What Would War II Could Teach America's F-35 and F-22 Stealth Fighters

[DemolitionMan]

Sebastien Roblin

The U.S. military is a big proponent of networked warfare. In theory, if one airplane detects an enemy, it could pass on that data to friendly ships and aircraft—and through Cooperative Engagement Ability, even potentially allow those friendlies to shoot at that target from far away. One potential tactic is to use a vanguard of stealthy fighters to identify incoming enemy aircraft and send targeting data to ships or non-stealth fighters, which can carry heavier weapons loads. The F-35’s excellent sensors and datalinks could make it effective in this role.

In Len Deighton’s book Fighter, he describes the tactics used by the outnumbered English fighter pilots defending against German Luftwaffe bombers in the Battle of Britain:

The professional fighter pilot gained height as quickly as he was permitted, and treasured possession of that benefit. He hoped always to spot the enemy before they spotted him and hurried to the sun side of them to keep himself invisible. He needed superior speed, so he positioned himself for a diving attack, and he would choose a victim at the very rear of the enemy formation so that he did not have to fly through their gunfire. He would hope to kill on that first dive. If he failed, the dedicated professional would flee rather than face an alerted enemy.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/what-would-war-ii-could-teach-americas-f-35-f-22-stealth-22687

[Smokin Joe]

From the article:

In ground warfare, consider what would likely happen if an attacking infantry unit were to sustain 33 percent casualties attacking an objective. More often than not, the attackers would halt their advance, if not beat an outright retreat. Not only do fear and stress from incoming fire and casualties cause soldiers to abandon an attack, but disorganization and confusion set in as communication becomes frantic and links in the chain of command are eliminated.

The RAND wargame results hinged on ten surviving pilots shooting down the U.S. tankers after sixty-two of their compatriots were shot down. How coolheaded and rational would these pilots remain while their unit suffered 86 percent casualties?

But this isn't ground warfare. In the air over Germany, the daylight raids of the 8th Air Force suffered loss rates as high as 50 percent prior to escort fighters being available to the target. Yet the 8th Ari Force persisted in the daylight attacks. There was a second bombing raid on Ploesti, even though the odds of survival were well known to be poor and the antiaircraft emplacements around the refinery complex rivaled those in Berlin in number of guns deployed. So it is with high value targets.
In the event we face an adversary who is sufficiently determined (and who might face a firing squad for turning back), I do not think it prudent to underestimate the possibility that they will persist in the attack of critical assets, so long as any are able to do so. Better to risk dying a hero of their respective nation and save their family from the Gulag or equivalent than to relent in the attack and condemn self (and relatives) to a miserable death.
Besides, should they survive the attack and be effective, they would be a national hero (for our enemies).

[DemolitionMan]

From the article: But this isn't ground warfare. In the air over Germany, the daylight raids of the 8th Air Force suffered loss rates as high as 50 percent prior to escort fighters being available to the target. Yet the 8th Ari Force persisted in the daylight attacks. There was a second bombing raid on Ploesti, even though the odds of survival were well known to be poor and the antiaircraft emplacements around the refinery complex rivaled those in Berlin in number of guns deployed. So it is with high value targets.
In the event we face an adversary who is sufficiently determined (and who might face a firing squad for turning back), I do not think it prudent to underestimate the possibility that they will persist in the attack of critical assets, so long as any are able to do so. Better to risk dying a hero of their respective nation and save their family from the Gulag or equivalent than to relent in the attack and condemn self (and relatives) to a miserable death.
Besides, should they survive the attack and be effective, they would be a national hero (for our enemies).

So you are dismissing the RAND report.?RAND is often called the "Pentagon's Brain"

[Smokin Joe]

So you are dismissing the RAND report.?RAND is often called the "Pentagon's Brain"

I'll go with Sun Tsu. That and the example of the many brave soldiers of the Rodina who advanced with a machine gun at their backs.

People who have Amazon Prime and the inclination should to do so watch some of the Russian series on there like "The Bomber", which illustrate how deeply embedded the idea was in their culture that the consequence of failure extended to not only the person who failed, but their families as well. I have little doubt that those ideas and perhaps the consequences persist in both Russia and China.

