hopsalotNo cuts to the F-35 in Obama administration’s proposed budget for next year:
The funding includes $6.36 billion to build all 29 of the F-35s previously planned for 2014, including 19 of the version designed for the Air Force, six for the Marine Corps and four for the Navy, according to a budget document obtained today by Bloomberg News. The remaining funds would be for continued development and spare parts.
The proposal for the Joint Strike Fighter will be part of a $526.6 billion defense budget that President Barack Obama will propose next month for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, according to government officials familiar with the budget plan who asked not to be identified discussing it in advance.
…
“The big decision for me on F-35 will be the decision on the FY 2015 budget: Do we ramp up or not?” Kendall told reporters March 12 at a defense conference in Washington.
The Defense Department plans increases to 44 planes in fiscal 2015 and 66 in fiscal 2016, according to figures included last year in its long-range budget plan. A new plan for fiscal 2014 to 2018 will be released next month.
“Overall, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is moving in the right direction after a long, expensive and arduous learning period,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report this month.
“Going forward, ensuring affordability — the ability to acquire the aircraft in quantity” that keeps the per-plane price down — “is of paramount concern,” the GAO said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-03-27/lockheed-s-troubled-f-35-said-to-be-unscathed-in-budget
The anti-F-35 crowd may now resume their ranting…
hopsalotMercurius is correct. I don’t get the rhetoric and disingenuous argument directed back at him. The only detection systems that work well against stealth are by staging cheap coded signal emitters at known locations and listening for reflections of those signals that are unnatural. In simplest principle it’s not unlike LED lighting in the aisles of theaters. The real world problem is that each emitter can be attacked by less costly means that erecting each one within the matrix, it’s only good for deployment in friendly territory, it is ungodly complex to sort the myriad of coded signals, and it’s prone to spoofing.
Who said anything about stealth?
hopsalotA quick glance shows that the documents in question are probably fine non-sequiturs which do little to promote his case, but I’ll probably reply to him in a PM next week – unless there are folks out there who really want to see a dedicated RWR thread.
:rolleyes:
Let me go out on a limb and guess that when you return you will have absolutely confirmed that these counterexamples are irrelevant to the discussion on the ground that they don’t support your case…
Remember:
Summarizing now for the layman… antenna gain matters a great deal, as does signal processing, and in the real world there are in fact situations where a radar can detect its target before the RWR detects the radar.
This is most likely to happen when dealing with:
Extremely large/high-gain radars, large RCS targets (and/or a geometry that produces a RCS spike), shorter ranges (which will generally aid the radar in this scenario) and of course older and/or less sensitive RWRs.
Yes the RWR has some substantial advantages if you limit yourself to a superficial look at the equations, but the radar also possesses significant advantages and in actual practice it is not a given that a RWR will detect the radar first. Even in situations where the RWR does detect the radar first, it may not do so at an appreciably greater range than the radar is capable of tracking its target.
Any designer of RWRs would of course know this.
You responded by saying:
To cite your own words “I understand how the math works, but that isn’t how it works in the real world.”
I provided you some real world examples.
Now you can pretty much stay “busy” forever, or change your previous:
The texts I have cited confirm what I originally wrote – that the RWR will detect the radar before the radar will detect its target.
To:
“well, it depends… sometimes…etc”
hopsalotIn fact, it’s the opposite; nobody talk in absolute term but you.
Of course not. Consider this from only a few posts back:
The texts I have cited confirm what I originally wrote – that the RWR will detect the radar before the radar will detect its target.
Now that I have provided him with some counter examples, including explanations of their functionality he pronounces them “non-sequiturs” and himself busy.
The RWR of a Rafale/F-22/F-35 will have some advantage in case of a stupid Su-35 pilot using his radar at full power. Then nobody here can assure you in one way or another how the “some advantage” will translate into a tactical advantage.
Of course the RWR has advantages. I always acknowledged as much. Go back and re-read this discussion if you aren’t sure.
And what about if the rafale pilot is able to stay out of the 120 degrees scan of the Irbis ? Then, the question of how powerful the radar is would be then totally pointless.
If the Rafale is outside of the Irbis-e’s field of regard then the Rafale is flying behind the Su-35, a good place to be if you can get there, but you have to remember that the Su-35 would detect the Rafale at long range anywhere in the region it can see. For the Rafale to get behind the Su-35 it would need to fly a long way, it would need accurate locational data for the Su-35, and the Su-35 would have to refrain from turning during the whole time the Rafale is doing it.
In the real world the Rafale would not likely attempt an extremely difficult silent attack strategy and would instead try to take on the Su-35 more or less head on, relying on its superior BVR missile, jammers, training, etc to carry the day.
hopsalotwhy potential? Outdated.
