US air superiority in jeopardy

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

Found this on the news this morning…interesting considering the thread going here last week about the F-18 vs Mig-29.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – United States must modernize its fighter jets to maintain air supremacy, a top Air Force general said Wednesday citing the success of advanced Russian-made jets against American planes in a recent exercise as signaling an erosion of its overwhelming advantage.

Gen. Hal Hornburg, head of U.S. Air Combat Command, said a U.S. air-to-air exercise with the Indian Air Force in February, in which India used Russian jets to defeat aging American F-15Cs, revealed “that we may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought we were.”

Defense experts in both the United States and Europe, however, have said it is unlikely that America – with vast spending power and a major industrial base – would lose its dominance in military technology.

U.S. defense officials have said Indian SU-30, Mig-27 and older MiG-21 jets, some armed with Russian-made AA-10 air-to-air missiles, got the best of F-15s based in Alaska in exercise “Cope India” high over northern India.

Hornburg said in an interview with military writers the air maneuvers emphasized his service’s push for expensive, stealthy new F/A-22 “Raptors” being built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters being designed by Lockheed with input from allies.

He declined to discuss classified results of the exercise but said, “Something like Cope India, when we find that some of our advantages aren’t as great as we thought they might be, leads me to remind people that we need to modernize our air-to-air capability.”

Hornburg added, “We have been saying for a long time that we need newer fighters to do more things,” and that the Indian exercise could be a “wake-up call” for Washington.

Russia’s Sukhoi aviation works and the Moscow Air Production Organization company have been designing and building increasingly advanced fighters such as the MiG-29 in recent years. India, China and other countries are buying the warplanes – some with contracts for co-production.

France and Sweden also build advanced combat planes and a consortium of four European countries, including Britain, are producing the Eurofighter “Typhoon” jet.

“I see air forces across the spectrum and across the world becoming better and better as each year passes. That just means that we have to do the same thing,” said Hornburg.

“With air superiority, everything is possible. Without it, hardly anything’s possible” he added. “People jump to the conclusion that it is ours just because we go. And that’s blatantly false.”

2

Yes, I read that, too.
As mentioned in the article itself, I thought the F-22 was supposed to take care of the future air superiority problem.

3

That was my thought, too. The press just likes to stir things up, I guess.

4

we will always have the edge. our training and the level of the men and women who man and fly our aircraft are second to none. semper fi, mike

5

Well, I think they are talking about the years between now and when the JSF/Raptor are in wide front-line service. It takes a long time to produce all of the necessary aircraft, and then train all the crews on the new types. Then they need to figure out what tactics they can use to maximize the aircraft’s effectiveness and train that way. All of this will take a fair number of years. In the meantime, the forces using new Russian aircraft will be using the newest AA missiles, which gives them an advantage over existing F-16, F/A-18 and F-15 squadrons. I think a missile/radar/optical (?) system upgrade would even the playing field until sufficient new generation aircraft become available. Just my [2c].

6

Hard to read much into the article I think.

To use the Indian Air Force as a measuring stick against the capabilities of American pilots and equipment is almost a pointless exercise if you ask me. Think about the fact that India has had ongoing border disputes and flare ups over the border with Pakistan for decades, additionally they have had to deal with hostilities from Sri Lanka for a while now. The Indian Air Force pilots, regardless of what they fly and what American analysts and experts think, have been sitting at battle readiness on a continual basis for decades on a daily basis. Their chances of flying into a genuine battle situation at a moments notice are far greater than an American pilot’s given the much less stable political relations India has with its neighbors.

In the general sense, I think how good a fighter is depends on the priorities that went into designing it. Was it designed to defend its user nation’s sovreignty above all else or more to go anywhere in the world and kick anything else’s burners out of the sky?

Sweden was mentioned in the article, when it comes the Sweden and combat aircraft, one word comes to mind “interceptor”. Not “fighter bomber”, not “fighter”. Thats because the SAAB Tunan, Lansen, Draken, Viggen and now Grippen were designed with rapid reaction interception and homeland defence primary above other things; as such, they all excelled admirably in that role. Would you want to take one on a bombing run? I’d think twice about it myself.

I’ll agree with that General on the points in his last paragraph; in combat air superiority is essential, and just because America sends its planes in doesn’t mean air superiority is automatically theirs. I do think, however, that comes down to the training and attitudes of the pilots more than the state of the machines they operate, the Indian Air Force example in the report is evidence of that. If you go into a combat situation arrogant enough to think its a cakewalk for you because of the technology you’ve got, you’re likely in for a nasty surprize, because you’ve also likey underestimated your adversary. I suspect the American pilots in their F-15s suspected the MiG-21s would be easy pickings for them.

