New Japanese JS Kaga Mini-Carrier Built for F-35B

The F-35B has a top speed of Mach 1.6, an after-burning thrust of 43,000 lbs, a max take-off weight of 60,000 lbs

by Logan Williams

As a way to deter China, better prepare for island-hopping kinds of amphibious warfare contingencies and the need to project 5th-generation air power at Sea, the Japanese Maritime Defence Force has retrofitted and launched the JS Kaga, a destroyer turned amphibious assault ship, which was specifically outfitted with the F-35B in mind. Warrior details the arrival of Japan’s new mini-carrier in a recent article, an essay which describes some of the concepts of operation informing the ship’s emergence.

The new JS Kaga, along with Japan’s large multi-billion F-35 purchase, is a key element of how Japan’s ruling party has requested the largest defense budget in the island nation’s recent history, at least since World War Two. Japan has become the largest international customer for the F-35B platform.

The F-35B has a top speed of Mach 1.6, an after-burning thrust of 43,000 lbs, a max take-off weight of 60,000 lbs (reduced due to STO/VL functionality, the A & C variants have a max take-off of 70,000 lbs), and most importantly, a radar signature (radar cross-section) of 0.0015m2 at the “stealthiest.” Conversely, the F-16 is faster, with a top speed of Mach 2, although the F-35 outperforms the F-16 in nearly every other metric. The F-22, as the U.S. military’s premier air superiority fighter, has a radar cross section of .00015m2, which means that at its “stealthiest,” the F-22 has the same radar signature as a marble or a bumble bee.

Yet, these raw metrics can obscure the true ingenious of the F-35 platform.

It would be baseless to compare the F-22 to the F-35, as a measure of the performance of the F-35 platform, because the F-22 is similarly a fifth-generation aircraft designed with much of the same technologies of the F-35, but with a vastly different purpose than the F-35, in mind. The F-22 was designed as an air-to-air fighter aircraft, its singular purpose is to seize and maintain air superiority, as such, the F-22 is the “stealthiest” aircraft in the United States’ arsenal, second only to the still-in-development B-21 Raider, the successor to the B-2 stealth bomber, which is expected to have an even smaller radar cross-section despite the present lack of data, and which conducted its first test flight on 10 November 2023.

If you are looking to establish an impenetrable no-fly zone, and down enemy aircraft long before they even know that you are there (beyond-visual-range targets — BVR), the F-22 is the plane for the job; if you are looking for any other functionality, turn to the F-35. It is important to note that the F-22 is so specialized and dangerous that Congress has banned its export, even to friendly nations. It is also important to note that the F-35 is far cheaper than the F-22, the former which has a per-unit production (“fly-away”) cost of approximately $70 million (similar to that of the F/A-18E/F), and the latter which has a “fly-away” cost of double that, at approximately $143 million. Unfortunately, during the United States’ wars in the Middle East, airspace dominance was hardly a concern, so F-22 production was hindered by a re-prioritization of attack aircraft and multi-role fighters (fighter with sufficient air-to-ground attack functionality), and the F-16 as well as the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet became the backbone of the U.S. jet fleet. The F-16 is still the most common aircraft in the U.S. military, making up just under 10% of the U.S. military’s aircraft arsenal.

The F-35 outclasses all other multi-role fighters, foreign and domestic.

The F-35 was designed to replace the F-16, the F/A-18, and the A-10 as the universal, multi-role fighter of the U.S. military. It is drastically more efficient to operate a single multi-role fighter throughout all of the service-branches; instead of operating with three “backbones” so-to-speak, with the F/A-18E/F as the fighter of choice for the Marine Corps tactical aviation needs (due to the F/A-18E/F’s aircraft carrier landing functionality), the F-16 as the choice for most U.S. Air Force fighter jet needs, and the A-10 for subsonic flight and close-air-support missions.

Furthermore, regardless of the efficiency, the F-35 far outperforms the F-16 and the F/A-18E/F. The F-16 might be slightly faster than the F-35, but this also indicates its greatest weakness; the F-16 has a max take-off weight of approximately 40,000 lbs, and an internal fuel capacity of just 7,000 lbs, which adds up to a relatively limited combat range of approximately 300 miles. In order for the F-16 to be an effective fighter, it requires a vast network of a multitude of land-bases from which to take off and land — that is decidedly not the case for the United States in the Indo-Pacific. The single advantage of the F-16, if it has any advantages, is its relatively low cost — “fly-away” cost starts around $20 million.

The F/A-18E/F performs slightly better compared to the F-16, but is still massively outclassed by the F-35. The F/A-18E/F has a maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and a max takeoff weight of 66,000 lbs, much like the F-35, however, the F/A-18E/F has an internal fuel capacity of only about 14,000 lbs — compared to F-35’s capacity of approximately 18,000 lbs. The result is that the F/A-18E/F has a combat range of approximately 500 miles, compared to the F-35’s approximate 1,200 miles. The limitations of the F/A-18E/F were assuaged by the fact that it is aircraft carrier compatible, and thus, does not require the extensive land bases needed for the F-16.