"USAF Wants Much Larger Force" Topic

Seems I'm not the only one who thinks we have too few aircraft, and many of those are aging, worn out, 40+ year old designs:

link

I hope they can figure out a way to pay for them.

US military budget is way overblown.

The defence industry has too many vested interests in keeping it this way.

There are miles of valid reasons to keep increasing it but that should not prevent an healthy system to seriously question its validity.

At the moment, it is not entirely obvious that an obsessively tight governance is in place, the only alternative being the evil "liberals" ready to sell out.

Well, if they would stop asking for pie in the sky (no pun intended), maybe they could have more, quicker.

The USAF has been in a steady state of decline for decades. I'm not saying it needs to be as big as it was during height of the Cold War, just the fact that it is smaller. As I fly over this country now as a civilian pilot, I sometimes am reminded of all the Air Force bases that have been closed over the years. Some of them now are commercial airports.

I googled the B-47 because of the thread here a few days ago. Unit cost was $1.4 USD million. >cough cough<

It's harder to get a larger force nowadays due to the higher costs of high tech systems. If we adjust an F-15's flyaway cost for inflation to today's dollars, it would probably be much lower than those of the F-22 or F-35.

Yep, that stealthy stuff does come at a very stiff price.

Part of the problem is that the F15 was intended to be waaaaay better than the MiG25 was claimed to be by the Russians, in every way.

Then the F22 was to be waaaaaay better in every way possible than the Su27s.

The F35 was to be waaaaaaay better than the F16, F18, and AV8 combined, in every way possible.

Suffice to say, that's a big jump in cost to get the capabilities.

It's actually why the B21 is not particularly any better (maybe even slightly less capable) than the B2. Just can't afford the things otherwise!

If the F-22 is supposed to be waaaaaay better than the F-15, say 3x better, then in theory we only need 1/3 as many. Too bad it doesn't work that way IRL because they're going to be spread too thin.

USAF need a mix of the latest stealth aircraft and brand new F-15s built with the latest gadgets. Boeing still has the line going for foreign customers. It slso needs the A-10 or similar new strike plane as well as some of those turboprop planes for light attack missions. You don't don't always need a 10 pound sledgehammer when a pin hammer will get the job done.

If the F-22 is supposed to be waaaaaay better than the F-15, say 3x better, then in theory we only need 1/3 as many. Too bad it doesn't work that way IRL because they're going to be spread too thin.

Exactly the problem.

You can also run into problems with random breakdowns and accidental damage leaving an entire squadron grounded, when combined with scheduled maintenance.

We really needed about 600 F22s, which is the same fleet size as the F15s (~675). For reference, the USAF bought some 2000 F16s of all types, and has about 1200 still in service. The USAF alone is planning on buying nearly 1800 F35s, USN some 260, and the USMC 400.

There are only nine F-22 Squadrons, between Hickam, HI (1x sqn), Langley, VA (2x sqn), Tyndall, FL (3x sqn), and Elmendorf, AK (3x sqn).

At a bare minimum, we'd need to double the number of F22s, though I'd like to backfit more of the F35's stealth tech into any newly bought F22s. The F35's stealth tech is less maintenance-intensive.

what about:

-fighter drones
-swarms

They cannot do everything but they still can do a lot, freeing pilots for other tasks. They probably can be cheaper than a full fledged combat airplane.