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Fighter jets

Lord Maguire

I was reading the other day about the RAF and how they will soon take delivery of their first batch of F-35 Lightning II multirole fighter jets. I must say, they are quite an impressive of kit.

I have the price list here:

F-35A - conventional takeoff and landing - $94.6M

F-35B - short takeoff and vertical landing - $122.8M

The F-35C is carrier-based and not relevant to my point.

We are a neutral country and I respect that fact, but Switzerland for example, a famously neutral state, have modern fighter jets for air defence purposes. Why don't we?

We could get Eurofighters, the above mentioned F-35 and others, we are spoiled for choice.

I know that we would only use them in combat if the inevitable Loyalist conflict arises in NI should a border poll pass, but it is good to have them for defence. Our Air Corps is a joke.

Costly - maybe.

Worth it - I think yes.

What are your thoughts on this?

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[Deleted User]

Lord Maguire wrote: »

Like I said, a unionst uprising in NI should there be a united Ireland.

Mods, are we allowed to call re-reg trolls complete and utter retards?

This is a clear case where arguing with the poster's posts is waste of time.

endacl

Lord Maguire wrote: »

We could get drones?

We could get them in Argos or Smyth's.

_Kaiser_

Yet another thinly disguised United Ireland nationalist fantasy thread.. Though with an interesting carpet bombing twist! :rolleyes:

Never mind the huge cost (as others have pointed out above) of buying, maintaining and providing pilots and staff for fighter jets, where exactly do you think we'll get the money to support what is currently NI if indeed unification did come to pass anytime soon?

Maybe you've forgotten the massive amount of debt this country is saddled with, or the huge problems we have with fundamental services of a functioning society - healthcare, housing, cost of living, infrastructure and regional development etc etc

Maybe you've forgotten the huge inefficiencies within our public and civil service as it is without taking on that of NI, which happens to be its biggest employer.

I could go on but the bottom line is this... I'm sure someday a United Ireland will happen, and hopefully it'll be at a time when both communities up there have accepted the idea and it can happen peacefully, but we have more than enough problems with the country we have now without looking to actively invite more.

Blazer

The F35 is muck anyway. It’s been a disaster of a plane since day 1.
A few F22s is where it truly lies but we couldn’t afford them and there’s no way the US will sell them.
So maybe a few cessna’s with a few of the lads hanging out the windows pointing guns.

Bob24

Lord Maguire wrote: »

The F-35 is western.

Dassault Rafale, although it would probably have been easier to get a good price a few years ago when they were struggling to export it and the French army was having to top-up the orders.

Or Gripen, not as nice but even cheaper.

silverharp

even switzerland has twice the population of Ireland, we should be thinking more along the lines of Iceland

Wibbs

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm not sure what help a supersonic jet would be against a lad with a petrol bomb.

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

A few dodgy lads in balaclavas and parka jackets with a stinger missile is surely more cost effective than an F-35.

Exactly. Modern warfare has changed radically. There are no face to face armies lined up against each other battles any more, so fighter jets are as much an ego sabre rattling show of strength than strategically useful. And a bloody expensive one. What Ireland could do and far more cheaply with it is to turn the army into a guerrilla based military outfit. Do a Michael Collins on it. Make it so costly of any enemy resources of money and men to keep a presence here. The aforementioned Swiss operate this kinda thing where a large chunk of the population is trained and armed.

SEPT 23 1989

Why would we own one when we can ring the RAF and have one over Dublin City centre in less than eight minutes

Beta Ray Bill

Blazer wrote: »

The F35 is muck anyway. It’s been a disaster of a plane since day 1.
A few F22s is where it truly lies but we couldn’t afford them and there’s no way the US will sell them.
So maybe a few cessna’s with a few of the lads hanging out the windows pointing guns.

Program is now "to big to fail" projected cost in todays money is $1.5 Trillion Dollars
$1,500,000,000,000 <= that's a lot of 0's
Even for the US economy that's a heavy bill.

To put that cost into perspective, the Gerald Ford Carrier program is going to cost $37.3 Billion with each unit (of which there will be 10) costing about $13 Billion
So that's a total of about $167 Billion or:
$167,000,000,000

Big difference.

