Acquisition Lessons from a Galaxy Far, Far Away

[Lucky]

http://www.dau.mil/pubscats/ATL%20Docs/ ... 1/Ward.pdf

So the moral of the story is the Federation with it's practice of building ships only as big as they need them has the right idea?

[Picard]

And US learned nothing from it, until recently. F-15 vs F-22 ... F15. Drone vs F-15 vs F-122... drone.

[Lucky]

And US learned nothing from it, until recently. F-15 vs F-22 ... F15. Drone vs F-15 vs F-122... drone.

An F-22 is to a TIE Defender as a F-15 is to an X-Wing fighter.

I was wondering how accurate people thought the article was when applied to Star Wars and other Sci-Fi?

[Picard]

I don't know where you got "F22 is to TIE Defender"... first, what the hell is a TIE Defender? If it's a drone, then you got it wrong, beacouse I was talking about this:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... ppX_q0pahw

Large numbers of non-expensive weapons usually win over small numbers of expensive weapons. And there are numerous problems with F-22. I'm not saying it isn't good plane. One on one, it can probably beat most current world planes. But it will never be one-on-one in any scenario involving F-22. F-22 is simply too expensive. Too expensive to build, even more so to maintain. I'll post links in F22, EU etc. thread, but it has extreme technical problems that will make it even more costly. But building upgraded F-15s (new radar, weapons, electronics, and engines) would probably be smarter and more cost-effective move. Eurofighter Typhoon is also expensive, but is not stealth, and has less technical (but far more political) problems; meaning that it is at advantage, beacouse lack of stealth coating cuts down maintenance requirements drastically.

But drones will be much cheaper. First, they're smaller. Meaning less material, smaller engines, etc. Second, one of major expenses of modern fighter aircraft are life support systems. Removing these already lowers cost tremendously. Third, you don't lose pilot if aircraft is shot down. There is operator, but he'll probably be far behind front line. Meaning you have to replace only plane. However, they will never completely replace manned fighters for one reason - they're too dependable on input from ground. Pilot is on ground, and if channels are scrambled, drones go down. Also, on-site pilot probably has better wiev of what is going on. However, drones will be an effective weapon in straight-up combat.

Same lessons go for sci-fi. You build what you need. You don't build single planet- or galaxy- -busting highly-complex superweapon that can be destroyed by someone going to poop on wrong place. Which is exactly what can happen with such "uber" weapons. You build what you need. You don't build a super-battleship capable of sinking anything that floats. You build thousand bombers and torpedo planes and sink said battleship and all of its escorts. You don't build a super-starship capable of destroying hundred enemy starships on its own. 'Cause while it destroys 50 of them, that another 50 ships are going to reduce your shipyards and your main planet to smouldering ruins.

And as for J-20... it will probably turn out that it is even worse flying-peace-of-crap than F22.

[Lucky]

I don't know where you got "F22 is to TIE Defender"... first, what the hell is a TIE Defender? If it's a drone, then you got it wrong, beacouse I was talking about this:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... ppX_q0pahw

Large numbers of non-expensive weapons usually win over small numbers of expensive weapons. And there are numerous problems with F-22. I'm not saying it isn't good plane. One on one, it can probably beat most current world planes. But it will never be one-on-one in any scenario involving F-22. F-22 is simply too expensive. Too expensive to build, even more so to maintain. I'll post links in F22, EU etc. thread, but it has extreme technical problems that will make it even more costly. But building upgraded F-15s (new radar, weapons, electronics, and engines) would probably be smarter and more cost-effective move. Eurofighter Typhoon is also expensive, but is not stealth, and has less technical (but far more political) problems; meaning that it is at advantage, beacouse lack of stealth coating cuts down maintenance requirements drastically.

But drones will be much cheaper. First, they're smaller. Meaning less material, smaller engines, etc. Second, one of major expenses of modern fighter aircraft are life support systems. Removing these already lowers cost tremendously. Third, you don't lose pilot if aircraft is shot down. There is operator, but he'll probably be far behind front line. Meaning you have to replace only plane. However, they will never completely replace manned fighters for one reason - they're too dependable on input from ground. Pilot is on ground, and if channels are scrambled, drones go down. Also, on-site pilot probably has better wiev of what is going on. However, drones will be an effective weapon in straight-up combat.

Same lessons go for sci-fi. You build what you need. You don't build single planet- or galaxy- -busting highly-complex superweapon that can be destroyed by someone going to poop on wrong place. Which is exactly what can happen with such "uber" weapons. You build what you need. You don't build a super-battleship capable of sinking anything that floats. You build thousand bombers and torpedo planes and sink said battleship and all of its escorts. You don't build a super-starship capable of destroying hundred enemy starships on its own. 'Cause while it destroys 50 of them, that another 50 ships are going to reduce your shipyards and your main planet to smouldering ruins.

And as for J-20... it will probably turn out that it is even worse flying-peace-of-crap than F22.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/D_Defender
A TIE Defender is similar to an F-22 in that it has all the bells and whistles, and basically the best fighter of it's time on paper at least, but is expensive making it only fielded in limited numbers.

There are also logical reasons to design and build things like the F-22.

It's well known that a drone F-22 could out fly a piloted F-22 at least on paper because the drone could use the full capabilities of the plain.

[Mike DiCenso]

The real trick for such philosphies is that you have to balance out the quality versus quantity equation such that you can produce a decent enough weapon system while still producing it in enough numbers to make a real difference. It doesn't help producing thousands of something when that weapon can be in turn wiped out by the thousands, and as everyone has already mentioned here, it doesn't help your war effort if you build a big bad weapon, but someone exploits a flaw or just plain gets lucky and destroys it, leaving you largely high and dry with little else to use to fight with.
-Mike

[Picard]

It has been mentioned in one of F22 articles that simulations have shown Chinese forces destroying F22s on Taiwan throught sheer numerical superiority. Even F22s achieveing one-shot-one-kill ratio was not enough. Besides, there are some iin USAF who question superiority of F22 over upgraded F15 (new weapons and electronics). But F22 was produced due to corporation developing it refusing to acknowledge project as what it really is - a costly failure. More money has been spent on repairing bugs with F22s than what would be required to keep Eagle fleet flying and up-to-date. US F-15s are now outdated, have missed one or more scheduled modernization programs, all due to F22, which has shown itself as strategicallly inferior plane.

Star Wars shows this too. Imperials on Endor were destroyed by their own tactical and strategic incompetence, as well as Ewok numerical superiority. Empire would be far better off with more ISD's than building Death Stars; however, I doubt that they could build a million ISD's in place of Death Star. It is simpler to organize one massive supply line than hundreds or thousands of smaller ones. Death Stars probably have way lower crew densities than ISD's. However, fact is that Empire put too much in one (okay, two) baskets.