F-35 Lightning info

[Lawman]

If no shit we get to "storm the beach" and EVERYBODY is days out and "this" needs to happen right ######ing now, sounds like something helos can do until the CSG and the AF get there, which really isn't as far away as some Marines may think. If you say the helos will get slaughtered, SA-15s etc....we'll then it's wait a bit or were at ALR Ludicrous.

Cobras can't do that. Cobras won't do that. It's a light attack platform. And it's got very short legs. It's sensor is limited. And importantly it has very little defensive in way of countermeasures and jamming, so it doesn't take much to completely negate its ability (SA18s and better are cheap and out there). It's also slow, all gunships are, so if they are taking he Osprey anything past the first 5 km from the FLOT and it can't.

And when will the AF get there is the question he Marines want an answer to. If we had needed to put ground troops on the beach in Libya what was the cycle time and ability to provide CAS gonna be. How quickly can you cycle strikes across the Med from Spang or Aviano. How many more planes would it take to keep the gaps out of that CAS plan with in and egress and flight time available being burned on some ridiculous enroute time. No 6 or 8 jets based locally can't maintain 24 hour ops for a long duration of time, but neither can 10 jets 1000 miles away that need 4 tankers, overflight clearance, and a lot more moving parts just to show up.

[HU&W]

Cobras can't do that. Cobras won't do that. It's a light attack platform. And it's got very short legs. It's sensor is limited. And importantly it has very little defensive in way of countermeasures and jamming, so it doesn't take much to completely negate its ability (SA18s and better are cheap and out there). It's also slow, all gunships are, so if they are taking he Osprey anything past the first 5 km from the FLOT and it can't.

And when will the AF get there is the question he Marines want an answer to. If we had needed to put ground troops on the beach in Libya what was the cycle time and ability to provide CAS gonna be. How quickly can you cycle strikes across the Med from Spang or Aviano. How many more planes would it take to keep the gaps out of that CAS plan with in and egress and flight time available being burned on some ridiculous enroute time. No 6 or 8 jets based locally can't maintain 24 hour ops for a long duration of time, but neither can 10 jets 1000 miles away that need 4 tankers, overflight clearance, and a lot more moving parts just to show up.

Taken another way, it sounds like you're making an argument for the Super-T. Limited but viable A/A, great A/G (including armor), great ISR, good CAS, and can deal with every SA threat you mentioned earlier.

Edited November 12, 2013 by HU&W

[Lawman]

Taken another way, it sounds like you're making an argument for the Super-T. Limited but viable A/A, great A/G (including armor), great ISR, good CAS, and can deal with every SA threat you mentioned earlier.

But your still living with a low threat only capable system.

Longbow can operate in a higher threat environment than the cobra because we have a fire and forget Hellfire. Cobras have to see to kill and due to their cheaper sensor (they are he low cost gunship after all) they can't see as far. The second you start introducing a radar directed threat even I don't want to go, they are even worse off. So leveraging your whole CAS plan behind short legged light attack helos is dangerous.

Super-T can do a lot but it's still limited ASE. IR threats, it can fix a lot with bolt ons like CMWS or ATIRCMS but it's still not the high long range standoff to provide the CAS/SEAD/ETC against anybody with anything bigger than MANPADs. Like Swanee was saying if you couldn't take a Harrier into places because of the threat your not gonna do better with a prop driven plane except pay a little less to replace all the ones you get shot down. At Super T is gonna live in the WEZ of any mobile SAM system we can't simply pre plot and kill with a cruise missile.

The Air Force argument for anything but low intensity is simply "don't go but if you do we will take care of it." Problem will be when the NCA says don't go isn't an option and the Air Force and Navy are out of position to take care of it. With things like reduction in Carriers, Tankers, Forward bases, etc that becomes a more and more likely scenario.

[nsplayr]

The Air Force argument for anything but low intensity is simply "don't go but if you do we will take care of it." Problem will be when the NCA says don't go isn't an option and the Air Force and Navy are out of position to take care of it. With things like reduction in Carriers, Tankers, Forward bases, etc that becomes a more and more likely scenario.

