(Replacement of original draft text)

Welcome,

This blog site specifically examines the RAAF F-35A verses RAAF F-22A ‘bomber’ question. This is a critical procurement decision for ADF, one that will dramatically affect operational capability and force structure development until most people who read this page are either very much older, or deceased. As national defence procurement decisions go they don’t come much bigger. However, this very choice was examined and the appropriate decisions taken several years ago, by RAAF, and the government firmly supports the logic and validity of the RAAF’s decision, in order to meet Australia’s long-term national defence and security needs.

F-35A is ADF/RAAF’s professional choice for Australia’s single-type future airforce.

However, there are certain individuals who ardently believe RAAF made the wrong or sub-optimal choice. This view implicitly insinuates the recent and current serving senior RAAF leadership cohort is perilously incompetent and also insinuates that civilians with far less data, knowledge or actual pilot or air force experience, are in a better position to make a more valid procurement choice. They believe (in the true sense of that word) that F-22A is a genuine strike ‘bomber’, allegedly suitable for RAAF/ADF joint force-structure, and can meet DCP Project AIR 6000 requirements. Below is what the public version of AIR 6000 requires:

Phase Scope: Phase 2A/2B is intended to acquire the first tranche of new multi-role combat aircraft to replace F/A-18 Hornets and the F-111 aircraft fleet as they are withdrawn from service. Phase 2C intends to investigate acquisition of complementary systems and possibly acquire the final tranche of new multi-role combat platforms.

Background: The Government has identified that this capability could be provided by the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and has as a result joined with other partner nations in the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) Phase. Detailed definition and analysis activities necessary to determine the optimum force mix solution and provide Government with the information to support an initial acquisition approval will be conducted during AIR 6000 Phase 1: Definition, Analysis and Risk Mitigation. AIR 6000 Phase 2 is the acquisition phase of the proposal. It aims to introduce a new air combat capability with the functions of air dominance and strike currently provided by the ADF F/A-18 and F-111 aircraft fleets. Defence Capability Plan, 2006 - 2016.

The whole question as to whether F-22A can actually provide a credible strike ‘bomber’ capability, within the RAAF/ADF force structure, has effectively never been addressed by such persons, it is merely papered-over with wishful thinking, and an endless stream of frilly graphical propaganda and contrived straw-man arguments.

With regard to my anonymous self, Element1Loop, I’m a private citizen and civilian with too much time on my hands at present. I’m not interested in advocacy or sentimentality over high-tech killing machines. I don’t pick favourites, however, I do hold a reasoned view that F-35A is the superior strikefighter capability based solely upon yieldable achievable capability within the operational and pending operational RAAF force-structure context. Watching the ‘public debate’ leaves this acquainted observer laden with annoyance and growing disgust at the contrived misdirection being cynically inserted into it. As a consequence I’ve come to consider the whole notion of informed public-debate on germane ADF air power capability development as not viable, despite more ‘data’ and ‘information’ being available to more citizens, than ever before. I’m not made cynical by it, I’m just facing the fact that this has produced a dysfunctional and pointless rump, continually undermined and derailed by the zealotry of obsessed partisans. To me it’s a demonstration of over abundant open-source ‘information’ and what can only be called ‘meta-data’, combined with a disturbing lack of skilled reasoning capacity. Most people are not committed to critically thinking through basic operational and tactical implications within a joint RAAF/ADF force.

For the most part am referring to "Air Power Australia" (et al) and the polarised propaganda-making traits of Mr. Carlo Kopp. However, the ‘public debate’ is not entirely rubbish, for instance, the on-line forum "The Fifth Column" is perhaps the only place where joint-force air power issues are intelligently discussed in relevant, insightful, balanced and realistic ways.

Note: Advocates beware-you will not last long if you go to fifth column and start banging-on with a narrow agenda or unbalanced argument, you will just get chewed-on and spat-out again. Unless you know your subject and are prepared to think and write clearly you best shut up.

Because the ‘public debate’ is such a shambles, I started writing down salient points that strongly clarify the situation. Some of these points are posted below in order to redress what I see as a serious lack of discussion and knowledge of relative operational role limitations, pitfalls and implications of an RAAF F-35A verses an RAAF F-22A, within ground and surface attack roles. These are, after all, two drastically different 5th generation aircraft so clearly one will suit the ADF’s needs far better then the other does, yet incredibly, these real-world in-service differences in operational strike capability are almost entirely ignored within the ‘public debate’, and its pretentious shaping by petty advocates. So, why has this critical element that is so strongly influencing RAAF’s preferred choice, been more-or-less ignored in the public debate?

If you are going to debate such a complex issue surely you must forthrightly address such complex implications directly?

The reader might be thinking; ok, if the ‘right’ decision has already been made by the RAAF, and the government agrees with and supports their professional choice, and the derailed public debate is irrelevant rubbish, that RAAF and government are paying no heed to anyway, then what is the problem? Why write about it all, at this point in proceedings?

There’s one complicating factor-Democracy. 2007 is an election year, which itself is a very good thing, but when combined with an opposition party embarking on a crash program of "product differentiation" the issue has become one of governmental approval once more. A prospective Labor government has stated its preference for the F-22A ‘bomber’, to replace the F-111 and F/A-18A/B, rather than RAAF’s firmly proposed F-35A direction.

