This is mythical air superiority
The US may soon lose air superiority. This refrain sounds louder and louder on the other side of the ocean, and the argument becomes more and more impressive; you inevitably begin to believe that the matter is not at all about trillions for rearmament.
The US Air Force has said it must "rethink" the concept of air superiority in future wars. Here again the question arises, what should everyone else do? If the Americans are seriously worried that they will not have this very superiority, where should the rest run and how deep should they dig?
The Americans are really afraid that the Chinese Air Force will be more numerous than the American Air Force, and its air defense will be no worse than that of Russia. This indeed may well become a nightmare for the American military, but here they themselves are to blame; it was the American experts who let their imagination run wild.
Plot: The US starts a war against China. It’s vital, because the fantasy that China will attack the United States is what science fiction is.
Unlike other conflicts the U.S. Army has been involved in since the end of the Cold War, a war with China could leave Air Force aircraft outnumbered. The pace of development of China's armed forces hints at this very, very unequivocally, and conducting combat operations against a country that has an excellent military-industrial complex, and even close to its territory, is not the best situation for the Americans, who simply cannot imagine any other way of waging war except with full superiority of its aviation.
Yes, starting from the Second World War this is exactly how it is: first gaining complete air superiority, then everything else. This has been the case everywhere since the United States entered that war. Indeed, the US Army and Navy fought exclusively under the protection of their Air Force, which reigned supreme in the air.
Nowadays, the US Army somehow did not get involved in conflicts with countries capable of providing more or less decent resistance to the American Air Force. Perhaps Yugoslavia, which was destroyed by hundreds of cruise missiles, but this is rather an exception. Now, in the case of China, the US air force may find itself in a situation where it will have to use different tactics to establish air superiority, if this is possible at all.
Quite a challenge, isn't it?
After the end of World War II, the air force was the "500-pound gorilla" in any conflict, quickly gaining control of the air. But what if there is another gorilla weighing 227 pounds or even 500 pounds on the other side? The U.S. Air Force must change the way it fights to adapt to a new strategic environment in which it is not automatically the strongest air force in the fight.
Air superiority under threat?
The famous American magazine Air & Space Forces Magazine, which is practically the official mouthpiece of the Pentagon in the field of the Air Force and space military, frightened readers with the revelations of the Air Force Chief of Staff, General David W. Allwin, who told the audience that the days when military personnel enjoyed American air superiority are over. Allwin said it was "prohibitively expensive...to build enough air power to do it the way we've done it before and have air superiority for days and weeks on end."
You know, if a rank of such a high level can say this, it means that things are really going, or rather, they are flying, somewhat not where the American military would like.
The air force (of any country) defines air superiority as “that degree of air supremacy by one force that allows it to conduct its operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats.”
In general, everything can and should be divided into several stages.
Advantage in the air. This is when the Air Force can carry out any mission, but the enemy is still active and the mission may suffer losses.
Air supremacy, which is described as "that degree of control over the air such that an opposing force is unable to effectively interfere with the area of operations through air and missile threats."
There is a difference, a tangible difference, like between the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. During the Vietnam War, the US Air Force had air superiority, facing the numerically inferior but combat-ready air and air defense of North Vietnam. The air force could fly missions anywhere, but it needed fighters to protect bombers and suppress enemy air defenses to avoid serious losses.
The war in Afghanistan, where the Taliban had no fighters or air defense systems at all (MANPADS, you understand, do not count), and where bombers such as the B-1B Lancer could carry out missions without fighters performing escort or air defense suppression, was an example of air supremacy.
Cold War Dividends
The US Air Force was the second largest air force in the world at the end of the Cold War because it was numerically inferior to the Soviet Air Force, plus our Air Force had the advantage of not having to scatter aircraft around the world. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 left the US Air Force as the most powerful air force in the world today. During the 1991 Gulf War, the 1999 NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Air Force was able to assert air superiority and, in some cases, air supremacy.
The side with air superiority enjoys all sorts of advantages. Air superiority means that troops at the front don't have to constantly worry about being bombed by enemy planes. The United States Air Force is pleased to note that until recently, April 15, 1953, was the last time a U.S. combat aircraft was shot down by a manned enemy aircraft.
