason to throw resources into the Russian's hands.
2. Once Europe saw that Ukraine could at least delay Russia from pushing westward, several NATO countries threw some limited material to the Ukrainian Army, like light anti-tank weapons.
3. Once it became a drawn-out war of attrition, pretty much everyone in Europe wanted to continue to attrit Russian fighting capability without escalation.
It doesn't help to send Ukraine overwhelming weapons that give them a decisive advantage that crushes the Russians if the Russians then ratchet up into WMD employment in the region.
NATO in Europe, aside from Poland and Finland, have drawn down war stocks and weapons developments for the past 32 years, especially Germany, France, and UK.
Everyone now is expecting the US to pick up the slack.
Mike Johnson has been privy to far more informed classified briefings than you ever see from academics on YouTube will ever see during this war. I would be very calculated in checking myself before second-guessing the Speaker of the House.
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@jb7483 US has the largest farmland in the world which is also in a temperate zone, a vast connected river network, 3 huge mountain ranges in the lower 48, a much larger coastline with sea ports you can actually bring heavy displacement vessels into, multiple warm water sounds and bay areas, huge deposits of light sweet crude, NG, forests, dwarfing Russia's capacity in every meaningful metric. Russia has no natural infrastructure to transport, is extremely cold or soggy, limited harvest seasons, and relies almost entirely on imported US or European technology to run its farming and extraction.
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Whatever you do, don't look at PLAAF safety record. You will be shocked and ashamed at how often J-10s, J-11s, J-8s, J-7s, etc. crash, explode in the air, fall apart, crash into villages, or into mountain sides. They have a horrible safety record. PLN is not capable of flying cyclic operations like US Navy. They're a total joke in comparison. So is PLAAF when it comes to safety. PLAAF is so bad, I can tell you when the next J-10 will crash this year (Sep-Nov, there will be a crash).
Oct 21, 2021: J-10S crashed
Oct 5, 2020: J-10 crashed
Sep 4, 2020: J-10 crashed
Oct 14, 2019: J-10 crashed
Oct 18, 2018: J-10S crashed, 2 fatalities
Nov 12, 2016: J-10S crashed, 1 fatality
Dec 17, 2015: J-10SH crashed
Nov 19, 2015: J-10A crashed, 1 fatality
Sep 19, 2015: J-10 crashed
Nov 15, 2014: J-10S crashed
April 22, 2010: J-10 crashed, 1 fatality
Aug 1, 2009: J-10A crashed
Mar 7, 2009: J-10A engine failure
Dec 17, 2007: J-10A crashed
July, 2005: J-10A crashed, pilot killed
Would you like me to list the 105 incidents with the Su-27/J-11/Su-30/Su-35 series of Flankers?
Chengdu F-7(J-7) crashes as a feature. 18 of them have crashed in the past few years. Total piece of trash death trap.
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@JuanPassiveMenis Japan is already in demographic winter, but what Japan did from a manufacturing perspective was locate a lot of their facilities in other countries, from Asia to the US and Europe. For example, there are 14 North American manufacturing facilities in mainly the US, with a few in Canada and Mexico. Both of my Toyota vehicles were made in Indiana.
Toyota alone has 9 factories in Asia outside of Japan, 8 in Europe, 5 in South America, and 1 in South Africa, plus a bunch of joint venture plants all over the world.
Japan diversified their manufacturing sector geographically, while maintaining corporate ownership and control.
China is trying to keep as many people employed in China as possible while increasing domestic consumption to fuel their own economy, but older people don’t have income to spend on fueling that, so they’re really screwed in this respect.
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When we passed through Copenhagen in 2005 and stopped at a mall, I felt like I was in Kuwait City or Riyadh, not Scandinavia.
Helsinki has been totally transformed with immigrants from Somalia, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Abdul procreates with his sister, aunts, and cousins cranking out babies like rabbits, so they can get government money for each child, social services-funded apartments, strollers, baby starter packs, monthly stipends, free public transportation, and benefits with no work.
The French people are more openly-vocal against these policies than most. They say things you aren't allowed to say in the US because the French have a very devout sense of national pride and dostinct culture rooted in their history, language, art, food, and geography.
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@Albertkallal Good points but the graph for Gripen weights doesn’t seem right, especially for Gripen E. I weighed everything including pylons, rails, ammunition, the gun, and Gripen E with 3750lbs of internal fuel with only 4 AAMs has only a .92 T/W ratio. It’s pathetic, goes backwards from every other real 4th Gen fighter. Pylons on the Gripen weigh about 200lbs each. LAUs weigh around 100lbs, the basic rail without coolant is 87lbs. It’s basically not possible to get a Gripen E to have better than 1:1 or even 1:1 T/W outside of a low post-Bingo fuel state.
You could make an Excel graph that includes all of the suspension equipment, pods, rails, ejector racks installed in the pylons (heavy), ECM pods, ammunition, and fuel states to get a more accurate graph. I’ve spent quite a bit of time crunching all the numbers and I’d be ashamed to even mention the Gripen of any variant in that conversation. Take-off performance for the Gripen is sad as well.
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The problems with Russia are its geography and demographics. Russia has suffered many major brain drains since 1914:
1. The Great War 1.7 million casualties
2. Bolshevik Revolution (persecuted scientists who didn’t accept Marxism, relocated millions of people, causing mass deaths, as well as executions)
3. Russian Civil War caused 7-12 million casualties
4. Holodomor in Ukraine was anywhere from 9-20 million. Mass graves with destroyed records as Soviet policy prevents us from knowing how many for sure.
5. Dekulakization involved liquidation, deportation, and forced labor camps for 1.5 million of Russia’s greatest farmers.
6. Then The Great Patriotic War happened, and Russia lost anywhere from 26.6 million people on-up, many still missing to this day, 6 million buried still unidentified
7. Stalin’s mass executions
8. Khrushchev era collapse of Russian peasants to the cities, low birth rate began
9. Late 1980s-1990s collapse of Soviet Union and flight of Russian intelligentsia, engineers, scientists, professors, technicians
10. Ukraine conflicted from 1914-present
Reasonable people have been systematically purged from Russia for over 100 years, whether by foreign wars or domestic policies and extremely bad leadership. This is the plight of Russia.
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It should have been named Selektiver Feuerkarabiner (SFk-42/43/44).
It's not a machinegun (like a Maxim, M1919, or MG42) submachinegun (MP38, MP40, Thompson, or PPSh), or automatic rifle (Chaucer, BAR).
Most firearms of that time that were machineguns were automatic fire mode only.
Most SMGs except the M1921 and Kp31 were open bolt, full auto only, so putting "machine" in the nomenclature of the MKb42 only made sense if it was full auto fire mode only.
Select-Fire Carbine more accurately describes the weapon, without adding a purpose in the name like "Sturm", since soldiers will use their assigned weapons for both the defense and offense.
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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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@DennisMerwood-xk8wp You forgot the USMC, USN, Israeli AF, Danish AF, Norwegian AF, Royal Netherlands AF, Italian AF and Navy, Polish AF, Belgian AF, Royal Australian AF, Japanese AF and Navy, South Korean AF, Singapore AF, and UAE AF.
The collective pilot and air planner communities of all these air forces are suffering from Dunning-Kruger, whereas someone with your brilliance knows far better than them. If only they could have consulted with you and avoided investing in this "worthless program". You see that sting of reality kicking in now?
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@chrissmith7669 The zero-out features are for the threat library, COMSEC, freqs, AIFF, EW automated algorithms, weapons employment, MADL codes, etc., not for the DFLCS, FADEC, or basic air-vehicle management systems.
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@nattygsbord Rolling Thunder involved medium altitude ingress, not low. Henry Kissenger and LBJ sent the target coordinates to the North Vietnamese every night before the F-105Ds or F-4C/Ds would fly the missions the next day. It had nothing to do with North Vietnamese being smart. F-105D pilots complained that they saw the SA-2 sites being installed, but weren’t allowed to bomb them, only to be shot down by them later on other sorties. LBJ fought Vietnam with US military’s hands tied behind their backs. The air war should have been over in about 2 weeks. Iraq had a much more formidable IADS network, fighters, SAMs, Radars, MANPADs, Roland SAMs, etc. and they were eviscerated in days, gloves off.
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So I’ve been in this business since the 1970s, and nothing you said is adding up for me based on all I know about fighter fire control Radars. The “cone of detection” is something for MSAs. AESAs use beam-steering through interferometry between the transmitter-receiver modules. Frequency range is something entirely different than azimuth and vertical scan field of regard. Freq range within X-Band is determined by physical characteristics of the TRM emitting/receiving elements, and the antennae size on older MSAs. It’s the whole reason why missile seekers are in a different region of the frequency bandwidth due to limited size of the antennae.
As to Thrust-to-Weight ratio, that math isn’t working out either. You need to add operational empty weight with internal fuel, pylons, ammunition, the gun, LAUs, and then calculate available thrust across the altitude/speed regime. For a static book answer, you can set up at 20,000ft at .9 Mach with 50% internal fuel and weapons. It’s not going to be 1.6/1. Where did you read that EJ200 is getting 4000-7000lb thrust increase per engine?
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@jascu4251 Interesting that you mention organized crime. In the late 1800s US, syreet gangs worked for the local politicians doing electioneering, intimidation, and whatever it took to keep their politician bosses in office. In exchange, they were given practical immunity to loanshark, run betting schemes, racketeering, and prostitution by the police chiefs.
When Congress saw fit to finally pass Prohibition in 1919 after giving themselves a bigger revenue stream with Federal Income Tax in 1913, they handed all the revenue from alcohol to those organized gangs.
Taxes and excises on alcohol accounted for billions in then-year dollars, so you can calculate retail sales in the tens of billions.
The legacy WASP and Irish gangs of the late 1800s then had to contend with the newer Italian, Sicilian, Russian Jews, and Slav gangs as they were all drowning in billions of cash that had to be laundered.
Meyer Lansky suggested they all work together as syndicates and abandon violence to promote financial advancement.
They flipped the tables during the 1920s on their political bosses by buying Congressmen, Judges, Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, city councils, and Senators, while financing Presidential campaigns even when we look at FDR-forward.
They legitimized and took over the government. Peter references this when interviewers ask about the cartel problem.
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@bigearl3867 There was no cut in defense spending, but reallocation of F-22 money to MRAPs.
USAF did not go along with it, as multiple USAF Chiefs of Staff literally sacrificed their careers trying to save the Raptor, and were fired.
They also knew and explained to Congress that not replacing F-15Cs with F-22s would cost more in the long run, and leave a fighter gap as F-15s built from 1979-1986 would time-out their airframe service lives, requiring billions in SLEP and sensor upgrades.
SECDEF Gates was on a mission to kill the F-22, and it had nothing to do with money.
The F-22 was going to be forward-deployed in Europe (UK, Germany, and other bases) to the tune of 200 aircraft.
Same for in the Pacific out of Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, and Guam. CONUS fighter squadrons along the coast would regularly rotate through Europe and the Pacific for Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises like we have always done.
This would have given Theater Combatant Commanders the no-BS capability to erase any air force in those regions.
This is why the Russians and Chinese wanted Obama to keep SECDEF Gates on after Bush43, to see to it that the Raptor program was terminated politically before it could go into Full-Rate Production.
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@jamesmorrow1646 I have, however you don't see any transfer of these heat impulses from the population centers up to the Arctic, at least not on NASA's model.
Also, temps have been declining since 2015 at a time when heat generated from human activity has never been higher.
I've been following this subject since LANDSAT in the 1970s when the alarmists warned of the impending Ice Age, and I come from an extensive aerospace background that frequently deals with atmospherics, temperature, barometric pressure, the layers of the atmosphere relative to travel in the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosohere, and exosphere. We've also had to deal with solar effects with communications systems and weather, so when I frequently see extreme levels of scientific ignorance from some of the loudest voices promoting radical changes to our behavior, pardon me while I don't take them seriously.
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@ssranon The F-22A didn't exist in 1991, so any claim that its challenges were solved would be erroneous. Only 2 YF-22 prototypes existed then. The YF-22 & F-22A are quite different aircraft.
Since multiple new ground-breaking technologies were being integrated, there were major hurdles to overcome that no other nation has been able to do.
OBOGS wasn't an F-22 specific problem, but fleet-wide including the Navy.
The YF-22 never met the weight goals of ATF, whereas the YF-23 did, which rarely gets mentioned. The YF-22 PAV-1 with GE YF120Ls was the only 1 of 4 that exceeded Mach 2.
Since the Lockheed team had done a lot of extra credit and solved the high supersonic airflow problem using a VLO splitter plate geometry, as well as solving the weapons bays and ejector rack separation.
They had to redesign the airframe, wings, stabs, vertical stabs, engine nacelles, intake placement, ductwork, and most difficult-make the IFDL work between multiple Raptors with the volume of data being shared.
The F-23A would have had to have tackled all these challenges as well, and OBOGS would have caused the same problems.
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@romankovalev7894 F-35s are the safest, most reliable fighter series ever produced, with the lowest MMHPFH and highest availability rates of any designs to-date. Even the F-35B has lower MMHPFH than the F-16. F-35A has astonishingly-low MMHPFH at 3.5-4.4hrs currently.
For sensors, look at the building blocks available to China's industry, then work up from there. China can only produce low-quality, low performance semiconductors. You need high performance, high quality SCs to populate the AESA, EW antenna suite, and central processors. These are very real constraints, not imaginary things based on patriotic blindness.
If your SC materials are lower capability, it forces you to have to make a bigger antenna array for your AESA.
It also handicaps your ability to stabilize and process IR spectrum imagery, so the copycat DAS and EOTS on the J-20 will never be near the performance of those on JSF. Meanwhile, they're already onto the next generation EOTS and DAS that will populate Block 4 JSF, with 2x the resolution and lighter weight, less cost.
China are imitators with a very handicapped industrial sector when it comes to high quality electronics.
Now apply that to missiles as well. If China is building the electronics for their missiles, what's the pk? How robust is their weapons test community? How often do they live-fire on maneuvering, supersonic target drones with instrumented test range complexes?
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@Leto2ndAtreides One of my contacts was in the Russian foreign ministry when Putin came into power in 2000. He said that with the new leadership, Russia would be taking back Kazakhstan, Dagestan, Chechnya, South Ossetia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland “because those are historic Russian territories anyway”. That’s literally the viewpoint inside the Russian foreign ministry under Putin. So far:
Kazakhstan is under puppet rule, with repressions of uprisings where blood has flowed in the streets like a river.
They took South Ossetia/Georgia in 2008 (when I was in Estonia).
They occupy Chechnya
When Ukraine threw out Yanukovych in 2014 (4 months of Euromaiden), Russia invaded Luhansk and Donetsk, then annexed Crimea.
Once Biden got into office, the door was open for Putin to invade Ukraine with a quick special military action, coordinated with Biden evacuating Zelensky.
Zelensky not going along with the plan threw a wrench in everything, which bought Moldova, Poland, Romania, the Baltics, and Finland another 3-7 years.
Notice how Biden killed Keystone XL pipeline as priority #1 when he took office? That was to raise oil prices back to over $100/BBL for Russia, which is exactly what happened. Biden has been on Soviet payroll since 1972, when they paid for his hopeless Senate campaign in Delaware.
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@war8036 F-35B first flight was June 11, 2008. They’ve been flying ever since then with production deliveries of 140 to USMC and 25 delivered to UK. In the past 13 years, only a total of 3 F-35Bs have crashed including this latest one, with 0 fatalities.
Of the 584 F-35As delivered, only 2 have crashed. One from an unresponsive/unconscious Japanese pilot who flew into the ocean from high altitude at a steep angle with no attempts to recover (CFIT), and the other from a USAF pilot who left the autopilot speed hold on at 202kts and tried to land it that way at night, bounced off the runway and ejected.
In the first 10 years of F-16 service, we lost 143 to crashes, with 71 fatalities.
In the first 10 years of F-15 service, we lost 54 with 26 fatalities.
F/A-18 was 94 losses and 27 fatalities.
The Russian MiG-21? Triple the F-16’s numbers, with at least 1/3 of them from combat losses (over 100 combat losses in just 10 years). MiG-21 has a terrible safety and efficacy record. Same with MiG-23. Flankers explode in flight regularly and have a terrible safety record as well, the most fatalities involved compared to any modern fighter, but this was due to the Ukrainian airshow incident with 77 killed on the ground.
Typhoon has a very safe record, as does the Rafale.
All 3 F-35 variants combined have a safer record that Typhoon or Rafale.
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@katherineberger6329 F-20A would have made a beautiful point defense fighter for really poor air forces in undeveloped or developing nations who can’t afford unit prices over $10 million each in early 1980s dollars. Stack up a small squadron so a dictator/president can look at his shiny new Air Force, send up air defense fighters to rattle the sword a little bit, and actually be able to intercept peer adversaries who step into your airspace.
A problem with that for the F-20A at the time though was AIM-7 carriage. Sure, you can hang them on the wings, but the clearance from the ground was unacceptable in practical terms for a squirrely highly-maneuverable fighter that gets blown around like a leaf in the pattern with crosswinds. It’s asking for ground strike with the AIM-7s if you ever see it.
It had excellent man-machine interface taken from Northrop’s development of the F-18L, but a tiny search and track radar with roughly half the detection range of the F-16’s APG-66, no volume to support a large radome or back-end power amps, filters, converters, and cooling. And this was still in the era of Mechanically-Scanned Arrays with their susceptibility to low Mean Time Between Failure, no matter what was advertised.
Or you could spend a little more, get full interoperability/sustainability with a rapidly-growing global F-16 fleet, full multirole capability including Anti-Ship, precision weapons coming online, AMRAAM around the corner, new avionics already being demonstrated for the C model, etc.
To play contrarian to my own train of thought though, many of those F-16AMs in NATO service ended up with at least $103 million in sunk costs per unit after SLEP upgrades.
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@butterflies655 My first trip to Finland was in 1979, as my mom is from there and we went to visit relatives and friends. We lived in West Germany from 1980-1982, and travelled all over Europe.
I was also an exchange student in Japan, and traveled to Mexico several times since the 1970s. Joined the military and was stationed all over the US, South Korea, and Middle East. Went to Panama as well.
Lived in Finland from 2005-2006, then went 2-4x per year from 2007-2016. Have relatives in Sweden, have been to Estonia 12 times, lived in Russland, and total country count is 30.
Finland used to have far less immigrants than most places in Europe, but they have let more in over the past 20 years to where many places in Helsinki are unrecognizable and run-down.
Denmark made me think I was back in the Middle East when we rolled through there in 2005. Copenhagen was filled with Middle Eastern immigrants in the malls during the day. It was crazy.
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@gsd632 The entire JSF program projected lifetime costs are thrown around without dividing them by JSF-A, JSF-B, or JSF-C.
Neither JSF-B nor C are applicable to foreign partners who are only interested in the CTOL variant as a cost liability. To the contrary, the sharing of engines, radars, RF, electro-optical, and other subcomponents between the 3 variants has brought the costs way down for the F-35A, which would benefit nations like Canada.
The public opinion and influence on elections in Canada is opposite of what you see in Japan, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, and UK.
UK had similar scandal-hungry media, until they realized how many jobs and market share the UK has in every JSF variant, not just the JSF-B used by Royal Navy/Royal AF. The JSF-B costs a lot more per unit as well, but is now lauded in even popular UK media like Top Gear.
As you read about the Canadian perspective, it's as if Canadian media is in an alternate reality still.
Trudeau campaigned on not purchasing the F-35 and buying something cheaper.
There really isn't anything cheaper as you stack the ancillary 4th Gen systems like External Fuel Tanks, FLIR/ECM/Recce pods, and scaled logistics support at the squadron and phase levels.
It's very disingenuous or misinformed to claim there is a cheaper option, especially when the "most affordable" Gripen E has higher unit costs and far less capability than the F-35A, with less ability to maintain that station time for the NORAD mission profile, or interoperability with NATO for joint operations Canada has historically partnered in.
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@somethingelse9535 The US contributions to Ukraine are sunk costs in 22-36yr-old weapons that were scheduled for de-mil, long removed from the modern munitions feed into Active, Reserves, or National Guard units.
We're talking about 1980s-1990s ATACMs, HIMARS, TOWs, Javelins, Patriots, M2A2 Bradleys, etc.
We spent billions on them in the 1980s-1990s, and then are left with the burden of de-militarizing those systems, which is extremely expensive.
Loading them up onto transports is exponentially cheaper and removes a significant burden DoD has to deal with every year.
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@saltmerchant749 Every nation that signed on to the EU surrendered certain elements of their sovereignty. One of the main examples of this was immigration. Most nations in the EU also adopted the Euro as their currency. The Euro is actually the German Deutsche Mark as the bench currency, just renamed and expanded to the Eurozone.
The UK never saw itself going to the Euro, because GBP has always been one of the strongest currencies on the globe.
Another problem I saw in Europe, having lived there on and off since the 1970s, was the EU parliament overriding national parliaments not only on immigration, but food, transportation, and other domestic affairs.
In Finland, there was pushback with the bent cucumber rule, for example. They also banned Finns from their normal dairy box distribution in rural areas because German tourists thought it was free meals for them, and they ate the wax off the cheese.
Silly things the EU Parliament has no business even knowi g about, let alone legislating. But these busy-body feminists see govt as the solution to everything, and keep passing stupid law after law.
UK was smart to get out.
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I was an exchange student in Japan, after my family hosted many Japanese exchange students in our homes in the US. The geography and topography definitely has created a series of practically-isolated urban states, only recently connected by a rail network in history.
Population density acts as a barrier to much travel, so there are identities associated with the different prefectures. I also noticed racial variances, poverty, and brothels that I was not expecting to see.
You could ride the bullet train to go from one city to another, but people tended to stay close to where they're from.
There is no way to compare the culture, geography, demographics, and infrastructure with anything I've seen in the US, and I've been to 48 of the 50 States, lived in 8 across distant regions (SW, NE, Mountain West, Deep South, PNW).
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Tom Splittstoesser That 11,500rd sample was just one day out of literally over 2 decades of shooting many different types of assault rifles around the world.
There are AK variants I have experience with that you will never see in the US or outside of certain nations, in addition to the run-of-the-mill mass exported models from Eastern Europe or Eurasia.
At the end of the day, almost all AKMs and variants were made in a sub-standard production chain, designed under difficult conditions in post-War Russia, without the resources we take for granted in the West. It was meant to be a mass-producable by nations with very limited production capacity, with limited resources, poverty-level factory workers, but still be able to issue a standard service rifle.
That's really the way I've come to look at the AK, after quickly retiring the romantic ideas I had about it from childhood, which all proved to be false the more I worked with them.
It's an inherently-unreliable design when it comes to debris ingestion, certain parts longevity, and compatibility with other Warsaw Pact magazines. It's the bottom of the barrel on the planet in terms of what we are capable of producing, but good enough for the regions where higher quality and more reliable designs are outside of their manufacturing base.
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RCAF already chose F-35A long ago, then the foreign-propped Trudeau ran his campaign platform against JSF, to help delay its implementation for NORAD. JSF operating out of Canada changes the Maritime Patrol environment for Russia in the Arctic Ocean because of the sensor suite and connectivity of JSF platforms, especially as RCAF integrates with USAF-Alaska and US Air National Guard Vermont. What are the first 2 bases to have operational F-35A Squadrons after Hill AFB near the Ogden Logistics Depot? AK and VT.
Canada has already invested over $631 million into JSF, and has over 20 companies in Canada manufacturing high quality subcomponents and systems that go into every F-35, which has thousands of orders that only keep increasing. The Gripen is nothing but a side clown show in the discussion about RCAF’s next fighter. Add to the fact that Gripen E/F costs way more than F-35A, and it’s dead on arrival. You can outfit an F-35A with a huge and complete weapons suite with all A2A, new generation A2G, penetrators, plus all the spares and support for F-35A and still have $26 million left over for the price of a single Gripen E Program Cost.
Imagine going to Parliament arguing for a low-capability, pathetic thrust-to-weight ration, reduced weapons payload fighter than your current one, at $52 million Unit Program Cost higher than F-35A Unit Program Cost. Even the most liberal MPs will be scratching their heads.
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There are 2 generations of Russian Oligarchs since the 1990s. The 1st Generation put Putin into power, as they were former KGB senior leadership who took over Russian oil, Natural Gas, and Mineral industries. As soon as Putin was put into power, he quickly told them they could stay in Russia, provided they never get involved with politics again. If they couldn’t follow this rule, they would be arrested, sent to Sibersk, or executed. He then took their businesses and awarded them to his appointees, who owe total allegiance to him now. It was a very effective way of establishing full political, military, and economic power (as much as one man can) over Russia.
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@rogerpennel1798 Good points. The Gripen was envisioned still during the Cold War to replace the Fighter, Attack, and Recce variants of the Viggens. The Swedish parliament (Riksdag) was very allergic to spending on defense even during the Cold War, and they hated it when they saw the maintenance costs for the different Viggen airframes. Viggen was a very high capability platform for its era with true STOL performance, thrust reverser, real short take-off, nice man-machine interface, and powerful Pratt & Whitney JT8D with a low pressure high bypass fan and an afterburner attached to it.
Riksdag didn’t want to fund a Swedish replacement for it because of concerns over cost, but the proposal for a multirole JAS fighter narrowly won by 1 vote if I’m not mistaken. A huge portion of Riksdag was against Saab developing a new fighter. Saab promised to deliver a very affordable, lightweight, multirole JAS fighter that could do all 3 main mission sets being performed by the various Viggens. That’s where the JAS-39 comes from.
The problem is they used the F404 motor, which limited performance due to its small size and thrust, so the airframe had to be much lighter than any Viggen. Lightweight airframe with an under-powered motor for its weight really took away the short take-off capability, as well as limited the combat radius and payload, but it was cheaper than building something with thrust-reversers and a 28,000lb thrust motor and heavier airframe.
As much as I criticize the Riksdag, I think they were right in wanting a foreign option like the F-16 or F/A-18. Sweden would be in a much better position now having not wasted so much money on the Gripen, and would be like Finland getting F-35As soon to replace whatever they had gone with in the late 1980s-1990s.
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@destarker1340 The AESA on JSF are not just Radar antennae, but jammers as well, as they are on F-22As, Rafale's RBE2, but things change dramatically on JSF for several reasons.
The passive RF sensor suite that you can’t see is embedded all over the JSF airframes, fused with the AESA, the IR spectrum 6xDAS, and EOTS FLIR in the nose. This combined replaces the legacy Radar Warning Receiver and Missile Approach Warning Systems of 4th and 4.5 Gen fighters. DAS is actually an evolution of the F-22A’s MAWS.
In legacy 4.5 Gen fighters, programmable defensive electronic warfare has been a thing for quite some time, all the way down to programmable countermeasures responses including expendables and decoys, how many and what type will be deployed when x type of weapon is employed against you, based on what the RWR senses and processes through its own limited threat bank. If you look at legacy RWR symbology, you see shape and alpha-numeric threat codes that are driven by the RF spectrum emissions and signatures from the threat in a clock position display.
If you look at the least-discussed 4th Gen fighter and notice that they never/rarely carry ECM pods, then realize they’ve been in service since the 1970s, the F-15 TEWS will become very intriguing to you. In reality, they had a hard time getting TEWS to work like they wanted, and ASPJ became a multi-service self protection jammer/EW system for the teen fighters, including the F-14D, based on lessons from TEWS.
The US bomber and spy plane communities have been chasing the EW dragon since the 1950s with small armies of engineers, with extensive test ranges to subject the systems to on a regular basis for continuous upgrades.
This technology eventually made its way into fighters once Digital Signals Processors and microchips became more widely-produced. The foundation for EW systems in several types of fleets in US/NATO is well-funded with the world’s best semiconductors, microprocessors, super-computing cards, and now fiber-optic signals connectivity.
If we were to have a look into what was already being used by certain aircraft in the 1960s, it would shock many AvGeeks and EEs. JSF is built on lessons-learned generations since then, with huge improvements in antennae configuration and materials science, processing, programmable algorithms, and now near real-time networking.
The ability to turn your RCS on and off on JSF is something no 4.5 Gen fighter can ever posses. When you combine that capability with the vastly-superior electronics to anything coming out of Sweden even in the next 15 years, then connect each JSF sensor/antennae node via an LPI MADL link network, it takes EW to a level that the strategic systems haven’t even had or dreamed of.
For example, MADL was installed in B-2A as an upgrade now that Global Strike Command (SAC) has seen what it can do. That changes the B-2A and what it can be used for, since it also has an impressive sensor suite.
If I were to do a video showing just the basics of all this and put the Gripen E next to it, it would be painfully apparent what a scam the Gripen E program is, and how Saab has been advertising capabilities from real systems as their own, when they really shouldn’t be discussing EW that much.
The F-15 community has kept their mouths shut about it for 5 decades. USAF is extremely strict about it, whereas US Navy is a little more revealing, but not too much.
Saab is advertising decoy jammer missiles as some kind of new thing that they have, when the first morning of the air campaign of Desert Storm had F/A-18Cs launching those 30 years ago.
JSF has been a collaborative program in ways we have never seen, so all the lessons-learned from actual decades of combat among NATO partners and the 3 US services have been foundational to the problem-solving engineered into the aircraft and systems.
In practice, F-35s have jammed the F-22’s APG-77 AESA Radar. One does not simply jam the world-class APG-77, which is used for Electronic Attack itself since the EF-111A is long-retired.
F-22A can smoke-check the Rafale’s RBE2 in this space, and the RBE2 has already been used to jam Su-35s in Egypt. The JSF sensor/EW suite currently sits high atop the pecking order of EW in fighters over the existing top dog, which has a huge gap over the rest of the pack. JSF adds cyber attack to its capability set, which is something nobody was thinking about outside of the avionics team in the program.
JSF makes it very scary to be operating any type of system in a theater where it can reach you with its weapons, which is pretty much anywhere. Did you catch that incident between the Syrians and Russians where the Syrians shot down a Russian Electronic Warfare/ELINT bird? Russia claims Israel tricked the Syrians into doing it with some type of spoofing system, but Israel says all of their F-16Is had already landed at that time the missile impacted the Russian IL-20.
The combination of VLO stealth in RF and IR spectrums, Luneberg lenses, real-time networked LPI high fidelity data links, high-speed processing, and powerful emitters with agile beam-steering/waveform manipulation techniques creates something we have never seen in the fighter world.
I would be ashamed to even bring up the Gripen E in this setting, other than to show the lower end of the spectrum in Western capability. Rafale is far ahead of Gripen, and is a very distant contender in the order of formidable EW platforms, even with it being a superb one.
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Every assertion in this video is incorrect so far, and I’m only at 3:06. The program goes back to 1983, and was joint UK/USMC/USAF for the SSF/ASTOVL way before JAST or JSF. The silly mission profile they represented in the beginning? Yeah, Israel started doing strikes with F-35s into Syria in 2017, USMC in 2018, and USAF in 2019 and nobody stopped. Video post date is Oct 2020. Numerous articles from USMC, USAF, and Israeli news document this in detail, to include availability rates, numbers of bombs dropped, sorties flown, different mission sets accomplished in single sorties, how USMC F-35Bs working off an LHD in the Red Sea covered targets from Syria to Afghanistan, and how once the UAE saw what the F-35 is capable of, were willing to make a peace deal with Israel so they could be cleared to buy F-35As as well. The future referred to in this video is years old already, with far more complex mission sets, threats, and responses.
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@mrd-fu9dh In his defense, he's been traveling to various countries for decades for white papers, briefings, and guest speaking gigs. It has been like that since STRATFOR in the early 2000s using Friedman's methods of going away from the capitols into the distant areas and making observations about whether people are at work or not, how much they eat for lunch, how long the lunches are, the condition of people's shoes, men vs women at lunch, ages, and other economic indicators. This is done in addition to an extensive geographic, demographic, industrial, infrastructure, and economic analysis using multiple reliable sources.
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@seraphm6573 Open Source updates for F-22A are listed in the Raptor Incremental Upgrade Program and kept very vague, but they have replaced the CIPs at least once with newer generation processors, used the open architecture that was available for 3x CIPs, gone to a newer APG-77(V)1 with unspecified improvements, replaced unspecified sensors with newer ones. No US fighter program has stayed static, so this is normal. You just can’t see from the outside what has changed due to the nature of the design.
Supersonic JDAM delivery and separation tests, followed by SDB separation tests were pretty big for the F-22A combat-coded Raptors. It’s a more capable VLO penetration strike platform than anything else except JSF and B-2A currently. That was done with Increment 3.1.
They programmed RF digital geolocation for surface target emitters to support its A2G capabilities, along with AESA SAR ground-mapping modes, and made it more interoperable with Link-16 protocols.
There was 3.2A with unspecified software-based improvements related to electronic protection, Link-16 receive, and PID enhancements.
Increment 3.2B brought in AIM-120D and AIM-9X interoperability, new IFDL, improved geolocation emitter detection/tracking/sharing, and some type of improved Weapon Employment Zone commonality.
It’s a much different weapons system than when it was first fielded. The major differences are in A2A capabilities, A2G weapons employment, networking, sensors, PID enhancements, EW, and processing power to support these capabilities.
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Any modern fighter built in US or NATO is designed to work across the environmental extremes. US aircraft have had to function in Alaska, Iceland, Korea, Hawaii, Panama, Florida, Germany, Norway, Middle East, Philippines, Japan.....for decades. Sweden has far less experience designing and operating in extreme cold compared to the US, and the numbers aren't even close.
If you run the numbers from the 1950s to present, the numbers of deployed squadrons, sorties, maintenance, intercepts, exercises, and types of fighters/interceptors employed by the USAF in arctic environments dwarf the Swedish Air Force to the point of almost insignificance.
We know more about what it takes to make an aircraft work in the arctic than Sweden will ever know, which is why Sweden buys GE engines for the Gripen from the US.
Sweden has historically used British Rolls Royce or US Pratt & Whitney fighter engines on the Draken & Viggen, then switched to the ultra-reliable GE F404 in the legacy Gripen, and GE F414 (Super Hornet engine) for the Gripen E.
The very heart of Swedish fighters have always been foreign-produced in advanced economies that have the industrial and technical capacity to actually build fighter engines.
You need a very large population to cross that industrial capacity threshold, and only a precious few countries have it.
Since the emerging force of Russian fighters are purpose-built to be Eurocanard destroyers, and Finland is actually on the front lines, buying a Eurocanard seems like a really bad choice in 2021.
Run some simulations of Gripen E/Saab GlobalEye up against Su-57/Su-35/Su-30SM2/Su-27SM3 networked together with Russian AWACS and drones and see how that works.
Now run it with JSF linked to other JSF partners in Europe like Poland and Norway.
You will quickly see what a waste of money Gripen E/GlobalEye would be.
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@RabiesVariant01 In the US political system, we have separation of powers to prevent these very things, so that the Executive Branch isn't supposed to co-opt the Judicial Branch like Obama did and target political opponents with the state.
Counsels in the DOJ have to receive referrals from Investigators from legitimate sources, then if there are merits, they refer them to the DOJ for prosecution.
Congress can ask for investigations, but it's bad if a President initiates them against political opponents. Obama didn't care about that at all, and his DOJ ran with the BS story of water sports from Russian whores peeing on Obama's bed in Sainkt Petersburg.
This is the biggest political scandal in US history, because we had the Executive Branch working on behalf of Hillary, using the full capacity of the Intelligence community to undermine Trump's candidacy, then try to steal the election away from him with these idiot referrals from Steele, which were paid for by a cut-out for Hillary's campaign.
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@GenovaYork951 None of those countries are even close to being Central Europe. If Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovenia are Eastern Europe, then Belorussia, Ukraine, and Russia certainly aren’t Central Europe. In Russia, they teach geography differently saying there is no such thing as a separate Europe and Asia, but Eurasia.
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@termitreter6545 F-35A current production lot is $77.9m. F-35B and C are more, but nothing is even remotely-close to $250m even in unit program cost.
Unit flyaway is the air vehicle engine combo.
Unit program is that plus spares, pylons, LAUs, ejector racks, support equipment, simulators, and a weapons package of AAMs, JDAMs, and whatever the customer orders, so unit program costs are elastic.
US average unit program costs projected for 2456 JSF airframes will be $157-$162m each with all the extras. That's less than Rafale F4 unit flyaway cost with no weapons right now (213€ million per India deal).
F-16E/F UAE Desert Falcons were $200m each unit program from 2005-2008.
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@АлександрКуницын-и6к The US bailed out Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan in the 1990s with Nunn-Lugar. American companies moved in, German companies moved in, and those products ands services were well-received.
Nobody wanted to extinguish Russia, especially not in the West. There were attention-deficit hopefuls in Washington DC and Europe who kept talking about the peace dividend, but Eastern Europeans knew history would repeat itself, so they begged to join NATO.
The US, Berlin, and London would have preferred to see an economically-strong Russia that isn’t belligerent, to help increase trade and international relations.
Russians don’t think this way though, because they’re always thinking about who will attack them next.
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@YAMAHA1 I’ve lived in Moscow and have been all over Western Europe. You’re smoking crack if you think Moscow is even remotely-comparable. Infrastructure, services, corruption, driving habits, thievery, and black market functionality make Moscow a totally-opposite metro area compared to most of Europe. Just basic access to clean water in the Khrushchev-era apartments in Moscow is an issue. We had to resupply people with clean water from countryside wells, filled in large water bottles and tied together with plastic grocery bags so you could haul 2x as many of them up the stairs. The water in the faucets in many apartment complexes in Moscow looks like a mix of urine, excrement, and rust. This is not even remotely the case in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, or the UK. Moscow is a place time forgot, very old and decrepit. The only new things about it came from Germany and the West, which are mere sprinkles of technology and products that would never have emerged from Russia in a hundred years, left to its own devices.
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@Karl-Benny The US has no intent of making a similar jet to Gripen E, never has. F-106A was a 1950s design, and even it has internal weapons bays.
F-16XL was a superb design in the early 1980s, but suffered from being underpowered. Still would have made an excellent strike aircraft with 17 weapons stations and excellent radius, but that was 40 years ago.
Nobody in USAF is saying:
"Yeah, we need 1960s thrust-to-weight, reduced payload, tiny nose, no VLO, 15 year development with no operational squadrons, and let's pay more for it than JSF."
It's a sad little project that has 1 foreign customer due to really low self esteem bribery.
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Germany has gone through several major waves of immigration post-WWII. Germany lost so many prime age males during the war, that workers had to be imported from all over to rebuild under the Marshall Plan. Turks, Greeks, Romanians, Italians, Portuguese, Moroccans, Tunisians, and Yugoslavians came in waves from 1955-1968. Those were supposed to be temporary work permits for 2 years, but companies kept renewing the permits.
Towards the end of the Cold War, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans who had been displaced throughout the Soviet Union returned to Germany. Then came more Yugoslavian refugees from the 1990s ethnic hostilities.
Then came over 1 million Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Kurds, etc. from the Middle East in the 20teens.
Now we have the mass immigration of Ukrainians into Germany since Feb 2022, so Germany will be even more of an immigration welfare economy with millions demanding free rent for apartments, while taking time to learn German and minimal labor force participation. This is happening at a time when older Germans are retiring, many of them with only 1 child born between the years 1964-1980. Those kids are all in their 40s to 50s now, and many didn’t even have kids.
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@gunguru7020 WWII was won with artillery, armor, mortars, and air power, with 75-85% of the casualties inflicted by those weapons. Small arms played an important, marginal role to the extent that it didn't really matter what types were used.
The Sturmgewehr would have been a much more effective Infantry weapon in most of the engagements, but not enough to change the outcome of any campaign, major battle, and overall war.
The common statements and memes we see about skinny soldiers winning the war with Garands and 1911s fails to satisfy the logic, relevancy, completeness, breadth, and depth aspects of the intellectual standards.
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@Asghaad SAWs draw linked 5.56 NATO, which is loaded, packaged, and stored in different containers than stripper clip 5.56 loaded ammo cans.
In the 1984-present Infantry Platoon, we drew the following types of ammo:
1. Stripper clip-loaded 5.56x45 in 7 OD cloth bandoliers, with 30rds per bandolier pocket, 4 pockets per bandolier, clip guide included. 840rd can for M855.
Prior to that, M193 was packaged differently with 20rd per pocket bandoliers.
2. SAW ammo came in entirely different ammo cans, with 4x200rd SAW drums filled with linked 5.56x45 NATO, 800rds total per can.
3. 7.62x51 NATO for the pigs in Weapons Squad in ammo cans that contained 2x100rd boxes of linked 7.62 NATO.
4. Machinegunners and Snipers drew 9x19mm for their sidearms.
5. In the Scout Sniper or Recon Platoons, we drew M118 Special Ball and/or M118LR for the M21s, M24s, and M110s, depending on timeframe.
6. Depending on deployment timeframe and unit, Mk.262 77gr OTM became available and synonymous with issue of the SPR or SDMR.
Not including any HE, HEDP, Pyro/Flares/Smoke, we had many different types of ammunition that needed to be sourced by DODIC codes and properly distributed to the units.
The one-size universal Infantry cartridge concept looks great on paper, but has no validation in the real world. 6.8x51 will fail to accomplish that since it's too large for most duty positions in the line.
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@Flankymanga Russia used to operate under the assumption that they would have thousands of fighters and attack aircraft to spearhead an invasion, including medium bombers. When they tried to make comparable 4th Generation fighters, both of which had 2 engines, they lost the industrial capacity to mass-produce fighters like the MiG-21 and MiG-23. The MiG-29 especially ushered in the demise of large airforce power that was common to the single engine MiG designs.
It happened at a time when the Soviet Union was already collapsing and the Soviet Premiers were trying to hold the alliance together. The decline of manufacturing capacity that was shared between Belarussia, Ukraine, and Russia fragmented after that, so the decline is still in-action to this day. Ukraine was a huge factor in the allied Soviet Republic industrial infrastructure not just for missiles, Radars, fighters, and strategic bombers, but for huge naval vessels like carriers, frigates, and other wartime ships from 13 different shipyards.
Post-collapse, Russia was left with no choices as the economy continued to free-fall. The US actually offered bail-outs with billions of dollars in exchange for securing or deactivating many of the nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and manufacturing plants of these devices due to the alarming rate at which former Soviet officers were selling military equipment to any buyers than came there.
As we saw in Syria, Russian armor was nothing but a series of targets for air power and USMC precision-guided artillery pieces, with total elimination of an armored Battle Group with artillery support group in a matter of 6 hours, with zero US casualties. The counter argument to that is that the battle group didn’t have Russian Air Power, but what Air Force units would make a difference when F-22As were part of the US air component force that responded to the attacks on US and Kurdish personnel? Had Russia tried to offensively employ Su-35S and Su-30SM, those would have been eliminated within minutes of entering the air space without knowing where they were being shot from.
No air power, no ground component forces have any real meaning other than providing targets for the ATO planners. This is why Russia is trying to develop hypersonic missiles, which is far easier said than done, and the US is the pioneer of hypersonic technologies both manned and unmanned.
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@Brian Waas As soon as the USMC saw how capable their F-35Bs and Cs were, they retired their EA-6Bs. F-35s in Israel, USMC, USAF, and RAF have been in combat since 2017, to include strike missions, ISR, Defensive Counter-Air, Interceptor, and Airborne Warning & Control.
Unit Costs on F-35As are lower than Gripen E, Rafale, and Typhoon.
Every single pilot with combat experience in 4th Gen fighters who transitioned to F-35 said they would absolutely take the F-35 into combat over the legacy birds, which are laughable in comparison. What is it that they know and understand that you don't? Start there and work up from that point.
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@Brian Waas The A-6 doesn't have better maneuverability in any flight regime than an F-35. This is one of the most preposterous claims I've heard to-date, and I've seen a lot of grossly-uninformed people commenting on F-35 over the years.
If you ever look at a combat-configured F-16, F/A-18, F-15C, Su-27/30/35, or MiG-29, they're carrying all kinds of external stores that create parasitic drag and reduce their speed and maneuverability.
All of them also have huge RCSs, so they show up in the JSF MADL web either on the ground, or shortly after take-off hundreds of km before they get into their WEZ profiles.
They're being tracked, PID'd, and enter into missile solutions before they realize it. They don't receive any spike or missile approach warning because of AESA LPI, fused passive sensors, and cooperative LPI midcourse data link guidance.
Their only notification of being targeted is the Mach 4 missile coming down through their airframe, igniting their fuel and sending their airframe into various flaming chunks of falling metal.
That's literally your missile warning when you're up against 5th Gen.
The F-35s fly faster and maneuver as well or better when combat-configured compared to F-16s and Hornets. A combat-configured F-16 won't even touch Mach 1.5 and a Hornet is lucky to hit Mach 1.2 when configured.
If you go faster in the Su-27/30/35, you just cut the Time of Flight for F-35 missiles and expand the No Escape Zone parameters, all while flying blind.
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@marcusaetius9309 My half Russian, half Finnish friend had an uncle in the Russian foreign ministry. He started blabbing about their plans to retake Finland, then was told to shut up about it from his leadership. There’s always a plan on how to invade Finland, the Baltics, Poland, etc. Whenever the opportunity presents, then whoever is at the helm will decided whether to do it or not.
But the sentiment among Russians I spoke with there who even knew what Finland is was that since Finland was once part of the Russian empire, then it rightfully should be under their control. In the Russian schools, there is a resurgence of Stalinism and Communist ideology being taught, with a new generation of kids who never experienced socialism under the totalitarian state, who think it’s a great idea.
Some of the older Russians who remember are asking which is better, life under “capitalism” (they’ve never had it), or the inefficiency, fear, and intimidation of the Soviet times.
They’re a people who have always been used to harsh treatment from their rulers, with no real hope for the future. They’re resigned to putting their heads down and embracing the suck of life there, enjoying some vodka and good laughs with friends when possible, then death when it comes.
It’s a very bleak segment of our civilization on earth.
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@matsv201 The propaganda about Gripen networking is one of the most glaring examples of fantasy vs reality. Every modern 4th Gen fighter, including ones built in the early 1980s that have been MLUd, have Data Links and JTIDS displays, with far more evolved systems than Gripen C/D.
The NORAD-based SAGE data link system for the F-102A, F-101B, and F-106A pre-date anything Sweden had for the Draken, and Draken used US avionics and missiles, fire control computer, British Rolls Royce engine, etc.
Saab is effectively an assembler who sources US or UK engines, UK ejection seats, US/UK brakes/landing gear, fuel systems, German cannon, US/UK/Italian Radars with licensed technology from Raytheon or Hughes, missiles from US, Germany, UK, etc., then slaps a Saab label on it. Swedish media then “inform” the public on how great and more advanced Swedish innovation is than those Neanderthal-like Americans and other inferior nations. It’s quite hilarious when you see what a scam it is.
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Sweden, like many other remnants of the bygone empires, had some small firms that adapted to new developments pioneered in England, Germany, and the US, but its modernized infrastructure came much later, namely after WWII.
Sweden was a major naval power in Europe up until the early 1800s, having spent centuries dominating the Nordics and Northwestern Russia, with bouts of competition with Polish-Lithuanian Empire as well.
There is a delusional sense of romanticism among Swedes that they are still some type of super power, without even being a middle power anymore.
They definitely contributed to the development of some new artillery technology and high quality steel barrel manufacturing even in the late 1800s, after the Prussians really took high-strength steel artillery to the forefront in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, but the 1800s-forward Swedish population has never been large enough to support modern industrial sectors. Take gas turbines, for example.
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baggabliss I see the $1 trillion figure thrown around a lot, which is a projected cost for all 3 variants and support for the entire program through 2070. We're talking about at least 3000 airframes, ancillary equipment, spares, new maintenance infrastructure, projected Block upgrades, etc.
Lockheed never went to DoD and UK MoD and said, "He, we've been thinking about a project." Opposite is true. DoD and MoD were working on all kinds of next generation fighter concepts, including various stealth, STOVL, CTOL, agile fighters, penetrators, etc.
The UK and USMC knew they would need a replacement for the Harrier and had already been soliciting various responses from aircraft industries in England and the US for propulsion, digital flight controls for STOVL, with at least 2 major funded projects at work in the US, one of which was at Lockheed Skunk Works, the other at McDonnell Douglas. DARPA was doing active research in conjunction with all of this, and some of these programs coalesced into the JSF-B variant.
Taxpayers should expect a strong national defense, and if you compare unit costs to 4.5 Gen fighters currently being made like the EF and Rafale, the F-35B is very competitive with them, while offering more capabilities and longer-term relevance in the future of conflict.
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@sulla1537 It's also a generational thing. With each successive dumbing-down of classes, I guess many are ok with lowering their expectations from professional degrees when it comes to being able to form coherent and logical thoughts, then communicate them in proper English.
The fundamental problem with her thinking is that there are 2 groups on this current campaign to inject everyone with experimental mRNA gene therapies.
The flaw with that is that there can't be other options or classes of people, for example:
1. People who trusted the recommendations of their doctors, and are now suffering permanent neurological and blood clotting disorders
2. People who were coerced into getting injected, and now have experienced adverse effects or are learning more about the safety problems with starting a mass countermeasures campaign before the 2nd seasonal wave was even midway
3. People who absolutely accept that the bioweapon is real and dangerous, but also don't trust anything they're hearing from corporate media, and remain skeptical and cautious out of survival instinct and intellect (the largest group of skeptics are people with PhDs)
4. People who got injected, suffer adverse effects, but still "trust the system"
5. People who instinctively don't trust media and the pharma sponsors by default
6. People who have no clue about anatomy, physiology, or virology, and trust media and pharma without reservation because of 13 years of normative behavioral programming and conditioning
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@petesjk Sweden isn’t under any coverage from Russian SAM systems. Horizon doesn’t allow it. The earth’s surface is curved, which limits SAM detection Radar coverage significantly since they’re on the surface. You need airborne platforms to see farther, and they are also limited in range based on the horizon and their altitude.
Sweden is not anywhere near ahead of NATO in this space since NATO conducted tactical exploitation exercises regularly to ascertain the Soviet electronic order of battle working out of Netherland and West Germany during the Cold War, and now does so from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and even Moldova and the Black Sea.
Sweden isn’t geographically located in any position to engage in significant electronic order of battle collection and analysis, nor does Sweden posses the large fleet of ELINT and SIGINT platforms that the US/NATO do.
I you look at all the USAF platforms that start with R, E, and U-2, you’ll see what I mean. USAF did more in this space in a day during the Cold War than Sweden has done in years. F-15Cs would bum-rush the East German border with ELINT birds in the pattern already, sniffing everything the SAM sites and perimeter defense Radars would do. We took that whole culture to Desert Shield and did the same things to the Iraqi Air Force in 1990-1991, then executed and erased them from the sky within days.
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The thinking behind the .30 Cal Light Rifle was they wanted streamlined logistics without losing performance from what the M-1 Garand and M1919 Machine-guns offered, but wanted more mobility and increased firepower for the riflemen and machine gunners.
Instead of fielding a weapons mix of .45 ACP M3 and M1928 SMGs, .30 Cal M1 Carbines, .30 Cal Rifle Garands, .30 Cal Rifle BARs, and .30 Cal Rifle M1919 MGs, they figured they could encompass all of these weapons into 3 shoulder-fired weapons firing the same cartridge. These would be:
M14 7.62 NATO for Riflemen and everyone else
M14A1 7.62 NATO Automatic Rifle to replace the BAR
M60 GPMG to replace the M1919
All 3 weapons were horrible failures, with the M14 being quickly replaced with the AR15 (M16/M16A1), but the malfunction-prone M60 unfortunately lived on into the 1990s and early 2000s. I used the M60 extensively in several light Infantry units, and we always had issues with them. "Ca-chunk" was a common FTFire mode of that system, along with FTExtract and FTEject. It was the most handy to carry GPMG I've ever used because of the half-bullpup layout and comfortable handguard, but they just didn't run.
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@vasilisbill There wasn’t a lot that was conventional about either design, other than the dual tailplanes on the YF-22, and even they were quite radical. We simply don’t know what the low speed maneuverability was with the YF-23, and I suppose it was quite good with those huge tailplanes. I would be more concerned with airframe stress on the fuselage/wing junction area.
YF-22 PAV-1 was the superior performer of all PAVs. It demonstrated time-to-climb, acceleration, and max V0 all in one flight, exceeding Mach 2. It was the only ATF prototype of the 4 to reach and exceed Mach 2. Neither of the YF-23s reached Mach 2 since their canopies cracked and the boundary layer control system seemed to have trouble over Mach 1.8, which is where they maxed out. If you notice, the F-23A design proposal totally redesigned the intakes to have an angled scoop to manage the leading edge shockwave off the inlet, and it was area-ruled tighter than the YF-23. They also lengthened the airframe even more.
You could still see parts of the turbofan initial stages through the intakes and the square shape of the engine nozzle apertures from direct rear aspect would not be so stealthy with the right angles, as well as right angles in the exhaust trenches.
The weapons bay also needed to be added to with another forward weapons bay to house more missiles, which contributed to the lengthening of the design. They still would have needed to develop some elaborate trapeze weapons racks and demonstrated supersonic separation with them.
The USAF was concerned about risk over everything else because they know that congress can cut funding or interrupt funding, which increases costs. That was the main factor in the decision that was constantly communicated to all the prime contractors throughout the 1980s. The Northrop/McDonnel Douglas design represented the most risk to the program because of the aforementioned technical challenges. They all would have been solved, but at significant costs.
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@fahadkelantan I've been studying defense acquisitions since the mid-1980s and know all about Unit Flyaway vs Unit Program vs O&M vs total ownership.
What we've seen over the decades is that anytime someone tries to forecast total ownership costs over 20 years, let alone 50, they're never correct because they can't predict the future.
What we do see is a thing called the bathtub graph effect. Initial introduction starts out way high, followed by rapid drop then tub bottom for most of the life, then rising costs towards end of service life.
Those Jane's numbers are not uniform accounting methods, don't include full O&M, and definitely don't include total ownership.
If you believe them, then you also believe a Gripen C costs less to operate than an A-10.
Switzerland accounted total ownership CPFH for Gripen NG at $27,000. I'll take Swiss accounting over Jane's any day.
Actual daily O&M costs for Royal Netherlands Air Force were just published. It was 11,000 Euros or $12,546 USD CPFH.
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@fahadkelantan The problem with the forward-deployed "cheap fighter" concept is proliferation of various layers of IADS, including non-integrated roaming systems like the Houthi rebels used against Saudi F-15E. That was an R-27T rigged as a SAM with a COTS FLIR cueing solution, towed by a Toyota in the desert. It successfully intercepted that high cost F-15E.
Anything less than an F-35A just isn't survivable even in that "low threat" environment because they don't have anywhere near the SA. A multi-ship formation of F-35s would have seen those Houthi rebels from on the horizon, and avoided or attrited them with a PGM Glide bomb.
A 4-ship of F-15Es with CFTs, pods, pylons, weapons, EFTs, and pilot training for 8 is roughly $450 million vulnerability flying over some savages with a Gerry-rigged R-27T.
A 4-ship of F-35As with 4 pilots, and internal weapons is maybe $345 million and not vulnerable, as they can just avoid the WEZ they already saw from 40-80nm out, and can employ on it without entering the WEZ.
An Israeli F-16I with some of the most advanced self protection systems on it got shot down by a Syrian older SAM in 2018 returning from a strike mission. F-16Is after mods are extremely expensive fighters. UAE Block 60 F-16E/F were $200 million per at unit program cost.
When configured for strike missions, both the F-16I and F-16E/F are subsonic-limited.
F-35As are full Mach 1.6 and 9Gcapable platforms carrying the same amount of fuel as a CFT/EFT equipped Israeli or UAE Viper, the same weapons, but with far more sensors and superior SA on the F-35.
Striking ISIS inside Syria required F-22As and later F-35s to penetrate the WEZ of Syrian SAMs and fighters, so other strikers (F-15Es) could get in and deliver SDBs and JDAMs.
The range for some of the missions was too much of a stretch for Vipers, and totally out if range of A-10Cs, but no problem for F-35Bs, F-35As, F-22As, and F-15Es.
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@fahadkelantan The Su-57 production samples are a lot different than the prototypes, although there were 2 stages to the PAK-FA T-50 prototype vehicles.
The production birds have really clean surfaces, so we just don't know what the frontal RCS values are without test pole and real data.
We also don't know how good their AESA capabilities are, since it's their first fighter AESA.
We know that every Eurocanard design combat-configured has at least a 1.x m2 frontal RCS. None of them have mitigated the first bulkhead in the nose like China has done on J-10B.
Oblique frontal RCS is even larger, so a dispersed formation of 2x Su-57 will likely have first-look from significant BVR, and will be able to offset angles for an oblique high altitude missile envelope, with excellent transonic/supersonic performance with totally clean 6x AAM weapons load.
The main thing that would make Typhoons survivable in that scenario is the Mk.2 CAPTOR-E with its ability to volume search to the sides, but detection and tracking will be at much closer ranges than with Flankers.
Using Flankers as high RCS bait, Su-57 linked with Flankers makes the situation more dangerous for Typhoons/Rafales/Hornets/Vipers.
Introduce F-35s into that mix, and the tables turn to making the Felon/Flanker force the hunted.
F-35s linked with Typhoon and other 4th Gen creates more problems, since F-35s have stand-off EA that out-performs the Raptor, which outperforms everything else.
UK Typhoons are getting a fraction of that EA capability with Mk.2 CAPTOR-E, now that they've tasted it with F-35B.
One of the most formidable A2A force mixes is UK F-35Bs linked with Typhoons and Meteor.
Same can be said for US F-35s and 4th Gen with AIM-120D. The intercept options are really unfair when you break it down.
This is exactly what we're seeing in Atlantic Trident (US/UK/France). F-22A, F-35A, F-35B, Typhoon, Rafale executing networked A2A, strike, and Anti-Ship mission sets.
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@Dragunov_01 Finnish soldiers have been deployed to Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Middle East, and train regularly with very tough and realistic exercises in their own terrain.
Russian army even in VDV, Spetsnaz, and mercenaries don't have nearly as good equipment, weapons, training, or discipline.
The Finns have a vastly-superior air force, SAM systems, artillery, and armor compared to Ukraine, and we see how Ukraine has over-matched Russia in those areas already.
I can break down the details in each military category if you want.
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@truthhurts79 I learned to read with books I was interested in before going to school. When they did their silly assessments before I started 1st grade, they told me I was reading at the level of a 12th-grader. In my mind, I was thinking, "Sounds like you guys have been doing it wrong." I then asked them, "What grade am I going into if I'm reading at a 12th-grade level?" Some fat lady, "Well, 1st grade of course. You're six years old. Six-year-olds go to 1st grade."
What a waste of time it all was. Good thing I pursued my own interests very avidly every day, regardless of what homework they assigned me. I assigned myself more personal study than any high school or college course ever did, and continue to do so to this day. We have access to insane amounts of information, so people can study whatever they want without restriction. Sitting in a classroom is one of the most detrimental things you can do to your own interests, and will usually lead to a life of disinterest in reading.
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@ThatWTVGuy Biden literally drafted the 1994 Crime Bill, which Republicans voted against. The Democrat party had a huge majority in the House and Senate with 267 Democrats vs 167 Republicans in the House, and 58 to 42 in the Senate, with Bill Clinton in the WH.
This was all the political mandate you could have asked for to push priority party objectives for the Nation.
Guess what the Democrat Party decided to push?
Harsher prison sentences for "Jive-talkin' ghetto hoodlums" - Joe Biden
Mandatory minimum sentencing for possession of Marijuana (which Kamala happily enforced)
$9.7 billion for more prisons to house more inmates that would be convicted under the new provisions
Expanded the death penalty to a wider range of crimes, which disproportionately affected inner city youths and minorities.
Banning pistol grips, flash hiders, and bayonet lugs from semi-automatic rifles that could be fed with detachable magazines, which have zero connection to crime as stated by decades of data compiled by the FBI and independent researchers.
They rolled this legislation through Congress with Democrat Congressman Jack Brooks in the House, and Democrat Senator Joe Biden in the Senate, with Bill Clinton happily signing it.
Then the media told people for decades after how racist the Republicans are..
That crime bill cost the Democrats the House in one of the biggest turnovers in US history.
The Biden/Harris ticket represents almost 30 years of Democrat legislative and executive approach to crushing minorities with their "tough on crime" policies, while they both violated the law and escaped the consequences with their political privilege.
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@chibiromano5631 This is interesting. I also came across similarities between Algonquin, Iroquois, and Sami people independently.
I suspect that military pressure on the ancestors of the Algonquin and Iroquois caused some of them to build small ships and travel from New England/Newfoundland to Greenland, then Iceland, then Scandinavia.
Eric the Red of Viking descent many centuries later knew of an ancient trade route that connected Vinland and Norway, and his son Leif Ericson eventually traveled there.
The ancestors of the Iroquois and Algonquin tribes were from the Hopewell American period and region that is now the Eastern US.
There is a high likelihood that the Hopewell ancestors arrived via large ship to the Southeast US gulf coast region around 600 BC, which is where there first settlements appear in the archeological record.
Even more interesting is their mound-building civilization that spanned up the Mississippi, Great Lakes, and Northeast US, disappearing around 400 A.D.
The similarities in clothing, language, shelter, and sweat lodges between Algonquin, Iroquois, and Sami are striking.
I have a suspicion that this is the true origin of the Sami language, which then became one of the main roots for Suomi (Finnish).
Sami and Finnish sound very Northeast "Native American" in feel, nothing like Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, or Russian.
The Sami and Suomi have always been seen and treated as the oddballs/misfits of that region as well.
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@MorteWulfe 1999 Columbine kids- Harris was on Luvox, Klebold’s medical records remain sealed-can’t see them even after suicide. Both were subjected to extreme forms of bullying in high school.
2007 Virginia Tech shooting- Cho was was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder with selective mutism, as well as major depressive disorder and treated with medication. He gave multiple warnings to school officials in writing about ideations of mass violence towards students. Cho had been bullied all throughout his school years due to him suffering from mutism.
2008 Northern Illinois University Shooting- Kazmierczak was taking Xanax (anti-anxiety), Ambien (sleep aid), and Prozac (antidepressant), all of which were prescribed to him by a psychiatrist.
2012 Oikos University shooting- Su Nam Ko had paranoid schizophrenia, was bullied regularly.
2012 Newtown CT School Masacre- Adam Lanza. Lanza was treated by Robert King, who recommended extensive support be put in place, and King's colleague Kathleen Koenig at the Yale Child Study Center prescribed the antidepressant Celexa. Lanza took the medication for three days. His mother Nancy reported: "On the third morning he complained of dizziness. By that afternoon he was disoriented, his speech was disjointed, he couldn't even figure out how to open his cereal box. He was sweating profusely ... it was actually dripping off his hands. He said he couldn't think ... He was practically vegetative.
2015 Umpqua Community College Shooting- Christopher Harper-Mercer was mentally-ill, broken home, ideations of rewards by satan for murdering. Suffered from bullying.
2018 Parkland school shooting- Nicholas Cruz had received years of mental health treatment, had at least 45 calls to Law Enforcement to the family for disturbances, and had made threats for years. Multiple school officials recommended further mental health assessments and involuntary commitment, but he was allowed to remain free, even making open threats about becoming a professional school shooter. Cruz had been bullied and suffered from depression, fetal alcohol syndrome, fetal narcotics, and brain damage as a result of his biological mother’s substance abuse.
2018 Sant Fe High School Shooting- Greek immigrant Dimitrios Pagourtzis claimed he was bullied by students and coaches for years, suffered from mental illness as a result and did the school shooting so his story could be finally heard.
2022 Uvalde shooting- Salvador Ramos was bullied in the 4th Grade classroom where he ultimately would shoot and kill 19 students. He was described as a school shooter for years by friends and acquaintances. Numerous warning signs of mental illness, attempts to acquire firearms, and anti-social behavior were supposedly ignored, to include communication with the FBI.
2023 Nashville shooting- Audrey Hale suffered from gender dysphoria and was under treatment for an emotional disorder.
Therefore, all law-abiding people must be punished for.....doing the right thing, behaving safe with firearms, and exercising their rights. If only you surrender more of your rights, then these school shootings will....uh....continue anyway because mentally-disturbed, medicated, broken home, and bullied people will find a way to enact their vengeance.
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@Mr.mysterious76 The planned acquisition budget for all 3 US services combined over the life of the program is around $400 billion for 2,456 airframes, support equipment, logistics, simulators, etc.
That’s an average unit program cost of $162.8 million per airframe, which is right about the unit flyaway cost for Rafales and Typhoons. Their unit program costs are well over $210 million per airframe.
Unit flyaway is just the aircraft + motor. Unit program cost includes spares, pylons, ladders, storage racks, test equipment, new logistics to maintain the aircraft, a basic weapons package, ejector racks, etc. Unit program costs vary a lot based on what weapons are bought in that fiscal year to accompany the fighter purchases.
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The FiAF and Minister of Defence already said in 2015 they want the latest technology found in JSF, not something warmed over from the past generation. They made these statements after being given access to internal JSF potential partner nation capabilities briefs with existing NATO F-35 nation pilot experiences shared with them. Once existing FiAF F/A-18C pilots saw what is going on with F-35, they immediately saw how it would change things dramatically for Finland.
If you read the 5 sub paragraphs of the Military Capabilities paragraph in the H-X challenge documents, you see that they literally wrote the basic specs with F-35A in-mind. The first sub paragraph is “Counter-Air”, first sentence in that paragraph talks about sensor-fusion, followed by unusual requirements for EW against other fighters at BVR, autonomous PID capability, and multi-target track and PID. Initial discussions actually said they need a kill ratio of 30-1 like they had with the Brewster in WWII.
The Counter-Ground (Air-to-Ground) paragraph talks about automated TGT detection/recognition, and ease of weapons employment with reduced pilot workload.
Same for Anti-Ship mission set. Anti-ship is important for Finland, as it is for Norway. No other modern fighter is anywhere near as capable at anti-ship as JSF and Norway is the lead partner nation working with USN in development of the next generation anti-ship weapons.
Next sub paragraph is about Intel/Surveillance/Target Acquisition/Reconnaissance. F-35s have these capabilities integrated into them, whereas every other contender needs to attach pods to perform the full ISTAR mission set. JSF ISTAR capabilities are continuous and networked with each other without pilot input. JSF are more like spy planes in this regard, covering most or more than what U-2R can do since they don’t need to maintain as much stand-off as the U-2 does. U-2s skirt international waters looking sideways with SAR and other sensors at specific TGTs, then can link that through the net with very high resolution imagery. F-35s have as or more advanced sensors in that space, with wider coverage and ability to get much closer.
Next sub paragraph talks about Electronic Warfare.
The H-X military capes descriptions/requirements are unlike any fighter requirements I have read before for Foreign Military Sales. Everything has changed.
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There were waves of successive industrial revolutions that happened outside of the USSR during the Cold War, that left Russia and its satellite states behind, because of the centrally-planned economy that served as a vassal network to reinforce the Russian security apparatus, not enrich the infrastructure of the satellite states.
This is what he’s referring to, especially in context of the revolution in electronics, automated manufacturing, advanced tooling, programming, semiconductors, telecommunications, aerospace, etc.
Russia handicapped Czechoslovakia in many ways, even down to small arms. Czechoslovakia had superior weapons designs and cartridges that weren’t standard with Warsaw Pact, but Russia forced them to adopt their standards anyway. Czechs made some of the finest small arms prior to WWII, and still do, but weren’t allowed to really blossom with creativity and problem-solving to their potential.
Russians didn’t like being out-shined, which all you need to do is show up, so they were very condescending and oppositional to Czech ingenuity. By the time the Russians political-economic abortion had collapsed, Czechs were ready once again to kick things into gear.
Supporting evidence: Czech Republic went from $40.7 Billion GDP in 1990, to $282.3 Billion in 2021. Same thing happened in Poland, only they went from $254 billion to $1.6 Trillion (larger population, resources, etc.)
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Nothing about the Gripen makes sense for Finland. It’s a low-capability, non-ready design made from mainly US and UK systems assembled in Sweden into their airframes. US General Electric motor, US outdated Mil-1553B data buses, UK ejection seats, UK/Italian Leonardo Radar using US Raytheon tech, UK pumps, landing gear, servos, cockpit controls, French fuel systems, German Mauser cannon, etc. Sweden has almost no control on availability of the critical subsystems that are required for the Gripen, nor have they ever had control of those.
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@Honken55 The current cumulative flight hours flown by the JSF fleet has exceeded 470,000 flight hours. Norway says their CPFH including spares and salaries is 11,000 Euros. Saab’s former H-X Manager, Magnus Skokberg, revealed that the older Gripen C/D costs “about 11,000 Euros per hour to operate, maintain, replace spares, and pay personnel”.
So Norwegian AF F-35A (with more complexity than USAF F-35A) costs 1:1 relative to the tiny Gripen C/D, with the F-35A sucking down over 3x the fuel that the Gripen C can even fit inside.
Gripen E/F have unknown operating and maintenance costs, but Magnus said they think it should be the same as Gripen C/D, even though Gripen E/F are heavier, carry and burn more fuel, and have more complex and more numerous systems.
Wherever you got the 1/5 cost per flight hour, throw that source out because I’m using figures straight from Saab and actual operators of F-35A. USAF F-35A CPFH just dropped to $13,806 in the DoD Comptroller 2022 reimbursable rates, which is within a few hundred dollars of the Norwegian reported CPFH.
F-35As will not be mostly grounded, since they have the highest readiness and availability rates of any USAF fighter, with the lowest break rates of any USAF fighter in history.
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@Spaced92 Not sure where you’re seeing RAAF disparity between Super Hornets and F-35A, but it takes a lot of time to feed pilots into the training pipeline before they even get near an F-35. RAAF also published costs that showed it wasn’t much different than F/A-18E/F. Another great source is the Norwegian AF reports on Cost Per Flight Hour, which are about identical to the F-16AM they’re replacing. NoAF Air Chief, Logistics Chief, and Defense Minister all reported that their F-35As cost 110,000 Krone/flight hour to operate, maintain, replace spares, fuel, and pay personnel. That’s less than 11,000 euros per hour.
RAAF plans to operate a mixed fleet of Super Hornets, Growlers, and F-35As. It just happened because of the timeline that Australia is on set by the retirement of the F-111G. A lot of these fleet postures are driven by airframe life and procurement window. You can get out-of-phase with an ideal procurement and Operations life if your legacy airframes time-out in a bad position relative to new production. I’m not saying that’s what happened with Australia, but something to consider.
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@jackalope5589 Biden told his roommate in Syracuse University (where he graduated 76th in his class) that he was doing a public service by choking his chicken and abstaining from alcohol before he got near children, because he can't control himself sexually with them otherwise. This was in the late 1960s, which made him a Soviet mark for exploitation.
They propped up his weak Senate campaign in 1972 to oust the incumbent in Delaware, as part of an active measures program to get as many pro-Soviet moles into the treaty-signing body of the US government.
Upon inauguration in 1973, Biden flew to Leningrad to meet with senior Soviet leaders. Interesting for the youngest Senator in history to have such foreign relations status, wouldn't you say?
Upon his return, he went on a campaign to kill the B-1A strategic bomber under development at Edwards AFB. By 1977, with the support of Carter's DCI, Admiral Stansfield Turner, the B-1A was cancelled.
Biden flew back to USSR, this time to Moscow, to meet with Brezshniv, Andropov, and other party leaders.
When he returned, he went on a campaign promoting SALT II talks, where we would agree to kill more of our nuclear weapons programs, while the Soviets ramped theirs up.
Then Reagan came in and undid the past 9 years of Biden's treasonous acts against the US.
He restarted the B-1 as the B-1B, initiated further development of M-X, revitalized the military, and ditched the failure of détente as a foreign policy espoused by LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter before him.
Biden and other compromised politicians writhed and wailed against Reagan's policies, so they refocused on agitating and undermining the fabric of American society.
Biden had already done that in the 1970s with supporting segregation with KKK Senators from the Deep South, but now he was onto targeting inner city black communities with his "tough on crime" policies, to put these "jive-talkin' predators in their place". His rants about people of color on the Senate floor were repulsive.
As part of the crime bill, he asked for over 100 new death penalty offenses targeting black inner city youth, saying "Democrats on my side for ages have tried to rehabilitate these hopeless savages, but it never works. Some of them just need to be put down."
This was all part of the Soviet strategy to marginalize and agitate blacks to rise up and riot, to cause internal strife in the US.
Biden is one of the worst traitors in US History, far worse than Benedict Arnold.
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@Austin-cn8vh I think they reached that conclusion already in the early 1980s when F-16As were winning all the bombing competitions like Gun Smoke. The Fire Control Computer’s ability to precisely-compute impacts for the Mk.82, Mk.83, and Mk.84 made the F-16A Block 1, 5, and 10 into an unbelievably-accurate strike aircraft that didn’t need a Bombardier Navigator. USAF force structure and air planning left the high altitude bands to the F-15C and turned F-16s into little bomb trucks that could penetrate, strike, RTB, re-arm/re-fuel, and do it again with really high turnaround rates.
Once we did Block 40 Night-Capable strike integration, it turned the F-16C into a night-striker. Block 30 SEAD acted as shooters for F-4Gs, then Block 50 acted as sniffer/shooters to replace the F-4G, though they never matched the 43 RF sensor count the F-4G had, hence the Mild Weasel.
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@robertcummingsjr3771 Even for a stud in his prime, the prospects of humping a basic load of 7.62 NATO or anything like it meet the harsh reality of magazine depth, load bearing kit space, and combat endurance even before we started wearing IBAs/plates.
There just isn't enough room on your body to carry enough mags, and we're increasing weight substantially with 6.8x51 vs 5.56x45.
For endurance, I'm talking about react-to-contact, setting a base of fire, and then maneuvering.
Battle rifle cartridges don't allow you to do much of that, because initial base-of-fire fraction is too high.
Compare:
5.56 basic load 7 mags/210rds
1 mag expended for RTC/BoF = 30rds, 1/7th expended, still have 180rds to bound with and execute actions-on, repel attack, sustain fire while immobilized, or continue mission and still execute.
6.8x51 basic load even if we go to 8 mags is 160rds. You can burn through a 20rd mag fast during react-to-contact/ establish base of fire, often having to mag-change and eat into the next mag.
Now you're down to 130rds and you haven't even bounded yet.
Keep in mind a minimalist 4 mag micro chest rig with 80rds of 7.62 NATO sucks to carry, not even talking plates, PC, MBITR, NODs, grenades, smoke, IFAK, and water.
If I bound to another position and lay down more fire, I'm already through at least 2 mags now, or 25% of my total load, leaving me with 120rds before even any actions-on an OBJ.
That's an example of a fire-disciplined soldier too. Others will have burned through 2-4 mags, so when we consolidate and reorganize, I might be one of the guys who has more ammo than most and will have to redistribute ammo.
This type of thing has happened with units that took SR-25s or SCAR-Hs into fights that lasted longer than they expected.
The M5 is absolutely inappropriate for mass issue.
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@brrrtnerd2450 I grew up watching them flying with AIM-9Js, then Ls, then Ms, so when I saw them start to fly later Block Vipers with -120s on the tips, I wondered what was going on. I first thought it was some kind of optimum stores management approach under the assumption that if they fired AIM-120s first, it would make the aircraft more maneuverable, but it was in fact due to the SFC and better performance with them there all the time. It’s counter-intuitive. They usually fly with 3x AIM-120C7s, 1 AIM-9X, and whatever A2G weapons on stations 3 & 7, either HARMs or GBU-12s, sometimes multiple GBU-12s on TERs.
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@lostboys-niagarapartyband1915 Congress has been bought and owned by Organized Crime since the 1920s when alcohol revenue was handed over to criminal networks that used to obey politicians to electioneer for them in exchange for practical immunity.
During Prohibition, the unions, street gangs, and crime families were the only ones equipped to handle distribution and retail, so they raked in an avalanche of cash-flow that had to be laundered overseas through various businesses and offshore banks.
With the billions they were making, they were able to buy politicians, police chiefs, judges, and Presidents. They owned J.Edgar Hoover, who said the Mafia was a myth, and used him to cover for them while executing their blackmails schemes against politicians.
Each one of the members of Congress has an oppositional research file on them, which was standard practice in the FBI dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. If any one of them gets out of line, they can be leaned on to shut up or be forced out of office.
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F-35 MADL net with fused/interleaved sensors provides a next-generation level of AWACS that fighter pilots have never known before, with no central flying nodes that are vulnerable to anti-AWACS interceptor missions. An F-35 pilot sees more of what’s going on in the battlespace before he even takes off than the combined crew of an AWACS see behind their stations in the air, because every other F-35 is feeding into the MADL net with multiple AESA, EOTS, DAS, and RF sensors that cover and PID a huge array of low earth orbit space, airborne, ground, and sea contacts.
The Gripen E unit cost is more than F-35A, plus you have to pay 300-500 million euros per GlobalEye AWACS platform, which are huge chunks of the fighter budget. Inclusion of the GlobalEye with the Gripen E tells you that they know Gripen E can’t compare well alone against F-35 MADL network SA.
So the Gripen E/GlobalEye is likely one of the most expensive choices in terms of initial procurement costs, sustainment costs, and risks to modern threat environment with Super Flankers and Felons networked together with S-400.
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@Foogle6594 Peter started out with STRATFOR in the 2000s, where they continually did white papers for US and global clients, to include DoD, defense ministries, foreign governments, huge industrial sectors all over the world, finance, transportation, intelligence agencies, etc.
He's not a YouTube guy who relies on YouTube for income. I suspect he recognized YouTube as the new marketing medium standard, where if you don't have a channel, you won't be taken seriously.
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@delwynjenkins3581 If you go look at the clinical trials, they all had to be halted due to safety. Safety issues included death, clotting disorders like thrombocytopenia, pulmonary embolisms, heart failure, cytokine response, palsy, cerebral hemorrhaging, GBS, etc.
Investor literature and articles openly reported this in Statnews and Forbes, because it stuck out as very odd that billions were dumped in Moderna after they failed all their clinical trials from 2013-2017.
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10% for the big guy. Hunter's story reads like a really dumb kid of privilege who just screws up everything he touches. He's like a skinny Tommy Boy, but dumber. Rental car crash full of cocaine, crack pipe, his dead brother's US Attorney's badge, Secret Service Agent call card, gun in the trash, crack teeth, banging his dead brother's wife, in and out of rehab, pissed hot for cocaine while trying to get commissioned into the US Navy at age 44, board of directors for Burisma, business partner with first Lady of Moscow's sex and human trafficking schemes, Chicom front companies with millions blown in spending accounts, buying lavish mansions and real estate all over, molesting minors, smoking crack on FaceTime call, laptop from hell, what's next?
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@natthaphonhongcharoen There's a huge difference between cruising at 285kts down in radar-guided AAA envelope and transonic/ supersonic speeds at altitude dodging SAMs. There's a reason General Horner grounded A-10s in Desert Storm.
It's just not a survivable platform, especially in today's battlespace filled with AAA, MANPADS, UAVs, multirole fighters, interceptors, modern double digit SAMs, and COTs-rigged SAMs with advanced FLIR guidance units towed by Toyotas.
Look at the aircraf lost list over Syria since 2013. Anything low and slow has littered the area like confetti, including some of our drones.
Houthi rebels in Yemen have even shot down fast Saudi fighters at altitude, including the F-15S.
An A-10 in CENTCOM might be relevant if they stick to CAS in Afghanistan, but in the Syrian-Iraq border region and anywhere even close to Iran, they're extremely vulnerable.
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@thomasa5619 The Commonwealth SOF elements were using ArmaLites and Colt Commandos way before SA80, AUG, and most of the subsequent generations of NATO or Southeast Asian attempts at 5.56 service rifles, even before the Hk33.
SAS was using AR-15s in SEA before the US Marines Expeditionary Brigade deployed to Da Nang in 1965.
Australian SASR was using AR-15s in Vietnam from 1967-1970.
Commonwealth SOF, Recce, and Marines expanded their use of AR-15s in the 1970s.
The lightweight handiness, ergonomics, accuracy, and reliability all drove that. All NATO and SEA attempts at 5.56 service rifles failed to meet the weight, ergonomics, and reliability of the Stoner AR-15 design.
We're talking decades before Aimpoints, free float, JSOC Mods, or SOPMOD 1.
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@basestone Marshall Plan immigration brought in unskilled workers from Turkey, Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, and North Africa.
They loved socialism with all its hand-outs, which left the burden even greater on actual Germans. The posterity of the immigrants are a mix of a few technically-inclined, failures to integrate, and straight up welfare-class people. The unity of Germanic peoples from the Prussian Reforms, Kaiser Republic, and reactionary Nazi era are long-gone.
The Brits and French finally got their wish by destroying Germany, but they suffer from the same problems too. They all are headed into demographic winter, flooded with incompatible ethnic immigrants who have no historical or ideological connection to the land, hate its native inhabitants, and expect hand-outs and "free" services.
Continental Europe is ripe for internal conflict, let alone Russian invasion. Have you been to France lately?
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The US has been upgrading the F-16 throughout its entire life, starting from the major changes the USAF asked for over the YF-16 when you look at the FSD F-16s, F-16A/B Blocks 1, 5, 10, 15 and F-16C Block 25, 30/32, 40/42, and 50/52. Within each of those are specific fleet upgrades in all sorts of areas, from landing gear to Auto Ground Collision Avoidance, ECM, Chaff/Flare, radars, missiles, helmets, etc.
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@techtical7079 Read what high hour Viper pilots have said once they converted to F-35A regarding BFM. Same with legacy Hornet pilots who converted to F-35B or C. Once they learn to use the 28°/sec yaw rate and the vertical, it's over for a combat-configured F-16 or Hornet, not that they would realistically merge anyway.
A lot of people make the mistake of viewing airshow demos of slick, stripped-down fighters flown by demo pilots.
Even after you jettison external fuel tanks and bombs, you still have an 800lb ECM pod, 455lb FLIR Pod, pylons, and 4 or more missiles on the LAUs. F-16CM will also have the HARM Targeting System Pod.
All of those things are heavy and draggy, noticeably reducing aerodynamic and kinematic performance.
An F-35 with internal bombs and missiles will still out-climb, out-rate, and get solutions on you first if for some crazy reason it allowed you near it.
They rarely do BFM in post E-Jett configuration, outside of Fighter Weapons School in USAF. WIC emphasizes combat configurations, which is why the F-22 and F-35 are what they are.
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@carlosamigosAUS Su-35S already is the standard for upgrading Su-27SM3 and Su-30SM2 for common Irbis-E PESA Radar, glass cockpit using Western electronics, common data link, and improved performance engines.
The Irbis-E is easily outclassed by the Rafale F4's tiny AESA, which is easily out-classed by the AESAs in the F-15C+, F-15E+, F-22A, and F-35s.
Super Flankers are literally at the bottom of the pile when it comes to modern fighter Radars, electronics, and overall systems, while also having huge RCSs.
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@SianaGearz I've lived all over the US, Europe, and Russia, have been to Canada (among 30 nations in total). I'm also a continual student of the geography and population statistics for G20 and other nations.
The biggest difference you see between Europe and the US are suburbs. Suburbs are where the bulk of the US population lives.
We never saw sprawling suburbs in Europe after WWII because Europe was already population-dense, suffered massive destruction to cities and infrastructure, and was very poor due to substantial losses of prime age males. Open land in Europe is used for farming.
Europe remains a very apartment and government project-focused housing market with extremely limited ownership opportunities, high taxation/theft of labor, with centrally-planned urbanization.
Russia is like stepping into a time machine back into a frozen world only our great-great grandparents might recognize.
The US has vast open spaces, especially West of the Mississippi. East of the Mississippi, the population is more dense, but you can still own large lots of land for individual family residences not only on the South, but in New England.
In the Midwest, there are very large parcels for single family residences as well.
In the West, it's much more dry, but still has large parcels and homes in the suburbs. What we consider tiny and claustrophobic would be spacious and opulent in Europe.
Geography and climate form culture. The US is warm, wide, open, and free. Europe is tighter, colder, crowded, and very diverse.
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@AvengerII The Navy spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the Pratt & Whitney F100 variant for it in the 1970s, the F401, which they gave up on.
It took some time to develop the GE F101 into the F110. The engines weren't the only thing. The flight control system was very complicated with the spoiler locking bars for swept wing configuration and transfer of roll inputs to the stabilators, the variable intake ductwork, leading edge flaps, trailing flaps, glove vanes, and air brakes.
The avionics was a mess as well. No matter where you look on it, everything was complicated, failure-prone, which was exacerbated by carrier-borne operations.
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@destarker1340 Yes, but even more lethal in offense. When you possess something like JSF, it gives national leadership a strategic spyplane network that can link with regional partners, while allowing them to penetrate/strike any known IADS net on earth, defeat them with extreme prejudice, and hit vital strategic targets at their choosing. Erasing any threat air force interceptors or fighters is somewhat of a sideshow in that scheme.
JSF is designed from the outset to overmatch IADS, then evolve over time to maintain that edge with integrated open architecture electronics and sensors.
Finland will be taking delivery when the next major Technical Refresh is already in production with Block 4. The RAM has already evolved significantly on JSF, so that the last several years of hundreds of F-35s have a much better RAM and lower RCS than the first flew LRIPs.
Current F-35As have 1024x1024 DAS IR sensors. Block 4 will have the newer, lighter weight 2048x2048 DAS, newer AESA and RF sensor TRM/semiconductor materials, newer EOTS, newer cockpit, 6 AAM weapons bays, and various classified improvements that have taken place based on operational unit feedback worked into the operational test and upgrade programs driven by joint USAF, USMC, USN, UK, Norwegians, Danes, Dutch, Australians, etc.
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@petesjk Spare parts are always a problem with new programs because demand for complete airframes and engines is so high. You’re left in a position where you have to prioritize whether parts go into complete fighters, or sit on shelves. It has nothing to do with funding because demand is so high. Multiple customers have entered the program that were not planned.
Whatever source tells you they can’t do proper maintenance, you can block that from your feed from now on. Here’s why:
F-35A has the lowest Maintenance Man Hour Per Flight Hour of any fighter in history at 3.5 - 4.5 hours. F-35B and F-35C are the next-lowest at 5.1 - 6hrs. The next lowest after that is the F-16C at 11-14hrs.
F-35 maintainers say it basically maintains itself. They have had an unbelievably high rate of F-35A return from sorties with zero defects. F-16 has about a 10% break rate. A few years ago, F-35A was 6%, which is just crazy low.
USAF has 922 F-16C/D in service as of DEC2022. As long as we have airframes in inventory of that flee size, we will continue to upgrade them. One such upgrade is installing 613 AESA Radars in Late Block F-16CM Block 40/42/50/52 Vipers that are D-SEAD capable. The other F-16s are older Block 30s used for Aggressors and in National Guard units. Even those are getting many upgrades.
We worked on the F-16 program in 1982, then 1987-1990, before going to the F-15 Combined Test Force. I am quite familiar with it. The current plan is to replace F-16 squadrons with F-35As as the oldest airframes time out. Nothing has changed with USAF’s divestment and replacement plans for the F-16 fleet.
USAF is delaying aggressive acquisition of new F-35As until Block 4, and letting other nations buy as many as they can get to replace their even older F-16AMs in Europe, or F-4Js in Japan. Even with that, USAF is the biggest customer getting 48 F-35As per year.
That should explain the answers to those questions better.
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@paskowitz 100%. I lived all over Russia, which is a very poor country compared to the 30 other countries I’ve been to or lived in. Poland’s economy grew 6-fold since 1991, which is what Ukraine saw happening and wondered why they couldn’t have the same thing, especially since they have more people and more resources.
It’s why Ukrainians wanted out from under the boot of Russian puppets, so I’ve been paying close attention to the events in Ukraine, especially since the early 2000s.
I like Tucker Carlson a lot, but he’s simply out of his league when it comes to foreign policy. Sure, you can go to Globus (German mega store) in Russia if you have money and buy plenty of quality food, but most people don’t have that kind of money in Russia.
What I noticed in Russia is that adults had no sense of hope, no happiness. Just struggle day-to-day between packs of cigarettes and alcohol, whatever comes is their fate.
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@nunyabidness3075 Most nations. Being an officer means you came from a certain family with connections and privilege, but not good enough to be higher up in government.
As such, officers distance themselves from conscripts and only associate with each other, using their power to enrich themselves and pretend to be part of the class structure they're not.
They don't like anything resembling discomfort, uncleanliness, hardship, or inconvenience.
The US, Canada, UK, Danes, Norwegians, Germans, legacy NATO nations, and Australians are the exceptions to this where a meritorious framework is more in-place. Combat arms officers pride themselves on embracing and enforcing hardship, or at least the impression of it for the garritroopers.
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There are F-16XL test pilot reports openly published now. They loved the performance and handling, but all complained about the loss of T/W ratio. It had longer legs than anything except the Vark. The USAF fighter culture was heavily focused on the new capabilities of the F-15 and F-16, with pilots rating fighters by how well they could retain energy and execute excellent climb rate, as well as improved visibility from the teen series cockpits. HOTAS was also a new thing and a big deal, since many had F-4 experience to compare and contrast against. The XL was seen as a step backwards in the energy department when it came to turns, but was better at straight and level flight than the others. You didn’t need to touch burner to refuel when combat-configured like you do in a Viper.
The big pluses with the XL were combat radius and stores per sortie. You could service multiple TGT sites and TGT sets in a single sortie and still have tons of station time without need to refuel. If half of the F-16s in Desert Storm were F-16XLs, it would have increased the amount of deliverable ordnance in a much lower overall sortie count, which could have cut the length of the bombing campaign down. In combat configuration on an F-16A or F-16C, you only really have 2 primary mission-relevant weapons stations available. Every single other station is occupied with ECM, FLIR, or EFTs, plus AAMs for self-defense or rare opportunistic A2A TGTs that somehow slipped through the Grey Eagle’s claws.
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@pogo1140 I wasn’t even thinking about Afghanistan, but Iceland, Desert Storm, Alaska, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Norway, Germany, Vermont, etc.
Swedish Air Force could never sustain the combat operational sortie rates that the US did in Desert Storm just with F-16s.
When you look at real-world, you start to see how you have to suspend logic and comprehensive data of an actual Air Force that has demonstrated these capabilities, vs ones that advertise to deceive their populations into believing they have a competent defense.
Nobody in the world has anywhere near the austere basing and continuous ops experience as USAF, followed by USMC and NATO partners plugged-in with Air Component Forces in a US-led Joint Forces campaign. The sortie generation rates, miles flown, tonnage dropped, and threat air fighters turned into scrap metal outclass everyone else.
The only nation who has compared well in the A2A regime with MiGs turned into scrap metal is the Israelis in 1982 over Bekaa Valley. They shot down over 84 MiGs, Sukhois, and helos in 2 days. Iraqis learned faster than the Syrians and just stopped flying in Desert Storm.
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@jonseilim4321 There's a big difference in Automatic Rifleman and Machinegunner.
Auto Rifleman is Rifle squad-level duty position using a magazine-fed weapon of the same cartridge as the riflemen, often equipped with a bipod.
The US BAR, M14A1, M16A1s issued with bipods and extra 30rd mags, and UK L86 LSW all fall into the Auto Rifleman weapon category.
A machinegunner would be those who carried and employed something like an MG42, MAG58, M60, PKM, or M240-usually supported by a gun team and/or other squad members carrying additional linked belts of ammunition. Depending on the Army and era, they may or may not be part of the Infantry squad.
The SAW gunner falls in between these two, in that the SAW is chambered in the same cartridge as what riflemen carry, but is belt-fed and still part of the rifle squad or section.
The QJB-95 LSW falls into the category of an Auto Rifleman duty position.
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Brexit is absolutely about economics, but was focused on sovereignty in the public debate.
Look at how financially imbalanced and fragile the EU is:
Germany, who is in irreparable demographic decline (birth rate hasn't matched replenishment for at least 2 generations), is the core of EU economy, relies on 48-49% of its GDP from exports to other EU states.
As a result, Germany compromised by extending its AAA lending standards to nations with entirely different economics, like Portugal, Italy (2.916€ TRILLION Debt), Greece (394€ Billion Debt), and Spain.
Imagine running a bank where nomads and homeless get the same lending as small business owners, construction companies, and other banks (when the market was trending up).
When financial crises hit, everyone looks to the people that manage their finances well and tells them to cover billions of debt for the ones spending and borrowing like drunken sailors.
The slight majority in UK were smarter than they realize to get out before the music stops. The ones still crying about leaving are about to learn a brutal lesson in history, with one of the greatest economic cavitations unfolding before their eyes...but can't see it because they're wearing Tory vs Labor glasses that filter out the big picture.
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@fahadkelantan I've actually read all the GAO and DOT&E reports on JSF for over a decade now. Did you know the GAO is using F-16C fleet CPFH assumptions for F-35A CPFH Total Ownership, not actual F-35A CPFH?
They openly stated this in their footnotes, and have been using 2012 F-16C stats as the basis "in the absence of fleet data".
I don't know if you know this or not, but GAO is filled with pencil heads who have 0 real world experience in most cases, and know nothing about actual Squadron and Phase level costs, structures, spares flow, let alone the history of these things. It's basically a jobs program for college kids who think they're really smart, but couldn't hack a Law program, so they went into accounting and got hired by the Federal service GS schedule. They add negative value to DoD while justifying their own existence.
Did you know the Squadron-level duty positions are reduced with F-35A vs F-16C/D? It takes less maintainers to service F-35s and F-35s have a lower break-rate than any other fighter in USAF history.
Maintainers say it's boring to work on the F-35A because it hardly breaks, and diagnoses itself. A lot of them return with 100% up status, which is not normal.
If the GAO and DOT&E accurately reported on F-35A, it would be that there's nothing really to report, this aircraft has the lowest break rate in history, it has exceeded the safety standards of the safest aircraft in inventory, while demonstrating decisive capabilities outside of the platforms it was meant to replace.
But if they did that, they would basically be saying, "We're totally worthless and serve no useful oversight function in this program, and because of our reporting requirements, we've actually delayed development by 4 years so far."
So anytime you see numbers from GAO, understand that the people compiling those numbers are.....absolute morons who should probably be facing charges for criminal misconduct.
You can find similar reports from the UK Defence Ministry Audit office stating £50,000-£75,000 CPFH for the Typhoon back in 2011. The UK alone is billions over budget on Typhoon.
Dassault told India they promise to work really hard to get the Rafale CPFH down to $25,000. What's it at currently? They aren't saying because it would jeopardize the few chances of FMS they're trying to get so they can fund FCAS.
Same with Gripen E, which doesn't even exist in a production standard. There simply isn't any fleet data on enough Gripens to make any kind of estimates that are more accurate than the Swiss evaluation figures at $27,000 CPFH.
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@fahadkelantan Yes, I went to numerous colleges too. My college degrees were nothing compared to the NATO AeroE program in terms of academic rigor, and there was quite a bit of business math in my degrees. Applied experience in these fields over the past 5 decades trumps anything inside a classroom by such a huge factor as to make degrees seem almost worthless. The comment about the idiots in the GAO stands. You should meet some of them. They're net negative contributors, meaning they hurt our National defense.
DOT&E reports are contested by the services as a rule every time they are published because they compile outdated information, then present it 8-11 months after whatever faults were reported have been corrected. So it's not me alone pointing out their major contradictions with the facts possessed by the actual operators of the systems.
Again, I've actually read these useless reports for over a decade every time they spew out of the Pentagon's spastic excrement nozzle.
The point about Houthis wasn't to disparage their ethnicity, but to point out how low-tech, low-IQ desert people can still intercept 4th Gen fighters with really cheap, re-purposed equipment supplied to them by foreign actors. Hyperbole arguments that distract from the core aren't helpful or very smart if you're trying to understand the JSF program.
Rafale never flew into a high threat WEZ. You don't identify IADS environments by borders, but look at the actual IADS net coverage. Rafale has avoided high threat WEZ as a rule throughout its deployment history.
You forgot to clarify that the F-35A in USAF exceeded all other fighters' FMC/MC rates, then tried to distract from that by mentioning non-fighter platforms as if they were remotely relevant.
That's a common mistake people make when they have zero relevant background to the subject being studied, jumping in with what they think they know about the world, because someone gave them a piece of paper that validates the cost of wasted years in classrooms.
Pretty much everything you believe or have been told about this subject is a lie. You learn to filter through usual suspect sources after decades of study.
For example, knowing that F-35As have higher FMC/MC rates than not only the F-16C/D, F-15E, F-15C, and F-22A, but also the A-10C, what does that tell you?
You wouldn't know it, but the F-16 & A-10 have had the highest FMC/MC rates of TACAIR fighters for the past 40 years.
A-10s are especially easy to maintain because they are low subsonic (285kts cruise speed), low tech, simple FLCS, simple, underpowered engines, tube frame with wings design with no Radar, no ECM/EW suite, no fly-by-wire, no self-diagnostics, no FADEC, limited G airframe.
And yet the F-35A with all of its capabilities has higher FMC/MC, lower break rates.
So who has been lying to you and who is telling the truth?
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@fahadkelantan Yeah, I don't have any financial ties to L-M, NG, BAE, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon, etc. Actually, my family had more ties to the competition with just short of a million in McD stock since my grandpa worked for Douglas before the merger. McD later merged with Boeing so if I was some type of shill motivated by corporate whoredom, I'd be spamming the comment sections with pro-Super Hornet nonsense.
You know why Rick Abell was called out of retirement to head-up the weight loss program for JSF?
Because the collective brainchildren in the JPO (Pentagon) dictated an arbitrary strategic materials requirement as a % of the airframes, when Lockheed planned to use CF structures instead of 7000 series aluminum.
L-M was overridden on the design by the Pentagon program managers, hence the overweight first 6 FSD airframes, resulting in the B and C models not being able to meet their Key Performance Parameters (KPPs).
What did Rick do? Told the Pentamorons to go sit in the corner and let L-M use more CF as they had planned since the 1990s.
That dropped the weight for each airframe type by thousands of pounds, reduced the RCS smaller than the Raptor (CF is RF permeable, not reflective), increased the structural life (they've already exceeded 3rd life in the static test stress apparatus at over 27,400hrs without failure), and set a baseline production standard that now exceeds all the KPPs.
If they had let L-M use the full structural CF plan from the start, the F-35A would have a 25,000lb empty weight or less instead of 29,200lb.
As to your point arguments, I'm alive because of US air defense systems that far exceed the steaming piles of garbage cranked out by the Russians. When we were in Kuwait as OIF 1 kicked-off in early 2003, we had multiple SCUD missiles launched at us that were all intercepted by Patriots. There was 1 Silkworm cruise missile that made it through and hit a pier in the Kuwaiti City harbor, blew out some windows in a nearby area, no casualties thankfully.
The US uses asymmetric action and has done so for generations. Pretty much everything you think you know is a falsehood based on consuming mass media disinformation, in the vacuum of US secrecy regarding certain programs.
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@fahadkelantan 6th Gen NGAD-A: This is a program to fill the gap left after killing the F-22A before we even went into full-rate production. It's a totally different track than JSF-A, but uses JSF as its baseline data link networking and high airframe count force structure to work with, in addition to VLO drones.
F-35A supersedes primarily the F-117A, F-16CM, and A-10C fleets in USAF.
F-22A was supposed to be made at 750 airframes to replace F-15C so we could have over 200 in Europe, 200 in PACOM, with coastal US basing to plus-up the 2 theaters as part of RDF if needed.
China and Russia felt that heat coming on really strong, so they leveraged their power in US Presidents and SECDEFs on their payroll to kill ATF. (SECDEF Gates was a suspected/known KGB asset for decades by DIA, NSA, and other agencies).
ATF planned force structure gave Theater commanders the ability to literally erase threat air in any region within hours, if authorized by the WH.
It takes a ratio of 3:2 JSF/ATF to do the same thing, and there will be no less than 450 JSF in Europe 9 years from today.
That still would be true had ATF gone into FRP, only we would have 152+ F-22s in Europe by now. Those would also be rotating down through CENTCOM basing as they have been.
People who see NGAD-A as evidence of JSF-A not being successful clearly have never studied the fighter procurement and development tracks in USAF.
For example, F-X development started before F-4E even went into production. USAF had barely started acquiring F-4Cs and F-4Ds at the time.
F-X became the F-15 of course. 2 years into F-15C production (1981), ATF was launched secretly with actual funding and a resolute plan.
ASTOVL was initiated in 1983 by the UK, USMC, USAF, DARPA, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas.
We know we're going to need replacements for the force tracks, so RDT&E efforts are initiated well in advance.
Same with NGAD-N for USN to fill the gap created by the interim stop-gap Super Hornet that had to fill the shoes of the cancelled A-12 and NATF, which were supposed to replace the A-6E and F-14 with VLO platforms that failed to meet weight and production capabilities at the time.
We're moving into an all-VLO TACAIR force structure that was supposed to happen earlier, but was constrained by multiple factors, treason being the most effective one.
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@prof.higgins3154 Normally when people counter Zeihan's forecasts, they do it on the basis of hope, optimism, with marginal and anecdotal data to support their yearning for an ideal future or some pretext.
Then they find out Zeihan has done very detailed analyses that cover the macro down to the micro with a unique blend of depth and breadth in aspects of the metrics that are very comprehensive.
George Friedman's approach at STRATFOR was to put aside ideology and foreign policy, and start with what nations can't do, then look at what they can do, what their interests are in the short, intermediate, and long-term, then study interlocking effects of regional and trade partners/rivals, then make forecasts.
They had to change one of their books from "Russia will invade Georgia" to "Russia has invaded Georgia" in 2008.
Zeihan has been on the record for a long time that 2022 is the last year when Russia could invade Ukraine with a high probability of success, due to population decline in Russia and the fact they won't have enough soldiers ever again.
So far, his assessment of the degrading global order has been accelerated faster than he expected.
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@TD32333 He's correct. Race relations in the US have been agitated by the Soviets for decades.
By the year 2000, this had largely been attenuated with decades of achievement and barriers broken down.
People saw Obama's candidacy as a crown jewel in race relations, proving that anyone could achieve anything in the US.
Obama had the opportunity to spell out a formula for success, but instead, he stirred up racial Agitprop and scraped off the smooth scar tissue, ripping open ideas of animosity, encouraging people to "vote for revenge" in 2012.
This makes him one of the most divisive and destructive Presidents in US History. On top of that, he didn't respect the office, and saw it as far beneath him since he had been handed everything in life.
Read his books to gain more insight into his character. The hardest job he ever had was an ice cream stand, where he complained about how it hurt his wrist to dig into the ice cream tubs with the scoop.
His post-college job was as an economics analyst for a CIA front company, where he complains he was only hired for diversity quota, and could do whatever he wanted without fear of being fired.
Again, the public image is totally different from the reality.
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@BOUNCY700 The strategic JSF airspace coverage between UK, Norway, Finland, and Poland would form a vast integrated sensor network that benefits all partners, while providing an unprecedented level of awareness in the region. Not only for airspace, but sea surface SA on the Barents, Norwegian, North, White, and Baltic Seas.
None of the other options provide that plug-and-play JSF MADL/Fused Sensor Interleaved SA.
Finnish, UK, Norwegian, Polish, Danish, and Royal Netherlands Air Force pilots will see a strategic picture of the battlespace that Generals have never seen.
Plugging any of the other options into that would diminish that strategic picture, because none of those fighters have MADL interoperability, DAS, EOTS, 1676 TRM AESAs, and distributed RF sensor suites.
None of those other fighters can place themselves wherever they want in the region to extend the network node coverage like JSF.
The beauty of JSF is that Finland doesn't need to sign on as a NATO partner to enjoy this level of partnership with all those nations.
The reality that this conversation isn't even a consideration with any of the other options really accentuates how game-changing JSF really is.
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@vikvc Mexico has the most top homicide rate cities in the world, including the top 1-7 slots, 9, 10, 13, 14, 29, 30, 33, 38, 44, & 50. So 17 of the top 50 cities for homicide in the world are in Mexico. New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Philly are also in the top 50 in the world for homicide.
The lowest top 50 city is San Luis Potosí, Mexico, with a rate of 29.06/100,000 people. NYC is around 3 or 4 per 100,000 residents. New Orleans is 70.56 per 100,000 for reference. This might explain why your friend wants to move to NYC.
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@sarahnafkha9565 Cursed traitors. Biden has been a traitor to the US since 1972, when the Soviets paid for his Senate campaign to get into a low population State, Delaware. This was part of their strategy to get as many moles in US government with treaty signature authority, in addition to defense officials, CIA directors, Presidents, university presidents, media, etc. Biden traveled to the Soviet Union immediately after taking office, came back to the US and attacked the B-1A program, with the help of Carter. Carter eventually cancelled the B-1A program, after the technical data had been transferred to the Soviets so they could build the Tu-160 copy.
President Reagan restarted the B-1 program as the B-1B, while Senator Biden worked with the Soviets on campaigning in the Senate to reduce US nuclear arms development while the Soviets ramped-up theirs as part of the SALT II Treaty. Biden was part of the “nuclear freeze” camp in Congress, to which Reagan commented, “It’s as if they get their policy from Moscow.” It’s because they were getting it from Moscow.
After the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, Biden had his staff draft the PATRIOT Act, which was signed into law later under Bush Jr’s White House under the excuse of 9/11 was used to turn the surveillance apparatus of the US against its own people.
Biden has been a traitor for his entire political career. He is an enemy to the United States, the Constitution, and its people for 49 years.
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@kermittoad Gripen E estimated unit flyaway was $85m in 2015 before it even went into production. Saab refuses to say what the unit flyaway cost is. $85m in 2015 is $107.29m in 2023.
Since all the weapon stations but 2 require pylons, and Gripen is an antiquated legacy design, its unit program costs are higher. Here's why:
Lack of systems integration requires external fuel, Recce, FLIR, targeting, decoy, and other combat systems to be attached to weapons stations. FLIR and Recce pods are millions of dollars/Euros each.
So now you have a more expensive unit base price with added millions worth of pods, for less capability than an F-35 with all its FLIR, EW, targeting, and sensors integrated as a baseline without sacrificing any weapons stations.
Weapons stations on F-35s only carry....weapons.
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SF has a lot more mission sets and a variety of scenarios that are nuanced and hard to train for without focus.
It's why they break down primary & secondary core mission sets to various ODAs in a Company and Bn, because it's too much to ask a single ODA to be proficient in SR, DA, UW, HR, Counter-Insurgency, etc.
There are precious few SF units that train on DA like Ranger Regiment does, for example, because that isn't SF's focus.
You could also be on an ODA that focuses on SR or UW, then get tasked operationally to do one of the other sets, whereas in Ranger Regiment, they know what they're going to be doing and train on a cycle for it year-after-year.
When it comes to problem-solving, E-6s and E-7s in Ranger Regiment have way more hands-on experience with SUTs, terrain analysis, mission planning, rehearsals, IPB cycle, and MDMP.
You typically need to be E-7 18F or E-8 18Z in SF to have that number of reps as mid-level NCOs in 75th have, and SF does a lot of planning, deployments, and exercises.
A big complaint from SF guys is the layers of bureaucracy that handicap them when it comes to actionable freedom of maneuver. OPORDERs get analyzed by 5 different levels sometimes, to where guys had more freedom of maneuver and action when they were in a Line Infantry Recon Platoon as E-5s.
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@oconnor6456 40k soldiers with air support and artillery can easily take a city of 5 million. A much smaller force took a much larger city in 2003. You might have heard of it. The US forces amounted to 30,000, whereas Baghdad was over 8 million people with a 45,000 defenders.
You talk about “anyone with the slightest touch? in military education" without knowing basic recent facts of modern examples. I just happened to be in OIF1 in 2003, so I know a little bit about warfare, having studied it from the 1970s-present with a library and deployment history that far exceeds anything Russia has done.
So given your metrics, it makes it even more obvious that Putin was absolutely planning on taking Kiev, and failed miserably. After getting his face kicked in, he shifted over to Donbas to try to save face and gloss over the fact that thousands of vehicles have been lost, with over 10,000 soldiers KIA.
Diversions are a basic strategy that even the most incompetent generals have used in warfare. The ability to adapt and maintain logistics to the fight while letting competent leaders work in their space is what most armies never master. Russia has neither the competent commanders, the logistics, or the strategic planning and adaptability because of 6 major brain drains throughout its history since the Bolsheviks destroyed Russia from within.
Anyway, on the Eastern front in Ukraine, I see it differently, where Russian forces will be defending and losing ground. Now that the Ukrainians taste blood and see how incompetent and weak Russian forces are, they aren’t going to hold back.
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@3aMonolit One of the biggest mistakes amateurs make is assuming the terrain presents itself relative to the listed maximum effective range of the weapons.
The terrain just doesn't work like that, not even in the desert. Slight elevation and relief, combined with wadis, treelines, berms, and obstacles all come into play to obscure fires.
When you list max effective ranges as a normal skirmish factor, it exposes a lack of familiarity with terrain. This is especially true when talking about AKs having 400-700m range. It's just not a practical reality.
Same for tank main guns. If you can't see much beyond 300-1200m, it doesn't matter if your max effective range in the book says 2000-4000m.
This is how tanks die from Infantry using Artillery on-call, ATGMs, mines, obstacles to channelize, and closer range weapons.
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@Fng_1975 I lived through all of this and closely followed the development of the F-14 from the 1970s onward, so there’s no confusion over here. I wasn’t in a NAVAIR community, but in the AFFTC side, but we were always going to China Lake and Point Mugu was right nearby as well. Hornet pilots flying as impromptu aggressors within the Air Wing setting up attacks against the carrier group have stated that it was pretty easy to slip past F-14/AWG-9 coverage. APG-71 had the multimode features since it was basically the same Radar as in the Mudhen, but with some additional features specific to Navy requirements. My family did a lot of work on F-15E APG-70 systems integration with various weapons, developing the various modes and expanded employment capabilities in the early days of that program, right after we did AIM-120 integration and certain IFF features on the F-16C at Edwards.
Baby Hornets were never meant to replace the Tomcat, nor did they. They replaced the F-4J/N/S and A-7E. Super Bug replaced the F-14 and A-6E, which was definitely a compromise. F-35C is not a compromise relative to the F-14D in any metric. F-35C can execute deep strike into the MEZ where no Tomcat could ever go, and prosecute a longer mission radius in any mission set, to include Fleet Air Defense. F-35C creates a whole new level of networked Fleet Defense while simultaneously contributing to maritime patrol, ISTAR, and ASW.
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@Fng_1975 I’m not sure what Navy sources you’re listening to, but the major comments coming out of the current deployed carrier air wing operating F-35Cs is that they finally got long legs back to the strike group. That and the networking are the main things they’re talking about. (MEZ I’m referring to is Missile Engagement Zone common to modern IADS, not legacy IADS where Tomcats, Hornets, and A-6Es were shot down).
The F-35B for the USMC and UK has the same mission radius as a 2-tank F-16C or better, and it has the least amount of internal fuel of the 3 separate airframe designs (there isn’t 1 airframe design). F-35B carries 13,500lb, about the same amount of internal fuel as an F/A-18F, but only has one engine and mostly a clean aerodynamic profile for most common configurations.
The F-35A carries 18,250lb internal, while the F-35C for the Navy carries 19,200lb, while having very large wing and tailplane area.
Senior F-14 pilots who worked on F-14D development praise the JSF program, as do all the pilots who convert into it. The criticism isn’t from people close to JSF, but from people who don’t know what they’re looking at and have very limited frames of reference to it.
JSF is legit. I’ve called in CAS as well, so I know somewhat about that mission set and legacy profiles vs the modern profiles for weapons employment. Even the A-10C has gone to SDBs and LGBs as primary weapons, superseding the AGM-65G and CBUs from the A-10A profiles. There is no reason for the down-on-the deck close target eyeball CAS profile nowadays with SDB. The whole re-attack requirement for A-X in the early 1970s is what really pushed the A-7D out, which should not have happened. A-7D had crazy legs better than any of the teen series, including the F-15E.
JSF-A and -C bring back the range/radius of the A-7D/E basically, but with better payload and the ability to do A2A better than the Raptor in many ways (IR spectrum sensor fusing with RF).
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@Fng_1975 You'll find National Interest isn't a reputable source for information on any of this, but one of the many ad revenue click-bait sites.
With the Super Hornet, Fleet Air Defense sortie generation increased over the Tomcat and with Block II SH with the AESA Radars and JTIDS, the detection ranges and coverage smokes the APG-71 & AWG-9 easily. F-14D doesn't compare well to a Block II Super Hornet in that regard, especially with ATFLIR slaved to the AESA.
Regarding CAS with JSF: F-35s can PID from over the horizon in bad weather at night better than A-10 can do in clear wx on top of you, and PID both Blue and enemy forces in ways that really push more into what was traditionally spyplane and ELINT aircraft territory.
The resolution of the early Radar Ground Mapping TGT mode was good enough to count windows on buildings at 80 nautical miles, which it fuses with the zoomable EOTS FLIR in the nose. At certain very far distances, they can read your IFF patches.
F-35s don't use the legacy omnidirectional data link network like previous gen fighters. They have adapted comms with it, but MADL is extreme narrow beam LPI, so it can't be intercepted between F-35s, and they can specifically direct who they're sending to in a high ECM environment.
A-10s have been involved in more Blue-on-Blue dating back to ODS, killed many US, UK, and Canadian forces in ODS, OEF, and OIF, all using visual approaches even against units with VS-17s clearly visible. I've seen the HUD footage with comms traffic. They threw PID out the window with buck fever, slaughtered guys in their APCs on multiple occasions, and stray rounds on danger close runs are high probability with a pilot with less than 1000hrs of experience. That's why A-10C has been focused on using Small Diameter Bomb, GBU-12, APKIWS, and GBU-31 vs the legacy weapons assortment.
If you talk with JTACS who have actually employed F-35s, the story is totally different than what "experts" have been saying about F-35 and CAS. They were shocked what the F-35 pilots could see and know around them, while not even being visible or heard from the ground.
You can't deceive the MADL networked fused picture from the AESA, EOTS, DAS, and RF sensor suite. You can't get anything in between 2 F-35s linked via the MADL, so now you have triangulation of over 30 different sensors covering the entire signature spectrum, 28 of those sensors being passive.
It forces CAS into a new generation of capability that's hard for legacy TACPs and JTACs to understand without a detailed capes briefing. It not only exceeds what is known or expected in a traditional 9 line approach, but opens up Electronic Warfare options that were typically provided by certain fixed wing platforms that are vulnerable to MANPADS and AAA.
In many cases, JSF can provide 10 digit coordinates to your organic fires assets and help manage the fight that way without needing to drop anything, while conducting exploitation of the extended threat forces order of battle and TGT their mobile nodes, tunnels, bunkers, Radios, vehicles, and nearby supporting forces.
They see and share things that make the EW, ELINT, and AWACS systems officers envious without even breaking squelch. It's a revolution in CAS as we know it.
As to airframes, they're all quite different, but share sensors and much of the propulsion to reduce costs from what was being proposed. If you look back at all the designs being explored during ASTOVL, then JAST, almost everyone had settled on the same basic fuselage configuration independently, with different variations in wings, canards, and tailplanes. The McDonnell Douglas fuselage/nose designs looked the same as Lockheed. There were dozens of these designs.
Merry Christmas to you too!
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@Chuck59ish Good comment. Within the first 10 years of F/A-18 service, we lost at least 94 of them between USMC, USN, RCAF, and Spaniards, with 27 fatalities. Just the first 10 years....It was nowhere ready for production, but they still cranked them out by the hundreds. USN divested themselves of F/A-18A/B really quick, so by the time of Desert Storm, they already had F/A-18C/Ds. There were major structural problems, landing gear was faulty and caused loss of life/aircraft, Radar was all jacked-up and even into the C model, the upgraded APG-65 would trigger the RWR system. Hornets had tons of real bugs that should have been vetted and reduced before it was put into production.
F-16 was an even bigger mess. 143 total airframe losses with 71 fatalities within the first 10 years alone. Fly-by-Wire system was great, but an on-floor unauthorized design change created wire chaffing in some of the fuselage through-boxes that were supposed to have rivets. Production manager on that section changed it to threaded fasteners for more efficient assembly, not understanding why rivets were needed there, killed several pilots and lawn-darted many airframes.
F-16 bugs got mostly worked-out and it went on to become the safest single engine fighter in USAF or NATO service, until F-35A started hitting the force. Class A Mishaps in F-16C have been pretty stable at around 2-3.4/100k flight hours for decades now. F-35A is less than 1 per 100k flight hours, and they have flown over 300,000 flight hours of the total fleet’s 463,000+ hours (including B and C models).
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@ericmowrey6872 Comey was one of the lead FBI investigators for the Whitewater Land Scandal the Clintons had back in the early 1990s. The investigation started before the 1992 election, and was related to the Jim McDougal Madison S&L scandal.
After years of investigations, the Clintons firing of the FBI Director, and the Independent Counsel Report, Comey said, “There was insufficient evidence to prove that the Clintons knowingly engaged in any criminal misconduct.”
The Governor after Clinton went to Federal prison for fraud, Jim McDougal was convicted on 18 felonies, and a total of 15 people associated with the Clintons and the Whitewater/Madison S&L fraud scheme were convicted for fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy, embezzlement, multiple loan fraud, bank fraud, and bribery.
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@honved1 US economy doesn’t rely on exports, even though the US is the 2nd largest exporter in the world and will likely move back into #1 as China collapses. US economy self-sustains in all the critical areas (land, energy, food, transportation, housing, employment) and imports a lot from other nations all over the world for luxuries/nice-to-haves. As the world destabilizes, there is more and more demand for US finance, US technology, weapons, energy, and all our value-added products.
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@angusmatheson8906 I know that’s what we hear repeatedly, but the math doesn’t add up. Find me any city in any of those countries that has higher presence of life flight helos, ambulances, PTLS-trained EMT-Ps, Level 1 Trauma Centers, MRIs, CT, CAT, EKG, full department hospitals, clinics, specialists, Cath labs, orthopedics, and then the real separator: dentistry and orthodontics.
Canada, NZ, and Switzerland just don’t compare well in those spaces. Neither do Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, or France.
All of those countries are far closer to the US when comparing to Russia, which is in the dark ages. If the nations with universal healthcare reported the truth about what is actually in the US, it would undermine their flagship social programs and cause a lot of flight from those nations to the US, from critical skills people who actually show up to work every day.
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@joythought A thing people don't understand is the US is supplying the Pacific nations, Canada, Western Europe, and Middle Eastern countries with foreign military sales packages based on many years-old defense procurement agreements.
You don't just magically fulfill defense article shipments overnight, especially aerospace systems like missiles, Radars, armor, communications gear, ships, vehicles, and even small arms.
Most European countries have continued to cut production and capacity for manufacturing these things because of weak parliamentarians who have acted like 1991 was perpetual.
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@UnluckyHistorian The size argument isn't a fallacy though, since in the US, that 334 million population covers a much wider and diverse set of peoples from all over the world, including 43.4 million descendants of West African slaves who aren't in their natural habitat, as well as 9.6 million Native Americans, most of whom were forced out of their homelands in the Eastern US and sent out West to live in dry areas far from their ancestral homelands. It would only be a fallacious argument if the US was comprised of 334 million Swiss.
When you overlay a homicide rate map by County over the US, guess what areas are the extreme outliers?
High black populations and Indian Reservations.
Switzerland has none of this. If 13% of Switzerland were descendants of African slaves, the culture and attitudes around firearms possession would be quite different, as would the crime.
Switzerland only has 8.8 million people up in the Alps, secluded even from their European neighbors. I've been there and love the place, but comparing Switzerland to the US is a fool's errand as you can see.
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The extreme cold climate testing all 3 JSF variants were subject to in Florida were far harsher than Alaska. Billie Flynn (one of the JSF test pilots who also flew Hornets, Typhoon, F-16 MATV, F-16E/F, RCAF Squadron Commander) talks about it in-detail, where he was literally flying the aircraft suspended inside of the huge climactic test chamber with sheets of ice and hail being fired at the aircraft, temps down to extreme lows, sand/wind/dust, rain, etc. Gripen has never been tested to these kinds of extremes. It’s just another marketing hype claim from Saab that doesn’t hold up well at all. USAF arctic weather operations in Alaska, Norway, and Iceland since the 1950s have seen far larger numbers of fighters based in those locations, with far greater numbers of sorties generated, with squadrons having far greater combat-experienced pilots, maintainers, ordnance, and air planners. The cold weather monopoly angle Sweden often cites is a non-starter vs the facts.
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@Whiskey11Gaming I wasn’t referring to the wind sweep mechanism, which was not very problematic as you said (though it still required a lot of inspections). I was referring to:
1. Slats
2. Spoilers
(multiple actuators, doors, hinges, arms, servo cylinders, hydraulic lines, splines, cogs, etc.)
3. Flaps (multiple servo cylinders, lines)
4. Rudders
5. Stabilators
6. Speed brakes
7. Variable intake ramps and doors for boundary layer management
There is a lot of hydraulic line architecture woven throughout that airframe to pressurize all of those actuators for those surfaces. Notice that I left out the deactivated glove vanes.
If you look at the fleet MMH/FH stats from 1972-2006, there was no difference in the 40-60hrs required when looking across F-14A, F-14A+/B, and F-14D. A lot of that was bathtub graph with the D model, but it never saw low hours even after they got the crews trained and equipped to maintain it.
F-15 doesn’t have any of those additional control surfaces and actuators, since there are no slats, spoilers, or wing sweep mech. The one thing the F-15 does have that’s different is the variable inlet cowl, along with the internal ramps and doors for boundary layer management. Grey Eagle mx hrs are typically in the 18-30hr range, so about half of what it took to wrench the F-14.
None of the F-14D improvements seemed to manifest in lower hours in the fleet, and the proposed ST-21 didn’t enjoy the benefits of EHAs, so I think it’s very reasonable to suspect it would have had similar mx hours as the legacy. Fiber Optic DFLCS could have helped with that, but the control surfaces required to get the landing speed down behind the boat are what they are on a 40,000lb empty weight bird.
Capability would have been awesome, though sortie gen rates would not have been what the Super Bug has I think. Also the 2-man crew requires pipelines for both, and it’s hard to keep seats manned as it is with single seaters.
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@garfieldfarkle If you were a serious intelligence historian, you should know by now that many US military officers wear 2 hats after going into a foreign station chief position or their staff. Stansfield Turner was one of those, Oliver North was another (John Cathey). Have you ever heard of a position called US Defense Attaché? Tens of thousands of "dual hats" have gone to their graves with no public record of them having ever been anything but an officer.
The B-1A was barely in initial development. Stop reading Wikitardia and get some legitimate sources if you’re ever going to make statements about military aerospace again. Carter didn’t develop cruise missiles. That’s a huge misstep on the timeline. Cruise missiles (the ALCM) was developed from decoy missiles for the B-52 that were already a thing with SCAD in 1973. Carter had zero to do with anything other than delaying development of ALCM and USAF switching gears to make AGM-86B. We were on that program too, as well as SRAM, SRAM II (cancelled by Bush41), and a host of others.
ALCM and B-1A were a synonymous developmental set of systems with AGM-86A. B-1A was Mach 2-capable, and could nuke its way through Soviet IADS coming over the top (Northern Hemisphere) profile. The Russians hated the B-1A. B-1A had a massive internal weapons capacity with 3 huge bays, far more than internal weapons capacity of the B-52G.
You can load up a lot of ALCM-Bs on B-52G/H internally and externally, but its profile is easier to intercept since it’s strictly subsonic. For rapid response time, B-1A would be able to get on-station into separation profiles with phases of ALCMs way sooner than any B-52. B-1 can configure the wing sweep angle for optimum cruise speed and specific fuel consumption with an internal payload and no parasitic drag. B-52 can’t with the external racks for ALCMs.
That put a lot of pressure on the Soviets economically when trying to deal with counters to the B-1A, hence the heavy emphasis on active measures/diplomatic solutions, while the got the Technical Data for it and built their own, called the Tu-160.
Too expensive for the US, but the Russians built it. Doesn’t pass the sniff test.
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Who has been supporting the Finnish Air Force for the past 35 years? Who allowed the JASSM missile to be exported to Finland before any of its NATO allies?
Have you run any scenarios of Rafale against Su-57s acting as omnirole AEWAC/Hunter-killers networked with Su-35s, Su-30SM2, Su-27SM3s?
Su-57 is a Eurocanard killer, working with Super Flanker missile-carriers/fighter-interceptors.
You really need a VLO platform to be lethal and survivable against the Felon/Super Flanker force mix.
Rafale, Typhoon, and Gripen E are short-term solutions at-best, likely obsolete already, and definitely obsolete in 2025.
Russia is midway along the path of standardizing their upgrade program for Su-30SM2 & Su-27SM3 to be interoperable with Su-35S, which are all interoperable with Su-57.
That presents a formidable force mix for the Eurocanards, where high attrition is expected and you become completely defensive.
JSF keeps that in-check by inflicting early attrition on any of those Russian airframes, penetrating and destroying their airfields, and eliminating all of their EW and AWACS support aircraft within the first hour.
It's a very powerful deterrent against Russia. Eurocanards are an invitation to continue to violate Finnish airspace, and engage them at-will for sport with Felon/Flanker force mix.
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@KlipsenTube YF-16 had a gun ranging radar like that of the F-86, not a fire control Radar like in a modern fighter. It’s one of the main things the USAF corrected when we went to the FSD birds in the late 1970s. The FSD birds had black radomes for the APG-66. That basically became the baseline for Block 1 F-16A/B in 1977-1978. USAF had zero interest in a daytime dogfighter, and wanted a nice multirole lightweight fighter with single engine that could self-escort and hit ground targets between the FLOT and the MEZ, with quick turnaround times when re-arming and refueling. Not like F-4s, F-105s, and A-7s with their maintenance issues. A-7D was great since it had the best single engine combat radius record for decades and excellent bombing computer, Navigation, and HUD.
We quickly divested the force of F-4Es, F-4Ds, and A-7Ds as F-16s came off the line, and kept the F-4G as our Wild Weasel until it could be superseded by the F-16CJ/CG Block 50s.
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The carpet came from a nearby residence the WH staffers used for sexcapades.
The official autopsy report on Foster clearly states that he had semen discharge in his underwear, pants, and socks, with long blonde hair present, along with the carpet fibers of unknown origin. Right at the moment or just after, someone put a revolver to his head, which he grabbed and tried to deflect away from him, resulting in a penetrating injury through his neck just under the right jawline.
The majority of the blood perfused there. His body was then placed in a vehicle and driven from that location to Fort Marcy Park. A motorist named Patrick Knowlton pulled into the park to relieve himself, and saw one of the perpetrators in a sedan, backed into the parking space, watching out while others dumped the body.
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Charges against Mandella: Smuggling/possession of 210,000 hand grenades, 48,000 anti-personnel mines, 1,500 time devices, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate, 21.6 tons of aluminum powder and a ton of black powder, Further acts of violence and destruction, (this includes 193 counts of terrorism committed between 1961 and 1963); Acts of guerrilla warfare, Acts of assistance to military units of foreign countries when involving South Africa.
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The caliph absorbed those things from the Byzantines, the Mediterranean civilizations, Spain, and India. The knowledge of medicine, mathematics, philosophy, and other disciplines has existed throughout various civilizations in history. It ebbs and flows with cataclysms and warfare diminishing it, followed by interaction through trade that expands it. The Sumerians and ancient Babylonians had much of his knowledge, as did the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.
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@brrrtnerd2450 Every time a new weapons system or external store is introduced, it has to undergo a pretty lengthy series of tests starting from ground, and working all the way up to supersonic edge-of-envelope separation tests if it is jettisonable/launchable.
You never know how an attached load will behave until you actually test it. A big surprise for me was what they went through with AMRAAM testing on the F-14D.
I think it was fine in the tunnel/fuselage stations, but on the wing glove pylons, it created peculiar aerodynamic drag conditions that were unworkable according to a senior F-14D test pilot, so the F-14 is the only teen fighter that never got AIM-120. Even the AV-8B+ and Sea Harrier FA2s got AIM-120 integration.
I also find it interesting that the Viper is the only one of the 2 teens with wingtip rails that carries -120s there, while the Hornet and Super Hornet do not. They have so many options for AIM-120 carriage though, it doesn't matter.
Back to the XL. They never carried actual AIM-120s on it, but dummies painted white. AMRAAM was just barely in development and early testing then, after the recommendations from AIMVAL in the mid-late 1970s out at Nellis.
F-16XL could have made a very capable interceptor with supercruise and long duration with all that internal fuel, didn't need bags. It just needed more thrust.
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@mortil Yeah, after 40 years of being in Aerospace and Defense technical collection and analysis, flying, deploying, and being tasked with assessing emerging systems capabilities, I clearly don't know what I'm talking about.
You might not know this, but fighter data links were introduced by the US on the F-102 & F-106 interceptors in the 1950s. Interestingly, Sweden did the same thing immediately afterwards with the JAS-35 Draken with the same mission profile of the US delta wing interceptors-namely to intercept Soviet bombers before they could get within weapons parameters of strategic targets in the defended territory.
We could then talk about data links in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, through the JAS-39C/D and the various stages of Link-16 development.
Then we could discuss the next generation Raptor IFDL. The F-35's MADL is another generation ahead of that with multi-layered and integrated LPI transmit and receive features that can't be implemented on 4th Gen airframes.
The top 2 fighter data links are on JSF and F-22. Gripen E data link, which is an exceptional system, still does not reach anywhere near the levels of connectivity, jam-resistance, and LPI methods employed in IFDL and MADL.
More importantly, Gripen E does not have integrated spherical, multi-spectral, fused and interleaved sensor coverage.
It has intermittent mechanically-steered IRST sweep coverage and steerable AESA field of regard coverage with excellent data-linked sharing with other Gripens and GlobalEye, so please don't mistake what I'm saying.
It just doesn't take sensor integration to the levels that JSF does, because it doesn't even have the RF and IR sensor count that JSF does.
It's an attempt to provide some of the coverage without having to spend $30 billion on RDT&E on a clean sheet design like Flygsystem 2020, which never happened.
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Yup. US population is 331 million. Finland is 5.5 million. There are tiny States in the US with more fightes, transports, helos, special ops, artillery, etc. than 95% of nations on earth.
My State alone has at least 72 F-35As, a National Guard helicopter base, artillery, a Special Forces Group, MI, Engineers, a USAF Logistics Depot that overhauls and upgrades fighters, etc.
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Finland suffers from chronic naivete and willing ignorance because the war was so brutal to want to face again. Finland hungered for the peace dividend and was somewhat in that mindset by being neutral during the Cold War.
The Finnish defense and security community has been one of the only sane camps in Finnish society regarding foreign relations, and even with the naive posture of most Finnish PMs, everyone has a gut-level instinct that they need to be prepared. The FDF has been asking for more resources for decades, normally hamstrung with a modest budget, but over the past decade has seen significant changes.
One of the biggest shocks to many was Finland's selection of the F-35A after a 7yr H-X Challenge to replace F/A-18C Hornets.
Finland won't take in-country deliveries until 2026, which leaves a tiny window for Putin to invade Finland.
Once Finland has about a dozen of their F-35A order, Russia will not have much of a chance of establishing any sense of air supremacy.
With the existing Hornet fleet, Finland would already inflict disproportionate attrition on Russian fighters, attack aircraft, UAS, transports, and helicopters far in excess of what Ukraine has been able to do.
The reasons are because of the quantity and quality of Finnish Air Force, IADS, and battlefield information network. FiAF is exceptionally-trained for this type of conflict, and now has an even more recent intel assessment of RuAF and ground forces capabilities.
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There was no justifiable reason to institute Prussian model schooling in the US, as we already had the highest literacy rates in the colonies before the Revolution due to the library system started by Benjamin Franklin and the Junta. Schools are for behavioral and thought conditioning with repetitive motions you submit to. You will learn more in a day sometimes than an entire school year when studying independently. Best thing to do is find something you really enjoy or love, then dive into it, learn everything there is to know about it, approaching it from multiple angles.
Example: I really loved airplanes as a kid. I got every book, checked out everything in the library I could or read them in the library, studied the history of their development, studied cockpit diagrams, attended every air show possible, and interviewed all my neighbors that were test pilots for the Air Force. My dad worked on them for the USAF as well, so I was surrounded by aviation. Along the way, I started to quickly learn about the physics and math involved with aspects of aviation, materials strengths and limitations, effects of thermal shifts on metals and composites, structural challenges for aircraft design, integration of various systems, and a whole range of industries that go into making aircraft. My personal studies into these matters far exceeded anything I ever wasted my time with in school. School was a distraction from me studying my passion, and rarely intersected with it.
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@Whiskey11Gaming Precious few soldiers and Marines carried both the M14 and M16 in their enlistments because the M14 was only there in the early days in 1965-1967 for mass issue, procurement having ended in 1964. By 1968, hardly any units had M14s anymore.
So to just get a sample of soldiers and Marines who were issued both, you would need to find a very limited group of guys who served in a tiny window in the war. It isn’t like a unit kept all their old weapons and gave guys a choice. An armorer’s job is hard enough keeping up on the spread of M60s, rifles, pistols, grenade launchers, mortars, and .50 cals. It would really suck trying to maintain and field M14s plus M16s with all their related BII, support tools, PMCS, and processes.
As to who would choose what, every single Recon and Special Operations unit loved the AR-15 and XM177E2. They were the early adopters, quickly ditching the M14. For Infantry units, the M14 was totally inappropriate for SEA for all the reasons the XM7 is inappropriate today. Weight, bulk, limited round count, and recoil.
There are a lot of guys who read gun rags and ranted for decades about how they preferred the M14 over the M16, but almost none of them were even in Vietnam or the Infantry, and were repeating some crap they heard.
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@neroultimate1 The judge released him on own recognizance, he beat the girlfriend, police were called out for DV, he battered the police, and is now incarcerated facing multiple felony charges, in addition to this incident of aggravated assault.
Society will now have to pay more through the legal system, after paying untold expenses for his welfare queen mothers, sisters, grandmothers, great grandmothers, etc., who are all relatively-young.
It's all a lose-lose-lose-lose situation for everyone associated with him, even in chance encounters.
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There's a joke about automation that the only job it has replaced is the elevator man.
We still have machinists, assemblers, painters, secretaries, personal assistants, while automation has mainly leveraged and augmented human labor, not replaced it.
On the front and back ends, we require significant skilled labor to design, program, maintain, repair, upgrade, de-bug, and drop software updates for all the systems that were supposed to reduce human labor.
Robotics and AI sound great for intellectually and physically lazy people, until you show them the real infrastructure and labor required. We haven't even talked about cyber security and vulnerabilities in that space to the habitually-criminal lazy elements of society who predate on the baseline networks that underly all these technologies.
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@Triple87 There are no published kill ratios from the Gripen 2006 Red Flag Alaska exercise. It was not against the West’s best fighters, because F-22 would clean its clock for sport, and you could expect a disadvantage even against the F-15C+ with AESA and data links. The Gripen C did do exceptionally well though. Alaska has mountain ranges you can use for terrain-masking while high-fliers act as AEW&C, data-linking SA down to the hitters in the weeds who then pop-up and commence to setting up NEZ parameters while exercising EMCON. A fighter equipped with a good IRST and high throughput data link net can do really well in that environment. There are no comparable mountain ranges in Finland or Russia (in that region).
The exercise you really might want to look at is Falcon Strike 2015, where Royal Thailand Air Force Gripen C trained against Chinese PLAAF Su-27SK/J-11As. In BVR, they slayed the Su-27 for sport, but then were humiliated in WVR. The kill ratios were extremely lop-sided depending on BVR vs WVR in the Gripen. Biggest factors were the avionics/radar detection and tracking ability, missile range kinematics, low RCS for BVR. Thrust/weight, maneuverability, and HMS/R-73 were the biggest factors in WVR, where the Gripen C was dead meat with the AIM-9L. Keep in mind that wasn’t Super Flankers with PESA radar and PL-15, but outdated Su-27SK export model Flankers in PLAAF service.
Subsequent Falcon Strike exercises saw the PLAAF send the J-10A and J-10C with AESA radar and Diverterless Supersonic Intakes to cut the frontal RCS way down, as well as employing the PL-15 BVRAAM. This took away the Gripen C/D BVR advantages. Su-27 has always been inferior to the F-15C in that respect for the same reasons, and is especially ill-suited in the BVR game vs the F-15C+/AIM-120C combo. The Super Flankers are a different story since they have PESA and R-77 with modernized digital self-protection and offensive EW suites as part of the upgrades. The Chinese have been looking at the Gripen E and F-16DSI/F-16MATV as models for emulating their J-10 upgrade program.
None of these 4.5 Gen fighters fare well against the F-35 since every unfair advantage is firmly in the F-35’s favor, in ways that require total clean-sheet redesign to compete with.
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@forzaisspeed I can lay it all out for you with the math and applied physics if you like, but to simplify:
Yes, it is actually very easy for even a relatively-new pilot in the F-35 to always be the victor in BVR against any current 4.5 Gen fighter with AESA, IRST, Digital ASPJ/EW suite, and whatever kind of data link you want to put in it, even with the 4.5 Gen fighter being piloted by a high-hr driver with all the schools and years of experience. It simply does not matter. It’s a more unfair fight than most anyone thinks on these threads.
There is no 50/50 BVR exchange rate possibility between EF Typhoon, even with the latest possible Tranche AESA/PIRATE/Digital EW Suite, Meteor, etc. You could put the APG-81 in the Typhoon (if it would fit, APG-81 has a huge array with 1656 TRMs) and it would not change the outcome. Captor-E is a tiny little array, but has the cool feature of turret rotation, which is nice against 4th Gen threats when you notch/offset after initial volley BVRAAM separation so you can continuously provide mid-course guidance to the missile while it remains cold. It is meaningless against F-35. I’ll explain...
Captor E and every other AESA out there can’t see the F-22A or any JSF at those distances. There are far more developed, capable AESA radars in actual operational service that have even bigger arrays than the F-22’s APG-77, like the F-15C+ APG-63(V)3 with well over 2000 TRMs and huge space in the nose for massive power amps, Digital waveform generators, and filters. F-15C pilots with that radar said even when they cheated, they could never see the F-22A. Even early LRIP F-35 RCS is too small for any fighter AESA in service. The one that would detect it sooner, but still not soon enough, is the Gripen E AESA since it uses GaN TRMs, where you have twice the electron mobility. You’re still talking about a very short initial detection range, and still no PID because of 5th Gen NCTR and EW deception if they have let you live to get that close on your terms. Why would you do that if you’re in the F-35s?
F-35 EOTS and DAS see any of the 4th Gen airframes well before the F-35 shows up on the IR spectrum. One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming the F-35 has a similar IR signature compared with any 4th Gen airframe? Opposite is true due to the extent they went to with IR concealment measures. Both the F-22 and F-35 have extremely cold IR signatures and do not show up on IRST until around the edge of WVR on most of them. WVR, pilots who have flown against the F-22 in a Fox 2 fight using JHMCS and AIM-9X say they can’t acquire the F-22 with the reticle or AIM-9X seeker on a CATM. So the only real solutions for IR missiles would have to be a really tight rear quadrant approach and hope to defeat the automated countermeasures/MAWS that is integrated into the JSF self-protection suite. How you get into rear quadrant solutions with an F-35 is your nut to crack, but good luck.
Now flip the coin and look at what options JSF has. If it wants to accelerate to maximum weapons separation V0, it’s doing it from an unobserved posture, so you have high altitude separation with thin air, much higher average V0 for the missile throughout the flight, with extremely high terminal phase and impact velocity with only a tiny window of active seeker "hot-phase" before impact. This is a much different scenario than mutual detection 4th Gen BVR/fast chess games on the timeline.
Back to IR spectrum. PIRATE and other modern IRSTs CAN detect frontal aspect fighter-size targets of various sizes and IR signatures at different distances and conditions. There is no hard spec for that. Larger TGTs with reflective and radiating bodies/emissions will give different hits for IRST. F-35 isn’t showing up until Edge of Visual Range, and it models your sensor detection fields of regard in the tactical situation display, so not even an amateur F-35 driver is going to fly in there. It also emulates the threat sensor profiles based on conditions and aspect to the sensors, so side aspect of the F-35 has a larger RCS than frontal or rear, but still not that large. It does the same for IR signature aspect.
So nobody is closing into a WVR Fox 2 fight. Even if someone accidentally merged into WVR, Helmet-Cued systems and IR seekers will not acquire the JSF airframe. One of the 4-5 layers of IR concealment involves scooping cold air and flowing it around the engine nozzle, which diffuses around a spiral vortex from the angled reheat flame-holder arrays that are shaped to reduce rear aspect RCS. It also sinks surface heat into the fuel mass and has other integrated technologies that both reduce RCS and IR sig on the skin. There are also heat exchangers built into the low pressure fan stage of the engine, so that fuel mass stays stable and very cool for power management and systems cooling.
This doesn’t mean PIRATE isn’t awesome. It is, and is one of the things that keeps the Typhoon (in UK service at least) capable against the Super Flankers.
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@forzaisspeed I think you might be referring to the brief visit where after the USSR collapsed, Russians brought some Su-27s over to the US and flew some friendly exchange with F-15Cs out of Langley AFB, VA. There was no exercise, West vs East games, or anything like that. They did some Basic Fighter Maneuvers where the Su-27 had better WVR kinematics for sure, excellent climb rate, excess thrust with us just letting them showcase what it could do. We then purchased a bunch of Su-27s from Ukraine, which have been seen flying out in Nevada doing BFM against F-16Cs. 70% exchange rate in WVR makes sense, but not in BVR.
Here’s what you want to look at if you’re talking about the Su-27:
There’s a really good analysis over many years where the Chinese have been flying against Royal Thai Air Force Gripen Cs. China first sent PLAAF Su-27SK Sino Flankers and got raped in BVR by the Gripen C with AIM-120, but slayed them in WVR using the helmet and R-73 in the exercises. China went back into their force modernization approach and brought the J-10A and later J-10C with AESA, both capable of using the PL-15 BVRAAM and took away the Gripen C advantage in BVR. The biggest negative for the Su-27SK was its huge RCS, which gave the Gripen C first-look, first-shoot since their AIM-120 has 80km engagement range, while the export R-77 RVV-AE variant to China is limited to 50km.
China figured the J-10 (with its smaller RCS and AESA) could get them into a mutual detection or advantage first-look, especially with the J-10C (with the F-16 DSI intake copy) and PL-15. Once they got ahold of early F-35 TDP files, they went to work frantically on the J-20, which is now in serial production with the J-20B currently rolling off the line.
The legacy F-15C would always get first-look against the Su-27 since the RCS is so huge and we make better radars. Once we upgraded to the AESA in the F-15C and put JHMCS with AIM-9X in it, along with Digital EW suite/CM, it takes away any practical advantages the Su-27 had in the helmet-cued Fox 2 fight. AIM-120 has always had better reach than what the Russians were fielding, since they kept R-27ERs and R-73s on Su-27s even into the present.
Now when you start talking about the Su-30SM and Su-35S, things get different. That’s why we have F-22As and F-35s. F-22 was designed to future-proof our air dominance against any possible upgrades they could do to the Flankers. Su-30SM brought with it a massive PESA radar, but the F-15C+ APG-63(V)3 AESA is far superior to it and works extremely well, very reliable and game-changing for the F-15.
Su-35S has a more modern cockpit, huge touch screen displays, more integrated avionics where the IRST works with the PESA, and RAM has been applied to the surfaces to try to get that huge RCS down. It also has Digital EW Suite and modern data link with MAWS, as well as capable ECM pods on the wing tips.
Russia is currently phasing all their operational Su-27SM2s and Su-30SMs through a mid-life upgrade including better engines, better radar, better avionics, cockpits, IRSTs, into Su-27SM3 and Su-30SM2 standards, which have compatible data links with the Su-35S and Su-57. That creates a net-centric force structure modeled off of the US/NATO data link shared information approach with common interface among all their fighters. I think they’re putting it in the Su-34 as well.
That force structure still is no match for the F-22A, F-35, F-15E, F-16CM, but is more capable than US 1990s pre-ATF IOC, 23 years later.
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It would have been a great aircraft had it been designed and built in the West, using engines that work reliably and have long life, significant use of composites in the airframe, and avionics that were actually useful, driven from a cockpit that had the pilot in-mind. Visibility from the canopy would have been better as well. Drop the airframe weight with composites, use consistent templates for the skin panels (unlike Russian method of hand-drilling randomly), use smaller diameter F404 motors (35” vs RD-33 $1”) and resulting smaller profiled engine nacelles for better aerodynamics, acceleration, speed, and combat radius. Or you can just look at the Baby Hornet with twice the weapons stations. MiG-29 can only carry 6 AAMs. F/A-18A-D can carry 12 AAMs. F/A-18 is vastly-superior in the multi-role mission set capabilities since it has been developed for SEAD, strike, Anti-Ship, DCA, OCA, CAS, and FAC.
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@andreypetrov4868 We (my family) did technical exploitation of Russian aircraft. I do not share your opinion of them, purely from an analytical perspective knowing what's under the hood in US aircraft.
Russia sees its expeditionary air forces as a fire support structure for the army, whereas the US uses air power as the main effort, acting in coordination with land, sea, space, and other forces.
The air defense forces are another matter who focus on perimeter defense of the large land mass of Russia, but we've been seeing those aircraft used in the Ukraine conflict as well, namely the MiG-31BM with R-37M Long Range Beyond Visual Range AAMs.
VVS has also been broadcasting in plain, open text, non-secure on the Radios, which is worse than embarrassing. US basic infantry soldiers had better Radios and comms discipline than that since the early 1990s, with secure comms on older Radios dating back to the 1980s.
Things are worse than anyone imagined. For pilot strength, there have to be more than that with all the aviation regiments across the regions.
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@Grebogoborp US major weapon systems that have fought against numerically-superior forces and prevailed overwhelmingly:
F-15C APG-63(V)1 AIM-7M AIM-9L
F-16C/D Blocks 25, 30, 40
F-15E APG-70 LANTIRN, GBU-series
F-111F with PAVE Tack and GBU-series
F-4G with HARM
EF-111A
F-111A
F/A-18C
A-6E
EA-6B
M1A1 Abrams MBT
M2A2 Bradley IFV
Iraq had 768 Tactical Combat Aircraft, which exceeded the combined allied air power assets deployed to Desert Shield and Storm.
Iraqi Air Force was decimated within days. In the armored warfare tank battles, the M2A2s and M1A1s humiliated the Iraqi tanks, self-propelled howitzers, and BMPs.
Every single one of the above systems has been replaced, retired, or upgraded with greater capabilities.
If we had F-35s for Desert Storm, the war would have been over within a few days, not 2 weeks.
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@quasimotto8653 It’s physically impossible to integrate the sensors, IPP, internal weapons bays, and VLO features into any 4th Gen platform.
The entire mold line and bulkheads all have to change for starters, which means a completely-new airframe design. At that point, you’re back into the design cycle that resulted in F-35.
There’s no place for DAS, MADL, and EOTS on the Viper. These technologies were tested on the AFTI F-16 at Edwards, which is the coolest F-16 you will ever see.
They put LANTIRN pods in the LEX roots so you wouldn’t have left or right blanking of the pilot’s FOV when trying to lase or observe a ground TGT with the FLIR. That’s more expensive than going the EOTS route, since EOTS is centerline under the nose.
The Flight Control System in the F-35s are actually more simple than in the Viper since they have independent ElectroHydrostatic Actuators (EHAs), with their own self-contained hydraulic fluid that doesn’t need to be piped under pressure to them from the central hydraulic reservoir and pumps.
This makes safety and maintenance so much better than the Viper, and they’re not fly-by-wire, but fly-by-light.
On the Viper, if replacing an actuator assembly, you have to bleed the hydraulics, disconnect the FBW system, disconnect the hydraulic line, unbolt the fasteners, install the new unit, fasten, reconnect the FBW, reconnect the hydraulic line, re-fill the hydraulic reservoir, pressure up the system and measure if it is too full or not full enough, and you have to manually index the actuator position with the control surface to make sure they’re tracking correctly with each other and the DFLCS position cues.
With the EHAs in F-35, you disconnect the fiber optic line, remove the fasteners, pull the assembly, install the replacement EHA, reconnect the fiber-optic line, the system automatically indexes the actuator to the control surface position and registers the position with the DFLCS....done.
Maintainers complain that it basically maintains itself.
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@proudbrogressive315 I don't see it that way.
Remember that the Republican establishment did everything in their power to stop Trump, to include McCain participating in the Steele dossier with Hillary.
Trump isn't a Washington DC partisan ideologue who gets cue cards issued to him by party staffers.
It wasn't the right wing that gave us Trump, it was millions of disaffected people who don't normally follow politics who surprised everyone and showed up to vote for the guy who wasn't part of the system.
This has created a silent majority who were then told that the reason they voted was not because they're tired of their jobs going overseas, their Country being bashed, endless wars overseas, and two political classes who laugh at their voters while being personally enriched.
No, they're told that the reason they voted was because.... they're racists.
Then the DNC coughs up a putrid old furball who can't get through an interview without making bigoted statements, while the media tells us this is an example of Trump being the bad man.
What is more likely to happen is a continuation of a cultural movement in the Country, similar to how FDR and Reagan created movements that lasted longer than their terms.
Both political establishment parties absolutely fear this more than anything, whereas in the past, only the party that wasn't in the WH or didn't have a significant majority in House and Senate feared it.
Because Trump bypassed the lifelong dues that the partisan sell-outs have to go through before they get a sponsored run from the campaign financiers (banks, big pharma, automakers, insurance, and law firm shells for the above-opensecrets source).
Think about all the partisan whores like Booker, Rubio, Harris, Warren, Yeb, who have been taking orders from the financiers with promises that they'll get their chance for the big show some day.
Along comes Trump, who actually slugged it out with success and failures in the private sector, bypasses all the usual prostitution of oneself in DC and actually gets elected.
This was Trump's biggest offense to the whole establishment, and why all the presstitute brothels with their big advertising agencies for all the big donors listed above are freaking out daily with constant "Trump bad" stories.
We're talking about trillions of dollars of money with substantial portions of market share at risk if the big donors aren't able to control the President.
If you look at 2016 and 2020 from peasant-grade partisan kabuki theater, you missed the boat long ago.
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@elfi9003 Interoperability: Right now, northernmost USAF F-35As are operating out of Alaska and New Hampshire, and with RCAF F-35As, we would have a strategic networked JSF MADL web over the northern hemisphere for NORAD missions. The moment a Canadian pilot would turn on the F-35, they would see sensor feed data from F-35As out of AK and NH immediately. Once airborne, flights of RCAF F-35As would also contribute into the MADL net providing unprecedented SA over the Northern Hemisphere, including detecting and tracking low earth orbit satellites.
Gripen has its own data link that can send and receive signal, but it isn’t MADL. It does not see anywhere near the amount of RF and IR data, then fuse it like the F-35 and share with other F-35s in theater. It can pipe its limited data with coordination and adjustment to coalition force freqs and hopsets, but it isn’t automated like the JSF MADL.
Then you have a totally different engine, radar, emergency escape systems, limited payload, spares, and ground support equipment. This is what we mean when talking about interoperability. We learned a lot from Desert Storm as far as coalition and inter-service operational cohesion went, and it left a lot to be desired. JSF is really the beneficiary of the lessons-learned from ODS, as well as the technical developments from 6 different fighter programs in the USAF/USMC/USN that morphed into the 3 JSF variants.
F-35 is plug-and-play with more capability. Gripen E requires work-arounds with less capability for higher unit price. For joint overseas missions where RCAF integrates as part of a coalition, F-35A works with UK and USMC F-35Bs, USN F-35Cs, USAF/Belgian/Danish/Dutch/Polish/Japanese/Italian F-35As.
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@SgTSlAugHteR613 SAAB wasn’t getting the sales they needed to fund their next generation projects, so they hired a British marketing firm with BAES to start really pimping it hard. This included them copy and pasting F-35 basic capabilities and claiming the Gripen E has the same or better.
Meanwhile, Gripen Es are being delivered without IRSTs even. It makes me wonder if the EW suite actually works, what kind of radar they’re shipping it with, and how many shortcuts they tool in the flight testing and validation program.
8 of the Gripens have already crashed, so that’s not the kind of number I want to see with such a small fleet of aircraft (271).
They’re sending Gripen assembly kits to Brazil to be put together on a Gripen assembly line built under SAAB’s supervision by Brazilians. Costs 4x as much that way, but labor costs in Brazil are deflated compared to Europe, so no bog deal.
Brazilians think this means a full technology transfer, when Sweden has never been able to even manufacture a fighter jet engine. Even the SAAB J-29 Tunnan had a British de Haviland Ghost engine, the JAS-35 Draken (beautiful fighter BTW) had a Rolls Royce Avon turbojet, and the JAS-37 Viggen had a Pratt & Whitney JT8D turbofan variant (with modifications to it that made it suitable for a fighter engine).
The radar and IRST are made by Leonardo of Italy, but Sweden claims the technology as their own. There are precious few people who even realize the Gripen’s major, most advanced critical subsystems are made in the US, Italy, and the UK.
On one of the pro-SAAB websites dedicated to the Gripen, there’s a joke about marketing for the jet. “What’s the difference between sales and marketing? Sales knows they’re lying.” I thought that was quite revealing and unusually truthful.
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@msaar1303 Anyone who joins the US military will be subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). For example, when Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter joined the Navy Reserves as an officer, he pissed hot for cocaine on a urinalysis and was kicked out.
When George W. Bush flew F-102s in the Texas Air National Guard and asked if he could deploy to Vietnam, they denied him because he didn't have enough flight hours in the F-102. They were only sending guys with 500+ hours, mostly guys with 1000hrs, and F-102s were being pulled out anyway.
One exception I can think of is John McCain. He crashed so many aircraft, he should have been banned from pilot status, but his dad and grandpa were both admirals.
When I mention the bulk of Finnish combat power, I'm talking about a unique set of weapons the US supplied to Finland even before we sold them to the UK. Those particular weapons are only employed with the F/A-18C. They have deep strike capability within Russia, with very large warheads (JASSM). Finland now has the ability to strike the naval yards at Murmansk, Primorsky, air bases in Saint Petersburg military district, and deeper targets in Russia, without even flying near the border.
Prior to this, with the MiG-21, Saab Draken, and even original F-18C configuration, this capability was unimaginable to FiAF.
The main combat power of FDF at the time was artillery and disbursed Infantry units who would lose ground slowly to Russia as the strategic plan, in a guerilla-like campaign on our own soil.
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@marcusaetius9309 Stalin was born in the Russian Empire, and didn’t hold any Georgian separatist views for long if he ever had them. He soon embraced the international Marxist movement, attended multiple Russian Social Democrat Labor Party Congresses, the first of which was in Tampere, Finland, where he met Lenin.
These Bolshevik congresses were held all over the region, and their movement was seen as Marx envisioned-one of international proletariat laborers rising up against the bourgeois and corrupt institutions of the empires.
So while he was from Georgia, he didn’t represent Georgian interests outside of rebelling against the Czar. It was just where he was born. He was actually more pro-Bolshevik, while Georgian Marxists where typically pro-Menshevik.
When he advocated for splitting the Georgian Marxists from the movement, they wanted him expelled. He changed his colors to stay within the Marxist revolutionary groups, and was later rewarded with being selected to be a Georgian delegate to the first Russian Social Democrat Labor Movement Congress after the Czarist massacre of Marxists in Saint Petersburg in 1905.
When Stalin had risen to military power under Lenin and Trotsky, he was tasked with handling the Georgian Affair, which was how to massage the conflict between Georgian Nationalism and integration into the international Soviet Union, so he had long departed from a sense of Georgian nationalism even in his youth, evidenced by his essays on Social Democrat philosophy and nationalism.
Re Russian history with Finland:
The Russian Empire took over Finland after the Finnish War, where Finland was in the middle of Swedish and Russian Empires regional conflict. Finland was surrendered to Russia by the Swedes at the Treaty of Fredrickshamn in 1809.
When the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, the International Socialists supplied Finnish worker’s party/Social Democratic Party with weapons to launch an offensive against the White Finns.
Stalin invaded Finland using Russian forces in 1939, after initiating a false flag artillery bombardment of a Russian town using Russian heavy cannons.
So based on history and proximity, and especially recent events of Russian invasion in Ukraine, we absolutely should be paying attention to any hints of Russian aggression towards Finland.
I'm not following any parallels with Italy and the ancient Roman Empire, or “putting the screws” to anyone.
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He's way off the mark on technology. Army generals are often clueless about technology because they're not in the aerospace sector. They eventually are exposed to advanced aerospace systems much later on in their careers after having been cemented in lower technologies in one of the least critical branches and force structures in all of DOD.
If an Army General came from Aviation, Intel, or Long Range Fires, they will be more Up to speed with some of the advanced technologies in DOD, but still nowhere near the cutting edge.
To really illustrate how brutal the reality is and how far away Petraeus is in his understanding of it, the USAF ATF program had 4 different 5th Generation propulsion systems available for the prime contractors to select from in 1989-1991.
They had two advanced avionics & sensor suites to choose from, and 4 Prototype Air Vehicles.
Not only do none of the European prime contractors have any airframes comparable to that place in time in 1991, but none of the subcontractors have the subsystems comparable to that 1991 technology. This especially includes propulsion.
Meanwhile, the US moved on to 5.5 and 6th Gen propulsion, avionics, sensors, data links, airframes, and flight control technologies.
Europe is behind by 30 years in many respects, because they never funded the RDT&E.
They still haven't even put an AESA Radar in the Typhoon in Germany and the UK.
Meanwhile, the US has built or retrofitted over 2600 fighters with AESA Radars, and is moving into a new Multi-Function Array generation away from "legacy" AESAs.
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YF-23 cracked several windscreens in supersonic tests, so it never exceeded Mach 1.82 if I recall the graphs correctly.
It also had problems with the intakes and boundary layer control systems at supersonic speeds.
It also had dual actuators laid sideways for each control surface so they could keep the thickness of the wings as thin as possible for VLO, but added mechanical complexity to the FLCS.
It still didn't have a solution for its weapons bay storage and ejection racks, and couldn't carry as many weapons as the YF-22.
All of these issues represented serious cost risks to the whole program, so even though it met the requirements, it was a much riskier option from a company that had already demonstrated massive cost overruns with the B-2A in production and delivery to USAF.
The YF-22 PAV-1 (GE YF-120L motors) was the only ATF prototype that exceeded Mach 2. They already had weapons bay solutions for AIM-9 & AIM-120 with demonstrated separation capability, and had an excellent bowless canopy with all-around view.
The one area the YF-22 failed was weight. It was too heavy for the desired 1.2 T/W ratio on take-off, so engine performance increased to 35,000lbs per in production.
As a result, the F-22A has monstrous T/W ratio and excess thrust throughout the regime.
If the YF-23 had gone onto the F-23A, it was going to grow even more in length to accommodate another forward weapons bay and still not have the weapons load that the F-22A has.
There were aspects of the YF-23 test pole model that had better VLO, but others on the YF-22 test pole that were better, especially looking at serpentine intake ductwork vs the YF-23's partially-exposed cold stage turbofan inlet guide vanes from lower frontal-oblique angles.
Best thing going for the YF-23 was combat radius/range.
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It comes down to this:
Typhoon at 142 million Euros Unit Cost, Unit Program Cost around 200 million Euros
Rafale F4 at $225 million Unit Program Cost (reference the latest UAE deal, where they got a discount for ordering 80 of them)
Gripen E/F unit program cost of $155 million per the latest deal to Brazil, (former Brazilian President received $740,000 into his bank account by a business marketing firm related to Saab, currently under investigation)
Super Hornet/Growler unit program cost of ???? (Boeing won’t reveal the unit flyaway or unit program costs)
F-35A Unit Flyway Cost $77.9 million, Unit Program Cost $103.85 million complete with a huge list of weapons Finland has already been approved for on DSCA.
Finnish Air Force and Defense Minister presentation to Parliament is that the cheapest option is the only one that actually meets their military requirements better than any other contender, is already compatible with existing Hornet weapons, and comes with a better weapons suite than any other offering, for half the price of at least 2 of the submissions, and $51 million extra per aircraft left over compared with the Saab option.
There is no decision to be made. The F-35A has already made the decision for everyone involved by its capabilities and price. There is nothing to argue, no debate to be had. Literally every point someone could try to make is invalid before they open their mouths, and even the dumbest ones see it when the numbers are shown to them.
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@Mortablunt Let’s see....incorrect, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect. Hmmmm, I’m seeing a pattern here. Go read The Black Rifle Volume I, The Great Rifle Controversy, and the 5.56 Timeline before commenting. It will take you several days/weeks.
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@robinstreets1792 The US Medicare and Medicaid programs make US Defense budget squirm with envy, and they're filled with billions of fraud, never audited or discussed much. Meanwhile, defense programs are under constant scrutiny and attacks.
Congress uses Medicare and Medicaid as political slush funds to reward campaign donors, with Medicare A being used as a rolling hospital bail-out fund, but then the hospitals line workers are always wondering where the money went.
It would be far better to let the private sector with massive defense contracts employ those people in high tech and manufacturing jobs with excellent private benefits, than scrounging for basic care on the dole-out after the money has been pilfered by political opportunists.
Then we could have funded F-22A and F-23A simultaneously with obscene production numbers and sustainmemt, on top of thousands of JSF.
The defense sector employees could send their kids to private schools or tutor them at home, so as not to be caught up in the socialist prison system of public schooling and counter-productive welfare conditioning.
Federally-funded medical programs are wretched disasters, unless you're talking about Federal employees, which then becomes very high-end with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
NHSs in Europe are one of the biggest resource-wasting, tax money black holes ever devised by man.
I've lived under several if them in Germany and Finland, with a lot of anecdotal accounts from family in Sweden.
If you look at the number of hospitals, clinics, specialists, and dental clinics in even the poorest areas of the US and compare them with major cities in Northern Europe, it's sad to see what Europeans put up with unknowingly. It could be so much better, but socialists think it will create socioeconomic disparity by unleashing people's true potential, so better to just keep everyone muzzled and chained-down with limited take-home income potential and property ownership.
My elderly parents are getting decimated financially by the tax codes there.
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@wbhawkes I started with a 16" and wasn't impressed initially because I was fixated on muzzle velocity, not really looking at what it did downrange or appreciating the easy to manage sight picture during the shot.
I noticed my nephews kept hitting my 12" steel poppers at distance with no misses, even though they have no shooting background.
I built a Lilja barreled 17.6" and topped it with better glass and realized I could rapid-fire head shots at 600yds, and rapid-fire sub-MOA 6rd groups at 1000yds.
That 17.6" Lilja is really light, like an old school M4A1 pre SOCOM barrel.
I then did several 18", 20", 22" Lilja barrel builds with top-end components, then started looking at 12".
I've spent the last 6 years shooting the 12" Grendel a lot in all my courses. I'm making 1st-round hits at 780yds, and even made 1st-round at 900yds on a 12" plate with that cheap 110gr PPU ammo.
I normally shoot 123gr ELD-M through the 12", though it also does great with 90gr TNT, 120gr Federal OTM, and that 110gr PPU. 107gr and 110gr are really flat out of it.
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@Albertkallal I don't know who entered the better-than-1 T/W ratio for Gripen in Wikipedia, but they suck at math. They're off by more than a standard deviation. It has always been an anemic fighter, even the Gripen C/D.
Typhoon even with 2x EFTs and 6 AAMs has excellent T/W, but once you configure it for multirole with a FLIR pod, bombs, EFTs, and AAMs, it starts to suffer from parasitic drag quite a bit.
Billie Flynn flew Hornets, Typhoons, F-16C/D, F-16 MATV, F-16E/F, and all 3 JSF variants.
He said the combat configurations of them all when configured overlay in favor of JSF on an EM diagram.
If you watch large force exercise launches, F-35s have achieved twice the altitude by the end of the runway, and are going noticeably faster than any modern 4th Gen fighter because the legacy fighters are carrying all kinds of external stores.
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@mrprodigy7143 SECDEF Gates and the Obama White House didn't even allow the USAF to fulfill their multi-year orders for Raptors, so any conversation about F-22 FMS is ignorant of the facts. F-35 has far more advanced technologies in VLO, propulsion, MMI, power generation, sensors, CPU/CNI, DFLCS with EHAs, integrated EW, and MADL networking, so assertions about technology sharing limitations fall flat on their faces when you look at the JSF international enterprise.
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@neverfell Gripen critical subsystems are all US, UK, German, or French.
* GE engine
* Leonardo Radar (licensed from Raytheon components)
* Leonardo IRST
* US Mil-1553B databuses
* Martin Baker ejection seat
* US/UK servos, brakes, landing gear, hydraulics
* French fuel systems
* Mauser 27mm cannon from Germany
* Missiles from US, UK, Germany
* FLIR Pod from US
If you study the industrial share of Gripen manufacturing, you're left asking, "What parts of it do the Swedes make?"
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I had a conversation with an F-22A pilot who used to fly F-15Cs. He said they were doing some type of force-on-force exercise against -22s when he was still in the F-15C with the new AESA. He set up somehow, maybe with an intercept profile that cheated so he could catch the Raptor on take-off and get Radar-cueing for simulated weapons. He said that no matter how much he cheated, he couldn’t ever see it. The F-35 has a smaller frontal RCS than the F-22A, superior RAM, superior baseline surface materials using carbon fiber in many areas, CF spanners, spars, and structures in the 4 tailplanes, etc.
Talk to me how you’re going to pinpoint an RF VLO platform using AESA again?
Let’s say you somehow improve your AESA RADARs better than Raytheon with magic and the 5th Gen pilot went to sleep with the autopilot on.
Your IRST is worthless up until about 24km in the best of conditions, above a vast desert with no humidity on a clear, cloudless day.
F-35 EOTS fused with DAS and the passive RF sensor suite is hundreds of km. Yes, hundreds.
All I can say is, good luck, because you’re going to need a pile of it.
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@ricardobeltranmonribot3182 According to Saab's Gripen H-X Manager, Gripen C/D cost €11,000 CPFH.
F-16 CPFH is all over the map depending on variant. Older A models with no MLU cost the most due to structures and aged systems needing constant replacement.
I've seen F-16 CPFH range from $9,054 for USAF F-16C, to $15,788 for US Navy F-16A Adversary birds.
The numbers are meaningless since they don't account for FLIR Pods, ECM Pods, towed decoy pylons, HARM Targeting System on D-SEAD F-16CMs, etc.
There's nothing magic on Gripens that make them lest-costly from a design standpoint, since they use US, UK, French, and German subsystems and weapons.
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@LondonSteveLee I think you might be confusing advertised (non-existent) sensor fusion claims from Gripen E and assigning them to Gripen C.
Gripens were of such low capability, they couldn't be effectively incorporated into Blue Air for Red Flag initially, so they could only use them for Red Air in 2006.
The US spent years working with Sweden to get them up to speed with Targeting/FLIR pods, aerial refueling training, and several different upgrades to lift them to where they could return and work as part of Blue Air in subsequent RF LFEs.
F-16C Block 30 had more capabilities than Gripen C/D, and initial Block 40 still exceeds several features and capabilities of the advertised/non-delivered capabilities of Gripen E.
Block 50 has a laundry list of expanded A2A and A2G avionics that Gripens of any variant will only possibly get as part of the NATO membership for Sweden.
The small army of engineers, technicians, scientists, test pilots, and operational pilots associated with the F-16 enterprise dwarfs the efforts of Saab considerably, both in quality, quantity, and budget....fed by over 4 decades of multi-theater operational experience.
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Simultaneous shots fired into a kill zone are ambush basics. We did it all the time in the Army, as it is driven by the placement of the target(s) in the kill zone.
Security elements give notice via Radio that an enemy element is approaching the kill zone through a choke point on a linear route (trail, road, stream, river), and once ambush GO criteria are met, the Patrol Leader initiates the ambush, followed by everyone else in the Support-By-Fire and assault line positions.
Even half-human savages can be adept at ambushes, let alone professional gunmen hired for a high priority hit.
Again, this comes down to most people who know nothing about the details of these subjects, pontificating from outside of the knowledge base.
It's better to ask questions than make statements if you don't know:
* Firearms external and terminal ballistics specific to high velocity rifles
* GSW behavior in the human body, specifically high velocity rifle wounding mechanisms to the neck, torso, and skull
* Read the 888 page WC summary, as well as eye witness accounts that were excluded from it.
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@NATObait Norwegian Air Force logistics chief, air chief, and defense minister all said on different occasions that their F-35A CPFH is 110,000 Krone, or just under $11,000 USD. They have the additional expense of the drogue chute too.
Saab’s own H-X Program Manager openly stated that the Gripen C/D CPFH was roughly 11,000 Euros, and they anticipate that the Gripen E would be the same. Between the 3 finalists in H-X for Finland, the F-35A, Super Hornets, and Saab Gripen E/F were all assessed as having similar maintenance/sustainment costs.
F-35A current lots have been $77.9m Unit Flyaway cost, which includes the engine. Engine costs have been part of F-35 unit costs since 2015. Unit Program costs depend on the weapons that accompany the orders, and support equipment that attaches to the F-35 in the form of pylons and pods is far less than legacy 4th Gen fighters, since it doesn’t carry pods and doesn’t attach pylons that often, other than stations 1 & 11 for AIM-9X.
Sweden has no authority to do a full technology transfer for Gripen since Gripen critical subsystems are US, UK, and German.
Gripen E/F sales to Brazil was $4.5 Billion deal for 36 birds, which is $127.8m Unit Program Cost. Unit flyaway has never been revealed by Saab, but was estimated at $85m in 2015. This puts the Gripen E well above $109m in 2023 assuming inflation and unit cost were parallel. That would still leave $18m for weapons and support for Unit Program Cost.
For F-35A, you can get way more for less. A Unit Flyaway cost at ~$80m gives you $20m in weapons and support equipment to hit $100m. The cost argument doesn’t favor the Gripen E in any of the metrics when you actually analyze the real data. I’ve been doing this since the early 1980s.
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@MarcosElMalo2 They have lost 2 of their Black Sea Flagships already in the past few months to a nation that doesn’t have a robust anti-ship capability. Once Krim is isolated, Ukraine will then be able to focus even more on the anti-ship weapon campaign, with over a dozen NATO nations who want to see their latest AS missiles and ISR platforms tested, because they face significant seaborne threats from Russia as well. Think Norway, the UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, as well as new members Sweden and Finland.
Ukraine is in no rush to lose thousands of soldiers assaulting Krim, though they can make inroads with the echelons of fire from HIMARS and M777 coordinated with drone strikes. Anyone left in Krim will be pinched and Russia’s options for supporting them will be severely constrained, unwinnable.
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@johnwayne2140 The mining industry can't support the politically-set goals of adoption. It's not scalable, nor can the power grid facilitate it.
25 nations make up the LI-ION mining sources for batteries, ranging from China, Canada, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, etc.
This assumes the US Navy will provide security for the shipping lanes and continued free trade under Bretton Woods from the 1940s.
Even if we magically increased mining capacity, it still won't meet global demand and will overload the power grids of every nation that tries to increase their EV fleets.
All for what?
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@Angel-tw3ko It's helpful to look at all of this from a non-partisan perspective, which you never get from the presstitutes.
Obama was a Manchurian candidate, not Trump. The Russians loved Hillary and Obama for the US and Canadian Uranium mining contracts Putin's front companies were fast-tracked into by the Obama WH and State Department under Hillary.
When Putin took office after Yeltsin (who Bill Clinton helped rig the election in favor of), Putin assessed Russia's nuclear arsenal status and found it in almost complete neglect and disrepair.
Since so many state-run former Soviet industrial centers had gone bankrupt, their strategic nuclear arsenal was in shambles.
Why does Russia need uranium mines in Canada and the US? Enter Obama ("I can be more flexible after the election.") & Hillary.
This is what this is all about. As to Trump's chances of reelection, he's better positioned than any previous President over the last 7 decades at least, if you dispassionately look at the 13 Keys to the WH metric.
Right now, he's batting at least 11/13, & you only need 7/13 to win historically. Reagan won in a landslide in '84 and he had nowhere near the economic numbers we do now, plus he faced a substantial oppositional majority in the House (metric #1).
Not only does history tell us Trump wins reelection, whoever his VP is in 2024 will be the next President because of the new political movement he has brought to the Nation.
2 good examples from the past were FDR and Ronald Reagan.
All you need to look at to understand why there can't be a Democrat win in 2020 is the fact that Obama bankrupted the DNC, and Hillary took that opportunity to weasel her way in with all the chairs and vice chairs after 2016.
None of the 20+ contenders have a chance of receiving the nomination without some type of oath sacrifice to the Hillary, and that will come across as weakness on top of their existing weaknesses as candidates.
Even if they sell their souls to Hillary, and gather billions in campaign money from another fraudulent fundraising machine, none of the candidates has any of the 13 keys metrics in their favor.
Meanwhile, Trump's digital media campaign has already been hard at work for the past 2 years leveraging ad space at cheaper rates well before the season.
The billionaire you call a failed businessman is so far ahead of the game, you don't even know what's going on.
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@CircaSriYak The cartridge as a replacement for 7.62 NATO is one thing. I'm talking about the XM7 rifle, which defies logic when you look at the MTO&E.
5.56 was developed prior to US ground troops being deployed en masse to Vietnam.
5.56/AR-15 was immediately embraced and loved by SAS, SF, SEALs, Recon units within SF, LRRPs, Force Recon, SASR, Airborne, and Airmobile units.
So far, every single multi-decade SF NCO has said exactly what I'm saying, and have been saying about NGSW:
The LMG is cool, makes sense.
The Rifle only makes sense in a DMR capacity.
Most people who have never been in an Infantry unit don't understand that many of the duty positions are not Riflemen, nor do they understand the ways Riflemen actually employ carbines.
They don't understand how our fires elements are organized, trained, and task organized, and they don't understand the flow of logistics down to and through a Company or Platoon.
Furthermore, they don't understand how soldiers, NCOs, and officers are supposed to be trained vs actual training, and how inadequate most of that is in regular infantry units.
The XM7 is the embodiment of senior Army leadership being obscenely ignorant of everything I just mentioned above as well, with a myopic focus on a singular terminal performance requirement that creates a large carbine that is detrimental to every duty position within the Company outside of DMs.
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Demand for advanced US weaponry has never been higher. The major foreign military sales programs are backordered due to high demand.
Fighters, missiles, air defense, UAVs, precision munitions, cruise missiles, FLIR, armor, transports, ASW platforms, net-centric systems, ships, submarines, vehicles, and small arms are all in extreme high demand all over the world.
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@Caeruleo Regarding rifle qual scores. Nothing you do that's recorded in basic training is exceptional or worthy of mention. You are nowhere near the top shooters with any of your scores, not even close.
Receiving basic rifle marksmanship training does not make you a sniper, an advanced rifleman, or anything resembling such.
Oswald's basic training and later unit qual scores showed him trending downwards, which meant he wasn't utilizing any training opportunities to gain and improve proficiency.
I have been shooting moving targets on military and professional range complexes since 1994, and even within 88yds, hitting a head-sized target is extremely difficult to do. Carlos Hathcock (one of the fathers of the USMC Sniper Community) tried to duplicate the shots in the USMC Scout Sniper Instructor Course at Quantico, set up a range with the Dealey Plaza scenario and he and other USMC Sniper Instructors couldn't even do it. He said so in his own words. They acquired a 6.5 Carcano rifle with 4x scope, zeroed it properly, and still couldn't pull it off.
Now you're left having to explain how a Radar technician defector exceeded the rifle marksmanship capabilities of the best snipers in the US.
There is obvious evidence that multiple shots were fired from the rear, maybe even 1-2 from the TSBD, but when you look at the angles of POI and exit on JFK's back through neck, then align them with the bullet hole in the windshield, you get a shooter position from the Dal-Tex building, not the TSBD.
A lot of people say to ignore Dealey Plaza because it's too confusing, too much tampering, etc. but I'm of the opinion there is critical evidence there that invalidates the WC findings and does so demonstrably.
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The Gripens have lost every fighter competition they have entered, unless bribery overrided the decisions by the defense ministers (Hungary, Czech Republic, South Africa, Brazil). It’s a low-capability aircraft due to being underpowered and undersized. Everything you have heard about it in the AvGeek media has been mostly false or hype. The electronics are mostly US/UK via Honeywell and Leonardo if you’re talking about the Radar. The engine is US GE F404 or F414 in the Gripen E/F. Airframe is too heavy to allow anywhere near a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1:1, even when combat-configured for A2A only with 4 missiles, rails, ejector racks, and pylons with only 50%internal fuel. Wikipedia has erroneous data on it. I only use Saab, subcontractor, and operator data for the weights. With AIM-120C7 and upgrades to the Radars, along with Link-16 compliant data-link, it has some usefulness for sure.
Russians have underperformed in A2A, as well as overall Air Force operational demonstration of their competence, so Gripen Cs vs Su-30 should favor Gripens, as long as they are networked with more capable fighters. The biggest problem for Gripen C is the same for any other 4th Gen fighter: Trying to fly in or around a modern SAM IADS network. Sweden and Finland aren’t well-versed or capable in the D-SEAD mission set, since they can only really afford Interceptor, Close Support, Anti-Ship, and limited Recce/ISR roles for their fighters. Their success against Russia in that space will rely on newer platforms like JSF, which Finland has contracted to acquire. Finland won’t receive F-35As until later this decade, which provides a window of opportunity for Russia to attack had they not performed so terribly in Ukraine.
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@fahadkelantan I've seen that "be-all, end-all" reference now several times as if I had made that claim.
My sources for F-35A break rates are from the actual maintainers cross-checked with FMC/MC. There are 2 interviews here on YT with an F-35 maintainer who used to work Phase level maintenance on the F-16. He reports that especially with Block 3F jets, they are often just gas-and-go even after shut-down, which is not typical with legacy jets.
Another thing that's different is transfer of ownership from mfgr to the units. With F-16s, they had to spend 2 weeks accounting for and testing all the systems to get everything on their maintenance books before delivering them to the Squadrons, whereas with F-35s, the Squadron can get the jet within 24-48hrs and immediately work them into their ops.
If you don't have a relevant background for such a complex subject, why are you making declarations about what should or should not be done?
There were small armies of engineers, air planners, pilots, and maintainers from the UK and US who collectively worked on ASTOVL, MRF, SSF, F/A-X, ATA, JAST, and JSF.
The idea of producing 4-6 independent track designs was studied in extreme detail across all metrics, including air-vehicle studies, avionics, propulsion, sensors, countermeasures, man-machine interface, internal weapons, E&E, DFLCS, etc. This included wind tunnel testing, CFD, large scale RC craft, and extensive research from 1983-1990s.
Allowing separate design programs outside of a joint effort would have increased development, O&M, and sustainment costs for no practical improvements in performance.
One renowned engineer's opinion doesn't change that fact. The list of designs for ASTOVL, MRF, SSF, JAST, and JSF from McDonnell Douglas/Northrop/BAE, Boeing, and Lockheed was extensive.
The McD/Northrop JAST/JSF fuselage design was literally the same as the Lockheed design, with different wing/tail/canard configurations experimented with.
I'm always interested to see what design submissions all the hindsight critics would submit, if they were given the same requirements.
For starters, 99.99999% of people can't even get the CoG and CoL right in subsonic flight, let alone even begin to understand what it takes to mitigate balances for supersonic flight.
Every critic would fail miserably, because these things take teams of world-class AeroEs, technicians, test pilots, and managers.
When you say you would take the word of 1 engineer over the army of engineers who actually were tasked with developing JSF, it again fails the Logic and Completeness pillars of the Intellectual Standards.
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Mockingbird was a CIA program to counter the Soviet International Journalist fronts. Problem was, the NKVD had already penetrated the OSS and CIA with 200 double agents, so when Frank Wisner kicked off Mockingbird, the Soviets were already poised to exploit it as a massive Trojan horse through the US and Western media companies, which is exactly what they did.
They used the clout of the CIA to establish contacts throughout journalists and media executives, telling them they were helping out the CIA with an American voice. Then they were fed disillusioning negative stories about US vices, failures, and anything negative, while other CIA double agent managers were doing the bidding of Moscow overseas with US allies, including the overthrow of friendly governments, assassination of allied leaders, while the press covered stories of US exploitation of the markets in these nations.
It was a very well-coordinated effort that used our own energy against us. I would easily argue it was the most successful intelligence operation in history with consequences we're still suffering from to this day.
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Every SOF element in Afghanistan ceased what they were doing and went into a CJSOTF CSAR mission, not just for him, but the other Army aviators and the rest of Luttrell’s SDV Platoon who were in the QRF Helo, as well as the rest of Luttrell’s Team. There’s a podcast with one of the SF guys who tells that side of the story that is very lengthy. Dudes were falling out, boots getting shredded, dudes had to locate and bag the bodies at the crash site, and then they had to try to find the remains of the other 3 SEALs, one of whom was far away from the other 2 and wasn’t located until locals showed where they had buried him.
There’s another video from the Ranger Company perspective, including the 1SG. The CSAR mission was very grueling due to the terrain and elevation, plus weather. Most of what has been reported and fed into the entertainment industry side simply doesn’t line up with the facts. The Navy turned it into a recruiting opportunity when it really was a scathing example of piss poor planning and execution of the recon and how the QRF were forced to go in ahead of Apache gunships without support, and all died as a result.
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@januszkowalski5345 Basic logical fallacy argument of "if...then". When everyone is living in poverty, to the extent that nuclear engineers and technicians are stealing materials from nuclear reactors and selling them (see the internal report on Chernobyl 1 month prior to the 1986 disaster, its 2nd major incident after the partial core meltdown of reactor #2 in 1982), while pilots and aircraft maintainers guzzle hydraulic fluid, they can be called whatever the system wants to, and after all, they were in the most elite of professions.
Once the whole system comes crashing down, you can claim that tens of millions are now poor. I think your definition of poverty and mine are completely different.
"After all your system knows not just how to oppress, dispossess, bankrupt , terrorize and massacre the dissidents , how to organzie foreign interventions and wars of agression , how to manufacture consent where there is none or should be none."
You just described the Soviet Union. Oppression was the rule of peoples within, as well as those on its borders. Ethnic peoples were routed from their homes and relocated or murdered, including my relatives. Dissidents were imprisoned or shot. Foreign interventions and aggression into nations like Finland, Estonia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Afghanistan were executed to the detriment of all, where consent was often manufactured.
The USSR was the biggest state sponsor of terrorism during the Cold War as well, helping any violent groups with technical support, training, and equipment, proliferating the Kalashnikov rifle so extensively that it even became the symbol of Marxist revolutionaries on their flags. The USSR used terrorists as proxies to fight the US and help spawn the Palestinian movement after Israel turned down the Russians for Foreign Military Sales, and instead chose to source aircraft and other systems from the US.
The United States has helped develop more nations, donated more charity from private organizations, and assisted more nations in their quest for freedom than any other political entity in history. You're so brainwashed with Marxist-Communist ideology (Karl Marx called it "meine Scheisse"), that your responses are predictable. We wouldn't be having this conversation without the US and free enterprise.
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When I was running a 3-day CQM course in Finland in the middle of winter, my Magpul MIAD Gen 1 grip fragmented from the cold. The Gen 1 had a conical grip screw, which split the grip core in 2. I was shooting suppressed with an Ase Utra QD can, which added a lot of weight to the muzzle.
The little tabs that held the grip core in place broke off just from shooting. Polymers can have 3% water in the composition, so when it's -30°C, they're frozen and brittle.
When I went to replace the pistol grip with a spare, the selector detent was fizzling before my eyes with corrosion.
Zinc-plated detents are after-market short-cuts to avoid the Mil-Std TDP call-outs for cadmium plating.
I also tried using an after-market OD Green waffle M4 stock on another carbine to pound in something on a post, and the toe cracked if I recall.
Much of the materials science, coatings, and specs in the TDP are there because of Arctic Testing at Fort Greeley, AK.
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@wildripeach1 One of the main stealth technologies is IR concealment. Huge efforts have been put into effect in that area of VLO on the F-117A, B-2A, F-22A, and JSF variants.
F-35 is not a project management disaster. People who have zero clue about defense programs and legacy ancillary systems to the teen fighters make those kinds of statements because it generates click-bait headlines for their failure articles and total lack of knowledge about aerospace.
Nowhere in the JSF performance specifications was anyone asking for supercruise. It will accelerate up to DFLCS limited 1.6 Mach, and then take a long time to decelerate once the throttles are pulled into mil power. Any of the other Eurocanards will decelerate quickly after reaching M 1.6 because of external stores. They will also consume a mission duration-limiting amount of fuel if they burn AB to reach Mach 1.6 configured.
None of them can supercrusie in the mid-Mach 1.4-1.6 region with weapons and EFTs, and require relatively slick configurations to cruise at 1.2 Mach (which is the top end of transonic where drag is still erratic with the way the mach wave forms on the aircraft).
Supercruise is really more relevant on a large RCS fighter, not a VLO fighter. It helps in a mutual detection and tracking 4th Gen BVR exchange, which VLO platforms avoid.
Compared to legacy fighters and all of the Eurocanards, the F-35 maintains average higher cruise speeds while carrying an internal payload that would be an aerodynamic penalty for any of the 4th Gen airframes. With 18,450lbs of internal fuel and no EFT drag, it had a lot of endurance.
It makes a mockery of any 4th Gen airframes in A2A, and is able to prosecute penetration/strike profiles that none of them are capable of.
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@skugskug9078 So no, Russia does not have D/SEAD capability, nor does it have common night vision capability with its pilots. If Russia had D/SEAD, there would be no Ukrainian Air Defenses, and they started out the war using S-300 and other common systems Russia does, not old European Patriots.
Biden WH withheld military aid to Ukraine for months until the clamoring grew too great, so you're wrong there as well.
Short story is Russia sucks at modern combat, sucks at pilot training, sucks at modern force structuring, and the pilots are still talking FM open plain text. As a young PFC in the Infantry as an RTO 30 years ago, I had better frequency-hopping Radios and vastly-superior Radio discipline with brevity codes. Russian Air Force is a pathetic embarrassment across its spectrum of skills. This is the brutal reality you must face.
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@baronvonlimbourgh1716 In the Winter War, where my Grandfather and great uncles fought, the Soviets lost:
168,000 KIA/MIA
207,000 WIA
Russia had lost 120,000 KIA as of JUN2023 per Prigozhin, which included Donbas, Chechen, and mercenary fighters.
They’re more likely at around 150,000 KIA now with Donbas ethnic Russians being the largest losses (80,000). In the Winter War, the Ukrainian 44th Infantry Division was sent to fight for the Russia and slaughtered, which worked for Stalin both ways.
The Soviet Union was a co-aggressor with Germany, both of whom agreed to divide Eastern Europe. They both invaded Poland in 1939 together, the the Soviets invaded Finland on 30NOV1939. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of AUG1939, which was secret until the Nuremberg trials.
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@johndegroot3124 It got too far already. When Florida, Georgia, SC, NC, TX, AL, TN, MS, MO, or any county with high % of demographics like him, and you see him sitting in your seat, you simply go get a refund and walk out. It's not worth the altercation.
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When Peter talks about stability, he ignores the fact that Trump negotiated more Middle Eastern peace deals than all US Presidents combined, refused to start any new wars, curb-stomped Putin in Syria while threatening Putin with extreme consequences if he effed around in Ukraine, is the only President who sent weapons to Ukraine prior to 2022, and enacted energy and fiscal policies that made buying a home more accessible for Americans in generations.
Biden, Obama, Bush, and Clinton are the opposite of that. Look at energy policy, defense, PPP, the border, finally an America-first trade policy, unemployment, and the WTI under Trump vs any of the other establishment suits. Trump did more for the US than any other President in our lifetimes and the numbers aren't even close.
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@djl5634 You're talking about the locking mechanism. I'm talking about the recoil system operating principle, and how the cyclic rate is balanced against the recoil. I've spent quite a bit of hands-on time with the MP44 and other constant recoil system, select-fire weapons.
You will immediately know when you shoot one, especially if you've also shot a lot of other SMGs, LMGs, GPMGs, and HMGs.
With most machineguns, the action returns to battery very quickly and in automatic, will naturally fire the next round before your muzzle has recovered to your intended point of aim.
With a constant recoil system, it's timed to arrive once you have recovered. The Stg44 does this.
The M60 is really close, as it has a lower cyclic rate, but not quite there like an Ultimax100 or Stg44.
(Former SAW Gunner, Scout Observer, Weapons Squad AG, Gunner when we still had the M60, Weapons Squad Leader when we had M240, and guy who spent many years working with foreign partner nations in Europe.)
When someone mentions how the MP44 works, I see it in my hands from experience, after many years studying it before touching it.
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When I was in, it was an 85% divorce rate in all-male units due to really young marriages, lots of field time, deployments, and high testosterone in and out of the home. I never thought about a young woman who also has her needs that daddy is used to fulfilling repeatedly, then bam, he’s gone for 2 weeks, 2 months, 6 months, 8 months, 14 months, etc.
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Even in every Light/Airmobile/Airborne Infantry Platoon in the US Army, you have Anti-Armor Weapons Specialists with the Javelin precision-guided AT missiles.
Prior to that, it was the M47 Dragon ATGM. You also have Company and Battalion level Mortar sections.
More importantly though, you have USAF TACPs/JTACs, Field Artillery Forward Observers from your Slice element Arty Battery, and Battalion Snipers-all of whom are highly-trained observers with optics and Radios connected with CAS and Artillery support.
If you look at what happened to an entire Russian/Syrian Battle Group in 2018, for example, they attacked a small contingent of US Special Operations Forces embedded with Kurds in Syria.
6 hours later, the Russian/Syrian battle group lay in smoldering remains, charred corpses, and a few survivors running away making frantic cell phone calls on unsecured nets, all recorded by the US.
They got JDAMs, Hellfires, and PGM Artillery rounds rained on them for 6 hours until they were attrited. No US/Kurdish casualties.
