SchorschA bit of apples&oranges here as an AH-64 is a combat helicopter while an Mi-17 is a transport bus rarely equipped with more than a door gunner. For a modern-day comparison with the Hip, I suggets you take NH90 or AW101 instead.
With a combination of radar/IRST guidance and 30mm you can easily shoot the helo down at a distance exceeding 2 miles. Unless it is an Apache or Tigre with Stingers, I don’t think you could get hurt… My 0.02..
I wanted to express that helicopters remain targets of opportunity for fighters.
If the opportunity favors the fighter, he will surely attack.
But if in the morning the captain says in the briefing room that attack helicopters armed with IR-AAM are out there, no pilot will attack using his cannon. He will keep his distance and rather disengage then becoming a cheap kill.
The biggest advantage of a fighter is that he might get a kill unnoticed. That only works if he picks up the helo via his radar, spotting it visually is less likely (only in the desert with the helo leaving a clear shadow on the desert).
In Middle European or comparable conditions (green, often cloudy), a helo flying NOE at less than 85kts will only be spotted by AWACS.
SchorschOK, so in short, all the pilots that have achieved helicopter kills in combat, USAF, Kuwaiti, Iranian, Israeli or Iraqi jocks, they all are stupid and insane and only you, Schorsch, are the wise one, do I get it finally?
You seem to have fallen too deep into your equipment-fetishism to actually recognize that the actual war is about helping your guys on the ground whenever required and not about mentally masturbating about how supercruising, superstealthy and supermultimillion my aircraft is.
BTW, I am still waiting for the Luftwaffe type which you would send to do the helo killing job.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Black_Hawk_shootdown_incident
The guys that show down the two Blackhawk helicopters behaved smart: they didn’t pass low and slow but were quick and used a MR-AAM and a IR-AAM. The helicopters never had a chance to kill the F-15.
The only problem: it was friendly fire.
If a radar contact (or contact via network member) can be achieved and positive identification is possible, I would restrict the fighter pilot from using a gun as the chance of getting hit be the helicopter is too high. If the fighter cannot lock the heli via an IR-AAM, he better disengages.
By the way: many fighter pilots needed several attempts when attacking helicopters as their gun sight didn’t work properly. That detail is something you don’t find in ACIG kill lists.
If one wants to really discuss this kind of scenario, it makes sense to differentiate between the likely contenders: a Mi-17 is not an AH-64D. That is, what worked in Eritrea or 1973’s conflict, will not work versus modern helicopters. The times when fighters could strike helicopters with relative impunity are over, exactly because the helicopter became such a valuable asset. Therefore, I would actually call a pilot who makes gun attack on a modern day combat helicopter insane and stupid.
What was yesterday was yesterday, and I am not generally opposing the installation of a gun in a fighter aircraft, I am just saying that for modern air2air combat it is an unnecessary piece of equipment.
Schorsch1. The post-stall maneuverability gives onmidirectional attack capability, if you don’t have an onmidirectioanl radar and weapon.
2. Possibly not, if the OA missile guided by OA radar could be fitted on next gen. a/c
3. Su-35 Super Flanker didn’t fitted TVC untill 711 but it had done some Post-Stall maneuver
4. Air show, IMO, means you show sth you can do, but not means you show all things you are able to do
1: Theoretically, but is limited to low speed arena. So, the time you can use a post-stall maneuver to get a lock-on and fire solution, would be the desperate end of an engagement.
4: Correct. A sustained 6g turn at supersonic speed is something that doesn’t really look good at airshows.
SchorschUnlike with EF, these AOA limiters can be manually overriden…
Which increases combat effectiveness by how many percent?
BTW, what exactly do we know about the supersonic characteristics of the EF compared to the other types? Is it really confirmed that EF is so much better in that scenario?
What do you know about the benefits of post stall maneuvering for modern a2a combat? Maybe you can tell a story from the Ertrean conflict.
I call it poor on purpose because that is how it looks like from the view of a airshow visitor who does not give heck for thrust settings and similar crap, just wants to see a juicy show.. And that is exactly what I am in relation to the EF, I don’t pretend to be anything else..
How relevant is the opinion of the average air show visitor?
What about Rafale?
