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The Super Hornet guns down the F-22 Raptor
page: 5share:
Grantrl78,
Let me thin the broth then:
1. Pilots don't mean as much as good tactics reflecting trained doctrine.
For most of the Vietnam war, USAF pilots flew 'Fluid Four, Single Shooter'. What this came down to was RHIP with the Captain or Major doing the killing and everybody else a cheerleader. THIS FACTOR ALONE totally skewed the success ratios because, of some 32 guided shots onboard. Only 4 were really employable.
2. A good weapon will make an Ace out of Hamburger.
A good plane cannot kill. A weapon can. Which is why I specifically stated agility+gun vs. FQ heat vs. BVR LDSD comparisons where 'the weapons system was doing most of the work'.
3. The reason there is so little determinative dominance differential between Airframes Is The Man.
All the babies onboard have similar absolute restrictions in terms of G and particularly G-Onset rates. Where dogfighting in particular is 'all about the EM baby'; you cannot rate the decisive capabilities of an airframe relative to absolute loading (G _is_ turn rate, for airspeed) or ability to /change state/ of maneuver (agility roll to roll at AOA-X) because these are not available through _specific limiters_ on the airframe. Put there to protect the pilots.
BLUNTLY: The man as a 3D spatial artist doesn't mean diddly dip anymore.
Because by the time he sees the threat, he SHOULD have shot it 4-5 times. And his only real protection from HOBS type imaging heat weapons is the DIRCM laser seducer. And that in turn cannot be introduced on fastjets because not only weight, tracking accuracy under G and FOV:aperture location issues but also because the first thing a laser SHOULD be pointed at is the giant canopy /before/ the missile launch. From 10nm or more.
>>
The points that I made were clear and simple. Your reply is impossible to decipher. Seems your method is to hope that you put me to sleep with techno babble. And it worked.
>>
No. Air combat is simple only so long as you employ the correct systems doctrine to keep yourself far away from the complexity of a dogfight. You go swimming with the gators and things get 'it depends' very fast. And escalate to levels well beyond the capacity of even a trained human to win, determinatively (often enough to set a fractional LER or Loss Exchange Ratio you can count on).
OTOH, with the Raptors system-specific advantages I could put YOU in the cockpit and you would win 90+% of the time (with todays system leveraging and a doctrine that reflected COE or Contempt Of Engagement tactics) against any Flanker out there.
>>
Needless to say my stats were only about vietnam "air to air" kill ratios.
From defense link:
Air warfare training started at Nellis in the early 1970s,
Rake said. "Air-to-air kill ratios declined during the Vietnam
War compared to the Korean war," he said. "The Air Force did an
analysis and determined that although we were producing
proficient pilots, they were not necessarily trained for combat." .
It was 1 to 1. And if you ask some russians, it was much
worse in favor of the vc.
>>
Okay, here's one of mine.
It's from a book entitled _OKB MiG_, written by Pyotr Butowski and Jay Miller. i.e. a Russian and his English interpreter if you will. Hardly a U.S. friendly reviewer.
Pages 220-221 delineate a Congressional Comptroller report on U.S. Aircraft losses to Vietnamese MiGs from mid 1965 to early '66 as totalling 1 USN jets and 3 USAF jets. During the same time frame, the Vietnamese lost 6 MiG-17 and 2 MiG-21. The Vietnamese considered their showing to be so poor that by the end of the year the 'neophyte' (Butowski's word) GCI crews and pilots were all sent to China for a 6-month crash course in the 'clobber college' of air combat doctrine.
Despite this, the VPAF continued to lose and lose big, in as from April 1966-to the end of the year, 6 MiG-21 and 23 MiG-17 were downed for a trade of 12 (4 & 8) U.S. aircraft. Some great bit of good the training did huh?"
Oh well, let's look at 1967 shall we? This is the first year we were 'officially' allowed to attack airbases inside exclusion zones so the Viets had to come out in force or face the consequences of having their Air Force blown to pieces where it stood as ramp umbrellas. Beginning with Operation Bolo (the decoy op in which F-4C fighters immitated F-105 bombers), 7 MiG-21 fighters were destroyed in January while another SEVENTY FIVE MiG-17/19/21 were knocked down in high activity months of August through November. Comparitively, a total of 5 USN and 22 USAF aircraft were lost.
Unlike in 1965-66, these losses forced the Russians and Chinese to realize that they could not sustain their client state's defense as long as airfields were open targets and so they did not replace the attrition.
1968 dawned as a 'prove you're serious or we let you sink' year. In which roughly 14 MiG-21s and 28 MiG-17s dueled with over 400 U.S. aircraft in theater at any one time, including the first real commitments of B-52's 'across the way' in Laos and Cambodia. And because they had effectively 'been trained' in U.S. doctrine, the VPAF actually did fairly well. Destroying 3 USN and 9 U.S. aircraft. However; they lost 12 of their remaining 14 MiG-21s in the attempt and _because we were now flying at 14-19K and 520 knots as standard_ the MiG-17s were largely out of the fight. They didn't have the gas to come up and out to us. And they didn't have the stiff wings and boosted controls to do anything but make a single head on pass when they did occasionally catch up.
It was at this point that, /despite VID requirements and weapons system flubups/, that the U.S. had the Viets bent over a barrel with the cricket mallet ready to whack-cheek.
So they came back to negotiate. Which resulted in the notorious 'bombing halt'.
During the interval between 1968 and 72 they did a few things along the coast and DMZ which continued to cost the USN pretty heavy. And they tried to come across and harass the Trails and Roads efforts. Yet they clearly also got sloppy as they were not facing the day:day Darwinian exercise by which they were exposed to our own developing tactics and technology. Most especially Teaball (the first netcentric combat system) and QRC-248/APX-80 as IFF spoofers which gave pseudo-lookdown in some cases.
The result, when we came back to do Freedom Train and the Line Backers was that the VPAF lost 58 MiGs 'of all flavors' compared to _2_ USN and _19_ USAF jets.
What's more, their 'pilot factor' was totally screwed as morale baselined to the extent that, when they could get an airbase opened up for the 66 MiG-17, 40 MiG-19 and 39 MiG-21 they had remaining _no one would fly_.
REALITY CHECK TIME:
SEVENTY NINE U.S. aircraft were lost to MiG related incidents throughout the campaign in SEA, from 1962 to 1972.
The VPAF lost 189 jets.
For an overall kill ratio of 2.39.
The thing to keep in mind here is that we were actively fighting the airwar for the better part of five years. ALL over the enemies home turf. And suffered our losses in fits and spurts 'at their convenience' which is THE WORST WAY to fight an OCA campaign.
Because 29 days out of 30 you won't see a single MiG. And then your scan discipline and your formation work will lag and some GCI controller will see it and send somebody up to Darwinate you.
Comparitively in four years of war with the DPRK and various Chinese/Russian honcho units; we lost 186 airframes (125 of them 'fighters'), almost ALL to hostile air action (I have seen reports as high as 400 and one Russian source claims 1,300) in a zero SAM threat environment.
>>
And the analogy that you all but missed, was that technology alone doesn't shoot down bad guys. Read it again. Simulated kills and real life kills are two different things. I am making simple points here.
>>
No. The analogy YOU don't understand is that all men are cowards when it comes to dying for /nothing/ and there is absolutely NO POINT in sending up handfuls of DCA to joust with 100 or more enemy tacair platforms.
That 'fear factor' wins more wars than you think. Because it makes the ability to fight back and the will to do so without apparent operational gain (i.e. just to throw your enemy off balance) a critical factor in spiking up the attrition numbers to the point where (say in comparison with WWII's Black Thursday Ball Bearing missions) the operational depth to which you will send aircraft is itself curtailed.
For all that was done in Vietnam, by either side, NONE of it was 'determinative' as much as worthwhile.
Because the Viets lost upwards of 2 million people (both sides) and could not keep us from hitting the targets we wanted, when we wanted to.
While the U.S. air services' failure to deliver a death stroke /every time/ they fought the enemy (so as to deny the ability to fight back at all), via crippling ROE and target list restrictions, ensured that there was no technical merit to the losses they DID suffer. To purely desultory attacks ('now and again' H&R).
Eventually, we destroyed the morale of the VPAF so that when it was clear that we were no longer farking about and they were about to be decapitated and lose their principle port of entry for the high tech they had no means of manufacturing. They did nothing. Not even with a force of roughly 100 airframes remaining and their capital under nightly bombardment.
NOTHING.
The difference between folks like you and reality is that you believe in man's 'skill' as being determinative whereas I see technology and doctrine and dominant attritional sortie statistics (numbers on my side) as being the highly expensive crutch by which FEAR is masked as the primary performance factor that manned-anything brings to the table.
KPl.
[edit on 19-4-2006 by ch1466]
Let me thin the broth then:
1. Pilots don't mean as much as good tactics reflecting trained doctrine.
For most of the Vietnam war, USAF pilots flew 'Fluid Four, Single Shooter'. What this came down to was RHIP with the Captain or Major doing the killing and everybody else a cheerleader. THIS FACTOR ALONE totally skewed the success ratios because, of some 32 guided shots onboard. Only 4 were really employable.
2. A good weapon will make an Ace out of Hamburger.
A good plane cannot kill. A weapon can. Which is why I specifically stated agility+gun vs. FQ heat vs. BVR LDSD comparisons where 'the weapons system was doing most of the work'.
3. The reason there is so little determinative dominance differential between Airframes Is The Man.
All the babies onboard have similar absolute restrictions in terms of G and particularly G-Onset rates. Where dogfighting in particular is 'all about the EM baby'; you cannot rate the decisive capabilities of an airframe relative to absolute loading (G _is_ turn rate, for airspeed) or ability to /change state/ of maneuver (agility roll to roll at AOA-X) because these are not available through _specific limiters_ on the airframe. Put there to protect the pilots.
BLUNTLY: The man as a 3D spatial artist doesn't mean diddly dip anymore.
Because by the time he sees the threat, he SHOULD have shot it 4-5 times. And his only real protection from HOBS type imaging heat weapons is the DIRCM laser seducer. And that in turn cannot be introduced on fastjets because not only weight, tracking accuracy under G and FOV:aperture location issues but also because the first thing a laser SHOULD be pointed at is the giant canopy /before/ the missile launch. From 10nm or more.
>>
The points that I made were clear and simple. Your reply is impossible to decipher. Seems your method is to hope that you put me to sleep with techno babble. And it worked.
