https://breakingdefense.com/2025/06/not-survivable-hegseth-says-dod-reviewing-e-7-wedgetail-program-amid-move-to-space/
>During a hearing on Capitol Hill, Hegseth said in response to questions from House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Cole that the E-7 is an “example” of a platform that is “not survivable in the modern battlefield.” While the Pentagon is “going to fund existing platforms that are there more robustly and make sure they’re modernized,” Hegseth said that “a great deal of ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] in the future will be space-based.
>“And not in a scientific, space-based, ‘we hope we’ll get there,’ but in a ‘we’re funding capabilities that will surpass some of those airborne capabilities,’” he continued. “So we’re willing to continue to review things like the E-7, but from our view, investments in existing systems that carry forward that capability, alongside even bigger investments in space based ISR gives us the kind of advantages we need on a future battlefield.”

https://theaviationist.com/2025/06/10/usaf-brings-back-agm-183-arrw/
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/06/pentagon-procurement-budget-fy26-reconciliation-f35-bombs-f15ex-army-navy-air-force-space-force-trump/
>The procurement documents point to new programs as well. Confirming recent comments from the service’s top official, the document says the Air Force plans to spend $387.1 million to acquire the hypersonic Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), though it does not list any specific quantities.

What do you think about the plan to go all in on space-based ISR?
And chairforce decided to buy the ARRW after all

>>63813094 (OP)
fucker got his ass enemad by some discount elon musk space startup bros

well he's correct, as awacs are literally sitting ducks flying relatively high and emitting a shit ton. all the new long range missiles already deployed are doing that, and they're just going to get faster and longer ranged as the arms race goes on.

you do want orbital awacs to avoid this issue

>>63813094 (OP)
Space-based is going to be intermittent coverage, limited by weather conditions, and won't work for low-flying cruise missiles. It's a great capability, but it doesn't cover 100% of what you need

>>63813094 (OP)
>What do you think about the plan to go all in on space-based ISR?
space-based ISR is god tier but going all in on it is retard tier

>>63813960
it's fine as long as you have enough up; radar + infrared track and scan can pick up basically anything moving in all weather

of course, this will lead to another arms race, but the idea is to be ahead of opfor

>>63813988
I don't see how space-based radar will be able to pick up a stealth fighter from a 500km orbit. Maybe it's possible with multi-static radar if you have enough of them, IDK. Still, are you going to track an NSM-sized low observable missile flying at 10 meters above the deck from space? I doubt it.

>>63813988
Not low flying missiles like anon said, clutter and multipath are a lot worse when you're that high up and basically looking straight down. Clouds will obscure IR.
>>63813094 (OP)
Orbital ISR is feasible, but doesn't cover all your bases, is just as, if not more vulnerable (predictable orbits, plus it's emitting a shitton of radiation so everyone knows where it is and what it is), and is prohibitively expensive if you want it to even approach the capabilities of airborne AWACS. It's a nice stretch goal, but the inverse square law, clutter and a slew of other practical issues present a sizeable problem, alongside the more obvious issue of satellites being extremely vulnerable. ASAT missiles are a thing and every major power has demonstrated this capability, hell the Soviets managed it in the late '60s, the Chicoms pissed everyone off by proving their capabilities, in LEO, even the SAARS have done it. It's frankly retarded to claim that airborne AWACS are not survivable while space based capabilities are. The two technologies should not be mutually exclusive.

how many satellites and how expensive radars do they need to be able to cover the globe or at least wherever the us is expecting to fight in the next 20 years? Cause it might be cheaper to just build more awacs with more powerfull radars or doing datalinking with F-35s which they are doing already

>>63813094 (OP)
>It Appears My Superiority Has Led to Some Controversy

>>63814116
Seems not even Hegseth trusts the f35 to keep American AWACs safe from J36s

>>63814123
>hegseth
we're pretending he knows anything other than bs he's prompted to say?

>>63814220
>we're pretending he knows anything other than bs he's prompted to say?
like every other SECDEF, then?

>>63814437
Nah, DUI SECDEF is in a league of his own.

>>63813635
Stealth mother ship + drone swarm of small interconnected aircraft, will make it an expensive target to take down.

>>63813987
>Laumch the most tonnage into space several times more than any other nation
>Just don't use that advantage lol
Ok

>>63814116
It's less the plane and more the missiles. BVR is going to include the end of AWACs due to space based ISR spotting their emissions and broadcasting their locations.

>>63814491
Sorry not the end of AWACs, but the end of frontline AWACs.