Let's just agree to disagree.

From my point of view, if you have unlimited money then yes, let's give Marine Air (the air force of the navy's army, right?) 5th gen fighters that can launch off of short boats so when that one crazy scenario where you're doing a TRAP into a sophisticated IADS that's unified against us and the CVN or nearest AF base is just too damn far away and there's no way to delay for 6-9 hours...great, do it.

I'm arguing that A) that scenario is relatively unlikely, and especially B) we can no longer afford to plan for every exotic scenario that has multi-billion dollar solutions courtesy of Lockheed. What I'm proposing isn't a risk-free solution but the risk can be mitigated.

At this point canceling the F-35B would only affect the Marines, and I've argued that we could give Marine Air airplanes that could accomplish the vast majority of it's intended mission for a fraction of the cost. I'd give my left nut to fly the Super T on those kinds missions. Use the savings to both buy that fleet as well as bolster the A and C models so if the above scenario does happen, you guys have your 5th gen air cover. Hell, that air can even be "organic" so your Marine O-6 can blow his load because Marines will be flying C models off the big boat. Win-win-win.

The Marines are great, I grew up 5 mins from Quantico and I know lots of great Americans serving in the Corps. That being said, I'm still unconvinced that your (the Marines) want is my (the nation's) need.

Edited November 12, 2013 by nsplayr

[Lawman]

Let's just agree to disagree.

From my point of view, if you have unlimited money then yes, let's give Marine Air (the air force of the navy's army, right?) 5th gen fighters that can launch off of short boats so when that one crazy scenario where you're doing a TRAP into a sophisticated IADS that's unified against us and the CVN or nearest AF base is just too damn far away and there's no way to delay for 6-9 hours...great, do it.

Except your not arguing for that. Your hung up on Super Tacano which is a step backwards from the Harrier to be able to apply real time heavy CAS. Yeah it's got station time and persistent ISR and all the crap we could have used in the last decade of peace keeping in the Stan. It is no more than a helicopter with a 500 lbs bomb strapped to it in a high threat environment, except he can't hide down low like a Helo can.

We just spent a month going around the table on going into Syria with a real possibility of needing ground forces to secure Chem weapons... With no Carrier Strike Group in the gulf. So your plan to cover the Marines going ashore is CAS sorties launched from half a continent away. Before that it was Libya with the same talk to go secure weapons to keep from Terror groups. Now it's the pivot into the Pacific. And your service has a history of telling the others "not my problem bro work it out with what I'm giving you." So big surprise the Marines aren't buying your plan.

[nsplayr]

Except your not arguing for that. Your hung up on Super Tacano which is a step backwards from the Harrier to be able to apply real time heavy CAS. Yeah it's got station time and persistent ISR and all the crap we could have used in the last decade of peace keeping in the Stan. It is no more than a helicopter with a 500 lbs bomb strapped to it in a high threat environment, except he can't hide down low like a Helo can.

The Super T or a similar platform can carry everything needed for the mission I've talked about, has much greater persistence to actually cover the ground forces rather than do a fly by, dump it's bomb, and return to the boat, and as you mentioned, can do "all the crap we could have used in the last decade."

News flash, we're still gonna be doing much of "all that crap" and the MEU is actually a really good instrument for doing that type of lower intensity stuff. Have you been to Africa? South America? Philippines? The stuff we're doing there or could do there should be the bread and butter of a post-Iraq and Afghanistan Marine Corps.

Plus FW (even the much derided prop-driven variety) can keep up with the V-22s and has the legs to escort them in and remain overhead, traditional helicopters can't as you've pointed out in justifying why you need a jet.

So big surprise the Marines aren't buying your plan.

The Marines aren't buying shit, the American tax payer is buying everything. We can afford a lower cost platform, hell, we can afford way more of them, and you get about 69% of the capes you want and 100% of the capes I think you actually need. The F-35B is hurting the entire F-35 program at large, just for the pipe dream of "needing" 4x 5th gen fighters to launch off of a short boat to do OCA.

