Quote:
Originally Posted by T@T
I heard $30 billion over 20 years including maintenance and upgrades if the costs are right all of which is still up in the air , whatever, we spent about $20 billion in friken Afghanistan over the last 10 years and we don't even have a tail-feather to show for it.
Fact is our fighters are now old junk, do we go with cheaper 4th generation stuff that quite likely in 5 years will be so outdated that a tribe in Kenya will be able to shoot down? or pay a little more so we won't have to mourn our pilots. To me,it only takes the saving of one of our own to make it worth it.
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Depends who we plan on fighting. For anyone outside the first world/major powers we can assume that air defences have already been obliterated - see Iraq, Libya, Bosnia, etc. Standard modus operandi - all we need is a bomb truck like the CF 18.
Even for sophisticated adversaries do we expect to be among the first ones in on a hot war? I just don't see the need for a fifth gen plane. If the missions are so risky use drones