JonesySo somebody has invented passive radar…..again…..and stealth is dead……again!.
Would you need to hit every cell tower, radio station etc in the region you wanted to fly your LO through?. No you might choose to target power generation/distribution facilities though. Knocking out power should cut down on the multitude of RF sources quite dramatically at strike +2hrs or so as the UPS’s discharge!. PCLS is dependent on the passive radar mapping the RF background before the opposing air target transits through. Suddenly robbing it of several of its reference emitting sources will play merry hell with resolution.
There is also the point that PCLS technology doesnt just pick up LO targets, it was originally marketed by LM as a low-cost air traffic control system for states without the ability to support a comprehensive civil radar net, its plot must be interlaced with a conventional radar to pick out the valid LO target from, say, a decoy. PCLS can be decoyed just as readily as a normal radar system can.
I guess this is my application letter for the stealth mafia (would that make me a quiet made man??).
JonesyThey’re shoal waters…if you have a decent current and a lot of sediment drift the subsurface topography can change over even a short period of time.
The presence of the frigate in the claimed Philippines EEZ is no real surprise and neither is a surface ship getting caught out by an unanticipated sandbar in my view. You could question the performance of the duty watchstanding team, and the ships captain may have to answer questions in that regard, but it would be harsh to comment without knowing more about the conditions at the time.
JonesyWhat is this about Vietnam not backing down? Vietnam’s best course of action is to complain to the world that it’s been bullied by the big bad Chinese. It certainly has nowhere near the military power to pose challenge to PLAN SSF.
Vietnams best course of action is to patrol its claims with the exactly the kind of comprehensively equipped escorts its been buying. In that scenario, if China wants to demonstrate a presence, a significant deployment from the SSF will have to be made. China loses either way then as if it doesnt overmatch the Vietnamese its not backing its claims and if it does dispatch a multi-unit force its providing the very visible evidence of the ‘big bad Chinese’ you mention for general international tut-tutting!.
JonesyIn air-air F-35’s advantages, all types, are in the BVR arena. IIR dogfight missiles are now smart enough to choose what part of the airframe they want to hit, are all but immune to flares and turn right-angle corners!. Until the aircraft gets its DIRCM fit (slated for Blk5 last I read) WVR, if your opposition has even current gen IIR missiles, isnt a nice place to play regardless of whether your aircraft can load up 7g’s or 10.
EODAS will give F-35 some advantages in the WVR merge, according to the promotional stuff, that offsets the relative lack of maneouverability….no need to pull through all the turns if your optronics can follow the target at any aspect and slave a missile for the over-the-shoulder shot. A good HMS tied to the dogfight missile on the other guy though means the playing field isnt so decisively tilted in the JSF’s favour.
Compared to what we’ve had before though F-35B is a fair leap in capability and should be easily up to the job.
JonesyExactly, for the UK at least, we’ll use Storm Shadow and its BROACH warhead from standoff if the threat level is high. If threat levels are lower we’ll external carry ordnance.
JonesyA 6″ shell has nowhere even close to the target effects a 250lb bomb has. HiMars with unitary ATACMS can do the same job but its a 1-shot deal isnt it?.
Also a bit of a shame if the arty battery is trajectory masked to target. You’d have to hope those calling for fire can hang on long enough for the arty to relocate to get a clear arc. No such concern from airstrikes.
Arty is fine in its place against a limited target set. Tacair is always more flexible, more capable and more valuable though.
JonesyIf they want an ineffective money-pit, that is their lookout.
Again though the only meaningful difference between F-35B and C is that the STOVL loses a hundred and fifty miles on the strike radius. Otherwise its doing everything important that the CATOBR jet does without the CATOBAR cost burden. Unless you consider F-35C also ineffective, which you dont seem to as you are touting CATOBAR so intently, F-35B cannot be ineffective can it?.
Don’t see why anyone with genuine interest in a naval air capability fit for a modern combat environment would really care.
I guess it depends on how you quantify ‘genuine interest in naval air’. If, to you, that means nothing less than SIOP off Kola or standing-to in the middle of the South China Sea daring the whole PLANAF to come and give it a go…then you are right LHD’s and a couple of short squadrons are not really on the scope. Fortunately though, in the real world, SIOP has gone away and 2 CVN’s with full CATOBAR airwings would have an uncomfortable time daring the PLANAF to ‘come and have a go’!. For everything short of the increasingly unrealistic superpower slugfest STOVL/short deck has a mission and proponents.
Italy is buying it along with UK. Japan is looking intently at the capability for 22DDH and Spain, South Korea and Australia have all expressed interest in it for ops from their LHD’s. Its a flexible capability…a niche capability if you like, but, a damned useful one.
