"Vanishing American Air Superiority"

On Mar 6, 4:24*pm, hcobb wrote:
On Mar 6, 1:55*pm, Jack Linthicum wrote:



On Mar 6, 4:35*pm, "Paul J. Adam"

wrote:
In message
,
Mike writes

The high-low mix was pioneered during WWII. Both the British and the
U.S. stumbled onto the concept without quite realizing what they were
doing. In the years before the war's outbreak, the British embarked on
a crash program to build eight-gun fighters for the defense of the
home islands. The premier model was the Supermarine Spitfire, one of
the legendary combat aircraft of the 20th century. But the Spitfire
was supplemented by the lesser-known but still capable Hawker
Hurricane. The Hurricane could take on the primary German fighter, the
Messerschmidt Bf -109, only with difficulty,

Not particularly, as the histories show... the Spitfire 1A had the edge
on the 109E, the Hurricane 1A was "merely" its equal.

As the war went on and Spitfires appeared in more substantial numbers,
the Hurricane took on the fighter-bomber role.

So did the Spitfire and Seafi aircraft that had no value once the
enemy air force was defeated, were of limited utility.

I'd look with interest at the USN aircraft of the time: the newer air
superiority fighters (Hellcats and Corsairs, then Bearcats and
Tigercats) all got good at strafing, bombing and rocketing ground
targets once they had shot down every flyable enemy aircraft.

There's also the point that RAF procurement was far less linear of "high
and low end fighter". Even during the Battle of Britain we had the
Hurricane and Spitfire as fighters... plus unfortunate concepts that
didn't work well such as the Defiant and the Blenheim IF, and a few
Whirlwinds that were held back by engine trouble from their full
potential.

Later, we had "fighters" like the Beaufighter and Mosquito VI, which
were fighters in the same way the F-105 was: powerful strike aircraft
that were ill-advised to turn with a small, agile foe but could cruelly
punish any enemy careless enough to get into their sights. We also had
the Typhoon, designed as an air-superiority fighter but highly effective
as a strike aircraft, the Tempest (was it the "high end" or "low end"
compared to the Spitfire?)

Coming into the '60s without a fighter to carry out its basic
missions, the USAF was forced to purchase the F-4 Phantom II,
developed on behalf of the enemy service, the U.S. Navy. While an
excellent aircraft, the F-4 was in many ways the apotheosis of the
fighter-bomber, too heavy and lacking the agility to fill the air-
superiority role.

During the liveliest parts of 1972, USN Phantoms killed six NVAF MiGs
for every aircraft they lost to them, while the USAF managed a 2:1
ratio. (There are many factors in play for the difference, but it's
curious how smiting two enemy for every loss is considered
inadequate...)

Also strange is describing the F-104 as an "indescribable and dangerous
oddity" when it was the 1950s/1960s epitome of John Boyd's Light Weight
Fighter designed in response to user requests post-Korea: a pared-down
airframe optimised for speed, energy and agility, with useless wasteful
boondoggles like long-ranged radar, advanced countermeasures, or
sophisticated weapon-aiming systems left out to optimise the aircraft
for high-speed dogfighting.

Perhaps the USAF had no clear idea what it needed? The F-104 epitomised
most of Boyd's ideals, yet its limited combat service in US hands was
less than stellar. Similarly, the US operated the F-5, another austere,
cheap, agile fighter that should have delighted Boyd, yet chose not to
field it in large numbers at the frontline.

Together, the F-15 and F-16 stand as the most effective fighter team
on record. The F-15 compiled a kill ratio of 105 kills to zero losses.
While the F-16's record was only half that, it more than effectively
filled the swing role as the primary high-speed attack aircraft in
theaters including Serbia and Iraq. Neither aircraft ever suffered a
loss in air-to-air combat.

However, getting there involved breaking most of Boyd's rules.
Curiously, as late as "The Pentagon Paradox", Boyd's supporters were
bewailing the manner in which the F-16 and F-18 were "ruined" by putting
the "useless rubbish" back on them: the same useless equipment that
allowed them to be worldbeating combat aircraft rather than manned
target drones.

It would appear that the high-low thesis is as well established as any
military concept ever gets.

What's the "low" option for the US Army's armoured forces? They have a
very definite "high end" war-winner in the M1 Abrams, so where is the
"low end" tank?

Suppose, if things get
hot, our 120 planes are facing five hundred, a thousand, or even more
fifth-generation enemy fighters? (China today fields roughly 2,000
fighter aircraft.) What happens then?

Shades of the 1980s when analysts breathlessly counted every Soviet tank
that could possibly ever be fielded, looked at the latest and best, then
pronounced that we faced "fifty thousand T-80 tanks".

In fact we faced a few hundred T-80s, with a tail of older and less
advanced vehicles, and a notional swarm of warehoused T-34s left over
from the Second World War. Similarly, China's "2,000 fighters" are
largely outdated relics - MiG-21 copies and the like - and China has at
least the same constraints on replacing them one-for-one with modern
aircraft as the US does with maintaining its 1970s numbers while
increasing individual capability.

Many of these Chinese aircraft will have trouble flying to Taiwan, let
alone menacing any US interests less proximate. Unless the US plans to
invade China, then the swarms of elderly Chinese warplanes are prisoners
of their limited endurance.

The F-22 is a ferociously expensive beast, though very capable with it.