SintraYes, you can always use 1980s tactics and hope the Kirov/Slava runs out of missiles before you run out of jets/missiles. But why suffer those losses when you can send a couple or 4 F-35s to finish the job on the cheap?
In 2020?!!!!
Look at the time scales involved, if everything goes acording to plan (a mighty BIG IF) several of the Nordic JSF partners will receive their first F-35A in 2016, with a LOT of luck that means a IOC somewhere around 2018/2020…
Where are you going to find an active Slava or a Kirov in the 2020´s is anyones guess.
And if someone his mad enough to try a direct “line of sight” attack on a modern warship of the 2020´s with a manned system based on LO designed in the final nineties/beggining of this century, is going get shot to pieces. Send missiles or UCAV´s, but dont send a manned platform.
SintraPlease, the F-35 can go downtown and survive………….Personally, I wouldn’t even try that against some of Russias New SAM Systems! Especially, in a 4th Generation Fighter! At least not with alot of support.
Personally i would send something like a TAURUS first, but if you want to risk a multi million platform, well…
SintraIf you want to go downtown and break things on days 1-3 of the war, get an F-35 or F-22. If your purpose is to look good at airshows on a sunny Saturday, get a Eurocanard or SU.
Righ now the F-35A is nothing but a prototype, and the Raptor has we speak, with a very, very, very limited JDAM capability, it´s dreadfully better at “looking good at airshows” than going “downtown and break things”… Hell, it looked beautifull in Farnbourough but his nowhere to be seen in the “Camel Country region”.
If you want to go “downtown and break things” send a “Strike Eagle”, or a “Super Hornet”, a “Eurocanard”, a “SU” or even a Tornado, but dont send a F-35 or a F-22, at least for the next five to six years…
SintraMy guess for story line:
Cruise has to train an elite squadron of pilots to hit an important strike target (read: Iranian nuclear site) that are supposed to go in as black ops / surprise mission to avoid nuclear warfare. During training, two distinct factions form with lots of rubbing and bouncing and shenanigans going on, until they reconcile due to a lethal training accident (of the second male lead character’s best buddy, who will be the funny guy up until then, possibly also Cruise’s rival with a shared love interest), from where on all pull in the same direction, unified by their purpose. The suddenly vacant seat is taken by Cruise, who in an heroic act during the strike mission will save his female love interest that has been hit by a SAM and needs support to get back home. All rejoice.
The end.
As for planes: I guess it’s going to be the F-35, but they’ll downplay the stealth characteristics in favor of some dogfighting footage. Perhaps put a Raptor escort up there as well. Threats: MiG-35 and Su-35.
NAAAAAHHHHH
Too complex 😀
SintraI admit I’m a BIG Boeing fan………and it seems to me that Europe has come into itd own now, as far as aerospace goes. So….let Europe buy European aircraft….the US will support US companies…….nationalism I think its called. Not a thing wrong with it. As far as the French go……I have no quarell with them…..they do whats in their interests, we do whats in our interests……A330 is a beautiful plane…..excelent plane….but the 767 is ok for the job…..so I say stick with US for the USAF. Was just admiring the Aeronaval Rafales working the pattern over NAS Oceana just now…..what an AWSOME plane!!!
Honest contribution.
Now imagine Tom Burbage face if the JSF European partners followed that line of thought 😉
Cheers
SintraI’d actually agree with that point of view. The KS-172 is simply too large, while the R-37M could likely be carried internally on the PAK-FA that’s simply not going to happen with the former. Now that it has failed to reach production to date, it is likely never going to enter service. AFAIK the R-37M was/is also much further along in development, having already performed a few test shots – not so the KS-172.
I do have the idea that the only test shots of that family of missiles were performed a decade and a half ago by the “old” K-36 and not by the improved K-37M.
Did i miss something?
SintraOne highly interesting development.
Yesterday, several Vympel and TMC (Tactical Missiles Corporation)representatives in Farnbourough “broke the furniture” (metaphorically speaking).
They called the Novator KS-172 program a “complete bluff“!
