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posted by martyb on Friday March 24 2017, @11:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the which-swamps-are-we-draining? dept.

President Trump has proposed a $54 billion increase in defense spending, which he said would be "one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history."

Past administrations have increased military spending, but typically to fulfil a specific mission. Jimmy Carter expanded operations in the Persian Gulf. Ronald Reagan pursued an arms race with the Soviet Union, and George W. Bush waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump has not articulated a new mission that would require a military spending increase. This has left analysts wondering what goals he has in mind. Erin M. Simpson, a national security consultant, called Mr. Trump's plans "a budget in search of a strategy."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/22/us/is-americas-military-big-enough.html

Donald J. Trump - Military Readiness Remarks

[Related]: 2017 Outlook for Navy Shipbuilding

What do you think about the proposed increase in military spending ? Does USA really need more weapons ?


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  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:31AM (7 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:31AM (#484005)

    Reading is a good idea before posting. See the part where I said we should probably scrap the F35 program?

    The problem with it is that it only useful in a total war with a real enemy. It has no real place pounding goat humpers into kibble. But in a total war there is no way we can afford to field enough of the damned things to matter and every one shot down is a major blow. Better to have a dozen or more almost as good fighters stockpiled vs a single F35. Better still if we build several different ones optimized for different tasks. We need more A10 Warthogs or a new and improved replacement close air support aircraft, just for one example. Stealth is not likely to remain a thing long enough to justify the expense and compromises in performance made for the F35. Everyone is investing R&D into finding ways to defeat stealth so the odds are good somebody succeeds.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:01AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:01AM (#484013)

    Stealth, at least at the level for a fighter plane, has almost no effect on performance. It's different for something like the B-2 of course, but you don't take the B-2 to a dogfight.

    F-35 performance is killed by the requirement for vertical lift. The lift fan near the front is very wide. The engine itself has to be a bit wide, being higher bypass than ideal for a fighter. The engine exhaust needs to be far forward for balance when doing vertical lift. The wings need room for fat bleed air ducts. The cockpit and nose, being in front of the lift fan, needs to be kept light and not extend too much. The wings, which don't do much in vertical lift, need to be kept small. All this stuff compromises the shape.

    You say "defeat stealth" as if stealth were a boolean. This is far from the case. Intermittent detection of an aircraft is much easier than tracking an aircraft. Ground-based supercomputers with huge antenna arrays are far more capable than enemy aircraft, and enemy aircraft are far more capable than small-diameter missiles.

    The F-35 was a dumb idea, but at this point we probably ought to keep it. We'd do well to stock up on the Silent Eagle (an F-15 with moderate stealth enhancements) while designing an F-22B, like the original F-22 but with the helmet-mounted cueing system developed for the F-35. Doing a remake of the A-10, just updated for parts availability and metal fatigue, would be a good move as well. There is no substitute for numbers; we need at least a couple thousand of each.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @01:34AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @01:34AM (#484238)

      The concepts are antithetical.

      We discussed this some time back.
      The F-35: A Gold-Plated Turkey [soylentnews.org]

      A stealth aircraft doesn't have doors/access panels.
      If something breaks (the example of a blown fuse was used), you have to cut a hole in the aircraft.

      After making the repair, you then have to patch the hole with some pretty nasty chemicals and wait 3 days for the glue to cure.

      Stealth aircraft are hangar queens.

      ...and old, cheap radars spot the "invisible" planes easily.
      Stealth is a complete boondoggle.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @03:44PM (#484655)
        You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Gotta love armchair experts.
  • (Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:22AM (2 children)

    by pvanhoof (4638) on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:22AM (#484062) Homepage

    What I understood about stealth is that the radar cross-section becomes as big as that of a relatively big bird. The problem, however, is that birds don't fly in straight lines at multiple hundreds of kilometers per hour.

    A little bit of software tracking the trajectories of birds and seeing if any of them travels at a certain speed, and/or in a straight line, will identify the F-35 from the birds.

    And if you are wrong, then militarily seen there is relatively few harm done to sending a SAM or GTAM to the object that is flying fast in a straight line towards one of your military infrastructures anyway.

    Differently put: if you start flying with stealth airplanes over Russia and/or China in those straight lines (which you have to, given that your pilots can't withstand the G forces if they'd make fast turns at high speeds), and at speeds faster than the fastest birds (which you have to, else *really amazingly* simple technology will detect, track and shoot down your airplanes, then you will be shot down by a massive amount of SAM and GTAM missles.

    You also can't detect the Russian and Chinese SAM and GTAM launch platforms, because during the Cold War have the Russians (who sell these systems to the Chinese) been developing mobile platforms. You know, launch platforms with wheels that constantly move around the countryside and that look just like any truck when viewed from a spying satellite.

    In every possible scenario are stealth airplanes worthless against a serious enemy (Russia, China, etc). You will get shot down. Probably the same airplane multiple times: a first time by two or three simultaneously arriving missles, and a second time the wreck that is falling out of the sky. Just to make sure. And then a last time a few bombs on the metal that crashed on the ground. Your pilot will be tracked while shuting to the ground and he'll for absolutely sure will be tortured repeatedly to squeeze any information out of the poor sucker.

    That will happen no matter how advanced the technology is. Unless you find a way to silence the planes completely (physically/theoretically impossible).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @12:58AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26 2017, @12:58AM (#484234)

      "like a bird" is kind of average. It blinks in and out depending on the exact angle.

      The SAM has to be guided. Any onboard radar is inherently poor due to limited power and limited space, both for the computer and for the antenna. The antenna limitation is serious; no amount of technology advance can compensate for this. (basic physics issue) If the SAM is guided from the ground, then it will be unguided because the ground stations get attacked.

      You damn well can detect the launch platforms. There are special aircraft designed for exactly this purpose. One can also hack into communications to determine locations. One could do even better, hacking in and doing various things.

      Ultimately though, you just have to give things a best effort. Anything less is an automatic loss.

      • (Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Sunday March 26 2017, @09:44PM

        by pvanhoof (4638) on Sunday March 26 2017, @09:44PM (#484447) Homepage

        The best-efford goes both ways.

        The "special aircraft" will get shot down by more capable missiles if needed. Russia has space-rocket capability since decades, and can surely hit your average spying plane just fine. In fact, they have proven it repeatedly.

        If you want to loose expensive gear, pilots + training and and face the music in international media by having fancy toys shot out of the high skies: fine. Because that's exactly what your "special aircraft" will encounter. RT will even put it on youtube for all to see. Even and especially if you cry-baby in the Western media about it. Shot down they will.

        Another example: the blinking-on-radar by no means implies that even simple amateur software can't find a pattern of a straight line going at a certain speed out of it. It easily can. And will. And then your fancy expensive fighter jet gets shot down anyway. With all the international media drama to go with it, too.

        You see. "The other side", the Russians, also invested in defence. If you fly over them in ways that they don't want you to; you get shot down. Plain and simple.

        You can leave your US cowboy hat at home. As it'll get shot down, too.