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Originally Posted by JALU3
Quote:
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Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth
It is about time we stopped spec'ing platforms with WWIII in Europe on our mind.
PD
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True enough, there is Communist China, Islamofascist Terrorist, Pirates, a resurgent Russia, Venezuela. Oh wait, the old adversaries are the ones who are building the systems that could counter our own . . . so "WWIII in Europe" is not what they are being designed against, but those foreign produced systems built to counter our own. -looks at Russian designs- |
Look at the specs. Particularly radius. They are designed with European battlefield transit ranges in mind, ~600nm. How close do you honestly believe we can get our carriers to any Chinese target in 2020? What will the sortie rate of these things be? There will not be more than two squadrons on a USN carrier deck. How many can we afford to lose in this scenario, because we will lose men and equipment to China in 2020.
Look at what bombing barbarians in Central Asia required. ~1300-1800nm transit PLUS CAS loiter time.
Don't even bother to explain to me how 1,763 ~80 million dollar VLO attack jets are needed for "Islamofascist Terrorist, Pirates, a resurgent Russia, Venezuela." Using a banana republic with a few dozen retooled Flankers, RPG toting barbarians, and PKM toting fishermen to justify these things is absolutely silly. And the RuAF had a tough enough time dealing with Georgian SAMs that were RUSSIAN built. Not to mention: how many new jets have they received in the past 10 years?
Why not just tank more and let the F-35 win the day? Because your tanker IS the Superhornet, the REAL force multiplier in the equation. And if the Superhornet can get close enough to tank and live, what's the point of 1,763 manned ~$80 mil VLO bomb trucks? Supers will be needed to fly support for its "superior VLO replacement" on Day 1/Raid 1 ANYWAYS because big motor missiles simply won't fit in the weapons bay. And modern wars are started with shooting volleys of big motor missiles. And "we'll just hang it on the wing after day 2" is absolutely ridiculous. Because it completely defeats the rhetoric that we NEED an overpriced F-16 anyways.
VLO wins the day! No, VLO and supercruise win the day. Because you are stealthly, not invisible to air defences ~2020. And you don't have the thrust to "Run away!" OR the amount of ordinance to make the other guy think twice about running you down.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/0...-joint-st.html
What's another $300+ billion between friends?
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...f.3b6036a.html
PD