I know the title sound outrangerous but hear me out. Pretty much every single things that you can do with a multirole fighter, you can also do with a ground vehicle at much better capability. Air defense:
S-300, S-400, S-500 can all track and engage more targets than any fighters, their radar are multi bands and are significantly more powerful than aircraft radar, they also have much better reaction time. Their missile fly further, faster and higher than any air to air missiles. Furthermore, ground based air defense can’t be detected unless they emit, so essentially, they are similar to extremely stealthy aircraft.
Anti armor:
155 mm guided artillery rounds such as Smart155 and M712 are much cheaper alternative to use against MBT , IFV and APC compared to Maverick or Brimstone missile launched from aircraft. And it is also much safer since you can attack from behind cover
SEAD/DEAD:
Trucks full of loitering munition such as Harpy, Harop can do much better job than fighters with HARMs since they can loiter around for much longer and can fly 500-1000 km toward the enemy direction. The truck itself can’t be detected by the SAM batteries, and a single truck can carry any where from 9-18 drones. The drones themselves have very low RCS due to their size.
For quick reaction time SEAD, you also can have ground launched AARGM-ER and PRSM with RF seeker. The advantage is still the same, a truck is so much cheaper than any fighters, they can carry more missiles, and they can stay outside of radar line of sight.
Deep penetration attack on fixed infrastructure:
There are so many options: long range(2000-3000 km) subsonic weapon such as Tomahawk, Iskander-K
medium range (499-500 km) supersonic ballistic missiles like Iskander-M, Scud, PrSM.
Short range (100 km) supersonic rocket artillery such as M30/M31 rocket
There are also future extreme long range hypersonic options such as LRHW.
Much cheaper and can be launched with great quantity, and also much stealthier compared to aircraft option.
So what is really the point of using aircraft to do any of the role mentioned above instead of ground vehicle?.
If you want to delve into doctrine then the above is a readable start. Chapter 3 - Attributes of Air Power summarises the advantages. Flexibility is key.
Air defense:
S-300, S-400, S-500 can all track and engage more targets than any fighters, their radar are multi bands and are significantly more powerful than aircraft radar, they also have much better reaction time. Their missile fly further, faster and higher than any air to air missiles. Furthermore, ground based air defense can’t be detected unless they emit, so essentially, they are similar to extremely stealthy aircraft.
Ground-based air defense is more limited by the radar horizon, less flexible, shorter-ranged than the aircraft, and easier to destroy - unlike fighters they don't move and they're a hell of a lot more fragile than airbases, which especially for heavy systems like S-300 means they can be hit and destroyed by stuff like GPS-guided glide bombs.
Look at the US Navy's air defenses. They don't rely on SAMs for air defense, for the reason that fighters can patrol at greater distances than any SAM's range, and fighters are vastly better at intercepting sea-skimming weapons than SAMs due to being able to do look-down shoot-down intercepts.
Anti armor:
155 mm guided artillery rounds such as Smart155 and M712 are much cheaper alternative to use against MBT , IFV and APC compared to Maverick or Brimstone missile launched from aircraft. And it is also much safer since you can attack from behind cover
Current experience over in Eastern Europe is that it's not in fact much safer. Towed howitzers are proving not especially useful since they're highly vulnerable to counterbattery fire. Self-propelled howitzers are much more survivable, but they're needed for the whole suite of fire support missions. And they still don't really compare to a fighter loaded up with antiarmor missiles that outrange SHORAD.
Aircraft are a supplement in anti-armor ops, but they're a very, very useful supplement.
SEAD/DEAD:
Trucks full of loitering munition such as Harpy, Harop can do much better job than fighters with HARMs since they can loiter around for much longer and can fly 500-1000 km toward the enemy direction. The truck itself can’t be detected by the SAM batteries, and a single truck can carry any where from 9-18 drones. The drones themselves have very low RCS due to their size.
For quick reaction time SEAD, you also can have ground launched AARGM-ER and PRSM with RF seeker. The advantage is still the same, a truck is so much cheaper than any fighters, they can carry more missiles, and they can stay outside of radar line of sight.
For quick-reaction SEAD, the truck reacts slower than an aircraft with an onboard HARM. By the time it gets the alert than an aircraft is under fire, feeds in the targeting data, and fires the missile, it's likely to be too late. On the other hand, if the aircraft just needs to snap-fire the HARM at a target, that's much faster with fewer steps.
For non-reaction SEAD, where you actually have some idea where the launcher is, by all means, yes, use long-range loitering munitions. And cruise missiles, and glide bombs, and really whatever can reach the launcher will do.
Deep penetration attack on fixed infrastructure:
There are so many options: long range(2000-3000 km) subsonic weapon such as Tomahawk, Iskander-K
medium range (499-500 km) supersonic ballistic missiles like Iskander-M, Scud, PrSM.
Short range (100 km) supersonic rocket artillery such as M30/M31 rocket
There are also future extreme long range hypersonic options such as LRHW.
Much cheaper and can be launched with great quantity, and also much stealthier compared to aircraft option.
Cheaper? Ha, no. Stealth fighter CPFH is still in the five digits and guided bombs in a similar price range. These long-range ballistic and cruise missiles cost millions of dollars apiece. A single flight of F-35s can put the same number of warheads on targets for much lower cost than cruise and ballistic missiles. And in general volume is the big advantage manned aircraft have over long-range missiles. They're reusable, after all.
As an example, during Operation: Iraqi Freedom, about an order of magnitude more JDAMs were dropped than Tomahawks were fired, and that's not counting laser-guided bombs used.
As for guided rockets, much like most artillery they have a lot of other things to be doing - most notably, counterbattery, which is the main job of rocket artillery.
