A special thank you goes to the People's Republic of China.
You have successfully scared the shit out of your neighbors, risk making your number one trading partner your mortal enemy (despite attempts by liberals, misguided capitalist, and silly free market junkies) and are on the brink of societal collapse.
With all those issues you still found the time to cobble together a slightly stealthy, oversized, weak engined, single man fighter with questionable avionics....but because of your inferiority complex...because of your desire to beat the US militarily instead of economically with your poorly paid labor force you have finally woken the fools in Congress.
The critics of the F-35 MIGHT have carried the day if you had planned properly. If you had presented yourself as only an economic and not military competitor things might have turned out differently.
Now. All bets are off.
The F-35 will go into production.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.The J-20 is an indication that the F-35 scares the Chinese. That's a good thing.
The J-20 is just a mock up of a long range fighter bomber. Like most things Chinese, it will be inferior, using primarily bull shit electronics, questionable safety features, and stolen technology that will never be quite as good as the real thing. Those canards will make it the craft pop up easily on our radar, and that rear end will just make it easier for our AAM to be jammed up your ass.
ReplyDeleteOn the downside, the chinese did manage to steal huge amounts of top secret F-35 designs, so we should see what they decide to develop from that in the near future.
I am not sure if the F-22 concerned the Chinese more than the F-35.
ReplyDeleteAnother thought is the J-20 is designed to meet a specific Chinese requirement - perhaps to old USAF ISR & Tanker assets at risk by using the J-20 to rush in at high altitude to launch long-range BVR missiles at those critical assets and then retreat behind a screen of SU-35's and J-10's.
Just a thought.
You mean scared of the tiny batch of short-legged single engined, small payload over hyped F-35?
ReplyDeleteDidn't the Allies and Soviets steal everything we know now from the Nazis? Is that why Americans boast all the time and let everyone in on their gameplan...
Like saying Germany will win against the waves of Soviet soldiers because of their superior forces..
tiny batch? the USMC and NAVY will buy more F-35's than the Russians will have of their PAKFA's or teh Chnese J-20's...more than the Eurofighters or Gripens or Rafales in service now.
ReplyDeleteshort legged? it out ranges the F-16, F-18, Eurofighter and Rafale and Gripen...small payload? it lifts more than those airplanes.
dude. put down the crack pipe.
China will produce shit loads of the J-20 + other new aircraft (final version that is, this is just a tech testbed). China and any other hostile country will make weapons that outrange and negate the F-35, Carrier fleet etc. Americas' adversaries are very good at countering at a human level (spies, espionage etc.). This costs them peanuts compared to what the US military complex spends to keep ahead.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 will suffer the cost/number problems like the F-22 by the time it gets into service. The PAK/FA and J-2x are not in IOC yet remember.
This is like the Cold War in reverse. The U.S. outspent and out-Teched the Russkies, now China is waiting for the U.S. to overspend (look how much US debt they have bought up).
Love the golden days of the F-14 Tomcat - as Lieutenant Belenko once said, "how does one get near it?"
Just facing the facts (I ain't no pinko Commie either).
Back on the iPipe (made in China™)
you just presented a whole bunch of speculation as fact. a method first perfected by APA and Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman.
ReplyDeleteyou're an amazing joke.
there are tons of websites where people will echo your sentiments but this ain't one....i said that not so that you would leave, just so you would now what you're facing. but back to facts.
the CIA says that the J-20 will reach IOC in 2018. that means that this is more than a test bed. this is a production ready model thats going through, now public testing. i'm amazed that because we're just seeing it people assume that they haven't been working on this thing forever and a day.
ok, i'm done. back to you and your nonsense.
I've been following the aviation world and Bill Sweetman since I was a kid. Nice guy. I trust his information as much as the CIA info.
DeleteDon't get me wrong. I like the F-35, but you seem to forget that our adversaries are smarter than you give credit for.
Imagine the scenario; F-35 and adversary do the tango mid-air. F-35 wins but runs out of ammo because there are more waves of enemy coming after this one. Then what? Return to the now non-existent tanker/carrier/airbase for T break?
Or you dare not use the F-35 in combat lest the enemy picks up the tech if one goes down. If they introduce countermeasures to the F-35 tech, what are we going to do? Put a new stealth coating on it?
'Quantity has a quality all its own' unfortunately.
quanity has a quality all its own? that doesn't work. did work for the Iraqi Army and won't work now. if it did then you'd see everyone flying MIG-21...and they'd be filling the air with upgraded and modernized engines.
ReplyDeletebut you don't...and the reason why is that the rest of the world is trying to fight us on our terms. mass doesn't count for much anymore so then you're back to a hi tech fightl....and that's what the J-20 represents. China trying to match the US technologically.
but for all your cheering of the J-20, its still under engined. it would need motors the size of the F-22's to get it to be competititve...those canards are yesteryears tech...who puts canards on modern fighters? oh i forgot...people that don't give a damn about stealth and have trouble with relaxed fly by wire tech.
sorry guy. i'm still not buying what you're selling.
