F-35 Program - General Discussion

Boagrius

Boagrius

Well-Known Member
C

colay1

Member
An underapreciated attribute of 5Gen aircraft - deterrence.

Got me to thinking... If the US and Partners are exploring new CONOPs and are just beginning to discover the full potential of 5Gen a/c, imagine the challenge facing any opponent trying to anticipate and develop a counter strategy.
 
A

ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Boagrius said:
I was thinking about this a little while back. The Argentinian Navy's response to the sinking of the General Belgrano sprung to mind. Something particularly demoralizing about an enemy you can't reliably find, let alone kill I imagine. Especially when the chips are down and it's lives that are on the line...
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That is what upsets me the most about those a*se clowns. Never once in their entire miserable lives have any of them, ever risked their lives for anything. They want to tell anyone who will listen only they truly understand what the RAAF etc need in order to prevail in the fanciful air combat scenarios they dream up, yet it isn't case and never will be, that their lives are actually on the line because of these choices...

Due to my career choices, I have been involved in plenty of tactically dangerous situations and yet I've never had so much as a single round fired at me. Despite this experience, I wouldn't dream of preaching how such scenarios should be handled prescriptively as they do and through which means seem best to me.

Yet they want to tell us that a platform whose 'raison d'etre' is to sneak up on any adversary we might have and take them down without said adversary even being aware that this is about to happen, isn't the right platform for us and people actually listen to this garbage?

Not to even mention, as GF has so frustratingly pointed out to people over the years, combat is becoming platform agnostic. What difference does a few percentage points about any particular aspect, make between platforms, when those platform drivers (in real world combat) may not ever even see each other and may not ever even shoot directly (from that platforms own capability) at each other (ala F-35 guiding SM-6 rounds and so on?)

Their POV has dumbed down modern combat capability to the point where their view no longer merits (if it ever did) even musing.
 
Boagrius

Boagrius

Well-Known Member
ADMk2 said:
That is what upsets me the most about those a*se clowns. Never once in their entire miserable lives have any of them, ever risked their lives for anything. They want to tell anyone who will listen only they truly understand what the RAAF etc need in order to prevail in the fanciful air combat scenarios they dream up, yet it isn't case and never will be, that their lives are actually on the line because of these choices...

Due to my career choices, I have been involved in plenty of tactically dangerous situations and yet I've never had so much as a single round fired at me. Despite this experience, I wouldn't dream of preaching how such scenarios should be handled prescriptively as they do and through which means seem best to me.

Yet they want to tell us that a platform whose 'raison d'etre' is to sneak up on any adversary we might have and take them down without said adversary even being aware that this is about to happen, isn't the right platform for us and people actually listen to this garbage?

Not to even mention, as GF has so frustratingly pointed out to people over the years, combat is becoming platform agnostic. What difference does a few percentage points about any particular aspect, make between platforms, when those platform drivers (in real world combat) may not ever even see each other and may not ever even shoot directly (from that platforms own capability) at each other (ala F-35 guiding SM-6 rounds and so on?)

Their POV has dumbed down modern combat capability to the point where their view no longer merits (if it ever did) even musing.
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Well said. This sort of thing is rampant nowadays IMO. The fact that any joe average can start themselves a blog (cough *SNAFU*cough *War Is Boring) and present it well enough to look convincing to other average punters often means that the premium we might have once placed on expertise gets lost. Add to that people's love for a bit of a conspiracy theory and the internet becomes awash with utter BS.

Meanwhile the people at the coalface making the actual sacrifices and dealing in reality scarcely get a look in as far as the public dialogue is concerned. A phenomenon I try to confront on a regular basis with my students.
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
colay1 said:
An underapreciated attribute of 5Gen aircraft - deterrence.

Got me to thinking... If the US and Partners are exploring new CONOPs and are just beginning to discover the full potential of 5Gen a/c, imagine the challenge facing any opponent trying to anticipate and develop a counter strategy.
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its more than that - the CONOPS have a distributed impact - we're no longer talking about 5th gen platform conops, we're looking at broader systems issues - its a 5th and now 6th gen systems issue as the platform changes immediately impact on purple developments

in fact the issue of having established conops against a platform is now in real terms a redundant concept. the conops changes have relevance for a force structure and platform capability at a point in time - but as they are discovering with F35, those capabilities are changing every few months as they discover what else it can do

its also now an issue about developments not just being discovery issues against the platforms in their service and even purple combat capability scenarios - they are discovering new capabilities and opportunities with the new generations of operators coming on-line

eg without being derogatory, the incoming "playstation generation" are bringing different personal attributes and capabilities and thinking into how we do business

its not only JSF where this is happening - UAS have exponentially jumped in capability options, first it was the israelis who set the benchmark, then it was the americans, then the russians bought in lateral thinking, then the chinese broadened the field, now with the accelerated advances into what feeds the common and combat operating pictures we are literally looking at a huge sensor bubble where if you are eared and geared up, then you can indirectly inform the fight and impact on effects being bought to bear.

