The F-35 is useless for Pacific Rim ops. And that assumes it works as advertised; simply because the Joint Operational Requirements Document (JORD) for the Joint Strike Fighter is now way past obsolete. Oh, it would be useful in fighting ALLIED FORCE in 1999. Well not really, as now unlike then, most aircraft can carry JDAM, many can carry JSOW and some can carry longer-range stand-off precision weapons. J-weapons and similar allow for contempt of engagement of legacy ground-to-air threats. Allied Force after-all was mostly a plinking war against known, fixed targets. And, even under that legacy threat, we lost 1 F-117 stealth aircraft and another damaged.
$200M-plus weak-to-the-threat Joint Strike Failures don't allow much for war attrition.
It is poor thinking like this:
Australia, on the other hand, is more likely to see the manned F-35 as the long-term answer to its future air power needs. The Lowy’s Brown points out, “Our approach to air combat is very conservative; our air force is opposed to the widespread use of unmanned technology. And there’s now enough momentum in the F-35 program to give you the sense that it will get through to its conclusion.”
...that has put the issue of RAAF air supremacy at extreme risk.
Worrying for the Diplomat article, is that the author is unable to see that the F-35 has no credible worth in Pacific Rim operations.
And, how are big-deck U.S. aircraft carriers supposed to take on emerging threats with an increasingly obsolete-to-the-threat carrier air wing?
6 comments:
The Brewster Buffalo isn't the *only* historic aircraft that has failings in common with the F-35. Here's a couple of past examples.
General Dynamics F-111;
"Let's build one aircraft for all three services!"
Blackburn Roc;
"Speed and maneuverability? Bah! Firing off-boresight makes those irrelevant!"
Breda Ba.88 Lince;
"Look at how well it performs! Now let's start adding guns, bombracks, armor, and combat avionics --- it's only been in testing for a couple of years, after all..."
YFM-1 Airacuda;
"Innovations aren't everything --- they're the ONLY thing!"
Yakovlev Yak-38 Forger;
"Vertical flight capability will dominate future aerial warfare! It's not like we'll lose 1 out of every 3 in accidents or anything..."
Messerschmidt Me-163 Komet;
"The greatest technological complexity will win the war!"
General Dynamics/McDonnell Douglass A-12 Avenger II
"Accountability, project management, existing technology, and schedules are for the weak!"
Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche;
"Cancelling most of our other programs will keep this one afloat, and deliver a combat-capable aircraft to fight the Soviets with in the mid-1990s!"
Shenyang J-8 Finback;
"Stay the course, no matter how long it takes, how much money it costs, or how many consecutive eras of aerial warfare come and go --- it'll be worth it!"
What is the Australian Air Supremacy of which you speak?
About the only nation against which Australia could be said to have air supremacy in that part of the world is New Zealand, whose air force consists of .... nothing.
Now, about allied force'99 - The decision making was run by politicians not the military .
If they have had the military running the campain it would have been realy over in a few days.
That is a good documentary about the conflict , just listen to what Jumper says :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__kbfuyYIiA
"Allied Force after-all was mostly a plinking war against known, fixed targets''
Totally disagree! You call an SA-6 a fixed target, even the SA-3 and SA-2 with its limited mobility is not a fixed target, not to mention AAA and the shorter ranged mobile SAMs = hard to detect in mountain woodland terrain.
Fighting in Europe is not like a gun run on the desert.
Just remember the hit to kill ratio that HARM had in 99.
Threat surface-to-air were not the goal of the campaign. The losses the SAMs inflicted were low and never stopped the campaign from reaching its goal: keep plinking stuff until the enemy signs a piece of paper.
To Mi-17,
HARM is not intended as a high kill ratio tactic.
It's to suppress enemy defensive SAM activity via excess capacity during an ingress to the attack point or egress.
Suppressing is nearly as good as killing, especially if it can lead to a particular strike sortie being accomplished.
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