DA,

 

It is 2015 and an all out engagement with PRC is waging in the Pacific. Russia is again taking advantage of a situation in which our military is severley stretched and begins mobilizing near the Caucusus Region. What is the minimum number of F-22's that would be needed to maintain air superiority to allow less capable platforms to survive? Assuming we are talking about first day of war, most likely there would be plenty of SU-30/J11's in the air which would need to be eliminated, SAM and COMM sites which need to be knocked out and airfields to destroy. So my question is how many F-22's  are required to perform these missions before other aircraft can be fully utilized in their perspective roles?

The 187 F-22's in our Air Force would be enough. Of course without any kind of elaboration on ORBATs, Geography and objectives to put things in context it is impossible to go into any detail.

-DA 

The "Predator C" will not vary much from the configuration from that which it is designed to compete against.

 

ASSERTION is not proof.  General Atomics own people are telling us Predator C or actually the revamped RQ-9C it is a response to their failure to successfully compete against Global Hawk for the high end market with their Mariner (not enough kilowatts power for the desired sensor fit!)

Until that poster can produce evidence that one single statement he's said on topic is merited by real published and easily checkable facts his opinion is unqualified.

 

And that is by the way NOT an opinion: it is what the evidence continues to show in this matter in spades.

 

Where is the analysis? Where is the proof/

 

Herald 

 

 

As to BMD, how LONG did that take? First systems were 1972 and were crude. We are 2009 and we can engage at last with a fair degree of success.

 

Notice the word FAIR.

 

Herald 

Everyone knows that 187 only means around 120-130 available for combat and maybe even less given there previous readiness rate due to unavoidable growing pains. Who knows what it would be in 2015. So are you suggesting that 120-130 planes is the right number to do the job? Details is irrelevant but you must have done some type of ORBAT analysis to support your final number.

Mustang,

 

In either theater, which to me both are highly unrealistic but I'll address a hypothetical, 48-96 F-22's plus our other air assets is enough to deal with any force our opponents could bring to bear. For instance, China would be almost incapable of meaningful force projection in the air too far away from the mainland and they would be limited in the numbers they could mass.The Russians demonstrated in Georgia what they are capable of. As impressive as it was, the air component of their force was nothing near the cold war levels that prompted the ATF program in the first place.

 

So in brief, I don't see a scenario where the Raptor components of our force would need to exceed 48-96 and if it did we would still have a reserve to draw on.

 

-DA

Where are the numbers?

 

From Scramble.... 

 

ORBAT for PLAAF.... 

 

ORBAT PLANAF... 

 

Global Security Overview.... 

 

Now then, the fly in the cited poster's ointment is this happy gang of rocketeers:

 

IMint analysis of a happy gang... 

 

 

Now I don't know about you but 48-96 Raptors to cover an air front that big from Hainan to Alaska and from the Philippines forward and then have added to it, the mission of getting our strike forces into at least Fujian, Liaoning, and Julin airspace to go DF-13, 15, and 32 hunting? 

 

Just how incompetent was that statement made on the basis of the CURRENT known threat estimates again?

 

We do not have counterbattery rocket forces, hypersonic nunitions are very few, and our subsonic cruise missiles cannot hit a moving target TEL that can shoot and move in as little as 30 minutes. We have to in trude aircraft, and we have to be on top of them or at least within a hundred seconds of them to neutralize a TEL launcher.

 

So tell me again that  48-96 Raptors will be enough to keep the PLAAF off the backs of our Super Hornets, Sparkies, and our worn out legacy Eagle force as we send them in to go Scud hunting?

 

The steps in the escalation rung from 14 to 32 depend on our conventionally being able to take down the Second Artillery and break up a political extortion attempt by the PRC bandits against the PACRIM allies. We have to raid them to thwart it. That means offensive air operations inside mainland China. That means we have to kill an estomated 300-900 PLAAF first line aircraft quickly inside their SAM defense zones and then neutralize their SAM sites so we can unmask their IRBM rocket batteries. Then its like stomping ants as the TELs run around the countryside. The F-22 coverage is thus not restricted to Taiwan or Guam. it also covers Japan and Korea at a mimimum. Like I said this is an entire air front, not just some isolated stretch of coast like the Formosa Straits. Such a scenario could involve the necessary total destruction of the PLAAF and the Second Artillery in the process of securing a settlement.

 

At some point, using the one down for maintenance rearm, one in the air and one in standby reserve rule, you realize that you need 1800 aircraft of all types, about one third of them air superiority types. Now do the math. 300 Eagles +187 Raptors to coiver the Falcons, Sparkies, Beagles, and Super Hornets = not enough air superiority birds to get the job done..

 

And that Mustang is a coverage analysis.

 

That is why I say the poster doesn't know what he discusses.