A few more quotes:
-“Will not end up in series production”
-“This missile is not going to be a real program, and you should not pay any atention to it.”
On a side note, that article also ends one of my personal quests, “The search for the lost Missile” (AKA, Ramjet R-77 or KRPD-TT).
The only photos available were from a 1993 “Mockup”, and there were several non confirmed reports (some from 1999) that the project had stoped a long time ago. This article confirms those reports but ends with a hopeful note, Vympel “could revive it now”.
Taking into acount that the Bureau responsible for the Ramjet propulsion his closed since 2004, the radar “head” would have to be a new one and the latest iterations of the R-77 (Izdelye 180) lost the Molnya “lattice fins”, this “Ramjet Revival” would be a completely new weapon. So, it seems that we are not going to see a Ramjet R-77 for a very long time, if ever…
The article is in page 12 here:
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/mh/farnborough071608/
Cheers
SintraYou are very clearly confusing the Su-35 and the Su-35BM. :rolleyes:
Actually he isn´t.
SintraSince we all know jack about the capabilities of yet not in service radarsets, missiles and EW systems, personal opinion is most probably everything one can write about. :p
[Rant mode ON]
OHOHOHOHOH
Aurel, please dont bring such a logic, sensible and obviously CORRECT sentence to such a profound, unbiased and highly technical discussion…
[Rant mode OF]
Cheers 😉
SintraNonsense. EW will not defeat AAMs in general, just reduce the performance envelope of that. The one, who has to maneuver first is out of the business first too. Will be interesting to learn how the seeker-head of an Iris is defeated! 😎
Sens
Our American coleague his being sarcastic, he doesnt believe in what he wrote, his interventions are a direct quote from someone else…
He´s having a bit of fun, and yes those quotes are a complete nonsense.
Cheers 😉
SintraO.K. you right about the drop tanks, but not the subsonic, if it has a top speed of 1875 mph then at mach-1.5 1125mph it will be able to travel that for just over 2 hours and 36 minutes (between 2 hours & 37-40 minutes to be exact) 1125mph at 2 hours and 36 minutes is 2925 miles, any which way you look at it the 15C has better range/ n.miles
than the 22.
Sweet Jesus
TWO HOURS AND THIRTY SIX MINUTES ON AFTERBURNER?!!!!
You dont have a single clue of what you are talking about…
SintraDo you happen to know how large the penalties would be if they (in a purely hypotetical situation) should decide to cut? I am just curious…
L
The exact numbers are secret, but if i remember correctly, some time ago Richard Beedal was “toying” with the idea of cutting the entire T3 (to finance JCA and/or FSC/C1C2C3) and the number that keep “popping” was more than one billion pounds just to Eurofighter GMBH, then there were additional financial compensations to the other three partners because of the industrial quotas of T1 and T2…
Whatever the number his, we are talking about several billions of Euros/dollars, enough (probably) to make the British MOD forget the idea of cutting the entire Tranche 3 order.
The funny part his that these penalties were designed and imposed by the British MOD to the other partners at a time when Germany was being very “problematic”…
Someone at the MOD must be feeling a bit like he´s working at “Fawlty Towers” (“Manuellllll…”).
Cheers
SintraSintra,
thanks for letting me know. (and thanks for not flaming me, like some experts tend to do when amateurs like me try to contribute 🙂 )
With regards to the specific qoutation for Poland, do you happen to know if that is accurate or not? I did another search and found some other sources e.g. http://www.exportnytt.swedishtrade.se/docfile/6542.doc (search for Gripen) where they refer to an offer of 48 Gripen to Poland “At stake is an order worth some 3.5 bn USD.” I also found the same 3.5Bn USD number on other old articles on this topic. The dubious report I linked to in the previous post said 3.78 bn USD.
