The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

[Incomptinence]

Bottom post of the previous page:

That pricing makes sense without the engine it is still an APC that can carry three people!

[Timbrewolf]

Wait seriously only $200k?

Even if the plane is a total piece of dogshit at that price who gives a fuck. No wonder the bomb bays are internal, those bombs are worth more than the fucking airframe you better hold on to them shits.

[Silavite]

Wait seriously only $200k?

Even if the plane is a total piece of dogshit at that price who gives a fuck. No wonder the bomb bays are internal, those bombs are worth more than the fucking airframe you better hold on to them shits.

200m (181m~), not 200k because I'm an idiot. (I thought the doc said 'in thousands' but it was actually 'in millions')

[Timbrewolf]

Okay yeah that really took me by surprise.

200m of crying bald eagle bucks is a waste.

[lumipharon]

How much is an F-16?
15m or some bollocks?

[Timbrewolf]

Roughly 15m or 16m average yeah

[Silavite]

Okay yeah that really took me by surprise.

200m of crying bald eagle bucks is a waste.

Yup, and if history is anything to go by, the price is only going to increase from these. Lockheed claims that the F-35A will cost $75m by 2019 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/ ... CD20131220, yet history consistently shows that as development continues, price goes on a steady increase, not a decrease.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

186 million a pop?

Well, I guess that solves the whole "terrorists buying old millitary gear" problem. Even fifty years depreciation, they'll have to sell their kalashkinovs, RPGs and bombmaking equipment to buy half a wing. And it still won't work.

[callanrockslol]

186 million a pop?

Well, I guess that solves the whole "terrorists buying old millitary gear" problem. Even fifty years depreciation, they'll have to sell their kalashkinovs, RPGs and bombmaking equipment to buy half a wing. And it still won't work.

Even then, Planes are a different level of logistics and shit then a truck or a tank is, toss a group of untrained idiots at a ground vehicle and they will probably work out how to use it decently, toss them at a plane and watch them smash it into the ground like a bunch of idiots. If ISIS actually had planes they might be a significant threat outside the region, but the moment they come up against a decently organized military they will feel it.

Australia should:

1) Purchase a single F-35 under contract
2) Roll it out into the plains towards a vicious pack of wild emu combatants
3) Record its combat data as it gets pecked to pieces
4) Cite poor combat performance and abandon the contract before you lose more kangaroo bucks.

If only Tony Abbott was as forward thinking as you, could solve the deficit in seconds. Instead #teamaustralia will get planes that might have guns at some stage and are entirely suited to the conditions of Australia.

[Silavite]

186 million a pop?

Well, I guess that solves the whole "terrorists buying old millitary gear" problem. Even fifty years depreciation, they'll have to sell their kalashkinovs, RPGs and bombmaking equipment to buy half a wing. And it still won't work.

Even then, Planes are a different level of logistics and shit then a truck or a tank is, toss a group of untrained idiots at a ground vehicle and they will probably work out how to use it decently, toss them at a plane and watch them smash it into the ground like a bunch of idiots. If ISIS actually had planes they might be a significant threat outside the region, but the moment they come up against a decently organized military they will feel it.

Australia should:

1) Purchase a single F-35 under contract
2) Roll it out into the plains towards a vicious pack of wild emu combatants
3) Record its combat data as it gets pecked to pieces
4) Cite poor combat performance and abandon the contract before you lose more kangaroo bucks.

If only Tony Abbott was as forward thinking as you, could solve the deficit in seconds. Instead #teamaustralia will get planes that might have guns at some stage and are entirely suited to the conditions of Australia.

Aussies and Canuks should have bought the Gripen NG.
(Obligitory Awesome Picture, Brought to you by Anon viewing co™)

You say, "It has one engine and will be unsuited to their REALLY GIGANTIC AND HUGE areas with nothing." I say fear not, because not a single Gripen has ever had an engine failure.

Gripen suffered 5 crashes total in 203.000 flight hours. None were related to either engine or aerodynamic configuration of the aircraft: 2 were due to underdeveloped FCS, 2 were due to the pilot error and 1 was due to ejection seat issue
https://defenseissues.wordpress.com/201 ... -fighters/

It's also excelent for getting serviced in the Middle of Nowhere.

Gripen is capable of taking off and landing on roads, and could be capable of using unpaved runways. It can take off from 800 meter long snow-covered landing strips. Landing distance is reduced to 500 meters through usage of canards as air brakes, which is activated automatically when nose wheel establishes ground contact, as well as usage of elevons and large air brakes located at each side of fuselage behind the wing.