Consider the limited deck space of USN aircraft carriers. They bought F-18 Hornets to replace a variety of interceptors (F-4, F-14, etc.) Plus a slew of ground attack airplanes (A-4, Skyhawk, A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair II, EA-6 Prowler, etc.). F-18 may not be as good as any single airplane that it replaced, but it can fly most of those roles well.
Also consider the training pipeline for both pilots and maintainers.
Finally, consider the logistics chain to get spare parts out to the middle of an ocean. The fewer different types of airplanes onboard, the fewer spare parts you need to stock.
Then look at your question from the perspective of a small air force (e.g. Royal Canadian Air Force) that is struggling to afford one type of supersonic combat airplane.
Ground-based air defense is more limited by the radar horizon, less flexible, shorter-ranged than the aircraft, and easier to destroy - unlike fighters they don't move and they're a hell of a lot more fragile than airbases, which especially for heavy systems like S-300 means they can be hit and destroyed by stuff like GPS-guided glide bombs.
Look at the US Navy's air defenses. They don't rely on SAMs for air defense, for the reason that fighters can patrol at greater distances than any SAM's range, and fighters are vastly better at intercepting sea-skimming weapons than SAMs due to being able to do look-down shoot-down intercepts.
I do agree with you that fighter have bigger radar horizon compared to ground based SAM, but that limitation of surface SAM can be mitigated by using radar mounted on blimp such as TARS, HAAS.. They can offer 24/24 surveillance and much better radar range compared to fighter radar. There are also traditional AEW&C options.
I don't think ground based air defense have shorter engagement range compared to fighters, ground based air defense such as S-400,S-500 can easily out range fighter launched missiles such as AIM-120, R-77. Furthermore, they are pretty much undetectable until the moment they emit (in principle, ground based SAM are even harder to detect compared to stealth aircraft). Modern SAM are very mobile as well, even big one like S-300/400 complex only need at most 3-4 minutes to pack up and move to different position, they can be anywhere over massive land mass area while fighters often need an airbase to take off from. So it is much easier to stop air operation by cruise missiles. But it is much harder to stop long/medium/short range SAM from operating.
In case of US Navy, because these SAM must be put on ship (destroyers/cruisers/aircraft carrier), so that eliminate one of the the main advantage of ground based SAM which is "being undetectable when they don't emit", and they can be distributed over wide area like ground based SAM. So in that specific case, I can see that fighters are useful but on land, I think that ground based air defense are significantly more useful compared to fighters
Current experience over in Eastern Europe is that it's not in fact much safer. Towed howitzers are proving not especially useful since they're highly vulnerable to counterbattery fire. Self-propelled howitzers are much more survivable, but they're needed for the whole suite of fire support missions. And they still don't really compare to a fighter loaded up with antiarmor missiles that outrange SHORAD.
Aircraft are a supplement in anti-armor ops, but they're a very, very useful supplement.
Common anti armor missiles which fighters carry now are: Maverick (engagement range of 11 km, limited due to seeker lock on range), Brimstone (engagement range 20 km for brimstone I and allegedly 60 km for Brimstone II). SDB II range is around 70 km, future Spear range is 140 km
For comparison, 155 mm artillery with base bleed can reach around 44-50 km, future ramjet 155mm round can reach 150 km, rocket artillery like Smerch can reach around 80-200 km.
Short range SAM such as Buk M3 can reach 70 km, Medium range SAM such as S-350, PAC-2 can reach 150-160 km, Long range SAM such as SM-6, S-400 can reach 400 km.
Basically, medium and long range SAM can generally out range anti armor missiles/rocket. But while artillery can pretty much operate safety inside the enemy SAM umbrella, the fighters can't. The main threat to artillery is counter battery fire, which can be avoided by simply moving a little bit. But it is not that simple for fighters to avoid SAM.
For quick-reaction SEAD, the truck reacts slower than an aircraft with an onboard HARM. By the time it gets the alert than an aircraft is under fire, feeds in the targeting data, and fires the missile, it's likely to be too late. On the other hand, if the aircraft just needs to snap-fire the HARM at a target, that's much faster with fewer steps.
Ground based rocket artillery can use drone as bait for the SAM to open fire. Then it can launch a bunch of missile at the SAM batteries location, it can be Keres , ATACMS, PrSM or AARGM-ER But the key is that, unlike the aircraft. The truck is immune to SAM threat, and it can get much much closer as well.
Cheaper? Ha, no. Stealth fighter CPFH is still in the five digits and guided bombs in a similar price range. These long-range ballistic and cruise missiles cost millions of dollars apiece. A single flight of F-35s can put the same number of warheads on targets for much lower cost than cruise and ballistic missiles. And in general volume is the big advantage manned aircraft have over long-range missiles. They're reusable, after all.
As an example, during Operation: Iraqi Freedom, about an order of magnitude more JDAMs were dropped than Tomahawks were fired, and that's not counting laser-guided bombs used.
I do agree that the operating cost of aircraft is cheaper than a cruise/ballistic missile. However, a single fighter can cost around 80-100 millions, so a single one that got shotdown can equal to 40-50 cruises missiles. If volume of fire is what you aim for, isn't dumb rocket artillery is better options? since they are a lot cheaper
Consider the limited deck space of USN aircraft carriers. They bought F-18 Hornets to replace a variety of interceptors (F-4, F-14, etc.) Plus a slew of ground attack airplanes (A-4, Skyhawk, A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair II, EA-6 Prowler, etc.). F-18 may not be as good as any single airplane that it replaced, but it can fly most of those roles well.
Also consider the training pipeline for both pilots and maintainers.
Finally, consider the logistics chain to get spare parts out to the middle of an ocean. The fewer different types of airplanes onboard, the fewer spare parts you need to stock.
