In Defense of Fighters

Those who think fighters are finished do not understand basic operational requirements of war. In USAF photo by TSgt. Jack Braden Defense of Fighters

By Rebecca Grant

HE fighter force is under attack. Big price tags for new acquisition plus the claim that the demand for fighters is based on old requirements have Tspawned doubts about the current and future role of fighters in air and space power. Earlier this year, for example, the New York Times pointed out in an editorial that the Air Force “remains committed to the F-22,” then referred to the Raptor as “a short-range tactical fighter designed for Cold War dogfights.” The newspaper suggested that “Air Force dollars should go to unmanned reconnaissance and attack craft like the Predator, long-range bombers, and the troop transport planes that are in chronic short supply.” Another defense critic, Lawrence J. Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues the Pentagon should be spending money on “true” transformational systems such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that were used so successfully in Afghanistan. More significant were reports in May that a draft of the Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal

40 AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002 2004 and beyond called for re- precision weapons, the potential of fighters came to dominate the force evaluating the F-22 program. Spe- UAVs, long-range bombers, and fu- structure. In the 1970s, technology cifically, it called for a study of the ture space systems. development feeding on the lessons impact of buying only 180 new F-22 Scratch the surface of the fighter of Vietnam produced the F-15 as a air dominance fighters, rather than debate and one of the first problems true air superiority fighter. A com- the planned fleet of 339. The other to arise is the widespread perception petition to build an innovative, light- future Air Force air combat system, that a mafia of fighter pilots is will- weight fighter led to the design of the F-35 strike fighter, faces a simi- ing to sacrifice other systems and the F-16. Fresh emphasis on conven- lar review. even transformational capabilities to tional warfare and cooperation with The idea that the fighter is on its preserve their single-seat cockpits the Army through AirLand Battle way out reflects a misunderstanding and silk scarves. According to this helped push a major buildup in fight- of the basic operational requirements line of thinking, the passion for af- ers in the 1980s. of joint warfare—and of the fighter’s terburners and nine-G turns biases Brig. Gen. R. Michael Worden, long history of carrying forward in- Air Force generals in favor of fund- author of the book The Rise of the novative new developments in air ing for fighters and against systems Fighter Generals, notes that Secre- warfare. that threaten to do some of the work tary of Defense Melvin R. Laird in of fighters. the early 1970s pushed for “youth” Magnets for Criticism In the Air Force, pilots—especially in the military leadership ranks. The Fighters and bombers have been fighter pilots—dominate the ranks Air Force responded in part by giv- magnets for criticism and contro- of three- and four-star generals. Since ing early promotions to younger versy all through the history of war 1982, all Air Force Chiefs of Staff fighter wing commanders, with the in the air and never more so than have been fighter pilots. Fighter pi- result being that they “were young when the bill for enhanced capabil- lots of Tactical Air Command ap- enough to compete in greater pro- ity comes due. A few months before peared to win the battle of the Air portion for the higher flag officer Pearl Harbor, Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Force’s post–Cold War reorganiza- ranks before reaching mandatory Arnold famously confessed, “Frank- tion when Strategic Air Command retirement at 35 years of service.” ly, fighters have been allowed to was disbanded in 1992 and the new Later, disproportionate growth in drift into the doldrums.” As a result, Air Combat Command, emblazoned numbers of fighters put more and the US entered World War II with with the old TAC patch and com- more fighter pilots in the rated pipe- second-rate fighters on the front lines. manded by a senior fighter pilot, line for senior jobs. In Vietnam, US airmen paid the Gen. John Michael Loh, was stood The cliché of fighter pilots pro- price for lack of emphasis on fighter up at TAC’s headquarters at Lang- tecting their interests got new life development, as powerful but un- ley AFB, Va. Through the defense when UAVs began to make serious wieldy F-105s and F-4s were shot drawdown of the 1990s, USAF’s strides in capability and usefulness. down by surface-to-air missiles and force structure was expressed in terms “Not long ago, an Air Force F-15 agile MiG-21s flown by experienced of “fighter wing equivalents.” pilot had to be persuaded to forgo a North Vietnamese pilots. rated pilot’s job to fly—I guess that’s It hasn’t been all that long since the The Fighter Surge still the correct word—an unmanned United States was forced to learn these In truth, fighter pilots started to Predator aircraft from a location far stark lessons about military airpower. dominate Air Force leadership when from the field of battle,” said Paul Even so, the issue of whether to buy first-rate fighters is back. Today, the case against the fighters bounces from budget worries to technology debates. Among the nu- merous allegations are claims that