>>
No. Air combat is simple only so long as you employ the correct systems doctrine to keep yourself far away from the complexity of a dogfight. You go swimming with the gators and things get 'it depends' very fast. And escalate to levels well beyond the capacity of even a trained human to win, determinatively (often enough to set a fractional LER or Loss Exchange Ratio you can count on).
OTOH, with the Raptors system-specific advantages I could put YOU in the cockpit and you would win 90+% of the time (with todays system leveraging and a doctrine that reflected COE or Contempt Of Engagement tactics) against any Flanker out there.
>>
Needless to say my stats were only about vietnam "air to air" kill ratios.
From defense link:
Air warfare training started at Nellis in the early 1970s,
Rake said. "Air-to-air kill ratios declined during the Vietnam
War compared to the Korean war," he said. "The Air Force did an
analysis and determined that although we were producing
proficient pilots, they were not necessarily trained for combat." .
It was 1 to 1. And if you ask some russians, it was much
worse in favor of the vc.
>>
Okay, here's one of mine.
It's from a book entitled _OKB MiG_, written by Pyotr Butowski and Jay Miller. i.e. a Russian and his English interpreter if you will. Hardly a U.S. friendly reviewer.
Pages 220-221 delineate a Congressional Comptroller report on U.S. Aircraft losses to Vietnamese MiGs from mid 1965 to early '66 as totalling 1 USN jets and 3 USAF jets. During the same time frame, the Vietnamese lost 6 MiG-17 and 2 MiG-21. The Vietnamese considered their showing to be so poor that by the end of the year the 'neophyte' (Butowski's word) GCI crews and pilots were all sent to China for a 6-month crash course in the 'clobber college' of air combat doctrine.
Despite this, the VPAF continued to lose and lose big, in as from April 1966-to the end of the year, 6 MiG-21 and 23 MiG-17 were downed for a trade of 12 (4 & 8) U.S. aircraft. Some great bit of good the training did huh?"
Oh well, let's look at 1967 shall we? This is the first year we were 'officially' allowed to attack airbases inside exclusion zones so the Viets had to come out in force or face the consequences of having their Air Force blown to pieces where it stood as ramp umbrellas. Beginning with Operation Bolo (the decoy op in which F-4C fighters immitated F-105 bombers), 7 MiG-21 fighters were destroyed in January while another SEVENTY FIVE MiG-17/19/21 were knocked down in high activity months of August through November. Comparitively, a total of 5 USN and 22 USAF aircraft were lost.
Unlike in 1965-66, these losses forced the Russians and Chinese to realize that they could not sustain their client state's defense as long as airfields were open targets and so they did not replace the attrition.
1968 dawned as a 'prove you're serious or we let you sink' year. In which roughly 14 MiG-21s and 28 MiG-17s dueled with over 400 U.S. aircraft in theater at any one time, including the first real commitments of B-52's 'across the way' in Laos and Cambodia. And because they had effectively 'been trained' in U.S. doctrine, the VPAF actually did fairly well. Destroying 3 USN and 9 U.S. aircraft. However; they lost 12 of their remaining 14 MiG-21s in the attempt and _because we were now flying at 14-19K and 520 knots as standard_ the MiG-17s were largely out of the fight. They didn't have the gas to come up and out to us. And they didn't have the stiff wings and boosted controls to do anything but make a single head on pass when they did occasionally catch up.
It was at this point that, /despite VID requirements and weapons system flubups/, that the U.S. had the Viets bent over a barrel with the cricket mallet ready to whack-cheek.
So they came back to negotiate. Which resulted in the notorious 'bombing halt'.
During the interval between 1968 and 72 they did a few things along the coast and DMZ which continued to cost the USN pretty heavy. And they tried to come across and harass the Trails and Roads efforts. Yet they clearly also got sloppy as they were not facing the day:day Darwinian exercise by which they were exposed to our own developing tactics and technology. Most especially Teaball (the first netcentric combat system) and QRC-248/APX-80 as IFF spoofers which gave pseudo-lookdown in some cases.
The result, when we came back to do Freedom Train and the Line Backers was that the VPAF lost 58 MiGs 'of all flavors' compared to _2_ USN and _19_ USAF jets.
What's more, their 'pilot factor' was totally screwed as morale baselined to the extent that, when they could get an airbase opened up for the 66 MiG-17, 40 MiG-19 and 39 MiG-21 they had remaining _no one would fly_.
REALITY CHECK TIME:
SEVENTY NINE U.S. aircraft were lost to MiG related incidents throughout the campaign in SEA, from 1962 to 1972.
The VPAF lost 189 jets.
For an overall kill ratio of 2.39.
The thing to keep in mind here is that we were actively fighting the airwar for the better part of five years. ALL over the enemies home turf. And suffered our losses in fits and spurts 'at their convenience' which is THE WORST WAY to fight an OCA campaign.
Because 29 days out of 30 you won't see a single MiG. And then your scan discipline and your formation work will lag and some GCI controller will see it and send somebody up to Darwinate you.
Comparitively in four years of war with the DPRK and various Chinese/Russian honcho units; we lost 186 airframes (125 of them 'fighters'), almost ALL to hostile air action (I have seen reports as high as 400 and one Russian source claims 1,300) in a zero SAM threat environment.
>>
And the analogy that you all but missed, was that technology alone doesn't shoot down bad guys. Read it again. Simulated kills and real life kills are two different things. I am making simple points here.
>>
No. The analogy YOU don't understand is that all men are cowards when it comes to dying for /nothing/ and there is absolutely NO POINT in sending up handfuls of DCA to joust with 100 or more enemy tacair platforms.
That 'fear factor' wins more wars than you think. Because it makes the ability to fight back and the will to do so without apparent operational gain (i.e. just to throw your enemy off balance) a critical factor in spiking up the attrition numbers to the point where (say in comparison with WWII's Black Thursday Ball Bearing missions) the operational depth to which you will send aircraft is itself curtailed.
For all that was done in Vietnam, by either side, NONE of it was 'determinative' as much as worthwhile.
Because the Viets lost upwards of 2 million people (both sides) and could not keep us from hitting the targets we wanted, when we wanted to.
While the U.S. air services' failure to deliver a death stroke /every time/ they fought the enemy (so as to deny the ability to fight back at all), via crippling ROE and target list restrictions, ensured that there was no technical merit to the losses they DID suffer. To purely desultory attacks ('now and again' H&R).
Eventually, we destroyed the morale of the VPAF so that when it was clear that we were no longer farking about and they were about to be decapitated and lose their principle port of entry for the high tech they had no means of manufacturing. They did nothing. Not even with a force of roughly 100 airframes remaining and their capital under nightly bombardment.
NOTHING.
The difference between folks like you and reality is that you believe in man's 'skill' as being determinative whereas I see technology and doctrine and dominant attritional sortie statistics (numbers on my side) as being the highly expensive crutch by which FEAR is masked as the primary performance factor that manned-anything brings to the table.
KPl.
[edit on 19-4-2006 by ch1466]
i4cu2,
>>
Thank you for your reply. I get the impression that the raptor is not great at vusual range dogfighting. Or I should say is average, if that is the case would the raptor be in need of a visual range fighter?
>>
I would take the Raptor over any other jet going into the visual fight for four reasons:
1. It's Gonna Live To Get There.
Having a relative advantange in front sector LO which means that I can set my geometry to kill-first and steamroll what's (hopefully numeric disadvantaged) left. There is a phrase "As goes the intercept, so goes the fight." Which is like saying success is 90% prep and 10% execution. Again, if you are the ONLY airframe which is halfway sorta-likely to make the blundered-in mistake of getting into the visual merge without taking multiple 'turn signals' (honor the shot or die trying) of energy bleed, you have an enormous advantage over everyone that is ducking and weaving from 20nm on in. Of course this leads to arrogance of overconfidence more than anything, IMO.
2. It is the best energy sustaining and recovering platform for this kind of work. The official thrust figures on the F1119 are supposedly on the order of 23Klbs and 39Klbst. But when you add dynamic ramp (compression:exhaust) factors at optimum altitude and operating Mach, the F-22 is probably close to a 60:90Klbst airframe. Which means it goes like skunk, especially fuel-light. If you want to play at dogfighting; the best way to do it is to fool the other guys canopy tracking so that he doesn't see you get slow as you make a first best move that is also his last. The Raptor, /may/ have enough thrust trust to get away with popping alpha wheelies to zero the boresight, and then reaccelerate before becoming too vulnerable.
3. It's the only official tacair platform with an integral MAWS system cued to auto-pop EXCM. Kinematic Flares on computer reflexes and 360` global coverage is /so much/ better than man-hand-ling the expendable response.
4. If I am flying against Jet-X in the Raptor, my entry is going to be as fast and as high as I can go while still being in cone on the weapons system. This solves a lot of problems. First off, most jets DO NOT like playing above about 25-27K feet they run out of (wingloading) lift and thrust at about the same moment and from then on out they are fighting with afterburner like a Saturn V which means they have a minute or three to be decisive before crawling home in maximum efficiency mode.
The Raptor will gallumph along just fine at 45-50 and it will probably sustain Mach 1.5 for the better part of 20-40 minutes. If I am that high (above the con belt) I am also buried in the deep-violet of the U-2 world. So that even though I am showing planview fairly early on, I am at least not flat plating a dark silouhette against a bright horizon.
OTOH, junior, upwards of THREE NAUTICAL MILES beneath my height is craning both his neck and his radar/IRST cones up, and will be a moving lightsource against dark ground or cloud.
My shot will also come off the rail a helluva lot faster than his will and it will thus GO FARTHER, coming down, to his altitude. Which theoretically means I should be able to kill while obliquely on my way out of the fight (I have zero respect for the AIM-9X as an ISRM weapon so even this is based on some fairly optimistic beliefs in it's total envelope capabilities).
MAKE NO MISTAKE. I think that engaging in a dogfight is the dumbest thing on the planet when you have a 20-40nm MRM capability and your 'from the rifle to the sword' _time delay_ is upwards of a minute getting to a 10nm second /firing/ opportunity. Not a kill. But a shot.
Not least because (in the Raptor with offboard SA) you should be able to CHOOSE whether you fight from the front quarter or wander around to convert high six. And thus there should never be any question as to who shoots first, last and _least_ for aspect vs. closure and height differentialed conditions (limits) on the weapons system.
The importance of this cannot be overstated because whatever you do in a visual fight, you'd better win /quick/ because once those contrails start streaming and you turn that jet 90` to a level horizon, you will attract the eyes and noses of every unengaged shooter out there and so go from hawking the fight to being a buzzard on a stick in a skeet range.
Indeed, if you are in the Raptor, you should not 'honor' fighter-air at all. If they are there, and it's your mission, KILL THEM. At least possible effort so that you can get back from comitted to unpredictable.