Want vs need.

You do need a CAS platform to escort V-22s and provide armed overwatch for Marine boots on the ground. The country needs a ready, forward-deployed combined arms force to respond to contingencies, the vast majority of which are low-intensity (disaster relief, embassy evac, downed aircrew, FID, COIN, support for SOF, etc.).

You don't need a stealth super-plane to land vertically and launch AMRAAMS at soviet fighters. That's not what the Marine Corps was designed to do and that's not what the nation needs the Marines Corps to do.

Edited November 12, 2013 by nsplayr

[Lawman]

Your argument negates he need for 5th gen fighters at all. Your leveraging everything on us staying and doing a lot of low intensity with the tiny possibility of high intensity.

Is your memory so short we've forgotten he last 5 real high intensity conflicts that happened in the last 20 years (about as long as a fighter development program).

You have stated it's not the Marines job to send the MEU in to be a miniature self contained force capable of holding a foothold (beach, airport, harbor, etc) while the Air Force and Army get their shit together and assemble an offensive capability. Thats exactly their job! And we have used them for that job (reference Marines deploying in Gulf War I). What do you think their job is gonna be in a Korea scenario? Launch SEAD for the Osprey with the Super T's?

We got rid of the Bronco because of that exact scenario. It went to the gulf... And we lost more of them than any other fixed wing aircraft because it was he Marines primary FAC aircraft. We got rid of it and started using D model Hornets instead because survivability was an issue to address. Now your saying hey it's cool that's not gonna happen again bro, what we need is a long time persistent turboprop that can provide enough firepower to stop a Convoy TIC or support SOF doing a hard knock. You can call the scenario as unlikely as you want, fact is it has happened before, it will happen again. Same kind of crap people talk about tanks because when is the last time we rolled Abrams against T72s.

[nsplayr]

Your argument negates he need for 5th gen fighters at all.

That's the idea

You have stated it's not the Marines job to send the MEU in to be a miniature self contained force capable of holding a foothold (beach, airport, harbor, etc) while the Air Force and Army get their shit together and assemble an offensive capability. Thats exactly their job!

You can do all that without the definite need for self-contained 5th gen fighters off of a short boat. Especially considering the "getting shit together" time of the Army and Air Force aren't exactly as dire as you imagine.

And especially considering that you're saying that 4-6 F-35Bs off a single short boat would do the job. Let's be honest, if you need 5th gen fighters to survive a high-threat environment or take out 4th or 5th gen enemy air, we're gonna dedicate more resources to the problem than a single LHD.

It just doesn't add up to me why 4-6 F-35Bs is a game-changer to the Marine Corps capabilities considering the extreme cost. If we need more, bring in the big boys (CVNs, Air Force, etc.), if we don't need all that then the Corps can be perfectly positioned to provide a larger quantity of lower-tech air that can do a lot of good for the guys on the ground or in the Ospreys.

What do you think their job is gonna be in a Korea scenario?

Really bad example...guess what we have a shit load of nearby in S. Korea and Japan...oh yea, the Air Force. And if you're kicking down the door of N. Korea you'd better believe a CVN or two will be nearby carrying more 5th gen squids as well as your long-boat Marines in C models (future scenario obviously).

We can agree to disagree on the likelihood of the scenario you're suggesting. It's the only reason to continue funding the enormously expensive F-35B program the way I see it. I'm sure these arguments are had in the Pentagon regularly and with less tact.

Edited November 12, 2013 by nsplayr

[Lawman]

Except there is no quantity limit 4-6 5th gen birds. Look at Iraq, they put 20 Harriers on a Boxer class boat and used them as Close Air Support overhead of the Marines. Because they needed more fixed wing CAS.

