Page 121 - North Atlantic and Nordic Defense

North European and North Atlantic Defense: The Challenges Return

Tactically, “Aegis is my wingman, ”“SSGN is my fire support” will be developed for conventional warfare.

This enables a “tactical” aircraft to evolve into a key technology for strategic operations and impacts.

Tron Warfare and the Z Axis

The F-35 is known as a 5th generation player in the state-of-the-art for both the Air-to-Air Fighter and Air-to-
Air Attack combat roles.

It also adds an “electronic” or “tron” warfare component to the fight.

Electronic Warfare (EW) is a complex subject with many discreet but also connected elements.

EW was designed inherently into the F-35 airframe and Fusion Cockpit.

EW can include offensive operations to identify an opponent’s emissions in order to and fry spoof or jam their
systems.

In successful “tron” war, often-kinetic kill weapons can be fired. An F-35 can be a single sensor/shooter or off
load its track to other platforms such as; planes, ships and subs and eventually UCAS-Unmanned Aerial
Combat Systems.

The kinetic kill shot is usually a high speed missile designed to HOJ (home on jam). It has been said on the
modern battlefield — air, sea or land — if not done correctly, “you emit and you die.”

This is the beginning of a combat aircraft design that is building along a new axis-the “Z-axis.” The “Z axis” is
a core discriminator. The F-35 aircraft is not a linear performance enhancement from F/A-18 4th Gen; it has
a third performance axis “Z.”

A key enabler of reshaping of capabilities is the range of capabilities evolving along the Z axis within the
cockpit.

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