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P. Sprey, (fighter mafia) again speaks out against the failing F-22 program.
page: 2share:
Iskander,
Tell me, what country are you from? If it ain't here, everything you say comes across as a 'trying to convince the other guy not to kill you by telling him is sword isn't sharp enough.'
Ka-SCHWING! Damn I hate proving a point to a neckless spouting torso.
>>
FredT, have you had the chance to familiarise your self with the material provided? Such as briefing pdfs and various Committee hearings?
It it wasn't for the FM crew its the Vietnamese who would have air superiority in Nam, and it is the FM crew that wrote the book on Top Gun.
>>
No. The Vietnamese never had Air Superiority in Vietnam. Never ONCE did they succeed in preventing U.S. visitations to whatever part of their benighted land. Don't fall for the BS which states continuing penny ante attrition 'adds up' to anything more than a refusal to win the war outright. Additionally, the adversary course was underway before Vietnam ended. The FX compeition was over before the Fighter Mafia /began/ applying EM theory to the LWF/ACF entrants. And the resulting YF-16/17 are some of the most poorly designed fighters of the 1970's, being optimized almost solely towards the perspective of 'fightering' in a daylight, CAVU, environment at short ranges. All of which were utterly irrelevant to either 1980's Europe OR 1990's ME confrontations. And had become so by the end of Vietnam where night and BVR once more predominated our tactics. And where weather had traditionally been a problem from Day-1.
>>
They are the very guys responsible for F-15/16 AND the A-10. Pretty important achievements IMHO, and considering such immense contributions, I for one listen to what those guys have to say.
>>
No. Considering the only plane which came close to doing what it needed to was the F-15 and Boyd and Riccioni in particular did everything he could to sabotage it rather than applying his EM theory to make it better. The A-10 is a farce. The F-16/18 can't go anywhere to do their jobs and have had /piles/ of money thrown at them to recreate capabilities which were already present in the F-4. The 'reinvention' of MRM and targeting pods scaled to a LWF weight class most assuredly would have caused us to LOSE in Europe (and possibly ended the world) during the 1980's if the Russians hadn't been 'busy playing bear over the mountain'.
>>
FM crew is not the only ones who are speaking out about the profit based Raptor/JSF program, its also the Congress, USAF etc and the list goes on.
>>
The Raptor will cost 70 billion. If they hadn't _deliberately_ screwed with the production economies of the jet (scaling back the line to only produce 24 instead of 60 jets a year) that 70 billion would have bought 380 jets with the 335th one 'averaging out the program' at 74-78 million per unit. Another 20 billion would buy the necessary A2G mods like a new radar and EOTS level optics. Say 90 billion overall. INCLUDING R&D.
The F-35 is going to run 257 billion. At least partially /because/ it is now paying out Lunchmeat's 'unstated' (technology buy in, a highly illegal Anti-Deficiency Act violation) R&D dividend on the F-22.
DO NOT LUMPSUM THE TWO UNLESS YOU MEAN TO DAMN THE JSF ALONE.
>>
The naysayers also happen to be USAF officials which question their own ability to afford and field Raptor/JSF while F-15/16s are about to be retired.
>>
Oh please. That's like asking the foxes to define what a chicken is.
That said, the USAF has wanted to drop their JSF purchases to 1,200 or less for the last 4 years. Congress want's 1,763 of them to make sure that production economics scale out to make 'export variants' affordable at 45-50 million. They want pork to make their districts happy and to balance a severely negative trade status. And they don't give a damn about making this nation even more risked by exporting LO.
The facts of the matter are simple:
1. 90%+ of all conflicts we get into don't have an air superiority component. The reason they don't is because nobody wants to try. Either because they believe we are the good guys. Or because they don't like losing. Or because they can't afford to buy the chips. With the advent of ARH+AESA 'across the board', along with our shattered reputation as white-hatters, this is quite likely going to change so long as a threat can risk one jet to kill 2-6 others.
2. What makes the F-22 a superior platform is not it's 'air superiority' factors but simply it's ability to transit from X to Y (some 600-800nm) at Mach 1.35 or better. Which means you can TRIPLE sortie rates in a given day, at half the cost in followon tanking support.
3. Given 1+2 -and- the advent of DEWS, it is overwhelmingly likely that the best BOMBER _does not have a man onboard_. Because then you don't have to deal with fatigue issues as well as about 5-10,000lbs of weight penalty to justify an object which will increasingly have to choose between flying through the trashfire and being flash vaporized by a 1-2MW or better laser. Of course, for purely egotistical reasons, not having any 'truly fighterlike' features gives the worthless Sky Knight Association a reason to go on breathing pure O2. But that's okay because it also makes the jets cheaper and lets you segregate targeting from fires, as it should be.
>>
It was very clearly stated, that a major concern is that after F-16 is retired, USAF will no longer have an actual dog fighter, which time repeatedly proved to be absolutely necessary in order to achieve air superiority.
>>
How many Sidewinder kills in DS? Sparrow kills in DS? How many AMRAAM kills thereafter? Exactly WHAT PERCENTAGE of these have occured as a function of dynamic maneuver? Oh, /that's right/. DAMN NEAR ALL have been 'big missile' decided with next to ZERO 'dogfighting'.
Tell me, what country are you from? If it ain't here, everything you say comes across as a 'trying to convince the other guy not to kill you by telling him is sword isn't sharp enough.'
Ka-SCHWING! Damn I hate proving a point to a neckless spouting torso.
>>
FredT, have you had the chance to familiarise your self with the material provided? Such as briefing pdfs and various Committee hearings?
It it wasn't for the FM crew its the Vietnamese who would have air superiority in Nam, and it is the FM crew that wrote the book on Top Gun.
>>
No. The Vietnamese never had Air Superiority in Vietnam. Never ONCE did they succeed in preventing U.S. visitations to whatever part of their benighted land. Don't fall for the BS which states continuing penny ante attrition 'adds up' to anything more than a refusal to win the war outright. Additionally, the adversary course was underway before Vietnam ended. The FX compeition was over before the Fighter Mafia /began/ applying EM theory to the LWF/ACF entrants. And the resulting YF-16/17 are some of the most poorly designed fighters of the 1970's, being optimized almost solely towards the perspective of 'fightering' in a daylight, CAVU, environment at short ranges. All of which were utterly irrelevant to either 1980's Europe OR 1990's ME confrontations. And had become so by the end of Vietnam where night and BVR once more predominated our tactics. And where weather had traditionally been a problem from Day-1.
>>
They are the very guys responsible for F-15/16 AND the A-10. Pretty important achievements IMHO, and considering such immense contributions, I for one listen to what those guys have to say.
>>
No. Considering the only plane which came close to doing what it needed to was the F-15 and Boyd and Riccioni in particular did everything he could to sabotage it rather than applying his EM theory to make it better. The A-10 is a farce. The F-16/18 can't go anywhere to do their jobs and have had /piles/ of money thrown at them to recreate capabilities which were already present in the F-4. The 'reinvention' of MRM and targeting pods scaled to a LWF weight class most assuredly would have caused us to LOSE in Europe (and possibly ended the world) during the 1980's if the Russians hadn't been 'busy playing bear over the mountain'.
>>
FM crew is not the only ones who are speaking out about the profit based Raptor/JSF program, its also the Congress, USAF etc and the list goes on.
>>
The Raptor will cost 70 billion. If they hadn't _deliberately_ screwed with the production economies of the jet (scaling back the line to only produce 24 instead of 60 jets a year) that 70 billion would have bought 380 jets with the 335th one 'averaging out the program' at 74-78 million per unit. Another 20 billion would buy the necessary A2G mods like a new radar and EOTS level optics. Say 90 billion overall. INCLUDING R&D.
The F-35 is going to run 257 billion. At least partially /because/ it is now paying out Lunchmeat's 'unstated' (technology buy in, a highly illegal Anti-Deficiency Act violation) R&D dividend on the F-22.
DO NOT LUMPSUM THE TWO UNLESS YOU MEAN TO DAMN THE JSF ALONE.
>>
The naysayers also happen to be USAF officials which question their own ability to afford and field Raptor/JSF while F-15/16s are about to be retired.
>>
Oh please. That's like asking the foxes to define what a chicken is.
That said, the USAF has wanted to drop their JSF purchases to 1,200 or less for the last 4 years. Congress want's 1,763 of them to make sure that production economics scale out to make 'export variants' affordable at 45-50 million. They want pork to make their districts happy and to balance a severely negative trade status. And they don't give a damn about making this nation even more risked by exporting LO.
The facts of the matter are simple:
1. 90%+ of all conflicts we get into don't have an air superiority component. The reason they don't is because nobody wants to try. Either because they believe we are the good guys. Or because they don't like losing. Or because they can't afford to buy the chips. With the advent of ARH+AESA 'across the board', along with our shattered reputation as white-hatters, this is quite likely going to change so long as a threat can risk one jet to kill 2-6 others.
2. What makes the F-22 a superior platform is not it's 'air superiority' factors but simply it's ability to transit from X to Y (some 600-800nm) at Mach 1.35 or better. Which means you can TRIPLE sortie rates in a given day, at half the cost in followon tanking support.
3. Given 1+2 -and- the advent of DEWS, it is overwhelmingly likely that the best BOMBER _does not have a man onboard_. Because then you don't have to deal with fatigue issues as well as about 5-10,000lbs of weight penalty to justify an object which will increasingly have to choose between flying through the trashfire and being flash vaporized by a 1-2MW or better laser. Of course, for purely egotistical reasons, not having any 'truly fighterlike' features gives the worthless Sky Knight Association a reason to go on breathing pure O2. But that's okay because it also makes the jets cheaper and lets you segregate targeting from fires, as it should be.
>>
It was very clearly stated, that a major concern is that after F-16 is retired, USAF will no longer have an actual dog fighter, which time repeatedly proved to be absolutely necessary in order to achieve air superiority.
>>
How many Sidewinder kills in DS? Sparrow kills in DS? How many AMRAAM kills thereafter? Exactly WHAT PERCENTAGE of these have occured as a function of dynamic maneuver? Oh, /that's right/. DAMN NEAR ALL have been 'big missile' decided with next to ZERO 'dogfighting'.
When the USAF went to India with both F-15 and 16 jets, how well did our Steve Canyons do against their Bombay Bad Boys? Oh that's right, /with
equal training and WVR weapons systems/ the USAF got their heads handed to them TWO YEARS RUNNING. Like we want to duel other human beings when
_being human_ is the chief disadvantage inherent to limited dogfight performance to begin with.
Air Combat is won in the intercept phase. He who lines up his geometry ducks right WINS. Because his missiles come off first, with the most advantageous pole and aspect conditions which dictate, not only 'first to see, shoot, kill'. But ONLY one to do so.
The F-22 is a 15 mile per minute airframe which isn't /detected/ to be counter engaged. The F-35 is an 8nm/minute airframe which _cannot do better_ without burner which would alert every IRST for a 100nm in all directions as well as botch the fuel useage percentages on a 700nm radius. The F-teens are similar except that they go fuel-critical at 450nm. DOGFIGHTING IS DUMB. Further, it only degrades to that by virtue of the speeds you have to sprint to to get missile shots and the near certainty that you will be detected and countermaneuvered against, wasting shots that might otherwise have gone in. LO+SSC+OffboardMCG changes ALL of this.
The missiles do the dogfighting provided you bring them close enough, fast enough, to an _extended_ envelope to avoid impaling yourself on the other guys knife.
While again, what the idiots and morons brigade don't get is that THE NEXT DOGFIGHTER is going to be a 747 with a pulsar turret that turns 'Vipers' into atomized fireballs. At _186,000 miles PER SECOND_. And probably line of sight downrange (the ABL is seriously underestimated for total power densities at-altitude).
