F-35 best loadout combination to penetrate Type 055 defense

It is undeniable that long range anti ship missile such as LRASM and JSM will out range the air defense envelope of Type 055 and a stealth fighter such as F-35 will be able to detect, track, engage a cruise like Type 055 before the other one can do anything to it. There is no disagreement about that. However, Type 055 is a cruise with very strong air defense: massive C/S-band AESA radar will over 100 HQ-9 long range SAM + 24 HQ-9 short range SAM, even if we can attack the cruiser with long range missile, it can shot down the anti ship missiles very easily.
So let discuss what is the best load out combination and tactic to penetrate the air defense of such highly defended cruiser?:

Ground rules:
_ You are only allowed to use 1 F-35 and in 1 sortie, neither side has any third party support but they know vaguely the direction that the enemy will come from before hand.
_ You don't have to sink the cruiser, any physical damage on the ship count as a win.
_ All equipment are assumed to work properly, nothing is broken due to poor maintenance
_ The loadout doesn't have to ensure penetration of the air defense all the time, it only have to be greater than 0%
_ You can combine weapons used by different countries as long as that weapon is or will be certificated to be used on F-35. So you can combine something like UK Spear 3 with Israel Spice 250 on the same aircraft. But not something like ASMP and Kh-31.


The current set up that I think will have the most success with is: 2 DASH-X + 12 SPEAR-EW + 2 AARGM-ER. The 2
DASH-X is released early to locate the location of Type 055 with their ESM antenna. This will also allow F-35 to keep track of Type 055 even when the aircraft is below radar horizon. Once the location is fixed, F-35 will approach that location from low altitude (below radar horizon). At about 50-60 km from targets, SPEAR-EW are launched toward the bearing of Type 055. Once the jamming drones are about 30 km from the cruiser and the cruiser start to attack the jamming drone with HQ-9 SAM. Start open fire on the cruiser with your AARGM-ER. I tested this set up in Command Modern Operations and the result seem promising, I can penetrate the defense about 25-30% of the time. Though to be fair, my version of CMO doesn't have SPEAR-EW and DASH-X so I have to substitute that with 12 MALD-J launched from B-52.

I think ROCKS is also a strong contender to replace AARGM-ER in the set up above, because it has an optical sensor to avoid jamming from the cruise, it is faster (Mach 5) and it can dive from very steep angle

Chinese Navy Type 055: download/file.php?id=34053

_ You don't have to sink the cruiser, any physical damage on the ship count as a win.

Easy one then:

Contact the ship's captain by radio and insult him long enough with bad jokes about his mother, so that in the end he will angrily throw his cup of tea across the room thereby making at least a scratch somewhere: mission accomplished.

By looking at your loadout list it's clear that the F-35 is always configured in 'Beast Mode'.
Together with this and IMO, I believe that in order to get rid of such threat it's always better to sink it or at least severely cripple it.
As such and in order to maintain the F-35 clear of the threat posed by that Destroyer (from what I read that Type 055 is a Destroyer and not a Cruiser but nowadays this seems to be more of a semantic thing) and considering that the F-35 is in 'Beast Mode' and as such considerably less Stealthy (as opposed to 'Stealth Mode') and that IMO it's preferable to destroy or severally cripple the enemy ship or even to sink/destroy/cripple other ships that are sailing with and/or being protected by the Type 055, I believe that the best loadout would be the combination of LRASM and JSM. These weapons are stealthy which means less chance for the Type 055 to shoot them down, carry more powerful warheads (compared to the other options) which means more chance to either sink or severely cripple the Type 055 and can be programmed (namely the LRASM) to attack the enemy ship from multiple directions (and also reducing the chance for the Type 055 to shoot down all incoming missiles).


As a side note to your scenario, I don't think that 1 x Type 055 versus 1 x F-35 is a realistic and even 'fair' scenario. The thing is that a single warship of that class/type is exponentially much more expensive than a single F-35 and as such will only exist in far less and reduced numbers compared to the F-35.
Just to give you small example, Canada will purchase/build 15 (fifteen) Surface Combatant Ships that are based on the Type 26 Global Combat Ship which are very well armed (specially by Canadian standards but not only!) and this compared to 88 (eighty eight) F-35's, if Canada chooses the F-35 that is. So we're talking about 5.86 F-35's per each warship here.
Costwise in the example above, the 15 Surface Combatant Ships are expected to cost up to $70 Billion CAD (although a considerable 'premium' for building in Canada is definitely included in this cost) which makes it the most expensive military acquisition in the Canadian history while the fleet of 88 fighter aircraft (hopefully the F-35) is expected to cost less than $20 Billion CAD.
IMO, a much more fair comparison would be 1 x Type 055 ship (or even 2 if you want to balance more the odds) against 4 x F-35s.

