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I thought that for the US destroying enemy air defence is the job of cruise missiles?

UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
Yeah, a lot of people seem to be missing that. They're all talking about sending in the F-35 first, but to me you actually send in cruise missiles and or drones first to take out the known threats, and then send in the F-35 to take out in-flight enemy aircraft. Assuming you have half decent satellite intelligence (which we know the US does), it doesn't make sense for the US to risk pilot's lives no matter what they're flying.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Except you'd want to use a dedicated fighter for the air superiority role. The F35 doesn't do that that well.
ckozlowski 11y ago
For some, yes. Works for stationary sites. For mobile or previously concealed systems, not so much. You need a way to re-target the weapon in flight, securely, and that's assuming you detect it. If it's a manned platform doing this, then it's more efficient to bomb it where you are (assuming it hasn't detected you in turn!) If it's a different platform, say, a stealthy drone, then you could conceivably direct a cruise missile strike, but this has its own challenges. Cruise missiles take a while to reach their destination, both because they're standoff weapons (hundreds of nm) and their relatively slow speed needed to achieve that range. All cruise missiles in the US inventory are subsonic, and the few international ones that are supersonic are good for only a few dozen km. Hunting mobile systems with cruise missiles isn't too practical for these reasons. Adversaries have been paying attention, and that all of us here can recognize that a US opening move will be "cruise missile wave" should tell you how well you can expect an adversary to be prepared for that. I posted a link above where it went into detail the vulnerability the A-10 has to small mobile and man-portable missile systems. These warnings became evident in Desert Storm and only got more pronounced as this level of technology trickled down. The A-10 was viewed as capable in the 70s and 80s, where your primary threats were guns and early mobile missile systems. And even then, the expectation was that the expected lifetime was not very long. They would delay and harass Soviet first-echelon forces, and pay a heavy cost for doing so. That they took notable losses from a second-rate ground force that had been heavily attributed for 8 years against Iran told the Air Force that this day they would need to be retired would come sooner than expected. They were fine enough for the Balkans and Iraq in '03 when you could reasonably expect to eliminate most anti-air threats with the F-16, but this isn't expected to be feasible in the next conflict. Speed, sensors, and countermeasures (stealth and ECM) are what's needed. Low and slow won't be sufficient unfortunately. The A-10C got some of these improvements in the sensors and ECM department, but unfortunately it's not enough.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  The point about mobile air defence actually makes a lot of sense. It still seems to me that a dedicated replacement to the A10 would be preferable to what the F35 has become.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Cruise missiles are $1m a piece and exist in precious quantities. In the previous conflicts, we'd only used them to soften up the air defense network, then send in the B-2's to take out the rest of the air defenses once its safe for them to fly. Once the B-2's are done, then its only safe to bring in regular fighters, choppers, troop transports, tanks, and bombers. I'm not sure how the F-35 fits into this. One of the issues with the B-2's is that our fleet is tiny and they're super-expensive to run and carry limited ordinance. I suspect they may take some pressure off the B-2's with their mixed role.
- Ras_ 11y ago
  F-35 is the stealthy sensor platform that can go closer to identify and target. Unlike F-22 it does air to ground as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be the platform that does all the shooting. It can spot for non-stealthy planes further back, or for land/sea based platforms. Basically the killer app of F-35 is providing better situational awareness to the whole coalition force operating in the area. It's much more valuable as a force multiplier than on its own. Super Hornet and the rest of that generation can hold their own 1v1, but they don't provide a similar benefit to the rest of system. It remains to be seen whether F-35 makes even EW jets like Growler obsolete. I suspect that the added human workload part of EW (F-35 doesn't have two seaters) is harder to overcome than developing suitable pods. They will be carrying cruise missiles too. Because $1m is quite a bit less than $100m (the plane).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

Yeah, a lot of people seem to be missing that. They're all talking about sending in the F-35 first, but to me you actually send in cruise missiles and or drones first to take out the known threats, and then send in the F-35 to take out in-flight enemy aircraft. Assuming you have half decent satellite intelligence (which we know the US does), it doesn't make sense for the US to risk pilot's lives no matter what they're flying.

JupiterMoon 11y ago
Except you'd want to use a dedicated fighter for the air superiority role. The F35 doesn't do that that well.

ckozlowski 11y ago

For some, yes. Works for stationary sites. For mobile or previously concealed systems, not so much. You need a way to re-target the weapon in flight, securely, and that's assuming you detect it. If it's a manned platform doing this, then it's more efficient to bomb it where you are (assuming it hasn't detected you in turn!) If it's a different platform, say, a stealthy drone, then you could conceivably direct a cruise missile strike, but this has its own challenges. Cruise missiles take a while to reach their destination, both because they're standoff weapons (hundreds of nm) and their relatively slow speed needed to achieve that range. All cruise missiles in the US inventory are subsonic, and the few international ones that are supersonic are good for only a few dozen km. Hunting mobile systems with cruise missiles isn't too practical for these reasons. Adversaries have been paying attention, and that all of us here can recognize that a US opening move will be "cruise missile wave" should tell you how well you can expect an adversary to be prepared for that. I posted a link above where it went into detail the vulnerability the A-10 has to small mobile and man-portable missile systems. These warnings became evident in Desert Storm and only got more pronounced as this level of technology trickled down. The A-10 was viewed as capable in the 70s and 80s, where your primary threats were guns and early mobile missile systems. And even then, the expectation was that the expected lifetime was not very long. They would delay and harass Soviet first-echelon forces, and pay a heavy cost for doing so. That they took notable losses from a second-rate ground force that had been heavily attributed for 8 years against Iran told the Air Force that this day they would need to be retired would come sooner than expected. They were fine enough for the Balkans and Iraq in '03 when you could reasonably expect to eliminate most anti-air threats with the F-16, but this isn't expected to be feasible in the next conflict. Speed, sensors, and countermeasures (stealth and ECM) are what's needed. Low and slow won't be sufficient unfortunately. The A-10C got some of these improvements in the sensors and ECM department, but unfortunately it's not enough.

JupiterMoon 11y ago
The point about mobile air defence actually makes a lot of sense. It still seems to me that a dedicated replacement to the A10 would be preferable to what the F35 has become.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

Cruise missiles are $1m a piece and exist in precious quantities. In the previous conflicts, we'd only used them to soften up the air defense network, then send in the B-2's to take out the rest of the air defenses once its safe for them to fly. Once the B-2's are done, then its only safe to bring in regular fighters, choppers, troop transports, tanks, and bombers. I'm not sure how the F-35 fits into this. One of the issues with the B-2's is that our fleet is tiny and they're super-expensive to run and carry limited ordinance. I suspect they may take some pressure off the B-2's with their mixed role.

Ras_ 11y ago
F-35 is the stealthy sensor platform that can go closer to identify and target. Unlike F-22 it does air to ground as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be the platform that does all the shooting. It can spot for non-stealthy planes further back, or for land/sea based platforms. Basically the killer app of F-35 is providing better situational awareness to the whole coalition force operating in the area. It's much more valuable as a force multiplier than on its own. Super Hornet and the rest of that generation can hold their own 1v1, but they don't provide a similar benefit to the rest of system. It remains to be seen whether F-35 makes even EW jets like Growler obsolete. I suspect that the added human workload part of EW (F-35 doesn't have two seaters) is harder to overcome than developing suitable pods. They will be carrying cruise missiles too. Because $1m is quite a bit less than $100m (the plane).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]