US Air Force: Discussion and News

The main reason people don't like the F-35 is really because it's an attempt to create in a way, a M4 for the Air Force. That is, it combines the roles of different planes and makes it a common platform (while being pretty mediocre for all the roles listed). It's a great idea, but there are far, far too many Cold War fossils out there to support making the F-35 the front line Air Dominance fighter (over the F-22).

Lets face it war is not a game you want to lose, and the west always has options, including sanctions or cruise missile or drone attacks. Carlos Kopp can talk about F-35s being defeated by Su-35s, but it is far more likely that the Su-35 base will receive a drone attack or cruise missiles will level their hangars while they are on the ground or the F-35s will not be sent in.

This work against inferior Arab states, but not against Russia or China. Their air defense and early warning capabilities are far more capable, so it will be very hard for drones and cruise missiles to reach airfields. Also their airfields are far more hardened than western, which have planes actually on the open. For example, NATO intensively bomb Priština airfield in Kosovo, but after war all Migs fly into Serbia, because they were safe deep inside mountain and they could also take off from grass. NATO could destroy only planes, which were outside, but not those underground.

The eastern doctrine is to have armed and ready fighter planes deep underground or inside mountain, which come out only to take off and fight. Hangars are only for peace time storage.

Is it just me or does seem related your argument:

Pentagon is stepping up efforts to make a bomb capable of destroying Iran's most heavily fortified underground facilities, the Wall Street Journal said on Saturday referring to U.S. officials briefed on the plan.

“The 30,000-pound [13,600 kilograms] "bunker-buster" bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs,” the daily said.

But initial tests indicated that the bomb, as currently configured, would not be capable of destroying some of Iran's facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them, the paper noted.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said more development work would be done and that he expected the bomb to be ready to take on the deepest bunkers soon. "We're still trying to develop them," Mr. Panetta said.

U.S. Officials say new money was meant to ensure the weapon would be more effective against the deepest bunkers, including Iran's Fordow enrichment plant facility.

Fordow is buried in a mountain complex in Iran surrounded by antiaircraft batteries, which makes it a very difficult target for air strikes.

In early January, Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) Fereidoon Abbasi said Frodow is safe from any kinds of threat by the enemies.

Tehran said it began the project in 2007, but the IAEA believes design work started in 2006.

The existence of the facility only came to light after it was identified by Western intelligence agencies in September 2009.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120128/171001822.html

Russian Patriot wrote:Is it just me or does seem related your argument:

Pentagon is stepping up efforts to make a bomb capable of destroying Iran's most heavily fortified underground facilities, the Wall Street Journal said on Saturday referring to U.S. officials briefed on the plan.

“The 30,000-pound [13,600 kilograms] "bunker-buster" bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs,” the daily said.

But initial tests indicated that the bomb, as currently configured, would not be capable of destroying some of Iran's facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them, the paper noted.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said more development work would be done and that he expected the bomb to be ready to take on the deepest bunkers soon. "We're still trying to develop them," Mr. Panetta said.

U.S. Officials say new money was meant to ensure the weapon would be more effective against the deepest bunkers, including Iran's Fordow enrichment plant facility.

Fordow is buried in a mountain complex in Iran surrounded by antiaircraft batteries, which makes it a very difficult target for air strikes.

In early January, Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) Fereidoon Abbasi said Frodow is safe from any kinds of threat by the enemies.

Tehran said it began the project in 2007, but the IAEA believes design work started in 2006.

The existence of the facility only came to light after it was identified by Western intelligence agencies in September 2009.

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120128/171001822.html

Paradoxically this news provide to us much more informations about the type of hypothetical intervention planned by part of USA than the technical improvement wanted.
The employment of a similar weapon would ,in facts, forcedly include the involvement of carrying platforms or way too vulnerable (as C-130) or way too crucial and precious (like B-2) to risk them in a single mission aimed merely at destroy some of the Iranian supposed hardened military nuclear structures, moreover for an eventual not saturated Tor-M1E battery at defence of the site a MOB would be super easy target ,one against which the PK would be practically 100% .

