US military procurement practices and priorities

Bltizo said:

By virtue of its scale and capabilities.

I'm not claiming that on a single airframe level the aircraft is individually that capable. But when looking at the number of F-35s that are in service today as well as the number of F-35s that will enter service in coming years (versus how many opfor 5th gens will enter service), I think it is quite a reasonable thing to say.
It doesn't really matter if a J-20 or Su-57 are marginally more maneuverable or kinematically superior to F-35, if there are tens more multiples (or in the case of Su-57, hundreds more multiples) of F-35s in service each of which have equal or perhaps superior VLO, sensors, weapons, and networking.

In the case of the PLA, the relative threat and overall capability of the F-35 will depend on how quickly they can induct their own 5th gens as well as their multidomain offensive counter air/strike capabilities.

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It...often doesn't matter? IMHO, you're paying too much attention to this "generation" thing.

I mean seriously, F-35 can count as the best tactical aircraft available - at least, for now. But tactical aircraft is a very generic term, and as all generic terms - it won't help you best in a particular situation. What matters is what you are doing in this particular engagement and in this particular conflict.

For example, with all your VLO, sensors, and networking, in air defense mission you either intercept archer or, at worst, - arrows.

VLO doesn't matter when you need to reach, say, Blackjack in time, before it'll release its salvo of cruise missiles - and will just afterburn back into Arctic or Pacific airspace. Because good luck catching all 12 of VLO LACMs sneaking in different directions afterward. So, basically, you won't be doing any better than an ANG F-16v*, for way more money over your service life.
*arguably worse, because SABRE is built specifically for this sort of work.

Sensors and networking won't really help you to intercept WZ-8 drone gaining final targeting data on your carrier strike group. They won't place you into position to intercept a salvo of YJ-12s going at your carrier, unless you're already lucky enough to be precisely there. Lucky - because by the time of their launch, it'll already be essentially determined, do you have a shot at them or no - and it's up to the attacker to choose attack vectors and patterns, not up to defender.
Again - no advantage over SHornet Blk. III.

Sensors and networking won't stop, say, a Foxhound dashing at 80'000 ft against your force multiplier.
Here it's even worse, because all other 5th and many 4th gen fighters will actually solve this problem much better.

What's common in all 3 scenarios is that I haven't even put F-35 itself under attack, as @MarKoz81 did. I only added something to protect - and F-35 starts to show its shortcomings. F-15EX - is fine, Typhoon - is fine, Su-35 - is fine. But for F-35 this is just not something it's good at.
I can go on with other DCAs, or specific types of OCA missions, or strike ones - but this is largely redundant, as, again, MarKoz did it already.

F-35 is a strike fighter. Advanced, capable, but strike fighter. In "American century" this would've been enough - the only serious opponent then was Russia, and it doesn't count as anything close to an equal opponent to the West on its own. But F-35 essentially missed this American century.
China breaks this equation. Not only on the primary axis of competition(i.e. on its own), but on secondary theaters, too - because the US at this point starts feeling the need to measure applied forces and actions, just in case.
And here your single, single-engined, heavy fighter-bomber bites you back. And, apparently, fails to replace even F-16, which has no advantages except for the price.

Gloire_bb said:

It...often doesn't matter? IMHO, you're paying too much attention to this "generation" thing.

I mean seriously, F-35 can count as the best tactical aircraft available - at least, for now. But tactical aircraft is a very generic term, and as all generic terms - it won't help you best in a particular situation. What matters is what you are doing in this particular engagement and in this particular conflict.

For example, with all your VLO, sensors, and networking, in air defense mission you either intercept archer or, at worst, - arrows.

VLO doesn't matter when you need to reach, say, Blackjack in time, before it'll release its salvo of cruise missiles - and will just afterburn back into Arctic or Pacific airspace. Because good luck catching all 12 of VLO LACMs sneaking in different directions afterward. So, basically, you won't be doing any better than an ANG F-16v*, for way more money over your service life.
*arguably worse, because SABRE is built specifically for this sort of work.

Sensors and networking won't really help you to intercept WZ-8 drone gaining final targeting data on your carrier strike group. They won't place you into position to intercept a salvo of YJ-12s going at your carrier, unless you're already lucky enough to be precisely there. Lucky - because by the time of their launch, it'll already be essentially determined, do you have a shot at them or no - and it's up to the attacker to choose attack vectors and patterns, not up to defender.

Sensors and networking won't stop, say, a Foxhound dashing at 80'000 ft against your force multiplier.

What's common in all 3 scenarios is that I haven't even put F-35 itself under attack, as @MarKoz81 did. I only added something to protect - and F-35 already not in its place. F-15EX - is, Typhoon - is, Su-35 - is. But for F-35 this is just not something it's good at.
I can go on with other DCAs, or specific types of OCA missions, or strike ones - but this is largely redundant, as, again, MarKoz did it already.

F-35 is a strike fighter. Advanced, capable, but strike fighter. In "American century" this would've been enough - the only serious opponent then was Russia, and it doesn't count as anything close to an equal opponent to the West on its own. But F-35 essentially missed this American century.
China breaks this equation. Not only on the primary axis of competition(i.e. on its own), but on secondary theaters, too - because the US at this point starts feeling the need to measure applied forces and actions, just in case.
And here your single fighter plane, heavily tilted towards strike missions, bites you back.

