Sorry for the mistake: I meant the former 😮

Again, its from an internal USAF report in conjunction with the AMRAAM design with the research conducted by a Colonel in the USAF.

It is a quote from an “aviation expert” quoting some unofficial USAF “source”.

As for the B-2 flying low, has it not been designed with that in mind as well as high altitude penetration – otherwise it would not have the terrain following radar onboard.

It seems that it was not designed for low level mission. This capability was introduced later, in the second block:

Block 20 configured aircraft have an interim capability to launch nuclear and conventional munitions, including the GAM guided munition. The Block 20 has been tested with the Mk-84, 2,000-pound, general-purpose bombs and the CBU-87/B Combined Effects Munition cluster bombs (low-altitude, full-bay release). Block 20 aircraft, produced between April and December 1996, provided greater electronic and weapon-delivery abilities. A Terrain Avoidance/Terrain Following (TA/TF) capability was provided for low-profile missions.

from: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-2-variants.htm

Now im assuming you would have a pretty decent air defence setup, probably some S300’s and the like and whatever else you have to throw up there. The trick is to have at least 5 dummy sites for every real one, and i dont mean cardboard cutouts, i mean real looking batteries, decoy electronic warfare devices… the lot. Make it out as if your entire force (of decoys that is) is waiting for the Americans to attack. The real ones are hidden further out, pretty much right about the area where the americans will weapons release (and as such be as unstealthy as possible), heavily camouflaged, and totally turned off.

Usually, the first step in order to destroy an air defense system is to attack radar sites. SAM ramps came later. By the way, the Iraqi used decoys on a large scale in both wars with US. Did this help them? Not much.

well Iran has the SA-10

Since when?

think its blatently obvious my friend that Iran does not value its mens lives that alot of other countries – i only have to point in the direction of the mass ‘human wave’ assaults on Iraqi positions during the Iran Iraq war

And what was thew results of the “mass human wave assaults”? Did they take the Iraqi position? I don’t remember.

Now why bring up the MK 48 or any conventional modern torpedo?

Because you said:

I actually said that sonar guidance by the torpedo is impossible

Had you said that Schkval is not possible to be guided by sonar, I would not contradict you. I thought that you meant that sonar guidance is not possible for torpedoes in general.

Toy or no toy it sure does effect the balance through which US will conduct its war in gulf (if any in future). Neat gadgets coming out of the unkown. I wonder is that all or just a hint of wht is in store if USA like to venture into Iran. Comments guys?

Maybe the Iranians claim of radar evading capabilities simply refers to the the fact that the flying boat would fly low; inherently it would be harder to locate for a ship radar, compared with a conventional plane flying at high-medium altitudes. However, no US battle group travel without its Hawkeyes. I doubt that such a system would have trouble in detecting the flying boat.

Well i dont know about the capability of doing such a thing or not , i just keep my answer concerned to the motive part of a preemptive strike by Iran. I wonder do they really wana go into war with America to an extent that they go for a pre emptive strike. Yes if USA is already in war with Iran then tht strike wont be pre emptive will it be. Comments guys?

I believe that the threat that really concerns USN is not the flying boat or the Iranian Shkval (either sold by the Russians or a an Iranian clone). Probably the ~20 North Korean-built fast-attack patrol boats armed with Chinese C-802 antiship cruise missiles (60-mile range), the Chinese HY-2 Silkworm antiship cruise missiles orthe three Russian Kilo-class diesel submarines with conventional torpedoes are considered more dangerous.

A target at 30 kms would have plenty of warning despite the 200knt speed of the Shkval and turning bow or stern on would make it a rather small target for a weapon with no terminal seeker.

All the sources I’ve seen credit the Schkval (the original Russian) with a range of 10-12 miles. Moreover some sources say: the kill probablity at 7000 yards is ~ 80 %.

I repeat: hard to believe that a torpedo boat/sub. could come so close to a USN ship in wartime.

