The technological gap between "5th Gen. fighters and 6th Gen. is 35 years!

a reply to: yuppa

When you are super-cruising with a meat-bag on board you won't be changing directions very fast and at slow speeds you still have a significant disadvantage when a missile can pull 32 or more g's and you can pull 9-12 (for a short time) at 500kts. With the new missiles you will be defeating them with some sort of countermeasure, not maneuvering.

originally posted by: Flipper35
a reply to: yuppa

When you are super-cruising with a meat-bag on board you won't be changing directions very fast and at slow speeds you still have a significant disadvantage when a missile can pull 32 or more g's and you can pull 9-12 (for a short time) at 500kts. With the new missiles you will be defeating them with some sort of countermeasure, not maneuvering.

Long range missiles are usually very noisy and can be seen by radar. to down th ef-22 wiht a missile you have to get in close or be very lucky. Now in dogfighting range its possible to out manuver missiles. Even russians have practiced this.

ALso a pilot can take extreme G loads for a limited time,and evading in multiple directions can throw off missiles. Jamming plus manuvering and great piloting will normally win the day.

Missiles rely on speed,and the faster you are the harder it is to change course to intercept a target that is not flying predictable. You are not thinking enough

a reply to: yuppa

All of that was relevant in the era of missiles like the sidewinder, the sparrow, the phoenix, and even the AMRAAM. You can't always count on those technologies remaining stagnant, and I'd argue that anti-aircraft missiles have been evolving much, much faster than piloted aircraft maneuverability has.

Hitting an evading F-22 is a cakewalk compared to a midcourse or terminal phase kinetic intercept of an ICBM warhead, and by "a cakewalk", I mean "at least an order of magnitude less complex". Raytheon was already able to miniaturize the EKKV enough to fit in the nosecone of an SM-3. Don't think for a second that those similar guidance technologies (speak nothing of that kind of maneuverability) aren't going to find their way into the next generation of US/European AAM's.

Remember that all front-line anti-aircraft systems (Patriot, S-400, the Standard/Aegis family, the Samson/Sea Viper combo, everything that Israel fields) these days have an ABM capability cooked into them from the outset. For a system like that, scoring a kill on even a supermaneuverable fighter might as well be a turkey shoot.

There's a reason why the USAF is so obsessed with extreme stealth. Against a peer state and one of the systems that I just listed, the moment that they get a radar lock on you, you're as good as dead.

How are adversarial missiles tracking these days ? IR? Optical? Radar?

Just wondering

a reply to: BASSPLYR

IR, radar, optical, or a combination. The Python 5 uses a dual mode IR/optical seeker and is one of the hardest missiles ever to evade.

The new Japanese AAM-4B uses an AESA seeker.

a reply to: yuppa

Air to air missiles are traveling so fast that even if you see them on radar, there isn't much you can do about it. At 12 miles, which is about the maximum range of a Python, it would take roughly 15 seconds to reach the target aircraft.

The odds are though that it won't be launched at 12 miles. The Pk at that range, even for a Python won't be high, so they'd wait until closer to launch.

Once ramjet missiles are in use those times will drop even lower as speeds increase.

The radar return on an air to air missile is tiny. The only way they're tracked is an RWR system tracking the radar as it moves. With a system that uses a datalink and only turns on its own radar at the terminal phase, your warning is almost too late. Depending on the range it's launched from.

a reply to: yuppa

Problem is that as of now quantum entanglement is believed to be impossible to use in that manner.

The rate of turn on a missile is much higher than that of a manned aircraft so in close you are not going to out maneuver a missile without help from some type of active countermeasure.

At a distance the SR-71 could evade just by turning a few degrees, but that is at mach 3+ and the missile is launched 100 miles out. An F-22 is half that speed in super cruise and I would wager the new missiles won't need to be launched that far out. Heck, if the bandit was desperate and only getting an intermittent blip he could throw a mad dog out there just to get you to react.

Zaph, aren't the Meteors a hybrid propulsion source? 100ish mile range at throttle-able speeds with mid course updates from a third party?

a reply to: Flipper35

Yes. Normal range is 100 km. It can go ballistic and increase the range to 300+ km, and has a 90 km "no escape zone".

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: yuppa

Air to air missiles are traveling so fast that even if you see them on radar, there isn't much you can do about it. At 12 miles, which is about the maximum range of a Python, it would take roughly 15 seconds to reach the target aircraft.

The odds are though that it won't be launched at 12 miles. The Pk at that range, even for a Python won't be high, so they'd wait until closer to launch.

Once ramjet missiles are in use those times will drop even lower as speeds increase.

The radar return on an air to air missile is tiny. The only way they're tracked is an RWR system tracking the radar as it moves. With a system that uses a datalink and only turns on its own radar at the terminal phase, your warning is almost too late. Depending on the range it's launched from.

Could this be countered with a in plane AI that will take control of th eaircraft to evade since it can be done much faster and react faster as well? Its not like the pilot cannot be shocked awake after they evade.

originally posted by: Barnalby
a reply to: yuppa

Drastic changes in direction at the kinds of speeds a 4th or 5th gen fighter travels at are nothing to something that can score kinetic kills on satellites and ballistic missiles.

