<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/e_Q6Vb9xJM0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> You guys are forgetting that the F-22 is f***ing cool.
Roll eyes all you want but if you are the land mass holder i.e. Asia and you have the manpower dominance by a huge margin, you overwhelm technology with asymmetric mass, 10,000 cheap missiles per Raptor, 100,000 per Carrier Fleet. The US would only ever be interested in containing China to their part of the South China Sea anyway, whatever that is. Which Aircraft Carrier Fleets and land based air superiority fighters do, at range. You could even imagine a possibly more likely a scenario happening between Canada (our new Pusher) and Russia over a newly sea accessible and drill-able Arctic. Not to mention the ever present Strait of Hormuz. But all I ever meant to say was high security defense projects are like a Federal jobs program as well as the defense value. The money loops in the US economy and the costs don't net out as bad as they sound. Freakonomics.
That works great when you have the US and the USSR with all of their manufacturing capabilities fighting against Germany and Japan. What happens when the US is fighting a country or countries that can match us in building tank for tank? Wouldn't it be nice to have better equipment when we can't have more? Look at the casualty ratios in WWII (where there was parity or a technological disadvantage for the allies) as compared to the Gulf War or Vietnam, where the US had technological superiority.
If you look at a defense contract, most of it doesn't all go contractor/equipment etc. Like everything else these days, people at the top get to keep most of the dollars.
For everyone fretting about the PRC we are not going to fight a war with the PRC. Our economies are too interdependent for us to go to war. Both sides will make noise and rattle sabres but neither wants a fight that will devastate both our and the global economies. As far as maintaining the technological edge militarily against the PRC from everything that I have read is that we are still very far ahead of them. The F-22 as is is probably a decade ahead of anything that the PRC has. Also PRC has very limited ability to project military power far beyond its borders so other than ICBM's the Continental US is pretty safe from the PRC. If it comes to ICBM's countries would be doomed and a super fighter won't make a difference. Also in regard to the WWII idea that in a sustained war the PRC will match us because they have more manufacturing capacity keep in mind that the PRC has far less natural resources. Unless Russia were to side with the PRC in a war against the US its doubtful the PRC could maintain a long war to actually defeat the US.
The deal would be a little shooting over the Spratly Islands; look where it is, look what they claim, look what's at stake. And again, you don't need technology if you have cheap, overwhelming numbers. Not cannon fodder mass suicide charges but mass missile barrages. The Chinese would probably shoot at Viet Nam threaten The Philipenes, back off and deal with the 7th Fleet. ( I love Clancy books)
The F-22 is more versatile than the plane it was built to replace, which is the F-15C. The F-22 can carry bombs as a secondary mission, the F-15C has only ever done air-to-air. Not that the F-22 hasn't had some problems, but people need to think long-term. The Raptor is intended to take the Air Force to the year 2040. Any future US fighter will have stealth as a requirement. By then, the F-15 will be a nearly 70 year old design. Also, the F-15 entered service in the early 1970s. It didn't see combat in US hands until the 1991 Gulf War.
The F-22 is not suited for a bombing role, even after this upgrade the heaviest it could carry is 2,000lb bombwhere as the F-15 could carry ordinances up to 17,000lb, which is why the airforce spent another $65 billion on the F-35. I think people missed the point. people can go on all day about how much more superior this plane is, and end up overlooking all the issues the f22 is a broken plane. It's been 6 years since the first plane was delivered to the air force and there is a reason why the only missions it has flown are the photoshoot patrols to advertise for the air force. It's simply not reliable enough to be considered mission capable. The F22 is literally the Yao Ming of fighter jets. It maybe the most dominant offensive machine that could fly, but in the end its simply too injury prone to justify its high cost. My beef with the F-22 program is the people in charge had to know all the issues with it and still chose to order/build 200 of them when it was simply not ready. They where so anxious for the world to see their new toy they just overlooked the issues that would keep the F-22 grounded 6 years after its introduction. That after only 5 years the most technically advanced fighter in the world would need a 8 billion dollar "upgrade" to include a ground collision warning and the ability to communicate with another pilot who is not in a F-22. By the way the 8 billion doesnt even address the issue that has kept the plane grounded, they still can' figure out the problem with it's oxygen that caused 2 crashes in the past 2 years resulting in the death of 2 experienced test pilots. It also doesn't handle with moist air well, which leads to system failure because engines sucked in moisture, but I guess we can solve that problem by politely asking the chinese not to fight us when it's muggy outside Then there is the excessive maintenance this plane needs to stay in the air, the washington post had a article about it back in 2009 link And over the past 2 years the best solution they could come up with was to cut flight training time by 1/3. This plane first flew in 1997 and after all these years of testing and the billions spent there is noway in hell they wouldn't have know how many issues it had, but they still gone thru and ordered them anyways. Who knows how many more have to be spent for the f22 to be mission capable.
^I am finishing my shift, and I am pretty tired so I doubt I wrote that in the most coherent way lol.
