Fighter Tactics (About AAMs)

ajay_ijn

New Member
Nice Article in Janes


source

New-generation aircraft such as the Gripen, Rafale, Typhoon and F-22 are in service now or under test. Most attention is naturally focused on airframe-related advances - stealth, supersonic maneuverability and so on - but it is smaller, often overlooked details that may bring about a revolution in air combat and bring about some of the most important changes since the advent of the missile-armed supersonic fighter in the 1960s.

Within 10 years, many in-service fighters will be armed with new and much more lethal air-to-air missiles (AAMs). They will be carrying more advanced radars and other technologies which make it much less difficult to declare a target as hostile well beyond visual range. They will also be operating with tactical datalinks which allow several aircraft to share tactical information in a manner which is simply impossible for most aircraft today. Individual and formation tactics will change - but the implications of new technology are such that nobody knows exactly how that will happen.

AAM technology defines the depth of the air battle. "Whoever has the longest reach controls the engagement," comments fighter analyst Ben Lambeth of the Rand Corporation. Lambeth recalls flying on a mock engagement in 1996, a four-versus-four out of Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida. F-15s armed with the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range AAM (AMRAAM) took on four F-15s simulating MiG-29s armed with R-27 Alamo MRAAMs and R-73 Archer SRAAMs. "I never had a tally on any of the bad guys. I rarely saw our wingman. We never put more than 3g on the airplane and we never got inverted. There were missiles and people dying everywhere."

This result reflects today's level of technology, in which the within visual range (WVR) and beyond visual range (BVR) envelopes are separate. A BAE Systems paper from 1996 - reflecting the UK thinking that led to the adoption of the BAE Systems Meteor AAM for the Typhoon - points out that a target beyond 40km range "can feel free to maneuver without fear of engagement". This is echoed by Robert Shaw, former US Navy fighter pilot and author of Fighter Combat Tactics. "There is virtually no missile that you can't outmaneuver at maximum range."

With today's weapons, the BAE paper notes, most MRAAM engagements will take place between 15km and 40km-range. Older short-range AAMs "lack not only total energy but also missile speed" and are most lethal at ranges under 8km, according to BAE. Between 8km and 15km, therefore, there is a 'commit' zone where the target can still avoid a merge into close combat if the odds are unfavorable.

The key to the next generation of MRAAMs, such as Meteor, is greater range and (more importantly) greater energy at range. The result is a much larger "no-escape zone". This zone surrounds a target and defines the maximum range at which the target cannot out-maneuver a missile shot. The missile's kill probability may be almost constant from its minimum range out to 80km. (One issue here, observes Shaw, is that it may be difficult to confirm that the missile has found its target, particularly in poor visibility: this may be one reason why Meteor has a two-way datalink.)

Boeing has joined the Meteor program with the intention of marketing the missile in the US. The situation is complicated by the fact that the F-22 needs it less than other fighters. Earlier this year, F-22 chief test pilot Paul Metz confirmed that the F-22's speed and altitude capability acts as a booster stage for the common-or-garden AMRAAM. At M1.5 and at greater altitude than the target (the F-22 has a very fast climb rate and a service ceiling well above 50,000ft), AMRAAM's range is 50% greater than is the case in a subsonic, same-altitude launch.

New SRAAMs are faster than the AIM-9 (due to larger motors or smaller wings) and have new infrared (IR) dome materials which do not blind the seeker when they are heated by air friction. With imaging infrared (IIR) seekers, they are just as effective against a non-afterburning target as against a full-reheat target. Under some circumstances, a modern SRAAM is a BVR missile, capable of being cued on to the target by aircraft sensors and locking on to it at an extreme range of 12-20km. "You can expect to be engaged from about 80km inbound and enter a [MRAAM] no-escape zone shortly thereafter," notes the BAE paper. The commit decision must be made sooner and, if the target pilot commits, the target will enter an SRAAM no-escape zone.

Once the fighters 'merge' - that is, their momentum takes them within SRAAM range of each other, so that the first fighter to attempt to escape will offer his opponent an open tail-on shot - improved SRAAMs and helmet-mounted display (HMD) technology multiply the opportunities for WVR shots. It is no longer necessary to point the aircraft towards the adversary; any target within the field of regard of the missile seeker can be engaged instantly.

According to one source, US Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets from the Balkans theater recently engaged in mock combat with Israeli Air Force fighters. The Hornets were armed with AIM-9s, and the Israeli fighters carried Python 3 and Python 4 missiles and Elbit DASH helmet sights. IDR's source describes the results as "more than ugly", the Israelis prevailing in 220 out of 240 engagements.

There are lessons to be learned from this engagement and other tests which have shown similar results. One is that modern HMDs and SRAAMs are essential. A second lesson is that WVR combat is extremely dangerous and will become more so. "We'll see less dogfighting once we get the ability to engage targets 90º off the nose," says Shaw. "Somebody's going to get a shot, and if the missile is lethal you're going to get hit." Even the recent history of engagements suggests that the 'furball' of fighter combat, with multiple engagements spread across miles of sky, is on its way out. "We don't see a history of high-g maneuvering in recent engagements," says one industry analyst. "It's fun to practice but unwise to pursue."

A third lesson is that WVR is an equalizer. "An F-5 or a MiG-21 with a high-off-boresight missile and HMD is as capable in a 1-v-1 as an F-22," comments a former navy fighter pilot, now a civilian program manager. "In visual combat, everybody dies at the same rate," says RAND's Lambeth. Indeed, he says that a larger fighter like the F-22 may be at a disadvantage. In the early 1980s force-on-force exercises at the navy's Top Gun fighter school, F-14s were routinely seen and shot down by smaller F-5s flown by the navy's Aggressor units. An F-22 which slows down to enter a WVR combat also gives up the advantage of supersonic maneuverability.

Close range confrontation
Nevertheless, the experts consulted by IDR agreed that the fighter still needs to have the ability to fight at close range - including having a gun. The current state of the debate on this highly controversial piece of equipment is that the F-22 has a gun - indeed, its M61A2 installation, complete with a neat power-actuated door over the muzzle, is one of the most complex ever seen - as does the US Air Force (USAF) version of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The US Navy (USN) had apparentlyy decided at one point to forgo the gun on the JSF - which is primarily intended as a deep-strike aircraft - but Boeing program managers now say that there is an "ongoing debate" on the subject. The marines, concerned about vertical landing weight, have settled on a 'missionized' gun, installed in a package that replaces an internal bomb station. Both JSF competitors have selected a Boeing-developed version of the Mauser BK 27mm cannon, fitted with a linkless feed system by Western Design. The UK Royal Air Force has considered eliminating the gun from its second tranche of Typhoons, not so much to save weight as to eliminate training and support costs.
That one statement "There is virually no missile which cannot be out maneuvered at its maximum range" caught my eyes.
when Su-30MKI came boasting about its super maneuverability, many people said that Modern Air to Air missiles will make maneuverability useless as AAMs can now turn any amount of Gs.

But when a Missile Crosses its "No Escape Zone".
Its capability is going to decrease certainly.
As more and more fuel is gonna be used up, The Missiles capability to outmaneuvar target decreases largely.