>>63814482
it's called having options and being able to get coverage on areas WITHOUT having to wait for a satellite with an incredibly predictable orbit to get on station, which is something that is solely determined by when it is over the area and when it gets there it gets there, you can't scramble a satellite to get coverage on an area. meanwhile with an AWACS you can have radar coverage at any time, anywhere so long as you have the range, crew and airframes. Cancelling the Wedgetail is fucking retarded.

>Hegseth said

You realize this guy is a literal Russian asset, right? His job is to dismantle the US Military from within while feigning ignorance. You should assume that everything that he says is contrary to US interests.

>>63813094 (OP)
>Throw out things that we know currently work and press down on the gas for advanced technology that we haven't tested yet

The first step in the classic US MIC grift cycle. Expect them to waste a shit load of taxpayer money, realize it's infeasible, and then build a slightly better AWACs.

I thought Hegseth was supposed to be reforming the military? Were we expecting maybe a bit too much from a retard faggot whose only qualification was screaming about woke on Fox news?

>>63814482
sorry i meant that we shouldnt only rely on space. we should take advantage of space but have alternative options available.

>>63813094 (OP)
I'd touch anything that ferret face says with a grain of salt.

>>63814116
>>63814123
>insecure chink enters the thread
It’s always funny.

>>63813989
Hot Pocket with wings <3

>>63814496
End of the transport aircraft with radar strapped AWACS. When enemy has supersonic stealth aircrafts with 400km range AA missiles then there are no safe space for such AWACS.

>>63813635
He's a fucking brain dead retard, as SEAD/DEAD, missile defense, and escorts are already in place to defend AWAC and have been for fucking decades. Nobody is sending out E-3s like the Goodyear blimp.
And the last 15 years of upgrades to Awacs have been mostly about integrating it with space based SIGINT and backend information processing
This man knows less than nothing about the army he is in charge of and everything he says should be considered inimical to objective reality and a high level of threat to effective military posture and doctrine

>>63815084
The problem is that AWACS range is limited to ~400km due to earth curvature, and when the enemy has missiles that can hit you at 400km (at least for highly visible low-manueverability targets), they can suppress your AWACS by constantly firing missiles and forcing you to turn around and reduce altitude to defend. And you cannot realistically put enough escorts in the air to cover every angle of attack with a 400km radius.

>>63815211
See >>63814028. You turned your poorly defended AWACS into a sitting duck, and a lame duck at that.

>>63815211
>>63815286
You are either Pete Hegseth or functionally retarded. There is no missile spam that can take out an air target 400km before antimissile defense spam and/or SEAD/DEAD get to the them first. And you don't need to protect a fuck ng 360 circle larger than 400km you need to protect it in the direction missiles are coming from FFS
Let me repeat: not the fucking Goodyear blimp. All of this has been known, understood, accounted for acted upon, planned for, and executed FOR DECADES and nothing has changed enough to matter.
>inb4 HyperSanicc
Wishful thinking not required, Sandeep

>>63815211
>And you cannot realistically put enough escorts in the air to cover every angle of attack with a 400km radius.
And that defeats point of AWACs. Because escorts sitting 400km away cant use AWACs detection for targets approaching them from outside that 400 km radius? Escorts need to rely on their own radars, what is the point of AWACs then?

>>63815084
Nah. Even more naaaah.
AWACs in the past, like Desert Storm operated with solid safety margin. AWACs had 400 km detection range and it faced enemy planes that had real 40km head on/20km pursuit missile range. AWACs had solid 360 km range were it can detect and engage targets with interceprtos before enemy planes came clsoe to threat AWACs.
But when AWACs is facing 400 km range AA misssles? 400 km range AA missiles launched from stealth panes? Its totally over for AWACs, now its primary and easy target.
6th gen meta is that 6th gen fighter has to be its own AWACs, only 6th gen plane can survive modern BVR environment staying at altitude and executing radsr search..

>>63815435
>and executed FOR DECADES and nothing has changed enough to matter.
For decades AWACs faced lul MiG-29 with R-27 at max. Against such combo there was nice comfy safety margin >>63815468
But today its over, stop living the past grandpa, your time is over.

>>63815468
6th gen will only turn on their radar once they're basically detected.

>>63814116
>Posts a bomber
What did he mean by this?

>>63814220
>>63814446
t. Minimum wage.

>>63815084
Tell me you're a lib without telling me you're a lib.

>>63813094 (OP)
Space-based AMTI and GMTI were in the pipeline long before Hegseth was appointed.

