US Air Force - USAF

Citation :

USAF to issue contract to Sikorsky for rescue helicopter


The US Air Force's combat rescue helicopter programme is moving forward.

The service announces on 4 March that it intends to issue a contract by the end of June to Sikorsky for the 14-year, $7 billion programme, which calls for up to 112 aircraft.

Sikorsky, in partnership with Lockheed Martin, was the only company to bid on the project with its proposed CRH-60, a modified version of its UH-60M Black Hawk.



Rendering of Sikorsky's CRH-60 combat rescue helicopter. Sikorsky.

The USAF says it will move $430 million from other programmes to the CRH programme though fiscal year 2019 due to "the criticality" of the combat rescue mission.

The project also received an injection of more than $300 million in the fiscal year 2014 budget.

The service warns, however, that the programme may need to be "reevaluated" should additional defense budget cuts take effect in fiscal year 2016.

"The competitive price and the funding provided by Congress will allow us to award the CRH contract, but we could still face significant challenges to keeping this effort on track," says USAF secretary Deborah Lee James in a statement. "We will need to work with Congress throughout 2015 budget deliberations."

The CRH is intended to replace the USAF's aging HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopters, which are also a Sikorsky product.

"Sikorsky and our teammate Lockheed Martin thank the USAF for enabling us to build a modern and affordable combat rescue helicopter that will replace the service’s rapidly aging HH-60G Pave Hawk fleet," says Sikorsky in a statement. "We look forward to working with the USAF to deliver CRH-60 aircraft in the prescribed timeframe."

Forbes a écrit:

Air Force: Don’t Buy Old Combat Aircraft

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is facing turbulent skies. Threats from China and Russia are on the rise. The Air Force aircraft inventory is the smallest and oldest in its history and the service's purchasing power is set to further decline amid the economic ravages wrought by COVID-19. Compounding the situation is the simple fact that perceived weakness risks opportunistic aggression by competitors around the world. For all of these reasons, the USAF must direct its finite acquisition dollars toward technologies that yield the greatest effectiveness in an increasingly dangerous world: stealth; advanced sensors, processing power, and connectivity.

This means the Air Force’s business case must be driven by what it costs to achieve a mission objective, or “cost-per-effect,” rather than the lowest lifecycle cost of individual aircraft absent operational realities. In short, that means stepping up procurement of the 5th generation F-35 and the stealthy B-21 bomber, not buying new versions of old aircraft like the F-15 and/or F-16, whose designs date back a half-century or more. Money is too short, and the adversary challenge too great to buy old aircraft designs that cost more and do less.

The mission imperative for stealth and 5th generation aerospace technology is clear. China and Russia have invested in systems that can easily target non-stealthy aircraft. They learned the lessons of Desert Storm—especially the need to hold U.S. aircraft at risk to prevent overwhelming offensive strikes. While the U.S. was bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq for two decades, China and Russia doubled down on highly advanced surface-to-air missiles, fighter aircraft, and command and control networks to hold non-stealthy types including the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, AV-8, B-1, B-52, and others, including the aircraft of our allied partners, at increasing risk. The U.S. went the other direction—radically curtailing its B-2 stealth bomber and F-22 5th generation stealth fighter buys at 21 and 187 aircraft, respectively. Today, only 13 percent of the Air Force bomber force and 20 percent of its fighter force is stealthy.

Adversaries know the U.S. is stretched thin in this key technology area. That is why Russia deployed advanced air defenses to Syria. The U.S. had to commit its limited stealth aircraft there, or risk potential losses. With those aircraft committed to our four-year air war against the Islamic State in Syria, minimal stealth capacity existed for possible operations elsewhere. Expand that to a major theater like the Pacific and the U.S. is invariably a “day late, and a dollar short” every time because it simply lacks enough modern 5th generation combat aircraft. Older aircraft may be sent in their place, but if hostilities erupt, expect non-stealthy aircraft to go down in large, unprecedented numbers. It would take years to backfill these losses given strained aircraft and pilot production capacity. No military operation can survive without air superiority and long-range strike is the backbone of major regional conflict success.

