F-16 Replacement

[Cole]

That is $190,000 each. It would buy you something that is completely useless against an enemy who can match your numbers and technology. Preds cost a lot more than that and Reapers cost rather more than Preds. And both of those are completely useless against an enemy who can match your technology.

Carl, it was this month's NationalDefenseMagazine and General Cartwright. He was probably referring to the F-35B STOVL engine which is $38 million according to Aviation Week. A Shadow 200, used by the Marines and Army costs around $300,000 for the air vehicle itself. The Marines are arming there's. Admittedly it's not as potent as an F-35.

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...17;Drones.aspx

Acquiring more F-22s may be costly, as may be hardening the bases to put them on, but if the only thing that will be able to stop the J-20 from killing any old thing it wants to is an F-22. Once those 187 or so are used up, so are we.

China has over a thousand tactical ballistic missiles. TBM have become the new cost-effective alternative to an effective air force. According to Wikipedia, an F-35A in 1965 dollars was $1.9 million. Adjusted for inflation that is only a bit over $13 miilion today. That tells you that the cost of a competitive fighter has risen much, much faster than the 640% inflation rate from Jan 1960 until today.

The result is that most potential adversaries cannot afford competitive fighters in great numbers. Heck, we can't afford them if they are F-22As. The F-35 is a more cost-effective compromise just as the F-16 was. The Russian and Chinese aircraft are cheaper, but not so cheap to sell many to any one rogue nation (with a sub $10 billion defense budget), and they remain unproven in actual combat. We know our pilot's are experienced. We know their's are not. We know nothing about J-20 capabilities other than that nations seldom advance decades in military know-how overnight.

I am guessing an airbase can be hardened. Underground aircraft hangers, underground facilities, runways spread wide apart, copious amounts of engineers and repair materials; all these things might make it hard to knock out a base. You could also do what the Swedes do, use specially hardened road sections and spread your airplanes around the countryside. All these things would make it hard for a handful of new bombers to take out enough bases for long enough to make any difference. We won't have anything more than a handful of new bombers and I doubt we would get this handful prior to...oh say, 2030.

We will have many hundreds of cruise missiles and JASSM-ER, and we still have penetrating capability with B-2, F-22, F-35, and future UCAV/MC-X. At night the primary threat to these aircraft would be SAMs that we can jam or avoid. Agree that we could harden some bases further away from China, but Japan and Korea are too close. Let them pay to harden their own bases for their own aircraft.

The Chinese will perfect the J-20 and if they build them in large numbers we will be faced with an extremely serious problem. There will be no inexpensive way around that problem and once the F-22s run out there may be no way around it at all.

Why would we go to war with China. Why would they bomb our Walmarts? We both have nukes and MAD deterrence. Taiwan is getting friendlier with the mainland everyday. The ones who should have any inkling of worry are Japan, Korea, and Australia. They can all buy F-35s (not F-22) and Patriot missiles to assume more of their own aerial defense with our back-up.

A recent Australian study claimed a lowly 6:1 loss-exchange ratio between Chinese aircraft and our own. IMHO, that is ridiculously inaccurate considering how old most Chinese aircraft still are. Did that consider F-35s? Navy and shore-based SAMs also attrite threat aircraft. It is unlikely Pak FA or J-20s will be anywhere near as stealthy as our aircraft or that S-300/400/Chinese SAMs would withstand EA-18G and next generation jammers.

The sky is not falling versus China or Russia. We still have MAD keeping both sides happy. The sky could fall on some American, European, or Israeli city if attacked by a state-supported terrorist nuke. Irrational individuals don't consider that their nation will be destroyed if they are insane, think they can hide any connection, believe they have nothing to lose, or have some religious belief creating a martyrdom complex. Focus on those more likely threats by deterring rogue states and developing TBM defenses, befriending/helping states that reject terrorism, and by killing potential terrorists where we actively find them. Rapidly deployable and forward-deployed ground and naval forces, nukes, 186 F-22s, 2000+ F-35s, new bombers, and UAS are more than adequate to preclude miscalculation by major powers.

