Forum: Program and politics

Here's a fun issue though, the North Korean air defense net poises an unique threat to stealth aircraft. A combination of many many time critical targets, far more than the opening night of Desert Storm, with an extremely dense network of flak weapons and what is assumed to be a very survivable, if not technologically advanced, SAM network.

This poses a serious issue to the idea that someone will be able to do SEAD missions. There literally will not be enough time and enough aircraft, in all likelihood, to do any serious SEAD in those opening hours / days of the war. And, ironically, area flak may be pretty good against stealth aircraft, as it doesn't care if you're stealth or not.

In that situation, the f-35's stealth may not matter after the first few sorties against the primary radar sites, as the main threat will be enemy flak concentrations. If that's the case, then F-35 stealth won't be as big of a factor for the South Koreans. Though, one could also argue that on the other hand, the lack of SEAD missions makes the stealth more necessary.

Whichever way you look at it, the immediate need for the F-35 isn't so apparent, given the state of the North Korean military. Hence the fact that the South Koreans may feel justified in driving a hard bargain. (Plus Boeing will probably give them almost anything for a military contract).

5,000lbs on stations no.3 and no.9 according to graphic in (remembering some lesser capacities as shown for F-35B variant):
http://www.jsf.mil/downloads/documents/ ... ept_06.pdf (5.8mb)

Here's a fun issue though, the North Korean air defense net poises an unique threat to stealth aircraft. A combination of many many time critical targets, far more than the opening night of Desert Storm, with an extremely dense network of flak weapons and what is assumed to be a very survivable, if not technologically advanced, SAM network.

I don't see GBU-28 on the 'external weapons carriage' list also in the graphic above.

My two cents on the current situation of Korean F-X tender.

The F-35 simply doesn't fit well with the Korean air warfare philosophy, which relies on 100 km+ stand-off strikes instead of F-117A/F-35 style stealthy infiltration strikes. Which is why the ROKAF invested heavily in development and production of glide bombs, in both locally developed 500 lbs KGGB and Boeing-developed 2,000 lbs JDAM-ER for the ROKAF requirements.

The ROKAF warplan calls for the suppression of the entire North Korean SAM capability within 3 days, and this cannot be achieved by the F-35As carrying two JDAMs and making 3 sorties a day; they need something like the F-15s loaded with 12 KGGBs or 20 SDBs making 6 sorties per day. This is possible because some 85% of North Korean targets including all of Pyongyang are accessible by the sea, where the KGGBs and JDAM-ERs could be released some 25 miles away from the North Korean coastline at a high altitude. This is why the ROKAF required that the F-35 be able to carry external ordinances and whu a jet with no internal ordinance capability was OK but no external ordinance capability was disqualified. Accordingly, the F-35 doesn't really fit the ROKAF's mission profile well and even a Typhoon maybe better suited to the ROKAF's airwar plan than the F-35 does.

The second issue is that the ROKAF requirements are budget and delivery-schedule critical. Unlike Japan, the DAPA buying the jets for the ROKAF is inflexible about the pricing; $7.9 billion for 60 jets is the hard ceiling and any bid that goes over $7.9 billion is disqualified. Considering how Lockheed Martin's Japan bid was $8 billion for 42 jets before the price estimation went up, the F-35 bid already went over the price hard ceiling and is automatically disqualified. The winning bidder also deliver 10 combat ready jets in 2016 and 12 a year thereafter to complete the delivery by 2020, a delivery schedule that the F-35 obviously cannot meet. The joke of town is that Lockeed Martin would have had a better luck with an F-16 Block 70 with a Silent Hornet style weapons pod than the F-35 in the Korean F-X III contest.

The third issue is the lack of technology transfer. Lockheed Martin vice president already confirmed to Korean press that Lockheed Martin's offset package included sub-contract work for the F-35, but spoke nothing about the technology transfer needed for the KFX. Which is once again a big no no in the eyes of DAPA officials. Lockheed Martin representatives didn't hide the fact to press that they were counting on the so called "US-Korea" military alliance to win the bid, not based on the quality and the strength of their bid package. Which is an odd thing to say because that only works as a "tie-breaker", and does not make an uncompetitive US-based bid win over a competitive non-US bid.

Anyhow, things are looking really bad for the F-35's chances in Korea. The DAPA officials concluded that Lockheed Martin's bids was unworkable and they wanted to drop the F-35 from the contest to speed up the bid evaluation process(Evaluating two candidates is faster than three candidates) but feared a lawsuit from Lockheed Martin, so they will make the final call after the bid re-submission. If the DAPA concludes that both Typhoon and F-35 bids are still uncompetitive, then they will skip the candidate evaluation process and immediately open a price and terms negociation with Boeing, whose bid is said to have met both the price and technology transfer requirements. So the presumtive winner of Korea's F-X III is the Silent Eagle, and only a much more competitive bid from either the EADS CASA and Lockheed Martin will change that.

Are you able to link to Korean News then?

btw, Why do you limit the F-35 to two JDAMs and 3 sorties a day?

It can hold 8x SDB/SPEAR3s internal

an F-35A can carry 32 SDB-class bombs

No one knows the threats and envisioned missions better than they and to their mind, they need the capabilities, notably stealth, in their new platform.

But it is clear that the ROKAF must make the investment in the new platform.

Lastly, somewhere in this discussion of 'revising F-X III' should arguably be: the new FA-50! Isn't that a new-bird on the block which can at least begin replacing F-5/F-4 as part of a stopgap role??

This poses a serious issue to the idea that someone will be able to do SEAD missions.

(Plus Boeing will probably give them almost anything for a military contract).

No arguments there, I just wanted to quash the new F-15 "crack prone" and "joke of a program" silliness.

Why not? They are the customer. They probably are just as confused as most about the F35.
Originally promoted as mainly a sneaky first strike platform that should have a 4 to 1 advantage over 1980 aircraft.

South Korea to start with has no interest in a sneaky first strike platform - something to Counter-strike with yes. Like many they are saying will it be able to intercept and will it be any good as a fighter against 4++ and possibly 5 gen optimised in the fighter role. It does not matter so much with Japan - a larger airforce and country that needs to replace its Phantoms now used in the Anti Ship role and ground attack. That is what Japan is replacing with the F35. A logical move - buy 48 F35's at say $110m each [more or less the same price as a 4+]. If it is not good enough in the Air to Air role and as an interceptor they will build there own or build or modify something else under lisence. You can't blame Korea asking the same questions when it has to last 20-30 years. Are they supposed to believe LM and supposedly a few US Pilots as reported on this forum?

Exactly. I'd seen that chart before and doubted Spudman's claim of F-35 carrying a GBU-28.

That's the USAF requirement. It is highly unlikely that Lockheed Martin would push beyond that in terms of sortie rate.

6 sorties/day for F-15 is what the ROKAF does in war drills right now.

Not for the Block 3F offered to Korea. All discussions pertaining to the F-35's Korean bid should be restricted to Block 3F because that's what's being offered.

The weight of 32 SDBs not counting pylons is 8 tons, which exceeds the F-35's max weapons load.