YamaThis is a stupid argument. Let’s keep this thread clean of the usual hyperbole such as
“F-15C can do Mach 2.5 and F-35 Mach 1.6”No armed F-15C can reach Mach 2.5. Most top speed figures for fighters are useless. They cannot reach them armed with externals, and can only maintain such speeds for a very brief time. Most every fighter (MiG-31 aside) is limited to 700-800 knots when carrying weapons externally. BTW, tell Singapore and Korea that the F-15E isn’t an air-superiority fighter. They seem to view it as very capable in that role.
Lots of oversimplification in this thread. Top speed figure is not ‘useless’ but rather an indication of fighters supersonic performance. Just because both are limited to relatively modest maximum mach number while carrying stores does not mean that faster aircraft doesn’t have any advantage. Variable inlet ramps give a fighter better supersonic performance through the envelope, whereas plane with fixed inlets can give best performance over much narrower part of its envelope. In practical terms it means that faster aircraft can reach its practical top speed faster, and in wider altitude regime, even if practical maximum speeds are in same ballpark. In interceptions this means better acceleration and less fuel burned to achieve the interception -> more practical endurance.
Also, top speed might help a pilot to save his bacon from unfavourable situation once weapons and stores are expended. 20% higher dash speed means that enemy missiles have 20% smaller window to shoot you down.
Finally, there might be operational requirement sometimes to identify high-speed bandits in non-shooting war scenarios. In those cases, external stores are not necessarily required and all that matters is the ability to acquire target visually.
These are not necessarily huge deal-breakers when evaluating overall fighter performance, but it is incorrect to say that F-35 or say F/A-18 have equivalent speed to F-15 in practical terms.
YamaI think that brochures need to be read with certain ‘filter’. “Multispectral countermeasures” sound great until you realize it is just chaff and flares. Electronic attack capabilities undoubtely mean it is integrated to radar.
With only 2 equipment racks, I am certain those are hi-band and low-band receivers. There doesn’t seem to be transmitter units.
YamaBoomers tend to be much more high-end than attack subs and may use solutions which just would be too expensive to execute in a series of fleet boat. Also their performance requirements are much less than attack subs.
When those French & Brit boomers collided, they apparently had no clue about each other prior to it.
YamaThere is no linkage between production of the B-1 and lower numbers of the B-2. All 100 B-1B aircraft were manufactured nine years before the B-2 went to IOC. I am utterly confused how you can claim that money could have been used for that purpose. Is it not possible for the US to allocate funding that far ahead, they don’t do it even now with the F-35, KC-46 or B-21 when all three are the highest acquisition priorities for the USAF.
But at this scenario USAF wouldn’t have to content with B-1B’s high upkeep and modification costs. Or at very least, they could have kept larger number of B-52’s operational.
Sorry no, real world experience in Afghanistan and Syria shows how effective the B-1B was in the CAS role. It’s large payload, high transit speed and long loiter time were highly regarded by commanders.
Effective is not the same as cost-effective. B-1 has RCS reduction, supersonic dash performance, swing wings and enormously complicated self-defence suite, all of which costs money to maintain and hasn’t the slightest use in Afghanistan CAS duties.
YamaIn 1987 when the article was written the B-2 likely had only recently conducted its first test flight and wouldn’t IOC for another ten years but a year after the article was written 100 B-1Bs had been manufactured. To not build the B-1B because the B-2 was coming would have been a heck of a gamble on what was an untried, essentially untested airframe and an essentially untested concept given stealth attack via the F-117 wasn’t really validated until the 1991 Gulf War. The subsequent cost of the B-2, being acquired in a post cold war budget timeframe, also wouldn’t have seen additional numbers had the B-1B not existed.
Yes, 100 B-1B’s were manufactured by 1988. Much smaller number was operational. Oftentimes the number was zero. And without B-1B, there would have been money to acquire more B-2’s. With larger fleet, perhaps B-2’s unsustainable upkeep costs per plane could have been brought down.
And the argument ‘but it is a great CAS platform’ is really not meaningful. It is only used for CAS because it exists and they might just as well use it for something, but as a dedicated CAS platform is it hopelessly inefficient.
Obviously I am writing with benefit of hindsight, as the decisionmakers couldn’t foresee that strategic role would become largely obsolete within a decade.
YamaCan’t really give any credit to the Super Etendard for that, though. The Iraqis had a better idea when they strapped a pair of Exocets to a Falcon 50. Longer range, shirt-sleeve cabin, toilet and galley.
The Argentinians might have been more potent had they converted their Neptunes or Electras to carry Exocets. They could have ranged well out into the Atlantic.
Exocet’s range was too short for proper standoff attacks, they needed to be able to get relatively close while avoiding detection and getting shot down by Sea Darts. Neither Neptune or Electra could have done it. Also Neptunes were derelict, they were barely able to operate for few weeks then they had to be retired for good.
YamaThe article is crap. However it is true that B-1B is pointless. They should have just modernized the B-52G’s so that enough of BUFFs would have been available until B-2 arrives in suitable number.
