From: "Robert Comer" 

> Get a sod off great rear door transport e.g. an antonov or a C-5/C17.
> tie it into an E3 or similar. Have a bunch of drones as cargo. Loiter.
> Job done.

Why spend the money on fighter drones when simpler, even cheaper, cruise
missiles will be more effective...

--
Bob Comer





"Adam" <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the
field.near the bridge"> wrote in message
news:44dc56d5$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> George Sherwood wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:57:38 -0400, Monte Davis wrote:
>>
>>> "George Sherwood"  wrote:
>>>
>>>> according to them the F-86 would be the
>>>> best fighter ever built.
>>> Umm... no. They're saying that *since* the F-86, all but a few designs
>>> have concentrated design effort/$$$ on some Good Fighter Attributes
>>> instead of (or even at the expense of) other Good Fighter Attributes
>>> -- and that the latter are better correlated with air superiority in
>>> combat, rather than in contractors' Powerpoints.
>>
>> Seems to me that they concentrated too much on the dog fight which has
>> over
>> the years dropped in importance.  There hasn't many air to air battles
>> for
>> a long time.  I still think their data is skewed by that fact.
>>
>
> Drone with missiles will do the job better. In fact a missile is a
> drone.....so a drone is simply a drone carrying drone...
>
>
>>> Of course an F-22 could take out a gaggle of F-86s; at those prices,
>>> it damn well better. The question is, given the much greater unit cost
>>> in real dollars... and given that as a result we have fewer and fewer
>>> units... have we been getting our money's worth? Could the trend lines
>>> be better?
>>
>> As you can probably quote better then me, fighter design through time has
>> been part of a react to the enemy cycle.  The other day I was crawling
>> around on a MIG-25 and thinking just about that cycle and how came about
>> the MIG-25 really for a threat that never came to exist.  The F-22 has
>> quite a bit of that in it and hopefully that trend line will be pushed
>> down some with the F-35.  We will have to see what is the final unit
>> cost.
>>
>
> Gold plating is & always has been the problem. At least the F1-E is
> slightly smaller than the F14 but it lacks the phoenix or a replacement
> for the phoenix.
>
>>
>>>> The organization itself hasn't supported any major weapons purchase
>>>> since before the B-1.
>>> A little Googling on the two authors should dispel any idea that
>>> they're knee-jerk anti-military types. The CDI is a
"loyal opposition"
>>> think tank with a *lot* of military experience in its ranks.
>>
>> Truthfully when any one starts off with a bunch of slides trying to tell
>> me
>> look how smart I am with perfect hind site and how stupid all those
>> Generals look who were making decisions without that benefit, I lose
>> interest fast. For better or for worse, it doesn't look to me that the
>> author is truly looking to present only the facts.
>>
>
> Esp when there are lots of facts wrt the smaller fighters which weren't
> presented e.g. the (Sea) Harrier, the gnat, the F5. Time after time they
> bested the big gold plated fighters but the MIC wasn't interested in
> small & cheap.
>
> Get a sod off great rear door transport e.g. an antonov or a C-5/C17.
> tie it into an E3 or similar. Have a bunch of drones as cargo. Loiter.
> Job done.
>
> Adam

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