But satellites and ballistic missiles have, by definition, predictable course.

a reply to: mbkennel

Agree - one major reason Pk is low at long distances is because you can bet the adversary is maneuvering to stay out of, or leave, the missile kill envelope.

At Mach 4 it will take 78 seconds for a missile to travel 100 km. That's a lot of time for the adversary to be somewhere other than where impact was computed to take place at missile launch (f-pole). The missile will then have to maneuver, bleeding its energy, or simply may have to travel a longer distance than anticipated. A slow missile can't turn well.

Two 4th generation aircraft engaged in BVR combat will likely be in a game of cat and mouse. Launching as close as possible to increase Pk, but not too close as to fly into the adversaries missiles. Maneuvering to keep Pk low. In addition, unless turning rate increases in direct proportion to speed, going faster would impair the ability of a platform to avoid a pop-up threat. Both of these factors are why modern fighter aircraft have significant emphasis on instantaneous turn rate and transonic acceleration - including the F-22 and F-35, as opposed to raw speed (F-104) or sustained maneuvering (F-16).

Of course, stealth changes the scenario quiet a bit - a stealth aircraft can now also maneuver to an advantageous firing position while remaining undetected. And I speculate that when operating deep within highly contested airspace, aircraft will be well within the no-escape envolope of surface to air missiles so attempting to out maneuver a missile will be difficult. This would be made worse with overlapping SAM envelopes where maneuvering out of the effective missile range from one launcher will simply place you within the effective missile range of another.

Seeing a long white exhaust trail coming towards you would give you a good indication of direction and angle of attack.

To follow up on my previous post. It's not that a missile cannot be out-maneuvered. They can. However how well depends on the situation and what kind of system is being flown against. Sometimes a further emphasis on stealth may be more survivable.

Also are ABM missiles like SM-3 maneuverable against airborne targets at all? The challenges between ABM and AA are different.

a reply to: Blackfinger

I don't understand, are you referring to missiles?

Newer A2A missiles do not emit much visible smoke - but I'm not sure how detectable they are in IR or UV.







There's some methods of detecting inbound missiles. MLD in the F-22, DAS in the F-35, Spectra in the Rafale are some examples. DAS is almost equivalent to 20/20 visual acquity, so I'm wondering how well this would work at BVR ranges. Probably would depend on the type of missile and range.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I can think of sone ways to thwart one. But yeah that is a nasty combo to have to deal with. It will be interesting to learn more about the japanese AAM.

a reply to: mbkennel

I would argue that in this era of high-speed reentry vehicles, decoys, chaff-deploying reentry busses, and the MARV's that the Russians are supposedly fielding, that a terminal phase intercept of a modern Topol M or similar still makes an F-22 kill look like child's play.

You can only score a kill in those sorts of situations with something that has insane amounts of maneuvering delta-V, simply because you're launching it in the general vicinity of a spread of targets that might be kilometers apart from each other and expecting it to make last-minute maneuvers with seconds to spare once it differentiates the actual target from the noise.

a reply to: Barnalby

Granted the missile is actually tracking the actual f22. Or b21. Or b2. It may never be looking at the actual target.

I wont go i to it though.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Yeah, that would be implying they actually have the real target dialed in.

Missile spam could probably break through that, though that seems more like something that the Chinese would try.

originally posted by: Barnalby
a reply to: mbkennel

I would argue that in this era of high-speed reentry vehicles, decoys, chaff-deploying reentry busses, and the MARV's that the Russians are supposedly fielding, that a terminal phase intercept of a modern Topol M or similar still makes an F-22 kill look like child's play.

I don't disagree with that---I think terminal phase interception of ICBM-speed re-entry vehicles is nearly impossible.

This is the Sprint ABM from 1970. It is insane aerospace technology. (amazing what was done then.

www.youtube.com...

The kinematics now are the same as it was then, or worse if the incoming has some sort of unpredictable maneuvering re-entry (but how would it maintain accuracy?) And Sprint used a nuclear warhead. The exoatmospheric ABM missile used a 5 f'ing megaton warhead.

But they are different systems and different command & control. And obviously an anti-BM missile will be far, far more expensive.

You can only score a kill in those sorts of situations with something that has insane amounts of maneuvering delta-V, simply because you're launching it in the general vicinity of a spread of targets that might be kilometers apart from each other and expecting it to make last-minute maneuvers with seconds to spare once it differentiates the actual target from the noise.

Last minute? Hah! ICBM warheads go from upper stratosphere to boom in 3-5 seconds.

What is missile spam?

Zerg-rushing with SAM's?

The game will be spam vs spam then. Oh yeah, maybe there is a couple of real F-35's out there, but there are also two dozen other radar targets, and some of them in IR as well.

So you have cloud of decoys vs cloud of missiles. The decoys can be fake and cheap. The missiles can't be that fake.

And finally, there is always the problem for the defense that the SAM is on the ground at 0 meters/second, and the aircraft isn't.