RyanNot “a flare” – multiple dozen of them, ejected essentially in a salvo. I did say “large numbers” quite clearly, more than once.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the aircraft must maintain at least one flare more or less permanently between them and the missile’s seeker, such that their aircraft is completely obscured, and even having succeeded in this, the technique is far from full proof, since the missile may reacquire the target after passing the flares. But 99/100 a flare will not remain in the way at all times. A target plane between a hail of flares will be seen by IIR, even part of one will be enough. Lot’s of tests, missiles scored many, flares scored zero. I can tell you that I would not want to be in the target plane and if you put the same opportunity to the manufacturers of these flares, I bet they wouldn’t want to back up their words by putting their backside on the line.
RyanAnd that’s exactly what it does mean. So if the court didn’t consider Hansard and purposive interpretation, then the ECJ could hear an appeal.
Given that the Maastricht Treaty had already been signed, they may well have. This would certainly fall under the remit of something that could be considered retrospectively and the timing is certainly suspect, that it happens after Maastricht was signed, not before.
RyanBoth these techniques should work just as well against DIRCM (which is actually a more narrow-band source than a flare), so you can’t single out flares as less effective on these grounds.
At least some of the DIRCM systems currently being developed have multiple output beams and continuously move in frequency to counter amplitude filtering.
The aircraft is supposed to maneuver to compensate for the flares dropping under the influence of gravity.
I’m well aware of that, but asking a 600mph aircraft to be manoeuvred such that it remains precisely behind a flare relative to a missile throughout the duration of the missile’s flight is a big ask. Much easier and more effective to use the sun. Simply being among the flares will not work against IIR. Believe me when I say that against a finished product IIR missile, I’ve seen dozens of tests against multi-spectral flares, some using the manoeuvre you mentioned and not one worked. So I stick by my ‘near useless’ statement.
Do you? AFAIK the vast majority of IIR AAMs do not have a datalink, Mica IR and very recently AIM-9X Block II being the only examples which do.
You should take defence journals with a pinch of salt. I’ve already pointed out one error in defenceindustrydaily since joining and there have been others in defense-update that I’ve seen elsewhere. Then you have Combat Aircraft showing a picture of the building the F-22 struck and saying it was hit by a cruise missile, plus multiple incorrect range figures and even incorrect miles-to-km conversions in the same article. They also have a tendency to copy and paste errors among themselves. Your above statement is certainly not correct, there are at least two more IIR missiles with a datalink. In general, if a journal claims an IIR missile with LOAL capability doesn’t have a datalink, be dubious.
At the risk of repeating myself, nobody claimed that flares are an equally effective substitute for DIRCM (concrete reasons outlined earlier). Just that there will continue to be a sizeable market for flare-based IIR countermeasures on fast mover platforms in the medium term.
You can semantically argue all day whether “less effective” works out to “near useless” (and I’ll leave you to it), but if experts in the field believe there exists a worthwhile opportunity, I’ll take their word.
Right so why did Mercurius take issue when I simply pointed out that flares were near useless against IIR? But yes, until DIRCM, there just isn’t an alternative to flares, so whilst taking a knife into a gun fight is near useless, it’s marginally better than going unarmed.
RyanHe did, in the year-old post referenced earlier. The basic idea is to deploy large numbers of flares in conjunction with maneuvering such that the aircraft is masked from the threat seeker by a mass of bright IR sources. If the IIR seeker is over-saturated, image-recognition goes out the window (pretty much the same principle as DIRCM in that regard, and similar to the cloud-like pyrotechnic IR decoys on warships).
Probably not a particularly promising tactic for a heavy aircraft against very short-range threats, but DIRCM is already quite widespread among those as opposed to fighters.