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If you look at the average life of carrier aviation jet platforms, the F-14 series had a nice long run of 32 years, which was pretty normal compared to the F-4B/J/N, A-4, A-6, A-7A/E, and even the F/A-18A-D. All the A model airframes were trashed/timing out by the 1990s. The flight control system problems still remained in the D until it dealt with them with the DLFCS upgrade, but the mechanical architecture still had all the same issues.
Wing sweep mechanism box was Titanium, and required electron beam welding. The Navy spent $369 million on development of a new engine for the F-14 in the early 1970s (1970-1973), the Pratt & Whitney F401-PW-400, which was an F100 variant to share commonality with USAF engines in the F-15 for better management from an industrial perspective. That engine never got put into the planned F-14B, and all that money was basically blown very early in the program, leaving the Tomcat with the temporary stop-gap TF30 engine from the F-111 program. The costs seem to have robbed the F-14 of additional upgrades that all the other teen fighters got.
AWG-9 was a nightmare too, with disconnection issues, tubes, antiquated display for the RIO that burned images into the screen, and the system suffered from lag and drag when offsetting for better angles at BVR.
F/A-18s regular out-performed F-14s even in the BVR fight, and that was before the Super Hornet. F/A-18 had a Radar that could look-down/shoot-down over land and sea, whereas AWG-9 only worked over the ocean (when it did work). There wasn’t enough processor memory to handle ocean and land background clutter when the F-14 and E-2 Hawkeye were developed. That changed in the mid-late 1970s with the solid state electronics and digital revolution, which hit at just the right time for the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18. F-14 just barely missed the boat on that one, and had its whole combat avionics architecture built on the AWG-9.
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@ericpotter4657 If they even delivered 75% of what was claimed with ASF-14/ST-21, it absolutely would have been an improved Fleet Air Defense and Multi-Role Strike platform with excellent range, payload, and endurance.
I still don't think they could have improved the maintainability enough to see significant increases in readiness rates though.
The Super Hornet with its far less complexity and even reduced control surface count compared to the legacy bug (no speed brake) still hasn't had a stellar FMC/MC rate, which is really a challenge with any carrier-based fighter.
I looked at FMC/MC rates from the 1970s-2000s and was disappointed by what I saw in NAVAIR compared to what was advertised in the 1980s.
The F-14 would require significant redesign for engine replacement for starters, taking into consideration maintenance crew procedures, access, reach, and touch points.
The Super Hornet uses a lot of composites and better design in this space compared with legacy, and still suffers pretty lackluster readiness rates, which the Navy now hides.
Ancillary systems go down all the time too. That F/A-18E that was used to shoot down the Syrian Su-22 had its ATFLIR fail during the mission, so he swung into a Defensive Counter-Air profile while the rest of the flight did their mission. That's why he ended up on the Su-22. His AIM-9X went off the rail and disappeared as well, which is likely a result of continued carrier ops beating up the guidance electronics.
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@Phrancis5 "Cheap" is a word we see thrown around a lot before development and production. Then we hear words like "over budget, late on delivery, skyrocketing unit costs, not fully operational yet", etc.
F-16, Eurofighter, Rafale, and Gripen all were advertised this way.
A 1978-1982 European-built F-16A brought up to MLU standards has $103 million sunk costs into the basic airframe, not counting any attached external systems. The MLU alone was 5 months per jet and $37 million in 1995-1997 dollars.
USAF F-16C Block 40/42/50/52 brought up to CM CCIP standard have more money put into them than initial unit cost as well, and that was before AESA SABR upgrade, which is billions.
Typhoons Tranche 4 run over $140 million per. Rafales run $144 million. Gripen E (still in development) is pushing $100 million.
Meanwhile, the horribly-overpriced whipping post F-35A is $77.9 million each.
Typhoon, Rafale, and Gripen cost very similar prices to operate when you include their attached pods and essential combat systems that don't get mentioned on their CPFH.
But alas, we can't afford to operate and maintain F-35As in the USAF because....reasons. we need more money for yet another "cheap" program so that General Brown can leave his legacy.
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@the goalie#1 Until it’s contracted and paid, with the birds arriving, you never know. Biden will leave Finland out to dry since Russia owns him, his son, and his brother. So Russia will lean hard on the current State Department and WH insurgents to screw Finland over just like FDR did in 1939-1944.
Remember that Finland was forced to pay $300 million in reparations to Russia after the war, with a tight timeline that was meant to set Finland up for default, but Sisu won that game if you consider handing over $300 million in wealth to the Soviets a “win”.
The system Russia fears the most is the F-35 networked with Poland, Norway, and UK with a wide industrial base among many nations, with US/UK weapons manufacturing already integrated into it.
Russia already has the tactical and technical exploitation data from Falcon Strike and PLAAF against the Gripen C/D, so they are keyed-up to make the Su-57 superior to the Gripen E in every possible way. It already has the airframe and avionics architecture to out-class the Gripen E across the full spectrum of air combat, and with some theft and help from Swedish and other assets in the West, Russia will have all they need to game it out.
Their biggest challenge is obtaining enough semi conductors and other critical sub components to populate the sensor count for a 3 AESA nose, plus all the other antennae. They will have the option to paint it or machine-apply RAM as Biden WH communists transfer the technology for free to Putin, just as FDR transferred nuclear weapons tech to Stalin.
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@AbdullahWins You left out Desert Storm where the gloves came off. In Vietnam, the Johnson White House tied the military's hands behind their backs. Nixon came in, took the gloves off, bombed Hanoi relentlessly, and the Vietnamese cried uncle to the peace tables.
Soviet assets in the CIA and DoD conducted a coup against Nixon, using plants in the media, and US involvement was curtailed by Democrats in Congress, resulting in withdrawal.
NVA Generals said many years later, "You wiped out the VC and almost all of NVA in Tet of 1968. Why did you stop when your boot was on our neck?"
Afghanistan was a strategic trap set by China, using Pakistani ISI to glove the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.
Iraq was the AIPAC lobby in DC & WH wanting Saddam ousted, since he was paying Hezbollah suicide bombers' families $20k per martyrdom.
The war you need to be looking at is Desert Storm 1991, measured in hours.
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@robertkeaney9905 The M-14 was never designed with Vietnam in-mind. It was a Garand evolution meant to feed from detachable box mags, with a tappet short-stroke gas system instead of the Garand’s long-stroke gas trap system. It was also meant to replace the Garand, BAR, M-1 Carbine, M3 .45 ACP SMG, while the M60 was meant to replace the M1919A4. Since the US had moved to a nuclear-focused force structure across the USAF, Army, and Navy, they figured riflemen would not play much of a role in warfare anymore, other than some defensive operations from well-established fighting positions in Europe and Korea, as a last resort to repel dismounts from Soviet APCs.
Very few people even knew about Vietnam at the time (1950s).
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His left-right position relative to JFK isn't the problem. The Edgewood Arsenal Army Lab forensic technicians and engineers could never duplicate Connally's injuries without direct fire for both the chest and wrist, and the projectiles always mushroomed significantly.
The Western Cartridge Company rare 6.5x52mm ammunition was made only in 1954 in 4, one million each lots for a CIA contract sourced through DoD to counter communist forces in some foreign country. It was an obscure chambering for an obscure rifle, not common at any time in the US.
The antimony content of the lead cores in that CIA contract ammunition was unusually low, which made the lead comparatively soft for rifle projectiles, especially FMJs.
CE 399 was not mushroomed and still weighed 158.6gr, only shedding 1.4gr of its original weight.
Connally had multiple fragments in his chest, wrist, and left leg, several of which were removed, while others were left inside him.
The evidence excludes CE 399 from being a possible projectile that caused any of Connally's injuries. The WC knew this and didn't allow the chief ballistician to testify in the final conclusions, instead calling in younger technicians who contradicted their own test findings that had been designed and supervised by the chief ballistician.
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@uyegidgg JFK was already hit as the limo passed behind the street sign. Connally was not hit yet. Listen to Connally's many testimonies from the hospital bed and arranged public clarifications. He described it very well and insisted not only that he was shot after JFK had already been shot, but that the head shot followed immediately after he had been shot.
Also, read the autopsy report where the shot in JFK's back was located at the inferior scapula region, not up high on his neck, and only half a finger could be inserted into it. The young doctors were not allowed to explore JFK's throat like in a normal autopsy to ascertain the wounds other than digital palpation (finger probing).
It simply does not align with the throat shot. If you look at the WC diagrams for the proposed Single Bullet Theory wound path, they show JFK already leaning forward in order to align the Gerald Ford altered shot placement with the throat.
If a shooter was firing from a rear elevated position down into the limo, the back wound can't be lower than the throat wound if they are connected.
This is one of the most basic faults of the SBT, before we even get into its weight, lack of embedded fibers and tissue, lack of major frontal deformation, and its chain of custody gaps.
I have worked with the Secret Service before when I was in the Army's official Presidential Escort in DC. It requires suspension of disbelief that the SS did not conduct a detailed crime scene analysis along with the FBI, complete with each agent and hospital staff to account for the projectiles and fragments.
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@benmllr5499 It isn't because of money, but citizenship that allows me to live and work in Europe if I want to. In the US, any working-age person can move to whatever part of the Country they choose. They don't need to show a passport, go register with the local magistrate (you have to do this in most of Europe in my experience), or ask someone's permission.
You can do whatever you want and you'll be within close distance to numerous hospitals, clinics, specialists, and a very advanced medical system framework in suburbs, cities, with surprising options even in many rural areas.
As to the costs of ER visits, we have huge data samples from which to judge. In 2017, there were 144.8 million ER visits in the US for a total cost of $76.3 Billion. That's an average ER visit cost of $526.93, not $2000 for basic IV therapy.
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JSF was absolutely designed for both strike and to match or exceed the A2A capabilities of all the aircraft it would replace, namely the F-16 and F/A-18. The priority of Key Performance Requirements were:
Exceed the combat radius of the legacy platforms by 100nm (F-35A needed to exceed F-16C, F-35C needed to exceed F/A-18A/C, F-35B needed to exceed AV-8B).
For climb rate, cruise speed, ITR, STR, they needed to match or exceed the F-16 and F/A-18 in combat configurations, as well as the MiG-29.
They did all of that with the JSF KPPs after SWAT. F-35A could barely do it before SWAT, and only got even better after SWAT.
SWAT involved replacing all of the metallic structural features in the tail booms and tailplanes with carbon fiber structures, not just the skin.
Because of the sensors, F-35s have been defeating F-22s in BVR large force exercises since 2017.
Sources: F-35-From Concept to Cockpit
USAF Northern Edge LFEs pilot reports both from F-35A and F-22A aggressors
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@marygh4834 What time period, region, and types of schools did you go to? I went to Montessori, public Kindergarten, on-base school overseas for 1st and 2nd, private for 3rd and first semester 4th, public for remaining 4th and all of 5th and 6th. Public for 7th at 2 different Junior High Schools, private Baptist school for 8th and most of 9th Grades, private non-denominational for remainder of 9th, on-base school for beginning of 10th, public for 10th and 11th, exchange student to Japan between 11th and 12th, finished out 12th in public high school.
Believe me, I heard a lot of personal views and dogma from all kinds of teachers. I had everything from anti-medication rants from my 2nd grade teacher to my parents (she was right too, even though she didn’t like me), to uncontrolled bursts of anger-driven physical abuse from both public and private teachers, to religious and anti-religious dogma, pro-communist ideology from my Baptist science/home room teacher, interesting challenges to societal ideas and mainstream media tenets through personal research and interviews, sexually-deviant behavior synonymous with sex ed volunteers teaching oral application of condoms, claimed weird experiences with clairvoyance about RFK’s assassination, an incontinent art teacher who shat his pants and sucked at art, an English teacher who was on multiple rounds of Jeopardy, you name it.
School by its nature is an indoctrination experience in devaluing the family through daily and systemic abandonment of children, physical conformity training through submission, silence, and obedience, and precious little academics in both public and private institutions. The whole thing is a racket that needs overhauling.
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@soulsphere9242 Tracking all that. Been dealing with combat radii calculations and theater-specific map overlays of various combat aircraft since 1982.
If I load 19,300lb of fuel, 2x 2000lb JDAM, 2x AIM-120, 2x AIM-9X, FLIR, ECM, and towed decoys on any other naval fighter, then launch for a sortie, it isn't going anywhere near an F-35C's radius regardless of the altitude band profiles.
That F-35C flight can do EW, D-SEAD, AEW&C, A2A on the way to a precision strike or interdiction mission, while doing ISR continuously.
A-6E couldn't protect itself, could only do a few mission profiles with medium attack and strike being its specialties before 1970s SAMs proliferated.
It didn't matter that it could fly a few miles farther if it was having to maneuver and evade all MEZ nodes going in. Evasive maneuvers to avoid the MEZ means range gets cut dramatically due to excess fuel consumption, so its combat radius actually retracted. This is a big problem for all prior generation fighters.
F-35s are able to ride closer to and thread the needle in the WEZ without diverting much from their routes.
A-6s would be dead or defensive prior to even making it that far, especially against S-200/300/350 IADS.
F-35C brings longer legs to the S-200/S-350 net than anything else out there. It's a capability being felt once again, but much better with Omnirole/swing-role options.
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@BaconGold790 I spent my formative years at the USAF Flight Test Center in the 1970s-early 1990s, watching the YF-15A, YA-10A, YF-16, & YF-17 go from embryonic stages to advanced systems development, especially F-15C/D/E and F-16C/D Block 30/40.
I had access to things most will never know about the F-15, F-16, and A-10, and I never heard of or read anything about Pierre Sprey that I can recall.
These types of programs have huge teams of people in different sectors of design, development, project management, systems test, weapons carriage/separation/guidance, propulsion, sensors, avionics, Navigation, FLCS, E&E, structures, flight dynamics, maintenance, chase aircraft, instrumentation, Man Machine Interface, etc.
For any one person to come out and lay claims to anything just doesn't resonate well at all with me.
Big name test pilots are always first to mention the teams of people supporting the project, never taking credit for anything but the mistakes they made, or the opportunity to be in the seat for a milestone the team had worked hard to make a reality.
People with Sprey's attitude and persona would not fit in that environment. His comments on these programs are bizarro world compared to what we actually were doing.
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@BaconGold790 The teams I saw on the various Combined Test Forces consisted of:
Program managers with decades of experience in aerospace technical fields. A lot of these are military veterans from previous wars and conflicts who never mention their service.
Engineers who were very quiet mega-geeks, namely mathematicians, structural, electrical, mechanical, chemical, and computer science engineers.
Technicians who operate and monitor equipment, ground and airborne work stations, instrumentation, data entry systems, life-support systems, and other hands-on technical task sets.
Mechanics and maintenance personnel consisting of active duty, DoD civilians, and contractors from the companies.
Test pilots consisting of active duty senior Air Force and Navy pilots, as well as retired military pilots working for the contractors.
Administrative personnel. I’m sure there are a bunch more I’m not recollecting right now.
I can’t think of where a guy like Pierre Sprey or even Boyd would fit in there. You don’t want really cocky guys as test pilots. Test pilots are some of the most humble because they have thousands of hours already, and learn to fly about 20+ different airframe types in TPS. We had the USAF TPS right there at Edwards AFB.
Everybody works together to meet program milestones for the defense of the Nation, not promote themselves. It’s a large team of teams.
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@geoffarnold8483 XP-86 first flight was 13 days (9 working days) before Yeager broke the sound barrier in the X-1. In order for this claim to be true, the XP-86 would have had to go through safety of flight validation, various sub systems safety, landing gear retraction and extension, service ceiling, climb rate, handling and performance, engine shut-down/dead stick recoveries, departure characteristics, then straight into high altitude dives down into thicker air trying to break the barrier with the wrong airfoil shape and leading edges.
In reality, the F-86 speed record of 583kts wasn't set until Sep 1948, well short of the speed of sound.
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zelie-catherine r
Bernie's strategy relied on connecting with people who have heard their whole life socialist principles in the school system and the presstitute media.
People who lean to the left naturally would find Bernie's simple ideas understandable and congruent with their beliefs.
Also keep in mind that the Clinton's and Bush's have the power to fire FBI Directors, shut down investigations, and sweep away high crimes of treason.
Somebody had a talk with Bernie, and by whatever means, convinced him to openly support Hillary. Whether it was a bribe or a threat, it doesn't matter, because he has endorsed her now, and left all his supporters out in the cold.
I already suspected he was co-opted back in December, since he never called out Hillary for the voter info theft that took place with the DNC, and he never openly complained that DWS was Hillary's co-chair in 2008, and therefore represented a clear conflict of interest.
He also tried to wrap up the email scandal for Hillary in the early Democratic primary debates, as if it was no big deal. His behavior makes no sense without some sort of backroom deal, or just complete incompetence, and this is a man who has been in the Senate for a long time.
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zelie-catherine r Remember that the voter information security issue showed up in December right before Christmas. When it boiled over into the public light, the Sanders campaign manager clearly stated that they had brought this problem up with the DNC 2x already before, and they did nothing about it.
Hillary's people spun this to be a voter ID theft operation perpetrated by Sanders. If both campaigns could see each other's voter data, and the DNC had already been scheming to sabotage Sander's campaign from the start with DWS (Hillary's pawn), the Hillary campaign didn't care what voter info Sanders' people could see, because they already had the election in the bag.
For Hillary's campaign, the whole operation has not been about winning the D primary. They already had it before the primary started. Their entire focus is to make it appear to be a legitimate campaign, with democratic principles and the will of D voters being represented.
That's why they were interested in the only campaign that had true, grassroots excitement. They can then send emails, make phone calls, text messages, and social media targeting to Bernie voters in the election leading up to November, and milk these people for money that will be distributed to Clinton cronies in exchange for delegate pledges, with job and contract promises for loyalists in the Clinton Presidency.
"We know you really identify with Sanders, and Hillary shares his same core values. Do you really want Donald Trump with the nuclear codes?" Or, for people who are looking for opportunity in a Clinton Presidency:
"With your generous contribution and vote, think of the difference you can make in the new party apparatus and all the hubris we will have with Hillary making the new DNC appointments. If you get in now, and are able to fundraise in the $200,000 region, you are looking at assistant chair positions in the DNC in your State, or major contracts if you're in the private side."
You think the emails they send to people that are super delegates or large donors are the same as Jane Doe? This is political party operations 101 in a campaign.
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@Jimbo-in-Thailand YF-17 looked better in all the metrics before they took them both out to Nevada to exploit against the MiG-21. YF-17 was a hot rod of a fighter that had excellent climb rate, ITR, STR, and superior post-stall maneuvering to any fighter at the time.
YF-16 from defensive position could reverse a bit better, had a deceptive oblique profile, and was hard to detect in visual when slick, plus it shared the F100 motor with the existing F-15 fleet for economy of scale. It was also easier to sustain g with the 30° reclined seat.
Both of them flew circles around the MiG-21, could out-climb and out-turn it. The YF-16 & YF-17 were never flown against each other in BFM.
Navalized variants of each were explored, and the YF-17 was easier to navalize with heavier gear, folding wings, and had a lower landing speed due to the wing configuration and LERXs.
YF-17 & F/A-18 is capable of fighting one-circle better than the YF-16/F-16. F-16 makes its money in the 2 circle fight since it likes to stay fast.
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Again, F-35 has superior supersonic performance to every other fighter other than F-22 and PAK-FA (not operational). F-35, when using internal stores for initial stage of air dominance campaign, has no limits on speed and maximum design speed. Any aircraft with external stores can't meet its maximum speed or cruising speeds because of the drag associated with all the additional aerodynamic drag. They can only dash to a designed stores category limitation established in the testing of those configurations.
So all the premises about escapes and approaches, missile parameters, and closures are based on 1970s tactics again, with different planes, not the F-35. The F-35 has more speed available and super cruise (even though it was not designed for super cruise) than the F-15C, F-16C, MiG-29, MiG-35, Su-27, Su-30, and Su-35.
The problem with the open source perspective of aviation aficionados when trying to compare the F-35 with other modern aircraft is that they often get fixated on stealth, while overlooking super cruise with full internal stores. They also overlook the ability of the F-35 to carry external stores, and for commanders to choose how to mix their strike package for the opening of the air dominance campaign.
Example: A Task Force commander could structure his force of F-35s so that anywhere from half of them to 75% of them are carrying dirty. Guess what the external AMRAAM load out capacity of the F-35 is? 8, with the 4 additional internally. That changes tactics dramatically when you have 12 AMRAAMs per F-35A and even the USMC/UK B model.
[IMG]http://i49.tinypic.com/bbq5g.jpg[/IMG]
While the initial stage is cluttered with certain assets that screw over your IADS sensors across the spectrum, the initial stage of approach of F-35 is flown dirty. Any defending MiGs or Sukhois that come into solutions get slavos of AMRAAMs fired at them, causing them to go defensive. You can shed your initial claws in the open as a dirty bird, then disappear from radar returns, with ground operators guessing where they are going based on last contacts, if they even had contacts.
Now you have however many F-35s there were out there, with their 4 internal AMRAAMs for the closer fight, and super cruise capability.
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And yet they have escaped prosecution. What I would recommend is that you divorce yourself from any political party allegiance for the moment, and do some more reading. The Clinton's crimes are so egregious and numerous, that it would take lifetimes to document them all.
Start with convicted cocaine trafficker/SEC & FEC rules violator Dan Lasater and his personal secretary, Patsy Thomasson, who they appointed Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of White House Personnel.
It is a cold, hard fact that Dan Lasater was a convicted cocaine trafficker, who purchased airfields in Central America and New Mexico to facilitate his international narcotics business, which he then laundered through various banking and trading vehicles.
It is a cold, hard fact that Patsy Thomasson was his personal secretary for almost 10 years. Dan Lasater contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Southern Governors, including Bill Clinton, and provided a job to Bill's half brother, Roger in a quid pro quo scheme for political cover. He also benefited from the Rose Law Firm representing his claimants in securities and exchange violations he perpetrated against banks, with Vince Foster featured prominently throughout the settlements and dealings.
That's just one, tiny little chapter in the Clinton crime syndicate. Then look into the Arkansas Development and Finance Authority as a drug money laundering vehicle. Even before you get to the White House in 1993, their crimes are so extensive, that you're looking at several 250 year Federal prison life sentences just for money-laundering and corruption related to cocaine trafficking.
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I was in DC at the time in a certain Army unit, and began my own investigation into his death. You guys need to look into the Foster case again. The reality is that the Clinton's were under investigation for 14 different serious crimes, and FBI Director William Sessions refused to call any of them off.
Keep in mind, Sessions had an ethics probe launched on him by George H.W. Bush's Attorney General within 48 hours of Sessions refusing to call off the investigation into banking irregularities between Bush financiers and the House of Saud.
6 months into the Clinton Presidency, there were numerous scandals that the Clinton's were dealing with:
Illegal Chinese campaign financing
Illegal Vietnamese financing
Whitewater money laundering scandal
White House Travel Office firings and false accusations against the Director, who had been there since 1961 with JFK
WH senior staff background investigations delayed
Waco siege
FBI files gathered by Hillary on thousands of politicians around the Nation
Director Sessions refused to halt any of these investigations, and the guy is a Distinguished Eagle Scout, straight-laced, doesn't care if you are a Bush or Clinton, if your people committed crimes, you're getting investigated.
The Clinton's sent Hillary's appointment for AG, Janet Reno, to tell Sessions he has to resign. He refused. This was the week of July 12-16th, 1993. The Clinton's hold an emergency meeting that weekend on Sunday, to which Foster was invited, but chose to spend with his family on a boat instead.
On Monday, July 19th, they fired Sessions on BS charges of using an FBI Lear jet to visit his daughter and installing a security system in his house with government funds. On July 20th, Foster's body was found in Fort Marcy Park, gunshot wound through his neck and head.
He was not suffering from depression. That's retarded. He was suffering from anxiety after he learned that his Swiss bank account had been emptied by the NSA when they discovered his role in an ongoing espionage case dating back to when he was in Arkansas. He cancelled his plane ticket to Switzerland, and started panicking with the impending case against him.
If you go back and look at the record, John Kerry was onto this with his questioning during the Senate Hearings. He kept asking about the X-rays annotated on Foster's autopsy report. The case went away and was buried because high level people from both parties were facing serious crimes if the nature of the case was to see the light of day. Everyone in the Senate was happy to just pretend it never happened.
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Funny, some very successful people have said that fear is an important motivator even for oneself. In order to motivate, sometimes you need to imagine the wolf at the doorstep, and what will you do to prevent that from happening.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with a highly successful businessman for 3 nights in a row, asking him about what changes he made from 20 years ago to now in his life.
One of the many things he pointed out was fear, where his wife told him that he had until October of that year to get something in gear, or they were going to be in financial ruin. He listened to a "what if" challenge from an author talking about what your life will look like 5, 10 years from now if you stay on the same path. What about your deathbed?
That really put fear in him, which motivated him to make some serious changes in his life.
Right now, we need to be asking ourselves, "What will life look like in 5 years after a Hillary occupation of the WH again?" That should scare anyone in America that is even vaguely familiar with her.
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Abdulai Bah The US still hasn't reaped the full consequences of the first Clinton Presidency, where some of our most advanced military technology was transferred to China, our military was abused as a social experiment, military leadership positions were awarded based on race rather than merits & competency, and trade agreements that hurt the US in the short and long-term were enthusiastically entered into.
Another horrible thing that was pioneered was the idea that every young America should go to college. The results? We are now a Nation of college-schooled ignoramuses with insane amounts of student debt, with very little marketable skills from those who should never have been let near college after HS graduation.
All you need to know about Hillary is how she treats other human beings, which is like dog feces under her feet. The US has never known a politician as brutally vengeful, spiteful, petty, and mentally unstable as Hillary Rodham. She isn't anywhere near as smart as she is ruthless. I worked under her closely in DC in my first unit in the Army, and her toxic leadership style was palpable throughout MDW.
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@mountainskyaerialphotograp3921 We're governed by Gadianton Gangsters since Prohibition. They own DC and State Capitols, major cities, companies, banks, foreign assets, media, tech, retail, finance industry, food, auto, pharma, and the fruit from their trees bears witness of their master.
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@scottnj2503 I’ve been immersed in defense aerospace since the 1970s, with a lot of that time at the USAF Flight Test Center at Edwards, a brief excursion to the West German flight test center near Munich, 10 years active duty with deployments all over the world, and some interesting things.
I still remember the high-hour salty F-4 drivers in USAF in the late 1970s, early 1980s who knew they weren’t going to get a slot in F-15s or F-16s, saying, “We got the AIM-9L too donchya know.”
"Yeah, but every one of you would trade the Guy In Back for fuel and the cockpit arrangement of an Eagle or Viper in a heartbeat.” I love the F-4. I also love the F-86 and P-51, but things change and if we don’t stay elastic/adaptive, we get left behind.
One of the skill sets I embraced early on has changed dramatically, to where a lot of what we were doing and teaching is now invalidated because technology helped us understand what we were doing right and wrong better now. The fundamental technology that allowed that was the miniaturization of processors (microprocessors) percolating into the force via certain products and systems.
We used to have to rely on either White Sands or Aberdeen Proving Grounds for certain ballistic information from their doppler Radar tracks, then look up published charts that showed the data, then compare our real-world data with that after using it to generate semi-predicable results.
Now I can hold that capability in the palm of my hand and get better dead-on results out of the gate.
F-15 really leveraged this first in TACAIR with the Digital Signals Processor upgrade that was standard in the C model Radar, back-fitted into A models that all went into Guard units before being poled or bone-yarded. ATF program took that as a baseline model for avionics architecture and made a closed-loop, fused system, but were still developing that in the 1980s and 1990s with the limits of computing power then.
JSF benefitted from far more capable computing power in the design process, let alone the actual upgradeable quad-brain central processing bank. This covered everything from planning out human interface with common and uncommon maintenance access touch points, to Computational Fluid Dynamics and even RF absorption for those types of things.
That’s partly why it has a lower RCS than Raptors and far better maintainability. It has a lower break-rate than Vipers do, and they’ve been the gold standard in low break rates for over 40 years. Vipers average about 10% break rate, whereas F-35As are at 6%, meaning 94% of sorties come back with a 100% full-up bird. We’ve never seen anything like it.
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@jacarandaization After WWII, Finland was forced to pay $300 million in "reparations" to Russia, and was dictated what kind of military it could have.
Russia seeded Finland full of communists in the government, the Finnish News service YLE, Finnish universities, and military leaders.
Then reprisals were committed on Finnish war veterans and heroes like Lauri Törni, who were trying to prepare for another Russian invasion, throwing them in prison in their own country.
Russia relied on Finland for many things during the Cold War, including imports of processed wood products, paper, machinery, and construction engineering services to name a few.
There's a reason why Russia installed the rail system in Finland in the mid-1800s so Finnish goods could be railed into Russia and Russians could move into Finland more freely.
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@Flankymanga The US pioneered not only manned, but unmanned hypersonic technology in the 1960s (in the open) with the X-15 program, and later classified programs moving forward. The US has done more research and development on ramjets, scramjets, and advanced propulsion systems relevant to that class of vehicles. US Generals make statements to scare politicians into funding more programs. You can see certain atmospheric anomalies that show evidence of a continual hypersonic program in the US that still flies today, but is unacknowledged.
When you hear or read someone saying "Stealth is a myth", you then wonder if they have seen all the current fighter and drone development programs, because every single one of them employs stealth technology. That is especially true with the Sukhoi Su-57, S-70 drone, and Su-75 proposed lightweight stealth fighter. It is also true with the Chinese J-20, J-31, UK Tempest, French/German FCAS, and multiple UAS platforms in development.
DSP is Digital signals processing, a technology in-use in fighters since the 1970s and really a broad acronym to use in 2021 that has basically no meaning unless you’re giving a history of the change from vacuum tube tech to solid state at that time. This ushered in with the F-15 and APG-63 almost 50 years ago.
Pilots I have spoken with face-to-face using the biggest fighter AESA in the world who set up on F-22As in a vulnerable position for them (cheated in exercises) still could not detect the F-22A, and that AESA they were using in the F-15C+ has better TRM technology than any current foreign AESA. So there aren’t any fighters with the latest AESA that can negate RF stealth in a BVR setting, let alone most of the closer ranges, which is too late to have any effect on the outcome because they would have been within Raptor WEZ for minutes by that point.
Quantum Radars is only a lab stunt at this time in history, based on a theory of quantum comparisons between parallel RF signals paths. The processing technology necessary to drive a theoretical Quantum computing RADAR can also be used for a Quantum-adaptive RAM technology on the aircraft’s surfaces, letting RF energy flow through the aircraft and to the other side as if it wasn’t even there. Metamaterials will make this a possibility, if we haven’t done it already.
VLO/stealth isn’t just RF spectrum, but multiple layers of the IR spectrum as well. This was literally fundamental to SENIOR TREND, SENIOR SKY, ATB, and JSF. Look again at the IR spectrum mitigation technologies on the F-22 and JSF and you might be surprised. I’ve done the extensive mathematical analysis on various current IRST systems on both NATO, French, and Russian fighters, and the short story is you aren’t going to even get a hit in the IR spectrum much outside of visual range, as long as the fighters stay subsonic. Supersonic speeds will increase the detection range, but you won’t have PID because a PESA or AESA slaved to the IRST won’t generate enough resolution on an RCS that is .0001m2 to .001m2. The Radar can blast RF right in that direction on narrow beam, high fidelity single TGT track and not be able to get PID. That’s not including any EW at play.
F-22 and JSF use narrow beam LPI data links, not omnidirectional links that are easy to detect and jam. There will be zero evidence of their use to any air or ground platforms because none of the waveforms will cross any detection system. That’s the whole point of IFDL and MADL links, which are not reliant on AWACS. So they absolutely have high ECM environment-friendly connectivity and there isn’t anything you can do about it. EMP is another ignorant discussion because the US Mil-Std calls for EMP-hardening in all combat systems dating back to the atmospheric tests of late 1957-1963. We encountered major EMP interference of Radio relay stations, so this was noted and worked into the design considerations for bombers, ships, fighters, radios, etc. F-22 and JSF use a lot of fiber optics on top of all that, so in addition to EMP shielding, they are impervious to those types of attacks. It’s preposterous because the assumption is that small armies of engineers and program officers would just ignore these threats and make systems vulnerable to them, even after we first saw EMP effects.
"APG-77 was impressive.” F-22s and JSF don’t rely on AWACS. They have far superior battlespace situational awareness because of the sensor coverage networked with each other. In low power LPI detection and tracking modes, you aren’t even aware that they are illuminating your airframe because they don’t trigger the RWS. You can’t “predict” agile beam freq-hopping LPI Radar waveforms with processing power that is greater than even your land-based Radar networks. You can’t predict a freq hopset being pushed by a randomized waveform generator that does billions of cycles per second. The outdated and already-replaced original CIP in the F-22A Block 10 did 10.5 Billion instructions per second. That was 1997 technology and you can’t see any evidence of when the CPUs have been replaced. They are one of the main things that get incremental upgrades with the Raptor Increment improvement program. Notice that they haven’t adopted a Helmet-Cueing sight, but they have spent billions on upgrades for F-22s.
Russian point defense weapons have been serially defeated as a sport by air forces with far less capabilities than the US (Turkey, Israel). We have physical possession of so many modern Russian IADS platforms, as to not need to build training simulators for them and just populate training ranges with actual units. That includes S-300 and Pantsir S1. We got a Pantsir S1 in Libya, and Ukraine sold us an S-300 mobile Radar platform. We have every other type of Russian-built SAMs from S-75, S-125, S-200, 2k12 Kub in possession as well and have had some of them dating back to 1974.
F-22A is not only a good A2G platform, it’s an awesome one. Combat-coded Raptors regularly employ the 1000lb JDAM and SDBs from supersonic speeds at high altitude, which can’t be done by any other aircraft other than F-35s. The JSF series make excellent A2A platforms. In fact, they defeat F-22As regularly and have done so since 2017 in Large Force Exercises. JSF kill ratio in LFEs is anywhere from 78:1 on up. LFEs include scenarios that are more difficult than actual combat. Many US pilots in Desert Storm said, “Man, this is almost as hard as Red Flag.” For those who think LFEs are rigged, yeah they are-against Blue Forces normally. F-22A was the first platform in Red Flag and other LFE history to make it impossible for the Aggressors to start off dominant. Presence of F-22As or F-35s at Red Flag made it so that Red Air was made useless within the first few sorties. They now use F-22As and F-35As as aggressors to provide a challenge to Blue Air if Blue includes F-22s or F-35s.
So literally every statement you made is at odds with what I know. I’m not trying to be rude, just stating some cold facts that are what they are. FYI, I’ve been in the defense and aerospace industry since the 1970s, spent 3 years studying the NATO AeroE course materials, have deployed all over the world employing some of these systems being mentioned, and have seen the behind-the-scenes developmental side all the way to air planning and operational side. That’s where my knowledge base is coming from.
Russian strategy relies on not ever fighting the US or NATO because of the unacceptable losses it would suffer. Russia can only conduct limited strikes against regional rivals and prefers to use asymmetric actions, while claiming innocence even as its own soldiers’ trail of geolocated selfies compromises the official lies. The problem really is that if Russia engages in conflict with a nation that has superior combat systems in even a limited space, like air power, it would expose how weak Russian military capabilities really are.
The US has a vast combined component forces structure with better Air Power, better Navy, better IADS, better armor, better anti-armor, better sensor networks, better logistics, better training, etc. Everyone likes to talk about how great Russian SAMs are, but I’m alive because of the Patriot system. All you see is critiques of how Patriot is garbage by people who don’t know the difference between the nose cone and the motor. We were shot at by multiple theater ballistic missiles in a short period, and every one of them was intercepted by Patriots. There was one sea-skimming cruise missile that got through but didn’t hit us, thankfully, so nothing is fool-proof in ground-based Air Defense.
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@ClamBake7525 They humiliate the F-15C in A2A. They beat F-22A in A2A in LFEs since 2017, according to both Raptor and F-35A pilot interviews.
They do F-117A's job better than it ever could, and it has a stellar record of 2000 combat sorties with only 1 loss.
They do all the Viper models' jobs better than they can whether it be D-SEAD, CSAR, strike, A2A, and CAS.
They have ISTAR capabilities that smoke the U-2S, RQ-4, and MQ-9.
They have exponentially better SA than any AWACS has ever had, with superior data transfer and connectivity.
They have EW/EA capability Growlers wish they had.
C Model has 100nm+ more combat radius than the Tomcat did, plus it networks with Poseidon, RQ-4C, E-2D, Super Bug, and Surface Warfare vessels with an integrated fleet air defense/maritime patrol/AS swingrole, omnirole set.
I did a detailed analysis of the individual capabilities and mission sets of legacy fighter, strike, EW, and various aircraft platforms, and JSF simply matches or exceeds them all even in their specific domains.
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@506thparatrooper My proposal for feminists is simply this: Show me your girl power by drawing out Mk. 19s and M2 50 BMGs, the ammunition cans, and all the BII, then configure a vehicle for going outside the wire.
I have yet to see a female soldier who can draw and carry just the receiver or barrel of an M2, let alone a Mk.19.
I have yet to see a female soldier squat, lift, and press a can of linked 40mm up into a vehicle.
The cold, harsh, uncaring reality is they can't do it. We're not even talking about departing friendly lines yet.
In every photo or video you see of a military vehicle with heavy weapons mounted in the pintle on the turret, with ammo cans feeding it, understand that male soldiers put those items there.
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@Rid3thetig3r Comanche, Dakota, Iroquois, Cherokee, Algonquin, Hopi, Lumbee, Apache, Cheyenne, Lakota, Kiowa, Pawnee, Shawnee, etc. all came from travelers to North America.
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@johngojcevic8731 Whatever you do, don't look at PLAAF safety record. You will be shocked and ashamed at how often J-10s, J-11s, J-8s, J-7s, etc. crash, explode in the air, fall apart, crash into villages, or into mountain sides. They have a horrible safety record. PLN is not capable of flying cyclic operations like US Navy. They're a total joke in comparison. So is PLAAF when it comes to safety. PLAAF is so bad, I can tell you when the next J-10 will crash this year (Sep-Nov, there will be a crash).
Oct 21, 2021: J-10S crashed
Oct 5, 2020: J-10 crashed
Sep 4, 2020: J-10 crashed
Oct 14, 2019: J-10 crashed
Oct 18, 2018: J-10S crashed, 2 fatalities
Nov 12, 2016: J-10S crashed, 1 fatality
Dec 17, 2015: J-10SH crashed
Nov 19, 2015: J-10A crashed, 1 fatality
Sep 19, 2015: J-10 crashed
Nov 15, 2014: J-10S crashed
April 22, 2010: J-10 crashed, 1 fatality
Aug 1, 2009: J-10A crashed
Mar 7, 2009: J-10A engine failure
Dec 17, 2007: J-10A crashed
July, 2005: J-10A crashed, pilot killed
Would you like me to list the 105 incidents with the Su-27/J-11/Su-30/Su-35 series of Flankers?
Chengdu F-7(J-7) crashes as a feature. 18 of them have crashed in the past few years. Total piece of trash death trap.
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@markwalker3499 JSF production is over 716 airframes, which is more than Rafale, Typhoon, or Super Hornet and built in less time than any of those fleets. Will not be “a couple of trillion soon” since we haven’t even reached the initial acquisition costs of $251 Billion for 2,456 JSF-A/B/C for the 3 services. The worst-case forecasts from bean-counters in the Pentagon is $1.5 trillion by the year 2070 for all 3 variants, upgrades, and operations and maintenance costs over the life of the program. That averages $25 Billion per year from a $767 Billion defense budget, with that $25 Billion divided by 3 services, most of which will be USAF.
6th Gen is meant to integrate with JSF, using JSF data link architecture. They are also meant to replace top-end fighters in USAF and USN like the F-22A and Super Hornet, not in the same track for JSF series. JSF is superseding F-16C, F-117A, F/A-18A-D, AV-8B, EA-6B. There are always multiple fighter tracks in each service.
I know you don’t realize this, but F-15EXs cost more than F-35As by quite a bit, and cost more to operate. F-15EX at a minus with its relevant combat systems attached so it can reach a fraction of F-35 performance take it up to over $103 million per airframe/pods/EPAWSS minimum. The baseline stripped aircraft with no pylons, fuel tanks, FLIR sensors, EW system, or the new Legion IRST pod costs $87.7 million. When you add the CFTs, 12 specific pylons that attach to the CFTs, wing and centerline pylons, LAU rails, and ejector racks, the price goes up even more over $103 million.
That’s a non-deployable F-15 into the high-threat areas of the world, unless F-35s fly ahead of it and provide EW support. Wherever you got the idea that 10 or 12 F-15s cost what one F-35 does, the math is way off and flipped. You can buy 1 F-35A with its full weapons suite, spare parts, support, and still be less than an F-15EX with no weapons at all.
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European politics is slanted to the left because of the make-up of Parliaments and the people after 2 world wars. The real men who normally bear the brunt of societal challenges in leadership never matured to those positions because they died in combat. This left only shopkeepers and women to move into positions of critical national decision-making. While being insulated from the tough decisions for security, which were made by the US for them, they were able to focus on the economies and domestic infrastructure, education, services, and rebuilding with help from manual laborers from elsewhere.
Instead of being held to account for their systemic failures in decision-making on government, economic, education, social, and military matters, they rode the waves of inputs from the US and US-backed security environment, taking credit for the things they never built.
US politics is slanted to the right because of the original pilgrim stock being Puritans who fled out of survival, followed by waves of those who saw opportunity and risk in a new world. These people tended to be individualistic, not expecting for others to solve their problems for them. They believed that hard work and good principles might reward them, expecting no guarantees. After they built the largest economy in the world with the most productive industries, that bailed Europe out of two world wars and left the US as the dominant super power, it didn’t make sense to consider that the losers were ever right about their approaches to government.
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I’ve lived in Finland many years, as my mom is from there. I don’t really accept the premise that Finland is the "happiest country”. How would you even measure such a thing? Finland is very depressing for the people in the winter, so you see them brighten up for the few weeks of summer, then the long winter kicks back in.
One cultural aspect of Finland that does contribute to a sense of well-being is summer cottages, which is really a regional thing based on geography. There are over 188,000 lakes in Finland, so it’s very easy to own a small summer cabin in a land area the size of California, with the population of only 5.5 million.
This has nothing to do with forms of government.
Another cultural aspect of health in Finland is hundreds of years of harsh winter breeding a tough, physically-resilient people who embody this with sisu.
Then there is the sauna bath culture, which is excellent for your health.
It’s also very academically and intellectually inept to compare this northern nation with long winters and a relatively-homogenous demographic, to the US in its temperate zone with 330 million people who are genetically-diverse.
It’s erroneous and myopic to think that government is the primary contributor to the things that make Finland unique.
Finland also benefits from the hard work, taxes, and advanced systems development of the huge mass of people in the US and US industries, whether we’re looking at Finnish Air Force F/A-18s (soon to be F-35A Block 4s), medicine, medical diagnostics equipment, electronics, computers, etc.
Senator Sanders has an agenda to force the story of Finland into his profit hole, but he hasn’t considered the multi-factorial variables that make Finland what it is.
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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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@thebadlander3608 AR-10 came first in 1955, built around the new 7.62x51 (.308 Win) cartridge. Heavier, more recoil, bulkier, less reliable.
AR-15 was scaled down by Rob Freemont and Jim Sullivan at ArmaLite in 1957, with Stoner overseeing the design and engineering to meet what was seen as a silly request from Fort Benning for a .224 Small Caliber High Velocity Rifle.
AR-15 was smaller, lighter, handier, easier to shoot, more reliable. Army Ordnance hated it and tried to kill it. USAF loved it, ordered it into military type classification and standardization under General LeMay.
Special Forces, British SAS, and Airborne units loved it as well. The rest is history.
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@preciousroihomeshoppingnet7908 If we accept the premise that you need extended loiter time, then the F-16 certainly doesn't have the legs but can get to an emergency TIC way faster than a Warthog can. It can drop SDBs, JDAMs, and GBUs, as well as strafe with a far superior aiming system with the Fire Control Computer-driven LCOS, reducing chances of fratricide.
A Mudhen can get there faster too, carry a ridiculous amount of ordnance, and has a lot of legs with CFTs and EFTs, plus a 2 man crew to task manage the CAS.
F-35A can see what's in the area from over the horizon in extreme detail, arrive on station faster than any of the others, and starts off with 18,400lb of internal fuel vs the Viper's 7000lb internal plus EFTs that take up its strongest hard points.
I wouldn't put the Viper and F-35 in the same boat when looking at loiter time.
Former Mudhen and Grey Eagle drivers say the F-35A has more legs, so loiter time is not a weakness with the F-35A.
USMC F-35B is comparable to a Hornet, with an almost double combat radius over the AV-8B.
With JSF, they are able to do things it would normally take 4-6 other aerial platforms to do, including ESM aircraft that don't get mentioned a lot.
F-35 is going to surprise a lot of people in a new generation of CAS I think, based on initial feedback from JTACs.
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@JonZiegler6 He’s talking about 10% destroyer capacity to patrol the sea lanes. I’ve followed STARTFOR’s naval force structure and deployment updates since 2009, and US Navy carrier deployments since the 1970s. Not all ships are available since there is a rotation through overhauls, work-ups with quals, then deployment.
Once nations start quibbling over their regional choke points for trade (Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Malacca, Suez Canal), things destabilize. We’ve dealt with that for decades in the Persian Gulf with the Iranians, but the US is steadily losing interest in these regions because the taxpayers have foot the bill for so long, with no US politicians being able to communicate with them the benefits.
When you combine collapsing and contracting energy, food, and demographic metrics at a global scale, you come to the same conclusions as Peter Zeihan. Nations will obviously try to solve these problems, but you can’t manufacture adults to solve the demographic collapses, can’t police the trade routes successfully with rival neighbors who have comparable naval forces and theater ballistic and anti-ship missiles, and can’t solve the energy demands when the limited supply chains turn off. “Green energy” and AI sound cool to child-adults with no basic knowledge of geography and these other fundamental metrics, but they don’t amount to anything in reality.
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@andy123law One area the UK enjoyed superiority in up through the 1990s was belt kit, vests, pouches, and rucks.
It was very apparent the British belt kit was designed by senior NCOs who had spent carrers humping and living out of their kit.
US LBE suffers from having to be mass-produced to equip millions of Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen, Reserves, and National Guard. UK total manpower is barely over 231,000 including Reserves and Territorial Army.
As soon as the pioneers in private company gear manufacturing started cranking out quality kit designed by former 11Bs, SEALs, and Force Recon Marines, it triggered an industry where more special tasks units could go to for gear solutions.
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@kevf Zeihan doesn’t declare the US geographic, economic, and military advantages out of a blind sense of patriotism, but dispassionate analysis. That’s what most foreigners get wrong about him, thinking he is pushing a pro-US narrative out of an ideological motive. He’s one of the least ideological figures in this space, who doesn’t really care about policy wishes, but ground truth reality.
Yes, Russia knows how bad their situation is because they’re stuck in it. I’ve lived in Russia and there is a general sense of being condemned to bad geography and bad weather, nothing you can do about it but put your head down, live a life of accepted misery.
If you look at Russian naval force posture on Krim, they have been pulling out due to Unmanned Submersible Vehicles packed with explosives attacking their ships in port.
Russian Air Forces haven’t been able to prosecute an effective strike campaign because they never established air dominance and suppression or destruction of enemy air defenses. As a result, Russia has lost 160+ combat aircraft in the past 8.5 months, including their latest advanced multirole fighters like the Su-30SM and Su-34.
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@VolodyaMuchavsky 100% incorrect on all counts. Russia isn't even a value added economy and doesn't rate among the top economies. It doesn't even factor into US trade.
How many fighter production lines does Russia have open right now and what's the volume?
How many missile production lines?
How many ships, subs, UAS, satellites, trucks, armored vehicles, and cargo aircraft?
US has 4 fighter production lines open right now cranking out hundreds of fighters per year.
US is the only nation with a bomber production line open, and they're next generation stealth bombers.
Russia hasn't had a bomber line open in decades, has no serious RDT&E to that effort, made its last Tu-160 in 1992. They're trying to count Tu-160M as newly-built, when the production line hasn't existed since the collapse.
If you look at basic numbers of US economic activity, it dwarfs Russia and China. Personal and household income in the US makes Russia and China combined look like 3rd world cesspools.
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@kobalos73 Peter Zeihan has been at this for decades, working as a senior analyst for STRATFOR under George Friedman, which has included travels to all sorts of governments, industries, companies, and organizations all around the world.
His favorable assessment of the US/North American position is entirely based on geography, demographics, industrial might, and infrastructure, not ideology.
People who have only heard ideological arguments their whole lives misinterpret Peter's assessments as some sort of 'Murica perspective, because most people don't know anything about geography, demographics, industry, economics, infrastructure, farming, and trade-all the areas Peter has focused on for decades. His books pre-date current trends in social media. It appears he's treating social media how companies used to treat magazines. If you didn't have ads in magazines, you became irrelevant due to consumer perception.
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@forzaisspeed You could spend the next 5 years of your life reading nothing but wiki every day, and you will still never be able to form the statements and assessments that I have. The open sources I personally reference come from aviation-specific or diplomatic sites with reputations within the defense and political communities, not wikipedia. I assess what I see based on a foundation in the NATO Aerospace Engineer course, applied physics, and military assessments of current and past units dating back throughout the jet era while having been in the aerospace and defense industry myself since the 1970s.
I challenge you to pick out just one technical statement I have made and try to counter it with substantive arguments. I love being wrong and learning new things. If you have relevant background and experience, by all means correct me. You will not find any answers in wikipedia, I can tell you that. There are a hundred reasons or more why every Air Force that was given the JSF capes brief immediately said, “We need this now.”, including the Luftwaffe. Almost every Air Force that is on favorable trade status with the US and has a decent budget, has ordered JSF. Because of the strategic threat to long-term German aerospace industry, they fired their Luftwaffe General, Karl Mülner, over his support for JSF. Think about that. They already have Typhoons, but their head of the Luftwaffe wanted F-35s, and lost his job over it.
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@cortexus1 Each of the 3 Red Flags where Gripen C/D Squadrons have attended, did not have F-22As present. I looked at every Air Tasking Order for RF 2006-1 & 2, 2008-3, and 2013-2.
No Raptor squadrons were in attendance in any of those Red Flags.
RF is never the same. Each exercise might have a totally different focus than the previous.
Some are very strike/interdiction focused with minimum Blue Air-to-Air. Those will often have a lot of F-15E, B-1B, B-52H, F-16CM for SEAD, MQ-9, lots of transports, Search & Rescue, etc.
Some will have F-22As, B-2A, F-35A, EA-18G, E-3C, B-52H, EC-130, F-15E, closed to foreign attendance.
Others have had F-15C for A2A, and all the existing teen fighters for strike along with ESM birds.
Others have been very foreign partner heavy with UK Typhoons, Rafale, Gripen, RAAF Hornets, USMC Hornets, Indian AF Su-30MKI, etc.
There is no set force structure for RF. It's very fluid, very focused on getting all the attendees to train on how to work together in some type of campaign scenario evolution, always with different Red Air profiles as well.
It's never about pitting one type of fighter against another to test which is best in A2A. It's about putting tons of ground crew, air planner, and pilot skills together working as Combined Air Component Forces against certain Air and ground threat profiles to test Blue Air's effectiveness together, then taking those lessons back to their squadrons.
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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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@Opinlinz I can legally live and work in the US and EU whetever I want. The US is the easy and far superior choice if you like freedom, quality of life, safety, healthcare, and individual liberty.
In the 8 States I've lived in and 45 States I've driven through, not once did I ever think I could bribe the police out of anything. Yes, it happens in rare circumstances, but it's not the norm like in most other nations.
In Italy, the customs officers will help you beat the system by saying, "But you have some friends, no? Bring the 20 cartons of cigarettes in."
In the 30 nations I've traveled to and 8 that I've lived in, ranging from West Germany to South Korea, Japan to Finland, nd Russia to Saudi Arabia, you don't mess around with police.
Polizei used to crack skulls on shoplifters. In the US, the police would be fired in most cities if they did, then face a civil lawsuit.
Imagine trying to file a lawsuit against the police in other countries. You'll be arrested or killed quickly. It happened to the lawyer of a family in Moscow when I was there who was talking to journalists too much.
China has a huge political and religious prisoner population that is enslaved, with no open statistics reported.
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@orestes1984 F-16 takes off in a much shorter distance than any Gripen. Gripens take forever to get airborne even when lightly loaded, ranging from 16-22 seconds. Even the slick airshow demo Gripen display shows how it compares with others, and the gutless Tornado and A400M cargo transport even took off shorter than Gripen at RIAT and Le Bourget. Finland tested this against their F/A-18Cs and the F-35A at Turku airport, and the Hornet in mil power still beat the Gripen in burner. F-35As took off in 550m, which is like a slick Rafale or Typhoon.
A slick, empty Gripen can land and come to a stop in a very short distance, but it isn't relevant in a combat configuration unless you jettison your external fuel tanks every sortie. You're not jettisoning the FLIR or Recce pod and AAMs, so the STOL capabilities don't really exist like they did with the Saab Viggen. That was an awesome STOL platform.
F-16 also takes a lot of runway to land, doesn't like to be put down.
Typhoon and Rafale are both over €200m unit program cost per jet with weapons, spares, support, and are more difficult to maintain than an F-16.
Patriot and layered SHORAD systems are more important for Ukraine right now.
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@LTVoyager US geographic location separates it from any threats by thousands of miles, so it makes zero sense to do any dispersed basing on the North American continent. Dispersed basing made sense for some of the fighter squadrons in Europe in the Cold War, where we placed them along the German-French border and rotated units out of England through there. That was a regular mission profile and basing rotation during REFORGER and some of the units.
Everyone else operated out of hardened aircraft shelters that were camouflaged well, but the Soviets had sleeper cells living in West Germany, Netherlands, UK, Italy, etc. who were tasked with bombing and sabotaging installations, killing key personnel, and they have those sleeper cells still today in Europe. GRU and SVR manage those operations, lots of Russian couples, older males who survey targets, develop networks, things like that. It’s very easy to operate that way in open societies.
But for the US and Canadian NORAD mission set, large bases are fine. Alaska, Canada, Vermont, and bases in the Midwest run those sorties for the over-the-top Russian strategic bomber attack vectors where they fire cruise missiles.
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@TheStugbit The Gripen airframe was refined by Sweden. The engine, Radar, FLCS, databus, ejection seats, landing gear, servos, fuel systems, cannon, weapons, and all the critical systems were developed by the US, UK, Germany, and France. There are 2 other assembly lines for F-35s outside the US, one in Japan, and one in Italy. Multiple nations have significant workshare in manufacturing components for F-35s. It started as a joint US-UK program in many ways, especially ASTOVL, which was a USMC, UK, USAF, DARPA program that began in 1983. A STOVL later fed into JAST, which then became JSF. 15% of every F-35 is made in the UK. Every single F-35 ejection seat is made by Martin-Baker in the UK. Every single lift fan for the F-35Bs are made in the UK.
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@Walterwaltraud When we say “lab environment” for missile tests, we’re talking about supersonic fighters converted to drones that are shot down in maneuvering dynamic flight conditions trying to evade the missiles most of the time, while employing IR and/or RF countermeasures.
With the F-106A/B, we converted 199 of them into QF-106s and sent them to White Sands, Eglin AFB, and Tyndall AFB. After all but 8 were shot down, they were replaced with QF-4s by the hundreds. By 2013, they had shot down 250 QF-4s.
USN had their own QF-4s and QF-16s as well. Their QF-4s are long gone, using lots of BQM drones and a few QF-16s now out of Point Mugu.
USAF blew through QF-16As and went on to QF-16C Blocks 25 and 30 already. Imagine shooting down Block 30 GE-motored Vipers for sport out of Florida and White Sands.
No other nation does this anywhere near the extent that the US does, because it costs a lot of money to convert fighters into drones and put them back into flying status, since these are pulled from the boneyard.
AIM-120 series has been live-fired more than 5000 times as of September 2022. With the QF target drones, they try to get as many shoots on them without total destruction as possible, so a lot of missiles will be shot without a warhead and everything is instrumented and filmed to ascertain probability of kill. The first live AIM-120 shot was on a QF-102 back in 1982 from an F-16A, which I remember well.
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@christoff124 Even the F-35C has dramatically-superior readiness rates and lower MMHPFH than any F-16.
F-16 MMHPFH range from 11-22hrs depending on type, airframe hours, and year.
F-35A has been 3.5-5.4hrs, which just has never been a thing. CPFH is much lower too, despite what all the legacy media sites claim.
Su-27s are maintenance hogs with very low availability, cannibilization for spares, twin engine, failure-prone mech-scanned Radar, garbage Russian electronics, stress fractures in the neck/fuselage bulkhead region due to drunken idiots over-stressing the airframe, already on Serial Modernization 3 to keep them barely relevant. Half of the Su-27SM and Su-27UB fleet isn't even worth upgrading according to internal Russian air force statements.
Su-35S is their latest operational 4.5 Gen fighter, already being shot down by themselves or Ukraine due to its huge RCS and lack of coherent IFF among Russian forces.
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@Globalscanningeyes So I've been in the developmental and operational world in this space since the 1970s, with decades spent at the USAF Flight Test Center and deployed abroad. We got used to taking GAO, Pentagon, and "watchdog" reports and just laughing at them, then realized that people that far out of touch are actually influencing or calling the shots on funding.
But here's a way any layman can understand how much you're being lied to.
In their first 10 years of operational service, here are the airframe loss and fatality rates for the following aircraft:
F-14: 73, 19
F-15: 54, 26
F-16: 143, 71
F/A-18: 97, 27
Harrier: 100, 20
A-10: 59, 26
That's 526 airframes with 189 fatalities.
F-35, all types:
F-35A: 4, 1
F-35B: 4, 0
F-35C: 1, 0
Only 1 person has died in operational service with F-35s, a Japanese Defense Forces pilot who seems to have had a physiological episode, then plunged into the sea from high altitude.
This type of safety record is unheard of in fast jets. Over 920 F-35s have been delivered to services all over the world.
Pilots who flew fighters before transitioning to F-35 absolutely love the engine, the controls, the flight control system, ease of flying, ease of landing, and the systems interface.
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@koekiejam18 It's cheaper in the long run to maintain the F-35A because all the combat systems are integrated into the airframe.
On legacy jets, they don't count the attached ECM, FLIR, countermeasures pylons, and targeting pods in the CPFH numbers, so you're not getting the full picture.
AESA radars are far more easy to maintain than legacy MSA radars in the F-16 & Typhoon.
The F-35 back end radar components are easier to access because they made the nose landing gear doors the access doors, which is brilliant really.
Weapons bay doors access common inspection components as well, so maintainers don't have to open anywhere near as many panels as on an F-16, for example.
Since the F-35 doesn't use central hydraulics for its control surfaces, it is far less prone to failures with critical control systems, and it has the most powerful, reliable fighter engine ever built.
F-16s started off with the F100-PW-200, which had so many issues with compressor stalls, Afterburner unstarts, flame-outs, catastrophic failures, and resulting loss of airframes and lives.
They had to form a program to design a new upgrade for the F100, which led to the F100-PW-220, -229, and 220E for the F-15C, F-15E, & F-16C.
The F135 motors in the F-35 have had none of those problems. It's a phenomenal engine. These "news" reports can be compared to how things were with engines that actually had problems, and the layman can see the stark contrast in what real problems look like.
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@milisha98 One of the many problems we saw with the MiG-29 was that the parts weren't common on 2 serial production jets built sequentially (ex. Airframe 121 and 122).
From a maintenance perspective, if you wanted to take a panel of skin from one MiG-29 and put it on another, the fastener holes did not align!
That means each one was drilled individually by some guy without a template, or if there was a template, it wasn't adhered to.
The APU exhaust was also routed through the centerline tank, and when the centerline tank was attached, you could not safely fire the gun, and the aircraft was limited to 4gs.
It was as if Russia built the monkey model for themselves that time. Terrible. It had a really capable radar too, but the pilot interface with the radar was so bad, it made it effectively hamstrung to GCI with terminal phase weapon employment only.
The IRST was basically useless as well, other than for intercepting bombers in a heavy ECM environment, which was probably the design intent.
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@sumott497 An F-35A would cost $21.85 million in 1979. The first F-15Cs were $13.25 million in 1979, though we need to look at other platforms too.
An F-117A was $45 million in 1983, which is $116.9 million today.
So cost-to-benefit analysis and accounting for inflation really favors the F-35A for the USAF. Especially when you factor in its ISR, EW, and AEW&C capabilities, we would need to amortize EF-111A, U-2S, EC-130, RC-135, and E-3 costs into the comparison.
It's a steal really, given all that it does.
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@becnal Novorossiysk is well within the range of Ukrainian ballistic missiles, naval commandos, and even still without those, naval mines have been appearing all over the Black Sea already. At a minimum, assuming that no military attacks will ever happen against Novorossiysk (big gamble), any tankers will need mine-sweeper escorts and will have to assume that Turkey will be totally fine with them passing through the Bosphorus.
To counter that, I could argue that Russia will provide the mine-sweeping operations for any oil tankers.
Then those tankers will need to pass through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, around the Horn of Africa and into ports in India, while others will have to pass through the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea, and into sea ports in China.
All of those areas have entered the first month of being cut off from Russian and Ukrainian grains on a 90-day cycle of food supplies, and the incentives for piracy or seizing of sanctioned vessels will be high.
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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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Coal-powered electric grids, yes. Anytime I see transportation infrastructure comparisons between the European and North American continents, I question the basic familiarity with geography and population density possessed by the promoters of the Euro models.
Europe has very high population density with tight geographical constraints, and a transportation infrastructure built on millennia of ancient road networks that never had automobiles in mind.
The US, Canada, and Mexico have vast expanses of open terrain, low population density, and have open spaces where large highway, freeway, and road networks have been built.
The US and Canada also experienced something unique in the post-WWII era where planned suburban developments erupted all over outside of all the major cities, so people could own larger plots of land with homes on them, as opposed to being cooped-up like rats stacked on top of each other in cities.
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@pebblepod30 The ideological arguments are part of a kabuki theater, because US government was thoroughly taken over by organized crime from the late 1800s through Prohibition. Organized crime liked any politician that will do their bidding, regardless of affiliation, but seemed to favor Democrats and Progressives in that era. The Democrat connection was pretty solidified with unions, which were actually in decline during the Roaring 20s, by 33% from 1920-1933. When FDR got elected on the promise of ending Prohibition, one of his first major legislative acts was the National Industrial Revitalization Act, effectively making him the de facto head of all labor unions.
By that time, the big crime bosses had legitimized and didn’t want any disruptions to their cash flow, as they found it more lucrative to buy businesses, politicians, and work with banks. They were already entrenched in the political parties, though the existing old money was generally aligned with the old Republican Party at the time. Those were their economic competitors. Guys like Papa Joe Kennedy and Meyer Lansky saw themselves as the new breed.
The co-opted the new secret police of the US (totally unconstitutional in its existence) by sexually black-mailing its director, J. Edgar Hoover, who was a homosexual living with his common law husband, Clyde Tolson (Assistant FBI Director). They already controlled Hollywood, which was a powerful tool in forming public opinion.
The partisan constructs of how America is divided is the lowest rung on the control ladder, designed to keep the people from seeing that criminals have been running government for well over a century now. If you find yourself aligning based on partisan baskets created by these guys for you, it’s probably time to jump out.
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Started flying in 1970, whereas F-15 was 1972, F-16 1974, and Hornet in 1978. Carrier-borne operations increase wear-and-tear on them so it makes absolute sense to start retiring airframes, especially from the early production blocks throughout the 1970s. They crashed or dumped so many of them as it was, with 173 airframe total F-14 losses. Some of those simply fell off the carrier or got splashed with salt water, immediately dead-lined if they still had the airframe aboard.
Of all those, even though it came later, the Hornet would be the next fastest airframe type to see boneyard storage due to carrier ops, saltwater, and just being run hard. They lost 100 of them in its first 10 years of service with 20 fatalities. They quickly started making changes to the Hornet with the C model even before Desert Storm, and put the A Models into Reserve units as fast as they could.
F-16A had a pretty rough start too, with wiring harness chaffing, hydraulic issues, engine problems with F100-PW-200, EPU failures after engine failure, control surfaces popping up when they should be down, several GLOCs, and multiple fleet groundings in the A models from 1978-1985. It took a while to work out the Viper, but they got it ironed-out very well.
F-15 is the unique 4th Gen fighter in terms of safety with very few total losses and fatalities. They also skimmed the absolute best pilots into Eagles, but that was also true with the Tomcat, with bringing it to the boat being the thing that separated pilots into other airframes that were much easer to bring back.
The mishap rates are really eye-opening when you look at all of them. Harrier has the worst of all in the 4th Generation timeframe, even though it never gets mentioned as a 4th Gen aircraft.
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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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@apex_blue Maintenance costs for the F-15C and F-15E are higher than the F-35A in USAF service, not counting the LANTIRN, SNIPER, LITENING, or the new LEGION pod for the F-15s, or EPAWSS. They’re accounting EPAWSS with a separate Select Acquisition Report monitoring since it is over budget and a critical system for F-15 survivability. The F-15Cs are being retired within the next 3 years.
F-35A unit price ($77.9 million) is lower than the new F-15EX, which is well over $103 million once you add the CFTs, EFTs, pylons, FLIR Pods, IRST Pod, EPAWSS, etc. F-15EX was shot down regularly in a recent Red Flag Alaska where they put it into the mix. It’s a stop-gap to keep the St. Louis assembly line open so we don’t fire all those workers and then have to start all over again with a new contract.
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If you look at start-up procedures, in-flight tasks, and maintenance, this cockpit smokes legacy cockpits. Legacy cockpits have a black box behind every display and panel, with wiring coming out of the back that flows into the wiring harnesses. They are a nightmare to maintain, doubled in 2-seaters. Corrosion, G forces, dust, sand, moisture, and wear and tear wreak havoc on cockpits. This is one of the several reasons why it’s so much easier to operate and maintain F-35s vs 4th Gen. Look at the MMH/FH numbers if you have doubts.
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@jamesplant5280 US DoD measures costs in very different ways. For example, USAF incorporates all sorts of hidden costs like new buildings, vehicles, bowling alleys, snack bars, golf carts, etc. that you never find in European or other air forces. They then amortize these costs into the future, then back-feed them into the yearly costs to carve out more spending dollars for the service.
No politicians will fight it because it pours billions of dollars into their Congressional districts.
If you go to the DoD Comptroller hourly reimbursable rates, you can see what the actual CPFH is. Interesting how these CPFH align very closely to foreign nations like Norway and Australia.
(Me: Spent decades assigned to USAF bases CONUS and OCONUS, have been tracking defense spending since 1984 with an emphasis on fighters, missiles, bombers, and UAVs.)
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In order to be mass produced, it needed to only have 2 engines. As long as 2 engines could lift it and its payload and take them on a global strike mission profile unrefueled, that was plenty of capability and lots of return on investment for well over 100 airframes. The Pratt & Whitney F135 engines used in the F-35 produce 28,000lb of thrust without afterburner. The new core module of the Enhanced P&W F135 allows it to produce 30,800lb of thrust 5 years ago, with likely improvements since then. That would be 56,000 - 61,600lb of thrust. If the B-21A has 86% of the take off gross weight of the B-2A, it would be 289,820lb. B-21A wingspan appears to be 147ft. This is a rough estimation extrapolating wing span and TOGW, but it’s a fun exercise to see if the math makes any sense for basic take-off performance:
B-21A estimate is 61,600 (2 x F135 variant motors in mil power) to 289,820lb or 0.21 Thrust-to-Weight Ratio
The current B-2A has 4x GE F118-GE-100 motors that produce 17,300lb each, or 69,200lb of thrust for a 337,000 - 376,000lb Take Off Weight.
B-2A is 69,200 to 337,000lb or 0.2 Thrust-to-Weight Ratio
69,200 to 376,000 is 0.18 T/W ratio at Maximum TOGW.
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Have you done a cost analysis on what it would have been if we funded, produced, and maintained the following:
ASTOVL
Supersonic STOVL Fighter (to replace the UK and USMC AV-8 Harrier IIs eventually)
Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter (to replace F-16s)
Agile Falcon (Currently flown by Japan, each airframe was $171 million-more than F-22 Raptors)
Advanced Tactical Aircraft (Navy stealth flying wing-$2 billion was spent on R&D for it, cancelled)
A/X- US Navy stealth program after the ATA was cancelled
Because the DoD and Congress did a cost analysis on what it would have been to not only fund these, but to cut these down to 3 and see how that worked out. Turns out that even with 3 of the above programs eliminated, it was going to be astronomical to fund the independent service-driven programs, so it was suggested, “What if we go with a common avionics and propulsion and as many subsystem common component approach, while each of the services gets its own airframe design?”
Thus was born JAST and eventually JSF. This was really the best way to go when looking at cost and efficiency.
None of the proposed airframes and separate avionics systems would have added a practical benefit overall because different radars and engines would create separate supply chains with spiraled costs, and radars and engines are 50% of the aircraft cost.
By combining efforts and buying power, they ended up with the world’s most advanced, most capable AESA radar that exceeds the capabilities of the F-22’s bigger AESA, with the world’s most powerful fighter engine, and the lowest radar cross section and tiny IR signature of any other fighter in the world. They also carry more internal fuel than any other single engine fighters out there by a huge margin, to the extent that combat radius is superb with the JSF series.
Things are not what they seem on the surface of the ignoverse.
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The 2nd production Colt model 602 was run with reamers gone ragged (undersized chambers in many of them), and the propellant changed for M193 out-of-spec because they couldn’t get enough high-volume batches of tiny stick powder that the AR-15 was designed around, so they switched to ball propellant instead, for subsequent batches of ammunition, which spiked the port pressures anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000psi. Combine that with corroded, non-chromed chambers and no cleaning kits, and the 602 rifles malfunctioned with alarming regularity.
Colt 601 was great, needed some improvements in twist rate and the charge handle design, though twist rate didn’t matter in Vietnam.
Colt 602 was substandard
Interim XM16E1 uppers slapped onto 602 lowers tried to band-aid the problem with forward assist.
Colt 603 was the refinement with chrome-lined chamber and bore, gauged chambers or barrels were rejected, cleaning kit issued, ran like a raped ape.
All of the above happened from 1959-1967. US large combat forces didn’t hit Vietnam until 1965. Project AGILE only used Colt 601s, which had phenomenal feedback from the ARVN and US Army Advisors, most of whom were Korean War vets, SF, or Ranger-qualified senior NCOs and officers with a lot of experience.
602s were issued to new Airmobile and USMC units from 1965-1966, where the problems arose.
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@Chakirisan I absolutely agree and I think most people recognize that costs are inflated. When providers aren’t actually telling the patients what things cost, and the billing staff sends invoices to insurance, there’s a ton of elasticity to hike prices up. Congress get into office with the insurance companies, Pharma, medical suppliers, hospitals, and unions financing their campaigns, junkets, and insider trading portfolios, so there is zero incentive there to take an axe to medical costs in DC.
The HHS from 2017-2020 was one of the only times in US history where the Federal government stepped in to cut costs by authorizing 900-1000 generic drugs every year, which actually hurt Pfizer and other Pharma giants’ inflated profitability. I’m all for profitability, but not kleptocracy and political elites used as gate-keepers to contracts, authorized drugs and procedures, and running that scheme they have with Medicare A propping up hospitals. Congress and the medical industry operate like a well-oiled organized crime racket, because they are one.
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@vince11harris There are at least 384 verses in the Bible where swords are mentioned, including in the possession of Angels, Jesus’ disciples, Hebrew men, fighting Goliath, symbolic swords, literal swords, swords of justice, swords of war, swords used to punish criminals who hurt women and children, swords of judicial authority, and self-defense. The verse referencing self defense is Luke 22:36...
"Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
You could write a lengthy dissertation about the mention of swords, weapons, defensive tools, weapons of war, and related nouns in the Bible. If someone has been telling you there is no mention of such things in the Old and New Testaments, they are woefully-ignorant and probably never even cracked open a Bible.
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F-35A carries 18,200lb of internal fuel.
Block 4 will have 3 ejector rack stations in each weapons bay, whereas current Block 3F JSF only have 2 for A2A weapons.
Block 4 will be able to carry 6 AAMs internally, maybe more depending on Peregrine/HALFRAAM.
The heavy ejector rack loading currently in the weapons bays hard points can mount 2,500lb weapons on each.
The door hinge gap location ejector racks on stations 5 & 7 for AIM-120 currently are rated for 350lbs each.
So total current max internal weapons mass is:
350x2 BVRAAM
2500x2 Heavy weapons
5700lbs internal weapons + 18,200lbs internal fuel
GAU-22/A Gun weighs 230lbs without the feed system
180 rounds of 25mm weighs 270lbs
BRU-68/A Ejector racks weigh 86lbs each for up to 2000lb bombs.
LAU-147/A Ejector racks for AIM-120 internal carriage weigh 63lbs each.
Assuming 2x2500 heavy weapons, it comes to just under 25,000lb of internal weapons and fuel.
In Air-to-Air configuration, it means 4x 335lb-350lb BVRAAMs, not 2 & 2 A2A/A2G.
That leaves all of the external weapons stations open, which amount to 7 more hardpoints.
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@Rjsjrjsjrjsj Zeihan's framework is from the old decorum of White House protocols and cabinet meetings that were last seen in Bush41 and Bush Jr White Houses. Clintons threw that out the window by bringing in criminals and radicals who ran the WH like a frat house, and many of those came back with the Obama WH.
Biden is used to the older decorum from DC culture dating to the 1970s, but has a really young, diversity-hire staff who don't have a clue what they're doing.
This is Zeihan's metric for "managerial experience", while ridiculing Trump's.
Trump is the only President who came from a private sector background totally foreign to WH/DC meetings, where the can is kicked down the road.
In the private sector, you have to demonstrate competency and the ability to manage highly-capable teams of people to produce results, especially in the billionaire sector.
This is why I thoroughly disagree with the managerial assessment of the Trump WH, as chaotic as it was. Look at the results in terms of energy independence, economic growth, trade relations favoring the US, defense, and peace negotiations between Arabs and Israelis, while lighting a fire under NATO to honor their defense spending agreements.
No President has accomplished anywhere near that in 4 years. JFK comes closest in terms of dealing with crises, but only had 2 years and 9 months.
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@skydragon23101979 Incorrect. US is a huge industrial, energy, automotive, mineral, agricultural, and tech economy. This is easily-verifiable data. Defense is not even close to the top. Defense is big in exports for sure, but look at automotive, petrochemical exports (millions of barrels are imported to the US to be refined, then exported, in addition to extracted oil/NG from US fields). The US has huge and diversified manufacturing capacity, to the extent that individual States out-perform most nations across several industries.
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@soulsphere9242 F-16 costs more than the F-35A, believe it or not. Just within the F-16’s first 10 years of service, we lost 143 of them, with 71 fatalities. Just for the early Blocks 1-25 airframes, that would be $7.82 billion today, not having gone through any upgrades like CCIP. Current operational F-16CMs have over $102 million sunk into each airframe. We’ve also never seen a comparison including all the ancillary systems that the F-16s need to execute their basic mission sets. That includes ECM pods, HARM Targeting Pods, LITENING FLIR/LST Pods, EPIDSU pylons, JHMCS, the sunk costs on older Block 40 LANTIRN NAV and FLIR pods, the SNIPER Pods that were between LANTIRN and LITENING, etc. FLIR pods alone cost $1.16-$3 million each, with about $54,000/year O&M costs for each. These costs don’t get reported or accounted for in both acquisition or O&M, so we’ve never seen a true and comprehensive cost/benefit analysis. The F-35A has been in USAF service since 2006, with only 1 crash after a former Mudhen driver tried to land one with the speed-hold left on at 202kts, bounced it off the runway and ejected. JADF crashed another one, pilot disoriented or incapacitated. We’ve never seen anything even remotely this safe. Safety saves airframes and lives, which are worth billions.
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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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@franksun4017 AESA Radars antennae arrays are made from hundreds of Semiconductors. That’s what TRMs are. The lower quality SCs you have, the bigger you have to make the antenna arrays and still won’t have comparable performance due to lack of electron mobility. China sucks in this space.
When the antenna array is that large, you then have to make the first bulkhead very large, and you have to carry a certain weight in the nose with all the inefficient garbage electronics behind the Radar antennae. There are 2 power amplifiers that are critical to Radar operation. The first generates the waveform, which is sent to the antennae and resonated out in the airspace. Any reflections that come back to the Radar need to be converted from analog to digital, then amplified with the back end amp and run through a signals processor to make sense of the contact vs clutter.
If your industry sucks at these types of technologies, the overall Radar components will be heavy while still having bad thermal management. This results in a 70ft long albatross of a fighter that now needs lots of thrust to get it into the air, with a reasonable climb rate to optimum intercept altitudes, with optimum cruise speeds and range.
They have already stated that the Russian AL-31 motors are not enough to reach these desired areas of performance.
You might be tempted to critique the F-22 for being heavy, but its weight is largely driven by Mach 2+ performance requirements, along with the weapons bay cavities and actuators, as well as 1980s-1990s era RAM (heavy). F-22s are definitely not underpowered, because the US makes world-class fighter engines.
One thing I have noticed is that China has gone complete lockdown on reporting any mishaps with the J-20, which means they are very sensitive about exposing its weaknesses. In contrast, we have many reports on J-10 and J-11 crashes (happen quite frequently).
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If a no-name US citizen was on Russian payroll through various shell companies and money-laundering operations, the FBI would receive referrals from the IRS, NSA, CIA, DIA, UK MI6, and other agencies with their redacted evidence of how they tracked the money, the network of how it was laundered, and who the co-conspirators are. A massive list of indictments would ensue, with everyone being arrested that they could find both in the US and abroad. All the relevant accounts would be seized by the NSA and UK MI6, and the preliminary hearings would be assigned to a special court that covers classified materials, sources, and methods. You would be facing multiple life terms for treason, espionage, money-laundering, receiving bribery payments from hostile foreign governments, conspiracy, tax-evasion, and a laundry list of Federal charges. Even if you agreed to testify against co-defendants, you still would likely face 40 years or more in prison.
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@dvd1503 You'll never get the truth out of ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, USA Today etc. because they're all owned/sponsored by Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, Bayer, GSK, P&G, etc.
For example, Pfizer's Executive VP/CTO sits on the board of Gannett Co., corporate owner of....drum roll.....USA Today! Yay! Such great information from the unbiased professionals at USA Today, or any other corporate network.
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@thespanishinquisiton8306 No program has gotten to 894 airframes delivered and fallen apart all-of-a-sudden. Every single fighter airframe produced in those numbers suffered horrendous or significant losses within their first 10 years, some of them not ever achieving 894 airframes delivered even.
First 10 years of service -
F-14A: 73 losses, 19 fatalities
F-15: 54, 26
F-16: 143, 71
F/A-18: 97, 27
Harrier: 100, 20
A-10A: 59, 26
F-35A/B/C: 7 crashes, 2 fire-related write offs, 1 fatality over 613,000+ flight hours. This has never happened before. The safety story is a phenomenal one that gets ignored and opposite reported, which shows the quality of “journalism” associated with F-35 reporting.
F-35 fleet has logged more flight hours than the Rafale, F-22, and will soon surpass the EF Typhoon if they haven’t already. EF Typhoon hit 500,000 fleet flight hours in NOV2018. Typhoon has 10 airframe total losses and 9 fatalities, much smaller fleet size than the F-35s, similar fleet flight hours.
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@effexon Have you not heard of the Typhoon? Germany has the industrial capacity to make their own fighter engines, Radars, airframes, databuses, flight control systems, etc. Sweden does not and never has.
The Gripen has all kinds of US, German, French, and UK critical subsystems and components, including the Radar, engine, ECS, databuses, flight controls, hydraulics, servos, landing gear, wheel brakes, ejection seat, data link, APU, Lights, electro-optics, fasteners, valves, refueling probe, fuel tank sealants, corrosion inhibitors, etc.
Everyone in the Nordic region plus MSIP F-16 partner nations in NATO chose the F-35A because it’s just better. Better payload, range, sensors, weapons, situational awareness, engine, maintainability, survivability, Omnirole mission set capable, open architecture for hardware and software upgradeability, ease of pilot training, and future longevity.
It’s also more affordable to acquire and maintain. The Gripen series don’t even meet basic late 1970s US requirements for a lightweight multirole fighter due to their low thrust-to-weight ratio and limited payload, limited combat radius when configured.
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@jkliao6486 Logic, Relevance, Significance, Precision, Completeness, Accuracy, Breadth, Depth, Clarity, Fairness. Reason I ask is that I once did a brief study on High School debate classes across the US, from CA to NY. I looked at their debate course outlines and curricula, and never once saw the Intellectual Standards. These are formal, baseline principles taught in critical thinking courses. You can use them to determine if an argument or “academic study" is sound, or based on fallacies.
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@GiantJanus Normal vaccines are not the entire virus, they're a weakened virus that has been sustained in animal serums, then mixed with human stem cells in many cases, and toxic adjuvants in solution. The adjuvants are designed to trigger inflammation so the immune system will respond and carry the virus to the lymph nodes, where it can be destroyed and memory of its ID kept in the immune system for future encounters.
Several big drug manufacturers have tried to get mRNA therapies to work, and failed every time, just like Moderna failed all of their clinical trials with Influenza, Zika, and a "secret virus" up through 2017.
A big problem with mRNA therapy is that it either doesn't work, or it causes the exact harmful effects of the virus. This is exactly what's happening now with all the COVID-19 therapies, where we see spike protein formation in critical organs, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, and death. That's exactly what happened in the clinical trials.
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@Angel-tw3ko Mueller is a career criminal operative who has rigged investigations (Lockerbie bombing), abused the FISA court to target innocent people, and helped Hillary collude with Russia in obtaining nuclear materials in the Uranium One scandal. That's why he's motivated to go after Trump, because multiple whistle-blowers from within NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, DoD, and law enforcement have made it known to Trump what happened with Obama, Holder, Comey, Mueller, and Hillary.
This latest kabuki theater put on by the swamp rat vermin was just that, theater to distract from their swamp.
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Jörgen Persson You know what the current upgrade capabilities of the Su-30SM2, Su-27SM3, Su-35S, and Su-57 are?
The Russians have all kinds of spies in Sweden, UK, France, Germany, Italy, US, Israel, etc. to acquire defense technology. Their engineers take that, make models that are producible in their industry, crank them out for testing and implementation into their fighters and missiles. Swedes are one of the easiest targets since they have no real alliance with anyone and have taken their security for granted for centuries now.
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@BornRanger It's the freedom, property ownership, weather, lower taxes, lower cost of living, no militant neighbors on our borders, tons of National Parks, don't have to pay off the police, better access to a wide variety of Healthcare with fast EMS services, easier to own and operate vehicles of all types, and most importantly, the right to protect myself and my family.
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@Caeruleo Re-watch Connally's hospital bed and 1964 statements. You missed a lot of key points he made. JFK was hit first, Connally began looking for where the shooting was coming from, then Connally was hit. Zapruder aligns with this perfectly. He specifically said he felt the impact to his back after he began looking for where the rifle fire came from. He also specifically said in 1964, "I know there's some disagreement among the experts about how many shots were fired and whether the first shot hit us both, but I know it didn't and I'll never believe that."
Dr. McClelland said the cavity in the occipital region was a 5" diameter. (I have extensive training in combat trauma management, starting with anatomy & physiology from the Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center, including real-world GSW treatment on myself and others, with access to Bible-sized military studies of high power rifle terminal ballistics including to the cranium.) He literally watched what was left of the cerebellum fall out onto the table. If you don't have a medical background, you won't have any relevant understanding of the structures, their locations, or how the wounds presented to the Parkland ER docs.
McClelland approached JFK from above, immediately seeing the back of his skull, while the others were down around his thorax and lower extremities as they managed his airway.
McClelland immediately noticed a very large exit wound and most of the right hemisphere gone, with pieces still falling from it onto the table.
I don't know how many entrance and exit wounds you have seen, but I'll tell you that entrance wounds are rarely much larger than the diameter of the projectile. Exit wounds can vary from projectile diameter to several inches.
The skull is a bit different since the cranium encapsulates the brain in varying thicknesses of bone, so when a high velocity projectile impacts it, you expect to see significant damage to the bullet meplat, ogive, and shank even if the bullet holds together.
With a high velocity rifle that has higher than 2600fps mv, you will see rapid expansion and failure of the bullet after it penetrates the initial layer of the epidermis, connective tissues, and bone. This results in exposure of the lead core while still going over twice the speed of sound, sending a lead shower of smaller fragments through the brain, which continue at extreme speed, causing the structural integrity of the skull to fail. The exit wounds from higher velocity rifles are catastrophic and avulsive.
Even if you assume a rear wound of a few inches, we're not talking about an entrance. It's not reality or physically possible to generate anything more than a roughly 6.5mm+ entrance, especially with a 162gr Round Nosed FMJ. The Parkland ER Doctors were unanimous in saying the occipital region had a huge exit wound. McClelland who had direct observation of it from above the head said 5", while others said 7cm (2.75").
Even more disturbing is the fact that the autopsy drawings provided many years later show a perfect entrance wound in the rear, and no cavity at all.
This directly conflicts with the Parkland doctors' observations, makes it impossible for McClelland to have witnessed anything he saw.
Then I point back to Zapruder with the projectile momentum transferred into the skull, sending it back and to the left. I challenge you to reproduce that knowing fully well you cannot and will not, unless you shoot from the front right aspect of the President's head.
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@EnGammalAmazon I've gone to school in Finland, my mom went to school in Finland, and some of my kids are in school in Finland right now (university).
My mom left Finland after high school to seek better opportunities abroad. Where did she go? To the US, attending a prestigious university.
There just aren't anywhere near the number of opportunities in Finland as there are in the US for higher education.
For elementary schooling, Finland has kind of a hybrid of Prussian method but more relaxed. They've taught multiple languages since Finland used to be part of the Swedish Empire, but they refused to Russify during the Czarist times as a Grand Duchy.
I do like that elementary school starts later, but I'm personally very opposed to compulsory schooling because it really trains people to be conformists, not problem-solvers.
Finland is unique intellectually though because of the language. The words in Finnish are like Rubik's cubes that have to be changed in usage with interlocking and layered grammatical and vocal harmony rules.
It allows each Finn to craft their own mannerisms of sentence structure and positions, as there are no prepositional phrases in Finnish.
For example, in English I would say, "I'm going to Helsinki."
In Finnish, you say, "Minä mennen Helsingiin."
There are 23 different positional word endings you attach to objects, but then you have to go back into the word to vocal harmonize it.
It's a very dynamic and adaptive neuro-network of hyper-plasticity relative to other languages, where you can say the same thing in so many different ways.
The grammar makes other languages feel like cheating to learn, extremely difficult to attempt as an adult.
I believe there is more to this than any particular form of schooling used in Finland. Political philosophers who don't even understand basic geography, history, or demographics, like to assign concepts they align with as causal to observed positive outcomes, without taking a holistic analysis of the environment.
They like things simple and compartmentalized, rather than doing the work of studying everything from a fresh perspective.
Most of what I see and hear about Finland is parroted by people who have never been there, don't really know anything about Finland, and cherry-pick what they see. Bernie Sanders is a prime example of cherry-picking to fit his agenda.
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Also, the initial developmental F-35A flight control law tests that were often cited by people claiming the F-35 is not capable against a 2-tank family model Viper has long been put to rest as the flight envelope was opened up. Just like with the Raptor, they didn't open full maneuvering capes out of the gate with the test program. Block 3F F-35As have been hurting Vipers for many years now in BFM, with senior Viper drivers who converted to F-35A saying that they have far more nose-pointing authority in the F-35 vs the F-16 since the F-35 isn't anywhere near as AOA-limited as the Viper.
Viper drivers who thought they would treat the F-35 like a Hornet and fight a radius fight vs a rate fight then had to learn the hard way that the F-35 retains energy more like a Viper, and recovers airspeed better than a Viper. F-35 pilots learned to fight the F-35 in its strengths vs the Viper's weaknesses, and most BFM exchanges result in F-35s being dominant, not that an F-35 would ever let a 4th Gen within visual range of it anyway. Once you combat-configure the Viper with 2 EFTs, centerline ECM pod, HARM or LITENING Pod, bombs, and missiles, it has no aero or T/W advantages over an F-35 (that is carrying the same amount of bombs and missiles, with far more fuel than the Viper can carry).
The Dutch F-35A pilots said when they came to Red Flag or trained against Nellis-based aggressor squadrons, they did BVR set-ups, then did BFM against aggressor Vipers who thought they could show up to the fight with 2 wing tanks. After the first day, the Viper drivers were surprised at the results, and showed up the next day only with centerline 300 gal EFTs, still had a hard time with the F-35A. 3rd day, they showed up slick with ACMI only to re-gain whatever pride was left.
After the sorties, the F-35 pilots wouldn't return until much later for de-brief. Viper drivers asked what was going on with the time delay for RTB, and the Dutch said, "Let's go ahead and de-brief and it will all make sense." During the de-brief, which takes hours, they detailed how they flew every which way they wanted VLO approaches on the Vipers and killed them repeatedly, then went through all the agreed BFM set-ups with each other where F-35s were dominant, then explained how they flew out to the various test ranges to deliver live 2000lb JDAMs on-TGT after their BFM games. The Viper pilots were awe-struck that they had been fighting F-35s with full internal A2G weapons the whole time, let alone 2 x 2000lb JDAMs.
It sent home the message that F-35 fuel fraction and internal weapons storage is a significant factor in its performance capes, and they realized the Viper they were flying is basically obsolete in comparison. Meanwhile, people with no familiarity with the actual capabilities of the F-35 talk about what a piece of garbage it is, how much more maneuverable the F-16 is, and how their pet Flanker/Typhoon/Rafale/Viper would smoke the F-35 because they read the "leaked" pilot report of the test article F-35 from years ago.
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@MrNicoJac Yes, US media is almost entirely slanted to the left, as is most European media. The US had largely moved away from racial division and strife by 2008, evidenced that many people voted for Obama across party lines because of the “hope and change” mantra that was in most of the news. European media is largely run by the remnants of the IOJ, so America is always presented in a negative light in Europe. I have lived in Europe on-and-off since 1979, as my mom is from Finland. I follow European news from various sources, and have done so since 1980. I remember watching the 1980 election results when we were in West Germany, just for context of how far back this goes for me.
George W. Bush is anything but a "dumb religious cowboy”. He comes from an Eastern financial establishment blue blood family that moved to Texas, attended one of the most difficult prep schools in the US before going to Yale, was Governor of one of the largest land area/population/industry/agricultural States in the Union, and is the only American President who was a supersonic interceptor fighter pilot. Bush flew the F-102 interceptor in the Texas Air National Guard, which was a high mishap-rate fighter that was difficult to land (couldn’t see forward from the cockpit on final due to AOA).
If you have grown up on European news, depending on the country/region, it’s very likely you are just about as misinformed as most people in the US were prior to the great disengagement of corporate presstitute legacy media, but with far superior orientation to the European geography. Germans tend to be better-informed, but still suffer from politically-biased, leftist media. Scandinavians and Nordic countries have very simplistic views of the world and swallow whatever their governments tell them, from single source state media as a general rule.
Italians and Greeks just assume everything is corrupt and go about their lives. Brits still are under the impression that they deserve to be treated like heads of the empire that hasn’t existed in 70 years, now barely coming to terms with the reality that they are a middle power at-best.
Yugoslavians are still trying to get people to understand what has happened to them since 1992.
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@jlvandat69 The people who organized the nuts and bolts of ACA in Obama’s cabinet were tied into the insurance industry, financed for decades. It was a massive transfer of revenue to insurance, not a panacea of coverage. They also mandated arbitrary shelf lives on a multitude of medical devices and products, so that they had to be disposed of and replaced by new ones more regularly, benefitting the medical device manufacturers who wrote obscene cost benchmarks into the bill for themselves. It was nothing as advertised.
The US was and still is way ahead of the “other advanced nations”, who rely on US research, devices, products, EMS service infrastructure, new treatments, and bulk rate wholesale pricing for US drugs, while the US patients and providers pay inflated prices for those same drugs.
This is something I’ve studied for many years now, especially living in those “more advanced nations with better healthcare” that don’t exist. It’s all a fraud.
We have significantly better access to healthcare in the US than the Nordic nations, where my mom is from. Better than Canada, the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany, etc. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant of the reality, or misrepresenting data.
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@MrNicoJac I have dual citizenship with US and Finland, so I can live anywhere I want in the Eurozone, have watched the Eurozone evolve from the 1970s economic pacts through the 1990s and to the present, have lived in multiple European countries under their NHSs, and have many close and distant family members in Sweden and Finland. I have also lived in 8 different US States across almost every region (SW, NE, South, Atlantic Coast, PNW, Mountain-West), and have been in the formal medical system in Emergency Medical Services as an EMS technician. More importantly though, I have been studying the medical market realities of the US, several States, Canada, and European nations for many years.
What I have seen is that the numbers don’t add up to the general statements I see common with this topic, and all of my and my family experience anecdotes support the numbers I have researched, not what is reported in US and European media, or academia in the US.
So in the US, if I have an emergency condition, accident, or sudden illness, I will get into an ER and have specialists on-me like white on rice. I will have diagnostics performed with the latest equipment, including CT Scan, MRI, X-Rays, blood tests, physical exams by senior nurse practitioners, PAs, and MDs specific to that set of symptoms. For urgent priority, I will have an MRI or CT scan within an average of 1.5 hours of arriving in the ER.
For transport methods and times, States with lower populations than Finland or Sweden have more ambulances, more paramedics, more Life Flight helicopters with flight medics (called Air Ambulances in Europe), and faster transport time to a Level 1 Trauma Center (which there are more of per capita).
In Finland, I have literally sat in the ER with my father (patient) waiting for over 6 hours before anyone saw us. The doctor he was supposed to see came and said “bye” to us on her way out off-shift. I’ve never seen that in the US.
In Finland or Sweden, you get taxed no matter what to fund the NHS and other government-managed programs, where there is very little accountability.
We definitely pay more in the US, but we also have higher quality and quantity of care available. That includes specialists, Emergency Medicine, oncology, dentistry, orthodontics, orthopedics, prosthetics, internal medicine, etc.
The US has far more medical and technical universities where doctors, nurses, and medical professionals are trained. We also attract a lot of doctors from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
As to medical tourism, out of the 30 different nations I have been to, none of them would attract me to go there for any of the common procedures, especially anything surgical-related. I live in probably the best place on earth for orthopedic surgeons because we have so many people in sports, athletic teams, with an unusually-young population even for the US.
I am very critical of the US internally from a position of seeking excellence, but we out-perform anything I have seen in Europe or Canada. Canada has a very US-like access to equipment and larger hospitals, but run by their sad NHS, which is why they complain so much about wait times. Canadian MPs come to the US for a lot of their procedures, rather than wait in NHS and suffer or die like the rest of the people must do.
Short story is most of what is reported on this subject is grossly-erroneous, and misses fundamental facts about population size, regional climate, water sources, diet, and other truly-factorial variables, while focusing on policies that don’t manifest in reality.
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@chrisdoulou8149 There is a lot more to AESAs than configuring them as AESAs. TRM materials and semiconductors need to be of high quality, with high density elements that deal with heat really well.
These are spaces in the Semiconductor industry where China is grossly lacking, and these chips are tightly controlled in the US.
In practice, it means a US-built AESA can have a smaller antenna array, with much higher TRM density, with better-performing TRM elements, that can radiate longer due to their thermal management properties.
This is likely the biggest factor in why the J-20 has such a huge Radome and 70ft long airframe.
Just to be able to achieve whatever capability it was they wanted for detection range on specific RCS values, with their limited TRM and SC technology, they had to make a giant nose.
The F-22's APG-77, while smaller, has higher TRM density, better SC materials, better processing power, better thermal management, and always will since the US produces cutting edge SC technology that is closed to everyone else, except Canada, Australia, UK, and JSF partners.
APG-81 in the F-35 is smaller than the APG-77 in the Raptor, but more capable.
Raptor incremental upgrade program is bringing the combat-coded F-22As from later blocks up to speed with newer chip sets, new CIPs, and new unspecified sensors.
China has been cut off from US and European SC manufacturing technology, so they will have to resort to black and grey market sources for less-capable SC materials.
This is why they pay so much money to the Bushes, the Clintons, Obama, and Bidens.
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@chrisdoulou8149 If you look at the J-10 and J-11 mishap incidents, they have very high rates of catastrophic engine failures, spontaneous engine fires that ignite fuel cells, with predictable airframe losses and fatalities.
China has thrown billions at their domestic engine program, which meant placing high-level spy engineers in Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and GE, who were all caught.
It took the US from the 1940s to 1990s to perfect the reliable, high performance fighter engine technology, with a vast workforce of engineers, technicians, and maintainers spread throughout the world at US bases.
Since the IPE, the US pushed fighter engine technology into stealth fighter engines that are integrated into the thermal management, low observability, and improved performance.
China will never reach that level of capability since China is cut off from certain critical technologies, and has relied on Russian excrement motors from 1950s-present as a crutch, rather than innovating.
The necessary innovation to create the industrial infrastructure for fighter engines needed to have been built in the 1960s-1970s. 2010s is 40 years too late, even with bribing US Presidents.
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@jetli740 The J-20 is very much its own overall airframe design, using common VLO shaping techniques found on F-22 and F-35. I’m talking about specific things like the DSI inlet, which the US pioneered on the F-16 DSI testbed, then used for the F-35’s intake design. Then look at the EOTS from the F-35 and then look at the J-20 EOTS copy.
Then look at the engine nozzles for the new WS-15, or the HUD copied from the F-22 HUD, or the DAS-like apertures on J-20, etc. Copy, copy, copy, lack of innovation. This mimics the Chinese lack of neuroplasticity to be able to create new ideas and solutions, due to the character copying with Kanji. It’s very bad for innovation and is now showing how the society will collapse after One-Child policy of infanticide. 35 years of murdering babies has cut the future out from underneath China, all done by themselves.
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@damianketcham Russia doesn't like having a capable military force that is so close to their 2nd largest city and intelligentsia/historic ruling center that Pyetr established. They also need access to the seas and the KGB who backed Putin's rise to power have a prime directive of eventually expanding Russia when the time is right.
Finland was the first foreign nation to be authorized sales of the JASSM missile on the Hornet, which can strike Saint Petersburg, Murmansk, and key military targets in the region. Russia sees the post-collapse alignments of Eastern Europe with the West as a major threat to her security.
The Su-57 is made to appear to compete with the F-22 & F-35, but it's really a Eurocanard killer.
Now that Finland has millennial females in charge of the government, who literally know nothing about security, defense, the history of Russian penetration of Finnish parliament and YLE, I would be shocked if they supported the FAF decision for JSF. My expectation is that they will try to appear reasonable with FAF, but will make cost more of an issue and try to steer towards the less-capable Gripen/GlobalEye package. Maybe even the Super Hornet/Growler.
All of the contenders exceed the 10 billion Euro initial budget, so it will be easy for Parliament to pick H-X to death.
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@extraacct478 Lockheed senior management said that since Lot 4, the F-35 has lower RCS values than the F-22. I was designing RAM in the mid-1980s just for fun, or how I would approach that engineering challenge. Unbeknownst to me, I duplicated the early German RAM shaping used on their U-Boat masts before they went to the epoxy resin lead sphere matrix on their 2nd iteration of RAM, so I was 42 years behind the power curve on that one.
I basically used what I knew about anechoic chambers at the time, and applied that. I didn’t learn about the German RAM shaping until a few years ago, when an Australian MoD engineer revealed it in a presentation.
RF propagation physics 101: There are all types of frequencies of course from different types and widths of emitters. Attenuating a design to minimize reflection/resonance back to the emitter has been a cat and mouse game for generations. The A-12 was the first operational US aircraft to incorporate these techniques, largely relying on a lot of composites and shaping along the leading and trailing edges, as well as use of composites for the variable shock inlet spikes and vertical stabs.
Just from what I have seen from photos of the F-35 layered RAM, I can tell you they have taken into consideration far more than one specific bandwidth in the RF spectrum, as well as the IR spectrum. The comments about F-35 stealth not working or not being viable in the long-run are coming from people who don’t even know what the RF spectrum is.
"Group of allies purchasing either one of these.” Allies are not able to purchase F-15S because F-15S was a Bondo/wood mock-up, nothing more. This is coming from former McDonnell Douglas-turned Boeing employee at the St. Louis Plant who said it was a stupid publicity stunt that didn’t even do static testing.
I have not mentioned any specific RCS values, nor would I acknowledge such values had I ever seen them. Instead, you might want to read the open source details discussed by the JSF program leads and test pilots in a book called, "F-35: from Concept to Cockpit” 871 pages, meant for AeroEs. I think you have to be a member of a specific association that published it to have access though. It’s OSINT.
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It isn't a "crazy radical mindset" to invade Iraq, Afghanistan, or come to the aid of South Vietnam against the face of communist insurgency where civilian population was the target of the Viet Minh, Viet Cong, and paramilitaries. Iraq would have been ruled by Uday Hussein, who tortured, raped, and murdered people for sport, while his father invaded Kuwait and threatened to invade Saudi Arabia.
America and her allies did the world a favor ousting Saddam, since most of Asia relies on Middle Eastern oil to run their industries.
No nation on earth has come anywhere even close to the levels of charity, humanitarian relief work, donations, and defense that the United States has provided. The US isn't the only nation to help build infrastructure abroad, but is the most prolific with the most resources to do so. Russia isn't all evil in that regard, and tried to build infrastructure in Afghanistan, despite overthrowing the government after assassinating their President at the time.
When I look at Finland, for example, Czarist Russia built most of the Finnish railroad network under one of their governors around the time of the US Civil War, and Finland has benefitted from that connection with Russia for trade to this day, as Russian rail tracks are wider than most used in Central Europe.
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It's best to understand the JSF program as 3 separate airframes that share a common avionics and engine core, not airframes that were compromised because of a common airframe design as much as has been hyped. Nobody has done a cost-benefit analysis in the media sector of all the airframes it would take using older technology to attempt to cover some of the capabilities of the JSF fleet, including all the ancillary systems that cost multiples of millions per unit in addition to the aircraft, when said systems are integrated into the F-35 seamlessly from the start. Then when you realize that F-35As are currently rolling off the production line at costs that are similar to, or less than legacy airframes with nowhere near the capabilities, the cost analysis really favors the F-35 considerably.
Examples with 4th Gen fighters include:
* External ECM pods necessary for operating in high IADS threat environments
* External Electro-Optical Detection/Targeting/Laser Spot Tracking Pods
* Helmet-Mounted Cueing Systems
* Certain Countermeasures Systems that require additional external profile
So the base price for a Super Hornet or later Block F-16 is one thing, whereas all the necessary ancillary combat systems that get bolted-on (taking up opportunity costs for weapons stations in the process) are millions of dollars in addition to that base price. Further, since the upgrading of these pods/external mounts often includes complete pod body replacement, the scaled costs run away from you quickly when looking at fleet sizes.
With the F-35, all of these systems and more are integrated into the physical airframe and subsystems of the F-35 internally, with software-leveraged upgrades that can maximize the life cycle of the hardware components. When the hardware needs to be replaced, you don't have to manufacture a new external case for them, and scale those costs across the fleet, which saves billions in comparison. Also, since the 3 services and multiple coalition partners share the common avionics and engine cores, your upgrade costs go down because of purchasing volume.
Then look at lethality and survivability. If it takes you 4 legacy aircraft with attrition to execute limited mission profiles vs 1 JSF to execute expanded mission profiles, the pay-off in pilots' lives saved and destructive campaigns compressed in time is unprecedented. Right now, the air threats know that everything is done on our terms because we hold all the cards in SA, so instead of having more frequent skirmishes with opportunistic regional powers (or F-14 RIOs who can't discriminate between new Flogger pilots doing their 2nd check ride and a nose-hot interceptor looking for solutions), we're experiencing far less actual aerial conflict as a result.
This helps with regional stability, as much as pilots would love to be told, "Eradicate any threat air with extreme prejudice until all their fighters and aircraft are totally destroyed!"
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@conanbillybone2218 America isn't ethno-centric. Americans care more about meritocracy. Show me hard-working man from any ethnicity who continually improves his lot and that of his family, is a good neighbor, and cherishes the freedoms enshrined in the US, and there's an American.
Europeans have very strong ideas and pride about cultural norms, language, and regional allegiance. The French, Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Irish, Brits, and Scots are very proud and hardwired in this way.
Germans have very distinct ideas and expectations based on which state they're from as well, and it's quite fragmented within.
The US is much more fluid, interconnected, and shares the same language in every State. People can move to, work, and live in many States throughout their lives. I've lived in 8 States, for example, in totally different regions.
I've also lived all over Europe to see the things I'm talking about first-hand.
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I’ve been following him and other analysts at STRATFOR back in the 2000s. I didn’t accept any of their observations, but went and checked everything they were claiming since I had already been to 30 countries by that time, spent several decades in Aerospace and Defense, military, and working with coalition partner nations. Even after all my years of studying maps, traveling, military planning, global combined component forces exercises with access to imagery and real-time force movements, micro terrain analyses, and tactical combat aircraft overlays, the lessons in geography I learned from STRATFOR were worth 10x the subscription easily. The places they were describing were mostly areas and regions I had lived in, deployed to, and studied for most of my life. They explained things in ways I had never seen before, which was very illuminating and humbling.
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@pogo1140 So the road only goes for 800m, cut off at both ends? Every video I’ve seen out out by Saab has the take-off portion clipped so you can’t see it in full. When Finland assessed Gripen take-off distances, they were twice as long as all the other H-X contenders. A Gripen with no EFTs and light internal fuel can stop in fairly short distance slamming on the brakes, but they take very long to get airborne. They never show video of a Gripen landing with EFTs, FLIR pod, wing pylons, and 4-6 missiles.
If you want to see a truly-impressive STOL aircraft, look at the Saab Viggen. That takes off like a 4th Gen fighter, and lands with very short distance using thrust reversers triggered by weight-on-nosewheel.
Riksdag didn’t like how much the Viggen cost, so they handicapped Saab with major financial constraints, and thus was born the low-capability, low performance, light payload, long take-off distance, terrible thrust-to-weight Gripen.
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@gloriushumbug5832 Regarding dogfights:
Multiple Senior Fighter Weapons School Instructors have stated for at least the past decade, that anytime you hear someone talking about dogfights, you know the conversation is in the wrong place.
With the introduction of the AIM-9L in the late 1970s, you were already looking at an all-aspect WVR Fox 2 fight on aircraft that had it. The Python-3 and R-73 spread all-aspect AAM capes abroad as well.
The rear quadrant turning fight IR missile solution fight started fading from reality quickly after that.
With the proliferation of the AMRAAM and R-77, followed with Helmet-cued Python-4, R-73, and AIM-9X, nobody is trying to get WVR, cross 3-9 line, and mess around with a turning fight.
You want a fighter that can keep its distance, control how it maneuvers into stand-off parameters on its terms, set-up into No-Escape Zone solutions, then egress quickly while networking with his flight mates.
The Gripen E has some of the worst kinematic performance of all the contenders in this respect, due to it being under-powered.
The F-35A has the best capabilities in this respect due to its vastly-superior networking, ability to set-up unfair NEZ profiles, and coordinate simultaneous weapons employment from multiple shooters in ways that none of the others can.
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@-danR The time separation between the throat, Connally, and final head shots rule out any single rifle theory. Eye witness testimony from multiple people aligns with Zapruder, in that they heard bang.....buh-bang. Connally insisted that he was not hit when Kennedy was first hit through the throat, as he was turning around to see what was going on when he heard the first gunshots and commotion in the back seat.
Then he was hit, which means single shooter obstructionists now face an impossible dilemma of explaining James Tague, the Curb, the tree, JFK’s throat, Connally’s chest, wrist, and leg, and then the final head shot that came from the front.
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@januszkowalski5345 Despite the massive success of the Soviet intelligence operations, they still didn't even come close to achieving a comparable economy or civilized lifestyle for the inhabitants of the Warsaw Pact and USSR member states. These limitations weren't based on the ideologies alone, but were more of a constraint of Russia's geography magnified by the worst political ideology Russia and her neighbors have ever been subjected to.
The US does have a very embedded, multi-generational curse of Marxists dating back to the 1800s, and every single one of the programs these Marxists launched contributed greatly to the lessening of America, the worst and most cancerous being the public schooling system and Department of Education. The metrics you use from Das Kapital are a recipe for the complete degradation of a society wherever they're applied. Karl Marx's apartment is a microcosm of failure that you can apply to a nation in similar scale, with 4 of his 7 children dying from malnourishment while a do-nothing failure of a child from a capitalist family pays for his rent and cleaning lady. In return, he impregnates the cleaning lady, tells his wife that Engels is the father, while writing his "Scheisse" on his broken table in the rat-infested slums on London's East End.
His ideas should be seen in that context and universally condemned by anyone with a thinking mind. His life and thoughts were a monstrous abortion that led to the enslavement and murder of hundreds of millions of people in Asia, let alone Africa and Central America. His ideas continue to handicap Europe and the United States to the extent that millions of people still think they have any merit in how one should run a society.
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@victorcapel2755 I’ve lived all over Finland and have been doing so off and on since 1979. From the Finnish perspective, Finland has all these different cities like Turku, Jyväskylä, Tampere, Pori, Vaasa, Oulu, and Helsinki, but relative to the world, Helsinki is the city-state. Finland does have excellent roads, highways, and a train system that are very modern, but towns and cities are separated by thousands of lakes in central and eastern Finland in the summer. It has very unique geography due to its position and topography, which do not support a large population.
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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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@baronvonlimbourgh1716 A lot of people don’t study military history like I have for the past 5 decades, so they wake up to things we’ve already been preparing for over many years. For example, Finland with 3.7 million population in 1939 killed more Soviet soldiers in 105 days than the past 2 years killed in Ukraine by a country with a population of 43 million when the war started. Finland was left out to dry for themselves in 1939 mostly, while Ukraine has received a decent amount of war material.
Your idea of massive amounts of war material and mine are likely very different. You know who did get massive amounts of supplies in WWII from the US? The Soviets...at least 17.5 million tons of it, to include fighters, bombers, trucks, tanks, fuel, raw materials, weapons, ammunition, radios, uniforms, medical supplies, etc.
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@joakimwohlfeil Gripen E is not fully operational and has zero baseline cost per flight hour or maintenance man hour data to support any claims about these figures. How do we know this for a fact? Because the few Gripen Es that have been delivered to Swedish Air Force and Brazil don’t even have IRSTs on them.
That means there is no way to determine what it actually costs to maintain a Gripen E. We also need to look at Gripen F, 2-seater costs, which are more than a single-seater. 2 ejection seats, 2 cockpits, all the control and avionics plus propulsion interface for the additional cockpit cost significant amounts of money. We’ve never even seen a unit cost statement from anyone for the F model.
We already know the Gripen E costs at least $7 million more than the F-35A. Switzerland assessed that it would likely cost them $21,000 CPFH, while people are saying $4700, $5000, or $6500 CPFH. Keep in mind the A-10A in 1991 cost a little over $9000 CPFH, but 30 years later, a supersonic multirole fighter with advance EW suite, IRST, US-made Afterburning Turbofan, and RAM costs half of that? Not credible....
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@cchrizzy219 There are some very strange genetic, cultural, and linguistic inputs into the British Isles that can't be explained by Indo-European influences, especially when you look at Druids, Celts, and Picts pre-Roman contact.
What is becoming more obvious is the frequency and normal sea-faring travel of ancient civilizations.
The idea that people couldn't travel by sea across the Atlantic and Pacific from Europe, Africa, and Asia, doesn't agree with the haplogroup record, megalithic structures, and regional artifacts.
We see tons of evidence of regular sea traffic between continents.
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Multiple eye witnesses from a wide range of vantage points saw 2 men in the 6th floor window, one with a light coat/shirt, the other with a darker brown worker's suit.
Johnny L. Powell
Ronald B. Fischer
Ruby Henderson
Carolyn Walker
They all saw either 2 men, or 1 man with light hair (Fischer had a street-level vantage point looking up at the TSBD, so couldn't see into the window like the others did. Investigators tried to bully him into saying the man with a light colored shirt had dark hair, but he refused to alter his testimony for Warren Commission assistant counsel, David W. Belin, to the extent he almost fought him in the interview room because of Belin's intimidation tactics.
Oswald was down in the lunch room. When police charged into the TSBD and had assistance from boss Truly, they couldn't get into the service elevator, because these men were using it.
They instead ran up the stairs, encountered Oswald on a lower level, then continued up the stairs.
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@harri9885 I’ll be shocked if Finland picks anything other than the F-35A. They can’t afford any of the other proposals as it is, with the Gripen E/F/Global Eye representing a very high cost-risk option (Gripen E still in development), and the Rafale or Typhoon are too expensive as well. Unit costs alone for Typhoon Tranche 4 and Rafale F4 are off the charts. You’re looking at unit program costs of 218.61 million Euros IF you order 36 Rafales like India did. Unit cost is around 122 million euros, or $144 million USD, without missiles, spares, support, etc.
Typhoon Tranche 4 is about the same, very expensive, but has some commonality with existing FiAF weapons inventory.
F-35A costs 66.04 million Euros unit flyaway. Not sure what unit program is, but it’s less than Typhoon or Rafale. F-35A has full compatibility with existing FiAF weapons and the largest supply side.
Super Hornet doesn’t provide enough future-proofing against Su-57 and IADS, so it’s a non-starter, especially with the expensive EA-16G combo option.
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Before I even got to the Federal firearms violations, I counted at least 13 types of felonies, including treason, FARA violations, money-laundering, Foreign Corruption Practices of 1977 ACT violations, soliciting bribes from hostile nations, threatening and coercing foreign hostile actors to pay his family, human-trafficking, schedule II narcotics possession and distribution (filmed himself engaged in these activities several times even), yet nothing.
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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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@yellowkeyfob Oswald was deployed overseas to Japan at a radar installation that monitored the classified U-2 program, not as a sentry.
When he defected to the Soviet Union, he told them at the embassy the purpose of his visit was to share classified radar and spy plane secrets.
When he came back to the US, he was not apprehended and interrogated, or charged with any crimes.
CIA and FBI already knew about him and didn't get bothered about it, which means he was sent as a bait.
The Russians suspected this from the start, which is why they sent him far away from Moscow to Belorussia. Once it was clear enough that he wasn't baiting anyone, he said he got disillusioned with communism and wanted to return to the US where he could be free again.
Once he gets to the US, he starts working with anti-Castro Cuban ex-pats being trained by the CIA, as well as a weapons smuggler named Jack Ruby.
The recent document dump has an eye witness account of Ruby, Oswald, and another man talking together at an airport in Louisiana before Oswald and the man got on a plane headed to Cuba.
This is why the CIA didn't want any of this information being released to the Warren Commission or the Church Committee over a decade later.
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Combat Engineers, FOs, JTACs, RTOs, 1SGs, Drivers, AGs, ABs, Combat Medics, etc. all need a PDW chambered in a new compact, small caliber, high velocity cartridge that's smaller than 5.56 in length, with superior performance.
Take the 6x35mm PDW and juice it up into something like the MP7 or KAC PDW.
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@ericpotter4657 Did I say somewhere that they weren’t? I lived through the whole engine evolution and still remember the red and white painted Tomcat with the GE F101 DFE before the F-14A+ upgrade program.
Off the top of my head, F-14 engine development went like this:
Initial 18 production F-14As were to be equipped with interim TF30 1970-1972. This was bumped up to 30 airframes as the F401-PW-400 for the planned F-14B was delayed.
F-14B/F401-PW-400 received $369 million in early 1970s money for RDT&E, was cancelled due to similar problems with compressor stalls, AB unstarts, slow throttle response, and general problems that plagued the TF30, though it had significant improvement in thrust.
This left the fleet with the unwanted TF30. They used the same initial F-14B testbed from 1973 later in the early 1980s to test the F101 DFE motor, around the same time they put it in the F-16/DFE, but didn’t fund it.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s when they started doing the F-14A+ modernization program with the GE F110-GE-400. The F-14D came later with a totally new avionics suite based around the APG-71 (derived from the F-15E’s APG-70).
I still remember wondering why the Navy never acquired and funded the F-14B in 1981, and why it took so long to get a good motor in the Tomcat. In total, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on engines that were never contract-awarded for mass production, which is crazy.
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@the goalie#1 The communists embedded key people throughout Finnish levers of society after the war too, including building YLE information control (generational perception shifting), arresting the war veteran leaders who were preparing Finland for another Soviet invasion (cutting off competent, experienced, mid-level leadership), getting as many communists/Social Democrats into the parliament, industry, etc. (seeding).
I’ve heard that coping mechanism all my life, that it was better for Finland to be raped for $300 million so Finland could re-build its industrial infrastructure, rail lines, shipping, metals, and all the other high-value goods Finland was forced to hand over to the Russians, even after Russia had benefitted immensely from Lend-Lease (borrow-steal). Maybe it’s true...
I don’t see why Gripen E would perform better than the Typhoon or Rafale though. Rafale has LO technology to reduce its RCS much smaller than Su-27/30/35, with a working AESA and actual integrated avionics suite that really works, and is in operational service. SAAB copied the Rafale’s wingtip fore and aft ECM antennae arrangement that is built into the body of the missile rails. The Rafale also has IR concealment structures that the Gripen can’t use, without seriously degrading the Gripen’s aerodynamic efficiency with the airflow over the engine nozzle. Rafale has airflow gaps to conceal the engine exhaust. (F-35 has this better than any of them with concealment of the engine nozzle across the IR, RF, and visual spectrums.)
EF Typhoon has far superior magazine depth for AAMs that aren’t affected anywhere near as much as Gripen E. You can carry 6 AAMs with pretty much any Typhoon load and still carry all the EFTs and/or bombs you want without sacrificing any AAM hard points. Not so with Gripen E. Typhoon has the best of the 4.5 Gens with recessed missile arrangement for negligible parasitic drag, like the F-4 and F-14 had for fuselage-mounted BVRAAMs. It also has the best performance across the flight regime with the only comparable T/W and climb rate of the F-22, but really needs the AESA to be relevant going into the future. Rafale isn’t far behind with its AAM magazine depth and A2S weapons. Both have similar performance at lower altitude, but the Typhoon has better Ps in the upper FL bands.
Problems with the Rafale and Eurofighter are the unit costs for an AESA, twin-engined modern fighter with all the IRST, EW Suite, Countermeasures bells and whistles, well exceeding $120 million per unit flyway cost, with greater operating costs due to all the physical system architecture to fuel and maintain 2 engines vs one.
Finland simply can’t afford to operate them I think, and we’re left with a legacy data-link constrained system with limited growth potential, limited LPI/LD (Limited Probability of Intercept/Detection).
If you’re going to stick with a 4th Gen airframe, a lot of FiAF Hornet pilots are immediately going to feel their claws get clipped with the Gripen E, since the Hornet can carry one of the most impressive A2A loads even when carrying AT FLIR pod on one of the intake mounts. It makes no sense to go with a less-capable fighter if it’s a 4th Gen airframe, because now each fighter’s pk with missiles is diminished if it has a large RCS. The Gripen E will work well against the Su-35S and Super Flankers, but not the Su-57. That’s the real problem it faces. Hornets with MSA radar already struggle to deal with the Su-30SM2, Su-27SM3, and Su-35S with their large PESA radars and IRST, far superior kinematics. The main advantage the Hornet has had is the AIM-120C5/7 and data links while Russia has lagged at fielding truly long-range capable BVRAAMs until recently.
The Super Hornet Block III would do well with VLO pods for missiles, but those don’t seem to be part of the deal and it is questionable how that system would work against the supercruise capable, low RCS Su-57. Maintenance for the Super Hornet with its 2 engines and legacy LO/RAM already will be a major consideration, for questionable return on investment.
Again, the F-35A makes the most sense across all of these metrics. It’s cheaper up-front for unit cost, and has the same projected CPFH with the Gripen E when we look at the non-biased Swiss Air Force assessment at $21,000 CPFH.
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The collapse of the Soviet Union was multi-factorial, not primarily due to the war in Afghanistan in any sense, since the structural failures were already making themselves manifest by the late 1960s-early 1970s. Economically, this should NOT have been true because the USSR, especially Russian SSR, had transformed from a net importer of oil and natural gas, to a major net exporter, bringing in substantial revenue for the Soviet state.
What the politburo did was camouflage their structural problems with the incoming oil revenue, instead of investing in enough domestic infrastructure to build out the state. A lot of that money went into new defence programs and aerospace projects trying to keep up with the US.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, several events happened that sent some alarm bells ringing at senior levels, but they just kept tipping back vodka and going about business as usual:
1. Arab-Israeli Wars showed that no matter what they did, even when they sent Russian pilots down to fly against the Israelis, they got curb-stomped in the air. The Arabs loved this because they were tired of being ridiculed as inferior people racially by the Russians. (That was well before the Israelis got F-15s and F-16s + E-2 AWACS.)
2. The Archbishop of Kraków, Poland, became Pope of the Catholic Church in 1978, taking the name Pope John Paul II. This was fundamentally a major empowering revival of Polish resentment to the Soviets and their official state atheism, as well as Polish independence and solidarity. This event would play out in the 1980s as desires for independent economies from Russia fomented among those nations trapped inside the USSR’s broken and corrupt sphere of influence, sparked with worker strikes, protests, and National labor unionization to bargain for their rights. Martial Law was declared in Dec, 1981 in Poland as a result. Brezhnev had been pushing for military invasion and crack-down on the counter-revolution happening inside Poland. Carter and Reagan both called Brezhnev begging him not to intervene militarily in Poland.
3. Chernobyl reactor #1 partial meltdown in 1982, which is not mentioned or well-known due to the secrecy enforced around it.
4. Bekaa Valley June 1982, Syria-Israeli war over Lebanon. Israeli Air Force shot down at least 84 MiGs, Sukhois, and helicopters with mainly F-15s and F-16s over a 2-day period. These were newer, upgraded MiG-21s and MiG-23s primarily, complete with frontal and rear aspect Radar Warning Receivers, well-trained pilots, newer missiles, trained ground controllers, following Soviet airborne tactics. They were humiliated in terms of air power and tactics, which caused a lot of internal high-level discussions within the Soviet SSR allied air component General staff.
5. Soviet-Afghan War drained material and men for 10 years, initially conceived as a quick Special Military Operation consisting of initially an Uzbek Spetnatz Brigade, the Afghan War spiraled out of control. It required far more troop deployments and lasted longer than they had ever anticipated. They were primarily concerned with an Islamist takeover of the government, which would possible spread into the Soviet Central Asian Republics, so they saw taking out President Amin as a preemptive measure to nip that in the bud before it got out of hand.
6. Under Brezhnev and the Soviet hard-liners, there was a policy of confrontation and escalation of regional wars from Central America and Africa, to Mongolia, China, and Vietnam. Failure in Afghanistan and the way they conducted the war led to loss of confidence in the hard-liners' policies, which ushered in Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary in 1985. Gorbachev recognized that the Soviet Union could not sustain all these foreign entanglements with unforeseen drain on the economy, causing stagnation. He wanted to empower the Soviet economies without all the war commitments, but these efforts were seen as weakness in many Russian and Soviet Republic populations.
7. Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Initially, the Soviets tried to keep this secret from their own oversight, but the devastation was so catastrophic that it quickly became impossible to hide from the Politburo, and then when Sweden’s nuclear reactor was shut down out of caution due to Chernobyl radiation levels reaching that far, the Soviets had to come clean in front of the world to explain how they failed at basic nuclear power plant safety.
8. Space Shuttle STS missions a regular thing in the US. Despite the Challenger disaster, the US had been running regular STS missions into space with high publicity, lots of media coverage, and awe from around the world. In addition to the Apollo Program, which put multiple manned missions on the moon, the Shuttle program was a constant reminder of how the US not only exceeded the entire Soviet Union in space mission capabilities, but made it a matter of a regular, humiliating schedule. What was even more humiliating was that most of the STS missions were classified in nature, with strategic reconnaissance satellite and payloads specifically built to surveil the Soviet Union.
9. Disillusion and resentment of the other Soviet Socialist Republics and the Polish People’s Republic rose to untenable levels in the 1980s regardless of the Soviet war effort abroad. Revolt and widespread rejection of the Russian-led mismanagement of their economies and resources became unstoppable.
10. The Estonians flat-out told Gorbachev they were done with the economic union and wanted economic and political independence. He begged them to stop as it would trigger a collapse of the entire USSR if they broke free. The Baltics held widespread singing protest holding hands across their nations.
By then, it was over. Afghanistan was just one of many factors, certainly not helpful at all to the USSR, but not the deciding factor by any means. It would have been over with or without it I think. The writing was already on the wall in 1975 at the latest.
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A huge problem President Eisenhower had was disobedience and insubordination, particularly from the CIA. During the transition to JFK Admin, Ike warned JFK about this serious challenge, as they were both military men used to discipline and subordinates immediately following orders. Once you understand that the CIA was penetrated by at least 200 double agents for the NKVD before Langley was even stood up in 1947, geopolitical events involving the US, West Germany, Cuba, Vietnam, Argentina, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, start to make much more sense.
For example, why did the CIA order Francis Gary Powers to continue another overflight of the Soviet Union, when President Eisenhower had ordered a temporary halt to the flights before his scheduled speech in the Soviet Union? Why was the POW camp at Son Tay completely empty of US prisoners when the rescue force arrived? Why did one of the main agents from Berlin base run a spy network from his villa on the Austrian-Czech border for 20 years, compromising the NATO strategic order of battle plans every 6 months, when he was listed as a security risk from the start?
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I don’t think there’s a single metric where Gripen E compares well against an F-16CM+ PoBIT Viper with AESA, let alone Block 60 and 70 Vipers. Payload, range, climb rate, weapons suite, lethality, survivability, avionics architecture, DFLCS maturity, etc. Gripen E still uses Mil-1553B databuses and isn’t even developed yet, 17 years after Gripen NG was announced. Only thing better is the nose landing gear, which is more rugged.
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It's very interesting every time I see statements like this, since Sweden doesn't manufacture most of the Gripen subsystems. This means the supply chain has multiple international layers to it.
The engine is US GE, ejection seat from Martin-Baker UK, Radar from UK Leonardo using licensed US technology, brakes, landing gear, hydraulics, servos, fuel lines, fuel pumps from US/UK, weapons from US, UK, Germany, etc.
Sweden really should have adopted one of the common NATO fighters and assembled them under license at Saab with Saab-built airframes.
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@janbo8331 The results of the climactic testing and data gathered from that were implemented into the production line, making the 3 JSF variants more durable than legacy generation fighters by considerable margins in many key aspects. So much so that the sorties flown by USAF F-35As in Alaska will dwarf the sortie generation rate of FiAF, let alone the Iceland NATO air-policing mission, or the Norwegians, who operate in higher latitudes and lower temps than in Finland.
There are not 800 issues to fix among the 3 variants. DOT&E reports are all contested by the services every time they are compiled (well after any identified TCTOs are corrected). In one of the supposed 800+ DOT&E report lists, 285 of the “problems” were actually new capability potential discovered in testing and operational squadrons where suggestions from pilots, maintainers, and air planners are made. The most interesting one was from the US Navy for expanded sea search & track AESA modes for Anti-Ship and ASW. Every fighter has an ongoing list of TCTOs throughout its life, including the F/A-18Cs Finland currently flies.
You have to do the math and break down how many TCTOs there are for the F-35B, F-35C, and F-35A, (which has the least).
The story about "stealth coating melting" is totally erroneous and has been thrown around by presstitute types who don’t know anything about aerospace. During the flight tests of the first 6 Full Scale Development JSF variants, which included A/B/C models and were all overweight, they did extended supersonic flight test runs where the test pilots would fly the B and C models up and down the East Coast in between aerial refuelers, seeing what extremes in the flight envelope could be pushed. After one of these tests, the engineers looked at some of the instruments indicating heat loading on the inboard surfaces of the tail booms, and noticed temperatures that concerned them due to the Electronic Warfare system antennae that are in that area. There was no stealth coating melting. They sent the pilots back up to run the extended supersonic with long duration AB lit to duplicate the temperatures, and never could, even in dives. This was only seen on 2 early B and C model FSD birds.
Part of the weight loss program involved replacing all of those areas with Carbon Fiber composites for increased strength like Lockheed wanted to do from the start, but were prohibited from doing by the Pentagon. As a factory of safety margin, they limited the use of AB in the B and C models around that time, which has no bearing on practical use of AB in an operational unit. “Hey, I put her in burner for 30 seconds.” said no fighter pilot ever on a mission-relevant sortie. Doesn’t even apply to the Finnish deal either way since we’re talking about the F-35A.
A Tu-22M is also faster than any 4th Gen fighter combat-configured. Problem for the Tu-22M is that it has an RCS the size of an airliner, and is a BVR missile magnet. Whoever gets first-look on it will have the first opportunity for intercept. None of the other competitors in HX come close to bringing the networked SA of the JSF MADL web for early strategic bomber, cruise missile, and ballistic missile threat detection.
For anyone who thinks F-35s are slow, they need to watch a Large Force Exercise take-off launch involving scores of aircraft, including F-16Cs, Typhoons, F-22As, F-15Es, EA-18Gs, B-1Bs, etc. What you will notice is that F-35s take off and climb to much higher altitude just ahead of the runway compared to all the others, except the F-22A, and are typically at a noticeably-faster speed already by the same geographic coordinate compared to any other TACAIR platform in the mix.
The reason is pretty simple. The legacy aircraft all carry External Fuel Tanks, External FLIR pods, External ECM pods, with all the pylons to suspend those as well as their missiles and bombs. So your hot-rod airshow demo configuration fighter is not a reality in any operational squadron that actually has a wartime task to perform. F-35s generate faster with the IPP, launch faster, take a very short distance to take-off, and climb higher faster than legacy fighters.
The VLO coating on the F-35 does not require constant maintenance. Only certain long-interval inspections and repairs require removal of some of the appliqués, which can also be re-applied at the squadron level. Normal day-to-day operations don’t require messing with the VLO/RAM.
Remember that a big portion of the US fleet of JSF-A/B/C are early Block 2 F-35s that needed to be brought up to 3F standard, some of which need/needed structural modifications that were standardized in Block 3. No FMS customers care about this because those aren’t made anymore. 9% roll-through for upgrades of the Block 2 sounds about right maybe 2 years ago, but not now. Most have already been overhauled. Operational units and the Fighter Weapons School all get newer Block 3 F-35As in USAF. Not sure how the USMC and USN are doing that but I suspect it’s similar.
Engine replacement on F-35A takes place after several years via a scheduled depot-level process, since the engine life rivals just about any fighter engine out there. Depot-level maintenance capability is part of the HX contract. UK and Italy have large support facilities, and Italy has one of the 3 assembly lines for JSF. Most Europeans are unaware of this for some reason.
If ALIS is a joke, then whatever they’re doing on every single other fighter in the USAF is utter trash because the F-35A fleet in USAF, even with all the Block 2 to 3 upgrades that needed to happen, exceeded the FMC/MC rates of all other USAF fighters in 2020, including the F-16C and A-10. Those have been the unbeatable gold standards in maintenance/availability rates over the past 40 years in USAF. F-35A has surpassed them. F-35s roiling off the line in 2025 will be an even superior system. For reference, F/A-18s of all flavors are more difficult to maintain than F-16Cs, which are more difficult to maintain than A-10s.
F-35A >> A-10 >>>>>F-16C/D >>> F/A-18C/D (This is where FiAF is now. Look over to the far left and that’s where FiAF will be.)
Norway required the drogue chute for high crosswind landings on icy runways. The highways in Finland used for take-offs and recoveries are surrounded by forrest in every case I’ve seen there watching Hornets do the disbursed basing exercises. F-35A has huge brakes and landing gear more like an F-15E, so in most configurations, it will not need 2400m to land, and certainly won’t need what the MiG-21 required, which was used the same way. Norwegian Air Force said after doing some tests with brake-only landings and calibrating their runways like Helsinki Vantaa Airport has done, they have been able to land F-35As without deploying the drogue chute where they normally would have. Either way, F-35As without drogue chutes have been launching and recovering fine in Alaska and Iceland.
Russia’s HF Radars don’t work for weapons-grade solutions, and don’t really work the way people think they do. They also make huge juicy targets for JASSM. UK doesn’t use Typhoons and F-35Bs the way you might be thinking. The Typhoon is not longer a “proper interceptor” when working in conjunction with JSF. JSF use them as pons like in a chess game. That’s straight out of a RAF Typhoon pilot’s mouth who has flown with them regularly in recent years. JSF takes interception to a different level that can’t be performed by any 4th Gen, but every 4th Gen wishes it could do.
JSF is the only aircraft in production that has the capability of dealing with numerically-superior forces, and is the only one Finland has access to that can deal with the Su-57 and S-70 drone combo. Kill ratio with JSF in Large Force Exercises is staggeringly-in-favor of JSF.
If you read through the FiAF HX 5 paragraph mission set descriptions, each paragraph basically says, “We want F-35. All others are wasting their time.” First paragraph of the first sentence for the A2A requirements mentions sensor-fusion out of the gate. Then it talks about being able to ascertain the Electronic Warfare posture of multiple threat aircraft of varying types at BVR, which will be Hornets and Hawks during the evaluation.
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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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@WembysTRexArms The US out-MiG'd the MiG-21 with the F-16. Every time the 2 have met, the MiG-21 went down in flaming scrap metal.
On top of that, the F-16 can do strike, anti-ship, SEAD, CAS, BVR, and night. MiG-21 is day, short range, within visual range fighter with 4 hardpoints, pilot can't see for squat, strafe rag.
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@harri9885 The Su-57 has not been discontinued. It's literally in production as we speak. The 2nd Su-57 has been delivered to the VVS after the 1st production unit crashed during a Functional Check Flight. Their plan is to build 76 of them through 2028, or roughly 10 per year.
It makes sense for them to leverage Su-57s with Super Flankers like the Su-35S, Su-30SM2, and Su-27SM3 using the same data links with it flying AEW&C/Hunter-Killer/EW.
VLO technology works both ways for offense and defense because it allows OCA (Offensive Counter-Air) missions with unfair NEZ (No Escape Zone missile parameters) profiles, while being extremely difficult or impossible for threat missiles to target outside of very tiny parameters.
I've been looking at the Finnish-Russian border since the 1970s, hyper-aware of it, and have crossed it at least 8 times, overlaid fighter vs fighter and AWACS sensor envelope profiles from the Saint Petersburg and Murmansk bases, studied which fighter regiments they have, complete with imagery.
Gripen E will not be survivable in 5 years, and is already at parity with Su-35S, slight advantage against Su-27SM2 and Su-30SM, parity with Su-27SM3 and Su-30SM2 when they carry R-77-1 or better.
They've been phasing all their Su-27s and Su-30s through the serial modernization package that basically brings them as close to a Su-35S as possible.
I would still expect the Gripen E to have first-look, but numerical superiority from Saint Petersburg and Murmansk Fighter Districts would be too much for Gripen E to handle, especially with Russian EW support aircraft flying in international airspace and inside the Russian border region, as well as EW from surface vessels and mobile platforms.
That's where you really want a networked VLO fleet with better sensors and EW capability, not an obsolete airframe with some EW bells and whistles that still has very large oblique, side, and rear aspect RCS/IR signature.
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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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@vipulgupta Canada is the world’s largest producer of potash (14 million MT) and the US is the largest arable farmland and 9th largest potash producer, with longer harvest seasons than any other place on the planet due to being in the temperate zone.
The US also has a very diverse crop base across the 48 States, from everything in CA to blueberries and lobsters in Maine, peanuts and oranges in the Deep Southeast to the vastness of the Mississippi basin, hordes of cattle, poultry, hogs, fish, wheat, rice, beans, etc.
There really isn’t anything like the US in the world when it comes to food, farmland, minerals, and having a connected network to easily distribute those resources. This isn’t patriotic banter, but just the ground truth.
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I've been following his analyses since the 2000s. He goes to the ground truth, after having a higher level education on geography, demographics, and history.
For ground truth, he talks with actual petroleum, civil, construction, aerospace, electrical, and transportation engineers with decades of experience in their fields, as opposed to trying to figure it out like an academic.
George Friedman used the ground truth approach at STRATFOR, where Zeihan was a senior analyst, along with former FBI, DEA, and other intelligence analysts.
This is why their presentations were so different than anything you would see in the brainless media advertisement channels.
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Also, there aren’t many families of 4 in Russia. People have typically only been having 1 child for generations now, which is contributing to demographic collapse. Pre-Khrushchev, Rural Russians had huge families of course. After urbanization, people stopped having many kids and it the birth rates dropped to less than 2. Going into the 2010s, it started to pick up a bit to 1.78, then started falling again down to 1.4 and now 1.19 (11.9 / 1000 people). It’s an aging society like the rest of Europe and Asia, with weird demographic structural issues, lack of basic infrastructure, short growing seasons, frozen earth, rotting buildings, and no real reinvestment of revenue into roads, rail, energy, schools, or new hospitals.
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@JohnDoe-ef3nv The Scandinavian countries aren't do as well as you think. My mom is from Finland and I have lived there several times. We have family in Sweden as well. Finland's government resigned in March because they were unable to pay for their healthcare disaster known as NHS. If you go to a government hospital in Helsinki, prepare to wait for 6hrs or more before you'r seen. Been there, done that multiple times with my dad. My son crashed his bike and hurt his knee really bad. They said he'll need an MRI. Almost 2 months later, we got the MRI. MRI machine was Made in USA of course, but it didn't matter by that point. Here in the US, an illegal immigrant from China or Honduras that doesn't know a sentence of English will have an MRI within hours, which is better than what Finnish Ministers of Parliament get. This is reality, not conjecture.
On top of all that, the Scandinavian countries, including Sweden, have been able to spend more money on these wasteful, pointless socialist programs because the US has providing for the defense of Europe since 1945. The Swedes will say, "Not us, we develop our own defense programs." Then I point out their latest fighter, the JAS-39 Gripen, used General Electric GE F404 derivative motors and the US buys a lot of Swedish anti-armor systems. Norway? US F-16As and now F-35As patrol the Norwegian skies. Denmark? F-16As and now F-35As. Finland, who isn't even NATO? They've been flying F/A-18s since 1995. It takes billions in Research Development Test & Evaluation that the Scandinavian countries have spent on their social welfare programs and infrastructure, while the US spent it on defense that these counties have benefitted from significantly.
In the end, people in the US living well below the "poverty line" have better access to healthcare and dental care in some of the "poorest" parts of the US Deep South compared to wealthy people in the major cities of Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, or Copenhagen. I've seen this first-hand in multiple locations in the US and Scandinavia, then cross-referenced my anecdotal experiences with the NHS data from those countries as a sanity check.
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@V600photo Canada only has 5.7 million students enrolled in elementary and secondary schools though, out of 39.7 million people total (population of California roughly). The US has almost that many kids enrolled in Kindergarten alone.
In 2021, there were 58.6 million students enrolled in K-12 schools in the US, including public (49.7m), charter (3.4m), and private (5.5m). In addition, there were 3.1 million registered home-schooled children in the 2021-2022 school year.
The US also has demographic groups who are targeted by government policy to be kept uneducated or under-educated more than the standard under-education of everyone in public and charter (camouflaged public) schools.
Compulsory schooling is pretty dumbing no matter what country it happens in (compared to actual student potential), so the argument is really more about who sucks the least, not how great any particular country is with true education for children.
I argue that “Curriculum experts” don’t exist. There are people who have various types of products in the curriculum marketplace, and governments buy them wholesale after they are developed by boards of so-called experts, but that term is very misleading.
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The AR-15 family of weapons has had from 1957-2023 to evolve with US funding behind it every step of the way. The core operating system, ammunition, and magazines were pretty much dialed-in by 1967 with the M16A1/Colt 603. AR-15s have been in the UK MoD inventory since the mid-1960s at the latest, so the UK actually has generations of engineers and technicians who have proficiency in supporting it. The UK should have adopted and licensed their own AR-15 production in the 1970s, but instead chose to take another Stoner design (AR-18), turn it into a heavy bullpup designed by committee, and make it unreliable with a terrible trigger pull and overall crude construction.
The savings to the UK taxpayer would have been considerable had they gone with the already-proven, lightweight, SAS-preferred AR-15 family of weapons. Now that it’s 2023, they are finally coming around for the RMs with one of the most cutting-edge AR-15 variants ever produced. This carbine beat out all the top company competitors in the trials, to include Hk, SIG, and several others. All of them were beautiful submissions, but this one rose above the rest.
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If Obama and Hillary's scheme would have worked, it would have caused an internal revolt across several sectors of the US, probably down to the people.
The Uranium One scandal and Clinton ties to Putin would be front and center, as would be the cheating within the DNC regarding Bernie Sanders.
Professionals in the Intel Community who dealt with Clinton corruption in the past would be voicing their perspectives, while Hillary would be ordering her psychopath minions to get rid of dissenters like they did to Seth Rich.
You'd have impeachment proceedings drawn up in short order, with a mid-term backlash unlike anything the Nation has seen before, making Obama's devastating mid-terms in 2010 look like a picnic for the DNC.
There's a good chance it would have created Republican super majorities in both Houses.
I shudder to think how Hillary would have handled Assad in Syria, Kim Jong Un, the Chinese, NATO, England, trade deals (pay to play, screw America some more).
Hillary is not a negotiator if you know anything about her. Negotiating is beneath her. You either kiss the ring or suffer the full might of her wrath.
America avoided an existential political, economic, and military disaster by dodging that beastwhore demon.
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@Whiskey11Gaming I got the MMH/FH from month-by-month stats from 1973-forward. That data was available. I’ve tracked MMH/FH, CPFH, MTBF of various systems, and related topics since about 1984. I was on the Air Force side initially, but we worked on some systems common with the Navy, namely AIM-120 and a certain advanced self-protection suite. On the F-15 CTF, we worked on APG-70 capes expansion, which cross-pollinated to APG-71.
Regardless of F-14 model, they were 40-60hrs during its service life. On a recent podcast, the pilots and maintainers said 50hrs was the magic number they were always trying to stay under, so it took a lot of people as you can imagine to generate sorties.
Yes on F401-PW-400. I’ve seen figures in then-year dollars that indicated they spent at least $360 million on it for the panned B model, without ever adopting it. It was suffering the same problems as the TF30, namely compressor stalls and blades letting go, AB unstarts, etc. If you had one stall behind the boat, asymmetric thrust and adverse yaw would be worse than the TF30. It would have been great for the other 99.99% of the flying time due to raw performance (28,000lb in AB x 2), but that one critical stage of flight in the pattern could have resulted in more airframe losses. This is my best guess as to why it wasn’t adopted.
That burned up a ton of the budget for the F-14, so it got stuck with the TF30-P-412A for a while. There were only supposed to be 13-17 F-14As built.
Navy was dead-set on the A-12 replacing the A-6E, which would have made a very capable Carrier Strike Group, but that was a boondoggle due to immature composites production capability. Airframes would have ended up with varying internal cavity volume, which would have been a nightmare for assembly and mx.
ST-21 would have been an amazing multirole in capability, but I haven’t seen much that would have reduced the mx burden. The EHAs used in the F-35 control system could have solved a lot of the hydraulic issues, but didn’t exist at the time. RCS reduction was something the services had committed to back in the 1980s for all new designs, and ST-21 had a huge RCS like the F-14. Cavity resonance in the intakes is no bueno, hence the NATF plans.
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@VectorGhost YF-23 & the proposed F-23A were very long aircraft, YF-23 at 67ft 5" and the F-23A would have been 70ft 5". That was to increase the fineness ratio for supercruise and accommodate an additional forward weapons bay.
F-14 was 62ft 9" long for reference.
To navalize the YF-23, you would also need folding wings, increased bulkhead dimensions, a tailhook, enlarged landing gear, all of which adds significant weight.
You would then need to spiral back into the design to create enough lift for that, and low speed handling behind the boat, meaning wing and lifting area re-design.
Looking back at Naval fighter and attack aircraft contractors, Northrop had no experience in that space, so there would have been a learning curve.
Short story is that the YF-23 was a land-based design that already had a lot of program risk just for the Air Force.
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@SquireSCA I can see how we're coming to different conclusions.
AR stands for "ArmaLite", not "ArmaLite Rifle". Evidence is the ArmaLite AR-9 and AR-17 Shotguns developed in the 1950s. People make this mistake a lot without being familiar with ArmaLite history.
Barrel lengths: In the 1930s, Rifles typically had barrels 24"-30" in length. Carbines were 16"-24". Metallic cartridge technology and pressure containment vessels had lower working pressures in the 1800s, which incrementally increased into the 1930s.
In 1934, if you read the NFA Hearings, you'll see that pistols were classified by barrel lengths of 12" or less.
There were also short-barreled lever guns that didn't fit well into the common classifications at the time, as well as pistols with holsters that doubled as stocks.
An overlooked firearms classification that has evolved more is the Personal Defense Weapon (PDW).
PDWs don't always fit into Rifle, Carbine, or Pistol definitions because of barrel length and intent to use with either 1 or 2 hands. One of the earliest PDWs of the 20th Century was the M1 Carbine, but it had an 18" barrel and was literally called a Carbine, though it didn't fire a full-sized rifle cartridge.
AR-15, Cz Scorpion, Hk, Striborg, etc. Pistols actually fall more into the category of PDWs.
Arbitrary definitions that don't take technological progress into account repeatedly miss the mark. I'll give another example:
The Army's new NGSW "rifle" has a 13" barrel, but generates velocities similar to a 24" .270 Winchester firing the same projectile weight.
Is it a carbine or a rifle?
How would a reasonable person, a firearms historian and technical analyst, and the ATF classify the following?
AR-15 w/7.5" barrel
AR-15 w/10.5" barrel
AR-15 w/12.5" barrel
AR-15 w/14.5" barrel
Hk SP5
FN 5.7 PS90 w/10" barrel
Steyr AUG w/16" barrel
Mauser 7.65mm with holster/stock
The NFA hearings discussed concealabilty of firearms used by gangsters and Dillinger, with Colt Automatics and Thompson SMGs as their main firearms to be taxed.
The pistol tax provision was eliminated, making the concealability metric a moot point.
Pistols aren't subject to the NFA. Since they defined pistols as having barrels of 12" or less, what are firearms with 12-18" barrels?
Next, why did they arbitrarily change the barrel length for rifles from 18" to 16" in the 1960s, but left shotguns at 18"?
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@ One of the biggest mistakes amateurs and enthusiasts like Sprey made was assuming that BVR missiles are employed with the expectation of 100% pK. Especially back then, the AIM-7 in a fighter flight vs fighter flight, BVR missile shots are initially posturing shots to establish who is offensive. This was a missile designed to shoot-down non-maneuvering bombers, adapted to shoot down fighters in a very widening employment envelope.
That became more true when we shifted from SARH to data-linked active seeker BVRAAMs like AIM-120. The hardest fighter to intercept with AIM-7Ms in ODS was the MiG-25PD, since it could just accelerate away from the fight much of the time. It’s very hard to pull an interceptor like that into NEZ parameters, and the Iraqi MiG-25PD pilots were probably the best in the world, had excellent counter-APG-63/AIM-7M tactics. They knew exactly when to crank, dive, offset, re-attack, or egress. Someone clearly had been passing F-15 community tactics and weapons employment metrics to them, or they extrapolated it from their days fighting F-14As and F-4Es from Iran.
Pierre Sprey’s comments on the F-35 had no relation to reality, especially when it comes to maintenance and availability rates. You’re talking about a Radar and massive sensor clustered system that has 5 MMH/FH fleet avg for the A model.
We would be lucky to see 11hrs with the Viper, not including all its pods and certain ancillary systems that are critical for its mission profiles. F-15C would do 18-35 MMH/FH.
The biggest factor in F-35 availability rates is trained pilots on schedule and spares. Break rate is way less than a Viper. It’s a maintenance dream.
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@sepewrath Throughout the Administration, he has engaged with the press, held lengthy Q&As after speeches, most of them outside of the WH Press Room. WH Press room, in case you weren’t aware, is a rigged place where questions are normally leaked to the presstitutes in advance, the most compliant presstitutes are awarded with the opportunity to ask these “questions”, then given a prepared answer.
Trump doesn’t like working that way, as previous Presidents have done. Presstitutes who behave accordingly get more access, as long as they don’t report things harmful to the WH, and publish leaked stories for the WH.
This is how DC normally operates, and Trump hates that since he has an understanding for the entertainment business and how audiences know actors when they see them.
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@isodoublet Wagner Group and Russian technical assistance teams have been helping Syria for many years, and Russia has been selling them some of their latest IADS network platforms, while also operating their latest IADS systems in Syria.
Syrians have S-200, S-300, and Pantsir S1 mobile IADS platforms, while Russia uses S-350 and Pantsirs, which Israel and Turkey have used for target practice like a sport.
The Pantsir is advertised as undefeatable/invincible.
Titanium Rain is trying to explain the engineering road blocks for all the things you've been suggesting, but it's clear at this point that you need to spend several years studying basics of multiple aerospace sciences before commenting anymore. I don't mean that rudely, just observing things that are evident from your statements.
Red Flag absolutely is relevant. Anyone who says otherwise simply doesn't know what they're talking about.
Pre-5th Gen, Red Air always inflicted substantial losses on Blue Air, and there wasn't anything Blue Air could do about it. That's the whole point of RF, to learn hard combat lessons in training so you don't have to later.
RF is not designed to validate specific weapons programs.
When F-22s and later F-35s started attending, Red Air was helpless in being able to inflict kills against them. This had never been a thing before.
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@isodoublet A few missile launchers? You realize Syria is saturated with 44 S-200 launchers, 24 S-300 mobile TELs, 36-50 Pantsir S1, 6 SA-19s, 40 SA-17s, 30 SA-13s, 20 SA-11s, 20 SA-9s, 14 batteries of SA-8s, 195 SA-6s, 320 S-75s, 148 SA-3s, plus AAA.
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My high school class? How about my time in the Military District of Washington, my friends in DSS, USSS, Congressional aides, Counter Intelligence units in the DC area, and decades of background with these matters.
Treasurer? The SECSTATE is not the treasurer of the committee of which you speak. That's an amateur's comment. You have SECSTATE, SOT, SECDEF, SOC SOE, and SHS on that committee. It's a fact that Putin used Russian front companies to secure Uranium mining rights in the US and Canada. It's a fact that these front companies paid $2.35 million into the Clinton Global Initiative. It's a fact that Hillary used her very powerful vote and influence as SECSTATE to approve of these deals with the committee.
We're talking about treason and bribery, as well as tax evasion and failure to report the $2.35 million the Russians contributed to her. You realize how big of a scandal this is? Providing access to US strategic nuclear materials to a Russian front company, then claim she didn't know about it?
The Clinton campaign losers literally concocted this Russia-Trump connection after they lost the election, just like Hillary had one of her minions launch the "Obama born in Kenya" story she she lost the nomination to him in 2008. Why does this mentally ill witch do these things? Because that's how she reacts when she loses or doesn't get her way. She lashed out at other human beings, never looking inward at her own deranged condition. If you have ever known the type, you'd recognize it right away. She literally behaves like that drunken mental patient relative that nobody wants to be around, kids are ashamed when friends come over (once and never again), and the dad steers way clear of.
We saw this in the early days in DC. The leadership climate was atrocious, and she was the biggest causal factor in creating that acrid environment, especially within her own partisan ranks. Al Gore had to threaten to resign before the Inauguration, it was so bad. If you find yourself trying to defend Hillary, it's going to be a downhill battle for you all the way, and multiple DNC strategists warned about this many years ago.
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It's ok to be a murderous terrorist, as long as you're sponsored by the Russians and Chinese. Mandella traveled to Ethiopia to receive training in subversion, espionage, sabotage, smuggling...guerrilla warfare on behalf of his marxist puppeteers. 193 acts of violent terrorism later, he was finally caught and arrested. Look up the charges against him to see the other side of this story, and you will soon understand you have been lied to your whole life by the likes of WSJ, CBS, ABC, PBS, NBC, CNN, etc.
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The sex scandals of the Clinton WH are the low-hanging fruit. The really insane scandals are the ones involving espionage back then, illegal foreign campaign money, obstruction of justice, murder, firing of the Director of the FBI, death of Deputy WH Counsel Vince Foster the next day, Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewatergate, Chinagate, Vietnam embargo lift quid pro quo, Waco....
The event that allowed the Clinton WH to turn around from the depths of scandal after scandal was Oklahoma City. Never let a good crisis go to waste.
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Thomas Capital, I agree. One of the worst things I continually witness from racists is how they speak on the assumption that people with different skin color somehow aren't as capable as anyone else, and need extra help because of centuries of slavery that happened centuries ago before any of our great grandparents were even born. I then look at Oprah Winfrey, who came out of abject poverty, and ask, "How did she become a billionaire, and why did Donald Trump talk about having her as his VP back in the 1990s?"
Look at what a broad diversity of people Trump helped promote on Celebrity Apprentice and The Apprentice. I never sensed any sort of racism or bigotry on those shows from him. To the contrary, he held everyone to very high standards of performance and demanded them to do their jobs, to get along with others while accomplishing their project management tasks, and show results.
The types of charities that popped up over the years included a lot of fringe groups and lifestyles that are not major concerns for most of Americans, but Trump let the competitors allocate their raised money to whatever charity they wanted to, even if it was transgender suicide hot lines. What's interesting is that he never mentioned any of this during the campaign. There was no pandering to special groups, just a continuous message to the people as a whole of the United States. He did this with opposition from the Republican Party throughout the campaign, and still won.
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Another fundamental flaw is that you're showing tactics from the early 1980s that date back to the F-4D and F-4E, not even tactics used by F-15A and F-15C. Even F-16C tactics from the 1980s are more developed than depicted in this simulated skirmish. F-22 and F-35 are a whole generation ahead of that. For starters, you don't need to fly in pairs, but even if you do, you are working for an offset flight or duo from a totally different aspect of the CAP zone.
With redundant means of communication not using active radar emissions, one group is able to provide targeting solutions for another, and you end up with missile launches from unexpected azimuths and elevations coming at you without a missile launch warning, because no active homing is being done until the very last terminal envelope of the missile salvo.
If you survive that with evasive maneuvers, you are now wondering what is happening, where are the threats, have bled energy, while none of the threats have bled energy or showed themselves. They can also provide solutions for missiles that are launched from not only other aircraft, but from land or sea-based system.
We've been pushing very hard for a huge generational gap starting in 1980 after USSR responded to the teen fighters with the Su-27 and MiG-29, and the US achieved that, while the USSR collapsed, then after about a decade, started trying to pick up the pieces and develop their Gen 4 birds into Gen 4+, while the US was already fielding Gen 5 F-22A and finalizing F-35 series.
The numbers gap is huge as well, with the US having thousands of different Gen 4 fighters, 187 F-22s, and thousands of F-35s planned. Most realistic scenarios for Russian side or nations with Russian Gen 4+ fighters would be something like 10 to 1 or 20 to 1, not even including other assets we have. Any air battle challenging US supremacy would be over before it was fought.
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George Dang: Every one of your assertions is false so far about ECM, Gen 4.5, hot exhaust, F-35 flight characteristics, climb rate, range, payload, and performance.
It's now being revealed that F-35 RCS is less than the F-22's due to generational advancements in shaping and RAM, as well as other VLO aspects not discussed.
Canadian and Norwegian pilots who now fly the F-35 state that it has superior performance over 4th Gen aircraft in every metric you mentioned. Canadian pilot Billy Flynn, who has flown 80 aircraft including the F-16 VISTA thrust-vectored test jet, the Eurofighter, and CF-18, says when you overlay the F-35's EM diagram on all the 4th Gen birds as configured for combat, it has better climb, turn, acceleration, crusing speed, etc.
The F-35 has already super-cruised for 150nm, since the production engine is way more powerful than the original F119 variants they used in the X-35.
It has far superior combat radius to all the 4th Gen fighters even when they carry EFTs. Even the F-35B has better combat radius than the F-16C, and it carries the least amount of fuel of all 3 variants.
The Chinese J-31 is a major program mistake by going with 2 engines, because they will take up space for fuel, and consume fuel faster, just like the short-legged MiG-29. They are using MiG-29 engines in it too, as China can't build a modern fighter engine to save their lives. China is far behind the US in RAM and VLO technology, even with the TDP in front of them that they stole from LM. The US has decades of experienced engineers and scientists who have worked on everything from the SR-71 to the F-35. China has nothing like this. Same for engines. US experience in jet engine technology within Pratt & Whitney and GE has forgotten more about fan blade, compression stage metallurgy and shaping, fuel flow, pumps, cooling, DEEC, FADEC, etc. than China will ever know.
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Yes, it shows a career pattern of lying from her. You will not be able to find a politician who has lied more than Hillary Clinton.
Just like with every other scandal she's been involved in, she continues to tell bold face lies, and get away with it, especially when the deaths of others are involved. This isn't the first time either.
There are some of us who are cynical observers of DC, who view both parties with suspicion, and want to see accountability when the malfeasance of corruption leads to deaths. In this case, Hillary is able to turn it around to make herself look like the victim, as she laughs to the bank with the Clinton Global Initiative. That's the one where she helped broker deals that allowed Putin to corner the uranium market, which is an even bigger scandal than Benghazi.
Your willful blind support for such a criminal is saddening really. The evidence is plainly available nowadays, especially with the work from Judicial Watch.
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There were several phases to the well-planned and executed assaults on several US annexes and complexes in Benghazi, with the help of groups who were supposed to be providing local security to US efforts in the region.
In fact, the various security agencies and contractors had been getting ground truth that something was getting ready to go down, and it wasn't looking good for them. They sent many messages to State and Langley, AFRICOM, and relevant agencies stating as much, and these requests were simply ignored or not acted upon.
The idea that this had something to do with a video is a lie though, and everyone on the inside knew it. What it did have to do with was trying to ignore a growing regional threat to US interests, with the potential to derail the false statements made by Obama regarding al Qaeda on the run.
The internal politicking was to just hope that nothing would happen before the election, and not escalate the situation by fulfilling the requests of foreign services personnel in Benghazi. Their policy failed of course, and cost several American lives.
Their response was to protect an inept President and his campaign slogans, rather than admit failure and lose the election.
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Wrong, You're experiencing resistance to truth because of being programmed with repeated lies for so many years, that when you hear the truth, it sounds foreign and unbelievable. The Democrat Party has always been focused on race, seeing whites as superior to others, and treating the "Civil Rights" movement as a premise that blacks can't do well for themselves in America, because they are inferior in the Democrat psyche.
It's so blatantly disgusting to free-thinking men and women who step back and see what's happening. Many blacks are waking up to this now. Look what happened to the black family after the "Civil Rights" movement, for example. Marriage and intact families fell like a house of cards, abortions increased exponentially, incarceration went through the roof, education went into the toilet (as it did for everyone else), and Democrat racist minimum wage laws were passed so white Democrat kids could still get summer jobs at a government-established rate, instead of competing with immigrant children and blacks who were willing to work for less at the time.
Basically everything you've been told about Democrats and racism is a lie, and their racist policies are so embedded in the party, they didn't even see their own hypocrisy. The RINOs are the same way, as they are just leftists who took a poll in their districts to be able to compete with fellow Democrats who already held offices they wanted and couldn't gain traction within the party.
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Big Swing Face
Throughout the campaign Bernie correctly highlighted that Hillary was for the war in Iraq, is in bed with all the big Wall Street bankers, has received millions in campaign donations from them, won't disclose what she spoke about in her speeches with them behind closed doors, and has reversed her positions on everything from gay rights to predatory credit card lending on single mothers.
But he then went and endorsed her right after it was revealed that she stole the election from him by cheating and fraud.
Now you know all you need to about Bernie's character. He has a voice with live-feed on any of the social media accounts for the first time in history. In the past, they could edit the footage like Walter Cronkite did for LBJ when discussing Kennedy's assassination on air, but Bernie had live-feed opportunity to scream from the pulpit, "Vote for me everyone! Hillary is a scam artist. We ran an honest campaign, and she used her minions in the DNC to sabotage my campaign, steal votes, and undermine the democratic process.
Instead, he said, "I am proud to stand with her."
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@fordhouse8b And only 1/3 of Lend-Lease was revealed publicly.
For the Winter War, Finland primarily flew Fokker D.XXI fighters, which were cloth-covered, and still humiliated the Russians in air combat.
After the Winter War, the US sold obsolete Brewster fighters to Finland that didn't have good performance compared to the emerging 1940s fighters.
Finland de-navalized them, which lightened them up, increasing their performance, and used them along with other aircraft to attrit the Russian Air Force with kill ratios that would make the Israelis blush.
Now Finland has been receiving US support with F/A-18C/D Hornets since May 1992, to include various upgrades, missiles, and special weapons even ahead of some of our closest allies (JASSM).
JASSM is a stealth cruise missile with very long range. It gives Finland the capacity to defend in depth, meaning attacks on Finland result in key targets in Russia being hit.
The problem is Russian propaganda will tell Russian people that they are under attack from the fascist Finns, without ever explaining their unprovoked attacks on Finland.
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It hasn’t been like that in the Army for generations. Weapons Squad was always part of the Rifle Platoon when I was in. We still had M60s in Weapons Squad, which was replaced by M240Bs in the late 1990s. We also had the Anti-Armor Weapons in Weapons Squad, with the Dragon at first, then replaced by the Javelin.
I was in 3 different Battalion-level Recon Platoons, as well as Corps Long Range Surveillance. Battalion-level Recon Platoons help with training the Reconnaissance soldiers, but teams end up basically working for the different line companies often doing recon for them before they hit their objectives. Snipers would also be attached to each line Company operationally.
It’s funny because there was no MTO&E for Snipers in the Battalion, but every Light Infantry Battalion I was in had a 9-man Sniper Section in the Recon Platoon, complete with the Sniper Systems. The Army was still trying to figure out how to train and employ Snipers, and still hasn’t got it right.
They need Division-level Sniper Schools that can authorize and award the Additional Skill Identifier. The Marines have Division-level schools that award the Sniper MOS, while using Quantico as their Scout Sniper Instructor Course to manage the quality of Instructors who will run the Division-level schools.
The Army also needs a formal Designated Marksman course. That should really be taught and run in Infantry OSUT along with a Grenadier, SAW Gunner and Machinegunner Course.
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@scottnj2503 Weird. Your comment never popped up in my notifications so I’m only seeing it now. I used to see P-3Cs all the time departing from USAF Plant 42 in Palmdale when we were at Edwards AFB AFFTC. If you were to take a little time and study the JSF program some more from reputable sources, it will change your mind quickly. There’s a great book for those with Aero background or AeroEs called: F-35 From Concept to Cockpit
It’s written by the engineering program leads for each system set, as well as some early test pilots, 731 pages. I’m surprised it was allowed to be published. It basically describes in astonishing detail all the things they went through and what they were asked to do by the services for each different airframe requirement.
#1 performance requirement was combat radius, with a basic 100nm increase over legacy systems for each variant.
Ex: F-35B needed 100nm more than AV-8B
F-35A needed 100nm more than F-16C.
F-35C needed 100nm more than F/A-18A-D.
Then there was payload and performance, which all had to match or exceed the legacy platforms with a preference towards carrying the standard combat configurations internally, while leaving external stations open for follow-on sorties in a threat-degraded campaign after D-SEAD of IADS.
They took multiple parallel technology research and development programs that had been on-track since the 1970s and streamed them into JSF, including AFTI, ASTOVL, MRF, CALF, A/F-X, propulsion, AESA sensor, ATF systems architecture expanded with the natural progression of semiconductor and microprocessor capabilities, better materials science, and better digital design tools.
The flight control system alone is phenomenal, easy to fly, departure-resistant more than anything but the F-22A, which it is on-par with or better-than in several ways.
The interesting things to rely listen to though are pilot perspectives from international pilots, especially the Israelis, Dutch, and Norwegians. For legacy metrics, the Dutch talked about doing BFM with F-16C Aggressors out of Nellis for a week, where they basically humiliated them day-after-day even while carrying GBUs inside the F-35A weapons bays that the F-16s didn’t even know they had until debrief. “Where did you guys go after BFM?”
“Oh, we had GBU-12s to drop out on the ranges and plenty of gas left over, so we went and dropped after you guys bingo’d.”
BFM is really an insurance policy where WVR fighter-to-fighter combat has become prickly decades ago with the advent of Helmet-HOBS missiles, so we just don’t even see it with 4th Gen anymore.
Israeli perspective kinda spilled the beans when they said as you take off from Nevatim and get to 5000ft ASL, you start to see a strategic theater-level symbology TGT designate buffet ranging from the Mediterranean into Syria and the Levant. The lightbulb comes on brightly for the pilot at that point as to what this is.
Heritage Foundation 2016 and 2019 anonymous USAF pilot interviews said that when they look up, they see Low Earth Orbit Satellites.
All that for less than the price of a cheap, scam-ridden Gripen E (with .92 combat T/W ratio and limited payload). JSF sells itself all day long no matter what metric you look at. The open source usual suspect media presstitutes are opposite of the truth in every claim they make, especially operating costs.
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@gunguru7020 It sounded like you were suggesting that the M1 Garand somehow gave US Infantry a decisive edge over the Japanese, Italians, and Germans. I've studied WWII small arms since the 1970s, and nobody has ever supported that argument with any research that I've seen.
There was an argument for the semi auto, 8rd en bloc clip-fed action, but the Germans and Japanese had plenty of belt-fed and repeating weapons, while US had a weapons mix of Garands, M-1 Carbines, Thompsons, BARs, and 1919 belt-feds.
For most of the duty positions in the line, we actually need something smaller than the M4 like a KAC PDW, with equal or superior exterior and terminal ballistics. This is where the higher pressure NGSW technology interests me in a .221 Fireball sized case with shorter COL than 5.56x45, so we can carry more mags without a weight penalty.
That would be ideal for COs, XOs, 1SGs, RTOs, AGs, ABs, PLs, PSGs, JTACs, Grenadiers, etc.
Use a 6mm or 6.35mm bore with AP option that deals with 200m and in, while DMRs and LMGs shoot a high performance intermediate rifle cartridge from a smaller action than the AR-10/NGSW.
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@miletello1 The whole point of LPI AESA is to avoid triggering threat RWR, but there's more. You don't need an active sensor track for solutions.
F-15C with IRST recently demonstrated passive track guidance for AIM-120D3 and successful live intercept. This approach is a far more advanced capability set in JSF than will ever be present in F-15C+ or EX since JSF has layered forward quadrant 5th Gen EOTS/DAS fusion across multiple IR wavelengths, fused with the passive RF sensor suite.
Different threats have different RHAWS and EW capability, and most are excrement-level trash that deserves extreme ridicule. None are capable of playing the semiconductor development and production game with new SC and advanced processor boards with the US.
That means US EW systems will always have faster processing speeds, better return signal amplifiers/exciters, and more advanced algorithmic capabilities. On top of all that, nobody has collected and disseminated a more comprehensive digital threat library.
For many years now, even older variants of the AIM-120 do not trigger RWR upon launch, and you can be intermittently painted in tiny, freq-hopping bursts from AESAs without any knowledge of their presence, with far superior tracking than legacy pulse doppler Radars.
Imagine now a 2-ship or 4-ship of F-35s, seeing more space than an AWACS can. Any airborne TGTs in that space are immediately tracked and PID'd early-on, doesn't matter how.
You could paint the threat with full power AESA if you wanted to out of the gate from 2 different ships, get PID with 638 NCTR parameters, then those 2 move onto another TGT set, as they have data-linked PID and tracks to the other 2-ship, who haven't emitted a chirp.
The 2-ship with passive sensors have been tracking the TGTs, which are now fully-PID'd, and work towards weapons parameters.
The "threats" don't have a clue they're even there. At best (with a more advanced EW suite that has faster processing power and better threat library that doesn't exist), they might have seen RF emissions from the first 2-ship, who went EMCON after the initial spikes, and are chasing ghosts in that direction, while only setting themselves up for a brutal NEZ intercept from 2 shooters they don't see.
Once the fully passive 2-ship has TGT tracks that are shootable, you don't need active painting. The fused sensor suites of JSF have scores of ways of triangulation across multiple spectrums, and it's all essentially automated with pilots managing EMCON.
Short story is death from the shadows, literally nothing any current fighters can do about this problem.
The kinematic metrics you're describing from mutual detection 4th Gen skirmishes are obsolete. Supersonic separation is not only unnecessary, but actually counter-productive because it increases threat IRST detection range due to leading edge thermal aerodynamic loading. That would only hurt stealth aircraft by reducing their undetected WEZ range, meaning you need to shoot earlier from farther and then avoid the IRST's ability to detect supersonic targets.
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@miletello1 One of the big developments with modern BVR missiles is 2-way data link. Why does the missile need 2-way data link? What could the missile possibly send back to the launch aircraft that is relevant? Its position and status could be one answer.
There's a think called track via missile, but if the launch aircraft are tracking TGTs passively, they can send continuous course corrections to the missiles via LPI narrow beam data link that doesn't even emit into the threat RHAWS sensors, so there is no missile approach warning unless or until the BVRAAM goes hot with its active seeker in terminal phase.
Terminal phase could be at Mach 2.9-3.x, with 36+ g maneuvering capability, so response time is too short for the targeted aircraft.
There is also the option for home-on-jam in an ECM environment, combined with other seeker and guidance modes.
These missile guidance technologies have been aggressively improved and upgraded across the fleet incrementally, so an AIM-120D3 has significant improvements over an AIM-120C7, which is superior to AIM-120C5, >> AIM-120B>>>AIM-120A.
Improvements have also been made to the rocket motor chemical composition, and guidance processing power and size.
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@alexandrnoskov5437 NATO Headquarters is in Brussels, not DC. The NATO partner nations have their own defenses to worry about, especially the Eastern Europeans. Many in the US thought NATO would be dissolved with the “peace dividend” once the Soviet Union collapsed, or used to de-nuclearize the region. The Eastern European nations joined quickly so they could have some type of defense pact with each other and get backing from the biggest industrial supplier of weapons, the US. They didn’t think there would be peace because they all have hundreds of years of history with Russia.
CIA works for Moscow and has done since it was started in 1947. NKVD turned at least 200 German agents into doubles during the OSS days after the war, and those assets became the core of the new CIA. The situation you describe of CIA killing people was actually used against the Eastern European nations after WWII, to bring them under control of Russia. It happened with the resistance movements left over from the partisans, who were located and ID’d by CIA assets, then they were arrested or murdered by KGB before the Airborne units landed at the airports and tanks poured across the border. Russia used the CIA as a glove to do its own business and still does to this day. That’s why JFK formed DIA, to replace the failed and treasonous CIA, but he couldn’t follow-through with that plan since he was assassinated in 1963 before the 1964 election.
Most of what you think you know about this subject is lies from both the “western media” and East.
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@Flankymanga Both F-22 and F-35 pilots have stated since 2017 that the F-22 is defeated by F-35s regularly, prevented from attacking Blue Air, and detected by the networked JSF sensor web. Thrust vectoring has nothing to do with it, not a factor. F-35A has better persistence than the F-22A, since they both carry the same internal fuel but F-35A only has one engine. Everything you’ve heard about F-35 is most likely very bad information at best. Combat radius on F-35A is better than any 4th gen fighter in USAF inventory, including the F-15E ( we used to work on the F-15E, so I’m quite familiar with it). Stealth vs stealth comes down to who has better sensors and who has better stealth, both in RF and IR spectrums.
F-16 is not better than F-35 in any metric, including BFM. F-35As have been dominating F-16C aggressors for many years now. Dutch spilled the beans on that one, described week-long BFM exercise sorties every day where they humiliated F-16Cs for sport, while carrying bombs internally in addition to everything else, then went and delivered in the Nellis test ranges. F-16C pilots couldn’t believe it. They were getting killed at a high rate by fighters carrying bombs inside that they couldn’t see. F-16s aren’t ever getting into a WVR merge with F-35s in reality. Why would they? Even if they could, they would attempt to egress away if they knew they were within JSF sensor coverage, which they can’t know. There are 3 JSF variants and any “critical issues” you see mentioned are erroneous, especially if they come from DOT&E.
Canada never cancelled F-35 deal. They’re one of the biggest suppliers/manufacturers of F-35 parts. It’s the only option they have for RCAF to replace Baby Hornets.
L-Band antennae arrays in the leading edges of Su-57 aren’t stealth detection systems, but for IFF and guiding the S-70 drone. It’s the same length as the antennae on the old LORAN antennae on F-4Ds used in SEA to guide drones.
AIM-9X Block II+ is a BVR-capable missile as well with Planar Array guidance, not legacy IR. R-74 is the same way from what is claimed. Nobody is trying to get within visual of each other, not even in 4th Gen fighters. Everyone is carrying Helmet-HOBS missiles nowadays, so it’s a fool’s game to even attempt to get WVR. So who sees first and can shoot first without the other knowing about it, that’s the basic game. 5th Gen networked cooperative targeting and passive TGT tracks change that game tremendously. Su-57’s IR concealment leaves much to be questioned. They are using thermal blankets over the engine cowlings, but there is more to it than that.
"Americans have not invested in serious ECM capabilities for decades.” That’s funny. There are small armies of engineers and technicians dedicated to EW that have moved into areas way beyond what Russia is capable of. The US led the way with ECM on strategic bombers back in the mid-century, while Soviet Union employed noise jammers in Bears and Badgers. A-12 had one of the first spoofing systems that demonstrated its effectiveness real-world against S-75 numerous times, as did the SR-71A. Fighters generally got RWR with attached ECM pods for jamming different coordinate vector methods from SAM radars in the 1960s-1980s. Then we integrated a lot of those capabilities into ASPJ with algorithms and faster processing speeds, better antennae, etc.
ATF and JSF are different. They have the antennae array count of a dedicated spy plane, with AESA stand-off jammer capabilities that are networked via LPI. You talk about the individual TRM waveform size without recognizing the giant array with 1656-2000 elements, as well as all the various-length advanced SC TRM arrays in the wing leading edges, vertical tailplanes, wingtips, trailing edges, belly, and spine. Russia has zero advantages in EW and is in reality far behind. Su-57 is an attempt to catch up but falls short since it uses more 4.5 Gen defensive EW suite architecture. LPI data links are easier said than done. Su-57 relies on legacy data link tech, standardized with Su-35S, Su-30SM2, and Su-27SM3 modernization program. That is easily detected and jammed. You will never see evidence of IFDL or MADL signatures.
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@thunder2434 If your definition of an amateur is someone who has been in aerospace and defense industry since the 1970s specific to fighters and their weapons systems development, yes, l will absolutely own that. None of what I’m saying is filtered OSINT, but insight from ground truth.
08AUG1993: Crashed after STALL in front of Stockholm Water Festival in front of the nation. Pilot ejected safely.
20SEP1999: Crashed after entering wake turbulence of lead Gripen in formation, STALLED, pilot ejected safely.
01JUN2005: During WVR training, pilot entered 60 degree pitch-up, aircraft STALLED, pilot received V minimum warning as A/C departed controlled flight, ejected safely over Baltic Sea.
14JAN2017: (Gripen C) During flight demo at low altitude executing barrel roll, aircraft departed controlled flight and impacted the ground. Pilot killed.
The lack of Thrust-to-Weight is not from detractors but from basic math well-known to AeroEs. You looked up wikipedia. I’m using Saab and actual operator’s weights. The wikipedia T/W ratio is bogus, doesn’t add up at all.
The Gripen E has a much lower T/W ratio than any Block F-16, but especially lower than F-16C Block 50/52. We were on the F-16C Block 30 and 40 avionics development program for certain systems in the late 1980s, after working on several of the other CTFs at Edwards AFB (USAF Flight Test Center). The F-16 curb-stomps the Gripen in climb rate and acceleration when they are both slick. When combat-configured with the same external stores, they both are diminished in performance considerably, but F-16C Block 50/52 still have much better T/W Ratio. Do the math down to the pylons, LAUs, missiles, ammo for the gun, EFTs, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
Super Hornet didn’t drop out of H-X. They stayed for the full competition, which spanned many years. I’ve been following H-X since 2014 when it was announced since my family is from Finland. We’re kind of heavily-interested in that decision for obvious reasons. Super Bug got 3.81/5 total score. F-35A got 4.47/5, the only entrant to break the threshold of 4 in all of the 5 Military Performance metrics used to evaluate H-X.
Nobody gives a rip how poorly Gripen E scored in H-X because we already know it was lower than 3.81. Go back and do the math on basic Thrust-to-Weight Ratio.
You need to add:
Empty weight of the airframe
Internal fuel (you can do 50% for combat T/W)
Wing pylons
Ejector racks (these fit inside the pylons to eject the stores away from the airframe, and are relevant to AIM-120C and Meteor)
LAUs for the SRAAMs
IRIS-Ts or AIM-9s
Ammo for the Mk27 cannon
.92 T/W ratio is what it comes out to, which does not meet even a 1970s 4th Gen fighter. This is why I correctly label it pathetic and weak.
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@BPo75 The US GE F404 was the most reliable turbofan of all the initial teen fighter engines far before Sweden ever even conceptualized the Gripen.
Sweden had taken the Pratt & Whitney JT8D and converted it into a fighter engine in the Viggen in the late 1960s-early 1970s. It was very powerful and provided no-BS STOL capability. The problem it suffered was compressor stalls when you put AOA on, so it wasn't suitable for a fighter that would be doing a lot of turning.
F-14A had the problematic TF30-P-412.
F-15A/B had the F100-PW-100, which had compressor stall, AB unstart, and parts letting go problems. We had to de-rate those just to keep them manageable.
F-16A/B had the F100-PW-200 with the same issues as the F-15, lost many aircraft due to failures with that motor.
F/A-18A/B had the GE F404 that didn't have any of these problems, and was extremely reliable even through excessively-high AOA maneuvers and maritime/carrier operations in high seaspray environment. The Gripen didn't even exist.
F-14A later lots got TF30-P-414A.
F-15C/D got F100-PW-220
F-16C/D Block 25 got F100-PW-220.
F-16C/D Block 30 got GE F110-GE-100.
As part of this process, we developed what was called DEEC, for Digital Electronic Engine Control. That almost eliminated the high throttle cycle-induced problems commonly seen in BFM. My neighbor was one of the lead techs on that program at Edwards AFB while we worked on Radars, weapons systems, and combat-specific avionics.
The F100-PW-229, and GE F110-GE-129 came after that with even better capabilities.
The F404 got more digital control upgrades as well and evolved into the -402 variant with more thrust in the Hornet.
Sweden got licensed production of the lower technology subsystems on the F404 for the Gripen when it was still Volvo Flygmotor. They never had capacity to build the hot stage central core of the engine. The metallurgy and processes really only exist in a few countries.
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@matso3856 There was a good description by a former Volvo Flygmotor technician on what Sweden made under licensed contract vs the majority of critucal components made in the US. I don't have the link but it has been discussed in sufficient detail among aerospace professionals, which support exactly what I said.
The biggest hurdle technologically is how to make the exotic alloy high pressure, high temperature turbine blades in the hot section of the engine. In the US, we make those out of single crystals so there are no failure propagation nodes inherent to the parts.
This is the most difficult metallurgical process in the world, far more difficult than anything in the space program. US fighter engines are the apex of metallurgy, systems engineering, and performance.
The 5th Gen motors in F-22 & F-35s are an even bigger leap ahead of the Improved Performance Fighter Engines I was just discussing because they incorporate VLO features, along with dramatic improvements in thrust, FADEC integrated with DFLCS, prognostic monitoring, cooling, power management, and maintainability.
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@termitreter6545 Every F-22 and F-35 pilot has commented on AWACS has mentioned that they have vastly-superior awareness of the airspace and even ground targets compared with AWACS. There are no buzzwords in there, just the basics. If you’re competent enough to understand what AWACS is, then you’re competent enough to look up any acronyms you aren’t familiar with. I’ve been immersed in these acronyms since the 1970s, so they are part of the military aerospace vocabulary, not marketing claims.
AWACS have to maintain a stand-off pattern away from threat envelopes so they don’t get shot down. By maintaining stand-off range, they aren’t able to penetrate the airspace with the maximum detection range of their Radars and sensors.
F-35s, more than any other aircraft, have the ability to get deep into the threat airspace and connect their sensor data with each other, forming a real-time picture of the area that is far superior to what AWACS can see. Does that make sense?
If you overlay the sensor reach from AWACS and then compare it to F-35s inside the threat areas, you will see what I’m talking about. I’ve been overlaying our combat aircraft radii and sensor reach over maps of the world since 1983, just for reference.
The statements about stealth coating peeling off are incorrect. The VLO RF features are integral to the structure of the skin and substructures of much of the JSF airframe. Coatings are mostly for IR spectrum, aside from the adhesives that cover rivets and panel lines.
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His command for us to ignore Tucker is not a good look at all. Tucker is not very focused on foreign affairs, although he’s more aware of them than the average cat due to his family’s wealth and travels, but he did a great interview, challenging Putin many times, and behaving more dominantly than Putin is used to seeing among anyone he’s met before, sans Trump. When he met Trump, Trump literally yanked him into him with a powerful handshake that told the judo “expert” that his manlet body was no match, even for an overweight guy like Trump who doesn’t work out.
To me, it’s like Peter didn’t even watch the interview. Tucker challenged Putin throughout the sit-down, and did so on the edge of assertiveness and respect. He caught Putin many times with funny little quips like, “Should Hungary take back its 1650 territory in the region?”, and was very persistent about releasing Evan Gershkovich.
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The US has had forward-basing in Europe, Asia, Central America, South America, Africa, and the Middle East for generations.
I've spent a huge portion of my life living overseas, to include West Germany, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Kuwait, Finland, Estonia, etc.
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@TheJacobshapiro The F-16 doesn’t use hydrazine for an APU because the F-16 doesn’t have an APU. It has a JFS with 2 bottles that are used to pressure-up a hydraulic start motor. Depending on Density Altitude, the pilot usually selects START 1 on the JFS panel for normal start-up procedures. For a hot day with thin air, it might be necessary to select START 2, where both bottles power-up the JFS motor.
The F-16 JFS is hand-pumpable by crew chiefs/mx personnel, or pilots through the Left MLG bay. It’s a pretty cool system that doesn’t need an external power generator or to rob fuel, and is very compact/lightweight.
Hydrazine is something totally separate and for the EPU, not related to engine start-up procedures. The EPU provides FLCS hydraulic power in the event of engine power loss, so the pilot has time remaining to perform a dead stick landing. The hydrazine cell is located on the right side of the fuselage, opposite of where the gun is on the left. Hydrazine provides instantaneous pressure for the hydraulic system without any combustion. Very interesting system if you dive into it some time.
I am not aware that either of these systems played a role in the selection or non-selection of the F-16 for Finland, Australia, or Canada. They may have, but I just don’t recall it. Landing gear and intake locations were considerations for austere basing, as is the F-16’s landing characteristics. It does not like to be put down, whereas you can precision-touch down with the F/A-18 exactly where you want. F-16 gets ground effect pretty bad due to its lightweight and lifting body design with the LERXs, even with EFTs and pylons.
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@jensolsson9666 100% incorrect. Actual CPFH including personnel salaries is $17,333. This $36,000 number is simply pulled out of the air, with amortized projected costs over the life of all the Block II F-35s that will never be brought up to Block 4 and 5 standards when those come around, since the Block II birds will remain as training and testbed aircraft, and will never go to deployable squadrons. You can see the actual DoD Comptroller accounting with every single fighter, bomber, drone, cargo plane, AWACS, etc. I was surprised to see the F-35A costs about $1000 more per hour than the more complex USMC F-35B and USN F-35Cs.
Another fact that isn’t being correctly reported is that F-16Cs in deployable squadrons cost way more per flight hour because they have multiple ancillary systems that are attached to them to do their mission sets. These systems are handled by separate repair and mx shops in the Squadrons, and don’t get included in any CPFH reports or mentioned in modern media sources, since none of them are familiar with the subject even to a basic level.
Additionally, F-35As execute multiple mission sets in a single sortie that would normally take at least 5 different types of aircraft, so there are no actual relevant comparisons being made or presented in this narrative. The underlying story has nothing to do with CPFH, unit costs, or the framework of the arguments being made and repeated by presstitutes with zero fundamental knowledge of these programs. What it has to do with is Boeing losing contract after contract for fighters not only in the US, but abroad. Congressrats do not want to be left with only 1 prime contractor as their go-to in the long run, so there is a current effort trying to steer dollars to Boeing somehow.
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@ivanlagrossemoule I’m looking at the DoD Comptroller Year-to-Year CPFH of every single fighter, bomber, trainer, cargo plane, drone, helicopter, electronic warfare bird, etc. This included Operations & Maintenance (O&M), as well as personnel costs.
(With personnel costs added to CPFH):
B-1B $42,687
F-15C $22,585
F-15E $17,599
F-16C $9,150
F-22A $40,481
F-35A $17,048
So how do we get from $17,048 to $36,000?
Check out the USMC and USN costs:
AV-8B $14,043
EA-18G $12,109
F-16A $15,873
F/A-18C $18,151
F/A-18E $12,945
F/A-18F $13,844
F-35B $16,992
F-35C $13,219
Why does a more complex F-35B or F-35C cost less for O&M in the Navy and Marines, than a conventional take-off F-35A does in the USAF? Why does an early 1980s F-16A cosy more for the Navy to operate as an adversary aircraft at TOPGUN than the USAF does to run a 1990s-2000s F-16C with far more complexity?
The reasons vary, but at the end of the day, the numbers are very suspect that are being told to people in Congress and in the advertising-based press.
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The premise doesn’t match the archeological record. If you study the Adena and Hopewell Native Civilizations of North America (mostly in the Mississippi and Great Lakes regions), they were very quite advanced. They enjoyed a vast waterway network in addition to their highways, built-up structures, mines, extensive use of hardened copper sufficient to behave more like steel using a lost metallurgical process, stone work, pyramids, temples, stone baptistries, and many elaborate structures that were destroyed by cataclysms, internal war/genocide, and European colonialism.
The Army Engineer maps of the 1800s are very interesting to study in this context, since most of the structural remnants were plowed over and farmed since then. There are also vast stone works and city states throughout Maya, many of which were only recently discovered with Synthetic Aperture RADAR and still in the early stages of exploration. I have climbed a lot of the pyramids in Yucatan and Teotihuacan. One thing about Central America is you have tropical climate, which erodes and covers things up rapidly in jungle growth. The Mississippi River network is similar due to the constant precipitation cycle, whereas in the Mediterranean, it’s pretty dry. The Roman concrete with its volcanic ash component made those structures stand the test of time, so there was a major advantage there.
The Smithsonian adopted a policy of basically burying any evidence of developed civilizations in the Americas. There was a policy in early US Government to categorize any and all Native peoples as savages, incapable of reaching more advanced societies, and this falsehood was taught throughout academia for the past 2 centuries at least.
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@retsaM innavoiG Healthcare access doesn't work based on citizenship. When we were stationed in West Germany, you have SOFA. Hospitals are checking your vitals, not your passport.
I have Finnish citizenship which grants me citizenship to the entire EU. There isn't a single country in the EU who would persuade me to prefer medical treatment there over even some of the poorest States in the US.
Access to ERs, life flight helicopters, MRIs, CT scans, CAT scans, Catheter Labs, Oncologists, Dentists, Orthopedics, Prosthetics, Orthodontists, Podiatrists, Cardiologists, Respiratory Therapists, etc. is vastly superior in the US.
Access to all of those areas of Healthcare is quite limited, constrained, and delayed in Canada and Europe.
We service and treat illegal immigrants in the US better than Members of Parliament are treated in Europe.
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The crime precedence is not a valid legal argument for tools that are used to exercise rights, though many courts have sought to establish that as a major consideration. The problem with bump stocks is really a legal one that is painfully simple:
We have 2 classes of citizens created by the 1934 NFA, 1968 GCA, and 1986 MG registry closure. It is not illegal to own and operate automatic weapons, just extremely expensive.
1. Ultra wealthy who can afford to buy pre-’86 Machineguns, Assault Rifles, Automatic Rifles, Light Machineguns, and Submachine-guns.
2. A caste of peasant-citizens who can’t afford to keep and bear any of those. The most affordable submachine guns on the NFA market start out at about $14,000 and have very limited use. M16s go for $38 to $42k, plus $200 stamp tax and dealer transfer fees. These are outside of the reach of 99% of Americans, which is a direct violation of the Constitution per the Bill of Rights, and purposely so.
Bump stocks were a cheap way for the peasant-class created by Congress to mimic rates of fire common to automatic weapons, even though bump stocks have very limited and cumbersome practical application due to the silly additional muscular inputs the shooter has to use to make it bump-fire.
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@simonj8683 Le F-35 a été relativement sans problème. Je vois tellement de gens sans formation aérospatiale parler des problèmes de F-35, puis leur montrer les pertes des F-14, F-15, F-16, F/A-18, Mirage III, Mirage 2000, Harrier, Jaguar et A-10 juste pour commencer. La série F-35 a été magnifique en comparaison.
Nous avons perdu 143 F-16 au cours de ses 10 premières années, avec 71 pilotes et membres du personnel au sol tués.
Seuls 3 F-35A et 4 F-35B ont été radiés. 1 pilote est décédé au Japon. Plus de 750 F-35 ont été livrés et ont volé plus de 470 000 heures. Le Rafale n'a pas volé autant d'heures, et pourtant les pertes sont pires. Ils ne sont pas terribles comme par le passé, mais toujours pires que les F-35.
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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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The Temple wasn't there though. It was in the city of David connected by a concourse to the city of Jerusalem on the SW end, and was completely leveled in 70 AD by the Romans.
The Dome of the Rock was built on a Crusades-era Chapel that was built on the ancient Roman punishment rock within the Roman garrison in Jerusalem. The Romans re-built the destroyed city in 130 AD, then built temples to their gods on the mound and Cavalry.
