History Tells Us How To Make Sure F-35s Can Beat Russian Stealth Fighters

WarIsBoring

Security,

And Chinese, too. 

If the F-35 is to survive in future wars, its operators must devise tactics that take advantage of this one attribute, Kopp advised. “The decisive factor for the JSF in this game will be its limited stealth performance.”

The U.S. military’s new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter can’t turn fast enough to defeat a much older F-16 in mock air combat, according to an official test pilot report that War Is Boring obtained.

(This article by David Axe originally appeared at War is Boring in 2015.)

So how will F-35s — on track to be the U.S. Air Force’s most numerous fighter — survive in battle against foes flying much more nimble Russian and Chinese jets?

Look to history for possible answers. Fifty years ago, the Air Force was in a similar predicament. Its main strike fighter was the F-105 Thunderchief — a heavy, high-tech ground-attacker that, much like the F-35, was supposed to also be able to defeat enemy fighters.

But in fact, the F-105 — like the F-35 — turned too slowly to reliably beat the Russian-made MiG-21, the Thunderchief’s main potential rival at the time. So the Air Force worked out special tactics to help the F-105 survive.

The flying branch will have to do the same for the F-35.

The similarities between the F-35 and F-105 are striking. “Both the F-105 and JSF are large, single-seat, single-engine strike fighters, using the most powerful engine of the era … [and] with empty weights in the 27,000-pound class, and wingspans almost identical at 35 feet,” Carlo Kopp, an Australian aerospace analyst, wrote in 2004.

“Both carry internal weapon bays and multiple external hardpoints for drop tanks and weapons,” Kopp continued. “Both were intended to achieve combat radii in the 400-nautical-mile class. Neither have by the standards of their respective periods high thrust-weight ratio or energy maneuver capability favored for air superiority fighters and interceptors.”