Re: The End of the Carrier Age?
right china can shoot down all the cruise missile, evade and destroy all the US sub in the area, detect and destroy all the B2,F22,and UAV etc etc.
Well any one who think it is easy to penetrate Chinese IADS should read this excellent paper by NOTAM, the only system that is possibly can penetrate IADS is F22 . but they are not available in large number and it is now questionable in light of Chinese advance like J20. This article is from 2009. All those PGM from Submarine will unlikely survive high dense point systems and China has more than thousand of legacy SA2 that is now being modernized and couple with AESA radar H200 will provide formidable air defense.Once those submarine launch the cruises missile they will revealed their location and will be hunted by Anti submarine patrol aircraft. This is long article I don't want to waste bandwidth. All those UAV and UCAV will be jammed . The recent hijack of US UCAV by Iran is proof
Strategic Impact of IADS Evolution
The United States and its Allies have relied since the end of the Cold War upon the ability to quickly overwhelm an opposing IADS, and the ability to then deliver massed precision firepower from the air, as the weapon of choice in resolving nation state conflicts.
The reality of evolving IADS technology and its global proliferation is that most of the US Air Force combat aircraft fleet, and all of the US Navy combat aircraft fleet, will be largely impotent against an IADS constructed from the technology available today from Russian and, increasingly so, Chinese manufacturers. If flown against such an IADS, US legacy fighters from the F-15 through to the current production F/A-18E/F would suffer prohibitive combat losses attempting to penetrate, suppress or destroy such an IADS
The IADS technology in question is currently being deployed by China, Iran, Venezuela, and other nations, most of which have poor relationships with the Western alliance.
Until the US Air Force deploys significant numbers of the intended New Generation Bomber post 2020, only aircraft types in the US arsenal will be capable of penetrating, suppressing and destroying such an IADS – the B-2A Spirit and the F-22A Raptor.
Cruise missile bombardment from standoff ranges is often presented as an alternative to crewed combat aircraft delivering precision bombs. The difficulty, identified earlier, with cruise missile bombardment is that it is most effective against fixed targets, and improving point defence capabilities present a genuine risk that a sizeable proportion of cruise missiles sortied will be shot down as they close on their targets. Another consideration is the aggregate cost of such bombardment, since cruise missiles are still at least an order of magnitude more expensive than guided bombs, making the sustained delivery of thousands of rounds difficult to sustain by production, and fiscally [56].
Stealthy Uninhabited Combat Aerial Systems (UCAS/UCAV) have also been proposed, specifically for SEAD/DEAD and fixed target strike operations. This technology presents as a better choice than cruise missiles, for economic reasons and the potential for a UCAV to saturate terminal defences with multiple SDBs. While a credible airframe with adequate stealth performance is feasible in the near term, the X-47B presenting as a good example, the remaining components required for a credible capability remain immature, risky and in many respects, problematic. The required range and loiter endurance will require an aerial refuelling capability for the uncrewed system. Satellite downlinks from the vehicle, and line of sight datalinks, will be jammed by an opponent, forcing heavy reliance on autonomous onboard artificial intelligence, and organic ISR capabilities on the vehicle itself, if anything beyond fixed infrastructure targets are to be attacked [57].
The only low risk technological strategy available to the US in the 2010 – 2020 timeframe is exploitation of existing stealth technology designs, which are as noted earlier, only the F-22A Raptor and B-2A Spirit [58], [59], [v].
There are only twenty B-2As in existence and retooling to manufacture a B-2C is an expensive approach given the commitment to the New Generation Bomber [60].
The United States therefore has only one remaining strategic choice at this time. That strategic choice is to manufacture a sufficient number of F-22A Raptors to provide a credible capability to conduct a substantial air campaign using only the B-2A and F-22A fleets.
The expectation that the US can get by with a small “golden bullet” fleet of stealth aircraft to carve holes in IADS to permit legacy aircraft to attack is no longer credible. The difficulty in locating and killing the new generation of self propelled and highly survivable IADS radars and launchers presents the prospect of a replay of the 1999 OAF campaign, with highly lethal SAM systems waiting in ambush, and mostly evading SEAD/DEAD attacks.
The F-22A Raptor will therefore have to perform the full spectrum of penetrating roles, starting with counter-air, and encompassing SEAD/DEAD, penetrating ISR and precision strike against strategic and tactical targets. The B-2A fleet can robustly bolster capabilities, but the small number of these superb aircraft available will result inevitably in very selective use.
How many F-22A Raptors is enough to meet this capability benchmark? If we assume an aircraft configuration reflecting the planned F-22A Block 40 configuration, and we assume a contingency of similar magnitude to Desert Storm, then the required number of F-22A aircraft to cover the spectrum of penetrating roles is of the order of 500 to 600 aircraft [61], [62].
