Vnomadwell, you answered your own question here: the reason to follow up bait UAVs with regular UAVs is because even AESA radar can’t tell the difference between a stripped down Predator and a fully armed Reaper. that and because in this case you’re using a $1 million aircraft to engage a $150 million aircraft, so in theory you can lose 149 to 1 and still come out on top. which is how the P-51’s defeated the Me 262, or the Shermans and T-34’s the Tigers and Panthers: through sheer numbers
No I did not answer that question myself. I asked ‘why UCAV’, because a UCAV cannot engage a T-50. A fighter aircraft can.
Also you don’t get to WVR (Stinger range) of an unarmed T-50 unless its pilot is napping. Its not going to hang around after its done employing its missiles. In the end, you’ll be left comparing the cost of your Predator and Reapers with that of the R-77. And seeing as you’re banking upon the prospect of an ultra-cheap Predator, you may end up on the losing side.
the UAVs wouldn’t use Hellfire or Stinger missiles, they’d use AMRAAM missiles. ofcourse, no one knows if a UAV can carry and fire an AMRAAM, but considering that Reapers are qualified for Sidewinders, I don’t see why not
So unlike what you said earlier, shall we now assume that the idea of Hellfires or Stingers being useful in air combat, is junk.
Coming to the AMRAAM idea – fighters can employ an AMRAAM, UCAVs can’t. Not without a radar.
right, so a full system of Reaper UAVs gives you 4 fully operational Reapers for $100 million. while a fully operational F-35 costs what, $200+ million?
An F-35 is not expendable. Its equipped with top-of-the-line radar, ECM, ESM, EO sensors, all to ensure it gets back home safely.
The UCAV that you propose, survives only if the opposing aircraft and ground AD run out of missiles. And that is stays lucky while dispersed within or behind the Predator types, and doesn’t get hit.
so for the price of one F-35, you’re operating 8 Reapers. in Afghanistan or in Africa or Lybia that’s 8 24h missions that can be executed, at the same time. if you want to achieve the same mission time with F-35s (8h mission times), that’ll take about 24 F-35s
Different missions. You want reconnaissance or sustained CAS over sanitized air space, you use Reapers. You want to shoot the enemy down, you use F-35s.
the only reason to take an F-35 over a Reaper is when you face a peer opponent, or you want to shoot down enemy aircraft
Err.. that’s the scenario being discussed isn’t it. No one’s disputed the utility of the Reaper in air space where dominance has already been established.
against peer enemies you’ll be facing off against advanced SAM systems (which LMT itself has declared it can’t survive against) and AESA equiped Su-30’s and T-50’s and what else; what if all those LMT powerpoint slides turn out to be hot air and they lose those fights?
The utility of the F-35 aside, a Reaper type UCAV still remains useless in that scenario.
against weaker enemies, with 70’s era fighters the F-35 will probably have the advantage. but what if one simply crashes, which seems very likely (as it happens to every other aircraft out there, especially to very complex ones like the F-22), then you just lost the most advanced and expensive fighter aircraft in history (and its pilot) to some third rate development country, who’ll sell it to the Chinese or the Russians or the French within 24 hours
Well a lot of the money has and is being spent on it is to ensure it doesn’t fall of the sky for no apparent reason. :rolleyes:
so I say no, it’s not worth the risk, better to send in $1 million Reapers with AMRAAMs. you might lose a bunch, but they’ll defeat the enemy air defences through sheer numbers, and it’ll still be cheaper and strategically more sane then sending in the F-35, which isn’t just “not expendable”, it’s too valuable to lose
You mean $30 million Reapers with $1 million AMRAAMs. 😀
There is no such thing as a UCAV that’s cheap and capable of air combat.
two possibilities:
a) the T-50 uses its radar to engage the UAVs at maximum range, staying out of AMRAAM range itself. if it does so, every ELINT aircraft at long range will know its location, and thus it can be engaged
If only tracking an AESA radar was quite as easy in reality.
b) the T-50 uses its passive sensors. but can its stealth survive AWACS and AESA radars? if not, its location can be passed on to the UAVs, who can then launch their AMRAAMs. or even if does remain stealthy, it’ll reveal itself as soon as it opens fire, and once again be targetted by every UAV in range
So the prerequisite to employing UCAVs in the manner you propose is a presence of a supporting AEW&C aircraft. At what range do you suppose the AEW&C aircraft will detect and/or track the PAKFA? Within or beyond K-100 range?
