Latest news with #airsuperiority
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Yahoo
What's in a name? Fighters, bombers and modern aerial combat
Aerial combat has evolved from dogfights between high-speed, maneuverable fighters to duels among missile-armed aircraft at long range. In 2015, John Stillion presciently analyzed this transformation. His research demonstrated that victory no longer results from the fastest, most maneuverable fighter destroying an enemy in a dogfight. Instead, air combat today favors larger, less detectable aircraft using networked information to defeat adversaries with long-range missiles. This shift has ushered in a new regime of aerial combat where future air superiority aircraft may resemble bombers more than fighters. The Chinese J-36, J-50 and the multinational GCAP aircraft appear to embody Stillion's principles. The extent to which the Air Force's F-47 and the Navy's F/A-XX embody these design principles remains unclear. Current U.S. Air Force efforts to achieve air superiority against the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reflect the assumption that aircraft with traditional fighter characteristics — high maneuverability, high speed and small size — will remain the centerpiece of air combat. These include increasing the number of missiles each F-35 can carry, buying F-15EXs, developing unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and fielding the F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft. These efforts are in tension with the changing character of modern aerial combat and magnify the challenge to keep pace with the PLAAF. Fielding survivable bomber-sized aircraft for long-range aerial combat could mitigate these shortfalls. From the earliest days of air-to-air combat, 'seeing first and shooting first' has delivered victory. Whereas aircraft maneuverability and speed were long fundamental to these goals, this is no longer the case. Long-range sensing and extended-range missiles have profoundly altered air-to-air combat. When an information advantage is paired with a weapon kinematic advantage, it allows one aircraft to see first and shoot first. Today, aircraft survivability depends upon reducing signatures to foil long-range detection, tracking, identification and engagement. Speed and maneuverability still matter, but these traits now reside in weapons more than aircraft. Increasingly, aerial combat favors larger aircraft that can carry a greater number of long-range missiles and other payloads over vast distances. A historical example illustrates this trend. Over the past 33 years, the Air Force has averaged a .46 probability of kill for each beyond-visual-range AIM-120 missile fired. These engagements occurred in benign electromagnetic environments. Against the PLAAF, U.S. aircraft would face sophisticated electronic countermeasures, further decreasing each missile's probability of kill and increasing the number of weapons required to destroy a single target. An aircraft's ability to carry a large number of missiles is imperative in contemporary air warfare. Fighters are traditionally small aircraft, which limits the number and size of missiles they can carry. Further, a fighter's small weapons bays constrain missile length and diameter, and thus the range of an attack. These factors leave the Air Force's traditional fighter inventory poorly positioned to capitalize on the critical role that aircraft size plays in contemporary aerial combat. What options exist for increasing the Air Force's aerial firepower in the face of these challenges? One is to field more fighters. Another is to increase the number of missiles per fighter. A third is to fly more fighter sorties. These approaches appear less attractive when viewed in detail. Although buying more fighters, including CCA, could help, the range and payload constraints inherent in small aircraft limit this option's effectiveness. Crucially, the People's Liberation Army's threat to airfields and supporting aircraft, combined with the vast distances in the Pacific theater, may make significantly increasing the number of fighter sorties impossible. Instead, the Air Force should consider nonfighter options for meeting the challenges of contemporary air combat. If the Pentagon moves to embrace Stillion's vision of aerial combat, the size of 'fighters' should increase, perhaps to the size of today's bombers. For example, still in testing, the B-21 Raider appears to possess the survivability and payload required to excel in contemporary aerial combat. Although the aircraft's range and payload remain classified, it is safe to say that they exceed those of today's fighters. Although designed and designated as a bomber, it can more usefully be thought of as a stealthy, networked, long-range aircraft capable of employing a considerable payload of large weapons. The PLAAF presents a resolute challenge to the Air Force. Compounding that threat is air warfare's evolving character, which favors reduced signature and magazine depth over speed and maneuverability. Moreover, the Chinese and other air forces appear to have come to this conclusion and are fielding aircraft that embody these design principles. The United States would do well to pay attention. Fielding larger, survivable aircraft for long-range air-to-air combat would take advantage of aerial combat's transforming character. The Air Force has a rich history of setting new airpower precedents. Now is the time to break paradigms, set new standards for air superiority and strike fear in the Chinese air force. Gregory Malandrino is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Thomas G. Mahnken is CSBA's president and chief executive officer.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israel showed that seizing air superiority isn't gone from modern warfare, but Iran isn't China or Russia
