Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
Now look at _The Carrier Myth_ and tell me: what are we paying for a third fixed wing air force for when the SOI for the F-35B /without/ V-22 tanking is likely going to be about the same 300nm that you might expect from a SHAR equipped Hermes in the Falklands in 1982?
Finally, let's be real here. If the USD collapses as our debt holders get tired of our telling them 'Not right now' on return of their gold and China unpins the Renminbi when pipelinestan brings South Pars petrogas to her Silk Route II rail lines, how are we going to pay for all this with a currency that massively overeased and not worth the toilet paper it's printed on?
'Sequestration' at that point is going to make Pearl Harbor look like fuss in the enlisted mess.
All the big think tanks which analyzed the strategic change memorandum and put forth their own recommendations included reductions in Big Deck Carrier Air, down to as few as 6-8 total.
This means we could not even sustain a scramble force.
WHY would we want to preserve mini decks which only have roughly half the installed airpower as sortie generation numbers (and if we returned to a Roosevelt deckload would have only a third as many) when we cannot keep the big decks with _no fuel oil consumption_ going at all?
We get into a 700-900nm SOI campaign with Iran or China as A2AD blocked and we will be needing significant numbers of real airplanes (which is to say those which have Tanking, EW, AEW and Escort/Suppression already in the mix of an airwing), sufficiently sized to do major Alpha Strikes at least twice a day until the carrier gets blowed out from under them like a bad Tilmann novel or they run out of bombs and JP-8 and have to retire to the nearest friendly port willing to suck up DF-21s for playing Montevideo to USN airpower.
The USMC can provide _none of the above_ with the F-35B because it has only 14K of fuel 'natural' and will likely be operating at 10-12K once daytemps are taken into account. NGJ is not an F-35 package. The jet cannot carry suppression ordnance internally (no a sufficient number of AAM) and is going to be as hardpoint/pylon limited for externals as it is on bay ordnance. Which is to say 25% of the bring back lost as pylon
kit.
No, the real reason the USMC wants to be STOVLized after decades with the A-6 and A-4 is because the F-35B doesn't work on real carriers and not being the USN's RAG is a plot they have been working on for well night on 30 years.
The runup from in front of a JBD is too short, the pendant is hard to roll over on recovery and the deckpark makes over the side VL impossible as well.
IOW: You have it all backwards. It's not what the F-35B 'can do' but what it can't that makes it special to the USMC.
Mores the pity, we would be better off with a much smaller Corps that did more of their traditional, reaction force, missions than the secondary army/navy/airpower all in one that the U.S. taxpayer now have to pay for.
Nov 30, 2013, 8:02:02 AM
Posted to F35B Agitprop ala Sweetman