Radar,

ICWI is a clip on processor module where the base radar does not have the processor to handle the number crunching. ICWI is basically predictive tracking. The programming samples the radar hits on the target and determines the target track. The prediction is updated on each hit of the director beam.

In practice this means that a SARH weapon can made to tolerate a variance in the return signal. The relevance of this is that the tracker can drift off target for a few fractions of a second and not screw up missile CCIP as it does for a missile receiving conventional signal. ICWI enables the area capability as a reliable mechanism.

Trident

The mount can track at those rates but that is to lay the ordnance on the threat bearing and elevation. The mounts are designed to engage low bearing rate targets as a point defence capability. Phalanx especially so with the tracking system employed – Phalanx targeting logic, the system which governs mount engagement policy, will not declare an inbound as a target of interest unless it is bearing on or near the carrying vessel with a closing range count.

The illustration here is with the Gloucester’s engagement of that Iraqi P15 derivative in 91. The semi active missile and CIWS both had issues with the crossing target. The intercept happening when the missile settled on a bearing past Gloucester’s bows. The Sea Dart had to tailchase but it did so against a low bearing rate target.

i don’t think, that keeping a crossing target in the beam is a big deal with modern fire control systems. otherwise all radar controlled pdms and ciws are useless as soon as an inbound target starts maneuvering or using a pop up maneuver.
afaik the ran successful did some crossing targets tests with essm some time ago. (with a mechanically steered illuminator of course).

Why do you think the inbounds initiate those kinds of manoeuvers Radar?. It doesnt make them useless, but, it complicates the intercept task measurably…which is the whole point!. There is also a world of difference between a subsonic missile corkscrewing in around a fixed bearing and a crossing target with a high bearing-rate.

The RAN did do local area defence testing with ESSM as part of the same trials that ICWI was tested in. It was the ICWI technology that was the enabler for the crossing target trials. The CEA active scan director with its ability to hand off the beam between faces, to obviate any array masking issues, will improve that further.

So we dont have to go down the track of endless minutiae about precise angles and tracking rates, that will rapidly go beyond open source performance specifications, can I say that my point was a general one that, if you wanted to develop a missile with a local area defence capability, you would start with an active radar seeker and not a passive RF/IR or a semi-active/CLOS setup. In that context semi-active seeker technology is more suited to point-defence applications with a lower-bearing rate inbound and a missile with high kinematic performance, like the M4 VL Mica, mounting an active seeker is more suited to the area application.

Thanks for that Jacko. The part I was missing was, of course, the retask rate. I’m not sure how much I agree with the concept of QRA sqdn pilots not working a full day after pulling duty etc but I see how a full sqdn can be tasked and useful for little else other than national air defence while at QRA posture. Still it does seem to fit with the way the RAF like to work. I have seen, at first hand, how much RAF pilots enjoy their relaxed operational lifestyles on base. I imagine it would ignite a mutiny if the same kind of work schedules the other two services undertake were applied to the modern day ‘few’!!!.

And how often do you want QRA to ‘come around’ for your pilots? If you have 18 CR/LCR pilots per squadron, two on QRA at a time, QRA will be coming around for one day in nine…And then there’ll be the days they’re nominated as Q3/Q4, ready to take over if Q1 and Q2 are scrambled.

Similarly one day in nine as a baseline doesnt sound all that excessive if you are ‘duty’ squadron for a defined cycle before rotating off onto a training/re-cert period. To be honest I dont see why there would be the need for the fifth squadron….just additional pilots and airframes within the two squadrons deployed, per QRA base, to keep the individual squadrons viable would seem to be the optimum?.

There is also the question of what is happening on the duty squadron if half of the former Russian Long Range Aviation capability doesnt show up for a visit?. Presumeably much of the complex weapons training you mention occurs in the sims these days as I cant imagine (for example) weapons airframe-lives are used up on training all that much and very few live weapons are dropped/fired annually?. Would it impede QRA all that much if, for example, the QRA 3/4 and/or unslotted pilots were in the sims, offsetting some of the training requirement, until the larger element raids were plotted heading in?.

In Cold War days, it became clear that one QRA commitment was best shared between two airfields, each with two squadrons – Leeming and Leuchars doing Northern Q, Binbrook and Wattisham Southern.

IF the threat of the Cold War period were to return I’m very certain that the same clarity would appear again. The sense of it is manifest. That is not the threat level we are working to at present or for the forseeable future though is it?. Is it appropriate to spend the money raising the fifth squadron when the threat is a pair of Bears or Tu-160’s a couple of times a week and, realistically, the nation who is sending them has nothing to achieve by doing so other than political gamesmanship?.

Yes. And that is calculated by taking the total number of aircraft lost, and dividing by the total number of sorties flown.

That’s because the number deployed does. not. matter.

What matters is the odds of an aircraft being lost on a sortie. A fleet of 50 aircraft flies a total of 100 sorties and loses 1 aircraft. That means 1/100 of the sorties flown resulted in an aircraft lost. The risk of losing an airplane in a sortie is 1/100. Likewise, a fleet of 5 aircraft flies a total of 100 sorties and loses 1 aircraft. Their risk of losing an airplane in a sortie is also 1/100. 100 missions flown, 1 aircraft lost, loss rate 1/100.

Phaid,

You have made my point so much clearer than I was doing.

In your example the fifty aircraft are only flying two missions ie the opposition has two chances to shoot them down.
Against that the 5 aircraft are undertaking 20 missions and being exposed to far higher risk potential. Like I said risk is cumulative. If you fly twenty missions, with a 5% risk factor per mission, by the 19th mission you cannot ignore the fact your aircraft has been exposed to that 5% 18 times.

The difference in your calculation and that above is meaningful. Losses per total sortie rate tells us more about the state of the opposition air defences than is does about your aircraft.

I dont think either of us are going to be swayed by the others argument here buddy and we are already repeating ourselves so i’m happy to leave it as an interesting debate for another time!.

I’m not sure any metric is going to paint the Harrier of any variant in a huge positive over the A-10’s track record.

Its not. I dont think I’ve said anywhere that it will. I’m saying that there is no way that the A-10 was a better performer by 2.5 times than Harrier though. Not when the actual averaged mission ratio per airfame was only 20% higher for the A-10 and losses for both types were the same.

Fasthawk evolved into RATTLRS (pic). There was talk of RATTLRS being cancelled a few months back?.

The LRASM requirement appears to specify an ability to work outside of significant targetting sensor support and the ability to discriminate between legitimate targets and non-combattants in the terminal phase. Those factors do not lend themselves easily to a very high velocity aeroballistic weapon.

Its also go to be said that high-velocity aeroballistics aren’t really all that difficult targets for defending area SAMs and you would not anticipate naval S-300’s and the derivations thereof to have too many issues in countering weapons of that type.

It dosen’t matter how much you want to dissect it or try to make the figures fit, the Harrier had a higher loss rate than A-10s and any combat jet of its generation, it is a partly designed in problem with the type compared to conventional aircraft.

Absolutely. No argument there at all. What I am saying is that the gap isn’t that the simple figures suggest.

Be interesting to see how the two lay-outs of the F-35 will compare in this regard, in theory the STOL aircraft will encounter higher losses.

I am curious as to why you think that?.