This will give DB a woodie ;)

Hardly. It sounds like it's the biz, however, it is still gonna be integrated to an inferior delivery platform! :( Woodies at half mast I'm afraid...

Would think a good tactic in your neck of the world is to have JSFs carrying long range missiles externally. Fly low, get in range, deploy your missiles, then climb to altitude to either take on A2A or use JDAMs/SDBs while in stealth mode. Sort of a 1-2 punch. The missiles hit them low, the JSFs hit them high.

Or pack the entire internal weapons bay with fuel cells, and place enough external droptanks that nearly snaps the wings off, buy a half dozen more tankers and once over the target (fuel permitting) have the pilot pop the cackpit canopy and fire a slingshot at said target. Then the JSF Mud Muppet runs out of fuel, crashes and the poor bograt driver has to swim home (due to the alarming but true fact that of 20 airbases in Oz, only 3 have rescue helos!!!). :( Wake me up when any JSF derivative can fly the 5950km combat range that the F-111C is listed as flying un-refuelled. Until then...

we could always go for the superbug, I'm sure it has the range requirements covered ;)

"Wake me up when any JSF derivative can fly the 5950km combat range that the F-111C is listed as flying un-refuelled." -- DB ---- With what bombload? Dispalcedjim

Highly amusing. I am thumbing through the Rhino NATOPS at present and will endeavour to get the A2A fuel weapons loadout which I believe is superior to that of internal fuel/weps equivalent F-35A. The F-35C is different, however, as we aren't buying it, I don't usually use it in future RAAF naffests.

F-111 strike range. Seek and you shall find... Wilson, Stewart. 1994. Military Aircraft Of Australia. ACT. Aerospace Publ. ISBN 1875671080 P.S. I dare say you blokes have sufficient intellect to peruse these sources for yourself. If you don't believe me then I couldn't care less. You could always do an FOI search with RAAF/DoD. I have and they are quite abliging at times.

Well, I searched for F-111C and range, read about the first 30 hits (some of which obviously were quoting each other), and determined the ferry range for the F-111 is either about 5450km, 5500km+, or 5700km. But that's ferry range, so I kept looking. The only citation that gave some range v. bombload information was from a Carlo Kopp article (so we can be sure it is about the most favorable to the F-111 as anything in print) which showed a radius for the F-111G/FB-111 of almost 1200NM (or about 2150km) with 4000lbs of bombs plus external fuel, and about 1050NM (or almost 1900km) with 8000lbs of bombs plus external fuel. Of course, that's the F-111G and he doesn't say if the first 4000lbs is internal (thus allowing four drop tanks) or external (thus only allowing two drop tanks). (http://www.f-111.net/CarloKopp/DT-F111-MAY03.pdf) Given that, I will now repost from http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/89-28359.asp but make one additional note that by my analysis the radius of the F-35A with 8000lbs plus two drop tanks should probably be somewhere around 750NM, or 1350km. It seems to me what the RAAF really needs is more tankers. ---- Dropbear, Regarding tanking, your posts almost seem to say F-111s don't need tankers, period, while F-18s and F-35s do need tankers, period. Clearly that's only true for those missions that fall in the zone beyond the F-18 and F-35 unrefueled range but within the F-111 unrefueled range. To belabor the point, "B-52s don't need tankers, F-111s do." Well, yeah if we're talking about missions beyond 2000km or whatever is the F-111 unrefueled range. So what is the F-111 range, and what missions can't be performed without that much range? 6000km+... F-111C... To repeat: with what weapons load? 6000km ferry range with four drop tanks I can believe without evidence, 6000km with a bombload I'd like to see in print, along with the loadout. What are some F-111C actual loadouts and ranges? How far can an F-111 go with two 2000lb bombs and two drop tanks (which is its maximum range configuration unless you fly the entire mission with the wings fixed unswept, given it only has four swiveling pylons)? F-35A radius with two AMRAAM, two 2000lb bombs, and only internal fuel (approx 18,000lbs, I think) = 600nm = 1080km. Since we're comparing to the F-111 then strap on two drop tanks giving an extra 1100 gallons or so, which is somewhere around another 7150lbs, which ought to increase radius to approximately 833nm = 1500km. Okay, that's not 2000 to 3000km, it's "only" 1500km. I don't know if four wing stations are "wet" but if they are then hang two more drop tanks on and then I'd guess you can get a radius somewhere around 1900km. Okay, that's not 2000 to 3000km, it's "only" 1900km. Judging by a quick look at a map with a ruler and some guesswork it looks like you may have to in-flight refuel to hit much of Java where before you may well have been able to hit Java without refueling. Perhaps more disturbing to me, you may have to do an in-flight to hit New Caledonia where before you probably did not. :-) So if those extra several hundred kilometers unrefueled are so critical, then keep F-111s or go ahead and actually get some bombers and/or maritime patrol aircraft instead of relying on tactical fighter aircraft for long-range missions. As for bomb delivery, first of all I never doubted the F-111's great capability. Second, there is zero reason I can think of to assume the F-111 can deliver anything more accurately than an F-35. For one thing I'm assuming that for smart munitions the platform isn't going to matter. For Aussie purposes, which might require some dumb bombs, while the difference may be hard to measure I still assert the F-35 could only be as good or better than the F-111. To answer the question that apparently triggered your original post, I guess I'd think that American warplaners probably don't count on Australian tactical airpower flying missions from Australia in support of US operations much beyond southern Indonesia anyway. In that 500km+ band around Australia that falls within the unrefueled range of the F-111 but outside the 1500km unrefueled range of the F-35, I guess we'll just have to bite the bullet and plan for your decreased capability in that area. Meanwhile, for the area within 1500km of Australia, F-35 will give greatly increased capabilities, both in air-to-air, air-to-ground, and anti-ship. I'll agree that you will want to integrate ASCMs like Harpoon if that's something you currently use on F-111 and/or F-18 and is a capability you want to keep, as I doubt (but don't know) that F-35 has been cleared for that weapon (yet). AGM-142 is a huge beast, so I wouldn't bet on using that from the F-35. But considering the capabilities of JDAMs and SDBs which I would hope Australia will acquire, I think you ought to be able to achieve equivalent or better anti-ship capability. Displacedjim

"a radius for the F-111G/FB-111 of almost 1200NM (or about 2150km) with 4000lbs of bombs" Sounds familiar - "The J-UCAS objectives are airfield/land and aircraft carrier-based UAVs, a combat radius of 1,300-1,500 nm with a full payload of 4,500 pounds inside a large weapons bay, and a loitering capability for 2 hours over a target area 1,000 nm away from the operating base"