Well, for starters it allows us to put the earlier 5 minute claim to rest and chalk that up as a gross exaggeration. The aviation week quote itself is a bit skeptical on the 15 minutes, but I guess lets take it at face value and double that to 30 minutes for the entire cycle. Then to that we must add the time to go from X to Y and perhaps the time that any of the support would require over and above that (if any). You could potentially be looking at a fairly decent amount of time between when you turn the sensor off and when it connects back into the integrated setup and begins piping down data and contributing to the Situational awareness. Then one must also look at the scenarios. Where do you MOVE TO if you have put this thing in the middle a man made island? I wouldnt pin point the GPS coordinates using satellites alone, but I would solve the problem of finding and fixing these emitters through dedicated assets tasked to doing so. The F-35 (ALONE) won’t be that aircraft, while things like the RQ-180 may be far better. The ultimate strategy, that is guiding investment even at the moment is to develop full spectrum RF Situational Awareness, and this is and will be done through integration of traditional and non-traditional sources of such SA. The overreaching goal being to find, fix and track any emitting target of interest, regardless of the frequency it is emitting in or the agility with which it emits. Again, before you go into when will such capability be available do also mention, when say a China gets to the utopian IAD state with total Air Defense modernization with the highest order of capability.

It probably doesn’t take more than 15 minutes to fold the antenna and leave. There are only a few cables to unplug before leaving. Maybe I was wrong for the 5 minutes ( that is probably the time it takes to fold the antenna though ) for the whole procedure, but anyways you can’t rely on targeting data gathered before an attack. The enemy will surely use the capability to move the system quickly as much as possible as they expect a cruise missile attack.

RQ-180? They will be detected by these radars and shot down.

For sure in case of a man made island there is nowhere to hide. I even wonder if building such islands is not a waste of ressources. It is like a gift to the USAF bombers and SSGNs.

Well, everyone is talking about the chinese A2AD zones. It is a real problem that will become more and more important over the next 15 years.

My point was that there are some extremely simplistic assumptions being drawn up with stacking the argument in favor of the IAD without actually doing some serious analysis of what the likely challenges are the the IADs themselves have to overcome. It seems the entire argument revolves around developing a scenario where absolutely everything is stacked against the joint forces operating the F-35 and then asking them to execute the entire spectrum of the mission using just the F-35. At the same time, every possible capability advantage is being offered to the IAD’s, to the point of simply making things up.

For the purpose of a forum discussion/argument, this may be a perfectly fine straw man to construct and take down (and do so repeatedly) but in the real-world, there is likely to be just a tad bit more capability on the US side other than sending up SDB equipped F-35’s with the mission to go, find, fix and kill each and every radar covering each and every frequency of interest to the military.

Below is a quick and dirty RF spectrum chart form Raytheon that I annotated detailing the spectrum, and how the joint forces may actually wish to tackle the spectrum. While it may come as a surprise to some, the US doesn’t plan on fighting the spectrum with just the F-35, or with just stealth which enhances survivability against large elements of the spectrum (with broadband stealth coverage existing in the fleet through the B-2 and B-21 and other aircraft that follow). Without LO (to a varying degree) you end up exposing your entire tactical force to the entire spectrum and allowing your opponent to get considerable AD improvements through simple upgrades to legacy systems. With LO you negate the RF spectrum advantage in many frequencies of EXTREMELY HIGH interest to the military to a point where you can contest and win. For the lower frequency, highly capable IAD reliant on resilient networks and high level of (costly) integration, you adopt an integrated approach (this has been known for decades) and the F-22 and F-35 provides the USAF the capability to have them play in this integrated battle alongside the B-2 and B-21, something the F-16’s and F-15’s really couldn’t do very well.

http://imageshack.com/a/img924/640/udz780.png

There is and will continue to be a strategy to defeat the IAD threat, by using Low Observability, Electronic Warfare both distributed and centralized, improved existing munitions and new munitions with higher survivability/effectiveness against countermeasures, and non kinetic means to disrupting IAD’s. The induction of the F-35 to the services, does not change this and will enhance the ability to actually perform the integrated joint missions against the very highest threat from IAD’s. As time advances, more elements would obviously need to be added. Thats why there is the Air Dominance Initiative, why they are planning for F-35 enhancements, why there is the the NGJ, why the munitions directorate and AFRL is investing in more advanced munitions etc

I agree that the F-35 is needed and that the other planes would be even less survivable. But it still remains that it will be quite hard for the F-35s to counter those threats, especially with the limited weapons it has, the intense jamming it will be confronted to, and the lack of real dedicated weapon that can be used for that from other platforms.

