F-22 arsenal waning with no replacement in sight.....

[justoffal]

Lefty strikes again! Spectacularly miscalculating the ability of foreign airplane manufacturers to come up with a peer mode to answer the F-22. Recently some wary pentagon officals got the bug and ordered up a quick audit of our ability to start building the F-22 air frame once again.....BAD NEWS......crates that conatined the machine parts are empty....machinists who were trained on the job are dead or retired with no current workforce capabilities ( this would take up to ten years to re-develop ) and the instructions seem to be missing for many of the compnent pieces. Hmmm.....hey lefty are you drunk or something? In short the entire program that once churned out the world's finest fighter jet is in total shambles.


https://warisboring.com/read-for-yo...ng-dogfighting-report-719a4e66f3eb#.t5el7x7kr

The pricey new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — the main new warplane for the U.S. military and many of America’s closest allies — can’t turn fast enough to defeat other jet fighters in close aerial combat.

In other words, the F-35 is dead meat in a real war against a determined foe.

But don’t take it from us. Below, we’re posting an F-35 test pilot’s own accountfrom mock air battles in January.

In the mean time we have:

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/americas-f-22-raptor-vs-chinas-stealth-j-20-who-wins-13813



And also:


http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...-fa-fighter-superior-americas-f-22-f-35-13034

 

[justoffal]

Adding to our waning military prowess and woes on the battlefield not only are the competitors offensive capabilities growing much faster than our own but both China and Russia have peak capabilities in defense that directly counter our strengths.
The s-400 missile system pictured below is rumored to have taken down several f-22's already.

The Chinese have an effective answer to our carrier groups. They got the look down technology from traitor Bill Clinton who just gave it to them. Hmm....could explain all of those Chinese donations to the foundation eh?

 

[Arkady]

Lefty strikes again! Spectacularly miscalculating the ability of foreign airplane manufacturers to come up with a peer mode to answer the F-22. Recently some wary pentagon officals got the bug and ordered up a quick audit of our ability to start building the F-22 air frame once again.....BAD NEWS......crates that conatined the machine parts are empty....machinists who were trained on the job are dead or retired with no current workforce capabilities ( this would take up to ten years to re-develop ) and the instructions seem to be missing for many of the compnent pieces. Hmmm.....hey lefty are you drunk or something? In short the entire program that once churned out the world's finest fighter jet is in total shambles.


https://warisboring.com/read-for-yo...ng-dogfighting-report-719a4e66f3eb#.t5el7x7kr

The pricey new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — the main new warplane for the U.S. military and many of America’s closest allies — can’t turn fast enough to defeat other jet fighters in close aerial combat.

In other words, the F-35 is dead meat in a real war against a determined foe.

But don’t take it from us. Below, we’re posting an F-35 test pilot’s own accountfrom mock air battles in January.

In the mean time we have:

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/americas-f-22-raptor-vs-chinas-stealth-j-20-who-wins-13813

View attachment 31997

And also:


http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...-fa-fighter-superior-americas-f-22-f-35-13034

Our Air Force is vastly overfunded, especially when it comes to air superiority fighters. The defense industry, of course, is forever pushing these panicked stories about America falling behind, to pry even more money out of the taxpayer. That's been the case at least back to the ridiculous panic over the missile gap. Even in the 1980s, with the Soviet Union on its last legs, we got a steady drum beat of stories insisting we were falling behind and needed to spend more, more, more.

Now, if the PAK-FA truly is superior to the F-22, then step one should be a close investigation of our entire military supply chain, from the fat cats at Lockheed to the pork barrel specialists in Congress, to the military brass awaiting their turn to go through the revolving door to seven-figure salaries in the private defense sector. Because a PAK-FA costs around $50 million and the F-22 costs $150 million, so if we're pissing away three times as much money for a worse plane, somebody has screwed up big time.