Then look at your question from the perspective of a small air force (e.g. Royal Canadian Air Force) that is struggling to afford one type of supersonic combat airplane.
I do agree that multi role fighters are better than single role one. But I'm comparing multirole fighters with alternative ground vehicle. The war in Ukraine seem to indicate that drone +rocket artillery +cannon artillery + SAM are more than enough to win war.
I do agree with you that fighter have bigger radar horizon compared to ground based SAM, but that limitation of surface SAM can be mitigated by using radar mounted on blimp such as TARS, HAAS.. They can offer 24/24 surveillance and much better radar range compared to fighter radar. There are also traditional AEW&C options.
Traditional AEW&C options work better with fighters, as their mobility makes them more responsive to the "control" part of AEW&C.
As for aerostats, it goes back to the problem that SAM sites are easier to find and destroy: tethered aerostats are fixed assets, and by necessity need to light up the EM spectrum like a Christmas tree. They would be child's play to destroy, and more to the point are only useful for theater-level systems, limiting their utility.
I don't think ground based air defense have shorter engagement range compared to fighters, ground based air defense such as S-400,S-500 can easily out range fighter launched missiles such as AIM-120, R-77. Furthermore, they are pretty much undetectable until the moment they emit (in principle, ground based SAM are even harder to detect compared to stealth aircraft). Modern SAM are very mobile as well, even big one like S-300/400 complex only need at most 3-4 minutes to pack up and move to different position, they can be anywhere over massive land mass area while fighters often need an airbase to take off from. So it is much easier to stop air operation by cruise missiles. But it is much harder to stop long/medium/short range SAM from operating.
Cruise missiles do not stop air operation from air bases. Not without expending a ton of cruise missiles over an extended period of time. Airbases are very hard to take out long-term, due to the fact that they're sturdy structures that are easy to repair.
You're completely missing my point about range. Yes, AAMs have shorter engagement ranges compared to SAMs - but you're not considering the range of the fighters in the equation. As an example, the ability of SAMs to penetrate into the enemy rear and engage enemy aircraft there, a tactic that is a core part of anti-air operations by hitting aircraft on the ground or forming up, is entirely nonexistent. That is not the case with fighters.
SAMs are much easier to spot by visual means - high-alt surveillance aircraft, satellites, etc. Once those assets find the SAM site, then likely the first inkling they have that they're in trouble is when a glide bomb hits them - glide bombs are pretty damn hard to detect themselves, especially if the SAM site is going full EMCON to hide.
And, like, bluntly, your hypothesis completely ignores the long history of SAM defenses, which show, over and over again, that an SAM network without fighters backing it up is going to be picked apart given enough time. Even the Serbians were eventually forced to cry uncle when the USAF switched to a target the Serbians couldn't cover with their SAMs.
Common anti armor missiles which fighters carry now are: Maverick (engagement range of 11 km, limited due to seeker lock on range), Brimstone (engagement range 20 km for brimstone I and allegedly 60 km for Brimstone II). SDB II range is around 70 km, future Spear range is 140 km
For comparison, 155 mm artillery with base bleed can reach around 44-50 km, future ramjet 155mm round can reach 150 km, rocket artillery like Smerch can reach around 80-200 km.
Short range SAM such as Buk M3 can reach 70 km, Medium range SAM such as S-350, PAC-2 can reach 150-160 km, Long range SAM such as SM-6, S-400 can reach 400 km.
Basically, medium and long range SAM can generally out range anti armor missiles/rocket. But while artillery can pretty much operate safety inside the enemy SAM umbrella, the fighters can't. The main threat to artillery is counter battery fire, which can be avoided by simply moving a little bit. But it is not that simple for fighters to avoid SAM.
Okay, for one, your medium and long-range missiles are theater systems that aren't going to be defending armor anyway. So we can disregard them for this situation. Hell, I have my doubts with Buk as well - the air defense systems actually integrated into Russian divisions is all some flavor of SHORAD.
Also, you're heavily oversimplifying the evasion of counterbattery, not least of which having to evade counterbattery fire dramatically reduces the volume of fire your artillery can put out.
The point being, you can't always count on artillery to be on hand for antiarmor ops, especially if the armor shows up in a place you're not expecting and your guns are tasked with other things. This is where the flexibility of tactical aircraft comes into play.
Ground based rocket artillery can use drone as bait for the SAM to open fire. Then it can launch a bunch of missile at the SAM batteries location, it can be Keres , ATACMS, PrSM or AARGM-ER But the key is that, unlike the aircraft. The truck is immune to SAM threat, and it can get much much closer as well.
The truck cannot get much closer to many SAM sites, which are after all very often deep behind enemy lines. As for drones - what if you don't have drones? What if they simply don't fire on the drone?
Further, your truck may be immune to the SAM threat, but it's not immune to a bunch of other shooters: artillery, missiles, airstrikes.
Again, flexibility. Giving up aircraft as an option is not a good idea.
One last thing. If SEAD is this easy, that contradicts your point about how good SAMs are in air defense. Assume a mirror match: if things go as you assume, your SAMs are going to keep getting blasted whenever they try to shoot something by your truck-based SEAD. At which point you need fighters if you're going to have any sort of air defense capability.
I do agree that the operating cost of aircraft is cheaper than a cruise/ballistic missile. However, a single fighter can cost around 80-100 millions, so a single one that got shotdown can equal to 40-50 cruises missiles. If volume of fire is what you aim for, isn't dumb rocket artillery is better options? since they are a lot cheaper
No, seriously, who cares how much the purchase cost of the fighters are. They're sunk costs, they don't matter for your accounting in the war you're fighting.
