F-22 raptor scores direct hit in testing of supersonic, high-altitude JDAM drop(50,000ft.drop)

A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter, flying at a speed of Mach 1.5 and an altitude of 50,000 feet, released a GPS-aided Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) from a range of 24 nautical miles, destroying a small ground target in the F-22's fastest and highest JDAM delivery yet.

www.lockheedmartin.com...

So they can drop bombs at Mach 1.5, from 24 miles away from a stealthy platform.

This means that no target is defensible by SAMs any longer. No matter how many SAMs you fire to intercept the bombs there will always be more bombs available than SAMs.





[edit on 13-6-2006 by Number23]

yeah, especcially when the only SAMs you actually have to bomb are the very few sitting in locations where they might actually spot you. It's easy to ignore enemy weapons you know they can't use.

This is just more bad news for Iran. But they do have that super-scary "stealth" flying boat!

Number23,

>>
A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter, flying at a speed of Mach 1.5 and an altitude of 50,000 feet, released a GPS-aided Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) from a range of 24 nautical miles, destroying a small ground target in the F-22's fastest and highest JDAM delivery yet.
>>

Not impressive. The airframe is moving at 14-15 miles per minute and the lack of significant lift from the GBU-32s basic strake kit means that there is no 'drive by' effect possible as a function of a significant cross track tangential approach state. You have to ram it right down their throats and then come in behind it (cranked to the max and bleeding E) or face the brutal reality of coming off in a high G turn that flashes not just the attacked site but all the networked others for 10s of miles around it.

Comparitively, an AGM-130 is roughly a 35nm weapon and (long chord) GBU-15 is a 25nm weapon when released at height. While the GBU-39 has-

www.airwarriors.com...

Flown up to 47nm with less than a 34" miss distance on impact. _Off a subsonic F-15E_. All because the of the glide kit.

Furthermoe, you don't generally want to 'bomb' (ballisticate) anything which can shoot back. Because a Mach .85 - 1.25 unpowered transit is not going to beat a weapon which (15-40ft long) is coming Mach 4+ the other way. Even if YOU are invisible, there is often a time constraint involved for followon strikers or gas that tends to compress matters if you don't treat the weapons system as a principle effector for mission success.

In this, probably the ultimate killer is an ADM-160 MALD or ADM-141 ITALD. Because with lethal-decoy options, they can fly up to 150nm and are not dependent on height or speed effects in protecting a strike force on a nominally short radar horizon. MALD would even get you upwards of 5 minutes at Mach 1.2 or so which itself translates to 11mpm or 55 miles _low level_. Compared to the 6-8mpm you are averaging in a strike aircraft that's still 15-25 miles lead on the airframe, even if you follow the missiles flightpath directly.

Of more critical importance is whether the 'computation of LARs' means that the Raptor pilots are little more than data entry clerks or whether they actually have a working SAR mode and particularly a linked ELS/SAR mode to be autonomous targeter-shooters (most weapons systems would automate this function).

_If Not_, then you are depending on the timeliness of prebriefed or drone/standoff ISR platforms to discover a target which is apt to move every hour or so. And your targeting can itself become both a key vulnerability node to counter engagement and drag anchors on deployment and functional standup of an overall GSTF capability.

I would also like to know if the GBU-39/BRU-61 package can be loaded assymetrically with AMRAAM. Since it is, by far, better to have multiple independent Raptor teams operating at 20-50 miles separations with 4 bombs and 4 LRAAM than to go 'Hornet Style' with section pairs split between escort and direct attack configured aircraft doing half the work of conventional aircraft which can bring both numbers of airframes and mixes of external ordnance into play.

>>
So they can drop bombs at Mach 1.5, from 24 miles away from a stealthy platform.

