I think there is always room for improvement as a community, and while I don't criticize people for celebration, I also think we can aspire to better reactions as well.
Not with the userbase that SDF cultivates.
You reap what you sow.
Example:
It’s quite clear that China will never have a “6th” gen fighter because the West will wait until China comes out with a new advanced fighter and the West will then declare it’s not “6th gen” because it doesn’t have a coffee maker or whatever that theirs will have but China’s doesn’t. It’s as simple as before the J-20, stealth fighters were invincible… After the J-20 is revealed, all of the sudden stealth can be countered.
Here we have an internet expert sharing his expertly opinion developed from years of studying mainstream media and social media instead of actual military and technological developments and relevant publications. If he did the latter instead of the former he would know that military always knew that stealth was never invincible and planned accordingly while maintaining propaganda cover for several reasons.
The difference between an intelligent person and an internet expert is that an internet expert doesn't understand that mainstream media, even those aimed at "enthusiasts" will not deal with the problems and solutions that the military faces. It exists to manipulate your opinion or extract money from you. It can't teach you anything because if it does, then you stop needing what it has to offer. The business model of commercial media hinges on maintaining your ignorance while pretending to inform you.
Consequently you end up with this type of "analysis" and other internet experts come to support it with their expertly expertise and we have one giant happy circlejerk of expertly experts expertly patting each other on their expertly backs.
That's the unfortunate reality of SDF's flagship threads. Anything more than that is the exception.Unless we're talking about the rest of SDF outside of the strictly moderated threads where imbecility and mental illness is the unchallenged norm that makes the above comments look thoughtful and informative by comparison. But again - you reap what you sow.
Anyway, moving on:
The inability to afford NGAD isnt solvable no matter how you slice it
NGAD is a name of a budget position that covers a number of R&D programs relating to a family of systems. Among those are UCAVs as well as distributed control systems, some of which will be retrofitted to F-35s. It is not a budget position focusing on a single platform like ATF or JSF, let alone on a new manned platform.
The new manned fighter is only one of the R&D projects within NGAD and it is not the most important one. The individual solutions will be much more important.
There's a fundamental difference between NGAD and JSF and in the past I've written extensively on both. "6gen" or "NGAD" is a technology development and integration progam. JSF was a market grab program. Therefore JSF necessitated a single platform because that was the only way to end up with a single systems integrator which would consequently become the de facto fighter monopoly. If there were multiple platforms there would be multiple integrators and consequently multiple options for future development. This is why F-35C was forced on the Navy - to make sure that LM kept R&D for 5gen carrier-borne fighters under control. Since Navy offered no alternative LRS-B was designed specifically to protect Northrop Grumman as failsafe against LM's monopoly. It's not a perfect failsafe but at least it provides some options.
This is why LM is the lead company in NGAD because JSF put all the crucial competence in the hands of a single company for over 20 years. Between that and the reversal on Pentagon's policies regarding non-proprietary software (e.g. replacing Ada with LMs solutions) the entire American aerospace industry degenerated within a generation. LM is currently almost entirely focused on maintaining F-35 production and development so the culture of the company will select for skill in management of commercial and logistical networks as well as political support. Or in other words LM is Apple Corporation of today, while USAF needs it to be Apple Corporation of early 2000s. So NGAD is not so much about building the next fighter as it is about attempting to restore the options necessary to rapidly innovate in the future.
If a fighter is developed it will be a gap-filler responding to the immediate need for a lighter and faster decision node compared to B-21. But you shouldn't think of American 6gen as a single fighter but as a common environment enabling operating a family of unmanned systems for B-21, F-35 and a potential manned fighter. The unmanned systems will be where the dynamic iterative process will occur and where the arms race will be won or lost. And so far all the signals from the US indicate that they understand that fact, at least in large part.
You know right now theres a serious chance US never end up able to build NGAD and they'll have to pass off a UCAV squadron concept as 6th gen, or use B21.
B-21 as a decision node and UCAVs as weapons and sensor nodes is in all likelihood the optimal solution to NGAD.
It has power necessary for EW as well as room for all the sensors and long range air-to-air weapons. Everything else can and should be carried by UCAVs.
This is from CSBA paper from
2015 titled "Trends in air-to-air combat"
The US has two types of theaters for air warfare defined by range and sortie intensity:
- similar to Europe where F-35 is sufficient
- similar to WestPac where B-21 is necessary
Unlike China the US doesn't really have an intermediate theater which could benefit from a compromise design because all such intermediate theaters require or are already served by naval aviation. China on the other hand has three such intermediate theaters:
- South East-Asia and Australia
- Eastern Siberia and potentially European Russia
- Central Asia and Indian subcontinent
As you can see two of those theaters are continental and wouldn't work with naval aviation even if China had proper CSGs. China therefore needs land-based intermediate-range tactical aviation which in turn means that naval aviation which is a priority for the US is of secondary importance to China. And this is why China can potentially benefit from a new larger airframe design while the US won't, because its equivalent is F/A-XX which will be limited in size for carrier operations.
A smaller "intermediate" aircraft allows the US to project power from carriers over all three ranges. They have no material interest in building anything that won't utilise the carriers because - as I wrote on numerous occasions - the foundation of US power projection is the ability to cross the oceans separating North America from every other part of the world.
On the other hand China should understand that the foundation of its power projection should be the ability to contest airspace over the landmass of Eurasia and nearby seas. The island chains are where the American focus lies presently and therefore where China's first reaction must be. It is not
however where China's long-term plans are and not where the US will attempt to project power in the future.
For all the claims of being an alternative viewpoint SDF is unbelievably American-centric in its perception of the Chinese strategic, operational and tactical question. And I have to bring up the elephant in the room which is the extent of the influence that Russian propaganda and disinformation has on SDF users.
For anyone who understands geopolitics as well as the importance of logistics in military planning it is obvious that China focusing on the Pacific is wasting resources and opportunities. Sea being a hostile environment to humans will not treat Chinese differently than Americans. Therefore the sea is the natural barrier that limits China's power projection, and not a space for expansion. It is different for America because America is the exception to the global landmass. China is not. Therefore the natural direction for China to expand its influence and power is over land, not sea. Land is where China is (and historically has been) stronger and it is where America will be weakest because it has built a fundamentally maritime system of power projection derived from the British Empire which it replaced after WW2.
It's obvious, but it requires SDF users to stop being Russo-centric and US-centric and finally start being China-centric in their analysis. Most SDF users are more interested in hating on the "evil west" due to personal failures and treat China as means of living out their revenge fantasies. This has nothing to do with trying to understand Chinese strategic thought and related developments.
Anyway, I've written too much already.