From those data appear clear that USA plan a full scale air intervention against Iran, with several preliminary SEAD and DEAD missions before a similar weapons could be effectively employed .
For USAF,obviously the problems linked to a similar operation against iranian facilities would be immensely inferior to those linked to an insulated Israeli intervention.

Naturally even for USA the most important factor for an efficent intervention would be TIMELINESS , in facts the implementation in Iranian hardened facilities of some of theirs monstrous new type of reinforced concrete (which someone at US DoD think to have been extensively "aided" by Russian startegic silos experts...) that theirs scientists had showed some years ago could prevent anything, except an high yield concentrated nuclear attack ,to cause any damage to theirs most crucial hardened nuclear facilities; even the improved MOB would become at this point totally worthless.

This is an article on the subject


www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/04/irans_superconc/

The first MC-130J Commando II that will be converted to become an AC-130J Gunship is being built at the Lockheed Martin Marietta, Ga., C-130 production facility. The AC-130J will be equipped with a Precision Strike Package creating the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command’s newest gunship. Sixteen AC-130Js are planned with an Initial Operating Capability scheduled for 2015.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/lockheedmartin/7630157104/

Basing of first U.S. Space Fence facility announced

9/25/2012 - PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFNS) -- The Air Force will base a Space Fence radar site on Kwajalein Island in the Republic of the Marshall Islands with initial operations capability planned for fiscal 2017.

The Fence will provide a critical Space Surveillance Network capability needed to give warfighters the ability to maintain a full and accurate orbital catalog, ensure orbital safety and perform conjunction assessments.

Air Force Space Command will award a contract to build the radar, which will be capable of detecting, tracking, identifying and characterizing space objects in low and medium earth orbits. Construction is expected to begin September 2013 and is planned to take 48 months to complete construction and testing.

Until the final design is determined, it is unknown exactly how many personnel will be required to construct the radar site. After construction is complete and the radar is operational, approximately 10 to 15 contractor personnel are projected for the long-term work force at Kwajalein to maintain the Space Fence radar. A support agreement will be established between Air Force Space Command and the U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll/Reagan Test Site for site support and facilities maintenance. Contractor operations and maintenance support for the radar site will fall under the responsibility of the 21st Space Wing here.

The Space Fence is a radar system operating in the S-Band frequency range to perform uncued detection, tracking, and accurate measurement of orbiting objects in low earth - primary -- and medium earth - secondary -- orbital regimes.

The Space Fence will provide precise positional data on orbiting objects and will be the most accurate radar in the Space Surveillance Network. Space Fence data will be fed to the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Data from the Space Fence radar will be integrated with other Space Surveillance Network data to provide a comprehensive space situational awareness and integrated space picture.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/news/2012/space-120925-afns01.htm?_m=3n.002a.615.dd0ao031i6.k3s

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_11_26_2012_p40-518983.xml

A decade ago, an air exercise that I ignored, took place in India, and provide interresstings results.
First of all indian Mig 21 bison was engaged successfully against F-15C -event though, in the seventies syrian mig 21bis successfully downed israelis F-15A -.

This exercise where India engaged Mig-21 bison and Su-27 familly were tested against US state of the arts aircrafts, leads us to several observations. No use to tell more about Su-27 familly, they are still the best aircrafts in the world, in the condition that a good pilots run them.

- At first even an old upgraded Mig-21 could successfully won against US state of the arts aircrafts.
- US pilots were confronting to high trained indian pilots, and once US hardware was in front of the same quality human and materials, the results is far to be shinning.
- Even though I staid amazed about the results, in fact, if we back to the history, Korea air war, and Vietnam air war, the result was not a surprise. And could not be a surprise, and could not be another result.
- The true nightmare of US air force, is to meet a third world countries with high quality aircrafts, and chieftly high trained pilots.
- Russia's hardware honnours the Soviets legacy regarding its aircrafts quality, its training technicals, even though Russia passed a hard economic, social crisis. Russia's hardware is still very efficient.

http://defensetech.org/2004/06/24/india-1-usaf-0/

My conclusion :
As I said since the beginning, without Russia's help, USA are unable to win a war, because Russia's military hardwares, matches perfectly with any US hardwares, in every areas.
If you have any other examples of exercices between US hardwares and russian's hardwares please post.

