The U.S. Navy Needs a New Fighter (And Russia and China Are to Blame)
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A new report makes a very compelling case.
Dave Majumdar [2]
A new naval future fleet architecture study from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) suggests that the United States Navy will need to develop a dedicated air superiority fighter to counter Russian and Chinese advances.
“Counter-air operations will require low observable manned fighters with an unrefueled combat radius of more than 500 nm,” the CSBA report states [3]. “These characteristics will keep refueling aircraft out of range of enemy air defenses while enabling the fighters to reach and engage bombers in a dynamic environment inside the enemy’s air defense envelope.”
The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter—which are not dedicated air superiority fighters—would not be suitable to defeat advanced adversary air defenses or enemy aircraft such as the Chengdu J-20 or other Chinese fifth-generation warplanes. “In contrast to today’s multimission strike-fighters, such as the F-35C, the design of these aircraft would need to focus mostly on the fighter mission rather than strike, so that they would have the speed, endurance, maneuverability, and air-to-air sensor capability needed for counter-air operations,” the report states.
Source URL (retrieved on February 11, 2017):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-navy-needs-new-fighter-russia-china-are-blame-19409