This means that supplies can easily flow to nearby airfields and wounded soldiers can be evacuated by air. Reconnaissance aircraft can fly missions over enemy territory and give command a comprehensive view of the battlefield, friendly ground forces can call in close air support on the front line, and bombers and attack aircraft can strike further to deplete enemy combat power at the front.
True, in the 20th century the situation changed noticeably, primarily with the appearance of Soviet/Russian air defense systems on the world stage, and in the 21st century the situation only became more complicated.
Today, the US Air Force believes that the next major war could (or will) be against China. Analysts have been hard at work for years now, developing and drawing plans for upcoming operations. The fact that the process is underway is clear from data leaking to the media, confirming a change in the concept of using the Air Force.
In general, what is leaking out little by little is surprising, because if you look carefully, some kind of World War II reigns in the minds of American planners: large-scale battles on land, at sea and in the air across East Asia and the western part of the Pacific Ocean, stretching for thousands of miles. The air force will fly from bases scattered throughout the region: Guam in the Pacific, Yokota, Kadena and Misawa in Japan, bases in Korea, the Philippines and Australia. The United States will also use bombers directly from the continental US to fight in the Western Pacific and even against targets in mainland China.
In general, it’s large-scale, but with some kind of air of frivolity. And then you instantly remember the Second World War and the Japanese blitzkrieg.
The huge front, which the Japanese frankly failed to supply, eventually collapsed. Yes, they kicked the Japanese army out of the islands for about the same amount of time as it took the Nazi comrades to drive the Nazis to Berlin, but the result was approximately the same.
And in both cases, the land war (with Germany) and the sea-island war (with Japan), aviation played a decisive role. Today, the development of air defense systems will definitely not give such an advantage to aviation as during the Second World War, and it will not be possible to sink ships the way airplanes did then. But nevertheless, aviation does not lose its importance, since it does not serve as a direct striking force, as during the years of that war, but as a means of delivering weapons to strike distance. In the first half of the 20th century, in an amicable way, the plane had one enemy - another plane. Air defense was not a serious opponent, the battle of the Prince of Wales and Repulse against Japanese aircraft, and the Yamato against American aircraft is the best confirmation of this.
Dozens (Yamato - 152 25-mm barrels + 24 127-mm barrels, Repulse - 20 114-mm barrels + 66 20-mm Oerlikons + 32 40-mm barrels) anti-aircraft artillery barrels were completely unable to protect the ships . Modern missiles and radar-guided missiles do this much better, but the aircraft are also radically different from those that sank the Repulse and Yamato.
It is obvious that with the progress of air defense systems there will be progress in aviation technology. The US military continues to replace the F-16 Fighting Falcon with the F-35 Lightning II, purchases at least 72 new F-15EX Super Eagle fighters and is at full speed (in terms of throw-ins) developing a replacement for the F-22 Raptor - the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter (NGAD).
In addition, we have already written about a simply huge contract for the purchase of at least 100, and probably about 200 new B-21 Raider bombers by the Air Force, capable of performing missions in contested airspace, that is, not only in conditions of air superiority, but also at earlier stages.
And there is another project under development: a stealth air tanker. An interesting idea, since a stealthy refueling aircraft will make it possible to supply aircraft with fuel without moving away from the contact line, thereby increasing the capabilities of its aircraft.
What about the “probable” enemy?
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, things are very complicated. On the one hand, China is expanding its J-20 stealth fighter fleet, adding more J-10 and Su-35 strike fighters, and developing the FC-31 stealth fighter. On the other hand, China does not have enough means of exporting force to other regions (yes, aircraft carriers and UDCs) to threaten the same States. And the Chinese government, which repeatedly emphasizes its commitment to the declared principles of peace, does not take steps that allow us to doubt this. And strengthening one’s borders is not the threat that the United States is so fond of talking about today.
However, here the Americans are using old training manuals from the Cold War, when the USSR was in place of China. The picture is approximately the same: the United States built bases all over the world, and for some reason the Soviet Union threatened this world.
Today's China operates using exactly the same methods that the Soviet Union used in matters of its security in the last century, so if the Americans need to change something, it is not critical. Just refresh the old teachings.