Potential because that article is old (1991)… but then there are an awful lot of aircraft (and RWRs) flying today a lot older than that.
hopsalotthing is, tactics are there for exactly that purpose: use your strengths and use them to defeat the enemy. No sane person would fly straight at the opponent which is scanning in his direction.
German Typhoon pilots talking about exercises with the F-22s said, among other things, that by using the right tactics they managed to avoid getting locked by raptors radar until being sufficiently close. It was linked in the F-35 debate thread if my memory serves well. There’s always a “way around”… it is a game of cat and mouse, not just “I switch on my radar and shoot at everything that flies as everything appears on my scope like by magic”
Your memory does not serve you well. The article said nothing of the sort…
As for:
not just “I switch on my radar and shoot at everything that flies as everything appears on my scope like by magic”
I never said anything of the sort… why don’t you look up with a “strawman argument” is?
hopsalotI am not interested in ‘winning’ or losing’ – only in indicating where errors are being made, and documenting the facts, so that misleading information does not go unchallenged and become ‘pseudo evidence’ in future threads.
The texts I have cited confirm what I originally wrote – that the RWR will detect the radar before the radar will detect its target.
Ok, then here we go:
ABSTRACT
Most current radars are designed to transmit short duration pulses with relatively high peak power. These radars can be detected easily by the use of relatively modest EW intercept receivers. Three radar functions, namely search, anti-ship missile (ASM) seeker and navigation, are examined in this report to evaluate the effectiveness of potential low probability of intercept (LPI) techniques, such as waveform coding, antenna profile control and power management, that a radar may employ against current EW receivers. The general conclusion is that it is possible to design a LPI radar which is effective against current intercept EW receivers. LPI operation is most easily achieved at close ranges and against a target with a large radar cross section. The general system sensitivity requirement for the detection of current and projected LPI radars is found to be on the order of -100 dBmi which cannot be met by current EW receivers. Finally, three potential LPI receiver architectures, using channelized, superhet and acousto-optic receivers with narrow RF and video bandwidths are discussed. They have shown some potential in terms of providing the sensitivity and capability in
an environment where both conventional and LPI signals are present.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a246315.pdf
No, you showed me nothing. You only told me what you believe to be the case. You are free to postulate carefully-selected short-range conditions that you think support your case, but for the moment you have no evidence that these will reverse the RWR’s traditional advantage. (The quote I gave regarding LPI radar only talked about degrading the RWR’s advantage, not removing it.)
Here is the spec sheet from the SAAB PILOT LPI Radar:
http://www.saabgroup.com/Global/Documents%20and%20Images/Naval/Situational%20Awareness/PILOT/PILOT%20ENG%20print.pdf
Should you find a textbook or technical paper that backs up your assertion, feel free to draw it to my attention. In the meantime, I will assume that the textbooks and technical papers in my shelves and files are correct, as were the colleagues who taught me the basics of RWRs back in the laboratory.
Here is a nice slideshow with further discussion of the radar from above:
hopsalotas I said, “there’s no blinder man taht the one that doesn’t want to see…”
reread my posts before that one, you have the answers there
in any case, as you pointed out, no fighter flies alone, so, scanning the skies in search for other fighters will necessarily trigger an alert on the SPECTRA (as we talk about the rafale, but others have, or will have similar features in the upcoming decades) of several fighters which will automatically fuse that data and through triangulation be able to easily pinpoint the exact position of the emitter
now if you say “there’s other assets around”, the same goes the other way as well… chances are both have AWACS in a Indo-Chinese war, meaning, high power radar will, again, be of little use as it will be the data fusion that will make the difference… positions of relative fighters transmitted by the AWACS, it will be the ones that can fire on targets designated from the external source and with higher firing range that will have the advantage… RAfale can do it… the Su-35 probbaly will also be able to (I’m not sure on that one as of today though)
There we come from the comparison between fighters to the one between missiles… India will have the Meteor… what will China have?
Again, you seem to think the Rafale could approach and engage the Su-35 from outside the Su-35’s detection range… a fanciful idea at best.
If that were really a viable tactic then imagine how utterly one-sided the fight between an Su-35 and a 5th generation fighter would be.
hopsalotMuch as the Huey was a symbol of the Vietnam war, the Bear a symbol of the Cold War (and since 2007 the revival of the Russian state), the F-35 program is destined to symbolise the decadence and complacency of American empire in the present, and the decline in American power which promises to coincide with the aircraft’s service life. That any number of other nations are caught up in the F-35 saga, largely to their own detriment, only adds to its symbolic power: the fall of a giant is seldom a tidy affair.