That garrison was walled-in, complete with rows of barracks, mess hall, administration, the governor's palace, whorehouses, a marketplace, basically like the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Then during Roman occupation after Constantine's Edict of Milan, Jerusalem was declared off-limits to Jews, and his mother Helena visited the city, ordering the destruction of the Pagan Roman temples.
The Jews who have been gathered back to Israel don't have many references for where anything was in 70 AD, because that city has been destroyed and rebuilt differently many times over the past 1,953 years, especially during Roman and Arab conquests, the Crusades, then the Caliphate.
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Imaginez que vous êtes un pilote de chasse dans l'armée de l'air belge et que vous avez piloté des F-16A MLU Vipers toute votre carrière. Au fur et à mesure que vous êtes davantage exposé au programme JSF et que vous entendez d'autres pilotes JSF qui ont également piloté des Vipers, ils vous expliquent à quel point c'est différent, à quel point il est plus performant et à quel point cela change totalement la donne.
Une fois que vous obtenez le briefing classifié sur les capacités de JSF, vous voyez la lumière et devenez un défenseur de l'adoption de ce système. Vous savez déjà qu'il n'y a rien d'autre qui se compare bien à cela simplement en raison de la nature fondamentale de l'intégration des systèmes et des sauts générationnels dans chaque domaine des systèmes de sous-composants.
Surtout pour les petites forces aériennes, si vous savez déjà ce que vous voulez, alors c'est une perte de temps et d'argent pour entretenir des conceptions moins importantes, même en volant tout effort de votre programme de modernisation de la force. Cela est particulièrement vrai lorsque vous essayez de communiquer vos désirs aux politiciens, qui ne connaissent rien à la vie, sans parler des sciences aérospatiales avancées, de la budgétisation, des coûts d'exploitation et de maintenance, de l'intégration des armes, etc.
Il est donc tout à fait logique de concevoir les exigences du programme pour arriver à une conclusion d'avance dans ce cas. La Finlande a perdu beaucoup de temps avec H-X après que leur ministre de la Défense et le chef de l'armée de l'air ont déjà annoncé en 2015 qu'ils voulaient JSF, juste pour passer par tout le processus d'introduction de conceptions inférieures qu'ils savent ne pas être
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I don’t have an iPhone but from what I found:
The iPhone’s display is made by either Samsung or LG in South Korea.
The flash memory and DRAM are made at Kioxia’s factories in Japan.
Gorilla Glass that protects the screen is made from a Corning factory in the USA, Taiwan, or Japan.
Apple’s A18 Pro chip is custom silicon-designed in California but manufactured by Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC.
Custom-made components like power management ICs, USB microcontrollers, wireless chipsets, and OLED drivers are sourced from large companies such as Broadcom, Texas Instruments, and smaller manufacturers in Southeast Asia.
Apple is now moving a lot of their final assembly to Vietnam with Ear Pods, AirPods, AirPods Pro, and Apple is moving a significant percentage of iPad, MacBook, and Apple Watch production to Vietnam.
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@CakePrincessCelestia The airframes are almost totally different.
Canopies, wings, tailplanes, structures/bulkheads/booms, control surfaces are different.
Common inspection and replacement parts are as uniform as possible. Radars, propulsion core, sensors, cockpits are the same.
It was really brilliant how they pulled it off, to be honest. They make all the aircraft they supercede primitive in comparison. I'm saying that coming from all my family's work on F-16C, F-15E, and developmental programs associated with those and other aircraft.
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The real argument is not a mechanical one, but a legal one. The NFA and 1986 MG registry closure created 2 classes of people with regard to exercising rights:
1. The ultra-wealthy elites who can afford to buy a real machinegun, Sub-Machinegun, or select-fire assault rifle for the entry fee of $14,000 to $200,000 or more, with a $200 tax and dealer transfer fees.
2. The deprived peasant-citizen who has no ability to exercise these rights. Pre-1986, it was much more affordable to buy automatic weapons through the $200 stamp tax infringement process, though still an offense to the 2A and the People.
Remember that the NFA didn’t make keeping and bearing machine-guns illegal. It infringed on the rights of the people by creating a special bypass taxation scheme that only less than 1% of the populace can afford to pay for. This is the only valid argument in this case. Bump stocks are a cheap way for the people to imitate owning a machinegun without actually having one that works well enough for 2A purposes.
For technical merits, a semi-automatic firearm equipped with a bump-fire stock is not a machinegun, and neither is an M16, AKM, or Uzi. Select fire rifles are assault rifles. Pistol caliber, compact, magazine-fed, automatic weapons are Submachineguns (SMGs). Machineguns are belt-fed. The idiots in Congress in 1934 got it all wrong, as has every Congress since (1968 and 1986). These are people who failed to bring in actual SMEs on the subject to clarify and contrast the different types of arms that are restricted from being infringed upon by any entity in the US.
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@scoots60 We had M21s in my first 2 Scout Platoons, and we had M14s in my first line unit, along with M16A1s, even though I went through Infantry OSUT with M16A2s.
I have worked with and lived with all of those rifles pretty extensively across multiple continents, as well as the M4/M4A1.
I like the M14/M21, but would never choose one to go outside the wire if I had other options for a DM or light sniper system.
Nobody in Ranger Regiment wanted anything to do with an M14 once the SR25s came into the inventory, and even prior to that, they used M4A1s with ACOGs suppressed in the Sniper sections, along with free-floated Recce carbines, barreled with accurate pipes and float handguards.
JSOC dropped M14s and went to SR25s in the early-mid 1990s as well in their Sniper sections.
Old inventory M14s were issued to line units for DMRs with varying degrees of success in GWOT, but SOF units who actually had a choice used SR25s, SR25Ks, and SCAR-Hs.
Some Teams tried going with all-7.62 NATO load-out, and ditched that idea after 1 or 2 missions due to weight and limited mag capacity. They tried configuring their kit with as many mags as possible, to include mag pouches on the backs of their plate carriers so dudes would act as combat squires for each other, which was just unnecessarily cumbersome and clumsy in a tactical sense.
This is one reason why 6mm ARC in a standard AR-15 receiver set was chosen to supplant or replace 7.62 NATO semi auto sniper systems in certain units.
We keep re-learning the lessons we already knew after the 1914-1918 Great War about appropriate rifle cartridges. 5.56 was the only cartridge adopted that benefitted soldier's load and combat persistence. 7.62x51 was warmed over .30 Cal in a slightly shorter case, pushed to higher chamber pressure to meet the same mv as the Garand. Didn't really change anything for Joe tentpeg other than having a detachable magazine and overall excessive weight.
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@natthaphonhongcharoen The was is an insurance policy for fighters that hasn't been used against another fighter since 1979 in Arab-Israeli border disputes.
It was probably the wrong move to put it on the F-4E, reducing its turn rate and radome size.
US Navy chose to leave the gun off the F-4J/N and secretly implemented Helmet-mounted VTAS with the AIM-9G, which pilots didn't like due to the added weight on the helmet.
Guns and dumb bombs are major technological advancements that have been surpassed by better systems.
Even rear quadrant IR missiles are obsolete for fighters, other than shooting down non-maneuvering targets like bombers and drones.
Once we introduced the AIM-9L Sidewinder on the teen fighters and Harrier, visual range engagements became a face-shooting affair that the Argentines had the unfortunate place in history of learning the hard way, even flying much superior dedicated fighter-interceptors against the British Harriers.
Israelis used a lot of AIM-9s and Python-3s, in addition to AIM-7F radar-guided missiles in 1982 over Bekaa Valley to shoot down 84 Syrian MiGs and Sukhois.
The era of the all-aspect AAM was solidified at that point, while radar-guided missiles got better and better.
AIM-7M was used for most of the F-15C's 34 kills in Desert Storm.
As of late, the F-16C with AIM-120 has been doing most of the Air-to-air shoot downs, mainly in Turkish Air Force service over the past 7 years. They shot down 3 Su-24s in March of this year, all with AIM-120C7 AMRAAMs. They shot down a Russian Su-24M in 2015 as well, and also shot down a Syrian MiG-23 in March of 2014 with an AIM-9.
Use of the gun on the F-22 & F-35 will be extremely rare, if ever. USMC and Navy chose to leave it as an optional pod system if they want it in rare circumstances.
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@FeatheredDino Real AR-10s from back then are more reliable than most of the modern after-market parts guns. I've been working with AR-10s, SR-25s, aftermarket imitations, and Hk417s in high volume since 2002, have owned at least 6 .308 Win or .260 Rem versions of them over that time, repaired, accurized, and trouble-shot quite a few of them.
Big challenges from an engineering standpoint are:
* Bore volume vs projectile mass and propellant mass
* Bolt and carrier mass ratio (AR-10 was designed on 1:3 ratio.)
* Cartridge stack mass resistance to spring lift, especially under the torque moment from the rifle counter to the rifling direction
AR-15 in 5.56 doesn't have those problems.
I can't recall any notable malfunctions with post-1996 ArmaLite Inc. AR-10s, SR-25s, or my GAP built .308 and .260 Rem. DPMS LR-308s and LR-260 had problems. The old school Dutch ArmaLite AR-10s are very pleasant to shoot, unbelievably accurate, and balance well in the hands.
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Paul TheSkeptic: Our kids do science studies all the time here at home, as well as with local groups that encourage a lot of field trips led by the mothers. My girls have nature journals that involve a lot of observation, with references of the different species that my wife sourced for them. At ages 6 and 4, they are already more well-versed on local animal and plant species than I ever was. They also do dance, music, and any subject they are interested in. I wish I could have had an education like this when I was a kid, but both my parents were away working to pay for mortgages and car loans, so I was dropped off at babysitters or daycare, then went to school to not learn anything all day, more daycare, then picked up around 6:00p.m., usually the last ones to be picked up.
I did a lot of studying on my own because I had so many interests, despite the distraction that school was, and I accredit those personal studies with all the success I've had as an adult. I can't think of anything in school that really helped out a lot, other than maybe some basic grammar and writing lessons in grade school. I would have been much better off on my own, with periodic instruction from tutors.
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@JonZiegler6 Imagine you're India and short on energy supplies. Tankers sailing past your territorial waters to China have what your people need. Who will protect those tankers?
This is the kind of "piracy" that becomes a real problem going forward. China has no blue water capability, no distant ports to sustain long range vessels, and zero experience running that type of navy. Indian navy would skull-drag them around the Indian Ocean, and China can't afford to be humiliated like that. Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia, and most ominously...Japan would get a whiff of the blood and be very tempted to get a piece as well.
US Navy will say, "Not my problem. You guys figure it out.", while US defense contractors continue to sell billions worth of weapons to all of China's rivals, weapons that actually work.
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@simononeill5300 Of course line and even many SOF units don’t have a choice which primary service rifle/carbine will be issued.
Army SF, Ranger Regiment, SEAL Teams, AFSOC, Royal Marines, Para Regiment, etc. don’t have a choice of what’s in the inventory. This is why I make the distinction of units like SAS, SBS, JSOC-A and JSOC-N units, who actually do have a very wide range of weapons to choose from.
If they wanted to enjoy the benefits of bullpups, then they would be using them as primaries on a regular basis, especially when working with or near their home nation units on joint operations.
SAS and elements within Para Regiment work together quite regularly.
SBS is the upper tier of Royal Marines, working together as well.
SAS and SBS have specifically chosen to use AR-15 and Colt Commando variants dating back to the 1960s, with German Hk weapons sprinkled in for various roles along the way.
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@donnaharding9604 CT for head injury, MRI for his knee. If your healthcare experiences had included spending time in Finland in the summer, you would see that everybody goes on vacation, and since they have 5 weeks of annual paid vacation, staffing shortages are an unfortunate reality even in critical healthcare.
Regardless of my anecdotes, the large data sets show considerable wait times for MRI and other diagnostic procedures in all the Nordic “Utopias”, whereas in the extremely self-critical US, we beat them in diagnostics times and procedures handily. We invented and developed MRI, which is extremely expensive due to the liquid nitrogen coolant architecture for the magnets. Tiny nations with a few million people and huge taxation burdens run by idiots in parliament who spend money like it’s free don’t allocate and develop their infrastructure well, despite all that is parroted in US media.
Proximity to hospitals with those levels of diagnostics is also unipolar in most countries (national capitol, many other major cities without), whereas municipalities most Americans haven’t even heard of have full assortment of hospitals, clinics, trauma centers, and EMS infrastructure.
I was Nationally-Registered in EMS from 1999-2003, multiple family members in the radiology and nucmed fields as long-term careers. Grass is greener in the US in these areas.
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@donnaharding9604 Healthcare shouldn't be partisan, so it always interests me when people immediately turn it into an argument based on partisan bias.
We have paid for private care in Finland after that experience, which is much faster. At that time, private doctors charged 65€/15 minutes, had waiting rooms full, but efficiently cycled through them in a timely manner.
Contrast that with sitting in the lobby in a public hospital waiting for a Dr. to see my dad, while we breathed 2nd-hand smoke for over 6 hours.
NHS is a failed system. It doesn't work well at all. You've been lied to about it by people who never researched it, never lived under it, but instead of questioning their claims, you accepted them at face value based on partisan association.
The last thing I want is political bias related to Healthcare, any of my insurance policies, or any services really. Leave the partisan rhetoric out of those day-to-day necessities of life.
Which makes me ask, why even have partisanship in the first place? We didn't have it in the military.
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Some older dual-patch USMC F-35B test pilots who came from Hornets said they use the 28°/sec yaw rate in the F-35 to catch other fighters off-guard doing BFM. Everyone hears what a dog the F-35 is, then is surprised.
USAF has a lot of former F-16CM flight leads who are pitch and roll, rate fighters who obviously don't come from the Hornet.
The Marine Fighter Weapons Instructors said they go vertical, get separation, stomp on the rudder after squaring over the top, and are nose-on so fast without pulling many Gs because of yaw axis.
They snap the nose down faster than their opponents ever expected, and can go out of plane instantaneously too.
Subsonic acceleration is better in the F-35, but it bleeds energy faster than a Viper, so it has to be fought to its strengths.
Slick Viper big mouth should have the advantage, but isn't in a combat configuration.
Centerline tank or ECM pod plus wingtips, 2 & 8 AAMs, and E-jettisoned 3, 4, 6, 7 is roughly neutral with an F-35, depending on fuel state.
Add a FLIR to the F-16 and the F-35 should be dominant.
Block 4 F-35A with the new motor core generating 47,000lb thrust will bring it up to 1.18 T/W ratio on 50% fuel with 6 internal AIM-120s.
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If you follow Zeihan, there isn’t such a thing as the metro-dollar. The USD is backed by far more than oil exchange currency. The US mainland with its temperate zone, agriculture, rivers, sea ports, mountains, isolation from any enemies, industries, manufacturing, education, medical advances, biggest economy, and military are what actually back the USD. When the world experiences instability, nations with large cash reserves put their money in the US. The Russian propaganda about metro-dollar is very myopic thinking without even taking a few monumental economic factors into consideration.
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@amano3847 I have zero connection with the healthcare industry other than as a consumer. We have a lot of family in Canada, some of them working in advanced diagnostics in nuclear medicine in BC area. If the healthcare system in Canada is so great, why do Canadian members of parliament prefer to travel to the US for faster care?
You can go look right now on google maps and search for hospitals in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and compare the number of hits to any city in the US even in States with relatively small populations. Then do a search for dental clinics and fire departments. Canada, while one of the better nations for healthcare infrastructure compared to the world, doesn't do well even against the poorest States in the US.
There are small States in the US where the major cities have almost twice the number of hospitals as your nation's capitol city. I even tried to bias the searches in favor of Canada by expanding it to the greater metropolitan area of Ottawa.
It gets even worse when you compare dental clinics of your nations capitol to the "poorest" of US States. In a moderate income State even below the National median, Salt Lake City has 18 dental clinics listed, while Ottawa has 2. Vancouver is much more like the US when it comes to dental clinics, comparing well against lower income cities like Little Rock, Arkansas.
You have waiting lists when it comes to public hospital services, even critical diagnostics before procedures can be performed. This would be unheard of in the US:
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@VolodyaMuchavsky US economy is very much factored into the Russian economy because Russia relies/relied on US petroleum engineers, US heavy equipment, medical devices, computers, telecom, financial products, electronics, etc. Russia has invested heavily into steering US politics and academia, as well as media since the 1930s at the latest, just as many other nations have. Everyone wants a piece of the biggest economy, biggest production centers of the world.
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@ryanupchurch9683 The A-10s as part of the CSAR package were only one component. They and the AFSOC rotary wing assets (MH-53J and MH-60G) would have been screwed had there not been F-16CJs out of Aviano providing SEAD, because the Serbian SAM Radars came up again when the CSAR force was inbound and feet dry.
Once the CSAR birds got to the PZ, the MH-53J went into circular pattern overwatch for fire support while the MH-60G went in to extract.
Had this been F-35s, Vega 31 wouldn't have been shot down in the first place and Dani's SA-3 crew would have been a shredded mess amongst their Slav excrement scrap metal, regardless of any EMCON discipline they were so carefully observing.
For CSAR, F-35s can provide networked downed pilot position without breaking squelch, actively eliminate any IADS threats, and provide offensive EW to deny threat sensors and comms.
The Omnirole capabilities and seamless nodal connectivity in the CSAR mission set combines things that the F-16CJ, EC-130, MC-130, and A-10 would all collectively do with all the cumbersome failure points in Radio comms-based coordination.
The Vega 31 CSAR package included:
EC-130
MC-130
4x F-16CJ
4x A-10A
MH-60G
2x MH-53J
The A-10s were targeted and had to employ countermeasures to avoid being shot down by early 1970s tech SAMs. They would have ended up as additional shoot-downs in an environment like we currently see in Ukraine or many areas in CENTCOM.
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@soonerfrac4611 The fundamental false premise people are making, including older and newer A-10 pilots, is that close visual target acquisition is required for CAS.
That was why the YA-10A was allowed to "win" the rigged fly-off against the YA-7F, because the YA-10A could enter the target area, gain visual, and maintain visual for re-attack being so slow.
A-7F would have been better overall in the big picture for the force structure, but the way the trials were set up (to satisfy the Army's desire for a slow Airmobile unit armed escort/fight the last war in SEA) slanted in favor of the A-10.
A-10C is set up to drop precision weapons from mid altitude and stand-off due to modern SAMs, using Helmet-cued FLIR, GBUs, and SDBs, not because of cowardice, but reality of the threat environment.
It has Link-16, GPS, MFDs, HMS, and new comms gear but no Radar.
In the ATO (Air Tasking Order), it basically gets put on standby for contingency CSAR and not much else, which is a major drain on pilot seats, maintainers, parts, and training just to not be used.
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@forzaisspeed Su-27 does not do well in BVR against the F-15C+. The US has multiple Su-27s in our possession. There has never been an openly-publicized “Western vs Eastern Match” with F-15C vs Su-27. Su-27’s biggest disadvantages in BVR are its huge RCS, legacy lack of long-range missiles, and MSA radar. That is currently changing in the Russian VVS though with Su-27SM2 being sent through Su-27SM3 serial modernization program with huge PESA radar, more digital electronics for self-protection, guidance, data links, and finally the fielding of the R-77 BVR missile with extended range. The F-15C has always had a longer stick to reach out with, and that will continue with latest AIM-120C7/D upgrades. The F-15C+ is the least of the Flanker Family’s worries though. F-15 kill ratio has been elevated to 108:0 in recent years, mainly by F-15Es over Syria shooting down armed drones. The Su-27 will R-73 and HMS does really well WVR, but so does any 4th Gen fighter with HMS and HOBS missile, and the F-15C+ with JHMCS and AIM-9X is something the Su-27 pilots don’t want to get near, and vice-versa.
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@cortexus1 Gripen E isn’t completely different, but an incremental model step up from Gripen C/D using the basic framework of Gripen, increasing the size of the aircraft, uprating to the US-built GE F414 motor from the Super Hornet (without really helping its anemic thrust/weight ratio), while integrating wingtip EW pods with missile rails so it doesn’t end up with a tiny A2A load with the loss of wingtip stations. They tried to copy the F-35’s main glass panel display interface, but left the 1970s-era side panels and normal start-up federated power panels to the left and right of the pilot. Also keep in mind that despite some of the early flights of new jets barely flying off the assembly line in Sweden and Brazil, it’s still very much a developmental program without a final systems validation that is even ready for deployment or full operation.
The multiple exercises I’m referring to include:
Red Flag Alaska 2006 where Gripen C/D worked with F-16C and F-15C Red Air Aggressor Squadrons to fight Blue Air, who were comprised of only a strike-focused Air National Guard F-16C Block 42 unit with mainly a limited BVR and self-protection A2A tasking in their limited training schedule. USAF F-16 units have always been focused on strike, interdiction, CAS, SEAD, and CSAR with anything A2A being extra if they can get around to it.
Red Flag Nellis 2008-03 where Gripen C/D were part of Blue Air strike package.
Red Flag 2013 Gripen C/D where they were part of Blue Air again expanding Swedish Air Force strike capabilities as part of a coalition.
Falcon Strike Joint Chinese PLAAF Royal Thai Air Force exercises from 2014-2019 involving RTAF Gripen C/D vs Su-27SK, J-10A, J-10C
Internal PLAAF tactical exploitation exercises of J-10C vs Su-35.
Surprisingly, the PLAAF AAR comments about the outcomes between their Su-27SK and J-10C vs Gripen C/D are more detailed than Red Flag ever allowed. Red Flag is extremely tightly-controlled because we don’t want to advertise our strengths and weaknesses, whereas China let it all hang out basically.
China’s conclusions were that the Su-27SK simply was out-classed in every way against the Gripen C/D in the BVR realm where it really matters. The Gripen’s small RCS and superior radar, with longer reach missiles made it better than the Su-27SK in BVR. Once they did within visual range Fox 2 Helmet-cued HOBS fights, the Su-27SK slaughtered the Gripen C/D with a very unfavorable kill ratio, about like the Gripen did to it in BVR.
Then China upgraded their J-10 to J-10C with AESA, DSI inlet that eliminates frontal RCS of the engine blades, with the PL-15 BVRAAM missile reach, and out-classed the Gripen C/D not only in BVR, but in WVR using PL-10 IR missile (developed from the Israeli-designed earlier Python-3/PL-8 made under licensed copy).
So it goes like this: J-10C > Gripen C/D > Su-35 > Su-27Sk in BVR. RCS, Superior Radar, Longer Reach missiles are what make that a reality.
The Flankers have a massive RCS that simply can’t be hidden, but you don’t want them getting near you WVR no matter what you’re flying.
So which modern production aircraft have the smallest RCS, best radar, and most lethal BVR missile reach, the most magazine depth for BVR under the smallest RCS, with the most lethality/survivability if the threat gets within visual range with the current trends in stand-off with helmet-cued IR missiles?
Smallest RCS that has already gotten smaller than F-22: F-35A
Best AESA radar: Any JSF/F-35 variant
Most lethal BVR missile set-ups: F-35
Most magazine depth under smallest RCS: F-22 (8), F-35 (4), with Block 4.x/5 going to (6) around the time of the Finnish order fulfillment schedule.
The gap between the RCS of the F-35 vs the Gripen E is orders of magnitude wide, so that the F-35 enjoys a long-term practical advantage over not only the Su-35S, but the Su-57 and any incremental improvements that can happen to the Su-57 since they haven’t made it a VLO airframe, but merely LO.
So any future procurement of the Gripen E is asking to be violated by Russia.
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@wildripeach1 Austria was told that it would be receiving a true 4.5 Generation fighter with all of these wonderful capabilities, but instead got a baseline model with no IRST, no BVRAAMs, no HMS, no A2G capes, no digital EW suite, and really a truncated early EF2000 airframe with some rudimentary systems, at a very steep price tag of $2.28 billion for 15 airframes, including used Luftwaffe Typhoons the Germans didn’t want anymore. That’s a unit program initial procurement cost of $152 million / aircraft.
Maintaining the current fleet of 15 Typhoons over the next 3 decades would cost $5-5.8 billion. It sounds like somebody really bent Austria over in this deal. I heard the Austrian court is investigating fraud and bribery allegations, which is what was done with Hungary and Czech Republic with the Gripen C/D sales/lease.
Austria paid more in 2003-2008 for those low-capability Tranche 1 Typhoons than India is paying today for very high capability Rafales with all the bells and whistles, for example. Ouch! I would feel really cheated if I was Austria, as this is real money once you start talking billions. This just hurts me to read about, to be honest, because I’m looking at basically an empty IR missile-only mechanically-scanned array radar delta wing fighter with no AMRAAMs or A2G capes, that was sold for higher unit program price decades ago than current 4.5 Gen fighters with full systems capes.
It will cost $386,666,667 to maintain and operate each Tranche 1 Typhoon for the next 3 decades, or $5.8 billion total. If I was in the Austrian Defense Ministry, I would have a hard time breathing from the stress. I can feel the pain right now physically.
This might sound crazy, but after running the numbers, the F-35A looks not only more affordable to procure by more than half, but more affordable to operate as well. See if you can trade the Typhoons in with the US as adversaries for credit towards F-35As or even some nice F-16Cs for the air policing mission. That’s what I would do. This is madness. There are words for what happened to Austria, but I don’t want to say them.
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@javtimestwo Joe Biden continues to draw more hecklers than supporters. Trump drew crowds every politician wished they could, but will never be able to...not only in-person, but online.
Biden-su was propped up by the Chinese, big tech, pharma, and pharma's corporate whore networks after 4 years of Trump's policies on pushing generic drugs to get prices down.
Pfizer actually had down years under Trump because they were having to compete by stealing patents from other Rx manufacturers just to maintain volume of sales. All the big pharma corporations were forced into that competition, which was good for consumers.
Now pharma is playing catch-up with their fear and hype campaign using intentionally-released bioweapons that Fauci, Baric, Zhengli, Deng, Daszak et al have been engineering since 1999. Pfizer is projected to make $33.5 billion by Q4 this year in harmful mRNA gene therapies alone, falsely-labeled "vaccines", which not only don't work, but made the SARS-COV-2 bioweapon more virulent by increasing its adaptivity for cleavage site binding, and have caused over half a million adverse reactions, tens of thousands of deaths even by underreported VAERS manipulated numbers.
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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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The F-35A was never made with the intent to do the F-15C’s or F-15E’s job better, but it still does. The F-15C even with AESA, JTIDS, JHMCS, AIM-9X, AIM-120D, new EW suite is nothing but a TGT for F-35As, and doesn’t have the combat radius that the F-35A does either. The F-15E takes 2 crew to do the same job the F-35A does in the precision strike role, while the F-15E currently relies on the F-35A to act as an offensive EW aircraft for it when entering threat perimeter defense radar nets. The F-35As then swing to deep precisions trike into the MEZ where the F-15E can’t go, then after dropping their ordnance, turn into AWACS to manage follow-on F-15E sorties to provide updates targeting info for them to switch to TGTs that haven’t been serviced yet.
It then escorts them out of the primer defenses with EW again, much like the EF-111A did, but with greater capabilities in cooperative networked EW with AESAs and its EW system.
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Texas is one of the biggest import, transport, distribution, and banking markets for Marijuana in the world. Politicians have been in the pockets of organized crime in Texas dating back to Prohibition.
Texas already started passing dry County laws with the county option in the 1870s, so by the time Prohibition came along, there was already a network of rum-runners. Mexico was wet, so Texas became a huge importation market during Prohibition, while all the legitimate breweries were forced out of business.
This created a massive shift in revenue to organized crime, who could then buy whatever Sheriffs, judges, mayors, Congressmen, and Senators they wanted.
Once Prohibition ended, the Syndicates were already entrenched and continued expanding with night clubs, prostitution, rackets, gambling, electioneering, arms smuggling, and narcotics.
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@Niinsa62 F-16A/B Block 15 from the early 1980s give you an audible BINGO fuel warning through the Voice Warning System (called bitchin' Betty) as well as a visual cue in the HUD. Route planning and fuel management is a basic part of airmanship for any pilot for obvious reasons.
The Swedish Rigsdag was tired of paying for Viggens, which were quite complex and costly to operate and maintain, so Sweden almost didn't fund another domestic fighter program with their hostile Parliament towards defense.
Saab basically had to agree to the impossible. The rest has been a good effort, but mostly marketing hype with clipped videos to trick the Riksdag. They gave up a lot of performance going from Viggen to Gripen.
The Gripen never reached F-16 level performance, especially payload/range, T/W ratio, take-off distance and initial climb rate, pilot visibility, avionics, or Air-to-Ground capabilities.
It would have been better for Sweden to have purchased F/A-18s like Finland, or F-16s like Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and Netherlands.
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@joonasseppala1413 I’m formulating my thoughts based on living all over Finland and all over the US, then looking at statistical analyses. This comparison highlights how good the US actually is though, since the population of the US is 335 million, vs 5.5 million for Finland. Finland is a rounding error by US numbers, at only 1.6% of US population. Female suicide rate is the same in both countries.
2019 Stats-
US Total: 14.5 Males: 22.4 Females: 6.8
Fin Total: 13.4 Males: 20.1 Females: 6.8
Standard deviation is only 1.1 between Males in both Nations. That means the rate is relatively high in Finland, and is particularly high for Europe. Is this because of healthcare, government, greens vs SDs? No, it’s because of the cold, darkness, alcoholism, social isolation-all very Finnish realities.
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F-106 cruised at supersonic speed without burner. It could also break Mach 2 with external tanks at altitude, very slick jet.
A slick F-16C big mouth with a -229 will break Mach 1 without burner, but it can't do it in a combat configuration.
The main benefit of supercruise is with 4th Gen BVR metrics where you have mutual detection and awareness of each other, can start off at a higher energy state for weapons separation, then crank after launch to avoid incoming, while also reducing IR signature by not blasting reheat from side or rear aspect for the threat IRST to get a great non-radar track on you.
The problem with supercruise is that aerodynamic thermal loading of the leading edge surfaces of your aircraft also presents an excellent IRST long-range detection and track that isn't subject to EW/ECM, so you can slave the radar to the IRST and filter out ECM for an improved dual-spectrum track.
Supercruise is a two-edged sword that gives your BVRAAMs longer reach with reduced ToF to compress the WEZ timeline in your favor, but also increaes the detection and tracking range of the threat sensors against you, giving them an earlier separation timeline.
With F-22, they've been able to use it to reposition quickly while outside of threat sensor detection envelopes, but high subsonic is really where a lot of the fight seems to have settled.
F-35A dominates that space since it loves to fly at .95M, and has the most capable sensor suite of any modern "fighter".
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@nattygsbord Gripen E does not have superior range, combat radius, or loiter than any of the fighters you mentioned.
F-35A has the best combat radius of them all, followed by the F-15E, Rafale, Typhoon, and F-22A.
The only way to get decent range out of the underpowered Gripen is to not carry a combat configuration. When you hang weapons and pods off that airframe, its combat radius diminishes dramatically.
Gripen E has worse thrust-to-weight ratio even compared to Gripen C, so it has to burn more fuel on climb-out and cruise than a C model, hence the larger airframe with more internal fuel capacity.
Gripen E unit and unit program costs are higher than the F-35A:
F-35A- $77.9m
Gripen E- $85m in 2015, costs even more now
CPFH is unknown but Gripen C/D was stated at €11000 by Saab during Finnish HX competition. Saab hopes that Gripen E/F will be about the same.
Norway said it costs them 110 000 kroner/hr to operate their F-35As.
There is nothing cheaper about the Gripen E/F. It's all marketing hype by Saab to make sales, nothing more.
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@hb1338 F/A-18 performs a very similar role in Finland better than any operational Gripen simply by means of its robustness, superior payload, superior short take-off distance, beefier landing gear, superior weapons development backed by decades of USN/USMC funding, and expanded mission set capabilities in its multirole profile the Gripen has never had.
The biggest example of this is the SEAD mission set. US Hornets were already doing that in Desert Storm in 1991, with MALD and HARMs. Gripen was never intended for that mission set because Sweden has no IADS threat on its borders, as it is buffered by Norway and Finland.
The AIM-120C series has more live missile shots on maneuvering TGT drones than the Meteor will ever have, so with Meteor, you have to just hope that it works, with instruction on its employment by people who have never fired it. AIM-120 has a superb combat record with first-person instructors and squadron-level opportunities to do live shoots.
For countermeasures, the Hornet and F-16 have decades of funded OT&E work to mitigate Radar, RWR, and ECM interference problems that naturally arise with those systems. Sweden has never been able to commit anywhere near the same levels of RDT&E or OT&E to address them. That takes continued funding the Riksdag isn’t willing to share.
Saab had to take some Gripens to Fort Worth to get help from General Dynamics/LM when they were still having all the Pilot-Induced Oscillations with the Flight Control System, because Sweden has very little experience in that space and General Dynamics had tons of it. Remember the crashes on live TV and in Stockholm?
Almost everything I see about the Gripen is Swedish nationalist pride with no foundation in reality. People with zero relevant experience make a lot of bold statements about the superiority of the Gripen, but can never substantiate them because they don’t know the difference between an EPU or ECS, let alone any other important facts about fighter engineering, development, testing, and evaluation.
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@TheStugbit I look at it like this, after following the case for many years:
Gripen contract to Czechia: Bribery proven, offenders pleaded guilty in ITAR court, paid $400million in fines with the guilty plea.
Gripen contract to Hungary: same as above as part of the same scandal, guilty plea entered.
Gripen contract to South Africa: Bribery scandal, South African Air Force didn’t even want Gripens. This was part of a joint deal with BAe and Saab organized by BAe marketing folks who also did the Czech and Hungarian deals. They pled guilty to avoid the investigation expanding into the South Africa deal because it would have exposed the sale of BAe Hawks as well as part of the bribery to South African leaders. Those Gripens now sit in flyable storage because South Africa can’t afford to fly them.
Gripen contract to Brazil: Strange money changed hands between these intermediaries with increases from 1m SEK to 16m SEK when they learned the Brazilian Air Force was favoring another fighter. Then Gripen E “won” the deal. Brazilian leaders also steered contracts for the panoramic cockpit display into the contract to sweeten it for them.
This is why the Gripen E has the PCD. Swedish Air Force never wanted the PCD because the current large panel MFDs work so well already in the Gripen C/D. Making the PCD arctic-friendly requires the same technology used and patented in the JSF PCD, which is not touch-sensitive but is based on Laser grid intersection, so when your finger brakes the IR Laser plane, the system knows where exactly you are touching on the screen.
Gripen contract to Thailand: Contracts with bribery are normal in Thailand, as Thailand has one of the worst corruption indexes in the world. Even though they signed the UN agreements about anti-corruption, it’s part of the culture there. Foreign businesses must pay to play, pure and simple. What are the chances that Saab used an intermediary to bribe the Thai government to get sales of Gripen C/D to Royal Thai Air Force? Thailand global corruption index ranking: 101
Riksdag made the funding of JAS-39 to Saab dependent on foreign military sales as a large portion of the orders. Saab was placed between a rock and a hard place and did what they had to do to meet the dictates of Riksdag.
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@JABelms Why couldn’t Su-30MKI dominate Pakistani F-16s in real combat? The Typhoon exceeds the capabilities of the Pakistani F-16s in A2A, so it doesn’t make sense that the Su-30MKI would “dominate” a fighter that is more capable than the one it can’t beat in actual combat. Look at all the RVV-AE launches from BVR with no hits. The only successful BVRAAM that day was the AIM-120C5 launched from Pakistani F-16s at the MiG-21 Bison, which flew too close to the skirmish and got into AIM-120C5 NEZ.
Chinese say the RVV-AE is garbage as well, out-classed by their PL-12 BVRAAM with far better WEZ/NEZ profile, better electronics.
India orders Su-30MKI kits from Russia, then assembles them domestically. This costs more to do, but India thought they were getting some kind of technology transfer, which they didn’t.
MiG-29s were never built to last that long. It takes a SLEP to extend their service lives. They’re rotting away all over Russia as we speak, very few are operational. We did technical analysis of real samples of MiG-29s including first-hand inspections from people very close to me. It’s a piece of garbage fighter that isn’t survivable even in the 1980s US and West German fighter force structure. Luftwaffe pilots who converted after unification and flew tactical exploitation with it said if the war had broken out, they would have dominated it with the F-4F, mainly because of pilot interface and training. Even the F-4 had better man-machine interface from controls to avionics, which is sad.
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@koekiejam18 Why are Congressmen living in Boeing’s headquarters making a racket about a Lockheed program? Hmmmm. General Brown (career F-16 guy) made some comments about driving a Ferrari only on Sunday, which is odd. There is no real CPFH difference between the current F-16CM fleet with all its ancillary ECM, HARM, and FLIR pods vs F-35A CPFH and the F-16 does not have the range, which is why he said “not F-16” (not Lockheed). I think it’s really more of an economic/strategic hint of wanting another fighter production line to remain open, but there is no design to fill that non-space between the F-35A and F-16C Block 40/42/50/52. Current F-16Cs of those blocks face a very formidable threat even in the “low-end” fight where large hostile nations are equipping surrogate savages with passive sensor SAMs, like the Houthi rebels in Yemen who shot down a Saudi F-15S (F-15E export model) with a rigged R-27 IR-guided missile from a Toyota truck and trailer. What fighter do you want for that type of fight?
Israelis have arguable the most advanced F-16Is with their own electronic warfare suites, their own specialized missiles, 600 gallon wing tanks, CFTs, and they still got shot down from a Syrian S-200 SAM. Meanwhile, they fly roughshod anywhere they want over Syria and Iran with F-35Is and bomb Syrian SAM sites and Hezbollah weapons caches with impunity. They were shot at over 100 times with SAMs within their first year of F-35 combat operations, and just destroyed the SAM batteries without any losses.
We already have 287 A-10C for the low-end fight. We have over 200 F-15Es, MQ-9 Reapers, around 950 F-16Cs, supposedly getting 200 F-15EXs, Super Tacos, and hundreds of F-35As just for the USAF. Several of these will be timing-out and will need replacements, so because someone mentions another option does not mean that there won’t be F-35As as the cornerstone of the USAF fighter mix. That’s exactly what General Brown said. Click-bait sites including Forbes put out trash articles that mislead and deceive, without explaining the force structure and how there always is a large mix of aircraft.
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@matthewbittenbender9191 Not really. Customers keep changing specs, so what are Lockheed and all the subs supposed to do? F-35 has excellent engineering. No matter where you look under the hood in it, there is brilliance in integrated systems across subsystems like I’ve never seen before.
With each component and design feature, I see so many solutions to problems that we had on the teen series and Harrier that go way beyond anything I could have come up with even limited to certain systems.
The way it was going in the very beginning was bad, with the overweight airframes, but only a handful of those were built. Program management at the DoD level was piss-poor then, until they replaced the lead and brought in a no-BS manager to attack the problems with a sense of urgency.
There is no $1.9 trillion, $1.4 trillion, etc. Those are worst-case lifetime estimates that people keep slapping billions more on in rounding to make headlines look more sensational.
We’re nowhere near the initial procurement numbers and operational squadron CPFH is nothing like we’re seeing in these headlines either.
You can look yourself on the DoD Comptroller cost per hour spreadsheet including military personnel costs.
F-35A: $17,048
F-35B: $16,992
F-35C: $13,219
F/A-18C: $18,151
F/A-18D: $18,238
F-22A: $40,481
F-15C: $22,585
F-15D: $21,841
F-15E: $17,599
AV-8B: $14,043
All here: https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/documents/rates/fy2020/2020_b_c.pdf
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@matthewbittenbender9191 If you want to see some serious cases of fraud, bribery, ITAR violations, and scams in the defense industry, I’ll turn your attention to 2 programs you might not have heard of.
1. Gripen C/D sales/bribes/leases to Hungary and Czech Republic. BAE Systems marketing department did that one for Saab. After getting caught, they admitted to the fraud and charges and were fined....$400 million.
2. Typhoon Tranche 1 sales to Austria, to include second-hand birds from the Luftwaffe for more unit cost than what India is paying for Rafale F4s today. With inflation, it puts the Austrian Typhoon unit costs way over the Rafale, and they can’t even carry anywhere near the full weapons suite allocated for the Typhoon.
Along the way, it was discovered that Airbus transferred $144 million into the accounts of intermediaries in a bribery scheme when Austria was deciding on what aircraft to replace its fighters with.
3. Gripen E: Started development in 2007, still no production samples while developmental birds are being delivered to Brazil and Swedish Air Force. They are missing the promised F-35-style cockpit and IRST sensors as well.
I think in the US the only kind of scandal you can get away with defense-related is if you’re politically connected, like General Mattis and that scam medical testing company, Clintons selling China everything they asked for, Neil Bush transferring his aerospace defense holding company tech into his fake Chinese real estate company, his dad and Clinton selling ballistic missile technology to Saddam before/during/after Desert Storm (Iraqgate), etc.
But actual contractors making fighters have to be extremely careful about avoiding these types of things or it could jeopardize the whole program. Foreign companies desperate to make sales do it whenever they can, as seen above.
I have yet to see a single article about how Lockheed bribed the USAF/USMC/Navy into getting them to send them RFIs/RFPs/prototypes. JSF came from the services. There’s no arguing that. Many of the contractors involved early in the 1980s/1990s were merged with other companies (McD to Boeing for example), and submitted an absolute abortion of a plane for the JSF prototypes.
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@cbcluckyii4042 In my experience of being in aerospace and defense over the past 47 years, US politicians don’t really care about aircraft losses, accidents, or the minutia of day-to-day operations, with 1 major exception:
The main times when they make a fuss about something is only when a particular program local to their Congressional district is under threat, then they become its biggest advocate, for example Adam Smith (D) Washington (Seattle/Boeing). He’s the Chairman of the HASC and is a huge critic of the F-35 program, even though he knows literally nothing about aerospace/defense other than what he’s told.
Since the F-35A keeps beating the Super Hornet in Foreign Military Sales competitions and US Navy halted their Super Hornet orders, he’s become a really big critic of JSF.
Some European politicians are big advocates for any programs that affect their nations, for example the Eurofighter Consortium or French Dassault Rafale, or “Swedish” Gripen (foreign critical systems shipped to Sweden and assembled there).
But there are also huge delusional opposition groups assembled in pretty much every European Parliament who truly believe they should just eliminate defense and waste even more money on systemic failure social welfare programs that are examples of extreme waste/fraud/abuse while neglecting patient and client care as a baseline rule.
In Sweden, the Social Democrats came within 3 votes of killing the Gripen or any home-grown Swedish fighter after their experience with the Viggen.
In UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain, they all promised to buy an initially large order of Typhoons, then saw what it actually cost and cut their orders substantially.
They’ve been messing around with finding an AESA Radar for the Typhoon for the better part of the last 2 decades, and none of the Euro Typhoons have them yet. Kuwaitis are the only operators with AESA Radars in their Typhoons so far.
It’s a constant battle fulfilling the primary role of the state, which is defense. NHS and reckless social welfare fiascos get funded like a drunken sailor blowing money in port after 8 months at sea. No real scrutiny or oversight, just more and more spending.
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The whole intro to this video is simply misinformed. One way you can see that is if you study the layout of the F-117A exhaust architecture. It’s almost as if teams of engineers were told to reduce the IR signature, knowing that the USSR had been deploying thousands of IR-guided SAMs. F-117A uses significant IR signature reduction measures, with the engine exhaust flattened out through a fan-like array that is diffused with cold air before it exist the training edge, with no line-of-sight to the nozzles from the ground, and very limited visibility of them from the air.
They stepped that up a notch with the IR signature reduction technology on the ATF and F-22A with coatings, more airflow management over the much hotter F119 motors, and solar reflectivity as well.
That technological culture was used to work on JSF signature reduction as well, with the LOAN nozzle and other features incorporated into the airframe, skin, and any hot systems.
ATF and JSF signature reduction teams had full access to FORMAT technical data for IRST capabilities, which were copied off of older US Century series fighters like the F-101B, F-102A, F-106A, and the F-8C. Those all had IRST. F-106A probably had the best use of it since they flew much higher, and were largely looking for bombers and supersonic targets.
F-4C/D had IRST under the nose, and F-4E got TISEO later. Notice that the F-15A-D never picked up IRST in USAF. JADF are the only ones that installed it in some of their fleet.
IR signature reduction has been a focus with 5th Gen just as much as RF signature reduction.
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@dogblack3400 Uh, Democrats supported offshoring of US labor for generations now, starting with restrictive policies on business in labor, environmentalist laws that big corporations avoid, and taxation. Republicans and Democrats are financed by the larger corporations, whereas more local politicians see the effects of offshoring regardless of party. It’s not a simple Dem vs Rep argument, but the Dems have been the worst about attacking businesses and making it difficult to operate them.
You would think Democrats would favor US labor with all the union votes, but the ideology around environmentalist cult behavior throws the US worker to the curb, in favor of Chinamen and other Asians, especially as China finances so many Democrat candidates with bribes.
This is why the Dem party is losing the union vote, but cracking down on making sure they COUNT the union vote more, while managing expanded ballot-harvesting and stuffing scams.
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@John-jz7zz They were given the power to collect punitive and preventative taxes on NFA Firearms and suppressors, destructive devices, and AOWs, where the specific intent of the taxes was to be so excessive as to deter anyone from exercising those rights.
They were later given the power to force gun shops to conspire with them in a Federal regulatory scheme of acting in a law enforcement capacity against anyone who wants to buy a firearm from a storefront.
Law-abiding citizens are treated as pre-criminals under these schemes, and also tracked by race, ethnicity, gender, address, birthplace, natural-born or alien status, and type of firearm purchased.
Gun shops act under an arbitrary licensing agreement where ATF can come in and revoke their license for concocted clerical or ex post facto violations with no recourse.
ATF was also awarded unconstitutional powers of regulating and constraining interstate commerce, in direct opposition to the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Everything about them is capricious, offensive to the text and tradition, as well as the intent of the Constitution.
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Jörgen Persson F-35 averages higher speed every sortie compared with legacy fighters because there is no parasitic drag, not that speed is life with 5th Gen.
None of the Russian fighters fair well against JSF. Single fighters don't prosecute the airspace, multi-ships do.
An F-35 4-ship has plenty of missiles for a sortie. None of the Flankers would survive the BVR intercept phase since VLO intercept pK is much higher than 4th Gen metrics.
Russia and China have already done 5 years of regular tactical exploitation in the Gripen C/D with Royal Thai Air Force.
Chinese stopped using Su-27SK and upgraded the J-10 to J-10C with AESA and DSI intake (very small RCS-smaller than Gripen E), with the PL-15 BVRAAM.
That took away every advantage that the Gripen C/D had, since Gripen suffered heavy loss rates already once it went to a Fox 2 WVR fight against the obsolete Su-27SK with HMS/R-73.
Gripen C/D has lower RCS and a better radar than Su-27SK with 80km AIM-120C reach and superior pilot interface/SA.
J-10C has better metrics across the board compared to Gripen C/D.
Gripen E is an incremental step above J-10C with radar, Meteor, and Arexis, but not in RCS, so you're looking at a dead end parity design.
F-35s would rape the J-10C and they wouldn't know what happened. That's why China is building J-20Bs as fast as they can.
Remember, the biggest advantages that made the Gripen C/D successful against the obsolete Su-27SK were:
1. Low RCS
2. Better radar with first look
3. Better cockpit/pilot SA
4. Longer reach BVRAAM
Now go down those metrics and see which aircraft does better, and how each area of overmatch affects the next factor.
The Gripen has already been outdone by fighters that don't stand a chance against the F-35.
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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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@sandrafrancisco Lots of wealthy people volunteer for military service in the US, for various reasons. Examples include:
Ronald Reagan
George H.W. Bush
Joseph Kennedy Jr (KIA)
John F. Kennedy
John McCain
John Kerry
George W. Bush
Oliver Stone
Jimmy Carter
Pat Tillman
Beau Biden
Hunter Biden
I could go on about men from wealthy families in the US who joined the military, but you'll recognize the names of most of the above, (except the oldest Kennedy brother you never knew existed).
Many serve for Country, duty, the challenge, to rebel against pacifist parents, adventure, family tradition, or in Oliver Stone's case, total loss in hope for living.
The stories of each are far more interesting and complex, none of which can be bundled into a simpleton phrase Bernie would use.
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@msaar1303 I haven't just visited Finland. I've lived in Finland at different times from 1979-2016, as well as West Germany, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Middle East, Switzerland, Estonia, Denmark, Greece, and Russia. I have lived in Finland longer than any other country besides the US, followed by West Germany, Korea, and Russia. Mulla on kaksi kansalaisuus, including Finland.
Very few Finns have been to all the places in Finland that I have. People in their home countries typically follow a predictable rabbit path, and never see much of their nations. This is true in Europe, Russia, Central America, Asia, and for a large part of the US population, but with a significant amount of job migration State-to-State.
When Finns get vacation, they either go to kesämökki or a warmer country in Europe, preferably near the Mediterranean. Many others travel to the US. Florida alone had a 25,000-30,000 population of Finns in 2011. There are at least 650,000 Finns living in the US. This goes back to the point about not living in a bubble.
I'm just relating my perspective, which is significantly different than how things are commonly portrayed and then echoed.
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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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@mikeprice7888 The BS she read from her handlers was proven to be a fake story planted by the Russians in order to demoralize the US from its efforts at combatting their activities in Central America.
There was an investigation into the allegations, and the numbers and nature of the incident ranged all over the map from an actual battle between El Salvadoran military units with communist rebels, to a one-side massacre of 800 innocent civilians.
When it was revealed that only 300 people lived in the area, and there was an actual battle between communist rebels and the army. The communist-agitated presstitutes in the US, looking for a gotcha story, waited to report it and the slant that was handed to them by their Soviet handlers, and ran the story just before the 1982 Congressional elections.
Once again, you find out who your friends are and what their motives are. Leftists will always side with the Soviets and Russians in helping them gain strategic footholds in our hemisphere, as well as in government, academia, and the presstitute brothels, because they don't ever do the research and just knee-jerk emotionally to a story's allegations without knowing even the basic facts.
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@terranempire2 Do you think it makes sense for the following soldiers in an Infantry Platoon and Company to carry an M5:
CO
1SG
HHC RTOs/Drivers
XO
Supply Sergeant
Supply Clerk
FOs
USAF TACP/JTACs
PLs
Squad Leaders
Grenadiers
WPNs Squad Leaders
Assistant Gunners
Ammo Bearers
Javelin/ATGM Gunners
That leaves only a very few duty positions in an Infantry Company carrying the M5 if all of the above don’t.
Riflemen
Team Leaders
Squad Leaders
SDMs
Only one of the duty positions makes sense for this weapon system, provided it can demonstrate the necessary accuracy potential, and that is the SDM.
For literally ever other single duty position, it doesn’t sell itself well, just from a weight and soldier’s load standpoint, reduced basic load constraint.
The M250 makes sense for SAW Gunners, as long as they can carry enough ammo, but 6.8 NGSW weighs a lot more than 5.56, so we would have a heavier SAW gunner who will have even more difficulty maneuvering with his Fire Team, unless he cross-loads more of his ammo among his teammates and slows them down a bit more than the CLS bags, AT4s, Claymores, and extra crap that gets thrown on Riflemen’s backs as SOP.
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@bob_lemoche Soviets worked very hard to penetrate and co-opt Western media since the late 1940s, with much success. Anytime you turn on a major broadcast network, look for the demoralization messaging, right out of Soviet Active Measures ideological warfare strategy.
A great example of this is the CBC anti-JSF/F-35 messaging. They forgot to mention the dozens of Canadian companies making parts for F-35s, or the fact that Russia doesn't want a 5th Gen net-centric NORAD web flying and operating together between USAF in Alaska, RCAF from northern airfields, and US Air National Guard bases in New England.
This will provide even more early warning and tracking of Russian bombers, submarines, ships, and satellites.
Trudeau even campaigned on killing the F-35 deal for Canada as a main promise, which would only benefit Russia, while harming Canada's defense posture.
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@gunguru7020 A loaded M4A1 Block II SOPMOD with PEQ-15, TA31 ACOG, RMR, weighs 9.4lb unloaded/10lbs loaded with Surefire 30rd mag. Empty, sightless XM7 with Suppressor weighs 9.8lbs. Configured with XM157, BUIS, Surefire, and sling weighs 14lbs. Basic load weighs a lot more, takes up more space, for way less round count, meaning combat endurance with ability to fire on the enemy is limited to much less time, meaning emergency resupply will be a constant thing. It’s a non-starter for anyone with a GT Score over 100.
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@jamesplant5280 The Saab Gripen series is a case study in politicians driving capabilities down due to not wanting to pay for what's actually needed.
Sweden's Riksdag had a really bad taste in their mouth after the Viggen, which had multiple variants for the different mission profiles. Biggest ones were the interceptor vs strike and reconnaissance versions, same airframe.
They told Saab the only way they're funding a replacement was if it cost way less, while combining the J, A, and S mission profiles into a single airframe, that also needs Foreign sales to fund it.
Saab purchased the design work already done by Convair in the 1960s for the Convair-200, which the Brits then acquired for the P-106A/B in the 1970s pre-ECA.
This meant the wind tunnel aerodynamics studies and overall structure had been done. They just needed an engine.
Problem was, Convair-200 and P-106 were designed around an F401 class motor (similar to PW F100). Saab couldn't get any F100s due to high demand from the F-15 & F-16 fleets.
They scaled down the British Aerospace P-106B to fit the GE F404 meant for the F/A-18 Hornet. This design compromise is what really hurt the JAS-39 series.
Fast-forward to their last iteration of the Gripen E/F, still underpowered and incapable, and the claims about technology transfer are laughable.
Saab was going to transfer US GE's F414-GE-39E engine tech?
Saab was going to transfer US Mil-1553B databus (Canada already has it.)
Leonardo Radar technology, licensed from Raytheon through US DACA?
US hydraulics, landing gear, weapons, servos, etc.?
UK Martin Baker ejection seats?
Canada has already been making thousands of far more advanced components for the F-35. Sweden had zero to offer in tech transfer because none of the technology belongs to Sweden.
This is why Sweden's marketing firm, BAE, was fined $400 million and plead guilty in the Gripen bribery/ITAR scandal to Czechia and Hungary for illegally representing and selling US tech to those countries via bribes.
Journalists could write really sensationalist stories that are 100% accurate if they wanted to, but they don't.
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The A-10 was conceived and built as an armed escort for Airmobile units because of Vietnam, which I’ve been forced to consider was an ill-advised concept outside of SEA. They had A-1 Skyraiders that were perfectly capable of armed escort for rotary wing formations, but the A-1 didn’t have the payload to take out the emerging self-propelled AAA platforms like the ZSU-23-4 and tanks. The A-7D had that capability, but couldn’t re-attack with visual acquisition on its first pass like the A-1 could. So they basically wanted select features from the A-1 and A-7 combined into one, purposely handicapping its power so that it would be slow, while giving it more payload to be able to bust tanks with AGM-65s, drop CBUs on light vehicles and troops in the open, 500lb bombs on emplaced gun positions and relay stations and trucks, then use the 30mm gun once other ordnance was expended.
The A-10 was especially ill-suited for the European Theater of Operations with NATO, since it was a suicide mission into Soviet mobile IADS nets that were part of their armored regiments, made even more unsurvivable with the advent of SA-6 and double-digit SAMs. The A-7D was a much better for for the Fulda Gap. In ODS, the A-10 had to be grounded until strike aircraft could effect the D-SEAD mission set and clear out most of the AAA and SAMs, because they shot down or damaged so many A-10s in the first 2 weeks of the war. 20 of them were lost (7) or damaged (13) from Iraqi AAA and SAM fire from January 17 - February 27, 1991. It was still very effective once SEAD had been conducted, but the F-111F as just one example, killed more tanks than all A-10s combined in 1/4 the sorties flown by A-10s. F-111F with PAVE TACK Pod and LGBs was a brutal hunter of Iraqi tanks at night. Only 3 F-111Fs were hit by AAA, able to return safely to base each time, no losses. It was one of the most survivable platforms of the war.
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@frankenz66 I’ve been a delegate before and have been to many meetings where people say the same, but I agreed with them in several particular cases because their conscience in those cases was in line with the Constitution. This was just delegates though.
What happens is that once a delegate goes to the State and Federal level Q&A meetings with Senators/Congressmen/AGs/etc., there is a large effort funded by the sponsors to steer opinion with lots of “facts” to support their corporate agendas.
Most people who have been to college are poorly-equipped to filter through these facts because they have zero formal critical thinking training or analytical skills, so it’s actually better to send someone with good gut instinct or someone with a PhD or strong scientific background, because the corporate sponsors/campaign bundlers are excellent at appeal to emotion arguments supported by select data.
The pillars of thinking that get immediately eliminated are Completeness, Fairness, Accuracy, Relevancy, Depth, Precision, and Logic. It’s very easy to sway delegates to think a certain way, and the rigged political parties have been in this business for basically 2 centuries, with a populace who has only gotten dumber.
The big party meetings teach representatives to look down at their stupid peasant constituents, and how to manipulate them into foregone conclusions that only benefit the campaign financiers.
The whole thing is a cursed illusion with some extra games to play than in an outright corrupt system, but the results are basically the same.
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cuekwe Jones No, like everything else, CNN obviously was tipped off by the FBI/DOJ so there would coverage of the raid. The purpose of the raid is to intimidate, since Stone is not a flight risk, has an attorney on retention, has no active current passport, doesn't own firearms, no history of violent offenses.
If you believe anything that comes from CNN, it shows the lack of ability to critically think, evaluate data, and make logical conclusions about any of the subjects they misinform on.
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H-X took 7 years from 2014-2021. The outgoing Air Chief and Defence Ministers back in 2014 said they wanted F-35, not old technology warmed over. FiAF Hornet pilots who have been visiting various current European F-35 operators and have been able to fly the simulators for years have seen what it is from the inside and all say, “We need this now.” They send their reports up the chain into senior FiAF staff, who also are able to fly the simulators if they want and see how JSF changes everything.
Then the bureaucrats and accountants talked with other nations to get real operating costs numbers, checking those against the numbers coming from the US. What they realized is that they can acquire Option A for less than Option B (Boeing), C (Typhoon), D (Dassault), or E (Saab). Finns kept their cards close to the vest and went back to all the contenders asking for better deals, without telling the contenders how they were doing (they already knew they wanted F-35A Block 4).
Now they could leverage the unknown against the contractors to get the best F-35A deal possible, including sustainment and independent maintenance options that will give them more long-term control in case of instability in global supply.
It would have looked really bad for the F-35 to lose, even though L-M was confident they would win it all along. Finland used that confidence to get a great deal for their military, which is all fair in the art of the deal.
Gripen E came in dead last in military performance, which is no surprise to anyone with extensive military aerospace background.
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@perelfberg7415 My agenda is the truth, along with getting the best capabilities for Finland, where much of my family is from and currently lives.
So I've worked and trained with the Finnish and Swedish militaries from 2005-2016. Finland has far stronger ties with the US and other European nations than it does with Sweden. The Swedes like to overstate their relationship, then try to dictate to the international partners how exercises would be run as if they were in charge by royal decree.
Meanwhile everyone else who has actually been deploying is just chuckling at them, letting them pretend to be Napoleon while we just handle our business.
US, Brits, Danes, Norwegians, Estonians, and Finns worked together great. The general cultural feeling was that Swedes are a joke, more of an annoyance that had to be comically tolerated. One thing that was constant with all my experiences across different Finnish units was that they tell a lot of jokes about Sweden. I also have current family in Sweden, so it was interesting to learn how each of the nations interact with each other. Maybe it's different with the air forces.
Europe has been relying on US defense since 1945, which allowed Europe to rebuild and later focus on economic growth while US taxpayers continue to foot most of the bill for European security.
Sweden is totally dependent on US and NATO main industrial nations for engines (GE), Radars (Leonardo), IR sensors (Leonardo, L-M, Raytheon), databuses (US), hydraulics (UK, US), servos(UK), fuel pumps (UK), ejection seats (UK), missiles (US, Germany), etc. Saab and Volvo Flygmotor are not domestic companies manufacturing organic Swedish systems, but instead final assemblers of US/NATO systems into the Swedish-built airframe.
This is why Saab's marketing firm was charged and convicted of ITAR violations when they bribed multiple foreign government officials to cheat their air forces by placing Gripen at the top in competitions where it was at the bottom, (not wanted by their air forces). They pled guilty and were fined $400 million, which could have been used in the Gripen NG development budget instead. Since then, they still used an intermediary to transfer $740,000 to the former President of Brazil after he steered Brazil into the Gripen E/F under an exorbitant multi-billion deal with high interest rate financing by Sweden.
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@perelfberg7415 If you’re referring to regional SA, I can see why you’re reaching the conclusions you are without being aware of the basic features of JSF sensor suites.
The primary detection sensors on JSF Omnirole combat platforms are NOT AESA Radars in an active RF propagation mode. The AESAs and other distributed RF sensors detect RF emissions from other contacts at extreme BVR, at least twice the detection range of an active RF mode while being more flexible in how close they are positionally relative to the TGTs. (AWACS have to maintain very long stand-off, which limits their ability to detect and track.)
These threat or unknown emissions are immediately shared with each other in real-time via LPI data link, which instantly generates triangulated TGT tracks for the Long Wave IR sensors to stare at until they get hits in IR spectrum, which is then cross-checked with each other via MADL interleaving. All ships in the air reference these hits against the threat library independently and collectively.
Other ISTAR platforms in the network can either generate or collate/validate these contacts as well, so a multi-dimensional picture is constantly evolving with time very quickly between all ships.
This all happens before anyone opens up their AESA for active LPI mode PID propagation in the BVR timeline. If you listen to F-22A and JSF pilots, they all say that they have far better SA than AWACS could ever give them, and the reasons I listed above explain why.
Now look at regional Air Force flight scheduling. FiAF SW air base launches sorties at early time block for ISTAR and basic air policing of their airspace.
Norwegian AF launches NE F-35A flight for same over Barents Sea. Both nations set MADL protocols for interoperability so they can feed each other with wide-area coverage.
Polish AF launches 2 F-35As in the next time block for Baltic policing, feeding to Denmark via MADL protocols.
Denmark launches 2 F-35As on the tail-end of the Polish flight, and feeds to Netherlands, who launch later in the day, who feed to the UK.
UK flies their sorties and feeds back to Norway, who feed back to Finland.
The whole nature of air policing national sovereignty changes dramatically with JSF among technically-aligned nations, who don’t even need treaties to form those technical agreements.
I’ve never seen a “fighter” platform have these kinds of implications and effects on geopolitics. To mention any other type of fighter in this conversation with legacy data link protocols doesn’t even register into the discussion, because they aren’t capable of doing what JSF/MADL/Sensor Suites do, not even close.
JSF is a strategic asset like no other, whereas anything 4.5 Gen is only tactical with diminishing relevancy. We’re in a totally new world now.
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@jbs8704 Rumors are that an intake cover was left in a place that allowed it to be sucked into or already obscured the airflow into the motor, so it couldn't generate sufficient power to take off. Flight ops resumed immediately after, as the deck crew apparently saw the engine cover floating on the water and pointed it out.
Harrier first 10 years of service? 100 total airframe losses, 20 fatalities. Harrier to this day has the highest mishap rate of any fighter in service.
F-35B has been flying since 2008. First loss was actually mechanical/assembly process failure crashed in 2018.
The 2 other F-35B crashes were human error. 1 hit an aerial refueler, the other was the UK deck incident just described.
F-35A has been flying since 2006. First crash was Japanese senior pilot, nosed down after a BFM sortie at high altitude, plunged into a long 60° dive into the ocean with no attempts to recover. He's the only F-35 fatality to-date, which is a phenomenal record.
The other F-35A crash was an instructor pilot who left speed hold on, and bounced it off the runway at night at Eglin, smashing the gears into the wells, then ejected.
So that's 6 crashes total for 3 different types. My bets were on an F-35B or F-35C crashing first, with much more frequent losses because I lived through development of the teens.
First 10 years of F-16?
143 crashes, 71 fatalities
F-35s are ridiculously safe compared to anything else out there. Over 750 have been delivered, with over 480,000 fleet flight hours.
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@savagetr1539 The merits of the case are what they are, not what I believe or don’t believe. Either Sotomayor, Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Breyer logged more individual unreported travels and booked events for their former partisan organizations, or they didn’t.
I can tell you right now that their unreported luxury travels are the least of their activities that violate conflict of interest.
Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan have blatantly crossed that line multiple times. Breyer’s connections to the Pritzker family are especially relevant to this subject, as are the donations RBG was involved with, and the pay-to-play schemes Sotomayor and Kagan have been shamelessly associated with.
Bryer even defended Thomas, saying that Justice Thomas doesn’t care about anyone else’s opinions, and has never engaged in anything underhanded.
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@yessum15 The British Empire ceased to exist generations ago. The UK had a tough choice to make:
A. Self determination and protection of UK workers.
B. Continue politico-economic alignment with Berlin and Brussels as a subjugated state, moving closer and closer to dropping the GBP for the Euro.
The fundamental assumption is that Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain, and surrounding nations will always be at peace with each other, or not invaded by Russia.
Germany is the core of EU, with the Euro being the Deutschmark. Germany has been in demographic winter for many years now, nowhere near the birth replenishment rate, and their main birth rates are coming from non-Germans who hate Germany and England.
England got out of that mess before the storm hit. The future of Europe is not only war with Russia, but internal conflict.
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@pablo_escanor1681 I'm not from the UK. Have you ever studied the history of the EU and what it's built upon? Guess which currency was used as the benchmark for the Euro? Now look at European history and what that means for the EU.
Europe has always been at war. The only period of peace in Europe was the Cold War. There were 31 wars/conflicts/uprisings just between the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and The Great War.
Since the wars in Yugoslavia, the periphery of Europe has been at war. Turkey has been at war with Kurds and Syrians, and now a re-emergence of Russian aggression lays waste to Ukraine.
European Unity is being tested to the breaking point, and you're more idealist than I if you think Germany, Poland, France, Italy, the Baltics, Romania, Bulgaria, Sweden, Norway, Spain, and Finland will all be on the same sheet of music, especially in the midst of an energy and food crisis.
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@pablo_escanor1681 What do multiple wars, including genocide have to do with the EU when those wars are on its borders? Have you ever heard the term: refugees? Who determines where the refugees go? London or Brussels or Berlin?
EU was meant to make military irrelevant? That’s not even close. EU was an economic union formed under the military protection of the US, where member nations used the benefit of not having to fund their own militaries properly to try to elevate the EEC to a competitive economic power with the US.
The main core partners of the EU are historical military rivals with territorial disputes across each other’s borders that date back over 1000 years.
As Europe exited the fairytale times of the Cold War and hot wars erupted again, Brussels and Berlin were dictating trade, refugee allocation, and economic policies to the member states, to continue to prop up the German Deutschmark/Euro. As a result of that and other factors, the GBP steadily declined in value, while the Euro had a good run.
Most people in EU don’t even know the Deutschmark is the base currency for the Euro. The fundamental issues with the Eurozone are kept from public discourse for some reason, while sensationalist arguments are fomented by the corporate whore media, like Financial Times. FT is owned by a Japanese firm who are big on internationalism and own several media conglomerates. Media conglomerates= advertising agencies, not sources of reliable information, which is why this emotionally-charged, divisive hit piece was formulated the way it was.
It gets clicks for the sponsors while criticizing UK for exiting the EU, which is not even debated as to its validity. Notice that in the underlying tone of the story? EU = unquestionable. UK = fully subject to criticism. That’s the blatant bias in this report.
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@JaM-R2TR4 The turret gimbaling Gripen E radar is actually for something different. It’s designed to set it apart from fixed AESA 4.5 Gen fighters in a metal detection BVR fight. It works like this:
1. Opposing fighters detect each other at some time in theater, normally headed towards each other in some way.
2. Depending on what the threat warning and EW system tells them about the opposing aircraft, they will close into weapons parameters and fire first based on who gets parameters first. Initial missile volleys in this scenario are generally not expected to connect, but if they do, all the better.
3. As soon as the first one to launch separates a missile, they will normally offset from the original flight path because they are expecting the enemy to fire soon afterwards. These things happen within very compressed timelines because of the speed involved in closure. The missile starts off receiving mid-course guidance from the launch fighter.
The problem with this maneuver is that it leaves the missile outside of the AESA’s field of regard, and the missile then switches to active seeker mode.
4. By offsetting oblique to the original closure vector, it forces incoming missiles to pull lead in anticipation of where that fighter is headed, not where it is. This requires the responding missile to expend most of its rocket energy in that direction.
5. The first-shoot fighter will then reverse course almost 180 degrees, so the enemy missile with energy spent can no longer propel itself for another correction with sufficient speed.
With a 4th Gen fighter even with AESA, breaking your mid-course guidance makes the probability of intercept very low because when your missile switches to active seeker mode, triggering your TGT’s Missile Approach Warning System because the RF bandwidth that missile seekers operate on and their speed is much different than a fighter radar.
With the Leonardo ES-05 rotating AESA, as you offset after firing an AIM-120C or Meteor, the radar rotates so that the AESA is still pointing towards the TGT(s), allowing you to both notch/offest/evade threat WEZ, while still providing continuous mid-course corrections to the missile until the last seconds where it goes into terminal phase with the active seeker. That’s why the Gripen E has the ES-05.
With 5th Gen, none of this matters because there is no step 1 from the above list, only you seeing them and setting up intercept how you want, while watching their sensor envelopes. Totally different, extremely unfair fight.
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@phillip_iv_planetking6354 Sweden makes quality military hardware and always has, but they don’t have the budget or infrastructure to develop their own fighter engines, and they rely on the US for other critical systems components for sensors and avionics as well.
The US has 6 of the top 10 world leaders in semiconductor manufacturing, with #1 drawing the next 3 in volume and revenue. You need semiconductors to build radars, modern fighter RF antennae, redundant super-computer processors, and electronics. Sweden has excellent engineers who have developed world-class designs across vehicle and weapons systems though. I would never call anything they make crap.
I just look at the Gripen E/GlobalEye combo as a high risk/high cost option that would result in quick air dominance for Russia since it would face the Felon/Super Flanker network, followed by Fullback bombing campaign. Gripen E and Super Hornet would be the easiest platforms for the Russians to defeat.
Of the Eurocanards, Rafale would be the most difficult since it’s the only one with significant IR concealment, but it would still face an uphill battle against Felons/Super Flankers working together.
JSF is the only future-proof system that presents a high-risk deterrent for the Russians, since it can not only hunt Felons and Super Flankers, but simultaneously destroy their airfields and critical nodes in the region with near impunity.
Russia will lean heavily on back-door influence to steer the new millennial idiot females in Finnish Parliament to try to pressure Finnish Air Force into buying something stupid, which will be either the Gripen E/GlobalEye, or Super Hornet/Growler.
Finnish Air Force already wants JSF, so we’ll see where this all goes. Russians would love for Finland to pick Gripen E or Super Hornet.
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@billweberx Yup. It takes about a century (10 decades) to develop an initial competent navy that can just function, not necessarily win anything, but just operate with sustainable losses from accidents.
That's assuming a competent military and political leadership, training, and shipyard base.
Russia has never really had such a force. Their main naval yards were in Ukraine. They couldn't operate without significant losses, which were emphasized by how incompetent their submariner force was, but plagued their black and ice water armadas as well. Russians and Chinese are not seafaring peoples at heart or in their DNA.
Swedes, Dutch, Brits, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Japanese, Italians, and Greeks, are.
The US was born from Brits, Dutch, French, and Spaniards, and rose to be the most seafaring people on the planet.
No other competent navy emerged dominant after WWII, then the US throttled up into an era of sea power the world has never seen.
A new generation of sea power has been created by the US where net-centric low observable platforms in space, the air, on the surface, and below the surface work together in unison without much interference from planners far away.
Japan and the US are allies in the Pacific, with the US enabling Japan with cutting edge net-centric weapons and stealth technology, while China rapidly tries to play catch-up in a game where no matter what they do, they can't control access to their critical sea ports.
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You can be stressed about:
1. Homeless with no place to live, no job, no money
2. Renting and being subject to landlord's rules, rent increases, neighbors, maintenance issues, uncertainty
3. Owning a home, paying property taxes, school district issues, city council, roads, neighbors +/-
There's always something to stress over, you just have to decide which level and set of problems you'll have.
To me, the choice is pretty simple.
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Historically, the Republican party of the Reagan era has been far better-informed and postured on foreign affairs. Democrats in post-WWII era have been very adverse to military foreign entanglements, even when their own party was in the WH in the 1960s.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US as a whole- including both parties, has been in a state of withdrawal and then knee-jerk distraction with the global war on terrorism.
Now the constituents of both parties, those who don't vote, and America in general are tired of war, and tired of being ridiculed no matter what we do.
Partisan extremists in the Democrat Party are using this war only as a domestic whipping post for Republicans. Seriously. When has the voting base of the DNC ever been pro-war since WWII? They rioted at convention in '68, and rioted against Vietnam for years. They even mass-protested Desert Storm in '91, until it was so decisively won that they retracted and cheered hooray with everyone else in the parades.
The political class trying to hang some type of blame on Republican Speakership is really out of tune with the base.
Either way, both parties have been funding support for Ukraine with a measured approach, with the vast majority of the money staying in the US.
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@ullasofia9432 I'm not an ignorant American though, with no knowledge of Finland. I've lived in Finland on and off since 1979, so I'm aware of the various parties in Finland and I have followed and voted in Finnish elections.
Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, the Communist Party USA (which is now called Democratic Socialists of America), Finnish Social Democrat Party, etc. all operate under the political philosophy of Marx and Engels, with hybrid variations peculiar to each nation and region where they're experimented with.
Karl Marx is the last person you want to let influence you on any decision in your personal life, let alone those of a society. You might want to study more about him. He hated his Jewish family, despised his mother, but hungrily waited for them to die so he could inherit their wealth.
He never really held down a job, didn't support his 7 children, while the Engels family paid for his East End London apartment.
I would recommend listening to Thomas Sowell, a former Marxist who read all 3 volumes of Das Kapital, unlike any of his professors at Harvard or University of Chicago.
Finland needs some different voices more than ever right now, as opposed to the usual internal echo chamber that glorifies the non-existent virtues of socialism.
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2:28 Critics of the aircraft: The “bells and whistles” integrated into the JSF series are not nice-to-have extras for Canada, they are need-to-have capabilities in the modern air combat mission sets, whether they be NORAD CAP or NATO expeditionary Joint Air Component Forces missions. They are far more affordable in JSF as well, since legacy and growingly-obsolete counterparts are bolted-onto 4th Gen fighters in several key areas, ECM and FLIR being the biggest ones.
Critics don’t have the historical knowledge from which to view this whole subject, because most of them never lived through the development of the teen series and 4.5 Gen fighters. They are painfully-ignorant when it comes to actual acquisition and Operations & Maintenance costs on the legacy aircraft. They still accept major headlines as valid sources of information on an extremely complex subject that none of the major corporate presstitute brothel excrement spigots have even the remotest grasp of.
One of the most glaring examples of this is in acquisition and O&M costs. Right now, the F-35A and even the B an C models are more affordable than legacy designs. The Gripen E/F, Super Hornet Block 3, Dassault Rafale F3R and F4, and Eurofighter Typhoon are all more expensive to acquire, and are comparable or more expensive to operate and maintain...not including their required ancillary systems.
The presstitutes have droned on about how expensive F-35s are, when they seem to have totally ignored inflation and the relative costs of other fighters on the market, even after the Swiss and Finnish evaluations clearly stated how much more affordable the F-35A is compared to all of the competitors, some of which were twice the price.
The Gripen E/F is really a scandalous example of how badly the press has been about costs. It’s the least-capable fighter of them all in the West, with a much higher Unit Flyaway and Unit Program Cost compared to even the future priced F-35A Block 4. The Finns had so much money left over for weapons, that they’re staging their acquisition of weapons to the future when newer ones will be in-production.
They did detailed O&M analyses against Norwegian, Dutch, and US F-35A costs and found that there weren’t any significant differences between all of the H-X competitors that made it to the finalist stage. Swiss came to the same understanding with their detailed accounting methods. Meanwhile, the idiots in the Pentagon and press talk about crazy CPFH that don’t match up anywhere in the DoD Comptroller’s published budget, and are 1/3 of what the Norwegians Air Logistics Chief says they are seeing.
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@DashDa5h Yes, we pay lots of taxes, but our taxes don’t pay for an NHS like in developed nations that rely on the US for Research and Development on Medicine, Diagnostic Tools, EMS, procedures, and their defense industries. We have a combo of publicly-funded social safety nets (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) with the private sector health insurance.
In countries that still rely on the US for their major developmental programs, medicine, advanced technology, and critical defense programs, who also have NHS, they tend to tax their people excessively while still being unable to provide the above mentioned pillars necessary to have functioning nations.
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Master of many trades you didn’t even think of. It defies the conventional wisdom in this sense especially:
Who does BVR A2A better, F-15C+ or F-35A? F-35A by leaps and bounds.
Who does Electronic Attack better, EF-111A or any F-35? Any F-35
Who does precision strike better into the MEZ, defenseless F-117A or F-35? F-35
Who does AWACS better, E-3 or JSF? JSF
Who does ISR better, U-2, Reaper, legacy fighters with Recce pods or F-35? F-35, not even close
Who does anti-ship better, legacy jets or F-35? Stealth hunter of the shadows with the greatest AESA and fused sensor suite of any fighter in the sky (F-35)
Who does CAS better, the 280kt radar-less A-10 IR SAM magnet, or the supersonic F-35 with high resolution radar ground-mapping and fused IR sensor suite? F-35
I spent a great deal of time evaluating the JSF in each of these metrics based on decades of exposure to the teen fighters and many of their developmental programs before I came to those conclusions. This is a revolutionary system that can’t be accurately nomenclature with F in front of it.
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@Albertkallal Now add the pylons, LAUs, ejector racks, Mk.27 cannon, 120rds of ammo, the feed chute, 4 AAMs, and pilot w/equipment. It has a .92 combat thrust-to-weight ratio at 50% fuel, which is pathetic. F-4E had that T/W ratio with 1950s engine design, 1960s production, only the F-4 could carry an actual relevant combat payload. F-4 would just about max perform with 4 AIM-7s, 4 AIM-9s, and 2 EFTs. It could exceed Mach 2 with the EFTs, as could the F-106A.
Watch Gripens take-off if you ever get the chance while configured. It’s sad.
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My contact in the Russian Foreign Ministry was bragging about how Russia would re-take all its rightful territories, including Kazakhstan, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. This was in the 2000s after Putin assumed the Presidency. It was before Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. After hearing these braggadocios claims, I went to Estonia to help out with the Erna Raid exercise. At the end of that, we learned Russia was invading Georgia. Peter and George Friedman were in the process of writing a book at the time where they had to change the manuscript from “Russia will invade Georgia.” to “Russia has invaded Georgia.” I subscribed to STARTFOR after that and have been following Peter's and George Friedman’s work ever since.
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@TheHuggybear516 As I have studied US history and the times of the founding, I and many others see the Hand of God in the inspiration of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Founders came primarily from Separatists, Puritans, Quakers, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Deists, Lutherans, and Dutch Reformed faiths.
The original Massachusetts Bay Colonists escaped severe religious persecution at the hands of the British and later Dutch. Having the freedom to worship as one saw fit per their conscience was and is a fundamental right underpinning the creation of the American Colonies, then the United States.
Since they were forcibly violated by armed men in the name of the King or crown, they recognized the imperative rights of free men to posses and bear arms for their protection in this new political experiment. Other nations, kingdoms, and principalities don’t recognize any of these rights since men are seen as nothing but subjects.
The new left in America seek to make subjects out of their neighbors, and school shootings are one of their rallying cries for brining about their hopeful dominion over others. They don’t care about the loss of children’t lives, since they advocate for and regularly practice mass infanticide as a normal policy.
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@TheHuggybear516 The Founders were very well aware of the political schisms perpetrated in the name of faith, whether it was the English Reformation, Protestant Reformation, the control over Europe by the Roman Empire, Papal Schism, secret societies, guilds, and wars.
They recognized the benefits of common faith, morals, and fabric necessary to hold a new Nation together, while despising other men dictating the specific practices to political subjects like was done in Europe.
England underwent their Reformation in the 1500s because of Henry VIII, then recoiled back into Catholicism under his daughter Mary for 5 years (1553-1558), with executions of the King's court and 280 Protestants burned at the stake who helped advise him to betray Catholicism. Then after she died, England went back to Anglicanism under his other daughter Elizabeth I, who ruled for 44yrs and cemented Anglicanism into the English monarchy and government.
Puritans fled to Switzerland during Bloody Mary's reign, hence where the Geneva Bible comes from, then returned to England once she was gone. Puritans did not like Kings telling them which Church they must belong to and attend, and were a mix of political and pious non-conformists.
Puritans saw Anglicanism as basically English Catholicism, and maintained that the English Reformation needed to get back to more pure principles contained in the Bible.
Puritans were fragmented into factions of right wing dogmatic types, countered by left wing sectarians like the Quakers. While most Puritans remained within Anglican congregations practicing diluted forms of non-conformity, the Separatists held their own local meetings so they could practice their faith without influence from any Catholic-Anglican rituals. This led to their persecution under various English edicts, prompting for many of them to flee to Holland, then to the New World on the Mayflower. Their original goal was to land in what is now Virginia, but they of course ended up in Massachusetts.
Children of the New England Puritans were the most literate and educated of any in the world due to their Latin Houses and Dame Houses, because they wanted their posterity to be able to discern for themselves light and truth from darkness.
Anglican British colonists settled in Virginia afterwards and expanded their lands, eventually filling New Amsterdam, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
There was a bit of religious friction and persecution of Quakers, Baptists, Catholics, and non-believers in the Colonies up through and even after the Revolution.
This is why the Founders agreed on separation of Church and State. They had lived through and studied the repeated problems of Church-State governments that marginalized otherwise good citizens. It's a fascinating history. Henry VIII is just as much of a progenitor of the US as the commonly-referenced men of the 1700s.
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@garfieldfarkle I certainly haven't overlooked the OSS's official disbandment, but the personnel were still working, including Aaron Banks as one well-known example, who met with Ho Chi Minh and had his medic nurse him to health in Indochina.
The post-War years between 1945 and 1947 had a lot of significant activity with former OSS types, while the NKVD was scrambling to reposition in the face of US checking of Russia's attempts to push more into Western Europe.
One of the big games was identifying war criminals by Nuremberg standards, who were in the 4 main POW camp types run by Brits, French, Russians, and US.
Germans who knew better tried to get captured by US, French, or Brits, while avoiding Russian captivity if possible.
NKVD ran an extremely aggressive recruitment campaign during those years, and had a stick already in-place to assist them because anyone accused of war crimes was going to Nuremberg.
This helped them with turning doubles. They got Gehlen, who had a very large network of Wermacht intel working for him.
Why trickle up from the bottom if you can get the top-down? That was one NKVD strategy.
They also pivoted off General Vaslov's Army penetration and exploitation from making him combat ineffective during the war, to using their key doubles to transfer over into BND and CIA.
Lend Lease transfer of enriched Uranium, Beryllium triggers, and a laundry list of essential and exotic materials was documented by a Lend-Lease officer, who testified before Congress and wrote a book about it.
Major George Jordan. Check his eye witness accounts out. He provided the list, which includes the other 66% of Lend-Lease articles that were never openly reported.
Stalin built their first bomb with Lend-Lease materials and scientific data collected from within Manhattan Project.
Detenté was one of the driving factors in that, along with treason and espionage.
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@KirkFickert I agree on the Hornet for dealing with Soviet-era runways, which are big tiles with gaps that allow for the thermal expansion and contraction throughout the year. Hornet landing gear is very robust.
F-16 main landing gear are pretty tough, but the nose landing gear is not.
F-16 does better in BVR due to kinematics, but its Radar is small. Hornet with APG-79 would be a game-changer for Ukraine, and the USN and USMC Hornets were plumbed for SEAD with the HARM dating back to the 1980s.
Hornet with APG-79, ATFLIR, JDAM, and AIM-120C7 would put a hurt on Russian air, but would also be targeted by S-300, Su-35S, and MiG-31BM + R-37M.
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JSOC, Ranger Regiment Snipers, MARSOC Snipers, USMC Snipers, National Guard, some SF. At the annual Special Forces Sniper competition, SEAL Snipers have always placed at the bottom for some reason, and it’s been like that for decades. In the 1990s, 1st SFG won that competition multiple years in a row. Some foreign teams win occasionally, Danes, Canadians, etc. It’s usually Unit guys or Ranger Snipers who win it. Fort Benning has an annual competition as well, which has been won by SF, Rangers, Unit folks, USMC, National Guard, and foreign teams over the past several decades. The Brits, Australians, Germans, Danes, Norwegians, Greeks, Italians, and Euro NATO partners in general have really good sniping communities. The US schools are modeled off of the Brits mostly, but the Brits take things more seriously than US Army Sniper School.
In Europe, the age and experience of the instructors is much higher. You’ll have programs run by guys that did 15-20 years enlisted before they became Infantry or Commando officers, who really love that skill set, and they’ll be the OICs of their courses. The instructors are all senior NCOs and Warrant Officers who spent their whole careers in light infantry, commando, and Recce units. NATO’s ITC (formerly ILRRPS) has really good courses for these skill sets. All the cadre are coalition senior NCOs who specialize in this stuff.
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@insAneTunA I'm seeing that from the usual suspect presstitute brothels, where entire groups of people are labeled haters and racists just because they have a different opinion on politics. That is what creates division and contention, by design.
The Soviets tool over the US media company massaging back in the 1960s after turning Mockingbird on us. Mockingbird was designed to counter the Soviet International Organization of Journalists (which was run by the NKVD and later KGB Ideological Warfare branch under the World Peace Movement).
Langley stood up in 1947, and recognized a need to counter the Soviet international propaganda. Since the Soviet NKVD had 200 doubles already within Langley, they reported back Frank Wisner's Mockingbird program, and launched out loud at how much fun they were going to have with the "Yankee dogs". Walter Cronkite was their first major win in forming US public opinion against the Nation, along with the rest who followed.
Several generations of Americans have been raised with anti-American propaganda within the United States around the clock, including within the schools-especially at universities. Look up where Anderson Cooper interned, if you doubt me. Every major radio, magazine, and TV broadcast company was set up with working relationships with the CIA, under the guise of helping the Nation out. Instead, they were used to demoralize the Nation and create generations of Americans who literally hate their own Country, totally ignorant of the US role in helping the world.
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@edgarvalderrama1143 Before Trump announced his candidacy, he was friends with everyone from all walks of life and political parties. He was never and still isn't a political ideologue, since he has had to deal with more practical matters as a builder/construction tycoon.
Trump never entered into agreements with Bush 41 to help smuggle cocaine into the US in exchange for promises of political gain. Trump doesn't have a lengthy body count in his wake, with countless associates who have been involved in narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, exiled from the US due to tax evasion (Marc Rich), sentenced to lengthy Federal Prison terms (Webster Hubbell), or mysteriously died in plane crashes and suicides left and right.
His biggest sin against the system was bypassing the soul-sellout political class who have been paying their dues for decades with hopes of getting to run for Presidency. When someone like Trump can successfully come along and overturn the apple cart of the double-sided DC coin, it sends shockwaves throughout the swamplords and their populace-dividing political party kabuki theater cesspool. This is why there was so much opposition from the Republican Party to Trump, and why Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are united against him.
Their power of endorsement and arms trade post-Presidency is at significant risk now, especially if 2020 sees Trump reelected, and in 2024 when he endorses his VP on the wave of a Trump cultural era like we saw with VP after FDR and Reagan.
Veteran swamprats like McConnell and Graham would love to lead a swell of Republican majority wins in the Congress against a Dem WH, not have to tiptoe around the issues with a non-partisan businessman who is used to actual results and has no loyalty to them like Trump.
2020 will be more interesting than 2016 in that regard. Right now, the 13 keys and Primary Excitement models favor Trump's reelection. China and Russia can't afford another 4 years of him in the WH and they have plenty of allies in DC and the media to wage war between now and November.
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@jamesunger6892 We were at Edwards AFB during the development of the F-5G/F-20A and I studied it quite closely. F-20A never had the weapons station count or payload of any F-16. F-16A had 9 hardpoints with higher weight allowances for stations 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9. F-20A had 7 stations with significant limits. If you carried AIM-7s on the F-20, weather conditions would result in fin strikes on the runway due to the instability of the roll axis with certain crosswinds. AIM-7 was a non-starter for that reason, as it would FOD a runway for every recovery in-practice without a perfect wings-level touchdown. F-20A also only had 1/3 the combat radius of an F-16A, even with the F-16 carrying more payload.
Fire Control Radar on the F-20A was a sad joke in terms of detection and tracking ranges. The avionics were great, but Radar antennae size was constrained by the tiny radome size, even with Northrop moving the bulkhead back to buy more radome volume.
Then there was the lack of rear visibility and limited thrust-to-weight ratio, even though it significantly improved on the F-5E’s anemic T/W.
F-16C was under development at the time and had USAF Mil-Std INS.
F-20 was dead on arrival. I liked the aircraft a lot, but wasn’t aware of all its limits until I saw the numbers.
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@ieeetransoncircuitssystemf1101 The French will to win was stamped out of them over a few centuries, culminating with utter defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Prior to that, the Huguenots were a formidable force in France until the Dragonnades of 1681, after which they fled to England, Netherlands, Switzerland, French colonies, Prussia, and English colonies in America.
The French Revolution further weakened the nation, while an Italian general rose to power over them and spent French expeditionary war-fughting power on endless campaigns until they were basically done.
Franco-Prussian War, The Great War, and WWII set the tone for a permanent sense of defeat, with the latter two being mitigated by saving grace from America.
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IRSTs are not "stealth equalizers" because a true 5th Gen VLO airframe/propulsion system uses extensive IR concealment measures. The JSF is really a 5.5 Gen system regarding SA since it uses threat sensor envelope emulation in the tactical situation display, so that the pilots can control whether they want to fly into the envelope or not. The only reasons to do that will be on their terms.
When listing max detection ranges for IRST, it’s really important to state that this is a rear aspect detection, not frontal. 100km/54nm detection range on a rear-aspect, 4th Gen engine fighter like the Su-57 is reasonable, but not on the J-20A/B. They copied the F-35’s airflow concealment over the engine nozzles with the J-20 if you look closely, so you will have to reduce that practical detection range from rear aspect, as well as the frontal aspect. For this reason, I would not lump the J-20 in with the Su-57.
With a common fighter size and 4th Gen IR signature, you might get a 27nm/50km frontal aspect detection range. Su-27/30 will show up sooner than that, F-5E much closer. Rafale F4 has airflow concealment and IR signature reduction coatings, so it will get even closer than any of the other Eurocanards, including the Gripen E.
27nm is already well-within AIM-7F 1980s-era BVR missile timeline. AIM-120A/B would already be headed out well before you flew into 27nm. Those weapons are outdated.
In a AIM-120D, Meteor, PL-15, R-77-1, or R-77M world, legacy nose-mounted singular IRSTs need to step up their game with materials sciences and closed-loop integration with other sensors in order to be relevant, unless you have a VLO airframe in the RF and IR spectrums.
Meanwhile, F-35 integrated EOTS/DAS/AESA/Distributed RF antennae network interleaved with other JSF provides strategic SA from sea surface into low earth orbit. Notice which aircraft all the others are trying to be (and failing) with their avionics and cockpit architecture.
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@davidt4506 Le F-16 ne bénéficie d'aucun avantage de performance par rapport aux F-35. Des dizaines d'anciens pilotes de F-16 qui pilotent maintenant le F-35 à l'USAF, en Norvège, aux Pays-Bas et au Danemark ont tous attesté de ce fait. Non seulement le F-35 surclasse le F-16 en BVR, mais aussi à courte portée. L'autorité qui pointe le nez est supérieure à n'importe lequel des chasseurs de la 4e génération, comme un Hornet propre, mais avec une accélération comme un F-16C à grande gueule propre avec le moteur à performances améliorées.
Non seulement cela, mais les pilotes néerlandais ont battu à plusieurs reprises des F-16C Aggressors à la base aérienne de Nellis pendant une semaine entière, jour après jour, et l'ont fait en transportant des bombes à l'intérieur. Il s'agissait de sorties de manœuvres de base des chasseurs. Vous n'apporteriez jamais de bombes réelles à BFM dans un jet d'ancienne génération. Après avoir humilié les F-16 à plusieurs reprises, ils sont allés livrer les bombes sur les champs d'essai de munitions en direct pour tirer le maximum d'entraînement des sorties.
Pendant le débriefing, les pilotes de F-16 ont été choqués d'avoir combattu des F-35 équipés de bombes tout le temps, alors qu'ils avaient nettoyé leur équipement externe pour essayer d'obtenir un avantage. Cela n'a jamais vraiment fonctionné.
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Bad Journalism #2: “He went on to design the A-10.” Pierre Sprey wasn’t a designer, aerospace engineer, or expert in those fields. He never designed any aircraft, not the YF-16, not the A-10, nothing. Alexander Kartveli with his team, designed the A-10, after the F-105, F-84, and P-47. He was the real brains behind the design elements of those aircraft. For someone to say Pierre Sprey designed the A-10, they simply don’t know what they are talking about. Pierre Sprey was an analyst who looked at numbers and helped contribute some data to these projects, but he was never a designer. His comments about the F-15, F-16, and Abrams have been thoroughly discredited. Guys like him do best when they do their jobs, crunch numbers, report those numbers, and have no opinion.
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@complicatedjason The F-16 did not exist for Vietnam. F-16A/B entered service in 1978. They weren’t ready for mass production because there were multiple critical faults with the design and changes made without authorization during the manufacturing by floor managers.
The engines also had compressor stalls, flame-outs, AB unstarts, and catastrophic failures where blades would fly out of them. APUs failed, control surfaces failed, hydraulic problems, etc.
With JSF, they worked these things out before going into higher production rates. Most of these problems were solved before even making prototypes, especially with engines and flight control systems.
They tested out the new Electrohydrostatic Actuator and DFLCS on AFTI F-16, VAAC Harrier, and HAARV F-18 from NASA before even baselining JSF control system architecture.
JSF has been produced in excess of early F-16 fleet numbers where we suffered the 143 losses and 71 fatalities. Those were from 1978-1988.
762 JSF have been built since 2006, most in the past few years once Lot 14 was started.
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@anordman9659 Maintenance between the F-16 (which variant?) and Grpen C/D are so close that the CPFH between Norwegian F-16AMs is the same as Gripen C/D, both at €11,000/hr.
You have to sift through Saab marketing and understand that most of the capabilities they advertise are baseline norms for the F-16 & F/A-18. Hot refueling/re-arming, easy access to common inspection and repair/replace subsystems, good Man Machine Interface, Data Links, (and a list of capabilities Gripen C/D don't have) are standard on the F-16AM MLU aircraft.
A problem for both the Gripen and F-16 is landing. Both have edge of static stability DFLCS, and are prone to ground effect, which usually causes longer than ideal touch-down points on a runway.
Gripen has 2 wheels for the nose landing gear for rugged conditions, but its main landing gear aren't as strong as the F-16's MLG. F-16A/C legacy nose landing gear is minimalist, with many incidents of NLG failure to deploy or collapsing after overshoots.
If Ukraine were to get F-16s, the Norwegian F-16AMs with drag chutes would make sense in the event of diverting to dispersed roads.
They're also surrounded by nations who are currently flying F-16s, with depot-level support nearby.
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@jonseilim4321 Thanks for your clarification. The other terms for Snipers, Sharpshooters, and Designated Marksmen have evolved over time as well.
In the US, we used to have Sharpshooters/Snipers in WWI, WWII, and Korea. These were part of the Infantry Platoon, Section, or Squad.
In Vietnam, we started a long course Sniper Training program with 9th ID in Vietnam. Marines ran theirs Stateside out of their West Coast marksmanship unit.
The Vietnam era Snipers would be organized at the Battalion-level, tasked down to the Companies to support Infantry companies in the offense and defense.
The squad-level sharpshooter wasn't seen again until the SDM program in the big Army and Marines.
Ranger Regiment, SEALs, and SF had been developing weapons for this prior to SDM.
In the US, there's a clear distinction now between Bn-level Snipers and Squad Designated Marksmen.
The Russians had a different approach to it as well. I wrote an article for Book of the AK that details the US and Soviet Sniper Training & Empliyment Programs, after extensive interviews with former Soviet Snipers.
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@kevinw2592 I don’t see any similarities between the F-111 and JSF program, and I’m extremely familiar with both of them. We built 563 F-111s. 138 of them were lost, mostly to mechanical issues with the TF30 engines, flight control system, fuel system, control surfaces, Terrain-Following Radar, Radar Altimeter, mid-airs, CFIT, etc. F-111 was a mess on introduction and still had a pretty high mishap rate throughout its service. F-35s are opposite of that. Extremely reliable flight systems, ease of maintenance, capable of executing the F-111s, EF-111A;s, F-15C’s, F-16C’s, and F-117A’s mission sets.
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@jakefromstatefarm142 Reported rapes vs actual rapes is a huge data set range as well. There are about 1,800 rapes per day in the US, but only 10% of those reported to police. You find similar things with defensive firearms use where presentation of the firearm stops the intended violent assault or rape.
Just in my own life, I have used a firearm on multiple occasions to protect myself and my family, with only 2 of the incidents involving reporting to local LE. That included home defense from an intruder (black male 15yr-old), attempted car-jacking by black male 20-28yr-old, attempted car-jacking by black male 16-18yr-old, robbery white male 26yr-old, and rattlesnakes during hikes or outdoor events.
Prisoner surveys indicate hundreds of rapes per day were stopped in the 1990s. Rapists stated that when a firearm was presented or they suspected the intended victim of possessing a firearm, they moved on to another unarmed victim. Ownership of firearms by women has increased dramatically since the 1990s, with handguns being the preferred defensive tool.
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@jakefromstatefarm142 The countries you think have “fixed their gun violence problems” have done no such thing. I see this false narrative a lot from people who hear it repeated on social media, from people who are clueless about math, geography, and recent massacre history. The US doesn’t even factor into the top 15 school massacres, for example.
1. Chile Santa Mariá School massacre
2. Russia (Beslan 2004) 333 murdered, 783 wounded
3. Pakistan
4. Sri Lanka
5. Pakistan
6. Kenya
7. Afghanistan girl’s school bombing 2021
8. Sri Lanka (Their Air Force bombed a school killing school children.)
9. Indonesia
10. Kenya
11. Nigeria
12. Thailand
13. Sri Lankan Air Force again, bombed 61 girls to death at school.
14. Syria 1979, Muslim Brotherhood bombed artillery school cadets.
15. Egypt, 1970
16. US Bath School, Michigan bombing, 1927
Those are the top 16 school massacres in history by death toll. Remember that the US is the 3rd-largest population in the world, yet barely factors on the list of nations by homicide rates.
CDC statistics call a child someone ages 1-19 years old. That is disingenuous and deceptive, but allows them to then say that for the first time in 2020, firearms-related deaths exceeded automobile accidents as the leading cause. Automobile accidents have been the leading cause for decades. Here are the real numbers:
Ages 1-4: Accidents, Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities, assault
Ages 5-9: Accidents, cancer, assault
Ages 10-14: Accidents, cancer, suicide
Now you have to ask why someone would say the leading cause of death among “children” is firearms-related, when it clearly isn’t.
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone We're talking about air power. The Swedish Air Force doesn't have any experience against real adversaries in the air, real SAMs, real AAA, and doesn't have dissimilar aggressors to train against that replicate Russian fighters.
As to tanks, the US in Bradleys and Abrams destroyed numerically-superior forces with thousands of Russian tanks in Desert Storm. US NTC runs regular large force armor exercises Sweden could never generate, because again, NTC is populated with huge numbers of Red Forces tanks, real HIND-E helicopters, Mi-8s, and training ranges Sweden can't afford.
One force is constantly proven in tough, realistic exercises and combat deployments. The other gets the budget scraps from women in Riksdag who have engineered the societal degradation of Sweden from within.
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@michaelkeller5008 The modified SA-3 system used in Serbia was only able to detect at 13km from oblique aspect, while those F-117As had no Radar Warning Receivers or ECM gear at all, and having been forced to fly night-after-night through the same corridor.
Trying to apply that incident to even the F-22A, let alone JSF, fails several significant points, the main ones being the presence of the most superior EW suites in the world, followed by smaller RCS values.
Another flaw in the logic is the premise that VLO technology remains static, can't be improved, while sensors are unlimited in potential.
F-117A went through 3 generations of RAM over its operational service life, with some of the fleet getting ATF RAM used on the early F-22A.
JSF started with better RAM than that, which was already replaced in Lot 4 with Carbon nanotube wafered RAM with an extremely wide spectrum coverage in RF absorption compared to Lot 1-3 RAM.
Your understanding of the applied physics of RF detection and tracking is very limited, which is causing incorrect conclusions to be made.
Since JSF has the most advanced EW detection and ID system in the world, it shows the pilots where all the threat detection bubbles are in real-time, based on actual passive multi-band RF antennae distributed all over the airframe.
That passive data is automatically fused with all of the IR sensors as well, which are checked against the threat library and allow extremely long range TGT PID of ground, sea, airborne, and low earth orbit contacts.
It's like a future EW bird plus Spyplane smashed into the shape of a fighter.
The Gripen is a pathetic joke next to it in this regard, doesn't even have its critical sensors fully integrated or developed, and takes 1.5-1.8x the runway to take off, with a fraction of the payload. Also, you get to pay more for the Gripen E and especially the F, which won't bring the same strategic SA to the region unless you also buy 1.2 Billion Euros (2013 rate) worth of Canadair business jets converted by Saab into AWACS known as GlobalEye.
Nobody knows how much it will cost to operate and maintain Gripen E......because there isn't a single full Gripen E production sample aircraft in existence, let alone an operational squadron of them with years of experience.
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@CaptainAricDeron Trump urged the underperforming NATO partners to get their defense budgets up because of regional security threats, and the sentiment of Americans for decades of, "Why are we still paying hundreds of billions of dollars every year to do what Europe should really be doing for themselves?"
It's not a Trump thing. The past 8 Presidential campaigns from 1992-2020 have had either no foreign policy, or a policy of withdrawal. All have been domestic-focused.
In truth, many Eastern Euro nations were already ramping up defense spending, including Finland and Poland because they understand the reality of the threat.
Germany has let its military atrophy for decades, to the extent that it has hindered partner nations from enjoying long-overdue upgrades to things like the Typhoon. Typhoon should have had AESA 10 years ago. Kuwaitis have it, but every time they go to fund it, Germany backed down. UK has put billions into their Typhoon upgrade program, but CAPTOR-E was supposed to be a multinational affair with volume discount acquisition. That's just one example. The state of German armor, air transports, missiles, infantry, helicopters, and logistics have been neglected.
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@airchie2 For lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite, aluminum, copper, steel, and iron, they are all in high-demand already and limited supply/exploratory yields for new mining possibilities.
The mining industry has been exploring for most of these elements (steel is a generic term for various alloys of course made from several elements) for centuries in many cases.
Demand for LI-ION batteries has been very high just for computers, PEDs, and military applications for decades and the mining supply side limits still are what they are. Meanwhile with oil and NG, there are constantly new fields being discovered and re-discovered (Kharkiv and Odessa being 2 examples).
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@2adamast Europe has navigable rivers as part of its natural geography, including the Thames, Tagus, Loire, Seine, Rhone, Rhine, Danube, Elbe, Vistula, Dnieper, Don, and Volga. African has nothing like that.
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@GalaxyFur I agree about relative stability of inflation in the US, which is represented by long-term graphs, but I’m looking at the US Inflation rates right now from 1919-2019. The worst major spikes in inflation have been under:
FDR (D), Truman (D), LBJ (D), Ford (R-unelected), Carter (D), and Biden (D). They were stabilized or dropping under Eisenhower (R), Nixon (R), Reagan (R), Clinton (D), Bush (R), Obama (D), and Trump (R). If someone or any organization correlates a historic inflation trend in a binary conclusion to Democrat = good, Republican = bad, just understand you’re being lied to. Anyone can verify the above info with a simple inspection of an inflation graph.
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@Jimunu I don't think you read the Vox article, because it is quite critical of Biden in it citing his involvement with the 1994 crime bill, and says nothing about Obama and prison reform.
People were tricked into voting for Obama as if he would be a champion for blacks and help undo some of these GHW Bush, Clinton, and Biden-Era laws.
They don't understand that Obama's ideology was cemented in Black Bolshevism as a means to tear down the whole US system while wearing a suit.
Agitating and creating anger among people is his mission, not solving problems. Remember, "Vote for revenge."
As far as Biden goes, you can literally watch his hateful impassioned Senate floor rants on how badly he wanted to put "jive-talkin' predators" and "ghetto hoodlums who rob local liquor stores" into jail with Federally-mandated minimum sentencing laws that would double, triple, and even escalate to life sentences many crimes that were petty or non-violent, while creating asset forfeiture just based on arrests, not even convictions.
Multiple politicians have given lip service to prison reform, while Trump actually got it done.
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@GlenKrog That would mean those 39 fighters would need to have flown about 4 sorties per day, with no down jets. Do you want to tell me you’ve never been around a fighter squadron before without telling me?
US fighters are far more reliable than Russian fighters. The days of the MiG-21 are long-gone, once the Soviets tried to compete with the US with the MiG-23 (hangar queen), MiG-29, and Su-27/Flanker series.
Russia/USSR departed from its proven single engine mass-produced fighter force and went to all twin-engined designs to try to match the thrust-to-weight ratios of US 4th Gen fighters, while adding pulse doppler Radars and threat warning systems, BVR missiles, IRSTs, with tons of wiring harnesses and federated systems that are prone to failure.
Russian jet engines have always been low Mean Time Between Overhaul units that experience early core blade failure, often with catastrophic results. The US went through this with its early 4th Gen motors in the late 1960s-1980s until it developed single crystal turbine blades and more advanced fitment of parts, driven with FADEC.
If you read the maintenance reports from India and China on their Flankers, they are hangars queens. Radars, Missiles, and IRSTs are not that good.
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@safirahmed Did you ever consider the catastrophic consequences of staying in the EU?
Look at ECB lending and bail-outs to Hungary, Latvia, Romania x3, Greece x3, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, while Italy's debt has been allowed to grow to 2.916€ TRILLION. Even with 3 Greek bail-outs (2010-2015, 2015-2018), Greece's debt is now 394€ Billion.
They just keep coming back for more, while spending like crazy.
UK got out just in time. You're going to watch the EU implode, followed by a new order in the aftermath.
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The UK has been involved in pre-JSF programmes that materialised as the B variant JSF, dating back to the USMC's ASTOVL project from the 1980s.
The UK not only helped lay the foundation for X-35 STOVL variant digital flight control law testing on the VAAC, but contributed one of the first X-35 test pilots to the programme, and is the manufacturer for several critical F-35B sub systems, primarily the Rolls Royce lift fan.
Additionally, BAE systems is one of the main contractors in the JSF programme.
If you compare the Typhoon joint European development, which started far earlier than the JSF, you'll notice that the Typhoon has yet to receive the CAPTOR-E AESA radar, doesn't have full integration of Air-to-surface capability, and has suffered because of the cultural and multinational bureaucracies involved with the aircraft.
In contrast, the US-UK cooperation has gone much smoother, resulting in an aeroplane that will finally connect 2 militaries separated by a common language without all the usual bottlenecks with radio traffic.
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@x-man5056 F-35 jas the advantage from systems integration, single engine, economy of scale.
Multiple customers have already committed to buying thousands of them collectively.
Because the basic airframe and flight control system are simplified in many ways, and manufacturing is streamlined, that reduces costs.
Fiber optic Digital Flight Control System with compartmented electrohydrostatic actuators is simpler and more reliable than central hydraulic systems and miles of copper wiring.
If you look at the component manufacturers for Typhoon, it has a lot of federated systems that are made by UK for UK birds, Germany for German EFs, Italy for Italian EFs, and Spain for Spanish EFs.
From the start, it was a more costly framework from which to develop a fighter because of the languages, although English was mostly the default. We went to DLI for German before moving to West Germany to work on ECA development. The engineers were required to do the NATO Aero E course concurrently, which was in English.
The Typhoon has 2 engines that have similar or greater manufacturing costs to an F135 motor, even though they're a 4.5 Gen motor design.
With federated systems, parts count increases, especially electronics for different systems, radios, and things that are all integrated with the F-35 in contrast.
For a 4.5 Gen cockpit as an example, there are multiple displays with metal cases, rimmed borders with physical pushbuttons, springs, LED lights behind each button, wiring for all the buttons and lights, and separate electronics boxes behind each display.
The parallel wiring for each display converges in the wiring harness to the power supply and to the different systems computers, including the Environmental & Electrical, Flight Control, Engine Management, Stores Management, Navigation, Communications, etc.
Then these various boxes need cooling, power, and physical space. Power to them comes from separate panels on the sides with master and individual switches for the pilot to go through his initial checklist when starting up the aircraft.
In the F-35, the computing power is held in a quad redundant super-computing bank with CIP and CNI super computers. The cockpit displays are a large flat panel with no physical buttons, springs, rimmed housings, or typical MFD/MPD structures.
Interface with them is by touch, and the pilots can configure the displays how they need to throughout the flight. There are less than 20 switches in the cockpit. There is no HUD.
With maintenance access panels on the Typhoon, it is pretty typical of a 4th gen fighter with generous panel access to the internals, although I think they fully remove the radome whereas US 4th Gen have hinged radomes.
On the F-35, you don't need to open the radome and access to the radar subsystems is done through the nose landing gear doors, which are obviously open already.
You can also access many subsystems through the weapons bay and MLG doors. It's a revolutionary design looking at parts count and maintenance access, pilot interface, and systems integration.
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@harb1911 Ha ha, a Russian trying to school a businessman in the US about economics. That's funny. Look up the definition of hyper-inflation. The US has had extremely low and flat inflation rates compared to the historical trends. We're in a position of more stable and low inflation than at any other time in US history.
I'm seeing insane new residential construction in my State, and guess what? The foundations are some of the best concrete I've ever seen in my life. I've done foundation repair and construction when I was young, so I know what to look for.
I've also lived in Russia and seen the construction standards there. Russian construction is best compared with construction in the US Northern States near the Great Lakes and Northeast, where winters are deep and very cold. Those places have higher standards for RE factor and insulation as a result, similar to how you would see homes in Scandinavia.
Russian concrete on newly-built apartment complexes in Moscow were literally falling apart already, with kids vandalizing them before completion. I did find that walls are much thicker in Russia, as are the doors since temps get way down for much of the year, so you have to build thick or you will freeze.
Every apartment complex I saw in Sainkt Petersburg, Moskva, and other cities was heated by a massive wood-burning furnace in the basement, fueled by manual labor, with water pipes running throughout the buildings heating the radiators.
Single residences in the countryside had wood-burning stoves as well, and you go through wood like crap through a goose or you freeze.
Water coming out of the pipes in apartments in all the cities I lived in looked like industrial un-off, not palatable or potable in many cases.
It's like a huge society of country folk who don't know much about the modern world just trying to survive using infrastructure that hasn't been around in the US since the 1800s, maybe early 1900s at the latest.
It's a huge mess of a place, and felt like stepping back in time. Think of all the domestic problems that could be solved without wasting $80 billion a year on crap military gear.
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When I heard him say they used to have to run 1.5 miles in 12 min, I realized how far we've come. I never ran 2 miles over 12min the whole time I was in the Army. 11min 54sec was 100% when I joined in 1993, then they lowered that to 12min 4sec if I recall.
SS Protection Detail physical fitness tests and standards were extremely difficult, including a lot of running, swimming, climbing, carries, lifting, visual acuity and responsiveness, intelligence screening, quick decision-making, marksmanship, combatives, extremely thorough background investigations, written and oral tests, things you would expect. Guys from my first unit were recruited into SS PPD since we worked with and near SS already in the DC area, and already had extensive background checks just to get into that unit.
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@magnusmoren2718 I'm not bashing, but trying to add the concepts of breadth, depth, accuracy, and completeness to the discussion. For Red Flag, no nation has ever sent their fighters to the exercise, then had them return home with any negative reports. It's always an opportunity for them to get large force exercise (LFE) training in a high threat environment, with lots of pressure on the maintenance, ordnance, and planning people as well in the campaign.
Gripen's early participation was unique in that they were incorporated with Red Air Aggressors, not Blue Air. Red Air normally humiliates Blue Air for the opening of campaign, then Blue Air has to figure out how to problem-solve and defeat the threats on their own.
Subsequent attendance by Swedish Air Force had Gripen C/Ds flying with Blue Air in the strike role, so SAF could get LASER-Guided Bomb delivery training that isn't available anywhere in Europe like it is in the Nellis Training Ranges, along with several other European allied partner nations.
If you see articles talking about how uniquely great the Gripen was in its Red Flag attendance, understand that this is more about national pride than systems capabilities.
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@johnelove4714 Australia has had numerous school shootings:
Orara High School, June 19, 1991- 2 teachers and 1 student shot
La Trobe University, Aug 3, 1999 - 1 killed, multiple injuries
Monash University, Oct 21, 2002 - 2 killed, 5 injured
Tomaree High School, April 3, 2003 - Fire bombs and a gun were used to seriously injure 2 students
Modbury High School, May 7, 2012 - student fired revolver at school
What sources are you using to say Australia doesn't have school shootings? I'm just curious.
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@fridrekr7510 Yes, I could argue it both ways since I’ve lived throughout Scandinavia and traveled the Nordic countries since 1979. I was explaining Zeehan’s perspective more than anything, since I’ve followed him since the 2000s when he was with STRATFOR.
From the fully-integrated economy and infrastructure of the American perspective, Scandinavia looks like city states. Zeihan is also probably referencing the differences in laws, customs, VAT taxes, language barriers within, let alone between the nations, and the effects of the the winter and summer climates and geography on movement of goods.
For example, in Finland, I can get from one part of a town deep in the interior to the town center much faster in the winter than the summer, because there are surveyed and signed roads across the frozen lakes, but this is only useful for mostly light residential traffic, not constant truck traffic for moving freight.
Even though Finland has a larger population than the US State where I live by 2 million, we have more emergency medical services, hospitals, clinics, universities, military infrastructure, and are connected to the rest of the US with the vast highway system, rail, and airports with a single language.
Finland is geographically isolated from Sweden due to the Gulf of Bothnia and the fact that Finland uses Russian rail line gauge tracks, which are much wider than in the rest of Europe, not that there’s a land bridge anyway.
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@michelangelobuonarroti4958 I respectfully don't accept your premises, after decades of experience and research in this field, to include living all over the US, Germany, and Finland.
After all that I have seen, especially the internal audits of NHS, and the conditions of hospitals, wait times, available procedures, and standards of care, I have never seen anything that shows superiority in Finland, with one exception (that is no longer the case): Labor and Delivery water birth option.
I have the choice of where to live since I have EU Citizenship through Finland. For me and my family, we choose to live in the US.
We have lived in Finland before, but much prefer the US for different reasons. We got quick and efficient care only when we went to the private sector in Finland. Public sector is a joke by US standards.
Even in the private sector, you have to get prescriptions for very common Over the Counter medications from Apteekki, whereas in any grocery store in the US, you can just buy them. Tylenol, aspirin, cremes, etc. Apteekki hours are very limited too, whereas I can get anything OTC basically around the clock in the US.
EMS is fast in the US, with far more Level 1-4 Trauma Centers per capita, more Fire/Ambulance, Life Flight, and PTLS-trained Paramedics and EMTs, more Automated External Defribulators distributed throughout buildings, and more trauma surgeons and nurses per capita.
European countries vary in quality/quantity dramatically in all of the above metrics, none of which are up to US standards, but are trying to reach the US.
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@justinpeck3667 As part of my DM Course curriculum, I show the actual performance differences between 18” SPR, 14.5”, and 12.5” with 77gr Mk.262. Optic and trigger are more important in practice than the barrel length. The longer barrel can be detrimental in most alternate positions because it doesn’t keep the weapon mass close to the body’s C of G. I don’t see myself ever buying anything longer than 12.5” for 5.56 NATO chamberings in the future.
If we really wanted better performance, they should have cut the neck down, moved the shoulder forward with a 30˚ angle on the .222 Remington case, and spit out a longer, higher BC bullet with a nice boat tail. Something like an 80gr VLD shape. That would have made a sick assault rifle, DM, and LMG load with superior supersonic reach to the 7.62x51. They were all about muzzle velocity brute force then, even though the knowledge was present in NATO and DoD to do better with projectile shaping from artillery and aerospace engineering circles.
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@gordonjohnson405 I was there from Feb ’96 to Feb ’97, and our BC was LTC Fuller when I got there, then LTC Milley. Fuller was a Grenada Ranger with old school scroll from 2/75, mustard stain, country boy, awesome BC. The best BC I ever had in all my time in the Army across 7 different units. We’d be out doing morning PT as a Recon Team and see this guy out running with his full ruck in OD Green Jungles by himself. It was LTC Fuller. He thrashed the new Lieutenants in the Currahee Club too. Made them low-crawl with their faces to the floor until they all had road rash from the carpets. It was beautiful.
I remember his Change of Command ceremony where he said, “Alright men. I believe speeches should be like miniskirts, the shorter the better! Pass and review! Currahee!” Then from one of the line companies, someone called out, “Dogpile on the Colonel!” So imagine the better part of all the EMs dog piling the BC in his change of command ceremony. Great Battalion.
All we did was train and I loved it. Milley was more reserved, sketchy-eyed, always sniffing the wind to see if what he was doing would be kosher for his career. He wasn’t particularly bad or good, just there. He signed off on our proposal to institute a Battalion DM program for the line companies that we ran out of the Scout Sniper Platoon, since our PL was prior service E-6/B4 and SOTIC Qual’d, Panama Vet and we had an ODA split team from Okinawa run a Sniper short course for us the summer of 1996.
We rarely got to go downrange south of the Imjin River. You had to have a liberty pass for either a day or overnight, and only a certain % of the Battalion could get them, so I could count the number of times I took that on maybe 2 hands. Some of my SPC4 mafia mates and I went down to see the Seoul War Museum, which was cool. The DMZ was really our home for the full year, with rare exceptions. We did MPRC and EIB south of the Imjin. Lots of incidents happened when I was there with Norks.
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@christieprince6991 He drove at well over 80mph in between Moselle and his mom’s house, as opposed to the other drives that averaged normal speeds, which looks like trying to make up for time to support his alibi.
Home assistant testified he was there about 20 minutes, not 45 minutes, after which she said “sorry” to him, as she could not support his alibi. She also testified that he asked her to say he had been there longer, and then asked her about her upcoming wedding, and if she had everything she needed for it, offering to help pay for anything not yet covered.
I think the word you’re looking for is “motive”. “Motif" is something we use in music, art, or literature. I don’t understand what “hike at the tune of the murders” means.
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@KungCrister Read the Finnish Air Force HX evaluation metrics and description of the tests they already conducted. It reads like an ad for the F-35 in every measured parameter. USAF, USMC, and UK have been doing dispersed and remote airstrip ops for years now. Why wouldn’t Finland be able to? Where are you seeing these kinds of statements?
USAF is buying new F-16s? USAF program of record for acquisition of F-16s ended in 2005. We were on the F-16 program at Edwards, and I’m more familiar with the Viper than any other aircraft in the inventory. You might have mistaken the F-16V Block 70 FMS contracts for Bulgaria, Singapore, Bahrain, and Taiwan. Those are strictly FMS. There won’t be any new F-16s purchased by the USAF. That ship sailed long ago.
Why wouldn’t the US allow another foreign country to conduct maintenance on their fighters like every other nation with JSF does? Finland will be surrounded by JSF partners in Norway, Denmark, Poland, Italy (European F-35A assembly line is there), Belgium, UK, and Switzerland. Maintenance and logistics are part of the HX contract, where manufacturers have to provide a certain % of domestic manufacturing shares in the customer nation.
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Da Uberbunny: Study some critical thinking standards before making an argument, because yours is full of fallacies. Russia's actions are not the direct result of US actions. Russia's actions are a direct result of Russia's curse of expansion and contraction with her neighboring peoples, since Russia has no significant geographic barriers between her and her neighbors that aren't easily bypassed.
Internally, Russia goes through cycles of weakness and strength, based solely on the ability to maintain security on her borders with an expensive military complex. Once she spends her resources on securing the periphery, the internal economy collapses, then the neighbors re-assert themselves, and the process repeats.
With the increasing military capacity of bordering nations, Russia's ability to project power is extremely limited, forcing the cycle to resonate off the interior with even more pressure than in the past, while the rest of the world watches and cuts even more trade off with Russia for her belligerence. It's a matter of geography, not internet evil for Russian people.
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@soulsphere9242 There’s quite a difference between multirole and omnirole. Multirole fighters can be configured for limited A2A and A2G capes for the same mission, or lean on one over the other and go execute that primary mission set. They have extremely limited profiles outside of A2A and A2G.
Omnirole fighters can switch mission sets within the same sortie between 3 different profiles while providing high capability in each of them. There are different levels of Omnirole starting with the Rafale as a 4.5 Gen baseline, then moving into 5th Gen. 5th Gen by nature are Omnirole, starting with the F-22A. JSF are kings of the hill in that space with far more mission set options than the Rafale or Raptor.
Rafale later standards F3R and F4 can execute a very lethal offensive counter-air BVR A2A set while carrying LGBs or long-range stand-off weapons for A2G, switch to the A2G set and deliver precision munitions, and do self-protection electronic attack. They can’t execute a deep penetration mission into the WEZ because they don’t have VLO and they are limited in their data link connectivity relative to Emissions Control since they have Wide Area Network data link signatures.
F-22A combat-coded Raptors can do:
Deep penetration strike into the WEZ like an F-117A, only with very formidable EW for self-protection
Offensive EW to lead strike packages through the perimeter defense radar nets, deliver precision A2G weapons
VLO Offensive Counter-Air with extreme prejudice air dominance, threat air platform eradication operations (kill everything you see that is thread PID)
VLO Defensive Counter-Air, which is an unfair intercept set against any poor fighters who try to attack strikers violating defender's airspace
Airborne Warning & Control of coalition aircraft inside the threat area, including Bomb Damage Assessment with Radar Ground-Mapping, reallocation of strikers to new TGTs, guiding strikers around threat WEZ/MEZ
JSF can do all of the above and more, including:
VLO anti-ship mission set
Anti-Submarine Warfare
Theater Ballistic Missile Defense
More options for offensive Electronic Warfare
Multinational Networked Airspace and Battlespace Management
Cyber Attack
Multispectral ISR that rivals most dedicated spy planes (AESA ground-mapping fused with EOTS and DAS IR systems, data-linked with other JSF)
Over The Horizon Targeting for sea and land-based fires (providing targets for Navy cruise missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, and Army/USMC precision-guided artillery)
You start to see the massive distinction between legacy Multirole Fighters and true Omnirole Combat Systems.
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@MrTangolizard Over the past 18 months of actual trench warfare in Ukraine, how much evidence of bayonet work have you seen?
US and UK don't fight that way. We're on the offense with Net-Centric Air-Land Battle with Air Power as the main effort, followed by long-range precision fires, artillery, mortars, IFV main guns, turret and co-ax belt-feds, anti-armor and shoulder-fired explosives munitions, then dismounted crew-served belt-feds and snipers, LMGs, grenade launchers, then Joe with his pea shooter to sift through the grayed-out carcasses in the rubble.
There is literally no role for a bayonet in the 21st Century, and it was already marginalized to insignificance in WWII.
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@chasefreedom5178 Have you ever modeled multiple Radar station basing on a 3D surface of the earth before? One of the problems that will immediately be seen is the horizon obscures connectivity between stations.
Another problem is that VLO technology is a lot more advanced than people think. What little RF is deflected in a totally different direction is typically 90˚ or more away from any emitter/receiver origins, even in a net.
Most of the energy is not reflected, but absorbed.
If these types of systems actually worked, they would make life that much harder for any legacy airframe design. That’s why literally every single fighter and drone design right now has at least extensive LO, many attempting to be VLO, and US ones actually VLO.
The head-start the US has had since the 1950s on VLO technology places the US in an unfair advantage against other nations’ industries.
F-22 tooling was put in storage. I know the people who ordered that to happen, despite what they were told to do by Gates and comrade Obama White House.
Even though there are traitors woven all throughout the US hierarchy, patriots still get a vote in what they do.
F-4 climb rate exceeded all fighters at the time, so it had more than a few tricks. F-4’s were not lost because of a lack of a gun. F-4’s were mainly lost to SAMs going up North. Pretty much everything people think about what happened in SEA is incomplete at best, erroneous more the norm.
Of the 3 USAF F-4 variants, guess which ones had the most gun kills. (Choose one)
A. F-4C
B. F-4D
C. F-4E (M61 internal 20mm gun built-in, production started in 1967)
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@chasefreedom5178 F-22A was killed before we could go into Full-Rate Production with the assembly line and subcontractor streams open. This was ordered by SECDEF Gates and 2 White Houses, both of whom were compromised as assets to Russia and China, with evidence in their defense dealings through various family members. (Neil Bush, Hunter Biden, James Biden).
The F-22A was going to be deployed with permanent basing in UK, Central Europe, and the Pacific with around 200 Raptors in each of those theaters, then multiple Wings along both US coasts to be able to plus-up Europe and Pacific theater units as part of the Rapid Deployment Forces structure.
That would give theater commanders the ability to erase with extreme prejudice, any Air Force in those regions with nothing that could be done to stop it with any of the existing or planned IADS platforms in either Chinese or Russian inventories.
This is why the Chinese and Russians leaned so hard on their paid moles within the upper levels of US government to kill the Raptor, while they worked hard on trying to develop answers to it with the PAK-FA and J-20 programs.
Had the Raptor line remained open, it would be getting the 5.5 Gen + RAM currently being used on the JSF airframes, newer sensors, PCD cockpits, HMDS helmets, with much lower unit flyaway costs due to mass-production of 750 airframes.
It’s a strategic system disguised as a tactical one, that was never meant to be strategic. The technology sets combined have pushed the airframes into another category by nature of the rapidly-changing capabilities of the individual sciences morphing together.
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@jlvandat69 I only know Ecuadorian immigrants to the US, not anyone from the US who is even thinking about moving to Ecuador. Immigration stats seem to magnify the anecdotes, not contradict them.
I could live in Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, etc. The security and opportunities, as well as healthcare and taxes all favor the US, and it isn’t even close. I have lived in several of those places and love Europe, but I don’t like government getting involved with my personal healthcare decisions or those for my family. That should only be between me and the doctors, and who is paying.
We don’t have universal home, car, or life insurance, but responsible people spend trillions on those financial products each year in the US. We don’t need anyone else getting involved. This is why I and many others see government involvement in healthcare as a form of control.
2020-present has only confirmed those suspicions.
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@benghazi4216 Volvo Flygmotor assembled British and US subassemblies under license. They have never been able to produce the critical core technology required for HPHT turbine blades and modules. It's much more difficult to conquer that metallurgy than anything in the space program, for example. It involves extremely exclusive materials science and production techniques.
Since my family are Swedish-speaking Finns and Swedes on my mom's side, no, I'm not someone who you can pigeon-hole into a myopic ignorant US perspective. Forget about nationality and look only at the industrial capacity.
Sweden can't produce GaN TRMs in sufficient quantity to meet US Mil-Std for that. GaN SC technology in production volume is only a recent breakthrough in a small sector ot the market.
Typhoon CAPTOR-E Mk.II has far greater demand than any Gripen E orders, and is only getting half of the TRMs in GaN, the other half in legacy GaA.
The US literally pioneered, fielded, and continues to field incremental improvements with Long Range BVRAAMs. We're not catching up to anyone.
AIM-54C held the previous successful longest range intercepts until AIM-120D broke that record recently.
Meanwhile, total crickets on LR engagements on maneuvering drones with Meteor. Europe collectively can't afford to shoot live anywhere near the volume USAF does, let alone USN and USMC.
Sweden isn't even a player on that space.
As to data links, again, US NORAD SAGE system on the F-101, F-102, and F-106 predates the Draken by several years, and Draken received US Hughes fire control systems and US missiles at the time to fulfill the Swedish AF Air Defense Intercept mission profile.
Swedish AF's data link network was a simplified and scaled-down model of SAGE, so Sweden could afford it.
Everything you see in the Swedish aerospace fan community about these things is very glossy propaganda, void of the timeline and facts.
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@Mnecrafter99 We had far more instability in the 1960s after the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK and the Vietnam War protests. Take a look at France, Germany, UK, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Spain, Russia, and China just for starters if you want modern examples of political, economic, and military instability.
France has had massive and sustained protests under Macron, while their immigration problem and taxation are too much for French citizens to bear, especially with low birth rates.
Germany has a Manchurian candidate East German communist at the helm, while brining in unchecked numbers of immigrants who will never integrated into the German society, and can't maintain basic readiness or availability rates with critical military systems. Low birth rates plague Germany as well.
The UK Prime Minister just resigned in the face of massive internal opposition within the government, to the will of the people for Brexit from the EU. Low birth rates are another factor in the cultural shifts in the UK.
Sweden is committing cultural suicide with mass immigration of people who will never integrate into Swedish culture and society. They also suffer from low birth rates.
Finland's government just resigned because they can't solve the massive problems within their NHS nightmare. Finland has had major problems with birth rates dating back decades.
Italy is suffering from massive debt crises in their banking sector, as well as low birth rates among Italians.
Spain unemployment rates have been near depression-level around the time of the global financial crisis, and are still some of the highest in Europe, though having come down.
Russia's economy has been in the toilet since the price of oil has dropped, they have major internal leadership voids in the regions, and they're about to see major downturns in their Foreign Military Sales markets as their weapons are humiliated further.
But the US is on the verge of erupting?
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@Aspen51 1. Both F-22A and JSF series are Omnirole, not multi-role. They can swing from Electronic Attack (mission of dedicated jets like the EF-111A, EA-6B, EA-18G) to penetration strike (like the F-117A only better), to Airborne Early Warning and Control (Like E-3 and E-2), to constant ISR (like a mix between a U-2R and a Reaper drone), to Offensive Counter-Air (looking for enemy aircraft to destroy), to Defensive Counter Air (preventing enemy fighters from attacking your people/places), to CAS.
2. Every nation flying F-35s is using a working aircraft, 9 of them already having declared and met Initial Operating Capability, several of them already using it in combat as we speak. (IAF, USMC, USAF, UK). Moreover, for the first time in air combat history, multiple nations are flying and operating different airframes from different services using a common avionics interface and networked communications that allow even Americans and Brits to finally understand each other...
3. JSF isn’t “a project”. It’s multiple projects with 3 different airframes, for well over a dozen air forces, with 3 major final assembly lines and thousands of manufacturers disbursed globally. There is no project to compare it with to provide any baseline reference of what to expect, and the numbers you see thrown around by imitation journalists are without any relevant experience or understanding of the entire subject of military aviation, procurement, or integrated systems technology.
Every modern fighter and every fighter dating back to WWI has been chasing the first-look, first shoot rabbit all along. Every fighter ace achieved most of their A2A victories with what you call “sucker punches”. The idea that you would purposely look for an even fight means you have a loser’s mindset, looking for how you can lose intentionally, which is insane from a military standpoint.
About 95% of what the F-35 variants can do is not advertised, and it has been under-advertised, kept close to the vest all along, with disinformation leaked (F-16D “dogfight” for example). It’s far more capable of what has been advertised, and they don’t like it when some of the key novel capabilities become apparent.
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@amandaoutlaw1349 They're saying Biden now has 78 million votes, while Trump has 74 million. Trump had 62 million in 2016, and there is no ballot down-vote following Biden-quite the opposite with more Republicans picking up a lot of House Seats.
Keep in mind Obama got 69 million votes in 2008, then dropped to 65.9 million in 2012.
What you're burdened with convincing people to believe is that an incumbent President who surged with 120% more votes than 4 years ago, who has a ballot down-vote trail of evidence in House Seats picked-up, got legitimately beat by the most uninspiring, low-energy, messageless, clueless, gaffe machine candidate the DNC ever ran.
You can understand why over 74 million people are demanding the States that all leaned Trump on election night, somehow flipped to Biden over the next few days, with evidence abound of ballot stuffing, throwing out Trump ballots, Venezuelan company voting machines in the States in-question, and election monitors denied access to ballot counting/certification all over.
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They advertised the F-16 as an affordable lightweight multirole fighter at single digit million unit cost. Then it was a $16 million unit cost, not including ECM, FLIR, or weapons upgrades. Most NATO Vipers flying today have gone through several SLEP or MLU upgrade programs, some of which cost tens of millions each just for the MLU. One of the MLUs was $37 million per bird. The laundry list of upgrades they did with MLU is substantial, basically replacing as many internal systems with Block 50-like systems. They took 2,500 man hours per bird, or about 5 months of work. So if the initial purchasing cost of the F-16A airframe was $16 million back in the early 1980s, several upgrades were made along the way, many out of necessity for safety and constant TCTOs, then you do the MLU for $37 million, not including any pods, then convert to 2021 dollars...
$37 million MLU unit upgrade cost in 1997 converted to 2021 dollars = $60.3 million
$16 million in 1982 in 2021 dollars = $43.37 million
Not including FLIR, ECM, decoy pylons, etc. and you have European F-16As flying today that are $103.6 million airplanes.
The “cheap” marketing strategy of the F-16 definitely holds true if you compared it to doing the same thing with the twin-engined F-4 that a lot of nations flew. Most of the F-16 nations flew F-104G Starfighters or F-5As prior to that, and wanted something with capability to defeat the Soviets as the new wave of upgraded MiG-23MFs and emerging MiG-29s hit the stage.
But the F-16 has been anything but “cheap”, as you can see. We haven’t even started talking about missiles.
A $77.9 million unit cost F-35A is exponentially more capable than any F-16 MLU, which is why you see so many traditional MSIP partner nation Vipers being replaced with F-35As.
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@Jakob Heinrich F-35A large order just broke $71 million per aircraft, and can do CAS better than the A-10C will ever be able to. I've called in A-10As for CAS, as well as Vipers, and know how bad it sucks to wait for a 285kt slow poke airframe to get to you, vs a fast-mover. F-15Es do CAS much better if you have Troops In Contact that need help NOW, not waiting for 15-45 minutes for them to get to you. An F-35A can get to you within 3-7 minutes over the same distances, depending on whether he needs to take off, or divert from an ISR or other mission profile pattern.
JTACS who have worked with everything else and are now working with F-35s on live CAS missions say the amount of SA the F-35 gives them about things around them before they even get there is mind-blowing. They are also able to put precision munitions on enemy TGTs in the area from over the horizon, at night, through bad weather faster than a Strike Eagle or B-1B can, with far superior sensor data about the TGT and the area, while minimizing collateral damage and blue-on-blue.
Everything everyone said about the F-35 not being able to do CAS like an A-10 was true, but in ways they didn't realize. It smokes the A-10C at CAS without even needing to get down into the weeds within MANPADS or AAA range.
A-10C re-wing is a very costly program, with recent awards to Boeing August 23rd to the tune of $999 million, after they got a $1.1 billion re-wing contract in 2007. The original manufacturer of the A-10, Fairchild, hasn't been a company in decades.
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@firestarter8202 Finland bought a combination of Soviet MiG-21s and Swedish J-35 Draken fighters during the Cold War, lots of T-72 tanks and other Russian weapons, domestic-produced rifles, Russian SVDs, British ships, mine-layers, and hovercraft.
Their navy is tiny. Their Air Force consists of 55 F/A-18Cs, 7 F/A-18D trainers, 1 EW bird, 11 small transports, less than 1000 BVRAAMs, 630 Sidewinders, 70 JASSM stealth cruise missiles (launched from F/A-18).
Their Army has over 1500 armored vehicles, 700 towed artillery, 80+ self propelled artillery, 75 MLRS, scores of UAVs, over 340 SAMs-all of which are NATO in origin (they work).
The Finnish military training system emphasizes technical competence and small unit leadership skills, so creativity and lower-level problem-solving are the focus.
The active reserves train very regularly and have done so for many decades. They are very quiet, cool-headed, and calm. Those are extremely dangerous opponents to have in a fight.
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@aviationaerospacechannel5987 IR spectrum is very limited based on conditions especially. US maintained IRST on the F-101B Voodoo, F-102A, F-106A, F-4B, F-4C, TISEO on the F-4E, then didn't use it on the F-15A-D, F-16, F/A-18, but did on the F-14D.
I've done fairly detailed analysis on current IRSTs with the math across all the altitude bands, air densities, temperatures, and TGT size/velocity/presentations. Not all airborne TGTs are created equally in IR spectrum. Once you go supersonic, you significantly increase your initial detection range to the latest threat IRST sensors.
Stay subsonic and it significantly decreases the detection range and PID, making your Radar and passive RF sensors far more valuable for these tasks.
ATF was supposed to have AIRST, but it was cut due to cost spiraling, and JSF of course has EOTS fused with DAS and the RF sensor suite.
It's one thing to detect a small fighter-sized TGT, and something entirely different to PID it. PID generally comes from RADAR, whereas JSF use all their sensors in a web with each other to PID in either passive or LPI active modes generally speaking.
IFF on the latter 3 teen series with the C models and MLUs was far more operationally-relevant for the time compared to the F-4, especially since they had RF spectrum NCTR capability for BVR.
The F/A-18C was more capable in that respect at BVR than an F-14A/B, even with the TCS on the F-14. TCS like TISEO and previous IRSTs were more ideal for PID on large bombers when slaved to the fighter Radar. The tiny window of time available to PID via legacy IRST was extremely limited compared to fire control Radar track combined with AIFF and NCTR features all in RF spectrum.
F-15C and F/A-18C had NCTR prior to Desert Storm. We were working on it at Edwards in the late 1980s for F-16C Block 30G, which never got implemented until Block 50 in production.
So the late 1980s gave the later teen fighters and F-14D a dual-check NCTR/AIFF capability for at least 2 parameters in RF spectrum.
F-35 in IOC had 638 parameters in comparison, while it has extensive IR VLO features.
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@extraacct478 Considering how many generations we've been working on VLO technologies, I wouldn't be surprised if they've tackled multi-bandwidth RF better than most can imagine on JSF.
When we were on B-1B CTF, they kept the LO features very hush, even from people working on it. Turns out the frontal RCS is smaller than a Viper, which is impressive. I'm not aware of any effort to employ LO on the B-1A, and the podded nacelle configuration changed when they dropped the Mach 2+ requirement, favoring non LoS intake ductwork arrangement to protect the low pressure stage from direct cavity resonance.
There's a retired career F-16 FWS Instructor who interviewed dozens of F-35A pilots. They said they can't see each other outside of WVR, but are tracking Low Earth Orbit satellites when they look up.
Both F-35 and F-22 pilots report that F-35s are defeating Raptors in Large Force Exercises because of their sensors since 2017.
I think the Chinese are farther ahead in LO after the Clintons, Bushes, and Obama/Biden/Hillary gave them access to stuff they had no business even knowing about.
One of our friends on B-2 CTF said he was ordered to give access to the cockpit to a female Chinese intelligence officer at ED in the 1990s.
She went up in there like a Japanese tourist with her camera. He asked her, "Why is this so interesting to you?"
Her: "To use against you, of course!"
Bushes are surprisingly-sinophile as well. Neil merged his US Defense Aerospace Holdings firm with his Chinese real estate front in 2019.
People at those levels sell access to technology we developed over decades for our defense, and they're selling it to our enemies.
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Russia has invaded more nations since 1990 than America has in the past century. Russia has murdered more of its own citizens and civilian neighbors, only topped by China, dwarfing even Hitler by a huge factor.
To come to the conclusion that the US is even comparable to Russia is pure ignorance of history, to the insult of the families of tens of millions of people in Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Afghanistan...you get to the point where you have to start a research project just to get a grasp on all the nations Russia has invaded, raped, plundered, and used for Russia's peripheral buffer zone for security, since Russia has no significant land borders to protect her from border disputes.
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@samuellatta6774 Norway says it costs them 11,000 Euros/hour to operate, maintain, replace spares, fuel, and pay personnel for their F-16AMs. Saab’s H-X Manager for Gripen E/F said that the Swedish Air Force CPFH is also roughly 11,000 euros, but that they don’t know how much the larger, more complex, heavier, more internal fuel capacity Gripen E/F will cost. He said he and the engineers at Saab think it should be about the same.
If someone is telling you F-16s cost 40% more to operate than Gripen E, they are highly-uninformed.
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Most of what he said has been known since the 1950s, with hundreds of pilots, engineers, police, doctors, and witnesses who are trained observers. They have been reporting visual and radar contacts since at least 1947.
Where he misses the boat is terrestrial experimentation with Nikola Tesla's theories on electrogravitic propulsion, which really started in the 1920s and 1930s.
Either he isn't being forthright in discussing the applied physics of electrogravitics research here on earth, or he was kept in the dark about it all these years as part of the ET narrative.
When you generate your own extremely high electromagnetic field enough to lift you away from another massive gravitational body, you have your own 1g constant.
The reference to the structural limits of the F-16 or human physiology are not relevant, because the g is constant for you in the vehicle. This is not aerodynamics, but electromagnetism and gravitational manipulation.
Several black USAP sectors of industry and military (not only in the US, but in Russia, Japan, France, Germany, UK, China, and the major industrialized nations) have been working on electrogravitic propulsion throughout most of the 20th Century.
Russia even offered to sell one of their vehicles in 1997 and this was shown openly on TV. It was a black orb-shaped craft with pointed nose. Then the story went away. This was during implementation of Nunn-Lugar financing and de-nuclearization of former Soviet states.
Anyway, if you have basic mastery of control systems with electrogravitic propulsion, you can perform all of the maneuvers we've seen dating back decades with zero felt g forces by the crew.
The pyramid-shaped UAPs even had navigation lights in compliance with air traffic regulations. That was sure considerate of our alien invaders.
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@EricIrl Yes. NASA, DARPA, USAF, USN, DERA, & NATO nations all conduct research continually.
A lot of that combined research often materializes into a new system. A great example of this is the JSF program and the developmental technologies that fed into it.
USAF Flight Dynamics Laboratory sponsored the AFTI F-16 program in 1978, which incorporated digital flight controls, independent axis maneuvering, voice command and touch screen interface, helmet-mounted sight that slaved FLIR / radar, etc. for future fighters.
In the UK, they tackled the solution to instability on VSTOL with the VAAC Harrier out of Cranfield Research Center and the Defense Evaluation Research Agency, which laid the foundation for JSF-B digital flight controls in STOVL mode that transferred over to the X-35B and F-35B.
Companies like Northrop have sponsored their own research and testing with flying wings, as well as the F-5G/F-20A.
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@Stephenvguerra I've been in the US MIC since the 1970s. We have more missile lines open, more fighter lines open than anyone, a next gen Stealth bomber in production, drones from space down to micro level, rocket motors, warheads, superior streamlined guidance systems, and an extensive OT&E infrastructure that's unparalleled. The systems all work better than the legacy ones from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
The amount of explosive material and sorties or fires we expended for effects back then exceeded what we can do now with one sortie or one fire mission.
The other thing most people don't realize is that as the Europeans cut production capacity across the board, the US became the default arms supplier for them and a lot of their former customers. So any statements about reduced capacity in the US don't align with the actual deliveries I've witnessed over the past 50 years. I track FMS contracts regularly for aerospace and missiles primarily. It's the opposite of what you're portraying.
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@fahadkelantan So again, without being privileged to how things actually work in a squadron, it’s very easy to read reports and think that FMC means what it says it does. A 90% FMC F-16C is not an actual FMC bird if its ECM pod and LANTIRN Pod (at that time) don’t work. A 1988-1991 90% FMC F-16C without an ECM pod is a limited capability fighter that can’t go near even "low-threat” mobile IADS platforms in Kuwait for the opening of ODS. They were just barely getting LANTIRN at the time and LANTIRN Targeting pods were priority delivered to F-15E community in ODS for the Scud-hunter mission in the West Desert. We worked on both of them before and during ODS at Edwards integrating these systems, so this is where I’m coming from and trying to steer you into reality. You will never see any of this written in Gulf War Air Power Survey, (which I have spent years studying BTW). The most-capable weapons platform in ODS relevant to FLIR/LST-guided LGBs was the F-111F.
Your argument is that late 1980s F-15Cs and F-16Cs maintained a higher FMC/MC rate than 2020 F-35As. This would be like saying the dollar was worth more in 1991 than it is today (also true, but not Complete or Relevant). A lot of your problems would be solved if you took a formal critical thinking course and then spent about 5-10 years studying US Air Power, complete with engineering studies.
Break rates and FMC/MC rates are 2 different things. I can have a 100% UP bird pre-sortie come back with some kind of failure, so there is a break-rate there. Depending on how fast that is repaired or corrected will affect FMC/MC, but it isn’t break-rate. F-35As have the lowest break-rates, as reported by the actual operational squadrons.
A Block 30 or 40 F-16C of that ODS era is not anywhere close to be an operationally-relevant fighter today since those didn’t have any of the CCIP upgrades invested in them at the time. Again, you wouldn’t know this looking at all those reports, but F-16Cs are not even called that anymore in operational squadrons, and have undergone 2 official nomenclature revisions from F-16C to F-16CJ to F-16CM, when talking about Block 40, 42, 50, and 52 Vipers in USAF. Their primary mission set is D-SEAD, taking out enemy SAM sites and radars on the ground. Secondary mission sets are DCA, OCA, Strike, CSAR, and CAS.
If they don’t have their Radar GMT/GMTT mode functioning in addition to all the A2A modes, HARM Targeting Pod able to locate threat RF emitters, LITENING FLIR pods working, or centerline ECM pod UP, they aren’t actual FMC for D-SEAD. That same bird could show up at 100% FMC on the squadron maintenance officer report, while the separate shops that never get reported would have the pods all down. Each pod has a separate shop that has never shown up in any FMC/MC rates by DoD.
Now let’s assume that all of those systems are actually UP and ready to launch, full weapons suite is GTG, bird tracked an average of 92% FMC over 1 year. You will never get the whole Squadron 92% FMC with all the pods, not even if the aircraft were brand-new. This is the biggest omission from FMC/MC rates. The ones you can read OSINT are almost meaningless, unless your only concern is about the airframes without attached combat systems.
A 70% F-35A still has far greater capabilities in terms of operational relevance that can be used by its squadron than that Viper will ever have, no matter how many modifications, millions sunk into it, and new systems are added to it. Each CCIP Viper in USAF currently has well over $103 million sunk into just the airframe, but you never see that reported because it isn’t reported.
The USAF Viper fleet consists of several different types of F-16C/D production Blocks, broken down into 2 main groups:
F-16C/D Block 30/32 are non-operational squadron Vipers, primarily used as aggressors at Nellis AFB and other locations for Large Force Exercises. They have zero FLIR, HARM Targeting, or AIFF capabilities and have older APG-68(V) Radars sufficient for emulating Russian threat.
F-16C/D Block 40/42/50/52 are actually F-16CMs brought up to CCIP standard with full HARM, AIFF, GPS, JDAM, FLIR/LST Pod, and APG-68(V)9 Radars (currently being upgraded to SABR AESA Radars for 350 CCIP Vipers), along with Auto-GCAS. These are the actual operational squadron Vipers that get used overseas, while the Block 30/32s will never go feet-wet again in their careers.
None of this shows up in the USAF fleet FMC/MC rates, just an average of the rates for airframe/engine only regardless if they are low-capability/non-deployable older Block jets, versus newer ones. The newer CCIP Vipers have brought the FMC/MC rates down in many ways because they have more things to go wrong with them, even without the attached pods. Their Radar mode and AIFF capabilities alone invite more fault opportunities when they are tested.
With F-35s, you can’t hide any of this because of all of those types of systems are integrated into the airframe. If the EOTS doesn’t work, that’s a non-FMC F-35 but still MC. Here’s where it gets interesting though. That same F-35A with a down EOTS is more capable at using IR spectrum sensors for targeting than the full-up F-16CM is with all of its pods working, because that F-35 gets interleaved sensor data from its wingmen and its other 6 IR sensors fused through its brain, so the pilot still sees the same targeting cueing for his weapons.
Everything I’m telling is real-deal ground truth regarding these programs, that you could never read or find in a DoD report because the people compiling the reports don’t see it from the squadron-level and actual air planner perspectives. They can compile and regurgitate raw numbers, but they don’t mean anything unless you really know what you’re looking at. If you talked to maintenance officers who oversee all the things I’m telling you, they will confirm the truth therein.
High threat WEZs are public information due to modern civilian satellite capabilities, if you know what you’re looking at. You don’t fly near them in any 4.5 Gen fighter unless you want a double digit SAM volley headed your way with multiple guidance methods being employed. Meanwhile, “unidentified” aircraft make strikes deep within Syria on a regular basis.
And finally, notice how you took this to a personal level without being even the least-informed from actual experience with these programs, and have called me a racist, conspiratorial cult member, fascist, like a WWII era dictator, etc. It doesn’t matter if I was all those things or not, they have nothing to do with the facts being discussed. Either the factual claims I have made are real, or they aren’t. Since they are based on the better part of 5 decades in the aerospace and defense industry (not Lockheed) with very specific knowledge relevant to the programs being discussed, you might want to consider what I’m saying and step back before getting ahead of yourself in a field you have zero relevant knowledge or experience in. Please, by all means be skeptical of everything I say, but be prepared to learn that everything I’m saying is actually correct and the things you’re concluding are simply erroneous and not well-supported at all.
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@Melior_Traiano Who is saber-rattling? You can increase European defense-spending all you want, but capacity to manufacture advanced systems needed to be invested in 30-40 years ago, when European Parliaments slashed it. Did you know that none of few the big European nations (who actually have a jet engine industry) have reached late-1980s US capability with fighter turbofans? The US is 2 generations ahead in fighter engines, working on the next generation already.
Same for Radars. Only France put an AESA in their Rafale, unlike Germany/UK/Italy/Spain with the Typhoon. Typhoons in NATO are still flying around with mechanically-scanned arrays. Germany and UK keep having meetings about funding it, called CAPTOR-E. Typhoon in 1980s tech.
If Europe wants to buy more advanced weapons systems, it will need to spend more money with US firms, like Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, etc. There are no European equivalents.
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@KondorDCS Why would 2x F-22As not be able to slay 12-16 F-15s for sport? Each F-22A carries 8x AAMs internally, as well as a gun. The M61 20mm Vulcan can saw a plane in half with an unobserved set-up. Valid missile shots are determined based on real-world shoot-downs of maneuvering target drones, all of which are currently better airframes than threat air, since they’re QF-16Cs. They purposely make it hard for missiles to hit live targets in missile testing and validation exercises, including employment of countermeasures that replicate the latest threat profiles.
Why would you think the Strike Eagle could put up a better fight than a C Model? Strike Eagles don’t specialize in A2A. F-15C only do A2A. Strike Eagles are notorious grapes for the picking even in 4th Gen on 4th Gen, always have been. In initial F-22A tactics development, the test pilots (all of whom were high hour F-15C WIC grads/instructors with tons of experience), they were never observed by any F-15Cs or F-16Cs during the exercises out of Nellis. F-22As flew out of Edwards in 2-ships, and tried every intercept profile they could think of to see how well they worked.
F-15 guys asked them if they were just sitting back at ED calling shots over the radio. “No, check your 6 one mile out.” was the response. It was a paradigm shift in fighter technology when they did those exercises, because it didn’t matter how good of an F-15C driver you were.
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@Drew Peacock Red Flag is a heavy ECM, decoy, etc. environment lasting weeks. Look at the attending units and ask yourself why so many electronic warfare aircraft attend, and have been doing so since the 1970s when it started. For AIM-120 validation shots, there is a massive ACMI network that shows very detailed flight data of all the participants and is reviewed doing and after each sortie in a large briefing theater with giant screens.
When another fighter doesn’t know it’s being targeted, and flies along with no threat warning, then a missile impacts it because it wasn’t maneuvering, it’s very easy to validate those kinds of shots.
Probability of Kill with the F-35 is higher than any other fighter because it has better detection and tracking options, even compared with the F-22. It can set up into No Escape Zone parameters and separate missiles with more brutal Time of Flight compression than pretty much anybody else, and you won’t know why you died.
Fighters that maneuver to evade are constrained to the 4th Gen mutual detection scenario, which does not apply to F-22s and F-35s.
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@GreenBlueWalkthrough You need a lot of radars to survive the initial slaughter from cruise and stand-off missiles. If you’re referring to the ADS-B stunt that Hensoldt did, no. Let’s pretend that you link a vast network of radars together, and now you fire a missile at what you thought was a valid radar track against an unidentified TGT that decided to not use any of its next generation EW suite against you. As your SAMs get closer to the unidentified TGT, talk yourself through the applied radar physics of a narrow seeker head working in high X-band and how it will detect the target for terminal phase guidance.
Once you realize that doesn’t work, talk yourself trying to apply one of the other missile guidance modes, again assuming that no Digital Waveform Manipulation is happening from the hapless fighter. If you say IR seeker, now go and do some research on the IR signature reduction measures on JSF.
If you say CLOS guidance, how will the ground controllers know when it’s time to detonate? You’ll start to understand how insidious VLO technology is, and that it goes far beyond what you might have expected.
Most of the 4th Gen fighters can out-maneuver the F-16 in several regimes of flight. F-15 out-classes it across the board above FL250. Hornet has always had way better nose authority. Tomcat could out-turn it across the flight regime but would lose the vertical fight. Typhoon and Rafale can rape the Viper across the regime at all altitudes. MiG-29 had better nose authority like a Hornet, but better acceleration than a Hornet.
This is all with slick airframes, which nobody has ever employed the Viper with really. In USAF, they’re always carrying EFTs, ECM pods, FLIR, pylons, mission-relevant weapons on only 2 stations 4 & 6, and can’t jettison the ECM pod, SNIPER or LITENING POD, or HARM Targeting Pod on F-16CMs. Even if you E-Jett the HARMS or GBUs and 2x 370 Gal EFTs, you’re stuck with all the pylons, centerline ECM, multimillion dollar FLIR and HARM pods. Ever see one of those do BFM? Not so maneuverable anymore.
Meanwhile, an F-35A with full internal weapons can smoke a relatively clean Viper that the USAF and allies will never fly on real missions that way. Even with older, lighter Block 30 Vipers that basically are BFM machines. There are some very good and detailed accounts of this from high hour Norwegian Viper pilots who are now flying F-35As. Even when the F-35A was limited to 3i flight control laws with 7g restrictions, they were humiliating Red Air in no-holds barred BFM. F-35A is now 9g rated.
The F-35A behaves more like a mix of the Viper and Hornet in BFM, with the positives of both, without the weakness of them. F-16 weakness is ITR, whereas Hornet is STR. F-35A has ITR like a Hornet, and can energy-fight like a Viper. Moreover, the pilot doesn’t lose sight in numeral merges, perch defensive, line abreast butterfly, scissors, or hi-lo merges because of the DAS and helmet. A lot of new pilots immediately lose the fight in neutral merges because they aren’t accustomed to quickly gaining rear quadrant field of view and acquisition of their opponent. With the F-35 DAS and helmet, a new pilot has a considerable advantage over a more experienced pilot right out of the gate.
Again, this doesn’t matter because everyone and their poor nation brother is using helmet-cued HOBS missiles, many of which have over-the-shoulder Lock After Launch capability. So fighter pilots have been avoiding merges as a rule for decades now primarily because of that and the layer of BVR missiles they can expect to face before that.
F-35 just sees all well before anything can get close to it, unless you have equal or better stealth, which not even the Raptor has. The Fox 2 HOBS fight in JSF is unfair since F-35 IR signature from all aspects is extremely cold, so any IR seeker missile and helmet-cueing don’t work even WVR.
In a crowded battlespace, the number of TGTs falling from the sky within the first hour will be alarming to the threat forces, while their air bases are simultaneously destroyed with no divert airfields for them to recover on. Israelis have already used EW features in the F-35I to misdirect Syrian SAM units to shoot-down a Russian dedicated Electronic Warfare aircraft and all its crew. This is after Syrians using S-200 and S-300 IADS have fired over 100 SAMs into the air hoping to connect with F-35s, while the F-35s destroy those SAM sites in quick retaliation and suffer no losses.
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@aritakalo8011 In modern warfare, the pace of operations happens much faster than Talvisota and Jaktosota, and Finland currently possesses offensive capabilities that shift the penalties of Russian first strike courses of action unfavorably on them.
A protracted Russian Air campaign would have to gamble with the destruction of their regional air force bases and critical population center of Saint Petersburg, which are all currently within range of F/A-18C and JASSM. Finland was the first foreign nation to get JASSM.
It is more difficult to maintain the Hornet from dispersed airfields than it is even the JSF-B.
The basic flight systems, airframe, flight control system, environmental and electrical, radar, and sensors are easier to maintain on the JSF family.
The main, most costly aspect of mx on it is the RAM. Since Lot 4 (we're in Lot 14 or more now), RAM is applied via CNC periodically.
The USAF and Norwegian AF have been executing disbursed operations for years now. Most mx is done out of a backpack.
The JSF uses self-contained electrohydrostatic actuators in its DFLCS, which is more robust than any other FLCS in operation.
The F135 motor is proving to be the most reliable, most powerful fighter engine ever built.
Maintainers in the operational squadrons complain that they don't get their hands dirty like on the F-16.
Miles of copper wiring found on 4th Gen jets have been replaced by fiber-optic line, with closed loop avionics architecture fused through a quad redundant central brain, so in terms of how the F-35 is laid out, it is simpler compared to legacy federated systems fighters like the Hornet, F-16, Gripen, EF, etc.
This is one of the several overlooked aspects of JSF. Then look at critical sensor systems that have to be attached to fighters like the Gripen, EF, or Rafale, with separate power, cooling, and processing considerations from a mx standpoint.
Is that dispursed crew going to be able to pull a FLIR/LST pod, troubleshoot/diagnose/repair it, then re-attach it for the next sortie? How about ECM or recce?
On F-35, these systems are each a generational leap above legacy pods, while integrated not only into the airframe, power, and coolant architecture, but into every other sensor via fiber optics and the super-computing CIP.
If there are any faults, the systems tell on themselves to the mx crew before the aircraft even lands.
During a mission, if one of these sensors is inoperable, the pilot still has the same picture of the battlespace because other sensors on his and other aircraft pick up the slack.
The Finnish concept of fighting a totally defensive air campaign was thrown out the window many years ago when FaF converted its fleet of F-18Cs to F/A-18Cs, and expanded many of the air-to-surface capes of the Hornet.
JSF would bring strategic deep penetration strike capabilities to Finland, including critical political/economic/military nodes in Moscow.
It offers OCA fighter-sweep options where all of Saint Petersburg, Murmansk, and even Moscow fighter regiments are unsafe.
JSF allows Finland to unleash an offensive air campaign that would render every airfield, POL bunker, aerial munitions supply bunker, air traffic control center, naval yard, rail yard, power station generators, C4 nodes, and population centers within the vast combat radius of JSF-A vulnerable to VLO precision strikes.
It provides Finland a long, pointy spear to deter any aggression from Russia, rather than invite it with 4th Gen airframes confined to DCA in the obsolete concept of delayed losing as you describe.
Any time Russian planners think about flipping that switch, they have to consider the consequences of JSF deep penetration and what they are willing to sacrifice.
"Do we risk loss of 6th Air Forces critical facilities and all aircraft on the ground? What if they take out the power stations to Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Murmansk in the dead of winter? How many Super Flankers would we lose? What submarines are currently in overhaul or in-port?"
These are the questions JSF forces onto the table. None of these are really a concern much more than the current Hornet/JASSM threat with Gripen E/F.
The most remote capability increase in that aspect comes from Rafale F4, and it is nowhere near as capable as JSF since it has no VLO.
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@filibertkraxner305 A clean Gripen E with no weapons or pods with internal fuel only has one of the most pathetic thrust/weight ratios of any current production fighter.
Empty weight: 17,600lbs
Internal Fuel: 7,500lbs
Max thrust in AB: 22,000lb
Now add weapons and pods. It's embarrassing that someone would even bring up its basic flight performance, especially up against Super Flankers, the Typhoon, Rafale, or F-35A.
Gripen even with the impressive performance of the GE F414 is under-powered. Combat take-off weight exceeds max thrust considerably placing it into 3rd Generation fighter metrics. You're looking at .71 T/W ratio on take-off with 5,000lbs of external stores.
The Super Flankers, Typhoon, Rafale, and F-35A smoke the Gripen E T/W ratio if you do the math.
Climb rate is important because of the contrail band. Your contrails can be seen visually at long range, so the sooner you get above them, the more survivable and lethal you are. That presents another problem for the 4.5 Gen entrants. When combat-configured with external stores, they all feel sluggish with one exceptional design: the Flanker.
Even Typhoons, with their impressive excess thrust and delta wing "wheeze" once you start getting into the higher altitude bands.
The Su-27/30/35 loves to be up there, flies like a sled, as long as they only load about half of its A2A missiles, focusing on the tunnel and a few wing stations.
There is video of an intercept where the Flanker pilots flying next to NATO fighters pulls up alongside them, deploys the air brake, then accelerates ahead of them with all kinds of excess thrust showing how he has an unfair kinematic advantage at that altitude even with the brake deployed.
If you get into a BVR missile exchange with Super Flankers on 4th Gen terms, they will have the kinematic and magazine depth advantages. Their main weakness has been lack of R-77 proliferation though, but this is changing as we speak.
The moment Gripen E is detected, it is immediately at a disadvantage in a Felon/Flanker threat environment.
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@aritakalo8011 I'm not talking about taking out all of Russia, I'm talking about the same thing, but instead of sabotaging critical infrastructure in Finland after a strategic loss, using the threat of inflicting strategic destruction of critical nodes in Russia.
Russia isn't a monolithic force structure that can allocate all its limited combat system resources to the Saint Petersburg and Murmansk regions.
They have to prop up Air Defense forces oriented to central Europe, Caucasus, Ukraine, Black Sea, China, Japan, and the Arctic. They have more borders and airspace to cover than any nation when looking at air defense.
If you take out static and mobile radar platforms in the Saint Petersburg district, they can't magically spawn new ones from reserves. Their main semiconductor company went bankrupt in late 2019, and modern IADS systems need the latest semiconductor TRMs and boards.
The F-35 loves geolocating mobile IADS platforms and destroying them.
The point is that Russia will have to play a guessing game that asks the questions:
"If we do X, will they saturate-strike Murmansk, take out 6th Air Forces base and fighters, or salvo-strike the Kremlin with stand-off weapons?"
JSF is the only option that brings that dynamic to the strategic picture.
You can disburse JSF all you want with less mx demand than the current F/A-18C w/MSA radar and bolt-on pods. You don't even need to crack open the radome on JSF throughout its service life because it's an AESA, and they integrated radar component access panels into the nose landing gear doors.
When gear are down, you have access to not only the back-end power amps, filters, and coolant connections, but the guts to the EOTS as well.
You have single engine that is a huge generational leap ahead of the US GE F414 in the Gripen.
These are the only 2 single engine contenders for H-X.
You don't want to have a force structure that invites Sukhois to fly wherever they want. You want them to truly be afraid of entering Finnish airspace and have to wonder if they will even have a divert base if they survive the skirmish area.
Russians train to divert to nearby highways, but this is extremely difficult in extreme cold conditions and poor visibility-another area where the F-35 has an advantage over all the competition. Taking off, flying, and landing the F-35 is far easier than legacy fighters since it auto-configures and has spherical SA with regard to the horizon, day/night/inclimate weather.
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@filibertkraxner305 Low altitude, clean configuration airshow demos have very little bearing on combat-configured performance at altitude.
Notice that they never show you an F-16, Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale, Flanker, etc. with an actual combat configuration carrying external pods, fuel tanks, pylons, bombs, and missiles.
Imagine taking all those external stores and smashing them into the fuselage of any of these fighters, in the most sensible way possible.
That's how you get an F-35A with 18,400lb of internal fuel, internal weapons bays, EOTS built into the nose, and embedded EW sensors/antennae throughout the airframe.
If you look at practical performance that the pilots noticed immediately, career Norwegian F-16 pilots said the first thing that stuck out for them in basic flight in the F-35A was that they cruised at 50-90kts faster, and didn't have to light the burner to maintain speed in a turn at altitude.
The F-16 has far better excess thrust than the Gripen. Both will perform amazing minimum radius turns at airshow down in the thick air, but it really doesn't matter at altitude in the thin air.
What matters is he who sees first and can get into no-escape zone weapons parameters first, then stay out of threat WEZ/NEZ, wins.
F-35 MADL network with the fused sensor suite beats everything else out there in that space.
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@filibertkraxner305 F-35 internal storage includes a basic mission load for F-16s or Hornets in Desert Storm, but with way more gas.
Once you rob multiple hardpoints on 4th Gen fighters with FLIR, ECM, and 2x External Fuel Tanks, there aren't many stations left over for A2G weapons.
The Typhoon and Rafale have a lot of weapon stations though due to them being twin engine deltas. I really like the Typhoon's recessed BVR missile stations a la F-4 Phantom, but hanging EFTs and bombs with suspension equipment externally really degrades aerodynamic performance, especially mission radius/endurance.
Saab has done a great job of integrating the wingtip ECM/EW pods with missile rails so you don't lose those stations like on the Flanker, but if you look at the Gripen E and its tiny airframe/limited stores capacity with 2x EFTs, it's like an F-16, only the F-16 has the additional stations on 5R/5L for FLIR and HTR pods.
F-35A carries 5,000lbs more fuel than even a Gripen E with 2x450 gal EFTs and full internal fuel, doesn't need to sacrifice any weapons stations for ECM, Recce, FLIR/ATP pods because that's all integrated into the airframe and other systems from the start.
The time period when Finland would take delivery is when sidekick is scheduled to be part of Block 4 F-35, which would increase the A2A missile count from 4 to 6 internally.
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@jeremygilbert7190 It is physically impossible to create the wounding effects and head behavior we see in Zapruder with a rear shot. I’ve been in the field of ballistics for over 40 years now, to include funded research in both projectile behavior, terminal performance from a combat trauma management perspective with access to volumes of forensic data, and hands-on live tissue studies with animals. I have also seen people shot in the right forehead with high velocity rifle fire and was able to study post-mortem photographs of their injuries. Additionally, I have lost track of how many rifle projectiles I have watched in real-time through optics impacting hard and soft targets, as well as review of high-speed photography videos. In particular, I am especially versed in 6.5mm projectile behavior, having studied them for many years, ranging from light varmint to heavy-for-caliber high SD bullets fired from the 6.5x52, 6.5x54 Mannlicher Shoenauer, 6.5x55 Mauser, 6.5x284, 6.5 Grendel, .260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor, .264 Win Mag, and 6.5mm Rem Mag.
If someone tells you that what you see in Zapruder is from a rear entrance to JFK’s head, then they have no credibility from a terminal ballistics perspective. Additionally, the Parkland doctors all said that it was an entrance wound to his forehead/hairline with a large exit in the rear of Kennedy’s head. There literally isn’t any evidence from Zapruder or Parkland that supports a rear entrance. The Parkland doctors were threatened with loss of credentials if they wrote or talked about this. The doctor who did the threatening said he felt it was unethical to capitalize off any books or public statements about the incident.
There was way more than one witness of the men who were setting up behind the fence. Multiple rail workers and bystanders saw the men, and others saw muzzle report and smoke. Several people charged up the hill to go see who the perpetrators were, and were confronted by men posing as SS agents or police.
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@jetcat132 An unidentified man in a suit and hat picked up a bullet from the South side of Elm St, and was photographed doing so. You can see photos of that.
The whole crime scene was left open to anyone and was contaminated out of the gate.
The initial FBI Report was a problem for Hoover and the WC because it established correctly at least 4 shots. They were Dallas field agents gathering raw evidence without concern for the narrative.
Once WC nailed-down only 3 spent cases and the Carcano that had to have been fired by Oswald alone, the WC staffers had major problems on their hands:
The initial story ignored James Tague entirely, but local news kept running stories on it since he was an eye witness and 3rd victim of minor GSW fragmentation, pointed out to him by a Dallas cop witness. That shot missed the limo entirely, which is odd. Even with the Carcano that couldn't be zeroed, it was about 5" right and 5" up Point of Impact at that range. If you were aiming at JFK's head, the impact would go somewhere between Nellie and Gov Connally's jump seats. If you yanked the shot low, it would impact the trunk and penetrate through Kennedy's back. Missing the car entirely is over 25 mils off target. The rifle's POI was off by ~ 2 mils right, ~2 mils up. 1 mil is 3.6" at 100yds for reference.
That forced the WC staffers to have to take the initial FBI report and invalidate it, then try to find a way to compress the 4 shots into 3.
This created 2 magic bullets, not one.
CE 399 has been the crux of endless argument for 60 years.
But the bullet that hit JFK's head is even more of a problem.
X-rays show tiny lead fragmentation in the front of his skull and residual brain matter, with a 6.5mm diameter portion of a bullet in the rear.
CE 567 and the other fragment comprise the nose and tail end of the bullet, which WC says were found in the front of the limo.
Problem is, lead showering or fragmentation happens immediately after the entrance and those fragments don't penetrate as much due to low mass.
Larger fragments and portions of the bullet penetrate deeper. The nose and tail should not be on totally opposite sides of the mid section, which was shown on X-ray to be in the rear.
Also, if the entrance was at the inferior right occipital region, the bullet shouldn't exit the R parietal side at a 90° angle, and if it had, those fragments would have flown out onto Elm St.
The totality of the evidence points to a R frontal entrance at the hairline as explained by Parkland ER doctors, with a large exit wound in the occipital region as they also described.
WC staffers like Arlen Specter had to massage all this data into 2 magic bullet theories.
This is one of the main chaffing points for 3 of the WC commissioners themselves. They just didn't believe it because they knew the evidence didn't match the conclusions.
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@DaRkLoRd-rc5yu 6 months mandatory conscription. Forget what is being portrayed in the Western media a bit and see it from the Russian perspective.
Putin isn't getting his information from Western News. Russia seeded Finland with spies since the 1990s, who are reporting regularly how things are in Finland: where the F/A-18C/Ds are, the status of viable drop zones and Helicopter Landing Zones, trucking routes, Finnish military bases, economy, gas station prices, grocery store stocking cycles, train services, power and water stations, locations and habits of Ministers of Defence, Parliament, university professors, etc.
One thing we noticed was that Russians immediately began buying property next to Finnish military bases already in the 1990s.
The plans to invade Finland have been ongoing for the past 2 decades. Putin sees a modern Finland with only 5.6 million people who his intelligence staff are reporting on regularly.
Ukraine had 43 million people before he invaded in February.
Putin isn't looking at Finland or Ukraine or Poland or the Baltics like the West sees them. He sees inevitable victory, thinking that his success in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Georgia, and Donbas will be repeated with good planning, subterfuge, and military execution.
The failure of his Generals to capture Kiev is their fault, not his. He gave them everything they needed to win, and they failed Russia, so he reoriented them to Donbas. That's how Putin is seeing this.
In his mind, Finland is fairly easy to take. He can rain Iskander missiles on the critical military nodes, and obliterate Helsinki if Finland puts up a fight.
He might be hesitant to commit naval forces though, given the losses he has experienced in the Black Sea and Finland's anti-ship capabilities, but his cruise missile attacks have been devastating on a much larger Ukraine, already displacing more Ukrainian civilians than the entirety of Finland's population.
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@Teutathis There is no $1.7 trillion. It doesn’t exist, has never been spent in the JSF program. They haven’t even come close to reaching the initial acquisition costs because the US alone will be buying 2470 F-35A/B/C aircraft over the next several decades. “Only” 735 have been delivered so far, many of those to foreign partners, most of whom are in Europe and the Pacific. UK shares 15% of the production. Norway shares 9%. Japan has their own assembly line, as does Italy. Finland just got massive production share for F-35A front fuselages as part of their H-X deal for F-35As, announced officially today as the winner.
Gripen E full production wouldn’t offer anywhere near the returns of Canadian industrial share, and Canada can’t have full production because Saab is beholden to dictates from the Riksdag of how the funding will go. Gripen is a collection of US, UK, French, German, and Italian parts final-assembled in Linköping, Sweden. There is no case for Saab with high level NATO partners. It’s literally the worst-performing option of them all, at relatively high costs similar to Super Hornet/Growler.
Canadian Parliament has the choice already made for them by the reality, just as Finland had the choice made for them by what JSF is.
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@januszkowalski5345 You're overlooking the deep and extensive penetration the Soviets accomplished within the CIA/BND/NATO from the outset. They used the CIA to find all the Eastern European partisan groups and kidnap or kill them, while over 200 double agents penetrated and exploited Langley HQ, Berlin Base, NATO HQ, Cyprus, Caribbean/Puerto Rico base, etc. Once the KGB and Center learned of any NATO stay-behind operations forces in the NATO contingency planning, they then double-puppeted numerous operations, including Partisan forces, while training similar units in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The NKVD's bold moves during the US and Soviet occupation of Europe at the end of World War II laid the foundation for the most impressive intelligence penetration operation in the history of mankind. At its core was not traditional spy craft, but the ideological warfare objectives of portraying the US and NATO as you erroneously do, as the evil ones, "bloody lies", expose the "ugly truth" of the dirty capitalist swine", etc. You've been duped basically.
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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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@skyhorseprice6591 Yup. It’s $77.9 million as of Lot 14. They’ve been delaying multi-year production orders (3yr orders), which would really bring the price down due to long-term contracts on subcomponents and subsystems. If Biden takes office on the 20th, he’s already under directive from Xi and Putin to bring up the JSF program and attack it politically, saying there isn’t enough money, with a Social Democrat Marxist party controlling both Houses of Congress. Xi and Putin have been squirming over the reality that they might face thousands of partner nation and US JSF aircraft in their backyards, so Biden will do his duty for them, like he did on SALT treaties in the 1980s.
Israel was trying to get their 50 unit order filled before Trump left office because they know what’s coming. Biden’s foreign policy aide opposes sale of F-35s to more foreign buyers. With the likes of AOC, Ilman Omar, the new rigged election Senators from Georgie who were backed by the same Soviet front group that launched Biden’s career in the early 1970s, the Council for a Livable World, expect major Carter-era defense cuts and slashes to critical programs.
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@lvd8122 It's a hybrid where various factions got major votes on what would be taught and how, none of which are the parents.
I. You have the historical Prussian reforms where after they were conquered by Napoleon in 1806, saw that they needed some major changes to their society. Compulsory schooling with smaller classrooms and group-think training were part of the reforms. (They used to have massive darkly-lit factories with rows of tables where the instructor would walk up and down, dictating lessons and exercises. This was shifted to a "smaller" 30 student classroom where the teacher could interact more with students who had questions, but it was still a one-way information flow through a bottleneck. The Prussian reforms were observed and lauded by many thinkers in the US, seemingly-validated after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 where Prussia and Southern Germanic tribal areas defeated the French, then took over much of France. The US Command and Staff General College even adopted Prussian Army theories and officer training after many years of focusing on Napoleonic theory. The reduced classroom size and lecture method live on to this very day from these reforms.
II. Next would be the Kindergarten movement started by Fredrick Fröbel in the Prussian Kingdom from 1816-1851, who lost his mother very early and was neglected by his father, so he spent time playing around the large estate garden with friends, looking at nature, and just being free. His attempt to compensate for lack of a mother was institutionalized into a system where young female teachers lead small groups of children in outdoor activities like nature study and dancing, with some indoor shape-manipulation and "Fröbel's gifts" exercises in spatial discovery. Kindergarten programs are largely ignorant of these methods and history, and merely regress into a preparatory elementary school experience at an earlier age with simple tasks that can all be done easily at home.
III. Then there is the late 1800s John Dewey psychological conditioning method where the classroom and school are supposed to be a model for the "new social order", with no real emphasis on learning classical subjects or any relevant skills, but where children are surrendered to the state to be conditioned as collectivist social justice warriors by "prophet teachers ushering in the true kingdom of God". He was an atheist, self-proclaimed psychologist, with a feminist wife who saw the minds of youth as the perfect tapestry for his vision of a society run according to Marxist and Darwinian principles.
IV. As the industrial era entered its higher efficiency manufacturing facilities in the US, the corporatists with their heavy influence on the House and Senate drove a more dumbed-down society of worker-consumers. Their radio and later TV ads emphasized parental compliance to whatever back-to-school trend was in fashion, with the unspoken reality that your child will be bullied if they don't have the latest styles. This was true with lunch boxes, bicycles, clothes, and later with backpacks, shoes, cars, and now with cell phones. The people determining what was in style worked from glass towers in New York, or filming studios in Hollywood.
Because people are trained to think myopically, where one simply answer nicely wraps up the complex subject they are trying to understand, you'll often hear people refer to school as just a factory worker training program driven by big business kleptocrats, or a Marxist indoctrination center teaching anti-religious and communist political ideologies. All of these are true and more when you dive deep after asking a series of questions throughout your life, then having the perseverance to study and find those answers.
We have a compulsory Prussian reformist, Fröbelian childhood abandonment, Dewinian-Darwinian-Marxist, Kelptocrat-consumerist hybrid system of schooling that somehow mixed together in this unique American experience of individual liberty and family values, which have been pushed aside for the monster to consume us.
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@kasahuntilahun6860 If they've been using very little equipment and personnel, how did they exceed the total casualty count of the 10 year Soviet-Afghan War in less than 5 months?
Have you seen how many tanks, APCs, IFVs, SP artillery, howitzers, fighters, helicopters, transports, drones, SAMs, and ships have been lost?
Look up: Oryx Report Equipment Losses in Ukraine
Flankers are being shot down almost every week-19 that we know of with video/photographic evidence have been shot down, most of those Su-34 strike fighters, which is a new multirole deep strike variant of the Flanker series with 2 crew and heavy payload.
17 Su-25 have been lost as well. Russia is throwing a lot of meat and steel into the grinding jaws of Ukraine and not achieving much in terms of ground taken and held relative to before the war.
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@vtownjester The harsh reality is that 1 of the options is survivable in current IADS networks, and is designed to be easily upgraded to grow ahead of future threats, while the others still have problems dealing with certain 1980s threats.
In terms of reliability, maintainability, and availability, nothing comes close to F-35As. The MMHPFH just dropped to 3.5 hours for the F-35A fleet, which is preposterously-low. I never thought they would break through lower than 4 hours again, which is still unprecedented. F-16s had the lowest MMHPFH of any single engine, and they are 11-14hrs, not including pods, pylons, special weapon targeting systems, and all the bolt-on ancillary equipment necessary to do their relevant mission sets.
Same with any other 4th and 4.5 Gen fighter. We don’t get the reported mx hours for FLIR, Targeting, Recce, or ECM pods included with the overall MMHPFH, since the pods can be moved to other aircraft.
All of that type of equipment (a generation more advanced) is integrated into the JSF airframe. You can’t hide it from MMHPFH, and yet F-35A still has 3.5hrs average across the fleet. The later production lots have had a big influence on bringing it down from its already previously-low mx hours.
If you compare it with a Rafale or Typhoon, for example with their twin engines and legacy federated architecture, it’s a Godsend for maintenance personnel.
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Players and motives:
Putin: Reestablish the Czarist and Soviet era territories held by Russia.
Ukraine: Assert their sovereignty and right to determine their own future without Russian interference.
Poland and smaller Eastern European nations: Keep this fight away from their borders as long as possible, continue to build their defense forces, and weaken the Russian forces by proxy.
Central Europe: Keep this war from spreading into Eastern Europe and affecting their borders, economies, and trade.
United States: Contain the war in Ukraine so that it doesn’t spread into Europe and destabilize the European security structure, economies, and trade.
Biden: Hide the fact he’s been on Soviet payroll since 1972, while appearing to support Ukraine.
Obama underlings in the WH: Slow-roll the US support to Ukraine to allow Putin to be successful.
US DoD: Provide enough material to contain Russian forces and attrit them so they aren’t capable of invading Europe any further, while trying to re-orient the force to the Pacific theater threats from China, and fund new weapons systems that have been in development for many years. Try to improve recruiting and retention.
China: Attempt to contain economic stagnation and collapse in real estate and finance sectors, while prepping for integration of Taiwan through political subterfuge, followed by military intervention.
Iran: Take advantage of chaos in order to upgrade the aging Iranian Air Force with help from Russia. Fund surrogate Islamic maniacs in the Middle East to knock the US and Israel off base.
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@yoloman3607 Long range IR missiles face an extremely basic engineering challenge, which is why you don’t see them. Aerodynamic heating of the leading surface just happens to be the seeker head. The seeker head needs to be relatively cool, even with digital imaging IR. The physical properties of the very sensitive seeker head elements change when subjected to Mach 4, then Mach 3 cruising speeds. They are useless when they arrive even if you shielded the seeker and jettisoned the shield, because of IR signature stealth.
There’s an Australian Air Force Hornet pilot who was flying exchange in the US in F-15Cs with the new AESA, JHMCS helmet sight, and Captive AIM-9 HOBS missiles as an aggressor out of Nellis. He said even in within visual range, he could try to place the reticle inside the helmet on the F-22A, and it would not acquire it with the CATM-9 uncaged in HOBS. Remember, that’s in WVR with him visually-acquiring the TGT, but can’t get either system to see the F-22A.
IR and IIR missiles are next-to-useless against F-22A and F-35 series. Russians realized this kinda late in the development of the Su-57, when they adjusted the airframe to include thermal blankets over the engine cowlings, which then forces re-design on the Izdeliye-30 motors because the thermal blankets are cooking the engines in the cowlings.
Integrating an airframe for IR VLO is not as simple as slapping thermal blankets around the motors, and the US has been developing this technology since the 1970s. Good luck to everyone else trying to catch up.
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@TD32333 "Largely put behind us" and "not an issue" are 2 different things. When I was in the military in my first unit, my Squad Leader, Platoon Sergeant, Company Commander, and Battalion Sergeant Major were all black. There was a disproportionate % of black leaders when looking at US demographics, especially in my Career Management Field, which had less than the US demographic breakdown of blacks.
By that time, race-based promotion ahead of peers was already the standard in the early 1990s.
Obama came along decades later and talked to the Nation as if we were in Thelma, AL in the early 1960s, while he sat in the WH with Michelle chowing down on filet mignon like corrupt African dictators.
That was not helpful at all. And when genuine black community leaders tried to meet with him to promote proven practical programs for dealing with fatherless and crime in the inner city, he couldn’t be bothered.
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@ArawnOfAnnwn The most advanced SC technology is made all over the US, mostly in the West, then Northeast, South, and Midwest.
There are exclusive supply chains for defense and satellite that can't be exported except to Canada, Australia, UK, JSF customers like Japan, ROK, Italy, Norway, etc., with anti-tamper kill-switches.
I was stationed in South Korea and have deployed their since. ROK is an Asian industrial powerhouse because of the US technology sharing. They were fertilizing rice paddies with their own feces still when I was there first, then have developed with US freeways, heavy industry, electronics, automobile tech, all brought in from US.
It isn't egotistical, just facts.
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Biden has been a traitor to the US since 1972, when the Soviets paid for his Senate campaign to get into a low population State, Delaware. This was part of their strategy to get as many moles in US government with treaty signature authority, in addition to defense officials, CIA directors, Presidents, university presidents, media, etc. Biden traveled to the Soviet Union immediately after taking office, came back to the US and attacked the B-1A program, with the help of Carter. Carter eventually cancelled the B-1A program, after the technical data had been transferred to the Soviets so they could build the Tu-160 copy.
President Reagan restarted the B-1 program as the B-1B, while Senator Biden worked with the Soviets on campaigning in the Senate to reduce US nuclear arms development while the Soviets ramped-up theirs as part of the SALT II Treaty. Biden was part of the “nuclear freeze” camp in Congress, to which Reagan commented, “It’s as if they get their policy from Moscow.” It’s because they were getting it from Moscow.
After the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, Biden had his staff draft the PATRIOT Act, which was signed into law later under Bush Jr’s White House under the excuse of 9/11 was used to turn the surveillance apparatus of the US against its own people.
Biden has been a traitor for his entire political career. He is an enemy to the United States, the Constitution, and its people for 49 years.
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@wildripeach1 There are at least 4 different IR signature reduction layers to JSF.
If you look at the rear where the engine nozzle normally joins the nacelle, there is a large circumferential sawtooth gap there for a large air cavity to allow cool airflow mass to pass over the nozzle and plume.
Inside the afterburner flame-holder array, the spars are angled to deflect RF so the rear RCS is actually extremely small. The serendipity of the angled spars for IR sig is that the plume spirals and diffuses very coherently with the cool air flowing over it.
There are also heat exchangers integrated into the low pressure section of the initial bypass fan on the motor, with fuel msss used to heat-sink the thermal-loaded leading edges from aerodynamic friction, as well as power amplifiers and other E&E internal heat-generating systems.
On top of all that, there is something else integrated with another signature reduction aspect of the airframe that has already evolved from about 10 lots ago.
They took IR signature reduction techniques from F-22 & improved on them. F-22 already can't be acquired with Helmet-cued HOBS missiles, so JSF is also extremely survivable in that space as well.
IRSTs are passive so we don't normally refer to them that way, as it's a given. While an advanced IRST might see a fighter-sized front aspect airborne TGT at ~50km in optimal conditions (already too late for certain BVR missile NEZ parameters), you will never see an F-35 or F-22 at 50km frontal due to the IR sig reduction. You'd be lucky to get a low contrast register at 15km, which is WVR.
For rear aspect, you'd think it would really bloom, but neither of them do. They are extremely cold IR targets.
By the time your practical IRST range comes into play, you're long-dead.
"Must fix" deficiencies get fixed. No weapons program is static. By the time you read about it, it's a distant memory for developmental test folks.
The delamination incident happened on 1 early F-35B and was corrected. Never happened before or since. Speed doesn't really matter if you have first-look, first-shoot and the threat thinks they're closing on good solutions when in-fact, they're flying into an even worse NEZ. Remember, JSF and F-22 can manipulate their RCS values, go hot and cold in RF emissions, cooperatively. Any Gripen pilot who is honest will tell you they would hate to face that.
As to performance, Gripen response to their abysmal thrust/weight is that it doesn't matter with Helmet-cued HOBS that can launch all-aspect at 15km.
The tactics are totally different in 5th Gen platforms, and non-VLO threats die the same way, blind and unaware of what's around them until too late.
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@wildripeach1 I wouldn't describe F-35A's internal stores as "limited", since that includes 18,450lb internal fuel, EOTS/DAS, Unparalleled EW suite, Towed Decoy, heavy weapons stations and tucked AIM-120 stations.
To try to match its payload with a 20th century design, you have to sacrifice multiple hardpoints to attempt to match a fraction of JSF systems capes, and you also have to reconfigure for the recce mission profile with a very expensive pod.
Meanwhile, every JSF is a more capable recce/ISR and Electronic Warfare platform as a baseline, with no additional pods needed.
There is no other system that really compares with it.
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@211steelman Typically Republicans have been the aggressive foreign policy/military wing of Congress against foreign enemies, with generations of deployment experience in Europe, Asia, and the ME.
Democrats with CPUSA and the Democratic Socialists of America have not only been in league with the USSR and Russia, but 420 of them have had their campaigns funded through Russian fronts like Council for a Livable World. Guess who got into the Senate in 1972 with CFALW money?
You start to see it all make sense when you realize Putin was behind Elena Baturina wiring $3.5 million to Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca shell corp in February of 2014, right before Putin lost his puppet Yanukovych in Kiev in March. That’s when Putin invaded Donbas, annexed Crimea, and did everything in his power to stop Ukrainian investigators from uncovering how he had been robbing Ukraine through Burisma.
Then Hunter ended up on the board of Burisma in May, 2014. The new Ukrainian President Poroshenko had his close friend lead the new investigation into Burisma and other corruption cases, and multiple assassination attempts were launched against him, Viktor Shokin.
VP Biden called for Poroshenko to fire Shokin, with threat of the US withholding $1 Billion in aid money. The IMF and EU also voiced strong opposition to Shokin, because he had all the files on how Russian fronts were selling Ukrainian girls to all sorts of billionaires and banking class Barrons in Europe all these years for vast money flowing into Russian oligarch coffers, who then have to pay Putin corruptsia taxes.
Americans in the intel community have witnessed these things going on for decades, only to be silenced by NDAs. But the idea that Democrats are on the right side of all this and Republicans are somehow in bed with Russia is one of the most retarded things I’ve witnessed over the past 5 decades.
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@baronvonlimbourgh1716 Putin had planned to take Ukraine and every other former Russian empire and Soviet sphere territory back when he assumed office in 2000. I learned about this plan in the early 2000s from a Russian Deputy within the Foreign Ministry. My assessment was that he was an old Soviet blowhard, but I didn’t write it off entirely because it was within the historical profile of Russia (my family is partially from Finland.).
Ukraine is an extremely high-value territory and industry/resource-rich geography that Russia sees as an imperative to control. Russia did have a puppet named Yanukovych in Kiev from 2010-2014, until he was ousted by 79% of Ukrainian people with the Euromaiden protests. That’s when Putin invaded Donbas and annexed Crimea.
Ukraine had 13 of the Soviet naval yards in the Soviet times. Russia lacks warmwater ports if you look at their terrible geography. They are basically isolated and land-locked effectively. Several of their main oil/NG pipelines run through Ukraine into Europe as well. Ukraine had rediscovered vast oil fields near Kharkiv and off the coast of Odessa, which meant they would have been able to explore, extract, and supply Europe in the long run, bypassing Russia as a source for the European market.
You start to see why Putin did what he did. He also used a lot of Donbas region ethnic Russians to do much of the fighting and dying, along with Chechens, Mobniks from hinterlands, and Wagner mercenaries so the population centers in Russia don’t see or feel the losses of so many soldiers.
Putin still has plenty of soldiers to throw at the real fight, which will be in Poland, the Baltics, and Finland. That has been his plan since 2000.
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@sorenchristensen2149 Each service had their own planned replacement programs for the inevitable retirement of F-117As, F-16Cs, A-10As, F/A-18s, and AV-8Bs.
