Sukhoi T-50 begins weapons integration

a reply to: TritonTaranis

All aspect broadband and visual camo is going to have to be an absolute must. All else is just asking for trouble.

The USA also needs two engines and a massive internal fuel load. China and Russia really keen to get those ballistic missiles radar guided to hunt the fueller.

All these "assets" are actually liabilities.....
Manned aircraft are fast going to become sheep herders to swarms of unmanned AI flown drones.....
Then they wont hardly be needed at all......

a reply to: stirling

They're just now considering the first possible A2A UAVs. They're still several years away from even having a truly viable design, let alone testing. There's a control lag that has to be overcome to make them truly effective.

a reply to: Zaphod58 Re the "slow recovery" after energy bleed. Isn't that based on one 1 v 1 with German EFs? Does that really matter? The 22 will get it's nose on anything out there-or about to be out there-faster and wins.

You said yourself that would only be a problem 1 v 2 or more. Besides aren't the "advent" engines already developed and waiting for the money to upgrade?

You also said the Russians and Chinese can't match the 119s that are already over twenty years old!

I smell a rat here, Zaph, my boy. LOL. Your dissembling. You know stuff that you aren't admitting to.....

a reply to: nwtrucker

ADVENT isn't just a plug and pray upgrade, it will require an entire new engine, and it's still in testing.

In a war situation, do you really think that it's only going to be 1v1, or equal numbers? There are going to be a lot of situations where the Raptors would be outnumbered, largely because they're going to be sent into them that way, on the assumption they can handle anything.

They're not as good as the F119 engines, that doesn't mean that they aren't good engines anyway. But in a combat situation, it doesn't matter if your engine is 20 years ahead, if you don't recover energy fast enough to keep the fight going, which will almost certainly happen to at least some of the Raptors in a war.

a reply to: Zaphod58 Hmmm, noted on the no response re the "dissembling".

So the force multiplier aspect of the 22s, 35s and legacy airframes isn't far beyond anything the Russians or Chinese can produce? Also wasn't the F120 AND the F136 actually "advent" level engines? The F120 goes back almost as far as the 119s if memory serves.

By the time the Russians/Chinese get to the level that that you imply, we could "re-skin" the 22's (Boeing) cutting the weight by (what?) at least 10%, replace the 119s with the upgraded "120s",increasing thrust by 10% and range by 25%, slap the 119s into the BIBs and make B1Rs and add in all the goodies that were short-shrifted from the 22 in the first place and it's a "yawner" again.

That's with the miniscule info I'm aware of, which compared to you is nothing.....

a reply to: nwtrucker

They're a huge force multiplier, but 182 F-22s is only going to multiply the force so much. And once the new missiles come online it's not going to be nearly as much of a multiplier.

No, there are no current ADVENT engines out there. ADVENT adds a third stream to the airflow, and bypasses 90% of the airflow. If they were that type of engine they wouldn't still be in testing. It'll be awhile before an ADVENT engine hits full use.

There will be no B-1R, and they won't get reengined anytime soon.

Reskinning doesn't save you much weight, it just improves the RCS, by using new RAM, and by giving more enduring RAM that's easier to maintain.

a reply to: Zaphod58 On the re-skin, I saw quotes up to 8K lighter than the current skin. Also, a far higher temperature tolerance, in the range of 3k as opposed to 700-800. Are we talking the same skin? A "nano-carbonfibre? Boeing?

Also, re the B1R, never say never. If things get serious and the right dude is elected president, a Reagan-like expenditure with a bunch of "good ideas" that got shelved get dusted off and fired up almost overnight. Ask some old timers when Reagan replaced Carter....

Lastly, I've seen quotes of 25% better milage/range and 10 % increase in thrust and that was a few years ago. That's pretty specific for "still under development/tests'....cough, cough

a reply to: nwtrucker

Why would Boeing be reskinning a Lockheed Martin design that they were barely involved in?

Reskin does save you some weight, and gets you more tolerance on heat, but it's largely to improve RCS and ease of maintenance.

