F-22 Raptor on life support?

[Sergei]

Yes, the Drones are coming, but I think they will look suspiciously like manned fighters when they get here, as the design requirements are pretty much the same. Wings, check. Engine, check. Stealth, check. Landing Gear, check…etc.

No, not really. For something as complex to engineer as an airplane, dropping off the cockpit (and the needs of the human pilot, like seeing to all directions) let's you redesign everything.

It's like the gun turret on Stryker MGS. Without remote targetting and autoloader, ie. with a traditional turret, Stryker MGS simply wouldn't be possible due to the extra weight of having a full gun turret.

[Sgt Joch]

Altough there would be advantages to not having a pilot, I think we are still at least 15-25 years away from an unmanned fighter plane.

The computer hardware/software to pilot a fighter as well as a good human does not exist and will not exist for the foreseeable future.

Remote control will only really be a viable option when it gives the remote pilot as much feedback as having an actual human in the plane. We are still someways from that.

Who here wants to be on the inaugural flight of the first unmanned passenger plane?

[JonS]

Joch, that depends on how you structure your cost-benefit equation.

If I could build 14 UACV (unmanned aerial combat vehicles - ie, RC fighters) tomorrow for US$140M, would that be better or worse than having a single F-22?

Well, that would in turn depend on how capable they were. Let's say they're pretty ****ty, and a tyical single F-22 chould shoot down, oh, say, 12 of my UACVs before succumbing itself. Which would you rather have now? Who ends up with air-superiority - you, or me?

* RQ-3A DarkStar UAV costs about US$10M per copy, and has sufficent payload to carry a pair of AIM-7s or AIM-120s (~14 per F-22)

* RQ-4A Global Hawk UAV could also carry a four of those missiles, and cost about US$58M each (~3 per F-22)

* MQ-8B Fire Scout UAV could carry six such missiles, and costs about US$15M. (~10 per F-22)

Those platforms and missiles are available now, although of course you'd need a bit dev work to mount the missiles.

The UACV doesn't have to outmaneauvre the manned fighter - this isn't a style contest. They just have to shoot the other guy down. Smart missiles fired from what is little more than a cargo hauling platform could accomplish that task quite nicely.

Also, attrition works very nicely when the things you stand to lose don't have any warm bodies on board. Who cares if you lose ... oh, I don't know, say 10,000 UACVs in a hypothetical full-on, non-nuclear war with China (inventory approx 1,300 fighter a/c) but you end up with air supremacy AND don't lose a single pilot doing it. Then the 'primitive' mud-movers flown by breathing pilots can go in and do their thing, safe in the knowledge that the Chinese won't be sending any fighters up.

[Sergei]

The cost of losing a trained pilot is huge, and this also makes the development of UAV's cheaper and faster than that of manned aircraft. And they can be used more freely in a 'suicide' role - if it gets shot down or runs out of fuel on a mission, it's still cheaper than firing cruise missiles, and no rescue efforts are needed.

The next step is to replace infantrymen with walking robot infiltrators. And make all of this, including their manufacturing, controlled by a master AI.

[FAI]

The cost of losing a trained pilot is huge, and this also makes the development of UAV's cheaper and faster than that of manned aircraft. And they can be used more freely in a 'suicide' role - if it gets shot down or runs out of fuel on a mission, it's still cheaper than firing cruise missiles, and no rescue efforts are needed.

The next step is to replace infantrymen with walking robot infiltrators. And make all of this, including their manufacturing, controlled by a master AI.

Are we that close to Skynet...?

*shudder*

[Bigduke6]

Fair comments all. But I think I can answer them.

I tried to parse just the portions of the arguement that I felt needed addresses. First of all you point out to the battlewagon arguement that the Navy was not capable of formenting the next doctrine or technology that would eventually be needed for the NEXT war. Since it was the Navy, maybe not the battleship officers, but the NAVY that continued to develop the airplane into the role and power it is today, I would say that the military mind/doctrine/experts are exactly the people to tell you what you need to know and build for future defenses.

Not if my Japanese Navy paradigm holds here. As we all know there was a branch of the Japanese Navy really gung ho for naval air, and they were as forward-thinking as any naval air officers in the world. They had more success as of the beginning of WW2, in terms of getting meaningful percentage of their navy configured for air rather than battle line combat, than any other navy in the world.

Yet, that incredibly forward-thinking, air-minded Japanese Navy as an organization was incapable of moving wholeheartedly to what we know now to be the correct solution, i.e., build aircraft carriers not battleships. It is worth remembering, that the same country that operated 1st Carrier Divisian across 1/3 of the globe's surface with devastating effect, also produced the largest battleships in history. How many aircraft carriers could the resources that went into the Yamato and Musashi have made? Would it have turned the war around for the Japanese?

Well, we don't know, but we do know what won the Pacific war was an ultimate overwhelming naval air superiority on the part of the US, stemming from an overwhelming US manufacturing advantage. And so we also know, that to the extent the Japanese built battleships, they were wasting resources.

