YourFatherIt does not matter, anything really sensitive is not included. If the Chinese don’t already know what the operating frequency range of the APG-68 is, then China has exceptionally poor SIGINT capabilities. ECCM techniques that are used to counter jamming are the sensitive parts and can be easily removed since they are software related.
YourFatherThe US may not allow full EW capabilites, but even a downgraded version is still likely to be more capable than what China can provide. And the equipment can be made tamper-proof, if they are not already tamper-proof, which they are likely to be.
YourFatherI quite agree with the MLU issue. The electronics part of the MLU is the cheap part, changing the radar, cockpits, etc,. No big deal. This will probably be along a few million. Its the airframe MLU that will cost an arm and a leg, perhaps as much as half to two thirds of a brand new airframe in flyaway cost (20 million). Used F-16s tend to show serious wear because they have been used very aggressively, and the F-16 has known structural issues. It is possible that the airframe MLU alone can cost more than a JF-17 in flyaway cost (12 million vs. 8 million). Add the cost of the electronics MLU, maybe around 4 to 5 million, and you’re approaching the flyaway cost of a brand new J-10 (est. 20 million plus).
The MLU with Falcon Star AND Falcon UP upgrades cost only about $5 million per airframe. With the better performance of the F-16 and similar or even lower cost, the F-16 would be a winner if not for US ability to sanction Pakistan’s use of the F-16.
YourFatherIf you look further down the document, you’ll see this:
3. Boeing F/A-18E SUPER HORNET
Program Unit Cost : $ 95.3 million
Unit Procurement Cost: $ 78.4 million
Manufacturer’s comment:
In response to our query, Boeing said that “the fly-away cost of the Super Hornet, under the current, second multi-year procurement contract with the U.S. Navy, is $53.8 million.
Perhaps there are other services under the contract which account for the inflated figure? :confused:
YourFatherUSAF have only 5 stations wired for 1760 databus compatible weapons – centreline, underwing and either front or centre lower CFT – these are the only ones that can carry JDAM in USAF service (and other modern digital weapons).
South Korea have all stations wired for 1760, hence the 12 GBU-38 loadout.
Any have clear pictures of which hardpoint carry the SDB?
Suite 5 upgrades will give the capability to carry SDBs on all the lower stations on the CFTs, but it’s a case of either the centre stations only or the front and back ones, not all 3 simultaneously.
YourFatherYes.
YourFatherThere are only two stations that might not be smart bomb capable: the upper, center CFT stations. Those are the only two hardpoints I can’t recall seeing some form of smart bomb (JDAM or Paveway) on. I’ve seen a 500lb JDAM on the lower, center CFT station.
F-15Es have Station 2, 5, 8 as well as LCT 1,2,3 and RCT 1,2,3 wired for smart bombs. From http://www.f-15estrikeeagle.com/navigation/index_loadouts.htm, it seems that LCT/RCT 4,5,6 are not wired. However, the F-15K was able to, in the report above, release 12 500lb JDAMs from the CFTs, which would mean that LCT/RCT 4,5,6 are wired on the F-15Ks.
YourFatherwould you care to share with us the possible use of a cobra maneaouvre, in a real combat situation?
So that you could get a good close-up look at the Aim-9X before it exploded in your face. 😀 Following your unfortunate demise, you could join up with your comrades who tried the same tactic earlier and discuss the wonderfully lethal characteristics of the missile.
YourFatherAdd in the Harpoon Block II. The K and SG versions will also be able to carry more JDAMs than their US counterparts, because some bomb stations on USAF aircraft are not able ‘smart weapons’ compatible.
F-15K Releases Multiple JDAMs for Integration Test
ST. LOUIS, Feb. 16, 2006 — An F-15K, built by Boeing [NYSE:BA] for the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF), simultaneously dropped three Mk-82 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) during testing at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., scoring three direct hits.
“These were the first guided releases of JDAM from an F-15K and they all went extremely well,” said John Heilmann, F-15K program manager. “Whether it’s air-to-air, air-to-sea, or in this case air-to-ground, the F-15K is living up to its billing as the world’s most capable multi-role fighter.”
The Mk-82 JDAM releases are part of an integration program that will certify the F-15K to carry up to 12 Mk-82 (500 lb.) JDAMs on the aircraft’s conformal fuel tank pylon stations. The F-15K will be the first F-15 variant anywhere to have this capability.