That only works temporarily whilst the plane can keep a flare in the LOS between the missile and the target on a permanent basis, which it can’t, the other problem is that if the flare is on the line of sight, the missile is still going in the correct direction. Furthermore many modern IIR seekers are multi-band and have amplitude filtering, so they have the option of using a band the flare isn’t emitting in, or filtering out the frequencies that exceed a given amplitude, or even using a partial image match if part of the plane is not obscured by a flare. The flare also isn’t decoying jack, it’s simply blocking it temporarily until gravity takes it out of the way. On top of that you have a data link, so the missile can receive information from unaffected sources. As I said, this has all been tested, and flares are less useful against IIR than a mountain top, or the sun for that matter. I think that maybe flare manufacturers try to promote their products at conferences, which gives people a false impression. In my original post I said “countermeasures are near useless’ against IIR and I stand by that (at least until we get DIRCM on fighters).
That’s simply because it’s easier to fit on a large plane, especially where stealth isn’t required and weight/aero isn’t a factor. However DIRCM is being developed for both the F-35 and PAK-FA and probably others, so clearly those in the know aren’t overly impressed about the ability of flares against IIR.
RyanTesting these days is rather more rigorous than in was in the early ’60s. It includes a full range of scenarios. The IIR seeker fundamentally isn’t just looking for a heat source, or a heat signature. It is looking for a specific image and the flare does not fit that image, hence it is ignored. Again, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW you think flares work against IIR seekers.
No, in 1345, you only mention that it will be some time, which itself is debatable. Depending on PAK-FA progress, it could be as early as 5 years time. You never actually explained WHY they are developing DIRCM if flares work.
Well sorry but a debate simply cannot progress that way, absent of evidence or explanation. Towed decoys are not VLO target vehicles with advanced ECM.
By which time they had collected ELINT for analysis, so there is again no proof of the ability to successfully model enemy capabilities, even those in service, before going up against them, let alone those still in development.
RyanIn the testing I’ve witnessed, the maximum effect of flares, is that the seeker’s centre of focus marginally moves away from the aircraft CoM during the brief period before the flare becomes separate to the aircraft. And even then it is still aimed directly at the aircraft, just not the dead centre, i.e. not enough deviance for a miss or even close. After ECCM modifications, the slight defect was rectified.
And you still haven’t answered as to why both the Russians and US have invested in DIRCM if flares work against IIR. Clearly they are not as convinced as you.
Perhaps you’d at least like to explain HOW you think flares work against an IIR homing head?
Right, so you can talk about them just enough to contradict someone, but without providing any proof? ‘Classified’ – the ultimate catch all in any argument.
And clearly the emulator had a lot of rough edges since the jamming wasn’t optimised until much later, as you well know. Early on they were shooting down significant numbers of fighters, but by Linebacker II they couldn’t even target bombers properly. So clearly any early guesswork hadn’t been particularly effective, and it was only when they had collected ELINT and worked up jamming techniques that the effectiveness improved.
RyanNothing can be deemed newly illegal retrospectively but the manner by which proceedings were conducted can certainly be modified if to correct a defect. And not considering Hansard would be considered a defect by the ECJ.
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06454/SN06454.pdf
Legislation that operates on matters taking place before its enactment, e.g. by
penalizing conduct that was lawful when it occurred. There is a presumption that
statutes are not intended to have retroactive effect unless they merely change legal
procedure.
Not an accurate equivalence. The speed limit cannot be changed retrospectively but the manner in which people are tried for a speeding offence could be modified.
RyanProblem is in 2014, LM promised them a maintenance hub for every F-35, including US, flying over Europe. Finally, they gave to UK a big share of it. How is it possible? Nothing written? No penalties?
As 10% stakeholders, the UK had paid for it.
RyanRyanKorea, ‘desert storm” (yee-haw) and even the Falklands have legitimate questions as to their ‘justness’, as you well know. Not saying they were unjust (I personally believe the defence of the Falklands was entirely legitimate) but it does not show ignorance of history to make this kind of judgement. It actually shows an awareness of subtext and counter-narrative beyond the received versions.
The worrying ignorance of history comes from BJ, who seems to believe we have never had a left-principled Prime Minister (where on earth does he think the NHS came from)?
Do they? Really!?
Korea – Communist dictatorship backed by the USSR and China invades South Korea. China then joins them and invades again. In hindsight, looking at things now, the only mistake they made was not using a tactical nuke or two against the Chinese army. Would have seemed terrible at the time but 65 years on, things turned out for the worse and we are left with a potentially even more dangerous situation.