Better to risk dying at the enemy's hands than ensure a traitor's death for self and family at home and turn back. I think the Rand folks are projecting American culture on potential enemies.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

 

[endicom]

Some dismaying figures from the ETO: http://www.ww2f.com/threads/us-army-division-casualty-turnover-eto.4114/

[DemolitionMan]

I'll go with Sun Tsu. That and the example of the many brave soldiers of the Rodina who advanced with a machine gun at their backs.

People who have Amazon Prime and the inclination should to do so watch some of the Russian series on there like "The Bomber", which illustrate how deeply embedded the idea was in their culture that the consequence of failure extended to not only the person who failed, but their families as well. I have little doubt that those ideas and perhaps the consequences persist in both Russia and China.

Better to risk dying at the enemy's hands than ensure a traitor's death for self and family at home and turn back. I think the Rand folks are projecting American culture on potential enemies.
 

I take the RANDs assesments of this over anyone elses comments. They get paid to do this by the Pentagon for their work. And they get paid very well for it.RAND Corporation ("Research and development")[8] is an American nonprofit global policy think tank[1] created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment,[6] corporations,[9] universities[9] and private individuals.[9] The company has grown to assist other governments, international organizations, private companies and foundations, with a host of defense and non-defense issues, including healthcare. RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving by translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the physical sciences into novel applications in other areas, using applied science and operations research.According to the 2005 annual report, "about one-half of RAND's research involves national security issues". Many of the events in which RAND plays a part are based on assumptions which are hard to verify because of the lack of detail on RAND's highly classified work for defense and intelligence agencies. The RAND Corporation posts all of its unclassified reports in full on its website.Over the last 60 years, more than 30 Nobel Prize winners have been involved or associated with the RAND Corporation at some point in their careers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation

[Smokin Joe]

I take the RANDs assesments of this over anyone elses comments. They get paid to do this by the Pentagon for their work. And they get paid very well for it.RAND Corporation ("Research and development")[8] is an American nonprofit global policy think tank[1] created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment,[6] corporations,[9] universities[9] and private individuals.[9] The company has grown to assist other governments, international organizations, private companies and foundations, with a host of defense and non-defense issues, including healthcare. RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving by translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the physical sciences into novel applications in other areas, using applied science and operations research.According to the 2005 annual report, "about one-half of RAND's research involves national security issues". Many of the events in which RAND plays a part are based on assumptions which are hard to verify because of the lack of detail on RAND's highly classified work for defense and intelligence agencies. The RAND Corporation posts all of its unclassified reports in full on its website.Over the last 60 years, more than 30 Nobel Prize winners have been involved or associated with the RAND Corporation at some point in their careers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation

On this we will disagree.

My thoughts are based on cultural differences.

Who was it that said "Quantity has a quality all its own"? Critical links will face swarm attacks to overwhelm defenses. if those links fail, much more serious damage will ensue. There is no way any student of Sun Tsu could resist that.

BTW, I hope I am wrong, but I don't think so.

[DemolitionMan]

On this we will disagree.

My thoughts are based on cultural differences.

Who was it that said "Quantity has a quality all its own"? Critical links will face swarm attacks to overwhelm defenses. if those links fail, much more serious damage will ensue. There is no way any student of Sun Tsu could resist that.

BTW, I hope I am wrong, but I don't think so.

If they are paid the Pentagon they must be doing something right

[Smokin Joe]

If they are paid the Pentagon they must be doing something right

LOL! Like the guys who went from DADT to ????

There is a feedback loop there which might be influenced by some theoretical inbreeding.
They get paid a lot, i don't get a dime. But it has been my experience that the size of the paycheck is not what determines who is right. With humans, it is often the intangible factors which compel that one soldier to perform acts which can change the tide of battle from Sergeant York to Audie Murphy, to Frank Luke and others, these are behaviour patterns above and beyond the rational call of duty, beyond that which would compel ordinary men in ordinary circumstances to relent and withdraw. Those acts of Valor are by no means confined to American service personnel, and one pilot getting through to a critical tanker or AWACS could send a lot of planes into the water in the long run. Our enemies will study the critical and most vulnerable links in the system and can be guaranteed to attack those with whatever it takes to break that chain. Failing that, such a feint could be used to slip through another force that could cause critical damage. (Torpedo 8 at Midway).

