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If they can put a bigass telescope sticking out the side of a 747, they can probably put a giant artillery piece on one. Like a AC-130 but with 10x the range. Just like a 280mm cannon firing laser-guided projectiles from 40k feet and 30 miles away, with a drone or a dude on the ground painting targets FuturePastNow fucked around with this message at 19:56 on May 25, 2020 |
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May 25, 2020 19:52
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CarForumPoster posted:IDK if joking but those doors aren't open when theres a big pressure differential between the inside and the outside. Crush a can of coke when full, then try crushing it when you vent the top. Very easy when the inside isn't pressurized. Yes, extremely tongue in cheek. Sorry. I was looking for that store separation incident video but couldn't find it. Glad someone had it ready.
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May 25, 2020 20:23
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FuturePastNow posted:If they can put a bigass telescope sticking out the side of a 747, they can probably put a giant artillery piece on one. Like a AC-130 but with 10x the range. The they you speak of is the engineers responding to stuff in this thread. SOFIA was 20 years old when they bought the plane and still cost $1B to develop in 2007 dollars.
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May 25, 2020 20:27
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FuturePastNow posted:If they can put a bigass telescope sticking out the side of a 747, they can probably put a giant artillery piece on one. Like a AC-130 but with 10x the range. Make it a railgun
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May 25, 2020 20:29
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Godholio posted:You don't get to just hang whatever you want from any pylon. If we're trying to pretend this thing has a future as a B-52 or F-15E replacement it needs a lot more than just four pylons. It also can't carry JDAM, SDB, or MALD, so it's of basically no use to anyone else until that gets solved too (the Navy is currently looking into expanding its weapons compatibility). And it STILL has to justify the added expenses. It has to be better than a B-52 or F-15E. It has bomb doors, can carry and deploy Air->Surface missiles and free fall bombs (small bickies to GBUs from there), can already operate drones, has a proposed JSTARS equivalent system for it (pod mounted and maybe not relevant in 'Stan), has operator stations and manning onboard to give far greater service to forward air/ground controllers than A10's or F15s would consider, 4,000 of them already being operated every day so expect >99% dispatchability >85% total airtime (because that is what commercial B737s average over 20 years). I never thought of it as a permanent replacement for any aircraft, just something they would procure to prevent the massive wastage of hours that occurred on US defense force aircraft during bomb dirts. Let's be honest, likely 90% of missions in 'Stan could have been just as easily been completed with less aircraft hours by the P8 at a fraction of the cost (or spend the same amount and having way more loitering air support on tap). Those 10% of missions that it couldn't do, well you have your fresh legs B1s/B2s/B52s/F15s/F18s tonguing for less training missions and more action (because they would not have been using all their training budget hours/$s bombing dirt). This assumes you donate them to LAPD after bomb dirt like the MRAPs. Cheaper, more effective, lower risk, more reliable just not as sexy and a promotability in line with a C130 crew ahh yeah you're right, non-starter for sky-knights.
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May 25, 2020 20:55
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Godholio posted:You don't get to just hang whatever you want from any pylon. If we're trying to pretend this thing has a future as a B-52 or F-15E replacement it needs a lot more than just four pylons. It also can't carry JDAM, SDB, or MALD, so it's of basically no use to anyone else until that gets solved too (the Navy is currently looking into expanding its weapons compatibility). And it STILL has to justify the added expenses. It has to be better than a B-52 or F-15E.
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May 25, 2020 22:21
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standard.deviant posted:The proposed use case was save flight hours on F-15s for low-effort, long dwell CAS right? Integrating the standard land attack munitions wouldn’t be 0 cost, but in the case of Operation Bomb Useless Dirt IV it seems like that’s a low bar to clear for the existing P-8 fleet. I mean, there's a lot more to providing CAS in a large theater conflict than just having a plane that can drop the right ordnance. The bottom line is that P-8 crews aren't trained for CAS, the airplane wasn't designed for it, and they're already plenty tasked with other missions elsewhere. You're either cutting back on maritime patrol, which is an extremely useful capability both in peacetime (SAR) and wartime, or you're buying more P-8s and establishing more squadrons for the sole purpose of supporting a mission that we already have other assets for. Either way you'd have to add a ton of training (which isn't cheap) and modify a bunch of aircraft (which, no matter how small the mod, is very much not cheap). And I'll note that "we should focus all our resources on OBUD IV" is the exact kind of thinking that got us into the current high-end capability hole that we're just now starting to dig our way out of.
