Forum: F-35 versus XYZ

Quote:

It does not matter if the US Navy ultimately decides to buy F-35Cs - the same carrier-based fighter recently de-selected by the Royal Navy

This is an accurate but misleading statement. People who are keeping track know WHY the RN returned to the F-35B, but since the writer doesn't say, to the casual reader it sure sounds like the Brits thought the F-35C just didn't cut it. And so...if the Brits rejected it, why is the USN buying it? Right?

In short, a deliberately misleading article written by someone who's agenda is to get the F-35 killed in order to free up money to save endangered gophers.

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The original article has a major flaw in it.
And the biggest flaw isn't the goodness or badness of the F-18.
It's right here....

Quote:

It is nearly time for the USN to make a hard decision.

The premise is that the Navy has time to change it's mind and that just isn't true.
The Navy already has one major strike aircraft development project collapse after a huge investment and now someone is suggesting that they triple that disaster by cancelling the F-35C???
Unlikely.

neurotech wrote:

The F/A-18E/F is actually LO, but doesn't have LO pylons/stores to match.

I'm not sure that you could call even a clean Super Hornet LO. I think it'd be more accurate to describe it(along with Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen NG), as reduced observability. Having said that, none of them can compare to the VLO characteristics of the F-35/F-22.

neurotech wrote:

If use of ballistic missiles was the primary threat in an engagement, we have these things called "tankers" that could push the range of a F/A-18F or F-35 to thousands of miles and destroy the capability to launch the guided ballistic missiles.

The Navy has Aegis RIM-161 Anti-Ballistic Missile systems in the destroyers, close to the carriers. This would allow the fleet to move in closer to the fight.

The premise that Chinese ballistic missiles can keep CBGs thousands of miles away is seriously flawed. Assuming that the missiles could actually hit a moving target from that distance, the Chinese have nowhere near the ISR capability to provide the necessary guidance. You're absolutely correct about tankers, SM-2/3/6 defenses, and you can also add in B-2s, SSN/SSGNs, and air launched JASSM-ERs, to further complicate matters.

If the Chinese can use ballistic missiles to hit US carrier battle groups, then it can most definitely use ballistic missiles to render US forward operating bases useless. In that case, there will be no tankers available to help the short legged US Navy. Without tanking support, the present (and future) carrier battle group will have minimal striking power in the opening days of a conflict. Hence the article's suggestion that the Navy give up on the F-35C and move towards a completely different airframe. (Side question: why not just use land based air if your going to have tanker support?) The core of the Navy's early conflict striking power will be in the SSNs and SSGNs, and not in the F-35C. This explains why stealth may not be the Navy's top priority, as they don't envision operating in the beginning of the conflict when the stealth is a necessity.

Next, few people seem to be doubting the ability of a country to build a missile than can hit a moving target. The key problem is getting the ballistic missile into position to find the enemy warship, after that, the ship is nearly stationary compared to the ballistic missile's velocity. Which leads to the next point, hitting a maneuverable re-entry vehicle is going to be extremely difficult, especially if the re-entry vehicle has penetration aids and does evasive maneuvers. That threat alone is sufficient to drive the USN's push for the free electron laser. The technical challenges are not insurmountable and it is foolish to think that the Chinese, who have extensive access to previous US work on similar weapon systems, will not be able to do it. The more interesting question is if the US has a sufficient 'soft-kill' capability to prevent the Chinese from getting a solid target. (Remember, in the 1980s the US achieved sub 100m accuracy with a radar guided RV on the Pershing II missile. If the Chinese get 100m CEP and have a flechette warhead, they can get a mission kill on a carrier with the use of only a handful of missiles)

wrightwing - read this article and then get back to the discussion. http://www.andrewerickson.com/2010/03/e ... t-to-asbm/

The last problem, not brought up by the article, but still relevant, is that other Chinese anti-ship weapon developments. Right now, the USN has a great advantage because the Chinese do not have enough long range fighters, bombers, and tankers. Given China's growing civilian air industry, however, that situation is not likely to continue. When china builds its own anti-ship bomber forces, that will also push the US carriers away from the mainland. In that situation, range will be of utmost importance for the carrier battle groups, both to run the outer-air battle and conduct strike missions.

In my opinion, what this means is that the USN will accept the F-35C, for the reasons stated elsewhere, it exists, its a program of record, etc. etc., but the USN won't put the F-35C at the front of its future carrier battle group design. It will be like the F-16 in the 1980s. The plane would eventually replace a vast number of fighters for the USAF, but it didn't represent the technological future of the USAF.

