The Super Hornet guns down the F-22 Raptor, page 3

The main issue in the Gulf War was that USN and USAF fighter carried different IFF systems; the Tomcat in particular had a relatively weak IFF systems. Now since the USAF attacked from the East and USN from the South having incompatible IFF systems created a danger of friendly fire incidents. So the commanders concluded that the air defenses could still be taken out with relative ease even if they imposed stringent BVR ROE’s, so that's what they did.

As Lieutenants Mark Fox and Nick Mongillo demonstrated with their F/A-18s, Navy fighters were just as capable of shooting down enemy jets as Air Force F-16s and F-15s. Navy fighters did not score additional fixed-wing kills during the war, however. Horner and his staff knew that the electronic gear on Air Force fighters could differentiate between friendly and enemy aircraft, but they were not as confident about the Navy's IFF equipment. Naval leaders placed greater faith in their interceptors. Nevertheless, since there were more than enough Air Force units to handle those relatively small number of Iraqi fighters that elected to "dog fight," Horner wisely chose not to employ other coalition aircraft and risk accidental, or "blue-on-blue" shoot downs.

Gulf War

Now, you asked “and what is to prevent exactly the same scenario occuring in future conflicts, rendering BVR combat as an unworkable dream? And the answer is...

The Navy, U.S. Air Force and FAA joined together to evaluate the new Identification Friend or Foe wave form known as Mode 5. The current wave form used by the U.S. military and NATO allies, Mode 4, uses 1960s technology and has several critical challenges that the replacement Mode 5 promises to solve. This OSD mandated upgrade provides warfighters with unprecedented security, performance, increased mission effectiveness and will lower the possibility of misidentifying friendly assets.

The Mode 5 IFF system is made up of two key components: the interrogator and a transponder. A platform (ship or aircraft) with an interrogator has the ability to send out a secure signal that only transponder equipped platforms can translate. These platforms can then, in turn, respond providing a positive identification as a friendly asset. This significantly enhances the warfighter's situational awareness.

Mode 5 (IFF)

And

The test, held recently at the Navy test range at Patuxent River, Md., examined a new AWACS Identification Friend or Foe, or IFF, demonstrator interrogator system. The interrogator transmitted a new waveform known as Mode 5. The Mode 5 Interrogator capability will provide significant additional identification performance over the current capability being used.

It will give warfighters new levels of security and performance, increase mission effectiveness and lower the possibility of misidentification of friendly assets, said Maj. Trent Thomas, Mode 5 test lead for the Air Force and chief of AWACS mission system requirements at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.

The identification capability has two key components: the interrogator and the transponder. A platform with the interrogator has the ability to send out a signal to every platform with the transponder.

The transponder units then send a signal back to the interrogator identifying it as a friendly asset. Only a platform with an interrogator unit can send out a signal to identify and locate friendly assets.

Link

And

The Mark XIIA Mode 5 Program stems from the DoD Mark XII Improvement Initiative begun in 1995. The Navy, responding to USD (A&T)/VCJCS tasking, led the Joint Service/NATO development of the Mode 5 waveform as documented in STANAG 4193. POM funding supports a formal FY02 Navy program start, with the potential for eventual establishment of a Joint Service Program with Army and Air Force. The Mark XIIA Mode 5 Program is responsive to the Combat Identification Mission Needs Statement (MNS) dated 13 April 1992 and reviewed/revalidated in 1998. The Improved Combat Identification Capabilities Operational Requirements Document (ORD) is in the second round of Service staffing (Flag-level chop) following the successful 0-6 level review conducted April – June 2000. Other program documentation is in initial staffing, and subject to formal program approval and funding

Mark XIIA Mode 5 platform-tailored ECP kits will be developed, tested, and procured, with full production beginning in FY05. State-of-the-art Open Systems Hardware (OSA) interrogator and transponder sets will accommodate easy installation and integration of Mark XIIA Mode 5 VME cards that also provide for new-technology cryptography.

Link

And

Reliable and secure positive identification (ID) systems are essential elements of battle management in the naval environment. In addition to distinguishing friend from foe for weapons employment, the Navy requires secure, jam resistant Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems for battle group air defense management and air traffic control. Identification is multifaceted and includes information received from several sensors (both cooperative and non-cooperative systems).

