DISCLAIMER: there are rumors

The 2x J-20 had been the aggressors (blue force). During one engagement, the red force had been comprised of AWACS, J-10, J-11, Su-30. There is some confusion here, whether they were J-11/Su-30 or J-16. But the J-10 were at least J-10B, possibly even J-10C. Both KJ-200 and KJ-2000 were part of the exercise but not clear which one was used during that engagements with the J-20. Anyway, at the very early stages of the confrontations, one of the J-20 takes out the AWACS. Once the AWACS was gone J-10s and flankers were completely lost. They were totally unable to locate the J-20. Not clear whether the AWACS itself detected the J-20. All of the Red-force were taken-out by the 2x J-20. It seem even in WVR J-10s and flankers RADARs were unable detect the J-20. There were also rumors about complete confusion between the Red-forces and their ground-control units once the AWACSs were gone. Essentially they were fighting ghosts. And according to more rumors, since things are extremely one-sided, they are planning the bring in counter-stealth assets to even the odds (Probably RADARs JY-50 and systems like DWL001/DWL002).

So even IF part of this is true, yes, the J-20 has made nice handsome debut but it also shows even with AWACS support, how poorly earlier gen fighters like the J-10, J-11 will fare against 5th gen fighters like the F-22 and F-35. If the engagements involved the KJ-2000 with multiple J-10C and they were unable detect the J-20, that is extremely worrisome. J-10C, KJ-2000, KJ-500 are some of the most advanced assets in the PLAAF.

Obviously I can’t speak to the accuracy of the rumors, but I don’t see anything implausible about them. These results would mirror what has happened essentially every other time 5th generation aircraft have flown against 4th generation fighters.

everyone is posting normally except you.
its fine since no names are being mentioned.

I nominate this post as the forum’s most ridiculous claim or statement.

You’ve obviously lost the scope of the topic.. You are discussing peacetime conditions but the topic is about the aircraft being forced to operate from dispersed roads after the few RCAF main bases have been attacked by the invading force (say Russians). It’s no more about spending an additional $200K/yr on a set of professionals, it’s about finding any, at all.

Just to make sure I don’t lose the “scope of the topic.”

Are you imagining an airborne or amphibious invasion? Also, have you seen a map?

Something more than a nominal ‘let’s show we can do it’ PR exercise. Recent history suggests that two or three weeks might be typical for a military crisis that warrants off-base deployment.

Some 20 years after the event, this old man’s memory cannot recall whether he was shown an engine change ‘in the field’, but a fault with the structure or hydraulics will render an aircraft hors de combat for some time irrespective of where it is based. The crews I saw were able to identify and replace faulty avionics LRUs.

Non-Saab items that go wrong at the off-road deployment site will obviously have to be swapped out with a replacement.

My experience at that exercise twenty years ago showed time and time again the detailed engineering which Saab had applied to making the aircraft easy to maintain when off base. What most of these details were I have long forgotten, and the relevant notebooks are either gone to landfill or mouldering in my garage. But what I do remember is being stunningly impressed by what I saw – and this old aerospace engineer is not easily impressed.

I appreciate your perspective, but I hope you understand it doesn’t really help for comparison purposes.

There are other forces equipped with different aircraft that train to operate from roads. I don’t see any reason to assume Sweden or the Gripen have any meaningful advantage absent some evidence.

Again, even if another aircraft required a larger compliment of ground crew or a couple more trucks, would that really matter? Obviously at some point it would become unwieldy but the numbers being discussed are a long way from there.

It is one thing to operate briefly from road bases, but having the ability to do this for long periods of time away from fixed-base maintenance facilities is not so common.

How do you define “long periods of time” and why do you think Sweden or the Gripen are better trained or equipped to function away from fixed bases than say… Singapore?

I don’t doubt that Sweden is among the better forces at this type of operations so this isn’t in any way a slight of the Swedes or the Gripen. My issues comes in where people start seeking to make comparisons absent any evidence. Finland is right next door. They have a similar philosophy for roadway operations but they use F-18s. They even train together…

In summary :

“Sweden/Gripen trains extensively to operate away from fixed infrastructure and can probably do so in wartime.” No debate from me.

“Sweden/Gripen are better than aircraft X at operating away form fixed infrastructure and can probably do so better in wartime.” I am going to need to see some real evidence.

Having been to see that first off-base deployment in Sweden, I have. The reservists who were maintaining the aircraft were all new to the type, and had had less than two weeks of experience in working on it.

…and what sort of “maintenance” were they performing? Refueling the plane? Re-arming? No problem… but as I assume you know aircraft maintenance includes a variety of specialized skill sets including hydraulics, air structures, propulsion, avionics, etc.

The Gripen as a modern aircraft will require all of these at various intervals and these are not skills that anyone, conscript or otherwise, can learn in two weeks. This is a simple statement of fact that should not result in any debate.

If a Gripen is flying in wartime sooner or later its targeting pod, IRST, etc will break. These aren’t magic Saab specific pieces of equipment. They are either identical to or adapted from similar systems on other fighters. When they break they will need to be fixed for the Gripen to remain fully mission capable. These repairs will not be performed by conscripts with two weeks of training.

