The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Peptuck]

I'm fairly certain that the anthrax, if that's what it most likely is, is designed to target the nephelim (sp?) The fact that only Chestnut has been infected while on a major military base indicates that, and the culture seems to have been specifically grown to target those who "bear the mark of the Beast."

[JN1]

Oh, well, bye bye CVF. The RAF will be pleased.
Maybe we can resurrect them after the war and they are designed for cat and trap if necessary.

Must say I'm surprised at the Typhoon losses as it can supercruise too, though not at as fast a speed as the Raptor. I couldn't say off hand if the Rafale can do the same.

Good work, Stu.

[Simon_Jester]

Hi! I'm new here.

It occurs to me that cancelling the F-35 program may be a good idea from the "six months' time" perspective, but it's dangerous from the "five years' time" perspective for two reasons:

1)The F-35 was designed to be produced in much larger quantities than the F-22. This matters in a war where you need quantity as well as quality.

As I understand it, the F-22 was never intended for true mass production. The original plan was to build a few hundred of them and use them as the core of the air superiority force, while still relying heavily on other fighters for other missions. Their air-to-ground capability is seriously limited, and they're frighteningly expensive with that $200 million price tag.

By contrast, the unit price of the F-35 is a lot lower (even if not the $40 million originally advertised; I gather it turned out to be worse than that). And there were something like two or three thousand orders already scheduled even before the Message, so Lockheed Martin was tooling up to produce very large numbers of them. So if you're looking for a modern aircraft to arm the world's air forces, the F-35 is a much better choice than just paying Lockheed Martin to crank out F-22s as fast as they can.

Of course, from the budget angle it would make even more sense to mass produce fourth-generation aircraft like the F-16. But that isn't necessarily an ideal solution, because:
______

2) It's clear that Heaven is tougher than Hell, and it has far better air defenses. The angels tipping out the Bowl of Wrath managed to score a respectable kill ratio against attacking fighters armed with air-to-air missiles. Contrast this to the aerial forces the demons fielded, who were less effective as an air defense for Hell than the very sky they flew in.

That means that for jets to be useful weapons to humans, they have to be present in both quantity and quality. Having good supersonic dash capability is especially important, since the angels portrayed here don't have the kind of detection range or 360-degree situational awareness that radar allows. Granted they may have the Block Two upgrades to the Mark One eyeball, but that only goes so far. On top of that, they use sonic weapons, so an aircraft flying at supersonic speeds can break away from combat without any danger of being shot down from behind.

As whoever briefed Secretary Warner pointed out, the (exceptionally fast) F-22 and MiG-31 were able to get in and out without leaving their targets time to react, whereas everyone who tried to use slower aircraft against angels took losses.

So while it may be cheaper to accelerate construction of an older design like the F-16, and while that would probably be smart if everyone were still mostly worried about bombing Hell, the performance advantage of newer fifth-generation fighter designs may actually matter if humanity ends up getting into prolonged conflict with angels.

[Surlethe]

Footnote: PLEASE tell me the DIMO(N) department that's working on portal generation is called 'Aperture Science'.

Please. It seems like one of those things that some boffin might slip through the cracks before anyone notices.

If Stuart permits, I'm sure it'll get in. It's not like this story is totally serious - humans protect themselves from demons by wearing tinfoil hats, after all.

[Chris OFarrell]

Hi! I'm new here.

You know, I think you're the second or third person who has signed up for SDN just for this story. That's just cool...

It occurs to me that canceling the F-35 program may be a good idea from the "six months' time" perspective, but it's dangerous from the "five years' time" perspective for two reasons:

1)The F-35 was designed to be produced in much larger quantities than the F-22. This matters in a war where you need quantity as well as quality.

As I understand it, the F-22 was never intended for true mass production. The original plan was to build a few hundred of them and use them as the core of the air superiority force, while still relying heavily on other fighters for other missions. Their air-to-ground capability is seriously limited, and they're frighteningly expensive with that $200 million price tag.

To address this;

The F-22 was actually designed to be produced in far larger quantities then it is, closer to 1000 of them then the less then 200 the USAF is getting. Its just that the US Congress kept cutting the numbers again and again. The $200 price tag per fight is only valid IF you include ALL the sunken R&D cost which has long been paid for. If you look at the price tag today on a 'how much does it cost to build an F-22, today', its substantially less then that. And in this scenario, where the USAF is more or less reequipping its F-15 force entirely with F-22's, and then some, the per-unit cost is almost certainly going to drop even more.