They're trying to kill entire fleets of aircraft, and shutting down entire programs, and you think they're going to spend millions, removing a big portion of our bomber fleet to turn them into missile trucks? The B-52 isn't capable of penetrating anything resembling modern defenses anymore, so it's the B-1 and B-2 for almost all the bomber mission. They can't afford (monetarily or figuratively) to take any of the B-1s out of the fleet to be vulnerable missile trucks.

The 25/10 figure was planned, and computer modeled figures.

originally posted by: Astr0

originally posted by: Astr0

originally posted by: Zaphod58

a reply to: Astr0



And I would bet that it won't be long before they're developing systems that would make them less than survivable. It's not like we have a ton of them around to begin with.

A dual AESA and IR seeker head - the AESA is a donut ring around the centre IR seeker. The data link then can be cued by a bogie with eyes on if both get jammed.

28 hours and 3 minutes to be precise at 100% war fighting capability stock of the west being thrown against a sudden surge of Russian and Chinese troops into the Pacific arena and Europe at the same time.



Tonka, Typhoon, Rafale, all gone inside the 11 hour mark. All of them.

Really??

Would you care to explain how 100% Typhoon, Tonkas and Rafale will be gone in 28 hours of a sudden Russian Surge??

I assume that also means the Swedish Grippen and the Dutch F-16 too, not to mention the F-15s based in Nato and numerous other aircraft.

I see you rate the russians ability to get a number of aircraft in the air, fly over miles of hostile territory and launch hundreds of useable missiles.

Id suggest that almost 90% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Sukhoi T-50 external weapons not very stealthy.

Attacking is harder and more risky than defending. Russia and China attack west is crazy talk they would be wiped out. They don't face just a few fighters. They face integrated multi-layered air defence systems on land and at sea. Fighters don't operate alone they are supported by land based and naval SAMS and air defence. Any attacking force would have to neutralize airpower, air defence and naval power to attack successfully. Russia and China don't have the air assets or naval assets to do this. And then there is the nuclear weapons waiting as a last resort. One side could launch if total defeat was imminent and we end up with potential MAD mutually assured destruction.
A Russian and Chinese attack would have to face the west's airforces, navies and armies combined not just the airforce by itself. Russia and China lack top line hardware in numbers to match the west. A lot of the Russian and Chinese air force is old junk worse than the west. They don't put anywhere near the dollars in compared to the just the US and it shows. A lot of focus is on the top line units but look at the second tier units and the quality falls away very quickly.

a reply to: IamSirDrinksalot

That's using their new missiles that are under development. They use an LPI radar and datalink, and dual sensor system. The IR sensor is completely passive, and the AESA sensor doesn't need to activate until less than ten miles.

originally posted by: IamSirDrinksalot
Really??
Would you care to explain how 100% Typhoon, Tonkas and Rafale will be gone in 28 hours of a sudden Russian Surge??
I assume that also means the Swedish Grippen and the Dutch F-16 too, not to mention the F-15s based in Nato and numerous other aircraft.
I see you rate the russians ability to get a number of aircraft in the air, fly over miles of hostile territory and launch hundreds of useable missiles.
Id suggest that almost 90% of statistics are made up on the spot.

If the 'spot' is ########, then yes, they were made up on a spot. Its a very interesting spot, lots of little numbers played upon, looked at, then span around again and again in hundreds upon hundreds of hours of constant simulation.

But if you were picky, yes, the system is static, so they were made up on 'a spot'.

To answer you query then - how do Russians survive to take the entire EU to the surrender table in less than 3 days? the answer is simply threefold; Fuel, Missiles, Radar.

The entire UK / EU force structure is extremely fragile. So fragile that the recent display of Russian force across the northern stretches of the Baltic, Arctic and Atlantic have forced the USA to offer up 1 billion US Dollars in men, machines and man power.

We also had to beg the Czechs to keep their Gripen on Icelandic soil far longer than originally planned for. Why? because time after time after time we found we had no answer to the Russian supersonic bombers doing a three pronged attack over under and across Swedish airspace to attack the UK and EU.

