Aircraft Carriers III

Is an Average Sortie Duration of just 1.1 hrs enough for strike?
I'm quite astounded to find such a massive difference in ASD of A and B variant at 2.5 hrs and 1.1 hrs respectively.

I'd forgotten where i saved it.
did you read

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what on Earth does that mean (quoting the last sentence of "Change Explanations" on top of p. 20):

The values listed herein as “Demonstrated Performance” are based on the final aero-performance model (up-and-away) for the F-35A and F-35B.


?
if I were you, I'd begin with realizing it's CYA "results", LOL
 

Tirdent

Junior Member
Registered Member
Is an Average Sortie Duration of just 1.1 hrs enough for strike?
I'm quite astounded to find such a massive difference in ASD of A and B variant at 2.5 hrs and 1.1 hrs respectively.

6t of fuel in a 15t airframe vs. 8t of fuel in a 13t airframe that is in other respects (engine, aerodynamics) pretty much the same - what do you expect? Depending on which take-off mode and weapons load underlies the mission profile for the B-model, it might not even be able to take along max fuel (while possibly the F-35A in turn has margin for drop tanks).

Pretty nicely frames my beef with the F-35 and by extension CVF - the B-variant is a marvel of engineering in terms of packaging and weight discipline, but a naval strike aircraft that combines short legs and stealth seems like a solution looking for a problem to me. On the one hand it can penetrate a peer adversary's advanced air defences thanks to low RCS, but simultaneously its short radius of action forces the carrier to expose itself to the enemy's equally advanced anti-ship systems.

Ok, so CVF isn't primarily about peer adversaries, I hear you say - well, then what do you need a gold-plated stealthy aircraft for? In the same vein, why the emphasis on high sortie-rate from a "small" (as though 65k tons could genuinely be considered small!) carrier that is commonly touted as a selling point for STOVL, if not against a peer-level opponent? In a Libya-type theatre there aren't enough targets and infrastructure to warrant a massive ops tempo, not to mention that a substantial part of the advantage will be used up in compensating for the lower weapons load per aircraft and inferior time on station.

Now, that's the B-model, but the A- and C-versions are anything but short-ranged, so what's wrong with them? Well, without the compromises introduced by the need to have maximum structural commonality with a Rube-Goldberg STOVL sibling, they could be even better (or cheaper, or both)!
 

Tirdent

Junior Member
Registered Member
F35A is already cheaper than the B model.

As it should be - it's a significantly less complex machine to build. If it didn't need to make allowance for what commonality it has with the B (and since that task amounts to squaring a circle it's objectively hard to see how it could be even higher than it in fact is - credit to LM where it's due!), it could be even cheaper than that, however.

except the debater didn't talk a commonality between F-35A and F-35C, but their commonality with
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(= F-35B according to the debater)

That, too. Dassault proved that you can build land-based and carrier-borne variants of the same basic fighter design which are each highly competitive with their respective peers and yet share a high degree of common structure. Similarly, the Hornet and Super Hornet have achieved a decent level of market success against opponents optimized for non-naval use. These sets of requirements aren't nearly as contradictory - in that sense the magnitude of the differences between the C and the A might well be a direct consequence of having to account for the B.

The F-35B is brilliant - efficient even, at what it's designed to do (it's difficult to envisage how it could be simplified further and still meet its requirements!). Only those requirements don't seem to make sense from the very outset.
 
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anyway a supercarrier is an example of holistic weapon system:

its squadrons mean incomparably more while embarked together in operationally meaningful numbers I mean strike-fighter squadrons plus early-warning and electronic-attack (and auxiliary) aircraft;

those talking 'lightning carrier' etc. instead (recently the USMC and the SECNAV -- I could put links here) are either mistaken or trying to 'make a virtue of necessity'
 
