Australia looking at doubling its Super Hornet fleet to cover F-35 delays

[ChernayaAkula]

All this talk of stealth and the Day One scenario.
Even if it were, what are you gonna do if you don't have that ability? Start the war on Day Two? 

In Legacy aircraft, it may turn out like this:
Day 1: Whoa! WTH was that? We lost a quarter of our flight to double-digit SAMs, long before we even got close to engaging them with ARMs. Another quarter lost to AAMs from fighters we never even saw on our radars. Day Two? Day Two, my a.. !

And precisely because there IS a war to fight after Day 1, you need your aircraft to survive that first day. How many bombs an aircraft will be able to carry is irrelevant. How many it can deliver on target, that's what counts. Warheads on foreheads! They're no good anywhere else. I'd rather have two bombs delivered where it counts, bringing the pilot back, than have four, eight or sixteen hanging on a flaming wreck crashing into the sea, with the pilots hanging in the silk, assuming they will be able to punch out.
The same goes for AAMs. Having six, eight or more is useless if you can't get them near the enemy.

[Maverick]

Ben, at what point have I 'promoted' the D or other legacy Hornets?  Colour me confused there.  My point, however, was that the USMC had decided to replace it's all-weather strike platform with another all-weather strike platform in the D model Hornet.  Now they want to/are replacing the Hornet with the -35C, also a striker, quite sensible if you ask me given the Corps' concern with air support of their own forces.  Australia does have that requirement (that is if we're playing alone, which by all accounts isn't allowed anymore) but we also require a credible interceptor, which the -35 in any variant isn't.

Jeremy makes quite a good case.  The F-35 might be a superlative bomb-truck (in fact with the various whizz-bangs it has, I'd suggest it would do very well in that role), which I suspect is why the Corps is quite keen to replace their legacy Hornets with it, but it's a second line a-a machine.  If Australia buys them to be bombers (however short legged they may be) all well and good but how about the legacy Hornets?  They aren't just ground pounders, regardless of what they've been utilised for recently.  I guess we could go the way of the RNZAF force and decide that a 'fighter' isn't what we need, which seems to be the case.  There's logic to that, given that we're not defending our airspace from hordes of enemy bombers, instead fighting counter-insurgency wars, but what happens (if as everyone keeps jabbing about) when the balloon goes up and all those nasty Chinese/Indo/(insert belligerent foe here) decide to come a-calling?

Brian, stealth is great, but others have made a rather interesting point.  When stealth is damaged, it isn't quite that simple to repair.  Will they get damaged?  The Serbs knocked down an F-117 over Kosovo and I'd suggest they weren't what one would call a 'first world' military.  If a war is fought with any sort of duration, how many F-35s can be purchased, replaced, etc against say a Super Hornet or Typhoon?  Attrition happens, regardless of how 'good' a system is.  The USAF's own wunderkind of the day (the F-111) had it's own share of 'issues' during their first deployment, prior to the aircraft maturing into the system it became.

As always, these are opinions, not facts, which seems not so in keeping with the consensus here.

Regards,

Mav

[rickshaw]

Brian, stealth is great, but others have made a rather interesting point.  When stealth is damaged, it isn't quite that simple to repair.  Will they get damaged?  The Serbs knocked down an F-117 over Kosovo and I'd suggest they weren't what one would call a 'first world' military.  If a war is fought with any sort of duration, how many F-35s can be purchased, replaced, etc against say a Super Hornet or Typhoon?  Attrition happens, regardless of how 'good' a system is.  The USAF's own wunderkind of the day (the F-111) had it's own share of 'issues' during their first deployment, prior to the aircraft maturing into the system it became.

As always, these are opinions, not facts, which seems not so in keeping with the consensus here.

