The F-35 Won't Be Cancelled Anytime Soon
Huge Israeli Successes in Iran and Syria Prove the Platform Works Against Russian Air Defenses
National security advisors to incoming President Donald Trump are considering decapitating Iran's nuclear program in a bombing campaign. They would not be thinking this way had not Israel been remarkably successful in wiping out Iran's air defenses. The star of the show was the F-35. Interest in the Trump camp, with Elon Musk one of the strongest voices, to replace the F-35 with drones, just took a body blow thanks to Israel.
Israel destroyed Iran's air defenses including the Russian supplied S-300 MPU-2, an advanced version of the S-300. It was paired with radars including the Russian Rezonans-NE which, it was claimed, could detect Israeli stealth aircraft and missiles. The S-300 interceptor missiles fly at speeds between Mach 6 and Mach 8.5. Iran acquired four S-300 systems, finally delivered in 2016. Iran also sported a large number of other air defense systems that apparently were also liquidated.
The F-35 is America's stealth tactical bomber. It is currently in production in a program that will ultimately cost the US taxpayer trillions of dollars. Because of the high price tag and numerous birthing problems, many of them centered on software code issues, top Trump people, including Elon Musk, aim to stop F-35 production and replace the stealth fighter with drones.
The US has had some stealth drones for quite a while, but they are man-in-the-loop drones that require constant communications to reach their targets. The use of radio communications creates opportunities for any adversary as he can intercept the radio transmissions, locate the "stealth" drone through triangulation, and as the Iranian proved, even grab control of the stealth drone and capture it.
That's what happened on December 5, 2011 when a US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone was electronically captured by the Iranians over the town of Kashmar. The Iranians knew about the use of Sentinel drones over its territory, used to track Iran's nuclear program, but needed to find a way to intercept them. Watching the communications, they were able (probably with help from Russia) to build a controller and devised a way to grab control of the drone and land it. The Iranian pilot did fairly well, but his landing was rough and a wing was broken and the underside of the drone damaged. Even so it was a spectacular coup by Iran, and gave Iran and Russia access to a top secret platform with capabilities far greater than anything the Russians, or even the Chinese, had at the time.
The RQ-170 drone program remains highly classified, but other than the B-21 Raider, it is the only stealth drone in the US inventory. The B-21 is a strategic bomber, but it is believed to be able to operate without a crew as a smart drone. The B-21 program is hugely expensive, with the price of each platform closing in on $1 billion per copy.
Israel has a sizable inventory of drones —surveillance, command and control and attack types. But Israel's Air Force (IAF) relies on manned aircraft for its operations. Israel's version of the F-35 is called Adir (Mighty One). It is a customized version of the F-35 that includes domestically developed electronic countermeasures and does not include Lockheed's logistics tracking system (as that would mean its aircraft would be tracked, a significant vulnerability in the F-35 program). The Adir also supports Israeli weapons, air to air weapons such as Python and standoff weapons such as the Popeye Turbo with an accuracy better than 3 meters (9.8 feet).
It should not be forgotten that a key advantage of an aircraft over a drone is the weapon's load, including smart weapons, and the ability to shift to alternative targets. Drones are much more limited, and drones that can release actual weapons (for example the Hellfire missile or small unguided weapons) don't have the punch that a big platform brings to the table. Today's trend is to build drones that fly along with fighter aircraft or even bombers. It remains to be seen if these newer companion drones really augment air force capabilities. Examples include the Russian Okhotnik-B S-70 and the US XQ-58A Valkyrie. While we do not know the costs (including R&D) for the Russian drone, the Valkyrie is likely priced at around $25 million a copy, about a third of the cost of the F-35. These models are unproven and their functionality in combat mostly speculative.
Future drones will increasingly use artificial intelligence and synthetic mapping to hit targets, reducing if not eliminating radio communications but still relying on GPS satellites for course correction. One problem in this approach is that there is a considerable delay between an actual strike and reporting on the success of the attack, as the protection of the drone requires operating in silent mode. Probably additional drones will be needed to assess results, or satellites capable of surveying targets attacked.
