[Harpooner]

This article from Janes should provoke some on topic discussion (I hope).

I don't really know enough to form a opinion as yet (And yes I realise that has nover stopped me before )

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OPINION - The F-22: not what we were hoping for
The F-22 fighter aircraft's focus on stealth brings big disadvantages in cost, weight and manoeuvrability, argue Pierre Sprey and James Stevenson

For decades, the US Air Force has pushed the F-22 as its fighter for the 21st century. Advocates tout its technical features: fuel-efficient, high-speed 'super-cruise'; advanced electronics; and reduced profile against enemy sensors, known as 'stealth'.

However, on measures that determine winning or losing in air combat, the F-22 fails to improve the US fighter force. In fact, it degrades our combat capability.

Careful examination of actual air-to-air battles tells us that there are five attributes that make a winning fighter. These attributes shaped the F-15 and the F-16.

They are: (1) pilot training and ability; (2) obtaining the first sighting and surprising the enemy; (3) outnumbering enemy fighters in the air; (4) outmanoeuvring enemy fighters to gain a firing position; and (5) consistently converting split-second firing opportunities into kills.

The F-22 is a mediocrity, at best, on (4) and (5). It is a liability on (1), (2) and (3).
The most important attribute - pilot quality - dwarfs the others. Air combat history from both small and large wars makes that obvious. After the Israel Air Force (IAF) swept Syrian MiGs from the sky in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon with an 82-0 exchange ratio, the IAF Chief of Staff told US congressional staffers that the result would have been the same had the Syrian and Israeli pilots switched aircraft.

Great pilots get that way by constant dogfight training. Between 1975 and 1980, at the Navy Fighter Weapons School ('Topgun'), instructor pilots got 40 to 60 hours of air combat manoeuvring per month. Their students came from squadrons getting only 14 to 20 hours per month. Flying the cheap, simple F-5, the robustly trained instructors consistently whipped the students in their 'more capable' F-4 Phantoms, F-14 Tomcats and F-15 Eagles. Today, partly thanks to the pressure on the air force's training budget from the F-22's excessive purchase and operating costs, an F-22 pilot gets 12 to 14 hours of flight training per month. For winning future air battles, this is a huge step backward.

For half a century, the air force has been attempting to get the jump on enemy fighters through expensive, complex technology.

Billions of dollars were spent trying to perfect long-range radar missiles to achieve 'beyond-visual-range' (BVR) kills. Extraordinary kill rates, as high as 80 to 90 per cent, were promised when projects were being sold. Success rates in actual combat were below 10 per cent. Simple, more agile, shorter-range infra-red missiles and guns were far more successful and effective.

Worse, the 'identification friend or foe' (IFF) systems that must distinguish enemies from friends before launching BVR missiles failed in every war. As recently as Operation 'Iraqi Freedom' in 2003, misidentified allied aircraft were lost to US systems. The air force now tells us the only way to get the jump on enemy fighters supposedly launching BVR missiles is with stealth. But stealth solves neither the problem of less effective, high-cost BVR radar missiles nor the IFF conundrum. Moreover, stealth has failed to make our fighters invisible to radar and it brings crippling disadvantages.

In Operation 'Desert Storm' in 1991, according to the Government Accountability Office, so-called stealthy F-117s were significantly less effective bombers than the air force described publicly - there is anecdotal evidence that ancient Iraqi radars detected them. In the war against Serbia in 1999, non-stealthy F-16s had a lower loss rate per sortie than the F-117s. The F-22 will not be invisible to radar in real combat, where it cannot control detection angles and radar types.

The most obvious disadvantage stealth brings to the F-22 is extraordinary cost; it grossly reduces the numbers we will buy. New Department of Defense data shows the total unit cost of the F-22 has grown from about USD130 million to over USD350 million per aircraft. Result? The original buy of 750 is now down to 185.

Moreover, stealth plus the F-22's complexity result in unprecedented levels of maintenance downtime. That further reduces numbers in the air; 185 F-22s will support about 120 deployed fighters. They will be lucky to generate 60 combat sorties per day: a laughable number in any serious air war. In World War II, the Luftwaffe could field only 70 of its revolutionary jet: the Me-262. It caused alarm among Allied pilots but had negligible effect on the air battle.

Furthermore, the stealth requirement adds significant drag, weight and size. Size is the most crippling. Why? Because real-world combat is visual combat. Because the F-22 is much bigger than most fighters, it will be detected first, reversing the theoretical advantage it derives from stealth. Topgun had a saying: "The biggest target in the sky is always the first to die."

