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Nuvendil on 20 January 2023
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Cobretti2 said:

Bit of a segway here, but reading all these updates of permissions required, run down equipment and how long this stuff takes to produce (even bullets), I hope we never invaded by aliens.

Looking on google, F-22 Raptor as an example, only 195 were produced in 15 years before they stopped making them. That is 13 a year. Crazy how slow.

F-35s apparently they are built at about 2-3 a week, You would think with the enhancements in manufacturing we have today they could scale up during a war (like the one we have now) to do 10 a week, but yet they plot along at their 2-3 a week rate.

The F-22 was a massively overbuilt fighter and extremely expensive.  It didn't really have a clear purpose given how stupidly over the top its capabilities as an air dominance platform were.  That's why it faded out in favor of focusing on the F-35.  Which, while not as capable as the F-22 in air to air operations, it's still the second most capable such craft in the world by a comfortable margin.  

Also, atm, F-35 production really has no need to scale up.  The US is literally the only operator of a Gen 5 fighter force of this scale in the entire world.  The next closest is China with their J-20 but not only is their force far smaller, the J-20 is substantially less capable overall.

So it's not that we can't produce them faster, more that we don't have a pressing need to do so.