The truth is, though, the PAK-FA isn't anywhere in the same league as the F-22. For example, the radar cross section of the PAK-FA is estimated to be about ten times as big as the one for the F-22. And there's also just the issue of numbers. Russia is planning on buying 12 PAK-FAs by 2017:

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-f-35-really-stacks-up-against-russias-su-35-2015-11

By comparison, the US already has 195 F-22s, and that doesn't even count the roughly comparable next-generation F-35, of which we have 71, with 1763 planned. Yes, some have questioned the F-35's dogfighting abilities. But, tell me, do you know when the last time a jet was shot down in a dog fight was? There hasn't even been a dogfight in almost 30 years. In the modern era, jets are shot out of the sky from a great distance with missiles, and the F-35 was designed to win those fights, not the fights that were already exceedingly rare a generation ago, and haven't been seen in decades.

The desire to panic the perpetually gullible American taxpayer into throwing still more money at the defense industry is understandable, for those who stand to profit. But I'm not falling for it.

 

[justoffal]

Our Air Force is vastly overfunded, especially when it comes to air superiority fighters. The defense industry, of course, is forever pushing these panicked stories about America falling behind, to pry even more money out of the taxpayer. That's been the case at least back to the ridiculous panic over the missile gap. Even in the 1980s, with the Soviet Union on its last legs, we got a steady drum beat of stories insisting we were falling behind and needed to spend more, more, more.

Now, if the PAK-FA truly is superior to the F-22, then step one should be a close investigation of our entire military supply chain, from the fat cats at Lockheed to the pork barrel specialists in Congress, to the military brass awaiting their turn to go through the revolving door to seven-figure salaries in the private defense sector. Because a PAK-FA costs around $50 million and the F-22 costs $150 million, so if we're pissing away three times as much money for a worse plane, somebody has screwed up big time.

The truth is, though, the PAK-FA isn't anywhere in the same league as the F-22. For example, the radar cross section of the PAK-FA is estimated to be about ten times as big as the one for the F-22. And there's also just the issue of numbers. Russia is planning on buying 12 PAK-FAs by 2017:

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-f-35-really-stacks-up-against-russias-su-35-2015-11

By comparison, the US already has 195 F-22s, and that doesn't even count the roughly comparable next-generation F-35, of which we have 71, with 1763 planned. Yes, some have questioned the F-35's dogfighting abilities. But, tell me, do you know when the last time a jet was shot down in a dog fight was? There hasn't even been a dogfight in almost 30 years. In the modern era, jets are shot out of the sky from a great distance with missiles, and the F-35 was designed to win those fights, not the fights that were already exceedingly rare a generation ago, and haven't been seen in decades.

The desire to panic the perpetually gullible American taxpayer into throwing still more money at the defense industry is understandable, for those who stand to profit. But I'm not falling for it.

Sorry Ark...

I know what you position is on these things and I have found that despite your research your bias overshadows your judgement. I'll pull an Arkady on you....

The experts agree that our competitors are gaining ground very quickly and that we are in serious danger of losing our military edge.

The military may be a huge pork barrel but that is a completely different issue altogether.
We have higher labor costs, more corruption, and more expensive supply chain than anyone else. None of that adds up to military capability.

http://sputniknews.com/military/20160501/1038917202/us-military-technological.html

Ultimately, The Hill says, experts agree that "they don't see any fixes to the shrinking technological gap anytime soon. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Arizona) have introduced reforms to fix the acquisition system, but experts say it's too early to tell if their reforms are working."

 

[Arkady]

The s-400 missile system pictured below is rumored to have taken down several f-22's already.

Please point to news stories about that.

Anyway, a little context is in order. Using IISS 2015 numbers, the US spent $597.5 billion on its military. Russia and China COMBINED spent $212.3 billion. So, we're spending about three times as much as our two leading adversaries combined. And, unlike them, we have lots of high-spending allies. The other top-spending militaries in the world are mostly allied closely with the US -- the rest of the top ten is Saudi Arabia (which outspends Russia), the UK, India, France, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. It's true that China's military spending has been rising, but Russia's been falling, and projecting current trends forward, it would take decades before China got close to us.

 

[justoffal]

Please point to news stories about that.

Anyway, a little context is in order. Using IISS 2015 numbers, the US spent $597.5 billion on its military. Russia and China COMBINED spent $212.3 billion. So, we're spending about three times as much as our two leading adversaries combined. And, unlike them, we have lots of high-spending allies. The other top-spending militaries in the world are mostly allied closely with the US -- the rest of the top ten is Saudi Arabia (which outspends Russia), the UK, India, France, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. It's true that China's military spending has been rising, but Russia's been falling, and projecting current trends forward, it would take decades before China got close to us.