By looking at your loadout list it's clear that the F-35 is always configured in 'Beast Mode'.
Together with this and IMO, I believe that in order to get rid of such threat it's always better to sink it or at least severely cripple it.
As such and in order to maintain the F-35 clear of the threat posed by that Destroyer (from what I read that Type 055 is a Destroyer and not a Cruiser but nowadays this seems to be more of a semantic thing) and considering that the F-35 is in 'Beast Mode' and as such considerably less Stealthy (as opposed to 'Stealth Mode') and that IMO it's preferable to destroy or severally cripple the enemy ship or even to sink/destroy/cripple other ships that are sailing with and/or being protected by the Type 055,

I choose beast mode because stealth mode will always end up in a draw.
F-35 in stealth mode will be able to detect Type 055 and attack it before Type 055 can retaliate. But Type 055 has more than enough missiles to intercept everything a single stealth F-35 can launch at it. So it will end in a draw.

I believe that the best loadout would be the combination of LRASM and JSM. These weapons are stealthy which means less chance for the Type 055 to shoot them down, carry more powerful warheads (compared to the other options) which means more chance to either sink or severely cripple the Type 055 and can be programmed (namely the LRASM) to attack the enemy ship from multiple directions (and also reducing the chance for the Type 055 to shoot down all incoming missiles).

I tried this solution in CMO, I even make one scenario where a single B-1 launch 24 LRASM at the cruiser/destroyer. The missile doesn't get through. The problem is that, even for the most stealthy missile, they are still detectable by the ship radar when they got within 15-25 km, the output of Type 346B radar at such distance is too high, and the stealth missiles are still detectable on infrared sensor. But you could be onto something, I haven't try the mixed SPEAR-EW + JSM/LRASM yet, so I will test that

As a side note to your scenario, I don't think that 1 x Type 055 versus 1 x F-35 is a realistic and even 'fair' scenario. The thing is that a single warship of that class/type is exponentially much more expensive than a single F-35 and as such will only exist in far less and reduced numbers compared to the F-35.

I didn't try to make it realistic, I just want to see with very limited weapon quantity, what is the best way to penetrate the air defense of a cruiser

You dont think Stormbreaker would get through?
Why not just jam the ships radar, and use stormbreaker or even paveway for Gods sakes?!

My stupid tactics idea.
It make multiple missiles run side by side or crowd together and camouflage themselves as single missile.
"shot it down, but couldn't shoot it down !?" Repeat that kind of thing. Like Harassment.

pattern

I tried this solution in CMO, I even make one scenario where a single B-1 launch 24 LRASM at the cruiser/destroyer. The missile doesn't get through.

IMO, the problem is that such games/simulators - which started with Harpoon which personally I played alot during the 1990's - are wayyyy too optimistic when it comes to Anti-missile defenses. By the way, the kind of scenario/situation that you described (all or most all group of incoming missiles being shot down) also happened in Harpoon which modeled much older anti-missile defenses (which should be even less reliable compared to modern air defense systems).
Anyway, what I'm saying here is that real Anti-missile defense are not perfect and some/many launched SAMs would actually fail hitting incoming anti-ship missiles which means that I doubt that any single modern and near future warship would be able to defend itself against something like a volley of 6 (advanced) Anti-ship missiles.

The problem is that, even for the most stealthy missile, they are still detectable by the ship radar when they got within 15-25 km, the output of Type 346B radar at such distance is too high, and the stealth missiles are still detectable on infrared sensor.

Well, that seems to be a failure/bug in that game (CMO) since at 15-25km a sea skimming LRASM or JSM would be below the horizon and as such wouldn't be (or would hardly be) detected by the ship's sensors (Radar and IR) at such ranges even if technically such missiles could be detected as those ranges (if they were in line of sight with the sensor, that is).

You dont think Stormbreaker would get through?
Why not just jam the ships radar, and use stormbreaker or even paveway for Gods sakes?!

I agree with you regarding the Stormbreaker! And I also thought about it but in order for what you said to work the F-35 would better be in "stealth mode" but all the loadouts above mentioned by the OP would be for "beast mode" hence why I didn't mentioned the GBU-53 (Stormbreaker) earlier.

JoyousTameCero-mobile.mp4 [ 1.45 MiB | Viewed 6434 times ]

You dont think Stormbreaker would get through?
Why not just jam the ships radar, and use stormbreaker or even paveway for Gods sakes?!

I agree with you regarding the Stormbreaker! And I also thought about it but in order for what you said to work the F-35 would better be in "stealth mode" but all the loadouts above mentioned by the OP would be for "beast mode" hence why I didn't mentioned the GBU-53 (Stormbreaker) earlier.

sorry I missed that part.
But that doesn't make things better for the ship.
Because in beast mode an F-35 could carry 32+ storm breakers compared to 8. If you recall the USS. Cole was almost totally sunk, if not mission killed by a suicide bomber in a boat. Now imagine 32 munitions hitting you at close to mach with penetrating warhead that can punch through hardened shelters
32 of those is a bad day.

