mig-31bmIronic that the Hopster posts one comment bragging about the F-35 becoming “operational” next year and then another about its air-policing capabilities – when of course next year’s operational jet, and the AF’s 3I that follows it, have no such capability. Not only do they have neither a gun nor a SRAAM but they are limited to 40 kft altitude, which many modern civil aircraft can exceed easily.
F-35 have already been tested to 50k ft, what the hell you talking about?
and yes of course it can carry gun and AAM, may be not internals at the moment but there are so many pictures around show f-35 fly and carry AAM externally
mig-31bmNot if their comms are switched off/down. Exactly what happened over southern England a month or so ago. Typhoon(s) tasked to intercept went supersonic in order to get to the non-communicating aircraft fast. Why not use F-4? UK retired them many years ago and replaced them with MRCA.
the point is that intercept airliner is not the main mission of fighter aircraft, the main mission is air superiority, SEAD, CAS , penetration strike , may be anti ship…. etc that why SA and Stealth are emphasised, if you only want to intercept airliner fast, you would only need the old f-4, f-106 they are fast and cheap
mig-31bmOK, ground radar can detect an airliner cruising at mach 0.84 and 30000+ ft from 400-500 km. However if the aircraft is following normal procedures it is not perceived as a threat. An element of air policing is investigating anomalous behaviour by an aircraft. It may be that behaviour starts inside a country’s air space. To catch up with airliners flying away at mach 0.8+ you need a supersonic interceptor. You do not down an aircraft with a SAM when you are trying to investigate what it is doing. You intercept it.
f-35 can reach mach 1.6, so what your point? sure EF-2000 and Rafale can reach mach 1.8 so they will be faster at intercepting dodgy airliner but then again if that is the main poin why dont just use F-4 or F-106 instead? alot cheaper and faster, also i dont understand why you would need to intercept an aircraft to investigate what it doing? cant you just saw everything on radar and talk to them on radio?
mig-31bmer… you seem to forget a single little detail, others get their electronic stuff upgraded continuously, are operational and, as of now, the F-35 is pretty much “superior” only to things like the Tucano (mostly because propeller driver stuff can’t catch it).. any operational jet fighter today (even migs 21 and similar stuff) are fast enough to catch the F-35 no matter what it does, and since, as of today, it is pretty much unable to use any real weapon operationally, the F-35 could only try to hide from any armed opponent today, but definitely not fight it.
so no, if you speak in present (as hopsalot tries to hold on “clear english speaking”), the F-35 isn’t superior to anything even remotely used as a fighter today.
then, about considering what’s important for a fighter.. over 90% of operational missions of fighters of any airforce are made of air policing. It consists pretty much of intercepting civilians (from GA props like cessnas to airliners) for any reason they might have (navigation problems, technical problems and so on). If, to intercept a cessna, you might consider as sufficient the flying capabilities of a trainer, nothing bar a supersonic fighter that goes and climbs very fast, will be able to catch a liner cruising at 0.84mach and @ 30000+ ft, especially in the case of small countries you try to sell your flying brick.. that reminds me of a quote from a movie: “with the F-4 the USA have proven to the world that a brick could fly, providing you put enough thrust in it…” , well, the F-35 is a second proof of the same idea… it needs a 20t of thrust engine just to manage comparable performance to a modern 4th gen fighter (which does it with half that power, usually)
1) you cant catch or fight something you cant see, that why stealth attribute is very important
2) arliner cruising at mach 0.84 and 30000+ ft will be detected by ground radar from 400-500 km, you dont need high speed or climb rate to intercept them when you have so much time warning, and if intercept airliner is the only important mission then they would buy SAM not Fighter, no fighter is going to climb faster than a SM-6, PAC-1/2 or S-300/400
3) if speed and high altitude is really that important then new generation of fighter would be sth like SR-71 or mig-31 not a singer fighter today can catch or run away from them, not even the uber eurofighter or Rafale
mig-31bmThe problem is that the Eurocanards (sans the JAS39) were never meant to be affordable light fighters to bulk up NATO numbers. If F-22 is an Audi A8, then Typhoon was meant to be a Lexus GS350. With a car like that you expect to get higher cost… but the nations who were lining up for the F-35 wanted nothing better than a beefed-up VW Golf.. at the cost of a Golf, of course.. what they are getting now is a Passat.. and not a particularly good one.. at the cost of an E-Class Benz, on top of that..
I take this as a joke.. and not a particularly good one.. how did the F-35 earn such excellent reputation in air combat, BTW?
