Re: fastest plane in the world
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: The Mechanic</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ArmaHeavy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">From the article...
"The Falcon(what the article is about) started life in 2003, part of a US military research project to build a plane that could reach (and potentially deliver bombs to) any part of the world in less than an hour."
Now imagine a bomb in Bin Laden's lap before the end of day, on 9/11.</div></div>
Again so it would be an expensive ICBM.</div></div>
As has been pointed out in various stategy venues, the only immediate form of kinetic power that can be exerted at will, anywhere in the world at any time, is an ICBM. Within one hour of a precipitating event, we can nuke anything we want on the planet. Should we wish to do anything <span style="font-weight: bold">less</span> than glass a given target, there are precisely zero reliable options available. Tomahawks must be deployed <span style="font-style: italic">from</span> something, and that something has to be put into place and readied before it can do so. If your target is more than a thousand miles or so from safe waters to launch from, you're out of luck. Bombers can take the better part of an entire day to prep and sortie...and survivability against a serious modern military isn't guaranteed by any stretch of the imagination.
What the military wants is an unstoppable, virtually instantaneous method of delivering sufficient explosives and/or kinetic energy against a high-priority tactical target, anywhere in the world, at any time, regardless of any other geopolitical or operational constraints. In simplistic terms, we're capable of escalating to lethal force (nukes), or physical contact (conventional bombing), but we lack any form of intermediate instant force projection (a Taser). More tools in the toolbox to give us more strategic capabilities is a plus in my book.