Surely there is a political rant board that would really benefit from your keen insights…
Another poster that poster than can only respond to an F-35 win with a completely substance free post.
hopsalotI didn’t know there was a STOVL version of the F-15 and F-16. Guess one learns something new every day..
:rolleyes:
And the F-5, is that a STOVL aircraft?
The fact that Singapore wants a STOVL aircraft is noteworthy, but given that these first F-35s are slated to replace F-5s it is hard to argue that STOVL was an absolute requirement.
Naturally you need some excuse to avoid accepting the obvious, that Singapore believes the F-35 offers it greater capabilities than the alternatives and that this is another boost for the F-35 program in general, and the F-35B in particular.
hopsalotYou are describing here a form of low-probability of interception radar. But there is a limit to what this technique can achieve.
From a paper published in 2011:
“Radars and airborne electronic support measures (ESMs) systems are locked in a tactical battle to detect each other whilst remaining undetected. Traditionally, the ESM system has a range advantage. Low probability of intercept (LPI) waveform designers are, however, more heavily exploiting the matched filter radar advantage and hence degrading the range advantage.”
Note that the word used is ‘degrading’ – not ‘removing’. And LPI radars are of relatively short range.
LPI? Gee, you think?
What do you think we are talking about when we are talking about a radar’s ability to operate without being detected itself?
You claimed that based on the math/physics the RWR always had an insurmountable advantage. I showed you that that was not the case.
Obviously there are other LPI techniques available, but given your focus on relative signal strengths this is the simplest way to refute you.
Naturally you then proclaim this a waste of your time… (as I suppose it has been in a sense)
That really wasn’t much of a concession, was it?
Thanks for the quotes though, they were really useful. I have always found that when I am losing an argument it helps to restate the obvious.
:rolleyes:
hopsalotThis sale was always going to happen.
Singapore hasn’t brought non-US since Hawker Hunters in the 1960s.
I was expecting Singapore’s first sale to be for 20-24 a/c as this is their usual purchase size as their squadrons are 20 a/c strong.
True enough that Singapore has bought American in recent years, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have access to the very best and could have gone with more high-end F-15s, Super Hornet International, or of course some F-16Vs.
Given that Singapore’s primary potential adversaries operate Su-30MKMs or Su-30MK2s the fact that Singapore has chosen the F-35, and the F-35B no less, says a lot about how they see its capabilities.
Defense isn’t about “overseas contingencies” for Singapore. If they are buying F-35Bs over Silent Eagles it is because they want the capabilities, and that says a lot.
hopsalotSpeaking of the people who have access to the F-35’s capabilities…
WASHINGTON: Singapore is expected to announce sometime in the next 10 days that it plans to buy its first squadron –12 planes — of some 75 of Lockheed Martin’s F-35Bs, further bolstering what had been the flagging fortunes of the world’s most expensive conventional weapon system.
http://defense.aol.com/2013/03/25/singapore-poised-to-announce-purchase-of-12-f-35bs/
75 sales (At least partially ff the F-35B no less :diablo: )… just more evidence of the death spiral I know… :rolleyes:
Now imagine how people around here would be reacting if this sale had gone to any other fighter for sale today.
hopsalotI really don’t know where things stand today.
I do know that Boeing has said the Silent Eagle’s canted tails would allow the removal of several hundred pounds of ballast.
The Silent Eagle also features twin vertical tails canted
outward 15 degrees (F-15E tails are vertical). Canted tails provide
lift to the rear of the aircraft, which eliminates hundreds of pounds
of ballast and increases range by 75 to 100 nautical miles.
http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2009/july/i_ids01.pdf
hopsalotyou forget just a small fraction of the problem which is called “intelligence”…
a pilot knowing that a radar is searching for him from far away (the beam weakly goes across him without lock) won’t just keep going straight at the radar source that seems to look for him… he’ll adopt tactics allowing him to sneak by undetected , maneuver out of way in order to come close from a favorable position.
In any case, a fighter just looking for eventual enemy fighters with its own radar is either:
– lucky to have enemies without proper RWR and ECM equipment
– foolish if his enemies have proper equipmentthe only point where you can take really advantage from a powerful radar is when someone else (AWACS for example) did the detection for you and you can light your radar at a sufficiently close range to get a solid contact and track.
but then again, if we add awacs into equation, one has to wonder whether the other side will have it as well, and if they do, it is just a amtter of who has the lowest RCS to begin with… and there, the Sukhois don’t fare so well AFAIK
This whole post is one big strawman argument.
I was merely offering an example of a situation where a radar could track a target without alerting the target’s RWR.
The whole tactics discussion is another matter…
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