Posted by
Duck Archer on Monday, December 29, 2008 7:43:41 PM
Pro & Con:
- Most F-22 supporters concentrate on ‘high end’ threats & uses: air superiority with high-altitude counter-air operations This function enables F-35s and legacy aircraft (F-16, F-15, A-10, B-52, etc) carry out strikes. They sometimes forget to remind how it's long-since proven how air control won't guarantee victory, but not having air control just about ensures defeat.
- F-22 detractors claim the F-35 can perform the F-22 role for considerably less cost.
Good arguments.
Not good enough!
The arguments ignore how the F-22 is needed - now - against the plethora of low-end threats: hand-held SAMs that (if an enemy’s smart) proliferate even in low-intensity Al Qaeda fights.
Read on. This thinking should finally shock a certain number of congressional votes … let's start with the basic need for stealth at all:
1. Why we need stealth-fighters (F-22s & F-35s).
a. Increased inexpensive threats.
- Cheap hand-held anti-aircraft missiles are rapidly proliferating; have been, for years. Three decades ago, when still expensive & reasonably controlled, these hand-held anti-air missiles spelled the end of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Today, F-15s, F-16s, & even titanium-bathtub A-10s, are actually increasingly vulnerable to decreasingly expensive hand-held anti-air missiles. Surrendering control of the air is not an option, not for winning a war.
- Current accounting for threats. Currently, our aircraft (fighters, bombers, cargo, etc) cannot fly low-altitude combat patterns without significant risk… including taking off for a mission, and coming down to land at the end of a mission. The trade-off? Increased air-to-ground distance, from high altitude, makes many specific combat situations more difficult to prosecute and/or survive.
- Vulnerable, how? Our current fleet has few F-22s, relying mostly on aging 1970s-technology fighters. Anti-aircraft defenses have matured over time. F-15s, F-16s, & A-10s are metallic (with radar vulnerability) and unducted (with heat-seeking vulnerability). The vulnerabilities necessitate pilot distractions from mission, to actions needed merely to stay alive. The flight environment is probably OK, for now, though certainly it’s not optimal. Certainly, the environment will NOT be OK in another decade.
b. But the F-22 (and F-35) would be essentially immune.
- Stealth technology operates against both radar and heat-seeking guidance systems, even if low-flying planes wisely employ simple countermeasures. (It’s foolish to forsake relatively inexpensive ‘countermeasures insurance’, just like it was foolish to forsake ‘insurance’ guns on 1st-generation missile-armed jets!)
- Even now, F-22’s & F-35’s non-metallic construction are inherent defenses combating ground fire … they don’t reflect well on radar-guidance systems!
- It seems that both the F-22 & F-35 have stealth-standard exhaust ducting that ‘cools’ exhaust enough to give heat-seeking missiles considerable trouble.
- F-22s & F-35s are already low-level capable, not just a pair of high-altitude denizens. These two stealth-inherent items (non-metal, and duct-cooling) would indeed allow low-altitude flying, particularly at night. These are two considerable defensive advantages inherent to F-22 and F-35, that will allow pilots to focus on mission accomplishment.
Bottom line: we need stealth because metal airplanes lack the defenses inherent in stealth aircraft.