The Air Force realizes action must be taken to buy down this risk and that is a key reason why the service has been aggressively pursuing new technologies, concepts of operation, and strategies. In nearly all cases, these represent advancements long overdue. However, decisions made by the service to pursue new buys of non-stealthy combat aircraft in the form of the F-15EX and as recently reported by the media, potentially F-16s, are short-sighted and unwise.

First and foremost, the Air Force needs more stealth, not less. Those ratios of 13 and 20 percent respectively for bombers and fighters will not improve by diluting capability with new purchases of old designs dating back half a century. Stealth became an imperative in the 1980s because wargames and analysis anticipated conventional aircraft losses against Soviet air defenses were so high that NATO’s viability was seriously questioned. Operation Linebacker II at the end of Vietnam saw the Air Force lose 15 B-52s and a dozen other aircraft in 12 days. Less than a year later, Israel lost 102 of 390 combat aircraft in the Yom Kippur War, which lasted a month. Neither of these operations was directly opposing Soviet forces, but instead Soviet-provided equipment—a pattern we are likely to see in the modern era. Defenses have grown vastly more lethal in the ensuing decades. If U.S. defense leaders were convinced stealth was essential back then, the case has dramatically escalated given more recent adversary investments. Against modern threat defenses stealth is a prerequisite—like wheels for a car, stealth is absolutely required for successful air campaign operations against a peer adversary or an enemy equipped by one.

While specific acquisition rates for new-build F-15s and/or F-16s remain unclear, what is certain is that the Air Force would have to buy between 10 and 20 of each type per year at a minimum to make a production line viable and populate squadrons with uniform aircraft types in a sensible fashion. The Air Force has sought to buy 48 F-35s per year in its official budget request for the last several years, with an additional dozen aircraft added by Congress in recent defense bills. The defense budget is not going up. That means everything is a zero-sum game. Those new-build F-15s and F-16s will have to displace other investments. If we are talking about a combined buy between 20 and 40 of these 4th generation aircraft per year, that risks lessening the F-35 production rate, seriously competing with B-21 production, undermining KC-46 buys, diluting resources available for the advanced battle management system (ABMS) and shortchanging what is available for nuclear modernization. Each and every one of those trades increases risk in capabilities and capacity that are wholly non-negotiable from both an operational requirements and a deterrence perspective.

There is no such thing as an equitable trade between new and old airpower technologies. It can take about 10 to 20 or more legacy fighters to accomplish the same effect achievable by a handful of F-22s or F-35s. If we are talking about striking targets, B-21s will hold an even more powerful advantage given range and payload attributes. The Air Force should not trade away even a portion of such obvious mission value to buy less effective aircraft under the assumption that they are “less costly and almost as effective.” Those two supposed attributes are of no value if the aircraft get shot down by an adversary as a result of their being non-stealthy with vulnerable and readily detectable radar and infra-red signatures.

Those who claim new-build F-15s and F-16s are somehow cheaper are failing to tally the numbers properly. While acquisition figures for the potential F-16 acquisition are not yet public, we do know that the F-15EX will cost well over $80M per aircraft and much more when equipped as desired, and probably close to that for new F-16s. That is above the latest price for the F-35A by several million dollars. That also reflects the reality that the bulk of the cost in these modern aircraft is driven by sensors, computing power, data links, and engines. If those investments are high no matter what, why not wrap them in stealth protection? A “new” F-15 or F-16, no matter how capable, thanks to new “bolt-on” technology, is not of much use if it cannot survive in the battlespace given its inherent non-stealthy design.

While it is true that new F-15EXs and F-16s might cost less per hour to fly from a strictly aircraft-versus-aircraft comparison, such assessments fail to acknowledge that a handful of 5th generation combat aircraft can accomplish what it would otherwise take dozens of non-stealth types to achieve and at far greater risk. The reason is simple—for the non-stealth types to have a chance to survive, they must fly in the protection of highly complex, large-scale defensive formations. Comparing the operational costs of those large strike packages to the stealth alternative sees the older technology driving vastly higher costs. This lesson was made manifest in Operation Desert Storm, when 20 F-117s attacked 28 separate targets on the first night of the war, while it took over 40 non-stealth aircraft to strike one target in the same time frame. Understanding and assessing these sorts of comparisons demand cost-per-effect analysis—which means comparing what it takes to accomplish a mission, not just buy hardware while ignoring its likely operational context.