It doesn't matter....so we spend wastefully ......
We have had this conversation before...spending totals mean nothing at all.

If I buy a VW bug for a demolition derby and pay 10 million dollars for it....and then my opponent buys a ten wheel dump truck for the same derby for 1500 dollars...am I overspending on my defense? The fact is the Chinese get far more bang for their engineering buck than we do. Now they still can't churn out a good jet engine....but give it time..they will figure it out. In any case, GE seems willing to sell them anything and the GE engines are the best available for military. I am constantly beset by this battle in work. When I identify a weakness in a system and then do the parts ordering to fix the problem I have to argue with idiots, bean counters who are looking at the $$$$ tag instead of the performance profile. I can accomadate them to a certain degree by redesigning or re-routing but I always caution them about the compromise costs of such bad practice. My boss has been up my ass more than once to sign off on a system that I refuse to validate because I don't agree with its parameters.

I did in fact, have a few news stories on the F-22 shoot downs....but I can no longer find them on the net. Could be scrubbing or just passage into the older archives. I didn't just pull that out of my ass ..... it has apparently happened.

I don't disagree with you that our Military budget is onerous and crippling.....but I do disagree with you on our preparedness levels. I'm not sure when the public was led to believe that $$$ spending on military is equal to preparedness. They have almost nothing to do with each other these days in light of our wasteful and corrupt supply chain practices.

 

[Arkady]

The experts agree that our competitors are gaining ground very quickly and that we are in serious danger of losing our military edge.

We've been told the same thing at all points in the post-WWII era. The so-called "experts" have a huge financial incentive for insisting that no matter how much we spend, we must spend more, more, more. But, if they're serious, and somehow we're spending almost three times as much as Russia and China combined but still losing our edge, then what's needed isn't to throw even more money at the problem. We need to figure out how those so-called "experts" are diverting our hard-earned tax money into their own pockets, so that it isn't actually buying us much in the way of military capability. If we don't impose that accountability, and instead just respond to their every bleating with a few more buckets of cash, why would they ever change?

We have higher labor costs

No. Although US labor costs are high, they're higher in some other countries.

more corruption, and more expensive supply chain than anyone else

I grew up on military bases. Since my Dad was Army intelligence, we ended up living on both Army and Air Force bases. I noticed that the Air Force bases were always way nicer and I asked why. As my dad explained it, the way the Air Force spent money was to build all the unessential stuff first -- nice swimming pools and movie theaters, well-manicured parks, and fancy housing. Then, when they ran out of money, they could run to Congress and say they didn't have enough to build the air strip and other essentials. Congress, afraid of looking soft on defense, would shovel extra money at them to let them finish. That kind of corruption is, no doubt, an issue. But as long as our instinct is always to shovel more money at these problems, it'll just get worse. We need to get serious about accountability.

If these propagandists are lying about our capabilities --downplaying them to scare more funding out of the taxpayer, they should be held in contempt of Congress or at least discredited and never again regarded as "experts." If, on the other hand, we really do spend vastly more than everyone else with little to show for it, then rather than further gorging the system on pork, we need serious audits to figure out exactly who is cheating us and how. Seriously, if our corruption is somehow worse than that of Communist China and the petrokleptocracy of Russia, then throwing more money at it is the last thing we need.

I don't think we're more corrupt and economically inefficient than Russia and China. Rather, I think there's a deliberate campaign to downplay our capabilities to scare more money out of the taxpayer. It's not hard to see how that game works, either.

Take stealth technology in fighter jets. It's vastly expensive -- a big part of the mind-boggling program costs for the F-22 and F-35. The experts believed it was worth it, given the way air combat has moved away from dog-fighting and towards long-distance missile engagements -- they believed the stealthier aircraft would win, so they'd prefer to have even one F-35 to the six or seven F-16s they could have bought with the same money. Yet, stealth technology also imposes a cost in greater weight and less ideal aerodynamics. So, all they have to do, then, is match an F-35 with an F-16 in a dogfight, where the F-35 is at a huge disadvantage because of all that expensive stealth technology, and then they can whine all the way to the bank when the F-16 outperforms it. "Oh, god, oh god, the F-35 isn't very good, hand us more money!" It's just amazing anyone falls for such a transparent game!

