马斯克嘲笑 "白痴仍在制造 F-35",称无人机是趋势 军事专家:他想错了

“And accompanied by a trash can emoji. In the comments section, Musk added that the F-35 was poorly designed and agreed with one user that “drones are the new trend on the battlefield.”

A tweet from Musk, a major figure in US politics and economics, sent shares of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, the companies behind the F-35, crashing. Among them, Lockheed Martin shares fell 3.75%, hit a new low in nearly four months; Northrop Grumman shares fell 2.3%, also to a four-month low. Mr Musk’s comments have raised questions about whether he is ready to take action on the Pentagon’s F-35 programme, given that he has recently announced a series of drastic budget cuts.

The F-35

According to reports, the Pentagon issued a statement in March this year, approving the full speed production of F-35 fighters. The Pentagon called it a major achievement for the F-35 program.

The total cost of the F-35 program could reach $2 trillion, according to data released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in May, making it “the most expensive fighter jet program to date.”

Musk has been critical of the F-35, arguing that the human-piloted aircraft is obsolete and that drones are the main trend in the future battlefield. In general, Musk wants to develop autonomous fighter jets that can be controlled remotely.

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Project, an independent nonprofit group in Washington, released a report saying the F-35 fleet was less reliable, maintainable and available than expected. In a summary, the report identified “seven deadly SINS” in the F-35: the onboard automatic fault diagnosis system issued warnings every hour, compared with the original design standard of “every 50 hours”; The actual maintenance time is twice the prescribed time; Warplanes often operate with their outer coatings in need of repair and without full stealth. The 25mm machine gun on the Air Force’s F-35A “remains unable to hit its target due to design and installation issues”; Details of the F-35’s ability to withstand cyberattacks on 24 of its most sensitive systems were removed, but the abraded version still said there was “limited knowledge of the vulnerabilities of actual aircraft”; The F-35’s advertised goal is to fight “state-of-the-art” aircraft, but in practice it has only used “state-of-the-art” imaginary enemy aircraft once; If the F-35 is deployed overseas, it needs a lot of logistics equipment and parts.

In recent years, whether in the Russia-Ukraine battlefield or in the Middle East battlefield, we can often see the shadow of the UAV. In another tweet, Musk said that using a manned aircraft to extend the range of a missile or drop ammunition is a very inefficient way. “You can do this repeatedly with a drone.”

The use of drones can also avoid the overhead of pilots, Musk argues, and the so-called “stealth performance” of expensive aircraft is meaningless, which can easily be shot down by an opponent’s drone through low-light sensitive cameras or artificial intelligence systems.

In response to Mr Musk’s claims, the Pentagon said: “The warfighter we have today is performing very well.” A spokesman for Lockheed Martin said its jets were “the most powerful in the world” and that it looked forward to working with Trump and his team in the future.

Some of Musk’s criticisms of the F-35 program are valid, but he has a problem with his thinking, said Mauro Jelli, a senior research fellow in military technology at ETH Zurich’s Center for Security Studies. “The F-35 program does have cost overruns and takes, as Musk has said. But it has nothing to do with manned aircraft.”

The most important source of costs and problems for warplanes is electronics, especially software, according to Mr. Mauro. “If you’re going to use drones [to achieve the same effect as warplanes], it could be more expensive.” He explained that drones need to operate in hostile airspace and are difficult to control remotely, which requires them to be equipped with more expensive and sophisticated electronics and software than manned warplanes.

“As for Musk’s claim that ‘stealth performance of fighter aircraft is meaningless, and re-using drones can achieve the same effect’, it is also contradictory.” To enter hostile airspace, a drone must have the same stealth capabilities as the F-35, Muro explained.

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