US Navy 6th Gen Fighter - F/A-XX

Yet they had no issue with 800nmi range subsonic strike aircraft through the entire Cold War, in the A-6. (That's 4x 2000lb warload, IIRC with a single fuel tank on centerline)

That's not what the F/A-18 E is nor the F/A-XX is going to be. So your example is a pretty bad one unless their was perfect overlap between the A-6 and what the F/A-18E / F/A-XX are expected to perform in terms of missions.
 
That's not what the F/A-18 E is nor the F/A-XX is going to be. So your example is a pretty bad one unless their was perfect overlap between the A-6 and what the F/A-18E / F/A-XX are expected to perform in terms of missions.
ATA and A/F-X were also supposed to be 800nmi range aircraft.

Super Bugs were a very "we're not going to get the capabilities we need, and the A-6s are out of life" answer.
 
ATA and A/F-X were also supposed to be 800nmi range aircraft.

Super Bugs were a very "we're not going to get the capabilities we need, and the A-6s are out of life" answer.

My point was simply that we may still not have issues with 800 nmi subsonic strike aircraft. Even today. But that the F/A-XX, like the F/A-18E it replaces, is not a subsonic strike aircraft. At this point, we kind of know what the Navy is looking for and it is not that far off.
 
My point was simply that we may still not have issues with 800 nmi subsonic strike aircraft. Even today. But that the F/A-XX, like the F/A-18E it replaces, is not a subsonic strike aircraft. At this point, we kind of know what the Navy is looking for and it is not that far off.
Yet I can spec out an aircraft that has a ~760nmi range that carries what the USN seems to want for the mission. And that's assuming no fuel consumption improvements over F119 or F110.
 
Yet I can spec out an aircraft that has a ~760nmi range that carries what the USN seems to want for the mission.

But the F/A-XX is not a subsonic strike aircraft as I previously mentioned. You seem to be stuck with that as a benchmark and want the F/A-XX to be one. It is not. It is a supersonic F/a-18E replacement. Navy has been clear in terms of what it wants it to do with the platform. I am not sure what 'I can't spec out an aircraft' means exactly but that may be something to system requirements and KPI's not being publicly shared.
 
Last edited:
But the F/A-XX is not a subsonic strike aircraft as I previously mentioned. You seem to be stuck with that as a benchmark and want the F/A-XX to be one. It is not. It is a supersonic F/a-18E replacement. Navy has been clear in terms of what it wants it to do with the platform. I am not sure what 'I can't spec out an aircraft' means exactly but that may be something to system requirements and KPI's not being publicly shared.
Again, I can put together specs for a supersonic aircraft that is roughly F-22 weight and has a 760nmi combat range while subsonic. 28,000lbs of fuel onboard. 80k MTOW, 40k empty. ~12,000lbs of weapons. And those aren't crazy optimistic specs, most modern fighters have an MTOW that is twice their empty weight, give or take. The only question in there is if you can enclose a huge bay and all that fuel in 40klbs empty weight.

Thing is, I can't compare an F-22's range while supercruising, because I have no clue how the new engines will handle supercruise.

But F110s and F119s have very similar subsonic fuel consumption numbers. So I can make comparisons with that.
 
I had thought the F119 was particularly thirsty as a consequence of the low bypass?
 
The primary threat to the Carrier today is not a Soviet-sized bomber attack with AShCMs. It's the AShBMs.

And you threaten AShBMs with strike aircraft, not with interceptors.
Strike aircraft against ASBM aren't that much of an answer. Dispersable, concealed fires aren't vulnerable to intruder action.
Persistent overhead can do it, but persistence overhead doesn't look all that rosy even in Yemen.

Also, while main threat to carrier today may still be AShBMs (i personally think it isn't the case anymore - if you're fighting off salvo and not the targeting loop, it's a very technical task to overwhelm your ABM capacity), it is also threat to everything else.
And fighters may very well have to take on at least part of ABM mantle.

And it would be rather ironic if USN, preparing for a status quo of 2010s(world where ASBMs still were a main, contestable threat), will enter with this preparation into the 2030s. Against PLAN as large - and suported by almost comical superiority in shipbuilding might - than itself.
 
