F-35 Lightning II Discussion

[killramos]

Do we even have enough forces personnel to fly them at this point?

[Tik-Tok]

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Do we even have enough forces personnel to fly them at this point?

Don't worry about that. They'll all be donated to Ukraine anyhow.

[jutes]

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Do we even have enough forces personnel to fly them at this point?

No. Canadians don’t want a military anyway.

[killramos]

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No. Canadians don’t want a military anyway.

I have a pet theory that we should replace all government subsidized higher education funding with military service commitments.

Sure you can have a free education, but you will work it off being shot at.

Or you can pay for it yourself and take out a loan. No skin off my back.

[lilmira]

Now we need to give them environmental friendly rainbow paint for diversity.

[jutes]

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I have a pet theory that we should replace all government subsidized higher education funding with military service commitments.

Sure you can have a free education, but you will work it off being shot at.

Education, healthcare and other social services need to be earned…

[vengie]

I for one look forward to voting "Jetty McJetface" as one of the names.

[littledan]

you can send people to their deaths from 35000 feet but you can't use the term FAWG. lol at modern woke society.

[Maxt]

Reminds me of this.

[ExtraSlow]

War is a business and business is booming.

[ZenOps]

The F-35 will be necessary to escort the 100 B-21 raider bombers, yes.

Assuming that you need about 20 fighters for every bomber, the numbers they are targetting are correct. Its just a matter of who will be on the receiving end of said bomber escorts: Middle east, China, or Europe. Japan is still a subservient state to the USA after losing its attempt to bomb through Hawaii.

As mentioned before, no one cares enough to spend money to bomb Africa. It would be a waste of nukes. Australia? Solid and easy target.

When Japan tried to take the USA, they went for Hawaii first. It only makes sense that if the USA wants Asia, they will need to take Australia first. But it would never happen right? Just like how Putin would never invade Ukraine.

Australia being mostly a nation of British penal colonists who took over the native populations. Which makes them more American than they know.

[ZenOps]

Price of wheat, soybeans and corn may determine how the US shapes its defense strategy.

https://www.indexmundi.com/commoditi...eat&months=360

If wheat hovers closer to $500 per ton, then the USA should be strengthening its Mexican border. If wheat drops back to $200 per ton - noone is going to care about US farmland. Sometimes its an asset, othertimes its a liability.

Bill Gates will probably hold onto his land if it ends up being an asset - and if it ends up being a liability he will give it away. At $200 per ton, I'd assume the USA would be military expansionist.

https://www.reuters.com/article/fact...-idUSL2N2WX208

As the EU has shown, it is definitely possible to impose price manipulation as a goal. If a $150 per ton cap or floor is imposed on wheat (say by Russia and its new wheat cartel) then US markets can be toyed with, possibly as economic warfare. It would be even harder for landowner farmers, on top of government mandated restrictions on use of fertilizer.

[Xtrema]

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Reminds me of this.

Who did Trump bombed? Bush(s) got Iraq. Clinton got Bosnia. Obama got Libya. Biden got Ukraine.

Look, never a Trump supporter and I think looking at the Brazilians, Trump did way worse damage to democracy worldwide than a few bombs in a far away country did.

But until someone corrected me, Trump didn't start a war. (Droning terrorist doesn't count, I'm sure that continued under Trump).

[Kloubek]

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But until someone corrected me, Trump didn't start a war. (Droning terrorist doesn't count, I'm sure that continued under Trump).

I believe you're right. Although it shouldn't be ignored that Trump wanted to withdraw all US support for any international military partnerships. Doing so greatly increases the likelihood that unscrupulous nations will take the opportunity to invade and bomb other countries. Granted, Biden's stance did little stop Putin from invading Ukraine, but generally speaking, I'd say when the US is allied with another nation, it tends to greatly decrease the chances of that nation being decimated by another. And while that might do little to help North Americans, it certainly helps the citizens of said country and overall world stability.

And yes, I am excluding the fact that the US tends to be involved in more international conflicts than any other nation. But we're the "good guys".

Right?

[littledan]

We are definitely not the good guys. Lol.

We are the big bully that rolls in, fucks shit up, then fucks off leaving things in a mess. Look at libya. Afghanistan. Iraq. Ukraine. Yes. Ukraine.

[Gman.45]

The biggest thumbs down for all this, having wasted so much time with delays and contests, is that the CF isn't going to see it's first F35 in Canada until 2028 now. The contract for the first 16 fighters is going to try to have them delivered to the RCAF by 2026, however the jets will apparently stay in the USA at the base where they do all the F35 training while the RCAF prepares and builds facilities for the F35. The fighters will also stay there for 2 years so that RCAF pilots to be trained by the USA. We won't have the entire fleet for 10 years, at which point the CF18s will be 50 years old.