Israel attacked Iranian targets using non-stealth fighter aircraft such as the F-15 and F-16 and the F-35 whose main function was to take out Iran's air defenses. Along the way Israel also crippled Iranian early warning radars in Syria and Iraq. Below is a map of the targets in Iran successfully hit by the IAF raid prepared by the Institute for the Study of War:
We actually know very little about the logistics of Israel's operation against Iran. No doubt that information is highly classified. However it is obvious that Israel's attack, even taking into account the significant restrictions imposed by the Biden administration, was a great success.
Similarly Israel was successful in knocking out Syrian air defenses, again reportedly using its F-35s. The Israeli operations in Syria and Iran are the first use of the F-35 against Russian-produced air defenses, demonstrating the value of the stealth feature of the aircraft.
There is a strong lesson for potential adversaries including Russia. The Russians lacked stealth technology until recently. Russia's Su-57 fighter bomber has recently been upgraded to enhance its stealth characteristics (meaning reducing its radar signature). The Russians also are developing a more advanced stealth fighter, the Su-75 Checkmate. And Russia also is building a stealth bomber (the US already has the B-2 and is soon to deploy the B-21 Raider), the Tu-PAK-DA (expected to go into production in 2027).
The Russians have also been pushing to develop technologies that can detect enemy stealth aircraft. Low observable technology is built around the idea of reducing radar signatures dramatically in X-band radar. X-band radars are the dominant type of air defense radar sets worldwide. Alternative radars, such as L Band or VHF, can detect stealth aircraft but they are range limited and not accurate enough for most countermeasures. (The Russians have built L Band radars into the wings of the Su-57 and other aircraft including the Su-27, to give them an ability to detect US stealth fighters.)
In the United States those who want to cancel the F-35 program will have to answer the question of why production should be stopped on the F-35, a platform that tackled Russian air defenses and an expansionist Iran and taught both of them a lesson.
I’ve read contradicting reports as to how effective the Israeli F-35 raid really was. The initial raid - led by F-35 fighters - seems to have done very little damage and the pilots of that first line of attack pulled back rather abruptly based on them getting “painted” by Russian radar far further afield than they expected. They, in turn, warned their commanders that the massive attack that was to follow had to be called off due to Russian detection and radar lock-on.
One thing that’s irrefutable is the fact that Israel’s last raid on Iran was little more than farce that destroyed nothing of value.
Despite searching for it, I'm not aware of any independently reported evidence that supports Mr. Bryen's claim about the F35's stealth capabilities. The example he cites, Israel's attack on Iran on October 26, has produced zero publicly revealed evidence of damage. Zero publicly available evidence isn't proof that no damage was caused, but it is nevertheless very telling in this instance.
Both Israel and the USA have spy satellites over Iran, and significant damage would be impossible to conceal. And neither Israel nor the USA are shy about trumpeting their military successes. So where is the evidence that Iranian territory was penetrated by F35s due to their stealth capabilities? To my knowledge that evidence doesn't exist.
The current state-of-the-art with stealth aircraft is as follows.
1. Stealth technology can mask an aircraft's radar and infrared signatures, but not eliminate them.
2. Stealth technology is most effective against older and less sophisticated aircraft defence systems.
3. The ability of stealth aircraft to evade detection by modern AD systems, which are specifically designed to detect stealth, is unknown.
It won't be just the general public that's in the dark about the effectiveness of stealth against modern AD. That ignorance will exist in military circles as well. The reason is simple: modern AD and stealth aircraft are fielded by very few countries, and those countries are not currently in direct conflict. So there's no real world evidence either way. However based on the publicly known information provided above, it's reasonable to assume that stealth aircraft are not fully invisible to modern AD systems. There will be, in all likelihood, some risk of detection and subsequent destruction of the aircraft.
What evidence presently supports that assumption? The simple fact that if F35s were truly stealthy, then Israel would've used them to drop bombs on Iran. But that's not what's been reported, even by those most interested in talking up the F35's capabilities.