Technology has one tremendous drawback in that it often makes its users complacent, the more technology takes over what was once the job of a human brain, that brain can get lazy and start missing details around it that it otherwise wouldn’t.

I’ve heard it said that in the arena of air combat, a thing called “situational awareness” has been key since the first dogfights in WWI. I don’t know what sort of automated systems in the F-15 do for the pilot what the pilot had to do for himself in previous generations of American fighters, but you can bet those Indian pilots didn’t have so much working for them and their brains were a heck of lot more active to compensate and I suspect due to that, they may have held the edge in situational awareness and general mental alertness even if they didn’t hold the edge in technology.

I hate to be so long winded, but it is a rather complex subject.

I liken technology to money:

Just as the say “Money can’t buy happiness” you could also say “Technology won’t guarantee success”

Its not what you’ve got, its what you do with it. If you ever wanted proof of that, India lost at least two MiG-21s to the guns of Pakistani Sabres in their border war in the early 70s. Perhaps those MiG pilots got a bit complacent and thought the cakewalk was theirs, nasty surpize, huh?

7

It sounds like he is getting ready to go to Congress, for more money than the other services get.

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That and to get more money for the F-22. Right after the Vietnam war our generals were pushing for the F-15 to replace the F-4. The F-4 could be upgraded with new engines and radar but no, go with the F-15. Now we have the F-22 in service so suddenly the F-15 is no good. It happens whenever a new aircraft is ready to enter the service.

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Fighter to fighter the odds may not be good but with the entire scope of american air power(planning, infrastructure etc. ) I think we could probably overwhelm any other air force without a problem without the F-22.

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HMMMMMMM. As a USAF member stationed here in Alaska and knowing several of the 3rd WG folks that deployed to “Cope India”, I’m not sure what kind of smoke this General is blowing. After talking to some of the drivers that participated, I do know that there was a lot of what we call “gamesmanship” in the exercise. For example, in a 2V2 or 2V4 where the F-15C drivers were up against Mig-23/27’s or Mig-21’s, the F-15’s were hamstrung by not being able to use BVR shots nor the full range of the radar.
I suspect the General (as others have said) made his statement in order to solidify congressional support for the F-22 slated to replace the F-15C. After all, once you get those stars on your shoulder you become more of a politician. All I can tell you is that it ultimately comes down to the “nut behind the buttplate”. After experiencing MANY exercises and operational deployments, I honestly can’t imagine any current front line air force posing any considerable threat to US tactical air power.
Just my 2 cents worth.

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I spent four years in the U.S.A.F. as a mechanic and I never heard any general that didn’t say the exact same thing. They are bucking for money from congress and thats the spiel they spew. If they said we don’t need any new planes they wouldn’t get any.

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the US didnt use AWACs or any of its full radar kit
plus they were going up against 3 or 4 migs to 1 eagle
heres some more about Cope India
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123007001
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Images/Special/CopeIndia/

i think the main reasons there was the exorsise was to see the new Indian fighter they have just got from Russia (but they didnt come out to play)
and the Indians wanted to go up against F16s, Just like Pakistans just bought(but the Eagles came out instead)
[2c]

13

No AWACS and no BVR, well that puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? In any real conflict the US doctrine is focused on getting kills BVR, unless there’s a (ROE) need for visual identification. It appears that these exercises were indeed not very realistic. I’m curious how the F-15s did against the Mirage 2000. I suspect the latter were used in the fighter-bomber role because they were two-seaters? The Mirage 2000 can go very low and fast if it needs to, and has a serious punch of its own.
It’s conceivable that the Indians would have preferred to fight some F-16C’s, just in case the conflict with the Pakistani’s heats up again. Probably no coincodence F-15s were sent over instead. Well it’s all politics once you get up to a certain level in the military. Learned that myself when I interviewed some brass on the Dutch acquisition of the AH-64 a few years ago. I’m with Wayne and Bery: this is more about funding than anything else. Heck, they probably designed the exercise ROE with this specific outcome in mind [V]. Still, having the best possible gear is always a good thing.

14

Interesting thread this, the general opinion seems to be that the General mentioned is indeed trying to squeeze more funds for his service. The thing about exercises is that they are rarely as close to combat as a real wartime sortie. For example, many exercises have rules of engagement that would not be adhered to in time of war and half the time you’ll have a much more precise battle picture during an exercise.

