
The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Built - adir-one
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n07/daniel-soar/the-most-expensive-weapon-ever-built
======
Animats
The VTOL version of the F-35 is insanely complicated.[1] Here's a Harrier
doing the same thing.[2] VTOL runs the cost way up, and VTOL with stealth is
even more expensive. (Can't do both at the same time, not with all that stuff
sticking out.)

The justification, though, is not unreasonable. If you want to project air
power, and don't have VTOL, you need a full sized air base or carrier within
range. With VTOL, you can operate from a smaller firebase or a small carrier.

The US's small carriers are the USMC's amphibious assault ships, the _Wasp_
and _America_ classes. The US currently has 9 of these, and is building more
of the America class. Each is a self contained package of military power -
about 1700 Marines and their gear, helicopters, VTOL fighters, Osprey VTOLs,
landing craft, and missiles. Everything you need for a small war. That's where
the F-35 was supposed to be useful.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW28Mb1YvwY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW28Mb1YvwY)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pweY5y5eRI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pweY5y5eRI)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>If you want to project air power, and don't have VTOL, you need a full sized
air base or carrier within range. //

Or unmanned aircraft?

~~~
DrStalker
They still need to take off from somewhere and land for refueling, though I
expect they can have a much shorter take off and landing than a manned fighter
even if they are not true VTOL.

~~~
ceejayoz
That's where unmanned refueling aircraft come in.

------
rl3
> _Israel is the only country that has been allowed to make significant
> modifications to the F-35: its variant, nicknamed the Adir (‘the mighty
> one’), includes a few extra computer systems of Israel’s own devising._

What might these be?

Edit: Hey, maybe the submitter knows. Zero comments and the username "adir-
one".

~~~
lacampbell
Which is interesting, seeing as Israel has sold US military tech to the
chinese before.

[https://www.defensetech.org/2013/12/24/report-israel-
passes-...](https://www.defensetech.org/2013/12/24/report-israel-passes-u-s-
military-technology-to-china/)

~~~
throwaway7645
I was wondering the same thing. How is this not a bigger deal.

------
jeffdavis
Dumb questions from a civilian:

What is the overlap in military utility between a fighter plane and a drone?

How important are top-gun style "dogfights" in modern warfare?

If everyone has stealth aircraft, how do they even find eachother to fight?
How do missiles work?

More generally, what role(s) do fighters play in modern warfare?

When was the last time the US used a fighter jet for something that a drone
could not have done?

~~~
dalbasal
It's hard to know, without a major conflict answer these questions in the
field (or sky).

Air forces played huge role in WW2. Fighters were important for establishing
air control and that determined outcomes. There have been few examples since.
The 1967 war between Israel & the Syrian-Egyptian alliance and follow up in
1973 were influential conflicts between modern (at the time) air forces.

In 1967, Israel won the air-war early. This basically won the war and fighters
played a primary role. In 1973, Egypt successfully established a forward front
using ground forces. Their missile air-defence made this possible, missiles
made fighters ineffective in a limited area. If modern missile defence can do
this for a 100x larger area, fighters might be confined to a much smaller
role.

That was 45 years ago. Who knows where we are now, what's redundant and what's
crucial. When WW2 broke out, there was a long process of figuring out what
worked in a modern war. It's hard to know in advance. Big gun ships were
thought to be very important, but aircraft carriers and smaller battle ships
ended up being more important.

The US, Russia etc haven't fought a modern enemy in 2 generations. That's like
building factories for 40 years which may one day need to produce goods.
There's a high likelihood you are building the wrong thing entirely.

~~~
tbonza
It's a good point. Terrorizing an urban population with $200 drones doesn't
seem like an unrealistic scenario. How would a tool like the F-35 be used to
combat this situation? I think it would be fairly useless.

Here's a link to an article about a cheap drone being shot with a Patriot
missile:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39277940](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39277940)

~~~
Godel_unicode
You think that F-35s, specifically designed for shooting other aircraft out of
the sky, would have trouble shooting down drones?