Interesting article in April issue of AFA Mag:http://www.afa.org/magazine/April2006/0406raptor.asp

So far, the Raptor needs fewer maintainers than the Eagle “on paper,” Hecker said, but he admits taking as many support personnel on deployments as the Eagle requires. It’s because the aircraft is still so new, and there are still bugs to be worked out, he explained.

However, compared to the F-15 or the F-16 at a comparable point in their fielding, “we’re doing better than they were,” he said.

“All of our airplanes now have an upgraded software package,” he said, which “has reduced a significant number of those lockups.” They happen about “one out of every 100 sorties,” Hecker noted, compared to one in three several years ago. The reboot takes three minutes or so and if “you’re just about to go into an engagement, that can seem like an eternity.” Still newer versions of the software will further reduce the lockup problem, and USAF officials expect it will disappear completely with a software version expected in about 18 months.

The F-22 typically operates at about 60,000 feet, he noted. At that altitude, the stealthy Raptor can slice through the thin air at Mach 1.5, undetected by the enemy. And even if detected, the Raptor would be out of reach or long gone by the time an opponent could bring his weapons to bear.

In a typical training mission, he said, a given number of Raptors will be matched against twice as many adversaries.

A certain type of mission is simulated—defending a base, escorting an attack package, defending a high-value asset such as an AWACS—and the F-15s routinely are destroyed without ever seeing the F-22s.

But sometimes:

Echols, who is also an instructor pilot, said sometimes the F-15s “win” against an F-22, but it is a rare event. When it does, it provides ample fodder for tactics evaluation.

Should the F-22 ever get into a close-in, turning dogfight, it still will have a considerable edge. Despite its large size, the F-22 can turn as tightly as an early model F-16 and can, in fact, sustain a turn at 9.5Gs—a half-G better than any previous fighter. Hecker said the F-22 pilots can stay conscious in such a situation because they also have a new kind of G-suit that covers more of the lower body.

“It covers a lot more surface area, so what pilots are seeing is that it gives you an extra G or two,” Hecker reported. On the upper body, F-22 pilots wear the Combat Edge suit, classified by the Air Force as “a partial pressure suit,” Hecker said.

“That does help us get up a bit higher” in altitude.

Also interesting si how they mange the stealth deterioration during rutine maintenance:

Rather than clean up every single defect after every mission—“whether it be missing material, a crack, disbond, delamination, what have you”—the F-22’s handlers aim to keep the aircraft stealthy within certain parameters. After every inspection, the surface defects are cataloged and fed into a computer program called the Signature Assessment System. From a “pristine” aircraft fresh from the factory with no stealth defects—zero percent stealth impact—the percentage of dings on each Raptor accumulates over time in the computer model.

“When it broaches the 80 percent mark, we start to think about … doing some repairs to get us back where we need to be,” Daig explained.

The model system is a far cry from the F-117 and B-2, which both originally required elaborate measuring devices—sometimes instrumented flying ranges—to measure their stealth. The B-2 has since moved to a system similar to SAS.

The “effects of defects” model “works very well for us, because you can find yourself with 200 to 300 nicks, dings, and scratches on the aircraft and still be an LO platform and still meet your LO missions,” Daig asserted. After the SAS registers 100 percent, “we can no longer guarantee to that pilot that he’s where he needs to be” in terms of stealth, she said

I don’t know where you’re getting your information on the F-35’s agility, but many don’t regard the aircraft as a genuine multi-role platform (I refer you to Bob Kemp’s comments at Singapore, for example).

The benchmark for the JSF was the F 16. The JSF had to better the Viper by a 25 % margin in terms of acceleration, maneuverability etc. The prototypes built by both contenders (Boeing and LM) passed the criteria with no problems. As for combat radius on internal fuel, the improvement is even bigger: almost 600 Nmiles (USAF variant) vs. 350 Nmiles for the F 16. Test pilots described the F 35 prototype as a plane with the agility of the F 16 combined with the handling qualities at high AoA of a Hornet. That should be enough to compete with Eurocanards and Su 3X. As for BVR the frontal aspect stealth, the APG 81 and the IRST capable EOSS should give the F 35 the first chance against any fighter except, of course, the Raptor.