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Dead Reckoning posted:Or you could buy the aircraft equivalent of the FAMAS, I guess. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn
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Sep 2, 2017 07:19
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That's nice and all but the measure of how pleased I am with defence spending in AU is determined by how cool the planes look on the ramp because  at the idea that we're going to get into any engagement abroad that doesn't include the USA and in the unlikely event China/Indonesia/whoever starts eyeballing this red burning hell hole and somehow finding themselves nodding and thinking "mmm yes, I think we'd like that" we're probably hosed without outside help whether we've got 35s, 15s or Rafales. Might as well leave a good looking corpse.
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Sep 2, 2017 07:24
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Dead Reckoning posted:The Rafale is a shrunken looking plane because the French had to compact it down to work on their ghetto ski jump carrier. Is Australia going to buy a ghetto ski jump carrier? No? The Charles de Gaulle is a catobar carrier and the Aussies did buy 2 ghetto ski jump amphibs.
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Sep 2, 2017 07:31
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EDIT:^^^ I stand corrected. Either way, it's a naval fighter, and buying a naval fighter for no good reason is accepting pointless compromises. Carth Dookie posted:That's nice and all but the measure of how pleased I am with defence spending in AU is determined by how cool the planes look on the ramp because Carlo Kopp, is that you? The idea isn't to wage glorious anime battles in the Timor sea, it's to make the cost of action for pirates and other assholes (China) high enough that they won't decide to take a piece of your portion or gently caress with the supply routes you depend on if the U.S. is busy deep-dicking, say, North Korea. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 07:34
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Dead Reckoning posted:The Rafale is a shrunken looking plane because the French had to compact it down to work on their ghetto ski jump carrier. Is Australia going to buy a ghetto ski jump carrier? No? Then there is no reason to pay for the compromises of a funny looking little French plane and stretch your supply chain 14,000km to an "ally" not exactly known for their expeditionary logistics capabilities. Not only is the CdG a CATOBAR carrier, it's a nuclear powered one, which makes it the one of the only nuclear powered steam catapult carriers not US owned.
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Sep 2, 2017 07:36
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It's the only nuke carrier not in US Navy. Has had Super Hornets from US Navy on it, too. Vahakyla fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 08:41
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Vahakyla posted:It's the only nuke carrier not in US Navy. Rafale-Ms can launch and recover on the Nimitz-class, too. Of course, not like RAAF or AFAA are going to spend the time or money to train pilots to land on another country's carriers. Nor does the AFAA have any fixed-wing aircraft anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Air_Arm_(RAN)#Current
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Sep 2, 2017 09:20
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Dead Reckoning posted:The Rafale is a shrunken looking plane because the French had to compact it down to work on their ghetto ski jump carrier. All the French aircraft carriers, whether real, projected but not made, or second-hand, have always been flat tops. To be fully accurate, there have been a retrofit of a small ski jump on the Clemenceau toward the end of its life but that was still a CATOBAR carrier. It's just that the 40m catapults were starting to be underpowered, so a short ramp with a 5° angle was added to give just a tiny little boost. Dead Reckoning posted:Either way, it's a naval fighter, and buying a naval fighter for no good reason is accepting pointless compromises. So that's why they're buying F-35s, they don't want to accept pointless compromises in aircraft design. FYI the Rafale beat the F-15, F-16, and Eurofighter Typhoon in technical evaluations whenever they competed. So it's kind of like the aircraft isn't actually hindered by the "pointless compromises" it had to have.
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Sep 2, 2017 10:51
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CDG is a major force projection tool and definitely one of the major non-US assets.
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Sep 2, 2017 10:54
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Cat Mattress posted:All the French aircraft carriers, whether real, projected but not made, or second-hand, have always been flat tops. So it beat a 40, 30 and 20 year old design?