Also, what happens if the AEW&C aircraft gets shot down or has to bail out of the sector after being engaged? All linked UAVs/UCAVs effectively become useless.
asuming it got within dogfighting range, it has 8 missiles and a cannon, giving it about 10 kills against UAVs. even if you asume a cost of $10 million per UAV it can only kill $100 million worth at best in a single run. the T-50 however costs $150 million + the pilot, so a single hit (or kamikaze impact) from the drones means they just destroyed $150 million worth vs $100 million lost
Why should it come within dogfighting distance (not that the UAVs are capable of dogfighting either)? Take your shots at the UAVs at range (unlike a fighter jet the UAV can’t outrun a missile or get out of the PAKFA radar’s FoV, so the R-77’s NEZ extends practically all the way.
And get out after inflicting $100 million of damage per aircraft. If you can field 10 T-50s, you’d be able to get away after turning $1 billion of high tech equipment into burnt carcasses.
Not that 100 UAVs could ever actually be fielded in a single sector at a time (maybe by the USAF but even there its questionable).
you’re confused: here we were discussing UCAVs, not UAVs
Not confused in the least. The only UCAVs that could stealthily penetrate a decent air defence network, are the new gen expensive variety currently under development (Phantom Ray/Taranis/Neuron/Skat). You can forget about the cheap expendable types getting anywhere.
the F-35’s computers can detect and target ground and airborne enemies without radar, using just its (stealthy) optical sensors. why can’t that same technology be used by a UCAV?
Sure you can put an EOTS like system on it, but then don’t be surprised when that $25 million UCAV ends up costing $40 million instead and remains capable of only WVR combat. Oh and susceptible to inclement weather.
Vnomadsure, an excellent tactic, which would work equally well against say an F-35 on it’s way to bomb a nuclear installation
the advantage the UAVs have is that at 75 km, a T-50 radar can’t tell the difference between a fully armed, state of the art Reaper or a stripped down, $100,000 Predator equiped with dummy weapons (or an even cheaper stripped-down RQ-7). both Israel and the US have used such aircraft with great succes to bait enemy air defences and fighters
I say send up a mix of these, using the bait UAVs as a missile screen. have the enemy waste missile after missile against them, until he runs out of ammunition or flight-ready aircraft. than the UAVs reach their target (reactor/radar/air base) and the ones equiped with bombs and hellfires rip apart the enemy aircraft, using sheer numbers to defeat superior enemy defences. this is the way the Allies defeated the Me 262, but it would work equally well against the T-50
You’re mixing ideas up. Using decoys to flood enemy radar screens has been around since the 80s if not earlier (the concept goes back to WWII). Its efficacy is still unknown given that AESA radars have effective NCTR modes (especially against non-stealthy aircraft). An RQ-7 type aircraft won’t be able to mimic a F-35 or J-20, quite as well as one may hope. You can design it to have the profile, speed and range of a cruise missile but you’ll end up with similar price tag as well.
But the question here is why follow that up with another group of UAVs instead of regular fighters? Getting a UAV within Hellfire (:eek:) or Stinger range of a T-50 is a very unlikely prospect. It simply doesn’t have the juice to outmaneuver it for a lock.
actually, Italy recently bought MQ-9 Reapers for about $8 million each. now if you buy a system, consisting of multiple aircraft, control stations, training, maintenance etc, then yes the cost is about $100 million. but if you include that, a single F-35 costs several times that much
Actually I was referring to the unit (four aircraft) cost and yes that includes ground stations, something that UCAVs of the type you propose can’t get around either. The F-35 does cost much more but then its not intended to be an expendable asset.
