> I think the Ukraine war and Russia's poor showing has proved that in some ways the west is overestimating the capabilities of it's enemies.
That attitude is a recipe for overconfidence and failure, and is probably the biggest reason for Russia's poor showing in Ukraine.
Also, from what I've read, electronic warfare is one of the areas where the Russians have shown strong capability. It's a mistake to misinterpret "sucks at some things" as "sucks at all things."
Remember too that significant amounts detailed technical data for the F-35 have been stolen:
> Last week, Der Spiegel published a new tranche of documents provided to the German weekly magazine by the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden. The documents are the first public confirmation that Chinese hackers have been able to extrapolate top secret data on the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter jet. According to sources, the data breach already took place in 2007 at the prime subcontractor Lockheed Martin. A U.S. government official recently claimed that as of now, “classified F-35 information is protected and remains secure.”
> ...
> The Snowden files outline the scope of Chinese F-35 espionage efforts, which focused on acquiring the radar design (the number and types of modules), detailed engine schematics (methods for cooling gases, leading and trailing edge treatments, and aft deck heating contour maps) among other things. The document claims that many terabytes of data specific to the F-35 joint strike fighter program were stolen.
When designing military aircraft, it makes sense to reduce attack surface and avoid implementing exploitable features to address unusual scenarios.
WRT to Ukraine, it's a mistake to think that competence at EW and incompetence at land warfare balance each other out when the fight is primarily land warfare. And you need to be better at the land warfare to win.
Also, the B21 is reported to be designed for remote control. And that's the sort of thing you put the really big weapons on. I understand the idea behind reducing attack surface. But the JSF is a hub of interconnected technology it's not unreasonable to think they don't have a software package for all sorts of remote options.
> WRT to Ukraine, it's a mistake to think that competence at EW and incompetence at land warfare balance each other out when the fight is primarily land warfare. And you need to be better at the land warfare to win.
That's not what I said or meant.
What I'm saying is: it's stupid to design something for an adversarial situation like war, under the assumption that your adversary will be incompetent and unskilled. You seemed to be inferring that US adversaries would be incompetent at EW, because Russia's competence at land warfare has been far less than was previously assumed, and I don't think that follows at all.
> Also, the B21 is reported to be designed for remote control. And that's the sort of thing you put the really big weapons on. I understand the idea behind reducing attack surface.
If a military jet will not regularly remotely operated, it makes total sense to not implement remote operation features at all. Adding the feature introduces unneeded risk, as well as development cost and weight.
And (IMHO) if you do add a remote operation feature (because you think you'll use it), it should be locked behind a physical shutoff, so it cannot be adversarially-activated when it's not wanted. That would mean it would likely be of little use in a case like this.
> But the JSF is a hub of interconnected technology it's not unreasonable to think they don't have a software package for all sorts of remote options.
I don't see how it as all reasonable to think they've developed such a feature without any kind of evidence. The only hits I get trying to find information were for scale-model RC planes, stuff about F-35 pilots controlling drones, and this speculative article from a likely non-reputable website (https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/09/16/american-stealth-f-...) which outlines extensive modifications required and ultimately concludes such a thing would be a bad idea.
> Also, the B21 is reported to be designed for remote control.
AFAIK, that is all misreporting the (also abandoned) idea of an bomber drone companion aircraft and/or speculation about a potential future application of its modular upgradability.
> But the JSF is a hub of interconnected technology it's not unreasonable to think they don't have a software package for all sorts of remote options.
I agree that its not unreasonable to think that they don't have that.
That attitude is a recipe for overconfidence and failure, and is probably the biggest reason for Russia's poor showing in Ukraine.
Also, from what I've read, electronic warfare is one of the areas where the Russians have shown strong capability. It's a mistake to misinterpret "sucks at some things" as "sucks at all things."
Remember too that significant amounts detailed technical data for the F-35 have been stolen:
https://thediplomat.com/2015/01/new-snowden-documents-reveal...:
> Last week, Der Spiegel published a new tranche of documents provided to the German weekly magazine by the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden. The documents are the first public confirmation that Chinese hackers have been able to extrapolate top secret data on the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter jet. According to sources, the data breach already took place in 2007 at the prime subcontractor Lockheed Martin. A U.S. government official recently claimed that as of now, “classified F-35 information is protected and remains secure.”
> ...
> The Snowden files outline the scope of Chinese F-35 espionage efforts, which focused on acquiring the radar design (the number and types of modules), detailed engine schematics (methods for cooling gases, leading and trailing edge treatments, and aft deck heating contour maps) among other things. The document claims that many terabytes of data specific to the F-35 joint strike fighter program were stolen.
When designing military aircraft, it makes sense to reduce attack surface and avoid implementing exploitable features to address unusual scenarios.