By contrast, the unit price of the F-35 is a lot lower (even if not the $40 million originally advertised; I gather it turned out to be worse than that). And there were something like two or three thousand orders already scheduled even before the Message, so Lockheed Martin was tooling up to produce very large numbers of them. So if you're looking for a modern aircraft to arm the world's air forces, the F-35 is a much better choice than just paying Lockheed Martin to crank out F-22s as fast as they can.

Not really. The F-35 is really still the YF-35, its not out of its development cycle yet. Its simply not ready for mass production, the assembly line hasn't been set up, let alone been ready to scale up to this kind of super mass production. The F-22 line IS up and running, and its far easier to expand the production lines of an existing fighter like that, then build a new one; and one which is going to draw on a great deal of the same resources (input materials, avionics, skilled workers e.t.c) the F-22 needs.

And then add to the fact that the F-22 is a far superior aircraft to the F-35 and the USAF will quite seriously put a bullet in the head of ANYONE who DARES even THINK about trying to bring the F-35 back from the graveyard they have quietly burried it in.

Of course, from the budget angle it would make even more sense to mass produce fourth-generation aircraft like the F-16. But that isn't necessarily an ideal solution, because:
_____

2) It's clear that Heaven is tougher than Hell, and it has far better air defenses. The angels tipping out the Bowl of Wrath managed to score a respectable kill ratio against attacking fighters armed with air-to-air missiles. Contrast this to the aerial forces the demons fielded, who were less effective as an air defense for Hell than the very sky they flew in.

That means that for jets to be useful weapons to humans, they have to be present in both quantity and quality. Having good supersonic dash capability is especially important, since the angels portrayed here don't have the kind of detection range or 360-degree situational awareness that radar allows. Granted they may have the Block Two upgrades to the Mark One eyeball, but that only goes so far. On top of that, they use sonic weapons, so an aircraft flying at supersonic speeds can break away from combat without any danger of being shot down from behind.

Hence the mass production of the F-22, Su-35 and so on, for anti-angel warfare, pump out the very best air superority aircraft you can get. The superior sensors, speed and performance of the high end 5th/4.5 Gen aircraft is whats needed to go up against Angels. That and bringing back longer ranged missiles, if this is a sonic weapon of some kind, high altitude missile strikes are the way to go, from long range.

At the same time, the hybrid Hawks are the perfect light air to mud weapon, backed up with mass production of the high end block F-16's, Su-25's, F-15E's, Eurofighters and so on.

I am very surprised as the Angel vs Flanker fight I have to say. That they could see the incoming Flankers, let alone -with a sonic weapon at altitude!- hit them is amazing, almost as amazing as their ability to take out the incomming missiles. At night, if I'm right about the timing! That seriously does NOT bode well for Earth...

But as has been pointed out again and again in this fic; If you can define it, you can quantify it. If you can quantify it, you can understand it. If you can understand it, you can find a way to kill it.

[Chris OFarrell]

Footnote: PLEASE tell me the DIMO(N) department that's working on portal generation is called 'Aperture Science'.

Please. It seems like one of those things that some boffin might slip through the cracks before anyone notices.

If Stuart permits, I'm sure it'll get in. It's not like this story is totally serious - humans protect themselves from demons by wearing tinfoil hats, after all.

We can't have that. "For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead" doesn't work now!

There ARE probably IP issues with using something from Valve like that though, unfortunately...

[mr friendly guy]

Just a thought. If governments of the world today are pouring billions and trillions of dollars into stimulus packages to kick start their economy with infrastructure projects, would governments in Salvation war be doing the same, but concentrating on military ones. I don't think the governments would have enough money to do both, so they would have to forgo several civilian projects in favour of building more weapons.

[Chris OFarrell]

True enough, though in a lot of ways its probably more useful.

The US for example is de-rusting the rust belt and has been for a while in this fic, and that kind of massive industrial retooling and ramp up is going to cost an absurd amount, yet it will have a positive effect on a large swath of the US that had been stagnating for a long time.

Even more so, we also have oil rationing to an almost harsh extent, which will probably make massive investment in public transport, high speed rail and so on far more likely, in addition to the upgrades to the heavy rail network to support the aforementioned industrialization. With the oil crisis, you can probably extend that to a crash program for nukes and so on, to switch energy supplies in the civilian sector the hell away from Oil that is badly needed for tanks, aircraft and ships to run...