As for rocket artillery, again, they cannot replicate what aircraft that can do. To equal the range of strike aircraft, rocket artillery have to give up their low-cost, high-volume munitions in favor of expensive, low-volume tactical ballistic missiles.
I don't think that is quite accurate. The RuAF has proven shockingly ineffective in this war, due to whatever combination of factors (much to everyone's surprise, including their own, I suspect). It wasn't a failure of multi-role fighter aircraft, so much as that the Russian ones had failed to even turn up for. If Ukraine had faced off against an adversary with the technical depth, capability and tactical acumen (such as the US Air Force or Navy), then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I recall reading that combat experiance of the First Gulf War (1990-1991), the USMC came to the conclusion that their pilot training and equipping for multi-role missions had been proven to be flawed, in that it was quickly recognised that the ground attack/strike missions they were called upon to conduct required more dedication of specific training (or something to that effect......)
If I also recall correctly, the USMC and Armée de l'Air through combat experiance in the First Gulf War also came to the conclusion that the workload for a single-seat multi-role fighter had proven to be flawed, hence they amended their original purchase orders from single-seat variants of the F/A-18 and Rafale to a high proportion of two-seat combat derivatives respectfully.
I confirm that. Mirage IIIE, Jaguar and F1CT were all single-seat and indeed, pilot workload proved to be atrocious. The shift started with the Mirage 2000N (nuclear strike) and carried on with the 2000D (same, but conventional strike) and carried on with the Rafale B. Although the French Navy thought otherwise or had no choice.
Returning to the Canadian perspective.
Consider the huge size of Canada's Yukon, Nunavut and North West Territories in the high artic. They are very thinly populated and the only military threat is the Russian Air Force. Canada will never be able to afford sufficient ground-based AAA to defend the arctic, so the Royal Canadian Air force compromises with small numbers or CF-18 multi-role fighters and satellite-based surveillance.
CF-18s were originally purchased to serve as interceptors defending Canadian and West German airspace.
Finally, consider how difficult it is for RCAF planners to predict 20 or 30 years into the future when buying aircraft. CF-18s were purchased during the early 1980s, when the Cold War was still raging and the biggest threat was the Warsaw Pact. Fast forward to the 1990s and the Cold War had ended with most Warsaw Pact nations dis-avowing any allegience to Russia. Cf-18s flew ground attack roles in the former Yugoslavia and Gulf Wars.
Who could have predicted those massive changes in the World Order?
Traditional AEW&C options work better with fighters, as their mobility makes them more responsive to the "control" part of AEW&C.
As for aerostats, it goes back to the problem that SAM sites are easier to find and destroy: tethered aerostats are fixed assets, and by necessity need to light up the EM spectrum like a Christmas tree. They would be child's play to destroy, and more to the point are only useful for theater-level systems, limiting their utility.
While fighters have better mobility than SAM, I don't think that they are more responsive than SAM. Firstly, fighters need time to refuel and they are not always armed while on ground. The pilots are also not always inside the cockpit. It would take anywhere from 5-10 minutes at least. By contrast, SAM can have 24/24 up time and can react to detected targets in seconds
Secondly, most fighters (with the exception of the Harrier) need air base/runway to take off from, so depend on the location of the airfield, you can have pretty good estimate of how long they need to react to your attack. On the other hand, SAM can literally be anywhere. They don't need to return to airbase/ground base after the fight. It give a huge level of uncertainty to the enemy. They have no idea where the SAM could be. They could literally be anywhere. This is also one of the reason why sea skimming is a decent technique to attack sea based targets but on land, low flying often make aircraft fall prey to MANPADS and SHORAD
Furthermore, while fighters which turn off their radar and rely on AEW&C can still be detected since they still have their own RCS , their own Infrared signature..etc. SAM which rely solely on AEW&C would be quite invulnerable. Their radar signature will be lost in the ground clutter. Their infrared signature is extremely easy to cover by net.
As for aerostats, while they are fixed targets, I don't think they are easy to destroy, for the same reason that I don't think OTH radar are easy to destroy. Since they can be located very deep inside the SAM engagement bubble with no gap in radar coverage. It would be quite hard to attack them.
Cruise missiles do not stop air operation from air bases. Not without expending a ton of cruise missiles over an extended period of time. Airbases are very hard to take out long-term, due to the fact that they're sturdy structures that are easy to repair.
You're completely missing my point about range. Yes, AAMs have shorter engagement ranges compared to SAMs - but you're not considering the range of the fighters in the equation. As an example, the ability of SAMs to penetrate into the enemy rear and engage enemy aircraft there, a tactic that is a core part of anti-air operations by hitting aircraft on the ground or forming up, is entirely nonexistent. That is not the case with fighters.
Air bases are fixed targets that literally can't be camouflage, and any damage to the runway will stop the air operation until that damage is fixed. You don't even need to fully destroy the air base, a few rocket/artillery here and there will stop enemy from take off for quite a while. On the other hand, SAM don't need a lot of space to operate. There is no "runway" that they need to operate from. In fact, you can't even stop SAM operation with cruise missile.
Yes, I do agree that the range of fighter + the range of AAM will be larger than say the range of the SAM. But that pretty much only matter when the target you want to defend is a point target that carry both the SAM and the fighter. Such as when you have an aircraft carrier that have both SAM and fighters on it. The SAM can't move out of the aircraft carrier. However, for land defense, then SAM batteries can be anywhere, they don't have to return to airbase like fighter aircraft. Medium range SAM such as BuK and S-350 and Short range SAM such as Tor-M1 and especially MANPADS can quite easily sneak into enemy rear to engage their aircraft. If your goal is to engage enemy aircraft on ground then you can also use cruise missile and suicide drones
SAMs are much easier to spot by visual means - high-alt surveillance aircraft, satellites, etc. Once those assets find the SAM site, then likely the first inkling they have that they're in trouble is when a glide bomb hits them - glide bombs are pretty damn hard to detect themselves, especially if the SAM site is going full EMCON to hide.