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The F-35B is brilliant - efficient even, at what it's designed to do (it's difficult to envisage how it could be simplified further and still meet its requirements!). Only those requirements don't seem to make sense from the very outset.
LOL I'm not exactly an F-35 fan, but yeah the Bravo is a luxurious replacement of the Harrier II, and they should've dropped the Joint ... idea and split the program (and the program office) and not to give the USAF a flying brick which alas! is supposed to replace not just the F-16, but the Warthog, too; the USN has been fine all the time with what's already on the supercarriers

would've could've anyway
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
LOL I'm not exactly an F-35 fan, but yeah the Bravo is a luxurious replacement of the Harrier II, and they should've dropped the Joint ... idea and split the program (and the program office) and not to give the USAF a flying brick which alas! is supposed to replace not just the F-16, but the Warthog, too; the USN has been fine all the time with what's already on the supercarriers

would've could've anyway
Flying Brick? Air show demos have debunked that.
Warthog is more a flying Brick than any thing flying in the world.
Fine for now as long as the threat is 50 year old platforms lacking any real modern air Defence systems built post Disco.
 

Brumby

Major
Why is this important? Because sortie generation is one of, if not the most important metric for naval aviation capabilities, and seems to be one of the first aspects of carrier aviation ignored by critics of big deck nuclear aircraft carriers. For example, take the idea of a CVL, a 30,000 ton light carrier alternative supporting 20 F-35Bs. Let us be super optimistic, and suggest the F-35B is as reliable as the F/A-18C from a maintenance perspective (maybe a very patient aviator can explain to the peanut gallery why this is a super optimistic suggestion). In Surge 97, the F/A-18C achieved the eye popping sortie rate of 4.5 sorties per day, but N88 planning factors for the F/A-18C is 2.0 sorties per day. For the purposes of this exercise, let us assume the F-35B can support 2.0 sorties per day on a CVL.

If we assume 20%(closer to 40%) of the aircraft are not mission capable, and we should because that is how Murphy’s Law works on an aircraft carrier, we now have a CVL supporting 16 F-35Bs capable of conducting 32 sorties per day at a 2.0 sortie rate, and doing so without the services of carrier based E-2D or EA-18G. If a Nimitz class can support 120 sorties per day, we would need 4 CVLs to match the number of sorties a single CVN can support, and a CVN comes with E-2Ds and EA-18Gs built in. The Ford class, which is not only less expensive to operate than a Nimitz, but is specifically designed to support higher sortie generation rates, is probably going to average $8.5 billion over its lifetime (I am guessing, but using CBO numbers to guess). That means the Navy would have to build 30,000 ton CVLs at a cost under $2.2 billion each, which would be at a cost less than the 9,800 ton DDG-51 destroyer in the FY2010 budget, in order to be less expensive and equally capable in sortie generation as a Ford class.

I hate to break it to the CVL / Small Carrier crowd, but it is 100% MYTH and FUD when it is claimed that big deck nuclear aircraft carriers are somehow inferior to alternatives, including on the cost metric. They are in fact, superior in every costing, capacity, and capability metric one can find. The only consideration where CVLs have a good argument is in terms of risk, because CVNs put a lot of eggs in one basket. It all comes down to the level of risk that is acceptable vs the level of cost, capacity, and capability desired for your naval force. I’ll take the big deck, at least 10 if possible, with its associated conventional launch capability and with the E-2D and EA-18G, I’ll whip any 4 VSTOL CVLs every single day of the century.


There is no dispute that the Nimitz class at 100,000 tonnes is capable of delivering sorties far ahead of the sum of smaller CVL's. Studies including a very recent one done by RAND testify to such facts. .

The recent conversation about the LHA America class with its accompanying F-35B's is about the prospect of a highly capable 5th generation asset coupled to a LHA and potentially the increase flexibility that it it can offer to mission planning. The F-35B itself is a force multiplier and I think is highly under appreciated of what it can offer viz a viz 4th generation platforms.

The graphical comparison of the F-117 vs 4th gen strike package in delivering the desired effects is not some hypothetical conversation. It is actually based on the 1st Iraqi war where the first strike package totaling 60 units of F-16s with Wild Weasel support was unable to accomplish a mission to destroy a nuclear facility near Baghdad. It was subsequently executed by the F-117s in a smaller strike package with a much smaller support footprint. The F-35B's being much more capable than the F-117 has the potential to offer much more in weight disproportionate to the size of its airwing on board a LHA be it 12 or 20.

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