This means that no target is defensible by SAMs any longer. No matter how many SAMs you fire to intercept the bombs there will always be more bombs available than SAMs.
>>

No. Because sortie logistics come into play. Each F-22 will carry no more than 2 such IAM and be upwards of 4-6hrs from returning while the likeliest goalkeeper systems: the SA-19/Tunguska and SA-15 Tor are all going to have upwards of 8 shots in ready to fire modes with 4-10 vehicles covering a high value site.

This in addition to the upwards of 64 S-300 or 256 S-400 (short burn) weapons that are potentially available to a given battery. Weapons with 60-150km reach in their baseline versions and upwards of 300km in their extended range upgrades.

Whether such an effective total overlap can be /afforded/ (or would be allowed to be exported) is questionable using the Crete model as an illustration in the politics of high leverage 'destabilizing' arms sales to particular region, even among nominal Allies.

At present, given limited Raptor numbers and (likely) limited total inventory, all this really means is that you can, ignore or hostage through networking kills (Tiger radars etc.) all the medium systems in the older SA-2 thru 17 classes while holding at risk _select_ point targets in areas that would otherwise require overflight delivery as with the B-2 and F-117.

And a lot of that will depend on how much you intend to deploy the F-22 as an 'ordinary' OCA force, protecting the cow bombers from direct engagement. Because such will also tend to eat up a lot of sorties in the hand-holding role, even as the sum-value of the platforms under escort will nominally require a certain number of AMRAAMs in the bay just to ensure effective early attrition if not breakthru prevention.

CONCLUSION:
'All this and more!' because some yutz in an air planning staff decided to listen to a moron named Mike O'Hanlon who decided that because we only had about 60 F-15Cs in ODS (plus another 50 odd Saudi Eagles and a grab bag of F.3 and Mirage 2000) working the coalface of Kuwait and Iraq, 'three times that number' should be more than sufficient to fight a two front MRC with reserves for training and depot.

Never mind what it is doing to our ability to penetrate and _deliver iron_ which is something only now are the moo'ing public being made seriously aware of. And which no Albino painted in the Stars and Bars has EVER seriously been employed to do.


KPl.

The range of the SAMs compared to dropping guided bombs is a bit like comparing a sniper rifle with a pistol.

Of course, in the case of the Raptor, the guy with the pistol is wearing a Gulli suit in dense jungle. After dropping the bombs, the best bet is probrably either to commit and overfly, knowing there'll be no threat after you mark on top, (assuming you hit, of course), or haul through 90 or 180 degrees, dive like a maniac, and get out of dodge, all while deploying enough chaff and flares that you can hope to get away.

*edit* now that I think of it, some of the manuvers TVC jets are known to be capable of (because they demonstrate them at every airshow) which are often critisized as useless in air combat may actually be quite useful for the purpose of turning around without flashing every air defence radar around. granted, I don't think you can do some of those at mach 1.5.

[edit on 14-6-2006 by Travellar]

I have to say, ch1466 that that post was very hard to follow. While I do disagree with the fact that no target is defensible by SAMs any longer because the missiles do travel a whole lot faster than bombs, and once you've exploded something in an enemy nation all defense stations will immediately be on high alert.

Furthermoe, you don't generally want to 'bomb' (ballisticate) anything which can shoot back.

Isn't this the main idea of performing any SEAD operation (even if that isn't what JDAMs are made specifically to do)? Now while I can understand the use of AGMs against short range SAMs, but if its a really long-range site (apologies for lack of examples, I am somewhat rusty on modern SAM sites) wouldn't the use of a TV-guider be useful and classified as a ballistication?

[edit on 6/14/2006 by Darkpr0]

Geez, ch1446 you can't really expect anyone to read all of that?

Anyway, the 1000lbs GPS dropped from 50K feet, at Mach 1.5 will be coming in at over Mach 1 and will be nigh impossible to stop and it will hit its target.

And let me also add that the 50K feet at Mach 1.5 from 24 miles are almost certainly conservative figures.

Well, maybe if you can't be bothered to read, you shouldn't be writing (; The man has a point, I actually read it and found it useful info. It's not fair to argue with someone if you don't read what he has to say.