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Sep 2, 2017 12:07
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AlexanderCA posted:The Charles de Gaulle is a catobar carrier and the Aussies did buy 2 ghetto ski jump amphibs. The only reason the ski jump is on the Aussie carriers is they came with the original design and they decided it wasn't worth the money for the redesign/build. They're not like the new America class, designed to be light carriers in a pinch. Internally they're not built and equipped to handle plane logistics and the flight deck would need major upgrades to handle F35's.
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Sep 2, 2017 12:18
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Godholio posted:The RAAF never needed or really wanted the F-22. It would've been a hilarious waste of your limited budget.
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Sep 2, 2017 12:51
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Deptfordx posted:The only reason the ski jump is on the Aussie carriers is they came with the original design and they decided it wasn't worth the money for the redesign/build. They're not like the new America class, designed to be light carriers in a pinch. Internally they're not built and equipped to handle plane logistics and the flight deck would need major upgrades to handle F35's. I was going to be all superior and call you out saying that the ship can totally service aircraft but I looked at the interior plan and it's nowhere near the size necessary to support a squadron of F-35s. Hell the drat thing was designed around Harriers. Also of interest (to me anyway) was that the ship is a Spanish design and not the French Mistral. I had no idea the Spanish were still in the large surface combatant shipbuilding game. That's pretty nifty.
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Sep 2, 2017 13:06
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evil_bunnY posted:And the -35 isn't? The unit cost difference isn't so different anymore is it? The F-22 came in an ~$150 million 1990 dollars. The F-35A looks like it's going to slide into around ~$85 million 2020 dollars in full rate production. It's like 1/3rd the cost. The the F-35A is likely going to come in under the cost of the next upgraded F-15SE which seems to be clocking closer to 100-110 million. The level of misinformation about the F-35 is seriously approaching pizza-gate levels of bullshit*. It's actually a phenomenal aircraft (at least the F-35A) with capabilities that are head and shoulders above it's nearest competitors and likely to stay in that position for the next 20+ years. e: * by which I mean that there appears to be a deliberate misinformation campaign being waged to reduce confidence in it and influence bad decisions at a political level. Murgos fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 15:54
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^I still think those F-35 numbers are hilariously optimistic. I'd like to be wrong though.evil_bunnY posted:And the -35 isn't? The unit cost difference isn't so different anymore is it? Correct, but the F-35A (or C) is a much better fit for the missions Australia actually needs. If you need to haul a bunch of groceries, a Ducati might not be the smart purchase.
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Sep 2, 2017 16:37
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I'm totally biased ( ) but imo Canada would be the best option for a 2nd country getting F-22s. Intercepting Russians in the arctic and dropping sdbs on Portuguese trawlers. 
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Sep 2, 2017 16:40
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Are those the predicted 35 numbers and post-cancellation 22 numbers? Per aircraft cost is a really slippery number.
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Sep 2, 2017 16:44
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Dead Reckoning posted:The Rafale is a shrunken looking plane because the French had to compact it down to work on their ghetto ski jump carrier. The biggest reason why Rafale is small is that the Mirage is small. Have you ever been up close to a Mirage? They're loving tiny compared to just about any modern fighter aircraft outside the Gripen. E: drat, the Mirage is even smaller than I thought, it's basically the same size as the Gripen. MrChips fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 16:59
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Cyrano4747 posted:Are those the predicted 35 numbers and post-cancellation 22 numbers? Per aircraft cost is a really slippery number. I'd have thought that the total lifetime cost would be more important than the actual purchase cost anyway, at least instinctually from my experience of equipment in general. The numbers for maintenance parts of the F-35 I would bet will be much lower because loads of people are buying them. I have no idea what the numbers actually are but for the 200 odd F-22's that the US bought id imagine the maintenance costs would be a lot higher. Does anyone have anything on lifetime maintenance costs as compared to purchase costs for military aircraft?
