hopsalotMy point is that F-35 fanboys have to accept that the F-35 has drawbacks, that it won’t have real SEAD weapon before a long time and that will most probably require support from jamming platforms at least for initial strikes. And also that the weapon it will carry and other weapons are far from being fullproof. This reminds me of the air campaign over Kosovo where the HARM had a near zero pk. If we had had that discussion before that air campaign a lot of people here would have said that of course the HARM would be ‘quite’ successful and that there are many other weapons systems alternatives to use, yeah right.
Who exactly do you think you are arguing with?
Besides rambling off a bunch of simplistic garbage that applies to every fighter flying today what are you contributing?
hopsalotBecause it is pure conjecture that a slow non stealthy glide bomb coming from high altitude would be easy to shoot down? right…
Finally something specific after usless blabla…
The SDBII won’t be operational on the F-35 before probably 2021 or even 2023 depending on when it will be integrated (block 4.2 or block 4.3). Also the F-35 will be detected if it tried to drop its SDB2 from high altitude. But I agreee that would be the best hope as it would be easier to saturate the target with 8 bombs onboard. But it would be very risky. Next…
The TLAM is not stealthy, it will be detected and killed if it tries to loiter to find its target. Next…
The JDAM doesn’t have enough range. And can probably be shot down. Next…
JSOW-C. The C has a penetration warhead, not really suited. Will be shot down. Next…
JSOW-ER. Won’t be integrated in the F-35 for quite some time. Will be shot down.
What’s needed is either a real ARM missile if such a missile can track the emissions of those radars with a terminal seeker ( like AARGM ), either mini cruise missiles that can be launched from very low altitude like the SPEAR III, or a really steathy cruise missile like JASSM-ER with an ARM + terminal seeker.
Hmm no, the TLAM would be easy to shoot down by a modern defense system, especially if it has to fly high to find its target. In previous war not many had been shot down because they were flying very low and because SAM systems were less effective against targets flying very low.
Again the NGSC won’t be operational before many years. The F-35 will be underarmed to deal with that kind of target. The enemy knows very well that these radars are very important, so they will do everything they can to defend them. Just a good CIWS would kill 90% of the weapons you have suggested. Add to that a good short range SAM system and they would be extremely hard to destroy.
Ok, this is just getting stupid. Every incoming missile/munition will be shot down. F-35 stealth won’t work. Updating cruise missiles in flight won’t work. Jammers won’t work, decoys and anti-radiation missiles won’t work, blah blah blah.
What exactly is your point? Honestly if we took what you were asserting at face value then there is no point in even attempting to employ air power. Every complaint you have about the F-35 applies to all other operational fighters, only more so.
hopsalotWow, saying the word “Ukraine” is like kicking a troll nest.
hopsalotWith the skunk works effort they will aim to reduce time not only for fielding but also for subsequent capability drops. This would most likely translate to other increments as well. The cautious approach to working with a new material and requirements that are significantly challenging is probably the result of the long lead time and the way the INC 1 is structured. The software based system and the open architecture would probably provide a multi-fold decrease in time required for adding new capability compared to the legacy product so thats where I see the capability acquisition agility really coming through. For INC 2 and 3 they will probably be a little more aggressive.The current EMD phase is around 4-5 years so they aren’t doing very bad already if they stick to the timelines or in fact improve upon them due to the reduced footprint of the reporting structure. I am more interested to see what timelines Boeing and BaE deliver EPAWSS to the eagle fleet and what’s going on outside of the JSF block development with the cyber pod etc.
Here is a recent story on the short-term USAF/AFRL Tactical Fighter DEW activities. Flight demonstrations for this are also planned around 2020-2021.
AFRL seeks podded system for fighter jet laser demonstration
Exciting times… sounds like traditional dogfighting maneuverability really won’t be much of a factor in coming years. Stealth, speed, endurance and lasers…
hopsalotDepends on what China’s territorial ambitions in the SCS actually are.
I think China’s military and surveillance ambitions for the SCS are pretty obvious — i.e.: the ability to monitor airspace and surface of SCS with high capability military presence of their own to counter permanent US presence there and to track US surveillance flights near Hainan — but whether China actually wants to create EEZs around the new artificial islands is a whole different matter.
China already claims the SCS as its territory so I don’t think there is any need to debate what their intentions might be.
China at this point seems to be deliberately maintaining a high sense of strategic ambiguity in terms of its territorial intent for the SCS and the nine dash line.
What is ambiguous about claiming it as your sovereign territory and then moving to create facts on the ground to support that claim?
Personally I think China would be open to multiple bilateral or even limited multilateral negotiations to settle the SCS disputes territorially, but would want to do so from a position of relative negotiating power without influence from outside powers like the US.
The US isn’t even a claimant in the SCS so I don’t see what this has to do with the US. The real dispute is between those states that actually have plausible claims to the SCS, and China isn’t one of them. The nearest undisputed Chinese territory is Hainan island… 600 miles away. Vietnam Malaysia, and the Philippines are half that distance or less.
hopsalotThe question remains why would China invest massive amounts into military technology just to get satisfied with conferring together with countries like Philippines.. I don’t think they care about being called adults more than they care about expanding their EEZ in any thinkable way..
Clearly what they are doing is a land (sea) grab… something the civilized world rejected some time back. It isn’t hard to understand what they are doing or why. People are just pointing out that it is wrong and ultimately destructive.
hopsalotOK, what would you suggest as a solution?
Ideally, diplomacy. .. get states to behave like adults. That said, territorial disputes tend to be zero sum games and are difficult to resolve.
The solution certainly isn’t to start building tiny islands a thousand miles from your nearest real territory just large enough to house a military base.
hopsalot[ATTACH=CONFIG]245603[/ATTACH]
It doesn’t look good.