If all these reasons were not enough to veto the push for more new-build F-15s and/or F-16s, there is the simple reality regarding the size of today’s Air Force. Gone are the days of a tiered force—where team A would fight the war and team B would be training to fight or handling lesser contingencies. Today’s combat Air Force is less than half the size of the one that existed during Desert Storm in 1991. That means if a serious conflict erupts now, everyone must go into the fight. Even if lesser contingencies are in play, the Air Force needs a viable force rotation pool of aircraft and crews. As Syria proved, placing advanced air defenses in a region flips a switch that instantly demands 5th generation combat aircraft are there to counter it. Adversaries know this and can easily stress available stealth capacity—it is an obvious tactic. If the rotation pool of necessary capabilities is too small, the equipment and people who support and employ them will be exhausted before the fight can be won. The Air Force has been juggling these risks for far too long. This is what broke the B-1 bomber force with non-stop rotations to Afghanistan and Iraq for two decades straight.

For those who think the Air Force should significantly reduce 5th generation aircraft buys and race to 6th generation, the response is simple: the service has been doing that for the past 30 years and that is what has resulted in the oldest and smallest U.S. Air Force in history. If it is always about “program next,” the service will never get to a force structure of operational significance. Instead, it will invest tremendous sums in research and development, production lines, some initial buys, and then truncate the effort right when the best performing, lowest cost jets are available. That is exactly what happened to the B-2, F-22, and C-17. This imposes a massive cost on the service for marginal return. If the requirement is valid, the most effective efficient option is to accelerate the program of record. Otherwise, it will be left with piecemeal force structure elements that are too small to meet demand, acquiring designs to plug the demand gap but requiring significant modernization to simply remain somewhat viable, and a race to develop the next set of technologies to fix a capability and capacity shortfall. The time to commit to modern production in volume is now. Design and development of 6th generation capability should proceed, but as a recapitalization of our geriatric Air Force is occurring, not exacerbating a force deficit by postponing or slowing that recapitalization until 6th generation aircraft achieve full operational capability.

With cash tight and the demand signal growing, the Air Force has no choice but to double down on the capabilities and capacity it deems most essential. That in no uncertain terms means increasing the buy rate on the 5th generation F-35 and planning for increased procurement of the stealthy B-21. The notion that the same mission results can be derived from 50-year-old designs that cost roughly the same or more than newer aircraft is simply without foundation in fact. There is no question that the aircraft bought over the next few years will be flown in combat and the consequences of this stealth versus non-stealth/legacy aircraft procurement decision will weigh heavily on the outcome of any future conflict. Today’s leaders need to make sure they are equipping tomorrow’s airmen with what they will need to fly, fight, and win.

Making history in the Air Capital of the World —Congratulations to @usairforce for receiving its first @Beechcraft AT-6E Wolverine. #LAA #CVEO #Interoperability https://t.co/eQjDZhMwzO

— Textron Aviation Defense (@TxtAvDefense) February 17, 2021

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39316/air-force-boss-wants-clean-sheet-fighter-thats-less-advanced-than-f-35-to-replace-f-16 a écrit:

Story: https://t.co/8vG4rYzoj8

— Oriana Pawlyk (@Oriana0214) February 25, 2021

Fahed64 a écrit:

L’USAF ne veut plus du F-35

Il y a un projet ´un jet entre le F-16 et le F-3si je me trompe pas.

D’ici la le fighting falcon a encore de beau jour devant lui

Il va un avoir encore une évolution du jet d’ici 10 and un block 80 Inch’Allah

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/us-may-field-new-fighter-by-fy-2029 a écrit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD15_k1JXzU a écrit:

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/29222/Armtec_Countermeasures_Wins__250M_for_F_16__C_130_Decoy_Flares#.YF8faC27ho4 a écrit:

Citation :

08/04/2021

L’US Air Force baptise le F-15EX : « Eagle II » !



