Page 115 - Maritime Services and the Kill Web

The Maritime Services, the Allies and Shaping the Kill Web

It was absolutely fascinating to observe asset distribution, and where did you put your fifth gen contributors.

This was fifth gen fighters and systems to reestablish air superiority.
That old metaphor: air superiority is like oxygen; when you’ve got it you never even think about it. But when
you haven’t got it, you cannot think about anything else.

And so the surface combatants’ commanders became fascinated with our ability to reestablish air control, and
that was fundamentally driven by the disposition of fifth gen assets in the exercise region.

In the Pacific theater, the USAF has F-22s which is great.
However, the US are well behind several other countries in getting F-35s in their orbat.

When we had to reestablish air superiority, the discussion was no longer: where do we put our mass?

It actually became: where is our fifth-generation effect?

And that drove the fight, driving the entire operational design for the campaign.

And it was immensely successful.

We lost air superiority for minimal time with the introduction of a near-peer adversary.

Question: The F-35s are already in the Pacific with the Marines and you soon will have some in
Australia.

How do you view this transition in terms of where you want to go with the entire combat force?

Air Vice-Marshal Roberton: The Marines actually have a very modest number of F-35s here now but they are
quite critical in certain areas.

I have a great affinity for the Marines having done an exchange with them.
They are making a great contribution.

There’s no hiding that stark difference between legacy and fifth generation aircraft.

When you actually see it, or don’t see, as the case may be!

And when operators see the difference the reaction is very clear: “So now I get it.

“Imagine what we could do with those systems if they were working with our ground forces, our ships, with our
other aircraft like the Wedgetail.”
And that is a major challenge: to work together to take advantage of the new assets to shape an overall fifth
generation force.

For example, we’re doing a command-and-control futures study at the moment.

We are trying to get folks to think about how to command-and-control in a higher tempo, contested
environment with a fifth-generation force?

We are sponsoring it through our Air Warfare Center, but we’re involving the other services and components.

Page 114