>>63815933
Retards just don't get that J-36 isn't primarily an AA platform. They just went for speed instead of stealth and long range like the B-21. Maybe it can carry a PL-17 for self-defense or targets of opportunity, but the media portrays it as a NGAD analogue or something

>>63815943
He said mean words about Pete the Drunk? That little SHITLIB!

>>63816043
Yes but the discussion of the thread is the current pentagon wants to axe the e-7 and bets on space based ISR comes online before the last e-3 disintegrates into confetti

>>63813094 (OP)
Didn't we *just* have several situations in the past month or two where the value of AWACS aircraft were very clearly demonstrated?
>>63815940
>>63815943
Your brains have turned into complete mush. Or maybe they always were.

>>63815435
Nigger did you even read my >>63815286 post and the post I referred to? I'm questioning HIS intelligence you dimwit fuck, for assuming an airborne AWACS is less vulnerable than a satellite which can get boned by ASAT weapons.
>>63816388
Bold to assume the Chicoms won't be going after satellites first and foremost, they'll be the first casualties of any conflict, the ISR ones and specifically missile launch and tracking platforms. There is no scenario in which China decides to go to war without knocking down the most exposed ISR assets of all, especially when they know exactly where they'll be with pretty good certainty.

>>63815468
>it can detect and engage targets with interceprtos
E-3 carries no munitions, dumbass

>>63816493
>for assuming an airborne AWACS is less vulnerable than a satellite which can get boned by ASAT weapons.

attacking satellites is tantamount to a nuclear strike
it will never happen and if it ever did "Its all over anyway" and none of the other dogshit is going to matter even one bit

>>63816566
the absolute fucking state of you illiterate ESL euro-shits that post here,
holy fuck

>>63816388
Space based AMTI/GMTI sensors have already been demonstrated on orbit.
This whole thread reeks of politicized idiots who learned about this two minutes ago.

>>63816493
The fact that he thinks spaced based satellites can replace AWACS aircraft shows he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Unless we have geostationary orbit satellites then having coverage of Chinese airspace for 12 minutes a day is not useful. The problem with geostationary satellites is that now you have to have a radar strong enough to emit 22,000 fucking miles without having issues with clutter. Given the quartic reduction in signal with distance that radar has, you would have to have a radar that has an average peak power on the order of megawatts. This is as peak retarded of an idea as the Golden Dome shit

>>63814006
>>63813960
AMTI my nigga, Elon got a lot of shit by people completely ignorant of what camera+radars in space can do.

>>63816591
Wait until you learn about passive Starlink radars. It'll blow your sportsball-soused vooting mind.

>>63816599
are there passive radars that can detect and track a plane thats not emitting signals?

>>63816599
Passive radar from space emissions is mildly useful for detection of radar contacts, you can't use it for 50% of what an AWACS is useful for in network centric warfare, i.e. target locking with high resolution target detection. Knowing "there is a plane in this general several square mile area" is a lot less of a useful thing than being able to knock it down to a few hundred meter radius for guidance purposes

>>63816629
That's what passive radar does. It's using ambient signals like TV or radio or phone towers; or in this case, Starlink satellites.

>>63816679
are there enough background emissions over the pacific to be able to track a plane? especially in a war scenario? i guess you can always set up your own emitters

>>63816691
>>63816647
also doesnt seem like it would be able to replace an actual awacs in terms of resolution

>>63816576
You think China would stop short of attacking satellites in a direct conflict with the US despite building up and demonstrating a significant hard kill and soft kill ASAT capability because...? They might leave the strategic-level sensors like SBIRS intact but they're not gonna avoid killing these AWACS satellites. If your reliant on lack of political will to escalate to keep your AWACS safe then you're incredibly naive, especially when any scenario involving an attack on an AWACS aircraft is already a huge escalation. If they've already gone on the offensive then all bets are off as to what they're willing to do.

>>63816694
Who am I going to believe, the Pentagon, the EE academics, and my own rudimentary radar math - or some /pol/ fags who didn't know about the big radar project of the decade until they went on a tangent from hating some politician?

Here's another tip for you morons: Ghosteye resolutions.

>>63816599
Nigger you're still retarded, passive radar has it worse when it comes to clutter and noise. Signal processing is a massive pain in the ass as there's far more variables to deal with. The problem lies with low altitude, low cross section targets to begin with.

>>63816695
there will NEVER be a "direct conflict" between China and the US ever

its so fucking clown dick retarded its unreal

>>63816918
>Europe 1913

>>63816705
what is ghosteye resolutions?