There is going to be one HELL of an economic headache to clean up after all of this, but at least:

1. We'll be alive (probably)

2. The world might have just gotten over the whole oil thing.


Of course, the long term consequences of hell are still being sorted out at this time, its just huge a shift. Though I frankly and honestly think that the vast majority of humans in hell are going to be all but vegetables. Some of the people we've seen being eternally punished -generally people of a character hard as nails or only recently dead who ARE willing and wanting to fight back and know help is coming- are okay, but I have to think after years, decades, centuries of being tortured in the most horrific ways possible, that most humans are just going to be all but braindead, and would, more then anything else, just want it all to end, 'praying' that the 'next level' is just pure oblivion and nothing else...

[Simon_Jester]

You know, I think you're the second or third person who has signed up for SDN just for this story. That's just cool...

I'm sorry, but I actually signed up for a completely different reason before I'd even heard of this story. But that was only a few days ago, so my previous post before this one is still my first on the forum (I posted the thing that was my real reason over in "Pure Star Wars" right afterwards).

I still like the story a lot; I disagree with the basic premise but that doesn't stop me from thinking it's good writing/literature/something-like-that.
_________

To address this;

The F-22 was actually designed to be produced in far larger quantities then it is, closer to 1000 of them then the less then 200 the USAF is getting. Its just that the US Congress kept cutting the numbers again and again. The $200 price tag per fight is only valid IF you include ALL the sunken R&D cost which has long been paid for. If you look at the price tag today on a 'how much does it cost to build an F-22, today', its substantially less then that. And in this scenario, where the USAF is more or less reequipping its F-15 force entirely with F-22's, and then some, the per-unit cost is almost certainly going to drop even more.

I can see the logic; if the last few posts are any indication, the USAF is going to need way more air superiority fighters than they do in real life. I'm honestly not sure how low the marginal cost on F-22s would go in the high-number limit; I can believe it being competitive with the F-35.
_______

Not really. The F-35 is really still the YF-35, its not out of its development cycle yet. Its simply not ready for mass production, the assembly line hasn't been set up, let alone been ready to scale up to this kind of super mass production. The F-22 line IS up and running, and its far easier to expand the production lines of an existing fighter like that, then build a new one; and one which is going to draw on a great deal of the same resources (input materials, avionics, skilled workers e.t.c) the F-22 needs.

And then add to the fact that the F-22 is a far superior aircraft to the F-35 and the USAF will quite seriously put a bullet in the head of ANYONE who DARES even THINK about trying to bring the F-35 back from the graveyard they have quietly burried it in.

Oh, come on; it may very well be a bad idea, but bad enough to warrant a Stalinist-style purge?

Seriously, though, I see what you mean. I may be overestimating the degree to which the F-35 is designed to be easier to build. If, and I do mean if, I am right about that, I still think there'd be some logic to getting it ready for mass production. If you could really build two or more F-35s for each F-22, then it would very likely be worth the trade-off of diverting some resources away from aircraft production right-this-instant to have relatively cheap mass production of aircraft two or three years from now.

For total wars that can reasonably be expected to take years, that kind of calculation is important. Since it's hard to estimate how long a war will take when you can't even figure out where in multidimensional space the enemy is, I think that it's a relevant concern.
______

Hence the mass production of the F-22, Su-35 and so on, for anti-angel warfare, pump out the very best air superority aircraft you can get. The superior sensors, speed and performance of the high end 5th/4.5 Gen aircraft is whats needed to go up against Angels. That and bringing back longer ranged missiles, if this is a sonic weapon of some kind, high altitude missile strikes are the way to go, from long range.

Agreed. But if you've got a new 5th generation multirole design a few years away from mass production, and (if and only if) it's going to be a lot cheaper to mass produce than the current 5th generation designs, then (and only then) cutting the program before a single fighter rolls off the assembly line might be a mistake.

But the argument revolves entirely around the question of whether the F-35 has a substantially lower marginal cost than the F-22, enough to more than compensate for its somewhat inferior performance. All I'm saying is that depending on the answer to that question, cutting the F-35 program might have been a mistake.
________

I am very surprised as the Angel vs Flanker fight I have to say. That they could see the incoming Flankers, let alone -with a sonic weapon at altitude!- hit them is amazing, almost as amazing as their ability to take out the incomming missiles. At night, if I'm right about the timing! That seriously does NOT bode well for Earth...

But as has been pointed out again and again in this fic; If you can define it, you can quantify it. If you can quantify it, you can understand it. If you can understand it, you can find a way to kill it.

Yes; in this case the key is probably BVR engagement capability. Converging missile strikes from several different vectors will help a lot too, I think.