It really isn't that shocking.
F-5s have "shot down" much more advanced USAF birds in training. So what?
I bet you could find examples of Soviet "agressor" MiG-21s blasting MiG-23s out of the air. Now the generational gap isn't as great, but nontheless...

TR1 wrote:It really isn't that shocking.
F-5s have "shot down" much more advanced USAF birds in training. So what?
I bet you could find examples of Soviet "agressor" MiG-21s blasting MiG-23s out of the air. Now the generational gap isn't as great, but nontheless...

Exercises between soviet/russian mig-21/23 in Russia and exercises F-5/F-4/F-16/F-15/F-18/F-22 in USA, France, UK, Germany, Australia are not the same between indian/US, in other words, between developped countries and third world countries.
The shade is important.

82 F-16Ds removed from flight status due to longeron cracks

Read more: http://www.defencetalk.com/82-f-16ds-removed-from-flight-status-due-to-longeron-cracks-60364/#ixzz3AxmQenMw

Uh oh! Another F-15 crash!

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/an-american-f-15-just-crashed-in-england-1643832385/1643912958/+travis

I start to suspect that this is bad servicing due to lack of funds.

Hannibal Barca wrote:I start to suspect that this is bad servicing due to lack of funds.

The irony! 

Anyway, that could be it, that or just some bad piloting...

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/russia-is-deploying-its-fastest-interceptors-to-the-arc-1647183496/+pgeorge

America is relying much on its supposed -it does not mean it is the reality- superiority regarding air to air missiles, and especially AMRAAM. It is usefull to mention tha during air war above the Iraq's sky, it is interresting to notice -between 1992 and 2002, the no fly zone- that several F-15, F-14, F-16 and F-18 were engaged against the old Iraqis Mig-25 PD. Several air to air shot with amraam reached a Mig 25 in 1992 causing its destruction, this was swaggered by US Media as huge victory.



However, they forgot to mention :
1-US used to engage at least 5 fighters -if not 7 or 8, reaching often 10- against 1.
2-After several missiles amraam launched, it would be infortunate to miss all the target. If so, the AMRAAM is useless. But the next will give you more interrestings stories.

In other incidents, occured between 1998-2002, few Iraqi Mig-25 penetrated deeply inside Jordan, and inside Saudi Arabia terroritory. US launched several fighters F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 and launched several dozens of AMRAAM but all missed the iraqi Mig-25 -See Acig.org for more informations-.
This events prove several things.

1- First fo all, the US doctrin about the air battle relying on BVR does not work -as it was the case in the past-, if US are not in situation of outnumbering their ennemies. It does not work against old iraqi Mig-25, what about against the more modern Mig-31 ?
2- As we've seen before, the stealth technology concept, did not work in the past, and does not work nowadays, and won't work in the future.
3- With the new russian-chinese hardwares now, and in the near future, the west will loose definitly its supposed suprematy.
4- The future air combats will still last in dogfight, regarding this feature, Russia with its Mig-31, Mig-35, and SU--35 does not have to be afraid by any western fighters, whatever F-22, Typhoon -maybe the best western fighters-, Rafale, F-15, F-18, F-16 etc.. No use to tell more about the JSF, aka F-35.

nemrod wrote:
1- First fo all, the US doctrin about the air battle relying on BVR does not work -as it was the case in the past-, if US are not in situation of outnumbering their ennemies. It does not work against old iraqi Mig-25, what about against the more modern Mig-31 ?

Let me use the 1990-91 Gulf war analogy. The US M1 Abrams tank scored more hits against the Iraqi T-72s. But that was primarily because the Iraqi T-72s did not have night fighting capabilities. The US Army did not carry out much attack during daytime. They used the cover of the night to fight the Iraqi tanks. So, it was not that the M1 Abrams was a better tank. It's just that the Americans used better tactics. Just like Iraqi insurgents used better tactics to blow away M2 Abrams during the 2nd Gulf War using just IEDs.

