totoroFC-1 is perhaps not as good for CAS as, say, a10 with its loiter time, but it certainly does seem to be better in the loiter time and low speed performance than Q5. just compare the engines in the two, overall sizes of both, the wings on fc1 that are seem more suited for lower speeds than what q5 has.
Also, what about f16? its not designed as cas plane but usaf does use it in that role quite a bit. China should move away from low flying cas missions and instead use remote sensors (as in 10 km altitude and up, to get out of reach of tactical sams) to provide targeting solutions for various pgms also launched from a decent distance/altitude.
jh7 seems to be too expensive to be a replacement for q5 in its cas role. i would consider it as more of a strategic striker, going a bit deeper into enemy territory under fighter escort. Anyway, do you, crobato, know something about engine production bout current batches of jh7a? its licenced now, and engines are getting produced at a decent pace? otherwise how can there be 3 regiments of jh7a? rate of production looks somethign like 18 planes a year for jh7a, no?
totoroI do consider NSM to be the very best anti ship missile currently out there. Sure it could be even a little better with some sort of rangefinder but it is actually not that big of a deal. One would have the range info fed into the missile before launch. Then in flies to the target area which for example has multiple ships, sees the heat sources, zoomes in on each of them and comparing them with the range/location data from before launch and the image/size database in its memory not only picks out a ship but picks out the part of the ship it will hit.
It would be very hard to use decoys against an imaging seeker, aside of real, physical decoys that’d have to be pretty large. In case the missile does have a simple narrow beam range finding radar or even just a laser rangefinder, chance of the decoy working would drop close to zero.
I do not believe it would take a long tome to cycle through targets and identify one, certainly within the ample time given provided after it pops over the horizon, some over 100 seconds for some 27 km. Actually, i do not see that a problem for a supersonic either. 30 seconds would be enough too. Also, IIR seekers in a supersonic would pose little problem, just look at tiny ones in current AAMs – and these would be bigger, more sensitive with missile flying at the same speed if not half a mach slower.
Only problem is relative lack of detection range for a IIR seeker in bad weather conditions, which may require supersonics for certain ranges in order to get the missile within seeker acquisition range before target runs away.
totoroBattle between radar and RWR is battle between software and gathered intelligence. New radar gets used, it has different signature than the other side has in their data banks that RWR is using, thus the RWR won’t necesarrily recognize it. But, depending on software (hardware running the software too, but to lesser extent these days as increases in computational power get bigger, faster than military is actually using them) RWR can detect the radar emission.
Trouble is, not being familiar with operating modes of the radar, you are still missing out on some information. At best you will get the bearing, from where the EM waves are coming. You will not be necesarrily sure what makes those EM waves and you will not know from what range are they emitted. Of course, if your software/hardware can’t support fast adequate searching and filtering of multiple frequencies, analyzing patterns, removing clutter, etc, then you will have a harder time detecting a radar like apg-77. Just like with radars, one’s RWR systems must also be updated frequently to get best results.
As for Raptors using mostly just alr-94 RWR and their proprietary inter flight data links for doing their killing – sure, it works. One raptor stays behind, has its radar on, other raptor is forward with radar off while launching its amraam. Info gathered by the radar of raptor thats behind is then relayed and fed to the amraam in flight. As for alr-94, things are a bit more shady there. Like any passive sensor, it will give you 2D position of the target, but not the range.
Now, that can be compensated for by:
A) somehow knowing the power at which incoming EM waves are emitted, which itself is really guesswork based on knowing your enemy beforehand, knowing the inner works of their radar system and the tactics they would most likely use at a given situation. Its rather unreliable.
B) You could also have multiple passive sensors forming a network which could, providing there’s enough distance between them and providing they know their own precise position at any given time, feed all the collected data from all the sensors into a computer which would calculate the range. Precision of this method depends on range of the radar, distance of sensor units and precision of data concenrning their own location. It is doable, perhaps not for AMRAAM ranges but could be applicable for aim-9X ranges.
totoroI know jdams are certified for interal carriage on the raptor but i was asking about jdamd with flying harness like the diamondback set. Tried googling but all i found was some other people asking the same question without getting an answer. Judging from the picture, that kit would all 2-3 inches of width to the 1000 lbs jdam. Is that still enough to be carried internally on a raptor?
