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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 ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @03:01AM (3 children)
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)
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)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:34AM
The man making the remarks is a top designer of high performance combat aircraft. [google.com]
I think I'll take his word over yours.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]