Once seen, the F-22 has trouble outman-oeuvring the enemy. Its weight hurts the key performance measures of turning and accelerating. Put simply, both the F-15A and F-16A out-turn and out-accelerate the F-22.

Finally, stealth harms the F-22's quick-firing ability. To retain stealth, the gun and missiles must be buried behind doors that take too long to open to exploit instantaneous opportunities.

The air force will argue strenuously that we are wrong and the F-22 has excelled in air-to-air exercises against all comers. However, our information is that these are 'canned' engagements in which the F-22 is pitted against opponents in joust-like scenarios set up to exploit the F-22's theoretical advantages and exclude its real-world vulnerabilities.

There is a way to find out who is right. A serious test of F-22 capabilities would pit it against pilots and aircraft the air force does not control using rules of engagement dictated by combat and the ratio of F-22s to enemies that the tiny F-22 inventory should expect in hostile skies.

We both would be delighted to observe any such realistic exercises and to report back to this magazine. Nothing would please us more than to find that we are wrong and US fighter pilots have been given the best fighter in the sky.

Pierre Sprey was one of three designers who conceived and shaped the F-16; he also led the technical side of the US Air Force's A-10 design concept team. James Stevenson is former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Topgun Journal and author of The Pentagon Paradox and The $5 Billion Misunderstanding. This article is adapted from a briefing they produced for the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information.

[Anakin_S]

Lot of fat to chew, Calum.

I never understoof the technical advantage to overcome attrition warfare. We won WWII by outnumbering the Axis in the sea, land, and air.

The prove of the validity of this article will occur when the F-22 is put against a real opponent. Unfortunately, it'll be too late by then.

[warhorse]

Take a look at the blurb about the authors at the end of the article:

"Pierre Sprey was one of three designers who conceived and shaped the F-16; he also led the technical side of the US Air Force's A-10 design concept team. James Stevenson is former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Topgun Journal and author of The Pentagon Paradox and The $5 Billion Misunderstanding."

These are both guys whose concept of the fighter is diametrically opposite to that of the F-22, and they have a vested interest in slagging it. That doesn't mean they're wrong, but it does mean you should examine anything they say on the topic with great care. As an example, it seems rather unlikely that an F-22 with internal weapons carriage and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.17 should be unable in general to out-accellerate an F-16 with external weapons carriage and a thrust-to-weight ratio of only 0.898, though there is probably some specific combination of speed, altitude and load where this is true.

[warhorse]

Anakin_S, on Sep 28 2006, 08:21 PM, said:

Lot of fat to chew, Calum.

I never understoof the technical advantage to overcome attrition warfare. We won WWII by outnumbering the Axis in the sea, land, and air.

The prove of the validity of this article will occur when the F-22 is put against a real opponent. Unfortunately, it'll be too late by then.

Actually, at sea and in the air we had superior equipment as well as superior numbers in WWII. On land, against the Germans, we (counting the Soviets as part of 'we') had roughly comparable equipment and seriously superior numbers. Against everyone else, we had better gear, too. It's arguable that we may have gone too far down the "quality rather than quantity" path, though that is by no means proven as yet. OTOH, when three years of war in Iraq has yielded about as many deaths as were suffered on the day of D-day, and this is considered by many to be a disaster, we haven't had any choice. Attrition warfare is simply not politically sustainable in the West, and that drives equipment and strategy decisions.

The only way we're going to find out how valid this article is, is in a full-scale war against a major oponent like China. Against anything less, US advantages in training, equipment and numbers will make it impossible to tell.

[Harpooner]

warhorse, on Sep 30 2006, 10:15 AM, said:

Take a look at the blurb about the authors at the end of the article:

"Pierre Sprey was one of three designers who conceived and shaped the F-16; he also led the technical side of the US Air Force's A-10 design concept team. James Stevenson is former editor of the Navy Fighter Weapons School's Topgun Journal and author of The Pentagon Paradox and The $5 Billion Misunderstanding."

These are both guys whose concept of the fighter is diametrically opposite to that of the F-22, and they have a vested interest in slagging it. That doesn't mean they're wrong, but it does mean you should examine anything they say on the topic with great care. As an example, it seems rather unlikely that an F-22 with internal weapons carriage and a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.17 should be unable in general to out-accellerate an F-16 with external weapons carriage and a thrust-to-weight ratio of only 0.898, though there is probably some specific combination of speed, altitude and load where this is true.

Exactly the reason I emphasised the authors

[Anakin_S]

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The only way we're going to find out how valid this article is, is in a full-scale war against a major oponent like China. Against anything less, US advantages in training, equipment and numbers will make it impossible to tell.

China is exactly who I'm worried about.