As I brought up before the Air Force has the new Expeditionary Raptor option. 4 Raptors into an AO with parts to go through to sustain. That's a game changing maneuver element. So is having a half dozen 5th Gen deploy 50km from your beach with a cycle rate that allows hat GFC to exploit the attack. Need more, wait a dozen days for the Air Force to get enough Raptors out to Guam or Hornets to Wake etc, or just get the tankers to get a dozen F-35s out to that boat that's already there with parts and and fuel and a base and close by so they can be more useful. Can't do that without VSTOL.

Yeah there is a lot of AF in Korea, but your gonna have 99 problems, and he Marine MEU is gonna be 1 of them. Now he capability of that MEU hinges on an outside source, that's exactly counter to their design and doctrine. Same as if they had no Abrams or 7 tons or Heavy Lift. They need a handful of all the elements for Unified Land Ops. The Marines are not The 911 force as long as it's not a scary enemy.

And dude I've been involved in Army Movement operations.... Outside the 82nd unit that's on QRF it's worse than I'm implying. Go read about Task Force Smith and our self deploy debacle into Kosovo if you wanna see a great example of us reinventing the wheel in the middle of having shit to do. If you told my Brigade tomorrow to pack their shit and be in Kuwait we'd need 3 months just to get our shit packed. And we're supposed to be the forward positioned CAB for the Army.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Lawman

[Swanee]

This argument is taking on some cool facets. While the Internets does lend itself to some "WTF is this (insert service here) douchebag even thinking?!" Truth be told, if we're ever at the same Oclub at the same time, I'd buy the first round.

The question/argument being posed is that the Marines don't need 5th (or even 4.5 or 4?) gen fighters completely organic to the MEU. I'll argue that for the Marine Corps to stay viable as the 911 service of the DoD, we have to. We have to be the most ready when the rest of the Nation and military is the least ready. We have to be able to kick in doors anywhere in the world whether the AF can get the F-22s, the Navy can get the Growlers, the Army can get the armor there or not. If you guys can get your assets there and go kinetic with us- awesome- your system worked flawlessly. But we are the insurance policy for when the system breaks down and someone can't get there in time. We may be a small force, but we're just buying you guys some time. It's an expensive policy, but I don't think it's one that the nation can live without.

Part of that expense can come from reducing the amount of forward deployed units. How many flight hours, gas, etc... do we spend constantly flying our jets across oceans? A lot. VMFA(AW)-### just used almost 2 months worth of flight hours flying home from their UDP in Iwakuni to Beaufort. It's a lot cheaper, and a much more quality X if you spend that X training instead of transiting.

I like the idea of the F-22 Expeditionary program. Especially when the ACE on the MEU says, " Holy shit, we're gonna need some more help quick." But we're not going to stop and wait. We're going to press, knowing that in 24 hours we're going to have some more help from big brother bringing even more ass kicking power. That makes us more lethal. It improves our ability to not have to stop and wait. The more time we wait, the more time the bad guys have to either dig in and prepare or move forward. We want to be able to take that away.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Swanee

[brabus]

if you have unlimited money then yes, let's give Marine Air (the air force of the navy's army, right?) 5th gen fighters that can launch off of short boats so when that one crazy scenario where you're doing a TRAP into a sophisticated IADS that's unified against us and the CVN or nearest AF base is just too damn far away and there's no way to delay for 6-9 hours...great, do it.

Shack. We're really getting into some extremely unlikely scenarios here to support the argument for Marine F-35Bs. Lawman - I'm not on the 100% Super T boat, I get it that the Marines need something more capable/survivable in a higher threat envelope, but they certainly don't need something that's "kick the IADs door in." Perhaps some Super Ts combined with carrier-based hornets would be a good mix. The bottom line is if Super Ts/Cobras can't do what's needed AND there is zero time to wait for the CSG/AF, you have now entered "so you're saying there's a chance!" land. Not impossible, but very unlikely.