I don’t know, and I guess you would take an extended **** on my opinion anyways, so why bother in widening the scope if pick up any single line?
SchorschI’d say you are far more surprised about the recent date of the gunkill which does not exactly suit your argumentation.. 😉 You have expected some Vietnam-era date, right?
The talk about AWACS, weather or daylight is only a cheap attempt to quickly fix things and make it look as if that kill did not ‘count’.
BTW, the tactics utilized by Eritreans or Ethiopians were surprisingly modern, I suggest you read about that conflict first before making false prejudiced assumptions.
Please, make sure you got enough winders first because it ain’t always necessarily the case. Besides that, getting a lock on a helicopter with IR AAM might be pretty tricky sometimes.
What types in Luftwaffe inventory would that be, for example?
You seem to be too quick in your assumption that you have the additional aircraft available and it is in the nearest vicinity of the targets so that it actualy can do its job before the helos have decimated your tank column.
The problem with choppers over the battlefield is that they rarely have thier mission defined as *just fly and do nothing* but looks like it is a complete news to you.. Weird..
No. I personally see this reasoning as completely flawed, like it or not. Call me an argument junkie, I don’t care, that does not prove your points, anyway.
I got no idea what Soviet tactics were therefore their influence on my thinking is logically minimal. Maybe I am insane but I still think that a group of helicopters heading towards position of my guys is well worth being destroyed before they inflict damage
How do you think you get a good shot with a modern IRST/radar controlled gun sight, especially as you need to do it from high up running on the helicopter (tracking it via IR-AAM isn’t necessarily more complicated). The chance getting it on the first run is low, and the chance that he has a wing man is quite high.
And finally, the chance that you get an IR-AAM at your tail or nose next time you attempt to attack is about 100%, if it isn’t an unarmed transport helicopter, which then would be easy prey for anybody in the battlefield.
Anyways, no sane fighter pilot will strafe the battlefield (that is where your helicopter operates) at 3000ft and 250 KIAS and look for helicopters. The insane that follow your advice, heck, they should really be handed a big cannon but in change man a tank.
The reason your are putting here that I have to equip supercruising stealthy multimillion aircraft with guns because they need to attack helicopters at tree top level is – simply put – stupid.
SchorschOn the post-stall, the EF2K is not able to do it, will fall from the sky if pilot pulls hard or make a mistake during a combat. So much for claimed carefree handling. 😎 Saying that post-stall has no sense is another nonsense written by fan boys. I saw the EF2K(spain, brit, german, italian) several times performing on airshows, the best in my mind was last year at Faiford 2007.
“Care-free” in this case is not achieved by building natural stability into the airframe but limiting the envelope a pilot can use. This is standard practice, even in Russkie aircraft (MiG-23, Su-27 have AOA-limiter). Therefore, the care-free handling is not only claimed but achieved.
Secondly, post-stall maneuvering can make sense. But it does even make more sense to avoid it. The offsets necessary to achieve it are huge.
And all popular airshow displays by Su-27 and derivatives are flown by test pilots with specifically modified aircraft, they are not representative of line aircraft. Eurofighter displays are flown by unmodified line aircraft.
SchorschTyphoon seems to have pretty poor maneuvrability at low speeds/low attitudes, that is why you won’t see anything like that anytime soon (if ever).
Some say that it enjoys advantages at high speeds/high altitudes but this is nothing you could capture with a camera.
A closer look at the Typhoon (or Rafale or Gripen) shows, that in “post stall” air flow all will have serious trouble controlling yaw. Something that is achieved on other types (Su-27, F-18) by the large vertical tail planes which still enjoy some undisturbed airflow at very high (>45) AOA.
I wouldn’t call maneuverability “poor”. As long as you don’t have serious data on weights, airspeeds (no, you can’t guess those from a youtube video), thrust settings and actual FCS settings, there is no point in “evaluating” youtube videos.
The Typhoon was specifically designed for the supersonic aerial combat, which indicates it has superior characteristics there. the lack of “post stall” maneuverability is a substantial aid there, as it does not need to drag all the vertical tail surface through the air like a Flanker of an F-18.
SchorschAnd why is that? Please explain. You asked for the last gun kill in aerial combat, what’s wrong with my example?
