USAF: Indian Exercises Showed Need For F/A-22, Changes In Training, page 5

1. You /never/ use an offensive counter air platform like the Eagle in a DCA environment where you are tied to defense of a specific asset like a main operating base. Putting the hurt on the enemy's basing structure is OUR main objective. That's like a Cheyenne dog soldier tying his foot to the ground in the face of a Cavalry charge and saying "From here I shall not be moved!" Fixed asset defense is a problem for S2A systems to handle with their very much larger kill vehicles and multi-track radar systems plus ARM pits and decoys. The way you beat the IAF trying to attack YOUR airfield is by moving too far from their bases for their tiny jets to play ball. And putting a PAC-3 ERINT battery on all the likely approach routes as well as sitting on the runway intersection. And the USAF is stupid if they think otherwise, just on sortie-robbing from effective prosecution of an OFFENSIVE airwar.

Now, if you want to talk /anti access/ strategies that keep us operating on a very long AAR tether from whomever will let us in...

2. Everyone knows that the F-15 is a cripple when it comes to penetrating a well developed IADS, possessed of a MASSIVE all round signature, even the FQ mod ALQ-135 cannot fully mask, it has no HARM or HARM-cue capabilities (thanks to the weak wingtips and aggressively nasty underwing acoustics environment, the outboard pylons will never be activated and the inboards are almost de-rigeur tanked because the internal fuel fraction is so low) and this is why the F-16CJ.50 is the prefered offensive aircraft that the theater CINCs give the call to. And has been since the mid-90's when the Serbs made trolling attempts to drag us across the border into the S2A thickets of The BOz. Certainly the Numero Uno of A2A ops: radar functionality, is more up to date in the APG-68V8 thru 10 series apertures than it is in the APG-63V(1).
That said, the 3rd TFW is in fact the sole operator of the APG-63(V2) with one squadron of aircraft being so equipped with a 'brick level' AESA radar. Largely so that Boeing could then offer the equivalent technology for export. Nobody has taken them up on it because the radar is so massively heavy that it requires something like 400lbs of aft ballasting, which cannot be helpful to the type's aero performance. The APG-63V(3) will take this technology down to the 'tile' if not 'button' level and vastly improve the overall reliability and efficiencies of the airframe. Yet it is ONLY being considered (funded thru Raytheon as an R&D program I believe) if the F-15 itself receives a full 'Golden Eagle' modification which will be akin to the Hog Up/Falcon Up and Falcon CUPID programs in going where MSIP should have gone some 15 years ago. It will still be lipsticking the pig or crutching the geriatric however and particularly without rerated ramp system and 132/232 EFE engines, the Eagle is apt to become very sluggish with the added mass of structural bandaids.

3. Given the above, I would be very surprised if we /ever/ use F-15s again without AEW and proactive EA/DEAD support. Yet the presence of these assets is unlikely due to the dubious decision to operate over an _Indian_ instrumented EW range. Given they are direct technical allies of the FSU, I find little of merit in our being there at all. Furthermore, I see _no_ reference to S-300 or equivalent Gen-3/4 SAM systems being used and -that- is the primary threat driver. Similarly there is no mention of advanced illuminator/striker type detached section tactics using the MIDS/IDM modem which the 3rd TFW also has. These two systems would theoretically allow an AIM-120C7 or D equipped team (with 2-way, digital, datalinks to the missile) to attack the threat from highly divorced spatial positionings using a missile with an _11"_ motor extension. Since the lies about the doppler notch are largely exaggerated given the monopulse swing angle and multi-PRF tracking (which takes away the famous Russian 'anti-AMRAAM' tactic of cutting airspeed and then recovering for an MRM shot), the metric then becomes one of 'my six AIM-120 vs. your four R-77 or R-27AE' and the U.S. should be able to use COE or Contempt Of Engagement tactics to dictate pole numerics from the outset of engagement.

4. The notion of a need for 'Better Red Air' is contemptibly /laughable/ given the FACT that Nellis based Aggressors were doing anti-AMRAAM/anti-Wall-Of-Eagle tactics in the late 80's and were in fact _disbanded_ because they showed a gross lack of 'tact' in humiliating the the AIM-120/F-15 'big stick, little ball' combination. And we couldn't have that, now could we?. Snort.
Keeping in mind they were doing this with early generation F-16C.25 or .32 with the Pratt 220 motor and no AMRAAM option themselves, it is not in anyway unsurprising that roughly equivalent MiG-21 mod 'Bison' and early delivery Su-30 were able to challenge the F-15s ten years older. I would, again, be more interested in seeing the unrestricted use of radars over our MOAs and thus a comparitive evaluation of things like AIM-9X vs. Python-4/5 and Derby which the IAF is supposedly buying for their MiGs and Jags. MICA on the Mirage 2000 is another 'interesting' option. Because I think what you will see is that 60` bore on an 8-12nm (impact distance) AIM-120B or 12-15nm AIM-120C5 is going to BEAT the extant Russian and Israeli and French SRM classes. But that the '20km seeker on a 10km motor' AIM-9X (which was taken to Cope India btw.) will AGAIN cripple the Eagle as a platform too large to be doing WVR crap, with a micromissile intended for the 'small fighters' like the F/A-18 and F-16. God knows that's what killed all functionality in the AMRAAM until they got the electronics small enough to stuff another 5+void-6 inches of motor inside.

