{"id":69685,"date":"2008-02-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2008\/02\/16\/lusaf-entre-rafale-et-su-35\/"},"modified":"2008-02-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-16T00:00:00","slug":"lusaf-entre-rafale-et-su-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2008\/02\/16\/lusaf-entre-rafale-et-su-35\/","title":{"rendered":"L’USAF entre Rafale<\/em> et Su-35?"},"content":{"rendered":"

L’USAF entre Rafale<\/em> et Su-35?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

Le d\u00e9bat \u00e9tonnant engag\u00e9 entre le F-22 et le F-35 (JSF) par porte-paroles de fortune improvis\u00e9s, entre le Congr\u00e8s<\/a> (plut\u00f4t pro-F-22) et le n°2 du Pentagone Gordon England<\/a> (nettement pro-JSF) a comme cause fondamentale la crise des F-15<\/a> de l’USAF qui n\u00e9cessite d’envisager des avions de remplacement. Dans son num\u00e9ro de f\u00e9vrier 2008, dans sa rubrique<\/a> Washington Watch<\/em>, la revue de r\u00e9f\u00e9rence du lobby<\/em> de l’USAF, Air Force Magazine<\/em>, \u00e9tudie le probl\u00e8me du point de vue de son urgence op\u00e9rationnelle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

L’int\u00e9r\u00eat de cette rubrique est qu’elle est r\u00e9dig\u00e9e avant l’affrontement Congr\u00e8s-England. Elle n’est pas influenc\u00e9e par la pol\u00e9mique de ces derniers jours. Plusieurs aspects de la situation sont pass\u00e9es en revue.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

• Quel est le pire des sc\u00e9narios concernant la situation des F-15? Actuellement existe la menace qu’un ensemble de 180 F-15A\/C, qui doivent rester en service jusqu’au milieu des ann\u00e9es 2020, soient effectivement retir\u00e9s du service, cr\u00e9ant un \u00ab\u00a0trou\u00a0\u00bb consid\u00e9rable dans les capacit\u00e9s de d\u00e9fense a\u00e9rienne continentale de l’USAF . «The nightmare scenario<\/em> [is] this: Scores of elderly F-15s, beset with fatal structural flaws, are condemned and swiftly retired, with no replacements anywhere in sight.<\/em>»<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

• Si une d\u00e9cision \u00e9tait prise de remplacer des F-15 de d\u00e9fense a\u00e9rienne manquants et de les remplacer par des F-22, comment les choses pourraient-elles se passer? La production de F-22 pourrait-elle \u00eatre acc\u00e9l\u00e9r\u00e9e?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

«[I]f USAF needed the fighters faster, costs could go up, because either additional shifts would be required with heavy overtime, or facilities would have to be expanded with new tooling and factory floor space. A potentially more time-consuming task would be finding, training, and certifying workers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

»\u00ab\u00a0We have not done those kinds of excursions recently,\u00a0\u00bb a company official said, meaning that it had not computed the costs of larger-buy options available to the Air Force.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

»Asked to identify the longest-lead item in F-22 production, Lockheed said simply, \u00ab\u00a0titanium.\u00a0\u00bb Because it is in short supply, its cost has skyrocketed in recent years. One problem is that Russia is one of the world’s chief sources. Obtaining titanium has also caused headaches because of \u00ab\u00a0buy American\u00a0\u00bb laws sharply affecting military programs. The Pentagon maintains a list of programs that take priority when certain materials get scarce, and the F-22 isn’t on it.<\/em>»<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

• Le F-35 peut-il servir de rempla\u00e7ant des F-15, \u00e0 la place du F-22, en acc\u00e9l\u00e9rant le programme comme le propose Gordon England? Outre la question des m\u00eames difficult\u00e9s que pour le F-22, outre la question de la capacit\u00e9 op\u00e9rationnelle du F-35, se pose la question elle-m\u00eame de l’acc\u00e9l\u00e9ration du programme pour un avion qui est loin d’\u00eatre arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 maturit\u00e9 et qui connaît nombre de difficult\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

«However, USAF is also struggling to fund the F-35 fighter. It needs to build 110 per year to replace the F-16 in a timely manner, but can only afford 48 per year in its budget.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

»Lt. Gen. Raymond E. Johns Jr., deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said accelerating the F-35 isn’t a viable option because that would introduce additional risk in the program, which has a carefully laid-out development and production plan.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