Is not the F-22 similar? Here you have a hugely expensive weapon representing the apex of a service's arms desires, after about 70 years of that service trying to build that weapon bigger, badder, faster, and more sophisticated. Meanwhile technology is moving, and there is even within the service a dispute over how rational it is to commit resources. Just as torpedoes, aircraft, and radio were threating the ability of the battleship to control the sea as it had before, are not cheaper and better electronics and advances in UAVs and guided munitions technology threatening the historical dominance of the sky by the air superiority fighter?

I think the parallel is indisputable, although as I noted earlier maybe the trends are not so bad for the fighter that the F-22 is a complete waste of money, right now, for the short term. But long term I think the air superiority fighter is going to go the way of the dinosaur.

How soon? Well, removal of obsolete military technologies embedded in military tradition take time. Cavalry was pretty much useless as a battlefield weapon by the late 1800s, but major nations fielded it for a good 50 - 60 years before giving up on horses as a war weapon entirely.

Unless you think the Senator from New York is suddenly the most knowledgeable person around to discuss the uses and needs of Air Power. I'll say right now that the Air Force as as a whole is not monolithic in its desire to have the F-22, but it is in its desire to provide the best in not only the Air Superiority realm, but in all realms of air and space. Air Superiority is but one piece of the Air/Space battlefield. Others include electronic warfare against communications, kinetic with dropping bombs, strategic lift, Tactical lift, ISR assets...all of which are enabled by complete Air Superiority.

I would assume a Senator from New York would all things being equal put the needs of his constituency first, and then choose national interest as he perceived it, to include abandoning an impractical weapon no matter the traditions behind it. So as long as they don't build F-22 parts in this guy's district, I'd bet the Senator and the smart people that worked for him would be a fairly good judge of whether or not to fund F-22, as you can bet if they get the choice wrong the Senator will have to answer for it next election, and he wants to keep his job.

Air Force officers are first and foremost loyal to their fellow officers and so their careers, and for them the preservation and strengthening of the Air Force is taken not only as a given, but a patriotic imperative. Any air force officer, or indeed enlisted personnel actively working towards the perceived weakening of the Air Force, or worse the reduction of career potential of other Air Force employees, signs his own career death warrant. Advocating the end of manned fighters is pretty close to taboo, do it too loudly and you just don't get promoted.

I would not consider an organization like that, with priorities like that, the best fair judge on whether or not the F-22 was a good idea. They are biased and they assume their doctrine is gospel. The national interest cannot afford decision-making on terms that narrow-minded.

Unmanned aircraft are no where near ready for high-speed combat. Not to say that eventually the interface between man and machine will allow unmanned fighters/aircraft that day is no where in the near/medium future. First the communication channels that information and control depend on are able to be comprimesed. We just haven't encountered an enemy determined to meet us on the electronic warfare front. All it would take is a satalite shoot down or comm channel interference and then suddenly the UAV is a mindless, uncontrolled drone. Second, puting a strictly money comparision is a giant strawman, the UAV issue is easily countered if you have Air Superiority, which includes air and ground counters. If we continue to have Air Superiority then the fastest way to take care of 4,6, or 20 UAVs is to destroy the center from where they are controlled, which could be done by one F-22. By this arguement, why have Tanks since that tank could easily be destroyed by a cheap ATGM? That arguement has been around for the last 50 years and tanks still exist and are still viable.

You make a fair point regarding UAVes' uselessness in case of sattelite net failure. However, how effective is the manned fighter if the sattelites don't work: he has to find his way, identify and strike his target, and defend himself only with what he has on board. No vectoring, no AWACs, just the pilot and the seat of his pants. That seems to me to be the kind of guy with too much to track for his own good, and so likely to make a mistake. So I would see satellite net failure as something that would push air operations back into the dark ages, and so reduce air forces' effect on ground forces.

(Provided of course the ground forces could find their way without GPS. But I digress.)

As to UAVes easily being demolished provided you have air superiority, well, what if they are challenging you on those terms? What if you can't just waltz in and bash the control center with a strike, as to do it you have to get past UAVes carrying missiles designed to hunt for you? What if, as is already technologically possible although to my knowledge no one's done it yet, the UAVes gain the ability to triangulate objects moving through the air, like for instance your F-22? How stealthy is your plane then? What if the drones are out there, but they turn on their search radars randomly, and they are moving, and your F-22 is flying into a bunch of eyes in the sky like that? Who has the detection advantage? Who risks more if he launches a missile?

And on the flip side, how good would your single airplane be at stopping dozens of these drones? Let's not forget that when we do the price comparisons the UAV price is generally a control center and several UAVes, not just a single UAV. Just think, ok, we know how the US used UAVes to feel out the Iraqi air defence network in 2003. What if some one tried that against us, with UAVes outnumbering our aircraft, and the UAVes could shoot if they found something?

