F-35's Stealth, EW Not Enough, So JSF And Navy Need Growlers; Boeing Says 50-100 More

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/04/f-35s-stealth-ew-not-enough-so-jsf-and-navy-need-growlers-boeing-says-50-100-more/



F-35′s Stealth, EW Not Enough, So JSF And Navy Need Growlers; Boeing Says 50-100 More
By Colin Clark on April 10, 2014 at 5:04 PM

WASHINGTON: Stealth is being outpaced by software, radar and computing power, so electronic warfare and cyber attacks are growing in importance. While the F-35 may possess excellent — if circumscribed — electronic attack and cyber capabilities, it needs help from the Navy’s EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft.

That means, Boeing and the Navy are arguing, that the Navy needs more of the electronic attack versions of the F-18, known as the Growler, to fly with the F-35 on the first day of combat to protect the F-35 and to help protect the service’s precious carrier strike groups.

“The Growlers were highlighted as a priority need by the Chief [of Naval Operations, EW enthusiast Adm. Jonathan Greenert] in his request to Congress. Our assessment is that the DoD needs 50 to 100 additional Growlers, so we will continue to work with Congress to add 22 Growlers to the Fiscal Year 2015 budget and later with the Navy for future Growlers to be inserted into the baseline Fiscal Year 2016 budget in the next cycle,” Mike Gibbons, the Boeing vice president in charge of the F/A-18 and EA -18G programs, said in a statement.

I spoke with an industry source about the assertions we’ve heard from senior Navy and Boeing officials that the F-35 fleet cannot expect to fly its attack mission at the start of a war and survive without help from Growlers.


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We need to buy Growlers to protect our $F-35s? At almost quarter of a billion dollars each, I would have thought that F-35s should be able to protect themselves.

unhappycamper prediction: The United States will spend its way into economic collapse.

[KeepItReal]

1. Isn't that a self defeating strike package?

Unstealthy Growlers providing jamming and air defense suppression would let the bad guys know a strike is inbound.

The F-35s would be flying into a fully alterted enemy defense.