When it comes to various modelling scenarios about how the JSF will perform against potential threats, the results are usually not great. But recent experience might well be turning that tide.
A Special Correspondent | Canberra
Who can forget the infamous RAND Corporation study of a battle around Taiwan in which Chinese might overwhelmed US air power. Flying from close bases, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force was able to maintain a sustained defence against US carrier aircraft and those flown from the closest land bases. This scenario played to all China’s strengths and even the much vaunted F-22 Raptors weren’t able to significantly affect the outcome.
But what almost everyone took away from this was the less than stellar performance of the new F-35 Lightning. One commentator concluded the F-35s would be “clubbed like baby seals”.
RAND itself made no such claim. The provenance of the actual quote is unclear. In one version, it was first mentioned in a 2008 email to then DMO head Stephen Gumley from longtime JSF critic Peter Goon, who attributed this colourful and enduring remark to an unnamed third party.
RAND itself went to considerable efforts to distance itself from the conclusions many drew. The scenario, it insisted, was never intended as a test of the JSF. Rather it was solely intended as a hypothetical analysis of the US squaring off against China in circumstances where the latter had the home team advantage.
"F-35 stealth attributes remain highly classified but CMANO takes an educated guess."
JSF doesn’t get much good press – after all the media works by saying how bad stuff is, not how well it’s going. The latest was a leaked flight test report in which a test pilot aboard a F-35A was unable to defeat F-16D in a close-in dogfight. F-16 is one of the many legacy aircraft JSF is slated to replace.
This provoked much comment. The critics said this was more proof JSF was an expensive disaster.
Liberal MP Dennis Jensen, a former defence scientist and another longtime JSF critic, wrote that the US was going to have to relearn the lessons of Vietnam when US air-to-air missiles weren’t that effective and pilots sometimes needed to be able to dogfight – for which they needed both manoeuvrability and a gun.
JSF doesn’t actually get a gun capability for another two years when the appropriate software block is installed.
ASPI’s Andrew Davies retorted that late 1960s air-to-air missiles weren’t that great but progressively improved. And in any case, the numbers showed there were still many more missile victories.
Others said the JSF v F16 test was hardly representative. The JSF involved was early test aircraft AF-2, lacking the full sensor suite, stealth coatings and flying with restrictive flight control software. Besides JSF was never designed as a dogfighter – it would detect enemy aircraft at long range then blat them from the sky before they even knew they were in strife.
The leaked flight test report initially appeared on the War is Boring website, of which your correspondent is a big fan. Why the name, you might wonder? The site’s theme is “war is boring – we go so you don’t have to bother” and it publishes a diversity of interesting articles.
But it’s no fan of JSF, routinely describing it as the worst combat aircraft the US has ever acquired. So your correspondent was most intrigued to find on this site an article by Tim Robinson, editor-in-chief of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s monthly mag Aerospace where the piece was originally published.
Robinson used the publicly available PC wargame Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations (CMANO) to pit JSF – in this case RAF F-35Bs – against the latest Russian Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker in a series of scenarios which allow JSF to make full use of its sensors, networking and stealth.
Not being a gamer, your correspondent isn’t familiar with CMANO but it’s billed as a hyper-realistic platform highly regarded by amateurs and professionals. F-35 stealth attributes remain highly classified but CMANO takes an educated guess. Rather than making it invisible, the F-35 is given radar and IR signatures from different aspects, making it detectable at close range.
The scenario is a combat air patrol in a future crisis over the Baltic, around 2020. Four F-35s face four Russian Flankers. So how did F-35 perform? Pretty damned well. In some 15 games, the worst result was one F-35 shot down for three Flankers lost. Otherwise, Flankers were all destroyed in beyond visual range engagements.
Stealth gave F-35 a big advantage but the game changer was its electronic support measures which allowed detection and classification of the Flankers well before they were even aware they were at risk.
Robinson concluded that this wasn’t a perfect simulation but within its realm, F-35 certainly didn’t suck at air combat. With the US Marine Corps now declaring IOC for its first operational F-35B squadron, we might get a better idea of JSF capability from the real world.