So in summary, what constitutes maintenance? It sounds like what Saab is really talking about with their claims of two trucks and 8 guys or whatever is more akin to refueling and rearming. That is certainly not a sufficient compliment of guys to keep the a Gripen flying on an indefinite basis.

It is details like that and many more (rather than ‘magic pixie dust’), that make up the Saab approach. I am not aware of any other company whose fighters have (for example) built-in test indicator lamps in an undercarriage wheel well that will tell the ground team which of the aircraft’s LRUs needs to be changed. That sort of attention to detail has to be part of the design approach – it cannot be done as an afterthought.

Ok, so it has indicator lights? What approaches do other fighters use?

Again, aircraft like the F-35 have a tremendous amount of built in test/intelligent maintenance technology built in. How do these approaches compare in practice?

I don’t have a problem agreeing that the Gripen is well suited to being operated at remote sites, but it isn’t the only fighter designed to do so and I have never seen any real comparison to another fighter sufficient to support the assertion that it is appreciably better.

Even if we could somehow establish that the Gripen needed only 8 guys and two trucks to keep the plane flying for a certain period of time and an F-18 required twice as many… 16 guys and four trucks. So what? In terms of real-world operations how big a handicap is needing 16 guys rather than 8? or four trucks instead of two?

Any plane can land and take off from a highway, given it is long enough and wide enough.
What makes the strategy useful, is if the plane can be easily serviced at the highway base,
and if the base can be easily moved to another location.

True enough, but I have never seen any actual evidence that the Gripen has an advantage there.

All forces that anticipate operating from roadways in wartime understand the need for maintenance, etc, to keep their force viable. They wouldn’t be practicing operating from a highway without considering the necessity of staying mobile and keeping their planes mission capable.

The F-35B in particular is envisioned as operating in the manner you described to stay ahead of enemy targeting efforts:

DSO Defined- Distributed short take-off, vertical land (STOVL) operations (DSO) is a threat-based limited objective operation which occurs primarily when the entire MAGTF cannot be brought to bear against the enemy. DSO asymmetrically moves inside of the enemy targeting cycle by using multiple mobile forward arming and refueling points (M-FARPs). Using existing infrastructure (multi-lane roads, small airfields, damaged main bases), DSO provides strategic depth and operational resiliency to the joint force. DSO, coupled with the 5thgeneration low observable forcible entry capability of the F-35B, provides the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) with game-changing strategic access inside of the enemy weapons engagement zone (WEZ). The ability to operate inside of an A2/AD environment from multiple austere locations enables the joint force to have operational depth while simultaneously providing a strong deterrence to adversary aggression.

DSO Characteristics- Can be executed with sea based or land based logistics and land sites. Shared logistics assets (whether from ships or main bases)support numerous dispersed M-FARPs through mobile distribution sites.-Austere M-FARPs enable concept to be implemented at the time of crisis rather than requiring years of infrastructure preparation.-DSO can rely on a passive defense if not operating in the vicinity of a main base or from a damaged main base airfield. M-FARPs are only active for a limited period of time to operate inside of an enemies targeting cycle (24-72 hrs). Deception and decoys further increased the efficacy of DSO.-Scalable in size, DSO can range from MEU sized F-35B divisions supported by MV-22s/CH-53s to MEB sized multiple squadron packages. The specific footprint ashore is scenario based for designated M-FARPs.-During the early phase of operations, the air combat element (ACE) is the supported effort and the ground combat element (GCE) and logistics combat element (LCE) are the supporting efforts in order to deploy and employ STOVL aircraft in an A2/AD environment.-DSO study (Feb ‘14)) has proven the concept is logistically feasible using organic MEU/MEB air and surface connectors along with maritime prepositioning ship squadron (MPSRON) and Combat Logistics Force (CLF) ships.-Scheduled aircraft maintenance conducted on sea base (LHA, LHD or a coalition carrier, such as the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II) or at main base away from threat. DSO provides high sortie generation through fuel and ordnance reload inside of the threat WEZ.

See slides 37-38.

https://marinecorpsconceptsandprograms.com/sites/default/files/files/2015%20Marine%20Aviation%20Plan.pdf

Note I have previously provided you this information, in this thread no less, so I know you should know this by now.

You did just invent it or maybe you’re just not familiar with the topic.

The ‘entire F-35 operation’ isn’t reliant on the ALIS, only the logistics are. An ALIS failure could take the entire fleet offline, but it will not make it inoperable, just like the GPS conking out doesn’t render my car inoperable. The maintenance element of the ALIS is just an issue of getting the stable final version of the system released, which will be well before the RCAF receives any new aircraft.

Combat operations can continue without ALIS support for a month or more, running on the same kind of ad hoc logistics support that the Gripen E will have in the wilderness.

Of course this has all been explained to him over and over again, which won’t stop him trolling again in the future.

Lula accused to have promoted Gripen (using his influence on his party). His son would have got 2.5 million real from Marcondes and Mautoni, a PR firms working for SAAB.

http://investir.lesechos.fr/actions/actualites/bresil-lula-accuse-d-avoir-favorise-le-chasseur-gripen-de-saab-1616188.php

Corruption, in Brazil?