Just because an opposition says it will do something while in campaign mode, doesn’t mean they will when in office-this is ‘product differentiation’ time, after all. However, there’s a chance they’re serious, and will try to do this, despite professional advice of serving RAAF and ADF. For example, the last hapless opposition leader, Kim ‘bomber’ Beasely (nick provided by media handler) entirely ignored every piece of recently published formal RAAF advice or briefing on Project AIR 6000, and instead openly stated a policy preference for an aircraft RAAF had already determined was the wrong one for the ADF. So, what happens if a new Rudd Labor government does ignore ADF’s professional choice, and requests a likely new US Democrat White House to export F-22As to Australia? If Kevin Rudd asked (Clinton or Obama) for the F-22A there’s a realistic chance RAAF may end up with that aircraft, instead of the F-35A it wants.

This is what I want to get at so that people get a deeper insight into what is wrong with doing this. Precisely why it is an extremely bad idea, and why serving ADF/RAAF don’t want to do it, and why they should be preferentially listened to on air power matters-especially by appallingly self-compromised opposition leaders and shadow defence ministers.

Considering either aircraft’s strike ‘bomber’ capabilities within a US force-structure context is quite irrelevant to ADF’s needs, and significant differences and implications emerge from the two very different force-structure contexts. In short, the achievable real-world strike capabilities are fundamentally different within an ADF operational context, and is highly dependent upon platform support infrastructure available to the ADF force-as will soon be made clear.

It’s service within the Australian-SEA geography and realistic/credible ‘opposition’ levels within the region that is relevant (that’s if we regard democratic neighbours as a threat, which seems to be the implicit presumption of most partisan advocates). The riotously abstract theoretical air power nightmares, continually conjured up as straw-men, by APA/Kopp, are completely irrelevant; i.e. a 33 klb AL-41F Flanker that does not exist in-service anywhere, and even if it did, with only 50% Internal fuel the T:W ratio is still only 1:1.32 and that’s less than a current in-service Malaysian MiG-29C/S @ 1:1.33-so why the deluge of hype and panic? RAAF HUG Hornets are quite capable of shooting down any MiG-29 in BVR A-to-A combat. T:W ratios and kinematics have practically nothing to do with that!

One thing has become very clear, the long-heralded, much-discussed and dramatically over-rated Flanker-menace remains a continuing regional non-event. On current plans ~22 Flankers will be situated within strike range of Australia’s NW EEZ and littoral between now and 2012. These Flankers will not have support platforms to enable strike operations over mainland Australia (and would be heavily opposed and greatly out-numbered by RAAF Hornets anyway). Some of the 22 Flankers will be used in training, some still to be delivered (deliveries begin in May to Malaysia), some will be operationally unavailable (perhaps 25% on any given day) and those remaining will be in IOC for at least half the next five year period, to 2012. At that time, around 4 times the number of evolved HUG Hornets and Super Hornets will be in fully operational RAAF service-with expertly trained pilots (by far any airforce’s greatest strength and capability advantage), and unrivalled support platforms and C4I measures.

Another point of note is that the four initial Indonesian training Flankers are home-based in west Sumatra. Indonesia is basing its Flankers as far from neighbouring airforces and borders as possible (especially away from Australia), yet within reach of their own shipping lanes. Indonesia seems not at all interested in appearing to ‘threaten’ Australia via basing Flankers close to Australia. Malaysia also does not deploy its fighters with any Southern bias (to worry poor Aussies with their pitiful western Hornets). These countries are clearly not disposed to presenting an air power ‘threat’ to Australia, and no balanced or reasonable "military analyst" would consider these states and these aircraft a realistic threat.

What this is, is a tentative beginning to a slowly developing extended regional air power capability-using low numbers of aircraft. In relative terms, by 2012, the fully operational Malaysian Flankers will roughly approximate the capability level the RAAF had in about 1980-around thirty years beforehand. If both Indonesia and Malaysia acquired 50 Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback’s and several tankers, RAAF might face a significant regional capability gap, between 2012 to 2016-18 (i.e. between when 24 x Super Hornet reach FOC and ~ 72 x F-35A FOC occurs), but such is not the case. These two countries have struggled to afford a small number of Flankers, and Malaysia is temporarily standing-down some MiG-29s as it brings its new Flankers into service. Is should be expected that Malaysia will entirely replace its MiG-29 fleet in-service with Sukhois by 2020, and Indonesia to replace its ~10 F-16A/B (early-block daytime VFR A-to-A) with the vastly more capable Sukhois, within a similar time frame, and perhaps other types as well. As long as Malaysians and Indonesians are committed to governance via functional democratic methods they can not be considered militarily or strategically threatening states (or Australia threatening toward them).

Longer-term, ADF capability development is actually being driven by strong Chinese commitment to expeditionary warfare capability developments. Early last century Japan pre-emptively attacked and destroyed a dominating Russian Pacific Fleet, fully forty years before Japan attacked present-day ANZUS allies. The Japanese gained much experience and confidence in successful modern expeditionary warfare as it defeated the Russians, and it then strove to increase range and lethality in subsequent decades. This drive for offensive expeditionary capability lead to extreme militarism and territorial conquests as Japan attacked multiple Asian and western countries, before and during WWII proper.