And if the F-22 cannot stop all the drones, and the drones can hit US forces, then exactly how much air superiority is the F-22 providing? Sure, it is keeping all the manned enemy fighters and ground attack aircraft away, it is great at that. But if out of ten drones two are still getting through to drop precision-guided munitions on US troops, I can tell you for sure the troops will not buy the arguement they are operating under conditions of US air superiority.

Air superiority is not complicated. It all comes down what's the best way to shoot enemy flying objects down, and then have stuff left available to drop exposives from the air on the enemy ground forces. The F-22 is useful in that equation, or not, to the direct extent to which it either shoots down enemy stuff, or bombs enemy stuff. And like I said, given the way electronics are shrinking in weight and getting cheaper in price, I am really not sure that a single expensive fighter with an incredibly expensive and pretty much irreplacable pilot is a better solution than a whole bunch of disposable drones.

Third. The ENTIRE US air,sea, and ground doctrine is predicated on complete Air Superiority, period. The first steps in any OPLAN is to gain Air Superiority, though the destruction of the enemy Air Forces and the Integrated Air Defences. Right now, we could do that against a like equipped enemy, barely, but in the future that will not be the case. I don't believe the Army has any plans or TTPs to operate under a significant air threat.

I'll dispute that. US ground and sea forces have organic air defence, always have, and they only rarely have been so irresponsible as to not prepare for enemy air parity at least. In recent years certainly there has been little competition, and US air supremacy could be take as a given in any forseeable conflict. But as you and I agree those times are changing. It seems to me the more reasonable solution for US ground forces is to revert to what they did in the Cold War and WW2 - assume the US Air would be effective, but wouldn't always give air superiority.

I think also that the "we must have air superiority or we lose" doctrine is fine right up until the point where the price of getting air superiority becomes prohibative, and then either the military quits and runs home or, if they are professional, they figure out a new approach.

Israeli operations against Egypt in 1973 are an excellent illustration. The Israelis assumed, incorrectly, that the Egyptians were too stupid to operate SAM, and that in case of a conventional war skilled Israeli pilots would get through, and destroy the Egyptian air force as the did in 1967.

But what happened was that the Egyptian Air Force mostly stayed on the ground, the Israelis flew into the SAM belt over eastern Egypt in an attempt to take advantage of that and give support to Israeli ground forces, and Egyptian ADA shot down something like 23 or 24 Israeli fighters in a couple of days. That loss rate was unsustainable; the Egyptians had way more missiles than the Israelis had aircraft and trained pilots. So, the Israeli air force backed off, and until the Israel army - which as it turned out could fight pretty damn well even when there wasn't Israeli air superiority, even though they pretty much had assumed there always would be Israeli air superiority - invaded Egypt and started trashing Egyptian SAM sites. (This is Sharon's famous "punch a hole in the sky" line.) And when the war ended the Israeli Air Force again had air superiority...courtesy of the Israeli armored corps.

Or take Vietnam. The US had pretty much total air superiority and attempted to exploit it by attempting strategic bombing on the north. So bomb they did, problem was, there weren't a whole lot of wonderful targets in the north, and what needed to be bombed - the Ho Chi Minh trail and arms and munitions moving to the south - was pretty much impervious to bombing. And what was worse, the Vietnamese clumped most of the their SAMs around Hanoi, netting the Vietnamese propaganda shootdowns, captured pilots, a fighting mad population Vietnam, and an increasingly irritated population in the US. So you can't say that US air superiority won the Vietnam War, and if one was snide one might even say it actually helped lose it.

Indeed, the US has terrific air superiority in Afghanistan and Iraq, has had it for years, and somehow the bad guys are still doing their thing. I agree air superiority is nice, but me, I would prefer stuff that wins wars. Absolute air supremacy feeding the opposition's idea they are David fighting Goliath, and not winning the war outright, is to me not a really intelligent US defence spending priority.

Its obvious your a proponent of More is Better as every positive example you provided is a mass produced weapon that fits into an attritive method of warfare and if that is your yardstick then you are correct in your assumption of the F-22 value, and since F-16C Block 50s are still relatively cheap we should just start cranking all those aircraft without making any others, ignoring the conditions the F-16 needs to be successful.

Not exactly. I am a proponent of the bifurcated approach to air superiority, i.e., it has two parts, one part which keeps the bad guys from dropping stuff on you, and the other part which allows you to drop stuff on the bad guys. I judge air superiority value not in terms of planes shot down or aces created or cool leather jackets or tiger shark mouths on nose assemblies, but in terms of how much or little those two functions help or hinder me in winning the war.

So I would say air superiority would be pretty much absolutely necessary if we were to try and back up Taiwan against an invasion by China - although that's only theoretical, I don't think China will invade and even if they did I don't think we would fight WWIII for Taiwan. But from an operational point of view, you're preventing landings on a friendly island in the Pacific, well yeah, I want lots of air superiority there.