fighters lack key performance require- Staff photo by Guy Aceto ments, such as range; that they are overbuilt to Soviet threat standards that no longer matter; or that other air vehicle systems will soon be able to take over the work of air dominance. Running through it all is the charge that fighter modernization plans favor gold-plated aircraft built to meet the kinds of specifications that thrill fighter pilots and aerospace engi- neers but exceed joint requirements. Most damaging are doubts about whether so-called “short-range fighters” truly qualify as prospects for the transformation team. With trans- Some critics claim that fighter aircraft are not suited to transformation, but US formation atop the list of defense fighters have often been the first to take breakthrough technology into priorities, most attention focuses on combat.

AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002 41 and tactics. Versatility, sheer numbers, and the higher chances of mission success made fighters the tool with which air commanders accom- plished the broadest and deepest range of tasks. Following the Gulf War, the fighter force as a whole received targeting and weapons upgrades that extended

USAF photo by SSgt. Matthew C. Simpson the benefit of precision throughout the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. The Navy made its F-14 Tom- cat into a precision-capable “Bomb- cat.” In 1995, just four years after the Gulf War, fighters carried out Operation Deliberate Force, the two- week air campaign against Bosnian Serb targets. By 1999, it was the fighters that drew most of the as- signment for time-critical targeting The F-15, here launching an AIM-7 missile, was designed to outgun anything in Operation Allied Force. A case else in the air. The F-22, with stealth, supercruise, and triple the F-15’s range, in point was the F-15E, modified in represents a new generation of air dominance. the midÐ1990s so the pilot could receive video images of a target Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Consequently, fighters have often while he is en route. The B-2 stealth defense in recent congressional tes- been the first to take breakthrough bomber was the only aircraft able to timony. He went on to praise the Air technology into combat. Cockpit ra- drop the all-weather Joint Direct Force leadership for “working hard dar, jet engines, and pods for self- Attack Munition in 1999. By the to encourage this pilot and others to designated laser-guided bombs all start of Operation Enduring Free- think of piloting UAVs as a major went to war first on fighters. The dom in October 2001, however, mission and to become trailblazers term “fighter” is decades old, but Navy F/A-18s and F-14s and other in defining new concepts of opera- today’s fighters bear no more re- Air Force aircraft all employed tions.” semblance to the World War II era JDAM to great effect. The implication was that neither than a Ferrari does to a Model T. In keeping with the transforma- fighters nor fighter pilots were natu- tion tradition of the fighter, the F-22 rally well-suited to transformation. Precision and Stealth incorporates all-aspect stealth and Yet the history of air operations at- Fighters were at the core of the advanced avionics in an advanced tests to the place of fighters in the precision and stealth revolutions of fighter design. The combination front rank of innovation and trans- the 1990s. The wave of transforma- makes the F-22 the most survivable formation. tion that led to the stunning results aircraft ever to fly and will give it Technological superiority is the of the Gulf War depended on fight- superior ability to conduct air-to-air fighter’s first and foremost contri- ers and fighterÐbombers as the en- or ground-attack missions. bution. In air warfare, the ability to gines of change. In the Gulf War, for Still, the chorus of doubt about the survive, complete the mission, and the first time, American forces won future of the fighter has grown stron- control the airspace determines the air superiority quickly and effi- ger since the midÐ1990s. Critics point success of the air campaign. Spads, ciently. The F-15 led the dogfight to several shortcomings thought to P-51s, F-4s, F-15s, and F-22s have results and suffered no losses. The inhibit the utility of fighters. all had the same goal: Combine per- F-117 stealth fighter dissected the formance and tactics to outgun any- difficult Iraqi defenses while the The Range Issue thing else in the air and then pivot F-111 fighterÐbomber turned its pre- Heading the list is range—or the off that dominance to conduct dev- cision capabilities to the unforeseen supposed lack of it. Geographic ac- astating ground attack operations. task of destroying Iraqi tanks half- cess to the battlespace in major re- Fighters past and present share buried in sand. gional conflicts emerged as a pos- basic aerodynamic attributes that ex- Fighters succeeded in the Gulf War sible Achilles’ heel for the fighter plain why fighters remain on the front because their greater survivability— force. The worry has been that either lines, generation after generation. whether in the form of air combat military attacks by the enemy or While individual specifications vary, maneuvering or stealth—gave them political constraints from friends every fighter is designed with power the widest range of potential action could deprive US fighters of bases and maneuverability in mind. These in the battlespace and because they from which to launch operations. A and other physical attributes shared had the latest technology for precision 1993 RAND study observed that the by all fighters represent the attempt attack. Aircraft originally designed for “greater the combat range of an air- to achieve state-of-the-art aerody- more limited missions—for example, craft, the more likely it is to find a namics and deliver the maximum in the F-4G “Wild Weasels”—proved suitable beddown base in any the- air combat capability. capable of employing new weapons ater.”