If you have an A2G compromise on your weapons load, either go around or bag as many as you can, BVR, and then go home. They are not worth the risk of a merge fight.
In any case, what you should _never do_ is suffer the attention of a SAM system because throwing bowtie and hot side 'glints' all around the horizon, is just begging to be locked up by somebodies highpower pencil illuminator. Or suck up a LOAL ARH shot that flies out to a seekercube predictor of 'less than Xnm' (say 5) necessary to get lockup in Hi PRF. And that is what 'dogfighting' does. Drag your nose up and down, round and round. So that not only are you a visual tennis court. You are a radar disco ball.
>>
As you can tell by my questions this type of information is not my strong suit. I have just begun to read and obviously i have much more to do. The little bit I have read and seen on certain television shows I had the impression that the raptor was going to be great in dogfighting. I mean in visual range dogfighting. So if the raptor isn't anything special in that area is it still decent enough to take care of itself or will it need visual range fighter?
>>
You asked me if I believed the Raptor was a 'good dogfighter'. Within the general limits of "It Depends...", as stated above, let me tell you what a better one would be.
First, it has to have a 2:1 or better sea level T/Wr. Acceleration means as much if not more than absolute performance in air combat and particularly in the mess of post-stall work, that only comes from big numbers on the left side of the equation.
Second, it has to be able to snapstall (acceleratively) at 350-400 knots to conduct high Alpha supermanning _without initial speed reduction_.
Third, it has to cost and or signature equate to less than the alternative platform as a function of number of kills _the Raptor_ (or any other threat jet) could make BEFORE the 'optimized' dogfighter's own weapons systems could become employable against it.
i.e. If the Raptor can see your platform X at ranges sufficient to launch all six AIM-120, then it had better cost less than 1/8th the cost of a Flanker or 50/8 = 6.25 million apiece. If the Raptor can only engage it at the range for which it's 2 AIM-9X are determinative for attrition, then it had better cost 1/4 that of a Flanker. Since you always want to assume a residual 2v.1 section 'last man standing' advantage over EACH F-22 that is attacked.
Fourth, it has to be able to maneuver with at least 75% of equality in either axis. Let's do the 'fighting wrist watches' scenario. Right is behind left at 4:30, coming up on lethal cone When left banks as little as 25` right. Entirely normal as you look like you are getting set to break into the threat as a last-best-move terminal defense. And right tightens up to take the shot before overshoot. Except, now that right is hosing that nose over hard, left pulls DOWN AND OUT. Creating an instant lead:lag timing and plane change. Because with a 2-axis fighter, using cartesian as opposed to polarimetric control laws, left can do that. Whereas right must 'roll to align' so that the baby onboard doesn't take negees and redout and so loses /seconds/ of OODA loop time.
The majority of BFM is /so simple/ in it's predictability. And that is what fools most people into worshiping fighter pilots as 'skilled artists of 4D space'. When in fact their very presence is what most precludes the effective use of maneuver in denying valid (proportional lead) missile shots while prosecuting with extreme vigour in the vertical and across the circle of a very tight, close in, fight.
Fifth, there is a deep and abiding need for TADIRCM or Tactical Aircraft Directed Infra Red Countermeasures. Because with good enough 'reflexes' (MAWS and energy factor plus expendables/LO) you can beat most radar shots. But close-in, the heat shot is almost undefeatable as a physical threat and the disparity between jet and missile is _getting wider_. Yet there can be no DIRCM on a manned fighter because the first thing to get dazzled will be the 10ft long canopy. And because the flying monkey cannot dogfight worth a damn (compared to the missiles he fires) anyway, why not prevent the shot as much as defeat it?
CONCLUSION:
Wars are won not by how many scalps you take before losing. But by how many losses you can withstand and still win. Dogfighting in /any/ sense (conventional EM or hyper-agility+HOBS) is thus the summit of stupidity because it relies on huge numbers /just to achieve entry/ to conditions where fight dynamics favor large added swings of attritional skew purely on the random-factor positioning and weapons/energy state of large number of players.
That said there are three driving factors here:
1. If you can't see the Indian, make damn sure you can beat his arrows. Whether by soaking the hits or actual physical/seeker defeat, a 'dogfighter' that met my specs might or might not be able to touch the Raptor itself. But it would be well able to dominantly kill any subsonic, 20-30K, tactical bomber (F-15/16/18/35) that it met and the Raptor would be able to do next to nothing to stop the slaughter from happening without itself becoming a victim. And since it was never alive, there would never be any question as to things like trained competency vs. bravery in the face of 'impossible odds' (400-700 U.S. jets vs. 20-30 interceptors).
2. A Raptor at full supercruise is gonna be doing clocking around 12-13nm/minute. A laser will do roughly 186,000 miles /per second/. Where the number of kills you make or lose is predominantly a factor of the TIME you take between each engagement opportunity, there is no doubt that the ABL-1 will be a better 'Air Dominance' platform than the Raptor. Indeed, after 2015, there will not be a single airframe on the face of this planet worth more than about 3-5,000 dollars in laser medium. And 500 bucks in electrical generation.
3. 'Bedding Down' a fighter involves hidden startup costs for spares support and military construction of facilities that is itself at least 30% over the initial price of the airframe itself and because the investment is fixed in the case of a fighter MOB, a targetable key signature vulnerability. So if you take say Indonesia's buy of 4 Su-30 + 2 Helicopters = 190 million dollars + 30% = 247 million dollars as being 'representative' of threat purchases in the new millenium; then divide that by 6.25 million each, _as a throwaway design_, for my 'dogfighter' (which is in fact little more than a target drone with a modem, a seeker and a GPS + parachute recovery option) and you start to see massive force structure changes of 2X6 = 14 shots per mission, as long as the manned airframe lasts to generate sorties. Vs. 39.5 _sorties_ whose shot count (kamikaze) is essentially infinite for as long as fuel is available.
Furthermore, given that this 'dogfighter' can be launched from a catapult mounted on the back of any large truck, even a small nation like AfG or Iraq could afford enough such _unsuppressable_ (on ground) systems as to either severely bloody the nose of a U.S. tactical main force (imagine all 39 of these things coming up at once. Even if only half score, it would be the greatest single-mission loss of U.S. airpower since WWII). Or they could just as easily be hidden away and used to wreak havoc with secondary 'occupational' forces such as Predators and Helicopters and Gunships.
Fighters have evolved to today's plateau level of development solely to support the weakness' of the men who fly them. Because every company and war college on the face of the planet KNOWS that if the same money were to be invested in the most capable technology base, we would have Vietnam level battles with every city state out there and medium/second tier confrontations would play out like WWII in terms of force attrition and replacement costs.
KPl.
>>
Thank you for your reply. I get the impression that the raptor is not great at vusual range dogfighting. Or I should say is average, if that is the case would the raptor be in need of a visual range fighter?
>>
I would take the Raptor over any other jet going into the visual fight for four reasons:
1. It's Gonna Live To Get There.
Having a relative advantange in front sector LO which means that I can set my geometry to kill-first and steamroll what's (hopefully numeric disadvantaged) left. There is a phrase "As goes the intercept, so goes the fight." Which is like saying success is 90% prep and 10% execution. Again, if you are the ONLY airframe which is halfway sorta-likely to make the blundered-in mistake of getting into the visual merge without taking multiple 'turn signals' (honor the shot or die trying) of energy bleed, you have an enormous advantage over everyone that is ducking and weaving from 20nm on in. Of course this leads to arrogance of overconfidence more than anything, IMO.
2. It is the best energy sustaining and recovering platform for this kind of work. The official thrust figures on the F1119 are supposedly on the order of 23Klbs and 39Klbst. But when you add dynamic ramp (compression:exhaust) factors at optimum altitude and operating Mach, the F-22 is probably close to a 60:90Klbst airframe. Which means it goes like skunk, especially fuel-light. If you want to play at dogfighting; the best way to do it is to fool the other guys canopy tracking so that he doesn't see you get slow as you make a first best move that is also his last. The Raptor, /may/ have enough thrust trust to get away with popping alpha wheelies to zero the boresight, and then reaccelerate before becoming too vulnerable.
3. It's the only official tacair platform with an integral MAWS system cued to auto-pop EXCM. Kinematic Flares on computer reflexes and 360` global coverage is /so much/ better than man-hand-ling the expendable response.
4. If I am flying against Jet-X in the Raptor, my entry is going to be as fast and as high as I can go while still being in cone on the weapons system. This solves a lot of problems. First off, most jets DO NOT like playing above about 25-27K feet they run out of (wingloading) lift and thrust at about the same moment and from then on out they are fighting with afterburner like a Saturn V which means they have a minute or three to be decisive before crawling home in maximum efficiency mode.
The Raptor will gallumph along just fine at 45-50 and it will probably sustain Mach 1.5 for the better part of 20-40 minutes. If I am that high (above the con belt) I am also buried in the deep-violet of the U-2 world. So that even though I am showing planview fairly early on, I am at least not flat plating a dark silouhette against a bright horizon.
OTOH, junior, upwards of THREE NAUTICAL MILES beneath my height is craning both his neck and his radar/IRST cones up, and will be a moving lightsource against dark ground or cloud.
My shot will also come off the rail a helluva lot faster than his will and it will thus GO FARTHER, coming down, to his altitude. Which theoretically means I should be able to kill while obliquely on my way out of the fight (I have zero respect for the AIM-9X as an ISRM weapon so even this is based on some fairly optimistic beliefs in it's total envelope capabilities).
MAKE NO MISTAKE. I think that engaging in a dogfight is the dumbest thing on the planet when you have a 20-40nm MRM capability and your 'from the rifle to the sword' _time delay_ is upwards of a minute getting to a 10nm second /firing/ opportunity. Not a kill. But a shot.
Not least because (in the Raptor with offboard SA) you should be able to CHOOSE whether you fight from the front quarter or wander around to convert high six. And thus there should never be any question as to who shoots first, last and _least_ for aspect vs. closure and height differentialed conditions (limits) on the weapons system.
The importance of this cannot be overstated because whatever you do in a visual fight, you'd better win /quick/ because once those contrails start streaming and you turn that jet 90` to a level horizon, you will attract the eyes and noses of every unengaged shooter out there and so go from hawking the fight to being a buzzard on a stick in a skeet range.
Indeed, if you are in the Raptor, you should not 'honor' fighter-air at all. If they are there, and it's your mission, KILL THEM. At least possible effort so that you can get back from comitted to unpredictable.
