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The U.S. Navy plans to add 22 Boeing electronic attack jets to a list of "unfunded" priorities requested by Congress, but the document must still be vetted by senior Pentagon officials, who have underscored their commitment to Lockheed Martin Corp's next-generation F-35 fighter jet, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters....

...The sources said the Marine Corps was also expected to ask for six F-35 fighter jets as part of its unfunded priorities list. It plans to ask for one F-35 B-model jet, which can land like a helicopter, and five F-35 carrier models, to replace six Harrier jets destroyed in Afghanistan.

I'm shocked that the USN is asking for more Super Hornets. Absolutely shocked.

The USN fighter shortage is a well known fact and need since the first F-35C delay. It does not take any push for the USN to ask for more Super Hornet which was supposed to fly along side the JSF to beyond 2035. But this request may never make it out of DoD.

Almost as shocked as the Marines asking for 5 x F-35C's. Those silly Jarheads, one just never knows what to expect from them.

The Marines have 13 squadrons (? 156 planes?) of fighter attack aircrafts which are all legacy hornets. The replacement of these older Hornets are the F-35C which are needed much sooner than the USN's Super Hornet replacement. It is really not a surprise that Marine asked for more C's instead of B's so that the total number of B's are not increasing.

BTW, the USN needs to replace their older legacy Hornet too to avoid making the fighter shortage any worse than it is. If congress wants the USN to keep 11 Super Aircraft Carriers, they need to fund the additional aircrafts too. It can be done by SLAP of the legacy Hornet, but USN has argued that it is cheaper to buy more Super Hornet. If the Obama adminstration are serious about cutting spending, the USS CVN-73 George Washington will not be refueled and goes into mothball. Instead, the adminstration intervened and reversed the DoD decision to retire George Washington. Politics is a strange thing. Go figure.

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The Marines have 13 squadrons (? 156 planes?) of fighter attack aircrafts which are all legacy hornets. The replacement of these older Hornets are the F-35C which are needed much sooner than the USN's Super Hornet replacement. It is really not a surprise that Marine asked for more C's instead of B's so that the total number of B's are not increasing.

I was just a bit surprised because the article posted on the F-35C purchase said they were replacements for the Harriers destroyed last year in Afghanistan. I figured B models would be more appropriate.

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I was just a bit surprised because the article posted on the F-35C purchase said they were replacements for the Harriers destroyed last year in Afghanistan. I figured B models would be more appropriate.

It seems to me, though I could be wrong, that its the USMC trying to grab the Cs that the USN just cut in order to make up for the short fall in LRIP rather than the short fall of harrier loses.

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How do we know it's not a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" deal? USMC picks up the tab for five C's now, then Navy picks up five B's later once the budget kidneystone's passed and they just swap straight across kinda thing?

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I'd think it's more along the lines of the USN telling the Marines what to buy as well. This is not the time to be ordering Cs, but they got to get them anyway. May also be the Marines are trying to piss off the Navy by having a true 5th gen capability first.

BTW, y'all are a bunch of short memory hypocrites. Recall Independence Day? An entire F/A-18 Air Wing and the rest of El Torrejon were wiped out in minutes. And the large green gentleman with anger management issues threw a M1-A1 like a discus, IIRC.

And who could possibly fight John McClean!?

Yet only F-35 earns movie scorn?

C'Mon, man....

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ISTR an alien with a real bad attitude ripped up a few F-22's pretty bad... and another disguised as a Pave Low did a real number on an entire forward operating base full of airpower and armor.

Besides, re El Toro, look at what ET was bringing to the party... a swarm of fighters that blackened the sky like a plague of locusts.

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I'd think it's more along the lines of the USN telling the Marines what to buy as well. This is not the time to be ordering Cs, but they got to get them anyway. May also be the Marines are trying to piss off the Navy by having a true 5th gen capability first.

BTW, y'all are a bunch of short memory hypocrites. Recall Independence Day? An entire F/A-18 Air Wing and the rest of El Torrejon were wiped out in minutes. And the large green gentleman with anger management issues threw a M1-A1 like a discus, IIRC.

And who could possibly fight John McClean!?

Yet only F-35 earns movie scorn?

C'Mon, man....

I will take your post as an attempt in a good-natured, friendly bit of sarcasm.

That being said; This is a thread about the F-35, is it not?

So why would we mention F-22s being wiped out in a Transformer movie? Or an F-14 crash due to a flat spin in TOPGUN?

Also; I've often wonder regarding the U.S.Navy and USMC.

Being biased towards the Navy due to being a former Navy brat, I've always joked that the Marine Corps is owned by the Navy.

What is the actual truth about the two? Does the Navy have any kind of authority over the Marine Corps?

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There was an article in the local paper(Vancouver BC) that had an interview with a Canadian General who said that the F-35 couldn't be operated without the F-22 or something along that line of thought. I never saw the story, just heard of it from my brother-in-law, but this sounds completely crazy. Is there anything close to the truth to this, because I know a paper wouldn't publish something that wasn't totaly correct without checking it out first.

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Is there anything close to the truth to this, because I know a paper wouldn't publish something that wasn't totaly correct without checking it out first.

Hate to burst your bubble, but let me give you a nickel's free advice AS a recovering journalist. The First Rule: "When all else fails... Make S*** Up."

There's a reason I'm an EX-journalist... I got so sick of my ex-colleagues that I finally tore up my Society of Professional Journalists membership card and mailed it back with a nastygram about "you people make me want to puke at the thought that I was ever one of you."

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Hate to burst your bubble, but let me give you a nickel's free advice AS a recovering journalist. The First Rule: "When all else fails... Make S*** Up."