And, like, bluntly, your hypothesis completely ignores the long history of SAM defenses, which show, over and over again, that an SAM network without fighters backing it up is going to be picked apart given enough time. Even the Serbians were eventually forced to cry uncle when the USAF switched to a target the Serbians couldn't cover with their SAMs.
Easier to spot compared to what exactly? aircraft?
A properly camouflaged SAM is nearly impossible to spot by visual mean. Ground clutter make it much harder to detect ground target both by radar, visual and infrared sensor. Additionally, any ground based SAM can easily be cover by leaf and camo net which can erase their Infrared and visual characteristic. The same can't be applied on aircraft.
Glider bomb will require aircraft to fly at high altitude, which put them in the line of side of ground radar and ground infrared sensor. Given that aircraft are much easier to detect by these sensor. It is likely that they got shootdown before they can find anything
If we talk about the history of SAM , Cannon and fighters air defense. It is quite clear that when a country (or group of countries) with significant advantage in military power attack a weaker country. For the weaker country, the fighters component of the air defense get shutdown very fast. Either most of their airbase/runways get destroyed that they can't take off too many time or that they just get shotdown if they try to attack. By contrast, ground based air defense (SAM and cannon included) often do the heavy lifting. They can survive for very long and shootdown significant amount of enemy aircraft even when they are inferior in number and technology level. We have seen this in Vietnam, Serbia and now in Ukraine. The quantity of enemy aircraft which got shotdown by ground based air defense far out number the quantity of enemy aircraft that got shotdown by fighters
Okay, for one, your medium and long-range missiles are theater systems that aren't going to be defending armor anyway. So we can disregard them for this situation. Hell, I have my doubts with Buk as well - the air defense systems actually integrated into Russian divisions is all some flavor of SHORAD.
Also, you're heavily oversimplifying the evasion of counterbattery, not least of which having to evade counterbattery fire dramatically reduces the volume of fire your artillery can put out.
The point being, you can't always count on artillery to be on hand for antiarmor ops, especially if the armor shows up in a place you're not expecting and your guns are tasked with other things. This is where the flexibility of tactical aircraft comes into play.
Just because medium/long range system don't travel along with armor division doesn't mean it can't protect them, having engagement range of 300-400 km ensure they to stay at the back and still engage anything dare to approach their frontline. The Russia army air defense actually consist of S-300, S-400
And yes, evade counter battery will reduce the volume of fire your artillery can put out (except for rocket artillery that can unload everything in a few seconds). However, aircraft which have to evade SAM also have to just throw away their bombs and they are at greater risk compared to artillery try to evade counter battery fire
The truck cannot get much closer to many SAM sites, which are after all very often deep behind enemy lines. As for drones - what if you don't have drones? What if they simply don't fire on the drone?
Further, your truck may be immune to the SAM threat, but it's not immune to a bunch of other shooters: artillery, missiles, airstrikes.
Again, flexibility. Giving up aircraft as an option is not a good idea.
One last thing. If SEAD is this easy, that contradicts your point about how good SAMs are in air defense. Assume a mirror match: if things go as you assume, your SAMs are going to keep getting blasted whenever they try to shoot something by your truck-based SEAD. At which point you need fighters if you're going to have any sort of air defense capability.
Truck can generally carry bigger/heavier missiles so they can often outrange fighter missile. For example ATACMS can outrange HARMS, PrSM can outrange AARGM-ER. And if the enemy don't attack your drone then it is even better, you can use cheap drone like Shahed 136 to attack their infrastructure.
Also, I don't think SEAD is easy. I think SEAD is very hard. But a land based SEAD operation by a bunch of truck equipped with loitering drone and long range rocket artillery seem to be much safer and more effective option compared to using multirole fighter
Who cares?
No, seriously, who cares how much the purchase cost of the fighters are. They're sunk costs, they don't matter for your accounting in the war you're fighting.
Sunk cost doesn't mean they just suddenly appear in your inventory though. You still need to purchase them at the start. So let say that you have a budget of 1 billions USD. You can either buy 9 F-15EX or like 263 HIMARS ( launcher and full rocket load)
As for rocket artillery, again, they cannot replicate what aircraft that can do. To equal the range of strike aircraft, rocket artillery have to give up their low-cost, high-volume munitions in favor of expensive, low-volume tactical ballistic missiles.
Or you can use the super cheap drones like what Russia is doing right now instead of expensive fighters. Shahed 136 cost 20.000$, can fly 2500 km, with 40 kg warhead, the small size also make it very hard to detect by any mean
While fighters have better mobility than SAM, I don't think that they are more responsive than SAM. Firstly, fighters need time to refuel and they are not always armed while on ground. The pilots are also not always inside the cockpit. It would take anywhere from 5-10 minutes at least. By contrast, SAM can have 24/24 up time and can react to detected targets in seconds
Secondly, most fighters (with the exception of the Harrier) need air base/runway to take off from, so depend on the location of the airfield, you can have pretty good estimate of how long they need to react to your attack. On the other hand, SAM can literally be anywhere. They don't need to return to airbase/ground base after the fight. It give a huge level of uncertainty to the enemy. They have no idea where the SAM could be. They could literally be anywhere. This is also one of the reason why sea skimming is a decent technique to attack sea based targets but on land, low flying often make aircraft fall prey to MANPADS and SHORAD
For SHORAD perhaps. But larger systems are not difficult to find, as I alluded to in a prior post. Yes, yes, mobility, but in practice larger SAMs aren't all that mobile on a tactical level given how much time they need to pack up. 3-4 minutes is an eternity when there are armed aircraft in the vicinity.
