wrightwingAs far as the F-35 being short legged, the A-12 had a 800nm range while the F-35C with tanks nearly goes the same.
The F-35C is expected to exceed it’s KPP by having a 642nm (2x2k JDAM & 2xAMRAAM no tank) profile. Throw on two tanks and the range will get up into the high 700nm area.
With tanks, the F-35C will greatly exceed 700nm. Even the F-35A without tanks is pushing 700nm, much less with them.
wrightwingactually, the low freq radars can detect stealth aircraft with a few km margin. while it’s not enough to efficiently aim a AAA gun, an interceptor with IRST could be directed in the right direction, using approximative position of the target by link16 (interceptor remains passive to stay undetected) and acquire the target with its IRST. from there on, firing a missile or two (just in case) could make attackers day pretty complicated.
Actually the distance is quite a bit more than just a few km margin, and depending on the notification time and ranges from airbases, the interceptors may or may not have time to get within range to launch missiles prior to the stealth strikers being able to release their weapons.
same for eventual SAM which would need to have a good IR seeker integrateed (there’s no SAM i know of that has it to this point, but, considering the size of a missiles “nose”, you could make it pretty big – sensitive allowing for a good detection range), as well as a Link16 and LOAL capability, so that you can fire it in the general direction of the incoming aircraft, update their position if necessary until the seeker locks on and does the terminal guidance.
The problem you have with launching a SAM somewhere in the vicinity of a target, is kinematics. If major course corrections are required before even going into terminal phase, that’s going to lower the Pk significantly, especially since the attackers MLDs will give notification of inbound missiles.
what’s more, Such a SAM could be launched passively (the radar network could simply order the launch from a distance.. no need for an emitter close by), so its position remains undetected until it’s been fired
The missile itself will be detected though before it’s close enough to detect the attacker. As for the emitter not needing to be colocated with the launch site, that’s all fine and well. The problem though is that it still needs to be close enough to detect the stealthy target, AND the SAM site needs to be within range to engage. If the emitter is within range of the stealth aircraft, it can be engaged. Due to the short range of the SAM’s WEZ, their launchers will be within range of the strikers too, once the POO is detected by the MLDs.
All of these considerations have to be taken into account, and once you add in ECM/DIRCM into the equation, it makes things even more challenging.
wrightwingThere’s no easy or inexpensive solution. There’d have to be a huge investment in a variety of types of sensors(OTH and low freq, AESA, IR/UV, Acoustic, etc…) to ensure overlapping integrated coverage and redundancy(to allow sytems that can be mobile to move around, while still maintaining coverage
-large numbers of SAMs with multispectral seekers)
-late model fighters with low frontal RCS(with AAMs with multispectral seekers), and enough airframes to maintain high sortie rates
-extensive ECM capabilities(both self protection, and stand off jammer planes) to help keep BVR advantages of stealthy aircraft to a minimum
-a good number of AEW aircraft w/ AESA radars
-integrated overlapping ground based ESM systems to listen for any datalinks, or emissions of other types.
wrightwingWhy are they adding those capabilities to the F22? I’d think it would be more important to add AIM9X and a HMS, and conformal aesa arrays for instance, if you consider the numbers of F22, there won’t be enough numbers to do both AtoA and AtoG weapons.
Does it mean the USAF think the F35 won’t cut it in the SEAD role?
Nic
The HMS/AIM-9X was integrated on the legacy fighters first, as the F-22 was considered capable enough as is, to be able to wait.
As for the SEAD role, I imagine they’ll work hand in hand, and utilize the strengths of each platform.
wrightwingThat depend on the allowed top speed of F-22.
A Strike Eagle carrying weapons won’t even reach an F-22’s supercruise speed, much less its top speed.
wrightwingI guess we can agree here. I only wonder that the future updates for F-22 are aimed towards A-G even with 2000+ F-35s planned. I personally would make those 187 aircraft kick-a$$ air superiority fighters instead, with IRST, IR guided AMRAAM and HMD, and omit the A-G role completely.
Well I imagine the A2A capabilities are only going to get better too. I suspect the A2G capabilities are more for SEAD/DEAD, than for CAS though, to help strike packages get through.
wrightwingEven increment 3.2 won’t make the F-22 useful over Iraq or ‘stan because there are no enemy aircraft or SAM to evade, even your daddy’s Block 25 Viper from neighboring base can do the A-G job exactly as well or better, for a fraction of the cost. For the roles required today, the deployment of F-22 is a massive overkill. Whether the future will make it more useful is uncertain.
