F-16 Replacement

[carl]

Line of sight distance from the Chinese airfield to Guam is about 1800 miles. They would realistically need more like 2000 miles to avoid flying directly over Taiwan. Conceivable? Yes. Likely? No. Consider that the F-111, originally designed as a long-range interceptor, had a combat radius of about 1300 miles.

If it has a 1300 mile combat radius, that will still cover all the areas I mentioned plus get it down to the straits of Malacca. Why would you need to go around Taiwan? If you are up at 65,000 feet or so going Mach 1.2 and have some ideas of where the missile batteries are you might be able to overfly the place, especially if those missile batteries are destroyed or suppressed by missiles fired from the mainland. If your object was to cut the air route from Guam to Taiwan for example, even if you had to go around the island it would still have the range to do that.

Secondly, F-22's don't need to protect every inch of airspace. Chinese fighters can't simply interdict air-routes willy-nilly at those ranges - they need some kind of intelligence or queuing from radar, or something. It's not like we'd be twiddling our thumbs while the Chinese launch their aircraft to intercept.

No they don't need to protect every inch of airspace, only that airspace where the things we need are flying, like tankers, transports, AWACS etc. With the small number of F-22s we have we can't cover much. The choice then is don't fly or lose the tanker. They know they need all that you mention and I'll bet they are working on all of it, like say...hacking into ATC computer connections. Once we run out of F-22s, twiddling our thumbs may be all we can do.

We don't know the J-20's capabilities. We don't know when, if ever, it will reach IOC, much less be fielded in significant numbers. We don't know how many the Chinese would ultimately build. The claim that we can't field a force that can match the J-20 is a bit premature considering the J-20 isn't fully developed (much less deployed), has unknown capabilities, etc.

True enough we don't know. We may never know for sure until the Chines choose to tell us or demonstrate the capabilities in a practical manner. The problem is if we wait until we know, and the aircraft is as capable as I fear, it will be to late to do anything about it. We could petition the Chinese to give us 15 years to come up with a match but the price would likely be steep. We have to make educated guesses and plan on what it probably can do, not what we are certain it will do.

Plus, there is more than one way to skin a cat - ie. kill the aircraft on the ground, blind the aircraft by taking out C2 and GCI systems, etc. There is a lot more to winning an air campaign than a simple comparison of airframes.

The Chinese know that too and they plan for it. They have several bases with underground hangers. Do we have any bases like that?

[Maeda Toshiie]

The Chinese know that too and they plan for it. They have several bases with underground hangers. Do we have any bases like that?

Those bases can be killed by:
1. Destroying ventilation/utilities/logistics shafts.
2. Exit points for the aircraft to launch

We don't have to kill bases outright.