Amiga500Number of AA missiles inside weaponbays has been discussed one million times already.
Can you remind me of the consensus?
Was it 6 in the main + 2 on the wing pods?
Amiga500I don’t like using the MK-1 eyeball one bit. I do however have the feeling that perhaps only 2 pylons per bay can be fitted.
How deep are the bays?
Remember the YF-23 solution?
Amiga500Rafael would be pleased to hear you say that! But why this sudden emphasis on AIM-9? You were making a generic (and incorrect) statement regarding WRV missiles in general, and I was demonstrating that it was wrong.
Check Spud in #605.
We are clearly discussing the AIM-9 and AMRAAM.
You are simply proving my point – Python 5 (a WVR missile) is designed to have high end-game manoeuvrability, contrary to your generic claim about WVR missiles.
P5 is not a vanilla WVR missile. It is silly to say the AIM-9 acts like the P5.
Yes, we all know that. Your point being?
That it isn’t designed with the motor impulse to make a large, hard turn off the rail – and then make a subsequent interception within a few miles (integrating T appropriately). To do so would mean too much focus on the initial burn phase leading to poor performance in its primary role. If Raytheon/USAF wanted to sacrifice ultimate range, then yes, they could build a better AMRAAM to complement AIM-9 in the closer fight, but do they want that?
As usual and as you know, everything is a compromise – you have to compromise missile maneuverability for range – yeah, you can add weight/volume* – but that has declining returns eventually.
*maybe – dep. on internal carriage requirements.
Hence why AMRAAM is not suitable for typical HOBS WVR combat and never will be without major redesign and sacrifice of ultimate range.
I never raised the issue of AIM-9 burn time, so was not arguing anything about it.
The entire argument is around the F-35, EODAS and AIM-9. :confused:
I think your keen for an argument over something, but not quite bothered about the context of an individual post! 😀
Amiga500I have seen the thrust/time curves for both the original and PEP motors. Fired from a Mach 2 platform, ARMAAM may briefly hit Mach 4, but that velocity will drop off sharply after motor burnout. You need a Meteor-style air-breathing powerplant to sustain Mach 4.
OK, Mach 3.5 – it is quite irrelevant. The control surfaces are designed for very different loads. Can AMRAAMs control surfaces get you to the ‘g’ limit at Mach 1.5 right off the rail? Not a snowballs.
Where do you get your strange ideas from?
Let us take just one example to prove you wrong:
“Python 5 claims to have a better endgame performance than the Python 4 also, thanks to a reshaped thrust profile that starts with a high initial pulse upon launch and then drops to cruising thrust before building thrust again for the terminal phase.”
Jane’s Air Launched Weapons
You realise Python 5 is not just another WVR missile? An AIM-9 has around 60% the internal volume of a P5. The P5 is longer ranged than most, yet can still operate with extreme maneuverability.
Why do you think it does that (burn profile)?
Initial hard turn (how many control surfaces are on P5?) and accelerate with the boost phase – then have a dedicated motor phase to boost terminal maneuvering.
AMRAAM C doesn’t have the same motor profile (and has a much longer range), so has to focus on retaining KE. AIM-9s burn longer than they used to – but they still have a much greater focus on initial maneuvres and still making the intercept vis-a-vis AMRAAM – you know that. I don’t even know why you are arguing it.
[I suppose for the pedantic – I should really substitute ‘much less’ for ‘none’ in the prior post – obviously you aren’t gonna have a missile that stops dead right after the motor burns out]
Amiga500Hardly. Hope has little basis in reality, eg “Hope and Change”. Both the EODAS and AMRAAM systems have repeatedly demonstrated their abilities. Those abilities are not going to somehow disappear when used together.
Have they?
When have the repeatedly demonstrated anything?
The AMRAAM has demonstrated an ability to sometimes kill already crippled MiGs in Yugoslavia. While the EODAS hasn’t even entered service yet.
The 9X has to come off the rail and turn quickly due to a short burn time on the motor. The AMRAAM does not have this problem as it has a much longer burn motor. Throw in a larger warhead (2x the Aim-9 size) and double the 9x speed and it is a very formidable WVR missile.
The AMRAAM is a Mach 4 missile, its control surfaces are sized and designed for Mach 4 operation and a 35g limit. Control authority changes with V^2 – it also changes further going from supersonic to sub-sonic.
I’m sure you can join the dots.
