Okinawa Kadena Air Force Base The 18th Wing of the 5th Air Force of the United States is the only F-15C/D Wing permanently deployed overseas and an important part of the US military's Asia-Pacific strategy. However, the US Military Observation magazine recently reported that the two F-15s deployed at Kadena Air Force Base will be withdrawn from the US mainland. After the squadron is withdrawn from the US mainland, it means that the US Air Force will no longer have heavy fighter permanently stationed in the Asia-Pacific region. The US military's interference ability in the Asia-Pacific region will decline greatly. This behavior is tantamount to self-destructing the Great Wall.
Former Deputy Commander of the U.S. Pacific Air Force Command David Deptura angrily said that this is a message that "(US forces withdraw from F-15C/D) conveys to China that the United States has not taken effective measures to curb the shrinking of military strength." However, the performance of China's fourth-generation aircraft is generally better than that of the F-15C/D. The US military's withdrawal of the F-15C/D is indeed a helpless move. The problem is that after the evacuation of the F-15C/D in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States did not think about how to make up for the combat power vacuum brought by the evacuation of the F-15C/D!
F-15C/D stationed in Okinawa was very important when it was first deployed, and now it is no longer comparable to J-10C
0 Since 1979, the F-15C/D fighter was deployed at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa. When the F-15 was just deployed to Okinawa, the Chinese Air Force had just completed the finalization of the J-8 fighter. At that time, the main force of the Chinese Air Force fighter was still the J-6 fighter . The F-15 fighter was decades ahead of the Chinese fighter. Nowadays, most F-15C/Ds have undergone multiple modernization upgrades. fire control radar has been replaced with an APG-63 V3 active phased array using a phase array system. It has the ability to carry AM120C active air-to-air missiles, and its performance far exceeds that of the 1970s F-15C/D.
But the Chinese Air Force is also catching up quickly. In the 1990s, China introduced the Su27 fighter , and the F-15C/D stationed at the Kadena Air Force Base is no longer as glorious as before. Today, China has become the world's largest economy, , and its military expenditure is only below the United States. Equipped with more than 100 J-20 fighter jets, the J-20 is more successful than the F22 and has stronger air combat capabilities than the F35. It is the only stealth fighter in the world that is still mass-produced with the supersonic cruise capabilities. Stealth fighters often have crushing advantages in simulated confrontation between stealth fighters and non-stealth fighters, and the F-15C/D naturally does not have any qualifications comparable to the J-20.
J-16 is equipped with active phased array radar , but the J-16 head is larger, so it can install an active phased array radar with higher transmission power. In addition, the J-16 has stronger loading capacity and a larger combat radius. On the vast western coast of the Pacific Ocean, the J-16's performance is significantly better than that of the F-15C/D fighter jets. radar is slightly weaker, but J-11B, which emphasizes air combat capabilities, will not be at a disadvantage when confronting F-15C/D.
is equipped with an active phased array radar, and it emphasizes air combat capabilities. J-10 fighter has very strong air-to-air combat capabilities. Therefore, even the US Congress has to admit that the J-10 fighter is a much more advanced fighter than the F-15C/D. The J-10C and J-16 are obviously stronger than the F-15C/D, and the J-11B is no less than the F-15C/D.
F15 fighter jets that no one can beat can no longer meet the needs of the US military. It has become inevitable that 54 F-15C/D from the 44th Squadron of the 18th Wing of the 5th Air Force and the 67th Squadron of the US 5th Air Force will be evacuated from Kadena. However, the current US Air Force has long been in a state of disagreement. After the F-15C/D retreat, which fighter jet is planned to replace the F-15C/D?
F22 fighter is the only fifth-generation heavy stealth fighter in the US Air Force, but the shortcomings of the F22 fighter are very obvious. The combat radius of 1093 kilometers (full-range subsonic ) is enough in Europe, but not enough in Asia-Pacific. What's more, the F22 fighter jets have been discontinued for 11 years, and some F22 fighters have lost their flight capabilities; and the production of F22 fighter jets is only a pitiful 185. These F22 fighters often need to be deployed in rotation. If you want to deploy the Asia-Pacific regularly, you can only demolish the east wall and repair the west wall.In addition, the F22 fighter jets will be retired from 2023. In other words, the F-22 fighter cannot fill the hole after the evacuation of 54 F-15C/D. The ultimate upgraded model of
F-15 series fighter jets, the performance of F-15EX is quite powerful. After the US military in Okinawa obtained the F-15EX, it was able to regain air advantages in front of the J-16 and J-10C. The problem is that the first pre-production model of F-15EX was delivered to in March 2021. The 40th Flight Test Squadron of the US Air Force Equipment Command was performed for performance testing. The F-15EX fighter will not be transferred to the 173rd Fighter Wing for batch training pilots until 2024, and the Oregon 142nd Fighter Wing will not become the first wing to be equipped with F-15EX fighter jets in 2025. F-15EX is still four years away from being officially established. It cannot quench near-thirst! After the two heavy air combat fighters,
F-22 and F-15EX, were excluded, the fighter used to replace the F-15C/D at Kadena Air Force Base can only be the F-35A fighter . Now the number of F-35A fighter in service in the US military has exceeded 250, so for the US military, it is still possible to send dozens of F-35As to Kadena. As a fifth-generation stealth fighter, the stealth fighter can achieve a 1:10 or even tens of exchange ratio when simulating and fighting the third-generation fourth-generation fighter jets. Therefore, there is no problem with the F-35A to deal with the fourth-generation fighter jets such as the J-10C, J-11BG, and J-16.
The problem is that the Chinese Air Force has stealth fighters, and J-20 and F-35 are the only two stealth fighters in the world that are produced and deployed at squadron-level strength. Moreover, the J-20 is a typical air-optimal fighter, while the F35 is an multi-purpose fighter that focuses on the ground. And with the big burden of the F-35B, the maneuverability and speed of the F-35A and F-35C are quite poor. Not to mention that the speed of the F-35B/C cannot exceed Mach 1.2 and the duration cannot exceed one minute, otherwise the peeling problem of stealth coating will occur. Therefore, in the confrontation between the J-20 and the F-35, the F-35 is basically impossible to gain the upper hand.
F-15C/D is that Chinese main fighter jets such as the J-10C, J-11BG, and J-16 cannot gain the upper hand when fighting. Although the F-35 can suppress Chinese main fighter jets such as the J-10C, J-11BG, and J-16, the J-20 can completely suppress the F-35. Because the United States has a big stance, the increase speed of the US F-35 in the Asia-Pacific military may not be able to exceed the increase speed of the J-20. In other words, the J-20 and F-35 offset it. This means that after the 54 F-15C/D evacuated, the 54 Chinese fighter jets used to guard against these 54 F-15C/D have free time to find F-16, F-2 and F-15J/DJ to play, which will further aggravate the life span of these fighters. This news is not good for Kadena's remaining F-16 and Japan's Sora.
But in the final analysis, the reason why the US military has experienced this embarrassment is essentially because the US military has stopped production of the F-22 too early. If not, 54 F-15Cs will evacuate Kadena, and Kadena will welcome 54 F-22s. I can only say thanks to the senior US military leaders in 2011-2015 and thanks to Lao Tie for his assists.