>>
JSF Pratt and Whitney engines were dumped in favor of Rolls Royce btw, entirely do to the absurd replacement/maintenance cost for the P&Ws.
>>
What source do you attribute this to? The _GE_ F136 was a life-support maintenance of the technology coal bed to keep the F135 'honest'. It has not had 50% of the investments needed to productionize it. And now, because of spiraling total program costs, it never will. RR is unhappy because they think that 100 people and 1 billion dollars is a 'big deal' relative to a 257 billion dollar program in which the worthless UK is lining itself up to be FACO-for-EU. And yet they refuse to pay for it alone on 'their' F-35K so the question then becomes how seriously they expect us to treat them?
Buy in or fold you selfish gits.
>>
Let me put it as simply as I can possibly can, it never has been about quality verses quantity, and always been about layered defence networks.
Among others, both Sprey and Stevenson repeatedly pointed pointed out that Soviet doctrine relied on coordinated multi layered defense strategy.
>>
And we have repeatedly rolled that system right up. Always taking the majority of our casualties from S2A fires in the process. Indeed the /greatest threat/ EVER posed by threat-air has _always_ been to specialist platforms like RB-66 and EKA-3. Because it's by hitting the tankers and the targeting and the jammers and the chaff layers that you leave the rest of the formation potentially naked.
The fewer you have of these node-critical vulnerability points in your system, the better.
>>
In the case of VVS, Soviets traditionally relied on tried and proved "troika" strategy.
1) Dedicated Short range Front line Fighter (MiG-29)
2) Long range Air Superiority Fighter (Su-27)
3) Dedicated super-sonic long range interceptor. (MiG-31)
>>
All of which were false posits at the time they were introduced. The MiG-29 because it has the radius of the MiG-21 and a radar system that isn't worth the horse laughs. The Su-27 because it is 'one plane two fighters' for EM performance under realistic (all internal) fuel loads for radius. Even as it has 'twice' the MiG-29 radar system with more power but no real ability to deal with ranged threats in terms of sorting and morting under severe ECM and formation breakout conditions. Hell, they have to /manually/ set the clutter, PRF and notch gates! Their missiles also genuinely suck as you have about eight out of ten pylons which cannot take the only extended-shot weapons which give the Flanker a positive pole performance edge over the threat.
The MiG-31 weapons system was totally compromised by Agent Donald and in any case constitutes a tiny fraction of the active Soviet defense forces, having ALWAYS been a dedicated PVO-Strany asset, not Frontal Aviation one. Even it cannot kill what it cannot see and the RD-33 is a bomber killer whose absolute range is directly tied to the expected profile and burnthrough distances of a platform designed to literally rundown and impale targets that it cannot kill at range. Bluntly, 19nm in lolo lookdown is NOT impressive.
>>
We on the other hand always get sold on the "jack of all trades" flying Rolex type of nonsense.
>>
That would be the F-16 and 18. Not the F-14/15 or even the A-10 which you so loudly extol the virtues of yet which the Fighter Mafia universally decried. Specialist systems work when the _environment_ in which they are expected to function is strictly scenario-parsed. OTOH, when you acknowledge that expecting a fixed scenario over enemy airspace is a fools dream and you INVENT LOW OBSERVABILITY TECHNOLOGY TO COMPENSATE (resimplifying the assumptive dataset) it hardly makes sense NOT to apply multifunction weapons systems to the resulting airframe solution. Because once nobody engages you, _to make your mission valid_ (valuable) you need to make the shots happen yourself at whatever range point you can opportunistically kill.
Air Combat is won in the intercept phase. He who lines up his geometry ducks right WINS. Because his missiles come off first, with the most advantageous pole and aspect conditions which dictate, not only 'first to see, shoot, kill'. But ONLY one to do so.
The F-22 is a 15 mile per minute airframe which isn't /detected/ to be counter engaged. The F-35 is an 8nm/minute airframe which _cannot do better_ without burner which would alert every IRST for a 100nm in all directions as well as botch the fuel useage percentages on a 700nm radius. The F-teens are similar except that they go fuel-critical at 450nm. DOGFIGHTING IS DUMB. Further, it only degrades to that by virtue of the speeds you have to sprint to to get missile shots and the near certainty that you will be detected and countermaneuvered against, wasting shots that might otherwise have gone in. LO+SSC+OffboardMCG changes ALL of this.
The missiles do the dogfighting provided you bring them close enough, fast enough, to an _extended_ envelope to avoid impaling yourself on the other guys knife.
While again, what the idiots and morons brigade don't get is that THE NEXT DOGFIGHTER is going to be a 747 with a pulsar turret that turns 'Vipers' into atomized fireballs. At _186,000 miles PER SECOND_. And probably line of sight downrange (the ABL is seriously underestimated for total power densities at-altitude).
>>
JSF Pratt and Whitney engines were dumped in favor of Rolls Royce btw, entirely do to the absurd replacement/maintenance cost for the P&Ws.
>>
What source do you attribute this to? The _GE_ F136 was a life-support maintenance of the technology coal bed to keep the F135 'honest'. It has not had 50% of the investments needed to productionize it. And now, because of spiraling total program costs, it never will. RR is unhappy because they think that 100 people and 1 billion dollars is a 'big deal' relative to a 257 billion dollar program in which the worthless UK is lining itself up to be FACO-for-EU. And yet they refuse to pay for it alone on 'their' F-35K so the question then becomes how seriously they expect us to treat them?
Buy in or fold you selfish gits.
>>
Let me put it as simply as I can possibly can, it never has been about quality verses quantity, and always been about layered defence networks.
Among others, both Sprey and Stevenson repeatedly pointed pointed out that Soviet doctrine relied on coordinated multi layered defense strategy.
>>
And we have repeatedly rolled that system right up. Always taking the majority of our casualties from S2A fires in the process. Indeed the /greatest threat/ EVER posed by threat-air has _always_ been to specialist platforms like RB-66 and EKA-3. Because it's by hitting the tankers and the targeting and the jammers and the chaff layers that you leave the rest of the formation potentially naked.
The fewer you have of these node-critical vulnerability points in your system, the better.
>>
In the case of VVS, Soviets traditionally relied on tried and proved "troika" strategy.
1) Dedicated Short range Front line Fighter (MiG-29)
2) Long range Air Superiority Fighter (Su-27)
3) Dedicated super-sonic long range interceptor. (MiG-31)
>>
All of which were false posits at the time they were introduced. The MiG-29 because it has the radius of the MiG-21 and a radar system that isn't worth the horse laughs. The Su-27 because it is 'one plane two fighters' for EM performance under realistic (all internal) fuel loads for radius. Even as it has 'twice' the MiG-29 radar system with more power but no real ability to deal with ranged threats in terms of sorting and morting under severe ECM and formation breakout conditions. Hell, they have to /manually/ set the clutter, PRF and notch gates! Their missiles also genuinely suck as you have about eight out of ten pylons which cannot take the only extended-shot weapons which give the Flanker a positive pole performance edge over the threat.
The MiG-31 weapons system was totally compromised by Agent Donald and in any case constitutes a tiny fraction of the active Soviet defense forces, having ALWAYS been a dedicated PVO-Strany asset, not Frontal Aviation one. Even it cannot kill what it cannot see and the RD-33 is a bomber killer whose absolute range is directly tied to the expected profile and burnthrough distances of a platform designed to literally rundown and impale targets that it cannot kill at range. Bluntly, 19nm in lolo lookdown is NOT impressive.
>>
We on the other hand always get sold on the "jack of all trades" flying Rolex type of nonsense.
>>
That would be the F-16 and 18. Not the F-14/15 or even the A-10 which you so loudly extol the virtues of yet which the Fighter Mafia universally decried. Specialist systems work when the _environment_ in which they are expected to function is strictly scenario-parsed. OTOH, when you acknowledge that expecting a fixed scenario over enemy airspace is a fools dream and you INVENT LOW OBSERVABILITY TECHNOLOGY TO COMPENSATE (resimplifying the assumptive dataset) it hardly makes sense NOT to apply multifunction weapons systems to the resulting airframe solution. Because once nobody engages you, _to make your mission valid_ (valuable) you need to make the shots happen yourself at whatever range point you can opportunistically kill.
>>
We do not have a dedicated short range FLF, we do not have a dedicated super-sonic interceptor, and the Tomcat is simply no longer.
>>
2 F-22, 50-100nm back from the leading section element of the raid.
5 UCAVs, spaced along a 20 mile frontage for a total of maybe 100nm formation separation.
Country X can /afford/ all of maybe 4 Su-27 level systems to come hunting them. Among the dozen or so other (Allied) raid packages which are doing the same thing in other parts of the country.
'Somewhere, Out There' is an S-300 battery also hoping to get lucky but unable to guard more than one target axis.
At 30 miles the S-300 sees past the LO. At 15 miles, the Flanker's own Slotback derived radar also detects the targets. At 10 miles it's IRST sees them on infrared. WHILE IT CONVERTS ON THE FIRST TARGET the _missile_ which the F-22 launched a minute 30 ago goes up it's tail pipe. Because frankly, the Raptor always has known where the friendlies are (datalink) and even if it didn't, it wouldn't care about shooting up the backside of R2D2. While the Su-27 will never be stealth and so can be tracked from the moment it goes wheels in well.
The difference then being that the Favorit site is going to light off only if it wants to trade a 25-30 million dollar drone for a 100 million dollar battery. While if the Flankers don't come out to play, they will see their HAS's leveled around their ears by the impacts of standoff glide munitions that are released, no 8-10nm downrange as with LGB. But 30-50 for a glidekit equipped IAM.
Ain't it amazing how nobody talks about the 'useless but for one role and even in that it is questionably capable' S-300? Oh, that's right, folks like you DEPEND on the cancellation of LO systems to enable their own 'dated hardware' approach.
>>
Even given the most basic scenario, In order to achieve air superiority and considering the per unit cost ratio, a single Raptor will have to face and defeat 12 SU-30s and survive.
>>
Basic scenarios aren't worth crap. Indonesia just bought FOUR (count'em) SU-30 airframes, half of them A2G dedicated, the other little more than Su-27SK mods for export.
India has what, 120 of the latest MKI's on order?
You'd better be specific or you sound clueless.
The difference being that we don't need to fight the Indians over Pakistan because they are both locked in a nuclear death grip with each other and our presence is limited to the same level as always: Selling secondline fighters.
>>
Even it the Raptor is able to absolutely guarantee 6 SU-30 BVR kills, it will be simply overwhelmed by the remaining 6 Flankers.
>>
No. The Raptor will fly in pairs. As the basic section/element determinator of tactics. They will thus kill 8-12 and go home. Knowing that tomorrow, the enemy will have that many fewer planes and that the pilots who fly them will be looking at empty bunks with no reported counter-kills as incentive to try-trying again as they figure the odds on their survival until the 30-50 planes of their 'typical' Air Force are too few to be worth trying.
When sent up to engage an opponent that slaughters and then retires from the field. Knowing that when they DO kill the last enemy, /then/ they can send the 70-100 plane force over to obliterate what's left.
All of which can be simplified to Cum Git Sum.
X.vs.MANY NUMBERS ARE A FUNCTION OF SHOTS IN THE BAY THAT CAN BE EMPLOYED BEFORE THE MERGE.
CONTEMPT OF ENGAGEMENT IS THE DETERMINATOR OF LO+SSC SURVIVABILITY AFTER THE LAST SHOT GOES OUT IN DENYING THE MERGE.
>>
In case of a layered defense network, the situation becomes so grim that it's exactly what the "naysayeres" have been screaming about.