I don't know if the people arguing about defending big bad China in 30 years are serious or just being sarcastic... but I really hope you all are simply being sarcastic.
Surly you jest. All wars are economic. All developing nations seek to secure sources of a better life for their people. The relationship between any three or more parties becomes a political balancing act. War is a fact of human existence, so far. A little tension easing diplomacy since the saber rattling of this Summer but the undertone of why they have to say these things still explains the situation: China Plays Down Sea Disputes to Woo Asian Nations from U.S. ‘Siren Song’ By Daniel Ten Kate - Nov 21, 2011 China played down tensions with the U.S. and proposed funding to enhance maritime cooperation in Southeast Asia after President Barack Obama challenged its actions in the South China Sea at a summit of Asian leaders. Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said China was committed to keeping sea lanes secure and called the U.S. “an important player in Asia ever since the second world war,” on Nov. 19 in Bali, Indonesia. China also chose not to criticize a U.S. agreement with Australia to bolster its military footprint in the region with the announcement that as many as 2,500 Marines will be stationed in the north of the country. China is “soft-talking to prevent more members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations from joining the Washington-led containment policy,” Willy Wo-Lap Lam, an adjunct history professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said by e-mail. “Placatory gestures are being bolstered by dollar diplomacy: More developmental and infrastructure aid will be pouring into Asean countries, particularly those that have not fallen for America’s siren song.” China is seeking to reassure countries in the region after its moves to assert sovereignty in waters that may contain oil and gas reserves provided Obama an opening to expand strategic ties in Asia. Over the course of a nine-day Asia-Pacific trip that began Nov. 11 in Hawaii, the president announced plans to advance regional trade talks that don’t include China and called on leaders of the world’s second largest economy to “play by the rules.” ‘Cordial And Frank’ Liu characterized talks between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Obama on Nov. 19 as “very cordial and frank” and said China is ready to negotiate a legally binding conduct code in the South China Sea with Asean nations. Of the 10 member countries, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims with China. Asean may be ready with a draft code of conduct in the sea by July 2012, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said today in Manila. The Philippines and Vietnam, which have awarded exploration contracts to Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Talisman Energy Inc. (TLM) and Forum Energy Plc (FEP), reject China’s map of the sea as a basis for joint development. The South China Sea contains oil reserves that may total as much as 213 billion barrels, according to Chinese studies cited in 2008 by the U.S. Energy Information Agency. Backing Obama Obama, attending the East Asia summit for the first time, called it the “premier” arena to discuss maritime security concerns, a subject China has lobbied to keep out of international gatherings because it touches on territorial disputes. Sixteen of 18 leaders at the meeting mentioned maritime security and most of them backed Obama’s position, according to a U.S. official who briefed reporters aboard Air Force One after the meeting. The Chinese came away from the meetings believing that a heavy-handed approach on the South China Sea would backfire, the official said. White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said Nov. 18 that commerce is the main U.S. motive for weighing in on territorial disputes in the waters. He declined to note specific instances when trade was impeded. “The United States interest here is in the freedom of flow in commerce,” he said. While the U.S. “doesn’t have a claim” in the territorial disputes, “we do believe that there should be developed a collaborative diplomatic process for the resolution of these claims.” Obama has set a goal of doubling U.S. exports to $3.14 trillion a year by the end of 2014 and he said Asia is key to that goal. The U.S. this year has exported more to the Pacific Rim than to Europe, Commerce Department figures show. Currency Spat During his Asia-Pacific trip, Obama has pushed China to allow its currency to trade more flexibly and the official China Central Television reported that Wen told the president in Bali that the government will increase the flexibility of fluctuations in its currency. Policy makers in China have pledged to shift the nation’s growth toward domestic demand and narrow its external surplus to help address lopsided flows of trade and investment. The yuan is allowed to fluctuate 0.5 percent on either side of the daily fixing rate set by the central bank. China’s yuan has appreciated about 4 percent against the dollar this year, according to Bloomberg data, the best performance of 10 Asian currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The 22nd U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade opened in the central Chinese city of Chengdu yesterday, with American officials saying beforehand they would push for China to take concrete action to protect intellectual property rights and buy more U.S. products. China-Asean Trade China is Asean’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 11.6 percent of all commerce, compared with 9.7 percent for the U.S. in 2009, according to the latest available statistics. Liu said China had no interest in impeding trade. “China believes that freedom of navigation has not been a factor in the South China Sea,” Liu told reporters after the meeting. “With the rapid development of economies in China and East Asian countries, the country and region attach more importance to freedom of navigation than anybody else.” Liu also unveiled a 3 billion-yuan ($472 million) fund to develop a “maritime connection network” with Southeast Asian nations, he said. China has used patrol boats to disrupt hydrocarbon survey activities in waters it claims, chasing away a ship working for Forum Energy off the Philippines in March and slicing cables of a survey vessel doing work for Vietnam in May. ‘Unreal Promise’ “The Philippines will never be so naive that it would sacrifice its vested interests for an intangible and unreal promise from Washington to counterbalance China,” Li Hongmei, an editor with the official Xinhua News Agency, wrote today. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Nov. 16 in Manila that the U.S. would boost the Philippines’s naval defenses and work to ensure there isn’t a “big thumb on the scale” that pushes development or strategic issues. The U.S. presence “bolsters our ability to assert our sovereignty over certain areas,” Ricky Carandang, a spokesman for Philippines President Benigno Aquino, said Nov. 17. The Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, has called for China to adjust its sea claims according to the United Nations Law of the Sea. That would cost China rights to a large swathe of the waters now encompassed by its nine-dash map that extends hundreds of miles south from Hainan Island to the equatorial waters off the coast of Borneo. “In circumstances when they are outnumbered diplomatically, and with the U.S. hovering on the sidelines like a school prefect, China usually goes back into its shell,” said Gary Li, an analyst with Exclusive Analysis Ltd., a London-based business advisory firm. To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net
17,000 lbs. is not only a paper stat, but the paper stat of the F-15E Strike Eagle, which is a different plane than the F-15C and not what the Raptor was built to replace. The Strike Eagle is a specifically modified design for the intermediate bombing mission. Even so, it will not come close to a 17,000 lb. bomb load (more than eight 2,000 lb. bombs) on a real mission, and I believe that max takeoff weight is also made up of fuel. Most fighters will take off with two 2,000 lb. bombs max, or a bunch of smaller 250, 500, and 1,000 lb. bombs. The F-15C's bomb load in actual missions has always been a big zero. Also, the F-22's stealth will allow it to penetrate defended airspace that can kill an F-15E, so what it loses in bomb load it makes up for in survivability. It was nearly 20 years before the F-15 served the US Air Force in real combat. Before then, it was doing the same thing the F-22 is doing now. Well, I guess you could say that the F-15 was a nice gift for Israel. It was not "grounded 6 years after its introduction." It was in service for about 6 years already (entered service in late 2005), and was temporarily grounded as a precaution after a single crash. That single crash is believed to be linked to a problem in its oxygen generating system. I do not want to excuse any problems, and I would agree that all of this should've been addressed. But from what I've read, previous fighters have been grounded for mechanical problems as well. The F-22 can communicate with other aircraft already with radio. It just doesn't use secure encrypted data links yet, because current data links aren't considered secure enough for it.
This is completely ridiculous. You can't just make high-tech stealth fighters right away, put pilots in them, and call that an Air Force. How long do you think a major, high tech war would last? It seems that most of the population doesn't want to stand for anything beyond a few months anymore. World War 2 lasted for years, and killed half a million Americans and tens of millions of people worldwide. The entire nation was behind that war, and the technology was more primitive back then. You can't make anything as fast now, as you could back then. You go to war with the military you have. And the military we have now is aging. The F-15 was grounded itself a few years ago, and many of those planes are so old that they're falling apart and limited to just a fraction of their paper performance.
whats next? the f-23? the F-50? the F-2000 1/2? these new aircrafts come out as fast as new iphones. the problem with military spending is that it uses a quarter-, possibly more of tax payer dollars and what does the tax payer get in return? no goods or services, who the **** can buy an f22- brad pitt maybe? the only people that benefit is defense contractors, our troops, and those foreign countries who purchase these weapon technologies.
The plane was grounded May-Aug, which is 6 years after it's introduction. I didn't say they where grounded for 6 years, notice in the sentence before I even said they had flown. http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/05/airforce-grounds-entire-f22-fleet-050511w/ I think the "temporary grounding" you referring to this instant. http://news.yahoo.com/f-22-raptors-fly-again-breathing-problem-still-124730954.html I could be wrong but I think you didn't know about the prolonged grounding that happened before and got it mixed up with the second one.
Quite the opposite. The F-22 is supposed to last until the year 2040, and the F-35 that is currently going through flight testing is supposed to last the US and its allies into the 2060s. The F-15 program started in the late 1960s, and that fighter entered service in the 1970s. Fighters are upgraded over the years. But basic fighter designs are supposed to last for decades now. I would agree that the military should not be given huge budgets in excess of requirements. But on the other hand, military power benefits the civilian population by defending its interests, and deterring potential enemies.
No, I knew about it. And it was still a temporary grounding that last just a few months. The military maintained that if the situation called for it, those "grounded" F-22s could be sent right back into action.
Why are some of you saying the F-22 hasn't been used to protect the US? Here we have a F-22 keeping a TU-95 at bay. Do you honestly think there is another fighter in the USAF that could perform this duty?
That's a Bear of an aircraft, KC! I'm an F-22 fan, by the way. I just wish we'd built more of them. After such an enormous investment that produced what is easily the best fighter in the world, and likely to remain so for a very long time, why build fewer than 200 of the damn things? Stupid.