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Sep 2, 2017 17:04
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Polyakov posted:I'd have thought that the total lifetime cost would be more important than the actual purchase cost anyway, at least instinctually from my experience of equipment in general. The numbers for maintenance parts of the F-35 I would bet will be much lower because loads of people are buying them. I have no idea what the numbers actually are but for the 200 odd F-22's that the US bought id imagine the maintenance costs would be a lot higher. 187
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Sep 2, 2017 17:11
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Cyrano4747 posted:Are those the predicted 35 numbers and post-cancellation 22 numbers? Per aircraft cost is a really slippery number. They are but the F35 number is pretty solid at this point. Sure the per unit cost of the F-22 would have been much lower if they had purchased the full order but even so the F-35 would still be coming in at around half the cost. I feel that looking at lifetime costs is where you are going to get into trouble due to all the assumptions and normalizations you would have to make.
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Sep 2, 2017 17:24
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That's assuming a lot about f22 costs not coming down with buys on the scale of the f35 buys
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Sep 2, 2017 17:35
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I feel like we are getting off into gay black DoD territory here. Right now there are open orders for something like 3400 F-35s which would make it one of the most successful aircraft in history. It's possible people are looking at the enourmous mistake not buying F-22s was and compensating by overbuying F-35s but I think it's more likely that it's just shaping up to be a really capable and versatile aircraft with a non-exorbitant budget.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:13
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Ok but it's still silly to cite how much cheaper it is as part of why it's so great. 3500 aren't being bought because it's cheap, it's cheap because 3500 are being bought. The converse is also true of the f22.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:17
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Murgos posted:I feel like we are getting off into gay black DoD territory here. F22s weren't and won't ever be offered for export. Unless by people you mean US politicians.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:25
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Cat Mattress posted:So that's why they're buying F-35s, they don't want to accept pointless compromises in aircraft design. There are a few issues I have with RAAF adoption of the SHornet and with a hypothetical adoption of the Rafale. First, land based air forces have no business buying carrier aircraft. The size and weight compromises necessary for a carrier design are an unnecessary penalty if you aren't using them. The fact that there isn't a western 4.5/5th generation design in production that wasn't built with a naval variant in mind except the Eurofighter (lol) and the Gripen (has its own compromises) is embarrassing in its own way. These issues are somewhat ameliorated in the F-35 and Rafale because the dedicated land based versions delete a lot of the extra weight, but it's completely unaddressed in the land based SHornet. Of the various not-ideal 5th gen fighter options available to the Aus DoD, the F-35 makes more sense then the Rafale, because the range benefits of the internal carriage of weapons more than makes up for the fact that the Rafale is a more mature and less risky system at this point. Second issue is that Australia's key national security interest should be sea control IMO, and the SHornet is hilariously terrible as a land based aircraft for that mission. The SHornets were acquired in the early 2010s explicitly to bridge the gap between legacy hornets and the delayed arrival of the F-35. The SHornet was supposedly the conservative choice, because the Aus DoD bought off on the idea that it would save money by using legacy Hornet infrastructure. My issue with this logic is that everyone knows that they aren't going to scrap the SHornets along with their legacy Hornets when the F-35 comes on line, they're going to fly them to the end of their life cycle. No matter what aircraft they chose, Aus is going to end up with two aircraft types in their fighter force. To me, it's as short sighted as MacArthur ordering the Garand in 30-06 for compatability with current ammunition stocks. The Rafale wasn't as mature at the time, and would have represented more risk. Although it is a more capable aircraft than the SHornet and the F-15, it doesn't make sense if Australia is already committed to buying the F-35. I think a F-15 variant optimized for ASuW and long range strike would have been a better complement to the F-35 in a future force composition than the SHornet while having greater range and less risk than the Rafale, with known life cycle costs. And they should have been developing something like the NSW, because a lot of countries are going to want that sort of weapon in the coming decades.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:39
