Hard to say. Last time I went to war, my air wing lost 90 fighter planes in 90 days. That's a plane a day from just one base.
Defense Secretary Gates has decided to stop the F22 program at 187 planes. He is going to shut down the F22 production line, which means no more F22's, ever. Gates feels that the F22 is too expensive ($150 million each) and too specialized (only does air-to-air) and not needed going up against the likes of Iran. All this is true.
On the other hand, going up against a more up to date enemy (China? Russia?) we will need F22's. F22 is the hottest fighter in the world, every one fears going up against it. The Japanese want to buy it. Exercises have F22 gaining a 30:1 kill ratio against every other fighter.
To win, or even survive, a war, air superiority is everything. Air superiority means our helicopters, transports, and close air support aircraft can fly where they please, and our ground forces don't have to worry about getting bombed and strafed. It means the enemy's helicopters, transports, and close air support gets shot down by our fighters.
F22 delivers air superiority. Until we run out of them.
Maybe we could fund more F22's out of the $787 billion Porkulus bill? Aircraft production is real economic stimulus.
2 comments:
Hopefully congress can save the F-22. If they want to cancel a program, cancel the F-35 and open up the F-22 for export. A lot of people assume the F-35 is a better plane because 35 > 22...
Let's hope. Especially as a lot of the $150 million price is paying off the R&D money spent up front. R&D costs are divided by the number of aircraft built and each aircraft's cost is jacked up by it's "fair" share of the R&D costs. But the R&D money is all spent, we don't get it back. After spending the humungous R&D costs, we might as well get a few more fighters.
The losses in Viet Nam were mostly from SAM's and ground fire. Even the little kids shot at us. Figure the next war might be as tough. Migs were not a problem. What few Migs made in into the air were blown away by old sweat US Air Force pilots, who had combat experience going back to WWII. Even our F105's got some Migs. "I was just pulling up from my bomb run and there he was, right in front of me. So I thumbed down the cannon button and he came right apart."
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