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May 26, 2020 00:46
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When I think “low demand for airframe,” I sure as hell don’t think P-8. Unless the implication is to build more on top of adding new mission sets.
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May 26, 2020 00:54
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Wingnut Ninja posted:... You're either cutting back on maritime patrol, which is an extremely useful capability both in peacetime (SAR) and wartime, or you're buying more P-8s and establishing more squadrons for the sole purpose of supporting a mission that we already have other assets for. Either way you'd have to add a ton of training (which isn't cheap) and modify a bunch of aircraft (which, no matter how small the mod, is very much not cheap)... LtCol J. Krusinski posted:My first thought was this. I think one of the things that impressed me about the USM, and the Army (SOF side) though is that they’re very operationally flexible. That’s not to say the USN and USAF are operationally inflexible, but they seem to be not nearly as flexible as their sister services. How the gently caress does the F-35B fit into their road mobile missile hedgehog plans? They gonna make hardened aircraft shelters that can be dragged around by a prime mover?
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May 26, 2020 00:57
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mlmp08 posted:When I think “low demand for airframe,” I sure as hell don’t think P-8. Unless the implication is to build more on top of adding new mission sets. Regarding training burden, if you’re already training crews for ISR and strike, adding CAS doesn’t seem to be a huge burden. Crews are already used to communicating with ground forces in real time and employing weapons. To add in CAS they need to learn a bit of extra terminology and reprioritize some tasks like paying more attention to how the stack is laid out below them. I realize that I may have a distorted view of how P-8s operate because I suspect that the P-3 crews I flew with (2008-2015) weren’t exactly getting a lot of ASW reps in. That might mean that adding training for CAS is too much of a stretch after all.
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May 26, 2020 01:09
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standard.deviant posted:Japan is going to want to replace their P-3s eventually too. They actually developed their own dedicated 4 engined p3 replacement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki_P-1?wprov=sfla1
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May 26, 2020 01:14
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Dead Reckoning posted:What you said is entirely correct and sensible, so... which side do you think they'll hang the Sniper pod on? Cause nothing says immaculate 10,000’ft runways like atolls I the pacific? F35b seems like exactly what you want for that mission.
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May 26, 2020 01:23
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If you don't have good runways, the fuel load for a vertical takeoff is going to be too low to actually do anything useful (like engage hostile air/sea threats beyond the range of their standoff weapons). If you're going road mobile because you're dealing with the sort of threat that can shower PGMs on any fixed positions you set up, how the hell are you going to service an F-35, and how do you expect the LHA to survive?
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May 26, 2020 01:44
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mlmp08 posted:When I think “low demand for airframe,” I sure as hell don’t think P-8. Unless the implication is to build more on top of adding new mission sets. The Air Force is also perpetually 2,000 pilots short already, although that might start to inch in the right direction over the next few years. standard.deviant posted:I mean, I flew on P-3s doing ISR for previous OBUD iterations. I don’t think it’s unimaginable that P-8s could be employed in the same way. Adding munitions to attack land targets could also be useful for both the US and FMS customers—I know of Australia for sure, but Japan is going to want to replace their P-3s eventually too. Doing CAS right is a massive undertaking. I can't stress this enough. Adding a mission that complex to MPA is simply not going to work. There aren't enough jets, people, or training hours available. It's a full-time mission to train. Godholio fucked around with this message at 02:11 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 02:06
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I am very excited for the fact that DR re-reged so that he could angry post about the Marine Corps and the F-35B. Initial observations: -Lack of long-rear end runways does not mean you are doing literal vertical takeoffs; that's just not how things work, but it makes for a nice strawman to kick around. -Road mobile missile hedgehogs work quite well with sea-mobile F-35B carriers. The real argument against this is "how often will this happen versus how much does it cost?" That's the more reasonable counter-argument Mortabis and others have made. But let's not pretend that road-mobile missile launchers and sea-mobile carriers launching F-35s wouldn't work together as a concept. -If you think our TacAir fleet problem is just because of the USMC, you're missing the DOD forest for USMC trees. ~80% of all F-35 purchases are not USMC. And ~15% of the USMC purhcase is the Navy variant, not the F-35B. And foreign nations are buying a lot of F-35Bs for both naval and runway reasons.