The UK became interested in what the USMC was going to replace its Harriers with if you look at ASTOVL.
USAF was looking at CALF replacement for F-16 and VLO replacement for F-117A.
USN invested huge money into the subsonic A-12 & got nothing.
Pentagon looked at what all the services were doing, noticed that there was a ton of overlap, asked if 3 airframe variants with common internal systems could be pursued more affordably.
Services responded positively to that, because parts streams and assembly lines could be streamlined.
It really was a joint USAF, Royal Air Forces/Navy, USMC, USN program for 3 significantly different variants.
Imagine the costs for 3 different programs using different engines, radars, cockpits, flight control systems, ECS, E&E, materials, bulkheads, VLO shaping and RAM RDT&E, ejection systems, Electro-Optical sensors, weapons racks, etc.
The JSF program gets criticized for its strengths as weaknesses in the minds of those who never realized how complicated things were with the Century Series mixed with teen fighters, Harrier, and A-10.
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@dean1130 Trump renegotiated the terrible trade deals we had with other countries, which put the US first. This had dramatic effects on pricing, tariffs, re-shoring of US companies, and jobs/lowest unemployment in generations.
Then the business taxation policy brought back unprecedented levels of liquidity into the US, which had been off-shored in tax havens due to previous WH and Congressional taxation policies.
His energy policies being friendly towards US energy companies compounded with those other acts, which sent the US into a period of economic growth that all his critics said was impossible.
Inflation was almost non-existent. Gas prices were lower than they had been in decades, interest rates were low, allowing millions of Americans to buy homes and cars more easily.
These are all facts if the economy then. Now we have crazy inflation, interest rates that price people out of homes and new cars, food unaffordable, gas at well over $4-$7/gallon depending on region, Russia invading Ukraine on their way to the rest of Eastern Europe per Putin's goals, US military recruitment at all-time lows, Chinese and Russian agents visiting Biden Beach houses stacked with boxes of classified documents, while a geriatric pedophile traitor curses our Nation with each breath he takes, as his crackhead son runs around with no-show jobs for the Chicoms and Russian Mafia scams.
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USAF CoS General Brown said, "Not an F-16.", which many have interpreted as "not Lockheed" so the industrial base will stay diverse. Boeing has lost so many contracts, and USN announced that last year was the final order for Super Hornets.
That means Boeing (who now owns the fighter production line of McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis) is facing a future of running dry on large US DoD fighter orders.
The former acting SECDEF Shanahan was a career Boeing rotary wing sales rep, and was relieved for ethics violations after pushing the F-15EX onto USAF. USAF never asked for more F-15s.
F-16XL would have been nice in the late 1980s as a longer range multirole strike aircraft for USAF, but again, it would have threatened the F-15E production line, which was the follow-on to the F-15C/D line than ran from 1978-1985.
By that time, USAF and USN had already recognized proliferation of Soviet IADS nets, and determined that all future designs really needed to incorporate VLO if they were to have a solid chance at surviving going into the MEZ.
That's why we skipped over the 4.5 Gen designs we had for the F-15, F-16, & F/A-18 and invested in JAST & JSF.
USN invested in A-12, but it was so mismanaged that they blew $2 billion and had no flying prototypes.
That forced them to go back to a 4.5 Gen Hornet design with longer combat radius and some LO, new motors, more payload.
It also contributed to the demise of McDonnell Douglas, who were acquired by Boeing.
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@djf750 It is absolutely impossible for anyone in the 6th floor of the TSBD to have fired the final head shot. That was a frontal impact. I've observed terminal bullet performance for over 40 years now, to include viewing through optics, high-speed photography, military wound ballistics laboratories in the medical side, and in funded ballistics studies specific to 6.5mm. What you see in Zapruder is a frontal impact, which is exactly what the Parkland doctors said it was, with a huge exit wound in the rear (occipital region of the brain blown out).
Craig never said they found the 7.65 Mauser on the roof. He was upstairs with Boone and Captain Fritz when they found the rifle.
All of them indicated it was a 7.65 Mauser which they read on the barrel, and indicated so in their written reports. When the 6.5x52 Carcano was produced and paraded around in Dallas PD HQ, the officers were all told to amend their statements. All but Craig complied.
Craig was scheduled to testify before the Church Committee, and like many other witnesses, died a suspicious death before he could appear before Congress.
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I wish I could have known about this beforehand. I spent 2 years when I was in DC investigating one of these deaths.
I could have provided a ton of information including the Swiss bank accounts that this particular victim/subject was servicing for years.
He was under investigation by several agencies for espionage because he had been selling the NSA's bank surveillance program codes to the Soviets, Chinese, Saudis, Pakistanis, Iranians, and other hostile foreign intelligence services.
The FBI Director Sessions allowed investigators to move forward with this case, and they requested indictments against this particular person and Hillary Clinton, because this subject had been servicing 3 safe deposit box accounts on behalf of the Clintons.
6 months into the Clinton WH in 1993, on Monday, July 19, Clinton fired Director Sessions after he refused to resign. The next day, the primary subject of the espionage investigation with the sealed indictment against him was found dead, immediately ruled a suicide.
His name was........
Vince Foster
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@birrextio6544 F-35 takes off from short runway as well, since it has far better T/W than the Gripen E. Gripen E has the lowest T/W of any production fighter right now, but due to being a delta wing, can get airborne very quickly. It’s also lightweight with the smallest payload of any Western production fighter on the market right now. Canada doesn’t have a disbursed base requirement that I’m aware of within NORAD, but might on European deployments.
The Baby Hornet does that well, as does the F-35A. USAF has been doing disbursed base FARP exercises with operational F-35As but with a different FARP posture, but still very fast turnaround and re-arm.
The big mission set for Canada is the NORAD defense and intercept profile. The best airframe for this would be the F-22, but Canada can’t afford that and it was shut down by enemies within the US government, including Bush/Rumsfeld/Gates and Obama/Gates. F-35 is the next best thing with better SA networked with USAF Alaska and US Air National Guard New Hampshire.
Look at a NORAD theater map and see where Alaska and New Hampshire are. Now see all the space that is missing because Canada doesn’t have F-35s yet. That’s not an accident, and is the main reason Trudeau was propped up by Moscow to delay Canada’s fighter acquisition of F-35s.
The JSF/MADL net provides theater ballistic missile warning and low earth orbit satellite detection and tracking. That’s literally why Trudeau ran on an anti-F-35 political promise and got foreign backing to get into the PM slot, with a willing parliament filled with Canada’s Liberal political party.
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@cchrizzy219 As I have studied indigenous peoples of North America for decades, the history becomes more complex.
We have the ancient Adena and Hopewell peoples of the Eastern Woodland and Mississippi regions, who I believe came from the Middle East at different times by boat.
Adena date back to right after the Tower of Babel, so they weren't walking that far.
Hopewell arrived near Florida/Georgia when the Mississippi Delta was more like a huge bay area in a post-glacial period of significant water bodies in North America that have since subsided.
We have very detailed geological records of the Mississippi though, due to sedentary fluctuations like a snake, leaving deposits in a pattern that acts as a calendar.
The Adena and Hopewell built a lot of structures with orientation to the stars. The vast river network promoted fast travel and trade, with lots of copper, furs, timber, and fairly advanced workmanship in goods.
They were far more advanced than most historians give them credit. There are baptismal fonts with the water still running in a hidden subterranean temple in the hills of Pennsylvania, for example. Pyramids in Illinois at Cahokia Mounds, Jewish structures that pre-date European exploration, Ten Commandments inscribed on a boulder in New Mexico pre-Columbus, the Bat Creek Stone with ancient Phonecian/Hebrew inscribed on it "For the Jews", and strange things like that.
There's also evidence of regular trade between Mississippi and Mexico/Guatemala due to specific pigments that came from Central America.
It also looks like Chinese came by ship to Central America on several colonizations and voyages.
The traditional history we've been told is really silky, about cavemen walking across the Bering Strait. Why walk when you can sail?
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@DeirdreSM Herman Cain is one of the best leaders we could have had for the Presidency, due to his defense and business experience, measured temperament, and high intellectual faculties.
Obama was not a good student, not particularly smart, got Cs at Occidental University in LA, then got admitted to Columbia based on foreign student admissions, not academics for a US peer base.
I would never describe any of the men I mentioned as “throwing their own under the bus”. That’s literally what Obama did when black inner city community leaders tried to meet with him to get his support for their successful programs at dealing with fatherlessness, drugs, and crime.
Trump ran multiple, lengthy sessions with them within his first few months in office, and gave them his full support-more than the combined engagement of all White Houses before him.
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@sarahnafkha9565 Show your work. In the meantime, Hunter Biden was receiving millions from the former Moscow mayor’s wife for joint work on her prostitution and human sex-trafficking network. We can also see the millions that were paid to the Clintons by the Russians for Uranium One, and Biden bragging about stopping the anti-corruption investigation into Burisma.
I can show you decades of treason from Biden, the Clintons, Obama, and the Bush family. For example, look at Neil Bush’s merging of his US aerospace defense technology holdings with his fake Chinese real estate company.
Stop watching the corporate presstitutes. All they do is lie and push ads for their big corporate donors, as well as Russian and Chinese propaganda. Trump is the only US President who allowed US forces to engage and destroy Russian forces in Syria in early 2018. Trump worked hard to rebuild the US military after decades of squandering and wasteful efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, while Russia and China were re-building their own militaries with the help of traitors like Bush, Obama, and Biden. Just follow the actual contracts of what was sold to China and what is transferred to Russia by former US Presidents.
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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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@gerardmonsen1267 I literally had/have a close contact to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The particular Deputy Foreign Minister was bragging about Russian expansion into Ukraina, Yugoslavia, Poland, Baltics, and Finland since the early 2000s right after Putin was handed the Presidency. Foreign Minister told him to shut his hole about it because it contradicted Putin's open statements about peace and non-intervention.
There was a palpable policy shift once Putin took over, which was to re-assert Russian dominance over all the regions Peter Zeihan talks about.
George Friedman and Peter Zeihan have been talking about this since the 2000s.
Germany's Chancellor just announced their defense budget would jump from 50 Billion to 100 Billion.
So Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, Moldova, Greece, and Turkey all have a familiar sense of uneasiness right now similar to the 1871-1914 and 1919-1938 time periods in Europe.
This is why so many Eastern Europeans rushed to join NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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A woman would not be able to do the job we did in Recon or on Sniper teams. The Russians employed women in WWII because they were running out of young male bodies at alarming rates, but they never carried the amount of gear that US Snipers carry. If you ever look at a mission ruck, it will crush your soul to lift it, let alone carry it all day, all night, day-after-day. It’s just not a reality for the weak. I never met a female soldier who could even draw certain weapons from the arms room (Mk.19, M2 .50 BMG). The weight of several of the crew-served weapons exceeds women’s upper body strength. Just to load those weapons onto vehicles is beyond what I’ve seen any female soldier be able to do.
For the Sniper skill set, if you look at movement, hide site construction, living in a hide (not shown in this short video), working out of it, or supporting the line companies with advanced TGT Recce, humping alongside the support-by-fire position guys on gun teams, and doing general light infantry work, it’s just not for most men, let alone women.
A great example of all this is the fact that you don’t see women clamoring to or being steered into 11C MOS (Mortarman). Those were the only dudes I saw who had as heavy rucks as ours. Imagine strapping a mortar base plate to the outside of your ruck, while also having to carry rounds, the tripod, firing tables, sector stakes, radios, batteries, water, broken-down meals, and no room for personal gear. On top of that, line dogs will have to carry mortar rounds and drop them off at the mortar position before moving into position before actions-on.
A lot of times, the line platoons will not pick up their mortar rounds because of the pace of the movement, so the mortar guys get stuck with all the additional rounds. It freaking blows, but men have performed this type of extreme endurance work over the centuries. Women and weaker males just can’t do it.
If you look at rucks carried by infantry, combat engineers, combat medics, snipers, mortarmen, and RTOs, you would be setting a unit up for complete failure if you relied on weak males and women to do those duty positions. It’s not bigotry or anything like that, just the brutal, harsh reality of extreme physical pain that only a small number of people can endure and excel at.
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The biggest areas of inefficiency, waste, graft, fraud, and abuse happen in the margins:
1. DoD civilian employees from local populations near military bases who provide antiquated or inflated services not directly connected to training, critical logistics, or readiness. Go ahead and try to touch those jobs in Congress and see what happens.
2. Outdated and obsolete accounting, storage, processing, finance, and computing methods that move like molasses when you try to overhaul them, with heavy staffing from #1.
3. Heavy mid-level leadership/officer/senior NCO duty positions who are net negative contributors to the force, riding desks until retirement, who then collect direct deposit until death. Huge chunk of the budget right there.
4. All the land, buildings, offices, office supplies, power, water, computers, IT, landscaping, and resources attached to supporting those net-negative mid-level managers. Good luck taking an ax to those stumps.
5. Turf wars between the above and the actual war-fighters for the budget.
If you want to actually address waste, fraud, and abuse, start there. Good luck, because Congress relies on those votes and dollars at the district level.
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@msaar1303 In the post-WWII period, the US launched a campaign called Bretton Woods, where we provided the security arrangements and let anyone else who wanted to trade with us benefit from that, while focusing on their economies and industries. Finland was relatively neutral diplomatically, but slowly started to warm up to the West, while still benefiting from its structural interoperability with Russia (proximity and shared railway).
After the time of the Soviet Collapse, Finland then started really leaning more to the West, especially with military hardware. Other countries are too poor to fund the tens of billions in RDT&E, so the US allows them to buy fighters, missiles, tanks, etc. as if they were US military services. This is why the Finnish Air Force acquisition of F-35As contract is handled under US Defense Logistics Agency and DoD budget.
In dollar value terms, the initial JSF program RDT&E would be 22.8% of Finland’s 2021 GDP. It’s just not possible to ask tiny countries with 5.5 million population to fund the development of advanced weapons system made by a nation with 330 million population and huge industrial sectors that span across a continent.
The same is true in the healthcare industry.
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For starters, there isn’t a VSTOL JSF variant, but a STOVL variant with the F-35B, which the USMC, USAF, RAF, and RN began research on initially back in 1983 with the genesis of the SSF and ASTOVL programs. All 4 of those services were interested in a Supersonic STOVL Fighter due to basing considerations in a degraded environment after incoming cruise missiles and TBMs targeting runways in Europe and PACOM. UK Royal Navy and USMC were also requesting this capability for deployment off of smaller carriers in the same fashion as the Harrier, so there are two different types of basing options as the foundation for SSF and ASTOVL.
If we had allowed ASTOVL/SSF to be a separate program with separate sensors, propulsion, and subsystems, then you’re looking at more developmental, acquisition, maintenance, and operational costs. Since there was so much overlap between CALF, A/F-X, ASTOVL, SSF, Agile Falcon, and MRF, Congress was not going to fund 6 different programs for 3 services. That would have really been a financial disaster in the making.
Great examples of why pursuing even a separate ASTOVL/SSV program would have cost more in every respect include answers to the following questions:
1. What radar would you use to replace and improve upon the performance of the AV-8B+ with the APG-65?
2. What engine would you use to meet the performance and bring-back requirements for ASTOVL?
3. What IR sensors would you use?
4. What avionics core processor would you use?
5. What flight control system?
6. What cockpit and Man-Machine Interface?
If any answers are different from APG-81, F135-PW-400, EOTS, DAS, etc., talk yourself through the multi-billion dollar RDT&E process for each of those systems.
The number one performance requirement that drove the design of all 3 JSF variants was combat radius/range. All 3 JSF variants exceed the combat radius of the 4th gen aircraft they replace by significant margins, and the shortest-legged JSF, the F-35B, still has roughly the same internal fuel of an F/A-18F Super Hornet. The F-35C exceeds the combat radius of the F-14D with 2 tanks by 100nm. The F-35A exceeds the radii of all 4th Gen TACAIR platforms in the USAF.
I also don’t accept the premise that the USMC doesn’t need [fill in the blank]. The USMC is no longer the WWII conceptual maritime assault force, because technology has facilitated more aggressive thinking in their organizational structure. We should advocate for a more capable USMC, not pigeon-hole them into something that other services think they should be.
The information warfare directed against JSF is coming from our adversaries, who drive messaging for our corporate media. It worked against the F-22 (which was originally planned at 750 units and never made it to full rate production), and they are now hammering it even more since they have a traitor in the White House again, who got into the US Senate via a Soviet program disguised through the Council for a Livable World in 1972. The last thing you ever want to do is rely on the bantering of the presstitutes for any information about aviation, defense, current events, or anything for that matter.
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@rob737700 The entire US media was co-opted by the Soviets in the 1950s, by inserting their propaganda campaign into the CIA’s attempt to influence media in favor of the US to counter the Soviet IOJ, which was beating us in that department.
Once the Soviets found out about Mockingbird, they took it over from within the CIA, with assistance from their assets in academia, the State Department, and DoD.
So any major successful US defense program that sets them off-balance will be allowed to go through its development cycle where they can let us do all the RDT&E work that they can’t afford to do, don’t have the facilities for, then they steal as much of the design as possible for their own programs.
They then launch a major media initiative with help from politicians to kill the program (B-1A, F-22, MX, etc.) and constantly run the mantra of, “It’s too expensive. It’s going over budget. It doesn’t work. etc.”
If it doesn’t work, then why do they copy our designs? (A-5 Vigilante --- MiG-25, B-1A---Tu-160, F-15/F-16----MiG-29, F-14/F-15---Su-27, F-22/F-35/YF-23----Su-57).
The problem they face is when a program is already a significant industrial base across numerous States in the US, where Congressrats have to face their voters who are employed throughout the industrial chain for the program.
But the Soviets had a plan for that as well, to get as many Democratic Socialists of America (CPUSA rebranded) into office to kill Defense programs no matter what repercussion from voters. Make the useful idiot congresswomen and manlets go full-retard together if they must, as long as the program is killed.
Russia does not want F-35s all around its borders in foreign partner nations, especially Norway, Finland, and Poland.
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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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@BertoxolusThePuzzled Sensors: JSF sensor web is so revolutionary, that they are often tasked like dedicated spy planes normally would be used, and can swing-role during that at any time during the sorties.
Costs: Nowhere near the $300 Billion acquisition budget has been spent yet, let alone anything approach a Trillion. The click-bait articles talking about over now trillion are estimates for the entire life of the program through the year 2073.
The US has only acquired roughly 500 JSF out of 790 delivered so far, and our program of record is 2,456 airframes between all 3 services, while the total program of record just keeps growing with foreign customers and partners.
Not even 4th Gen fighters are engaging in much WVR combat due to Helmet-HOBS missiles, which earlier generations of don’t work against JSF. JSF maneuverability is superior to almost all combat-configured fighters of the world if they decide to not use their missiles and try to engage in a 1950s-era guns fight, which hasn’t been done since 1979.
Climb rate and acceleration in F-35s is superb especially in the subsonic regime, and not that different than a Block 50 F-16C in supersonic regime. F-35s are far more lethal than any modern fighter within visual range at night, including the Typhoon or Rafale or F-22. NODS are integrated into the HMDS, so you don’t have to remove things like JHMCS and then attach NODs like in legacy fighters. UK Typhoons are getting an integrated Digital NODs/Helmet-Cueing Helmet Sight, but have nowhere near the 360 coverage of JSF, so they would be at a great disadvantage WVR at night against F-35s. Russians and Chinese don’t have anything like this and lag in those areas considerably.
JSF is an important component set in a multi-nodal network, and is the first fighter-shaped aircraft in history to deploy a space-sensor reaching suite. The JSF networked sensor web detects, tracks, and PIDs low earth orbit objects, which is one of the most overlooked things about its capabilities.
The F-35s minus all of that are still far superior to 4.5 Gen fighters because they don’t bolt on the necessary combat systems, they have the best fighter AESA in the world, the best multi-seeker 5.5 Gen combined IRST capability with the frontal DAS fused with the zoomable EOTS, which is fused with the AESA and RF passive sensors, and their fuel fractions surpass legacy fighters considerably.
All 4.5 Gen fighters are the actual relative garbage to JSF. I can break down the accurate and relevant math if you’ve made it this far.
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@Cole Clapperton The only cases of polio we see now come from the polio vaccine. Polio incidence was parallel with DDT spraying, and DDT spraying was being decreased before the polio vaccine ever existed, right along with rates of polio decreasing relevant to DDT. The graph of polio rates shows a downward decline many years before the polio vaccine was introduced, but more importantly, the rate of polio continued to decline until the vaccine was widely-distributed, and it actually increased the rates slightly until it fell to almost nothing by 1965. In 1953 at the peak of polio, there were 58,000 cases. By 1954, there were less than 17,000 cases. In 1955, the year the vaccine was introduced, there were only 13,850 cases of paralytic polio. Assume that everything you’ve been told about polio is a lie.
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@nigelft Harrier suffered 100 total airframe losses and 20 fatalities in its first 10 years of operational service between the UK and USMC. Maintenance on the Harrier airframe requires total wing removal to pull the engine, which takes most of the day. UK, USMC, and USAF started working together on its replacement in 1983 with the Supersonic STOVL Fighter and ASTOVL, which eventually became the JSF-B. UK did a ton of RDT&E on that with the VAAC Harrier for the STOVL Digital Flight Control System, and the networked AIM-120 BVR intercepts with data-linked Harrier F2/Blue Vixen radar. The USMC and UK are not looking back at the Harrier now that they have so many F-35Bs, which are a revolutionary platform in so many ways, it is hard to really compare them with anything else out there.
Right about Pentagon Wars-total sham of a movie, but entertaining. If they had truthfully finished the movie with Bradley performance in Desert Storm, it would have made the premise of the movie totally invalidated and humiliated their own story line, so they conveniently left the most important part out: How did it do in actual combat? It slayed more tanks in the Battle of 73 Easting than the M-1A2 Abrams did, and they both killed so many tanks in that battle against an Iraqi reverse-slope defense where they should have died and been repelled, that it was really a marvel of excellent training, weapons, and taking the initiative. The silly anti-tank missile that the fat General wanted on top? Yeah, that’s the TOW that was used to kill so many enemy tanks.
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@sepposavinainen2660 The training pipeline into the F-35 is really fast since it has such good simulators, and it’s the easiest fighter to fly in the world. Requires minimal pilot effort to take off, navigate, and land. Navigation can actually be done by the CNI hitting waypoints and altitude profiles by itself while the pilot focuses on the battlespace management and coordination with other JSF and receptive data link nodes in the network.
Any modern autopilot system can fly waypoints/FL bands, but F-35’s interface is much easier to use than any other cockpit design. The pilot configures the Panoramic Display throughout the flight, depending on what he’s doing and all relevant flight data is presented in the HMDS just for normal flight modes. A new pilot in an F-35 after maybe 6 months of squadron-level work-ups is far more lethal, survivable, and effective than a 20 year pilot in a 4th Gen fighter.
The DFLCS doesn’t allow the pilot to depart the aircraft, so you can fly it with reckless abandon on the edge of the performance envelope. They did Mach 1.4 tests where the test pilot would execute full left rudder, full right stick at that speed, commanding full g authority from the control surfaces and it still wouldn’t depart.
Finnish Air Force has a pretty unique fighter pilot community who are quiet about what they do, but are extremely brutal in their lethality against friendly fighters in large force exercises. They’re already training on F-35 in the US, and have been going to the US for a while now to become familiar with JSF and how it operates, how they can maximize it for Finnish Airspace defense and coordination with surface units via the network.
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Like with every source, you need to filter it. He has great insight on demographics, history, geography, trade routes, sea ports, raw vs value-added goods and where exactly they come from, supply chains, precursor materials, weather patterns, and topography relative to business and military activities. He stays away from or criticizes any questions about conspiratorial actors in the intelligence and business communities, condescends to genuine concerns from Europeans and Americans about their sovereignty and ethnic struggles, but also recognizes the role organized crime played in forming the US political class. You really need a lot of study before you can filter Peter well, but it’s worth it I think to be in that place of discernment.
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The Aussie Air Power source is one of the most misinformed on the web. Everything I've seen there is false, whether talking APG-81 TRM count, detection range, combat radius, thrust-to-weight ratio, climb rate, internal stores, weapons compatibility, you name it. It exaggerates Su-30 and Su-35 capabilities, which have proven to be dismal failures looking at MTBF, crashes, uncommanded ejections, and spare parts support from Russia. I would never mention APA as a reputable source, which is sad, because the owner should have the ability to make a quality site with factual information. His graphics and explanations are exceptional, only the information is incorrect.
F-35 is not expensive compared to 4th Gen + fighters. Do a comparative analysis and the F-35 starts to show how affordable it is.
As to maneuverability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPqUvCnWcrk
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@CakePrincessCelestia Depends on TGT. Buddy of mine works on APKWS. Very cool system for birds tasked with CAS primarily, but not effective on most mobile IADS platforms if we're talking armor chassis.
It's important to have the full weapons suite. That's one saving feature of the A-10 in its heyday in ODS, where it could be loaded with CBUs, Mk.82s, AGM-65s, and 1000rds of 30mm and employ all those on a single sortie going from TGT set to TGT set.
Sometimes a small munition will work, while other times you need larger to bust armor.
Apache-E with APKWS and AGM-114 makes a lot of sense.
A-10C with SDB and JDAMs, along with F-15E, F-35A carrying SDBs and JDAMs take care of the higher threats, though A-10C really has to be sparingly used near those environments since it's so slow and vulnerable, doesn't fly high.
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He’s discussing actual seafaring people, not Russia. Russia has always struggled to project into the seas, but they are basically land-locked and in such a high latitude with extreme cold, that they never were a seafaring people. Peter the Great tried to change that by starting the Russian Navy, but it’s just not in the cards for them. They have 4 major seaport areas for a nation with more land mass than any other in the world. Almost every US coastal State has that or more. Russia has Archangelsk, Primorsk, Novorossiysk, and Vladivostok. California alone has 40 sea ports, 5 very large deep sea ports that take heavy displacement vessels, 1 large port, 7 medium, and 19 small ports. You can look at each sea port in the world and see how deep they are, how much tonnage they process each year, and quickly see Russia just isn’t anywhere in the top 10 nations for sea trade. 95% of their exports go through Novorossiysk, which means they are extremely vulnerable in the Black Sea.
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@Ozark-nq9uu Most people don't know that Belgium and the Netherlands manufactured hundreds of F-16As and Bs under license through the MSIP partner nation program in the early 1980s, for 4 European NATO countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark).
Those F-16s were later modernized through the MLU program into F-16AMs and BMs, what we call MLU birds.
Ukraine recently received F-16AMs from Denmark.
The US hasn't flown the F-16A/B series for about 30 years. We started buying F-16Cs already in 1982, and pushed F-16A/Bs into National Guard and Reserve units as USAF bought Block 25, 30, 40, 42, 50, and 52 later model F-16C/Ds throughout the 1980s-early 2000s.
These F-16C/Ds are tasked-out in mostly operational squadrons all over the world and the US, not available for FMS.
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@obcane3072 The waves of North African Arabs, Sub-Saharan Africans, and Middle Eastern immigrants to Europe have already been rioting, engaging in terrorism, raping, incest, and behaviors not acceptable to post-WWII Europeans.
I foresee multiple flash points as the economic conditions deteriorate, leading to multiple Civil wars and uprisings in France, Germany, UK, Sweden, and Netherlands.
Europe will ask the US to send peace-keepers, but the US might not want to commit.
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@jmhorange I'm just pointing out what the majority of your neighbors in MI care about, and it isn't Gaza.
I spent my whole career in Defense and foreign policy, but I will be blowing nothing but hot air talking to my neighbors about Gaza, Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, Iran, NATO, etc.
I've spent a good portion of my life stationed in Europe, South Korea, and the Middle East. That means nothing to Americans who can't buy a house, have to cut back on groceries, and can't afford to replace their used cars with another used car.
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@East_Coast_Toasty_Boy 5 decades in Aerospace and defense, specific to US fighters, their avionics, and weapons systems.
F-14A was faster with TF30s and no TCS, but had a lot of engine-related total airframe losses, and therefore was often Mach, AOA, and roll rate limited, pilot observed. I can talk you through each of the engine-specific airframe losses if you want.
Even with the more reliable F110s, it was limited on the top end. There's a good interview on here where a former F-14D pilot talked about trying to push it to Mach 2, and had compressor stalls at Mach 1.8.
A 2-tank, 4 AAM Tomcat normally wasn't doing much more than 1.2-1.4 Mach for extremely limited supersonic dashes, whether for intercept time-critical employment windows, or weapons separation parameters.
The placard values you see aren't operationally-relevant.
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@allanasp771 The advantage is in spares, commonality of parts, training, maintenance infrastructure, weapons, communications, interoperability with friendly nations, and cross-pollination of improvements that Sweden would have benefitted from with zero RDT&E infested into those systems.
FiAF in their Hornets is just one example of that. They got aircraft that had been through 17 years of development, combat experience, upgrades, evolution into the C/D models, without Finnish Parliament spending a dime on Research & Development.
The Gripen only partially does this through the F404 or F414 engine, the missiles, Martin-Baker ejection seats, US Mil-1553B databus, Mauser 27mm cannon, while many of the components are specific to the Gripen airframe. Sweden had to invest the RDT&E for the overall air-vehicle systems development, while getting a low-capability multirole fighter as a result.
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@dexterplameras3249 The 2020 AIM-120D3 when fired at optimum kinematic state from an F-15C+ exceeded the range of the 1990s AIM-54C fired from optimum kinematic state from the F-14A.
Had the AIM-54 series remained in inventory along with the F-14, it would have undergone the same types of upgrades in propellant and guidance resulting in incremental improvements to WEZ and NEZ parameters.
AIM-120C5 can't reach AIM-54C effective range, for example. AIM-120D3 fired from a Hornet or Super Hornet will never achieve what it can from the F-15C+, Typhoon, or Raptor.
This gets more complex as you get into the missile model and series, plus the separation aircraft altitude and speed.
We were working on AIM-120 integration on the Block 30 & 40 F-16C/D back in the late 1980s, so I'm coming from a place of intimacy with the subject.
A huge factor in BVR is IFF against Non-Cooperative Targets. You have to have PID, otherwise you could be blasting an airliner out of the sky like the Russians have done multiple times, and USN did in the Persian Gulf in 1988.
Precious few fighters/interceptors have the Radar detection, tracking, and PID range to employ the latest AIM-120D3 to its maximum WEZ potential.
R-33 & R-37 series have the propellant mass capacity for more burn time, which results in significant WEZ/NEZ parameters.
When used in conjunction with the huge Zaslon or Irbis-E PESA Radars on MiG-31BM and Su-35S, there is a long-look/long-reach problem for smaller fighters that isn't solved merely by giving them a longer WEZ AAM.
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@dexterplameras3249 There are IFF features introduced with solid state electronics Radars already in the 1970s that work strictly in the RF spectrum. They really showed up first on the F-15A with its APG-63, and it was significantly upgraded starting in 1978 with a Digital Signals Processor that was standard on the F-15C/D models, then back-filled into the A/Bs even as we pushed them into AFRES and ANG units.
F-16A benefitted greatly from the F-15's Radar developments, but it has a much smaller antenna and less volume for back-end amplifiers, waveform generators, filters, and analog-to-digital converters.
F-16C Block 25 got a new APG-68 Radar that has been upgraded until (V)9 through the late Block F-16s (40, 42, 50, 52), which are now being replaced by AESAs with the PoBIT program.
F/A-18 benefitted from a lot of the lessons and improvements on the F-15 and has also undergone a series of Radar and avionics upgrades throughout its service life. It had multiple upgrades to the APG-65, then got the APG-73 and now APG-79 AESA.
The F/A-18C had at least 2 NCTR parameter capabilities the F-14A/B didn't have, which allowed them to face-shoot MiGs in Desert Storm.
The US teen series have mostly been limited to RF spectrum detection, tracking, and PID without relying on IRST like we had on F-101B, F-102A, F-106A, F-8G, F-4B/C/D/J, and some F-14s with TCS.
What you'll notice is those Electro-Optical sensors were primarily used on interceptors who commonly encountered strategic bombers that had very powerful jammers to render their Radars useless. IRST is totally passive, so they could use them to maintain sensor tracks for firing solutions for IR-guided missiles.
For fighters vs fighters, the US and NATO shifted into aircraft with very user-friendly multi-mode Radars, working in conjunction with AWACS.
The F-15s in particular would operate in 4 ships in tactical spread abreast of each other, covering large sectors of airspace getting first-look, first-shoot.
If they closed into visual range after multiple AIM-7M shots failed to kill the threat fighters, they would still face-shoot with the AIM-9L/M, which had all-aspect capability.
F-22A and F-35s play a different game. So I mentioned the F/A-18C had at least 2 NCTR parameters in 1991. F-35 had 638 in 2016, covering multiple bands in RF spectrum, LW IR, Mid IR, short IR spectrums, with a huge threat library where each target has a multi-spectral profile set.
Focal Plane Array seekers don't care about flares because they are locked onto the specific image of their target and its constant location/presentation.
Chaff is designed to confuse and distract Radars and Radar missiles from their targets. Without going into details, you can imagine that there are counter-countermeasures for chaff and notching.
AESA Radars operate much differently than legacy Mechanically-Steered Array Radars. 2 Fighters with AESAs and Line of Sight LPI data links can maintain track on fighters trying to use common 4th Gen tactics of Radar evasion (notching in clutter while dispensing chaff).
1 Fighter with an AESA and IRST can also maintain track if a threat fighter is close enough, even if it notches against surface clutter.
Threat fighter emissions also compromise their location, especially with MSA and PESA Radars vs AESA-equipped fighters.
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Russia is currently undergoing its 7th brain-drain since the Czarist era. 1st was the Great War. 2nd was Bolshevism forcing out most of the intellectuals, business owners, brokers, lawyers, professors, skilled foremen, managers, factory leaders, poets, writers, and family businesses. 3rd was the Russian Civil War. 4th Was World War II/Great Patriotic War, 5th was Soviet Times with loss of apprentice program, 6th was Yeltsin years 1991-1999, and now at least 150,000 Russian IT workers and scientists fleeing due to foreign employment and the inability to work if they stay in Russia or CIS-aligned nations.
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@PBVader I can see .076" ports at MLGS 16-18", not 20" RLGS, unless I'm missing something. For reference, I've been really big into AR-10s since the late 1980s, have owned, shot, and worked on many of them, to include Dutch ArmaLites, Eagle Arms ArmaLites, SR-25s, DPMS, Iron Ridge Arms, GAP, ASA, JP, Bushmaster BAR-10, RRA LAR-8, DPMS GII, Savage MSR-10.
I've had the gas port diameter conversation with multiple upper tier manufacturers, and have measured port diameters on a lot of barrels.
Maybe my memory has just gone totally TU, but those numbers sound way off to me.
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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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@livingtribunal4110 Prigozhin said Wagner lost at least 22,000 soldiers as of JUN2023 in Bakhmut alone. How many Russian Army soldiers died in Bakhmut? How many in Donetsk, Donbas, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mariupol, Melitopol, Sumy, Kiev, Kramatorsk, Zaprorizhzhia?
Why were the past 2 May Day Parades in Moskva filled with cadets, limited vehicles, and no fly-overs?
In MAR2022, Russian Defense Ministry said 498 Russian troops had been killed, with 1,597 injured.
By SEP2022, Rus MoD said 5,937 KIA.
By FEB 2023, internal FSB estimates showed 110,000 Russian casualties. By late JUN2023, Prigozhin said the Russian forces had lost 120,000 soldiers KIA, and he criticized the MoD for downplaying the actual numbers.
Putin may have been referring to KIA + WIA in his 360,000 slip-up admission.
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Varrel Aulia R.: Your cost figures are way off. F-35A is $94.3 million. F/A-18E Super Hornet fly-away without Electro-Optical Aiming sensors, JHMCS, and other critical mission equipment that has to be added to make it fleet worthy. The F-35 already has next generation versions of all those systems, plus more capabilities the F/A-18 will never have, for less cost.
The most comparable production 4th Gen + fighter that has older generation capabilities that try to compete with the F-35 is the F-16E/F being sold to Dubai. Those are $200 million a piece, and still not low observable.
Anytime you see someone try to compare costs of a 4th Gen aircraft with the F-35, make sure to add the Sniper Pods, ECM suite, JHMCS, AESA radar, etc. and then realize that you still don't have super cruise, you still have a huge radar cross section, poor high altitude performance when cruising, and 1980s-era cockpits with high pilot workload when managing BVR closure and evasion, air-to-ground missions, navigation, etc.
Go watch Colonel Burke's analysis of the F-35. He was an F/A-18 pilot, Top Gun Instructor, ground FAC in Ramadi, F22 pilot, and F-35B lead transition program pilot. He said he used to compare the F-35 based on his understanding of 4th Gen birds, but now realizes that if you are flying a 4th Gen bird against 5th Gen, you're already dead. He describes it as a game-changer, and said they haven't even cracked the surface on how it will change the way we fight.
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@TrendyStone The US manufactures high-end and DoD contract chips in Silicon Valley, Silicon Slopes, and other SC plants in the US. Taiwan does not have a monopoly on SC manufacturing.
A big problem people have is thinking that the commercial sector is the same as DoD. They are parallel sectors, with entirely different supply chains and sources subject to Berry Amendment compliance.
This applies to boots, uniforms, gloves, vehicles, tires, lubricants, pallets, small arms, aircraft, missiles, and all the subcomponents.
Every single subcomponent in a DoD contract has to have a Technical Data Package with security of supply and strategic materials compliance certification process.
It's nothing like the commercial sector. So when you hear someone talk about chips from Taiwan in M-1 Abrams tanks and F-35s, you realize that source isn't remotely aware of how DoD supply side works.
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@matchesburn In the first 10 years of actual operational service with the F-16, we lost 143 airframes with 71 fatalities.
Problems ran the gamut from engine failures, wire chaffing for the FLCS and instruments, leading edge flap brackets failing and flipping up in flight, EPU failures, lots of GLOC, landing incidents, and CFIT.
F-35s have been relatively problem-free. None of the 3 F-35A crashes have been mechanically-caused that we know of. The latest at Hill happened during goose migration season, and strange sounds were heard before the pilot ejected, so I suspect it was goose ingestion.
Only 1 F-35B crash was due to mechanical failure, but it looks like this crash landing is mechanically-caused. This will not result in total airframe loss, so this is borderline Class A or B depending on cost to repair.
There have only been 3 F-35Bs lost in crashes since 2008. That's 14 years of continuous flight and 200 F-35Bs built/delivered.
Harrier had 100 crashes and 20 fatalities its first 10 years.
The math doesn't even remotely support your statements and conclusions. The math is brutally in favor of all 3 JSF series being safer than any other current or previous fighter designs.
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China bought up GE appliances division through questionable deals, in order to weasel-in on GE jet engines. They could give to rips about airlines, as the priority is for their fighters and military aircraft. Airlines are down the priority list for them. They’re important for domestic and regional clout, but it all comes down to being able to back up your clout with air power. Making jet engines is an exclusive club China has been trying to join since the 1980s, and failing miserably at it.
The US is the global leader in fighter jet and turbofan engine design and manufacturing, surpassing the British in the 1960s-1970s at the latest.
UK is 2nd in terms of quality.
Russia is 2nd in terms of quantity and knocking off US designs, but still falling behind in performance, systems integration, and HPHT stage longevity.
France is 3rd in quality, right up there with UK.
Germany is up there with UK and France.
Japan is up-and-coming in this space.
China is way behind all of the above, and they’ve been throwing billions at trying to copy the GE CFM56 since the 1980s.
China crashes Flankers and J-20s quite frequently, one of the main causes being engines exploding in flight. They have relied on Russia for the better part of the last 70 years, and Russian engines have sucked all along that time. China had no interest in the Su-35 itself, but had to order them just to get the engines. Russians put dead-man’s switches in them of course so the engines couldn’t be used in other Chinese Flankers like the J-16.
Engines are a big deal though.
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@truthbetold1377 Severely cut the Department of Education, HHS, HUD (socialist project dwellings that breed the welfare class), Food Stamps, Department of Labor, Commerce Dept, Dept of the Interior, Dept of Justice, slash Department of Labor (which has grown into a Soviet-Style bureaucracy of grotesque proportions and earns a D rating in its FOIA requests. Put the people to work who are receiving long-term government benefits through all these socialist programs left over from Wilson, FDR, and Nixon so they can help increase our Military force structure and capabilities, as well as our infrastructure.
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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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@monty2654 Not sure what test program you’re looking at, but it isn’t the JSF series. Not only did they conduct more extensive testing, weapons separation, validation, and integration iterations, but they did it with cooperative test centers between the USAF Flight Test Center at Edwards, Naval Weapons Test Centers at China Lake and Point Mugu, Naval Flight Test Center at Pax River, UK Flight Test Center, Eglin AFB Climactic Chamber and Eglin Weapons Test and Eval Ranges in Florida, White Sands Missile Test Ranges, NM, and other integrated test locations that have never worked together in concert like that.
The opposite is true with the F-14, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18. None of those designs were ready for mass production with their A models, with maybe an exception to the F-15A. F-14 didn’t even have the F401-PW-400 engine the USN invested hundreds of millions of early 1970s dollars in for the planned production original F-14B (never happened), F-16A/B was unsafe and experienced over 600 Class A mishaps/100,000 flight hours its first few years with 143 crashes/total losses and 71 fatalities.
F/A-18A/B didn’t even have sound landing gear for safety, with an alignment bar that would come loose, send the thing skidding or cart-wheeling down the runway. Avionics were whacked, with the original APG-65 suffering all kinds of failures, triggered its own RWR, vertical stabs buffeted so badly that they cracked the underlying support bulkheads around the engines, and the wing tips fluttered so badly at transonic speeds they caused cracks and failures to wing structures. First 10 years of F/A-18 service saw 97 airframe losses with 27 fatalities.
Those of us who were involved in the development of the teen series look back, then look at the JSF program and just shake our heads at how wrong people are in their ignorant assessment of how unbelievably-safe all 3 of them are, and how smoothly the sensors and other avionics have been integrated in comparison.
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@redslate I’ll preface this with the fact that I have been following unit costs, programs costs, MLUs, SLEPs, and related programs since 1984 because we were directly or indirectly involved in several of them for the F-16C/D Block 30 and later, F-14D, F-15C/D, F-15E, and other programs with relevant metrics essential to this subject.
"The per unit cost of an F-35A is twice that of an F-16.” This is incorrect and also not specific to which F-16 model and MLU.
An F-16AM that has undergone MLU is considerably more costly than its 1979-1982 initial unit flyaway cost. You also have to adjust for inflation from the years of purchase, then add the MLU costs. There are MLU phases that exceeded the original unit flyway cost if not adjusted of inflation.
F-16CM Block 40/42/50/52 after CCIP 1 & 2 cost more per unit than an F-35A, not even including their necessary ancillary pods. Original unit flyaway costs were in the $40 - $50 million range, but CCIP per bird cost tens of millions. The labor and materials/systems costs are huge. Some of the CCIP schedules were 45 days per bird.
F-16E/F are more than twice the cost of the F-35A. F-16E/F were $200 million per, due to a totally new program set of requirements ordered by the UAE.
But here’s another cost nobody is talking about: Projected airframes loss costs vs airframes retained. F-16s crash on a regular basis to this day, with many fatalities. F-35s do not. You pay more money for an F-16CM, F-16E/F, or F-16V for a higher chance of losing the airframe and experiencing pilot and other fatalities. You pay less for each F-35 with extremely low probability of airframe losses and fatalities. There has only been 1 fatality in the JSF program to-date, with 16 years of flight on the F-35A. That’s unheard of.
"An F-35B is three times that of an F/A-18.” This is also incorrect. F-35B is currently $101.3 million.
F/A-18Cs had an initial flyaway cost, then have undergone numerous fixes, improvements, SLEP, airframe structural repairs, and several in USMC and RoCAF service are getting new and expensive APG-79(V)4 AESA Radars with GaN Transmitter Receiver Modules.
So we’re looking at F/A-18C+ unit costs pushing well over $100 million.
Here’s the math: F/A-18C built in 1988 and delivered for unit flyway (no spares) at $29 million.
2022 dollars = $72.98 million for the stripped airframe, no SLEP, no pylons, no racks, no support equipment.
F/A-18C/D SLEP 1 = $16.3 million per aircraft (Swiss paid $490 million to SLEP 30x F/A-18C/D fighters.)
Add the APG-79 AESA, ATFLIR or LITENING, new EW system, and we’re over $100 million for the respective USMC and RoCAF birds.
That’s an F/A-18C+ that has maybe 1/8 the capability of an F-35 on a really good day, with one of the FMC birds that isn’t broken.
"The published numbers are future projections or don't include the cost of engines: $15M (A&C) / $32M (B).” This is also incorrect. For some of the early years of JSF production, airframe and propulsion system costs were accounted separately, but they merged many years ago. Unit flyaway costs have included the motors since then. I think it was 2015 off the top of my head, maybe earlier. I have spent hours looking that all up before from reputable contractor and DoD publications.
Hopefully this information helps correct some of the bad data you came across, and you can look back on the corrupt data sources and remove them from your feed. Happy New Year!
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@MrClarkM If you look at the Brazilian contract, the Unit Program Cost was $155.5 million for Gripen E/F, which includes spares, weapons, training, support, pylons, external tanks, simulators, etc.
There's literally no way you get a $60 million unit flyaway from $155.5 million Unit Program.
If you look at the Gripen C/D contract for 24 aircraft at $1.8 Billion in 2002 to Hungary (cancelled, modified into a lease, bribery scandal involved), that puts us at $75 million per in 2002 dollars for a much less complex airframe. That would be $115.88 million today Unit Program Cost for Gripen C/D, not Gripen E/F.
Switzerland already said in 2015 the Gripen NG was $85 million unit flyaway. That was 6+ years ago. That would be $99.68 million unit flyaway today for the proposed Gripen NG (didn't exist).
We normally see roughly 75/25 ratios of Unit Flyaway to Unit Program, not always, but generally speaking.
I've been tracking defense acquisitions and FMS since the mid 1980s, but I'm always open to more valid info.
Right now in the Canadian proposals, the Gripen E/F bid is the most expensive of the 2, at $19 billion for 88 airframes. Do the math on that Unit Program Cost. That's like a Typhoon or Rafale.
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@MrClarkM Unless the Canadian Parliament wants to come out and say...
"Fellow citizens, we've chosen the more expensive, lowest-capability, step-down from current Hornet capability, underpowered Gripen E, which just lost 2 competitions in Europe and turning down the most affordable, highest-capability, biggest industrial share that we're already participating in F-35."
Even the most brain-dead anti-defense politician won't want to spend more for less.
RCAF will tell them the Gripen E is a major step down in several ways from the Hornets (payload, Radar, take-off distance, climb rate).
RCAF leadership already knows what's in JSF and wants to adopt it and stop delaying the inevitable.
The political games have been a smokescreen to mislead the public.
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@howardbartlett3026 I haven’t heard any of those former Navy FWS instructors say they wish the Navy had purchased the 145nm radius F-20 vs the 500nm F-16N. They even used the weaker, older APG-66 from the F-16A in the F-16N. F-20A didn’t have anywhere near as big of a Radar with the APG-67. I remember all that developmental work and advertised capabilities of the Tigershark well. F-20A would not have been a good platform to replicate Su-27 and MiG-29 in BVR, let alone WVR.
F-20A and F-16 were never designed for CAS, so I’m not sure why that would come up, but the F-20A especially has no legs from which to conduct CAS. I have personally called in F-16Cs and A-10As for CAS, but the B-1B and F-15E are better at it because they have legs and payload, with multiple crew to work the CAS call, gain SA, and maintain comms with Troops In Contact. Yes, F-16 is a 2-pass platform normally. One initial pass for gaining TGT and Blue Force locations, 2nd pass for weapons employment, depending on proximity to their basing to aerial refueler.
A-10s aren’t survivable in most theaters in the world, so their usefulness as a CAS platform is limited to a permissive environment, which means you can’t really use them in the Air Tasking Order other than standby QRF.
Venezuelan F-16A/Bs got left way behind technologically. F-16C Block 30 and up absolutely have BVR capabilities in excess of any F-5E/F. APG-68(V)8/9 is a very capable FCR, being replaced by SABR AESA radars currently.
Even before that, the APG-68/AIM-120 combo was quite formidable in BVR, as demonstrated live against the solid state electronics-equipped MiG-25PD, Serbian MiG-29As, MiG-23BNs, Su-24s, etc. F-16C has added 10 A2A kills in the past 10 years, much of which was with AIM-120.
The big problem with the F-20’s radome size is that we already had and were developing missiles that out-WEZ’d the APG-67, namely the AIM-7M and AIM-120. AIM-7M was an interim solution to the AIMVAL problems identified with lightweight fighters achieving mutual kills against the F-14A and F-15A in the 1970s out at Nellis.
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@johanmetreus1268 So you think Finnish Air Force pilots and planners wanted some other fighter to send their best up in against Russia, but chose the F-35A instead?
They listed the 5 military performance domains. F-35A exceeded the minimum threshold of 4/5 in all of them. No other entrant came close.
Ask yourself this. Which fighters would you rather have right now up against MiG-31BM and Su-35S lifting hypersonic R-37Ms at you from extreme long range?
* Gripen E with 1m2-2m2 RCS, limited payload, range, detection range, networking not even remotely developed, needs GlobalEye for SA, legacy maintenance problems, lack of prognostic systems management, no upgrade path/last of the series, costs more than F-35A, all major and subcontractor tech comes from US, UK from 2-3 decades ago under 2nd tier licenses
* F-35A that can't be seen outside of 13-27nm, superior SA to anything currently, with 6x BVRAAM, LRASM, JDAM, JASSM, NSM, LPI MADL, best fighter AESA in the world, easy to fly, easy to land, maintains itself practically, can go deep into Russian MEZ if it wants, D-SEAD beast, offensive EW capable, scary anti-ship platform, automated theater networking and industrial base with Norway, Poland, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Switzerland, US...
* Rafale F4 at € 216m unit program cost, 1-2m2+ RCS, expensive mx w/2 French motors, French missiles, underdeveloped strike SEAD capes, no industrial share, F4 variant likely last of the production series, old gen data link
* Super Hornet Block 3 + Growler combo, last production models, USN already looking to divest of theirs in favor of F-35C Block 4, good systems maturity but lacks survivability in latest R-37M MEZ both due to RCS and weak kinematics to Flankers and Foxhound
* Typhoon at over €200m unit program cost, no industrial share, 2 motors, expensive mx, legacy data link, 1-2m2 RCS, etc.
The choice for Finland was glaringly-obvious just in terms of capabilities and cost. The others just didn't cut it no matter which angle you want to look at it from.
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@Karl-Benny Where are you getting $44k CPFH from? That's F-22A CPFH, not F-35A.
Remember that when you hear the entire fleet average worst case estimate for CPFH (including projected life cycle mx amortized back into the current very young fleet), you're not seeing a representative figure for operational squadrons.
If you look in the DoD Comptroller reports over the past 4 years, there are very detailed hourly cost rates for every single fixed and rotary wing aircraft in service.
Even with personnel costs, F-35A was $17,333/hr in 2018. Interestingly enough, the F-35B operating costs were less.
When Switzerland did all the accounting on the Gripen E, they assessed it would cost them $21,000-$27,000 CPFH for O&M.
There is no $8000 CPFH for Gripen. It's just crazy when you see someone citing those kinds of numbers. If you dive into the world of defense accounting, there are so many variables to consider that you can really manipulate numbers to fit an agenda.
What I've been noticing in the cost argument agenda is that any number associated with JSF is inflated dramatically with no real basis in reality.
We've seen that with references to $150 million airframes (F-35A is $77.9million), $1.2, then $1.5, then $1.7 trillion estimated program costs through 2070, and now these exorbitant O&M costs of $36k, might as well add another $10k and make it $46k CPFH, from presstitutes who couldn't even balance their own bank accounts.
Finland isn't taking on cost risks of having to upgrade USAF older Lot inventory F-35As, or build entertainment facilities for USAF pilots.
Finland's purchasing schedule will be at a time when a whole new production Block is commencing, with all the improvements incorporated into the line from Blocks 1-3F.
In the worst-case USAF CPFH estimates, they amortize future upgrades needed to bring the entire fleet up to Block 4 or 5 standards, which don't even exist.
It's a money request scheme the USAF uses, even including funding for new fighter squadron buildings, possible mx shops, and ancillary spending barely associated with actually flying the aircraft.
Anytime you see anyone talk about CPFH, be very aware of variable costs and fake cost projections amortized back on top of the real O&M costs.
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@Karl-Benny Oh wait, you said $6000 CPFH for Gripen. Did you know that's the actual CPFH of the A-10C without any amortized upgrades, depot mx, etc.? Think about it. An A-10C with no radar, no afterburning turbofan, no complex EW system, cruises at 285kts (no supersonic resilient structures), no DFLCS, no FADEC, no RAM. It's preposterous to think they cost the same to operate, but that's what they're claiming with Gripen.
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@Dexter037S4 They took the basic airframe and wing design from the North American A-5 Vigilante and Avro Arrow, then put the Arrow's nose and radome design on it to house the huge Smerch radar.
Canadians had done the aerodynamic testing of that radome and nose, and worked out the optimum ogive. Windscreen resistance to aerodynamic friction heat had been engineered, and the Soviets just stole it.
They didn't have the metallurgy specialty to make a Titanium airframe with advanced materials science for heat mitigation of leading edges, so they made the Foxbat mostly out of stainless steel as a brute force approach.
Go look at the 1958 Vigilante, 1958 Arrow, and 1964 MiG-25. You'll see where they got the intake geometry, wing planform, basic fuselage shape, horizontal tail planes, etc.
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@Frostie-e8g Ha ha. One of us has spent 3 decades studying, training, and teaching CQB, and it'sobvious the other hasn't. #1 man shoots before he even enters the room if he has a threat, then assaults forward into the room. This is exactly what the other Assaulters stated happened with the #1 man. He shot Bin Laden CoM, then followed his shots into the room. The other guys flowed into the room naturally, securing the combative females. The #4 man, O'Neill, followed, and put 3 rounds into Bin Laden's head, canoeing his face wide open so PID became much more difficult.
As soon as O'Neill came forward with his crazy story, word spread through the grapevine that he definitely wasn't the shooter. Then Matt Bissionette came forward stating that it was another operator who killed Bin Laden, while the actual #1 man wished to remain anonymous and not get PNG'd. This has been known for well over a decade.
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@Deuce_Dufresne Pilots have zero control over those pay grade decisions. They can suit-up, go execute, and RTB.
Part of USAF, USN, and USMC Air Component forces operational mandates is to support the overall war effort, whether that be deep interdiction, OCA, DCA, strike, pre-planned CAS, on-call CAS, ISR, CSAR, etc.
How is CAS not doctrinal? How does berating people actually doing their jobs by bringing up a theoretical argument help the overall force?
A WIC IP comments how saving lives via the CAS and SEAD mission sets is the most important thing, and you say "That's not doctrinal."
The doctrinal argument has been back-and-forth between everybody and their brother for 75 years.
"Missiles and nukes are more important than bombers, therefore we should focus on fighter escorts for bombers and bomber interceptors for NORAD."
"SBNs are more important than carriers, and carriers should focus on tactical nuke delivery anyway."
"SAC is more important than TAC."
"Tactical Nukes are more important than Infantry, therefore we can cut our normal 2 week rifle marksmanship to 2 days."
"Fighters should not have a pound for air-to-ground."
"We should optimize the force for conflict too costly for our enemies to fight, then complain about costs when they leverage surrogates against us that bleed us over the long haul."
Given all that, maybe saving lives via CAS and SEAD rises several rungs on your theoretical doctrinal priority list matrix.
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@garfieldfarkle B-1 was not meant to carry dumb bombs as primary. B-1A/AGM-86A development were complimentary systems. MiG-25 was a point defense fighter with very limited radius, burned through its fuel way too fast, plus its air bases could be first-phase targeted by ALCMs.
Tomahawk is SLBM, not ALCM. These are basic facts about weapons that you should understand before commenting on them.
Yes, I have solid sources. They aren’t something you can check out of a library though. Some of those guys were triple agents and turned back on the Soviets.
Put the numbers aside for a bit and ask yourself these questions:
How many doubles would it take to co-opt Mockingbird? That was done in spades.
How many would it take to counter WH policy on Cuba, Laos Vietnam, Chile, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece...
How many would it take to do all that and continue to get away with it? How about a mole that transferred the NATO OPLAN to the Soviets every 6 months?
There was a very comprehensive and aggressive recruiting campaign in the POW camps at the end of the War to initiate a mass Trojan horse operation against the US.
Have you studied the history of Okhrana and Cheka? Have you heard of Vaslov’s Army?
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@andrewszigeti2174 One if the most overlooked, misunderstood aspects of VLO is the IR stealth on all the JSF variants. If you look at Lockheed's generations of expertise in this field, then look closely at the F-35, you'll start to notice some things.
There are at least 4 layers of IR signature concealment systems integrated into the F-35's surfaces, fuselage, wings, and engine nozzle.
There are large air scoops that take ambient air (which is anywhere from -20 to -60°C) and flow it over and through the LOAN engine nozzle.
The massive fuel volume is used as a heat sink to pull aerodynamic heat off the wing leading edges, and heat exchangers are integrated into the cool air bypass fan stage on the motor.
Then there are things integrated with the RAM to virtually eliminate solar radiation from the surfaces.
The engine exhaust spirals within the cool air flow mass since the afterburner flame holders are angled and concealed in the RF spectrum, so there is a synergy of RF and IR concealment that is revolutionary from a signature reduction perspective.
So all the assumptions and claims you see about F-35 IR signature being huge are very uninformed and opposite of the truth. It's an extremely cold TGT in the IR spectrum.
The presence of IRST on the MiG-29 and Su-27, plus IR sensors on Russian mobile IADS platforms drove the IR signature reduction program within JSF. They were given billions to solve that problem, with test ranges and expertise that dwarf what any other country has at their disposal.
So the IR spectrum is a place the JSF and ATF dominate. JSF has more sensors that are fused with each other to detect, track, and PID at BVR better than anything out there.
If you wanted to configure a certain number of F-35Cs for A2A focusing on Fleet Defense, you could load them with 4x AIM-120C/D, and 2x AIM-9X Blk III.
F-14s typically only flew with 2-4 missiles because of loading time for ordnance across several squadrons, weapon wear from carrier ops, and bring-back limits.
With F-35, you get more kills due to higher pk than with legacy fighters because there is no mutual detection timeline, counter-moves, and re-attack sequence common to 4th Gen. That's why the F-15 and Flankers have the magazine depth that they do, because they were envisioned in a mutual detection BVR scenario where the initial missile releases are usually posturing for who will be offensive first.
5th Gen fighters don't play in that space. They hunt from the shadows on their terms, with extremely unfair missile WEZ parameters that immediately go into NEZ with no missile approach warning.
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@andrewszigeti2174 Most IRSTs are radar-cued. Not sure that you’re aware of that. The field of regard of IRSTs is large, but they need some type of cueing to look at a specific spot in the sky. Threat IRSTs don’t show any hit until right on the edge of or within visual range against F-35s, which means they’re already dead tens of miles before getting to that place.
4th Gen Radar Warning Receiver sets don’t work against US AESAs that well, which is why there has been such an effort to upgrade RHAW equipment into digital self-protection suites on the 4.5 Gen fighters. LPI AESAs in freq-hopping, using low power beam steering and tracking and can detect and track targets without the targets knowing they’re being painted, even with most of the later RW sets. That’s the whole thing with 5th Gen vs 4th Gen. They fly blind until weapons impact, not much they can do.
5th Gen don’t rely on AWACS while airborne because they form their own more dense, more-informed ISR and AEW&C nets, with better resolution and airborne/surface detection and geo-locating capabilities than any AWACS. AWACS primarily fill a duration mission set in that context, so that there is always somebody up to provide early warning.
Nobody flies fighter CAP, maritime patrol, or DCA with only 2 aircraft. I was using the 2-ship example in simplistic terms. There are swarms of these things with constant sortie generation, along with the other aircraft in a Wing. F-35s possess the ability to defend AWACS and Tankers better than any other fighter, more on-par with the Raptor in that mission. The best defense is a great offense, so the OCA mission includes striking aircraft wherever you find them. F-15EX is meant to replace F-15C+ fighters in the Air National Guard for CONUS-based Air Defense mission profile primarily, since Raptor production was cut short by traitors within the Bush and Obama Administrations with full support from those Presidents.
There are 620 JSF built so far, with F-35s already flying operationally in 9 different nations, in addition to F-22As, F-15C+s, F-16Cs, F-16A MLUs, Typhoons, Rafales, F-16E/Fs, Super Hornets, F-15Es, F-16Is, F-15Is, etc. The combined arms force mix already exists and F-35s make everyone else much more lethal. All Large Force Exercises with F-35s have been incorporating these force multipliers every since F-35s were delivered to the USMC and USAF, followed by Royal Netherlands and Norwegian Air Forces.
I’m not sure if you’re aware but F-35s carry the largest Internal fuel fractions of any fighter. Even the F-35B carries almost the same amount of internal fuel as a 2-seat Super Hornet. The F-35A carries over 18,000lb, while the F-35C carries over 19,000lbs internally. There are no external fuel tanks. They don’t have EFTs on any F-35s. There are talks about making them just for trans-oceanic ferry flights, then removing them for operations, but so far, they’ve been operating with internal fuel only.
Just to give you clarity through contrast with legacy fighters, the F-16 only carries 7,000lb of internal fuel and has to use EFTs on every mission to have a decent radius. F-35A exceeds the mission radii of all current TAC AIR fighters in USAF inventory just using internal fuel, including Strike Eagles when they carry CFTs and 2x EFTs with weapons.
So the JSF concept deals with all of the concerns you have raised back during its design stages, and has only evolved since then. The new missiles currently in development and testing will increase the F-35’s internal missile count by a factor of 2. One of them is basically a HALFRAAM with the same performance of an AIM-120C7. The other is a LRAAM called the AIM-260. UK F-35Bs should declare IOC with the Meteor soon as well. The Sidekick weapons bay will be standard on later Block 4 F-35As and F-35Cs, increasing the internal AAM count to 3x LRAAM in each bay for a total of 6, or 6x in each bay with Peregrine missiles for a total internal count of 12.
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@andrewszigeti2174 You’re talking about a close range IR camera of an air show flight demo of the F-35B in hover mode, where the engine generates over 40,000lb of thrust. The cool airflow isn’t cool since it’s at sea level, and it isn’t flowing over the F-35B’s F135-PW-400 in the 3BSD hover mode since the nozzle is pointing down.
In full military power, the F135 engine generates 28,000lb of thrust, and there is no reason to maintain that power level while cruising much of the time. It has a lot of excess thrust already. In contrast, the F-16C Block 50 needs to go into full afterburner to reach 28,000lb of thrust.
So now think about F-35s way beyond visual range, looking at them with the best IR camera you can imagine. You’re not going to see anything, while they’re watching you with the best layered sensor arrays of IR cameras in different bandwidths of the IR spectrum. DAS is short wave IR, EOTS is mid-long wave, and they are fused together into one picture for the pilot with 360 coverage.
If you want to see what a 4th Gen IR signature looks like, watch the Su-35 airshow demo. You can’t even make out the shape of the aircraft the entire time, since the IR signature is blooming so large like a giant ball.
The F-35 is extremely stealthy in the IR spectrum. They didn’t spend billions on IR concealment for it not to show considerable achievements in that signature reduction realm. You can’t even acquire it with helmet sights and IR missiles in visual range Fox 2 fights.
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@bernardvc5820 This is my take on it too, having been a student of Russian military history for quite some time, and having lived there to gain an understanding of how they think, what their culture is like, what makes them function. Like anyone else, I would love for there to be a total ceasefire and Russian forces completely return to Russia, leave Ukraine. I also would love for Marilyn Monroe to come back to life and be my girlfriend, minus the drama and being used as a rag doll by the Kennedy Brothers and mafia bosses. I really think there’s going to be a Russian offensive this winter with the recent mobilization effort, and I think those soldiers are going to perform well enough to at least soak up as much Ukrainian combat power as possible as basically human bullet, artillery shell, ATGM, and drone-delivered munitions dummies so the next campaign can push through next year.
I think we’re looking at a 3-year overall initial series of campaigns going back-and-forth. Russia will work hard to deter foreign military sales/transfers into Ukraine with their network of moles and compromised politicians within NATO and the US, but that will still be hard to pull-off. They almost had it with Biden offering a ride for Zelensky and his family from the outset of the war, remember?
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@michaelmaroney1660 It's interesting because during the Czarist times, they had 25yr-life military service commitments, professional soldiers who learned their jobs and were selected for the type of unit they would serve in based on experience with horses, their physique, literacy, and local village elders input.
They have incrementally reduced the conscription years of service from then into the Soviet times, then even more cuts in the Russian Federation to where these guys are institutionally incompetent from Generals down to conscripts.
Even their low density, high skill set career fields are filled with incompetents.
Their SAM battery operators shot down a civilian airliner, then discussed it frantically on an open cellular network while driving out of Ukraine as fast as they could.
Their fighter pilots are being shot down for sport while talking on open, non-secure, single channel freqs, no use of brevity codes, rambling on without any sense of urgency, even as their flaming wreckage powers down and they should have ejected already.
They're a shell of what they used to be, bumbling around like a sick drunk, but dangerous enough to still destroy, maim, and murder.
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@michaelmaroney1660 I've listened to their radio comms when they have violated Finnish airspace. Finns published it openly years ago. Same exact thing, Su-27SM pilots ranting on and on over the radio, sounding inebriated, "da da da...", non-secure, open text, no brevity codes.
I saw better radios and comms discipline in line Infantry units in the early 1990s in the US. US and NATO fighter pilots have excellent equipment, freq-hopping, encrypted radios, brevity, and data links with graphics overlays on JTIDS displays.
They have lost a lot of Su-30s (11), Su-25s (22), and Su-34s (16-17). Su-30s and Su-34s are some of their most advanced, modern fighters.
They also had 1 Su-35 shot down, as well as some Su-24s shot down/destroyed on the ground, and now lost a MiG-31.
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It started in Army JSOC after Panama. Sniper/Recce Troop guys started having the armorers build free-floated 723s with FSP, using different rifle-length free float tubes.
Some of those early guns look really sick with the suppressor sleeved by the float tube.
LSO pistol grips, Japanese 1.5-4.5x MicroDot LPVOs or AimPoints, PAQ-4Cs, Harris bipods, Redi-Mags, and Bowflage.
After Mogadishu, they transferred most of that over to the flat top M4 uppers, but many still used the detachable carry handle while adding CAR-15 cheek pieces to the Colt Fiberlite stock, with sharktooth butt pads zip-tied on the back.
Dam Neck guys saw those and had their armorers build similar versions off their 727 Carbines right before or as the M4 went into production.
Within SOCOM, a lot of ODAs and SEAL Platoons were asking for SR-25s, but there weren't enough to go around, so they all worked with Crane to build an upper receiver drop-in solution to bring more precision fire capability in the DM role.
This all happened in the 1990s way before 9/11. SEALs are given credit for the SPR, namely because the OGs and other units kept quiet about it.
CAG had already moved on to the M4A1 with KAC MRE, custom chromoly steel barrel, and S&B Short Dot by the time Tier 2 units were getting Mk.12s.
As usual, they were at least 10 years ahead.
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There’s a STARTFOR video on the geography of the United States that is a must watch to understand US geography. I’ve traveled across the US and lived in 8 States in Southwest, New England, Southeast, PNW, DC/Virginia, CO, and UT and never had it explained to me that way. I watched that and asked, “Why hasn’t anyone told me this before?” I attended multiple schools, deployed all over as a military brat and active duty soldier, lived all over abroad, did strategic analyses of terrain and combat systems in their regional deployment postures, constantly measuring distances, power centers, bases, weapons reach, logistic routes, population centers, water bodies, and still never saw the big picture the way George Friedman and Peter Zeihan laid it all out.
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@DennisMerwood-xk8wp JSF isn't multirole, even though you'll see it described that way in official literature.
Every single USAF, USN, and USMC Tacair fighter has been multirole except for the F-15C.
F-16A/C- Multirole, with 88 A2A kills and thousands of successful strike, CAS, interdiction, SEAD, and intercept missions.
F/A-18A-D, multirole with thousands of successful strike, SEAD, CAS, interdiction, and intercept missions, with 2 A2A kills in ODS.
F-15E, multirole with thousands of precision strike and CAS missions, with 5 A2A kills.
F/A-18E/F, multirole with years of strike, CAS, and A2A taskings since it was introduced, 1 A2A kill.
F-22A is the first omnirole 5th Gen fighter.
JSF are a set of multivariant omnirole 5th Gen fighters.
They add EW, AEW&C, ISR, Networked Targeting of Precision Fires, Ballistic Missile Early Warning, and Cyber Attack to all the capabilities of the previous generation of fighters.
F-35s can do things with EW the dedicated EF-111A couldn't in its own mission set.
F-35s can intercept and prosecute A2A in ways the F-15C will never be able to in its own domain.
F-35s have longer legs than the Strike Eagle, and can go into the WEZ where the Mudhen and every other 4th Gen must avoid those places.
F-35s see and PID targets before dedicated AWACS can even detect them. F-22 has already been doing that, but JSF have more spectral bandwidth to PID since each JSF has 7 IR sensors.
These are just some of the reasons why JSF is a revolutionary program.
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@vinniechan There never was a requirement for a common airframe, and there is no common airframe. That’s one of the biggest hoaxes the media have pulled-off on this. There were 6 programs that became 3, the JSF-A, JSF-B, and JSF-C, each with a different airframe. The radar, electro-optical sensors, cockpit, and engine would all be common, with an additional lift fan system for the JSF-B. The JSF variants all are capable of faster flight than any of the aircraft they replace when combat configured, and they call cruise faster than any of the F-16s or Hornets, while also having 150-210nm more combat radius than any of them. Combat radius and persistence are what Canada should be focused on for the NORAD mission, along with the ability to accelerate through transonic for intercepts. The only aircraft that does better than the F-35A in that space is the F-22A, or an F-15 with no wing tanks (and F-15s always fly with wing tanks, otherwise they have limited radius/persistence).
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In this scenario, you would have protective cover of F-22A for the F-35A, who would be the strike package, with follow-on air dominance after ATG mission complete. F-22A flights with F-15C flights would be more realistic for the offensive CAP coverage. Numerical superiority combined with drastic training advantage for the attackers results in rapid eradication of Flankers that choose to enter the CAP skirmish area and parameters, as F-35A and F-15E prosecute the ground pound mission. You also have B-1, B-2, and Navy cruise missile flights entering the airspace at low altitude, with flexible mission profile and targeting based on the evolution of the battle.
Primary targets for the cruise missiles include SAMs, radars, airfield, and C3 nodes. There is another entirely overlooked US capability that we won't discuss online, but it overwhelms the enemy radar and sensor picture of the airspace in both the electronic and actual RCS parameters, while cruise missiles and penetrators ingress towards their targets.
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Just as soon as Russia gives up any claims to the Arctic Ocean and lucrative oil-drilling right off Canada’s borders, sure. The contractors never went to DoD and asked for the opportunity to build the JSF series. The US and UK communities were already planning replacements for their multirole fighters, some of which date back to the late 1960s (Harrier). As the services looked at emerging threats, they updated the requirements for these replacement programs, and all started going to Congress and Parliament for RDT&E money.
There were 6 programs in the US alone, and several in the UK, one of which was already working in research with the USMC, DARPA, and USAF. Congress said they aren’t going to fund 6 programs since so many of the requirements overlapped.
By going with 3 different JSF variants that share critical subsystem components like radar, DAS, EOTS, the Pratt & Whitney motor, E&E, Martin Baker ejection seats, etc., they were able to bring the overall costs way down. 6 airframes would have been far more expensive, because each of them would have ended up with similar systems and requirements, with lack of volume-buying power for the AESA and motors especially, let alone all the other sensors, cockpits, emergency escape systems, weapons bays, etc.
The JSF program specifications were and are set by real and emerging threats.
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Think about how much money the politicians and their financiers make off of narcotics sales in the inner cities. They can't afford to have gun violence stop in Chicago, DC, Detroit, South Central LA, or any of the major cities in the US. Career politicians and their corrupt money managers make a killing off of inner city violence, especially since they don't have to pay any taxes on narcotics sales.
They have a willing and ready workforce who is committed to accepting all of the risks in the market segmentation of their distribution piece within that market, with absolutely no worker's comp, no health insurance benefits, no paid time off, no sick leave, etc. To have a discussion about the majority of homicides in the US committed with firearms, without a discussion about government corruption and narcotics trafficking, is a dishonest conversation.
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When you're guilty of actually committing those war crimes over decades of senior political decision-making. You have to understand that Hillary picked most of the Clinton WH cabinet positions, against the will of Bill and many of his staff. She chose Madeline war criminal Albright ("yes, it's worth it" - Iraqi children deaths), Janet murder scores of women and children Reno, Travel Office Firings, firing of FBI Director William Sessions the day before Vince Foster was murdered, voting for the Iraq War when she was in the Senate, passing critical NSA surveillance system codes to enemy foreign governments, sending Ron Brown on the trade mission to Yugoslavia when Brown was under investigation by the DOJ for money-laundering foreign campaign funds for the Clinton's through his son's bank account, "We came, we saw, he died, ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
That's how you lose to Donald Trump. There were plenty of politically-savvy people in the Democrat Party who warned everyone about Hillary's garbage baggage, crimes, and unlikeability, but nobody listened, because Hillary literally took over the DNC with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, her former Campaign Chair from 2008.
Underlying all of this, 2016 simply wasn't going to be a Democrat year no matter who was in the hot seat. If Bernie had miraculously gotten the nomination in the face of Hillary/Wasserman Schultz, Trump would have simply said, "Crazy Bernie", and people would have that simple catchword wrapped around him. Bernie Sander's views on foreign policy were admittedly and shamelessly uninformed, which he openly declared. Bernie's main focus was domestic policy, which is really outside most of the practical purview of a President, no matter what the campaign rhetoric is. Presidents drive foreign policy more than anything. That's where their power lies, not in domestic policy.
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None of those candidates would have stood a chance against Trump, for a number of reasons. For starters, none of them have the credibility of ever building or creating something, and they identify with the fringe of even the leftist partisan apparatus, not the majority of Americans. They are career politicians who the electorate ultimately don't trust. You need a very charismatic leader to overcome the natural 2016 turnover which was destined to happen with all of the negatives that happened over the Obama years with the economy, new home starts, wars, jobs moving overseas, increasing distrust in anything the media claims, and even more distance between the DNC and America.
The only person who could have won against Donald Trump would have been JFK Jr., but he died in a plane crash many years ago. He would have had a substantial number of Republicans voting for him, just on the old file footage of JFK's funeral alone.
What combined into a perfect storm in 2016 was a charismatic leader, regardless of how you feel about him, who took a wrecking ball to the Republican primaries, appealed to the electorate through countless campaign rallies that were packed with overflow, who ran as an outsider, non politician who has a record of actually building things, managing things, to the tune of billions, regardless of how anyone feels about those accomplishments. People that call him an idiot do so based on partisan ideology, without taking a step back and asking, "Who is the idiot? The guy with billions in assets who the banks come to for money that doesn't need their contributions to run, or the little mental midget who takes their talking points from provably incompetent media presstitutes who are wrong about most of the stories they cover.
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I thought you were describing Clinton for a second. Think about the idea that Donald Trump is dumb. Take a fat magic marker, a clean sheet of paper, and write your net worth on it backwards. Take a picture of Donald Trump and write his net worth backwards on the same sheet of paper. Stand in front of a mirror. Repeat, "One of these people is dumb, the other is not." until you figure it out.
It takes talent and perseverance to be able to achieve that level of importance and influence, beyond what the vast majority of people have or will ever have accomplished in life, which is why people like that command the level of responsibility they do, and others sit at home and wait for someone else to tell them when to show up for work, what to wear, when they can eat, and when to go home. It's common for employees look at innovators and achievers, and think they did it with ill-gotten means, because they don't understand what personal achievement and excellence are.
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+09mjeternity Hillary was caught again in her murderous lies, which is what she has been doing since her days in college at Yale. Her entire "career" is filled with nothing but lies when you look at it. I worked under the Clinton White House in DC from 1994-1996 in the Military District in Washington, and I could write a book about just the high crimes and treason that were committed in that small timeframe alone.
We had Vince Foster's body found in Fort Marcy Park the year before I arrived, with the investigation still ongoing. None of the important facts ever saw the light of day. Before that were the WH Travel Office firings ordered by Hillary.
Hillary's staffers actually occupied Al Gore's Vice Presidential office during the transition, and Al Gore threatened to resign before Clinton was even set up in the Oval Office.
The DOJ was investigating the illegal Chinese money funneled to the Clinton's campaign, so they fired the Director of the FBI, William Sessions. Deputy White House Counsel, Vince Foster, was found dead the next day at an old Civil War Fort park on the Potomac River about a mile north of where I was stationed later.
Foster was also handling the Clinton's dodgy tax records, in addition to making large deposits in 3 Swiss bank accounts in Chiasso, Switzerland, flying there 12-20 times per yer, with less than 24hr lay-overs for years dating back to the Arkansas Governor years. The Clinton's were in bed with some of the biggest cocaine smugglers in the US, and even hired the accountants of Dan Lassater's drug empire to be senior Director of White House Office of Administration.
The more you dig, the dirtier it gets.
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amp lifer, You might want to go research the Clinton's policies towards enslaving blacks into the prison system and their racist attitudes towards blacks in the US. Also look at how racist Democrat mayors, police chiefs, and city councils vote to override Constitutional protections for people to be able to defend themselves, so that only the gangs that sell the narcotics are armed, and the areas where these people live become ghettos.
Democrat politicians then manage the Federal government-subsidies housing projects, and award their family members and campaign financiers the management contracts of the project housing, and laugh all the way to the bank. Their message to blacks has always been, "Vote Democrat and get housing, welfare, unemployment, WIC, EBT, an by the way, those evil racist Republicans want to put you in chains. See you in 2-4 years, suckers."
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There is no way Bernie has a chance even in the DNC with Hillary's co-chair at the helm. You all realize that Hillary has been allowed to set up the DNC with her former senior campaign staffers, right?
The fix is in with the DNC, not that it matters.
The big picture is that the DNC will turn over to the RNC next year in November, unless they run a magical operation of unprecedented magnitude with a charismatic, young candidate with a vision for America that the most middle Americans can identify with. There isn't even anyone on the D ticket that comes halfway close to that.
Bernie has to overcome so many demographic impossibilities, starting with young voters, who just bypassed baby boomers as a larger block of the population, in addition to their Gen X parents, many of whom have seen flat median income that the political establishment has blamed erroneously on each other, when it is in fact caused by automation.
Sanders and Clinton are too anchored to their ideological blinders, so they are doomed from the capacity to craft a coherent message that addresses the reality, not a 1970's college campus. They would have insane support if this was 1976, even at their current ages. It's not 1976. They're done.
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I have found that using emotions that people can relate to helps persuade them, since people are trained to not think logically in public school and pop culture, and instead, respond to emotional stimuli like puppets.
Example: When I was recovering from surgery with my leg in a cast, I felt particularly vulnerable if someone were to try to rob me, or when I was out and about. An opportunistic criminal could target me much easier when going to the bank, ATM, car wash, etc. The fact that I could
When my family is home without me there, I feel much better knowing that at least one of them is prepared and armed in case there is a break-in, since 911 and police response takes minutes, whereas violent crimes take only seconds.
I also look at other Nations where the government has all the power to violate the basic human rights of their people, who are unable to defend themselves, and thank God I live in America, where at least I have a fighting chance with formidable firepower that forces politicians to find other means than violence to enforce their corrupted will.
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Kyle, you've been very astute on many things. Your election prediction detailed groundwork was better than anything I saw from the open pollsters, and you are gifted with being able to see things in ways that many others aren't, up until allowing yourself to be skewed by partisanship.
The other thing to look at is the unprecedented establishment support Hillary had, in addition to private side companies like google, facebook, and twitter. Eric Schmidt dedicated $1.5 billion already in 2014 for her campaign a year before they even began officially campaigning. You even had prominent Republicans shilling for Hillary, news anchors that everyone thought were biased to conservatism, and major figures in the Republican party actively working against Trump's campaign.
When you factor that all in, it shows how big his win was even more, because it forces one to ask the question: How did this even happen?
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Dogfighting has already ended in the 4th Generation. Nobody in the current fighter communities is thinking they will merge with other fighters into visual range, cross each other’s 3-9 lines, and start gaming for rear quadrant missile or guns shots on an opponent. They still train for it in BFM, but since everyone has helmet-cued HOBS missiles with pretty substantial range and No-Escape Zone (NEZ) parameters from frontal or high-aspect approaches, every one keeps away from those bubbles. With modern sensors, PID can be achieved right before entering visual range, so face-shots with HOBS missiles are the norm for the pilots that are dumb enough or amateurs at evading threat WEZ profiles in the older jets.
In 5th Gen fighters, the SA is so ominous, that they are already watching everything you do from hundreds of km away, scanning what weapons you have with multi-spectral fused sensors even in passive modes, sharing that data with each other, faster than it took me to type this sentence. They manage the space with vastly-superior knowledge about where threats are and what they are capable of, then employ weapons against them in ways that are almost impossible to deal with. Even if a 4.5 Gen +++ fighter is able to evade incoming weapons with its countermeasures somehow, its next course of action is to attempt to leave wherever it though the weapons were coming from, which could mean flying into even more unfair NEZ profiles. These are the rules of the new road, and why China and Russia are doing everything in their power to try to develop and produce similar systems.
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For anyone who is involved with alternative media (to the mega conglomerate information control channels), you need to be very careful with Hillary and understand that she does really have an enemy's list.
The biggest political story that was never given the coverage it deserves revolves around two dates in US history that should have sent open shock waves among the electorate and Congress.
Those dates are:
July 19th, 1993
July 20th, 1993
On July 19th, after weeks of trying to force FBI Director, William Sessions (Eagle Scout, Distinguished Eagle Scout) to resign after an ethics probe launched by George H. W. Bush's AG, and continued by Bush's partner, William Jefferson Clinton, Sessions was fired by Clinton.
What none of the corporate presstitutes would ever discuss were the 14 active NSA, DOJ, and FBI investigations into a laundry list of crimes by the Clinton's, including espionage, illegal campaign financing from China and Vietnam, money laundering, suborning of perjury, Madison Savings & Loan drug money and political pay-off money sheltering, and the Travel Office firings.
Do you know what they said did Director Sessions in? Using FBI Lear Jet to visit his daughter, and installing a security system in his home with Bureau funds. No really. The ethics probe started when Sessions refused to back down from investigating some "banking irregularities" related to financing and the Saudis in Bush Sr's Administration, so Bush's AG launched the ethics probe on Sessions 48 hours later.
In early July, the NSA had frozen or seized 3 different bank accounts belonging to 3 high profile people in the White House, and referred the results of their investigation to the DOJ and FBI for espionage. Sessions of course allowed these investigations to continue, and lost his job for it in an unprecedented firing after he refused to step down when Attorney General, Janet Reno (Hillary's pick) told him to resign the prior week.
On July 20th, the next day, Deputy White House Counsel and former senior partner from the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas, Vince Foster, was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head in Fort Marcy Park.
2 weeks prior to Foster's death, he had cancelled his routine flight to Chiasso, Switzerland, where he had been making visits to for years, all of which were less than 24hr in duration. One of the bank accounts frozen by the NSA belonged to Foster. The other 2 belonged to "unnamed members of the First family".
If a half-drunk journalist straight out of school had been allowed to print these 2 stories together, it wouldn't have taken Sherlock Holmes to see what was going on. Taken against the backdrop of the emergency meeting the Clinton's and senior WH staff held on Sunday, and Vince's choice to spend the day with his family on a boat instead, you see where this is all going.
Thankfully for the Clinton's, they had long been partners with George H.W. Bush, and Sessions was a common enemy. Conveniently, William Sessions was replaced with Acting Director Clarke, and then Louis Freeh in September, while the initial investigation of Foster's death was handed to the DC Park Police.
These two events combined have never been presented to the public as relevant, and most people don't even know Clinton fired William Sessions. Several investigative reporters, witnesses, and private investigators died under suspicious circumstances related to these events. Be very careful who you openly revile when dealing with Hillary Clinton.
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The YF-23 had too many design risks, many of which needed to be corrected for the proposed F-23A to work. Each actuator in the wings for control surfaces was 4 smaller hydraulic actuators so that the wings could remain super-thin for supercrusie performance. There was a complex dual-reservoir hydraulic actuator system for each of the tailplane stabilators.
It never demonstrated weapons bay storage or separation because there wasn’t a functional design to deal with the narrow fuselage and the required weapons count for AAMs. At least 2 of the wind screens cracked during supersonic tests, so that needed to be re-designed.
The intakes did not manage the boundary layer air well enough to allow it to go past Mach 1.81, so the F-23A was going to need totally new intakes and flight testing on the basic airframe and propulsion combination.
For these reasons, the USAF saw a lot of risk in costs with the F-23A proposal, and awarded the ATF contract to the F-22A proposal by Lockheed/Boeing/General Dynamics. The YF-22 had none of those problems. It had simpler actuators, PAV1 YF-22 flew faster than any of the other 3 ATF PAVs and was the only one to exceed Mach 2.
It demonstrated weapons release from both weapons bays, with the AIM-9 and AIM-120. None of the bowless canopies cracked at even higher speeds that the YF-23, and its intakes perfectly separated boundary later air while also not providing any Line-of-Sight RF wave propagation like the YF-23 did, which is the first signature a LO airframe needs to eliminate, let alone a VLO/Stealth design.
The YF-23 looked and flew superbly because it was an aerodynamic masterpiece, but had a lot of internet problems with the design that needed major attention and billions more in RDT&E. That’s why it was not selected.
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@montydaniels1054 Frank Wisner was tasked with heading up MOCKINGBIRD to counter the Soviet IOJ, which was based out of Prague. IOJ was nothing but a Soviet propaganda front, disguised as Western Journalism.
The US was getting whipped on the propaganda front, so the WH and CIA were very motivated to counter the Soviets.
The problem was, the Soviets already had at least 200 doubles who were recruited by the NKVD at the end of the War during the OSS days, many of whom became key inside the Gehlen Org and CIA.
Lots of former Nazi Intel officers, assets, and Belorussians who claimed to be Russian nationalists, along with resistance fighters and refugees.
When Wisner was tasked with heading MOCKINGBIRD, the Soviets were aware of it, and gloved it within CIA, turned it against the US and NATO from within the US media.
That's how we got Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Anderson Cooper types. ABC, CBS, NBS, PBS, Time magazine, newspapers, and universities were filled with Soviet agitprop, demoralization, and anti-US sentiment.
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@youtubasoarus There are 3 main costs we look at:
1. Unit Flyaway (F-35A is much lower at $77.9 million)
2. Unit Program (spares, logistics, pylons, ejector racks, missile rails, simulators, training, test equipment, weapons-these are highly variable based on what weapons are ordered)
3. Operations & Maintenance (F-35A is the same as the F-16AM and Gripen C/D)
In every single one of these cost metrics to-date, F-35A is lower cost than Gripen E. We don't even know what Gripen F costs, but it's more than the E.
Unit Program Costs for Gripen E/F can be seen in the Brazilian deal (result of bribing the outgoing former President).
Gripen E/F doesn't compare well with F-35A in any of the cost metrics, while being inferior in performance, payload, lethality, and survivability.
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@ginger6582 Bush41 did it with ballistic missile components to Saddam and who knows what to China. China financed Clinton’s ’92 & 96 campaigns in exchange for access to US nuclear facilities, Loral Space Systems ballistic missile tech, missile guidance technology, and advanced encrypted Radio comms tech from Motorolla. Chicom spies were given access to the B-2A program at Edwards with escorts ordered to allow it, and many more facilities were openly compromised by order of Clinton.
Neil Bush merged his US Defense Aerospace holdings shell company with his Chinese real estate firm he was on the board of, while claiming that his friends in Hong Kong had no problem with CCP taking over.
Putin funneled $363 million into Clinton Global Initiative while Hillary was SECSTATE and magically got access to US Uranium mining rights under the Uranium One deal. FBI even had a high level informant describing all this, nothing was done. This was right after Putin announced he was going to revitalize Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal (which had been in a terrible state of disrepair for decades).
Biden has been transferring US defense secrets to Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. for decades, and placed his son on the board of Burisma per Putin’s request after Elena Baturina wired $3.5m to Rosement Seneca in Feb 2014.
Putin’s millions flowed into the Biden family shell company network, but Hunter and James are always begging for money. Seems as if it slipped through their fingers into Obama’s real estate purchases.
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@solenstyle Even before ACA, everyone that wanted insurance had insurance through their employers, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and State programs. The US spends profane amounts of money on those programs.
Medicare and Medicaid are $1.3 Trillion/yr combined, for example.
What ACA did was force young college-age adults who didn't want or see much need for insurance to purchase it under a contrived last-minute taxation angle, so now everyone is on some type of insurance plan.
People who were disabled, elderly, or felt they didn't have access to private plans already had huge social safety nets paid by all wage earners and businesses collectively through those programs.
We shouldn't be talking about anyone without insurance post-ACA. It forces you to ask, "If we have ACA, what's the problem with coverage now?"
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@petesjk You have to consume valid data, not broad media reports on aviation. Reports on the HMDS making pilots sick is a new one, and I’ve read all the erroneous reporting from click-bait sites who literally don’t know anything about aviation. Let me give an example:
Australia has been on board with JSF since 2013, with a planned IOC of 2020.
"...Lt Gen Bogdan said that despite the problems experienced in the past, he was confident in the ability to deliver a more advanced, survivable jet to the RAAF and other partner nations.
“Relative to the schedule, if the plan which Australia intends on moving forward with stays to IOC in 2020 with the [initial warfighting capability software Block] 3i, I will tell you that Australia doesn’t have much to worry about,” he said.
“Why? Because in 2015 I have to deliver the same capability to the US Marine Corp. Eight months later I have to deliver the same capability to Italy in 2016, then in the middle of 2017 I have to deliver the same capability to the Israelis. Then there will be a three year wait until we deliver to the Australians.”
“So even if I screw this up royally – and I do not intend to do that – I’m pretty sure I’ll meet Australia’s 2020 date.”
What happened?
RAAF declared IOC in 2020 with F-35A. I’ve been following this program before it existed, and this is the first I heard that RAAF is better off for getting Super Hornets, because RAAF Super Hornet IOC was in................2010.
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@sullathehutt7720 The Army has a massive list of funded programs that are of far more consequence to the leadership and Pentagon, especially when you look at aviation, mobility, long range artillery/rocket fires, drones, medical, EW, NBC, comms/net centric systems, and so forth. Some new Infantry Rifles and ammo are a rounding error in the overall budget and force structure emphasis to them. They don't look at infantry specifics from the bottom-up, and couldn't really care less.
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Have you ever read the 1934 NFA Hearings, all 5 days of them? It's far worse than you might imagine.
The original draft covered Machineguns, Short Barreled/Sawed-off Shotguns, Pistols/Handguns, Any Other Weapons, and Silencers.
On Day 1, morning 1, after the AG admitted the whole thing was unconstitutional, Congressman Harold Knutson of MN proposed the Short Barreled Rifle infringement to "protect deer hunters back home".
The original draft from AG Cummings set shotgun barrel infringements at 16", but Knutson suggested it would be stronger if they increased the barrel length to 18", and included rifles.
(He turned out to be a Nazi sympathizer at the time, and spy during the War.)
On one of the subsequent days of the hearings, the NRA President and Counsel showed up, got the pistol infringements removed, and explained to the Committee what rimfire, centerfire, semi automatic, fully automatic, revolver, automatic pistol, etc. meant.
The Committee members were grossly ignorant of the most basic of firearms knowledge. At the time, they were going to include any semi automatic firearm with a 12 round magazine as a "machinegun".
The NRA President explained the different types of automatic weapons to them, and that the function of the trigger determined automatic vs semi automatic.
Because he was an Olympic Gold Medalist pistol shooter and collector, he objected to the pistol infringement provisions, and provided examples where pistols had been used in self defense dating back to the 1800s.
His arguments got the pistols and semi autos = machineguns removed from the final draft, but Knutson's SBR infringements were inserted on the final day of the hearings when he reminded them of their conversation on day 1. It almost didn't make it into the final draft.
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CNN corporate whore sponsors include:
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
Johnson & Johnson
Bayer
It went like this: Corporate pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (who had $82.6 Billion in revenue in 2020), has chief officers who sit on the board that owns CNN’s parent company, which is Time/Warner. They said, “We’ve got to get ahead of this Joe Rogan story. We’ll run the usual hit piece ads, make him look like a loon, don’t say anything about Ivermectin, but call it horse-dewormer medicine. Yeah, that’s great. Ok, write up the hit piece and distribute it to our little degenerate minions on the desk, as well as the social media maggots we have."
“Ok, now that we ran the hit pieces, maybe we can gain some more views back to the legacy platform by having Gupta go on the Joe Rogan show. Someone get Gupta into pre-interview prep with all the buzz phrases and messaging so he’ll be ready.”
Interview goes down....
"That interview with Gupta was an unmitigated disaster! Who let Gupta even go on there anyway? Get the fixers on this quick. Get Gupta on with the prima donna boys Lemon and Cooper maybe to do some damage-control and snippet that out to all the social media platforms.”
Within a minute of research, I was able to find connections between Time Warner’s Exec VP of Communications and Chief Inclusion Officer with Johnson & Johnson.
Same as USA Today and Gannett with Pfizer. Pfizer's CTO sat on the board of Gannett, who owns USA Today, who ran the hit-piece on nurses refusing to get the experimental crap shoved into them. This is all so boring and predictable. Why anyone would turn on CNN or even give them a voice is senseless.
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Medical bankruptcy is one of the most inflated claims in the US to generate hype for political purposes, while not having a very significant influence on bankruptcy filings. Bankruptcy filings are a result of multiple factors, and medical bills are nowhere near the top factor according to all the data I have studied. For starters, Elizabeth Warren’s cherry-picked study went to 2005, where there were only 1.45 million bankruptcies filed in the whole US including Chapter 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15. Only Ch 13 is for wage-earners, while Ch 15 represented the largest % of filings. The study expanded the parameters to include if people had missed 2 weeks of work due to sickness, had medical bills over $1000, and mortgaged their home to pay for bills.
If bankruptcy filers fell into those categories, it was listed as "bankruptcy due to medical expenses", even if that wasn’t true. That’s less than half a percent of the overall population who even filed for bankruptcy. By adding those parameters, they fudged the data to indicate that 61% of the filers filed because of medical expenses.
Another study in 2011 found that only 26% of Ch 13 filers said medical expenses played a role.
Some studies said 57.1% while others said more people filed bankruptcy for medical expenses than overall bankruptcy filings, which is egregiously flawed. Not only can’t all Ch 13 filers be due to medical expenses, but Ch 13 can’t exceed all of the types of Chapter filings due to the dominance of corporate and foreign businesses filing bankruptcy each year. Ch 13 is only 27-38% of bankruptcy filings each year.
Another thing is that personal bankruptcies are not a constant Y2Y. Personal bankruptcies peaked in 2010 at over 434,000 after the financial crisis, then dropped dramatically down to around 299,000 in 2016, 289,000 in 2019, and 194,000 in 2020.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcies in US Year to Year
2008: 353k
2009: 398k
2010: 434.8k
2011: 417k
2012: 375k
2013: 343k
2014: 313k
2015: 302k
2016: 299k
2017: 296k
2018: 288k
2019: 289k
2020: 194k
2021: 117.7k
2022: 149k (.05% of the US population)
Anytime someone presents a claim, automatically question whether that claim is even accurate, then do the research and understand the basic math. In the case of medical bankruptcy, it’s an extremely inflated piece of hype used by proponents of massive change to the overall US system, with no numbers to support it. It’s sensationalist hype really.
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It simply outclasses the Harrier in every performance metric imaginable.
Most important of all those metrics is safety. The Harrier is an inherently unstable jet during landing and is responsible for the loss of hundreds of lives and airframes over its career.
Aside from that, the F-35B has...
* Roughly 2x combat radius
* Mach 1.6 capable
* 5,700-22,000lb payload
* Humiliates any 4th Gen fighter in A2A combat using unfair advantages in SA, first-look, first-shoot
* Can penetrate the most dense IADS on the planet and conduct deep VLO strike on national command level TGTs
* Can execute Destruction of Enemy Air Defense nodes better than 4th Gen fighters who were dedicated to that specific mission
* Regularly conducts electronic attack in advance of strike packages by opening perimeter defense radar nets with 5th gen EA techniques
* Has anti-ship and ASW capabilities that are rarely discussed, with cooperative multi-spectral surface & sub-surface scanning abilities that are in the early stages of awakening the US and UK maritime 5th gen dominance
* Regularly tracks low earth orbit satellites with the AESA, then fuses those tracks with its other sensors, and pipes that live track data to anyone on its data link net
* Is able to detect and track ballistic missile launches at 800nm with the early DAS, which is being replaced with an even higher res new gen DAS
* Can read aircraft tail number markings in the IR spectrum based on temperature gradients between light and dark paint
* Regularly performs Airborne Early Warning & Control for other F-35s, Typhoons, NATO F-16s, Hornets, & F-15s.
The leaps in capability from the Harrier to the F-35 are almost like jumping from an F-86 into something Skunk Works would make for Darth Vader.
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Typhoon is like an old flip phone text message being sent on the network. F-35 is like a smartphone that can screen time between other F-35s, and still get texts from older gen, but can’t pipe high-fidelity data to the lower tech aircraft. Still better than what we had before by leaps and bounds. Once 2 F-35s are in the air, AWACS is kind of pointless and doesn’t have good PID tracks or high resolution location data for airborne TGTs, especially altitude and exact position. Everyone has moved onto a net-centric battlefield now in the West, and the US is many generations into net-centric warfare already.
F-35s are meant to be different things for different nations. For the USAF, the F-35A will ultimately supersede the F-16, while several other platforms on different tracks will remain. For countries like Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Japan, and Australia, it holds a very dominant position in the force mix.
For USMC, F-35C and F-35B are the new fast jets, replacing F/A-18A-D and AV-8B.
For Poland, F-35A will accompany F-16C/D Block 52 in the Air Force mix.
For UK, F-35B complements Typhoon in the RAF, and is the replacement for the Harrier in the RN.
F-15EX is a strategic industrial base plant program to keep workers at St. Louis, not a planned future program USAF ever asked for. Once the NGAD orders are contracted, especially for Unmanned systems, St. Louis won’t have to go looking to re-hire all the assembly line people. I’m not sure F-15EX will ever go feet-wet, as they are only being assigned to Air Defense National Guard units.
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@madrooky1398 We worked on Typhoon development when it was still "Future Fighter 1990" from 1980-1982. It's the whole reason we PCS'd from Edwards AFB to West Germany on scientific exchange.
Typhoon not only has federated systems architecture, but Brits, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards who were all fighting over the design in broken English designed it. The French were still on the program back then, and punched out because they weren't going to get the industrial share they wanted or a carrier variant, hence the Rafale program.
So a lot of the systems layout is wonky with Typhoon, starting with the cockpit. Funding for upgrades has been done at a trickle pace through the European parliaments, which are filled with Social Democrats, Labor Parties, Greens, and straight up communists. It's why their premier air interceptor still doesn't have an AESA Radar in 2024 yet. A lot of these politicians have been on Russian payroll or ideologically aligned as well, even at senior leadership levels throughout the Cold War and since the rise of Putin.
So Typhoon has been handicapped from within in many ways. Brits/UK have done the most in upgrades for A2G and systems development while the Germans have dragged their feet.
By the time EFA went into Full Scale Development, the US had already committed to VLO designs moving forward, based on losses from SAMs in Vietnam and analysis of newer Soviet systems in Arab-Israeli wars.
ATF was funded in 1981 while we were still in Munich, for example. Typhoon really came decades late and billions short in development.
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@thomas_jay There are combined component forces that would require many years of study just to become familiar with how many different types of Air Dominance, Strike, Electronic Attack, Transport, Attack, Unmanned Recon and Attack, Armor, Artillery, Army EW, NBC, Light Armor, APC, IFV, etc. platforms are even in the inventory. There isn’t just one force type focused on, but Air, Land, Sea, Space, and Cyber component forces that all work together. The US especially is unparalleled in this space both qualitatively and quantitively, as well as in training and deployment experience.
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@Flankymanga The only type of fighter that can beat the F-22A are the JSF series. F-35Is, F-35As, and F-35Bs have been negating S-300, S-350, and S-400 systems throughout CENTCOM, not just in Syria, but Iran as well.
All of those types of systems have proven counters with numerical superiority on top of qualitative superiority. There is no strategic sense in launching offensive operations into Russian soil since there isn’t anything there worth attacking and holding. I’m still not sure why Napoleon did it. Russian EW capabilities are largely over-stated, though far more capable than the layman or enthusiast would understand. US and Western EW capabilities are far more advanced with the semiconductor industry to actually support them with leveraged software against high quality SC components and emitting/detecting arrays. The US has already moved away from dedicated detection arrays with AESAs and made them into multimode detection and stand-off Electronic Attack arrays, with vastly-superior TRM elements and processing power behind the waveform generators and amplifiers/exciters/filters.
The more realistic scenarios are regional conflict outside of Russian territory where Russia is bullying its neighbors again, usually for internal reasons to make the leader look strong or to protect key interests. Russia is extremely vulnerable to regional distribution of energy interruptions, hence all the projects to build pipelines away from legacy routes through Ukraine.
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@alexandrnoskov5437 I agree 100% about Congressmen and government officials of any stripe. They aren't technically-inclined, but are good at being spineless and bendable for their puppeteers.
You have to understand that the current White House is filled with traitors. Biden was co-opted by a Soviet active measures program in 1972 that funded his Senatorial campaign in Delaware. The front group is called The Council For A Livable World, acting as an environmental rights non-profit, but actually an arm of Soviet Intelligence to get as many moles into the US Congress.
These types of moles already existed dating back to the 1930s and populated the US State Department, White House, War Department, OSS, universities, and media.
This is why Biden's first action in office was to kill the Keystone pipeline and shut down as many energy projects as possible to raise the cost for barrels of oil to benefit Russia.
Both Russia and China have been bribing and extorting the Biden family for decades, so there is a tug-of-war going on right now between Putin and Xi with puppet Biden in the middle, surrounded by traitors in his cabinet who are more of the same.
China only grows economically and militarily when oil/NG is cheap, while Russia can only grow when oil /NG is higher price.
Since Russia and China have a mutual military pact, there is a hidden economic conflict that Putin has tried to diffuse by signing an energy deal with China, but China really relies heavily on Middle Eastern oil coming from the Persian Gulf.
Interested times we live in. I have a suspicion China is using the US to weaken Russia since Russia has been the main supplier of war material to India for generations.
China is adept at playing people against each other while they never have to fire a shot.
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@alexandrnoskov5437 Lend Lease was an open transfer of billions of dollars worth of military technology during WWII to several nations, including Russia. If you're a student of military history, you had to have heard of it.
One of the US Lend Lease officers wrote a book about the things he saw, including transfer of enriched Uranium and Beryllium triggers necessary for initiating atomic weapon detonations.
The Russian Ambassador's wife managed multiple moles inside the Manhatten Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. She even had one of her assets buy the local hamburger restaurant in Los Alamos that the scientists frequented.
The race for developing atomic weapons really began in England in the late 1800s, so it wasn't a new concept for the industrial powers. All of them had a classified nuke research program. The US just beat everyone to proof of concept with successful detonations.
The stories behind the scenes are very interesting. FDR's White House was a hotbed of communist sympathy, including the hosting of Ludmila Pavlechenko's "shaming campaign" where Russia wanted the US to commit millions of troops into the European Theater earlier in the war to help Russia, never mind the fact that the US was fighting Japan in the Pacific.
After the war, England gave Russia their Nene jet engine, which Russia reverse-engineered and used for the MiG-15.
Russia also recovered B-29 Superfortress intercontinental strategic bombers and copied it directly with the Tu-4. Russia got the technical data package for the B-29 using assets who worked at the Boeing Wichita plant in Kansas to help understand the physical samples, materials, and processes.
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@Flankymanga If you talk about hypersonic and ICBM in the same sentence, it reveals a fundamental unfamiliarity with the subject matter. Any vehicles put into low earth orbit are traveling well in excess of hypersonic speeds, often over Mach 23. We don't describe them as "hypersonic" because they aren't anywhere near the tropopause and have no aerodynamic drag up there. Flight profiles for ICBMs are constrained in the tropopause where they reach the aerodynamic limit from atmospheric density and wait until getting out of the tropopause to throttle-up into escape velocity.
Hypersonic vehicles travel through atmospheric resistance for much of their flight profile using ablative nose section materials. The materials science needed to overcome the coefficient of thermal expansion gradients between the frontal, mid, and tail sections of a hypersonic vehicle are daunting from an engineering perspective.
The design approach for hypersonic systems is significantly different because of the flight profile and thermal loading on the leading edge surfaces, and how those thermal loadings migrate through the body and internal systems.
DSP for fighter Radars was pioneered on the APG-63 in the F-15, not the MiG-31. MiG-31 didn't even exist. Once the F-15 with DSP was introduced, the Soviets initiated an upgrade program for the MiG-25 as MiG-25P and PD with solid state electronics attempting to mimic the F-15's processors, which allowed the first true look-down, shoot-down capability. The MiG-31 was designed to have a much longer mission radius than the short-legged MiG-25, and incorporate a Radar operator in the rear seat. The PESA Radar technology was literally acquired from the B-1 program, which a young Senator Biden was tasked with killing after the developmental work had been done in the early 1970s.
Digital Signals Processing is not exclusive to military technology in the US. One of my very old guitar effects processors uses DSP/COSM technology to emulate various amplifiers. It has 85 banks, each with 4 channels, dozens of effects, an acoustic guitar simulator, synthesizer, expression pedal, chorus, reverb, flange, phaser, compressor, harmonizer, Wah, etc. all integrated into one foot board.
There isn't an implied connection with DSP to Radar signals processing. DSP is used in automotive, medical, communications, musical, RC, and entertainment industries.
LPI Radars don't use brute force with high power output, but very high fidelity, low power emissions in billions of cycles per second frequency hopping, with limited bursts as opposed to continuous emit. No EW system is going to predict their emissions.
IR signature reduction has been a focus of VLO platforms since the 1970s in the US. ATB, F-117A, F-22A, and all 3 JSF have significant IR reduction technologies to defeat the effectiveness of both ground and airborne IR sensors, reducing their effective ranges considerably.
A RAAF exchange pilot flying F-15Cs with an Aggressor squadron out of Nellis said when he was doing WVR exercises against F-22s, the JHMCS helmet-cueing sight and Captive Air Training Missile seeker head could not acquire the F-22 even when he put the reticle directly on the Raptor.
There isn't a merge with 5th Gen fighters, only he who dies and doesn't know why.
For ground-based platforms, take into consideration the curvature of the earth and now see what happens to your network.
2nd place is really far from 1st when you understand the applied physics of these subjects.
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@Flankymanga F-22A can carry 4 AAMs and 2x 1000lb JDAMs, or 4 AAMs and 8x Small Diameter Bombs, with 18,000lb of internal fuel. None of those bombs need LASER TGT Designator cueing. The F-22A can release any of those weapons at high supersonic speeds as well, and has demonstrated such. It’s a superb VLO strike platform, opposite of what you are saying, and has been operationally employed that way for years, putting SDBs through specific windows of buildings in Syria. The reason why the F-22A was killed was because Russia and China put pressure on traitors who were on their payroll within DoD and White Houses to cut the program before we could ever go into Full Rate Production.
Russia did not want 200 Raptors in Europe, and China didn’t want 200 Raptors in the Pacific, with 200+ reserves in the US on the coasts to rapidly plus-up the ETO and PACOM Raptor units. There were 195 built, not 150. Multiple USAF Chiefs of Staff fought and sacrificed their careers trying to keep the F-22 assembly line open, but patriotism doesn’t hold up to treason in the network of traitors that has been long built-up by Russia and China in the heads of US government. For example, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was a KGB asset dating back to the 1980s, as I have confirmed with people who worked with him. Moles within US DoD reported the initial capabilities back to Russia and China, which kick-started PAK-FA and J-20, while the “kill F-22” treason active measures were launched as well, under guise of cost-savings.
F-35 series hasn’t been going through a “myriad of developmental failures”. The opposite is true, in that JSF-A/B/C have been demonstrating a long list of developmental and operational firsts. The media campaign against JSF is primarily coming from Russia via the residue of Mockingbird and IOJ, still running same old playbook from the 1950s (because it’s effective). Canada has not cancelled its orders. Justin Trudeau was propped up by Chinese and Russian backers with a campaign platform of killing the F-35 for Canada, even though Canada had already committed to JSF as one of the upper tier partners. Russia does not want USAF Alaska connected with RCAF and USAF in Vermont via the MADL network acting as a strategic networked next generation NORAD web, which not only has airborne and low earth orbit TGT detection and PID capabilities, but surface vessel detection and tracking in the Arctic Circle. Trudeau is a traitor to Canada and has been before he ever entered office.
Pierre Sprey is a laughing stock in the defense aerospace community and has been since the 1970s. He said that the USAF ruined the F-15 by putting complicated electronic garbage in it that never works, and said the same things about the YF-16 to F-16 upgrades. He made similar silly statements about the M48 tank being better than the M-1 Abrams, so he discredited himself every time he opened his fat mouth.
RAND Corp did no such simulation. 2 idiot employees published an amateur simulation that had no relation to reality and were immediately fired for being idiots. Their baseline assumptions in that simulation are comical. Anyone who has seen an F-35 demo knows immediately that they are watching new levels in performance. All 3 have superb climb rate, very short take-offs, and superior combat configuration maneuverability to 4th Gen fighters.
Pilots around the world who fly F-35As, F-35Bs, and F-35Cs have been singing its praises for years now. Finland just ran a 7 year higher evaluation program with double-layered oversight from independent groups to monitor the fairness of the H-X competition, and the F-35A smoked all the competitors hands-down.
There aren’t any discrepancies in my statements. I’ve been in defense and aerospace since the 1970s, with 20 years spent at the USAF Flight Test Center, West German Flight Test Center, and certain Western Test Ranges in the US, in addition to 10 years of active duty deployments all over the world. You are correct in that many US technologies have foreign origins, but a lot of the aerospace tech in Europe has been seeded by the US after WWII as well. We were working on the FECA/EFA on a scientific exchange program, while other colleagues were working with the Germans and Brits on the Tornado from 1980-1982. The US-European aerospace efforts have been very collaborative since manned flight began really. The “great newspapers” in the US didn’t even believe that the Wright Brothers were really flying for years. It wasn’t until Wilbur took one of their Wright Flyers to France and demonstrated it there, that the newspapers in the US finally took notice.
Russia’s problem is being isolated from the trade routes by being almost land-locked. A map doesn’t make it seem so, but the limited number of sea ports with access to international waters severely limits Russia’s market penetration from a geographic perspective. This is why Russia has always wanted more depth into the European peninsulas, which it has gained and lost cyclically throughout history (Finland, baltics, Poland).
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@Flankymanga Yes, that's the fake image. Notice the white rectangular background and the lack of clipped wingtips and stabilators that are characteristics of the F-22A planform. That looks more like a model someone made using a YF-22 toy. Amateurs would swallow the story without critical analysis, whereas those familiar with the basic shape of the Raptor immediately recognized the fake. This was posted by an amateur, not an official Russian source.
If you want to see real IR imagery of the F-22A both in burner and in dry power, the French published images of that from Rafale's OSF. Both images were extremely low contrast and at close range, with beautiful high resolution.
When speaking about civilian FLIR at RIAT watching low altitude performance demos where much of the profile is done in burner, it isn't representative of actual long range TGT detection in atmospheric contrast.
That RIAT FLIR is valuable for seeing a huge difference though, because you can watch the Su-35 demo as well. On the Flanker, you just see a huge radiating blob of fire where you can barely distinguish any shapes because the IR signature bloom is so overwhelming to the sensor.
I've been studying the applied physics of IRSTs from the collective NATO AeroE subject matter perspective since 1986, with lots of graphics and spectral analyses looking at near, mid, and long wave IR sensors and emissions.
The short story is you will not see F-22A or JSF at any BVR distances over Europe as long as they remain subsonic, if talking about OLS-35. Supersonic profiles have reduced detection range compared to 4th Gen, but the detection range is of course sooner than a subsonic profile.
Over the Middle East or North Africa at night, you can detect them just outside of visual range, but they have been watching you from 200-400km away already, so it never gets that far on a BVR timeline.
Regarding F-15 APG-63 developments: The DSP upgrade program began well before 1979. DSP APG-63(V) was the most significant upgrade from F-15A to F-15C. We were at Edwards when all this was happening in the 1970s, so I'm not talking about online sources. F-15C production began in 1978. RDT&E at Edwards and Eglin began years before that, along with AIMVAL at Nellis AFB.
Belenko didn't defect until September of 1976. The APG-63 DSP upgrade program was already well underway before it went into production and upgrades to the F-15A fleet simultaneously.
The other major upgrade was increasing the number of internal fuel tanks with the F-15C airframe, since the F-15A consumed its limited fuel quickly. The Flanker is a superior design in this regard since it has to perform long range escort without using EFTs. The MiG-29 is inferior since it has very limited fuel capacity and a short mission radius.
F-15As were rapidly transferred to Air National Guard units as F-15Cs replaced them from 1979-1985.
Another concurrent development that was driving its BVR capabilities was the push for the AIM-7M after seeing that the AIM-7F limited WEZ made the F-14A and F-15 vulnerable to all-aspect IR missiles at the end of the BVR timeline. This was due to the SARH continuous wave illumination constraint of the AIM-7 guidance architecture.
AIM-7M was the stop-gap while we went to work on the AMRAAM program.
USSR was monitoring all these developments from the extensive spy network within the US and NATO, and soon began work on the R-77, most of which took place in Ukraina SSR and just north of Moscow.
USSR also acquired technical data and subsystem samples of the Honeywell Visual Target Acquisition System for US Navy F-4J (1969) meant to provide helmet-cueing for the AIM-9G Expanded Acquisition Mode Sidewinder, and implemented that system into the MiG-29 & Su-27 in the 1980s with the R-73 all aspect IR AAM.
I have seen the materials samples of these myself, noting that the shape of the helmet tracking avionics boxes were copied exactly from the Honeywell VTAS, including the serial cards.
Russian Air Force brought MiG-29s to Edwards AFB in the early 1990s, and my father was pulled from his engineering duties on another program to act as a translator, since he speaks Russian quite well.
One of the Russian officers went on a bender one night, was late for the shuttle bus pick-up, so he tried to hitch-hike from the bachelor's quarters to the liaison buildings where everyone was meeting. It created quite a scene since he was in uniform, so they had to go pick him up quickly. They really wanted to just get trashed and go sight-seeing.
We were shocked at how crudely the MiG-29s were built, with USAF maintenance personnel noting that the APU exhaust was routed through the centerline fuel tank, and how many exposed fasteners there were on the airframe.
In hindsight, that made sense for Soviet wartime production rates assuming high attrition for the MiG-29, but it hurt the MiG-29 longevity because the fastener holes for skin panels were individually drilled by hand, following a rough template. This meant that the panels were not interchangeable from one fighter to the next. Airframe life on the MiG-29 is also very low.
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@Flankymanga Look at a top view of an F-22A. Now look at that fake image. You can see clearly for yourself that it’s a fake by looking at the trailing edges of the wings and stabilators, which are clipped on an actual F-22A. In that hoax image, the wings and stabs are not clipped. The YF-22 had wings and stabs like that, which leads one to suspect that the amateur hoaxer used an image of a toy or model YF-22 to fabricate that really bad attempt at looking like he had some inside info.
F-35 doesn’t have JHMCS, the F-15C, F-15E, F/A-18E/F, and F-16CM do. The pilot I was referencing was flying the F-15C as an aggressor. The JHMCS and Captive AIM-9 training missile could not acquire the F-22A within visual range. These WVR set-ups were arranged after BVR, where F-22s wrecked the aggressors for sport. They followed with BFM so both sets could get some BFM training in, nothing more.
Rafale’s OSF was able to see F-22A on the edge of visual range and they leaked these images, since USAF and Armee de L’Air frequently train in annual exercises. French are tired of being killed all the time at BVR and BFM, so maybe someone who was upset leaked the images. Doesn’t mean anything since Rafales always die before any kind of merge. IR concealment absolutely has worthwhile returns because it negated a whole series of weapons and sensors that had billions invested into them. IR VLO requires potential adversaries to invest in newer weapons and sensors, which take a lot of time to develop, fine-tune, and then deploy operationally.
Why have you assumed F-22s will be operating with AWACS or that presence of AWACS in the airspace compromises blue forces? F-22s and F-35s don’t need AWACS. They have vastly superior situational awareness to any AWACS platform. AWACS are mostly relevant now because of their endurance. The sensor web formed by F-22s and JSF provides each individual pilot a better picture of the airspace and surface threats than if you combined all of the crew stations in the E-3D.
AMRAAMs fired at altitude from optimum separation speed and vector can be sent into a NEZ profile that isn’t within the fields of regard of either the IRBIS or OLS-35. Fighter Radars in X-Band don’t normally detect incoming BVR missiles, nor do IRSTs. The search mode you would need to use with a high fidelity IRST with the latest Western electronics and Germanium glass would need to be in extreme narrow FOV. The way that fighters detect incoming BVR missiles has normally been when their RAWS sensors detect a specific missile seeker bandwidth illuminating their airframe. There are many ways around triggering the RWR in that spectrum, primarily by keeping the active seeker off as long as possible. The latest variants of AIM-120C7 and D use 2-way data links and have been demonstrated using passive sensors on the launch aircraft, no active RF painting of the targets. There is no need to employ within IRST detection range, since that is very short against IR VLO platforms (edge of visual, short BVR distances in practice).
Air National Guards are State-controlled, not Federal. There are small States in the US who could deploy their Air National Guard assets and erase most of the air forces on the planet, as many have both Air Mobility and Tactical Air units. For example, Vermont (one of the tiniest States) has F-35As now. There are also Federal military Reserves. It goes like this:
USAF
AFRES (Air Force Reserves)
ANG (Air National Guard)
USN
USN Reserves
USMC
USMC Reserves
US Army
Army National Guard
US Army Reserves
The USMC has a larger Air Force than the UK, for example, and the USMC is the smallest US military service.
APG-63 DSP was already under development before the MiG-31 prototypes flew. I was literally there at the USAF Flight Test Center when that was happening and we later were on the F-15 CTF. APG-63 Radar development was extremely guarded, not openly discussed much at all. There were other features it and the APG-66 had that are still not able to be discussed, even though they were replaced generations ago. The F-102 and F-106 Air Defense Fighters as part of NORAD had the SAGE networked data link program in the early 1960s. Most of what is said about who did what first is entirely at odds with the history. Swedes claim they had it first as well on Viggen, but theirs came right after SAGE, and they had a lot of Hughes systems in their fighters.
CIA was co-opted by the NKVD before the CIA was even formed. It was the most aggressive, most successful counter-intelligence operation conducted that I know of in history. Russia went straight to the top and the rest of the organization was downline of that. They had 200 double agents in the OSS/CIA transition even before Congress signed the National Security Act of 1947, which created the CIA, NSA, and USAF.
CIA is not the main people who acquire foreign materials. DIA and its assets among the services are much better at that, while CIA takes credit for it and immediately leaks back to the source nations exactly what has been acquired. CIA is a double agency working for Moscow, and this has never changed.
All fighter Radars operate in X-band with similar sized antennae. That doesn’t equate to them being capable of jamming the other. ECM systems are used for that typically, until the advent of 5th Gen AESAs with certain Transmitter Receiver Modules. For example, F-35s can jam the earlier APG-77 in the F-22A, so a massive modernization effort has been undertaken to bring the APG-77(V)1 up to that capability I suspect.
Typhoon CAPTOR-E Mk.2 for the UK will have jamming capability, whereas the German Mk.1 will not have the GaN TRM elements. To save money, the UK is installing 50% of the TRMs with GaN semiconductor materials, and the other 50% with Gallium Arsenide (GaA). It isn’t openly discussed what the TRMs are made of for F-35 and F-22 upgrades. Up until a few years ago, GaN TRMs were unobtainable in quantities necessary for mass production to populate hundreds of antennae arrays with over 1600 TRM count.
The current JSF series has had stand-off jamming capability leveraged with VLO and the ability to manage their signatures deceptively, which is a new capability for fighter radars. Russian ELINT birds have already suffered from being shot by Syrian SAMs when they showed up on the Syrian IADS net as hostiles, even as Syrian IADS is managed with technical assistance and networking with Russian expeditionary forces. Russia complained to Israel, but Israel said all of their F-16I strike fighters had already landed.
Again, everyone who thinks Russia leads the way in EW is sadly mistaken. The US just doesn’t talk about it, puts out all sorts of disinformation, and distractions about “dogfighting”.
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@Elthenar This type of comment is based on flight tests on the first 6 LRIP F-35A/B/C airframes that were made and flown from 2006-2010, and were never mass-produced. Only 2 of those airframes, 1 C and 1 B model, exhibited some higher temps on the aboard H-stabs that concerned the engineers about longevity of some of the RF sensors back there. Nobody ever witnessed any blistering, delaminating, or damage to those surfaces or structures, just that the instrumented test birds indicated some parameters the engineers didn’t like.
They tried to duplicate those thermal readings on the other 4 JSF LRIP birds, and even with sustained supersonic runs up and down the East coast from tankers to tankers north and south, they never saw the higher temp readings on those 4 aircraft. All of those structures were replaced with Carbon Fiber spars, spanners, and runners so there was no longer any metallic structure to facilitate the thermal loading that was seen on the 2 birds in question.
Media: “The F-35s skin is melting!!!!”
They can absolutely fly the supersonic limits and never see any of these problems on the actual production JSF series.
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@flyingsac I've been in aerospace and defense since the 1970s, with 2 decades spent at the USAF Flight Test Center, 2 years in West Germany when we helped the Euros on the next fighter for them (Typhoon before it was Typhoon), went through the NATO AeroE course spending 3 years absorbing the material when I was a cadet, and our family and neighbors were all working on various fighters, engines, missiles, avionics, sensors, structures, etc.
Most everything in the media has been totally incorrect and downright retarded in their coverage of JSF. They are clueless about any of this subject matter.
I would recommend anyone who really is interested about JSF to read "F-35: Concept to Cockpit", written by each systems engineer lead and the test pilots, available through an aerospace engineer site. If you make a video about JSF without reading that book or being close to or inside the program, you have zero business making the video.
The main valid videos on YouTube are from F-35 pilots, senior air planners, and maintainers. Most of the rest aren't worth watching.
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@Elthenar Why did Defense News run a false report in 2019 based on 2011 report from 2010 flight test data on 2 of the 6 LRIP birds that were never mass-produced? Click-bait. What does that report have to do with the actual fleet? Nothing. Especially not F-35As, which can do Mach 1.67 every sortie if they really want to.
You have to be aware that almost all of these sites are driven by ad revenue, so the more sensationalist headlines they run, the better it is for them. They don't have any competent staff with formal training or experience in military aviation as a rule, just enthusiasts who are hired to generate ckickbait. One of the worst offenders of them all, Tyler Rodoway, described this in detail, complete with descriptions of what the site owners want. They specifically override the "journalists" by placing contradictory headlines relative to the content and will often demand the writer to embellish the story to match the blatant hogwash storyline.
You need a filter to read through this stuff, which has to be informed by applied physics for aerospace, familiarity with the culture, and developmental or operational experience.
If someone doesn't have at least 2 of those backgrounds, I take what they have to offer as suspect at best.
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@Elthenar The original vision for JSF involved multiple mission profiles for each service variant, with take-off and landing methods driving the substantial differences in structures, airframes, and propulsion.
USAF wanted more of an F-16 replacement with imoroved VLO features over the F-117A, along with all the sensors F-117A never had, with 100nm longer combat radius than a 2-bag Viper, capable of matching or exceeding the combat-configured Viper's kinematics.
Navy wanted a replacement for F/A-18C with VLO they never got from A-12 program, with at least 100nm longer mission radius than the Hornet, and got 100nm+ longer than Super Hornet in the process.
UK and USMC wanted a supersonic replacement for Harrier with longer legs, more payload, more survivability using VLO.
All had multirole in-mind so there would be usable platforms in the ATO, unlike the F-15C or A-10 most of the time.
What they got was something that included that and a bucket of fries, side order of shakes, happy meal, seasonal passes to vacation spots, and much more.
Nobody thought F-35s would be acting Ike an EF-111A or EA-6B, then executing a continuous ISR profile en route to a deep strike like F-117A into the MEZ, then pivoting into self/buddy BDA, then into an Airborne Controller, or opportunistic OCA killer, then back into an EF-111A on the way out.
Nobody thought that, and they're just getting warmed up. Nobody thought they would be border-skimming Spyplanes sucking up all the trons and thermal signature providing collective targeting data in a live warzone the US isn't actively participating in.
Nobody thought they would be TBM detection platforms with a vast sensor web complex that tracks low earth orbit satellites.
Whatever everyone thought they were going to be used for, they have stepped so far outside that box, that nobody but older guys remember those days.
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Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia are already suffering from food import shortages before Russia invaded Ukraine. Egypt went to the IMF again begging for another IMF bailout so they can afford to buy wheat from other sources, now that Russia and Ukraine aren’t exporting to them. Zeihan’s forecasts are already happening before our eyes, with no coherent reporting on it from the legacy presstitute corporate whores.
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Vincent Trivigno Yes, I love it. That's probably one of the most exemplary appointments, although you got it mixed up. He appointed a coal guy as acting EPA Chief! Savage!
If you study the EPA's history of fail, they're more like a Soviet bureaucracy that takes pay-offs from the biggest polluters, while crushing small companies who actually follow the rules. Then they manage to order total destruction of ecosystems like they did in Colorado after local towns and mining companies repeatedly begged them not to spill 3 million gallons of toxic mine waste into the Animus River, then refused to pay for it.
So as a life-long advocate for our environment, I'm filled with pure glee when I see the EPA's budget slashed and energy sector people put in charge of it.
Paris Climate Accords have nothing to do with the environment other than using it as a lever against US competition as the world's 2nd largest exporter. China happily signed Paris Climate Accord. China, where the pollution and environmental mismanagement is so horrible, it puts out 30% of the entire world's air pollution, most of the plastic in the ocean, untold tons of chemical waste into the pacific, and even into its own rivers. You can't breathe in many of the cities if you go outside on a bad air day.
Signatory treaties that affect trade are a cutthroat business. The US is one of the only nations that actually combats pollution.
In Russia, instead of having emissions test centers, you pull in so they can pull your cadmium catalytic converter for resale, while giving you a certificate of compliance.
The disparity in environmental management in the US even with EOA corruption/incompetence is night and day compared with the 10 largest populations on earth.
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@senoalamsyah7481 No other nations have even been able to figure out how to make durable high pressure turbine blades for jet engines other than the US, UK, Russia, Germany, and France. Russians are the least-durable of those, and they got decades of technical data and materials samples from the US to reach the point they’re at now, which is at least 34 years behind the US.
The Chinese don’t have permafrost over oil fields, nor do the Japanese, Koreans, Iranians, or especially Australians. They don’t have the environment to learn how to address this problem, and their institutions do not kick out petroleum engineers from a knowledge base that has been solving the problem for decades.
If you do a detailed study of these limitations, you will see why they exist.
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@honyasenyou Now that we have another puppet of China in the WH, everything they ask for will be given to them, just like under Bush41, Clinton, Bush43, and Obama. They will demand access to all PACOM regional ISR platforms from space down to ocean floor surface, Navy, USMC, and USAF nodes, capabilities, etc. And they will get whatever they ask for because they’ve been bringing these vermin for decades.
I remember when they got access to the B-2 program. Chinese intel people were allowed to come in with cameras and snap phots of whatever they wanted, by order of the President down the chain. The yes-men career officers complied and nothing was said about it in the presstitute media.
I think the big golden nugget China is poised for now is acquisition or some kind of merger of GE gas turbine division. They already own GE appliances, which leverages them for the buy. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are Chinese FIS people already negotiating management and access to the secret sauce of the High Pressure Turbine section modules and components, particularly the blades. They can make the low pressure fan, afterburner, and nozzles. Cracking the code on the HPT section is what drives them batty.
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Gripens crashed because their flight control system wasn’t vetted well enough before they went to live flights, and they are prone to stalling due to the poor Thrust-to-Weight Ratio.
Gripen C/D performance at Red Flag is not what it is cracked up to be by amateurs who don’t understand what Red Flag even is. Gripens had to be tasked with Red Air because they couldn’t bring anything to the table being incorporated with Blue Air, because they had no real Air-to-Ground capability for their first attendance. Red Air knows all the terrain and how to inflict maximum losses on Blue Air for the opening of campaign. Gripens flew with F-16C and F-15C aggressors as part of Red Air to do that job against National Guard units who were lacking in their Air-to-Air tactics, since they had done so much CAS and strike mission sets in OIF/OEF.
Follow-on attendance of SAF Gripens to Red Flag happened once they integrated GBU-12 and FLIR/LST pod capability on the Gripen C/D. Once Sweden passed several basic milestones for A2G delivery, they came back to RF and incorporated into Blue Air, but were again not very useful due to the poor combat radius of the Gripen C/D when carrying bombs and EFTs. It was more of a token of cooperation bringing Sweden up to speed with some very basic coalition air component forces interoperability.
Finland didn’t settle on F-35A by a narrow margin, but by a huge margin. 2nd place was the Super Hornet Block 3, which didn’t meet the threshold performance requirements for H-X. Gripen E came in dead last, its numbers too embarrassing to publish to-date. Super Hornet scored a cumulative 3.81, whereas F-35A scored 4.47.
The only reason Brazil ordered Gripen E/F was because the outgoing Brazilian President was bribed.
Canada of course chose the F-35A as well, since they have been a partner in he JSF program for many years.
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@termitreter6545 This is a highly-technical discipline with more advanced technology than any space program (fighter engines HPHT turbine blades as one example).
AWACS have to maintain stand-off distance from any threat WEZ and surface-based MEZ, so yeah, the AWACS Radar reach is significantly limited by positioning in-theater. JSF especially can get closer to threat sensors than any other platform in the inventory, and they have the latest Semi Conductor technology in their TRM materials, with better processors that are all interleaved with each other for multiple vantage points. Those factors plus their higher operating altitude place the JSF kill web in a far superior situational scheme than any AWACS can ever hope to have, and multiple pilots have stated for years how dramatically-superior their picture of the battlespace is over AWACS.
I can cite multiple pilot reports and even comms backing up the JSF/AWACS SA superiority. It’s not even close. A single JSF pilot has an infinitely-better picture of the space than if you fused the brains of all of the station operators sitting in the back of an AWACS. A huge factor in this is the presence of high-saturation IR sensors that cover short, medium, and long-wave IR spectrum right inside the threat areas, whereas AWACS has none of this.
The entire flight regime in the F-35A is superior to the combat-configured F-16C Block 50 (best performing engine). The subsonic acceleration of the F-35A is superior to the F-22A.
F-35A maintains higher sustained speeds and altitude than the F-16 and F/A-18, comparable more to the F-15, which likes to hang out above the cons (FL400). If you’re reading any sources that claim the F-35s suck at sustained speed and altitude, you now can toss those sources into the trash bin and never click on them again. I just unsubscribed from an aviation-specific channel after repeated failures and click-bait BS claims that have no correlation to reality.
I’ve been flying since the 1970s. Having high fuel fraction is absolutely a bonus and the main driver for that was combat radius. The KPPs for JSF required 100nm combat radius over each legacy platform they were replacing. They accomplished that in spades with each of the variants.
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@olympia5758 US military technology has changed dramatically since the 1990s, mainly due to AARs from ODS combined with planned long-term programs already in existence. Examples:
Radios went from open channel FM encrypted to VHSC Frequency-Hopping encrypted, now to the 3rd generation of net-centric systems.
Navigation went from INS for air, map and compass for ground, to GPS integrated with better INS for air power, and multiple tiny GPS units for ground forces integrated with net-centric displays and data link comms.
Radars went from Mechanically-scanned Arrays to Active Electronically Scanned Arrays.
Missiles got tiny guidance units with far superior processing power and memory, with programmable functions, better rocket propellant, superior sensors, and thousands of more test iterations on moving targets.
We’ve gone through 2 generations or more of updates to vehicles, from 1st Gen HMMWV to 2nd and 3rd Gen, now to JLTV.
1980s-era fighters were timed-out and replaced with mid-1990s to early 2000s built fighters, now with 20teens to 2020s-build 5.5 Gen fighters.
We’ve been through 4 or 5 combat uniform changes since the 1990s. BDUs, DCUs, MCUs, ACUs, MC, Scorpion.
Patriot missile Defense has evolved to PAC-3 already.
Body armor went from PASGT to Interceptor/IBA, E-SAPI, IOTV, SPCS, and now the Modular Scalable Vest.
Helmets went from the PASGT to MICH/ACH, then the Lightweight Advanced Combat Helmet Gen II and Lightweight Helmet.
Night Vision went from PVS-4s and PVS-4s to PVS-7, PVS-14s, PVS-15s, PVS-31s, PSQ-20s, and PSQ-42s.
Laser Aiming Modules went from the AIM-1 to PAQ-4A, PAQ-4C, PEQ-2A, PEQ-15, PEQ-16, DBAL
Weapons went from M16A2 to M4A1 and M4 Gen I, M4A1 SOPMOD Block I, SOPMOD Block II, URGI, Big Army M4A1 PIP.
Rifle Sights went from Iron to several ACOG variants, various Aimpoint RDSs, and now LPVOs.
The boots have changed multiple times as well.
Nothing is the same.
There isn’t much left over from the 1990s in US inventory when you go down the list of aircraft, equipment, weapons, radios, vehicles, medical equipment, and uniforms. If you showed up with 1990s gear on in any operational US military unit, they would stare at you like some kind of anachronism and you wouldn’t be able to integrate well with anyone left and right of you until you were issued new weapons and equipment.
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@Unfamous_Buddha Stalin was a mountain tribe Jew from Georgia. Killing "his own" included Finns, Ingrians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Belorussians, Romani, Bulgari, Russian Kulaks (farmers), Ukrainians (Holodomor), Ossetians, Chechens, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turks, Azerbaijani, Persians, Mongols, Manchurians, and people from every bordering region with Russia.
There simply is no comparison to US military campaigns abroad.
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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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@mortil Imagine telling Canada, "The GlobalEye deal is built into the price. Send us those Bombardier business jets at a massive discount/free."
To understand foreign military sales, you really need to know important basics about business math, accounting, and contract management.
If you don't know the existing supply chains, these deals won't make any sense.
People think Sweden just spits out GlobalEye jets from some factory, without realizing they are built in Canada as complete corporate jets, with Rolls Royce engines made in UK, then sent to Sweden to be torn-down, reinforced, sensors, avionics, and structural mods performed, then sold for billions.
You don't just roll them into the package deal as if they are negotiable quantities with elasticity in cost setting in your favor.
Initial acquisition for GlobalEye requires over 1 billion euros to be spent. UAE just did their follow-up order for 2 more at over $1.01 billion.
These are gigantic segments of the initial 9 billion euros available for H-X.
Every single submission exceeded the H-X budget, including the Saab Gripen/GlobalEye proposal. A huge factor on the budget is maintenance and logistics infrastructure for the new systems, no matter which one you look at. None of them are low-cost.
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@Amaking10000 Try again. Every single month of this war, he has made headline statements that are 100% false.
Just search Col MacGregor March, April, May, June, July, August, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec 2022, Jan, Feb, Mar, April, May, June 2023. It's all false and clearly-so. The guy is a mouthpiece for Putin every step of the way.
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F-16XL: Underpowered, but a beautiful aircraft in terms of combat radius, payload, and mission capability. If you put an F-119 class motor in it, it would be amazing, but we didn’t have the F119 in 1980-1982. Every test pilot expressed concern over Thrust/weight and it didn’t handle like an F-16A at all. Instead of the Enhanced Tactical Fighter (Strike Eagle became this), it would have made a better configuration for the F-16 for how the USAF actually uses the F-16, as a strike platform.
Tomcat 21: Same expected maintenance issues as the whole F-14 fleet, which was really hurting the Navy’s budget.
F-20A: Look at its combat radius and thrust/weight ratio. Look at the FOD implications of it carrying BVR missiles on the wing pylons. You had a few inches of clearance even if you maintain perfect wings-level attitude when landing, with a squirrely design that loved to roll. Imagine AIM-7, AIM-120, and bomb fins smacking into the runway during high-sortie rate operations. Then the advertisement about it being cheaper to maintain and more efficient were just manipulations of data that didn’t really exist, because there was no large force in operation for several years from which to draw any reliable conclusions about those performance specs. There were only 3 of them, and not common to each other.
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@mikev4621 So I've been involved in ballistics research, to include 5 decades of practical and professional experience in the field, with funded and published studies on the subject.
I've seen a lot of live projectile impacts through optics, high-speed photography, and extensive human and animal terminal wound ballistics.
When you watch the stabilized Zapruder film in slow-motion, you can especially see initial spalling and explosive response from the highly vascular, right frontal quadrant of the cranium that is consistent with an impact in that location.
Rifle projectiles fired at high velocity experience violent deformation on impact with a hard surface, sending some material outward radially at supersonic speed.
That blood splatter is from a frontal impact, not an exit. The observations of the ER Docs at Dallas all pointed to an entrance in the front, and a large exit wound in the rear.
With skull injuries from high velocity missiles, they don't always follow the initial bullet path either.
Due to the curved shape of the skull, any impact off-center will usually be deflected from the initial flight path. We've seen a lot of head injuries in the military and crime where impacts outside of the center 1/3 of the skull penetrate the soft tissue only, then skirt or circumscribe the skull and exit the scalp on the far side.
At closer ranges, high velocity rifle impacts almost always "canoe" or cavitate part of the skull. This is what happened to JFK. His right brain was mostly evacuated from the skull due to high velocity missile trauma.
The angle at which the shot came from could be more from the right of the motorcade, then redirect from its impact to the skull and blow out the rear. His head reaction to the left and rearward is consistent with a right frontal impact angle up to 45° from the direction of travel of vehicle.
Also, given the quick succession between the last 2 shots we can see between Governor Connally and the explosive frontal head shot on JFK, it is an absolute certainty that they were not from the same rifle. Zapruder and multiple ear witnesses confirm this definitively.
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@AvengerII We were there for most of that, then came back after West Germany. I saw some reports from a former A-37 and A-7D USAF pilot, who then converted to F-16A/B in the late 1970s. He said the tests they did for CAS and A2G comping the A-7D and A-10 were rigged, not allowing the A-7D to use its most potent tool for low altitude bombing, where it was really good at it. The A-7D apparently had a nice HUD, moving map display, and bombing computer that were all ahead of their time.
Yes, early F100-PW-100 and PW-200 motors suffered from compressor stalls, AB flame outs, fire shooting out the front of the F-15's intakes, and several total losses related to engine failure. YF-16 and any new prototype aircraft is flown within divert emergency landing of the dry lake bed at Edwards, which is why Edwards is Edwards.
The Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 is a different engine with the highest reliability rate in the F-16C/D, even compared to the GE motor. Thunderbirds and Stateside units use the F100-PW-229s, whereas most (if not all) OCONUS units use the GE engine. Pilots like the excess thrust of the GE motor in the low speed flight regime, but maintainers are split between preferences of the two, with most saying the -229 will just run and run, even when things fail. The GE engine is either worky or no worky.
Singapore got GE motors in the F-15S if I recall correctly.
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@casval-pj5tb Now correlate that with all the ground Russia has lost. It doesn't add up from the big picture, and they're in an extremely precarious position in Crimea.
Once fighter pilots and maintainers are already used to one type of aircraft, transitioning to another is easier than starting from scratch.
Since Man-Machine Interface is vastly-superior on Western fighters, the pilot training aspect really comes down to an accelerated conversion and then learning the weapons employment.
The logistics hubs and supply chains already exist for F-16s and F/A-18s in Europe, namely Turkey, Greece, Romania, Poland, Switzerland, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, and Slovakia, with a huge favor towards the F-16 enterprise.
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@Albertkallal If you want to focus on raw performance metrics, start with:
* Actual engine thrust at specific altitude and speed bands. Some engines deliver maximum thrust uninstalled, while others deliver more thrust at certain speeds and altitudes. It depends on the airflow mass rate of the intake geometry, bypass ratio of the turbofan, fuel flow rate, compression ratios, etc. It's easy to just use uninstalled ratings for the basic math, but some engines love gulping air at certain speeds and creating more thrust at 40k feet and higher, while others wheeze up there.
* Specific model empty weights. F-16A MLU is lighter than F-16CM CCIP Block 40. They also have totally different engines. Rafale C is lighter than Rafale M. F-35A is lighter than F-35C, which is lighter than F-35B, etc.
* Internal fuel state (take off fuel is different than mid-profile, so we often use anywhere from 40-60% internal fuel or a Thrust Specific Fuel Consumption based figure if you know the TFSC for the engine/airframe/profile). 50% internal or 50% of total int + external can be used to even the metrics when trying to determine T/W side-by-side.
* Wing Weapon Pylons, ejectors, launch rails all have weights. Pylons rated for fuel tanks and A2G weapons are heavy by themselves, plus the ejector racks that get mounted inside them.
* Cannon + ammunition weighs a lot, rarely accounted for when people try to calculate T/W.
* ECM, FLIR, LST, TGT pods are heavy and present g limits to the aircraft when carried in many cases, while also adding parasitic drag.
* Weapons all have weights of course.
F-35A has a really high combat T/W ratio in this regard, with no/minimal parasitic drag.
Last time I did the detailed T/W analysis, it was like a Rafale M, both carrying the same amount of fuel and weapons. Rafale has much lower empty weight, but not as much thrust.
Rafale M empty weight is 23,400lbs.
Thrust in mil: 22,500lb
Thrust in AB: 34,000lb
F-35A empty weight is 29,300lbs.
Mil power thrust: 28,000lb
AB: 43,000lb
Start-up fuel state: 18,400lb internal
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@devrusso My mom is from Finland. I've lived all over Europe, Japan, South Korea, Panama, Middle East, and Russia. I'm also formally trained in Emergency Medicine with National Registry certs, having done a graduate-level A&P program simultaneously with pre-hospital care.
Russian hospitals were atrociously-primitive, as is everything in Russia. None of the European hospitals in Finland, Sweden, Germany, or UK compare well with what you see in the US.
In any metropolitan or suburban area in the US, the number and quality of hospitals outclasses London, Munich, Helsinki, Stockholm, Toronto, etc. and all of those are in a different world than anything I saw in Saint Petersburg or Moscow.
For EMS, heart care, CVAs, diagnostics, low wait times, hospital and clinic options, dentistry, orthodontics, and firefighting, I've never seen any country that compares well with what we have in the US.
You can do a dispassionate analysis of Level 1 Trauma Centers, Clinics, Private Hospitals, and dental offices in any US city and compare with cities in Europe or Canada. US wins that hands-down. Canada is close, but they still don't have anywhere near the hospital and clinic per capita, and their wait times are terrible.
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@Xenomorphine F-22 cancellation was purely treasonous, not economic. They spent the money we should have done for Raptors on MRAP vehicles, without even planning for MRAP spare parts. That gave the WH and SECDEF Gates the cover to make it look like they were taking care of troops, when it fact they were delivering a death blow to the fighter replacement for the aging F-15Cs. I’ve spoken with people in back channels who worked with Gates throughout his career, and they always suspected him of being an KGB asset back during the Cold War. Russia and China were feeling intense heat from the F-22 proposed acquisition numbers because it would mean the US has the ability to erase their air forces and there wasn’t anything they could do about it.
There were going to be over 200 Raptors in Europe, and over 200 in the Pacific, with Coastal US Wings on the Atlantic and Pacific bases able to plus-up the PACAF and PACEUR units as part of the JRDF if needed, same way we postured the F-15C units. The proposed Raptor fleet would have given theater commanders and unprecedented strategic capability of being able to conduct offensive fighter sweep operations without peer. They also would have provided theater commanders with Defensive Counter-Air options that could intervene in smaller-scale assaults on regional nations, eliminating any Russian threat air as if it were a sport.
Russia leaned hard on their old assets who were in high positions of influence in US DoD and the WH, along with the Chinese, while both acquired as much technical data as possible for their own domestic programs. The Chinese rubbed this in Gates’ face when he visited to have talks after he betrayed the US, flying the J-20 officially for the first time during his visit. Russia flew the T-50/PAK-FA prototype around that same time as well. Gates was on record of saying we don’t need Raptors to bomb the Taliban and that Russia and China didn’t have anything like it. They played the traitor like a fiddle and made a mockery of his usefulness to them.
The Bush and Obama White Houses were in-on this whole treasonous affair, and multiple USAF Chiefs of Staff sacrificed their careers trying to save the F-22 so they could get it int Full Rate Production where the unit costs would have dropped down to $93.2 million with an open assembly line. Killing it bought time for China and Russia to try to catch up, which they have done their best attempts to do with J-20 and Su-57.
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@laughingdaffodils5450 You don’t want to close within visual range of any legacy or modern fighter equipped with Helmet-Cued HOBS missiles, and you won’t really get that chance against a fairly-updated 4th Gen anyway with the current state of AESA Fire Control Radars and BVR missiles. If you’re in a 4.5 Gen fighter, you will really struggle to get first-look against the Su-57 if they continue to make strides in the RAM theft/development of US tech. The production Su-57s are looking much cleaner than the prototypes. They will have superior first-look, first-shoot against unsuspecting airborne targets if they get their BVRAAM act together, which has been delayed even since the end of the Soviet times.
F-35s actually can carry plenty of AAMs. Block 3 F-35As configured for A2A carry 6 AAMs, 2 AIM-9X Bock 2+ missiles and 4 AIM-120D-3 BVRAAMs. Pk from F-35 delivered missiles is much higher than pk from 4th Gen fighters due to unobserved/undetected releases from unfair No Escape Zone parameters. The stowed kill count of an F-35A Block 3 is therefore in practice higher than the stowed kill count of an F-16 or F/A-18 in common configurations.
F-16s and Hornets typically only carry 4 AAMs while the other stations are occupied with FLIR pods, ECM pods, External Fuel Tanks, leaving only 2 stations for their relevant strike missions.
F-35s carry that same combat load internally, without having to use any stations for ECM or FLIR pods, leaving all of the weapons stations open for weapons. Even with an internal load, they carry a more relevant, more lethal and effective load, along with more internal fuel than the combined internal and external fuel of a Viper or Hornet.
In BVR exercises between AESA-equipped F-15Cs vs new pilots in F-35As out in PACOM, the F-35s humiliated the F-15C folks in their core mission set because they had no SA the whole time.
F-35A is cheaper to operate than any other fighter in USAF inventory. F-16C airframe costs less, but once you add the LITENING FLIR, ECM Pod, HARM TGT Pod, the F-16CM is actually more expensive and it has a higher break rate of 10% (the lowest of any USAF fighter until F-35A). F-35A break rate is 6%, which is unprecedented. F-35A CPFH dropped about $4000 from 2020-2021, putting it into the $13,000 range. F-22A went from $44,000 to $50,000 during the same timeframe since they have very limited airframes and a closed production line.
F-15C, F-15D, F-15E all cost more to operate and maintain, not including ancillary podded systems, which are not reported openly.
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@chm985 Nobody is entitled to their own set of facts. This is a huge and continuous problem with kids who were raised in the 1990s-2000s. Everyone got positive feedback for simply breathing and showing up. Reality doesn’t work that way, and the Gripen is especially an example of this.
It embodies the entitlement mentality quite succinctly. People think that because a small country who makes a fighter is on equal footing somehow with nations that have been building higher-capability fighters for generations, where those fighters have been designed based off many decades of lessons-learned in combat and forward-deployed theaters.
The Gripen doesn’t benefit from the same experience channels directly because nobody cares if it can perform, since Sweden doesn’t normally participate in allied air component forces. The Swedish Parliament didn’t care either, other than a side show jobs program for Saab, so they restricted Saab in what they could build by benchmarking it to FMS (Foreign Military Sales).
Saab couldn’t find a good engine source in a higher thrust class (the Viggen had the most powerful fighter engine until the US IPE program, but it wasn’t optimized for high AOA reliable performance and would compressor stagnate). This left Saab with the option of buying the GE F404 from the US, which was designed from the outset to be 2 engines powering the F/A-18, not a single engine powering a LWF.
That constraint really doomed the Gripen from the start to being a low-capability fighter, with a low payload, poor Thrust/Weight ratio, poor climb rate, and long take-off roll, going backwards from the 4th Gen fighters-all of which could take off from extremely short distances and climb into the vertical with unprecedented authority.
There doesn’t need to be any emotion associated with these facts. They just are what they are. Denial is the first stage of coping with reality, and accepting the fact that the Gripen marketing has ignored these facts while promoting capabilities that aren’t there should be recognized and called out.
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@laughingdaffodils5450 F/A-18 Stations:
AIM-9X, A2G, 330gal EFT, R Cheek-BVRAAM, centerline-ECM or ATFLIR, L cheek-BVRAAM, 330gal EFT, A2G, AIM-9X
15,000lbs total fuel
F-16:
1-BVRAAM, 2-AIM-9X, 3-A2G, 4-370gal EFT, 5R-FLIR, 5-ECM, 5L-HARM TGT (CCIP Vipers in USAF), 6-370gal EFT, 7-A2G, 8-BVRAAM, 9-BVRAAM
12,000lb total fuel
F-35:
1-AIM-9X BLK 2+
2-Empty/VLO
3-Empty/VLO
(4-A2G internal bay
(5-BVRAAM
6-Empty centerline
(7-BVRAAM
(8-A2G
9-Empty
10-Empty
11-AIM-9X BLK 2+
18,250lb internal
FLIR/LST/LRF/IRST is in the nose and all over which also acts as MAWS. EW suite is integrated into all the sensors, including a much larger AESA array.
F-35 has 100-200nm longer radius easily over the legacy lightweight fighters, carrying more payload, can still max-perform speed and g, with better climb rate, acceleration, and cruise speed.
Block 4 will add 2 more internal weapons stations.
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@shade9272 F-35 has better payload, longer legs, better durability, and the most affordable acquisition and O&M costs compared to any of the competitors. If you think F-35A maintenance is nothing short of abysmal, why was it the most available fighter in USAF in 2020 with the highest rates? For 2021, it’s the 2nd most-available after they got the A-10C fleet wings done, so F-35As are still more ready than F-16Cs/CMs. The F-16 has been the gold standard in FMC/MC rates for the past 4 decades. You might want to consider finding better sources of information, because whatever ones you’re using are simply full of errors and no facts. Dump them.
F-35’s roles only credible in ELINT and tactical strike? What about A2A? When brand new F-35A pilots in a newly-formed squadron from Hill AFB deployed to Kadena several years ago and went up against F-15Cs, they wrecked them as if it were a sport. Same in all the Red Flags, to the point where they told Red Air you don’t even have to play by the rules anymore, do anything to get a kill. Same thing in Atlantic Trident or Northern Edge. It doesn’t matter. They’ve been defeating F-22As since 2017 in A2A.
For the Iceland ADIZ shared rotational NATO interceptor role, Norwegian and Italian F-35s worked together with common data link and were able to execute VLO intercepts against live Bears. Norwegian F-35As integrated with B-2As for D-SEAD and escort.
Israelis have been flying over Syria as if they own the place, turning Syrian SAMs against Russian ELINT birds, destroying the latest IADS nodes, to the point now instead of the regional news reporting on F-16s striking targets, it’s “unidentified aircraft” struck targets in Syria.
None of the current European fighters on the market are cheaper or better. They are far more expensive, with Rafale and Typhoon being twice the price for nowhere near the capability, and more O&M costs.
Your information sources are bad.
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@laughingdaffodils5450 Frontal RCS of some legacy AIM-9 profiles is already .0002m2, so you’ll see operational F-35s carrying the 2 AIM-9X Block II+s quite commonly without concern of that load causing any practical degradation to their VLO profile for a lot of sorties. In LFEs and deployments, you see a mix of aircraft in those configurations. Carrying 2 out of the 7 external stores stations isn’t loading them all up, so that’s a hyperbole fallacy from you on that one. I’m not talking about loading stations 2, 3, 9, and 10, just 1 and 11 with the angled pylons mean to deflect RF and not create right angles.
There is no spin, just recognizing key traits of the design that were obviously meant to allow VLO carriage of the AIM-9s.
The argument that JSF wasn’t supposed to do A2A doesn’t hold any water at all. I’m referencing the JSF program history from ASTOVL all the way through CALF and JAST, with specific KPPs called out by the lead program engineers in the 741 page book on JSF written by those engineers and early test pilots. Every single JSF airframe type of the 3 variants was meant to meet or exceed the A2A capabilities of the F-16C and F/A-18C. The F-16 and F/A-18 designs came from an A2A-only focus, then were adapted to multirole by the service customer requests.
ATF was supposed to get AIRST, but it was cut due to cost spirals, as was the supersonic ejection seat and STOL thrust reversers. JSF got EOTS and DAS out of the gate which constitutes a dual-plane, multi-length IR spectrum IRST better than AIRST. DAS was an evolution of the F-22’s MAWS into a more capable spherical IR spectrum SA system, fused with the RF and EOTS sensors, which is why it is more capable than the Raptor in A2A as far as first-look is concerned. APG-81 is also more capable in stand-off jamming than the Raptor’s APG-77, so they’ve been upgrading the Raptor based on capabilities demonstrated in the F-35 program. It was openly revealed that F-35s were able to jam Raptor’s APG-77 in force-on-force exercises. APG-77 went through an upgrade overhaul after that quietly, as did the other sensors. The money they could have spent on a HMS in the Raptor was spent on more important sensor upgrades that aren’t detailed, but some of us can make very good guesses about what they did.
Cost of a current Lot 14 production F-35A ($77.9 million flyaway) is less than half the cost of an F-16E/F for UAE. The UAE Desert Falcons were over $200 million each.
Saab won’t reveal what their Unit Flyaway is on the Gripen E/F, but the Unit Program Cost for Brazil was $155.5 million per. That includes spares, weapons, support, pylons, EFTs, etc. F-35A unit program cost for Finland was lower than any of the other competitors. The whole contract details for pricing was published by the Finns for all to see.
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@laughingdaffodils5450 The ATF program was also managed with the assumption that the Stealth might not work, so it had to have significant leaps in raw performance over anything the Su-27 and MiG-29 could do. A lot of people had their doubts about the Stealth and the IFDL data link took 7 years to get to finally work reliably from 1997-2004, but they pulled it off after a Herculean effort at Edwards. After they started Initial Tactics Development, they saw that the VLO actually worked better than expected, so the raw performance wasn’t really a factor.
JSF had already been envisioned and the fly-off conducted by that point, so the initial concept of a Hi-Lo mix following the F-15/F-16 force structure for ATF/JSF was still being pursued under 4th Gen assumptions. The more work they did in operational test and force-on-force exercises really highlighted that the other distinguishing factors of 5th Gen were far more important than legacy metrics of speed and maneuverability, with information-sharing being at the top of the list.
Pilots who have flown both describe the Raptor as a huge factor advantage over anything else in the 4th Gen world, but the F-35s have even more of a factor of those features that make them significantly-more capable due to the sensor fusion, IR spectrum fused with RF, and a faster data link with higher transfer rates. Since one of the production Lots on JSF, the RAM was changed significantly and the RCS was dropped considerably once they went to Carbon Fiber tailplanes. That made the frontal RCS and certain aspects lower than the Raptor in RF spectrum.
You can’t just do an “upgrade kit” to reach into JSF sensor suite capabilities. The Raptor is the closest thing architecturally, and they still haven’t been able to fund it.
So I’ve been closely tracking US fighter and weapons acquisition since 1984. We haven’t seen a $20 million F-16 since about that time. The first Block 25 F-16Cs were a little over that. F-16A Block 15 in the early-mid 1980s was $16 million. Block 30s made in the mid-late 1980s were $32 million. Block 40 Night/All Weather-Capable Vipers with LANTIRN were over $42 million. You could basically look at the production Block number and it would correlate with how many tens of millions they were for unit flyway cost. After CCIP on Block 50s, 52s, then later on 40s and 42s, we have well over $115 million sunk just into the airframes. All the different podded systems are on top of that price, as is JHMCS.
Same with the MSIP partner nations in NATO with their F-16AMs. The MLU program added tens of millions per jet to get them up to speed for JTIDS data link (Link-16 incremental protocol adherence), AIFF for enhanced AIM-120 employment envelope expansion, JDAM integration, WFOV HUD, improved cockpits, structural mods, and other things. We worked on some of that critical development that was supposed to be part of Block 30G, but didn’t get into production until Block 50 in the 1990s.
If you’re looking up Unit Flyway Costs online, prepare to find all kinds of totally erroneous sources uploaded by kids who weren’t even alive at the time, that know almost nothing about this subject. It’s a big problem I see in the AvGeek world now. Lots of kids looking up things online from dubious sources and taking that as gospel. There’s a whole ecosystem of erroneous information that doesn’t match up well at all with those of us who actually lived through these things and were intimately familiar with the details.
Unit Program Costs vary with the customer. You could see contracts for the exact same fighter off the same production line from the same year with different UPCs. Biggest factor in that is the weapons suite the customer orders through DCA. A general rule of thumb I’ve seen is roughly a 75/25 ratio of Unit Flyaway/Unit Program, but there are plenty of contracts where that margin is larger. The recent F-35A, Rafale, and Typhoon contracts hold to it pretty well.
As far as O&M costs go, Saab’s very own H-X campaign manager, Magnus Skogberg, said that the Gripen C/D costs roughly 11,000 euros to operate, fuel, maintain, replace spares, and pay personnel. That’s the same price Norway’s Air Logistics Chief said it costs them to do all the same on their F-35As. Magnus said they think Gripen E will cost the same as Gripen C/D, which is odd because Gripen E carries more internal fuel, has more systems, more complexity, and a heavier airframe. There are literally no positive selling points for the Gripen E. Not a single one. It excels at nothing.
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@NesconProductions Russia isn't fielding missiles with 2x the range of AIM-120. AIM-120D has the longest confirmed intercept of any AAM, even longer than AIM-54C.
Russia barely got R-77-1 AAMs into service over the past few years, with no known performance record on it.
Even if they had a superb LRAAM, it can't track what it can't see, while the huge RCS Flankers are tracked from take-off. They have lost 5 Su-30SMs, 1 Su-35S, and 9 Su-34s over Ukraine.
From missile wreckages, COTS US, Taiwanese, Japanese, French, and German electronics make up their missile guidance systems, including their new hypersonics.
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@NesconProductions USAF openly announced the new AIM-120D intercept record earlier this year, without stating the range, but that it was the longest demonstrated intercept in history.
My background is rooted in this field dating back to the 1970s, with places like AFFTC, White Sands, China Lake NWTC, Eglin AFB, and Point Mugu common to our permant assignment and TDY schedule.
PL-15 is supposed to be longer reach, but there haven't been any demonstrated or published tests with those missiles claiming realization of their theoretical ballistic profiles.
The Russians did finally reveal that in testing upgrades to their MiG-31BM and its BRAAMs, they shot down another MiG-31 accidentally during the tests, but it was nowhere near the maximum WEZ.
China just states that their missiles have better motors and guidance systems than the Russian garbage they have been sold (RVV-AE).
China also licensed Israeli SRAAMs with the Python-3, which is an extremely deadly WVR IR HOBS missile for sure.
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@NesconProductions Regarding range: The terminology we use in Defense Aerospace relative to fighters is "combat radius" or "mission radius", which is a very flexible metric dependent on many variables.
F-35C combat radius averages 100nm+ longer than the F-14D, which had more fuel efficient engines than the F-14A if setting up a low-speed BEARCAP patrol around the Carrier Battle Group.
Not only can and does the F-35C exceed that perimeter by 100+nm, but it also brings long-range strike back to the CVN that was lost with the A-6E and A-7E retirements decades ago. We lost that with the adoption of the Hornet and Super Hornet, though the SH has longer radius than the baby F/A-18s do.
For the strike mission profile, evading threat SAMs and their radars significantly reduces a legacy fighter’s strike radius because of multiple heading and altitude changes along the profile. F-35s don’t do this anywhere near as much since they compress the threat MEZ and detection bubbles dramatically.
F-35C especially has roughly 20,000lb of internal fuel, which no single engine fighter has ever had. For comparison, an F-16 is 7,000lb internal, while Super Hornets are 14,700lb and 13,760lb respectively for E and F models.
The F-35C carries all that fuel without any aerodynamic drag penalty, whereas all other 4th Gen fighters carry EFTs pretty much on every mission profile.
Russian and Chicom carrier-borne fighters have to take off with limited internal fuel and weapons, otherwise they can’t get safely airline off the deck (no catapults). They are a pathetic joke in comparison to the USN CVNs.
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He purposely built a dumbed-down public image as common person, as to not alienate public-schooled voters (like Newt Gingrich). In reality, he's a whitty fighter pilot crack-up who is more fun to be around than his dad, Clinton, or Obama. They are all like brothers, part of a tight-knit club (Clinton, W, Obama).
Bush is nothing like the public image. He describes this in Decision Points.
If you were to be invited to one of his private parties, then sat down with him for a one-on-one conversation, you would quickly realize that he's orders of magnitude higher than most college professors in intellect and number of books read. He wouldn't rub that in though, but would instead ask you questions and start a conversation between you and someone else with something insightful based on how he profiles you.
He was already very gifted and highly-educated by his prep school days, before attending and graduating from Yale.
His intellect and confidence sky-rocketed in Universal Pilot Training and conversion into the F-102 supersonic interceptor.
He had a running book-reading competition with Karl Rove when he was President, where they read thousands of classical literature, history, biographies, etc.
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@c_3791 I did listen to the whole interview. Bernie Sanders (multi-millionaire dead beat who never really worked in his life, owns multiple mansions, net worth well over $3 million, politician-for-life) steered the conversation to fit his false agenda that the US should model itself after Finland.
This is one of the most retarded arguments we see, because nobody does the math. As soon as you see the population, region, climate, and cultural differences, you know right away that comparing a 5.5 million mostly-homogenous genetic population living in the sub-arctic has no relevant metrics to a 330 million diverse genetic population living in a temperate zone.
Finland's metrics are rounding errors mathematically compared to the US, at 1.6% of the US population.
A mathematical ignoramus like Bernie Sanders will easily overlook things like this to fit his Soviet-sponsored political career. Did you know that Russian money paid for many of Sander's campaigns?
He is financed by Council For a Livable World, an Active Measures Soviet-Era front to destabilize the US.
Soviets also started YLE taxpayer-financed propaganda service in Finland. Most Finns have of course never heard this, can't believe it. Finns are very naive people who trust and believe what has been reported on YLE for generations as if it was gospel truth.
It's an interesting case study in mass information control and obedience.
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@stuartd9741 It has already been replaced 20-30 years ago. 1980s-1990s ATACMs, Javelins, Patriots, etc. I live right near one of the largest depots where old munitions' warheads are destroyed. I don't even know where they dispose if the rocket motors. We used to have regular destinations with geysers of earth blowing into the sky like mushroom clouds.
After summer 2022, that all stopped. When you Take a missile to de-mil it, you have to separate the rocket motor, the warhead, the guidance electronics, the nose, tube, fins, etc. It's very expensive. The US has very strict standards on explosive and rocket propellant storage, because those materials don't stay stable indefinitely.
It is legitimately cheaper to just fly those missiles to another country and dump them off.
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By the 1950s, Sweden was assembling jet fighters made with critical systems built in the US and England.
The internal propaganda to Swedes was to make them believe Sweden had the capability to manufacture all of the systems in its jet fighters, starting with the most critical system of all: the engine.
Sweden never could build a fighter engine and still can't. It has always imported jet engines from Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, or General Electric.
The UK and US engines were then rebranded under Volvo Flygmotor and given Volvo designations starting with "RM".
Examples: SAAB Draken had the Rolls Royce Avon.
SAAB Viggen had the Pratt & Whitney JT8D.
Gripen A/B/C/D has the GE F404.
Gripen E/F has the GE F414.
The same thing happened with fighter Radars and missiles. Hughes, GEC-Marconi, and Raytheon developed and sold the critical avionics and fire-control systems to Sweden, who then re-branded them.
Within Sweden, the people are told SAAB, Volvo Flygmotor, and Swedish electronics firms are superior to the other countries, way ahead of their time while concealing the reality from the public. This feeds into a sense of Swedish nationalism and superiority complex, and makes the people feel a sense of pride as they look down on everyone else.
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@ordningsmannen Georgia not only produces fighters, but C-130s as well. F-16 production line was moved to Georgia. C-130 has been there for 70 years in Marietta.
If you want to talk about naval shipbuilding, you're looking at Virginia, which has a smaller population than Sweden, and has put more hull displacement in the water than most nations combined.
Sweden tried making its own jet engines in the 1950s and failed, not because it's a flawed nation, but lack of industrial, scientific, and test capacity.
Brits and Germans made the first jet engines, but the US surpassed them long ago.
It just goes to the point about the size of the US vs individual European nations. The US States are connected by the most navigable set of waterways in the world, in a temperate zone, with a common language and government, with more physical and human capital resources.
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@mrkeogh They solved the egged rivet hole problem with receivers by using high lead content in the rivets, so the rivets would deform first.
The working pressures on AKMs and AK-74s are substantially lower than Western small arms, because they didn't have the metallurgy and capability to mass-produce higher strength steels consistently for small arms.
7.62x39 working pressure is in the 43,000-45,000psi range, but it still generates more bolt thrust comparable to much higher chamber pressure due to the extreme case taper.
The conical shaped chamber focuses axial force more onto the bolt face than a less tapered cartridge would, all other factors being equal.
At the end of the day, you're looking at a very primitive civilization that barely gained traction relative to the rest of the industrialized nations, who were limited to much older production methods, materials, and constraints that resulted in a primitive weapon design. They leveraged thst with the higher capacity magazine like a submachinegun to make it relevant as the last weapon in the echelons of fire from a motorized infantry regiment.
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Who is the main target market for large SUVs?
1. Larger families who need a grocery-getter that supports taking kids to sports functions, has a lot of cargo space, great for road trips.
2. People who like the space, want offroad capability and inclimate weather/snow/unimproved road performance with 4WD occasionally.
Sequoia has been one of the best options since 2001 in that market.
I prefer the styling, body, and width of the 2001-2007 models, but my wife and I like the rear seat folding of the 2008-2022 that turn into a flat rear compartment bed.
I would like something that gets back to the 2005-2007 width and LC appearance, with the 2008 rear seat fold, crawl control, and proven tech updates without sacrificing reliability.
I like the 2008 A/C controls interface better. I don't like either generation's shift columns.
1st Gen is steering column mounted, whereas the 2nd Gen center console position seems great, until you see how easy it is to knock out of gear.
I would like driver instruments and screens like a Rivian.
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Defense contractors aren't even in the top 20 industries in the United States. DC is surrounded by lobbyists and corporations who Finance Congress From those top 20 industries. Look at finance, real estate, big retail, tech, auto, insurance, teachers/public employee retirement accounts, Agriculture, food & dairy, chemicals, telecom, computers, software, heavy industries, construction, power, all the stuff you buy and interact with daily.
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He has been very specific about forecasting Ukrainian loss eventually, due to the sheer numbers Russia has compared to Ukraine.
Russia hasn't mustered a general mobilization for Ukraine yet, since Putin planned to preserve the main forces in Moscow and Saint Petersburg for defense, and the invasions of Poland, Finland, and the Baltics.
Now he's faced with the decision whether to escalate to a general mobilization, use tactical nukes, some other strategic move, or back down and negotiate a peace treaty/ceasefire.
Ukraine has emphatically stated that they will continue to fight until all of Ukrainian territory is repatriated, including Crimea and Donbas.
My gut tells me Putin will escalate. He's the only "strongman" Russia has left, and all the oligarchs owe their positions to him.
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@Nill757 So what I’ve seen with infrastructure across the US is that it’s primarily a series of 50 different States, and in each of those States are various regions.
The deterioration-repair cycle ebbs and flows with roads, bridges, hospitals, runways/airports, fuel storage, refineries, sea ports, rail lines, highways, etc.
There isn’t a myopic statement that can be made that is accurate. Federal programs mainly maintain the interstate highways and certain energy plants, wildlife preserves, National parks, strategic reserves for Oil, and military installations.
There isn’t a steady state decline, but a natural cycle that all structures are subject to. The US repairs and maintains these things better than anywhere else I have seen, and I’ve been to or lived in 30 different nations in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Central America.
Our hospitals and highways outclass other nations by leaps and bounds, and I still have plenty of personal critiques for these hubs of infrastructure, but the grass is not greener. A big problem is finding another nation and population that is comparable, because there aren’t any that come close geographically or demographically.
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@Mogamishu Nope. I specifically have covered down on the region since the 1970s, to include detailed study of Russian history, order of battle, culture, and have lived there. He hasn't done that and will never be as well-versed in Russia as I. He's a charlatan that has been wrong on every major proclamation he's made since March, 2022.
You can verify this for yourself by searching,
"Douglas McGregor, March, April, May, June, July, etc. 2022", then through 2023.
Every month he makes a headline-statement, like "The war is over, Ukraine is done", or "there was no Ukrainian victory in __ city", all the while Russia has been losing ground.
Imagine how stupid you have to be as a senior military officer, to constantly proclaim that Ukraine is losing, as they consistently take back territory, sink Russian ships, hit the Kerch bridge, shoot down Russian aircraft and missiles, and put Russia on their heels.
Why would he keep making utterly false statements? What's his motive?
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sampaix Vous avez raison de dire que le Pentagone essaie de saboter le programme F-35 avec sa stupidité, mais sur les poids.
Les propositions initiales pour les cellules de la variante JSF devaient avoir une très forte utilisation de la fibre de carbone. Le Pentagone a insisté pour que plus d'aluminium d'avion Alcoa 7085 soit utilisé dans les structures, ce qui mettrait les variantes B et C en surpoids et ne leur permettrait pas de respecter leurs paramètres de performance clés.
Cela menaçait l'ensemble du programme, alors ils ont ramené le responsable du programme USAF à la retraite de l'ATF en tant qu'entrepreneur pour gérer le programme de perte de poids d'urgence SWAT, et ont permis à Lockheed d'utiliser plus de fibre de carbone. Cela a mis le programme derrière 18 mois, mais une fois que cela a été fait, les 3 variantes sont devenues beaucoup plus légères, plus solides, avec des durées de vie de cellule plus élevées.
Une fois qu'ils ont utilisé plus de fibre de carbone, il a en fait laissé tomber la section transversale du radar plus bas que celui des F-22. Les 6 oiseaux LRIP originaux n'ont jamais été produits en série, de sorte que tous les articles que vous lisez sur le programme de poids sont obsolètes de 12 ans.
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@pepp4560 If you read the 2017 document dump, there’s an FBI report with a witness saying one of the Officers on the overpass had a rifle aimed at the motorcade, and his name was J.D. Tippit. It also says Tippit was the Dallas Chapter Chairman of John Birch Society, which is interesting because General Walker was JBS. Back in April, someone tried to kill General Walker. WC hung that around Oswald’s head posthumously, with statements from George de Mohrenschildt and Marina to back that claim. George de Mohrenschildt was former OSS-gone-CIA, born in Czarist Russia, and knew CIA Agent George H.W. Bush at the time. Before George de Mohrenschildt was to testify before the HASC in the 1970s, he reached out to CIA Director Bush asking for help, since he and his wife were being followed, wire-tapped, and harassed mercilessly. Bush responded with a letter saying he looked into the matter and couldn’t help him. George de Mohrenschildt then was found dead of a self-inflicted GSW.
The 2017 document dump has some major bombshells in it.
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@danecook6456 US defense industry isn't even in the top 20 highest-revenue markets in the US. Did you know that? Back-up Healthcare Medicare program is over $800 Billion, not including Medicaid, which is another $218 Billion+.
Insurance, banking, pharma, big retail chains, public employee retirement funds, big tech, energy, auto, telecom, minerals/ores, farming, are all much bigger than defense.
The MIC is overly-emphasized by Russian propagandists because Russia tries to see the US through its own constraints.
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@wamnicho Russia has very limited domestic production of low-grade wheat, barley, and potatoes.
Once Russia opened up, the diversity of food at Western-built grocery stores exploded. A German company called Globus built huge shopping centers with wide variety of imported goods from Scandinavia, Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
It's a night and day difference between the Soviet Times where they had bread lines, empty shelves, limited fruit, limited personal hygiene products, limited or no home care products, etc.
I lived all over Europe and Russia from 1979-2016 so I'm reporting to you what the people would see, not guesses by "experts".
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@festekj Putin has been planning to invade Russia since the 2000s. One of his Foreign Ministry secretaries was running his mouth about that then, and was told to shut his mouth after spilling the beans. The plan was to "take back" Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.
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@SlavicCelery Yup. You will not find a bigger 6.5 Grendel proponent than me, and there just isn’t much of a comparison between 6.8x51 NGSW and 6.5 Grendel. The velocity from a 13” NGSW smokes a 24” 6.5 Creedmoor, and is about where a 22”-24” .270 Winchester is pushing 135gr SMK. I know because I load the 135gr SMK in .270 Win and have gotten into the 2850fps region with H4831SC.
6.8x51 NGSW with the High Performance load is spitting a 135gr EPR at 2900fps from a 13” barrel. That’s screaming velocity. It will make a great little DM Carbine, suppressed, with the optic.
Same for the M250 AR in 6.8x51, though the ammo load will get heavier/bulkier like a Mk.48 gunner. The M250 weighs a lot less than a SAW though. Experienced NCOs are going to love that thing.
The XM7 is too much for most of the Infantry Rifle Platoon though. One way around the problem is to equip 3rd Squad with it, and keep 5.56 NATO in 1st and 2nd Squads. Make 3rd Squad the DM/Overwatch/Support Squad, who can act in reserve and plug-into the fight where they are best used for precision fires and fire support/overwatch.
Let 1st and 2nd Squads do the maneuvering up front, with first bounds or flanks. 3rd Squad can also co-located with Weapons Squad for Support By Fire, be the Support and Security Elements in Deliberate Attacks, and undergo periodic Designated Marksman training with a formal MTO&E and ARTEP program. Start it in OSUT and the NCOPD courses so every Squad has DM-trained soldiers and NCOs no matter what.
Everyone else gets M4A1s that are upgraded on the SOPMOD Block increment program. Many duty positions in the line need an even smaller, shorter weapon than the 14.5” M4, so there should be a lot of 11.5” guns in the Line Platoon and especially the Company and Battalion.
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@0neDoomedSpaceMarine The M250 weighs far less than a SAW, and even though the cartridge generates far more kinetic energy, perceived recoil is way less than a SAW due to the recoiling barrel.
The SAW has always been too heavy for a 5.56 LMG, chambered in too weak of a cartridge. The 6mm SAW of the 1970s would have been far superior.
6.8x51 linked ammunition weighs less than 7.62 NATO, but more than linked 5.56x45. Everyone that has put hands-on with the M250 really likes it.
The SAW can't fill in for a Rifleman since there is no way to single shot its open bolt and simple sear fire control mechanism. (Former 11B, Rifleman, Grenadier, SAW Gunner, RTO, Fire Team Leader, Scout/Observer, Scout/Sniper, Asst Recon TM LDR, Rifle Squad Leader, Weapons Squad Leader here)
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@sciencecompliance235 One of the most distasteful forms of contempt in America is the college- indoctrinated elites who think they know anything talking down to the technically- oriented and highly-trained working class, who have far better understanding of how things actually work.
A great example are veterans who go into any of the major sectors of the economy, especially energy, defense, IT, agriculture, small-medium business, or manufacturing as examples.
The college ignoramus will condescend to these people, having never been anywhere overseas, never cut payroll, never built anything with their hands or tools, never managed teams of people, never solved a real-world problem in their lives.
Intoxicated on the fumes of their own flatulence, they bloviate on the solutions to all of life's problems as if gifted with omniscience, completely unaware that they are truly uneducated and clueless about pretty much any topic.
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@elysiumfields This is a great example of what I’m talking about. College kids in the US have been told a pack of lies by teachers and professors who have never lived in any Nordic country. My oldest son and daughter-in-law are going to school in one of those Nordic countries right now, where my mom is from. Education isn’t free. It’s very costly to everyone, namely the taxpayers. It’s also very exclusive, where gaining admission into university is extremely difficult. They section students off from each other at a certain time in school, so most go to skilled vocational training, and the more intellectually-minded kids with disciplined studying habits get to apply for university through entrance exams. Many take 2-3 times with the exams before they are admitted. Many do not complete their studies, then are in debt for the cost of schooling and housing. I’ve seen that happen to friends of mine as well.
When all is said and done, those countries rely on the US for their most advanced defense systems, medical diagnostic equipment, finances, trade, computer technology, software, and critical aspects of the economy all stemming from innovation mostly in the US or mainland Europe. Even with more GDP than comparable population US States, the US States with lower GDP have more Emergency Medical Systems, healthcare, transportation, finance, housing, higher education, PPP, etc.
But if we can leverage the inherent power of tariffs to fund limited government in the US, that would be far superior to what we’re doing now.
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@elysiumfields Of the 30 countries I've been to, guess which one I've lived in the longest, besides the US? Finland. That's where my mom is from and where half my family lives right now.
We have a lot of relatives in Sweden as well, where I've also been multiple times.
The critical systems I'm talking about are aerospace & defense related, as well as medical. Finland is one of the biggest customers for US fighter aircraft, missiles, and weapons.
Finland could never build a fighter gas turbine engine, for example. Neither could Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or most of the countries in Europe, let alone the world.
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The Soviets literally paid for Biden’s Senate campaign in 1972, in exchange for him doing their bidding as a subversive politician who would work against the B-1A, US nuclear weapons, US DoD programs, while helping them gain access to US Technical Data Packages for these systems. People in DIA, CIA, NSA, and Congress have known about this fore decades. Biden wasn’t the only one. 420 Congressmen, Senators, Governors, and Presidents have been helped by the same Soviet program to get elected, and then work for the Soviets/Russians.
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There is a tiny window of time where Putin has to invade before Finland’s F-35A Block 4 orders start delivering and get into operational status with the Finnish Air Force. Once Finland has enough of its order, any Russian invasion will be curb-stomped with blistering losses to their force structure in the Saint Petersburg Military District and any additional forces allocated for the invasion of Finland. The problem is that Russia has intelligence based on what it wants to see regarding Finland, not what the reality is. They don’t even understand or accept the events of the Winter War and Continuation War history, but instead have created their own version of the Russo-Finnish wars from 1939-1944 that have very little relationship to reality.
Either way, they see Finland as belonging to them, created by the Czar in 1809. Due to Finland’s tiny population, they assume it’s just a pushover to take, far less of a challenge than Ukraine. What they don’t understand is the Karelian Isthmus and how it channelizes any ground combat elements into a kill zone. There are no basing footprints from which to stage and successfully invade north of there, because there’s nothing but forest and lakes along most of the border, uninhabited on both sides.
Putin appears to be leaning on NATO members like Turkey and Hungary to delay Finland’s accession to NATO, in preparation for the invasion so that Article 5 can’t be implemented.
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@CWLemoine I lived through a lot of this with a front row seat to what was going on before JAST. F-35B STOVL variant is from a different track than USAF CALF program.
There's a big misconception that STOVL negatively affected the A and C models, but this is simply not reality, unless you know something I don't.
There were 6 different programs between 5 different services.
USMC
RAF
RN
USAF
USN
USMC, USAF, RN, and RAF began planning for replacement of the Harrier in 1983 and USAF was originally interested in a Supersonic STOVL Fighter for Europe austere basing as well.
USAF also wanted a Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter (CALF) to replace the Viper.
USAF also recognized that proliferation of IADS required new fighter designs to be VLO, and a handful of people who knew about F-117 pushed for new VLO designs.
USN invested billions in a VLO replacement for the A-6, knowing that the A-6 wasn't survivable in double-digit SAM environments.
USN also planned long term for replacement of the Hornet with F/A-X.
The various offices in the Pentagon saw all these new wish list birds for each service, saw a lot of overlap, and formed JAST, then the JSF program where instead of 6 aircraft (that would do most of the same mission sets at exorbitant developmental and sustainment costs), those 6 programs with all their separate radars, propulsion, E&E, cockpits, etc. needed to be done with 3 variants based on each method of basing.
Contrary to common belief, the STOVL variant did not set:
* fuselage width
* wingspan
* weight
* configuration
* weapons bays
* propulsion
* sensors
* performance
To the contrary, the JSF-B variant has its own weapons bays with different dimensions than the A & C. Fuselage width was set by the DSI inlets and serpentine ductwork for VLO in frontal aspect, as well as weapons bays on all 3.
Since JSF out-performs all the legacy platforms they supercede, while adding EW, ISR, AEW&C, Anti-Ship, and regional networked early warning capes none of the teen fighters can do, what's the problem?
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@CWLemoine B has a different canopy, fuselage, weapons bays, and airframe. Even the wings are different than the A.
Performance is what matters, and when you see guys describing single mission profiles that sound like someone put a Sparkvark, Wild Weasel, Raptor, AWACS, U-2, & F-117 into a blender, it tells me we're dealing with a revolution in Tac Air.
Then look at how the numbers are being manipulated to make CPFH look bad. They exclude the costs of ALQ shop, LITENING FLIR, HARM TGT Pod, and integrated countermeasures pylons on the Viper when listing its CPFH. Then they take the multi-service aggregate JSF fleet including early LRIP birds that are fine as-is for the training squadrons, and OT&E birds that will constantly be undergoing significant upgrades before those are TCTO'd and fed into new production.
On top of that, DOT&E throws in the small fleet of F-35B and F-35C early LRIP with the same considerations, and spits out these meaningless CPFH stats that senior leaders in the Pentagon think are gospel truth, and you get totally false long-term fleet O&M projections.
Additionally, they don't assess cost/affects analysis of an EW/F/A/R/AWAC-35 and still try to compare it with a Viper.
My question is, what's the actual CPFH once we account for LITENING, ALQ-, HARM TP, EPIDSU, ECIPS+ pylons?
EPIDSU/ECIPS+ is a $471 million program just for acquisition.
My position, knowing what I know about all the federated and ancillary systems on the Viper, F-15E, Hornets, and Super Bugs is that JSF is likely cheaper to operate and maintain over the long run.
A stripped down F-16CM, SH, or Mudhen is not a real metric from which to compare CPFH.
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@CWLemoine If we restrict the Marines to the old way of thinking, where MAGTF Air Wing AV-8B & Hornets primarily focused on CAS and armed recon, maybe. I would still point out the attrition rates of USMC air in ODS, since there was a lot of short interdiction. Looking at the new CONOP for USMC, it's an enabler that creates a lot of problems for threat nations in a littoral environment that puts them off balance, especially looking at tilt rotor mobility of other net centric systems and integration with Poseidon Maritime Patrol/ASW, Triton UAS, Excalibur PGM artillery, and smaller drones.
Another high end asset USMC replaced with F-35B was the EA-6B. There are some interesting Tailhook Symposium discussions on that aspect of NAVAIR culture, where Prowler & Growler crews said that fighter squadrons started pulling them into a more active role for planning, training, and tactics once F-35Bs started proliferating into operational units.
Before, EW guys were basically sidelined and left in a corner.
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Clinton (not his birth name) was raised in the biggest Buick Car dealership family in Arkansas, where his adoptive grandfather taught him memory training, and the senior salesmen taught him how to profile and communicate with "suckers"(customers). He became very adept at this when taking advantage of girls in high school, pulling up in his new convertible coup.
He admired JFK very much, and saw himself becoming President from a fairly young age.
He is gifted and well-trained in remembering facts and figures, but often fudges numbers to fit his narrative, with confidence and delivery that are rarely challenged.
He became accustomed to having any girl he wanted, which quickly lost its excitement, so he moved into more forceful exploitation of college girls and women until rape was normalized.
A fellow law student at Yale saw his potential and how people drew to him, but also how he ran through girls voraciously. She would intimidate them after he had humped and dumped them, to keep his wake clear.
He proposed to her due to her usefulness in that regard, but she declined, seeing herself cutting out her own path in politics.
He passed the bar and returned to Arkansas to run for Congress.
She took the DC bar and failed. She then called him up and asked if the offer was still open, which it was.
Her father strongly opposed the marriage, telling her that a Democrat was only one step away from a communist. Her brothers came down from Chicago to babysit Bill before the wedding to mitigate the obvious scandal.
His name is William Jefferson Blythe III.
Hers is of course Hillary Rodham.
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@anacaicedomacia He's the only candidate who knows how to set policy for an economy that allows young families to afford homes. They can't right now and the future isn't looking good for them (my 5 kids included).
He's the only President who didn't get us into new wars, the only President who sent weapons to Ukraine before Feb 2022, especially Javelins and other missiles Obama refused to send. He then threatened Putin not to make any moves there or else....
He negotiated more Middle East peace deals than all US Presidents combined.
He brought consumer drug prices down with HHS authorizing 900-1000 generic drugs every year. Big Pharma hates Trump more than RFK.
He finally put China's unfair trade practices in-check after every other US President sold out to them, especially Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama.
He then renegotiated our trade deals with threats and allies alike, where we went in and said, that's nice, now here's how it's actually going to be on US terms favorable to US workers and families.
He brought energy prices way down and threatened any US company with massive tariffs if they sent any more jobs overseas.
He took the WTI from 56 down to 22 with generous energy policies, which fueled a great economy.
He went around telling NATO to get their defense spending in order, because the US taxpayer is tired of footing the bill. They laughed at him until Feb 2022.
He's the only US President that brought in black inner city leaders who have pioneered functional youth services programs to listen to them and get them more assistance, and did it for weeks, televised. Not even Obama did anything like that.
These were all real, non-partisan policies that are great for America.
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@anacaicedomacia Economy: Young families had more access to home-buying under Trump, now they don't. Home prices and interest rates have moved single family residences away from their buying power.
Jobs: Trump reshored US jobs and threatened US companies with severe financial penalties if they moved assembly lines overseas.
Energy policy: Trump promoted the biggest growth in US energy dominance, taking the WTI from 56 down to 22, gas was in the $2.xx range/gal. That's the lifeblood of an economy.
National Security: Trump ran the best National security policy of any President in generations by making it clear US comes 1st, then backed it up by threatening the Taliban leader that if a single hair was hurt on US soldiers, he would bomb the Taliban leader's house, then pulled out the photos of his house, handed it to him, and walked out of the meeting.
When Putin attacked US forces in Syria, he authorized 6 hours of JDAMs, SDBs, Hellfires, and Precision artillery against them at the Battle of Khasham. Corporate media won't touch the story.
He also didn't start any new wars, and negotiated more Middle East peace deals than all US Presidents combined.
He made US border security a top priority to stop illegals from entering the US.
He's the only US President that brought in inner city leaders to help spread their private programs with rehab, supporting the fatherless, and vocational training. Obama didn't give those ministers and youth leaders the time of day.
Military: Trump prioritized rebuilding the services, producing critical combat systems, and elevating US National security strength to deter anyone from attacking us.
Drug pricing: Trump had his HHS Director authorize 900-1000 generic drugs per year to bring the cost of drugs down to help the people. Pharma hated him for this something fierce.
I could go on all day. He hit the ground running like no other US President and accomplished more in 4 years than multiple White Houses have done in decades.
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The AMRAAM stands on the shoulders of the AIM-7E and AIM-7M SAHR missiles, which have been used extensively in SEA (most A2A kills in SEA were AIM-7E, much more than AIM-9). AIM-7M A2A kills account for most of the USAF F-15A/C record as well. 24 of the 32 F-15C A2A kills in Desert Storm were with AIM-7M. Israelis have used the AIM-7F against Syria with great effect.
The most notable thing about the AIM-7 is that it has been almost always employed Within Visual Range after a merge.
The AIM-120 is superior to the AIM-7, with lighter weapon weight, improved self-illuminating seeker, countermeasures, better rocket propellant behavior, and better agility for maneuvering targets. It has displayed a better Pk in operational use against 6 x MiG-29, 1 x Su-22, 1 x MiG-25, and 1 x J-21.
In contrast, the R-27 BVR missile that predates the R-77 has a terrible Pk record. At best, it's Pk is 4% if we include a proximity fuse detonation near an Eritrean MiG-29, that continued to fly and crashed upon landing attempt.
The US/NATO tested the R-27 extensively after gaining dozens of them from the East Germans. Against non-maneuvering and maneuvering drones, it almost never hit the targets in live-fire tests from the MiG-29A both off the coast of England and Florida.
This is the legacy that the R-77 is based on, and attempts to improve upon.
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@therealJamieJoy You attend your neighborhood caucus precinct night and put in your name for whatever position you want to fill, then make your pitch to your neighbors, then they either vote you in or don't by physical ballot with strict counting methods.
Then if elected, you attend meet-the-candidate and town hall events where you can talk with candidates/incumbents in-person.
Then you go to County and/or State convention and all the delegates vote in the primaries.
So I've met and had lengthy conversations with multiple Federal & State Senators, Congressmen, Gubernatorial candidates, State Treasurers, State and County School Board members and candidates, County Commissioners, County and State Auditors, and Recorders.
It turns into a part-time job if you take it seriously. I missed all-but-one of my kids' soccer games and several family functions already this year, as is the norm every 2 years.