And at that exact moment, Su-30MKI is gonna get into really advantageous position because of its claimed Super maneuverbility.
ofcourse all this happens when missiles crosses its no escape Zone.

And another good point to note F-22 itself acts has booster to AMRAAM to increase its range by 50%.

what if both Fighters Launched Their Missiles exactly at same distance and at same time. Both the missile are capable reaching their Range
Let us assume The Missiles are AIM-120C-5 and R-77.
Fighters are Su-27 and F-15.
Then which Factor is gonna primarily decide??
Both Missiles have same Speed, Both needs to be Updated in Mid Course and Both have In built Terminal guidance Radar.
 

Totoro

New Member
ajay_ijn said:
what if both Fighters Launched Their Missiles exactly at same distance and at same time. Both the missile are capable reaching their Range
Let us assume The Missiles are AIM-120C-5 and R-77.
Fighters are Su-27 and F-15.
Then which Factor is gonna primarily decide??
Both Missiles have same Speed, Both needs to be Updated in Mid Course and Both have In built Terminal guidance Radar.
I am not sure i understand the set up you give. su27 and f15 are going towards each other? Difference in max range then doesn't matter, as both can achieve their respective max ranges as its been said. It does matter how far away those planes are from each other. I also assume we're saying both planes are at same altitude and have same speed at launch?

It has been said though that r77 has lower max speed than amraam though. It'd mean less energy once the fuel runs out. So if distance between planes is small enough that no missile runs out of its fuel before it reaches the target - results would probably be decided by any eventual jamming and other countermeasures. Without them, it is unlikely either plane would survive in a one-on-one engagement unless amraam somehow hits the sukhoi before r77 radar can lock onto f15, which is unlikely at the given scenario parameters, even with lower r77 speed and a bit lesser range in r77s radar though the chance for it increases as the distance between planes at launch increases outside the no escape zone. Concretely, if use the widely quoted but unofficial figures of mach3 and mach4 max speeds for r77 and aim120, and radar ranges of 15 and 20 km for same missiles, respectively, distance between planes at launch thats needed for r77 seeker lock on to cease to be sure, before its mother plane is destroyed is around 55km or more.

Article itself is very good though it really doesnt say anything more that common sense and knowledge of physics shouldnt tell you. 80km Meteor claim is interesting though, its most precise and most useful figure i've seen yet, not the usual 100+ km theoretical range. Also, a plane is always a booster stage for its missile - it doesnt matter if its f22 or su27. Both can achieve similar speeds and ceilings, its just that su27 will use more fuel to do it. Fuel permitting, every pilot would serve its missile better to get as high as possible and go as fast as possible during launch.
 

ajay_ijn

New Member
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It has been said though that r77 has lower max speed than amraam though. It'd mean less energy once the fuel runs out. So if distance between planes is small enough that no missile runs out of its fuel before it reaches the target - results would probably be decided by any eventual jamming and other countermeasures. Without them, it is unlikely either plane would survive in a one-on-one engagement unless amraam somehow hits the sukhoi before r77 radar can lock onto f15, which is unlikely at the given scenario parameters, even with lower r77 speed and a bit lesser range in r77s radar though the chance for it increases as the distance between planes at launch increases outside the no escape zone. Concretely, if use the widely quoted but unofficial figures of mach3 and mach4 max speeds for r77 and aim120, and radar ranges of 15 and 20 km for same missiles, respectively, distance between planes at launch thats needed for r77 seeker lock on to cease to be sure, before its mother plane is destroyed is around 55km or more.
I thought even Missiles Speed would be same considering that Both Aircraft are at Same altitude and are at same speed.
R-77 critics claim its mid body Fins have high drag which may decrease its no escape zone.

And AMRAAMs mid course updates
Can they be given by even an AWACS or some other Fighter?
if yes, then it greatly improves its capability.

The Above situation however would be decided by Jamming and Countermeasures.
 

Totoro

New Member
As far as i know yes. Both other fighters and awacs can take over the guidance of a missile.

Difference in missile speeds between aim120 and r77 are said to be due the rocket motor - amraam's is designed to burn for shorter time but give more power while r77 burns longer but gives less power. thats power per second, not power overall.
 

Zaphael

New Member
What I read was that only the AMRAAM D was able to allow a second fighter or Awacs handle the mid course updates. Very unsure about current C-7s doing that.
 

Kurt Plummer

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
AI,
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New-generation aircraft such as the Gripen, Rafale, Typhoon and F-22 are in service now or under test. Most attention is naturally focused on airframe-related advances - stealth, supersonic maneuverability and so on - but it is smaller, often overlooked details that may bring about a revolution in air combat and bring about some of the most important changes since the advent of the missile-armed supersonic fighter in the 1960s.
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None of the above match the F-22 with the possible exception of the Typhoon because none can operate the _predominant_ S2A environment long enough, freely enough (BVR detached support like a constant chainsaw), to kill determinatively (first shot = only shot). You also need to consider that the opfor doesn't represent a LO capability yet. Thus this comes off as mere chest thumping trying to show you are better than your friends. To which the only possible answer is 'some friends' who would compete to sell the very systems which are most dangerous to parts of the world where they will be copied and sent back at us.
That said, if the air threat goes LO, then A2A becomes a game of sprint and drift to gain aspect for signature characterization, much like subs trying to get into each other's noise cones. At that point LRAAM (which is what a 100-150km Meteor really is) become worthless. Against an S2A threat in the S-300 category, you still have to be careful because his telephone pole is gonna outreach your 660lb ALARM or 1,000lb ARMAT (which are /incredibly/ dated concepts compared to the HSARM and Armiger) and if he doesn't bag you, he may well pose a threat to your tanker, your jammer, your ISR.
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Within 10 years, many in-service fighters will be armed with new and much more lethal air-to-air missiles (AAMs). They will be carrying more advanced radars and other technologies which make it much less difficult to declare a target as hostile well beyond visual range. They will also be operating with tactical datalinks which allow several aircraft to share tactical information in a manner which is simply impossible for most aircraft today. Individual and formation tactics will change - but the implications of new technology are such that nobody knows exactly how that will happen.
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Which is what happens when the Brits are so caught off guard by EUnification into a closed shop environment that the only thing they can /try/ to do is keep a leg in each bed by selling the French the Meteor. Rafale with MICA is a piddling little podunk system with little to recommend it over the Mirage-2000-05 and variants.
That said, none of what is being looked at is particularly advanced because nobody is talking about the methods needed to debunk stealth and beat the laser threat.
If you don't go distributed optics in aerosondes or stats and ground installations, you don't get the collated trackfile data needed to clobber someone based on predictive shooting and endgame acquisitions by wide-FOV sensors. If you don't design weapons competitive with lasers (seeker hardening as well as hard kill) as _cheaply saturative_ and MULTIPASS CAPABLE, you are not going to win the next technology hurdle any more than you will fighting shooter-illuminator tactics with R1 series Alamo.

