Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

Readers of Blink might remember the "Millenium Challenge" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002) war games. In short, General Van Riper- commanding the simulated insurgent forces- decisively defeated and humiliated the simulated US forces in 24 hours... until the DOD decided to roll back the exercise and deliver instead a completely scripted (and useless) version where America won handily.

I don't trust this outcome one bit and suspect something very similar happened here. I'm guessing the Pentagon is getting very sensitive to the increasing volume of accusations that the F-35 is a trillion-dollar garbage fire, and wanted to do anything to try and save its reputation. This result seems very suspicious in light of the previous evidence that the F-35 loses to both current- and even previous-generation fighters. Not buying it.

EDIT: Thanks to jljljl for correcting my faulty memory about the book. I get my pop-sci insight porn confused sometimes :)

It's very simple to let the F-35 look good - stick to BVR combat. The scenarios in which it looked poor was in WVR combat where the F-35 has no benefit of stealth and an excellent radar, but all the drawbacks of stealth (fewer weapons etc)

I don't doubt the F-35 can dominate in simulations where there either is no WVR engagements or there are other aircraft to take care of those.

Also, aggressor aircraft were presumably 4th gen aircraft which leaves the question open how it would perform against other craft.

BVR = beyond visual range: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond-visual-range_missile

WVR = within visual range: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_superiority_fighter

No aircraft looks good BVR against live targets. There have only been perhaps one or two air-to-air missile kills bvr against aware/equiped targets in the last 40 years (targets with trained pilots and realistic countermeasures). Most pilots assume a 10-15% hit chance in a realworld bvr situation. No aircraft looks good when launching all your bvr weapons (4?) will likely not score a single hit.

It looks like the historic kill rate with radar-guided weapons has been quite low, but the technology has advanced significantly since it's early deployments around and before the Vietnam war.[1] I would suggest that weapons like the AMRAAM would have a high probability of kill in real large scale conflicts if and when IFF issues are not present.

[1] http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/11/09.pdf

In Yugoslavia war, all(6) air-to-air kills were performed by AMRAAM according to wiki.

But against what target? A poorly-equiped fighter with no EW capability, one that doesnt move becausr it doesnt see the threat? Lets see how the amraam handles a 4th or 5th generation fighter. There are stories of f22s having trouble downing f4 drones.

Against mig-29, modern enough for that time.

The F-16 aggressor jets were likely flying with IR Search & Tracking (IRST/ATFLIR) pods [0] that somewhat negate the stealth advantage of the F-35. They also had external fuel tanks that would negate the kinematic advantage over the F-35. F-35 has the benefit of not requiring external tanks for combat missions.

On the flip side, the F-35 would have a Situational Awareness advantage and exploited this for both WVR and BVR engagements. The F-35 pilots won fairly by flying to their jets advantages.

[0] http://aviationintel.com/exclusive-usaf-aggressors-fly-with-...

Relevant:

https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/01/heres-what-ive-learned...

http://www.scout.com/military/warrior/story/1682575-air-forc...

theaviationist.com article: Royal Norwegian Air Force pilot writes from Arizona his experiences with the F-35 and compares it to his F-16 experience. Possibly a PR piece. He concludes the F-35 is more maneuverable at low speed and high angle of attack.

scout.com article: Matt Hayden, US Air Force, also says he likes the F-35.

The F-35 loses to previous generation fighters in dogfighting. But that's not the point of the plane. If you want a plane that will win in that scenario deploy the F-22.

The F-35 is designed to fly into contested areas ahead other planes, use the sensors to get the lay of the land, relay that information to the fighters behind and optionally destroy any relevant ground targets. In the future the F-35 will also be capable of deploying and controlling a swarm of drones.

Not an expert by any means, but what information can you get from the F-35 that you can't get from having an AWACS in the region?

Or drones for that matter, even stealth drones.

If the F-35 is designed for BVR shouldn't it be behind the fighters, not in front? Similarly to how an aircraft carrier is always grouped up with destroyers.

FYI, the book for this anecdote was Blink by Malcom Gladwell, not Freakonomics, in case anyone is trying to follow the reference.

That is so frustrating to read about the Millenium Challenge. I had never heard of that idiocy before.

Wikipedia has a misleading description. Red side had completely unrealistic technologies, things like motorcycle messengers that could travel at the speed of light and fishing boats that could launch missiles as large as the boat. The Day 2 changes basically forced Red side to act reasonably.

Also considering lower frequency Russian radar which almost negates most stealth technologies, preponderance of advancements in remotely-controlled drones, hypervelocity missiles and other technological changes, the F-35 program tries too hard to jedi mind trick consent about the enormous waste of treasure promulgated by the incessantly-obscene >50% US federal budget transfer of wealth to the commercial side of the military-industrial complex of which Eisenhower warned.

If there's that much political showmanship in the military, how effective is the US military against a real threat? I'm aware that no system is perfect and obviously the US military is highly tied to politics, but I didn't realize they would neuter themselves even from learning exercises.

Generals are usually very pragmatic people. The successful ones understand both political posturing and actual preparedness. One assumes they have non-publicized events where the actual work gets done.

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