But if I am mostly repressing insurgencies, frankly, I would prefer my troopies would depend on air superiority less, and get out of their vehicles more. I could take a hit in air strike capacity no problem, after all it's an insurgency and my guys have a huge firepower advantage in any case.

If I'm involved in some pissing contest with Russia over some part of East Europe, well I want to keep the Russian air force at bay, but I am sure not going to risk land war capacity in an attempt to gain air supremacy, if I have to choose. The decisive battles would be on the ground, between vehicles and men and their mostly precision-guided munitions. Not in the air. Weather sucks in East Europe, air is not the best way to kill things in that region.

And so on.

There are combined arms in the Air as well as the Ground and the F-22 meets those needs for the forseeable future against all forseeable threats. Now we can argure what the forseeable future may hold, but not moving technology and capability forward is not an option in my book.

Well that's what's been done, hasn't it? The aircraft has been fielded, so now we'll see how intimidated the potential threats are, and what counters they develop. So far, I am not impressed. We have two real life wars, and neither appears to be any closer to conclusion due to the presence of F-22 in the US inventory.

Of course, we're really screwed if in the next war the opposition comes up with a counter like scads of smart UAVes, and we have placed most of our eggs in the F-22 super fighter basket. If the history of military technology teaches us anything, it is that whatever gets developed will find a counter, and that the military disasters take place when some one has a superior technology, and the other side really doesn't understand that because it is living in the past, and it takes a ruinous war for them to learn that no, tech has moved on.

Germany's world-beating application of tanks used in mass in the early years of the war, and then increasing commitment to expensive high-quality tanks, used in mass in the latter stages of the war, are a terrific cautionary tale. What once was a world-beating technique, became an albatross and a real drag on the country's ability to fight a war.

And frankly, I think the F-22 is the same kind of bird.

[Lars]

No, not really. For something as complex to engineer as an airplane, dropping off the cockpit (and the needs of the human pilot, like seeing to all directions) let's you redesign everything.

Yes, but there's no need to throw away a perfectly good airframe. They do it all the time with missile drones and such.

You can save the uber-unmanned fighter budget argument till even later this way.

[Wildman]

BigDuke,

I agree with your premise that in the future the manned fighter aircraft needed today will be obsolete. I personnally just do not see that day anywhere during the operational lifetime of the F-22 or even the next generation of aircraft, ergo building the correct amount of airframes to sustain the needed effect to meet the National Command Authority agenda is an imperative. Do I think that the F-22 is overpriced, yep, do I think that Congress' waffling is a direct cause of the balloning price, yes. Do I think there is a suitable replacement either near ready or even ready for deployment in the next 10 years, no. Your right in the fact that we've already made this decision, but now we are starting to second guess the exact need.

Given that the current stance of all military planning is still one and half major regional conflicts the total number of F-22s projected are not enough to meet that planned threat. Now we can/should/will/do debate if that is an accurate measure to plan to and that is a completely political question, but one that has been consistent throught Presidents from both parties for over 30 years.

There is no other option on the table, imagine if the Germany had decided in 1942 that it was too late to spend another 2 years developing a new tank (Panther) and pushed all productivity into the Tiger and PzIV series exclusively (which accurately models the F-22/JSF synergy), the imperfect weapon would have served admirably and with greater numbers may have turned the tide on the Eastern Front. The same thought easily holds true for the F-22/JSF combo, like it or not they are what we have for the forseeable future so not building enough because there might be something better out there in 20 years is not a viable defense option.

You assume the Senator from New York will make a rational decision as long as it doesn't touch his district, but automatically assume that any Air Force professional will be unable to recognize an ineffective airframe and continue to push on for fear of their career. All I can tell you is myself and other officers I work with certainly are not afraid to point out flaws in our methods and decisions, in fact, I don't believe any company so rigoursly reviews its every action to determine where errors were made and where practices need to be improved. Can you imagine a debrief the likes the Army and AF give themselves after every engagement happening in corporate America? If they did I"m pretty sure that the current financial crisis wouldn't have happened.

Rereading your answers, do you find any military program or weapon system worth spending money on? and how would it fit into a coherent defense strategy? Its all well and good to talk about the imaginary UAVs that fire hordes of AiM-120s into the helpless F-22s but where are those weapons systems? The current crop of UAVs are not capable of that despite their ability to actually carry the missile there are no radars to guide the missile on the birds. What weapon system is worth the money for you? I ask because you stated that spending the money in this time of financical crisis was irresponsible, which leads me to believe that no weapon system would meet the criteria to be built in this "crisis".

[Pak_43]

How many aircraft carriers could the resources that went into the Yamato and Musashi have made? Would it have turned the war around for the Japanese?

Well, we don't know, but we do know what won the Pacific war was an ultimate overwhelming naval air superiority on the part of the US, stemming from an overwhelming US manufacturing advantage. And so we also know, that to the extent the Japanese built battleships, they were wasting resources.

