F-35B Lightning (RAF & RN)

[Gabriele]

As of now, no, there is no weapon in the arsenal that can't fit the B but fit the A. The PW III will not be integrated, and i'm pretty sure it would not fit anyway.

[Lord Jim]

I suppose it only matters with regards to what limitations the smaller bay puts on the acquisition of future weapon systems.

[serge750]

Not sure if this has been posted before but quite interesting snipit….I like the CGI of the apache aswell… Apologies if it has been posted.

[SW1]

The decision to move ahead with the tempest program to replace typhoon has pretty much (baring a significant change of direction) ended the discussion about a split buy of f35. Typhoon has and will take over the roles and responsibilities of the tornado force, and will be the backbone of uk combat air power for the next 20 years.

It is unlikely we will see new purchases of f35 beyond those already announced we may see the fleet round out at about 56 a/c and perhaps a few to replace early examples if upgrade costs prove cost prohibitive. I would suggest what may happen is a 3rd operational Sqn of f35 will stand up to allow some ability to sustain a fwd deployment capability but nominal Sqn a/c numbers will reduce to 9 a/c following a practise witnessed with the harrier fleet once it went all gr.

[Jdam]

Seen this on Gabs twiiter account about British weapons on the F-35.



First time I think I have seen the F-35 with the 4 live AMRAAMs in its load out. I remember it was part of the 3F software requirements but up till now I'm sure all footage of AMRAAM launches where done from the missile rail not the bomb bay.

Looks like they were testing out a full Air to Air load with AMRAAM's and ASRAAM's.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/brit ... -the-skies

[bobp]

Very nice so our F35B has the ability to fire air to air missiles. When will it get Air to Surface Missiles such as Brimstone.

[SW1]

The only UK air to surface weapon that is being integrated is the paveway 4 bomb. There is a hope spear 3 will be allowed to be integrated as part of the software 4 upgrade sometime in the late 2020s.

[Gabriele]

It's a bit more than a hope, actually, with some contracts already signed.

[SW1]

Until the US decides what weapons it is and isn’t allowing to be included in the block 4 upgrade program it remains a hope.

[Lord Jim]

It would help if we could get other F-35 users to take an interest in SPEAR 3 and a stand off weapon able to be carried internally. I am still surprised there hasn't been more interest in Brimstone form other nations given its excellent combat record. We need to be careful we do not let our complex weapon capability become too niche and bespoke to UK requirements, like has happened to the majority of out defence industry. Every programme should have one eye on what other countries requirements are when designing a system to meet UK requirements as well as the cost, if we are to compete with the US and France in this arena.

[AndyC]

Block 4 software includes ASRAAM Block 6 (incorporating a new seeker designed for the CAMM family of Surface-to-Air Missiles with the capability to intercept incoming missiles), Meteor BVRAAM (with yet to be confirmed advanced Mitsubishi AESA seeker) and SPEAR 3.

This is all meant to be live in 2024 but everything to do with the F-35 is always late!

What's missing and should be there is Storm Shadow after its SPEAR 4 mid-life upgrade (couldn't we persuade Italy to share the cost as they've got a stockpile of 450+?)

We should be able to afford this from savings made on the Meteor integration by sharing this cost with Japan, Italy and South Korea.

[SW1]

AndyC

Block 4 containings nothing yet. There is a lot of arguments in the US about the cost of the block 4 upgrade and nothing is certain yet. There is considerable horse trading going on between capabilities that were originally to come in the block 3f software that have moved into block 4 because they simply can’t get them done in sdd phase. The US will be integrating the weapons it wants first and foremost and depending on what that time and cost looks like will depend how many none US capabilities/weapons will be included or held to block 5.

[sunstersun]

https://i.redd.it/2kwzr5tmvqj11.png

[Timmymagic]

nice so our F35B has the ability to fire air to air missiles. When will it get Air to Surface Missiles such as Brimstone.

Never going to get Brimstone I'm afraid. Spear 3 will fill that hole for F-35B.

[bobp]

Thanks for that Spear 3 is of course going to be more capable.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Why pay the full whack, when you can double the fleet with "loyal wingmen"? A snippet from FlightGlobal, 31/8/18:

[The Rand Corp. report comes as] the USAF’s number of aircraft have declined precipitously over the past three decades, partly the result of a Cold War draw down in aircraft purchases and a greater emphasis placed on buying fewer, more expensive aircraft, such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 which promise greater capabilities. To offset this shrinking force the service has been experimenting with so-called Loyal Wingman drones, including Kratos Defense’s XQ-58A Valkyrie, which will be test flown for the first time this fall.

[Pongoglo]

Seen this on Gabs twiiter account about British weapons on the F-35.