Both M-346 and FA-50 are desperately inadequate for air policing… That is exactly the reason why they don’t get a lot of support for that role.. air policing and interception actually require high performance aircraft, with excellent acceleration and rate of climb.. plus agility and maneuvrability… I dare to say that even the F-35 is only borderline adequate for this role..
you still try to fit your own idea of what is the most important features for a future fighter aircraft, according to you acceleration, rate of climb and turn rate is the most important, however biggest airpowers doesnt seem to think the same ( they all start making stealth fighter) for them Stealth and Situation awareness is a lot more important, and to be fair it seem more reasonable for f-35 buyers to listen to that idea
when you think about it most SAM system( like s-300, buk) are either stationary or moving very slowly ( 20-30 km/h) they dont have acceleration rate of fighter, never leave the ground ( rate of climb =0) , yet they remain the most dangerous threat to aircraft,
what make SAM so dangerous? that is because their Radar is hard to Jam, and it almost impossible for aircraft to find them if they dont either turn on their radar or attack the aircraft first. Which mean they have element of surprise most of the time. ( same thing can be said for modern stealth fighter, apart from AESA radar that make it hard even when radar on)
mig-31bmand witness doesnt mean alot without evidence, both side can easily hire people to do it, doesnt mean ****, the important thing is the evident on the airframe
mig-31bmOk, look mate, we know you from Vietnam and you hate USA, support Russian, that fine, everyone is bias to certain extent, but it willbe really hard for you to convince anyone to actually listen to you if you keep cherry pick your information! ( only believe in what you want to hear) . Not saying what you said is 100% wrong but both side have their own witness and evidence (fake or real) , and we dont and may never know the truth but it really unhealthy to jump to conclusion immediately when you get the first bit of information
mig-31bmthen the purpose of it being Rolled homogeneous armour, is lost……if you want to build your bunker and cover it with randomly piled sheets of steel, than by all means go ahead…..BUT it is NOT ARMOUR……not to mention that Concrete, and Re inforced Concrete is structural, it holds and retains it;s shape…..how are you going to place 5 meters of steel ( the weight will be enormous) and support it?…
I think to achieve your desired effects…the ONLY way steel would be ok to use is if it was built into a VERY steeply pitched conical roof…using the idea of deflection rather than flat armour……to be able to directly penetrate a steep cone would be substantially harder than a flat surface. HOWEVER should the munition come in from a lesser degree of attack, the effect is reduced significantly
Simply put, the costs will be substantial, and simply not worth the effort…..if it was, it would be common practice the world over by this point. sometimes reinventing the wheel works…sometimes it is just better left alone….
they can build very big bridge or house with pure steel so why cant they do the same with bunker? 5 meter of steel is still far lighter than a tower or a bridge
mig-31bmNo. For the same level of protection, concrete is cheaper.
Look at MEPHISTO & BROACH. Imagine a modified version with a bigger precursor charge to get through more armour. You should still be able to get an explosive penetrator through into your bunker.
reinforced concrete is basically concrete with steel rod inside + different chemical, they wouldnt be much cheaper than pure steel anyway, and pure steel plate actually very cheapwhen you consider cost of military equipment such as an aircraft alone can cost 50-150 millions USD, a tank can cost 5 millions USD, a SAM systems can cost arounds 100 millions…. etc
i looked at BROACH and MEPHISTO basically just a delayed warhead with more than 1 stage but it doesnothing to help the bomb penetrate thicker steel plate than the bomb casting
mig-31bmHow would the F-35 help the Greeks defend their airspace and stop Turkish violations if an F-35 cannot detect another F-35? How do two equally low RCS planes intercept each other? Presumably AWACS on both sides are not going to be much use, ground radars even more so. So how does one effectively police their airspace with low rcs planes against low rcs planes?
if both side have low RCS then your airforce will have to rely on number or tactic to win, however if enemy have stealth fighter and you dont then you will be in a big disadvantage ( think of the f-35 like a gun in a street fight, if enemy have it and you dont, then it would be very bad for you)
mig-31bmLooks like the EU citizens will be providing bailout payments to Greeks who will, in return, go shopping to the US to get the most expensive and the most useless fighter in existence today… Yes, you can bet on that.. 🙂
no it not useless, it expensive, that true, but to say it useless is just ignorance
mig-31bmLasers will make gun the most important weapon in air to air combat. Lasers can defeat heat seaking missiles and frequency memory jamming will defeat radar missiles, so gun and manuverbility will dominate future air battles.