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@charlestidwell4970 That never happened for the DOJ. Articles of the Constitution have a part-time AG. It was that way for a century, then during Reconstruction, States and other entities were filing lawsuits against the Federal government, so they made the AG a full-time position with an Asst AG, and a Solicitor General to be another US Attorney at the Federal level.
The "Justice Dept" then grew and grew with a BOI secret investigative branch, which was then handed over to a compromised pervert named J. Edgar Hoover in 1924.
Mafia had photos of him and his husband, Clyde Tolson, engaged in s_d_my, so they blackmailed him into providing cover for them and the politicians they bought for generations.
Hoover ruled the BOI, rebranded and expanded its own power with blackmail against members of Congress and Presidents under the new name of FBI.
The DOJ continued to grow under this burgeoning administrative state until its current strength of 115,000 employees and 40 sub agencies, all of which exercise 100% unconstitutional powers over their victims on-behalf of organized crime in government.
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There were 2 Stages to T-50/PAK-FA development. 051 is the first flying prototype to validate and test basic flight dynamics, and doesn’t have any relevant combat systems in it (radar, ECM/EW, DIRCM, RF antennae network other than comms/NAV, etc.). 051, 052, 053, 054, and 055 were part of the first stage. The first stage prototypes were lighter and smaller. Once they put the full avionics suite in 055, they realized they needed to increase the wingspan and length, since it grew in weight. They built 2 more static test Stage 2 Su-57s, then all the remaining prototypes were flying Stage 2 variants until the first serial production model rolled off the line, and crashed on its pre-delivery Functional Check Flight on December 24, 2019.
It entered an unrecoverable flat spin at high altitude, and no matter what the test pilot attempted-even uncoupling the DFLCS, he could not regain control, so he finally ejected after a pretty cutting-edge ride longer than most would have stayed with the jet.
The commander of Russian VKS said they are aware of the yaw instability flight control problem at higher altitude, and are addressing it from a training perspective, rather than interfering with the development schedule, which is already hampered by the constant delays from not having the Izdeliye-30 engines that are to provide the Su-57 with its designed key performance parameters.
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@louisecorchevolle9241 The entire Russian economy is a joke compared to that of Texas, because Texas has so much more infrastructure, production capacity, quality of life, and diversity of industries. Look at military aerospace, for example. In the State of Texas over the last 18 years, they have assembled over 900 F-35s. There are 4.15 million head of cattle, 635 thousand dairy cows, 12 million calves, 708.6 million chicken, 1.17 million hogs, 786k goats, 655k lambs, 4.74 million harvested acres of hay, 2.1 million acres of harvested corn, 2.1 million harvested acres of wheat, 4.2 million acres of cotton, etc. etc.
BRICS was a joke proposed on Wall Street. Anyone who buys into it doesn’t understand basic geography and regional instability between the enemies on the BRICS list. For example, imagine Russia and China with a currency, or China and India. You have to be fundamentally-illiterate about the rivalries between these nations to think BRICS is even a viable concept.
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@louisecorchevolle9241 My contact in the Russian foreign ministry already said in the early 2000s that Putin was planning on taking back all former Russian territories. I figured he was an old soviet blowhard, but I paid attention and when they invaded Georgia in 2008, I remembered him saying Georgia would be taken, then Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. Zelensky set Putin's plans back many years by refusing to get on Biden's plane.
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@u2beuser714 Millenials with no experience in these matters can make a lot of mistakes and bad assumptions, since they rely on internet searches and OSINT, with zero real-world. We were involved in Nunn-Lugar base exchange program, but the main effort in Nunn-Lugar was to remove nuclear weapons from the former Soviet satellite states of Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belorussia to get them under centralized control. What we found out was that Russia had been running a shell game throughout the Cold War, bolstering their capabilities through a series of feints and movements, when they were in-fact very limited in their ability or willingness to actually trust warheads at all the advertised operational units across the "triad”.
They relied more on controlling the US intelligence community within using plants, moles, and political stooges placed throughout government, CIA, and DoD to orchestrate an image of the 10ft tall Russian bear, with its thousands of warheads deployed all over. This is yet another example of the US system being totally ignorant about Russian/Eurasian culture and how no self-respecting Russian leader would trust subordinate leaders with nukes all over the place. So they ran a shell game from the warhead production sites purposely timed with US satellite overflights so we would see the trucks carrying the warheads out to Murmansk, to the Tu-95 bases, and mobile ICMB munitions hubs. But the trucks just took the few warheads they had back to the manufacturing site because they had problems cranking out reliable initiation systems.
They manipulated the US with Nunn-Lugar to get billions in funding in exchange for a continued shell game, and former KGB oligarchs pilfered all the money that was meant to prop up Russia from falling. They also used it to disarm Ukraine and Georgia further in preparation for taking those states in the future (we’ve already lived through partially now).
If someone tells you Russian maintenance is good, they’ve never lived in Russia, have never studied Russian military maintenance “standards”, and haven’t had insight into the Russian nuclear forces culture. The deterrence is based on posturing, with far less warheads and capable delivery systems than advertised. It’s still enough for a deterrent, but Russia can’t afford to find out if their systems work, because then every territorial dispute they have with the rest of their neighbors will kick off, especially with China.
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@georgedang449 F135 was pushed to 52,000lb in the test apparatus. They currently operate de-rated for longevity at 40,000lb, with max at 43,000lb in burner. Mil power is 25,000-28,000lb.
Pratt just won the contract to upgrade with their improved performance core, which turns it into a 47,300lb thrust class in burner, and 30,800lb thrust in mil power. Thrust Specific Fuel Consumption is improved by at least 7%, which adds another 50nm to the combat radius.
F-35A and C have extremely long combat radii and persistence. F-35B has performance similar to the baby Hornet in Radius/Range.
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@Տիգրան-ժ1է That's the best way to determine real value, vs using Russia's internal deflated currency as a reference. The resources it takes to build a single Su-57 would be in the $150-$200m region minimum, and likely more, given the low rate of production.
These are supposed to have 3 AESA Radars in the nose, a bunch of other RF sensors in the LEVCONs, LEFs, and tailplanes, OLS IRST, DIRCM, and other EW suite systems, plus they have 2 large afterburning turbofans and all the stealth adhesive appliques that need to be attached and painted over.
Russia has never undertaken a fighter project like this before. When someone says they're only $35 million each, that's the price of a modern jet trainer, not any fighter.
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What perceived weaknesses do you think there are relative to the F-35A? It matches or out-performs all of the 4th Gen fighters in basic speed, range, climb rate, take-off roll, cruise speed, service ceiling, and payload metrics when you look at combat configurations, while being a VLO airframe that is extremely hard to detect, track, and PID. Gripen E costs more for far less capability. It came in dead-last in all the metrics in the Finnish H-X challenge. The Super Hornet Block 3 did not even break over the minimum required threshold of a cumulative score of 4/5 for military performance, and was 2nd place with 3.81/5. F-35A was 4.47/5, the “clear and dizzying” superior performer in the words of the Finnish Air Chief.
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@Albertkallal JSF were initially envisioned as Multirole Fighters. Due to the inertia of technological advancements across the systems, it turned out to be an Omnirole Combat System capable of networked Air Dominance, VLO Strike, EW, AW&C, ISR, Anti-Ship, Remote Terminal Guidance, CAS, etc.
The naming conventions were constrained to 1980s thinking, even as they broke free from those concepts with the F-22.
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@kabzaify " The West simply does not have the means to compete in mass production."
Have you ever done a resource analysis of the US before? The US is the most rich natural resource piece of real estate in the world. No other country even comes close to the connected river network of the United States, its vast mining industry, and The industrial base that sprang up from its resources. The US also has the largest arable farmland of the entire planet. There is no close competitor.
When you look at the Fleet of fighters, air to air missiles, ballistic missiles, surface-to air missiles, drones, satellites, ships, super carriers, amphibious carriers, submarines, Precision-guided artillery, Anti-submarine warfare platforms, Redundant net centric systems, Attack helicopters, Strategic bombers, there simply is no other comparison.
Russians have a hard time digesting this because they are taught from day one that Russia is the biggest the best. Russia has been a middle power at the most since 1991.
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@JohnSmith-pu3zv I'm talking about force structure leveraging with technology. It would be absolutely stupid to do a World War 2 style industrial military production base.
The US was and is the smartest, most efficient military industrial power post-WWII, that still maintained mass production capacity with redundancies and managed stockpiles.
This includes rocket motor propellant production, explosive production, guidance systems, structures, control surfaces, material science, RDT&E, and live fire testing just talking about munitions.
One of the most important things we did leveraging the unguided legacy air-to-ground and artillery munitions stockpiles was develop JDAM & Copperhead kits for them.
We also developed new explosive compounds that make the 285lb SDB glide bombs have the same brissance as a 500lb Mk.82 or GBU-12.
An F-35 can carry 8x SDBs inside its weapons bays, and fly inside the MEZ.
That's force leveraging across the industrial base, as well as the practical realities of munitions storage and separation in a tactical setting.
People who don't have any experience with this stuff read silly comments on Twitter and are totally outside of their element, thinking they understand technology and novel concepts.
What they don't realize is the military advanced research community is usually 10 to 30 years ahead of them.
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@JohnSmith-pu3zv The US didn't outsource its fundamental manufacturing. We outsourced cheap product manufacturing to countries that have low skills. Now we're relocating those facilities from stupid people like the CCP, to more friendly nations.
The math simply doesn't add up when you realize the US is the 2nd biggest exporter in the world, but only 15% of our economy is exports. Domestic consumption of high value-added products and services is unparalleled and inherently native.
All of our exports are very high value-added products and services. Think Foreign Military Sales, petrochemical (refined petroleum products), automotive, gas turbine engines, computers, electronics, programming, telecom, food, management, finances, oil exploration & drilling services (US is one of 2 nations that can do permafrost drilling), ship-building, airline manufacturing, heavy industries, etc.
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@TheRanger1302 They have been under tight cost controls for the JSF program all along. I don’t know how they keep them so low when you look at all the major subsystems and advanced technology integrated into everything.
The structures alone are extremely hard to do, because there’s a lot of RAS built into it. That stuff has to be sourced, assembled, and tested to extremely-high standards. All parts have to be Berry Amendment compliant or from allied nations with tight controls.
The F135 engine is the most powerful, most reliable fighter engine ever made, and it has stealth features integrated into it in both RF and IR spectrums.
The AESA Radar is a step up even from the F-22A’s APG-77, and most people will never know what the APG-77 was even capable of in its initial form.
F-35 also has all its EW and FLIR/IR sensors and antennae built into the airframe, whereas other fighters need these things bolted-on with pods after the fact. A basic FLIR pod costs well over $1million, for example. ECM pods are also extremely expensive, but costs are never disclosed.
So when you see unit flyaway costs for legacy fighters, that isn’t in a combat configuration. When you configure, the costs go way up.
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@TheRanger1302 We created such a brutal combined arms force structure that ends FSCO or MDO type wars quickly, however, we have insane amounts of war stock and the largest production base for munitions, advanced weapons, and aircraft of all types. We make drone space shuttles, high altitude stealth spy planes, mid-altitude UAVs, low-altitude smaller UAVs, drone ships, and underwater RPVs.
We have roughly 3000 fighters in service, 140 strategic bombers with a new one soon entering the fleet (B-21A), and enough munitions for all of these air power assets to erase any threat air force on the planet.
That doesn’t include all the air power of our allies in Europe, the Pacific, and other nations, who leverage the force structure regionally.
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There is no Putin wing of the Republican Party. Biden has been on the Soviet payroll since no later than 1972. Hunter Biden and James Biden have been on Russian and Chinese payroll for years, which has spilled out into the open. Trump is the only US President who authorized US forces to destroy Russian forces for 6 hours in Syria in 2018 at the Battle of Khasham. Those were Putin’s very own Wagner mercenaries 5 Storm unit, who were leading a Syrian battle group of tanks, artillery, and engineers-2 battalions worth, from the Syrian 4th Division, National Defense Forces, and Baqir Brigade.
Trump blessed-off on F-22As, F-15Es, AC-130s, B-52Gs, AH-64Ds, MQ-9 Reapers, M777, and HIMARS to rain precision-guided weapons on the Russian/Syrian Battle Group for hours until they were obliterated twice-over. No American President has ever presided over the stacking of Russian forces like corkwood before. Wagner has direct ties to Putin.
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@Baianoh US has helped develop Europe post-WWII, provided European security from 1945-present, helped develop Central America since the late 1800s, Phillipines, Polynesia, Australia, South America, Africa, Middle East, Asia, and even Russia.
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Jörgen Persson Swedish attitude towards Finland is less-than-acceptable. I’ve worked with them both over many years, and the Finns constantly joke about the Swedes trying to dictate things to them militarily that Sweden has zero relevant combat experience in. Sweden still makes great artillery and combat systems, great Bofors steel, and is good at taking technologies from other countries (who have the capacity to actually make the baseline systems), then combining and modifying those systems into a simple package for their limited needs.
The Gripen is a great example of that, where the truly difficult systems like engines, radar, ejection seats, IR sensors, and avionics have already been mastered by other nations (US, Italy, UK, Germany), then Sweden can combine them into a lower-capability small airframe without having to invest tens of billions Into the RDT&E necessary to make those systems themselves.
Finnish Air Force working relationships are trending towards more of Central Europe and Norway, Poland, and the US, not Sweden. Norway and Poland have skin in the game, whereas Sweden knows it can abstain from Continental conflict as in the past due to geographic buffers of Finland and Sweden, while profiting from sales of weapons to those in actual conflict.
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@JonZiegler6 2007-2009 was a totally different market though, where European banks had made themselves vulnerable by purchasing US junk bonds that bundled high-risk variable interest rate loans. It wasn’t a global energy or food supply problem, but a liquidity and capital risk problem that they bailed-out with $800 billion, most of which went to Europe.
It took until 2020 for the markets to recover to their pre-2008 states in many cases, which I have seen all the way down to vehicle manufacturing and sales.
Russia doesn’t have the capacity to supply South America, Africa, ME, and Asia with all their grain demands, and Russia’s wheat is a low quality coarse wheat that doesn’t meet EU standards. Russia has also ceased its normal wheat exports, most of which leave from Novorossiysk sea port in the Black Sea to service Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, etc. Those nations were already suffering from 2 years of shortages and IMF bail-outs in some cases, with Egypt running back to the IMF months ago begging for more.
We’re not talking about a housing/bad loan banking sector exposure problem. We’re talking about real people who need to eat and keep the lights on....roughly 2 billion of them once you look at the market through Africa and Asia. This isn’t a typical series of events that everyone just lets “the experts” worry about. That’s what Zeihan is saying.
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@krityaan You can't find any such claim that "all academics" are anything, since I never made it.
China is trying to weasel its way into the Persian Gulf with bribes and huge trade deals, even tried to build a naval base under UAE's noses, which was halted temporarily at least after US protests and inspections.
China is trying to act like a blue water Navy, but just doesn't have the long range vessels and port facilities to sustain such a force. Their port in Djibouti is an attempt to address that, but is only 1 port in Africa, where the US is already based. US is already based in UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, but expressing continual disinterest, then knee-jerk when China shows signs of moving in.
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@krityaan Imagine a world where global energy and food supplies are compromised, where India has suffered from heat waves and reduced crop yields, China is suffering from continual floods, food shortages, energy shortages, lock-downs, increasing elderly population, infanticided young generation, 45+ million excess prime age males (based on CCP fake numbers), and China is increasing its naval presence in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
I tried to see some harmonious opportunities for India where she could trade more with Iran, since Iran has oil and India had excess grains, but then India has been hit with weather-restricted crop yields from sand storms and droughts.
Iranian oil has increased almost 3x since July 2021, so Iran will be raking in revenue by the billions.
Iran is frantically looking for new weapons, but is very constrained in that space because they don't have access to US or European fighters, aircraft, and munitions, and the Russian equipment is being destroyed for sport in Ukraine.
The new Russian Su-57 can't be mass-produced with its high saturation demanding semiconductor and integrated circuit component requirements, and India already rejected it after investing hundreds of millions into the Su-57 program, opting for French Rafale instead.
I'm not saying piracy is the only possible outcome, just that the degradation in stable global supply chains and regional instability are highly likely to break out into regional conflicts, using asymmetric and conventional actions.
Someone used drone weapons to attack oil carriers and even in-land Saudi pipelines in the Gulf, just as an example of asymmetrical actions that normally would result in open conflict if flagged vessels could be identified.
I'm an eternal optimist, but things are not looking so great for the Persian Gulf, India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, and China.
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@newdefsys The ratio of influence from the USAF and USN into the design, development, and modernization of the F-16 and F/A-18 vs guys like Boyd makes Boyd almost a footnote. Same with the influence on systems capability and weight growth. A lot of people have a hard time imagining that thousands of air planners and pilots asking for important capabilities could ever out-weigh the ideas of a few men from a bygone era.
If you look at how the F-16 went from Block 1, 5, 10, to 15, then 25, then 30, 40, 50, and now 70, all the weight and capabilities growth are directly attributed to war-fighters. Per Boyd, the 1978 Block 1 F-16A had too many avionics and extra capabilities that he would have felt were unnecessary in his 1969-1974 years. Per requests from every USAF Fighter Squadron, it needed more. Same with the NATO MSIP partners in the F-16 program.
Now look at the F/A-18A/B to F/A-18C/D, then the Super Hornet. Super Hornet pilots who flew the Baby Hornet will tell you how much more relevant and capable the Super Hornet is for air combat.
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@ I still fondly remember the TRS-80 days. The main things that changed with electronics as you referenced were solid state components, as well as the processing and memory power that allowed look-down/shoot-down with ground clutter rejection. APG-63 had excellent clutter rejection and single target track, multi-target track, target-sort capabilities that allowed a single pilot to have better man machine interface than a 2-Crew Phantom or even a Tomcat.
Especially after Bekaa Valley of 1982, Sprey should have shut his hole. After Desert Storm in 1991, he had zero arguments, but got louder instead. AIM-7M ruled the roost in ODS with high pK even as we were replacing it with AIM-120A. AIM-120A got first employed by a family model Viper (meant for VIP rides) against a MiG-25P with solid state electronics as its first kill over the Southern No-Fly Zone right after ODS.
Even in 1976 if you looked under the Radome of an F-4E vs F-15A, and in the cockpits, it was a major shift in pilot interface. The mech-scanned Radar of the F-4 looked like something designed in the 1950s. The HOTAS arrangement in the F-15 pit was a result of F-4 guys complaining about bad systems arrangement and the inability to stay TGT-focused.
F-16A pit was a big step up from the F-4 as well, but somewhat dumbed-down from the A-7D. Once we went to the F-16C pit with the dual MFDs, and the F/A-18 with its MFDs and moving map display, it opened up a new era in MMI.
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@christophergagliano2051 The A-10A was already a non-survivable platform to 1970s-era Soviet SAMs and AAA. USAF conducted extensive anslyses on the new generation of SAMs at the time and determined A-10s would be sitting ducks both in USAFE and PACOM, with limited capability to employ weapons meaningfully.
The Fulda Gap mission profile was understood and recognized within A-10 squadrons in Europe as a suicide mission, with best-case being shot up and limp back to the West, get into another and repeat.
They moved to retire the A-10A in the 1980s, but were blocked from doing so. Desert Storm experience with A-10A/OA-10A was whitewashed to validate a poor decision to keep it, without telling anyone that General Horner actually grounded the A-10s due to losses and fatality rates it was suffering down in and around the Kuwaiti border region.
It's too slow, with no sensors to see the battlespace at the time.
Su-25M is more survivable than the A-10 because it has power, and those have been shot down for sport throughout their operational history in Africa, Central Asia, Middle East, and now Ukraine.
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@shi01 The A-10 was really built for Vietnam. It was like an A-1 Skyraider on steroids, and would have been perfect for CAS there in support of Cobras and troop carrier helicopters, fire bases in-contact, LRRPs, SF A-Camps, and Infantry units tasked with taking ground.
The ZSU-23-4 already started being fielded in the later days of Vietnam, which shredded Skyraiders and any other light aircraft. A-10 would have been the only thing that could carry ordnance to bust it and maintain visual for re-attack.
Once the Soviets started fielding newer mobile SAMs in the 1970s and proliferated them throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, the A-10 became obsolete other than a nice CSAR and limited COIN AOR platform.
We definitely made a strategic error building over 700 of them.
71% of the A-10 budget should have gone into more F-111F, EF-111A, and Strike Eagles.
Same for the pipeline for pilots. We wasted a ton of human capital manning-up A-10s, and continue to do so.
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@insomniacbritgaming1632 SAS has a rotation where sub elements of the Squadrons will cycle through work-ups for QRA. Historically, that included a lot of work with MP5s and BHPs in the house, shotguns for ballistic breaching, breaching charges for explosive entry, mechanical Hooligan tools, etc.
For most other operations, they used Colt Commando or “ArmaLites”. For plainclothes/vehicle work, they used a lot of MP5Ks.
For patrolling, Recce, Green and Desert Raids, etc. they used mostly AR-15 variants, supported by GPMGs and FN Minimi LMGs.
For CQB, the Panama Invasion and 1990s saw a lot of changes after studies on over-penetration of 9mm in the house, whereas 5.56 performed much better due to velocity-based fragmentation.
The US Army’s JSOC element (modeled after SAS) shifted over to more of a 5.56 carbine focus for CQB, because it performed better than MP5s inside, and gave plenty of power for once you got outside of the house. MP5s were mostly abandoned moving forward.
We still had MP5SDs in the inventory on a Battalion-level for special items of equipment request when I worked with 1st Social Force Group, and ADVON Teams could take MP5A3s for a more discreet option before the ODAs would follow them into the AOR later.
Even within the UK, they started looking at 300 Whisper short AR-15s to replace the MP5SD long ago. That’s the direction both US SOF and UK SOF have gone. You just don’t see MP5s that much anymore.
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@NiSiochainGanSaoirse Nope. For most operations, they used AR-15s and Colt Commando carbines. When each Troop rotated through the CT/HR mission set on-call, assaulters primarily used MP5s in the 1980s, but soon moved away from it due to all the issues with MP5s and 9mm, and went to M4A1s like US Army JSOC did. The public only got a peek at the SAS with the Iranian Embassy siege, which was the HR mission.
If you saw them in Borneo, Yemen, Northern Ireland, Africa, or Central America, they were armed mostly with L1A1s, AR-15s, and G3s. For plainclothes work in Northern Ireland, there was a lot of MP5K use, while Recce teams used AR-15s.
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Boyd was brought in later by guys he trusted who had been through F-100, F-102, or F-4, and into the F-15. They had to tell him, "Remember all those problems we had with Radars, ground clutter, and poor MTBF? Yeah, it's not like that with the F-15/APG-63. This thing works, the AIM-7F works a lot better, and AIM-9L allows us to face-shoot if we want. APG-63 gives us God-like BVR SA and we control the fight way before it starts. If we go to the merge in the Eagle, we can outperform even the Viper in AOA and regaining of energy. Climb rate is like a Saturn 5. Man Machine Interface with HOTAS and integrated systems is superb. This stuff works."
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It was the Gripen of its day. Viggen is more like a mix between the F-4 and F-106. Viggen used a licensed Pratt & Whitney JT8D if I recall, with a large cool stage bypass fan up front, and an afterburner stage attached to the back that also had a weight-on-nose wheel thrust-reverser feature for STOL short landing. It was very costly to maintain, and they had engine stall problems since that motor was never designed to operate in high alpha with that intake arrangement. The Viggen played a huge role in influencing the Swedish Riksdag to pressure Saab into agreeing to a Lightweight, multirole fighter design that could do Jaeger, Attack, and Reconnaissance (JAS) all in one airframe, as opposed to all the mission set-specific airframes of the AJ-37, JA-37, SK-37, SF-37, etc. Viggens.
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19:00 "Swedish Air Force operates with a special approach to managing risks, while NATO air forces don't."
This is patently false and any NATO air crew who has deployed or participated in Large Force Exercises where maintenance and ordnance crews are pushed past their previous limits can attest to conducting hot re-arm, refueling, Battle Damage repairs, NBC, Arctic, Desert, FARPs, and base attack scenarios for real and in training.
Then the Swedes come along and talk about their amazing doctrine. They haven't fought a war since 1809, but talk from a condescending air of superiority in things they have never experienced or proven themselves in, to people who have generations of continuous institutional combat experience in modern air combat.
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@kld70 Most Americans approaching retirement have one or more of the following:
IRAs
401k
Stocks
Bonds
Pensions
Savings
CODs
High asset value (real estate)
We are not facing abject poverty without SS & Medicare.
As a Nation, we are facing bankruptcy because of SS & Medicare.
We should fulfill all SS & Medicare obligations to Baby Boomers, then transfer funding for Gen X & Millennials over to a new hybrid system fed by IRAs, real estate, government surplus, and tariffs.
SS & Medicare will not be able to be funded or contribute enough to keep people out of poverty due to inflation and demographic collapse/low fertility. Inflation baselines are baked-in already due to demographics, price point trends, and sustained devaluation of our currency.
Not only is most of the biggest generation of consumers out of the workplace, but they are going into nursing homes and dying.
Gen X is very small, unable to sustain much growth, and old Gen X is already 2 years from retirement.
Millennials are the 2nd largest cohort, but about half of them are under-employed or not employed, already burdening society.
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@chrismaverick9828 F-4 was designed specifically as a single mission, carrierborne fleet defense fighter that would carry 6 Semi-Active Radar Homing missiles to shoot incoming Soviet bombers before they could get within weapons parameters of the carrier group.
It accidentally was an amazing multirole fighter that could carry a full 8x AAM and 9-12 bomb load plus EFTs, and self-escort. Also made a great Recon and Wild Weasel platform (with expensive mods).
F-35s are purpose-built originally to be multirole based on 4 decades of lessons-learned with the F-4, AV-8, F-16, F/A-18, F-15E, and F-14D, with 3 decades of F-117A and F-22A lessons for VLO/stealth.
This magnified the 3 F-35 variants into something more than just multirole, but omnirole.
Pilots quickly saw that they had better SA than any AWACS could ever hope to provide them. They could also do stand-in offensive electronic warfare like the EA-6B and EF-111A dedicated EW birds did, while continuously performing ISR like an RF-4C, F-14/TARPS, and U-2 would without the pilot really doing anything.
You're getting far more than your money's worth.
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@themadmallard F-35B cost per flight hr is actually quite low, range is twice that of the Harrier, about like an F/A-18.
Service ceiling in the F-35s is way higher than the A-10, which doesn't even fly high. Climb rate, combat radius, payload, multi-mission capability, pilot awareness, connectivity, survivability, and lethality all are generations better in the F-35.
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@JustARandomFio Obama, Biden, and Clinton were all working for Putin behind the scenes.
The biggest act of treason was letting Putin bribe access to US and Canadian uranium mines to build new nukes, after Putin learned that the Soviet-era nuke programs were a joke and a shell game. SECSTATE Clinton was lead on that, after Putin funneled hundreds of millions into Clinton Global Initiative. That was the Uranium One deal.
Up until 2014, Putin was robbing Ukraine left and right though his puppet Boyars, including President Yanukovych. 79% of Ukraine wanted to trade with the EU, but Yanukovych signed onto Putin’s Russia-Eurasia Economic Union instead, which triggered the Euromaiden protests in late 2013 until Yanukovych was ousted in March of 2014.
Hunter Biden then received $3.5 million from former Moscow First Lady Elena Baturina (wired to his firm with John Kerry’s nephew), then was placed on the board of Burisma in Ukraine.
Obama flew to the UK in Sep 2014 and told David Cameron to shut off the investigation into Burisma and Zlochevsky, then VP Biden flew to Ukraine in March 2016 to tell Poroshnko to fire Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.
Putin used the Bidens, Clintons, and Obama as insurance policies to try to hold onto Ukraine until he could get another puppet in.
Biden was supposed to pull Zelensky out, which would open Kiev for occupation in the leadership vacuum. Zelensky choosing to stay and fight changed the course of history. Europe rallied behind him and used Ukraine as a distraction from mass social unrest over lock-down, masking, and mRNA injection protests. Ukraine was their new focus to relieve the pressure, and a genuine existential threat to Eastern Europe that required full attention.
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I’ve been following since the STRATFOR days in the 2000s as well, which was much better when you had George Freidman and the senior analysts all collaborating on their assessments. Peter and the former FBI guys were very adverse to feeding into “conspiracy theories” because they all come from backgrounds where confirmation bias and conformity of thought were critical to organizational acceptance and your source of income. In academia, it is very dogmatic and cult-like. In the Federal agencies, you will lose your job if you are seen as “one of those guys”. The Bureau is especially insular, with a cult of personality expectation to worship the Director, even as openers to daily communications between junior staffers and agents. It’s very weird.
One of the biggest failures of STRATFOR and Peter is not looking at conspiracies with a clean slate, and vetting them using their same analytical methods. Instead, they just dismissed them reactively. One of the main areas that left a void in their assessments was failing to understand and assess false flags and other types of operations conducted by the intelligence agencies, organized crime families, criminal NGOs, and International money-laundering networks that actually do conspire together as a rule.
I also recognize that had they done so, they would have alienated a lot of their corporate customer base, who don’t want to hear or deal with those rabbit holes. The problem is, if you ignore them, it can cost you a lot of money.
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@21forevergone RFK's wife committed suicide after she found his p***y smash diaries, where he detailed his conquests with each woman down to her height, shape, hair color, orifice sizes, breasts, hips, skills, how their encounter went down from initial contact to oral, positions, etc. This diary was full, every page. She saw it and mentally collapsed, then offed herself.
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@oldytacct8095 The problems are even worse under universal healthcare systems, especially when it comes to available services and wait times.
I have lived under several of those systems in Europe, and have been researching this subject for the past 2 decades. When my son had a bad bike accident in Finland (population was 5.4million then), we waited 45 days for him to get an MRI.
In the US, we've had National reviews of diagnostic times for MRI where they complained that it took over 217 minutes, then got it down to a National average of 137 minutes, still working on reducing that to less than 60 minutes.
Same for Primary Care Provider appointments.
A lot of the studies you see will compare tiny little countries, but the US still has vastly-better services, diagnostics, EMS, level 1-3 trauma centers, life flights, clinics, dentists, orthodontists, and specialist clinics per capita.
They do some cherry-picking of data of some of the worst-performing cities in the US to make comparisons with countries like Switzerland, then talk about how great universal healthcare is.
What I've learned is that the mantra about universal healthcare is not supported by the data. Everything is worse, with no incentives to improve or innovate.
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@SNESpool Bad analogy of the zero sum premise. Healthcare isn't a zero sum marketplace. Everyone that wants coverage could get it. The ones that didn't have policies prior to ACA were mostly college students who were healthy, didn't want to pay for it, didn't see the need (free climbers with no experience, but just doing some bouldering down low, with a giant Medicare and Medicaid safety net to catch anyone without ropes at the bottom.)
Medicare and Medicaid are well over a combined annual $1 Trillion funded programs, so anyone that couldn't afford it was covered.
I used to investigate fraud, most of which was related to false medical claims, and my wife did medical billing for years.
None of the premises used to justify ACA were legitimate. It was all about the insurance and medical industry working with politicians in DC to screw over the Nation for short-term profits, while being sold as universal coverage.
It was really conceived back under "Hillary Care" in the early 1990s, when she worked behind the scenes with big pharmaceutical campaign donors and left out the senior Democrats in Congress who had been trying to get a European NHS-style monstrosity bill put together for many years.
She set up her own dictatorial task force, which really turned Congress against her because none of them were consulted or brought-in to work on it cooperatively.
The Democrats in Congress got shellacked in 1994 for that and the Biden "crime bill" with one of the biggest mid-term losses in US history.
When Obama came in with Biden and Hillary, they dusted off Hillarycare, put Obama's face on it, and bribed their way through RINO Congressmen to get it through.
Then Democrats and RINOs got shellacked even worse than 1994 with an even bigger mid-terms turnover, which saw Tea Party candidates like Rand Paul, Jason Chaffetz, and Trey Gowdy get into Congress.
The people never wanted this kind of corrupt, heavy-handed legislation that directly hurt so many of us.
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@816taylor I have family working in hospitals in Canada for decades. Big deal. I can also look at Canadian healthcare watchdog organizations to see what the wait times are for seeing GPs, getting critical treatments, and overall statistics of Canada. Canada is a lot like the US in many ways when you contrast it with other countries, since it effectively is integrated into US trade, technology sharing, and has the largest border with the US of any nation.
Canadian NHS is not managed very well, even compared with all the waste, fraud, abuse, and embezzlement in US hospitals, and members of Canadian Parliament have been seen repeatedly flying to the US for procedures so they don’t have to wait for them in Canada.
It is you who doesn’t know what you’re talking about even remotely, and flew off the wall unhinged in personal attacks because you have no argument based on reason or data.
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@keithcraig506 I had the same experiences in West Germany in the early 1980s. Not great, not terrible, but outdated compared to the US-but closer than most other nations. Again, those are anecdotes, which is why I look at large data sets.
I don’t like partisanship entering the discussion about medicine, defense, science, education, transportation, infrastructure, etc. Partisan slants should have no place in any of these discussions.
Yes, various politicians with an R next to their names have been proponents of NHS-style healthcare systems because they have seen incorrect data repeated in universities and media for decades.
I don’t accept any premises based on partisan-affiliation, since there isn’t anything logical or scientific about that approach. From all the data I have seen on NHSs, especially from internal audits and watchdog organizations within the specific countries, I am not a proponent of NHS, especially for the US and our 50 States.
That would be even worse than what we have now, and we’re essentially the cream of the crap when it comes to healthcare.
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@greghuff3316 None of that was the case. Finns take long vacations in the summer, so they are short-staffed around popular holiday seasons, including in hospitals.
The rankings aren’t scientifically-valid because they don’t account for the fact that most medical advancements have come from the US, which are sold to other developed and developing nations, including technologies like MRI. They also don’t take population, demographics, climate, water supply, daily habits, diet, etc. into account, and isolate the causal factor of outcomes into healthcare alone.
Name me any other developed nation with 330 million people, and you start to see how the national comparisons fail basic principles of statistical analysis, while also ignoring more influential factors like culture, climate, region, diet, and genetics.
For example, it makes zero scientific sense to compare the 5.5 million population Finland with the 330 million population of the US. Finns, until recently, have been relatively genetically-homogenous, live at extremely high latitude (really long winters, short, mild summers), take sauna baths regularly (excellent for health, stress-reduction, pressure-cleansing through thermogenesis, excellent for lung cleansing, etc.), and many people in Finland have kesämökit (summer cabins).
During the weekends, Finns will drive out to their cabins to drink, cook sausages, go swimming in the lakes, and just relax.
Conclusion: "Finnish NHS provides better health outcomes!"
See how that line of reasoning fails basic critical analysis? This is why I am very dismissive of OECD and other studies that ignore important multi-factorial variables.
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@Ms.Byrd68 We had a great PCP and a great, affordable Healthcare plan prior to ACA. It then skyrocketed in monthly premiums until we drained savings trying to pay for it.
I was finishing my degree at the time, while my wife worked part time. I complained about it with friends of mine, wondering if it was just us. My good friends in Colorado watched his and his wife's premium jump to $1200/mo, no kids even.
My other good friend in WA, who is a PA, saw his jump to over $2200/mo, empty nester.
This is why the Tea Party surged into prominence, and why the corrupt politicians in DC immediately labeled it racist, because they were simply mitigating the gargantuan backlash to their destructive policies.
The media (owned by pharma, insurance, etc.) was complicit in the slandering of Americans who were irate over losing their coverage, because those corporate interests were making a killing raising everyone's rates, drug prices, medical device prices, etc.
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@kevf The US never wanted any of this. Ukraine wanted to trade with Europe and get Euro valuation for their goods and services, not deal with Rubles anymore than absolutely necessary. That’s what this war is really about. Putin had his puppet Yanukovych sign onto the Russian-Eurasian Economic Pact in late 2013. Ukraine protested for 4 months in all the major cities until Yanukovych fled in 2014. That’s when Hunter Biden got on the board of Burisma, and Putin invaded Donbas while annexing Krim.
Forget about the US, who hasn’t contributed much to Ukraine, and think about UK, Poland, and Europe. Europe has more motive than anyone to present Russian cancer from spreading into their nations again. Biden, a Russian puppet who has been on Soviet payroll since 1972, delayed deliveries of critical munitions and weapons systems throughout the war.
Oryx Report shows all losses in Ukraine, not just Russian. Stop consuming Russian information sources and look at dispassionate, non-aligned, independent reports with accompanying photographs and video of all weapon and equipment losses.
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@amano3847 You've been to 3rd-world countries where many of them have better healthcare than the US? Please name these countries, because not even the Scandinavians or Canadians have better healthcare than the US. Do a simple search on nearby hospitals and dentists in population and rural areas, fire department distribution, diagnostic equipment and access times, elective surgeries, specialists, multiple layers of care available in the US private and public sectors, life flight helicopters per capita, Level 1 Trauma centers, and it's not even close. I've lived abroad in most of the countries where politicians in the US tell us healthcare is so much better, and they're simply ignorant or lying. I and many members of my family have used healthcare services in Germany, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Japan, and Italy. It's always a breath of fresh air to be in the US when needing healthcare.
Nothing in Central America, Africa, Asia, India, or the Middle East compares well with Switzerland, Scandinavia, Canada, Austria, Germany, or Japan. Even the Southern European sh*tholes are better than the 3rd world, and you don't want to go to the hospital for anything serious in Southern Europe if you can help it. The US is just in a different league entirely compared to these places, for the same reasons we outclass them all economically, militarily, and GDP (PPP).
We also exceed the volunteerism and humanitarian relief of all other nations by a wide margin, including foreign medical relief aid to 3rd world countries. Wherever you're getting your information on healthcare from, I would recommend ditching it.
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@JB-kx9bx Yes, but the Finnish studies where they audit their own NHS are in Finnish. They found that patient care was prioritized effectively at the bottom of the list, wait times are excessive (we've experienced this numerous times across all ages within our family), and care was nowhere near what was expected and funded by parliament.
In the US, I get an MRI within hours of going into the ER if it's part of the diagnostic protocol. Doesn't matter if I can't speak English, don't have citizenship, whatever. Not so in Finland. Once we finally got my son into the MRI 47 days after his accident in Finland, I looked on the machine. "MADE IN USA".
My cousin in Sweden had a rare condition where his ribcage didn't grow and expand with his body as he got older, so he ended up having to be taken to Spain where a Spanish specialist had learned how to treat this with some advanced surgery and equipment he had learned and accessed in the US, where the procedure and apparatus was pioneered.
When we take our own children to the dentist here in the States, the dental clinics tell the families who are on Medicaid to bring the kids in every month since the taxpayers are paying for it without any oversight. Immigrant families take advantage of these services more than others, since most natural-born citizens are busy working during the day, whereas many of the low income family structures include grandma in the home so kids can visit as often as the dentists tell them to.
In Finland, healthcare is a national bureaucracy/jobs program more than anything, where patient care gets the least amount of attention. Think more of something like the DMV running hospitals and clinics, where employees are comfortable with their job security, no incentives to provide timely and focused patient care.
We just use the private sector clinics when possible now whenever visiting. You get seen usually within 15 minutes, meet with the doctor, they prescribe whatever or perform whatever procedure is called for, then bill you 65 euros per 15 minutes or 975 euros per hour.
I've lived there multiple times throughout my life. Have also lived in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. US hospitals are generally superior to any of those, and wait times are almost non-existent compared to those places. A lot of people suffer worse injuries due to delayed care outside of the US. The US health trends are largely driven by over-eating more than anything else.
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@Steve Fortuna Sudan doesn't have many year-round, all-weather paved roads. They traditionally have relied on railroads, and the limited roads they do have were built with US equipment. Sudan is 2.8x the size of Texas, with a tiny fraction of the roads.
Albania didn't have private ownership of vehicles until after the collapse of Soviet socialism, even with Yugoslavia being somewhat independent. One can encounter goats, mule-drawn carriages, and vehicles in mixed traffic while development and modernization is still underway.
Zaire is the Demicratic Republic of Congo now and no longer exists. The Congo Pedicle Road that passes through it is a copper transport route with dirt roads, arbitrary fines and tolls from low-paid police, and has deteriorated over time and the elements. Do an image search and see what it looks like. There are places in Europe where entire cars fall into pot holes that are concealed by heavy rain (Ukraine), and Ukraine has better roads than much of the world.
On our worst day in the middle of natural disasters and blown-out roads from floods and earthquakes, our roads are still the envy of places like Albania, the Congo, or Sudan. To try to compare places like this is indicative of someone who is not traveled or experienced with life outside the US.
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@amano3847 There are multiple factors to consider when assessing Healthcare, starting with availability. None of the G8 or G20 nations have the same availability or timeliness of services as in the US.
Most of the advancements in medicine, diagnostic equipment, and EMS have been pioneered in the US, then shared with these other less-populous nations.
The US helped rebuild most of the G8 nations after WWII, developing infrastructure including Healthcare services and hospitals. This is especially true for UK, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy, who all suffered major losses to infrastructure and prime age males.
You can cherry-pick some of the statistics to make the US look worse if you don't account for per capita data, especially since the other G8 nations pale in comparison to the US population.
Even still, if you get hurt in the US, you have access to quick transport to a level 1 trauma center staffed by multiple specialists in EMS who benefit from the latest developments in funded battlefield trauma research, which drives equipment and diagnostic systems.
There are far more quality medical universities and programs in the US to train Doctors, RNs, LPNs, Paramedics, lab techs, Pharmacists, imaging technicians, and staff, to the extent that professionals from around the world go to school in the US so they can take that knowledge back to their home countries.
What I saw in the BC area of Canada after my cousin's accident/death was very modern and looked like it could have been in a US hospital, but the timeliness of access to care in Canada is a known issue that can't be denied and ignored.
Canada has benefitted greatly from US investments in healthcare, has negotiated its US-provided drug prices into a fraction of what is paid here (that's changing under Trump's order last week), and works jointly with the US more as a partner when it comes to this issue.
The WHO statistics on healthcare aren't structured well at all, and one would be a fool to trust anything coming from that corrupt body, which goes without saying as of late.
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@atarkus8 You can have no insurance in the US, not speak English, and you have to get an MRI or other diagnostic services for life-saving procedures in public hospitals.
Most of the US population lives in a metropolitan area and its suburbs. Since almost every single State has at least one major metro area, and many States with several major metro areas, it's better to compare US States individually with other nations-where you often have limited metro areas and unipolar infrastructure like in Finland (Helsinki).
You don't have to pay a ton of money out of pocket since almost everyone in the US is either on employer-provided health insurance, or is eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.
Indian doctors are not just as good since they don't have access to the same training and support, even if they go to school in the US. The ones that come to the US stay in the US as a general rule, due to the plague-ridden levels of poverty and infectious diseases in India.
It's impossible to receive equal care in India just from a sanitation, clean water, and infected population perspective. We're talking about a place where homeless people evict the dead from their graves to have a place to sleep.
Using extreme examples from during the COVID-19 response in the few areas that were overwhelmed is not a good position to take when comparing healthcare availability between nations.
My friend who was waiting for the liver transplant on a list was a Finnish citizen, born and raised there, spent 9 years in the Finnish Army, did de-mining work in Africa as part of a UN mission, went to school in Saint Petersburg Russia, was a small business owner, very interesting guy with a storied life. He'd probably still be alive if he lived in the US, but I can't say for sure. He was only 46.
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@RyanJones-vl1ow That's the first anecdote in a life of anecdotes, not the only. In every single experience I've had in Finland, while I was grateful for the services, they were not good compared to the US.
They are very behind the times in hospital facilities, services, diagnostics, and especially wait times. The US Veterans Administration is much faster than what you'll experience in public hospitals in Finland.
I have a lot of family in Finland right now, have lived there multiple times, and it's not on-par with the US in most areas. If it was, I would tell you how superior it is, how much faster you get treated, and how more modern everything is.
It just isn't. You shouldn't expect it to be either when the population is only 5.4 million people and the winter is 7-9 months long, with the national government running things. The Finnish parliament and their bureaucratic infrastructure is extreme inefficient in the NHS, filled with a lot of incompetent people who don't connect the dots because there is no incentive for them to do so.
When I was living there at one time, it was widely-published that their own internal audit of their NHS discovered that patient care was at the bottom of the list of priorities in practice, and due to demographic losses of young workers, there isn't a viable solution to this since immigrant workers don't learn Finnish well, and don't have Finnish work ethics.
It was brought up as a major issue in the Finnish Presidential debates, where it was pointed out that many Finnish assisted living homes have been neglecting patients as the norm due to lack of staffing and low quality of work ethic among staff.
I've watched that for decades visiting relatives in those homes.
Coming to the US from Finland is like stepping back into the modern era when it comes to healthcare. I'm usually there 2-3 times per year until 2016. You'e been lied to is all. People go through the tourist honeymoon stage when visiting foreign countries looking for all the positives. When you actually live there for years and get to see how it really is, especially the places they don't want tourists to see, your perspective becomes more informed.
There are a lot worse places, and it's one of the few places I would feel a lot more comfortable in than most other nations, but it doesn't compare well with the US.
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@atarkus8 By law, ERs have to treat you even if you're too lazy to sign up for Medicare or Medicaid. Hospitals will be sued by greedy attorneys (who will pocket most of the damages awarded by a court) if hospitals violate Federal law. Even private hospitals were banned from sending indignant patients to community hospitals by the 1985 COBRA Act (patient dumping), for unmistakable emergencies. Patients have to be stabilized before being transported from private hospitals to public ones, otherwise they can be sued.
If a private hospital provides services, then they absolutely should be able to be paid for those services. I don't understand why people think anything is free, especially healthcare. It certainly isn't anything close to being free in Europe. Not only are you taxed excessively for it, you still have to pay a co-pay that they will come after you for in collections if you fail to do so.
Millions of people in the US who choose not to have insurance do it because of laziness or they don't want to pay for it, especially college-aged kids who don't have any medical conditions and are gambling on not having any accidents.
My entire point doesn't hinge on one aspect of healthcare. It is multi-factorial like real life, complex and hard to study before one can have a valid perspective on it.
Availability
Accessibility
Professional Training
Services
Advanced diagnostics
Advanced medicine
Advanced procedures
Long-term care
Specialized fields
Research
Cost
These are some of the important metrics to look at when comparing healthcare between nations. Starting with availability and accessibility, the US dominates those and all of the other fields I have listed.
We get criticized for cost, which is another complex variable that needs full accounting, showing how we get raped on costs of drugs while nations claiming to be so better than us get our drugs at a fraction of the price we do, even after we spent all the money on R&D and trials for those drugs.
Doctors in India have access to training in the West. I never said they didn't. If you come here on a student visa and graduate medical school, chances are you aren't going to go back to a malaria, typhus, and blood borne pathogen-infested cesspool like India or Bangladesh. They aren't stupid.
COVID stresses on various hospitals in the US are not indicative of systemic failure since only a handful of hospitals have been overwhelmed. My local hospitals haven't even come close to reaching 50% capacity in ICU for respiratory therapy, and most States haven't either. It doesn't paint the picture accurately to say that because NYC has terrible police on spreading the disease (nursing homes infected neglectfully by NY politicians), that everyone else is the same.
Terminal cancer is a bad disease no matter where you live. The grass is not greener in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Denmark, the UK, or Canada. It's going to suck. Sorry about your mother. We lost my MIL to cancer several years ago and I don't like the way she was treated either, but it happened fast. She had refused to get colonoscopies for decades because she had 3 friends die from them when the procedure was still being developed.
The US definitely has all sorts of issues, but we're the cream of the crap compared to all the other "socialist utopias". Modeling out superior system on them just doesn't make sense to me after all I've seen and learned about them.
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@neverknowsbest2879 China exports low quality trash. US exports multi-layered extreme high value-added advanced systems and products that help elevate hundreds of other nations, especially China.
China imports 85% of its energy, whereas the US is the #1 petroleum refining power in the world.
China's numbers are also fabricated, from population to CPI, GDP, growth rate, and everything you look at. If you study Chinese history, it's all about lies, cheating, scams, and thievery.
If you see someone saying China has a bigger economy than the US, just understand you're being lied to.
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@VolodyaMuchavsky Value-added economy means you have industrial and intellectual infrastructure to refine goods and provide services through a chain of production that creates more refined and useful products at home and abroad.
Russia has a raw materials-based economy with no value-added other than in the military sales sector, since Russia wastes a huge % of its GDP on weapons. Russia’s main exports are oil and Natural Gas. In the energy sector, the US imports millions of barrels of oil from nations with thick crude, and refines them in a mixture of US light sweet oil that is very easy to refine. But when you look at US heavy industry, vehicles, aircraft, jet engines, telecom, petroleum refining equipment, computers, electronics, chemicals, medical devices, medical supplies, food, and down the list, there is no other nation like it.
The US and NATO have not sent their full. weapons production capacity to Ukraine/. The US has mainly sent outdated equipment and weapons that were scheduled for destruction. It’s actually cheaper for the US to send those older weapons and munitions than it is to dispose of them. I live right near one of the main depots that destroys old munitions. We normally would hear explosions from the depot all the time. Since 2022, that has ceased.
Here’s another problem though, in that I have actually lived all over Russia, from St. Petersburg to Pushkino to Obninsk. I spent a lot of time commuting into Moscow every week when living near Pushkino, and saw how Russians live in various cities, towns, and villages.
The US has 50 States that cover a broader region of population distribution than Russia, even though Russia has much more land area. Most of the Russian population is in the West near the borders of Europe, so population density in Russia is more like what you see East of the Mississippi in the US. The US has 341.8 million people spread out more, with cities all over the Nation.
The US has over 7 million km of roadways, highways, and streets and is at #1, with India at #2 if you count all their dirt roads. Russia isn’t even in the top 4 nations for roadways, due to a combination of frozen terrain and wasting money on weapons.
The US is also #1 in rail network size at over 220,000km. Russia isn’t even half that, at 105,000km. You see this when you travel all over both nations as I have.
Same with airports. The US is without peer in this space, with over 14,000 airports and airfields, many of which I have flown out of since the 1970s in private, commercial, and military aviation.
As to standard of living, they show you propaganda in Russia so you don’t leave. If you saw how people live in the US, you wouldn’t believe it. I do love the food in Europe and Russia though. it is absolutely true that the US food market is packed with chemicals and additives that I avoid as much as possible. This is very much a real problem. You have to be selective in what you buy, so my family home-cooks almost all of our meals.
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@nekotranslates UK, France, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Thailand, etc.
I don’t agree with how Libya was handled. That was Israel fabricating evidence against Libya all these years.
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Panama Papers exposes all of this. They even ran searchable address programs for the files and mapped it. The hottest spots are London, Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, Switzerland, Dubai, Cyprus, Caymans, Gibraltar, Singapore, etc. Do an image search "Panama Papers Map".
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@R3GARnator The US has been steadily withdrawing strategically from Europe since 1992.
We were stationed in West Germany when you could barely count the number of US bases in Europe, there were so many. We had Ramstein, Bitburg, Spangdahlem, Hahn, Torrejon, Geilenkirchen, Vicenza, Soesterburg, multiple bases in UK, and pulled out of those dramatically after Desert Storm. It has been a constant draw-down since then, despite the dominant Russian propaganda claiming otherwise.
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@dexterplameras3249 A-10 has 11 hard points but all can't be occupied at once, namely stations 5, 6, and 7. It also configures with 3 hard points occupied with:
FLIR Pod
ALQ-119 ECM
AIM-9M
It can't carry the payload that F-35A can.
Gun runs are the main cause of fratricide from the A-10, and they employ the gun less and less now.
A-10 carries opportunity costs that don't get factored into CPFH, like a plane sitting there with 3 pilots trained to fly it, and 10 maintainers trained to wrench it, with no sortie Gen in the ATO.
Meanwhile F-35s, F-15Es, F-16CMs, F-22As, and MQ-9s are getting worked like rented mules. A-10C still just sitting on CSAR standby within billions of dollars thrown at for re-wing, MFDs, GPS, Radios, HMS, FLIR integration, structural work, gun vibration/blast problems still blowing sections of the nose off.
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@tellthetruthna8523 Funny how you can't make an argument without using any merits to your case, because you've been influenced by CNN, MSNBC, CBS, PBS, ABC entertainment networks who have repeatedly been caught coordinating debate questions and messaging with Democrat campaigns.
I'm not even sure what you're talking about with Krytsa Ball, FOX, and Q Anon. I spent years in DC watching things from an inside perspective when I was stationed there as part of MDW, very close to the WH and ongoings, and have studied things independently.
For example, you don't hear anyone talking about the entrenched Republicans and Democrats who have been positioning for Presidential runs and their fear of a Trump culture effect on their prospects of access to the big donor-sponsored Dem/Repub campaigns of the future.
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@wildripeach1 The JSF are 3 distinct variants. The airframes are unique to each one, and the JSF-B did not constrain the A or C.
The serpentine ductwork for VLO and DSI inlets, combined with internal weapons bays, set the fuselage configuration.
Single engine was a must for mass production to keep the costs down.
For mission profiles, they do EW first, ISR constantly, and any swing-role that is needed. That could be a pre-planned VLO strike with contingency flip to A2A OCA/DCA, S-DEAD, AEW&C, BDA, anti-AWACS, anti-ESM, whatever.
None of the legacy designs are anywhere near as capable. F-15EX is meant to replace CONUS F-15C squadrons so Raptors can be more forward-deployed.
The idea that the F-35 would be limited to legacy support roles misses the fact that it is exponentially more lethal in A2A than the unbeaten F-15C or any of the 4.5 Gen fighters.
It is also far more lethal and survivable in strikes inside of high threat IADS nets. Years ago, the Israelis revealed that they've been fired at over 100 times by Syrian Surface to Air Missiles, and have never been hit, while one of their highly-advanced F-16Is was hit on its way back from a strike mission in Syria.
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@ilirllukaci5345 That's a proposed Bill by a Congressman who doesn't seem to know much about F-15 maintenance. It only has 4 co-sponsors, with maybe a 1% chance of passing. While Congressman Kinzinger is a USAF LTC and former KC-135 and RC-26 pilot, he needs to be briefed on the non-starter that is F-15 maintenance for a nation like Ukraine.
He's also pushing for Block II AIM-9X to be sold to Ukraine in that bill, which is odd.
FMS F-15 customers rely on US contractor support to keep their birds flying, including Israel.
F-15 has 2 big PW F100 motors, massive APG-63 FCR, fairly complex FLCS with regulated intake geometry coupled to the AOA, speed, and engine monitoring computers.
F-16 is a lot simpler with a fixed supersonic inlet, single engine, single vertical stab, and a huge spare parts fleet that has serviced 4600 aircraft since 1978.
F-15s would really make sense in a cover-for-action technical transfer designed to ultimately hand them over to the Russians.
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@korayven9255 Let’s put insanely-inflated grocery prices and high gas prices aside for just one moment and look at housing. We’re raising a generation of kids who we can’t tell anymore to simply work hard with a valuable skill set and you’ll have access to the American dream of owning a home.
You need to work harder, smarter, own a business, or have 2 professionals working under the same household just to have a legacy middle class lifestyle. Under Trump, access to first-time home buyers was more reasonable than it had been in decades with roughly $75k median household. Now it’s $119,769 as of April 2024, to afford a $332k home. Where I live, there aren’t any homes in that price range. Most are double that. I have 5 kids, 2 of whom are adults and the conversations I have with them about what it takes to get into a home are nothing like the ones I heard and experienced.
This isn’t partisan, but just part of the American experience. Under Joe/Kamala, they have ended that dream for millions of younger Americans.
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@kyleheins The common shoulder-fired weapon issued to the vast majority of soldiers in a Line Company should not exceed 5lbs and should not be very long at all. Think M-1 Carbine weight and handling, but shorter, with at least 5.56 NATO performance.
For Rifle Squad Leaders and Team Leaders, they should carry a DMR with upper end electro-optics, chambered in an Enhanced Intermediate Rifle Cartridge like 6mm ARC+ in performance, and that cartridge should be common to the Lightweight LMG with linked ammo.
Riflemen and Grenadiers should carry the PDW-sized Carbine, as should Ammo Bearers, Assistant Gunners, Anti-Armor Weapons Specialists, everyone in Mortars, CO, 1SG, RTOs, PLs, Drivers, FOs, Combat Medics, etc.
A battle rifle cartridge platform should not exist in the Rifle Company other than Medium Machine-guns in Weapons Squads, and those could be replaced with a .338 Norma-like hybrid polymer/steel case to reduce weight, while increasing long range performance.
9-12lb rifles for everyone is a non-starter concept in the year 1960, let alone 2022.
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@Rusty-u9u Classics, TGATB curriculum, documentaries, constant study, and my continual input.
We also do those American history quizzes for fun as a family.
I started studying American history on my own at a young age out of my deep interest in military history, and I never stopped learning.
I've lived all over the US as well, so I've become familiar with the different regional histories, geographies, climates, and sentiments.
Over the past several years, I've been on a Prohibition Era and 1890s-1920 binge.
I also came to look at the Civil War from a totally different angle (have studied it from several angles before i.e. military, geographic, finance, European influence, political, religious, Southern Perspective, Irish immigrant perspective).
I like breaking things down by the decade, and also framing things through generational theory.
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@Sycokay Yup. Because the general populace is largely ignorant of military aerospace technology, they don't see how systemic the neglect has been from European parliaments.
The US started aggressive funded development of ATF in 1981, built on the backs of F-117A, B-2, SR-71, A-12, the F-111, and teen fighters.
4 demonstrator Prototype Air Vehicles with 4 different types of engines were ready by 1990. 1 airframe team and engine manufacturer were selected, resulting in the Lockheed/Boeing/General Dynamics F-22.
All of that technology flowed into the JSF/F-35 program as well in the 1990s-2000s.
Europe had no equivalent programs, and barely stuck with Typhoon & Rafale development throughout all this time, on a very weak and unserious schedule.
Both EFA & Rafale demonstrators flew in 1986. Production didn't start until much later. Neither are 5th Gen, so propulsion, airframes, sensors, FLCS, MMI, E&E, EW, etc. are all dated.
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@seashackf1 Crimea was annexed in 2014 under Comrade Barrack Hussein, not Trump.
Trump literally threatened Putin that if he did anything in Ukraine, the US response would end him.
Trump also is the only US President in history to authorize the decimation of Russian forces in Syria at the Battle of Khasham Feb2018.
Biden, (who literally got into the Senate with help from the Soviet/Russian front, Council for a Livable World), tried to pull Zelensky out of Kiev so Ukraine would be leaderless for Putin to then occupy.
Eric Trump never said any such thing. Trump made his fortune legitimately building hotels and large mega projects, not taking money from corrupt donors like the rest of the political class does.
Feb 2014, Putin had Elena Baturina wire $3.5 million to Hunter's front company, Rosemont Seneca, jointly owned with John Kerry's son-in-law, Chris Heinz. "10% for the big guy."
Then Hunter magically got on the board of Burisma in May 2014, which was under investigation for defrauding Ukraine and sending the money into accounts controlled by Putin associates in Cyprus, Switzerland, Panama, Singapore, and Grand Camans.
You have it all very backwards.
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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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@cnb4110 If you listen to even recent interviews with Trump, he's actually very sharp. The problem is people allow emotions to take place where analytical thinking should exist, but never did in the first place.
If you allow yourself to step back and give credit where credit is due, then you can gain more based view.
You can't achieve what Trump did being a dummy. He has instincts and experience with how the people think and feel that no other US President has. Reagan was close on camera, as a combination of his acting, Governorship of CA, and political speech touring in the '70s.
Trump's comes from having to work with construction project managers, linemen, blue collar workers, finance and commercial real estate, city and State governments, and the entertainment industry.
Most politicians never have this kind of experience in the private sector. They're only used to being sucked-up to during superficial visits, which is a stark contrast to a businessman who has to constantly fight an uphill battle getting projects approved with inept city planners, contracting jobs out to subs, managing the managers, making payroll, and meeting deadlines.
We've never had a President with that day-to-day experience.
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@jaihindersingh America has the largest economy in the world that relies mostly on domestic consumption, only 15% exports, and holds 90% of its own debt.
It has the largest farmland with the longest growing and harvest seasons, more coastlines than any other nation, hundreds of sea ports, over 1400 airports, and hundreds of cities dispersed across the land, no central metro hub anywhere that drives everything.
It also has the 3rd largest population, who all live in wealth compared to the rest of the world, with a healthy demographic profile.
Other regions are already in demographic winter or tipping into it, especially Eastern Asia, Russia, and Europe.
These and other factors are why the USD will remain the only global reserve currency.
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@leneanderthalien France doesn't have the people or resources to support the Rafale the way the Super Hornet has been. If you look at the Naval flight test center, weapons test centers, and inter-service joint test programs on weapons development and testing, you will start to understand what I'm talking about.
If you look at the APG-79(V)4 AESA, it out-performs the RBE2 AESA since it uses the latest GaN Transmitter Receiver Modules, CPUs, and LPI capabilities with decades of US AESA developmental work behind it. Super Hornet will enjoy first-look/first track/first PID against everything except F-22 & F-35. Rafale's RBE2 doesn't pack the same TRM density and doesn't have the same force of engineers supporting it, although it is a great Radar compared to many others.
Then look at the AIM-120C and D series, for example. Over 5000 live fire tests have been done with AMRAAM variants since 1982 against fighter target drones, always looking at improving its performance. France can't afford to test and develop missiles like that, though France is one of the more advanced nations in this space.
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@joshafc41 None of the other countries had AIM-120D. It's exclusive to US, with some recent authorized contracts to Australia I think. We sold AIM-120C5 to a lot of allies. C5 vs D3 are different motors, seekers, guidance, etc.
It's not a US fanboi thing, just ground truth. We worked on the development of the Typhoon before it was even the EF2000 when we were in W Germany, before going back to the US to do F-16, B-1B, F-16C Blk 30/40, F-15E, with an emphasis on Navigation, weapons and sensors integration, and weapons test.
For every Euro NATO engineer and technician, there's roughly 20 or more in the US at RDT&E and test sites all over the Nation. UK actually uses weapons test sites in the US much of the time.
AIM-120 has over 5000 live fire tests and multiple real-world intercepts.
Meteor has a tiny fraction of live fires because of the female-dominated weak Euro parliaments that don't like to spend on defense, and therefore encourage aggression from adventurous dictators.
I'm not sure if UK, France, and Germany even have any QF-xx drones. We burned through hundreds of QF-102s, QF-106s, QF-4s, and now are burning through QF-16s with endless live-fire testing that constantly improves missile seeker and ECCM performance, mid course data link guidance, motors, and warheads.
We share data with the NATO partners to lift them up as much as we can. It has been this way for generations.
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@REgamesplayer We literally worked on the F-16C Block 30 and 40, and I’m intimately familiar with the Viper from YF-16 to the latest variants. I watched it all happen at Edwards AFB from the 1970s-onward.
Recent statements from one of the squadron commanders at Eielson AFB in Alaska:
“If you put an F-16C Block 50 next to an F-35 at 200knots and accelerate, the F-35 beats it to Mach 1. The F-35 also beats the F-22 in the subsonic regime. Both the F-16C Block 50 and F-22 will start to walk away from the F-35 once they go supersonic.”
Airshow demo F-16 has better STR, but not ITR. F-35 instantaneous turn rate and high alpha performance is substantially better than the Viper, which is AOA-limited. Once you combat-configure the Viper, don’t even get airborne for that contest because it’s over before it started. Have you ever seen the CAT limits on the Viper while configured? It’s nowhere near as agile as when slick.
F-35A curb-checks the F-16 when you actually configure the F-16 for missions, even with both of them carrying the same weapons load. F-35A is carrying more fuel and still out-performs the F-16 no matter what you do.
F-16 isn’t getting anywhere near visual range, and doesn’t want to anyway since both of them have AIM-9X, while F-35 has extensive IR VLO and a far superior Helmet.
50% of all meteorological conditions (night), the F-35 is superior to any fighter in the world in WVR, not that it will allow them to go there.
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@REgamesplayer The old AF-2 flight dynamics envelope expansion on a pre-SWAT F-35A (one of the first 6 LRIP birds that were never mass-produced) is not what you would want to use as a sample for F-35A performance, since it was heavier and was restricted to 4-5g.
A real F-35A humiliates the F-16 in WVR, not that it matters. Read about the Dutch F-35A pilots dong a week-long BFM series of exercises with Nellis AFB Aggressors in F-16C Block 30s (lighter airframe than Block 40s and 50s). F-16s showed on Day 1 with 2x 370 gallon EFTs on the wings, got spanked in every set-up. Next day switched to centerline 300 gallon tank, still got wrecked. On the final day, they showed up slick with no EFTs, very short sorties due to need for hitting the tanker, and still weren’t able to push over a 50% kill ratio.
On one of the days, the F-16s BINGO’d and returned to Nellis, F-35s flew off to the training ranges. F-35 pilots came back to debrief for hours as USAF does, and F-16 pilots asked, “Hey, where did you go after the BFM exercises?”
Dutch: “Yeah, we were carrying GBUs the whole time, so we wanted to maximize the airspace and training value to go do drops on the live ranges.”
F-16 pilots: “........what?” Jaws hit the floor.
Sustained Turn Rate on the Viper is awesome when slick. With Pods, EFTs, all pylons loaded, even after you E-JETT the tanks and bombs, you have:
Centerline 800lb ECM pod
LITENING FLIR Pod on 5R
HTS on 5L for CCIP F-16CM later blocks
WWPs on 4 & 6
WWPs on 3 & 7
ALE-50 equipped pylons on 2 & 8 with missiles attached
AIM-120Cs on 1 & 9
Your sustained turn rate in that configuration is still nothing like an airshow demo, and if it was a 1950s gun fight, you would still get wrecked by any of the F-35s, including the B.
Since it’s not a 1950s gun fight, but a 2020s Helmet-HOBS missile fight if someone is stupid enough to close into WVR after making it through the BVRAAM WEZ layers, then JSF smokes everyone including Flankers because of IR VLO, better HMDS, better FPA missiles that have close BVR reach for the face-shoot, automated offensive/defensive EW suite, and other things.
The conversation about the WVR fight is negated on so many levels, since it’s a non-starter already for 4th Gen fighters. They stopped doing it long ago just because of Helmet-HOBS.
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@REgamesplayer Yes, the F-16D was nowhere even close to being combat-configured since it didn't have:
800lb ECM pod on 5
LANTIRN TGT Pod 5R
Weapons
You can E-Jett stations 3, 4, 6, 7 on the F-16, 5 if it's a 300 gal EFT, but not the ECM pod.
A Combat-configured Viper is still a CAT 3 stores limit bird with the ECM pod, FLIR, and HARM TGT System for deployable CCIP Vipers. Even with EFTs jettisoned, it can't pull 9g, has limited roll rate, AOA limiter, and doesn't hug the EM diagram like it does slick.
It has worse acceleration, ITR, STR, and climb rate than an F-35A in a post E-Jett configuration.
Real production F-35As have been dominant against even light-loaded F-16C Block 30 aggressors for many years now.
The Dutch stated openly that they saw the F-16s show up on day 1 with 2 tanks because they heard about that early test report, thinking they could just fly circles around the F-35As.
After they got wrecked, they RTBd and then showed up Day 2 with only centerline 300gal EFTs, ACMI, CATM-9s, still got wrecked.
Then they stripped them down to no EFTs and only the ACMI and CATM-9, and brought the exchange ratio up a little, but not enough to break over 50%.
Then the Dutch went and dropped live bombs after those sorties, which they had been carrying the whole time. There's a very lengthy pilot interview on it. These are high hour Dutch F-16 pilots who converted over to F-35As as the initial Cadre that will instruct and lead their air force as it transitions.
The whole conversation is in the wrong place though being focused on WVR guns fights, when you have the sensors that JSF do. Why would you ever let the fight get close? Keep in mind they see everything from surface vessels to satellites in their HMDS.
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@joewright9879 According to an assessment collated by the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency in documents titled: "Russia/Ukraine - Assessed Combat Sustainability and Attrition.", Russia has suffered 189,500-223,000 total casualties, including 35,500-43,000 killed in action and 154,000-180,000 wounded.
Ukraine has suffered 124,500-131,000 total casualties, including 15,500-17,500 killed in action and 109,000-113,500 wounded in action.
The Russian tweet shows the doctored numbers. They didn’t even do a good job of it, as you can see the bad type font and misalignment. But just look at the claims. Russia says they have 7:1 KIA ratio, but lost half of the Donbas. Their verified loss of 6004 vehicles at the time of the documents was changed to only 600 vehicles.
They transplanted Ukraine’s KIA figures as guessed by DIA, over as their own, then made up Ukrainian KIA stats at over 71,000. None of this was in the documents.
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I’ve been studying the ATF history since the 1980s. The purposes of the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1968 Gun Control Act from which the ATF claim their authority dealt with certain situations respective to each on of those eras:
In 1934, a few small-time Midwest gangs like Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde were using V8 cars and various weapons stolen from law enforcement and the military to rob banks. The Attorney General went before Congress and told them this was a National emergency, that 500,000 men like Dillinger comprised the criminal underworld and were armed similarly. (Page 4, NFA Hearings, 73rd Congress, H.R. 9066, 1934)
During those hearings, Attorney General Cummings proposed Congress could circumvent the Constitutional restrictions on government from prohibiting the possession and bearing of arms by placing exorbitant taxes on them. That way they would still be technically obtainable, but not practical to the common man since they proposed stamp taxes of $200 in the worst year of the Depression, when unemployment was 24.7%. It turned out that there were only a few gangs like Dillinger, namely Bonnie & Clyde and Ma Barker’s gangs. All of these tiny gangs were gunned-down in 1934 and the US Midwest was the only place they could commit the crimes they did due to vast distances between towns, which allowed them to battle out with local LEOs, then hop in V8 powered automobiles and speed away.
In 1968, the premise for the Gun Control Act was that Lee Harvey Oswald ordered his Italian 6.5 Carcano and .30 Special through the mail using a fake identity, which he allegedly used to assassinate JFK and kill officer J.D. Tippit. Therefore, all other Americans must pay for these alleged crimes with more restrictions imposed on the ability to purchase and order firearms across State lines. The ATF would be charged with regulating the new Federal Firearms Licensing system, which is a de facto extension of Federal firearms restrictions on the citizens of the States, where ATF demands that anyone wanting to own a firearms business must enter into a conspiracy with them to defraud the people of their rights to keep and bear arms.
None of these Acts that created the ATF and gave them power are even remotely-constitutional for reasons that should jump out right away. After 1934, we basically have a few scraps left over from what the Founders intended the people to keep and bear.
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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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@francisdec1615 My grandfather was a Swedish-speaking Finn. Mannerheim was also a Swedish, German, and Russian-speaking Finn who could barely function in Finnish.
Most Swedes I've encountered are very proud, think that Sweden is some type of utopian kingdom, generally view all Americans as dumb.
They're particularly proud of their Gripen fighter, their economy, and NHS based on internal propaganda.
I point out how the Gripen's engine is made by GE in the US, as is its Mil-1553B data bus, fuel sealants, transistors, canopy, electronic components, brakes, electrical power, several radios, cabin systems, FLIR pod, and several weapons are made in the US, while its gun is made in Germany, ejection seat from England, hydraulics, landing gear, valves, refueling probe, stick and throttle come from UK, wire harnesses, composites, fasteners, APU, and ECU come from France/US.
This similar kind of break-down emerges when you look at Healthcare products, systems, training, and procedures.
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@John-ir2zf Electrogravitics is associated with the 1918 work by Professor Nipher, then 1928 British patent #300,311 of T. Townsend Brown, the 1952 Special Inquiry File #24-185 of the Office of Naval Research into the “Electro-Gravity Device of Townsend Brown” and two widely circulated 1956 Aviation Studies Ltd. Reports on “Electrogravitics Systems” and “The Gravitics Situation.” By definition, electrogravitics historically has had a purported relationship to gravity or the object's mass, as well as the applied voltage. An analysis of the 90-year old science of electrogravitics (or electrogravity) necessarily includes an analysis of electrokinetics.
Electrokinetics, on the other hand, is more commonly associated with many patents of T. Townsend Brown as well as Agnew Bahnson, starting with the 1960 US patent #2,949,550 entitled, “Electrokinetic Apparatus.” Electrokinetics, which often involves a capacitor and dielectric, has virtually no relationship that can be connected with mass or gravity. The Army Research Lab has recently issued a report on electrokinetics, analyzing the force on an asymmetric capacitor, while NASA has received three patents on the same design topic.
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@ They did everything they could at the time to make it as lightweight as possible with that huge wing area and added fuel and ordnance space, but they didn’t have a motor that could generate even 1:1 T/W at the time.
The GE-powered XL was obviously much better with thrust at 28k if I remember, but still gutless. Test pilots said it handled like a Cadillac, but once you turned, all your energy was gone, nothing like a Viper.
It was a concern of theirs since they were used to that insane F-16 sustained turn rate. I still think for what the USAF has used F-16s for, F-16XL makes more sense as a bomb truck and D/SEAD platform.
In the F-15/F-16 fleet mix era, USAF has operated under the premise of F-15Cs providing higher altitude OCA/DCA while Vipers run bombing sorties down in the lower bands. The F-16XL had 17 hard points and missile rails. Even half-configured with A2G ordnance, it could carry 12 500lb class bombs and 6 AAMs, namely 4 AIM-120 and 2 AIM-9s.
It needed an F119 motor and total fuselage redesign to make it powered right, which didn’t exist yet.
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@jamesbaxter9975 Hmmmm, all the other 10 Amendments are specifically about individual rights and rights of the people, yet you think the 2A is not. Have you ever even looked at the 1800s SCOTUS rulings on it, let alone subsequent rulings?
"The people's right to bear arms, like the rights of assembly and petition, existed long before the Constitution, and is not "in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." This ruling also upheld that all able bodied males are members of the militia (one of three such clear rulings).
U.S. v. Cruikshank, 1876 92 US 542, 553
"All citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserve militia, and the states cannot prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms so as to disable the people from performing the (militia) duty to the general government."
Presser v. Illinois, 1886 116 US 252
"Individuals have a right to possess and use firearms for self-defense."
U.S. v. Beard, 1895 158 US 550
In 1897 the Supreme Court ruled that the right to arms is an "ancient" and "fundamental" right, a right which was "inherited from our English ancestors" and has existed "from time Immemorial."
Robertson v. Baldwin, 1897 165 US 275
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@rogerpennel1798 That type of strike package force structure is a constraint of 4th Gen fighters, while it doesn’t apply to 5th Gen anywhere near as much since every aircraft is carrying mission-relevant munitions and organically perform EW and AW&C due to the sensor suites and LPI data links.
In 4th Gen airframes, I need 3-4x as many aircraft with their different specialized mission sets just to get the core strike package on-target.
Had Sweden adopted a foreign fighter design instead of the Gripen, they would now be in a position to acquire F-35As and integrate seamlessly with Norway, Denmark, Finland, the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and Italy with all the sensor interleaving and networking, plus logistics.
In the dispersed operations force posture, you can have exquisite regional situational awareness as pilots before you even take off. Once you have 2 or more F-35s in the air, the SA is breathtaking.
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@hb1338 I have personally conducted joint training with Swedes, Finns, Estonians, Danes, Norwegians, Germans, Italians, French, Brits, Australians. The Swedes stick out as pompous know-it-alls who have no combat experience, trying to teach everyone else how to do what all of the above sans Sweden have already been doing for generations. This was especially true among the Swedish officers and NCOs. They were an embarrassment, but aloof to this fact. The Finns joke about the Swedens regularly and have for centuries. I have been to Sweden many times, have many Swedish family members. These anecdotes from people who are disconnected from the region are only compelling to the inexperienced.
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@TheStugbit Brazil’s Gripen Influence Case:
"By 2015, Brazil’s long-running anti-corruption investigations had already implicated one major arms procurement program, the Scorpène submarine contract, when yet another scandal emerged with far-reaching consequences. This controversy, however, proved to be much more politically tinged than its predecessor, as it implicated two former presidents. For decades, the Brazilian Air Force had pushed the government to fund a new generation of combat aircraft. In 2014, Saab was granted a contract to provide 36 of the still-in-development E-variant of the JAS-39 Gripen combat jet, but the competitive tender came under almost immediate suspicion. Investigators have since built an influence peddling case against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”), his son, and two intermediaries, alleging that Saab paid for Lula to promote their plane to then-president Dilma Rousseff.”
Buyer: Brazil
Seller: Saab (Sweden)
Year of deal: 2014
Equipment sold: 36 Saab JAS-39E Gripen Combat Aircraft
Value of Deal: USD 4.68 billion (re-negotiated value, down from initial contract price of USD 5.4 billion)
Sum involved in Corruption Allegations: BRL 2.6 million (USD 1.21 million)
Dramatis Personae
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – former president of Brazil; accused of selling his influence after leaving office to help Saab win the tender competition.
Luís Cláudio Lula da Silva – son of Lula da Silva, the former president; accused of receiving BRL 2.6 million through a consultancy on behalf of his father as payment for influence peddling.
Mauro Marcondes and Cristina Mautoni – owners of the lobbying consultancy Marcondes e Mautoni Empreendimentos e Diplomacia; accused of acting as intermediaries in passing payments from Saab.
In August 2001, Brazil launched a tender competition for a new generation of combat aircraft to replace its aging fleet of U.S. F-5Es and French Dassault Mirage variants, as well as the newer Alenia/Embraer AMX light fighter-bomber. The competition, which was known as F-X and called for the purchase of twelve new planes, was postponed in 2003 after President Lula da Silva assumed office, and eventually cancelled in 2006. In late 2007, the program was resurrected as “F-X2,” with the Brazilian Air Force (Força Aérea Brasileira, or FAB) requesting information from Boeing, Dassault, EADS, Lockheed Martin, Saab, and Sukhoi. In October 2008, the FAB selected the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, and Saab JAS-39E Gripen as finalists. In September 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a swap of 36 Rafales in exchange for 12 Embraer KC-390 cargo jets, and although Lula da Silva initially backed the plan, it was scrapped after encountering strong resisted from the FAB. The Super Hornet also had its detractors; in October 2009, Brigadier Engineer Venancio Alvarenga Gomes, director of projects for Brazil’s aerospace technology command, was taped lecturing on Brazil’s prior bad experiences with restrictive U.S. export controls.
Little progress was made on selecting a finalist in the following years, in part because of a 26.5% cut to the military acquisition budget after President Dilma Rousseff took office in January 2011. Lula da Silva was widely reported to favor the French Rafale, while, according to a diplomatic memo released by Wikileaks, Rousseff told U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in March 2011 that she supported the Boeing Super Hornet. The views of the FAB were also made public in January 2010, when a 30,000-page assessment report was leaked to newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, naming the Saab Gripen E as the air force’s top choice because of a lower price and opportunities for co-development with domestic firm Embraer. The Super Hornet ranked second, while the Rafale finished last because of its high cost.
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@TheStugbit Saabs Jas-affär i Brasilien kopplas till åtal om olagliga metoder
UPPDATERAD 20 MARS 2018PUBLICERAD 20 MARS 2018
UPPDRAG GRANSKNING · Jas-affären kopplas till ett åtal i Brasilien där Saabs agent misstänks ha betalat ut stora summor pengar för att påverka den dåvarande presidenten, Dilma Rouseff, att välja svenska stridsflygplan. Samtidigt får Saab kritik för att inte ha levt upp till de löften som gavs under försäljningskampanjen.
I Jas-affären i Brasilien misstänks otillåtna metoder ha förekommit. En åklagare i Brasilia har väckt åtal mot Saabs agent, Mauro Marcondes. Rättegången kommer, enligt uppgifter till Uppdrag granskning, inledas under våren eller sommaren. Den svenska statsministern Stefan Löfven, liksom stora delar av Saabs styrelse, ska kallas som vittnen av försvaret, enligt ett dokument som Uppdrag granskning har tillgång till.
Affären, som gjordes upp sommaren 2015, är värd omkring 40 miljarder kronor och räknas till de största svenska exportaffärerna någonsin. Totalt såldes 36 Gripen NG som ska vara på plats i Brasilien senast 2024.
Arvode höjdes från en miljon till 16 miljoner
Enligt åklagaren, Herbert Mesquita, hade Saab ett avtal från 2009 med lobbyisten Mauro Marcondes. När avtalet omförhandlas 2012 höjdes plötsligt Marcondes arvode från omkring en miljon kronor till 16 miljoner kronor. Åklagaren kallar detta för ”anmärkningsvärt”.
Omförhandlingen av arvodet skedde i samband med att president Dilma Rousseff meddelat att hon var intresserad av att köpa amerikanska stridsflygplan. När beskedet nådde Saab ska det enligt åklagaren ha ”slagit ner som en bomb” vilket fick företaget att besluta sig för att anlita Marcondes som en så kallad ”influencer”.
Marcondes ska ha fått uppdraget att trycka på Dilma Rousseff via den förre presidenten Lula da Silva – en person som hon brukar lyssna på.
Senare har åklagaren kunnat visa att Marcondes betalade ut stora belopp till Lulas son. Detta ska ha gjort expresidenten Lula, och hans familj, rika enligt åklagaren.
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@theAppleWizz Hitler was selected by the military to go penetrate bars and report on what the dissident Marxist groups were discussing.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut and ears open, he stood up shouting and debating the anti-Republic groups. They recognized his charisma and recruited him into the National Socialists Worker's Party (NAZI).
He later campaigned on how weak the Weimar leadership was, how Germany's inflation was because of foreign bankers, and deployed his Brown Shirts to go start busting people up, burning places, and threatening Jews.
Intellectually, trying to form parallels between him and Trump fall apart and you'll see far more elements of the NAZI party tactics with BLM and ANTIFA, but there are key differences there too.
If you really want a close parallel comparison, look at SDS & Weathermen vs BLM & ANTIFA, and realize that the target was always the US, regardless of political parties. Financing and the agitation of black Americans are exactly the same format as before, while run by white college kids and Democratic Socialists of America members of media and government. DSA is CPUSA rebranded.
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@theAppleWizz I guess you didn't see the funding schematics for BLM and DSA backing them, with BLM being a recruiting pool for ANTIFA. There are undercover videos of people who attended recruiting meetings for ANTIFA, very well-organized with counter-surveillance and operational security measures being followed.
There is no historical parallel to the US or our status right now. The closest might be the last Czars, but they were the establishment in Russia with foreign bankers in Germany financing political and revolutionary dissidents like Lenin, so the foreign involvement fits, but the National leadership doesn't since Trump by-passed the establishment from outside of the political system.
That's the real revolution- that someone finally did what many Americans have been begging for for decades. The media is the mouthpiece for the campaign financiers behind both parties, who can be trusted to do the bidding of the lobbyists, so that's why you see 24/7 attack Trump messaging. They can't afford to have him turn over their well-oiled sellout machine for politicians.
You had nothing like this in Germany and Russia. They are entirely different demographics, geographies, and political entities.
Obama used the police State to go after political groups with the IRS scandal if you're looking for more of a tyrannical leadership style. Then there's the whole cancel Trump attempt from McCain, Hillary, FBI Leadership, CIA, NSA, etc.
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@dannykeuerleber7419 Oswald never received any commendations for his crappy shooting scores, not in Basic and not in his unit. His scores went from 212 to 191 during his short time in the Marines. Other Marines in his unit said he didn’t take their rifle training seriously, and didn’t seem to care.
In USMC or Army Basic Training, the terms “Expert, Sharpshooter, and Marskman” mean nothing of the kind. Here’s how we really think of those terms in the military precision rifle and sniping community, which I was part of and have practiced since 1994:
220-250 Expert = Cream of the crap, you’re not really good but you followed instructions and/or lucked out with a rifle that shot well
210-219 Sharpshooter = You suck and need to retrain until you score 220 or better.
190-209 Marksman = You really suck and should be smoked, then retrained until you score 220 or better.
A real rifle “expert” trains incessantly for years, even decades. Humility is his or her companion, and they know how hard it is to maintain proficiency with constant practice. Oswald was the opposite of that during his time in the Marines, as well as when he went to a local rifle range and shot another shooter’s target while aiming at his own. There is a funny video about that where they interview the guy whose target he shot.
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@anonymike8280 On one hand, he barely can qualify on the Marine rifle range with a 191 score (190 is minimum). On the other hand, he’s a better shot than Carlos Hathcock and senior USMC Scout Sniper Instructors who could never duplicate his shots. In Belorussia, Marina said she thought he was a native due to his use of local colloquialisms and perfect spoken Russian. In Dallas, he could barely stumble along in childish phrases with a poor accent at the Paine home (Ruth Paine was a Russian language instructor with a terrible accent, which is another strange aspect of the story, given her sister Sylvia working for the CIA at Langley, her husband working for Bell Helicopters, their parents working for OSS or Trotskyite socialist groups in the 1920s-1940s, and George de Mohrenschildt introducing Oswald to the Paines). Ruth got Lee his job at the TSBD, withholding a better-paying job for him that she knew about. George DM was a CIA asset and former OSS agent during the War, came from....Belorussia. Committed suicide before he could be called into the HSCA.
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@anonymike8280 His mom said his favorite TV show was about a spy, before he joined the Civil Air Patrol, where he was a cadet along with Barry Seal. David Ferrie was a Squadron Commander in his Wing, but not his Squadron Commander.
He obtained a hardship discharge to go take care of his sick mother in Louisiana, but instead flew to Finland, surrendered his passport at the embassy, demanded to defect to the Soviet Union, where he promised to share secrets he learned in the military.
At the time, the US had a program for fake defectors who were trained to act like marxists, to gain access to the USSR. Some of that training was done in North Carolina and Virginia.
Oswald worked in an electronics factory in Belorussia, where he met Marine, the niece of a KGB Lieutenant Colonel. After marrying her, they decided to move to the US. He contacted the US Stated Department, who paid for their air travel back to the US.
There is no record of him being detained or questioned upon return to the US, and J. Edgar Hoover even asked the Office of Naval Intelligence and CIA about this in a memo that pre-dates the assassination.
Oswald was also seen with Jack Ruby at Key West Airport before boarding a plane to Cuba, among a group of 40-50 men. Oswald walked over to Ruby and asked him something about someone named “Big Bird”. The man who co-founded the Civil Air Patrol, was nicknamed "Big Byrd" by his friends. He was Texas oilman, David Harold Byrd.
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@Laotzu.Goldbug I've been in aerospace and defense since the 1970s. Some of the programs we worked on were the ALCM, SRAM, SRAM II, JDAM, and other guided weapons systems, so I'm quite familiar with what it takes to get a warhead on-target. Before JDAM, it was all INS-based.
The launch aircraft would get an update for its INS with Radar ground-mapping off known reference points before weapon separation, then pass that data to the missile so it would start off with the best available position references.
Degradation of INS was a real thing, especially with weather. GPS and other things take precision-guidance into a new generation since then. There are better off-the-shelf guidance systems nowadays available to civilians.
You do have to take terrain into consideration though, including altitude and solve for that if you want to fly a Nap Of the Earth profile.
With modern digital mapping from satellite-based programs, you could manually chart an NOE course into a corridor, or run a real-time terrain-following profile algorithm.
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Baby Boomers had Gen X and Millennials. Gen X had Millenials and Gen Z.
So I see a current growing consumer base of these 3 prime working years generations.
Gen X are in management and early mid-life stages, many earning over the median household income.
Older 1st phase millenials born in the early-mid 1980s are coming into their own with home ownership, at least 10 years of solid credit history, stable work history.
Younger millennials and Zs are facing out-of-reach home ownership prices outside of apartments and town homes, and just watched median home sale prices fly away from them just as they thought about reaching for a single family residence, which is sad to watch.
Boomer and Gen X are watching their children have a bleak outlook on the future, which they feel together with them.
There is a strong consumer base for automobiles, home appliances, personal electronics, computers, TVs, insurance, education, and groceries.
All of those industries own the legacy alphabet media, who most of the 3 living generations don't trust and have ditched viewership of if you look at Nielsen ratings trends.
I think that's a pivotal pillar going forward: the decoupling from legacy media and information sources combined with decoupling from deglobalization.
We just don't trust the corporate news spigots that have lied to us for so long. This presents great opportunities and challenges.
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@Drew Peacock From X-35B to the first F-35B crash took 18 years. That was the only mechanical failure cause. The rest have been pilot error, and only 3 have crashed in 21 years from X-35B first flight, 13 years from F-35B first flight. 167 F-35Bs have been built, 165 delivered and operational. F-35Bs have flown a cumulative 102,600 flight hours out of 460,000hrs for all 3 JSF types since 2006.
So that's a 3/100,000hrs loss rate, including the 1 mechanical fault that was immediately corrected in 2018.
Looking at the Harrier again, we lost 100 airframes in its first 10 years, with 20 fatalities. That includes UK, US, and Spanish Navy Harriers, not cherry-picked data.
F-35B is safer than almost every conventional take-off fighter except for the F-22A and F-35A.
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@kaseyc5078 Yes, but after WWII, there was a massive deficit in prime age males who are necessary for rebuilding society, and getting back to work. All of the European nations except for Switzerland and Sweden suffered tremendous losses to their native prime age males.
What many of them did was import workers from Turkey, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Most of these men worked the low-skilled labor jobs, while some of them went into higher-skilled education and work as well.
Along with all of that, Europe adopted relaxed abortion laws, so native young adult females exterminated their children in the womb. This created even more demand for foreign laborers.
The problem is that these foreign laborers were enticed to come to Europe to take advantage of “free” social welfare programs, not to work. The uneducated and altruistic weak Europeans who idealized their social safety nets started to see that the immigrants weren’t contributing to society with productive work and paying into the tax system.
What did they do? Abort more of their children, and import more foreigners with promises of free everything. The consequences of this are disenfranchised and separate class of foreigners who will never be accepted as natives, who see themselves as superior to Europeans due to their own bigoted ideology and internal messaging from elders.
This means from a societal order standpoint, you have a people who don’t respect the nation’s laws. Any time you try to enforce the laws when they break them, they feel like they’re being discriminated against, rather than accepting responsibility. You also have genuine criminals who will use this dynamic to claim discrimination in hopes of avoiding consequences for their crimes.
The best thing would be to deport everyone back to their homelands because they refuse to integrate and refuse to obey the laws, refuse to work to contribute, while stealing the workers’ fruit.
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There’s a huge difference between security clearance for access, and executive power for classification and sharing intel (Presidents often share highly-classified intelligence with allies, as well as withhold it.). VPs do not have authority to share intel unless specifically blessed-off by the President. In Biden’s case, he was engaged in very direct international relations with Ukraine and Russia, all of which benefited Russia.
One of the most treasonous acts was the Obama-Biden-Clinton fast-tracking of the sale of uranium mining rights in the US to Putin. The other was the intervention in Ukrainian anti-corruptions efforts once they threw Yanukovych out of office, and democratically elected Poroshenko. Poroshenko appointed Viktor Shokin to head the new drive in eradicating corruption, especially where the Ukrainian government had been infiltrated by so many Russian agents and pro-Russian separatists.
One of the companies Putin was using to launder his illegal pilfering of Ukraine’s economy and to hide human trafficking operations was Burisma. Burisma’s energy profits were not that large, so it didn’t make any sense that so much effort was made to conceal what was going on with the company. As soon as Putin realized Yanukovych was going to be ousted, a Russian oligarch named Elena Baturina wired $3.5 million to a shell company run by SECSTATE John Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz, and VP Biden’s son, Hunter. That was called Rosemont Seneca, one of dozens of Biden family shell corporations with no evidence of actual services provided other than access.
VP Biden threatened Poroshenko with keeping $1 Billion in aid money from Ukraine, if Poroshenko didn’t fire Shokin (who was investigating Burisma).
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@GregDV As soon as Ukraine threw out Yanukovych in 2014, Putin had his mercenary and ethnic Russian forces conduct false flag attacks on innocent Russians living in Donbas. It makes zero sense for Ukraine, who were working towards establishing trade with EU, which requires human rights and anti-corruption measures to be implemented.
Ukraine watched helplessly as they were run by Russian puppet presudents, while Poland grew their economy from $250 Billion in 1990, to $916 Billion in 2013, now $1.433 Trillion.
Ukraine wanted the same type of economic growth, but this would mean decoupling from Russian influence and shifting to more trade with EU. Putin's plans have been to take Ukraine into the Russian sphere, so when Ukraine threw out Yanukovych, it crossed Putin's red line, triggering invasion and annexation of critical regions in 2014.
It has nothing to do with nazis, how much he cares about ethnic Russians in Donbas, or NATO. These are manufactured justifications to hide the fundamental issues.
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@richarddick2937 I'm likely ahead of you on this by 40 years. I've seen and read most of what there is on Kazars, USS Liberty, Israeli terrorist acts against the British when they were a protectorate, history of the Balfour Declaration, post- Great War borders, Arab-Israeli Wars, dangling the MiG-21 carrot to get the F-4E FMS, influence of US Policy via blackmail, subterfuge, espionage, etc.
It pales in comparison to what the Brits have done, but very few people are informed on that.
Either way, this isn't the place for it as I'm more focused on systems integration relative to the actual video.
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Jörgen Persson Didn’t we go over this already? Have you not looked at the dimensions of the Meteor vs AIM-120? They both are the same length and diameter. Of course the Meteor fits inside the F-35 weapons bays. Nobody calls them "bomb bays", since they always have BVR missiles in them when configured.
China already exploited the Gripen C/D in RTAF service from 2014-2019 and proved it to not be very capable against the J-10C. They also pitted the J-10C against the Su-35S and J-10C enjoys a much more favorable BVR exchange ratio against the Su-35S.
Why? Reduced RCS, better radar (large 1200 TRM AESA), longer reach PL-15 BVRAAM, better pilot interface with the systems.
J-10C has DSI inlet, very small frontal RCS, but all single vertical stabilizer fighters have large side RCS so it’s no competitor with the JSF.
In every metric, the F-35 outclasses the J-10C, which out-classes the Su-35S. The F-35’s frontal, side, and rear RCS values are at least 1/100th what any of the 4.5 Gen fighters are. The F-35’s AESA is more capable than any of the foreign AESAs in production, with modes that a lot of people haven’t thought of, integrated with the EOTS/DAS, and RF suite for maximum detection and tracking in passive and outer-spectrum ranges that don’t trigger any RWR.
Gripen E is more comparable with the J-10C, so why would anyone want the Gripen E that is already facing obsolescence?
Su-57 frontal RCS is also very small, and it has EW capabilities with expansion potential that the Gripen E will never have.
Su-57 has a 1500 TRM nose AESA, 2 side-looking chin AESAs, L-band IFF in the LEVCONs, DIRCM, internal weapons bays, modern data link interoperable with Su-35S and SM Flankers. That’s what Finland is facing.
The Gripen E would struggle terribly in that environment because it has a very large side/oblique RCS that will be seen by high power PESA and AESA radars networked together. You can Digital waveform manipulate all you want towards one radar source, but when they have you triangulated because you’re easy to see, the next phase is incoming R-77-1 BVRAAMs in volleys from multiple vectors with mid-course guidance and no active seekers until it’s too late, so the MAWS portion of the EW suite will not activate until terminal phase. They will purposely fly counter ES-05 tactics that evade or stay out of Meteor R TR/NEZ parameters while sending Flankers to decoy as Su-57s make hidden approaches at supercruise speeds and optimum separation parameters for R-77-1 and newer missiles with different guidance methods, including radar-homing A2A variants.
Short story is you start losing Gripens left and right or flying Gripens in a totally defensive posture when you don’t have to if you had chosen a cutting-edge design like JSF.
With JSF, you can be doing OCA the whole time instead of working about any incoming missiles, and dropping Su-57s, AWACS, and Super Flankers from the sky, while striking their mobile IADS nodes and sea ports, air bases, whatever. JSF is a deterrent. Gripen E is a jobs program for Saab who needs to fund their own future generation fighter program after seeing how limited Gripen is.
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Biden has been working for Moscow since 1972. They funded his campaign through the Council for a Livable World under the guise of environmentalism and anti-nuclear proliferation. Immediately after his rigged Senate 1972 election in Delaware, he flew to the Soviet Union in 1973, then returned to the US to execute his taskings to kill the B-1A program with Carter saying it was too expensive. In 1979, he flew back to Leningrad, met with Brezshnev, Alexey Kosygin, and Andrei Gromyko. He returned to the US and began lobbying in the Senate for the rest of them to ratify the SALT treaty by disarming the US further with our strategic weapons posture while the Soviets used the technical data from the B-1A to build the Tu-160. Biden, having succeeded in killing the B-1A program, further worked to fight the development of the B-2 secretly, and US ICBM, SLBM, ballistic missile submarines, and other developmental programs.
When Reagan came into office, he thankfully reversed the course on Soviet momentum using traitors within and ramped-up US defense spending on these programs, restarted the B-1 with the B-1B program, MX, ATF, and re-built the military into a more formidable force that emphasized battle-focused training, a major departure from the fragmented institutional norms of the 1970s. Biden critiqued the Reagan White House throughout, espousing pro-Soviet positions at every turn. He especially hate the Reagan philosophy on defeating the Soviet Union, calling it appalling.
Biden has represented a clear and present danger to the United States of America throughout his entire Senate, VP, and WH occupation working for the hard-liners in Moscow. Various elements in US intelligence have been aware of this since the 1970s, but have been stopped from prosecuting him for treason because he receives cover from other traitors in high places, like CIA Director Stansfield Turner under Carter, (who was recruited by NKVD moles who penetrated the OSS and CIA in the late 1940s). This has been going on for a long time.
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@davidrenton F-35A, not even including the X-35A, has been flying since 2006. F-35B since 2008, F-35C since 2010.
F-35A/Is and F-35Bs have been on constant deployments to CENTCOM across multiple nations' services and have been involved in years of continuous combat operations, including bombing, launching air-to-surface missiles within hostile MEZs, and shooting down aircraft.
Cumulative fleet flight hours has exceeded 610,000 hrs, so yes, we are able to compare the 875+ F-35s that have been built to the lesser quantities of F-14s, A-10s, and comparable quantities of F-16s and F/A-18s that were built from the 1970s-1990s.
All 3 JSF variants have dramatically-superior safety records, and far superior effectiveness in combat.
Safety is measured in mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. In the last 10 years, we have lost 65 F-16s, with 38 fatalities.
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@random-ic3ww 79% of Ukrainians wanted to trade with the EU and exchange their goods and services with the Eurozone to grow the economy, not trade in almost-worthless Rubles.
Yanukovych, who was literally a puppet for Putin, rejected the will of the Ukrainian people in late 2013, and signed onto the Russian-Eurasian Economic pact, which triggered the Euromaiden protests for 4 months across Ukraine until Yanukovych fled to Russia.
That's when Putin invaded in 2014, occupying Donbas under the false premise of protecting ethnic Russians from Ukrainian nationalists.
Ukraine has watched Poland's economy grow 10x bigger than it was in 1989, while they have far more growth potential in Ukraine, but haven't realized it.
If Ukraine had even half the growth Poland did, it would escape from Russia's grasp economically and militarily, which Moscow can't allow.
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@random-ic3ww The people blaming the US for Russian actions are delusional. Ukraine wanted to trade with the EU and grow their economy, elevate their standard of living.
The US was indifferent at-best to that, doesn't really care. The US has been growing more and more isolationist since 1992 if you look at every Presidential election since then.
Every President who got elected since 1992 didn't have a foreign policy focus, but a domestic agenda as their top priorities.
Clinton: "It's the economy, stupid!"
Bush: "Compassionate conservatism, no child left behind, etc."
Obama: "Hope and change, Healthcare reform"
Trump: "Make America Great Again. Bring back US jobs from overseas. Build the wall. Lower drug prices. Etc."
Every candidate with a foreign policy focus got rejected.
Hillary: "We're going to enforce a No-Fly Zone over Syria!"
McCain: "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran. Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." Iraq surge.
The American people are tired of all these wars that no politician has been able to explain to them very well, so support for foreign wars is very low, and politicians are aware of it.
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@elfi9003 The US has been building fighters, bombers, transports, and combat systems for extreme cold weather/arctic conditions for at least 80 years. Look at all the Fighter Intercept Squadrons we’ve operated out of Alaska, Japan, South Korea, Iceland, UK, and what our partners have flown out of Canada, Japan, and Norway.
I see this statement thrown around a lot, and I guess people just don’t realize that the US does more extreme cold/arctic operations with fighters than Russia, Norway, and Canada combined. Also, if you don’t built a fighter for extreme cold, it can’t fly very high. Temperatures range from -30 to -60C as you get higher with altitude, and a lot of the world has really cold ground conditions in the winter, especially in Japan and Korea, let alone UK. Alaska goes without saying.
Extreme cold and low pressures at high speeds are literally built into every fighter specification before they even fly prototypes, otherwise they will never hit service ceiling.
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@elfi9003 There isn't a current production fighter that is more upgradeable than any of the JSF variants.
The Gripen is probably the least-upgradeable Western design because of its small size, which limits radar, engine, sensors, internal fuel, and weapons capabilities.
It is alone among the 4.5 Gen fighters by going drastically in the opposite direction of thrust-to-weight ratio, being the most under-powered fighter in production in the past several decades.
Air Forces don't choose F-35s because of Gucci factor. They choose it after their pilots and air planners get the partner nation capabilities briefing from other F-35 pilots who flew F-16s, F-15s, Hornets, and F-22s.
Once they show interest, they send senior pilots through the conversion training for F-35A, then they get to fly them and make assessments themselves.
After being exposed to it, they say, "This is a game-changer. Revolutionary. There is nothing else out there like this. If we don't have this, we will be left behind."
It actually makes things harder for the US because we aren't getting as many F-35Bs for the USMC as fast as we need them due to production line scheduling, even after they ramped up to making over 130 per year.
There are 3 assembly lines already: Fort Worth, Japan, and Italy. Still can't keep up with demand.
Gripen E isn't even developed or shipping with its full sensors. The more I learn about the state of Gripen E, the more major risks I'm seeing, and that includes safety, as well as costs.
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Diplomats are often very much out-of-touch with the countries that reside in for a time, because they are confined to the diplomatic quarters of the capitol and don’t get to see or interact with ground truth. Ground truth is more visceral, real, and unpolished. In this case, they would have never had intimate contact with the Russian Foreign Ministry to have the conversations that those people would ever have with them. From a strange coincidence with my contacts there, they already revealed in the early 2000s that Putin was taking back all the former Tsarist and Soviet era territories that Putin believed were rightfully Russia’s. Ukraine was only midway along that conquest to Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic as it was called then, and he also mentioned Georgia.
I thought it was an old Soviet blow-hard, until they invaded Georgia in 2008 while I was in Estonia working with the Estonian Defense Forces.
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@hermaeusmora2945 Putin had the expansion of Russia into its "rightful territories" planned out since he assumed office in 2000. It literally didn't matter what anyone in Europe or the US did, he was always going to invade or place puppets and install Russian forces in Georgia, South Ossetia, Ukraine, Moldova, Finland, Poland, the Baltics, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
The Ukrainian SMO was supposed to be a Desert Storm-like moment for Russia with shock and awe, sending mass fear into Europe so that subsequent nations would capitulate and crumble like dominoes.
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We didn't follow any of the recommended schedule with our 3 younger kids.
They're taller and stronger than many adults now, high intellect, no diseases, no autism, all home-schooled.
We watched a lot of other close friends and family follow the schedule, resulting in high rates of autism, learning disorders, chronic illness, flu, etc.
We watched our newborns like hawks in L&D, so they were never out of our sight.
I've been studying immunology, virology, and epidemiology since the 1990s. The more I've learned, the less I trust pediatricians and most doctors.
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@savethetowels Thousands of doctors are not really trained in virology and immunology. They get maybe a few weeks of basics on the topic and never really touch it again until incidental events happen.
The pharmaceutical industry relies on them being ignorant and just mindlessly following the recommended schedules of their increasing list of toxic products.
Toxicity is a baseline fundamental in vaccines because they need to trigger your immune system to the injection site.
Those are called adjuvants, which is where the mercury, aluminum, and aluminum salts come up.
Toxic metals trigger inflammation and reaction by your lymphocytes, which attack and encase the disease agents, then carry them to your lymphnodes to be processed by identification systems, then killed.
The immune system then keeps these antibodies on-file for future encounters.
That's the basic theory of virology and vaccines. Some say it works great, while more and more researchers question its efficacy to risk ratio, because the studies are rigged by pharma as a general rule.
Often ignored factors include water sources, nutrition, Vitamin D intake, hygiene, daily interaction with nature vs couped up indoors, air quality, and overall wellness.
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@vincentmarchetti6388 I have gathered and analyzed the data on all of the teen fighters, as well as the 4.5 Gen Eurocanards, the Super Hornets, F-22A, and all 3 JSF.
JSF have much higher cumulative fleet hours than Rafale, even though Rafale first flight was in 1986.
That's because Rafale has only been produced in tiny numbers, not aggressively developed or funded as part of a US and huge multinational effort.
Rafale fleet hit 270,000 flight hours in 2019. JSF fleet will cross 500,000 hours next month. Rafale is likely in the 365,000 fleet flight hour range.
Total loss and fatality rates are very much in favor of the 3 JSF variants over the Rafale Air Force and Naval variants, and there is no STOVL Rafale of course.
By the end of this year, JSF cumulative flight hours will be at around 650,000 hours with over 900 airframes delivered.
You start to recognize who phenomenally-safe the 3 JSF variants are compared to anything else out there when you do the math.
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@vincentmarchetti6388 Correct. Rafale demonstrator 1986, X-35A/B/C 2000-2001.
Production of all 3 JSF variants began in the 2000s, F-35A flew first in Dec 2006, F-35B in 2008, F-35C in 2010.
F-35B first crash 2018, mechanical failure, F-35B fleet grounded until all inspected/repaired.
F-35A crash in JADF, pilot unresponsive, dove from high altitude into the ocean at 60° angle until impact.
F-35A Eglin, 100% pilot error, pilot left the speed hold autopilot feature on at 202kts, tried to land that way.
F-35B aerial refueling incident, human error, impacted the tanker.
F-35B UK deck incident on take-off, human error with FOD.
F-35C deck crash...pilot impacted deck. Normal flight ops resumed. No grounding of F-35C fleet.
We're talking about 3 different variants in 12 different services flying from land bases, light carriers, and now super carriers for many years now.
These have been produced 3x more than the Rafale, and surpass the Rafale fleet flight hours.
But more Rafales have crashed, with 3x more fatalities. Don't mistake me, Rafale is an extremely safe set of aircraft, but barely produced in relatively small numbers.
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Biden-su is from Pennsylvania. The main reason he is affiliated with Delaware is because of his support from the Soviets through The Council for a Livable World, who funded his Senate campaign in 1972 to get as many Soviet moles into the US Senate as possible with treaty signature authority. They had the goods on Joseph Biden because he was a pedophile, so they could lean on him hard through coercion with minimum bribery payments to get him to do their bidding, rather than a Boy Scout who would require much more effort via the MICE matrix. Evidence of this? Biden’s first trip immediately after being sworn-in was to the Soviet Union in Leningrad, where he met with senior party leaders of the USSR. Their first directive to him involved killing the B-1A strategic bomber program, while helping them obtain technical data on it.
Biden came back and became the main ringleader/chearleader in the Senate working hard to kill the B-1A, which was eventually done with cooperation with the Carter WH. After they killed the B-1A, Biden flew to Moscow and met with the senior Soviet leadership for his next set of marching orders, which was a thing called SALT II treaty where the US would agree to drastic ally cut our nuclear weapons and USSR would sign the same papers, but actually ramp-up their production.
Biden has been a traitor to the US since no later than 1972, fully open to receiving bribes from the Soviets, Russians, Ukrainians, and Chinese. This has spilled out into the open over the past few years, with him openly bragging about the corruption, and the absolute incompetence of his son and brother in their inability to maintain any degree of discretion when betraying the US people.
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@CanadianPrepper It's really not. Nobody collects, analyzes, and forecasts like this. The presstitute corporate whore media drives messaging, and the "independent" online media is full of foreign disinformation and bad attempts by legacy presstitutes to adapt.
The overwhelming majority of start-up information channels don't even have a basic education in geography, history, economics, business, and industrial market structures, yet make all kinds of absolute prognostications about these events out of utter ignorance.
Then you have PhD professors and retired Generals running their mouths with ridiculous comments, getting some things right, while failing terribly with the fundamentals.
Show me anybody else who has broken down the global semiconductor industry structure, trends, and challenges in a way that both the industry professional and layman can understand in context.
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@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs So everything you just outlined is from Rules For Radicals, a Soviet front initiative to destroy the US from within. The Russians have hated the fact that the US has been a Nation where authoritarian rule isn’t a thing. It defies their very historical political framework, whether it be Ruriks vs Kievan Rus, Mongols dominating them for 250 years, Czars, Bolshevik mass-murderers, Communist Bureaucrats, or the new Kleptocracy.
As the US out-performed Russia in every metric in the 20th Century and invalidated their political-economic pillars, they seethed at the Yankees dominating the world’s economy, militaries, industries, and trade. They have a belief that because Russia is such a large country, it therefore is the best country, even though they see abject poverty surrounding them due to terrible geography and an extremely cold climate.
The US just doing its thing shows their efforts to be futile in trade, industry, economy, and military, so they have to erase the US to confirm their validity. They’ve been working hard at that since the 1930s, as soon as FDR recognized Stalin’s USSR as a legitimate political entity.
Your point about trying to get more exposure for left issues and independent left media is interesting, because leftists have dominated the media throughout the 20th Century, until people have finally wised up to the incessant lies and rejected them in pretty gargantuan numbers. This is why younger people have stopped watching ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, etc. Those were all leftist strongholds.
What you’re arguing for is for younger people to go back to the left-dominated networks of lies, propagated by Soviet active measures campaigns that co-opted US media via the CIA with Mockingbird. I don’t think many young people in working-class families are going to latch onto that failed messaging. Ignorant college kids will continue to lap it up though, but many of them are seeing through this too.
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@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs I don’t agree with socialist principles at all, because every time they’ve been tried, they have failed and resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people. Socialism flies in the face of natural law.
In Russia and Ukraine, they killed so many people during the Russian Civil War, then went on a continuous murderous purge of all the people who knew how to do important things into the 1920s. They killed the Kulaks, who were Russia’s traditional farmers that knew how to grow food. They forced the Ukrainians to harvest wheat in their farmlands while being starved to death in what is known as the Holodomor.
Cambodia, Cuba, and Venezuela all have suffered under socialism/communism as well. China murdered even more than the Russians did, with death tolls that make WWII look small.
For “the common good”, China instituted the One Child Policy for 35 years, murdering infants as a matter of state policy to the point that China now is in demographic collapse.
Have you ever studied Karl Marx the person? His life was an abject failure. If anyone looked at his personal life, they would never take him seriously. His ideas are a cancer.
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@msaar1303 None of those nations have anywhere close to the US population. First thing about statistics is the larger the observed population is, the larger the standard deviation will be, and each metric will average lower.
Also, the OECD metrics are faulty, not scientific at all.
EMS, dentistry, wait times for Healthcare, and Healthcare options are superior on the US, so they ignore that and switch to costs. Of course better Healthcare costs more, especially when you're also footing the bill for research and development for countries who buy at bulk rates from you because they can't afford retail prices.
This makes pricing even higher in the US because so much of modern Healthcare systems are funded by US programs-not all, but most. Europe and Canada have many similar studies, research, etc, but nowhere near the capacity of the US to do it.
Just look at how many MD, nursing, radiology, specialist, and EMS programs and universities there are in the US compared to all of Europe.
Same with airfields/airports. US has over 14,000.
Most of the medical advancements happen because of defense, which is why I start with defense as an interesting metric from which to branch out from.
If you haven't heard this argument before, it shows you've been operating in an echo chamber reinforcing common beliefs that I see as erroneous and unscientific.
I have used the Finnish NHS, taken several family members in it to appointments or walk-ins, and it reminds me of the US VA system-not as good as the private sector.
Not terrible, but not exceptional or oriented towards high quality patient care. I know what that looks like, and it isn't in any NHS.
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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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@cm-pr2ys For Class As, who cares. For duty uniform, they should be battle focused training-oriented, no patches, badges, tabs, etc. Berets are gay. They have zero use in the field and suck to wear in garrison, whether it be any season of the year. (I was in 4 different Airborne units). Suggesting the wearing of berets in the field is no bueno. Everyone is wearing NODs at night, and has been for decades in Infantry and SOF units.
Airborne should really only be for smaller units with individual Commando Companies for each Infantry Battalion.
The Army cares more about badges and flair than actual training, so the badges will only proliferate so that all the millennial leadership can receive and hand-out awards for participation, the same way they were raised.
Garritroopers will continue to rule the organization and purge actual dudes with deployment experience, which has been going on for years already. Nothing like an officer or senior NCO with no deployment experience or invalid deployment experience feeling insecure in the company of those who can actually train soldiers with battle focused experience. They hate that.
This and many other factors are why I enjoyed doing OPFOR so much. Brutalizing these retards who think they have some fighting chance because they’re wearing a uniform. They just expected to win by showing up, without having done any relevant training. Hilarious!
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@michaelh878 NATO nations had been ignoring their defense Minister requests for the appropriate budget for decades. Defense is seen as a disease by many weak-minded and uneducated people in European Parliaments, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union.
They still kept their heads in the sand after the rise of Putin, his nuclear forces revitalization program (assisted by Obama/Clinton/Biden with Uranium One), his invasion of South Ossetia and Georgia, and adventurism in Dagestan and Chechnya.
Their wake-up call was 2014 when Putin invaded Donetsk and Luhansk, while annexing Crimea.
It wasn't just Trump reminding them about their failure to meet NATO commitments for their own defense budgets, but their reliance on Russian Oil/NG.
He tried to get the joint Canadian-US Keystone XL pipeline online, but front group lawsuits stalled it, then Biden killed it day 1 in office, sending oil back to over $100/bbl, which generates huge revenue for Russia.
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@jacobdewey2053 There are USAF, RAF, and USMC Air Wings that have more experience doing dispersed operations than the entire Swedish Air Force, including in actual combat. Hot re-arm/refuel, FARPs, NBC, incoming rockets and artillery, suicide bombers, and commando raids have all been a reality for US/NATO dispersed fighter squadrons for generations. The large force training exercises are run to exceed the stress and OPTEMPO of the real events so that air crew and pilots are already acclimated to those types of combat conditions. When was the last time you saw a Swedish Air Force ground crew service a Gripen while wearing MOPP suits, as SCUDs or rockets were incoming, or savages or NVA sappers were detonating themselves with SVIEDs or satchel charges inside the perimeter? People take for granted all the combat experience American and NATO forces have experienced for the past 60 years. They act like the US and NATO don’t know anything about their jobs, even after demonstrating outstanding and unprecedented competence in this partially space, then put a nation with zero combat experience on a pedestal as if they are the ones to emulate. It’s very illogical and farcical.
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Hillary has been receiving money from hostile foreign governments dating back to the 1980s.
When Bill was Governor of Arkansas, they had one of the senior Rose Law Firm partners fly to Switzerland 12-20x per year dropping classified materials from the NSA in safe deposit boxes in a bank in Chiasso. In return, millions of dollars were accumulated in 3 accounts at that bank for Bill, Hillary, and their close attorney friend.
This was still going on during the first 6 months of the Clinton Presidency in 1993.
The NSA and FBI had this attorney under surveillance, and seized the money from all 3 accounts in early July, 1993.
This attorney was the Deputy WH Counsel by then, and was indicted for espionage.
On July 19, 1993, Clinton fired the FBI Director (who refused to halt this and 13 other investigations into the Clintons). The following day, the body of the indicted attorney was found in a DC area park on the Virginia side.
His name was Vince Foster....
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I fundamentally disagree with Peter’s perspective on this interview overall, but he’s right about American myopia. Our legacy media has us hyper-focused on one subject at a time, then forgets it and moves on to the next thing. Public school breaks down lessons into 45 min blocks so you really only skim over subjects, instead of diving into them. We are an attention-deficit society that lacks focus in general. When we do become focused under crises or rare, great leadership, we are a formidable powerhouse that has dramatically changed the power dynamics of the world in regions thousands of miles away from us. The British, Spaniards, Germans, French, Russians, Turks, and Japanese have seethed at that power we wield. All of those former empires except the Russians are now our allies and trade partners, heavily-reliant on our security and foreign military sales.
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@crosslink1493 The problem is a lot of those people in the State Dept and WH are idiots who are appointed based on political kick-backs and who they’re related to. DC is very incestuous with the elite classes who live in an administrative state that begets more bureaucracy. This current WH has the youngest staffers ever in history on the economic council, for example. CIA was populated with 200 Russian double agents when it was formed in 1947, from the OSS days.
State Dept weenies and department heads come from Harvard finishing clubs (secret clubs), while CIA are mainly from Yale historically with their societies as well. These are blue bloods who groom their children to maintain the old order of European-based finance elites leveraging positions within USG to further European goals. The Russians did the same thing as much as they could dating back to the Czar, but since Russia has almost no trade with the US due to their geographic isolation, they have focused more on espionage, political subversion, and planting as many people within key levers in US society to protect their interests.
So the State Dept and CIA were filled with Russian moles dating way back. When the US formed the CIA in 1947, the Russians had already been tapping diplomatic cables since the early 1900s and reading all of our communications between the President, foreign ministers of other nations, and related nodes in the geopolitical web around the world.
They also propped up multiple political action organizations to get politicians elected who would do their bidding, especially on nuclear armament affairs because of the US’s dominance in that space. They watched us nuke Japan twice unilaterally, and always have feared that we could do the same to them if things got kinetic between us. That’s why they financed a pedophiles hopeless bid for the Senate in Delaware in 1972, along with 420 other Congressmen since 1962. He’s now sitting in his excrement-filled diaper drooling on himself in the WH, surrounded by Marxists in his senior cabinet positions and staff.
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Obama was habitually an absentee President who saw the job as beneath him, with his vast experience at Baskin and Robbins and a CIA front company to lean on.
He let Hillary, Biden, and Valerie Jarrett run amok. State Dept always wants to throw their weight around, and since they were all taking bribes from China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Saudis, etc. they gave allowances to all of the above.
Putin funneled $363 million into the Clinton Global Initiative, for example. It's just a coincidence that Obama, Hillary, and Biden fast-tracked Putin's access to Uranium One mining rights in the US and Canada.
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Russian intelligentsia doesn’t take anyone else’s ideas seriously. They see themselves as the biggest, the best, and believe that about themselves in most ways, regardless of the facts. They laugh at anyone else’s opinions of them because most Westerners have no real knowledge or cultural awareness of Russia and Russians. You could tell them highly-informed information collected from all sorts of reliable sources, and they will turn their noses up and dismiss it, even if it’s critical to their survival. If they did collect and process intelligence correctly, they wouldn’t have done something this stupid. Same with Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, etc.
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@mattthemouse1 Lockheed doesn’t make the components and subsystems for F-35s though. They’re a finally assembler and the design lead contractor who won the prime. Lockheed doesn’t make 5th Gen turbofans, landing gear, the AESA, the ejection seat, canopy, FLCS, much of the BMI skins, IPP, or just about any of the subsystems you can name.
A lot of them are made all over the world as well with the initial 8 partner nations who coughed up token seed money for RDT&E or industrial share buy-in, even though the US taxpayer foot most of the $62 billion developmental budget for 3 different airframes (which meets the typical $20 billion/airframe trend in US fighters).
If you really want to see spares scheduling foul-ups, hand it over to the DoD.
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The Senior Russian missile forces Generals have assured Putin that everything is working perfectly! They also assured him that victory in Ukraine would be sure and swift, hence the naming of the SMO for its lightning-quick plan that would make Hitler’s blitzkrieg look weak in comparison. They started from strategic encirclement of Ukraine, so there was no way they couldn’t win! 843 days later.....you see why Putin can’t afford to find out if his nukes actually work. If he fires one and it it fails, Russia’s clout on the global sphere of influence will be even more of a laughing stock. If it works, he will be nuked personally, as will the Kremlin, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Murmansk, Ekaterinburg, Novorossiysk, Rostov-on-Don, etc. This is why Putin’s hands are tied. His Bishops, Knights, Rooks, and Queen are merely pons.
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@julianhermanubis6800 He ridiculed people for believing in the "Mafia myth", while secretly partying poolside with mob bosses in Vegas.
He amassed power over 48 years as the Director of an unconstitutional secret police, compiling an extensive and illegal collection of files on prominent people throughout society, including Presidents, Congressmen, Governors, Chiefs of Police, businessmen, actors, political activists, and mayors.
They did this under the guise of anti-communism, while being co-opted by the Soviets out of the gate when the Bureau was founded.
The Bureau has been an unmitigated catastrophe for the US, resulting in close to a century of unconstitutional secret police activities directed mostly against the innocent, while covering for the guilty-as long as they increase their power.
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@pieter-bashoogsteen2283 I lived through it all. We moved to West Germany in 1980 to assist with the development of the "future fighter 1990", which became the ECA and then Typhoon.
Europeans voted in women and male feminists who not only hated defense, but loathed themselves.
The multinational engineering teams comprised of Germans, Brits, Italians, Spaniards, and French rarely could agree on anything. The French quickly saw that the other nations weren't going to support their Carrier- borne variant demands or manufacturing share, so the French left the program and developed the Rafale.
To this day, they still have not installed AESA Radars into the NATO typhoons.
Once you see the conundrum of the multinational consortiums, with their ethno-linguistic silos, you see how those programs are kind of doomed.
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@atomicskull6405 US Army wanted a slow-speed armed escort for airmobile units. A-1 Skyraider couldn’t carry the weapons needed to bust armored AAA platforms, and the A-7D could but was too fast for re-attack, so a new light attack aircraft was solicited. USAF never wanted or needed it as you said, and the US Army really didn’t after they got AH-64 Apache. USAF tried to divest themselves of the A-10 after that in the late 1980s, but then Desert Storm came along and several units weaseled their way into the ATO. They got grounded several days into the air war after losing 6 of them, and that was just with the “lower threat” down south. They were unsurvivable against SA-6, MANPADS, AAA, and mobile SAM platforms used by Iraq, which the USAF already knew beforehand-hence the desire to get rid of them.
Once F-16Cs, Harriers, Jaguars, and Hornets attrited the mobile IADS threats in Kuwait, the A-10A was then allowed to get back into the Air Taskings Order and start providing coordinated close support for advancing armor units, as well as exploring a little forward to take out TGTs of opportunity.
The F-111F killed more tanks in roughly 25% of the sorties that A-10As flew in ODS, and did that all at night.
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@marsmotion DoD programs are some of the only ones that are audited and often by 3-4 different agencies. For example, you have the GAO, program oversight directors, SAR, and CBO. None of these entities report relevant or timely reports to Congress because it takes them 8 months to 1yr to collect and compile their data, which is outdated before they even organize it.
They also ignore the service data, which is accurate and relevant.
For example, in this video, Alex refers to the F-35 program forecasted total cost projection at $2 Trillion, which is rounded up from $1.7T, which is an exaggeration of $1.5T, which was a false projection up from $1.3T over the entire life of the program that nobody really knows how much it will cost.
In the DOT&E reports, if you read through them, they're using assumptions from the F-16 O&M to forecast F-35 O&M.
F-35A CPFH is far lower than advertised, and is dramatically-easier to maintain than F-16C/D, so the forecasts can't be accurate. Also requires fewer people to maintain, and doesn't have hydrazine HAZMAT requirements like the F-16 does.
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@davidfirmino3829 The US has been lifting up and bailing out other nations militarily, economically, and industrially.
England, France, Belgium from 1914-1918
Russia, China, England, France, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Austria were bailed out militarily from 1940-1945.
Germany and Japan were re-built and industrialized further with full US support after the war, while the US loaned billions to Europe to re-build.
Post-War, the US helped all kinds of nations with industry, monetary loans, transportation hubs, engineering, shipping, airports, universities, hospitals, canals, military equipment, etc.
South Korea, Philippines, Egypt, Greece....it would be easier to list the nations the US didn't help.
Computing, satellites, GPS, internet, free trade, increases in agricultural efficiency, air transport...all US technologies shared with the world.
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@gunguru7020 You can even go with less chamber pressure and generate 3400fps muzzle velocity from 12” barrel 6.5 Grendel with a lighter bullet. We know even the 6.8x51 doesn’t penetrate Level IV at 100m, but does only at close range, so the baseline expectation of it to penetrate hard armor at 600m has not been met and was exempted year ago. That was the basis for most of the ballistic requirements of the program, which then set the magazine, rifle, and LMG weights and configurations. The whole program is literally flawed because the people who specified and are running are incompetent. This is no surprise, because big Army has not been able to solicit, select, develop, or manage a successful rifle program since the M1 Garand.
M1 Garand “Great success”
M14 Massive failure
SPIW Massive failure
ACR Failed
OICW Failed
ISCR Failed (7.62 NATO redux battle rifle)
NGSW Colossal failure across the board
Now look at USAF rifle history:
Used what the Army did, namely M1 & M2 Carbines for Security Police in the 1950s
AR-15 adoption driven by Curtis Le May for SPs after US Army Ordnance declared it wholly unfit for US service rifle use
Special Forces, Airborne, Airmobile, and Commonwealth Special Forces Units quickly adopted it in the early-mid 1960s (UK SAS, Canadanion Recce/SOF, Australian SAS, New Zealand SAS)
Then look at JSOC history:
XM177E2s Colt 653s M16A1/M203s from 1977-1985
Colt 723s from 1984 to 1993, introduction of Aimpoints and Surefires, Ops Inc Suppressors, SR-25s
M4A1 from 1994-2004, more LPVOs, newer LAMs, better lights, slings, suppressors, newer SR-25s, rails, FF RAS, MRE, better sniper optics, Thermals
Hk 416s from 2005, more optics, better LPVOs, smaller/higher output WPLs, newer suppressors, SR-25 ECC, better optics
KAC AMG belt-fed constant-recoil LMGs
6mm ARC DMRs with newer optics and accessories
US Army has proven they can’t define, select, manage, or develop appropriate weapons systems even for its own infantry, combat support, and support troops, even with the biggest Army budget in the world, with help from the other services. Therefore, small arms development for individual service weapons like rifles, carbines, and pistols should not be driven by the US Army anymore. They’ve had over a century to get it right with all the resources one could imagine, and still failed.
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@NareshSinghOctagon There were 2 production rifles and an upper receiver interim upgrade before the AR-15/M16 was dialed-in:
Colt 601 Green Rifles, which were fine firing the original stick powder ammunition. SF and ARVN Rangers loved these.
Colt 602 Black Rifles. These had major failures in maintaining dimensional specs in chambers, so when they were fed the ball propellant ammunition (developed without involvement of Stoner and the AR-15 design team from ArmaLite), they suffered serious malfunctions like case head separations, excessive cyclic rates causing FTFeed, and corroded quickly due to lack of cleaning supplies.
Army and USMC tried to band-aid the 602 with uppers that had forward assist on them, which didn’t really help. That was XM16E1.
It wasn’t until the feedback from all the failures of 602s and XM16E1s came in that the Army began a program to correct the weapon. Coincidentally, this aligned with the Ichord Subcommittee hearings and the Colt 603 (M16A1) was on its way to being specified, type-classified, and mass-produced.
M16A1 was and still is a very reliable weapon that suffers none of the silliness that happened with the original rifles. The core of the M16A1 with its BCG, recoil spring, and buffer were duplicated in the M16A2.
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@rethguals We said the same thing, but it was a baseline at least to measure different areas of functional fitness. Push-ups help with being able to get out of the prone and IMT. The run was good for cardio. The sit-ups were injurious to your back if you did them fast enough to knock-out 92 in 2 minutes.
In Infantry, we also did pull-ups, CWST, and 12-mile ruck marches quite often, so there was the APFT and then the practical things we did. Donning rucks in Weapons Squad, Mortars, RTOs, and anyone who had an especially-heavy ruck had a dead-lift type practical demand.
I felt there should be a Combat Physical Fitness test with LCE, Helmet, weapon, with sprints, obstacles, dummy drags, and fireman carries. We did a lot of that stuff though just as part of unit culture and training, including no-warning stress fires along the way during surprise 12-mile road marches.
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@rethguals I was in 7 different units ranging from Light Infantry (Air Assault) to Airborne Infantry and Long Range Surveillance. I noticed that our weekly PT schedules were very similar between the Light and Airborne units.
Monday was a 3-mile fast-paced run followed by upper body, tons of push-ups.
Tuesday would be 5 mile run followed by lower body and pull-ups.
Wednesday would be sprints, followed by dips/upper body.
Thursday was always Road March day followed by combatives and rig-ex in Airborne units.
Friday was long run day for endurance, often 6-8mi run, one time 10 miler surprise.
In Recon Platoons, we did PT 2x/day if we were in garrison, so the PT standards were much higher and enforced. You had to have 290 and above and 290 was considered a dirtbag performance to shame you. They really expected 300+ extended scale.
In the field, we rucked everywhere if there wasn’t trans coordinated for trucks, so we often rucked 20km/12mi per day just in mostly admin modes to get from one range to another, or to relocate for the next iteration of training. In Recon units, we rucked a lot farther and carried everything to sustain ourselves, sometimes augmented with buried caches.
I enjoyed that environment really, as we were always moving and being outdoors. The thought of sitting at a desk was just not compatible with my physique and physiology at the time. The only instances where I would do so was to borrow the PL’s desk for typing up awards for my soldiers.
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Let me get this straight: This guy has what appear to now be over 50 formal complaints of making threats, physical violence, felonious social media posts, FL DCS investigations, FBI investigations, setting off every red flag and legal remedy victims could apply, then the police were ordered not to do anything every time and during the murder spree in the soft target kill zone with thousands of potential victims....therefore the logical conclusion is to pass more laws? But trust us, we'll make a super duper, triple dog dare you, no slap-backs, no twosies ultimate law that will prevent this from ever happening again.
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One problem with your premise though is that the Nation with the biggest budget developed drones of all types and has been working on them feverishly since WWII. It’s the only Nation that has everything from unmanned reusable re-entry vehicle drones that run lengthy space missions and high altitude/high endurance ISR drones, down to handheld micro drones deployed by soldiers....in addition to the thousands of fighters in its Air Force, Navy, and Marines, surface warfare vessels, super carriers, amphibious assault/light helicopter deck carriers, nuclear submarines, attack submarines, heavy lift transports, tanks, APCs, attack helicopters, etc.
The little nation with a minuscule defense budget stands no chance against such a Nation.
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@daweima7670 I'm a business major who has been in all kinds of businesses for decades, and have lived in South Korea, Japan, and all over Europe. I deal with suppliers, buyers, and retailers all the time.
In the US, I've been calling for critical domestic manufacturing of energy grid products, tools, construction supplies, home builder components, automotive components, and appliances for decades.
I don't want to see any of that made in China anymore, especially after Xi called for people's war against the US.
I'm also very concerned about housing affordability for my kids and grandkids. Right now, real estate is absolutely inflated by about 40% relative to median household income.
Companies have been profiting off US products, moving their manufacturing to China, and we've lost 10% of the middle class as a result. Look at what % of the US was middle class in 1971 vs today.
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Yup. S&L Scandal was a front for laundering cocaine money coming in from Columbia, through Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, CA, etc. Governor Clinton worked with Bush41 even when he was still VP, on the smuggling operation. The main CIA hub for air transport was built outside of Mena, where they retrofitted aircraft and flew weapons down into Honduras and Nicaragua, brought cocaine back by the pallet loads.
Bush41 said Clinton was like another son to him. Clintons had their own part of S&L scandals with Whitewater $ laundering, as well as the Arkansas Development & Finance Authority in the public sector.
It was all for laundering illicit money.
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There are school shootings, mass murders, and similar events all over the world with far greater death tolls. The US doesn’t even factor into the top 15 mass murders at schools in the past 120 years.
1. Chile 1907, 2000 murdered by the Army
2. Beslan Russia, 2004, 333 murdered, 783 wounded
3. Dhaka Pakistan, 1971, over 300 murdered by the Army
4. Chenkalady Sri Lanka, 1990, 158 murdered by the Army
5. Peshawar school, 2014, 149 murdered by Taliban in Pakistan
6. Garissa, Kenya, 2015, 148 murdered by al-Shabaab
7. Kabul School bombing, 2021, 90 murdered
8. Nagerkovil school bombing (Sri Lanka), 1995, 71 murdered, 150 injured by Sri Lankan Air Force bombing
9. Walisango School Massacre, Indonesia, 2000, 70 murdered by Catholic militants
10. Kyanguli School Arson, Kenya, 67 burned alive by 2 school students
11. Buni Yada School Nigeria, 2014, 59 boys murdered and 24 school buildings burned down
12. Thammasat University Massacre, Thailand, 1976, 46+ murdered, 167 injured by Thai Police and paramilitary
13. Chenkolai Bombing, 2006, 61 girls killed by Sri Lankan Air Force
14. Aleppo Artillery School massacre, Syria, 1979, 50-83 cadets killed by Muslim Brotherhood
15. Bahr El-Baqar School bombing, Egypt, 1970, 46 killed by Israeli Air Force
16. Bath Michigan School bombing happened in 1927, using dynamite and a truck bomb killing 45 and wounding 58
Look at how many other nations have massacres where the Army or police or terrorists are involved. That’s when you see really high death toll of the innocent. US is also #3 largest population on earth, but doesn’t even factor into the worst school massacres until you go back to 1927.
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The USAF never ordered the F-15EX. It was forced on them by acting SECDEF Shanahan and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith. What do those 2 people have in common? Shanahan, who was fired for conflict of interests, was a career 31yr Boeing executive who handled marketing and sales of several different fleets of aircraft. Adam Smith is from Seattle, where Boeing has had a major industrial hub for decades but mainly for their commercial airline assembly at the Everett facility. Guess who butters Adam Smith’s bread?
USAF immediately sent the F-15EX into Red Flag Alaska after it was ready to fly, and it was shot down repeatedly as anyone would expect from a 4th Gen fighter. The main reason the F-15EX is a thing is to maintain a fighter production line open in Saint Louis, which was historically McDonnell Douglas’s main fighter plant, where production of the F-4, F-15, F/A-18, and Super Hornet was/is.
F-15EX does not have greater range or loiter than the F-35A, nor does it have more A2A payload. When configured, it doesn’t have the same take-off or climb rate either. F-15EX is about the same price as a Gripen E and Super Hornet, which is more than an F-35A by tens of millions of dollars, especially when you throw in EPAWSS, CFTs, pylons, EFTs, and IRST-21.
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@seanbailey1901 The USAF has been trying to retire the A-10 for decades because it's a single mission set platform that can't get to the fight very quickly, and isn't survivable even in a 1970s SAM/AAA threat environment.
It had to be grounded in Desert Storm because so many were shot down or hit by SAMs and AAA.
The billions we've spent on the A-10 could have gone towards more capable, survivable airframes, but guys like John McCain intervened and kept the A-10 alive.
I like the A-10, but it just is a limited asset with limited survivability and limited force projection in a timely manner, for a lot of organizational costs in training and manning that would be better served in a multirole platform.
A mix of F-16Cs and F-16XLs would have been better, with A-10 money going to F-16XLs. XL has way more station time, range, and payload for CAS, and could still swing to deep strike, hit multiple TGT sets on a single sortie, and do A2A.
The A-10 was purposely handicapped in speed so it could fly armed escort for airmobile ops. The AH-64 Apache has had that covered since the 1980s, so the A-10's niche roll was filled.
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@CloudC-kj6kt Whatever you do, don't look at PLAAF safety record. You will be shocked and ashamed at how often J-10s, J-11s, J-8s, J-7s, etc. crash, explode in the air, fall apart, crash into villages, or into mountain sides. They have a horrible safety record. PLN is not capable of flying cyclic operations like US Navy. They're a total joke in comparison. So is PLAAF when it comes to safety. PLAAF is so bad, I can tell you when the next J-10 will crash this year (Sep-Nov, there will be a crash).
Oct 21, 2021: J-10S crashed
Oct 5, 2020: J-10 crashed
Sep 4, 2020: J-10 crashed
Oct 14, 2019: J-10 crashed
Oct 18, 2018: J-10S crashed, 2 fatalities
Nov 12, 2016: J-10S crashed, 1 fatality
Dec 17, 2015: J-10SH crashed
Nov 19, 2015: J-10A crashed, 1 fatality
Sep 19, 2015: J-10 crashed
Nov 15, 2014: J-10S crashed
April 22, 2010: J-10 crashed, 1 fatality
Aug 1, 2009: J-10A crashed
Mar 7, 2009: J-10A engine failure
Dec 17, 2007: J-10A crashed
July, 2005: J-10A crashed, pilot killed
Would you like me to list the 105 incidents with the Su-27/J-11/Su-30/Su-35 series of Flankers?
Chengdu F-7(J-7) crashes as a feature. 18 of them have crashed in the past few years. Total piece of trash death trap.
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@janickpauwels3792 Suggesting we shoot refugees is a hyperbole argument. The question is, do member states submit to a foreign body to dictate to them how and where refugees will be sent? Just because you have MPs of the EU Parliament doesn't mean your country won't be overridden by all the other member states. This is a fundamental flaw in EU, when it transformed from an economic union into a supranational entity.
I've lived through all of this and watched it unfold. Yes, the Euro was benchmarked off of the Deutschmark, which just got renamed the Euro. That's the history of the Euro currency. That put Germany in the driver seat for economic policy and ECB, because they wanted to extend their lending standards to strong economies around them. EU/Euro ended up being a double-edged sword for them because then they had to extend the same lending standards to nations with terrible credit ratings and unstable economies.
By using the name-calling of "Brexitard", while not understanding the fundamental political and economic forces or history here, it doesn't look good for you.
I'm not from the UK, but I have EU citizenship through Finland. I'm just pointing out legitimate issues that member states have. Many in Finland have suffered due to adopting the Euro, while Noway and Sweden were smart to keep Kroners.
Now you're tied to an economic center that has entered demographic winter. There isn't a bright future for Europe. That's over, sadly.
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@aleksandrs1422 The Ruble was about 24-29 to the US dollar at the time. I stayed in Saint Petersburg, Pushkino, Moscow, and Obninsk, so I saw a lot of different areas. You really needed a car to shop at Globus. Globus was a German department store that was focused on food, but also had a travel agency, dining room items, furniture maybe, and household goods.
The ruble is now 103 to the USD.
I have also lived in Germany and Japan. They are different worlds. Strangely, Russia reminded me more of Korea for some reason. I found it far more Asiatic than expected, mainly because of the effects of 250 years of Mongol rule still not washing off yet.
But people in Russia were generally very poor, and relied on weird hidden schemes and alternate methods of revenue just to get by, even with energy and food prices deflated by the government.
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Finland’s 5.5 million up well above 60 degrees north latitude, with long winters and 188,000 lakes, sharing a massive border with Russia, does not even remotely face or solve our toughest issues in the US. Two totally different geographies, climates, genetics, cultures, living styles, languages, and basically every metric for how you would measure a nation or society.
This is why any comparison between tiny Finland up on top of the earth, and the 3rd largest population in the world in the temperate zone with better coastlines than any other nation, connected river networks, huge mountain ranges, etc. doesn’t even make the least bit of sense.
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@you6382tube Geography and climate determine culture. Policies are wishlist ideas from people who aren't educated about the core fundamentals, and spin their wheels crying about what they can't have.
This isn't off in the weeds, but at the heart of the real numbers. For example:
Finland has 188,000 lakes of very clean fresh water that are frozen over during the long winters.
Finns are the offspring of centuries of tough people who survived each winter. The weak ones died and didn't get to reproduce until modern luxuries like indoor plumbing, electricity, and heating.
Finland has access to the sea with half the border being coastline, but no mountain ranges. If you look at it in detail on a map, you will see the glacial recession finger lake topography everywhere.
Now take Wisconsin with roughly the same population (5.8 million vs 5.5m Finland), a bit colder climate, partially on the Great Lakes. It has a higher GDP, more EMS and hospital infrastructure, more Life Flight Helicopters, more Doctors, nurses, pharmacies, specialty clinics, dentists, etc.
Would you tell Wisconsin they should be more like Finland?
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@terriej123 So more EMS equals more sickness in your view, not more infrastructure? Median household income is dramatically higher in Wisconsin, and most people are on private insurance through their employers, with greater access to more medical/dental services.
You have to ask why that system works better, after Finns are taxed so heavily for NHS.
Air Ambulances are used to save lives, whether they're car accident victims, kids choking, falling injuries, poisonings, farming accidents, outdoor recreation accidents, etc.
Finns don't own anywhere near as many automobiles because of the price of gas, taxes, and public transportation.
Wisconsin has 860 automobiles/1000 people.
Finland is unusually high in Europe at 790/1000. Germany is only 628, while Sweden is only 545.
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@Red_Sector_7 It roughly matches the F-35A’s internal fuel capacity if you attach the CFTs, but will be limited in supersonic speed due to area ruling. If you look at the CFTs though, they have really optimized them for as much speed as they can get, with the bulk up front as not to impede on the volumetric displacement of the fuselage wing mid-section. The Super Hornet and Hornet are already well-known for being really slow with acceleration, bleed energy quickly at altitude, and don’t dash well through Mach for missile kinematics. These were the compromises for making an airframe more ideal for controllable glide slope and responsive inputs for carrier landings at relatively slower approach speeds to help reduce landing mishaps, which are a huge consideration for the Navy.
The new engine module upgrades planned for Block 4 F-35s will increase the already impressive combat radius and endurance of the F-35A, which is better than even the F-15C with 2 tanks and the F-15E with CFTs and 2 tanks.
As far as ordnance, they both have about the same, though the F-35A can carry 250lbs more ordnance across 11 points. For the NORAD patrol and intercept mission, heavy weapons count isn’t a factor.
F/A-18E/F Max Ordnance/Load: 17,750lb
F-35A: 18,000lbs
Supersonic dash goes to F-35A.
Situational awareness goes to F-35A.
Thrust/Weight goes to F-35A.
AESA radar capability: APG-81 smokes the APG-79 in TRM count, integrated cooling with the internal fuel mass, modes, systems integration with all the other sensors
IR sensors: F-35A has EOTS integrated into the nose and with the 6 DAS His Res IR cameras embedded in the airframe, fused with the AESA and RF sensor suite.
F-35A makes a lot more sense just looking at the metrics that are really important for Canada.
The only thing that really comes to mind for me is the Super Hornet’s impressive Air-to-Air magazine depth with the option to carry 10x BVRAAM and 2 IR missiles, but that’s more for a fighter vs fighter in a 4th Gen BVR exchange.
An F-35A with 6 missiles is far more lethal than a Super Hornet with 10. PK is higher with VLO intercepts.
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@humbuggaming2126 GaN TRMs allow better electron mobility than GaAs, which means better beam sharpening, detection range, and return signal sensitivity. The Gripen E still will not see the F-35 or F-22 from any meaningful range with it, because of RCS values being so tiny. The largest, most powerful AESA in service right now is the APG-63(V)3, but it still does not have the practical performance of the APG-77 and APG-81 due to systems integration built into the airframes and sensor architecture of the F-22A and JSF, especially when it comes to cooling. They are very tight-lipped about what they have done in the F-15C+ in that regard, so we just don’t have a lot of indicative open source on it. However, F-15C+ pilots have said several times that they have no SA in BVR against the F-22A and JSF, and the WVR in a Fox 2 -9X JHMCS fight, they can’t get the helmet or missile seeker to acquire the 5th Gen fighters. GaN is an incremental step in trying to get better detection range, but still not good enough for a number of reasons. Same with the IRST. Gripen E IRST is supposed to be world-class, but still can’t get meaningful detection range or PID at usable ranges.
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@humbuggaming2126 Gripen E is distant to F-22 & F-35. Saab doesn't have the market cornered on digital EW suites. Literally everybody is using them. US, UK, France, China, Russia, Germany, Italy, and Japan all have plenty of talent in this field.
The F-35 & F-22 have vastly-superior EW capabilities compared with anything 4.5 Gen.
If you look at the RF sensor count, waveform lengths of the distributed RF antennae, and how they're fused through layered/redundant CNI banks with the AESA and other subsystems like high data throughput LPI datalinks, you would need a clean paper design to try to keep up with them.
Gripen E has some excellent podded features and select RF antennae using GaN transmit-receive semiconductors with copycat fused systems architecture, but is lacking several critical design and total count aspects that still leave a large gap between it and 5th Gen.
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@humbuggaming2126 When you read US critical internal audits of the JSF fleet, that includes:
* LRIP 1-14 Aircraft
* USMC F-35B
* USAF F-35A including all the training squadron birds at Luke, Test & Eval birds at Edwards, weapons test at Eglin
* USN F-35C test, training, and NAWDC birds
Even when you isolate the USAF F-35A fleet, you have over 100 birds built before 3i and later lots. There were structural and RAM changes during that time.
Lot 14 F-35As are much less costly to maintain, but we never get a breakdown of the operational squadrons CPFH averages separate from the fleet.
On top of all that, you don't ever see Cost Per Effects. 4 F-35As are capable of doing things that 24 legacy aircraft are not.
We also don't see combined CPFH of the Gripen E, F, and GlobalEye force structure because there is limited data as these are new systems with no established record of costs and mx.
Instead, we constantly see the Gripen C cherry-picked CPFH of $4700, without any explanation of ancillary systems costs, mission profiles flown, duration of the CPFH analysis, etc.
Was that with ATFLIR pods and were they excluded from the CPFH analysis? What about the Recce pod costs to operate and maintain?
What is the difference in costs between Gripen C and Gripen E operation and mx?
Without a uniform effects-based analysis, CPFH is really meaningless.
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@humbuggaming2126 The only time Gripen C/D were Red Air was Red Flag AK 2006. There were no F-22A Fighter Squadrons attending RF 2006, only F-15C, F-16C, A-10A, F-15E, Predator, etc.
For Red Flag 08-3, Gripens were part of Blue Air Strike packages, and no F-22A units were in attendance.
So if no F-22 units were at either Red Flag when Gripens were there, where are you getting these claims about F-22 not being able to track Gripen? The only people who know what they see and track are within the F-22, and they never talk about these things.
EW capabilities in the F-35 exceed that of any 4.5 Gen due to the quantity of sensors and antennae, processing power, and higher throughput data sharing between multi-ships.
EW techniques are constantly evolving, and JSF has turned the EW community on its head. EW has always been a focus in the US since the 1950s, and we've been at the cutting edge of it because of all the threats we've actually had to face.
Whoever says the F-35 doesn't have fusion is a complete ignoramus, as it literally is the defining system of fusion that the entire military aerospace industry has been talking about.
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@kurousagi8155 I'll have to pull it up for you. Just had it yesterday on my desktop. South Africa can't even maintain more than half of their tiny fleet of Gripen C/Ds. But in the same breath we're told it only costs $4700 per flight hour. None of that adds up. Those of us who have been flying for many years know AvGas isn't cheap.
Then look at the A-10's CPFH at $19,376. It has no radar, no digital flight controls, low power turbofans, no IRST, extremely limited ECM, no supersonic capability, very simple controls, empty tube airframe, but we're to believe that the Gripen with all its systems costs 1/4th of an A-10? These numbers being thrown around by Saab are meant for people who don't have any relevant reference experience to digest them. On one of the Gripen history and development sites, they said, "The difference between marketing and sales is that sales knows they're lying."
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@humbuggaming2126 Do the research on total loss mishap rates of every single fighter over the last 50 years. JSF series is the only one that never lost a prototype, and went 10 years into production before an F-35B crashed due to an improperly installed fuel tube.
If you're claiming that it is inherently an unsafe aircraft, then you obviously have zero experience or knowledge about fighter mishap rates, because 2 of the fighters being replaced by the JSF series experienced 100 total losses with 20 fatalities on their first 10 years of service.
It's a much easier to fly, easier to land, and far safer aircraft than the underpowered, stall-prone, AOA-limited, buggy DFLCS, and limited SA in the Gripen.
Go look how many Gripens have had major issues with stalls, PIO, DFLCS problems, refusing to respond to pilot input, and even an uncommanded ejection due to G-suit inflation working the election handle loose.
Its mishap history reads like an amateur 3rd world country trying to develop a fighter, very disappointing.
I suspect that's why Sweden just outsourced the Gripen E ejection seat to Martin Baker in the UK.
Keep in mind that Gripen's mishap rate of total losses is for 271 aircraft, while the F-35A has been built already in far larger numbers, with far fewer total losses and mishaps. It's one of the main things I first noticed about the whole JSF program compared to what we saw with AV-8, F-14, F-16, & F/A-18.
There are well over 600 JSF now with only 4 crashes after 300,000 flight hours.
271 Gripens with 8 crashes is not a good place to bring up mishap rates from, especially with all the strange causes for those crashes that should have been eliminated in a competent test program.
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@phillip_iv_planetking6354 The US has been using Swedish Bofors steel cannon barrels, and anti-tank systems for many decades. If you ever get a chance to handle any of their small arms, even dating back to the Ljungman, they are high quality, comparable with Swiss-made rifles.
Take the Swedish AK5 licensed variant of the FN FNC as an example. It’s a very well-made weapon. I’m not a fan of the design, but the quality of workmanship is excellent.
Back to aerospace. Their SAAB AESA in the Gripen E is actually an excellent radar with its rotating capability so you can bias the search and track azimuth offset from the velocity vector of the aircraft.
This comes into play with BVR missiles like the AMRAAM and Meteor, where you can set up a long-range separation, then offset left or right to stay out of threat missile WEZ, while continually providing AESA-based data-link midcourse corrections to the missile(s) on the targets.
Problem for the Gripen E though is that it struggles at higher altitude since it is underpowered and lacks a high service ceiling, which is a critical metric for 4th Gen BVR kinematics. It is simply outclassed in this area by the legacy Flankers, let alone the Super Flankers and especially the Su-57.
Gripen E leverages its survivability entirely on EW systems to try to remain undetected. That’s not a good strategy in the era of ever-advancing IRSTs and super-computing processors that drive IR sensors in a passive detection scheme with high transfer-rate data-linked network.
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@ullasofia9432 We know social democracy doesn’t work. One of the worst principles you can adopt in government is to govern by majority-rules. If 51% of the people vote to have a specific right taken away, then it becomes law. That’s amateur-level governance and extremely bad policy.
Socialism has failed in every nation that adopts it as the primary mechanism of economic and political function. None of the European "socialist democracies” are actually governed by pure socialism. I think everyone who has studied economics recognizes all systems are hybrid in nature.
For starters, the most important role of the state (defense), was handled by the United States post-WWII. US force presence in Europe was gargantuan, with military bases filled with fighters, tanks, artillery, and theater ballistic missiles all over the continent.
This allowed Europe to re-build, with billions of US loans and aid packages, and focus on more of a free-market economy that later evolved into an international coalition of quasi-free markets, with a shared exchange and cross-border travel agreement. I still remember Europe when you had to show passports every time you crossed a border, and couldn’t just live or work anywhere you want.
Social Democracy is a very naive concept in political philosophy that doesn’t square well with market and cultural realities. Those are dictated by geography, climate, and demographics (age/male/female balance).
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@ullasofia9432 As I have looked at the metrics, I don't accept the premise that they are "happier". How does one scientifically measure happiness, for example? Sounds like a fool's errand, but trust the experts, they know! See how silly that is?
And again, these "happier" countries with tiny homogenous populations that watch state-owned media, are propped-up by the US in many ways, Healthcare, industry, and defense being key pillars to their economies, while people on the US don't even realize how much they contribute to these nations.
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No, JF-17 does not have GaN TRM AESA, nor do any of China’s fighters. China can’t even make legacy TRMs with the density that the US does. They don’t have the machines, engineers, technicians, experience, or tooling to do it. That’s why Chinese fighter Radomes are huge. Limited TRM density = larger TRMs and antennae arrays, more weight, bigger radome, bigger nose, and bigger aircraft as a result.
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@capnatewr6522 If you happened to watch the Congressional hearings on Waco, Webster Hubbell said they used acetylene gas to pump the CS into the church buildings.
FBI HRT then used M113 APCs from Fort Hood to assault the church buildings on the far side from where the media photographers were located (a mile away).
FLIR video shows HRT members dismounting from the M113s, throwing CS and flash grenades into the building, and firing bursts into the building with their MP5s.
When the flash grenades and fire that emanates from CS grenades mixed with the acetylene gas, the church went up in flames rapidly, much faster than you normally see.
The grenade casings were later presented as evidence by the DOJ that the Branch Davidians were making non-taxed suppressors.
FBI/DOJ quickly concocted the story that Koresh ordered everyone to set themselves on fire with lamps.
Most of the children were found in a protective cinder block room that normally would provide insulation from fire, but combined with asphyxiation from CS and the high intensity flames generated by acetylene gas, they were cooked to death after breaking their own backs from the spasms of CS-induced asphyxia.
It was a hellish way to go for those people. Dozens of them were 7th-Day Adventist blacks from UK, Australia, and US who heard about Koresh and the communal compound, then moved there.
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@wesman7837 It was a group of men who built the bomb in a salvage auto business shop in downtown OKC. They were Middle Easterners organized by Ali Mohamed, a former Egyptian intel officer who was purged from the Egyptian military after the assassination of Sadat. He was under FBI surveillance after he got out of the US Army, and traveled around the US conducting site surveys and terrorist cell recruiting/organizing.
The whole media story about OKC is so fake, it's better that you had never heard it if you want to study OKBOMB.
There were 14 criminal referrals from multiple agencies within DOD and DOJ against the Clintons when they left the Arkansas Governor's mansion and went to the WH, and the FBI Director allowed those investigations to proceed. OKC Murrah Building contained most of the files for those criminal referrals, since Arkansas falls under that Federal region with OKC as their central Federal building.
The DEA, FBI, DIA, Arkansas LEAs, and NSA were just some of the referring agencies, with charges that included murder, treason, espionage, perjury, suborning of perjury, obstruction of Justice, evidence tampering, criminal conspiracy, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, concealment of income, undeclared offshore assets from illicit activities, assault, and sexual harassment, which all happened as an abuse of executive while the Clintons were in the Governor's position in Arkansas.
Gee, it sure would be convenient if those records were destroyed and then blamed on his political rivals. After the OKC Bombing, Clinton blamed right wing talk radio for the attack, at a time when his Presidency was so scandal-plagued, that things were looking bleak for his and Hillary's future.
With help from the media, he was cast as "the healer in-chief", and Senator Joe Biden had his staff draft the PATRIOT ACT to "combat domestic terrorism". It was then passed into law in the next Administration of George W. Bush.
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@springbloom5940 But you were online the whole time, and just kept expanding cache, RAM, and CPUs with a machine that was well ahead of anything else on the market when it launched.
Think of the F-35 as a new type of rack or tower, but in the size of an iPhone, with modular expandable CPUs and memory, cameras, jacks, with an impact-proof case that had better processing and functionality than any other desktop PC 10 years ago. Apps leveraged its systems to still perform better than any competition no matter how much they upgraded processors, and once it looks like the market is catching up in one area, you upgrade those modules and continue to smoke them.
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You have to realize that information flow in Russia is like another planet compared to the West. Most Russians don't listen to, nor have they ever heard a perspective outside of what's told to them, and they don't care because to them, they're the biggest country in the world, better than the rest. First in space, best scientists, best military machines, best soldiers, best Kalashnikov, best fighters, best everything.
Outside information is unreliable, propaganda, can't be correct for it only rolls of the devil's tongue.
They see the world much differently.
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@bigstaceinc ASTOVL started in 1983, kicked-off by UK approaching USMC and USAF, then DARPA got onboard to develop the next generation STOVL fighter that would also be capable of supersonic flight, but with much longer combat radius and heavier payload than a Harrier.
JSF-A came from CALF. JSF-C came from A/F-X. There were multiple technology paths being developed by the US and UK National laboratories, Flight Test Centers, and contractors that all existed or were in development before any JSF demonstrator design was finalized and down-selected in the 1990s. Each JSF airframe was able to be engineered and developed for each specific take off and landing scenario, and optimized for performance. The main performance requirement was combat radius, followed by kinematics to match or exceed the F-16 and F/A-18 in combat configurations, without need for any ancillary sensors to be attached, but integrated into the airframes instead.
Baselining the Naval CATOBAR variant would not have been ideal for the USAF for several reasons, and would be a non-starter for the STOVL airframe.
The way they set up the JSF program variants was ideal really. F-35C was last to enter IOC because they have the smallest orders for airframes of all the JSF variants. A and B get priority, with the B models a very distant 2nd from the As. 760 JSF airframes with engines have been delivered to-date, with most of them A models.
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@bernieeod57 F/A-18 was meant to replace the A-7E, A-4M, OA-4M, and F-4N. USN and USMC had too many airframe types with legacy turbojet engines and outdates Radars, electronics, and failure-prone systems, lack of easy access maintenance panels, and the F-4 had limited combat radius with a 2 crew pipeline that needed to be populated cyclically. Solid state electronics allowed both the A-7E and F-4N to be replaced with a single crew multirole fighter with better availability rates.
F/A-18C/D were not a whole new plane. They were structurally-upgraded F/A-18A/Bs with improvements to avionics. I agree that the A/B models were no production-ready, and resulted in many accidents and fatalities. I would describe them a dismal failure though, more like prototypes that were allowed to go into production without being even ready for safe landing. The MLG often decoupled from the alignment bars, causing them to cartwheel down the runway or collapse on the flight deck.
Super Hornets were maybe 66% new airframes compared to the C/D.
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@pogo1140 Your math will be way off when basing strike and armed reconnaissance taskings on AV-8 payload, which is anemic. JSF payload even on the B model is world-class. You can keep an F-35B slick if you want to and still take 8 precision-guided Air-to-surface weapons into the fight, along with 4 AAMs. The AV-8B typically only has 2-3 hard points available for Air-to-Surface weapons, though it can be configured a number of ways. Because it is so small with little wings, and has significant maximum weight restrictions for vertical landing, it has a very limited operational payload.
Additionally, the average weapon weight is significantly higher for the A2S munitions carried by F-35Bs, as is the count. F-35B can also carry the 1000lb JDAM internally, which opens up the mission set taskings for the MEU. There are massive cultural changes going on within USMC and because they are a smaller force, they have adapted to and harnessed JSF faster than most other operators.
1 F-35B can configure several ways:
2x AIM-9X
2x AIM-120
8x SDB
or
2x AIM-9X
2xAIM-120
4x SDB
1x GBU-12 or GBU-32, or GBU-35
or any of the above plus
4x GBU-12
or 4x APKWS rocket pods
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You need to split “the West” into Western/Central Europe and then the US/Canada/Mexico. The US/Canada/Mexico doesn’t need external energy, commodities, food, or young people and Russia and China certainly are extremely vulnerable in several of those spaces.
Western Europe definitely needs energy and young people.
If there ever was a basket case in history, Asia is it. Just look at demographics in any of the sectors. Excess males in China and India, retirement age in China with undercut young ages, fundamental structural problems throughout the spectrum regarding energy, food, security, income inequality, ethnic tensions that make the US look entirely homogenous, and all their neighbors hating them.
Most of the “news” networks have been propagating lies about who relies on whom for decades, so that people who follow established networks are systemically misinformed, not educated. This has created a society where most of what people think they know is a pack of lies.
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Nick Yankee These are the types of studies I’m talking about that count on people not looking up the numbers. It’s not possible for 530,000 families to turn to bankruptcy when only 229,703 Chapter 7 filings and 149,077 Chapter 13 bankruptcies were filed in 2022. Somebody is lying, and it isn’t the US Bankruptcy Courts statistics.
The worst year since 2008 was 2010, with 1.146 million Ch 7 and 434,839 Ch 13 filings. That was because of the sub-prime housing Markey with variable rate mortgages, not medical bills. Ch 7 & 13 filings dropped dramatically since then and most Ch 13 filings are due to mortgage default, auto loans, credit card debt, and a series of financial factors that contribute overall to households seeking Ch 13 protection.
Those studies (that say anything over 26% of Ch 7 & 13 filings are due to medical bills) manipulated the data to include if the earners were off work for 2 weeks or more, were injured during the year in question, and things not related specifically to their filing.
Even we add up all Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcies and Chapter 13 wager earner bankruptcies, we don’t reach this 530,000 number since 2020 unless over 88% of bankruptcies were due to medical bills in 2020, and 124% of filings in 2021 (not possible):
2020 Ch 7 + Ch 13 = 603,548
2021 Ch 7 + Ch 13 = 428,381
2022 Ch 7 + Ch 13 = 378,780 filings
In reality, there were more likely 98,780 Ch 7 + Ch 13 filings combined where medical bills were the major factor, on top of bad debt/income ratios, especially with credit card bills and crazy auto loans.
Medical providers generally work with people on a payment plan, which should not even be a thing because we have Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, ACA, and private providers. Medical debt bankruptcy is generally more of a story about bad personal finance, not an inherent problem with the healthcare system, although I do agree that providers, Pharma, and insurance companies hike up prices when nobody sees how much things actually cost.
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Would have wasted billions trying to save millions. F135 turned out to be the best fighter engine ever produced.
I'm sure an F136 would have been impressive as well, but for what?
GE is likely flying ADVENT motors as we speak in the 6th Gen program, unless USAF structured it differently than the ATF motor options from late 1980s-1991.
GE's YF-120L and N motors were the most impressive to the test pilots during DEMVAL, but the variable cycle feature represented risk to the program so Pratt was awarded, with the requirement that they match the YF-120 thrust, which they did with the production F119-PW-100.
Both companies have been working on their 6th Gen fighter engine submissions with 3 airflow paths, variable cycle modulation, extreme core temps, additive manufacturing to cut parts count, and alloy-ceramics.
I suspect we're going to see a 50,000lb thrust class fighter engine that can run at 32,500lb in mil power, which would be phenomenal.
With advanced composites and heat-mitigating leading edges, we might be in the age where we see a Mach 2 supercruise-capable fighter, where no afterburner is used.
Then again, a 50,000lb motor opens the possibility for the first time of having a large radome, high altitude, high endurance, Mach 3-capable interceptor....with a single engine. It's well within MiG-25 and F-111 thrust with 2 engines on them.
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@baolichang6019 Saudis will provide security in the Central Asian Republics? Saudi's entire security apparatus is built on internal control of Shiites and preventing uprisings instigated by Iran, while also fighting Yemenis. They have zero reach into the Central Asian Republics with their military.
Have you looked at a map of the Belt & Road plan? Imagine trying to move goods through Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey.
It's as if they gave a fat crayon to a mongoloid and said, "Draw me a road from China to Europe. Bonus points if it goes through some of the most unstable, thief-ridden regions of Asia, and over as many mountains as you can find."
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Jack Smith Zeihan's analyses are based on decades of white papers for foreign governments, large corporations, heavy industries, shipping, manufacturing, and intelligence services.
His teams start with the question, "Where could we be wrong?", then work from there.
The problem with Belt & Road is that China is trying to service a collapsing European demographic with a trade route through geographic and thief-ridden challenges, to bypass the South China Sea, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and Suez Canal.
China has launched this long-term trade program as their own population is headed into demographic winter, self-inflicted by One Child Policy of 35 years of infanticide.
Put that recipe in the oven and see what it looks like when you open the door when the timer goes off.
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@emporiahandalusi5725 Every time you see an article mention 871 deficiencies, ask how many deficiencies existed between the Harrier, F-16, Hornet, and A-10 back in the 1970s and 1980s?
How was the breakdown of those 871 "deficiencies" between the F-35A, B, and C before they were corrected and the obsolete reports compiled by bean-counters in the Pentagon made totally meaningless?
When those erroneous reports were compiled, did you know that 285 of the "deficiencies" were actually newly-discovered capabilities that have since been expanded on?
What if there was a way to see for the layman if these 3 fighter designs were truly troubled without needing to know much about aviation?
Consider accident, mishap, and fatality rates and compare them with the legacy designs.
Between UK and US, 100 harriers were lost, with 20 fatalities just in a 10 year period.
F-16? 143 losses, 72 fatalities in first 10 years.
Hornet? 90 losses, 27 fatalities.
15 years of F-35A service...4 losses, 1 fatality in Japanese Defense Forces. Only 2 losses are from impacts with the terrain. 1st was the JADF CFIT/pilot non-responsive who flew at a steep angle down into the ocean, 2nd was at Eglin AFB where the pilot bounced an F-35A off the ground at over 200kts with autopilot speed hold left on.
The other 2 were really early F-35s that caught fire on the ground, problem was fixed immediately and incorporated into the production line.
F-35B: 2 crashes, 0 fatalities. Has been flying since June 2008.
F-35C: 0 losses, 0 fatalities, has been flying since June 2010.
No need for an aerospace degree. There are 710+ JSF delivered so far, with 450,000 flight hours, soon to be half a million flight hours among the fleet.
By this time with the teen fighters, we had lost well over 500 aircraft to accidents, with 189 fatalities just in their first 10 years of service. None of them were safe for full rate production, but we made them by the hundreds and quickly had to replace all the A/B models with C/D models in the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 fleets. AV-8A had to be replaced with AV-8B.
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@petter5721 Gripen is a scam and Norway never wanted it. They and Switzerland have turned down the Gripen 4x now due to it not being fully developed at the time of evaluation because it's never been properly funded.
Same with Finland. Every time these 3 nations looked at early Gripen or Gripen NG, it was still in development before meeting an operational standard, which is where Gripen E is currently at as well even after almost 15 years of test flights and empty promises.
Switzerland analyzed and did extensive accounting on what CPFH would be on Gripen NG many years ago, and forecast a $27,000 number including spares and basing logistics (indirect + direct costs).
If you ever see those crazy low numbers of $4700 or $6000, you know you're being lied to. That barely covers fuel.
For reference, the A-10 in USAF service in 2017 cost over $17,000/hr to fly including indirect costs. It has no Radar, no IRST, no EW suite, no afterburner turbofan, very subsonic airframe that can barely cruise at 285kts, no DFLCS, just a tube airframe with wings and mechanical flight controls.
Current international F-35A operators are seeing very low CPFH in the $14,700-$16,000 region for direct costs.
US DoD Comptroller shows those same figures with F-35A being higher than the Navy and USMC F-35Bs and Cs. US Navy gets cheaper JP-8 fuel.
F-35A in 2020 was $16,953 direct costs CPFH.
What do the click bait media and DOT&E from Pentagon report? They round up from $27,000 to $30,000.
The indirect costs at the beginning of any advanced fighter adoption are high because of logistics, training, and adjusting to something new.
UK MoD reports on the Typhoon showed £50,000-75,000 CPFH when they first adopted it. They cut their order 30% because costs were so far away from what had been expected.
Short story with CPFH is that you have to see the breakdown of direct and indirect costs to know what you're looking at.
If you see random figures spit out from some click-bait or even official source, it doesn't mean much without the itemized costs or a qualifier explaining direct vs indirect, airframe count, stage of life cycle, etc.
We normally see a bathtub graph with O&M costs, starting high, dropping rapidly, hitting a long consistent low, then starting to rise as the airframes get older and upgrades start to pile on.
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@Rubeless Look up short stroke vs long stroke piston designs.
AK, Garand, SAW/Minimi, M240/MAG58, etc. are long-stroke.
Short stroke: SVT-38/40, SKS, FAL/L1A1, M-14, AR-18, G36, Hk416
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@Mike-tc8ob Yup. The US has contracted Foreign Military Sales to Mexico for years, and many of those weapons go missing from the airport where they land. Fast & Furious was a program launched by the Obama WH to get cartel straw-buyers to increase the numbers and evidence of US gun stores traffic to the cartels, even though the gun stores told ATF they would not make those sales to guys who they knew were dirty.
ATF instructed them to make the sales as part of their “investigation”, which was really a conspiracy to work towards Obama/Biden/Clinton policy of attacking FFL dealers by saying they were supplying the cartels. I was tracking Fast & Furious from the start, and there is far more to the story because Brian Terry was getting ready to blow the whistle on criminal activity at the border being perpetrated by Federal agents. They seized his electronic devices after he was murdered, and he was a BORTAC agent with CBP.
But most of the firearms used by the cartels come from FMS, military weapons in the region, and imported military weapons from Asia, Europe, and Africa. Obama WH was trying to create the impression that Cartels get most of their weapons from US gun stores so they could penalize LGSs as part of a disarmament agenda. It blew up in their faces, but all perpetrators within the DOJ and WH were not held to account.
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She's too young and doesn't know what all went down in Arkansas, or within the first few years of the Clinton WH. Vince Foster was flying back and forth to Switzerland 12-20 times per year, with stays that were less than 24hr. He and Hillary were under recommendation for indictment for espionage related to Foster's travels and compromises of extremely sensitive programs that were being used by the NSA and other Intel agencies. One of the programs was being sold to foreign governments who weren't authorized to have them.
The FBI Director at the time, William Sessions, had recommendations for indictment and high level investigation into 14 different serious crimes committed by the Clintons and Clinton staffers. They tried to strong-arm Director Sessions into dropping the 14 cases, but he refused, so they fired him on Monday, July 19th. Vince Foster's body was found the next day at Fort Marcy. Clinton staffers raided Foster's WH office to seize incriminating evidence related to his espionage scheme so that the investigators wouldn't find that evidence. The Clinton WH then obstructed justice by blocking investigators from having access to the Foster X-rays and other critical evidence to the case. One of the investigators, Miguel Rodriquez, resigned in protest, and this was before we even had the Patrick Knowlton testimony (guy who witnessed the body-dumpers at Fort Marcy on his way home from work).
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Biden has been on Russian payroll since they financed his campaign in 1972.
Putin wanted Hunter on the board of Burisma to block the corruption investigation into Zlochevsky because Putin was using Ukraine as a piggy bank with his puppet Yanukovych in place, until Ukrainians held massive protests for 4 months with Euromaiden from 2013-March 2014.
Elena Baturina wired $3.5 million to Hunter's front company, Rosemont Seneca, in Feb 2014. Hunter then got on the board of Burisma by May 2014.
Russian Night Wolves and other separatists started the Donbas War with false flags and attacks, which Putin then used as a pretext for invasion while claiming no Russian forces were there.
Fast forward to Feb 2022. Who tried to pull Zelensky and his family out by air even as Putin's forces were barreling down on Kiev?
Biden WH talks about supplying Ukraine, but has delayed and slow-rolled major weapon systems deliveries, while more vulnerable NATO partners are depleting their stockpiles of Javelins, NLAWs, M777, HIMARS, tanks, Patriot SAM systems, drones, artillery rounds, etc.
We have to be very careful about what exactly is happening here.
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@jeroenlucas My contacts in the Russian foreign ministry were already talking about Putin's plans to invade Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, and Finland in the early 2000s.
I thought the one Deputy was an old Soviet-era blowhard, but I remembered it nonetheless. Then Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 while I was in Estonia and it got our attention.
I monitored what was going on in Ukraine with all the elections, Russian tampering with the votes, and Putin's puppet Yanukovych in 2010, because Ukraine wanted to trade with the EU and develop their economy like Poland did.
Once Yanukovych signed Putin's Russia-Eurasia Economic Pact in late 2013, it triggered the Euromaiden protests for 4 months, with Yanukovych fleeing back to Putin. That's when Putin invaded in 2014 after launching false flag attacks in Donbas.
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The CIA was packed with 200 Soviet double agents from the OSS days, when NKVD and foreign services planted as many moles in the infant US intelligence and covert operations service under British tutelage.
Lots of agents claiming to be Belorussians fleeing Bolshevik persecution, like George de Mohrenschildt and his brother.
The Soviets recruited Nazi General Reinhardt Gehlen, who then became the head of West German BND.
Soviets had moles all over in NATO HQ, US State Dept, UK Foreign Ministry, French Govt, Japan, US Congress, DoD, with saturation operations designed to compensate for their lack of trade with the US.
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@YourMentalDamage Su-57 is still in development and very low-rate initial production. Before a fighter can go operational, a training regiment needs to be built-up to train the pilots who will transition into it. They need to learn all the basic flight systems, emergency procedures, comms, performance characteristics, how to take off, navigate, land, and then how to employ the sensors and weapon systems.
As you build out the training regiment, you also need to deliver aircraft to the first operational squadrons and regiment, which then has to spend a lot of time initially developing the squadron tactics, procedures, maintenance, and overall operational profile of how the regiment will function in the VVS.
They don’t even have enough Su-57s right now to populate a sufficient training squadron, let alone a regiment. High performance fighters with after-burning turbofans break a lot, especially theirs. This requires a lot of maintenance, which means aircraft are not always available for flying.
As of August, 2023, they only had 10 production Su-57s that were delivered. The first production Su-57 crashed on its pre-delivery functional test flight years ago. The program has been plagued with delays and mishaps.
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@worldoftancraft The PAK-FA/Su-57 prototypes were divided into 2 main groups. The first phase were flight dynamics and early avionics test beds to make sure the thing flies, engines work across the flight regime, aerodynamic and g loads tested, things like that.
Once all that was done, the 2nd phase Su-57 prototypes moved forward with a slightly larger airframe (needed to deliver performance with the added weight of combat systems). 2nd Phase prototypes also added more signature reduction features, to include thermal blanketed engine cowlings for IR signature reduction.
One of the propagandist hosts walked under several from both phases and the engine bay door gaps were huge.
On production Su-57s, they’re using old school tape RAM covering seam lines over panels and access doors, which is great for RCS, but sucks for maintenance. And as you mention, we’re still waiting on the Izdeliye-30 engines that will deliver the intended performance and incorporate stealth features, unlike the current motors.
It would have been an amazing aircraft/combat system had it been made in the US for sure. Russia will mainly have it as an internal propaganda vehicle to show the peasants who great and superior Russia is to the West, and people will believe it wholesale.
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@jorgenpersson662 Yes, nobody has confidence in Russia's poor, isolated, frozen economy. Why would anyone loan Russia money internally or from abroad? That's a loser recipe.
At the end of WWII, the US set up the Bretton Woods trade and security arrangement for the post-war order.
Because the US has more deep sea ports, more farmland, more connected river networks, a healthy population growth, vast resources, and has been the largest economy since the 1880s with constant growth every decade, of course it makes sense to invest in the US.
I don't like deficit spending either, so there are plenty of critiques of how Congress blows our tax revenue plus some, but the fundamentals are still the same.
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@goodtimes12342 How many millions of dollars were paid into front company accounts from our enemies with Ivanka or Jared as the account holders? Did Trump go into these counties demanding that prosecutors be fired for investigating companies where Trump family members were sitting board members? No, no, and no, because they did no such things.
There is no double standard, just an inability to logically assess what you’re looking at and stick to partisan bias at all costs, especially the truth. It’s crazy, because the Democrat Party has been dogging on Biden for generations dating back to his segregation co-sponsored legislation, his plagiarism in the ’88 campaign, his anti-black policies, his 400+ new death penalty offenses in the crime bill targeting blacks especially, and all his screw-ups as VP.
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We've always lived in a world where information was controlled by those in power.
Because of the internet, there's a struggle over that power base and people are ignoring legacy media tunnels with abandonment of corporate advertisement-based groupthink.
When Peter referenced the lunatic fringe conspiracies that used to be espoused by the left percolating into the right in US politics, he didn't specify which conspiracies, but he's right.
The main ones are:
* JFK assassination had US government involvement in both the murders and the cover-up via the Warren Commission. This was a pillar basis of politically-active academics and journalists who affiliated with Democrats from the 1960s-forward.
There were also people across party lines who thought it was a conspiracy, didn't buy the WC narrative. These are just the facts about people's perceptions and instincts, supported by the Church Committee, Assassination review Committee, and ARRB acts from 1975-1992.
* Another big one is pharmaceutical giants' manipulation of media and ads through corporate media, while concealing their harmful products.
People on the left and right are seeing more eye-to-eye on these types of topics, which is alarming to those who are used to ruling through division.
Peter skips over these details, though he has discussed the overall trend towards a new populist political movement in the US.
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@laurie6123 Congress controls their own salaries, so they will always vote to increase them. They also still practice insider trading with “independent investment brokers” who they aren't allowed to tip off. Yet they still claim they didn’t tip them off prior to the SARSCoV2 response in 2020, and accidentally made millions.
The only way to reign them in is at the State levels. States need to control their own primaries so that none of the candidates will be allowed to collect the Federal rated Congressional salaries, but will have most of that salary paid back to their respective States. A Congressman shouldn’t make more than the median income of their State.
Their spouses, children, and family members also must not be allowed to work in “no-show” corporate donor or front company jobs, like Hunter working at Burisma, collecting millions from Chicom’s along with James Biden, or Neil Bush on the Chinese payroll with his front companies. Things like the Clinton Global Initiative should not exist either, where Putin paid the Clintons millions so he could get access to US Uranium mines and revitalize Russia’s nuclear arsenal with the help of Hillary, VP Biden, and Obama.
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@jakefromstatefarm142 The US is filled with tyranny, especially at State and local levels. Power corrupts and those who seek power over other people award themselves more power to abuse those they see as subjects. Look at California, New York, Massachusetts, corrupt police chiefs, the White House, IRS, ATF, FBI, EPA, Bureau of Land Management, etc. The government has been corrupt for the better part of the last 247 years. Politicians used to employ street gangs as electioneers even in the early 1800s, who were then given practical immunity from arrest and prosecution for their racketeering, prostitution, gambling schemes, tricks, and thievery. When Prohibition was enacted, billions in revenue was handed over to the gangs, who then bought the politicians and the system has never been cleansed since. Al Capone was spending $30 million/year in 1920s dollars on political bribery.
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@paulallen2680 I attended public, on-base, and private schools growing up all over the US and the world, so I got a lot of samples sizes. I went to 7 different high schools, not including my exchange student program to Japan.
The Prussian Reform model format is pretty universal, except in Montessori. Lecture format, children abandoned for the day, 45 minute blocks of limited instruction, Pavlovian bell-ringing on the intercom to switch classes from Junior High and up, behavioral modification and conditioning focus, very limited academics.
Private schools were ahead by about 2 years on average, but still the same structural model mostly, with their own unique cultures driven by the particular sect.
I’ve also had my kids at various types of schools in 4 different States, 2 countries, and now home schooling for the younger ones. My older boys went to a unique academy in Europe, so they’ve learned foreign languages by immersion.
If you’re not going to learn anything in school, it might as well be in a foreign language.
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@popularhistory6118 Soviets co-opted the FBI early-on, to use as a disruptive and demoralizing secret police within the US, as well as a Trojan horse ministry of internal security modeled after their own Cheka.
It would serve as a useful tool against Presidents, Congress, DoD, and State LE, providing a massive internally-funded surveillance state directed against key people in the US, helping the Soviets to target and exploit those people for Soviet interests.
They also use the Bureau to cover their high-level moles, shutting down any effective counterintelligence operations wherever possible, and feed moles from FBI into CIA and other agency ranks at their pleasure.
You get a sense of this studying the JFK, RFK, MLK assassinations, Church Committee hearings, Ali Mohamed case, 1993 WTC bombing, OKC Bombing, Al Farouque mosque in Brooklyn, and Robert Hanssen cases.
Soviets have leveraged the Bureau to enhance terrorist and foreign intelligence service operations directed against the US throughout its history. They've been played like a fiddle by the Russians/Soviets.
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@skeletonwguitar4383 Former depot and phase-level F-16 maintainers say they miss the F-16 because they could get their hands dirty at least, while F-35 basically maintains itself. The actual flight systems are so far less complicated than F-16 or any other fighter. There aren’t central hydraulic lines to leak or fail like on a Viper, Eagle, or Hornet.
It has compartmented electrohydrostatic actuators with their own self-contained fluid, with fiber-optic signal architecture connecting all the control surfaces to the central quad-redundant CPU/CIP bank.
Almost every expense statement I have seen made by the imbecilic presstitutes has been based on LRIP bird maintenance with civilian contractors still teaching military how to perform various checks and services on the first 100 aircraft.
Actual squadron-level maintenance costs and readiness rates have been unprecedented for a system of systems like this.
Imagine if the F-16 had been introduced with advanced FLIR pods, ECM, helmet-cued weapons, BVR missiles, best radar in the USAF, extensive ECM and EW suite, embedded countermeasures, and all kinds of bells and whistles in the late 1970s. You would never have seen FMC rates that the early Block F-16As had, which had limited capabilities compared to F-16C Blocks 30-50.
On top of all that, the F-35 has way longer service life and usable flight hours than any of the legacy jets, which timed-out pretty fast in some cases.
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@AugustoCuervo-hx9pr You might want to also look at:
Finance, heavy industries, real estate, auto, tech, retail, computing and electronics, software, pharma, professional/scientific/technical services, aerospace, construction, manufacturing, management, chemicals, home and personal care, telecom, insurance, union retirement accounts....
There's a lot more to the US economy than energy, though it is the lifeblood of all of them.
Russia hates that the US has so much capacity in energy because it drives down their revenue significantly.
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@ttatum The Italian, Sicilian, and Russian Jew Mafia wanted Kennedy dead too, because he betrayed them after they helped him get elected with the unions and massive voter fraud in Illinois and Michigan.
Papa Joe Kennedy negotiated with the Mafia to get his son elected, and in exchange, Jack would put a leash on Bobby, who had been going after rival organized crime like a putbull. The Kennedy clan came from 1800s era mid-blood Irish mobsters who rose into political power, and were part of the old money that saw the Italians, Sicilians, and Russian Jews as major threats to their existing political rackets.
Once JFK made Bobby AG, and he went after the new mob with even more fervor, the decision was made. Remember that the OSS and FBI were filled with Mafia hitmen and racketeers during the War.
OSS became the CIA. Hoover said the Mafia was a myth, didn't exist.
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@nvelsen1975 I've been studying Soviet order of battle since the 1970s. Recognition skills were bread and butter for me in most of the units I was in, while the Army has atrophied that skill set due to GWOT, multi-generational institutional laziness, and overreliance on technology, assuming someone else will do the work for them.
Russians are still able to upload video online, which lately have included the MiG-31BM crash up in the Murmansk military district, as well as crashes, shoot-downs, impacts, and weapons effects in Crimea and along the border. We also have seen their own security camera footage of the accidental bombing of Belgorod, the crash of a Flanker into an apartment building, the drone strikes on strategic bomber airfields, sabotage, and many other relevant incidents.
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If you measure it by the millions funneled into shell companies from Russia and China, then it’s the Clintons. Would have to see the internal break-down of the money agreed to between Obama and Biden after it went through the various Rosemont Seneca shells. John Kerry is also on the list since he and Hunter Biden sat on the shell companies as executives when Elena Baturina wired $3.5 million to them in Feb 2014, right before Putin lost his puppet Yanukovych in Ukraine. Then Burisma sent a delegation to the Obama WH to negotiate the insurance policies to be put in place with WH officials’ family members, and Hunter was on the board of Burisma by May 2014.
Zlochevsky, the Burisma CEO and Putin stooge, fled to Monaco. Then Obama flew to the NATO Summit in Sep 2014 and told David Cameron to shut down the UK investigation into Burisma corruption, and release $15 million of Zlochevsky’s funds. Then Obama, Biden, the ECB, and IMF all demanded that the new Ukrainian President, Poroshenko, fire his new chief prosecutor (Viktor Shokin), who was investigating the Burisma money-laundering fraud. Poroshenko refused to fire Shokin, and there were 2 assassination attempts on Shokin’s life after that, one with snipers, the other with poisoning. He fled into hiding and has been rarely seen since.
Biden threatened to withhold $1 Billion in aid to Ukraine until Shokin was fired, so Poroshenko had officially fired him, but secretly kept him on to investigate the massive corruption perpetrated against Ukraine by Putin puppets in Kiev that had been brought in by Yanukovych, who was part of the Pro-Russian party.
Trump as a billionaire doesn’t need to sell out his Country, which is why the above treasonous degenerates hate him so much.
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@eddiehauser6661 I started in a physically and mentally-abusive private school for almost 2 years (8th & 9th), then my mom pulled me out finally before the end of 9th. Finished 9th grade in another private school that was totally relaxed. Then I started 10th grade on an Air Force base for 3 months with my brother, then went to another HS in a totally different city, then to a remote high school in the mountains, then North Hollywood, then a summer exchange student to Japan, then spent my whole senior year back in the HS I was supposed to be in the whole time, and graduated. To make it even crazier, we had a Japanese exchange student for 2 years while I was bouncing around 11th grade, as well as my senior year sharing my room with him.
The day after I graduated, I left a note for my parents saying, "See ya!" and I went down to Palm Springs. Took Greyhound bus from Palm Springs with a friend to Boston, then took the train up to Maine.
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There's a really great article written by 3 former Soviet professors basically explaining in great detail how the collapse of the USSR wasn't a singular event, but a massive series of trends that began decades prior to 1991, and continues decades after.
Key points include:
* Planned economy failure
* Black market allowed it to function under the table
* Major industrial initiatives were utter disasters, like Chernobyl
* Their spending on military was excessive and still failed to come close to matching the West. Bekaa Valley 1982 humiliated their fighters, for example.
* Soviet-Afghan War
* One of the only things that kept the Soviet economy afloat was massive revenue from oil and NG.
* Orders from Moscow to all the mines, production facilities, and plants dropped in free-fall mode once the government collapsed.
* Workers, technicians, scientists, and engineers left their more remote cities to gather in large cities or fled the country if they were smart.
* Education had already been suffering, then went into free-fall in the 1990s as well with so many professors, engineers, and researchers moving internally or leaving the country for Western Europe, US, Canada, Australia, etc.
Putin was put in place to right the ship in people's minds as a strong man, even though everything was still in collapse.
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Everything that is being told about Finland (5/5 million people), or manipulated into a message about how to do things in the US (330 million people, temperate zone, connected river networks, provides much of Finland’s defense, etc.) is erroneous and incorrectly portrayed.
I have lived in Finland at various times since 1979, since my mom is from there. It’s a wonderful country if you like the cold and long, dark winters, lots of forest, 188 000 lakes, and quiet people. I would choose US healthcare over Finnish any day of the week, or use the Finnish private sector. US VA hospitals are better than Finnish hospitals, which is saying something.
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@dumdumbinks274 The TF30 was notorious for letting blades fly from the high pressure core, compressor stalls, stagnation, and low MTBF. The only thing it had going for it in the A-7 was it was non-afterburning, and pilots didn't make tons of crazy power setting inputs like in BFM.
USAF fixed the A-7 by specifying what became the A-7D, which had the Allison TF41-A-2. USN saw that and got the A-7E.
A-7D and A-7E were much better aircraft than the A-7A/B/C.
The TF30 had all sorts of issues in the F-111A-F, and F-14A.
A substantial portion of total airframe losses in the F-111 & F-14 were due to TF30s exploding or catching fire, power loss during critical stages of flight, and adverse yaw caused by loss of one side (F-14 especially).
They got it mostly worked out in the later models with late Block F-14As and the F-111F.
F100-PW-100 & -200 had a lot of the same problems and caused USAF to launch the engine war between P&W and GE, resulting in F100-PW-229, and F110-GE-100/129/400.
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@paulurban2472 I mean, I have video of me in Europe on my channel, so.....There aren’t many Russians who have seen as much of Russia as I have because they are poor and must stick to the area they live in. 16 of the 30 nations I’ve been to are in Europe, the rest in North America, Eurasia, East Asia, Central America, and the Middle East.
Russia will never compare well to Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, the Mediterranean, etc. Just look where Russians flee to or go on vacation. Russia lacks a lot of elevation and relief unless you go to the Caucuses, and the organized areas are trash, with some exceptions of ancient cities that have been preserved.
The Khrushchev-era apartments are eyesores that should have been demolished about 50 years ago. The services and rotting infrastructure are what you typically see in underdeveloped countries, only Russia has the frozen long winter on top of that, which is miserable.
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milutinke97: Then why does the Iraqi Air Force have a better kill record than the Russian AF, even with the MiG-25? Russian MiG-29 operational use is embarrassing, with only a drone kill over Georgia. I keep seeing this mentioning of how great the Russian pilots are, and I agree they have a good program that starts in youth, however, nobody in the world has the track record to compete with the US, UK, or Israelis. The numbers are staggeringly lop-sided ever since the late 1970s, after counter-SAM techniques and systems became common in Israel and the US.
The only operational combat record we can loosely ascribe to the Russians are Russian mercenary pilots flying Su-27s against Eritreans, and fighting against Eritreans is like clubbing baby seals in a bucket if we're honest, especially since the Eritreans just barely got the MiG-29s from the Ukraine.
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Just Me: You realize the US de-conflicted with the Russian liaison to make sure no Russians were in that area, right? Russian liaison said, "No, we don't have anyone there. It's not us." These guys were mercenaries given a suicide mission with no air support, not that F-22 would allow you to have air support anyway. Turns out a lot of them were in Donbas too, with support from back channels of the Kremlin. Slavonic volunteer Battalions, armed with tanks, APCs, artillery, communications, engineer units to build the pontoon bridge, etc.
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Ross K: Good luck getting past US Air Power. So far, nobody has even come close. Russian fighters in Ukraine included conventional units. There were soldiers who took selfies of themselves and posted them online, covering their travels in Russia, to the staging area just over the border, to their operations inside Ukraine. It's there for anyone to see. They did it themselves.
What do you think would happen to 50,000 Chechen volunteers, if Russia figured out how to feed, water, house, and supply them (hint: Russia can't even do that for their own forces.). They would just be slaughtered like dogs in a matter of hours/days. The US has a very small presence in Syria with advisors and some SOF units, embedded with the Kurds. Northeastern Syria is Kurdish territory and protected by the most superior air assets the world has ever known. Again, good luck.
Chechens have already been taking the US on in Iraq. We hunted them down like dogs and shot them in the face where they slept when we located their cells.
Move all the S-300 and S-400 IADS into Syria you want. More opportunities to show how far Russian tech has fallen back compared to US SEAD capabilities.
If you're Australian, then you should know that the US and Australia are some of the tightest allies on the planet, and the US supplies Australia with the most advanced technology, weapons, and training opportunities. What kind of Australian openly supports Russia agains the US, while spelling his basic words incorrectly?