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AAM technology defines the depth of the air battle. "Whoever has the longest reach controls the engagement," comments fighter analyst Ben Lambeth of the Rand Corporation. Lambeth recalls flying on a mock engagement in 1996, a four-versus-four out of Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida. F-15s armed with the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range AAM (AMRAAM) took on four F-15s simulating MiG-29s armed with R-27 Alamo MRAAMs and R-73 Archer SRAAMs. "I never had a tally on any of the bad guys. I rarely saw our wingman. We never put more than 3g on the airplane and we never got inverted. There were missiles and people dying everywhere."
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Nonsense. The value of the missile is inherent to it's TOF and Pole capabilities. Where those capabilities are measured in /seconds/ you are stuck with a bus vehicle to bring them into play. Where the bus vehicle is 50 million dollars for a fully kitted out Su-30MKI, and further where you are fighting in numbers on the order of 20-40 total DCA competitive jets against a threat force numbering in the HUNDREDS (USAF OAF = 400 jets compared to the 'NATO' content of about 70-120). You're just an idiot to even try. Your jets will be blown out of the sky for nothing. Or more likely, the pilots will turn from air show silk scarf heroes to screaming cowards and pull a (Monty Python) Holy Grail on you.
Nor is it entirely about missile performance. It is equally about cueing sensors and expected acquisition ranges. This is why the only real hope for rinky dink nations expecting to fight major players is to put a seeker in a target or decoy or recce drone and fly a BUNCH of them in a datalink skirmish line, across the battlespace. Defeating LO by sweepthru. At a million dollars each, 2 Su-30s worth of 'Persistant SAM' or 'Turbo AAM' will no neither fear nor waste in taking on say 50-60 aircraft coming over the fence at once. Nor will a system that is potentially pararecoverable necessarily be a write off if it finds _nothing at all_.
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This result reflects today's level of technology, in which the within visual range (WVR) and beyond visual range (BVR) envelopes are separate. A BAE Systems paper from 1996 - reflecting the UK thinking that led to the adoption of the BAE Systems Meteor AAM for the Typhoon - points out that a target beyond 40km range "can feel free to maneuver without fear of engagement". This is echoed by Robert Shaw, former US Navy fighter pilot and author of Fighter Combat Tactics. "There is virtually no missile that you can't outmaneuver at maximum range."
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I remember an F-16CJ pilot from OAF that was doing a kind of 'battlespace dominance' mission which was 50:50 BARCAP and SEAD. He looked down at his SAD and saw a repetitively flashing 'tanker' symbol which the ASQ-213 could not interpret for range or bearing sufficient to cue a HARM. Suddenly, there was a bright flash on the horizon and an SA-2 or 3 came up at him in EOCG mode from 10-15nm away. Due to a plethora of decoy emitters in the area and whatever else they were doing to his electronics he _still_ couldn't suppress so he and this missile went toe to toe with him going downhill to break LOS and it chasing him and his towbird useless until /finally/ he had to go orthagonal on it. And ONLY THEN did he beat the thing though I think the blast going off above and behind him still gave the metalbenders some work to fix the stab.
This reflected similar attitudes in DS which saw the Albinos pushing a long second after the Mudhens went over the fence and hitting hard slant limits on the airfields that they were supposedly 'CAPing' such that the F-15Es got gomers all up and down the raid column because the nominally A2A force couldn't make the snapdown geometry work at the distances they were looking for face shots and they had a harddeck of 2,000ft with friendly air in the area.
DCA is and always will be a _combined arms_ exercise first. And a silk scarf morons convention second. And you can take SAM shots from just about anywhere these days because they've been 'netcentric' for /years/.
Shots come fleetingly in such an environment and WVR either 'just happens' because somebody comes across your nose unexpectedly (less and less likely with airborne BMC2). Or because you had a really lousy initial and cleanup salvo under the operating BVR rules and there is no other choice. I tell you now and you believe me later: NOBODY TURNS IN AN S2A THREAT ZONE. Something which all the 2-way datalinks and linked picture data as well as MRM heavy weapons loads is driving towards ever more seriously.
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With today's weapons, the BAE paper notes, most MRAAM engagements will take place between 15km and 40km-range. Older short-range AAMs "lack not only total energy but also missile speed" and are most lethal at ranges under 8km, according to BAE. Between 8km and 15km, therefore, there is a 'commit' zone where the target can still avoid a merge into close combat if the odds are unfavorable.
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Late mod C7 and D AMRAAM can best this by two even now. Sure, you lose some smash but as long as the threat comes at you in a more or less straight line, the weapon will simply make a later terminal play and still have plenty of Ps to cook their goose. The big problem comes when the threat is doing constant tacturns to bring the nose off mean bearing AND generate lateral midcourse play. Because now you are messing with time AND seeker cube. Of course they are also screwing up their own closure rates and generally giving you more time to set your own followon play. Which is where flying in broad arcs and long trails with pure datalink support is supposed to let them beat not just the missile but the radar cone. It works too, with HDTWS and mechanical arrays because sooner or later, you make an obvious geometry commit to one side or the other and the free side pinches you while the engaged section leaves the scene. The big deal here is number of shots vs. sorties. If they come up with 2 SARH rounds, they're screwed. If they come up with 4 or more ARH rounds, even a loss may get them enough shots in air to hurt somebody on random odds. The big thing is that you cannot let them get away to do it again. This means shutting down the MOBs and generally preventing the roadbase operation by other means. Of course if you go LO, they have a lot harder time coming out to get you. And if you go with glide kits, the PDI/GAI system basically falls apart since the threat typically cannot get airborne and far enough downrange to make a difference before the slingbombers are retiring from the scene as they catch a faceful of missiles.
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With today's weapons, the BAE paper notes, most MRAAM engagements will take place between 15km and 40km-range. Older short-range AAMs "lack not only total energy but also missile speed" and are most lethal at ranges under 8km, according to BAE. Between 8km and 15km, therefore, there is a 'commit' zone where the target can still avoid a merge into close combat if the odds are unfavorable.
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The big question is why anybody thinks that it matters. If you've got LO and AEW or at least Fighter Director ops; you will kill them long before they can pose a threat. If you don't the first section is burnable and only the trailer or wideout swung secondary is going to matter. And every pilot knows this so you have scenarios where the F-15s nail the MiG-29s because they overstepped a run-fer-d'border testing mission and the Serbian drivers got clipped trying to run away. If they had been serious or just 'dedicated' their would have been another section pressing hard behind them. And/or they would have take Archer shots as they ate the AMRAAMs rather than trying to (presumably) notch monopulse at less than 8nm.
If you can't count on your people to fall on literally 'their' (the opfors) swords ala WWII, so as to fix the threat to a given geometry setup, you had damn well better sell off those MiG-21s and early 29s. Or robot them up to serve as missile soaks.
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The key to the next generation of MRAAMs, such as Meteor, is greater range and (more importantly) greater energy at range. The result is a much larger "no-escape zone". This zone surrounds a target and defines the maximum range at which the target cannot out-maneuver a missile shot. The missile's kill probability may be almost constant from its minimum range out to 80km. (One issue here, observes Shaw, is that it may be difficult to confirm that the missile has found its target, particularly in poor visibility: this may be one reason why Meteor has a two-way datalink.)
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The Meteor as I last read about it was capable of nearly double 80km. Now maybe they've gone the 'NEZ vs. total envelope' (cheetah chasedown vs. loping wolf) approach with a very hot impulse peak. But even 80km is roughly what you would expect an AIM-54C to be looking at a 'fighter type' target for. So don't call it an MRAAM call it an LRAAM and be honest about it.
That said, the reason for the 2-way tether (and it's digital vice analogue status) is to first support much more accurate missile shot clocks at distances where lofting and other existing extension maneuvers severely mess up the kinematic predictions. And second to allow shooter:illuminator tactics whereby you no longer have to tune to a given radars guidance channels but can throw weapons 50km in front of one jet while lighthousing from another 100km behind the shooter.
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Boeing has joined the Meteor program with the intention of marketing the missile in the US. The situation is complicated by the fact that the F-22 needs it less than other fighters. Earlier this year, F-22 chief test pilot Paul Metz confirmed that the F-22's speed and altitude capability acts as a booster stage for the common-or-garden AMRAAM. At M1.5 and at greater altitude than the target (the F-22 has a very fast climb rate and a service ceiling well above 50,000ft), AMRAAM's range is 50% greater than is the case in a subsonic, same-altitude launch.
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The F-22 is and should remain a COE platform that ONLY kills what is in the way of it's accomplishing it's mission. Particularly where it is carrying IAM for rollback or high value ground target work and so is effectively operating at F-35 levels of 'both AMRAAM today!' carriage. As such, I would expect it to be playing the high-fast-far card from the start and simply rotate it's vector off the threat lane to reach GBU-39 distances especially. Otherwise, you get into the F-15E scenario where you have to ask "Am I a fighter or a bomber today?" and often the gas and the weapons loads are defining your mission capabilities before anything else.
That said, even when operating in split-section mode (one A2A and one A2G like the Hornet does), the REAL question is not what your pole numbers look like when missile number one leaves the jet. But what any secondary shots come out like when you crank the nose and toe the rudders to generally slow the hell down so that you don't impale yourself on his LO defeat threshold and take a shot of your own. I would fully expect the first round to launch at 60 and connect or miss at 40. But the next (subsonic) might look more like 25-15 or even less. Given there is also a persistent rumor that the AMRAAM may replace the HARM as a SHARK weapon (powered IAM) you may have a very limited spread of options either way.
Now tie the Raptors down to the raid corridor of some pokey-from-maskokey jet like the B-2 or F-117 and you are really tying hands.
In this, to paraphrase Heater Heatley: "Tiz better to be a sniper rifle in a shopping cart than a hun horse archer." Because it will mean that the Raptor can play the engagement like a Typhoon (walking fire) or lobshot at high speed and send weapons (theoretically) all the way into the heart of a threat IADS with nothing more than basic MCG supplied by an RQ-4 or E-3.
There is no doubt that the U.S. desperately needs to regain slipping missile dominance across the spectrum of combat capabilities. The AIM-9X in the sidebays of the Raptor is a joke. The pylon compatibilty/availability and restricted tips of the Superbug is even worse. If you only have 1-2 shots (shoulder opposed with ATFLIR and one of the outboards opposed with HARM) on a _conventional signature_ jet; you had better get definitive 'commit or leave' decisioning on initial attrition a lot further away. Because the difference between an '80km' Meteor and a 10-15km AIM-9X is going to be bloody and prolonged.
It is because of this that I really think we are in an age where MRM are good enough for the close-in battle (60` HOBS and 2nm RMin for AMRAAM) 'back up weapon'. While LRM are the determinative war winners on a sniper rifle to composite bow comparitive level. The only real question then being _what kind_ of missile mix do you want and how you cue them on to specific target types.
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New SRAAMs are faster than the AIM-9 (due to larger motors or smaller wings) and have new infrared (IR) dome materials which do not blind the seeker when they are heated by air friction. With imaging infrared (IIR) seekers, they are just as effective against a non-afterburning target as against a full-reheat target. Under some circumstances, a modern SRAAM is a BVR missile, capable of being cued on to the target by aircraft sensors and locking on to it at an extreme range of 12-20km. "You can expect to be engaged from about 80km inbound and enter a [MRAAM] no-escape zone shortly thereafter," notes the BAE paper. The commit decision must be made sooner and, if the target pilot commits, the target will enter an SRAAM no-escape zone.
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Lasers win. Period. Dot. The only serious determinative factor being whether you are going to shine your light on the seeker 2nm out. Or the canopy 10-15nm out. There is a reason why the MiG-29 IRST had it's laser disconnected. Pretending that a faster-farther trigger finger reflex will matter is kind've pyrhhic to say the least.
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Once the fighters 'merge' - that is, their momentum takes them within SRAAM range of each other, so that the first fighter to attempt to escape will offer his opponent an open tail-on shot - improved SRAAMs and helmet-mounted display (HMD) technology multiply the opportunities for WVR shots. It is no longer necessary to point the aircraft towards the adversary; any target within the field of regard of the missile seeker can be engaged instantly.
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Technically yes, but there are different methodologic solutions. ASRAAM is very fast. And has an IMU which allows for LOAL shots. Yet it only has a 60` HOBS capability. AIM-9X has almost 110` but is still a 5" motor with as much if not more drag than ever. Even as the USAF remains reluctant to employ pitbull tactics without positive (LOBL) shot control. Python 4 is a big motor AND aero-control (every feather you can fletch with) weapon and the Israelis specifically practice to exploit wide wingman/lead separations with HOBS/LOAL shots.
It should also be said that a decent IRST is a _really nice thing_. Because it preslews the seeker within similar FOV and angular bearing accuracy. And it's passive.
HMDS, no matter how nifty, all have problems inherent to latency and head mounted jitter as well as the simple limitations of the Mk.1 Ball in validating what often the only the missile can see. Add to this G restrictions under dynamic maneuvering (you WILL change plane to bury yourself under the threat's sill line and stress his weapons angular rate expectations in across-circle/over shoulder shots) and the HOBS weapons system is more one of convenience than capability. In this, I must admit I do not understand why we refuse to go to optical seekers on longer ranging weapons like the Russians have had for what, FIFTY years?
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According to one source, US Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets from the Balkans theater recently engaged in mock combat with Israeli Air Force fighters. The Hornets were armed with AIM-9s, and the Israeli fighters carried Python 3 and Python 4 missiles and Elbit DASH helmet sights. IDR's source describes the results as "more than ugly", the Israelis prevailing in 220 out of 240 engagements.
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Kurt Plummer

