What's going on in India?

[Smitty-48]

Time for a little F-35 Panther porn to break up the Mother Jones monotony;

F-35A flown by Canadian chief test pilot, Billy Flynn.

[StCapps]

I am telling you from experience: you need more than the F-35. The F-35 all by itself is likely going to lose us the next big war.

Again: what the fuck do you think happens when they shoot down the tankers??

You cannot separate the F-35 from tankers. The two go hand in hand. If you lose the tankers you lose the F-35 too.

Obviously you need more than F-35, it's not like me and Smitty said that "The only plane the USAF needs is F-35, only buy F-35's and nothing else". We never said anything remotely close to that, in fact.

We just said that F-15 X isn't a realistic alternative to F-35, and that most of the anti-F-35 talking points you bring up are bullshit. You then threw a hissy fit, because you can't handle any positives of the F-35 being pointed out to you and you have a hard-on for the F-15.

I mean, I have no problem with the F-15X providing support for F-35 and F-22, but acting like you can just ditch the F-35's and replace them with F-15X, and that would be a superior option for the USAF, that's the ridiculous assertion we are belittling.

Obama killed F-22, it's not like bringing that program back now is a more realistic alternative either, and F-22 can't do everything that F-35 can, so it makes no sense to replace F-35's with F-22's either, they are different jets for different roles.

[Smitty-48]

A more agressive demo at RIAT

[Speaker to Animals]

I am telling you from experience: you need more than the F-35. The F-35 all by itself is likely going to lose us the next big war.

Again: what the fuck do you think happens when they shoot down the tankers??

You cannot separate the F-35 from tankers. The two go hand in hand. If you lose the tankers you lose the F-35 too.

Obviously you need more than F-35, it's not like me and Smitty said that "The only plane the USAF needs is F-35, only buy F-35's and nothing else". We never said anything remotely close to that, in fact.

We just said that F-15 X isn't a realistic alternative to F-35, and that most of the anti-F-35 talking points you bring up are bullshit. You then threw a hissy fit, because you can't handle any positives of the F-35 being pointed out to you and you have a hard-on for the F-15.

I mean, I have no problem with the F-15X providing support for F-35 and F-22, but acting like you can just ditch the F-35's and replace them with F-15X, and that would be a superior option for the USAF, that's the ridiculous assertion we are belittling.

You didn't even answer the question.

You have nothing.

The F-15X does everything the F-35 realistically would be used for, better, and more cheaply. Furthermore, it would survive an air war in which all the tankers got shot down. Derp.

The tanker problem is the biggest problem facing the Air Force right now.

The F-35 just all around sucks. It excels at nothing. It doesn't have sufficient range to be effective. It's not robust enough to use safely in dangerous environments like the arctic. It carries only 4 AIM-120 missiles, which totally fucking sucks when you realize maybe only one of those is going to hit its target.

You don't have answers to any of this.

[Hastur]

I know next to nothing about fighter planes, but what surprised me about this story (aside from the fact it's barely getting any news traction here), was that India used MiG's, at all. Did they get them from Russia or "second-hand", so to speak? Does India still have a contract with Russian arms manufacturers, or has the US (or other countries) outcompeted the Russians?

Russia is and has been for decades the main arms dealer to India.

The Indian Army is mostly T-90's and BMP-2's

The Indian Air Force flies Soviet MiGs and Russian Sukhois.

The Indian Navy uses Russian kit as well.

The Indians like to buy from a stable of vendors, as a political weapon, and in case a vendor would cut them off with sanctions.

Also, they like the Russian kit because it is cheap and plentiful, so it provides them with mass at an affordable price.

India ended up on the wrong side after kicking out the British. It was an enemy of my enemy kind of situation and the Soviets just slid in like Russia never lost the great game. Ironic really.
Sweden sold India some great howitzers but that led to a great corruption scandal.
We're back now though, trying to sell them J39s. It's one of the biggest arms buyers out there not having to bow to NATO interests.

[StCapps]

I am telling you from experience: you need more than the F-35. The F-35 all by itself is likely going to lose us the next big war.

Again: what the fuck do you think happens when they shoot down the tankers??

You cannot separate the F-35 from tankers. The two go hand in hand. If you lose the tankers you lose the F-35 too.

Obviously you need more than F-35, it's not like me and Smitty said that "The only plane the USAF needs is F-35, only buy F-35's and nothing else". We never said anything remotely close to that, in fact.

We just said that F-15 X isn't a realistic alternative to F-35, and that most of the anti-F-35 talking points you bring up are bullshit. You then threw a hissy fit, because you can't handle any positives of the F-35 being pointed out to you and you have a hard-on for the F-15.

I mean, I have no problem with the F-15X providing support for F-35 and F-22, but acting like you can just ditch the F-35's and replace them with F-15X, and that would be a superior option for the USAF, that's the ridiculous assertion we are belittling.

You didn't even answer the question.

You have nothing.

The F-15X does everything the F-35 realistically would be used for, better, and more cheaply. Furthermore, it would survive an air war in which all the tankers got shot down. Derp.

The tanker problem is the biggest problem facing the Air Force right now.

