U.S. Army Eyes F-35 As Missile Defense Sensor

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by spazsinbad » 09 Aug 2017, 10:30

U.S. Army Eyes F-35 As Missile Defense Sensor
08 Aug 2017 James Drew

"HUNTSVILLE, Alabama—The U.S. Army is interested in the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, but not for dropping bombs, close air support or dogfighting. The service believes the F-35 has potential as an airborne sensor for integrated air and missile defense.

The F-35 could essentially support the Army the same way that the Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye acts as the eyes of the U.S. Navy for early detecting and tracking of airborne threats. It could provide targeting data to land-based interceptor systems such as Patriot long before those threats show up on ground radars. An official with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) says a classified forum has been established to investigate how the F-35 community can support the air and missile defense mission.

Richard De Fatta, director of the USASMDC/ARSTRAT’s future warfare center, says discussions are ongoing about how to integrate the Joint Strike Fighter for taking out ballistic and cruise missiles. “It’s a great capability, so let’s see where it can contribute as an overhead asset,” he said at a Raytheon-sponsored forum here on Aug. 7, ahead of the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “We’re seeing where we could go with it and what’s the art of the possible.”

Participants in the discussions include the F-35 program office and operational users such as the U.S. Air Force. Army interest in the F-35 follows a successful demonstration by the Navy in 2016, during which a Marine Corps F-35B directed Raytheon’s Standard Missile-6 against a target drone. The flight test took place at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Sept. 12, 2016, after several years of discussion and preparation.

A Lockheed official said the demonstration resulted in a center-off-mass hit of the target on the first try. The test combined two of Lockheed’s most prominent military systems, the F-35 and Aegis Combat System. Targeting data from the F-35’s active electronically scanned array radar was passed to the Aegis “Desert Ship” at White Sands via the aircraft’s secure data relay systems, the low-probability-of-intercept Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL).

The Navy’s ultimate goal is to seamlessly integrate the F-35 and other airborne sensors into its next-generation networking architecture, the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air. Although not a substitute for the E-2D, the low-observable F-35 flies faster and is more survivable. The aircraft’s stealth features allow it to get closer to potential threats without being detected.

The Army has long been pursuing tethered aerostats, such as JLens, for detection and tracking of airborne threats. But aerostats, airships and balloons are far less responsive than a fighter jet, despite being far cheaper to operate long-term."

Source: http://aviationweek.com/defense/us-army ... nse-sensor


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by durahawk » 09 Aug 2017, 16:57

I'm not sure if the US Army is interested in procuring F-35's of their own. I think it would make much more sense to try to tap into Link-16/MADL to leverage F-35 sensor data of the other service assets into there current IADS networks. They might be able to task Air Force or Navy assets to fly specific tracks, but I think trying to procure/train/maintain pilots and aircraft of their own would be prohibitively expensive.


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by neptune » 09 Aug 2017, 19:20

durahawk wrote:I'm not sure if the US Army is interested in procuring F-35's of their own. ....


"Under the "Key West Agreement" of March 1948, the ..United States Air Force has control of all strategic air assets, and most tactical and logistic functions. Basically removing any fixed wing combat aircraft from the US Army.

While the Army retained aviation assets for reconnaissance and medical evacuation purposes. That is why the Army has spent so much time developing the rotary wing (helicopter) aviation, both transport and attack aircraft."
:)


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by talkitron » 09 Aug 2017, 20:21

neptune wrote:While the Army retained aviation assets for reconnaissance and medical evacuation purposes. That is why the Army has spent so much time developing the rotary wing (helicopter) aviation, both transport and attack aircraft."
:)


Other countries also field attack and transport helicopters and do not have the Key West agreement. :D

I am reading a new book on Russian Tactical Aviation (from Russian authors) and I learned that Army Aviation, AA, is actually part of the Russian Aerospace Forces, i.e. the air force, not the Russian Ground Forces. Russia is continuing to produce new models of attack and transport helicopters. In Israel, I believe helicopters are also part of the IAF.