Older E-3 AWACS IFF system received codes from aircraft that weren't always processed correctly. There was also a chance the codes could get garbled, which made it more difficult to identify the aircraft as friend or foe. By 1997 a new system had an improved reliability to correctly identifying the codes and improves the ability to determine the location of an aircraft under surveillance, which will help ensure IFF operators give accurate IFF information to higher headquarters or other aircraft.

Identification Fiend or Foe (IFF)

And

E-3 Sentry aircraft were among the first to deploy during Operation Desert Shield where they immediately established an around-the-clock radar screen to defend against Iraqi aggression. During Desert Storm, E-3s flew more than 400 missions and logged more than 5,000 hours of on-station time. They provided radar surveillance and control to more than 120,000 coalition sorties. In addition to providing senior leadership with time-critical information on the actions of enemy forces, E-3 controllers assisted in 38 of the 40 air-to-air kills recorded during the conflict. For the first time in the history of aerial warfare, an entire air war has been recorded. This was due to the data collection capability of the E-3 radar and computer subsystems.

In Operation Desert Storm the intensity of battle coupled with large forces using Information Age weaponry and communications created the most intense electronic battlefield ever witnessed. The E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) was an integral part of the battle serving as the "eye" that tracked all battle space aircraft and directed interceptions while safeguarding our forces from surprise enemy aerial attack. The overwhelming density of diverse electronic signals transmitted and received created such a congested environment that the E-3s’ full mission capability was greatly hindered. This E-3 problem had to be quickly corrected and a dedicated software support team sprung into immediate action. The E-3 radar software was rapidly revised, flight tested, and on its way to deployed aircraft within 96 hours. This quick reaction, modification, and change-out during the heat of battle emphasizes the operational necessity for easily supportable software.

AWACS

Other Sources
Link 1
Link 2

[edit on 13-4-2006 by WestPoint23]

Ask a skilled fighter pilot what he thinks of neutral engagement (nose to nose or mutual turn in) WVR fight and, if he's honest, he will tell you it's a crap shoot that he avoids if at all possible.

First and foremost because today he's looking at a 2 mile bubble that a HOBS weapon can kill in _without moving the nose an inch_. And for which his expendables has only a limited effect.

This more or less makes mush out of conventional 1-2 circle fighting geometries to the extent that you have to consider the range at which you're commited to a fight vs. the range that you can employ your last missile option /before/ risking a 133 million dollar jet.

As the driving considerations of 'do I or don't I'. IMO, with the Raptor, that decision is ALWAYS going to be "Not Just No But HELL NO!". Because, as a stealth operator, he cannot afford to make the fight an even match with the threat, just on the basis of flat plating the airframe to the 'residual' (deep penetration OCA remember) S2A followup.

That said, the reason the Sparrow/F-4 combination didn't work in Vietnam was because it did.

3 frats and an Aussie gunboat later and VID was required. Not because 3 kills was too much. But because we were not able to -accept- those losses as a function of having pounded the Viet airbase infrastructure into heated slush. And so had to come back and do it again and again and again to in-flight 'fighters' vs. grounded _targets_.

And this in turn meant that the whole Sparrow system was screwed because the 'quick lock' radar mode that _had_ to be used from the point (3.5-5 nm) that you typically tallied a MiG-17 at was itself flawed in the way the SARH emitters in the wing vs. antenna-point indexing angle was callibration skewed and perfectly good weapons thus did _exactly_ what they were supposed to: Fly out, fail to get good tether:seeker connectivity and failsafed. Boom. Over and over and over again.

Go to Full Systems Lockon and things change as the enemy starts dying from about 8-11nm out and has a dramatic tendency to increase the 'Turn Here!' rate at which he both magnifies his own signature and yields aspect so that you can run up from behind and rape him.

That said, what nobody ALSO seems to remember is that the AIM-9B was even worse for while the AIM-7 could present engagement parameters as a function of range rate and angle off (as a calculated graphical value). The Sidewinder had NO envelope presentation. And so could only be launched 'by eye' in a dynamic scenario for which the RMin and RMax was often 500ft of valid shot parameters between a 2,000 and 4,000ft marker through which the threat jet was travelling at as much as 900fps. Now chuck in strictly limited (2G on rail and 20-25` cone plus clutter variables) seeker constraints. And the requirement to push a further sequence of buttons 'under the sill' to go from radar to heat. As well as USAF Fluid Four training (wall of Sparrow shooters, works real good WHEN YOU START BVR).