First time I think I have seen the F-35 with the 4 live AMRAAMs in its load out. I remember it was part of the 3F software requirements but up till now I'm sure all footage of AMRAAM launches where done from the missile rail not the bomb bay.

Looks like they were testing out a full Air to Air load with AMRAAM's and ASRAAM's.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/brit ... -the-skies

This ASRAAM thing has always confused me, doesn't it completely negate your stealth?

[ArmChairCivvy]

Is it (still) that we will get Meteor
http://www.f-16.net/forum/download/file ... f230a42d3d
before the six AMRAAM internal carry (per bomb bay)?
- or is that relevant, at all, for the smaller bays on B's? 4 miisiles are the same length as 6; depends on what it takes to get them all into a launch position ... all those xtra gubbings

[Jdam]

This ASRAAM thing has always confused me, doesn't it completely negate your stealth?

I might not be the best to explain this but I don't think having external ASRAAM completely negate stealth but it will reduce the effectiveness giving enemy radars a higher chance of something to bounce off of. You will still have the skin of the plane absorbing the incoming signals and the shape will still be deflecting the radar signals.

[Timmymagic]

This ASRAAM thing has always confused me, doesn't it completely negate your stealth?

Don't forget the full LO configuration would probably only be used for the first few days of war until the enemy's capability is degraded. At that point pylons will be chucked on.

[Ron5]

Is it (still) that we will get Meteor
http://www.f-16.net/forum/download/file ... f230a42d3d
before the six AMRAAM internal carry (per bomb bay)?
- or is that relevant, at all, for the smaller bays on B's? 4 miisiles are the same length as 6; depends on what it takes to get them all into a launch position ... all those xtra gubbings

Isn't the point of AMRAAM/Sidewinder external storage that the missile can acquire the target when on the rail and be very quickly launched not having to wait for doors to open.

[~UNiOnJaCk~]

This ASRAAM thing has always confused me, doesn't it completely negate your stealth?

No. Everything is relative. An externally loaded F-35 will have a larger RCS than a clean F-35 (only mariginally you would have thought, depending on what external stores you are carrying of course) but will still have a much smaller RCS than pretty much any other fighter in the skies - externally loaded or otherwise. It's not a case of "on" and "off", stealth is not an absolute, it's about degrees of observability.

[SW1]

When someone talks about low observable a/c “stealth” there are 5 main facets to it, RCS, IR, Visual, Sound and EM. RCS is what most people associate with the term stealth as it’s historically the primary means of aircraft detection. Therefore to say that adding pylons negates an F35s stealth is not correct. It does however increase the aircraft radar cross section significantly from certain angles. Missile fins and pylons are one of the largest contributors to an aircrafts radar return hence why we design internal bays. I would suspect this fit out will be primarily used in a qra type mission than a strike one.

Asraam and sidewinder are rail launched so can’t be ejected from a bay. F22 gets round this by using a trapeze launch system, when this was considered for f35 it was deemed likely this would need to mounted in the air to ground stores position, which was deems as not particularly practical. The other issue modern missiles like asraam and sidewinder have is that for high offbore shots the missile requires its onboard systems to have some orientation to target at launch which can’t be done from a weapons bay.

While the attached article maybe of interest to anyone wanting to know a bout where low observable a/c are tested the video within the article explains how it’s works in the real world by someone who knows a awful lot on this subject

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/15 ... ce-fiction

[Lord Jim]

Both ASRAAM and the AIM-9X have a lock on after launch capability so can be launched form an internal weapons bay if needed. It would be interesting to know how "Stealthy" the so called low-vis pylons on the F-35 are, and which the UK intends to launch ASRAAM from.

[ArmChairCivvy]

I would suspect this fit out will be primarily used in a qra type mission than a strike one.
[otherwise]
...would need to mounted in the air to ground stores position

The limited number of the F-35s, at least initially, is justified (relative to the chunk of the overall RAF budget it swallows) primarily by two considerations:
- the need to re-establish carrier aviation (expeditionary emphasis of the Forces on the whole)
- and the fact that (eliminating first strike for ideological reasons) the tiny stock of Tomahawks and the limited number of their launch platforms do not provide much punch for "the first day of war" and are getting close to obsolescense as for the effectiveness of countermeasures to them

While stealth (in the RCS sense) has much to do with the latter, the latter requirement also dictates the need for the F-35 to be a self-escorting bomber... self-escorting as in being capable of self-defence rather than having an air superiority role and a strike mission at the same time
- the fact that the bomb bays on B's are shorter further aggravates "the problem", necessating the wing tips config (and leading to tiny payloads in the bomb bays, e.g. Spear3s, which are fine for taking out the "eyes & ears" of OpFor air defences, but feather-weight for anything else.