Regards,

Mav

I would suggest no modern aircraft is easy to repair.  So, claiming that we should ignore stealth because it is "difficult to repair" is rather strange thinking.  Its not as if they can today simply sew a new patch into the fabric of other modern aircraft, particularly where they make extensive use of carbon fibre and other "exotic" materials.  The USAF which has had the most extensive experience with stealth hasn't reported any undue difficulties with unintended damage from ground crew.  I'd suggest what happens is that if the RAM does become damaged it doesn't automatically render stealth inoperable, it merely degrades it.  If that degradation is significant enough that it destroys the stealth capabilities of the aircraft then you'd have to turn the aircraft in for major servicing - just as you would with any aircraft which had significant skin damage or a systems failure.  You wouldn't send a Super Hornet out with out a functioning ECM system so why would you send a stealth aircraft without functioning stealth?

As for the Serbs knocking down that F-117.  I wish people would stop bringing it up.  It proves nothing.  One aircraft shot down does not mean that stealth is completely useless, any more than one aircraft being shot down by a SAM or an AAM means that ECM is completely useless.   The F-117 was brought down due to a combination of circumstance, not because stealth is useless, everywhere, all the time.  If anything it proves the reverse.   How many other F-117s were shot down?   One lost operationally is a pretty good return for how many years service and use in how many conflicts?

[Maverick]

Brian, I agree that modern aircraft are expensive, but, if as we're often told, RAM, etc is moreso, one would assume that it would ergo be more expensive to repair.

As for the F-117 incident, I mention it as an example not a generalisation.  I don't believe I've tried to suggest that stealth tech is useless at any point.  I've merely put forward the arguement that the expense, etc acquiring the capability mightn't be in our best interests. 

There would be some here who mightn't have even heard of the occurance.  I think it tempers the whole arguement of these wonder weapons.  Yes, it's the only recorded combat loss and if things are to be believed, they flew quite the highest number of Allied sorties during Desert Storm without loss, but still, it proves that no system is fallible, hence the example.

That being said, it seems dissention on this subject is verboten so consider my own input negated & removed.

Regards,

Mav

[GTX]

Had LM developed a separate VSTOL aircraft and made the F-35 that we know with 2 engines, it would save many production costs, as a twin engined F-35 would be up to Raptor speeds and we could have a separate VSTOL, even if it is the same as the current F-35B... The F-35B is dragging the whole project down, and if it weren't one of the requirements, the F-35 probably could have been developed more... Oh well, one day, one day....  

Not quite sure what you are arguing for here.  Is it:

• A V/STOL Aircraft with a dedicated lift engine:  If so, there would be no production costs savings and indeed no performance benefits.  Two engines mean greater fuel burn, more fule carried + weight and complexity only needed for part of the mission.  Besides, do you (and all those who argue for dedicated lift engines or that old chestnut, the Pegasus style solution), really thin LM and their partners just charged on in with this solution without doing numerous detailed studies of alternatives?
• A Twin (propulsive) engine aircraft that is also V/STOL - aka a F-22 sized aircraft with V/STOL capability - definitely no better on cost; or
• A Twin (propulsive) engine aircraft + a Single engined V/STOL Aircraft - well, you knind of have that already with the F-22 and the F-35

As for the F-35B dragging the whole project down, I'm at a loss.  The F-35B issues are impacting upon the F-35B and only the F-35B.  The A and C are still moving well with their schedules.

Regards,

Greg

[GTX]

huge LockMart "marketing" (read graft).

I'd like to see the evidence for this.  Besides. if LM supposedly bought all of the partner nations' governments, they would either be broke or else the nations are bought cheaply.

We use our fighters as interceptors much more often than as ground-pounders. The F-35 is basically a strike aircraft with a secondary A2A capability.

The F-35 will be extremely capable in all roles - A2A, Strike/A2G, Maritime Strike, EW, ISR etc.  Looking just at the A2A role,m the sensor suite on the F-35 is a leap ahead of anything else out there including the much vaunted F-22.  It is also stealthy that allows it to detect whilst still being undetected (think of a knife fight in a darkened room where one side has night-vision goggles!).  Finally, it can actually carry quite a substantial load out if needed to be dedicated, as the picture below shows.




Anyway, look at the history of the west's wars over the last 20 yrs - which capability finds greater application A2A or A2G?