A more apt comparison would be with the cost of a R-77 missile.
now if you strip the MQ-9 of any high grade equipment (satellite link, satellite grade sensors…) the cost of the airframe itself is probably less than $500,000, but that’s my guess, based on the fact that it has a very simple engine and frame
Huh? You want to strip it of high grade equipment and expect to shoot down a fifth generation aircraft? In an aircraft that doesn’t have a bare basics for modern combat – radar, datalink and associated control systems?
now add on a line of sight data link, that can be controlled by say an AWACS (this has been tested succesfully with even smaller UAVs), nearby fighters, ground stations or by using data relays, and a fire system for AMRAAMs, and the cost per aircraft is probably less than $1 million each
Add a cockpit to it and wala… you have an (obsolete) fighter aircraft.
Also, how do you get an expendable UCAV for $1 million, when a single AMRAAM costs more that (support included).
it doesn’t need a radar itself, it just needs a firing solution to give to the AMRAAM, and off it goes (the Typhoon and the F-35 have this ability, using targetting data from sister aircraft to aim their missiles)
Who’s going to provide that firing solution? A regular manned fighter? Can it track the T-50 beyond missile range? Isn’t it vulnerable against the T-50’s sensors?
it doesn’t need speed, weapons load or altitude; it has range and stealth
it’ll use F-117 style tactics: it’ll sneak past the enemy lines, engage it’s target, and sneak off again, without ever being detected or shot at
Since when does it have stealth? Its small yes, but its prop driven. Sling a payload under it and it’ll very much show up on fighter, ground and AEW&C radars.
sneak this baby past enemy lines before you launch the main assault. preferibly place it near an enemy air base. use its satellite link (the same as the B-2 I believe, which is extremely hard to detect) to provide situation updates. then when the enemy launches fighters, they spring into action, firing AMRAAMs as the enemy takes off, or using SDBs to hit them while they’re still on the ground
So this $1 million UCAV will have a degree of stealth rivaling the $2 billion B-2.
And will be able to engage both ground and airborne targets (the latter without a radar).
alternatively you can deploy them between the enemy air base and the Allied aircraft, waiting for enemy fighters to fly by or open fire, giving away their position. the UCAVs can than counter-attack, and sneak off again before the enemy knows what hit them
Again… invisible and radar-less.
Vnomadwe are back to this confusion about what constitutes a UCAV again I see….:eek:
We aren’t talking about 1990s era UAVs like PRedator when we discuss A2A capable UCAVs.
I agree but seeing as he mentioned the Predator being employed against a MiG-23, albeit unsuccessfully, it was only fair to examine the all possibilities.
UCAVs in the Taranis/Neuron/Phantom Ray mold are expensive aircraft and hardly suitable for cheap swarm attacks.
VnomadUAVs on the other hand can swamp a T-50. in a stripped down version (no sat links, no super-expensive sensors) they’d be as cheap as $1 million versus $150 million for a T-50
How? The way I see it playing out is – a T-50 will detect UAVs at 100km+, sprint to a supersonic speed and supercruise thereafter, start tracking and launch at 75km, get as many kills as possible and then hightail for home on afterburners.
The UAV on other hand – will never come for $1 million (what does a single Aim-120D cost), will need a powerful radar (and affiliated avionics) to track the T-50 and decent engine(s) (or the T-50 will always sit 30kft above the UAV).
You could arguably send up an AEW&C aircraft with a ‘flock’ of UAVs, but the RQ-7 Shadow variety doesn’t have the requisite endurance while the Predator doesn’t have the range. Use a MQ-9 Reaper (estimated at over $100 million each) or the HALE Global Hawk type (which aren’t cheap either) and it’ll still be a beacon for the T-50’s X band and L band sensors (external munitions load).
VnomadSince France plan to buy about 280 (even if that’s likely to be reduced, Rafale been the only type in service in the future, I don’t think we’ll see the number fall under 200) that mean they could well be producing Rafale until 2025 at the rate of 11 a year (so still with profit). Plus the upgrade to come, Dassault will have plenty of work for at the very least 2030. As a result they have no obligation to find an export customer to survive right now, so they can afford to wait.