If you have an A2G compromise on your weapons load, either go around or bag as many as you can, BVR, and then go home. They are not worth the risk of a merge fight.
In any case, what you should _never do_ is suffer the attention of a SAM system because throwing bowtie and hot side 'glints' all around the horizon, is just begging to be locked up by somebodies highpower pencil illuminator. Or suck up a LOAL ARH shot that flies out to a seekercube predictor of 'less than Xnm' (say 5) necessary to get lockup in Hi PRF. And that is what 'dogfighting' does. Drag your nose up and down, round and round. So that not only are you a visual tennis court. You are a radar disco ball.
>>
As you can tell by my questions this type of information is not my strong suit. I have just begun to read and obviously i have much more to do. The little bit I have read and seen on certain television shows I had the impression that the raptor was going to be great in dogfighting. I mean in visual range dogfighting. So if the raptor isn't anything special in that area is it still decent enough to take care of itself or will it need visual range fighter?
>>
You asked me if I believed the Raptor was a 'good dogfighter'. Within the general limits of "It Depends...", as stated above, let me tell you what a better one would be.
First, it has to have a 2:1 or better sea level T/Wr. Acceleration means as much if not more than absolute performance in air combat and particularly in the mess of post-stall work, that only comes from big numbers on the left side of the equation.
Second, it has to be able to snapstall (acceleratively) at 350-400 knots to conduct high Alpha supermanning _without initial speed reduction_.
Third, it has to cost and or signature equate to less than the alternative platform as a function of number of kills _the Raptor_ (or any other threat jet) could make BEFORE the 'optimized' dogfighter's own weapons systems could become employable against it.
i.e. If the Raptor can see your platform X at ranges sufficient to launch all six AIM-120, then it had better cost less than 1/8th the cost of a Flanker or 50/8 = 6.25 million apiece. If the Raptor can only engage it at the range for which it's 2 AIM-9X are determinative for attrition, then it had better cost 1/4 that of a Flanker. Since you always want to assume a residual 2v.1 section 'last man standing' advantage over EACH F-22 that is attacked.
Fourth, it has to be able to maneuver with at least 75% of equality in either axis. Let's do the 'fighting wrist watches' scenario. Right is behind left at 4:30, coming up on lethal cone When left banks as little as 25` right. Entirely normal as you look like you are getting set to break into the threat as a last-best-move terminal defense. And right tightens up to take the shot before overshoot. Except, now that right is hosing that nose over hard, left pulls DOWN AND OUT. Creating an instant lead:lag timing and plane change. Because with a 2-axis fighter, using cartesian as opposed to polarimetric control laws, left can do that. Whereas right must 'roll to align' so that the baby onboard doesn't take negees and redout and so loses /seconds/ of OODA loop time.
The majority of BFM is /so simple/ in it's predictability. And that is what fools most people into worshiping fighter pilots as 'skilled artists of 4D space'. When in fact their very presence is what most precludes the effective use of maneuver in denying valid (proportional lead) missile shots while prosecuting with extreme vigour in the vertical and across the circle of a very tight, close in, fight.
Fifth, there is a deep and abiding need for TADIRCM or Tactical Aircraft Directed Infra Red Countermeasures. Because with good enough 'reflexes' (MAWS and energy factor plus expendables/LO) you can beat most radar shots. But close-in, the heat shot is almost undefeatable as a physical threat and the disparity between jet and missile is _getting wider_. Yet there can be no DIRCM on a manned fighter because the first thing to get dazzled will be the 10ft long canopy. And because the flying monkey cannot dogfight worth a damn (compared to the missiles he fires) anyway, why not prevent the shot as much as defeat it?
CONCLUSION:
Wars are won not by how many scalps you take before losing. But by how many losses you can withstand and still win. Dogfighting in /any/ sense (conventional EM or hyper-agility+HOBS) is thus the summit of stupidity because it relies on huge numbers /just to achieve entry/ to conditions where fight dynamics favor large added swings of attritional skew purely on the random-factor positioning and weapons/energy state of large number of players.
That said there are three driving factors here:
1. If you can't see the Indian, make damn sure you can beat his arrows. Whether by soaking the hits or actual physical/seeker defeat, a 'dogfighter' that met my specs might or might not be able to touch the Raptor itself. But it would be well able to dominantly kill any subsonic, 20-30K, tactical bomber (F-15/16/18/35) that it met and the Raptor would be able to do next to nothing to stop the slaughter from happening without itself becoming a victim. And since it was never alive, there would never be any question as to things like trained competency vs. bravery in the face of 'impossible odds' (400-700 U.S. jets vs. 20-30 interceptors).
2. A Raptor at full supercruise is gonna be doing clocking around 12-13nm/minute. A laser will do roughly 186,000 miles /per second/. Where the number of kills you make or lose is predominantly a factor of the TIME you take between each engagement opportunity, there is no doubt that the ABL-1 will be a better 'Air Dominance' platform than the Raptor. Indeed, after 2015, there will not be a single airframe on the face of this planet worth more than about 3-5,000 dollars in laser medium. And 500 bucks in electrical generation.
3. 'Bedding Down' a fighter involves hidden startup costs for spares support and military construction of facilities that is itself at least 30% over the initial price of the airframe itself and because the investment is fixed in the case of a fighter MOB, a targetable key signature vulnerability. So if you take say Indonesia's buy of 4 Su-30 + 2 Helicopters = 190 million dollars + 30% = 247 million dollars as being 'representative' of threat purchases in the new millenium; then divide that by 6.25 million each, _as a throwaway design_, for my 'dogfighter' (which is in fact little more than a target drone with a modem, a seeker and a GPS + parachute recovery option) and you start to see massive force structure changes of 2X6 = 14 shots per mission, as long as the manned airframe lasts to generate sorties. Vs. 39.5 _sorties_ whose shot count (kamikaze) is essentially infinite for as long as fuel is available.
Furthermore, given that this 'dogfighter' can be launched from a catapult mounted on the back of any large truck, even a small nation like AfG or Iraq could afford enough such _unsuppressable_ (on ground) systems as to either severely bloody the nose of a U.S. tactical main force (imagine all 39 of these things coming up at once. Even if only half score, it would be the greatest single-mission loss of U.S. airpower since WWII). Or they could just as easily be hidden away and used to wreak havoc with secondary 'occupational' forces such as Predators and Helicopters and Gunships.
Fighters have evolved to today's plateau level of development solely to support the weakness' of the men who fly them. Because every company and war college on the face of the planet KNOWS that if the same money were to be invested in the most capable technology base, we would have Vietnam level battles with every city state out there and medium/second tier confrontations would play out like WWII in terms of force attrition and replacement costs.
KPl.
If this is what you call thinning the broth - please feel free - for the sake of your argument - to go for some more water. Your style is the
equivalent of ripping disparate pages out of a tech dictionary scattering them on the floor and randomly picking passages that you think help your
case.
Take the last paragraph:
"The difference between folks like you and reality"
What does this even mean? Is it some Cartesian refutation of existentialism?
"believe in man's 'skill' as being determinative"
Again what does this statement mean?
I didn't know that fighters flew themselves now.
"I see technology and doctrine and dominant attritional sortie statistics (numbers on my side) as being the highly expensive crutch by which FEAR is masked as the primary performance factor that manned-anything brings to the table"
This sentence is devoid of any meaning whatsoever. It is like I am trying to argue with a deconstructionist. It sounds good though. Maybe people will not notice that there are no ideas behind that excruciating string of words. Are you now talking about that movie with marky mark btw?
"While the U.S. air services' failure to deliver a death stroke /every time/ they fought the enemy (so as to deny the ability to fight back at all), via crippling ROE and target list restrictions, ensured that there was no technical merit to the losses they DID suffer. To purely desultory attacks ('now and again' H&R).
I understand why only you might draw useful information from this passage as it seems to be written in the same impenetrable and scattered style that you use. It has to be the most horribly written sentence that I have ever tried to decipher.
"I never give in to the temptation to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. That would be too ridiculous. "
Take the last paragraph:
"The difference between folks like you and reality"
What does this even mean? Is it some Cartesian refutation of existentialism?
"believe in man's 'skill' as being determinative"
Again what does this statement mean?
I didn't know that fighters flew themselves now.
"I see technology and doctrine and dominant attritional sortie statistics (numbers on my side) as being the highly expensive crutch by which FEAR is masked as the primary performance factor that manned-anything brings to the table"
This sentence is devoid of any meaning whatsoever. It is like I am trying to argue with a deconstructionist. It sounds good though. Maybe people will not notice that there are no ideas behind that excruciating string of words. Are you now talking about that movie with marky mark btw?
"While the U.S. air services' failure to deliver a death stroke /every time/ they fought the enemy (so as to deny the ability to fight back at all), via crippling ROE and target list restrictions, ensured that there was no technical merit to the losses they DID suffer. To purely desultory attacks ('now and again' H&R).
I understand why only you might draw useful information from this passage as it seems to be written in the same impenetrable and scattered style that you use. It has to be the most horribly written sentence that I have ever tried to decipher.
"I never give in to the temptation to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. That would be too ridiculous. "
Originally posted by ch1466
If I could launch 100 drones which cost the same as two Su-27's and they swept down range at between Mach 1 and 1.4 (on turbine power) for 100nm, finding only 4 F-35s as a function of 'duck duck GOOSE!' interleaved seeker FOV reporting (weapons spaced as say 1-2 miles) in the process, I would have STILL made a statistical trade of 100 milloin vs. 400 million dollars.
We've had this discussion before....
You are not going to get drones built with those capablities (and the others necessary) for anything like 1 million dollars apiece.
Originally posted by Stealth Spy
This raises questions on the F-22's dogfighting abilities. If an F/A-18 can get a great lock on the Raptor like that, then how would the Raptor face the likes of the latest thrust vectored flankers, which are much more suited to dogfighting than the F/A-18's if the Flankers manage the transition from BVR to WVR ?
I dont think i have ever read such a ridiculous statement.
I keep forgetting there are kids on this site.
Originally posted by fulcrumflyer
SportyMB - recently-retired fighter pilot although I still work for the Air Force.
Daedalus3 - 60 off boresight (centerline of the aircraft) max for the AA-11, 90+ off boresight max for the AIM-9X.
Yeah.. ok.. But I'm asking 60/90 off boresight both above and below centreline plane? Or 30/45 above and below..
I'm presuming 60/90 both above and below..
Wat a minute... 90+??!!!...
Just how much plus is that??!!
Now you're talking about missiles pivoting right after launch!!
There was a video once of an F-16 using a datalink from an Awacs that fired an over the shoulder shot at a target behind him. The missile sent
straight out, then up and over and went for the target.