Nsplayr pointed out your erroneous Korea example, but your Syria example is just as wrong. What do you think the AF is doing? When shit starts looking bad, we're there a lot of the times well before anything goes down (if it even does). The scenarios where Marines are the ONLY dudes there and need to act are the low intensity stuff like South America and Africa - places where Cobra, Super T, Osprey can do their thing at an acceptable ALR. Marines will not be going at sophisticated IADs by themselves, because the AF and/or the Navy already is in a position to effect those locations...hence if shit hits the fan in one of those places, you've got the AF and Navy to provide the capes/expertise on IADs degradation/destruction, OCA and DCA while the Marines execute their portion of the ops...the aforementioned is not really what Marine Air is there for.

[FlyinGrunt]

I'm with Nsplayer on this one. Maybe not Super-T, maybe not AH-64s for the USMC, but the current and worsening budget environment has to force some culture changes in ALL services.

1. USN and USAF handles big war OCA/DCA/SEAD/EA? Yep. USAF will take long-range strike via bombers, USN provides TLAMs.

2. USMC for forward-deployed, responsive combined arms? Yep. Short-boat air for CAS/assault/mobility.

3. Lawman is right . . . USA's deployment timetables are atrocious. This HAS to get better. I don't pretend to have the fix for this, aside from forward-staged heavy equipment stores . . . which we have, but I'm pretty sure could use some updating. Here's a thought: unless you think we're actually going to need all our Paladins and Abrams to defend ourselves from China in CONUS, just how much heavy firepower do we really need in CONUS to train? How about having a large percentage of that parked near more likely trouble spots, packed to move quickly using USMMC shipping (or USN, or whoever?)

4. Just like the USAF has gotten a forced shift towards RPA ops, courtesy of joint demands, perhaps it's time to put the ghost of Guadalcanal to rest - though I agree that it will take a national-level directive towards true jointness and assigned roles to do so, along with far more joint exercises with teeth. COPE BOONDOGGLE every 2 years, money permitting ain't gonna get it done.

5. The nation needs a Marine Corps. It just might need to be something other than Corps doctrine says it has to be.

[Lawman]

Shack. We're really getting into some extremely unlikely scenarios here to support the argument for Marine F-35Bs. Lawman - I'm not on the 100% Super T boat, I get it that the Marines need something more capable/survivable in a higher threat envelope, but they certainly don't need something that's "kick the IADs door in." Perhaps some Super Ts combined with carrier-based hornets would be a good mix. The bottom line is if Super Ts/Cobras can't do what's needed AND there is zero time to wait for the CSG/AF, you have now entered "so you're saying there's a chance!" land. Not impossible, but very unlikely. Nsplayr pointed out your erroneous Korea example, but your Syria example is just as wrong. What do you think the AF is doing? When shit starts looking bad, we're there a lot of the times well before anything goes down (if it even does).

Don't get me wrong on saying it needed to be 5th Gen. If you could get a real 4.5 gen replacement for Harrier that does its job just better (gas, bombs, sensor, bring back, etc) that would have been good enough. But replacing a fast jet that is limited capable with a prop plane that is even more limited for anything but low threat is not the way to go. Problem is we folded the 4th gen harrier replacement into the Navy/AF 5th gen program... So now it has to be LO otherwise you guys would have had to get on board with another 4th gen aircraft. Which works out fine for the AF just buy more Raptors... But he Navy is a big partner in this. And yes he AF is there... Now... Without a decade of peace dividend cutting into your capability to stage like you can now. Does anybody remember how poorly set AMC was before we bought a billion C17s?Your talking about cutting tankers, cutting fighters, cutting basing in Europe, moving the Armor home (no Abrams in Europe anymore) cutting long range bombers like B1... But your expecting to meet commitments that are already painfully complicated when you have a dozen different options to skin the cat. So it's cutting into the numbers available to put up a constant support element, increasing the log time to get the Marine relief in heavy Army units in place, and the tankers to get either in place quickly. It gets more likely the Marines need that firepower then less doing that. Do we need super T's in the inventory... Absolutely. Buy 120 of them and the second the president flies to an AO under a mission accomplished banner swap them in for all the thoroughbred race horses and let them pull the plow for the next decade. Make it a joint unit open to anybody with a tactical background as a tour like FAC. Be a hell of a lot better use for those guys than RPA's and you keep the community fresh and not burned out on constant 1to1 deployments. If somebody had he forethought to have walked in Embrear at the start of stability ops with 2 billion and just told them "he next 150 off your line are mine!" We would all be better off. Then you wouldn't need sections of 40 million dollar jets and me flying 35 million dollar gunships around at 90ktas trying to be a flying QRF or nearly as many farps and dollars to support that nonsense. Edited November 12, 2013 by Lawman

[Clark Griswold]

Interesting discussion. Not to just focus on systems, but why not an updated and more robust version of the RAH-66 Comanche?