The Alliance understands that once China starts to engage in successful expeditionary actions and territorial gain, its expeditionary capability will have to be decisively dismantled (with possible nuclear implications). As a consequence it can be expected that by 2016, ADF’s then future defence capability planning is going to call for even more capability and spending than it currently does, and that is understandably going to worry SEA states close to Australia. By 2016 Australia will already have developed a formidable expeditionary capability, quite able to defend Australia, and of deploying a significant concentrated force, at long range. The continued and indeed accelerating capability growth, at that time, will predictably lead to some lack of regional sensitivity as Australia is forced to disregard close neighbouring state concerns, as it presses ahead even more rapidly with deep-strike capability development, plus multi-layered defensive systems, etc.

Mostly close neighbouring states are not going to understand why Australia is building an even stronger military capability, when none of its near neighbours are seriously challenging or attempting to match or negate the ADF. Thus it’s foreseeable that SEA states will increase their own strike capabilities, as much as they can afford, to generate a credible deterrent. This again is to Australia’s strategic gain, because this also serves to deter Chinese expansionary militarism, consequently, Australia will not discourage a SEA air power build-up, particularly if Indonesia and Malaysia remain stable, democratic and essentially non-aligned. Indeed, Australia will probably welcome it. Given ANZUS, the air power environment within SEA is hardly going to be an environment of immediate or realistic air power threat to Australia, prior to 2025. In short, Carlo Kopp’s prophet-of-doom Flanker-menace foretelling, must be described as hysterical and absurd when reviewed against deployed and planned airframe types and numbers, and the longer-term regional strategic picture.

Given F-35A will have advanced BVR (Beyond Visual Range) capabilities exceeding those an updated 4th-generation Sukhoi BVR fighter could expect to survive against-a sound expectation, given what’s known of F-35A, plus RAAF BVR doctrine, combined with networked support and numerous off-board sensors-the fundamental unadorned question for Australia is this:

That’s the question that actually matters for who wins the next election, i.e. who decides the AIR 6000 type(s) and numbers. it’s also the question that’s not been seriously or realistically addressed by any F-22A advocate. Certainly Carlo Kopp (et al) has not once bothered to directly address operational RAAF F-22A capabilities, realistically. All he (and others) have done, is to offer POTENTIAL, or THEORETICAL capability block-upgrade paths, that MIGHT make the F-22A into a genuine multirole strikefighter-one sunny day. If F-22A were a genuine multirole strike aircraft with a diverse range of sensors and weapons, it certainly would be the better aircraft to procure (all else being equal)-but even then, only if it could be acquired in sufficient numbers. This proviso brings us to the primary limitation of any proposed RAAF F-22A procurement, and one that has already been discussed at length elsewhere-but allow me to add this to the mix.

The Commonwealth of Australia is already an extremely wealthy unitary continental state. It has a very broad range of natural resources, in astonishing abundance, much of which has not even been significantly developed yet. What other country in such a choice fiscal and resource conditions would consider defending a sparsely populated continental territory with only 100 strikefighters-or even less? The continent ADF must defend is within foreseeable expeditionary reach of the world’s most over-populated, under-resourced, despotic, anti-democratic super state, who has threatened our major ally with a nuclear attack in the relatively recent past. There may be a lot of good-will on display, and China may be a welcome new major trading partner, but this is hardly a country that can be trusted, at this point, or one Australia can afford to not guard against going expeditionary. If they did that we would instantly have a major problem, with only 100 fighter airframes. And 100 x F-22A is certainly not the solution either (as will be made evident below).

The allocated approximately 100 AIR 6000 aircraft, can not be considered truly adequate, it can be considered the minimum procurement possible, under prevailing and projected conditions. Reducing that number even further (i.e. down-sizing the RAAF, for that’s what such implies) via procuring a hyper-expensive RAAF F-22A is untenable without a major increase in AIR 6000’s budget to allow for a minimum of 100 air frames. This is not a magic number. RAAF needs sufficient airframes to guarantee availability, for the increasingly importantly ability to provide sufficient coverage of a steadily widening arc of viable approaches to the continent. Australia may in the past have been able to get away with a small number of strikefighters, and no long-range SAM network, but this will now progressively change. Long-range fighters with refuelling and long range ALCMs means the possible arc of viable strike approaches to the continent will widen and deepen and the viable approach airspace volume, to be addressed by RAAF, will more than double. For example, circular area increases by the square of radius increases, but volume increases by the cube of a radius increase.

Approximately 64 F-22A is not going to be enough airframes for both availability and sustained coverage, regardless of Mach 1.7 supercruise, and JORN’s heads-up EW capabilities. Of course, Mr. Kopp already understands this and realises RAAF would be forced to procure more supplemental F-22, to meet the growing coverage area and availability demand over time. However, 100 x F-35A, supplemented with BVR capable UCAV would be at least as good, and far cheaper in availability and credible continental approach coverage terms. Especially, if for instance, a post 2020-25 reusable scram-jet, or ordinary jet UCAV could be boosted aloft, via ground-to-air rocket, from anywhere along Australia’s coastline, offshore territories, or even from ships, at any time, then recovered for reuse, via parachute and helicopter.

