Posted on 02/04/2009 8:38:43 AM PST by pobeda1945
The Australian think-tank, Air Power Australia (APA), has released another in their series of techno-strategy papers, this time analysing the advancements in Russian-built Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS) (http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-02.html), and what it means in global strategic terms for the Americans. The APA report is direct and unequivocal – Russian radar and missiles have improved to the point where the US fleet of F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s, as well as the planned Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), are not capable of surviving against these systems and unless the Americans build another four hundred-plus F-22s, they will lose the strategic advantage they have held since the end of the Cold War.
The result will be nations such as China, Iran and Venezuela thumbing their noses at the Americans, knowing that no President will commit to using force in the knowledge that hundreds of jets and pilots would be lost.
The paper comes a month after APA savaged the JSF (http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html). APA’s Dr. Carlo Kopp, who completed his PhD in radar engineering, simulated the radar signature of the F-35 and showed exactly how vulnerable it will be to the Russian radar systems and missiles that have emerged since the specification for the JSF was drafted over a decade ago. Lockheed-Martin has not publicly disputed Kopp’s findings yet.
The APA IADS study confirms, in tedious detail, what many of us have suspected or known for some time and what U.S. Air Force generals said repeatedly before being forcefully muzzled by the Bush Administration. That is the simple fact that the globalised economy has given Russian radar and missile designers the technology to close the gap with the US and EU designers in most areas which matter. The Russians have used this technology to digitize many Cold War missile and radar designs, and vastly improve post-Cold War designs. The new S-400 has no equivalent in the West, having outstripped and outgrown the Patriot.
The Russians obviously spent a lot of time thinking about how the Americans busted the Iraqi IADS in 1991 and the Serbian IADS in 1999. Like chess players, they looked at what the Americans used, where they were going, and figured out how to checkmate the mighty US Air Force.
Russian industry is now building and marketing short-range missile systems specifically built to shoot down American HARM anti-radar missiles and cruise missiles. They are also putting electronic countermeasures and decoys on their radars to prevent missiles and smart bombs from hitting them. Further, the Russians are currently testing a 400 km range missile, the 40N6, so they can shoot down or drive off American jamming aircraft like the Prowler, Growler and Compass Call. These same missiles can be used to keep the Rivet Joint and AWACS electronic reconnaissance systems out of useful range.
In strategic terms, the Americans are now in real trouble. China is fielding around 500 Russian Flankers and the latest Russian IADS. Iran is fielding the SA-20, and already has the SA-5, upgraded Chinese SA-2s and, some people claim, the HQ-9s – cloned SA-20s. Further, the US aerial tanker fleet is 40-years-old, and the fighter fleet was mostly built twenty-five years ago – many of the F-15s are now older than the pilots flying them. Iraq and Afghanistan have bankrupted the U.S. defence budget and now Wall Street has bankrupted the U.S. economy.
The only modern and credible fighter the Americans have is the F-22, and it is the only way they can recapitalise their collapsing fighter fleet in the next decade, with an aircraft which can actually survive the first day of an air war. The F-35 is not an F-22 and can never become an F-22. The F-35 is, first and foremost, an export fighter program.
We should not mislead ourselves about the seriousness of this matter. Leading American analyst Dr. Richard Hallion, in a recent interview commented: “Today, if NATO wanted to establish an air exclusion zone over Georgia, it could not do so with any aircraft other than the 5th Generation F-22 Raptor...”.
Who is most to blame for American air power now teetering on the edge of collapse?
Clearly it has been the Bush Administration, who considered the EU fighter industry a more important enemy to kill than exported Russian Sukhoi fighters and Almaz SAM systems. Rather than sticking with the conservative US Air Force plan for 700+ F-22s, they chopped the number down to 180 aircraft. Why? To force every American service and every American ally to buy into the F-35 monopoly. Where does this leave us Europeans? We have, since the start of the Cold War, depended on the Americans to provide the fighter top cover, the SAM suppression and the standoff radar jamming none of us were prepared to fund. We, much like the Americans, overindulged in the peace dividend and downsized several times over. The mighty collective NATO air forces are now a pale shadow of what they were in 1989.
