On the flip side, one reason we’ve seen the collapse of diversity in fighter designs is because technological advances allow a single airframe design to meet more varied requirements. I’m not arguing for fewer designs for carriers though. I’m questioning why you would need two stealth fighter designs. (Pretty sure if they can get powerful enough engines and strict short take off requirements compatibility with ski ramps will take care of itself).
J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
Well, for example:
Hi: heavy CATOBAR twin engined fighter. J-15 replacement.
Long range/payload and endurance, long range a2a weaponry, as large and as powerful radar suite as feasible, ability to go toe to toe with any bandit.
Mission: outer air battle(fleet air defence), long range strike, air superiority.
Lo: CALF-like single-engined platform. Maybe even joint effort with Yakovlev, if they still remember anything.
Affordable STOL supersonic fighter-bomber without excessive demands to operate from CATOBAR carries, future LHDs, and so on.
Mission: ground attack, air to air, forward deployable.
Cheaply spawned CTOL derivative(put out vertical, add fuel, nothing more) will come handy, if possible.
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Why do you need a STOL fighter or a fighter bomber if you can have one multirole figthrer and dedicated bombers?
Same question. Why would you need a STOVL if you’re China?
1.China has two STOBAR carriers on hand. Hi/Lo mix optimises their effectiveness.
2.China has LHD program. Emerging amphibious capability benefits from fixed wing support asset.
3.Basing on combat ships, requesitioned ships, improvised or damaged airfields in an event of a major war.
4.Possibility of conversion to a reasonably capable single engined fighter for an air force.
5.Export potential.
1) Why does China need STOVL to maximize STOBAR effectiveness?
2) Why does China need fighters operating off LHDs?
3) If China’s airfields are that compromised hard to see how STOVL would be a difference maker.
4) How did that conversion work for the US?
1)Because of inherent limitations of available configuration. After introduction of CATOBAR carriers they inevitably fall out of the first line.
Nevertheless they'll remain far too valuable to discard.
2)Because fixed wing support assets bring more firepower faster and further than any rotary ones. Sea control carrier also comes to mind.
3)Forward airfields(say, SCS bases) are this compromised in an event of any major war.
4)Well, services didn't stop at "reasonable", since it's their toy for decades to come.
Furthermore, program is quite ambitious.
1) Fighters without STOVL, especially those that already need to meet short take off requirements or have uprated engines, can still operate off STOBARs. Designing for these capabilities may not even require compromise for fifth generation fighters.
2) Isn’t that why you have carriers though?
3) But would STOVL make a difference in battle outcomes in such a scenario? Is covering for this scenario for a few tiny outposts worth the costs and resources of developing a STOVL fighter?
4) Okay, but since China already has two fifth generation fighter designs it doesn’t make much sense to develop a STOVL with the intention of converting it to *another* fighter for the air force.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Agreed, developing a 5th gen STOVL now feels like going out of your way to emulate all the waste, inefficiency, delays and cost overruns of the F35.
The US ‘need’ for STOVL really mostly only comes from the politicking bickering between the USN and USMC in any case.
If the USN offered the marines the choice between F35Bs + LHD pocket carriers or F35Cs and real carriers, even something ‘only’ in the weight range of the Liaoning or QE2, the USMC would snap your arm off, and it will probably end up saving money to not have bothered with the F35B at all. Without the B, both the A and C models would almost certainly have better performance specs, cost less, and been ready a lot earlier.
STOVL captures the imagination with its undeniable cool factor, but it brings very little in a real near-peer fight.
As others have pointed out, being able to operate from compromised and bombed out air bases is pretty much missing the whole point because if things have gotten to that dire state, the war is already lost and you are just prolonging the inevitable.
I am, of course only speaking from China’s POV.
For smaller powers allied to major ones with mutual defence treaties, STOVL does make a lot of sense because their entire game plan in the event of an all out war with a hostile major power is to delay defeat as long as possible in the hope that their big brother will have enough time to come bail them out.
But none of that applies to China. Even for the US, the needs of its smaller client powers and even that of the USMC does not come close to justifying developing the F35B. And no one would have agreed to the F35B had the full costs and knock on effects of that decision been known at the time the decision was made.
Even in the SCS, China did not spend all those billions building up a comprehension set of infrastructure with the expectation that they get blasted to rubble immediately at the commcenmend of hostilities.
The whole point of all that infrastructure and sheer scale of the islands is that if you are within range to strike at those islands, assets based on those islands will also be within range to strike you right back.
The Chinese could deploy enough land based assets to make those islands more heavily defended than full fledged carrier strike groups.
Speaking of which, you can bet PLAN carrier strike group(s) and significant naval forces will also be on hand to lend those islands their defensive and offensive capabilities.
Even if an enemy could brute force their way past all those defences, you can hit those islands with a thousand bombs and missiles, and those islands will still be there. With rapid battlefield repairs, even major infrastructure assets like the airfields can be back in operation mere hours after a major strike hitting them.
OTOH, a single missile, especially the AShBMs or hypersonic gliders variety, could mission kill or outright sink even a supercarrier with one hit.
To put it in popular terms, with its built up islands, China could, maybe even should, be able to comprehensively overmatch even a full USN carrier strike group in open hostilities.
You will need to field at least 3 CSGs to even have a chance to make STOVL a necessity for the Chinese in a SCS scenario.
And frankly, with how the F35B is going, the Chinese are better off just investing in more CSGs of their own rather than follow the US down that rabbit hole in any case.