In an air campaign, China might prove our match because of weight of numbers. On the land, we're toast again because of numbers.

On the sea, the U.S. is majorly dominant. No one or four comes close.

In a conventional war, Iran, ROK, Syria, or any other boogie men can't touch us. Guerrilla warfare, we're goners because we love our children more than they love their's. They are willing to accept a 1:100 casuality ratio where we can't stomach 1:1.

Unfortunately, guerilla wars are what we're most likely to fight for the immediate future. It doesn't take a gold plated F-22 to deliver 500 lbs JDAMs when a 25 year old F-16 does it nicely and is still as good as anything else flying.

Ultimately, who is the F-22 going to fight in the next ten to fifteen years that a USAF F-16 or F-15 can't take? Even if Fulcrums, Flankers, Typhoons, or Rafales get into the bad guys' hands, are they going to train them, arm them, fight them in greater quantities than the USAF can handle?

And if we do mix it up with China, I doubt it'll stay conventional for too long.

[VCDH]

I could say I told you so but I won't....oh wait...I just did....

I wonder where they are going to base these aircraft when they are needed? More to the point how many aircraft are they going to deploy....certainly not more than a squadron and Flankers are cheap I hear.

Later
D

[JClark]

They'll base them here in the States for the time being. I expect they want to keep them close at home and closer to the supply/tech support chain until they've been operational for a while.

And I'll say it oncet again: it's not the machine in the equation that's paramount: It's the training, how realistic, and how much. If Russian/Indian/PRC fighters are restricted to 3 hours a month, then they will be meat on the table. If they don't have training centers like Nellis and China Lake, then they are meat on the table. And for those that got them, if they don't turn a lot of jet fuel into exhaust doing all the evolutions of Naval Aviation, including night ops, they will be meat on the table.

One only needs to look at the later years of WW2, when the Axis powers had significant aircraft of comprable ability, and were unable to keep up with Allied aircraft. This was especially true of the Japanese, who neither protected the pilot with those things to mitigate battle damage, enabling the aircraft to return it's valuable pilot, or SAR, which again returned the pilot. It's the human weapons system that's invaluable, one who not only will return to the fight with his skills, but can pass those skills and hard-earned combat lessons on to new aviators.

Boats

[warhorse]

Anakin_S, on Sep 30 2006, 08:19 PM, said:

China is exactly who I'm worried about.

In an air campaign, China might prove our match because of weight of numbers. On the land, we're toast again because of numbers.

On the sea, the U.S. is majorly dominant. No one or four comes close.

In a conventional war, Iran, ROK, Syria, or any other boogie men can't touch us. Guerrilla warfare, we're goners because we love our children more than they love their's. They are willing to accept a 1:100 casuality ratio where we can't stomach 1:1.

Unfortunately, guerilla wars are what we're most likely to fight for the immediate future. It doesn't take a gold plated F-22 to deliver 500 lbs JDAMs when a 25 year old F-16 does it nicely and is still as good as anything else flying.

Ultimately, who is the F-22 going to fight in the next ten to fifteen years that a USAF F-16 or F-15 can't take? Even if Fulcrums, Flankers, Typhoons, or Rafales get into the bad guys' hands, are they going to train them, arm them, fight them in greater quantities than the USAF can handle?

And if we do mix it up with China, I doubt it'll stay conventional for too long.

I'm not so sure you're right about China ... The most likely scenario would be PRC vs RoC and US. On the PRC side, the PLAAF and PLANAF have on the order of 3700 combat and support aircraft between them, but most of them are old MiG-19 and -21 variants. Only about 300 of them are modern fighters, mostly Su-27 variants. If you figure about three quarters of the force would be available against Taiwan, that's about 2800 aircraft, including up to 250 modern fighters. On the Blue side, the RoC air force has about 330 modern fighters (F-16, Mirage 2000, and the Ching-Kuo indigenous fighter), plus about 60 old F-5 types. The USAF could probably drop 300 modern fighters into the area on short notice, with USN carriers providing another hundred or two. So we're looking at 2800 mostly obsolescent aircraft against 800-900 mostly modern types, which is only about 3.5 to 1 in the PRC's favour. That's not going to be much fun for the Blue side, but I wouldn't bet against them either, on those numbers.

On land, I have to admit from raw numbers things look pretty bleak for the good guys. On the other hand, there's a very real question as to how well the PRC can deploy and support the necessary numbers of troops. It may very well prove that they can't concentrate enough force to get the job done, especially under hostile skies.

Guerilla wars: you're right about our tolerance for casualties, but remember that we don't actually have to *win* the war, we just have to hang on long enough for the locals to take over the fight. That should usually be doable in the reign of a single American president, and is thus practical if not pretty. It's not a job you need F-22s for, but you don't need F-16s for it either. What you need is A-10s and Apaches.