You see this specifically when it comes to the way military games are set up. For example, the US and India will face of in a "Red Flag" exercise, where the rules will be gamed heavily in India's favor -- for example, the US isn't allowed to use AESAs, and AMRAAMs get restricted to short range and visual targetting (since India has nothing to counter with). Plus, India gets three times as many aircraft per engagement. Then, when India does "surprisingly well" in that artificial match-up that rigged the odds, that can serve as the basis for a bunch of breathless military-porn-outlet pronouncements that our military is degrading and we must spend more, more, more. Seriously, how is anyone falling for it?

 

[Arkady]

It doesn't matter....so we spend wastefully ......
We have had this conversation before...spending totals mean nothing at all.

I'm so glad to hear that! Then let's cut our military budget to $200 billion per year, and you can focus on ways to spend that money more wisely to make the military more capable. Maybe we could start by canceling the F-35 program and just buy up Russian Surplus, since we've been told those Russian planes are better in addition to being so very much cheaper. We'll save almost $400 billion per year for the taxpayer, and since "spending totals mean nothing at all," there's not reason to think there will be any cost to pay for that cut.

What a relief to know spending doesn't actually matter.

I did in fact, have a few news stories on the F-22 shoot downs....but I can no longer find them on the net. Could be scrubbing or just passage into the older archives. I didn't just pull that out of my ass ..... it has apparently happened.

I don't suspect you of pulling them out of your ass. But I do suspect they weren't credible reports -- just the usual propaganda to scare more money out of the taxpayer.

 

[justoffal]

We've been told the same thing at all points in the post-WWII era. The so-called "experts" have a huge financial incentive for insisting that no matter how much we spend, we must spend more, more, more. But, if they're serious, and somehow we're spending almost three times as much as Russia and China combined but still losing our edge, then what's needed isn't to throw even more money at the problem. We need to figure out how those so-called "experts" are diverting our hard-earned tax money into their own pockets, so that it isn't actually buying us much in the way of military capability. If we don't impose that accountability, and instead just respond to their every bleating with a few more buckets of cash, why would they ever change?



No. Although US labor costs are high, they're higher in some other countries.

I grew up on military bases. Since my Dad was Army intelligence, we ended up living on both Army and Air Force bases. I noticed that the Air Force bases were always way nicer and I asked why. As my dad explained it, the way the Air Force spent money was to build all the unessential stuff first -- nice swimming pools and movie theaters, well-manicured parks, and fancy housing. Then, when they ran out of money, they could run to Congress and say they didn't have enough to build the air strip and other essentials. Congress, afraid of looking soft on defense, would shovel extra money at them to let them finish. That kind of corruption is, no doubt, an issue. But as long as our instinct is always to shovel more money at these problems, it'll just get worse. We need to get serious about accountability.

If these propagandists are lying about our capabilities --downplaying them to scare more funding out of the taxpayer, they should be held in contempt of Congress or at least discredited and never again regarded as "experts." If, on the other hand, we really do spend vastly more than everyone else with little to show for it, then rather than further gorging the system on pork, we need serious audits to figure out exactly who is cheating us and how. Seriously, if our corruption is somehow worse than that of Communist China and the petrokleptocracy of Russia, then throwing more money at it is the last thing we need.

I don't think we're more corrupt and economically inefficient than Russia and China. Rather, I think there's a deliberate campaign to downplay our capabilities to scare more money out of the taxpayer. It's not hard to see how that game works, either.

Take stealth technology in fighter jets. It's vastly expensive -- a big part of the mind-boggling program costs for the F-22 and F-35. The experts believed it was worth it, given the way air combat has moved away from dog-fighting and towards long-distance missile engagements -- they believed the stealthier aircraft would win, so they'd prefer to have even one F-35 to the six or seven F-16s they could have bought with the same money. Yet, stealth technology also imposes a cost in greater weight and less ideal aerodynamics. So, all they have to do, then, is match an F-35 with an F-16 in a dogfight, where the F-35 is at a huge disadvantage because of all that expensive stealth technology, and then they can whine all the way to the bank when the F-16 outperforms it. "Oh, god, oh god, the F-35 isn't very good, hand us more money!" It's just amazing anyone falls for such a transparent game!