>>
No. Because no layered IADS can withstand the reduction, through info attack and fixed-nodeal IOC/SOC reduction, a paralysis of it's cueing process. And then you add in the physical suppression and rollback that comes from having the ability to _TARGET FROM OVERHEAD_. And deliver sacrificial cruise kills below the radar horizon at 730 grande per throwaway. And finally lofted ARMs with INS+Seeker+Ramjet delivered point attack on popup emitters that don't match the EOB map. But which STILL cannot see or reach far enough to kill targets that are perhaps 200nm out when they launch.
ONLY THEN do you get to factor in the LO. Which is principally defined by the breadth of _exclusion_ corridoring around it's ground track for which S2A systems might get lucky. On a VLO, that might be 10nm to either side. Whereas for a conventional jet, it's probably closer to 50-100. We have optic systems which can FOPEN-up large scale (multispectral) overhead maps to determine whether a threat underneath or along a specific ground track is 'there or not' (camouflaged or not). So long as you don't have to do the entire map, you can easily sterilize the raid entry.
That said, the reality of life is that wars are won by those who can afford to lose the most. Not those who kill the most before dying. Where the U.S. wins is in refusing to be second best at EITHER END of the spectrum.
And the way forward in continuing that process has nothing to do with 'fighters' perse. It has to be based upon _specialist_ bomber platforms which can afford to be treated like cruise missiles with landing gear.
Since bad things happen.
>>
It's simply obvious that air superiority is all about putting birds in the air manned by fresh pilots. Domination of the area and area denial, simple as that.
>>
No. _Battlespace Dominance_ must take into account a primary S2A threat. It must then execute such A2A kills as are necessary to obliterate any opposition to progress of the mission force to a target-BRL point.
This Bomb Release Line itself being measured in 10nm segments now that we have IAM and glide kits, out to about 40-50nm.
We do not have a dedicated short range FLF, we do not have a dedicated super-sonic interceptor, and the Tomcat is simply no longer.
>>
2 F-22, 50-100nm back from the leading section element of the raid.
5 UCAVs, spaced along a 20 mile frontage for a total of maybe 100nm formation separation.
Country X can /afford/ all of maybe 4 Su-27 level systems to come hunting them. Among the dozen or so other (Allied) raid packages which are doing the same thing in other parts of the country.
'Somewhere, Out There' is an S-300 battery also hoping to get lucky but unable to guard more than one target axis.
At 30 miles the S-300 sees past the LO. At 15 miles, the Flanker's own Slotback derived radar also detects the targets. At 10 miles it's IRST sees them on infrared. WHILE IT CONVERTS ON THE FIRST TARGET the _missile_ which the F-22 launched a minute 30 ago goes up it's tail pipe. Because frankly, the Raptor always has known where the friendlies are (datalink) and even if it didn't, it wouldn't care about shooting up the backside of R2D2. While the Su-27 will never be stealth and so can be tracked from the moment it goes wheels in well.
The difference then being that the Favorit site is going to light off only if it wants to trade a 25-30 million dollar drone for a 100 million dollar battery. While if the Flankers don't come out to play, they will see their HAS's leveled around their ears by the impacts of standoff glide munitions that are released, no 8-10nm downrange as with LGB. But 30-50 for a glidekit equipped IAM.
Ain't it amazing how nobody talks about the 'useless but for one role and even in that it is questionably capable' S-300? Oh, that's right, folks like you DEPEND on the cancellation of LO systems to enable their own 'dated hardware' approach.
>>
Even given the most basic scenario, In order to achieve air superiority and considering the per unit cost ratio, a single Raptor will have to face and defeat 12 SU-30s and survive.
>>
Basic scenarios aren't worth crap. Indonesia just bought FOUR (count'em) SU-30 airframes, half of them A2G dedicated, the other little more than Su-27SK mods for export.
India has what, 120 of the latest MKI's on order?
You'd better be specific or you sound clueless.
The difference being that we don't need to fight the Indians over Pakistan because they are both locked in a nuclear death grip with each other and our presence is limited to the same level as always: Selling secondline fighters.
>>
Even it the Raptor is able to absolutely guarantee 6 SU-30 BVR kills, it will be simply overwhelmed by the remaining 6 Flankers.
>>
No. The Raptor will fly in pairs. As the basic section/element determinator of tactics. They will thus kill 8-12 and go home. Knowing that tomorrow, the enemy will have that many fewer planes and that the pilots who fly them will be looking at empty bunks with no reported counter-kills as incentive to try-trying again as they figure the odds on their survival until the 30-50 planes of their 'typical' Air Force are too few to be worth trying.
When sent up to engage an opponent that slaughters and then retires from the field. Knowing that when they DO kill the last enemy, /then/ they can send the 70-100 plane force over to obliterate what's left.
All of which can be simplified to Cum Git Sum.
X.vs.MANY NUMBERS ARE A FUNCTION OF SHOTS IN THE BAY THAT CAN BE EMPLOYED BEFORE THE MERGE.
CONTEMPT OF ENGAGEMENT IS THE DETERMINATOR OF LO+SSC SURVIVABILITY AFTER THE LAST SHOT GOES OUT IN DENYING THE MERGE.
>>
In case of a layered defense network, the situation becomes so grim that it's exactly what the "naysayeres" have been screaming about.
>>
No. Because no layered IADS can withstand the reduction, through info attack and fixed-nodeal IOC/SOC reduction, a paralysis of it's cueing process. And then you add in the physical suppression and rollback that comes from having the ability to _TARGET FROM OVERHEAD_. And deliver sacrificial cruise kills below the radar horizon at 730 grande per throwaway. And finally lofted ARMs with INS+Seeker+Ramjet delivered point attack on popup emitters that don't match the EOB map. But which STILL cannot see or reach far enough to kill targets that are perhaps 200nm out when they launch.
ONLY THEN do you get to factor in the LO. Which is principally defined by the breadth of _exclusion_ corridoring around it's ground track for which S2A systems might get lucky. On a VLO, that might be 10nm to either side. Whereas for a conventional jet, it's probably closer to 50-100. We have optic systems which can FOPEN-up large scale (multispectral) overhead maps to determine whether a threat underneath or along a specific ground track is 'there or not' (camouflaged or not). So long as you don't have to do the entire map, you can easily sterilize the raid entry.
That said, the reality of life is that wars are won by those who can afford to lose the most. Not those who kill the most before dying. Where the U.S. wins is in refusing to be second best at EITHER END of the spectrum.
And the way forward in continuing that process has nothing to do with 'fighters' perse. It has to be based upon _specialist_ bomber platforms which can afford to be treated like cruise missiles with landing gear.
Since bad things happen.
>>
It's simply obvious that air superiority is all about putting birds in the air manned by fresh pilots. Domination of the area and area denial, simple as that.
>>
No. _Battlespace Dominance_ must take into account a primary S2A threat. It must then execute such A2A kills as are necessary to obliterate any opposition to progress of the mission force to a target-BRL point.
This Bomb Release Line itself being measured in 10nm segments now that we have IAM and glide kits, out to about 40-50nm.
Air is one big empty, environmentally hostile, hole of occupation, environment which COSTS to fight in. Moving around a hostile air threat, provided
it doesn't know you are there, is thus relatively easy. ONLY surface based systems can afford to be dense enough to be unkillable as a discrete or
total entity. And the more you standoff, the more difficult it is to place even them sufficiently to _detect_ a target as a precondition to
engaging.
If the threat air doesn't impinge (come out to play 'who dies today'), it will be left untouched. Because you will be bombing it's logistical means to generate followon sorties /tomorrow/. While maintaining a freedom of operations to hit other targets _as the counter air_ game is ongoing.
This is the chief advantage of LO and why Raptors need to replace more than just F-15's while the F-35 needs to go to hell. You make the enemy COME TO YOU as a function of hitting /more than/ just the predictable target set centered around ADGE and Airfields and _he_ must be the one defending the VOLUME of approaches airspace.
HE will be the guy exposed. Not you.
>>
The main strength of Air superiority capability is in its political deterrent value.
>>
How nice. You play the "ID2= It Doesn't Dogfight!" (because it doesn't need to) and "Mixed Fighter Forces Uber Alles!" (profile fuel use and spares as a tactical and inventory/deployment cost problem) cards and then you say Air Superiority is 'all about men in airplanes' as a function (presumably) of sortie generation to offset the limiting factors of VLO which ONLY HAPPENS if you use those assets like conventional airframe missions.
And now you want the world to believe in dogfight aviation /because/ air superiority is not necessary?
Bwuahahhahahahahha! How Russian. Invent the wrong bloody answer and then blame the world for having asked the right question.
If you don't fly Air Dominance 70% of the time, the enemy will treat your lack of presence like a puppy seeing the door to the dining room opened. If you don't maneuver it 20% of the time, the bad-puppy will treat any chair available as if an invitation to see if there is steak on the table. Yet (ironically) If you don't KILL with Air Dominance, more than 10% of the time, everyone assumes that the other 80% of scaring away the naughty dogs and pushing in the chairs to the table if not locking the door to the dining room was 'never an issue of importance'.
Which is _fine_. Provided you understand that the principal 'strength' of a military air supremacy 'sweep, escorts and bombers' system is to generate triplines which snag a threat and force it to fight it's way through each defense, breaking up the intent and dispelling the effects of (weapons and expendables, gas and coordination) the PDI/ADI effort so that what reaches the 'guard that basket' inner zone of most-vulnerable bombers is more or less too tired and unfocussed to be an effective killer.
If you don't want to invest in Air Superiority then at the least, your forward ('regardless of what's out there') Frei Jagd SWEEP elements are no longer preventing the enemy from marshalling. While your shotgun close escorts are responding to a threat which they will only have 1-2 poles worth of dice toss to break up. And the bombers must not serve as the ultimate killing agency for a force which is much less expended when the too clash.
The REAL question then being "How many bombers am I mission killing in the ATO so that they may cross dress as fighters with dedicated munitions loadouts /anyway/?"
If you want to dump the LO asset as a sweep/escort system, then you need to dump the conventional shooter which it protects and move to either independent ops with more bombs onboard LO-only elite hunters. Or shift to bombers-only robots with sufficient savings in multirole cost as to be able to afford enough of them to obviate any losses in bombloads with more jets on the frag list.
1. Long Standoff, No Designation IAM.
2. Multiple Small Munition Carriage and Targeting.
3. Limited Air Supremacy Threat Challenges.
Rewards MAX-MAX-MAX cost:value exchange biases in all the DAY 1 RAID 1 force. After which the threat has little or nothing to do but sit back and take it. As the Day 2 force arrives as bombers-only. No mixed force concept required. Just lots of generic gun-cabinet platforms and a few leveraging (offboard) sensor systems.
Fighters which protect other assets die by the compromise of their own MISSION PROFILE advantages inherent to defending the helpless. Fighters which obliterate the threat completely, can be pulled from the ATO /after/ the threat reduction has occured. Or support a bombers-in-the-lead approach as the UCAVs bull their way in, killing whatever comes up to molest them without concern for a loss of pilots.
>>
Conventional military conflicts are governed by such political deterrents, and it's exactly what the Raptor/JSF programs threaten to undermine.
Relying on lone "super star fighters" and sacrificing the fleet is like doing away with infantry and solely relying on snipers. It's plain dumb.
>>
No. Because Infantry are designed to be the cheapest, most ubiquitous, assets on the battlefield for the sole purpose of occupation of terrain scape whether the enemy kills a few or not is a function of their own LOW asset value in fixing a threat for destruction by higher level systems. OTOH, airpower should /never/ seek to be equivalently predictable because it costs too much. And the same time, it's high transit rates and relative invulnerability to smaller systems also makes it is easier to bring the Airpower to the fight than attempting to continuously suppress challenges to occupancy.
If the threat air doesn't impinge (come out to play 'who dies today'), it will be left untouched. Because you will be bombing it's logistical means to generate followon sorties /tomorrow/. While maintaining a freedom of operations to hit other targets _as the counter air_ game is ongoing.