And more baffling, one of the reasons often cited as to why we chose the Hornet over the F-16 was the Hornet's twin engines, something we're giving up with the F-35.

We've moved on 30 odd yrs since then.  Technology, including especially that of combat engines has changed significantly.  In fact using this sort of argument is a bit like saying the P-51 Mustang of WWII was a bad choice because it didn't have open cockpit and twin, fabric covered wings...

Regards,

Greg

[GTX]

we also require a credible interceptor, which the -35 in any variant isn't.

but it's a second line a-a machine.

Actually, it will prove to be a superlative interceptor - refer to my previous post.  Anyway, one could argue that it is better to destroy the enemy on the ground than in the air!

If Australia buys them to be bombers (however short legged they may be)

Not short legged at all - in fact probably one of the longest ranging combat aircraft out there today.  It carries more fuel than the F-22 but with only one engine to burn it...think about that!

When stealth is damaged, it isn't quite that simple to repair.  

Actually, a great deal of effort has been put into ensuring the latest LO technologies are both very damage tolerant and able to be repaired and maintained.  To refer to the F-117 level of technology is misleading since you are again talking about a platform designed in the '70s and built in the '80s.  Again, just as with the engine argument, we have moved on from there folks!

If a war is fought with any sort of duration, how many F-35s can be purchased, replaced, etc against say a Super Hornet or Typhoon?  Attrition happens, regardless of how 'good' a system is.

Are you serious?  The days of wars where we need to purchase attrition replacements are long. long gone!  

Anyway, I will end with once again pointing out the issue people here seem to be forgetting:   Like it or not, but the real clincher for most of the countries involved is the work (be that design/engineering/manufacturing or sustainment related) this generates for their domestic industries.  This work means money into the countries, voters citizens employed and thus Govt's kept in power! The fact that they can do so whilst also gaining a superlative combat aircraft is almost a bonus.

Regards,

Greg

[Thorvic]

Quick question Greg are you directly or indirectly involved with the Australian JSF contractors ?

[GTX]

Quick question Greg are you directly or indirectly involved with the Australian JSF contractors ?

As I have previously stated, I am part of a company that is both producing components for the F-35 and is also looking to be involved in ongoing sustainment of the RAAF's F-35s.  We are also heavily involved in other programs including those such as the Super Hornet, so I am not just a F-35 man (in fact, I am also pursuing opportunities with the Eurofighter Typhoon right now as well).  I am not however part of one of the Primes.

However, before anyone says I am biased, I am also a former RAAF Officer who was heavily involved in Strategic/capability planning and so am also speaking from that perspective.

regards,

Greg

[Taiidantomcat]

but it's a second line a-a machine.  

Its radar is better than the F-18E/F, While being invisible to the opponent, with no need for draggy external tanks it can carry carry 12 AMRAAMS, and 2 Aim-9s, and still out range the F-18E/F

If Australia buys them to be bombers (however short legged they may be)

F-35A combat radius 1,090 km ( no drop tanks needed)
F-18E Combat radius 722 KM
F-18C Combat Radius , 740 km (A2A load)

Numbers don't lie.

Brian, stealth is great, but others have made a rather interesting point.  When stealth is damaged, it isn't quite that simple to repair.  Will they get damaged?  

Typically when an aircraft is damaged in modern combat the planes fighting days are over for that conflict. The first gulf war lasted 6 weeks, the second only three, Kosovo was about a month (?) Afghanistan a little longer. so when an aircraft is damaged its usually out for the duration:



that won't buff out, its going to take a long while to fix and the plane not only didn't fly for the rest of the war, it never flew again. It was crated up, scrapped, and then later used to test A-10 survivability. It was too expensive to fix.  And thats the toughest plane we have. Its pretty much an all or nothing game because even non stealth modern aircraft are so complex that damage means long term maintenance  (I saw an AV-8B take two years, and thats a "simple" aircraft by todays standards) like that pic shows above, the integrity of the skin wasn't much concern, it was done.  However modern aircraft like the F-35 are much easier to fix in peacetime thanks to simplified logistics, administration, and advanced troubleshooting methods aided by computers. not to mention newer planes have less wear and tear obviously. Once the teething problems get worked out, life is much better fixing newer airplanes than old. (I speak from experience)

