F-35, Tigers and Yom Kippur

This was originally written for and published in the Danish magazine; "Krigeren" in 2016, but despite my efforts no English-language equivalent wanted to publish this translated version.

With even USAF admitting the failure of the F-35 now in this article; I choose to now publish it below:

If historical research is to be justified, we as historians must point out current parallels to history in order for decisionmakers and populations to make informed choices. As I see it, this is very much the case right now.

Let us start at the history I believe we need to pay attention to and learn from.

During WW II, the Germans produced 46937 tanks (and Stugs, etc), 1347 were the fearsome Tigers and 5500 Panthers (also a very good tank). The USSR produced 106104 and the Americans 102253. The Soviet and American factories were set up for industrial mass-production and thus of lower craftsmanship and slightly lower quality (but quantity has a quality of its own), while the Germans set up theirs as craft mass production of high quality. In the USSR and USA, politicians decided the specifications for their tanks, while in Germany it was the Wehrmacht (who would naturally want the highest possible quality). Hence, the Tiger was constantly subject to new demands and specifications and on average, every sixth Tiger was changed in some way from the former model- every sixth! Moreover, its production demanded a highly trained and specialized work force; “hand crafted by the Dwarven smiths in the Mines of Moria”, Jonathan Parshall jokingly calls it, but he is not far off.

Consequently, a Sherman cost $ 33500 and 10000 man-hours to build, while a T-34 took 35- 50000 man-hours (at an unknown price because of the Soviet plan economy). In contrast, a Tiger cost $320000 and 300000 man-hours to build. And though it was said that a Tiger equalled five Shermans/T-34s and a Panther three, that would not suffice at ten times the price and time to build. The German soldiers were literally correct in their complaints about the never-ceasing flood of enemies.

So, the Germans produced a very technologically advanced high quality product, but with extreme demands and very low output. And it was not limited to the Tiger, though the Panther was cheaper at $ 45-50000, it and the Pz IV suffered the same problems of bottlenecks and problems in production, at lower degrees respectively. Further, the advanced designs of both Tiger and Panther was plagued by childhood diseases and were always prone to breakdowns.

 

Sixth of October 1972 Egyptian and Syrian units, supported by other Arab nations and the USSR, attacked and advanced into the US-supported Israel in an effort to retake lost land and gain honorary redress from their defeats of the past. In the following 20 days of high-intensity warfare both sides suffered heavy losses. The Israeli air force included, between 102 and 128 aircraft depending on source. These losses of aircraft could only be replaced and defeat averted by American aid. An America whose Military-Industrial Complex turned out not to be able to build new aircraft at the rate they were lost. I.E. a superpower’s arms industry could not replace the losses in a relatively small high-intensity war. Let us spell it out again; American arms industry during The Cold War (where they were geared for WW3), could not replace the losses in a small and brief regional war with high losses. Largely because American aircraft were advanced technological wonders.

 

Now, even from the design phase and before the delays and additional funding the F-35 JSF was the most expensive weapons system ever. It is expected to relieve F-16, A-10, F-18 and AVB-8, and thus function as both fighter and dedicated ”Ground Attack Plane”, just as it is expected to be able to land vertically and take off from carriers. Without evaluating whether it can actually live up to all those variable demands (though many experts conclude it cannot), one must objectively observe that it is a very broad range of demands. And one that it must hence require a very advanced and very expensive weapons system to fulfill. A weapons system that is very difficult to design and make work, and one that is very difficult to produce. Further, one that demands a specialized workforce (which Lockheed-Martin emphasizes as positive on their homepage). All this has resulted in a seven years’ delay until now (running on eight) and an extreme increase in cost. The F-35 is thus very complicated and extremely expensive (while the West has not yet recovered from the Financial Crisis). The resemblance to the Tiger is striking, and the production rate of one aircraft a day, according to defencenews.com, is not impressive when considering the lessons of Yom Kippur.

 

What this means in case of a high-intensity conflict, is that the USA and NATO is in a similar situation to the Germans in 1943; we may be able to produce a technological wonder-weapon (if Lockheed-Martin’s sales pitch is to believe), but we cannot do so fast and cheaply enough. And like the Israelis in 1972, we will run out of aircraft- and we have no “larger brother” to assist us, we (NATO) are the larger brother and the responsibility is ours. We risk running out of aircraft; right now, with the demand being very high as many NATO-countries look to replace their aging air fleets, only one F-35 a day. How is this to keep up with loss rates in a high intensity war, where NATO is likely to lose more than one aircraft a day (in fact if history is a model to learn by, accidents and technical problems will lose us more than one a day). So production simply cannot keep up with demand on this advanced weapons system, just like Germany’s supply of Tigers could not keep up with the demand for them). Do we have a plan for covering these losses?

 

In conclusion, with the price, production rates and technical problems of the F-35, just like Germany with the Tiger, we cannot produce enough of them fast enough to even replace losses in case of a high-intensity war- especially with a major power. And even if we believe Lockheed-Martin’s sales pitch about its wonderful properties, this is still the case. We, the populations and voters in NATO, need our politicians to explain to us, how they will solve that problem.