ASRAAM Config Change For F-35
- Thread starter F-15 Eagle
- Start date
Arguing that we should buy American to avoid "this integration situation" is arguing that we (& the Germans, Italians, etc) should close down our entire air-launched weapons industry.
The agility issue of Asraam is a red herring, I think. It's a lot more agile than any fighter, & its sleeker airframe means it retains energy - and hence agility - for a longer time & greater range. And a capability overlap is infinitely better than a capability gap. I don't see it as a problem, but an advantage.
Agreed. By association, anything that can out turn 9g in the NEZ is more agile. (on some jets that dulcet female warning chant will kick in at 7.5 for frame stress alert). Considering that most modern missiles are 30g (min) - then they're potentially more agile within NEZ by some margin.
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
Extra agility and TVC will tell in close range HOBS launches though. The fact is AIM 9X will be able to engage a target at HOBS in close that ASRAAM wont, so there is still a case for more than 9G's inside the NEZ.
F-15 Eagle
New Member
Does anybody have any news at all about the LM plan to fit 6 internal AMRAAMs instead of 4? They could fit 8 AMRAAMs internally if they wanted to.
That wasn't a plan, as far as i can recall. It was one LM executive going on the record that they have that capability in store, if some customer wanted them to fully develop it. His exact words, transcribed in various publications, were: "Our spiral development program includes the ability to carry up to six internal AMRAAMs". USAF need is so far for 2 amraams, though 4 should be fairly easy to do, if deemed needed. 6, however, could require some new hardware to do some fancy ejection moves, extensive clearance tests etc...
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
I dare say all of the customers that are using F-35A as their primary air superiority fighter will want 6 intenal AAM's, so USAF or no USAF there will be the will and the money, LM have stated clearly that they can do it. Considering its an "affordable" VLO platform and incredibly sophistocated, developing a few engineering soloutions to a clearance problem is not going to be very dificult or expenceive.
F-15 Eagle
New Member
What source do you have? How is 2 AMRAAMs enough? The F-16 alone carries 6 AAMs, the F-15 has 8. There is no record of the USAF saying they only need 2 AMRAAMs. A 2 AAM payload is a pathetic payload when compared to other aircraft. The F-35s requirements are to be 4 times more effective then legacy fighters in air to air combat and second only to the F-22, and there is no way you can do that with only 2 AMRAAMs, 4-6 AMRAAMs is a must. LM has already confirmed the fact that at least 4 AMRAAMs can be carried internally, and 6 is a good possibility.
Oh its not only export customers that will use the F-35 in that role but the U.S. will also use the F-35 in the air superiority role as well to replace the F-15s. With only 183 F-22s and the Pentagon says they will replace the F-15s with the F-35 then that means if they do put 6 internal AMRAAMs then the USAF will be the first to get it before anyone else does.
I think you're making the same mistake as a lot of commentators and seeing that current fixed weapons carriage is an impediment per se.
I'm going to double post my comments from another forum as I'm too lazy to retype it all again:
"JSF doctrine was always "first day of war". ie "day one" (relatively speaking) is LO to kick in the doors, once suppression is accomplished then the platform can fight "dirty" and include external weaps."
The issue is always one of FDOW and GBAD/SEAD/DEAD etc.....
btw the original source for extra internals was from the JSF Programs Office. A mule was demoed in Singapore in Feb 2008.
F-15 Eagle
New Member
I don't think I understood what you just said. What mistake are you talking about? The JSF will be able to carry 4-6 AMRAAMs internally.
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the mistake is that people look at internal carriage load out on JSF and argue that its deficient compared to prev platforms in the same relative mission/tasking stream. Its not.
First day of war is via clean platforms. Once SEAD/DEAD, approp GCI decapitation, comms decapitation has ocurred, then the planes will go dirty. FDOW is finesse, decapitation, dislocation, destruction of critical nodes, 2nd tasking is brute suppression, and platforms can go in dirty if thats been achieved. The first is a package and systems issue, the latter becomes a roster issue.
Its not a limitation. Its a planning and initial tasking issue
F-15 Eagle
New Member
I never said the F-35 has a limited payload, it can carry 4-6 AAMs or 2 AAMs and 2 2000lbs class bombs internally plus 6 more AAMs or 4 2000lbs bombs and 2 AAMs externally. So the F-35 can carry 10-12 AAMs or 4 AAMs and 6 2000lbs bombs if you want it to. I said having only 2 AAMs is a limited payload given the fact that the F-35 or any other fighter out there can carry much more weapons.
As for the first day of war they will need to take out the enemy air force meaning the F-22s have 8 internal AAMs and the F-35s will have at least 4 or 6 internal AAMs. After that then they will take out all enemy air defenses with SEAD/DEAD aircraft like the F-22 and F-35. Once all enemy air forces and anti-aircraft weapons have been taken out then there is no need to have F-22s and F-35s armed with 4 or more AAMs and they can just arm them with 2 AAMs for self defense in case of any enemy fighters that survived the attacks and drop bombs on enemy ground targets.