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
And the French got to bragging so badly based on formation PR shots that the USN had to continually drop their hooks when playing with Mirage F1/2000 in the Bay Of Biscay and Deci ACMI ranges so that they would stop talking out of church. This being one of those 'he said/she said' kind've things until the exact ROE, environmental and equipment availability limitations of the fight are known.
Having said this, is anyone really surprised? The F/A-18 is a truck with the energy performance of an alphaless F-4. It doesn't like to fight above 20K and it doesn't like to fight above 400knots. While against a threat with even ISRM capabilities like the Pythons and now Derby, even most of the BVR capability of the jet is at least matched.
Hornets beat USAF F-15/16s in the early to mid 80s because they were without an adequate MRM or SRM to beat it's nose off and KEEP IT THERE. Ever since AMRAAM and the later mod radar 63/68/70 radars, the Hornet just isn't much of a player.
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There are lessons to be learned from this engagement and other tests which have shown similar results. One is that modern HMDs and SRAAMs are essential. A second lesson is that WVR combat is extremely dangerous and will become more so. "We'll see less dogfighting once we get the ability to engage targets 90º off the nose," says Shaw. "Somebody's going to get a shot, and if the missile is lethal you're going to get hit." Even the recent history of engagements suggests that the 'furball' of fighter combat, with multiple engagements spread across miles of sky, is on its way out. "We don't see a history of high-g maneuvering in recent engagements," says one industry analyst. "It's fun to practice but unwise to pursue."
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Oh, I dunno. I think it could actually end up going the other way myself. The technology to develop UCAVs into longrange, fully sensorized, bombers is vastly more complicated than that required to take a simple (J85 + Firebee or HiMAT) SRM system to altitutude and downrange at some pretty serious (5,000lb gross weight) energy and signatured reduction levels. If you can stand to throw away your launch platforms in sufficient numbers to operate away from heavy IADS entanglements, you gain the ability deny the threat _in transit_ to targets. Of course we are still talking upwards of 20-50 airframes which will be as restricted as ever to fixed runways but the integration problem gets easier as you are essentially using IRST and EODAS technology plus a truckload (600+) of expendables to handle the precision target handoff and SA problems. This is the true 'future' of HOBS capabilities IMO, very simplistic handoff from very basic ACM _drones_.
Again, _if_ you are hunting VLO threats. And/or ones with the ability to fire missiles like torpedo spreads from BVR range. It only makes sense to fight back with horde like numbers in something of an Me-262 vs. P-51D game.
Of course if you start to value-add with things like offensive DIRCM, effective towed decoys and dual-axis maneuvering, you also cut into the threats ability to use missiles against you as the lead bias has to go down to accomodate 'flip' maneuvers in either direction.
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A third lesson is that WVR is an equalizer. "An F-5 or a MiG-21 with a high-off-boresight missile and HMD is as capable in a 1-v-1 as an F-22," comments a former navy fighter pilot, now a civilian program manager. "In visual combat, everybody dies at the same rate," says RAND's Lambeth. Indeed, he says that a larger fighter like the F-22 may be at a disadvantage. In the early 1980s force-on-force exercises at the navy's Top Gun fighter school, F-14s were routinely seen and shot down by smaller F-5s flown by the navy's Aggressor units. An F-22 which slows down to enter a WVR combat also gives up the advantage of supersonic maneuverability.
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Less than many people think, so long as a man is involved with a man's uncertainty of survival. You push the nose off, he beats the weapon, he usually runs home. If not, you still have a LOT of advantage on him in terms of global engagement behind his 3/9. This will change, eventually, as EODAS and like systems become common to cue the spherical SA but I'm not sure, even with advanced systems like binocular displays and direct retinal projection, that the HMDS will ultimately prove to be a dogfight enabler so much as an evolutionary dead end as the missiles will continue to dominnate the physical performance thresholds and DEWS will drive airpower further and further back.
The one key thing for the immediate future is to realize that patience and a stalking/COE approach are more rewarding than direct confrontation. Take your shots, count your kills and go home. The airforce which is so terrified of potentially X8 GBU-39 (off of every U.S. jet out there, X6 AASM for the French, X6 Brimstone for the Brits) coming crashing through their HAS roofs as to come up in force or be lost on their fields is still gonna die, it's just a matter of today or tomorrow.
Air Combat itself being such an /exceptionally/ rare event (70% flown, 20% maneuvered, 10% engaged) that you again cannot afford to treat your own crew competencies in multirole platform/missions as being all that exceptional as to be competitive with a threat that flies nothing but DACM, no matter /what/ the airframe they use.
Regarding the AIM-9X/F-22, it should be noted too that the early F-15 preference for tackling gaggles of F-5Es at AIMVAL/ACEVAL was always a topdown engagement plan with a split ess into shoot-shoot-shoot missile parameters (the lower thrusted F-14 preferred lookup with a heavy AIM-85 clone). Where this comes with a 20K altitude difference (at least) and a 100`+ HOBS seeker, the real question is going to be how much the threat can do to duck back under ground track or otherwise apply negative lead trickery vs. how much the Raptor/XRay combination can do to win the fight while still high and far enough up-pole to continue the extension on out of the fight. This may be one of the few saving graces of the XRay in that if it is similarly boosted, it will have a HUGE planform aspect and energy advantage on target threats coming from away up above, even if it is nominally engaging from a negative retrograde motion along their ground track.
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Close range confrontation
Nevertheless, the experts consulted by IDR agreed that the fighter still needs to have the ability to fight at close range - including having a gun. The current state of the debate on this highly controversial piece of equipment is that the F-22 has a gun - indeed, its M61A2 installation, complete with a neat power-actuated door over the muzzle, is one of the most complex ever seen - as does the US Air Force (USAF) version of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The US Navy (USN) had apparently decided at one point to forgo the gun on the JSF - which is primarily intended as a deep-strike aircraft - but Boeing program managers now say that there is an "ongoing debate" on the subject. The marines, concerned about vertical landing weight, have settled on a 'missionized' gun, installed in a package that replaces an internal bomb station. Both JSF competitors have selected a Boeing-developed version of the Mauser BK 27mm cannon, fitted with a linkless feed system by Western Design. The UK Royal Air Force has considered eliminating the gun from its second tranche of Typhoons, not so much to save weight as to eliminate training and support costs.
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Boy, the save the best for last don't they? From this alone it becomes easy to see that this is a dated article full of LOMD pilot politics.
First off, the definition of 'close range' is set by the minimum range of dogfight missiles ability to guide and fuze vs. that of the parent platforms breakoff distance to ensure against collision and target breakup damage. Unfortunately, both those ranges, around 1,200ft in dynamic combat have been bested since 1982 when Israeli jets were using Sidewinder and Python on targets as close as 300m (opening).
Secondly, if the missile is the king of air combat as they've just spent half a page jawing on about, then is the gun a necessary factor in air combat? I would say no, especially given the last two wars in which any nominally 'fighter' jet has employed its gun system have been F-15 and 16 strafe attacks on threats in overrun conditions on U.S. ground forces. If an F-22 is too valuable to risk at the merge then certainly it is /far/ to valuable to dogfight (flat plating the airframe in 360 after 360 to _Missile Based_ S2A defenses or hawking secondary air shooters). And if it is too valuable to dogfight with then most assuredly it MUST be seen as being /vastly/ too expensive to strafe an enemy that can shoot it down with an RPK or SA-14/16/18.
This applies equally to the F-35 (107 vs. 133 million dollars, such a difference!) IMO, and it is further backed up by the notion that coming down to put your nose in somebodies business may actually take _more time_ than dropping a Small Diameter Bomb off a FLIR or Modem handed target coordinate. Certainly, given the muzzle index bias of 3` up for dogfighting, it seems questionable whether either 400 rounds on a Raptor. Or 225 on an F-35 (180 if it's a pod) is worth it.
This last because BOTH aircraft are now using rotary guns. The lame ballistics of the M61A2 being a given thanks to round mass and muzzle velocity. But the BK.27 having also been replaced by the 'more gun than shells' GAU-12 on the U.S. jet. If you open up at full rate with a Vulcan 2, you've got maybe 5 seconds of firing. You do the same with the Equalizer and you're down to about 3. Given these weapons are best used on AREA targets (running infantry in open field conditions) such is a ludicrous waste of money, weight and engineering.
Guns are a disaster of aero engineering. They require a deliberate opening into the natural slipstream. They create /massive/ amounts of corrosive, explosive, gun gas which is typically not vented well at higher altitudes. They generate large amounts of instantaneous torque and vibration which composites don't react well to. And as a combined fraction of structure, gun, mount, doors and ammo drive, they end up costing you upwards of ton worth of weight penalty. Which is just moronic. Not least because, in the 'semi external' variant for the USN and USMC, you won't have them in D1/R1 conditions where you will most likely encounter unsuppressed threat air anyway! And if you do, you are going to be spraying rounds from a weak pylon mount that is far back on the centerline and thus _less than optimum_ for A2A use.
If I want to kill something with a gun, it will jolly well be in a platform that costs a LOT less than any 'fighter', stealth or otherwise. If I am going to shoot at ground targets in particular, I would vastly prefer a 70mm, hypervelocity (CRV-7 = 4,400fps), _guided_ rocket like the APKWS/LCPK. Because they have about twice the effective range and they are twice the caliber in both diameter and length. The latter especially meaning that you can use grenadelets or flechettes to get the same AREA target effect as with a sustained gun burst. While carrying multiple passes worth in 7 or 19 round external pods.