L’US Air Force a officiellement accepté le premier avion de combat F-15EX de nouvelle génération, lors d’une cérémonie le 7 avril qui s’est tenue sur la base aérienne d'Eglin, en Floride. L’avion est réceptionné au sein de la 96e Escadre d'essai. Le second appareil rejoindra prochainement le 85ème Escadron de l'Air Combat Command pour les tests opérationnels.

Baptisé « Eagle II » :

Lors de la cérémonie, le F-15EX a été baptisé « Eagle II » pour assurer la continuité avec les versions plus anciennes de l’« Eagle ». L'USAF prévoit d'acheter 144 F-15EX « Eagle II » sur 10 à 12 ans pour remplacer progressivement les F-15C/D. Mais des discussions sont déjà engagées pour remplacer une partie des F-15 E. Le premier lot de production comprend six avions, qui seront livrés au cours de l'exercice 2023. Les lots suivants seront livrés à l'école de F-15 de Kingsley Field en Oregon et à la première base opérationnelle de l'aéroport international de Portland, Oregon. Le F-15EX « Eagle II » est désormais également destiné au transport de nouvelles armes notamment hypersoniques.

Quatre autres avions supplémentaires devraient être remis à l'USAF d'ici la fin de l'exercice 2023.

Le F-15EX « Eagle II » :



Sous la désignation de projet F-15EX, la nouvelle variante du jet offre des commandes de vol plus modernes, un grand écran unique et un radar amélioré. L'avion emportera également beaucoup plus d’armes avec plus de deux douzaines de missiles air-air, soit une capacité inégalée au sein de l’USAF.

Parfaitement conscient de la situation actuelle, l’avionneur Boeing travaille depuis plusieurs mois sur une solution basée sur des améliorations de l’actuel F-15. Pour Boeing, il s’agissait de reprendre les travaux engagés sur le « Silent Eagle » mais avec une capacité d’emport d’armement élargie. Le concept de Boeing « F-15 2.040C » (F-15X). La version 2. 040C permettrait également, selon les études de Boeing, de doubler le nombre de missiles à par avions et donc combler une énorme faiblesse du F-35, sa capacité d’emport.

Boeing a doté le F-15EX d’une version améliorée du radar Raytheon APG-63 (V) 3 à balayage électronique actif (AESA), avec une nouvelle suite de guerre électronique dénommée EPAWSS « Eagle Passive/Active Warning Survivability », et un capteur IRST et une liaison de données améliorée permettant de travaillant en binôme avec le F-22 et le F-35.

Le F-15 ainsi modernisé, offre la possibilité de travailler directement avec le F-22 et le F-35 en appuis avec une forte capacité de tir grâce au transport de missiles accrut, mais il permettrait également de fonctionner de manière plus furtive avec l’armement monté dans les trappes. La particularité réside dans le fait, qu’il sera possible en fonction de la mission, de choisir entre le transport en interne ou de revenir au transport traditionnel, emport de carburant et armes en externes.

Capacité d’emport phénoménale :

Avec la possibilité d’emporter jusqu’à 24 missiles air-air, le F-15EX « Advanced » sera bien supérieur à ses concurrents, mais il pourra également emporter une gamme complète d’armes comme par exemple: le JSOW, le Harpoon, le missile antiradar HARM. On parle également d’adapter progressivement des armes à énergie dirigée comme les lasers, une fois que ceux-ci seront disponibles. Par ailleurs, il peut lancer des armes hypersoniques jusqu'à 22 pieds de long et pesant jusqu'à 7’000 livres. La grande taille de l’avion en facilitera l’intégration. Dernier élément, le F-15EX pourra travailler en binôme avec des drones pour les actions de frappes en profondeur.

La plate-forme nécessite également une formation transitoire minimale sans main-d'œuvre supplémentaire et peu ou pas de changements d'infrastructure, assurant la poursuite de la mission.

