Well, hopefully I am wrong. As you may know, silent attack with the AN/ALR-94, on the F-22 and lesser (not so bad) systems on Block II Super Hornet and the F-35 are the way AMRAAM shots will be cued for launch when the target emits.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-9268-start-0.html

HOBS/helmet cued dog-fight missiles, newer BVR AMRAAMS, on the Block II of the Super for example are good things. Yet look at how the U.S. Navy went out and got the LM composite IRST/centerline drop tank order.

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2007/q3/070702a_nr.html

These will be sensor-fused to the Super Block II. I think when you team all that up with an optical terminal seeker on an AMRAAM body, you just upped the self-defense ability of the aircraft significantly. It still won’t be able to run much but it may be able to give out more hurt.

Have a good new year AD– Eric

Yep, all that stuff will definitely help the Super and other aircraft no doubt. I think you are still undervaluing the off-board targetting capabilities that the US maintains and will improve in future years. They are going to be increasingly important as LO aircraft begin to proliferate. The tiny on-board FCR is going to be increasingly irrelevant IMHO.

Radar based targetting is and will seemingly remain the main targetting system. New generation BVR air to air missiles such as Mica RF, Meteor, JDRADM and Sino/Russian weapons are still active radar guided variants.

Most are still trying to catch up to what AMRAAM can already do, too and AMRAAM isn’t standing still.

Anyhoo, have a good new year mate. Looking forward to seeing the defence news, for what should be a fairly interesting year in Australia at least…

(KC-30A, Super Hornet, Wedgetail, JASSM all reaching IOC…)

We’ll see Super Hornet et al at Pitch Black and perhaps overseas (Bersama Padu, Red Flag etc) and we may even see some serious decisions Government is due to make (MH-60R/NFH-90 etc, JSF Phase 1 contract etc).

Cheers,

AD

HOJ is sort of OK for older jamming but it is a last ditch effort in the terminal phase.

Digital jammers and–even better if you have cross-eyed jamming and I doubt you will get the PK out of the AMRAAM HOJ-mode or no–or any radar homer that you would like.

Adding any L.O. to the front sector makes it even worse. We need a simple solution. That is an optical terminal seeker on the AMRAAM. That with the AMRAAMs data link–backed up by geo location in the F-22 (AN/ALR-94) and/or AESA will work fine.

It will probably end up that way. Multiple-mode seeker systems are definitely the way of things in future years, but you IMHO are making the same mistake as Swerve made on the IR heater thread and automatically assume that one side is remaining static whilst the threat advances.

They don’t and if you think the HOJ capability hasn’t improved since it was introduced on the -B model AMRAAM then I would suggest you are being just a tad myopic…

I wouldn’t expect a modern imaging IR seeker to take any notice of flares.

I wouldn’t necessarily assume that IR decoy systems haven’t advanced in a similar manner to seeker heads.

Some seem to think they have…

http://www.chemring.com.au/Products/Defence/Countermeasures/Air/Spectral/

It’s why everyone continues to use them.

Even the F/A-XX is more curvy, and it ventral structure is not planar, look much like the Pakfa…guess the Raptor is a more advanced concept..right?

It’s fuselage isn’t particularly flat either. Guess F/A-XX ain’t LO afterall eh?

😀

That leaves Meteor, but it’s going to be bought in large numbers by several countries, & we have the biggest share IIRC. Ditching it in favour of more AIM-120 seems like cutting our own throats.

Boeing is looking at integrating Meteor onto the Shornet…

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3Aa2d7142d-9fc4-4071-a8bd-7371ec37016f

4. AIM-120 & some dumb bombs certainly. Not sure what else.

Harpoon anti-ship missiles?

$1320 mn + 428mn = 1748 mn.
$1748 mn/24 = $72.8 mn.

The Australian F-18Fs therefore cost $72.8m each, including support for the engines. There may also be some FMS costs, but I doubt they’d add a great deal to the unit cost.

The rest of the price paid by Australia (over US$100 mn total unit price) must be attributable to the training, spares, & support package for the aircraft.

You are including support costs and guesstimating how many spare engines were bought. I ‘believe’ Australia acquired 54x engines in total to provide an attrition/test and line replacement pool capacity but I haven’t seen that confirmed anywhere however irrespective of that, extra engines must clearly be considered ‘extra’ to the unitary cost of ‘a’ fighter.

I am not. It is quite clear from many different contracts that a GEF414-400 costs $4m a pop, without support/logistics packages.

Now I consider it rather pointless discussing ‘support costs’ because they are never apples to apples comparisons and can only be reasonably discussed and narrowed down, when the particulars are revealed.

We are also assuming that the ‘contract modification’ announcement is the only funding dedicated to the production of F/A-18F aircraft for Australia AND that that contract doesn’t include the production of any supporting equipment by Boeing. It doesn’t seem to but without seeing the contract and noting the ‘deliverables’ how can one say for certain?

A rule of thumb I generally stick to, is that production costs run at about 70% of an Australian defense contract with support (as a whole) making up the remaining 30%, as stated by Dr Stephen Gumley.

If you accept that then you must accept the Super Hornets have cost Australia about $65m each more or less, minus any supporting, training, weapons etc…

Edit- In my original post, I meant $8m per aircraft (obviously 2x engines per aircraft)…

Maybe it will be the “silver bullet” capable of doing anything, i just want to hear what some more unbiased users will say. Some northern european countries that don’t build their own aircrafts will also get it and soon they will be out in exercizes and it will be interesting.

EDIT: Oh, my reserves about the effective range that AMRAAMs will be used in REAL war (not exercizes), remain also for the F22. Of course if the opponent is very weak, it won’t make too much difference. Old tech aircraft radars for example will probably be jammed to death with USAF’s massive jamming power.

1. Do you honestly believe exercises actually tell you much about the capability of an aircraft? If so, then WHY do they have “wartime modes” of all relevant sensors, EW and weapons?

2. I hardly think AMRAAM is the only weapon system that suffers such an issue. Combat ID is required before ANY weapons launch. Meteor/R-77 etc are going to suffer JUST as much unless some sort of “weapons free” declaration is made and who can honestly see that happening in this day and age?