Future wars: 10 to 15 years is *way* too short a time frame. Try the next *50* years. Buying enough F-22s and other goodies to deter an opponent from trying something stupid is still going to be cheaper than even a small war, if Iraq is anything to judge by.

Non-conventional: again, I'm not sure I can agree. Even one Chinese nuke going off in America would be political suicide for the reigning party, and American nuclear superiority over China is so vast that it would be suicidal for the Chinese to go that route. There's always the possibility, but the incentives are pretty high on both sides not to go there, even in a war.

[VCDH]

The Chinese governemnt acts similar to vulture, crow, seagull, or any other kind of scavenging bird. When an oppoturnity presents itself, it will swoop down and try to take it. When someone stronger comes along, they will fly away and wait for their next chance. Since there's alot of them (and ho boy is there alot of seagulls here), losing one or two won't matter.

The Chinese military is similar to the eggs that these birds lay. Brittle on the outside but and soft on the inside.

Like most scavengers, they are strong going up against someone as strong as themselves but when someone bigger comes by then they run like the wind.

Despite those shiny new toys that the PLA has, they are still little more the combat force they were back in 1990. They have some (few) high end units but they are still relying on 30 plus year old technology. Hell even some of their newer stuff (the Sovremmenny's), leaps and bounds ahead of their regular gear, are still no match for the front line gear that many of the ASEAN nations carry.

Does China have ambitions? Absolutely
Is China a Threat? To Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal, and Burma but not to the ROC, Vietnam, or even North Korea.

Right now, China's main clout comes from it's cheap labor force. The biggest mistake the Soviets made was to not produce consumer goods in quantity (or even quality) for their work force. China has enough problems as it is with it's massively migrating work force (large numbers of migrating people is something their central government can't hope to control and as such the can't like it), and it's increasingly large middle class. So far they have been heeding the mistakes of the Soviets and diverting at least some of their production to keep them happy.

The problem here is that a large portion of the military production is controled by high ranking general officers. They live the lifestyle that they do because of the money they make off these operations. As the middle class grows, they are going to pull more and more production from the military to the commerical sector.

The next Tiananmen isn't going to be about political reform. It's going to be about the slow pace of economic reform. Preventing that will determing the next move China makes on the geo-political stage. This is also why they are playing their nationalist card to the population.

Later
D

[JClark]

Damn, scary stuff...for once, I agree with Dale.

Boats

[Harpooner]

JClark, on Oct 3 2006, 09:26 AM, said:

Damn, scary stuff...for once, I agree with Dale.

Boats

That's it...... I'm outta here

[JClark]

And thus speaks a third old-time member of the REAL, very first, Harpoon IRC channel, of Saul Jacobs, and Ed Ladner fame...lo, the days of 14.4 modems!

Boats

[VCDH]

You'll have to excuse Byron. He's so old that he needed a wheelchair before anyone knew what that was....

Later
D

[JClark]

VCDH, on Oct 5 2006, 07:56 PM, said:

You'll have to excuse Byron. He's so old that he needed a wheelchair before anyone knew what that was....

Later
D

Damn, time for the Hammer again..or should I use the Torch this time?

Boats

[VCDH]

Ok sweetie. The safety word will be bannana

Later
D

[JClark]

VCDH, on Oct 6 2006, 08:43 AM, said:

Ok sweetie. The safety word will be bannana

Later
D

I got your banana, and it ain't safe

Boats

[TonyE]

Scary you three , as was being intimidated off of that very IRC channel when I was but a wee little one not competent enough in mIRC for Byron's tastes. Guess I battled back and have said a useful thing or two (among mounds of garbage) since on Harpoon IRC channels.

[MikMyk]

TonyE, on Oct 7 2006, 02:17 AM, said:

Scary you three , as was being intimidated off of that very IRC channel when I was but a wee little one not competent enough in mIRC for Byron's tastes. Guess I battled back and have said a useful thing or two (among mounds of garbage) since on Harpoon IRC channels.

Lighten up Alice, guys are just having some fun with each other. Opportunity it is not

[JClark]

TonyE, on Oct 7 2006, 02:17 AM, said:

Scary you three , as was being intimidated off of that very IRC channel when I was but a wee little one not competent enough in mIRC for Byron's tastes. Guess I battled back and have said a useful thing or two (among mounds of garbage) since on Harpoon IRC channels.

Sounds like a less than tasty grape or two...

Boats, who is a bit saddened that a moment of levity can be spoiled by an agenda.