ELPThe only solution to this problem is direct bilateral negotiations which is in itself is not an appeasement. There is no other approach except this one at least. Some of the member countries to the six-party talk format are in favour of this, South-Korea,China,and Russia would all be willing to have it a trial. Machoism and arrogance should be out of the equation when dealing with a country like North Korea,this is not Iraq and Afghanistan or Serbia. Kim is not mad, Kim is a savvy individual. For over 50 years after the Korean war which other country in this world has constantly been harrasing them,just to show them how powerful that country is and can dictate?
Naval embargo against North-Korea could be taken an act of war. Certainly South-Korea wouldn’t agree to it,neither would China and Russia. Should a total war breakout it is they the South-Koreans who will take a blunt of the casualties- hundreds of thousands if not million would perish on both sides of the Koreans.
Also 30000 American soldiers, and whatever re-enforcements besides this would also die. Think about a powerful 1.2 million standing army and over 4 million reservists who are also well trained.Their airforce would have an obselete equipment, but air campaign cannot win a war on the Korean peninsula, it is ground forces of a conventional army that could do so. I hope the Democrats could turn this around in 2 years time hopefully if they could be in office.
Been to South Korea? Their military today is pretty strong. The only thing the NK would provide would be a lot of targets to get killed. NK doesn’t have the ability to just go over the border as if it doesn’t exist. And yes airpower would provide so much death and destruction to the NK military, it would look like the landscape after Falaise gap. Including making the “highway of death” at the end of Desert Storm look weak. NK and SK have been at war since 1950. The only thing that exists now is a cease fire. One of the longest in known history. And yes there would be a lot of casualties from NK artillery fire and specfors. However anything we do now would be less casualties than letting this nut have ANY nuke capability. That test should have been the signal to break the cease fire. We should have told them this a long long time ago… That test should have been the signal to turn NK into a 24/7 bombing range.
The peace in our time peaceniks don’t have to worry though. Our coward/idiot Bush said there won’t be any strike. And I am sure we will do what ever is good for China. Can’t hurt Walmart sales and all.
ELPBombing hard now will spill less total blood than doing nothing. This has to be taken care of. Even if that means SK gets dusted up some by NK artillery fire missions and intial NK Specfors. Bomb every piece of NK infastructure 24/7 that has any military value and then bounce the rubble again just to make sure.
ELPHere’s a rare USAF pilot who isn’t interested in switching over to the F-22….
For Robins fighter pilot, the F-15 is much more than just an aging aircraft: It’s a friend
By Gene Rector
TELEGRAPH STAFF WRITERROBINS AIR FORCE BASE – They’re old friends in every sense of the word, this red-haired fighter pilot and the gray, sleek F-15 he flies.
They’ve been almost inseparable for 16 years. Lt. Col. Kevin “Ice Man” Coleman was the first to fly 100 combat missions in the Boeing jet during Desert Storm in the early 1990s.
Since becoming the chief test pilot 10 years ago for the 339th Test Squadron at Robins Air Force Base, he has flown and certified every new or overhauled F-15 before it was transferred to an Air Force unit.
In the process, he’s logged more F-15 flying time – almost 4,700 hours – than any Air Force pilot.
“It’s almost my age,” the 44-year-old pilot said of the F-15. “It was first designed in the 1960s, first flown in the early 1970s and has been the predominant air-to-air and air-to-ground fighter for all those years.”
But that is changing. Time, new technology and budget pressures are slowly removing the F-15 from its lofty perch. The Air Force wants to retire more than 1,100 aging fighter, tanker, cargo and reconnaissance aircraft, including older models of the F-15.
Some F-15s will survive until 2025, say force planners. They will join forces with new, state-of-the-art F-22 and F-35 fighters along with a growing number of unmanned systems.
The F-22 Raptor, the F-15’s heir apparent now being fielded by the Air Force, is “in a league of its own,” according to the experts. Its stealthy frame, long-range radar and enhanced sensors are clearly superior to the F-15.
War games between the two aircraft have proven it. But even the F-22 can’t do everything better than the F-15, Coleman contends.
“When you make an aircraft stealthy, there are trade-offs,” he said. “You can’t hang stuff on the bottom of it like fuel tanks and bombs. The F-15 Strike Eagle is not as stealthy, but it can carry a tremendous, precision bomb load – a lot more than the F-22 – it can put those bombs on target and fly home without tanking (refueling).”