For the test, three JDAMs were released simultaneously from an F-15K at Mach 0.9 at an altitude of approximately 20,000 feet, hitting their ground-based target points within an average 2.1 meters.
The F-15K can perform missions day or night, in virtually any weather carrying more than 23,000 pounds of payload, including the JDAM, Harpoon Block II, Standoff Land Attack Munition Expanded Response (SLAM ER), Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles.
Korea has received the first four of 40 F-15K for the ROKAF with the remainder of the fighters being delivered through August 2008. The first two aircraft were delivered last October during the Seoul Air Show.
YourFatherWhat’s so wrong about that? They have not retracted their position about the lack of utility of the maneuvre. So where’s the hypocrisy?
YourFatherCruise missile defense. That is a role that the F-22 is really adept at, it is a threat that is coming online (S.Korea and China and Russia), and current measures are inadequate. The other option is JLENs, but the F-22 provides better coverage.
YourFatherNope, export versions are the MVU-POE and the MGK-400E. They mainly differ in certain data treatment characteristics and the inability to handle wire-guided or merely guided weapons. That was the incentive for the Chinese to develop their own «Kilo-Amur» class
I’m sorry, but just to be clear: The Kilos sold to the PLAN, even the 636s, they are not able to utilise wire-guided torpedoes due to combat system restrictions?
YourFather& even (in according to Thales) a smaller deck footprint.
Very plausible explanation. Part of the factors that determines an island’s size is the need to provide sufficient separation between antennaes to prevent interference. As I understand, part of the reason why the Invincible class had a very large island structure was due to the need to prevent the Sea Dart’s Type 909(I)s from causing interferene with the search radar. With two island structures on the CVF, this can be resolved.
YourFatherNo. You are patently making SIGINT as if it can be used for direct long range targeting, which is not true in a lot of conditions. Call it requisite of ideal conditions. Even in the case of JDAM bombing, SIGINT/COMINT aircraft only cue or vector fighters to the suspected area, and so often it is up to for fighters in the immediate battle zone to actually find the targets directly.
Stray or weak signals recieve from long range has so much ambiguities due to range, atmospheric conditions, that it is not a reliable basis as a direct targeting method to expend rather expensive ARMs. The quality of information is like a “hunch” or “whiffs of smoke”, as opposed to a fire you can directly see.
Here’s a quote from a Nov issue of C4I magazine on the baseline 8 upgrades to the Rivet Joint:
“Originally conceived to monitor Soviet Bloc communications and signals for strategic-level U.S. command echelons, these Rivet Joints have evolved such that they can now also support tactical military operations. Indeed, said the officials here, the aircraft have the ability to detect, monitor and identify any device that emits an electromagnetic signal and can accurately pinpoint its location so that the object could be attacked, if necessary.
While the Air Force is cautious about what it will divulge, it is understood that the Rivet Joints can monitor the transmissions from devices as small as cell phones up to large emitting systems like air defense radars.
The Baseline 8 configuration continues the aircraft’s evolution toward being fully integrated into modern, automated battlefield information-sharing networks, the officials said. The changes associated with Baseline 8, like all the aircraft’s mission systems upgrades, are designed to insert new equipment, such as new antennas and commercially-based computer processors, to stay ahead of emerging threats in the global war on terrorism, and to replace old components facing obsolescence.”
For those signals that are too weak to be detected, I have already mentioned the existing counter – the F-22.
http://www.ausairpower.net/API-AGM-88-HARM.html
“In all modes the HARM employs flex logic, and will automatically acquire the next highest value (priority) target should the intended target go off the air. This ensures that the weapon is not wasted once it is committed.”
That article is dated. It doesn’t even mention the PNU upgrade. With the PNU upgrade, that now only applies to emitting sets which are within geographicaly permitted boundaries.
What are you not getting at? If emission A shuts down and emission B starts up, and emission B is within the HARM’s seeker band, then HARM goes after emission B, which may be a decoy.
It may be a decoy – then providing that the radar and the decoy are within the allowable geographical regions, that then depends on the ability of the HARM to differentiate between the two. I also noticed your change in position – weren’t you talking about how low the side-lobe emission was of phased arrays that made them invulnerable to ARMs? 😀 :rolleyes:
No the phase array can shut down the moment it sees the HARM aircraft or even the missile in PB mode. Missile in PB mode isn’t going to go active till it reaches the waypoint.
