F-35 | How to Keep it Deadly in a War

This video is made in corporation with the Freeman Air and Space Institute at King‘s College London

The F-35 is able to gather, process and share a large amount of data - but how would it look like when adversaries start jamming? Let’s discover some technological and force level redundancies, and bring in space based communication.

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- Sources -

Campos, Aleix. ‘Protect and Defend: Advancing a UK Space Architecture Based on Deterrence by Denial’. Freeman Air and Space Institute, no. 20 (February 2024).

DIA (2022) Challenges to Security in Space - Space Reliance in an Era of Competition and Expansion, Defense Intelligence Agency

Mazarr, Michael (2018) Understanding Deterrence, Rand Corporation

- Timecodes -
00:00 - F-35 Selling Point
01:12 - The Jamming Problem
02:27 - F-35 Data and Com Links
05:52 - Force Level Problems and Redundancy
09:43 - The Big Picture
10:28 - Composite Force
11:39 - AIR-SPACE Linkages
17:55 - Resilience and Redundancy
19:51 - Tell me what you think

- Audio -
Music and Sfx from Epidemic Sound

[minxythemerciless]

The hidden problem in all this is not lack of information but an excess of information and the hard task refining that to a form that is sufficient but not excessive. This means partitioning your communications channels so that for example, a single ground based controller only needs to handle say 10 aircraft while there are hundreds of aircraft in the area of operations and dozens of controllers who must cooperate.

[mattheide]

The clearest information takes two decades to collate. Thank you for the video 😊

[TouringWolf]

I think people hugely underestimate the numbers advantage the F-35s have. If we were going to fight Russia, the hundreds of F-35s we have are already enough to effectively saturate Russia's air defence and air force. Take into consideration also that we have zero clue on the actual state of the VKS after taking so many losses in Ukraine, but what we do know is already bleak, since Russia barely has long AWACS capabilities anymore. So in reality, it's less about if it can fight, and more if it's profitable to use it, since it would be overkill by a huge margin.

[thomassidwell]

Just to mention....Dale Brown references multiple "low cost-low Earth orbit" satellites designed by the character Jon Masters, being launched by modified Comercial aircraft via drop launch of rockets, as a means of replacing attacked satellites with a short term "disposible" constellations of "cheap" relay satellites in a shooting war scenario.
A single Boeing 767 class aircraft being able to carry 2 launch vehicles, each capable of deploying 4 "NIRTSATS" (Need It Right This Second Satellites) in low Earth orbit.

[trey]

Military GPS III is rolling out new anti-jamming features. Also, there are more ways of positioning than just INS and GPS.

[jamesdelrogers]

The F35 was conceived up from the beginning to be .Open architecture modular design, The technology lockouts are an important part of how it was to be used diplomatically geopolitically, This program is in a constant state of development, So much of that can happen with simple software upgrades, The fuel tanks that are all over the thing Are not just to make optimal use of the internal space to extend range, But they can be pulled in any time To add new systems, That was part of the design from the beginning, Especially the big fuel tank that sits behind the canopy, That is used for the Lift fan in the Marine variant, That could actually have a shaft connected to it like in the b, Driving a generator Two power directional energy weapons, That could be a solid state laser But more than likely it would be other spectrum energy, During world war two the united states had developed a new machine gun They never feel that it because they knew that the germans would just acquire it and copy it, The same thinking is going into the up thirty five, All kinds of classified research Ready to go when the time comes . I would argue that the fighter bomber role of the f thirty five only represents about twenty percent Of what this aircraft actually is .

[The_ZeroLine]

We have a lot of unknown satellite capabilities being launched every single day as well as more being developed. Satellites also our most closely guarded secrets. So, there’s a lot more up than most people factor in today when war gaming these things. Connectivity is a strength of the F-35, not a weakness. It’s more of a big sensor suite and communication hub than an attack / fighter jet. Even if a few F-35s are getting jammed, they can use another aircraft not being jammed.

[OperationDarkside]

Any tool, that gives adversaries a serious headache, is a good tool.

[camdenharper]

Something I didn't hear you mention. Once you start jamming the F-35, it can start shooting at you

It is going to be intersting to see how the F-35 is beeing viewed in a few decades. Statsitically I should be around to compare.

[goetzliedtke]

The ability to adjust to send data by new paths implies that there is routing of data. So the interesting target is not the sources and receivers of data but the routers. Routers talk to each other to update routes. Routers have both what I call software and hard software - compiled instructions that form the machine code executed on a processor and compiled instructions that form the hardware which executes at speeds much faster than software. Either form can be modified and those modifications can cause performance to drop.

[ryanseet]

Recently, the Singapore defence minister said F35s were operating in the Ukraine theatre. And it’s performance exceeded expectations. Singapore proceeded to buy 8 more F35As immediately, on top of 12 Bs. One can only speculate what aspect he was referring to.

[SMlFFY]

If you only heard about the F-35 from internet forums, you'd be forgiven for thinking the plane was barely capable of flight.

[jpiercelt]

Love this Chris, very fine analysis! Many points I'd never previously thought of, thanks for the great content!

[spurgear]

In before the Vatniks start talking about the plywood SU-75

[MsZeeZed]

And of course Chris thinks of military jets as his “fancy birds” 😹

[Stumpy-qcpw]

Great video. Good explanation of the click baiting headlines relating to F35 downsides. Nearly every platform when first entering into service was accompanied by complaints around cost and delays.

[goetzliedtke]

The problem with agile communications that adapt to external problems is that the adjustments need to use the bandwidth for the data to advertise the changing links. As more adjustments are made, the less data is passed over the established links. As an attacker, I don't need to stop communications - I just need to make the system think that a link is about to be stopped. If I do that, allow the system to start to adjust and adapt, and then cause the communication system to believe there is a another problem, I can eventually force the system to use up all of the communication bandwidth telling the many nodes where to send the data.

[severinp.]

I liked the video. What are your thoughts on the problems regarding availability and combat readiness? As well as the problems and adjustments of Refresh 3

[urgaynknowit]

The micro aggression and smiles that he showed, I caught that too: and it was nice to see someone else catch it