ELPI agree the AMRAAM approach would be more expensive than something like a SDB but might be desireable compared to the cost of a HARM, not to mention that if fired from a F-22 the advantages of stealth, supercruise, etc will apply.
The tremendous advantage the USAF enjoys is that he has so many ways to skin a cat.. it makes sense though to use the most cost-effective solution. Re the mini-cruise missile, maybe this is something for a LOCAAS-like weapon.. of w/c there are a couple in development.
Well…. base AMRAAM is pricey…. don’t know if a multi-role based on AMRAAM will be cheaper than HARM… of course the AMRAAM body fits inside.
ELPNeedless to say, even in 1989, NATO conventional forces in Europe would have been little more than a speed bump to the soviet army,
Nope. Not with the Potsdam Treaty ( both sides having people on both sides of the fence driving around in cars to report any mobilization ). More: Any fantasy Fulda Gap scenario would not happen to game plan as that border had every sensor platform know to God looking at every square yard/meter, and of course ELINT/COMINT/SIGINT. Any mobilization to bring the thundering herd up to speed would be absolutely…. no suprise. Given the number of tac nukes and chem/bio on hand, also, a no win.
ELPF-16 fly very fast……really well their’s news for us. That General must be from U.S intelligence!
Spokesman could mean anything, including some no-knowledge PA dork. Mentioned was that the jet came off of a strafing pass. A stray AK round or other similar trashfire could, no matter how unlikely, ruin your day. Records of course show that F-16s can fall out of the sky for any number of reasons, independent of hostile fire.
ELPInteresting. Get this system to work really well, and you can adapt it to an AMRAAM and effectively have a multi-role missile. All you’d need to do to operate in full-on ARM mode is cue it using GPS coordinates derived from a SAR picture of wherever the RWR finds a hostile emitter.
Or of course a net-centric hand-off from another platform.
ELPYeah, get a lot more bang for the buck.. just a little exercise to write the necessary lines of code.. the AMRAAM has a 50lb warhead IIRC w/c should be sufficient against soft targets.. the test HARM missile destroyed its target w/o a warhead. A AIM-120D with its improved range and launched at super-cruise speed from 50,000+ feet would go a pretty long way.. a lot farther and faster than SDB with diamondback kit.
Bring it on or someone here had a post already about the multi-role variant of the AMRAAM thinking. In the case of an AMRAAM like weapon being used for something like that….. it has to be an awfully important ground target for someone to use such an expensive weapon on. AMRAAMs aren’t cheap. I am sure such weapons will be limited to how they will be used based on cost. Everything we do today is even more hyper-cost driven. A multi-role A2A/A2G missile as mentioned above may happen someday but again it is all about cost. Of course when it comes to doing something like taking out targets for SEAD/DEAD missions, or GPS jammers, cost is less of an issue.
Off topic, I am surprised someone hasn’t come up with a short range mini cruise missile on the size of the currently fielded Israeli Delilah or something on the order of the old canceled Tacit Rainbow ( AGM-136 ) to fit inside the weapons bay of the F-22.
ELP“potential enemy”…. don’t know… current enemies are using GPS against us now in any number of ways. About the only thing we have a handle on is the secure variant of our military only GPS receivers which have secure/anti-spoof/anti-jam abilities. We run exercises to practice killing off jammers. We are good about protecting what we have on the military GPS side so it isn’t denied for our use, but seem to be limited…. ( funding / manpower / such a huge task ) of doing anything to limit the civilian segment of GPS ( which for a lot of uses is good enough ) from being used against us.
ELPOperation: Useless Dirt, strikes again.
ELPBasically, it’s better performance at low altitude and smaller radar signature,..ah! and less smokey engine. It’s slightly faster as well. However, no big difference between the two of them.
Mid 80s they started putting in non-smokers. Problem with for example the 10th TRW was that it was a mixed wing. One Squadron of RF-4Cs ( 1TRS )and one Squadron of Aggressors ( 527th ). Two different two engine jets in one wing in this case meant the engine shop was way over-worked. In the case of the RF-4, sometimes it would have one smoker and one non-smoker in it which would give off an engine idle sound that had out of tune harmonics = annoying. :p
Don’t know about the “better performance” at low altitude, but once a jet is lined up on a photo run and starts the cameras it has to be pretty steady. Also again, the speed of the camera only F-4 could out run most jets at low level. Where for this mission, this was about all that was of interest re: Performance. As mentioned in the link article… a large percentage of camera F-4s were lost to flak, and low level photo run is high risk no matter what the size.
Anyone have a list of cameras that the Mirage F-1 could carry?
ELPIt’s a matter of time span too. Are you talking wet photography or digital? Today digital is the way to go. Both platforms started out with wet photography.
In the old days the F-4C is so fast that went it starts it’s photo run ( low level ) it would be finishing it’s photo pass and escorting fighter F-4s wouldn’t catch it. It would be long gone. ( it was a lot lighter than a combat loaded fighter F-4 ). RF-4Cs would be pretty hard to catch.