Originally posted by AdamJ
Originally posted by Stealth Spy
This raises questions on the F-22's dogfighting abilities. If an F/A-18 can get a great lock on the Raptor like that, then how would the Raptor face the likes of the latest thrust vectored flankers, which are much more suited to dogfighting than the F/A-18's if the Flankers manage the transition from BVR to WVR ?
I dont think i have ever read such a ridiculous statement.
I keep forgetting there are kids on this site.
Yup.. It takes one to know one aye?
If you'd read what you quoted AND read the entire thread history then you'd realise that the whole discussion is centered around this 'Kiddo' Quote...
Jeez!.. The grown ups on this site!!!
Originally posted by Zaphod58
There was a video once of an F-16 using a datalink from an Awacs that fired an over the shoulder shot at a target behind him. The missile sent straight out, then up and over and went for the target.
We DEFINITELY need to see that one!!!
Does the IFF kick in on/already active before the missile launch? If not then we have serious 'harakiri' issues!!
IFF is always supposed to be interrogated before launching a missile at a target. Especially if it's an Awacs targetting the plane. It doesn't
always happen though, which is how you end up with blue on blue. They're going to modify the AIM-9X as well. They both will be able to use LOAL,
Lock On After Launch. You fire a missile, the INS in the missile turns it onto a course where you think the target is, and it goes active and
searches for a target. The big drawback to LOAL is that it's going to go for the first target it sees.
[edit on 4/19/2006 by Zaphod58]
[edit on 4/19/2006 by Zaphod58]
Daedalus3,
The missiles can be slaved plus or minus 60 / 90+ from the aircraft boresight in both the horizontal and vertical planes. Unfortunately, 'looking at your crotch' to find the target buried below the nose is a hit or miss proposition. That means, how accurately are you pointing the missile to acquire the target? IR missiles have fairly narrow fields-of-view (FOV) in order to preclude countermeasures staying in the FOV for extended periods of time. Flares pretty much stop after being dispensed and if the missile's seeker nugget is still tracking the target, the flares leave the FOV rapidly (unless the missile is fired from near the 6 o'clock or 12 o'clock positions and the target is not maneuvering - unlikely scenario that a target would be dispensing flares and not maneuvering). What this means is that missle aiming has to be fairly accurate for the missile to 'see' the target. The actual FOV is classified.
The missiles are programmed to fly forward for some fraction of a second or some short distance before guidance is enabled. This precludes the missile from hitting the launching aircraft. This also affects the minimum-range dynamics of the missile. The time / distance numbers are also classified.
The '+' part of 90+ is also classified. Sorry.
[edit on 20-4-2006 by fulcrumflyer]
[edit on 20-4-2006 by fulcrumflyer]
The missiles can be slaved plus or minus 60 / 90+ from the aircraft boresight in both the horizontal and vertical planes. Unfortunately, 'looking at your crotch' to find the target buried below the nose is a hit or miss proposition. That means, how accurately are you pointing the missile to acquire the target? IR missiles have fairly narrow fields-of-view (FOV) in order to preclude countermeasures staying in the FOV for extended periods of time. Flares pretty much stop after being dispensed and if the missile's seeker nugget is still tracking the target, the flares leave the FOV rapidly (unless the missile is fired from near the 6 o'clock or 12 o'clock positions and the target is not maneuvering - unlikely scenario that a target would be dispensing flares and not maneuvering). What this means is that missle aiming has to be fairly accurate for the missile to 'see' the target. The actual FOV is classified.
The missiles are programmed to fly forward for some fraction of a second or some short distance before guidance is enabled. This precludes the missile from hitting the launching aircraft. This also affects the minimum-range dynamics of the missile. The time / distance numbers are also classified.
The '+' part of 90+ is also classified. Sorry.
[edit on 20-4-2006 by fulcrumflyer]
[edit on 20-4-2006 by fulcrumflyer]
Grantrl78.
>>
"The difference between folks like you and reality"
What does this even mean? Is it some Cartesian refutation of existentialism?
>>
You believe the rah-rah about skill. As if it was some kind of team sport. It's not. You are dominant _technically_ and by sortie counts in a given time window. Or you are down to slugging it out on the basis of stubbornness not skill.
WWII ETO is a prime example of a poorly executed strategic air campaign doctrine which was decided as a slugging match, not dominant use of airpower.
>>
"believe in man's 'skill' as being determinative"
>>
You said it was the man in the cockpit. Yet you never put the same men in /opposed/ cockpits so that Bear sits in the MiG-29 and Stupidevich sits in the Eagle with the AMRAAM, APG-70, Datalink and AEW&C.
Great pilots can compensate for only a VERY small element of absent technologic and tactical factoring on their side. Before they start dying just like the hamburger. Indeed, the principal difference between a veteran and a novice is often _knowing when not to start_ so much as quit a fight.
This goes back to Barkhorn and Rall days. Specifically when they went up to 'check flight' things out and found themselves close to an 8th AF bomber stream. Saw that the odds did not favor them, and came home.
Both of those pilots 'experience+skill' factor was /vastly/ greater than what ANY combat pilot today brings to the table. But what lead them to reach that conclusion was the mount between their knees. Not the numbers involved.
As proven when later attacks by 262s often against odds of /tens to one/ were prosecuted with such success that the 8th AF was reduced to killing them near their airfields. And then gunning pilots on the ground.
>>
Again what does this statement mean?
I didn't know that fighters flew themselves now.
>>
Fighters fly themselves 90+ percent of the time. Digital FBW not only keeps them straight and level during the transit = boredom phase of combat. They also /moderate as much as effectuate/ the pilot commands so that he doesn't bend the airframe or suffer a DCF.
>>>
"I see technology and doctrine and dominant attritional sortie statistics (numbers on my side) as being the highly expensive crutch by which FEAR is masked as the primary performance factor that manned-anything brings to the table"
>>>
>>
This sentence is devoid of any meaning whatsoever. It is like I am trying to argue with a deconstructionist. It sounds good though. Maybe people will not notice that there are no ideas behind that excruciating string of words. Are you now talking about that movie with marky mark btw?
>>
Tech beats skill. 70-80% of the time. Numbers beat tech 70-80% of the time. Where _a smart man_ will only attack when:
A. He can effect the overall outcome of the conflict as much as the battle.
B. He has the technology to make the battles outcome relatively certain.
Anything you do to technologically magnify his egotistical sense of self as an independent variable from the battle is a _crutch_ to the real effect he can and will achieve.
Since wars are determined, not by how much you kill but how many you can afford to lose, while still winning.
>>
"While the U.S. air services' failure to deliver a death stroke /every time/ they fought the enemy (so as to deny the ability to fight back at all), via crippling ROE and target list restrictions, ensured that there was no technical merit to the losses they DID suffer. To purely desultory attacks ('now and again' H&R).
I understand why only you might draw useful information from this passage as it seems to be written in the same impenetrable and scattered style that you use. It has to be the most horribly written sentence that I have ever tried to decipher.
>>
The air combats in Vietnam were largely fought in a haphazard and hit&run fashion. Indeed the DCA-manned element of the battle was one of the least effectual in comparison with flak, SAM and even operational loss causes.
GIVEN THE TIME WE WERE THERE.
THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT.
THE NUMBER OF TIMES WE LET THEM 'OFF THE HOOK'
79 aircraft lost, even at a 2.35:1 ratio is /superb/ control of attrition. Because never once did our losses to fighters become prohibitive to further combat actions. Never once did they inflict sufficient attrition to challenge both our in-theater assets and our _industrial_ ability to train pilots and produce airframes in a way that could AT ANY POINT have removed _the choice_ (on our part) to saturate NVN's air defenses the very next day with enough sorties to end the war.
It was the Sport War egotism which reduced the campaigns to a series of perceptual errors on 'winning seasons' rather than an overall composite of end-goals that causes the majority of attitudes like yours.
That we 'lost' the air war. That it was 'skill' that was determinative (as a humanist rather than industrial endeavor) and that thus it 'must be' the man-in-cockpit skill level which was at fault.
NONE of those factors are true. NOT ONE.
>>
"I never give in to the temptation to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. That would be too ridiculous. "
>>
We'll see.
KPl.
>>
"The difference between folks like you and reality"
What does this even mean? Is it some Cartesian refutation of existentialism?
>>
You believe the rah-rah about skill. As if it was some kind of team sport. It's not. You are dominant _technically_ and by sortie counts in a given time window. Or you are down to slugging it out on the basis of stubbornness not skill.
WWII ETO is a prime example of a poorly executed strategic air campaign doctrine which was decided as a slugging match, not dominant use of airpower.
>>
"believe in man's 'skill' as being determinative"
>>
You said it was the man in the cockpit. Yet you never put the same men in /opposed/ cockpits so that Bear sits in the MiG-29 and Stupidevich sits in the Eagle with the AMRAAM, APG-70, Datalink and AEW&C.
Great pilots can compensate for only a VERY small element of absent technologic and tactical factoring on their side. Before they start dying just like the hamburger. Indeed, the principal difference between a veteran and a novice is often _knowing when not to start_ so much as quit a fight.
This goes back to Barkhorn and Rall days. Specifically when they went up to 'check flight' things out and found themselves close to an 8th AF bomber stream. Saw that the odds did not favor them, and came home.
Both of those pilots 'experience+skill' factor was /vastly/ greater than what ANY combat pilot today brings to the table. But what lead them to reach that conclusion was the mount between their knees. Not the numbers involved.
As proven when later attacks by 262s often against odds of /tens to one/ were prosecuted with such success that the 8th AF was reduced to killing them near their airfields. And then gunning pilots on the ground.
>>
Again what does this statement mean?
I didn't know that fighters flew themselves now.
>>
Fighters fly themselves 90+ percent of the time. Digital FBW not only keeps them straight and level during the transit = boredom phase of combat. They also /moderate as much as effectuate/ the pilot commands so that he doesn't bend the airframe or suffer a DCF.
>>>
"I see technology and doctrine and dominant attritional sortie statistics (numbers on my side) as being the highly expensive crutch by which FEAR is masked as the primary performance factor that manned-anything brings to the table"
>>>
>>
This sentence is devoid of any meaning whatsoever. It is like I am trying to argue with a deconstructionist. It sounds good though. Maybe people will not notice that there are no ideas behind that excruciating string of words. Are you now talking about that movie with marky mark btw?