Military officials and experts warn that air superiority may not be possible in modern warfare. Israel, however, was able to quickly achieve it against Iran. Iran, though capable, isn't bringing the same fight that a foe like Russia or China could. Israel swiftly seized air superiority over parts of Iran during the latest fight, showing that it's still possible in modern, higher-end warfare to heavily dominate an enemy's skies. But there's a risk in taking the wrong lesson from that win. Iran isn't Russia or China, and as the West readies for potential near-peer conflict, it really can't afford to forget that, officials and experts have cautioned. Western military officials and warfare experts have repeatedly warned in recent years that achieving air superiority against those countries would be a daunting task. Russia and China, especially the latter, boast sophisticated, integrated air defense networks with ground-based interceptors well supported by capable air forces, electronic warfare, and reliable space-based and airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Air superiority in a limited theater is not the same as breaking through a complex anti-access, area-denial setup. Israel's victory in the air war over Iran shows that air superiority is "not impossible" in modern warfare, former Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, a warfare strategist, explained. That said, he continued, a Western conflict with Russia or China would be "very different." Israel attacked nuclear and military sites in Iran in bombing runs and eliminated dozens of Iranian air defense batteries. Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said it "highlights what you can do with a modern air force against some, on paper, fairly impressive defenses." Iran maintained a capable layered air defense network featuring domestic systems, foreign-supplied defenses, and some modernized older systems. Though only semi-integrated compared to fully networked air defenses, it presented an obstacle. Israel dismantled Iranian defenses over multiple engagements through extensive planning, detailed intelligence, and the employment of combat-proven airpower, specifically fifth-generation F-35 stealth fighters built for penetration and suppression of enemy air defenses and fourth-generation F-15s and F-16s, which can also support that mission. Important to Israel's success in the latest fight with Iran were the engagements last year that substantially weakened Iranian air defense capabilities, as well as Israel's skills in this mission. Failures and aircraft losses in the 1973 Yom Kippur War led it to reevaluate how it approached enemy air defenses, in many ways leading to the emergence of the kind of missions used against Iran. Ed Arnold, a security expert at RUSI, said that Israel reporting no aircraft losses "was significant, and it just showed that, yeah, you can get air supremacy very quickly." The caveat there is that doing so requires the right tactics, weapons, and intelligence, but even then, it is not guaranteed. Retired Air Commodore Andrew Curtis, an airfare expert with a 35-year career in the Royal Air Force, told BI "the situation that everybody's been used to over the last 30 years is air supremacy," but when it comes to high-intensity war against a near-peer adverary, realistically, "those days are long gone." Iran had air defenses, but not airpower. It's air force is largely made up of obsolete Western, Soviet, and Chinese aircraft. The ground-based surface-to-air missile batteries are more capable, but that's only one part of the defensive picture. Curtis explained that Iran has "very little in the way of air defense aircraft, whereas of course Russia, and especially China, has stacks of them." Both Russia and China field fourth-generation-plus aircraft, as well as fifth-generation fighters. China, in particular, has multiple fifth-gen fighters in various stages of development, and there are indications it's working on sixth-generation prototypes. By comparison, Iran's air force looks a lot like a plane museum. But they also boast more advanced and more effective air defenses. Bronk said Russia's defenses are "better networked, more capable, more numerous, and more densely layered than Iran's." He said that if the West rolled back the SAM threat, it would likely be able to overcome Russia's air force, but China is a different