Interesting viewpoint on mind-boggling Fighters vs. Reality....Good Quick Read...
Are modern fighter jets too sophisticated for warfare?
David Hambling
David Hambling, Author of Swarm Troopers: How small drones will conquer the world
Updated Mar 25
Yes, and that's why they're doomed.
The drive for ever-more sophisticated aircraft in ever smaller numbers has resulted in aircraft which are good at just one thing: beating planes which are slightly inferior. What they can't do is handle masses of cheap, unmanned opponents, which are now being built.
Let me explain just how bad the problem is with these exquisite things:
The North American P-51 Mustang was one of the most important US fighters of WWII. Over fifteen thousand were built, at a cost of around $50,000 each in 1945 dollars ($655,000 in 2014).
The Mustang was succeeded in the 1950s by the jet-powered F-100 Super Sabre at a cost of $700,000 – ($6 million in 2014), i.e. ten times as expensive as the plane it replaced in real terms.
The McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom, which first flew in 1960, broke the million-dollar barrier, costing $2.4 million apiece in 1965 ($18 million in 2014), tripling the cost of its predecessor. Even allowing for inflation, the upwards curve is steep.
By the 1980s, the USAF’s new F-15 Eagle, was set to replace the F-4, costing in excess of $20 million ($45 million in 2014), almost tripling again the cost of its predecessor.
The F-22 managed to top this at $300m a plane.
The Air Force now has a “high-low” mix, supplementing the elite F-15 and F-22s with a large number of smaller cheaper aircraft - F-16s and now F-35. Unfortunately, even the F-35 costs a whopping $150m each.
The other effect of sophistication is that the generation time for new fighters is almost 20 years from drawing board to getting in service, so the electronics can be outdated from the start. The F-22's main computer is based in the Intel 80960, a 1990's-era device which runs at 10 million instructions per seconds; the iPhone 6 runs at 26 billion instructions per second.
These planes are good at what they were designed for. An F-35 can trash half a dozen 80's-era planes without difficulty and fly back unharmed. What it can't do is fight 200 P-51 Mustangs.
Of course, nobody is going to field swarms of cheap, low-performance manned planes because their pilots would be slaughtered. Swarms of cheap unmanned planes are a different matter: you can construct a military-grade drone capable of carrying a grenade-sized warhead for $1500, so the choice is between one F-35 or a swarm of 100,000 drones.
Now, the swarm can't beat the F-35 in air-to-air combat - it's way too slow - but the F-35 does not dare getting close to what is in effect a flying minefield of lethal kamikaze obstacles all eager to collide with it. And thanks to solar power, the small drones have long range and endurance, and can simply form a killer cloud around airfields, waiting for anything to emerge so they can blow it up on the tarmac.
The Navy is already building its first drone swarms in a project called LOCUST:
They are the future. Fighting machines need to be robust, reliable and expendable; we now have a situation with the F-22 that, because numbers are so low (less than 200 built), any losses at all will have a severe impact on the fleet. They are far too valuable to be risked in serious combat the way WWII aircraft were.
Unfortunately, most people in the Pentagon will not see it that way, and there is a gigantic, trillion-dollar industry based on expensive manned planes. The Chinese or Russians may be the first to take advantage of the new technology.
Lots more on this -- and in particular the growing capabilities of small drones in terms of long endurance and low cost, in SWARM TROOPERS - explaining how small drones will conquer the world .
Are modern fighter jets too sophisticated for warfare?
David Hambling
David Hambling, Author of Swarm Troopers: How small drones will conquer the world
Updated Mar 25
Yes, and that's why they're doomed.
The drive for ever-more sophisticated aircraft in ever smaller numbers has resulted in aircraft which are good at just one thing: beating planes which are slightly inferior. What they can't do is handle masses of cheap, unmanned opponents, which are now being built.
Let me explain just how bad the problem is with these exquisite things:
The North American P-51 Mustang was one of the most important US fighters of WWII. Over fifteen thousand were built, at a cost of around $50,000 each in 1945 dollars ($655,000 in 2014).
The Mustang was succeeded in the 1950s by the jet-powered F-100 Super Sabre at a cost of $700,000 – ($6 million in 2014), i.e. ten times as expensive as the plane it replaced in real terms.
The McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom, which first flew in 1960, broke the million-dollar barrier, costing $2.4 million apiece in 1965 ($18 million in 2014), tripling the cost of its predecessor. Even allowing for inflation, the upwards curve is steep.
By the 1980s, the USAF’s new F-15 Eagle, was set to replace the F-4, costing in excess of $20 million ($45 million in 2014), almost tripling again the cost of its predecessor.
The F-22 managed to top this at $300m a plane.
The Air Force now has a “high-low” mix, supplementing the elite F-15 and F-22s with a large number of smaller cheaper aircraft - F-16s and now F-35. Unfortunately, even the F-35 costs a whopping $150m each.
The other effect of sophistication is that the generation time for new fighters is almost 20 years from drawing board to getting in service, so the electronics can be outdated from the start. The F-22's main computer is based in the Intel 80960, a 1990's-era device which runs at 10 million instructions per seconds; the iPhone 6 runs at 26 billion instructions per second.
These planes are good at what they were designed for. An F-35 can trash half a dozen 80's-era planes without difficulty and fly back unharmed. What it can't do is fight 200 P-51 Mustangs.
Of course, nobody is going to field swarms of cheap, low-performance manned planes because their pilots would be slaughtered. Swarms of cheap unmanned planes are a different matter: you can construct a military-grade drone capable of carrying a grenade-sized warhead for $1500, so the choice is between one F-35 or a swarm of 100,000 drones.
Now, the swarm can't beat the F-35 in air-to-air combat - it's way too slow - but the F-35 does not dare getting close to what is in effect a flying minefield of lethal kamikaze obstacles all eager to collide with it. And thanks to solar power, the small drones have long range and endurance, and can simply form a killer cloud around airfields, waiting for anything to emerge so they can blow it up on the tarmac.
The Navy is already building its first drone swarms in a project called LOCUST:
They are the future. Fighting machines need to be robust, reliable and expendable; we now have a situation with the F-22 that, because numbers are so low (less than 200 built), any losses at all will have a severe impact on the fleet. They are far too valuable to be risked in serious combat the way WWII aircraft were.
Unfortunately, most people in the Pentagon will not see it that way, and there is a gigantic, trillion-dollar industry based on expensive manned planes. The Chinese or Russians may be the first to take advantage of the new technology.
Lots more on this -- and in particular the growing capabilities of small drones in terms of long endurance and low cost, in SWARM TROOPERS - explaining how small drones will conquer the world .
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