If the Obama Administration decides to follow the Bush Administration policy to terminate F-22 production, the strategic consequences will be just as grave for America’s NATO allies as they will be for America.
This think tank report states that an F-35 can’t get through the Russian Integrated Air defense. Uhm - the F-35 can carry internal stores JUST like the F-22, at which point it is likely stealthy enough to do the job just FINE thank you very much. They start carrying on external hard points ONLY after we have Air supremacy.
Look at the campaign during Gulf War I - F-117’s went downtown, but other systems were used to blow holes in the “integrated” air defenses of Iraq before the rest of the air armada (and that name really fit in this case) came through to do their jobs. There were Apaches that came in and did Nap of the earth to take out Radar sites, and Cruise missles with similar missions. Then finally you had wild-weasel missions for anyone that chose to lite up their radar. They didn’t live long.
Gulf War 1 was 99% conventional aircraft! This report is just hot air.
Kremlin must decide on sales of S-300 to Iran - Rosoboronexport
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2178255/posts
Manned aircraft are a flexible weapons system. Once the attacker has command of the air, they can do other things — like supporting ground troops. SAM systems are counter-weapons. They are designed for certain pre-imagined scenarios. At times they can be very good. Good enough to blunt an attack. More often, counter-weapons are defeated by improvised tactics. Then it is back to the drawing boards for the designers.
All that being said, I think that manned tactical aircraft are nearing the end of their days. It may take a serious bloody nose for the USAF to come to that conclusion, however.
I doubt there will be any public dispute that would reveal the american version of the plane's capabilities.
High speed, low cost decoys are the key to defeating the new air defense systems. Just run them out of missiles shooting at decoys and their systems are worthless.
You might tell that to all the American aircrews shot down over Vietnam, along with Francis Gary Powers and Rudolf Anderson, by Soviet SAMs.
‘You saw what took place in a war with an untrained unmotivated army using the export version of old Soviet tanks. It would have been a different different fight if those had been Russian troops. ‘
Really? What, the rounds fired wouldn’t penetrate at 3,000 yards with almost perfect accuracy, because of the troops inside the tanks?
My point, which you are circumventing with this viewpoint, is the M1A1 Abrams far exceeded the ‘think tank’ white papers written BEFORE the Gulf War, by levels of Magnitude.
You know this as well as I.
Remember when ‘the experts’ convinced themselves the Soviets had a ‘brand new tank’ which they classified as the ‘T-80’.
It was only later they realized it was just another version of the T-72.
I’ve heard of that which you speak of here, and agree.
I guess if we’re running thousands of sorties per week some are likely to be shot down by plain luck.
The “Think Tank” papers about the deficiencies of the M1 Tank were hopelessly out of date by 1991. The M1 was a ‘mature’ weapons system by then.
The Media was looking of a cautionary story back then. They didn’t care if the “consume by” date on the technical stuff was long expired.
I'm surprised that A.A. didn't mention the F-117 that was shot down during the Kosovo War.
What he fails to mention during both Vietnam and during the Kosovo war, our aircraft used the same ingress and egress routes day after day, and in both cases the enemy knew when sortees were launched.
So if you know where to look, and you know when to look, you can hit just about anything.
Obama has talked about taking the current F-22’s out of service as not to “Destabilize” the current world situation.
Link please (or is this one of your usual outta-thin-air statements?)
The speech that Obama gave gives us hints at this
“I will not deploy new weapons systems”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU4sVQV3Lhk
They didn’t. There were no modern SAM systems in Syria. The Israeli’s took the path of least resistance to get to an undefended target in the Syrian desert. Part of that route involved the use of Turkish airspace on egress and ingress.
The Israeli’s aren’t stupid. There is no magic button to press to disable an entire air defense system. The Syrians kept the nuclear site clear of any air defence systems so as to not bring attention to the facility. What you are relying on is the likes of Debka who gave Syria every modern Russian SAM system.
Maybe you would like to ask the Israeli’s pilot’s during Yom Kippur of how deadly an integrated SAM system is? Look at the losses the Israeli’s suffered to SAMs during that conflict.
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