Starfish PrimeAFAIK, the Iraqi MoD files discovered after 2003 provide a quite different light on Iraqi losses in 1980-88 war in Iran or Desert Storm 1991, in contrast to the western sources. Sheytan should know more..
Yeah, and they were probably doctored by Comical Ali. Come on now. I guess all the pilots interviewed are lying too? Are these the same Iraqi pilots people say were crap when discussing missile Pk? If SA-2s were achieving a near 1 in 3 success rate, then how come the NV had taken to firing them blind, set to burst at a given altitude? And BTW, the US had figured out how to jam RF CLOS shortly after the Germans deployed the Fritz X during WWII.
Why didn’t Iraq put up a single plane during Iraqi Freedom? You think it’s that easy to cover up deaths and losses in the hemisphere of western media?
Starfish PrimeThe same logic can be applied on Israeli kills over Syria and Egypt, or US kills over Iraq. The door swings both ways..
Not really. If you’ve noticed, even the Gulf of Sidra incidents were on cockpit video, and pretty much everything in Desert Storm was on video. Plus the fact the Iraqi pilots started defecting and refusing to fly yields further evidence of a kind. Plus if you apply a finger in the air BS test, early AIM-7s managed a Pk of 8-13%, so when someone claims 33% for an SA-2 using RF CLOS guidance that screams BS.
Starfish PrimeIIRC in the USAF B-52 bombing campaign against Hanoi in December 1972 the USAF was so confident (with considerable justification) that it could beat the guidance system of N. Vietnam’s SA-2s that B-52s flew at the same height, speed & bearing, day after day, relying on ECM to defeat the SAMs. But the N. Vietnamese fired SA-2s straight up at them with the guidance switched off, timed to arrive where the bombers would be (with a bit of luck, close enough for the proximity fuse), & had some success at bringing down B-52s. It took a while for the USAF to realise why its countermeasures weren’t working as they were expected to.
They definitely were using them as giant flak pipes rather than SAMs to some extent but this documentary offers a different theory. They were being hit whilst turning, because that caused the jamming effectiveness of the 3 cell formation to break down. Whilst flying straight in cell formation they never got hit. But yes a 440lb warhead makes for one hell of a flak round even when the technology guiding it fails completely.
Starfish PrimeIf you bring up MiG-29 and Su-27, why not F-16A or Mirage 2000C? Comparing aircraft which entered service in ~1983 with something that was introduced 20 odd years later seems quite biased, at least to me..
I conducted the comparison of the aircraft mentioned in the title, no bias was intended. But since you asked.
Su-35 / 76 / 1.26 / No / No / Yes / No / No
MiG-35 / 74 / 1.31 / No / No / Yes / No / No
Starfish PrimeI shouldn’t see and remember everything on every forum i’m visiting.
Who said you i didn’t understand something?! I just said that US “S-300” may easily be the same.
Except it’s known they purchased one from Belarus and there are umpteen other avenues for them to pursue for acquiring it from friendly nations like Greece, Egypt, Bulgaria, even Ukraine now. So it’s a little easier to get hold of than say, a B-2.
Starfish PrimeThat Asian country was supported by China and Russia , and if we actually take kill-death ratio into account , US didn’t really lose
It was actually probably Watergate that lost the Vietnam War. After Linebacker II the North Vietnamese signed a peace deal under the threat of more to come if they tried invade South Vietnam. And that threat held and was believed by the NV government whilst Nixon remained in office. However, after he left they no longer saw the threat as credible, so they invaded. Now that’s hugely important because if Nixon had stayed in 3 more years, the NV would have got bogged down fighting Cambodia and had to turn their focus away from South Vietnam. Eventually it was a policy success in that Soviet and Chinese-backed Communist forces were pitted against each other.
Now if they didn’t politically hamstring themselves from day 1 and went straight in with Linebacker I and II, likely they would have got the message across much sooner.
Starfish PrimeIt was a matter of fear factor. The SA-2 was 35ft long and travelled at Mach 3.5, so pilots found it extremely scary even though it didn’t kill that many people relatively, whereas AAA fire didn’t scare them as much but killed them far more.
Starfish PrimeStarfish PrimeIf ground fire was “infinitely more deadly”, then how moronic were the US pilots to continue diving to the precipice.
That’s a very good question and arguably it was a mistake. But thinking about this logically, if the SAMs had been effective they wouldn’t have had the chance to evade them and dive. The early AAMs were dire but the early SAMs were even worse. Given the nigh on 500lb warhead of SA-2s, the misses must have been by some quite extraordinary margins and you’d even question whether the kills were down to guidance or dumb luck plus a huge blast radius.
Low level flight once again proved more deadly than high level in Desert Storm with AAA claiming.
Watch from 21:30. 22:30 – “During 1966 only 8 Thuds (F-105s) were lost to MiGs and SAMs, but more than 100 were lost to ground fire.”