The F-35 needs the AARGM-ER and small stealthy cruise missiles ASAP. But of course you will say that the upgrade path is coming along fast enough.

Could you provide a time for a very large VHF system to fold up, get on the move with all the support required for it to operate, relocate, set up and get operational again? I have seen 5 minutes quoted by you to get on the move, that hasn’t been substantiated in any way. What do you have for the total cycle? 7 – 10 minutes?

I remember a Nebo video where the radar was folded within a few minutes. This video of a Nebo shows that it can be installed really quick. It is not a Nebo-M but the M probably doesn’t take much longer. Also the Nebo-M radar is mounted on the vehicle so there’s no time wasted to attach the trailer.

The aviationweek article says it takes 15 minutes:

The claimed 15-min. set-up and strike-down time is ambitious, and the system has to have a fighter-like price tag.

The point is anyways, whether it takes a few minutes more or less, that you can’t rely on targeting data obtained before you launch the TLAM. Updating the TLAM in flight wouldn’t be easy, it would require having aircraft that can get sufficiently close to triangulate. And if the TLAM has to loiter to find the radar, its survivability goes down the tube.

What is the this nonsense that “the F-35 sucks at SEAD because many of the munitions are not ready yet’? Uh the F-35 is not meant to be FOC till around 2021. So saying that it a reasoning of why it shouldn’t be developed or will be a bad aircraft is laughable.

HUH what is that even supposed to mean? First of all everyone and his sister in law knows that the official FOC block is 3F, not 4.1. Second of all where did I say the F-35 is hopeless for SEAD? I say it won’t be armed properly to deal with certain targets before quite some time. Even the weapons scheduled for block 4.1 would be hardly capable against those radars. But at least you admit that 3F is a bit ‘light’ for an FOC.

Low frequency radars? Are you people high? Who the hell uses low frequency radars for missile guidance? ARH missiles solve the problem? Eh, if that was the case, the Russians wouldn’t even bother making seperate Acquisition radars and separate Fire control radars for that matter, just let the ARH missile find it’s target.(which the seeker is very small). Not only is VHF-band and UHF-band radar inaccurate as hell but a lot easier to jam and spot. Without midcourse updates, the missile will be forced to rely on it’s seeker to steer it’s way inaccuratley to a target it may not even acquire(seekers usually don’t turn on till terminal phase) since it’s stealth unless it was super close and too late. You want, do not want your missile to engage in hard turns before terminal phase since inside an atmosphere that will slow down the missile due to drag. Add it to the fact that most modern MAW sensors can spot missiles very well at will engage in evasive maneuvers to throw the missile off target. You never want to fire your missile at max ranges against a fighter target.

Whhat? The acquisition radars would be turned on when they are in range of the F-35, not before of course!

ARH missile? What ARH missile? The F-35 won’t have ARH missile before an eternity.

Jamming? The APG-81 cannot jam the frequencies of those radars. Hence the need for the growlers for that, which ruins the stealth of the Attack.

And who said they would fire their missiles at the absolute max range? That makes no sense, but these missiles can still deny tankers are AWACS from approaching. The fighters can provide long range interception.

Also what is the assumption that every single PGM will be shot down? A throw of MALD-J decoys at an enemy air defense will overwhelm it with false targets. You would need to cover every single location with the trajectory of a SAM and enough radar coverage. A storm of stealth weapons like the JAASM and JSOW armed with cluster munitions each can overwhelm a Pantsir system.

The Pantsir radar would be turned on only when the missiles are detected by the surveillance radar. It won’t be that easy to kill. The F-35 will take a lot of risk to Attack it.

MADL-J? Who will launch it, without being shot down? B-52? F-16s? Say goodbye to your the effect of surpise if you use those planes. And can the small jammer in a MADL that kind of radar? Not sure at all.

Even against a non-stealthy target, a S-400 missile system will rely often on hiding in clutter and surprise than outranging his opponents. Remember you never really want to engage at the maximum missile range, because fighters can engage in evasive manuvering. An S-400 unit with 40N6 will likely never fire at an F-16 at 400 km unless it wants to waste it’s missiles. 200 km maybe but it will mostly be ripple fire. Against a S-300 armed opponent, even a 4th Gen fighter like a F-16 just armed with these newer Small-Diameter bombs or JDAM-ER can cause nasty damage for they don’t need to engage the missiles in DEAD just their radars. It will force the SAMs to waste their missiles.