Do you understand what you’re talking about? Since when did ARMs go ‘active’?
What makes you think that it needs to be completely eliminated at all. It only needs to be eliminated to a point that it has no use over a distance.
You can always use a probe to measure the sidelob emissions for the prototype radar at various distances, then work that out to eliminate that as much as possible.
And what makes you think that even in its reduced form it cannot be detected? Wolfpack, Sensor Forward architectures, ALR-94.
They did not kill what was rather a small and obsolete point AD force over a duration of months and rather despite a large expenditure of HARMs.
AS I said, the HARMs did their job of suppressing the AD system. While the AD system did impose severe virtual attrition on the coalition, the AD system was also rendered ineffective. Killing the AD system is not the point of any campaign. In fact, any effort expended on dealing with the AD system imposes virtual attrition on the attacking force. The F-22 is capable because with it much less effort is required to take down an AD network than using non-LO aircraft, thus cutting down on virtual attrition. In many cases it is able to simply ignore the AD defenses because it can simply fly over them with impunity. (Just how many countries in the world have super expensive long rang SAMs like S-300s/S-400s? Few. And how many in the quantities required to saturate the airspace? None.)
And if you think that radar technologies and countermeasures have not evolved beyond that point—which BTW didn’t even fully test the best systems available that time—then you are a bigger fool.
I never said it didn’t evolve. Then again, I’m not the one advocating the stand that standoff SIGINT is a dead-end. :rolleyes:
And that may still have to be done, yes. But the target isn’t that small either. Finding the target even in if the target is in EMCON represents the ultimate goal.
Indeed it is – hence the Space Based Radar concept. But the fact is, targeting AD systems now and in the near future by and large relies on the target emitting. And that’s fine.
No but stand off SIGINT does not have the omnipotence all the time silver bullet accuracy you always hype about.
I have not hyped it to omnipotence. Why would I advocate the ability of the F-22 to sense signals deep in enemy territory if I felt the Rivet joint to be omnipotent? Unlike you, I have not taken an absolute position the way you did by saying that stand-off SIGINT was a dead end, and that ARMs were ineffective against phased array radars – which begs the question of why there are existing ARM upgrade programs and new ARM programs being undertaken, as well as new long range SIGINT platforms being designed. So either you know something these people don’t, or you are wrong.
YourFatherWhich may not be enough for a true EOM mode of attack
Read the article carefully. While it does not say that Rivet Joint cannot receive that signals, it does not mean that Rivet Joint is omnipotent. It suggests that offboard sensors are not reliable enough, and even COMINT/SIGINT aircraft has to cue the SEAD/DEAD aircraft to the suspected area, in order to use their onboard localized sensors to actually determine the exact threat.
I have never claimed it onmnipotent. If I thought it were I wouldn’t have espoused one of the advantages that the F-22 brought – close in SIGINT surveillance of the battlespace. You, however, have tried to make out SIGINT to be a dead end with the advent of phased arrays – which is patently untrue.
JDAMs can also work via surveillance by other means. If you want that kind of accuracy, you still need LOS, signals not interrupted by terrain, earth curvature, and a highly polluted signal environment.
Why do you keep insisting that the required assets will not be within LOS?
I read this in an article before, never bothered to save it. But go check out the pictures of both the 48N6E and 48N6E2. No FINS.
No fins?
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=33446
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=40842
You might want to check your source again. Only the 9M96 is advertised as having a terminal gas dynamic control system. No mention of anything similar for the 48N6E.
Yeah, and so will the decoy.
It is true that HARMs will continue on its path even if the radar is shut down, via INS or GPS on newer version. But what happens if a second source starts emitting? The HARM assumes the original target is destroyed, and will try to acquire the new emission, since it will not waste itself like in having multiple HARMs trying to destroy the same destroyed target. The new emission may not be the frequency previously set by Pre Brief aka Pre Specified aka Pre Emptive mode or whatever it is called.
Then as it chases the second emission, the second emission shuts down. The missile is in a free flight again. But then a third emission arises, and so on, rinse and repeat. The end result is the missile runs out of fuel somewhere along this is happening.