In addition – making the wild assumption that the control surfaces can meet g limits at lower missile speeds:
Mach 1 turn @ 10kft – 627m
Mach 2 turn @ 10kft – 2509 m
wow maneuverable missile there.
WVR missiles operate completely differently from BVR. They have no emphasis on retaining kinetic energy for terminal maneuvers, so their flight envelope is completely different.
Amiga500Really? You seem to forget that EODAS will likely put any HMS/HOBS combo to shame.
You hope it will put it to shame. I suspect reality will be very different.
I expect in service experience will find EODAS gives an advantage less than 5% of the time relative to HMS/HOBS/MAWS. I also expect aircraft kinematic ability will give an advantage significantly more times than that.
Regarding AMRAAM, as LO has already indicated – it will not be good at a hard turn ‘off the rail’ (off the ejection doesn’t quite sound the same). Therefore offsight capability is significantly reduced.
Amiga500NATO inflicted an utterly one-sided pounding on the Serbs, but some here are concerned that they may have needed to fire 3-4 more missiles than absolutely necessary to do it. This proves that BVR combat doesn’t work.
Hundreds of NATO aircraft inflicted a pounding on a handful of broken Fulcrums. However, considering all their advantages in technology and numbers, the performance of their key combat system was extremely questionable.
This proves beyond all reasonable doubt that BVR engagements as of the 1999 snapshot* are not the be-all and end-all of air combat.
It indicates it would be extremely foolish to bet the house on BVR only air wars in the future. The F-35 IMO bets the house on BVR.
*My point on the dummy firings in the F-22/Typhoon is to achieve the next best thing to a 2012 snapshot on performance. Spending billions developing systems and compromises around a strategy that is, being most optimistic, proven with significant caveats, is asking for trouble.
Whether that dummy firing update is done with pilots in the aircraft, or more realistically, real-time linking of the ‘drone’ to a simulator with a pilot in it trying to actively evade and engage, IMO it needs to be done (being brutal about it – what is more important, risking 2 or 3 pilots and/or airframes in evals, or risking entire squadrons and any soldiers/ships that would be underneath the sky they should be protecting in a shooting war?).
Amiga500That’s not a attitude – it’s a statement of fact.
Who cares how many missiles were fired – they obviously did their job.
Attitude. A bad one at that! 🙂
If you were one of my buddies and we’d a few pints in us, we’d now be embroiled in:
“your attitude stinks”
“NO, YOUR attitude stinks”
“man u are sh!t”
“who are ross county”
“yer a customer”
“the spl is sh!t”
etc etc etc
:D:D
Amiga500If it was night time with zero visibility, what other type of weapon system do you think the NATO air forces could have used?
:confused:
Are you inferring from this that I think radar guided missiles should not be used?
Also, IR missiles work perfectly well at night as they do in daytime, perhaps slightly better given the greater thermal contrasts.
How effective is the EW kit on a 1980s MiG-29 against an AIM-120 anyway?
I don’t know. But I do know they aren’t very effective when they aren’t working!
Amiga500The main thing to remember is, the Serbian air force was effectively neutralised as a threat to NATO air forces in 1999, if it ever was a threat. Who cares how many missiles were fired – they obviously did their job.
Sorry, but that attitude is absolute rubbish.
Not only are you not learning the lessons of those precious* few seconds of real combat-time, you are actually looking to actively disregard the potential for learning lessons.
*precious from the point of view of validating methods. Obviously not precious from pretty much any other view as it likely means some poor bstard is getting killed – probably not deserving of it either.
I proposed the drastic measure of firing cold missiles against friendly pilots to aid validation – as the real combat environment is so fleeting yet so so important!
Amiga500It is worth asking, if you don’t think a 50-66% kill ratio per-shot is sufficient to prove that BVR missiles do in fact “work,” what would it take?
The bottom line of Allied Force is that fairly modern, though not state of the art, Soviet fighters flown by fairly competent pilots proved to be little more than an inconvenience and never once made their way into the sort of turning visual range combat that so many here seem to put such great stock in.
Given the circumstances of facing an enemy with aircraft, that lets face it, were not fit for combat, I would really expect no misses. Even allowing for one miss, that is still Pk 86%.
I’ve tallied the avionics based on the Gallant knights article – not one fighter had a both a working RWR and working radar! Don’t forget, they were mostly night strikes too – so no radar = no chance.