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That one statement "There is virually no missile which cannot be out maneuvered at its maximum range" caught my eyes.
when Su-30MKI came boasting about its super maneuverability, many people said that Modern Air to Air missiles will make maneuverability useless as AAMs can now turn any amount of Gs.
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Show me a SuperMan(euvering) _anything_ which can do it's clever dance routine with a baby onboard at 400knots. Reality check people: Missiles have inertial memories now which are fully proportional-lead interactive with the seeker. If the seeker sees something whacked as a function of terminal countermeasures or maneuver, the IMU is going to say "Steady on lad..." and CONTINUE to drive through the center of the circle with _just enough_ bias to (proximity warhead) compensate for the difference between the apparent lead change and what it's onboard target threshold performance says the jet is really capable of.
What this means is that if you through a hand grenade into a gold fish bowl, it doesn't matter what kind of jujitsu the fish knows. It's gonna die. OTOH, if you put /serious/ G on the airframe, your alpha limiter and pilot endurance to rapid-onset Gs is going to vary proportionately with what the knots-dial says at the start of the maneuver. Defensively, it's never about rapidly pointing the machine off axis. It's always about _moving further along the new flight vector_ than the inbound weapon can compensate for. And as long as the man limits the amount and the axis of G response that the airframe can generate, you are always going to be either slow and nose-point agile or fast and energy maneuvering. But not both.
Let me just add here that doppler tail slides and bells and nothcing and all that garbage mean all of diddly squat /nothing/ against a weapon with serious monopulse capability. Because it's going to be screaming in at high PRF, taking datasampled averages every millisecond or so. And it's going to see the target (especially high up) as an angle-of-rotation averaged blip whether said imminent fireball is going zero or a thousand knots.
Hence Iraqis run out from under the envelope of opening shots. While Serbians try to do pilot bleep and get nicked anyway.
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But when a Missile Crosses its "No Escape Zone".
Its capability is going to decrease certainly.
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The question here is whether the threat has a sophisticated enough MAWS to see a weapon that may well be burned out, just using it's gas generator for the control surfaces or 'in between blips' on a motor that will reenergize at terminal distance. If you want to beat the weapon, early detection is a must and with UV optical systems, that is not a guarantee at altitude where saturation is quite high. IR based systems are better but to make these work properly within an integrated protection sphere and few false alarms is not easy.