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My assessment of F-35 is its scale and its capabilities. Please note that the two cannot be separated when I am looking at the F-35.

In terms of its capabilities, yes I am saying that sensors, networking, payloads and VLO are very important, and more so than bleeding edge kinematic performance.


In an air defense mission, the large numbers of F-35s available means a significant number of them can be deployed at at the "frontline battlespace" at greater distances (many hundreds of kms) beyond the asset/location you are seeking to defend. In the "rear", the location and asset itself of course will also be defended by patrolling F-35s, supported by 4+ generation fighters loaded as bomb trucks. It is in this location that you will have tankers and any manned AEW&C operating.

If you are an incoming Mig-31, you will be detected by the combination of AEW&C and F-35 sensors hundreds of kms away, allowing the multiple layers of defenses (frontline F-35s, rear F-35s and 4th gens, not to mention any ground/naval air defenses) to reposition themselves if not to simply shoot it out of the sky before the Mig-31 even knows where all of the enemies are. In other words, if you know where the enemy is, but the enemy doesn't know where you are, and if you are able to share your information with your relevant friendlies, then the kinematic superiority of the enemy is relatively unimportant. This is especially the case if you have numerical superiority on your side.

For an incoming high speed bomber, the situation is the same, although it would also depend on the effective range of the weapon the incoming bomber is deploying. Obviously if it is deploying a 1500+ km ALCM, then it will be quite difficult for your own air defense sorties to intercept the bomber itself given the distance the enemy can deploy their payload at. But at the same time, if bombers were that sort of a threat, you would likely have used your own multidomain fires such as your own bombers+ALCMs, your own SSNs/SSGNs, and your own ship launched LACMs, to target the enemy's air bases as well.



As for an air superiority force on force comparison....
Let me put it this way -- in an environment of equal DACT where it is a force of F-35s versus a force of -insert any generic 4/4+ generation fighters here-, where both sides have equal force multipliers, and where both sides have equal numbers of fighter aircraft, operating at realistic beyond visual ranges, with similar fuel loads for their respective fuel loadouts -- I expect the F-35s to handily win almost every time.
But of course, in real life it may not be the case.
Because the number of F-35s that may be in the air at any one time may exceed the number of 4/4+ generation fighters that an opfor can deploy (depending on who the opfor is).
Also, because if we are talking about the US, in real life the capability and scale of US force multipliers is also laughably greater than almost every other adversary it may seek to face in the world.
And also because the US would also deploy a large fleet of its own very capable 4/4+ generation fighters to support their F-35s.

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Yes, the rise of China's military aviation capability certainly makes the dominance of the F-35 much less assured, however the road to get there will not be easy for the PLA nor is it guaranteed.
Leaving aside strike/offensive counter air capabilities, it will depend as much on the individual qualitative stealth/sensor/networking/payload capabilities of the PLA's 5th gen fighters, as well as the scale of the 5th gen fighters that they will be able to produce. Whether the totality of it will be sufficient to counter the F-35 force if things came to blows in various timeperiods, is far from certain.

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Overall, my view of the contemporary and future air to air mission jives with this CSBA assessment of air to air trends

I'm sure you've read it before, if not, then it is worth a look.
These remarks they make, one of which I quote below, is essentially the view I share.

These trends suggest that over the past five decades, advances in radar and other sensor technologies, missile capabilities, and communication technologies allowed pilots to search effectively much larger volumes of sky and engage targets at ever-increasing range. Most modern air combat engagements were initiated before the aircraft were within visual range with a commensurate decrease in the frequency of maneuvering combat. This means that aircrew SA is no longer primarily linked to what they can physically see through the cockpit canopy, but to what they glean from cockpit displays of sensor output and information passed from offboard sources such as nearby friendly aircraft.

This transformation may be steadily reducing the utility of some attributes traditionally associated with fighter aircraft (e.g., extreme speed and maneuverability) while increasing the value of attributes not usually associated with fighter aircraft (e.g., sensor and weapon payload
as well as range). Aircraft performance attributes essential for success in air-to-air combat during the gun and early missile eras such as high speed, good acceleration, and maneuverability are much less useful now that aircraft can be detected and engaged from dozens of miles away. At the same time, nontraditional attributes such as minimal radar and IR signature; space, payload, and cooling capacity; power for large-aperture long-range sensors; and
very-long-range weapons seem to be of increased importance. Both supersonic speed and high maneuverability place significant constraints on aircraft designers and force tradeoffs in aircraft design that limit the incorporation of many of the nontraditional, but increasingly important attributes listed above. The trends identified in this report suggest it may be appropriate to cast a much wider net in the development of future air combat operational concepts, sensors, weapons, and platforms, which would include examining “radical” departures from traditional fighter concepts that rely on enhanced sensor performance, signature control, networks to achieve superior SA, and very-long-range weapons to complete engagements before being
detected or tracked by enemy aircraft.

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