F-22 is at the moment the best active fighter plane in the world
But that will change when China and Russia unveil their 5th/6th gen figthers
Even at that the newer planes are extremely expensive for what they are.
Even the US is struggling to justify the cost.
The plan was to replace the Ageing F-15's of which there were nearly 600 with F-22's
In the end the cost was to high and the US went with about 200 F-22's and upgraded the older F-15's

Same will happen with the F-35, designed to replace the F-16 but won't because of the cost. F-16 for it's time was one of the best fighter planes ever made.

In relation to the question do we need them?
EHHHHH No!
We are a small country and we couldn't afford to run those aircraft.
We should be spending more on our Navy though. We have a huge amount of sea to patrol but we have very few ships.

Also with the advent of Railguns and Laser weaponry Air Superiority is not going to matter as much in 20/30 years. Aircraft will just need to be "in line of sight/in view" to be shot down. There are no countermeasures for these kinds of weapons. Israel has laser defense installations in testing capable of hitting inbound artillery shells.
There will be a shift to Land and Sea based weaponry with the Air Role being left for Drones.

biko

We don't need fighter jets, we just need a lot of SAMs

Wanderer78

biko wrote:

We don't need fighter jets, we just need a lot of SAMs

Maybe we should build a few houses and fund our health services more so than buy a few flying death machines?

Cookie_Monster

Like the way the motor industry is going, we should just rent them when we need them

no need for all the costs of ownership, just ring the Brits if required and pay by the hour

Hande hoche!

Either a few glorified trainers something like a L-39 or alternatively a few SAMs, as above.

Grayson

Virginia Mushy Shinbone wrote: »

Airstrikes versus urban guerila warfare inside your own country is not a good idea though is it?

It's a bit of a laugh if sh1t gets boring.

Seriously, the planes we have are grand. They're only used for patrolling looking for fishing boats and drug smugglers We could buy something fancy but we'd have no use for them.

Turbo props drop bombs on unionists just as well as fighter jets

Oink

Yeah we get a few jets and then what.

While they’re flying around we suddenly discover 20 heavily armed tourists in the Dail which we didn’t even know were in the country. The internet and all comms are down for some reason, half the government has been poisoned, and the russkis are talking about cruise missiles. Oops.

Oink

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Maybe we should build a few houses and fund our health services more so than buy a few flying death machines?

Are you some kind of communist or something?

ohnonotgmail

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

The F35 still does not even work properly and the program has cost almost $1 trillion. It will be the biggest White Elephant in the history of military expenditure.

The Sukhoi Su-57, Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-31 will turn out to better and cheaper planes.

The israelis have already used theirs in combat.

Wanderer78

Oink wrote: »

Are you some kind of communist or something?

yes comrade

Hande hoche!

Oink wrote: »

Yeah we get a few jets and then what.

While they’re flying around we suddenly discover 20 heavily armed tourists in the Dail which we didn’t even know were in the country. The internet and all comms are down for some reason, half the government has been poisoned, and the russkis are talking about cruise missiles. Oops.

The air shows, think of the air shows.

Grayson

Wanderer78 wrote: »

yes comrade

It's Da, not yes, you idiot. We'll never infiltrate these commies if you keep making stupid mistakes.

Overheal

Lord Maguire wrote: »

I was reading the other day about the RAF and how they will soon take delivery of their first batch of F-35 Lightning II multirole fighter jets. I must say, they are quite an impressive of kit.

I have the price list here:

F-35A - conventional takeoff and landing - $94.6M

F-35B - short takeoff and vertical landing - $122.8M

The F-35C is carrier-based and not relevant to my point.

We are a neutral country and I respect that fact, but Switzerland for example, a famously neutral state, have modern fighter jets for air defence purposes. Why don't we?

We could get Eurofighters, the above mentioned F-35 and others, we are spoiled for choice.

I know that we would only use them in combat if the inevitable Loyalist conflict arises in NI should a border poll pass, but it is good to have them for defence. Our Air Corps is a joke.

Costly - maybe.

Worth it - I think yes.

What are your thoughts on this?

