Forum: F-35 versus XYZ

LMAggie brings my original question back full circle. It's a future Red Flag with F-22s and F-35 pitted against each other. How will they know where they all are except if they happen to visually aquire each other? Could the sortie begin and it goes like this....nobody sees anybody, nobody sees anybody, nobody sees anybody, F-35 comes on the radio with, "Just shacked my target", nobody sees anybody, nobody sees anybody, everyone lands.

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or...

Nobody sees anybody, nobody sees anybody,... F-22 and F-35 fly with 15km or so of each other and EODAS picks the F-22 up.

F-35 pops a AIM-120D. F-22 detects AMRAAM launch and maneuvers around to try and detect the F-35 to launch it's own AMRAAM.

F-35 goes home.

...just saying Wink

I think I may have been among the first, under a different screen name, to raise the specter of VLO vs. VLO air-to-air engagements. Basically, we are facing the possibility that air combat in 10 to 15 years will have devolved into a WWI-type situation, where the principal means of detecting the enemy is visually, aided by EO and IRST-type sensors. Nobody will want to go active because passive ESM detection will always detect the signal first before that signal is able to illuminate anything itself. And while LPI may work on last generation RWR equipment, current and future-generation fighters will have adapted their ESM gear to pick up even on LPI signals (hey, if your ESM is picking up thousands of very tiny EM spikes across a wide spectrum, even if scarcely more "audible" than EM noise, then someone is probably looking at you or trying to find you; the technology is there or close to being there to "cohere" said signals enough so that they give away at the very least the bearing of the offending LPI AESA, if not the range). So, what you get is no one wanting to emit, and therefore no one detecting anything, at least not actively. If everyone in the arena is electronically silent, and VLO, the only means of detection is visual, aided or unaided. So you get something akin to sub warfare, where no one pings, everyone is listening, and everyone's so silent the first indication you get that someone's out there is your just having collided with their boat. Except in air warfare the air superiority platform is at an enormous disadvantage vs the ground-pounder. All that the latter wants is to get to the target and release its bombs. The air superiority fighter is useless if it doesn't have any target at which to shoot. In the above scenario, and everyone's VLO, who do you think wins? In a future air war, it will suck to play defense...

By the way, keeping what I wrote above in mind, had we ever gotten into a shooting war with the old Soviet Union, our carriers would have been soooo toast...

I'll bite. How is this last related to the thread? "By the way, keeping what I wrote above in mind, had we ever gotten into a shooting war with the old Soviet Union, our carriers would have been soooo toast..."

Assuming BVR is out of the equation, I guess it's a question of whether an F35 can avoid 1 aim9x and whether the f22 can avoid 2 and whatever aim120's the f35 has left? As soon as they pass at the merge, the F22 is going to lose initiative and will be constantly evading due to the F35 being able to continue firing. Front on, the F22 may be invisible to amraam's, but while it's dodging and evading, there'll be moments when its showing its larger surfaces and nozzles.

spazsinbad wrote:

I'll bite. How is this last related to the thread? "By the way, keeping what I wrote above in mind, had we ever gotten into a shooting war with the old Soviet Union, our carriers would have been soooo toast..."

In reference to modern subs being all but invisible - rather, inaudible - to one another, as a metaphor for how VLO fighters would fare against each other. They are like a hole in the ocean. And the Soviets had gotten pretty good at quieting their subs. We know this because American and Soviet subs collided more than once, not knowing the other was there. In the case of a shooting war, what with having to protect Atlantic supply routes and their aircraft carriers, the US and its allies would have been on the defensive. And having to play defense against all but inaudible subs is not something you want to have to do. You can never hope to win that fight, period.

Similarly, a VLO striker will almost always "win" vs a VLO fighter tasked to defend its territory. If neither one can find the other, the moment the bombs leave the bay game over, the striker wins, even if in the air it's a draw. Ya gettin' me, spaz?

Can I direct you to the "which is more likely to complete its mission, f22 or f35" thread?

If they merge, the F-35 can no longer go home. The Raptor driver is going to be praying that those slammers don't track (Does the Raptor have a chaff dispenser?), but similarly, the F-35 driver is going to be praying that those little battery powered radios will do something his mighty AN/APG-81 AESA couldn't. Because now that the Raptor sees him, with that ginormous speed/acceleration advantage, the F-35 can't run. I'm not sure how far off boresight you can fire an AMRAAM from the F-35, but it'll be pretty neat if it can make them go the complete opposite direction.

Raptor will probably detect F-35 from a distance of 40-50km. F-35 will see the F-22 from a distance of ~20km. I think there won't be any dogfight.

henshao,

The F-35 driver can continue to guide it's AIM-120D to within a mile or two before the AMRAAM has to go active. Remember that the AIM-120D has a new GPS based guidance package.

Part of the F-35's A2A advantage, against any fighter, is it's ability to launch a AIM-120D to cover the entire 360 envelope around the F-35.

In your above scenario, the F-22 would have to be heading straight for the F-35 (and it's on coming AMRAAM), while the F-35 can be sprinting away (while still guiding the AMRAAM towards the F-22).

Exec,

1. You are assuming that the F-35 will not detect the F-22's radar and that the F-22 and F-35 are headed towards each other to begin with.

2. You are discounting the jamming ability of the APG-81 and the fact that the F-35 can fight in a jamming environment while the F-22 cannot.

Last edited by Rapec on Mar 05, 2010 - 08:18 PM; edited 1 time in total

SpudmanWP wrote:

You are discounting the jamming ability of the APG-81 and the fact that the F-35 can fight in a jamming environment while the F-22 cannot.

So F-35, still in development phase can simply everything while the F-22 can do nothing? Can you give the source which clearly states (and it's based on real facts) that F-22 cannot fight in jamming environment?

Regards

Double post, my mistake.

Baghdad's toxic electromagnetic environment may foil F-22

http://integrator.hanscom.af.mil/2007/F ... 007-20.htm

1. The F-22 only has radar while the F-35 has two different IR based sensors that it can use.

2. The F-22s radar (just like any other radar) will have to get closer to the F-35 before it can "burn through" the jamming of the F-35.

3. Not only will the F-22 be the victim of jamming, but also the F-22's AMRAAM.

My point is that if the F-22 launches at 40-50km, the F-35 can launch at that same range (due to MAWS warning and EOTS targeting). Then both the F-35 and F-22 start jamming. Since the F-35 was at the extreme of the F-22's detection range, the F-22 radar looses lock. The F-35 can maneuver away while still guiding the AMRAAM headed for the F-22 (via EOTS/EODASS). The F-22's AMRAAM cannot be guided due to the loss of the lock.

This is just one more reason why I think the F-22 should be upgraded with the cheek arrays, AIRST, and MLD (EODASS-like) upgrades ASAP.

Forum: F-35 versus XYZ

F-35 Lightning II versus the F-22 Raptor