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Plurk…anytime soon, says Loren Thompson. It's a long way from having its own version of the F-22 fighter to challenge the US.
One of the persistent characteristics of the F-22 Raptor fighter programme over its 25-year history has been the propensity of supposed experts to misjudge the plane’s capabilities. Accounts periodically appear about how this or that new radar has ‘unmasked’ the stealthy aircraft—and all of them have been wrong.
Other reports wrongly describe the performance features, mission potential and maintenance costs of on-board equipment. And then there are the stories concerning how soon potential adversaries of the United States such as Russia or China will field their own ‘fifth generation’ fighters.
Such stories are intrinsically speculative, because so much of what the F-22 contains or can do is secret. For instance, sources often refer to the Raptor as a ‘flying antenna,’ without really describing the imposing array of sensors and signal-processing systems incorporated into the design. Similarly, the stealth (or ‘low observable’) features of the airframe are often discussed in public forums, but without any detailed technical treatment of the many technologies that must be integrated in order to render the plane nearly invisible to adversaries.
As a consequence, because so little of what makes the F-22 unique is in the public record, claims that China may one day soon field an equivalent tactical aircraft shouldn’t be taken seriously. Not only does China lack the necessary experience or expertise in a number of relevant technologies, but it has never demonstrated the system-integration skills required to bring all those technologies together in a functioning airframe. Despite frequent reports in US media about the forays of Chinese cyber-sleuths into US information networks, they’ve never managed to breech the firewalls surrounding highly-classified fighter technology. And, even if they had, the ability of Chinese engineers to utilize the insights obtained would be doubtful.
Obviously, if China were to successfully field a fighter with even a fraction of the F-22’s versatility or survivability, that would present major problems for neighbours such as Taiwan—there’s no air surveillance radar in the world today that can successfully track a fifth-generation fighter.
Luke
“Stealth features of the F-22 design would render heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles largely useless.”
What rubbish! The F-22 has a REDUCED Radar Cross Section (RCS) and REDUCED heat emissions, they are not totally eliminated. There will be more than enough for the most modern Russian/Chinese missiles to track. A SU-35 radar will track the F-22 with 15-20 miles – fact.
Loren Thompson are you a military analyst? Obviously not.
Nick
Opening comments like ‘What rubbish! ‘ proves you have no idea what you are talking about.
Bob Mooy
This is an amusing article on an overpriced aircraft whose production lines are being shut down and unlikely ever to be built in numbers to affect the outcome of a war with China. I don’t know which world Loren Thompson lives in but in this one, if the U. S. cannot manufacture this plane while fighting Third World insurgents with no tanks, no planes but home-made bombs, what chance is there of making them while fighting China?
It is just another Tiger II.
I could be wrong.
Jacob
It’s hard for me to deal with the level of dissonance this article represents. It seems well researched and well informed which lends it credibility. But it’s author is with The Lexington Institute which seems to have a public record as an opinion for hire print shop. Too bad The Diplomat couldn’t get an author that wouldn’t present this sort of questionable credibility.
PR
This is a magazine that pride itself as the “The Diplomat” and yet its writing is full of bias. A one-sided view to underestimate China’s ability and a big boast for US and to appease the US readers.
Should rename your title to “One side”
naan
“realistically assess what the People’s Republic might be capable of ” undoubtedly this is happening – but it doesn’t serve the needs of the MIC to publish it. The problem for America as I see it is that the MIC is quite adept at lining their own pockets by scaring the public, demanding only the “best” / most expensive technology and generally just suckling at the teat of the immense military budget, without delivering enough real results. They are vulnerable to real, carefully crafted challenges.
The Chinese most definitely want war on their terms and are doing their best to arrange that as any opponent of the US would do – by identifying and exploiting weak spots, which are plentiful enough. Two factors aiding them: their “chabuduo” attitude for product development and the fact that the Chinese elites can enrich themselves by command, without resorting to elaborate & wasteful ruses required in the so-called democratic states.
ATW
Someone said, “Your investments in US Treasuries are absolutely safe!”
A lot of people hearing this laughed…
Paparay
I have only one name for you … B.J. Clinton. We know he sold lots of secrets to China, and what they didn’t buy, they either stole or are trying to steal as we speak. But alas, it will still take a couple of generations to change a way of thinking in order for real “Chinese” innovation to take hold. As for dufus “Homer” 412AD (gamer I suspect), he thinks you can bring down a Raptor with iron slugs flying faster than the speed of sound, oh my, I wonder what comics this guy reads! Big Bad America, the tyrannical giant, good for nothing meany of the world. If that were the case, then following WWII, Patton would have conquered the Soviet Union from the west and MacArthur Asia from the east and now all of Asia would be part of “Global America!” tat tada daaa! What an idiot. I only wish the US would retrench and save our money that is wasted (stolen) by the U.N. and all the other worthless regimes under the guise of foreign aid. Would Europe have paid for it’s own military all these decades, just think how powerful the U.S. would be and how destitute the rest of the world would be instead. Homer, get a clue, you ignorant suck!