The other important part of what you wrote is your inclusion of the words ‘modern combat environment’. Thats what differentiates the capability lent by a 5th gen LO STOVL design over a Reaper-like UAV solution…it is surviveable and efficient. Could an LO UCAV design work just as well….possibly….but its CATOBAR and we’re back to the expensive ship syndrome. Anyone with a Juan Carlos or a Dokdo sized-throughdeck can buy 22 F-35B’s and pretty much have an immediate, surviveable, 5th gen strike capability anywhere it can deploy and support its fleet. If you dont want to try and invade China today, but, are rather keen on making sure that you can put air cover over a remote island chain or support forces you will put ashore in some allied effort there is your solution in a can!.
JonesyAmiga
The difference in capability between your proposal and the F-35B/STOVL couldnt be starker. Without STOVL, if you have a requirement to deploy naval air and cant or wont run to the wholelife costs of 800ft+, 35k ton, CATOBAR you are looking at very little on the options list. You can try STOBAR but that will only really save you the costs of the catapults and their support.
There are undeniably nations with the requirement for an air capability precisely as defined by fastjet STOVL….maybe some of these will one day step up to CATOBAR…but for the moment short-deck and STOVL ticks the boxes. That this also ties in to the sort of short-field capability that both the USMC and RAF/RN have used operationally is just adding to the sense of developing the technology. It covers both requirements without needing a STOL/STOBAR-capable LO light striker for USMC/UK requirements and a latter-day Sea Harrier FA2/Yak Freestyle type aircraft to meet the expanding short through-deck market.
Predator might come in at a ton but its not even realistically enough capability for local force protection. You’d be better off with a det of attack choppers on the LHD and some Camcopters spread through the escort group.
If the requirement is to carry meaningful ordnance i.e genuine naval tacair you’re looking at Reaper class vehicle which is 9 tonnes not 1!. Thats when you start needing ship-impacting catapult installations (EMKIT was launching up to 1000kg on a 14m rail off low-voltage motors), arrestor engines, angled deck layouts, JPALS etc, etc. So you are now spending money on the ships as well as the aircraft.
JonesyCan we agree that the only main differentiator between STOVL and VTOL is the ability to operate from very small ships? (LHDs)
I’d stay there is a difference between an asset strictly limited to VTOL and an asset that is true STOVL. I’d agree with an earlier contention that a good STOL design would be near enough as useful as a STOVL type in 9 out of 10 scenarios. The 10th, of course, being baby-carrier operations.
The point is that, Gripen aside, there are no other good STOL designs knocking about and putting baby-carrier ops in makes the niche fighter a very useful commodity.
JonesyFighting someone with SA-11s or SA-17s is not a minor conflict. It may be a limited campaign, but is not a minor conflict.
Semantics. The actions in Georgia would presumably be classified as a minor conflict…it was after all little more than a punitive action. How many Su-25’s did the Georgians bring down again?. Surely that shouldn’t have happened as you contend Harrier would be ‘just fine’ for minor ops?.
When is the last time Marines went off their own bat into a similar combat zone?
Libya. More important though, given the stretch on the CVN fleet, is when the next time the Marines will find themselves in a similar combat zone with only their own bats!.
The F-22 can deploy HARM externally and have the kinematic performance to evade counter shots.The F-35 cannot.
…but with external carry doesnt F-22 throw away its LO advantage and become mere easy meat for the PAK-FA’s, Su-35’s, Rafales etc you were providing dire warning of?.
I never said it doesn’t limit resolution.
No but you conveniently didnt mention it either did you?.
However, that resolution is sufficient to allow vectoring of intercepts to a sufficient accuracy.
…but its still down to the asset taking the vectors to complete the intercept isnt it?. Take its radar out of the equation and at best its got an IRST and a very generalised intercept vector?. Given that the F-35 is likely nose-cold sharing the inbounds position from any one of a number of sources cross decking data to it you can see who’s on the high side of the situational awareness gradient.
Furthermore, improved compute algorithms, combined with the continued improvements in compute power make it simply a matter of time before resolution becomes sufficient to use for targeting SAMs.
….and its, at present, Blk5 that introduces full aspect DIRCM. So by the time you’ve got your search sensors guessing right as to where the F-35’s are, regularly enough to cue an IR guided missile or provide an accurate vector to an interceptors IRST, the F-35 is frying the seeker of any missile they might fire at it. Unless your PAK-FA or Rafale is going to try for a non-radar cued guns attack on an aircraft with EODAS?.
The search radar knows the historical flight path of the F-35. Not hard to guide the intercepts onto the beam.
The search radar angular resolution is what? Range resolution for Nebo class radars is, what, 15km or so I think I read?. angular resolution at distance multiplied by range resolution gives you your instantaneous detection cell (keeping height resolution out of this for now!). The interceptor is taking a rough cue only and will be left with plenty to do to complete the engagement cycle and will, very likely, be seen before he holds the contact.
