[GcVmvNhBsU]

Curious what your background is to make those statements. My experience from Red Flag and other exercises is that the 5th gens (22 & 35) have a much better K/D and survivability. When you expend all of your stand off weapons or need to get a B-2 deep into a contested airspace, including against SAMs, you need a 35 going in to do sanitization. No F-16 is fighting off both SAMs and a huge ass wave of J-10s or any J-20s while protecting a bomber.

Now is that 35 worth the price? If our policy continues to insist for preparing against an impossible push peer adversary landmasses, then maybe. Personally I don’t see those pushes happening, but that’s more due to the tyranny of distance and having like 10 minutes of play time before needing to refuel.

[Retric]

I have some background wargaming for the DoD. As to Red Flag numbers generally reported, it was setup to heavily favor F-35’s. Amusingly at one point they further boosted the K/D ratio after the fact from 15:1 to 20:1.

Actual air war looks very different, with a significant focus on cruse missiles early on etc. But again, comparing the F35 with outdated equipment is missing the point.

[greedo]

Yet you're the one comparing the F-35 to 40+ year old aircraft that would get smoked in combat by the F-35.

[Retric]

No. Modern sensors, communications systems, missiles, etc are absolutely crucial on a modern battlefield.

Further, the F16’s people are talking about very much needed a replacement. The newest was built in 2005 and while it’s a solid multi-role, all weather, air-to-air and air-to-ground fighter the design is showing it’s age.

But, the F35 isn’t simply a modernized F16 now it does stealth, STOVL, etc. So you need to consider what it could have been not compare it to what’s being replaced.

PS: I very much believe stealth aircraft are needed, but the same F35’s are eventually facing the sensors of 2050+. That’s the context where it starts to look very questionable.

[greedo]

Where are you getting your information the the newest F-16 was built in 2005? F-16s are still in production. Whether it's the Block 60 or the Block 70/72, the F-16 is being equipped with AESA, can carry almost every Western weapon, and other than lacking stealth, is still quite competitive in the air.

[Retric]

My understanding was the last US F16 was delivered in 2005 with remaining production going to international partners. EX: https://www.defenseworld.net/news/24742/Lockheed_Martin_Deli...

Modernization of existing aircraft continued, but the US’s physical aircraft are only going to last to ~2040.

[cameldrv]

Is this really realistic though? I'm curious about your professional perspective.

My impression of the present/near future of air combat is a stealthy fighter with AMRAAMs in front, radar off, and a quarterback aircraft in back out of missile range, with the radar on. The front fighter fires and turns around, and the missile gets mid-course updates from the quarterback aircraft. When the AMRAAMs are depleted, you leave. It seems like if you get into Sidewinder range and you're outnumbered, you're going to have a torrent of medium range missiles coming at you from all sides.

It's not clear to me how well newer radars can track the B-2, but it's hard for me to see how fighters could really protect it. I'd expect that in a conflict with China, if they can track the B-2, that the B-2 would be withheld until the fighter threat was neutralized.

[Barracoon]

So if you buy into the concept of maneuver warfare you want to hit the enemy's center of gravity and reduce their will to fight. If you're trying to do that to China, you need to hit them hard and fast deep in their country's borders (I mean, Russia too to an extent). If you play this tit for tat fighter threat game, that doesn't happen and you're essentially in a war of attrition. That means you don't hold B-2s until a fighter threat is neutralized, you send them in to hit the CoG early so the war lasts days instead of years.

F-35s are really going to be doing counter IADS so their loadout reflects that. Maybe you get a couple A2A missiles loaded in, but primarily for self defense. If you want offensive counter air, you're bringing the F-22s (or probably the NGAD) loaded out appropriately.

Anyway all this just affirms the original idea, which is that you can't prosecute a war against peer adversaries with 4th gen fighters. Our 4th gens can still take down the enemy air threat, but the IADS means those 4th gens are not even getting into the air space.

[cameldrv]

Makes sense. It seems to me that the key question is whether or not the B-2 is trackable. I've never had a clearance, so I don't know, but I suspect that over China's own territory, it probably is. Maybe not "weapons quality", but good enough to get a fighter within IR missile/cannon range. It seems difficult to get the B-2 through reliably under those circumstances, and I'm not sure a fighter escort is of much help, because they will allocate a lot of fighters to a B-2.

The unknown then is how much can be done with decoys and EW, or even things like cyberattacks on radars and control nodes.

[jki275]

That's essentially loyal wingman.