Toaster, what a silly argument. We aren't going to get thousands of old planes. There is a reason they design new ones. Also, the prices are just ridiculous. You think you can get an F-15E for $30 million? The Silent Eagle they are working on now will go for about 100. According to Navy Times, Super Hornets are going for about $70 million in the newest buy.
What part of-
Regardless, it helps put an unfathomably large number into perspective and gives a frame of reference for exactly how "affordable" the JSF is.
Is a silly argument? What is more relevant than the cost of other 4/4.5/5th generation aircraft? Would you prefer I used cupcakes as a frame of reference?
Also it would appear the figure you quoted from the Navy Times is wrong on the Rhino/Growler-
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/09/30/348008/us-navy-signs-for-124-more-super-hornets.html
5,300,000,000/124=
42,741,935
Agreed on the 15E, unlikely for that price, but it's amazing what an absurdly large order could do. If you read my post you would also note I cited that as being a figure in 98' prices and included the Silent Eagle as well. Of course they factor the cost of development into the cost of the first buy of every aircraft, so a second buy without any major developmental changes can be significantly less (re: the Rhino).
In our society, the loss of a human life is such huge issue back home that it is worth it to spend abusurd amounts on the best equipment available.
Our military these days is all about quality (compared to our enemies). "Quantity has a quality all its own"... lets leave that for the commies.
Very valid point, especially about the price we put on human life. I guess it really comes down to personal opinion, but I would argue we've gone too far down this road. If I was looking for a nice cushy safe job, I'd be trying to get into accounting. If a real shooting war with a major nation ever breaks out these daily causality counts dictating policy are going to be gone in a hurry. Hopefully that never happens, but that is likelihood "2500" JSF's are being built for.
It wasn't very long ago we successfully subscribed to that logic, not exactly reserved for the commies. Just look at the Tiger Tank vs. the Sherman for the simplest analogy. The Tiger was vastly superior in every way shape and form, but it was largely ineffective considering we built 5+ Sherman's for every one. Of course that isn't the goal, clearly it's better to produce a lot of really good equipment. For the really staggering figures check out fighter/bomber production during WWII.
Are they churning out old tech by the hundreds or are they pursuing the next generation just as we are? You can't pursue force structure on a fanciful hypothesis about what our adversary "could" do. Sure, they could turn on a dime and churn out the fighters.....but they aren't going to churn out the pilots. That takes time, and we would have ample opportunity to react. A manufacturing shortfall is far easier to make up than a technological one.
You throw out "alternatives" but they aren't really. The B-2 was designed for the third leg of our nuclear deterrent - it's been pressed into use as a bomb truck but it's a completely different mission from the strike fighter's. We wax nostalgic about the A-10 but in a low-threat environment it's role can be filled at lesser cost by turboprop fixed-wing CAS, which we are acquiring. In a high-threat environment it's dead, so how's the grunt going to feel about the CAS that's just got shot down by 1970's tech?
It's all well and good to whine about "alternatives", but what are they, really?
-roll the clock back and develop the F-36 in parallel, effectively doubling the enormous cost of development while halving the economies of scale. It mitigates some risk in that we can cancel one if the other gets bloated, but at the point that we see the bloat, we've already sunk a good portion of the development costs. And unless both were designed to be joint, we're effectively married to both of them or stuck spending the cost to modify a land-based fighter for the carrier or vice versa.
-augment the JSF force with 4.5 gen Super Hornets. It's a fine plan in the short run, and if we were to go to war tomorrow or in the next few years it'd be a great idea. But there isn't a conventional war on the near horizon and spending procurement costs on the SH comes at the cost of elevating the costs of the JSF and making us worse off 20 years down the road when we have fewer JSF's supplemented by older SH's. The institution is rightly balancing the needs of today with ensuring that we have a capable fleet in 20 years.
Secretary Gates is by no means drinking corporate kool-aid on procurement, but the fixable issues are in the way the contracts are written and not in the basic idea of the JSF. If we're comfortable with the idea of the SH as a stop-gap for the Navy and Air Force's strike fighter needs, then why do we think the Navy and AF need wholly separate airframes for the next generation? I'm more dubious about the STOVL portion, but that's where the Marines chose to put their eggs.
If you're arguing our force structure shouldn't be based on what our enemy "could" do, I guess you think it should be based on what they "can" do? Whatever happened to hope for the best, prepare for the worst? If we're just preparing for today and what our enemies "can" do, we really don't need the JSF. Some mix of F-22's, F-15C's, F-15E's, Vipers, and Hornets would easily cover the base. The C model Eagles have already waxed the floor with the best the East has.
Also do you really think China will be particularly transparent in their weapons development? They certainly won't slip 10K planes under the radar, but unlike Western countries they don't have an infatuation with announcing every single development. Once the facilities are there, planes can be mass produced just like anything else. You can't use our model for procurements as a standard for the rest of the world. When a country doesn't have to go through a bidding process, can dictate price, labor, and every other factor it is amazing how many, and how quickly things can get built.
I disagree totally with your assertion that a technological gap is worse than a manufacturing gap. Neither is good, but a manufacturing gap is at least as bad. It's awesome if you have all this great technology but no way to produce it. This countries manufacturing base has truly been decimated by China. That isn't a political talking point, it's just a fact. That isn't something can be rebuilt or retooled overnight, that is infrastructure which takes years if not decades to develop. It's more than manufacturing itself, just look at the way the have monopolized natural rescoures. Plus, you are still avoiding the fact at some point simple machines and sheer numbers will eventually win.
One thing I will say with some conviction is that killing the F-22 with the argument the JSF is going to replace/supplement it was stupid. Plain and simple. There was nothing but politics and an agenda involved in that decision. At long last we have a proven world beater finally rolling off the lines at a set/decreasing price and cancel production? The rest of the world outright acknowledges the current battle in terms for fighters is really for second place. Even when you ask pilots flying on our side they acknowledge it is in another league. Instead we get saddled with some overweight single engine strike "fighter" which can only carry two AMRAAM's internally. Had we just continued the full F-22 buy and not been in such a hurry to retire legacy aircraft to fund this monstrosity of a project, much of this discussion and concern about a "fighter gap" wouldn't exist.
The B-2 may not be an "alternative" for a strike fighter, but it's certainly a useful tool for day 1 of a non nuclear war. I don't think you can dismiss it entirely as an option. I think we're so hung up on the small war doctrine we've forgotten that "strike fighters" aren't to solution for everything. I won't even go there with A-10's, I'm sure some Hog drivers differ. Regardless, debating the semantics of these various airframes on the internet isn't really going to solve anything. I was simply using that as an example to illustrate the incredible cost and perhaps suggest there were alternatives.
To be entirely honest I have no idea what those alternatives are. I just know blindly charging down a road because no one wants to make tough decisions and come up with a viable solution is never the answer. I've heard enough of that lately and am sick of it, maybe I live in the wrong country now. I'm just an immature college kid who spends too much time reading defense and business publications killing time until I can hopefully get in the cockpit, but I know BS when I see it. Most of this doesn't take a degree is astrophysics to realize. I was hoping some people at the top might make an effort, but apparently if you voice your opinion and the SECDEF or POTUS don't like it, you get canned. I'm the last person to be opposed to defense spending or projects of any sort. Especially ones relating to the future of our air superiority. I guess I just see this project becoming a politically expedient way to drastically cut the strength of our air power, I just hope I'm wrong.
