‘Saturation Strike’: F-16 Fighters Used Swarm Tactics to ‘Destroy’ A US Air Force F-35 Stealth In a Dogfighting Drill

Automatically curated summary from 19FortyFive.

In an analysis for 19FortyFive, Harrison Kass examines a Red Flag 2017 air combat exercise where the F-35 stealth fighter achieved a reported 20-to-1 kill ratio. Despite this dominance in beyond-visual-range combat, aggressor F-16 pilots scored simulated kills by using numerical swarms and multi-axis attacks. This tactic forced the F-35 to exhaust its internal four-missile payload and engage in close-range dogfights where stealth advantages diminish. Kass notes these simulated engagements highlight the limitations of finite missile capacity against saturation tactics, supporting the development of uncrewed loyal wingman drones.

Context and limitations

Details rely on retrospective commentary about controlled 2017 training exercises and simulated kill ratios rather than real-world operational combat data.