5th Gen fixed-wing VSTOL may be a bridge too far but a very capable low signature attack helicopter that is survivable in a contested environment (medium threat) could be a financially viable option.

FAS reference on the Comanche so take it with a grain of salt but looks / looked pretty capable. 9 years on, with enough effort in development, probably could be better or lead to a better design.

[Lawman]

Interesting discussion. Not to just focus on systems, but why not an updated and more robust version of the RAH-66 Comanche?

5th Gen fixed-wing VSTOL may be a bridge too far but a very capable low signature attack helicopter that is survivable in a contested environment (medium threat) could be a financially viable option.

FAS reference on the Comanche so take it with a grain of salt but looks / looked pretty capable. 9 years on, with enough effort in development, probably could be better or lead to a better design.

Had a Experimental Test Pilot in flight school that had been on the program. More things wrong with that aircraft then right, and it's smaller then the Zulu Cobra as far as gas and guns it brings to the fight. It could perform the eyes forward recon/screen ops needed, but it's still gonna be much to short in standoff capability and overwhelming Firepower to be much help against an Enemy main body. It has an amazing flight envelope for a helicopter, it's just not a hitter.

And as far as cost goes...When we cx'd the program the money the Army saved paid for the M model Blackhawks, the F model Chinook upgrade, and the retiring of all the A model Apaches from Active and are units.

[Champ Kind]

So the army's multi role aircraft that was too big to fail...until it turned out that it wasn't...wound up paying for upgrades to three other airframes.

In today's fiscal environment, when supposedly nothing is "off the table", how is that not an argument for jettisoning the F-35B yesterday?

[Ram]

...we'd need 3 months just to get our shit packed.

[Lawman]

So the army's multi role aircraft that was too big to fail...until it turned out that it wasn't...wound up paying for upgrades to three other airframes.

In today's fiscal environment, when supposedly nothing is "off the table", how is that not an argument for jettisoning the F-35B yesterday?

Comanchee was never multi role though. It was and always would have been a scout. It wasn't going to replace anything but the 58D and wouldn't have turned into what it is if they had left it alone doing that. Longbow was still on, lift upgrades because our stuff was all early Panama vintage or older for lift. But we still haven't put any money into our scout program so now we are severely limited by the shortcomings of the 58. It isn't to ugly in low intensity but we will be marking targets with burning scouts if we go into anything else with it.

[Champ Kind]

Comanchee was never multi role though. It was and always would have been a scout. It wasn't going to replace anything but the 58D and wouldn't have turned into what it is if they had left it alone doing that. Longbow was still on, lift upgrades because our stuff was all early Panama vintage or older for lift. But we still haven't put any money into our scout program so now we are severely limited by the shortcomings of the 58. It isn't to ugly in low intensity but we will be marking targets with burning scouts if we go into anything else with it.

But isn't the Kiowa an observation helicopter (OH)?

I thought the "R A" in RAH-66 stood for "reconnaissance/attack"... as in more than one role.

Edited November 13, 2013 by Champ Kind

[Lawman]

But isn't the Kiowa an observation helicopter (OH)?

I thought the "R A" in RAH-66 stood for "reconnaissance/attack"... as in more than one role.

Semantics. 58 was an OH because that's what the naming convention at the time was using for the role. No different the he U-2 and SR-71 are both spy planes. Or the F-117 not having any fighter capability. We were calling the last 58 replacement the ARH-70. Doesn't make it a gunship.

