I have to wonder if Don had an alternate motive in having me look into the
J-20? I was surprised by some things I saw when reviewing a cross section of fighters and a small grouping of the more advanced bombers in the game.
Do you want to know why the F-22 is the best plane out there and by some considered the only true 5th GEN Fight? The answer is simple-$100 million dollar difference between the next most expensive fighter in the world the
F-35B @
~150 million per unit. Trust me the USAF wishes now that they hadn't backed away from the fighter when they still had a chance to build them for less at the time. They don't have enough of them and only recently (Last hand full of years.) started to ensure that a full logistics supply chain has been reestablished for spare parts.
Here's what I found by JET/
EW/TI/GSR which are the key factors relative to the topic and game. But first...
1.
CHANGE/USA/UNIT 921/F-35A/EW 12//This would match the others grouped with it (
Currently at EW 9) and I believe is the only one I could find with this difference.
2. The
J-20 for now is good as is.
3. I will demonstrate what makes a true 5TH GEN Fighter in more detail later. But did you know...
A. From the sources I could find, here are the
estimated (Like the X-Files the truth is out there somewhere, but we'll never know it as it's so highly classified.) Radar Cross Sections (
RCS) for the F-22 =
0.0001m2/F-35 =
0.001m2/PAK FA/T-50 =
0.4m2. Not the only reason it's not really a 5th GEN Fighter but, not to take my word for it, Here's what India thinks about it. And if you remember I've brought this up before. The big difference is they haven't changed their minds about it as this article is from
yesterday. If you read this carefully you might be surprised by who wanted it more on the "stealth" side and who backed away from it. But if you read my previous Posts on the topic, you'll already know the answer.
https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/indi...ad-to-nowhere/
B. One of the other key factors that define a 5th GEN Fighter is it's ability to "
Super Cruise". These are very high efficacy engines that allow the
F-22 to fly on
after burner for
much longer period of time. The advantages should be obvious to you from several offensive and defensive reasons. More importantly it also
greatly reduces the jets
IR signature.
Do you know what other jets do share this capability? Well it's
not the
F-35 (They tried the F-22 engines on the F-35, well it didn't go well. The engines tore themselves up over time leading to one F-35 to crash. The pilot ejected as I understand it.) ,
PAF FA or
J-20.
Here you go the
GRIPEN, EUROFIGHTER and TYPHOON.
So we might need a small "
pyridine shift" in how we treat these fighters in regards to EW.
I'm Willing to give this a shot limiting myself primarily were it concerns the
4th GEN + and up aircraft. I simply
don't see a need to fix any prior GEN aircraft because of the broad sampling I took of them (Including 4th GEN ones.), I really feel they look good.
What I see is a tiered number system (Block/Spread) concerning EW ratings of these planes. Each Block would cover
5th GEN 16-18/4TH GEN++ 14-16/4th GEN+ 12-14/4th GEN 10-12// These numbers might shift to the left by 1 or 2 but, that's where my heads at now. I'm looking at all aspects of RL EW factors w/o my head exploding.
I have already identified
24 candidates for the project.
Are Andy and you willing to go to
EW 18 for the
F-22 and
B-2?
THIS IS NOT FOR THE UPCOMING PATCH!! If you give me the green light I'll continue my work here.
I leave with a little Fighter GEN 101. Not too old and still good FYI stuff...
I shot expert again earlier today so, I intend to enjoy the rest of this "
bonus" evening at home with CINCLANTHOME.
Regards,
Pat