John Ellis in "Brute Force" pretty much has the numbers on this one, and IIRC it's irrefutable that making the entire Japanese capital ship output into Aircraft carriers would have made no difference,the sheer industrial might of the US would have just ground it into dust over a slightly longer period of time..I'll dig out the numbers when I get home from work...

[Sgt Joch]

I also do not see UAVs rendering manned aircraft obsolete in the near future.

Theorists have been speculating about the end of manned aircraft ever since Gary Powers U-2 was shot down by a guided missile in 1960.

Guided missiles, since they tracked their targets, were supposed to wipe out all air fleets. Indeed, the first encounters of USAF/USN aircraft with SA-2 missiles over north vietnam in 1965 were a disaster. The missiles initially had a close to 1:1 kill ratio.

However, countermeasures were soon developped to counter the missiles: dedicated Hunter Killer groups to hunt the SAM sites, early warning systems to detect radar lockon/launches, onboard jammers or dedicated EW aircraft to disrupt lockon, onboard chaff/flares and evasive maneuvers.

These measures radically reduced lossses and until the end of the war, US aircraft were able to hit any target in North Vietnam, with very acceptable combat losses, certainly a lot less than what the USAF suffered in daylight bombing over Germany in 1943.

Again in 1973, the IAF went up against the Egyptian SAM wall, which at that time had the most powerful antiair defences in the world. The IAF was shocked at their performance. They lost about 40% of their planes in the 1st 24 hours and were playing catchup during the entire war.

However, the IAF carefully studied the soviet systems and in the 1982 war, the IAF took out the entire Syrian SAM network in less than a day. In 1982, the Syrian air defences were more powerful and sophisticated than the egyptian defences in 1973.

You have had the same dance since aircrafts were used in war in WW1. The anti-air defences come up with new weapons/tactics and the air forces come up with countermeasures.

Now UAVs are supposed to be the new wonder weapon, since they can be built cheaply in great numbers. UAVs however, suffer from the same weaknesses as a guided missile and can be subjected to many of the same countermeasures: bomb their bases to destroy them on the ground, bomb their arfields so they cannot takeoff/land, bomb the buildings housing their controllers to kill them, jam the communications between the controller and the UAV, spoof the UAV or its missiles.

Plus since the UAVs fly like a normal aircraft, they can be engaged and shot down.

The big advantage cited by UAV supporter is the fact that you can flood an area. Using a variation of the Jons example, if China is defended by 10,000 UAVs, is attacked by 1,000 US aircraft and you get a 10:1 kill, the strategy works.

However, if the kill ratio is more like 100:1, you expend your 10,000 UAV to kill 100 aircraft, leaving 900.

In air combat, you can easily get such lopsided results. In June 1944, the IJN launched 500 aircraft in a first strike against US carriers. Most of the japanese planes were piloted by rookies. US fighters shot down 90% of them with negligible losses.

In 1982, the syrians launched their air force against the IAF. The syrian pilots were green. The IAF shot down 100 with no losses.

There is no reason to believe UAVs would have a better score.

Again, no one knows how the future of air combat will evolve, but I have not seen any argument by the UAV proponents which convinces me that manned aircrafts will be obsolete in the near future or that UAVs would do a better job.

[JonS]

... UAVs however, suffer from the same weaknesses as a guided missile and can be subjected to many of the same countermeasures: bomb their bases to destroy them on the ground, bomb their arfields so they cannot takeoff/land, bomb the buildings housing their controllers to kill them, jam the communications between the controller and the UAV, spoof the UAV or its missiles.

All that applies equally - if not more so - to manned a/c, no?

In air combat, you can easily get such lopsided results. In June 1944, the IJN launched 500 aircraft in a first strike against US carriers. Most of the japanese planes were piloted by rookies. US fighters shot down 90% of them with negligible losses.

In 1982, the syrians launched their air force against the IAF. The syrian pilots were green. The IAF shot down 100 with no losses.

There is no reason to believe UAVs would have a better score.

Except in my case I'm not assuming the UACVs or their controllers are very good as either fighter a/c or controllers for them. I'm just assuming they can carry a lot of smart/brilliant missiles. There is no such thing as an 'untrained', or 'rookie', or 'inexperienced', or 'green' missile.

OTOH, I do grant you that manned a/c are inherently more flexible and adaptable than a UACV depending on a missile, which is of course what pulled the IAF fat out of the fire in 1973.

edit: note that I'm only advocating UACVs for air superiority tasks. IMO mud-moving requires a man-in-the-loop-on-the-spot, various Hellfire strikes in Somalia notwithstanding,.

[Affentitten]

How relevant is dogfighting ability anyway? In the age of over-the-horizon threat detection and launch, does it matter that the Global Hawk can't out-corkscrew an F-22?