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As more and more fuel is gonna be used up, The Missiles capability to outmaneuvar target decreases largely.
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Which is why I say that the real future of air combat is preemptive. You fire a MALI like weapon into a baselane and dare the threat to come up and play for the half or our hour it takes you to get into depth. Most kills then coming as wheel-in-well modeals and the survivors STILL having to go through a second if not third tripline as they come out to the distance at which the GBU-39s are leaving the jets. If those jets are in fact VLO and particularly if they are UCAVs they will be spread out by tens of miles. And in the very predictabiltiy of a _conventional_ signature airframe hunting by IRST, comes added risk to taking sniper shots from F-22 which will have the benefit of AEW&C early warning and 'around the back' vector steering to best engagement parameters.

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And at that exact moment, Su-30MKI is gonna get into really advantageous position because of its claimed Super maneuverbility.
ofcourse all this happens when missiles crosses its no escape Zone.
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If the weapon is coming in burned out it will be very hard to see against the blue-glare effect of high altitude. If the missile is coming in with a brother or two, the first miss may bleed the threat jet down to size, even if the Sniper grade pilot saw the gaggle coming. And/Or had MAWS assistance. If the missile is in fact an AIM-120C6, it has a directional warhead designed to blow /forward/ along the flight path to make the target more vulnerable to an entrained detonation path. If the Su-xx has 'someplace he's gotta be' to kill threat jets, he becomes commited (by time) to a pretty linear course. If the F-22 only has to play Great White vs. Seal it may well use it's high cruise speed to work around the threats cone and come up behind.
??
And another good point to note F-22 itself acts has booster to AMRAAM to increase its range by 50%.

what if both Fighters Launched Their Missiles exactly at same distance and at same time. Both the missile are capable reaching their Range
Let us assume The Missiles are AIM-120C-5 and R-77.
Fighters are Su-27 and F-15.
Then which Factor is gonna primarily decide??
Both Missiles have same Speed, Both needs to be Updated in Mid Course and Both have In built Terminal guidance Radar.
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The R-77 is a drag pig. It has /less/ drag in maneuvering because the GDV boxkites half to deflect less to achieve a given maneuver energy. But in simple cruise flight, it's not got the same FPole range performance, despite weighing nominally 50lbs more. The R-77 seeker is not the equal of the AIM-120C5. The AMRAAM will lock on farther out. The Su-30's datalink is not as sophisticated as the western MIDS based system. Meaning it is harder to see full picture on a color display, sort and morte by section or division counts using auto shootlist capabilities which are now also available to the F-15C.
Myself, the deciding factors are going to be:
1. Is there an active S2A threat and do we have rollback on it and the Bars or Zhuk or whatever is on the Su?
2. How many shooters at how wide a spacing with _how much time_ (as fuel and interval spacing before the strike package comes under threat) to clean things up?
3. Who has best picture? If the threat is running solely GCI and can the F-15's horizon it? If the threat has big-missiles are they a threat to the E-2/3?
4. Who has the best EA? The ALQ-135 with the FQ emitters vs. whatever Sorbitsaya is on the Flankers. Offensive CM is a tricky business but suffice to say that delay is
the name of the game, not terminals.
5. Who has the most shots to waste? For an F-15, that's potentially six AIM-120. For the Flanker, it's more likey going to be a mix of R-27 'variants' and 2-4 Adder. But
there may well be more of the Red Team than the Americans.
The nice thing about the Raptor is that it allows you to pose a potential offensive threat no matter what the enemy DCA team does. The bad thing about the Eagle is that it doesn't 'really mean it' until the bombers come up on the scope behind. Thus, while you can run trap plays and all kinds of deception and 'testing the response' kinds of pucker-to-exhaustion exercises, it doesn't necessarily have the same weight as when the full strike package (including X4 AMRAAM slinging Vipers) come up behind. And that's as much a push as an enabler, compressing the hell out of everything.
Ultimately, the definition of air dominance is inherent to who can lose the most and still win. If you measure that by missile counts, it will /probably/ always be the USAF/USN team we can afford to waste more, from further out. If you do it by airframes, ainh.... Our best hope is to roll over an advanced threat during the combat turn and trust to our ability to fight cohesively in dense environments (good electronics, good tactical pick) which maximize the DCA stress. Remember, even if the threat does runover the TARCAP force as a kind of speedbump/missile soak, the weapon mix and range they bring to the fight with X32 AMRAAM slinging (4X4 F-16CJ) running along in behind will be significantly less capable in both number and type.