The entire debate is interesting because Canada shares many of the same requirements as Australia, and yet we're still trooping along with partially upgraded A-model Legacy Hornets, and Super Bugs have never really been part of the debate. The sad thing is our Hornets (the first export models) are nearing the end of their useful service lives and life-extension programs are already in place (including rotating the active fleet to extend hours). Since the JSF is being delayed again and again, there is a real chance that our Hornets will run out of airframe life before the JSFs are ready.

In Canada, whether or not the JSF will do everything including make breakfast is beside the point. We have been stuck by successive governments with a developmental aircraft that doesn't actually replace what we have now, and whose in-service date is basically a big open question. Once again, our forces have been shafted in the interest of politics and huge LockMart "marketing" (read graft).

We use our fighters as interceptors much more often than as ground-pounders. The F-35 is basically a strike aircraft with a secondary A2A capability. And more baffling, one of the reasons often cited as to why we chose the Hornet over the F-16 was the Hornet's twin engines, something we're giving up with the F-35.

Because engines have become more reliable-- the latest Pratt and Whitney used in the f-16 hasn't had a single failure in the entire fleet in 12 years. If you look at cold hard numbers twin engine aircraft suffer the same amount of attrition as single engines. But on one version you get to pay a lot more to operate it over the course of decades.

 The Serbs knocked down an F-117 over Kosovo and I'd suggest they weren't what one would call a 'first world' military.  If a war is fought with any sort of duration, how many F-35s can be purchased, replaced, etc against say a Super Hornet or Typhoon?  Attrition happens, regardless of how 'good' a system is.  The USAF's own wunderkind of the day (the F-111) had it's own share of 'issues' during their first deployment, prior to the aircraft maturing into the system it became.

That is the point. If a non first world military can bring down a stealth fighter, what chance does a plane they can see from hundreds of miles away have? So you are basically hoping to win by attrition, IE winning with disregard for casualties. There is nothing wrong with that, Lots of militaries base their strategies on overwhelming numbers and lack of care about the people who fight, its just not really the method I would suggest for a western democracy. it takes years to make fighter pilots, and a great deal of money, but throwing them and their aircraft away because the aircraft can be "easily replaced"  would be disastrous.  

[dy031101]

If you look at cold hard numbers twin engine aircraft suffer the same amount of attrition as single engines. But on one version you get to pay a lot more to operate it over the course of decades.

I did it before and I'll do it again- having two engines isn't always what it's cracked up to be- just look at the example of the F-CK-1.  At the end of the day, the only reason why it has two engines is that international politics virtually dictated it to be so.

There is nothing wrong with that, Lots of militaries base their strategies on overwhelming numbers and lack of care about the people who fight, its just not really the method I would suggest for a western democracy.

I don't know about the likes of Iran or North Korea, but some countries base their strategy on overwhelming numbers (either theater-wide or just locally) because they expect to be the defenders, fighting on their own terms.

I wouldn't think that sort of strategy would be for everyone though.

[Taiidantomcat]

All this talk of stealth and the Day One scenario.
Even if it were, what are you gonna do if you don't have that ability? Start the war on Day Two?  

In Legacy aircraft, it may turn out like this:
Day 1: Whoa! WTH was that? We lost a quarter of our flight to double-digit SAMs, long before we even got close to engaging them with ARMs. Another quarter lost to AAMs from fighters we never even saw on our radars. Day Two? Day Two, my a.. !

And precisely because there IS a war to fight after Day 1, you need your aircraft to survive that first day. How many bombs an aircraft will be able to carry is irrelevant. How many it can deliver on target, that's what counts. Warheads on foreheads! They're no good anywhere else. I'd rather have two bombs delivered where it counts, bringing the pilot back, than have four, eight or sixteen hanging on a flaming wreck crashing into the sea, with the pilots hanging in the silk, assuming they will be able to punch out.
The same goes for AAMs. Having six, eight or more is useless if you can't get them near the enemy.

