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Subject: Why the USN and USMC Shouldn't Buy the F-35.
BlackOwl18E    8/14/2012 11:36:05 PM
This is a link to a paper with a very brief and detailed analysis on why the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps should not buy the F-35. The ideal jet for them to purchase is the Super Hornet Block III. Tell me what are your thoughts: http://www.scribd.com/doc/88946660/Why-the-USN-and-USMC-Shouldn-t-Buy-the-F-35
 
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HeavyD       8/15/2012 3:11:07 AM
Someone please tell me why the Marines need a fighter at all?  Is there ever going to be a conflict where we don't have a carrier nearby?  And if Marine pilots are operating off carriers, why do they need a fighter?  Why not a tool optimized for their primary job - supporting their fellow Marines?  The thought of using a $290 million stealth aircraft for CAS - the Marines primary air requirement is beyond ludicrous.  
 
Sure we will have strike requirements - but why not let the Navy handle these missions?
 
The Marines need to put their money where their mouth is and order an A-10 type aircraft that can operate from a ski-jump carrier with arresting wires.  Make it a 2-seater with great loiter time as well as the ability to drop in and say hello - again like an A-10.
 
Let's face it - the Marines will only be flying in uncontested skies - cruise missiles and stealth bombers will ensure that any enemy aircraft and air bases will be out of commission before the Marines move in.  Their internal fighter mafia will disagree,  but dem's da facts.
  
 
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WarNerd       8/15/2012 4:01:27 AM
I would say the author just hates the F-35. It is not just a call for the F-18, but for anything BUT the F-35.
 
For example, on page 10
If the Marine Corps wants to have a STOVL fighter then a logical decision would be to take the Harrier and give it a longer fuselage, bigger size, room for avionics growth, more fuel ,some stealth shaping, RAM coatings in crucial spots, heavier armament, added light-weight armor, an AESA radar, and an engine that is modernized with today’s technology to make it powerful enough to perform tasks that the present Harrier can’t do. This “Super Harrier,” for lack of a better term, would be cheap to make and easily do the missions the F-35B would be tasked with doing. Perhaps the Marines Corps could team up with the British and the Italians since they are the only ones interested in buying the F-35B. They could work together, making it suited for their own needs and specifications.
This is not just tweaking a design, it is a whole new airplane. Common sense says this will just result will just be a repeat of the F-35 development cycle and all the time it took.
 
He also assumes that Marine operations will always be large scale combat like Operation Desert Storm with dedicated carrier support, which is overkill for many of the jobs Marines are meant to do, and will require more carriers than are currently available.
 
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Heorot       8/17/2012 5:53:38 PM
Perhaps they need one of these instead of the F-35b
 
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/... 
 
 
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Reactive    sensible suggestion:   8/17/2012 7:13:22 PM
Perhaps if all nations agree to conduct future wars solely with airfix models then conflicts in future will be an amusing spectacle.
 
R 
 
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LB    Rubbish   8/17/2012 9:53:47 PM
Here's my reaction to the first page as it's so inaccurate it's not worth reading anymore.  His citation of $50 million is both a specific type of cost, as he points out, and for dollars within a given year which he omits.  The $50 million is for REC flyaway cost from a decade ago which he doesn't mention.
 
The actual unit flyaway cost for all 1,763 is projected to cost $112 unit flyaway vs his stated $172 million which is actually the FY2011 gross weapons cost for 25 LRIP.  All the numbers I've cited are contained in the FY2013 USAF Budget available online and specifically from the P-40 (first page on F-35).
 
So my thoughts are either he's grossly uniformed or he's deliberately mixing apples and oranges to the point of mendacity.
 
As for the USN and USMC not buying the F-35 here's a counter argument.  If one looks at potential future conflicts it's difficult to find one where there is enough basing for the USAF to even deploy half it's F-35's.  So if anything I'd reduce the USAF F-35 buy and increase that for the USN and USMC since the USN C's are based on carriers where we don't foreign permission and bases and the Corps B's can operate from more austere bases.  In other words I'd cut USAF forces structure in favor of the USN and USMC.  YMMV. 
 
 
 
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BlackOwl18E       8/18/2012 8:38:23 AM
Using the PAUC, APUC average still incorporates estimating future anticipated costs, which in terms of the F-35 makes the numbers you just gave useless because the F-35 hasn't been fully fixed yet and no one knows how much the fixes will cost. Using the PAUC and APUC costs is definitely one of the more accurate ways of determining the cost of an aircraft, but for the F-35 those numbers could very easily change within the span of a few months as testing advances. Those will be much more accurate numbers when the F-35 is fully completed and the production line has a battle ready aircraft. Also, the amount of units purchased keeps decreasing because some of our allies have decreased the number of F-35s they want to buy. The recent F-35's the services purchased were in the price range of the numbers I used.

This article is two years old, but it still applies to this situation: http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/114488/cost-of-us-military-aircraft.html" target="_blank">link

Keep in mind that the total acquisition cost is still around $400 billion dollars, which is over $100 billion per model for each service. It is sitting at around $129 billion dollars for the USN. For $100 billion dollars we could make 1494.7 Super Hornets. Lets say we don't make that many because we don't have enough carriers for that. Say we only make 600 additional Super Hornets so that our total Super Hornet fleet is a little over 1,100, which is literally over 3x the amount of F-35C’s the USN would purchase if it went through with the program. That's still $60 billion dollars ($89 billion in actuality) in savings that we could use buying fuel, buying aircraft weapons, making cruise missiles, developing long range anti-radar missiles to kill SAMs, keeping our ships afloat, paying off our debt to China, etc... The F-35C does not provide nearly the capability that it cost even if it actually was fixed.
 
