Cancellation of the F-35 contract is now a necessity: when and how, not if

[myata]

Turkey orders 40 Eurofighter Typhoons over F-35.

[Dougie93]

8 minutes ago, myata said:

Turkey orders 40 Eurofighter Typhoons over F-35.

America was already refusing to sell F-35 to Turkey, since Turkey is considered to be too close to China

[myata]

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

to be too close to China

In the near they may reconsider... selling them to China 😅

[Dougie93]

Just now, myata said:

In the near they may reconsider... selling them to China 😅

actually Trump is targeting China's arch rival India as the next F-35 customer

[myata]

3 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

India as the next F-35 customer

China has more dough though and it the Trumps minds it just may do the trick)

Sounds like a fairy tale story though as India likes to buy it ten times cheaper from another partner, Russian.

Edited March 16 by myata

[Dougie93]

Just now, myata said:

China has more dough though and it the Trumps minds it just may do the trick)

China is not going to buy military hardware which relies upon American logistics

[myata]

and if India buys them for the price of Russia's Su-57 no one ever would pay the full price for them. Sounds like another "genius" strategy by the stable genius strategist 😅

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

which relies upon American logistics

India can be stupid though, a great encouragement!

[Dougie93]

2 minutes ago, myata said:

and if India buys them for the price of Russia's Su-57 no one ever would pay the full price for them. Sounds like another "genius" strategy by the stable genius strategist 😅

the larger issue is that the public clearly doesn't understand how F-35 works,

the jet itself is not that special, it's not the jet which makes the Stealth

the F-35 is part of a network, wherein it is being constantly updated by American ELINT to defeat enemy radars,

you can make a copy of an F-35, which China already does,

but that doesn't replace the American global intelligence network which the Stealth relies upon

[Dougie93]

9 minutes ago, myata said:

 

India can be stupid though, a great encouragement!

India's strategy is to source from multiple countries, Russia, France, Israel & America,

India does not rely upon any one country,

but they do use American kit, Apache, Super Hercules, Globemaster III,

so they would be willing to add F-35 to their arsenal to get the edge on China,

since they have options if America cuts them off, to include India is developing its own stealth fighter

again tho, what India would really be interested in here ;

is access to the American global ELINT network which comes with buying F-35,

this is how the Ukrainians have been holding out against the Russians,

only the Americans have the vast global Intelligence gathering capability to pull that off,

Edited March 16 by Dougie93

[myata]

The bottom line: actions have consequences. F-k around, find out. If the thinking stopped working, that is.

[Dougie93]

27 minutes ago, myata said:

The bottom line: actions have consequences. F-k around, find out. If the thinking stopped working, that is.

I don't think the F-35 is as big a deal to America as people here surmise,

it's never actually been put into full rate production,

America has started to move away from F-35 being the future,

America has already started to move on to the next generation of air dominance weapons,

with a much greater emphasis on drones,

F-35 is far more important to American allies than it is to the US military

it's entirely plausible that Trump would be willing to move on from F-35 sooner rather than later,

I would suggest that America would be better off spending it's F-35 money on the B-21 bomber

a single B-21 is worth a hundred F-35's in terms of actual effects on target,

the role of the F-35 meanwhile could be replaced by drones,

everybody is watching Ukraine seeing how warfare is rapidly changing in real time, including the Pentagon

the Pentagon for example has already cancelled its next generation attack helicopter program,

seeing that drones have already rendered those obsolete,

Ukraine is already bombing Moscow with low cost drones ; who needs F-35 ?

this is the real reason why Canada should cancel F-35 ; it's probably not worth the money after all,

instead, Canada could go with an air defence fighter like Typhoon, and then drones to do strike,

Canada probably doesn't need 80+ fighters neither, when 40 would get the job done,

Canada only has 40 operational CF-18's for NORAD, and that's been adequate for the task,

really Canada just uses CF-18's for air policing, which requires a man in the loop,

but when it comes to striking targets offensively, drones have already taken over that role in Ukraine

Edited March 16 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

when it comes to sticking it to America in a way that is actually going to get America's attention,

Canada is going to have to take the gloves off and start cutting off the supplies ; oil, electricity, potash, etc

and be willing to stand firm when Trump goes ballistic about it

[Aristides]

Do we need to review our entire defence policy including equipment in view of the new world political situation? I hope this is the conversation that is going on. Is the F-35 still our best choice for a new NATO that can't count on the US? The possibility the US might decide its interests are different or even antagonistic to the rest of NATO? Like now?

The price of all these aircraft is negotiable. Member countries of the Typhoon project pay around half the export price. It will be interesting to know what Turkey is paying for them.

Hungary and Czech Republic lease their Gripens. 

[Dougie93]

8 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Do we need to review our entire defence policy including equipment in view of the new world political situation? I hope this is the conversation that is going on. Is the F-35 still our best choice for a new NATO that can't count on the US? The possibility the US might decide its interests are different or even antagonistic to the rest of NATO? Like now?

The price of all these aircraft is negotiable. Member countries of the Typhoon project pay around half the export price. It will be interesting to know what Turkey is paying for them.