L'architecture OMS permettra l'insertion rapide des dernières technologies aéronautiques. Pour soutenir davantage la cellule numérique et faire avancer l’insertion de technologique, le programme F-15EX utilise le précurseur à l’initiative DevSecOps du ministère de la Défense, visant à développer des logiciels sécurisés, flexibles et agiles. De plus, l'architecture des systèmes de mission ouverts garantit sa viabilité pendant des décennies. L'épine dorsale numérique du F-15EX, ses systèmes de mission ouverts et sa capacité de charge utile généreuse cadrent bien avec la nouvelle vision de l’USAF d'une future guerre en réseau. Le F-15EX réunit les avantages de l'ingénierie numérique, des systèmes de mission ouverts et du développement de logiciels agiles rester abordable et évolutif pour les décennies à venir.




Photos : 1 Eagle II 2 en vol 3 de face @ USAF

http://psk.blog.24heures.ch/archive/2021/04/08/l-us-air-force-baptise-le-f-15ex-%C2%A0eagle-ii%C2%A0-%C2%A0-870835.html

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/29315/U_S_A_F__C_17_Airlifter_Catches_Fire_on_Runway#.YHHIdy17RsM a écrit:

Citation :

A US Air Force war game shows what the service needs to hold off — or win against — China in 2030

17 - 21 minutes

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force repelled a Chinese invasion of Taiwan during a massive war game last fall by relying on drones acting as a sensing grid, an advanced sixth-generation fighter jet able to penetrate the most contested environments, cargo planes dropping pallets of guided munitions and other novel technologies yet unseen on the modern battlefield.

But the service’s success was ultimately pyrrhic. After much loss of life and equipment, the U.S. military was able to prevent a total takeover of Taiwan by confining Chinese forces to a single area.

Furthermore, the air force that fought in the simulated conflict isn’t one that exists today, nor is it one the service is seemingly on a path to realize. While legacy planes like the B-52 bomber and newer ones like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter played a role, many key technologies featured during the exercise are not in production or even planned for development by the service.

Still, the outcome was a marked improvement to similar war games held over the last two years, which ended in catastrophic losses. The Air Force’s performance this fall offers a clearer vision of what mix of aircraft, drones, networks and other weapons systems it will need in the next decade if it hopes to beat China in a potential war. Some of those items could influence fiscal 2023 budget deliberations.

China is “iterating so rapidly, and I think that forces us to change,” said Lt. Gen. Clint Hinote, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, told Defense News in March. “If we can change, we can win.”

A ‘hard target’

Air Force officials talked about the classified war game’s results with Defense News in March, just months before the service is set to release its fiscal 2022 budget — its first spending request under the new Biden administration.

In similar war games held in 2018 and 2019, the Air Force failed disastrously.

The 2018 exercise involved an easier scenario in the South China Sea where the service fielded a force similar to the one it operates today; but it lost the game in record time. The following year, during a Taiwan invasion scenario, the Air Force experimented with two different teams of aircraft that either operated inside of a contested zone or stayed at standoff distances to attack a target. The service lost, but officials believed they were closer to finding an optimal mix of capabilities.

The findings helped determine what the Air Force fielded for its 2020 war game — played out by the Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability team — over a two-week period.

One breakthrough moment, recounted Hinote, occurred at the start of the game. When the officer in charge of commanding the “red team,” which simulated China, looked out at the playing field, he initially declined to move forward with an invasion of Taiwan. China considers the self-governing province of Taiwan as its sovereign territory, and has vowed to unite it with the mainland.

“The red commander looked at the playing board and said: ‘This is not rational for China to initiate an invasion, given this posture that I’m facing,’” Hinote said.
In this Feb. 10, 2020, image released by Taiwan's government, a Taiwanese Air Force F-16, foreground, flies on the flank of a Chinese H-6 bomber as it passes near the island. (Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this Feb. 10, 2020, image released by Taiwan's government, a Taiwanese Air Force F-16, foreground, flies on the flank of a Chinese H-6 bomber as it passes near the island. (Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense via AP)

But the Air Force wasn’t going to end the war game before it even started. The red commander pushed forward with an invasion anyway.

For the war game, the Air Force made several underlying assumptions that the U.S. military and its partners will be successful in overcoming certain fiscal and technological challenges.

