US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

gelgoog said:

The Russians could not overcome the materials disadvantage in a short amount of time and the AL-41F1 was the best they could do.

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its an off topic..

what is the latest update of AL-51 engine.. seems like delay.

gelgoog said:

For an upgrade that the US is getting a decade after Russia started getting the Su-35 it isn't that great. The F-15EX has more modern AESA radar. But it still does not have TVC for example.

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TVC assists in post thrust stall it doesn’t make it that comes from the flight controls. Besides more and more we are going to BVR where the airshow acrobatics are just for airshows.

Before you point out how acrobatic F22 is. And it is. The Lockheed Martin team did make. A trade for that in their RCS reduction. However YF22 and YF23 were both getting RCS returns on par with small insects. The difference between a bumblebee and a wasp.

gelgoog said:

This is false. The F-15 design is about a decade older. The F-15 started as a reaction to the MiG-25. But the Su-27 is a reaction to the F-15. The Su-27 was designed to supersede the F-15 design in all parameters.

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The Horse is dead. They both served in the 80s and both got upgrades. They had different aspects they focused on. The Russian is the Scimitar from Raiders of the lost Ark. the F15 is Harrison Ford with the bullet in the chamber.

gelgoog said:

The Su-57 has its design limitations. But because it was designed later it is way more advanced than the F-22 in most aspects other than the engine. The Russians could not overcome the materials disadvantage in a short amount of time and the AL-41F1 was the best they could do.

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With a worse RCS reduction (it’s own design team stated they emphasized acrobatics over RCS reduction) significantly fewer number a prediction rate at a glacial pace even at F22’s retirement of non combat coded aircraft it’s 4:1 in F22’s favor
. Questionable electronics as any new build are trying to circumvent sanctions and embargo so Russian electronics? Chinese electronics or the potential scammers who smuggle electronics.

gelgoog said:

And how exactly is the J-20 supposed to have worse RCS? At least frontal and sides. Good luck trying to explain this.

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Conrad and external weapon storage, an estimated RCS of 0.01 vs an estimated of 0.0001m2

TerraN_EmpirE said:

With a worse RCS reduction (it’s own design team stated they emphasized acrobatics over RCS reduction) significantly fewer number a prediction rate at a glacial pace even at F22’s retirement of non combat coded aircraft it’s 4:1 in F22’s favor

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Sukhoi could have never met the design goal to have supercruise with the AL-41F1 engine if they added F-22 like S-ducts to the design. Sukhoi basically chose speed and acceleration performance over stealth.
As for the numbers, there are more Su-57s than F-15EXs. So what.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Questionable electronics as any new build are trying to circumvent sanctions and embargo so Russian electronics? Chinese electronics or the potential scammers who smuggle electronics.

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The Russians can make 90nm CPUs with their own fabs. That is better than the PowerPC CPUs the Block 3 F-35 uses. And let's not talk about the F-22 which uses Intel i960MXs. The Intel i960 was made in 1 um process = 1000 nm.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

external weapon storage, an estimated RCS of 0.01 vs an estimated of 0.0001m2

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What external weapon storage? The J-20 has internal weapons bays. Just like the F-22.

gelgoog said:

Sukhoi could have never met the design goal to have supercruise with the AL-41F1 engine if they added F-22 like S-ducts to the design. Sukhoi basically chose speed and acceleration performance over stealth.
As for the numbers, there are more Su-57s than F-15EXs. So what.


The Russians can make 90nm CPUs with their own fabs. That is better than the PowerPC CPUs the Block 3 F-35 uses. And let's not talk about the F-22 which uses Intel i960MXs. The Intel i960 was made in 1 um process = 1000 nm.


What external weapon storage? The J-20 has internal weapons bays. Just like the F-22.

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He might be referring to how the side bays on the J-20 have rotating hard point carriages that needs to flip out before the missile fires.

The F-22 also has side bays. And unlike with the J-20 you used to need to take the missile fully out for the IR sensor to engage. Maybe they added lock on after launch recently like they were supposed to.