Hungary and Czech Republic lease their Gripens. 

leasing as a stop gap would be a good option for Canada,

everything is in flux right now, you don't actually know what you need for the long term,

when the war in Ukraine is proving many 1980's type weapons to be obsolete, or at least not very decisive

[ExFlyer]

We should have learned something from the huge cost of maintaining, repairing, overhauling and/or buying parts etc from the experience of the CH149 Cormorant from England/Italy  (Agusta/Westland) and the soon to be in service CC-295 Kingfisher from CASA in Spain.

No one in Canada want so be (or can afford to set up for such small fleets)a service centre for the components of these aircraft. So, we have to continually ship them to Europe and back.

While the anti American sentiment is rampant, the F35 is a far superior aircraft than the others and it's proximity to us as well as us having certain capability in Mirabel and Pratt &. Whitney in the Montreal area only makes sense. Oh and the already $19 billion spent on development makes the F35 the only real option.

Edited March 16 by ExFlyer

[Dougie93]

the whole idea that Canada is going to divorce itself from America is obviously a pipe dream,

the politicians at least seem to recognize this reality, other than the kooks in the NDP that is

[ExFlyer]

12 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

the whole idea that Canada is going to divorce itself from America is obviously a pipe dream,

the politicians at least seem to recognize this reality, other than the kooks in the NDP that is

And many on this forum too LOL

[Dougie93]

1 minute ago, ExFlyer said:

And many on this forum too LOL

the biggest military threat to Canada is internal,

wherein the wholly unmartial cosmopolitan society doesn't even know what the military is for anymore,

the military in Canada is treated as just another branch of the civil service,

wherein the priority is "Decolonization" and promoting "Feminism"

but as you say ; it's not my military anymore, so I just wash my hands of it,

If America invades, that would simply be liberating me from the rule of the left wing kooks who run this basket case

[ExFlyer]

4 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

the biggest military threat to Canada is internal,

wherein the wholly unmartial cosmopolitan society doesn't even know what the military is for anymore,

the military in Canada is treated as just another branch of the civil service,

wherein the priority is "Decolonization" and promoting "Feminism"

but as you say ; it's not my military anymore, so I just wash my hands of it,

If America invades, that would simply be liberating me from the rule of the left wing kooks who run this basket case

Gawd!!!

My comment was to you saying "he politicians at least seem to recognize this reality, other than the kooks in the NDP that is".

Once again your response is nonsensical and nothing to do with the comment.

[Dougie93]

7 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

Gawd!!!

My comment was to you saying "he politicians at least seem to recognize this reality, other than the kooks in the NDP that is".

Once again your response is nonsensical and nothing to do with the comment.

the politicians simply recognize the reality of Canadian society being so unmartial,

and the Canadian economy being so unproductive,

that there really is no alternative to Canada relying upon America for Canada's security and prosperity therein

 

[ExFlyer]

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

the politicians simply recognize the reality of Canadian society being so unmartial,

and the Canadian economy being so unproductive,

that there really is no alternative to Canada relying upon America for Canada's security and prosperity therein

 

OMG!!!!

You said "the whole idea that Canada is going to divorce itself from America is obviously a pipe dream,

the politicians at least seem to recognize this reality, other than the kooks in the NDP that is"

I said " And many on this forum too LOL " About the kooks on this forum too.

WTF are you going on about ???

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 3/10/2025 at 3:56 PM, ironstone said:

Sounds like you want it cancelled purely because of your intense hatred of Trump.

And if not the F35, what is a better choice?

Legitimate fear of Trump and Trumpism, caused by his words and actions actually. 

[CdnFox]

On 3/16/2025 at 7:21 AM, Aristides said:

Do we need to review our entire defence policy including equipment in view of the new world political situation? I hope this is the conversation that is going on. Is the F-35 still our best choice for a new NATO that can't count on the US? The possibility the US might decide its interests are different or even antagonistic to the rest of NATO? Like now?

The price of all these aircraft is negotiable. Member countries of the Typhoon project pay around half the export price. It will be interesting to know what Turkey is paying for them.

Hungary and Czech Republic lease their Gripens. 

I think we need to go a step further even and consider the role of some of these things, not just aircraft, in light of some of the lessons learned recently. Everybody thought the tank was king until the ukrainians pointed out there's another way to deal with it, and everybody believed in satellite intelligence and so on until the ukrainians show the drones could have a massive impact

We are never going to eliminate the need for conventional hardware but we've seen again and again that creative thinking using different tactics can defeat expensive tech.  Multi million dollar russian tanks died by the hundreds to 500 dollar drones. 

We should think about how we can effecitvely fight the next war while still being realistic. THere's an old saying that generals are always trying to fight the last war and it's true 

[ironstone]

45 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Legitimate fear of Trump and Trumpism, caused by his words and actions actually. 

Will you pivot to someone else after Trump finishes his second term? Trump won't be the White House so now we have to focus our hate on the next Republican who may or not be president?

I think the decision should be based on the capabilities/suitability of the aircraft itself and not solely on dislike for one individual.

[PIK]

On 3/16/2025 at 10:19 AM, Dougie93 said:

when it comes to sticking it to America in a way that is actually going to get America's attention,

Canada is going to have to take the gloves off and start cutting off the supplies ; oil, electricity, potash, etc

and be willing to stand firm when Trump goes ballistic about it

They could cause headaches since alot of European planes have American hardware, and may not be allowed to sell to us.