Furthermore, while fighters which turn off their radar and rely on AEW&C can still be detected since they still have their own RCS , their own Infrared signature..etc. SAM which rely solely on AEW&C would be quite invulnerable. Their radar signature will be lost in the ground clutter. Their infrared signature is extremely easy to cover by net.
Again, visual methods of detection exist. And the AWACS themselves can be attacked, which in the absence of fighters to screen the AWACS is significantly easier than it currently is.
As for aerostats, while they are fixed targets, I don't think they are easy to destroy, for the same reason that I don't think OTH radar are easy to destroy. Since they can be located very deep inside the SAM engagement bubble with no gap in radar coverage. It would be quite hard to attack them.
If they're far enough back to be compared to OTH radar, then they're kinda not very helpful to countering fighters. At that distance, they have terrible resolution and only give the barest of early warning.
To actually be tactically effective, on the level of directing SAMs so the launchers can remain radio-silent, they need to be posted close enough to the battlefield to be attacked.
Air bases are fixed targets that literally can't be camouflage, and any damage to the runway will stop the air operation until that damage is fixed. You don't even need to fully destroy the air base, a few rocket/artillery here and there will stop enemy from take off for quite a while. On the other hand, SAM don't need a lot of space to operate. There is no "runway" that they need to operate from. In fact, you can't even stop SAM operation with cruise missile.
Damage to the runway will stop air operations on that runway. Most airbases have multiple. Further, missile damage is, as I said, easy to fix: a matter of hours if you know what you're doing. Then multiply that effort by the number of airbases in the operational area. The missile strike requirements balloon in a hurry. To give you an actual example, in 2017 the USN launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base. Despite 44 hits, the airbase was back in operation the next day.
Also, one of the targets hit? An SA-6 SAM battery. So much for not stopping SAM operations with cruise missiles.
SAM batteries, like most vehicles that aren't tanks, have limited off-road capabilities, and this becomes worse the larger the vehicles become. I doubt anything larger than a SHORAD vehicles is going to have meaningful offroad capability, which means yes, they do have a "runway".
Yes, I do agree that the range of fighter + the range of AAM will be larger than say the range of the SAM. But that pretty much only matter when the target you want to defend is a point target that carry both the SAM and the fighter. Such as when you have an aircraft carrier that have both SAM and fighters on it. The SAM can't move out of the aircraft carrier. However, for land defense, then SAM batteries can be anywhere, they don't have to return to airbase like fighter aircraft. Medium range SAM such as BuK and S-350 and Short range SAM such as Tor-M1 and especially MANPADS can quite easily sneak into enemy rear to engage their aircraft. If your goal is to engage enemy aircraft on ground then you can also use cruise missile and suicide drones
Easier to spot compared to what exactly? aircraft?
A properly camouflaged SAM is nearly impossible to spot by visual mean. Ground clutter make it much harder to detect ground target both by radar, visual and infrared sensor. Additionally, any ground based SAM can easily be cover by leaf and camo net which can erase their Infrared and visual characteristic. The same can't be applied on aircraft.
Glider bomb will require aircraft to fly at high altitude, which put them in the line of side of ground radar and ground infrared sensor. Given that aircraft are much easier to detect by these sensor. It is likely that they got shootdown before they can find anything
If we talk about the history of SAM , Cannon and fighters air defense. It is quite clear that when a country (or group of countries) with significant advantage in military power attack a weaker country. For the weaker country, the fighters component of the air defense get shutdown very fast. Either most of their airbase/runways get destroyed that they can't take off too many time or that they just get shotdown if they try to attack. By contrast, ground based air defense (SAM and cannon included) often do the heavy lifting. They can survive for very long and shootdown significant amount of enemy aircraft even when they are inferior in number and technology level. We have seen this in Vietnam, Serbia and now in Ukraine. The quantity of enemy aircraft which got shotdown by ground based air defense far out number the quantity of enemy aircraft that got shotdown by fighters
This notion that the fighter component gets shut down very fast is not always true. The NVAF was operating against American aircraft clear to 1973. The Ukrainian Air Force remains in operation.
As for the kill rates of ground defenses versus fighters, I think it's notable that the attackers tended to suffer the most casualties when the SAM-heavy forces had fighters in support to back them up.
Just because medium/long range system don't travel along with armor division doesn't mean it can't protect them, having engagement range of 300-400 km ensure they to stay at the back and still engage anything dare to approach their frontline. The Russia army air defense actually consist of S-300, S-400
And yes, evade counter battery will reduce the volume of fire your artillery can put out (except for rocket artillery that can unload everything in a few seconds). However, aircraft which have to evade SAM also have to just throw away their bombs and they are at greater risk compared to artillery try to evade counter battery fire
There is precisely one SAM with a range of 400 kilometers: the Russian 40N6. And given what's going on in Ukraine, I find myself deeply unconvinced of its ability to provide cover to armored divisions that far back. Literally every other SAM on the market that's not a dedicated ABM interceptor tops out at 200 kilometers, and the vast majority even less than that.
Modern strike fighters increasingly don't have to drop bombs. Stealth fighters like the F-35 suffer no penalties whatsoever by retaining bombs in their weapons bays, and even older fighters have the thrust to spare to not have to drop bombs.
Truck can generally carry bigger/heavier missiles so they can often outrange fighter missile. For example ATACMS can outrange HARMS, PrSM can outrange AARGM-ER. And if the enemy don't attack your drone then it is even better, you can use cheap drone like Shahed 136 to attack their infrastructure.