For example, in the service’s version of the future, the U.S. military had implemented its Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, which would allow the armed services to send data among their previously unconnected sensors and shooters. This meant the Air Force had fielded its Advanced Battle Management System, which could work with networks and communications technologies procured as part of the Navy’s Project Overmatch and the Army’s Project Convergence efforts.

In addition, Taiwan had successfully increased defense spending as outlined by President Tsai Ing-wen, who has called for buying drones and electronic warfare equipment along with M1A2 Abrams tanks and F-16V fighter jets, as well as upgrading to its Patriot missile defense system, according to Reuters.

The U.S. Air Force also fought with a notional force that allowed it to operate different technologies that are not currently in its budget plans.

In addition, before the conflict started, the Air Force took steps to disaggregate both its operational footprint and its command-and-control structure. It made investments to remote airfields across the Pacific region — fortifying and lengthening runways as well as pre-positioning repair equipment and fuel — so that forces could deploy to those locations during a war instead of main operational bases. This approach is something the service calls “agile combat employment.”

“We tried to design ourselves where we would be a hard target. As an example, we never filled up any airfield more than 50 percent, so even if you lost that entire airfield, you wouldn’t lose your entire fleet,” Hinote said.
Airmen from the 353rd Special Operations Group prepare to refuel a U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle during Exercise Westpac Rumrunner on July 31, 2020, at Kadena Air Base, Japan. The exercise was dedicated to implementing agile combat employment concepts. (Tech. Sgt. Micaiah Anthony/U.S. Air Force)
Airmen from the 353rd Special Operations Group prepare to refuel a U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle during Exercise Westpac Rumrunner on July 31, 2020, at Kadena Air Base, Japan. The exercise was dedicated to implementing agile combat employment concepts. (Tech. Sgt. Micaiah Anthony/U.S. Air Force)

Finally, instead of separate command organizations for the land, maritime and air domains, the Air Force created small command-and-control teams comprised of five to 30 individuals from all the services. The team members were able to oversee the battlespace and direct forces using portable technology, such as hand-held tablets.

“You would pass off the command of your forces, and in a way that meant that you were not ever knocked out of the fight,” Hinote said. “They could knock [Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii] out of the fight. In fact, they do almost every time we play this. But what they can’t do is they can’t knock out every command-and-control element that you have out there.”

Now, what has emerged is a list of what the Air Force thinks it needs to win a war after 2030:

Tactical aircraft

The air power community has been divided in recent years over how to affordably replace the Air Force’s aging tactical aircraft fleet while ensuring there are enough advanced fighters to battle the likes of Russia or China.

Should the service move forward with its plan to eventually replace the A-10, F-16 and some F-15C/D aircraft with stealthy fifth-generation F-35s? Or could a mix of F-35s and new fourth-generation jets like the F-15EX give the service more flexibility?

This disagreement heightened in February, when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown floated the idea of designing a less expensive, non-stealthy follow-on fighter to replace the service’s oldest F-16s, instead of replacing them with the F-35, as had been planned for decades.

The service is currently evaluating its options through a tactical aircraft study to inform the fiscal 2023 budget, which could result in cuts to the Air Force’s program of record for 1,763 F-35As.

“We don’t have to make that decision this year,” Hinote said. However, he added, the roles each aircraft played during the war game could influence the outcome of the study “to a great degree.”

In the war game, four types of aircraft made up the Air Force’s future fighter inventory. Three of those are ongoing programs of record for the service:

The highly advanced Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft, or NGAD, and its associated systems, which were capable of penetrating highly contested airspace.
The Lockheed Martin-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which operated as a “workhorse” aircraft attacking targets at short ranges.
Boeing F-15EX aircraft, which mainly conducted defensive missions but were also loaded with long-range missiles and hypersonic weapons to strike targets farther downrange.