The F-35 just all around sucks. It excels at nothing. It doesn't have sufficient range to be effective. It's not robust enough to use safely in dangerous environments like the arctic. It carries only 4 AIM-120 missiles, which totally fucking sucks when you realize maybe only one of those is going to hit its target.

You don't have answers to any of this.

F-15X is too easy to see, and isn't as good at spotting the enemy, so no, F-15X does not do everything that F-35 does, and it never will, no matter how much money you throw at it.

[Smitty-48]

I know next to nothing about fighter planes, but what surprised me about this story (aside from the fact it's barely getting any news traction here), was that India used MiG's, at all. Did they get them from Russia or "second-hand", so to speak? Does India still have a contract with Russian arms manufacturers, or has the US (or other countries) outcompeted the Russians?

Russia is and has been for decades the main arms dealer to India.

The Indian Army is mostly T-90's and BMP-2's

The Indian Air Force flies Soviet MiGs and Russian Sukhois.

The Indian Navy uses Russian kit as well.

The Indians like to buy from a stable of vendors, as a political weapon, and in case a vendor would cut them off with sanctions.

Also, they like the Russian kit because it is cheap and plentiful, so it provides them with mass at an affordable price.

India ended up on the wrong side after kicking out the British. It was an enemy of my enemy kind of situation and the Soviets just slid in like Russia never lost the great game. Ironic really.
Sweden sold India some great howitzers but that led to a great corruption scandal.
We're back now though, trying to sell them J39s. It's one of the biggest arms buyers out there not having to bow to NATO interests.

Yeah, because you Swedes are the dirtiest bribing sneaks in Europe after France.

Lockheed Martin does business clean, don't get any of your filthy Saab dirt on me, Swede, eww.

[StCapps]

Saying the F-35 excels at nothing, is like saying GSP excels at nothing. Just because something is well rounded, doesn't mean it excels at nothing, it could just easily mean it's good at everything, or somewhere in between.

F-35 is one hell of a jack-of-all-trades, StA just hate planes that can do more than one thing or something, he crazy. Specialization is great and all, but overspecialization is not, and eschewing the F-35 as "good at nothing" is a classic example of embracing overspecialization.

[Speaker to Animals]

Obviously you need more than F-35, it's not like me and Smitty said that "The only plane the USAF needs is F-35, only buy F-35's and nothing else". We never said anything remotely close to that, in fact.

We just said that F-15 X isn't a realistic alternative to F-35, and that most of the anti-F-35 talking points you bring up are bullshit. You then threw a hissy fit, because you can't handle any positives of the F-35 being pointed out to you and you have a hard-on for the F-15.

I mean, I have no problem with the F-15X providing support for F-35 and F-22, but acting like you can just ditch the F-35's and replace them with F-15X, and that would be a superior option for the USAF, that's the ridiculous assertion we are belittling.

You didn't even answer the question.

You have nothing.

The F-15X does everything the F-35 realistically would be used for, better, and more cheaply. Furthermore, it would survive an air war in which all the tankers got shot down. Derp.

The tanker problem is the biggest problem facing the Air Force right now.

The F-35 just all around sucks. It excels at nothing. It doesn't have sufficient range to be effective. It's not robust enough to use safely in dangerous environments like the arctic. It carries only 4 AIM-120 missiles, which totally fucking sucks when you realize maybe only one of those is going to hit its target.

You don't have answers to any of this.

F-15X is too easy to see, and isn't as good at spotting the enemy, so no, F-15X does not do everything that F-35 does, and it never will, no matter how much money you throw at it.

It doesn't fucking matter. The tanker is easy to see too, and without the tanker the F-35 falls into the ocean. Do you still not understand this simple fact??

We are not going to send F-35A deep into Russian airspace to do fuck all of anything. It will just get shot down.

There is no reason to spend all that money on stealth for the kind of roles the F-35 was designed to fill. Then because we went with stealth, we lost a huge amount of space for armaments and fuel tanks which so limited the capabilities of this airframe it is almost useless for the roles it was intended to fill.

[Speaker to Animals]

I know next to nothing about fighter planes, but what surprised me about this story (aside from the fact it's barely getting any news traction here), was that India used MiG's, at all. Did they get them from Russia or "second-hand", so to speak? Does India still have a contract with Russian arms manufacturers, or has the US (or other countries) outcompeted the Russians?

Russia is and has been for decades the main arms dealer to India.

The Indian Army is mostly T-90's and BMP-2's

The Indian Air Force flies Soviet MiGs and Russian Sukhois.

The Indian Navy uses Russian kit as well.

The Indians like to buy from a stable of vendors, as a political weapon, and in case a vendor would cut them off with sanctions.

Also, they like the Russian kit because it is cheap and plentiful, so it provides them with mass at an affordable price.

India ended up on the wrong side after kicking out the British. It was an enemy of my enemy kind of situation and the Soviets just slid in like Russia never lost the great game. Ironic really.
Sweden sold India some great howitzers but that led to a great corruption scandal.
We're back now though, trying to sell them J39s. It's one of the biggest arms buyers out there not having to bow to NATO interests.

Good question in here is: why isn't Sweden selling them those Grippen lawn darts?

Sweden is a good supplier of kit because they don't usually take sides. They make decent equipment for what it is.