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@user-te6ru8kw3h You got it. Ukraine is in a fight for its literal survival right now, while opportunistic vultures execute a shakedown of US taxpayers to get some major paper that Ukraine will never see. Same thing the Rothschilds did to the US during the Civil War, or to Napoleon and England during the War of 1812, or LBJ and Lady Bird did to the US with Vietnam, etc.
Putin has been pilfering Ukraine’s economy for decades, bringing in his accomplices along for corruption as well. That’s why he put Yanukovych in the Presidency, who enabled Zlochevsky as Burisma CEO, and why Elena Baturina sent $3.5 million to Hunter Biden in early 2014 after Yanukovych was ousted. Same time, Hunter magically appeared on the board of Burisma, and then in September, Obama went to David Cameron and told him to shut down the UK’s investigation into Burisma.
Same with outgoing AG under Bush41, who told the incoming Clinton WH to fire the FBI Director who had been investigating banking irregularities between Bush WH and Saddam, as well as WMD technology transfers from Loral Space Systems to Saddam while we were enforcing the embargo and then kicked off the Gulf War.
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@jrus690 People are being forced into extended loan terms to keep the monthly mortgage payments within a barely-survivable DTI ratio. The foreign investors who are buying up residential real estate and renting it out have inflated the US housing market astronomically, to the extent that people in their late 30s to early 40s who have been doing the right thing all along with their finances, still can’t afford a home with a reasonable mortgage payment.
I know many people in the tech sector and construction industry management who are pulling in stupid money every month, well in excess of $100k annually with one income.
They have not been able to afford a home, other than as renters. I know people in tech companies that are in charge of hiring. They actively screen for new, quality employees throughout the year, then go through the interview process. There are people making $130k/yr in other companies looking to move over to them, who are struggling on that salary.
Food costs are a huge monthly expense these days, especially for those who are trying to stay organic and not shop at grocery stores where everything is packed with modified corn oils and carcinogenic chemical mixes that the human body doesn’t know how to digest.
If you track average transaction prices for used and new vehicles, they have also gone up to unprecedented levels of inflation. Used car avg price broke through $25k some time between 2020 and 2021. In Sept 2022, used car avg price broke through $31k.
People are getting maxed-out on big expenditures without comparable income ratio. It’s basic math.
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@jacobgordon7998 Trump accomplished more in 4 years than most Presidents in the last 30. Look at Middle East peace deals, energy independence, military build-up, black leader engagement for inner cities, housing affordability, record-low unemployment, stopped the multi-billion dollar payments to Hamas and Iran, kept Putin in-check in Ukraine, renegotiated NAFTA in favor of the US, put tariffs on China, had HHS authorize 900+ affordable generic drugs every year, reduced illegal border crossings dramatically, the list goes on and on if you just look at it dispassionately.
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@hansdampf232 I've experienced healthcare in Europe from Germany to Finland dating back from 1980-present, with family members in Finland and Sweden. One of them had to go to Spain to get a new procedure that was pioneered in the US.
Finland's government just resigned because they can't fund the NHS and elderly care, primarily because they have aborted their children and don't have enough workers to tax in order to take care of the elderly.
Finland also audited their NHS in the 1990s and determined that patient care was the least priority in the NHS in practice, especially the elderly. When my son crashed his bike and needed care, we waited almost 2 months before he could get an MRI, and children have priority there.
When I had my stroke here in the US in 2016, I had an MRI within 4 hours, after I had EKG, Echogram, and CT scan. They were on me like white on rice, found the blood vessels on MRI. Thankfully, no signs of permanent injury, partly because they caught it so quickly and administered the treatments that help prevent further clotting.
I'm in the fairly unique position where I have lived extensively in 8 different States in the US across 6 different regions including:
* Southwest/SoCal
* Southeast
* NoVA area/DC
* Northeast
* Mountain Central
* Pacific Northwest
I've also lived in several nations in Western Europe and Scandinavia, and was an exchange student in Japan.
Coming from a US perspective, when receiving healthcare or any government interaction in the other nations, I've always had this feeling that there is an element of humanity missing that we have in the US. It's more intangible, but noticeable to me. That included West Germany when I was a kid and was hospitalized after an ice skating accident with my school field trip.
I have citizenship in the US and EU, but choosing to live in the US is such an easy decision overall. Not all agree, but there are way more cons than pros in Europe. You pay more for less, including healthcare, which is deducted from your income. It certainly isn't free. I have also received bills for treatment and medical devices in Finland, through they weren't that high.
Better costs more. I think that's the principle a lot of people overlook. Whether we're looking at emergency medicine, internal medicine, orthopedics, pediatrics, dentistry, or optometry, our choices are so much more vast in the US than any of the European nations, even when you compare healthcare infrastructure of the poorer Deep South in the US to metropolitan areas of Scandinavia.
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@skydragon23101979 I’m not anti-China. If China collapses like I think it will, it will send shockwaves of devastation around the world. I think we’re already watching the opening acts of that happening now.
The Chinese growth period has come to an end, and now is going into retraction, first in the real estate sector, now in supply side. The energy and food shortages will significantly affect China. Look at where China gets most of its oil. That region just got hit with 70% of their wheat imports shut off.
Russia only supplied 11% of Chinese Oil/NG in 2013, then after the Gazprom and Rosneft deals in 2013, that rose to 14.6% in 2019. That pipeline in Sibersk was serviced by Halliburton and Slumberger. They ceased services within the first 2 weeks of Russia invading Ukraine. Exxon Mobile just pulled out of their Russian services operations as well.
Why is that important? Can’t Russia just replace those services? Why did Russia need those services in the first place?
Russia never had the ability to drill through the permafrost. Only 2 nations can do that and have the advanced technology and petroleum engineers, plus the tooling to do it. That’s the US and Canada, and the Canadian tech comes from the US. The drill bits and machinery they use is more advanced than any of the components in rockets. The metallurgy is extremely advanced, not duplicated anywhere.
That’s all turned off now. How will China solve their energy and food shortages?
Right now, the plan seems to be to use COVID as an excuse to limit people’s movement and feed them vegetables on a reduced calorie diet. How long will that last?
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This is just the first 10 years of service for each:
F-14: 59 losses, 19 fatalities
F-15: 54 losses, 26 fatalities
F-16: 143 losses, 71 fatalities
F/A-18: 94, 27
Harrier: 100, 20
A-10: 59, 26
Super Hornet: 18, 7 (13 years)
Rafale: 6, 3
F-35A: 2, 1
F-35B: 3, 0
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@melvintan86 People from undeveloped regions of the world don't think about work and society the same as Europeans, especially Northern Europeans, whose ancestors had to work very hard and be smart about how they would survive each winter, with such a small growing and harvesting season.
Anyone who was lazy or couldn't solve problems well didn't survive. In undeveloped parts of the world, clean water is a very scarce resource, so much of the conflict is based on water, with religion used as an excuse to foment conquest over others.
You see that in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East on huge scales, with some of the most consequential battles over water going on as we speak (Mekong & Euphrates just 2 examples).
Europe doesn't need as many low-skilled workers as it used to, since assembly lines are automated substantially more nowadays, and technology has leveraged working capacity in ways that minimize manual labor.
Europe also has layers upon layers of regulations just for building city streets, apartments, and infrastructure, to the extent that manual laborers need to be more and more literate and aware of the technical details in construction.
Most of the immigrants immediately head to the local social services offices and demand their monthly stipend, money for their baby carriages, apartments, cell phones, clothes, and food, while a shrinking European workforce is forced to pay for this, even as the vast majority of these immigrants don't ever pay into the system with income tax.
That is a huge burden on the European economic system at a time when literacy among native Europeans is already degenerating with the failed Prussian schooling model propagating the dumbing down of multiple generations of Europeans, most of whom don't even know where this schooling model came from or why.
The stresses on the pillars of European society are too great to overcome, that is why warfare is forecasted for the European continent, starting in several different regions.
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@Texas240 Agreed except for Comanche. That was an awesome helicopter that would have been an excellent replacement for the OH-58D, and could have also performed a lot of what the Apache does. Army Aviation didn’t want to decide between upgrades for AH-64 and UH-60 fleet and acquisition for RAH-66, but I would argue RAH-66 performing light armored reconnaissance in advance would have bright more pros than cons. We ended up without a light observation helo because they got rid of OH-58D after cancelling RAH-66.
I would happily take every dime wasted on NGSW and put it towards RAH-66, or even better, give to the USAF so they can buy more F-35s, missiles, JDAMs, SDBs, etc. NGSW has been an absolute total waste of time, money, and RDT&E resources.
I also question the effects of traitors in our upper echelons of acquisition who want to sabotage promising programs, while promoting wasteful and limited-use programs (NGSW, MRAP, conventional forces O&M costs for mass deployments to OEF and OIF, America’s Army video game).
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@gunguru7020 A high performance intermediate cartridge to replace 7.62 NATO, which will also reduce shipping bulk and weight (this is where the real money is in the budget, costing billions just Army internal).
We could keep 5.56 for the low-end PDW and for most combat arms duty positions, and equip anyone who used to employ a 7.62 NATO weapon with an efficient intermediate cartridge.
M4 program just needs to adopt the SOPMOD-style Block upgrade approach rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, as you can’t really get a simpler design with less moving parts. Anodize the receivers FDE and make little improvements here and there.
The Surefire/Magpul ICAR solves the mechanical side of frame and magazine for the new intermediate cartridge.
Apply cartridge and propellant design improvements to 5.56 or make an even smaller cartridge with equal or better performance than 5.56 for most dismounts, combat support, and support personnel in a much smaller overall form even than the M4.
Just for reference on the Intermediate cartridge side, a 12” 6.5 Grendel will spit a new EPR projectile out at 3400fps, without exceeding 52,000psi chamber pressure.
6.5 Grendel and 6mm have decades of developmental history already behind them, so we aren’t re-inventing the wheel there either, and we haven’t even tried pushing them with the new case technology. The hybrid cases are failing though, so single piece cases continue to be a proven solution that can either be legacy brass, and/or NAS.
This solution set reduces the overall soldier’s and unit weight burden, while increasing the round count, increasing hit probability, increasing lethality, and increasing survivability.
NGSW does all of those metrics wrong.
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@gunguru7020 No, we already have 7.62 weapons down to the Platoon and Squad levels. I was an 11B, Scout Observer, Sniper, Recon ATL, Weapons Squad Leader, did all the duty positions in the line and Recon throughout my career, so I have a very intimate understanding of how the MTO&E actually works, what modern threats actually are from strategic down to tactical levels, and am a mega-geek gun guy with decades of experience in internal, external, and terminal ballistics research and application.
We can increase the performance we already have, while reducing the overall weight of weapons and ammunition, to increase lethality and survivability. NGSW can’t do any of that and is a flawed concept from the start, like literally every single Big Army weapons program since the M14.
Remember, this is an organization that can’t solicit, oversee development of, and field a successful service rifle since the 1950s when they went to replace the M1 Garand.
The USAF had to drive the successful replacement inadvertently after Army Ordnance declared the AR-15 totally unsuitable for Infantry use.
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A young new Senator who was a Soviet plant was the main cheerleader for killing the B-1A, after the Soviets paid for his campaign in 1972 using an environmental activism front group called The Council for a Livable World. Immediately after he was inaugurated, he flew to Leningrad to meet with senior Soviet leaders. Upon his return to the US, he began his campaign to defund and kill the Mach 2 capable B-1A, with its advanced sensor suite and 3 huge weapons bays that could carry rotary-launched ALCMs with nuclear warheads. The B-1A was anything but obsolete, and the Russians hated it. They also used their assets seeded throughout the CIA, USAF, DoD, and contractors to obtain all the technical data possible on the B-1A, which is what was used for the Tu-160 program. Anyone talking about how different they are and trying to support the Soviet narrative that it was an organic design from Tupolev is patently-ignorant of the key facts of the espionage orchestrated behind the scenes. Oh by the way...that Senator. He was a self-described pedophile/attorney scumbag who happily took the Soviet money and did their bidding for decades in the US Senate, and eventually became Vice President. His name.....Joseph Biden.
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@Joshua Ngau Ajang F-35A/B/C will be far more successful than the baby and Super Hornets, not taking away from either.
The Hornet's design was compromised significantly by carrierborne compatibility, which dictated wing sweep angle, landing gear weight, structural weight, wing fold, and a collection of systems that took away from the hot rod that the YF-17 was.
The Super Hornet Block III will be a different animal from existing SHs with F-35 inspired avionics, CFTs, high throughput data link compatible with F-35, new cockpit, AESA, etc.
But the F-35 represents a transformational leap in combat system development in a mass-produced single engine airframe that connects coalition forces in ways we never dreamed of before.
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@Punande I've been going to Finland since 1979 since my mom is from there, and I have lived there several times for 3 months to a year since 2005. Also have relatives in Sweden. Neither Finland nor Sweden are true socialist countries of course, but are more peripheral benefactors of the post-Bretton Woods US global trade scheme.
Look at the most capable military systems in Sweden and Finland:
All SAAB fighters have been powered by US turbofan engines since the 1960s Viggen (Pratt & Whitney JT8D modified with AB) and Gripen with GE F404 and now F414.
They use US Radar, missile, and avionics made under license, rebranded as Swedish to make Sweden think it's more capable than it is.
Finnish Air Force has been flying Hornets since 1995, now upgrading to F-35A Block 4, which will fundamentally turn FiAF from a limited defensive/lose slowly Air Force, to a strategic deterrence capability with deep strike options with heavy payloads and an unfair A2A advantage.
Neither country could ever make any of the difficult subsystems for those fighters on their own, nor could they have ever nurtured an international trade scheme to benefit their own economies as the US has done for EU, and by extension, the Nordics.
This is all a conversation despite cat ladies in Parliament or Rikstag wasting billions on stupid social welfare programs for immigrants, while murdering the future Nordics in the womb.
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@xyzaero The terminology gets confused by people in the absence of a baseline understanding of the applied physics and math.
VLO/Stealth = Very Low Observables, extremely hard to detect in RF and IR spectrums
LO = Reduced signature to take some of the edge off, but is still easily detected after that. Su-35 departs from the Su-27 and Su-30 by using more composites in the airframe, as composites are RF permeable, like all fighter radomes. The problem for the Su-35 is what’s underneath those composites is highly-reflective, and it has no IR signature reduction around the engine cowlings, which are Titanium in the white.
Typhoon, Rafale, and Super Hornet use some LO features, mainly the serpentine duct paths from the intakes to the engines, to help reduce or prevent RF NCTR Radar PID modes by hiding the cold fan stage of the motors from direct RF Line of Sight.
SH also uses quite a bit of RAM in strategic locations to help reducer signature and evade NCTR features.
B-1B has a lot of LO features incorporated into it, with a frontal RCS that is smaller than an F-16’s.
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@jordynivea It really is. They have mass shootings and murders in other countries, especially in ones with strict gun laws. Russia has the worst school massacre in history, Beslan.
Germany, Netherlands, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada have all had mass murders.
In Finland, the biker gangs even fired an anti-tank weapon into the courthouse during a lunch break between conviction and sentencing for one of their members.
Hand grenades, anti-armor weapons, nerve gas subway attacks, stabbings, home-made guns used for assassinations, gunning down kids with AKs at Beslan, the Paris nightclub attacks....
The grass is not greener in all these other countries. Media idiots just don't do basic research.
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Where I have seen the most waste, fraud, and abuse is in the DoD civilian agencies and mid-level staff officer and NCOs just by having a lot of them. The resource mismanagement and all the logistics required to support these personnel, their pay, buildings, offices, housing, waste, computers, supplies, IT, finance, and transportation is a huge drag on the system.
Because they account for jobs in critical Congressional districrs, they are fat sacred cows riding desks until retirement.
Scale that out across the Nation and forward deployed OCONUS bases that employ host nation locals, and you can see where hundreds of billions are spent each year.
Local contracts with civilian providers for basic services and supplies allows for prices to be hiked because the taxpayer isn't involved in the price negotiations, so everyone sees DoD as the golden goose that keeps laying without end.
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@SomeGeezer0 I’ve been working with Finland from 2005-2016 in preparation for these contingencies. My mom is from Finland and I have Finnish citizenship as a result, have lived there many times since 1979. The biggest thing is that people apply their thinking to the Russians, and the Russians don’t think like the rest of us, not even close. They’re historically retarded and also self-aware in a way that we aren’t.
Russians will do whatever Putin orders, and Putin still believes the history that fascist Finland invaded Russia in World War II. The official internal dialog within the KGB was based on Stalin’s history, where the false flag Stalin used to start the Winter War was a real attack from Finland.
Russians don’t generally even acknowledge Finland as an independent nation, many saying that the Czar created Finland, therefore Finland belongs to Russia and they should rightfully take it back. Same for the Baltics. Estonians aren’t even recognized as people. “Who are they? What do they have?”
Russians are very primitive thinkers in ways that make some of the dumbest, uneducated people in the West seem brilliant. You have to see it for yourself to understand what I’m talking about.
What that looks like in practice is Iskander cruise missiles hitting Helsinki, whether Russians can take any ground in Finland or not. Putin doesn’t read any Western analyses of Russia because he already has the best, most reliable information in his mind due to his KGB background. Everyone else are stupid peasants in his mind, filled with propaganda. Russians project their own condition on everyone else just as Westerners do to them. Neither are correct.
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@sentimentalbloke185 We use a planning process format called PACE, Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency.
For OSS training during WWII, they had towns in the Eastern US they used for insurgency and counter-occupation tactics, leveraging the resistance movements against the Nazis.
The British Special Operations Executive trained the OSS on these tactics, techniques, and procedures. OSS also recruited Mafia hitmen and gangsters who already had hands-on experience in that space.
For an urban sniper ambush, you have security elements who would signal the command & control element that the target was approaching (frequently Nazi officers in their command cars, or Nazis on motorcycles with the side car).
They had to be very ingenuitive with signals with primary and alternates.
In Dealey Plaza, it would make sense to use Radio and visual. Umbrella-pumping was an old technique used for signaling that would back-up the radio calls.
You don't want your shooters to be set up too early with rifles pointed until the target is close to the kill zone, so the timing is crucial.
You also need to work out your quick withdrawal and abort criteria, and can add diversions.
For a High Value Target, you would have multiple shooters to ensure they are eliminated, regardless of how good your shooters have performed before.
Moving targets are harder to hit, especially when partially-exposed.
That whole set-up in Dealey Plaza is like the UW exercises in OSS training or Robin Sage for the SFQC, which is a direct descendant of OSS culmination exercises.
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@fabiena1787 (I’m sure you already know this.) In modern fighters, you want an airframe meant for superior performance at altitude and speed with the ability to behave well in the transonic region, with high density air performance a secondary requirement. If you sacrifice the former for the latter, it’s more ideal for the lower altitude bands where surface-to-air missiles are more prevalent and deadly, fuel consumption is high, and sensor detection ranges are lower. F-15, Typhoon, F-22, and F-35 were designed with higher altitude bands in mind, with lower speed performance as a secondary (but important) attribute as well. The F-16 was designed for lower altitude bands as a day visual-only fighter, and never used that way other than one partial exception over Bekaa Valley in 1982, with lead flights coming from 90˚ to Syrian MiG ingress routes using Range While Search radar mode, and trail flights using eyeball search of any squirters.
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@edthompson9569 The differences in the jet fighter generations are very clear and easy to contrast if you study the technologies.
Propulsion, structures, avionics, sensors, man-machine interface, weapons employment, FLCS, and performance all show how different they are.
Sit in the cockpit of an F-86, F-100, F-4, F-16, and F-35 and then say generations are just marketing terms.
Look at the specs of the propulsion for each of those aircraft and talk about marketing.
Look at the structures, manufacturing processes, flight control systems, sensors, and weapons.
There are demonstrable differences in each that represent collective generational technology sets that only a fool would ignore.
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@dichebach Good points. The politicians of both parties typically have been more like each other than not, picking letters based on their constituent leanings in the districts in which they run. They are mostly attorneys after all, who win based on being malleable to the financiers of their campaigns. Organized crime really bought DC and City governments during Prohibition, with no real signs of having let go.
From Eisenhower to Reagan/Bush, Republicans were pretty hawkish on foreign entanglements, though both parties had major protests about Vietnam. Nixon criticized the LBJ handling of the war and said you either go full-court or get out.
There was a lot of polarization in the 1960s-1970s during Vietnam, which placed the voters at odds with DC in general, especially after 3 major assassinations of key leaders in the US.
The Country was more unified again under Reagan, who was a populist.
No matter what party is in the WH, the opposing party always finds some way to critique the WH for foreign entanglements. In this case, the GOP has been actually much more supportive for a WH that many of them think is not even a legitimate Presidency after the 2020 election.
Republicans understand better than Democrats the importance of stability in Europe because the military has been providing security in Europe for generations since 1945, and military personnel come from a lot of conservative families. You see more left-leaning liberals in the officer corps because of college, while enlisted war-fighters trend Republican.
Given that the new leadership of the Republican Party sees 2024 as an existential imperative for the Nation, and has a massive treason case brewing over the Biden family taking millions from Russia, it isn’t just a political gamesmanship season between D and R.
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You have to study Russian influence in US media and universities dating back to the 1930s, especially after FDR formally recognized Stalin and the Bolsheviks over Russian Nationalists in 1933.
Every journalism student has been thoroughly indoctrinated with Marxism-Leninism, anti-US sentiment, and views US foreign policy through a curated perspective driven by Soviet and Russian disinformation.
Since Russia could never go toe-to-toe with the US militarily, they knew they had to rely on subterfuge, lies, propaganda, and co-opting politicians with aggressive MICE attacks via the open US society.
That's why they financed the Senate campaign of a young recent law school graduate in 1972, who suffered from uncontrollable pedophilia tendencies.
He was a nobody, zero political career, never did anything notable. Then through a Soviet front company, he magically had campaign financing to unseat an incumbent Senator in Delaware that year.
His son lists him on his iPhone contacts list as "Pedo Pete", but most know him by the name of Joseph Biden.
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@yourhandlehere1 I started off very skeptical about JSF after seeing the first production models. Instead of forming an opinion, I started researching more and listened to a wide variety of people close to the program, while taking note of where most of the mud was being slung from (Boeing).
Having close familiarity with how we developed the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, and Typhoon, I had a lot of data points and references to compare JSF to, and became more impressed by what I saw. They really did an unprecedented job of working out the kinks before going into higher production rates, which is the opposite of what we did with the teen fighters.
With the teens/Harrier/A-10, we lost 505 airframes with 189 fatalities in the first 10 years of each of those programs cumulatively. The difference is we live in the internet age where every little hiccup is amplified by people who literally don’t know the difference between AB flame holders and a bulkhead. JSF is an awesome program, and the safety record reflects that.
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@astronautical1082 Republicans and Reagan shut down mental hospitals when Congress was almost a super majority Democrat body, even in legacy Democrat-run States? State mental institutions are run by the States, funded by State budgets. If you study this issue, you will see it isn’t partisan. There has been bi-partisan support for the big pharmaceutical industries, who also own legacy corporate media (along with finances, real estate, teacher’s union retirement funds, energy, big tech, big retail, big food, etc.). If you cover down on societal issues through a partisan window, you will often be easily-misled.
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@AlexKall 4th & 5th Generation fighters are widely recognized terms today.
The 4th Generation was distinguished from previous fighters with the advent of turbofans, higher maneuverability, better man-machine interface with pilot input into cockpit design, solid state electronics, integrated systems interface between Fire Control Computer and Radar display with HUD, more use of composites in the airframe, and high combat thrust-to-weight ratio greater than 1:1.
The F-14 wasn't a true 4th Gen design until the D model since the A didn't have HOTAS, had a very rudimentary HUD, no 1:1 thrust-to-weight ratio, and tube electronics.
Su-57 doesn't qualify as 5th Gen because it doesn't have RF and IR VLO, but isn't really a 4.5 Gen because it has internal weapons bays and a vast sensor suite that is more like what the ATF was originally planned to have with side-looking AESAs, combined with IR sensors imitating the coverage of the F-35 DAS, albeit with very dirty protuberances.
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@AlexKall The ones who set the trends get to establish the metrics by which they will be matched or countered.
For example, up through the MiG-25, the Soviet Union only produced fighters with turbojet engines, analog instruments, vacuum tube electronics, engineer-designed cockpits with limited human interface/ergonomics, GCI-focused intercept profiles and primary weapons, mostly tube fuselages and heavier metal alloys (MiG-25 used extensive amounts of stainless steel), etc.
Once the US teen fighters emerged, radical changes in airframe design and propulsion came forth, with low-bypass turbofan engines, blended fuselage/wings, leading edge wing root extensions, significant use of composites, computer-aided design, significantly-improved pilot-sensor interface, HOTAS, advanced multimode pulse-doppler radars, radar warning receiver sets with expanding computing power for bandwidth, threat signature recognition, and closure rate algorithms to delineate between threat radars vs missile warning.
What did Russia/Soviet Union do? Copied the airframe designs down to the landing gear doors (Su-27 from F-14), engine nacelle arrangement, leading edge root extensions, wing and tailplane arrangement (F-15), intake geometry (A-5 Valkyrie, F-14, F-15), and adopted turbojets of their own (with far lower service lives).
With the F-22, Russia set out to develop a counter to it with PAK-FA, but originally claimed they would match or out-perform the Raptor in climb rate, speed, and supercruise, while also making it a stealth airframe.
In each of these metrics, they have failed. So the successful aerospace community gets to raise and set the bar with innovation, while the imitators get what they get, especially when they fail.
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@Caeruleo The doctors with hundreds of samples of GSW entrance/exit experience will of course stomp the amateurs they had run the autopsy at Bethesda, with General LeMay barking out orders from inside the room, puffing away at his cigar.
But you can just look at Zapruder and see 90° supersonic spalling and blood splatter from the point of impact.
This is something you don't see with exit wounds of the skull. Exit wound ejecta and spatter typically blow out with about 30° of spatter from the flight path of what's left of the projectile.
For the impact side, due to the vascular nature of the face, you will see 90° spalling and splatter, exactly as seen in Zapruder.
You also see the projectile momentum transfer into the skull, sending it backwards.
I've been observing tens of thousands of rifle impacts through optics, high-speed camera, or on live tissue over the past 4 decades.
Gerald Posner has zero business discussing terminal ballistics, trauma, or forensics unless he's asking questions from people that actually know what they're talking about.
In other words, he should shut his mouth on this whole subject.
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@ADigbySellers Posner isn't remotely credible here. He isn't qualified to make any scientific statements about any of this. He's a quack attorney with zero experience in forensics, terminal ballistics, or gun shot wound behavior.
I've been involved in this field with tens of thousands of observed rifle impacts through optics and high-speed cameras over the past 40 years, as well as laboratory setting live tissue studies and trauma management at the Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center.
I have specifically focused on 6.5mm projectiles of all types and their terminal performance for the last 14 years, with published studies documenting their behavior in tissue and ballistics media.
In my professional perspective, the final head shot observed on Zapruder shows a high velocity impact through JFK's right frontal region of the skull, immediately causing supersonic 90° spalling, and cavitation of the skull with avulsion of the right scalp. This had to have come from the front.
A 6.5x52 Carcano seems to be what produced the throat and back wounds, if we accept SS Agent Landis recent testimony that he found "the prestine bullet" on the ledge behind JFK, and placed it on his gurney at Parkland so it would stay with JFK.
I have some suspicions about a higher velocity rifle cartridge used for the head shot.
What I can say with surety is the WC fundamentally undermines itself throughout, including the ballistic creations it uses to try to make a single shooter fit the lone gunman narrative.
Given Landis' recent statements, the magic bullet theory can finally be put to bed. Posner should just go away quietly and not say anymore on the subject, unless it's a total retraction of all of his claims.
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@amanuelasele7799 So you’re saying the Chinese economy is doing well, their scientists are finally innovating solutions on their own (not stealing breakthroughs from their time in US and European universities), registering patents and publishing papers in scientific journals, and this is causing US politicians (many of whom are bought by China) to panic?
Do you mind sharing with me where you get your information from?
I track internal reports from observers in China outside of the corporate media, and their assessments are quite different about the Chinese economy.
I also track PLAAF mishaps and things are not looking good for their engine performance in terms of reliability and safety. They’re basically where the US was with after burning turbofan development in the late 1960s-1970s with regard to engine failures, and that’s with the benefit of FADEC technology that was developed in the US in the 1980s-1990s installed on their unreliable/unsafe turbofan engines.
Look at mishap rates for the J-10, J-11, Su-27SK, etc. Excrement performance. They are very guarded about anything in this space for the J-20, so we are to believe that it has suffered no mishaps. Russians have lost at least 2 Su-57s, one to a fire and the first production sample to a crash, and openly reported those mishaps.
So far, if we believe China’s reporting, the J-20 is the epitome of 5th Gen aviation, the Mighty Dragon! It’s propaganda written for small children’s minds, and coming from an American, that’s saying a lot.
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@karmpuscookie Current occupier of the White House has been a traitor since no later than 1972, when the Soviets financed his campaign via Council for a Livable World.
FDR was compromised by Papa Joe Kennedy, the Brits, and Soviets.
LBJ was compromised by business tycoons in Texas, as well as Soviet assets inside CIA.
Bush41 was compromised by the Chinese, raising a very pro-China family of politicians and brokers via George Jr., Jeb, and Neil.
Clinton was compromised by the Soviets in college, CIA and George H.W. Bush when Clinton was Governor. Chinese paid for much of the 1992 and 1996 campaigns.
Obama was raised from infancy as an insurgent against the US system by Bolsheviks and leftist self-haters. Chinese financed his 2008 and 2012 campaigns via a network of online accounts.
China and Russia worked hard with millions, along with billions from Google to elect Hillary, who had been on the payroll since the 1980s via safe deposit accounts in Chiasso Switzerland.
None of them wanted Trump in office because he represented a huge threat to the culture of institutional treason built by our enemies over the better part of a century. That's why they went after General Flynn so hard, since he came from DIA.
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@MrDanisve The Norwegian Air Force Logistics Chief, Air Chief, and Defense Minister all said on separate occasions that F-35A CPFH was 110,000 Krone, including fuel, maintenance, spares, and personnel salaries.
F-16A is a lot lighter, so the thrust-to-weight ratio is excellent, and they overhauled into the F100-PW-220E. Nobody flies with the original PW-200 motors among the MSIP partner nations (Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark).
56 of Norway's 74 F-16s were upgraded to MLU, so they got a lot of Block 50 avionics with most of the increased weapons and sensor capabilities.
(We were on the F-16 program so I'm intimately familiar with it.)
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@MrDanisve The newer motors cost less to operate because there are less parts and they have FADEC, plus the hot core turbine blades are more robust by a significant margin.
Biggest cost factors for maintenance are Radar and engine, followed by hydraulics, EPU, FLCS actuators, brakes, tires, cockpit, anti-corrosion work, inspections and depot-level work.
The F-16 is a very easy aircraft to maintain. The F-35A is even easier, with a much lower break-rate, higher reliability.
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@ivanlagrossemoule Il n'y avait pas de cloques sur la peinture et il n'y avait que 2 des 6 premières variantes JSF de production des premiers lots (qui n'ont jamais été produites en série), qui ont connu des températures élevées lors des tests supersoniques. Ces 2 modèles, un modèle B et un modèle C, ont été volés à plusieurs reprises le long de la côte est des États-Unis à des vitesses supersoniques soutenues maximales pour déterminer les limites structurelles et de surface avec une instrumentation intégrée aux surfaces pour recueillir des points de test de données d'ingénierie.
Les ingénieurs étaient préoccupés par certaines des températures qu'ils ont vues sur 2 des avions dans les stabilisateurs verticaux, alors les pilotes d'essai ont pris les 4 autres avions et ont essayé de dupliquer ces points de test avec des charges thermiques encore plus extrêmes via une vitesse supersonique soutenue et des plongées. dans un air plus épais. Ils ne pourraient jamais dupliquer ces points de test.
De toute façon, cela n'avait pas d'importance, car les matériaux de l'empennage utilisés sur ces premiers avions en surpoids n'ont jamais été produits pour les autres avions 686 JSF qui ont été construits depuis ces premiers jours.
Le problème était que le Pentagone a été poussé par les districts du Congrès à imposer arbitrairement l'utilisation de certains pourcentages de matières premières stratégiques, l'aluminium par exemple. C'est l'alliage le plus couramment utilisé sur les chasseurs, mais Lockheed-Martin et Northrop-Grumman voulaient utiliser davantage de composites en fibre de carbone. Les 6 premiers oiseaux étaient en surpoids en raison de l'utilisation intensive d'aluminium dans les 4 empennages.
Dans le cadre du programme de perte de poids d'urgence, toutes ces structures en aluminium ont été remplacées par de la fibre de carbone dans les empennages, ce qui non seulement les rendait plus solides, mais les rendait également transparentes au RADAR, réduisant considérablement la section transversale du RADAR.
Ils ont également changé la RAM en un processus plus avancé, plus facile à appliquer et beaucoup plus facile à entretenir. Vous pouvez immédiatement voir la différence entre les premiers lots F-35 et les lots ultérieurs par la couleur et le schéma de peinture.
Si vous voyez une source médiatique parler de "fonte de la peau" sur les F-35, vous savez maintenant à quel point ils sont dépassés et mal informés sur ce sujet particulier. Ces 6 premiers oiseaux ont été construits au milieu des années 2000. Le principal problème qu'ils ont présenté était de ne permettre à aucune des 3 variantes JSF de répondre à leurs paramètres de performance clés, ce qui aurait tué le programme si elles avaient été autorisées à être produites en série. Ils ne répondaient pas aux spécifications de poussée/poids, de taux de montée, de performances de virage ou de rayon de combat en raison du poids, de sorte que la conception a été considérablement révisée avant d'entrer en production de masse.
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@thierrydonat6824 Des dizaines d'unités de l'USAF et de l'OTAN ont déjà remplacé leurs F-16 et A-10 par des F-35A et se sont déployées de manière opérationnelle dans le monde entier, y compris des années d'opérations de combat en Syrie, en Irak et dans le golfe Persique. Les Israéliens utilisent les leurs au combat depuis début 2018. L'USMC s'est déployée dans la mer Rouge avec les leurs en 2018, suivis de l'USAF des Émirats arabes unis et du Royaume-Uni de Chypre 2018-2019.
Les Italiens volent en Islande avec le statut d'alerte du corridor de la zone de défense aérienne de l'OTAN, tout comme les Norvégiens. Il y a déjà beaucoup d'historique de déploiement et de mission opérationnelle dans la flotte JSF pour les modèles F-35A et F-35B dans plusieurs pays.
Des centaines de « carences » sont en fait des opportunités d'amélioration des capacités identifiées en dehors des spécifications contractuelles, et non un problème avec l'une des 3 variantes.
Encore une fois, s'ils avaient vraiment toutes ces lacunes critiques, nous aurions des taux d'accidents plus élevés. Ce que nous voyons, c'est la série de combattants la plus sûre jamais conçue jusqu'à présent. Comparez ses taux d'accidents avec le Rafale, le Raptor ou le Typhoon, qui sont tous beaucoup plus sûrs que les anciens jets des années 1970 aux années 1980. C'est ainsi que vous savez qu'on vous ment et que vous n'avez pas besoin de 41 ans d'expérience dans l'industrie aérospatiale et de la défense comme moi pour le voir. Les chiffres ne mentent pas.
JSF a en fait une structure logistique plus rationalisée que le F-16, par exemple. En 2020, la flotte de F-35A de l'USAF s'est hissée au sommet avec les taux de préparation les plus élevés, plus élevés que même les F-16C et A-10C, qui sont historiquement parmi les avions les plus disponibles avec peu d'heures de maintenance. Le suicide entraînerait une flotte de F-16C ou A-10C dans certains des environnements de défense aérienne intégrée à moindre menace que l'on trouve dans de nombreux pays pauvres.
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@BFOP15 Il n'y a pas de programme officiel d'enregistrement pour de nouveaux achats de F-15 pour Israël. Il existe un programme officiel d'achat de 50 autres F-35I, ainsi que de ravitailleurs KC-46. Israël ne reçoit pas ses avions gratuitement. Ils obtiennent une contrepartie dollar à dollar par les programmes d'aide aux ventes militaires à l'étranger des États-Unis, il serait donc plus exact de dire que la moitié de leurs commandes sont soutenues par les États-Unis avec l'aide.
L'USAF n'a pas « commandé d'urgence » 128 F-16. Le calendrier de production de 128 F-16V (Block 70) est prévu depuis de nombreuses années et chacun d'entre eux est destiné à des clients militaires étrangers, et non à l'USAF. La dernière nouvelle Viper a été livrée à l'USAF en 2005 et pilotée par mon ancien voisin, qui a également piloté le premier à piloter le F-16B des décennies auparavant. Ces F-16V vont à Bahreïn, en Bulgarie, en Slovaquie et à Taïwan. Cela peut être déroutant car les commandes de ventes militaires étrangères sont compensées par le DoD.
"700 F-35 de pré-production". Réfléchissez à cette déclaration pendant quelques minutes et dites-moi ce qui ne va pas. IOC a été créé il y a des années pour les variantes USMC et USAF JSF, et a été développé depuis avec la validation et l'expansion des armes comme tout autre programme de combat. J'ai vécu le développement des dernières années pour le F-4E, les années initiales et intermédiaires pour les blocs F-15A, F-15C, F-16A et F-16C 25, 30, 32, 40 et 42. Le F -35A a commencé avec une combinaison d'armes et de capteurs beaucoup plus performante que toute autre plate-forme aérienne tactique de l’histoire.
Chaque fois qu'un nouveau programme de chasseurs entre en production aux États-Unis, la plupart de la première série de production ira normalement aux unités d'essais en vol, d'armes, d'essais et de conversion d'entraînement. Cela a été fait avec les F-4, F-15 et F-16. Avec le F-16, il s'agissait de quelques blocs de production de modèles F-16A/B avec des capacités air-air et air-sol limitées, et qui présentaient toutes sortes de défauts majeurs. Ces défauts ont entraîné 143 pertes totales de cellules et 71 décès au cours des 10 premières années de la durée de vie du F-16. Le moteur était susceptible d'exploser, de caler et de démarrer la postcombustion. Les boîtes de routage fly-by-wire avaient des vis fixées à travers elles, contrairement aux rivets demandés par les concepteurs pour éviter les frottements. Un responsable d'étage avait remplacé des vis sans autorisation, causant la mort de nombreux pilotes et la destruction de cellules.
C'est pourquoi nous avons des tests et des évaluations opérationnels. C'est juste fait à une échelle beaucoup plus grande aux États-Unis parce que la taille des flottes est gigantesque par rapport à d'autres pays. Nous avons largement dépassé ce stade avec le F-35 et remplissons des escadrons dans des escadres opérationnelles depuis de nombreuses années maintenant.
Bon nombre des systèmes prévus pour le bloc 4 sont plus légers que les systèmes actuels. Par exemple, les nouvelles caméras Raytheon DAS sont beaucoup plus légères, ont une résolution de 2048x2048 et représentent une fraction du coût des caméras Northop-Grumman DAS. Il intègre également l'EOTS avancé dans le nez, pour améliorer les performances déjà phénoménales de l'EOTS actuel.
Le module de mise à niveau du moteur déjà développé par Pratt & Whitney en tant qu'option de remplacement lors de la révision programmée du dépôt est principalement destiné à augmenter l'efficacité énergétique, ainsi que la poussée. Ce n'est pas parce que le F-35 devient plus lourd, mais pour augmenter les performances similaires à ce qui a été fait avec le programme d'amélioration des performances du moteur pour les F-16C Blocks 30 et plus. Le F-35A a actuellement un rayon de combat et une endurance plus longs que tous les chasseurs tactiques hérités de l'USAF.
Les F-35 norvégiens et italiens ont mené des efforts conjoints pour remplir la mission de zone de défense aérienne de l'OTAN en Islande. Divers chasseurs de l'OTAN y effectuent une rotation, car l'USAF n'y a plus de base permanente de F-15C. La Norvège remplace tous ses F-16A par des F-35A. Vous devriez lire les rapports des pilotes seniors norvégiens Viper de plus de 2000 heures qui pilotent maintenant le F-35A.
L'armée de l'air finlandaise et le ministre de la Défense avaient déjà déclaré en 2015 qu'ils voulaient des F-35, et non des chasseurs d'ancienne génération qui coûteront trop cher et n'auront pas de capacités pertinentes par rapport aux menaces émergentes. Biden n'a rien à voir avec ça. Il ne savait même pas pour quel poste il dirigeait l'année dernière, déclarant à plusieurs reprises au cours de sa "campagne" qu'il "courait pour le Sénat américain", et que "nous ne pouvons pas avoir 4 ans de plus de George, George, euh George Bush)". Son cerveau est rempli de dommages causés par des anévrismes. Il ne sait même pas où il est ni à qui il parle. Il est parti vers les buissons de la Maison Blanche il y a quelques semaines. Son cerveau a presque totalement disparu.
Qu'est-ce que cela a à voir avec l'armée de l'air finlandaise ? Ils s'en moquent. Ils ont juste besoin d'un avion de combat moderne et évolutif qui remplacera leurs Hornets vieillissants et sera pertinent contre les drones Su-57, S-70 et Super Flankers couverts par un système de défense aérienne intégré le long de la frontière russo-finlandaise. En rejoignant le programme JSF, la Finlande disposera d'une capacité en réseau avec la Norvège, la Pologne, les Pays-Bas, le Royaume-Uni, le Danemark, la Belgique, la Suisse et l'Italie. C'est ce que la Russie ne veut pas, c'est pourquoi vous voyez une campagne de désinformation aussi massive dans les médias pour jeter le doute sur JSF. Ils ont réussi à tuer le Raptor avec SECDEEF Gates, mais JSF est trop énorme, trop international, trop de sous-traitants répartis dans le monde entier, avec 3 chaînes de montage sur 3 continents différents.
Il y a une réalité totalement différente lorsque vous commencez vraiment à étudier JSF, et rien de tout cela n'est vraiment discuté au grand jour. Le bilan de sécurité est le premier indicateur majeur de l'étendue des mensonges.
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@1234crevis Russian aircraft don't last long. They mostly were built under the wartime production concept of mass-production, low airframe and engine life.
Even the MiG-29s and Su-27s built in the 1980s are all mostly retired from service.
MiG-21s, MiG-23s, and MiG-25s have been out of VVS/VKS service for decades.
MiG-21 and MiG-23s were replaced by MiG-29s. How many Russian fighter regiments are flying MiG-29s anymore?
MiG-25s were replaced by the MiG-31, then MiG-31s were upgraded to MiG-31BM.
Su-30 began production after Su-27, and then Su-35 went into production.
Su-30s are already undergoing Su-30SM2 upgrades to be data-linked and share logistics with Su-35S.
1960s, 1970s, and 1980s Soviet fighters are all rotting away, crashed, or sold via FMS to poor countries. They were never built to last. The MiG-21 was probably the most robust and easy to maintain of them all, and those are long-gone.
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@deckape69 No, Trump made his money in large real estate construction deals over many decades, employing thousands of people over the years.
Biden offered his treason in exchange for Soviet funding into the Senate, then worked for the Soviets for decades, then the Chinese, by providing access through his political connections.
Totally different sources of money. One is honest, takes lots of financial risks, and provides rewards for millions of people.
The other is treasonous, felonious, and has hurt the United States for many decades since the 1970s, while benefitting the Biden family financially, and putting Russia and China in better positions to challenge the US militarily.
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@matsv201 I’ve been in aerospace and defense specific to these technologies since the 1970s. You are the one who doesn’t have even a remote clue of what you’re talking about, and your use of terminology is not even coherent or correct.
Every technology in the Gripen comes from the US and UK. Data links are not a Swedish invention. This claim does not fit the historical timeline well at all. SAGE pre-dates the Draken, and Draken didn’t have data link when it went into production.
None of the Swedish fighter engines are built in Sweden. The high temperature, high pressure turbine cores have always been either British Rolls Royce, or US Pratt & Whitney and GE. Sweden simply does not have the science, engineering, or industrial capacity to make HPHT turbine blades, disks, and assembled cores. That is an exclusive technology limited to a small handful of large nations, not Sweden.
Same with Radar components. Sweden will never have Semiconductor or transistor technology that is capable of achieving the element density of modern SCs, let alone microprocessors. The US created this technology and leads the pack in those types of Radar subcomponents.
For example, USMC and Canadian F/A-18s are getting APG-79(V)4 GaN AESA upgrades, which is a more capable AESA than what is proposed even to go into the Gripen E. The US has more capable AESAs than APG-79(V)4 in F-22A Block 30 and JSF with APG-81.
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@anordman9659 It has nothing to do with patriotism, since my family line is heavily Swedish and Finnish. My grandfather was a Swedish-speaking Finn, and we have lots of family in Sweden and Finland currently. I’m pretty dispassionate about my analyses. For example, the Viggen had the most thrust of any single engine fighter until the IPE program for F-16 in the US (though the P&W JT8D in Viggen was not developed for use in a fighter like that), and I was tracking that in the 1970s-1980s.
The Danes have been flying Vipers since 1980 as part of the European/NATO F-16 enterprise partners. They have undergone MLU and various Danish AF specific modifications and upgrades to their F-16s, especially looking at their integrated countermeasures pylons and Recce pods, as well as spotlights for the intercept mission profile.
What you seem to be suggesting is that Saab somehow would have been able to provide better support over the past 4 decades than the F-16 international enterprise. Assuming the Gripen had existed in the late 1970s to be evaluated for replacing the F-104s, you’re now extending the critical subsystem supply chain even further, since the engine, Radar, landing gear, fuel pumps, hydraulics, ejection seats, brakes, Air Data Computer, Mil-1553 databus, APU, ECS, refueling probe, servos, gun, composites, and a laundry list of its systems are all made in the US, UK, France, and Germany.
Poland? Poland has their own depot-level maintenance facility for F-16s and has had for 10 years. I’m not sure what regrets you’re referring to on F-16 acquisition for those nations.
We do know, by Saab’s marketing firm’s own guilty pleas in ITAR court, that the only reason why Czechia and Hungary bought/leased Gripen C/Ds was because of bribes. They plead guilty with a $400 million fine to reduce the scope of the investigation into the South African deal, because that would have exposed further bribery not only for the Gripen, but Hawk trainers.
The stories about Gripen deployments to Red Flag have been some of the most misrepresented and twisted accounts I’ve seen. The first RF 2006-01 involved Gripens being tasked in Red Air, working with Aggressor F-15Cs and F-16Cs to provide a tough air component OPFOR for attending Blue Forces. I’ve gone through the list of every attending USAF and foreign partner nation fighter squadron, and the highest capability F-16C squadron was from the Oklahoma National Guard for RF06-01.
The main thing Gripen attendance did was provide a venue for Swedish AF to employ GBU-12s on follow-on RF LFEs, to expand the Gripen’s Air-to-Ground capabilities and bring them up-to-speed, since the instrumented training range opportunities of that nature didn’t exist in Northern Europe at the time, and still don’t have boxes with all the threat emulators and aggressor fleets like at RF.
USAF extending an invitation to Swedish Air Force was a hand-up, not a venue for the Gripen to come display superiority to any other platforms. Red Flag isn’t about that at all.
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@anordman9659 Wikipedia is riddled with inaccuracies, so I don’t use it other than an example of what not to do. I’m referencing the UNCLAS attending units ATO for all Red Flags, along with comments from the Gripen community who attended.
Gripens have been to Red Flag more than once, and follow-on rotations had them incorporated with Blue Air for the strike mission set. Photos and videos of those rotations show them configured for strike with GBU-12s, EFTs, and FLIR pods.
Yes, Saab’s marketing firm was a cut-out used by BAE, so Saab itself could not be implicated in the bribery to Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa, Thailand, and Brazil. The outgoing Brazilian President’s son had $740,000 deposited in his bank account by intermediaries associated with Saab.
The main culprits are the Riksdag, who handicapped Saab with a limited budget and the stipulation of FMS to support Gripen development and acquisition, so Saab had to secure FMS contracts at all cost.
Agreed on supporting Ukraine. I think all of the 4th gen options are compromises, but I would lean on which one has the most robust self-protection suite available that is proven and well-developed, that also has some good anti-Radar capability. I have no financial or personal gains to be made from this, since I was DoD, never employed by any of the contractors. Many of my family members and friends have been employed by various Aerospace contractors, including BAE and every major US company, except maybe Lockheed.
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@anordman9659 I calculated Thrust-to-Weight on my own, sourcing empty weight and internal fuel mass from Saab, pylon and LAU weight from the OEM companies, ammo weight and weapon weights from the manufacturers. It’s totally different than what is listed on Wikipedia. Wikipedia lists a T/W that can only be achieved with a stripped airframe and less than 50% internal fuel.
After all the weights of the necessary pylons and rails for a 2x IRIS-T and 2x Meteor A2A load, at 50% internal fuel and no EFTs, I got .92 T/W ratio. That’s like rewinding the clock to the 1970s in raw fighter performance.
Another problem I have is the claims about short take-offs. There are claims ranging from 500-800m for the short take-off Gripen. Every uncut video I have seen with Gripen take-offs shows 1200-1300m with no room for aborts on several of the locations. I used landmarks on the airfields for the start points and lift-off points, to include arresting cable equipment locations, painted strips, taxiway locations, comms towers, wind flags, and located them on Google Earth.
What can you share about take off distance to set the record straight?
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He spoke in broad generalities about hubs of support like Lend-Lease. In Lend-Lease, we literally gave Stalin the components to build the first Soviet nuclear weapons, in addition to over 100,000 trucks, tanks, fighters, bombers, steel, aluminum, copper, avgas, fuel, clothing, medical supplies, etc.
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The point of the new core is to increase thrust to 46,100-47,300lb in max AB, and 29,960-30,800lb in mil, while increasing the fuel efficiency to extend the range/radius even longer.
They're using different manufacturing techniques and ceramic-alloy combinations to achieve it.
P&W already have demonstrated the capability without being asked to do it, and have a plan in-place to upgrade every F135 as they come in for depot-level overhaul during their mid-life inspections and refurb schedule.
Pratt said the new core technology is so good that they've already changed their processes to the new system as a result.
In layman's terms, we're living in an era where you will witness the progression into a 50,000lb thrust class fighter engine.
Keep in mind the F-15 & F-16 have been flying with 23,770-29,160lb thrust class F100 variants.
F-22A has been flying with 35,000lb thrust class F119.
F-35s are flying with 43,000lb F135-PW-100/400.
Even with the 46,100lb F135-PW-XXX, that will mean a take-off T/W ratio of .94 with internal bombs and missiles, and a combat T/W of 1.15 with 9,000lb of fuel remaining, still carrying 2x 2000lb JDAMs and 2x AIM-120C.
If the bombs have been dropped, it would have 1.19 T/W. Think Raptor and slick Typhoon class climb rate.
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Paul was a piece of work, indicative of a multi-generationally-corrupt family that enables illegal and sociopathic behavior from their children. Based on all the people who have died around the Murdaugh brothers, it’s probably good for society that Paul is gone. Paul’s first concern after the Mallory Beach DUI homicide was to call his lawyer grandfather, who showed up with Alex to the ER so they could start doing damage control among the other 4 witnesses. 6 left on the boat, 5 survived. Paul was very hostile to LEOs and EMS personnel at the scene of the boat crash.
Buster Murdaugh has been implicated by multiple witnesses in the murder of Stephen Smith back in July 8, 2015. Stephen’s car had run out of gas not far from the Murdaugh hunting lodge, and was walking to go get gas when Buster Murdaugh and some friends were driving drunk passed him, slowed down, turned around, then drove past him when Buster allegedly hit Stephen with a blunt force object, killing him.
Stephen’s body was found in the road, ruled an accident, no real investigation into it, with strange behavior by SLED related to it transpired afterwards.
Their housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, “fell down some stairs” on Feb 2, 2018, and died later in the hospital from cerebral hemorrhaging. Immediately ruled “natural causes”. The more I look into this case, the more strange deaths I find. Nothing but really bad things seems to happen around these people.
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Yes, we obviously need another option because...
MQ-9
A-10C
F-16CM+
F-15C+
F-15E+
F-15EX
F-35A
F-22A
...just don't cut the mustard. We need something that is better than F-16CM but not as good as F-35A. We can't sacrifice F-35A for the low end fight because....all those 950 F-16Cs, 219 F-15Es, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and 287 A-10Cs would then have to....uh be used and stuff, like we have been doing for the lower-end fight.
So I guess we need something to replace all those, that is cheaper than them (after all the upgrades done to F-16Cs, they cost way more than F-35A), that isn't as good as F-35A because it's too safe, too survivable, and too lethal.
It's just downright unfair to use the F-35A, plus when we don't report all the necessary combat systems on the F-16CMs, the F-35A looks more expensive to operate even though it isn't.
Therefore, we need more funding for a new shiny toy with the buzzword "digital" in it, as if we haven't used digital design already on ATF and JSF.
Brought to you by USAF Leadership thinking.
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RINO George Bush Sr. betrayed the Kurds because he was involved with Saddam in a banking scandal and supplying Saddam with WMD. F-15 pilots flying over could have smoked the Iraqi helicopters and nobody would have been the wiser, but they were told to go cold and not interfere. The only good FBI Director we ever had, William Sessions, allowed Federal investigators to snoop under the WH door on that one. Bush’s AG told the incoming Clinton DOJ to fire the FBI Director as a result, as he also had 14 referrals to high crimes and treason on the Clintons before the inauguration even in ’93.
That outgoing AG for Bush41 was..................Bill Barr. Bill Clinton fired William Sessions on July 19, 1993. The next day, one of the main targets of the 14 referred espionage/high crimes/treason investigations was found dead in Fort Marcy Park just over the other side of the Potomac. His name was....Vince Foster.
The Independent Counsel to investigate numerous criminal referrals on the Clintons was appointed, and a young law school staffer latched onto the Vince Foster story and would not let go. Robert Fiske soon saw the IC was not going to help his health, and washed his hands of it, giving it a chance to die, but the young staffer refused to let go of the Foster murder, so another RINO named Kenneth Starr picked up the IC and later threw us a bone with the Monica Lewinsky Scandal.
The young staffer who wouldn’t let the Foster case go? .................Brett Kavanaugh
These things are all connected in very fascinating ways.
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@jakefromstatefarm142 "Over 40,000 people died last year from gun violence." False
Anywhere between 54-61% of firearms-related deaths are suicides. "Children" include up to 19yrs old in some of the rigged statistics, which is primarily gang violence among older young adults ages 16-19.
In 2019, 55.9% of murderers who used a firearm were black, 41.1% were white, 3% other. 43.2% of firearms-related murders occurred during arguments. 24.6% of homicides occurred in conjunction with the commission of another felonious crime such as rape, robbery, burglary, car-jacking, etc.
2020 saw a large increase in the overall homicide rate, while 2022 saw a 4% decline in the homicide rate. 1974 had the highest firearms murder rate in decades at 7.2/100,000.
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@jakefromstatefarm142 Your analogies to vehicles fail several tenets of critical thinking and the intellectual standards.
If you want to compare vehicle traffic with firearms use, it makes the most sense to look at shooting ranges with people on lanes next to each other, managed "traffic", insurance, range rules, range officers, containment berms, baffles, signage, fees, and insurance.
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The city gangs used to work for the politicians in the 1800s-1919. With Prohibition, they handed over billions in revenue to organized crime, which included the legacy WASP nativists, the Irish, and the newcomer Sicilians, Russian Jews, Italians, Greeks, etc.
Those crime syndicates organized even more and bought the politicians they used to work for.
They literally took over as much of the government as possible in the 1920s, including the new unconstitutional secret police, the FBI.
The FBI then ran cover for the big players, while snuffing out competition working in conjunction with Prohibition Bureau agents.
It was so bad that after the 1929 St. Valentines Day Massacre, the local investigators didn't trust the system, and went to an independent university professor to run his ballistics testing on some Thompson submachineguns they recovered in Michigan.
The projectiles recovered at the murder scene matched both guns in those tests, but it's still a cold case to this day.
J.Edgar Hoover maintained that the National Crime Syndicate didn't even exist for decades. He said it was a myth.
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@Wizzer F-15As quickly got sent to ANG units as Cs rolled off the line and into operational units in West Germany, Netherlands, England, Japan, Iceland, Virginia, Holloman NM in the 1980s.
All F-15s got the DSP upgrade to the radar on the late 1970s-early 1980s as one of the main technical orders.
F-15Cs later got an Electronically Scanned Array radar antennae, then an even newer AESA, then data link, a new digital EW suite, JHMCS, and AIM-9X/AIM-120D integration.
There are a lot of major Voper production blocks with substantial differences over the years.
In USAF operational units, they only fly Block 40/42 & 50/52, totally different than Block 30s and 25s.
All the A & B models made from 1978-1983 are long-gone to the boneyard or TGT drones. They've been shooting down QF-16C Block 30s for years now.
Operational Vipers are currently finishing or already have the new AESA radars, new data links/JTIDS, JHMCS, EW suites, LITENING pods, AIM-9X and AIM-120C7/D integration.
Just like with the F-4E, they were upgraded until the end with AIM-9L, new ECM, etc. F-4 guys were deflated after getting so many new systems, only to have them sold to foreign countries or send to boneyard.
Airframes and subsystems time out, no longer meet readiness and durability of US training and deployment tempo.
That's why the JSF airframe is rated for so many more hours than any legacy fighters, which also doesn't get reported.
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@AUGUSTALLEN28 For the first time in US history, we have actual leadership based on decades of trial and error in the private sector, as opposed to crafted and manufactured sell-out politicians who get their statements issued to them by the party donors.
While Presidents of the past gave lip service to prison reform, trade imbalances, border walls, immigration, and any number of other major issues that BOTH parties agreed on, Trump tackled these issues aggressively within his first 2 years of office, getting more positive things done than R/D Presidents and Congresses ever got done.
But Trump man bad still resonates loudly in the minds of people who refuse to dispassionately review the facts-mainly out of partisan bias and a non-stop message from the media ( of whom are financed and sponsored by big Pharma, insurance companies, etc.-just notice whose commercials are on in between the rants about Trump). These are the same multi-multi-billion companies that finance both political parties and determine who the candidates will be by filling the pool with them in the House and Senate, as well as Governorships.
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Ernest Hemingway Yes, US fighter engines have been better than Russian engines since the F-86F. Russia had a British engine given to them (as a token of English hope in a peaceful future), which the Soviets mass-produced for the MiG-15. The MiG-15 had a better thrust-to-weight ratio than the F-86A-D models as a result. Brits had been working on jet engine tech before the US, as had the Germans.
The results? The US pushed ahead with the Century Series (F100, -101, -102, -104, -105, -106, -110, -111) fighters, advancing turbojet engine technology with the J57, J75, and J79, then ushering in a new era of afterburning turbofan fighter and bomber engine tech with the TF30 in the F-111 & F-14, as well as the GE F101 in the B-1A.
This later evolved into the Pratt & Whitney F100 and GE F110 afterburnung turbofans, which became the basis for the world-class Improved Performance Engines for the F-15, F-16, & later F-14A+/B/D.
If you track Soviet fighter engine technology from the 1950s through the 1970s, you had the R15, R25, & R35 Tumansky motors for the MiG-25, MiG-21, & MiG-23, all of which were turbojets.
The US already was using operational F-111A and F-14A fighters with afterburning turbofans by the late 1960s(F-111A), early 1970s(F-14A).
As the 4th Generation optimum bypass ratio F100 and F110 motors matured in the 1980s with DEEC, we already solicited GE and Pratt for the next generation engines for the ATF, which were the YF120 & YF-119.
The YF-120 actually was a generational leap ahead of the YF119, but still needed to be worked out since it was an adaptive/ variable cycle motor with fan stage placement modulation.
We can also look at the SR-71 & its unparalleled Pratt & Whitney J58 afterburning, compressor bleed turbojets. Russia has never duplicated anything remotely close to the SR-71 & its engines.
As we look at the IPE fleet of GE & Pratt motors in US and coalition fighters, they are the gold standard in performance and reliability.
In contrast, the Lyulka/NPO Saturn AL-31 motors in the Su-30MK are described as FOD-sensitive, maintenance-intensive engines that last maybe half the advertised service life.
Russia continues to work on trying to develop a new generation motor for the Su-57, & upon demonstrating an Su-57 at MAKS, one of the motors exploded with flames shooting out the rear in front of all of Russia's observers and customers.
Where Russia is currently at is producing attempts at 1980s tech the US skipped over. This was the VISTA/STOL/MATV programs of the late 1980s/early 1990s where test F-15s and F-16s were fitted with IPE core engines, but with 2D and later Multi-Axis Thrust-Vectoring nozzles controlled by an integrated DFLCS with FADEC so that the engines contribute to pitch, roll, and yaw along with the DFLCS.
The 3 driving forces behind US experiments with this technology were:
1. STOL for runways in Europe or any theater where runways might be attacked
2. Super-Maneuverability
3. Optimum Supersonic Maneuverability
We chose to invest in this tech in the ATF Lockheed variant, not on legacy 4th Gen fighters.
The JSF variant that won the competition didn't need TV since it has thrust well ahead of large tail surfaces.
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There isn't anything unique about what's described in this video about calculated risks among NATO forces, who have generations of actual combat experience while Sweden has none.
For example, it's commonplace for NATO air component forces to conduct hot re-arm, refueling, and even FARPs supported by transport aircraft on remote airstrips as part of Large Force Exercises and Warfighter Experiments with new platforms.
On top of all that NATO air forces do this under NBC and base attack conditions, both in training and for real.
USAF, USMC, and USN in Vietnam, REFORGERs, TEAM SPIRITs, BRIGHT STARs, RED FLAGs, ODS, Yugoslavia, OIF, OEF, OIR, and Atlantic Trident have been performing under these conditions at levels the Swedes will never experience.
As to OPFOR: I've done OPFOR against all kinds of units. OPFOR is always more agile and Blue Forces will almost always seem sluggish because OPFOR is initiating contact and is left free to do what it wants to test Blue Forces.
The only unit that impressed me was 2/75 Ranger Battalion, operating in Platoon or smaller elements. They crush OPFOR for sport, and would do the same to pretty much any other NATO force aside from Para Regiment and Royal Marines (their peers).
I have also worked with Swedish military officers and enlisted in Estonia during Erna Raid.
The Swedish officers like to talk around in circles about extraneous things without any sense of purpose, easily losing focus of the mission at-hand, because they've been so far removed from actual combat experience, creating a culture of military theory, not practice.
When Swedish senior snipers were invited to attend FinnSniper, they showed up, started unpacking, saw the Finns, Germans, French, Danes, etc. getting prepared, then packed up their stuff saying the accommodations weren't up to their standards.
These were better than most barracks I have seen in all my deployments across the world, ranging from all over the US, Germany and Korea, to Panama, and the Middle East.
I think the Swedish Sniper instructors just realized they would be out-classed, had no chance of placing in the competition, and instead of using it as a training opportunity, quit and left back to Sweden. It was the most unprofessional thing I think I ever saw at such an event. That sums up Swedish military mindset.
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone Everything I stated is based on facts and personal experiences. It's the problem when a nation with zero military experience tries to sound relevant and competent, while not being teachable. I'll explain:
It’s not physically possible for Sweden to create anything resembling Navy Fighter Weapons School, let alone the Navy Strike Fighter Weapons Instructor Course. And that’s just the Navy/USMC. USAF Weapons Instructor Course is 6-8 months long and even more impossible to replicate.
The reasons why Sweden can’t operate equivalent courses is because Sweden doesn’t have the Aggressor Fleets, Aggressor pilots, threat data to emulate, instrumented ranges for ACMI, nor any of the surface threats found in the vast US training ranges. Nap of the Earth heights aren’t a metric we use to measure aircrew capabilities for the past 3 decades. F-111F did it automatically, as does the F-16C Block 40/42 with LANTIRN and F-15E with LANTIRN NAV pods, but it isn’t a valid ingress method anymore due to double digit SAMs. It’s nothing that anyone today thinks about in terms of priority fighter pilot skills.
When you say “Mission Command”, we call that Flight Lead in the US. UK and other small NATO nations basically do the same thing because they don’t have thousands of pilots to train. The US does a flight lead initial conversion now because of the F-35, which you have to be independent to operate.
The problem with trying to train a flight lead in a 4th Gen multi-role fighter for his squadron’s mission sets is that he needs to be able to do D/SEAD on top of everything else. That generally takes years to accomplish in the F-16CM, which is far more capable than any Gripen since Gripens aren’t designed or equipped for D/SEAD. Fighter Fundamentals are covered in the B Course, which include BFM, BVR, strike/attack, and CAS. Swedish Air Force has to train for Fighter, Recce, and Anti-Ship. Gripens aren’t equipped for D/SEAD, though they are working towards a partial capability with Gripen E employing US-designed MALD. MALD carriage significantly reduces the Gripen E’s ability to carry kinetic air-to-surface weapons, unless it relies on US SDBs. Gripen E isn’t even IOC yet, still working through all the bugs, weapons employment schedule, training, conversion for existing Gripen C/D pilots vs new pilots, etc.
Swedish military culture has an insular set of habits based on its own doctrines in a training setting only, not on the battlefield, because Sweden hasn’t been on any battlefields since 1809. The differences are palpable. When I’m training with Danes, Norwegians, French, Germans, or Brits/Irish, we’re more or less on the same sheet. Swedish officer starts talking and everyone rolls their eyes. The ones I’ve been exposed to reminded me of cadet officers with little man syndrome when I was a cadet as a teenager.
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone Everybody had very high attrition in training in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Training losses came from air-vehicle technical malfunctions, landing pattern mishaps, CFIT, and mid-airs.
The US of course also fought in actual combat in Korea and Vietnam, while maintaining a huge force presence in Europe, Asia, and NORAD, while also helping Sweden with the air defense fighters for Swedish Air Force. Hughes and Raytheon sold or licensed fire control Radars, stores management systems, data links, and missiles to Sweden for the Draken and Viggen.
For training, it's much different when you have a large dedicated set of OPFOR flying dissimilar aircraft to train against, who are feeding from tactical and technical exploitation of actual Soviet programs. This is where the statements from Swedish exchange pilots coming back from the US saying Sweden trains just like that fall apart.
What the Swedish pilot meant to say was, "We're still in denial that Sweden is no longer a powerful empire and is a small, national power at-best, with no protective alliances."
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone Training, technology, systems quality, industrial might, logistics, and FORMAT-E are what all combine to make the US tactical combat aircraft and their crews superior to all other air forces.
The moment you say US didn't have superiority until 5th Gen exposes how unfamiliar you are with this subject. Nobody had anything that rivaled the teen fighters. As they played catch-up or one-up with the teens, we were already heavily invested in ATF and then JSF, while upgrading the teens with superior sensors, weapons, EW, countermeasures, and MMI.
Nobody else has Red Flag, so it's not physically possible for them to train to the levels the US does unless they get invited to Red Flag.
This is how US fighter pilots with no combat experience erased fighter pilots with 8 years of continuous combat experience from the sky and their airfields in a matter of days, while attriting their Radar, SAM, and armor sites for sport.
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone The Leonardo IRST does not have the capability to detect Stealth aircraft like the US uses at BVR. Stealth isn’t just RF spectrum, but IR as well. Billions were spent on incorporating IR spectrum VLO into the F-117A, B-2A, F-22A, and all 3 JSF variants.
Effectively, it means you won’t see an F-35 or F-22 with the IRST until edge of visual range, unless they’re supersonic. At supersonic speeds, the detection distances are still fairly close, while any 4th gen has been detected, tracked, and PIDd many minutes prior at hundreds of km away.
That’s the other major problem with an IRST argument, namely PID. Assuming you did get detection, now go through PID in a NCTR environment. You’re already dead by that point in a Gripen or any other 4th Gen fighter.
Gripen E will have no such capability against true VLO fighters. The IRST is basically useless against 5th Gen. I’ve been doing these kind of evaluations since the 1980s, to include where you develop a matrix for all the different types of airborne TGTs, in different atmospheric conditions, at different speeds. IRST are most capable against large (bombers) flying supersonic head-on, followed by fighters from tail aspect due to the heat signature of the motors if they don’t have IR VLO concealment and diffusion.
Gripen E will be a non-player in that regime of any merit.
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone Not just those, but all the subsystems we used in later variant F-16s, F-15s, and Super Hornets are better than what's going into Gripen E, mostly. One thing I really do like about Gripen C/D is the large displays in the cockpit with intuitive MMI.
Gripen E is getting an imitation PCD similar to the F-35 because Brazil wanted it, but not as well-tested or as robust. US tested JSF PCD even in the climactic chamber at Eglin AFB in -70° with the aircraft chained down in-flight, indoors.
The F-35 PCD works on grid Laser interference, not touch sensitivity like a smartphone.
There's a whole new, larger PCD in development going into Block 4, along with a new Multifunction AESA Array called APG-85, new higher resolution/ lighter weight DAS cameras, 6x AAM capable internal weapons bays, and a 47,000lb thrust class motor with superior power generation and fuel consumption for increased range.
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone This is also not correct. Swedish Air Force's first attendance at Red Flag was with them integrated with Red Air F-16Cs and F-15Cs, vs a Blue Air Force who had Oklahoma National Guard F-16Cs in attendance focusing in the strike mission profile and self escort for Defensive Counter Air.
Of course they used all the lessons and tricks during planning shared from the local Red Air Squadron guys to put the hurt on Blue Air. That's the whole point of Red Flag.
They didn't fly against operational squadron F-15Cs, F-22As, or even Fighter Interceptor Squadron F-16Cs from the Active USAF, nor did anyone care.
Follow-on attendance of Swedish Air Force Gripen C/Ds saw them integrated with Blue Forces as part of the strike packages, so they could work with their new US-built FLIR pods to drop GBU-12 LGBs in the huge Nellis Test & Training Ranges.
If you look at the photos and videos of Gripens at that Red Flag, they're always configured for A2G with the pods and GBU-12s.
So where does this Gripen dominating Red Flag come from? Swedish reports on how great they did after the first RF as part of OPFOR. OPFOR used to always humiliate Blue Forces. It was that way since the 1970s when RF started, until the first F-22A attendance in RF, as well as F-35Bs much later.
They immediately said, "We need 5th Gen in Red Air otherwise it's going to be shooting ducks in a barrel every time." Now there's an F-35A Aggressor squadron at Nellis.
But yeah, the whole Gripen at Red Flag was way overblown.
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@SkruffyTalez_TheWarzone Re-arm/refuel depends on the aircraft and crew plus weather conditions. Some fighters carry 3x as much fuel as a Gripen so it takes longer to gas-up, no way around it. They also stay airborne much longer and carry more weapons. F-16s will land with 1000-2000lb fuel reserve. Internal tanks take 7000lb, 2x370gal take another 5000lb for a total of 12000lb.
Gripen C carries 5150lb internal fuel and either 1x 300 gal centerline or 2x450 gal external wing tanks. The 2x 450s is 6000lb of fuel and the single 300g is 2000lb, so you can gas-up a Gripen quickly if it's only carrying the centerline. It will be about the same with the 2x450s (11,150lbs from empty to full). Nobody is coming back empty.
In the interceptor role, which is the main critical turnaround time you focus on in Sweden, they'll normally be configured with the centerline EFT and 4-6 AAMs, namely IRIS-T and AIM-120C and/or Meteors.
Hot re-arm and re-fuel can be done very fast on the F-16, F/A-18, and F-35s with 2-3 crew. You need 1 Crew Chief and maintainer plus ordnance. Squadrons typically cross-train so wrenchers get ordnance load/unload time too. You don't necessarily need a vehicle, just a load cart or you can manually carry the Air-to-Air Missiles. You aren't manually-loading the bombs for obvious reasons so you use the cart with lift.
F-35s require the least amount of maintainers due to the low break rate and self-maintaining features of the systems. Instead of large diagnostic carts, the crew chief has a tough book laptop that plugs into the aircraft.
F-35s have a superior power generation system to all of the legacy fighters though called the IPP (integrated power pack). It's an APU, EPU, ECS all-in-one that runs on normal jet fuel. FLCS is fiber-optic signals, no copper wires.
F-35 has the easiest control surface actuators to replace as well because their hydraulic fluid is self-contained.
The basic flight systems, engine, and critical components are simpler with lower parts counts, less failure nodes.
The harder thing with F-35 is loading the missiles and bombs into the weapons bays, but you can stand up inside the bays, so they look low to the ground, but aren't.
F/A-18s are very convenient to load with weapons due to the pylon/ejector racks heights, as well as the cheek stations.
Short story is this will mostly come down to how well-trained and motivated the crew is. You also want a smart crew who doesn't make mistakes during the missile/ordnance arming procedures. Ordnance is stored with safeties in place, which are removed before flight. Modern weapons also have programmable features that need to be actuated by the crew.
There isn't a black and white answer for any of this based on a particular fighter design. Each has its own pros and cons that the crews learn to work with.
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The reality is that the multinational, multi-variant JSF program is so successful, that it is sending shockwaves through the global aerospace military industry, and geopolitical volatility that is already present. These latest media-pushes are meant to cause inconsistent funding for US multi-service JSF purchases, operations, and maintenance so that it will scare foreign buyers, as well as try to promote failed competitor buying with Boeing. Boeing’s submission to the JSF competition is a matter of widespread ridicule, so there is really no argument there.
Now that enemies within the US control the Congress and WH, with the help of Chinese illegal financing of the US elections, they will try to slowly kill funding for the JSF, just like was done to the F-22. That F-22 kill caused our current fighter shortage problem with broken F-15Cs that have no replacement.
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@ericr6829 Sweden & Denmark are Bretton Woods, NATO, and EU beneficiaries integrated into the US-European security and trade system.
Even though Sweden wasn't part of NATO, they still benefitted from NATO members around them (UK, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland) and used critical systems in their defense sold to them by NATO nations.
Example: SAAB fighters have always been powered by Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, or GE motors, using licensed avionics/Radars from Hughes or Leonardo, US/NATO missiles, servos, landing gear, brakes, fuel systems, Mauser cannon, etc.
Sweden is a hybrid form of government like any other Nordic state, not pure socialist. The socialist policies mostly weaken Sweden though, which is offset and insulated by being part of the above-mentioned security and trade networks that allowed them to focus on economy and social issues while ignoring defense mostly.
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When Joe says the media is failing us, it's under the assumption that US media networks are geared towards spreading the truth. Along with this whole Russian disinformation and crisis posture, they captured the CIA's Mockingbird Program from the moment is was launched by Frank Wisner in the late 1940s/early 1950s. The Soviets already had 200 double agents within the CIA before Langley was even stood-up, and those guys rose quickly through the ranks to upper management. They immediately reported back to Lubyanka that the Yankees were developing a counter to the Soviet International Organization of Journalists, which presented a unique opportunity for them to poison the American effort of trying to compete with them in Ideological Warfare.
As Mockingbird coordinated with every newspaper, magazine, radio, and TV station owners, managers, and journalists, pro-American propaganda was supposed to be seeded or reported, but instead, carefully camouflaged anti-American propaganda was slowly introduced. This culminated in the anti-War message against Vietnam in the late 1960s, where they even had Walter Cronkite falsely reporting every news clip he filmed with his crew, including the statement that the US can't win there.
We literally have generations of Soviet-controlled media in our broadcast and print "journalism" that has relentlessly repeated an anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-free enterprise, anti-military message. Combined with the preaching of pro-marxist-Leninist political-economic philosophy in the schools and universities, they have really influenced our society's views about itself more than we have by making it organic to academia and common discourse, and anyone who questions leftist ideology is immediately declared to be a radical or mentally ill. This is right out of the same playbook they used against Russian nationalists in the Russian Civil War. And what do they really need to do to take away the voice of people who disagree with them? Any means for them to be able to defend themselves, just as they did in the 1920s. "Comrades, we have an amnesty period where you can turn in all firearms and weapons since we have outlawed crime!"
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The F-35A and F-35B provide a new level of CAS that the A-10 has never been able to do, nor will ever be able to do. The A-10, as much as we appreciate it, has been the #1 perpetrator platform for fratricide against ground troops since Desert Storm, not only against US Army, but US Marines, UK Army, Australians, and Canadians in ODS, Afghanistan, and Iraq. That’s with the A-10 being one of the least-requested/least-responsive CAS platforms. Primary CAS platforms have been the F-15E, Reaper, B-1B, F-16C, and Hornets. It takes too long for Hawgs to get to TIC, so by the time they arrive in many cases, it’s already over.
What JSF brings to the table for CAS is beyond visual range, higher SA, through-the-weather, day or night precision ISR and targeting of threat forces near friendlies, with far superior means to distinguish between Blue forces and threats. The A-10C has been equipped with a fraction of these technologies in the form of LITENING FLIR, Helmet-cued FLIR, Link-16v4 architecture, JTIDS display, glass cockpit, and GPS delivering the same weapons the F-35 does mostly, but A-10C doesn’t and will never have AESA with high resolution radar ground mapping fused with EOTS and DAS, real-time cooperative TGT area imagery development, or long range ballistic toss capabilities with the SDB II PGM or JDAMs.
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@michaelkeller5008 Over 95% of the 670 F-35s are Lot 4-14 with new RAM. That RAM is maybe 10 years old at the most, not 20. F-35A hasn't even been flying for more than 15 years. That's when they started producing in numbers, not the very early LRIP Lot 1-3 birds. The RAM on newer F-35s reduced the RCS below that of the F-22A.
F-117A went through 3 different generations of RAM throughout its service. VLO technologies aren't static, and have continually evolved in the US since the 1950s. It's just that they weren't discussed much at all until the late 1980s.
Your statement about aerodynamics is only partially true when the Rafale or Typhoon are void of their critical external stores, and even in airshow configuration, neither of them can execute the tactical pitch/drift, high yaw rate pedal turn, or high AOA power loop that the F-35 can. They will depart controlled flight and lawn-dart if they tried it at airshow altitude with DFLCS uncoupled, since it won't allow them to do any of those maneuvers as it stands.
In combat configuration with weak attempts at trying to carry comparable fuel and sensors, the Typhoon and Rafale will not be able to cruise in the pocket at .95 Mach and enjoy the same transonic acceleration with those big EFTs.
The statements about IR signature aren't informed by all the work that was done for JSF on the LOAN nozzle and cool bypass air that flows around the engine cowling, let alone the IR coatings and thermal radiation eliminator signature management.
"A 40yr-old" IR missile is entirely worthless against JSF, not that there's a fighter that can get it into WEZ anyway.
Even JHMCS and AIM-9X can't acquire it WVR, and AIM-9X is one of the most tested HOBS missiles of them all on many years of constant live-fire against high-maneuvering drones employing DIRCM and flares.
In visual spectrum, you can see the AB, but in IR, the cool air conceals its thermal signature better than I would have imagined.
From frontal aspect especially, you aren't going to get a hit with even the most modern IRSTs until you're within visual range.
Dozens of anonymous F-35 pilots say they can't detect each other with the vast sensor suite, but can see low earth orbit satellites, subsurface whales, and airborne TGT tracks at extreme ranges that rival any fighter radar/IRST combo out there.
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@Teutathis Can you cite an article from the USAF that states the F-35A is a massive failure? Because the USAF says the exact opposite. The F-35A exceeded the F-16C and A-10 in FMC and MC rates in 2020, and those are the 2 most-ready fighters in TAC AIR historically. Those rates don’t include necessary ancillary combat systems required for the F-16C and A-10C, so they make them look far more available than they are if needed to actually perform.
So even with all the older Block 2 F-35As the USAF operates in training squadrons at Luke AFB, the entire F-35A fleet average FMC and MC rates blew away every single other fighter in the inventory. Block 3 F-35As from later lots sometimes demonstrate 100% availability rates even after a sortie that day, ready to gas-and-go.
None of the older, non operational training squadron birds used to convert pilots into the F-35A have any relevance to the costs or availability rates for FMS customers because new customers are getting Lot 14 and later F-35s with all the advancements from lessons-learned on Block 2 and Block 3i-3F. Another overlook is that people with no background in defense accounting or acquisition completely overlook the fact that the US has 3 services flying different JSF variants with different operating costs, especially for the USMC and USN. The GAO, which is staffed with people with zero relevant knowledge about the program, averages all the fleets from USAF, USMC, and USN together and then makes scathing conclusions that are irrelevant.
USAF calculates expenses based on bringing up the entire fleet to the latest standards so maintenance, training, and support can be standardized. They did that to the later block F-16Cs 40-52 to what’s called CCIP standard. The average time it took to modify an F-16C to CCIP was 144 days in overhaul depot-level work.
None of that applies to FMS for European partners. Australia already reports way lower CPFH numbers than we’re seeing thrown around in irreputable publications in the US and online. They were in the $21,000-$27,000 CPFH range.
Finland will see even lower CPFH because the program will be far more mature in 2025 when they start receiving orders. Spare parts have been the biggest bottleneck for JSF as it’s an early-stage production program with emphasis being placed by US Congress on cranking out airframes, even though the services haven’t asked for those rates and would prefer lower rates with more spares. 690 airframes have been delivered as of September 1st, so by the time Finland starts getting new aircraft orders filled, there will be between 1200-1350 JSF already delivered and operating all over the world, hundreds of which will be in Europe.
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@Teutathis Another criminal oversight on GAO's part is refusing to analyze mishap, total loss, and fatality rates.
Everyone likes to talk about "lower cost" fighters without accounting for total losses, accidents, and fatalities. It's the biggest indicator of how you're being lied to about JSF that anyone can recognize.
Tens of billions of F-16s have been lost over the years, with scores of fatalities. That's a huge loss that GAO seems ignorant of, while nit-picking outdated deficiency reports for 3 different JSF variants and combining them to make it look terrible. Nevermind that across USAF, USMC, and Japanese Defense Forces, only 4 have crashed in 14 years and 10 months.
Not a single NATO partner has lost an F-35 yet, and they've been flying for years now. Over 695 JSF have been delivered so far.
This should be major headline news. Instead, we see people talking about deficiencies from pre-Lot 4 JSF when only 6 airframes existed, none of which were ever mass-produced.
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@Teutathis I've noticed the "general consensus" from people actually operating the F-35s is totally different from the ones who are never familiar with the legacy jets, let alone JSF.
For "5th Gen Minus", keep in mind we still have a CONUS/NORAD ADC mission to fulfill that doesn't require a VLO peneteation/strike platform, and F-16s will eventually time-out the airframes.
F-15Cs have been worn-out and flown way past their service lives, extremely costly to keep up.
USAF is always thinking 10-20 years ahead for various mission sets. JSF-A is really a forward-deployed weapon posture for Europe, CENTCOM, and PACOM networked with NATO and Asian partner nations.
General Brown is talking about a force structure of NGAD, JSF, Vipers, an ADC platform, and something else.
The most interesting thing to me is the lack of discussion of F-15E and if that platform/profile will continue.
Maybe F-15EX is a roundabout way of upgrading the Mudhen fleet, even though USAF never asked for F-15EX.
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@Teutathis You know what sunk costs we have in CCIP Block 50/52 Vipers per unit? Well over $100 million each, not including ECM, FLIR, HST pods, or towed decoy pylons.
Even NATO F-16AM MLU birds have $103 million in sunk costs per bird.
Operating & Maintenance costs for those including pods are higher than Block 3F F-35As. You just never see total systems O&M costs on Vipers, Rafales, Hornets, or Typhoons, only the airframe/engine O&M.
Now look at safety, lethality, survivability.
Nothing is cheaper than JSF-A to operate. That's what I've been trying to explain.
Finland especially can't afford to operate Rafale, Typhoon, or Block III SH when you account for ancillary systems. Gripen E doesn't even exist, and it suffers from the same architecture limitations and costs.
The biggest hurdle is people haven't accepted how much inflation there is with currency. They see these prices and don't realize that some of the costs are relatively low.
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@michaelkeller5008 I'm looking over each one of your quantifiable claims, and none of them are accurate or remotely correct.
1. UK never cut their orders for F-35B. That's fake media hype with lots of "maybe" in those non-aviation click-bait articles.
2. 4th Gen large RCS birds considered stealth. Some fighters naturally have LO characteristics to them, mainly frontal RCS size...when slick.
4.5 Gen incorporated RAM in certain areas to reduce RCS and cut the detection and tracking ranges by small margins, which help with mutual detection weapons employment scenarios.
ESM/EW does not equal VLO or stealth. This is one of the common amateur statements I've seen thrown around for years that is patently false.
Digital Waveform Manipulation techniques are just that, used to send false and confusing returns back to the source RADAR. They make doppler effect tracking, PID, and weapons employment more difficult, but don't hide your presence if you're in the RADAR field of regard and have a detectable RCS.
What an advanced EW suite allows is longer range passive RF detection and tracking, which then allows the pilots to manage their flight path around threat sensor envelopes and approach from different angles, as long as they get first-look and have enough time to bypass the envelope and scoot in for better WEZ/NEZ.
The JSF series are king of the hill in that space, followed by F-22A, then Rafale.
F-35 pilots have out-matched the F-22 in that game since 2017 in Large Force Exercises.
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@petter5721 Saab’s H-X Manager, Magnus Skogberg, said the Gripen C/D costs 11,000 euros per hour to maintain, operate, replace spare parts, and pay personnel.
Norway reported a few years ago and just the other day that they’ve seen consistent 110,000 Krone (11,000 euros) CPFH to replace spares, operate, maintain, and pay personnel for the F-35A, not even close to $40,000 USD.
Unit costs:
Gripen E: $85 million, $95 million for Gripen F, maybe even higher. Saab refuses to report the exact costs. Unit program cost for both in a package is $150 million per with equipment, external fuel tanks, pylons, spares, and weapons plus support.
F-35A: $77.9 unit flyaway cost, and roughly $100 million Unit Program with weapons, spares, and support.
Everything being reported in most of the press is just incorrect or a lie regarding these programs. Very few sources are reliable.
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@Teutathis Did you listen to the Finnish Air Force Chief and government ministers detail why they have officially selected the F-35A today? Notice how they stated that it was the most capable in military performance evaluations, while also being the most affordable. Less than half of their contracted money is for the fighters, while the rest of the initial contract is for weapons, spares, support, training, etc. They left billions on the table out of the overall budget for follow-on weapons procurement, which is interesting.
They also stated that the costs of the remaining competitors were not that different from each other, while the Rafale and Typhoon did not pass the cost, industrial share, or sustainment requirements set in H-X.
In the military capabilities trials, F-35A scored the highest of any entrant at 4.47/5, while 2nd place was 3.81. Operations and Maintenance costs fell well within the budgeted allocation set in H-X. Finland spent years researching and analyzing various contenders for H-X, and flew delegates to neighboring nations to learn more about their experiences with F-35As. Finnish Air Chief said the "superiority of the F-35 was clear and dizzying”.
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@E303-i2q APG-63 early model even was at least a generation ahead of the AWG-9, had superior detection range, tracking, and actual look-down/shoot-down capability. AWG-9 could only look-down/shoot-down over water, and had all sorts of problems, terrible reliability, sketchy clutter-rejection, lag-and-drag issues when the pilot would offset while the RIO tried to maintain tracks, and that was when it worked.
Especially once they upgraded APG-63(V)1 with Digital Signals Processor in the late 1970s, it smoked the AWG-9 handily, and only continued to get better.
There’s a reason why the F-14D got the F-15E’s Radar, basically an APG-70 with some over-water modes added called the APG-71. Tomcat community knew what Radar they wanted, and it wasn’t the AWG-9.
I lived though all of this at AFFTC, China Lake Naval Weapons Test Center, and Point Mugu.
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@E303-i2q First thing you learn about book numbers is that they aren't static, hard facts.
For detection range, multiple factors come into play, starting with Radar altitude, TGT RCS, Radar power, receiver sensitivity, receiver analog-converter fidelity, receiver power amplifier capability, signals processor power, then the interface with the displays, which was also problematic in the RIO's seat in the F-14A/B.
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@enterchannelname676 AWG-9 wasn’t better than APG-63, as AWG-9 couldn’t look-down/shoot-down over land. It also didn’t have NCTR capabilities that were developed in the 1970s, since it was so old (started development in late 1950s). AWG-9 was great for detecting giant Tu-95s or Tu-22Ms over the water, not so great for fighter-sized targets feet-dry. It still had some major problems with lag and drag, clutter reaction, filtering, and reliability.
APG-63 was the first truly-capable look-down/shoot-down FCR that actually worked, and only got better with the Digital Signals Processor introduced on the F-15C, and back-fitted into the F-15As. F-14 didn’t get DSP until it got the F-15E’s Radar in the form of the APG-70 with added over-water modes, called the APG-71.
We worked on all this in the late 1980s/early 1990s. When TOPGUN got F-16Ns, guess who they asked to come in to teach them how to drive the APG-66 Radar in it (obsolete F-16A’s Radar, F-16Cs had the APG-68) to help them build their BVR set in that platform?
Not F-16 Fighter Weapons School Instructors from Nellis.
Not F/A-18 FWS Instructors as they were populated by former A-7E drivers.
Not F-14 RIOs because they were already there and not used to using a modern solid state electronics FCR.
They brought in F-15C Weapons Instructors from Nellis, who went through the conversion course for F-16 at Luke AFB, then got assigned to TOPGUN.
F-15C with APG-63(V)1 and TEWS had far superior SA than the RIO with his antiquated AWG-9 and older ALR-45, and still had superior SA after the late block F-14As got ALR-67.
F-14D with APG-71, TCS, IRST, LANTIRN, and ASPJ had superb SA. At least 3 of those systems came from a lot of work we did on F-15 CTF at Edwards, China Lake, White Sands, Eglin, and Nellis.
Once we got the AIM-7M on F-15C, it changed the WEZ profile considerably, but F-14A got it too, as did the Bug. AIM-7M bridged the gap between AIM-7F and AIM0120A, and was a very capable missile that proved itself admirably in ODS.
F-14As and A+s couldn’t even operate much in the mix due to NCTR limits. The F/A-18C had better NCTR than the F-14A, which was humiliating for the Tomcat community. The Navy blew hundreds of millions on the F401-PW-400 motor for the planned F-14B in the early 1970s, which makes me wonder if that money spent left it behind a bit in terms of avionics upgrades to keep it up-to-speed with the other teen series.
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@TomcatE303 We worked on APG-63, APG-70, and APG-71. Nobody is going to talk any specific numbers with you, but when you accept the fact that the F-14D got an APG-63 variant with sea surface rejection features, and that was a huge upgrade for the F-14, it forces you to see the reality of which Radar was superior.
Biggest complaints with AWG-9 were how laggy it was, required a whole separate crew member, during offsets, it would drag the contact, and was very glitchy, not reliable.
MTBF on it was really low, especially off the carrier.
You can still engage TGTs over land, but if you're at higher altitude trying to look down on them, the sea surface clutter reject firmware in AWG-9 did not perform well.
Same problem with the E-2C. Both systems were meant for use over blue water in defense of the carrier.
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@TomcatE303 Max detection ranges are conditions-dependant, based on TGT RCS, aspect, altitude, wx, and other factors that come into play.
F-15A was quickly replaced with F-15C and APG-63 with PSP already starting in 1978. We moved F-15As to ANG units and back-filled PSP into them while Cs rolled off the line into operational units.
APG-63 had better fidelity, resolution, and reliability. It also didn't lose track as easily as AWG-9 did. You have to understand that AWG-9 started development in the late 1950s on the Missileer, then went into F-111B in the early-mid 1960s. APG-63 development was really late 1960s into production in the early/mid '70s. It was solid state with the latest semiconductors and processors, so way ahead of AWG-9.
I'm talking about the iceberg under the water you never see. Not the tip, which is inflated brochure specs.
A single pilot is much more efficient running a then-modern Radar like APG-63. AWG-9 was so old, it required a separate crew member to employ it.
F-15 driver could quickly manipulate the Radar and monitor TEWS and the HUD, make quick decisions about positioning in a fraction of the time it took an F-14 crew to coordinate via intercom.
F-15 was a better BVR machine in many ways as a result. F-15E WSO is there to steer the LANTIRN TGT Pod, run the Radar Ground-Mapping Mode for strike profiles, and then drive weapons release and laser spot tracking for LGBs pre-GPS era.
We were on the F-15 CTF primarily working on E model systems development.
You're basically trying to tell someone who built houses for decades, how to pound a nail. Just for context.
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Here's what Trump did to Russia:
Authorized the decimation of the Russian/Syrian battle group composed of 2 battalions, armor, artillery, engineers, and special forces, when they attacked US SOF and Kurdish forces over the Euphrates. 6 hours of JDAMs and Xcalibur were dropped on those Russians.
Throttled-up US shale oil extraction and distribution, which made the US energy independent for the first time since 1972, taking oil down to $40/barrel, and putting extreme strain on Russia's economy.
Sent Javelin ATGMs to Ukraine, along with training how to employ them.
The media claims about Trump being a stooge for Putin were to throw everyone off the fact that Putin paid over $340 million into Clinton Global Initiative so he could get Uranium One mining rights, which is treason committed by Obama, Hillary, and Biden WH/State Dept.
They had to get ahead of that story and accuse Trump of what they are guilty of.
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@Qrayon I've been tracking the DoD budget since 1984. To lose $1 trillion, you would have to lose all of the budget for several years back then, with no pay to any employees or military personnel, no weapons systems, nothing paid for at all. To lose $1 trillion over 10 years, you would need to lose $100 billion every year. If you knew how hard each dollar is fought for by the services, you would quickly see how preposterous this claim is. You can go down the line item list of major programs and see where the money goes. Ships, aircraft, space systems, vehicles, infrastructure, operating and maintenance costs, and personnel aren't cheap.
But again, when was the last time we audited Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid? Where does all the money go from illegals paying into SS, Medicare, and Medicaid?
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@Qrayon It's pretty basic math. You can't have trillions missing if you didn't get extra trillions cumulatively even decades prior to that. You would have to manufacture trillions out of thin air, which was never allocated to DoD. Each fiscal year is a finite budget to fund DoD.
Look at the DoD budget timeline Y2Y. There simply isn't anywhere to lose even $1 trillion. DoD budget was pretty flat in the 1960s-1970s, at $49-$84 Billion/yr. It broke through $112B/yr in 1978. It broke through $200B/yr in the '80s ($221B in 1984), and $300B in the '90s, never exceeding $400B/yr until after 9/11/2001.
So now start adding. There's no mathematical way to come up with Rumsfeld's numbers unless you make $230B disappear every year for 10 years, which is preposterous when the budget was only $143-$320B/yr from 1980-2000.
Since every funded program and O&M costs were what they were, there simply was no room for that to happen. You're talking about a continual gargantuan accounting fraud, while simultaneously having contractors deliver aircraft carriers, submarines, heavy cargo lift aircraft, B-1Bs, stealth bombers, satellites, thousands of fighters, tanks, APCs, IFVs, base housing all over the world, depots, nukes, missiles, bombs, ammunition, uniforms, boots, and food for free. Then you would have to account for Healthcare costs, schools, military institutes, test facilities, and the O&M budget to operate and maintain all of the above, which is typically 3x the cost of acquisitions over the life of a program.
Those $49-$320B/yr budgets were spent on acquisitions, RDT&E, O&M, personnel, and services. Each fiscal year has detailed accounting for all the weapons systems, test programs, operations & maintenance, and contracted services. It's the most accountable portion of the entire Federal budget, unlike Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, HUD, DOEd, DOJ, EPA, IRS, FEMA, FDA, DHS, etc.
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@Qrayon You think DoD generates trillions of its own income through investments and real estate? Cite DoD self-generated income in the CAFR. I would love to read about that self-licking ice cream that Congress would have nothing to say about.
I do know there is waste, fraud, and abuse.
It's systemic but is used to prop up local economies with mostly services and ancillary business equipment not essential for RDT&E, systems acquisitions, or O&M.
Think low-skilled civilian personnel doing jobs that used to be additional duties for military personnel, or are simply obsolete.
Office buildings and warehouses that were built in the 1950s-1970s for long-gone programs, slowly evolving and surviving year-to-year without much oversight. Then there are the entitled service-based employees who sit around and do nothing, specializing in referring you to a different office who does the same.
There are armies of useless jobs and offices like this on military bases, having nothing to do with readiness, combat systems maintenance, or mission focus.
Even with the wildest accounting methods, they don't add up to $100 Billion, let alone trillions.
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@NATObait The Finns tested this at Turku. 2x F-35A fully-fueled with over 18,000lbs fuel left the runway at 550m. 3x Gripen C/D lightly-loaded took the whole runway with no room for aborted take-off procedures.
F-35 has 43,000lb of thrust and more lifting area. Gripens are under-powered, anemic, can't even go vertical after take off.
Grjpens have never been tested in the extreme climatic control facility, and will never generate sorties from truly extreme cold climate like F-35As have been doing in Alaska, Norway, and Iceland for years now.
The assertions about Sweden having some type of exclusive access to extreme cold don't hold up to the daily reality of all the operational squadrons in Alaska, Iceland, UK, and Norway. Even F-35Bs rotate up through the NATO Iceland ADIZ mission.
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@imgreen2563 During the Cold War, they ran a shell game with warheads. The production facility would truck warheads out to the operational units, whether they be subs near Murmansk, bombers at various air bases, and arming hubs for mobile ICBMs, only they would return with the same warheads and not plus-up the units with functional nukes.
For starters, there is no trust in Russian culture or history internally, let alone with their neighbors and Warsaw Pact members.
They kept enough ICBMs loaded-up with very short leashes in the command-and-control hierarchy though.
The truth is they simply never had the institutional culture necessary to produce and maintain anywhere close to the number of nukes they claimed, and it was all designed to appear as if they had tens of thousands of them.
This is one of the main missions of their co-opting of the CIA out of the gate, to misinform the US and NATO about how powerful they were, when in reality, they were always retarded peasants who found themselves awake in a century with technologies that simply were beyond their capacity to understand outside of theft.
Nunn-Lugar gave the US an inside-look at how broken and neglected their strategic and tactical nukes forces were.
This was the main question Putin had upon assuming the presidency when Yeltsin resigned.
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@Sedna063 Typhoon can't be detected if it isn't flying within the Su-35's field of regard. With the Typhoon running EMCON and letting F-35s provide SA to it via Link, it now becomes a hunter of the shadows with the most deadly AAM in existence.
UK has been a ground-level partner in JSF-B from the start practically once they learned the USMC was investing in the ASTOVL evolution into what became JSF-B. They provided a lot of the VAAC Harrier DFLCS research and development, as well as the Rolls Royce lift fan. It's both a Royal Air Force and Royal Navy program since both used the Harrier, either for deck launch and recover, or remote airfields and FARPs in Europe with the RAF.
Typhoon can't penetrate modern IADS very deep without ESM, and F-35 proves better ESM than legacy ESM platforms since it can get so close with an integrated sensor/RF antennae suite and massive amounts of RF power, networked.
They way they are used together, F-35s beagle like Electronic Warfare penetration aircraft, then switch role to DEAD/SAM elimination, then either A2A, AEW&C, precision strike, with ISR constantly happening anyway.
Typhoons, F-15Es, F-16Cs, etc. follow and go hit their TGTs as the F-35s bore a hole through the IADS for them. F-35s hit TGTs and provide BDA, TGT-switching along the opportunity list in the kill web, and then open the door for the legacy aircraft on the way out.
Without F-35s, any of the legacy fighters are extremely vulnerable to modern IADS networks because of signature and the countermeasures game that goes back and forth. Iran has been supplying Houthis with cobbled SAMs using COTS IR sensors to shoot down Saudi fighters, helicopters, drones, and Arab coalition F-16s.
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@throughput6674 Russians had General Vaslov who defected to the Germans after they captured him, then headed up an army of mostly anti-communist White Russians who wanted to fight Stalin.
Beria hand-selected a double agent who was meant to cripple Vaslov's army by creating distrust in it by the Germans.
It's one of the most fascinating stories of history, because that operative parachuted into German-controlled territory, was shot, given first aid, then interrogated.
As he revealed his cover story, where he claimed to have the identities of Russian moles within Vaslov's Army, he was allowed to question various members of Vaslov's and identify them based on a limited list he had, and route out the actual Russian moles who had been planted in it.
This bolstered his credibility with the Germans, and prevented Vaslov's 120,000 man Army from being employed effectively. That was the goal all along for his mission.
After the war, he thought he was done, but was tasked with now penetrating the US OSS. He ended up in the CIA as an art dealer in Alexandria, was working for the Soviets the whole time.
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Gripen is mostly US and UK technology. Engine, Radar, hydraulics, fire control computer, databus, missiles, ejection seat, pylons, rails, landing gear, brakes, servos are all US/UK...the gun is German.
It's basically a NATO subsystem fighter partially-assembled in Sweden.
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When MiG-29 went to combat in various conflicts over 40 years of operational use, not once has it shot down another fighter. Instead, it has been shot down 18 times by F-14A, F-15C, F-16C, F-16AM, and Su-27. Its kill record is 6:18, with the kills being drones and cargo planes, which is sad and embarrassing.
Meanwhile, the F-15 has 103:0, F-16 has 77:1, and Su-27 has 6:0
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@richardcheek2432 USAF senior brass loved the F-22, and several Chiefs of Staff fell on their swords trying to defend it, refusing to play yes-men to SECDEF Gates under both Bush and Obama. Gates was determined to kill the F-22. People that worked with him say they always suspected him of being on the KGB payroll, because he axed multiple highly-promising programs in development, while then promoting totally-defunct programs instead. He did this with F-22A vs MRAP and robbing high-end budgets to throw at Afghanistan. He was on a time crunch to kill the F-22 before we could get it into Full-Rate Production, because under FRP, unit flyaway cost would have dropped down to $93.4 million.
Russia and China didn’t want hundreds of F-22s in their respective backyards, so they did what they do and paid people in high places to kill the Raptor. This was one of Bush/Gates/Obama’s biggest accomplishments for China and Russia. Enemies within engaged in high treason, masquerading as budget-consciousness. You can kill the budget argument very quickly by pointing to the aged F-15C fleet, which costs more to maintain, SLEP, and upgrade, which is what we did, and now are retiring those F-15Cs that had billions spent on them at a time when those billions could have been building new aircraft of a totally new generation, not 1978-1985 tail codes being re-winged and wired only to go to the boneyard.
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@Jimunu Take Valerie Jarrett, as one example. Her father was a Soviet asset on the FBI's arrest list who got tipped off by moles within the Intelligence Community, so he and his business partner (another Soviet asset) fled to Iran. That's why she was born there, not because she's Iranian.
Then there is Frank Marshall Davis, a known member of the CPUSA taking its orders from the Soviet Union to agitate blacks so that they would be incited to riots as part of the Soviet ideological warfare and internal chaos programs directed against the US, synchronized with Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen Underground terrorist group.
If you read Obama's own books (the vast majority of his supporters haven't even cracked them open), he mentions that he attended socialist conventions and studied Marxist literature that was handed out at these gatherings.
Obama and Bill Ayers were both board members of the Woods Fund. Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are husband and wife, and were both leaders in the Weathermen, including construction of bombs, bombing Federal buildings, police stations, the US Capitol, and getting a bunch of their friends killed when one of their bombs detonated in the Greenwich Village Townhouse in 1970.
They were the BLM and ANTIFA members of their day, all funded and taking orders from Lubyanka as part of the Soviet scheme to destabilize the US from within. Same funding structure, same sources, same cut-out templates, same mission.
If you study the prime imperatives of SDS and Weathermen, agitating blacks in the US was at the heart of the campaign. Instead of recognizing these facts, Obama and comrades fell into line as part of the Soviet movement to undermine the stability and safety of the US as part of a long-term strategy.
They're all useful idiots, as Lenin would describe them. Nobody on the left is talking about these realities, and most are falling for the same traps because they've listened to deadbeat professors for generations talking about the greatness of dirtbags like Karl Marx.
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I spent many years from 2005-2016 doing a lot of multi-day high volume courses in Finland, often with mixed attendance of AKs, Rks, and ARs, the occasional FNC, a Bushmaster ACR, shorty AKs from Arsenal, and a franken-74.
During winter conditions in either Arctic or sub-arctic locations, it was usually -25° to -30°C (-13°F to -22° F).
Not once did I ever see any of the hundreds of weapons experience surface moisture freezing like that. We just never let the rifles get into that state.
Not once did any of the controls freeze-up that I can recall on any of the designs.
What did fail? Interestingly, there were more malfunctions with AK variants than ARs during firing. Mostly FTExtract followed by double feed. That was always with Russian garbage steel case ammo.
The Finnish military brass-cased ammo is of a quality similar to German and Swiss ammo. I've never seen an Rk92 or Rk95 malfunction, but they were typically fed brass-cased Finnish ammo.
The AKs that malf'd were usually Arsenal out of Bulgaria.
Polymers broke, especially my early gen MIAD grip and the toe of an aftermarket M4 waffle stock.
One of the most reliable configurations was 11.5" AR set up as close to a TDP build as possible.
The Finns kept very detailed records over the years of what types of malfunctions they experienced. They said AKs were about as reliable as low quality imitation AR-15s, namely Bushampsters.
Rk62, Rk92, and Rk95 had the highest reliability, followed by TDP-compliant AR-15s. Then AKs and Bushampster AR-15s.
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Both political parties and the electorate as a whole in the United States are undergoing transformational shifts in the past 2 or 3 generations. The Democrat party abandoned and betrayed its working class and voters in the unions for generations by shipping their jobs overseas after decades of restrictive regulations imposed on their employers.
The republican party and blue dog democrats abandoned the military-industrial complex/security Foreign Affairs wing of Washington DC in favor of domestic economic policies, Though this was tug-o-warred with the global war on terrorism.
Lifelong Democrat Union families we're looking for someone to represent them were constantly ignored and lied to by snake-tongued politicians, who only rallied them during election years, while voting consistently to ship their jobs to Asia.
This is where the Tea Party filled in, followed by Trump and MAGA, which career politicians in both parties had no answer for other than calling them racists.
The RINOs fear it just as much as their country club fat cat Democrat friends in Congress, which is why they both fought the Tea Party and MAGA movements.
It's weird to watch Democrats turn into war mongers who also love the FBI and CIA, while Republicans become war-weary (they disproportionately fill the military ranks and don't like seeing their children left out to dry by the political class in DC).
The actual voting base of the Republican party has morphed with blue collar union workers who want a strong military that doesn't get squandered on senseless overseas deployments with no strategy.
These aren't war hawks of the Cold War, but peace through strength common sense folks who want to focus on America first.
The Democrat party is now a big tent with a hollow cavity in the middle. Along one edge of the tent are single children technocrats who love the authoritarianism of network-enabled FBI & CIA, while on the other side are transvestites, blue-haired cat lady feminazis, and gaystapo activists with spiraling moral compasses, whose main common ideology with the technocrats is the religion of climate alarmism.
Gone are the Kennedy idealists, Carter pragmatists, and Clinton compromisers. Under Republican pressure against Clinton, we actually had a balanced Federal budget.
The common sense voting blocks of both parties feel betrayed and marginalized, but have awakened to the fact that regular people share common goals for the Nation, while the political class work for someone else.
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@traumflug All voters in the US have a set of priorities starting with the economy, which is suffering from inflation, lack of labor in certain areas, housing cost crisis, collapsing demand from baby boomers retiring, infrastructure in need of revitalization, major problems with schools across the board K-Harvard, a border control disaster, terrorists flowing into the Nation by the thousands, climate alarmism as a religion not backed by science, genital mutilation as policy for pre and post-pubescent teenagers, lack of trust in institutions, and things of this nature.
Nobody who is associated with either party sees Ukraine as their top single issue voting motivator. Anyone who believes otherwise is far out of touch with the Country. We care about Ukraine, but it isn’t at the top of the list in any of the political discussions.
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@1chish Tornado was a European Panavia multinational support/jobs program first and foremost.
There wasn't any mission set the Tornado could do that an F-4 couldn't, other than prop up UK, West German, and Italian aerospace industries with an obsolete, underpowered design before it even went into production.
Yes, the Interdiction Strike variant was used in ODS in the same mission profiles assigned to F-111Fs and A-6Es for the opening sorties.
It made sense for the Panavia partners to build the Tornado to maintain the industrial capacity and technical competency in building combat aircraft, even though they could have had a more capable multirole fighter by upgrading or licensing the F-4 with their own assembly lines, engines, radars, new cockpit, etc.
My cost reference between Typhoon and F-35A is based on the £90/$120 million figure for Typhoon. F-35A unit cost is now $77.9 million. Both have comparable operating costs.
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@jamesmarshall3311 Which Gen 4/4.5 fighters have longer combat radius and greater weapons payload than the F-35A with its 18,000lb ordnance and 18,400lb internal fuel?
The only Western fighter I'm aware of that can exceed that is the F-15E, and it has to carry external tanks and external pods.
All the others need to use hardpoints for external tanks, ECM, and FLIR pods that prevent them from using those stations for weapons.
None of the F-35 weapons stations are used for ECM, FLIR, or external fuel.
F-35A has a 70,000lb MTOGW. Rafale is 54,000lb.
Typhoon MTOGW is 51,000lb.
The most penalizing stores for 4th Gen airframes are external fuel tanks in performance limits,, mass, drag, and hardpoint space.
The JSF has all its ECM/EW, FLIR, and sensors embedded and fully integrated. All its weapon stations are for weapons.
F-15C pilots who converted to F-35A said they have noticeably more endurance than a 2-tank Grey Eagle. F-15E pilots say the same. The official radius is greater than some number.
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@MrSteve8511 Each JSF variant is what it's supposed to be. I'm not following you on that one.
Since legacy fighters can't do most of what JSF does, how do you compare prices?
JSF does the job of multiple aircraft on a single sortie:
1. EW penetration attack like EF-111A, EA-6B, or EA-18G
2. SEAD/DEAD
3. VLO penetration strike like F-117A
4. VLO intercept like F-22A
5. Multispectral ISR like nothing else
6. Penetrated/Networked Airborne Early Warning & Control
7. ELINT/SIGINT
8. Cyber Attack
9. All weather/Day or Night net-centric CAS with up to 18,000lb of weapons
It costs less than Typhoon, Rafale, or F-15EX. You need F-15E, F-22A, F-117A, F-16C, EF-111A, E-3B, EC-xxx, RC-xxx, and U-2 to do the job of F-35A. Add AV-8B to that list to take off and land like F-35B.
If production isn't "worked out", why are they producing 140 per year now? You know the 555th F-35 was delivered in August this year (2020).
Sounds like you've been reading some old sources.
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@PlaYer-sn5or They were in 1913. They organized the creation of it on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia.
The historic empire powers invested heavily in the US, which was born from British, French, and Spanish empires.
Upon successful revolution and follow-on War of 1812, the British switched gears to co-opt as much of the US as possible, while Rothchild family conducted extensive regional surveys in the early-mid 1800s, then fomented the Civil War.
With the banking crises of the 1800s-early 1900s, European money establishment didn't like the volatility, so they proposed the Federal Reserve, a name coined by Kuhn & Loeb representative Paul Warburg.
A consortium of European banks and their Wall Street fronts would enter an arrangement with the US Treasury and Congress, and take over the issuance of currency from the Treasury.
That's what the "US" dollar became, and why you see the symbols on it from Bavarian Freemasonry/Illuminati.
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@bzipoli I lived through the change and even converted after-market ALICE pouches to MOLLE. One thing we used to do with ALICE LC-2 belt gear was buy after-market puss pads for the belt, so I made my own padded belt with 1000D Woodland Cordura, mesh against me, and MOLLE webbing ladders on the Cordura.
I placed the Fastex buckles so that the panels came together like a one-piece chest rig. I cut a grid of large rectangular holes in the padding so it could breathe.
I attached 2x Double M4 Mag pouches, 1x triple 5.56 mag pouch, 1x MOLLE Utility pouch, 2x SAW pouches that I made, and 2x MOLLE canteen pouches. I put M-1956 grenade carrier spoon slots on the sides of all the mag and SAW pouches, plus lighter pouches and compass/first aid pouches.
I made a channel for the Camlebak in the LC-2 suspenders, which were H-Harness, and hid a small Camelback in my buttpack.
My BN SGM hated me every time he saw me and started wining like a little girl about how I was out of uniform and using unauthorized gear.
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baggabliss Even conventional decoys and weapons would overwhelm Russian air defense networks without stealth.
Since we have at least 10 different aerial stealth platforms, 7 of which employ weapons against IADS, Russian IADS would be reduced so significantly on Night 1, it would allow almost unrestricted access to whatever surface TGTs they were trying to protect even for conventional strike aircraft.
All those tanks (most of which are NMC) then become TGTs for the unchallenged strikers who proceed to bomb the unprotected tanks, trucks, BMPs, BTRs, airfields, C2 nodes, etc. You end up with degraded residual organic mobile SAM launchers for all motorized and armored units, but every one of those mobile launchers is geo-located by the distributed and networked sensor-shooter nodes, especially JSF.
Any mobile SAM operators in the future should be given their posthumous awards for bravery in advance. This is why Russia is trying to push the development of hypersonic missiles to destroy bases for JSF.
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baggabliss Buying power and the shear size and diversity of the US market is in a league of its own, not because the US is inherently better from an ideological or political standpoint (although both of those are true), but because the US is:
* In an ideal temperate zone
* Has complete physical isolation from historical powers with Atlantic & Pacific Oceans.
* Can navigate the seas from its coasts as it wishes without any naval powers anywhere near to challenge it.
* Has the largest arable farmland on the planet.
* Has the most vast connected river network on the planet.
* As a result of the river network, it has the most vast rail, highway, and airport network on the planet.
* Instead of a central city governing the US, the US has distributed and connected cities all over the States, several States having 2-6 cities with massive economies into themselves that include significant intra-State, inter-State, and international industries.
In contrast, Russia is effectively a vast wilderness of land-locked forest, arctic, and tundra, has huge rivers that aren't connected with each other in most examples, shares a border with 16 other rival nations with ongoing and historical territorial disputes, relies heavily on its food sources from Ukraine, relies economically on energy exports, and is isolated away from the high volume sea traffic routes for global trade.
Russia also has its political, economic, and military power center in Moscow, with Sainkt Petersburg being Peter's attempt to shift Russian trade relationships to the Baltic and northern European economic powers of his era.
By geographic location, Russia is depressed, even with her bounteous natural resources. The rest of the world does not value Russia that much as a result, since there is little or no reason to interact with her unless you want to buy some of her energy or mineral resources.
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Bradley Scott CIA was penetrated and occupied by over 200 NKVD double agents before it even started, from the OSS days. NKVD turned General Reinhardt Gehlen's intelligence organization for a massive exploitation operation that brought more results than Moscow could have ever imagined, eventually landing them several CIA directors who were recruited by these doubles.
If the CIA makes an assessment, it usually hypes the Russian capabilities in attempts to scare the US JCS, while over-estimating Russian systems capabilities. The MiG-25 was a perfect example of that, as was the MiG-29.
Once we got our hands on those systems, they turned out to be nowhere near what they were advertised as by the CIA.
If CIA is forecasting massive Russian economic boom, then consider the source. This is exactly opposite of all the real economic indictors surrounded by the continual collapse of the always lackluster Russian economy, especially with the compounding problems of Russian demographic shifts and loss of profitable energy exports.
The US is the true long-term market for stability and growth, with no enemies at our borders, a temperate zone, a massive industrial base that is unparalleled in the world, unmolested coast lines filled with deep sea ports, which are connected to the most vast river network in the world, with the largest farmland of any place on earth by size and output by wide margins.
If you want to put your money in a growing, stable place, there is no better environment than the US. Russia doesn't even compare well with Texas in economy.
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@caiuscostencu8886 Soviet Satellite nations had limited access to the oceans with sea ports in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which didn't provide any real economic trade benefits, and were instead used for military purposes threatening the Baltic Region and Northern Europe, which has a chilling effect on trade.
Go study the map some more and look at how Russia has never had adequate access to the world's trade lanes. This is Russia's fundamental economic problem that Peter the Great wanted to overcome with the creation of Sainkt Petersburg, so he could trade with England, the Dutch, Sweden, Prussia, France, etc.
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baggabliss I'll be astonished if Tempest sees anything beyond wood and Bondo mock-ups at the current 2 billion pound budget, which is 1/4 what the Russians put into the failing Su-57.
It's going to take way more than 2 billion pounds to develop much beyond the Adaptive Cycle propulsion. Direct energy weapons (already in development in the US for decades-my family was on airborne laser in the 1990s), is going to take billions as well and breakthrough technology.
Anything outside of a tech-sharing joint program with the US will simply never have the political will and industrial or economic capacity to move any such program forward. Partnering with Sweden and Italy can't overcome that industrial-techno-political barrier.
The UK, Sweden, and Italy have the brains for most of it, but trying to get their respective parliaments to stay the course through such a massive undertaking is going to be less than a snowball's chance in hell.
Only 3.4% of the UK's 43 billion pound/$56.1 B US defence budget is allocated to R&D, and that has to cover all services, not just aerospace.
In order to have the speed, VLO, direct energy, propulsion, and next generation avionics concepts being thrown around, you're looking easily at a minimum of $40 billion US just for development, and likely more. F-22 was $38.8 Billion, and F-35 was close to $50 billion (3 variants including JSF-B).
The F-35 is the "cheap" one too, since it doesn't have the requirement to exceed Mach 1.6, whereas the F-22 had to reach/exceed Mach 2. That adds a lot of cost to a program because of the thermodynamics associated with leading edge heating and heat transfer into subsystems.
In order to just have a genuine Mach 2 capable fighter, each airframe cost goes up considerably just from an airfoil and structures perspective. 6th Gen fighters are supposed to have no-BS Mach 2.5+ speeds and extended range, with higher average causing speeds than any previous fighter outside of the YF-12A.
To thermal-load a large fighter like this for extended duration mission profiles, you're looking at costs that can only be taken on by the US, and even that is under question at the moment because of the burgeoning increases in developmental costs seen on the ATF and JSF.
We're not even talking about the non-existent AI and quantum computing technology. My forecast is that the UK, Italian, and Swedish parliaments are going to laugh in the faces of the defense ministers when they tell them what all this is going to cost, even as joint partners.
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baggabliss I don't underestimate the capabilities of Europeans, especially since we were involved directly with EFA development on international exchange. My father speaks very highly of the German physicists and engineers he worked with on EFA in the early 1980s.
The problem is in budget and parliamentary will power to push through some of these programs. Germany and France are already caught with their pants down with no 5th Gen answer to modern air power.
The US never built the SST projects it had under development due to sonic boom noise encroachment over so many populated areas, whereas France and England relegated the Concorde to trans-oceanic flight.
You're smoking crack if you think the EF can outmaneuver the F-22. The BFM set-ups they have done with each other resulted in wins for the F-22 every time, other than rear perch, which is about impossible with any super maneuverable fighter in offensive perch.
Every single other set-up, whether butterfly, line abreast, neutral head-to-head (even with unfavorable altitude offsets), scissors, resulted in Raptors defeating Typhoon.
Rates were 8:1 and 6:1 on 2 different days from the clickbait article entitled, "Typhoon has Raptor Salad", not that you would ever make it to a WVR merge with a Raptor.
The truth is that these two friendly aircraft are more lethal working together, especially with Typhoons using Raptor as a dual-role AEW&C/Air Dominance Fighter while Typhoons can run EMCON and employ the Meteor. That is a brutal combination for any adversary, with the UK using F-35Bs and Typhoons this way.
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baggabliss Every aircraft will bleed energy in a turn if it is unable to compensate with excess thrust, and instantaneous turn rate will bleed massive amounts of energy in a second.
The F-22 has 70,000lb of thrust available to retain its energy during turns. This is more important for all of them at higher altitude at higher speeds. The F-16 has excellent STR at lower altitudes below FL200, but really starts to bleed energy in thinner air above that. This is a reflection of it's designed operating envelope to counter and defeat the MiG-21 in daytime WVR encounters. The Viper is AOA limited since flying it outside of the AOA limiter will make departure very probable, and limited AOA helps it retain its STR so well.
The F-22 will match a Viper STR at low altitude by sheer excess thrust and lifting area, and smoke it as the altitude increases.
The Typhoon also does better at altitude by design, since it was envisioned to counter the MiG-29 & Su-27 starting with the BVR fight, and still have low speed maneuverability in a degraded WVR fight, although snap-shooting HOBS missiles was and is a focus rather than rear quarter shots reminiscent of the Korean War.
The Typhoon has excellent ITR but dumps airspeed quickly when it does it. The F-22 has a limiter for initial pitch rate as well, but still has superior nose-pointing authority with TV and a much wider yaw axis available.
All of these visible performance metrics seen by air show audiences are simply leftovers of the true design parameters of each fighter, which can't be shown since they require much higher altitude and speed.
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Bradley Scott I also wouldn't call the MiG-29, MiG-25PD, Mirage F1EQ, Su-24s, MiG-23s, and all the SAMs Iraq had "obsolete equipment" in 1991. The "obsolete" MiG-25PD is the only Russian-built fighter to get a kill on a US-operated teen fighter, but that was really failure for the A-7 community to empty the Hornet properly.
You have to be totally ignorant of the Iraqi order of battle and force structure to say you couldn't find an easier force to defeat. The opposite is true. At that time, there were no other comparable sized armies who had 8 years of combat experience against a peer, with almost 800 tactical combat aircraft, the most dense IADS network in the world, and one of the largest armored forces in the world.
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Bradley Scott Yeah, I've been there. The desert in Southern Iraq is not flat. It is filled with wadis everywhere, plenty of places to hide. There are decades of tank fighting positions and trench lines built all over the place, irrigation ditches that branch off the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, bunker complexes, cities, towns, highways, roads, berms, etc.
As far as bankruptcy goes, there is no other market on the planet even remotely as healthy as the US economy. Find another fake name Igor/Sergei/Dimitri.
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Bradley Scott No, I've counted all of your false premises and bogus assertions with real data. Example:
"The US hasn't fought a real war in 60 years."
Me: Desert Storm
You: Saddam didn't have good enough equipment.
Me: He had numerical superiority and Air Force and army real world experience over a recent 8-year war with Iran.
You: Iran didn't have good equipment.
Me: F-14s, F-4s, F-5Es, full assortment of AIM-54, AIM-7, AIM-9, tons of shoot-downs done by F-14s against Saddam's army.
You: Kennedy, Federal Reserve, magic bullet theory.
Bottom line: You are incapable or unwilling to debate like an adult. I believe it is the former, that you simply do not have the intellectual capacity to make a cogent argument and then back it with any relevant facts, so you change the subject, move goal posts based on no logic at all, and fail to stick to the topic, which was originally how Russia took the Convair 200 STOVL design and claimed it was their all along, and that Lockheed stole it from them even though Lockheed owns the designs from Convair.
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M G G It's as if the progress of Bell, Ford, GM Eastern Aircraft, Hughes, Boeing, Northrop, Rockwell, Douglas, Consolidated, Lockheed, Curtiss-Wright, Vought, Grumman, North American, Goodyear, Pratt & Whitney, and Republic never existed until we snatched some German scientists after the war.
The sheer industrial capacity and diversity of designs in the US was unparalleled, and laid the foundation for the post-war aerospace industries and innovations pioneered in the US.
This included first manned level flight to break Mach 1, Mach 2, Mach 3, and the currently unbroken record of Mach 6.7 set in 1967. The vast majority of our aerospace industry is a result of home-grown developments and aggressive pursuit of excellence. This happened regardless of any influence from the German engineers and scientists.
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@SmotritelMayaka29 You need to learn how to make a coherent and supportable argument before posting.
There are dozens of current conflicts in the world that the US is not participating in. It does not help your argument to use hyperbole that is easily proved false.
Russia invaded Eastern Europe after WWII in order to position closer to the sea ports, at the expense of millions of people living there.
Russia invaded the sovereign nation of Afghanistan, assassinated its President, and disrupted that region to the extent that it is still a major problem today. Afghanistan used to be more of a tourist destination, no fundamentalists running around telling women what to wear, and an agricultural haven for fruit, nuts, and dates along the ancient trade routes between Persia and India.
US troop numbers dropped dramatically in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. US Army in Europe shrank from 213,000 soldiers in 1990 to 122,000 in 1992. Current US Army presence in Europe is at a 63 year low, with around 60,000 total Soldiers/Airmen/Marines/Navy.
Eastern European nations begged to join NATO so that they would have protection from any future Russian threats of invasion, especially Poland and the Baltics, who suffered tremendously under Russian occupation, including genocide, execution of their intelligent classes, and forced migration from their homelands into Siberia or Russian slave camps. Departing Russian units openly robbed these nations on the way out.
Russia has a history of raping and pillaging every neighbor it has, dating back centuries. I've travelled and lived in many of the places who suffered from Russian occupation, and the sentiment is universal among all of Russia's neighbors. I can't think of another nation that has that type of reputation in the world.
Russia trained and supplied the PLO, airline hijackers, Yasser Arafat, and terrorist organizations since the 1960s, while promoting their actions with the international journalist association KGB information warfare front. The KGB's Middle East files have been opened for you to see this yourself.
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@cianakril Yeah, I lived in Russia in 3 different places far from each other. It's like stepping back in time to an era most in the US have never known.
Yes, of course I've heard of purchasing power parity. No matter how much you make in Russia, you'll never have clinics, hospitals, and dentists all around you.
When you go to one of the few car dealerships in Russia, you sit there all day waiting just for basic services.
The water quality in Moscow apartments was third-world level.
In the dacha countryside where I spent most of my time, electrical power was tapped into by squatters/thieves, never worked right.
You simply can't have a comparable standard of living there unless you are connected with the ultra-rich, and even then, an illegal immigrant in America has more rights and protections than a Russian MP.
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@Katyperryfan0801 So you’re saying that the virus gets spread by people who have natural immunity faster than those who have artificially stimulated immunity? Let’s play who knows nothing about virology for 5000. The absolute best protection from viruses is natural immunity and immune responses from healthy people. The various mRNA therapies and J&J vaccine are nowhere near 90% effective at helping people develop antibodies for the virus, but the virus itself is not the main problem with SARS-CoV-2.
The engineered spike proteins are the real problem not only with the bioweapon virus, but the supposed COVID countermeasure systems being injected into people. The COVID injections are causing mass-production of the S1 spike protein by people’s immune system, which are spreading throughout the vasculature and attaching to the capillary endothelium (lining of your blood vessels). This is causing systemic micro thrombosis (clotting). Some people just die within 3 days, others experience strokes, pulmonary embolisms, Bell’s Palsy (like Australia’s vaccine passport MP official), blindness, deafness, weakness, difficulty breathing, or no symptoms at all for the time being.
A Canadian doctor who saw over 900 patients administered the injections discovered that 62% of his patients now have micro thrombosis, after they presented with weakness, malaise, and difficulty breathing. He brought it up with the hospital management, who told him to remain silent-a violation of his oath, so he went public and was fired.
All viruses mutate, but your natural or acquired immunity is able to recognize mutations because there is only a small % difference between them. Here’s a NIH article about that: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/immune-cells-common-cold-may-recognize-sars-cov-2
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@mobius7089 Vincent Aiello said he took a slick baby Hornet on a post maintenance flight, could barely break through Mach 1.5 in a slight dive. With pylons and weapons? It won't go there, which means the book limits aren't operationally-relevant.
F-16 stripped will break over Mach 2 barely, but again, this isn't operationally-relevant because it won't do it with pylons and weapons. F-16 has longer legs than a baby Hornet as well.
One major problem we had with the teen series was in combat configurations, they couldn't demonstrate their impressive performances, as they were handicapped with external pods, pylons, EFTs, bombs, and missiles.
One exception to that was on the F-16 with wingtip missiles, which actually helped with aerodynamic/wing flutter stability for fuel efficiency, allowing it to fly a bit farther if you only put missiles on stations 1&9, but that isn't ever a combat configuration for US fighter squadrons.
Moving forward, we were looking at internal weapons bays for future fighter designs after the teen series, and this was prominent in the NATO AeroE course materials even in 1980 for the academic project design study challenges in that course.
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It fails on almost all of the keys. I don’t know if he’s reading WSJ and watching CNN for the 2 Economy metrics, but he is way out of touch with voters on those, and Trump/Vance/RFK Jr. still win without those, even though they’re primary concerns of voters.
The 3rd party challenger joined the Trump campaign and is promised to have a leading role in the WH covering health of the Nation and oversight of agencies who have failed us time and again. How do you metric that in the 13 Keys for 3rd party? Definitely not in-favor of the incumbent WH.
What major policy did the Biden/Harris WH enact with their 81 million votes mandate? Normally we would have an easy-to-remember massive piece of legislation associated with Biden/Harris. Let’s establish clarity through contrast:
LBJ: Civil Rights Act/Vietnam
Nixon: End of Vietnam/Watergate
Carter: Oil crisis/Iranian hostage crisis
Reagan: Cut taxes/Reaganomics/Military revitalized/“Mr. Gorbachev: Bring down this wall!”
Clinton: Endless Scandals/NAFTA/Lewinsky
Bush 43: 9-11/Afghanistan/Iraq Invasion
Obama: Obamacare
Trump: Renegotiated NAFTA and APP on US terms/re-shore US jobs/affordable energy/first-step program/Abraham accords (more ME peace deals than all US Presidents combined)
Biden: Open border policy, killed Keystone pipeline, massive inflation, incompetent/derelict/geriatric, scandals with Hunter & James Biden money-laundering foreign enemy monies paid into Biden family
Even when I’m generous to the Biden/Harris WH, Trump still walks away with 7 of the keys. A realistic voter perspective based on the economy and other accepted FALSE answers to the keys shows 9-12 FALSE answers, which indicates a freaking blow-out election.
13 Keys predicts popular vote, not the EC. So now Allan has to explain 2016 again. If we believe the numbers, Hillary got the popular vote.
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@courtneybrubaker9738 That's flipped around. Bloody Mary reverted England back to Catholicism because she was Catherine of Argon's daughter, Henry VIII's first wife who was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (same who commissioned Christopher Columbus).
When Katherine couldn't produce a surviving male heir, Henry applied for an annulment with the Pope and was denied, so he divorced Katherine and declared Mary a bastard, then put them away, launching the English Reformation into official Protestant Anglicanism.
Mary watched her mom praying every day of her life and vowed to avenge this injustice that was done to them.
When Henry VIII died and Mary got on the throne, she had all the former clergymen who went along with Henry burned at the stake, and yanked England back into Catholicism for 5 years.
That's when the Puritan leadership fled to Switzerland, which is why they have the Geneva Bible.
Once Mary was out, and Elizabeth inherited the throne, she carefully moved England back to Anglicanism and when they defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588, it was seen as a confirmation of "the Protestant winds" in their favor. England stayed Anglican ever since that time.
These events were very instrumental in the foundation of the British Colonies and United States.
The Founders didn't want all of that religious infighting and back-and-forth chaos, but also recognized Divinity and Christian morals as the foundational principles of the Nation.
The main reason why we have 8 Catholics and a Russian Jew in the Supreme Court, and a bunch of Irish and Italian surnames on all the committees in Congress is because organized crime took over the government in the 1920s.
The older entrenched Irish and newcomer Sicilians and Italians shared the Catholic-derived blood oaths in their "Made man" ceremonies, while the Russian Jews did the bookkeeping and accounting.
They were initially at war with the Blue Blood Mason WASP Nativists, but all operate according to their own oaths, not US law.
These are the real religions that govern DC, NY, Baltimore, Boston, LA, Sacramento, SF, Dallas, Miami, etc. You can map out the history of the crime families from late 1800s to Prohibition, then post-Prohibition to the present.
Forget about Democrat/Republican. That's kabuki theater for the peasants, while Masons, Mafiosos, apostate Jew atheists, and degenerate blood-oath demons rule our government. Look at their fruits.
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@ahmedawoleke3934 The US inherited the policing of the global trade routes after WWII, where we saved China from the brutal Japanese occupation. That’s the only “Chinese military victory” in hundreds of years.
US Navy patrols the Strait of Malacca, South China Sea, Horn of Africa, Suez Canal, etc. to maintain stability of the trade routes. Imagine the South China Sea with no US Navy. Have you even studied Chinese maritime crimes? Chinese fishing boats have been caught illegally fishing as far as South America.
Ask the Japanese, Filipinos, Australians, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Burmese, etc. how they feel about unrestricted Chinese maritime activities.
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@teutonieth Not a single pilot who has transitioned from Vipers, Hornets, F-15Cs, Super Hornets, or even the F-22 would describe the F-35 as having lackluster performance. The F-22 pilots rate the 4th gen aircraft across all performance metrics in the 3-4 region on a scale of 1-5, and the F-35 as a solid 4. Viper and Hornet pilots say it has the combined advantages of each, but is much easier to fly.
From a practical perspective, pilots who have flown the F-22, F-35, Super Bug, Viper, and Baby Hornet say the F-22 & F-35 are far more like each other, with a distant category for the rest.
The speed and performance are excellent, but the least-impressive features of the -22 & -35. The ability to see everything going on around you, share information with others, and hit when and how you want set them apart dramatically from the legacy aircraft, and there is no way for a legacy aircraft to bridge those gaps.
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@paulchristensen2854 If ever there was a combat aircraft that was the opposite of a one-trick pony, the F-35 is it. It is really Omnirole, not even multirole. S-200/S-300/S-400 have not brought them down. To the contrary, they have been used to take out S-300 and S-400 IADS nodes components, even before some of the components made it to their mobile platforms. Every aircraft is susceptible to bird strikes. It is one of the most dangerous in-flight emergencies to have because they usually hit the cockpit or get sucked into an engine. One should not look into bird strike incidents as anything indicative of being specifically problematic for one aircraft over another.
F-35 does not need a lot specialized mx per flight hour. It requires specialized maintenance for periodic phase-level inspections when certain sections have to be removed and RAM needs to be re-applied. The Brits built an automated laser-etch removal system for this that totally changes how quickly it is done. Squadron-level regular mx is less-involved than on F-16s since there is no central dual-redundant hydraulic system like on legacy jets, all the actuators have self-contained fluids.
Cold weather: Meanwhile, USAF-Alaska, Japanese AF, Vermont ANG, Norwegians, and UK have been flying them for a while now. If someone ever tells you that the F-35 can’t operate in extreme cold weather conditions, ask them why they’re doing it around the Northern hemisphere and within the Arctic Circle every day across multiple air forces.
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@anandarochisha Gripens cost more per unit, unknown actual program cost, nowhere near as lethal or survivable as F-35.
F-35 allows the kind of unfair kill ratios Finland needs, as well as a networked platform that integrates well with FiN and Army in a joint force environment.
Russia only has a limited number of fighters in the Saint Petersburg military district, and will be employing stealth drones controlled by Su-57s in the future.
It's a fight the Gripen isn't suited for. Su-57 will have first-look against Gripen since Su-57 RCS is smaller, and it has reduced IR signature.
Gripen has its IR signature hanging out in the wind like a sore thumb.
F-35 is the most extensively-reduced IR and RF signature platform of all right now, with the most advanced AESA, IR sensors, and EW suite in the world.
It's the only platform that can challenge the Su-57, S-70 drones, and S-300/S-400 IADS network.
The others are just fodder for the emerging Russian response to ATF & JSF, net-centric warfare.
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@magnusmoren2718 Saab won't divulge what unit costs are, but unit program cost (spares, weapons, support) is $150 million each per the Brazil contract.
Unit cost for Gripen E was estimated at $85 million in 2015.
F-35A is down to $77.9 million for the current Lot 14, in production since 2020.
Russians steal and copy, are given, or buy US and European tech by traitors and supporters of détente. It's been that way for over a century.
Sweden has access to US and Western European semiconductors, Radar systems, and processors which helps it to assemble the Arexis EW suite.
Russia has been very active in this field as well though, and has far more space on Flankers and Su-57s to operate and integrate EW systems.
Su-57 copies the general US 5th Gen approach to RF and IR sensor count for EW, but with a mix of 4.5 Gen DIRCM and 5th Gen sensor embedding.
Gripen is a 4.5 Gen sensor/EW antennae configuration that copies the basic approach of the Rafale if you look at the wingtip ECM pods. There's no more room to put anything in or on it given how small it is.
Sweden had a 5th Gen design approach for this called Flygsystem 2020, but Riksdag would never fund it.
They already spent billions on 14 empty C/D airframes with no orders for them, before Gripen NG grew larger, so the management of Gripen has been somewhat of a circus.
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@gingerqueen820 Schools should get assessed before they're allowed to receive a dime in taxpayer funds. Are they literate? Can the teachers demonstrate critical thinking skills (logic, relevance, significance, clarity, accuracy, breadth, depth, precision, fairness, completeness)?
Do the teachers have control issues, deviant tendencies, or self-control problems?
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The FBI has never been really clever, since it was started by J. Edgar Hoover, a daffodil homosexual who appointed his common law husband, Clyde Tolson, as the Assistant Director. Hoover ruled the FBI for 48 years through intimidation and silencing critics, by collecting information on Congress, actors, businessmen, and Presidents and then blackmailing them. The Mafia and Soviets did the same thing to Hoover because they knew all about his true identity and relationship, with photographic evidence. In-turn, he provided cover for the Mafia saying that it didn’t even exist. The FBI are praetorian guards for the criminal elites in DC, nothing more, and never has been anything much more than that.
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@Snizzle_Fizzle It's actually saving us insane amounts of money not having to de-mil our outdated munitions from 30yrs ago. The numbers you hear about are value assigned to things we already bought that have negative value when they have to be disassembled.
The MIC is already back-ordered on modern missiles and advanced weaponry to customers in Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, New Zealand, Canada, Norway, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Finland, Poland, Romania, Greece, etc. etc.
I've been tracking FMS for the better part of 5 decades and the US is one of the only countries manufacturing defense articles at scale anymore.
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@frankpinter9508 Funny how Macron either isn't aware or purposely ignored the fact that much of the weaponry and supplies it sent to Ukraine were manufactured in the US, and sold to NATO and EU countries prior to, and during the war. Take Patriots, Javelins, Bradleys, Abrams, NASAMs, HIMARS, M777, and F-16s, for just a few examples.
I wouldn't expect Macron to be competent or well informed on this subject though.
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@fridrekr7510 It’s Peter’s argument, not mine. I was merely explaining his perspective as I understand it, having followed his analyses since the 2000s. City States by definition operate autonomously for the most part, with their own economy, culture, and politics. You do see this in Finland, Sweden, and Norway, though it isn’t as pronounced as the ancient city states of Europe of course.
A better contrast would be to compare the Nordics to Central Europe. Central Europe is integrated with highways, the EU government, rail lines, and high volume air traffic. The Scandinavian Peninsula is geographically isolated, subject to more extreme cold weather, with limited connectivity between Norway, Sweden, and Finland, dotted with a few small population cities along the coasts.
That’s how I see Peter’s perspective, which does have some validity to it. The Nordic countries like to think of themselves as bigger powers than they are. Sweden is the most guilty of this, and Finland just wants to be recognized and accepted so that people will not make the same mistake again that was made in 1939, leaving her to deal with Russia alone.
Hopefully that makes sense.
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@donwyoming1936 F-16AMs are MLU birds with new Radar, cockpits, AIFF, new wings, new landing gear, structural mods, Link-16/MIDS compatible, AIM-120C7, new threat warning system, and most of the relevant Block 50 systems.
The F-16 was built as an air superiority fighter, with added multirole capabilities desired by USAF. Most nations use it as an interceptor, with only a few who have employed it in the multirole profiles, with Israel being the biggest outlier of them all.
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@huuppone Another thing you will see is that infant mortality and life expectancy will always be lower in a giant sample size of a 330 million diverse population, than a 5.5 million, or 82 million, or 10 million relatively homogenous populations. That is basic statistics, nothing to do with the types of healthcare.
US isn't far behind in any of those metrics either. They're all very close with minimal standard deviations and extreme spreads, with multiple variables like diet, exercise, stress, and accidents that are the prime factors, not types of healthcare systems.
Finland has an extremely high ownership rate of lake cottages, for example, called kesämökit. They also have high rates of sauna bathing, which is great for your health.
They are relatively healthy despite their inefficient and dated NHS, not because of it.
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@leiflillandt1488 For EMS in the US, there is such a thing called Life Flight. One of the nearest Level 1 Trauma Centers near me has 2 Life Flight helicopters. They are staffed with a Flight Medic who is a Paramedic with additional life-saving skills, most of which have been pioneered in the military. You are in a far better position in the US if you live far from a Level 1 Trauma Center than in many places in Europe.
Most distant or rural towns simply don't have good trauma infrastructure because it's extremely expensive, requires dedicated staff with trauma surgery training and equipment. This is reality anywhere in rural US, Canada, and Europe. That's why we have Life Flights.
Finland has FinnHEMS Air Ambulance services with 5 EC135 helicopters for the whole nation.
My State in the US has a much smaller population than Finland, and we have 6 Life Flight Helicopters covering roughly 65% of Finland's land area, so we have more Life Flight Helos for a smaller population over smaller area.
You find this same ratio playing out when you look at costs, quality of care, and availability of care. Finland does not compare well in reality.
In a political confirmation bias approach like Senator Sanders uses, it seems to have merits, but with a detailed analysis, these fall apart quite quickly.
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@rafm3068 We are repeatedly brow-beaten with claims about utopian life in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Canada when it comes to healthcare/NHS. So yes, these claims are very common in the public discourse in the US and must be refuted with mathematical analyses.
Life expectancy is higher in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Iceland, South Korea, Israel, Sweden, France, Malta, Canada, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Luxembourg when compared to Finland. Would you conclude that all of those countries have better healthcare than Finland? Some do, some don’t.
United States (79.05 years), with its 335 million population, is within 3.26 years of Finland (82.31 years) for life expectancy. From a mathematical and statistical analyses position, that tells me the US has something better overall that is able to maintain such a high life expectancy over such a massive and ethnically-diverse population. The US is the only top 10 nation among the largest populations in the world with high life expectancy. Japan, with its 11th highest population, is the only other high life expectancy population of the top 60 nations in the world (that range from 73.65 - 85.16 years). None of the top 10 world populations fall within the top 60 except for the US. This is immensely-significant from a mathematical perspective.
We typically see ethnic factors playing a big role in life expectancy, even when standard of living might be lower, though clean water and modern medical services do play some role that can’t be ignored.
The question is, if I applied US healthcare options to Finland, would Finland’s life expectancy increase? Since there are far more specialists and healthcare options in the US, more EMS services even in States with smaller populations that Finland, I propose that Finland would benefit with higher standard of living by continuing to adopt more US healthcare options.
I also would expect to see higher standard of living if more people in the US had access to summer cabins and sauna baths, but the cabin option just isn’t a reality because of population density and geography in many areas.
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@rafm3068 Developing nations tend to be closer to the tropics, so tribalism and low standards of education are the norm. Temps are hot, access to clean water is extremely limited, life expectancies are low, home construction often involves repurposed trash, violent revolutions are common, everything is quite versatile.
Ideas about government structure are relatively meaningless because corruption will be the norm, no matter who is helping them. The US has lifted up many of these nations since World War II, brought in more stability, plugged them into global trade, allowed free passage of their students to the US and other developed nations, and subsidized most of their economic growth.
Amateurs talk about policy and forms of government. Analysts look at real data with dispassionate mathematical observations and metrics.
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@josephtorres3229 Actually Russia violated Minsk, since Ukraine gave up her nukes as part of that deal where her territorial integrity was off-limits.
Putin’s red line was crossed when Ukraine threw out his puppet in Kiev, Yanukovych, who signed onto the Russia-Eurasian Economic Pact, against the will of 79% of the Ukrainian people. They actually wanted to trade their goods and services for Euros, not Rubles.
Step outside of the Russian Pravda and into a more holistic assessment of the history and real events. Turn of Russia One TV, and build a timeline of events on your own, asking who, what, where, when, why.
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@josephpiskac2781 There was a condition they only found on 2 early lot LRIP F-35B and F-35C samples where they experienced delamination of some of the surfaces on the vertical stabs. They tried very hard, including diving at supersonic speed with counter-intuitive flight control inputs to duplicate the condition with other aircraft, and never could do it.
They then made an upgrade to the structures and RAM application with Lot 4 JSF forward, which actually made a more durable RAM with lower RCS value, making it even smaller as a result. The click-bait article responses? “F-35 can’t fly supersonic speeds.”
You can watch several videos of F-15s and F-16s delaminating at subsonic speeds during flight demos, but you’ll hear nothing of this, only that the F-35 is garbage. I’ve never seen anything like this before really, and I’ve been close to the legacy programs since the 1970s.
Back then, with the 4th Gen platforms, we had 427 total airframe losses and 147 fatalities within the first 10 years of service between the F-14, F-15 (very low, very safe numbers actually), F-16, F/A-18, AV-8, and A-10. These losses were rarely reported, although the F-16 eventually got the brunt of the criticism, even though it turned out to be the safest single engine USAF fighter until the F-35A came along.
Early years of the F-16 teething problems resulted in numerous crashes and deaths, and the USAF actually worked hard to bury those problems. Wire chaffing was one. The engine was another. EPU, Leading Edge Flaps, hydraulics, and a list of other issues caused numerous crashes and deaths. They even made a movie about it starring that lady who played in Jurassic Park. Afterburn or something like that.
We know what real problems look like, and F-35 program is not anywhere close to those legacy fighter teething issues. It’s so far away from those days, there should be rejoicing everywhere, but instead, it’s as if it was the worst thing ever designed with wings. You start to see an agenda.
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@josephpiskac2781 If you research F-15C and F-15E FMC and MC rates over the course of their lives, they are actually not too bad for most of the years. Costly, but not too bad (usually in the 60-75% region). USAF has done a good job of keeping them available. 2-seaters are always less available, more mx intensive than single seats. 2 engines even more so.
F-35A availability rates are better, but it’s a single engine platform with prognostic systems monitoring and regulation that self-reports any faults and parts orders before it even lands. It also uses fiber-optics for all the signals it can, versus old copper wiring.
Another thing that doesn’t get reported is ancillary systems. For example, on the F-15E, if you don’t have the Targeting Pod, no real F-15E capability is brought to the table for its strike mission profiles.
The targeting pods don’t get included in the FMC and MC rate stats, so we never get to see what the real Fully Mission Capable rates are.
With F-35s, all those systems are integrated into the airframe from the start, with no way of independently reporting or hiding them if they make you look bad at the unit level for Command Inspections.
This is one of the biggest fallacies being passed-off in all the comparisons you see for FMC, MC, MMHPFH, and CPFH.
The short story is that JSF is cheaper to operate while providing capabilities of multiple previous airframes, and shortening decision chains for quicker combat efficacy.
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@gw2955 Hippies like Bill & Hillary became yuppies and went into government jobs en masse.
They became Federal, State, and local bureaucrats, school teachers, professors, and politicians who rose into their own in the 1980s and 1990s, enacting some of the worst practices and policies in US history.
While having very few kids themselves, they told everyone else how to raise or abort their children, as they spent like drunken sailors on themselves.
They condemned the traditional family, ethics, and morality, and said "live your own truth". They ditched responsibility and marital commitment in favor of materialism, selfishness, and instant gratification.
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@afranks8566 Look up Fajitagte, Jamal Trulove, Cheree Peoples, CA State Prison slave labor:
Fajitagate is where SF DA Kamala made the case go away as a favor to Willie Brown and the Police Chief. The police chief’s son and 2 of this drunk buddies (all 3 off-duty cops), bullied some random patrons of a restaurant/club who walked out with their food. They demanded the people to hand over their meals just being drunk jerks, then beat the victims, stole the food, and drove off with it. PD pulled them over, said, “Oh, you’re chief’s son, have a nice evening boys.” Public outcry over the crimes started to rise, and Kamala refused to investigate the offenders.
Jamal Trulove is a black man who was randomly targeted by Kamala’s DA office, where she bribed a fake witness to testify against him with over $60,000 in taxpayer money. Kamala showed up for his sentencing to smirk at him as he was convicted and then given a 50 year prison sentence for a murder he never committed. 6 years of appeals and his lawyer discovered not only the exculpatory evidence, but the prosecutorial crimes of bribing a fake witness in a capital offense case leading to imprisonment of the innocent. The appellate judge ordered Jamal released immediately and his record expunged, but Kamala stepped in and fought his release. The Supreme Court had to intervene and smack down her corrupt office. She should have been immediately disbarred, prosecuted, and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Cheree Peoples is a black single mother/nurse who was raising and caring for a daughter with sickle cell anemia. Kamala was State AG at the time, and saw that CA was losing $1.4 Billion in Federal funding due to truancy, so she said blacks are the main offenders who need to be arrested, starting with the parents. They randomly picked Cheree Peoples, got a warrant for her arrest, perp-walked her, took her to jail, she lost her job, her daughter had a stroke with a paralyzed right arm, they became homeless, and Cheree had to fight the case for 2 years before the DAs finally gave up on trying to get her to plea. US Supreme Court had to intervene once again on civil rights and basic Bill of Rights violations by Kamala and CA. Kamala responded by saying people weren’t ready for her ideas yet. She should have gone to prison for that as well and never let out.
Trump did the opposite with his First Step program, helping incarcerated 1st-time non-violent offenders who were nabbed for an ounce of weed or limited possession that CA and other States considered intent to distribute, and used 1994 Biden Crime Bill Federal mandates to put harmless people away for 25 years.
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@wilfredoandaluz5571 Finland announcing formal NATO membership application now will help make Putin's decision for him to invade, before Article 5 can go into effect like he did with Georgia.
Russia can then look for what they think will be an "easy win" against a tiny population of 5.5 million people in the North.
Even if it mostly fails like Stalin did in 1939, it still means Iskander and hypersonic missiles streaking into Finnish cities, ports, airfields, and bases.
It means waves of Russian Su-30s, Su-35s, Su-34s, Su-24s, Su-25s attacking FiAF F/A-18s and their remote basing scheme. It means MRLS rockets bombarding Finnish cities, scores of helicopters inserting airmobile infantry, equipped with a mix of captured Javelins, NLAWs, Russian thermobaric warhead rocket launchers, while tank columns try to push through Karelia.
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@Grim FPV Putin activated false flag units in 2014 to start killing ethnic Russians as a pretext for invading.
Look at the timeline. What changed in Feb 2014? Yanukovych was ousted by the Ukrainian people after 4 months of protests.
As soon as Putin lost his puppet, he had to escalate to a military option, hence the false flag attacks on Russians in Donetsk, just like was done with Abkhazia, Georgia, Chechnya, and what Stalin did in 1939 with Finland.
Putin doesn't care about ethnic Russians in Ukraina. He cares about Ukraina gaining independence, trading their services and resources for Euros, which would have elevated Ukraina's economy over Russia's, especially after they discovered the huge oil fields just off the coast of Sevastopol and Odessa.
As long as a Russian puppet was in Kiev, nye problyem. As soon as Yanukovych was thrown out, Ukraina nazis!
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@gordonjohnson405 I was in I Corps LRS at Lewis, F Co 52nd Infantry, after I DROS’d from 1-506th Inf Scouts in Korea on the DMZ. The only malfunctions I have seen with M14s were mainly from sand getting in them. Sand will shut an M14 down quick, and it’s very east to get in the action and magazine. We had a lot of M14s in my first unit in VA, and M21s with broken ART II scopes in the H Co Arms room (not HHC, but H Co) for our Recon Platoon.
In Korea, we had brand new-in-plastic National Match M14s. We cut them open to start using as Sniper Support rifles alongside the M24s.
I spent a lot of time with an M14 in some flavor, not including all the Match rifles I’ve shot on the civvy side. It’s funny because I always liked the M14, but have never invested in one, even though I always thought I would own one. Have owned 6 AR-10s and unknown number of AR-15s.
I like the Dutch AR-10s (if limiting to that time frame) much better than the M14. If you haven’t shot one, you would be astonished at how accurate and well-balanced they are.
M14 was Ordnance Board’s last hoorah, where they proved that they were no longer relevant in the firearms design business.
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@HanSolo__ .30 caliber nazis in Army ordnance board in the 1950s, MacArthur back in the 1930s, etc. .276 Pedersen (was actually a .284/7mm) had been officially adopted as the US Army’s new service rifle cartridge for the Garand in the 1930s, with a 10rd en block clip and a lighter, handier rifle.
It was more of a Goldilocks of its era, allowing the soldier to carry a lighter load or more ammo, lighter recoiling rifle, easier to train on, easier to hit with, more rounds per clip.
A mid-sized AR-15/AR-10 chambered in an intermediate cartridge with a 6.35-7mm bore would have been more ideal in the 1950s, as we rehashed the same lessons-learned from The Great War when going over the mass AARs from WWII. They wanted lighter rifles, lighter recoil, more ammo capacity in the magazine, but still with plenty of downrange energy.
Instead, they crammed .30 Cal M2 Rifle (.30-06) into a shorter case run at higher pressure in hopes to replace .45 ACP M1 Thompson, .45 ACP grease Gun, M1 Carbine, M1 Garand, BAR, and M1919 with 2 new weapons, the M14 rifle and M60 machine-gun. They seem to have totally ignored the advantages of the Stg44, PPSh-41, and cartridge developments in Europe.
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@oxide9679 The casinos were started and are run by organized crime syndicates who “legitimized” long ago. They will hand over whatever records they have from their cameras if it suits their interests, but they are monstrously more powerful than the ATF. ATF actually are enforcers for organized crime, born out of Prohibition-era enforcers for the big bootleggers like Papa Joe Kennedy. They made an example of Al Capone, then went down to the Ozarks to burn people’s towns to the ground chasing uncle Jesse and Cleatus, instead of going up into New England to shut down Papa Joe’s smuggling networks with the Bronfmans from Canada.
After Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and Papa Joe had already secured the exclusive importation rights to Siegram’s for his family for 90 years, the Alcohol Tax Unit and Prohibition Bureau agents weren’t simply going to be laid off at the height of the Depression. The new bogey men, created by Congress with Prohibition and Depression, were now guys like Dillinger, Bonny & Clyde, Machinegun Kelly, so Alcohol Tax Unit would be reassigned to going after firearms.
The whole thing is a scam.
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@oxide9679 During Prohibition, pretty much every LE Agency, police department, city Council, Mayor, most Congressmen, Senators, etc. were corrupted by the Mob unless they lived in dry counties. None of that was cleaned up in the Depression, where police powers were largely expanded and abused.
America had a distraction from all of that in the 1940s with the War, where everyone was coerced or encouraged to participate collectively in the war effort, which meant any able-bodied young men went into the military or defense industry.
That included untold Mafia enforcers who were then marketed to the War Department as counter-saboteurs to the Germans on East Coast Harbors. Lucky Luciano negotiated his way out of prison with that approach.
America never dealt with the corruption of LE after the war, and was already in a compliance/do your part cultural paradigm coming out of the Great Depression and War, into the expanding boom of the 1950s.
Mafia loved it because they built casinos, gambling halls, coin scams, strip clubs, night clubs etc. all over the Nation, while pimping whores and narcotics for even better profits than during Prohibition.
LE played the game of crushing the little guys who didn’t have politicians paid off to protect their rackets and enjoy fringe benefits. For example, Jacob Rubenstein and his brother were Bureau of Narcotics informants. Jacob ran multiple night clubs in Dallas for the Mafia, while smuggling weapons and narcotics in the Caribbean and inside the US. You probably better know him as Jack Ruby.
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If you’re only using stations 1 & 11 external on F-35s, it doesn’t affect frontal or frontal oblique RCS that much, especially for A2A, so that’s 6x AAMs, which is a pretty typical loadout for the Typhoon and no need for EFTs on F-35. Sure, you can load a Typhoon and F-35 with more AAMs, but it isn’t common for the squadron munitions distribution. The main birds historically that have maxed out A2A load were the F-4 and F-15A/C. Most other fighter interceptors would/ still do 2x2, 4, 2x4, or 2x2x2 AAMs. Tomcat was like that, Flankers are configuring like F-14s, and not many are loading to max.
Typhoon, SH, and Flankers have impressive weapons load capacity though.
Typhoon in A2A will often do:
4 AIM-120C or Meteor
2x ASRAAM
3x EFTs
We’ve seen Su-35S with:
2x R-27
2x R-77-1
2x R-73
or
1x R-37M hypersonic LR BVRAAM
2x R-77-1 or K-77M
2x R-73
F-35 in A2A:
4x AIM-120D3
2x AIM-9X or ASRAAM
Biggest difference is F-35s can pull into NEZ parameters and not much the targets can do other than die. The others have to play the BVR timeline game with mutual detection.
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@dogsnads5634 If you are detected and tracked at pretty extreme BVR distances, then whoever shoots first will have an upper hand in posturing for the follow-on set-up shot. It’s why the Flanker was made with 10 weapons stations, so they could hopefully out-last the F-15 in a BVR exchange. (This was countered with AESA in the F-15C+ and improved 6x AIM-120C.)
F-35s don’t play by those rules because they get first-look, first-shoot/unobserved shoot within NEZ, as well as coordinated sim shots unobserved. Because of that, they have more stowed kills.
Typhoon can step-up in capability in this area with the CAPTOR-E Mk.II, but those still aren’t upgraded into the fleet. Against another 4th Gen opponent, it would allow continual mid-course guidance while offsetting/beaming, but a semi-competent opponent flight would expect launch at certain distances and counter as well. Su-35S has a repositioner right now with their PESA, so it can do the offset with mid-course guidance and employ Extreme LR BVRAAMs, pushing legacy 4.5 Gen fighters off more in the first-shoot fight.
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@hb1338 Correct. US Intel culture at the NSC level treats Russian trash as if it's 10ft tall, when the opposite is generally true.
That's because CIA was seeded with over 200 double agents when it was formed, and they hijack how the PDB is compiled, drowning-out DIA and other competent collection and analyses from people with their hands actually on the Russian garbage.
We did technical exploitation of Soviet SAMs, MiG-29, and others I won't mention. It's Slav excrement, nothing more.
Every time the MiG-29 and US teen fighters have met, the MiG-29 ends up flaming scrap metal tumbling towards the earth.
Nations who used to use Soviet garbage aircraft, tanks, small arms, and equipment opt to use US systems if they get the opportunity.
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@VioletJoy What’s really interesting to me is that this family has a long history with crimes, many of which involved people dying under strange or suspicious circumstances.
July 8th, 2015: 19yr-old Stephen Smith was murdered on a country road 15 miles from the Murdaugh hunting lodge. Multiple people close to the Murdaugh brothers said Buster Murdaugh was the offender in that case, which just went away. Stephen was impacted in the skull with a blunt force instrument, and witnesses say that Buster hit Stephen as they were driving by in their truck, drunk. Stephen’s body was left in the road, ruled an accident. Local and State LE had some very strange behavior related to the handling of the non-investigation of that homicide.
Feb 2018: The Murdaugh family housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield died after “falling down the stairs” at their residence. Her cause of death was ruled “natural causes”, even though she had a brain hemorrhage. There’s a 911 call with Paul and Maggie talking to the operator about this incident right after it happened, saying Gloria was mumbling something as she bled from her head.
Feb 23, 2019: Mallory Beach (19) dies in a boat crash near one of the Murdaugh properties, while Paul Murdaugh was co-piloting the boat drunk with his friend. She was ejected from the boat and not found until 6 days later. On the morning of the incident, Paul Murdaugh’s main concern was contacting his grandfather (also an attorney), who then showed up to the ER to groom witnesses. Paul was very hostile to LEOs and EMS personnel.
June 7, 2021: Paul and Maggie Murdaugh were murdered at the kennels near their hunting lodge. LE immediately determined that Alex Murdaugh wasn’t a suspect.
This family is bad blood, entrenched lawyer elites who have people dying around them all the time, followed by LE covering for their crimes. One of the older Murdaugh Patriarchs was also an attorney back in the day, arrested for bootlegging.
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You know why income tax was raised first for the Union? To fund the Union Army in the Civil War in 1861.
Later on, only 36 States ratified the 16th Amendment, then others eventually followed except for Connecticut, Utah, Rhode Island, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Federal Income Tax was a big push by the "Progressive Era" socialists in both parties, particularly the Insurgent Republicans.
Senator Aldrich, who was an instrumental puppet for Wall St. bankers in forming the Federal Reserve, was also instrumental in getting Federal income tax passed.
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@Chaddyfold The Russian immigrants in Dallas who escaped by various illegal methods from the USSR commented on how strange it was that Marina Oswald was able to get her exit Visa so quickly, and how polished she was compared to them.
The most liberal times for exit visa from Russia in recent memory were 1992-2009. Putin clamped down hard after that, especially for engineers, technicians, and anyone from the intelligentsia caste in society.
I remember seeing people at the Central Rail Station in Moscow begging for exit Visas with all kinds of paperwork, stamps, and appeals, to no avail.
Me with a foreign passport = immediate ticket purchase, no problem.
Most people couldn't afford to bribe the fat, mean ladies behind the glass. It was weird, like the Soviet times never got out of their psyche when it comes to customer service.
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@BigCat6906 Well aware of the Arkansas drug running, money laundering, murders, obstruction of justice, abuse of multiple women, Governor Clinton Overdosing, Arkansas Development & Finance Authority, Rose Law Firm, Systematics DoD/DOJ contracts and transfer of tech to Alltel, sealed and classified lawsuits against Systematics, Foster's travel to Switzerland 12-20x per year with NSA binders including the NSA's bank surveillance program codes that were updated periodically, you name it.
The Clintons are one of the biggest perpetrators of treason against the US, with the help of Bush 41. Since both parties are too entrenched in partisanship, nobody wants to touch these stories, so Hillary and Bill have walked free while being guilty of every high crime and treason you could imagine.
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Social Security should be fulfilled for the outgoing baby boomer generation, then GenX and Millennials who have been robbed for decades paying into it compensated with a combination of revenue from Tariffs, sales of gov surplus, and homesteading opportunities with real estate. There are insane square miles of Federally-seized lands no longer being used, or have never been used just sitting there with no maintenance, no use, just accumulated through a gigantic bureaucracy packed with organized crime-affiliated families who wanted no-show jobs for their lazy, incompetent, worthless kids and friends.
GenX and Millennials need to be compensated for the robbery we were subjected to with SS and Medicare scams, and that value plus inflation put into IRAs and HSAs we control through co-ops, not any of the Mafia turds in Wall Street.
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@Caeruleo I'm a very comprehensive speed reader, formally trained in speed-reading an various memory training disciplines. I've read all of your empassioned responses quite thoroughly.
The fresh bullet impact on the curb on Elm Street and on the overpass support are the proposed paths between James Tague and the rifle(s), not the final head shot.
If you had ever spent considerable time with firearms watching ricochets and bullet spall, there isn't enough energy in fragments that far after having perforated a skull. I observe bullet spall every time I run a rifle or pistol course, since we shoot steel targets. I've been hit many times over the years with bullet fragments, none of which have penetrated my skin. Usually it's splash-back from higher power pistols in poorly-designed shoot houses. If you were adjacent to a hard structure, like a reinforced concrete pillar under an overpass, and a rifle projectile hit near you, you could very well suffer a superficial or eye injury from the jacket and core fragmenting.
You need to be close to the impact site to have superficial penetration from jacket or core off-axis from the POI though. I've been immersed in this field of study with hands-on experience both at the range and in a lab setting spanning over 40 years now. The idea that a fragment continued at high enough velocity to cause the injury to James Tague's cheek after perforating JFK's skull does not pass the sniff test, given the forensic realities of the curb strike.
You have to make 3 bullets do the work of 4 minimum.
Dr. McClelland's statements are clearly viewable right here on YouTube, which is the source material I'm referring, not something someone else has claimed.
As to JFK's head reaction to bullet momentum, I've personally conducted and analyzed hundreds of terminal ballistic tests on tissue and calibrated ballistic gel media, to include high-speed photography analyses.
Never once have I or any other technicians witnessed the majority of projectile momentum resonating backwards through the media or animal. The opposite is true: momentum transfers through the media generally in the direction of the bullet flight path, with departures in bullet path sometimes caused by yawning, fragmentation, and/or expansion.
Heads on a fulcrum (cervical spine) blow violently in the direction of bullet flight path. The civilian sector is lacking much data with high velocity rifle performance on heads, but it has been well-documented in the military for many decades. The Zapruder film is absolutely consistent with a frontal/right quadrant high velocity rifle projectile traveling no less than 2600fps mv, but more likely 2700-3400fps.
I'm not asking you for your opinion or anyone else's on this, but declaring the ballistic realities as I see them. You can't make that head behavior and terminal performance happen from the rear. It's not reality. You must force yourself to accept this, because you can't physically duplicate it.
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Sanders is a fraud who kept running for public office until idiots finally elected him mayor. He was living in a root cellar stealing electricity from his neighbors with an extension cord, but somehow he has the answers to large scale problems. Reminds me of Karl Marx. Everything is always someone else’s fault, and he’s here to distract from the fact that he offers nothing, while wanting to take from people that work harder, rather than allow them to manage charity organically.
He steered this conversation away from the core realities that make Finland what it is (not a Utopia, no the happiest place), which revolve around its 188,000 lakes, forests, clean air, super clean water pumped in from the lakes, sauna bathing, quiet people, and hundreds of years of winter hardening them against the elements.
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@Tespri When you scale the supply chain for real estate, you see what a huge industry it is. Since Finland suffered from negative population growth before importing Somalis, it might not seem that big. Concrete, timber, hardware, electrical, plumbing, appliances, fixtures, windows, heating, roofing, insulation, etc. start to stack up volumetrically into a multi-billion market even in tiny nations.
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Scaramucci was born into an Italian-American family on January 6, 1964, on Long Island, New York, where he was raised in Port Washington. He is the son of Marie DeFeo Scaramucci and Alexander Scaramucci, who was a construction worker. His paternal grandfather, Alessandro Scaramucci, immigrated to the United States from Gualdo Tadino, Umbria. He had a middle-class upbringing and was the first generation of his family to attend college. He has an older brother, David, and a sister, Susan. Scaramucci graduated in 1982 from Paul D. Schreiber Senior High School in Port Washington, where he served as student council president. He earned a B.A. in economics at Tufts University and a J.D. at Harvard Law School where he overlapped with future president Barack Obama, future deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and future supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch, among others. Scaramucci credits his time and education at Harvard Law School as a springboard for his career in finance. Scaramucci has never practiced law and went to work at Goldman Sachs directly after graduating.
Scaramucci was a Hillary supporter in 2015, then a Jeb Bush supporter.
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My contacts in the Russian foreign ministry have been saying since the mid 2000s that they are taking back Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland once Putin achieves enough military re-building. They sounded crazy back then, but given their history in the region, I took them seriously. This is why Russia spent millions on donations to Clinton Global Initiative, Hunter Biden, and James Biden through various fronts, including Burisma and the former First Lady of Moscow’s prostitution and sex-trafficking business. They bought time and influence with the Biden family to help open a window for freedom of movement in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
This is why I believe Biden offered to rapidly evacuate Zelensky and his family as soon as the invasion kicked-off, as it would have created a leadership vacuum for Putin to fill with that first big push for Kiev that failed miserably after Zelensky said, “I don’t need a ride, I need ammo.” Biden was sucked into backing Ukraine after that, because all the other governments were doing it in Europe and the US would look really bad if we didn’t follow along.
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@mikew764 Internal Revenue Code section 280E specifically denies a deduction or credit for any expense in a business consisting of trafficking in illegal drugs "prohibited by Federal law or the law of any State in which such trade or business is conducted.”
Similarly, no business deduction is allowed "for any payment made, directly or indirectly, to an official or employee of any government [ . . . ] if the payment constitutes an illegal bribe or kickback or, if the payment is to an official or employee of a foreign government, the payment is unlawful under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.”
Similarly, tax deductions and credits are denied where for illegal bribes, illegal kickbacks, or other illegal payments under any Federal law, or under a State if such State law is generally enforced, if the law "subjects the payor to a criminal penalty or the loss of license or privilege to engage in a trade or business." No deduction is allowed for kickbacks, rebates, or bribes made by those who furnish items or services for which payment may be made under the Social Security Act.
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@littlehumphreyton7580 The people of Ukraine overwhelmingly wanted nothing to do with the Ruble and Russian rule, voting for trade with EU by 79% of the population in 2013. Putin had his puppet, Yanukovych, sign his Rus-Eurasia Pact instead, which triggered Euromaiden. US and greedy industrialists had nothing to do with that, but you are very correct in mentioning oligarchs.
2nd generation Russian oligarchs (who were all put in place by Putin) were pilfering Ukraine of its resources and using companies in Ukraine to launder money from illicit trades, especially human trafficking, narcotics, arms sales, and s_x trafficking.
Elena Baturina was just one of these billionaire oligarchs who must pay a huge cut of her profits from selling women and their services, to Putin.
Zlochevsky was another boyar who Yanukovych appointed to run Burisma. Putin was using Ukraine as a money-laundering and exploitation vehicle and yes, there were several Western leaders in his pocket as well:
A certain Vice President and Secretary of State for the US received millions of dollars (this is nothing for Putin, since he collects billions from all the oligarchs and boyars).
He paid $363 million into Clinton Global Initiative through shell companies in Kazakhstan, Belorussia, and Ukraine when Hillary was SECSTATE, then millions into shell companies run by SECSTATE John Kerry and Hunter Biden.
In Feb 2014, during the height of Euromaiden protests in Ukraine, Putin's billionaire oligarch Elena Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca, a shell company owned by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz (John Kerry's stepson).
Yanukovych fled from Ukraine in March back to Putin, then Putin kicked-off the Donbas war, and Hunter Biden was placed on the board of Zlochevsky's Burisma by May, 2014.
Putin was making all the big moves behind the scenes, not Western industrialists (that's a term from the late 1800s-early 1900s by the way).
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@csmidt2885 Let's see here...
Biden lies during the debate:
Only President in history who didn't lose any troops under his watch.
Fact: Afghanistan retreat was a disaster that cost many American soldiers/Marines their lives, as well as coalition forces and locals.
Claim: Economy is doing great, created 15 million jobs.
Fact: Jobs recovered to some level near pre-Wuhanflu, while inflation has skyrocketed month-after-month with Biden fiscal policy, to the point that housing prices are out of reach of most younger buyers.
"Fixed the border. 40% fewer apprehensions. Border Patrol endorsed him." Lol
Border Patrol Union fact-checked him live saying they never have and never will endorse him, while an unprecedented 7 million illegals have entered the Country.
"Trump pulled out of the Paris Peace Accord." LOL, that was Vietnam accords in 1973!
Claimed Trump wants to end Social Security & Medicare. Trump has openly defended them with full commitment. Senator Biden in the last century said in the future we would have to cut those programs.
"We have a thousand trillionaires...I mean billionaires. They're in a situation where they in fact pay 8.2% taxes."
Fact: Top 1% pay 26% tax, while those making $77m or more a year (.001%) pay 23.7%.
He claimed Trump had 15% unemployment rate, when it was actually 4.4-6.4%, with a temporary spike of 14.8% during State-imposed lock-downs from Governors and stupid corporations, but mostly recovered close to pre-SARS levels.
Then he lied about drug prices that Trump actually cut with his HHS, now Biden is trying to take credit for.
Lie after lie after lie somehow managed to come out of his geriatric aneurystic brain in between gargantuan gaffes that would sink anyone normally.
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@ivanlagrossemoule Yes, much of its capabilities come from lists of complaints from fighter weapons school instructors and senior fighter pilots who asked, "Why don't we integrate these draggy pods into the airframe? While we're at it, why don't we design an airframe that carries the actual amount of gas we need and then some more for good measure?"
If you look at the AFTI F-16 already in the early-mid 1980s, they integrated 2 FLIR/Laser Spot Tracker/Designator Pods into the leading edge wing roots.
JSF initially was going to be the combination of integrated incremental developmental technologies in propulsion, airframe, avionics, sensirs, computing power, and stealth.
Because the leaps in each of those areas was pushed so far out of the norm by the ATF program, the design and manufacturing infrastructure lifted everything to a higher level than I think anyone anticipated.
The bar has been set so high, that the strategic and geopolitical implications are that no other nation will be able to compete with the US in aerospace defense.
If you look at the 10 largest defense-spending nations, all of them are either already US customers, JSF partners, Russia, India, and China.
China can't sell to India, so any potential customers for Chinese 5th gen attempts will not be able to afford many of them, if at all.
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@gmw3083 Biden has been on Russian payroll since 1972. They literally financed his campaign into the Senate through Council for a Livable World. Yes, people under Biden continue to coordinate with Russia to subvert US interests.
Putin’s plan backfired horrendously on him in Ukraine, and likely eliminated his chances of going after Poland, the Baltics, eastern Romania, and Finland during his presidency. Now that Europe has seen how easy it is to curb-stomp Russian forces, it will be a potentially-volatile time, because they don’t want this spilling into Europe anymore, and Putin has to somehow continue to sell his image as a strong man to the Russian people.
The Russian tactic of throwing bodies at the problem doesn’t work against modern ISR networks and precision munitions, because they can find, fix, and attrit logistics nodes with impunity.
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@piccalillipit9211 The stage had already been set in the 1960s in Europe to rely on US military industrial capacity. Look at the richest European nations at the time and how much they deferred to US-built systems, while cancelling their own domestic advanced programs. It is far too late now to have a conversation about European military technology, since no European defense firm makes any critical 5th Gen systems for fighters.
There isn’t a European 5th Gen engine, Radar, integrated RF sensor suite, IR sensors, flight control systems, or even the basic RAS airframe technology among any of the prime European aerospace defense firms. It’s not because of a lack of brains, just the fact that Europeans have allowed themselves to be ruled by feminists in parliaments, who know nothing about defense, security, industry, infrastructure, or technology. They aren’t wired to protect, but to nurture, and since they murdered their own children or chose not to have any, Africans and Arabs are their de facto children now.
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@MrOneball1 If you’re talking about armor and self-propelled howitzers, your thinking is outdated. You need to be talking about aerospace systems, missile defense, long-range fires, ISR platforms, Omnirole Stealth Combat Aircraft, Reconnaissance Satellites, stealth cruise missiles, and stealth drones.
No other nation in the world has advanced aircraft manufacturing, propulsion, avionics, flight control systems, integrated sensor suites, and weapons like the US does.
The Euroconsortium enterprise is still making out-dated Typhoons, a 1980s technology fighter, and has failed to even upgrade them with the CAPTOR-E AESA Radar. Why? Parliaments refused to fund it. The basic Typhoon airframe is already 2 generations behind F-35, even though it was cutting edge for the 1980s.
US Army has shifted more to long range fires with missiles like the ATACMS long ago. If you ever have seen what an old ATACMS does, you would quickly realize that Self-Propelled Howitzers are weak. There is video of what an ATACMS did to a Russian convoy of soldiers riding in trucks in Ukraine. Everyone was dead, mostly still sitting in their seats in the trucks. That was the cluster munition variant that disperses little baseball-sized explosives over a specific area with extreme precision.
Europe has these that it has bought from the US, just like most NATO partners have bought F-35s, Patriot missile defense, etc. If you don’t invest in strength, you will be reliant on those who do. Choose wisely in the 1990s. It’s too late now.
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@PeterA650 Yup. Almost none of “European” air combat systems are European. Even among France and Sweden, their “independent” air combat systems have so many US components and technologies in them, as to shock the amateur fanboi of Rafales and Gripens.
We shared a lot of Radar and fire control technology with the French. US/NATO Aerospace engineering program materials are authored by US, German, British, and Italian senior aerospace engineers. The US provides most of the RDT&E money for advanced combat systems, and even allows NATO partners to come to the US to test their fighters and missiles.
SAAB relied on either Rolls Royce (England) , Pratt & Whitney (US/Canada), and GE (US) to power ALL of its jet fighters since the J-35 Draken. Viggen was P&W JT8D. Gripen A-D are GE F404. Gripen E/F is GE F414.
Back during Gripen A days, they had major problems with gaps in the flight control laws, and had to bring them to General Dynamics at Fort Worth to get help in fixing its glitches.
Rafale uses an F404 derivative engine. The Rafale A demonstrator was even powered by 2 F404s. It made its maiden flight on the 4th of July in 1986, when Reagan was still US President. That’s how far back the Rafale goes. With all that development and production time, Dassault has only produced a little over 260 Rafales. It has been almost 39 years since its first flight.
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@BlueMoonday19 Yup, and I think it’s even more subservient than that. European defense contractors have effectively become subcontractors for major US prime contractors. Look at airframes, engines, Radars, missiles of all types, FLIR systems, pods, precision-guided weapons, and even small arms.
The UK has ordered small arms from the US for its last few contracts, since it failed to produce a reliable assault rifle in its own small arms industry the last time it tried with the SA80 saga. In order to make the SA80 reliable, they had to bring in Hk to fix and upgrade it twice now. UK SOF just ordered US Knight’s Armament weapons recently, and conventional forces ordered US LMT 7.62 DMR weapons during GWOT.
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Luneberg lenses are on all the time, but can be turned off when “stealthing up”. Can also be used for deception and tactics to ruin threat fighters, as well as networked EW. An example would be going active with the Luneberg at a certain distance at BVR to set up a fighter to head in that direction, then turn the Luneberg off and get very offset angles outside of any of his sensor envelopes for an easy NEZ window.
The Rafale has avionics that allows the OSF to be cued by the AESA radar and its EW system, where the HUD symbology is being generated by a fused track. This is what ATE is avoiding since pilots aren’t able to really discuss it in an open setting. Within Visual Range and with the Luneberg lenses actively blasting the F-22’s RCS into a large TGT, the Rafale’s AESA will immediately see that, and tell the OSF and missile seekers to "look there”. It’s a way of having fun and providing a challenge for the Raptor pilots doing dissimilar BFM. If they maximized the F-22’s VLO capabilities even for BFM, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge and would cheat the Raptor and Rafale pilots out of good training.
This was a line abreast merge with separation of x miles, converging towards each other. F-22A would have had valid missile shots within a very early turn towards the Rafale, as ATE mentioned was very likely, when he discussed the Rafale pilot using his Radar guided missile mode during that early stage as well. If someone is walking away from this HUD footage thinking the Rafale can defeat the F-22 easily, they are making a huge mistake and are not understanding the intent of the exercise. We do this every year with and UK, France under what is called Atlantic Trident. As ATE mentioned, it is a joint operations centric Large Force Exercise designed to get 3 historic allies working together with good interoperability.
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@u.p.1038 French people are very passionate and proud of their culture. When they see people allowed to immigrate there and toss French culture aside, bringing their own culture to replace it, the French get very defensive, but since they have aborted their future children, they don’t get much of a say anymore.
Same thing has happened in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. I have seen it firsthand, since I have been living in Europe on-and-off since 1979.
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It's important to understand that Peter's reference for an optimally-functioning Presidency is that of George H.W. Bush, because he was the last one with an actual foreign policy.
Trump pulled off what nobody has been able to do in at least a century of Roosevelt-initiated Blue Blood control of the WH (and the crony relationship between Wall Street conglomerates and the political parties).
He circumvented the sell-out politician career path to the WH, bypassing Congressional, Gubernatorial, or cabinet positions (over a lifetime of fake public speaking and obedience to the financial interests who control both parties).
This is why Trump was hated and feared by both parties. There are dozens of Congressmen plugging away with the establishment system like good little conformists, eager to lick the boot of the financial interests who determine who makes it into the run-offs, who then not only got sidelined and politically eviscerated (especially Jeb Bush), but then faced a potential dynasty blocking them out.
Think about Cory Booker, Marco Rubio, Gavin Newsom, John Kennedy, Lisa Murkowski, Amy Klobuchar, etc.
There's a narrow window that opens at certain times, mainly determined by a combination of age, tenure, party affiliation relative to the cycle (RR, D, RR, D, RRR, DD, RR, DD, R, D), name recognition, previous campaign experience, Vice President, etc.
Trump threw all of that out of whack, which ruffled the feathers of dozens of career politicians in both parties.
Even worse for them, he commands such a groundswell of grassroots support, fomenting a rare populist cultural swing that hasn't happened since Reagan and FDR.
FDR's populism was created by crisis and mass control of the media. Trump's was created despite the established media, by leveraging the internet and his long career in business and entertainment.
The worst possible outcome for the establishment sell-outs in DC would have been a 2-term Trump, followed by whomever his VP would be in 2024 with his blessing.
This is why they threw everything at him possible, short of assassination like they did to Reagan.
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If only countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic (etc.) had competent and capable production capacity....oh wait.
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@jlvandat69 ACA was a shake-down for insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and medical device manufacturers. Medicare and Medicaid already covered uninsured and hospitals aren’t allowed to deny life-saving care.
The talking points used to sell ACA didn’t have basis in reality. Examples:
“Millions of Americans are going bankrupt because of medical costs!”
Reality: Anywhere between 738,000 down to 424,000 US bankruptcies are filed each year in total, including businesses, with bankruptcy rates falling each year, not increasing, even as the population increases. We just don’t have millions even filling each year. A smaller % of total bankruptcies are attributed to medical costs, but these were avoidable in most cases had the patients applied for Medicare, Medicaid, and even Social Security.
ACA is one of the biggest scams hefted onto the US, but was a windfall in money for the corporate interests who control DC.
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@thomasdonovan3580 Putin was planning on invading Finland anyway. One of his foreign ministry secretaries was running his mouth about the new plans already in the 2000s.
Russia didn’t invade Ukraine over possible NATO membership, but because Putin lost his puppet, Yanukovych, and Putin had been using Ukraine for a personal bank through embezzlement of Ukrainian revenue through various companies, including Burisma. As long as Yanukovych was in power, Putin was happy, along with Biden, Obama, and all the other stooges who were on Putin’s payroll. Look at the Panama papers for further evidence of what I’m talking about.
Finns know that without a mutual defense pact, they would be seriously damaged by Russia at a minimum, with a giant loss of population. The Ukrainian refugee crisis is 2x the Finnish population, for example.
The US didn’t drive a wedge between Russia and EU. EU nations got in front of that on their own, outside of the influence of puppet Biden or Obama. The US has been in strategic withdrawal from Europe since 1992, after Desert Storm and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
Eastern Europe came begging to join NATO because, unlike the comfortable Germans, French, and UK, they didn’t buy into “the end of history” silliness that was being spewed from Brussels, London, New York, and DC.
The Eastern Europeans’ instinct was of course correct, and all the talking heads and academics in the US and Western Europe who thought we were done with the old ways were wrong. This should have been clear already with Yugoslavia. When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, most knew the gig was up.
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$240 million is twice what other nations are paying, so the number fails basic inspection when looking at US Defense Acquisitions Security Agency FMS contracts. Sounds like a sensationalist headline figure to sour voters and members of parliament. Base price for an F-35A Block 4 is $83 million. Add spares, pylons, ejector racks, weapons, support equipment, simulators, pilot training, and logistics ranges from $120-$140 million unit program cost. Rafale unit program was 216 million euros for India, for example. Unit flyaway for Rafale F4 is 162 million euros. Typhoon later versions with the AESA and new avionics are similar price to Rafale F4, both of which being much more expensive due to twin-engined designs with older flight control systems, hydraulics, and electronics architecture.
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@magnummax78 These are commonly-advertised points for the Gripen, but unfortunately, all of them are incorrect.
Gripens are physically smaller, which means less payload, but have a typical RCS when combat-configured, which means easily detected.
They aren't a more durable airframe. F-35A has been tested to 27,400hrs in the static stress apparatus, over 3x its rated service life.
Gripen's take off and landing distances are worse than the teen series, and especially worse than Typhoon, Rafale, and F-35A. You can see evidence of this from the Turku airport take-offs back-to-back of 3 Gripens and 2 F-35As. Gripens took 18-21 seconds to get airborne. F-35As took 9-12 seconds. F-35As are much heavier than Gripens.
Cost: Gripen E costs more than F-35A in both Unit Flyaway and Unit Program Costs.
F-35A is $77.9m
Gripen E is at least $85m Saab refuses to publish the number, but we can see the costs in the Brazil contract.
F-35A is easier to maintain than an F-16. Lot 14 F-35As typically return from sorties 100% ready to gas and go. Break rate for the whole F-35A fleet is 6%, which is unprecedented for a fighter. F-16 had the best record at 10% break rate prior to F-35A coming along.
Gripen C/D cost the same to maintain as F-35A. We don't know what it will cost for Gripen E since it has barely entered production.
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@Meatlooaf Gripen C nor Gripen E can super cruise with a full combat load. The Gripen NG demonstrator (didn't have AREXIS EW wingtip pods) could barely cruise at Mach 1.2 with a very light A2A load and no FLIR pod or EFTs.
Once they built the first actual Gripen E testbed birds with wingtip ECM pods, all talks from Saab on supercruise went dark.
Gripens have been repeatedly beaten in BFM and BVR exercises, while also scoring simulated kills like any other fighter. There's nothing special about them in that regard. A clean Gripen can fight a very good horizontal fight both in one circle or two circle since they're so tiny with low wing loading, but T/W ratio is weak for the vertical fight against any of the teen series, MiG-29, Su-27, and 5th Gen.
None of that matters since everyone has Helmet-HOBS missiles. Gripen loses its performance once you configure it for multirole with a FLIR pod, EFTs, bombs, and a few missiles, especially its combat radius.
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@Meatlooaf A nation needs a certain population size that can afford to fill a large army of engineers, scientists, technicians, mechanics, and test pilots to develop a domestic jet engine program. 9-10 million people isn't enough to spare the huge margins required for modern gas turbines with single crystal high pressure stage blades.
China has had fully-working samples of US-French CFM56 jet turbines since the 1980s they've been trying to reverse-engineer, continually failing.
They placed industrial spies in Pratt & Whitney, General Electric, and Rolls Royce to steal as many secrets as possible, while spending billions on their domestic fighter engine programs.
If you scour through Chinese fighter mishaps like I have, you will see the #1 cause of total airframe losses is engine failure, especially in the J-10 series and Flankers. They crash J-10s every year in the winter, mostly J-10As and J-10Ss, and that's from mishap incidents that have leaked.
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@Meatlooaf The conclusion I came to is that the Gripen program was fundamentally an appeasement to Riksdag (Swedish Parliament). The Riksdag expected to live in peace forever, and didn’t provide the budget necessary for what Sweden actually needs. They also placed the burden on Saab for FMS, so that foreign sales would help finance much of the program.
The reason for this was primarily the excessive sustainment costs associated with the JAS-37 Viggen in all of its variants. Viggen was actually a very high-capability platform ahead of its time in many ways, but had an engine that was cobbled together with a Pratt & Whitney JT8D core, with an added high bypass cold stage (for a fighter), with an afterburner and thrust-reverser system that had weight-on-nosewheel activation option for STOL.
The complexities that arose from the Viggen series left the Riksdag with a sustainment budget that really frustrated them, and almost half of parliament wanted to kill Saab’s aerospace fighter-building division altogether.
Moving forward, Saab would be under a very restrictive budget to not only produce a cheap, lightweight fighter nowhere near the size and weight of the Viggen, but that would promise low MMHPFH. Saab had only one choice, to promise what they could not achieve, otherwise they would be done building fighters.
They also would be required to combine the various mission sets of the Viggen interceptor, reconnaissance, strike and trainer variants into JAS-39A/B, (J A S standing for each of those mission sets in Swedish).
The Gripen was under-powered from the start from a 4th Gen perspective, because 2 motors would have increased the airframe weight, cost, and complexity like on Rafale and Typhoon, but would have exceeded what was normal for lightweight teen series.
Size and being underpowered really prevented the Gripen from being a worthy competitor to any other 4th Gen fighter, so the only FMS contracts it “won” were due to bribery. Saab’s marketing firm was fined $400 million in ITAR court for these crimes, which they pled guilty to in order to prevent further investigation into the South African and Thai deals. ITAR came into play because most of the Gripen’s critical technology is from US/NATO countries.
With the Brazilian deal for Gripen E/F, a Saab subsidiary paid $740,000 into the outgoing President’s son’s bank account, which has been prominent news in Brazil.
In every serious NATO or foreign country with a decent budget, the Gripens have lost every fighter competition. Czechia and Hungary were a result of bribes.
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@Meatlooaf Math shows the Gripen to clearly be underpowered, along with observation of its take off roll and climb out.
When you add up the aircraft weight and compare it to the available thrust, you see that it is underpowered.
A Gripen E with only 50% internal fuel, the gun, 2 wingtip AAMs, 2x AIM-120C mounted to 2x ejector racks and pylons has a T/W ratio of .92, which is pretty poor compared to any Western or Soviet 4th Gen Fighter.
You can watch multiple take-off roll videos of Gripens with stores ranging from clean to 2x EFTs and missiles, and see for yourself on the clock how long it takes to get airborne.
18-21 seconds
F-15s, F-16s, Hornets, Super Hornets, Rafales, Typhoons, MiG-29s, and Su-27s will all get off the runway in 9-12 seconds easily.
Gripen starts to climb once it reaches higher speed, with optimized delta wing aerodynamics, but there are major trade-offs because of T/W ratio.
Once you attach a FLIR pod and any A2S weapons, it really wheezes on the struggle bus, whereas the teen fighters, EF, and Rafale still have impressive T/W and short take-offs even with EFTs.
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@Meatlooaf I consider Norway to be one of the most serious NATO countries when it comes to defense, because they deal with the Russian Air, sea, and submarine threat on a regular basis. They rejected the Gripen A and Gripen E both times because they learned that they would be footing the bill for an undeveloped, lower capability platform that was being falsely advertised.
Anytime you see win/loss ratios referred to from exercises, they are rarely given in any context.
For example, Finnish Air Force has repeatedly humiliated Swedish Air Force, not only with Hornets vs Gripens, but even in Hawks vs Gripens. They just don't talk about it because Finns are pretty silent on capabilities. The Finns are extremely focused on A2A and train for that mission set harder than most, so they have very capable pilots in that space.
Swedes really excelled at low level in the A-37 Viggen, to the extent of flying much lower and faster than most NATO A2G/strike squadrons. They were very respected in that mission set.
They were at least decent in the interceptor role in the J-37 Viggen and previous J-35 Draken, comparable to the US F-106A and RCAF F-101 Interceptor NORAD profiles.
Gripen is a new capability set for Sweden because it's multirole, so they've been adapting to creating a multirole mission training syllabus much later than the US or UK. This was obvious at subsequent Red Flag exercises where Gripen C/D joined Blue Air for strike missions.
The anti-ship role is very important for Sweden, so it makes sense for them to train to that.