[Fuchs]

According to Wikipedia, an F-35A in 1965 dollars was $1.9 million. Adjusted for inflation that is only a bit over $13 miilion today. That tells you that the cost of a competitive fighter has risen much, much faster than the 640% inflation rate from Jan 1960 until today.

...

The sky is not falling versus China or Russia. We still have MAD keeping both sides happy.

a) I bet you meant something different than F-35A.

b) The Chinese are reputed with a minimal deterrence; just a few hundred nuclear warheads. That's not true MAD.

[Cole]

a) I bet you meant something different than F-35A.

b) The Chinese are reputed with a minimal deterrence; just a few hundred nuclear warheads. That's not true MAD.

a) Oops, you're right, it was the F-4A Phantom that I looked up on Wikipedia.

b) Maybe not true MAD, but close enough!! Can't imagine any country wanting to endure 10 nukes let alone one hundred.

[carl]

The J-20 is a big target for the F-35 Distributed Aperture System if it gets close.

That may be true but why would it need to get close? If, if it is designed to stay high, fast and shoot missiles from far away it doesn't have to get close.

The result is that most potential adversaries cannot afford competitive fighters in great numbers. Heck, we can't afford them if they are F-22As.

The ability to afford something is a decision as to where you want to put your resources. We have enough resources to build lots of F-22s but we choose to put those resources elsewhere. If the Chinese make the decision to build lots of J-20s, they can. They will just have to give up something else. That is easier to do in a totalitarian society.

The F-35 is a more cost-effective compromise just as the F-16 was. The Russian and Chinese aircraft are cheaper, but not so cheap to sell many to any one rogue nation (with a sub $10 billion defense budget), and they remain unproven in actual combat. We know our pilot's are experienced. We know their's are not. We know nothing about J-20 capabilities other than that nations seldom advance decades in military know-how overnight.

The F-35 will be no compromise at all if all it can do is look at a J-20 and use that vaunted computing power to calculate exactly when the missile will hit. Our pilots are experienced, but that doesn't mean the other fellow can't think up something nasty for us. The Indians and the Chileans have both done us the favor of showing us up in the past. They weren't experienced. The J-10 first flew in 1998. The Chinese have been working on this stuff for decades. Besides, they may have every bit of data from our decades of work via their internet espionage work.

We will have many hundreds of cruise missiles and JASSM-ER, and we still have penetrating capability with B-2, F-22, F-35, and future UCAV/MC-X. At night the primary threat to these aircraft would be SAMs that we can jam or avoid.

Would there be enough of those things to shut down hardened bases, if the opponent chose to harden bases, for a long time? Would they have bases close enough that survive long enough to do any good? I don't know.

Agree that we could harden some bases further away from China, but Japan and Korea are too close. Let them pay to harden their own bases for their own aircraft.

...The ones who should have any inkling of worry are Japan, Korea, and Australia. They can all buy F-35s (not F-22) and Patriot missiles to assume more of their own aerial defense with our back-up.

I am not so sure we can be so easily dismissive of Japan, Korea and Australia. We could not afford not to have them in it with us.

A recent Australian study claimed a lowly 6:1 loss-exchange ratio between Chinese aircraft and our own. IMHO, that is ridiculously inaccurate considering how old most Chinese aircraft still are. Did that consider F-35s? Navy and shore-based SAMs also attrite threat aircraft. It is unlikely Pak FA or J-20s will be anywhere near as stealthy as our aircraft or that S-300/400/Chinese SAMs would withstand EA-18G and next generation jammers.

Shore based SAMS are only good near the shore or a little beyond. Way out to sea, not so much. Ship based SAMS are only good if there is a ship there and you can run them out of missiles. (I know there is a version of the Mk. 41 VLS that can be reloaded at sea but is that version on any of our ships?) I read too there is a shortage of naval missiles. Let's say you made each one of those old Chinese airplanes a drone and pointed them toward an American ship. They wouldn't have any warhead or terminal guidance. They wouldn't need it. Each would have to be engaged because they might be able to hurt you. Pretty soon, poof! No more missiles.

The sky is not falling versus China or Russia.

Maybe not. My point is there is a very serious problem on the horizon and we can't wish it away.

2000+ F-35s

I am skeptical we will buy anywhere near that many.