IMO we may as well wait and get in on the NGAD program with the USA as they are planning to field those gen 6 fighters by 2030. They already built at least 3 prototype demonstrators in less than 2 years, and have test flown the crap out of them. If we're going to buy anything, I'd prefer we bought the NGAD over the F35. We don't have tankers that can refuel the A model F35, so that means we either buy F35B/Cs, which have no internal gun (stupid), or the A model and buy new tankers that can use the flying probe in stead of a basket.

[jutes]

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We don't have tankers that can refuel the A model F35, so that means we either buy F35B/Cs, which have no internal gun (stupid), or the A model and buy new tankers that can use the flying probe in stead of a basket.

Canada moves forward with acquisition of first 2 Airbus A330-200s for RCAF future tanker
https://skiesmag.com/news/canada-mov...future-tanker/

[Xtrema]

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The biggest thumbs down for all this, having wasted so much time with delays and contests, is that the CF isn't going to see it's first F35 in Canada until 2028 now. The contract for the first 16 fighters is going to try to have them delivered to the RCAF by 2026, however the jets will apparently stay in the USA at the base where they do all the F35 training while the RCAF prepares and builds facilities for the F35. The fighters will also stay there for 2 years so that RCAF pilots to be trained by the USA. We won't have the entire fleet for 10 years, at which point the CF18s will be 50 years old.

IMO we may as well wait and get in on the NGAD program with the USA as they are planning to field those gen 6 fighters by 2030. They already built at least 3 prototype demonstrators in less than 2 years, and have test flown the crap out of them. If we're going to buy anything, I'd prefer we bought the NGAD over the F35. We don't have tankers that can refuel the A model F35, so that means we either buy F35B/Cs, which have no internal gun (stupid), or the A model and buy new tankers that can use the flying probe in stead of a basket.

Then again, Russian are down for the count for at least that long if not longer. Chinese got no carriers to get anywhere close to North America.

The biggest threat to us is Republicans dismantling US from within. No jets can deal with that.

[Gman.45]

China has no ambition or plans to attack the US mainland, they want to section off their part of the Pacific/South China sea and make everything in those waters and the nations surrounding them be under their control. When they have done that, and they're well on their way, they'll have control of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and be able to hold at risk all the SLOC/sea lines of communication.

That's what the NGAD is for, to have a very long range gen 6 fighter that is capable of thwarting the Chinese armed forces should a conflict arise. Currently all of the US fighters and attack aircraft rely on tankers and other C3 aircraft in order to be able to fight a near peer adversary, especially in the South China Sea theater of operations. F35, F18SH, F22, etc, all have pretty short combat radius ranges - plus the bases the F22 would be based out of (Japan/Okinawa/Taiwan) would have their runways turned to shit by Chinese ballistic missiles, and in order to the the F35C carrier born planes close enough to do anything without massive tanker support would mean exposing the carrier and their battle group to insane risk due to the short ranges involved with that. Plus China has fielded some gen 5 aircraft now, of which the J20 is designed to target C3 aircraft with it's low observability, high speed, long range, and PL15 long range A2A missiles. The PLAN/Navy is building ships at a rate far outpacing the USA, and has some pretty advanced ships for air defense/etc right now. A lot of them, they'd easily outnumber anything the USN/Nato could bring in terms of fighting ships, probably by 5 to 1 or more.

NGAD will be able to operate from bases outside of range for Chinese countermeasures such as they are right now.

Also, I'd look to the Democrats long before the Republicans if you're worried about anyone flying the USA republic apart. In just two years the Dems have destroyed trillions in 401k $ from Americans, destroyed much of the military's capability both in funding cuts, and especially morale with their focus on spending more time on woke/PC training that actual training for their mission. That list goes on...




Jutes, I hadn't realized they finalized the deal for the Airbus tankers. Like I said, A models would require a new fleet of tankers, and based on that article the RCAF is getting that.

[Maxt]

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Who did Trump bombed? Bush(s) got Iraq. Clinton got Bosnia. Obama got Libya. Biden got Ukraine.

Look, never a Trump supporter and I think looking at the Brazilians, Trump did way worse damage to democracy worldwide than a few bombs in a far away country did.

But until someone corrected me, Trump didn't start a war. (Droning terrorist doesn't count, I'm sure that continued under Trump).

He didn't start a war but he did drop a bomb or two.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/polit...omb/index.html