There is definitely a place for the F-15, insists Coleman. “There is still no replacement for it, nothing on the drawing boards,” he said. “I’m talking deep strike interdiction.”
The F-22, with its high price tag – at least $130 million a plane – and its sophisticated on-board systems, has a very important but specific role to play.
“Who wants to take a very expensive airplane nowadays and get in a knife fight?” Coleman pointed out. “You want to use your technology, your big stick, to reach the other guy before he can even see you.”
The Air Force Academy graduate takes a dim view of those who claim air superiority is no longer critical in today’s “ground-centric” warfare. He believes that argument is wrong today and perhaps disastrously wrong for the future.
“In order to fight the ground war without major losses, you must have command of the air,” the pilot said. “Nobody opposes us in Iraq. We own the skies and we can focus on the ground war.”
The growing threat from China and perhaps other nations means that investment in high performance aircraft must continue, Coleman said.
“Designing a new fighter takes 10-plus years,” he said. “Then you have another five years of growing pains to get it operationally capable. So we must invest now for wars that might come up in the future. Without air dominance, we’re going to have exponentially greater American casualty rates.”
That future mix of forces concerns him, particularly as he watches his son, Austin, scamper about the family farm near Cumming, northeast of Atlanta. The 10-year-old wants to be a fighter pilot and is already exhibiting the type-A behavior that Coleman said he had as a kid.
“He likes to push everything he’s driving to the limit,” he said. “We have these electric-powered vehicles and he’s always skidding and sliding them around.”
Coleman hopes Austin will first be able to fly the F-15 before he transitions to the F-22 or F-35. “The F-15 will teach him some things the hard way,” he said. “When I joined the Air Force, I flew the F-4. That was one of the airplanes that would hurt you if you didn’t fly it right.”
Those were valuable lessons, he insists. “Flying the F-4 gave me some good hands,” Coleman remembers. “So when technology fails, you can still accomplish the mission.”
In the meantime, Coleman – now a member of the Air Force Reserve and selected for promotion to colonel – has no desire to transition to the F-22. There are too many ties to the F-15, too many memories.
“It’s a great airplane,” he said. “I feel privileged to have flown it as long as I have. I’ve taken it into combat and it’s brought me home to my family. It’s a great friend and a great asset. I’ve flown it in more dangerous situations than anybody and I’ve never had to eject. I’ve really enjoyed it.”
I know this guy. He has pretty much one of the best jobs. He and a few others flight test F-15’s once they are put back together. A depot rebuild/refirb for an F-15 is about an 88 flow days or so +/- process.
ELPFigured I’d move this to a separate thread to see if we could generate some sensible discussion on this issue.
Ok. Let’s examine a few things regarding the potential Lavi-J-10 relationship. The Chinese defense establishment has a history of extrapolating on existing designs to create their military aircraft. When presented with the aircraft or the designs to work from, they are able to produce Xerox copies, such as the J-7 and H-6. When they are given outside assistance, their designs tend to resemble those of the assisters’ product they are trying to emulate. The L-15 is a good example of this.
The J-10 would seem to be one of two things. Either totally indigenous, or in the latter of the two aforementioned categories. Now, the second option is the more likely one in my opinion. The Chinese defense establishment had no experience with 4th Generation aircraft. The Chinese military did have a relationship with Israel, hence the PL-8 and the Harpy. The Chinese defense establishment was just getting out from under the crippling effects of the Cultural Revolution and the political aftermath of Tianamen Square (which resulted in certain exports and assistance being barred or revoked…see PEACE PEARL). All of these factors suggest that the J-10 was indeed developed with some degree of outside assistance.
Now, the J-10 is clearly not a Lavi carbon copy. However, it seems logical that Israeli design assistance may have entered the fold. It probably went like this: PLAAF wants new fighter, Chengdu slated to design, Israeli assistance sought, Lavi general aerodynamic layout chosen as a baseline for development. Now, since Israel didn’t exactly develop the Lavi all by themselves, they wouldn’t be in a position to necessarily offer up the complete plans. They probably also didn’t want to jeopardise their continued existance by irritating the USA either, and as such, given that their involvement was, in the grand scheme of things, relatively minor yet still obviously important, they probably would want to keep their involvement secret. If the US discovers the truth, so what? Plausible deniability-it’s not the Lavi, after all.