@arkadyrenko...... Why won't the USN put the F-35 as at the front of its future carrier battle group design? Do you understand the avonics and sensors the F-35 has that no other fighter has?

wrightwing wrote:

neurotech wrote:

If use of ballistic missiles was the primary threat in an engagement, we have these things called "tankers" that could push the range of a F/A-18F or F-35 to thousands of miles and destroy the capability to launch the guided ballistic missiles.

The Navy has Aegis RIM-161 Anti-Ballistic Missile systems in the destroyers, close to the carriers. This would allow the fleet to move in closer to the fight.

The premise that Chinese ballistic missiles can keep CBGs thousands of miles away is seriously flawed. Assuming that the missiles could actually hit a moving target from that distance, the Chinese have nowhere near the ISR capability to provide the necessary guidance. You're absolutely correct about tankers, SM-2/3/6 defenses, and you can also add in B-2s, SSN/SSGNs, and air launched JASSM-ERs, to further complicate matters.

Seriously, if the 2500km ballistic missile works, it won't be more difficult to build 3500km ones, 4500km ones ... And ballistic missiles travel much faster. I don't think tankers will help.
I think the point here is, it's still hard for ballistic missile to work this way effectively. The challenges are, besides missile guidance, the spotting and tracking capability of the carrier fleet using satellites.

Maybe one day that will happen, one day ballistic missile becomes a more effective way to hit long range target than an aircraft, and that could render carriers less useful, but that's not this age. If that comes close, we should first see powerful countries start to move their military investment more and more to long range missiles than traditional aircrafts.

stereospace wrote:

In short, a deliberately misleading article written by someone who's agenda is to get the F-35 killed in order to free up money to save endangered gophers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

Sorry, couldn't help it.

alloycoyboy - the F-18E/F replacement can have just the same sensors as the F-35C. It isn't the sensors that will matter to the USN under my proposed timeline, it is the airframe's range. Hence, the F-35C may represent a massive capabilities jump, but it won't be the style of manned aircraft the USN wants in the future. The situation would be analogous to the F-16 late models compared to the F-35. Both planes have a plethora of sensors, far more than the F-16s predecessor, but the USAF wanted stealth aircraft and the lightweight airframe of the F-16 no longer was of interest.

And, along those lines, how will the F-35C's sensors give it a massive advantage in the Pacific theater? If conducting long range strikes, those will either be with stand off weapons (where sensors don't matter as much) or against targets already pin-pointed by other intelligence assets. Given the supposed density of Chinese air defense assets, the USN probably won't want its fighters to roam about Chinese airspace trying to find a target. The specific sensors will make the F-35C more survivable and more effective at hitting point targets, but it isn't a certain fact that they will open up new methods of attack or radical new capabilities. What is more likely is that a carrier based stealthy UCAV will be more revolutionary than the F-35C.

Looking at things from a physics perspective, hypersonic ballistic missiles would seem to have significant limitations. If it is going fast enough (as in orbital speeds), it will be sheathed in plasma, which should make IR or radar guidance impossible unless it slows down a lot in the atmosphere. If it isn't going that fast, it still has a very long time of flight, which would give an observant target plenty of time to do something about it.

quicksilver wrote:

neurotech wrote:

The F/A-18E/F is actually LO, but doesn't have LO pylons/stores to match.

Go look at a SH (without pylons) and an F-35 side-by-side and then tell us which jet is LO. It's not even close.

The RCS of a F/A-18E/F is ~ 0.1 m2 That LO compared to a 4th gen fighters like the F-15 with a RCS of 10m2

quicksilver wrote:

neurotech wrote:

F-35 is a LO strike flighter that wont have the A/G maturity at IOC of the Super Hornet.

At IOC, the F/A-18A/B didn't have the A/G maturity of the F-4 nor the A-7. At IOC, the SH didn't have the A/G maturity of the F/A-18C/D. At IOC, F-35 will not have the weapons variety, but it will be a significant advancement in range, sensors, and overall capability.

