US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

[gelgoog]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1963281355346715106

 

[4Tran]

The Army leaders who were at the top for the major NGSW goals, were the guys who wanted to issue everyone 7.62x51 rifles for the war because they were all in places of troop command in the war and really disliked the supposed "range gap".

What the Taliban (and anyone else who got lumped in with them) figured out is that US troops would attempt to respond to any and all gunfire, so if you wanted to waste US time, you popped off a few shots from 800-1km away and ran while the US spent hours trying to return fire or bomb you. I have a few PowerPoints (I'll link them when asked) but a whole lot of the program was just going:

"The PKM and SVD can shoot out to 2km, and ergo can score combat effective fires at this distance. We need to do that too." The body armor thing was slapped on at the very end before we picked SIG as the winner and to measure the effectiveness of it the Army showed off the gun shooting cinder bricks.

The whole NGSW is a solution, making its own problems to justify it.

Incredible! How do people this idiotic get into command positions? Maybe 5% of soldiers are going to be able to hit anything at 800m range so what the hell would be the point of giving long ranged weapons to everyone else? Too bad China doesn't fight any war or else they would be able to benefit from this valuable "experience".

Good heavens!

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Shocking! Actually, I'm not surprised. The USAF is livid with TR3 so it'd be very unlikely that Block 4 was coming out any time soon. Props to the guy who showed all the ways that the F-35 could be turned into a quasi-6th gen fighter. It takes real guts to keep up the hustle when the F-35 is already bursting at the seams!

 

[CasualObserver]

Yikes.

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Program officials stated that they are accepting non-combat-capable TR-3 aircraft because having potentially over 100 aircraft parked at contractor facilities waiting for delivery of TR-3 combat-capable software was too risky, among other reasons.[24] Lockheed Martin continued production while storing aircraft in long-term parking as they awaited TR-3 software. As of May 2025, program officials stated that they had accepted 174 non-combat-capable TR-3 aircraft, which includes all aircraft that were in long-term parking due to TR-3 delays.

 

[Michaelsinodef]

Yikes.

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Huh.

So the full mission availability of lots/most of F16s and F22s are probably/possibly also under 40%?

Afterall, their avg age is quite near the given examples (from graph the F35A at 7 years is approx 20% lol).

 

[Lethe]

Huh.

So the full mission availability of lots/most of F16s and F22s are probably/possibly also under 40%?

Afterall, their avg age is quite near the given examples (from graph the F35A at 7 years is approx 20% lol).

Charts at the CBO link helpfully supplied by @CasualObserver show that F-35A currently has better availability than other USAF TacAir platforms, though worse availability when compared to other types at the same age.



(Bearing in mind the distinction between CBO measures of "availability" and "full mission availability", and also how those differ from DoD measures.)

 

[CMP]

Yikes.

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Looks like that is fully in line with best modern Western corporate engineering standards. Complete depreciation within 8-10 years. In other words, if you want to keep having a reasonably half-functional fleet, you better keep on buying new, no matter the price.

 

[Nevermore]

If this is true, it represents a profound shock to my understanding, indicating that the overall capabilities of US stealth aircraft fall far short of the levels touted in publicity.

 

[CMP]

If this is true, it represents a profound shock to my understanding, indicating that the overall capabilities of US stealth aircraft fall far short of the levels touted in publicity.

If you're profoundly shocked, you clearly haven't been paying attention. I've been following the F22 since early 2000s and F35 since it started, and everything has been trending towards this for the past two decades. Either stealth aircraft are significantly more costly to maintain than originally known/advertised, or US and Western engineering standards have moved in line with whatever is best for maximum profit extraction rather than reliability. My guess is both.

 

[gelgoog]

They moved maintenance from the USAF to Lockheed Martin, so they would make more money, and it has been a disaster.

You could also argue the higher complexity of these aircraft makes them more unreliable.

 

[SlothmanAllen]

I found this interesting chart posted on SecretProjectForum.

You can see that throughout most of the 90's the F-15 and F-16's had tons of flying time. Once the 00's roll around though their numbers start to tank. F-15E on the other hand has done well to basically maintain the same number of flying hours throughout its life. F-35A is starting to look good as well. F-22 seems to have always been a bit rough though.