Posted on 09/14/2010 2:19:37 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
OXON HILL, Md. — The U.S. Air Force’s former top intelligence officer warned a roomful of generals this week that the U.S. has lost its air power advantages and is dangerously ill-prepared to stop the gap-closing efforts of China and Russia.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, a former F-15 pilot , challenged Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ fundamental belief that U.S. air power vastly overmatches any foreign military.
“For the first time, our claim to air supremacy is in jeopardy,” Deptula told the Air Force Association’s national convention on Monday.
At the same forum last year, Gates defended ordering a halt to the production of the Air Force’s vaunted F-22, saying that by the time China produces a fighter comparable to the F-22, the U.S. will have more than 1,000 F-22s and F-35s.
The Air Force Association has openly opposed Gates’ stance and this year Deptula came armed with a 15-minute bombastic video titled “Threats to 2010 Air Supremacy.” His presentation attempted to reopen more than just the F-22 fight, warning that from surface-to-air defenses to air-to-air fighters, the U.S. was letting others catch up. These future threats, he said, are now current.
There is “a global revolution to modernize air defense systems,” the video’s narrator explained. Russia and China are deploying or building better surface-to-air missile, or SAM, systems that could one day prove too much for U.S. fighter aircraft.
Within the decade, it said, both nations could field fighter jets nearly comparable to the F-22.
“When taken in total, our potential adversaries can create a nearly impenetrable box that our legacy fighters cannot enter, thus denying us our air supremecy,” it said.
After showing the video, Deptula dismissed “the notion of overmatch in the realm of air dominance,” a reference to the Gates position.
It is unclear how much weight Deptula will be able to lend to those in the Air Force, or on Capitol Hill, clamoring to defend air power procurement programs. Gates frequently has said he wants the Pentagon to prioritize building a force and arsenal ready to meet the most current and plausible threats.
So far, Gates has been largly successful, and Deputla’s presentation was riddled with worst-case scenarios.
“The dominance we’ve enjoyed in the aerial domain is no longer ours for the taking,” Deptula said.
Yeah, that’s good.
In other missions a bomber could carry UAVs for fighters.
We hope money and effort is going into this at the Pentagon...
Seems there is an unexpected feature on the AESA of the F-22 and F-35 (and, strangely enough, the F-18F!). They can fry electronics at fairly long ranges:
AESA type radars have been around a long time, popular mainly for their ability deal with lots of targets simultaneously. But AESA is also able to focus a concentrated beam of radio energy that could scramble electronic components of a distant target. Sort of like the EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) put out by nuclear weapons. AESA has demonstrated that it can disable missiles and aircraft. Ballistic missiles are another story, as they are sturdier (to handle re-entry stress) and have fewer electronics to mess with.
Your armada would have a hard time engaging, as, one by one, they malfunction and fall to the earth far below.
You could probably do the same thing with AEW or ECM aircraft.
In order for your drones to survive, you'd need to hardent them and that causes the cost to skyrocket.
Drones have never had a throw-down with first world opponent. They may not do so well.
So, assumin’ we’re serious, we lead with a sub-launched cruise missile attack on the relevant airfields? A few of those “repurposed” SSBNs can launch an awful lot of SLCMs.
It ain’t cut and dried. The USN spends a lot of time and money thinking about this stuff and how to win it. They publish and use the “worst case” scenarios (like “Indian Sukhois ‘beating’ F-18s in exercises”) to lobby for money, but there is a lot more to it than they ever let on.
Sure enough, idiot headline writer got it wrong, the military man said our “air supremacy” was at risk.
Big difference between being merely superior to being supreme! We may still have Air superiority, but are we losing Air supremacy?
Words mean things, you stupid journalists!
Yes, I know that this is a worst case scenario, but situations like this have happened before, just on smaller scales.
The counter to AESA radar frying electronics has long been known, even before AESA radar existed, since the defection of a Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat pilot. It was discovered that his advanced aircraft didn’t have solid state electronics, but tubes, that were far more resistant to electromagnetic pulse.
While I’m not suggesting that drones should have tubes, the philosophy behind this was sound as an effective defensive measure. If nothing else, their electronics can be shielded, and they can fly blind for some seconds until the threat is over—something you can’t do in a high performance aircraft.
Likewise, turnabout is fair play. Since such aircraft are expendable, why not put a few in the armada that are designed to produce a powerful, directional electronic pulse towards a high performance aircraft? Instead of a 1000lb bomb, they carry a 500lb capacitor and a radar dish. And the best part is that even if they can’t use it against an aircraft, they can use it against ground targets.
Tubes mean the weight goes up. Propulsion and fuel weight goes up, price of drones goes up, relative payload goes down.
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