F-16 Replacement

[carl]

Cole:

This is fun, alternating deconstruction of arguments

We don't even know if its intent is more of a fighter or a bomber. Is it directed at us or a solution to the Indian PakFA? Even if it's high heading toward an F-35, it does not mean it can see the F-35 or successfully lock on to it, especially if it is being jammed and there are other decoys out and about. It's more likely focused on some distant larger radar target AWACS or an F-15 Golden Eagle or F-18E/F with upgraded AESA when it gets an AMRAAM from an unseen F-35 or F-22.

The crux of our differences is the efficacy of the F-35 vs. fighters like the J-20. You believe that it will be close enough to the F-22 to do the job. I think it won't. It was designed mainly to be a light bomber so it just doesn't seem, to my uneducated eye, to have the flight performance and size to even come close to the F-22 or J-20 or PakFA. You cite the F-22 above. With the small number we will have, will there be enough to be on the spot when it matters?

Plus the F-35 splits up our fighter eggs, and gets them closer to the threat so we don't overcongest Guam.

But if we are closer, aren't we more vulnerable to all those missiles the Chinese have, especially if our bases aren't hardened?

Indians and Chileans? Wargames where we couldn't use all our capabilities of newest assets?

You mentioned pilot experience, not the totality of airborne combat power. The Indians and Chileans demonstrated that inexperienced pilots can dream things up to surprise us. If they can do it, so can others.

Backward engineering is (I suspect) hard enough when you have the actual item let alone when you have drawings of something small and complex and no means of duplicating that item in quality mass production, and no current sample of the material helping making it low observable.

It might be a mistake to underestimate the cleverness of those guys.

And meanwhile their oil is getting blockaded in the Straits of Mallaca and railways leading to air bases are getting bombed. Commuter rails are hit so millions of Chinese are stranded and a few good bomb hits on highways creates month long trafffic jams for both military and civil traffic.

I think figuring on how a the entire course of a conflict would play out is beyond the scope of this discussion. I am mainly concerned how the J-20 will threaten our plans in the future.

We have decoys (MALD) and means of jamming their data links too, I suspect. Folks forget that as we are running out of naval and shore SAMs, they are running out of aircraft. 100 quality aircraft with a 10:1 (and submit it would be more like 40:1 against most) air-to-air loss-exchange means we may lose 100 aircraft, but they will lose 1000 lesser quality and far fewer quality aircraft, plus whatever number are killed by the Navy and Patriots. Meanwhile, we still have lots of F-35s and more SAMs on the way.

I hope so, but it may be folly to count on a 10-1 exchange ratio. 40-1 I think is dreaming; the Chinese may not be the Japanese Naval Air Force of May 1942, but they won't be an Arab air force either.

Can we afford to pay for excessive numbers of today's stealthy fighters that cost ten times as much? That is not a realistic outlook when 100 lost planes means nowhere near 100 lost pilots...

If we go up against an adversary who can match tech and numbers we have to have the things to fight them with. If we don't, we lose. I don't think we are really confronting the reality that our sweet deal with history that has lasted for the last 65 years (as Fuchs said) may be coming to an end, and it will be expensive.