Rand corporation did its now famous August 2008 Pacific Vision wargame between China and US. It was not simulation of fighter performance, but simulation of whole aerial warfare, including logistics etc. US performed poorly because there is clear logistical limitations. No matter how good the fighter is, it can bring only very limited amount of missiles to the battle. What makes things even harder fo US is the fact that potential conflict happens close to China and far from US. China has unique approach to airfields, it has over 40 military airfields where planes are stored inside mountains in extremely well fortified bunkers. US has in the region maybe 20 lightly fortified airfields (depends on how many allies bail out) plus carriers.
Quoting Defense Industry Daily article The F-35’s Air-to-Air Capability Controversy:
The core problem in Pacific Vision 2008 was that even an invulnerable American fighter force ran out of missiles before it ran out of targets, at any number below 50% of missile firings resulting in kills. Whereupon the remaining Chinese fighters would destroy the American tankers and AWACS aircraft, guaranteeing that the USAF’s F-22As would run out of fuel and crash before they could return to Guam.
To reiterate: RAND’s core conclusion is not about specific fighter performance. It is about the theoretical limits of better performance under adverse basing and logistics conditions. RAND’s Project Air Force argues, persuasively, that based on history and current trends, numbers still matter – and so does the “Lanchester square.” That’s the theory under which the combat performance of an outnumbered combatant must be the square of the outnumbering ratio (outnumbered 3:1 must be 9x better, etc.) just to stay even.
Or, as the oft-repeated Cold War era saying goes, “quantity has a quality all its own.”
Additional problem with F-35 is that it has limited missile carrying capacity, range, and stealth (stealth requirements were downgraded from very low observable, to low observable).
