LowObservable100 years ago, the world’s most professional general staff, directing the world’s best trained and equipped army, had a plan to win a European war before Christmas.
So anyone who says “this is so, because the military experts say so” is failing to use the brains he was given, if he was given any.
LowObservableHops – I am dubious about anyone doing single-ship, weapons-grade using ESM is what I wrote. It would save wear on your typing finger if you would learn to read.
LowObservableThank you for screaming. Would you care to edit capitals out of your response?
TIDLS can support 4 aircraft and the F-35 can support 25 (normally 6 flights of 4 and 1 terminal, ie BACN, to act as an uplink to the rest of the network).
I had not heard that about MADL, but it would clearly require daisy-chaining or timesharing since (physically) MADL can address only one aircraft at a time in the FoR of each antenna. I would also question whether that is a current TIDLS limit – clearly the system’s IOC was some 20 years ahead of MADL.
TIDLS can share solutions (tracks or plots) and the F-35 can share raw data.
Can it indeed? Says who (not SLDInfo please)? What does “raw data” mean, in any case? And what is the advantage to that?
MADL is indeed LPI as well as being jam-resistant, with the attendant large increase in complexity and cost.
LowObservableCorrect, Oblig. The Swedish approach (in the early Gripen) stressed jam resistance over LPI as you probably could not do both at the time.
Potato-Head – I am dubious about anyone doing single-ship, weapons-grade using ESM. The physics are against it.
And of course EO-DAS, like every other JSF system, is not “used” as yet, let alone having been demonstrated and approved for the use of lethal weapons. By the way, too, there is nothing magic about FO. It looked in the 1990s like the only system that would deliver high interconnect speeds for fusion purposes, but today Ethernet rivals it at much lower cost. And (as repeatedly explained to you) the whole FO-plus-ICP approach is a 1980s-1990s hangover. Today I can have much more processing in the back end of my sensor and relieve the load on the datalink. If we see LRS-B emerge with a Big ICP architecture I will be surprised.
LowObservableHere’s a range chart for IRST:
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LockMart is the source. And if you could do that with a Sniper pod, why attach the IRST right above a Sniper pod, which is what RSAF does?
LowObservable1. The sheer ability to fuse the data at such a large scale.
So it has a big central computer. Why will other aircraft not catch up (if they have not done so already by 2020)?
2. EODAS which is a first-of-its-kind sensor.
Unique in weight and complexity. However, DDL NG and PAWS-2 are in-service IIR systems, so no reason that they could not be used to provide aircraft tracks via SW/processor upgrades, assuming that anyone except JSF believe this is worthwhile.
3. The ability to use the ESM to GeoLoacate emissions in a single ship.
Errm – you mean long-baseline interferometry, as used on multiple systems since the 1990s?
4. The ability to share not only tracks, but raw sensor data between F-35s (and the rest of the network) completely automatically while still maintaining a low EM signature (LPI & Directional datalinks).
The Swedes call this samverkan and it has been operational for years.
LowObservableThe F-35 can turn away and still attack because it has eyes in the back of its head coupled with high off boresight missiles.
Not in a stealthy configuration – but SLD has LockMart as a Gold Sponsor, so don’t expect that point to be raised. Also, the idea of shooting a fire-and-forget missile in LOAL on the basis of EO-DAS information is still entirely untested, more than 15 years after the idea was made part of the JSF concept.
Note also that all of these claimed superiorities are relative (in Bartos’ view) to an F-15C.
Much of the SLD-filtered program propaganda reminds me strongly of this:
LowObservableVN – I believe that the EOTS is MWIR – since LWIR is obsolete in pod terms as a standalone because its resolution inherently sucks donkey ****s, as anyone pretending to have an informed opinion on this matter should know. Since modern HD CCD goes well into the low-light zone, too, fusion with MWIR is today’s standard. Unsurprisingly, all this stuff has developed very quickly in the past dozen years or so. Upgrading to a fused-with-daylight standard is a little hard, since CCD doesn’t work too well through radar-proof sunglasses.
Also, at an average weapon system unit cost of $100m, your revenue figure would seem to indicate 5500 deliveries by 2034. GLWT.
