F/A-18E vs. F-35C

[PR3D4TOR]

Quality vs. quantity:
Quality stops gaining you an advantage once "superiority" is achieved. If you can defeat your opponent in every engagement you cannot defeat it more with a better fighter.

Sure you can. With an equal fighter you can engage 1:1. With a better fighter you can engage 1:2. With an even better fighter you can engage 1:3 etc. With Super Uber Invincible fighter you need one fighter per engagement.

[Stoney]

Sure you can. With an equal fighter you can engage 1:1. With a better fighter you can engage 1:2. With an even better fighter you can engage 1:3 etc. With Super Uber Invincible fighter you need one fighter per engagement.

Mace and Eagle, would you guys rather fly in the late-model U.S. fighters (F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18) 1 versus 1 with current and near-future threat aircraft, or 1 versus 3 with the F-22 and F-35?

[curry1]

I am not sure but there are a ton of Mig-21s out there and I assume they would even outnumber our current 4th generation fighters.

So would it be something like a single F-22 vs 6 Mig-21s.

Would that kind of threat be manageable?

[RTHolmes]

manageable? 9/10 it should be carnage

[Stoney]

Well, I did once listen to a Dutch F-16 shoot down a Serbian Mig-29 in about 30 seconds using AMRAAM, so perhaps its possible.

[Wildcat1]

I am not sure but there are a ton of Mig-21s out there and I assume they would even outnumber our current 4th generation fighters.

So would it be something like a single F-22 vs 6 Mig-21s.

Would that kind of threat be manageable?

Hell, one F-22 vs. six J-10s or J-11s would be more than manageable

[Tank-Ace]

I am not sure but there are a ton of Mig-21s out there and I assume they would even outnumber our current 4th generation fighters.

So would it be something like a single F-22 vs 6 Mig-21s.

Would that kind of threat be manageable?

2 F-22's can succsfully engage upto 17 opponents, IIRC (at least based on military exercises).


I mean the only fighter we're even remotely likely to face thats comperable to the F-22 right now (on paper, anyway) is perhaps the Su-37, the Su-47, and maybe the Mig-35.

[Wildcat1]

The SU-47 was nothing but a prototype, Sukhoi ended the project after they won the bid to develop the PAK-FA.


I think down the line, you have to consider how countries like China or India will allocate their top-of-the-line fighters like the J-20 or MiG-35. My guess is that these fighters will be built or squirrel in small numbers at first, because it will probably take a lot of money to produce them. Because of these low numbers, they will probably only be used for defending the capital region. This doesn't mean the F-22 or F-35 won't face these aircraft, but the probability of it happening often in a major air war is less than most people think.

Also, consider the implications if nations rush these ultra-modern aircraft into service, as I see China doing with the J-20. Problems may arise in operational conditions that no one on the development team foresaw. This might lead to significant order reductions down the line. There's a reason it took over 15 years to develop the F-22, and another 10-15 years for the F-35.

America and her allies will for a long time be leaps and bounds ahead of the rest when it comes to aircraft development.

[HPriller]

I still think the possibility of a swarm of super cheap drones is being overlooked here.  How would the f-35 or F-22 stand up to a 10:1 or greater ratio of super small cheap drones.  Something that could be printed out for say $15 million a pop or less.  In a case like this I can definitely see it being possible for quantity to overwhelm quality.

[Tank-Ace]

Well it depend. How well do those drones stack up against a manned fighter? Are they equal to an Su-27? An F-15? An F-22? Less than that?

And in military exercizes, they found that a pair of F-22's could engage a group of 17 IIRC.

[bozon]

Sure you can. With an equal fighter you can engage 1:1. With a better fighter you can engage 1:2. With an even better fighter you can engage 1:3 etc. With Super Uber Invincible fighter you need one fighter per engagement.

Well, this is not how it will work in real life. What will happen is this: once superiority is achieved there will not be any dogfights at all. The enemy will simply stop flying against you and concentrate on ground based anti air weapons. Making yourself even more superior is a wasted effort. This is why multi-role aircraft are important - once superiority is asserted you can use these planes for strikes. Pure fighters may achieve the superiority with better ease, but then they become useless.

F-35 can strike, but except for special missions, quantity is crucial for air strike efficiency. Next generation planes do not multiply the carried loads and by keeping a small quality force you loose on potential volume. Numbers provide defense against AA weapons by saturation and confusion, so the improved survivability of more modern planes is somewhat offset by that.

[Mace2004]

Well it depend. How well do those drones stack up against a manned fighter? Are they equal to an Su-27? An F-15? An F-22? Less than that?

And in military exercizes, they found that a pair of F-22's could engage a group of 17 IIRC.

Never believe these claims that come out of studies and exercises.  They are usually conducted either buy or with the military but the results are turned over to political people.  By "political" I don't necessarily mean politicians, but those people in the DOD, including the senior members of the services, that are more interested in "winning" an aquisition battle for their programs and dollars.  

Go all the way back for instance to Billy Mitchell and the sinking of the Osfriedland.  This test was set up with the Navy's cooperation to study the effects of bombardment on, what was then according to Mitchell, a modern, unsinkable "super battleship."  He took the results of the test, ignored the fact that the Navy had already sunk ships with bombs and knew it could be done, completely ignored the fact the ship was undefended with no damage control people on it then went public, on his own to proclaim the supremacy of aircraft.  This was a political stunt designed by Mitchell at odds with the tests.  The question was not about whether an airplane could sink a ship but what the effects where (i.e., what was the nature of the damage) and what design changes needed to be made to increase ship survivability.  Again, the Navy already knew airplanes could sink ships, they had done it themselves already (and were already building aircraft carriers) but Mitchell turned it into a political sideshow.  

