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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Sat Jun 7, 2014, 11:35 AM Jun 2014

‘A God’s Eye View Of The Battlefield:’ Gen. Hostage On The F-35

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/06/a-gods-eye-view-of-the-battlefield-gen-hostage-on-the-f-35/



At least $1.5 billion dollars of F-35s sitting on the trarmac

‘A God’s Eye View Of The Battlefield:’ Gen. Hostage On The F-35
By Colin Clark on June 06, 2014 at 4:25 AM

For years, the news about the most expensive conventional weapons system in US history, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has been driven by its enormous cost, design, and schedule screw-ups. The Pentagon and Congress and the public have rarely spoken about what the F-35 would do, how effectively it could destroy an enemy’s air defenses, shoot down an enemy plane, or find and strike other high value targets.

Air Force Gen. Mike Hostage, who will command the largest group of F-35s in the world, recently sat down with me in his office at Langley Air Force Base to discuss what the F-35 can do in the first 10 days of war — within the constraints of what is classified. Much of what appears in the following story is drawn from months of interviews with dozens of experts in the government, the defense industry and academia to flesh out some of its more exotic and lesser known capabilities.

This is the second and final story in what we hope will become regular coverage about the F-35?s capabilities as it flies closer to production and is sold around the world to America’s allies. The F-16 changed how America and its friends planned to fight wars. It helped guarantee one of the most important fundamentals of modern warfare — clear skies for us and our friends so we could bring the fight to a more vulnerable enemy. The F-35 takes the place of the F-16 and also replaces the EA-6B, F-111, A-10, AV-8B, Italy’s AMX and the British and Italian’s Tornado. No other aircraft carries such responsibility for so many, nor has one ever cost so much.

~snip~

These are the capabilities that most excite the experts I’ve spoken with because they distinguish the F-35 from previous fighters, giving it what may be unprecedented abilities to confuse the enemy, attack him in new ways through electronics (think Stuxnet), and generally add enormous breadth to what we might call the plane’s conventional strike capabilities.

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"The F-35 takes the place of the F-16 and also replaces the EA-6B"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA-6B

The Northrop Grumman (formerly Grumman) EA-6B Prowler is a twin-engine, mid-wing electronic warfare aircraft derived from the A-6 Intruder airframe. The EA-6A was the initial electronic warfare version of the A-6 used by the United States Marine Corps in the 1960s. Development on the more advanced EA-6B began in in 1966. An EA-6B aircrew consists of one pilot and three Electronic Countermeasures Officers, though it is not uncommon for only two ECMOs to be used on missions. It is capable of carrying and firing anti-radiation missiles (ARM), such as the AGM-88 HARM missile.

Prowler has been in service with the U.S. Armed Forces since 1971. It has carried out numerous missions for jamming enemy radar systems, and in gathering radio intelligence on those and other enemy air defense systems. From the 1998 retirement of the United States Air Force EF-111 Raven electronic warfare aircraft, the EA-6B was the only dedicated electronic warfare plane available for missions by the United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps, and the United States Air Force until the fielding of the Navy's EA-18G Growler in 2009.

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In other words the EA-6B was replaced by the $120+ million dollar EA-18G Growler and we don't need EA-6Bs anymore.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11784218

F-35's Stealth, EW Not Enough, So JSF And Navy Need Growlers; Boeing Says 50-100 More
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