>>
Tech beats skill. 70-80% of the time. Numbers beat tech 70-80% of the time. Where _a smart man_ will only attack when:
A. He can effect the overall outcome of the conflict as much as the battle.
B. He has the technology to make the battles outcome relatively certain.
Anything you do to technologically magnify his egotistical sense of self as an independent variable from the battle is a _crutch_ to the real effect he can and will achieve.
Since wars are determined, not by how much you kill but how many you can afford to lose, while still winning.
>>
"While the U.S. air services' failure to deliver a death stroke /every time/ they fought the enemy (so as to deny the ability to fight back at all), via crippling ROE and target list restrictions, ensured that there was no technical merit to the losses they DID suffer. To purely desultory attacks ('now and again' H&R).
I understand why only you might draw useful information from this passage as it seems to be written in the same impenetrable and scattered style that you use. It has to be the most horribly written sentence that I have ever tried to decipher.
>>
The air combats in Vietnam were largely fought in a haphazard and hit&run fashion. Indeed the DCA-manned element of the battle was one of the least effectual in comparison with flak, SAM and even operational loss causes.
GIVEN THE TIME WE WERE THERE.
THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT.
THE NUMBER OF TIMES WE LET THEM 'OFF THE HOOK'
79 aircraft lost, even at a 2.35:1 ratio is /superb/ control of attrition. Because never once did our losses to fighters become prohibitive to further combat actions. Never once did they inflict sufficient attrition to challenge both our in-theater assets and our _industrial_ ability to train pilots and produce airframes in a way that could AT ANY POINT have removed _the choice_ (on our part) to saturate NVN's air defenses the very next day with enough sorties to end the war.
It was the Sport War egotism which reduced the campaigns to a series of perceptual errors on 'winning seasons' rather than an overall composite of end-goals that causes the majority of attitudes like yours.
That we 'lost' the air war. That it was 'skill' that was determinative (as a humanist rather than industrial endeavor) and that thus it 'must be' the man-in-cockpit skill level which was at fault.
NONE of those factors are true. NOT ONE.
>>
"I never give in to the temptation to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. That would be too ridiculous. "
>>
We'll see.
KPl.
Kilcoo316,
>>
We've had this discussion before....
You are not going to get drones built with those capablities (and the others necessary) for anything like 1 million dollars apiece.
>>
PROVE IT.
A typical MRM costs around 400 grande.
www.fas.org...
A typical SRM costs around 260 grande.
www.gao.gov...
There's your warhead/fuze/seeker/IMU baseline, OTS, non-developmental.
Raytheon just got paid 1.6 BILLION dollars for a 2,200 shot contract on Tomahawk Blk.IVs with a list price of 730 grande.
www.defenseindustrydaily.com...
Because I cannot find anything definitive, I'm going to say that a 'tally ho!' limited modem ala so-
www.symetrics.com...
Runs about 20 grande.
There's your 1 million dollar drone airframe.
Until and unless you can come up with some 'challenging figures' for supersonic factoring in a target/recce system like the AQM-37 or Mirach series or /something/.
YOU are the one sucking hind teat on the 'proof of productionization' level scalar economics.
Indeed, the original MALD was supposed to achieve a $30,000.00:round unit production cost. It achieved about 70 in low rate testbed production. The 'New MALD' is supposed to be 125 grande with a hoped for 75,000 dollar yield.
QUINTIPLY that price for a baseline MALI with a micromech (mini-AESA) or conformal array and you have a 625,000 dollar round.
Given the manned community's reaction to Tacit Rainbow 'in their airspace', I bet it scares the little weasels completely pissless thinking what could happen when the drone is not flying little circles in the sky over a radar van. But instead comes directly looking for their hides.
Manned military aviation is one of the greatest wastes of money there is. MOST SPECIFICALLY because it _doesn't win wars_ by which it pays for itself through conquest. Rather it only encourages a perceptual notion that /sport war/ (as an endless seasonal vicarious activity) is a 'good thing' for the attitudes it imparts to it's victims. And the cash it bleeds from the U.S. economy FOR NO GAIN OR END.
The sooner we fess up to our love affair with a military that uses and abuses our trust so badly (257 BILLION for a 104 MILLION JSF whose numbers are now HALF what they originally were 'for profit on export' supposed to achieve), the sooner we will start to look at weapons systems with more than a WWII level of jaded sky-knight romanticism.
KPl.
>>
We've had this discussion before....
You are not going to get drones built with those capablities (and the others necessary) for anything like 1 million dollars apiece.
>>
PROVE IT.
A typical MRM costs around 400 grande.
www.fas.org...
A typical SRM costs around 260 grande.
www.gao.gov...
There's your warhead/fuze/seeker/IMU baseline, OTS, non-developmental.
Raytheon just got paid 1.6 BILLION dollars for a 2,200 shot contract on Tomahawk Blk.IVs with a list price of 730 grande.
www.defenseindustrydaily.com...
Because I cannot find anything definitive, I'm going to say that a 'tally ho!' limited modem ala so-
www.symetrics.com...
Runs about 20 grande.
There's your 1 million dollar drone airframe.
Until and unless you can come up with some 'challenging figures' for supersonic factoring in a target/recce system like the AQM-37 or Mirach series or /something/.
YOU are the one sucking hind teat on the 'proof of productionization' level scalar economics.
Indeed, the original MALD was supposed to achieve a $30,000.00:round unit production cost. It achieved about 70 in low rate testbed production. The 'New MALD' is supposed to be 125 grande with a hoped for 75,000 dollar yield.
QUINTIPLY that price for a baseline MALI with a micromech (mini-AESA) or conformal array and you have a 625,000 dollar round.
Given the manned community's reaction to Tacit Rainbow 'in their airspace', I bet it scares the little weasels completely pissless thinking what could happen when the drone is not flying little circles in the sky over a radar van. But instead comes directly looking for their hides.
Manned military aviation is one of the greatest wastes of money there is. MOST SPECIFICALLY because it _doesn't win wars_ by which it pays for itself through conquest. Rather it only encourages a perceptual notion that /sport war/ (as an endless seasonal vicarious activity) is a 'good thing' for the attitudes it imparts to it's victims. And the cash it bleeds from the U.S. economy FOR NO GAIN OR END.
The sooner we fess up to our love affair with a military that uses and abuses our trust so badly (257 BILLION for a 104 MILLION JSF whose numbers are now HALF what they originally were 'for profit on export' supposed to achieve), the sooner we will start to look at weapons systems with more than a WWII level of jaded sky-knight romanticism.
KPl.
- The MRM and SRM you quote are both one way machines, if they miss on the first pass, they're out of the game, no energy or control authority to
make one complete 180 deg turn (obviously a bit after initial launch) never mind several.
- The tomahawk is strictly subsonic, and does not have the manouvering capabilities to tie down a fighter.
- Even if the missile had supersonic "in cruise" propulsion levels, energy bleed through missile manouvering would quickly bring this down to subsonics, low subsonics at that.
The problem is not so much the sensors as the propulsion and aerodynamics/control. Is it not generally agreed that a missile has to be 3 times faster and quicker turning to nail a manouvering fighter? This is for a conventional missile where the target has reduced reaction time, not a mach 1.5 missile that will be big enough to see on radar and evade early.
The conventional missile can afford to bleed the vast majority of its energy in terminal manouvering as the target can only perform 'local' manouvering and the missile doesn't have to make a 2nd/3rd/4th/5th/whatever pass.
For example, for a MRM travelling at around Mach 4, the target may have warning of the missile 15 miles away, that gives him around 20 seconds warning. If he accelerates to Mach 1.5 (average) that gives a manouvering 'zone' of 5 and a half miles (approx).
But if the missile is travelling at around Mach 1.5... and the target has the same 15 mile warning, he now has 55 seconds to react, again at an average of Mach 1.5 the manouvering zone is 15 miles or so.
Not to mention the possibility of a newer/next generation aircraft perhaps having the possibilty to evade the missile on speed alone using only military power. Heck, the pilot could even stuff a SRM down the throat of this kind of AAM and have time to get clear.
In my opinion, you are underestimating the complexity of packing in a propulsion system with sufficient fuel and power to obtain the required range, speed and manouvering capabilities.
- The tomahawk is strictly subsonic, and does not have the manouvering capabilities to tie down a fighter.
- Even if the missile had supersonic "in cruise" propulsion levels, energy bleed through missile manouvering would quickly bring this down to subsonics, low subsonics at that.
The problem is not so much the sensors as the propulsion and aerodynamics/control. Is it not generally agreed that a missile has to be 3 times faster and quicker turning to nail a manouvering fighter? This is for a conventional missile where the target has reduced reaction time, not a mach 1.5 missile that will be big enough to see on radar and evade early.
The conventional missile can afford to bleed the vast majority of its energy in terminal manouvering as the target can only perform 'local' manouvering and the missile doesn't have to make a 2nd/3rd/4th/5th/whatever pass.
For example, for a MRM travelling at around Mach 4, the target may have warning of the missile 15 miles away, that gives him around 20 seconds warning. If he accelerates to Mach 1.5 (average) that gives a manouvering 'zone' of 5 and a half miles (approx).
But if the missile is travelling at around Mach 1.5... and the target has the same 15 mile warning, he now has 55 seconds to react, again at an average of Mach 1.5 the manouvering zone is 15 miles or so.
Not to mention the possibility of a newer/next generation aircraft perhaps having the possibilty to evade the missile on speed alone using only military power. Heck, the pilot could even stuff a SRM down the throat of this kind of AAM and have time to get clear.
In my opinion, you are underestimating the complexity of packing in a propulsion system with sufficient fuel and power to obtain the required range, speed and manouvering capabilities.
There is one kind of missile I've found that has broadly comparable qualities.
The KLUB (SS-N-27) ASCM 3M-54E can cruise at Mach 0.7 and accelerate to a terminal speed of 2.8 or so. (It uses 2 seperate stages to do so)
It can manouvre at 6.5g, has a cruise endurance of 35 mins and 11 mins at terminal speed. Which 6.5g is probably not enough, there could be weight taken off the warhead to enhance this to an acceptable level.
But its 8 metres long, 0.5 metres wide and is an anti-ship missile.
From:
here
and
here
I cannot get a price on the thing, but chinese upgrading of 6 submarines with the system was $1.5 billion US.
The KLUB (SS-N-27) ASCM 3M-54E can cruise at Mach 0.7 and accelerate to a terminal speed of 2.8 or so. (It uses 2 seperate stages to do so)
It can manouvre at 6.5g, has a cruise endurance of 35 mins and 11 mins at terminal speed. Which 6.5g is probably not enough, there could be weight taken off the warhead to enhance this to an acceptable level.
But its 8 metres long, 0.5 metres wide and is an anti-ship missile.
