Long range air-capacity, isn’t that dictated by missiles not the platform that delivers them…?
Yes, it is silly. Lum’s comparison of the Predator with a scout helicopter is far more apt than comparing a Predator with a F-35.
You want to use a drone in a SEAD role to replace the F-35? Great, lets give it a comparable range, air to air refueling capability, avoinics and sensor suite and internal bay weapons loadout. People are worried the F-35 isn’t capable enough and you think the way to try and use something with less capability?
You can’t use a Predator in that role, sorry, guess you’re building something new. See above.
Guess how much a Global Hawk recon UAV currently costs factoring in development costs? Over $100 million dollars each.
Yeah, building lots of new combat drones will be cheap.
Five or six different engine development contracts! Multiple airframes! Different avionics suites for everybody, we’re making it rain for Lockheed-Martin and Boeing now!
I think you grossly underestimate development costs and the operational costs of unmanned vehicles with comparable performance characteristics to manned ones.
Depending on the missile you’re talking about releasing from a range as little as 10km but probably not more than 100km, how do you get the missile that close?
Just to expand on this (and tie it into the OP’s post), unless you have advance bases, you need some good at least forward bases, refueling planes, and decent range aircraft. Or you need some really long range stuff (B1, B2, B52 maybe, considering the current American inventory; I’m not sure the Russian stuff is mission capable at this point). Of course, our refueling planes are not exactly new, and the procurement process for the new one was…how exactly did Boeing not get disqualifed from it again? Never was sure on that one.
X-47B has a range of 2000 miles, its successors will probably replace F/A-18s.
Plans to remain airborne for 50 to 100 hours – even if the costs were the same as the manned versions, the capabilities will be better.
The idea of an all-drone air force makes me pretty nervous. Maybe I’ve been watching too many spy movies, but it does seem like it would be technically feasible to either jam the signals between the operators and the drone, rendering them useless, or worse somehow take over the drones.
I do agree that they have a place within the air force and often can perform jobs better than piloted aircraft and for less money.
I like drones, but when you consider that the UK is just now managing to run their drones from a place other than Nevada, you realize that there’s a huge amount of work to generate real capability at the pointy end of the stick.
Honestly, I’m not really sure that most countries have really budgeted to develop any real capability of anything. A small squadron of fighter jets without the maintenance, stores, and training isnt much more than an airshow display.
At least New Zealand accepted that they didn’t have the money to maintain the capability.
Dollars to donuts if the X-47 makes it all the way through the development process it doesn’t hold that range.
While that might be useful, that kind of time aloft still requires support for many mid-air refuelings and you still have to have a pilot alert and at the console, which ends up being a hell of a lot of rotations.
Not to mention even integrating a single UAV squadron into a carrier air wing is going to require a fair bit of work on the carrier itself. I do think it will happen, but it’s a synergistic evolution with existing jets, not a revolution that makes the manned planes obsolete.
Fuel is still going to be expensive, no matter what aircraft you put it into.
A lot of the “debate” surrounding the F35 is complete nonsense, the facts are commonly ignored if they don’t fit the agenda, it seems to be a common trend in western society lately, dumb is better.
You do have to admit that it would be a much less controversial decision for the various countries if they were buying something that was closer to completion with established capabilities and costs.
I think the plane willl be utter useless soonish… advances in drone and missile tech is going to render anything manned in the airspace in a high intensity war dead fast…stealth or no stealth.
The article says 1,500 nautical miles elsewhere, but the Navy is going to damned well make it have that range. Otherwise they lose.
I do think it will happen, but it’s a synergistic evolution with existing jets, not a revolution that makes the manned planes obsolete.
Disagree completely. When China gets 1,000-mile-range anti-carrier missiles? Manned fighters become obsolete overnight in the Pacific theater. Overnight.
You’re seriously underestimating the changes coming in 21st century warfare, or the rapidity with which they’ll arrive. I’ll make you a bet: within 15 years, all manned fighters are off of carriers in the Pacific. That’s June 15, 2026. Want to bet?
Edit: Here’s another interesting article.
Stealth may be about to lose its effectiveness (in which case flying gets a lot more dangerous to human pilots), but drones have a stealth advantage even so.
Final edit FTW: And if you don’t think they’re already working on robotic refueling drone tankers and communications relays / surveillance drones, I’d recommend you think again…
Absolutely, I’ll take that bet in second.
The Chinese ASBM requires a host of sensor data and a continual up-link through to the final moments. That network would be decimated in the first hour of any conflict. Assuming it’s still operation though even that doesn’t spell the end of the carrier battle group, an effective ASBM simply changes the operating environment. It means launching further out and conducting fewer sorties but it doesn’t mean the deathknell of the carrier; not yet at least.
Even as the Chinese embrace these asymmetric equalizers* they’re doubling down on traditional forms of power projection. The PLAN is growing at an incredible clip and by 2026 they’ll have at least three domestically built carriers. Carriers remain the best way to project power beyond your borders and they remain far more survivable than any forward airbase.
- The PLAN will eventually be a peer competitor to the USN in the Pacific. In the interim the Chinese are developing a host of less expensive area denial tools to prevent the US from intervening in a crisis or at the very least delay any effective response. That includes everything from the ASBM to an armada of littoral missile boats. It forms a holistic solution to the American problem, helping to plug short term gaps (relatively inexpensively) while they develop a more lasting solution. All that said, there are 23 carriers in and around the Pacific right now and adding three domestic carriers really don’t change the ratio very much. The Chinese pugnacious foreign policy doesn’t help much, they won’t compromise on territorial claims and that’s driving a remarkable naval build up in the region. It’s not just India, it’s Vietnam, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea. They’re buying everything from diesel subs to aircraft carriers.
Aaaah fuck it, time for the megaquote.
They said it, I didn’t. I just added the emphasis.
Incendiary Lemon, you’re on.
Harpoon 2026 is going to be one hell of a game…
Why stop at keeping the carriers? It’ll be interesting to see if they survive for use in great power conflicts; from my badly informed perspective they certainly appear to be the new battleships - expensive, powerful, but sitting ducks. Obligatory link to that hilarious war nerd guy.
That’s seriously why I brought up Harpoon. Yes, they are big, but they are also the only way to project power across oceans, and they are increasingly going to be defended by an armada of drone aircraft. Antimissile defense is going to get bigger and bigger (lasers were made for nuclear-powered ships), and there will be wars of naval robotic attrition… it’s going to be Clancy meets Terminator in the Pacific.
I hope someone does go balls-out and make a near future naval warfare simulator with all kinds of informed speculation (and cool gameplay!) about robotic air assets. But with the lingering death of Harpoon (last I heard, anyway), it looks unlikely.
Technically we’re supposed to meet the enemy in Australia, if Australia falls we’re finished at any rate.
The archaic sky hawks were just to provide low level anti shipping from Darwin, the sqn was posted there before they were finally axed/mothballed.
Which is why the Aussies were quite tee’d off thinking that we’re sponging off them (even more) when it comes to defence.
I wonder how many nations are really going to buy the F35 eventually. I know the Netherlands probably wont be one of them considering we can’t even maintain our our tanks.
I remember reading that after WW2 , someone in the US navy thought the carriers to be useless and favoured land based over carrier based. This makes sense to me considering how vulnerable they are, and how poor the planes that operate on them are compared to land based jets.
Also the US flagship has been a sub a good while …which is another weapon that carriers don’t like much.
I have no faith in carrier taskforces for anything other than to be a political free card, a base of operations that doesn’t get entangled into politics as it can be in international waters… I guess thats where the range requirements really stem from too.