Sorry, but no. One does not need positive consent to provide information or ideas to others. ESPECIALLY in college, where half the reason for going there is to be exposed to ideas which may offend, disgust or haunt, but ultimately enlighten. That is not a secret, and it’s not just a truism. It is the purpose of…

No, Harrier II is for the AV-8B/GR.5/7/9 regardless of radar.

It’s AMRAAM...and as the other poster said it’s part of the normal loadout for F-15’s flying strike missions. In fact, it’s more common for a Strike Eagle to fly with 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM or even 1 AIM-9 and 1 AIM-120 than it is to fly with a pair of Sidewinders.

A quick note: The Coast Guard was a part of DoD for most of their history, until they were placed in the Department of Homeland Security when it was established post-9/11.

The airframe for the F-35B is some $10 million cheaper than the F-35C(105M vs 115M), but the STOVL engine more than makes up for that by being $45 million rather than $25, making the B the most expensive model by $10 million.

F-35 is designed to do what the F-16C actually does (medium range light bomber), not what the original F-16A was designed to do (short range day fighter). It carries a better payload, further, on internal fuel alone. It’s an all around improvement. It even accelerates better with a payload.

The F-16 will usually carry only 2 bombs and 2 AIM-120 on its actual combat missions, the other pylons are filled with fuel tanks or left empty to reduce weight and increase range. The F-35 will match that performance on internal fuel alone.

Aircraft carriers are pretty much built on a one-by-one basis. No two Nimitz class ships are alike. Each ship is a slight to moderate improvement over the previous hull.

Seawolf is a much bigger design than Virginia, about 15% bigger. It uses a different reactor and is arranged considerably differently (no vertical launch missiles tubes on Seawolf.

the CHAMP equipped JASSM-ER will need no terminal homing sensor or warhead at all, which could make space for more fuel.

All fair points. Just to be clear, I wasn’t arguing for luddism so much as careful analysis of impact BEFORE we actually roll something like this out.

Driver less cars have essentially been rolling around in a lab. They are tightly controlled and deliberate. Google isn’t sending their cars out into rush hour unattended. Even then, they’ve crashed. It would be foolish to expect them to be perfect on the first generation, or even the first several generations. It’s…

Cotton gin made picking out seeds easier, but the laborers (in America, slaves) were still needed to tend and eventually pick the cotton in the fields. There was no movement in labor off the farm.

Someone else mentioned that. I granted them the point and added that it’s always easier to move from skilled to unskilled than the other way, thus my large point still stood.

In a sentence? Impact analysis and remediation.

I’m aware of the book, but I’ve never read it. I didn’t know there was a podcast. My own beliefs stem from the obvious failure of conservative consensus economics and quest to understand why people still cling to them (answer: because they’re nice, tidy theories that unfortunately are far too simple to capture all of…

If anything, my argument was about collecting all of the pros and cons (including the facts you cite) and plan for all contingencies. Basically, my point was ‘ask more questions, make fewer assumptions.’

You didn’t even try to understand my argument. I doubt you even made it to the end of my first post before firing off a reply. You made an incorrect assumption and then ranted along about fatalism, which as a philosophy, is pretty damn useless. “But just because it’s lamentable doesn’t mean it’s not inevitable.” And…

Sure, I’ll grant that whips required lots of skill to make. I guess it would be more accurate to say it’s easier for the skilled to move to unskilled work than vice versa.

There’s quite a few assumptions packed into your comment.