Cluster bombs wouldn’t really be helpful, unless we’re talking high altitude separation with each bomblet having its own steering towards given coordinates for each truck component of the SAM system. One has to remember that those trucks can/would be positioned up to several km apart.
HARM being shot at a SAM is not necesarrily that easy, if we’re talking about non-stealthy harm carrying platforms. To detect the radiation from SAM’s search radar over the horizon, one is also inevitably detected by that very search radar. Missiles may be fired both ways, with SAM’s targeting radar coming online only in the terminal stage of missile’s guidance. Result could be that both the harm carrying plane and SAM’s search radar are destroyed. Of course, in the grand scheme of war that would suit the attacker much more although it is possible that search radar would emit its radiation intermittently, with random relocation in between each ‘on’ period, teamed up with additional sam batteries which would do the same. at 2500 km/h, missile would need some 150 seconds to reach a target 100 km away.
Another thing, though. Max range is always achieved at high altitudes. Some 100 km and over for HARM would mean it has to fly high enough that SAM’s search radar would detect is long before it gets into firing position. Knowing that s300 missiles are rather fast, more than double harm’s speed, it could very well happen that plane gets taken down even before it gets in range. Of course, we’re talking about SAMs with at least 150 but preferably 200 km range, otherwise the range advantage over harm would not exist. On the other hand, harm plane can always just go low, under horizon once it detected search radar emissions and stay under horizon until it gets within range to use harm when it’d pop back up, fire off the missile, then again go low under the horizon. Going so low, though, would put it at risk from other sams, like tor-1m, that might compliment the s300, which would probably be positioned along the threat axis.
Once they make a stealthy plane which can carry the 1.1 m wingspan harm internally, odds will shift greatly towards the attacker.
totoroELP, could you please check that link? It is not working for me, i keep getting ‘access forbidden’ for that page. Maybe you wanted to link to something else?
totoroI guess no one mentioned termination here, it was silly of me to mention it. I just had flashbacks of what people have been saying over on airliners.net forum so i wrote here what i would like to write there. But i can’t since i’m not a member. Silly of me. :p
Anywhoo, it’ll be interestign tomorrow, then. Should be around 320 planes for breaking even point, if margins stay the same. If, as you said, boeing presses airbus into lowering its margins then it’s perfectly conceivable that the breaking even point will go up to 400 or more.
totoroNow surely the nearly 1.6 billion dollar cost overrun ( as of now) will eat up profits and push up the no. of airframes needed to be sold to break even by quite a bit . I wonder what sort of profit margin goes around with the A380 ? Any guesses?
Well, if i remember correctly airbus said it would need 250 sold to break even back when whole project was valued at $12 billion. That breaks down to average profit per sold airplane of 48 million. Since then the cost went up to 14 billion, or 56 million per plane, if airbus wants to stick to 250 planes for breaking even. Since we know thats not possible and profit margin must remain at leas the same, we use the 48 to 56 increase which is 16.7%, and apply it to number of planes needed for breaking even. It runs up to just under 292 planes.
Naturally, any further increase in development cost will increase that treshold number, as will any increase in cost to build per plane. All this rewiring is included in developmen cost and is reason for the 2 billion increase, no? So, assuming production cost per plane remains on track, airbus is looking at some 300 a380s sold to break even.
And since they went past half that figure, unless of course there are some last minute cancellation from airlines, it is VERY apparent that airbus will not terminate the project. Itd just lose more money that way than to go on with a380.
totoroThe posed question is not about system vs system, rather it is about implementation and tactics used with each system.
A SAM battery on its own is of limited value to the defender. Only if integrated into a sensor network and only if a part of bigger deployment/usage plan can it be seriously useful.
At the same time, Raptor is useless without a target. Only if there is enough information about the target can it perform a task.
That brings us to numerous questions:
What if sam systems are being relocated? What if the surroundings are good for hiding it? What if the surveillance assets feeding raptors with data can’t locate the target? What if they need to move closer to enemy territory to locate targets? What if those surveillance assets get targeted, rather than the raptor?
I do not believe s300 / s400 could actually engage and down a raptor in majority of cases. Still, with proper usage of those SAM systems, it could very well be made that raptors (nor any other system for that matter) can succesfully engage SAMs either.
Fixed targets are another matter. In such cases raptors will more or less always break through defenses based purely on S300/s400 unharmed and
strike their target.
