F-35: another scandal about capabilities
Here we go again, right? Again “thirty-five” and again a scandal. Well, it’s not a scandal at all, just a scandal, but the public is outraged and demands. What the public demands is not entirely clear, but what the shouting is about is around some secret report on the results of comparative missions of the F-35 and A-10, which the American military, no matter what you do with it, does not want to publish.
But in general there is a certain logic in this: secret means, as it were, not for everyone.
But conversely, here lies another question: why is everything so secret? Is it because the F-35 suddenly turned out to be a worthless aircraft?
In general, Americans' passions are running high. Especially on specially designated information platforms. In general, they have this thing, ever since the Roswell UFO, that “The state is hiding something from us”. Well, if there is such confidence, then those who pay taxes in the USA have the right...
A secret report detailing the official competition between the F-35 Lightning II and A-10 Warthog was released five years after the competition took place. After forcing the Pentagon to release it through a Freedom of Information Act request, the published portion of the report was heavily censored. However, even when formatted, the report does not portray the F-35, long touted as a replacement for the A-10, as a clear winner.
In an exclusive interview, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released a redacted copy of the report it received from the Air Force. The report details a "takeoff" that pitted the F-35 and A-10 against each other in identical missions to determine which aircraft was better at the traditional A-10 roles.
According to POGO, she requested a copy of the report in April 2022, but the request was ignored. Subsequent lawsuits forced the Air Force to release a copy of the classified report.
The report was prepared by the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), the internal watchdog agency that oversees the development of new equipment for the Defense Department. According to POGO, although the tests were carried out in 2018, the report itself was not written until 2022 - a very long time for the preparation of a 48-page report.
Considering the difficulties POGO had in trying to obtain information, even going to court, POGO claims that “the results apparently were not what the Air Force management expected because they fought to completely hide them for many years.”
Well, in general – nothing like that, right? Everything is quite reasonable and logical. Why bring into the light of day and general discussion something that can quietly lie in a dark box for several years until everything calms down?
Replacing sewed with soap
When the F-35 was conceived and put into production in the late 1990s, the US Air Force sold a version of it, the F-35A, as an aircraft that could simultaneously replace the F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole fighter and the A-10 attack aircraft. Warthog" Thunderbolt. Replacing two aircraft with one, the service said, would simplify maintenance, reduce costs and generally replace the aging A-10 with a new aircraft.
This is a logical, legal, normal approach. Simplification of maintenance, reduction of costs - everything is great, if not for one BUT.
It would be understandable if the F-35, as a fighter-bomber, replaced the almost pure F-16 fighter and, say, the pure A-10 bomber. The output is a standard universal aircraft, a fighter-bomber, of which there are plenty in the world.
But the catch is that the A-10 is not a bomber.
This is a pure attack aircraft, a demon of the front line, which has only one analogue in the world - our Su-25. The rest, as they say, is from the devil, all these handicraft modifications of outdated aircraft, they can not be counted. And we have already said more than once in our materials that it is too early to condemn the “old guys” A-10 and Su-25. Yes, we have Su-34. Simply a gorgeous aircraft, armored even better than the Su-25, carrying 2-4 times more weapons, and having great capabilities in terms of the effectiveness of using these weapons. As they say, higher, further, more and more precisely.
And what? And the Su-25 went into the shadows? Have you retired? Sold to African countries? Yes of course. As he flew, so he flies. Once again it is rejuvenated to the CM3 version, and as soon as the leading edge has been ironed, it continues to do so.
Causes? We won’t go into detail, they are on the surface, and in the case of the F-35 and A-10 everything is absolutely the same as with the Su-34/Su-25 pair. The bomber is not a replacement for the attack aircraft. And there’s nothing to be done about it; the difference in application is too fundamentally big.
The US Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 Warthog for a long time, dating back to the end of the 1991 Gulf War, arguing that it could no longer survive against a decent air defense system. The powerful A-10 lobby in Congress, as well as the support of the military, veterans and the public, allowed the aircraft to operate much longer than originally intended.
Today, 281 examples of the A-10 are still in service with the Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard. The average (!!!) age of aircraft is 41 years. The Air Force currently plans to completely retire the aircraft by 2028 if all goes as planned.
What are “planned plans”? And this is a replacement for the A-10 when working at the forefront. Moreover, the replacement is adequate, capable of not just mixing earth with concrete, but doing it efficiently in order to kill all the strangers and leave our own intact. And here the A-10 has practically no competitors! Helicopters, but they have their weaknesses. There was only one hope for the F-35...
But American (and other) critics have repeatedly stated that the F-35 is a poor replacement for the A-10. The F-35 is faster, making it difficult for the pilot to see the battlefield below, carries less ammunition, is not armored to evade anti-aircraft fire, and does not have a beastly gun like the A-30's 8mm GAU-10/A Gatling gun .