This is the chief advantage of LO and why Raptors need to replace more than just F-15's while the F-35 needs to go to hell. You make the enemy COME TO YOU as a function of hitting /more than/ just the predictable target set centered around ADGE and Airfields and _he_ must be the one defending the VOLUME of approaches airspace.
HE will be the guy exposed. Not you.
>>
The main strength of Air superiority capability is in its political deterrent value.
>>
How nice. You play the "ID2= It Doesn't Dogfight!" (because it doesn't need to) and "Mixed Fighter Forces Uber Alles!" (profile fuel use and spares as a tactical and inventory/deployment cost problem) cards and then you say Air Superiority is 'all about men in airplanes' as a function (presumably) of sortie generation to offset the limiting factors of VLO which ONLY HAPPENS if you use those assets like conventional airframe missions.
And now you want the world to believe in dogfight aviation /because/ air superiority is not necessary?
Bwuahahhahahahahha! How Russian. Invent the wrong bloody answer and then blame the world for having asked the right question.
If you don't fly Air Dominance 70% of the time, the enemy will treat your lack of presence like a puppy seeing the door to the dining room opened. If you don't maneuver it 20% of the time, the bad-puppy will treat any chair available as if an invitation to see if there is steak on the table. Yet (ironically) If you don't KILL with Air Dominance, more than 10% of the time, everyone assumes that the other 80% of scaring away the naughty dogs and pushing in the chairs to the table if not locking the door to the dining room was 'never an issue of importance'.
Which is _fine_. Provided you understand that the principal 'strength' of a military air supremacy 'sweep, escorts and bombers' system is to generate triplines which snag a threat and force it to fight it's way through each defense, breaking up the intent and dispelling the effects of (weapons and expendables, gas and coordination) the PDI/ADI effort so that what reaches the 'guard that basket' inner zone of most-vulnerable bombers is more or less too tired and unfocussed to be an effective killer.
If you don't want to invest in Air Superiority then at the least, your forward ('regardless of what's out there') Frei Jagd SWEEP elements are no longer preventing the enemy from marshalling. While your shotgun close escorts are responding to a threat which they will only have 1-2 poles worth of dice toss to break up. And the bombers must not serve as the ultimate killing agency for a force which is much less expended when the too clash.
The REAL question then being "How many bombers am I mission killing in the ATO so that they may cross dress as fighters with dedicated munitions loadouts /anyway/?"
If you want to dump the LO asset as a sweep/escort system, then you need to dump the conventional shooter which it protects and move to either independent ops with more bombs onboard LO-only elite hunters. Or shift to bombers-only robots with sufficient savings in multirole cost as to be able to afford enough of them to obviate any losses in bombloads with more jets on the frag list.
1. Long Standoff, No Designation IAM.
2. Multiple Small Munition Carriage and Targeting.
3. Limited Air Supremacy Threat Challenges.
Rewards MAX-MAX-MAX cost:value exchange biases in all the DAY 1 RAID 1 force. After which the threat has little or nothing to do but sit back and take it. As the Day 2 force arrives as bombers-only. No mixed force concept required. Just lots of generic gun-cabinet platforms and a few leveraging (offboard) sensor systems.
Fighters which protect other assets die by the compromise of their own MISSION PROFILE advantages inherent to defending the helpless. Fighters which obliterate the threat completely, can be pulled from the ATO /after/ the threat reduction has occured. Or support a bombers-in-the-lead approach as the UCAVs bull their way in, killing whatever comes up to molest them without concern for a loss of pilots.
>>
Conventional military conflicts are governed by such political deterrents, and it's exactly what the Raptor/JSF programs threaten to undermine.
Relying on lone "super star fighters" and sacrificing the fleet is like doing away with infantry and solely relying on snipers. It's plain dumb.
>>
No. Because Infantry are designed to be the cheapest, most ubiquitous, assets on the battlefield for the sole purpose of occupation of terrain scape whether the enemy kills a few or not is a function of their own LOW asset value in fixing a threat for destruction by higher level systems. OTOH, airpower should /never/ seek to be equivalently predictable because it costs too much. And the same time, it's high transit rates and relative invulnerability to smaller systems also makes it is easier to bring the Airpower to the fight than attempting to continuously suppress challenges to occupancy.
Furthermore, unlike snipers, their target value assignments (especially early in a campaign) are less defined by the overmatch value of said victim's
immediate proximal defenses than their ability to chuck weapons past any conceivable standoff detection threshold. Snipers can only kill that which
they nominally place at equal (LOS) risk to killing themselves. Airpower can theoretically attack that which is invisible to it with a vastly greater
number of approach lanes and performance/timing variables.
Quit making assumptive associations which don't work.
>>
For the price of a single Raptor, we can have a dedicated super interceptor, long range air superiority multi purpose fighter and a front line fighter.
>>
What threat requires a dedicated 'super interceptor'? Assuming you mean a YF-12 or equivalent, is there a threat system out there which demands the costs and limited coverage of such a system?
What IS an 'air superiority multi purpose fighter'? When you define a mission set, you cannot then go back and say it's not specifically optimized to it just as a function of the other roles it fulfills when that mission is not being accomplished. Because, /by design/, it will always be overpriced or undercapabilitied for the secondary mission by the nature of what it gave up to better do the first.
What is a 'Front Line Fighter'? Do you mean a CAS airframe?
FACT: The AIM-54 averaged less than Mach 2.8 for most of it's flight. It thus had a highly predicated autopilot trajectory algorithm (loft here, dive there) in getting to standoff targets with enough energy to make the kill using a stoop maneuver to reenergize it's terminal ballistics. The Meteor achieves roughly the same range for less than half the weight and size of the Phoenix. And it can be carried by any jet out there, even a nominally ultra lightweight type like the Gripen.
FACT: You fly a PROFILE which dictates your ability to perform a mission well. Albino pilots routinely do things with their aged A2A Rodans that Mudhen jocks /have never seen/ in their 'more advanced' Beagles. If you carry 'multipurpose' goodies, you are sacrificing the performance to do the 'Air Superiority' mission, even if the airframe itself is not paying a (structurals for higher weight) penalty inherent to being so capable. OTOH, if you are _not forced by detection thresholds_ to engage an enemy 'as a fighter' (high energy performance degrading range to terminal-close) then the effects of not being configured as or optimized to that role are much less.
FACT: CAS is best done with a platform that can loiter for /days/ at minimum $$ per Flighthour costs. Without doing a damn thing beyond sanitizing emptiness. Similarly, a _business jet_ level of performance which can deliver 8 GBU-39 from 20,000ft is superior to the A-10 because it's very presence (as a contrail) deters enemy approach. And it's '20 seconds later!' instantaneous response breaks up attacks before 'more, more, more!' becomes a factor in resolving a fight-to-the-finish (scattered and uncoordinated) battle with multiple opponents. Indeed, a lightweight drone can carry more _precision kills_ than the A-10 carries, in total, externally. Comparitively, the A-10 has upwards of 20-25 + 2 +1 gun + guided + bombs point kills onboard. But the first is useless much beyond 4,000ft on 'CAS typical' target sets. And the latter are limited in the kinds of target and available designation methods to kill them. Indeed, an A-10 will run shy of gas or run late of engaging altogether or deplete it's mechanical countermeasures long before it CAN use all of it's ammunition. On those rare threat forces which are in fact large enough to need them.
>>
Given our technological base we are more then capable of building a combo that will outmatch anything in the air right now and near future.
Instead we are again forced to put all of our eggs in one basket and hope that our bluff holds out.
>>
No. The F-15 is overmatched. Aerodynamically, the Flanker is it's better. So is the S-300/400, Aster and assorted 'convert the MRM' class (MICA and Adder S2A) followons.
The F-22 is now the existing 'technology base' production system which can fight the good fight. Because it doesn't have to fight all-at-once and indeed is never forced to ANY WVR engagement which _is always_ going to be 50:50 for survivability in a modern (HOBS+SFPA) SRM era.
The simple fact of the matter is that the next generation of weapons which will change air combat (such as it is) forever are DEWS and hunting systems.
And against these the F-22 _as a limited force_ is still vastly superior to the alternative because it means less investment in an inventory (380 Raptor vs. 1,450 JSF) which are just as likely to be obsolescent in 10-15 years.
In the latter, the ultimate determinator is simply that war itself is grinding to a halt as an effective means of international diplomacy because so long as you make it 'immoral' (Nuremburg) to fight purely for territorial or resource gain; you cannot inflict such punishment on an 'insurgent' irregular/civillian threat as to make the initial main-force defeat have any meaning. No matter how easy.
Within the contraints of 'deceny', the best one can hope for in an insurgency is to contain violence and minimize attrition while dominantly engaging GROUND targets in a fashion which never lets them 'get away with' an ambush-fade system of desultory free attacks.
And this requires a highly specialized platform which has _nothing to do_ with 'fighter' anything. But simply a basic performance point compatible with existing tacair sortie rates and ingress/egress speeds (not a 110-230 knot Predator but a 450-500 knot X-45). Combined with cheap manufacture and ROLE LIMITED performance sufficient to fly for hours in combat. And hardly at all in training.
IOW: a UCAV.
KPl.
Quit making assumptive associations which don't work.
>>
For the price of a single Raptor, we can have a dedicated super interceptor, long range air superiority multi purpose fighter and a front line fighter.
>>
What threat requires a dedicated 'super interceptor'? Assuming you mean a YF-12 or equivalent, is there a threat system out there which demands the costs and limited coverage of such a system?
What IS an 'air superiority multi purpose fighter'? When you define a mission set, you cannot then go back and say it's not specifically optimized to it just as a function of the other roles it fulfills when that mission is not being accomplished. Because, /by design/, it will always be overpriced or undercapabilitied for the secondary mission by the nature of what it gave up to better do the first.
What is a 'Front Line Fighter'? Do you mean a CAS airframe?
FACT: The AIM-54 averaged less than Mach 2.8 for most of it's flight. It thus had a highly predicated autopilot trajectory algorithm (loft here, dive there) in getting to standoff targets with enough energy to make the kill using a stoop maneuver to reenergize it's terminal ballistics. The Meteor achieves roughly the same range for less than half the weight and size of the Phoenix. And it can be carried by any jet out there, even a nominally ultra lightweight type like the Gripen.
FACT: You fly a PROFILE which dictates your ability to perform a mission well. Albino pilots routinely do things with their aged A2A Rodans that Mudhen jocks /have never seen/ in their 'more advanced' Beagles. If you carry 'multipurpose' goodies, you are sacrificing the performance to do the 'Air Superiority' mission, even if the airframe itself is not paying a (structurals for higher weight) penalty inherent to being so capable. OTOH, if you are _not forced by detection thresholds_ to engage an enemy 'as a fighter' (high energy performance degrading range to terminal-close) then the effects of not being configured as or optimized to that role are much less.
FACT: CAS is best done with a platform that can loiter for /days/ at minimum $$ per Flighthour costs. Without doing a damn thing beyond sanitizing emptiness. Similarly, a _business jet_ level of performance which can deliver 8 GBU-39 from 20,000ft is superior to the A-10 because it's very presence (as a contrail) deters enemy approach. And it's '20 seconds later!' instantaneous response breaks up attacks before 'more, more, more!' becomes a factor in resolving a fight-to-the-finish (scattered and uncoordinated) battle with multiple opponents. Indeed, a lightweight drone can carry more _precision kills_ than the A-10 carries, in total, externally. Comparitively, the A-10 has upwards of 20-25 + 2 +1 gun + guided + bombs point kills onboard. But the first is useless much beyond 4,000ft on 'CAS typical' target sets. And the latter are limited in the kinds of target and available designation methods to kill them. Indeed, an A-10 will run shy of gas or run late of engaging altogether or deplete it's mechanical countermeasures long before it CAN use all of it's ammunition. On those rare threat forces which are in fact large enough to need them.