Also, i do not believe f22 can carry jdams with flying harness internally. That thing is positioned above the jdam and is rather bulky. No way it can fit into the relatively shallow weapons bay on the raptor. But, unless we’re talking about fixed, highly armored targets, i do not see why one whould need such a weapon when much better SDB is available.
totoroI think we all agree here that is exactly what it does. Now the only question is just how many seconds is those “last few seconds”? I do imagine that might slightly change not only due to things i listed in my previous post but also on how hard the incoming ashm is manouvering. I have read some article by Karlo Kopp where he was talking about aegis and he claimed that time is usually 4-5 seconds for manouvering subsonics. He did not cite any sources for that claim, though.
totoroThank you very much for your input! So, illuminators are a physically different entities from the spy radars? How many of them are there on a Burke and how many of them could be steered towards just one side of the ship? Also, do you have any idea just how long does that terminal guidance illumination take for a harpoon sized ashm? 1, 2, 3, 4 or more seconds? Also, would it take longer if the target is flying lower over the sea or if sea state is rough or if target itself had a reduced RCS?
totoroI know it was designed for it, i was just trying to make a point that, since it does seem to be THE most useful asm system in USN, fielding it in such small numbers is just a bit… silly. Sure, a standard could perhaps do a similar job but it would be wasted in that role, compared to an ESSM. Let standards deal with far away, high altitude targets like airplanes and leave sea skimmers to ESSM. That said, 24 ESSMs per Burke may be too little. There’s always USN fighters to take care of enemy planes, making for less of a need for a large number of standards on a Burke or Tico.
As for all the other questions i posed in my intial post, would you say they are probable or there simply is no information available to know either way?
totoroYou mean as in 24 total, just VLS 6 canisters? That, if true, seems like an awfully low figure. ESSM seem perfectly suited for defense of the ship from sea skimming anti ship missiles whereas standard missile would be a pricey overkill in such a scenario. Depending on how many missiles it takes to shoot down an incoming asm, it may prove an inadequate number against a large scale attack, various decoys and jammers notwithstanding.
totoroTo get to very point behind the title of this thread one just needs to look at the statistics:
In 1995 PLAAF operated 900 bombers and strike aircraft alongside 4000 fighters.
In 2000 those numbers dropped to 800 and 2500 respectively.
In 2005 those numbers dropped further to 600 and 1800 respectively.
During all that time the percentage of more modern machines in the overall number of planes increased and continues to increase.
Even though the downsizing seems to have come to an end and 2010 figures may be very similar to ones in 2005, percentage of new planes will keep increasing and may reach such levels that 50% of the 2010 fleet is 20 years old or younger. And that is not just structure wise but also technologically.
Therefore it is absolutely ludicrous to think chinese are going for quantity over quality when recent years/decades have shown us exactly the opposite.
totoroNot trying to be revolutionary here but I guess I’ll have to answer to myself. Still, most of these are just rumors and guesses so feel free to point out to some more official or just more realistic figures.
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. It swithces between targets, circling through them, painting each for a fraction of a second.
4. While midcourse updates might require just fraction of a second, very terminal guidance does seem to need continous illumination. In that regard, each ESSM requires 2 seconds of dedicated illumination time before final interception. It also means that there can not be two simultaneous hits with just one illuminator.
5. Two seconds between each launch, per whole mk 41 module.
6. Yes. Also, since 2 illuminators will be covering one side of a ship, two simultaneous intercepts are also possible, or even 4, if missiles are approaching from different sides.
7. Out of 96 tubes, with tomahawks and standards and what not occupying some, 20 seems a decent number, making for altogether 80 ESSMs per Burke.
8. Unable to compute. 😀 Though, seeing how illuminators are positioned some 18 meters above water, and calculating an incoming missile at 5 m altitude, it is very safe to assume ESSM can engage such a target all the way to the horizon, in this case some 28 km.
9. Guesstimation of one missile per second per RAM system.
totoroI don’t think that is anything unexpected. It’s a given that RCS will get tiny bit bigger over usage, until the next maintenance session. It would be unrealistic to expect that RCS would always, in all circumstances be exactly as advertised.
Depending on available manpower on the ground for maintenance, depending on available hours between required missions, on weather conditions, on various dust and other particles aircraft reguraly run into during flights, RCS will get compromised.
That being said, I do not believe such scratches or even the damage shown on the picture would make a crucial difference. Maybe it would add few km to tracking ranges of enemy radars but F22 would still be quite stealthy.
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