Consider the German's at the end of World War 2. They had the most technologically advanced force on the planet. They fielded the worlds best tanks, airplanes and at one time battleships. Many of their plans for the future were seized by the allies and used to build the force of the 1950's. Many have speculated that if Hitler had held off attacking the Soviet Union just one year that they could have won the war because England would have fell and the US would have concentrated on fighting the Japanese.
But the air war in Western Europe gives the best example of what we're facing today (it certainly applies to the ground war but that's another discussion). The Germans built Me-262's. A plane with blistering speed, massive firepower and flown by combat experienced pilots.
In theory it should have swept the skies, but larger numbers of less capable airplanes like the P-51 and Spitfire jumped them in wolf packs and made even takeoffs difficult.
The US is repeating Hitler's Germany mistake. We're going small. Very small...and high tech.
Now check out this passage from a talk given by Hagel....
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel today argued for troop reductions to preserve spending on advanced technology from defense contractors amid more than $500 billion in automatic budget cuts scheduled through 2023.Congress and a desperate President (Bush) brought this on. Veterans groups encouraged it and no one (including me) called foul when it was happening.
“In some cases we will make a shift, for example, by prioritizing a smaller, modern, and capable military over a larger force with older equipment,” Hagel said in remarks prepared for an address before the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a policy research group in Washington.
The statement reflects a determination in the Pentagon to protect sophisticated and costly weapons, such as Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT:US)’s F-35 fighter, that are seen as giving the U.S. military a competitive advantage.
We priced service members out of the military by pay increases every year. By pushing more and more benefits. By changing service to one of bonuses and payouts instead of service to nation.
Now we have a twisted Pentagon pushing Rumsfeld's vision of Transformation while we all know what it will lead to.
We're going to have a super high tech but small force that will not withstand day two of a conflict. We'll go in hard and make massive gains but we'll get pushed off the hill because we will not be robust enough to maintain our momentum. We're setting ourselves up to fail.
All we have to do is study WW2.
excellent example.
ReplyDeletethe F35 fanboys are fawning over it because of not only it's some-what stealthy profile, but also because of its sensor fusion which will lead to greater situational awareness.
well, that's just code. there's nothing spectacular or new in sensor fusion, it's the same radars, EO, infa-red, etc. and merging all that data with code written by programmers.
What's to stop the enemy from working on their own sensor fusion? What if they too can combine radar, electric emissions, IR and EO detection systems to track and target our so-called stealthy F35? They Russian already do a limited form of sensor fusion with the S-400 SAMs.
China and Russian both have excellent computer programmers to write the computer code to create better sensor fusion. What if they start to integrate ground-based and AWACs systems with the fighter's own radar to create an environment where their 4.5 Gen aircraft in the hundreds are swarming over our no-longer stealthy F35s?
OR look at how we took the Me-262s? the P51s followed them back to their bases where they jumped them as they were slowing down for landings
What's to stop a China from targeting any or all US airbases or carriers in the Pacific with ballistic missiles and taking them out without worrying about A2A combat?
they already have the production capacity to crank out hundreds of short and medium range missiles.
"If you load a mud foot down with a lot of gadgets that he has to watch, somebody a lot
ReplyDeletemore simply equipped -- say with a stone ax -- will sneak up and bash his
head in while he is trying to read a vernier."
http://www.afn.org/~afn61198/Books/Heinlein%20-%20Starship%20Troopers.htm
The correct analogy is that they are building Mig-15s; a jet that is superior to the Me-262, and in volumes twice as great.
ReplyDeletei think the analogy is correct. where the Mig-15 was used in the Korean war the US had slightly better fighters but also had the numbers of them to keep from being overwhelmed like i think the US could be in the future....just like WW2 Germany.
DeleteThe ME-262 did not lose in the air, but on the ground (or on approach).
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 does not have that problem.
reread your Air war in Europe book again. the Me-262 was wolfpacked in the sky, on takeoff and on landing. it was a total humiliation of a fine airplane. why won't the F-35 have that problem. our allies can only afford a handful, the Marine Corps is buying fewer and if the services shrink then so will procurement, which will drive up costs which will cement the death spiral.
Deletei don't mind telling you that as far as this airplane is concerned you're operating only on faith right now. there is no way the projected numbers stick. no way in hell. if for no other reason that the upgrades of all the early airplanes is costing so fucking much.
either way the F-35 will go down as the biggest procurement decision of an already failed generation of military leaders. they will all be crucified by historians for their stupidity, amateurism and plain ignorance of simple economic reality.
The Junkers Jumo 004 Turbojet engine also had a time between overhaul interval of less than 50 hours.
DeleteHere is something interesting to read about numbers:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aspistrategist.org.au/geek-of-the-week-frederick-lanchester-and-why-quantity-is-a-quality/
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ReplyDeleteThat's why the US Navy needs more Super Hornets, to protect the F-35B/C with their only 2 Amraams in ground attack configuration, not internal cannon and not internal IR missiles.
ReplyDeletewww.youtube.com/watch?v=JLE-v-ldaHM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana
ReplyDeleteI believe this was the opening phrase in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"
I think we have become too enamored with High-Tech for High-Tech's sake.
Our leaders have bought in to the idea of a war without pain. They feel that drones strikes and a wonder weapon like the F-35 will keep Americans from getting killed in combat. Have they planned for what happens when a peer enemy has reduced the number of our high-tech assets to the point where all we have left is legacy systems?
I wonder if they have gamed a battle with blue having X many F-35s verses X x 2.5 Hornets?