What do view as the main PRC threat? Its surface fleet?
PLA is very rapidly changing into peer threat.
I.e. yes, it very rapidly changes into symmetric threats.

Denial assets aren't less deadly than before, it's just parading within their reach against peer opponent won't end well. Having cripples when there's incoming surface force is ugly.

USN was stronger than IJN in 1941, and it could deliver a strike against home islands in 1942.
But only in 1945, after IJN visibly collapsed in late 1944, USN appeared near Japan in force.
 
PLA is very rapidly changing into peer threat.
I.e. yes, it very rapidly changes into symmetric threats.

Denial assets aren't less deadly than before, it's just parading within their reach against peer opponent won't end well. Having cripples when there's incoming surface force is ugly.

USN was stronger than IJN in 1941, and it could deliver a strike against home islands in 1942.
But only in 1945, after IJN visibly collapsed in late 1944, USN appeared near Japan in force.

I have no doubt the PLAN is a peer threat, but typically surface ships are defensive in nature while aircraft and submarines (and now land based missiles) are used to sink ships. I suspect the USN surface fleet only accounted for a few dozen major surface combatants for the whole war.
 
I have no doubt the PLAN is a peer threat, but typically surface ships are defensive in nature while aircraft and submarines (and now land based missiles) are used to sink ships. I suspect the USN surface fleet only accounted for a few dozen major surface combatants for the whole war.
3 1/2 capital ships to be exact plus a number of heavy cruisers. Subs got 1, and aircraft got 4 1/2 (2 in harbor). Aircraft and submarines did account for all the aircraft carriers sunk.
 
1.Tricky thing, b/c ww2 pacific warships were limited by horizon, i.e. rarely had opportunities to fire outside of night and/or decisive action conditions. At least in PTO - ETO was quite full of surface actions, and overall performed differently.

1.1 But there's point in not just looking that aircraft did v. surface ships, but also which kinds of aircraft did. Absolute majority of large ship kills (at sea) are carrier aircraft, then carrier aircraft operating from landstrips. Only after that come dedicated land-based maritime strike aircraft (rikkko, coastal command, etc), and dead last are multirole aircraft.
Also, as a side part, significant chunk is actually strikes(quite often strategic bombers) coming after idle ships in ports.

2. But since ships after war do carry guided missile armament, and since 21th century ship DP batteries(missiles) also increasingly engage below the horizon(ARH), WW2 experience should be applied with some care. Warships since 1950s themselves carry "kamikaze aircraft", which have proven themselves quite OK at doing things. And they, much like ww2 aircraft carriers, move those aircraft to unpredictable launch points.

3.Also, PLAN is also submarines, both nuclear(which PLAN builds right now faster than US and Russia combined) and conventional (somehow entirely forgotten field, when it was them who did all the nasty ww2 underwater stuff in the first place).
 
You could certainly load a VLS with a lot of anti surface weapons, but only by decreasing your defensive weapons. I suspect in most any scenario the surface fleet will focus on defensive weapons where as ballistic weapons are offensive only by nature and much more easily reloaded. Also the range of the PLARFs weapons is much greater than that of the PLANs. Sure, you can just take a ship closer to the desired target, but only by increasing the risk to that platform. The land based TELs are almost untouchable for the moment.
 
Last edited:
You could certainly load a VLS with a lot of anti surface weapons, but only by decreasing your defensive weapons.
That's why all the USN SAMs had a secondary antiship mode. Talos did absolutely horrendous things to anything without serious armor and would probably do bad things to a battleship, and Standards have burned ships to the waterline.

And that's why SM6s have an OTH surface attack mode.

edit for word misuse
 
Last edited:
Congress is proposing a $500 Million plus up for the F/A-XX as part of its 25 markup. Overall, a $2 Bn increase in FY25 funding for key next gen aircraft programs (FA-XX, F-47 , B-21 and CCA)


View attachment 768229
Would more money help accelerate the F-47 and the F/A-XX? Increases funding should go to the current force - procurement, spare parts and maintenance, increased flying hours, munitions, and fighters.

