Future BVR and A2a Tactics.

carrying on the discussion….

Bring_it_on

Yes it surely will…However the Supercruise speeds are more useful when applied in BVR …as u said they give the ability to launch missile at higher speeds and make ground quicker and allow easy/fast ingress and outgress…Hit and run tactics would also be one of many logical application of supercruise specially when aircraft like the raptor are doing it at mach 1.7+ moreover having Stealth or LO gives it another dimension as supercruise gives them the ability to conduct “”Fringeing”” atacks on ground targets guarded by SAM’s and they are an entire different problem to adress for AD crews..In WVR the speeds would most likely be subsonic like they have been however given that modern BVR weapons such as the Meteor and future US equivlant and the aim-120D and R-77++ are long legged ( uptp 80nm for manuevering targets ) means that multiple BVR shots would most likely be fired before WVR is reached raising the question as to what state (fuel wise,energy wise etc etc) the fighters would be when they enter the ACM stage..?? this is something that we can discuss further..The questions that i ponder over are as follows..

1) what would be the best way to target low observable aircraft such as the f/a-22 , f-35 and PAKFA with long range BVR missiles..Can fighter-sensors provide targetting against these aircrafts at missile-weapon kinetic ranges?? If not then what is an alternative to shoot these jets in BVR?? If they can then what distances would the seekers (aboard the missile) be able to detect Stealth jets considering that they are rather small and limititations on power exist??

2) Would total IR BVR missiles be better suited for Stealth jet engagements as IR supression on some of these aircrafts isnt as extensive as R_F supression..?

3) Why can we have a totally integrated R-F , I-R a2a missile (i believe that the JDRAAM is doing that) such a seeker was proposed by germans i beielev(forget the name of the missile but i think it was for a ARM_) I do beileve that the next big challenge is that of shooting down stealth jets from BVR ranges and that is the sole important charecteristics the next generation BVR weapon should pocess inorder to really be revoulitionary.

Sfferin

AIM-7P was going to have a dual-mode RF and IR seeker. SM-2 Block IIIB has one.

Rocky

Well, radar homing missiles aren’t going to work against the F-22A, so its going to be IR missiles. The Russians are doing very well in this area, better than we are. They are passive homers too. I don’t think the Raptor is going to be that invulnerable. Another problem is target identification. This is a real problem when you want to use BVR missiles, especially when both sides have aircraft flying all over the place. It was a big problem in Vietnam. The F-22A really ought to have some kind of telescope in the cockpit for that. F-15 pilots were known to strap one to the HUD. The F-14D has one under the nose, and the F-4E had one in the wing. I think all this is off topic and belongs on a new thread.