From:
here
and
here
I cannot get a price on the thing, but chinese upgrading of 6 submarines with the system was $1.5 billion US.
Kilcoo316,
>>
- The MRM and SRM you quote are both one way machines, if they miss on the first pass, they're out of the game, no energy or control authority to make one complete 180 deg turn (obviously a bit after initial launch) never mind several.
>>
Don't believe you.
Primarily because form drag and lift at drag are the driving issues and the missile has next to none in one and highly 'open=optimizable' variables in the other (no wing or fuselage mating requirements on wingspan or chord etc.).
Which is why a 100lb MALI went for something like 11 minutes at Mach 1 with a nominally 120lbst TJ-50M engine. Or 114nm.
L@D is also why a Tornado out climbs the Lightning, out accelerates the Phantom and OUT TURNS the Hawk. Yet is not a 'fighter' itself.
And if an F-16 type aircraft is fresh off the tanker, it ain't gonna be no ballerina either.
While IF (BIG IF!) the pilot or MAWS can see this no-plume, 6" threat coming, who's to say that the weapon itself will be alone?
If it's not WHERE IS S/HE GONNA GO?
>>
- The tomahawk is strictly subsonic, and does not have the manouvering capabilities to tie down a fighter.
>>
But the Hounddog isn't. Nor is the AQM-37. Nor is the KH-31. OPEN YOUR MIND!
Indeed, the SIMPLEST solution is a lope-to-sprint optimization whereby small clusters of SRM blip motors are coaxialized around the main exhaust plenum.
Because just a touch will get you back up above the Mach and /once there/ your optimization as a robotic platform brings you back all kinds of options.
An F-15 is good for about 4.8G @ Mach 1.3. An F-4 is good for about 3.5.
A 'dogfighter' drone might easily be expected to exceed 12.
The question then becoming how does this compare with a SUBSONIC target like an F-16 which _cannot be_ above X altitude at Y payload weight, subsonically, without being crippled for /any/ turn performance as 'more than an airliner' (1-2G).
And whose L@D is further compromised by the nature of the stores it also MUST carry as parasitic mechanisms.
>>
- Even if the missile had supersonic "in cruise" propulsion levels, energy bleed through missile manouvering would quickly bring this down to subsonics, low subsonics at that.
>>
Bahh. Says who?
You have 1/10th (maybe) the drag of a maned platform at a _SIMILAR_ T/Wr. Your arguments are weak as an old woman's.
>>
The problem is not so much the sensors as the propulsion and aerodynamics/control. Is it not generally agreed that a missile has to be 3 times faster and quicker turning to nail a manouvering fighter?
>>
As I recall, I once said it has to have 5 times the effective G capability as a rate:radius leverage to pull lead and make the collision vector.
But MISS-iles have to make the kill in the first pass too. One roll of the dice. One chance.
A _hunting_ missile is going to be like that damn alarm clock in the Macdonalds 'Late For Breakfast' commerical.
Following you like a cop chases ferraris until you are a mission kill (dump ordnance to sustain Mach while chopping throttle)
Or a real one. As the missile gains back E faster than you do. And every break you make, its can PULL OFF (go from lead to lag or change up out of plane) to keep coming at you and coming at you.
Then (10-30 seconds later, depending on how widely spread the skirmish line is) its fellow pack members arrive and it's HO DADDY! Which way do I turn as I sit, hip deep in gators coming from every damn direction there is.
Worse, if they catch you AT the tanker. What do you do about the .9 limited jet which cannot maneuver at all? Fit every HVA with an ATL?
It may come down to exactly that.
>>
This is for a conventional missile where the target has reduced reaction time, not a mach 1.5 missile that will be big enough to see on radar and evade early.
>>
Crap-
www.designation-systems.net...
13" tall with a 3ft wingspan.
I _dare you_ to take a piece of paper and a yardstick, duct tape the two together, SPRAY PAINT THEM BOTH BLAZE ORANGE, jam them into the ground.
And start walking backwards.
Then tell me when you can no longer see them. Is it a mile? 500yds? 200?
(AvLeak Article) In 1991, the USAF/USN got their jollies off drop-lofting ADM-141A TALDS out into a known ADIZ and letting the Iraqi GCI 'run exercises' as they watched. Only to have the Iraqi pilots report not seeing these little 10ft _grey painted_ wonders as they criss crossed, back and forth, over their position. Oh, the GCI /radars/ could see them (augmentation tuned to band). But not the fighter systems. And certainly not the 'eagle eyed killers' driving them.
>>
The conventional missile can afford to bleed the vast majority of its energy in terminal manouvering as the target can only perform 'local' manouvering and the missile doesn't have to make a 2nd/3rd/4th/5th/whatever pass.
>>
And the BGM-109 can fly more than 700nm with a 1,000lb warhead while weighing around 3,000lbs. How much of that are you gonna lose when you lose the A2G mission role? How much are you gonna shave when it's a 1hr loft instead of a 2.5 or more?
OPEN YOUR MIND!
And recall that the 'new MALD' (the one the AF is carefully controlling the development of, lest it present an unprecedented 'multimission' recce/intercept/suppression/jammer/decoy system option to manned airframes) being worked on by Raytheon will weight 250lbs.
While the OLD one (100lbs) would fly 250nm.
SCALE IS IMPORTANT. But within a given scaling factor, you can double the size:weight and still be within the same drag and 'similar' thrust curves, particularly at the target end.
>>
For example, for a MRM travelling at around Mach 4, the target may have warning of the missile 15 miles away, that gives him around 20 seconds warning. If he accelerates to Mach 1.5 (average) that gives a manouvering 'zone' of 5 and a half miles (approx).
>>
Ignoring the limits of MAWS on detection of 'cold plumes' (turbines with possible additives) or burned out missiles with little more than gas generator support of their electrics, how does the fighter itself achieve this miracle mile acceleration from .85 to 1.5 in less than 20 seconds?
Guido, that's 18 knots per second. My research (_McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle_ by James Perry Stevenson indicates that a company test pilot took a factory bird up to 40,000ft with an average temperature of -66`C and accelerated from .9 Mach to 2.0 Mach in 58 seconds. That's the 621 knots at roughly 10.71 knots per second if my math is right.
How about we add some gas, some bombs and some general knock-about ear and dirt to an F-16 with a bit more than half the installed thrust?
'Back in the day', it took upwards of two minutes and 70 MILES for an F-4 to get up to full huff.
>>
But if the missile is travelling at around Mach 1.5... and the target has the same 15 mile warning, he now has 55 seconds to react, again at an average of Mach 1.5 the manouvering zone is 15 miles or so.
Not to mention the possibility of a newer/next generation aircraft perhaps having the possibilty to evade the missile on speed alone using only military power. Heck, the pilot could even stuff a SRM down the throat of this kind of AAM and have time to get clear.
>>
You have to see it coming. You have to have 'someplace to go' and you have to get to speed.
While I agree that a shootdown scenario is possible, it quickly becomes prohibitive, not only for cost but for time. And I don't think a sustained EM fight with a weapon that has less than half the drag and the same T/Wr as the fighter does _clean_ is going to have any problem whatsoever chasing down said jet when it is heavily loaded.
And if you have 'the equivalent of 2 Flankers' worth of replacement missiles, _even at 5 million each_. At two miles spacing, that's 20+ drones in the air covering a line of airspace 40 miles across.
And collapsing in on the F-16 class fighter (with all of 4 missiles onboard) in at least 'me and each turbo-SAM next to me and each turbo-SAM outboard-next from him.' i.e. FIVE ROUNDS vs. a jet that only has 4 missiles. And which itself can likely not match the clustered attack mode (helmet sight or targeting pod designation interval) on more than the center-FOV targets. Say 1-2 missiles. As they ALL dogpile on, simultaneously.
>>
In my opinion, you are underestimating the complexity of packing in a propulsion system with sufficient fuel and power to obtain the required range, speed and manouvering capabilities.
>>
And, IMO, you are making arguments without checking publically acknowledged performance capabilites.
designation-systems.net...
www.irconnect.com...
OPEN YOUR MIND.
And stop letting the greatest 'protection money' racket on the face of the planet, do the same to your wallet. At least not without THINKING about how /simple/ these systems would be to generate in HUGE numbers. By a next-to-nobody manufacturing power.
KPl.
>>
- The MRM and SRM you quote are both one way machines, if they miss on the first pass, they're out of the game, no energy or control authority to make one complete 180 deg turn (obviously a bit after initial launch) never mind several.
>>
Don't believe you.
Primarily because form drag and lift at drag are the driving issues and the missile has next to none in one and highly 'open=optimizable' variables in the other (no wing or fuselage mating requirements on wingspan or chord etc.).
Which is why a 100lb MALI went for something like 11 minutes at Mach 1 with a nominally 120lbst TJ-50M engine. Or 114nm.
L@D is also why a Tornado out climbs the Lightning, out accelerates the Phantom and OUT TURNS the Hawk. Yet is not a 'fighter' itself.
And if an F-16 type aircraft is fresh off the tanker, it ain't gonna be no ballerina either.
While IF (BIG IF!) the pilot or MAWS can see this no-plume, 6" threat coming, who's to say that the weapon itself will be alone?
If it's not WHERE IS S/HE GONNA GO?
>>
- The tomahawk is strictly subsonic, and does not have the manouvering capabilities to tie down a fighter.
>>
But the Hounddog isn't. Nor is the AQM-37. Nor is the KH-31. OPEN YOUR MIND!
Indeed, the SIMPLEST solution is a lope-to-sprint optimization whereby small clusters of SRM blip motors are coaxialized around the main exhaust plenum.
Because just a touch will get you back up above the Mach and /once there/ your optimization as a robotic platform brings you back all kinds of options.
An F-15 is good for about 4.8G @ Mach 1.3. An F-4 is good for about 3.5.
A 'dogfighter' drone might easily be expected to exceed 12.
The question then becoming how does this compare with a SUBSONIC target like an F-16 which _cannot be_ above X altitude at Y payload weight, subsonically, without being crippled for /any/ turn performance as 'more than an airliner' (1-2G).
And whose L@D is further compromised by the nature of the stores it also MUST carry as parasitic mechanisms.
>>
- Even if the missile had supersonic "in cruise" propulsion levels, energy bleed through missile manouvering would quickly bring this down to subsonics, low subsonics at that.
>>
Bahh. Says who?
You have 1/10th (maybe) the drag of a maned platform at a _SIMILAR_ T/Wr. Your arguments are weak as an old woman's.