However, Lavi engineers could have provided assistance in the areas of general design (they were, after all, aerodynamicists, right?), production methods, and other details. China would have taken the Lavi configuration of canard delta and designed it to suit their own needs, with Israeli assistance at some basic levels early on. Obviously the first thing to go would have been the rear fuselage: not getting a PW engine! Then the nose and forward fuselage need to be designed around Chinese avionics sets. Extrapolate the rest out, and you get the J-10. It’s not a Lavi clone. It’s a mostly Chinese product. But the prospect, and the likelihood, of Israeli involvement cannot be ignored. Unfortunately it cannot be decisively proven OR disproven either, so at this point it makes for nothing more than some interesting speculation. Personally, however, given the criteria outlined above, I tend to agree that there was probably some sort of Israeli involvement.
There is still the matter of the powerplant. China probably began preliminary WS10 development with the aim of fitting it to the J-10. Then they run into some trouble, as it’s a little more high-tech than anything they’ve dealt with before (reference India and the Kaveri). A bunch of FLANKERs are ordered and arrive with the AL-31F in the same class. Minor alteration, and the AL-31F is fitted to the J-10, at least for now. Of course, that is pure speculation on my part. However, it would seem to be plausible, given the F100 and F110 in the F-15 and F-16. How is that relevant, you ask? Simple. Both aircraft have interchangeable powerplants (at least they do now, in the case of the Eagle). That is something of an oversimplification, but the fact of the matter is that the engines can be fitted to either aircraft due to their similar size. The WS10 also fits into the J-11B, which at one point was powered by the AL-31F. It would seem logical that the WS10 would therefore also be compatible with the J-10s airframe, structurally and volumetrically, of course. Again, pure speculation on my part, but it would seem to make sense, and it is entirely plausible.
Does anyone have any sensible thoughts to add? And just an FYI: I’m looking for a coherent debate, not a simple argument consisting of “look what Russia said, they have to be right”.
While it probably isn’t particular to the Lavi/J-10 theory, you may want to add another source of engineering problem solving: Espionage. While it is obvious that the U.S. helped this mess by poor security on engineering, we, because of our poor security on military R&D lose all kinds of tech that is bled to China by PLA agents here in the U.S. It is a big problem solver for them when it comes to putting a system together like that. Have a problem making an avionics gizmo work the way it needs too? Target existing industry around the world and rip off the plans for said avionics/software. Lavi itself was a gift thrown in their lap. Through our own poor project security, China was able to mix and match their own smarts combined with various unsecure/unprotected foreign technology combined with other legal methods and come up wth a pretty good fighter project. Lavi? Tip of the iceberg. Parts of AEGIS tech have been compromised to the PLA because of our own sloppy project security and vetting here at home. Virginia class sub electronics, etc etc. The list goes on. That is just the stuff we stumble across as we have poor counter-espionage technigues to secure military projects. Expect that JSF will be compromised in a similar manner. Lavi? Who cares. We brought all this on ourselves because we can’t properly secure some of our top military projects properly. This includes charges against captured agents being dropped because they didn’t transfer any classified data sometimes because sensitive engineering data wasn’t classified so as to make a project move easier. It isn’t just the obvious things you can point too, it is not securing our R&D projects properly. We don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves. I would be more worried about all the systems that support the J-10 and how the whole system works when fielded. It will be pretty good.
On the other part of the issue: U.S. mil industry and Israeli mil industry is so mixed up in so many different colors of partnerships, you can’t chart it. We help each other AND compete against each other. And the U.S. taxpayer picks up a lot of the bill. The U.S. tax payer has a heart of gold because we have a dumber than a newborn chimp congress that can be led to water for just about any project you want, as long as you feed them enough cash. What ever Lavi inspiration made it to China doesn’t really matter as it was a freebe because none of the engineering was secure.
I seriously doubt, given the current environment, that the JSF project is especially secure. How could it be? When we field JSF, it will be the most compromised high tech jet we have put in a fighter squadron. Thanks to the environment that currently exists because of projects like the Lavi. Lavi is something very obvious to look at because parts of it kinda look like the J-10, however I think Lavi is a posterchild to serve as a warning we refuse to do anything about. That warning is poor security over military projects.
ELPWhy? They aren’t worth the effort. Last time I checked they didn’t buy into the whole fanatical Islamic ideology that propagates not-so-smart bombs into marketplaces and public gatherings, so they really should just be cut off and ignored. Cut a deal with China and Japan. We’ll pull out of South Korea and Japan, and Japan can develop nukes and China can do whatever it wants with Taiwan, provided both nations sign a nonagression pact and agree to completely cut off any and all support to nK. We save money and get our military out of an asinine situation to begin with, China gets to reincorporate Formosa Hong-Kong style, and Japan gets to join the Big Boys club. Win-win all around, unless you happen to be stuck in nK. Which has already been established to not matter anyway.