Well it is obvious that the S-300/400/500 would be careful not to have their radars turned on all the time. These systems may not be able to engage at max range, but it is still very hard to launch something that can take them out outside their lethal range. That’s why Navy is working on the AARGM-ER. Also of course you have to deal with enemy fighters. The SDB doesn’t have enough range for that. And almost noone uses the JDAM-ER, certainly not the USAF/USN.

SAMs vs Aircraft is a lot like Artillery vs Tanks. The mobile weapon is simply more adaptable as shown in Battle of France where tanks all grouped together and engaged at a single point. They can focus all their power on one kill point, will the SAMs need to be spread out to defend every point in the border.

Yes but SAM systems cost a hell of a lot less than fighters, both to buy and operate. We’re not event talking about ground based IRSTs which are relatively inexpensive and which could be a nightmare for stealth plane in clear weather if they are datalinked together.

When deriding other posters as “fanboys” it helps when your own posts are factually accurate. Making broad, sweeping generalizations is, well, rather fanboyish.

Generalization like what?

Well, as I wrote in previous. GPS is not the only targeting method available, and that was a succinct overview.

So what other targeting method do you expect to use? At long range of course. And be precise, which variant of which weapon.

TLAM = Tomahawk land attack missile. It’s primary role is land attack. The recent modifications make it dual capable. The TASM (Tomahawk anti-ship missile) was withdrawn from service. Yes, the improved TLAM block IV can, in fact, loiter.

The improved Block IV has capability against land and sea moving targets.
http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/tomahawk/

So it can loiter. That makes it even easier to shoot down.

LRASM program has several increments. The initial AGM-158C will fill the air launched portion. The sea launched requirement for OASUW increment 2 was not planned until 2020’s (since modified into the new NGSC- dual land and sea capable). NGSC has the LRASM increment two in competition with future Tomahawk variants. Not to mention that Raytheon plans to backfill the improved block IV capabilities as a gap filler.

Nothing better than the TLAM will be available before about 10 years. They will probably go for something larger that a JASSM/LRASM to replace the TLAM and something probably much faster. There is no surface launched variant of the current LRASM in the pipeline with a dual land/anti-ship capability.

Not sure if this article has been posted here previously but the following link is to a journal article written by three members of the Hellenic Air Force and published in the Journal of Computations & Modelling in 2014.
http://www.scienpress.com/Upload/JCM/Vol%204_1_9.pdf

It gives a reasonably good explanation of current and planned stealth and anti-stealth technologies. Most interesting is their assessment, based on the modelling done by APA so hardly the best case scenario, of the stealth characteristics of the F-35 and the capability of adversary radars to detect it. The F-35 specific section starts on page 14 and provides an excellent example of different in production radars across multiple frequencies and platforms.

Good read. It gives a balanced view on stealth and counter stealth technology.

And No One there is calling that, so please, can you all stop to use Always the same old rhetoric argument again and again, please?

Well apparently some here are saying exactly that. They’re not called fanboys for Nothing.

It may or may not be enough, but stealth will increasingly become essential in such roles. That is what the Russians and Chinese (and others) have realized.

Everyone realizes that counter stealth technologies and tactics can reduce the effectiveness of stealth, but not to the point where stealth is useless.

Sounds exaggerated based on? 70 km+ is the range quoted for the SDB II (and the JDAM-ER). With regard to the JSOW, any missile can be shot down. Why is why they won’t be used in isolation. Also, FYI the JSOW A & B are area-effect weapons (that don’t require precise coordinates) while the JSOW-C is equipped with an IIR seeker.

The SDBII seems to have a longer range that that SDBI, maybe because it is lighter I am not sure. I thought you were refering to the SDBI in your previous post because you were talking about block 3F. Also of course the enemy might jam your GPS weapons.

The JSOW will be used with what?

As for the variant of the JSOW with submunitions ( JSOW-A ), what about the treaty on submunitions? It is my understanding that the US is trying to get rid of all submunition weapons. The JSOW also uses GPS, which can be jammed, and the F-35 cannot get accurate GPS coordinates at that kind of range. The JSOW C uses a penetration warhead. Even if you use it, it is likely to be shot down. You’d have to use several missiles for a strike to have a high PK.

Long range surveillance radars typically aren’t very mobile. You’d ideally employ cruise missiles from long ranges to take them out.

Some of them are mobile. They can fold their antenna and move within 5 minutes. You can’t rely on satellite data to attack them.