Finally, the service operated a non-stealthy, light, tactical fighter for homeland and base defense, which could also be flown in support of counterterrorism missions. That aircraft, which aligns with Brown’s idea for a “fourth-generation plus” replacement for the F-16, doesn’t currently exist in the service’s budget plans.
U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons taxi in front of an F-35A Lightning II at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea on Dec. 3, 2017. (Master Sgt. Frank W. Miller III/U.S. Air Force)
U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons taxi in front of an F-35A Lightning II at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea on Dec. 3, 2017. (Master Sgt. Frank W. Miller III/U.S. Air Force)

For years, Air Force officials have portrayed the F-35 as the aircraft that it would use to infiltrate into enemy airspace to knock out surface-to-air missiles and other threats without being seen. However, in the war game, that role was played by the more survivable NGAD, in part due to the F-35′s inability to traverse the long ranges of the Pacific without a tanker nearby, Hinote said.

Instead, the F-35 attacked Chinese surface ships and ground targets, protected American and Taiwanese assets from Chinese aircraft, and provided cruise missile defense during the exercise. But “it’s not the one that’s pushing all the way in [Chinese airspace], or even over China’s territory,” Hinote said.

Notably, the F-35s used during the war game were the more advanced F-35 Block 4 aircraft under development, which will feature a suite of new computing equipment known as “Tech Refresh 3,” enhancements to its radar and electronic warfare systems, and new weapons.

“We wouldn’t even play the current version of the F-35,” Hinote said. “It wouldn’t be worth it. … Every fighter that rolls off the line today is a fighter that we wouldn’t even bother putting into these scenarios.”

Drones and more drones

Much of the Air Force’s legacy drone inventory — such as the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper and Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk — operated in combat during the 2000s and 2010s across the uncontested battlespaces of the Middle East, where U.S. adversaries could not present significant electronic warfare or counter-air capabilities. But a war with a competitor like China some 30 years later requires more advanced and survivable drones.

For the war game, the Air Force relied on a mix of systems that are either under development or not currently sought by the service’s acquisition arm.

Autonomous “Loyal Wingman” drones flew alongside penetrating fighters in contested zones, providing additional firepower and sensor data to human pilots. Hinote pointed to Australia’s Loyal Wingman aircraft, which is produced by Boeing and flew for the first time in February, as an “impressive” capability that the U.S. sought to mirror in its war game.
Boeing's Airpower Teaming System conducts its maiden flight on March 1, 2021, over Australia. (Cpl. Craig Barrett/Royal Australian Air Force)
Boeing's Airpower Teaming System conducts its maiden flight on March 1, 2021, over Australia. (Cpl. Craig Barrett/Royal Australian Air Force)

Across the Taiwan Strait, the service operated a mass of small, inexpensive drones that formed a mesh network. Although they were mostly used as a sensing grid, some were outfitted with weapons capable of — for instance — hitting small ships moving from the Chinese mainland across the strait.

“An unmanned vehicle that is taking off from Taiwan and doesn’t need to fly that far can actually be pretty small. And because it’s pretty small, and you’ve got one or two sensors on it, plus a communications node, then those are not expensive. You could buy hundreds of them,” he said.

In the second island chain, the Air Force operated low-cost attritable drones out of installations such as Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. These aircraft, like the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie currently undergoing tests by the service, delivered ordnance against ships, aircraft and ground-based targets. Attritable drones are cheap enough that combat losses can be endured by commanders.

Even farther out, the service flew a notional successor to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, which Hinote said would not survive a conflict with China in the mid-2030s.

Instead of concentrating on ISR, the Air Force primarily used the RQ-4 replacement as a long-range communications node, sometimes outfitting it with more exquisite radar that can track moving, airborne targets. Hinote likened the platform to an unmanned version of Australia’s E-7A Wedgetail aircraft.

“You’re using the huge aperture in there and all the power that’s there, but it’s crewed by people on the ground somewhere else,” he said. “It’s kind of a transition from where we are today to the future. You can’t do that with the E-3 [airborne early warning and control plane]; it’s just too old of an aircraft.”

Bombers, tankers and airlift

Neither China nor the United States resorted to using nuclear weapons during the war game — a consequence, Hinote said, of being able to present a credible threat to China that the U.S. has the arsenal necessary to retaliate to a Chinese strike. However, the B-21 and B-52 bombers played active roles, providing conventional firepower during the scenario, with the B-21 penetrating into contested zones and the B-52 remaining at standoff distances.