You see this specifically when it comes to the way military games are set up. For example, the US and India will face of in a "Red Flag" exercise, where the rules will be gamed heavily in India's favor -- for example, the US isn't allowed to use AESAs, and AMRAAMs get restricted to short range and visual targetting (since India has nothing to counter with). Plus, India gets three times as many aircraft per engagement. Then, when India does "surprisingly well" in that artificial match-up that rigged the odds, that can serve as the basis for a bunch of breathless military-porn-outlet pronouncements that our military is degrading and we must spend more, more, more. Seriously, how is anyone falling for it?

Interesting charts....but I notice that neither China Nor Russia even appear in the data series. This is my point... The chinese are churning out 300,000 engieers per year out of their universites. The sheer number advantage alone will take its toll over the next decade. Chinese kids are doing calculus at age 12.

I believe that we still " Kick Ass " but I also believe that we are losing that capability very quickly...the evidence is not good in that regard. I am sure that large contractors like Pratt, GD, GE and others like to ring the alarm bell so they can feed on the public funds....I have no doubt about that. But I have also been around the manufacturing sector for a while ( can't get too specific you understand ) and I see first hand what goes on in the cost arena...it isn't good. That is as much a threat to national security as anything else is. I have also seen people carted away in cuffs by the FEDS more than once.

As for the dollar for dollar costs...I really don't think you can compare on a linear basis. For instance if I order an American made part that is a piece of sht for ten thousand dollars and then have to replace it five times in five years....whereas I buy a German made part ( this comes from real experience btw ) that simply will not die for thirty thousand dollars....who is paying more for real, intrinsic manufacturing prowess?

Additionally let's consider Factor of Saftey margins....I have to deal with them all the time.
How much does it cost to be number one? Ten percent more? Twenty percent more? I once herad a speech by a defense expert on campus who said the following about that subject.

""Being number one is very different from being 2 or 3. Number one means you have enough to defeat 2 and 3 combined and still have enough left over to fight number 4 effectively.""

Is that expensive? Hell yes.

In a mock computer battle some of our geeks put together we had five f-35's up against one f-22.... the result?

Five dead f-35's in less than ten minutes.

JO

 

[justoffal]

I'm so glad to hear that! Then let's cut our military budget to $200 billion per year, and you can focus on ways to spend that money more wisely to make the military more capable. Maybe we could start by canceling the F-35 program and just buy up Russian Surplus, since we've been told those Russian planes are better in addition to being so very much cheaper. We'll save almost $400 billion per year for the taxpayer, and since "spending totals mean nothing at all," there's not reason to think there will be any cost to pay for that cut.

What a relief to know spending doesn't actually matter.



I don't suspect you of pulling them out of your ass. But I do suspect they weren't credible reports -- just the usual propaganda to scare more money out of the taxpayer.

I'm so glad to hear that! Then let's cut our military budget to $200 billion per year, and you can focus on ways to spend that money more wisely to make the military more capable. Maybe we could start by canceling the F-35 program and just buy up Russian Surplus, since we've been told those Russian planes are better in addition to being so very much cheaper. We'll save almost $400 billion per year for the taxpayer, and since "spending totals mean nothing at all," there's not reason to think there will be any cost to pay for that cut.


You should not be glad....

Obviously despite the fact that you grew up on Military bases...you were not paying attention to the procurement process. If this was a peanut butter factory I would say ...yeah...go ahead and make the cuts and then let them figure out how to be more efficient later. But you simply cannot do that with the defense industry. Machines rust, knowledge fades and experience goes away. BTW the collective bargaining that pervades that industry interestingly were overwhelming in their support for Bernie Sanders....how do you figure that?

JO

 

[Arkady]

Interesting charts....but I notice that neither China Nor Russia even appear in the data series.

Yes. The Chinese and Russians do have lower labor costs. But they also have brain drain issues we don't have because of the low pay scales. Many of the best and brightest end up leaving and they're left to try to make do with what's left. When was the last innovative product to come out of China? I don't mean the last one to be mass-produced in China for a non-Chinese company, where the brain work was already done elsewhere. I mean the last actual Chinese product worth mentioning.