or laser weapon can get so powerful they can burn enemy aircraft thus make maneuver irrelevant? ( since gun only have range of 1-2 km anyway , i wouldnt be surprised if laser can burn enemy fighter at that distance
another alternative is that EMP weapon get so powerful that the only thing that matter is detected where the enemy are and shine them with the dead beam
mig-31bmAs I see it, the major issue with your concept may be that fact that, just a Swerve said, the amount of armour required for an MBT is relatively small. To be able to manufacture a series of composite and / or reactive armour plating large enough to cover a bunker complex would be ridiculously cost prohibitive. Remember here that Composite MBT armour, such as the Chobham style ( common now on most Western MBT’s) is actually a secret variation of interspaced layers of kevlar, elastic layers, ceramic plates and then all encased into a metal matrix and bonded to a backing plate, newer versions have included Tungsten Alloys, Titanium Carbide or even Depleted Uranium Alloys into the mix. When it is all added up, it provides an MBT the best chance to survive the modern battlefield. That said, to manufacture it in large enough sheets to try and stop massive munitions being dropped on it?….it would be next to impossible and cost more than anything inside was worth.
I be more inclined to think that a reasonable method to try and build a bunker would be to manufacture it using varied levels of different materials interspersed with dead spaces in between, in a hope that anything penetrating may be slowed down enough to perhaps explode between layers allowing for cover below to potentially survive the blast. Even this would require substantial depth to be dug down to allow for enough layers to be built above it…In a way, almost like modern combat body armour, where multiple layers of material collapse in and slow the round by cradling it, leaving the inner most layers intact to provide further protection.
even making simple RHA ( Rolled homogeneous armour ) would take substantial effort to make it thick enough and large enough to cover a bunker complex….where would it be made?…how would it be transported to the site?…5000 mm of RHA is a BIG piece of steel…..far beyond most places to manufacture to any scale and size…..
Reactive armour?….the process would require significant amounts of explosive power to reduce and neutralize the effects of a 450 – 500 lb. warhead crashing into it, and again, costs involved would high and still many layers of varying armour and top cover would be required, with no guarantee that it would stop the munitions coming in.
i think they can just make many thin layer of steel (may be 5-6 cm thick) and put one on top of another until you get 5 meters? how hard would that be?, the benefit is that no bunker buster bomb can penetrate it, massive HEAT or kinetic sabot round can but they not effective again structure at all ( they only make a small hole
mig-31bmTanks are rather small. Their expensive armour is therefore needed in fairly small quantities. Making bunkers with 5 metres of steel, or the equivalent in other compact materials, would be extremely expensive. One of the great virtues of concrete is that it’s cheap, so doubling protection by adding more of it is cheaper than adding steel or the fancier armour types used on tanks. Tanks need armour to be as compact & light as possible in proportion to effectiveness: bunkers don’t. They just need it to protect, & it doesn’t matter much how thick or heavy it is.
The penetrator in a 120mm armour piercing sabot round weighs a few kilos, maximum about 10 kg, I think. The projectile in a 120mm HEAT round is slightly heavier, maybe 11kg. The latter penetrates via a shaped charge. Compare that to bombs dropped by aircraft, & air-ground missile warheads. The Storm Shadow & Taurus missiles have warheads of 450-500 kg. The warhead of the Taurus has a 95 kg shaped charge which makes a hole for a 386 kg explosive penetrator to slam into. Standard bombs go up to 900 kg or so. Plenty of weight to play with if you want to make massive HEAT rounds, for example. Some bombs are bigger, but can only be carried by a limited number of aircraft.
but weapon like the MOP can penetrate over 60 m of concrete , to have more than 60 meter of concrete must be very expensive so isn’t it cheaper to have a thick layer of steel instead, ok, may be not 5000 mm RHA, how about 400 mm Steel at the top, enough to be much thicker than the bomb case and break it on collision
also wasnt HEAT round not very effective again bunker or structure ? ( due to big space or something like that)
mig-31bmNo problem. The cases of penetrating weapons are thick and have been hardened to penetrate steel, concrete and stone armor. And when dropped from altitude their fineness ratio makes them nearly supersonic at impact.
Remember that battleships were made of thick steel, but armor piercing bombs dispatched them quickly.
i know the case of the bomb have been harden but what if the cover of bunker make from same material ?
Sabot round is super high density and can reach mach 5 and still being stoped by tank armour, i dont think bunker buster bomb at the moment can reach that speed
also battle ship only have like 80 mm RHA armour so much thinner than a modern tank , iam talking about like 5000 mm RHA for the bunker
Sign In