I heard it said (in the context of Rafale’s botched UAE offer) that the French government had only picked up part of the the Rafale’s development cost, and Dassault was supposed to recover the remainder through export sales, which is why it couldn’t afford to compromise on profitability in its export bids.
True? False? In between?
Vnomadwho says that Dassault would’ve offered the Rafale to the IAF at the same price as a deal where only 22 were required?
Applies to the Gripen and Eurofighter too doesn’t it. Also it would appear that EF’s offset proposal for Switzerland was most promising, which would reflect well on its position in India where the offset requirements are much steeper.
VnomadNot really the Eurofighter was designed towards the end of the Cold War, three of the consortium were already users of the Tornado in the dedicated strike role and needed a new fighter/interceptor to counter the Fulcrum/Flanker mix. Strike aircraft still had their own development path so there was no requirement to focus on the A2G mission as a primary mission.
I’m not disputing that the consortium felt no urgency with regard to integrating and air to ground capability. Just that it hobbled its export campaign everywhere – Singapore, South Korea, Brazil… even in India, where it took political nudging for it to entered in the competition. Had the MRCA tender been issued in 2004 as well (when the RFIs were issued), it would have been a non-starter.
VnomadThen came the war on terror, the F 35 and the realisation that one plane could really be used for air superiority and air to ground roles.
As such the Typhoon lacks vision, not skill.
What does the War on Terror have to do with anything? The JSF program had its design frozen long before any lessons were learned from the WoT.
And the realisation that one aircraft could be used for both air to air and air to ground roles was made long long before the F-35. Regardless of the opinion of its supporters or detractors, the F-16 will go down in history as the most successful multi-role aircraft of all time.
With regard to optimizing a design for BVR combat being a shortsighted decision, I’d like to point out the F-15 Eagle (an air superiority fighter) evolved into the F-15E Strike Eagle, which has (accusations of political pressure aside) beaten the Rafale in Singapore as well as South Korea. No one’s ever accused it of being inadequate in a strike role.
If there was a lack of vision within the EF planners, it was in overlooking how critical a mature air to ground capability would be for export orders (the prospects for which are still promising nonetheless).
VnomadGood points Eagle1 — I actually forgot about the potential significance of carrier capability.
I believe both Saab and Eurofighter presented plans for naval versions for Gripen NG and Typhoon respectively… presumably there was a reason for presenting such plans… If that becomes a real factor then Rafale has a clear advantage over Typhoon.
You’re not going to see a naval Rafale in Indian Navy colours. Its already slated to be operating two types of aircraft in the MiG-29K and the N-Tejas. If a third type is to be acquired (for its second indigenous aircraft carrier) it will be fifth generation aircraft – a naval PAKFA if the timeline is promising or the F-35C.
VnomadI’m not too optimistic the RAF would be interested in an anti-shipping missile. The Sea Eagle was dropped because of the lack of any surface threat and the Nimrod, well, the rest is history as they say.
I think the Luftwaffe might be interested to integrate an anti-ship missile of some kind onto a number of their Typhoons at some point.
That has puzzled me. Surely, surface threats vis-a-vis the British military are no less relevant than are those facing the Germans or Italians. Most definitely more pressing than threats to the Norwegians (NSM) or Swedish (RBS15).
I don’t think its been overlooked altogether though; the Type-45s for example are fitted for Harpoons, and the MoD is rumored to be looking into 737 based P-8s for its MPA requirements.
VnomadI thought the Harpoon was getting rather old and dated?
Well the Harpoons for Jaguars are just going into production while those for the P-8I are yet to be formally ordered (?), the DSCA has notified the US Congress of India’s request, so I’d venture that its adequate for most threats.
Against larger or heavier protect targets like say an aircraft carrier and/or a squadron of destroyers, the Brahmos employed in quantity should be quite sufficient. In addition, a hypersonic variant of the Brahmos is under development.