The F15E and F-117 used off the shelf parts when they were prototypes (F-16 Fly by wire, Northrop F-5 landing gear). Same situation with the J-20.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the J-20 may not be the best, however they have the advantage of basing ALL their aircraft on the mainland to fight the less than full strength Allies, right?
Bringing Iraq into this debate? Seriously?
Like saying an AK47 equipped army will a pushover if we use XM8 rifles instead!
you talked about numbers..during the first gulf war the iraqi's had many more tanks than we did. airplanes too. quanity doesn't win out over quality.
ReplyDeletethat was the point but you're choosing to ignore it because you're loosing the argument. don't play a Sweetman and juice the details to fit your viewpoint either.
back to the j-20. why are you assuming that they're gong to be fighting a defensive war while we're on teh offense? why do you assume that the allies will be under strength.
are you being real or are you trying to shape this argument to fit the conclusion that you've already arrived at?
the F-15E of course used off the shelf parts since it was a modified F-15! the F-117 isn't a good example because it was cobbled together...the break through with that design was the shell not the innards.
dude. you're still coming up short in this discussion. don't you know when to quit? if you can't quit then get up with Goon, Koop or Sweetman or ELP and come back with better arguments. the ones that you've presented just plain suck.
LOL! Sol, That's my point about Iraq — I don't think you can compare a monkey equipped, badly trained goon squad like them to fighting China or Russia in the future? Seriously? 100% sea/air superiority will not be guaranteed...
ReplyDeleteOff the shelf parts — my point exactly; wont China put in better/final avionics+parts later? But people are basing the performance on what they see now?
I think we'll likely be on the defensive, however, like I mentioned earlier, they're smart enough to develop large conventional ICBMS/SSMs to give the Allies big problems in the Asia arena. Shit loads of them.
hay solomon & anonymous, "quantity has a quality of it's own" does ring true when your talking korea, or ww2, wave after wave of chinese soldier, overwhelmed the technically superior allies or the mass produced ww2 tank sherman, against the better armoured & gunned german tanks of the day.
ReplyDeletethe iraqi's had neighter numbers, intel, training or technology on there side.
Let me elaborate a little before I get back to the crack pipe.
DeleteI'm talking about adversaries that won't be pushovers because they have large numbers of dangerous weapons, but not necessarily the best weapons. We need to field large enough numbers of whatever we buy to counter this, no matter the kill ratios you'd like to paint on the side of the F-35 fuselage. They won't just sit there, switch on their radar/SAM batteries, and let you blow them to hell.
Is the US Navy, Marines, AF going to ferry all the F-35s from around the world to Asia in the event of a serious situation? NO.
The Chinese know this is and will of course counter it with more planes, missiles etc. Saturation launches are the name of the game here.
Look at N Korea. Apart from the willingness to use whatever nuke material they possess and fight until their total annihilation, they have enough artillery to flatten Seoul if a surprise+rapid attack was to begin. Does US/S. Korea have enough radar defence gatling guns, PAC3 missles etc., to shoot all these down? Nope.
And these guys are quite happy to be cannon fodder, in the name of their great leader. Like the Vietcong death volunteers chained to the trees. Totally unsophisticated, but YOU STILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT, right?
If the China air/sea/land military/J-20 threat is such a piece of blustering crap as people make out, we should cancel the F-35 and spend it on fixing the U.S. and get out of Australia.
You can be sure China has enough money for both in their country.
Bill Sweetman Jnr.
a strawman argument if i ever heard one. by the scenario you paint the Chinese do everything right, catch every break and are inside our decision making loop.
ReplyDeleteby your scenario even if we had 1000 F-22's we'd still lose.
your scenario is garbage.
there is no airplane that would win with what you're painting. so let me hit you with some reality. you will have legacy airplanes painting targets (cause they can be seen anyway) while the F-35's launch at optimum altitude, range and speed. once missiles are expended they leave and do it again.
there is a HUGE kill ratio in simulations for a reason.
but this "discussion" is silly. you're not changing my mind and i'm not changing yours.
1000 F-22s and 1000 F-35s would be a great deterrent. How many we got now in the hangars, let's see...
DeleteI'm not saving the Chinese will win — all I'm saying it's not a walk in the park with all the gear flying around. You'll be fighting on their turf, national pride is at stake. How do you know they won't have anti-stealth gear in the future? Didn't they cybersteal all our F-35 data, right?
Didn't an American spy sell the Carrier fleet battle plans to the Soviets in the seventies?
F-22s lost to RAF Typhoons during a well documented exercise (the USAF said their 'stealth' wasn't turned on..)
Appreciate the different viewpoint Sol, and I hope you're right.
Cheers mate
LOL, nice discussion. I think you'll have to agree to disagree.
DeleteOkay, let me get this straight... The Chinese fighter is a "slightly stealthy, oversized, weak engined, single man fighter with questionable avionics" ran by a country "on the brink of societal collapse"... but it is also the reason why F-35 is necessary?
ReplyDeleteBasic logic would demand that either the J-20 isn't a threat, in which case F-35 is unnecessary, or F-35 is useful, to combat the J-20 which is a threat.
This whole post reads like you're cheering for the powers that be making an error in their judgment, just because it's an error you like.