The Navy’s F/A-XX Sixth-Generation Fighter Might Fall Short Against China

Night and day, or day and night, US admirals and generals are falling over themselves on how to kick down china’s front door, not realising or worrying their proposed endeavour would not only greatly endanger their military personnel, but the entire civilian population of nearby countries.

China today has in its hands a missile/rocket arsenal more awesome than the one possessed by the USSR during its heyday, and yet the US military wants to have a go at china, a la pearl harbor.

What did hillary Clinton say in 2013. “We’ll ring china with missile defense.” “And we’ll put more of our ships there.”

In 2014, china began testing its WU-14 hypersonic weapon. By 2019, the system was ready for deployment. In the form of DF-ZF 17.

In the coming great lunge at the big front door, whether over taiwan, scs, spratly, or any other whipped up issue or perceived problem, the US military is expected to employ 6th-gen aircraft on chinese target, which means the PLA gonna hit US air bases, whether they are in okinawa, guam or missouri as well as the tiptop US $13bil aircraft carriers.

With df rockets and missiles.

That would end up with washington employing tactical nukes in retaliation for all the strikes.

So, the question of having 1,125 mile-range strike aircraft seems a bit ‘incongruous’ when compared to the extremely inevitable use of nukes in the coming pacific fight.

What kind of engines will the future f/a-xx use.

Pratt & Whitney or rolls Royce or general electric.

Or snecma.

Snecma turbo-fan engines are the best ones for the f/a-xx if range is the top priority.

But US navy isn’t likely to select a foreign option. This means the f/a-xx jet will require use of tanker aircraft to fly from Guam to the fabled china coast.

Without tankers, the f/a-xx will plop straight into the water after flying only three-quarters of the journey.

I think one point is that you can tank TWICE with refuelers, inbound and outbound (with a different extraction vector than your ingress). So the range can be greatly extended. I would suggest it would be a good idea to do an extended service life extension for one or two Nimitz carriers – keep them in reserve rather than retiring them – and use them as MQ-25 carriers (with a defensive squadron) in time of war. You’ll have at least two carriers in maintenance or turn around, so their crews should be available to man them.

As to China’s missiles, the point has been made about the kill chain but we also have questions about their actual functional capabilities, given the physics and rapid development. It wouldn’t be the first time Russia and China made wild claims about capabilities that were very exaggerated.

As to the comments about “attacking China”, this will only happen AFTER China has launched attacks on US assets and interests. So, at that point, we’ll be beyond being threatened by nuclear blackmail. MAD works both ways and just limits you to conventional opertions vs an overmatch capability with a nuclear threat to a non-nuclear foe.

Finally, I think FA-XX will have the adaptive/variable cycle engines – Pratt & Whitney NGAP or GE XA-100. Next phase (7th Gen) will be the turbine-based combined cycle hypersonic engines from Hermeus or others.

The only advantage to the F/A-XX in the mix would be more competition in the first line fighter field, but assuming NG wins the development contract (LM is already out, Boeing just got the F-47 devcon) it is somewhat redundant to its role in building the B-21, with wide opinion being that more B-21’s should be produced. I would go one further and challenging NG to come up with a cheaper fat airframe tanker to satisfy the forward line NGAS requirement, especially one that would use the tri-stream turbojets of the near future, an engine that will need to be worked into the B-21 assuming they did not already incorporate a 2:1 bypass F135 with waivers on certification.
The F-55 Blackcat as I have taken the liberty to name in advance, would enjoy the low by-pass power of improved F414 engines and improved reliability they provide in a naval environment, nor would it be advisable to increase range beyond a thousand nmi because the fighter would tend to get fat with fuel, but that appears not to be the case regardless. It appears jammed up in the Navy’s lack of clear strategic planning.
As a higher priority, rather than challenging the PRC up front, go after its global shipping fleet by redirecting the worthless MLR’s to seize the ships as war prizes, which would require a division sized force to do regardless. Destroy the real estate assets of the PRC’s thousand billionaires, the Communist Party’s rule is not an eternal fact of life for China. Strength to weakness applied iteratively to greatest advantage, an eternal military principle, something that seems lost to the braintrust.
Returning to the front door, a flying wing drone with forward swept outer wing panels for lower drag and better missile evasion maneuverability, powered by a 2:1 or tri-stream F135/F136 variant, could carry 4-6 1500nmi cruise missiles to launch 1500nmi from the carrier, maxing out strike range as well as the roughly 100,000lb limit of carrier aircraft; the same aircraft could tank with lots of fuel, as well as operate forward of B-21’s as a heavy offboard payload platform.
The same airframe block should occur to LM’s F-35, an XL planform with improved engines, tailless with blown inner surfaces for stealth, maneuver, and STOSL improvement, two strike length bays, drop the A/B/C variants for this D, given the scale of redesign it might make sense to re-designate it as the F-51 Corsair/Mustang X3—the lifecycle fuel savings will pay for this development.

I can’t read anymore of this..

Fact: US carriers do not have, haven’t had for some time and will not have in the future the “reach” to allow them to be considered a strategic asset for our country vs. a peer competitor. Nor are they an instrument for destroying nasty little pirate lairs as in the Houthis.

Fact: Taiwan? An aggressor makes calculations for the success of an attack; the defender’s job is to make that calculation as fraught as possible. If Taiwan had reversed engineered even the old Harpoon: emplaced 1000 of them in concrete casements in the mountains, that calculation would be… well, near incalculable.

But they didn’t. Kind of reminds me of what Bismarck said about the Balkans not being worth the bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier.

I think that given a good shove by the CCP Taiwan will just fold their cards (and chips) and welcome their “brothers” from across the straits. Nor do I think any of our regional allies will join us in an existential enterprise like this for the prize, if prize it be.

We don’t need more ships, what we need is Son Of Rickover, everything else is empty editorial.

Great 👍 information! Thanks for your time and effort to keep us informed! Bravo Zulu!

You know the people who run the navy aren’t stupid. They are not going to do a fun assault in the teeth of China supposed best defense. If I’m the US Air Force in 80 I send a 15 eagle with Andy satellite missile to take down China’s sea surveillance satellite carrier battle group even in 15 minutes can move 5 to 10 miles. They are not easy to locate plus I would park the four Ohio class submarines that I’ve been turned into guided missile carriers at six 700 Tomahawk off the coast of China use those to target Chinese soft targets radars airfield I mean no sub and fire off 700+ muscles Then I park a carrier battle group in the Indian Ocean and wait till China starves

The US already has fully functioning & viable missile defenses to protect bases, carriers, fleets, & the mainland US. Hypersonics are therefore all hype at this point. FA/XX doesn’t need to outdistance the DF-27 etc., they just need to put a little more distance in there as a safety factor.

B21s will be capable of annihilating CCP China should they invade Taiwan like they have Hong Kong in violation of their agreements upon turnover by GB. CCP has already breached agreements with the west, making their word meaningless. They steal tech, & their word means nothing.

The rest of the world doesn’t need CCP China. China needs the rest of the world – but they still haven’t learned how to behave like a 1st world nation – they act like they’re still 3rd world, at least they have a 3rd world mentality – which makes them dangerous, should they ever attain military superiority. Therefore, that can never be allowed to happen.

300+ B21s on the horizon…

If Carriers are so vulnerable and outdated. Then why is China feverishly building them as fast as they can. China isn’t the only one with long range missiles. One thing I learned during my time in the military is. When the world is aware of what equipment the U.S. military has. It’s because they’re are allowed to know. It’s the stuff we don’t know about that’s cutting edge. And rightly so. When the U.S. reveals something it’s because we already have something way better.