Sounds OK at first but in order for something like that to have real value so they don’t continue tech share with Iran etc, we would have to have a naval blockade and no-fly zone over the whole country. Better to start plinking things now.
ELP“If I had to guess, I’d say we probably won’t make that [31 October date],” said Gen Davis, citing “small technical problems” as the reason for the delays. “We’ve got too many little things – a fan, like the fan you would put in your bedroom, failed yesterday, and that’s not such a big deal except it takes an amazing amount of work to go through the side of the airplane and take it out.”
Yup. Proof right there we are paying too much for military hardware. Why didn’t they just go out to Home Depot and get another bedroom fan? Instead the “mil spec” bedroom fan they are using probably costs 10 times as much. Also it must not be maintenance friendly if it takes that much work to replace a part that fails without even one flying hour put on it. :diablo:
ELPNeed to turn NK into a bombing range right now. Set the example. Then bounce every piece of remaining rubble twice just to make sure. Big opportunity missed if we don’t. Would it be painful? Yes, as SK would get dusted up some. However, it is the lesser of two evils. Time we turn NK into a 24/7 bombing range.
ELPThat doesn’t wash. If he wants to complain to someone, complain to the people in charge. That’d be NATO, not the US military. They should have all sorts of assets available for use as they can’t get out of Iraq quick enough.
Hmmm. Don’t know. Everyone has their own view I guess. Yanking limited resources off on a fools errand in Iraq when we still had to stabilize Afghanistan seems to be one train of thought worth considering. Example: Every bug hunt in Afghanistan should have UAV support to keep them better informed. Unfortunately large portions of our UAV assets are off in another campaign on useless dirt. If we are hoping NATO can save us in Afghanistan we are whistling past the grave yard. Take a look at how each NATO member sending assets to Afghanistan, has their own taylor made restrictions on how the troops can and can not be used. Not a very good example of “one team-one fight”.
Anyway, back to the B-1.
ELPF-16s and, dare I say it, F-18s have proven perfectly competent at responding to Troops In Contact (TIC) requests over Iraq recently.
Yeah Iraq :p A specfor leader friend of mine in Afghanistan emailed me this….
“Right now there are three TICs (Troops In Contact) going on in theater. We have enough aircraft to provide CAS to one at a time. Your TIC is number three on the list. You’ll have to be patient.”
Telling me, he isn’t too happy about Iraq using up assets that he needs.
ELPI will try and find the source. Saw an interesting write up some time back with one naval “expert” debating a need to stand up the Iowa class again with new production RAP 16″ ammo, as opposed to spending all the money on some kind of DDX thing with RAP 5″. This also included a discussion of various GPS assisted artillery rockets.
The point is valid in that a Marine or whatever doesn’t care how the fire support happens ( be it artillery or air ) just as long as the fire support is useful and available. I am in the opinion that we need more long range/extreme range GPS assisted rocket artillery. JSF B etc will happen I am pretty sure, however I think ship based artillery/rocket fire support needs to be pushed more than it currently is.
About the Iowa class though as mentioned by one naval person, it sounds good but we are just flat out of money for things. The manpower needed to run and sustain an Iowa class would be a huge show stopper with the PowerPoint warriors. Nice thing about rocket fires, is they don’t collect flight pay and need massive amounts of sustainment and training that a fighter squadron does.
ELPPredicting a threat in Europe for year x isn’t really possible. History kind of proves this. If a crisis pops up, it is pretty hard to wave a magic wand and wish you had a fighter-bomber squadron.
ELPActually, there was a minor fight when they decided our ANG Bones would be going away. The 184th BW was consistently putting up the best availability and other numbers of any Bone unit, active OR Guard. People around here wanted to know what idiot decided to get rid of the demonstrably best B-1B unit in the entire USAF rather than a surplus unit at Dyess or Ellsworth.
Speed advantage over what exactly?
A-10 😀 Poky A-10 isn’t all that great for responding to an unplanned CAS request, like an ambush, unless it is really close. A B-1 with a laser pod zipping out of the JSTARS stack on a 911 call tends to get there a bit quicker, and can show up with plenty of PGMs to help out. However re: something like an Afghanistan scenario for fast response, so could a squadron of JSF based in country. Just all depends on the situation I guess. Response time is everything for emergency CAS requests.