>>63816955
there will literally never be a war between China and the US and the suggestion of it is so fucking ass-retarded anyone who actually thinks its possible should be lobotomized to the point they can no longer speak or communicate

seek help

>>63816918
So why the fuck are airborne AWACS a no go if there will never be "a direct conflict".

You don't need awacs anymore when all the electronics involved at 1/10000th of the size that they used to be
and power density for turbines has 10x'd itself

>>63816493
>>63816576
Orbital ISR will be a LEO swarm like starlink, you can shoot them down but there are literally 9000 of them with 34,000 planned

Both the US and China will have LEO data, ISR, and interceptor swarms numbering in the tens of thousands

shooting them down will only produce small gaps in coverage temporarily

>>63817571
>Orbital ISR will be a LEO swarm like starlink, you can shoot them down but there are literally 9000 of them with 34,000 planned
Lasers.
Also within 20 years Iran and Yemen would have this tech.

>>63813094 (OP)
Sounds retarded, satellites are limited both because they are so far away and because their limited power supply means the radar is low power. A compliment, not a replacement.

>>63816576
>attacking satellites is tantamount to a nuclear strike
>it will never happen and if it ever did "Its all over anyway" and none of the other dogshit is going to matter even one bit
I think it's fair to say the temptation to make such a brash move will be much much higher if there is no backup alternative.

>>63816576
>attacking satellites is tantamount to a nuclear strike
No it's not, that shit's just posturing. The real danger is the whole "shotgun of garbage" effect it would have on near-Earth orbits (meaning all the other satellites would be at risk of getting knocked out by debris).

>>63818385
Qhat the fuck is a laser going to do to a SAR sat, you ignorant retard? Furthermore, you're going to need a laser another laser and sensor to measure beam distortion due to the atmosphere l, and then an adjustable mirror to compensate your main beam for said atmospheric distortion. And all just to warm up an antenna array. Fucking idiot.

>>63813094 (OP)
>We want everything to be space-based
>Massively cuts NASA's funding
These retards are actively trying to destroy American dominance in every field and you know it.

>>63818412
Both America and China have low earth satellite swarms planned with more than 50,000 satellites each. In a decade we will probably have 100,000 each. Spacex alone has around 10,000 in orbit using falcon-9 alone. Starship will 10x the rate that satellites are accumulating and when China starts competing it will ramp up really fucking fast

>>63813094 (OP)
E-7s are getting replaced by E-2s: https://www.twz.com/air/e-2-hawkeye-replaces-usaf-e-3-sentry-e-7-cancelled-in-new-budget

>>63813635
Do you understand the physics involved? A satellite would be hundreds of kilometers above a AWACs. EM emissions are inversely proportional to the square of their distance.

>>63816347
>>63815933
Is that new mutt's cope?
>no! you can't launch PL-17 from J-36 at our AWACS and tankers because... because...just because you le can't!

>>63818534
Yeah all that crap. Megawatts lasers, adaptive optics. What is cutting edge now would be COTS industry standard 20 years in the future (thank you China) and everyone could get access for that. Future would be bright, so bright you would need spare pair of eyes to live through that future.

Just like notorious Shaheed drones. Say to someone during 1991 that Iran woul be able to chug out thousands cruise missiles with 2000 km range and oin point accuracy everybody would be laughing. No it's Americans monopoly to have such thing as Tomahawks. But today it's Alibaba specials.

>>63816347
Bro the J-36 is a very aggressive stealth design, eliminating most control surfaces for it.
It is both fast (high supersonic) and stealthy.
It has range, too, since the payload is only a medium payload, it is designed to launch few, huge missiles.
Those could easily be stand-off ground attack for high value targets, but mostly seem to be air-to-air focussed to lob ultra long range (400-600km) missiles at high value air-to-air targets.
WHY THE FUCK do you think your defense crowd in the DoD now considers AWACS to have zero survivability shifting to fucking satellites only?
YEAH. Due to THAT.
Your takes are totally decoupled from reality due to your delusiona MURRICA #1 cope which requires you to outright LIE instead of accepting ANY possibility that MURRICA isn't #1 in every fucking area.
The US is likely still ahead in networked warfare, engine tech, maturity of stealth techniques application, and operational procedures such as carrier flight ops.
In many other areas china is now a peer, and china also has some unique advantages where it is ahead of china.
Especially conceptually, i.e. designing a system for a purpose, and in procurement, china is FAR ahead due to the government ruling with an iron fist which is comically efficient. They just move much faster than anyone else atm.
Accept it and move on.