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Cyrano4747 posted:Ok but it's still silly to cite how much cheaper it is as part of why it's so great. 3500 aren't being bought because it's cheap, it's cheap because 3500 are being bought. The converse is also true of the f22. I have no idea what your point is anymore. The question was, "Doesn't the F-35 cost as much as an F-22?" And the answer is no, it doesn't. Sitting here quibbling about the size of the buy orders affect on per unit costs is so far off into the realm of belly button lint contemplation that the discussion has lost all meaning.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:00
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Cyrano4747 posted:That's assuming a lot about f22 costs not coming down with buys on the scale of the f35 buys There were never going to be as many F-22 purchases as F-35. Even if the USAF got 381, and figure the RAAF buys 100 (HA!), you're still a zero away from the F-35's economy of scale.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:17
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It's on this very page dude:Murgos posted:The F-22 came in an ~$150 million 1990 dollars. The F-35A looks like it's going to slide into around ~$85 million 2020 dollars in full rate production. It's like 1/3rd the cost. You're arguing for the f35 being a great choice based on cost and directly comparing it to the 22. That's only true because of the purchase cut on the 22 and how that impacted unit cost. If it gets adopted in the numbers thrown around yeah it will end up a capable aircraft but the notion that it is a bargain because it costs less than the 22 is ludicrous.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:20
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Godholio posted:There were never going to be as many F-22 purchases as F-35. Even if the USAF got 381, and figure the RAAF buys 100 (HA!), you're still a zero away from the F-35's economy of scale. Sure, but it still doesn't make the 35 a bargain because it might end up costing less than a low run fighter. It's the apples and oranges comparison I'm objecting to. Edit: a better comparison would be a completed program that had similar production numbers and wide spread, multinational adoption. Something like the f15. Even that is going to be guesswork at best because you have to assume a similar service life for the new aircraft. Edit 2: why yes, I am skeptical when claims are made that a major military purchase will be inexpensive Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 19:21
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Can you guys imagine if the Internet had been around during the F-111's development period or that one German American tank or the m16
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Sep 2, 2017 19:31
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bewbies posted:Can you guys imagine if the Internet had been around during the F-111's development period Nah ACW small arms procurement message board fights would have been the best.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:32
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why don't they just buy the 1841 musket for fucks sake, it worked just fine in Mexico
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Sep 2, 2017 19:41
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What German American tank?
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Sep 2, 2017 19:45
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Throatwarbler posted:What German American tank? MBT-70/KPz-70
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Sep 2, 2017 19:50
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Throatwarbler posted:What German American tank? I'm guessing the MBT-70 / KPz 70
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Sep 2, 2017 19:51
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Also known as 'The reason the US Army was still rocking M60A1s in 1980'
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Sep 2, 2017 19:53
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I'm not well versed enough in it in the first place, but it truly never made sense to me as why Finland of all countries decided to buy F-18s for it's Air Force. There's no major shipping to be countered with the full land border with Russia, there's definitely no carriers even in the most semen filled fever dreams, and neither is range a major concern. I don't see why stacks of F-16s didn't become the norm.
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Sep 2, 2017 20:37
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Vahakyla posted:I'm not well versed enough in it in the first place, but it truly never made sense to me as why Finland of all countries decided to buy F-18s for it's Air Force. There's no major shipping to be countered with the full land border with Russia, there's definitely no carriers even in the most semen filled fever dreams, and neither is range a major concern. I don't see why stacks of F-16s didn't become the norm. 2 engines for flight over inhospitable territory and better rough field performance because of the beefier landing gear are probably the biggest reasons. F-16's are definitely the norm in most places though ~4500 compared to ~1950 built.
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Sep 2, 2017 20:42
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In a lot of places I suspect it came down to whether Boeing or LockMart were offering better incentive packages, and what variant was being offered. I don't know how the two aircrafts' radars compare, for example, but if one outperformed the other, I can see that tipping the scales for a country that isn't buying F-15s as a complement.
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Sep 2, 2017 21:36
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