There's a reason I'm an EX-journalist... I got so sick of my ex-colleagues that I finally tore up my Society of Professional Journalists membership card and mailed it back with a nastygram about "you people make me want to puke at the thought that I was ever one of you."

How; That's a rarity :o/> .

So your conscience was your guide?

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The fact that I was also romantically involved with my editor, and that she and I did not part ways well--she hit me with a "Meet Your Replacement" at Christmastime and I replied with a "Goodbye, Have A Nice Life"--may have helped push me across that line too.

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The fact that I was also romantically involved with my editor, and that she and I did not part ways well--she hit me with a "Meet Your Replacement" at Christmastime and I replied with a "Goodbye, Have A Nice Life"--may have helped push me across that line too.

Ah; Roger that.

Unfortunately; Been there/done that.

A lesson my stock broker told me 28 years ago: "Never dip your pen in company ink!"

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Hate to burst your bubble, but let me give you a nickel's free advice AS a recovering journalist. The First Rule: "When all else fails... Make S*** Up."

There's a reason I'm an EX-journalist... I got so sick of my ex-colleagues that I finally tore up my Society of Professional Journalists membership card and mailed it back with a nastygram about "you people make me want to puke at the thought that I was ever one of you."

I guess the sarcasm got filtered out there. Still wondering about the quote from that General. I also found this on the Leading Edge Decals site. http://www.lemdecal.com/index.html

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Still wondering about the quote from that General.

I can't speak for any Canadian generals, but the commander of ACC has stated that the F-35 needs the F-22.

"Then, I have to go through the [service life extension plan] and [cost and assessment program evaluation] efforts with airplanes to try to get modern technology into my legacy fleet. That is why the current upgrade programs to the F-22 I put easily as critical as my F-35 fleet. If I do not keep that F-22 fleet viable, the F-35 fleet frankly will be irrelevant. The F-35 is not built as an air superiority platform. It needs the F-22. Because I got such a pitifully tiny fleet, I’ve got to ensure I will have every single one of those F-22s as capable as it possibly can be."

- Gen. Michael Hostage

Jan 27, 2014

Translation - The F-35 needs the F-22 like the F-16 needed the F-15.

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I guess the sarcasm got filtered out there. Still wondering about the quote from that General. I also found this on the Leading Edge Decals site. http://www.lemdecal.com/index.html

Ah; So his point is a stealth strike fighter needs stealth CAP to cover them.

So the F-35 wouldn't be able to hold it's own in a dogfight blink.gif ?

A Freudian slip, maybe? What does the general know that we don't regarding the F-35's ability to dogfight?

I thought the F-35 was/is a multi-roll a/c?

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I can't speak for any Canadian generals, but the commander of ACC has stated that the F-35 needs the F-22.

"Then, I have to go through the [service life extension plan] and [cost and assessment program evaluation] efforts with airplanes to try to get modern technology into my legacy fleet. That is why the current upgrade programs to the F-22 I put easily as critical as my F-35 fleet. If I do not keep that F-22 fleet viable, the F-35 fleet frankly will be irrelevant. The F-35 is not built as an air superiority platform. It needs the F-22. Because I got such a pitifully tiny fleet, I've got to ensure I will have every single one of those F-22s as capable as it possibly can be."

- Gen. Michael Hostage

Jan 27, 2014

Translation - The F-35 needs the F-22 like the F-16 needed the F-15.

That's what I was thinking too.

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Ah; So his point is a stealth strike fighter needs stealth CAP to cover them.

So the F-35 wouldn't be able to hold it's own in a dogfight blink.gif ?

A Freudian slip, maybe? What does the general know that we don't regarding the F-35's ability to dogfight?

I thought the F-35 was/is a multi-roll a/c?

Or much more simply, the F-22 needs budget justification, the F-35 does not. This ain't rocket science. This is a budgeting knife fight. F-22 was King Kong, now the F-35 is.

I'm still stuck with how did EVERYBODY else in the world get by with all those poor, defenseless F-16s and F-18s? Not everybody had the F-15 to protect their fragile, weak, skeet like strike fleets....

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Or much more simply, the F-22 needs budget justification, the F-35 does not. This ain't rocket science. This is a budgeting knife fight. F-22 was King Kong, now the F-35 is.

I'm still stuck with how did EVERYBODY else in the world get by with all those poor, defenseless F-16s and F-18s? Not everybody had the F-15 to protect their fragile, weak, skeet like strike fleets....

Good point regarding budget justification.

I guess the general is just running his point up a flagpole to see if congress salutes it w00t.gif !

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Ah; So his point is a stealth strike fighter needs stealth CAP to cover them.

So the F-35 wouldn't be able to hold it's own in a dogfight blink.gif ?

A Freudian slip, maybe? What does the general know that we don't regarding the F-35's ability to dogfight?

I thought the F-35 was/is a multi-roll a/c?

The F-35 is multi-role just like the F-15E. It's a compromised design, built to address both tasks, while the F-22 was designed for just a single mission - to kill enemy aircraft. In full stealth mode the F-35 doesn't have sufficient internal weapons to do much more than defend itself.

Regarding the F-35's "ability to dogfight", there is much, much more to air superiority than dog-fighting. I think most "experts" would state that the US philosophy towards air superiority is to kill the bad guys from long range before they even knew you were there. If things get down to the dogfighting stage, something didn't go well for the US pilot.

And as far as sheer maneuverability and overall performance, nothing seems to come close to the F-22. Maybe the upcoming Russian jet but certainly not the F-35. Just keep in mind that the F-35 is supposed to make up for some of these shortfalls with it's advanced stealth and avionics.

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And as far as sheer maneuverability and overall performance, nothing seems to come close to the F-22. Maybe the upcoming Russian jet but certainly not the F-35.

So is all the talk about the Rafale and Typhoon, just that?

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