KPl.
 

Kurt Plummer

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
Weasel1962,

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And the Navy still chose to go ahead with the E/F :)
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Got 'yer Swampland, Get 'yer free Swampland in Florida right h'yar!

NAVAIR having bought into a lower performance system spec based on Congressional pressure to have a low risk platform to replace years of diddy dallying about with the A-6F/G, F-14D and A-12. Backed by the driving USAF 'influence' to totally dominate deep strike, thus turning the Navy into a CAS service.

Indeed, the basic fact of the matter is that the F-18E is a modern SLUF as much as A-6 or certainly Bug-1 followon. And once you apply that vision, it's specific roll performance shortcomings are a lot easier to swallow. The F-18F only exists as a sop to the F-14 community to get them to shut the hell up about rangepoint profiles and useful loadouts during the early part of the AX switchover to the Super Bug.

Add to this the fact that as long as the AF maintain 'the only vote' on everything from LO to Range Extension to ISR/BMC2, the Bugliest ain't goin' _nowhere_ that it is not 'granny assisted across the street' by the kindly blue suited boy scouts.

Having said that, a Lot-II/III (APG-79 + LO additions) F-18F with 'nothing better to do' than load up it's pylons with Gel Rocket or (MALI type) turbopropulsion weapons will likely (BVR) outperform a Typhoon with CAPTOR/AMRAAM-C. And possibly even an AMSAR/Meteor one. Because it will come with a Growler companion and a tactical AEW&C asset with full CEC networking.

My ultimate grumble then is this: In a world where the fleet outer air battle is assured by SM-6 to as much as 500km, I would rather have a deckload composed of 24-36 Hornet F acting as support mission enablers and combat controllers for 40-60 _light_ UCAVs (the A-45/47 having become completely bloated while under Air Force JUCAS control).

Particularly if they are further backed by an A-47B with some kind of electronics/tanking/AEW endurance CSA followon capability (Using superbugs as tankers to Bug 1s is pure insult).

Instead, what I'm seeing is a mix of 20 Hornets and 10 JSF with a smattering of Legacy Bugs for as long as the Marines care to keep them centerbarrelled to act as a Navy RAG.

And that sir is _just not okay_ as indeed, I despise the F-35 program for over emphasizing a showboat deep strike capability that has no real sustainment or high-threat leveraging REAL benefit.

Because the cost of JSF means that our TOTAL sortie count is going down, even in mid-radius missions, thanks to the need to support shortranged Legacy Fighters with high capability fighter-tanking rather than even the S-3 mission.

While the long range capabilities inherent to upwards of 7 LANTIRN equipped bombcats per squadron, has again been reduced to next to nothing because NONE of the HARM+EA support platforms has the reach to go deep with the F-35C. Fighter whales or no.

All of which is particularly stupid when 'current events' are highlighting the obvious casepoint for a loitering COMBAT drone capability inherent to the Israeli's playing reactionary counterbattery games with the bloody Hezbollah instead of simply saturating the skies until they achieve _preemptive_ (don't come out to load your fireworks boys) lockdown of the threat.

We are beyond the point of robotic sailplanes as A-UAV and to the threshold of manned system competitive replacement by turbine powered followons with the range, speed and altitude to do D1/R1 while hefting a much larger sensor/munition payload.

These airframes will not match the total loiter of dedicated endurance systems but they will arrive at a 500nm distant target area in half the time of a prop driven airframe. While still possessing 4-6hrs of endurance even if AAR auto-refueling doesn't work out. Roughly double what a manned jet can manage at equal range.

Until the USN sees this capability for what it is, they will /never/ be able to compete with the USAF for 'big war, small deck' sorties off the pointy end leveraging of any real (MRC/MTW or better = 800nm from threat air) combat. Similarly, they will fail to provide CAS-as-COP that even an OOTW (loiter, loiter, loiter, in multiple locations, locations, locations...) threat demands.

THAT is the doctrinal model that you have to scale your A2A campaign capabilities around. Specifically through Cooperative Engagement shooter-illuminator capabilities to exploit a very high power RTIP array on a very high altitude = long slant platform capable of 2-way guiding A2A weapons to seeker cube which based on a _dumb node_ (zero A2A sensors or performance optimization) _UCAV_.

As purely a weapons cabinet and nothing else.

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"Given these weapons are best used on AREA targets (running infantry in open field conditions) such is a ludicrous waste of money, weight and engineering."

And yet they still stuck a gun on a stealth aircraft. Dinosaur thinking.
>>

Hey, I'm all for an airborne gun system. I just want to see it on a platform which which is faster/higher than a helicopter and 1/20th the cost of an AC-130 while compatible with at least two other munitions-delivery (long slant) options: SDB and VSM. To take it out of an extended VSHORADS zone (SA-13 or 15).

My problem is that I don't think the right people are being given the right authority to make the technology selections with a large enough purchase empowerment to tipping point kick over the inventory count=doctrine change (cough, Key West, cough).

That performance point you are looking for is essentially 250-350 knots at 1,500-10,000ft and a MAWS dangling next to the flexible turret system foldaway. Preferrably without aircrew to avoid the BHD-as-CNN television politics scenario.

In this, I could see a modified Eagle Eye or fan-in-wing ESTOL being the next great thing for the Marines. But only if the Army joins in.

And NEVER under the assumption that truly close in support should be supplied by a service let alone unit not organic to the requesting commanders IMMEDIATE control.

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Actually, the author was probably thinking along the lines of turn tail and wait for the missile to run out of steam rather than evasive maneuvers.
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The problem with this is that as soon as you run, you lose all hope of initiative as the BRL is now 20-50nm downrange and so there is no time to 'stage a come back'. Indeed, my cuff definition for designing a fighter is the number of _threat_ shots you can afford to soak (assuming every one hits) and STILL KEEP COMING. So that by the time it becomes a maneuver fight, you are looking at at least 2v1 residual odds without exceeding the value of the _threat_ airframe.