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
This may be the case for the USAF (and to an extent for everyone) but any user who will be utilizeing the platform in the day one air superiority role to achieve battlespace wide air dominance will need 6 AAM's on the first day. I dare say so will the USN. Therefore 4 internal AAM's is rather limited.
A
Aussie Digger
Guest
If these aircraft are flying alone, perhaps you're right. But they won't be. Strikers and "fighters" will be mixed into packages and even 4x internal AMRAAM's in a stealthy fighter represents more combat capability than the USAF could have put up in GW2 because of the limited threat to the VLO aircraft.
Even a "full strike" package of 8x JSF's is still going to carry a MINIMUM of 16x AMRAAM missiles. When was the last time that 16x BVR missiles were employed in a SINGLE air battle?
In "high air threat" scenarios even half A2A strikers will boost the package's AMRAAM capability to 24x missiles. A rather large figure to be expended in a single engagement and one that is unprecedented, I'd suggest...
Even allowing for these realities however, I suspect the 6x AAM package will be quickly developed once the intial weapons integration tasks are completed.
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
The last real single air battle was Vietnam and even they were limited and asymmetric. I dare say most non US users will not be able to rely on overwhelming capability and numerical superiority the USAF will rely upon.
A strike package will have dedicated DEAD/SEAD elements that will cary ARM's, strike elements with equiped with JSOW/JDAM/Paveway/Whatever, and air superiority assets, usually above the weather (opposed to the strike elements which need to be below the cloud cover for EO detection and designation), as high as possible. The strike and DEAD elements will be less able to react to threats becasue of possible altitude limitations, altitude difference drastically effects your BVRAAM performance (i.e. you dont want to be shooting up at someone). Therefore you don't want an asset flying a strike profile doing air superiority because their positioning will probably not be adequate. Additionally even the strike or dead assets will probably be carrying at least 1 WVRAAM in case they get bounced, which will probably mean 1 AMRAAM per strike/dead element. Any strike package of say 6x F-35A's will have 2 platforms designated as air superiority/escorts which under the current plans will only have 3x AMRAAM's each (+ 1x WVRAAM). You cant rely upon your strikers to engage threats apart from in self defence because of the limitations of strike profiles. This isn't a priority of the USAF or LM because they will have dedicated air superiority assets of the like of the F-22A, therefore missile payload of their F-35A's isn't a priority, which is why this comparibly minor problem hasnt been adressed yet.
I believe there will be a real push from non USAF users and the USN for the 6xAAM capability, but again as i said earlier there are plenty of other, more complex and difficult problems to sort out. I have no doubt this capability will be operational by 2015.
Yugoslavia?
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
AFAIK there were no large scale (multi squadron) singe actions in the balkans, which were without a doubt asymetric anyway.
Well, yeah, for the squadron-size. Battle packages of 4-8 aircraft usually, in rare cases twice that. On either side.
MiG-29 vs F-16 (as happened in the Balkans) is at least somewhat more symmetric than usual.
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Aussie Digger
Guest
That the US was involved in. I'd suggest some Israeli pilots might disagree with that view. But even the Bekaa Valley air battles, I doubt was seeing dozens of BVR AAM's in the air simultaneously...
Legacy aircraft flying legacy strike profiles perhaps. VLO aircraft carrying advanced AESA radars utilising their advanced radars for targetting co-ordinates (SAR/GMTI etc) will more than likely be a tad different...
A strike package of 8x aircraft is not a particularly huge capability and is well within RAAF's resources. If that is the case and given RAAF's relatively small size, then the capability is pretty much a "given".
The above scenario I mentioned earlier would be feasible in every scenario short of some "medium" non-supported power facing a war against an equal or greater power where one is facing a strong air power threat, beyond what the US faced in Vietnam...
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
The Bekaa was before the modern air combat era, therefore the lack of large scale BVR combat is not IMO indicative of future scenario's, this is the era of the AIM-7 and a somewhat WVR centric IAF.
Sure in some instance diferent tactics could be utilised to allow striking above the whether. SAR + J Series + known target coordinates means you can strike high, not to mention stand off attacks useing JASSM/SCALP at long range. But if the pilot needs to utilize EOTS he will be under the clouds, which should be plenty i would think. In any case there will still be different elements to the package, rather than everyone doing everything at once, i.e. there will still be a DEAD element, a strike element and an air superiority/escort element and all will be flying apropriate profiles. In any case there will/should be an attempt to secure air superiority before the strike packages go in, and those air superiority packages would again need the extra internal payload.
An 8x package would not be unachievable for a 4~5 squadron air force. I mentioned 6x because its a nice balanced package, 2x escort, 2x DEAD & 2x strike. We should be able to put together 4+ such packages simultainously + CAP's and sustain that tempo for a number of days at least.