But there is a nuance here that the Pentagon understands: China does not have such an extended territory as the USSR. And, accordingly, China's large number of bases and aircraft means that the closer to China the fighting takes place, the more aircraft the country can take into the air at any given time and move almost anywhere in the territory. Whether from northern or southern airfields, planes fly to, say, Taiwan in no more than an hour.
Therefore, within 700-800 km from the coast of China (not to mention closer borders), the US Air Force risks operating in a numerical minority. And here a situation may arise when the qualitative superiority of aircraft cannot overcome the quantitative one.
Aviation fleet The United States has more than 700 F/A-18 aircraft. About 200 more F/A-18 aircraft and one and a half hundred F-35B and C are at the disposal of the Marine Corps. This is a very decent punching fist... if you get it to your opponent. And considering that it is simply unrealistic to send all 11 US aircraft carriers into battle at once, there can be no talk of using all these aircraft at once. The maximum that the fleet and KPM can field is about 500-600 aircraft.
But the PLA Air Force will be able to send all of its 1 or so aircraft into battle. Yes, most of them will be inferior not only to the F-700, they are far from the F/A-35, to all these J-18 and J-7, but there are almost 10 of them! And they will be able to play a very important role in the emerging (albeit theoretical) confrontation between the United States and China.
In all recent conflicts, the air force and navy have routinely attacked enemy air and ground defenses in the early days of the war, crippling their combat capability. These early days are characterized by cruise missile strikes against airfields, command and control centers, as well as fighter sweeps, searching the skies for enemy fighters, and missions to jam air defense radars and surface-to-air missile launchers. Once enemy air defenses are neutralized, the Air Force will be able to attack a full range of targets.
And here the immediate question is: what if, like in the Northern Military District, the air defense forces are not neutralized on the first day? And the PLA’s are much stronger than those of the Ukrainian Armed Forces...
In such a war against such an adversary, the US Air Force would be forced to immediately attack high-value targets before gaining air superiority, because otherwise it would never achieve air superiority against China. The sheer amount of equipment available and China's ability to rebuild its defenses by producing more radars such as the H-200 PESA radar, surface-to-air missiles such as the long-range HQ-9 and fighter aircraft of all types means that the country will always be a formidable adversary in the air.
In such situations, the US Air Force will either have to accept losses in order to do its job, or there will be no talk of victory at all. The US Air Force may be able to temporarily gain the upper hand, especially initially, by exploiting the effect of surprise, but the transfer of Chinese resources from one part of the vast country to another could tip the scales in its favor.
The conclusion is this: no matter how American military experts reshape tactics and strategies, the US air force cannot achieve superiority over China. This is not easy in peacetime; it will be almost impossible in wartime. The idea of air supremacy should be completely removed from the concept of using the Air Force until the time when the United States can actually field one American aircraft against one Chinese aircraft, which is superior to the opponent in all respects.
Too many planes, too many radars, too many missiles - these three components of Chinese power in the air, coupled with a network of airfields throughout the country and a huge number of ground personnel, will easily negate all the American efforts to gain air superiority.
No matter how wonderful the F-35 is, five J-10s simply won’t give it a chance of survival. No matter how excellent training American pilots have, 10 missiles fired in one salvo are 10 missiles.
But in fact, what the Americans are up to is not stupid. On the contrary, and they are great in this regard - they have created a new enemy for themselves, against which they can again spend huge sums of money. Everything is like in the good old days of the last century, when there was an “evil empire” - the Soviet Union. Now it has been replaced by China, which we also need to fight and be prepared for war. And today the United States is losing air to China in a hypothetical duel off the coast of China. China itself is very doubtful that it will go to war in America.
The concept of further development of the US Air Force received the main thing (what modern Russia lacks so much) - an enemy, in the name of fighting against which it is necessary to develop its army and navy. Therefore, there is absolutely no doubt that in the future the United States will have new aircraft carriers, UDCs, destroyers, airplanes and helicopters.
The main thing is that there is a vector for applying effort. Everything else is a fiction, as, in principle, is the much-needed conquest of air supremacy. It is much more important to gain superiority in the budget, the rest is still secondary.
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