Also, I don't think SEAD is easy. I think SEAD is very hard. But a land based SEAD operation by a bunch of truck equipped with loitering drone and long range rocket artillery seem to be much safer and more effective option compared to using multirole fighter
Sunk cost doesn't mean they just suddenly appear in your inventory though. You still need to purchase them at the start. So let say that you have a budget of 1 billions USD. You can either buy 9 F-15EX or like 263 HIMARS ( launcher and full rocket load)
Can you recruit enough manpower to operate 263 HIMARS? Can you provide it with enough rockets? 263 HIMARS is half of all HIMARS built, and so is a very large portion of the US Army's entire inventory.
You can't just count on monetary efficiency. Manpower efficiency matters as much or more than the capital costs of the equipment.
And again, who cares when you have to buy them before the war anyway? Wars are pretty come as you are these days, especially the kind of slugfests relevant to this scenario.
Or you can use the super cheap drones like what Russia is doing right now instead of expensive fighters. Shahed 136 cost 20.000$, can fly 2500 km, with 40 kg warhead, the small size also make it very hard to detect by any mean
"Super cheap" drone is code for "Super easy to jam" drone. Also, 40 kg of warhead per $20,000 is horrid efficiency. A 1000-lb JDAM carries 11 times the explosives for $25,000 for the JDAM kit and $2000 for the Mark 83 bomb. With a Super Hornet carrying them, you're looking at about $140,000 for a single sortie - a single sortie that can put as much high explosives on a target as 440 of your "super cheap" drones.
Not to mention those aforementioned Shaheds are being shot down in droves over Ukraine right now.
If you have 100 SAM batteries, chance are, you can have 90% of them in active condition 24/7, meaning they can transmit and engage target immediately
If you have 100 fighters aircraft, it highly unlikely that you can keep even half of them on the air at the same time. Unless in some very specific attack that have been planned months before. Because aircraft consuming a lot of fuel when they go on patrol.
Also, it is much more likely that targets are already in range of the SAM batteries upon detection given that they don't have to be concentrated all at one place (such as an airfield) like aircraft. SAM threat can pretty much be any where inside the border
For SHORAD perhaps. But larger systems are not difficult to find, as I alluded to in a prior post. Yes, yes, mobility, but in practice larger SAMs aren't all that mobile on a tactical level given how much time they need to pack up. 3-4 minutes is an eternity when there are armed aircraft in the vicinity.
SHORAD and MANPAD are obviously very hard to detect. But even long range SAM are still much harder to detect compared to any aircraft, they are basically just container truck that very easily lost in ground clutter. That not to mention the inflatable decoys
Long range SAM can easily out stick any armed aircraft. For example: 40H6E missiles can fly out to 380-400 km with average speed of Mach 4. For comparison, HARM range is 150 km, top speed of Mach 2. Kh-31PD range is 160 km and top speed is Mach 3.5. Even the future AARGM-ER range is only 300 km and with top speed of Mach 4. So generally, if any aircraft close enough to chase these SAM, they will be shootdown before they can even attempt anything. And the worst thing here is that, SAM are essentially invisible until the moment they emit and launch missile. When multiple ground radars are linked together, it certainly easy to trick fighter to get inside the NEZ before SAM are launched
Again, visual methods of detection exist. And the AWACS themselves can be attacked, which in the absence of fighters to screen the AWACS is significantly easier than it currently is.
Yes visual detection method exist, but it is still so much easier to detect any aircraft than any surface vehicle by visual mean. Since there are so much more clutter on the ground, and there are so much more ways to cover/camouflage yourself as well.
And comparatively, AWACS are better protected inside a SAM screen than a fighter screen. With a fighter screen, something like a Su-57 or J-20 can still sneak between the coverage to launch a long range AAM at the AWACS, by contrast a SAM screen with low frequency radar make the sneak in much harder, and they can also intercept the AAM
If they're far enough back to be compared to OTH radar, then they're kinda not very helpful to countering fighters. At that distance, they have terrible resolution and only give the barest of early warning.
To actually be tactically effective, on the level of directing SAMs so the launchers can remain radio-silent, they need to be posted close enough to the battlefield to be attacked.
They don't have to be exactly as far back as OTH radar, but they can be 400-500 km behind the frontline. As SAM now have their own terminal radar seeker, the resolution needed is much lower compared to SAM which rely purely on SARH
Damage to the runway will stop air operations on that runway. Most airbases have multiple. Further, missile damage is, as I said, easy to fix: a matter of hours if you know what you're doing. Then multiply that effort by the number of airbases in the operational area. The missile strike requirements balloon in a hurry. To give you an actual example, in 2017 the USN launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base. Despite 44 hits, the airbase was back in operation the next day.
Also, one of the targets hit? An SA-6 SAM battery. So much for not stopping SAM operations with cruise missiles.
Regarding that 2017 Shayrat missile strike, the 59 Tomahawk launched were not armed at the runway itself but rather the "aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, defense systems, and radars. So the attack were not aimed at the runway itself but rather the aircraft itself, the fuel storage and the shelter. So there were operation from the runway the next day, not because they actually fixed the runway damage that fast, but rather that the runway were not really damaged.
About the SA-6 battery which was hit, that is only a single SAM battery against 59 cruise missiles, so of course it will likely to fail to defense the base. However, comparatively, that base also have more than 15 fighters, and they were all useless against the cruise missile attack. I would even argue that they are more useless than the SAM in cruise missile defense while cost a lot more to purchase and operate
SAM batteries, like most vehicles that aren't tanks, have limited off-road capabilities, and this becomes worse the larger the vehicles become. I doubt anything larger than a SHORAD vehicles is going to have meaningful offroad capability, which means yes, they do have a "runway".