Which means you have to be able to affect more than one wee area.
You are….you’re stopping a CATOBAR carrier group being tied down to one wee area!. You’re stopping a valuable resource being deployed to an action which has no need for that resource commitment.
If the beach heads were ever faced with a modern foe, you can be damn sure protection wouldn’t be left up to a dinky LHD with a few JSFs. It is quite silly to suggest as much, as I suspect you are acutely aware.
By definition if you’ve forced a beachhead you have pushed back opposing anti-access systems haven’t you?. Predominantly then support of the beachhead is, for the most part, CAS/BAI and local air defence isnt it?. The LHD/LHA already sat in the assembly area pushing some rotaries ashore to accommodate 18-20 F-35B’s, AAR dragged to theatre, is certainly capable of keeping a couple of strike pairs up and an Alert5 pair spotted on deck round the clock if so needed. Radar coverage from a mobile ground unit with the beachhead and from the ships in the assembly area plus something like TOSS-Osprey does all the sensor coverage necessary. Seeing that the only meaningful discrepancy between F-35C and the -35B is about 150nm lopped of the STOVL jets range it would appear a strange comment that the CATOBAR jet can provide enough capability to defend the beachhead, but, the STOVL jet cant?.
JonesyWhat is the point of the “B” then? If the LHDs are good for only fighting people running around on camels with rifles, why not stick with Harrier?
Very obviously because some of the people with Camels and rifles also have double-digit SAMs and, as witnessed over Georgia, they can be bloody dangerous for airspace denial even without the supporting AD infrastructure found in a ‘major conflict’. A sub ‘major conflict’ scenario may not mean one thats necessarily low-threat.
Other than that your arguments are spurious. SDB is a DEAD weapon of choice for more than just the F-35…by your reasoning the F-22’s strike mission is toothless by the same measure.
The same physics that you point to, for lower frequency radar detection of an airframe optimised to defeat I/J band frequencies, also limit resolution. Your search radar is cueing only so its up to the cued platform to actually get the track and shoot cycle sorted. Thats IR as well as the opposing BVR missiles is it?.
You say: “To be a force multiplier, you have to be able to influence a large area within a finite time. Speed is of the essence.”. Is that some clever form of semantics or someones dictionary definition?. To be a force multiplier you have to be able to multiply force!. Enabling the big decks to be free of ties to a fixed beachhead or to be free of small-scale operations incorporating modern airspace-denial threats (like Syria could easily develop into….as a wild example!) is allowing them to apply their force with greater flexibility and efficiency…..it is therefore multiplying the potential of the available force in theatre…..simple as that.
JonesyGBU-39 is blk 3 though is it not?. Blk3 being the IOC for F-35B?.
Regarding the MBDA weapon are you referring to SPEAR Capability 3?. SPEAR stands for Selective Precision Effects At Range and the Cap 3 is a programme to deliver a light-med weight missile roughly in the JSM class with similar range and effects.
JonesyWhich capabilities are conjecture? EODAS?. LO?. STOVL? SDB carry?
Jonesy6 SDB-I or 8 SDB-II’s in the bays. They give the ability, with -II, to hit mobile point targets as well as fixed. So radar vehicles, SAM sites/vehicles, comms sites fixed and mobile etc, etc. All the anti-access systems that mean its LO characteristics are necessary. Of course, once those air-denial systems are attrited, LO becomes less relevant and the external stores stations also come in to play then you can load up with all the anti-area munitions you like…if you feel the need.
With the SDB configuration the bays can take AIM-120. This means that the opposing fighters, limited to IR AAMs, are facing radar guided BVRAAMs. EODAS also giving a very unsporting advantage to the F-35B in a WVR fight.
JonesyDave,
Suddenly any ships carrying 3b worth of aircraft becomes far more vulnerable because representing a juicy target. Whether in a asymmetric or high intensity scenario targeting such a ship becomes something worth the risk.
Putting F-35B on the amphibs does nothing whatsoever to increase their juiciness as targets. Its the MEU and the Battalion Landing Team on board that is the thing that makes the ship a desirable thing to make go away. The fastjet det doesnt even figure in the calculus compared to that!.
With about 9-10 aircraft carriers, the USN is in a position to provide air coverage to any place of the world no matter what.
Unless 2 or 3 of them are already tied down in another theatre, another 1 is on permanent forward station also distant, 4 are in various stages of maintenance and one is steaming back home post-deployment!. There aren’t going to be more carrier groups than there are today. Finding a way to use those they have more efficiently than ‘a CVN for every purpose’ is the future for the USN. LHA/F-35B as a force multiplier is one way of doing that.
Sign In