[JonS]

Depends on ROE, I guess. IIRC, the aerial ROE over Kuwait/Iraq in 1990/91 were fairly restrictive (which had the effect of sidelining all ... Navy? a/c from performing air superiority tasks) but I'm pretty sure that had a lot to do with the valid assumption that almost anything with wings was going to be Allied. In other words with air superiority taken as given, the main concern was avoiding blue-on-blue.

In a contested attritional battle for air superiority (and all contested battles for air superiority are inherently attritional) I would expect that ROEs would be fairly permissive, as indicated by the underlying assumptions behind BVR AAMs.

[Sgt Joch]

All that applies equally - if not more so - to manned a/c, no?

agreed yes, the only advantage to manned aircraft is greater redundancy since even if they lose contact with AWACS, they can still use their onboard sensors, including the Mark I eyeball in a worst case scenario.

In addition, you can't discount the advantage of having a trained pilot on the scene who can make quick tactical decisions.

Except in my case I'm not assuming the UACVs or their controllers are very good as either fighter a/c or controllers for them. I'm just assuming they can carry a lot of smart/brilliant missiles. There is no such thing as an 'untrained', or 'rookie', or 'inexperienced', or 'green' missile.

I understand, but missiles are subject to the same countermeasures whether they are land based or attached to an unmanned airplane.

In additon, missiles, even the latest generation like the AIM-120 are not one shot, one kill wonders. They can be defeated if fired at long range or under less than optimum conditions. This is why pilots are trained to maneuver targets into the heart of the missile's kill zone before they fire. This is where a pilot's training can make a difference.

[JonS]

I understand, but missiles are subject to the same countermeasures whether they are land based or attached to an unmanned airplane.

... or, indeed, a manned a/c.

In additon, missiles, even the latest generation like the AIM-120 are not one shot, one kill wonders. They can be defeated if fired at long range or under less than optimum conditions. This is why operators are trained to maneuver targets into the heart of the missile's kill zone before they fire. This is where an operator's training can make a difference.

Fixed that for ya

[Sgt Joch]

How relevant is dogfighting ability anyway? In the age of over-the-horizon threat detection and launch, does it matter that the Global Hawk can't out-corkscrew an F-22?

That is a hard one to answer. Before Vietnam, the USAF took the position that air-to-air missiles had made dogfighting obsolete. That turned out not to be the case.

Now with the latest generation of missiles, it does look like dogfighting is less of a requirement. The F-22 was designed on that premise, although it was designed to also be a maneuverable dogfighter if the need arises.

However, if you look at the air to air fights which actually occured since 1990, a fair bit were fairly close, so dogfighting is still not a totally dead art.

You also have to remember that the 100% certain kill enveloppe of missiles is a lot smaller than the printed maximum range, so you still have to maneuver your aircraft and the target in the optimum position if you want to be assured of a kill.

[Affentitten]

How close is “fairly close”? Surely not even as close as the stuff that was happening above North Vietnam?

But as other have pointed out, protecting your live cargo is what a lot of this dogfighting stuff is all about. It’s based upon the premise that you need to protect your pilot at all costs. Or rather, the premise that total protection of your pilot is achieveable. So the platforms are being designed around that to a great extent, rather than their real purpose of bangy stuff on target. In effect there is a culture clash between the mid 20th century need to dogfight and the late 20th century idea that warfare can be as safe and hygienic as office work.

Add to this the tendency of feature creep. Any project significantly long in the development phase will have features added onto it, or existing aims compromised. The development time scale of the F-22 and other such aircraft are now becoming ludicrous to the point of self-defeating.

[Stalins Organ]

Dunno - whilst the a/c are amazingly expensive, they also set a bar for anyone to achieve if they ever want to be "competitive" in the air - F-22's will be outnumbered by F-35's.....but anyone seeking to engage F-35's will have to bear in mind that they are likely to come up against F22's too.

And while Air Superiority might be of marginal use vs Taliban & Al Qaeda, it does mean the US doesn't have to worry much about anyone with a bit more substance than either of those.

I don't think it is as useless or pointless as everyone seems to be making out

[Affentitten]

Are New Zealanders still qualified to comment on matters pertaining to fighter aircraft?

[JonS]

Stalin,

no one is, AFAICT, saying that air superiority is pointless, however "air superiority" as an end in itself is an ultimately sterile objective. It's only utility is in what else it allows you to accomplish.

Again; there are no style points on offer here, and no quorum of judges to impress - either you win the attrition at acceptable cost in manpower and treasure, or you lose. The point about examples like slapping a couple of AIM-120s on a Global Hawk is that you can cover more of the sky for the same cost and at negligible risk to manpower. You definately lose something by not having a decision maker right there on the spot, but it's not all downside. There are benefits.

[Affentitten]

Dunno - whilst the a/c are amazingly expensive' date=' they also set a bar for anyone to achieve if they ever want to be "competitive" in the air - [/quote']

But only if they are following the same paradigm: 'they' have single seat fighters, so 'we' need to have single seat fighters to counter them.