Once the war game started and the fight began, it became difficult for the Chinese and U.S. militaries to conduct airlift missions within range of each other’s missile threats. That made it critical for the U.S. Air Force to be able to pre-position food, water, medical supplies and the equipment needed run an airfield — including aircraft parts, fuel and weapons — at the locations from which it plans to operate, Hinote said.

Even though airlift assets like the C-17 and C-130 couldn’t transport cargo or people to the fight in the early days of the conflict, the aircraft still played an offensive role by launching palletized munitions that are bundled together with a guidance package and airdropped from a plane.

“One interesting thing about possible war with a peer competitor is you’re pretty agnostic as to where the fires come from; you just need the fires,” Hinote said. “I don’t want to give the impression that we’re going to create bombers out of every C-17 out there. But in certain phases of a campaign like this, you really need the extra missiles.”
A high-altitude airdrop of palletized munitions (JASSM simulants) from a C-17 using standard operational airdrop procedures was conducted during the U.S. Air Force’s testing of Advanced Battle Management System technology. (U.S. Air Force)
A high-altitude airdrop of palletized munitions (JASSM simulants) from a C-17 using standard operational airdrop procedures was conducted during the U.S. Air Force’s testing of Advanced Battle Management System technology. (U.S. Air Force)

A full complement of KC-46 tankers fulfilled the aerial refueling mission during the scenario, but were kept out of high-threat environments.

The Air Force also experimented with several notional next-generation tanker designs to understand the trade-offs between fielding many small tankers capable of refueling many aircraft at a time versus operating large tankers that can carry a massive amount of fuel.

“We’re hoping that that’s going to help us as we think about what is the next step in air refueling. Do we just go buy more KC-46s? Do we look at some other type of tanking concepts and try to create a capability around that?” Hinote wondered. “I don’t have an answer for that yet because the excursions were somewhat inclusive, and they depend on a lot of things that you’re making decisions on now,” such as the mix of fighters and bombers.

What happens now?

The outcome of the war game was a United States victory, where the U.S. Air Force helped rebuff the Chinese military from taking over Taiwan. But any U.S. fight with a nation-state like China has the potential to be catastrophic for both countries.

Both the United States and Taiwan suffered high levels of attrition during the exercise, with an even higher rate of casualties among Chinese forces. Hinote declined to share exact figures due to the classification of the exercise, but said the Air Force incurred losses an “order of magnitude” lower than those projected by the service in its 2018 war game.

“The force that we had programmed, say, in 2018 took devastating losses. This force doesn’t take those devastating losses,” Hinote said. “They do take losses. We do lose a lot of airmen. It is a difficult fight.

“And that kind of gets to the point of what does it take to stand up to China in the Indo-Pacific, literally on their front doorstep. And the answer is: It takes a willingness to be able to suffer those losses. It’s just a difficult, very sobering reality that we have.”

The service plans to take its findings to Capitol Hill in the hopes of gaining the support of lawmakers for the difficult force posture decisions coming down the line in upcoming budget discussions. Brown, the Air Force’s top general, has indicated that programs could be canceled and legacy aircraft retired as the service seeks to revolutionize its technology.

But as Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget expert with the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a March report, Congress has repeatedly rolled back the service’s plans to cut its existing force structure.

“This leaves the Air Force trapped in a near-term Catch-22,” she stated. “On one hand, it is trying to divest itself of decades-old legacy airframes, which drive up [operations and maintenance] costs every year, so that it can reinvest in next-generation platforms. On the other hand, its replacement aircraft programs will not be operational fast enough to meet the ongoing demands of global operations, even if the net savings from legacy divestments are sufficient to fund new platforms.”

During the war game last fall, the Air Force invited staff members from the congressional defense committees to help shape the exercise and interpret the results, hoping to pave the way for its narrative to gain traction among lawmakers.

“We’re trying to help people see the future, what it might look like, the types of choices it would take” to win a war, all keeping in mind “the evidence-based possibility that if we were able to change, we probably wouldn’t have to fight,” Hinote said. “And that’s a reason to change.”

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US looking at ‘over-the-horizon' options for counter-terrorism ops in Afghanistan