Those weren’t the best, or is that the point?

There’s nothing left to discuss, it’s like the 4th time I’ve seen the headline.

I see 3.

It’s rough being on the smaller side. Rotating soldiers off the line is a huge part of not having people go AWOL. But a smaller force can’t afford rotation. The next best thing is amnesties, building camaraderie (so they want to fight for their friends), and visibly trying to reduce casualties as much as possible.

At the end of the day if they can’t get it under control they will lose.

I can’t speak for European statistics but migrants in the US have a lower crime rate. They want to interact with the police as little as possible.

Great job Israel, couldn’t have waited half an hour?

Okay hitting the wrong thing while under attack is bad, but denying the emergency landing is just fucked up.

Sure, go ahead and link me the stats for the F-15C/E, F-16E, and F/A-18 then. Specifically the mean time between critical failures? That’s break downs. There’s information on mission availability, which is in the 60’s percent like all of the other combat jets.

Because this -

Aircraft that were combat-coded—which typically receive priority for spare parts and maintenance—achieved the best performance for availability, the report stated, noting that 61 percent were available on an average monthly basis. But that was still below the goal of 65 percent

Isn’t the horrible thing Russian propaganda makes it out to be. And every time people run around repeating their talking points they’re spreading misinformation crafted by Russia.

Another, less sensational way of stating it’s readiness would be, “Deployed F-35s were available for missions 94 percent of the time expected.”

You mean inflation? Or the regular financial fear mongering? I can go back into the NYTimes Archives and find similar articles for the F-15, F-16, and F-18. Hell I’m old enough to remember the articles about the Super Hornet.

And now all of those planes are considered the gold standard. By the way, the F-15EX is literally just new F-15s with all of the updates applied, new engine, and stronger wings. Which strongly suggests this is just the cost of a new fighter jet in 2024.

Microsoft is restarting 3 Mile Island…

I thought they ran on Freedom ^TM ?!

Reliability is always being improved, they’re already on version 3 of the F-35. But no, “a lot more”, is a subjective term. There’s actually not much info on how often other jets break down. But they’re also on block 70, not block 4. And they’re still developing tools that fix them faster and better. For example the F-15 got an OBD scanner like device in 2007, after being in service for decades.

As it ever was with new military vehicles. Costs come down and reliability goes up over time. This isn’t the big deal Russia makes it out to be.

The difference between an F-35 and a drone is that the F-35’s Electronic Warfare suite can force the drone to do a factory reset in mid-air and return it to the sender.

Okay that’s an exaggeration, but cutting it’s communication link and spoofing it’s navigation to make it crash are in the realm of possibility.

F-15s cost 55-100 million depending on make and year. The F-35 is on the high end of that at 80-100 million but it is not outside the range of what we pay for aircraft. Furthermore Boeing’s Eagle upgrade the EX is actually more expensive than the F-35.

The only other option was to keep buying legacy aircraft. Which might work with Russia but the Chinese are actually figuring some stuff out.

The Air Force just selected to use pilots in their NGAD fighter. Drones are not capable of standing up to humans yet. Especially in an electronic warfare situation where maintaining a communications link is not possible due to jamming. So the drone has to rely on on board tech for decision making. It would certainly be different if a super computer AI could control it over the communications link but that’s not where we are.

Edit to Add - The Air Force has more F-35As than they do all types of F-15, and about a 1:2 ratio of F-35 to F16. The F-35C had been slower to roll out but 100 have been delivered to the Navy and Marine Corps and the Corps is already using them in Yemen.

Also, as a former infantryman I love the A-10. But it’s time is done. The AF did it dirty and tried to cancel it a hundred times but it still did it’s job. But the F-35 is everything we asked for in a replacement except for grass stains on the fuselage. It carries a similar load, has a good loiter time, and benefits from more advanced precision technology so danger close is slightly more survivable.

The bad stories about the F-35 are greatly exaggerated. The niche it fills is lugging 18,000 pounds of ordnance into contested air without getting shot down. Something the A-10 is less and less capable of every year. In the future, the development roadmap, they want the F-35 to use it’s electronics to guide arsenal drones in that bring even more ordnance. In an air to air fight one F-35 out in front can already launch all of the AIM-174s that a Super Hornet can carry, before the F/A-18 can even see the targets. Vastly improving survivability and deadliness.

There’s several very good reasons to use these things.

Yeah the US rep in South America isn’t great…

I’m sure the 25th Infantry Division is thrilled to know they’ll be required to fight a jungle insurgency for an obsolete canal.

/s