>>
Given our technological base we are more then capable of building a combo that will outmatch anything in the air right now and near future.
Instead we are again forced to put all of our eggs in one basket and hope that our bluff holds out.
>>
No. The F-15 is overmatched. Aerodynamically, the Flanker is it's better. So is the S-300/400, Aster and assorted 'convert the MRM' class (MICA and Adder S2A) followons.
The F-22 is now the existing 'technology base' production system which can fight the good fight. Because it doesn't have to fight all-at-once and indeed is never forced to ANY WVR engagement which _is always_ going to be 50:50 for survivability in a modern (HOBS+SFPA) SRM era.
The simple fact of the matter is that the next generation of weapons which will change air combat (such as it is) forever are DEWS and hunting systems.
And against these the F-22 _as a limited force_ is still vastly superior to the alternative because it means less investment in an inventory (380 Raptor vs. 1,450 JSF) which are just as likely to be obsolescent in 10-15 years.
In the latter, the ultimate determinator is simply that war itself is grinding to a halt as an effective means of international diplomacy because so long as you make it 'immoral' (Nuremburg) to fight purely for territorial or resource gain; you cannot inflict such punishment on an 'insurgent' irregular/civillian threat as to make the initial main-force defeat have any meaning. No matter how easy.
Within the contraints of 'deceny', the best one can hope for in an insurgency is to contain violence and minimize attrition while dominantly engaging GROUND targets in a fashion which never lets them 'get away with' an ambush-fade system of desultory free attacks.
And this requires a highly specialized platform which has _nothing to do_ with 'fighter' anything. But simply a basic performance point compatible with existing tacair sortie rates and ingress/egress speeds (not a 110-230 knot Predator but a 450-500 knot X-45). Combined with cheap manufacture and ROLE LIMITED performance sufficient to fly for hours in combat. And hardly at all in training.
IOW: a UCAV.
KPl.
Seerkeroof the F/A 22 is expensive if you include R&D. Not to mention F 15's and F 16's can no loner face threats. True Sprey may be smart but he's
just wrong.
Just what are you tryingto say. The arguments you make are utter nonsense
Oh my apologies, I didn't know that you are the all wise and all knowing master of the JSF project.
I'll just make sure to ask your personal approval when I reference works by the very people that made F-15 happen. I'm sure you must be in the industry and have some sort of top level security clearance and access to information the rest of us simpletons will never dream of.
What does taxes have to do with anything. Its only 355 mil if you include R&D. Saving lives are more important than saving dollars. F 15's and F 16's are not cpapable of taking on flankers and surviving in modern air defenses. You'll be in for a blood y conflict if we use legacy fighters. Byt he way the JSf will be mass produced and has more capabilities.
I just posted on the reliability and maintenance problems of the JSF project, which is yet to be realised, not to mention bloated run-away budget and the fact that P&Ws were already dumped in favor of Rolls Royce.
Are you old enough to pay taxes btw?
This link - www.f22-raptor.com...
is an excuse for the very run away budget in question. How else is the DOD supposed to justify the outrageous 355 mil sticker price for a single unit to the Congress and the American people that are stuck with the bill?
True but the fighter mafia cant fortell the future. What if we go against iran or n korea. think of the losses we'd take by facing flankers and acess denial iads. They are msart yes but theirmargument is based on us facing poorly trained countries. We need to win quickly decisively and efficiently which is something we cant do with legacy fighters. We dont have to be experts to prove these people wrong there are also many other experts who strongly disagree with them.
Simple, "fighter mafia", also know as "the ones who know". What the hell have you ever done for National Defense to question people that dedicated their whole lives to defend our nation?
Well we are in for a long bloody conflict by facing a decent enemy with legacy fighters. Legacy fighters are no longer capable. Read up about mig 29's/Su27/30's and the latest russian sams exported globally.
Wrong, it's exactly what they are talking about.
We can afford it we have quite a large defense budget . If you buy less then the unit price goes up you by less the price goes down. For now we have F 15's we need more raptor's as an insurance budget.
Capability for 2020 is not in question when even NOW we can't afford the numbers requared FOR NOW, not the distannt future. Again, exactly what the FM guys are talking about.
i gave you rpof of what threats that are here. You have no respect for those sources and have nothing to back up the claims that they are false. i gave you what you need to know you simply ignore it.www.f22-raptor.com...
No but i know a lot more than you do and so do many others on this thread which you do not know.
Well again I'm sure that do to your secret work for the aircraft industry you must know more then the guys that wrote the book on Top Gun, so I'll just leave it up to your professional opinion, right?
Again that shows you dont know that doctrine requires complete air dominance with little casualties.
What?
Well if you bothered to know its capabilities and how it fights and the huge advantages it has you shouldnt be making these comments. You seem to show disrespect for everyone that has a different opinion. you're the only one on this thread supoorting yourself everyone else isn't. ever bother doing research iskander. Because all you do is say people are wrong and not do anything.
Again, It must your top secret clearance to know for a fact that F-22 "easily" downs 6 Flankers.
Kind of like a Ninja, right? Slips in under the cover on darkness, then WHISH, WHOOSH and BAM, just cuts all of the bad guys to pieces with its super Ninja sword, and then POOF, a cloud of smoke and it just disappears in the night.
Wow, it's like, really radical, dude.
Out of sheer respect and admiration for your professional work I'll just take your word for it, even over those silly FM guys.
Super cruising Flankers are nothing new btw, so that "out of fuel" scenario must be a part of your classified top secret "Flanker fuel drain" research that you must working on there.
Once again Sprey knows nothing of doctrine and how to effectively combat the latest threats which you also seem to not know when i was talking of acess denial iads. The Abrams and F 16 have proved themselves. The abrams has not been lost ONCE to enemy fire while taking out an entire battalion in less than 20 minutes. Apache is also combat proven and a great aircraft. you seem to think money is more important than saving lives which ultimately results in a more expensive war and more dead people.
love the Eagle, and even though it is another example of a flying Rolex mentality, it does its job damn well, even though the pilots still have to do the "walk of shame" and pick up pen caps of the strip so the engines wont explode.
F-16 killed more US pilots in price time crashes then enemy ever did.
Wire chafing, FBW and other major problems gave it the worst safety record of any US fighter.
Apache requires so much maintenance that it spends most of its life being gutted by the crew then in the air.
Abrams is a one trick pony and also sufferers from constant mechanical failures.
Bradley is a complete (15 billion) travesty that Israelis would not even buy dirt cheap until it was not re-equipped to their own specs. Even after that they avoided it like the plague.
Stryker is yet another blunder which by the accounts of the very troops that use it, is "good as long as you drive in on the paved roads".
When combat loaded and rigged with gates to stop RPGs, troops have to change out the entire tire set up to three times per day to stay operational, and that's until the trany goes out entirely.
B1 flopped do to its immense cost and the lower cost of the stripped down B2 lost the initial advantages factored in the original design.
Same story as with F-111.
The point in the over bloated Raptor/JSF is that we can NO longer afford to waste our hard earned tax dollars to line the pockets of the defense industry racket, and in the new world we actually have to walk the walk, and not just intimidate our enemies by outspending in the arms race.
Iskander,
Tell me, what country are you from? If it ain't here, everything you say comes across as a 'trying to convince the other guy not to kill you by telling him is sword isn't sharp enough.'
Ka-SCHWING! Damn I hate proving a point to a neckless spouting torso.
I'm in California now, before I lived in Seattle, my pops served in Turkey as an AFOSI officer, so no bias and hidden agendas here.
I'm glad you're participating in this one though, because I'm looking forward to your contribution to the topic at hand.
No. The Vietnamese never had Air Superiority in Vietnam. Never ONCE did they succeed in preventing U.S. visitations to whatever part of their benighted land. Don't fall for the BS which states continuing penny ante attrition 'adds up' to anything more than a refusal to win the war outright..
ch1466, from your other post I figure you were actually yanking and banking in Nam, so I can only ask you if it was not the FM boys that wrote the color coded charts on energy/speed/alt engagement envelopes.
I did not say that Vietnamese ever had air superiority, but considering the losses they have inflicted prior to reorganization and implementation of FM tactics, they would have succeeded in are denial.
Additionally, the adversary course was underway before Vietnam ended. The FX compeition was over before the Fighter Mafia /began/ applying EM theory to the LWF/ACF entrants. And the resulting YF-16/17 are some of the most poorly designed fighters of the 1970's, being optimized almost solely towards the perspective of 'fightering' in a daylight, CAVU, environment at short ranges. All of which were utterly irrelevant to either 1980's Europe OR 1990's ME confrontations. And had become so by the end of Vietnam where night and BVR once more predominated our tactics. And where weather had traditionally been a problem from Day-1
That I simply can not disagree with, because I for one share your point of view here entirely.
No. Considering the only plane which came close to doing what it needed to was the F-15 and Boyd and Riccioni in particular did everything he could to sabotage it rather than applying his EM theory to make it better.
I agree partially, but again the main reason here was again cost control and trying to keep the project from being perverted into another over bloated "jack of all trades".
The A-10 is a farce. The F-16/18 can't go anywhere to do their jobs and have had /piles/ of money thrown at them to recreate capabilities which were already present in the F-4.
Yes and no. A-10 was a necessary measure to counteract the absolute superiority of Soviet armor in the European theater and considering the funds/time available A-10 was a good solution at the time, even though it still turned out to be a giant target with cross hairs painted all over it.
On F-16 absolutely yes. Another technological wonder that still ended up costing more then it can do, and you are right, F-4 was more then capable of doing everything the Falcon was supposed to do better.
IMHO MiG-21 ended the era of single engine fighters, and F-16 is a travesty considering the all around superior F-5. Falcon was pushed by GE lobbyists and it's just a damn shame that the excellent F-5 ended up as a small time export novelty.
The Raptor will cost 70 billion. If they hadn't _deliberately_ screwed with the production economies of the jet (scaling back the line to only produce 24 instead of 60 jets a year) that 70 billion would have bought 380 jets with the 335th one 'averaging out the program' at 74-78 million per unit. Another 20 billion would buy the necessary A2G mods like a new radar and EOTS level optics. Say 90 billion overall. INCLUDING R&D.
We all know how DOD and Pentagon works with budgets, and even with the initial fund allocation it would've as always ballooned into a situation we're in now, so no surprise here.
The F-35 is going to run 257 billion. At least partially /because/ it is now paying out Lunchmeat's 'unstated' (technology buy in, a highly illegal Anti-Deficiency Act violation) R&D dividend on the F-22.
DO NOT LUMPSUM THE TWO UNLESS YOU MEAN TO DAMN THE JSF ALONE.
JSF is still in the pipe, the project budget is already pushing 45% over the initial "estimate", and unlike the Raptor the last time a checked it's still not in service, with various models being dropped entirely.
ADA scam is troubling, but again nothing new and only to be expected.
Oh please. That's like asking the foxes to define what a chicken is.
That said, the USAF has wanted to drop their JSF purchases to 1,200 or less for the last 4 years. Congress want's 1,763 of them to make sure that production economics scale out to make 'export variants' affordable at 45-50 million. They want pork to make their districts happy and to balance a severely negative trade status. And they don't give a damn about making this nation even more risked by exporting LO.
Yea but we've missed the export boat on this one. While bickering over how much funding is going to be siphoned, Europeans used that time to develop their own solutions and are bailing out.
Even the Israelis threatened to drop JSF contract if they were not given access to the technologies, so after the initial contract fulfillment then can pull out and start cranking out their own domestic models. We caved in just to keep the program going. Damn shame but what are you gonna do.