Darkpr0,

>>
I have to say, ch1466 that that post was very hard to follow. While I do disagree with the fact that no target is defensible by SAMs any longer because the missiles do travel a whole lot faster than bombs, and once you've exploded something in an enemy nation all defense stations will immediately be on high alert.
>>

I never said that SAM systems were inadequate to secure a national IADS. Though my definition of what a SAM is may vary a bit from the norm.

However; the methods you use to employ them all basically come down to a 'point' (to horizon line or RCS detection threshold) defense defined by the location of the radar/s supporting a given battery. This applying even to the S-300 (SA-10 Grumble). The S-400 (SA-21) is effectively the beginning of the next step forward because it theoretically obviates the need for ANY uplink or terminal guidance via RFCG or SARH as characterized earlier missiles. Instead an I-ARH homing system can fly the round to a cubed volume where longer wavelength or 'blinking' secondary sites (look back or across) CEC-pinpoint the radar target from a vulnerable aspect.

Furthermore, you don't generally want to 'bomb' (ballisticate) anything which can shoot back.

>>
Isn't this the main idea of performing any SEAD operation (even if that isn't what JDAMs are made specifically to do)? Now while I can understand the use of AGMs against short range SAMs, but if its a really long-range site (apologies for lack of examples, I am somewhat rusty on modern SAM sites) wouldn't the use of a TV-guider be useful and classified as a ballistication?
>>

Six of one.

In Vietnam, with primitive ARMs, the only way to be _100%_ sure of a site kill was to put 'iron on the antenna'. i.e. Followup the Weasel with it's ELS programmed ARM shot using fast fighters to come in and attack the smoke plume with rockets and CBU and guns while the radar was down (dummyloaded to let a Shrike 'go right on by' or occasionally direct impacted by a STARM in memory mode).

Indeed, especially later on in the conflict, we fired HUGE numbers of 'prebrief' ARM at the last known-recce EOB location of a suspect site just to make sure it was off-air 'rolled back' while the Gorilla packages went on by.

The reason for all of this basically comes down to one thing:

If you lose 1-2 jets to a Gen 1 or 2 SAM system, /provided/ you rapidly destroy or at least hole the overall IADS with attacks on the sites, you will still come out ahead in terms of overall loss rates vs. achievement of air supremacy and subsequent destruction of warfighting infrastructure. The ONLY reason this didn't work in Vietnam was because we created 'safe zones' where SAMs (at least those still under construction) couldn't be attacked. And once we got them all anyway, we then spent four years letting the Viets rebuild their systems.

Today the scenarios are different:

1. No Losses Allowed.
Particularly if you don't declare war and don't threaten to occupy them 'anyway', getting pilots back after a one sided airwar can be somewhat problematic. You need only look at what happened to some of the ODS crews to figure out how 'popular' they are among the persecuted.
2. Gen-3/4 S2A Missiles Will BEAT Most Aircraft.
Even after extended midcourses. So that the options available come down to towed decoys and superb SOJAM plus a lot of luck. No more the rollercoaster-UP! to defeat a lead playing SA-2 fresh off the booster.
3. Medium/High Altitude Profiles Extend Engagement Ranges.
So that beating the trashfire threat can often get you obliterated by MULTIPLE 100km weapons. We've actually faced this problem before in a situation called '7-11'. Whereby turning to put angles on one threat saddles up another.
4. One Battery FC Radar Can Guide Multiple Rounds.
Even in SARH/TVM modes. This means that if they put 12 missiles in the air and tag two per target, you are looking at 6 targets engaged, rather than one. Again, where this includes I-ARH capabilities, that number can go up even as the number of illuminating radars can go netcentric.
5. One of the primary targets for the longer range systems will NOT be the fighters but the support missions. Since these (tankers, ISR, BMC2, EA) are what makes _targeting_ of the bombs in particular at all possible (even with today's Emitter Location Systems, it's hard to get a to-the-meter location of a radar without a secondary mapping radar or EO handoff.
6. Prebrief shots don't mean as much because all systems are mounted on fully offroad mobile trucks that need only set down lift jacks to stabilize and level the vehicle while all datalinks are 'wireless' or quick-cabled.