No AWACS, no modern tactics, no numbers involved, no credible air defense system, mostly good weather and daylight …
I am actually surprised you are asking.
So you want to have separate types w/o gun for ‘real combat situations’ and separate types with gun for ‘turkey shoot’? When your soldiers call for support ‘Red Two, we got incoming combat choppers heading towards our position, shoot em down’ you respond ‘ sorry guys, our aircraft are for real situations only, not for turkey shoot, please use your M4s instead’.?
If you do a turkey shoot with Sidewinders or with gun is irrelevant. Relevant is if you win the critical engagement and if a production run of 500 aircraft has 250kg extra although only 1% does need the capability.
All current aircraft types are overkill for fighting helicopters, what are you gonna do? Propose a simple dedicated anti-helicopter fighter because enemy helos are not ‘worthy’ to make your Typhoon get dirty?
Let say it this way: designing an aircraft that is superior to other fighters will not necessarily be superior to helicopters as it is complete dissimilar combat. Designing one that can do both will fail versus other fighters. So the answer is: yes, I would seek different types for that mission.
You don’t design and purchase your fighter for a fight versus another fighter. You design your fighter to be prepared for all combat situations. Even for turkey shoot.
If it ever occurs that my combat aircraft has more undefended targets then ammunition, I can argue that 250kg saved weight (plus complexity, testing hours, training, etc) will pay for the additional aircraft that bring down the turkeys that day.
Sure you don’t but soon you got nothing else than these $60mil fighters. Take you home country for example. In few years you got nothing left in inventory except Tyffies and Tornadoes. Who will fight enemy helicopters or UAVs once a bunch of them appears on the radar screen?
If that is the political will of the tax payer’s representative, so be it.
UAVs are no problem, but IR-AAM equipped helicopters are dangerous and not worth the risk sometimes. If they can be attacked without risk, attack them (actually, that is how all quoted kills happened). If their is a danger, let them fly.
When you purchase your fighter, you don’t know what the missions will exactly look like. You need a fighter that can do everything at least reasonably well.
That is the only reason d’être for a cannon, but if you would stick to my point and not just entertain yourself on contradicting my sidenotes, you would see, that for strict air to air combat between modern fighters (and now read the headline: Place of the internal gun on A2A fighters) the best place for the cannon is the other guy’s aircraft, as a cannon (and because you love to argue so much I’ll say it once again) for modern air2air combat between fighter aircraft (not between UH-1 and F-35 over southwest Cooconistan) is not needed. Got it?
Ahh, so you just let them be, then?
I don’t know what your preferred tactics are, but attacking at all costs all available targets is never a terrible bright idea, neither in aerial combat, nor in naval or land-based conflicts. Only if you give a **** on losses, I don’t know, maybe the Soviet tactics still influence your thinking. I never heard that one helicopter won a war or flattened an entire city.
SchorschThe testing was performed at the altitude ranging from 3000 up to 6500m with 35000-40000 take-off weight at 670-680km/h maximum speed. Summarizing the results of the first series of flights the SSJ100 pilots highly estimated stability and control at all tested modes including take-off and landing. Aircraft demonstrated quite good climb rate.
The first stage of factory-based flight test brought the first in-flight hourly fuel consumption rate. Its projection over the cruise mode shows that the aircraft is going to consume less than 1,7 tons per hour, which justifies competitive advantages in terms of fuel efficiency declared earlier.
They haven’t been at cruise Mach number or altitude but are already considering the fuel consumption validated? Tough stuff, we are talking about a “competitive advantage” in the single digit percentage arena.
By the way, 40 flights and still flight envelope not opened?
What are they doing all the time?