>>63816647
>Knowing "there is a plane in this general several square mile area" is a lot less of a useful thing than being able to knock it down to a few hundred meter radius for guidance purposes

That is only true if your missile seeker head is primitive and not very capable. I.e. it is an ancient semi-active radar homing missile which requires illumination by a strong targeting radar.
Guess why china has moved all their new missiles to AESA and datalink.
Frequency band choice is also a massive advantage here, you can slap a millimeter wave radar on the missile for terminal guidance, which is not only outside the band current jammers work on, but also incredibly difficult to stealth against since it can resolve even tiny imperfections and get enough reflection of a fucking screwhead. The downside of millimeterwave is the short range, but if you datalink the missile close enough, it's perfect.

>>63818970
Anon the uncertainty in passive radar, even if you make use of multiple emitters, is gonna be unsuitable as targeting data, especially velocity estimation, which is pretty critical in guidance. We're not talking about radar-optimized arrays here, and there's all kinds of assumptions used that are not present in conventional radars and those errors have knock-on effects.

>>63819007
>>>63818970
>Anon the uncertainty in passive radar

You don't even know what that is.

>even if you make use of multiple emitters

Bro starlink has thousands of satellites in orbit, it's multi-receiver that is the key.

>is gonna be unsuitable as targeting data especially velocity estimation

triangulation from thousands of kilometers apart will give very accuracy velocity data.

>We're not talking about radar-optimized arrays here

An antenna is an antenna, it radiates energy. It doesn't care if you call it a "radar antenna" or not.

>and there's all kinds of assumptions used that are not present in conventional radars and those errors have knock-on effects.

Yeah stay vague and just string together some words, surely that will convince people you are smart.

>>63818959
>your defense crowd in the DoD now considers AWACS to have zero survivability shifting to fucking satellites only?
>YEAH. Due to THAT.
Settle down, Petey, that was JSTARS and they're already retired. Just accept that you;re full of shit, AWACS isn't going away, and there is absolutely zero chance of an original thought passing through your head on the matter that wasn't already brought up and dealt with 15 years ago, when you were in daycare

>>63818970
How wide do you think the emissions cone of modern ARHs are? They are not optimized for area search, they are meant to be steered to within a few degrees of an aircraft before they go pitbull, not scan a 60 degree cone in front of them. With a resolution of miles you are not going to realistically be able to guide a missile to the point that the seeker head is going to be reliably pointing close enough for the head to pick it up in the main lobe of the onboard radar. This is of course ignoring the fact that it is a bad idea for a longer range shot, as if the missile has already burned out the onboard rocket motor then it will be going slower and slower, which means you get less and less extra energy in reserve to make the sharp corrections needed for a shot that was only able to pick up the target on the very edge of the seeker azimuth (again assuming you get close enough to even see it at all).

>>63814116
Most implesive

>>63815507
The MIG-31s and R-33 were what were expected to go after AWACs

>>63823836
>How wide do you think the emissions cone of modern ARHs are?

As big as they need to be.

>They are not optimized for area search, they are meant to be steered to within a few degrees of an aircraft before they go pitbull, not scan a 60 degree cone in front of them.

Maybe if you're stuck in the 1980's, did you miss out on chinese PL-15 AESA arrays being shown off by the indians?
Bro it's fucking AESA and with compute being dirt cheap you can do whatever the fuck you want with that array.
You can seek at close to 180° cone with that, no problem, or focus all modules on a point in space, and you can interleave that 9001 times per second if you want to.
Hell you can do SAR with this and create an image of your mom's fat behind, but then the radar computer will run out of memory.

>With a resolution of miles you are not going to realistically be able to guide a missile to the point that the seeker head is going to be reliably pointing close enough for the head to pick it up in the main lobe of the onboard radar.

You've spouted this dozens of times but it remains wrong. You're thinking along the lines of 1980's missile tech.
It's 2025 gramps.

>This is of course ignoring the fact that it is a bad idea for a longer range shot, as if the missile has already burned out the onboard rocket motor then it will be going slower and slower, which means you get less and less extra energy in reserve to make the sharp corrections

They're not sharp, but minor corrections, since you have a constant D A T A L I N K updating the missile to the target, also only AMRAAM suffers from dogshit terminal performance, modern missiles are ramjet or dual pulse.

>>63813094 (OP)
>e-7 is a proven platform that has been in service for 20 years.
>ditch it for some magic that only exists on paper.

Can wait to go to war with China with ancient equipment by the DOD can't commit to actually seeing a project through.