The F/A-18E/F was replacing the F-14 on the carrier, not the C/D models. The F-14 didn't carry the AGM-65, AGM-84 or AGM-88 missiles, and they wont be carried by a F-35 internally either, even if certified for external carry. The F-35 wont be replacing the SH on the carrier either.

quicksilver wrote:

neurotech wrote:

Compared to the F/A-18C, the Super Hornet (esp. Block III F414-EDE engines) has better range and fuel economy

The E/F has always been an aerodynamic dog. It has 'more range' because it carries more fuel. In some configurations, the C/D has better range because it has far less drag. On internal fuel alone, F-35B is comparable in range to an E/F with a single centerline; F-35C is substantially better.

Are you referring to drag from inner pylons angled for clean separation?
Once supersonic in AA configuration, I'm pretty sure the SH comes out better than the C/D performance. The C/D does do better than a Block I SH in transonic drag, however.

The F/A-18E/F Block II & III design has some aerodynamic changes that reduced the drag, but this is not used with current production fighters. Some of these changes made it onto the EA-18G aircraft in service.

arkadyrenko wrote:

If the Chinese can use ballistic missiles to hit US carrier battle groups, then it can most definitely use ballistic missiles to render US forward operating bases useless. In that case, there will be no tankers available to help the short legged US Navy. Without tanking support, the present (and future) carrier battle group will have minimal striking power in the opening days of a conflict. Hence the article's suggestion that the Navy give up on the F-35C and move towards a completely different airframe. (Side question: why not just use land based air if your going to have tanker support?) The core of the Navy's early conflict striking power will be in the SSNs and SSGNs, and not in the F-35C. This explains why stealth may not be the Navy's top priority, as they don't envision operating in the beginning of the conflict when the stealth is a necessity.

The Navy do have F/A-18E buddy tanker capability. The RAF used buddy refueling for bombers in Falklands war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck

Navy F/A-18s flew the first bombing missions over Afghanistan on Sept 12, 2001, presumably with Navy Jets as tankers.

count_to_10 wrote:

Looking at things from a physics perspective, hypersonic ballistic missiles would seem to have significant limitations. If it is going fast enough (as in orbital speeds), it will be sheathed in plasma, which should make IR or radar guidance impossible unless it slows down a lot in the atmosphere. If it isn't going that fast, it still has a very long time of flight, which would give an observant target plenty of time to do something about it.

I agree with this. An inertial navigation system is how ballistic missiles were conventionally guided with star-sighting used for mid-course corrections. GPS might be added to a ballistic missile to obtain greater accuracy of guidance but without some type of terminal homing system then defeating a carrier is out of the question. Like you said plasma will just absorb radar and IR won't be able to filter out the target from all of the plasma-generated heat "noise" around it.

It might be possible to use a pulsed laser or electrical arc to generate a low density region in front of the missile to reduce drag and to simulate the effects of a much weaker bow shock so as to not have so much trouble with plasma but the Chinese could not possibly possess anywhere near as much research data in the field of hypersonics as the US so I seriously doubt China even has these technologies nor are they able to develop them in a reasonable amount of time.

tacf-x wrote:

count_to_10 wrote:

Looking at things from a physics perspective, hypersonic ballistic missiles would seem to have significant limitations. If it is going fast enough (as in orbital speeds), it will be sheathed in plasma, which should make IR or radar guidance impossible unless it slows down a lot in the atmosphere. If it isn't going that fast, it still has a very long time of flight, which would give an observant target plenty of time to do something about it.

I agree with this. An inertial navigation system is how ballistic missiles were conventionally guided with star-sighting used for mid-course corrections. GPS might be added to a ballistic missile to obtain greater accuracy of guidance but without some type of terminal homing system then defeating a carrier is out of the question. Like you said plasma will just absorb radar and IR won't be able to filter out the target from all of the plasma-generated heat "noise" around it.

It might be possible to use a pulsed laser or electrical arc to generate a low density region in front of the missile to reduce drag and to simulate the effects of a much weaker bow shock so as to not have so much trouble with plasma but the Chinese could not possibly possess anywhere near as much research data in the field of hypersonics as the US so I seriously doubt China even has these technologies nor are they able to develop them in a reasonable amount of time.

More than the interference, I don't see what kind of IR transparent window would even be able to handle reentry. Also, the plasma will cut off GPS signals as well.

Remember: the US has already built a radar guided ballistic missile. Granted, it wasn't an intercontinental ballistic missile, so the range and speed weren't as extreme. But, the principle has been demonstrated that one can build a guided ballistic missile.

Buddy tanking is a bit of a stop gap measure, one which reduces the carrier's striking capacity. It can help, but it is decidedly not a optimal situation.

Forum: F-35 versus XYZ

F-35: Super Hornet hedge