ELPYeah, more than a few of those were from Ramstein, Spangdahlem or Aviano. :diablo:
Buying bombs would mean political death for anyone in Austria. The Drakens initially werent even fitted with missiles until some MiG-21 flew over large parts of southern Austria and there wasnt anything to stop him.
Typical story of a red mayor goes something like that: I dont want those noisy war machines in my neighbourhood (before Yugoslavian crisis). Then: Thank god we have our beloved Drakens! (during). Afterwards: guess what.
I agree. However… under a secret plan, to have crews only, go out of the country and do annual A2G training including sim work. Having an inventory of weapons (Paveway kits and some iron in a modest quantity, and laser pods ) that could be stored out of country ( only a C-17 flight away in case of looming crisis ) and never showing an Austrian jet carrying any A2G stores, and having this detailed contingency plan sitting in a safe somewhere, beats not having it when you need it, all the day long. Austria is a beautiful country. It deserves to have the option of being defended.
ELPWhen Block D came out ( giving it JDAM ability and such )… the crews in the small little Guard unit here ( which now fly JSTARS 😀 ) worked it well even with the USAF underfunding proper sustainment dollars. ( Maybe SOC has a similar story of the Guard unit that flew it where he was )… It was a small unit but the experience in the unit was extremely diverse and high. ( many high hour airline pilots and such )… and many years of experience maintainers that already had 3-4 other airframes in their resumes. So a lot of skill to drive a small 8-9 jet unit. And yes there was always a “can” bird around and maintenance issues. But these guys could put up 4 jets a day usually and when you consider that you can stuff ( at that time ) 24 2000lb class JDAMs in each aircraft, that = a lot of dead targets. So yeah, I can point to all the fubars in the management of the airframes history. But I say a smaller number of these jets that are well maintained, well sustained with a smart upgrade path is a good value for our defense while we still have them. As far as I am concerned, a low level mission in this era is a waste of fuel and dumb. Considering that:
Once the door is kicked down with F-22 and other assets….where…. enemy aircraft are killed off and large SAMs are killed off….. after that any fast fixed wing with modern, cheap, all weather, sub 4 meter CEP PGMs… can do what ever they want and not get touched. Going low level too much is a waste of training hours better used on something else.
Just a little point of interest. When Block D came out, The B-1 was one of the few ( along with the B-2 ) that had the option of radar assisted JDAM bombing. If the target had time to be briefed in detail…. if there was a useable radar reflection near the target for radar offset bombing, or the target itself provided a good enough peice of ground clutter…. the accuracy in radar assisted JDAM bombing was shocking. We are just now fielding other fast movers that have this ability ( F-18E/F etc ). When a target gets this kind of treatment, the high quality and accurate radar return goes into the bomb/nav system and you can generate a very very accurate coordinate, that is better than the generic coordinate already setup for the target. When this “refined” coordinate is pumped into the JDAM on the rack, the INS system in the tail kit of the JDAM is going to hit right where you want it. This is a nice to have when you want to hit a certain part of the target that might be hard and requires the precise placement of lets say a BLU-109 forged pointy tip 2000 pounder, mated to a JDAM or when setting up a conventional 2000 pounder w/JDAM kit, to air burst.
ELPJust my opinion, but I thought the Eurofighter choice was a good idea for Austria.
– Say what you will with x amount of flying hours per mishap but a two engine jet in such a small fleet usually means you will have most of those fighters still in service 20 years from now. The cost of ownership advantage of having single engine jets in such a small fleet go out the window as soon as you dump one of them. We dump 5-6 F-16s per year as a cost of doing business so no big deal to us, we can always get more.
-Austria has a history of numerous intruders into it’s airspace that have to be told to go away or be escorted. More than a few of those were from the area formally known as Yugoslavia.
-Leftist tree hugging love the neighbor ideals are nice and commendable on any given day. However the history of Europe shows no one is very good at predicting the future. Having a squadron of jets like the Eurofighter that have some growth room options is a nice fuzzy warm feeling with a value all it’s own. In an upcoming crisis of ( pick one )…. they can be rapidly setup ( or have provisions in place to do it )…. to start the day loaded with cheap, all weather PGMs to prove a point. 10 jets carrying 40 Paveway IV’s = a lot of dead critical infastructure targets of a potential aggressor who weeks before was a harmless little euro team player.
-A kind word and a gun, always has more respect than just a kind word. This goes hand in hand with any neutrality in practical terms.
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