In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Israeli Air Force frequently dispatched F-35I fighters, which are F-35A fighters customized by the United States specifically for Israel, with higher autonomous maintenance and upgrade capabilities. The Pentagon** said that Israel's approach provides the United States with experience in maintaining a high sortie rate of the F-35, which is of great significance for the future confrontation with China in the Western Pacific.
However, the U.S. F-35 fighter jets face enormous challenges in terms of maintenance and logistics, their attendance is much lower than that of Israel, and in the Pacific combat environment, the role of the F-35 fighter is not as expected by the U.S. military, which values the B-21 bomber's standoff strike capability more.
Since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in October, the Israeli army has been fully engaged in fighting in Gaza, dispatching not only new Merkava MK4M tanks and Tigress infantry fighting vehicles, but also F-35I fighters to carry out air strikes.
The F-35I fighter is an F-35A fighter tailored by the United States for Israel, in addition to the stealth, supersonic speed and informatization characteristics of the F-35A, it also has higher autonomous maintenance and upgrade capabilities. When the U.S. exports F-35 fighters to Israel, it also gives away a complete line of maintenance and upgrades, which means that the Israeli Air Force can repair and improve the F-35i on its own, as long as the U.S. provides parts.
In the past two months of fighting, the Israeli Air Force has a total of 22 F-35I fighters, most of which are involved in combat missions, accumulating more than 70 sorties, with an average of two out of three days on duty, and its attendance rate is as high as more than 80%, which is very rare among F-35 fighters.
The frequent use of F-35I fighters of the Israeli Air Force has attracted the attention of the US Pentagon. At a recent congressional hearing, a Pentagon** said that Israel's use of the F-35I fighter in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict actually provides the United States with an experience in maintaining and maintaining a high sortie rate of this type of fighter, which is of great significance for the United States on the future front against China in the western Pacific.
The United States believes that the F-35 fighter is an important part of the United States' confrontation with China in the Pacific region, because it has the advantages of stealth, informatization, and networking, and can break through China's air defense network and strike at China's important targets. The United States plans to deploy a large number of F-35 fighters in the Pacific, including the F-35A for the Air Force, the F-35B for the Marine Corps, and the F-35C for the Navy.
However, the U.S. F-35 fighter jets face significant maintenance and logistical challenges, their attendance is much lower than that of Israel, and the role of the F-35 fighter jets in the Pacific combat environment is not as expected by the U.S. military.
The United States currently has nearly 500 F-35 fighters distributed across the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy, but the attendance of these fighters is not as good as it could be. According to a Pentagon report in March this year, only about 55 percent of all F-35 fighters in the United States are capable of performing at least one assigned mission at any time, which means that nearly half of all F-35 fighters are in a state of inoperability.
This sluggish attendance rate has made the US military worried about the F-35 fighters, because if the combat effectiveness of the F-35 fleet cannot be effectively maintained, then even if there are more F-35 fighters, they can only play a small part of their strength. The U.S. military has been calling for months to increase fighter attendance and strengthen the military's logistical support to ensure that most fighters can be effectively maintained.
However, this is not an easy task, and the US military has long been aware of the difficulties in the maintenance of high-precision fifth-generation fighters. In order to solve this problem, the US military has established an autonomous logistics information system, which is based on a computer system integrated on the aircraft, which can monitor the condition of various components on the aircraft in real time, and once a fault or loss is found, the system will automatically send a message to the ** warehouse to notify Lockheed, the manufacturer of the F-35, to send parts to the designated warehouse in advance.
The advantage of this method is that it can reduce the inventory pressure in the warehouse, and the allocation is only made when it is needed, saving cost and space. However, the disadvantages of this approach are also obvious, it cannot meet the maintenance needs of the US Air Force's huge fleet, and it will also lead to a logistics backlog and an increase in the difficulty of maintenance. Because parts for the F-35 are not readily available, and they also have to go through a complex transportation and installation process, which will affect the efficiency and speed of F-35 maintenance.
In addition to the problems of the logistics system, it is also difficult for local enterprises in the United States to meet the production needs of aircraft parts, which is mainly related to the "deindustrialization" and "decentralization" of the United States, and the production speed of the United States in the military industry has been declining year by year in the case of losing a large amount of industrial capacity.
Taking precision-guided munitions as an example, since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the number of precision-guided munitions delivered by relevant military enterprises has become less and less.
Even if the United States can solve the maintenance and logistics problems of the F-35 fighter and improve its attendance, the role of the F-35 fighter in the Pacific combat environment is not as expected by the US military. Because China has built a well-developed air defense network, including radar, anti-aircraft missiles and fighter jets, which pose a serious threat to the F-35 warframe.
The U.S. Pacific strategy relies on being located in the first place.
1. Military bases in the second island chain, which are the cornerstone of the United States' confrontation with China and the main place for the United States to deploy F-35 fighters. However, with the increase of China's long-range strike means, whether it is the Okinawa base or the ** base, it may be attacked by the Chinese Rocket Force's missiles, once these airfields are destroyed, the F-35 fighters deployed in the western Pacific region will lose the support of long-range operations, and only the F-35C fighters on the aircraft carrier can continue to fight.
And even if the airfield is not destroyed, it will be difficult for F-35 fighters to break through China's air defense network and enter China's coastal areas. Because China has deployed a large number of radars and air defense along the southeast coast, among which millimeter-wave radar is a powerful weapon to restrain the F-35's stealth function. Moreover, China also has a certain number of J-20 fighters, which have stronger air combat performance than the F-35, and it is difficult for the US F-35 to compete with it.
In this context, the U.S. military actually does not expect to rely on the F-35 to gain the advantage of Pacific operations, on the contrary, the U.S. military attaches more importance to the B-21 bomber that has just made its first flight, which has stronger stealth and stand-off strike capabilities, and can carry a large number of precision guidance ** to strike at important targets in China. The U.S. military plans to build a new combat system based on B-21 bombers to counter the Chinese threat.
However, before the B-21 becomes a combat force, the United States can obviously only rely on its existing F-35 fleet to maintain deterrence, but whether it can truly deter China is a question mark.