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@Meatlooaf My family is from Finland and I have studied the FiAF history, have friends in FiAF, and have worked with the Finnish Defense Forces from 2005-2016 in preparation for what’s happening now. Check out FiAF history in WWII and their kill ratios.
Gripen didn’t exist when F-16 MSIP was launched in the late 1970s. Multiple NATO nations were looking for replacements for their F-5A/Bs and F-104Gs, which is where the F-16 came into play.
Gripen C/D first came to Red Flag in 2008 if I recall. Since they didn’t have their A2G capabilities developed yet, they could only be used with Red Air, which is pretty unique to allow foreign partners to join up with Red Air.
By 2013, we had worked with Swedish Air Force enough to get them FLIR targeting pod integrated with GBU-12 so they could come work their new multirole/strike-focused skill set in a vast range complex that isn’t available in Europe. There wasn’t anything special about Gripens integrated into Blue Air other than that, and in honesty, would normally be seen as a force-reducer than enabler. The hype in the AvGeek world about Gripen in Red Flag was mainly to boost relations between Sweden and NATO, so everyone at RF stayed pretty hushed about it.
Red Flag is not a competition where particular airframes are tested against others, but a massive choreography of air component forces working together as part of Blue Air against a highly-capable Red Air threat, who do a great job of replicating real regional threat air forces around the world.
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@Meatlooaf I’m not saying Gripen is bad, just that it is constrained by the limits I described, placing some of its performance in the 3rd Generation (T/W, take-off roll, climb-out, but with less payload).
A Gripen C even with AIM-120C5 will out-stick the 1980s-era Su-27/R-27, but that’s not a high bar. I think Sweden would have been better off economically and capability-wise joining in ECA/EFA, Rafale, or just buying/building F-16s or F/A-18s in the 1980s/90s. Gripen kind of painted them into a corner.
Within their theater AOR, it’s still a capable platform with distributed squadrons operating out of dispersed basing, but like we’ve seen in every conflict where IADS and modern fighters are present, you can expect attrition with 4th and 4.5 Gen platforms.
The US impetus behind NATO really wanted to wane after 1992, but instead, NATO saw a new wave of Eastern European nations who hungered for a mutual defense pact against Russia’s inevitable aggression, so as the US drew down our permanent basing in Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, and Netherlands, the Eastern Europeans were begging for all the FMS and support they could afford...plus some.
Sweden and Finland weren’t really in serious consideration for NATO membership because both enjoyed a sense of autonomy and independence, not wanting to be obligated to NATO treaty protocols. They still contributed forces to Afghanistan in limited capacities, and Finland has done UN Peacekeeping operations for decades, but they were content to be mostly left alone.
What types of fighters they have had no real big picture influence on NATO membership, since both have been training with NATO quite a lot over the past 2 decades with some degree of NATO interoperability, especially Finland. An interesting counter to that is US sales of JASSM to Finland even before the UK got them, employed from F/A-18Cs.
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@jetli740 The US airspace sectors innovate solutions to very real problems. When DoD needs something, they don’t ask the intelligence services to go to another country to bribe their officials or steal the tech, because the tech doesn’t exist. The US creates it from scratch.
China is opposite of that. Every single aspect of Chinese fighters, missiles, ships, vehicles, uniforms, and equipment are copied from Western or foreign designs. This dates back to the Type 56 technology sharing with the Soviets, where Russia wanted to ease tension between China and Russia, then China took everything and knocked it off with mass-produced copies.
Same with J-20 and J-35. When you copy, you’re several steps behind the curve and subject to monkey-wrenching. This is especially true in electronics.
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@shadrach6299 Nope. Gore only wanted recounts in certain counties in Florida, not all of them. I believe there was voter fraud and ballot manipulation by both parties in 2000 though, but America has never elected a Democrat after another Democrat’s 2 terms in the last 120 years, unless the prior died in office. FDR-Truman and JFK-LBJ. America has elected Republicans several times after other Republicans, namely Roosevelt - Taft, then Harding - Coolidge - Hoover, then Reagan 2 terms followed by Bush 41 one-term. It would have been really unprecedented for Bush41 to have been re-elected for 42nd President, covering 4 Republican terms consecutively. There was a strong 3rd party in that 1992 campaign though, Ross Perot.
What would be even more unprecedented would be Kamala to be elected after Biden. The odds are out of the norm and nowhere near her favor since she fails 9-12 of the 13 Keys. Some of the metrics put it at 15 since there are double FALSEs in response to the questions, namely the 3rd Party going Trump’s team (RFK Jr.), the Primary Contest being subverted by the DNC with non-democratic installation of Kamala, and how many scandals there are.
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@kevinsutube1p528 Biden openly credits Council for a Livable World for getting him elected in 1972, same organization that helped lift the campaign of "a community organizer" into the Illinois Senate, who then became President in 2008.
Council for a Livable World is a Soviet era front group started by Leo Szilard in 1962, helping 420+ Congressmen, Senators, Governors, and Presidents into office.
Biden was a no-name pedophile with zero political history in 1972.
After Ukrainians threw Yanukovych out in March 2014, Elena Baturina (human/sex trafficker/former 1st lady of Moscow) wired $3.5 million to Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden then joined the board of Burisma, which triggered an email from John Kerry's son-in-law, Chris Heinz, a front company business partner with Hunter in Rosemont Capital.
In Sep that year, Obama flew to UK to ask David Cameron to shut down MI5/MI6's investigation into Burisma.
Then VP Biden demanded that the new President Proshenko not only shut down the investigation into Burisma, but fire Viktor Shokin, otherwise Ukraine wouldn't get $1 Billion in foreign aid from the US.
Biden, Clintons, Obamas, Kerrys, and numerous US Senators and Congressmen have been invested in the embezzlement scheme in Ukraine for many years, as an insurance policy for Putin/Russia.
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@kevinsutube1p528 The former Soviet officer, Pavel Sudoplatov, who managed Council for a Livable World as part of the NKVD and KGB's "Administration for Special Tasks", revealed its true purpose in a book after the collapse, co-written with his University of Moscow Economics Professor son, Anatoli.
Szilard was about to be arrested back in the early 1960s because he had been passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets all along.
The Soviets had so many moles in the FBI, they were able to steer their assets in advance to prevent them from being arrested, or sacrifice them to bolster the credibility of new high-level moles.
Zsilard's value was enormous if they could have him switch gears from technical espionage, to political activism based on nuclear alarmism.
That is why they directed him to found a front group called The Council for a Livable World. Their strategy was to first focus CFALW money on Senatorial elections in States with tiny populations where their campaign donations and bundling could have more influence on the outcome.
Enter a young pedophile named Joe Biden in 1972, and the State of Delaware.
What was Biden's first conspicuous action in office in 1973? He traveled to Leningrad to meet with Senior Soviet leadership so they could talk about policy, while showing off their new trophy to each other.
Biden returned to the US and immediately began cheerleading against the B-1A, which was supposed to replace the B-52 fleet.
After he, Admiral Stansfield Turner (DCI under Carter who had been recruited into CIA by one of the original NKVD double agents in CIA), other closet CPUSA Congressmen, and Carter cancelled the B-1A in 1977, Joe was then tasked with getting the US to reduce its nuclear arsenal while the Soviets built theirs up under Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. He returned to USSR, that time to Moscow in 1979 for this purpose. You can see photos of this yourself with an image search.
Joe Biden has literally been working for the Soviets his entire career.
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@Wickeddemon86 I have been tracking mishaps since the early 1980s. The metric for mishap rates is types of mishaps/100,000 flight hours. There are thousands of F-16s in operation right now, with a massive international fleet.
The F/A-18A/B/C/D had 100 total losses and 20 fatalities in its first 10 years of service, same as the AV-8A.
USN stopped publishing Hornet/Super Hornet mishaps for some reason in the past few years. USAF mishap rates are all open source. I have them bookmarked.
The F-16's safety record is far better than the Hornet's, much of which really has to do with carrier ops and high saltwater environment.
The F-14's was worse since it had so many engine, mechanical, landing gear, and handling problems behind the boat.
Now look at F-35 mishap, total airframe loss, and fatality rates and know that 620 have been delivered already around the world.
From a safety standpoint, we've never seen anything like it. I remember watching the early days of the F-14 (kept quiet), the F-16, Hornet (kept quiet), and Harrier.
F-16 was called the Lawn Dart back then because it had wire-chaffing problems that shredded the flight control system and instrument wiring under G, among many other problems that grounded the fleet many times.
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@SerratedEdges1 The cheapest option is pure advertising from Saab and BAES, not reality. There are several independent and verifiable sources for what it takes to operate the Gripen even before we get into the more complex Gripen E, which has no baseline fleet data to establish its operating costs.
For starters, the South Africans have half of their Gripen Cs in flyable storage because....wait for it....it’s too expensive for them to operate. They have had a bigger military budget than Finland over the past decade, but have half as many Gripen C/Ds as the Finnish Air Force has F/A-18C/Ds.
Another excellent source for determining operational costs is Switzerland. When they ran all the numbers in their fighter evaluation process a few years ago, they determined it would cost them $21,000 CPFH to maintain and operate the Gripen.
Meanwhile, Saab and BAES advertise somewhere between $4700 and $6200 CPFH, 1/3-1/2 that of the A-10. Their numbers simply are marketing hype out of desperation to sell the Gripen, so they can finance their involvement in the aircraft they really want, which is the Tempest joint project with UK (BAES, Rolls Royce, etc.) and Italy.
Meanwhile, Gripen Es are being delivered to Brazil and Swedish Air Force without the IRST. Something is truly screwed up with the Gripen E program to see it in such a state.
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@SerratedEdges1 Separate the political decisions from the physical reality of the force structure and recognize that Canada does and has had some type of fighter force structure.
The 2 big demands for Canada’s Air Force are:
1. NORAD airspace defense from incoming threats aircraft, historically bombers.
2. NATO coalition commitments and interoperability, particularly in the strike role, but also A2A (Iceland rotation as one modern example).
Canada was all set to be one of the base layer partners for JSF, funded hundreds of millions into JSF, and currently supplies subsystems and components for JSF with 1400 different firms/supply chain points.
Then Trudeau was tasked by his backers to destroy Canada’s participation in JSF with an orchestrated media campaign that continues to this day. Who benefits from this interruption in Canada’s JSF participation?
For starters, Russia is the primary beneficiary because it delays or eliminates Canada’s air defense and se surface defense posture by preventing Canada from having the joint sensor interlacing situational awareness that comes with JSF.
This is substantial, and includes detection and tracking of low-earth orbit satellites, to sub-surface thermal signature contacts in the Arctic Ocean. Combined with Canada’s maritime patrol aircraft, the JSF would fundamentally change the nature of naval threat presence and operations in Canada’s territorial waters.
For air interception missions, the threat now has to deal with being intercepted by fighters they cannot sea, in both peacetime response tests and real world. This has massive implications on the Russian bomber force and their inability to deal with that type of system.
The only real way for Russia to deal with JSF is by leveraging political and journalistic warfare against the Canadian people and parliament to handicap Canada out out of the JSF program.
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@ManuelGarcia-ww7gj With Finland right on the front of latest Russian Super Flankers and Su-57 using network-centric warfare, you think they might want to hear unbiased reports from pilots flying some of the actual aircraft they are considering.
Supply chain for Gripen is longer because the most important subsystem in the Gripen is the General Electric F414 afterburning turbofan, which is then modified in Sweden since Sweden does not, nor has it ever had the industrial capacity to manufacture fighter engine cores.
F-35A engine is made by Pratt & Whitney in the US, and is proving to be one of the most reliable fighter engines ever made, with very long service life. Transfer of engines would be direct, vs the indirect supply chain from US to Sweden to Finland with the Gripen. The F135-PW-100 motor already has a mid-section upgrade module developed by Pratt & Whitney that increases the max thrust from 43,000lb, to 47,300lbs and even better fuel economy.
Let’s look at GlobalEye. It’s a Canadian base model business jet that is modified with all the electronic systems in Sweden, using Rolls Royce engines made in the UK. Sweden takes delivery of complete Bombardier Global 6000 business jet, then tears them down, strengthens the airframe and wings, adds a taller vertical tail, AESA radar antennae, and electronic sensors and systems, at considerable cost for the customer. UAE spent $1.27 billion just for 2 of them and spares/support.
So now you’re talking about multiple production chains that don’t even start in Sweden, that Sweden is totally reliant upon other countries for not only propulsion, but even airframes and total flight systems before they make modifications.
You also have added ancillary costs with the Gripen F 2-seat aircraft since you need 2 emergency escape systems, cockpits, and control interface.
With the single-seat JSF, you have a European-wide logistics base with depot-level facilities already in-place in the UK, Italy, and multiple nearby NATO countries who have already adopted it. That means more spare parts than Sweden will ever be able to make, with a common engine/radar/EW suite/IR sensors, and open architecture upgradeability that benefits from multinational buy-in.
The more you analyze the Gripen E/F and GlobalEye option, the more you see how there are not only significant risks from a logistics and operational cost perspective, but significant risk from a threat perspective on top of that. It looks really good at first because people think the F-35 is costlier from a unit flyaway perspective, and assume the the Gripen is cheaper, without even thinking about how it will deal with Su-57 networked with Super Flankers.
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@ManuelGarcia-ww7gj There are 3 totally different airframes. It’s nothing like the F-111. That’s a false comparison really.
The common things are the radar, engine, EOTS, RF sensors, DAS sensors, central brain, fiber optics, most of the electrohydrostaic actuators, cockpit, so money is really invested well while the airframes are unique to each take-off/landing method.
You have to realize that every pilot who came from something else is praising the JSF program across services and nations, from Australia to UK, Poland to Japan, Norway to Italy. It’s an unfair fight in the F-35 vs anything else out there right now and into the future, which is what Russia and China fear, so they pump their presstitute media with anti-JSF stories to make it look bad in hopes of getting parliaments and governments not to adopt it, like they successfully did in Canada.
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Jörgen Persson F-35s have been and currently are flying combat missions in CENTCOM.
Su-35s aren't trying to get near anybody or violate ROE, so your question isn't valid.
To get an idea of how well a combat aircraft will perform in A2A, we can look at hundreds of real-world samples of A2A kills in several aircraft and squadron community types, then see how those aircraft performed in dissimilar threat training before they went to war.
Let's take the F-15, as an example. When the initial F-15 started its tactics development against aggressors at Nellis, flown by the best F-4E pilots with actual combat experience, it had a 1:1 exchange ratio against the F-5E, mainly because the F-5 is so hard to see.
In subsequent Red Flag exercises over the years, there was always a loss ratio.
In actual combat, it is now at 108 to 0 losses, most of those being Israeli AF and USAF against a wide range of Soviet and French-built fighters/interceptors.
Next we can look at the F-16, which is now at least 88 to 1 or 2 A2A kills real-world.
F-35A in Red Flag has had 15:1, 17:1, and 20:1 kill ratios in the early Red Flags, and that was with Red Air regenerating after being killed trying to game the system.
F-15C+ & F-16C aggressors even with IRST pods basically fly blind and then get killed without any SA, same as with the Raptor.
The Su-35 is in the same boat. It doesn't have as good of a radar as the F-15C+, but has better kinematics and endurance.
None of that helps it to see first. The IRST is almost useless because of IR VLO on the F-35.
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Jörgen Persson As far as actual combat missions, they're keeping things very close to the vest because it's like having a stacked hand of Aces, Queens, and Kings. Air planners and pilots report that USMC, USAF, UK, and Israeli AF JSF have exceeded their expectations so significantly, it is causing fundamental shifts in how we look at the entire force structure, training, tactics, and coalition interoperability.
USAF F-35As that were tasked with another mission inadvertently detected and geolocated strategic missile systems in an area far away from where they were, even while dedicated strategic ISR platforms were actively searching for them without luck.
The implications for Finland are that we immediately get to plug into a strategic networked sensor web that is shared by Poland, Norway, Denmark, UK, Italy, Netherlands, and the US, without signing any military alliance.
That alone totally changes the national defense strategy for Finland and places an immense burden on Russia if they were trying to attack or even violate Finnish airspace and sea surface.
The Gripen E does not bring anywhere near this level of capability or MADL interoperability to the strategic picture, and instead goes backwards with the 4th Gen fighter-AWACS system approach to SA/ISR, with data links and bolt-on recce pods if you want to configure the Gripen for ISR.
Every JSF is configured for ISR already and rivals the combined capes of dedicated ISR, AWACS, and recce platforms.
It does all that while being a nightmare for the Su-57, Super Flankers, and S-400.
Gripen E does none of this.
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@Aspen51 Not sure if you knew it or not but Denmark and Netherlands are JSF partners already. RNAF has been flying them for years now, and discussed some of the capabilities more openly than anyone else really. Their experiences in the Nellis Test Ranges are of note, working over F-16C aggressors and then going and delivering live JDAMs they had been carrying the whole time. Vipers kept shedding EFTs to try to match the performance and failed even after going centerline tank, then slick with ACMI and CATM only. Meanwhile, the F-35As were carrying bombs and still out-performing them. Something about a 43,000lb thrust motor in AB, 28,000lb in mil power and better SA. Now try a Fox 2 fight and see what happens when JHMCS won’t acquire it, nor will the AIM-9X CATM seeker head.
What platform did you fly BTW? Every single Viper/Hornet/Mudhen driver that converts to F-35A says it’s far superior to their previous jets. There was a lot of skepticism at first, which disappears once they get closer to the JSF. Super Hornet pilots say if they never see the inside of a Super Bug again, they couldn’t care less.
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Hillary had to bail out the DNC with Clinton Global Initiative money after Obama bankrupted the party accounts for 8 years. That out her in the position to call the shots on how things would be run, starting with her placement of Tom Perez as party Chair, Keith Ellison as Deputy Chair, Karen Carter Peterson as Vice Chair of Civic Engagement/Voter Participation, Michael Blake, Treasurer William Derrough, and Finance Chair Chris Korge II. There is a lot of younger DNC leadership opposition to Hillary within, but they don't dare cross her or make it known because of her reputation of making you disappear or have cats nailed to your doorframe, tires slashed, nightly phone calls, utilities turned off, etc. So they have to hear from Hillary wherever and whenever she wants to speak. There's a lot of bad blood between Hillary and Obama after what the puppeteers behind Obama did to her in 2008, even with the placating appointment of her to SECSTATE. It's a weird party to study in-depth. Same with the DC-based Republican establishment filled with lawyers who simply chose R because all the D seats and openings were filled.
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@michaelbee2165 Russia never really could integrate with the West though because of geography, climate, and infrastructure.
They never had the infrastructure to support mass distribution of materials to Western markets, and still don't because literally none of their sea ports will allow heavy displacement freight ships.
That means not only do shipping companies have to travel farther to Primorsk and ports within the Black Sea, but they aren't able to realize much profit due to the logistics associated with having to offload freight from mid-sized ships to heavy displacement vessels.
When it comes to rail lines, their rail width is larger/wider than Western European rails, so they're not compatible. This would require more effort to offload rail freight at hubs, which substantially increases costs.
Finland is one of the only nations with Russian rail standard, since the Russian Governor of Finland in the 1860s oversaw the construction of Russian railroads there when Finland was a Grand Duchy of Russia.
One thing you'll learn about Russia is that any time their national leadership tried to adopt Western reforms, it got dicey.
Peter the Great was the only one who really successfully adopted Western technology and ideas to improve Russia without being seen as weak, but he also relocated the capital into Finnic areas on the Baltic.
Katherine the Great started out open to Western European reforms, which backfired on her, so she reversed course and cracked down to the latter half of her long rule, resulting in one of the most stable times in Russian history.
Gorbachev was a reformer, which triggered a 2nd time of troubles in Russian history where everything fell apart during the Yeltsin years.
So from the Russian perspective, they are extremely averse to Western reforms for very valid reasons.
The only worse leadership experiences they have had than the 1990s were the abdication of the throne by Nicholas II during The Great War, and the Time of Troubles from 1598-1613, with the death of Fyodr I, the invasion of Polish-Lithuanians, a famine that killed 1/3 of Russia, anarchy, regional eruptions of rebellions, and an end to the Rurik dynasty.
From the Russian perspective, Putin was a godsend who pulled them out of the disaster of the 1990s.
From the Western perspective, Putin looks like an adventurous dictator needlessly seeking power to stroke his ego.
It's far more complex than that, but people aren't even familiar with the geography or basic history of the region, so they will believe whatever they are told by the dominant media in their sphere of influence. Russians are rallying behind their strong leader. Europe is rallying behind Ukraine because they see a people who want independence from an aggressive and bullying authoritarian regime.
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@michaelbee2165 It's very simple why they didn't demand elections, and then formally elected Putin later in 2000.
Russians feel secure under a strong leader who represents Russia's interests. They feel very insecure with reformers, who historically have sent Russia into chaos.
Chaos meant famine, multi-front defensive wars, imposter heirs claiming the throne, and millions of people dying. The 1990s was mainly an economic and intellectual loss for them, along with collapsing as losers of the Cold War and all their peripheral buffer nations bailing on them. It was extremely depressing for them.
Along comes a Deputy PM who went scorched earth on the Chechens, and a spark of hope lit up among the Russian people.
When Yeltsin announced his abrupt retirement and succession of Vladimir Putin, it was exhilarating for Russians, who historically have been used to strong Czars or Soviet Premiers running the show, not weak reformers. The change in Russian outlook for the future was better than any time since the 1970s.
They suffered through the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the economic troubles and shortages, then dissolution of the Soviet Union with SSR after SSR formally leaving from 1989-1991.
These were devastating blows culturally, militarily, economically, and politically. This is why Putin is seen as a Czarist-like savior figure, bringing back a new era of Russian greatness (regardless of the fact the Soviet collapse is still in-motion).
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@michaelbee2165 1st Gen oligarchs were senior KGB who knew Russia's industries. They put Putin into power to save Russia from chaos, but underestimated how well they chose as he arrested, exiled, or executed them. Then he installed new Oligarchs over the major industries, who all owe their allegiance to him. This put him firmly in control as an authoritarian with the power to get Russia back on-track.
Unfortunately, that means re-taking Ukraine, Romania Bulgaria, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.
Zelensky delayed or possibly prevented those latter invasions by 3-7 years, and now with unforseen attrition of Russian soldiers, it reduces his ability to execute the invasion of Poland, the Baltics, and Finland.
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Yeah, the thing he said about Trump “clearly failing” couldn’t be more wrong. How many politicians in US History could have ever done the amount of campaign rallies and planning sessions that Donald Trump did, even if they were in their 30s? Trump Jr. said he can’t keep up with him at age 46. Trump did all those events up through election night, didn’t go to sleep, then went straight into the cabinet formation meetings with a lot of people half his age that were wanting to take a break. Then if what Peter projects will be true, it’s as if Trump didn’t pick probability the greatest VP pick of all time, JD Vance. On top of that, he literally built his cabinet with a core of former Presidential candidates, including RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Vivek Ramaswamy. So Peter is orders of magnitude erroneous here on this alarmist forecast of a Constitutional crisis. In reality, it’s a Constitutional stabilizing movement, the likes of which have never been seen before in US Presidential history. No Republican President would ever surround themselves with former Democrat Presidential candidates like this, because Trump is an American President, not a partisan.
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His comments about Trump’s “idiocy" were way off the mark. Under Trump’s supposed idiot foreign policy, Russia’s source of revenue was cut by 60-80% due to Trump’s energy policy in the US, and unlike Obama/Biden WH, “idiot” Trump supplied Ukraine with weapons. Trump also threatened Putin to not mess around in Ukraine.
As a consequence, Putin didn’t mess around in Ukraine for those 4 years, and Ukraine gained 4 years of training, supplies, and weapons with NATO support. Trump also lit a fire under the NATO partner nations who weren’t meeting their defense obligations, which shored up weapons and supplies that have since allowed NATO to contribute to Ukraine with greater numbers.
Biden reversed most of these policies on Day 1, killing the Keystone Pipeline that would have merged Canadian and US mid and light sweet oil with greater transportation efficiency down to the refineries, and made US a net energy exporter for the foreseeable future. That would have crushed the Russian economy long-term as well, depriving them of the ability to invest in more weapons.
Who is Biden working for again?
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@hadtopicausername One of the issues that people unfamiliar with the defense industry don’t realize is that defense systems are not sitting on shelves waiting to be purchased anywhere. Active manufacturing bases and programs are already back-ordered for years.
The US has been sending billions worth of outdated vehicles, weapons, and munitions that were scheduled for destruction or decommissioning. They were already paid for in the 1980s-1990s, but still have high value.
Many NATO countries operate slightly-newer versions of those weapons and munitions, but still have compatibility with old stock. Because Europe has divested of so many of their limited stockpiles and weapons from the Cold War era, there isn’t much to go around. You can place orders, but it takes time.
Nobody in their right mind in NATO wants to send their critical systems for national defense, especially with an adventurous Russian dictator who has invaded Chechnya twice, Georgia, Ukraine, Transnistria, and crushed uprisings in Kazakstan and the Caucuses.
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@hadtopicausername I've been in the defense sector or military my entire life, with assignments and postings all over the world. That includes Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Panama.
Aerospace sector is huge and people have no clue how long it takes to get critical things done.
The US has been manufacturing military drones at-scale since WWII. People just don't know about it. We have drone space shuttles, high altitude ISR drone jets, armed drones, medium, small, and even hand-held drones.
We have decoy missiles, programmable cruise missiles, stealth cruise missiles, and even hints of subsurface naval drones.
Europe has not invested well in this space, and has also neglected its basic territorial defense posture and systems as a matter of policy for generations.
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@johndoe-cd9vt I was in DoD and we worked with the initial set of European partner nations that jointly were working on ECA before France split. France used US-built GE F404 motors on their original Rafale demonstrator and got most of the avionics technology from US developments, just like the Brits and Germans did for Tornado and Typhoon.
We primarily worked on B-1B, F-16, F-15, AMRAAM, JDAM, and UAV systems at the Air Force Flight Test Center.
Everything you're claiming is amateurishly-inaccurate. JSF is an extremely successful program with hardly any mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. Rafale has a higher mishap and fatality rate.
Nations that pay over 200€ million per Rafale do so because they aren't authorized to buy F-35s, like Egypt, India, and other despot regimes.
SPECTRA is a late 4th Gen automated EW system, copied off the basic operating principles of the 1980s-era US ASPJ.
F-35's EW systems are decades more advanced than SPECTRA, integrating the AESA as a stand-off jammer, as well as the DAS and RF sensor suites for 360 IR/RF self protection. Rafale doesn't have anything like it and can't integrate those technologies either.
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@shaneviola8848 The Congress was supposed to be comprised of neighbor statesmen who go serve for 2 years, then come back home. The Senate was supposed to be comprised of State-appointed representatives who spent a little more time there. Large financial interests quickly saw a way to circumvent the system by getting Congress to not limit the number of terms, while accepting pay-offs through their campaigns and endless campaign-financing efforts. You could be a total failure as an attorney, bankrupt, but if you were willing to sell out your neighbors and vote for corporate interests, then you had a guaranteed job in the House or Senate, and the lobbyists would spend whatever it took to keep you there.
We don’t need that kind of “expertise”. A solution to this would be a grassroots political training program run in the States, where neighborhood-selected Congressmen get informed about what to watch out for, how the slimy lobbyists try to bribe you softly, and how to represent your State better. There would be a continual periodic meeting with Representatives and former Representatives to help ensure the people are being heard and supported in the US Congress.
This crap where all the major lobbyists funnel millions of dollars to both parties, then have them play these charades about being opposed to each other to tap into the American spirit of competitiveness and gamesmanship has got to stop. They keep us divided and at each other, when they are the culprits behind many of our woes. We can do better as Americans, no need for some bogus party.
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When I looked into Burisma’s actual revenue, there wasn’t much there. Burisma was being used by Putin as a laundering vehicle for illegal funds from industries like human trafficking, arms sales, racketeering, and typical Russian corruptsia. Putin was very motivated to conceal what was going on with Burisma, and had Elena Baturina wire $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca in Feb 2014 because he was about to lose his puppet, Viktor Yanukovych, who was providing services to Putin from Ukraine. They sent negotiators to the Obama WH in March 2014 to set up Hunter’s no-show job at Burisma, and Hunter was officially on the board by May.
Putin knew that a democratically-elected pro-Ukrainian president would wrestle power away from his meddling in Kiev and Ukraine, so he placed Hunter there as a roadblock to future investigations. The new Ukrainian President appointed Viktor Shokin as the chief prosecutor, who picked up the existing evidence of massive corruption inflicted on Ukraine by Russia through plants and moles in Kiev under Yanukovych.
Hunter’s job was act as a disincentive to look into Burisma, but Poroshenko and Shokin went forward anyway, so Putin leaned on Biden to demand that Poroshenko fire Shokin or Ukraine would not get $1 Billion in IMF aid. Obama, the European Central Bank, and IMF all were putting pressure on Poroshenko to fire Shokin because Shokin had evidence that was international in scope that exposed the financial systems of the world being in-bed with Putin’s money-laundering of human-trafficking and other high crimes.
He tried to have Viktor Shokin assassinated twice, first by sniper fire into his office, then by poisoning which he almost didn’t survive. After the poisoning incident, Shokin went into hiding.
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There is no Putin wing of the Republican Party. It’s a ridiculous construct designed to accuse people of what the guilty party is guilty of as a distraction. Biden has been on the Russian payroll since 1972, when they financed his hopeless Senate campaign in Delaware. He has taken an anti-US defense crusade since the moment he got into the Senate, to include immediately flying to Leningrad to meet with senior party officials, who gave him his marching orders on killing the B-1A program.
As soon as Carter came into office in 1977, they did exactly that-killed B-1A saying it was too expensive, but allowed it to remain as a test program so the Soviets could get more technical data for their response to it: The Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack supersonic strategic bomber.
Reagan re-started the B-1 program as the B-1B, which wasn’t as fast, but had a much smaller Radar Cross Section.
Soviet Active Measures programs are still alive and well in the US and Europe, with over 420 Congressmen, Senators, and Governors assisted into office with Soviet money and political groups. Biden has openly credited one of them for helping him into the Senate in 1972, The Council for a Livable World.
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@idirbouchdoug1567 1. Ben Franklin-born in Boston, Massachusetts, British America
2. Graham Bell- Scotland
3. Eli Whitney, Massachusetts, British America
4. John Moses Browning-Ogden, Utah US
5. Wilbur and Orville Wright- Dayton, Ohio US
6. Samuel Morse- Charlestown, Massachusetts US
7. George Westinghouse- New York, US
8. Charles Goodyear- New Haven, Connecticut US
9. George Eastman- Waterville, New York US
10. Howard Hughes- Houston, Texas US
11. Nikola Tesla- Serbia
12. Hiram Maxim-Sangerville, Maine US
13. Warner von Braun- Posen, Prussia, German Empire
14. Robert Goddard- Worcester, Massachusetts US
15. Thomas Edison- Milan, Ohio US
16. Igor Sikorsky- Kiev, Ukraine
17. Jack Northrop- New Jersey, US
18. Albert Einstein- Ulm, German Empire
19. Steve Jobs-San Francisco, CA, US
20. Elon Musk- Pretoria, South Africa
Most of the greatest inventors in the last 300 years were either born in America, or migrated here to achieve their visions. 15/20 on that list were born in America.
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@extraacct478 Static, fixed RCS values are the things of a more amateur discussion of course, and can’t be corrected fully in the open. Senior sources have used physical representations before as references, without compromising any recorded values and spike locations. Things like small birds, golf balls, marbles, etc. have been mentioned.
In practical terms, it’s ok to say that you won’t bee seen on any airborne threat Radar or ground-based Radar network until it’s far too late in the BVR or weapons separation timelines for A2A and A2S.
F-22 test pilots have stated that they can orient the F-22 to cause a spike return as they offset, then turn back hot onto an airborne threat and disappear from their Radar as a tactic.
It was also revealed that the F-117A went through 3 different generations of RAM, so VLO technologies don’t remain static even within a particular production design, even after it has been produced. I would not be surprised if the combat-coded F-22As have a new generation of RAM techniques applied to them, but this is speculation. It’s one of the most time-consuming aspects of the Raptor fleet maintenance, while not much of a contributing factor to MMHPFH on the F-35A.
JSF uses much better VLO technologies that have hands-free maintainability/durability incorporated into the structures, rather than having to be applied all the time.
F-35A MMHPFH are 3.5-4.5hrs, which is stunning. On the F-16 fleet, we have seen 11-14hrs, not including ancillary combat systems like the FLIR, ECM, and HTS pods.
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@dianapennepacker6854 The problem we faced even with F-22 production dispersed across most of the States was that traitors in DoD and the WH were able to kill it before we could put 200 in Europe, 200 in the Pacific, with 350 in the States.
With F-35, production is dispersed across 48 US States, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Italy, Norway, etc.
It's traitor-proof for production at least, and the foreign partners rely on it for their regional security.
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Any civilian would quickly understand how paperwork gets filled with inaccuracies or nothing at all if you walked into any PAC/S-1 in most of the units I was in.
You have retards who should have never graduated HS for starters working in PAC. These guys can't spell, can't read, have extremely low standards of discipline, and NCOs who merely stayed in from that gene pool instead of getting out like most do.
They were typically the most incompetent, unmotivated, disrespectful, and malingering class of soldiers I saw at practically every duty station I was at, from Fort Benning, to DC, Korea to Fort Lewis, and especially all over Fort Bragg.
The only PAC/S-1 I saw that was run like a tight ship was by a retired female SGM from JSOC, within SWC (her husband was a senior Unit Operator) She was a tall, Southern lady who spoke softly and politely most of the time, but had scary connections and didn't mess around.
Every other PAC was run by lazy S-1 types who were just marking time in the Army, showed up late, often weren't open when I needed to get my soldiers squared away, and when they were open, E-3s would speak condescendingly to E-6s coming in for help. If anyone needed to be scuffed up brutally, it was PAC.
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@matt-the-slayer8828 Typo, lol. Whenever you have a political movement in the US, it gives you 12 years of consistency within the party in the WH.
I also think there will be a black swan event in 2028 though.
By rigging the 2020 election, the deep state basically magnified Trump's movement, so even when he's gone, a new wave of leadership caste in his mold will continue forward.
The Democrat party now has to look internally, and will hemorrhage whatever centrist base remains over to the Trump movement, because millions more will be red-pilled like after 2016.
When they learn that the DNC/media hid who Kamala is from them and Trump's policies benefit them, there will be even more disillusion within the geriatric party, followed by its abandonment in waves.
We will watch Schumer, Pelosi, the Bidens, and Clintons wither away like Feinstein into the cursed hall of shame in US history, leaving the Obamas as radical outcasts.
A new generation of American youth will rise up with a real President, showing them what true leadership looks like, and he'll be fondly remembered like FDR was.
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@aidanwilliams9452 Dassault openly told India they are "committed to getting the CPFH down to $25,000". That doesn't include FLIR or Recce pods. There's a lot of scrutiny on the Indian deal because the unit program cost is $213 million per with weapons and spares.
DoD Comptroller publishes annual detailed reimbursable rate costs for every aircraft across the services, which spells out exactly how much it costs to operate each one with and without personnel costs that day, no long-term amortized costs or snack bars, golf courses, or theaters snuck in.
Funny things in those reports pop up, like F-35B and F-35C being cheaper to reimburse, while USN Adversary F-16As cost more than USAF F-16Cs on the same tables.
F-35A hourly reimbursable rate was $17,963 without personnel costs, $18,065 with personnel.
You can manipulate CPFH in so many different ways as to be meaningless.
The most blatant facts that are being hidden from click-bait articles and discussions are safety records.
That blows the whole story wide open and forces people to start to see something interesting, especially laymen with no real aerospace background.
Over 690 F-35s have been delivered. How many flight hours have been flown?
How many have crashed?
What's the Class A mishap rate?
How many pilots have died?
Answers: 430,000hrs
4 crashes in 14 years and 10 months of flight
1 pilot killed in Japan off the coast, controlled flight into terrain (water)
Now compare that with the F-16. First 10 years of F-16 service....
143 crashes/total losses, 71 fatalities.
F/A-18? 100 losses, 20 fatalities first 10 years
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@kopecktoothpaste996 ATF is nothing but a net negative constitutionally, legally, budget-wise, and criminally. They are a curse on the US imposed by Prohibition-era corrupt congress and AG in 1934, to protect organized crime's banks. Read the full 1934 NFA Hearings. They wanted to crack down on people like Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde, who were robbing banks.
Organized crime had legitimized by then with billions in cash flow and legitimized businesses, along with buying Congressmen, Senators, Governors, the WH, AG, FBI Director, etc.
ATF and NFA were meant to deprive the people of their rights to protect themselves from racketeering. ATF were official enforcers of organized crime, nothing more.
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Hillary is a winner? Name me some of her accomplishments. Getting unduly elected into the Senate with outside influence, not even a real resident of that State, is not what you call a winner. Everything she's touched turned to scandal and disaster. White House Travel Office firings, Waco, Vince Foster murder, Mogadishu, FBI files, Chinese spying, attacking Clinton's women and wrecking their lives, attacking the military with cultural experiments placing women in combat arms, DADT, Ron Brown, and that's just through 1996.
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Bernie would have been trounced in the general either way. Bernie's problem for the general is that he openly says what most Democrats want to do to the Nation, which is a guaranteed loser strategy in the general.
You're not winning Florida, Ohio, Texas, or even Pennsylvania with open calls for socialism.
Bernie sounds great to inexperienced College kids who have never done payroll or taxes, never run a business, and listen to college professors who are intoxicated on the fumes of their own flatulence.
That doesn't resonate well even with unions, who have been screwed out of their jobs by Democrats ever since the rush towards environmentalist policies that shifted US jobs overseas.
This is where the Democrat party has really abandoned one of its core, reliable voting blocks, who were left unemployed and underemployed, while empowering China with a massive wave of industrialization funded by the US.
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@jaxastro3072 Whatever pilot you spoke to simply doesn’t know any facts about the F-35 then, or this story is fabricated. The F-35A has a longer mission radius than any current US 4th Gen fighter. It does not need or carry external fuel tanks. It has far greater range than the current Hornets, F-15C, and F-15E. Former senior F-15C and F-15E pilots have all stated that they have more legs in F-35As that they fly now. I thought the “short range” fallacy had been pretty well-debunked long ago, but it seems that it still hasn’t died.
F-35A internal fuel is 18,250 lbs.
F-16C internal fuel is 7,000 lbs. Always configured for combat with 2x370gal for an additional 5,000 lbs, brining total to 12,000 lbs.
F-15C internal fuel is 13,850 lbs. Always configured for combat with2x600gal for an additional 8,000 lbs bringing total to 21,850 lbs.
F-15E internal fuel is 13,550 lbs. Always configured with 2 CFTs and 2x600 EFTs for an additional 18,000lbs, bringing total to 31,550 lbs.
Once you hang all that parasitic drag on the legacy fighters, their fuel consumption goes way up. F-35A’s fuel fraction is huge, much greater than any other single engine fighter design. None of that fuel causes parasitic drag on the airframe because it’s all internal. None of the 4th Gen fighters operate normally without EFTs, so their aerodynamic designs are compromised in favor of adding some range to them when carrying draggy weapons and pods off pylons.
Next fallacy: Low speed. None of the 4th Gen fighters when configured for combat can reach their maximum placard limits, and never have been able to. The fastest of them all, the F-15A, was never able to reach Mach 2.5 even stripped of paint, Radar, pylons, HUD, all combat avionics, etc. That was the Streak Eagle time-to-climb demonstrator in the 1970s. It reached Mach 2.2 during those runs.
Hornets and F-16s rarely even get near 1.5 Mach when lightly configured. When carrying FLIR pods, ECM pods, EFTs, bombs, and missiles, they normally don’t even go supersonic. F-15E is largely a subsonic platform in its standard configuration with CFTs, EFTs, and bombs.
F-35A is a Mach 1.6 capable platform all the time when configured with many of the standard weapons loads currently used on the Hornet and F-16 (4-6 AAMs, 2-8 A2G weapons, FLIR, ECM). It has faster start-up due to the IPP, faster take-off when configured, faster climb rate, and faster cruise speed at profile altitudes. These are the facts, so the math doesn’t add-up when someone says it isn’t as capable. It is far more capable in the raw performance metrics that we use to measure 4th Gen fighters, and on top of all of that, it isn’t G-limited when configured.
Gripen is in even a worse boat in that regard because it doesn’t match any of the 4th Gen fighter raw performance capabilities for QRA. Take a heavy F-15C with 2x600 gallon wing tanks fully loaded with 8 A2A missiles. That F-15C can take off in 12 seconds after break release and can zoom-climb up to cruise altitude in 30 seconds.
A lightly-loaded Gripen C even with only 1 EFT and 4 AAMs takes 18-21 seconds, and struggles to climb. They can’t go into the vertical because their thrust-to-weight is so poor and anemic. These are basic mathematical facts that get overlooked by the majority of the AvGeek world, which means our math skills have deteriorated that badly even among the nerds. Gripen E has even worse T/W compared to Gripen C because Gripen E starts off with 2200lbs more empty weight, and 2300lb more internal fuel, while only getting 3,900lb mx thrust increase from RM12 (18,100 lb) to F414-GE-39E (22,000 lb). It has less payload than the existing F/A-18 by quite a large margin. Current F/A-18 can carry 12 AAMs and 1 EFT on centerline for a pure A2A high magazine depth mission if it wanted to.
Climate advantage to Sweden fallacy: Sweden doesn’t have anywhere near the experience testing and building fighters that will operate in extreme cold conditions. The USAF is the king of that game, with over 70 years of experience in Alaska, Northeast US, Norway, and Iceland, let alone all the REFORGER exercises, permanent basing (UK), and rotations with NATO countries. The cumulative flight and maintenance hours aren’t even close.
Of all the modern fighter designs, none have been subjected to extreme climatic testing and validation than the 3 JSF series, including the F-35A. F-35As are currently operating from permanent basing locations in Alaska, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, and Japan, while Finland just selected the F-35A Block 4 with drag chute after their extensive 7-year H-X challenge.
Gripen has zero range advantage over F-35A. If you’re looking at Wikipedia for performance data on the Gripen, it won’t be helpful to understanding anything about this subject. Saab has been caught misrepresenting the Gripen so many times as to be laughable now. The Gripen is an unintended scam that Saab was forced into when Riksdag set such tight budgetary restrictions on the program, leaving them with a really limited choice for propulsion.
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@justinbiggs7729 The biggest challenge for thin polymer components are in extreme cold conditions. I’ve had early MIAD grips crumble and crack on me shooting high-volume suppressed in -30˚C conditions in the Arctic, back when they were using a conical screw for the grip. They later worked on the polymer formula and went with a flat faced grip screw to correct that design flaw.
In an extreme cold, dry climate in the mountains, dropping the SCAR on the stock would be a prime mechanism of failure to consider, since polymer relies on a small % of water for its durability.
For a competent military contract, a rifle should be subjected to the arctic testing lab, along with ice, sand, and dust immersion. There are NATO standards for all of this.
If all the SCAR is for a consumer is a cool weapon to own and shoot in temperate conditions on clean ranges, with some minimal field exposure, then they should have no problems with them.
I personally have questions about the durability in extreme cold.
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@johnwayne8494 The Ukrainian people naturally took to the streets after Putin’s puppet, Yanukovych, signed Putin’s Russia-Eurasia Economic Pact in Dec 2013, exactly opposite of what they wanted, which was to normalize trade relations with the Eurozone. They have looked at Poland all these decades and watched their economy grow 6-fold, while Putin has been robbing them through money-laundering, embezzlement, and cronyism using Russian separatists packed into the government under Yanukovych, Zlochevsky, and the like. CIA is jam-packed with Russian moles and always has been since it was founded, so that dog doesn’t hunt.
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@joyrichards6127 Bush Sr. orchestrated the Mena operation via Oliver North, who recruited the contractors and Agency personnel that built the Mena Airport facilities during Governor Clinton’s rule over Arkansas. The Dem majority in the Congress banned the Reagan Administration from helping the Contras fight the communist Sandanistas, so the CIA and Army’s official budget was cut. Bush Sr. told Oliver North and William Secord on the NSC to use “creative financing techniques in the region” to continue the support to the Contras. CIA then started smuggling cocaine from Columbia into the US, with Arkansas, Florida, and other States where Governors were willing to play.
Governor Clinton set up the Arkansas Development and Finance Authority to act as a clearing house for cocaine money laundering as part of this whole operation, while Senators and even Neil Bush (George H.W. Bush’s son) used the Savings and Loans Scandal to launder much of the money. You also had the Keating 5 Scandal with John McCain as the prime violator in the Senate, who was absolved of any wrongdoing and the others punished.
Such was the political scene behind the scenes that none of the mainstream presstitutes would touch with a 10ft pole because they didn’t want to miss out on their WH Press credentials or invitations to the annual gala night dinner, where food, drinks, and women are shared. So yeah, my trust in Barr is non-existent as well.
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Lion Heart Back-door dealings between Bush Sr. WH, Governor Clinton, CIA, Arkansas, Saddam Hussein, offshore banks, the Savings and Loan Scandal...nothing really for you to be concerned about. Just get back to work and pay your taxes, peasant. These guys have it all figured out. They’ll investigate themselves and find no wrongdoing, maybe slap some low-level agents on the wrist, or better yet, create another distraction where Trump is the evil one. You should be outraged over what he tweeted!
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USAF also was involved with ASTOVL and SSF for disbursed basing considerations in USAFE and PACOM. That all started in 1983.
I would counter your statements by stating that the F-35A blends better than F-16, Hornet, and MiG-29 maneuvering and transonic performance with A-7D combat radius, which is unprecedented.
A/F-X was basically a Stealth Hornet replacement with a demand for more range, and they got that in droves with the F-35C.
If Congress had funded the 6 different pre-JAST programs, that would have been a real boondoggle. Each would duplicate the other in most metrics, and the complainers would be arguing that we should have made 3 variants for each service using the same radars, propulsion, sensors, and subsystems.
There were extensive combined engineering and budgetary analyses that came to these conclusions.
There are big differences in the airframes and long-term subsystems of each JSF variant, with as much commonality as possible between frequent replacement parts.
It's genius really from a logistics, training, and sustainment perspective.
Had we broken the programs up further into a non-VLO USMC STOVL, USAF MRF, and Navy A/F-X, the combined costs of those development, transition, acquisition, and sustainment costs would have been larger than what is currently projected for JSF.
The synergy between services and multinational partners for JSF has allowed benefits from these efforts to be shared across the variants, which isn't possible with independent programs sourcing systems on separate tracks.
The joint forces comms and connectivity allowed by JSF is fundamentally making us better as allies from a technology-driven standpoint that filters out cultural bias and noise by getting rid of most voice traffic.
JSF is a massive success that is being targeted heavily by our adversaries and their stooges within our own Nations because they know and appreciate how devastating it is to their current and projected defense systems.
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@MarcosElMalo2 The US bought Swedish Bofors steel barrels for some 40mm weapons systems on the AC-130 Gunship, but we also make our 155mm and 105mm howitzers, 40mm,30mm, 25mm, 20mm, .50 Cal, .338, .30 Cal, and .224 Cal barrels at scale that no other nation can match.
Instead of relying heavily on those types of weapons, our primary methods for delivering explosive munitions is via air, sea, and ground-launched missiles with bigger warheads.
Why drive a tank when you can fire missiles and drop Precision-Guided weapons? We've shifted far away from WWII thinking with an emphasis on air power. Russia has an artillery-based land component forces, with motorized Infantry to follow the echelons of fire and pour through the rubble.
US echelons of fire start with coordinated air power strikes and air dominance sweeps, to include bombers, strike fighters, Stealth Fighters, Wild Weasels, light multirole fighters, armed UAS, then move into ground-launched missiles, long-range PGM artillery, then mobility-based armored & mechanized forces who all use precision-guided weapons as well.
Explosive material delivery is much more efficient and lightning-fast with the execution of combat operations, which reduces losses of life on both sides due to the overwhelming speed of the campaign in full spectrum warfare.
Russia thinks differently, but imagined they could execute a blitzkrieg on Ukraine without having these critical systems, training, and doctrines.
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@jeffropenn On the fighter side of things, there has been a trend in reducing engine parts count and making substantial increases in hot core and turbine blade durability with single crystal blades.
Parts count dropped from F100-PW-200 & -220 to the -229.
From the F100-PW-229 to the F-22A's F119-PW-100s, it dropped again, then dropped even more with the F-35's F135-PW-100.
There are several technologies in the 5th Gen engines that don't exist in the commercial sector having to do with. FADEC integration into DFLCS and low observables, so DoD restricts them heavily from being cross-pollinated into other markets.
Some of those might seem to add complexity, but have to do with heat exchange in the compressor section, and RCS reduction on both the front and back ends.
The AB flameholders are concealed from rear aspect RF resonance, which also helps with IR signature reduction turning the exhaust plume into a spiraling vortex, where cold air is blended with the plume.
They're a lot different than the 1980s-1990s engines. I know things are changing on the high bypass ratio turbofans for the heavies, and all 3 companies are doing interesting work in that world (GE, Pratt, and RR). I still remember the days when the airlines were all flying turbojets, except "the new 747" with its 4 big turbofans. Then 737 went from 737-200 to -300 with turbofans, and they spread like wildfire with the 757 & 767, as well as the Airbuses. It has been a wild ride.
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@Vikotnick I read multiple human clinical trial results on mRNA up through 2019 and they all had to be halted for major safety trials.
Moderna had 4 of them up through 2017, all failed. People were dying, going into anaphylactic shock, stroking out, getting pulmonary embolisms, clotting disorders, neurological disorders, Lou Gehrig's disease, it was madness.
This is openly reported in the investor literature. Look up: Moderna gets billions among safety problems
Pfizer didn't like this new start-up coming along and biting into their market share with mRNA, but they knew mRNA wasn't safe, so they insulated themselves by using the German company Biontech as a cut-out essentially. Pfizer did $87 Billion in revenue last year.
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The Ukraine “Special Military Operation" was supposed to be a lightning-fast seizure of Kiev and the coastal sea ports, predicated on the removal of Zelensky by Biden. Remember, “I don’t need a ride, I need ammo.” Biden played a key role in opening the door for Putin, but Zelensky didn’t play along, and threw the whole invasion into a long-term slug-out of conventional forces.
People, including Generals and military historians, rarely discuss or consider the critical roles that traitors play in major strategic moves. Biden has been on the Soviet payroll since 1972, when they financed his hopeless campaign into the Senate to act as a mole in the US who would vote against and cheerlead to weaken US defense programs and positions on START II. Having traitors inside your opponent’s castle court is a basic tenet of Eastern thinking.
Russia has hordes of traitors on their payroll in Germany, the UK, France, Poland, Finland, the Baltics, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. When you coordinate an invasion with strategic moves from leaders within the targeted nations, the invasions have much greater success. Look at what they did to Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968. How many EU Members of Parliament do you think are on Russian payroll or compromise? How many NATO staff members and Generals? Remember that the German BND was headed by Reinhardt Gehlen, who the Soviet NKVD turned at the end of the war before BND was even created once West Germany was formed.
Russia’s deck of cards is so extensive, that they use traitors’ sons and family members as pons in puppet regimes in other nations even. For example, Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma. Burisma was being investigated for embezzling funds and routing them to Putin. That’s why Vice President Biden told Ukraine that they wouldn’t get a billion dollars from the US until the prosecutor was fired. Burisma’s CEO was living in exile avoiding prosecution for these crimes at the time.
Russia has invaded all of these territories throughout history, and they were almost always part of an empire to counter Russia. It didn’t matter to Russia, they invaded anyway.
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@crawkn He openly credits Council for a Livable World helping him get elected into the Senate in 1972.
The former KGB officer who managed CFALW exposed it as an arm of Soviet foreign subversion after the collapse.
As soon as he got into the Senate, with zero experience in foreign policy, he flew to Leningrad and convened with senior Soviet party leaders and intelligence, then returned to the US and began lobbying against the B-1A strategic bomber, which was cancelled in 1977.
Then in 1979, he returned to the USSR, this time to Moscow to meet again with even higher Soviet leaders. Upon return to the US, the junior Senator lobbied for US to submit to SALT II treaties, which reduced our nuclear deterrent, while Russia built theirs up.
In recent times, his son Hunter has been on multiple Russian payrolls, including a sex and human trafficking business partnership with the former first Lady of Moscow, as well as Burisma.
Burisma was embezzling funds from Ukraine and funneling them to Putin, as part of Putin's puppet regime under Yanukovych in Ukraine.
This is a guy who has been involved in treason against the United States his entire political career.
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@crawkn Putin didn’t come into power like that at all. Putin as placed in the Yeltsin presidency as a Deputy Prime Minster after the 1st Chechen War, by the KGB Oligarchs who took over Russia’s main industries after the collapse. They recognized Russia was in a state of chaos and needed to stabilize the nation under authoritarian rule, which Yeltsin was not capable of exercising. Putin managed the 2nd Chechen War with a scorched earth policy to appear to be the new strong man that Russians are used to having, and Yeltsin resigned on Dec 31, 1999 on TV, announcing Putin as their new President. https://youtu.be/ZVitEiKkRZ8
Putin was financing Hillary through Clinton Global Initiative. He didn’t take Trump seriously because all the media said Hillary would win, and Putin had given $363 million to Clinton Global in exchange for Bill to give speeches , but really to bribe Hillary, Obama, and Biden to sign off on Putin’s access to US and Canadian uranium mining rights with the Uranium One deal. There were hundreds of millions of dollars changing hands, with whistleblowers/informants inside the companies reporting to James Comey’s FBI (Director from 2013-2017 synonymous with Obama WH and Hillary State Department).
https://youtu.be/6qTQJXni48k
The sources for Biden corruption evidence are whistle-blowers, business partners, and Hunter’s own communications, as well as VP Joe Biden bragging about getting the Ukrainian Chief Prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired with an open bribe to the Ukrainian President, using US international assistance money allocated by the Obama WH. He isn’t even trying to hide it: https://youtu.be/UXA--dj2-CY
I have disapproved of Biden since the 1980s, just as the Democrat Party laughed him out of the 1988 primaries. Especially after I learned about his treason regarding the B-1A program, working with the Russians through Council For A Livable World, I disliked him even more. I also disliked his calling for over 300 new death penalty sentences for inner city blacks, and how he talked about forced bussing would create racial jungles. I disliked his co-sponsoring legislation from KKK Grand Masters in the Senate. I especially disliked his drafting of the Domestic Surveillance program after Oklahoma City Bombing, which was signed into law as the PATRIOT ACT by George W. Bush after 9/11.
The evidence is in the open, not special or insider. Biden literally bragged about being corrupt and told people not to assumed he wasn’t corrupt, because he’s literally that stupid. I’ve been watching him run his mouth for over 4 decades, and only stupid things come out of it as a rule, even before he had the aneurysms.
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@crawkn Ukraine has been governed as a puppet state of Russia for centuries, and went back and forth with puppet presidents after the Soviet collapse.
Ukrainian people wanted to trade with Europe and grow their economy like Poland. Putin had Yanukovych as his puppet, who basically managed the flow of Ukrainian industry revenue embezzlement to Russia to keep Ukraine subverted.
Yanukovych violated the will of the people, who all voted in favor of trade with EU by 79% in 2013. Instead, he signed onto Putin's Russia-Eurasia Economic Pact in late 2013. That triggered the 4 month Euromaiden revolution and protests, leading to the ousting of Yanukovych in March 2014.
Ukraine began a systematic house-cleaning of these Russian-loyalist plants in government and industry, including the investigation into Burisma by chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin.
Guess when Hunter was brought on board with Burisma? Spring 2014. That would insulate Burisma since Hunter's father was Vice President at the time in the Obama WH, with bought/paid-off Hillary as SECSTATE.
Russia did everything in its power to ensure Ukraine didn't have control over their own energy, because it would then be able to compete with Russia by providing natural gas to Europe, as a bilateral trade partner with no territorial ambitions against European states.
Joe Biden threw a wrench in Ukraine's government attempts of cleaning house. He wasn't helping to fight corruption, but to instead enforce further Russian subversion of Ukraine.
The timeline and facts are extremely damning for the Bidens.
Trump is the only US President who presided over US forces destroying Russian forces in Syria in 2018 at the Battle of Khasham. US F-22As, B-52Gs, F-15Es, AH-64Ds, and MQ-9s dropped JDAMs, Hellfires, combined with M777 artillery, HIMARS, and AC-130 gunship fire for 6 hours on Russian Wagner mercenaries and their Syrian Army battle group who attacked US Special Operations Forces over the Euphrates River.
Stories about Trump "licking Putin's boots" in the leftist media were projection. Soviets hijacked US media starting in the 1950s with the CIA's Mockingbird program.
Look at all the money that changed hands between Putin, the Clintons, and Bidens. Hunter was business partners with the former first Lady of Moscow in her sex and human-trafficking ring.
Biden corruption and treason is in the open.
Iran just "obtained" US shipments of Javelins and Stinger missiles by the way. It took over 6 months for Biden WH to send a lot of the promised military aid to Ukraine. Much of it came from critical stockpiles in the UK, Poland, and Finland.
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@crawkn Russia has been meddling in US elections and politics since no later than the 1930s. It’s a running operation of active subversion that is top priority by their intelligence services. They have helped elect over 420 Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and US Presidents since 1962 using Council for a Livable World and other front groups.
If you try to see these events through the lens of US-internal political partisanship, it will prevent you from viewing the big picture, though it is true that Russia/Soviets prefer to co-opt Democrat candidates. They target everyone though.
Quid pro Quo was Uranium One to help Putin revitalize his nuclear forces, not soft corruption. Taking heat off a company Putin had corrupted to benefit Russia (Burisma), while subverting Ukrainian independence is not soft corruption, especially when the Vice President and his son are acting as lead men to that effort. Biden exercised corrupt influence to get Shokin fired with a massive bribe/carrot-stick approach using US foreign aid money to Ukraine, which benefitted Putin. There isn’t any Russian propaganda exposing their high-level moles in the US, but disinformation spread through their media mouthpieces in the MSM to distract and attack those who present a threat to them.
Russia also focuses on fanning the flames of political division within the US through their assets in the MSM and now online to create chaos and agitation. They have always been involved in AGITPROP, especially through the universities and media. Their goal is to balkanize the US so that our forward-deployed combat power in Europe can be weakened, allowing them to take territories on their borders to act as buffers from the historical invasion routes into Russia.
It makes zero sense for Russia to hurt their chess pieces in the WH, Pentagon, and Congress. In fact, Putin endorsed Biden in the 2020 election. He stated his reasoning was that since Biden is a Democrat, and the Democrat party is more ideologically-aligned with socialism, it made more sense since he is also ideologically socialist from the Soviet times.
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@John-rw9bv I built my own timeline of events from 1999-2019 to eliminate any of the 2020 reporting bias. I came across comments from the inventor of PCR testing stating the technology’s intended use for 1. DNA research (genealogy), 2. Medical forensics (perpetrator DNA associated with a crime scene or victim), and 3. Medical research. He specifically stated that PCR tests are NOT for medical diagnostic applications, and called Anthony Fauci’s competence into question in 2019. Unfortunately, he died from pneumonia of all things in 2019.
I also looked up patents on the US Patent and Trade Website. Check out patent application # 7,279,327 filed April 19, 2002.
Look at the names on the patent application and see that Dr. Baric is one of them. It has been brought up by numerous sources outside of the Pfizer media network that PCR test cycles have been inflated to produce false positives, then were artificially lowered once mRNA gene treatments were widely distributed to make it look like they were effective.
It appears to be one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated in history, and the ICU protocols for treating patients with severe acute breathing disorders seem designed to kill rather than heal. The whole industry is lined with monkey-see, monkey-do types who have been conditioned to just follow whatever protocols the CDC advises, without any real scientific inquiry.
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@christophergagliano2051 Pull up an F-35 weapons station diagram and look in the STOVL line. F-35B carries 8x SDBs in the internal bays, which are mounted on quad racks on stations 4 & 8 inside. AIM-120s on stations 5 & 7, for a total of 10 internal weapons in VLO configuration.
The lift fan only limits the F-35B from carrying 2000lb weapons on 4 & 8 due to space and weight limits on those points, but it can carry 1000lb JDAMs, 500lb GBU-12s, or 4 SDBs on each of those points, meaning a very relevant and useful combat load for strike, CSAR, or CAS.
I spent decades in aerospace and defense specific to these types of programs, starting at the Air Force Flight Test Center, then OCONUS actually implementing these types of systems both in a CAS and air-planning capacity.
I've been closely following the JSF Program starting from the 6 seed programs that fed into JAST.
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@kathrynck My great uncle worked for North American skinning the P-51 during the War, and F-86 after that, while my grandpa worked on Manhatten without even realizing it. He died in a mine later. My step-grandpa worked for Douglas as a machinist. He ended up making Titanium parts for the A-3 Skywarrior and A-4 Skyhawk as a foreman for Douglas (refueling booms and tailhooks).
My dad, my mom, and her cousin worked on many DoD programs at Edwards, and I was DoD, never worked for an aerospace contractor. Her cousin went to McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach on several different programs after that, to include the C-17A.
We PCS'd to West Germany during the Cold War to work with the Germans as part of an ongoing international scientific exchange program, that was focused on flight sciences for what would become the Typhoon. We had other US colleagues who were helping with the Tornado at the time, which was plagued with all sorts issues.
Came back to Edwards, temporarily were in F-16 CTF, then B-1B, then went out to a Mountain West State to work in the training ranges, some stuff with M-X, back to Edwards on SRAM II (cancelled) and F-16C/D with a brief departure from DoD to a contractor, back into DoD on the F-15 CTF at Edwards, then Global Hawk.
I don't think we ever worked on or with a Lockheed program. My grandpa was obviously a Douglas McD guy. I think he was retired before the merge of McDonnell Douglas, but got McD stock which was great for my grandparents, except my aunt and her deadbeat husband stole the $942k after my grandpa died.
SRAM II was Boeing. F-16 was General Dynamics and tons of subs. B-1B was Rockwell International, GE, Westinghouse, tons of other subs.
F-15 was McD, Pratt & Whitney, and Hughes. We were DoD though, so I never had any sense of contractor loyalty in our homes, other than residue from 2 generations removed with my grandpa. He hadn't worked on airplanes for so long, it didn't really matter.
A lot of people think I'm a Lockmart shill, which is funny when you look at all the programs we were on.
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@mattrogers5188 Biden has been on Russian payroll since 1972. They literally financed his campaign into the Senate through Council for a Livable World, which was a Soviet front political action group started by Szilard.
Obama was raised by the Soviets out of the womb. His mother told her college mates she was going to protest the white capitalist patriarchy by getting knocked-up by a black African communist, which is exactly what she did.
She then worked for US AID in Indonesia, where Barrack got his citizenship that later allowed him to get into Columbia as a foreign student, since his grades from Occidental were nothing close to Columbia material.
Biden was flown to Leningrad in 1973 to be paraded around by Politburo and KGB chiefs as their "cheap b*tch", since they had targeted him for exploitation knowing his huge compromise as a pedophile-something he openly disclosed to his roommate at Syracuse, and what his in-laws discovered about him fairly quickly.
They tasked Biden with sabotaging the new B-1A Mach 2+ bomber politically from within the Senate, then got it cancelled in 1977 once Carter came in, and brought in a double agent CIA Director, Stansfield Turner.
B-1A was cancelled with the stipulation that its development still be funded, so the Soviets could have the technical data handed over for their Tu-160 copy.
Once that was achieved, they had Biden move into SALT II negotiations where the US would disarm, while Soviets continued cranking out warheads and delivery systems in the triad, including the Tu-160 built with US technical data.
They flew Biden to Moscow for those talks in 1979. You can image search those.
Along the way, the Chicoms expanded their bribery from Ambassador Bush under Nixon, to Biden, using his brother James and son Beau. Hunter came into the picture later after Beau died, and was placed on the board of Burisma in 2014 as an insurance policy for Putin.
The extent of treason that exists within the Bush, Biden, and Obama families makes Nixon look like a textbook Boy Scout President.
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@thunder2434 Yes, I followed all of that in-detail. Even though Rafale and Typhoon crushed the Gripen NG demonstrators in the first trials, Gripen NG was offered at a much lower unit program cost. That's the only reason why it was chosen. Swiss AF pilots all rated the Typhoon and Rafale superior (they just are across all the metrics), but costs were getting way out of control.
For the 2nd trials, Switzerland actually asked Saab to re-compete with Gripen E, even though it has been reported that the referendum banned it. Gripen E is much different than Gripen NG demonstrators. Even after re-invite, Saab chose not to re-compete for the 2nd trials.
For cost and performance F-35A easily won the 2nd trials against Super Hornet, Rafale, and Typhoon, just as it did in Finland and now Canada.
If you look objectively at the Gripen as I have, with the better part of 5 decades spent in aerospace and defense, it's a totally different picture than what has been painted by marketing and sales folks, but my analysis forecast the competition results accurately for Switzerland, Finland, and Canada.
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@mtlb4906 What nobody is telling you in any of the mx articles on F-35 (because they don't know themselves), is that there are different phases of mx.
The most common mx is everyday squadron-level before and after flights. USAF F-35A maintainers are already complaining about this that they don't get their hands dirty because the jet basically maintains itself.
The next level is phase mx at the Wing, which involves scheduled periodic inspections or major repairs the squadrons can't do. This is much more involved with more access panels removed.
The key difference with F-35 here is that Radar Absorbent Material strips that cover certain fuselage seams needs to be removed, then re-applied once the inspections/repairs are complete.
The basic flight systems, avionics, and engine on the F-35 are all much easier to maintain than on the Hornet or even the F-16.
The upper phase-level mx requires different infrastructure than 4th Gen fighters, and bases have to adjust to that with significant logistics footprint and security for the RAM removal and application.
The UK already built an automated laser-etch RAM removal and CNC re-application process hangar for this to cut phase-level mx turnaround, while achieving more consistent work than the manual process from before.
This is where a lot of that money in the budget can go towards generating Finnish economy relevant to JSF.
Short answer is that you aren't doing phase-level mx on any fighters while being attacked, unless you place your phase shops in underground shelters.
The combat-ready jets of any type will be at their disbursed hangars flying missions anyway.
The F-35 airframe is more robust than any of the others, having doubled its advertised flight hour stress rating in the intense structural failure testing.
The real problem is that you can expect at least 50% of the Gripen Es to not survive Day 1 sorties up against Su-57/Super Flanker/EW platform force mix.
So mx is the least of your worries here. Even if it were true that Gripen E only costs half or 1/3rd of what it costs to fly F-35A Block 4s, if you lose 50% of the alert sorties and their pilots in combat on Day 1, you just threw 10 Billion euros in a giant toilet for nothing.
You want the Russians losing every fighter, AWACS, and EW platform they throw into Day 1 with a fat, bloody nose questioning whether they should re-attack.
While they're doing that decision, precision weapons are catering their runways, S-400 mobile launchers, trawlers in the sea, sea ports, ATC towers, etc.
It turns Finland into a Badger. Just leave her alone, continue to do mutually-beneficial trade deals, and nobody gets hurt.
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@mtlb4906 There's a really interesting podcast interview with a phase-level F-16 maintainer who now works on the F-35A. He wants to go back to the F-16C/D because he misses doing his job, opening up the jet,, combing through miles of wiring harnesses, running fault codes, getting his hands dirty.
He said with the F-35A, they already know its systems status before it lands and there really isn't anything to work on. Basically refuel, re-arm, throw a new pilot in, and off it goes if they want.
These are later-production, operational F-35As, not early jets relegated to training status only at Luke AFB.
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@mtlb4906 Does Finland want to strengthen military industrial relationships with the JSF partners directly, or indirectly through Sweden with an obsolete design? That is the real question.
Critical systems in the Gripen and GlobalEye are already made by the JSF partners, starting with the GE engine from the US, via a UK-owned company that already purchased Volvo-Flygmotor years ago.
The AESA is made by Italian firm Leonardo, as is the IRST. The FLIR pod is US/UK/Italian tech for the last generation, already outdone by the integrated IR sensor suite by the same companies for the JSF.
The GlobalEye AWACS platform is a Canadian-built Bombardier business jet with UK-built Rolls Royce engines. I wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of the AESA and other critical sensors for GlobalEye came from US, Italy, and UK as well. Saab tears down the airframe some and modifies it with all the systems that make it into a modern AWACS, and they are exceptional at it for countries who can't afford larger E-3 as part of NATO or Saudis.
Gripen E/GlobalEye is a last-ditch funding program to bail out Sweden while their air force begs their corrupt parliament to fund participation with the UK for Tempest 5.5 Gen stealth fighters.
The joke would be on Finland if we fall for the Gripen deal, which the Social Democrats have been pushing since at least 2014, even after the Finnish Defense Minister said the FiAF wants F-35s.
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@tabo01 I've lived through 12 Presidential elections. None of them have ever looked anything like that.
Just following the primaries, nobody that was so senile and laughed at by his own party has ever gotten the nomination. He and Kamala Harris were some of the worst-debating candidates we've ever seen in the DNC.
During the campaign, President Trump drew massive crowds with genuine enthusiasm that we haven't witnessed in my lifetime.
Biden couldn't draw much other than campaign staff and hecklers for the few events he appeared at.
I've never seen anything like it. Then on election night, we saw a repeat of 2016, Trump won Florida, lots of the same States started being called for him like dominoes.
Then all of a sudden, there was a halting of vote counts in the night with interstate coordination, vote-counting tallies were drawn-out over 4 days, until the geriatric pedophile (who said multiple times on the campaign that he was running for Senate) was declared the winner.
In fact, he was so popular that he got 82 million votes! Nothing to see, just accept it and move along, peasant. Don't ask any questions, this is all legit.
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@ostiariusalpha Infantry are crucial to fighting and managing Counter-Insurgencies for local and regional security until the host nation can be built up.
Dismounted Infantry are not even part of the Corps-level task organization for a more conventional war, other than for securing staging areas in friendly environments in the rear, which is usually done by MPs.
Mechanized Infantry are the last echelon in conventional warfare, after USAF Global Strike (B-2A, B-1B, B-52H), TACAIR/CAS (F-15E, F-35A, F-16CM+, A-10C, MQ-9A), Army CAS (AH-64D/E), MRLS, Artillery, and Mechanized heavy mortars have prepped the objective before organic TOWs, Javelins, 25mm, .50 BMG, and 7.62mm have attrited enemy light armor, fortifications, and dismounts.
At that point, M4s and SAWs in the hands of dudes pouring out the backs of Bradleys and Strykers are fine. The XM250 would be fine for that, but not a real factor in the outcome.
The terminal performance requirement seems myopic to focus on, given the ground truth reality.
DMRs in a COIN setting make tons of sense due to minimized collateral among a civilian population when attriting insurgent cells and protecting perimeters.
That doesn't require the XM7. It requires taking DM training seriously.
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@ostiariusalpha As far as the budget is concerned, it is absolutely harmonious with my assessment. You will not even be able to find NGSW unless you’re specifically looking for it in the list of funded Aviation, Armor, Artillery, Long Range Fires, Drones, Medical, EW, NBC, Comms/JTIDS/Linked Net-Centric systems, etc. Small Arms are a tiny portion of the overall budget, and the few competent people they recruit and train in the officer corps are allocated to Aviation, Artillery, Armor, etc.
If you ever look at Army Officer promotions, it’s a monstrous abortion of how to train, develop, retain, and promote competent leadership.
For starters, they recruit from outside the Army from the civilian world, instead of recruiting from within with a giant pool of NCOs with proven leadership and experience.
This is how you end up with Colonels and Brigadier Generals who have only maybe 4-6 years of actual Command time over combat arms units in their Career Management Field. The rest is staff time pushing papers, PowerPoints, labyrinthine matrices, and reports. This makes them institutionally incompetent as a rule when it comes to how combat units actually function.
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You don't want to issue out 7.62 NATO to First Sergeants, Company Commanders, Platoon Leaders, Combat Medics, RTOs, Commo, NBC, Grenadiers, SAW gunners, FOs, AGs, ABs, Weapons Squad Leaders, Javelin Gunners, K-9 Handlers, Drone Operators, Combat Engineers, Mortarmen, etc.
I would argue it's a bad cartridge for anyone in an assault element as well, which is often your lead Squads.
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@turhankhan1503 There are at least 9 Keys against the party in the WH right now.
1. You are absolutely correct on Party mandate, as Dems lost seats and Republicans gained in 2022 Mid-Terms to be the majority. FALSE
2. There was no primary contest because the DNC forcibly removed the sitting President and installed Kamala with no delegation. How do we weigh that in the keys?
3. Incumbent was seeking reelection but was replaced with the VP. It’s weird again.
4. There WAS a 3rd Party, who then joined the opposition, and it isn’t just anyone, but a common household name who is the son of the assassinated RFK. This should weigh doubly against the incumbent party.
5. Short term Economy is not strong. FALSE
6. Long term Economy is not strong. DTI, income/housing ratio is way off, inflation, energy, everything costs more. FALSE
7. Major policy change-they never had a mandate even with 81 million votes? Where’s the major legislation? Biden WH just opened the border, which is a huge negative. FALSE
8. Social unrest. College pro-Palestinian protests FALSE
9. Scandals. So numerous, yet Allan says no. Hunter Biden alone has how many, all tying to his dad, then the cocaine, James Biden money-laundering, Biden classified documents, blackmailing Ukraine, Secret Service, withholding protection from RFK Jr. when he was 3rd Party, multiple assassination attempts against challenger...I mean, these are unprecedented scandals. Kamala as border Tsar is a huge scandal that is costing Americans their lives every day. Apartment complex takeovers by Venezuelan gangs? Are you kidding? FALSE
10. Abject military failure with Afghan withdrawal and vcxx mandates, forcing service members out. FALSE
11. No foreign or military successes. FALSE
12. No charisma at all. FALSE
13. Challenger and his team have amazing charisma with Trump, VP Vance, RFK Jr, Tulsi, and Vivek. FALSE
That’s 10 FALSE answers to the 13 Keys. Allan ignored these and didn’t even talk about RFK Jr., the scandals, the economy, or the weird case of the DNC and removing Biden.
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@nickorme8112 I've been tracking foreign aid for decades. The problem is the people who the aid is intended for never/rarely receive it. The UN is usually involved in these matters, and they are filled with puppets for China and the Soviet Union back in the day, Russia today.
For example even in some cases where it was private aid, like hands across America, none of that food went to the starving Africans. There were soviet IL-76 transports parked at the airports ready and waiting for the US goods to be loaded onto them, then flown into the Soviet Union.
The titles of these aid packages are false & misleading. Most of the money ends up in the hands of money- laundering networks, intelligence agencies, weapons traffickers, organized crime rings, shadow-bankers, and the various criminal-govt entities who exploit these shake-downs.
It's a giant scam.
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@pogo1140 You forgot pylons, LAUs, and 27mm cannon rounds. Normally those weights don't equal much fraction, but with the tiny Gripen, they actually hurt its T/W ratio a bit when I did Gripen C vs Gripen E with exact same A2A load.
Gripen E has more internal fuel mass as well. The combat T/W ratio at 50% fuel turned out to be .92, which is not good even by 1970s standards.
BTW, I've been calculating T/W ratios since 1985, along with a bunch of other metrics specific to fighters we were working on, and all the contemporaries.
Most of the fighter math I've seen online is done by amateurs who don't account for all the weights for suspension equipment, internal gun ammunition, towed decoy pylons, etc.
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@jeremygilbert7190 The problem isn’t what the bullet did after it hit Connally, but what it did before. There is a clear time separation between JFK’s throat injury and Connally being hit. Connally was adamant about this too, that at least one shot had already been fired that hit JFK, which caused him to turn around and look in the back seat to see what was happening. THEN he was hit, like a hammer to the back. Then JFK was hit in the front of the head, clearly visibly by the spalling of his forehead/hairline and rearward movement of his head to the projectile momentum.
Then you have the bullet that supposedly ricocheted off a tree limb, hit the curb, hit a pillar under the overpass, and fragmented into James Tague’s cheek. That’s a bare minimum of 4 bullets, at leas one of which was fired from the front at the motorcade. There is no need to get lost in the terminal ballistics of Connally, though it is interesting from a purely forensic perspective.
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It's really best to approach this subject with context from the late 1800s, then move forward from there.
Place yourself in the era where Tesla's polyphase A/C system, the telephone, radio, automobile, and airplane.
Read what Tesla said when he was asked about the Wright Brothers' achievements. Read what Tesla said about flight.
Then realize that the majority of Tesla's patents are not publicly available, even in 2021.
I'm so glad I studied this subject before the internet was available.
The US and Germans were already jointly working on electrogravitic propulsion systems in the 1920s out at White Sands, NM.
As industrial powers learned about EG research, they started their own black programs.
WWII enhanced US research in that field, while it was stunted in other nations due to their geigraphic proximity to the war.
The US had parallel flying wing conventional flight technology with the Northrop company, which was conducted independent of the Horten bros.
But the Horten Bros fighter samples were brought to the US, reverse-engineered, and flown in black programs that remain black to this day. This is what Kenneth Arnold and other pilots saw in 1947-forward. Kenneth Arnold's description was of batwing-shaped jets flying so fast, it looked like saucers skipping across the water.
The controlled presstitute media then said, "flying saucer".
Major Edwards crashed as a test pilot in the Northrop YB-49 flying wing bomber out at Muroc Air Field, which was later renamed Edwards AFB, the USAF Flight Test Center.
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@marten4113 Look at the proximity of Saint Petersburg to Finland’s border. Modern weapons make this even more ominous for Russia. Finland was one of the only FMS customers to get US JASSM stealth cruise missiles, even before the UK or any NATO partners.
Russia looks at history and how quickly an adventurous dictator can rise to power, so one moment you have a neutral territory next door, then you are getting invaded by Napoleon, Polish-Lithuanians, or Hitler.
The point with Finland is that Russia can push its naval ring more Westward to encompass the Baltics and cut them off from shipments. Poland and Finland are the high value strategic objectives.
Russia has been rehearsing these types of aggressions with constant overflights and violations of Finnish, Estonian, Swedish, and Polish air space ever since Putin came into power. They run simulated approaches even against Gotland. Look at Gotland, Kaliningrad, Saaremaa, and Hiiumaa.
These are key targets for Russian Navy and Naval Infantry. They have been planning to take Finland whether it is neutral or not. It doesn’t matter to them.
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@minoozolala So the actual Deputy Foreign Ministers who knew Putin's plans are wrong and outdated, even though Putin has done exactly what he planned with expanding as he communicated to the Foreign Ministry when he took office.
I've watched it all happen in real-time.
The US isn't interested in Russian resources because the US is largely independent with critical resources, and gets marginal minerals and elements from a large spread of nations. The argument that the US has any resource or territorial ambitions into Russia falls very flat on its face if you study trade.
Russia lacks deep water sea ports and normal access to the oceanic trade routes that the European peninsula has, so Russia has lusted after those territories for centuries, attempting to break into that sphere under Czar Peter, who started the Russian Navy.
Control over Ukraine is a strategic imperative for Russia, because of Ukraine's proximity to Moskva, Ukraine's seat on the Black Sea, the Russian oil pipelines through Ukraine into Europe, and critical resources from Ukraine. Most of Russia's naval fleet was built and serviced in one of 13 Naval yards in the Ukrainian SSR, including the now-defunct Admiral Kuznetsov.
The US has been withdrawing forces from bases in Europe since 1991 on a massive scale, moving back into détente and less physical presence with NATO.
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@minoozolala My close contact in the Russian foreign ministry said they would take back Georgia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland per Putin's strategic vision. The head foreign minister told this guy to shut his mouth and stop blabbing.
Georgia was invaded in 2008. Ukraine in 2014 after Ukrainians threw out Yanukovych, Putin's puppet.
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Feb 2014: Elena Baturina (Russian former first lady of Moscow) sent $3.5 million to Hunter’s firm, Rosemont Seneca.
March 2014: Putin’s puppet president in Ukraine, Yanukovych, is ousted after 4 months of protests.
April 21, 2014: Vice President Joseph Biden visits Ukraine
May 13, 2014: Burisma Group, a private company that has drilled for natural gas in Ukraine since 2002, announced that Hunter Biden would be joining its board. Around that time, Burisma’s founder, a former government official named Mykola Zlochevsky, was under investigation for alleged money laundering by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office.
Sep 2014: Barrack Obama visited David Cameron in the UK, urging him to end the investigation into Burisma and Zlochevsky. Against protests from within UK investigators, their case is shut down.
Dec. 8, 2015: Biden visited Kiev again and spoke out against bureaucratic corruption that he said was eating Ukraine “like a cancer.” Biden threatened to withhold loan guarantees unless Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was removed.
March 29, 2016: The Ukrainian Parliament voted to remove Shokin.
Jan. 23, 2018: Biden, at a Council on Foreign Relations event, detailed how he had threatened to withhold funds from Ukraine if Shokin was not removed.
April 2019: Hunter Biden’s term as a Burisma board member expired and he stepped down from the company.
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@jeremies7489 Things Trump is right about:
* US energy
* The border
* Re-shoring US jobs
* Placing tariffs on China
* Getting out of the way of States deciding on legalization of cannabis and CBD
* Working to reduce the US trade deficit
* Getting rid of NAFTA
* Renegotiating a favorable trade deal for the US with Canada and Mexico
* 4 years of 900-1000 generic drug authorizations by his HHS, which flattened the ever-increasing costs of thousands of prescription medications
* Streamlined Dept of Education
* Revitalizing the US military
* Getting NATO countries to start contributing more to their defense
* Not starting another war for the US, unlike Obama, Biden, Bush43, Clinton, Bush41, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LBJ...
* Promoting multiple black inner city community leader WH discussions and implementation of their recommendations (which Obama refused to even entertain)
* Destroying Russian Wagner mercenaries in Syria who attacked US SOF troops at the Battle of Khasham Feb2018
* Warning Putin he would be skull-crushed if he invaded Ukraine under Trump's watch
* Pulling out of the climate change scam accords, especially as global temps dropped from 2015-present
* Closing business loopholes for money-laundering
I can do this all day. He did more good for the Nation than the previous 4 White Houses combined, and none of it was partisan or ideologue-driven.
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@brentfellers9632 Or have been well-versed in the aerospace and defense industry since the 1970s, including relevant education in aerospace engineering and the ability to analyze and compare the important systems between aircraft and weapons systems as part of my employment. It’s one thing to be a low-level, low-information enthusiast, and another thing entirely to dedicate much of your life to this subject.
The F-35’s engine, radar, IR sensors, EW system, flight control system, airframe, countermeasures, weapons interface, central processing bank, integrated power pack, coatings, pilot interface, etc. are far superior to comparable systems in the Gripen E. Developmental Gripen Es are flying away without any Infra-Red Search and Track system, for starters, along with legacy cockpits, not the F-35 copy cockpit they promised to Swedish AF and Brazil.
The only real blind cool-aid guzzling we’ve seen is for the Gripen, which is an embarrassment really when you start to look at it in detail.
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@Trond Knudsen Tea Party didn't oppose Healthcare. Tea Party opposes government-mandated Healthcare interference schemes (ACA) that decimated millions of people's existing Healthcare plans, including ours.
Our monthly premiums were $369/mo from 2008-2009, and my wife had a regular PCP MD. After ACA, premiums jumped to $829/mo, and she lost her PCP.
To cut costs, we pulled me off the policy and I reverted to using VA, even though I much prefer the private sector.
Those $829/mo premiums required us to dip into savings. My wife had several treatments that weren't covered, which cost a ridiculous amount of money (none of which are available in any other nation's NIHs-all private, if even an option at all).
My wife hasn't had a PCP for 10 years now. We finally found her an OBGYN, who we don't really like, but it took years.
My VA PCP isn't even a Doctor, but an RN acting as a PA, referred to as a Doctor. He's good, but what if we're missing things due to lack of training and experience?
This is all very common since ACA was implemented.
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@Trond Knudsen Those other systems under-perform even compared to the post-ACA environment in the US. I've lived in several of them, and have family in others (Canada, Sweden). My mom is from Finland, where I have lived at various times since 1979. We also lived in Germany and Japan. I've spent a lot of time all over Europe since the 1970s.
Finnish NHS doesn't even compare well with US VA system, and it's one of the better NHSs. You might wait 45 days to get an MRI. US is trying to get MRI delivery from order down to 45 minutes, complaining about 56-137min averages since 2019.
The lies about how great European NHSs are have been perpetuated by college professors and media idiots who have never bothered to study them. The grass is not greener in those NHSs, not even close.
I can break it down mathematically just showing wait times, hospitals and clinics per capita, dentists and orthodontists per capita, specialists, level 1-4 trauma centers per capita, fire, EMS, Life Flight, you name it.
You'll see a lot of cherry-picked figures that ignore the fact that the US has 330 million people, and tertiary results that aren't directly a result of access to Healthcare, but represented as such.
US is without peer when it comes to availability and quality, but ACA hasn't helped that. It helped a ton of insurance companies make temporary obscene profits though, as long as they and their pons in both political parties backed it. Some of them took huge bribes to change their votes in favor of ACA, acting as hold-outs until the last minute to extract maximum payments.
The whole thing was unconstitutional and hurt the US.
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@jhegre US Healthcare has more expenses associated with it because there are far more options, specialists, hospitals, clinics, research centers, universities, Dr./nurse/EMT/technician training programs, EMS layers, diagnostics, and long-term care options.
It's like comparing a shopping mall complex to a corner store.
I'm not just basing my research on 5 decades of anecdotes living across the US, Europe, Asia, and Central America. I've done market analyses looking at types of hospitals and clinics relative to population density, wait time comparisons, and treatment cycles from onset/incident to pre-hospital care, in-patient care, treatments available, and long-term outcomes.
What you'll find is that other countries are very poor in comparison to the US in this respect, so they invest in propaganda from the state declaring how great their NHSs are to affect mass compliance, because direct taxation rates are so high in those countries.
Their parliaments and trade negotiators rely on the US primarily to develop and manufacture many of their drugs, medical devices, and diagnostic equipment.
US research and development in medicine and biotech is instrumental in propping up Europe and other countries who signed onto Bretton Woods after WWII.
So this adds to the expenses US taxpayers and businesses bear in the domestic US market. None of these nations are operating inside of a bubble. Most of them can't develop or manufacture advanced systems like MRI, fund huge medicinal or treatment studies, or equipment because their economies are too small.
The US domestic politicization of the Healthcare argument talking about how better European NHSs are is void of a comprehensive analysis. The math doesn't add up.
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@andreah6379 ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, USA Today, all owned by huge pharmaceuticals, insurance, personal/home products, auto mfg, using sensationalist headlines to pull you in with an endless stream of lies. Viewership of the legacy corporate media is in the tank, trust un media lower than any time on record.
I gather data from industry-specific sources, watchdog groups, and my own personal travels and experiences around the world.
I purposely don't click on corporate media.
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@Trond Knudsen I heard my whole life how much greener the grass is in European NHSs, but having lived in several European countries since childhood, the US hospitals always seemed more modern, with more money invested in them. I've also lived in 8 US States (CA, UTx4, ME, GA, VA/DC, WA, NC, CO), and have been Nationally-Registered in EMS, with several family members in the medical field to compare notes with (anecdotes of course).
Looking at empirical studies, I found that audits of the Finnish, UK, Swedish, and Canadian NHSs identified that patient care was very low priority in practice, while jobs and bureaucratic policies were of top concern.
Sweden adjusted their system by encouraging more private health options due to efficiency vs wastefulness of government, so they improved by using more free market solutions due to failures of their NHS.
One of the studies I have done is to look at hospitals and clinics per capita, and how they're located in these relatively small countries compared to the land mass of the US.
It really doesn't make a lot of sense to compare UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, etc. to the entire US, but to look more at States with similar latitude/climate/population/GDP to try to baseline the metrics.
Even then, the poorest, least-educated US States outperform the more wealthy European nations in most ways.
You see it in availability and proximity of Fire/EMS, Level 1-4 Trauma Centers, dentistry, orthodontics, and specialty clinics. Dentistry in Northern Europe is just not as accessible, so you see a lot of crooked, missing teeth, even among English Royalty (Prince Charles' mistresses).
A Minister of Parliament in London doesn't have the same access to Healthcare as an illegal immigrant family in the deep Southern US. Same for Canada, where MPs frequently fly to the US for quicker care (bypassing the atrocious wait times in Canada).
Europe as a whole has a very diverse range of quality of care, and differing standards. Your hospital/clinical experience in Norway, Sweden, or Finland will be different than in Italy, Greece, Slovenia, or Portugal.
The US has National standards of training in pre-hospital EMS care, MD, Radiology, nursing, L&D, etc., all speaking the same language.
Europe is extremely diverse culturally and linguistically, so it's difficult to even convene discussions on EMS and hospital care standards, just like with the army of translators needed for EU Parliament.
The truth about this matter can't be told in Europe, otherwise they would see significant exodus of their actual working class and professionals. They have to keep the propaganda about how much better their Healthcare is alive and well for that reason.
US media and politicians, who are ever-more clueless about most subjects, repeat the European NHS superiority mantra as gospel, when most of them can't point out on a map where Sweden, Switzerland, or Albania are, let alone capitols, languages, and populations.
OECD numbers look at life expectancy and infant mortality, lumping 330 million US population together, then itemizing separate European states who have tiny little populations like Finland (5.5m), Norway, etc., then saying how the US isn't at the top. It's as if whoever compiled the data never took a basic course in statistics (large data aggregate vs small data isn't valid).
In other words, a 330 million population of 50 States will never be at the top when compared with a 5.4 million population of homogenous people.
Life expectancy is largely a factor of diet, exercise, and accidents. US over-eats as a rule, which isn't within the purview of Healthcare systems, but more about individual and family choices in meal-planning.
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@ГеоргийИванов-й6ю9ш One of my contacts in the Russian Foreign Ministry was running his mouth about how they were going to take everything back. This was in the early 2000s, as we had the discussion with an intermediary in 2007 when I brought up the subject of the risks vs rewards of Finland joining NATO.
It was explained at the time that Russia would interpret a Finnish NATO membership as a hostile action, which would accelerate the invasion of Finland on a timeline, but Russia planned to take Finland either way, along with the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and any former Czarist or Soviet satellites.
I put a pin in that conversation thinking it was notable, but also possibly an old Soviet blow-hard who was casting his own desires on the new Putin Presidency. He was reprimanded by his superiors though for running his mouth too much about the new Putin foreign policies, because Putin was pretending to be peaceful at that time.
In summer of 2008, I was in Estonia finishing up the Erna Raid competition as an observer-controller when Russia invaded Georgia. The rest is history, as they say.
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@someperson4865 The funny thing is that this professor ignored his own metrics and didn’t even appear to read them when making this insane forecast.
Let’s go through the keys together to see what I’m talking about:
1. Party Mandate. Dems lost seats in the 2022 Mid Terms, didn’t gain. R: 212 - 222 D: 220 - 2013. This should be a FALSE by his metrics.
2. No Primary contest. This one is unique in 2024 because the sitting President was removed agains his will and Kamala announced as the nominee without any convention or delegate process. He doesn’t even have a metric for this. Either way, it doesn’t benefit the incumbent party.
3. Incumbent seeking reelection. Yes, but was removed with a soft coup. VP installed, so it’s a huge FALSE.
4. No 3rd Party. There was the strongest 3rd party campaign since Ross Perot with RFK Jr., but he JOINED the challenging party platform! This is a mega-FALSE for the incumbent because the challenger was not only a Dem, but a Kennedy who is the son of assassinated RFK and favored Dem candidate in 1968.
5. Strong short-term economy. Weird, as he lists this as a TRUE when it is FALSE. Jobs numbers and inflation are misrepresented in the media, with constant revisions post-haste. FALSE
6. Strong long-term economy. Allan must read CNN and the WSJ if he thinks per capita economic growth equals or exceeds the mean growth of the two previous terms. Younger people looking for first-time home buying can’t afford to enter the market and are stuck renting. Inflation has squeezed most people’s budgets to exclude marginal products and services, causing a recession in many industries. This one is a big FALSE.
7. Major policy change. You would think Biden had entered the WH with a huge mandate with 81 million votes, yet there was no sweeping reforms or support from Congress or the electorate. This is one of the biggest anomalies in US election history. The main thing the Biden/Harris WH has done is open the border so millions of unvetted illegal immigrants have swarmed into the Nation. This is not a positive, so to weight it as one is erroneous. It only makes sense to mark it as technically true, but bad for the Country.
8. No social unrest. What are we calling all the pro-Palestinian protests, shutting down access to class for college students, and the occupation of apartment complexes by foreign gangs? Biden called the college campus unrest “chaos”. FALSE
9. No Scandal. Allan must be reading DC corporate media. Vaccine mandate scandal for military and DoD, hospitals, public employees, and private sector. Did he not hear about the Hunter Biden money-laundering scandal that directly implicates himself in a foreign bribery scheme lasting many years? Then you have the Biden classified documents scandal, which ties into the Hunter laptop showing an espionage ring, his brother James’ investigation for money-laundering and tax evasion, Hunter Biden tax evasion trial, Hunter Biden illegal firearm possession, the cocaine WH scandal, the Secret Service scandal of denying protection to RFK Jr, the Trump assassination attempts after Biden Secret Service failures and withholding of resources, the Ukraine scandal where Biden was involved in blackmailing Ukraine and now under his WH, Putin invaded. To top it off, Biden has called Trump supporters garbage. So this is another big failure per Allan’s metrics. FALSE
10. No foreign or military failure. Afghan withdrawal was one of the biggest foreign and military failures in US history. Eruption of the Middle East into regional conflict with ballistic missiles, genocidal terrorist strikes and hostage-taking, bombings, and missile exchanges is escalating into unprecedented conflict. Allan correctly assesses this as a FALSE.
11. Major foreign or military success. Allan chalks this up as a TRUE. Not sure what he’s referring to. Most Americans would agree we have had no foreign or military success under Biden. A great metric for measuring this is military recruitment and retention, which is way down to alarming levels. FALSE
12. Charismatic incumbent. Neither Biden nor Kamala are even remotely charismatic. Both are incompetent and terrible public speakers. FALSE
13. Uncharismatic challenger. Allan correctly recognizes Trump is charismatic. FALSE
There are at least 10 FALSE responses to Allan’s metrics, yet he somehow thinks there are less than 6. I would really love to debate him on this because even if I’m generous and list 2, 3, and 4 differently, there are still 9 FALSE responses to his keys. How did he skip over all his own metrics?
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@thephilosopher7173 He tried to tie Pakistani elections into the strategic logistics chain of US weapons flow, claiming that the US is using Pakistan as a vassal state and manipulating it, conditional on compliance with funneling weapons to Ukraine due to its strategic position near Ukraine.
This is patently ignorant of basic geography, and the real logistics chain through Europe.
I've been in the US Defense industry since the 1970s, and have tracked a lot of our Foreign Military Sales (FMS) since that time.
Mostly old/expired US munitions are being flown by C-17As and other transport aircraft to Europe, where they are then trucked or railed into Western Ukraine.
It makes no sense to even fly near Pakistan in that Log chain.
The real history of US FMS to Ukraine has never been reported by anyone in the legacy or internet media. Clinton WH worked feverishly to disarm Ukraine under Nunn-Lugar. Senator Obama came in later and oversaw disarming of Ukrainian artillery stockpiles.
Bush didn't send weapons. Obama sent a few HMMWVs and non-weapon supplies.
All US Presidents except for 1 denied weapons FMS to Ukraine from the 1990s-2022. Trump is the only one who authorized Ukraine to acquire weapons from the US, starting with the Javelin & CLU sale on Mar 1, 2018. This was immediately after the Battle of Khasham in Syria where Putin's Wagner armored battle group attacked US forces at the Conoco plant in Feb, and we annihilated them with 6 hours of precision munitions.
Trump sent another Javelin/CLU order, and a $600m weapons package in 2019. Ukraine paid for those.
NATO partners were the first ones to send older weapons in the spring of 2022 after it was clear Ukraine was standing their ground.
Biden WH dragged their feet until enough momentum was building from the Europeans, to send old US stock that was scheduled for destruction.
Pakistan plays no role in any of this.
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He seems to have ignored his own metrics to come up with a Kamala win.
1. FALSE
2. TRUE * (DNC did a soft coup against the incumbent President)
3. FALSE
4. TRUE * (3rd Party RFK joined Trump, so this works against the sitting party even more, should really count as 2 FALSEs)
5. FALSE
6. FALSE
7. TRUE * ( Major policy change has been to open the border to millions of illegals, with no mandate to do so by the electorate. Could be another double FALSE)
8. FALSE (Biden described the social unrest at college campuses by pro-Palestinian students as “chaos”.)
9. FALSE (tons of scandals from Hunter Biden to James Biden, Joe Biden classified documents, vaccine mandates, military personnel kicked out over vaxx refusal, Ukraine, money-laundering, Biden tax evasion, Kamala border Tzar failure, etc.)
10. FALSE
11. FALSE
12. FALSE (lol)
13. FALSE
That’s at least 10 FALSE responses to the 13 keys. All you need are 6 for a changeover. I contend that it’s actually 15+ FALSEs due to weighting of 2, 4, 7, and 9. Allan lists many of these as TRUE, which makes no sense. His 13 keys are absolutely in-play here, but not how he is reporting them. Something is way off.
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@B.D.E. Yup, though I would argue there is no such thing as an expert. To support your statement, he incorrectly attributed. D/SEAD capabilities of Block 50 F-16CM+ with F-16AM MLU Vipers from the MSIP partner nations in Europe.
This is a critical set of details with strategic implications for the discussion, because those F-16AM MLU birds don't have the D/SEAD systems or weapons interface.
F-16AM MLU program did add most of the A2A capes with AIFF, AIM-120C5 and C7, newer Radar, color MFDs, GPS, and other systems to support NATO Air Policing and Intercept missions, but to my knowledge, they are not HARM Targeting System Pod capable.
This is an important distinction for obvious reasons.
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@ifstatementifstatement2704 They’re in like company, all of whom hold power, and have done so for well over a Century in the US. FBI acts as a cover agency for high crimes of politicians and foreigners who bribe our politicians. They have done that throughout their history, to include the Mafia, Russians, Middle Eastern terrorist cells, foreign companies buying US strategic materials, Presidents acting as sell-outs for US defense technology (because their families add no value to the Nation in any other way), and now this concerted effort between DC swamplords and big tech to rig elections, engage in a coup, and prosecute those calling their treason out.
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@tawmas1593 Hegseth is cleaning house in DoD of waste, fraud, and abuse so we can have more capability, not less. If you've ever been in DoD, you would agree there is a lot of largesse in the wrong places with overweight management, huge ancillary civilian workforces with obsolete jobs using out-dated equipment in unnecessary buildings, and billions wasted on things other than weapons, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, active duty and guard salaries, etc.
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@JJthename55 I wonder what judges we can find to oversee the trials of Joe Biden for child molestation, abuse of his own children, raping female staffers, treason, selling out the United States to Russia and China, the Iranians, weaponizing the DoJ against political rivals, compromising National security with the border, money-laundering untold millions from hostile nations to the US, conspiracy with Obama in attacking political rivals with the IRS, smuggling thousands of guns to Mexico under F&F, etc.
Oh wait, too senile to prosecute. Here's an icy and a diaper.
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@AlexJones0316 I can’t think of a President in recent memory that got as much done in 2 terms as Trump did in 4 years.
Energy independence/net exporter for US, economic growth,
Record-low unemployment,
More Middle East Peace Deals than all 8 Presidents before him combined,
No new wars,
Pulled us out of the UN Climate BS treaty,
Renegotiated US trade deals with China, Canada, Mexico, Japan, UK, Korea, etc. from a position of strength, not compromise.
He reduced income inequality.
Lower 50% of US households saw a 40% increase in net worth,
7 million new jobs,
401k plans hit record highs,
Brought back businesses and manufacturers who had left the US,
Tax relief for the middle class,
Cut business tax rate from 35% down to 21%,
$1.5 Trillion repatriated to the US from overseas tax-sheltering,
Created the first paid family leave tax credit,
Expanded apprenticeships,
Lowered drug prices for the first time in 51 years.
Launched an initiative to stop global freeloading in the drug market.
Finalized a rule to allow the importation of prescription drugs from Canada.
Finalized the Most Favored Nation Rule to ensure that pharmaceutical companies offer the same discounts to the United States as they do to other nations, resulting in an estimated $85 billion in savings over seven years and $30 billion in out-of-pocket costs alone.
Proposed a rule requiring federally funded health centers to pass drug company discounts on insulin and Epi-Pens directly to patients.
Ended the gag clauses that prevented pharmacists from informing patients about the best prices for the medications they need.
Ended the costly kickbacks to middlemen and ensured that patients directly benefit from available discounts at the pharmacy counter, saving Americans up to 30 percent on brand name pharmaceuticals.
Enhanced Part D plans to provide many seniors with Medicare access to a broad set of insulins at a maximum $35 copay for a month’s supply of each type of insulin.
Reduced Medicare Part D prescription drug premiums, saving beneficiaries nearly $2 billion in premium costs since 2017.
Ended the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, which provided market exclusivity to generic drugs.
Updated the way Medicare pays for innovative medical products to ensure beneficiaries have access to the latest innovation and treatment.
Reduced improper payments for Medicare an estimated $15 billion since 2016 protecting taxpayer dollars and leading to less fraud, waste, and abuse.
Took rapid action to combat antimicrobial resistance and secure access to life-saving new antibiotic drugs for American seniors, by removing several financial disincentives and setting policies to reduce inappropriate use.
Launched new online tools, including eMedicare, Blue Button 2.0, and Care Compare, to help seniors see what is covered, compare costs, streamline data, and compare tools available on Medicare.gov.
Provided new Medicare Advantage supplemental benefits, including modifications to help keep seniors safe in their homes, respite care for caregivers, non-opioid pain management alternatives like therapeutic massages, transportation, and more in-home support services and assistance.
Protected Medicare beneficiaries by removing Social Security numbers from all Medicare cards, a project completed ahead of schedule.
Unleashed unprecedented transparency in Medicare and Medicaid data to spur research and innovation.
Secured the Southern Border of the United States.
Built over 400 miles of the world’s most robust and advanced border wall.
Illegal crossings have plummeted over 87 percent where the wall has been constructed.
Deployed nearly 5,000 troops to the Southern border. In addition, Mexico deployed tens of thousands of their own soldiers and national guardsmen to secure their side of the US-Mexico border.
Ended the dangerous practice of Catch-and-Release, which means that instead of aliens getting released into the United States pending future hearings never to be seen again, they are detained pending removal, and then ultimately returned to their home countries.
Entered into three historic asylum cooperation agreements with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to stop asylum fraud and resettle illegal migrants in third-party nations pending their asylum applications.
Entered into a historic partnership with Mexico, referred to as the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” to safely return asylum-seekers to Mexico while awaiting hearings in the United States.
Instituted national security travel bans to keep out terrorists, jihadists, and violent extremists, and implemented a uniform security and information-sharing baseline all nations must meet in order for their nationals to be able to travel to, and emigrate to, the United States.
Suspended refugee resettlement from the world’s most dangerous and terror-afflicted regions.
Rebalanced refugee assistance to focus on overseas resettlement and burden-sharing.
85 percent reduction in refugee resettlement.
Overhauled badly-broken refugee security screening process.
Required the Department of State to consult with states and localities as part of the Federal government’s refugee resettlement process.
Issued strict sanctions on countries that have failed to take back their own nationals.
Established the National Vetting Center, which is the most advanced and comprehensive visa screening system anywhere in the world.
Issued a comprehensive “public charge” regulation to ensure newcomers to the United States are financially self-sufficient and not reliant on welfare.
Created an enforcement mechanism for sponsor repayment and deeming, to ensure that people who are presenting themselves as sponsors are actually responsible for sponsor obligations.
Issued regulations to combat the horrendous practice of “birth tourism.”
Issued a rule with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make illegal aliens ineligible for public housing.
Issued directives requiring Federal agencies to hire United States workers first and prioritizing the hiring of United States workers wherever possible.
Suspended the entry of low-wage workers that threaten American jobs.
Finalized new H-1B regulations to permanently end the displacement of United States workers and modify the administrative tools that are required for H-1B visa issuance.
Defended United States sovereignty by withdrawing from the United Nations’ Global Compact on Migration.
Suspended Employment Authorization Documents for aliens who arrive illegally between ports of entry and are ordered removed from the United States.
Restored integrity to the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by strictly adhering to the statutory conditions required for TPS.
The list goes on-and-on. I’ve never seen a White House come close to this level of activity.
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@canderson5098 Trump never needed money from foreign enemies of the US. The Biden family would live in modest circumstances if they didn’t take millions from Russia, China, Ukraine, and who knows where else. The Soviets literally helped Biden get into the Senate in 1972 with Council for a Livable World as a front, and Biden has openly thanked the Council for their help getting elected and reelected. Putin had Elena Baturina wire $3.5 million to Hunter Biden’s and Chris Heinz’s firm, Rosemont Seneca, in Feb-March 2014, as the Ukrainians were ousting Putin’s puppet in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Then in May, after Yanukovych was gone, Hunter was somehow on the board of Burisma, which had been pilfering millions from Ukraine and funneling the money into accounts held by Putin associates in Cyprus, Switzerland, Panama, the Camans, and Singapore.
To divert attention from their actual crimes, they accused Trump of what they were guilty of, and weaponized the long-compromised FBI against Trump throughout his Presidency.
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@yoloman3607 The only concerns they had were when they ran F-35s up and down the East Coast out of Pax River at sustained supersonic speed for up to 5 hours, only slowing down to hit the tanker in between long supersonic runs. The profiles they were flying are not possible in an operational setting and would never be duplicated in reality. Some ignoramus media types latched onto that story and ran it over and over, repeated by equally-ignorant people with zero knowledge about Aerospace Engineering or applied physics, and believe that F-35’s melt their own skin off if they fly supersonic.
The truth was that engineers were concerned about sensors under the skin in the horizontal tails taking those multi-hour sustained supersonic speed runs, so they put a recommended limit on how long a pilot should fly at supersonic speeds. That limit was far more than any 4th Gen platform would even think about flying, but people with no reference read it and think the skin melting claim was valid.
You also don’t want to sustain supersonic speeds around aircraft like the F-35 with the EOTS and DAS, because it will heat all your leading edges and make you stand out in the IR spectrum.
For your long-range missile idea, you need to fly those missiles into an accurate kill basket. How will you acquire that accurate kill basket sufficient to enter a terminal phase IR seeker that won’t work against an IR stealth platform anyway? Not with HF RADAR, that’s for sure. Not even AWACS have accurate range or altitude data and they’re airborne with better line of sight.
This video is simply way outside of being remotely accurate in its statements about IRST, which are useless against VLO IR platforms.
Sounds like another millennial who reads a few things without understanding the applied physics, then makes an erroneous video that a wide audience of unsuspecting followers watch and thing is legitimate, then laud him with praise about how much they’ve been informed by the entirely-bogus information.
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@garyspence2128 Now I’ll have to go figure what form of bigotry it was I was using when I had a black wife, and why I keep voting for black Congressional candidates in my district since 2012, and why I preferred Herman Cain over Mitt Romney, and why the best Sniper Squad Leader I had was black, but the worst Battalion Commanders I had were also black. Maybe because I look within the person and don’t really give a rip about their skin color? What form of white supremacy is that?
I fell in love with that girl because she was brilliant, a talented musician, above Master’s degree collegiate-level writer, and very attractive.
I voted for the Congressional candidates that I have because of their experiences and inspiration to build a better America, not looking for other to blame like Obama.
I preferred Herman Cain over all the other Presidential Candidates in 2012 because he was the only one with actual leadership experience in business, knew the numbers, and was powerful and confident enough to call out Bill Clinton on his fabricated numbers in a town hall meeting.
You might be guilty of blind partisanship, where carpet-bagging political opportunists have told you lies for generations, "vote for me", then do nothing to help you once in office. Biden is a lifelong open racist. Obama looks down on everyone.
Content of character >>>>> color of skin (don’t care)
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@heybabycometobutthead Yup. Historically, the Med has been the territorial waters of the civilizations who actually have large population centers along its coastlines, but then became territorial to the French, Spaniards, Italians, and British Empire.
After the decline of the British Empire, it became the purview of the US Navy allied with legacy European partners, namely UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece.
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@ThunderAppeal Depends on what your definition of winning is. The only Nation that fought theater-level campaigns on 3 different continents and took ground while defeating those regional threats was the US.
US fought the Pacific, North African, and European Theater of Operations from 1941-1945, after being attacked by Japan in Dec 1941.
Another important metric was % of loss of prime age males relative to the National population.
The US had negligible losses in this area, which helped us emerge as the world's industrial super power after the War.
England, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Finland, the Baltics, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslavakia, Belurussia, etc. suffered tremendous losses of prime aged males, as well as civilians in most of those nations, from which they never really recovered socially or politically.
The devastation to Russia by the Bolsheviks and then Germans is one if the most overlooked studies by Russians themselves.
There were battles that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands just in a few weeks or less in Russia that most military historians haven't even heard of. Russian archives are quite good in this regard, but weren't widely-distributed.
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@ThunderAppeal Soviets were and still are antiquated scientifically and technologically. This is a community that relies on the US Patent & Trade Office, technical theft, espionage, and bribery to obtain US, Canadian, British, French, and German designs, dumbs them down so they can be produced my drunken slavs in outdated factories, while pushing propaganda what great and undefeatable systems they invented.
When these systems face Western counterparts on the field of battle or in the air, they get stacked like scrap metal as of it were a sport.
In peacetime, their systems compete with wartime attrition for losses and mishaps. Take the MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-29, and Su-27/30 as examples.
MiG-21: 104 total losses in its first 5 years of service, 309 in its first 10 years. Fatalities are hard to count since the Syrians, Egyptians, etc. don't report their combat loss fatalities, but hundreds with other operators.
MiG-23: 291 total losses, lost count of the fatalities.
MiG-29: 164 total losses that we have records of, 81 fatalities. (Not bad actually for its overall service life if accurate)
Flankers: 76 losses, 143 fatalities since 1981. Fatalities include that horrible airshow where 77 people were killed in Ukraine.
Then look at their tanks, APCs, and small arms.
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@mebadiheidar There was a group of people who left after The Tower of Babel and went by barges first across the Mediterranean, then over the Atlantic to North America in shell-shaped boats. They died out thousands of years ago. They’re known as the Jaredites. Their leader was Mahonri Moriancumr, the brother of Jared.
Another set of 2 groups left Jerusalem centuries later in 600 BC, before the Babylonian invasion of Israel. The first group was a family whose father was warned in a dream to leave Jerusalem before it was destroyed.
The second group left right at the time of the Babylonian invasion years later.
These two groups who left Jerusalem took different routes, one down the Arabian Peninsula, then by ship to North America. The other group ended up in North America, but we don’t know what route they took. Descendants from each group found each other in North America hundreds of years later and records were kept by the first group of all these events.
The second group didn’t take any records with them when they left Jerusalem at the time of its sacking, and lost their native tongue over time in North America, but found records and one survivor of the ancient Tower of Babel group, the Jaredites. Those records got combined with the family records of those who left Jerusalem when the descendants reunited.
These records were later buried in a hill in New York around 400 AD, then were made known to a young farm boy in the early 1800s, who translated them with a Urim and Thumim after being shown them by an angel who was the last to deposit the records in the hill when he was still alive.
These people say they had prophetic revelations about the coming of a Savior of the World, and He visited them in the year 33 AD, descending from Heaven in a pillar of light after some cataclysms.
We call those records, The Book of Mormon. Mormon was the father of the last guy to make an entry on the plates, the same one who showed them to the New York farm boy. That man’s name was Moroni.
There are a lot of ancient Mediterranean symbols found in the Eastern US, as well as mounds, earthworks, and artifacts from those eras. The Cherokee say their ancestors arrived to America via boats long ago. It’s all very interesting.
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@maxplaysgamesmore8552 When was the last time you did a 12-mile forced march with stress shoots along the way, including extensive CQM stages with a G3? I've been doing this type of training and deployments since 1993. A G3 is a non-starter in this conversation. I'll get it done with one because I'm above average height/strength, but I'll get it done so much better with a lighter weapon and small cartridge-based basic load. None of the battle rifles are good fits in that context, only a few DMRs in select duty positions in the overall mix.
Brits, Norwegians, Swedes, Dutch, Germans, Canadians, Belgians, and Italians all ditched their battle rifles in favor of 5.56 NATO long ago.
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The US and the rest of the world is very critical of US leadership, because it’s one of the only systems where you’re allowed to criticize the leadership. Imagine a Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Saudi, Venezuelan, or Belarus media firm criticizing Putin, Xi, Ayatollah, the Crown Prince, etc. The US looks particularly egalitarian and ultra-stable when you analyze other nations, and I’m one of the biggest critics of US White Houses dating way back.
The real dynamic is that the old powers of Europe realized that they needed to be invested in America and the US as the US proved resilient to overt rule by the monarchies, so they took over the US financial system and subverted the political system. Russia caught onto that in the early 1900s and turned it on heavy from the 1930s-present.
China is more of a later player in that game since the 1970s, competing with the Brits, Japanese, Russians, Saudis, Israelis, Iranians, Pakistanis, etc.
No matter how many bribes they pay to senior politicians in the Senate and WH, we have very quick turnover in the WH and still have long-standing alliances and trade policies that are quite treason-proof, even with Bushes, Clintons, or Bidens in the WH.
Presidents and Senators come and go. Programs and policies endure much longer.
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Carries same amount of weapons as the MiG-29 in A2A, not as many as the Su-27/30/35, but this doesn't matter if you VLO approach into inescapable weapons solutions.
In a 4th Gen world, you both are visible to each others AWACS or ground controllers, who set you up for intercept.
You then vie for position and angles advantages while employing ECM, in hopes to get first launch.
First launch is meant to make the enemy defensive, so you can get a follow-up shot.
Whoever out-lasts the other wins in many cases.
With F-35, his AWACS doesn't see, and can't send comms to their fighters anyway.
He flies blind, then eats a missile at optimum burn stage fired from a much higher speed approach off-axis.
Nobody is in a position to chase F-35s, and F-35s fly faster since they don't have parasitic drag from external stores.
Internal wpns = F-35
Speed advantage is in F-35 favor since it cruises at .9 Mach.
F-35 combat radius is much greater than the MiG-29. Even the F-35B carries 14000lb of internal fuel.
The Su-27 has more range, but all that gas it carries just ends up fueling the fireball.
Add in the UK F-35 with Meteor and it gets very scary for Russian AWACS and Sukhois.
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@boynamesue7720 Yup. Putin himself inquired about joining NATO, which would have cut the other members nations out of being able to intervene when he executed his plans to take Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Notice how NATO doesn't get involved with Turkey and Greece over all their disputes, including Cyprus?
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100% nailed it. He ignored his own metrics and didn’t even appear to read them when making this insane forecast.
Let’s go through the keys together to see what I’m talking about:
1. Party Mandate. Dems lost seats in the 2022 Mid Terms, didn’t gain. R: 212 - 222 D: 220 - 2013. This should be a FALSE by his metrics.
2. No Primary contest. This one is unique in 2024 because the sitting President was removed agains his will and Kamala announced as the nominee without any convention or delegate process. He doesn’t even have a metric for this. Either way, it doesn’t benefit the incumbent party. Even if we list it as technical TRUE, it weighs against the incumbent party.
3. Incumbent seeking reelection. Incumbent but was removed with a soft coup. VP installed, so it’s a huge FALSE.
4. No 3rd Party. There was the strongest 3rd party campaign since Ross Perot with RFK Jr., but he JOINED the challenging party platform! This is a double-FALSE against the incumbent because the challenger was not only a Dem, but a Kennedy who is the son of assassinated RFK and favored Dem candidate in 1968. I would list this as a FALSE x 2.
5. Strong short-term economy. Weird, as he lists this as a TRUE when it is FALSE. Jobs numbers and inflation are misrepresented in the media, with constant revisions post-haste. One of the #1 complaints from Americans is cost of groceries, income to cost of living expenses, gas, housing, transportation, and medical. FALSE
6. Strong long-term economy. Allan must read CNN and the WSJ if he thinks per capita economic growth equals or exceeds the mean growth of the two previous terms. Younger people looking for first-time home buying can’t afford to enter the market and are stuck renting. Inflation has squeezed most people’s budgets to exclude marginal products and services, causing a recession in many industries. This one is a big FALSE.
7. Major policy change. You would think Biden had entered the WH with a huge mandate with 81 million votes, yet there was no sweeping reforms or support from Congress or the electorate. This is one of the biggest anomalies in US election history. The main thing the Biden/Harris WH has done is open the border so millions of unvetted illegal immigrants have swarmed into the Nation. This is not a positive, so to weight it as one is erroneous. It only makes sense to mark it as technically true, but bad for the Country.
8. No social unrest. What are we calling all the pro-Palestinian protests, shutting down access to class for college students, and the occupation of apartment complexes by foreign gangs? Biden himself called the college campus unrest “chaos”. FALSE
9. No Scandal. Allan must be reading DC corporate media. Vaccine mandate scandal for military and DoD, hospitals, public employees, and private sector. Did he not hear about the Hunter Biden money-laundering scandal that directly implicates himself in a foreign bribery scheme lasting many years? Then you have the Biden classified documents scandal, which ties into the Hunter laptop showing an espionage ring, his brother James’ investigation for money-laundering and tax evasion, Hunter Biden tax evasion trial, Hunter Biden illegal firearm possession, the cocaine WH scandal, the Secret Service scandal of denying protection to RFK Jr, the Trump assassination attempts after Biden Secret Service failures and withholding of resources, the Ukraine scandal where Biden was involved in blackmailing Ukraine and now under his WH, Putin invaded. To top it off, Biden has called Trump supporters “garbage". So this is another big failure per Allan’s metrics. FALSE
10. No foreign or military failure. Afghan withdrawal was one of the biggest foreign and military failures in US history. Eruption of the Middle East into regional conflict with ballistic missiles, genocidal terrorist strikes, hostage-taking, bombings, and missile exchanges is escalating into unprecedented conflict. Allan correctly assesses this as a FALSE.
11. Major foreign or military success. Allan chalks this up as a TRUE. Not sure what he’s referring to. Most Americans would agree we have had no foreign or military success under Biden. A great metric for measuring this is military recruitment and retention, which is way down to alarming levels. FALSE
12. Charismatic incumbent. Neither Biden nor Kamala are even remotely charismatic. Both are incompetent and terrible public speakers. FALSE
13. Uncharismatic challenger. Allan correctly recognizes Trump is charismatic. FALSE
There are at least 10 FALSE responses to Allan’s metrics, yet he somehow thinks there are less than 6. I would really love to debate him on this because even if I’m generous and list 2, 3, and 4 differently, there are still 9 FALSE responses to his keys. How did he skip over all his own metrics?
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@57thorns The US is the one who sold the majority of weapons to Europe that Europe has sent to Ukraine. Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland, UK, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland just increased their orders for the most advanced weapon systems ever engineered in the US arsenal, and can't get deliveries soon enough.
PAC-3 Patriots and F-35s don't grow on trees in Europe. They are made in the US, with some subcontracting for F-35 in UK, Norway, an assembly line in Italy, and new contracts for sub work in Switzerland and Finland.
NATO has made itself extremely vulnerable by drawing down war stocks since 1991 and not fulfilling obligations to itself in terms of defense spending.
Now everyone is crying that the US is responsible for European security and blaming the US no matter how many weapons contracts the US has maintained with NATO.
People don't have a remotely-accurate view of the ground truth because they watch mass media lies designed to deceive them.
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@SnorriTheLlama Foreign Military Sales contracts to Europe from the US have only been increasing for several European countries even before 2014, and ramped-up dramatically for more since then.
From 1990s-2014, UK, Poland, Norway, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Finland increased orders of US high technology weapon systems, namely F-35As and F-35Bs.
Ukraine tried to order weapons from the US, but the Obama/Biden WH refused them, then sided with Putin by blocking investigations into Russian corruption and infiltration of the government in Kiev. That's why Hunter Biden was placed on the board of Burisma in May 2014, after one of Putin's oligarchs wired $3.5 million to Hunter's shell company.
Biden was supposed to extract Zelensky from Kiev, so Putin could seize Ukraine and begin staging forces along the Polish border.
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@dutchbrotherfan1284 That's basically the concept with the JSF program, but correcting all the problems we experienced with F-16s, namely survivability and interoperability.
A lot of people just don't understand the principle of inflation in economics, or how it actually costs you more to make "cheap" fighters at acquisition, then spend billions on upgrading them to make them useful later.
You never hear the ancillary equipment costs included with unit flyaway, like FLIR, ECM, JHMCS, weapons, EW, MLU, etc., but you definitely have to pay for those afterwards unless you want to end up like Venezuelan F-16s.
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@dingusamingus6402 Presidents absolutely have an influence on gas prices by control of drilling permits on Federal land. Most drilling operations are done on private land when possible, but the offshore GOPLATs are Federally-contrilled, as are international arrangements like the Keystone Pipeline
Keystone was going to allow Canadian mid-crude to be blended with US super light from the Bakken, as it was to be piped down to the refineries in the Gulf Coast. That was an optimum blend that wouldn't require any new refinery configuration, and would have dropped prices for the US and Canada, fueling a wave of economic growth for North America that could have supplanted Russian petrol to Europe.
Keystone was a clear and present danger to Russia and Putin's ambitions, which is why Putin pulled out all the stops to ensure he got Biden into the WH. The ChiComs helped out with this as well, throwing everything into the DNC and "get out the vote" initiatives for 2020, since Biden has been on their payroll since at least the 1990s. Read the emails and texts some time from Hunter's Apple devices. He and James Biden had open spending accounts from the Chicoms and complained when a car ran out of gas, asked for more money to be deposited, as if it was the Chicom's fault James was too stupid to fill the tank.
It's beyond shameful how stupid and corrupt they are.
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@SlowhandGreg All the claims about Russian collusion were projection from the Biden/Clinton/Obama team, and you can see that in the Durham Report.
Biden literally got into the Senate with Soviet money in 1972. He was a nobody, destined for jail, self-admitted pedophile. Council For a Livable World propped him up and voila, Senator.
Clintons had been on Soviet payroll since the Rose Law firm days in Arkansas in the 1980s with Systematics and the NSA bank surveillance and seizure program compromise. They were selling PROMIS upgrades to the Soviets, Chinese, Pakistanis, Iranians, Saudis, etc. for years using one of the senior law partners as the bag man running back and forth to Chiasso, Switzerland. NSA, DIA, FBI, etc. had him under surveillance for years even into the WH when he was Deputy WH Counsel in 1993.
Obama was raised as a Soviet mole from infancy, helped Russia on the tail-end of Nunn-Lugar to disarm Ukraine in the 1990s of conventional weapons like the much-needed artillery shells, and munitions that had nothing to do with Nunn-Lugar. It's one thing Mearsheimer mentioned in this interview that sticks out and exposes who he supports (Russia vs Ukraine).
Biden was supposed to extract Zelensky from Kiev within the first 3 days so Kiev would be open for occupation by the Belorussian and northern border-staged SMO forces. This was going to go down like a typical Soviet occupation where political subterfuge acts as a precursor to occupation.
Zelensky didn't play along. Biden and Putin got left with a huge nightmare on their hands, because EU/NATO reacted opposite of expectations with Zelensky still intact, begging for weapons.
Interesting times....
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@richardkey1678 Putin didn't help Trump win in 2016. This has been thoroughly investigated for years by people who hate Trump and they came up with nothing but the Steele Dossier, which was fabricated by Russians for the Clinton campaign.
The Clintons have been on Russian payroll for decades dating back to when Bill was Governor of Arkansas. Putin paid $363 million into Clinton Global Initiative in order to get uranium mining rights in the Uranium One deal when Hillary was SECSTATE. In every single one of these cases, we have known money trails between Russia, China, and the Clintons.
Putin "knew" Hillary would be elected and was looking forward to a Clinton WH where US energy would be suppressed, raising Russian revenue for the full invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Moldova, and invasion of Poland and Finland.
Trump ruined Putin's plans significantly just by turning the faucet on with US energy independence, let alone threatening Putin about Ukraine.
The conversation with Zelensky was about how Biden threatened to withhold $1 Billion of US Aid from Poroshenko after Putin's puppet, Yanukovych was thrown out by the people in 2014, followed immediately by Hunter Biden getting on the board of Burisma.
Burisma was being pilfered by Putin for years under Yanukovych and Zlochevsky, a Donbas region Russian loyalist.
Biden openly bragged about coercing Poroshenko to fire Viktor Shokin, who was investigating all of this.
Everything you're being told in the corporate media is backwards from reality. I can tell your information is coming from the likes of CNN and MSNNBC, not ground truth like mine, from living in the region and studying the history of Putin for the past 23 years.
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In one of the residences, one of the characters named Oswald had some .303 Enfield rifle cartridge boxes, a spotting scope, pace counter, multiple cameras including a Minox spy camera, compass, flashlight, and Fair Play for Cuba communist pamphlets.
There were several Oswalds though who lived in Dallas and New Orleans, with trips to Florida, Cuba, and Mexico City after the Oswald we think we know returned from defecting to the Soviet Union.
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@mikev4621 When a high velocity rifle projectile impacts a hard surface that also has soft tissue attached to it, you will see explosive effects of spalling at the point of impact, especially one so vascular as the face and head.
In Zapruder, we see 90° spalling of blood and facial matter from the POI. You just don't see 90° spatter from exits. You might see 30° splatter from exits.
For a lightly-constructed bullet, such as those used for varmints, this effect is even more pronounced.
Watch video of varmint shooting and you see outwardly-explosive terminal effects.
With frontal impact of a high velocity projectile to one hemisphere of the skull, left or right, if the skull is penetrated, we typically see that hemisphere cavitated and terribly disfigured, with significant destruction and fragmentation of that side of the skull and brain. Brain matter is displaced and ejected from the skull normally in such a scenario, which is exactly what happened to JFK's skull and brain.
The projectile, which is typically spinning at over 200,000rpm, sheds some of the jacket as it impacts the skin and skull, with the thin copper jacket exploding into tiny pieces.
The lead core, no longer held together by the jacket, fragments and splatters along a wound path generally aligned with the bullet flight path, though it may redirect due to bone and soft tissue resistance/shaping.
The core is also spinning at over 200,000rpm before it travels through the medium.
There is a tremendous amount of force entering the target with both directional energy along the bullet flight path, as well as rotational energy.
The scalp tends to hold together very well and is surprisingly tough, so it will often drape or fill in voids where the skull used to be.
The Parkland doctors all said there was a large exit wound in the occipital region of JFK's skull. People with no real A&P knowledge have tried to manipulate a strange narrative about this, saying the Parkland doctors didn't know what they were looking at, which is incredible. These are all guys with extensive hands-on experience with human anatomy & physiology, to include hundreds of gun shot wounds.
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@joshsch1331 You didn't define the last generation, but I think you meant baby boomers. We're 3 generations past baby boomers with Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z.
Boomers constituted a very diverse workforce and socioeconomic strata with a lot of economic mobility.
The factory workers were the GI and Silent generations before them. A good resource to study would be The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe.
Boomers had all sorts of jobs ranging from the mundane to the advanced aerospace, telecom, and computer industries. Many invested in real estate.
Their biggest challenge wasn't economic, but family, as they had significantly higher rates of fathers and mothers working to finance larger homes, while neglecting their Gen X children.
Divorce rates and broken homes increased, with many children basically being raised between the public schools and bouncing between visitation with parents that didn't have time for them anyway.
Through societal programming with TV, people were conditioned through repetition and marketing to buy more and bigger things they didn't need, while sacrificing a stable home and family life.
Gen X continued this madness, with limited connection to their parents since they felt abandoned.
Many boomers ended up raising their millennial grandchildren in the wake of Gen X divorces, so millennials have a natural distrust of the prior generations, while being more friendly with their hands-off Gen X parents.
These generational dynamics drive much of the underlying currents in the US and Anglo nations. This pattern is not new, and has repeated itself for hundreds of years in a cycle according to Strauss-Howe.
The politics follow that, even with the global elites and their children.
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@timgealer I literally have been in aerospace & defense since the 1970s specific to this topic, and so have many members and generations of my family.
When you have networked fused sensor suites operating in a dispersed formation, they have a far superior picture of the battlespace because of sensor resolution and multiple aspects.
AWACS typically have range and altitude errors due to the antennae wavelengths, with a single position transmitter/receiver set. Their only real advantage nowadays is endurance.
When AWACS operators came on the net during the early days of F-22 and called out basic BRA contact, F-22 pilots responded with the exact number and type each contact was, and their exact altitudes within 100ft. This was over 20 years ago.
F-35s see way more than F-22s because they have multiple IR sensors fused with AESA and RF antennae, interleaved with each other.
The data fed to AWACS from 5th Gen is extremely useful for other fighters and bombers, but 5th Gen get almost nothing from AWACS.
When you have multiple vantage points, including other ISTAR nodes, the Su-57 with its huge weapons bay door gaps, cavities, and IRST show up in both RF and IR spectrums at pretty significant BVR.
Then it's a matter of erasing it off the kill chain list by whatever shooter is within WEZ parameters.
Last month, we delivered the 1080th F-35 by the way.
Su-57 doesn't even have its intended engines, the Izdeliye-30.
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@411bvRGiskard What's simple-minded? I literally watched the development of the teen fighters from fly-off to the present from the perspective of being at the Air Force Flight Test Center, with involvement in EFA at the West German Test Center, F-16 & F-15 back at Edwards, and nearby T&E of Hornets, Harriers, and Tomcats at Navval Test Centers (Point Mugu and China Lake).
My grandfather worked for Douglas Aerospace on A-3 & A-4 his whole career, and other family members worked for McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Northrop, and related sub contractors.
The US has not built a single mission fighter since the F-15C. Even the F-4 was multirole before it. The F-16A, starting in 1977, was multirole, as was the Harrier, Hornet, Strike Eagle, F-14D, Super Hornet, and Raptor. Raptor is multi-mission/swing-role.
The advent of solid state and digital avionics allowed single platform aircraft to perform multiple roles with a single seat starting in the late 1970s.
JSF has far more pilot awareness due to processing power and sensor saturation, with an impressive payload, so they can do EW and ISR in addition to all the A2G, A2A, and anti-ship mission sets.
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Yup, School shooters do it for revenge and a sense of justice that they never got to experience. They come from broken homes, usually single mother households, were bullied repeatedly at school with no meaningful intervention by staff, and often include what is perceived as bullying or supportive of bullying by staff.
This is why they target the institution and other innocents, rather than waiting to follow particular bullies away from the school and execute them individually. School promised safety and fairness, but ostracized and victimized them habitually for years in most cases. They are typically singled-out for their appearance, unique features, mannerisms, identity, or beliefs and are never part of the popular cliques in their schools.
Cheerleaders and jocks don’t commit school shootings, for example. Neither do math club intellectuals. It’s the ones who have been systematically ostracized from healthy family and friendship circles, almost always having been prescribed some form of psychotropic medication.
Corporate media focuses on the firearms because they don’t want any attention on their owners, which include teacher retirement funds, big Pharma, and the large State construction contractors who build schools.
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@alexsouthpb55 When you look at Zapruder in slow motion and listen to Connally's testimony, JFK had already been shot before Connally was hit, so the angles and jump seat relative to Kennedy's seat don't matter.
It forces the analysis to account for:
1. Bullet deflected off a tree, as indicated by WC.
2. Bullet deflected off a curb.
3. Bullet deflected off the overpass pillar.
4. James Tague's cheek injury from a bullet fragment.
5. Bullet through JFK's throat.
6. Bullet through Connally's chest, wrist, and left leg.
7. Bullet through JFK's head, which came from the front.
WC says 1-4 are the same bullet, which isn't plausible, but let's give it to them and still see if it works. That's 1 round performing unrealistically, requiring suspension of disbelief.
Next is one through JFK's throat. Parkland Doctors all said it was an entrance in the front. Let's say they got it wrong and it's a weird type of exit that pulls the epidermis inward instead of leaving an outward, more ragged exit as you would expect.
That's #2 per WC.
Next is the bullet that hit Connally like a hammer, WC says through his back, chest, wrist, then landed in his left leg.
That's #3.
Then we have the final head shot, #4, which came from the front.
The lone gunman theory of Oswald firing 3 shots in close succession has already fallen apart with the round that perforated Connally.
In totality of the forensic evidence, we're looking at multiple shooters, at least 2 of the shots having come from the front.
We also have the Canadian photographer from Toronto's very detailed photo of the 6th floor window that he said contained 2 men, which vanished after he dropped it off to be developed.
Ruby Henderson, another eye witness, saw two men on the 6th floor of the TSBD, one with a light-colored shirt or jacket, the other with dark complexion and a dark/dull worker's type shirt.
Carolyn Walker also saw two men on the 6th floor, one with a light colored shirt/jacket, the other with a dark shirt, dark complexion, and a rifle.
The FBI tried to make her believe the dark shirt was a box.
Inmates in the jail across the Plaza with direct line-of-sight to the 6th floor TBSD said they saw 2 men, who they thought were security for the motorcade. Johnny L. Powell saw two men on the 6th floor of the TSBD "fooling around with a scope on a rifle". They had "darker complexion than whites", one wearing a light-colored shirt, the other wearing a darker brown work uniform.
None of them saw anybody that matched Oswald's photos.
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@colinchampollion4420 I noticed striking connections and similarities between the sweat lodge, clothing, chanting rituals, dress, and language between Algonquin, Iroquois, and Sami peoples. I have a theory that this is where Suomi (Finnish language) might get its main roots. Sami, Finnish, and Estonian are anomalies in the region, not Indo-European. There are also Ingrians, Livonians, Karelians, and other remnants of Finnic languages in Northwestern Russia, most of which are dead languages that went out over the past 2 decades.
Pre-information age archeologists and historians were very myopic mostly, looking for tidy answers to very complex human migratory behaviors over time.
The evidence points to far more sea traffic than was known or recognized by academia over the past several centuries.
The Mediterranean civilizations had seafaring peoples from Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece (including coastal cities now located in Turkey), Carthage, Sardinia, Sicily, Iberia, etc.
The various peoples found throughout North America, Central America, and South America have come from and traveled to other continents at different and overlapping periods of time throughout history.
The era of the Vikings and recent European explorers are just the later chapters of that saga.
We've had a very interesting record of a group of people who left Babel after the tower, headed north, then crossed a large body of water, before building sealed vessels to cross the Great waters and land in the Americas.
Their records were passed onto descendants of another group of people from Jerusalem that fled the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem in 597 BC, and also traveled by ship to North America.
We have inscriptions in the Eastern US in ancient Hebrew.
There was so much copper mined from the Great Lakes region in ancient times, that it represented volumes that indicate inter-continental trade.
I think natural disasters, cataclysm, and war erase continuity between the historical record, and we're left with a few puzzle pieces.
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@cchrizzy219 I have a theory that Algonquin tribes or relatives escaped wars in what we now call New England, by building long boats and traveling to Greenland, then Iceland, then Scandinavia.
Here's my reasoning:
The Saami people in Northern Scandinavia and Finland had teepees, clothing, chanting songs, sweat lodges/sauna, and words that all resemble native American tribal parallels from that region. The Finnish language isn't Indo-European, and has puzzled researchers for centuries. It's nothing like Russian or Swedish.
The Viking/Norseman Leif Ericsson, son of Eric the Red, was told by his father that there was an ancient trade route between Vinland and Scandinavia.
Leif and his crew didn't just set off to the end of the earth in iceberg-infested waters for fun on a whim.
This might explain why Finnish DNA is showing up in your genetic profile, or there's another possibility too.
I have another friend from Colorado who is Hispanic. Her DNA came back with Finnish ancestry as well, but there's no knowledge of any Finns in her heritage. When she got the results, it didn't make any sense.
There are always surprises though, and a lot of Finns and Swedes immigrated to the Great Lakes region in the past 140 years.
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@Marss13z Espionage, illegal narcotics trafficking, money laundering, murder, suborning of perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to murder/defraud/steal/transfer, etc.
If you try to go sit on the board of a Chinese investment company and broker aerospace deals to transfer secret US technology to the Chinese, you'll be arrested and charged with a list of crimes and penalties that will result in life federal prison sentences.
If you're a Bush, Clinton, Biden, or Kerry, no problem. You get encouragement and kick-backs after the daddies collect the bulk of the rake-in.
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Clintons, Bidens, Bushes, Obamas, Comey, McStain, Pelosi, etc. Notice who is in the club and who isn’t? You don’t see FBI raids on Neil Bush (savings and Loan cocaine money-laundering scandal, Thai hooker scandal, espionage/military tech transfers to China), Hillary (Arkansas Development and Finance Authority cocaine money-laundering scandal, Whitewater money-laundering scandal, espionage, NSA bank surveillance program compromise, assassinations, intimidation, perjury, espionage while SECSTATE, helping sell Uranium One mining rights to Putin), Hunter Biden (intermediary for Joe Biden taking bribes from Russia, China, Pakistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Iran....), James Biden (same), or the Pelosis (taking bribes from ChiComs for decades, real estate scams, insider trading, mob connections).
The trails of evidence are mountainous for the above, yet the DOJ went after and is going after Trump, after 4 years of fake evidence that never went anywhere.
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@user-Tn2Dn I’ve roughly followed Trump’s business history dating back to the late 1980s, but not with much interest until The Apprentice. There isn’t anything unusual about someone at that level with the number of Ch 11 filings he has done, and I’m not finding the track record you describe of defrauding contractors, even in the most critical articles of him written by people who don’t contribute anything to society.
What labor union mafia racket New Yorkers might say will be biased, especially when Trump hired Polish workers to do a lot of construction on one of his projects, which bypassed the union scam apparatus run by 3rd generation gangsters. Any way to get around the crime family stranglehold on business activity in the US is a win for the Nation. Irish mob took over New York already in the late 1800s, then battled over control with the new waves of Italians, Sicilians, and Russian Jews from 1903-1920. Once Prohibition was passed, the continual avalanche of cash that flowed into the new and old gangster money coffers solidified their control over US government, with their grandchildren and great grandchildren in office today.
New York became a steaming canker sore on the face of the US as a result.
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@chrislong3938 The costs we have sunk into Late Block Vipers via CCIP I & II are far more than initial acquisition/unit flyaway costs. Total sunk costs in acquisition and CCIP for Block 40s, 50s, & 52s puts the unit cost well above $100m for each jet. CCIP takes at least 90 days, lots of man hours, millions in new systems, overhauled engine, new Radar, new cockpit, new wiring harnesses, AIFF, JHMCS sensors and wiring, cold-working any bulkheads that need it, new landing gear, new canopy, etc.
Making them into an F-16CM+ with full HARM Targeting and position locator antennae is a very involved process.
Totally different birds than how they rolled off the line from 1987-2005.
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@Vractis Obama wasn't afraid of GOP, but he was sensitive to being called out for the domestic spying and targeting of Tea Party PACs using the weaponized IRS, and the DOJ Fast & Furious gun-running operation to the cartels. He was very indifferent and distant even from career Senate Democrats who had been trying to do universal healthcate legislation since the 1970s. He didn't play DC two-step, instead secluding himself and watching TV, or calling staff meetings to learn about a matter. Valerie Jarrett and other behind-the-scenes actors got a lot of skullduggery done on-behalf of foreign governments.
The media ran huge cover for Obama, so we still don't hear about what extent the Chinese, Russians, and Iranians played.
The biggest attraction was to Uranium One, which Putin used after bribing the Clintons through Clinton Global Initiative, to help Putin re-build his nuclear arsenal.
Then there was the Iranian deal where they got billions of dollars on pallets, and the US got nothing.
PATRIOT Act was further cemented as a domestic political opponent spy program under Obama as well.
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@michaelboano7183 Someone groomed his rise to power, someone with motive and means bigger than the DNC. His actions in the WH were extremely injurious to the United States and our relations with out allies, while agitating and polarizing the US populace against itself.
Some relevant points about his family history....
Fact: Madelyn Dunham (Obama’s maternal grandmother) worked at the Boeing Wichita manufacturing facility on the B-17 and B-29 during WWII.
Fact: The B-29 Technical Data Package was compromised and transferred to the Soviets, (who had physical in-tact samples of B-29s from crash landings and diverts during the war, but needed technical data for materials and processes to make the clone/unlicensed Tupolev Tu-4).
Fact: Madelyn Dunham worked the night shift at Boeing’s B-29 manufacturing facility, and she and Stanley Dunham (her husband) can be seen in photographs where they are dining with Boeing executives from the plant at an exclusive table, where Madelyn is in the arms of one of the older men, far from Stanley Dunham.
Fact: Stanley Anne Dunham (Obama’s mother) was born 10 months after Stanley went off to serve in World War II.
Fact: The FBI was investigating who transferred the B-29 TDP to the Soviets from the Wichita plant, even after the war, narrowing-in on Stanley, even though he didn’t have access.
The more you look into the Dunhams, the more of a rabbit hole you will find. Their history is extremely strange, to say the least.
What is absolute is that a young Senator from Chicago with a doctored past, shot into the White House with an extremely short political record, a flimsy work history of being employed by a CIA financial intelligence front company (BIC), and a Constitutional Law professor.
The whole thing is extremely odd by any metric.
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@pauloaz496 I just looked up 2024 DoD Comptroller hourly rates for fixed wing:
F-35A $17,525
F-35B $16,309
F-35C $13,310
USN F-16A Adversary $29,160
USN F-16C Adversary $21,981
F/A-18C $31,120
F/A18-E $17,584
F/A-18F $22,266
F-5F $17,580
F-5N $19,252
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@TheGreatAmphibian The whole reason we PCS’d to West Germany from AFFTC in 1980 was to work on a program called “Future Combat Aircraft 1990”, which later was named EFA, the EF2000 due to all the delays, then Typhoon. Guess what we were doing on FCA at that time? EM studies and post-stall maneuvering algorithms.
So when I see kids come along talking about their vast knowledge of these subjects, pardon me as I turn a cocked eye.
Now to the merits. F-35s don’t fly BVR skirmish metrics on the timeline like a 4th Gen, so the conversation is all wrong if someone is measuring them that way. However, they have excellent raw performance in that space that matches or rivals some of the top 4.5 Gen fighters.
For example, the Typhoon is limited to 1.8 Mach if it has the PIRATE IRST. You can look at RAF OSINT metrics stated about its max V0 if you doubt that. That’s in a slick configuration (non BVR capable).
When configuring a Typhoon in A2A/Interceptor mission profile, they typically will have:
4x BVRAAM, either AIM-120C5/7 or Meteor
2x ASRAAM
2x EFTs
Guess who isn’t going to 1.8 Mach anymore.
If you read through some of the JSF test pilot checkpoint notes, they did departure-proofing of the DFLCS at full 9g with counter inputs, like instantaneous full right stick full left rudder at supersonic speeds and it wouldn’t depart. It will sustain 9g at high speeds, not that there’s a tactical reason to do so.
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@TheGreatAmphibian Not sure why they removed my comment, but I mentioned that the whole reason we PCS'd from AFFTC to West Germany in 1980 was to work on "European Combat Aircraft 1990" development, which was later named EFA, then EF2000, then Eurofighter Typhoon. Funnily enough for you, we were laying down all the flight control and kinematic behavior characteristics specific to post-stall maneuvering and EM. This was before the demonstrator airframe even existed. When we DROS'd back to AFFTC, we were on the F-16 CTF briefly, then B-1B, then out to UTTR, back to AFFTC on SRAM II, then F-16C Block 30 & 40 A2A systems integration and capes expansion with AIM-120.
I was calculating STR and ITR across different altitude/air density bands using multivariable equations well before you were born. I have forgotten more about this subject than most will ever know.
This is why I chuckled at your reference to the RUSI paper, assuming you knew what you were even looking at.
F-35 has superior kinematics to most 4th Gen fighters in a combat configuration due to excess thrust and lack of parasitic drag from EFTs, suspension equipment, pods, and added IRSTs. Typhoon max V0 with PIRATE IRST is 1.8 Mach due to volumetric excursion from the ogive of the radome/nose/canopy.
Those shapes were formed, modeled, wind-tunneled, and flight tested pre-IRST to support excellent transition acceleration and high Mach conditions for missile kinematics on the BVR timeline. Adding the IRST fundamentally altered the airflow and Mach cone behavior on the radome/nose/canopy geometry.
If you study supersonic aerodynamics, you will start to see why the placard limits aren't supported by modifications to the airframe.
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@TheGreatAmphibian Nobody in the fighter business would describe 18,250lbs of internal fuel, 2x 2000lb JDAMs, and 4-6 AAMs a “tiny payload”.
Even if you load the Typhoon with 3x EFTs, you get 16,674lbs assuming one of the heavier fuels we used at 6.8lbs/gallon at standard atmosphere. F-35A still has 1576lbs more than that internally, without touching any of the internal weapons bay hardpoints.
Amateurs overlook fuel capacity as the #1 mass in payload, while thinking you can load up a fighter with brochure demo stores configurations and still be combat effective as part of a force package.
You can’t even load many of the 4th Gen fighters with 18,250lbs of fuel unless you go up to twin engine larger frame birds, like a Strike Eagle with CFTs and EFTs, which take up most of the payload capacity.
So it doesn’t get worse for the F-35 if you’re trying to compare actual payloads. It only gets better the more stores you try to add to a 4th Gen to try to catch up.
A big problem is parasitic drag with EFTs and CFTs. You don’t get the same range per mass because additional draggy pylons and tanks reduce your aerodynamic coefficients.
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@TheGreatAmphibian I had nothing to do with the JSF program, so another swing and miss. The claims about less than half of F-35s being able to fly is erroneous once again. You need to learn the difference between FMC, MC, and NMC. An NMC rated F-35 would skull-drag any other fighter. The capabilities gap is huge between JSF and legacy fighters when looking at useful payload, kinematics, sensors, net-centric connectivity, EW, VLO, upgradeability, airframe service life, engine performance and reliability, MMH/FH, and on down the list of metrics you’ve never heard of before.
If an F-35 has just one of the DAS cameras acting buggy, it can be labeled NMC or MC, depending on which Air Force is operating it. If the Laser Designator in the EOTS isn’t working, it’s labeled NMC. A stripped Viper or Super Hornet with no pods or pylons can be labeled FMC, even though neither would be able to be used in a DEAD/SEAD, strike, or CAS profile in a modern threat environment. They don’t count the ancillary systems for legacy birds because they can be removed and installed on other birds, but if they did it that way, you would see more realistic FMC/MC/NMC numbers for the others.
One thing that can’t fudge enough is MMH/FH. All 3 F-35 variants are in the single digits, whereas every other 4.5 Gen fighter is in the 14-28hr range, without pods or EPIDSU systems accounted for. Once you add pods, the MMH/FH increases even more.
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@NRZ-3Pi10 The notice for the exchange we did was posted at Edwards AFB in 1979. We went to DLI (Defense Language Institute) in Monterrey before being assigned to the program in West Germany. There would have been British, German, Italian, Spanish, and French engineers who came to the States I suspect/speculate.
The US has more than 1 military flight test center and multiple test range complexes for combat aircraft development.
Just in SoCal, we were surrounded by them, including Edwards AFB, Point Mugu, China Lake NWTC, Nevada TTR, White Sands NM, then on East Coast they have Pax River (Navy) and Eglin AFB among others.
The NATO AeroE coursework was heavily authored by British, German, and US senior engineers with decades of experience in the field, and it showed in every coursework book.
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@TheGreatAmphibian Most of the Typhoon Praetorian antennae architecture is on the wingtips and vertical stab, with protrusions outside of the original mold lines, but I was mainly referring to 4th Gen birds that require large podded systems for RF spectrum jammers, power amps, signals processors, and coolant systems.
On the F-16, we put 800lb ECM pods centerline/station 5, which adds a lot of drag, weight, and g restrictions but is necessary equipment for the SEAD/DEAD mission sets.
On the F-4, we either went centerline or in one of the AIM-7 recessed stations for the ALQ-119 and -184 on F-4G. F-4D used AIM-7 stations with the older ECM pods.
FCA 1990/ECA/EFA was primarily focused on being a fighter/interceptor with follow-on multirole capability, so we really were in a 1970s energy fight and F-15 follow-up mindset with that program. This de-emphasized large ECM typical of strike profile fighters and focused more on higher altitude A2A threat warning/defensive posturing upon Missile Approach Warning or estimated timeline separation.
This is why it has minimal RWR protrusions, 4 semi-conformal recessed stations for BVRAAMs like the F-4 and F-14, with a high % composite construction airframe and tons of excess thrust for rapid take off, climb-to-intercept, and transonic acceleration, as well as excellent nose authority and sustained turn rate in an A2A configuration.
One of the main principles discussed in the NATO AeroE coursework at the time was already looking at a conceptual integrated systems airframe without any bulbous sensors, pods, or protuberances that compromise aero efficiency.
F-22 & F-35 were first to manifest this concept into reality.
Late model Flankers put large pods on the wingtips.
Rafale integrated the podded wingtips with IR AAM LAUs, while retaining fore and aft quadrant emitters for defensive ECM, which SAAB copied for the Gripen-E.
With smaller volumetric space to work with, you have less jamming capability due to lack of power amp, processors, cooling, and antennae size.
AESA equipped fighters can use the antennae array as a stand-in jammer with forward quadrant capability. F-22 & F-35 have 2-4x the sensor/emitter count as the 4.5 Gen birds though, and stand-in EW capability.
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@NRZ-3Pi10 Once they got IFDL up on F-22A, they realized they had far superior SA than any AWACS could ever provide. F-35 MADL is far superior to IFDL, and IFDL is a gargantuan leap ahead of any 4.5 Gen data link system.
The only think legacy AWACS birds have is persistence, but they need to stay far away from the fight, as witnessed in Ukraine/Belorussia/Russia where we've seen 1 A-50M targeted by FPV drones, and 2 shot down with long range SAMs.
With F-22, AWACS would call out contact BRA, 4-ship, and the F-22 pilot would respond, "Yeah, that's a Growler in lead with 3 F-15s in trail at FL355."
F-35s can see way more than that.
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Any RF VLO aircraft can be detected at a certain range. By the time you see the F-35’s RCS, you’re basically within visual range, which means you were dead way before that. Another thing you might not know is that the F-35 has unprecedented IR signature reduction measures built into it, so it does not show up on IRST until....within visual range.
The Rafale F4 has some IR sig reduction with its airflow management over the engine nozzles, but nowhere near as extensive as the F-35’s multiple systems, which are also integrated into the airframe, radar, engine, skin, and internal central cooling architecture for other heat-generating systems.
F-35 is much faster than the Super Hornet configured. Super Hornet is extremely draggy, the slowest of them all when carrying weapons and fuel tanks. EF Typhoon has the best max speed and performance when configured, but with huge RCS. F-35 with full internal payload can always do Mach 1.6, pull 9 gs at Mach 1.6 (if they wanted to), execute maximum climb rate to get above the cons, and cruise at the same region as the A2A-configured Typhoon or Rafale would.
Once you put EFTs on any of the Eurocanards, none of them will every hit max V0 nor would the pilots want to.
F-35 cruises about 50-90kts faster than a 2-tank Viper, doesn’t need to go into burner to sustain speed in turns at altitude, and has a very long duration/combat radius that compares more with the Typhoon and Rafale if you load them with EFTs.
F-35 focuses more on offensive systems integration than countermeasures, but has next generation programmable countermeasures integrated if you want to call them that. Its MAWS is really a first-look IR detection system integrated with a vast array of RF sensors embedded in the airframe, more applicable to surface-launched missiles.
Within a second of a surface-launched missile, the DAS detects that on the IR spectrum and immediately triggers other detection systems to locate and ID that threat, while sharing it with every other F-35 in the MADL net. So every other pilot sees that same threat and can imply weapons on it with a near-instantaneous geolocation hive mind.
In reality, they target IADS nodes before they are able to launch.
Gripen E relies on the Arexis EW suite to confuse and deceive active RF sensors, but it does not have anywhere near the IR concealment or IR detection capabilities of JSF, nor does it have the RF sensor count of the JSF. The Arexis is reported to be effective, but nobody really knows.
JSF uses its EW suite for Cooperative Offensive Electronic Warfare with capabilities that the Growler even does not have and is envious of. 1656 TRM AESA radar with quad super-computer bank fused with all those RF antennae, cooled with a huge mass of internal fuel, air scoops, and heat exchangers in the low pressure fan stage of the engine are a next generation EW platform compared to a Growler with its pods and cooler fans.
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@WanderfalkeAT Russians have been carrying the R-73 Helmet-cued, all-aspect HOBS missile for decades now. Every fighter pilot will tell you that if someone starts a conversation about dogfights, you know the conversation is in the wrong place. When a Gripen pilot was asked the same question, referring to the Gripen’s anemic thrust/weight ratio, he said it doesn’t matter because he has a helmet and can launch the IRIS-T at 15km from frontal aspect anywhere in his FOV. Senior TOPGUN Instructors have said the same thing, that dogfights are dead and have been for a long time. Every modern fighter carries helmet-cued HOBS missiles, so if you have made the mistake of flying into the NEZ of another fighter and his wingmen on their terms, you will eat a missile usually from frontal aspect many km before a 3-9 crossing merge.
F-35 doesn’t play that game on their terms due to VLO in both RF and IR spectrums, and has far more offensive posture throughout any potential skirmish because it sets up on its terms unseen. F-35 has smaller RCS than the F-117A, and got even smaller after Lot 4, which was many years ago on the production line.
differently. They don’t need to get WVR of other fighters when they can just set-up nearby and call them over guard freq, tell them it’s in their best interest to turn around now or be forced down. The maneuvering fight argument only makes sense in the BVR chess game, where you want good transonic performance for a 4th Gen fighter that can be seen by another 4th Gen fighter. The F-35 has performance very similar to a slick Viper and Hornet combined, with better T/W than them when they are combat-configured. Wing loading is not that high on the F-35 due to body lift and the lift contributed by the horizontal stabs. It performs far better than the F-16 at altitude, and spends a lot of time above the cons cruising at higher speed, with far longer mission duration.
Russian aircraft can’t jam a missile they don’t know is headed towards them. The only one that has DIRCM is the Su-57. We have so many samples of Russian flare packs that our IR missiles have been developed to reject those and filter on the specific heat signature of the aircraft with digital signals processing in the seeker head guidance.
The days of establishing a rear quadrant gun solution on fighters are long-gone. That hasn’t happened in any US-built fighters operated by foreign armies since 1979, IAF F-15A vs SAF MiG-21.
Air policing in Europe is different for Finland than it is for Central Europe. Right now, Russia violates Finnish Air Space whenever they want and there isn’t much to be done about it. Introduce something like JSF into that mix, and their pilots will learn how to navigate all of a sudden. Gripen and Hornet would be the least-capable platforms to deal with that, since Super Flankers have superior kinematics across the spectrum, and massive PESA radars with IRST and data link.
If you were scanning the airspace and knew that multiple F-35s are out there, but can’t locate them, it demoralizes you already before take-off and when you sleep at night. Even if you imply some kind of reactive tactics trying to locate them, you’re at a signature disadvantage for weapons solutions that favors them significantly. R-73 isn’t going to be able to acquire the JSF airframe, nor is the R-77. Meanwhile, Finland can use latest AIM-120 variants and even get in on Meteor like the UK.
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@WanderfalkeAT F-35 doesn't need to close into WVR to PID, and it uses multi-spectral PID however the pilot wants, starting with automated passive PID via networked F-35s.
Any RF, IR, or visual signature of an aircraft shows up at hundreds of km away, then the pilots decide how they will PID if it hasn't been done already.
Non-Cooperative Targets maintain EMCON to control their RF signature, but F-35 PIDs them at extreme long range based on various methods available to it in the IR and RF spectrums.
F-35 flights fly disbursed with large area coverage, which provides multiple angles for observing other fighters, then sharing what each sees automatically.
Even in an IR signature perspective, they see the radiating and reflective profiles of threat aircraft, which are cross-referenced against a vast threat database and PID'd automatically into a TGT designate box with aircraft type, weapons load, altitude, V0, heading, probable fuel state, etc.
The EOTS and DAS are very high resolution IR sensors that can cooperatively PID from distances that would astonish you.
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@WanderfalkeAT Who will see whom first?
You ever look at the RCS values and IR sig of a configured Su-30 or Su-35? Even the Su-57 will show up at long range, depending on who is searching and how the Su-57 is managing the EW suite.
When the F-22 intercepted Iranian F-4Es trying to intercept a US drone, they didn’t just pull up next to them first.
Sukhois aren’t just cruising along at Mach 1.6, nor will they accelerate to Mach 1.6 in most circumstances other than a max performance egress from open hostilities. They aren’t going much faster than that with external stores anyway.
Cruise speed will be in the .8 to .9 Mach region most of the time at altitude (same as F-35A). Over Finland, they do Nap of the Earth too.
The point is that F-35s have more options than any of the other submissions when it comes to intercepts. Typhoon has the best raw kinematic performance, followed by Rafale and F-35A Block 3.
By the time the H-X contract will be fielded, you’re looking at the next increment Lot with Block 4 F-35s. That includes the Sidekick weapons bay expansion and the engine upgrade that Pratt already developed without solicitation.
The new engine module already developed increases the thrust 7-10%, while increasing fuel efficiency and maintainability. Pratt already has the plan in-place to drop-in those modules when engines cycle through mid-life overhauls.
Now imagine an F-35A Block 4 with 6 internal BVRAAMs with networked HOBS employment capability, and a massive Thrust/Weight ratio increase on top of an already exceptional T/W. With half internal fuel and 6 BVRAAMs, you’re looking at 1.16 T/W.
You didn’t say “Cobra”, did you? A Cobra maneuver is the fastest way to get killed in a multi-ship fight.
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@WanderfalkeAT High AOA performance means low speed. The conversation is clearly in the wrong place if you're thinking about low speed and intercepts. F-35 already has exceptional high AOA performance, nose-pointing authority like a Hornet, with better acceleration and cruise speed than a Hornet, and better helmet-cued weapons capability than any current fighter in service.
JSF don't need to run away from anything because they are doing the hunting.
It's the only submission for H-X that puts Russian pilots in a position of flying against the unknown. All others are quantifiable and near-peer with Su-35S, where RCS, radar, ORST, EW, DL, and longest-reaching BVRAAM force both sides to keep distance.
With F-35, you don't have a good idea of what's out there in Super Flankers, just empty sky and displays. Not a good feeling if you're trying to penetrate someone's airspace.
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@WanderfalkeAT You’re still talking about 1970s-era rear quadrant weapons solutions fights before the AIM-9L came into the fleet. Time to level-up man. We don’t fight like that anymore, and haven’t in a long, long time.
The idea of going head-to-head in a merge where you cross each other’s 3-9 lines is over because of advanced radar and IR sensors, and helmet-cued HOBS missiles.
That’s with 4th Gen fighters and has been the norm for decades. Nobody in their right mind is purposely trying to fly into NEZ parameters of all-aspect missiles. It’s just asking to get face-shot for no reason, and you still won’t cross 3-9 anyway.
At altitude, the air is a lot thinner. You want high-speed energy retention and good transonic, high-subsonic performance with the ability to pull enough G in BVR maneuvers while staying fast. That’s 4th Gen still. Think about notching incoming BVR missiles, getting them to pull lead while you’re offset at supersonic speed, then reverse so they burn out and can’t intercept you anymore.
5th Gen doesn’t play those games because it makes no sense when you can simultaneously evade and set up threats into really bad NEZ parameters they can’t really deal with.
Modern fighters are designed with this in-mind. Any low altitude, thick air performance you witness at an air show is simply a by-product of other design focuses, none of which are low altitude turning. How quickly can you get into stand-off, unfair NEZ solutions, separate, then offset while wingmen assist with targeting, deception, follow-on shots, and egress or continue mission. That’s what we’ve been focusing on more for decades.
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@Americca_Is_Doomed Treason, receiving bribes from the Russians and Chinese for decades. Look at the money trail, Ukraine, Chicoms, Rosemont Seneca, Chris Heinz, James Biden, the FBI surveillance dating back decades, money-laundering, tax evasion, fraud, millions worth of properties bought with foreign money, it’s all corrupt.
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Putin has planned to invade or annex Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland since the 2000s.
Source: My contacts inside the Russian Foreign Ministry who bragged about it all......in the early 2000s. I learned it from them no later than 2007. In 2008, when I was in Estonia, Putin invaded Georgia.
When he lost his puppet Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014, he invaded Donbas and annexed Crimea.
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@jps0117 I called 2016 way in advance based on the partisan swing, the campaign event turn-out, and the professional debate stage set-up with R vs D. The system was rigged in favor of Hillary by big tech, banks, Wall Street, and DC (as evidenced in the Podesta emails), but they didn’t account for the mass wave of populism that overcame the corruption of the Democrat voting mechanisms. Dems, Wall Street/Big Pharma, and Chinese made sure that didn’t repeat in 2020, and bypassed all the other Dem candidates to put a geriatric pedophile in the WH, who has been on Soviet payroll since 1972, and Chicom payroll since the 1990s.
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@peredavi Finland was in population decline by the 1990s due to abortion and urbanization plus 3rd-wave feminism. Their solution? Import Africans and Middle Easterners, especially Somalis. Sure, the population grew. Abdul is now impregnating his wife, his sister, his aunt, and his cousins to get lapsilisä (govt baby money). Somalis have an entirely different genotype, culture, climate acclimation, work ethic, and religion that simply isn't compatible with Finland, and yet the government enables them to scam the system to the extent that portions of Helsinki are now "pieni Mogadishu", especially Itäkeskus.
Helsinki is unrecognizable now. Finland's Parliament, multiple prime ministers, and Presidents have been a joke.
One of the only smart things they have done was to acquire Hornets in the 1990s, based on the Finnish Air Force, and now the F-35A to replace those.
The underground shelters tunneled out of the granite are another sound policy, given who their neighbor is.
A huge portion of Finland's prime age male future was wiped out from 1939-1944, just like most of Europe.
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@joannepawluk4763 World leaders laughed at JFK for his youth, LBJ for his drunkenness and incompetence with Vietnam, Nixon for his nose, Ford for face-planting off the steps of AF1, Carter for his deep Southern drawl and "nukular" pronunciation, Reagan for being an actor, Bush Sr. for barfing at dinner in Japan, Clinton for his open womanizing, Bush Jr. for his dumbed-down speeches, and Obama for his incompetence and meaningless red lines.
But leaders in Europe laughed in Trump's face when he warned them that Putin had them bent over the oil barrel and that their defense spending wasn't anywhere near agreed requirements of GDP. It was one of those moments in history we haven't really seen where they were forced to recognize Trump was dead-on correct about their awful situation.
Everyone has been laughing at Biden for his remarks about running for Senate in 2020, Corn Pop, falling up the stairs, face-planting at USAF Academy grads, and every time he tries to form a sentence.
Kamala somehow manages to say dumber things than him.
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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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You've clearly never lived in Russia. The world is not a well-behaved, rational, peace-loving place. Russia is a brutally-cold, poverty-stricken, under-developed, systemically-corrupt, under-educated place time forgot. They've had 8 major brain drains and prime age male collapses since 1914. It's not even remotely rational by your standards, but if you lived there, you would see their perspective and say, "Ah ha....oh damn."
Mainland Europe doesn't fit most people's idyllic image what European culture and history really are. Europe is a place of extreme, continual, senseless war, conquest, territorial disputes, enslavement, and genocide. The Cold War was a strange aberration from that for 50 years, broken by the Yugoslavia genocide, and now escalated further with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Putin truly believes he is acting in Russia's best interests by attempting to control Ukraine, otherwise Russia would be doomed to have a successful democratic state on its underbelly, especially if they experienced economic growth like Poland.
It's a really bad neighborhood to live in over there, and with Russia as your neighbor, you're destined to have trouble with them. Choose where you're born/live carefully.
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@Knightonagreyhorse Putin and the Russian intelligentsia look down on the US as a temporary inconvenience. They have 1000 years of Russian history and the most balshoi country in the world in their minds.
Throughout the Soviet times, they were told how great Russia is, biggest, baddest, best military, first in space, best in space, best in industry, best at everything.
Anytime the US outclassed them in each of these metrics, it was ignored, not reported, nit-picked, or counter-reported.
Putin was raised in that environment with Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin, Salyut, MIR, Buran, MiGs, Sukhois, Tupolevs, etc.
He was never told about how Russia stole or acquired all these technologies from abroad, but that the great scientists of the people's revolution produced the best minds in human history, who then of course birthed these amazing achievements for USSR, led by Russia.
He has no time to listen to things from the little capitalists and their silly USA.
This is Russian thinking of that era. I lived there and witnessed it first-hand, have been studying them since the 1970s.
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@seantu1496 F-16XL was not as maneuverable and had a significantly reduced T/W ratio. Its level flight performance and handling was excellent though, and it had a superior combat radius to the F-15 even with CFTs. I was there for the development of the F-16 from the 1970s-early 1990s at Edwards. F-16XL really needed a step up in propulsion at a time when they were decreasing the max thrust of the P&W F100 motors, along with some major improvements to cut down on flame-outs, compressor stalls, and catastrophic failures. Original F100-PW-200 in the Viper had 23,900lb of thrust in burner, but suffered from many stalls, hard starts, and failures so they really needed an Improved engine and got it in the late 1980s. Even with the F110 GE motor in the F-16XL, it needed more power, but was better. All that internal fuel capacity added a lot of weight, which was more useful for how the USAF actually employed the F-16 as a strike aircraft.
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A lot of John Stewart's premises are false though, so he enters this conversation with really bad data and then thinks he has the high ground while condescending to someone who actually has to deal with the numbers daily.
To set things straight, I'm a very strong proponent for accountability and I despise waste, fraud, and abuse, but people don't really understand what that entails. Waste, fraud, and abuse often are locally-driven and involve kick-back schemes for labor (jobs) within Congressional districts like a mafia-run operation, on top of poor leadership decisions within the services having to do with resource mismanagement driven by budgetary fears vs operational requirements.
When he mentioned "a $1.7 Trillion airplane that doesn't...." he's talking about the JSF/F-35 program. That's one of those giant false premises because there is no $1.7 Trillion F-35 program.
"Journalists" throwing around the "Trillion dollar+ price tag" for JSF are being incompetent and untruthful. Those numbers are estimates for what the whole program might cost including operations & maintenance through the year 2074. Who does that?
We're not even 1/4 of the way into acquisition of F-35A/B/C for DoD, and the estimated acquisition budget is roughly $400 Billion for 2456 airframes into the 2030s for production. 900+ F-35s have been delivered so far, hundreds of those to European and Pacific partner nations, so we're not even close to US DoD total buy numbers.
Then there's the claim that it doesn't work, doesn't fly because of maintenance, sucks at its job, etc. Nothing can be further from the truth. He shouldn't have mentioned the F-35 program to support his argument, because it undermines addressing the real problems with waste, fraud, and abuse.
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@harri9885 What level of competence do you think all these air forces have, vs the laymen who don't really know anything about all the factors in selecting a new fighter?
You know there are thousands of pilots, many of whom are senior, who have been exposed to what JSF really is, and realize that any legacy design just doesn't measure up well at all.
Then you have air planners and budgeting/finance officers who calculate as many variables as possible, then report their findings to the decision-makers.
The Swiss, Australians, Japanese, Brits, Danes, Norwegians, Israelis, and Dutch are very professional about these things. They and the other 15 partber nations who buy and operate JSF know what they are doing.
FiAF isn't stupid. To the contrary, they are very adept and quiet about their capabilities. I don't think Gripen E is even a legitimate contender because it's still in initial development without any LRIP samples, and still costs more than the F-35A. 670 F-35s have been delivered already, with nearby European supply chains and an assembly line.
Typhoon Tr4 costs almost twice as much, as does Rafale F4. Super Hornet line is coming to a halt soon because it isn't very future-proof. Gripen E isn't even in production and would suffer an unacceptable loss rate against Su-57. There really is only one logical choice.
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@warfarenotwarfair5655 Puget Sound, Vancouver, Sierra Nevadas, Yosemite, Rockies, Zion, Grand Canyon, Colorado, Great Lakes, Mississippi River, Appalachians, State Parks galore.
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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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@xyzaero US "meddling" in European affairs has been focused on defense of Europe since the Great War. The European modern infrastructure and economy was built under US financing and military protection, so UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, etc. could rebuild after the wars.
CIA was occupied by 200 German-NKVD double agents before it was even stood-up after WWII. The CIA couldn't organize an uprising on their best day without the Kremlin being fully-informed and behind it.
Look at how the CIA assassinated President Diem of South Vietnam without JFK even being aware until after it happened-the leader the US was supporting. CIA has been a rogue agency controlled largely by the Soviets from the start, a power unto themselves, who kill anyone that tries to leash them.
Same with the global disinformation network. The Soviets took over the CIA's Mockingbird Project from within, which was supposed to promote US propaganda through journalists and media. They turned the whole program against the US, to the point that Walter Cronkite was regularly reporting negative and false stories about the US in Vietnam.
These are the CIA's "family jewels" that they don't want anyone to know about. James Jesus Angleton (CIA Counter-Intelligence Director from 1954-1975) spent his whole career trying to flush out all the moles, and was ostracized himself instead.
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@chrish564 People die from untimely EMS and waiting lists in Sweden and Finland all the time, including people I knew personally. The lies about how great everything is regarding healthcare in Nordic countries are just that. My State has less than 3/5 the population of Finland, but has more EMS, more hospitals, more clinics, dental offices, orthodontists, Air Ambulances/Life Flights, medical research institutes, universities, and specialty clinics.
US healthcare is better than anywhere else in the world, even with all of our problems.
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@chrish564 Yes, we are absolutely propping up each of those nations and have been with Bretton Woods for almost 70 years.
Norway gets its Air Force, most of their drugs, medical devices, diagnostic equipment, computers, electronics, etc. from the US and is happy to do so.
Same with Denmark...
Australia
We fire-bombed Germany with thermite during WWII, then re-built them and propped them up throughout the Cold War. I lived in West Germany during some of the Cold War because we were there to help with the development of the Eurofighter Typhoon.
UK has relied on US military and technology-sharing since WWII, while contributing their share of that space, though they did terminate some of their major defense programs because they couldn’t afford them.
Afghanistan and Iraq were distractions from Europe and the Pacific, and are not elementary to US/NATO defense posture against Russia or China. France and Germany worked against us in Iraq, but were part of ISAF in Afghanistan because they’re bailing out European banks with Afghan opium money. That’s where most of the revenue from the Afghan opium trade goes (euro banks).
UK worked with us in Iraq because it’s their mess they made after The Great War, and they’re on the Great British Pound, not the Euro. France and Germany were benefiting from Saddam trading in Euros, which is why they helped Saddam in 2003. German forces were right there in Kuwait reporting on US and UK order of battle before we invaded.
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@chrish564 "Millions of Americans claim bankruptcy each year because of healthcare expenses.” This is false. There aren’t even that many bankruptcies per year in the US total. This is from Chapter 7, 11, 12, and 13 bankruptcies each year in the entire US:
2016: 794,960
2017: 789,020
2018: 773,418
2019: 774,940
2020: 544,463
2021: 434,540
Remember that there are now at least 335 million people in the US. Most people who file for bankruptcy due to medical costs didn’t use the available Medicare or Medicaid, or were forced off their plan.
Many of the expensive procedures that are available in the US are not available in the Nordic countries. They are relatively poor when it comes to healthcare.
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@johndelta00 The days of baby boomers buying new homes, cars, appliances, TVs, entertainment, computers, etc. are coming to an end in the next 3-4 years. They're more of an elderly care economy now, moving into nursing homes or retirement communities, drawing on Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, and dying. Many of them are dead already.
Early Gen X are eligible for retirement in 3 years. Gen X was a very small cohort. Millennials are much bigger, but nowhere near as big as Boomers.
Millennials are crunched by insane home prices, auto prices, student loans, and rising interest rates. The ones who bought a home before the recent interest rate hikes are in a better financial position when you could find a home for $250k-$400k at 3%. Those same homes are now priced at $350k-$680k at 5.5% interest.
Average used car transaction price broke over $25k in 2021, and hit $31k in Sep 2022.
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Fan blades aren’t breaking. There has been talk by members of Congress who have GE in their districts wanting to spend billions on a new engine, when the current engine is the most reliable, most powerful fighter engine ever built. It’s not a buggy engine like the F100-PW-100 and PW-200 were when they hit the USAF in the 1970s and precipitated the great engine competition of the 1980s with IPE. The follow-on F100-PW-220 and PW-229, and GE F110 motors established new benchmarks in performance and reliability. The F119 leaped ahead of those engines in performance and reliability, and the F135 in the JSF series jumped ahead of the F119.
The Pentagon has actually made things worse for the JSF program, mismanaging and delaying its development with antiquated reporting requirements, endless criticism of the contractors, and nothing but negative statements made from DOT&E office. The Pentagon set the program back initially by 18 months with counter-productive requirements to use invalidated materials for structures, which cursed the first 6 JSF samples with a major overweight issue. Lockheed had designed them to use CF structures, but Pentagon mandated 7085 Alcoa Aircraft Grade aluminum bulkheads, spanners, spars, and runners in places where it added unnecessary weight and reduced strength.
Lockheed was able to incorporate the CF structures in those areas after 18 months of wasted time, all because of the Pentagon mismanagement that got the JPO officer fired and replaced, but that was over a decade ago. The Pentagon should be cut out of any real decision-making on JSF and let the services manage the program together, with their competent UK and NATO partner nations who are already invested.
The Pentagon is an albatross around the Nation’s neck when it comes to procurement. It’s contaminated by proximity and immersion in he DC swamp, and should be leveled for more burial spots for Arlington National Cemetery or a nice park for people to enjoy.
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No. Defense is the whipping post with multiple layers of scrutiny, while Medicare, Medicaid, Dept of Education???, EPA, OSHA, Interior, Justice, Treasury, Agriculture, and Transportation are filled with so much graft, it would cause a revolution if people saw. The brazenly nature of their waste, fraud, and graft is takes obscenity to preposterous levels. But one of the only enumerated powers that actually matters and really needs public funding is ridiculed as if it's superfluous. It's all bonkers.
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@fraleo2192 Opposite is true if you step back and look at the timeline/big picture. Most of the things JSOC fielded and developed with industry support became pretty widespread-use eventually in the Infantry, after Ranger Regiment adopted them:
* M4A1
* AimPoint
* KAC RIS, then RAS
* Helmet-mounted Night Vision
* Laser Aiming Modules (AIM-1D, PAQ-4C, PEQ-2A, PEQ-15, etc.)
* Mini Weapon Lights
* Quick-Adjust 2-point slings
* Sleeve Pockets
* Para SAW
* 1913 rail on SAW feed tray cover
* SAW Handguard Rails
* Suppressors
* MOLLE/PALS
* Multicam
* MICH Helmet was developed from within JSOC after Mogadishu, then went into LAND WARRIOR program, became ACH
* MAG58 mods for optics, M240B with rails
* M60 Night Vision mounts
JSOC uses Light Infantry Skills and Small Unit Tactics to conduct Hostage Rescue and DA missions, so their weapons and equipment selection really drive what eventually trickles down into 11B land years later. Almost all of US Army JSOC Operators come from 11 series.
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@davidcpugh8743 US Army combat arms units that train regularly do as well or better than USMC, but it's personality-dependent of the command structure at the time.
I would say that's true of any USMC combat arms unit as well. If the chain of command emphasizes constant individual and collective tasks training, run by competent and experienced NCOs who enforce the standards. This is done while creatively constructing challenging, tough, and realistic drills and exercises.
If you're in a unit commanded by a garritrooper who emphasizes polish and avoids the ranges and FTXs, then that unit is ill-prepared, though the experience of its NCOs will determine if it is successful downrange.
As far as combat arms units within the same career field goes between US Army and USMC, there are more similarities than differences.
US Army has far superior logistics, for example, which is a product of the organizational structure and overall strategic vision for each.
USMC Infantry down at the Platoon level was more flexible because of the size of Rifle Squads when they had 3 Fire Teams.
USMC aviation is integrated into the MAGTF and MEU, so everyone knows who they answer to and why they're there.
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@msaar1303 US spends billions doing Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation on them. Finland and other nations buy drugs, equipment, and military hardware at bulk, discounted rates.
For example, with the F-35A deal, it was lower cost than the Saab Gripen package. There has been over $62 Billion RDT&E put into the F-35 program, and Finland's Block 4 F-35As will have had many billion more of US money invested in them between the contract date (Dec 2021) and fulfillment period (2026-2030). Additionally, Finland negotiated a 400 unit forward fuselage assembly deal, so Finland will be getting paid billions to make huge sections of F-35s for other customers.
Finnish taxpayer's bill for F-35 RDT&E: $0
Same is true for drugs, medical devices, diagnostic equipment like MRI, electronics, semiconductors, etc.
Finland doesn't live in a vacuum. Finland's biggest trade partner for many decades was Russia, because Russia built its rail network into Finland in the 1860s, which is a different, wider rail base than the rest of Europe. Finland is geographically isolated from mainland Europe by the Gulf of Finland and from Scandinavia by the Gulf of Bothnia.
The ground truth nuts and bolts are missing from these discussions, because politicians and media don't have the education to discuss them properly.
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@77sailordude How much of the F/A-18 RDT&E did Finland pay for from 1977-1995? How much of the $62 billion for F-35 RDT&E did Finland pay for from 1983-2021? US private companies and DoD budget combined to pay for that. Same for JASSM, AIM-9M/X, AIM-120C7, JDAM, etc. That’s the biggest defense package Finland has ever purchased, and all of it was developed with US money that Finland never had to pay for, other than the final products.
A very similar relationship exists in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostic equipment, and services. There are European-based research products as well for sure, but the US bears the weight of research and development for drugs, devices, diagnostic equipment, and processes. EU countries bundle together to purchase medical products from the US at bulk rates, while US States and hospitals get charged full retail much of the time.
Even still, the services and treatments available in the US are greater in quantity and quality, even when you only compare Finland with States that have a similar population size.
This should make sense to anyone who looks at the raw math, rather than listening to policy amateurs. 5.5 million people is a rounding error in the US (335 million).
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@77sailordude Nokia developed transistors, batteries, digital screens, and injection-molding machines? No, that’s all US technology. Data burst transmission? US encrypted Radio technology I used in the military all the time way before Nokia. Engineers in Nokia took data burst RF transmission, and packed it into the cell phone (US technology), marketed it in the private sector, and did really well until allowing themselves to be bought out.
This again reinforces my position that Finland benefits from US developments in defense, healthcare, telecomm, whatever. Finland is a ghost techno-vassal state of the US without any political obligations to the US, so it gets all the benefits with no sacrifice. US doesn’t know about this and doesn’t care, because again, 5.5 million people is a 1.6% rounding error.
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@inquisitivenessandcontempl9918 Russians are trying to make the imperialist argument that there is no Ukrainian identity, therefore Ukraine belongs to them.
I pointed out that a Kievan Rus prince is the official founder of Moskva, as explained to me when seeing his horse-mounted knightly statue in Moskva in 2008, and that the Kievan Rus pre-date whatever gaggle of Ruriks were scattered around the region, eventually congregating and expanding Moskva.
So the Kievan urbanized center started by Vikings is the impetus behind Russia's early civilization and current capitol city.
I also noticed among the Russian intelligentsia that they scoff at the identities of Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Bulgarians. None of these people are real to them, just Russian territories.
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@aleksandrs1422 The thing I noticed among Russian intelligentsia was that surrounding states were dismissed in their cultural identity, "Who are they!", and it was asserted that those territories belong to Russia. Estonians aren't a valid identity. Finns aren't different, just a barking little drunk dog. Central Asians, anyone once occupied by Imperial Russia are merely parts of the Russian sphere of destiny.
It was very interesting to see that mentality, since my family is from Finland on my mom's side, and I know so many Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Romanians, etc.
There's a kinship between all these nations based on Russian oppression, with no love for Russia. Yet people who think about these matters in Russia feel a sense of ownership and superiority over the others.
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@AliceinWonderlandzz Everyone with influence got a vote. Everything I'm talking about is part of the historical record, not a conspiracy theory.
Read up on the Potato Famine, Reconstruction, Tammany Hall, Prohibition, and The Great Depression.
Look at who Prohibition agents weren't allowed to investigate or raid (Congress, State Legislatures, City Halls, Chiefs of Police...), and look at how organized crime took over unions, local, State, and DC governments, services, government contracts, construction, port surveillance, sexual blackmail of the FBI, transportation and logistics for OSS, etc.
Papa Joe Kennedy was made SEC Chairman after swindling millions out of people. FDR was made defacto head of the National Labor Unions with the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, after 10 years of rapid union membership decline.
It isn't a singular dark cabal, but just various factions weaseling into power and influence over our government.
That includes the Brits, Germans, French, and Russians in that era.
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@infinitelyexplosive4131 If you ever start an argument with, "So you think that..." then insert a series of statements that were never made, it's time to take a critical thinking course where you learn about logical fallacies and how to avoid them.
The biggest overlook every one of these hit pieces fails at out of the gate is labeling "the F-35" in the singular.
There are 3 JSF variant airframes for multiple services and allies.
These "journalists" skipped right over that fact, while only talking about JSF-A.
It's another case of information-void millennials reading click-bait headlines, doing a rough compilation of a series of falsehoods, with zero background in the matter.
Every fighter-type aircraft program starts out with a bathtub graph for O&M costs, where initial changeover to a new system involves a lot of up-front logistics and training, parts supply bottlenecks, and growing pains.
Normally that includes really high mishap rates, but we just haven't seen that with all 3 JSF, including Navy & Marines.
They got the unit cost wrong as well. It's $77.9m per F-35A, which is lower than the advertised unit cost ceiling threshold when JSF was envisioned ($40-$50m in 1995 dollars).
They also didn't do any due diligence in researching O&M costs, which are less than half what is being advertised according to the detailed DoD Comproller annual reports. F-35A fleet average is $17,963 CPFH. Operational squadrons are less than that, but if you use projected worst-case upgrades over the life of the aircraft and amortize those, then back-fill that into the # and account for USAF wish list money, you see they just doubled it and rounded up.
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@infinitelyexplosive4131 I'm pointing out that this shoddy presstitute "journalism" is overly-simplified, missing critical points of the story, then goes on to advocate for the Boeing T7 as a combat platform.
RCPFH gives the actual CPFH before amortized inflated projections on future upgrades that will not be applied to roughly half of the USAF JSF fleet, since most of those are at Luke for B School. Nobody cares if those birds have the latest threat library, the new Raytheon DAS (25% of the N-G DAS cost), new weapons interface, Sidekick bays, etc. that aren't even on 3F birds.
Look at the coincidence in RCPFH being doubled and rounded up to $36k, while operational squadrons at Hill including amortized logistics transition are seeing $21k CPFH.
There are major efforts dropping CPFH with progress being made, but hit pieces like this don't account for that, and make a fake fleet average CPFH theoretical # seem permanent, then forecast it indefinitely.
The real story has to do with strategic industrial capacity after Boeing has been losing aircraft contracts left and right, termination of the USN Super Hornet orders, Canadian reaction to Biden-su's Keystone Pipeline shut-down for his Chinese and Russian masters, where Canada told Boeing their KC-46 is no longer in the running for their aerial refueling replacement program.
This has nothing to do with F-35 CPFH or these cat laser presstitute circular arguments.
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@UnknownHumanOnline My Scout Platoon was on Freedom Bridge guard duty when the ROK Army soldier popped the melon of a NorK SOF Scout Swimmer in the Imjin River.
There were 2 of them right by the riverbank, which was bordered by the southeast hill of Camp Greaves. If you looked down the hill from Camp Greaves on the south side, you saw the Imjin right there. NorK Commandos used to Recon our Camp regularly, since cross-border missions were part of their regular schedule and commando training pipeline.
ROK Army had different outposts all along the border and DMZ, and were responsible for patrolling the riverbank.
Guy heard some movement by the water, ran up on these two NorKs, and started blasting with his K2.
They jumped in the water, and he capped one through the right side of his head, canoed it right open. The other swam deep and got away.
They pulled him out and had intel guys photograph everything. He had a ROK Army uniform on under his wetsuit with incorrect insignia.
They had a waterproof kit bag like a rubber duffel with weird M16 copies, Tokarevs, cameras, and explosives. The NorK scout swimmer commando was ripped, nothing like most Koreans. Dude looked to be about 32-35yrs old, had been doing frogman work all his life.
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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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@dreamrestore213 Please name me these peaceful, "normal societies" free from violence. Fireworks in many of the 30 other countries I've been to sound like a war zone, and none of them were free from violence.
Most do not have professional, well-paid police, so the police are seen as just a uniformed gang of licensed criminals.
Look up the Nordic Biker Wars, Beslan, Paris attacks, school shootings in Netherlands, Finland, Germany, etc. Police mass murderer in South Korea who took M-2 Carbines and hand grenades from the armory and slayed 56 people, with another 33 wounded.
The utopia you cite doesn't exist.
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@BertoxolusThePuzzled JSF is more of a game-changer than most of its proponents are telling.
We're talking about THE most revolutionary leap in fighter technologies in history.
Propulsion, sensors, networking, avionics, man-machine interface, EW, ISR, weapons parameters, cyber attack, TBM defense, maritime patrol, reliability, maintainability, and ease of flying. Oh yeah, its VLO capabilities are better than anyone is letting on. Mix all that together and you have a revolutionary jump in what can be done with the force structure.
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Incorrect: The USAF has not capped F-35A procurement at 1000 units to make way for the F-15EX. The F-15EX is to fill a gap that was created when the F-22 production was cut short before we even got 200 units out of 750, and therefore left the F-15C fleet exposed to further mission demands well past its safe service life. This is especially felt in the State Air National Guard units who were flying F-15As, then converted to F-15Cs that are already long-in-tooth, and were to be replaced by F-22A Raptors over the past decade. Those F-15C ANG units actually want F-35As, and are asking if they’re getting shafted for some reason.
The F-15EX is on a totally different track than F-35As, which are replacing older F-16C Block 40/42 airframes in both the active and ANG Air Force units. Notice which operational squadrons are getting F-35As. Hill AFB, Vermont ANG, Alaska, Lakenheath. Cutting the USAF F-35A order to 1000 units would be huge news. No, the F-35A was never meant to replace all tactical air.
If you look at the replacement schedule, there are going to be F-16C Block 50/52 serving for a long time as F-16CMs as the F-16CM Block 40/42s are replaced with F-35As, just like when we started replacing F-4Gs with F-16CJs and a shared transition, or F-15As replacing F-4Es and F-106As, or F-16As replacing A-7Ds and F-4E units.
F-4E FIS-----> F-15A--> F-15C-----------------------F-22A cut short to 195/186 airframes
A-7D TFS----> A-10A or F-16A-------> F-16C Block 30------> F-16C Block 40/42 or Block 50/52----------------------> F-35A
F-111F----------------> F-15E---------------> ???????
F-4G-------------------> F-16CJ-------------> F-16CM Block 40/42/50/52
EF-111A---------------> ????????????-----------------------------------------------------[US Navy EA-6B/EA-18G come help us]-------F-35A
Where does F-15EX fit in here? F-15E replacement would make the most sense.
It takes time to happen over decades, not overnight or a few years. The USAF force structure has no planned replacement for the F-15E, for example, at least none that they’ve communicated. Some think this F-15EX is a round-about way of getting a replacement for Strike Eagles, especially the F100-PW-220 powered units. F-15Es have 2 different motors in the fleet, as mentioned in the video. Most aren’t aware of that. There’s a big difference in performance between the 2.
Another idea for all this is to keep the Boeing (McDonald Douglas St. Louis) production line open as a strategic industrial capacity, while also keeping General Electric building F110 motors and not losing that base. The idea is that we want more than just Lockheed-Martin and Pratt & Whitney as the only fighter/fighter engine companies left, which would present a monopoly of sorts to Congress after they made a DoD environment where all the major aircraft companies merged into 3 big conglomerates, of which 1 has won the last 2 major fighter programs (ATF and JSF) and both of those programs are powered by engines from Pratt & Whitney.
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The US electorate has NEVER elected a consecutive Democrat WH in the last 180 years unless the President dies in office, namely FDR-Truman and JFK-LBJ. America has elected 2 Republicans consecutively with Teddy-Taft in 1908, 3 Republicans back-to-back with Harding - Coolidge - Hoover, and 2 again with Reagan-Bush in 1988 (same year Joe Biden first ran for President and was laughed out of his own party with plagiarism and gaffes).
Al Gore, after conceding the election initially, demanded to only re-count certain ballots in Florida, not the whole State, while the State wanted to do a total recount. SCOTUS shot down his campaign’s arguments under per curiam and Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.
And if we look down the 13 Keys for the year 2000, it was an indictment by the people of 8 years of Clinton scandals, abuses of power, failures, and key metrics that didn’t sit well with the people. 2000 wasn’t a clear key-turner for Dems. Clinton WH suffered a major and humiliating military failure with Somalia in 1993, with US soldiers’ bodies being dragged through the streets. Allied Force in Yugoslavia was seen by many as wag-the-dog, with hardcore Democrats even making a movie about it called “Wag the Dog”. The number of scandals was too much for Americans to even keep count of. Waco, Whitewater, campaign finance, Foster, affairs, Chinagate, cattle futures, Hillarycare, Lewinsky.....
Allan’s 13 Keys did predict that Al Gore would win the popular vote, and if the votes are correct, he did 50.999 million to Bush’s 50.456 million.
The 13 Keys predicted Trump would win the popular vote in 2016, but the vote counts say Hillary did. So either the model works and something is off with vote-counting, or the model is flawed and vote-counting works better, but still gives conflicting results to the 13 Keys consistency.
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@ozzie2612 UK was running on the fumes of a bygone era, being treated like a major player when it's really a middle power at-best.
EU was happy to oblige, as long as they could feed the ECB beast in hopes of using UK wealth and asset holdings to bail out the sick men of Europe, (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain).