Starfish PrimeThe lowest fuel fraction in there is the Gripen at ~20%. For that same fuel fraction (20%) the wing loading and TWR figures are as follows:
Aircraft / Wing Loading (lb/ft^2) / TWR / 90deg HOBS / LOAL / HMCS / IIR AAMs /VTAS
MiG-29 / 74 / 1.21 / No / No / Yes / No / No
Su-27 / 68 / 1.22 / No / No / Yes / No / No
Gripen C / 58 / 0.97 / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / No
F-15 C / 58* / 1.36* / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / No
F-16 C / 79 / 1.21 / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / No
Rafale C / 55 / 1.25 / Yes / Yes / No / Yes / Yes
Typhoon / 54 / >1.35 / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes
*Used 28,000lb empty. Af.mil states 31,700lb??? Which would change figures to 66lb/ft^2 and 1.2 TWR.
http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104501/f-15-eagle.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon
Starfish PrimeFunny if anyone believe that for 10 years of Vietnam war US lost only 150 old planes, while in Iraq and Kosovo they lost dozens for months…from the same Veitnam-era SAMs.
Dozens?
1995 (Operation Deny Flight)
June 2 – An F-16C Fighting Falcon (Serial Number : 89-2032) was shot down by a Serb 2K12 Kub SAM (NATO reporting name: SA-6 ‘Gainful’) while on patrol over Bosnia. Its pilot (Captain Scott O’Grady) ejected and later rescued by a USMC CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter on 8 June.[19]1999 (Operation Allied Force)
March 27 – An F-117 Nighthawk (Serial Number : 82-0806) stealth ground-attack jet was shot down by a Yugoslav SA-3 surface-to-air missile during the Kosovo War; the pilot (Lieutenant Colonel Dale Zelko) survived and was subsequently rescued.
May 1 – An F-16C Fighting Falcon (Serial Number : 88-0550) was shot down by a Yugoslav SA-3 SAM. The aircraft crashed near Šabac, in a rural area of Serbia; the pilot (Lieutenant Colonel David L. Goldfein) survived and was subsequently rescued.[20]
Not everyone actually. You should appreciate that someone has an alternate view, otherwise it would be a stealth-magic echo chamber in here.
Man, thank god for the Serbs and their S-125. IF not for them the stealth-club would be 10 times bolder.
How does a WVR shoot down of an aircraft with no EW disprove the effectiveness of stealth? This is the part I don’t get. Nobody claimed stealth is effective WVR.
Starfish PrimeNobody denies that the USA military loss thousands of aircraft to the communist Vietnamese in the war (mainly helicopters). Only a fraction were lost to missiles though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War
Yes, the most deadly affect of the SAMs was forcing aircraft to dive to low altitude, which put them in range of the infinitely more deadly ground fire. In fact, the SA-2s could only successfully engage the B-52s whilst they were turning, because that caused the cell formation to break down rendering the jamming less effective. It’s mentioned in here somewhere.
Starfish PrimeS T O P I T ! P L E A S E !
It flew in 1999 too. No shoot down for this 12m^2 target by Serb SAMs.
Starfish PrimeSimply put, radar systems are more practical than theoretical in terms of capabilities and performances, unless we account AESA which most T/R modules have roughly a 10% failure rate so that can diminish the capabilities of the radar in use. Energy input to Energy output. Performance stat changes over time due to use of more sensitive equipment like antenna’s, more power drawn, less power loss between components, etc etc etc. Reason why I am less skeptical of Irbis-E as an example, is that a video surfaced that Berkut posted regarding detection ranges in actual physical tests (viewed through HUD).
I apply skepticism everywhere. Russian, US, European, etc. For instance, I am skeptical of overall introduction of PAK FA and think that the technologies learned from it may be just applied to existing type of aircrafts to make it significantly LO compared to what they are now. Would definitely be cheaper overall. But I could be wrong. Dunno. There are things in these fifth gen jets that are interesting and I would like to see (F-35 hudless concept is cool) but when it comes to proclaimed capabilities, well, yeah…
Not really, there are a load of things that can upset radars. Jamming, general EMI, microwaves, sun spots…. Tell me why detection parameters actually come with a stated probability.
Stealth has been combat tested, and in 2,055 combat sorties, it has suffered just one WVR shoot down that required several missiles and a 60kg proximity fused warhead. Now you can stick any stealth aircraft 8 miles in front of a Eurocanard and they’ll shoot it down. No one ever said stealth worked at WVR ranges.
But in 2,055* combat missions a stealth has never been shot down BVR.
*More if you count Syria operations, and B-2 missions since 1997, 2,055 is just the F-117 missions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit#Operational_history
The B-2’s combat debut was in 1999, during the Kosovo War. It was responsible for destroying 33% of selected Serbian bombing targets in the first eight weeks of U.S. involvement in the War.[7] During this war, six B-2s flew non-stop to Kosovo from their home base in Missouri and back, totalling 30 hours. Although the bombers accounted 50 sorties out of a total of 34,000 NATO sorties, they dropped 11 percent of all bombs.[115] The B-2 was the first aircraft to deploy GPS satellite-guided JDAM “smart bombs” in combat use in Kosovo.[116] The use of JDAMs and precision-guided munitions effectively replaced the controversial tactic of carpet-bombing, which had been harshly criticized due to it causing indiscriminate civilian casualties in prior conflicts, such as the 1991 Gulf War.[117] On 7 May 1999, a B-2 dropped five JDAMs on a target building that was actually the Chinese Embassy, killing several staff.[118] By then, the B-2 had dropped 500 bombs in Kosovo.[119]
So this huge, lumbering, alleged 12m^2 RCS target couldn’t be shot down?
Starfish PrimeThose improvement already you see in F-35. There is no more improvement left from 90s unless you consider the smaller UAVs.
Even the B-2 has been updated since then. If you think I’m wrong, go tell the people running this site they’re wrong too because they were the ones who mentioned it in their Stealth magazine.
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