However a major operational problem haunts both UCAV and manned BVR fighters, namely the problems of Rules-of-Engagement (ROE), that obligate positive identification of all contacts, prior to weapon release. The need for positive identification requires getting close enough to positively identify the contact, to determine if it is actually hostile or not. This inescapable obligation undermines the BVR paradigm-unless you have the appropriate force structure, to meet this ROE need, during combat. For example, if positive identification is always going to be required (and it will), it would be much better to get in close with a fast stealthy UAV, rather than a very expensive and limited number of manned F-22A. Thus the cheaper and more flexible combined F-35A and UAV/UCAV BVR force structure would be the operationally preferable and superior effective ADF BVR capability, and potentially more operationally effective at BVR engagements than the F-22A can be in RAAF service. The stealthy UCAV can manoeuvre for a high-speed WVR fly-by of a contact, and relay the confirmed ID back to F-35A 150 km behind it-in real-time-providing a better situational awareness and capacity for rapid long-range and unexpected BVR missile engagement.

Let’s not have more frightened F-22A zealots, claiming there’s a higher level of regional threat than actually exists, or is prospective, or that an RAAF F-35A acquisition would somehow be ‘obsolete’, before even being acquired, or fundamentally ‘vulnerable’ to a mid-1970s designed Flanker. The suggestion (made by ex-AVM Peter Criss) is absurd unbalanced, hysterical and hopelessly misguided.

But is the F-22A a ‘bomber’ at all, or just a very poor compromise compared to the F-35A? We need to compare capabilities to get some basic facts instilled into various politicians and ‘expert’ commentators atrophied cerebral ganglia. In order to answer whether the F-22A is able to providing an RAAF/ADF joint force-structure with genuine regional strike ‘bomber’ capabilities, I detailed five aspects of RAAF strikefighter (‘bomber’) application, and relevant operational implications.

1. The F-22A has no heavy weight long-range standoff weapon that can reliably smash a modern major naval unit, at a low-risk engagement ranges. With only 50 kg (only 110 lb) of energetic explosives, an SDB (small diameter bomb) is too low-energy to do major damage to a modern naval unit. For comparison, even a modern surface to air naval missile, designed to disrupt fragile aircraft and missiles during flight, such as SM-2 has a 250 lb warhead. The F-22A’s SDB is seriously lacking punch, if used to attack a major naval unit (i.e. you need lots of hits to get major effects). The F-22A’s only other surface attack weapon is the JDAM, a free-fall bomb released from relatively close range (Mach 1.5). The problem here is that external bomb carriage and pylons greatly increase radar signature at such close ranges, and modern naval radars and missiles aren’t to be trifled with. The F-22A can carry two 1000 lb JDAMs internally so that will dramatically increase the F-22A’s chances of surviving. However, the insurmountable problem here is that a JDAM is not a low-RCS weapon (like JSOW or JASSM on the Hornets and F-35A) and thus can be engaged and destroyed by a modern layered naval SAM and CIWS system, before a bomb can land on the ship. But besides this, the F-22A does not have a GMTI surface-attack radar, with which to continuously update the JDAM’s aim-point in flight as the target moves and manoeuvres away from the original launch-time aim point. JDAMs, and several new precision-tracking attack weapons can only attack a ship via tricking the weapon’s GPS guidance system into think that a GMTI radar generated (Ground Moving Target Indicator Mode) coordinate is actually a genuine GPS coordinate. In this way a JDAM can fly toward a radar-illuminated ship, using the constantly updated GMTI radar-fixed geo-coordinates, as the ship constantly changes position with respect to where the bomb had been aimed. Because the F-22A has no GMTI radar capability (its a BVR optimised fighter after all), and its own strike weapons are actually 100% reliant upon the presence of another high-performance aircraft type, that does have a radar line-of-sight GMTI mode radar contact with the target ship, during the entire weapon flight-time. RAAF-suitable aircraft that have that sort of capability includes GlobalHawk, SuperHornet, Wedgetail or F-35A. One of these types would be required to provide a datalinked JDAMs with continuous GMTI radar generated aim-point updates as the bomb homes in on the ship. In other words, the F-22A is absolutely useless on its own. It could not hit the side of a barn, with any precision surface attack weapon, without the weapon it launched being feed precise target coordinates, via a third-party supplying real-time continuous targeting illumination. The F-22A may have the performance and stealth to not get shot down, as it does this, but what of this GMTI radar geo-locating aircraft, supporting the F-22As weapon targeting? Long-range naval SAMs have effective ranges as great as 300 km (the SM-3 has an anti-IRBM engagement envelope up to 500 km). On the other hand, the F-35A has integral GMTI and IR/laser geolocation coordinate generation capabilities, and can launch a 450 km range JASSM stealth cruise-missile at a ship, with low risk to pilot or aircraft-plus use far fewer scarce ADF networked resources and platforms. An evolved JASSM datalink capability will provide the US and Australia (only JASSM export customer) with the most lethal long-range heavy antiship missile devised, to date. No other country will have more lethal ASuW missile capabilities (in Feb 2007 US signalled it will sell JASSM only to very close Allies-Finland was denied export and probably only F-35 operators will be eligible for JASSM due to prohibitive stealth-tech export restrictions). No hostile naval force is likely to survive within 2,000 to 3,000 km of Australia after about 2012 (JASSM FOC year for HUGs). F-22A can not independently guide this strike weapon to either a manoeuvring or stationary target. F-22A is not an operationally viable or credible maritime strike capability option for the ADF. But is even worse than this, because the F-22A doesn’t actually have any precision surface attack sensors, with which to even independently detect a ground or maritime target-at all!

