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Abominable said:

Reducing the F-22 numbers was fine in my opinion. It was designed during the cold war, and when the USSR collapsed there was no need for them. If the US built 750 of them they would have been doing nothing. Maintaining F-22s is a lot more expensive than F-15s. I would have kept the ability to manufacture them if needed, not sure why they got rid of that.

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This is as logical as it can get. But is it suitable for a cononial regime pursuing absolute military dominance because their existence as well as livelihood depends upon it? This is a question we should be asking ourselves. No matter what the cost is(in terms of resources), they would've never abandoned it while claiming how superior of a military craft this is in the whole god damn multi verse. I didn't buy their story of dumping its production due to no existent threat neither i buy their story now.

siegecrossbow said:

Are the non-combat coded aircraft capable of hot launching weapons?

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They are Block 20 aircraft which was the second block of production as such they have basic equipment they can drop basic JDAMS fire older Sidewinders and AMRAAMs SAR mode currently Raptors are blocks 30/35/40 to get block 20 to the more modern standards would cost about $50 million a pop.

Abominable said:

Reducing the F-22 numbers was fine in my opinion. It was designed during the cold war, and when the USSR collapsed there was no need for them. If the US built 750 of them they would have been doing nothing. Maintaining F-22s is a lot more expensive than F-15s. I would have kept the ability to manufacture them if needed, not sure why they got rid of that.

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F15 costs of upkeep shot throughout the roof as the F15 fleet is aged out with the wings getting flown off. That’s what is driving the F15EX buys which are part of the budget. Besides that welcome back to the Cold War.
The Ukrainian invasion has basically restarted the cold conflict with the South China Sea despite’s also frosting up.

Farther in the retirement are 15 E3s, 100 Mq9, 21 A10, 12 C130H, 8 E8, 13 KC135, 50 T1 (which are planned to be retired in whole)

AIM-120 payload ground test.

FY23 budget request by Biden:
$813 billion total for national defense
$773 billion for armed forces

Compared to FY22: $743 billion for armed forces

Increase of 4% but after inflation it's basically no increase. Approx 3.5% of US GDP.
Smaller than I would've thought.

Notably, they only plan to purchase 61 F-35s. If J-20 manages to ramp up production we might see it getting close to that number.

sndef888 said:

FY23 budget request by Biden:
$813 billion total for national defense
$773 billion for armed forces

Compared to FY22: $743 billion for armed forces

Increase of 4% but after inflation it's basically no increase. Approx 3.5% of US GDP.
Smaller than I would've thought.

Notably, they only plan to purchase 61 F-35s. If J-20 manages to ramp up production we might see it getting close to that number.

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There's a limit to how much they can spend as well suddenly as well. Like a lot of the F-35s being produced will now be going to Europe. It'll be increased gradually over the next few years.

It's still smaller than I thought, I think they are underestimating the impact inflation will have.

RQ-180!

Based on the last complete 30-year shipbuilding plan the Navy issued with the FY 2021 budget request, the service was set to start a two-per-year production schedule in FY 2023 with a second shipyard to build the 7,300-ton frigate based on the FREMM multi-mission frigate in use with the French and Italian navies. Fincantieri Marinette Marine is currently building the Constellation-class in its Wisconsin shipyard.

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“While the [frigate] is based on a proven hull design and mature shipboard technologies, it remains a new class and the Navy and the shipbuilding industrial base have had past production challenges in managing costs, technical concurrency, design changes and schedule of lead ships of a class,” reads language from the FY 2022 appropriations law. “There is concern that prematurely adding a second [frigate] shipyard before the first shipyard has identified and corrected technical and production issues will inject unneeded risk and complexity into the program.”

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Overbom said:

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Probably wise given the LCS disaster.