That is, rushing into battle like that, blowing to pieces the bad guys who are defeating the good ones, and not being afraid of what these bad guys have, is not a very easy task for the F-35. He’s good, he’s not afraid of many things, he’s able to shrug off missiles, but a basic ZSU-23-2 for the F-35 will hurt. Very painful. We simply remain silent about something like “Shilka”. This is death. And from an altitude of 8 meters, I’m afraid the pilot won’t be able to tell where anyone is below.
In the mid-2010s, the Pentagon authorized a competition between the two aircraft to determine the F-35's suitability for the A-10 role, and testing was conducted in 2018.
During the tests, the two types of aircraft collided with each other in three areas:
- close air support (CAS) - attacking enemy ground forces to support friendly ground forces;
- forward air traffic controller - performing the function of flight coordinator for other direct aircraft aviation support;
- Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) - escorting other Air Force assets, such as helicopters and CV-22 Ospreys, to rescue pilots behind enemy lines.
The tests were conducted in low- and medium-threat air defense environments, where the aircraft faced light anti-aircraft guns and, in the worst case, MANPADS missiles. The testing did not include "high threat" missions that would involve enemy fighters and advanced air defenses because the service said the A-10 was "not designed" to operate in such environments. In such conditions, as follows from the report, the F-35 is the only aircraft that is generally capable of fighting in such conditions.
In general, the tests turned out so-so and could not reflect the true state of affairs, since the conditions were clearly made for the A-10. And the F-35s were clearly not playing on their “home field”, plus they could not demonstrate their strengths. Or (this also shouldn’t be discounted) this arrangement was made deliberately, but it’s hard to say what benefit this gave to the F-35.
As a result, the test results were mostly classified, and those that were published were edited. Entire pages were erased from the report, which, let’s face it, didn’t contain many of them anyway. In addition, DOT&E recommendations are completely excluded. It is virtually impossible to gain insight into the report's findings from the published unclassified version.
The most useful information in the actual meat of the report is that A-10 and F-35 pilots can work together.
“F-35A and A-10C pilots often commented during debriefing on the synergies that could arise if A-10C formations operated with F-35A escorts during contested CSAR missions. This will combine the strengths of both platforms while mitigating their limitations to increase the likelihood of mission success,” the report said.
Why do they like working together? This has also been removed. It is difficult to judge the report itself, since there is practically nothing useful in it and there is no information about which aircraft performed better in their tasks. But the report gives the impression that the F-35 performed worse than expected due to the Air Force's apparent reluctance to declassify it.
One question that comes to mind is: what if the A-10 had done better?
Testing has been limited to low- and medium-threat environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts from which the United States withdrew some time ago. The US is also trying to stay away from such conflicts for the foreseeable future, preparing for a large-scale war. It seems that now it is not with world terrorism, but with China and Russia.
But this is no longer a low threat environment, is it? This is at least average if at sea and high if on land. And a walk like Iraq won’t work. How much A-10s are needed in such conflicts is another question. BUT in general, the USA can retain a certain number of Warthogs just for the “Just in Case” situation, and use them as needed, in secondary theaters, freeing up modern aircraft if necessary.
The concept “The stock doesn’t stretch your pocket.”
However, the United States cannot choose its wars and enemies, at least temporarily. Washington ended the war in Iraq but was forced to return when the Islamic State took over much of the country. The war against the Islamic State, which requires low loitering speeds, precision-guided munitions and the ability to engage targets with a large caliber weapon in the face of minimal opposition, is exactly the kind of air environment in which the A-10 excels.
Other conflicts may arise that are entirely appropriate for the A-10. It would be wise to maintain the existing stock of 281 A-10 aircraft as an emergency reserve, especially as the situation in the Middle East heats up again.
What about the F-35?
Nothing. It will be produced at the same pace, because if you look at the timeline, in the 20 years that have passed since the start of work on the F-35, the situation in the world of military aviation has somehow changed very much. And, on the one hand, ultra-modern stealth fighters and the same bombers are one thing, and ancient attack aircraft are another, but the tactical meaning is that both the first, and the second, and the third have their niches, in which each individual type of aircraft will have clear advantages over others.
Therefore, it is very difficult, especially in conditions of secrecy, to say something about how ready the F-35 is to replace the A-10 and whether the Air Force should begin decommissioning the A-10 and replacing it with the F-35? All the report says is that the pilots of both aircraft would prefer to work together rather than alone. Perhaps this is the answer that would suit both sides, meaning the pilots. But in the USA it is not the pilots who decide, but the lobbyists. Because the final stories can be anything, and depends far from those who sit in the cockpits of fighters and attack aircraft.
As for the openness of information and respect for the rights to it in relation to American taxpayers, everything is simple. Do they even need to know this information? After all, if the broad masses find out, we will know too. Although we, those who are just planning to be sighted, would love to know all the intimate details of the coolness tests of American aircraft. So yes, we are for complete openness of information.
Information