The same analogy applies for air-to-air combat. The Americans may choose to shoot down fighter aircraft of Iraq, Libya or any Afro-Asian country with their BVR missiles but against Russia they will not be that successful, primarily because Russia always had a BVR philosophy.

Domestic version of the MiG-31 has a service ceiling of 69,000 ft compared to the 65,000 ft service ceiling of the F-22. Therefore, during the opening phase of an engagement the MiG-31 will fire 3 to 4 round of BVR missile at the F-22, forcing the F-22 to jam, decoy and/or outmanoeuvre these 3-4 BVR missiles.

The onus is therefore on the F-22 to escape a [combined] kill probability of 75%-80% and fire at least two AIM-120D at the MiG-31 which by that time has already reached an altitude higher than the F-22 and is capable of jamming the AIM-120D with it's DRFM.

This is interesting, that AMRAAM have such difficulties with old MiG-25PD fighter. MiG-31 and Sukhois now have far more modern ECM equipment, specially in Sorbtsiya or SAP-518 ECM pods. I wonder if MiG-31BM could carry ECM pod like Talisman, which have MAWS sensor build inside and protect plane against missiles with ARH like AMRAAM or Meteor.

MiG-31BM is equipped with data link complex, which connect it with other MiGs in group as well as with A-50 AWACS and ground command post. With building radar network with big OTH radars, long range VHF radars, usual EW radars and ELINT posts and to station in region 4 A-50 AWACS planes to ensure constant presence, than F-22 and F-35 could very difficultly make a surprise to MiGs in the air. ECM pods will protect MiG against AMRAAMs and give a chance to launch R-33S or R-77 missiles on them. It will be smart for MiG crew not to come to close to F-22 as MiG-31 is not good for dogfight. I would say IR version of R-77 or R-27 would be the most suitable weapon for MiG-31BM against F-22 or F-35.

ATošić wrote:
...Let me use the 1990-91 Gulf war analogy. The US M1 Abrams tank scored more hits against the Iraqi T-72s. But that was primarily because the Iraqi T-72s did not have night fighting capabilities. The US Army did not carry out much attack during daytime. They used the cover of the night to fight the Iraqi tanks. So, it was not that the M1 Abrams was a  better tank. It's just that the Americans used better tactics. Just like Iraqi insurgents used better tactics to blow away M2 Abrams during the 2nd Gulf War using just IEDs.

The same analogy applies for air-to-air combat. The Americans may choose to shoot down fighter aircraft of Iraq, Libya or  any Afro-Asian country  with their BVR missiles but against Russia they will not be that successful, primarily because Russia always had a BVR philosophy.  

About 1990-1991 war I have not enough accurate informations about what's happened exactly.
First of all, the war was mostly aerial, than ground.
They -american's hype- told us about so-called ground battle in Kuwait, and asserted about a -supposed- easy air domination above iraqi's sky. The reality -i will post the link about a troubling document about the war in iraq- seems to be more nuanced. At first there was no real battle in Kuwait, as most of iraqi army retreated before US coalition launched ground assault.  
Secundly, they claimed having near immediatly the total control of the iraqi's sky. The reality, america's air campaign lasted nearly 45 days, untill this date, iraqi fighters continued to fly, in spite of US coaltion's domination. US have 10 more times more aircrafts than iraqis. Moreover, during this time, when US swaggered that their fighters downed easily about 40 iraqi aircrafts, during this time, it is important to mention that more than 150 iraqi aircrafts fled to Iran. Including the very agile, that could easily evade any US air air missiles the .....IL-76, and the icing on the cake the two iraqi awacs IL-76 Adnan. I've heard about friends that did war among US coalition, US lost several dozens of F-16, more than 30, adding to the official figures given by DOD, US coalition seems to have lost more than 70 aircrafts -untill now, I did not find any Internet link relating this losses-. Obviously, US will deny, nevertheless, if we backed to the air war of Vietnam, we saw exactly the same situation. If, indeed many iraqi Mig-23-25-29 were lost, but at what price ? 800 air air missiles to shoot down 20 aircrafts ? In other side, US coaltion lost at least 40-50, including a B-52, and several F-111 ?
What I mean, about Desert Storm we know nothing, other than the lies given by DOD,  and we are not ready to know something in near future. Nevertheless if a think is sure, the US casualitities seems to be far higher than they admit.

