British combat air post-2020 will depend on the RAF’s Typhoon fast jet fleet – currently planned to total 107 aircraft at the end of this decade – and the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter, operated jointly by the RAF and the Royal Navy. Then-Secretary of State for Defence Phillip Hammond said in July 2012 that the UK would buy up to forty-eight F-35B short take-off, vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft in the next ten years of the newly agreed equipment plan. These will not only form the fixed-wing complement of the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, but will also deploy with the RAF alongside the Typhoon force and replace Tornado strike aircraft after 2019. The challenge for the RAF is how to best integrate the ‘4.5 generation’ capabilities of the Typhoon with the stealth and unparalleled intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities possessed by the fifth-generation F-35B so as to maximise the combat power of the limited number of aircraft available.
4.5 and Fifth Generation
Fast jet designs are often discussed in terms of ‘generations’, with each new generation representing a step change in capability. However, in recent decades, the distinctions between generations of combat aircraft have become somewhat blurred. The Typhoon represents a huge advance from legacy fourth-generation platforms – such as the F-16 or MiG-29 – due to its extreme manoeuvrability at all speeds, ability to supercruise, powerful sensors and information-management systems. However, it lacks the stealth airframe and some of the ISTAR and sensor-fusion capabilities which distinguish the only currently operational fifth-generation fighter in the world, the F-22 Raptor. In contrast, the F-35B incorporates fifth-generation stealth, exceptional sensor capabilities and networked data fusion, but does not possess the supermanoeuvrability, supercruise capability or performance at altitude which in the F-22 combine with stealth technology to make it the world’s premier air-dominance fighter. The F-35 will give Britain a different kind of fifth-generation capability to that fielded by the USAF in the F-22.
Current Typhoon and Fifth-Generation Integration
The annual Red Flag joint exercises in the US, which at ‘tier-one’ level (employing the unrestricted capabilities of participating aircraft) involve the RAF and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as well as the USAF, USN and USMC, are the only forum where RAF Typhoon pilots can train with F-22 pilots and develop tactics to best use their mounts alongside fifth-generation aircraft.
Whilst the details are highly classified, there are some basic principles that can be discussed here. The F-22’s stealth and performance means that it can operate in relatively small numbers at extremely high altitude and speed, using its powerful active electronically scanned array AESA radar, stealth and situational awareness to direct Typhoons from a ‘god’s eye view’. It can then observe engagements as they develop, intervening at will to destroy any particularly high-threat targets where the Typhoon force might be overmatched. The Typhoon force brings combat mass: hefty missile loads, swing-role capability and impressive beyond-visual-range (BVR) and within-visual-range (WVR) combat performance to the mix. The F-22 gives the combined force superior situational awareness, tactical cohesion and also can intervene to use its more limited missile loads against any particularly dangerous opponents.
The F-35 will not be an F-22 for the RAF
The fifth-general label must be used with care when discussing the F-35B in an air-combat scenario. Whilst it shares many of the stealth advantages of the F-22, and exceeds it in terms of situational awareness and electronic warfare capabilities, the F-35 was designed for a different purpose and therefore will require different tactics for operations alongside the Typhoon force to those currently practiced by the RAF with F-22 during the Red Flag exercise.
The F-35 is primarily suited to an ISTAR/precision-strike role rather than being an air-superiority fighter, especially the F-35B STOVL variant which has sacrificed some payload, performance and range capabilities to enable it to take off and land vertically. The airframe is rather large with a comparatively small wing area and low thrust-to-weight ratio. As such, the F-35B has an inferior aerodynamic performance to the Typhoon. Whilst the F-22 has superior speed, service ceiling and acceleration to the Typhoon, especially at high altitude, the two aircraft are similar enough in performance terms that they operate well as a combined combat force.
The F-35 was not designed to fly as high or as fast as the Typhoon, let alone the F-22. Indeed, this was confirmed in February 2014, when the Chief of US Air Force Air Combat Command General Michael Hostage said publically that ‘the F-35 is not built as an air superiority platform’. The F-35 cannot therefore be expected to perform the same supercruising, high-altitude air dominance role that the F-22 does during joint operations with Typhoon. Indeed, given its superlative performance and with planned CAPTOR-E AESA radar and full PIRATE IRST functionality upgrades, the Typhoon would represent a more capable air-dominance platform than F-35 in most plausible UK air-combat scenarios. The F-35 is well suited, however, to countering the proliferation of sophisticated modern air defences such as the Russian S-300PMU-2 and Chinese MQ-9, which are widely exported.
Instead, new tactics are being developed to best use the F-35’s formidable strengths. Given its stealth, electronic warfare capabilities and unparalleled sensor suite, the F-35 could perform excellently as an ‘information sponge’ at medium altitude, providing awareness of ground- and air-based threats to the larger Typhoon force in contested air environments and co-ordinating, for example, the suppression of enemy air-defence networks from a position of relative invulnerability. In effect, a handful of F-35s could provide the RAF with ISTAR and situational awareness capabilities within defended airspace where traditional surveillance platforms such as E-3 AWACS and E-8 Joint-STARS would be unable to operate. The F-35B STOVL variant which will enter British frontline service around 2020 is somewhat handicapped in terms of striking power in a high-threat air environment (where its stealth would be necessary) by its modest internal weapons capacity. With two bombs of 1000 lbs or less, along with two AMRAAM air-to-air missiles and no internal gun, the F-35B in stealth configuration has limited combat persistence.
The Typhoon force, by operating at very high altitudes or with standoff munitions such as the Storm Shadow missile, could allow the RAF to fully use the potential of both aircraft. F-35s could find and designate priority targets within defended airspace for the Typhoon force to attack from a relatively safe distance with their greater ordnance capacity. If the airspace in question were too dangerous for Typhoon to enter, the F-35 could be used to provide precision ISTAR and targeting for cruise missiles, as well as delivering its own precision strikes against high-threat air defence assets, thereby providing a window for the Typhoon force to deliver the main strike weight. In other words, the F-35 force should allow British airpower to perform a ‘day one’ suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) against a near-peer opponent in extremis, if properly co-ordinated with the more numerous and heavily armed, but non-stealthy Typhoons.
In summary, the F-35 represents a significant ISTAR, SEAD and survivable strike capability boost for British combat airpower. However, for now Britain must also sustain investment in the combat-ready and numerically larger Typhoon force which will still be required to do the bulk of the work during air operations in the coming decade, and which is more suited to the air-superiority role except in the extreme case of a confrontation with a peer opponent operating Russian or Chinese fifth-generation fighters and air defence systems.
The F-35 represents a potent but different capability to F-22. The key for the future combat power of the RAF, therefore, will be to develop appropriate tactics to fully utilise the substantially different mission capabilities of its two formidable fast-jet types.
