Forum: General F-35 Forum

Quote:

This Week at War: Iran's Learning Curve
Why we should take Tehran's threat to cut off the Strait of Hormuz seriously.

[...] The Pentagon has made a heavy bet on the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. If restricted to flying from just Turkey and aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, the short-range F-35 would be able to cover targets in just the northwest and southeast corners of Iran [...]

Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... ning_curve

And remember, the Jurassic fighter is even shorter ranged than the Baby Seal and can't operate from ships.

Time to talk to LockMart about the FB-22?

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Eventually they'll move to systems based only int he US or on floating platforms, CVNs or some kind of massive seabase.

If you read the article, even F-35s operating from CVNs don't have enough range to cover a sufficient amount of Iran. Assuming the carriers aren't idiotic and operate from inside the Persian Gulf.

In all seriousness, the USAF / USN needs to get some range on their fighters. Not this generation, definitely, but the next class of fighters or even the F-35 upgrades have to be about range before all other factors. The F-22 and the F-35 were designed with the Cold War in mind and it shows. The next generation of fighters, or even just the 5+ gen of fighters, should be about AA/AD situations.

This is what tankers are for. I would never sacrafice combat ability over a couple hundred NM. Obviously there is a bare min, but park the tankers just outside the MEZ and who cares? There are platforms designed for long range precision strikes that is not exclusive to bombers. This opens up another can of worms, but I DONT WANT DEGRADED ABILITY IN MY FIGHTERS. Fighters are made to shoot down other airplanes or drop bombs in hostile environments where bombers can't go cause they'll get thier a$$ shot off. They need to be fast, maneuverable, and sealthy. period. Thus the f-22 is the ultimate fighter with hopefully the 35 to follow. Those 2 working together will comprise the greatest tactical advantage since the stirrup, machinegun, bodkin etc...
And yes in answer to the above post the carriers will be operating in the gulf because the coast would have been neutralized. It's called a roll back.

The range issue isn't tactical, it's strategic. There's not a lot of places willing to base US stuff that's being used in a war. We may have to sacrifice some capability for range.

arkadyrenko wrote:

If you read the article, even F-35s operating from CVNs don't have enough range to cover a sufficient amount of Iran. Assuming the carriers aren't idiotic and operate from inside the Persian Gulf.

In all seriousness, the USAF / USN needs to get some range on their fighters. Not this generation, definitely, but the next class of fighters or even the F-35 upgrades have to be about range before all other factors. The F-22 and the F-35 were designed with the Cold War in mind and it shows. The next generation of fighters, or even just the 5+ gen of fighters, should be about AA/AD situations.

F-135 is stated to be compatible with some degree of ADVENT-style upgrades. That should help with range and mission radius.

Don't feed the troll.

tacf-x wrote:

arkadyrenko wrote:

If you read the article, even F-35s operating from CVNs don't have enough range to cover a sufficient amount of Iran. Assuming the carriers aren't idiotic and operate from inside the Persian Gulf.

In all seriousness, the USAF / USN needs to get some range on their fighters. Not this generation, definitely, but the next class of fighters or even the F-35 upgrades have to be about range before all other factors. The F-22 and the F-35 were designed with the Cold War in mind and it shows. The next generation of fighters, or even just the 5+ gen of fighters, should be about AA/AD situations.

F-135 is stated to be compatible with some degree of ADVENT-style upgrades. That should help with range and mission radius.

Oh yeah, the F-35 has to last about 30 years. Maybe the critics don't realize 15C and 16C are big upgrades over the A models.

So the range is on par with the F-18 in clean configuration but F-18s rarely take off that way do they? Does that mean the hornet is a screaching baby seal as well? or perhaps that both aircraft are capable of fulfiling the mission but they may need a week or so to be able to drill into all target areas. But since the F-35 won't be operational for several more years this whole suggestion of Iran targeting is a topic for the future isn't it?

hcobb wrote:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/20/this_week_at_war_irans_learning_curve
The Pentagon has made a heavy bet on the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. If restricted to flying from just Turkey and aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, the short-range F-35 would be able to cover targets in just the northwest and southeast corners of Iran

And remember, the Jurassic fighter is even shorter ranged than the Baby Seal and can't operate from ships.

Time to talk to LockMart about the FB-22?

@Hcobb...... The F-22's F119 engines are all wrong for a long range strike aircraft. What is needed is a twin F-135 engine strike aircraft with a maximum take off weight of 140,000 pounds.

alloycowboy wrote:

hcobb wrote:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/20/this_week_at_war_irans_learning_curve
The Pentagon has made a heavy bet on the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. If restricted to flying from just Turkey and aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, the short-range F-35 would be able to cover targets in just the northwest and southeast corners of Iran

And remember, the Jurassic fighter is even shorter ranged than the Baby Seal and can't operate from ships.

Time to talk to LockMart about the FB-22?

@Hcobb...... The F-22's F119 engines are all wrong for a long range strike aircraft. What is needed is a twin F-135 engine strike aircraft with a maximum take off weight of 140,000 pounds.

In other words, an actual bomber. You know... the type of aircraft that we used to build to, like... fly a long ways and drop bombs?

Hey thats a good point 1st503rdsgt.....let the long range bombers bomb targets that are a long ways away. Brilliant. And if memory serves I think that the USAF already has some bombers in it's inventory and is making plans to build new ones let me grab my Janes just to be sure I've got that correct.

Am I missing something? What's wrong with putting tanker aircraft with F-22 escorts in the Gulf (or even A2A loaded F-35's, they'll decimate anything Iran has anyway)? Scale diagram below shows the combat radius of the F-35 from a few different staging points in the area, Red circle is the F-35's reach, Black is JSOW/SDB II and Blue is JASSM. Looks pretty much covered.

Seems like the baby seal can pretty much do a job on Iran without the long range bombers and on internal fuel and weapons only. Very Happy

Looks like the writer didn't think this out too well. I wouldn't have expected HCOBB to work it out though Smile

It's amusing how hcobb whines about the F-35's range. I guess he's never bothered to examine that of the Super Hornet. Laughing

Not to mention the F135's screech has been remedied by PW.

"Roaring" would be a more appropriate adjective...

TEG

Forum: General F-35 Forum

F-35 useless against Iran?