By looking at your loadout list it's clear that the F-35 is always configured in 'Beast Mode'.
Together with this and IMO, I believe that in order to get rid of such threat it's always better to sink it or at least severely cripple it.
As such and in order to maintain the F-35 clear of the threat posed by that Destroyer (from what I read that Type 055 is a Destroyer and not a Cruiser but nowadays this seems to be more of a semantic thing) and considering that the F-35 is in 'Beast Mode' and as such considerably less Stealthy (as opposed to 'Stealth Mode') and that IMO it's preferable to destroy or severally cripple the enemy ship or even to sink/destroy/cripple other ships that are sailing with and/or being protected by the Type 055,

I choose beast mode because stealth mode will always end up in a draw.
F-35 in stealth mode will be able to detect Type 055 and attack it before Type 055 can retaliate. But Type 055 has more than enough missiles to intercept everything a single stealth F-35 can launch at it. So it will end in a draw.

I believe that the best loadout would be the combination of LRASM and JSM. These weapons are stealthy which means less chance for the Type 055 to shoot them down, carry more powerful warheads (compared to the other options) which means more chance to either sink or severely cripple the Type 055 and can be programmed (namely the LRASM) to attack the enemy ship from multiple directions (and also reducing the chance for the Type 055 to shoot down all incoming missiles).

I tried this solution in CMO, I even make one scenario where a single B-1 launch 24 LRASM at the cruiser/destroyer. The missile doesn't get through. The problem is that, even for the most stealthy missile, they are still detectable by the ship radar when they got within 15-25 km, the output of Type 346B radar at such distance is too high, and the stealth missiles are still detectable on infrared sensor. But you could be onto something, I haven't try the mixed SPEAR-EW + JSM/LRASM yet, so I will test that

As a side note to your scenario, I don't think that 1 x Type 055 versus 1 x F-35 is a realistic and even 'fair' scenario. The thing is that a single warship of that class/type is exponentially much more expensive than a single F-35 and as such will only exist in far less and reduced numbers compared to the F-35.

I didn't try to make it realistic, I just want to see with very limited weapon quantity, what is the best way to penetrate the air defense of a cruiser

Even a Harpoon or Tomahawk isn't guaranteed to be detected at 15-25km, much less a JSM/LRASM. Furthermore, the F-35 could provide EA/EW cover for the missiles, to further complicate matters. Lastly, the missiles will be performing evasive maneuvers.

The thought just occured to me.
Even with twice as many ships in theatre as the Americans, without superiority in the stealth, EW, and submarine domains, the U.S. will flatten the Chinese navy.
Even a full beast mode F-35s with stealthy escorts would annihilate a Chinese SAG.
4X F-35Cs with 32 Stormbreakers each is 128.
There is no way even a very capable Surface action group can stand this kind of rain.
1 beast mode F-35 is a dangerous attack.
2 is your SAGs on fire
3+ is armageddon!

sorry I missed that part.
But that doesn't make things better for the ship.
Because in beast mode an F-35 could carry 32+ storm breakers compared to 8. If you recall the USS. Cole was almost totally sunk, if not mission killed by a suicide bomber in a boat. Now imagine 32 munitions hitting you at close to mach with penetrating warhead that can punch through hardened shelters
32 of those is a bad day.

Again, I fully agree with you.
I was just playing along/toying with an hypothetical scenario that the destroyer could detect and engage a "beast mode" F-35 at longer range than the F-35 is able to deploy its GBU-53's against the destroyer (a scenario which BTW, I don't believe) hence why I mentioned the F-35 using the GBU-53's in "Stealth Mode" instead.

But yeah, I also don't believe that the destroyer could defend itself and alone against an entire volley of 8 x GBU-53's (launched from a "Stealth Mode" F-35) let alone against 32 x GBU-53's!

Even a Harpoon or Tomahawk isn't guaranteed to be detected at 15-25km, much less a JSM/LRASM. Furthermore, the F-35 could provide EA/EW cover for the missiles, to further complicate matters. Lastly, the missiles will be performing evasive maneuvers.

Exactly!
And furthermore, JSM/LRASM missiles track their targets while being completely passive which makes counter detection much more harder compared to Active-guided missiles such as for example the AGM-84 Harpoon.

Oh and by the way, the weapon configuration above is not representative of the actual Type 055 destroyer weapon configuration. That was (like it's stated in the picture) a concept. The actual weapon configuration which can be read in the links at the end of this post, is the following:

- 112 VLS silos (64 cells forward ad 48 cells aft.)
- 1 x 130 mm main gun
- 1 x 30m CIWS
- 24 Cell short-range missile launcher
- Torpedo launchers (which are irrelevant for the scenario at hand)

While still carrying a 'punch' the capabilities the real weapons of the Type 055 fall a bit shorter compared to what can be seen in the concept's picture.


https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/20 ... -for-plan/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_055_destroyer