A Mitchell Institute report warns: The US Air Force should purchase at least 300 F-47 sixth-generation fighters and more than 200 B-21 stealth bombers to counter China. Numbers almost double compared to the Pentagon’s current plans, with the risk – according to experts – of not being able to sustain a high intensity conflict in the Pacific
A recent study by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, a listed US organization based in Arlington (Virginia), claims that the US Air Force should acquire at least another 500 sixth generation fighters and bombers, or much more than already planned, in order to prevail in a hypothetical war against China. In the document titled “Strategic Strike: Maintaining the Air Force’s Capability to Deny Enemies Results,” Institute experts argue that the Air Force needs at least 300 next-generation F-47 fighters and at least 200 B-21 Raider low-visibility bombers to counter the forces of the People’s Republic. At the moment, assuming that the NGAD program materializes, the USAF has expressed its intention to purchase at least 185 examples of F-47s from Boeing and one hundred B-21s produced by Northrop Grumman. Practically half of how many would be needed. Former F-16 pilot and Mitchell Institute research director Professor Heather Penney warned that past US wars, such as those in Korea and Vietnam, and Ukraine’s current war against invading Russia, have shown that militaries that cannot strike enemy bases and other havens from the air risk falling into long wars of attrition, similar to trench warfare. And that without a significantly upgraded combat fleet capable of projecting long-range air power, the United States could find itself in similar danger against China. Penney said: “China is deliberately developing the capabilities to make the entire Western Pacific its domain, but we know from history that allowing an adversary to have this type of posture allows them to win, and is a recipe for our defeat.” According to the former pilot with Operation Midnight Hammer, conducted by the US against Iranian nuclear sites, the USAF used practically the entire fleet of available B-2 Spirit anti-radar bombers. And if Iran had shot down one of those B-2s, Penney added, the Air Force could not replace them, nor could it carry out a similar mission the next day if a second strike was necessary. “And had the United States found itself in a conflict with China or another major regional power,” Penney explains, “the USAF would have faced a much more dangerous threat than Iran, with significantly better air defenses. Without a sufficiently large reserve of fighter aircraft the US may have to stay outside of China’s air defenses and refrain from bolder strikes to avoid losing irreplaceable aircraft, but a conservative strategy like this may not be enough to win or to dissuade China from conducting a first attack against Taiwan.
“If China sees no risk to its homeland, population and infrastructure, it can afford to lose some of these resources to the limit, because it knows it can keep us at bay. That really erodes our ability to stop it from taking these kinds of aggressive actions.”
Penney and the Mitchell Institute argued that the Air Force also must take interim measures to maintain its combat airpower until B-21s and F-47s are operational in significant numbers
That means refraining from retiring any older-generation B-1 Lancer or B-2 bombers until the Air Force has at least 100 B-21s on hand, the Mitchell Institute report said. And the institute has asked Congress and the Pentagon to provide the Air Force with sufficient funding to accelerate the acquisition of the B-21.
And the Air Force must increase procurement of the fifth-generation F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, the F-15EX Eagle II and autonomous drone wingmen that the Army calls collaborative combat aircraft, Penney said.
That means buying 74 F-35As and 24 F-15EXs each year to begin reversing decades of cuts to the force, he said.
“The Air Force must reverse the fighter crisis and purchase F-35s and F-15EXs at maximum price – no more ‘divest to invest,’” Penney said, referring to the Air Force’s strategy of retiring older aircraft to free up funds for the development of new aircraft. “The Air Force must recapitalize its fighters with at least a one-for-one exchange rate (replacing each retired aircraft with a newly acquired empennage), while augmenting its force with collaborative fighter aircraft.”
The Mitchell Institute also argues that the Air Force should have a bomber force of at least 300 aircraft. With 76 Cold War-era B-52 Stratofortresses in the Air Force fleet slated for massive upgrades, that would mean the Air Force would have to purchase at least 224 B-21s to meet Mitchell’s goal. The Air Force plans to retire all B-1s and B-2s over the next decade and field a fleet of two bombers.
