Given the kind of wars America is currently fighting, how important is stealth really for fighter aircraft?
Wouldn`t you rather have ten F-16s than one F-22?
>>28021258
We dont even have airplane to airplane combat anymore, we should just use mobile launchers. Imagine how much money we could save if we just tomahawked everything.
>>28021284
Actually an aircraft delivering bombs is more cost effective, per sortie. A smart cruise missile has a high cost just for one sortie.
>>28021258
>>28021258
Ten F-16s that never make it to the target because of IADs are worthless.
They also cost more than one F-22 in terms of support costs.
>Slavboos shitting their pants because the F-22/F-35 are designed to defeat Russia/China's AA and not kill mudslimes in the desert.
USA #1 confirmed
>>28021364
That's what i'm wondering about - are stealth planes only worth their premium when you face of against a similarly advanced enemy?
>>28021258
Not very.
But the logic used is that it's preparation to go up against other major powers where those capabilities will be important. So the current situation is irrelevant to what's going to be fielded (as long as they can still perform current roles, which they can, duh).
>>28021396
No because when the next war kicks off you won't have time to develop a next gen fighter. What you have is what you have. For some reason other nations don't realize this.
>>28021414
Aren't several US allies going to buy the F-35?
>>28021258
>Wouldn`t you rather have ten F-16s than one F-22?
No. Because then you'd just end up losing more planes and paying higher maintenance costs because you need to maintain 10 fighters instead of 1.
>>28021258
The beautiful thing is America can just get ten f22s
>>28021258
Stealth isn't just harder to detect in the first place, but harder to hit with missiles/rockets.
?
nothing is important to fight a small insurgency
They really should be flying around cheap COIN aircraft and buying cheap COIN vehicles for it
>>28021442
Why do you state things you already know in the form of a question? Are you a faggot?
>>28022611
>They really should be flying around cheap COIN aircraft and buying cheap COIN vehicles for it
But anon, they do that already.
>>28021258
No because it's more expensive in the short and long term to do that.
A good question is would it make sense to make more F-16's to use for non-high risk environments instead of more F-35's?
Instead of 2400 F-35's, maybe 2300 f-35's and 300 updated F-16's would make sense.
The F-16 is predicted to still be cheaper per flight hour than a 35. Mostly because of the stealth maintenance component.
>>28022664
>cheap
>>28022676
>Instead of 2400 F-35's, maybe 2300 f-35's and 300 updated F-16's would make sense.
I'm kind of baffled by this. Why is the extra 200 fighters so important?
>>28022664
Do the operators get the same vision out of a UAV that a pilot would?
>>28021258
>Wouldn`t you rather have ten F-16s than one F-22?
No.
Unstealthy fighters are the worst of both worlds, they suck at fighting both high and low tech opponents.
Stealth, sensor fusion, datalinks, etc for fighting near-peers; drones for fighting mud hut dwellers.
>>28022688
$16 million per Reaper is pretty darn cheap compared to any jet fighter.
>>28022698
They get better, because they're orbiting a site constantly instead of doing flybys.
>>28022676
The cost to keep 300 F-16s flying outstrips any savings you get in flight hours
economy of scale is fucking you
>>28022712
The cost improvements per flight hour are what really do it. Don't cite this; but a Reaper is about 4k/hour while an F16 is 20-30k per hour.
>>28022611
That's what drones are for.
Also, it's a waste of resources to maintain a high-end military for high-end opponents, and a separate low-end military for low-end opponents. Better to just step your high-end military down as necessary (since you can't step up a low-end military).
And that's mainly what the US does, with selected low-end systems where it seems to make the most sense (i.e., UAVs).