If the system cannot function perfectly against that – how do you realistically expect it to deliver the projected kill ratios against a capable opposition? :confused:
Amiga500I was able to find info that one of the kills was a double hit, so at most 2 of the 9 missed (78% success rate).
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/kosovotactical%5B1%5D.pdf
Feckin browser ate half my reply. Grrr.
I have no reports of double hits. I have a 3 salvo shot at Nebojsa Nikolic, one clean miss, one near miss (with warhead explosion) and one hit. But that was by F-15s.
The two F-16 kills I have are:
(1) The Dutch on the first night (1999-03-24) on Dragan Ilic – which I have counted as a single shot with kill (it was a damaged which is good as a kill). He was hit and flew back to Nis air base. Unlikely the aircraft would survive 2 missile hits.
(2) 78th FS USAF on 2002-05-04, Milenko Pavlovic was shot down by an F-16CJ or by friendly fire – but that was reported as a single AMRAAM fired. I counted it as a single shot & possible kill. Upon examining the wreckage – there were fragments of an AMRAAM and also of a Strela-2M. Who made the kill – who knows!
Amiga500Pointed out? We are all still waiting to see these numbers.
Ahh, it seems my memory isn’t what it was. 😮
Finally found the article I had read all those years ago.
“Gallant knights – MiG-29 in Yugoslavia” AFM Jan 2002
I have counted 11 shots to 6 kills with two of those kills possibly being from the ground in fratricide. Well, it would appear the first was almost certainly a ground kill while the latter could be either way.
So 36-55% Pk depending on whether the two kills were A2A or SAM, not the < 10% I erroneously posted (numerous times).
Of the 9 sorties made by the MiGs, the serviceability was as follows:
Radar – 1/9 working for definite, 2 possibles. Rest broken.
RWR – 4/9 working for definite, 3 possibles. Rest broken.
Radio – 8/9 working for definite. The other broken.
Still and all – despite my cockup – the point largely stands – if you are an F-35 and carry 2 AMRAAM and if your faced up with a foe with pretty much a flyable as opposed to servicable aircraft you might kill 1 of them BVR. Then you must kill any others WVR. Is your aircraft able to do that? Very questionable.
Any problems you have with your simulations are your problems. The ones I worked with always accurately predicted what would happen when the missile was launched.
You don’t really think all the problems are with my simulations?!? :confused:
Yeah, I’ve screwed up a few – who hasn’t – but you want to see some of the other crap thrown my way along with the Gantt chart crowd begging for a fix yesterday!
Oh and don’t try to tell me you’ve never come across a dud sim. Even the idea is preposterous!
Amiga500In the absence of supporting evidence, I think the answer is ‘yes’.
Oh right. Well, I’m not going to bother hunting out the data so if you want to end the discussion, feel free.
You have access to the specifications that laid down the required level for performance? I think not. So you do not know what was promised.
It was promised it would work – othewise the F-4 would not have went to war without cannon and the USAF would not have went to war without adequate ACM training.
You know that already.
I am questioning your claim that the concept failed.
Fair enough, you can question my claim, I can question the counter-claim.
I could answer that question, but since you seem to be pre-defining anything that Raytheon might say as BS, there is no point in me wasting my time. (And ‘prove it’ is what I’m saying to you!)
I have pointed out historical numbers – AMRAAM with Pk of < 10% in Allied force!
As a result I have questioned why they don’t fire dummies in drills that aren’t pre-canned evals?
Sure, no doubt they (the drones) should be improving in representativeness – but that does not mean they are yet effectively acting as a competent pilot in a modern aircraft attempting to evade a missile shot.
Oh dear – that implies how little you know about modern simulation and missile-test methodology.
My job largely consists of building numerical simulations/simulators in a number of aerospace environments, including hardware in the loop.
I think I know very well just how much crap a simulation can ‘prove’!
So trying to discount simulation is the equivalent of an 1860s admiral trying to dismiss these new-fangled ironclad ships.
A simulation is only as good as the assumptions and boundary conditions that are used to define it.
Again, you know this.
I have experience of loads of examples where ‘simulation should’ = ‘reality didn’t’.
A cold beer or two in the living room will be a better use of the afternoon.
Enjoy. 🙂
Amiga500Seriously, If you want to debate WVR Vs BVR there are better ways to make an example and make your point
There probably are – but it has everyone’s attention.
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