Canada to Spend $5.0Bil on AEW Aircraft (Saab Globaleye)

[KevinB]

What about all levels of counter measures. Which I do not think Ukraine has access to.
It was not that many years ago when the allies went in and spoofed the Iraqi Air defense system with multiple levels of counter measures active and passive.

Our (allies) EW/ Surveillance aircraft are being fitted with both offense and defensive weapon systems. Along with their "sophisticated counter measure suits"

All you have to do is view footage of the Israelis running tanker operations over Tehran.
At a point of Air Supremacy and successful SEAD you pretty much can do what you want.

Concern exists if your enemy takes the first swing (which lets face it the Russians have pretty much adopted the Sucker punch as their MO)
As well as over the IndoPac theatre due to what @ytz mentioned.

Right now we put all our eggs into one basket relying on the F35 to be end all package deal. It was to replace AWACS, it was to replace other counter intelligence/ measures aircraft in a all in one package that could swoop in with its data fusion process and control up to 4 autonomous wingman aircraft while directing multiple other non stealth aircraft to destroy and hinder the enemy.

The F-35 was never designed to replace AWACS
You cannot stuff that sort of radar, and C2 gear into something that has less than 1/10th the available space.

We need a mixture of aircraft, That is why I was a fan of the F18 Growler ECM capable suit. Was it perfect over all no. But the overall package was good enough for what we would require as we transition into 5, 5+ -7 gen systems.

Now we have a pretty good chance of building a good overall system of Stealthy Aircraft (F35), surveillance aircraft (P8, Global Eye, CE-145C, and the NASP Dash 8,) along with the general duty (Gryphen). Of note the Gryphen can be fitted with a pretty good Counter measure, jamming, foiling suite. Is it the best, maybe maybe not. But it has proven systems in one package that we can utilize for the foreseeable future.

If ball actually gets roiling we may have a well balance fleet across the board with all our aircraft.

Honestly if the F35 program in its fullness could actually get to a point where it worked fully integrated with all its promises then we would be set for the next 5 years instead we are still hoping for the best radar and hoping for all that sensor fusion to work as proposed/ promised.

I honestly believe once we get rolling with what has been actually committed to and have the actual physical systems in our hands we will use the equipment in ways people did not think of. It really is the Canadian way. Those little tweaks will allow us to be at the top. We just need build the road to drive first.

 

[childs56]

All you have to do is view footage of the Israelis running tanker operations over Tehran.
At a point of Air Supremacy and successful SEAD you pretty much can do what you want.

The Israelis have done what Canada needs to do and that is buy a platform then make it work better for us. Israel

Concern exists if your enemy takes the first swing (which lets face it the Russians have pretty much adopted the Sucker punch as their MO)
As well as over the IndoPac theatre due to what @ytz mentioned.





The F-35 was never designed to replace AWACS
You cannot stuff that sort of radar, and C2 gear into something that has less than 1/10th the available space.

The f35 was suppose to take over the role of command and control of the air and ground space using sensor fusion. Less than a sqn of f35s were suppose to be able to cover the same if not larger area then what AWACS could do and deeper into enemy territory. Being safer as less staff on one platform with multiple redundancy's incase a system went down.
Tie that all in with the satellite program and possible subsurface sea sensors and you were suppose to of gained an agile, fast stealthy, bomb. missile carrying force to be reckoned with.
plans have changed and orders possibly made for the new AWACS plane as satellites may not be as capable as once thought.

Plans change as the situation evolves and actual experience on the ground changes.
I think this is where we are seeing multiple countries deploying multiple airframes still to deal with actual known and thought out potential threats.
In my opinion Israel leads the way across the board on types and employment of their aircraft, along with integrating with their allies.
Even the US utilizes various platforms currently and for the next foreseeable future of command and control surveillance and spoofing planes.

I hope in the short term as time goes on we will see the F35 morph into what it was suppose to be and we will also see the next gen of platforms that will support all things.
To many try to focus on their eggs in one basket as a be all end all process. Time and time again we have found adding pieces around from different aspects works the best.

 

[ytz]

You are substantially misunderstanding fifth gen air warfare.

The F-35 was never supposed to take over C2. No idea where this is coming from. What it can do is provide substantial passive collection and pass a ton of information through MADL, which other F-35s can fuse onboard in a coherent manner to consistently maintain the Common Operating Picture (COP) with much higher fidelity and refreshed tracks. This in turns substantially enhances Situational Awareness which in turn allows much better local decisionmaking. That information also gets passed back to various control centres, be that an AEWC or Ground Control Centre. Including these days with Cloud Based C2.

An F-35 is not a replacement for airborne radar. And nobody has suggested that. The long range of airborne radar is still very useful.

We need a mixture of aircraft, That is why I was a fan of the F18 Growler ECM capable suit. Was it perfect over all no. But the overall package was good enough for what we would require as we transition into 5, 5+ -7 gen systems.

The Growler is an extremely specialized asset that would be substantially underutilized by the RCAF. Sure, it's needed in a coalition context. But there's less utility in a lot of defensive situations. If we bought this, we'd end up buying like half a dozen max. Australia is the only country other than the US to field the Growler and they only have a dozen. Realistically for us, a business jet based EW aircraft with some Stand Off Jamming (SOJ) capability like the Compass Call (EA-37B US), Hava SOJ (Turkey) or the Block 1 EWSDP / KJammer (Korea) are good enough. And indeed something like that is on the books. Note that both the Hava SOJ and the KJammer use Bombardier Globals. Tactical jamming for air forces like the RCAF is probably migrating to CCA payloads in the 2030s.

Lets Talk Briefly About The Canadian Deep Sensing and Electronic Warfare Aircraft (CDSEA)

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