Further, it can be maintained by team of one specialist and five minimally-trained conscripts, and has very good combat turnaround time – less than 10 minutes. Gripen requires 10 man hours of maintenance for each hour in the air, and mean time between failure is 7,6 flight hours. Engine can be changed on road by 5 people in less than one hour. Airplane’s on-board systems include built-in “self-test” capabilities, with data being downloaded to technician’s laptop. All service doors to critical systems are at head level or lower for the easy access. Result is that Gripen requires only 60% of maintenance work hours of Viggen.

The only real deficiencies that the Gripen has are: Short range (which is being extended in the NG variant), takeoff T/W of 0.95 (better engine in the NG).
And for cost?

Gripen NG will be significantly cheaper than other 4,9 generation aircraft, such as Eurofighter Typhoon or Dassault Rafale, and with 22 ordered by Switzerland and 40-60 by Sweden itself, it has prospect to achieve success on export market as well. Some sources place flyaway cost at less than 50 million USD; my estimate is that it will likely be around 45 – 55 million USD per aircraft.

https://defenseissues.wordpress.com/201 ... -analysis/
And the NG can supercruise at Mach 1.2. And it has IRST. And it will be able to carry the Meteor missile when it comes out.

[Timbrewolf]

Single engine planes aren't as much of a liability as people fear them to be. While it's true they do fail and we do lose birds because of them not having redundancy, the overall savings on each individual craft should be enough to absorb having to replace the odd one that does experience a failure and can't be recovered. It's the pilots we need to worry about in those cases, as in all cases. Trained, experienced pilots are fucking priceless.

Some of these stories are pretty fucking horrifying though.

http://www.f-16.net/aircraft-database/F ... rofile/55/

Jesus fuck what a terrible way to die.

[Silavite]

Single engine planes aren't as much of a liability as people fear them to be. While it's true they do fail and we do lose birds because of them not having redundancy, the overall savings on each individual craft should be enough to absorb having to replace the odd one that does experience a failure and can't be recovered. It's the pilots we need to worry about in those cases, as in all cases. Trained, experienced pilots are fucking priceless.

Some of these stories are pretty fucking horrifying though.

http://www.f-16.net/aircraft-database/F ... rofile/55/

Jesus fuck what a terrible way to die.

"The engine exploded and departed the aircraft through the backbone. Capt. Lee ejected at over Mach 1 breaking both arms causing him to drown"
Holy shit.

[callanrockslol]

Wear your lifejacket kids.

[Silavite]

Moving (not very swiftly) onward, I've just discovered the marvel that is the Textron AirLand Scorpion.

It is said to cost $3,000 per hour to operate and is also claimed to cost less than $20 million per unit.

The website claims ~8,000 total lbs of thrust, but this seems odd, as the latest TFE731 engines are capable of producing 5,000 lbs per engine, a total of 10,000 lbs of thrust. Assuming that the TFE731 engines are the -60 model, it will have 10,000 lbs of thrust total, making for a thrust to weight ratio at 50% fuel with no munitions (3,000 lbs of fuel + 11,800 lb empty weight) of 0.68, and an MTOW T/W at 0.47. The A-10 in the same configurations has a T/W of 0.59 and 0.36 respectively.

In terms of wing area, it has about 190 square feet (Warning: Not being very precise, I just assumed the wing as a rectangle and rounded up to the next 10s place. LERX is not included either), so wing loading at 50% fuel with no munitions will be about 78 lbs/ft2, and MTOW wing loading will be about 112 lbs/ft2. The A-10's wing loading in the same configurations is 60 lbs/ft2 and 99 lbs/ft2 respectively. The Scorpion's 2-seat crew will definitely help with the the workload (pilot focuses on flying, observer focuses on finding targets).

The scorpion is not as well optimized for CAS as the A-10 is, however. The scorpion carries 9,200 lbs of ordinance (3,000 internal + 6,200 external) and the A-10 carries 16,000 lbs. The Scorpion also lacks an internal gun(!?) and is not well armored.
It seems like the plane would work well as a FAC and light CAS/tactical bomber, but the lack of armor and reliance on PGMs due to a lack of gun does not seem good.


References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild ... 28A-10A.29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textron_A ... ifications
http://www.jet-engine.net/civtfspec.html

[Timbrewolf]

>said to cost $3000 per hour to operate

Nope. Not possible. They must be fudging some numbers to come up with a figure so low.

A predator drone costs supposedly $1500 per hour and that doesn't even have a pilot in it. There's no fucking way something of this size (with two crew members) is going to wind up costing less than $9,000, if not more.

[Silavite]

>said to cost $3000 per hour to operate

Nope. Not possible. They must be fudging some numbers to come up with a figure so low.

A predator drone costs supposedly $1500 per hour and that doesn't even have a pilot in it. There's no fucking way something of this size (with two crew members) is going to wind up costing less than $9,000, if not more.