Back to our initial subject, Iam near sure that Russia does not need the very expensive and cumbersome Su-Pak T-50. Because nowadays SU-27 familly, and Mig-29 familly are enough, and could easily inflict huge losses to any US adventures. If, indeed the F-22 have supercruise -as mentionned by Garry- feature, do not forget that this US fighter is far to be the only one to have this feature, let's mention the Mig-35, Rafale, Typhoon, and SU-35.
Moreover, the F-22 has a special feature, the vector thrust engine, yes this aircraft has vector thrust engine, but, the Mig-35, and SU-35 too. It is usefull to mention that these sophisticated engine, if indeed, are very usefull for the aircraft in combat adding in manoevrabilty, they are nevertheless too much fragile, and hence less availlable.
About the 187 F-22 with their sophisticated avionics, and engines, you can clearly say that in the best case no more 90 are ready for combat, after few days of intensive air war, this number will dramatically drop, and US will still rely on 4th generation aircrafts -as Russia, and China- like the F-15, F-16, F-18.
All this hype about the so-called superiority of the F-22 is mere intox. Now, there is a new dramatic setting  that modiffy all US calculus.
US is lack money. Dollar worth nothing, hence, they could not feed their war machine as before. Their only strong point is to outnumber, and now the danger is they could not.

nemrod wrote:


S . I've heard about friends that did war among US coalition, US lost several dozens of F-16, more than 30, adding to the official figures given by DOD, US coalition seems to have lost more than 70 aircrafts -untill now, I did not find any Internet link relating this losses-. Obviously, US will deny, nevertheless, if we backed to the air war of Vietnam, we saw exactly the same situation. If, indeed many iraqi Mig-23-25-29 were lost, but at what price ? 800 air air missiles to shoot down 20 aircrafts ? In other side, US coaltion lost at least 40-50, including a B-52, and several F-111 ?
What I mean, about Desert Storm we know nothing, other than the lies given by DOD,  and we are not ready to know something in near future. Nevertheless if a think is sure, the US casualitities seems to be far higher than they admit.

Back to our initial subject, Iam near sure that Russia does not need the very expensive and cumbersome Su-Pak T-50. Because nowadays SU-27 familly, and Mig-29 familly are enough, and could easily inflict huge losses to any US adventures.

this is without mentioning Rotary Aircraft losses endured.

the U.S and coalition lost rather a lot of F-16's and F-18's against ...again.."obsolete" ZSU-23-4 platforms. not all iraqi crew where stupid to leave their radars on for EW aircraft to find them before strike craft actually could be heard or seen. then activated and shot the shit out of both A-10's, Supercobra's, Apache's and F-16/F18's when they came into visual range.

i remember this one vid from liveleak:"A-10 saves downed airman". it was bullshit really, his buddy got blown out the sky when it got turned to swiss cheese and his wingman was just evading incomming fire from an ZSU-23-4 while still getting hit in the process. still, granted...the surviving A-10 was a tough piece of flying armour tough. it understripes a bit of the NATO reliance on high-tech warfare and their vulnerability as soon you pass that outer shell.

and, ...to show how american night vision warfare is not perfect either. some might know the story of the iraqi commander that drove his T-72's in cover and ordered then his T-72's to mingle with the advancing M1's . the american crew...or optics or both...where not enough to prevent some serious blue-on-blue fire.

that part of the movie where this with Denzel washington is just one little bit of the truth. it was not one M1 that got blown up in the confusion but they shot at least 5 M1's to shit themselves before realising what was going on. after that, the standard procedure got addopted that if you where not 100% sure you call in an mortar/artillery IR round on target. with night optics that works like an area-wide flashlight and makes things see clear as it would in daylight.

this all points a bit to what i always said here, that NATO/US cant get it trough their thick skulls that the other side just might be ahead of them with thinking and practical technology and that "next gen" warfare is all but holy on the reality of the battlefield.