L
The document (“Sticker Shock…”) was a very good one when released in 2006, especially because it had some links to the original sources, but today…
About the Polish competition, there´s a very good pdf that gives a very clear view about everything that choosing a highly expensive weapons system involves, from lobbying, politics, costs (page 16 forward), etc. (http://www.marshallcenter.org/site-graphic/lang-en/page-pubs-index-1/static/xdocs/research/static/occpapers/occ-paper_11-en.pdf)
Cheers
Sintrahttp://www.defense-aerospace.com/dae/articles/communiques/FighterCostFinalJuly06.pdf
They give the Saab bid to Poland at USD$68.9 million. Gripen International AB says “the fly-away cost of a Gripen in the market is between $35 million
and $40 million.” This was a few years ago so the dollar was presumably much stronger at that time…I was surprised at the low “unit procurement cost” of Rafale compared to Gripen — perhaps because the Gripen number was calculated in a different manner?
EDIT: I noticed just now that the above report qoutes the offer to Poland on 48 Gripen C/D in 2002, including spare part and support equipment, probably similar to the Norwegian offer but C/D instead of NG: US$3.78 Billion. Now that was in 2002. I cannot remember how the US dollar was at that time compared to today? Although I have a feeling it was a bit stronger than today… OTOH I do not know how VAT will affect all this. Whatever, to me it seems to be roughly in the same ballpark as the Norwegian offer ?
Comments?
L
Loke
Be careful with that pdf, it has enough holes that you could pass the Titanic right trough it (you nailed one of the problems, they present numbers who were calculated in diferent way´s). The impossible simmilarity between the “Unit Production Cost” of the RAFALE and Gripen his just one of the errors in that document
There his a lot of official documentation (USAF and US Navy Budget, British NAO Report, etc) from 2007 (the pdf was made in 2006) who clearly shows that the pdf was wrong in several way´s. The Typhoon numbers are wrong, the same applies to the “Lightning II”, etc, etc
When one EU country buy´s fighters to a European firm (France /Dassault by example) the VAT his part of the cost, but that money goes right back to the state in the form of taxation. VAT doesn´t apply to exportations.
Cheers
SintraUnfortunately that’s not how the Norwegian government sees it… Cost seems to be a big factor. If Norway buys F-35 or Gripen I think there is a good chance we will get the 48 planes that our Air Force asks for. With the higher price tag of EF we may get only 36 or so… However in any case; do you really think that in a conflict with Russia that 36 EF would make a difference versus 48 Gripen or F-35?
Perhaps this is the rationale behind going for one of the cheaper options; in any case it will not make a difference when facing the Russian military machine. We would need a dramatic increase in defence spending, probably to Greek levels, in order to have a credible defence force on our own… Building alliances seems to be the choice of the Norwegian government. For a traditional invasion we’ve got NATO. When it comes to a potential conflict in the Barents sea, I don’t know… Perhaps Sweden will rescue us? Norway is trying to build a nordic defence alliance with Sweden Finland and possibly Denmark, not as a substitute but a supplement to NATO.
If such an alliance should be implemented (and that’s a big if) it could talk in favor of choosing Gripen, on the other hand it could also favor F-35 since the nordic countries would then have the mix of a2a and a2g planes that could be beneficial. Another way of getting this mix could be to let Denmark buy the F-35 and Norway and Sweden operate Gripen. The Danish government is more keen on the F-35 than the Norwegian government it seems… Anyway the Norwegian decision will be announced by the end of this year, the same timeframe as the Thorvald Stoltenberg report…
L.
If cost was such an overwhelming factor the simple fact that the USAF Official budget throws the F-35A to the same “Unit Fly Away Cost” bracket of the two twin engine Eurocanards YEARS BEFORE IOC should put the entire Norwegian MOD in the “Warpath”…
When LM advertises a 58,5 $ Million “UAFC” that´s just propaganda equivalent to the old “28 $ million a piece”.
Right now i´m expecting the next (2010) USAF Budget, it will be released in february next year, if the cost escalation keeps going up at the same rate that the comparison of the 2007, 2008 and 2009 documents clearly shows then the Eurofighter Typhoon will be a “cheap” alternative…
If this trend keeps the “momentum”, in 2013/2014 there will be a major heart attack in every Finance Ministry of the eight foreign partners. That´s the date when the actual “Bill” becames a reality.
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