I suggest you find out more about the PNU. If the target within its specified zone is not acquired, it is programmed to destroy itself in a pre-determined location. it wil not go off hunting for another radar from a geolocation outside its specified limits.
If the missile searches for a frequency predetermined before launch, it gets into trouble if the missile reaches the PB aimpoint only to find the target has shifted frequencies, ala agility, hopping etc,. It will have to go autonomous, looking for frequency unknown, and chances are vulnerability to decoys, and worst yet, a friendly emitting unit if it happens to be in the vicinity. The seeker has no geographical limits to its detection other than the range of the emission and its own sensitivity.
As said before, it doesn’t matter if the target has changed freq, so long as that freq remains in the HARM’s seeker band. Naturally, friendly units have their location specified in the HARM’s no-go zone.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2002/08/mil-020808-usn01.htm
This works only if the phase array is illuminating the target aircraft which happens to be carrying the ARMs. In which case, if farther range, the aircraft can use aimpoint based mode, aka Pre Briefed what ever you call it with LOAL. If closer, maybe through target of opportunity kind of mode with missiles set at LOBL. In either case, there is a fair chance the aircraft itself can get nailed, possibly resulting in a case of mutually assured destruction between both aircraft and surface radar.
There is one basic situation why a naval PAR like AEGIS is more vulnerable to a ground PAR like PAC via HARM attack. Its the terrain. Sidelobs tend to go low and peripheral to the main beam. On earth this can often be obscured by terrain forms ranging from mountains to hills and even buildings. Not so against a clear sea.
The phased array doesn’t have to illuminate the HARM launcher in order for the HARM launcher to have the location pre-set into the HARM for a Pre-Brief mode launch.
And the HARM will not have a main beam to ride on, if the radar set—an FCR type—happens to have a thin beam illuminating the fighter, and not the missile. With little or no sidelobs to lock against the FCR, the HARM will go after either a decoy or a volume search radar.
Even if the HARM couldn’t detect any side-lobe emission at launch, under the Pre-Brief mode it would when it gets close to the area specified which contains the target radar. Why do I have to repeat myself so many times?
What situation are you talking about? Its called ARM, not ARH.
You seem to be sufferig from selective memory loss. I recall you quite clearly saying that an ARM could be sent against the F-22 if the F-22 used its AESA radar. Which makes it quite ironical that following that when the situation was turned around you tried to assert how invulnerable phased arrays are to ARMs. :rolleyes:
Does not matter if your RWR is digital or analog or how sensitive it is, if you don’t have any sidelobs to detect on, you don’t detect through the sidelobs at all. You cannot make detection against a vacuum. Advances in RWR will at least help you deal with detection of main beams that may try tricks like frequency hopping or pulse compression. But then you are becoming more and more dependent on a direct contact with the main beam, which does not eliminate the detection of the surface radar, but it does greatly reduce the distance which that radar is detected, and for that matter, would require LOS with that unit.
What the hell makes you think sidelobes are totally eliminated?
So they’re dumb enough to fire over 1000 HARMs against decoy tanks?
They fired HARMs, suppressing the AD system, and with that the job was done.
The fact that you fired over 1000 HARMs over an area as small as Serbia, and many obsolete SAM units are still intact tell you something.
i didn’t fire. The coalition did. Those were old generation HARMs, and even if they did their job of suppressing the radar sets, the fact that they could not eliminate radar sets which had shut down was an identified deficiency. Which leads us to the PNU upgrade and the future AARGM upgrade. If you think SEAD measures/techniques hasn’t progressed since that conflict, then you are a fool.
LOL. How is it hard to differentiate a large planar array from a vehicle huh? SAR can often go down to 1 meter resolution.
High resolution SAR imagery is taken in strips, which are inadequate for finding targets, which means that they have to be cued by SIGINT sensors.
He wrote his article in 2003 which makes it quite timely. I don’t believe the man has that much faith on improving offboard-standoff sensors as he has on improving onboard sensors. The threat has evolved to a point its only going to make it harder for offboard/standoff sensors.
The US EW concept involves a network. Sure standoff sensors are facing difficulties with low powered devices (usually taken to mean commercial comms devices), that is why programs like Wolfpack and concepts like Sensor-Forward are in place. That doesn’t mean stand-off SIGINT is doomed. Far from it.
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