Ive taken entire credit hours at college exploring and researching and describing at great length how the F35 program is muck. Even went to Ft Worth to see the assembly. They’re basically the Kickstarter of fighter jets: hefty promises built on overselling hype for a product that even to date isn’t fully finished. The hardware has been done for a while (in short, it’s not the most efficient) but the software is still in development and is a mess in many respects. The F35 was wayyyy too ambitious, too big to fail, and extremely vulnerable to scope creep. It does nothing particularly well that wasn’t already handled by other previous generation fighters more dedicated to those roles. It was designed to fight a war that doesn’t exist. It’s seen so many production and development delays that it’s cuttinf steeply into its designed program lifespan and will be rendered obsolete relatively soon after it reaches its peak rollout, 7th generation programs are already in early development - and the F35 still isn’t *finished*

The F35B is fascinating for its innovation in STOVL but that’s about it for me. Users can PM me for a copy of our end of semester report on our findings from when I did the research in 2016.

badtoro

I'm all for fighter jets on one condition, that we get the Salthill Airshow up and going featuring them, and on the run in from Shannon they drop some cluster bombs on the smelly GAAW crowd.

Hande hoche!

Bob24 wrote: »

Dassault Rafale, although it would probably have been easier to get a good price a few years ago when they were struggling to export it and the French army was having to top-up the orders.

Or Gripen, not as nice but even cheaper.

The Rafale has had a surprisingly successful last few years. Particularly in the Middle East.

The Gripen has done decent enough. Compared to older Swedish jets. The South Africans seem to like their planes. Will be intrigued as to whether it gets any South American sales.

RiderOnTheStorm

The Viet Cong didn't have modern jets, an they beat the mighty USA.

Irelands army cant compete with a world power on a military footing. Our army is trained to fight an asymmetric war within our borders if we are invaded.

Overheal

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

The Viet Cong didn't have modern jets, an they beat the mighty USA.

Irelands army cant compete with a world power on a military footing. Our army is trained to fight an asymmetric war within our borders if we are invaded.

The viet cong only won because those jets, in a stunning lack of imagination on the designers part, were not equipped or designed for close range dogfighting.

Anyone whoever watches top gun every time it’s on tv could have told you that! And they can do it in Michael Ironsides voice

[Deleted User]

biko wrote: »

We don't need fighter jets, we just need a lot of SAMs

SAM missiles? In the sky?

Your Face

It would be cool because fighter jets are cool.
I just wouldn't trust our politicians during the tendering process.

jmayo

Mrcaramelchoc wrote: »

What about a nice shiny new health system instead.

Hey he said about spending a billion, not trillions.

Grayson wrote: »

It's a bit of a laugh if sh1t gets boring.

Seriously, the planes we have are grand. They're only used for patrolling looking for fishing boats and drug smugglers We could buy something fancy but we'd have no use for them.

Turbo props drop bombs on unionists just as well as fighter jets

Actually the planes we have aren't grand.
The CASAs, all two of them, are now long in the tooth and as was evidenced by the demise of Rescue 116, we don't have enough of them or enough crew.
According to Air Corp website we have 17, yes 17, fixed wing aircraft and 10 helicopters.
FFS AFAIK a few of those 17 are stilled the dolled up Cessna 172s.

But we don't need fast modern jets.
We need helicopters, surveillance and patrol aircraft and transport aircraft.
Although since mary harney left the need for an Antonov 124 has gone.

Overheal wrote: »

The viet cong only won because those jets, in a stunning lack of imagination on the designers part, were not equipped or designed for close range dogfighting.

Anyone whoever watches top gun every time it’s on tv could have told you that! And they can do it in Michael Ironsides voice

Sorry to nitpick, but that is incorrect.
Viet Cong were communist insurgents operating in the South.
They had no aircraft.

And yes the US F-4 Phantoms initially did not have any internal guns as it was believed all air combat would be at a long distance suitbale for missiles, but from 1968 on they did.
Lots of other US aircraft did have internal guns.
A1 Skyraider, A7 Corsair, F-104, F-105 had guns or cannons.

The North Vietnamese Peoples Airforce had old Mig 17s which did have guns.

Anyway most USAF, USN lost aircraft were down to surface to air missiles and AAA not air to air combat.
They only lost 70 odd to air to air combat.

dr.fuzzenstein

Oink wrote: »

Yeah we get a few jets and then what.

While they’re flying around we suddenly discover 20 heavily armed tourists in the Dail which we didn’t even know were in the country. The internet and all comms are down for some reason, half the government has been poisoned, and the russkis are talking about cruise missiles. Oops.

Absolutely no problems, we'll show them Temple Bar and the Guinness Storehouse where they belong.

smurfjed

Why buy new?

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