Business Insider Monday March 5, 2018
- The US Navy made history on Monday by putting to sea for
the first time an aircraft carrier with F-35B jets and by deploying
them in the Pacific.
- China has been asserting
its power in the region, but the F-35 poses real problems for Beijing's
newly-built defenses, and signals the US's intention to not back down.
- The
US has developed a new set of tactics to make the most of the F-35B's
vertical landing-and -takeoff abilities, which make it perfect to
dominate the Pacific.
The US Navy made history on Monday by putting to sea for the first time ever an aircraft carrier with F-35B jets. And by deploying them in the Pacific, it's a message China and North Korea are sure to hear loud and clear.
The US Marine Corps's Fighter Attack Squadron 121 deployed aboard the
USS Wasp, a smaller-deck aircraft carrier that used to operate harrier
jump jets and helicopters before getting special modifications to field
the F-35.
"This is a historic deployment," said Col. Tye R. Wallace, 31st MEU Commanding Officer in a US Navy press release. "The F-35B is the most capable aircraft ever to support a Marine rifleman on the ground."
The deployment marks the culmination of years of planing. Since its
inception, the F-35 has been designed with the idea of accommodating
short takeoff, vertical landing variants. Initially, the design
compromises forced by the massive tail fan and unique capabilities
caused complications, compromises, and long and expensive delays.
But the US has still beaten China, Russia, and the entire world to the
punch with a navalized stealth fighter that can fight for air
superiority, pull off precision strikes, penetrate enemy airspaces, and coordinate with the two US Navy guided-missile destroyers to guide ship-fired missiles to targets ashore.
The squadron aboard the Wasp has also trained heavily on a new set of
tactics meant to keep the US dominant in the Pacific region. Leveraging
the short-takeoff, vertical landing ability of the F-35B, the pilots and
maintainers drilled on setting up improvised refuel and reloading
points, and how to quickly restock the jet for battle much like mechanics perform pit stops during NASCAR races.
Additionally, the F-35B has the option of equipping a gun and opening it up as a close-air-support platform to support Marines making a beach landing.
The result is a stealth fighter/bomber/reconnaissance jet well suited
to the Asia-Pacific region, which US adversaries like China and North
Korea will be sure to recognize.
"You're about to put for the first time ever fifth-generation
fighters on a ship at sea and put it into a highly contested area that
is fraught with geopolitical risk and controversy and tensions," retired
US Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Berke, a former F-35B squadron
commander, previously told Business Insider.
"The implications of a fifth-generation airplane being in [the Pacific]
is impossible to overstate," he added. "They're going to provide
capability that nobody knows exists yet."
As Beijing pushes on with its massive land grab in the South China Sea by militarizing artificial islands, intruding in territorial waters of its neighbors, and performing increasingly aggressive fighter jet drills around the Pacific, the F-35B deployment gives the US an advantage in terms of air power at sea.
China has struggled to field its own stealth jets that many see as an answer to US air power in the region.
North Korea, not a powerful nation in terms of air power, will now feel the added pressure of stealth jets it cannot track sitting near its shores in Okinawa or on deployment around the region.