SchorschGrizzly – they aren’t mate. It’s not mere speculation. About two or three editions ago in AFM or AI – at the back of it. Max Moga was interviewed about being demo pilot. He stated that the jet was currently not being used to its maximum performance – relating to low altitude. He said that by the time he became demo pilot – the F-22 hadn’t even had its full FCS code for low level – airshow maneuvers – programed in. In fact it is still not fully programed – while it is being increased incrementally. This according to him was all due to the budget. The F-22 is not an airshow performer. Its a machine of war – and the USAF didn’t see the need to expand its envelope in the low/slow domain up till now – as the budget simply wasn’t there initially. This is supported by the Su – boys who said over at steve trimbles blog while at Farnborough – they believed the FCS had yet to be fully exploited! While they believe in time it will be – eventually. Another thing Moga said was – there were maneuvers and states of agility that the F-22 can achieve easily – yet he is not allowed to display them. He claimed there are certain aerodynamic stunts that are operationally cleared – yet the top brass won’t allow him to display them at airshows. He said he hopes to incorporate them in future displays – eventually. Simply put – there are aspects of the F-22 display that aren’t deemed displayable by the USAF. So to conclude: the F-22 is not being displayed to its maximum performance – but perhaps in the future it will be.
Which still let’s the question unanswered who in the world gives a sh!t if the aircraft can twist its tail at 200 KIAS?
SchorschThe USA and USSR/Russia have always had different philosophies on the type of cannons needed in aerial combat. The Russians use larger caliber cannons with a slower rate of fire because their number one was always considered to be the enemy bombers. The USA on the other hand always considered enemy fighters as being a primary threat. That shots at the opponent will not be long lasting but rather ‘snap shots’. In that situation, the great number of shells is what they desired.
The Eurofighter and Rafale use a … correct, large caliber slow firing gun. Since invention of computer, IRST and radars and HUDs the gun can be so precise that you don’t need the “fill the air with lead” M61. Remember, it was designed for the F-104A.
IMHO, the gun being a waste on fighters is the same mentality as the bayonet being a waste for the infantry soldier!!!
A gun with ammo weights about 400kg at minimum for an M61. That is in case of a F-15 about 3% of the OEW or 2% of the NTOW. Conventional wisdom says that if you put these 400kg out of the aircraft, the NTOW decreases to 18-19t.
An average soldier weights empty 70kg and (with equipment, gun and stuff) 100kg “NTOW”. So if a bayonet weights 2kg, I would consider it wasted weight. A bayonet does weight 0.2kg, which would be in F-15 terms about 40kg. For that weight I would take a gun any time.
SchorschAs I understand it, virtually every time an SR 71 flew it was doing Mach 3. Is that the case with the Mig 25? I wonder what the ratio of total hours flown to hours flown at Mach 2.5+ is between the SR 71 & Mig 25…
As far as setting a trap for the Mig 25. That’s not to be counted? Where as a trap set for an F117 is? Its been implied that the single shoot down of an F 117 invalidates its stealth capabilities completely.
The SR-71 had optimum range at M2.8-3.2 depending on various parameters. Therefore flying faster was more efficient. The MiG-25 was less optimized for those speeds and cruised comfortably at M2.35. Where it achieved the best specific range … I don’t know. I guess firebar with his unrestricted access to all Soviet documents will enlighten us.
Always remember: the MiG-25 handles like a spacecraft!
SchorschAccording to some British pilot calculated, the Su-27 can made a 360 degrees turn within 10 seconds.
Not sustained, and not a speeds beyond 300 KIAS, therefore in an arena where it is generally not wise to be in.
By the way: an AIM-9 makes more than 3km in 10 seconds.
A supersonic Eurofighter can be equally distant after 10 seconds, and by that be out of range for IR-AAM.
SchorschThat would be very probably May 2000 where Eritrean MiG-29 achieved a confirmed kill against Ethiopian MiG-21bis using GSh-30 cannon. There haven’t been many aerial fights since then…
Eritrea is not a good example.
Six.
Three helicopter kills by Kuwaiti A-4KUs, one cargo aircraft kill by USAF F-15C, two helicopter kills by USAF OA-10A.
I do not dispute these numbers, but none of these targets can be called a real air combat situation. It is more turkey shoot, and I didn’t deny the viability of a gun for turkey shoot.
Next to the famous Lynx kill by Pucara there were several damaged helos, even one SHAR hit by FAA Daggers. I have found no exact record for British gun kills but I seem to remember a C-130 kill by SHAR or Pucara kill by GR3(?)
Again: for fight against helicopters we can generally skip stealth, BVR missiles and all that technology overkill.
In the end: thanks for the detailed information, but I can’t see how modern air-to-air combat is ruled by guns. My point was:
Conclusion: a gun can be a very important asset, but with current AAM technology a well trained pilot will never need it (as he wouldn’t make circles around his targets). It may be useful when the aircraft is out of missiles but not out of targets. Normally, the normal pilot would have left the arena at this point.
