Text: Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Editor|Xiao Peng's brilliant notes
Disclaimer: The "official information sources" referred to in this article are all repeated at the end of the article, thank you for your support.
【Foreword】
On November 24, Musk reposted the video of the Chinese drone swarm and commented that "there are still fools producing F-35s"!
He also called the F-35's design a "shit design," arguing that it would be outdated and unwise to continue producing manned fighters like the F-35 in an era of rising drone technology.
So why did Musk say this? Is the F-35 really as unbearable as Musk said?
【马斯克为何怒批 F-35】
On September 12, 2024, Musk retweeted a video of a drone show from Longgang, Shenzhen, China, and commented that it was "impressive."
The drone show in the video was carried out by Shenzhen Longgang enterprise HighGreat Innovation, showing a shocking performance of 8,100 drones in the sky above the Shenzhen Universiade Center.
This performance not only broke the Guinness World Record for "the most drones flying at the same time", but also demonstrated the perfect combination of technology and art.
Musk, as a leading figure in the tech world, naturally understands what a powerful feat this is, so he retweeted a video of a Chinese drone swarm on the social media platform X and criticized the F-35 for being "shit-designed", a remark that attracted widespread attention.
Musk has a clear preference for drone technology, and in the current development of the military field, the performance of drones is becoming more and more prominent.
Especially in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, drones have demonstrated powerful reconnaissance, strike and surveillance capabilities, and their flexibility and cost advantages dwarf traditional fighter jets.
China's swarm drone technology has brought the potential of drones to the extreme, which has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the F-35's position as a traditional fighter.
And there are still many problems with the F-35 project itself, which is also an important reason for Musk's criticism.
Since its launch in 2001, the F-35 has been slow to progress, cost overruns, and frequent breakdowns.
Bloomberg reported that the F-35 had seven serious problems, including frequent alarms from the automatic fault diagnosis system, excessive maintenance time, frequent damage to the stealth coating, and the inability of the cannon to fire in a straight line.
These problems make the F-35's combat effectiveness in stark contrast to its expensive construction and operating expenses.
In addition to this, Musk's new role has also prompted him to criticize the F-35, and as the secretary of the "Department of Government Efficiency" (incoming office), one of Musk's main tasks is to cut wasteful government spending, and the F-35 is the "big stomach" of the US military budget.
With a total budget of $1.8 trillion over the entire project lifecycle, such a huge expenditure naturally becomes the focus of Musk's attention.
At the same time, Musk believes that in the era of the rise of drones, it is unwise to continue to create manned fighters.
He has said that the United States should consider adopting remotely controlled unmanned fighter jets in response to the rise of drone warfare and to help the Air Force remain competitive in procurement......
[Advantages and problems of the F-35]
As a representative of the fifth-generation stealth fighter of the United States, the F-35 actually has certain advantages, it can complete a wider range of tasks, and it is easier to maintain, and in some ways, it is also the most reliable tactical aircraft in the combined fleet.
Fighter jets must make enemy radars virtually invisible, must provide pilots with unprecedented situational awareness, must collect and process vast amounts of intelligence, must be securely networked with other military aircraft, must meet the vastly different needs of three separate military branches, and these "musts" F-35 can all do.
The F-35's groundbreaking sensor and datalink capabilities make the F-35 an air quarterback, allowing it to quickly acquire data from multiple different sources, including ground, sea, space, or air, and relay it to other aircraft or battlefield units.
This ability gives the F-35 the ability to play the role of "captain" and organize and dominate tactics.
You know, the F-35 has a radar scattering area of between 0.006 square meters and 0.001 square meters, and it is claimed that its stealth performance is stronger than that of the F-22.
Therefore, the smaller radar scattering area also allows the aircraft to have a certain asymmetric advantage in the face of any opponent, which can greatly reduce the enemy's reaction time.
But there's no denying that the F-35 also has a number of problems, with its stealth coating often broken and having to be repainted every time it flies.
The F-35 fighter jets imported from the United States obtained by Australia could not adapt to Australia's dry and hot climate, and the coating would peel off after each flight, peel and damage, and had to be repainted, which directly led to a sharp increase in the operating cost of the F-35.