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That map really drives home just how much of a naked territory grab this is on China’s part. Reasonable people can disagree about whether tiny islands incapable of truly supporting human habitation should qualify as “territory” for the purposes of calculating EEZs… but anyone with a brain can see that if those islets belong to anyone it isn’t China.
The world doesn’t need to see a wave of island building wherever seas are shallow just so one state or another can claim possession of thousands of miles of ocean resources.
hopsalotI think they have not got things right at all. $500 million per aircraft over 30 years sounds far too high. That cost to purchase and use a fighter for 6,000 hours equates to $80,000+ for each hour it is flown.
All three F-35 variants are 8,000 hr airframes, which is one of the cost saving measures built into the program. Most (all?) of its competitors would expect to need a life extension effort at some point to reach 8,000 hours.
Also, calculating cost per flight hour in that way really doesn’t work. (or doesn’t yield a useful answer anyway) How much of that cost is infrastructure, simulators, weapons, etc?
hopsalotThe Pentagon and State Department have already approved the orders of 36 F-15s to Qatar and 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to Kuwait. The deals are valued at $4 billion and $3 billion, respectively, sources told Reuters.
If those prices prove accurate it would pretty well blow away other recent fighter deals.
hopsalotA-10 was not however intended to use dumb bombs but maverick missiles against warsaw pact formations.
Want me to find you some pictures of A-10s with dumb bombs and rockets? Are we really going to play that game? Yes, the A-10 can use the Maverick… more recently it has gained the ability to use a wide variety of smart weapons.
If you want to see the main weapon that will be replacing the Maverick you will find it is a glide bomb…
hopsalotAt the contrary, it’s dropping bombs from hight thaneed someone designating targets with precision and to illuminate with laser.
Or maybe you can ask ISIS or taliban to stay in a fixed and exposed position while assaulting your own troops.
You realize an aircraft can provide its own laser designation, right? For that matter there are IR and MMW guided weapons that can hit a moving target without laser designation. (besides, most CAS targets are not actually moving)
Boys, please! Troops in a battlefield just use to move, INS/GPS weaponry are an absurdity against such targets!
Do you have any idea how many people JDAMs have killed during CAS missions in the last decade of war?
This last one just confirm me that in some places, the same idea of what is a Cas mission has been completely erased by memory.
So you really think that a plane in CAS have to take off from base just when it is called and coordinates for GPS are know in advance? Oh, men.
Nobody has suggested any such thing. An aircraft may or may not be on station at the time a request for air support is made. Certainly there is no need for the aircraft to know the coordinates of the target at the time of takeoff. A targeting pod can provide that or a forward air control can relay the necessary information the the aircraft.
hopsalotMaybe it can be obsolete but the other you describe is not CAS at all.
The “close” in close air support refers to the proximity of the enemy to friendlies… not the distance of the platform providing the air support from the enemies.
Back when the A-10 was designed close air support meant dumb bombs, rockets, and guns. To employ these weapons effectively the aircraft needed to be at low altitude and close range. This is no longer the preferred approach.
Just coming, dropping bomb on predesignate targets and going away has nothing to do with it, it is just the normal bombing that every attack plane usually do.
I suggested nothing of the sort. Perhaps you are unaware that there are a variety of weapons that can hit both fixed and moving targets from altitude and at significant standoff ranges.
Actually, the International coalition is using A-10 and their guns to support Kurds troops in N.Aleppo and Hama province and when it decided to follow russian and finally bomb oil smugglers trucks they used the same A-10 and AC-130.
So please, let’s go tell them they are obsolete.
The Islamic State has no meaningful air defense. A P-51 would work perfectly fine against them…
hopsalotWhat a monumental waste of money!
Jammers like Growler are useless unless they have line of sight to the targeted radar, and the jammer needs to be roughly in line with the threat radar and the jets the jammer is defending. Big, heavy, draggy pods limit the altitude/airspeed at which a Growler can operate. This can place the Growler well within range of enemy anti-radiation homing SAMs.
I suspect the jammer pod program isn’t about finding a way to make Gen 4 F/A-18s safe. Its really a jobs program for NAVAIR bureaucrats.
Write a letter to the Navy… save us all from this terrible waste.
hopsalotIMHO the main problem is always the same: CAS (the real one, not launching glide bombs from fifty miles away) is something USAF do not want to do at all but in the same time it will never accept that it and the related fundings would go to the Army.
This is a completely obsolete view of what constitutes CAS. Loitering low and slow over the enemy is simply suicide against a modern adversary. Any future CAS platform can be expected to rely on various glide bombs and possibly lasers, employed from altitude with the aid of advanced sensors.
The “operate in a contested environment” is a limitation than can apply to legacy A-10 but not to a CAS platform in itself.
Nothing bar them to be stealth or to have a fairly decent ECM protection suite at all: essential for the role is instead to have good low speed/low altitude handling and the ability and roughness to operate from forward bases so to give a round o’clock cover to ground forces.
If you are flying low and slow over the battlefield stealth and ECM won’t help all that much. Similarly, aircraft like the F-35B are already designed to operate from forward operating bases, but that isn’t the only way to achieve round the clock coverage. Experience in recent wars has shown that bombers have the endurance to provide coverage even when operating from a thousand miles away.
I strongly suspect that if a new CAS platform is defined it will look a lot more like an enlarged Scorpion than an A-10. Two crew, one to manage the sensors, weapons, and possibly networked UAVs… the other to fly the plane and maintain overall situational awareness. Long endurance, the ability to carry a large and varied load of munitions, and strong networking and sensors so that it can effectively direct ever longer ranged artillery. (100 mile range railguns could provide most of the firepower if the A-X could provide the targeting.)
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