>You don't need to replace 10 excellent pilots with 10 good pilots to win a war of attrition. You just need 10 pilots that can fly, lock a missile and fire.
That's not how it works. The F35 will detect those pilots far sooner than they will detect it and shoot them down before they even see them. Combine a battle space with dozens of MALD decoys flying around drawing shots, those poor pilots would have never had a chance because the F-35 pilots would never give their enemy the chance to shoot at them in the first place.
> Most critical infrastructure is located far inland away from areas that are vulnerable to cruise missiles and the like
I can't find the map now, but just about all of China is within reach of US cruise missiles launched from bombers if the need would arise.
> Critical infrastructure can be built faster today than it ever could be in the past
You're not going to build a Fab overnight. If you knock out a radar factory, that's going to be offline for months. Same thing with a turbine factory.
What I don't think you also appreciate is that of all planes to try to claim that someone could win a production race against, the F35 is a very poor target. There are already produced at rates of ~130 per year and expected to rise to 180. There is no existing line that is manufacturing aircraft that comes close. Not only is US Air power technologically superior but they have the numbers.
> That's not how it works. The F35 will detect those pilots far sooner than they will detect it and shoot them down before they even see them. Combine a battle space with dozens of MALD decoys flying around drawing shots, those poor pilots would have never had a chance because the F-35 pilots would never give their enemy the chance to shoot at them in the first place.
It matters when we're talking about full scale war between major powers. For some context, the US alone built 85,000 planes at the height of WW2 in one year alone. Granted planes back then were much simpler, but industrial processes have significantly improved. It's reasonable to say that the Chinese could produce 10,000+ 3rd or 4th gen fighters per year. Even at ridiculous kill ratios of 100:1 for each F22 and F35 it's easy to see that the balance of power would be pretty tenuous there. If the US wants to decisively win, it needs to ensure surge production capacity of up to several thousand stealth fighters per year.
Since the US let the INF lapse it will certainly build longer range cruise missiles. The entirety of mainland China will certainly be within range of those missiles from a variety of platforms within a few years if not sooner.
Not overnight, but it can be done.
Generals in every war for the last 150 years have been sure that technology would let them break the back of their opponents in record time. The reality is that in almost every case wars turn into long drawn out affairs that rarely go as well as one side had hoped before the conflict started.
> It's reasonable to say that the Chinese could produce 10,000+ 3rd or 4th gen fighters per year.
No it isn't, and it wouldn't most certainly would not maintain any of that capability within a few months of a conflict.
I'm sorry but this line of thinking is simply out of date. The proof is in the pudding: the Chinese themselves are not massing loads of cheap platforms, they're throwing everything into the J-20, putting an enormous amount of effort into fewer more expensive platforms. Just look at their navy. They have cheap catamarans by the dozens. Instead of building hundreds or thousands of those, they're putting serious investments into building large surface vessels which attempt to match America Burke class destroyers.
You seem to be under the impression that if, say China has 10,000 jets to 1,000 American jets where the American jets enjoy a 10:1 advantage that they would at a stalemate. That's just not true.
The CCP watched the first Gulf War with horror as they saw technologically superior American forces wipe out division after division of war veteran Iraqi troops. Their doctrine then was one similar to Iraq, relying on larger less sophisticated forces. The CCP's since trillions of dollars in investments in matching American capability is their assessment of that previous doctrine.
There is a presentation, given by a Ukraine-Russia war observer to new officers at a US academy. The guy had talks with Ukraine generals and was analyzing the war.
He said that the ukraine air force was broken and destroyed by the russian system. The same thing happend to Israel, where at the time they had one of the best air force.
Any planes and helicopters werr forced to fly really, really low because of the S300 and S400. The information of a incoming object was given to a mobile squad who where anticipating and waiting for the plane. Then they simply shoot the plane down from atleast two sites with their portable and advanced SAMs.
He also said, that the US is not ready for that kind of war and is not trained for it. The US had always had the assumption of a given air superiority in any conflict. But air superiority is not given, if fighting close to Russia or China. And the russian system showed how easy it would be to contest it. For that reason, the US would lose air superiority in a conflict close to russian border and because you can't always count on stealth fighters, they are too unreliable, specially if fighting far away without a secured air base close to the conflict.
>The same thing happend to Israel, where at the time they had one of the best air force.
When are we talking now? Because the Israeli's have destroyed numerous Syrian owned cutting edge Russian SAM's using non stealthy F-16's.
>He also said, that the US is not ready for that kind of war and is not trained for it.
The US own S300's which they have trained against. The F35 is practically purposefully designed to counter Russian SAM capability in order to fight in contested airspace. And it is exceedingly good at it. There is no country in the world which is better at SEAD than the US.
> And the russian system showed how easy it would be to contest it. For that reason, the US would lose air superiority in a conflict close to russian border and because you can't always count on stealth fighters, they are too unreliable, specially if fighting far away without a secured air base close to the conflict.
This is quite difficult to take on face value as nothing more than laughable. Russian SAM capabilities have been utterly embarrassing in their performance in Syria.
The biggest problem the US has as far as fighting for air superiority would be fighting near China due to the range of China's A2AD capabilities which would likely flatten just about every runway within range. But that's what the USAF's tanker fleet is for. Ultimately NGAD will provide the range required to neutralize that problem.
That's not how it works. The F35 will detect those pilots far sooner than they will detect it and shoot them down before they even see them. Combine a battle space with dozens of MALD decoys flying around drawing shots, those poor pilots would have never had a chance because the F-35 pilots would never give their enemy the chance to shoot at them in the first place.
> Most critical infrastructure is located far inland away from areas that are vulnerable to cruise missiles and the like
I can't find the map now, but just about all of China is within reach of US cruise missiles launched from bombers if the need would arise.
> Critical infrastructure can be built faster today than it ever could be in the past
You're not going to build a Fab overnight. If you knock out a radar factory, that's going to be offline for months. Same thing with a turbine factory.
What I don't think you also appreciate is that of all planes to try to claim that someone could win a production race against, the F35 is a very poor target. There are already produced at rates of ~130 per year and expected to rise to 180. There is no existing line that is manufacturing aircraft that comes close. Not only is US Air power technologically superior but they have the numbers.