~~~
luhn
He said a $200 drone, which would be something similar to the tiny, low-flying
commercial offerings. You couldn't take that out with an F-35 without
destroying an entire city block along with it.

~~~
astrodust
An A-10 could probably deal with it, but yeah, it'd also obliterate anything
in the background.

------
dkbrk
Overall this is a pretty good article that avoids most of the misinformation
that tends to be propagated whenever the F-35 comes up.

However, calling the F-35 the "most expensive weapon ever built" is extremely
misleading. This video explains it better than I ever could:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyHlp7tJrxY&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyHlp7tJrxY&feature=youtu.be&t=8m30s)
("F-35 Lightning II: Busting Myths - Episode 2").

The entire video series is well worth a watch if you have any interest at all
in the subject.

~~~
jeffdavis
Paraphrasing from the video:

\-------

The $1.1 trillion cost is for research, production, maintenance, fuel, and
weapons for 2500 planes from the time they first started flying in 2006 until
they retire in 2065. When you do the math, this plane is actually cheaper than
some other planes. The main reason for the huge dollar number is that it's the
first plane to be fully accounted for over the lifetime of the entire program.

\------------

Again, the above is just paraphrasing the claims in the video. They are not my
claims.

~~~
uberrr
That money could have been used to feed and educate a lot of people.

~~~
COGlory
It wouldn't be

------
WhitneyLand
Is there any indication whether backdoors are added to sophisticated weapons
systems like this sold to other countries?

Given the complexity of something like the F-35 it's not hard to imagine that
backdoors could be addded undetected.

Could be anywhere along the spectrum from monitoring telemetry, to monitoring
communicatatioms, to remote override of weapons and flight control.

~~~
13of40
There were backdoors in Exocet missiles 30 years ago. What makes you think an
F-35 would be cleaner than that?

~~~
arethuza
Do you have a reference for that - the UK did a lot to try and stop Argentina
getting more Exocets during the Falklands War (which is presumably what you
are referring to) but I don't recall any references to the UK exploiting any
explicit backdoors that the French had put in the missiles.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Would the French want to give the UK superiority in that situation, would they
want to reveal their hand when not 'personally' threatened?

------
djtriptych
Nimitz-class aircraft carrier unit cost = $8.5 billion

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-
class_aircraft_carrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-
class_aircraft_carrier)

~~~
Waterluvian
That's it? I would have expected more. I guess that price doesn't include
planes or anything fun.

~~~
knodi123
The price probably includes the pair of nuclear reactors, depending on how you
define "anything fun".

~~~
Waterluvian
Nuclear reactors are fun until they're not.

------
jamiek88
The helmet system described sounds amazing. To the pilot he is basically
flying an invisible plane with 360 degree camera feeds to his helmet.

Wow.

~~~
dbg31415
Additional reading:

* “Magic Helmet” for F-35 ready for delivery | Ars Technica || [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/magic...](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/07/magic-helmet-for-f-35-ready-for-delivery/)

------
mavhc
I find it interesting that software is the main issue with the F35,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II)
and search for "software"

[https://www.f35.com/about/life-
cycle/software](https://www.f35.com/about/life-cycle/software)

------
valuearb
The scenario the article starts with is almost certainly untrue. Defense
experts are very skeptical Israel would send their F-35s into action only a
month after receiving them and before finishing testing.

[http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8146/has-israel-
actuall...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8146/has-israel-actually-
sent-the-f-35-into-combat-already)

~~~
abrowne
After telling the story and including an "unquestionable" source, then he says
"it’s worth bearing in mind that no one with any knowledge of how air forces
operate thinks it’s remotely likely". This is an example of why I read the
similar NYR but did not renew the LRB for a second year...

~~~
lostlogin
If you get physical copies it's truely alarming how fast they stack up. I like
reading them but feel shame at the height of the pile yet to tackle.

~~~
abrowne
My protocol to deal with it is as follows:

A. After the letters, I only read front-to-back, so I don't waste time
skipping back and forth. (Exceptions made for authors I really like.)

B. I skip a lot, and I'm willing to stop reading any article at point, even
several pages in.

C. I pass them on to my neighbor, which helps me not feel guilty for B.

------
thedailymail
Fat Man and Little Boy would like to have a word with the F-35 about who was
more expensive.

~~~
wolf550e
Only as percentage of GDP. In inflation adjusted dollars, US has surpassed it.

~~~
md_
Which comparison is more meaningful? According to "Dark Sun", in 1945 the
Manhattan Project was "approaching the US automobile industry in number of
employees and capital investment." That comparison is utterly astounding; the
fact that the F35 is more expensive but (I am guessing?) employs fewer people
and has a seemingly smaller social impact is interesting.

Perhaps this is a sign of the increasing centralization of capital in the US?

------
billyzs
[https://warisboring.com/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-
dog...](https://warisboring.com/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-dogfight-
cdb9d11a875#.xphzl2d3e)

felt like I've seen this complaint about the performance of the JSF not too
long ago. Maybe things have gotten better?

