{"id":23863,"date":"2019-03-20T19:09:36","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T19:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2019\/03\/20\/what-aircraft-does-the-us-air-force-need-to-beat-china-and-russia-this-new-study-has-an-answer\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:07:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:07:45","slug":"what-aircraft-does-the-us-air-force-need-to-beat-china-and-russia-this-new-study-has-an-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2019\/03\/20\/what-aircraft-does-the-us-air-force-need-to-beat-china-and-russia-this-new-study-has-an-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"What aircraft does the US Air Force need to beat China and Russia? This new study has an answer."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Last September, the U.S. Air Force revealed that it will need a total of 386 operational squadrons<\/a> to take on future threats posed by Russia and China.<\/a> A new congressionally mandated study posits that number may not be enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments study \u2014 which has been obtained exclusively by Defense News \u2014 goes on to recommend that the Air Force begin developing a handful of new technologies not in its plans, including a stealthy weaponized drone, a new unmanned reconnaissance plane that can penetrate into contested spaces, and refueling tankers that are unlike anything in its current inventory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study is the result of language in the 2018 defense policy bill, which called for the Air Force, the government-funded research firm MITRE Corp. as well as CSBA to make recommendations for the future force structure of the Air Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its study, which was delivered to Congress earlier this month, CSBA found critical shortfalls in the tanker, bomber, fighter, strike\/reconnaissance drones, and command-and-control\/intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance inventories, with the bomber, tanker and drone fleets especially needing a bump in aircraft numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bomber fleet, CSBA said, should grow from the nine operational squadrons<\/a> around today to 24 operational squadrons at an unnamed point in the future. (CSBA declined to associate a specific year in its recommendations, as the hypothetical future force includes some aircraft that are not in the Air Force\u2019s plans.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fighter squadrons should increase from 55 to 65, and the tanker fleet should jump from 40 to 58 squadrons. Strike\/reconnaissance drone squadrons, currently typified by the MQ-9 Reaper, should skyrocket from 25 to 43 squadrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The C2\/ISR inventory \u2014 which is currently comprised of assets like the E-8 JSTARS ground surveillance aircraft, the RC-135 family of recon planes and the RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone \u2014 shows a decrease from 40 squadrons to 33 squadrons. However, CSBA notes the importance of moving from the Air Force\u2019s current inventory of aging battle-management planes to a more disaggregated family-of-systems approach like the Advanced Battle Management System, which will be able to provide more coverage and link together more platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CSBA declined to comment further on the report, as it has not yet been briefed by Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report was briefly available on a Defense Department website before being taken down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the Air Force (thinks it) needs<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The think tank\u2019s assessment contrasts with the Air Force\u2019s own findings, which center around the need for the force to grow from 312 to 386 operational squadrons. The service\u2019s \u201cAir Force We Need\u201d study, which has not been released in full, differed from that of CSBA in that it included several types of squadrons that the think tank did not evaluate in detail \u2014 areas like space, cyber, missiles, airlift, and combat search and rescue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force will need 14 bomber squadrons, 62 fighter squadrons, 54 tanker squadrons, 27 strike\/reconnaissance drone squadrons and 62 C2\/ISR squadrons by the year 2030, according to the service\u2019s own study. However, the service has not revealed how those goals might influence future buying decisions, and whether current programs of record are to be expanded to meet those goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another major difference is that the Air Force and CSBA formed their proposed future forces based on different threats. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein has said that its 386-squadron count is necessary to \u201cdefeat a peer threat while being able to deter a near-peer threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This data was collected from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments report.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, CSBA sought to create an Air Force that could take on a very concrete and possibly more ambitious goal. First, the Air Force would be confronted with a major conflict with a near-peer competitor, a \u201cmajor Chinese military action in the South China Sea,\u201d for instance. Then, 10 to 20 days later, it would be forced to address aggressive activity by a second near-peer, such as \u201ca Russian invasion of one or more Baltic states.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that future, Russia and China will become even more capable of defending themselves, turning what is now a contested environment into a \u201chighly contested\u201d environment characterized by mobile, overlapping and interconnected surface-to-air missile systems that use passive sensors and other methods to avoid detection by U.S. equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe lethality, range and geographic dispersion of these systems, combined with modern fighters, electronic warfare aircraft, cyber attacks and other threats, create an all-aspect, multi-domain challenge for U.S. aircraft,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, none of the U.S. Air Force\u2019s inventory is optimized for such a battle, CSBA believes. The B-21 bomber built by Northrop Grumman is set to be the first when it becomes operational in the mid-2020s.<\/p>\n\n\n\t