Precision is one of the watchwords of our modern military forces, and precision coupled with either stealth or distance gives you many benefits. The fact that the Raptor can shoot other jets out of the sky before they know it’s there and the fact that our air-to-air missiles can hit targets before we are in their range adds a great deal to the F-22’s threat profile.
Boeing recently demonstrated Air to Ground capability from a C-130 that is awesome in ability to take out targets without civilian casualties. Wired has the article here.
According to the developers, the accuracy of this weapon is little short of supernatural. They claim that the pinpoint precision can make it lethal or non-lethal at will. For example, they say it can either destroy a vehicle completely, or just damage the tires to immobilize it. The illustration shows a theoretical 26-second engagement in which the beam deftly destroys “32 tires, 11 Antennae, 3 Missile Launchers, 11 EO devices, 4 Mortars, 5 Machine Guns” — while avoiding harming a truckload of refugees and the soldiers guarding them
The F-22 Raptor is the best fighter in the world but unless Congress funds the rest of the 381 the Air force says it needs
we won’t have enough of them with the Russian and Chinese
threat . Congress had better wake up or we’ll be playing catchup
like we did when Pearl Harbor was bombed…
Yep, I was getting at that sideways. I am going to write some more posts over the next months about the stratgegic import of some of our key weapons programs, as well as the trouble they will be in if the Dems get the Legislative and Executive branches.
We are still ahead of the Russian and Chinese in weapons
development, but they are racing to catch up or pass us. We have taken the F-14s out of service, our F-15s are falling
apart in the air and have just about met their time in service
deadline. The F-16 and F-18 are the only first line fighters
we have available now. We are ahead in stealth technology
and have a better ability in air to air refueling than either
Russia or China and our bombers can deliver larger bomb
loads, farther and with a less of a chance of loss than
either of them. Even with our advantages of weapons
superiority now, we cannot become complacent and cut our
defense spending to a dangerous level for the sake of
polictical expediency.