»\u00ab\u00a0I can only ramp up the F-35 … as it matures,\u00a0\u00bb Johns said. \u00ab\u00a0I can’t pump it up artificially.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>»<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

• M\u00eame l’option d’acheter des avions de mod\u00e8les anciens, des F-15 et des F-16, pour cette mission sp\u00e9cifique de la d\u00e9fense a\u00e9rienne, rencontre de nombreux obstacles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

«There are no other good options, USAF officials said. They have ruled out buying more F-15s or F-16s because the versions being built for foreign sales are different than those USAF has.<\/em>[…] Moreover, Johns said, he can get the F-22s \u00ab\u00a0faster\u00a0\u00bb than he could get the other aircraft, because USAF would have to get F-15 or F-16 customer countries’ permission to \u00ab\u00a0cut into\u00a0\u00bb their production runs.<\/em>»<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

• La situation est si peu ordinaire que la chronique de Air Force Magazine<\/em> mentionne, sans sourire semble-t-il, que les planificateurs de l’USAF ont m\u00eame envisag\u00e9 l’achat de chasseurs \u00e9trangers, – y compris le Rafale<\/em> fran\u00e7ais. (D’où notre titre, où nous nous permettons d’omettre le Typhoon<\/em>, pour rattraper un tout petit peu des innombrables fois où la presse anglo-saxonne omet de mentionner le Rafale<\/em> fran\u00e7ais parmi les chasseurs \u00ab\u00a0de 5\u00e8me g\u00e9n\u00e9ration\u00a0\u00bb disponibles sur le march\u00e9 des avions de combat.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

«Air Force officials said it would be nearly impossible to buy a foreign fighter such as the French Rafale or Eurofighter Typhoon, and in any case, the service would want the best available.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

»Maj. Gen. Paul J. Selva, the Air Force’s strategic planner, said at a Capitol Hill airlift seminar, \u00ab\u00a0Think about the emotion in this room when <\/em>[USAF leaders] talk about having to hire <\/em>[Russian and Ukrainian] Antonov transports to carry our armored vehicles because our C-5s don’t work. Now think about the emotion in this room if we had to say, ‘We’re going to have to buy Sukhoi fighters.'\u00a0\u00bb<\/em>»<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Tout cela est-il s\u00e9rieux? Il nous semble bien que oui. (La remarque sur l’USAF utilisant des Antonov russes parce que ses C-5 ont des probl\u00e8mes n’est pas fabriqu\u00e9e, le cas s’est effectivement pr\u00e9sent\u00e9.) Les sp\u00e9culations dramatisent \u00e9videmment la situation mais cette \u00e9vocation de l’hypoth\u00e8se extraordinaire d’un achat de chasseur non-US de premi\u00e8re ligne mesure la gravit\u00e9 de la situation. L’USAF (comme les autres services arm\u00e9s US) est \u00e9cartel\u00e9e entre des exigences de missions tr\u00e8s contraignantes (les probl\u00e8mes survenus aux F-15 ont \u00e9t\u00e9 aggrav\u00e9s par l’usage intensif des avions de combat sur divers th\u00e9\u00e2tres depuis 1990); des coûts tr\u00e8s \u00e9lev\u00e9es; des difficult\u00e9s consid\u00e9rables de d\u00e9veloppement; l’encombrement des chaînes de production pour l’exportation… C’est une nouvelle sorte de \u00ab\u00a0d\u00e9sarmement structurel\u00a0\u00bb que risque l’USAF (comme les autres services), par \u00e9puisement des mat\u00e9riels, des ressources et des capacit\u00e9s industrielles, \u00e0 cause d’une politique ext\u00e9rieure presque uniquement fond\u00e9e sur l’utilisation de l’outil militaire.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Mis en ligne le 16 f\u00e9vrier 2008 \u00e0 17H26<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L’USAF entre Rafale et Su-35? Le d\u00e9bat \u00e9tonnant engag\u00e9 entre le F-22 et le F-35 (JSF) par porte-paroles de fortune improvis\u00e9s, entre le Congr\u00e8s (plut\u00f4t pro-F-22) et le n°2 du Pentagone Gordon England (nettement pro-JSF) a comme cause fondamentale la crise des F-15 de l’USAF qui n\u00e9cessite d’envisager des avions de remplacement. Dans son num\u00e9ro… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7420,3302,249,2969,250,3219,3129,41],"class_list":["post-69685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-desarmement","tag-f-15","tag-f-22","tag-f-35","tag-jsf","tag-rafale","tag-typhoon","tag-usaf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}