I'm kind of dubious of money going to the industrial base. NG invested its own because there is a clear demand signal from the AF for more B-21s. The Navy giving almost a billion dollars to a non profit - Blue Forge Alliance - to improve sub production seems suspect. They are not buying tooling, building shops or dry docks. Odd. Is there any prospect on the horizon to delivering more subs per year?

A better value than EX funding would be to upgrade the Block 20 F-22s to the Block 30 standard. You would get more aircraft and more capability. With the exception of the F-35s, the F-22s are the youngest fighters in the fleet. Wouldn't there be value keeping them in the force going forward, even after the F-47 is introduced.
 
standing up a maximally industrial process to upgrade F-22 Block 20 is non trivial tho, whereas EX is coming off a hot line today and will have a higher readiness rate by a country mile over F-22, even fresh.

Affordable mass now means EX. Sad state but here we are. Best to get on with NGAD and a modern manufacturing & acquisition model, asap.
 
Would more money help accelerate the F-47 and the F/A-XX? Increases funding should go to the current force - procurement, spare parts and maintenance, increased flying hours, munitions, and fighters...I'm kind of dubious of money going to the industrial base. NG invested its own because there is a clear demand signal from the AF for more B-21s. The Navy giving almost a billion dollars to a non profit - Blue Forge Alliance - to improve sub production seems suspect. They are not buying tooling, building shops or dry docks. Odd. Is there any prospect on the horizon to delivering more subs per year?

Congress is committing some substantial resources to invest in capacity and quantities of aircraft over the next several years ($150 Bn investment in this proposal over several years). Same for munitions, ships, missile defense and other areas. This is not a one year investment akin to whatever initial investment Northrop Grumman may make to optimize its B-21 production processes.

'Demand signal' alone isn't enough because it isn't accompanied by a cold hard guaranteed investment. Putting money down is the ultimate 'demand signal' if there ever was one.
 
Last edited:
Yet they had no issue with 800nmi range subsonic strike aircraft through the entire Cold War, in the A-6. (That's 4x 2000lb warload, IIRC with a single fuel tank on centerline)

Plus, the USN has known about the various AShBMs the Chinese have been developing since ~2009 or so, so I can only assume that the want for the ability to have carriers at the edge of that range while launching strikes ran through their minds.

JSF is the subsonic strike aircraft, F/A-XX is the supersonic interceptor, at least to the extent these are any way useful comparisons.
 
Would more money help accelerate the F-47 and the F/A-XX? Increases funding should go to the current force - procurement, spare parts and maintenance, increased flying hours, munitions, and fighters.

I'm kind of dubious of money going to the industrial base. NG invested its own because there is a clear demand signal from the AF for more B-21s. The Navy giving almost a billion dollars to a non profit - Blue Forge Alliance - to improve sub production seems suspect. They are not buying tooling, building shops or dry docks. Odd. Is there any prospect on the horizon to delivering more subs per year?

A better value than EX funding would be to upgrade the Block 20 F-22s to the Block 30 standard. You would get more aircraft and more capability. With the exception of the F-35s, the F-22s are the youngest fighters in the fleet. Wouldn't there be value keeping them in the force going forward, even after the F-47 is introduced.
I would prefer the investment be made in R&D and future defense industrial base rather than procurement / maintenance, with the primary reason being that I believe a US - China conflict over Taiwan would be quite unlikely this decade (despite the widely circulated "Xi tells PLA to be ready for Taiwan invasion by 2027"), but more probable in the 2030s. Thus, shifting F-47 and F/A-XX development and operationalization timelines to the left would allow the US military to be comparatively more prepared for a peer conflict when it is more likely to occur.

I don't think upgrading the F-22 block 20s to block 30/35 makes much sense at this point since the upgrade is projected to cost around 3 billion dollars and take at least 15 years, if my memory serves me correctly. Reviving a practically dead supply chain to upgrade an aircraft that will likely be less relevant / obsolete at the end of that timeline just seems like a non-starter.
 
I think the best investment would be munitions production and infrastructure, since both can be had along much shorter timelines while still being relevant later. In particular I would want the various low cost /high rate stand off munitions prioritized - ERAM/MACE/ACME/LRAM. Autonomous platforms also seem like an excellent investment for both short and long term - the various USV/UUV programs and CCA.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom