USAF/US NAVY 6th Generation Fighter Programs - F/A-XX, F-X, NGAD, PCA, ASFS news

[sferrin]

I said "the IADS". You can expect guns and MANPADS. And use third-party targeting and standoff to take out any Pantsyr-type threats.

There are things between strategic IADS and MANPADs. Things like TOR, Pantsir, Buk, S-350, etc. will make using A-10s impossible. If your thinking is clear away ALL threats then there is no need for the A-10 and you could just use a lightweight, cheap, COIN aircraft.

 

[Airplane]

Why bother updating F-16s for BAI/CAS... It will never have the weapons load & range of the F-35 and can only have the same sensors if they spend ADDITIONAL BILLIONS (above the already planed SLEPs) updating them while they only have a few thousand hrs of life left in them.

Question: Why are we spend so much time talking about the F-35 in this thread?
Answer: We need a general F-35 "not news" thread.

250 new build F-15's would make a nice mach 2 CAS platform. With todays sensors. . . Why not!? Speed, legs, payload. The ability to turn around on the same sortie and do A2A. No LO, but hell neither does the 16 nor the 10 that people are trying to save.

 

[SpudmanWP]

F-15s cost more to buy and maintain than the F-35 while offering no advantage except for max speed & range. In A2A the F-35 is better so that is no real advantage for the F-15 and it's gun is even weaker than the F-35's.

Modern CAS is about information and PGMs.

Now, can we please have a F-35 discussion thread?

 

[TomcatViP]

A pair of B-1s with WCMD and Skeets would fix that.
Get the external hardpoints back and just one would do.

Don't forget the Battle Herk: you can CAS in low intensity fight or project your CAS capability with a minimal (and stealthy) logistical burden.

Moreover it makes even more senses once you fight peer adversaries where your logistics suddenly comes at the fore front of your capabilities. Turn the Hercules back in its cargo mode and bingo, you managed to ready your forces for two different type of crisis with a sane and efficient budgeting policy. What the USMC did with this concept is amazing. Hope we will see more of the HarvestHawk V2.0 sporting Eu markings.

(Sorry for the OT b/w...)

 

[Airplane]

F-15s cost more to buy and maintain than the F-35 while offering no advantage except for max speed & range. In A2A the F-35 is better so that is no real advantage for the F-15 and it's gun is even weaker than the F-35's.

Modern CAS is about information and PGMs.

Now, can we please have a F-35 discussion thread?

Don't "poo poo" range. Remember, we don't have bases everywhere and not everyone is willing to base US fighters. I would dare say that range can out-trump LO as long as we're not fighting a peer state, and range definitely out-trumps LO when the battlefield is dominated by decoys and SEAD aircraft.

 

[sferrin]

F-15s cost more to buy and maintain than the F-35 while offering no advantage except for max speed & range. In A2A the F-35 is better so that is no real advantage for the F-15 and it's gun is even weaker than the F-35's.

Modern CAS is about information and PGMs.

Now, can we please have a F-35 discussion thread?

Don't "poo poo" range. Remember, we don't have bases everywhere and not everyone is willing to base US fighters. I would dare say that range can out-trump LO as long as we're not fighting a peer state, and range definitely out-trumps LO when the battlefield is dominated by decoys and SEAD aircraft.

Might I suggest that if that sort of range is going to enter the equation the need for CAS will have long since passed by the time you get there.

 

[jsport]

F-15s cost more to buy and maintain than the F-35 while offering no advantage except for max speed & range. In A2A the F-35 is better so that is no real advantage for the F-15 and it's gun is even weaker than the F-35's.

Modern CAS is about information and PGMs.

Now, can we please have a F-35 discussion thread?

STOVL F-35s have an external gun only.

 

[Airplane]

F-15s cost more to buy and maintain than the F-35 while offering no advantage except for max speed & range. In A2A the F-35 is better so that is no real advantage for the F-15 and it's gun is even weaker than the F-35's.

Modern CAS is about information and PGMs.

Now, can we please have a F-35 discussion thread?

Don't "poo poo" range. Remember, we don't have bases everywhere and not everyone is willing to base US fighters. I would dare say that range can out-trump LO as long as we're not fighting a peer state, and range definitely out-trumps LO when the battlefield is dominated by decoys and SEAD aircraft.

Might I suggest that if that sort of range is going to enter the equation the need for CAS will have long since passed by the time you get there.

Not true. Loiter time. The 15 can loiter all day with fast packs and drop tanks and add in tanker support and it will fly till the pilot fatigues out. If you're saying CAS depends on being within a few minutes of a battle, they you're stuck with Apache gunships as they can be prepositioned near hot spots. Also Warthogs were providing CAS during Desert Shield Storm hundreds and hundreds of miles from their bases. An advanced Eagle could do it better and faster. If you study ground combat and history, most battles last a LONG time. It's not over in 5 minutes like a movie. Plenty of time for a Eagle to travel a hundred or 2 hundred miles and make a difference. For example from recent history, Benghazi was 13 hours. and if you know there will be a battle because you are the initiator, then 15s can be pre-positioned loitering.

 

[sferrin]

F-15s cost more to buy and maintain than the F-35 while offering no advantage except for max speed & range. In A2A the F-35 is better so that is no real advantage for the F-15 and it's gun is even weaker than the F-35's.

Modern CAS is about information and PGMs.

Now, can we please have a F-35 discussion thread?

Don't "poo poo" range. Remember, we don't have bases everywhere and not everyone is willing to base US fighters. I would dare say that range can out-trump LO as long as we're not fighting a peer state, and range definitely out-trumps LO when the battlefield is dominated by decoys and SEAD aircraft.

Might I suggest that if that sort of range is going to enter the equation the need for CAS will have long since passed by the time you get there.

Not true. Loiter time. The 15 can loiter all day with fast packs and drop tanks and add in tanker support and it will fly till the pilot fatigues out. If you're saying CAS depends on being within a few minutes of a battle, they you're stuck with Apache gunships as they can be prepositioned near hot spots. Also Warthogs were providing CAS during Desert Shield Storm hundreds and hundreds of miles from their bases. An advanced Eagle could do it better and faster. If you study ground combat and history, most battles last a LONG time. It's not over in 5 minutes like a movie. Plenty of time for a Eagle to travel a hundred or 2 hundred miles and make a difference. For example from recent history, Benghazi was 13 hours. and if you know there will be a battle because you are the initiator, then 15s can be pre-positioned loitering.

So an F-15 would be good for CAS but an F-35 would not because. . . .

Also, re. range, you might want to take a look through this thread here with real F-15 pilots discussing range as it relates to the F-15 & F35:

http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=53048&start=120

 

[LowObservable]

Neither an F-15 nor an F-35 is the most cost-effective solution for CAS against insurgents.

And NGAD/PCA certainly won't be either.

CAS in a land battle against a peer force in a contested environment will be different, and would be an interesting separate discussion. However, in that situation I don't think that CAS would stand alone but as part of a blend of C4ISR and direct and indirect fire.

 

[litzj]

I thought CAS mission will be conducted by UCAV in near future

Manned vehicle now is too expensive and risky to be used for that missions.

MQ series with dumb-bomb, smart bombs, hellfire class missile is already matured technology

 

[jsport]

Darpa Warbreaker/Assaultbreaker encompassed Critical Mobile Target (CMT) targeting (everything from TBM TELs to tanks and all the IADS in between) Deep to BAI to CAS.

 

[jsport]

from Quellish Oct 12 2015.

In 1985 DARPA started the Smart Weapons Program which focused on using loitering autonomous weapons to hit fleeting mobile targets. Some of this concept became TACIT RAINBOW. SWP Phase 2 was THIRSTY SABRE, which aimed to put sensors and smarts on a conventional ACM as a hunter-killer system dispensing "dumb" submunitions on mobile targets. Sensors and software were tested on a surrogate aircraft.

During DESERT STORM the "theater mobile missile threat" was a higher priority. This lead to THIRSTY WARRIOR, which was a continuation of THIRSTY SABRE focused on mobile TBM. After DESERT STORM interest in the concept dried up. Later WARBREAKER attacked the mobile TBM problem with a very different, fully integrated approach.

 

[sferrin]

Now remove PAVE MOVER from your graphic and see how well it works.

 

[jsport]

a Ground /Air Forces network from unmanned to larger manned for CMTs across the entire battlespace. IADs is nothing particular. They all have to be dealt w/ from close to far.

Vehicle APS makes tanks part of the IADS

Fixed sites (Fixed Critical target) w/ Counter PGM part of the IADS.

 

[jsport]

ok the F-35 is to be the Digital Quarterback so for the F/A-XX to be worth it than if would need to be a Offensive Coach w/ a significant under fuselage multi purpose (EW (offensive jamming), ECM, ECCM, Early Warn radar, MTI/SAR) AESA (potential DEW antenna even) 'canoe' ie a reason for F-111 size craft potentially even w/ 4x hacker/EW operators/Wpns off/pilots.

Material Science and advanced turbofans could still allow fighter like high performance at load and range.

 

[litzj]

I tried summarize air-warfare of 6th generation fighters before

http://jaesan-aero.blogspot.com/2018/09/hypersonic-mirv-air-to-air-missile-6th.html

 

[flateric]

...

 

[Airplane]

^Looks like a evolution of the F-22. Lockheed?

 

[icyplanetnhc (Steve)]

The paper states that the aerodynamic model of the air vehicle was indeed provided by Lockheed Martin.

 

[litzj]

Generic model shown above is similar to that model with conventional caret type inlet while VT is removed

 

[Ogami musashi]

It just the lockheed martin baseline ESAV model that has been used since at least 2014 for a number of studies. You have several pictures and links to documents of it in this very post. This design was chosen to be modular, that is each study can modify details of the configuration without affecting too much the rest of the plane.

 

[flateric]

This configuration was studied on contract with AFRL since 2012 or even earlier.
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3536.msg187398.html#msg187398

 

[NeilChapman]

It just the lockheed martin baseline ESAV model that has been used since at least 2014 for a number of studies. You have several pictures and links to documents of it in this very post. This design was chosen to be modular, that is each study can modify details of the configuration without affecting too much the rest of the plane.

The bulbous head, nacelles, and optical illusion of angled wing tips reminds me of a Klingon Bird of Prey. Appropriate for a Raptor.

The high cockpit, big engine nacelles and exhaust troughs remind me more of the YF-23 than the F-22.

Since this is an older baseline model would they intend to scale it up? Seems small for what folks have been discussing as the necessary range and weapons load.

 

[NUSNA_Moebius]

The bullbous head and long body reminds me of the new UK Tempest design.

 

[jsport]

I tried summarize air-warfare of 6th generation fighters before

http://jaesan-aero.blogspot.com/2018/09/hypersonic-mirv-air-to-air-missile-6th.html

It would seem a simple jink maneuver would allow even a large BWB B-21 to avoid a hypersonic intercept as the at that speed the missile could not adjust to a last second jink out of the missiles intercept vector.

 

[sferrin]

I tried summarize air-warfare of 6th generation fighters before

http://jaesan-aero.blogspot.com/2018/09/hypersonic-mirv-air-to-air-missile-6th.html

It would seem a simple jink maneuver would allow even a large BWB B-21 to avoid a hypersonic intercept as the at that speed the missile could not adjust to a last second jink out of the missiles intercept vector.

I wouldn't want to have to test that theory. More likely the thing would be on you before you had a chance to think, "I should probably turn".

 

[jsport]

I tried summarize air-warfare of 6th generation fighters before

http://jaesan-aero.blogspot.com/2018/09/hypersonic-mirv-air-to-air-missile-6th.html

It would seem a simple jink maneuver would allow even a large BWB B-21 to avoid a hypersonic intercept as the at that speed the missile could not adjust to a last second jink out of the missiles intercept vector.

I wouldn't want to have to test that theory. More likely the thing would be on you before you had a chance to think, "I should probably turn".

If your IRST and AESA aren't good enough to see a signature of a HV msle you might deserve to get shot down. DAS looks in every direction for instance. Once read that AH-1zs were to be programed to accomplish automated jinks away from man-portable SAMs.

 

[NeilChapman]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/15/f-22-fighters-jets-tyndall-air-force-base-damaged-/

https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/nearly-10-percent-of-the-us-f-22-inventory-was-damaged-or-destroyed-in-hurricane-michael/

Another good reason for the statement "quantity has a quality of its own." Hopefully PCA & NGAD will not suffer a short-sighted decision to limit quantity below what's required to meet the National Defense Strategy.

 

[bring_it_on]

Hopefully PCA & NGAD will not suffer a short-sighted decision to limit quantity below what's required to meet the National Defense Strategy.

I hope you are not a betting man

 

[litzj]

I tried summarize air-warfare of 6th generation fighters before

http://jaesan-aero.blogspot.com/2018/09/hypersonic-mirv-air-to-air-missile-6th.html

It would seem a simple jink maneuver would allow even a large BWB B-21 to avoid a hypersonic intercept as the at that speed the missile could not adjust to a last second jink out of the missiles intercept vector.

I wouldn't want to have to test that theory. More likely the thing would be on you before you had a chance to think, "I should probably turn".

If your IRST and AESA aren't good enough to see a signature of a HV msle you might deserve to get shot down. DAS looks in every direction for instance. Once read that AH-1zs were to be programed to accomplish automated jinks away from man-portable SAMs.

Advantage of hypersonic interception is reduction of response time. It could probably give no-time for turn

 

[sferrin]

I tried summarize air-warfare of 6th generation fighters before

http://jaesan-aero.blogspot.com/2018/09/hypersonic-mirv-air-to-air-missile-6th.html

It would seem a simple jink maneuver would allow even a large BWB B-21 to avoid a hypersonic intercept as the at that speed the missile could not adjust to a last second jink out of the missiles intercept vector.

I wouldn't want to have to test that theory. More likely the thing would be on you before you had a chance to think, "I should probably turn".

If your IRST and AESA aren't good enough to see a signature of a HV msle you might deserve to get shot down. DAS looks in every direction for instance. Once read that AH-1zs were to be programed to accomplish automated jinks away from man-portable SAMs.

Consider it could be coming in at a mile or two per second. Now how long does it take a missile coming from a direction you're not expecting (above) to cover the distance your IRST and AESA can see it, assuming they're even looking in the right direction?

 

[Dreamfighter]

Advantage of hypersonic interception is reduction of response time. It could probably give no-time for turn

One shouldn´t be TOO hypersonic either though, or one might overshoot the (subsonic) target in the interval between the command of the brain to shoot and the missile leaving the rail.

 

[jsport]

Given the current AAMs are packing as much solid fuel as is practical for the pylon and allow the craft to maneuver are we sure a HV AAM would have to be small enough to fit on fighter pylon and then it's range would be so short as to force the HV carrying fighter to have already been detected and destroyed before it could ever get in range for a HV AAM to launch to intercept. The HV spike msle problem. A new generation of energetics sure but not currently.

 

[Airplane]

If the missile is too fast, then that introduces unnecessary challenges in hitting the target. Look at the ABM issues with a bullet hitting a bullet. Same type of issues. Minute course corrections... very difficult. Then you build a hyper complicated and expensive AAM with lower kill probability than something slower and "conventional"

 

[sferrin]

If the missile is too fast, then that introduces unnecessary challenges in hitting the target. Look at the ABM issues with a bullet hitting a bullet. Same type of issues. Minute course corrections... very difficult. Then you build a hyper complicated and expensive AAM with lower kill probability than something slower and "conventional"

PAC-3 doesn't seem to have a problem hitting manuvering RVs.

 

[litzj]

This expensive AAM is not for conventional/low altitude low class jet fighters.
(That should be shoot down by more 'conventional missiles or DEW in the future' for cost reason)

As shown in the article, that targets high value 6th generation fighter jet with high altitude, high speed cruiser.

In that altitude, hypersonic MIRV with side nozzle can be enough threat while the 6th generation fighter cannot maneuver as in the low altitude.

 

[Airplane]

A fighter will have greater maneuverability options than an RV. This hypothetical AAM is going to end up costing $10M a copy, need to be carried externally, and the launching platform won't be stealthy such that the 6th gen AC can kill it first or at least get off the first shot of put the launching AC on the defensive.

 

[sferrin]

A fighter will have greater maneuverability options than an RV. This hypothetical AAM is going to end up costing $10M a copy, need to be carried externally, and the launching platform won't be stealthy such that the 6th gen AC can kill it first or at least get off the first shot of put the launching AC on the defensive.

A fighter can only use the advantage of maneuverability if the pilot knows he's under attack in time to actually do anything about it. As for stealth, there's no reason it need be carried externally. Now if you have a large missile, with multiple KKVs, it's likely going to be launched at long range anyway. Against true stealth aircraft this may be academic anyway as you need to be able to see the other guy to shoot him. Not all aircraft fit that description however.

 

[jsport]

”A new study highlights China’s growing air power, and warns that China is looking to build out its Air Force to the point that the U.S. would not be willing to take it on in direct conflict.

The Project Air Force team at Rand Corp. describes an emerging Chinese air force that aims to rival the United States' own, both technologically and strategically, often by mirroring U.S. military capabilities and doctrine.

“It is important to recognize that many of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] efforts in the military aerospace sector focus on fielding of specific capabilities in sufficient quantities to deter the United States from entering a conflict; the PLA would vastly prefer deterrence over actual combat operations,” the report reads. “In this sense, the capabilities competition can be regarded as aimed at defeating the United States without actually fighting.”
”

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/11/29/china-aims-to-defeat-the-us-air-force-without-firing-a-shot-heres-how/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DFN+DNR+11.29.18&utm_term=Editorial+-+Daily+News+Roundup#.XACGiiAD1k4.email