I am skeptical about it as well. (Hence why I said that it is *said* to cost $3,000 per hour) I imagine it's similar to those 98 million dollar F-35's.

http://www.scorpionjet.com/different-direction/
The Scorpion “is cheaper [per hour] than a Predator” remotely piloted vehicle, Weaver says.

The problem is that since it isn't in service with anyone, there isn't anything else published to compare it to.

[Stan_Studnick]

Wait these planes can hypothetically relay targeting data to each other if they work properly right? All their targeting data is infrared radiation.

Aren't they capable of working similar to interferometer array telescopes then to improve angular resolution in groups of planes distances from each other? Would improvement in image resolution due to this make them better at tracking at different ranges?

I mean I am not an astronomer but I have read about how arrays are being used to discern fine details around stars like say second stars and planets. Looking for a light at the end of this tunnel Australia has dug itself into must be driving me crazy.

In theory it could totally do this, provided that...

- Each plane managed to know the exact position of it's buddies
- The orientation of each set (if plane A is moving on heading 035 at 11000m and is climbing at a rate of 5m per second and plane B is on 036 and level at 12000m, they both need to each know this information)
- And finally, the position of it's own set in relation to everything else, something that can get complicated if the above two points get fucked up somewhere

Theoretically a squadron of them could be used to increase the total range of target acquisition and tracking for a third party, meaning you could follow them with a bunch of bomber aircraft and attack targets really far away with some sort of super BVR killing missile. I had a discussion with somebody about using the F-22 to play forward observer for B-52s carrying ridiculously huge missiles firing in salvos to clear the skies. (the scenario was against North Korea) Basically the modified F-22 would fly around and spot targets, and that data would be forwarded to the B-52s who would just spam the shit out of the enemy formations from afar, well outside of the combat range of the targets. Not very intrepid or exciting, there wouldn't be any romantic single combat for our noble heroes to engage in, but it would minimize risk to our pilots and aircrews.

All of that aside, communication between the aircraft is going to be a problem because any transmission of data is going to defeat the "absolutely no radar to be stealthy" problem. Yeah, you could make it hard to detect, but that data transmission is going to have to be done somehow and really, radio is the easiest and most efficient way to do that. I'm with An0n3 on having no radar, it doesn't make sense when a fixed, small AESA set would only add capability to an aircraft designed to hunt and kill other aircraft. AESA radars can be in a passive mode anyway, so each FLX would be listening for enemy radar and perhaps share a quick data burst with it's buddies before making a sneaky BVR kill using the combined targeting data. I think Picard578 not including such capability is deliberately handicapping his high-performance murder machine, even if it's done with best intentions.

>said to cost $3000 per hour to operate

Nope. Not possible. They must be fudging some numbers to come up with a figure so low.

A predator drone costs supposedly $1500 per hour and that doesn't even have a pilot in it. There's no fucking way something of this size (with two crew members) is going to wind up costing less than $9,000, if not more.

Pretty sure the operational costs don't factor in the pilot salary, as you seem to be doing. Depending on the airframe durability and the engines, it could be cheap as fuck to operate if it doesn't need to go into total overhaul very often, but that's not very likely given it's role. I think $3000 is a bit low for something like that, but I doubt it's going to be much higher than that, I'd estimate $4500 or so per hour.

[Timbrewolf]

Drones have pilots as well, they just don't ride along inside of them. There's still the logistical hurdle (and costs) involved with having someone sit at a control surface somewhere and communicate back and forth with the craft.

My "this is bullshit, look at the cost of the drone" stems from the idea that the drone is much smaller and has fewer moving parts and other considerations built into it that need to be upgraded and maintained.

There is no fucking way in the real world flying one of these jets around a combat zone, delivering strikes and such, only costs as much resources in dollar-value as two predator drones. I'm not talking about the cost of the ordnance delivered. The stresses to the airframe and gear and instruments from the general take-off, landing, and mid-air performance of a craft of that size (plus the fuel consumption) are going to be closer to the A-10's ~$9000 per hour costs because of physics and military purchasing practices.

[oranges]

Low cost high volume unmanned drones seems to be the direction that warfare is moving in anyway.

[Cik]

they're only really effective against an enemy with no defenses though. a 40 years old fighter can bag as many as it's got missiles every sortie, they're effectively defenseless against even old air defenses, they have no maneuvering ability or speed to speak of

i mean sure whatever they're effective but the A-10 is effective at currentgen war. it's the next ~ooh scary world conflict~ that new shit is supposed to be good for and a drone isn't going to be able to do shit against anybody with rudimentary air defenses let alone a tunguska in every formation and an igla-N on the back of every fifth guy.

[oranges]

The point is they're so cheap and numerous that it doesn't matter how many shells/missles/defensive weapons you bring to the party, you get overwhelmed and your defenses get hammered. Combine that with conventional cruise missle strikes on anti drone defences etc.

[oranges]

I'm not talking predator drones, I'm talking smaller, more agile drones with a single bomb payload.

Basically flying clouds of mines.

[Cik]

eh maybe, but the engine to lift even a single gbu12 is not that cheap, and neither is the gbu.

the defenses aren't really vulnerable to cruise missiles; everyone's SHORAD defenses are mobile enough and numerous enough that knocking them out isn't really an option, esp. with something as big as a cruise missile. s-300+ sure but if you're going to use disposable drones it's the shoulder fired up to the tunguska that you care about, not huge SAM rings that wouldn't bother firing at such a small target except in self defense.

droneclouds are not a terrible idea in theory but no one has really designed one yet; everything in operation is still predator-esque which are meat in any real dustup

[Silavite]

One of the more interesting ideas I've heard for maintaining sky awareness is by using tethered high-altitude balloon stations.
There would be a shitton of teething problems, but the concept sounds cool at least.

Pluses

• S-400's kinetic ceiling is 100,000 feet, so they should be safe from most SAM's. Something like the ASM-135 ASAT could be a threat, though.
• Huge(!) area coverage due to the high altitude.

Minuses

• Maintenance. If it breaks, you're probably screwed and just need to buy another.
• High altitude winds(?) not too familiar with high altitude weather. Clarification from someone who knows more than me would be welcome.
• The tether. It would need to be - very light, high tensile strength, excellent resistance to corrosion and thermal degradation.
• Highly improbable but possible risk of flying into the tether.

Probably other factors, but those were the ones the first came to mind.
(Also, something sort of similar already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JLENS)

[Stan_Studnick]

Drones have pilots as well, they just don't ride along inside of them. There's still the logistical hurdle (and costs) involved with having someone sit at a control surface somewhere and communicate back and forth with the craft.

My "this is bullshit, look at the cost of the drone" stems from the idea that the drone is much smaller and has fewer moving parts and other considerations built into it that need to be upgraded and maintained.

There is no fucking way in the real world flying one of these jets around a combat zone, delivering strikes and such, only costs as much resources in dollar-value as two predator drones. I'm not talking about the cost of the ordnance delivered. The stresses to the airframe and gear and instruments from the general take-off, landing, and mid-air performance of a craft of that size (plus the fuel consumption) are going to be closer to the A-10's ~$9000 per hour costs because of physics and military purchasing practices.

Honestly there isn't any cost advantage per airframe and price per hour of operation in using drones, the reduced cost comes primarily from being "good enough" rather than "okay, this has to be safe to put a person in." UAVs have historically had a problem with airframe survival and losses to accidents, though automation has managed to save airframes recently. It's a poorly guarded secret that controllers lose contact with drones on a regular basis, sometimes ending missions because the USAF decided to throw all this money and all these resources at what was basically a wonderweapon back in the day so there's less funds for other things. (production runs have been slashed short to save money, I'd rather have a few more F-22s than a few more predators) Drones have also severely fucked up how we gather intelligence, we've transitioned from good ol' fashioned HUMINT and SIGINT in favor of these remote-controlled surveillance vehicles that can also launch strikes on their own. By the way, that has done a fine fucking job of completely wrecking the shit out of any support we have had in certain parts of the world because of itchy trigger fingers and a desire to "get the bad guy," rather than verifying the intelligence data to be damn sure it's a viable target. Yeah, on-the-fly decisions on random situational opportunities are great to snatch up but those are rare and the military and intelligence agencies in this country and allied countries are just beginning to accept that hard fact.

I've kinda segued into replying to oranges, but whatever. Essentially the current trend is less total reliance on UAVs which was predicted to be the way of the future, especially with tactical and strategic bombers. Turns out UCAVs are cool, but they likely will never replace actual piloted aircraft and they really shouldn't, a human risk to bombing the fucking shit out of everything is a good way to offset the desire to level an entire country in an effort to kill the enemy. Thing is, there's a growing trend that's become a big white elephant in the room that reflects a nearly identical problem in law enforcement: "we have to get the bad guy, no matter what." Problem with that line of thinking is that instead of stepping carefully in double-checking to be sure, especially in a world where information, good and bad, is transmitted freely and with alarming speed, the entire process of finishing the mission forgets why the mission exists in the first place. Easily preventable mistakes have been a consistent plague and frankly it's been a PR nightmare with raw videos of our military spectacularly failing to be "the good guys" (like, say, bombing a fucking wedding reception) and that is something that cannot be ignored. "Drone culture" has proven to fuck up a hell of a lot more than it helps, not only does it encourage rash decisions (if you have a cool hammer, problems tend to start looking like nails and you want to whack the shit out of them) but the intelligence data it provides absolutely has not replaced previous methods. As I've said, it's a lesson that's only been recently swallowed and it's proving hard to digest because so much was put into UAVs.

Drones are not at all worthless, but like the F-35 they've been touted as the solution to everything and that is something that they're not. Unlike the F-35, they have their place, but the trouble is defining that place and resisting the urge to make some multirole super cool mega bomber fighter interceptor overlord murderkill machine.

[Silavite]

snip

I think this post sums up the problem with our drone mentality.

From the comment section of this article
https://defenseissues.wordpress.com/201 ... es-on-war/

About the F-35, I was having a discussion with someone on youtube about it (I found the one-in-a-million person who was willing to have a rational discussion on youtube) and they said this in one part of the discussion.

Yes there are a lot of similarities with the F-111, but the F-111 was mechanically complex and maintenance intensive while the whole point of the F-35 is simplicity. the most simple cost effective stealth plane with the most advanced sensors. Made to be mass produced. That's its essence right there.

This is a beautiful summary of exactly what the F-35 should have been. It's a damn shame the services have made the plane undergo death by 1000 pecks requirements.

[XSI]

One of the more interesting ideas I've heard for maintaining sky awareness is by using tethered high-altitude balloon stations.
There would be a shitton of teething problems, but the concept sounds cool at least.

Pluses

• S-400's kinetic ceiling is 100,000 feet, so they should be safe from most SAM's. Something like the ASM-135 ASAT could be a threat, though.
• Huge(!) area coverage due to the high altitude.

Minuses

• Maintenance. If it breaks, you're probably screwed and just need to buy another.
• High altitude winds(?) not too familiar with high altitude weather. Clarification from someone who knows more than me would be welcome.
• The tether. It would need to be - very light, high tensile strength, excellent resistance to corrosion and thermal degradation.
• Highly improbable but possible risk of flying into the tether.

Probably other factors, but those were the ones the first came to mind.
(Also, something sort of similar already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JLENS)

From what I know, they actually used balloons and zeppelins in WW1 like that. But yes, high altitude winds are strong sometimes. Also the tethers in WW1 were a serious hazard to biplanes. So much that they just added a whole lot extra around the balloons(And made them of metal to make them even more damaging). Biplanes flew in, hit a bunch of tethers and took their own wings off that way. That was used to essentially turn a part of the area into a no-fly zone because you definitely did not want to fly your wooden and canvas plane into those things. London specifically had a huge network of balloons and cables

A quick google gave this
http://www.allaircraftsimulations.com/f ... 91&t=31531

And apparently they were still in use during WW2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_balloon

It's defintiely not a new concept, but it is one we'd have to re-adjust to

[Stan_Studnick]

About the F-35, I was having a discussion with someone on youtube about it (I found the one-in-a-million person who was willing to have a rational discussion on youtube) and they said this in one part of the discussion.

Yes there are a lot of similarities with the F-111, but the F-111 was mechanically complex and maintenance intensive while the whole point of the F-35 is simplicity. the most simple cost effective stealth plane with the most advanced sensors. Made to be mass produced. That's its essence right there.

This is a beautiful summary of exactly what the F-35 should have been. It's a damn shame the services have made the plane undergo death by 1000 pecks requirements.

Yeah, as I said the drone thing has kind of ruined everything. Really there needs to be a whole process to check the urge to use a fancy no-risk surveillance asset that can loiter for hours and also strike at targets pretty much indiscriminately. Somewhere in the 90's we lost our discretion, something terrible to lose in this age of instant data proliferation. Videos of US forces gunning down innocent Iraqis, including children, are nothing but a recruiting tool for the bad guys because that is terrible shit and the response to it has either been basically "lol shit happens w/e" or "eh sorry" and that's unacceptable. I mean this is a comprehensive problem that goes beyond drones, it's a mentality and culture in the military and government that is actively fucking us over and it could be easily prevented.

Anyway.