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BlackOwl18E       8/18/2012 9:57:31 AM
Using the PAUC, APUC average still incorporates estimating future anticipated costs, which in terms of the F-35 makes the numbers you just gave useless because the F-35 hasn't been fully fixed yet and no one knows how much the fixes will cost. Using the PAUC and APUC costs is definitely one of the more accurate ways of determining the cost of an aircraft, but for the F-35 those numbers could very easily change within the span of a few months as testing advances. Those will be much more accurate numbers when the F-35 is fully completed and the production line has a battle ready aircraft. Also, the amount of units purchased keeps decreasing because some of our allies have decreased the number of F-35s they want to buy. The recent F-35's the services purchased were in the price range of the numbers I used.

This article is two years old, but it still applies to this situation: http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/114488/cost-of-us-military-aircraft.html" target="_blank">link

Keep in mind that the total acquisition cost is still around $400 billion dollars, which is over $100 billion per model for each service. It is sitting at around $129 billion dollars for the USN. For $100 billion dollars we could make 1494.7 Super Hornets. Lets say we don't make that many because we don't have enough carriers for that. Say we only make 600 additional Super Hornets so that our total Super Hornet fleet is a little over 1,100, which is literally over 3x the amount of F-35C’s the USN would purchase if it went through with the program. That's still $60 billion dollars ($89 billion in actuality) in savings that we could use buying fuel, buying aircraft weapons, making cruise missiles, developing long range anti-radar missiles to kill SAMs, keeping our ships afloat, paying off our debt to China, etc... The F-35C does not provide nearly the capability that it cost even if it actually was fixed.
 
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Reactive    Brick Wall   8/18/2012 4:29:56 PM
You're quite right that the USN and USAF and USMC could all purchase enormous volumes of Shornets but isn't there a danger that these platforms will eventually hit a capability brick-wall? In 10 years probably not but what about 20? What seems to happen in military history is that many things that were once effective can be made obsolete in relatively short time spans, where weight of numbers can't improve chances of survival - The F-22 to some degree demonstrates this, not in an ultimate sense but it possesses such a margin of performance over its rival platforms that, within its optimised combat environment it is completely dominant. 
 
Because of the importance of the sensory network surely there will come a time where any platform that is not LO or VLO will be a virtual sitting-duck, irrespective of the logistical chain that supports it, to some degree the PRC has relied on overwhelming numbers to mitigate their qualitative deficit but this will change, I just don't see US military doctrine as ever being quantity over quality which is why IMV next generation platforms are essential even if they are as bloated as the F-22/F-35, the lessons learned from these will inform the next-gen UCAV developments which will soon be taking a lot of the slack.
 
R 
 
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HeavyD       8/20/2012 2:47:20 PM
The F-35 was the worst of both worlds:  Not as capable as the F-22 but almost as expensive.  There are very few countries capable of mounting a serious defense against the US's current military assets:  Even Syria or Iran would succumb to the stand-off (cruise missiles) and stealth (F-22, B-2 and even F-117s) that we currently have in inventory.  After air defenses have been suppressed/eliminated the SuperHornets, Strike Eagles, B-52s and B-1s can operate with impunity.  IS THIS NOT A FACT?!?
 
Now let's look at China.  During the first week of a shooting war any airfields we could operate F-35s from (Japan, Korea, etc) would be flattened by their missiles, just as their airbases would be flattened by ours.  We ain't never gonna be dogfighting the PRC air force over mainland China, and China has no way of invading Japan, not that they would ever have a motive - they need resources and Japan ain't got none.  KOrea?  If China really, really, REALLY wanted it, only nukes would stop them.  But again, what would be their reason, and why would we (the US) care?  Korea is a peninsula - the road march ends at Busan. 
 
 
I can see how it can make sense to have a dozen F35Bs on each carrier for stealth strike purposes as well as what REactive says - to get operational experience with stealth technologies to keep pushing forward.  But saying that any non-stealth aircraft is dead meat assumes that the threat to them can be sustained - which it can't.
 
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Reactive       8/20/2012 6:41:42 PM
The F-35 was the worst of both worlds:  Not as capable as the F-22 but almost as expensive.  There are very few countries capable of mounting a serious defense against the US's current military assets:  Even Syria or Iran would succumb to the stand-off (cruise missiles) and stealth (F-22, B-2 and even F-117s) that we currently have in inventory.  After air defenses have been suppressed/eliminated the SuperHornets, Strike Eagles, B-52s and B-1s can operate with impunity.  IS THIS NOT A FACT?!?

As capable at what? At air-to-ground capability, SEAD, networking and payload it's streets ahead. There are good reasons they didn't evolve the F-22 into a multirole platform.

Now let's look at China.  During the first week of a shooting war any airfields we could operate F-35s from (Japan, Korea, etc) would be flattened by their missiles, just as their airbases would be flattened by ours.  We ain't never gonna be dogfighting the PRC air force over mainland China, and China has no way of invading Japan, not that they would ever have a motive - they need resources and Japan ain't got none.  KOrea?  If China really, really, REALLY wanted it, only nukes would stop them.  But again, what would be their reason, and why would we (the US) care?  Korea is a peninsula - the road march ends at Busan. 

^^  The idea that "everything will be flattened anyway" is not very convincing to me, especially since the F-35 will also operate from makeshift runways and carriers...  
I can see how it can make sense to have a dozen F35Bs on each carrier for stealth strike purposes as well as what REactive says - to get operational experience with stealth technologies to keep pushing forward.  But saying that any non-stealth aircraft is dead meat assumes that the threat to them can be sustained - which it can't.
  
Probably not yet, no, but if the F-35 is the last major manned combat fighter it might still be in the skies in one form or another in 2050 : ) 
 
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