It’s a well known fact that any decent ESM will pick up the AWACS transmissions LONG before the AWACS detects the fighter (in this case an F-35).

It’s also a fact that the F-35 (and every fighter) can be seen from farther way as the radar band gets lower.

The trick is that since nobody outside the program knows the composition of the RAM, the effectiveness of the F-35’s shaping, the likelihood of an AMRAAM taking out the AWACS before the AWACS can guide the interceptors to the F-35, or the effectiveness of the AWACS itself, so saying that

The F-35 doesn’t stand a chance against these jets without the F-22/F-15C AESA’s air cover.

is utter tripe.

btw, I am in favor of longer ranged AAMs for anti-AWACS duty. T3 will be flying by next year in demo and Meteor is an option.

They are also working on an interceptor version of MALD that should take out an AWACS just fine.
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/news99/lccmd.pdf

Also, there is always tactics.

1. F-35 approaches the AWACS from the North
2. AWACS sends interceptors North
3. Interceptors arrive and find out it was a MALD
4. MALD-Js come in from the East and start jamming the AWACS
5. F-35s sneak in from the South and take out the AWACS

Video of ADAM test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUEXB2JVBtg

The stand-off munition has made the stealth infiltration irrelevant.

Not even close. 4th gen can carry what, 2 JASSM class munitions?

That’s fine and dandy if there is no CIWS in the target area but that ship is sailing. Future battles are going to require saturation type attacks with SDB class weapons and their standoff ranges are not that long.

btw, You completely ignored the other half of the F-35’s duties, namely A2A.

Is the F35 operational or have they only delivered LRIP jets for pilot training?

VFMA-121 is the first Operational F-35 unit. They are stationed next door to Red Flag in Yuma, Arizona.

They currently have three F-35Bs with Blk1B and will have 16 by Sep 2013. The purpose of the unit is not to train, develop, or test any aspect of the F-35. They are an operational combat unit. Their F-35Bs will cycle through depot and get updated as each Blk is released.

The reason that they are being stood up now goes back to how the F-35 is being developed & procured. It’s called concurrency. If there were no concurrency, the F-35 IOC would be in the late 2020s (2018-ish).

Obviously VMFA-121 is not in a go-to-war state right now. By getting their F-35s now, they can train with them as they grow in capability. When the F-25B is declared IOC (with Blk2b) in the 2014/15 timeframe, VMFA-121 could go to war the next day because they have been training the whole time. Actually, the USMC has said that if needed, and properly equipped & trained, they were willing to use the F-35 in combat before IOC is declared.

If it is made, the earliest it could be part of the F-35 program is Blk6 as Blk4 is being finalized now and CUDA is to young to make it to Blk5 in two years.

A2A UAI could make it part of the F-35 in-between “official” Blocks, but the A2A part of UAI has not been scheduled yet.

Since it’s a LM product, there are a couple of things that they could do to speed up integration.
1. Make it use the BRU-61 of the SDB.
2. If it needs it’s own launcher, make it electrically compatible with the BRU-61 (the computer thinks it’s a BRU-61).
3. Make the CUDA missile “AMRAAM compatible”, ie the computer thinks it’s an AMRAAM with a shorter range.

IIRC they did something similar with JSOW or JASSM, ie made it have a mode that emulated an already integrated munition.

Thats actually all it takes to level the playing field.

:confused:

Are you serious?

Considering that no RCS or detection data has been released for either the F-18IV (International Variant) or the F-15SE, claiming that either of them can get within 45km (and while caring a weapon that can reach 45km) of a target (especially a double or triple digit SAM) before being detected and then claiming that this makes them just as good as the F-35/22 takes some serious stones (or just a tall glass of C2H5OH) 😉

I think they should make the pod…. it would give the F-35 more options while caring external stores yet still remaining VLO (or at least really really LO) , especially the B 🙂