42 AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002 As the US drifted away from Saudi successful. Moreover, even bomb- The focus on range left out the Arabia and some other Gulf allies, ers need prestrike and poststrike re- other side of the coin of anti-access the question of access loomed even fueling. B-2s leaving the target area scenarios: air defenses. larger. Raids such as Operation over Serbia were thirsty for fuel un- Desert Strike in 1996 and Operation til they met their tankers in the Medi- Fighter Territory Desert Fox in 1998 raised new di- terranean. Hostile airspace is fighter terri- lemmas with allies reluctant to grant The debate about the combat util- tory. With the exception of the use of in-theater bases for new of- ity of fighters boils down to a nar- stealthy B-2, bombers require sig- fensive strikes. USAF heavy bomb- row band of scenarios where basing nificant standoff ranges to strike tar- ers, Navy aircraft carriers, and long concerns and extreme inland ranges gets in heavily defended airspace. In land-based fighter missions helped stretch out the combat radius and Enduring Freedom, the air defenses— take up the slack. relatively light air defenses take at- rudimentary as they were—had to be Critical claims about fighter range trition out of the equation. Afghani- defanged first or even the VietnamÐ deserve far closer scrutiny than they stan after the first few days was just era MiG-21s possessed by the Taliban have so far received. It is axiomatic such a scenario. could have been a lethal threat to the that no combat aircraft can ever have Operation Enduring Freedom pre- bombers. The B-1s and B-52s loi- too much range. The new fighter sented a serious access challenge. tered safely over Afghanistan only designs make this abundantly clear. In-theater bases were few and not after it was cleared of air defense The Navy F/A-18E/F multirole Su- particularly close to the action. Land- threats by carrier-based fighter and per Hornet was designed with about based and carrier-based strike fight- B-2 strikes. Even so, fighters were 25 percent more range than extant ers had to use multiple air refuelings always in the area when bombers Navy fighters. The F-35 Joint Strike from Air Force tankers to get enough operated. Fighter will more than double the range. The extreme distance to the In the Balkans in 1999, long- unrefueled combat radius of the fight- target area limited the fighters’ time endurance on-call air support op- ers that it replaces. The F-22 will on station. erations with the bombers would triple the combat radius of current Bombers operating from Diego not have been possible with the fighters. Garcia faced no such constraints, roving Serbian SA-6s on the loose. However, actual combat radius loitering for hours at a stretch to In those situations, it falls to fight- depends on a whole host of vari- provide on-call air strikes. The suc- ers such as the F-16CJ to perform ables, ranging from altitude to the cess of the bombers—which ac- hunt-and-kill missions of lethal amount of ordnance carried and the counted for more than 70 percent suppression of enemy air defenses. attack profile. of all of the ordnance dropped dur- Many potential hotspots in the war Today, virtually no combat mis- ing the war—led some to question on terrorism include stiff air de- sions take place without air refuel- whether fighters would ever be fenses. It will be up to the fighters, ing. In Operation Allied Force, the needed again. “Restart the B-52 perhaps assisted by the B-2 and crowding of in-theater bases com- assembly line,” sneered Ralph Pe- Tomahawk cruise missiles, to take pelled Air Force F-15Es to fly seven- ters, a retired Army lieutenant colo- them down. hour missions from RAF Lakenheath nel and pundit. “We don’t need As recent operations attest, fight- in England to targets in the former extravagantly priced dogfighting ers do much more than engage in Yugoslavia, but their missions were machines.” dogfights. New platforms such as the F-22 and F-35 are designed to play multiple roles and streamline the fighter inventory. Still, the primary mission of the fighter boils down to air dominance. Regional air dominance counts. US fighters have flown more than 100,000 sorties for combat air patrols over northern and southern Iraq.