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May 26, 2020 02:13
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The GAO or JPO report in 2018 stated an F-35B w/ 2 1000lb JDAMs and 2 AIM-120s gets in the air via 600ft of LHA deck, no ski jump. This F-35B will still have a better unrefueled combat radius than a similarly loaded F-18A/C off a runway/CVN. That hill is not a good one to die on.
Mazz fucked around with this message at 05:31 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 04:58
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mlmp08 posted:-Road mobile missile hedgehogs work quite well with sea-mobile F-35B carriers. The real argument against this is "how often will this happen versus how much does it cost?" That's the more reasonable counter-argument Mortabis and others have made. The argument of "how much does it cost" is also now moot after we have already spent all that money developing it. Now that we have it, it's the only thing that can do what it does and we might as well take advantage of it. I recognize this is unsatisfying from a, let's say public choice theory standpoint Dead Reckoning seems to be coming from, where the Marines manage to finagle their toy into the budget and suffer no institutional consequences or something, but cosmic justice isn't the objective here. Mortabis fucked around with this message at 05:14 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 05:11
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mlmp08 posted:And foreign nations are buying a lot of F-35Bs for both naval and runway reasons. I have recently changed my opinion on the whole situation to blame much of this debacle on the desire for exports, rather than blaming the Marines. They legit needed a Harrier replacement. And frankly there's no reason anyone except aggressors should be flying legacy Hornets any longer than absolutely necessary. But there was no way they'd get a dedicated CAS platform, so they got shoehorned into JSF by the budget. And Lockmart was loving genius, tying subcontractors and the supply chain to almost every state, and (I think) pressing the (monetary and "soft power") value of a new generation of US aircraft exports. It's the wrong plane for the Marines' mission, but it's better than nothing.
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May 26, 2020 05:59
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This whole goddamn conversation is the tail wagging the dog. OK, so let's review this scenario: -Longer runways for conventional fighter-bombers aren't available -But shorter runways, taxiways, parking aprons, etc are and are all stressed for F-35 pavement classification numbers and treated for the heat of vertical landing. Presumably we're going to put all the infrastructure needed to generate fighter bomber sorties next to those -But we need road-mobile ASM launchers, because the near peer competitor we're fighting can whack any fixed installations with PGMs -OK we can put the F-35s on a gator freighter instead Except it's a boat, the whole point of this exercise is sea control, and the MAGTF has no indigenous ASW capability. So we're building a force to fight a country that has long range precision fires, and a navy, but no submarines, and a long range/naval aviation component that can be checked by a dozen F-35s without tanker or AWACS support. Sure. mlmp08 posted:I am very excited for the fact that DR re-reged so that he could angry post about the Marine Corps and the F-35B. Many of the F-35s shortcomings can be laid squarely at the feet of shoehorning the Marines' incredibly stupid VTOL requirement into it. VTOL remains stupid, because the idea of generating useful stories out of a FARP against the sort of adversary that requires high tech jet fighters to defeat falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. Since the Marines can't seem to decide what the purpose of the Marine Corps is beyond ensuring that their budget gets renewed, (boy, sure glad we bought our mobile forcible entry force the Abrams tanks they asked for) it's high time Congress did that for them and cut any budget items superfluous to whatever mission we decide is most appropriate for our second army & third air force, rather than them deciding that they need a new set of toys every five years. Godholio posted:They legit needed a Harrier replacement. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 06:25 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 06:23
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Dead Reckoning posted:Hard disagree. I think the need for the Marines to have a fixed wing aviation element is questionable at best. I agree with this, but I've given up my one-man crusade that the USMC as we have known it since WWII has absolutely no reason to exist and is pure duplication of effort and expense. Not only are they not going anywhere, we're making more duplicate branches these days. The Harrier needed to be gone. In a world where the Marines are going to continue to fly fixed wing isolationist missions, that means a new plane. I don't think they'd really want an F-35 if it was up to them. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but I think they could do a much better job of spec-ing out a new CAS platform that actually makes sense as a new CAS platform.