It’s too late to start developing it, if you wait until you need it though. We’ve never used Minuteman or Trident missiles either, but they certainly have their place.
wrightwingThe F-15 doesn’t need to go to full A/B trying to match the F-22;s top speed.
It will need to be near full A/B to reach the F-22’s top speed(which is >1600mph). That’s irrelevant though, as the F-22 can get to supersonic faster, and stay there longer.
Admit it, finding useful roles for the F-22 is pretty hard even if you are a fan of the plane.
Once you start seeing the increment 3.1, 3.2, etc…, there’ll be a lot more flexability A2G wise. I think you’ll see F-22s used for their ISR/ELINT capability more than for CAS though.
wrightwingWrightwing, please read the article about the time table for the 3.2 increment. I would also like to see some source that describes how ground target can be assigned from external sources through link-16 to F-22 and the be used for SDB’s.
I know 3.2 is ~2016. As for using datalinks this way, that’s what NCW means. If there’s a platform with Link 16, that has the sensors for targeting, they can hand off targets to other platforms, just as they could with AAMs.
wrightwingAgain, I asked for a source for this capability with the F-22. I did check it up myself, but what I found did not support your claim, rather the opposite.
You’re right. It won’t have that capability for another 4 months.:rolleyes:
A more comprehensive SDB capability is slated for Increment 3.2, he said.
Increment 3.2 also affords the Raptor the ability “to dynamically retarget up to eight Small Diameter Bombs”, Ebersole said, which exponentially increases the F-22’s potential as strike aircraft.
I have found no mention of any ability for the F-22 to receive external coordinates for ground targets
The F-22 can receive Link-16 updates.
wrightwingI added links in my previous post. The SDB is in the JDAM family.
wrightwingAs to the claim that the F-22 can update SDB’s with coordinates it receives on the fly, I’m very interested and would like to see a source for that.
All JDAM variants have this capability. They don’t have to use only preprogrammed coordinates.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/jdam-ops.htm
Target coordinates can be mission planned and loaded into the aircraft before takeoff, manually altered by the aircrew prior to weapon release via JPF, and/or automatically entered through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors. Multiple JDAM can be directed against a single target or multiple JDAM can be directed against multiple targets on a single pass.
JDAM also provides flexible targeting and retargeting capability by accepting target coordinates that are mission planned and loaded before takeoff or by determining target coordinates and entering the data in-flight, prior to weapon release.
wrightwingMost of the examples like SCAR or ENVG are deployed in ridiculously small numbers – only few SF units got a dozen of SCARs or HK416s, they are FAR from being really in service.
Besides that, I cannot imagine that US ARMY would field a Belgian made rifle in large numbers – the thing with Berettas was bad enough for American defense lobbyists. 🙂
My point is that the rifle that US infantrymen carry isn’t based upon how much an F-22 costs. Since the US first entered Afghanistan and Iraq, all sorts of new equipment has made its way into the inventory. We can argue about whether it should’ve been there before, but the point is that it wasn’t fighter planes being purchased, that prevented it from being acquired.
wrightwingWell, if there are any important leaders, which I have seen no indication of as the resistance seems quite fragmented. And if you can locate them, which is also difficult as the hunt for Saddam showed in the Iraq war, you still need to be able to feed updated target information into the aircraft until the last minute. I don’t think it’s possible today and I’m sceptical on how long it will be before it will be able to if ever.
An aircraft with an LDP seem to be a much more flexible and safe bet for such a mission.
The plane wouldn’t need to self-designate. An SF ODA(or some other SOF asset) could illuminate the target from the ground, or if the location was provided by ELINT/ESM or third party targeting, the SDBs coordinates could be updated on the fly. Again, I’m not saying that this is the best use of F-22s, just that there are roles in which they could serve in this kind of conflict.
wrightwingGosh he wanted a whole 60 more and didn’t get fired…that’s your argument…c’mon really? 😮
Where’s the article that says the first guy was only lobbying for 60 as well? You need to produce that or your “argument” is non existent.
Btw typing slowly doesn’t make a difference to the speed i read at…:).. and doesn’t neceassily make your post any more coherent…:)
He didn’t get fired for wanting 60 more. He wanted 381, not 243.
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