We saw during WWII (and Korea) that the objective under both Soviets, Chinese, (and Japanese) was far more important than the lives of individuals, to the extent that the Japanese used the Kamikaze attacks, and the Soviets and Chinese used the sometimes imminent threat of execution for failure to perform as an incentive to continue to press a difficult attack. The scene in Enemy at the Gates has an historical basis.

Aspects such as this have become so ingrained in those cultures that they aren't even cut from Russian series today which depict WWII. The depiction is more skewed toward 'victorious forces save the Motherland despite individual sacrifice for the State'--to the point that the contrast with American mentalities is left intact.

The concept of Americans (Watch The Bomb if you have Amazon Prime) is pretty far off, too, because of the cultural lens through which Americans were viewed by the producers/writers.

It is interesting, and in my conversations with the couple of Russians I have met, those attitudes still persist today. We see Stalin as a totalitarian butcher, to them he is a great hero who saved the Rodina, for instance. The Company Hand on that location heard about that (his ancestors were Ukrainian) and that Russian, who worked for Halliburton subsidiary Sperry/Sun was off the location to stay. Old, ingrained rivalries and grudges do not go away at the drop of a hat and persist for generations, something seen here as an anomaly (Hatfields vs McCoys, for instance), where the enmities of ages past are still fresh there. Add the Communist indoctrination, and neither Russia nor China has forgotten the generations of indoctrination, nor lost many of the aspects of that nor the totalitarianism that accompanied it.

[DemolitionMan]

LOL! Like the guys who went from DADT to ????

There is a feedback loop there which might be influenced by some theoretical inbreeding.
They get paid a lot, i don't get a dime. But it has been my experience that the size of the paycheck is not what determines who is right. With humans, it is often the intangible factors which compel that one soldier to perform acts which can change the tide of battle from Sergeant York to Audie Murphy, to Frank Luke and others, these are behaviour patterns above and beyond the rational call of duty, beyond that which would compel ordinary men in ordinary circumstances to relent and withdraw. Those acts of Valor are by no means confined to American service personnel, and one pilot getting through to a critical tanker or AWACS could send a lot of planes into the water in the long run. Our enemies will study the critical and most vulnerable links in the system and can be guaranteed to attack those with whatever it takes to break that chain. Failing that, such a feint could be used to slip through another force that could cause critical damage. (Torpedo 8 at Midway).

We saw during WWII (and Korea) that the objective under both Soviets, Chinese, (and Japanese) was far more important than the lives of individuals, to the extent that the Japanese used the Kamikaze attacks, and the Soviets and Chinese used the sometimes imminent threat of execution for failure to perform as an incentive to continue to press a difficult attack. The scene in Enemy at the Gates has an historical basis.

Aspects such as this have become so ingrained in those cultures that they aren't even cut from Russian series today which depict WWII. The depiction is more skewed toward 'victorious forces save the Motherland despite individual sacrifice for the State'--to the point that the contrast with American mentalities is left intact.

The concept of Americans (Watch The Bomb if you have Amazon Prime) is pretty far off, too, because of the cultural lens through which Americans were viewed by the producers/writers.

It is interesting, and in my conversations with the couple of Russians I have met, those attitudes still persist today. We see Stalin as a totalitarian butcher, to them he is a great hero who saved the Rodina, for instance. The Company Hand on that location heard about that (his ancestors were Ukrainian) and that Russian, who worked for Halliburton subsidiary Sperry/Sun was off the location to stay. Old, ingrained rivalries and grudges do not go away at the drop of a hat and persist for generations, something seen here as an anomaly (Hatfields vs McCoys, for instance), where the enmities of ages past are still fresh there. Add the Communist indoctrination, and neither Russia nor China has forgotten the generations of indoctrination, nor lost many of the aspects of that nor the totalitarianism that accompanied it.

Research from groups like RAND in regards to this subject is fine with me. I have moved on to something else.

[Smokin Joe]

Research from groups like RAND in regards to this subject is fine with me. I have moved on to something else.

Okay. We'll agree to disagree on this one. I do enjoy talking with you about it though. If that research isn't classified and you have a link, I'd like to see what they have to say.