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May 26, 2020 08:07
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Godholio posted:The Air Force is also perpetually 2,000 pilots short already, although that might start to inch in the right direction over the next few years. If doing CAS right was such a massive undertaking, it would not have been attempted with F15s, B1s, B2s and B52s (and their as trained pilots) as they were all arguably less suited than a P8 with sniper pod and JSTARs radar. 2000's avionics, larger mission crew aboard in a more ergonomic environment, cheaper to purchase and operate, in production to replace any P8s with the hours all run up by the time bomb dirt is finished and against that is F15 go fast and B2s look cool doing it. Air force is buying F15s now to replace all the hours consumed flying circles a UPS pilot would grow board of flying so buying 10 or 30 additional airframes for the navy after you run up the hours on the ones already in service is not a great bar to leap over. The pilot training program between the forces and civilians for B737s is large (there is no need to practice low swooping dives or crazy climb outs on one wing until I crash, teach them the pilot normal civilian training program with a few modules for flying the track for releasing guided ordinance. Heh, in fact it would cheapen the CAS training for your other platform pilots because it would be easy to carry aloft a few extra skynobles during a mission and they can all take turns talking to a real live ground savage and dropping jdams on or near them and being able to hang around to look at their efforts after with the fancy mounted FLIR aboard. On the F35 and marines, it seems it is a point noted and the proposal included reducing the number of aircraft in a squadron to 10 aircraft. Electric Wrigglies fucked around with this message at 13:51 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 08:51
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Electric Wrigglies posted:The pilot training program between the forces and civilians is large (there is no need to practice low swooping dives or crazy climb outs on one wing until I crash, teach them the pilot normal civilian training program with a few modules for flying the track for releasing guided ordinance. Not all CAS training is F-16 levels of effort—if you already know how to conduct a strike mission all you are really adding is “take a 9-line and verify the locations.” That is a lot easier when you have dedicated IMINT sensors than trying to use eyeballs, and even easier when you have different people available for running the sensor, coordinating the 9-line with the ground force, and flying the airplane. Maybe that is an AFSOC vs ACC difference of mindset, I don’t know. Edit: apparently HARVEST HAWK does CSAR too
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May 26, 2020 12:17
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I agree that if you abandoned the idea of a joint force and sent the Marines utterly alone to fight China, boy that’d be stupid!
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May 26, 2020 12:40
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mlmp08 posted:I agree that if you abandoned the idea of a joint force and sent the Marines utterly alone to fight China, boy that’d be stupid!
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May 26, 2020 12:56
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But in pursuit of that point, he got all the way to "the MAGTF doesn't make sense because submarines exist." That's where I think he's losing the plot. If you're going that far to find a gap in capability, then you end up going down very poorly thought out logical roads. And this, where he is ignoring the idea of a joint force apparently. Dead Reckoning posted:So we're building a force to fight a country that has long range precision fires, and a navy, but no submarines, and a long range/naval aviation component that can be checked by a dozen F-35s without tanker or AWACS support. Sure. If we were building a singular force consisting of the USMC to fight all of China, boy, that'd be really dumb. But we aren't. Plenty of people oppose the Marines existence and/or the concept of the MAGTF without falling into such absurdist arguments.