The RF-4Cs first look into electronic photo transmission in flight in the 80s was the PAVE DRAG .er…. I mean the PAVE TAC… :p A huge pod that could be put on the center line with analog video and a VTR and of course it was a laser designator. The same rig that was in the center bomb bay of some of our F-111s at that time. The recon pukes would use it to lase landmarks to get accurate fixes on locations for calling in reports. Also they had a rig onboard the PAVE TAC equipped RF-4C that could take a still frame from the analog video of the PAVE TAC VTR… capture it….and electronically send it back to the recce planners…the quality wasn’t great but was helpful sometimes. PAVE TAC sucked up fuel though. Make a RF-4C set up that way even more tanker dependent.
It would also do high, medium photo passes. Just depends on what was needed.
Early days: Wet photography photo equipment. Infrared film/red-lens options, when needed. Side looking radar options recorded to film options. The F-4 carried a lot of cameras of different types. More so it was a the tip of the spear of an insanely large and extensive photo intel service on the ground. Spent 2 years at an RF-4C unit ( 10th TRW 84-86 ) and it was impressive. Yes the airplane could do a lot of types of photo missions. However if you saw the ground operation at the time, that was what was impressive. The flow of what happened to photos once they reached the ground. Lots of intel and photo processing specialists. A warehouse full of large continuous film processors, dark rooms of all shapes and sizes…. Large format printing. Electronic ( for the day ) high resolution analog scanners and fax like machines that would send of images of interest electronically to points of interest. High dollar stuff.
Now of course digital imaging has replace most of that ( example the special recon nose for a select few USMC digital photo F-18s. With a lot smaller footprint. We used for a while a ( Dutch? I forget ) photo pod ( digital 25MP I think ) on the F-16. Etc. However we don’t put together very many frag folders like the old days. Again, air plans like Allied Force 99 are useless to us today. NCW ( net centric warfare ) means we detect targets and try and kill them right away with a very short kill chain. Sensor-to decision maker- to shooter. Ask SOC. He could tell you some more but he might have to shoot you if he did. So many things have changed now that doing a photo run… going back home and looking at it then putting together a target folder…. is hardly ever done.
The Mirage was probably good in Ex Yugo for photo work because we got rid of the RF-4C too early. All that ground crap I mentioned made an RF-4 unit expensive to run. We killed off whole programs wholesale post cold war just to have a “peace dividend” and save money. When all the ex-Yugo stuff came around we were seriously short of tac photo assets… digital photography had not caught up yet and netcentric warfare had not caught up yet ( a lot of failed NCW headaches in Allied Force 99 )….. So when Ex-Yugo problems came along…. any jet that could do photo runs was an excellent asset. Didn’t the French also use another bird for recon photography then too… a version of their nuke bomber?????????? Of course the recon pod off of the F-14 was in high demand too. At that time the F-16 ( Dutch?? ) digital pod for USAF was being tested out by a Guard unit and they were not happy and felt ignored. They thought it was good enough to be used in those ops even though it was still being tested… the air planners turned them down. I think everyone else BUT the USAF had some kind of serviceable tac photo in place at that time. Didn’t the Brit or French have some Jaguars set up as tac photo birds too?????
Again though, you have to remember that we don’t do air ops like we did in 1999 Allied Force. That is old hat. There are specialized needs for digital photo recon via air breathing or non-air breathing platforms, but the time scale of how those images are used today and the routing of them has changed quite a bit.
Here is some interesting RF-4C reading…
http://www.patricksaviation.com/wiki/RF-4C
ELPHave to have a realistic safety program before guessing at foul play. Of course… depends what the accident report says… assuming there are air safety investigators of any worth. The real problem is most likely not having a government body there that has a handle on air safety….. regulations… training… etc….
ELPOr perhaps the next time they plan to hit commercial planes into any building or to hide the exact location where a commercial jet linner was suppose to have crashed…. link the dots. 🙂
Yeah… sure..
ELPSuch is American wastefulness I guess.
By all means give the navy target hulks to sink – there are lots of 30yr old Sprucans for that…but sinking an 18yr old AAW cruiser that could be placed in active reserve status and offer service later as necessary?. Sounds extremely odd to me!.
Interesting. Guess we can sink the first DDXs 18 years after they are put in service. Or the first Burkes etc… My first thought was this must have been the Tico that hit a mine in Desert Storm and was never really right after that… but it wasn’t. Even this ship was about a billion dollars to put into the water. Good grief. It’s only the taxpayer picking up the bill anyway. :rolleyes:
ELPSpeaking of France…. :dev2:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/11/26/cnbae26.xml
ELPEveryone thinks different however countries that might have to land jets on “contaminated” runways…. ice, snow… etc… where the landing rollout distance can be a problem…. will use drag chutes. Note the F-16… with most users… they don’t use drag chutes… however there are a few users that do. And the big concern is landing rollout distance on contaminated runways.
ELPLittle history review. Hopefully the top people mentioned in this old article weren’t interested in details of how to make the deal. 😮
Blair in secret Saudi mission
Expulsions link to £40bn arms deal
David Leigh and Ewen MacAskill
Tuesday September 27, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,1579155,00.html#article_continue
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