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2016-02-03 -Land of the Free
The Pentagon Is Building the "Arsenal Plane," a Giant Flying Battlewagon
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Posted by Sven the pelter 2016-02-03 00:49|| || Front Page|| [11128 views ]  Top

#1 F-35s armed only with AAMs. F-35s can't dog fight so they would have to dry gulch any enemy fighters. Why can't you arm the B-17sB-52s with AIM-120s and forget the F-35s?
Posted by Sven the pelter 2016-02-03 01:21||   2016-02-03 01:21|| Front Page Top

#2 Maybe they could also have A-10s back it up for ground support?
Posted by gorb 2016-02-03 01:32||   2016-02-03 01:32|| Front Page Top

#3 gorb, thinking further along that line, drop A-10s from the B-52s to increase the range.
Posted by Sven the pelter 2016-02-03 01:34||   2016-02-03 01:34|| Front Page Top

#4 In other words, the arsenal plane is a C-17 loaded to gross max with JDAMs and JASSMs. Install suitable roll on racks & conveyor systems to eject said munitions out the back door.

This concept keeps coming up every 25 years or so. Somehow it goes away just as quickly.

Somebody must have had a heart attack at the last "progress" report on the F35.

Posted by Nguard 2016-02-03 03:49||   2016-02-03 03:49|| Front Page Top

#5 Yep, sounds like a way to save face on the F-35 and call it something else.

of course with the new name comes a whole new bunch of crazy crap requirements.

The F-35 is going to look like the Alexander Gorki before it is all over and done with and then it can't fly
Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2016-02-03 05:19||   2016-02-03 05:19|| Front Page Top

#6 If it's "affordable", how can the insiders get rich off it? It will never fly. Sorry.
Posted by Richard Aubrey  2016-02-03 08:03||   2016-02-03 08:03|| Front Page Top

#7 Last time I checked they were called short range to theater ballistic missiles. Those wouldn't be AF controlled/funded delivery devices. Hey guys, let's duplicate functions.
Posted by Procopius2k 2016-02-03 08:26||   2016-02-03 08:26|| Front Page Top

#8 War zeppelins.
Posted by SteveS 2016-02-03 10:54||   2016-02-03 10:54|| Front Page Top

#9 The new plane would supplement the F-35 in places where the fighter-bomber is weak, particularly in flying.
Posted by Skidmark 2016-02-03 12:15||   2016-02-03 12:15|| Front Page Top

#10 Drone swarm attacks
Drone swarm defense
Arsenal Planes
Fetal tissue grown into meat

Going right past 1984 and into a redux of R-Type.
Posted by swksvolFF 2016-02-03 12:30||   2016-02-03 12:30|| Front Page Top

#11 R-Type
Posted by Sven the pelter 2016-02-03 12:49||   2016-02-03 12:49|| Front Page Top

#12 So the F-35 isn't really a fighter - more of a recon?
Posted by CrazyFool 2016-02-03 13:16||   2016-02-03 13:16|| Front Page Top

#13 Sorta like this?

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2016-02-03 13:17||   2016-02-03 13:17|| Front Page Top

#14 So the F-35 isn't really a fighter - more of a recon?

CF, the F-35 is a multi-role aircraft. Jack of all trades, master at none. It was intended to be cheap (that ship has sailed) and to be led into battle as a bomber by the F-22 air superiority fighter. But there were not enough F-22s built for that scenario to be effective.

Its internal bomb storage is only large enough to hold bombs xor AAMs; it is inadequate to hold both. External mounts would defeat stealth. The F-35 will lose in a dog fight due to its lack of maneuverability. It is supposed to use stealth and long range AAMs to knock out enemy aircraft at a distance (I affectionately call this the "dry gulch" strategy after US westerns where an enemy lines the edges of a gulch and in a surprise attack, shoots down at the people trapped at the bottom). Bummer if the enemy can figure out how to beat stealth.
Posted by Sven the pelter 2016-02-03 14:25||   2016-02-03 14:25|| Front Page Top

#15 But does it have port holes?
Posted by newc 2016-02-03 18:14||   2016-02-03 18:14|| Front Page Top

#16 As per #13, does SHIELD + "The Black Widow" aka Not-Laura-Prepon Scarlett Johanssen know???

During the Cold War, it was either an "off-the-shelf" 747 or Galaxy loaded to the max wid various ALCMS + ALBMS/ALGMS.

Capable of thoroughly destroying any small or medium = "average-sized" country on Earth wid both Conventional Warheads andor Nukulaar.

ANOTHER REASON TO LOVE REAGAN-BUSH41.
Posted by JosephMendiola 2016-02-03 20:04||   2016-02-03 20:04|| Front Page Top

23:18 gorb
23:11 gorb
22:55 trailing wife
21:54 European Conservative
21:34 CrazyFool
21:30 Pappy
21:25 Pappy
21:15 Pappy
20:57 Procopius2k
20:48 Procopius2k
20:48 European Conservative
20:37 james
20:36 Sven the pelter
20:30 Mike Kozlowski
20:30 Sven the pelter
20:28 Zenobia Floger6220
20:22 ed in texas
20:21 Zenobia Floger6220
20:16 no mo uro
20:10 Sven the pelter
20:05 Blossom Unains5562
20:04 JosephMendiola
20:00 Sven the pelter
19:53 JosephMendiola









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