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May 26, 2020 13:28
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Dead Reckoning posted:If you don't have good runways, the fuel load for a vertical takeoff is going to be too low to actually do anything useful (like engage hostile air/sea threats beyond the range of their standoff weapons). If you're going road mobile because you're dealing with the sort of threat that can shower PGMs on any fixed positions you set up, how the hell are you going to service an F-35, and how do you expect the LHA to survive? Amazing strawman you've put together there. The only option for the B is vertical take off? That's where you are going to put your argument? edit: Late to the party, others said it better. Murgos fucked around with this message at 13:45 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 13:41
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mlmp08 posted:But in pursuit of that point, he got all the way to "the MAGTF doesn't make sense because submarines exist." That's where I think he's losing the plot. If you're going that far to find a gap in capability, then you end up going down very poorly thought out logical roads.
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May 26, 2020 13:44
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standard.deviant posted:You’re not wrong, but I do think his underlying point is probably sound. It does feel like the USMC is trying to figure out what their identity should be after all CENTCOM all the time finally ends. I think this is true throughout DoD though? They should all be constantly re-evaluating their mission and capabilities on an ongoing basis. Every time there is an improvement in ATGMs or air defense or the primary threat gets altered or etc... the concepts get re-evaluated and the tools used to effect those concepts get evaluated.
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May 26, 2020 13:51
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standard.deviant posted:You’re not wrong, but I do think his underlying point is probably sound. It does feel like the USMC is trying to figure out what their identity should be after all CENTCOM all the time finally ends. Sure, but I think you could argue that of almost every branch right now? There's a lot of uncertainty about how a modern conflict plays out. The Army is just kind of saying "back to the basics of large formation combat, but better" with some added "multidomain" flavor.
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May 26, 2020 13:53
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standard.deviant posted:It does feel like the USMC is trying to figure out what their identity should be after all CENTCOM all the time finally ends. This is absolutely true, as it really is throughout the DoD. edit - I'll add at this early stage that it seems to me like the USMC is being significantly more open minded and creative in their solutions than the other services. bewbies fucked around with this message at 14:03 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 13:54
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CarForumPoster posted:IDK if joking but those doors aren't open when theres a big pressure differential between the inside and the outside. Crush a can of coke when full, then try crushing it when you vent the top. Very easy when the inside isn't pressurized. If you get hit by a missile in a plane you are almost always hosed regardless of the thickness of the skin of the airplane.
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May 26, 2020 14:55
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:If you get hit by a missile in a plane you are almost always hosed regardless of the thickness of the skin of the airplane. Yea missile was the wrong word to use. Was trying to make the point that basically anything metal will penetrate an unarmored airliner. The typical OBUD ordinance dropping aircraft have returned to base with damage that would've led to an airliner being very on fire.
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May 26, 2020 15:24
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mlmp08 posted:But in pursuit of that point, he got all the way to "the MAGTF doesn't make sense because submarines exist." That's where I think he's losing the plot. If you're going that far to find a gap in capability, then you end up going down very poorly thought out logical roads. Murgos posted:Amazing strawman you've put together there. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 16:23 on May 26, 2020 |
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May 26, 2020 16:10
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While the Marine line of “sixty days on our own” is indeed largely bullshit because drat near no one does anything on their own, the Marine line was NEVER sixty days in a war on our own vs one of the most powerful nations on Earth. Except maybe in the sense of “yeah, if we get totally hung out to dry like that, we’ll hold out as well as we can” Examples of where an F-35B could operate where traditional fighters cannot: -Carriers other than CATOBAR types (this is reason number 1 they’re being purchased by anyone, to include the UK, Italy, Japan, and the USMC) -Air strips or bases dealing with damage rather than deliberately building little wee airbases even if hypothetically F-35s and C-130s can operate from pretty short strips. This one is all kinds of hypothetical.