They have tracked version of long range SAM, so their off road capability can be pretty much similar to Tank. Beside, their "limited off road" capability basically just mean they more slower without asphalt road, but they can still be moved around and operate off road. By contrast, apart from something like a Harrier, your fighters won't take off with out a runway. And the quantity of normal asphalt transportation road in any country, will be much much greater than the number of airbase/runway in that country
History have pretty much show that SAM can be widely distributed enough, that it pretty much impossible to clean them all. Even the very immobile SAM in Vietnam war was extremely hard to destroy, let alone the more modern one.
MANPADS such as Stinger are known to be sneak into near enemy airbase.
Satellite are not the all seeing sensors that can detect anything. They are basically just optical or radio sensor at very high altitude and with wide coverage.
The fact that the NATO with overwhelming advantage both in technological level and number are still unable to clean up SAM in Kosovo and that Russia with advantage in number and technology still unable to clean up Ukraine SAM pretty much say everything you need to know about the effectiveness of satellite against well camouflage and mobile SAM. Satellite pretty much have no way of detecting something under the camo net, or distinguish between the inflatable/high fidelity decoys and actual SAM batteries
A plane isn't going to be hunting for SAMs in this sort of operation, they'd already know where the battery is.
Also, no, they don't require aircraft to fly at high altitude. It improves range, yes, but you can use glide bombs in low-level operations.
To know where the battery is, it require the SAM to not change their location at all, emit all the time, and have no camo, which isn't something that happen often
glider bomb in low level operation have pitfully short range, much shorter than SAM range while much slower as well
This notion that the fighter component gets shut down very fast is not always true. The NVAF was operating against American aircraft clear to 1973. The Ukrainian Air Force remains in operation.
As for the kill rates of ground defenses versus fighters, I think it's notable that the attackers tended to suffer the most casualties when the SAM-heavy forces had fighters in support to back them up.
Yes NVAF still operating till late in the war, but look at their quantity of sorties and kill when compared with the quantity of kill done by SAM and cannon?. The NVAF contribution were negligible. Same goes for Ukraine airforce, sure they can still fly some sorties, but very negligible. And all Russia aircraft shotdown were done by SAM and MANPADS.
There is precisely one SAM with a range of 400 kilometers: the Russian 40N6. And given what's going on in Ukraine, I find myself deeply unconvinced of its ability to provide cover to armored divisions that far back. Literally every other SAM on the market that's not a dedicated ABM interceptor tops out at 200 kilometers, and the vast majority even less than that.
Modern strike fighters increasingly don't have to drop bombs. Stealth fighters like the F-35 suffer no penalties whatsoever by retaining bombs in their weapons bays, and even older fighters have the thrust to spare to not have to drop bombs.
40N6 has 400 km range, SM-6 range 370-460 km, HQ-9B has 300 km range, XRSAM has 300-400 km range
Even modern fighters can't out accelerate SAM within NEZ, so they will need every bit of help to out maneuver SAM. So yes, they will have to dump their bomb when a SAM is launched at them. I have never seen any guide or any pilot say he will keep his bomb and attempt to dodge the SAM at the same time.
F-35 don't suffer from added drag while carry the two 2000 lbs bomb insides its weapon bay. But it still suffer from the added weight, which will affect acceleration and agility.
Fighters if they want to deliver their low cost guided bomb, will have to get well inside the range of defended SAM. If you instead want to use cruise missiles, then may as well launched them from ground vehicle along with low cost drone
Can you recruit enough manpower to operate 263 HIMARS? Can you provide it with enough rockets? 263 HIMARS is half of all HIMARS built, and so is a very large portion of the US Army's entire inventory.
You can't just count on monetary efficiency. Manpower efficiency matters as much or more than the capital costs of the equipment.
And again, who cares when you have to buy them before the war anyway? Wars are pretty come as you are these days, especially the kind of slugfests relevant to this scenario.
My point is that given the same amount of money, you can easily manufacture/buy a much greater quantity of ground assets compared to air assets. It is also arguably cheaper and much much quicker to recruit and train the crew to operate the HIMARS and a crew to operate an F-15EX.
You worried that you can't provide enough rocket for 263 launchers, then you can even cut the total quantity in half and use that money to buy rocket, develop better rocket....whatever. The quantity and fire power is just so much greater than 9 F-15EX.
And I'm pretty sure that Congress (or government official) in general do care about the monetary cost of the equipment. Sure, war can come very sudden but every year, you have a certain amount of budget to improve your military. Cheaper equipment in greater quantity seem like a win win situation
"Super cheap" drone is code for "Super easy to jam" drone. Also, 40 kg of warhead per $20,000 is horrid efficiency. A 1000-lb JDAM carries 11 times the explosives for $25,000 for the JDAM kit and $2000 for the Mark 83 bomb. With a Super Hornet carrying them, you're looking at about $140,000 for a single sortie - a single sortie that can put as much high explosives on a target as 440 of your "super cheap" drones.
Not to mention those aforementioned Shaheds are being shot down in droves over Ukraine right now.
I don't think super cheap drone are necessary super easy to Jam, in Ukraine, they don't really have much success in jamming them off target. The same case for Saudi, their jamming/air defense were horrid in protecting the oil refinery against cheap drone attack.
Your efficiency estimation assume the perfect condition when the F-18 can carry 5 bombs, get inside the enemy air space, drop all 5 bombs on target without any risk of being attacked. But that is not necessary the case especially against a well defended target. A single F-18E/F super hornet cost 66 millions USD. For that amount of money, you can buy 3300 Shaheds drones. Easily overwhelm any air defense to destroy intended target, even if the enemy destroy 87% of your drones, you still have 440s drone left. And everytime they shotdown one of your drone with their SAM or AAM, the cost exchange ratio actually work in your favor. So even if they shotdown your drone, you win the arbitration war
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