The facts of the matter are simple:
1. 90%+ of all conflicts we get into don't have an air superiority component. The reason they don't is because nobody wants to try. Either because they believe we are the good guys. Or because they don't like losing. Or because they can't afford to buy the chips. With the advent of ARH+AESA 'across the board', along with our shattered reputation as white-hatters, this is quite likely going to change so long as a threat can risk one jet to kill 2-6 others.
Man there's a lot to be said here.
Air superiority component is an active political leverage tool which is actually proved to be more useful then a passive nuclear deterrent. Another form of costly bluff which even now can be called by a number of nations.
2. What makes the F-22 a superior platform is not it's 'air superiority' factors but simply it's ability to transit from X to Y (some 600-800nm) at Mach 1.35 or better. Which means you can TRIPLE sortie rates in a given day, at half the cost in followon tanking support.
F-22s super cruse does give it an ability to run tripled sorties, but not with out the expense of increased pilot fatigue. Super cruise Flankers are already available, and again at the fraction of the cost. If needed, existing platforms can be vary quickly and cost effectively enabled with super cruise capability, again giving a numerical advantage to possible enemies.
3. Given 1+2 -and- the advent of DEWS, it is overwhelmingly likely that the best BOMBER _does not have a man onboard_. Because then you don't have to deal with fatigue issues as well as about 5-10,000lbs of weight penalty to justify an object which will increasingly have to choose between flying through the trashfire and being flash vaporized by a 1-2MW or better laser. Of course, for purely egotistical reasons, not having any 'truly fighterlike' features gives the worthless Sky Knight Association a reason to go on breathing pure O2. But that's okay because it also makes the jets cheaper and lets you segregate targeting from fires, as it should be.
Unmanned platforms are cost effective against inferior enemies which are not able to implement new gen of jamming technologies. If 2MW laser you are referring to is the Boeing chem laser, unfortunately it's is a lost cause. We are far away from a usable energy/mass weapon. Chemical load is dangerous even to it's crew, and requires kid gloves just to get in the air.
While in position the platform can not maneuver at all, and basically turns into a giant target that will blow up even if it's slightly grazed.
We are still far, far away from a reliable unmanned force, even though we are on the right track.
How many Sidewinder kills in DS? Sparrow kills in DS? How many AMRAAM kills thereafter? Exactly WHAT PERCENTAGE of these have occured as a function of dynamic maneuver? Oh, /that's right/. DAMN NEAR ALL have been 'big missile' decided with next to ZERO 'dogfighting'.
I agree, while engaging a technologically and numerically inferior enemy, BVR engagements work, but it is Nam/Iraq stigma. Today Indian/Pakistani/Russian/Chinese forces are forces to be reckoned with, and will not be easily contained.
When the USAF went to India with both F-15 and 16 jets, how well did our Steve Canyons do against their Bombay Bad Boys? Oh that's right, /with equal training and WVR weapons systems/ the USAF got their heads handed to them TWO YEARS RUNNING. Like we want to duel other human beings when _being human_ is the chief disadvantage inherent to limited dogfight performance to begin with.
Agree entirely, yet again, even though unmanned systems are the future they are no the reality of now. We'll absolutely get there and dominate any theater, but for now we are loosing precious political leverage. Especially considering the volatile state of world economics and the flat world of the global supply chain, if we waste the funds on "super stars" we simply cut the branch we are sitting on, and giving everybody else the precious time to catch up.
Air Combat is won in the intercept phase. He who lines up his geometry ducks right WINS. Because his missiles come off first, with the most advantageous pole and aspect conditions which dictate, not only 'first to see, shoot, kill'. But ONLY one to do so.
Agree, and with potential 12 to 1 ratio, it's a dead golden goose situation.
The F-22 is a 15 mile per minute airframe which isn't /detected/ to be counter engaged. The F-35 is an 8nm/minute airframe which _cannot do better_ without burner which would alert every IRST for a 100nm in all directions as well as botch the fuel useage percentages on a 700nm radius. The F-teens are similar except that they go fuel-critical at 450nm. DOGFIGHTING IS DUMB. Further, it only degrades to that by virtue of the speeds you have to sprint to to get missile shots and the near certainty that you will be detected and countermaneuvered against, wasting shots that might otherwise have gone in. LO+SSC+OffboardMCG changes ALL of this.
I'm sorry man, but it's the same story over and over again. MGs of WWI created the fantasy that the days of foot soldiers is over and so on.
Dogfighting will always be here even when the super unmanned beasts will be prowling the skies. It exactly the same as with air force and troops on the ground, you HAVE to see your enemy to achieve a total victory. It's the presence that wins the final battle.
The missiles do the dogfighting provided you bring them close enough, fast enough, to an _extended_ envelope to avoid impaling yourself on the other guys knife.
While again, what the idiots and morons brigade don't get is that THE NEXT DOGFIGHTER is going to be a 747 with a pulsar turret that turns 'Vipers' into atomized fireballs. At _186,000 miles PER SECOND_. And probably line of sight downrange (the ABL is seriously underestimated for total power densities at-altitude).
There is a BIG problem with ANY kind of 747 size weapon platform, because they're simply giant flying targets. Back in the 60s Soviets were trying to figure out the most cost effective method of intercepting our supersonic high altitude bombers, and figured out that shooting down is a lot more effective then shooting up. Even back then they drafted plans for low orbit satellites lopping down intercept re-entry vehicles which air burst and saturate the area with shrap.
At supersonic speeds nothing can maneuver worth of sh!t, and if it's big, it's just easier to hit it.
Considering the moder age of SAMs the days of flying battleships are long gone.
What source do you attribute this to? The _GE_ F136 was a life-support maintenance of the technology coal bed to keep the F135 'honest'. It has not had 50% of the investments needed to productionize it. And now, because of spiraling total program costs, it never will. RR is unhappy because they think that 100 people and 1 billion dollars is a 'big deal' relative to a 257 billion dollar program in which the worthless UK is lining itself up to be FACO-for-EU. And yet they refuse to pay for it alone on 'their' F-35K so the question then becomes how seriously they expect us to treat them?
One of the briefing pdfs. It's the maintenance cost the drove the last nail in the coffin. The price was over 100million in the first 5 years I think, which after delivery kills the budget entirely.
And we have repeatedly rolled that system right up. Always taking the majority of our casualties from S2A fires in the process. Indeed the /greatest threat/ EVER posed by threat-air has _always_ been to specialist platforms like RB-66 and EKA-3. Because it's by hitting the tankers and the targeting and the jammers and the chaff layers that you leave the rest of the formation potentially naked.
The fewer you have of these node-critical vulnerability points in your system, the better.
With all do respect I disagree here entirely. I have looked into structure in depth, and it makes perfect sense. To this day (thank God) we never had to deal with such a system in the way it was intended to function.
Russians historically fought with land, or in this case air space. In case of Nam there was simply no elbow room to properly implement Soviet defense strategy. Soviet SAM cluster/VVS/land forces doctrine simply did not work in Nam for the lack of operational space.
All of which were false posits at the time they were introduced. The MiG-29 because it has the radius of the MiG-21 and a radar system that isn't worth the horse laughs.
Man, you are putting me in a uncomfortable position here. I fully respect your personal experience and knowledge, but there are factors involved here which you are not mentioning.
MiG-21, mach 2.5 fast runner, no rear visibility, why? Soviets were the first ones to bubble their Yak's and La's in WWII, so why the change all the sudden?
Change of doctrine. They wanted to "cycle" as many fresh units to the front lines, dump the payload and head back to re-fuel/re-arm. They continued the tradition of the WWII front line fighter ideology, but at Mach 2.5.
MiG-23 follows the tradition perfectly, but by adding variable-swept wing it increased maneuverability MiG-21 lacked at mid range, and dramatically lowered the landing speed, which was a big problem for Fishbeds.
Soviets were not satisfied by being completely reliant on airfields, and from their WWII experience they knew that airfields were a liability and prime targets. They were strapping JATOs to Fishbeds and blasting the from truck chassis, because they knew that in the opening move of the conflict its the airfields that'll be burned.
In the case of the Fulcrum, it's perfect for the intended role. It is supposed to be a cheap short range mud digging front line fighter. It's radar was more then enough for the planned operational ranges and is simply cheap to manufacture.
GCI is absolutely crucial to control the massive air presence. The supposed disadvantage of Soviet pilots of being automatons who are totally controlled by CGI is simply incorrect.
I'm sure you know that GCI is not simply a matter of telling a pilot to go "there" and drop a stick. They closely work together in concert with other layers of defense. SAM traps, ambushes, sweeps/escort for CAS etc, it's the primary role of the Fulcrum, and not being the knight in shining armor fighting for the air dominance.
It's quick and dirty, basically a flying AK-47.
Super short take off from mud strips is allowed by the top mounted air intakes. The shutters on the main intakes close, and the top intakes literally suck the air to provide additional lift and prevent all the crapp and being sucked into the turbines. One of it's main requirements it to be able to operate together with the SU-25. Where Frogfoot goes, the Fulcrum has to.
High maintenance costs of the Fulcrum are also misunderstood. Being a mobile front line fighter filed maintenance was out of the question, and all maintenance aspects were design to be modular. Modules were designed to be switched out by untrained personal and sent back for re-manufacturing, instead of hulling a whole crew around.
Short engine life and slow turbine spin-ups and its distinctive smoke trail also make perfect sense considering the built in ability to run on dirty fuel. Fulcrum can be fueled by a mix of low grade kerosene mixed with diesel, just like the SU-25.
Heavy shaft gives the engines to superb stall resistance at massive AOAs and allow them to chew through all kinds of crapp sucked in from the dirt puddles it was designed to operate from.
It all makes since as soon as one factors in the intended role of the platform.
The Su-27 because it is 'one plane two fighters' for EM performance under realistic (all internal) fuel loads for radius. Even as it has 'twice' the MiG-29 radar system with more power but no real ability to deal with ranged threats in terms of sorting and morting under severe ECM and formation breakout conditions. Hell, they have to /manually/ set the clutter, PRF and notch gates! Their missiles also genuinely suck as you have about eight out of ten pylons which cannot take the only extended-shot weapons which give the Flanker a positive pole performance edge over the threat.
I don't know what your personal opinion is on Flanker, but I was sceptical until I saw one in action. Beck in early 90s I was at a air show, and when I saw the Flanker for the first time I was almost laughing. Knowing the capabilities of the Eagle, I though that the Russians simply could not make the avionics/weapons systems small enough, because the Flanker was absolutely HUGE.
As soon as a saw then take of and pull a dirty loop right of the bat I though man, we're in trouble. The damn thing flew like nothing I've seen before. Super high AOAs with out chopping up the air, it was smooth, and the landing was unbelievable. For being such huge birds they came down slow and easy at about 35 degrees AOA, breaking with the airframe even before the touch down.
As for its radar and weapons control, they do not need to range and sort sort targets, that's what the GCI is for. R-27s don't suck, as all of the independent test data showed time after time (India/China). Extended ER/ET long sticks are carried on the same pylons as the regular Rs/Ts, so I don't know where you got that info from.
The MiG-31 weapons system was totally compromised by Agent Donald and in any case constitutes a tiny fraction of the active Soviet defense forces, having ALWAYS been a dedicated PVO-Strany asset, not Frontal Aviation one. Even it cannot kill what it cannot see and the RD-33 is a bomber killer whose absolute range is directly tied to the expected profile and burnthrough distances of a platform designed to literally rundown and impale targets that it cannot kill at range. Bluntly, 19nm in lolo lookdown is NOT impressive.
Here we go again.
Foxhounds weapon system was not compromised. The data on Zaslon grid delivered by Alexander Tolkachev was under suspicious circumstances to say the least.
Soviet are historically known for throwing disinformation around, and staging capability leaks.