Exactly! Future enemies (I don't care if its the most advanced army or a guerrilla force" realizes its being hunted, and they will do everything in their power to confuse, disorient, camouflage, and survive to day two. The gulf war I scenario showed what happened when you showed all of your cards, even better Iraqs air defense network, KARI was built by the french who then had inside information it showed to the coalition who promptly started destroying it.

Iraq was not very deceptive, it never made much attempt to decoy, hide, camouflage, or move its air defenses. The next guys probably won't wheel out every AA defense, airplane, and turn on every radar so we can know where they are and start crushing them with cruise missiles (cruise missiles are great for fixed targets, but extremely difficult to use on moving targets) Maybe they only show a part of their hand, they create decoys --dummy airfrields, dummy SAMs and radars, --anything that will cause the enemy to risk lives and machines for a what turns out to be a false target. they lure aircraft into deadly traps, they turn on radars intermittently, and move often, or again use a few radars as bait. They have their own (possibly stealth) aircraft waiting to strike more vulnerable aircraft, or forcing the strikers to abandon their targets. they can also adapt and set traps to attack CSAR forces, trying to rescue downed pilots (even guerilla forces know this trick) , they can issue a fierce amount of MANPADS and forward deploy SAMS to battlefields where Close Air Support is vital to the survival of ground forces (Israel can tell you how difficult it is to support ground actions within a SAM umbrella). Take advantage of natural terrain by placing SAMs atop mountains to increase their altitude range and hinder allied intel from finding them:

"The future enemy Integrated Air Defence System (IADS) is a symbiotic coupling of air combat fighters (ACFs) and Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs), with active and passive multi-spectral sensors that guide the air and ground intercepts of incoming fighters and cruise missiles. The SAMs protect the ACFs bases, and the ACFs protect the SAMs. " Stephen Trimble.

It will be extremely difficult to get all the threats neutralized and SAMS, aircraft, and other AA and radar may still be a factor even several days into the conflict. There may not be a moment where, the door kickers signal "all clear" and the legacy jets can bomb at will with now with no worries. The Kosovo strikes went from  March 24, 1999 to June 11, 1999, the Stealth was shot down on 27 March 1999, 3 days into war. A SAM fired at you on the last day of the war is just as deadly as the first day, to the pilot it makes no difference.

In short... they aren't going to give it up on the first date, gents.

[MAD]

Well all I can add to this is the fact that the F-35/JSF has sadly become an expensive joke. For all it's intended reason and purposes what milestones has the F-35 truly meet 
I was not in favour of the first F/A-18E/F Super Hornet purchase! After all at the governments own admittance it was only meant to be a stop-gap measure till due to an already delayed F-35 program we had committed to 'balls and all' 
I have always advocated that the initial stop-gap 'Super Hornet' purchased should have been leased and not purchased!! I still believe the purchase was driven more by political influences to have some repairable foreign (air force) purchase the seemingly unspellable Super Hornet
After all the U.S Government has and is willing to lease modern state-of-the-art combat aircraft until lag time issues of other aircraft are solved!
No this wet dream by either the government or the RAAF (or both!) for a second batch of Super Hornets should and must be leased - 'not purchased'!!
Hell at the price we are paying for 'another' interim measure will mean either a massive waist of money or a smaller purchase of the originally intended flying wet dream - the F-35, when all the bugs are allegedly ironed out and the true costs are reviled 


M.A.D     

[rickshaw]

I've often wondered why we didn't change the name of the F/A-18 to "Warroo" which is a Wiradjuri language word for - yes you guessed it, "Hornet".   Then we could have had a "Super Warroo".

[Taiidantomcat]

For all it's intended reason and purposes what milestones has the F-35 truly meet 

Here ya go!

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/f35/

USAF is getting deliveries, It also did its 150th vertical landing yesterday, and of course the many F-35C carrier style tests continue.Honestly thought Australia had leased the super bugs. oops.