F-22 F-35 pairing compared to J-20 is far closer than anything else on the planet. J-20 numbers now far exceed F-22 and the oldest J-20s being roughly a decade younger than upgraded F-22s with the F-22 hardware being somewhat limited due to design constraints despite having been upgraded. Hardware and software upgrades may have happened to F-22s but there is only so much that can be done. Supposing equal capability of developers (LM + partners in reality is overall likely to be ahead of CAC + partners) an early 1990s designed fighter being upgraded in 2017 cannot be superior to a late 2000s designed fighter being rolled out of production in 2017. But of course the disclaimer is that LM and partners were far ahead of CAC and partners throughout those decades. How far ahead and what critical domains remain unclear.

It really isn't that much more useful to talk about these comparisons further. We do know that J-20 numbers now around 300 which in years time will be more than double available F-22s. F-35s fill the void though and is as modern as the J-20 in development cycle. Capabilities during those development cycles again is unclear.

For 6th gen, outside of a few official hints and some satellite shots, China keeps its secrecy tighter than the US currently is. In the meantime, it is upgraded 4.5 gens pulling the heavy lifting in both airforces with F-35 and J-20 serving as the primary 5th gen platform operating in numbers. PLAAF wants a ground based J-35 as well which is puzzling and might indicate how far away 6th gen is for PLAAF. Consider that both airforces are fielding drones and loyal wingman of various sorts to align with their positions and thoughts about modern air combat.

gelgoog said:

Sukhoi could have never met the design goal to have supercruise with the AL-41F1 engine if they added F-22 like S-ducts to the design. Sukhoi basically chose speed and acceleration performance over stealth.
As for the numbers, there are more Su-57s than F-15EXs. So what.


The Russians can make 90nm CPUs with their own fabs. That is better than the PowerPC CPUs the Block 3 F-35 uses. And let's not talk about the F-22 which uses Intel i960MXs. The Intel i960 was made in 1 um process = 1000 nm.


What external weapon storage? The J-20 has internal weapons bays. Just like the F-22.

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Externally stowed. That’s not something you see on Raptor unless something has gone wrong. The F22 sidewinder bay was designed to open and close rapidly so as to minimize disruption of the RCS and air flow. Though F22 lacks a HMD system as yet the F22 can still datalink with Aim 9 X and guide via radar.
The J20 deploys its side missiles into an external position via an armature into a ready position.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

View attachment 135301
Externally stowed. That’s not something you see on Raptor unless something has gone wrong. The F22 sidewinder bay was designed to open and close rapidly so as to minimize disruption of the RCS and air flow. Though F22 lacks a HMD system as yet the F22 can still datalink with Aim 9 X and guide via radar.
The J20 deploys its side missiles into an external position via an armature into a ready position.

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HUH? aren't those side missiles supposed to deploy moments before being launched? The side bay opens, rotates the missile out, then closes. This should be faster, stealthier and aerodynamically better than the way the F22 does it. Besides, those are (relatively) close range missiles. If you have to launch them, then stealth is unlikely to matter.

Virtup said:

HUH? aren't those side missiles supposed to deploy moments before being launched? The side bay opens, rotates the missile out, then closes. This should be faster, stealthier and aerodynamically better than the way the F22 does it. Besides, those are (relatively) close range missiles. If you have to launch them, then stealth is unlikely to matter.

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It is.

So it really shows how big of an idiot he is lmao.

Found an excellent substack piece on why the United States continues to fail at shipbuilding (and has actually never been good at shipbuilding).



Some choice quotes

Another worrying indicator is shipbuilding capacity. Commercial shipbuilding in the U.S. is virtually nonexistent: in 2022, the U.S. had just five large oceangoing commercial ships on order, compared to China’s 1,794 and South Korea’s 734. The U.S. Navy estimates that China’s shipbuilding capacity is

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our own. It costs

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to four times as much to build a ship in the U.S. as it does elsewhere. The commercial shipbuilders that do exist only survive thanks to protectionist laws like the

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, which serve to prop up an industry which is uncompetitive internationally. As a result, the U.S. annually imports over

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of goods, 40% of which are delivered by ship (more than by any other mode of transportation), but those ships are overwhelmingly built elsewhere.

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To find a competitive American shipbuilding industry, you need to go back prior to the Civil War, to the era of wooden ship construction. The period from 1840 to 1860 is considered the golden age of American shipbuilding. Thanks to an enormous abundance of wood, and a long tradition of wooden shipbuilding, the U.S. built some of the fastest ships in the world in the form of

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and their descendants,

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. When gold was discovered in California in 1848, most of it was brought back east via clipper ship. U.S. shipbuilding was commercially competitive enough that on the eve of the Civil War, roughly 2/3rds of America’s foreign trade was carried on U.S. ships.

