F-22 - a plane you won't go to war with?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Hitman

I overall agree with Skybird's estimation of the potential future wars, but would like to know how precise is this statement from Subman1:



Isn't the F-15 a good enough air superiority fighter?

It depends on the kind of enemy you go against, and how it is used and supported by electronic networking. Comparisons of this kind are difficult, because not only the aircraft's flight characteristics adds to the formula, but also the tactic way it is being used, it's sensors and radar, IR and radar profile, and especially the kind of missiles it can support. Presence of friendly AWACS makes a big difference, too. the Russians built some hell of capable anti-tank- and long-ranging anti-air-missiles, and modern IR-missiles from Russian, American and Israeli production are practically impossible to evade. Some russian radar AA missiles outclass the American AMRAAM in range, they even built an IR missile with the range of a LR radar missile in the past. Their good missiles and their strong radars is what gives russian fighters their strength - I would not call the Su-30 or Su-35 a good dogfighter. But classical dogfighting is not the decisve factor in air combat anymore, since nay advantage one side has gets neutralised more and more the shorter the combat range is. You can neutralise that by a design like the F-22 - or by improving your own weapon's precision and range, which is the cheaper way to go, and is economically less prone to own equipment being shot down. By this logic I tend to think that possibly armed drones are indeed the future, they also remove the availabilty of pilots from the pilot pool from the formula. However, as the high number os civilian csualties in Pakistan and Afghanistan shows, drones are no wonder weapon and the way they are being used and their capabilities must be improved. currently they are still too unreliable as weapon-platforms.


Regarding the most likely scenarios we need to expect, this all is of not much more than academic value. Guerillas and Taleban do not run air forces and tank armies.

I just would wish we would stop to trade top notch tanks, combat airplanes and submarines to foreign countries. It is so very stupid to sell your sophisticated weapons just to anybody.