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by popcorn » 09 Aug 2017, 21:08

talkitron wrote:
neptune wrote:While the Army retained aviation assets for reconnaissance and medical evacuation purposes. That is why the Army has spent so much time developing the rotary wing (helicopter) aviation, both transport and attack aircraft."
:)


Other countries also field attack and transport helicopters and do not have the Key West agreement. :D

I am reading a new book on Russian Tactical Aviation (from Russian authors) and I learned that Army Aviation, AA, is actually part of the Russian Aerospace Forces, i.e. the air force, not the Russian Ground Forces. Russia is continuing to produce new models of attack and transport helicopters. In Israel, I believe helicopters are also part of the IAF.


No need to derail the thread which is about the F-35 being used in conjunction with US Army missile defense systems and zero relevance to Russian and Israeli helo developments. :doh:
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by count_to_10 » 10 Aug 2017, 00:03

durahawk wrote:I'm not sure if the US Army is interested in procuring F-35's of their own. I think it would make much more sense to try to tap into Link-16/MADL to leverage F-35 sensor data of the other service assets into there current IADS networks. They might be able to task Air Force or Navy assets to fly specific tracks, but I think trying to procure/train/maintain pilots and aircraft of their own would be prohibitively expensive.

They may get relatively close with their future vertical lift platform.
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by neptune » 10 Aug 2017, 00:11

The above article is a follow-on to a previous test;

"At the live-fire event, the Aegis Combat System at Desert Ship launched a Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) from a vertical-launching system and successfully intercepted a cruise missile representative target using sensor data provided by an Army Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS). The JLENS data was transmitted to Aegis via the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) network and was used by Aegis to engage the target beyond the horizon of Desert Ship.

This successful NIFC-CA test was the first live-fire engagement using tactical Aegis Baseline 9, CEC, SM-6 and JLENS systems, and the first use of non-naval elevated sensor data to support an Aegis over-the-horizon engagement."

Release Date: 9/27/2012 2:29:00 PM

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=69829
:)


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by sferrin » 10 Aug 2017, 00:39

Integrate the F-35 into the USN/US Army/USAF "cloud". Thought the whole point of CEC was to get everybody feeding targets into the system and then letting the system allocate shooters.
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by popcorn » 10 Aug 2017, 01:11

IMO the Army should reconsider a JLENS-like system. It would provide persistent and affordable static coverage in certain scenarios/environments.
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by popcorn » 13 Aug 2017, 10:36

Does the US Army appreciate what the F-35 brings to the fight? Loren Thompson doesn't seem to think so. The sooner they roll out joint LFEs the better.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthomp ... 68b5d83257

Why The F-35 Fighter Will Be The U.S. Army's Best Friend In A Future European War

There isn't much evidence that Army leaders grasp what this portends for future war in Europe, so let me spell it out. The F-35 is basically invisible to Russian air defenses. They can't track it and they can't target it. But it is ten times more effective in suppressing hostile air defenses than the best legacy fighter in the U.S. fleet. It is also six times more effective in air-to-air combat and five times more effective in striking ground targets...

That is not what U.S. Army planning documents seem to be expecting. The service's Future Force Development Strategy, completed last year, states that "many aspects of the Army's force structure are tied to earlier operational environments and obsolete assumptions of air and maritime superiority." The Army fears that U.S. air power won't be there to defend it in the future because of the proliferation of Russian integrated air defenses in Eastern Europe.
"When a fifth-generation fighter meets a fourth-generation fighter—the [latter] dies,”
CSAF Gen. Mark Welsh


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by botsing » 14 Aug 2017, 17:31

popcorn wrote:But it is ten times more effective in suppressing hostile air defenses than the best legacy fighter in the U.S. fleet. It is also six times more effective in air-to-air combat and five times more effective in striking ground targets...

I wonder where they pulled these numbers from?

It sounds rather silly to state such definite single number metrics as if that is what will happen in all circumstances and contexts.
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by SpudmanWP » 14 Aug 2017, 18:40

They were based on simulations vs US 4th gen assets.

Image

Image

Image
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by archeman » 14 Aug 2017, 20:53

SpudmanWP wrote:They were based on simulations vs US 4th gen assets.

Image


I wonder how close the program is tracking to those rosy predictions in that last slide?
Too early to tell?
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by garrya » 14 Aug 2017, 21:46

SpudmanWP wrote:They were based on simulations vs US 4th gen assets.

Image

Image


where are these from? they looked like the same chart


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by SpudmanWP » 14 Aug 2017, 22:32

They are from various JPO presentations made over the years....

The 6:1 version is the newer one.
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