With all these new modifiers; the best you can hope for with even an 8-shot GBU-39, is to put enough decoys and low-rent spotter drones over enemy airspace as to trick the enemy into illuminating and then use the SDBs to clean their clocks on a rinse-repeat basis of not caring how many drones they bag.

OTOH, it will always be up to the enemy to decide whether they are going to be suckered by the old bait and switch with a decoy effort. And if you are truly protecting an on-the-fly raid package to _force_ them to come up and illuminate, a bomb will not make the flyout in time to save an F-16 or possibly even an F-35 from that first critical engagement. Even as the lack of hi-rez SAR modes on the APG-77 means that the Raptor is still entirely dependent on somebody else to 'take the picture' which translates to precision GPS coordinates.

That said, almost all modern missiles (including, in all likelihood, AMRAAM C7/D) are themselves potentially powered-IAM as much as Anti-Radiation capable systems. Which means that, IF you can keep your ISR targeting platform alive, you can likely send a powered shot downrange to make the M3 kill. If you put a separate seeker on a dedicated missile (QBolt), you can even use the autopilot to set 'restrictors' as a grazing angle/search footprint. Which means that, even without fully range-known 3D slantranging (via ELS techniques on a long-baseline RC-135 or E-8C patch map), you can let the weapon do the final sight-to-kill on the battery radar while expressly avoiding things like ARM pit and decoy emitter protective schemes. Of course the much higher speed on terminal approach at least 'complicates' the goalkeeper needle:needle defense.

DEAD then comes down to hoping that the enormous costs of modern S2A systems will keep them from having too many replacement or interleaved (secondary site) backups as to break the 'radar down, missiles useless' myth of yesterday's Weasel doctrine.

The difference is that of being able to use your bombs on different targets while carrying mixed-missile (or mission) loads of AAARM to suppress-as-you-go. Rather than holding up the show with a 'GSTF' action designed expressly to get X-number of confirmed site kills while the legacy/secondary (AEF) force 'flows in' to get ready to do the majority of the infrastructure and warfighter elimination attacks.

I _do not_ like using the Raptor as a lobbed-horseshoe 'default Weasel'. Either in support of secondary packages or particularly to secure other high value assets like the B-2 and F-117. That takes away from it's own operational freedoms and puts it at significant risk of being cross-roled without enough overall mission-specific ordnance or positioning to do it's job.

Either let it BE the interdiction system of choice, avoiding threats it doesn't need to roll back. Or give it the weapons and sensorization to do the DEAD mission correctly. If we're careful, a 60-80nm (supersonic sling bombed) GBU-39 can more or less outrange ANY practical defense with a limited batter count of high capability SAM. But it won't adequately fast-suppress an active site threatening OTHER aircraft. Or even the Raptor itself if it is forced to fly companion-close (and predictable).


KPl.

ch1466 , you have been repeatidly asked to properly use teh quote system , and this by admin`s as well as mod`s.

CH1466 shows up once in a while and posts these rediculous, 2 page long responses which dont make any sense, and i doubt that even 5 % of people on this thread even read it. We keep asking this prson to shorten the responses, but they wont.

I'll summerise then.

Using a supercruise low observable air supirioirty fighter in a role traditionally assigned to an obsolete generation on aircraft is dumb. Especially if you want to make good use of its air supiriority capabilities.

The advantage of being able to drop bombs at Mach 1.5 is that anyone you're dropping those bombs on probrably won't have any time to react. The drawback CH1466 keeps mentioning is you need someone to tell you where to put those bombs, aspeccially if your enemy insists on moving his targets all the time.