~~~
valuearb
Physics means it will never win a dog fight against any front line fighter of
the last 50 years. It's weight/aerodynamics/control surfaces are all
compromised for better stealth and cross service requirements (VTOL).

It's role is to be a standoff weapon that can shoot opposing fighters out of
the sky at long range before their sensors can detect it. The problem with
that is at 1,200 MPH closing speed they go from long range to dog-fight in
less than 5 mins, and closing speeds can easily be twice that.

The other problem is it has limited other roles. It's too fragile and lacks
the ammo capacity for ground attack. It can be effective at taking out ground
targets from a distance, but that's not what ground forces need, they need a
tough plane with lots of ammo to fly slow and low with great loiter time.

Stand-off is useful for SAM sites, but that's a damn expensive plane for a
role far cheaper drones are perfect for.

------
mnadkvlb
_> Last September, Obama and Netanyahu signed a new Memorandum of
Understanding, according to which Israel is promised $38 billion of military
aid over the next decade._

Is this true ?

~~~
3131s
Of course it is. Are you surprised given that the US sold Saudi Arabia ~120
billion in weapons under Obama?

~~~
golergka
I wonder how much first-class milotary R&D did US get out of that
relationship.

~~~
lostlogin
Access to places with no regard for human rights has proven handy recently,
and they can pay their bills.

------
gonmf
An interesting article but I was left guessing why either the US or Israel
would attack a military airport near Damascus and why doesn't anyone bat an
eyelid. I wasn't aware either of these countries was at war with Syria.

~~~
ufmace
Last I read, they were trying to destroy missiles they had reason to believe
were heading to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Can't say for sure, but it's
perfectly plausible. Nobody needs to be formally at war for it to happen.

The Israelis have an interest in stopping advanced weapons going to Hezbollah,
but have no interest in fighting a war against the Assad regime.

The Assad regime doesn't have anything to gain by complaining about it either.
They look weak if they talk about it and don't respond, and the last thing
they need right now is to either look weak, or pick a fight with one of the
most powerful militaries in the area. They've got enough on their plate trying
to exercise physical control over their country and retain some semblance of
legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Who else is going to complain? Russia would rather keep it quiet - an attack
against their ally means they have to either respond, or look like they're
abandoning them. Russia doesn't want to be seen as abandoning their allies, or
to pick a fight with a strong American ally, possibly drawing American into
the fight. America doesn't have anything to gain either - they don't want to
castigate a close ally over a relatively low-impact mission to suppress
terrorist activity, and they sure don't want Israel going to war against the
Syrian regime.

------
LinuxFreedom
It is totally inhuman and not acceptable to spend such an enormous amount of
money for these primitive war technologies.

We have many people on this planet still suffering from problems that could be
solved with a fraction of that money.

Please do not support these destructive projects with your work. You can make
a change!

From my own experience I can tell you that you will have a much better life
avoiding to work for these neanderthal-minded war prophets.

Many people working in war industries are getting very, very ill, physically
and psychically, because it is against your human desire for harmony to make
yourself part of a giant killing machine.

Love and Peace!

~~~
crypto5
It is 1.5 trillions over 80 years of lifetime of F-35, including research,
production and maintenance of around 3k jets. 18 billions per year is not big
price for backbone of national security.

~~~
lostlogin
If one of the first outing (disputed according to the article) is bombing in
the Middle East, is this really giving security. Seems more like continuing a
failed strategy that ensures a significant population wishes harm on the US
and its allies.

~~~
crypto5
Middle East is messy, and I am not going to judge this.. I am just saying that
1.5 trillions over 80 years is not large amount of money and would not solve
any of global problems.

------
dajohnson89
This article was an absolute joy to read. I might subscribe to LRB.

~~~
lostlogin
It really is excellent - and as someone who usually prefers digital, try the
paper one. Visitors often take a stack after spotting an article, there is
something for everyone in there.