If you assume a late model F-16C with a decent targeting pod is gonna run you a minimum of 32 million dollars and that it has four MRM class weapons as a pilot prefered standard, you need to field six threat fighters to assuredly kill it. Which means total program acquisition unit cost or 'PAUC' value can be no more than 5.3 million dollars each.

Can you design a manned platform for that much? Didn't think so.

Pull the pilot however, switch to optical (2 million per aperture) instead of radar (4-5 million per aperture) based sensing, pile in the netcentric connectivity (secure modems) and stick with a Gun+SRM or even collision kill metric and baddabing!

Suddenly you can send out a force of 12 interceptors for every section of F-teen. And each jet will have the same competence and bravery as all the other robo-Richtofens because it's running on the same tape with a shared picture SA.

And all this ontop of ZERO commited peacetime training hours eating up your ops account warchest.

Assuming you have a top spending ceiling, even at lower traded value, if you can put up just 50 jets, Day 1/2/3 (150X5 = three quarters of a billion dollars vs. 900 million for _18_ Su-30s) to match an enemy force of say 70-100 package aircraft, you can really do something to maintain the cohesiveness and illumination 'rights' of your ADGE/S2A systems.

Which means you can stay in the fight longer instead of being flat-backed, legs akimbo, within 24hrs of initial (Western) war declaration.

THAT is where UCAVs (as recoverable TurboSAM) are headed. Even if they are not a single bit more maneuverable than today's airframes. Cheap, Dirty, BVR Soaking, Dogpile weapons.

At which point the West will respond with DEWS systems and the best 'Air Superiority Fighter' will be a 747 or a C-130 with ABL/ATL type deathray.

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More to the point. Any piloted aircraft will always be limited by the number of Gs the pilot can take. The missile has no such limits but whilst agree with Kurt that the speed-energy ratio will still be a factor, design will ensure that the missile out-turns any piloted aircraft.
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The only thing I want to point out here is that the high-fast-far envelope remains largely unexploited and maneuvering combat above 40,000ft is largely a matter of creeping increments with huge time-exposure predictability to all parties attempting a cutoff. It is for this alone that I think most dynamic air combat will remain minimalist so long as the smarter force can sling cheaper aeroballistic weapons upwards of 100nm without ever really exposing themselves to any secondary threat of engagement by 'dogfighters' of any stripe.

What will be determinative as the KT boundary of tactical airpower however is the day when a 20-30MW (THEL) GBL is matched to an aerostat or LTA driven mirror relay system. Because at that point, the total range slant through the anaprop sludge of the lower atmosphere will from 10-25km up to 60-100km or more.

While this doesn't /sound/ all that great compared to existing long range missile systems; the fact remains that it will cost hundreds of dollars per shot in chemicals or electrical generation rather than half a million or more for LRAAM/Theater SAM. Even as the time of flight will be on the order of .0093 seconds. Which means that nobody is going to duck or exit the engagement envelope before the kill mechanism arrives and even with total shots for only a few engagements before recharge/cooldown cycling, you will bag potentially upwards of HALF A BILLION dollars (4X 112 million dollar JSF) in airframes with a site which, even if it is lost to subsequent DEAD attack, is only itself worth perhaps 30-40 million.

At that point, airpower will become a game run entirely by cost:loss accountants and in particular we will HAVE TO go back to very small visual as well as radar silouhettes to augment optical LO. And/or accept a return to contour chasing terrain mask to keep the horizon short in the heart of the trashfire envelope (which will also effect the costs of air delivered munitions which will then _have to_ be powered).

Again, the Hezbollah/Katyusha thing is only pointing the way forward because, far from playing parochial service bias games in preserving institutional methods of doing a given mission the same old way with technology improvements that are gold plating everything they touch; the guerillas are quite willing to use whatever means they need to in order to gain their -overarching nationalist political- objectives.

To deny them upstart player rights at the adult table of diplomacy solely because of their newly dominant form of 'short cycle air power', we WILL have to continue and even rapidly expand DEW research. Into operational defensive systems that will be espionage proliferated and expanded to offensive use almost as soon as they are fielded.

DEWS then being the great tactical airpower equalizer to all defensively threatened nations in a way that Nukes never were or will be at theater strategic one.


KPl.
 

heyjoe

New Member
Weasel1962,

NAVAIR having bought into a lower performance system spec based on Congressional pressure to have a low risk platform to replace years of diddy dallying about with the A-6F/G, F-14D and A-12. Backed by the driving USAF 'influence' to totally dominate deep strike, thus turning the Navy into a CAS service.
This is conjecture and not based on facts. At the time the decison was made to pursue the F/A-18E/F variant, most in the Navy thought that CAS was no longer a viable mission and only the Marine Corps was clinging to it. The Navy was hell-bent for "Power Projection" and CAS was a distraction. The pragmatic reality was airframes were aging and Navy had invested bilions in R&D and had to start bending metal. McDonnell Douglas pitched the E/F while DoD kept trying to reinvent a common/joint solution.The navy still has funding wedges across their six year programming plan and needed something defensible to OSD and Congress that would put more aircraft on the ramp.

BTW - NAVAIR is acro for NAVAIRSYSCOM, the acquisition arm of Naval Aviation. They build what the warfighter sets as a requirement. I suspect Mr Plummer knows this, but he's throwing terms around in his extensive tech/pol reasoning; some of which ar erroneous.

Indeed, the basic fact of the matter is that the F-18E is a modern SLUF as much as A-6 or certainly Bug-1 followon. And once you apply that vision, it's specific roll performance shortcomings are a lot easier to swallow. The F-18F only exists as a sop to the F-14 community to get them to shut the hell up about rangepoint profiles and useful loadouts during the early part of the AX switchover to the Super Bug.
Absolutely not. Pure conjecture. The Navy was heading down path to single seat Hornets after the "single seat mafia" took over. It was only after Tomcats proved themselves as FAC (A) platforms that Navy did an about face and started planning for a F squadron per air wing. Took awhile to get contract adjusted for more F models hence appearance of so many E models early on.

???rangepoint profiles???F has less range than E model and useful loadouts???E and F are the same....the roll issue is passe and Hornet and especially Super Hornet are considerably more capable than the underpowered dump truck A-7 Corsair II. It had endurance and could carry a lot of iron, but had no offensive air-to-air or self escort capability.

.... AIM-9X has almost 110` but is still a 5" motor with as much if not more drag than ever.....
Absolutely wrong. AIM-9X drew upon several technology efforts related to improved airframe design notably USN Boa and USAF Boxoffice efforts. Hughes (now Raytheon) went further and the reduction in drag is easily half principally due to elmination of the rollerons and the range is significantly improved as a result (also translates to more speed and energy for endgame). AIM-9X designers were shackled by insistence of F-22 SPO and ACC (himself) to maintain the AIM-9M form factor and use the 20,000 plus existing rocket motors (as well as fuze and warhead). Originally, the F-22 was to have 2 SRMs per sidebay, but as a F-22 fan, you likely know that story....
 
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