Now EU is up a creek without a paddle. They've been bailed out by:
1. US TARP during the financial crisis. ECB only had, at best, 4.5% minimum reserves, so Obama WH passed TARP to mostly bail out Europe, since European banks had bought bundled junk assets comprised of high-risk, variable interest rate mortgages issued to people who normally couldn't qualify for a loan.
2. ECB had also been bailing out Greece, even after they were aware Greece wasn't reporting their defense spending in their balance sheets to ECB.
3. ECB Quantitative Easing from 2015-2018
London Bankers were savvy enough to recognize a looming black hole when they saw it, and get out before they got caught directly in that sucking sound before the bottom falls out.
Zoom out and look at the big picture of what's going on financially in Europe. That was before the energy/food crisis and SARS bioweapon mass panic.
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This is just one 10-year block for the F-14A from the first operational deployment in 1975 through 1984:
1975 F-14A Crashed into sea near Cubi Point after engine explosion.
13JAN1975 F-14A crashed into sea near Cubi Point after engine explosion.
24JUN1975 F-14A suffered engine fire on take-off from NAS Oceana.
05AUG1975 F-14A overran flight deck after arrester gear failure, JFK in the Mediterranean.
29OCT1975 F-14A was destroyed by engine fire aboard USS Enterprise
05MAR1976 F-14A crashed close to Pax River after entering a spin.
23MAR1976 F-14A crashed near NAS Miramar.
21JUN1976 F-14A crashed after inflight engine explosion.
14SEP1976 F-14A taxied off the deck of the JFK in the North Sea.
19DEC1976 F-14A crashed while landing aboard USS Enterprise.
22FEB1977 F-14A crashed near Pax River after entering stall testing TF30-P-414
28MAR1977 F-14A crashed after ramp strike on USS America.
19APR1977 F-14A lost after double engine flame-out during ACM near El Centro.
21JUN1977 F-14A crashed in Atlantic after engine failure.
26JUN1977 F-14A crashed on downwind leg in the pattern at NAS Miramar.
28JUN1977 F-14A crashed 85 miles sw of San Diego after total power failure.
03OCT1977 F-14A crashed into Atlantic after ramp strike on the USS Nimitz.
31OCT1977 F-14A crashed near NAS Oceana.
10NOV1977 F-14A mid-air collision with EA-6B over Agean Sea, total aircraft loss.
20MAR1978 F-14A crashed into the Atlantic off Florida coast.
25MAR1978 F-14A spun into sea while operating from USS Kitty Hawk.
27MAR1978 F-14A crashed into freeway near NAS Miramar.
15JUN1978 F-14A crashed into sea while flying off USS Constellation.
25AUG1978 F-14A lost at sea off coast of CA.
13SEP1978 F-14A crashed into sea after stall post-launch from USS Ranger.
05OCT1978 F-14A crashed into sea while flying off of USS Eisenhower.
25NOV1978 F-14A lost 100 miles off the coast of Pusan, Korea.
21MAY1979 F-14A crashed into sea flying off of Ike.
09SEP1979 F-14A crashed near Cubi Point
03NOV1979 F-14A crashed into Med while operating from Nimitz.
05DEC1979 F-14A mid-air collision with another F-14A off Puerto Rico, crashed into Caribbean.
03MAR1980 F-14A crashed near NAS Miramar.
06MAR1980 F-14A crashed on approach to the Ike.
01APR1980 F-14A crashed on approach to Nimitz.
03MAY1980 F-14A crashed off coast of Iran after launching from Nimitz.
13SEP1980 F-14A crashed during ACM with an A-7E, entered a flat spin.
04NOV1980 F-14A crashed in Pacific operating from Kitty Hawk.
24APR1981 F-14A crashed after take off from NAS Oceana.
26MAY1981 F-14A written off after EA-6B crashed on recovery.
26MAY1981 F-14A written off from same incident.
27JUN1981 F-14A crashed during pre-delivery flight from Calverton when it crashed into Atlantic off of Long Island, NY.
07SEP1981 F-14A written off after A-7E crashed into it on landing on Kitty Hawk.
29SEP1981 F-14A crashed into Arabian Sea after control difficulties, flying off USS America.
19DEC1981 F-14A lost in Indian Ocean after arresting gear failure from Connie.
06FEB1982 F-14A lost doing ACM off of JFK, pilot lost control.
06MAR1982 F-14A lost arresting gear failure off coast of Italy, Ike.
14JUN1982 F-14A crashed into Pacific off San Clemente Island.
29JUL1982 F-14A crashed at VA Beach after take off from Oceana.
20SEP1982 F-14A crashed in Med after loss of FLCS.
28FEB1983 F-14A crashed near Yuma proving grounds, AZ, crew ejected.
17MAR1983 F-14A mid-aired with another F-14A operating off the Ike near Puerto Rico.
17MAR1983 F-14A same incident
17MAR1983 F-14A Ike lost another that day, hydraulic failure and loss of FLCS.
09APR1983 F-14A crashed on approach to USS Carl Vinson.
30AUG1983 F-14A mid-aired with another F-14A doing ACM, crashed into sea off VA Capes.
30AUG1983 F-14A same incident as above
08NOV1983 F-14A crashed into Med near Cyprus while doing low level CAP mission.
11NOV1983 F-14A crashed into Med off coast of Lebanon, crew ejected.
18JAN1984 F-14A crashed into sea after total loss of power on single engine approach to CVN-65.
17JUN1984 F-14A substantial damage after port MLG collapsed on landing aboard CV-66.
20JUN1984 F-14A slid off #3 elevator on USS America into the sea (I met one of the maintainers who watched this incident happen.)
15JUL1984 F-14A lost after crew ejected over Arabian Sea.
08AUG1984 F-14A crashed out of NAS Cubi Point.
04SEP1984 F-14A crew ejected after inflight fire, A/C destroyed, NAS Miramar.
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They tried to hide the hearings from the NRA, but NRA members notified the NRA leadership, so the NRA president showed up to testify and persuaded the members of Congress to drop the pistol provisions from the legislation.
He was an Olympic gold medalist pistol competitor and Pistol collector who complained that if he had to pay a $5 stamp tax for all of his pistols he would not be able to afford it. He also explained that pistols could be used for self-defense and they had many newspaper clippings dating back to the late 1800s documenting this fact.
They were also trying to categorize semi-automatic firearms with 12 round + magazine capacity as "machine guns" and the NRA President Explained to them that this was incorrect, that it took a single function of the trigger every time to fire a round with a semi-automatic.
They also said they weren't concerned about actual machineguns, just Thompson Submachineguns that could be concealed under coats.
J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Incompetence informed the AG and committee members that there was a 500,000-strong army of bank-robbers like John Dilinger "out there" ready to wreak havoc across America, and if they passed this law, it would allow Federal agents to arrest them and send then straight to jail "without having to go through the complicated trials".
They brought in Colt to testify about how many Thompson SMGs they made, which turned out to only be 20,000 in 1921, most of which still had not been sold by 1934 due to their high cost ($185-$200).
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@m.s.5914 Ukraine has been struggling to get out from Russian control for the better part of the last 850 years.
Ukrainians had Russian puppet Presidents up until Yanukovych in 2014, who was forced out with the Euromaiden revolution.
Ukrainians wanted to join EU to exchange their goods and services for Euros, not Rubles. Yanukovych signed Putin's economic union CIS pact, which is what really caused such a revolt. Yanukovych had to flee Ukraine in Feb 2014 back to Putin in Russia.
Then Putin activated more false flag Special units in Ukraine to attack ethnic Russians in Donbas region, as a pretext for invasion.
Russia can't afford for Ukraine to be independent and trade with whomever they want, because Ukraine is Russia's access to the sea, oil pipelines run through there, military industry critical to Russia is in Ukraine, and Ukraine is a massive exporter of wheat, barley, and corn in competition with Russia.
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@m.s.5914 I have a good friend whose uncle was in the Russian Foreign Minister's office in the 2000s, not sure if he's still there. Anyway, he ran his mouth bragging back then that after Putin came into power, they would take Ukraine, Baltics, Finland, Poland, Romania, Moldova, etc.
Control over Ukraine is an existential imperative for Russia, and after Ukraine kicked out Yanukovych, the writing was on the wall.
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@abcminime Russia would have caved in many regions had it not been for Lend-Lease. No Lend-Lease, subtract hundreds of thousands of trucks, armored vehicles, tanks, 55% of the AvGas, 2574 P-40 fighters, 5065 P-39s, 2397 P-63s, 203 P-47s, 10 P-51As, 3075 A-20 Havoc Bombers, 866 B-25 Bombers, 707 C-47 Dakota transports, 1 C-46, 30 O-52 Owls, 138 PBY5As, ores, metals, uniforms, oil, rations, rifles, ammunition, from the war effort and see how that plays out (along with all the nuclear materials to help Stalin build their atomic weapons).
The US lifted the Russian MIC out of the medieval times with Lend-Lease. Also keep in mind that Russia had just fought a lengthy civil war between patriotic nationalists vs demonic apostate communists, then executed a genocidal campaign against Ukraine with the Holodomor.
Russia absolutely sucked in the defense, counter-attack, and offense. They just threw bodies at the war fronts with a constant supply of home-built mediocre/trash materials, as well as US and British-made vehicles and systems that actually worked most of the time.
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@TresLinguas F-14 weight was always a problem, especially for recovery on the boat. You can watch videos of Tomcats slamming into the deck and snapping a main landing gear strut, including during its initial carrier trials. They just shrugged it off and said, “All part of carrier ops.” Turns out there was a fundamental fault with F-14 landing gear that wasn’t discovered until over 20 years later, where corrosion had found a way into some crevice that was near-impossible to inspect. They were flying with that critical issue the entire life of the program.
Hornet also had critical safety-related landing gear problems in its first 10 years of service, causing loss of several aircraft and fatalities-including one of the famed VF-41 Libyan Sukhoi killers from 1981 who had gone into the F/A-18 test and development program. The landing gear had a retaining/alignment bar that would come loose, allowing the complex articulating gear to go cock-eyed and send a Hornet tumbling down the runway. They fixed it after it had already gone into mass production, and you never heard a thing about it. If that had been in the Internet era, who knows what kinds of articles would be written.
But the F-14 was a very heavy aircraft for carrier ops, and very difficult to recover on the boat with. That’s how they really selected Tomcat pilots during carrier quals. It was nothing like the T-2 or T-45 in handling or in the pattern, which was very difficult to transition to for a pilot in training. Its weight also affected bring-back, which is why you never saw them launch of the boat with more than 2 AIM-54s, in the rare times they flew with AIM-54s. When they did, they usually only carried 1, an AIM-7, and an AIM-9. So much for the 6 Phoenix ad they video’d to make it look so capable.
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@Power5 They're turning way less wrenches because avionics and common inspection hardware access is integrated into the nose landing gear bay doors and weapons bays.
The AESA radar and EOTS components are accessible through the nose gear bay, which of course is always open on the ground.
Over 90% of the engine common access components are accessible without having to pull the engine.
On legacy jets, there are all kinds of test carts, back-end shops, and layers of federated mx that creates a very large footprint in equipment and personnel.
On the Viper, the LITENING pods, HARM TGT Pods, and ECM Pods have their own inspections and mx shops that don't get reported as part of the CPFH & MMHPFH, even though you can't really be FMC for its primary role in D-SEAD without them.
In the JSF variants, ECM, Electro-Optical Targeting, and all the systems are integrated into the airframe and avionics power, processing, and cooling architecture.
It's a far superior way to design a combat aircraft that several competitors are trying to copy.
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@StryderK The Titanium wing sweep gear boxes were one of the only sound components on the whole airframe, contrary to what one might expect when looking at all the problems with AWG-9, cockpit displays, rudimentary HUD, Environmental & Electrical, hydraulics, flight controls, slats, flaps, spoilers, rudders, h-stab actuators, propulsion, ECM, radios, gear....
"Complicated wing sweep mechanism with inflatable air cushions in the wing slots with automated Mach sweep programmer? Nah, that works ok."
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@StryderK Cheney had zero influence over the F-14 from 1970-1989, and from 1993-2001. There were numerous upgrade programs for the F-14A right out of the gate that ranged from massive mismanagement to mildly-successful during those years.
The TF30-PW-412A upgrade to -414A was one mildly-successful upgrade, but they had already spent literally hundreds of millions on the F401-PW-400 in the early-mid 1970s and got literally nothing from it. That money was blown into thin air. Most people, especially Tomcat fans, have never heard of the F401 motor and the original F-14B.
The TF30 was never meant to be the engine for the F-14, as it was seen as an interim engine for maybe 17 airframes until the F401 could go into production. Th F401 shared the core with the F100 for the USAF’s new F-15, so it was supposed to be an industrial scale benefit for both services using their cooperative development funds on motors to get a better motor.
Early F100s and the F401 still had the same types of problems that the TF30 did, so the Navy didn’t adopt it and stuck with the TF30, which was a choice between 2 terrible options at the time. They would have at least gotten more thrust, albeit with the same compressor stalls and AB unstarts, flame-outs, etc. But that would have made the asymmetric thrust problem in the Tomcat even worse, and likely contributed to even more total airframe losses and fatalities with a jet that was already killing crews fast enough as it was, with a 37% FMC rate in 1975.
This goes back into the inherent problems with the design. The requirement for the Phoenix drove the tunnel and engine nacelle separation, which caused asymmetric thrust if you had stalling on one side, which combined with a stall-prone motor to cause loss of airframes.
If you look at it from SECNAV and SECDEF perspective, you see that over $300 million was spent on the F401 and they got nothing, with program managers explaining to them in detail what I just did above. Now they’re asking for more money to....replace engines, fix avionics, do overhauls just for basic airframe and flight control work, not even upgrades.
It drained itself of available developmental funds for new systems that could have kept up with the pace of avionics and flight controls like were realized with the F-15, F-16, and Hornet because that money had to go into just keeping the basic albatross of a system of systems flying.
It's not as simple as being able to blame one person for all its woes. Any person in the position of being faced with the budgetary decisions would be reasonable in doing what the Navy did. US Navy had already made its long-term decision about it before Cheney was Vice President in the early 2000s, with the LANTIRN-equipped Bombcat providing an interim solution to A-6Es being phased out by 1997.
A lot of the systems integration work done in the 1990s when Cheney was nowhere in the picture was LANTIRN and LGB at Pax River, since the Navy had already started retiring the Intruders, which proved to be not so survivable in a modern IADS net like we experienced in ODS.
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@TresLinguas A lot of things have changed that you might have missed:
1. US Navy announced 2021 is the last year for Super Bug procurement. Good airframes will be upgraded to Blk III standard, older ones will be retired.
2. F-35C CVN squadron size will be increased to 16 birds per, up from 12. These will build up as production allows, but demand is increasing for NAVAIR.
3. F-35C is not a limited role aircraft, but Omnirole VLO Carrier-Borne Multimission. In BVR A2A, there isn't a platform that can deal with it. In the unlikely event of the Edge of Visual Range fight, you're looking at a far superior sensor suite, the best Helmet-cueing, and the most tested and improved HOBS missile on the market. It out-maneuvers the SH handily, can execute 180° of turn more rapidly than most fighters while still retaining energy.
4. F-35C has superior weapons carrying capacity and bring back than the Tomcat. It also has at least 100nm more combat radius.
Not sure where you're getting approach speeds from, but F-35C is the easiest supersonic pointy nose in NAVAIR history to bring back to the boat. The F-14 was the most difficult pointy nose to bring back, resulting in scores of major mishaps and fatalities.
In that respect, the Hornet and Super Bug were worth their weights in gold. F-35C is easier to bring back than the Super Bug.
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@TresLinguas F-35C with big wings, bigger tailplanes handles better behind the boat due to the basic planform, wing area, body and chine lift area, 4 tailplane areas, and axial thrust.
DFLCS with auto throttle and holistic flight control inputs would not have made the F-14 that much less problematic because of the added complexity of the spoilers, and asymmetric thrust. You could have integrated FADEC with DFLCS in ACLS, but there were a lot more things to go wrong. I'm well aware of the F-14D and proposed ST-21, as I lived through their development and proposals.
Paper extra Super-21 Tomcat was totally unproven, so I'm not sure why anyone would refer to it against a real airplane.
All the faults you're listing for F-35B & C are from 2 sample aircraft pre SWAT, that could never be duplicated in any other aircraft. You're talking over 10 years ago DOT&E reports. That would be like citing the F-14's original mirrored Titanium hydraulic lines that burst after hitting a harmonic node on its first flight, as if they never fixed that.
Afterburner exhaust doesn't come anywhere near the control surfaces, and it's surrounded by cool air flowing through the LOAN nozzle.
After the delamination incidents on those 2 pre-Lot 4 birds over 10 years ago, they made a new RAM that's CNC applied, more durable, and reduced the frontal RCS even more.
It's so good they're using it on Raptors now, and I think most are aware of what kinds of speed the F-22 is capable of.
You never see 9 carrier air wings afloat. Normally there are 2 or 3 while other carriers are being repaired/overhauled, and carrier wing quals pre-deployment as the others head back from their floats.
Especially once the Navy developed their NAWDC TOPGUN course for the F-35C, Super Hornets started looking obsolete really fast.
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@TresLinguas You're the one who stated maintaining CVN air wings for 9 carriers, which has amateur written all over it. USN has a hard time biting F-35Cs out of the production line because demand is so high for As.
I was close to AFFTC and China Lake mostly, so Naval developmental programs were primarily weapons systems employed from their aircraft, though some of the ranges were for shared programs.
As to early test article F-35B and C models, the test pilot (Billie Flynn) said he never saw any damage, and he was running the aircraft up and down the East Coast doing repeated Mach 1.6 weapons separation tests, flutter tests, maintaining extended duration supersonic flight, hitting a tanker, then doing it again in ways you never would with an operational fighter.
The engineers looked at instrumentation indicating several points on the 2 F-35B and C articles had exceeded predicted temperatures that if continued, might result in lower component life.
Click-bait presstitute millennials with skulls full of mush translated this to, "It's melting!", and pumped out their ad-based bogus content for even more uninformed avgeek consumers to gargle.
They took up several other test articles, flew them to max speed with extended duration aerodynamic thermal loading, performed more aggressive maneuvering to try to recreate those temperature points, and could not.
Conclusion by the ignoramuses: "F-35 can't fly supersonic without melting!"
You can watch airshow demos of F-15s and F-16s actually experiencing delamination at subsonic speeds doing extreme maneuvers, with parts flying all over the place.
Try sustaining Mach 1.6 in any of the teen fighters with weapons. Over half your stores configurations can't be flown at that speed for starters, let alone what happens to your fuel consumption with all that drag.
The first thing 4th Gen airframe pilots notice in the F-35 is the lack of drag, and how well it accelerates and climbs without needing EFTs.
Tons of input from F-14D test pilots went into JSF-C. It brings capabilities to the fleet that are most of what the A-12 was supposed to do (payload/range), with far more A2A than any ST-21 could do, with Maritime Patrol and ASW that nobody really thought of for JSF, at least not openly.
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@TresLinguas I’m Gen X. The Midway, Coral Sea, Forrestal, Saratoga, Ranger, Independence, Kitty Hawk, Constellation, and Enterprise were what I grew up with. America, JFK, and Nimitz came later. I used to track the Carrier types, names, nomenclatures, etc. when I was kid, even followed what squadrons were assigned to them at what times. Kept files of all this stuff when I was kid since it really interested me.
Built my own USS Nimitz for my die cast planes, complete with a hangar deck, painted flight deck, superstructure, and I individually painted all the Tomcat squadrons appropriately for VF-84 and VF-41 in a miniature sort of fashion after the Fine Scale Modeler issue that had a 1/72 full Nimitz model complete with all its aircraft.
I’m sure this makes me fall into some other type of brilliant trap you’ve laid for me.
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@TresLinguas I’ve spoken with Super Hornet pilots who said even in the legacy Hornet, they were able to get by the F-14s all the time. Carrier Strike Groups would often use the attack squadrons for their own large force exercises to test the Fleet Air Defense network of E-2Cs, ship-based radars, CIC, and F-14s while A-7s, and later F/A-18s would try to find ways to get simulated Anti-Ship Missile shots on the carrier group.
AWG-9 and APG-70 didn’t work so well in that, so it was very easy for them to sneak around, and then intercept F-14s as well.
Super Bug brought with it better radar, man-machine interface, no need to focus on pilot observed performance limits and all the pitfalls with the F-14.
Once the SH got AESA with Block II, that was a game-changer. I still see the SH as a stop-gap system that was substituted after the Navy failed to replace the A-6E and F-14 with the planned VLO aircraft, which is why they packed so much LO into the SH design to try to make up for it.
Doesn’t really help much when it carries all its stores externally.
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@TresLinguas The biggest problem for F-14s, aside from all the propulsion and mechanical issues, was AWG-9 failure on Cat launch. Connections would come loose, making it a 50,000lb day visual range capable fighter at best. Upon trapping, the connections would reset, and avionics mx techs would scratch their heads when it passed inspection with their test equipment.
When it did work, it would lag and drag targets as the jet offset for BVR angles, which is why VF-32 had that incident in 1989 where they shot down a Libyan MiG-23 IP and student for the student's first solo flight over the water.
Tomcat RIOs took unauthorized tools into the rear pit to manipulate displays because they were so antiquated.
D Model was a different airplane in that respect, finally letting the pilot manage the BVR fight while RIO/WSO could focus on EW or strike.
I think the F-14 came 4 years too early, which left it with a lot of analog and vacuum tube electronics, just barely missing the solid state and digital avionics that the later teens got.
It also was trapped in a time where turbofan fighter engine technology was still going through its initial 10 years of major growing pains. It wasn't anybody's fault, just the nature of the beast at the time.
Had the propulsion upgrade budget not been blown, they could have gotten F110s in more of the fleet 3-4 years earlier, right around the time we saw them coming in with F-16C Block 30.
Could have, should have, would have...
Every F-14A/D pilot close to the F-35C sings nothing but praises for it. Several of the F-14D test and weapons integration pilots were instrumental in JSF-C.
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@TresLinguas The Navy has been trying to get their own new shiny toy for decades now, and failing until F-35C, which isn’t exactly what they were looking for, but turns out to be much better than they initially thought. It does at least 85% of what the A-12 would do for range, but has a better payload, and does about 90% of what the NATF would do, with added capes they never imagined.
There’s still a lot of residual single and limited multirole thinking going on in the services because most people haven’t grasped what JSF is.
During the initial carrier qual trials for F-35C, they noticed large IR signatures under and around the boat, below the water surface. “What’s that?” Turned out to be whales. In the Heritage survey of dozens of pilots, they said they detect and track low earth orbit satellites.
Game-changer in so many respects, it makes the S-3A/B and E-2D jealous, and S-3s were retired with no real carrier-borne replacement long ago.
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@TresLinguas I would disagree with that and can lay out the metrics quiet plainly:
1. Combat radius and BARCAP. F-35C has 100nm more radius than a 2-tank D model cat even with the more efficient engines. Time between tanking is much longer with the F-35C, allowing it to stay on-station much longer and execute the mission set without as many interruptions. 19,200lb of internal fuel is huge fuel fraction, without drag penalty.
2. On top of that vastly superior radius, a series of 2-ship or multi-ship distributed F-35Cs networked with E-2D and the frigates provides a gigantic leap in long range, multi-spectral awareness for the CIC that has never been possible before, no matter what you did even to AST-21 sensors and data links (no DAS, no MADL).
3. Payload. The common payload on F-14s on BARCAP was 2-4 AAMs, normally AIM-9L/M and AIM-7M on the glove pylons, rarely in the tunnel.
F-35C common payload is 2 AIM-120C7 or AIM-120D (D has been emphasized for USN and Pacific Theater due to threats there) and 2 AIM-9X on outboard canted pylons with an AIM-9X variant with high use of RAM on it. You can add 2 more AIM-120C7 or Ds in the weapons bays for a 6 count if you wanted, with a much higher practical stowed kill count.
4. Stowed kill count of a 4 or 6 missile F-35C exceeds the stowed kill count of a 6-8 AAM F-14 due to increased pk from VLO approaches (unseen/undefended).
AIM-120D pk rivals that of the AIM-54C due to rocket motor advances and dual pulse, while the guidance circuitry and data link capes have increased as well without the weight penalty of the whale.
The practical advantages for the Carrier Strike and Battle Group are that you have much earlier detection of threat bomber or cruise missile approaches, you add a networked sensor suite that covers everything from shallow sub-surface to low earth orbit, and your pk for BVR missile shots is much higher because any approaching threat aircraft will not know they’re being targeted.
Then there’s the whole bring-back issue. F-35C with only 2 externally-mounted AIM-9Xs is easy to recover on the boat with its internal stores that don’t represent any considerable measure of fuel fraction.
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@TresLinguas 1. Agreed on range for the paper ASF variant. I looked skeptically at the claims about an additional 335gal of fuel per wing glove volume, compared it to the nacelle-mounted EFTs, and determined that this was a realistic claim provided they would be able to use the full space of the wing root glove leading edges. Given the warped curvature planform of those for added vortex generation as well, I think it pans out. But as you said, there’s the twin thirsty engine design. Same reason an F-35A has a longer combat radius than an F-22A, both starting with 18,000lb of internal. (F-35A has a few hundred pounds more, which is negligible.)
The F-14 could find an optimum altitude and configure the wings and airspeed for maximum BARCAP time on station, but the manta-like wings of the F-35C, its F135-PW-100 motor, body and chine lift on the fuselage design, with no cumbersome external stores, still has an impressive radius and BARCAP profile.
2. If you put a giant APG-63(V)3 sized AESA in the ASF like is in the F-15C+, you would think it should have more range. This is one of the important areas where you start to see separation between 4th Gen and 5th Gen, aside from the obvious. The AESA isn’t a separate federated sensor in the F-22A or any JSF series. It’s a staged and layered, fused RF sensor array with the high count of RF sensors embedded all over the airframe. Primary detection method begins passively in RF spectrum, generating bearing and rough distance when the distributed RF suite senses signature. The AESA in LPI mode can be used to further resolve the contact(s) in a way that doesn’t trigger their RWR. So an F-35 will typically see bomber, cruise missile, and anti-ship sea-skimming missiles before a larger fighter with a larger AESA. Substitute “Array” for “dish” when discussing AESAs. There are small Transmitter Receiver Modules stacked together to form the array, using beam-steering to achieve the traversing and elevation field of regard.
Another part of this is the networked interleaving of multiple birds with their own fused data, shared via the MADL Line of Sight along narrow beams that can’t be detected outside of the encrypted Local Area Network. The MADL transmit and receive antennae require certain structural features that aren’t really doable on legacy designs, and are VLO apertures. So 2x F-35s have farther detection, tracking, and PID ranges than 2 ASF with bigger AESAs, even if data-linked. This is also true for 2x F-35s vs 2x F-22s with their own 1st Gen 5th Gen IFDL data link, since JSF has fused LW/MW/SW IR spectrum sensor data with RF sensors. Raptor only has SW IR MAWS fused with ALR-94 for closer missile protection/warning.
Counter to that would be the ASF dual chin-mounted IR sensors, but there was no plans for DAS fused with EOTS. EOTS is like having LITENING pod in the nose.
3. The most difficult thing to destroy regarding wing boxes were the actual Titanium boxes that housed the wing pivot and actuation mechanisms. They were electron beam welded enclosures that went through very stringent assembly and testing for integrity of the EB welds, including X-ray of the weld thickness and width along the joints. It was one of the only things on the F-14 that was basically indestructible and actually worked, compared to all the other complex systems. From pilot perspectives, they said bring-back was always a concern and the AIM-54 was really expensive, representing additional deck hazards in the event of a rough landing with gear collapse. Another problem was cyclic deck operations with the time constraints driven by loaders trying to get birds armed up. It’s faster to load onto the wing glove stations than trying to negotiate around the underside of the Tomcat. Weapons loads typically varied based on threat profiles in the regions they were in. For most of a Pacific float, before getting near the PACRIM, maybe a single AIM-9 would be fine. For the Med and Persian Gulf, they often flew with 2 -9s and 2 -7s, then would add an AIM-54 if hostilities were more likely.
AIM-120D on an AESA Block II Super Hornet has some better intercept profiles and pk than AIM-54C/AWG-9 did, though upgrades to the AIM-54 with incremental improvements in dual pulse motors and guidance would have kept the AIM-54 more capable on an ASF. AIM-120 integration on the glove pylons stations presented some aerodynamic problems when they were doing F-14D/AIM-120 tests, and it was dropped because of that. Not sure what the solution would have been for ASF/AIM-120.
Regarding speed. F-35s cruise as fast as you can without going supersonic, which is bad for fuel consumption no matter how you do it, even in supercruise. Cruise speed is in the .9 Mach range, which is already into transonic region (.8 to 1.2 Mach). You can optimize a design for efficient .9 mach cruise without killing fuel efficiency, which is what was common in a lot of previous designs once they hit .8 mach. If they wanted to go supersonic, they had to muscle through the transonic region wave drag and get to 1.2 Mach to alleviate the fuel consumption. A clean 4th Gen fighter can push through Mach 1 quiet easily, but with necessary stores, the wave drag and parasitic drag are very detrimental to aerodynamic performance, which is why we have ATF and JSF. Muscling through with more power doesn’t really solve the internet problem of parasitic drag from stores. There are some detailed measures of F-35C acceleration through the Mach and up to 1.6 which are impressive compared to 4th Gen fighters. Some articles made it sound terrible by comparing it with the F-35A and not providing any legacy performance baseline to show how much better it is.
The main benefit of AWACS birds is duration. With 4 E-2Ds per Carrier Air Wing, they can always have a bird up for early warning. Once F-35Cs are up in the air, the situational awareness expands dramatically over what any AWACS can provide, and they form a net-centric AEW&C web with extreme accuracy for range, altitude, and PID that AWACS can’t provide. Range and altitude error with AWACS is a known problem with those sizes of radars, although the E-2D now has an Electronically Scanned Array versus the old school. E-2D working in conjunction with F-35C, Triton, and Poseidon is where it’s at.
AIM-120D on the F-35C net is more capable, with faster time to intercept than ASF could have been for these reasons, and ASF would have been vulnerable to all the pitfalls of a huge RCS target with large IR signature as well. The Navy knows more about VLO and LO technology dating back to submarine masts and ship LO tech, so I think they really understood the way of the future was VLO and LO. That’s why cutting the Tomcat fleet as soon as possible was necessary to remove the O&M albatross it hung around their necks.
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@TresLinguas F-22 & F-35 AESAs use Gallium Arsenide TRMs, not GaN although there's a possibility they're upgrading the Raptor's ALR-94 with GaN. I noticed in one of the increment 3.x phases that they're overhauling a lot of antennae, but they're extremely tight-lipped with those upgrades.
APG-77 has somewhere around 2000 TRMs, but again it's a fused antennae array with the 30 different RF antennae of varying lengths embedded around the airframe beneath the skin all working together for true spherical 360 SA.
As to power output, AESAs in LPI modes make efficient use of much lower peak power to minimize the possibility of triggering RWR, and they freq-hop at blistering speeds to also elude RWR bandwidth sensitivity and attenuation to specific regions of the RF spectrum.
Since AESAs have very narrow beams, they are more flexible in how they can be used.
The IFDL data link on F-22 & MADL on F-35 are narrow beam directional secure links, not wideband omnidirectional RF signatures that can be detected and jammed. MADL has way more throughput, so that imagery and fused RF/IR data can be piped automatically in near real-time. It's a whole new generation of connectivity that is a massive gap between legacy data links. It was one of the most difficult things to pull off on both programs.
ASF would have lijely gotten a radar like APG-63(V)3 with its even bigger frontal array. That AESA is bigger than the Raptor's but the Raptor still has better detection & tracking range because the AESA isn't a single sensor, but merely another sensor among dozens that are all fused together via fiber-optics through the redundant central brain. Initial detection is passive, then the pilot can selectively escalate his signature with minimal active LPI scanning to get PID without triggering threat RAWS.
It's really a different and more refined way of detecting TGTs, tracking them, PID'ing, and then moving forward with deception or EW as intercept angles are prosecuted.
F-35 has even more capabilities than the Raptor in this regard, because of lessons learned from F-22 and natural inertia of technological progress in these areas. It allowed them to reduce the RF sensor count, while also getting multiple bandwidth IR spectrum sensors that are also fused into the combined spectrum picture.
So MADL-equipped JSF get first-look even vs IFDL-connected Raptors, and have several layers of LWIR, MWIR, and SWIR to work with in cooperative PID against Non Cooperative Recognition (NCTR) Targets.
ASF was to have the dual-chin IR/TV sensors of Radar-slaved IRST/TCS, which is still 1950s-1980s approach, which is a giant gap in between the ATF AIRST (never funded) and EOTS/DAS.
If you look at the DAS cameras, they are wide FOV SWIR, but still have unusually high resolution at long range, enough to get a small spike in IR which automatically triggers the EOTS to look there in longer wave IR spectrum with zoom feature.
F-14 and ASF sensor design was to use radar as primary volume search and within relevant range before a merge or intercept, PID with TCS and IRST. F-14D already had the dual TCS/IRST, which was really unique among US 4th Gen fighters.
Closest thing to it is Rafale's OSF.
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@TresLinguas It's not just radars data-linked together. The dynamic SA for the pilots doesn't care where the picture comes from, since you have scores of RF and IR sensors all working together. The pilots only care about the color and shape coded TGT designate boxes, and for threats, when those boxes go from hollow to full. Hollow means out of parameters, full is within WEZ.
Another surprising thing is that JSF have what is called an Integrated Power Pack that has combined the functions of multiple legacy internal power systems into a 270V DC electric system with intertwined electrical generation and thermal management.
From an engineering perspective, no matter where I look at it under the hood, I see not only brilliant systems integration, but unprecedented performance that simply out-classes legacy Environmental & Electrical, flight control, propulsion, man-machine interface, etc.
The Electrohydrostatic Actuators (EHAs) are another example of this. Holistic integration of propulsion, FADEC, DFLCS, thermal management, and Very Low Observability make it so that the AESA, IPP, IR Stealth, and engine are all intimately a part of each other. The lines are totally blurred as to what is what, which helps reduce weight and complexity.
Legacy birds with Jet Fuel Starters, APUs, EPUs, and all the headaches with those systems seem antiquated in comparison.
JSF is really an amazing revolution in combat air systems design, not hype at all like you see many claim.
You can see so many instances where it's obvious to me that teams of engineers said, "Just because it was done that way before doesn't mean we need to. What if we..."
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@olebaltasar6263 If you launch from Ronneby, sure you might have adequate mission radius in a Gripen, lightly-loaded, with some station time to loiter in an Anti-Ship or Maritime Recce role. But since Sweden is talking dispersed basing, even if we remotely locate West into the Swedish interior and still stay in Southern Sweden, like out near Borås, now that mission radius just doubled.
If we’re operating from more up north, that’s an additional 130nm we’ll need if flying an anti-ship mission profile down towards Kaliningrad. A Recce/anti-ship profile will have reduced employment options.
It’s a lot to ask for such a small airframe with so little internal fuel and limited weapons-carrying capacity. Gripen mission radius diminishes dramatically when you load it with external stores due to empty weight, fuel fraction, parasitic drag, and weight of the weapons.
If it has to dodge or avoid Russian Flankers and eventually the Su-57 in that area, it’s pretty screwed in terms of being able to get into a WEZ profile for Anti-Ship missiles, and still faces the high probability of being run-down while in Bingo fuel state. Not good.
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@matso3856 F-16 slick vs combat-configured depends on a lot of variables, which include Block, profile, weather, and stores.
The slick or configured F-16A had an impressive radius though because it was much lighter and all F-16s have a surprisingly-good glide ratio.
Biggest variables in radius are carriage of the EFTs on stations 4 & 6, followed by what types of A2G weapons are carried on stations 3 & 7, then followed by the presence of pods on the inlet. The FLIR pods generate a significant drag index and certain bomb racks and bombs add a lot of parasitic drag.
The centerline ECM pod also adds about 800lb of weight. If you carry 2000lb weapons on 3 & 7, you'll see more fuel consumption during take-off, ingress, and separation profile, but once they're gone, the aircraft becomes more efficient.
Configured F-16C radii with A2G stores are in the 450-550nm region.
Gripen C slick can do maybe 430nm. Once you add the FLIR, EFTs, and bombs, it dramatically reduces the radius. There are previously-classified documents released by Philippines showing the Gripen C/D flight manual specs, and they were not impressive.
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@loke6664 One of the best things you can do is look at the actual Gripen flight manual performance specs revealed in the Filipino study, not look at Wikipedia.
F-35A has a longer combat radius than any of the teen fighters, including the F-15E. Ferry range has no relevance to combat radius because when you ferry, you configure for a specific altitude and fly an optimum airspeed in straight-line legs, with a minimum reserve on final.
Combat radius includes climb out, different altitude profiles for threat system evasion, sometimes a loiter, weapons employment, tactical egress, return leg, and final with larger fuel reserve.
I've been flying since the 1970s, was involved with developmental fighter programs at AFFTC, so the metrics I commonly see amateurs/uninitiated referencing provide endless amusement.
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@danieleyre8913 You can’t adjust the length of a stripped Carcano stock, which is a foot longer than what Frazier saw. Imagine holding a 34” package under your arm, with one end cupped in your hand. The end of the package would protrude up 12” higher than his shoulder. I’m much taller than Oswald with much longer reach, and when I measured this, a yardstick extends 10” above my shoulder. The Carcano packed in a wrapper broken-down is a story for people who have no experience with military surplus rifles or bolt guns. This is a basic failure at math, and one of the many things that refutes the WC’s explanation for how he brought the rifle to the TSBD. There were no curtain rods. That was a story made-up by Dallas PD in their deal with Frazier. Frazier has made some very interesting statements lately, now that all those Dallas PD officers are dead.
The shooting sequence could not be duplicated by Carlos Hathcock or any of the Senior USMC Scout Sniper Committee Instructors at Quantico, nor any of the students. It’s one thing to hit a static target within those ranges, and another entirely to hit a moving target repeatedly. Oswald has zero record of ever training on moving targets. I shoot moving targets in competition with rifles and pistols, and have done so for decades. The idea that a lone gunman got off that many shots on a partially exposed mover with a Carcano fails on many levels. In other words, it didn’t happen.
Then look at the GSW forensics. More gymnastics from Arlen Specter that defy over a Century of recorded rifle terminal ballistics and the accounts of the Parkland doctors. If you still accept the Warren Commission in 2024, something is seriously wrong with your ability to think critically and dispassionately analyze data.
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@danieleyre8913 The whole curtain rod story was manufactured long after Oswald’s death.
Dallas PD was a known, fundamentally-corrupt police dept that specialized in frame-up jobs. It was their primary MO in cases so they wouldn’t have to do much work. They were never a bastion of even decent LE work, let alone anything resembling sound protocols in evidence collection and compliance with due process of law. Once people started appealing their convictions, the overturned case rate was extremely high for Dallas PD.
It was Dixie Mafia tied at the hip with business tycoons and Chicago Mafia. That’s why Ruby was sent by the Chicago outfit to work their nightclubs in the Dallas area and why he was always broke.
If the Carcano didn’t need to be re-zeroed, why even install the scope and mount? See how the Carcano story falls apart upon basic inspection by people who are actual shooters and collectors? There would be no way for him to know whether it was zeroed or not upon reassembly.
Here’s another thing they overlooked. I’m zoomed into CE139 right now looking at the stock cap/ferrule, and the stock band screws. To disassemble and reassemble the Fucile Corto Mod 91/38, you need a special type of flathead screwdriver commonly used by gunsmiths, to remove or loosen 4 different screws:
The ferrule cross screw
Stock/Handguard band screw
Action screw front
Action screw rear
With the black-painted Mod 91/38s like CE139, the paint often makes the stock ferrule difficult to remove without a rubber mallet. Oswald would have had to re-install and tighten these 4 screws with a gunsmithing flathead driver, otherwise there would be screwdriver marks on the ferrule screw and stock band screw.
Zoomed-in, I see zero evidence of any tampering with the screws at all, and the surface of the ferrule is clean and free from any nics or scratches that an amateur or ill-equipped person would normally leave. Stripping the flathead screws is a normal occurrence on mil-surps.
If you asked me, I would say that rifle shows no signs of disassembly post-modification at the arsenal.
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@JH-fk8ow College entrance should be difficult. It's one thing Finland gets right, then promotes misrepresentation of the facts about, saying everyone can go to university for free.
No service or product is free.
The US gets it wrong by allowing illiterates into community colleges and major universities, who then get worthless degrees to them, but pay tens of thousands of dollars for wasting time, inflated by government Pell Grants.
The US needs more emphasis on interdisciplinary skill sets, decoupling from public K-12, advanced skills hands-on programs, followed by apprenticeship.
The college industry is inflated 14,000%, so universities make a killing in the market, producing abject ignoramuses who don't even know basics that used to be taught in elementary school (which did a mediocre job at-best of teaching any skills besides conformity).
Finland is a very conformity-based society, alarmingly-so.
We need less unquestioning conformity moving forward. The past 2.75 years are a screaming example of that.
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@mitchellkaufman1679 NAZI is a National Socialist party. Hitler based his societal vision off of Karl Marx and the State of California's eugenics practices, where they sterilized undesirables and aborted their fetuses.
He had a plan for culling everyone that didn't fit in with what the "super man" was, and employed "progressive" socialist policies in crafting the Reich.
To refer to him as an ultra right-wing politician is really a revisionist tactic to vilify modern political philosophies one disagrees with, rather than accurately representing the political influences and practices of Hitler and his government.
If you wanted to make political associations to families in the US, you could point out how Papa Joe Kennedy and Prescott Bush both supported the Nazi regime, to the extent that Kennedy had to be recalled from his US Ambassador to England position, and Prescott Bush was under investigation for treason by Congress because he was supplying strategic materials to Nazi Germany.
The Bush family hates Trump, because he called out their corruption and weakness repeatedly.
The attack on the Capitol was more like a Reichstag fire false flag operation, which prevented multiple Senators from voicing their official "no confidence" declarations, while making it appear Trump launched the attacks. It was a brilliant series of tactics from the communists/leftists, after over a century of practice with false flags and election stealing.
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Yup. They had moles in high places throughout the CIA, the White House, State Department, DoD, major aerospace contractors, universities, access to the classified US Patent and Trade Office, Senators working for them, House of Reps, Governors, CIA Directors, DARPA senior program managers, chief scientists, Generals, Admirals, you name it. We used to do technical analysis of their systems and were frequently surprised ourselves when we saw bolt-for-bolt copies of systems most in the US defense sector didn’t even know about. “Weird, this Helmet-Cueing System Helmet tracker looks just like the Honeywell VTAS we put in the F-4J/N for the AIM-9G SEAM program. It even has the box curvature to fit in the F-4’s position for that piece of avionics.”
Or, “Weird. They copied the F-4’s barricade cutters between the intake splitter plates when they built the MiG-23 splitter plate geometry."
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@sepposavinainen2660 F-35A is one of the, if not the most affordable fighter on the market.
Unit flyaway cost: $77.9 million
Unit program cost: Depends on the weapons package and what level of support the customer requires.
Finland already has a compatible weapons inventory from the Hornets, so Unit Program cost might be much lower than say a nation who doesn't have AIM-120C, JDAM, JASSM, GBU-12, etc.
Rafale unit cost for India's order is $144 million, $213 million unit program cost.
The maximum allowable unit program cost for H-X is $187.5 million if 64 units will be funded with $12 billion (10b euros).
You would think that the Rafale is the most expensive with its unique weapons and support systems, 2 engines, and French industry focus, but the Gripen E and F models might cost more because they haven't been developed for production-ready status.
Gripen E/F is a development fund trap to help finance Saab, who isn't really looking to invest in Gripen, but their own workshare of a joint 5th Gen project with UK.
Nobody knows what the unit program cost actually will be for Gripen E/F. Saab can bid any number they want, but they don't even know. They hadn't even flown their Gripen NG test aircraft at night, which was revealed during H-X.
Eurofighter Typhoon Tranche 4 unit cost is right there with Rafale, but it can employ some of the weapons in FiAF inventory.
Virtual training is better in one key area, namely full systems capability employment in larger flight formations vs emulated threats.
Nothing replaces actual flying, and later lot F-35As are the most reliable, ready platforms in USAF, so Finland will enjoy better readiness than the Hornet right out of the gate.
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@konradkarlovich5801 72hr was the timeline Putin had planned to seize Kiev. He almost pulled it off, but the combination of fierce resistance to Russian Airmobile troops outside of Kiev, and Zelensky refusing to get on the plane Biden sent for him slowed the momentum of SRO.
Kiev was supposed to be seized, then a military occupation against remaining Ukrainian resistance forces as Moldova would be annexed.
Then the victorious Russian forces were to stage along the borders of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.
I had a contact in the Russian Foreign Ministry back in the early-mid 2000s who was bragging about Putin's strategic goals, which included invading Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, the Baltics, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria.
He was told to shut up and censor himself. The invasion of Georgia happened in 2008.
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Obama was basically an absentee President who really did believe he's smarter than everyone else, condescending with his smirks, habitually late, didn't like to have many meetings, and let the political activists run much of the show. Valerie Jarrett had a lot of power in that WH, as did Hillary as SECSTATE, and Joe Biden as VP serving his masters.
They all were working for Putin, Hu, Muslim Brotherhood, and the Mullahs of Iran on many fronts:
1. Uranium One to help Putin revitalize Russia's nuclear weapons
2. Burisma with Hunter Biden acting as an insurance policy from investigations into how Putin was using Burisma to pilfer Ukrainian revenue
3. Keeping Ukraine vulnerable to Russian invasion by denying them arms, and not lifting a finger when Putin invaded in 2014
4. Coercing Poroshenko to fire Viktor Shokin who was investigating Burisma. Obama then flew to England in Sep 2014 and told David Cameron to shut down their investigation into Zlochevsky, CEO of Burisma living in Monaco.
5. Syria-let Putin strengthen Russia's footprint there with Assad
6. Billions in cash sent to Iran with nothing in return
7. MB in the WH
8. Blatantly soured the relationship with Israel
9. Open affronts to the UK
10. Energy policy that benefitted Russia
11. Killed the F-22 before we could go into Full Rate Production, which created a fighter gap
12. Hillary destabilizing Libya, with Benghazi blowing up into the spotlight and the death of Ambassador Stevens
13. Hillary selling US secrets via her basement server, which processed tens of thousands of sensitive documents to hostile foreign governments not authorized to have them
These were just some of the high crimes and treason going on during the Obama Presidency. The domestic side was also a nightmare with a weaponized IRS, Fast & Furious, illegal spying, racial agitation, ACA, bail outs, divisiveness, and erosion of the military culture.
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@gpheonix1 The German MachinenKarabinen were all carbines based on barrel length, not fitting any definition of rifles. Rifles typically had 24"-31.1" barrels. There were 24" barreled carbines even in the 1800s if the actions were short enough.
The MKb42(H) had a 14" barrel. M1 Carbine has a 17.75" barrel. In the first half of the 20th Century, most 20" barreled long guns were considered carbines.
We saw a shift in the 1950s with the 21" barrel FAL, 22" bbl M14, 17.7" bbl G3, 20" bbl AR-10, and 20" bbl AR-15 all referred to as "rifles". Especially with the flash hiders on the FAL and M14, they were long in overall length like a rifle, plus the bulky/ lengthy receivers of the FAL, G3, and AR-10 contributed to their overall lengths.
An M1 Carbine is tiny compared to a G3, even though the M1 Carbine's barrel is longer.
The AR-15 came from the Small Caliber High Velocity Rifle program, where several of the prototypes had longer barrels. One of the early AR-15 prototypes had a 22" barrel with a rather long flash hider.
With the 20" barrel AR-15 and the original Type A-E stocks, they all present like little carbines, not traditional rifles.
A more correct description of the M4 would be a Small Caliber High Velocity Carbine.
It's also interesting to note that the Russians have never classified the AK or AKM as rifles, but just Avtomat Kalashnikovs, while their rifles have Vintovka in the designation, i.e. Vintovka Mosina, SVT, SVD, etc. Exceptions to this are the VAL and VSS, which of course have tiny little barrels with large suppressors.
Their overall lengths are still in the carbine department.
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@MrBahjatt Yes, if we did a clean slate technical analysis and classification matrix, some interesting things rise to the surface.
1. Cartridge dimensions and performance
2. Barrel + muzzle device length
3. Action type
4. Feed mechanism
5. Fire Control Mechanism
6. Action length
7. Operating system
3 of the things that make the STG44 stand out from all the others are its fire control mechanism, rate of fire, and constant recoil system.
It's really nothing like an AK or AR-15, even though we place it in the same category of weapons.
Handling, ergonomics, and performance under fire are dramatically different with the STG44.
Also, the 7.62x39 intermediate cartridge doesn't behave much like 5.56x45mm. Recoil, velocity, terminal performance, trajectory, and effective range are noticeably different in the soldier's hands, as is carrying a combat load for each.
Even the 7.92x33mm with its larger case head, but shorter COL, is much easier to carry in magazines in pouches than the high tapered 7.62x39 and its cumbersome curved mags, with longer COL.
They're both intermediate cartridges with practically the same performance, but minute differences in case design and COL scale into noticeable consequences for the individual soldier and his squad.
I've maintained for years that 5.56x45mm and 5.45x39mm are Small Caliber High Velocity cartridges, which is at least a major subdivision within intermediate cartridges, if not another category of its own.
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@ericpotter4657 The Navy was faced with several different paths moving forward after the failure of the A-12 program (almost $2 billion thrown down the drain with that). The A-6E had already proven to not be survivable in ODS and airframes were timing out anyway, so A-6E would be last of the subsonic medium attack capability in the Carrier Air Wing. That created a big void in strike capability looking at payload and range, plus the various mission sets A-6Es could perform including SEAD with the HARM.
The more expanded multirole versions of the F-14 like ASF-14 and ST-21 were one path to consider. Pros were the possibilities in payload, range, improved avionics, and multi-mission set wing-role options with more clean sheet structural/propulsion/electronics evolutions of the Tomcat. Cons were 1) risks associated with an airframe design whose complexity never allowed it to realize a consistent mission readiness rate much above 60% throughout its career, 2) Costs spiraling away from any initial projections, which were already high, 3) Continual discoveries of systemic problems with F-14 structures even into the late 1990s/early 2000s, 4) The discovery that the AIM-120 required a new solution to the wing glove pylons due to aerodynamic problems with separation and roll, 5) Requirement for a 2 crew platform demand on the training pipeline, and 6) the incompatibility with the design yielding to application of Low Observables.
Another option for NAVAIR was to adopt an enlarged Hornet with bigger motors, taking advantage of the development of the A-12 engines and making them afterburning, increasing the combat radius to match the F-14’s, adding 2 more weapons stations for a total of 13, acquiring a force mix of mostly single seat E models, but with enough 2-seat F models to handle the A-FAC mission and some other more involved strike and SEAD mission sets where a WSO would be helpful, and incorporating some low observables into the airframe design, specifically with the intakes and serpentine airflow geometry to hide the inlet guide vanes and fans from line of sight RF reflectivity.
While the maintainability of the Baby Hornet fleet was overstated initially, it was still quite superior to the Tomcat, which helped increase readiness rates of the air wing while afloat, with far less MMHPFH exerted by Hornet wrenchers. It also had a more reliable avionics suite that used solid state/digital revolution along with the moving map display, and could genuinely flip from A2G to A2A while headed to prosecute strike missions, and had Non Cooperative Target Recognition capability that the F-14 didn’t have. Especially after Desert Storm, the tables flipped from all the ridicule that Hornets had received from the Tomcat community for "not being real fighter pilots", etc., to Tomcat guys eating crow for not getting any fighter kills in the most target rick environment since Vietnam (far more fighters than Vietnam has or ever will have).
From the big picture, NAVAIR looked at these 2 paths and saw a lot of risks and challenges with the ASF-14/ST-21/Super Dooper Tomcat, vs less risk with the Super Hornet, and went with the Super Hornet. The acquisition costs alone for any Super Duper Cat were a known larger quantity than Super Hornet for sure, as was the training pipeline for an all 2-man crew platform. In secret, the US Navy had already been working with Royal Navy, USAF, DARPA, and USMC on a next generation stealth platform anyway, which would benefit from all the RDT&E spent on A-12 and ATF, so AST-14/ST-21 might have threatened that program as well. Imagine trying to acquire JSF-C right now while also supporting a Super Duper Tomcat fleet. The Navy is going to be talking more about how they wish they had more F-35Cs than Super Hornets after this current deployment, and they already announced a 20% reduction in upgrades from Block II Super Hornets into Block IIIs.
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@jeromeportier4914 I went through the NATO AeroE course syllabus in the 1980s, which included total systems design challenges as part of the work and capstone projects, though I was not required to do so. It was more foundational to the way I look at things than any of the programs I have done in 3 other colleges or universities. We worked on various fighter, bomber, and missile programs from the 1970s-2000s, to include systems at the Rocket Propulsion Lab, Future Combat Fighter 1990 (this later became ECA, then EFA, then EF2000, then EF Typhoon), B-1B, SRAM and SRAM II, F-16C weapons expansion, F-15C/E Navigation and sensor expansion, and RQ-4.
Any of the NATO STANAG databuses, which the US follows, should have been available for the Gripen E. From a systems engineering approach, the use of 4x Mil-15553B databuses seems to violate the weight/space trade-offs where other avionics or cooling systems could have been used, and a single fiber-optic bus utilized in the space of one of the 1553s, providing the same amount of porting for less space/volume. It just seems like a violation of basic principles to me. Maybe there is something I’m not seeing on the supply-side that pushed Saab down that path, but it doesn’t look right to me.
There isn’t a modern VSTOL fighter in development or production. You meant to reference the F-35B, which is STOVL. There never was a warped tailboom. On 2 of the first 6 JSF birds that rolled off the initial production line, there were some elevated temperatures on the inboard horizontal tailplanes close to some of the embedded RF sensors. Engineers didn’t like some of the numbers they were seeing, so they took the other 4 birds and ran aggressive back-and-forth supersonic runs with them to duplicate the temps, and could not.
None of those 4 airframes were mass-produced because they were too heavy, after certain members of Congress steered Lockheed into using 7086T6 aluminum for all the bulkheads, spanners, spars, and structures that were meant to be carbon fiber in the original design work.
It almost sabotaged the whole program. They brought in Rick Abel from retirement to deal with the weight loss program, who asked, “Why didn’t you just let Lockheed build the plane they had designed?”
The entire tailplane area was then done with Carbon Fiber, to include the booms, H-stabs, and V-stabs, which increased strength, airframe life, while reducing the weight and RCS values considerably.
The silly comments you read from people with zero background in these spaces on supersonic speed limits are exaggerations that have no relevance anyway for the production fighters.
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@matchesburn Most of the F-16's payload is external fuel tanks, ECM pod, and LITENING FLIR Pod.
An F-16C in combat configuration only has 2 mission-specific Air-to-Ground hard points. The other 4 weapons stations are for A2A self protection or rare opportunistic A2A in the USAF force mix.
Even with a Block III JSF variant, there are more stored kills in a slick configuration because it has higher pk with its A2A and A2G munitions than the F-16.
As a campaign progresses and per air planner force structuring, various flights can be configured however they need to once the D-SEAD mission sets attrit those threat nodes.
F-16C CCIP 40/42/50/52 Vipers stores:
7000lb internal fuel
2x370 EFTs 5000lb
2x2K JDAM = 4000lb
4x WWP = 1100lb
2x 2/8 pylons = 300lb
4x AIM-120C = 1340lb
LITENING Pod 455lb
ECM Pod 600lb
M61A1 w 511rds 832lb
20,627lb of internal & external fuel, sensors, ECM, pylons, and weapons.
F-35A
18,400lb internal fuel
2x 2k JDAMs 4000lb
2x AIM-120 670lb
4x ejector racks 700lb
GAU-22 600lb
24,670lb
That's with none of the external pylons attached to the F-35 wings, while the Viper is maxed out on all its weapons stations.
Even in a slick aerodynamic configuration, the F-35 carries over 4,000lb more, while a lot of the Viper's weight is suspension equipment.
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The US will continue to be the dominant super power, as it has the largest economy, no threat nations on its borders, the largest and most experienced military with the largest Navy patrolling the sea lanes, the most dominant space-based assets, the most demand for products from abroad, while having the most healthy domestic production and consumption, the largest arable farmland for food cultivation, the largest population that lives in low population density, with cities evenly distributed across the land, with the most connected river network in the world, with the most deep sea ports connected to that river network.
The EU isn't a union, but a bad idea of unifying historic enemies who don't speak each other's languages and don't share the same regional threats, with the majority of the most powerful EU members militarily allied with the US.
Brazil is a weak collection of city states on the coast, who aren't connected geographically because of the terrain.
China is its own worst enemy because it can't deal with the interior, which is what has always plagued China. Their military force projection capability has never been tested, and they are barely able to maintain internal security with their military, while facing a huge crisis in living conditions between those on the coast, and those in abject poverty.
Russia is on the verge of fragmenting due to interior erosion and lawlessness, compounded by the coming demographic winter Japan is already well into.
No matter how you look at each scenario, it just doesn't work out for any other nation currently.
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@JimVanderveen We're in an economic situation with no precedent and no models:
1. Baby boomers retiring or dead, not buying big ticket items anymore.
2. China manufacturing de-coupling from US, high unemployment in China, demographic collapse has begun there.
3. Europe has entered demographic collapse.
4. Russia has entered demographic collapse.
5. US has steady growth, manufacturing re-shoring, consumption driven by a small cohort of Gen X and large cohort of Millennials.
6. Housing availability for Single Family Residences is way behind on supply.
7. Foreign investors who have lost billions in Wall Street have moved into residential real estate, inflating the median unit prices with corporate money, and then rent out those homes.
8. Interest rates are still relatively low, but median home prices are dramatically higher than ever.
9. Auto loans have crept up into intrusive and prohibitive % of median household income.
10. Student loans have inflated preposterously, while education quality has dropped inversely to the amount of money spent.
11. Natural gas is almost free for the US to extract and distribute, and we're effectively energy independent.
12. The US military has been in strategic withdrawal from Europe since 1992, as well as the Pacific.
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It has over-performed and created new metrics that never existed. Name any variant and look at how they have created a giant capability gap between multiple aircraft that they are replacing. The figures for operations and maintenance over the life of the program are being thrown around before we’ve even hit 1/3 of the USAF’s buy. The articles make it sound like $1.5 trillion has been spent already, when we haven’t even reached the $400 billion acquisition for all 3 variants for USMC, USAF, and USN. When has anyone aggregated the lifetime costs of the F-14, F-15, F-16, F/A-18, A-10, AV-8B, F-117A, all ancillary ECM and FLIR pods, converted that into modern dollars with inflation, showed what effects we got for those programs, and then made a relative comparison to JSF? How many of those fighters can detect and track ballistic missiles from over 800 miles away, or detect and track low earth orbit satellites? How many of those can survive going into the MEZ, then roll into air dominance, AEW&C, ISR, and do offensive EW?
It’s more than a success story. It’s a revolution in air combat that has left everyone else who wasn’t in on JSF with their pants down scrambling to try to compete, and we have a 14yr head-start on a production line at least.
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@maseratidyce3587 US small arms are US, with AT4 as an exception.
The most common fighters in NATO nation service are US, namely the F-16, F-35, and F/A-18, followed by the Euroconsortium Typhoon.
Every nation who flew F-16s and Hornets is now contracted to replace or already replaced them with F-35As.
Now look at ASW, AWACS, Patriot, TBM defense shield, HIMARS, M777, missiles, and billions of dollars in FMS to NATO, alongside US basing in NATO we also pay for.
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@norske_ow3440 F-16 has fast turn-around as well, but the nose landing gear isn't as strong as the Gripen. Main gear on F-16 are stronger than Gripen.
The amount of weapons test and integration is orders of magnitude better than Gripen. I see people constantly talking so surely about how much better Gripen C with Meteor is in A2A but there is nowhere near the level of systems integration and weapons capes expansion with Gripen and Meteor compared to an MLU Viper, APG-68(V)5 through 9, and AIM-120C5 through C7.
We have over 5000 live fire shots with AIM-120s against TGT drones and real-world threats.
Gripen C has great Man Machine Interface, but nowhere near the level of systems test and development behind it. It uses really old US Mil-1553B databuses and lots of US, UK, French, and German systems from decades ago. Saab had to go to General Dynamics to solve their FLCS problems they were having on Gripen A, with PIO-related crashes.
RCS on Gripen is huge from certain aspects, so it would have major problems in the first-look, first-shoot timeline against S-300, S-400 sensors, and MiG-31BM + Su-35S, but this is true for any 4th Gen.
Climb rate is a factor in that if you're trying to get into solutions with Meteor, or even vector to intercept.
That delta wing profile during the climb is a giant reflector in RF spectrum. Without dedicated ESM birds supporting it, I'm seeing nothing but uphill battles for Gripens to get into useful solutions.
Where I do see it being capable is in anti-ship, but F-16 shines in that space as well. The programmable signals processing pioneered and developed in the US to those ends is far more advanced than people know.
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The US provided insane amounts of lend-lease war materials to the Soviet Union, as did the UK and Canada. The US built 20% of the Soviet Air Force's fighters, and 30% of their bombers, while providing 57.8% of their aviation fuel. The US also provided the Russians with 501,660 tactical wheeled and tracked vehicles, including 77,972 Jeeps, 151,053 1.5 t trucks and 200,622 2.5 t trucks. We also sent medical supplies, food, clothing, rifles, SMGs, and industrial metals like aluminum to support their production efforts.
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@Sundara229 I see Lend Lease just as instrumental in post-war Soviet industry and war material development, if not more than its contribution to the war itself.
In addition to US and French automobile and firearms technology sales before the 1917 Revolution, along with Lend Lease, Russia was able to have tens of thousands of samples of aircraft, radios, trucks, and tanks from which to learn from when reverse-engineering their own versions in the late 1940s-onward.
They were using antiquated designs and production methods well into the 1990s as a result.
It's a very poor nation considering the land mass they have, that can either focus national resources on domestic infrastructure or peripheral security with its laundry list of neighbors, but never has been able to do both. This has been true whether Tzars, Communists, "Reformers", or Kleptocrats have been in power. Geography's curse...
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@Costa_Conn I personally did a 1999-2019 relevancy-based research set of metrics, narrowed to medical and academic journals on the subject to eliminate 2020-forward media bias/contamination. I also included investor literature. SARSCOV was patented by a team, including Dr. Baric, at UNC Chapel Hill in 2002 before the first outbreak per the US Patent & Trade Office. They continued chimeric research on it with gain of threat lab iterations, using large populations of human/mice hybrids.
To build those mice, they took human stem cells from fetal lung tissue and injected it into mice embryos in utero to grow miniature human lungs inside the mice.
Then, they ran cycles of modified cpronavirus spike proteins using 4 positively-charged amino acids so that the virus would attach more easily to Human endothelia in veins, lungs, and soft tissues that have negative charges.
I have some medical background with live tissue studies in a military setting and took an interest in virology, immunology, and epidemiology back in the 1990s, though my primary focus has been in aerospace defense systems.
The evidence clearly demonstrates man-made origin of the modified virus, that it was done initially at UNC Chapel Hill, then the research was banned in 2014. Dr. Shi Zhengli then packed up the research samples and materials and moved the operation to Wuhan, while Fauci approached Moderna to begin experimenting with mRNA gene-editing Lipid NanoCapsule devices. At the time, Moderna described this research as classified, while openly talking about mRNA treatments for influenza and Zika virus.
Everything I just described is pre-2019 even. Moderna's 2019 investor report is really one of the only stand-out documents I referenced, and it told investors they were looking at windfalls of profit around the corner.
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@knowledgeanddefense1054 Much of the US defense budget goes into Continental defense of North America through NORAD, continental defense of Europe through NATO, and Pacific region defense through our force presence and allies throughout the Pacific rim. The US has been withdrawing from these regions since 1992, not increasing our presence, despite everything that has been erroneously reported by the media.
It’s not just an Army, but a massive, multi-continental Air Force, and a Navy that polices the trade routes. Without the US navy and forward-deployed USAF bases, regional dictators get adventurous and like to flex on their neighbors and choke points for trade. We don’t really need to be in all those places for our own benefit, since we make our own energy, food, and essential products.
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@neosapienz7885 She is literally ranked the most left in the Senate. She openly calls for ignoring the Constitution to achieve her radical policy objectives, just like she did as SF DA, CA AG, and Senator.
She violated the law as a rule with her very first campaign for DA, exceeding the State limits on campaign finance capped at $250k, instead building a $600k war chest with the help of Willie Brown. She was his mistress in the open for 2 years when she was a prosecuting attorney in the SF DA's office.
When she was handed SF DA, she was very soft on crime, and helped ruin SF. When people called her out, she randomly targeted an innocent black man named Jamal Trulove, bribed a fake witness with over $60,000 of taxpayer money to testify against Jamal for murder, and put him away for 50 years.
His appellate lawyer discovered Kamala's prosecutorial misconduct over the 6 years Jamal was in prison, got the case before a judge, who ordered Jamal to be freed immediately and his record cleared.
Kamala had the gall to block his release and the Supreme Court had to intervene.
She literally belongs in prison for multiple felonious abuses of her power. This is the Kamala they've been hiding from you.
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@davidthompson4383 Royal Marine Commandos are essentially a maritime special operations force with a dramatically-longer initial training pipeline and higher OPTEMPO. They are more like US Army Ranger Regiment and UK Para Regiment in culture, training, and capabilities. I’ve worked with all 3, so this isn’t an academic perspective foe me.
USMC is small by US standards, but huge by international standards, so a Commando Regiment isn’t a good comparison with 3 Marine Divisions, which have their own organic aviation artillery, heavy lift, armor, drone, cyber, and combined arms forces capabilities. USMC brings M777 and F-35Bs to the fight, whereas Royal Marines rely on other organizations for those capabilities.
I agree on training standards in the UK vs the US, but this is mainly because the US military is so huge, whereas the UK forces are so tiny. I embraced the UK approach to many things with what I did and still do, since many aspects of it are more professional. US wings on logistics and weapons quality, but UK definitely has a more combat-focused training culture.
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@robdyck1187 Yes, we lived through the development and implementation of GPS within DoD, having come from a ton of work on INS prior to that. This was all on cutting-edge, multibillion dollar programs with top priority in USAF primarily. I've spent decades dealing with RF propagation, antennae design, xmit/receiver architecture, waveforms, and a list of other challenges. Towers would only be useful for coastal navigation in the Arctic, provided you could maintain them. Mx is a b*tch in arctic conditions, which I've also spent a bit of time in, both in summer and winter.
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@speedbird3814 Neither the US nor any foreign operators are flying 1970s-built F-15s or F-16s. Those are all mothballed. Same for most of the early-mid 1980s airframes.
USAF flies Late Block F-16CM Vipers in operational squadrons built from 1988-2005, which have been upgraded with 3-4 different phases of CCIP 1, CCIP 1A, CCIP 2, and now PoBit AESA installation.
Yes, Su-27s have gone through SM, SM2, and SM3 upgrades, but all the systems aren't replaced. The Su-27 also has bulkhead and spanner cracking issues between the forward fuselage and the wing/engine nacelle junction.
Su-27 production was in the 1980s, then Su-30 slowly developed in the late 1980s-1990s with foreign orders from India and China funding the program.
Su-35 was developed after that, copying many US approaches to flight control and avionics.
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The US has a lot of deep sea ports along 3 huge coastlines, not including Alaska. The maintenance and overhaul schedules have been ongoing for over a century in the US, supporting the most powerful and modernized Navy in history. We have dry docks in Hawaii, Seattle, Portland, San Diego x2, Bayonne, Brooklyn, Sturgeon Bay x3, Newport News x 8, Pascagoula x 2, Philadelphia x3, and Boston.
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@East_Coast_Toasty_Boy The F-14 EFTs were originally only meant to be ferry tanks, but ended up being fleet standard configuration in all the operational squadrons. It was rare for an F-14A to ever fly without them, let alone the A+/B and D.
F-14s could hang out on BARCAP with the wings out at lower speed with lots of endurance due to how much fuel the airframe carried, and how much of a lifting body it is.
F-35C does that better with more fuel fraction, superior sensors, single pilot. F-35C can do an Omnirole BARCAP Fleet Defense while simultaneously performing:
* AW&C
* ASW
* Networked fires targeting and terminal guidance over the horizon
* ISR
* EW
In Strike-oriented configuration, it can do Anti-ship, VLO penetration-strike, VLO nuclear strike, DEAD, live BDA, ISR, EW, and AW&C.
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@Micha-qv5uf Their production schedule is for 76 of them through 2028. It is a threat because it is a lever that will be employed as a AEW&C/Hunter-Killer data-linked with Super Flankers.
All Su-27SM and Su-30SM are being brought up to interoperability standards with Su-35S and Su-57, with Su-27SM3 and Su-30SM2 modernization packages. Operational Flankers have been undergoing that staged upgrade already and sent back to their fighter regiments.
So if every major fighter regiment gets "only" 12 Su-57s, that's a force multiplier with all the existing Su-35S/Su-30SM2/Su-27SM3 Flankers and their massive PESA radars, data links, new EW gear, and new missiles.
One of the most dangerous roles against a legacy force structure (with singular AWACS nodes directing fighters) is from the Su-57 in the anti-AWACS role. The Su-35 super-cruises already, and the Su-57 was designed to do this at a higher Mach value, so we should expect even more deep encroachments into Finnish Airspace from the Su-57. I looked at several scenarios where GlobalEye maintains maximum stand-off over the Gulf of Bothnia and it still is very vulnerable to anti-AWACS even from the Su-35, let alone the Su-57.
This also limits GlobalEye sensor penetration into Russia due to curvature of the earth and atmospheric layers. Flankers already have more than plenty of combat radius to reach anywhere in the region, and the Su-57 has extremely long legs as well. If you overlay the combat radii, you can start to wargame things a bit.
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@ubermenschen3636 Putin financed the campaign of Yanukovych, and the Ukrainian people rejected him twice, especially after he signed the Rus-Eurasian Economic Pact in late 2013. That triggered Euromaiden protests for 4 months until Yanukovych fled Ukraine.
Ukraine elected Poroshenko, but before they did that, Putin had Hunter Biden placed on the Board of Directors of Burisma.
Then Vice President Biden demanded that Poroshenko fire Viktor Shokin, their chief prosecutor, or else Ukraine would not get $1 Billion in aid money.
Biden bragged about this in front of the world. Who benefitted? Putin and his vast money-laundering network in Ukraine, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Panama, and the Cayman Islands.
Hunter Biden and John Kerry's stepson, Chris Heinz, were directors of the shell company that Putin had his Oligarchs like Elena Baturina wire millions of dollars to, to bribe then Vice President Biden.
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@Илья-з7э3и В обычном конфликте США покончили бы с российскими вооруженными силами примерно за 2 недели. Россия была слаба в Великой Отечественной войне, ей нужны были миллиарды долларов техники, оружия, самолетов, газа и сырья из США, чтобы бороться с немцами, которые топтали всю Россию.
Когда Россия заявила египтянам, что они не знают, как правильно воевать в воздухе против израильтян, российские пилоты МиГов прилетели в Египет, чтобы показать им, как это делается. Потери у них были выше, чем у египтян, которые потом с ликованием над ними издевались, даже потеряв больше МиГов в войне 1967 года.
Для начала российский флот практически в одночасье прекратит свое существование против США, а затем ВКС будут уничтожены, как будто это спорт. Российские вооруженные силы - это шутка, и так было всегда, если вы изучите историю.
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The most important thing to keep in mind with US 5th Gen is not whether you can detect them or not. It is how you will defend against a net-centric web of sensor-shooters who have targeting data for you before they even take off from their airstrips or carriers. Things are going to happen much faster than they did in Desert Storm, for example, where US 3rd and 4th Gen aircraft erased the Iraqi Air Force from the sky in just a few days, bombed it into submission on the ground, cut all the C3 nodes, and GBU'd the national leadership centers.
With 5th Gen, you're looking at an even more intense series of strategic attacks that are so coordinated, the impact against military infrastructure is instantaneously devastating. The last thing you want to be doing is sitting in a mobile radar station, manning a SAM battery, or flying a fighter aircraft. You already have so many TD boxes on your system, that the outcome is inevitable that you will be destroyed much sooner than you ever thought possible.
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Never listen to the hand-selected, cherry-picked comments from 1st-term soldiers and junior leaders or senior officers who don’t have extensive experience from the Fire Team level up to dealing with DODICs. Do look at what Ranger Regiment and JSOC are using. Hint: They are avoiding this POS like the plague. If a US Army Battalion Commander is running his mouth, you can toss whatever he says out with the trash. He has extremely-limited experience unless he came from prior enlisted ranks in Ranger Regiment, Vicenza, LRSD/LRSC, Recon Community, or SF. An officer starts off as a 2d Lt, finishes IOBC/IBOLC/whatever they call it now. Hopefully he graduates Ranger School and gets sent to his unit. He gets his first Rifle Platoon, which he knows nothing about running, and is entirely reliant on the PSG and Squad Leaders to steer him right on learning his job.
After a year of OJT, he might become Company XO if he’s lucky, then moves off to staff jobs from then-on. Again, any basic lessons he learned while a PL are becoming perishable every day. After years of sucking bungholes, he might get a chance to come back and command a Rifle Company after pinning Captain in staff jobs. Again, he knows next to nothing about how to run a Company, so the 1SG will have to carry him and mentor him through that assignment. After that, he goes back to being a staff wheenie, sucking Major’s bungholes, kissing up to LTCs and Colonels, and does this for years before he gets a chance at Battalion Command after pinning LTC.
Officer promotions are adversarial and very competitive, so you have a pool of self-promoters looking out for numero uno, throwing each other under the bus, making their peers’ failures known at key moments while show-boating their own positions, until there are only a few standing looking for full bird Colonel promotion. A guy like this knows 2 things about small arms: Jack and _______. This is why when you hear one of them run their suckhole about small arms, you should ignore whatever it is they say.
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@janbo8331 A lot of millennial generation articles have been written about how difficult it is to maintain JSF, without actually knowing anything about legacy fighter maintenance or doing the work necessary to gather real data to make an informed opinion.
So what are legacy maintainers saying about JSF?
USMC with the F-35B model:
"We're seeing twice the availability rates compared to what we operated before. In fact, we have a hard time generating enough pilots for the birds."
USAF former phase-level F-16C/D Environmental & Electrical Maintenance Tech, now F-35A Maintenance Instructor at Hill AFB:
"I miss working on the F-16 because I used to be able to get my hands dirty. The F-35 basically maintains itself. You can really tell that unlike on the F-16, someone really listened to maintainers when designing the access to common inspection and replacement parts on the F-35.
On the F-16, you really have to dig for a lot of things, which makes it more challenging and time-consuming. On the F-35, I open a panel and...'Ah there it is!'.
Usually, we just plug in a rugged laptop and the jet tells us everything already, so there isn't much to do. It's boring. The new production F-35As from Block 3 are basically gas-and-go.
We can launch them again right away. I work in an operational unit, so we don't have any of the older Lot birds, so I can't speak to them.
We get a lot of them that are still 100% after a sortie, which is not normal.
The F-35 has its own integrated gas turbine power generator called the Integrated Power Pack, so you can test all of the systems without any engine power, and get them started up before the pilot even gets to the jet. There are only 13 switches in the cockpit, so it's the easiest plane to start and interface with.
Power is redundant to all the displays, so you can lose power to several of them and still have basic flight info displayed. It actually has more redundancy in that area than other jets since it has the HMDS, 2 large panel displays that form the PCD, and a separate back-up artificial horizon.
For the F-16, we would have about 6 people per bird at the Squadron, not including the separate shops for pods. With F-35, we only need maybe 2."
Access to the Radar and EOTS (FLIR, LST, TGT DES) is done through the nose landing gear bay, which is always open on the ground of course.
It's really a brilliant aircraft from a maintenance perspective, far more easy to maintain than the F-16, which is the gold standard among the 4th Gen.
F-16 is also more easy to maintain than the twin-engine Hornet, always has been.
Finland will be getting a system that introduces a new generation of reduced logistics burden at the operational unit, with far higher turnaround rates than either a Hornet or F-16.
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@RyanNovaktheFirst I've driven across the US so many times, I lost count. In one particular period of just 6 months, I drove from NC to CA to NC 6 times.
I had 2 carjacking attempts in NC, which I shut down pretty fast just by presentation of my handgun.
I live in a very safe State and County now, but I still plan every stop I make as if someone is going to attempt to carjack or mug me.
I plan and prepare just in case, like having a fire plan for my kitchen, grill, house, or car engine.
If you are going about life oblivious to these threats, then you're merely a victim who just hasn't been hit yet, especially if you travel as much as I have on the road.
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It's not fair to compare 4th Gen fighters to the F-35B in terms of safety, because the F-35B is far safer and more reliable than them.
There are about 200 F-35Bs out of 875 JSF delivered as of Dec 2, 2022. 602,000+ cumulative flight hours for the whole JSF fleet.
There are around 575 F-35As, 200 Bs, and 100 Cs.
As make up the most of the 602,000 flight hours, no less than 65% of those numbers, so roughly 400k.
Bs have flown probably 120-150k hours already, had 3 total airframe losses from crashes, zero fatalities. 1 airframe was written off due to a fire.
That's an unprecedented safety record for a STOVL fighter that also is supersonic. It's revolutionary really.
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@GoingFar77 The US blue collar middle class kids went into more tech jobs, college degree programs with expectations of office work rather than factory work. The US leads the world in innovation, creating new technologies, and more think work vs labor, although we still have a gargantuan skilled labor sector. We offloaded low-skill/low-priority work, like toys, pencils, pens, short life goods, clothing/textiles, some furniture, small appliances, etc.
For durable goods that require skilled labor, we still have massive aerospace, automotive, electronics, and semiconductor jobs. For the energy industry, we lead the world in production and refining. For agriculture, there isn’t any place like the US in terms of volume, variety, and long-lasting crop harvest seasons.
One of the biggest misnomers is that America doesn’t produce anything anymore, when in fact, we’re the 2nd largest exporter, 1st-largest consumer of our own goods, with exports being only 15% of our economy. When you place those into context and see that our exports are huge for the world, but small for us, you realize how great the US economy is.
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@Ea-pb2tu Gripens have significantly reduced range once you load them with mission-relevant stores. Whatever sources you're using for performance metrics, they're way off. F-35A has dramatically-better range than the Gripen E or F-16C. Most of the payload on 4th Gen fighters is external fuel, not weapons.
When we talk about SEAD, we're discussing the ability to geolocate SAM and AAA threat guidance Radars, while countering and evading SAMs and AAA, and employing weapons against those Radars and AA weapon sites.
Gripens do not have the emitter locator sensors, nor do they have any anti-Radar missiles, nor do any Gripen operators train for this mission set.
The F/A-18C has been doing the SEAD mission profile since the late 1980s, and was an instrumental platform for executing it during many real-world missions with the HARM and MALD in Desert Storm over 30 years ago.
F-16CJ and now F-16CM Late Block Vipers are specifically equipped for the D/SEAD mission profile with the HARM Targeting System pod on station 5L, full HARM capability, LITENING or SNIPER advanced targeting FLIR pod, and pilot interface through the MFDs and HUD to execute SEAD mission sets.
Gripen Cs not only have none of that, but have never been advertised as being able to do it.
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@Ea-pb2tu US has trained and equipped for this type of war in USAFE for generations. Dispersed basing, hot-rearming/refueling, planning, contingencies, logistics, force structure, OCA, DCA, Strike, SEAD, CSAR, EW, etc. are all core mission sets for USAFE.
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He has addressed that for well over a decade. Who wants to trade in Russian rubles? It’s literally a worthless currency outside of Russia, and isn’t valued inside of Russia over dollars. Most of the world’s oil and sea trade is measured in and exchanged in dollars. No other nation or collection of nations has a secure banking system or regional security from foreign invaders, so the US is the only safe bet.
Add that to the US economy being the largest and without peer, where there exists mass industry, no foreign invaders on its borders, the largest bread basket in the world, a vast connected river network, coastal sea ports that allow heavy displacement vessels across 3 huge coastlines, protected by the biggest and most powerful military in the world. BRICS has none of that, and they aren’t even geographically connected. Russia, China, and India all have beef with each other in some way, especially China vs Russia and India vs China. China relies on the US as its biggest trade partner and protector of oil shipments from the Persian Gulf. The moment China tries to go it alone, or ally with Russia for security of trade, they’re toast.
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@garydobbs5159 F-35 pilots refer to F-22s as "legacy 5th Gen" because the F-35 AESA, Stealth, engine, cockpit, MADL data link, IR sensors, central brain, FLCS, are better than what's in the F-22. The combat-coded Raptors are getting upgrades to get them more on par with F-35s in those spaces, but there are some things that will just never be as good.
Modern fighter designs dating back generations even have used lifting bodies combined with wings for total lift. A single engine F-35A will take off faster than a twin-engine F-15C, and the F-15 has all kinds of low wing loading plus lifting body.
Most of what you hear from amateurs running their mouths about aviation can be ignored. They simply don't know what they're talking about.
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@WembysTRexArms There is a 360° passive RF sensor network fused with the 360° IR DAS, so it does have a level of surround situational awareness that doesn't exist on other fighters.
The RAM is not compromised from flying within its performance regime, including supersonic. There were 2 of the 6 original developmental F-35s, 1 F-35B and 1 F-35C that exhibited some slightly higher temps in the h-stabs that concerned engineers because of embedded antennae in those structures.
They tried duplicating the problem on the other birds with extended supersonic runs, dives, and maximum Mach value between 2 tankers up and down the East coast, and never saw those temps in those structures again.
The production F-35s after that didn't even use the same materials in the rear tailplanes, so the whole thing was a fluke. That was over 10 years ago, never duplicated.
The F-35 series doesn't rely on RAM paint like other VLO designs. The paint is mostly IR spectrum camouflage. The physical structure of the 3-later skin has carbon nanotubes with wide spectrum RF energy defeating characteristics.
The common maintenance access points have seam covers that don't require removal of and reapplication of RAM paint or treatments.
There are periodic inspection and mx points like around the wingtip nav lights that have RAM tape covering them that does need to be scraped and reapplied, but they aren't day-to-day squadron-level operations.
As a result, F-35A has less than half the mx hours of a stripped, new F-16. It's just a vastly-superior aircraft from a mx perspective, and former F-16 wrenchers have said as much repeatedly.
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@WembysTRexArms Hardened shelters you mean. Only a few get in, while they deal with incoming headed their way too, and every Chicom-flagged coffin floating in the South China Sea starts eating stealth anti-ship missiles and submarine-launched weapons. Meanwhile, USMC and US Navy start casting their votes, outside of Chicom missile ranges as well, while the anti-satellite program uncorks.
Any oil tanker headed to China gets orders to go ahead and hold up just a bit, or find another port to dock in away from the conflict zone. Remember that 85% of China's energy comes from the Persian Gulf.
China is watching how a bare bones army in Ukraine with none of the real high-capability US systems is keeping Russia at bay in the land, air, and sea.
Now imagine Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, who have been building their defenses for the last 70 years, combined with US and Australia.
The last thing China can afford is launching missiles at US bases in the Pacific. It would see such a dramatic loss in their combat power overnight, and cause massive humiliation for Xi and the CCP.
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@traceybaldwin6509 It is interesting how all the people that pushed the Warren Commission narrative were rewarded with their wildest dreams and ambitions, while many of those who challenged it were personally attacked, threatened, careers ended, or died strange deaths. Some are even still missing to this day, including at least one of the Warren Commissioners.
Gerald Ford: the only unelected President in US history. He literally falsified critical forensic evidence in the case, specifically the back GSW.
Arlen Specter became Senator. He shoe-horned the Single Bullet Theory fraud into the WC after getting a pile of evidence from FBI & Edgewood Arsenal that showed something else entirely.
A helpful CIA man who was working with the Cuban ex-pats became ambassador to China, then Director of Central Intelligence, then VP, then President. His name was referenced in the 2017 document dump.
Walter Cronkite continued his career as "the most trusted man in America".
What kind of organization and culture has the power to reward people who lie for gain, and murders those who try to expose the truth?
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@bigfriki Switzerland is a beautiful place to visit for sure, with one of the most ethnically-homogenous populations in Europe, and a population of 8.7 million people (same as Virginia).
Switzerland is extremely strict on who they allow into the country to work or live, and it's very difficult to get citizenship there.
They are not members of the EU, not in NATO, and have tight border controls. Cost of living in Switzerland is very high, in addition to high taxation rates.
Geographically set in a high mountainous enclave of the Alps, they are unique even by European standards.
It would be difficult to apply the Swiss model to any other country or State really, though Austria is the closest nation I can think of that I've been to.
They do have an interesting approach to distribution of select-fire (automatic and semi-automatic capable) military assault rifles into all the residences where trained Swiss Army able-bodied citizens reside, and regularly get together for shooting matches with these assault rifles, then have a large glass of beer in tents afterwards laughing at how barbaric the US is.
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@DeanSpence-d9c When ballisticians and forensic technicians at the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland tested the CIA contract Western Cartridge Company 6.5x52 160gr RNFMJ ammunition on cadavers, human skulls immersed in ordnance gelatin, cadaver and amputated human arms, and goats, they had some very interesting findings.
The ammunition fragmented in the skulls, and mushroomed like hunting bullets in the goat chests and human wrists.
They couldn't duplicate CE 399 no matter what they tried, including tumbling bullet impacts to the goat chests.
So the skull terminal ballistics were somewhat consistent for fragmentation, but Connally's wounds were not.
They had conflicting opinions on how many shots were fired, and this is partially why 3 of the Warren Commission panel members dissented with the WC conclusions, with Congressman Russell even submitting his resignation from the WC. LBJ denied his resignation and coerced him to stay on the WC.
William Sullivan, one of the FBI senior personnel involved in investigating the Kennedy Assassination, was scheduled to testify before the HSCA in 1977 as to why he disagreed with the WC conclusions, but was unfortunately unable to do so.
He was shot in the neck by a State Trooper's son on Nov 9, 1977.
Congressman Hale Boggs, another dissenter, disappeared in a twin-engined Cessna in 1971 while campaigning for another Congressman in Alaska. Their aircraft and bodies were never found.
JFK's doctor, who was present at both Parkland and Bethesda, wanted to testify, but withdrew at the last moment.
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@chrisgreene9963 Edgewood Arsenal ballistics lab studies showed that Connally had to have been shot at least twice by 2 different projectiles, neither of which was CE 399.
Bethesda doctor's report reads that he inserted his finger in JFK's back wound on the inferior region of the scapula (lower portion) and could only get half a finger in.
Gerald Ford admitted to relocating the back wound up higher near Kennedy's neck when he was on the WC.
Even with Ford's tampered diagram, the WC shows JFK leaning forward to align the back GSW with the neck GSW, even though he was sitting fully erect when he was shot in the throat.
Parkland doctors insisted the throat wound was an entrance.
This means that at least 3 separate bullets were necessary to create JFK's injuries, none of which impacted Connally.
Per Edgewood ballistics tests, at least 2 bullets and one fragment (that they removed from his L thigh) created Connally's GSWs, and CE 399 does not match any of the wounds Gov Connally suffered.
From a purely scientific ballistics perspective, that would lean towards 6 bullets minimum having been fired, because we also have James Tague's cheek injury from a fragment, supposedly caused by one a miss that impacted the curb on Elm Street.
JFK:
1. Throat wound entrance, R trachea lacerated
2. Back lower scapula GSW entrance 1.5" in depth, non-perforating
3. R frontal head shot entrance near temple and hairline, 5-7cm exit in posterior occipital region with massive loss of brain and skull tissue (entrance and exit)
Connally:
4. Bullet entrance in R back creating an unusually long, tearing wound, exit on R anterior chest below centerline of the R pectoral muscle, causing a 2" exit and sucking chest wound
5. R distal wrist fracture with entrance and exit, multiple fragments left in the wrist
6. L thigh entrance with fragment present, removed at Parkland
7. James Tague fragment injury to cheek
That's at least 10 gunshot wounds on 3 people.
The proposition that 3 rifle rounds produced these 10 GSWs, a curb strike, a dent in the limo windshield frame, and a hole or crack in the window requires some ballistic and mental gymnastics only conceivable by ignoramuses to this field of research.
That's 13 different impacts from 3 shots fired. You start to see why Russell, Boggs, and Sullivan knew it was all a big fraud.
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@tomvan6008 If you read the WC, they really dance around the fact that nobody saw Oswald coming down the stairs, and both elevators were stuck up on higher floors. Dallas PD officer Marion Baker found Oswald on the 2nd floor, sometime between 1min 15sec and 1min 30sec after the last shot fired.
WC had Marion Baker run through multiple reenactments of his actions that day, starting on his motorcycle, and timed each one.
WC just says the evidence concludes Oswald walked down the stairs with plenty of time for officer Baker to run into him, and moves to the next conclusions.
This is one of many problems I had with the WC when I read it 4 decades ago. The chapters danced around or over-emphasized things while ignoring basic questions.
It's like a fluff piece to give you the impression of professionalism, while lacking in substance in key areas.
For example, where did Oswald purchase CIA contract Western Cartridge Company 6.5x52mm Carcano ammunition from lot 6000? Where are the cartridge boxes?
They do recognize that the paper package observed by Buell Frazier and his sister was much too short to have been the broken down rifle, but just say the Fraziers were mistaken and Oswald somehow carried a 35" long package into the building without any other witnesses.
Frazier's sister said it looked like a bag. Buell Frazier used to work in a shipping center specializing in curtain rods, so the idea that he couldn't visually identify package lengths does not seem logical at all.
WC just brushes past these facts saying Oswald carried in a long paper package.
Then there's the whole problem with zero retention for a disassembled surplus rifle with a cheap scope and mount. It needs to be re-zeroed and confirmed before shooing at anything you intend to hit.
WC says the unzeroed rifle helped Oswald by providing automatic target lead by 5-8". You don't need to lead moving targets that close with a rifle. 40-88yds is instantaneous time of flight for a rifle, even one that slow.
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@paulpo999 Connally's R rib is a lot more dense than the landmarks on the skull where the WC and Parkland doctors saw the entrance and exits.
Edgewood Arsenal ballistics lab could never duplicate Connally's wounds without the projectiles mushrooming and shedding fragments. They had excellent test designs with cadavers, goats, amputated arms, and skulls immersed in ordnance gelatin.
The skull tests all fragmented. The chest and wrist wounds mushroomed and fragmented lightly.
The chief ballistician said Connally had to have been shot twice, once in the back, and once in the wrist. They used Western Cartridge Company ammunition from the exact same lot as the spent cases found on the 6th floor.
That ammunition is extremely rare because it has the lot codes stamped on the case heads, along with the manufacturer code.
That ammunition was made for the CIA in 1954 via a DoD contract to Western Cartridge, in 4 lots of 1 million each. The spent cases deposited on the 6th floor were from the first lot, which was 6000.
Edgewood Arsenal used this same ammunition, which had very soft, ductile lead cores with unusually-low antimony composition.
Testimony from Dr. Joseph R. Dolce, Chief Consultant for the US Army in wound ballistics at the Edgewood Arsenal and Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. He designed and supervised their tests for the WC, but was not allowed to present the Edgewood Arsenal conclusions, which indicated Connally and Kennedy were shot separately before the fatal head shot.
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@jetcat132 This is a fairly technical subject that requires some degree of education in the field if you are to make any informed observations and statements about it to gain clarity, not confusion. Familiarity with the technical aspects of a subject is imperative for clarity. Unfamiliarity with the technical details is what creates confusion. This is a major problem I have seen on both sides, namely all kinds of erroneous nomenclatures, mechanics, and dynamics that simply are not reality in the field of internal, external, and terminal ballistics, mechanical engineering of firearms, or human anatomy & physiology. I’m not “you guys” and I don’t do gymnastics. I only deal in reality since I have extensive training and experience in all of these fields, both from an academic and hands-on perspective covering decades.
I pretty much stick to the Warren Commission as the best evidence against itself, which screams out at you along the way. I don’t read any assassination researcher books, as the WC is enough to tell you that it is extremely faulty from a scientific perspective.
Reasons why CE 399 can’t be the bullet that translated through Connally’s chest, wrist, and impacted his left thigh are:
1. It weighs too much for the total weight when you add 158.6gr with Connally’s recovered fragments, the fragments from his wrist, and the fragment from his thigh. 160gr - 158.6gr = 1.4gr. I’ve been a metallic cartridge hand-loader for decades. Even the solid copper bullets that did not exist at the time lose at least 1gr of weight when you fire them into ballistics gel.
2. The Western Cartridge Company DoD contract (for the CIA) 6.5x52 Round Nose Full Metal Jacket (RNFMJ) cartridges used especially-soft lead cores with low antimony, so they deformed significantly in all of the Edgewood Arsenal ballistics tests. They simply could not duplicate CE 399 no matter how they tried. Read the studies after having learned the extensive ballistics vocabulary and definitions. Edgewood obtained over 100 rounds of ammunition from the exact same lot (6000) indicated by the lot codes on the spent cases and unspent cartridge in the M38 Carcano Carbine.
3. There were no fibers or human tissue embedded in the nose of CE 399. Every rifle projectile sample I have seen or read details of that has been recovered from a person or animal has tiny amounts of hair, clothing fibers, bone, blood, and tissue embedded in the nose or meplat.
CE 567 and CE 569 were reportedly recovered from the front of the limo. CE 399 was found on the floor at Parkland by an elevator repairman. The difference in condition between CE 567, CE 569, and CE 399 are dramatic. The Edgewood Arsenal tests showed that these types of bullets did fragment when impacting human skulls filled with ordnance gel at velocities consistent with the M38 Carcano at those ranges.
But they also showed dramatic deformation when perforating chest cavities and impacting human cadaver and amputee arms at the wrist. Dr. Dolce designed very well-thought test regimens to demonstrate how the Carcano Carbine performed, to include placing velocity screens between each shoot medium. His conclusion was that Connally’s wrist had to have come from a direct impact from another projectile.
I already am familiar with the Commission Exhibit numbers dating back 40 years from when I first read the 888 Page Summary, then set out to read some of the supporting volumes. It is laden with fraud, strictly from a scientific perspective.
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@mkrawc1 They Laser-scanned all the physical structures, to include the limo and occupants based on multiple films and Dealey Plaza, creating a digital twin environment not subject to human error in drawn diagrams.
The left-right alignment is the least of the Single Bullet Theory's problems. The vertical alignment is the first insurmountable hurdle.
2nd is that the back GSW was not connected with the throat wound, which was still higher even with Gerald Ford's self-admitted manipulation of the autopsy diagram back wound (lower).
3rd is the back wound only was half a finger deep per the autopsy.
4th is the Parkland doctors unanimously asserted that the throat GSW was an entrance.
5th is that Connally's back injury is more like a long tear coming down from a higher angle, destroyed his R 5th rib, and exited with a 2" sucking chest wound.
6th is that during the extensive Edgewood Arsenal studies at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, they could only create Connally's wrist injuries with direct fire.
7th is that no matter what they did, the matching lot 6.5mm 160gr projectiles mushroomed dramatically in their goat thorax and human arm cadaver/amputee ballistics testing.
8th is that all the projectiles fired in the tests shed more weight than CE 399.
9th is that CE 399 has a really disjointed chain of custody from the crime scene to the floor in Parkland, and from within the FBI as well. Its evidence timeline in physical custody of the Bureau goes backwards in time.
10th is the worst, in that Dr Dolce, Chief consultant for the Army Ballistics Lab, was not allowed to present the Arsenal's conclusions to the WC. He said there was no possible way for a single bullet to have created both JFK's and Connally's wounds, and that they were created by 3 separate shots.
This seems to indicate he was unaware of James Tague and the curb, which would require a 4th shot like the original FBI field report concluded before the WC was formed in '64.
Either way, the Single Bullet Theory does not stand on any solid evidence. Just a cursory analysis of the SBT claims and the actual physical evidence rules out the possibility of it. A detailed analysis of the SBT feels like a dystopian horror crime novel.
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@Jerry-oo8hd Walter Cronkite did an interview with LBJ later on, which was censored "for reasons of National Security". You can watch that interview now after it was uncensored, decades after LBJ died. In it, LBJ said he was never fully satisfied that foreign actors weren't involved, but the WC did a thorough job with the investigation and he didn't want to undermine it.
3 of the WC panel members dissented with the conclusions, as did the #3 man in the FBI, Asst Director William Sullivan.
The panel members and staffers who promoted the Single Bullet Theory and WC were rewarded handsomely in their political careers.
Staffer Arlen Specter (who concocted the SBT with help from former CIA Director Allen Dulles and Congressman Gerald Ford), became Senator Arlen Spector.
Congressman Gerald Ford became the only unelected US President in history.
WC panel member and dissenter Congressman Hale Boggs went missing in a plane in 1971 between Juneau and Anchorage, never found.
FBI #3 William Sullivan was shot in the neck in a hunting accident Nov 9, 1977. He became critical of the FBI's illegal domestic spying, burglary, and harassment programs and was one of 6 FBI officials killed in 1977 who were scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
The shooter was the 22yr-old son of a State Trooper. He said he thought Asst Director Williams was a deer, was fined $500, and had his hunting license revoked for 10 years.
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@jetcat132 The biggest problems Dallas had with Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig were his refusal to amend his reports about the 7.65 Mauser and his recognition of Oswald in custody as the man he saw get in a station wagon driven by another man.
Roger Craig testified before the Warren Commission about seeing Oswald, and recognizing him in custody. When confronted, Oswald said the car "belonged to the Paines, and don't drag them into this."
The problem here is that other witnesses saw Oswald walk out of another entrance to the TSBD, cross Elm, and disappear in the crowd.
The WC tracking of Oswald asserts that he went to a bus stop, and took the bus back to his boarding room to change jackets and retrieve the revolver.
Roger Craig's testimony fundamentally undermined the WC path for Oswald's travels that day.
Craig was fired 3 years later, then died of a self-inflicted .22 rifle gunshot to the abdomen on May 15, 1975, before he could testify in the Church Committee Hearings investigating massive corruption in the DOJ, FBI, and CIA.
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@bboylyte8639 Medical bankruptcy is one of the most inflated claims in the US to generate hype for political purposes, while not having a very significant influence on bankruptcy filings. Bankruptcy filings are a result of multiple factors, and medical bills are nowhere near the top factor according to all the data I have studied. For starters, Elizabeth Warren’s cherry-picked study went to 2005, where there were only 1.45 million bankruptcies filed in the whole US including Chapter 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15. Only Ch 13 is for wage-earners, while Ch 15 represented the largest % of filings. The study expanded the parameters to include if people had missed 2 weeks of work due to sickness, had medical bills over $1000, and mortgaged their home to pay for bills.
If bankruptcy filers fell into those categories, it was listed as "bankruptcy due to medical expenses", even if that wasn’t true. That’s less than half a percent of the overall population who even filed for bankruptcy. By adding those parameters, they fudged the data to indicate that 61% of the filers filed because of medical expenses.
Another study in 2011 found that only 26% of Ch 13 filers said medical expenses played a role.
Some studies said 57.1% while others said more people filed bankruptcy for medical expenses than overall bankruptcy filings, which is egregiously flawed. Not only can’t all Ch 13 filers be due to medical expenses, but Ch 13 can’t exceed all of the types of Chapter filings due to the dominance of corporate and foreign businesses filing bankruptcy each year. Ch 13 is only 27-38% of bankruptcy filings each year.
Another thing is that personal bankruptcies are not a constant Y2Y. Personal bankruptcies peaked in 2010 at over 434,000 after the financial crisis, then dropped dramatically down to around 299,000 in 2016, 289,000 in 2019, and 194,000 in 2020.
Chapter 13 Bankruptcies in US Year to Year
2008: 353k
2009: 398k
2010: 434.8k
2011: 417k
2012: 375k
2013: 343k
2014: 313k
2015: 302k
2016: 299k
2017: 296k
2018: 288k
2019: 289k
2020: 194k
2021: 117.7k
2022: 149k (.05% of the US population)
Anytime someone presents a claim, automatically question whether that claim is even accurate, then do the research and understand the basic math. In the case of medical bankruptcy, it’s an extremely inflated piece of hype used by proponents of massive change to the overall US system, with no numbers to support it. It’s sensationalist hype really.
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@la7era1u54 Government-provided anything means there will be more middlemen who use that same tactic you accurately describe, where opportunistic pieces of trash bribe their way into the corrupt scheme. Congress has run this way since the 1800s, and was thoroughly corrupted in the 1920s during Prohibition. It’s all pay-to-play, with Senators and more senior members of the House acting as appointed gate-keepers to the money streams from Federal programs.
We want less involvement from DC, not more. Anything DC touches turns to excrement as a result, with a mafia-style union thug payment arrangement with specific donors who get choice positions at the pork barrel.
Quality has decreased ever since ACA for a number of reasons, since health insurance providers, big Pharma, and medical suppliers wrote the legislation.
Even with all of that, sadly, the US is the creme of the crap when it comes to healthcare availability, services, specialists, Emergency Medicine and EMS services, density, orthodontists, orthopedics, diagnostics, etc.
I’ve been studying this subject and have lived in 30 different nations, 8 different States, have been to hospitals all over Europe and Canada, and have analyzed the data. The math is not in favor of any of those nations compared to the US, other than costs for medicine because we pay for the development of meds, while they group buy in bulk. From 2017-2020, HHS authorized 900-1000 generic drugs each year to help cut common drug prices, but now Pfizer is back to their antics of more and more fleecing of buyers.
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@slavonskibecar No, Putin instigated the false flags in Donbas region as a pretext for the invasion in 2014. I already knew about Putin’s plan for the invasion since the mid-2000s, straight from one of the secretaries in the Russian Foreign Ministry. Ukraine is along the way to the rest of the nations he planned to invade, to include Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Finland, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, etc. I thought he was an old Soviet blow-hard (true), but there was something about it all that stuck out to me. Later in 2008 when I was in Estonia after Erna Raid, Putin invaded Georgia. Ukraine is just one of many countries Putin plans to take back into the Russian empire.
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@kingjack9502 I’ve been tracking fighter procurement, sustainment, operational, RDT&E and ODT&E costs since the 1980s. We’re talking Quadrennial Defense Budget analyses, comparisons between model numbers within series, ancillary systems costs, weapons costs, upgrades, SLEPs, etc. So I’ll continue to present my cost analyses over any of those I’ve ever seen on YouTube while watching most everyone else get it wrong every time.
We already know what the F-35A costs. Even Lot 12 F-35As cost less than Gripen, and that was years ago. The cost keeps dropping every year because the program is capitalizing on initial development costs, and is making hundreds of them. They passed 600 total airframes last year, most of those of course being F-35As. Production costs have dropped 70% since Lot 1, and manufacturing time has been cut in-half. Lot 14 (2020) unit cost for the F-35A was $77.9 million. F-35A haven’t cost anywhere near $122 million since 2008, which was $128.2 million.
F-35A unit costs have gone like this:
2007 LRIP-1: $221.2m
2007 LRIP-2: $161.7m
2008 LRIP-3: $128.2m
2010 LRIP-4: $111.6m
2012 LRIP-5: $107m
2013 LRIP-6: $103m
2013 LRIP-7: $98m
2014 LRIP-8: $98.4m
2016 LRIP-9: $102.1m
2017 LRIP-10: $94.6m
2018 LRIP-11: $89.2m
2019 LRIP-12: $82.4m
2020 LRIP-13: $79.2m
2020 LRIP-14: $77.9m
As they’ve cut the production time in half, it’s more profitable to make more at a lower price and generate more orders. F-35A is a package deal. It has to be per the H-X contract with 10% of the total invested into Finland, no matter where it comes from.
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@harri9885 Now factor in cost per loss with Su-57 linked with Super Flankers. Russia will use Super Flankers to bait the Gripen E into an Su-57 ambush. Not very smart. Read up on the Chinese PLAAF Falcon Strike exercises with Royal Thai Air Force from 2015-2019. First they brought Su-27SKs vs RTAF Gripen Cs. Gripen C smoked the Su-27 in BVR, but got slaughtered in WVR due to the HMS with R-73 and Flanker maneuverability/excess thrust advantage. Chinese didn’t like getting beat in BVR so they brought J-10s afterwards with a bigger AESA, IRST, and PL-15 missiles, as well as data link to take away the Gripen C advantage.
SAAB technicians took a lot of those results and upgraded into the Gripen E as foreign buyers pulled out of Gripen agreements. So you’re looking at a last-ditch technology, obsolete airframe design that is already struggling to keep up with Chinese copies of the Lavi.
The Russians also looked at those exercises and are cycling all their operational Su-27SM2s through upgrade into SM3, as well as Su-30SM into SM2 standard. This will give every legacy Sukhoi that stays in the fleet giant PESA radars, more modern IRST, new cockpits with 4 large displays, new AL-31F-M1 engines, data links, etc. Su-30SM2 are brought up to standards as close to what the Su-35 has in its systems as well, so all will be interoperable with Su-57 and each other.
Gripen E should have first-look against Su-27SM3 and Su-30SM2, as long as the Su-57 isn’t jamming or deceiving it. The tactics make sense to use Flankers as bait and kill with the Su-57, or use Flankers for setting up initial volleys of R-77-1 BVR missile launch, forcing Gripen E defensive and set-up for being run-down. It’s not the platform I would want to hedge my bets on air defense with for Finnish airspace.
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walker Every single one of these major corporate ad agencies, disguised as news media, including Fox, are all funded by Merck, Bayer, Pfizer, GloxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, etc. Trump is the only President who worked hard to stop the rapid increases in costs of medicine, which were reaping in insane profits for the drug manufacturers. Trump’s HHS directors pushed for an average of 1000 generic drugs per year from 2017-2020. As a result, the bog Pharma ad agencies went on full court 24/7 press running negative stories on Trump every single day of his Presidency, and he still surged in votes in 2020 unlike any other sitting President. The same big corporate sponsors told the Biden handlers that they would pull out all the stops to get him elected, with the full support from Big Tech.
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@Khyberization He’s been forecasting the decline of China for about 20 years, and most/all of the things he talked about back then have slowly been happening in real-time. I was a subscriber to STARTFOR back in the 2000s-2010s, where he was one of the chief analysts. They used to have a very respected economist come on who talked about how China was taking over, vs Peter Zeihan who would discuss all these major structural issues with their demographics, corruption, financial illiteracy, military incompetence, theft, environmental disasters with seasonal flooding wiping out cities, and capital flight with the billionaires and multi-millionaires investing in the West. Very good, respectful debates with tons of information, maps, statistics, and graphs to support each of their arguments.
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@davedevonlad7402 Yes, we were involved with the weapons and systems capabilities expansion on the F-16 CTF at Edwards, so it's something I've tracked in great detail. Most of the information isn't well-known or even understood by aviation geeks, let alone interested viewers.
Short story is there are big differences between an F-16AM MLU and a late Block CM model Viper that has gone through CCIP 1 & 2. Most of it isn't OSINT.
F-16AM is highly-capable in the Air-to-Air role though. Su-30 & Su-35 have much larger PESA Radars that should give earlier detection and tracking, and they fly faster/higher profiles with pretty long stick BVRAAMs that would make life hard for any Viper, minus Block 70.
If coordinated with SAMBushes, the F-16AM would be more survivable and lethal, but it really lacks the anti-SAM site capabilities that the US F-16CM+ Vipers have with HARM & HTS.
It might increase the sortie rates for launching VLO cruise missiles though if they configure F-16AMs for that, as they have done to the Su-24M.
They have also configured MiG-29s to launch HARMs, so maybe there is work being done to at least rig F-16AMs to launch it as well. The biggest missing pieces are the HTS and training for D/SEAD, which is extremely difficult for a single seat fighter.
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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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Finland has not made the decision yet. The final stage of evaluation and bidding offers are being made this month, with the acceptance offer taking place this summer based on the program schedule.
An interesting discussion about projected sortie rates, survivability, follow-on sortie capability, in relation to cost has driven much of the decision-making.
If a fighter doesn't have a high survivability rate, it can't return and re-arm/refuel, which means it's a huge strategic, tactical, and economic loss.
The fighter needs to have future-proof capability and open architecture upgradeability with 10% of the budget going into Finnish infrastructure per the program outline.
The most lethal and survivable option will be the most affordable overall, because it reduces threats quickly while surviving to regenerate and fly another sortie.
Gripen E/F + GlobalEye presents a very costly strategic scenario because you have 3 airframes, with GlobalEye representing huge up-front and mx costs with extreme vulnerability during an initial strike from the threat. A single GlobalEye costs around 500 million euros up-front. The H-X budget is 10 billion euros, and 10% of that has to go towards Finnish Air Force personnel/logistics.
The question becomes, which option is actually lethal against the Su-57 and Super Flankers, as well as S-400?
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@benmllr5499 Europe negotiates wholesale costs for US drugs, and never put in the billions of research and development into modern emergency medical systems, diagnostics, equipment, and procedures. Europe enjoys massive financial benefits on the backs of US taxpayers as if it was still 1945-1960s.
Stupid/greedy American politicians just keep facilitating it with hidden deals and bribes. UK, Germany, France, and NATO nations have enjoyed special financial treatment for generations not only in the medical field, but in defense, science, technology, telecom, education, heavy industries, etc.
US wanted to ensure a hedge against Russian expansion and was willing to allow grossly-unfair trade deals to the US, which Europe has abused, especially after 1992.
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@barneycasting8331 If you do an economic, agricultural, and industrial analysis of the US, you'll see what I'm talking about.
A lot of people who don't study any relevant metrics start to believe that because a country has a name, a flag, a capitol city, and some kind of economy, it levels well with everyone else.
This is far from reality. A basic geographic study of the US will show you how unique it is compared to the rest of the world.
Then look at demographics, agriculture, rail, highways, airports, sea ports, refineries, scores of huge cities and industrial centers all over the various US regions. There is nothing like it on the planet.
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@negativeionz I have to agree with you there. I’ve been studying virology, epidemiology, and immunology since 1997, marginal to my main focal areas, but more out of an interest in my survival.
I approached my analysis of SARSCoV with a timeline method, leaving out anything from 2020, so 1999-2019. The picture that emerged was very damning and quite ominous. Patent applications for zoonotic-to-human CV are easily seen in US Patent and Trade Office dating to 2002, with Dr. Baric’s name as one of the applicants. Patent description details artificial spike protein manipulation with positively-charged amino acids, and chimeric organisms as test subjects used to get the zoonotic disease to jump to humans.
They ran the chimeric research at UNC Chapel Hill, with Shi Zhengli as one of the researchers until it was banned in 2014, at which time she picked up shop and took it to Wuhan. They took human fetal lung stem cell tissue and infused it into mice embryos until they successfully made mice with little human lungs.
Then got the spike protein-augmented bat CV to successfully bond to the endothelia of the chimeric human/mice organisms.
Fauci oversaw this from a funding aspect, and continued to fund it in Wuhan. He’s referenced in Moderna’s 2019 shareholder report (scrubbed but accessible through wayback), along with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DARPA, BARDA, and other unnamed entities down at the bottom of the report. Moderna’s CEO paints a picture to investors of a windfall in billions of dollars coming soon due to their work with mRNA technologies (without mentioning that every single clinical trial failed).
The Ukraine invasion was really a bleed valve for all the mounting pushback against government lock-downs, masking, and injection policies, so an unusual amount of effort was redirected away from social unrest in Canada, the US, and Europe. That doesn’t detract from the fact that Putin invaded a sovereign nation without provocation.
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@Stlaind A-X was an Army request that got passed by DoD to the USAF after the Cheyenne helicopter failed. They wanted an armed escort for mass airmobile operations as were being used in Vietnam.
Self-propelled and towed AAA platforms, some with armored chassis, were a challenge for the AH-1 and A-1 Skyraider, and were shooting down helos and slow movers regularly, to include MEDEVAC birds and expensive Chinooks.
The A-7D could bust those AAA platforms with its payload, but it couldn't fly low and slow to escort and maintain visual acquisition for re-attack, hence A-X.
The A-10 was envisioned and designed for Vietnam. GAU-8 didn't even exist, so every time you see the claim that it was built around that weapon, look up the YA-10 with its 20mm M61 Vulcan. We were at Edwards AFB (USAF Flight Test Center) at the time when all of this went down. I remember all the failures with the gun and work-arounds to keep the engines from stalling from gun gas ingestion.
Fulda Gap was a high-speed mission profile with more advanced self-protection systems required.
A-10 was shoehorned into it because USAF was forced to give up all the A-7D squadrons (far more capable platform) in exchange for the A-10A. Talk to any A-10A pilot who was stationed in the UK and West Germany at the time and they'll tell you it was a suicide profile.
Same with the Northwest Corridor in Korea on the DMZ. They have so much AAA, MANPADS, and SAMs there that the A-10 was a strafe rag there too.
Interestingly enough, I have been stationed in all those places, with a feel for the terrain and enemy situation then and now. I have also called in F-16C Block 30 in Korea for CAS, and A-10As.
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@jimluebke3869 The young Russians I knew in Russia were very apolitical, as are most of the population. Kids just wanting to hang out with friends, sneaking into apartment stairwells to smoke, drink and listen to music.
Young adults were just looking for work or staying on their sports teams. I met one businessman who barely broached the subject of politics, complaining that it was a rigged system with no room for dissenting voices, because they would be arrested.
Russians instinctively know they have to back their strong man, because everyone is out to get them. They truly believe that greedy capitalists want to come steal their resources, as they have been told that Russia is the best, biggest country in the world with the most resources.
Never mind that they aren't a value-added economy and live in the sub-arctic with no real access to the seas or major trade routes. It's a very poor, frozen, isolated, depressed society where people don't smile. Smiling means you're basically a village idiot half-wit. "Why Sergei is smiling? Is he thick in his skull?"
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@taylorthetunafish5737 Incorrect. Sanitation, nutrition, drinkable clean water, clean bathing apparatuses, reliable clean cooking with temperature setting and monitoring, post-WWII Emergency Medicine, safety standards, infant car seats, air bags, and HVAC have contributed to longer lifespans.
Pharmaceutical companies say they are the reason, but there isn't scientific data to support that. Polio was already on its way out before the polio vaccine, for example.
Ask anyone and they will say the vaccine eradicated polio. It's all lies to make billions. Pretty simple to see when you analyze the data.
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But they made 3 totally different airframes. It was brilliant to make them use common propulsion and avionics, subsystems, and as many internal components as possible, while only sharing 20-30% commonality overall. None of them have the same wings and fuselages. The C model has different vertical and horizontal tails, landing gear, huge wings, etc. Different aerial refueling ports/probes, gun in the F-35A, no internal gun in the B or C, lift fan and shorter canopy in the B, different wings on the B, smaller weapons bays on the B, etc. Congress didn’t go to the various contractors.
The USAF, USMC, UK, and Navy formed their own studies and 6 conceptual/developmental programs, which were merged into 3 JSF variants. Congress told them no on the 6 different programs. That would have been a really expensive path to take, and would have handicapped the acquisition and O&M budgets considerably.
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@farnarkleboy F-35 parts manufacturing is international, with 15% of every single F-35 built in the UK.
Every ejection seat for F-35s is built by Martin-Baker in the UK. Canada, Norway, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, and a bunch of countries that make parts and subsystems, with 3 assembly lines in 3 different continents.
Because the break-rate is so low on F-35s, they have dramatically-superior availability and sortie-gen rates compared to any other fighter, especially Rafales and Typhoons, which are very maintenance-intensive.
Parts supply priority goes into new production F-35s and the partner nations are still finishing their logistics infrastructure.
But wrench hours on F-35s are in single digits, while Rafales, Typhoons, Super Hornets, and F-15s take dozens of hours to maintain per flight hour.
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@randypendleton2529 States need to just cut off the money to DC. We simply don’t need them. DC should be a historic district for tourists to visit, nothing more. It’s a curse and an albatross on the Nation. I was stationed and lived there for 2 years.
Congress doesn’t need to meet all the time, but they were shown a way by their organized crime swamplords in the 1920s and 1930s how to entrench and vote themselves into more salary and benefits, while creating endless bureaucracies that were basically institutionalized Federal unions where trillions of money would flow, per the orders of the swamplord bosses.
States should just tell them to get lost, there will be no money coming from us anymore, except for specific things we earmark. Bleed them dry.
Many States abstained from 16th Amendment because they knew it was Unconstitutional.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
Translation: We can do whatever we want with taxes, the Constitution be damned.
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Pourquoi les Suisses paieraient-ils presque deux fois par cellule pour obtenir moins de capacités, avec une offre douteuse, une formation des pilotes plus difficile, moins de sécurité, plus d'empreinte de moteur à réaction, pour un avion qui n'a pas fait le meilleur dans toutes les mesures qu'ils ont évaluées pendant la compétition?
Ne vous méprenez pas, le Rafale est un superbe aéronef et système de combat avec un excellent bilan de sécurité. C'est juste que le F-35 est plus facile à apprendre à piloter, qu'il s'agit du chasseur le plus sûr jamais construit et qu'il apporte une infrastructure organique d'alerte et de contrôle aéroportée en réseau qui change radicalement ce qu'une force de chasse peut fournir à une nation en ce qui concerne la couverture des capteurs. . La Suisse peut également choisir d'ouvrir le réseau de couverture de capteurs avec d'autres opérateurs de F-35 en Europe en utilisant les protocoles de liaison de données MADL, augmentant considérablement leur alerte précoce pour tout vol terroriste détourné et approchant des violateurs de l'espace aérien.
Leur voisin de la frontière sud, l'Italie, exploite non seulement 2 variantes de JSF, mais dispose également d'une chaîne de montage ouverte pour y introduire des pièces provenant d'entreprises anglaises, norvégiennes et italiennes.
Si vous considérez sans passion les variables et les mesures importantes, vous commencez à comprendre pourquoi les Suisses ont pris la décision qu'ils ont prise.
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@55metalmonkey The US of the 1800s rapidly transformed into an industrializing society with the railroad, shipping, steamboats, machinery, telegraph, ironclad ships, photography, breech-loading firearms, rifling, metallic cartridges, widespread training of doctors and nurses, universities, and territorial expansion. You can watch videos of how major cities grew, and how there were 8 major technological developments already by the Civil War that changed the world forever, stemming from the US.
By no later than 1890, the US had become the largest economy in the world, which it has held ever since.
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@55metalmonkey The countries exporting the products pay the tariffs. The US produces and exports novel or at-scale products and services in the following areas:
Refined petroleum products
Gas turbine engines (jets, generators)
Heavy equipment
Advanced Computers, electronics, and higher performance semiconductors (low and mid SCs are produced in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China)
Automobiles (much of the global fleet relies on US automobiles, work trucks)
Farming equipment
Financial services (the US banking system is the largest, most stable banking in the world)
Advanced aerospace systems
Airliners
Fighter aircraft
Cargo aircraft
Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft
Missiles of all types
Precision-guided bombs, Artillery
Advanced Unmanned Aerial Systems
Military communications systems
Construction engineering services
Petroleum exploration and engineering
Agricultural equipment
We're the #1 - #5 producer of a huge variety of foods.
Medicines
Advanced Medical equipment like MRIs, CT Scanners, cath lab equipment, instruments, etc.
It's a very long list that no other country comes even close to.
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@auzor5900 I've tracked fighter CPFH since the 1980s, so I automatically toss out corporate or legacy "news" sources because they've never been accurate about anything military aerospace related.
I learned to look at the actual services and partner nation CPFH stats. With F-35A, Norwegian Air Logistics Chief, Defense Minister, and Air Force said the F-35A cost them about the same as it did to operate & maintain the F-16AM, which was $16,000/hr at the time.
US DoD Comptroller hourly fixed wing rates have been anywhere from $13,700 - $17,030/hr for F-35A, depending on year. This has been the range throughout IOC, as I check them every year the hourly rates are published.
You see very large fluctuations in fighter CPFH as they progress through the "bathtub graph".
But none of the legacy main news sites have ever been remotely-accurate. Neither have any of the DOT&E, CBO, GAO, and JPO oversight bodies with specific oversight on the JSF program. Their numbers simply are so far off from service-reported data as to warrant a major inquiry into their methods and validity.
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@TheVanillatech I'm tracking all that. One thing to consider are the early childhood development written skills, such as penmanship, art exercises, reading comprehension Q & A, diagramming sentences, geography coloring exercises blended with art techniques, etc.
Many people are looking for coherent developmental plans that take a child from not being able to read and write, to a self-driven educational path.
Parents who were trained to be passive and respond to classroom-based stimuli don't have the on-hand solutions and familiarity with various educational aporoaches and modalities, so they are scrambling to find solutions for their families.
They're capable of creating an environment where actual learning can take place by reaching out and sourcing curriculum from where they choose.
What I've seen looking at free market curriculum companies is that most parents don't think they have time to become a curriculum development specialist, lesson planner, teacher, and long-term evaluator of each child's individual path.
This is what home education models have to tackle, so one of the most common approaches is to seek assistance from companies that specialize in this.
Every educational approach is an experiment like life in general, and many families have already seen enough of the results of public and private schooling to know they aren't interested in repeating those experiments with their children.
Instead of pointing out how insufficient parents are, I think it would help to provide avenues for them as we move forward with the rising generation.
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@Nylon_riot It’s been a passion of mine for many decades, among other things. Leif Erickson didn’t just set sail Westward on a whim into the chilly waters of the North Atlantic. There is growing evidence that there were preexisting trade routes between Europe and North America for fur, copper, and unique goods to NA, and the Norsemen knew of them in their oral history. These trade routes would have ebbed and flowed with the expansion and retraction of the northern ice.
If you look at the Great Lakes region, there’s an island that has ancient copper mines all over it with open pits still to this day that contribute to wildlife deaths (from falls, can’t escape). There is no recorded history known about who excavated and mined those pits.
The volume of copper mined out of the Great Lakes indicates that the export of the copper would have been intercontinental. Copper was very prominent in Native American civilizations and tribes, and they also traded with Central America.
Ancient Mediterranean civilizations had ships large enough to get to America and such a discovery would have been kept secret to its explorers/traders. There are stones and many other artifacts in the US alone that are engraved with ancient Phoenician/Hebrew, mound-builders who made mounds in the shapes of Minoras, and the Bat Creek Stone has an inscription that reads: “For the Judeans”. It is way pre-Columbian.
What I think we would find with a complete record would be multiple expeditions and trade routes throughout time with North America and the British Isles, Mediterranean, and Europeans covering many different eras. Chinese are the likely predecessors to the Central American Olmecs.
History gets erased by cataclysms, wars, famines, and migrations or extinctions. I have a lot of books on these subjects, and have traveled to many museums from Asia to Central America, the US, and Europe.
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I’m in a similar boat. His own 13 keys not only favors Trump/Vance/RFK Jr., but indicates a significant blow-out for the popular vote (13 keys only predicts popular vote). The 3rd party thing works as a double-false since RFK Jr. is now in the Trump campaign. It would be like Ross Perot joining one of the 2 candidates in 1992 or 1996, but he’s a Kennedy. Whoever he joined would throw the election that way.
What are the major identifiable policies that Joe & Kamala have enacted? Inflation reduction that resulted in more inflation? Open borders? Neither of these help Kamala at all. Those are giant negatives.
Scandal is in the incumbent WH for the 13 keys. Hunter Biden Ukraine, laptop, cocaine, CCP money, tax evasion, money-laundering, the gun/cocaine possession, etc. Kamala has nothing but scandals from when she was SF DA and CA AG, egregious crimes that required Supreme Court intervention against her 3 times.
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He wasn’t working for Ukrainians at Burisma, but Ethnic Russian Zlochevsky, who was appointed by Yanukovch, Putin’s puppet. Yanukovych fled in March 2014, right after Elena Baturina wired $3.5 Million to Hunter’s shell company, co-run with John Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz. Hunter’s job on Burisma was to block the Ukrainian investigation into Putin’s money-laundering through Burisma. Look at what business Elena Baturina is involved in. She’s one of Putin’s billionaire oligarchs who traffics in women. Zlochevsky fled to live in Monaco. The UK seized his illicit funds, but then Obama flew to the UK for the NATO summit in Sept 2014 and told David Cameron to release Zlochevsky’s funds, all $15 million, and to terminate the case against Zlochevsky. See how it all works now? Then Obama starts buying and building huge pieces of elite real estate on beachfront property in Martha’s Vineyard, and the mansion in DC so he can stay close to the WH to coordinate with the Hillary WH when it gets installed in 2016.
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@afranks8566 The questions/keys are mainly about the incumbent party, especially when it comes to economy, contested primary, military/foreign policy failure, military/foreign policy success.
Biden/Harris WH is seen by most voters, regardless of party, as a major failure with the Afghan withdrawal. It was worse than Saigon.
But there’s another foreign policy/domestic policy failure and that is the border. Most Americans recognize the Biden/Harris border policy as a colossal failure, with waves of crime happening now as a direct result of it. FBI had to adjust their crime stats to indicate what people already knew”. Crime is on the rise for the 1st time in decades.
Other than that, there are no definitive Biden/Harris National policies that they championed through Congress with an 81 million vote mandate from 2020. Why is that? People see them as weak, that’s why.
So no matter how you go down the 13 keys, you end up with not just a significant favorability to Trump/Vance/RFK Jr./Tulsi/Elon, but the signs of a blow-out election. We’ll see tomorrow.
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@afranks8566 He gave both economic keys to Biden/Harris. Let that sink in for a minute. Most Americans are worse off under Biden/Harris than under Trump, with some pretty extreme examples across the main indicators of housing, transportation, groceries, utilities, energy, insurance, appliances, household goods, etc.
There are new rounds of lay-offs as well, crime on the rise from all the illegals and sanctuary cities, Venezuelan gangs taking over apartments, Haitians taking over rural communuties, stuff we haven't seen before.
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BubonicTonic I’d rather they not be arrested, not imprisoned, and allowed to participate in the free marketplace without coercion from the People’s Republic of CA. The big problem is jail space for actual violent offenders like murderers, rapists, and felony assault convicts.
When LE leans on the scales and says, “Just over an ounce. That’s gonna be mandatory sentencing.” for people who just want to come home and take off some of the pain from a day’s work, and the dealers who support them.
Banks don’t want it legal because they’re making a killing in profits with no overhead, no taxes, no employment structure, no worker’s comp, no insurance, and no system that they have to support with management.
It’s easier to just allow people in the black marketplace to freely engage in illicit commerce at their own risk, while paying off politicians who get a cut of the premo product like Hunter Biden, the Bush’s, Clinton, and the crime families who sell out for their own financial gain and exemption from the law, while demanding that inner city people of color be imprisoned for life in many cases.
Look at Biden’s brother DUI/fatality case, Hunter’s numerous run-ins with crack cocaine, Biden’s niece, and how all of the criminal cases against them just magically vanished in pre-trial arrangements, while people of color sit in prison or have their lives risked fighting stupid fires in CA that could have been prevented with proper resource management.
It’s sickening really to behold.
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@MilitaryAviationHistory B-1A, Apache, Abrams, F-14, F-15, F-16, F/A-18, Harrier, F-22 all cost too much, didn’t work, unsafe, weren’t needed, etc. according to all the critics of their day.
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@jefferyroy2566 Your inflation calculation used an early 1980s unit flyaway cost for the F-15C, listed in 1998. The F-15C as delivered from 1979-1986 went through a series of inflation-related price increases. If an F-15C was $30 million in 1984, that same unmodified aircraft today would be $86 million. Off the top of my head, I remember it being at least $36 million, if not $42 million by 1986. It was similar to the F-14A in the Defense Quadrennial Review Budget I used to follow and track those specific programs from.
Now you need to account for the fact that we upgraded the F-15C with several different iterations of the APG-63 since that time, as well as several other major overhauls that included SLEP, MIDS/JTIDS, new motors (original engines were failure-prone), JHMCS, new weapons expansion and interoperability for AIM-120C series, Link-16, AESA, etc. An F-15C+ flying in 2022 is well over a $125 million dollar sunk costs machine, and limited to certain g and speed restrictions so they don’t fall apart, which has happened. Keeping the F-15C fleet longer than its designed service life has actually cost us more across the board than if we had replaced them with F-22As. It has hurt the Air Force economically and capability-wise, as well as our industrial base.
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@redslate Block 40 F-16C/D (Night Falcon we called it at the time) was $42 million unit flyaway without the LANTIRN or any ECM pods in 1988. That would be $105.7 million for a non CCIP, non-mission capable, old APG-68 Radar-equipped Viper in 2022 dollars. We have put most of those birds through 2 CCIPs since then, but not all of them. Some still are not D-SEAD equipped after CCIP 1 & 2.
Once you add each CCIP phase/depot-level 45 day overhaul where we add the AIFF, new APG-68(V)7 through 9, Link-16 MIDS, new CPDs to replace the MFDs, JHMCS sensors and helmet, wiring upgrades, Radios, GPS, JDAM, AIM-9X, AIM-120C7 interoperability, new landing hear, bulkhead and spar checks/repairs, etc. you’re looking at another $20-$35 million per aircraft. That doesn’t include the new SABR AESA Radar some of them are getting. Over 600 Late Block Vipers are getting new AESA Radars, which costs a boat load of money. This does not include the new FLIR pod, ECM pod, PIDS/PIDSU pylons, or HARM Targeting System pod. Each of those pods costs millions of dollars.
They are way more expensive than an F-35A even back when F-35As were over $100 million. F-35A is a steal in comparison, with far more capabilities, safety, survivability, tougher airframe, longer service life airframe, and open architecture upgradeability that is more programming/software-centric than hardware like the F-16. Hopefully this helps put the cost analysis into better perspective.
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@jefferyroy2566 All of us are not limited to published reports from GAO or DoD because some of us actually worked on these things and have lived with them since they were born until later Block maturation. I’m most familiar with the F-16 and F-15 in that regard, but some of the things we worked on ran in parallel with the A-10, AV-8, F/A-18 and F-14.
The 6 precursors to the JSF program were originally caste in 1980s mindset but the technology was already matured well into the late 1990s. The inertia of the various technology paths made what was intended to be a multirole, mass-produced, single engine fighter into an Omnirole, Next-Generation, Networked Combat System that exceeds the performance of all of the legacy fighters in each of their strongest mission sets.
New Hill AFB F-35A pilots humiliated seasoned F-15C+ pilots in PACOM in BVR, for example.
As soon as 2 F-35s are airborne, AWACS birds become relatively useless.
Dedicated spy platforms couldn’t locate what F-35s accidentally located in CENTCOM, including White House/NCA-named Priority Targets.
F-35A and C have combat radii like the A-7D/E or better, with more payload, with strike capabilities that have strategic implications like the FB-111A.
USAF never replaced the EF-111A EW aircraft and saw no need to after certain offensive EW capabilities with JSF were realized/designed into the sensor/antennae suite and processors.
US Navy is seeing capabilities with the F-35C they never envisioned that add extremely difficult problems for Russian and Chinese sub-surface platforms, while networking with P-8A Poseidon ASW/Patrol aircraft and RQ-4C Triton extended duration drones.
What you’re seeing is only the tip of the iceberg with the JSF series, a very tiny, minuscule, meaningless tip talking about dogfighting, how it compares with F-16s, etc. These conversations are meaningless in the grand scheme.
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@redslate Re: Beast Mode. You don’t need to load it with weapons on the external pylons for Night One or VLO profile mission sets. A big mistake people make here is thinking that legacy fighters like the F-16 and F/A-18 carry more mission-relevant weapons when combat-configured. The most overlooked component of this is what we call fuel fraction. You will never see an F-16CM or F/A-18C without External Fuel Tanks (EFTs) when pilots are stepping out before launching for combat or even most training sorties.
You will never see an F-16CM without its FLIR or 800lb centerline ECM pods, which now means 3 of the heavy pylons are taken for fuel and ECM. That leaves you only with stations 3 & 7 for Air-to-Ground munitions. The other stations 1, 2, 8, & 9 are only for Air-to-Air missiles. "A ha!” you say, 4 AAMs is better than 2, right?
An F-35 with “only” 2 AIM-120s has more "stowed kills" than an F-16CM with 4. Why? Because an F-16CM lights up like a huge reflector on surface and airborne radars, so it can’t enter a BVR skirmish one-sided. It also has to face some of the more-capable modern BVR systems in threat inventories today, which include hypersonic AAMs and LRBVRAAMs fired from fighters with large PESA or AESA Radars, with superior cruise and acceleration speeds above Flight Level 250. F-16CM with pods and bags is a struggle bus in the transonic flight regime, needs to jettison the EFTs, can’t jettison the FLIR and ECM.
So an F-35 with 2x AIM-120C7 or Ds can set up into really unfair No Escape Zone parameters for those missiles while its prey doesn’t even realize it’s there. An F-16C cannot unless it’s enabled by F-35s or F-22s, and even then it is vulnerable. F-16CM usually carries 2x AIM-120s and 2x AIM-9s, not 4x AIM-120s because they are configured for D-SEAD. They rely on the protection from F-22As and F-35s.
When the F-35 carries 2x AIM-9X Block II+ in addition to 4x AIM-120, those external AIM-9X do not increase the frontal RCS enough to significantly alter its A2A mission profile and VLO capabilities. They do increase side aspect RCS a bit, but not frontal much at all.
We also don’t configure all the aircraft the same, whether they’re F-16CMs or F-35As. Some F-35As can lean heavy on A2A while others lean on A2G.
F-35A Block 3 A2A configurations:
4x AIM-120C7/D or
4x AIM-120 + 2x AIM-9X or
F-35B UK
2x AIM-120 + 2x Meteor + 2x ASRAAM
The swing-role strikers will be configured thusly:
2x AIM-120 + 2x GBU-31 or
2x AIM-120 + 8x SDBs or
2x AIM-120 + 1x GBU-31 + 4x SDBs
etc.
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@redslate I'm referencing the actual unit flyaway costs each year, which I have followed throughout the program from the DoD and each production lot, as well as Foreign Military Sales contracts which are purchased through DoD at US bulk rates. No matter what you do to the F-35 unit flyaway and unit program costs, you will never get them over legacy airframe costs though. There are tons of hidden costs with the aircraft we worked on that you don't see. You can't hide them in the accounting system with JSF because all the former ancillary pods, sensors, and countermeasures are fully-integrated into the physical structure of the F-35s.
On the teens, those are hidden or separated not only in the budget, but in the maintenance and FMC/MC rate reports as well.
Look at the Finnish acquisition contract. They published the whole thing in detail. It was not only the most capable fighter submission, but the most affordable. Swiss competition said the same thing. They're not using 2012 dollars. Finnish contract for 64 F-35As was signed in 2022 at 73.4 million Euros per, with a huge weapons and support package to go along with it.
They evaluated the F-35A, Typhoon Tr4, Rafale F4, Block 3 Super Hornet/Growler, and Saab Gripen/GlobalEye AWACS submissions for 7 years. Winner was announced Dec 2021, contract signed in 2022.
Typhoon and Rafale were 142-160€ million, making them over 200€ million unit program cost (just like the India deal) with weapons and support. They got dropped from the finalists. Same thing happened with the Swiss competition.
The F-35A has proven repeatedly to be the most affordable, best ROI fighter in the West. Non-US aligned nations don't have an answer to it or any options to acquire something like it. Russia and France haven't manufactured an affordable single engine fighter in many years. That ended with the MiG-23, which was a strafe rag for the F-15 & F-16 in the early 1980s, as well as for F-15Cs again in Desert Storm.
Anyone who isn't aligned with the US and doesn't have access to the JSF program is being left behind. This is a huge paradigm shift in the global security space that we haven't seen before.
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@monty2654 F-14s, F-15s, and our 613 front-line F-16CM+ airframes all cost more than F-35s. A big mistake people make is look at old 1970s-1990s acquisition year unit flyaway costs for those aircraft, then compare them to F-35s bought from 2015-2022 and think F-35s cost more.
You not only have to run the 1970s-1990s unit flyaway cost airframes through an inflation calculator, but also add the SLEP and MLU costs per airframe. In each case, you find that the teen fighters cost more.
Their acquisition and losses are a much more expensive undertaking than JSF both up-front, and on the back-end for mishaps. The most glaring cost with the teens was and is fatalities.
The US has been flying hundreds of F-35A/B/C fighters from bases and carriers all over the world now for years. First flights were 2006-2010. IOC was in the mid 20teens. Over 894 airframes delivered. Not 1 US or NATO fatality. That has never happened before in a single fighter design, let alone a CT, STOVL, and CV series. Japan is the only operator to have lost a pilot, who flew from high altitude into the ocean at a 60° nose-down attitude.
JSF is dramatically safer. That's what I've been trying to communicate, but since all the click bait sites written by ignoramuses dominates the information flow, we have millions of people literally thinking they're better informed without any actual math to back up the click-bait.
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@monty2654 Only problem with that logic is I don't have click-bait articles designed to snag ad shares, so....that angle doesn't fly.
You realize it requires intellect to understand even the basics of this subject? It's not something you can step into with minimal knowledge and be even remotely informed about.
That's one of the biggest fallacies I see in this age, where people think they have a right to their facts based on clicking on sites that look valid, when in reality, those sites aren't legitimate at all. Their staff are ignoramuses at best. Even several of the amateur enthusiast sites proclaiming to be solid sources are breathless retards who copy-paste some things they read, having zero background in aerospace disciplines.
These guys act like this is the first time they've ever seen a fighter development program....because it is, only they never bothered to check relevant historical data on costs, mishaps, crashes, maintenance, cost overruns, program delays, technical data, deployment schedules, or fleet groundings.
This is why they have zero business even discussing aerospace matters.
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@georgeorwell7291 The US has shifted to a more value-added job market, but tons of those jobs have been transferred to Asia and Mexico too.
Assembly lines with Robotic augmentation still need skilled labor on the floor, above the floor, in the offices, and ancillary companies doing programming, software, firmware, design, repairs, parts supplies, and other services.
US Defense manufacturing demand is only increasing as well.
There are millions of opportunities to level-up jobs throughout the US.
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This is part of the Soviet Active measures program: to eradicate what made America strong, like common faith, family values, literacy, education, uplifting art, classical literature, and foundational history.
Karl Marx hated his own Jewish family with demonic fervor, but always seemed to show up when they died to see what inheritance was for him. This is why the Soviet policy was anti-Zionist, and had a lot of apostate atheist jews in leadership.
If you find yourself changing Soviet slogans unknowingly, realize you've been misled for a long time.
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@MrClarkM Gripen E costs way more than even the future Block 4 F-35A, while the Gripen E underperforms in every relevant fighter metric and has lost all of the competitions it entered recently. Only bribes have been able to secure 1 Gripen E contract and at least 3 Gripen C/D contracts. Saab’s marketing firm was fined $400 million for 2 of the bribery scandals after they pled guilty to those charges (Hungary and Czechia). The South African Air Force scandal is so bad, that all of their Gripen C/Ds are now in storage because they can’t afford to fly them. That was also the result of a bribery scandal.
F-35As are cheaper than Gripen E when you look at the contacts. The Swiss and Finnish deals show that openly. The Finns even published the detailed breakdown of all the costs. Saab refuses to publish the unit flyaway cost on the Gripen E/F, but the Unit Program Cost was $155 million per for Brazil. That includes spares, training, pylons, fuel tanks, ladders, support, and weapons.
F-35A is way lower than that. The Finns were able to buy even more weapons once they saw how great of a deal they were getting, on top of the F-35A smoking all the competitors in the 7 year H-X evaluation.
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Many of Ukraine's elections have been more legitimate than the US's, especially after they overturned the results in 2006. Even still, Putin eventually got his puppet in with the 2010 election, Yanukovych. Ukraine finally threw him out in March 2014, then coincidentally, Russia invaded Donbas. Putin also funneled millions to Vice President Biden's family that year, with $3.5 million to Hunter in Feb 2014, and Hunter getting placed on the board of Burisma by May, to shield the investigation into Zlochevsky.
Sep 2014, Obama flew to the UK to meet with David Cameron, demanding that MI5 and MI6 shut down their investigation into...Zlochevsky.
Zlochevsky was the CEO of Burisma, acting as a front for stealing Ukrainian energy revenue and funneling it into Putin's accounts in Cyprus, Switzerland, Panama, etc.
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Mr.KNUTSON. General, would there be any objection, on page 1, line 4, after the word” shotgun” to add the words” or rifle” having a barrel less than 18 inches? The reason I ask that is I happen to come from a section of the State where deer hunting is a very popular pastime in the fall of the year and, of course, I would not like to pass any legislation to forbid or make it impossible for our people to keep arms that would permit them to hunt deer.
Attorney General CUMMINGS. Well, as long as it is not mentioned at all, it would not interfere at all.
Mr. KNUTSON. It seems to me that an 18 -inch barrel would make this provision stronger than 16 inches, knowing what I do about firearms.
Attorney General CUMMINGS. Well, there is no objection as far as we are concerned to including rifles after the word” shotguns” if you desire.
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@HumanBeingsRThinkingBeings Uh, Russia has used microwave weapons against US diplomats in Cuba when we tried to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba under Trump WH. Imagine if the US used microwave energy weapons on Russian foreign services personnel in countries along Russia’s borders? Japan, China, Korea, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, all throughout Europe...
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@billmmckelvie5188 UK standards for yomping are very high for sure. I've worked with Royal Marines who reminded me of how fast the ruck marches are in Ranger Regiment.
SAS and SBS used AR-15s in Falklands. Especially when you make contact, have to maneuver, and sweep over the enemy with bounds or flanking, 20rd mag-fed 7.62 NATO is a handicap compared to lighter 30rd mag-fed 5.56 rifles or carbines.
I was in 7 different units during my time in the Army. In 2 of those units, we had 7.62 NATO M-14s and M-21s for Sniper Support Rifles, alongside M16A1s or M16A2s, (which were replaced with M4s in 1997).
The main thing really missing is a permanent Designated Marksman program in the US Army.
There were some initiatives during GWOT that seemed to get traction, but then eroded away.
In the UK, they made DMs/Sharpshooters part of the tables of organization in the rifle section in each platoon, issuing them LMT L129A1 7.62 NATO 16" DMRs.
It's a rather heavy weapon, but quite accurate and extremely durable. The barrel can be replaced by the end-user in about 1 minute.
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@billmmckelvie5188 7.62 NATO should have never been born. The UK was working on superior cartridges after WWII, but the US kinda screwed UK and NATO over with the T65/7.62 NATO by continuing to use a battle rifle cartridge, even though we had decades of lessons-learned by that point with the After-Action Reports from the Great War, and the same reports from WWII.
.30 bore cartridges with that much propellant generated too much recoil, muzzle blast, weighed too much, and required heavier rifles. Army Ordnance engineers drove the development of a new .30 cal rifle cartridge that was supposed to duplicate the performance of Rifle, .30 Caliber M2 ammunition (.30-06 Springfield), but from a shorter case, by increasing the chamber pressure.
They thought this could replace SMGs, Rifles, BARs, M1919 GPMGs, and M-1/M-2 Carbines with a single cartridge in 2 different weapons, namely the M-14 and M60.
What really should have been done was develop a High Performance Intermediate Rifle Cartridge in .257” to .264”, similar in configuration to the original British EM-2 Rifle cartridge, but with slightly less diameter for better sectional density.
So Cartridge Overall Length would be shorter than 7.62 NATO, while retained energy on-target would be very similar, but with 50%-60% reduction in recoil.
7.62 NATO was really a mistake and a missed opportunity that has plagued us to this day.
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I wouldn't call MiG-29s, MiG-25PDs, Mirage F1EQs, and even some of the MiG-23MF with IRSTs outdated and inferior.
But I also agree you can't award the F-15A/C alone for its kill ratios. Its capabilities do play a significant role in its undefeated air superiority record though.
The radar stands out as the biggest factor in all of that. It was the first fighter radar that worked extremely well, and was able to filter ground clutter out, with very long detection and tracking ranges.
Its mission radius/persistence is another factor, as is the common 8x AAM payload.
If you look at all of its intercepts, AWACS almost always played a big factor in getting initial Bearing/Range/Altitude vectors, but AWACS had a significant range error that had to be determined by Eagles.
EW support from jammer aircraft was also a factor in the 1982 Bekaa Valley and 1991 ODS kills, which form the bulk of its 108:0 kill record.
Recent kills have been against drones over Syria, including Iranian armed drones that delivered munitions danger-close to US CJSOTF personnel. Mud Hens added those kills.
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@sshhaaddooww1813 Do you want to change your life and outlook for the better? Read a book about Trump pre-2016, or anything dispassionate from people who actually worked in the WH around him. He brings in people that disagree on many things and asks for them to "Hit me with it straight." especially if it's uncomfortable.
All Presidents and famous leaders have had a cultivated and crafted public image, and their real demeanor left for private.
Obama is an absentee lazy guy who felt entitled, too above the job, simply couldn't be bothered with most of WH affairs. Didn't consult with Dems in Congress on much of anything, was hard to reach, didn't give inner city black leaders the time of day. He harnessed the desire of the Nation to put a cap on healing of any residual racial tension for political gain, then tore open the old wounds with agitation and vengeance.
George W. Bush is a crack-up who is a social butterfly, loves getting people together to stir up conversations and debate. He's probably the most well-read US President of the last 100 years, very sharp, former F-102A pilot, used to party a lot including booze and cocaine. In public, he sounds like a slow, rural Texan and a clumsy public speaker. He said specifically he didn't want to come off like a know-it-all like Newt Gingrich and academics, because it alienates voters.
Clinton will literally beeline straight for your wife in front of you. He grew up in a big buick dealership family who adopted him after his mom married into them. Grandpa Clinton taught him and drilled him on memory training skills.
He had a convertible Buick at age 16 in Arkansas and got used to women chasing him until it was boring, then got into edgier behavior. Huge drug abuser to include a lot of pot and cocaine, overdosed after losing reelection as Governor in 1980.
George H.W. Bush was very calculated, a carpetbagger from CT, Bonesman at Yale. Moved to Texas to work with guys in the oil business as part of his CIA cover after the war. He was still in US Navy service until 1955, even though he got out Sept 1945. He went into the oil industry in Texas and went quickly from salesman to CEO of his own oil drilling company. He also liked to sound like a Texan, but was very calculated behind the scenes, very disciplined. He was the last US President with a foreign policy focus.
Find people you dislike politically, and read a wide range of books on them. It will expand your thoughts and point of view greatly.
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@toxichazard5015 Only .9kg is 1.98lbs. That's huge when talking about assault element going through the breech and CQB, let alone forced marches and cross-loading.
Zoom out to the platoon distribution of ammunition, mortar rounds, aid bags, Anti-Armor weapons, litters, ladders, grenades, smokes, demo, pyro, Radios, batteries, NODs, water, meals, cold weather gear, and if every swinging pipe-hitter has an extra 2lbs on him, that's 48lbs of unavailable weight that could have been available if they were issued C8s instead.
British Infantry Platoon with 30 men, HQ plus 3x Rifle Sections, 6 men with L129 and L7 not counted. The rest carry L85s.
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@michaelkeller5008 GAO takes the whole Block 2 USAF, USMC, and USN fleet, adds those to the larger Block 3 fleet, then amortizes the anticipated costs over the lifetime of JSF to upgrade Block 2 to the 3 and later 4 standard, then manufactures that imaginary $30,00]-$32,000 CPFH, while actual squadrons are seeing a daily-limited non-amortized CPFH of $16,952 average with F-35A.
Pentagon basically doubles the number to get the spares they need, because Congress has been prioritizing new airframes over spares, even when the services ask for fewer airframes and more spares.
Welcome to US DoD acquisitions game. FMS customers in Europe and Pacific are reporting $21,000 CPFH on F-35A even with new logistics amortized.
Switzerland cut through all of those numbers and saw how much more affordable the F-35A is.
The crazy thing when you look through the detailed 2020 and 2021 DoD Comptroller rates is that the F-35B and F-35C are even less per hour than F-35A.
Those of us familiar with USAF crafty ways of getting more money are not surprised. None of this has much to do with FMS customers, so anytime you see $30,000 CPFH, just know it's a way to milk Congress.
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@bryanekers3472 And just to give a little more perspective on this: I’ve been shooting since the 1970s, no big deal. Been shooting Long Range as my job (3 Scout Sniper/Recon Platoons in US Army), a competitor, or instructor since 1995. I’ve been conducting and publishing internal, external, and terminal ballistics studies on a 6.5mm cartridge that duplicates the 6.5x52 Carcano external ballistics since 2013, where I and 2 other professionals collaborated on the research and testing.
One of the co-authors is a retired USAF pilot/DoD advanced weapons test & evaluation officer/engineer who worked at one of the US National Labs.
The other is a PhD in biomedical engineering, with a long history in shooting as well.
We submitted out work to peer-review among stablished labs, big industry companies, and engineers who specialize in this field, to ensure we weren’t publishing anything erroneous.
Additionally, I have extensive training and hands-on experience with combat trauma management, anatomy and physiology, and live tissue training in a specific medical center for USSOCOM, which gave me access to the closed library at that institution, as well as the day-to-day terminal ballistics effects from high velocity projectiles in animal tissue.
I read the various professional reports associated with the JFK assassination from that context, including the doctor reports, LEO findings, rifle characteristics, and the Zapruder film.
I’m not a casual observer just looking at some evidence swaying me one way or another, and I am able to sift through a lot of misdirection or falsehoods and mistakes I commonly see made by both apologists for the WC, as well as those who challenge its findings.
My bottom line motive is the truth. One of the first red flags I remember reading in the WC summary was the FBI Marksmanship Unit unable to zero the rifle without shims in the scope mount. That did not generate much confidence at all. Then there was the claim with the single bullet theory. The more I read, the more it felt like a construct by a group of people who were told to make it fit, rather than let the material facts develop the true narrative.
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@bryanekers3472 It's just a coincidence that it matches the description of the rifle the 4 police officers originally gave for the rifle they found in the TSBD, a 7.65 Mauser.
Boone, Captain Fritz, Weitzman, and Roger Craig were all present when they found the 7.65 Mauser.
News reported that a Mauser rifle was found in the TSBD, then the rifle at Dallas PD was shown to be a 6.5 Carcano.
The 4 officers were told they made a mistake and to change their reports. All but 1, Roger Craig, changed their testimony. Roger Craig refused, was fired, and then suffered through numerous attacks, a car bomb, and then committed suicide before he could testify before the HSCA.
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@bryanekers3472 It wasn't just Hathcock, but the USMC Scout Sniper Instructor course cadre, and SWAT sniper course attendees Carlos trained. They did it as an exercise in at least one course. It's not a single shot, but multiple shots in an allotted time with repeatable shot placement. Another interesting thing about that was that students could duplicate it with a tuned precision sniper system, but not the 6.5 Carcano. Bolt manipulation was too stiff, not smooth enough. Trigger weight too heavy, rifles were inaccurate.
One of the guys who was at a local rifle range in Texas said Oswald accidentally/inadvertently shot his targets at the range, so he went to go talk to him about it. Either the scope wasn't zeroed, or he got misoriented on the range.
FBI Report in WC says the 6.5 Carcano rifle wasn't zeroed. They had to install shims in the scope mount to get it zeroed. I remember reading that over 30 years ago and realizing the physical evidence did not support the WC conclusions, but they must have counted on people just not reading it.
The more you study it, the more things like this emerge, starting in the WC summary itself.
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@vaataja The more Russian tanks, fighters, missiles, artillery, trucks, APCs, drones, and resources spent in Ukraine, the less options they have to invade Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
If Zelensky had taken Biden's offer in Feb, 2022, Kiev would have fallen, Moldova would be annexed, Russian forces would be staged along the Western borders in Belorussia, Ukraine, Moldova prepping the false flags to invade Poland and/or Finland.
All the troops and equipment destroyed over the past 23 months would be relocated to Saint Petersburg and Western front military districts.
Europe owes Zelensky and the Ukrainians a huge thanks for delaying this new adventurous dictator's expansion. Putin has had this planned since the early 2000s.
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@raqueljacobs1542 The US experienced substantial and steady economic growth in the 1800s-early 1900s, including massive industrial growth. Foreign banks from Europe didn’t like the lack of control that they were accustomed to with their empires, so they created a system where US taxpayers foot the bill for the new currency (against the very specific dictates of the Constitution), loaned to them by a hybrid bank network with a US name but mostly foreign ownership, and US taxes backing a new exploitative financial scheme that benefitted the creators of that system.
US economic explosion happened after WWII, where we financed the new naval and military protection of international trade under Bretton Woods, leading to a globalist economy where the participants didn’t have to pay a dime into the protection scheme.
Tariffs benefitted the US tremendously because we had/have more of what other nations need/want than we need/wanted of their products and services. Huge factors in that are:
1. US is the largest bread basket in the world with the longest harvest seasons.
2. US has the most vast connected river network on the planet, with more deep sea ports along all 3 of our gigantic coastlines (not even counting Alaska).
3. US consumes most of its domestic product, doesn’t rely on critical industries from other nations (food, energy, defense).
4. US is geographically isolated from any threat nations.
Tariffs are a superior position from which the US can maintain its trade relationships. Our new trade policies are effectively going to be tariff-based anyway, where Canada and Mexico got on board early with NAFTA, and anyone else who wants to enjoy a kind of favorable trade status with us must submit to our terms, no real negotiating.
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@JhonPCT L'une des principales causes mécaniques des pertes totales d'avions et des décès de pilotes était les défaillances des APU jusqu'aux chasseurs monomoteurs de 4e génération comme le F-16.
Dans le cadre des efforts visant à améliorer la technologie globale des chasseurs à l'avenir, nous avons consacré de nombreuses années de recherche, de développement, de test et d'évaluation aux programmes AFTI F-16 et F-18 HARV à la base aérienne d'Edwards aux États-Unis.
C'est ce dont je parlais par rapport aux accidents. L'augmentation de la fiabilité de la puissance auxiliaire réduit le nombre total d'accidents.
La plupart des accidents avec les conceptions des années 1970 et 1980 étaient des erreurs de pilotage, des pertes de conscience G, des collisions en vol et des accidents d'atterrissage, mais une partie pourrait être attribuée à des problèmes mécaniques.
La différence dans un APU fiable est celle qui peut permettre une récupération sûre de l'avion, et celle où l'APU est à court d'énergie avant que le pilote ne puisse atterrir. Cela s'est produit plusieurs fois avec le F-16, et cela arrive encore occasionnellement.
Le Rafale et les 3 variantes JSF ont d'excellents antécédents de sécurité par rapport aux F-14, F-15, F-16, F/A-18, Harrier, Mirage III et Mirage 2000.
Idem avec l'Eurofighter Typhoon. La série Super Hornet se situe quelque part entre les deux, mais est bien meilleure que le F/A-18. Nous avons perdu au moins 94 F/A-18 avec 20 pilotes tués au cours de ses 10 premières années de service.
Cela coûterait 9,19 milliards de dollars aujourd'hui rien que pour les cellules du Hornet, sans compter les coûts engloutis dans les mises à niveau de la durée de vie, les pods attachés, les armes ou les ajouts.
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@Karl-Benny Finland selected F-35A after years of research and evaluation today. They stated that it was the most affordable and capable option of the 5 contenders. Typhoon and Rafale didn’t make the initial cost selection criteria because they were too expensive, unsustainable, and didn’t offer much industrial share. F-35A matched or exceeded all participants in the military performance evaluations with the highest overall score in a very comprehensive capabilities assessment. 2nd place was 3.81, while F-35A was 4.47. Threshold was 4/5.
Finland asked Norway and other European F-35A operators what actual costs they are seeing in O&M. Norway said twice now that it only costs 11,000 euros/hr to operate, fuel, replace spares, maintain, and pay personnel on F-35As, same as their F-16AM/BMs.
Instead of your $352 million lifetime O&M cost, it would actually be only $88 million for an 8,000hr airframe life, not including mid-life upgrades.
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RINOs are and always have been a disgrace. Democrat Party has been a massive repugnant stain to the Nation since Slavery, Rconstruction, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Obama. Reagan was one of the only good ones though. Both parties have been owned by Mafia, foreign interests, and K-street corporate kleptocrats. Freedom Caucus is the only bod within Congress actually fighting for the survival of the Nation. Mike Johnson is part of the Freedom Caucus, one of the only 3 clean Speakers the US has had in the last 50 years.
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The critical and very clear technological differences between the generations start with propulsion. After that you look at structures, avionics, sensors, weapons employment, man machine interface, materials science, and performance.
5th Gen introduced Very Low Observability, high fuel fraction, and LPI networked connectivity with sensor fusion.
For 6th Gen, start with propulsion and look at what P&W and GE have been working on.
The US defines the generations with huge investments in RDT&E, amd re-tooling manufacturing lines to produce the new technologies.
Just looking at propulsion, the US is without peer. If you doubt this, understand that the 4 ATF Prototype Air Vehicles had 4 different types of 5th Gen engines available.......in 1991.
Other countries still have not demonstrated late 1980s 4th Gen IPE motor performance and durability.
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@adamjj001 Guard and Reserve soldiers generally have more maturity and experience than active duty. They are able to get leadership and organizational experience from the civilian sector as well as the military.
I was active duty for 10 years, after having been a cadet for 3 years, then continued work in the security sector ever since. As AD, we dogged on guard units because we didn't know what we didn't know about them.
For example, SF National Guard units have a lot more skill sets to bring to the table than active duty SF units.
The person in question, Tulsi Gabbard, has a balanced mix of experience from military command with GWOT deployments and serving in Congress, with access to defense & intel briefings.
She's working with General Flynn, Pete Hegseth, and other leaders who are actual Patriots, versus the treasonous swamp rats of DC.
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@Em4gdn1m The worst mass shootings and murders have happened and continue to happen in countries with strict controls on legal access to firearms. If that's true, then how is this a US issue?
Before you go trying to deny the facts, be aware that in just 2 specific school shootings or public massacres alone, there were 333 deaths in one (Beslan 2004), and the top 15 mass murders all exceed anything in the US by death toll.
The worst mass murder at a school in the US was the Bath School Massacre of 1927, using dynamite placed under the school, and a truck bomb filled with shrapnel that the perpetrator drove.
An additional 500lbs of explosives was found that never detonated, leaving the death toll "only" at 45, with 58 injured. That's #16 on the list. Beslan, Russia is #2 with 333 deaths, 783 injured in 2004.
#1 was perpetrated by the Chilean Army against the Santa Maria School in 1907, murdering 2000 students.
Sri Lanka and Pakistan have 5 of the top 15 mass murders by death toll.
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@Em4gdn1m Developed countries like Finland? Go read about the Nordic Biker Wars sime time. They used belt-fed machineguns, grenades, and anti-tank weapons even on a courthouse.
Then you have the UK where immigrants walk nonchalantly up to soldiers and behead them, along with rampant burglaries, stabbings, and property theft crimes through the roof.
France? Paris nightclub shootings, Toulmouse mass murders, suppressed information about criminal demographics, nationwide riots for 3 weeks in 2005 burning thousands of vehicles, killing people, injuring 126 police and firefighters.
How about Germany? The list is long, but look up school shootings in Germany.
Japan? Sarin gas attacks, recent assassination of former President Abe with an improvised firearm.
The magic place free from violence in "developed nations" doesn't exist.
Then look at how many people protect themselves from criminals every year in the US using firearms.
You're looking at 500,000 to 3 million defensive gun use incidents in the US per year. Women use firearms to defend themselves against sexual assault 200,000 times per year in the US.
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@Em4gdn1m 12 out of 30 of the global school massacres since 2012 have been in the US. US is the 3rd largest Nation by population on earth with over 331 million people. Total US school shooting death toll since 2012 is 111, including Nashville.
Russia: 4 school massacres, 40 death toll since 2012. 9th largest population in the world.
Pakistan: 2 terrorist attacks on schools, 171 death toll, 5th largest population in the world
Nigeria: 2 terrorist attacks, 101 killed, 7th largest population
Brazil: 2 school shootings, 23 dead, 6th largest population
Thailand: 1 massacre (36 killed in a children’s nursery with car, gun, knife), 20th population in world
Kenya: 1 school attack, 148 murdered by terrorists, 27th population
Canada: 1 school attack, 4 murdered, 7 wounded, 39th population
Cameroon: 1 attack, 7 dead
Mexico: 1 attack, 2 dead, 10th largest (Mexico has dozens of mass murders outside of schools with the cartels)
Afghanistan: 3 school massacres since US withdrawal in 2021, 132 mostly girls murdered by Taliban, 37th population
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@nole8923 It's more complex than that. I've lived in 8 different US States and 2 of the Nordic Countries, have citizenship in both the US & EU.
If you have no life, quality of life doesn't matter and the Nordic countries don't respect your individual right to life as a human being, so you start off with a major eliminator criteria right off the bat.
Scandinavia enjoys its security on the back of the American taxpayer, so that part is out of balance. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland benefit from hundreds of billions in US RDT&E on critical defense programs that they've been able to purchase without ever contributing a dime to the development of those systems. (F-16/F100, F/A-18/F404, F-35A/F135, AIM-7, AIM-9, AIM-120, APG-66, APG-68, APG-81 etc.) Saab Gripen uses US GE engine, servos, landing gear, brakes, and many of its subsystems so it isn't a domestic program as advertised.
Advanced medical diagnostics systems, equipment, and drugs used in Scandinsvia were almost all developed and manufactured in the US.
Transportation, telecom, satellite, and many other systems used to benefit the Nordic nations were mostly developed and made in the US. There have been things made in the Nordics that benefit the US in normal trade like Kone elevators and escalators, Nokia, and Ikea of course.
US housing costs have sky-rocketed because foreign investors are buying up residential real estate to park their money in the US economy while generating monthly cash flow in billions, because the US economy is more stable than Europe's.
I literally had a Finnish friend of mine die on an organ waiting list because the Finnish NHS deemed him not as worthy to receive a new liver. The NHSs in Scandinavia and Finland are a joke compared to what we have in the US.
Taxes are out of control and purposely-punitive in Sweden and Finland to artificially depress the entire population for the purpose of social equality, which really handicaps the societies as a whole, making them dependent on the US for security because they neglect their defense budgets.
Quality of life in the Nordics has more to do with geography and clean water from the lakes. When many people are able to have a summer cottage where they can get away from the cities, it's very healthy to be out in nature.
You can say the same thing about Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, many places in CA, UT, CO, WV, VA, and NC for cabins.
It's an imbalanced comparison to pick tiny little populations of traditionally-homogenous Aryan peoples with 334 million Americans living in vastly-different geographic regions of the US.
I found most of the claims about the Nordic nations to be childish propaganda fed to the people steadily to create a pacified and servile populace.
As far as governments go, the Nordic nations are astonishingly-childish to watch in-action, with the multi-party divisions, lots of stupid leftist women, and low-T males who know precious little about the world or their own history in general.
These are places where parliaments frequently resign en masse, and place defense of their nations at the lowest priority. They can't be taken seriously, which is sad to say coming from the US system where politicians have been owned by organized crime since the 1920s.
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@nole8923 Lived through all of that as well. Quality of life in many ways has improved in the US, while more stressors have been added so it’s not as black and white as some make it out to be. We were still under the threat of MAD, but the world was simpler with bi-polar super powers. 1960s US was one of the most chaotic periods in history, maybe only out-done by the Civil War. JFK, MLK, and RFK assassinations, riots, Vietnam War protests, LBJ WH policies, exclusion of blacks from much of the middle class sector they had worked into, and the beginning of the welfare state that ultimately destroyed the black family to beget waves of crime in the 1970s-1990s with fatherless black inner-city gangs and the cocaine epidemic.
1st half of the 1980s was still in recession from the terrible 1970s policies and global market forces with OPEC, along with a new wave of punitive government regulations on blue collar middle class in the US.
FDR had no such protections, as he was a stooge for the organized crime families who took over in the 1920s, along with the socialists and Soviets in many ways. He transferred gargantuan amounts of US technology to Stalin and allowed Soviet Lend-Lease Generals to dictate policy to US manufacturers during the war.
Financially collapse of 2007-2009 was created by Congressional welfare promotion politics that dictates to lenders to issue mortgages to people without bank accounts who normally wouldn’t qualify for a home loan. Banks that were smart got rid of those loans and people started bundling them as junk, which European banks bought up stupidly. The main people that needed to recover from 2007-2009 in terms of housing liabilities were the ones who took out variable rate mortgages and got taken when the bottom dropped out, and their payments went up. I wouldn’t describe that as the average American, since most mortgages already existed prior to that period.
Your recollection is common to talking points from partisan class-warfare propaganda, which does not align with the completeness of the picture. I find the political parties do a terrible job of understanding domestic issues because it’s all about trying to tidy-up complex metrics into partisan angles. It gets even worse for foreign policy matters where they both really fall flat on their faces trying to see the world through tiny partisan lenses.
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@scyphe I've lived all over the US, Germany, Finland, and have spent a bit of time in Sweden, and Denmark. We have family in Sweden from my Finnish side.
It has more to do with different geographic regions, weather, food, transportation, entertainment, personal security, health & wellness, and multiple factors that don't compare well when you take a giant Nation with 338 million people covering vast regions from Hawaii and Alaska to Florida, and try to compare them with a few State-sized nations with tiny populations of relatively-homogenous cultural-ethnic groups.
There are things I love about Scandinavia and Finland (geography, history, lakes, architecture), and things I don't (nanny state beaureaucrats, excessive taxes, broken NHS, collectivism, church-state, VAT, capital gains, restrictions on freedom of speech and thought, restrictions on personal security, neglect of national defense, etc.).
All that said, there are a lot worse countries to live in and I place the Nordics more to the top of everywhere I have been, but still under the US.
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@saytax Do you recognize that the Russian General Military Staff all reported to Putin that his SMO would be a quick operation, where they started from encirclement of Ukraine, and they would seize Kharkiv, Kiev, Mariupol, and Odessa with a swift victory? Or do you deny that, and believe Putin planned to have a long, drawn-out full-scale war where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers would be killed and permanently maimed, thousands of vehicles destroyed, the Black Sea Fleet attrited, and hundreds of manned combat aircraft destroyed?
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@grahamdrew5512 Airborme radar/sensor web can see farther than ground-based. JSF MADL web is unparalleled in this aspect. Gripen is an offense to mention next to it from a purely technical standpoint.
Gripen absolutely isn't STOL. It's a LTOL, Long Take-Off and Landing weak T/W ratio platform.
F-35A takes off in as short as 550m as demonstrated in Finland in Turku. Gripens took the whole runway, 19-21 second rolls. F-35As in the same sequence only took 9-12 seconds, 1/4 the runway. I measured out all the distances, as well as the times.
Gripen time-to-climb when configured is sad. Combat radius with weapons is also shorter. If you see hard numbers for radius, it isn't an accurate number. You can get a long radius with 3 EFTs on Gripen, but weapons and performance will be significantly degraded. Gripen does better with 1 EFT, but is short duration then.
F-35A climb rate is world-class. It has high T/W with no parasitic drag, tons of fuel fraction with 0 stores points allocated for sensors or pods.
Start-up for F-35s is easier and faster than any other fighter. Start sequence only has a few switches. Gripen is a legacy design in that respect.
F-35s have all been subjected to more extreme climatic hardening and ruggedization than the Gripen ever will. Gripen is poorly-funded, poorly-conceived, and poorly-executed as a program. The engine is too small for the airframe, opposite of the Viggen and Draken. Viggen had excellent take off and landing for STOL. Riksdag didn't want to fund it.
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UK, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, and Sweden have been run by peacenik females and limp-wristed low-T parliamentarians for generations now.
That means they Purposely attacked their own defense spending as a matter of national policy and baseline assumptions in the controlling political parties.
This has left all of those nations' defense industry development and manufacturing capacity in a very outdated and weak state of affairs.
For example, it took several of those big nations decades to start manufacturing a 1980's era 4th generation fighter.
While the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain dragged their feet with funding and development of the Eurofighter Typhoon, the US already moved on with the tens of billions necessary to develop, test, and produce 5th Generation fighters, new air defense system upgrades for Patriot, and new combat systems across the force structure.
Now the US has led the effort in mass-producing 5th Gen fighters, with over 1300 airframes delivered to air forces in the US, NATO, and Pacific.
The Eurofighter consortium hasn't even put an AESA Radar in the Typhoon.
Sweden is buying Patriots from the US, right along with Poland and other long-term NATO customers.
Dependence on US advanced weaponry has only increased and is increasing more moving forward.
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The culture of ownership of military or military-style firearms dates back to before the founding of the US, and continues throughout its history. For AR-15s, some returning Vietnam veterans purchased Colt SP-1s, along with other surplus and sporting firearms that generally have military designs in their pedigree.
During the 1980s, action movies and TV shows made certain firearms interesting to buyers, and were quite popular. These included the AR-15, Mini-14, M1A, Hk91, Hk94, Hk33, FAL, Valmet M76, Maadi AK, Uzi, etc.
California tried passing an “Assault Weapons” ban and finally succeeded in 1989, which caused a buying frenzy of soon-to-be-banned firearms, including all the ones mentioned above. It sent a bit of a buying trend throughout other States who saw the writing on the wall. Under Bill Clinton, that CA AWB was incorporated into a Crime Bill in 1994, which made the buying panic Nation-wide.
During the 10 years of the Clinton AWB, people bought neutered versions of AR-15s, AKs, Mini-14s, and other designs without flash hiders, folding or telescoping stocks, and limited magazine capacity. The ban expired in 2004, 3 years after 9/11, which created its own buying trends. The 2000s saw increased sales of AR-15s especially, along with handguns because people figured Congress and an anti-freedom President would return some day, so buy everything you can while you can so you have something to pass on to your kids and grandkids to defend themselves.
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@Geewasright The US hasn't had a President like Trump where there is genuine grassroots support for him generated outside of the legacy presstitute media brothels, and he wins despite all of the vote-rigging, crushing the skankwhore propped up by the establishment.
That really ticked off the finance, pharma, insurance, teacher's union retirement fund, big retail, big tech, and those top industries who prop-up the political sell-out class.
Deep down, even a half-functioning Democrat recognized that Trump wasn't welcomed in the Republican party by the string-pullers, and is truly an outsider with organic, massive grassroots support like no Presidential candidate has ever had.
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@StanSwan So you read the Constitution where Congress can raise or levy taxes for defense, debts, and general welfare of the Nation, but then didn’t study the history of why we never had indefinite Federal taxation until the 16th Amendment. During the Civil War, Lincoln and the Union, (as well as the Confederacy) raised taxes to support the war.
The United States took in revenue in the form of tariffs prior to that. The US was the fastest-growing market in the world, and everyone wanted to do business with the US if they could.
The Civil War era taxes were eliminated in 1872, as the government no longer had justification for a large standing Army or war effort, and had plenty of revenue from tariffs. The US Economy continued to grow rapidly during the Reconstruction Era.
Taxation was never meant to be an indefinite tool for revenue-generation by Congress, especially since tariffs filled the Treasuries’ coffers at obscene rates.
The question is, why did we all of a sudden switch from tariffs to penalizing US citizens, then using that money to pay interest to a foreign group of bankers to loan us their currency?
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Who made these statements about their potential VP pick: “I love Oprah. Oprah would always be my first choice.”
“Oprah?” King asked.
“Oprah,” Trump said. “Your competitor. You know what? She really is a great woman, though, she is a terrific woman. She is somebody that’s very special.“
"Would she be someone—kidding aside,” King said, “that you might think about?”
Trump turned serious. “If she’d do it, she’d be fantastic,” he said. “She’s popular, she’s brilliant, she’s a wonderful woman. I mean, if she’d ever do it, I don’t know that she’d ever do it.”
“What a ticket that would be,” King said.
“That would be a pretty good ticket,” Trump said.
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@lookingatoceanwaves Treason, espionage, taking bribes from Russia since 1972, China since the 1990s, money-laundering, aiding and supplying the enemy, suborning of treason/espionage/bribery/perjury, election-tampering, conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to conduct illegal surveillance on US politicians, candidates, journalists, targeting journalists with the IRS, using the military for political speeches, expelling military personnel for personal medical choices, coordinating with Putin to remove foreign leaders before Russian invasion, tax evasion, rape of Tara Reade, sexual battery of numerous minors, staffers, children, wives, dereliction of duty.....
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@elliotgillum Hillary has been on Soviet/Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Iranian, etc. payroll for generations, starting with her involvement with the INSLAW, Systematics, Alltel/NSA lawsuit when she was with the Rose Law Firm back in the 1980s. When she was SECSTATE, the Clinton Global Initiative received $363 million laundered through Kazakhstan, Belorussia, and Ukraine in order to help Putin re-build Russia's nuclear arsenal with US and Canadian Uranium, through the Uranium One Scandal.
She's one of the biggest traitors in US history, and has been for 40 years.
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@Snipe_the_Hype Putin was already planning to invade Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, etc. as soon as he was in office in 2000. He doesn’t give a rip about NATO or no NATO, as he sees all those “territories" as belonging to Russia.
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@tjkasgl Russia has been paying these same US politicians like Biden, Clintons, Obamas, Diane Feinstein and her husband, Mitt Romney, and countless others for decades. Same with China, Iran, Pakistan, and any nation that wants representatives in US government.
Russia has to control Ukraine or Russia fails economically. Russia uses US politicians as part of keeping Ukraine under control, and has been even after Ukrainians overthrew the Russian puppet during the 2013-2014 Euromaiden protests.
Obama and Biden then sabotaged Ukraine's anti-corruption efforts, which helped Putin. Remember Obama telling Medvedev, "Tell Putin: After the election, I'll have more flexibility".
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@michaelmaroney1660 Russia has never had a real intact logistics train by Western standards. When things were running “well” by their lot in life, they had terrible rail lines, pothole-filled roads, weak strings between vast distances, cursed by extreme cold temps.
It has always been that way in Russia, even worse before they had paved roads. And yet still, they managed to throw millions of bodies at invaders until they out-lasted some of the largest, most tactically and logistically-competent armies in history-especially the Wermacht.
The distances required to deploy mass amounts of soldiers over their current borders with Ukraine are on the same terrain. One of the main campaigns of The Great Patriotic War was in Ukraine, and their ability to move men, weapons, and equipment really sucked back then.
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"Middle class" in Finland would be "poverty" in America, not that we really have poverty in America. Countries that have true poverty have orphanages, lack of clean water, sewage, dentistry, homes built to code, environmental management of infrastructure, continuity of stable of government, etc. I've lived in Finland many times, my mom is from there, and while it is one of the better places in the world to live, trying to compare it to the US amounts to comparing a homogenous Nordic 5.5 million population that lives above 60˚ N latitude in a lake-saturated forrest, to a population of 327 million very diverse people who live in a temperate zone, filled with the most vast connection of rivers, farmland, and deep sea ports on earth. Finland compares with maybe one of the States in the Great Lakes region. Any comparisons beyond that are built on a lot of false premises and extrapolated data that just don't fit well at all. They do have a better approach to being relaxed with the earlier years of childhood and schooling, but schooling isn't necessary.
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@SquireSCA The argument about unexpected developments in exercising rights relative to technology have been shot down by SCOTUS. Ink pen, typewriter, computer with printer, internet, smart phone....
Musket, Falling block, Lever Action repeater, semi-auto, etc.
Cannons and crew-served weapons in the late 1700s were well-regulated by local militias, who fed into the Continental Army and Navy during the Revolution. Local neighborhood watches would be the modern equivalent, where neighborhood watch volunteers would maintain, train, repair, and employ crew-served weapons in defense of the neighborhood.
Law-abiding citizens are feared by men who seek to exert power over others, so disarmament schemes have never been about criminals. Criminals are used as excuses to strip rights from law-abiding people.
Remember that the ATF coerced FFL dealers along the Southern border to allow cartel straw purchasers to walk out of gunshots with arm loads of firearms, then ATF agents doing the surveillance were ordered to let those guys walk and transfer the firearms across the border without interception and arrests.
That was Operation Fast & Furious, designed to support Obama's, VP Biden’s, AG Holder’s, and SECSTATE Clinton’s claims that US FFL dealers were providing an iron river of guns into Mexico.
Whistle-blowers inside ATF told Senator Grassley all about it, only after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered with one of the weapons.
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@CrazyYurie Voting in big cities has been rigged dating back to the 1840s though. Look at New York City and Tamany Hall for starters. Elections were very dirty business in the 1800s and just became the norm, but sanitized through the vote-counting systems, ballot-stuffing, harvesting, registering the dead, and destroying ballots. None of that is new.
In 2016, the election-rigging had evolved into Google contributing $2.2 Billion to Hillary’s campaign, and manipulating algorithms for her “ground game” if you read the Podesta emails. She knew she was getting elected no matter what, but the Democratic process overcame the rigged system due to Trump’s unprecedented popularity. Google suppressed image searches of “Hillary rally vs Trump rally”, for example. I saw that personally shift to where you couldn’t see that image split anymore on image search, which is what Eric Schmidt made sure of from within Google.
Now they’re curating and steering people’s feeds to magnify bias, so that someone who votes one way will see a totally different feed than someone who votes another. This is amplifying the division within the Nation. Who would want to do that and why?
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@katout75 I watched it happen. If you look at the YF-16 cockpit, it was bare bones. They went through different gunsight and HUD iterations within YF-16 #1 & #2, then the FSD cockpits were significantly different with Radar on center panel and SMS on left main panel.
That got nailed down into Block 1, 5, 10, and 15 with little changes along the way to the stick, some switch locations for B model control handover if I recall.
I had the -1 with all the fold-outs, updates, TOs, and changes. I built my own full-size mockup in the 1980s of the A model Cockpit.
The most interesting of them all was the AFTI F-16, which we had at ED. It went through a ton of changes as well, a lot of stuff from it went into F-22 & F-35.
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Carbon-15 was doing well initially with sales. Bushmaster offered to buy the company, but the owner refused. Bushmaster then contacted Accusport, Ellett Brothers, and RSR Group ( 3 of the major firearms distributors of the time) and told them that if they carried Carbon-15, they would no longer carry Bushmaster. Bushmaster was the leading company for AR15 sales at the time (mid-1990s), and the 3 major distributors were making a killing selling Bushmaster AR15s.
Professional Ordnance was then limited in its market opportunity, and the guns were known for cracking lowers, bolts breaking, and failures associated with early learning curves as well as the nature of polymer.
Bushmaster came in after Professional Ordnance went under, and bought them for even less than the initial offering. They then manufactured an AR15-compatible Carbon-15 under the Bushmaster name and logo. Karma came around when Bushmaster sold out to Freedom Group, because Freedom Group basically gutted Bushmaster, shut down the Windham, Maine manufacturing, let the Bushmaster President/Owner go after 5 years, and retained the highly-valued Bushmaster name and logo (not that Bushmaster was a great AR15, but it had market recognition and sales that were excellent at the time).
Freedom Group continued to logo AR15s made using DPMS and Remington parts at the Ilion, New York facility, which is why you see current lowers marked that way today, with "D" marked BCGs.
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@marmac83 The idea of ethnolinguistic nation states emerged all over the world as the major empires decayed into history. We look back at the 1800s from a nation state perspective of the present, when that was a pretty rare thing at the time. British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese, Danish, Russian, Swedish-Norwegian, Prussian, Ottoman-Turkish, Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian empires were the norm. Finland as a Grand Duchy was an interesting place, though not totally without precedent. The empires of course all had pockets of unique ethnolinguistic peoples, which formed the basis of the various nation states that emerged after the Great War and WWII, free from their dissolved empires, inspired by more modern experiments in government from which to yearn for their identities.
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@keithjurena9319 We had FN M16A2s in Infantry OSUT at Benning, then when I got to my first unit, they still had M16A1s but with A2 furniture. That was in 1994. We turned in our A1s in fall of 1995 and drew out new M16A2s. I preferred the M16A1 due to the weight, balance, trigger, S-S-A FCG, shorter length, and handling. That was active duty US Army, no Reserves or ANG. I went to Korea after that, where we had A2s, then came back to the US at Fort Lewis, and turned in our M16A2s in fall of 1997, grew out brand new M4s right before going to Panama for JOTC.
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Anyone who refers to the Century Series as a model to emulate now, clearly has no freaking clue what the Century Series was. Each design never really reached its intended potential, and several of them served their ultimate purpose as QF-1xx target drones for AIM-120s.
F-101A was meant to be a Strategic Air Command supersonic escort fighter. Due to transcontinental capability of bombers, that was ill-conceived, so they made the F-101B interceptor variant, and RF-101B tactical recon variant.
F-102 was meant to be a higher supersonic interceptor. Couldn't reach much more than Mach 1.2 clean, was put into Air National Guard service quickly.
F-104 was never asked for by USAF, and instead served as an interceptor or multirole fighter among NATO partners. USAF literally had no use for it outside of flight sciences and NASA test bed work at Edwards AFB.
F-105 was meant to be a supersonic tactical nuclear strike fighter. Early variants were structurally unsound, broke apart in-air, so it had to be upgraded and was most produced in the F-105D model. This was probably the most successful of the century series, but it had all sorts of problems, was shot down in Vietnam repeatedly, until being replaced largely by the F-4 and F-111.
F-106 was what the F-102 was meant to be, but was limited to Air Defense Command as a Mach 2 interceptor. This video incorrectly showed a Mirage in place of the F-106.
The real success story of that era around the Century Series was the F-4 Phantom II, which wasn't a Century series at all, but initially a US Navy fleet defense interceptor.
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@xyzaero Demonstrating carriage and separation does not equal multirole. You have to work out the systems, implement the profiles into weapons manuals, and train on those in order to be truly multirole.
Grey Eagles and F-14A never had that. F-14A didn't even have the AIM-54A working throughout the 1970s, and was hit & miss in the early-to-mid 1980s until the bugs were ironed out and the -54C finally got into the fleet.
There's only so much money for things. With F-14A, they burned $369m on the F401 engines in the 1970s, which were never produced. That was supposed to be the production motor for the F-14B, with only a handful of initial F-14A LRIP birds as stop gaps.
After that fiasco, Tomcat money was allocated to developing the TF30-P-412A into the P-414A. They were hurting on RWR and other systems money and didn't get ALR-67 until much later, and were stuck with an old analog AWG-9 Radar that couldn't look-down/shoot-down over land.
Same with AIM-7F integration from AIM-7E2, then AIM-7M and AIM-9L. These aren't plug-and-play, but require a lot of testing and systems integration, live fire weapons testing on TGT drones, and weapons manual additions, as well as weapons school syllabus updates.
With F-15, the money went for Radar upgrades when we did Programmable Digital Signals Processor that went into F-15C, plus its EW systems were sucking up funds to get that side working better.
We also had problems with the F100-PW-100 motors. Nozzle sections ripped off at high supersonic speeds, and it suffered compressor stalls, AB unstarts, and blades letting go.
All the money going into F-14A and F-15A-D upgrades was focused on propulsion, A2A Radar, A2A weapons, and EW equipment. None of it was going towards A2G.
The only funded additional role for Tomcats was for select F-14As to become TARPS birds as we retired the RA-5C Vigilante.
The multirole F-15E was and is treated as a separate program, though we did have both F-15C/Ds and F-15Es on the CTF at Edwards. There was cross-pollination in A2A modes between APG-63, APG-70, and APG-71, but Grey Eagles never got any of the A2G capes from the APG-70 because it wasn't part of Grey Eagle community mission set allocation or training.
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@Joshua_N-A With this generation, the pilot factor has changed considerably to not be as important as it has been in the past. I'll explain:
A senior USMC Hornet/TOPGUN instructor pilot got to do exchange in the F-22 before leading the USMC's first F-35B squadron.
He had thousands of hours in the Hornet, Viper, SH from operational and Fighter Weapons School instructor years, where defeating most pilots was easy for him.
When he started flying missions against brand new USAF F-22 pilots, he said it was the worst 6 months of his career as a fighter pilot because guys almost half his age with low time in the seat were beating him day-after-day, week-after-week, for half a year.
They didn't learn any of the 4th Gen habits of how to prosecute air-to-air, but instead were trained from the start on how to employ the 5th Gen systems in the F-22A to win every sortie.
They would then de-brief as usual, which takes 2-5 hours every time. Imagine being a career, senior fighter weapons school instructor having new kids explain how they killed you, and what you did wrong throughout the flight every day, for 6 months.
He said the F-35 has things that help it in that regard that the F-22 even does not.
His basic assessment is that if you show up to a fight in a 4th Gen aircraft vs 5th Gen, you will die every time because you are old, obsolete, and out-classed in every important way.
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@Kartal49ful France, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden are primed for ethnic civil wars because of a combination of abortion and immigration policies.
Once the next global recession/depression kicks in, you will see older European natives and young North African, Sub-Saharan African, and Middle Eastern immigrants with major flash points in cities across Europe.
The immigrants will start rioting once the food and energy shortages begin to really hurt, followed by back-lashes from native European biker gangs, farmers, and military veterans.
European nations will be looking to the US to come act as peace-keepers, but the US will have its own issues to deal with and might just say, "Sorry. Can't help much."
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They began preparing for war decades ago when they bribed Ambassadors and Presidential candidates in the US since 1972, including George H. W. Bush, who was Ambassador to China then under Nixon, then Director of CIA under Ford.
They bribed Bill Clinton by financing millions into his 1992 campaign, and in return, the Clinton WH transferred billions in US cutting-edge weapons technologies in aerospace, nukes, satellites, manufacturing, missiles, intelligence collection systems, and communications.
Clinton gave the Chinese access to our strategic nuclear facilities, the B-2 program, Lockheed's aircraft manufacturing tooling and assembly line processes, Motorola defense communications systems, Loral Space Systems, with moles welcomed into the US en masse.
Since the 1990s, China has aggressively revitalized their military, stealing and bribing their way to access every US system they could possibly get, placing Chinese engineers in every defense program possible.
They've been in competition with Russia to bribe the Clinton, Bush, and Biden families for ages.
Riyady family scandal with Clinton campaign financing, Lincoln bedroom, John Juang of the '90s.
Neil Bush bribery and entrapment scandal with the Thai hookers, leading to his divorce, merging of his US defense aerospace holdings shell company with his Chinese real estate front.
Obamas with the micro-donation internet campaign financing, ties through Pakistan, Indonesia.
James and Hunter Biden with the money trail in the open for all to see.
Chinese steal and bribe. It's fundamental to their brazen culture.
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@adamb8317 USN stopped publishing, so I track write-offs and fatalities. Last time I counted, there were around 20 Super Hornet write-offs with 10-11 fatalities. I'll have to look again. That was before the latest string of Super Hornet crashes & fatalities.
All 3 F-35 variants have a total of 11 write-offs, 1 fatality in JADF, no fatalities in USAF, USN, USMC, RAAF, RAF/RN, or any NATO operator.
Has flown over 1 million flight hours, about twice as many airframes as Super Bugs.
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@benktlofgren4710 Gripen A/B/C/D has some Hughes and Raytheon licensed systems to Erickson, since Hughes provided the fire control computer and other Radar subsystems technology for the Viggen.
From Saab:
"For now there are no plans to equip the new-generation Gripen E/F with the GaN radar as the GaAs-based Leonardo ES-05 Raven is fully integrated for that requirement, but it could be substituted if a customer specified it."
Sweden never had the budget to operate the test ranges and small armies of engineers and technicians like the US has done at Edwards AFB, Pax River, Point Mugu, China Lake, Eglin AFB, Nellis AFB, White Sands, the NTTR, and multiple competing Radar and missile manufacturers.
Pretty much all of the Gripen's Radar and fire-control comes from programs run at all those bases and test ranges in the US since the 1950s.
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@77thTrombone The USAF I know has had a major forward-deployed force posture since the late 1940s. Forward, permanent basing was maintained in Western Europe, Northern Europe, Turkey, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Australia. We are still in most of those locations even after 3 decades of BRAC and strategic withdrawal post-Soviet collapse. This was all in addition to NORAD ADF, and all the Fighter Wings on the US coasts were oriented with the idea they would deploy to either Europe or Pacific.
Gripen E costs more to acquire than the F-35A.
Finland said O&M costs weren’t that different between the 3 remaining fighter submissions during HX (F-35A, Gripen E/F, Super Hornet and Growler).
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@LtColDaddy71 All 3 variants are economical compared to Su-35, Rafale, and Typhoon, but would enjoy a 30:0 exchange ratio against any 4.5 Gen fighters, so the cost/loss ratio is even more lop-sided.
The biggest, most blatant example of how the media and avgeek world have been lying about JSF is evident in the comparative mishap rates of all 3 JSF vs the teen series/AV-8/A-10.
Just within the first 10 years of service of each of those, we lost a combined 427 airframes and 147 fatalities.
Between all 3 JSF variants from 2006-2020 (14 years), 4 crashes, 2 write-offs from fires, 1 fatality (Japanese Defense Forces pilot controlled flight into the water at high angle).
There are 645+ JSF flying from 27 different bases worldwide, with over 385,000 flight hours, including 4 years of continuous combat operations being flown by 4 different services over multiple AORs.
There has never been a fighter program like this with these kinds of numbers in safety, lethality, and survivability.
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@isodoublet Russia has their own missile batteries in Syria, alongside their multiple IADS components sold to Syria, being operated with Russian technical advice, with the goal of trying to shoot down any stealth aircraft possible. That would boost Russian FMS contracts significantly if they could pull that off.
Instead, Israel used Russia's Il-20 ELINT bird as a decoy/screen for its strike package egress route, and Syria shot it down thinking it was a flight of F-16Is.
You stated Syria had "a few missiles", to which I pointed out that they have close to 1000 platforms and thousands of missiles.
Now you're talking about near-peer threats. Just for reference, many members of my family and I have been involved in defense aerospace since the 1970s, including specific technical study and exploitation of some of the systems being discussed herein.
The fact that you think I don't know what I'm talking about falls flat, and your inability to be correct about anything related to this subject tells me what I already know: You shouldn't be making any comments about defense aerospace matters until you spend many years of formal study on the applied sciences necessary to understand any of this.
Until then, your comments are a total waste of space. I'll be muting you as a result, because this is a waste of time.
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