5. Until and unless they start giving us REAL flight test data on the F/A-22 (how fast, how far, what kind of an internal fuel fraction for wingloading/thrustloading/G-rating XYZ in terms of sustained supercruise) there will be no validity to the types claims of enhanced performance. Right now, the advertisment is for 100nm in and out at Mach 1.5 or better with a 400-450nm combat radii. This is NOTHING compared to the 800nm overall mission with 'half' (over enemy territory) in SSC. Stealth is worthless if it doesn't bring with it the legs to employ _away from_ such incredibly high signature, high risk (in a MEADS/Aster and S-400 age of 300+km weapons) assets as tankers BEFORE you cross the fence. Equally, if we are talking anti-access and 'raid-ial' distances from outside 500nm, ONLY sustained supercruise will buy you decent sortie numbers over target. Here, I am actually very optimistic. Because Air Force lies, and prevaricative silence actually reinforces the notion that a Raptor with 20-25,000lbs of internal fuel (the equivalent of an F-15C with 2-3 610 gallon tanks) is actually right up there in the 7-league-boots area. And we are only holding back on this fact until the utterly worthless JSF can be purchased. Of course the USAF 'never planned' on losing the F/A-22 as a viable production airframe 'in addition to' the F-35 so there may still be some hard choices when you are looking at a 2-3hr vs. 7-10hr cruise speed difference in the 700-800nm radius category. 1.25:1 manning ratios simply don't support the notion of a high value (limited inventory $$$$) force that can only generate 1 mission per day, per airframe, without KILLING the aircrew with fatigue. The UCAV is the only other option and the Armed Forces don't seem to care for our national security as much as they do assuring squatters rights for their 'voting majority' of cockpit unionists.

8. Lastly, and most worrying in many ways. Given VLO /works as advertised/, Air Supremacy shouldn't really be separated from Strike IMO. While 'Air Dominance' is about 80% DEAD and 20% A2A. The first means that if you tie an F/A-22 to a legacy force of F-Teens, _it's_ best cruise performance and ability to reach-back beyond the frontal layers of air defense will be no more or less than the loiter and coverage required to make the 15E/16C/18F pylon-mission happen with bigger bombs. And that is a shame because 90%+ of the target set can be dealt with using very small charges in a penetrating case munition, and the F/A-22 is the ONLY stealth jet to have nominally demonstrable LO carriage of these munitions in the GBU-39 on the BRU-61 in it's weapons bays. At the same time, ICAP-3 was cancelled by the USN after a single squadron of 'testing the electronics for the EA-18G' showboating while the rest of the Prowler fleet languishes and the AARGM was similarly abandoned in the hopes that Congress would once again step in and assure funding for these _critical_ EA/DEAD systems while the HG&U admirals went after more pretty hulls for their so called inshore/littoral program. Except Congress hasn't. And so you are once more looking at a 'purely air superiority' platform in the Raptor which _cannot defend itself_. But you are also staring in the eyeball an escort system (made up of 300nm small weasels cued on by RC-135) that itself is /highly/ vulnerable to the Gen-4 (ARH on a long loft IMU) SAMs. And may be facing DEWs in another 10 years or so.
ALL this is 'bad, very bad' when you consider the fact that the Raptor is supposed to itself be the 'enabler' force. The doorkicker element of GSTF which protects the B-2 and F-117 and EA-6B /before/ the F-legacy jets get into play.
And it can (now) only do so with a glide-out ballistic weapon whose average Mach point is going to be less than 1.4 for targets in the 20nm category. AND less than .75 for targets in the longreach areas of 50-80nm. HSAD/HSARM are in the running to replace HARM with a potentially ramjet driven + Quickbolt autonomously seekered (no more 'microwave oven' decoys!) _internal carriage_ weapon. But it too is very young as a program and thus apt to cribkill vulnerabilities as benchwork transitions to producing flight test hardware for a major weapons qualification.
ESPECIALLY given the low numbers of F/A-22 being purchased, the low numbers and protracted delays that are looking likely for the F-35. And the U.S. armed forces utterly moronic notions of why they won't buy UCAVs to act as sacrificial droid-air /instead/ of running a manned systems risk; there is simply no justification whatsoever to support the F/A-22 as a JDAM/SDB weasel aircraft. It cannot provide coverage of the flanks and forespace areas of even a small raid package against threats with such huge envelope bubbles and the abiltiy to put 'torpedo spread' salvoes of missiles into a seeker cube that is NOT dictated by launch-site detection threshold WEZ dynamics as the older SARH and CG systems were 1-shot:1-plane limited to.
S2A fires have claimed, by far, the majority of downed aircraft from the very earliest days of our taking warfare into the 3rd dimension. We MUST therefore begin to look at these platforms, no matter what the nominal letter in front of them, as systems which divorce themselves from the nominal 'predictive zone' of sensor-here, missile box there, cross coverage. While maintaining the ability to WIN missile chicken games, either with hypervelocity ramjet (HSARM) or sustained supersonics (Lethal MALD) that pushes our weapons out further, faster than their SAMs can come back at a very limited procurement of VLO assets.
I would also advocate the development of very low observable, endurant, UAVs to supplement the Darkstar scaleup used in OIF. Because these are the systems which will have to be available to use both LPI doppler radar and IRST lookdown in backtracing the launch plume and speed-rise of missiles coming out of 'dumbfire' launch boxes which are little more sophisticated than a U-Haul trailer with an ADGE datalink or 'roadside plugin' ability to take shot handoffs from other, outside, cueing sensors.
Missiles with hunting, classification capable, sensors are _worthless_ if you are flinging them upwards of 200km without precise cueing as to seeker footprint and restrictor data for trajectory optimization and no-collaterals flyout. And only a separate aperture can achieve this needle-from-hay localization from 'on-high'.
Can the Indian's help define this new operational metric by making (deliberate) fools of the USAF using predictably (AIMVAL/ACEVAL) and Bore-only AIM-9L shooting F-5Es 'beating' F-15s with AIM-7F) 'golf handicapped' tactics vs. technology leveraging?

I doubt it. KPl.