Work on MiG-31B was already in full swing with totally upgraded systems across the board, and was implemented far to quickly of it was forced by treason.
Considering that the Foxbat was "delivered" in 1976, it only raises questions to how exactly Soviets allowed such a leak.
Judging by how their system worked simple treason is out of the question. What does makes since, is that considering the strategic area of the Artic as a main incursion point for USAF bombers, just as with Foxbat, giving up the info on the interceptor capabilities only forces another cycle of immense expenditures or refocusing the efforts.
It is all about PVO, it is a dedicated interceptor. It focuses on high priority targets and leaves the tango to the Fulcrum/Flanker tag team.
Again I don't know what you know about the Foxbat in its intended role, but your notions seem to be a tad of base.
Foxhounds systems and the method of their use have been adopted by the F-22.
I'm sure you know that Zaslon was the first phased array radar to fly, but it's not all about the power, but how it is utilized.
Foxhounds work in concert through a fully digital multi channel data link. The most interesting part is that the system is said to be completely jam proof because it utilized multiple channels for data transmission.
No RF channel is fully jam proof, so their system is aided by the optical data link through retractable IRST.
It's effective as hell. Other then cutting down RF emissions between platforms, the more Foxhounds are in the group the more data they can share, and cut down individual radar emissions exponentially, all while setting up a multi point tracking cluster.
It's a simple concept. Instead of burning the target with a lock from a single radar, multiple platforms link up and intermittently sweep on scan (blinking), and by combining the data calculate a firing solution for the designated shooter.
In this manner Foxhounds can fire on multiple targets with out locking on and setting of TDW lock warning.
While TWD alerts the pilots of the radar sweep, AMOS is already in the air.
An interesting (and unconfirmed) piece of info I heard is that a number of Foxhounds in formation can emulate an AWACS sweep.
I'm not sure what you meant by RD-33, but I take it's the Amos, since RD-33 is the Fulcrums turbofan.
So far R-33 is the most capable long range stick in the air. I don't know where you get your info from.
It's fully data linked, and can engage everything from SR-71 to a cruise missile.
It is the multi point targeting data linking together with the active seeker that gives it its teeth. I'm tired of people saying that it's a copy of the Phoenix because they look alike. At long rang aerodynamics dictate the shape, and it's the length that creates the heaviest drag, not the radius. Operationally they are nothing alike.
Missile tracking data is shared from (what I recall) up to six Foxhounds, and its intercept point is corrected by all available data together with its active seeker.
Forward Foxhound acts as the "hub", focuses Zaslon on the Amos and actively tracks it during all stages of flight. The rest of the group feeds the "hub" with data collected from all data collected, compares the target data with the position of the stick it's tracking, and through the narrow tracking beam sends correction data to the stick.
Depending on the situation, hub position can be passed on to the following Foxhound thus never entering the engagement f-pole of the target.
Basically they use the same method as a SAM cluster.
To this date it's still the only air borne system of its kind.
Man, there is a lot to ponder on here, so instead of covering one point at a time I'll try to sum it all up.
I'll start here;
That would be the F-16 and 18. Not the F-14/15 or even the A-10 which you so loudly extol the virtues of yet which the Fighter Mafia universally decried. Specialist systems work when the _environment_ in which they are expected to function is strictly scenario-parsed. OTOH, when you acknowledge that expecting a fixed scenario over enemy airspace is a fools dream and you INVENT LOW OBSERVABILITY TECHNOLOGY TO COMPENSATE (resimplifying the assumptive dataset) it hardly makes sense NOT to apply multifunction weapons systems to the resulting airframe solution. Because once nobody engages you, _to make your mission valid_ (valuable) you need to make the shots happen yourself at whatever range point you can opportunistically kill.
All the way to here;
And this requires a highly specialized platform which has _nothing to do_ with 'fighter' anything. But simply a basic performance point compatible with existing tacair sortie rates and ingress/egress speeds (not a 110-230 knot Predator but a 450-500 knot X-45). Combined with cheap manufacture and ROLE LIMITED performance sufficient to fly for hours in combat. And hardly at all in training.
IOW: a UCAV.
You bring up a lot of good points for now, but not the future.
To cut right down to it, it's all about the Future Combat System.
Our current vision of it is total data networking and real time global SA, which will allow for unmanned platforms and BVR everything.
F-22/UCAV combo along with everything else sound great at the beginning, but then the details come in.
First, the larger the network is, the more susceptible it is to hacking, that's a fact.
No amount of encryption can protect any network from intrusion or disruption.
Our idea of global battlefield data network relies of RF/SAT comm, GPS nav etc, all of which are incredibly venerable.
If you remember, Russians already tested their portable GPS jammers in Iraq with such success, that Pentagon was not only forced acknowledge it, but to press the White House into taking political measures.
This brings me to your notions on S-300.
We agree that it's a old system, which already is being replaced by modern networks, but for the just of let's examine what we do know, and apply it to what is current and is to follow.
First S300 system is fully mobile, and is design to be quickly re-deployed and set up.
Other then the well known features, for the purpose of this particular issue let's focus on it's main advantage.
A full cluster consisting of 64N6E Big Bird, 36N6E Flap lid and 12 launchers can be spread over a 1km radius, and networked by a hard-wire data link, giving it a full ECM capability.
With RF data link that distance can be increased to a radius of over 5km.
I'm sure you know that it's called a SAM trap.
Given 3 networked (both wire and RF) S300 sites, the picture you described changes drastically, and the coverage area increases exponentially.
I'm sure that you also know that TOR-M1 is also designed to network with each other and with S300 clusters, thus covering the area with point defense layer against low alt targets and most importantly cruise missiles.
Since the data path is are specific, the network can be increased to infinity with out choking the data pipe.
The S300 hard-wire network range is limited only by the copper wire delay time, and that is the past.
These days, a dedicated pulse jet carrier or a UAV delivers a flex fiber optic cable line to over 5km, even over the trees, and simply plugs in.
Short range ECM hardened RF repeaters are utilized as nodes in such optical networks, and data link air borne platforms into the system, instead of relying on satts.
Sat comm emissions give up position even if using commercial bandwidths.
This is were jamming comes in.
The whole idea of the FCS and GPS sound really good until its use is denied by massive jamming. In the past jamming blinded both parties and mutually gave up positions, but with point defense optical networks and short range RF pulse repeaters, it's no longer so.
High power EMP/ECM units (air dropped if needed) act as are denial ring, forcing intruders into SAM cluster traps spread out over large areas.
That's where even the basic Flankers can more then hold their own against supep high tech LO super stars.
Su-27s do not work alone, again, none of the Russian weapons systems are designed to be stand alone systems. They have always been designed to work as a part of the network, or exactly what we are doing with FCS right now.
In this case our future is their past.
Flanker family is cheap to build, can be equipped to taste, and again are meant to be used as a part of a network not as isolated fleet fighting for air dominance.
That is the new age, it's not all about BVR, and LO does not make the enemy come out to you, but forces the LO craft into narrow operational area riddled with SAM traps.
Cruise missiles that didn't dropp with out GPS correction and go on internals are managed by point defense networked TOR/Tunguzka units.
That is the modern scenario, and staking EVERYTHING on RF bases SA network and LO is putting all of the eggs in one basket.
By our standards those "primitive" systems Russians are using in their fighters are built that way for a reason.
As I'm sure you know, that "backwards" tube radar of the Foxbat was powerful enough to burn through ECM and was totally EMP proof.
The same tradition was carried on to later generations.
Instead of hardening everything, only the avionics systems are protected.
This gives an immense advantage to the optical based network with area denial EMP generators, because as soon as any given unit is activated, all fighters in the effected area are automatically forced into a "flight only" mode by switching off all non essential systems.
Another interesting thing most people do not consider, is that active EMP protection method already exists.
Ionized plasma effectively protects circuits from EMP pulses and allows them to function with out interruption. Much talked about Russian 100 kilo cold plasma "stealth" generator gives a lot to ponder about.
Who cares about its radar absorbency capabilities, if it's able to effectively shield the airframe from EMP/ECM interference, the whole "flying supercomputer" concept goes right out the door.
Concentrated EMP/ECM/SAM area denial is the current reality, not BVR/RF/SAT/GPS/UAV based global FCS.
Modern EMP generator use is still largely misunderstood. Most still think of it as a massive pulse that burns out the circuits, but such a massive energy pulse is simply not necessary to effectively disable any given system.
Considering the complexity of modern systems, low power pulses corrupt data flow to the point of malfunction.
Such data corruption completely overpowers ECC, parity and redundancy error correction implemented by modern systems, and slows the system down to a crawl. Avionics, radar/weapons control, missile tracking, all effected to the point of malfunction.
Even the most basic low power portable Russian GPS jammers easily dropped GPS guided cruise missiles and misdirected air traffic in Iraq, think about an actual theater sized network. It's a whole new ball game out there, and that is why dog fighting is even more essential then before.
You HAVE to be with in the visual striking range of your target to ASSURE a kill. While Radar guided smart missiles can be burned by EMP/ECM, IR guided dum-dums will get there.
In this new age of electronic battlefield it's all about area denial by data denial, and the operational theater is actually shrinking, not expanding through the use of standoff capabilities.
Concepts of silver bullet BVR kills, auto loitering and long missions by do-it-all super wonders are extinct.
It's all about precision, network coordinated intercepts and point defense in conditions of heavy EMP/ECM.
What is a 'Front Line Fighter'? Do you mean a CAS airframe?
Front line Fighter is required to operate from unprepared fields together with CAS and ground units. It's a mobile integrated unit supporting each other.
Fulcrum is basically geared for short range escort of CAS and tactical bomber wings (SU25/SU24/SU34), point defense of front line assets, and scramble intercepts, thus its short legs, mediocre radar and small payload.
The weight was put into hardening of all of its systems for the life in the mud of the mobile front line units. It was designed to take of and land on potato fields, literally.
Now maybe here you can help me out.
THis is my view on BVR, so please correct me where I'm wrong
BVR is not a game of chicken or poker, it's a game of chess.
BVR engagement is not about scoring a kill, it's all about area denial and forcing your opponent out of position to accomplish a mission, and possibly force/drag them into a SAM trap.
SAMs are dedicated BVR killers and are simply deadly in comparison to any air borne BVR platform.
Dedicated interceptors are tailored for BVR kills, but mostly against high priority targets such as AWACS and bombers, cruise missiles.
I still can't believe that the Tomcat will not have a replacement. It's just backwards.
In the engagement between evenly matched opponents, fighter on fighter kill is a luxury, because they are not there to bounce around like Red Barons, but to work together with SAM units and provide cover for various tactical missions.
IMHO active guided missiles are not as effective in bringing down targets as modern semi-active riders, but are a lot more effective in are denial, especially against multiple threats.
The tracking signal strength fed to semi-guided tracker simply overshadows the output of the tiny active seeker, but gives the active tracker a tactical edge by allowing the launching platform time to keep multiple bandits dancing.
Smart semi-active missiles "stick" much better and are harder to jam then active non supported "silver bullets".
A fully supported active tracker is more accurate and deadly, but at three (or more) times the price.
Realistic BVR kill ranges start in the hood of 20-25km given good weather conditions and favorable f-pole.
At longer distances and common engagement altitudes medium range missiles bleed like pigs and simply loose to much energy by the time they get there.
Not to mention cloud cover, humidity, rain/snow etc.
long legged mediums that rely on aerobalistic trajectory are especially finicky, because if the stick has to loop through thick clouds you might as well kiss it good buy.
Even if the track is solid cloud chop will kill the trajectory and flip the missile sideways even if it still has speed on it.
Foxhound claims of total crapp weather BVR kill with R-33 is only when it's fired from a FoxPack and supported with data from multiple platforms.