USAF photo by SSgt. Andy Dunaway When the Iraqi air force started vio- lating the northern no-fly zone, the operation needed more fighters to keep control of the airspace. A senior defense official said: “I talked to the Turkish general staff; they said they understood, and within a couple of days, it was ap- proved, and we put the fighters in there.” For these regional air dominance missions, only fighters will do. “If Saddam can’t fly up here The F-117 was the leading edge of the revolution in precision and stealth in [north Iraq] and can’t fly down here the 1980s and 1990s. US fighter forces quickly established air superiority in [south Iraq], that really puts great the 1991 Gulf War and every war since. constraints on his air force as far as

AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002 43 attempt to send F-16s in a large pack- age against a heavily defended target near Baghdad resulted in loss of life and a decision that no target in Iraq was worth the risk—because, of course, the more advanced and survivable F-117 was around to do the USAF photo by Kevin Robertson job. Putting the brakes on US fighter modernization is false economy and discards the nation’s key asymmet- ric advantage. The fighters strengthen US air and space power; new ones are needed to help the US stay ahead of emerging capabilities. Already, advanced Russian SAMs can be found in many countries. They are being marketed to many others. Ensuring that US aircraft can get into a target area and perform their Putting the brakes on US fighter modernization is false economy. The F-22, missions—now and in the future— shown here, and the F-35 are designed to maintain the US advantage far into ultimately comes down to whether the 21st century. the fighters can be tasked to take on the total threat of adversary air- their training,” the senior defense production seem to be quite effec- craft and surface-to-air missiles. official explained. “They can’t op- tive against it.” The F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint erate with the army in the south; Even since the heyday of the Mili- Strike Fighter are specifically de- they can’t operate with the army in tary Reform Caucus in the 1980s, signed to unravel integrated air de- the north.” there has been a widespread view fenses. Standoff cruise missiles such Even in low-intensity conflict, that adequate defense of the nation as the Tomahawk Land Attack Mis- air commanders cannot run the cam- could be had by buying cheaper, sile augment air dominance—but paign without important battlespace less-capable fighters. The myth of TLAMs, too, are vulnerable. One management platforms such as the the cheap fighter was a staple of the TLAM flying a preplanned route was E-3 AWACS and E-8 Joint STARS, Reforms. The “cheap hawk” school shot down by anti-aircraft fire dur- but fighters need to be available to of defense policy carries on that ing the Gulf War. defend them. “The first thing I want tradition, supporting a strong de- It is interesting to note that the to know is where the F-15s are fense and a robust military, but dis- fighter debate seems to be taking going to be in case we have to go daining any effort to differentiate place only in the United States. hide behind them,” said one of- among so-called “advanced jet air- Worldwide, the market for fighters ficer explaining mission planning craft” or to evaluate operational ar- remains strong and competitive, with for an electronic attack aircraft. In guments for their joint warfighting many nations choosing to spend their every air operation from Desert roles. By failing to look at these defense dollars on fighters. Storm to Allied Force, fighters factors, the cheap hawks gloss over In every air campaign, opening manned combat air patrol stations the real debate about how fighters the skies for friendly operations is to protect other assets from the contrast or complement each other the foundation of all that comes threat of attack by even a handful in joint operations. after. Fighters also remain the cor- of enemy aircraft. Also lost in the price tag argument nerstone of sovereign air defense. is the fact that, when war breaks out, Operation Noble Eagle put fighter How Many and How Much the best systems are sent in first. patrols over many parts of the For those who concede fighters Plans for the coalition air campaign United States after Sept. 11. No have some utility, a second perni- of Desert Storm centered deliber- other type of aircraft could have cious line of argument is that today’s ately on the stealthy F-117. The done that job. roster of fighters provide all the air mainstay F-16s, which lacked preci- Whether at home or abroad, win- dominance needed—and that stealth sion targeting in 1991, filled in the ning air superiority is the reason is a waste of money. Naval analyst gaps, with missions suited to their fighters will continue to be the aces Norman Friedman wrote in the Na- more limited capabilities. The one of air warfare. ■ val Institute’s Proceedings in May that ongoing technology improve- ments might make stealth irrelevant Rebecca Grant is a contributing editor of Air Force Magazine. She is presi- dent of IRIS Independent Research, Inc., in Washington, D.C., and has and that “the sheer cost of building worked for RAND, the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Chief of Staff of the F-22s might make it impossible to Air Force. Grant is a fellow of the Eaker Institute for Aerospace Concepts, the begin a new program.” He went on public policy and research arm of the Air Force Association’s Aerospace to say that “after all, the current Education Foundation. Her most recent article, “The Bekaa Valley War,” threat is such that aircraft already in appeared in the June 2002 issue.

44 AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2002