[Cole]

That may be true but why would it need to get close? If, if it is designed to stay high, fast and shoot missiles from far away it doesn't have to get close.

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 ability to afford something is a decision as to where you want to put your resources. We have enough resources to build lots of F-22s but we choose to put those resources elsewhere. If the Chinese make the decision to build lots of J-20s, they can. They will just have to give up something else. That is easier to do in a totalitarian society.

But for the same money, we can build a lot more nearly as good F-35s and sell others to allies to keep the price even lower. Plus the F-35 splits up our fighter eggs, and gets them closer to the threat so we don't overcongest Guam.

The F-35 will be no compromise at all if all it can do is look at a J-20 and use that vaunted computing power to calculate exactly when the missile will hit. Our pilots are experienced, but that doesn't mean the other fellow can't think up something nasty for us. The Indians and the Chileans have both done us the favor of showing us up in the past. They weren't experienced. The J-10 first flew in 1998. The Chinese have been working on this stuff for decades. Besides, they may have every bit of data from our decades of work via their internet espionage work.

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

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.

Would there be enough of those things to shut down hardened bases, if the opponent chose to harden bases, for a long time? Would they have bases close enough that survive long enough to do any good? I don't know.

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 am not so sure we can be so easily dismissive of Japan, Korea and Australia. We could not afford not to have them in it with us.

Of course we want them on our side but it is their war and threat to their homeland...not ours, and if the Chinese attack them as well as Taiwan, then they get more allies involved. I'm sure we are more than willing to sell them F-35s just as they sell us their goods.

Shore based SAMS are only good near the shore or a little beyond. Way out to sea, not so much. Ship based SAMS are only good if there is a ship there and you can run them out of missiles. (I know there is a version of the Mk. 41 VLS that can be reloaded at sea but is that version on any of our ships?) I read too there is a shortage of naval missiles. Let's say you made each one of those old Chinese airplanes a drone and pointed them toward an American ship. They wouldn't have any warhead or terminal guidance. They wouldn't need it. Each would have to be engaged because they might be able to hurt you. Pretty soon, poof! No more missiles.

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.

Somebody will come back and say we should not lose any aircraft and our pilots need every asymmetric and numbers advantage. But recall that $13 miilion (in TODAY'S dollars) F-4A in the early 1960s. 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...a number surpassed by ground troops every few months in conflicts with a 100% probability (Afghanistan/iraq), not a .1% probability against China or Russia. Iran and North Korea are probably 5% probability conflicts and we have more than sufficient stealth jets for those adversaries.

[Fuchs]

Part f the problem with decoys is that VLO aircraft lose LO characteristics if they carry external loads. A MALD would need to be carried externally, for the weapons bays do not have spare volume.

MALD is -just as IRST- one of the technologies that favour non-stealth aircraft like Typhoon and Rafale (which don't use such decoys, though).

[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.

[carl]

Cliff:

If you are still there, how stealthy are these various designs if they are viewed by a radar from above rather than below or from the same altitude?

[davidbfpo]

This discussion is far beyond my interests and understanding, but I do recall reading now some thirty years ago that the USA planned an IIRC a conventional bombing campaign in any conflict with the PRC, with waves of B52 strikes etc. Please do not ask for the source as my memory is fading.

Will knowledge of this option and presumably still a current option impact Chinese defence thinking?

[slapout9]

the USA planned an IIRC a conventional bombing campaign in any conflict with the PRC, with waves of B52 strikes etc. Please do not ask for the source as my memory is fading.

Dave,Probably came from the SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan) part of SAC (Strategic Air Command). Ranged from total world war to single country attack plans.

[Cliff]

Cliff:

If you are still there, how stealthy are these various designs if they are viewed by a radar from above rather than below or from the same altitude?

Can't really talk to specifics, but in general most stealth designs are optimized to be stealthy from certain angles. It totally depends on the design where these angles are.

V/R,

Cliff

[SethB]

In 2006 I took a class on Asian security. I vividly remember being told that China has 5,000 aircraft, only 1,000 of which can be considered modern.

They've got a long way to go before they have parity, or can even get close.

Now, can they close off their airspace with ADA? Different story.

But I have yet to see any indication of a capable expeditionary threat.