Realistic kill zone starts at around 10-15 kliks and closing.
That's just my take on it.
BTW, urmomma158, when you start paying taxes, then you can "advise" me on what to say, what to read and so on.
Until then live a little longer before telling other people what they know and don't, and what they should do or not.
Until then live a little longer before telling other people what they know and don't, and what they should do or not.
Yes and until you can value people's lives and not money then we'll talk!
I was making some rounds yesterday and made my way past the west gate at Langley Air Force base. Some F22 Raptors were taking off.
Wow!! is that ever a loud engine. It is noticably louder than the F15s which have been here like forever.
I am glad they have this system where they run up the jet engines to a deflector which deflects the exhaust up in the air and dampens out he sound. This plane would be nigthtmare if it was run as were jet engines in the olde days.
A noticably louder engine on the F 22.
Thanks,
Orangetom
Wow!! is that ever a loud engine. It is noticably louder than the F15s which have been here like forever.
I am glad they have this system where they run up the jet engines to a deflector which deflects the exhaust up in the air and dampens out he sound. This plane would be nigthtmare if it was run as were jet engines in the olde days.
A noticably louder engine on the F 22.
Thanks,
Orangetom
Actual Raptor pilot evaluation follows. The same pilot also described a 1 versus 6 engagement against Vipers at Nellis where the Vipers were
simulating Su-27s in that they had GCI assistance and the Raptor was squawking !! (i.e. no stealth). The Raptor killed all 6 of them.
This from F-16.net:
Quoting Dozer-- It was a stock, combat configured F-22 flying a BFM (dogfighting) sortie against an airshow configured, i.e. squeeky clean, not combat configured or loaded, Super Hornet (not at all representative of how it performs with 8 pylons, an EA pod and 4-6 or missiles hanging off the rails and probably a fuel tank or two or their out of gas real quick...). It started from a 9000 foot line abreast 300 knot setup (which AF pilots never fly) where they turned into each other at the "fights on" call. It's not a scenario we fly because we never find ourselves in those parameters, we try to set up realistic parameters we expect to see in combat - otherwise the lessons learned aren't applicable and while it might be fun it's not a good use of scarce training time (I don't know if that's a setup the Navy flies or it might just have been a quick attempt to get a last engagement in if they were low on gas - I don't have that info). The Hornet pilot gave up everything he had to point at the Raptor and take a snap shot - it was NOT a tracking shot (stabilized and enough bullets to cause a kill), it was about 2 or 3 frames (many more required to cause a kill - OK - for you skeptics there's always the golden BB but let me finish first...). The AF pilot honored the training rules we're all supposed to abide by, they've been written in blood because pilots have been killed in these scenarios so our training rules look to prevent those scenarios by causing guys to quit manuevering for the shot to prevent a mid-air collision. With greater than a 135 aspect angle and inside of 9000 feet we're supposed to avoid pure or lead pursuit to avoid that head on collision, inside that range at our tactical speeds there's not enough time to react to prevent a collision once you realize it's going to happen. The Navy pilot completely blew off that rule, the AF pilot honored it, the Navy pilot pulled lead pursuit all the way into the high aspect (greater than the 135 degree gun shot rule) snap shot, the AF pilot lagged off to prevent the mid-air collision potential, the Navy pilot was still on the trigger inside the 1000 foot rule (we're supposed to avoid getting inside of 1000 feet from each other to also help prevent mid-air collisions), attempting to get the snap shot, he's inside the 1000 foot range with the trigger on, flies within about 200 feet of the Raptor (remember who's backed off to honor the training rules), and dang near kills himself and the Raptor pilot and causing what would have been one of the worst fighter to fighter disasters in recorded history. I've had that happen twice to me when I was flying the Eagle as a weapons officer (close enough to hear very loud engine noise and I figured I was dead both times, but God wasn't ready to take me yet), and both times I knocked off the fight, made the guy fly home, busted him on the ride and he had to explain to me and the boss why he was being stupid. That is the ONLY gun shot video I have ever heard of or seen from ANY Hornet engagement, ever. And it was a hugely B.S. and completely boneheaded act as you can see from the actual circumstances. In the real world - the Hornet never saw the Raptor and he was dead w/o ever knowing what hit him - that's the cold hard truth, like it or not - sorry if you're a Hornet fan but that's how all of our engagements with Hornets, Tomcats, Eagles, Vipers, etc. have gone. You would be amused if I had time to tell you how the hundreds of engagements went I've had with aircraft of all types, the biggest problem we have now is getting anyone to fly with us because they get no training, they never see us and they just die.
This from F-16.net:
Quoting Dozer-- It was a stock, combat configured F-22 flying a BFM (dogfighting) sortie against an airshow configured, i.e. squeeky clean, not combat configured or loaded, Super Hornet (not at all representative of how it performs with 8 pylons, an EA pod and 4-6 or missiles hanging off the rails and probably a fuel tank or two or their out of gas real quick...). It started from a 9000 foot line abreast 300 knot setup (which AF pilots never fly) where they turned into each other at the "fights on" call. It's not a scenario we fly because we never find ourselves in those parameters, we try to set up realistic parameters we expect to see in combat - otherwise the lessons learned aren't applicable and while it might be fun it's not a good use of scarce training time (I don't know if that's a setup the Navy flies or it might just have been a quick attempt to get a last engagement in if they were low on gas - I don't have that info). The Hornet pilot gave up everything he had to point at the Raptor and take a snap shot - it was NOT a tracking shot (stabilized and enough bullets to cause a kill), it was about 2 or 3 frames (many more required to cause a kill - OK - for you skeptics there's always the golden BB but let me finish first...). The AF pilot honored the training rules we're all supposed to abide by, they've been written in blood because pilots have been killed in these scenarios so our training rules look to prevent those scenarios by causing guys to quit manuevering for the shot to prevent a mid-air collision. With greater than a 135 aspect angle and inside of 9000 feet we're supposed to avoid pure or lead pursuit to avoid that head on collision, inside that range at our tactical speeds there's not enough time to react to prevent a collision once you realize it's going to happen. The Navy pilot completely blew off that rule, the AF pilot honored it, the Navy pilot pulled lead pursuit all the way into the high aspect (greater than the 135 degree gun shot rule) snap shot, the AF pilot lagged off to prevent the mid-air collision potential, the Navy pilot was still on the trigger inside the 1000 foot rule (we're supposed to avoid getting inside of 1000 feet from each other to also help prevent mid-air collisions), attempting to get the snap shot, he's inside the 1000 foot range with the trigger on, flies within about 200 feet of the Raptor (remember who's backed off to honor the training rules), and dang near kills himself and the Raptor pilot and causing what would have been one of the worst fighter to fighter disasters in recorded history. I've had that happen twice to me when I was flying the Eagle as a weapons officer (close enough to hear very loud engine noise and I figured I was dead both times, but God wasn't ready to take me yet), and both times I knocked off the fight, made the guy fly home, busted him on the ride and he had to explain to me and the boss why he was being stupid. That is the ONLY gun shot video I have ever heard of or seen from ANY Hornet engagement, ever. And it was a hugely B.S. and completely boneheaded act as you can see from the actual circumstances. In the real world - the Hornet never saw the Raptor and he was dead w/o ever knowing what hit him - that's the cold hard truth, like it or not - sorry if you're a Hornet fan but that's how all of our engagements with Hornets, Tomcats, Eagles, Vipers, etc. have gone. You would be amused if I had time to tell you how the hundreds of engagements went I've had with aircraft of all types, the biggest problem we have now is getting anyone to fly with us because they get no training, they never see us and they just die.
So lets put it this way, how about we scrap the raptor, use its parts to buildmore f-16s. So when there is a greater threat out better then the F-16,
The Pierre guy will be looking like a douch, and it would take another 20 more years for america to have a more advanced aircraft? What do we do for
those 15-20 years? Take the fact that we are behind in the air, and are VERY vulnerable to loose a war? Actaully, now I think of it, there are
planes more advanced then the F-15 and F-16.
The F-22 has a k-d ratio in exercises unheard of out of any fighter jet.
This guy is a uneducated retard for thinking of this.
EDIT: This douch states that Iraq spotted the F-117 on its radar, yet none have been shot down over Iraq? Read up on ANY military report on the gulf war 1, The f-117 was the BACKBONE to the winning of the war. They might have been spotted, but not enough to get a shot off, maby because well, the F-117 already shot down all their AA-guns undetected
I have to leave now for work, but His whole article is a bunch of bologne.
[edit on 4-9-2006 by Laxpla]
The F-22 has a k-d ratio in exercises unheard of out of any fighter jet.
This guy is a uneducated retard for thinking of this.
EDIT: This douch states that Iraq spotted the F-117 on its radar, yet none have been shot down over Iraq? Read up on ANY military report on the gulf war 1, The f-117 was the BACKBONE to the winning of the war. They might have been spotted, but not enough to get a shot off, maby because well, the F-117 already shot down all their AA-guns undetected
I have to leave now for work, but His whole article is a bunch of bologne.
[edit on 4-9-2006 by Laxpla]
There also seems to be some misunderstanding of what "stealth" actually means in some posts.
Stealthy aircraft were never intended to be invisible to radar, they just need to get close enough to their intended target to launch their weapons before the other guy can see them, but get close enough and sooner or later he will.
Simulated combat has shown that the Raptor can defeat any adversary, and in great numbers. I doubt that the Europeans will be offering any Rafales/Typhoons/Gripens for this purpose in the near future, but sooner or later they will have to come up against Raptors in training scenarios (Red Flag etc) and when they do I doubt they will be pleased at the outcome.
I do however agree that the Raptor is prohibitively expensive, and the small numbers are definitely a bad thing. I liked the earlier approach used with the F-15 and F-16 and with the Aegis Class cruiser/Oliver Hazard Perry Class frigate, this uses a high/low mix of assets based on cost. Perhaps what we need is a single engined Raptor without thrust vectoring and exotic materials, perhaps in addition to a simpler avionics fit, i.e. something we can actually afford.
Stealthy aircraft were never intended to be invisible to radar, they just need to get close enough to their intended target to launch their weapons before the other guy can see them, but get close enough and sooner or later he will.
Simulated combat has shown that the Raptor can defeat any adversary, and in great numbers. I doubt that the Europeans will be offering any Rafales/Typhoons/Gripens for this purpose in the near future, but sooner or later they will have to come up against Raptors in training scenarios (Red Flag etc) and when they do I doubt they will be pleased at the outcome.
I do however agree that the Raptor is prohibitively expensive, and the small numbers are definitely a bad thing. I liked the earlier approach used with the F-15 and F-16 and with the Aegis Class cruiser/Oliver Hazard Perry Class frigate, this uses a high/low mix of assets based on cost. Perhaps what we need is a single engined Raptor without thrust vectoring and exotic materials, perhaps in addition to a simpler avionics fit, i.e. something we can actually afford.
Originally posted by Retseh
Perhaps what we need is a single engined Raptor without thrust vectoring and exotic materials, perhaps in addition to a simpler avionics fit, i.e. something we can actually afford.
F-35 Anyone? When it comes out it will probably be the second best A2A fighter in the world, second only to the F-22A Raptor. Though it does not have the physical performance the Raptor and the same level of stealth (its still on of the stealthiest fighters in the sky though) it does have a superb avionics fit. Its situational awareness and information gathering/sharing capability will be on par if not better than that of the F-22. The only area in which the Raptor will have better SA is long range threat targeting.
About the number of Raptors, the USAF still maintains that they need 380, and they're fighting hard to try and get that however for right now they're only getting 185. One more thing, if F-22 exercise results are an indication of things ot come then when the 94th fully transfers over to the F-22 the 1st Fighter Wing by itself will become one the most powerful Air Force's in the world when it comes to A2A.
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