I read a while back that the USAF were cutting back on the numbers of F-22’s ordered due to increased production costs and Lockheed were having serious problems with their VSTOL engines for the F-35. At the moment, these planes are being developed for the countries that are funding the design and research for them. However, if you look at Russia their government pours in an awful lot of funding to it’s R&D programmes because it’s best fighters are also their best military exports and in my humble opinion, these fighters are right up there amoungst the best in the world. The Russian military is on it’s knees due to lack of funding, therefore the US does’nt see it as a threat-I just hope they are keeping tabs on all of those russian export customers with nice shiny SU-37’s…

Later,

Darren.

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This is always an interesting debate… but there are always important conditions to consider before passing judgments. I have read or heard about many different combat exercises between US and foreign airforces and almost every one involved some form of ROE that restricts the fight to visual range. There are several reasons for this, but basically, what good would it be to train your pilots to simply click buttons and fire missiles over the horizon? It may not happen very often, but when you get into a real furball at close range, you need to have experience in dogfights with other aircraft. Training for BVR can be done just as easily from my computer desk as it could be from the cockpit of an F-15, but dogfighting is another thing all together. So really, I think it is a good thing that the ROE keep things interesting

Of course, when you are playing against other nations, you don’t want to reveal your full potential anyway. You certainly would not lock up and “fire” on your adversaries in the exercise at the greatest range you can… that would reveal your system capabilites, and you want to guard those abilities until you need to use them in a real war.

Of course you can take the results and spin them any way you want, but I still believe that the F-22 is an important asset that should continue to be funded. Perhaps our training and radar capabilities may give our pilots the edge today, the F-15C is no the top dog it once was. The Su-27 (and variants), the EF2000 and the up and comming Chineese J-10 mean that the F-15 is in a world of strong competition. While we can still win fights today, in the future we are going to need a new aircraft and simply upgading the F-15 won’t solve the long term porblem. As technology evolves, the F-22 puts us a full step ahead of the rest of the world. I, for one, am a firm believer that when it comes to fighting a war, there is no reason we should be in a fair fight. The F-22 gives us that unfair advantage.

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the general makes some good points, and everyone else does. India trains much differently and is always in a battle ready position, unlike some of the green american pilots. and no matter how advanced a plane gets, its only as good as the pilots behind them.

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If you’re a poorly trained, GCI tethered pilot I’ll give you my F-15, jump in a Spad XIII and still kill you. A little extreme, but you get the point. BVR tech is great, but how many times in real world conflicts has it been used? How many phoenix kills did the Navy have in Desert Storm? Or Enduring/Iraqui Freedom? How many USAF Kills have been BVR shots? I know of none. As another poster said tech can tend to make you mentally lazy.

As for ROE, consider this. How many of our allies, India among them, use Soviet Bloc aircraft? That being the case, ROE require visual ID before engaging to avoid friendly fire incidents. As Vietnam taught us, very little has changed in air to air engagement since the days of Rickenbacher and Luffbury. We nearly convinced ourselves that the day of the dogfight was over due to tech. Ask yourself this…if BVR capability is the holy grail, why has every US fighter since the F-4 been designed with a gun?..Just my humble 2 cents.

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You’re all exactly correct concerning reliance on BVR shots, and long range radars. But understand that seeing the other guy first, whether via radar or visually is 90% of the fight…even in today’s world of air combat.
This however was not the only artificiality of the exercise. As I understand it from talking with several of the pilots that participated, there were several goals or TTPs that they were looking to accomplish in the exercise. Now I’m not saying that the F-15C’s were briefed to simply be one-G strafe targets, but often when working foreign exercises, we (USAF) offer a certain scenario driven or cababilities driven threat. In other words, the goal of the exercise is not to just go head to head and see who wins, rather to train for a specific threat or scenario and actually learn to counter that threat. Even up here in Alaska when we participate in Cooperative Cope Thunder (held every year), we don’t just go and wax everyone who came out to play. It costs these countries a buttload of money that they really don’t have much of to come up and participate in the exercise. As a result, they want to make sure their TTP’s are accomplished and their aircrews and support folks actually benifit from the training.
So bottom line is that Cope India had many artificialities, not only just limiting BVR shots and long range radar/AWACS support. This is by design instead of by accident. Was the General trying to secure funding for a weapon system that has already seen cuts??? Yep. Was the exercise also designed as a “foreign relations” building event??? Yep…I mean think about the relationship between Pakistan and India, and who we have been working very close with lately on Enduring Freedom. Did our aircrews benifit from the training??? Yep. Did the Indians??? Yep. Do we (US) need new weapon systems such as the F-22 and Super Hornet to replace 1970’s designed air superiority fighters like the F-15 and F-14??? Yep. Does that mean I’ll be able to afford to buy one from AMARC??? Absolutely not on my MSGT Pay!
Take it all into perspective with eyes wide open and the picture becomes a hell of a lot more clear. It’s not black and white, rather several shades of gray.