C. S. Hanson
Wanna talk about sold secrets to China? Look no further than our dear, loving, loyal “allies” Israel…
paparay
Yes … I’m all ears! Please educate me! I’m all ears.
Rosinante
Actually, the chi-coms don’t want war and will avoid it if at all possible. Since the USA has no intentions of taking military action against the PRC, this whole subject is a fairy tale. A fable.
The people behind it are the MIC ( Military Industrial Complex).
You don’t make killer profits supplying guerrilla fighters. No matter how much you mark up a pair of boots, you still don’t have the bottom line you get when you sell a 40 $US computer chip to the Air Force for 1.2 million dollars. That’s right, the Main processor in an F-22 is a 486 class unit, which is obsolete by a couple of decades. You can get them online at about 40$ EACH. Not sure what they would cost if you bought 187. Not sure why anyone would want 187. Lockheed charges 1.2 million for the computer in an F-22.
No, the ace in the hole the US Governemt has is eminent domain. If there is a general war, the US government will just take over Lockheed. True cost (manufacturing, no markup for profit, research, bribes, etc.) on an F-22 is prolly under 10 mill. Materials and labor. So The Feds could take Lockheed and build several thousand F-22’s for what they are paying (including research) for the 187 they are getting now.
The MIC is painting China as the future enemy because that is where the profit is.
I seriously doubt that Chi-Coms will co-operate with the MIC. For one thing they depend on their military to stay in power. NEVER forget Tiananmen Square.
It was Truman that saved the Chi-Coms in Korea. The US Army had them over a barrel and was ready to go to Peking and party. Truman stopped that plan.
The Chi-coms are not going to risk their army again. So there will be no war with China. The lace pants crowd will speak softly and both sides will pretend to get along because it is to their mutual advantage. Dictatorships are long term unstable. Eventually the Chi-Coms will fall. It is inevitable, despite what Marxist dogma predicts. THAT is when the USA needs to worry. China as a Constitutional,capitalist democracy would rule the world within a century. Other then having to learn Mandarin, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Mao
In Korea the Chicoms didn’t even have enough rifles to supply one for each soldier, when they got shot they trew the rife forwarf so the chicom could grab it. I doubt that is the situation today. The Chicoms have become a major industrial producer, so your argument does not hold water. As a matter of fact they make some componants of our own uniforms.
Eric Palmer
And remember kids. As someone already mentioned, we will only have a 120 some combat coded F-22s that can’t be everywhere. And sometime in the 2020s we will start retiring those.
Also the unproven and unaffordable (Nunn-McCurdy), export-friendly steatlh, F-35 doesn’t qualify as a fifth generation fighter except in the eyes of marketeers of the Joint Strike Failure Ponzi scheme and the author.
OttoDog
For the next 20 years, the U.S. Air Force and Navy will stil have a huge advantage in weaponry over anything the PRC can bring to bear. The F-22 is already “old” technology. The latest (X-51 Scramjet) airframe is already in advanced testing. The Russians, who provide the S-300V SAM system to the PRC, also sold us a full battalion of them a few years back. I wonder why we bought them, and what we’ll do with them?
Unfortunately, the real Achilles’ Heel of the USA is public opinion, something China will either disregard or stage-manage. China doesn’t have to defeat U.S. forces, but only needs to make the prospect of continued conflict politically unpalatable to the U.S. public.
scott
Boy nick your so right on. The American people have no guts to last in any type of conflict with china. They could do what ever they want and we would be putting our heads into a hole in the ground. We have no stomach for real war anymore. Lets equip our troops with second rate stuff because the best equipment costs too much. Are the American people kidding me? We have built this country to the greatness it was on our military. Now lets give them second rate stuff. Why? We could fight a war ( a real war not a police action like now) if the government wanted to. Public opinion being what it is. China will move against a neighbor when they’re ready. We don’t scare them because we don’t have the stomach to fight them. All you democrat whiners want to give our country away instead of fighting for it as well as our jobs and manufacturing.
Home412AD
An impartial observer is truly driven to admire the anti-Chinese propaganda of The Diplomat. Of all the anti-Chinese propaganda published in English around the planet these days, the anti-Chinese propaganda of The Diplomat is definitely the slickest and subtlest. No one in the world ever wasted five seconds imagining China wanted to compete with the US in fighter planes, yet here The Diplomat is, ready to assure us all that the Chinese don’t have a chance to do what we never thought they would. Now that’s clever.
Getting rid of a stealth plane, for instance, is simple and easy. A telescope that can ID an F-22 at 85,000 feet can be purchased in any science store for kids and hobbyists, and an added tracking device could keep any weapon pointed at the plane for less than $1,000 total. A ground-based electromagnetic gun firing two-inch iron slugs at 200,000 feet per second could shred a F-22 or any other plane into little pieces with no trouble at all. There are a thousand other possibilities.