Falklands – Dictatorship invades Falklands depriving its people of their right to self-determination.
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx
Desert Storm – Lunatic invades Kuwait (after gassing a fair sum of his own people).
Well yes, NHS and Welfare state. But was using money from the Marshall Plan to nationalise the railways a good use of it in hindsight?
Maybe it’s wise to take opinions about Corbyn even from within the Labour Party. Technically he didn’t even have enough support to continue as party leader. I’ve seen how bad even a centrist Labour party is at managing money in the 1997-2008 period, people even killed themselves over it they were that bad (the working class they were supposed to be protecting), so I’m not prepared to take my chances with someone who even Labour MPs don’t support because of his fairly extreme leftist views.
RyanYou may wish to review that first claim. With respect to criminal acts it is mostly true, but with respect to civil matters, like whether perks are taxable, restrospective law would most certainly apply, especially if it is seen to modify the proceedings by which the matter was dealt with.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/retrospective
And yet in 1978 (Davis vs Johnson) it still held firm.
http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/Davis-v-Johnson.php
What you have in the case you mentioned is a very badly written law, very much like the ‘stand your ground’ in the US. Now if one was to refer to what was said in the passing of that law, the Zimmerman trial would have gone very differently. Perhaps rightly so in that case, but the procedure is hit-and-miss.
Not really, I can understand it perfectly, politicians on the other hand…..
RyanYour attachments are broke I think.
RyanThis is getting a bit silly. You might see a need for “multi-spectral, holographic flares”, but I do not know if the countermeasures industry does. And it is going to be some time before every combat aircraft can be fitted with DIRCM.
So why are they even bothering if flares work against IIR? Although I have some experience in DSMAC and image recognition and can tell you flat out that they don’t.
As for “A target vehicle that’s more classified than front line stealth fighters and bombers”, I made no such claim. Towed decoys are hardly a big secret, but the RCS level of the targets I was tracking, the frequencies I was using, and the tactical scenario were (and probably still are) classified, so I could retain no docs etc when I left that field of activity.
You said even a photo would be classified, which is not the case for stealth fighters, hence it seems like an implicit claim of something more classified than stealth aircraft.
“If you know the design approach the other side takes.” Which you don’t…”
So how did the US manage to engineer their Fan Fong equivalent and get it largely right? A mix of humint, elint, and the knowledge of what approaches were practical in terms of the engineering technology of the day seems to have done the trick. A similar process has been used for other systems such as ‘double-digit’ SAMs, and is under way today.
Because they had ELINT data gained in combat and knew the approximate dimensions of said apparatus. This bore out in the reducing effectiveness of the SA-2 as the war wore one. Hardly the same as working out the RCS, ECM and detection capabilities of planes still under development.
RyanYes, but there’s also the Davis vs Johnson case in 1978 that completely stamps on that recommendation and no instance of purposive interpretation for another 14 years, until Lord Griffiths begins, “The days have passed when courts could take a literal approach.” Now use of the word ‘could’ indicates that they are no longer able and this statement occurs 9 months after the Maastricht Treaty is signed. And it should be noted that this was a very delicate tax matter, i.e. what is considered a perk and what isn’t for purposes of tax and it’s probably unreasonable to list everything with either a yes and a no, so referring to Hansard was probably somewhat logical here especially given that it went in favour of the defendant. However, would it be reasonable to send someone to prison based on Hansard, or make them pay a large fine? Hint: Helps to put yourself in the position of the accused here.
Nobody said it was a plot, but legislation is written for the common man and the common man does not refer to Hansard when reading the law, they see only the words on the page.
In this case it wasn’t a situation that ‘might’ change because the Treaty had been signed. Hence it was a situation that would change. Whether this affected his judgement we’ll never know, but the opening statement, “The time has passed….” is a bit ominous given that he’s setting a precedent. When did this time pass exactly? Just now?
RyanOh he can’t be accused of quitting whilst he’s ahead.
Britain has not fought a just conflict since the Second World War, Jeremy Corbyn has said
Err…. Korea, Desert Storm, Falklands…..
Can’t count. Doesn’t know history. Not two great traits in a national leader.
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