YamaHybrid carriers were result of doctrinal infighting within the Soviet navy: should the build powerful missile ships to content the NATO fleets, or pure aircraft carriers like USA did, or anti-submarine platforms? So they built a ship to please everyone. There were other similarly compromised ships, most notably Kirovs.
Problem with hybrid carrier-combatants is that when you are being a carrier, you can’t perform a cruiser role, and vice versa. Operating the aircraft requires full attention of the ship and the crew, they can’t start shooting missiles. So you end up with a ship that is always performing at 50% (or less) efficiency compared to a purpose-built warship for the role. Pretty much every country which has done hybrid aviation ships has eventually moved to pure carriers, and so did the Soviets.
That said, I wouldn’t call them ‘useless’, they were fairly useful ships for the role they were meant to, bastion defense. Their fighter wing was crap, but in a fleet where there were no other carrier support at all, even that small interceptor wing made things easier in many ways. Design-wise, there were weaknesses, most notably poor quality machinery (same which is still in Kuznetsov…) and low freeboard and tendency to trim down by the stern.
YamaWhat’s the big deal about using outside consultation? Lets look at Gripen:
-airframe design from Brits
-engine from US
-radar from Marconi
-FBW was domestic…and was a flop, and redone with US help.
YamaFinlands situation and Swedens are quite similar, and even more so when Sweden and Finland will enter a new era of military cooperation where Fins can utilize Swedish airbases, Swedish equipment and use joint forces on eachothers territories.
There are no such plans of military co-operation. Finland occassionally throws some softballs to that direction, and Swedes are always “mm…meh.”
My understanding of the Finnish eval is that unlike many others it will first short-list, and then it will pick the most capable solution amongst those short-listed.
Yes, it is basically opposite for Swiss process where they estabilished minimum performance criteria, and then picked out the cheapest. Same applies for support and domestic industry co-operation- there is a minimum level which everyone must meet, if they don’t they are out regardless of any other considerations. But it also means you can’t “buy” points by promising extra super duper industry co-operation or anything like that.
However, all of those are just Air Force criteria, in the end it is the State Council which decides which and how many aircraft – if any – is acquired.
YamaSaying that any advanted EOTS would not be a step upgrade from LITENING AT (when SNIPER ATP-SE, LITENING G4 and Se are being fielded) would be wrong.
The point is that those pods have budgetet service life, which exceeds that of currently projected for Hornets. Hence, if the new fighter is compatible with them, they can and will be used in them.
Of course newer and better systems will always come along. In ~2025, available top-of-the-line targeting pods will probably have superior characteristics to F-35’s EOTS or any other internal electro-optical systems installed in production fighters. FDF still won’t be acquiring them, because Litenings will still have service life left.
Yamanope Yama the three eurocanards have self protection jamming capabilities, to different extents eof course.
Yes, but it is only self-protection jammers. If more powerful support jamming capability is required, then separate pods are necessary (on top of any possible radar EW attack modes), again F-35 is no different in that regard.
The EOTS is “based” on Sniper XR and is likely better. It’s obvious the CPU behind it is better so image analysis will also be better, not to mention data fusion and sharing. On top of that, any Finnish F-35’s ordered will likely arrive with Block 4.1 which includes an updated EOTS along with all the other hardware updates.
FAF Litening AT’s are relatively new and roughly same technological level than Sniper XR (in fact Sniper pod was also considered). If Finland orders F-35, it is possible that they feature EOTS upgrades, but performance difference to Litenings is going to be small. Also it is not given that EOTS can replace all dedicated attack pod functions.
YamaThe Litening pods Finland got today also will not cut it in the future and need to be replaced.
The bar is set very high in this competition, by F-35. Just below the F-35 you will find Rafale F4.2 with GaN AESA and other goodies, followed by SH block III, and finally the Typhoon trailing behind both Rafale and SH.
Umm…of course they need to be replaced eventually. But how is F-35 in itself going to help in this? Present EOTS in F-35 is no more modern than the Litening AT pods employed by FAF.
As for the EW capabilities, if an active jamming capability is required, then EW pods need to be acquired in any case, regardless of the chosen type.
YamaDefence minister Jussi Niinistö is openly of the opinion that Finland should occupy the areas that Finland lost in WW II…which sounds a bit…out of the known foreign policy around here…
Well, capturing territory from a neighbouring state which is suffering from internal issues seems to be all the rage nowadays…lets wait and see 🙂
YamaJust a small precision: J. Niinistö, like his FA colleague T. Soini, represents a now marginal and dead political branch. They have been characterized by their insane pro-US stance lately and they certainly will clear the floor in 2019.
Huh, I wouldn’t characterize them as ‘insane pro-US’. They’re anti-EU and their foreign political ideology is relatively isolationist. But they’re certainly not going to feature in the next government, that’s for sure.
Some of the Social Democrats are much more ‘pro-US’ than either of them…
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