LowObservablehigh cruise speed (prevents rear-quadrant approach by the enemy),
This was an ops-analysis reason behind supercruise in the 1980s. Of course, you still need a weapon to match.
LowObservableDuring the last F-35 briefing I sat through, it was clearly stated that the F-35 was not relying on “the historical kinematic approach” to ensure its effectiveness against current and future air to air and surface to air threats.
This sounds like a textbook case of HBI (Hot Bathwater Ingestion*). Kinematics are a part of the kill chain, along with detection, identification and tracking, until we develop a practical airborne multi-MW laser (in which case, be prepared for the FC-46 Fightin’ Pegasus). Anything that the adversary can do to degrade the range of your missile shot (approach at higher altitude, high-g maneuver, supersonic g, auto-evade) means that you have to get closer and thereby reduce the effectiveness of your counter-detection/tracking measures.
Note that Gen. Hostage appeared to confirm that in spades in his Breaking Defense interview. If the F-22 is indeed less stealthy than the F-35 but is 4:1 more effective, then its superior kinematics (>60000 foot sustained altitude, M=1.7 cruise and 5g/M=1.5 maneuver) overwhelm the advantages of the F-35’s lower signature, in whatever scenario the General had in mind. (I suspect that he was thinking DEAD against S-400 + 55Zh6ME.)
*”Drinking your own bathwater” means “believing your own marketing”.
LowObservableSpud – Why don’t you ask Osley what the **** he meant about “parameters” before you post that piece of puffery, for the 195th time, as though it communicated anything?
Because I suspect that any modern radar is going to be measuring lots of “parameters” – range, speed, RCS, JEM, other measurements needed for NCTR – and an EW system will be picking up bearing, elevation, frequency, waveforms, variations in waveforms and so on – and even a modern IRST is looking at variations across the object studied.
VN – You might want to check your facts. AFAIK EOTS is midwave IR only while the latest pods are HD-daylight fused with HD-IR. Also, I rather doubt that multiple companies – including Lockheed Martin – would be producing IRST if the same results could be generated by an IRST mode in a targeting pod.
Also, someone might ask what the FT didn’t, which is how much of BAE’s F-35 stake is UK-domiciled.
LowObservableTC – Please feel free to show something other than the Falcon 9, which is not any kind of missile. But you probably won’t be able to.
VN – I was not talking about IRST and if you knew anything about anything you would know that. But you clearly do not. And aside from stealing Watterson’s art, can you provide evidence beyond a dumbass emoticon as to the capabilities of F-35 sensors?
LowObservableWell, that’s a problem, Mr X, since the F-35 has a very limited jamming system comprising X-band effective only in the forward 120 deg. sector at best, and an ill-defined active radar expendable decoy – so it does not meet your own criterion.
Moreover, there is not a shred of evidence that its sensors are any better than anything else’s; indeed, the EOTS is limited in field of regard and has no multi-spectral capability.
LowObservableWhat is on the carrier is a big one of these.
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LowObservableTrying to predict availability of an aircraft that has not even achieved IOC is a bit like trying to guess keno numbers based on previous lotteries.
I’d love to hear you make that argument as you’re trying to sell a new airliner to Emirates. Combat aircraft are a bit different, but essentially not that different. Every component can be and should be designed, bench-tested and validated in flight to achieve a specified lifetime and probability of failure, and every maintenance action can be simulated in the design stage and validated on the flightline.
Indeed, if you really don’t expect to be able to predict availability before IOC, your program should be scrapped and you should probably be facing five-to-ten in the federal slammer for fraud.
Hoppo – Look at that list of customers. Delete the one that’s not paying for its aircraft with its own money. Now look for the customers whose judgment is so excellent that:
1 – They blew billions on a 25-knot amphibious armored vehicle that would have cost as much as a helicopter if it had worked
2 – They have been forced to drop a major mission (ASW) and are on a going-out-of-business curve on AEW
3 – They have spent 30 years and $$$ billion on 170 operational bombers and fighters and let the rest of their combat fleet age to record levels
4 – They will not have enough aircraft to perform a useful expeditionary operation, maintain a single QRA and sustain the force at the same time.
Models of competence, all of them!
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