story. China has a complex integrated air defense network supported by ground-based air defenses, naval air defenses, and what Bronk characterized as "an increasingly very capable modern air force," among other capabilities. And China also has a "far greater and more sophisticated missile arsenal for striking bases" to hamstring an enemy's airpower. Additionally, it holds a strong economic position with an industrial base that is turning out high-end weapons. China has also been tremendously increasing its number of interceptors without really expending any, unlike the US, which has been burning through interceptors in Middle Eastern conflicts. Not all of China has the same protections, but breaking through defenses would likely represent a substantial challenge in a conflict, especially in something like a Taiwan contingency. A conflict between the West and China could look like "a more traditional air war" — something not seen in a long time, Curtis said, explaining that air-to-air combat could make a comeback, with pilots again shooting down enemy planes. "In a peer-on-peer conflict, certainly with China, you would see a lot of that, because China has got a lot of air assets." Achieving air superiority, as Israel did recently and as the US did in the Gulf War in the 1990s and in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, has been crucial to the Western way of war, often serving as a tool to enable ground maneuvers. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which failed to knock out Ukraine's air defenses, now far more robust than at the start of the war, has shown what a conflict looks like when it isn't achieved. Aircraft are shot out of the sky, and ground forces are locked in grinding slogs. Devastating long-range attacks are still possible, but quick victory is generally not. It has resulted in some stark warnings for future warfare. Speaking on air superiority, Gen. James Hecker, the commander of NATO's air command, warned last year that "it's not a given." He added that "if we can't get air superiority, we're going to be doing the fight that's going on in Russia and Ukraine right now." Other military leaders have said that air superiority may only be achieved in short bursts. War is full of surprises, but evidence indicates that's a real possibility. Achieving Curtis said air planners now have to focus on specific priorities, like protecting air bases, and figuring out how to achieve a "localized time-bound air superiority or air supremacy in support of a short-term mission or operation." "It's a different mindset," he said. The key in future wars will be to seize control of as much of the aerial battlespace as possible to do what's necessary in the moment, all while holding firm defensively, as Israel did against Iran's retaliatory ballistic missile strikes, experts said. That means maintaining a strong air force and strong air defenses. "Nothing in Ukraine or Israel has shown that air superiority isn't needed in the future," Ryan shared. "I think they've both shown that having air superiority is an extraordinarily important part of warfare and remains so. Read the original article on Business Insider
South China Morning Post
01-07-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
What budget infighting means for America's F-47 and a conflict over Taiwan
America's view of China as a 'pacing threat' has shaped its defence priorities as the military seeks to maintain an edge over a rapidly modernising PLA. In the second of a three-part series on how US budget tensions will affect efforts to deter China, we look at the race for air superiority. The high-stakes race for air superiority between China and the United States will have profound implications should a conflict break out – including how a war over Taiwan would be fought. Both militaries are developing sixth-generation fighter jets. Footage of China's new prototype aircraft in test flights emerged on the symbolic date of December 26, the birthday of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Months later, Donald Trump revealed that the American equivalent had been named the F-47 – a clear reference to him as the 47th US president. But in the US, opinion is divided over how to balance defence budget priorities given the substantial funding needed for the air force's next-generation air dominance, or NGAD, programme – decisions that could have an impact on a potential conflict in the Pacific. Taiwan war scenario
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Policies Create Turbulence for the F-35
For years the F-35 fighter jet helped the U.S. achieve both air superiority and billions in trade but President Trump's recent rhetoric has forced some American allies to reconsider their reliance on the aircraft.
Wall Street Journal
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Trump's Policies Create Turbulence for the F-35
For years the F-35 fighter jet helped the U.S. achieve both air superiority and billions in trade but President Trump's recent rhetoric has forced some American allies to reconsider their reliance on the aircraft. Illustration: Xingpei Shen