------
robertlagrant
On dogfighting being obsolete - I thought in a stealth vs stealth situation
dogfighting is a real possibility as stealthed beyond visual range standoffs
aren't conducive to turn on a targeting radar. It's like two men in the dark,
each with a gun and a torch - whoever turns on their torch first loses. Hence
needing to rely on visuals, hence dogfighting.

~~~
astrodust
If one can emit just enough light to detect their adversary but not be
detected, that could work. Or drop a flare somewhere that illuminates everyone
equally then it becomes a quick-draw situation.

------
icefo
The F35 sound like a great plane but what happens if you jam the radar(is it
even possible, I don't know much about radars) and communications ?

I'm saying this because the article state that the F35 is slower than other
fighters so if it's possible to jam communications and radar, this plane may
have a disadvantage in this kind of situation.

~~~
Boothroid
I think it's reasonable to question the supposed invincibility of this thing,
so not sure why you have been downvoted. These planes generally rely on a
cumbersome sea borne platform which is a pretty juicy target for a hypersonic
missile, and advances in radar systems are challenging stealth. If this type
of weapons system is made obsolete by advances in technology or strategy
that's a lot of eggs in one basket. However I don't doubt DARPA etc are coming
up with weird and wonderful new concepts also. But the ingenuity and
motivation of the Russians, Chinese etc. should not be underestimated. In
certain areas their capabilities are superior.

~~~
icefo
I think I've been downvoted because I added the second paragraph later. The
comment wasn't really constructive whitout it.

------
ismail
What could NASA achieve with 1.5 trillion?

~~~
throwanem
Less job creation.

------
brooklynmarket
Could we just kill everyone in the world not like us? Would not just be how AI
would work? Then ZERO worries? What do you think, makes logical sense right?
/s

Never, ever have to worry again! :-)

------
tiatia
Cost of the Manhattan project in 2012 US dollars: 30 Trillion
[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/05/17/the-price-of-
the-m...](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/05/17/the-price-of-the-
manhattan-project/)

This was a significant part of GDP and please also consider that the US had a
much smaller population to bear the costs.

~~~
EgoIncarnate
I think you mean 30 billion. The entire GDP of the US is only 16.77 trillion
and the entire revenue of the US government is only a fraction of that. Both
the Apollo project and Manhattan project were around .4% of the GDP. A lot for
a single project, but not what I would consider a "significant part". Social
Security is an order of magnitude greater.

~~~
tiatia
Ah. Yes. Billions.

------
dbg31415
Because "the second most expensive weapons ever built" wasn't clickbaity
enough?

* The price of the Manhattan Project | Restricted Data || [http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/05/17/the-price-of-the-m...](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/05/17/the-price-of-the-manhattan-project/)

* The 10 Most Expensive Weapons in the World - 24/7 Wall St. || [http://247wallst.com/special-report/2012/01/09/the-10-most-e...](http://247wallst.com/special-report/2012/01/09/the-10-most-expensive-weapons-in-the-world/3/)

EDIT: Worth mentioning that we aren't done paying for WWII-era weapons.

* America's Atomic Time Bomb: Hanford Nuclear Waste Still Poses Serious Risks - SPIEGEL ONLINE || [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/america-s-atomic-t...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/america-s-atomic-time-bomb-hanford-nuclear-waste-still-poses-serious-risks-a-752944.html)

~~~
mark212
Agreed. There's a lot of hyperventilating in this article that, gosh, a
wealthy country might want to spend a bit of money to build some weapons to
defend itself. And then, incredibly, sell them to other rich countries.

~~~
rangibaby
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies
in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who
are cold and are not clothed.

~~~
WhitneyLand
Come on, Eisenhower was provably wrong. Countless times throughout history
people have suffered the worst horrors imaginable because their side was
militarily weaker. So much unjust loss as someone wanted more power and took
it just because they could.

The truth is that military spending, benevolent and power checked leaders, and
government at least capable enough to not collapse in on itself are all
essential.

The hard question is only how to attain these and in the right balance. Too
much military spending surely will cause unnecessary suffering, too little has
been proven just as capable as ending in ruin.

~~~
rangibaby
Hi I think the peace dividend showed that Eisenhower's theory had basis in
reality.

No one reasonable is in favor of abolishing the militaries of powerful nations
entirely but disarmament is something that we (as humans) should work towards.
Not just for the money it would save, but because it brings nations together.
See: START