Yeah the F-35 started out awesome but what really has proven to be a pain is the cost. I don't know why the government lets defense contractors go over budget, what they should do is say, "you either deliver it or you pay back the money we gave you, your choice." We used to handle defense procurement differently in this country, major firms would cover any budget overruns with their own money because begging the government for more was by no means guaranteed to work. These days all Lockheed has to say is "well shit we ran out of money lol need some more" and then the DoD gladly tosses more money at them because, really, they need that plane. Unfortunately the constant tacking on of additional bullshit just makes that problem worse and worse, and sometimes I wonder if Lockheed is headed by Peter Molyneux. I just don't see an F-111 comeback with the F-35 at all, it's a plane that is fragile, expensive, and isn't likely to perform anywhere near the level it was advertised at. I feel bad for the Dutch military because they essentially blew their entire budget on this fucking thing. I wonder when we'll get to see how effective this thing is, Poland's buying like 50 or so because of the shit going on in Ukraine, so maybe we'll see the PAK FA square off against the F-35A

[Timbrewolf]

I think that post sums up the problem with our problem with the drone mentality.

Innocent bystanders die in wars. This is inevitable and has been true of every recorded conflict. Innocent bystanders die all the time for all sorts of reasons, actually, such as hostages or people caught in the crossfire of a fleeing criminal.

For some reason a drone operator blowing up a convoy that includes a non-combatant screen is worse than a pilot bombing it, or a ground-force shelling it, etc. etc. I think people hear the term "drone" and assume it's an automated indiscriminate kill-bot designed to shoot the women and children first. It's basically a remote controlled toy plane with munitions strapped to it. There is still someone in control of it making decisions. A "drone strike" only differs from any other kind of use of force mechanically. It's not morally different.

To single out drones as particularly bad and inhumane is childish. Motherfucker, all of these things are designed to kill people and all of these things, when used, will often kill someone who anti-war PR deems a "non-combatant".

I don't honestly believe anyone who travels with a military convoy or bunks at a military outpost a "non-combatant". War Photographers, for example, might not shoot back, but if you don't accept that getting shot and killed is a risk in your life don't go to the place where everyone is shooting eachother and stay away from all the guys carrying the guns around.

If these people are going to use their own families like sandbags to shoot at us from behind...fuck 'em. They're the ones dragging these people into this conflict, not us. Like the article says, holding back because someone has his own family strapped to him like a kevlar vest only encourages this behavior and we'll only see more of these bystanders used as shields if we allow it to continue.

We do so much to make sure we're targeting the right stuff, and we do back down and wait for better opportunities in situations where there is just too much civilian population around. It's war though, we can't agonize over every single life. Especially not when they're purposely walking into the line of fire so their people can shoot back.

Ask yourself, would these guys care one bit if you or I walked in front of their guns? Aren't these the same guys who are kidnapping and torturing random civilians, journalists, and others? The guys who do shit like this?



Yeah, fuck 'em. Put me on the trigger and I'll pull it every time.

If you want to bring your family and kids out here and line them up in front of you like a shield, go right ahead. It'll save us the trouble of coming back here in 15 years to do this all over again.

EDIT: Honestly the more I think about this the more it has me looking into the prospects of enlisting as a drone operator in the USAF.
Reading articles about how these guys are terrified of drones. Good. We found something they can be afraid of.

DOUBLE EDIT: (http://www.airforce.com/careers/detail/sensor-operator/) Nice, they finally made it an enlisted position.

[Malkevin]

TL/DR ver: The "drones are evil child killers" is the same shit Israel has had to put up with for decades with Hamas shooting rocket arty out the windows of the local school.

[DemonFiren]

Shit, is this devolving into yet another politics thread?

[Malkevin]

Shhh kid, the adults are talking.

[XSI]

Woo! Politics! Politics!

That said, war is war, shit happens and people die in it. So when it comes to shooting, better them than us is the reasoning.
But as a whole, prevention is better than having to fight stuff, but that gets into a whole lot of other things that aren't related to the F-35

[Loonikus]

Pretty much everything An0n3 said. Drones and traditional aircraft aren't so different at the end of the day. In both cases, operators are still staring at targets 3000 meters away from the aircraft to drop explosives on them. Smart munitions are not exactly "up close and personal" weapons, regardless of whether they are dropped from a drone or a traditional aircraft. Both types of aircraft are piloted by real human beans, regardless of whether they are sitting 3000 meters from the target or 30,000 meters from the target. From a moral standpoint I see no difference between drones and traditional aircraft.

But yes, drones are especially effective against Islamic insurgents due to their ability to strike more often and with greater volume than traditional aircraft. Islamic insurgents crave a glorious death in battle, to make the ultimate sacrifice for God. Therefore its only natural for them to be terrified of dying in their bunks from a smart bomb guided right into their window with nothing to show for it except making American taxpayers grumble about defense spending.

Islamic propaganda revolves around the idea of fighting valiantly against the evil foreign invaders, giving your life in a blaze of glory and heroism in the name of God and home. With drones however, what was supposed to be a glorious death turns out to be getting blown the fuck up next time you go out to milk your goat, which is infinitely less glorious.