2. The F-22A doesn’t carry any heavy long-range low-RCS standoff cruise or glide weapon, with which to safely smash an opponent’s air force, on the ground (the easiest and safest place to destroy one), from a high survivability strike range. The SDB is again, too small to provide sufficient destructive effect, on the full range of target types. JDAMs may be sufficient though, but the F-22A is again reliant upon external GMTI radar, or laser geo-location, to derive a secondary real-time GPS coordinate of enemy aircraft imaged (by other support platforms) at a targeted air base, etc. And again, the F-22A can’t do any of this by itself, and requires a UAV, helicopter, Super Hornet, Wedgetail, or Special Forces, nearby, to generate and continuously provide network target support for its JDAM targeting needs. And again, the airfield’s point-defence radar and SHORAD network could potentially track and engage JDAM bombs before they hit a target. In short, unless RAAF F-22A has a stealthy weapon, it can not destroy the air defence network radars-first-in order to effectively attack airbase targets with its JDAMs. F-22A’s have more stealthy SDBs, that may be able to degrade and destroy air defence radar sites, but even then, the never ending problem of detecting and geo-locating these for the SDBs, has to be done by some other supporting targeting platform. Such basic detection, identification and precise ground-attack weapon guidance tasks are beyond the capability of a hyper-expensive RAAF F-22A! Alternatively, the F-35A was designed specifically to quickly and independent smashing of air defence network, and air force on the ground, from long stand-off ranges, using a wide variety of stealthy light and heavy weapons. These can be employed in highly coordinated time-compressed surprise attacks, day or night, in any weather conditions, with low-risk to either pilot or aircraft. The F-22A truly re-defines the term, "bomb truck". It literally is only trucking the bombs to someone else’s target and launch point, while a third party system/platform performs the actual weapon attack, on the F-22A’s behalf. This is clearly an intrinsically complex and expensive strike strategy, and a highly vulnerable force structure for a small chronically platform-limited ADF. The F-22A could more accurately be described as a ’dumb-bomber’, because it has no first-hand view of what it may or may not be dropping weapons on. This bombing mode is taking a ‘Networked-Joint-Combat’ paradigm down a ridiculously inefficient and precarious path. F-35A completely negates any such external sensor or targeting support dependency.

3. Consequently, RAAF F-22A will struggle and will fail to rapidly and decisively degrade and destroy a SEA opponent’s ability to wage war and project heavy Naval and ground forces. F-22A can not achieve that independently. If RAAF’s precision targeting support capabilities were destroyed or substantially attrited (say, via SLCM attack on UCAV operations centre and hard stands) or comms support channels were degraded, our hyper-expensive F-22A ‘bomber’ would progressively become quite useless-the RAAF capability for precision bombing would evaporate! i.e. ADF still has the aircraft and the bombs, it just can’t drop any on a target. An F-35A fleet could never be rendered ineffective in that way. This possibility is not a ‘serious’ operational issue for the US because the US force-structure has so many battle-space precision-targeting systems available that can provide continuous battle space targeting coverage for the F-22A. The US systems can seamlessly and plentifully provide incidental targeting data for its USAF F-22As (mainly because of JSTARS, UAVs and having so many F-15E, F-35s and Super Hornets in the sky). However, an inconsequential operational risk for the US is a massive operational complication and source of huge risks for the ADF. That’s why RAAF and AIR 6000 stipulate fully integrated strike capability for the F-111/HUG replacement. The F-22A has neither the sensors, targeting systems, weapon types or appropriate stealth heavy-missile carriage, to do what the ADF/RAAF require it to routinely do. F-22A doesn’t even have any ground/surface attack radar modes, nor any integrated ground-attack FLIR, nor even a prosaic air-to-ground laser target designator system! The F-22A is literally less capable of independently and precisely hitting a ground target, than a WWII Lancaster bomber was. This is the wonder ‘bomber’ Mr. Carlo Kopp, Peter Criss, Brian Graf, Ted Bushell, plus assorted self-appointed intellectual air power ‘experts’ (Andrew Davies-ASPI, Hugh White- Lowy Institute), keep telling us is a superior ‘bomber’. Yet, silly supposedly incompetent ADF/RAAF and Defence -Minister repeatedly tell Australia F-22A is the wrong strike capability for Australia-and they are 100% correct! The F-35A was designed specifically to clobber the shite out of an enemy’s capacity to fight high-intensity battles, and to quickly obliterate the ability to project strategic power. The F-35 does everything in-house, plus can both receive and provide fast and precise external target-data redundancy, to other ADF air and ground platforms and their weapons, much like a networked micro-JSTARS/ISR/AEW&C. F-35A is precisely the force-maximisation capability ADF requires for its nascent overworked, network-warfare paradigm. The F-22A can’t do any of this, at all, and instead of implicitly providing force-multiplication benefits, to the wider battle space, F-22A actually massively drains available resources, in pronounced and consequential ways. While scarce ISR and targeting resources are being used up to support the F-22A’s ‘dumb-bomber’ strike capability, other Joint combat elements have reduced access, or even no useable access to those resources-so much for joint war fighting! Also, the F-35A can attack any target it locates, without delay, but an F-22A can not do that, because it’s generally not going to be close to where an external sensor finds its targets. Thus there will be a time delay before an F-22A launched weapon strikes the target, as the F-22A gets into a viable weapon release location and kinematic condition. The F-35A will already be in position, because it will have its own sensors, finding and identifying its own targets that it can quickly strike. The ADF can not put up with such a hopelessly limited F-22A ‘dumb bomber’ capability. The speculative notion (especially by Kopp et al), that F-22A might mature into this role (in conjunction with an obsolete/orphaned F-111) is sentimental and stupid wishful thinking-a completely unnecessary and intolerable risk. Even if a new government elect wanted the F-22A, the ADF would not want such a lame, expensive, impractical and vulnerable dumb-bomber. It would be an enormous strategic and political mistake for a government to push the F-22A down RAAF and ADF’s throat-given such insuperable operational strike limitations.

