The Armory - Guns, Knives, and Axes

[Smitty-48]

36 miles is right where the AMRAAM gets its lethality back, meanwhile, Eurofighter Typhoons are almost two and half times the price of an F-35A

[Speaker to Animals]

36 miles is right where the AMRAAM gets its lethality back, meanwhile, Eurofighter Typhoons are almost two and half times the price of an F-35A

And that's a problem, dude.

One solution might be to design a long-range missile that actually fits in the weapons bay of an F-35 instead of the AIM-120. Stealth fighters are made for distance and hit-and-run tactics. You want to switch on your radar, target, launch, hit, and fade into the background to repeat. If they can make visual, you are kind of fucked.

[Smitty-48]

That of course assumes that the F-35 is nose to nose with the Flanker, when in reality it would employ stealth and sensor fusion to sneak around behind him and shoot from the saddle, which would be much closer than 36 miles, in the No Escape Zone.

[Speaker to Animals]

F-35 needs long-range missiles that actually fit in the weapons bay.

Missile tech just made a huge leap. It's long-range targeting and killing now or death.

Also, that chart is misleading. There are kinds of radar that can target an F-35. F-35 uses the same shit that an F-117 used, and those got targeted even by mongrels.

[Smitty-48]

MBDA Meteor ramjet powered fits in the bays, Meteor is what the British will be using from their F-35's, the Pentagon simply hasn't prioritized a new missile, because they assert that F-35 doesn't need it, since it won't need to shoot from that far off.

For the British, they will be using their Sea Panthers for fleet defense, so they want Meteor.

[TheReal_ND]

Redpill me on the f32. This thing looks like a shuttle. When are we going to have space capable aeros?

[Smitty-48]

Redpill me on the f32. This thing looks like a shuttle. When are we going to have space capable aeros?

Couldn't do the job.

The Pentagon ran an all or nothing show us you can do the job fly off, F-35 did the job, F-32 couldn't do it.

In broad strokes, Boeing went for the more radical design while Lockheed Martin was more conservative.

When the rubber met the road, the more radical design couldn't perform, while F-35 passed with flying colors.

[Smitty-48]

Bear in mind, the contract was not to replace F-22, Lockheed Martin had already provided that radical performer, now it was being asked to provide a cost controlled complementary interdiction fighter to replace F-16, F/A-18, Harrier and Tornado, so conservative was the way to go, since it was a conservative mission.

[TheReal_ND]

I just think the f-35 is sexier than the f22. I don't think there should be a pissing match about the two. It's clear Obama is a fucking retard for cutting the f22 but that was for domestic air superiority use only. Nobody else was intended to have one. Perhaps the couple hundred we have is enough but cancelling it altogether and deleting the jigs is so unbelievably retarded I want to punch something.

[Speaker to Animals]

They were drunk on the stealth kool aid back then. The Pentagon brass wanted everything totally stealth. Having external pylons, even if optional, dispels the myth. Boeing was and is right that stealth is highly overrated, though very useful in certain situations. But stealth was the shiny pony of the time. That's all changed now. They couldn't escape reality. Now they want F-15X to replace the F-15E. Not stealthy at all but a more solid performer.

The areas where you need stealth are in your primary air superiority fighter and strategic bombers.

Everything else should be designed around performance. Stealth and performance are inversely correlated. Stealth means very limited range, very limited munitions, very limited performance. It's extremely advantageous in air superiority and strategic bombing, though, obviously. The problem is.. that's not the F-35's role.