And you have the perfect formula for using one weapon that does work, sorta (limited frat in a mixed forces turning fight), in situations for which the other is a literal unknown that could really hurt friendlies with two glowing holes of max-A/B trying to pretend they can yank and bank with a 350knot angles fighter as a 500 knot energy machine.

IFF is not that big a deal anymore. IF you have a limited force count over-country and IF they are all stealth, the simple historical-track capability of the AEW&C, combined with JEMS and 2D ISAR (EPulse) systems can provide superb recognition capabilities. Even as AESA and Datalink increasingly remove the volume-isolate problem of looking at airspace defined in thousands of cubic miles with a sodastraw defined by bars of anywhere from 1.2 to 2.5 degrees subtended arc.

i.e. There is a LOT less screwup between the moment you push and the moment you judy your target.

Again, just the simple notion that you CAN see X as a Y target geometry construct (angle off, range and opening/closure rates) is itself a good indicator of target ID with VLO assets.

To which must be added the lower wasteage of missiles inherent to the turn signal 'honor the shot' effects of a threat player that doesn't know specifically (hi PRF/CW as a heads up morte) that he's under attack and thus can only randomly adjust his flight vector to compensate for possible shots.

ARGUMENT:
My big worry here is that people are in fact NOT TAKING SERIOUSLY the Cope India results. Which should be a /world wide/ clarion call to shift towards sacrificial assets (UCAV) that do not require close escort by manned aircraft.

Because if you look at the InAF claims that "With TKS we are just as good as the Americans..." as being even /half true/. With only 183 Raptors slated to replace over 700 Eagles, we cannot afford to dick about with numerically larger forces than can relay even marginal contact reports to distributed formations (returning some of the refuse-fight options). While ourselves forced to close with a vanguard force _just to get at_ someone behind them.

Now admittedly the scenario I described was largely a fixed target DCA profile but even in an OCA environment, it is possible for stack-back (shelf) and offensive split (pinch plus swingouts) tactics to be brutally compressing to nosepoint plus TOF on a supercruise shooter and especially if you yourself are running with sub optimal loads of AMRAAM (2 with IAM vs. 6 without), you cannot afford to be making the 'ultimate sacrifice' to save other manned assets. While having only a 2-10nm bootknife as backup.

Instead, you must ABSOLUTLELY REFUSE TO LOSE. By refusing to engage beyond a given 'screw the visual, no radar merge!' cutoff line.

And that means putting the bombers ahead of the fighters in a way that makes the THREAT bring his nose off and stabilize as he tries to blow up robots.

Not the other MiG Sweep way around that once we used to our horror in an S2A infested environment.

CONCLUSION:
The reality is that the F-22 pilot did indeed make a mistake. That being that he would be exposed to an opfor under conditions for which the Hornet is designed to win the fight. Which is to say coming into an engagement without a first-shot decision on hostility and probably less than 320 knots on the clock to keep nose hose rates very high as everybody goes ape at the 3/9.

THIS is how dumbass morons in the back of beyond harass as much as hassle the USN with 'everyday' encounters with threats that may or may not give notice at 20 miles that today they feel strong enough to take some scalps.

But it is NOT the way the Raptor should be used, /ever/.

COE baby. Contempt Of Engagement.

You are a sniper interested in multishot kills from beyond the threat optics and MAWS range. Not a flying monkey doing ID tree acrobatics purely for the sake of 'getting in close' for a chance of browning your nose in someone elses' tail pipe.

Maybe we can afford to trade 48 million dollar Super Hornets to 20 million dollar MiG-21 Lancer upgrades that way. We sure as heck cannot give away the _BILLION DOLLAR_ techbase which the Raptor represents. For want of a pilot coming into a 1v.whatever (it's your side of the number column that counts, not their's) and thus making an abominable mistake before he even starts to dance.

KPl.

[edit on 14-4-2006 by ch1466]