4. A long-term two-tiered force-structure will also preclude or seriously hinder the ability to rapidly and cheaply expand RAAF capability, at short notice, if that became necessary. A single-type strikefighter airforce is not just optimal, for the sake of simplicity and economy, it’s also the fundamental structure necessary to deliver to the ADF the intrinsic capability to up-scale its air power element in a proportional and linear way, with minimal risk, and with unmatchable rapidity. ADF and government don’t want the negatives within local relationships that could result from overbuilding the ADF, but it does want the ability to retain the upper hand, if challenged or instability arrises. Combined with an unseen but nonetheless bona fide UCAV capability, such flexible rationalised structure provides RAAF with genuine credible capabilities, and one not entirely clear to a potential adversary (i.e. the true air power capability can not be confidently determined, nor targeted on the ground). This ambiguity provides deterrence in ways the current RAAF force-structure does not. The often-suggested notion that a single-type airforce would be vulnerable to unforeseen wholesale grounding is foolish, given the prevailing context of a global 3000+ F-35 fleet. That proposition is like expecting that all F-16s might suddenly be grounded-this is not a reasonable proposition, nor credible risk. Development testing and LRIP phases are tortuously long and expensive, due to the need to ensure issues that could lead to fleet grounding won’t emerge, in unmanageable ways, within operational aircraft. The F-111 was historically one of the most unreliable aircraft of all, in that regard, but APA (et al) wish to retain it in RAAF for another 20 years. For instance, in 1999 the entire RAAF F-111 fleet was grounded temporarily, literally days before INTERFET began its mission in East Timor.

5. F-22A can not independently or fully perform the current roles and missions of the F-111 (SuperHornet Block II can though, and will provide far more besides). F-22A has a small capacity for low-RCS regional strike (2 x 1000 lb JDAM internal carriage only), and only via ISR/GMTI support, from other accompanying platforms. F-35A operates either independently, or jointly, in dedicated deep-penetration strikefighter roles. It has no comparable equal due to its stealth, unprecedented high internal fuel load, exceptional sustained high-transonic cruise/transit speeds, plus low-drag internal carriage of PGM heavy weapons, that maintain maximum stealth and a clean low-drag airframe. The F-22A can’t achieve that, even with 2 x 2000 lb dumb-bombs. The F-35 has integrated high-resolution day/night reconnaissance capabilities (IR/Laser/SAR/GMTI in clear skies or SAR/GMTI in any weather) along with full-duplex real-time combat video and image sharing, across multiple redundant broadband data-sharing options. An F-22A has practically no reconnaissance/intelligence gathering capability whatever other than via a networked passive RWR that is optimised for air-to-air combat target triangulation roles.

Despite the incredibly stark strike capability differences implied in operational RAAF service, Carlo Kopp (et al) writes:

Such impeccable rectitude Mr. Kopp! No matter what the facts are, Kopp knowingly states irrational opposites, in order to paint the Su-27/30 as Satan’s own chariot, and the F-22A as the only Messiah in sight for RAAF. Hands up those that want F-22A pilots flying Combat-Air-Support missions, for diggers, where said pilots can not see said diggers, and must launch-blind upon targets the pilot can not independently detect, or observe, with respect to his aircraft’s position and the digger’s positions? Oh yeah, almost forgot, plus the F-22A pilot doesn’t have the effective or appropriate weapons for a CAS role either. An incompetent deluded gibbering idiot might want such a dangerously flawed and half-hearted high-risk dumb-bomber ‘strike capability’, but Australia’s Defence Force never will.