As the previous commentator mentioned, attacks on naval fleets are far more cost-efficient and effective, and China already has a developed missile that can utterly destroy an aircraft carrier. Subs are a more difficult challenge, but more expensive satellites can take them out easily enough, as they can missile silos and missile trucks and trains. Since the USA has no genuine or sincere allies, the entire world can see that some coalition must stop the growing, and increasingly irrational American tyranny. That coalition of nations might as well include China.
Most believe we only need to wait a few years for the inexorable collapse of the American economy, to eliminate any threat from the US military. Everyone can watch the Americans blithely strolling down the same road the Soviet Union took to the status of a failed state.
Mortimer Sanderson
Well, Home412AD, I could not agree with you more. The tyranny of those ruddy Yanks is insufferable! Why, I can’t even leave my flat without having to look upwards and spot one of their nuclear-armed drones, hovering overhead, ready to pounce upon my fair city and reduce it to rubble! I know I need not remind you what they did – with absolutely no provocation whatsoever! – to Japan and Germany. And following the treachery they practiced upon those most innocent of nations, they forced all the poor vanquished Japanese and Germans (and all the poor denizens of the so-called “free” nations of Europe) into the worst form of tyranny imaginable: having to eating those bloody awful McDonald’s hamburgers! (A man could be shot for calling himself a vegetarian!) And why, for so many decades, did we allow the Yanks to “defend” us from the Soviets, when it soon became clear it was the Soviets who needed defending (from those ruddy Hungarians, Czechs, and Poles, among others); and why did we not demand to field our OWN troops, at our OWN expense, rather than endure the presence of those mindless, dastardly, swaggering cowboys? (I’m certain you’re aware that they smell even worse than those cattle they slaughter by the millions… Yet another reason that I so hate them! )
Mortimer Sanderson
And might I add – I wholeheartedly endorse your suggestion to welcome so proud and free a nation as the People’s Republic of China into a coalition to thwart the Tyranny of the United States; after all, can we not trust the leadership of the PRC to fully respect the rights of its own people and the sovereignty of all the nations that it borders?…. (After all, Tibet was never really a nation, was it?)
CJRF
mMr. Sanderson you should avoid playing the Tibet card, unless you really know your history. Human rights of native americans were certainly not a factor under consideration when the ‘nation building’ of the US was in process, therefore, this is not a good foundation for supporting your point….which was…..what?????
Ly Tran Le
Of course, Mr. Sanderson has every right to play the Tibet Card. Just because China currently occupies Tibet doesn’t make Tibet part of China, the same goes for the Paracel Islands which China invaded while South Vietnam was in peril and North Vietnam’s hands were tied through their communist brotherhood pack with China. Sadly, the Tibetans lacked real leadership to resist and throw off the yoke of Han-Chinese domination, so they may continue to be treated as secondary citizen in their homeland. Perhaps they should find inspirations in the illustrious pages of Vietnam’s history to learn a few lessons about beating back the Chinese.
Home412AD
Mr. Sanderson:
Your response was delightful. I chuckled at least five times reading it. Thank you for preventing me from taking myself too seriously.
Rosinante
“A ground-based electromagnetic gun firing two-inch iron slugs at 200,000 feet per second could shred a F-22 or any other plane into little pieces with no trouble at all.”
If there actually was such a weapon, the USA would build it first. Why not postulate a photon torpedo? Or a ‘death ray’. Both are just as likely as a mag rail gun.
BTW, how do you first locate that F-22 at 80,000 feet? Not with radar. And your telescope won’t work either. Try finding a passenger jet at 35,000 feet without having a bearing first. Another little problem with your defense plan is called ‘nighttime’. It happens every 12 hours or so on the average. Telescopes don’t work so well at night unless what you are looking for has it’s lights on.
Nice try chap, I’m sure you will still get your check.
The reason why this is important is that ALL current military technology is predicated on control of the airspace over a battlefield. No air control means no drones to find targets. If you cannot find a target , it doesn’t matter how accurate your weapons are. That is the basic concept behind stealth.
Did you know that the first ’stealth’ aircraft was built in 1915? It was a Fokker E.III that used clear fabric for the skin. The idea was that enemy fighter pilots wouldn’t see it. It didn’t work very well because a fabric that could be seen thru wasn’t strong enough to withstand the wind force. It would split, which destroyed lift. That is always a bad thing in an aircraft.
Tim Hatner
Like you, I couldn’t stop laughing at the telescope-aiming comment… That person must have watched too many sci-fi movies. By the way, that rail gun is actually being tested by the US military… And the writer is right, by the time other nations could get their 5th generation planes, the US will already have developed tactics to counter them. Please say hello! to the 6th generation plane and uh… the invisible pilot.
Nick Nolan
It’s good to remember that F-22 is not fielded in significant numbers either. Only 187 Raptors will be manufactured If F-22 ever reaches same mission ready rate as F-15, there will be only 130 F-22’s ready for action any given time. Air superiority can’t be taken unless there are enough planes to control airspace 24/7.
Furthermore, it’s unlikely that Chinese aerial warfare strategy is to counter US fifth generation fighter threat with their own fighters. It’s more likely that they target US aircraft carriers and aerial refueling tankers. Without them, US has no aerial supremacy in potential conflict areas.