But if we don't follow that logic and go along the lines that JonS is saying, then our response to their uber fighter might be to have batteries of AAMs hanging off unmanned plastic zeppelins, or laser cannons or suicide fanatics in phosphorous burning Gnatte to soak up all your Sidewinders.

Tangentially, you could say that al-Qaeda never had any fighter or bomber aircraft available to them. But they did manage to mount air raids on NY and DC by thinking outside the box.

[Bigduke6]

BigDuke,

I agree with your premise that in the future the manned fighter aircraft needed today will be obsolete. I personnally just do not see that day anywhere during the operational lifetime of the F-22 or even the next generation of aircraft, ergo building the correct amount of airframes to sustain the needed effect to meet the National Command Authority agenda is an imperative.

We disagree, I think, on what the agenda should be.

Do I think that the F-22 is overpriced, yep, do I think that Congress' waffling is a direct cause of the balloning price, yes. Do I think there is a suitable replacement either near ready or even ready for deployment in the next 10 years, no. Your right in the fact that we've already made this decision, but now we are starting to second guess the exact need.

Given that the current stance of all military planning is still one and half major regional conflicts the total number of F-22s projected are not enough to meet that planned threat.

Well, "planned threat" is the starting point, and it is not mathematically permanent. It is a guess, based on perceived threat and perceived national priority. And of course regional conflicts differ; both a hot Korea and an intervention in the Congo fit the definition of "regional conflict", however, it is pretty obvious the air force needed to deal with those regional conflcits - in scale, type, resources, however you want to measurue it - would be very different.

So saying "well, we need to be able to fight one and one-half regional conflicts, and for that we need F-22" to my mind is not an inherently logical statement.

There as you are well aware are subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences between perceived threat, potential threat, and actual threat. And when I look at what's out there, what appears to there in the future, and what the F-22 can and cannot do; I have trouble imagining one and one-half probable wars where it would be great to have that airplane, and when I start thinking about the stuff we are forgoing (more infantry, better troop movement capacity, better spy-based intelligence) so we have those jets, the more I think the F-22 is just not a great investment.

There is no other option on the table, imagine if the Germany had decided in 1942 that it was too late to spend another 2 years developing a new tank (Panther) and pushed all productivity into the Tiger and PzIV series exclusively (which accurately models the F-22/JSF synergy), the imperfect weapon would have served admirably and with greater numbers may have turned the tide on the Eastern Front. The same thought easily holds true for the F-22/JSF combo, like it or not they are what we have for the forseeable future so not building enough because there might be something better out there in 20 years is not a viable defense option.

Well medium term and long term I disagree about options. I am not confident that, had the resources that had been devoted to F-22 had been devoted instead to a universal anti-aircraft missile, that we could not give our forces a better, cheaper, and more replacable weapon with which to gain and maintain air superiority. In the old days if you wanted to strike the enemy's interior, you needed bombers. Today bombers can and indeed are replaced by cruise and surface to surface missiles. So, for that side of the air superiority equation, the questions are simple: which gets through better, which strikes more accurately, and which gives more operational flexibility, strike aircraft or guided missiles.

Even today we are seeing guided missiles replacing aircraft in traditional strike roles, consider the initial waves of cruise missiles during the Gulf Wars, srikes in Afghanistan, and very recently strikes in Pakistan.

So I have to wonder, what if there was a major effort to make a missile cheap enough and with a long enough reach, so that it could deny use of the air to the enemy on an operational level. Heck, in terms of range already we are there, the latest Russian models reach hundreds of kilometers. So the only limitation I see is cost and effectiveness, right at this moment no one knows which is a better way to gain and control the air in a future war: with a few F-22es, or with scads of UAVes and ground and air-launched missiles.

But as I said, the direction of the trend is obvious. And given the nature of the possible wars in the future, frankly, I think funding for an aircraft able to gain air superiority in 1.5 conventional wars of a regional scale, is not smart. Just because we have the airplane and haven't really researched the alternatives, doesn't mean the alternatives suck. It could mean, we made a mistake and are now considering correcting it.

You assume the Senator from New York will make a rational decision as long as it doesn't touch his district, but automatically assume that any Air Force professional will be unable to recognize an ineffective airframe and continue to push on for fear of their career. All I can tell you is myself and other officers I work with certainly are not afraid to point out flaws in our methods and decisions, in fact, I don't believe any company so rigoursly reviews its every action to determine where errors were made and where practices need to be improved. Can you imagine a debrief the likes the Army and AF give themselves after every engagement happening in corporate America? If they did I"m pretty sure that the current financial crisis wouldn't have happened.

Yes, but it's one thing to point out flaws in an airframe, and it's another thing to announce "you know, airframes are going to be obsolete, let's shut down the air force."

As to debriefs, I think corporate America has not so much need for rigorous AAR-type reviews, as it's easy enough to count the money at the end of every quarter.