That’s another of the impractical operational implications of a RAAF F-22A replacing F-111s and Hornets. The F-35A is specifically designed for ultra-aware, mid-altitude, long-endurance loitering (~3 times the F-16’s fuel load), and for precise rapid CAS and battlefield interdiction capability, using a complete range of fully optimised and integrated ground-attack sensors, plus specialised attack weapons for the target type to be hit. To claim the F-22A can engage, "…the full spectrum of possible targets. …" is typical of Kopp’s exaggeration and stupidity. An evolved F-22A will neverM=2.0, above 75,000 feet, providing effective kinematic terminal missile energy against high-G manoeuvring 4th gen fighters at up to 150 km down-range (considerably further for the upcoming AIM-120D). It’s heresy for an F-22A to engage in BVR subsonicly below 50,000 ft. The notion of the F-22A inhabiting the 15 to 45 k ft subsonic battlefield interdiction niche pits it against an aircraft that is at least five times more lethal within that niche-the F-35A.

Consequently, logic and available information indicate:

(a) F-35A/B is the only suitable advanced 5th-gen strikefighter type that can fully satisfy Project AIR 6000 and ADF air power needs within the regional geography and air power context ADF actually faces.

(b) F-35A/B is also the only affordable aircraft for an Allied expeditionary context, where sufficient in-service airframes are required in order to make a meaningful and sustainable expeditionary commitment, yet to retain sufficient numbers in Australia for adequate regional deterrence and actual operations. This is an increasingly important mutual expectation of alliance. It’s a capability requirement ADF must be able to provision, when requested. The F-22A is out of the question, due to the implied force size, and a massively increased cost for far less total strike capability.

Verdict -

F-22A is not a viable ‘bomber’, within the limitations of ADF force-structure support options for targeting, and it definitely isn’t an acceptably affordable ‘dumb-bomber’. F-22A is a "Claytons" bomber-the bomber you are having when you are not having a bomber. The dumb-bomber capability appears aimed at making the F-22A a useful platform after day-1, when uncontestable air dominance has already been established. In other words, if the F-22A is going to be up there, and otherwise doing not much at all, then they may as well truck bombs, to beef-up the level of surge interdiction support that can be called upon, during a battle. F-22A is indisputably the wrong ‘bomber’. There are not two fifth-generation tactical strike aircraft for RAAF to pick between-there is only one present. As there is only one, then any ‘choice’ must be made between 4th and 5th-generation strike aircraft (or a mix of both). That choice was made in 2002 and also in March 2007. These choices won’t be revisited for as long as the F-35A succeeds in LRIP production testing, optimisation and evolution.

I) The public debate is more-or-less irrational, dysfunctional and immaterial to ADF planning. The disconnect between ADF insight and needs, and public and media fallacies is something ADF can not remedy. No matter what RAAF/ADF says, it’s view and planning is always second-guessed and misconstrued-often deliberately. ADF needs to focus on its task and on informing the government (and hopefully an opposition). Government must listen to ADF plus ignore the bottomless pit of incompetent nonsense continuously emanating from the mercenary ‘public debate’-thankfully, the current government does precisely that (and partisans and advocates hate that they are thus being rendered ineffective).

II) Retired outmoded ex-RAAF air power gurus need to put a sock in it, and quit the petty narcissism. There are ample and understandable reasons for RAAF to divest self-centred obsolete old farts. Competence is something that continually ebbs and flows during life, and if you are not current, you have no hope of becoming or remaining competent. So why do you think you are now?

III) Superficial intellectual titans in various self-satisfied tedious wank-tanks and bamboozled University departments need to get some semblance of a grip on things relevant to modern killing, in and from the air. You are replenishing a constituency of blockheads. You are not a solution to public ignorance on the issues, you are instead the life-blood and perpetuity of such ignorance, much self-satisfaction, and general mediocrity. You continually reveal that you can not possibly self-regulate you own feeble-mindedness regarding air power issues. You are all clearly over-funded and fantastically overrated phonies-the multiplication of parasitic ‘learned’ theoretical cretins should not be so recklessly encouraged within our civil ‘educational’ sector, especially not with tax-payer funded grants.

IV) Cabinet inner-sanctum needs to extract digit. The political situation will not improve much, nor inputs to F-35 capability development, terms and conditions, delivery, and pricing, via delaying the now inevitable second-pass approval process much longer. What further is to be gained by dragging out this decision? Will the current government pass-up the kudos, when a close-fought election is nigh? Will Howard leave this particular cherry to a new Rudd Labor government to pluck?

V) L-Mart is keen to see Australia (or anyone else) place an early order to get acquisitions underway, and to prompt other governments to commit a formal orders, thus to add momentum to LRIP program funding schedules. It seems reasonable that a second-pass could be bought forward, particularly if LRIP aircraft do not incur the price premium it otherwise would, with respect to a mature late-build airframe.