so when you see these idiots who frequent APA's mutual hysteria club, the AB-JSF clubs, youtube etc... and see the platform centric and dogfighting debates - you can guarantee that they have no idea about what is now important and what has already happened with numerous militaries (not just airforces) and the impact on how modern 5th and 6th gen forces (not just platforms) will prosecute the fight etc....

the anti-JSF muppets can carry on about LPI, dogfight turns etc for as much as they like - they're completely missing the boat
 
C

colay1

Member
So it will boil down to who can achieve the shortest decision loop to select among a multitude of options to achieve the desired effects? And timely, accurate information to feed the process where humans are increasingly reliant upon machine intelligence which could lead to who knows where. Sam Harris had a compelling TED Talk on this a while back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nt3edWLgIg
 
A

ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
the road runner said:
Peter Wilson, a test pilot for JSF has a few things to say on JSF
Even talks about the Australian Lead in Fighter program in regards to JSF and F-18 in regards to JSF ... one thing was an eye opener ,the JSF has no radios !

"No radios," i can hear APA saying.... we told you this JSF is a dud ! :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlhEQ-qNtwI
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I know he means the F-35 doesn't have ranks of federated, individual radios, but he is not correct when he says the F-35 doesn't have 'any' radios.

For a start it has an emergency survival radio that is separated physically from the CNI bays in which the hardware for the SDR systems are located...
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
t68 said:
Then how do they talk to ATC?
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they don't have an analogue or digital radio - it's software.

think of a jitters solution - no more cumbersome interfaces between different force elements etc...

we've been using SBR for nearly 10 years now, its just not common knowledge - and its not a big ticket sexy item that gets attention as it's not battleship grey, goes supersonic, or goes bang
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
SpudmanWP said:
Israel is adding their C4 system into the F-35 as an "app" without changing any of the hardware.
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yep, they have to make it an app as they don't get the interface due to ITARs issues

they in effect have a radio which is a docklet with the combat network radio as the front end
 
S

SpudmanWP

The Bunker Group
gf0012-aust said:
yep, they have to make it an app as they don't get the interface due to ITARs issues

they in effect have a radio which is a docklet with the combat network radio as the front end
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LM basically fessed up to having an API which allowed the Israelis to tie their C4 system fully integrated into the F-35 without needing access to the source code.
 
A

ADMk2

Just a bloke
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
t68 said:
Then how do they talk to ATC?
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They are radios. The CNI platform on the F-35 is capable of generating 27 different waveforms from it's CNI infrastructure, including in due course satellite communications, the first fighter to do so, apparently...

https://www.f35.com/about/capabilities/missionsystems

What that pilot was referring to is that the F-35 doesn't have federated racks of individual radios as earlier fighters do.

What the F-35 has is dedicated processing hardware and the required apertures to generate the required radio waveforms needed for the differing radio requirements including HF, UHF, SINCGARS, HaveQuick II and so on. Also included in this package are the Link 16 and MADL.

They have no issue with talking over voice to anyone. The software hosted on dedicated processors is what provides the radio functionality, not dedicated boxes as used previously.
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
SpudmanWP said:
LM basically fessed up to having an API which allowed the Israelis to tie their C4 system fully integrated into the F-35 without needing access to the source code.
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yep, the API has to be US - its an ITARS issue. So the only way for the israelis to hook up any of their software solutions is via a US API - be it the prime - or someone in the US subcontracted to develop the API.

there is no way in hades that any of the partners can develop their own API to hook into the solutions as they require the critical bits to build the API in the first place

I know this problem well, spent some 3 years arguing about API dev issues for a similar problem

the israelis (or anyone) can't screen scrape their way through to a solution - its via an ITARs managed API or its years of grief

and the money is in that little, itty bitty API
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
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