The reason why the stealth coating is easy to be damaged is related to the material itself, as well as the process of coating, absorbing materials include resistive, dielectric and magnetic dielectric, but these materials have problems such as high temperature resistance, failure after a long time, high density affecting the weight of the aircraft and being the most easily damaged.
F-35 also has "shingles", the stealth coating falls off in many places, and the wear and tear is too fast and sticks with tape.
During the test of the British Air Force F-35B on board, the fuselage coating wore out too quickly, causing it to fall off in many places and had to be repaired with absorbing tape.
The Australian Air Force's F-35A is exposed to surface wear and tear after each flight in a dry, hot environment that needs to be repaired.
When the speed of the F-35B and F-35C reaches Mach 1.3, the stealth coating will have cavitation, which will not only affect the stealth performance, but also destroy the aircraft's communication system and horizontal tail, and the US military has not yet found a solution to this problem.
The F-35 flies too fast and "burns its ass". When the American F-35 fighter was flying at supersonic speed, the US military had to impose a "speed limit" on the F-35 due to damage to the tail of the fighter due to the shock of the fuselage and the burning of the tail flame.
The Pentagon report also noted that the F-35 fighter failed to meet the basic operating standards in 65 basic flaws, and that the development cycle of the F-35 program continued to be delayed due to the immaturity and inadequacy of the Block 4 mission system software, as well as the avionics stability issues of the new Technology Update 3 (TR-3) hardware entering the Lot 35 production aircraft.
American-made F-35 fighter jets also had a lot of accidents, and two F-35A stealth fighters from the Misawa base of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force made an emergency landing at Aomori Airport one after another.
The record on the U.S. side is also terrible, with F-35B fighter jets crashing near Albuquerque International Airport in New Mexico, USA.
On December 15, 2022 and September 17, 2023, the U.S. F-35B crashed two times in succession.
Looking at it this way, in fact, you can understand that Musk's remarks are not excessive, but a kind of pragmatic complaining......
【Rise of the Drones】
At present, the rise of drones in modern warfare is not accidental, and low cost is one of the important reasons why drones are favored.
In particular, drones are much less expensive to build than traditional manned fighters such as the F-35.
In the case of the "Swarm" drone, the unit price is usually around $10,000, while the total budget for the F-35 over the entire project life cycle is as high as $1.8 trillion.
An anti-aircraft missile is at least one million dollars, and in the face of a drone "swarm" attack, the defending side will often fall into the dilemma of "unable to prevent" or "unable to fight".
The structure of UAVs is also relatively simple, and it can be produced in large quantities quickly by using additive manufacturing or agile manufacturing technology, and can be quickly replenished and put into operation, which can greatly improve the continuity of operations and always maintain a high-pressure posture of offensive operations.
Most of the unmanned "swarm" combat systems are small platforms, using composite materials, with a small radar reflection area, low detectability, and long-distance detection of the enemy, which can compress the enemy's reaction time and make it too late to react and intercept.
Foreign military tests have shown that when the "Swarm" drone attacks at a speed of 250 km/h, the "Aegis" shipborne air defense system radar detects the target and has only 15 seconds to intercept it.
With the continuous advancement of science and technology, the technical level of the field of drones is steadily improving.
In the future, drones will become more intelligent and highly autonomous, and they will use more advanced communication, control and sensing technologies.
In this way, the drone is able to perform a wide range of tasks in an autonomous manner with great accuracy.
This means that drones will play a more important role in many fields such as logistics and distribution, environmental monitoring, disaster relief, etc., bringing great convenience to people's lives and work.
【Conclusion】
I have to say that Musk's astonishing remarks, although ugly, are not wrong.
Whether his assessment is subjective or commercial, it is undeniable that the drone and the traditional manned fighter represented by the F-35 have been put in the spotlight of public opinion.
However, it is certain that even so, manned fighters cannot be completely eliminated, because in the complex and changeable battlefield environment, human decision-making ability is still irreplaceable......
Resources:
On November 25, 2024, the Financial Associated Press reported on "Musk angrily criticizes F-35 fighters: drones are the future, and F-35 is a thing of the past".
Musk shared a video of China's bee swarm drone show on social media platform X