This is my point... The chinese are churning out 300,000 engieers per year out of their universites. The sheer number advantage alone will take its toll over the next decade. Chinese kids are doing calculus at age 12.

Some of them are. But there's still widespread ignorance in rural China. People get deceived by the fact that China just highlights the showplace schools systems in places like Shanghai. When you zoom back and look at the country as a whole, only about 10% of the population even has a college degree (compared to 44% in the US). They're on par with Indonesia and Brazil.

How much does it cost to be number one?

$1 more than being number two.

"Being number one is very different from being 2 or 3. Number one means you have enough to defeat 2 and 3 combined and still have enough left over to fight number 4 effectively.""

Yet, outside of the realm of the paranoid, does that even begin to make sense? In which other walk of life would we say that? For example, last year the Denver Broncos were the NFL's best team. Let's say Carolina and New England were 2 and 3. Could the Broncos have beaten a combined Carolina/New England squad? Could they have done so while simultaneously fielding their backups to compete effectively with Arizona's starters? Similarly, could the Cavaliers have beaten a lineup of Michael Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thomson, and Draymond Green, while still leaving enough on the bench to come out and compete with the Spurs?

Of course not. In no field do we think the number one has to be much better than the next two combined. It's not true in military matters, either. Answer me this: in the whole history of the human race, how many "number one" militaries can you name that could defeat 2 and 3 combined, with enough left over to fight 4 effectively? In the first six thousand years of human history or so, there wouldn't ever have been a number one military, not even once, using that standard. Even the Romans at their peak wouldn't have met that standard, and the English, Spanish, and French, at their respective peaks, would have fallen far short of it. The US of the modern era is the only one to even come close. So, why pretend that's a requirement?

 

[Arkady]

Machines rust, knowledge fades and experience goes away.

Yes. And all those things can be remedied if a need arises. If we were to spend $200 billion per year on our military, we'd still outspend any other country by a big margin, and together with our closest allies would easily outspend any likely combination of our adversaries. If our enemies end up ramping up, we do the same.

 

[as seen on tv]

I'm not sure that's how its supposed to gain "air superiority".

weren't the major parameters:

• stealth
• supersonic speed for the entire mission
• hover/braking

close turns are nice to have, but if you can't have everything, I might want the 3 things it did deliver.

 

[justoffal]

Yes. The Chinese and Russians do have lower labor costs. But they also have brain drain issues we don't have because of the low pay scales. Many of the best and brightest end up leaving and they're left to try to make do with what's left. When was the last innovative product to come out of China? I don't mean the last one to be mass-produced in China for a non-Chinese company, where the brain work was already done elsewhere. I mean the last actual Chinese product worth mentioning.



Some of them are. But there's still widespread ignorance in rural China. People get deceived by the fact that China just highlights the showplace schools systems in places like Shanghai. When you zoom back and look at the country as a whole, only about 10% of the population even has a college degree (compared to 44% in the US). They're on par with Indonesia and Brazil.



$1 more than being number two.



Yet, outside of the realm of the paranoid, does that even begin to make sense? In which other walk of life would we say that? For example, last year the Denver Broncos were the NFL's best team. Let's say Carolina and New England were 2 and 3. Could the Broncos have beaten a combined Carolina/New England squad? Could they have done so while simultaneously fielding their backups to compete effectively with Arizona's starters? Similarly, could the Cavaliers have beaten a lineup of Michael Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thomson, and Draymond Green, while still leaving enough on the bench to come out and compete with the Spurs?

Of course not. In no field do we think the number one has to be much better than the next two combined. It's not true in military matters, either. Answer me this: in the whole history of the human race, how many "number one" militaries can you name that could defeat 2 and 3 combined, with enough left over to fight 4 effectively? In the first six thousand years of human history or so, there wouldn't ever have been a number one military, not even once, using that standard. Even the Romans at their peak wouldn't have met that standard, and the English, Spanish, and French, at their respective peaks, would have fallen far short of it. The US of the modern era is the only one to even come close. So, why pretend that's a requirement?

$1 more than being number two.

WRONG.

JO