Thanks DA
I bookmark a few military Blogs and scan through them every now and will pay closer attention to the dates from now on, good catch thanks.
I'm still amazed with the production totals that's some feat and I see your point one year of solid running produces more F-35s then there are advance Flankers. In under three years time most of NATO could in theory at least have 5th generation fighters in some stage of training. That's production power plain and simple.
I think in five to eight years time new lines of small compact nasty stealth weapons with good standoff ranges will be built, but time will tell.
I don't want to sound dramatic but it is the way of the sword and shield. As long as men fight wars, there will always be moves and countermoves. When one particular method of combat dominates so thoroughly and is possessed by one side. The other side will more often than not abandon that method or alter it enough to have a way to fight back. If not then it will be destroyed.
The F-35 does have a lot of advantages but does carry with it fundamental limitations imposed by the geography over which it was designed to fight and the physiology of men who have to fight it. This will not be an issue against most opponents through the F-35s operational life. But there will be those who find ways to exploit the limitations and those exploits will define the F-35's successor. I can't accurately see 25 years into the future to say with any certainty how things will turn out. But the present and near future give some indications when you look at the wars we are fighting today and have fought as far back as 1991.
Against those who choose to remain with traditional air defenses and maneuver warfare tactics though the F-35 is going to slaughter them so long as the resources available to opponents stays behind. In otherwords our enemies typically...
- Are outnumbered
- Are outdated
- Lack the quality of trained personnel
Can a Flanker nation buy 200+ F-35s a year? No.
Can a traditional IADS effectively track and target aircraft that use F-35 like technology effectively at the system level? No.
Are the training standards competitive? No.
So as you can see, PAK-FA, Su-27s, J-xx and whatever else are born losers through the F-35 service life. The real threats will come from WMD, Special Operations/Terrorist, Cyberwarfare, Submarines and things like that where they have better chances of waging offensive warfare. Especially through the integration of advanced COT with their operations. That is having the same effect on them as GPS tech did to MK82 or Stealth Tech did for combat planes.
-DA
