The 48 single-engine F-35s will replace 36 aging and non-stealthy Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets of the 35th Fighter Squadron at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. The single-engine F-16s are equipped with special sensors in pods designed to detect enemy radars. They are also armed with AGM-88 anti-radar missiles designed to destroy the radars or force the crews to turn them off.
The F-35s will not need the radar-detecting sensor pods, as their built-in sensors are already highly tuned to detect enemy radars. The F-35s destined for Misawa could be among the first to receive a new version of the AGM-88, which also fits into the stealth fighter’s internal weapons bays. The internal weapons will maintain the F-35’s clean profile, a key to its radar-evading stealth.
The F-35s are of course capable of other missions as well – including dogfights, attacks on ships and land bombing – but the 35th Fighter Wing has long focused on defeating enemy air defenses so that other U.S. and allied squadrons and squadrons can deploy their own firepower without risking heavy losses. In the past, such special forces were known as “Wild Weasels”; today the mission is called suppression (or destruction) of enemy air defenses, SEAD or DEAD. It is a unique U.S. military capability that no other air force, not even the Russian one, really possesses. SEAD/DEAD has arguably won several major campaigns for the U.S. and its allies in the past.
SEAD/DEAD has many components, but fighter aircraft with sensors and anti-radar weapons are a key one. By increasing the 35th Fighter Wing from 36 legacy F-16s to 48 new F-35s, the U.S. Air Force recognizes the growing threat that Chinese air defenses would pose to U.S. and allied air operations around Taiwan.
These defenses are particularly dangerous for non-stealth fighters – including the new F-15EXs that the Americans will assign to the 18th Squadron at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture. The 36 twin-engine F-15EXs will replace the roughly 50 F-15Cs from the 1980s that flew from Kadena until last year.
The US Air Force has been gradually phasing out the older F-15s as its aging aircraft became increasingly unreliable and unsafe to fly. The US Air Force has partially compensated for the departures by rotating squadrons from the US mainland, but a permanent contingent of fighter aircraft and crews has always been the best solution, as the vast expanses of the Western Pacific – and the intense threat from Chinese missiles and jets – require utmost concentration and constant training.
While the old F-15Cs were purely air-to-air fighters, the new F-15EXs – with their improved sensors and avionics systems – can attack targets in the air, at sea and on land. The F-15EX is the US Air Force’s newest fighter aircraft type – and the first type in the American inventory to be compatible with the huge hypersonic land-attack missiles the Air Force is developing. Another important part of the SEAD/DEAD toolkit is long-range weapons with difficult-to-defend precision strike power.
To be clear, 84 fighter jets — as sophisticated as they may be — aren’t a lot in a region where there are thousands of potential targets. But U.S. commanders don’t expect the crews of those 48 F-35s and 36 F-15EXs to win an air war over Taiwan single-handedly. Their job is to counter the first wave of Chinese forces and buy time until reinforcement squadrons arrive from North America.
They are pickets. But they are also symbols. The Pentagon’s new air force plan “demonstrates the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Japan and the shared vision of both countries for a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the Pentagon said.
Millions of Taiwanese and Japanese hope that this commitment will not end even after the U.S. presidential election in November – an election in which Donald Trump is currently leading. Trump is known to admire authoritarian leaders such as China’s Xi Jinping, once describing the Chinese ruler as a “brilliant guy … smart, brilliant, everything perfect.”
It could take years for all 84 new fighter jets to arrive. A lot could change in the meantime.
America is working on its special, war-deciding party trick for the upcoming fight against China
The 48 single-engine F-35s will replace 36 aging and non-stealthy Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets of the 35th Fighter Squadron at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan. The single-engine F-16s are equipped with special sensors in pods designed to detect enemy radars. They are also armed with AGM-88 anti-radar missiles designed to destroy the radars or force the crews to turn them off.
The F-35s will not need the radar-detecting sensor pods, as their built-in sensors are already highly tuned to detect enemy radars. The F-35s destined for Misawa could be among the first to receive a new version of the AGM-88, which also fits into the stealth fighter’s internal weapons bays. The internal weapons will maintain the F-35’s clean profile, a key to its radar-evading stealth.
The F-35s are of course capable of other missions as well – including dogfights, attacks on ships and land bombing – but the 35th Fighter Wing has long focused on defeating enemy air defenses so that other U.S. and allied squadrons and squadrons can deploy their own firepower without risking heavy losses. In the past, such special forces were known as “Wild Weasels”; today the mission is called suppression (or destruction) of enemy air defenses, SEAD or DEAD. It is a unique U.S. military capability that no other air force, not even the Russian one, really possesses. SEAD/DEAD has arguably won several major campaigns for the U.S. and its allies in the past.
SEAD/DEAD has many components, but fighter aircraft with sensors and anti-radar weapons are a key one. By increasing the 35th Fighter Wing from 36 legacy F-16s to 48 new F-35s, the U.S. Air Force recognizes the growing threat that Chinese air defenses would pose to U.S. and allied air operations around Taiwan.
These defenses are particularly dangerous for non-stealth fighters – including the new F-15EXs that the Americans will assign to the 18th Squadron at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost prefecture. The 36 twin-engine F-15EXs will replace the roughly 50 F-15Cs from the 1980s that flew from Kadena until last year.
The US Air Force has been gradually phasing out the older F-15s as its aging aircraft became increasingly unreliable and unsafe to fly. The US Air Force has partially compensated for the departures by rotating squadrons from the US mainland, but a permanent contingent of fighter aircraft and crews has always been the best solution, as the vast expanses of the Western Pacific – and the intense threat from Chinese missiles and jets – require utmost concentration and constant training.
While the old F-15Cs were purely air-to-air fighters, the new F-15EXs – with their improved sensors and avionics systems – can attack targets in the air, at sea and on land. The F-15EX is the US Air Force’s newest fighter aircraft type – and the first type in the American inventory to be compatible with the huge hypersonic land-attack missiles the Air Force is developing. Another important part of the SEAD/DEAD toolkit is long-range weapons with difficult-to-defend precision strike power.
To be clear, 84 fighter jets — as sophisticated as they may be — aren’t a lot in a region where there are thousands of potential targets. But U.S. commanders don’t expect the crews of those 48 F-35s and 36 F-15EXs to win an air war over Taiwan single-handedly. Their job is to counter the first wave of Chinese forces and buy time until reinforcement squadrons arrive from North America.
They are pickets. But they are also symbols. The Pentagon’s new air force plan “demonstrates the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Japan and the shared vision of both countries for a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the Pentagon said.
Millions of Taiwanese and Japanese hope that this commitment will not end even after the U.S. presidential election in November – an election in which Donald Trump is currently leading. Trump is known to admire authoritarian leaders such as China’s Xi Jinping, once describing the Chinese ruler as a “brilliant guy … smart, brilliant, everything perfect.”
It could take years for all 84 new fighter jets to arrive. A lot could change in the meantime.
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