When a fourth prong of attack was added via the southern reaches our ability at self defence collapsed. The air bridge to the USA was untenable, and we simply ran out of aviation fuel and airframes. That's before we took on the land assault.

Look at the pitiful state of our combined 'air defences'. Our SAM systems comprise of what? we have cut how many air defence units because we felt we could have a 'capability holiday'.

Then, to add insult to injury, cruise missile attacks from Russian boats against runways and fuel depots thrown in and ran again. The UK now has no airborne assets to track boats in UK waters, and scant attack sub units to keep watch and track their boomers. We have lost, bowed to the budget and thrown away a hard earned buffer.

To sum it up then, the EU folds from the borders of Poland to the edges of Spain in days. There is no fight left unless it goes nuclear. Then the Russians again have the ABM upper hand and its goodbye western Europe, with the air currents and manpower the Russians have left move to the far east and start afresh whilst we sit in a radioactive cesspit.

Summary: They kill our fuel supplies, they kill our assets in the air and on the ground, they hit us with repeated waves of supersonic low level bombers backed up by missile trucks that ripple fire curtains of missiles per airframe. Their kill to launch probability goes from 18 to 20% at long range to 85 to 95%. Then their approaching forces sit behind and within a mobile SAM envelope that the west has scant ability to offer up for our own forces.

Iceland was undefended for christs sake. Abandoned as we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russian Black Jacks had free reign across the North Atlantic, Scottish waters and airspace a happy hour for the Russian forces - people on the western isles reported Russian aircraft over head low and at speed, submarines transiting on the surface with windows on the towers. and you say you cannot see why the EU / UK would fall so fast?

Goodness gracious me.

It might be possible the Ruskies are overestimated slightly. This is from a few years ago and I don't know if much has changed significantly.

Aging weapons, poor maintenance and rank-and-file officers who don’t “want to do anything” mean the Russian military is on the verge of a “catastrophic crisis” and if forced into action would be much more likely to use strategic nuclear weapons, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. This is the prognosis of Russian Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Defense Minister Army-General Nikolai Makarov.
In addition, Makarov said the Russian air force is not procuring sufficient numbers of new modern aircraft and has fewer flight-worthy aircraft with badly trained pilots incapable of conducting actual combat operations.
“They can run bombing missions only in daytime with the sun shining, but they miss their targets anyway,” Makarov said.

www.wnd.com...

In Spite of Medvedev's Optimism Russian Military Is Facing Severe Crisis

defense-update.com...

a reply to: JimTSpock

What makes you think that NATO isn't in just as bad shape in some areas? The Admiral Kuznetsov just recently sailed through NATO waters unmonitored and unescorted because there were no NATO ships available due to budget cuts. The ONE ship that was available was off somewhere else on another mission.

Russia has had problems with some equipment, but they've been one of the best hands down when it comes to missiles. NATO is good when it comes to air to air, but if Russia can get a foot hold on the ground and move their SAM systems in, NATO would be in trouble.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I agree NATO has some problems aswell but Russia seems to have some severe problems.

a reply to: JimTSpock

Russia has come a LONG way in the last few years towards overcoming those problems. But even a wave of Su-27s launching their new missiles is going to devastate any legacy force out there, with them not even knowing its coming.

Oh come on! We forget that our pilots are better than any pilots in the world! Put a Russian or Chinese man in an F-22 and an American in an F-15 and I'll take the American every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Lol

Bottom line is these projections don't take into account the skill level of the pilots. If we had 180 raptors in theater that would be more than the first week of the Iraqi Shock and Awe campaign.

a reply to: boomer135

And BVR, with a missile you can't see incoming how does skill help you? Skill does wonders for WVR, and for knowing how to use your equipment, but if you're BVR, with a missile coming in that has an LPI radar and datalink on it, being guided by another LPI radar, all the skill in the world doesn't help you. It's all about reaction time, and the new AESA missiles don't give you any.

Not to mention our pilots have to have air bases to operate from. NATO has downsized their mission to the point where we don't even have equipment in the area to shadow Russian equipment as it transits through NATO territory, let alone stop a full blown blitz by low level Backfires and Blackjacks.