And that is valid. For a fight versus another fighter (which has AAMs), the gun is no current weapon.
That’s a very strong and less than well-thought statement. It is sufficient when a fighter encounters a helicopter, UAV, a drug trafficking aircraft or an ultralight dangerously approaching government building. All these targets might be difficult to acquire for your AAM, what will you do then? Ram a $60mil aircraft into a target worth $300,000?
You don’t need a 60 Million USD fighter for that mission.
If the mission of a fighter is to kill other fighters and gain air dominance, than the gun is secondary and most of the time wasted weight. I do not deny that it adds flexibility to a platform for missions not anticipated, but reasoning its use with the necessity in air2air combat (and not turkey shoot) is false logic.
Attack runs on helicopters are by the way very dangerous for fighter aircraft. I wouldn’t do it on current helicopters.
SchorschCommon Schorsch, you can do much better than that. You know yourself you can’t compare NATO campaign over Serbia back in 1999 with the latest action of the RuAF in Georgian conflict.
The NATO was preparing its action for quite some time (conducting multiple exercises and constant satellite surveillance of entire territory of Yugoslavia). Beside their primary plan of eliminating all air defenses in first 3 days of air campaign, they ended up conducting the SEAD until the very last day of the 78-day long war (because those SAMs still continued to make considerable threat to NATO planes). Plus they didn’t find and destroy what they were looking for (I mean on strictly military targets like mobile SAMs). The NATO lost one F-117 (this occurred on the third day of the war) and one F-16CG to 70’s vintage Neva, plus a dozen of UAVs. Also, the NATO was coming from almost every direction into Yugoslavian airspace. Not to mention all supporting assets that were put in service for the action and highly poor state of the Yugoslav Air Force. Should we then discuss the incompetence of the flying crews, air force tacticians or something else?
On the other hand we have Georgian case. Most of the air defense equipment has been recently overhauled and modernized by Israelis and Ukrainians. The RuAF has clear lack of time to make proper planning (due to the emergency of stepping into action) like the NATO has done back in 1999. OK, the Backfire was lost. It was a flop. But what to say then for a Nighthawk.
Beside that Backfire three Su-25s were lost. These were the CAS assets and were used for their intended role in an area that was protected by a moderate air defense. On the other hand the NATO didn’t have troops on the ground on the territory of Yugoslavia in 1999, so there was no need for A-10s hanging at 2000 meters (or lower) above the ground.And then you are setting hypothesis at the end: “If Georgia was equipped with anything close to a real air defense (like latest Hawk versions, not talking of Patriot), its air space would have been effectively denied to RuAF.”
Denied is a bit strong word. In the end they would be neutralized, of course. It’s just the matter of cost that RuAF would have to pay in order to knock out those systems.
Similar words said Wesley Clark back in 1999 couple of months after campaign (I think it was an interview for the BBC). I don’t remember exact order of words he said but it was something like this: “… the biggest fear Mr. Solana and I had was that Mr. Milosevic would somehow be able to manage to bring the S-300 SAM into Yugoslavia…” I think that he meant on “the preparation stage” of the conflict.
I am sorry I can’t back it up with any evidence now. Maybe somebody has seen it then.
There is of course no point in a one-to-one comparison of these conflicts. Let’s remember that the Russian ground forces effectively did the job in a matter of days, so no war of air attrition like in Serbia.
I just wanted to point out that there are major shortcomings (you talked of the planning, how come that the air force wasn’t prepared for this likely scenario? Russia knew it would step in if Georgia threatens the autonomous regions). And these shortcomings are not solved by investing into the MiG-31 fleet.
If S-300 would have moved into Serbia, that wouldn’t have crushed NATO Air, but it would have slowed down the campaign. If we imagine Russian ground troops haven’t progressed that well and they would have been the need for more air assistance, there is a chance that we had seen more losses, maybe leading to a suspension of aerial attacks under certain conditions.
Again, my point is that before money is wasted on MiG-31 it gos into relatively low profile investments of Suchoi 24 and 25 countermeasures and increase of training for those units.
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