[Beowulf]

In FY 2009, the USAF acquired 8 F-35s for ~$1.8 billion. The unit flyaway cost of a F-22 is $140 million. Thus, right now, the F-35 costs almost twice as much as a F-22. I've seen a rule of thumb that doubling the number of aircraft reduces the cost by 10%. So if we go from current procurement numbers to original procurement numbers (750), then cost should drop to about $110 million each. This is fairly close to the predicted (real)cost of the F-35, and they can include some of the improvements that have been thought about, but not implemented, such as bulged weapon doors allowing carriage of 2klb weapons.

You never would be able to get 2 F-35s for the cost of a F-22.

[tim31]

If only you buggers would sell them to us. Honestly, we're much more trustworthy than Israel. Don't make us buy the Tonka version!

[Hawkwings]

Hmm, the F-35 procurement numbers I've seen are about 3000 for the USAF alone. Another 800 or so for the USN, and then there's allies to take into account.

[Simon_Jester]

In FY 2009, the USAF acquired 8 F-35s for ~$1.8 billion. The unit flyaway cost of a F-22 is $140 million. Thus, right now, the F-35 costs almost twice as much as a F-22. I've seen a rule of thumb that doubling the number of aircraft reduces the cost by 10%. So if we go from current procurement numbers to original procurement numbers (750), then cost should drop to about $110 million each. This is fairly close to the predicted (real)cost of the F-35, and they can include some of the improvements that have been thought about, but not implemented, such as bulged weapon doors allowing carriage of 2klb weapons.

You never would be able to get 2 F-35s for the cost of a F-22.

If you kept doubling the numbers (and the rule of thumb continued to apply) until you got up to the procurement numbers the things' already got now (~3000), the price drops to somewhere around $90 to 100 million per unit. At which point you're getting close to a 3-for-2 price ratio... which probably isn't enough to fully offset the F-22's superior air-to-air performance.

And, of course, if people were willing to pay for a comparable number of F-22s (more or less impossible unless we were willing to export them, which we might be in the Salvation War), then we could expect comparable drops in the flyaway cost of an F-22.

So I guess it's more or less a wash, in which case the cost of finishing the F-35 program wouldn't be justified by the payoff. Still worth mothballing everything rather than scrapping it, in my opinion, but that's as far as I'd go.

That said, fighters that are good at BVR are now at a premium, especially if they have good supersonic dash capability.

[phongn]

That said, fighters that are good at BVR are now at a premium, especially if they have good supersonic dash capability.

It's not just supersonic dash - it's sustained supersonic fight. The story mentions how pretty much only the F-22 and MiG-31 were able to get in and out without losses, and those two are the only aircraft that can sustain supersonic speeds.

[JN1]

That said, fighters that are good at BVR are now at a premium, especially if they have good supersonic dash capability.

It's not just supersonic dash - it's sustained supersonic fight. The story mentions how pretty much only the F-22 and MiG-31 were able to get in and out without losses, and those two are the only aircraft that can sustain supersonic speeds.

Not true I'm afraid, the Typhoon can supercruise at Mach 1.1 (IIRC) comfortably. Even the old EE Lightening could supercruise and that was back in the '60s.

[Pelranius]

Well, there is quite a difference between Mach 1.1 and whatever the Raptor and Foxhound can comfortably sustain (aren't the exact numbers classified)? Off the top of my head, I recall something in the range of 1.6 to 1.8 Mach, which is a 50% difference.

Are the Russians going to be still pouring resources into the PAK-FA, the Chinese into the JXX, the Indians into the MCA and so forth? I'd personally think that they would, since despite all sorts of cross national sales and transfers (even to the point of the PLAAF apparently getting Eagles and Hornets) I don't think anyone would like to depend solely on America for the continued production of their state of the art weaponry.

[Baughn]

Right you are.

At 1.1 mach, they'd have to approach pretty much head-on to the angel to avoid giving any (auditory) warning; 1.6-1.8 mach would give a lot more leeway, which could be crucial when they start going up against larger groupings.

That said, it might also be a good idea to invent smarter missiles. It should be relatively simple to distinguish angels from airplanes, and with longer-range targeting support (eg. AWACS or ground stations) to pick them out, and no ECM, there's no real reason the planes need to get close enough for a sonic attack to work. Keep in mind, such an attack would necessarily move at the speed of sound, so would be easy to dodge at range.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, there is quite a difference between Mach 1.1 and whatever the Raptor and Foxhound can comfortably sustain (aren't the exact numbers classified)? Off the top of my head, I recall something in the range of 1.6 to 1.8 Mach, which is a 50% difference.