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May 26, 2020 16:24
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Dead Reckoning posted:Please explain to me the scenario where we have a runway too short to operate conventional fighter-bombers (which is significantly less than 10,000') but one juuuust long enough to make the F-36B useful, plus all the other appropriate infrastructure to support high tempo air ops, while fighting an adversary who requires next-gen stealth aircraft to defeat. A forced entry operation from a sea base wherein the rest of joint air is either pushed back out of PGM range or otherwise tied up in whatever it is air forces do that isn't supporting amphibious operations.
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May 26, 2020 16:26
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Electric Wrigglies posted:If doing CAS right was such a massive undertaking, it would not have been attempted with F15s, B1s, B2s and B52s (and their as trained pilots) as they were all arguably less suited than a P8 with sniper pod and JSTARs radar. 2000's avionics, larger mission crew aboard in a more ergonomic environment, cheaper to purchase and operate, in production to replace any P8s with the hours all run up by the time bomb dirt is finished and against that is F15 go fast and B2s look cool doing it. Air force is buying F15s now to replace all the hours consumed flying circles a UPS pilot would grow board of flying so buying 10 or 30 additional airframes for the navy after you run up the hours on the ones already in service is not a great bar to leap over. CAS is not lazily orbiting and dropping JDAMs on six guys at a wedding who are too dumb or too unaware to beat feet when they’re detected. That mission set (which the P-8 would admittedly be very capable of) is unique to Operation Bomb Useless Dirt I-VII. In any operations against an adversary even remotely capable of combined arms warfare, the P-8 isn’t going to be able to get within twenty miles of the troops in contact, for fear of MANPADS, AAA, and forward SAM assets. A P-8 also isn’t going to be in a position to reattack the target, or rapidly shift to a new target. This is CAS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWrgUZbuhiw You can’t do that with a 737.
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May 26, 2020 16:34
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MrYenko posted:CAS is not lazily orbiting and dropping JDAMs on six guys at a wedding who are too dumb or too unaware to beat feet when they’re detected. That mission set (which the P-8 would admittedly be very capable of) is unique to Operation Bomb Useless Dirt I-VII. In any operations against an adversary even remotely capable of combined arms warfare, the P-8 isn’t going to be able to get within twenty miles of the troops in contact, for fear of MANPADS, AAA, and forward SAM assets. A P-8 also isn’t going to be in a position to reattack the target, or rapidly shift to a new target. ....but isn't the whole discussion here whether you could save airframe hours on more capable aircraft precisely because this is a low threat environment.
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May 26, 2020 16:40
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Xakura posted:....but isn't the whole discussion here whether you could save airframe hours on more capable aircraft precisely because this is a low threat environment. Yeah. I don’t get this obsession with proving an MC-737 isn’t an A-10 or a F-15. Like, no poo poo?
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May 26, 2020 16:45
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Dead Reckoning posted:Please explain to me the scenario where we have a runway too short to operate conventional fighter-bombers (which is significantly less than 10,000') but one juuuust long enough to make the F-36B useful, plus all the other appropriate infrastructure to support high tempo air ops, while fighting an adversary who requires next-gen stealth aircraft to defeat. Defending Taiwan; F-35s operate from pre-prepared reinforced highway strips along the east coast of the island.
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May 26, 2020 16:45
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Xakura posted:....but isn't the whole discussion here whether you could save airframe hours on more capable aircraft precisely because this is a low threat environment. Sure, but when you get that TIC call, do you just say “oops we didn’t task a capable aircraft, so I guess you guys are just gonna have to deal with that alone. We’ll be up here watching on the targeting pod. Good luck!” You task an aircraft capable of handling all reasonably conceivable threats to a mission, not the cheapest thing you can get your hands on. Post-game armchair-quarterbacking is always going to be able to find places money can be saved; That’s the nature of war, it’s loving wasteful. The more interesting question, and one that has been discussed here before, is how much CAS was called during OBUD I-VII because the US Army’s artillery capabilities had been allowed to wither to a token, semi-obsolete force.
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May 26, 2020 16:47
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