Sunday, February 16, 2014

Guest Post at Op-For

Many thanks to 'DaveO' and 'LtColP' at Op-For for the opportunity to give a guest commentary today, to explain and expand upon a comment I made in an earlier thread on Op-For  .

This is particularly 'timely' considering there's a 60 minutes segment on the F-35 tonight. I myself am prepping a quick viewer's guide as it concerns the topic of 'Concurrency'.  Should be up before it airs in most time zones.

4 comments:

Commisar12 said...

Hooo boy, you pissed of certain people (a Mr.Bacon) real good. Check out the drama if you want.

http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.com/2014/02/elements-of-power-i-love-ya-buddy-but.html

Anyway, I enjoyed both this and the 60 minutes "journalism" beat-down.

SMSgt Mac said...

Thanks,
I checked 'Bacon's spoor on the web before I bothered smacking him down. He's prolific in posting nonsense, incapable of inductive or deductive logic as far as I can tell, and has been a 'Lew Rockewell' habitué. If you are not familiar with that particular strain of libertarianism, Rockewellians are to Libertarianism as John Birchers are to Conservatism. Fringe of the Fringe of the 'Crackpots'. Funny thing is I don't censor contrarian views so long as they're supported by fact and logic --but that seems to self-censor certain types.

Anonymous said...

David Axe is just a blogger. He's never been in the military, doesn't have an aerospace background, and back in 2007 or so was jumping on the then-hip bandwagon of calling for the disbandment of the Air Force. (You know, because the USAF didn't want to cancel the F-22 and buy turboprop attack planes for Iraq.)

Many of his articles smack of someone having strong opinions on subjects they don't understand.

Like the F-35 or not, there is no going back now.

Though personally, I think the Air Force needs F-22s and a new bomber more than F-35s. But that's not going to happen either. Hell, with the fiscal crisis going the way it is, not having enough fighter jets will be the least of our worries in the coming future. >_<

SMSgt Mac said...

Back when it was still feasible, I did an analysis that showed for the same money that AF was buying 1700 plus F-35s, we could have bought ALL the originally planned F-22s, 737 F-35As (easy number to remember), and about 30 more B-2s. This would have meant more air dominance airframes and more 'air to ground' hardpoints. In restrospect, I was underestimating the need for an absolute 'floor' on numbers given a need to be anywhere, anytime around the globe. Now, I think the lowest risk approach is to retrofit the F-22s with F-35 integrated systems, pursue a long range strike option with a longer range than the rumor mills say we are, and get as many F-35s in the field as possible.