Of course, the ability to drop bombs at targets other than air defence sites at mach 1.5 from an LO platform also gives you the advantage of 'drive by bombing', in that wherever the mobile sites in the area you HAVEN'T found and destroyed yet may be, you'll (hopefully) be out of range of before thier operators can get a bird off the rails. Crossing targets are tough to hit, and supersonic receeding targets aren't terribly easy to catch.

Before I go to bed, I'll drop the thought that this means you may be able to get away with only needing to clear your egress route, counting on speed and LO for your ingress. Either way, It's good to have some continued usefullness for your multi-million dollar super fighters after the enemy looses the will or ability to take to the air.

Originally posted by Pazo
Well, maybe if you can't be bothered to read, you shouldn't be writing

The man has a point, I actually read it and found it useful info. It's not fair to argue with someone if you don't read what he has to say.

I'm not saying I didn't read it, and I'm not saying that it was useless. It's good background, I won't deny that. But the thing is I had to read it 3 times just to get all the information in a way that I could understand and absorb it. I also had to Google a few things just cuz I wasn't precisely sure what the specific weapon was, or what an acronym was.

My lack of precise weapon knowledge aside it is true that precise geographic coordinates being needed to use a JDAM system is true, I won't deny that. However is this role not able to be filled by satellites, or do we need something like a recon plane/AWACS to get the coords?

CH1466, putting the Tolstodian length of your posts aside, your excessive use of acronyms and jargon are formidable obstacle to anyone, besides yourself, comprehending your ideas.

If your object is to display (peacock like) your knowledge of military jargon and acronyms than you have succeeded tremendously. If however, you wish to share your ideas with others, then you might want to more carefully your audience before you pen another post.

Why would you want to try and use the F-22A as an attack airplane? Lockheed met their contract to the letter. Air Superiority Fighter - nothing more, nothing less.

You can't fit adequite anti-ground stores into the weapons bay of the F-22A.

Lockheed designed themselves into a corner.

I'll also sumarize what CH1466 was saying about the missile system - although I admit I had to read it twice until things started registering.

What you can do is set up a meshed network of radars and launchers - all with overlapping fields of coverage. This might seem as a waste - but not really. When you illuminate a target with a radar beam - it's pretty similar to shining a flashlight on it. A missile picks up on this signature - whether it be with its own radar, or the radar of its parent, and guides itself towards that reflection of 'light'.

Now, what SARH is Semi-Active Radar Homing (or so I interpret). This is what the Aim-7 Sparrow uses. It's pretty similar to a laser-guided bomb concept. The laser can come from anywhere - from a guy on the ground, the parent aircraft, a spotting helicopter - or some idiot pointing a similar laser beam back at the plane. So, even if you destroy the laucher's parent radar system, a nearby one can still illuminate the target and guide the missile in.

This is also useful against 'stealth' aircraft - especially low-observable fighters, because the 'image' of the aircraft varries with the angle that you hit it with the radar beam. Not only that - but when you hit a conductive object with a radar (or any other electromagnetic wave), it begins to resonate at that same frequency - becoming a mini-radar emitter. This is why shape is so important in designing stealth aircraft. Now - when you have multiple radars illuminating a single target - that generates a much greater potential for a missile to acquire a substantial lock on the target.

I hope that was simple enough.... kinda long... so I don't know that I did a good job of condensing.... I just can't stand it when people don't understand... so I'm always trying to bridge that gap.

This is also a very valid point as radars become much smaller and more controlable. A few radars mounted in the back of recon chassis could provide ample illumination of a B-2 for a tow-behind launcher.

You'd need a good quality missile and ensure the seekers were good, as well as have well-trained people operating the radars and who also know how to focus the beam down to maximize the return intensity.... IE - the radars of the Aegis cruisers can be focussed down into a beam that is 0.5 x 0.5 degrees to provide extremely accurate targeting data...... it also works nice to cook pilots in their planes if other defense systems are failing.