VnomadMore info on the Marte ER itself can be found here:
http://www.finmeccanica.it/Corporate/EN/Corporate/Settori/Sistemi_di_Difesa/Prodotti/Marte_MBDA/index.sdoDoesn’t sound to bad if you ask me and the weapon appears to be relative compact. IMO a very good option to consider for the Typhoon as the weapon should fit on the inner and outer centre wing pylons which would allow for the carriage of 4 x Marte ER+3 x DTs+6 AAMs. Not to shabby!
Given that the Indian MoD is negotiating the weapons package independently and is retaining the option to integrate third party munitions (read: Raytheon proposal), the obvious choice, if it does want an anti-ship missile integrated (I have my doubts), is the Harpoon Block II. Its already received orders for its Jaguar-IMs as well as the IN’s new P-8Is, makes sense to stick to the type. Come to think of it, even the RAF might be interested – the Sea Eagle’s been retired and they have surplus Harpoons (after the Nimrod MR2’s axing).
VnomadInstead of using the IAF birds the GOI has chosen to have 40 Nuclear strike aircraft under the Strategic Forces Command (I think it may be manned by the IAF but under the command of the SFC).
Then that dilutes their efficacy as a potent part of the IAF’s inventory.
The best thing about the Rafale in this respect is the French have repeatedly said they don’t care for what purpose we use the aircraft for, be it Nuke Delivery or anything else. And Rafale unlike others was designed for the nuclear strike mission.
There is no oversight or inspection possible under a MRCA contract with either party. And India will retain the right to modify its aircraft as it sees fit. So there is no reason why it would be hampered from carrying out modifications on its EFs that enable them to carry a nuclear payload, either. Especially given that the details and extent of these mods will remain classified.
And trust me I don’t think there is anything at-least on our western front to stop a properly escorted Rafale Nuclear strike package.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends upon how far the conflict has proceeded and how much attrition the PAF has suffered. But the probability of a nuclear Brahmos being intercepted is far smaller and that of a nuclear ballistic missile being intercepted, practically nil. So question is, why dedicate a whopping 40 first rate aircraft to an operational command that prioritizes them for a nuclear strike role. Also, its not as if there is a massive armored force threatening to roll over conventional defences, and penetrate deep into rear areas unless checked (read:Soviet and allied armies vis-a-vis Western Europe).
If the Typhoon wins the MRCA & Rafale wins this 40 plane order we could see(i’d rather not) Typhoons escorting the Rafale on this mission 😛
Its unlikely that the proposal for the 40 aircraft will ever be sanctioned, let alone be awarded to a type that’s not in service.
VnomadBreak through AD, have a sufficient force protection package, and there is nothing wrong with toss bombing.
Always easier to penetrate AD with a missile, and given the significant blast radius and improved CEPs one could effectively employ ballistic missiles for tactical strikes as well, without putting an aircraft and a pilot in harm’s way.
No, it doesn’t. Per public reports – there are upto 3 programs* that will offer this capability apart from Brahmos, which will end up as just one of the several options.
*of which at least 2 are fairly serious statements of intent and being funded with a direct requirement from GOI, per all public reports so far.
:confused: Like what? An air launched Nirbhay is still years away and the IAF’s prospective LR standoff weapon, being bought off-the-shelf, isn’t likely to be configured for a nuclear payload.
VnomadEurofighter is the more noisy about it because they want to impress India (hey, look, the UAE want the typhoon !), but the UAE also asked to Saab … and even Sukhoi (according to some source) !
If I were you I wouldn’t dismiss the Rafale UAE deal so easily.
Ordinarily I’d have agreed, except for the fact that where others like Boeing were asked for briefings (on the SH and F-15E), Eurofighter has been issued with an actual RFP.
And even if it was originally a negotiating tactic, there is a significant possibility of the Eurofighter being a genuine competitor now, after the French defence minister publicly called it a bluff. When dealing with the sheikhs, one usually tries not ruffle any egos.
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