It seems to me that most of the scenarios being discussed here are against an inferior opponent. I understand the contextual relevance, but it's hardly worthwhile to analyze a situation where the opponent is inherently inferior in capability. We all know the USA can bomb third world countries into sawdust. If we are trying to truly see where the limits of the F-35 vs the F-22 are in penetration, then we have to push them both to the limit, to the point where their differences in signature management, RCS, etc. become relevant. Against a Syria-level IADS either one will do just as well, fly in, drop the payload, and fly out without anyone noticing.
The simple reality is in the 2020 timframe there will be no IADS or air power on earth that can achieve parity with the USAF. That is the real world. I understand we are talking about high end IADS, but even the most advanced threat will be inferior. So unless you want to discuss "made up" systems we must assume the USAF has some level of superiority.
But the missile fired at the SAM unit, itself can be engaged and shot down, and a modern IADS will have no problems intercepting it.
Possibly, depending on the missile, the ECM environment and the actual GBAD system we're talking about. An SDB II is an awfully small weapon (tiny RCS), and since we are talking about the USAF here (the only operator of the F-22A) there is likely to be heavy and extremely sophisticated ECM support. Thus wireless communication between the battery elements and the defending Tor M1 esk elements would have likely been compromised. All this will make it extremely difficult for the battery to engage the incoming.
If it also happened to have caught the short EM burst, it can then put 2+2 together, and at least have more or less confirmed detection of inbound hostiles.
That's what I said earlier. The battery crew will have the option of abandoning their posts and running or possibly engaging the incoming, which is by no means a givin.
The other thing is that in a properly done IADS, the only permanently hot radars will be general airspace control radars, and only when a threat is detected will the SAMs actually go hot and start searching for targets. Even the Georgian SAMs (SA-11) during the recent war (which is hardly an exemplary ADS employment) operated in this manner. An S-300P battery can go from march (cold) to hot in 5 minutes. This includes time to set up the unit. It would be reasonable to assume that if it's already deployed, and just needs to flip the switch, it could go from hot to cold in notably less time. The Buk M1 proved it had the capability also. I think it's safe to assume that many of the SAMs currently being actively proliferated around the world are capable of this type of employment, which immediately changes the game for the penetrating platform. It doesn't know where the GBAD is until the GBAD is ready to open up on it, and thus can't judge threat levels.
Current Wild Weasel opps deal with this tactic every day. The point is you goad the GBAD FCR into emitting by eliminating the search radars and then engage them with a combination of hard and soft attacks. Thats the way SEAD is conducted currently.
The penetrator will only have to engage a threat if it can not proceed without entering the GBAD's engagement envelope. Thus if the GBAD FCR's remain cold then the F-22A will most likely be able to fly straight to the target by simply avoiding the search radars, the platforms tiny RCS should reduce their range so significantly that even if they are densely populated there would be wide corridors through them.
Additionally we cant view this in a vacuum, its likely that any operating ground based search radars would have been engaged by stand off means ala JASSM. There are plenty of ways to skin a cat.
Except that an IADS does not consist solely of GBAD. It also includes airborne components. So the EO-DAS still has significance in that regard.
Sure but the point i was making was in regard to another point raised by another poster on the F-22A's inability to engage GBAD effectively, and then a rebuttal to that point on the F-35A's superiority with EO DAS as evidence of said superiority.
Anyway a strike asset is
FAR more likely to encounter GBAD than tac air. Airborne threats should be dealt with by dedicated escort assets which in this case would no doubt be A2A equipped F-22A's. Thus in real terms the EO DAS's relevance vs GBAD is far more apt within the context of this discussion.
The true objection here should be that once you're down to fighting the enemy, instead of a stealthy penetration, you've already defeated the whole point of a VLO platform.
Do you think the only objective of VLO platforms is to conduct a whole strike mission without ever betraying their presence, and anything less negates VLO's worth?
A major advantage VLO gives the user (one of the primary reasons it was included in the JSF concept originally) is the survivability bonus it grants the platform. Even if the penetrator has to give away its presence briefly to negate a GBAD installation, so what? The F-35/F-22A's precise position, track or intent will not be known and the IADS's elements will still have a very hard time engaging the platform. Just because the striker may not behave like an F-117 doesn't mean you would be equally well off with a 4.5th gen platform.
The SAMs will be cold, and their locations not known if the IADS is operating on wartime footing. Being mobile they can change locations every 3-6 hours if need be to avoid sattelites spotting them. The corridors may exist, but you don't know where they are. You also have air-space control radars, and AEW&C which may not be able to provide targetting data on a VLO target, but is likely to provide detection info at least, which would then enable all the SAMs around the area where hostiles were detected to go hot in unexpected places. They could go hot for no more then a minute, to make sure they don't have targetting data (or take a shot off if they do) and then go cold again and relocate immediately. This would also enable AD fighters to vector in at least an approximate intercept, if the VLO targets are detected. If the AD fighters are datalinked to the SAMs, then we have a situation where the pentrating platforms are in for a very messy penetration.
That scenario is basically uber IADS vs a single F-22A, and thus has no bearing on the real world.
That IADS would face 500km ranged, LO standoff weapons. Extremely heavy and precise ECM including EA at the platform level, several packages of VLO, SEAD/DEAD "weasels" hitting search radars and GBAD FCR's as they illuminate, F-22A flights conducting offensive counter-air missions (which could likely get into an AIM-120D launch position on an AWACS without being defected, in addition to EA), special forces raids, TACTOM all directed by Rivet-Joint et al. And of course our penetrators.
Against that level of ISTAR, EW, precision strike and the ability to disrupt communications, any IADS will rupture at the seems. Once C4I installations are struck the IADS soon devolves into an ADS and everyone can go dirty.
Remember this isn't platform vs integrated force, its integrated force vs integrated force, and the choice of a specific platform for a specific mission.
The Iraqi IADS was not operated competently. Nor was it's airborne component worth the cost of gas in their fuel tanks.
Again bombing third world countries into sawdust, with complete capability overmatch, is not true test of capability.
Iraqi IADS was no joke. It was the most capable IADS deployed outside the Eastern Block in 91' even if it wasn't as lethal as any IADS could possibly be. The IADS was dense, integrated and enjoyed reasonably capable GBAD systems. It was the most lethal threat western air forces have ever actually engaged. Dismissing its capability derides the achievements of those who overcame it.
