http://www.au.af.mil/au/afri/aspj/digital/pdf/articles/2014-May-Jun/F-Pietrucha.pdf?source=GovD
This is a PDF document, and I can not copy-and-paste it. It is also a few pages long, but still a very interesting read.
The article questions the indispensability of F-35 and presents an alternative view and Force structure plan for USAF uptil 2023.
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gambit , sir I would really like to know your views on this article, if you could find time to read through. I have read it, but I can not say whether or not the analysis is sound, simply because I do not know enough to feel entitled to an opinion in this regard. All I can say is that the arguments are compelling.
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Oscar @
Aeronaut , I would like to know your views as well.
Thanks in advance.
Basically...What Colonel Pietrucha said is that US airpower, specifically the USAF, should focus more on current generation technology (not platforms) and less on low radar observable, aka 'stealth', platforms, which should be reserved to achieve air supremacy in order for 'non-stealth' platforms to support ground objectives --
IF finance is the main driver for force array.
Coming from a sensor specialist perspective, I have heard this argument before and I do have a high degree of agreement with it.
We cannot deny the reality that our current force array is indeed that while time and combat tested in terms of airpower philosophy, the same force array is also time and combat wearied in terms of platforms. What the colonel, and others that I have read and discussed about with my fellow Crows many years ago, is that we, meaning US airpower, should have more modern versions of the F-15 and F-16. Not incremental upgrade models of them, like blocks 60, 70, 80, etc...etc..., but newer and better designed fighters in the line of they were originally designed for. Then gradually retire the current crop to the National Guards and Reserve forces and for new pilots training purposes.
The key is this -- Absolutely uncontested air supremacy must be achieved by the 'stealth' platforms.
I said this before on this forum:
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Air dominance: The ability of an air force to compel other air forces, friends and foes, to rearray themselves into inferior postures in any contested airspace, be it territorial or anywhere else.
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Air superiority: The ability of an air force to achieve control of any contested airspace, repeatedly if necessary, and if there are any losses, those losses would pose statistically insignificant challenges to that goal of control.
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Air supremacy: He flies, he dies.
Right now, if US airpower challenges anyone's territorial airspace, even those of Russia and China, those air forces will rearray themselves into inferior, meaning defensive, postures, and they know it. Challenged, not yet entered. In Desert Storm, we went to dominance to supremacy literally overnight over Iraq's territorial airspace. It would not be as quick for more advanced foes like Russia or China and we will have to work hard to achieve air superiority over strategically important portions of their airspaces, but we can do it with the current F-15/F-16 mix.
Can we do it 50 yrs or even as soon as 20 yrs from now ? What Colonel Pietrucha and many others have been saying is: Not likely.
If you can afford it, you do not build a military based upon the lowest or even the middling of potential adversaries out there. You build based upon the most advanced potential foes, no matter how remote the probabilities of conflict against them.
IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT.
So instead of the F-35, US airpower could, and in the opinion of Colonel Pietrucha and others should, have build a larger F-22 fleet to assure the goal of air supremacy in any conflict, and gradually replace the current F-15 and F-16 fleet with 4.5 or 4.75 gen fighters that incorporate only mild 'stealth' capabilities. If the US Marines want V/STOL, give them a Harrier replacement, not the V/STOL version of the F-35. If the US Navy want a common platform to achieve multiple missions for worldwide deployment, give the Navy an F-18 replacement, not merely upgrade models, but a complete replacement.
People on this forum, and elsewhere, poohed poohed 'stealth' out of their own ignorance and nationalistic biases, not out of genuine technical knowledge and military experience. As a sensor specialist who personally seen on a radar scope what 'stealth' can do, I am all for the concept and its real world application. Even in limited scope with a dedicated platform like the F-22. Despite what Russian and Chinese propaganda may spew about their radars, US 'stealth' platforms
WILL dominate, philosophically and physically, air combat doctrines and airspaces for at least another 50 yrs, the estimated useful life span of most fighters.
So either US airpower build a larger F-22 fleet to drive all contenders from any contested airspace, or commit to the F-35 so that when an F-35 pilot have to enter a contested airspace, he will at least have some EM protection to achieve his mission.