If you want to know what's wrong with the F-35, ask the Australians.
A couple of years back they ran a simulation matching a force of F-18s, F-35s and the super F-22s against an attacking force of Russian Su-30 family jets. The good guys won, sort of, for a while, but then they ran out of missiles, allowing the more numerous Russians to send the survivors through to destroy the good guys' tankers and support aircraft. Out of missiles, out of juice, the fancy jets fell out of the sky. They had a one-way, one-mission combat life. And then there was none.
Part of the problem is cost, part is design. The F-35 costs a bundle. How big a bundle we don't even yet know. Because it's so damned expensive, you can only buy damned few of them. Because it's 'stealthy' it has to carry all its missiles inside and that means it can't carry very many of those either. Few fighters X few missiles = serious problems. You get overwhelmed by big numbers of far cheaper opponents.
As a fighter it's said the F-35 is less maneuverable than the godawful F-105 "Thud" of Vietnam days. It's got very high wing-loading. That's good for going fast but not very good at all if you wind up out of missiles in a gun fight against a cheap enemy fighter that can turn and burn all day.
But it's stealthy! Well, not so much. Like the F-22, the F-35 is hard to detect but not impossible. And the stealth superiority claims that are bandied about are based on outdated enemy missile technology. Defense Industry Daily noted the F-35 will fare even more poorly than the F-22 against the missiles it would have to meet in the air today:
The RAND study [of the Australian simulation] also spends a great deal of time on the core American assumptions concerning “beyond visual range” air to air combat, and the current and future capabilities of SU-30 family aircraft. The implications of its examination do affect the F-35’s fighting qualities – and they will be significant to some of the plane’s potential customers.
RAND’s discussion begins by predicting poorer beyond visual range missile kill performance than current models suggest when facing capable enemy aircraft, by noting that BVR missile performance since the 1990s has largely involved poorly-equipped targets. It also notes the steep rise and then drop in modern infrared missile performance, as countermeasures improved. Meanwhile, AESA radar advances already deployed in the most advanced Russian surface-air missiles, and existing IRST (infra-red scan and track) systems deployed on advanced Russian and European fighters are extending enemy detection ranges against even ultra-stealthy aircraft. Fighter radar pick-up capability of up to 25 nautical miles by 2020 is proposed against even ultra-stealthy aircraft like the F-22, coupled with IRST ability to identify AMRAAM missile firings and less infrared-stealthy aircraft at 50 nautical miles or more.
The F-35’s lower infrared and radar stealth mean that these advances will affect it more than the F-22. Especially if one assumes a fighter aircraft whose prime in-service period stretches from 2020 -2050.
The clear implication of the RAND study is that the F-35 is very likely to wind up facing many more “up close and personal” opponents than its proponents suggest, while dealing with beyond-visual-range infrared-guided missiles as an added complication. Unlike the F-22, the F-35 is described as “double inferior” to modern SU-30 family fighters within visual range combat; thrust and wing loading issues are noted, all summed up in one RAND background slide as “can’t [out]turn, can’t [out]climb, can’t [out]run.”
In other words, in 'beyond visual range' engagements the F-35 remains vulnerable to current generation missile threats and for 'within visual range' combat, it's simply dead meat. Potential enemies know they can overwhelm an F-35 or F-22 force and then destroy the high-value (indispensible) tanker and AWACS force without which the stealth fighters are doomed.
The only potential threat we could ever face with the F-35 would have both the knowledge and the means to wipe our planes from the sky on the very first mission. You could kiss 16-billion dollars goodbye on one very bad afternoon.
2 comments:
High tech doesn't mean it is capable of carrying out a real world mission.
We should learn the lesson of the sinking of the very expensive, very well armed, very modern South Korean Navy ship Cheonan by what was seems like a two bit torpedo.
The Cheonan was proven in actual combat to be nothing more than a peacock feather.
It's sinking has handcuffed and humiliated the South Korean government and military.
If these new planes for the Canadian military are to be used as war planes, and not peacock feathers, it would be practically treasonous not to undertake a sober analysis prior to deploying them.
We really do need to re-examine this 'stealth fighter' nonsense. To be stealthy you have to be blind. Use your radar and you identify yourself. To be stealthy you need an AWACS to do the radar work and pass that information to the fighter.
We don't have any AWACS. The USAF and NATO do but we don't. Hence they're going to depend on their own radar in Canada meaning no stealth.
The AWACS, like the tankers, are unarmed and depend on the fighter force to protect them. But we're only going to be able to deploy a pitiful number of fighters, not nearly enough to secure our airspace and protect the support aircraft.
This is beyond stupid.
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