After WWII there was the move by USAF to claim it's B-36 could fly so high and fast with a big enough nuclear load to make aircraft carriers obsolete.  The Navy countered by publishing a picture of a B-36 on one of it's high altitude missiles where it was supposedly higher/faster and therefore impervious to fighters. The picture was taken by a Navy fighter, from above.  

Moving forward, there's the competition between advanced versions of the F-14 vs the F-18 which the F-14 clearly won but by the time the "political" classes of the Navy got ahold of it they hid the actual results and claimed victory for the F-18 because it was a bit cheaper even though the tests showed it was much less effective.  We had similar experience with the USAF trying to demonstrate the AMRAAM was the best thing since sliced bread. Now I happen to agree that the AMRAAM is a terrific missile but it was also very expensive to develop.  Part of the USAF's program to "get it sold" were to use the RED FLAG exercises to prove how great it was.  I know this because I flew red air against them.  They flew all their F-15's with AMRAAM using BVR tactics and were calling us dead within moments of the start of the exercise.  What were we "equipped" with???  No forward quarter weapons at all, just AIM-9G/H which is a rear-quarter only IR missile.  Hell, you could have done the same thing against an AIM-9G/H equipped NME if the Eagles had just had normal Sparrows.  Again, I love the AMRAAM, we really needed it but in the politicized parts of the military the results of these tests become politicized which is easily done if nobody understands the conditions underwhich the tests were conducted.  

The exact same thing is true with the F-22's tests.  We don't really know the conditions of the test.  Did they take a single F-22 and send it directly at 17 NME?  If so, what was the ROE? BVR?  What sort of NME aircraft were the and what was the environment?  And, the most glaring question is how can they arrive at such an extraordinary number considering the F-22 doesn't carry 17 missiles and certainly isn't going to kill six with missiles and 9 with its gun.  OR, does it just mean the F-22 could get a few kills and escape the remaining NME without getting killed itself?  Or, does it mean that a squadron of F-22's against a squadron of NME fighters would have an overall kill ratio of 17:1.  I flew in FFARP (Fleet Fightere ACM Readiness Program) back in the early 90's and the Section/Division I led had a 19:1 kill ratio so what does 17:1 prove?  We need to buy more F-14As with Phoenix and Sparrows?  Hardly.  The point is to take "studies" and "exercises" with a grain of salt.

[Oldman731]

The point is to take "studies" and "exercises" with a grain of salt.

Thank you for the very insightful post, Mace.  Good stuff here.

- oldman

[Krusty]

F-35 can strike, but except for special missions, quantity is crucial for air strike efficiency. Next generation planes do not multiply the carried loads and by keeping a small quality force you loose on potential volume. Numbers provide defense against AA weapons by saturation and confusion, so the improved survivability of more modern planes is somewhat offset by that.

You're thinking in an old fashioned way. Even with non-stealthy aircraft we have less numbers being just as effective... What used to take 1000 bomber raids in WW2 can be done with 1 flight of 4 (or even less) in a Gulf War setting... What used to take millions of millions of bombs to take out (an industrial complex) now takes 1 plane with 1 bomb. Nothing like guiding an LGB through an air vent on a roof for maximum devastation vs carpet bombing a city, right?

On top of that, we have a large selection of ELINT and jammer craft that can interfere with AAA when really needed, and on top of THAT stealth negates most of the AAA. Baghdad F-117s proved that much. Only 2% of the entire combined air force was F-117s, but they dropped something like almost HALF of all the ord dropped in the conflict, and had over 80% success on those drops.

So, yes... Better planes CAN replace more and more planes of lesser capabilities. This has been proven throughout aviation history.


Otherwise the Soviet Union never would have been invaded by the Germans, because they had tens of thousands of obsolete planes defending their nation.

[Bodhi]

On top of that, we have a large selection of ELINT and jammer craft that can interfere with AAA when really needed, and on top of THAT stealth negates most of the AAA. Baghdad F-117s proved that much. Only 2% of the entire combined air force was F-117s, but they dropped something like almost HALF of all the ord dropped in the conflict, and had over 80% success on those drops.

So, yes... Better planes CAN replace more and more planes of lesser capabilities. This has been proven throughout aviation history.

So, you think that stealth is negates AAA?  Read the following:

While Zoltan's peers and superiors were pretty demoralized with the electronic countermeasures NATO (especially American) aircraft used to support their bombing missions, he believed he could still turn his ancient missiles into lethal weapons. The list of measures he took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan's battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles.

  taken from: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20051121.aspx

That quote is about Col. Dani Zoltan, the commander of the Serbian AA battery that shot down an F117.  He proved that Stealth can be countered, even by equipment that was considered obsolete.  He used cunning, training, and sound tactics to catch that F117, not luck like some people try to counter with. 

The point is, when you buy fewer numbers of high tech gadgets, when those gadgets are lost, you have less to fight with.  I am not arguing for quantity, just that the belief that stealth is not all it is cracked up to be, especially with newer and better detection systems.