[Incomptinence]

Killing civilians isn't unique to drones yes air support always involves lots of collateral. What will be really interesting is if drone infantry becomes a thing in the future that cuts out roughly half the antiwar sentiment and might make guerrilla warfare as we know it obsolete.

[Silavite]

The point I failed to state correctly was that to win a guerrilla campaign, you need the support of the civilian population.

If the guerrillas have civilian support, the guerrillas have established implicit connections or bonds with people and countryside. In other words, guerrillas must be able to blend into the emotional-cultural-intellectual environment of people until they become one with the people. In this sense, people feelings and thoughts must be the guerrilla feeling and thoughts while guerrilla feelings and thoughts become people feelings and thoughts; people aspirations must be guerrilla aspirations while guerrilla aspirations become people aspirations; people goals must be guerrilla goals while guerrilla goals become people goals.
The result is that guerrillas become indistinguishable from people while government is isolated from people.

Without support of people the guerrillas (or counterguerrillas) have neither a vast hidden intelligence network nor an invisible security apparatus that permits them to “see” into adversary operations yet “blinds” adversary to their own operations.
http://www.dnipogo.org/boyd/patterns_ppt.pdf PDF page 110

The trouble is that US forces are isolating themselves from the civilian population by

• Building up large permanent bases and physically isolating themselves from population.
• When we do venture out of bases, we often do it inside APC's or MRAP's.
• By often killing civilians indiscriminately in strikes targeted towards terrorists.
• Speaking unfamiliar language and being from an unfamiliar race.

I guess though in this case the problem isn't with drones, it is with the US way of doing war.

[Malkevin]

They might be venturing out in APCs because the muslim savages will torture them, tie them upside down from a traffic sign then set them on fire if they catch them alive.

Hard to compromise to win the hearts and minds when your enemy are complete nutters that have zero respect for the honor code of war.

[Timbrewolf]

The point of this engagement should not be to "kill all terrorist demons, John!".

That is impossible. I don't believe ISIS is like some mythical hydra, where you kill one and two men take their place. We are dealing casualties to them and we are sending a message to them plain as day that if you get involved with them we will use our superior technology and kill you. That will scare some off.

...but others will always, no matter what, take up arms anyway. That's fanatacism, folks!

Our objective should be decimating their infrastructure and supplies such that, while there will remain a number of angry durkas still standing and ranting when we leave, we will have crippled their ability to do anything about it beyond further ruining their own slice of hell.

...which will never be permanent. Eventually they will re-arm and re-supply and we will find ourselves here again.

We are literally just mowing the yard with FREEDOM so we can kick back in our chairs and enjoy mom's Apple Pie and the Star Spangled Banner for a bit until the weeds spring up again. At which point we should make no bones about getting ol' choppy out of the shed again and heading right back to it.

War is hell. Such is life.

EDIT: Our only hope for a real lasting solution to this is political and social reform that ostracizes radical Islam and tries to promote a return to the Middle East of the 70's and 80's.

I refuse to entertain the alternative, that we whole-heartedly attempt to eradicate these people. Not only is it logistically nigh-impossible but the moment we actually employ that strategy we will have become no better than the people we are fighting against.

DOUBLE EDIT: When I saw "We" I mean all of us, collectively. This is a global problem and a conflict that has global implications. I'm not talking as an American fightin' the good ol' American war smashin'. ISIS threatens all of us. This is something we are all in together. There are very few nations left on this earth you can stand inside of as a citizen and say "Ha! Crazy fundamentalists goin' nuts! Not my problem, have fun!".

This is not an American problem or conflict. Nor is it just NATO. Nor it is just the UN.

[Silavite]

EDIT: Our only hope for a real lasting solution to this is political and social reform that ostracizes radical Islam and tries to promote a return to the Middle East of the 70's and 80's.

I remember reading an article about the need for an Islamic reformation. http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-reformati ... 1426859626

Here are the five areas that require amendment:

1. Muhammad’s semi-divine status, along with the literalist reading of the Quran.
Muhammad should not be seen as infallible, let alone as a source of divine writ. He should be seen as a historical figure who united the Arab tribes in a premodern context that cannot be replicated in the 21st century. And although Islam maintains that the Quran is the literal word of Allah, it is, in historical reality, a book that was shaped by human hands. Large parts of the Quran simply reflect the tribal values of the 7th-century Arabian context from which it emerged. The Quran’s eternal spiritual values must be separated from the cultural accidents of the place and time of its birth.

2. The supremacy of life after death.
The appeal of martyrdom will fade only when Muslims assign a greater value to the rewards of this life than to those promised in the hereafter.

3. Shariah, the vast body of religious legislation.
Muslims should learn to put the dynamic, evolving laws made by human beings above those aspects of Shariah that are violent, intolerant or anachronistic.

4. The right of individual Muslims to enforce Islamic law.
There is no room in the modern world for religious police, vigilantes and politically empowered clerics.

5. The imperative to wage jihad, or holy war.
Islam must become a true religion of peace, which means rejecting the imposition of religion by the sword.

[Timbrewolf]

Muhammad's position of being against idolatry and representation of himself is one of the most misconstrued parts of the Qur'an.

He didn't want people to talk about him or create depictions of him because he didn't want people to see him as a major prophet or put worship of himself before God.

It backfired in the most spectacular way imaginable, where people worship and violently defend the absence of images of Muhammad. Instead of just avoiding focusing on him, radical Islam fetishizes and violently defends his transparency. It's fucking amazing.

More people should actually stop and read the Qur'an. Both critics of Islam and people who pretend to be Islamic, but obviously have no fucking idea what they're actually doing.

[XSI]

Most fanatics have not read their holy book. In fact, a lot of them are illiterate.

They are told what the book says and how to think by a few ringleaders, the ones who actually want their holy wars to continue. They're the ones with a grudge, and the ones trying to get more people into it. Or they're just modern warlords (Many african zealous muslim groups fall under this) that are using the religion to get dedicated soldiers so they can claim some land for themselves
The others? They just want a good life, but were promised such a life, or massive rewards in the afterlife by recruiters. And once they're in, peer pressure tends to keep them from questioning it. Don't want to be considered a heretic by fanatics with guns after all

[Malkevin]

EDIT: Our only hope for a real lasting solution to this is political and social reform that ostracizes radical Islam and tries to promote a return to the Middle East of the 70's and 80's.

I refuse to entertain the alternative, that we whole-heartedly attempt to eradicate these people. Not only is it logistically nigh-impossible but the moment we actually employ that strategy we will have become no better than the people we are fighting against.

Logistically speaking the mass eradication of a peoples is actually incredibly easy with todays bioweapons, which can target people based on their bloodlines, the worst people not of that bloodline will feel is a case of the flu.
Hitler would spouge his pants if he saw today's tech.

And interfering with the middle east's politics probably isn't a great idea, its how we got into this mess in the first place.

[Incomptinence]

A lethal bioweapon that is racially targeted would always have a chance to mutate or through negligent design become or be lethal to non specific targets.
If you want a population reduction all over the planet though that would be feasible.

There is recent research on the composition of the gut microbiome affecting the brain particularly in the case of autism and fecal transplants, hygene and probiotic foods like yoghurt could mitigate the effects in developed countries. It isn't just the gut that influences the body though for example bacteria in the mouth have been studied symbiotically promoting the growth of mouth cancers and parasites also try to influence the body. Enfeebling them or causing social collapse via parasitism is therefore probably safer since if things go wrong you just have to treat your kid for suppressive diarrhea or something like that instead of digging a grave. Diseases can also sterilize rather than kill see the pretty well known mumps which causes infertility in males potentially devastating a patriarchal theocracy with extreme ease if modified to evade vaccination for the common virus.

[DemonFiren]

"Fecal transplants".
There's a term I never expected to hear.

Also, are you basically saying it's possible and feasible to genophage the IS?

[Incomptinence]

Possible and feasible to genophage anyone who can't afford proper healthcare basically. This could include great swaths of the United States too. You can't absolutely ensure what it will infect but you can be near certain who can't treat it. Better idea than developing multi agent near incurable extinction plagues that might back fire and wipe out 90%+ of your population too and having developed and tested the means to do that to yourself in the process even if that doesn't happen. All it takes is a swollen pair of testicles to neuter a man permanently.Actual permanent sterility from wild mumps is rare but it should be possible to make it more likely but among fertility impairing diseases it isn't alone, it actually is probably something a natural virus could make itself extinct perfecting for perfectly understandable reasons.

[DemonFiren]

I now have respect for viros IRL.

I also believe we should re-allow ERP and add a virus that prevents you from doing it.

[Incomptinence]

It is the hypothetical modern potential and paranoid Russia has put a ban on biosamples leaving their country back in 2007 stating exact fears of genetically targeted weapons which is silly since say stealing and smuggling hair would be easy as sin to say the least.

[callanrockslol]

Make a random disease that half the crew are carriers for, if they make an erp related emote at someone else it transfers them the active version and they both die horribly.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Can we go back to discussing a shitty overpriced fighter which won't work?

[Timbrewolf]

I know what fecal transplants are, but every time I hear the term I can't help but picture some hack doctor cutting open someone's chest cavity and just dumping a hot shit into it.

[DemonFiren]

I wonder if that was ever possible on Goon.