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But American shipbuilders were reluctant to transition to building steamships. They were experts in wooden ships, a technology that was still improving, and building a steam-powered metal ship required a totally different set of skills (more akin to what was needed to build a locomotive). Additionally, Britain had what seemed like an insurmountable lead given its proficiency in ironmaking and steam engine construction, a lead U.S. shipbuilders were reluctant to challenge. Thus, despite being the birthplace of the river steamboat, the US lagged behind in the construction of ocean-going steamships. Construction of sail-powered schooners used for coastal trade in the U.S. didn’t peak until the early 20th century, and in 1905 73% of the US’s ships engaged in foreign trade were sail-powered, compared to less than 20% of Britain’s.

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And as with WW1, this exercise in rapid shipbuilding came at a cost. While American shipbuilding efficiency greatly improved during the war (man-hours per Liberty Ship fell from 1.1 million to just 486,000 on average), this was still far less efficient than the British, who could build a liberty-type ship with just 336,000 man-hours. Only a handful of the most productive U.S. yards could match British productivity.

Once again, the U.S. emerged from the conflict with an enormous merchant marine. While after WW1 it had amassed 22% of global shipping tonnage, the enormous scale of the WW2 shipbuilding machine meant that when the war ended the U.S. had 60% of the world’s shipping tonnage.

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But the large block construction techniques the U.S. developed to build ships quickly didn’t die. Instead, they were brought to Japan by Elmer Hann, a former superintendent at a Kaiser shipyard during the war, now employed by Daniel Ludwig’s National Bulk Carriers. Ludwig wanted to build tankers of unprecedented size, which brought him to the Japanese shipyards at Kure, which had built the enormous battleship Yamato and emerged from the war largely intact. Hann brought his experience with large-block construction, and the Japanese quickly adopted and improved on the techniques, combining them with detailed assembly drawings used in aircraft manufacturing, group technology, and statistical process control methods introduced to Japan by Edwards Deming. Along with support from the Japanese government, large block construction technology allowed Japanese shipbuilding to rapidly improve, and by the end of the 1950s Japan had overtaken Britain as the largest shipbuilder in the world.

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In the 1970s, there was a major attempt to reverse this decline in US shipping and shipbuilding, with the Merchant Marine Act of 1970. The act authorized funds for constructing more than 300 ships over a 10-year period, and extended the 1936 subsidies to encompass more types of ships. To try and incentivize shipbuilders to make their operations more competitive and efficient, subsidies were planned to gradually be reduced over time, from 50% of the cost of a ship down to 33%. The 1970 Act also led to the creation of the

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, which studied ways to reduce ship costs and construction times.

The result was “the largest peacetime shipbuilding program in U.S. history.” Shipbuilders spent more than a billion dollars modernizing their yards and making capital improvements. Japanese shipbuilding practices were studied, and Japanese shipbuilding firms were engaged to help bring their techniques back to the U.S. A large number of commercial ships were built: some of them, like the recently-invented Liquified Natural Gas carriers, without any subsidies at all. For a brief time, the U.S. was the second largest commercial shipbuilder in the world behind Japan.

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In the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and reduction in defense spending, a new government financing program for shipbuilders inspired some naval shipbuilders to try and enter the commercial game. When Newport News (a builder of aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines) tried to build several tankers for Greek shipowner Eletson, discrepancies during construction were so severe that Eletson canceled its contract; eventually, half of the ships were completed at twice the original estimate. Another naval shipbuilder, Ingalls, tried to build two cruise ships during this period, but soon they were so far behind schedule and so over budget that the unfinished hulls had to be towed to Germany to completed, requiring a special Jones Act waiver to allow them to serve U.S. ports once they were finished.

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I hate over quoting an article, but there are just so many good peices of information contained in this peice. I highly recommend you check it out as the author clearly put a lot of work into documenting the trials and tribulations of the US shipbuilding industry.

I think it makes a strong case that the US should be looking to its foreign allies to help with surface warfare\supply ship shipbuilding. The current US naval industry can be turned towards submarine and aircraft carrier production which I think is more specialized and likely doesn't have much overlap with surface construction.