VI) Kopp’s nightmare, the AL-41F re-engine menace within SEA, looks like this; T:W ratios with 50% internal fuel (no stores):

F-14D Tomcat = 1:1.09

Su-27/30 Flanker = 1:1.10 (AL-31F = 2 x 27.5 klb - all operational SEA Flankers)

F/A-18F Super Hornet Block II = 1:1.17

F/A-18A/B HUG Hornet = 1:1.18

F/A-18C Hornet = 1:1.24

Su-27/30 Flanker = 1:1.32 (AL-41F = 2 x 33 klb - Kopp fantasy aircraft)

F-16C Viper = 1:1.32

MiG-29 Fulcrum-C = 1:1.33

Rafale C = 1:1.33

F-15C Eagle = 1:1.35

Typhoon = 1:1.36

F-15E Strike Eagle = 1:1.38

At best an Su-30 with AL-41F engine will match current F-15C T:W performance, just as it’s being replaced in service by F-22A. The AL-41 was de-rated to 33,000 lb thrust, because this is a thrust output at which it’s reliable and durable enough for sustained operation. It’s no use Kopp claiming within his air power propaganda, that the AL-41F is a "40,000 lb thrust-class" engine (actually he claims up to 44 klb), when it isn’t within any sustained operational context. I could buy a maximum-performance 308 V8 Holden race engine that makes 600 horsepower, but it is not going to last long in regular operation, thus the manufacturer de-rates it to

40 klb production engine, with high TBO hours (Time Before Overhaul) plus very high reliability. The AL-41F is considered a 33 klb engine in the real-world context, where TBO has to be at least 500 hrs, hopefully 2000 to 3000 hrs. Flanker and Fulcrum engines have always had miserably low TBO hours (compared to western contemporary engines), and the AL-41F appears set to continue that tradition. For Mr. Kopp to be insinuating that a production AL-41F’s are 40 klb, with high TBO hrs is unadulterated trash. The thrust will incrementally increase over the next decade but will still only be about the T:W of the F-15E. The F-15E has been achieving superior performance operationally with high TBO for 15-20 years! The Flankers are still to match this, let alone to deal with newer Lockheed Martin fifth generation fighters.

If a high-RCS Su-30 with hot AL-41 engine and R-172 BVR missile is the baddest wolf in the hypothetical forest, then my money would have to go on the non-hypothetical lower RCS network-integrated RAAF fighters with superior pilot training, JORN, Link-16, Wedgetail and A-330 refuelling support-and a shirt-load of other goodies. This, plus the massive geographic strategic depth advantage, is quite enough to win and survive, but there’s also the large RAAF quantitative advantage as well.

This is a contrived bogie man, a mental gimmick, designed for propaganda effects to shape ‘debate’ within a disingenuous and mendacious long-playing querulous APA theme. For Mr. Kopp to claim an AL-41F Flanker would have "F-22A-like" combat performance is ludicrous, yet he actually recently claimed just that (see below)! Since the early 1960s A-12/SR-71 program, the US has steadily and sometimes dramatically demonstrated how much more advanced it’s technology is, compared to the best of contemporaneous Russian technologies, and the gap is widening-not reducing. As the T:W numbers listed above clearly show, all operational Flankers have significantly less T:W @ 50% fuel, than does an F/A-18A Hornet that first flew in late 1978. This is the great air-power spectre, stalking poor hapless Aussies in crappy old evolved Hornets, except, these numbers also conversely mean that these original 30 year old Hornets had better T:W and agile climb performance, than even the latest Malaysian AL-31F Su-30s, being delivered to Malaysia next month.

So the question then is, if these figures are accurate, then why do all of Kopp’s T:W figures show the Flanker as a stronger performer than it actually is, with respect to RAAF HUG Hornet comparison? There’s a simple answer, Kopp deliberately misrepresents the open-source meta-data to deceive a reader of his partisan nonsense. Instead of using a published baseline static thrust of the in-service RuAF SU-27/30 Al-31F (27,557 lb), or AL-31F3 (28,250 lb), Kopp uses the non-operational thrust figure of 32,186 lb. That higher figure was for an ‘upgraded’ TVC engine, that had very poor reliability and TBO ever going to try upgrading to a high-risk low-TBO hr engine-there isn’t any way they can take such a huge risk. Yet Kopp uses these nonsense figures within his graphs, verbal claims and pretentious conclusions.

Su-30 Flanker = 1:1.06 (AL-31F @ baseline 27,557 lb)

Su-30 Flanker = 1:1.09 (AL-31F @ improved 28,250 lb)

F/A-18A/B HUG Hornet = 1:1.11

F/A-18F Super Hornet B2 = 1:1.12

Su-37 Flanker technology-demonstrator = 1:1.24 (AL-31FU TVC @ 32,186 lb)

F-16C Viper = 1:1.24

Su-27/35 Flanker (experimental) = 1:1.27 (AL-41F @ 33000 lb)

F-15E Strike Eagle = 1:1.27

With this quantitative slight-of-hand, Kopp falsely insists that RAAF Hornets are "kinematically inferior" in all manner or gauges, when actually, the reverse remains true, even against new-build Flankers. Consequently, Kopp writes ridiculous nonsense like this:

Finally -

I hope this initial blog entry has cleared up any question of why RAAF is deeply committed to F-35A procurement in the reader’s mind. Serving senior ADF know precisely why they want the JSF, and precisely why they don’t want the F-22A in its current in-service rendition. Critic’s concerted attempts to undermine public confidence in RAAF’s leadership and decision-making, is unwarranted, misguided and abysmally contemptible. The F-22A is never going to fit AIR 6000 ‘bomber’ needs for the ADF. Acquiring it would seriously impair the ADF’s capability development-for decades to come. This may not be what F-22A zealots what to read or believe but it’s what Australia would be stuck with if a Rudd government were to continue to blatantly ignore RAAF/ADF advice.