The Comanche for all it's glory was a ridiculous example of a program running away from the intent with a lot of "hey you wanna add his too?" Good idea varies running amuck too long. Meanwhile after 12 billion we had 2 aircraft to show for it whose gun didn't work without melting, couldn't fit the versions of the Hellfire we wanted, and had a lot of systems (radios etc) that didn't exist yet. All while replacing the smallest community of Helicopters in the Army and eating 60% of the Aviation budget...

[Lawman]

Wait? A really expensive program running away from the intent with a lot of hey you wanna add this too? Good idea fairies running a muck? You don't say!

Welcome to the F-35B. A STOVL death trap with no actual gun, just a gun pod, that is expensive and not really good at anything it was designed to replace and/or do.

Except your way further down the road on this than Comanche was.

When they killed he RAH-66 it had flown less than 500 hours in testing, less then 100 of that with it's intended engines. It wasn't even a production version yet just a concept demonstrator and prototype like the X-35. The Army said screw this we will tank it and build a cheaper replacement, that option isn't available for the 35B because there is no cheaper replacement. If we were talking about the A or C model well heck yeah we just leverage the money to silent Eagle or more Raptors and Rhinos... Options to choose from.

The JSF is now 10k hours in, into low rate production, conducting weapons and other full rate tests. The time to kill it was a decade ago if that was the plan. But either way he point of the F-35B getting a Harrier replacement still needs to be funded. And you have to pay off the Brits and any other partners for their participation in the program. Somewhere he money to buy 350 4th or better gen aircraft to replace Harrier and pay off partners has to come out of that program. So any savings by canceling the program is gone.

[Lawman]

See you say that but... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-strike-fighter If they are bailing on it they are a bit late. The new Defense Secretary reversed his predecessors decision to go with C models. And I've read that article, the same guy is calling for Raptors to the Marines which don't fit the plan anywhere.

Edited November 13, 2013 by Lawman

[Smitty3187]

All this talk about the F-35B providing CAS for the Marines... I fail to see how being able to drop a JDAM is CAS. That does not provide a complete CAS solution. What happens when you run into a TIC inside 95m? Is that when you slap on the gun pod? Good luck employing close to friendlies without a HUD.

[MD]

Or the F-117 not having any fighter capability.

Trivia side point; although this is correct in terms of mission set we had; we still had the umbilical connections for the AIM-9 in our bomb bays, as well as the ability carry them. And the Armament Panel still had a two-digit code for AIM-9 weapon ID that the jet still recognized. But no, it wasn't anywhere in our mission anymore, nor did we ever train for it. But minor as it was, there was a little known and very limited F capability in there. Never used of course.

All this talk about the F-35B providing CAS for the Marines... I fail to see how being able to drop a JDAM is CAS. That does not provide a complete CAS solution. What happens when you run into a TIC inside 95m? Is that when you slap on the gun pod? Good luck employing close to friendlies without a HUD.

Hopefully the F-35 would have more luck with their gun pod than the Syracuse Guard had with theirs in Desert Storm and "fast ass CAS"

Edited November 13, 2013 by MD

[MD]

Interesting...was the "F" designation for political reasons then?

Depends who you talk to. It being more of a strike-fighter rather than an air-to-air bird similar to the F-111, as a ruse to throw off any Soviet spies, as a way to attract more of the best and brightest to be interested in volunteering back in the "black" days; any and all of those. There were ruse factors already with the program from the beginning, such as with the Bandit numbers for the pilots. In the same way there was an AIM-9 capability in the 117, but no mission for it; the plane could also carry B57 and B61 and had the standard separate weapons control panel for that, as well as still being able to recognize the two-digit codes for those weapons in the ACP, with further areas for data entry. But we had no mission assignment there either, didn't train for it, and weren't on PRP. That separate weapons panel was later modified to be the interface for the JDAM capability we gained in a modification a couple of years prior to the 117s retirement; everything before that being only LGBs we dropped and the one GPS/LGB we could carry.