True.

The distance scale over which a plane needs supersonic flight for zoom-and-boom attacks against the angels depicted here shouldn't take more than about ten minutes to cover at the speeds involved, I'd think. Calling that a supersonic "dash" may not have been quite accurate, but we're not talking about supersonic flight over intercontinental ranges of the sort that the SR-71, the XB-70, and the Concorde were capable of.

[Valiran]

Well, there is quite a difference between Mach 1.1 and whatever the Raptor and Foxhound can comfortably sustain (aren't the exact numbers classified)? Off the top of my head, I recall something in the range of 1.6 to 1.8 Mach, which is a 50% difference.

True.

The distance scale over which a plane needs supersonic flight for zoom-and-boom attacks against the angels depicted here shouldn't take more than about ten minutes to cover at the speeds involved, I'd think. Calling that a supersonic "dash" may not have been quite accurate, but we're not talking about supersonic flight over intercontinental ranges of the sort that the SR-71, the XB-70, and the Concorde were capable of.

Well there's always the possibility that a group of super/hypersonic aircraft could hit afterburners and just roar by a group of angels, letting the shockwaves do their work for them.

[Stuart]

Are the Russians going to be still pouring resources into the PAK-FA, the Chinese into the JXX, the Indians into the MCA and so forth? I'd personally think that they would, since despite all sorts of cross national sales and transfers (even to the point of the PLAAF apparently getting Eagles and Hornets) I don't think anyone would like to depend solely on America for the continued production of their state of the art weaponry.

I very much doubt it. The rule of mobilization is that one mass produces what one has. Pretty much all new ideas and projects get back-burnered at best and cancelled outright at worst. Even in WW2 aircraft were hit by this; for example the only new US aircraft program initiated after December 1941 to see production was the P-63 Kingcobra. Germany's failure to obey that rule was one of the causes of its defeat. So, the Chinese, Russians, Indians etc will simply look at their aircraft and say MORE! All the effort that would have been spent on developing new aircraft instead goes to building the existing types and wringing more performance out of them. Same applies across the board. New destroyers? Forget them, build more Arleigh Burkes and T45s. Want a new tank? Not a chance, take more some M1s and T90s.

[Pelranius]

Or one could just use a large airborne AESA radar to literally cook the angels alive (the Wedgetail, Phalcon, KJ-2000/200 and Erieye would work very well in that role). Older PESA models may be able to do the job just as well.

[Surlethe]

I very much doubt it. The rule of mobilization is that one mass produces what one has. Pretty much all new ideas and projects get back-burnered at best and cancelled outright at worst. Even in WW2 aircraft were hit by this; for example the only new US aircraft program initiated after December 1941 to see production was the P-63 Kingcobra. Germany's failure to obey that rule was one of the causes of its defeat. So, the Chinese, Russians, Indians etc will simply look at their aircraft and say MORE! All the effort that would have been spent on developing new aircraft instead goes to building the existing types and wringing more performance out of them. Same applies across the board. New destroyers? Forget them, build more Arleigh Burkes and T45s. Want a new tank? Not a chance, take more some M1s and T90s.

Didn't the US sort of break this rule with the Manhattan Project during WW2? Or was there a good reason for the exception, such as the fact that the US was isolated from the war fronts and had a higher productive capacity than the rest of the world?

[Stuart]

Didn't the US sort of break this rule with the Manhattan Project during WW2? Or was there a good reason for the exception, such as the fact that the US was isolated from the war fronts and had a higher productive capacity than the rest of the world?

The Manhatten District Engineering Project was really a centralization of efforts that had started in 1939 so it isn't really a breach. Good examples of the way designs got frozen are the way the US mass-produced Cleveland class cruisers despite their known shortcomings and teh Baltimores despite the fact that a much better heavy cruiser was available. The tank case is perhaps the best, the US churning out M4s rather than switch the lines to a new type.

[Serafina]

I do not really think that the Manhattan Project broke that rule - after all, it was not so much about producing a lot of weapons, but about the development of a new one.
Neither did it draw resources directly from any production line, nor did it went into mass production.

Research is not forbidden, its quite necessary. But you do NOT start to build all kinds of "wunderwaffen" (as the germans did) unless you have a good production line. Why build a tank thats ~20% better, if it cuts your tank procution by 60% because you screw up the procution line?

[Gogolu]

But you do that when better plane is one third cheaper.

If I remember from documentary correctly that was main selling point to get plane for 83 million when F22 cost is 137.5 million each.

That means every 4th plane made is free(relatively speaking).