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they do plan on UAVs taking over air-to-air combat, and other nations do as well.

I don't see how, in a GPS/satcom-prohibited environment. And that is exactly the capability the Chinese have been working on assiduously with their direct-ascent ASAT system.

The environment that you are talking about makes it just as difficult regardless of whether there is a human in the cockpit or not.

Not really. USAF pilots did just fine over Vietnam without satnav or GPS. They had LORAN and various other beacon systems and inertial guidance, and that's about all they needed to get the job done. HOBOS helped, and they needed to be able to use TV remote control for that -- but the Germans didn't need it in 1943 when they sank the Italian BB Roma with a radio-controlled, optically-guided (by the operator) guided bomb.

Besides, the environment you are talking about is the kind of environment that would probably be best suited to cruise missiles that don't rely on outside guidance, or incredibly stealthy UAVs.

UAV's will be cruise missiles if you remove GPS guidance and communication, or interrupt the session the way the Iranians are supposed to have done . Think someone can fly a UAV by dead reckoning via remote control? How about without commlinks with the vehicle?

All this stuff is setting us up for a big lesson in how, the more bells and whistles you need to do the job, the more Achilles' heels you bring with you to the contest, and the more sh&t you have available to break down at the most inconvenient time possible.

Rule One of electronics on expeditions and missions: Half your sh&t doesn't work any more, the minute you leave the end of your driveway/clear the jetties/clear the runway.

I don't see how, in a GPS/satcom-prohibited environment. And that is exactly the capability the Chinese have been working on assiduously with their direct-ascent ASAT system.

I'll put aside the fact that if China wants to harm us, they will do so economically long before they do so militarily, since they are in a position to already hurt us economically. I'm not trying to expand the topic into what definese air superiority since the definition has broadend over the years, but if we can dump in cruise missiles at will, that don't require GPS or satellite communications, that they can't easily counteract, and if we can destroy the facilities they need to support their own aerial operations with those very same missiles, well we gain air superiority regardless of whether we have humans in the cockpit or not. We take out their ASAT capabilities, we quickly relaunch any GPS or other systems that are needed, and we are in business.

Not really. USAF pilots did just fine over Vietnam without satnav or GPS.

USAF and USN lost over 2,200 aircraft to enemy fire and almost a thousand more due to operational problems, and the North Vietnamese didn't have nearly the capabilities our potential adversaries do now. Those aircraft were a lot easier to maintain and a lot more resilient than some of the aircraft we have now.

UAV's will be cruise missiles if you remove GPS guidance and communication, or interrupt the session the way the Iranians are supposed to have done .

What is wrong with cruise missiles? How is Iran going to interrupt the communications if we are dumping in terrain following cruise missiles that don't need to communicate with us once they are launched?

All this stuff is setting us up for a big lesson in how, the more bells and whistles you need to do the job, the more Achilles' heels you bring with you to the contest, and the more sh&t you have available to break down at the most inconvenient time possible.

Rule One of electronics on expeditions and missions: Half your sh&t doesn't work any more, the minute you leave the end of your driveway/clear the jetties/clear the runway.

And here I agree with you. We are headed down a road where we have fewer and fewer manned aircraft, and they are more and more expensive and complex to maintain. It will bite us in the ass.