>>
The problem is not so much the sensors as the propulsion and aerodynamics/control. Is it not generally agreed that a missile has to be 3 times faster and quicker turning to nail a manouvering fighter?
>>
As I recall, I once said it has to have 5 times the effective G capability as a rate:radius leverage to pull lead and make the collision vector.
But MISS-iles have to make the kill in the first pass too. One roll of the dice. One chance.
A _hunting_ missile is going to be like that damn alarm clock in the Macdonalds 'Late For Breakfast' commerical.
Following you like a cop chases ferraris until you are a mission kill (dump ordnance to sustain Mach while chopping throttle)
Or a real one. As the missile gains back E faster than you do. And every break you make, its can PULL OFF (go from lead to lag or change up out of plane) to keep coming at you and coming at you.
Then (10-30 seconds later, depending on how widely spread the skirmish line is) its fellow pack members arrive and it's HO DADDY! Which way do I turn as I sit, hip deep in gators coming from every damn direction there is.
Worse, if they catch you AT the tanker. What do you do about the .9 limited jet which cannot maneuver at all? Fit every HVA with an ATL?
It may come down to exactly that.
>>
This is for a conventional missile where the target has reduced reaction time, not a mach 1.5 missile that will be big enough to see on radar and evade early.
>>
Crap-
www.designation-systems.net...
13" tall with a 3ft wingspan.
I _dare you_ to take a piece of paper and a yardstick, duct tape the two together, SPRAY PAINT THEM BOTH BLAZE ORANGE, jam them into the ground.
And start walking backwards.
Then tell me when you can no longer see them. Is it a mile? 500yds? 200?
(AvLeak Article) In 1991, the USAF/USN got their jollies off drop-lofting ADM-141A TALDS out into a known ADIZ and letting the Iraqi GCI 'run exercises' as they watched. Only to have the Iraqi pilots report not seeing these little 10ft _grey painted_ wonders as they criss crossed, back and forth, over their position. Oh, the GCI /radars/ could see them (augmentation tuned to band). But not the fighter systems. And certainly not the 'eagle eyed killers' driving them.
>>
The conventional missile can afford to bleed the vast majority of its energy in terminal manouvering as the target can only perform 'local' manouvering and the missile doesn't have to make a 2nd/3rd/4th/5th/whatever pass.
>>
And the BGM-109 can fly more than 700nm with a 1,000lb warhead while weighing around 3,000lbs. How much of that are you gonna lose when you lose the A2G mission role? How much are you gonna shave when it's a 1hr loft instead of a 2.5 or more?
OPEN YOUR MIND!
And recall that the 'new MALD' (the one the AF is carefully controlling the development of, lest it present an unprecedented 'multimission' recce/intercept/suppression/jammer/decoy system option to manned airframes) being worked on by Raytheon will weight 250lbs.
While the OLD one (100lbs) would fly 250nm.
SCALE IS IMPORTANT. But within a given scaling factor, you can double the size:weight and still be within the same drag and 'similar' thrust curves, particularly at the target end.
>>
For example, for a MRM travelling at around Mach 4, the target may have warning of the missile 15 miles away, that gives him around 20 seconds warning. If he accelerates to Mach 1.5 (average) that gives a manouvering 'zone' of 5 and a half miles (approx).
>>
Ignoring the limits of MAWS on detection of 'cold plumes' (turbines with possible additives) or burned out missiles with little more than gas generator support of their electrics, how does the fighter itself achieve this miracle mile acceleration from .85 to 1.5 in less than 20 seconds?
Guido, that's 18 knots per second. My research (_McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle_ by James Perry Stevenson indicates that a company test pilot took a factory bird up to 40,000ft with an average temperature of -66`C and accelerated from .9 Mach to 2.0 Mach in 58 seconds. That's the 621 knots at roughly 10.71 knots per second if my math is right.
How about we add some gas, some bombs and some general knock-about ear and dirt to an F-16 with a bit more than half the installed thrust?
'Back in the day', it took upwards of two minutes and 70 MILES for an F-4 to get up to full huff.
>>
But if the missile is travelling at around Mach 1.5... and the target has the same 15 mile warning, he now has 55 seconds to react, again at an average of Mach 1.5 the manouvering zone is 15 miles or so.
Not to mention the possibility of a newer/next generation aircraft perhaps having the possibilty to evade the missile on speed alone using only military power. Heck, the pilot could even stuff a SRM down the throat of this kind of AAM and have time to get clear.
>>
You have to see it coming. You have to have 'someplace to go' and you have to get to speed.
While I agree that a shootdown scenario is possible, it quickly becomes prohibitive, not only for cost but for time. And I don't think a sustained EM fight with a weapon that has less than half the drag and the same T/Wr as the fighter does _clean_ is going to have any problem whatsoever chasing down said jet when it is heavily loaded.
And if you have 'the equivalent of 2 Flankers' worth of replacement missiles, _even at 5 million each_. At two miles spacing, that's 20+ drones in the air covering a line of airspace 40 miles across.
And collapsing in on the F-16 class fighter (with all of 4 missiles onboard) in at least 'me and each turbo-SAM next to me and each turbo-SAM outboard-next from him.' i.e. FIVE ROUNDS vs. a jet that only has 4 missiles. And which itself can likely not match the clustered attack mode (helmet sight or targeting pod designation interval) on more than the center-FOV targets. Say 1-2 missiles. As they ALL dogpile on, simultaneously.
>>
In my opinion, you are underestimating the complexity of packing in a propulsion system with sufficient fuel and power to obtain the required range, speed and manouvering capabilities.
>>
And, IMO, you are making arguments without checking publically acknowledged performance capabilites.
designation-systems.net...
www.irconnect.com...
OPEN YOUR MIND.
And stop letting the greatest 'protection money' racket on the face of the planet, do the same to your wallet. At least not without THINKING about how /simple/ these systems would be to generate in HUGE numbers. By a next-to-nobody manufacturing power.
KPl.
Originally posted by Daedalus3
Originally posted by AdamJ
Originally posted by Stealth Spy
This raises questions on the F-22's dogfighting abilities. If an F/A-18 can get a great lock on the Raptor like that, then how would the Raptor face the likes of the latest thrust vectored flankers, which are much more suited to dogfighting than the F/A-18's if the Flankers manage the transition from BVR to WVR ?
I dont think i have ever read such a ridiculous statement.
I keep forgetting there are kids on this site.
Yup.. It takes one to know one aye?
If you'd read what you quoted AND read the entire thread history then you'd realise that the whole discussion is centered around this 'Kiddo' Quote...
Jeez!.. The grown ups on this site!!!
I read the first page.
If you really think that it is a serious discussion i do pity you.
Let's not allow a good debate to spiral downward into personal criticisms. So far I've learned a lot out of this thread (of course, that's
not saying much... ).
Thank you muchly.
Thank you muchly.
Originally posted by ch1466
Don't believe you. Primarily because form drag and lift at drag are the driving issues and the missile has next to none in one and highly 'open=optimizable' variables in the other (no wing or fuselage mating requirements on wingspan or chord etc.).
L@D is also why a Tornado out climbs the Lightning, out accelerates the Phantom and OUT TURNS the Hawk. Yet is not a 'fighter' itself.
Bahh. Says who?
You have 1/10th (maybe) the drag of a maned platform at a _SIMILAR_ T/Wr. Your arguments are weak as an old woman's.
Then (10-30 seconds later, depending on how widely spread the skirmish line is) its fellow pack members arrive and it's HO DADDY! Which way do I turn as I sit, hip deep in gators coming from every damn direction there is.
13" tall with a 3ft wingspan. I _dare you_ to take a piece of paper and a yardstick, duct tape the two together, SPRAY PAINT THEM BOTH BLAZE ORANGE, jam them into the ground
Ignoring the limits of MAWS on detection of 'cold plumes' (turbines with possible additives) or burned out missiles with little more than gas generator support of their electrics, how does the fighter itself achieve this miracle mile acceleration from .85 to 1.5 in less than 20 seconds?
You have to see it coming. You have to have 'someplace to go' and you have to get to speed.
And, IMO, you are making arguments without checking publically acknowledged performance capabilites.
- hehehe, I'll remember to tell that to the guys at work that a missile has near no form drag, I assume by lift @ drag you mean L/D, lift to drag? You do know that every change in the diameter of a missile results in a series of shock waves, each bleeding propulsive energy off?
If it has control surfaces, it has excresence drag, if they generate lift, due to being stubby little things (in the case of non-cruise missiles), the lift dependant drag is alot more than you'd expect. But most of the missile lift comes from the body itself as far as I'm aware.
- Tornado outclimbing a Lighting? Eh?? Out accelerating a phantom I can see as it can swing wing to change the drag rise coefficient. Out turning a hawk, nope not having that for a second.
- 1/10th the drag while performing big manouvres? I think not. Little dinky control surfaces are all the control authority the missile has, if it wants to move, it has to deflect these a long way = alot of lift induced drag, whereas the aircraft has a reasonable drag config up to around 20 deg.
- And what if I go straight through the skirmish line diving for the deck while this cruise missile interceptor hits the ground when I keep going through for the jackpot behind?
- I don't have to see it, the radar/computer/HMD does.
- How does it acheive the acceleration? Nose down and burner of course.
- Radar sees it, you dive and increase speed before manouvering 'inside' in a high g meeting that its control surfaces simply cannot match. Then your inside the picket line with speed on the baddies, keep going and nail the launcher.
- I'm making arguments based on experience and the adage from some real experienced engineers, "star wars design ideas don't work", Keep It Simple Stupid and of course, if its so easy, why as no-one else done it before?
ch1466 thanx for rehashing your argument.
It's like the cliff's notes version.
And no doubt technology will advance to where all fighters are piloted by a guy in a small room at the pentagon.
It would have advantages.
The two main ones being that the aircraft would be free to pull many more gs than the human body
can take (see HiMAT). Also the pentagon would not have to worry about losing those expensive and hard to train pilots in combat.
And about jets flying themselves - not unless you count this guy.
With the state of cognitive science - pilots have very little to worry about in the area of competition from computers. (see chinese room)
[edit on 21-4-2006 by grantrl78]
It's like the cliff's notes version.
And no doubt technology will advance to where all fighters are piloted by a guy in a small room at the pentagon.
It would have advantages.
The two main ones being that the aircraft would be free to pull many more gs than the human body
can take (see HiMAT). Also the pentagon would not have to worry about losing those expensive and hard to train pilots in combat.
And about jets flying themselves - not unless you count this guy.
With the state of cognitive science - pilots have very little to worry about in the area of competition from computers. (see chinese room)
[edit on 21-4-2006 by grantrl78]
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