I am not so sure air force officers would have done a whole lot better running the corporations than the present lot of executives, as air force officers follow orders, and order number one for corporate executives is: Make money for yourself, you are not doing this job as a charity. After that make money for the corporation, and that means income short term not long term.

I have little doubt air force officers or any other professionals would have followed the instructions of their society and shareholders, and done much the same thing as the present lot of corporate executives, and obtained the same result. As long as the top priority for a corporation is short-term profit, management will do what it takes to maximize short-term profit.

Top priorities of the air force officer corps, historically, have been to keep the organization healthy so as to provide career opportunity for the officers (this is analgous to the executives' "make money for me" priority) and secondly to do what it takes, whenever necessary, so that the air force retains maximum responsibility for fight the air portion of the country's wars. (This is analagous to the "maximize short term profit" priority for a corporation.) As a result we have an air force dedicated to the best air force possible, regardless of cost, rather than the best air superiority for US forces, with cost a critical factor. Nothing evil, that's just the way things are. I've known air force officers in my time and pretty much without exception they have been professional and highly intelligent, and great guys to hang out with to boot.

Rereading your answers, do you find any military program or weapon system worth spending money on? and how would it fit into a coherent defense strategy? Its all well and good to talk about the imaginary UAVs that fire hordes of AiM-120s into the helpless F-22s but where are those weapons systems? The current crop of UAVs are not capable of that despite their ability to actually carry the missile there are no radars to guide the missile on the birds. What weapon system is worth the money for you? I ask because you stated that spending the money in this time of financical crisis was irresponsible, which leads me to believe that no weapon system would meet the criteria to be built in this "crisis".

I like small, replacable, clever munitions, systems that give flexibility, and where possible less machine power and more people power.

I think Javelin is terrific. I love laser-guidance kits, not just for dumb bombs but artillery shells and especially mortar shells. I like mortars, generally. I think it is pretty much impossible to spend defence money more wisely, than on challenging and realistic infantry training. I think the officer corps in most services should be about half as big, and pay should be high enough to attract and retain people from Ivy League schools. I like missile boats. I grudgingly even think Osprey is an outstanding idea, I'm just not sure yet that it's safe. I like targeting derived from real-time triangulation.

On the air war front I like UAVes and think they could be made smarter and cheaper. I love cruise missiles, and I think they could be made smarter and cheaper as well. I think there should be more hand-held air defense missiles, and I think there ought to be a way to make one generic missile with add-on kits for additional range, rather than making a different missile for each range envelope. I am not exactly against fighters and bombers, but I would look at each one with the assumption that the plane has unique capacity so it's worth risking the pretty much gold-plated airframe and that irreplacable, incredibly expensive pilot; never mind making me pay for all the ground support people needed to keep that plane in the air.

As you might guess I am not a big fan of tanks, heavy artillery systems, or aircraft carriers. But strangely enough I like very much the idea of submarines jammed with bunches of missiles; that could be the aircraft carrier that rules the seas of tomorrow. Of course, until a bunch of submarines can carry enough missiles to match the punch of several carrier strikes, I guess we may be stuck with carriers for while yet. But the way I figure it, they're on their way out too.

The argument "People keep saying the tank is obsolete, and it's still with us" as noted I think is fallacious. People started saying cavalry was obsolete in about the 1830s, cavalry undoubtedly was obsolete as a battlefield weapon by the 1860s. Yet the cavalry service arm hung around sucking resources out of the world's major militaries for another good 60 years.

Can we say, with confidence, that the F-22 is not the modern version of 1840s cavalry?

[dieseltaylor]

I think it is very important that the "future fighter" UAV is not thought of as simply an upgraded drone of the current school. It well could be in the very immediate future be that.

However surely in the slightly longer term one could design - or redesign a jet that would be very much smaller lighter faster nimbler than current manned planes. Expert systems must be able to manage relatively simple objects like launch [could be vertical], recognition and fire routines, and landing. All of these capabilities exist in other areas to some degree.

Ramjets anyone? ILS CAT III? Apart from the MkI eyeball can all other inputs to the pilot be generated and be be ported to the pilotless plane computer? Can an expert system be logged by recording all dogfights by successful pilots?

Admittedly a sighter given inherently better performance from a future UAV but even then computer combat may provide the edge for the expert system. There will be costs involved sure but if the Israeli's and the Navy have perfectly adequate current aircraft to cover the next decade .....

I blame Star Wars and Battlestar Galavtica for what I regard as a moronic future with pilots flying planes in battle routinely - totally bizarre.

[Sergei]

By the way, why is it that modern dogfighting is still centered around the concept of having to get the enemy aircraft in front of yours when (some) gunships can aim their guns at anything the gunner looks at?

[SSgt Viljuri]

Modern dogfighting, as a term, is an oxymoron for all intents and purposes.

Over-the-horizon engagement ranges with missiles and stuff, target acquisition and guiding most often performed by other systems than those on-board a fighter aircraft, let alone talking about engaging enemy aircrafts belonging to any Second World nation with guns.