Re:US Military Asks for Help Locating Missing F-35 Fighter Jet
by justsomehnguy on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @02:06PM
(#37573795)
> Except the F35 would switch to Wild Weasel mode and start shooting down your sensors
Ie not performing CAS. As stated near the start of the thread, nor AC-130 nor F-35 would perform CAS against anything more dangerous than a flipflop army with a complete lack of AA capabilities.
QED
Re:US Military Asks for Help Locating Missing F-35 Fighter Jet
by dragontamer on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @02:16PM
(#37573944)
AC-130 cannot perform Wild Weasel missions.
F35 can perform both Wild Weasel and CAS missions. F35 is also cheaper than the AC-130 and responds faster due to much higher speeds (proper supersonic Jet vs Turbine).
Even in a CAS scenario, some scenarios will prefer an F35 over the AC-130 is the enemy is lightly armed and response time is a priority (traveling at 1200mph or faster vs 299mph means the F35 responds 4x faster)
If you had a large scale integrated sensor network, then yes you can triangulate an F35 and track it.
Except the F35 would switch to Wild Weasel mode and start shooting down your sensors (aka, SEAD missions) until it was safe to approach closely.
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That's the thing, if the F35 is already in your face to take direct gunfire like that,bits because the commanders are already sure that all advanced radar sensors are destroyed by HARM missiles.
That's the power of a stealth CAS fighter. It's got way less ammo and runtime than an A10 but stealth more than makes up for it.