Siddarhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkrtxDdaWuM
Thank you, just started to see the video, like it
Same as it ever was.
SiddarMy guess is because even if it can sustain mach 1.2 without afterburner fuel economy drops through the floor because engine is working at near 100% and not 60% that it would be in regular non supercruise.
The new generation of engines have huge amounts of excess power for normal non super sonic and non evasive flight. The result is engines are built to provide lower max power with low fuel consumption for times when you don’t need the extra power. This allows planes to have decent range numbers but if you push engine to close to max power you end up nearly doubling fuel consumption even before you turn on the afterburner.
SiddarWhy does it seem so hard for Russia who is an advanced country to advance its military industry on par with the west? Even to to point in which only an engine gap prevents the Chinese from surpassing them? Here are some points.
1. Russians seem content on building up to 4 flanker varients even when the market is saturated with flankers.
2. There 5th generation project has development problems.
3. No low cost affordable mig-29 replacement, giving this market to the Chinese.
4. Mig is on its last leg.
5. 5th generation engine delays.
Why is it so hard for mig to package a light internal load Mig-29 sized and sell it?
They could even use conformal bays ala silent eagle.
Now they are losing in the high end and low end markets.
They could get buy with F-117 level stealth in a mig sized body with a very modest 1klb loadAnd sell it for under 60 mill
Whats happing to Russian aviation, and innovation?
They lost 15 years of development time to the collapse of the soviet union. Until the past ten years development funds were limited and the little that were available went mostly into T50. Only recently have they had funds to start looking at the entirety of future Russian military aviation as a whole.
Siddar…and? Don’t change the roles. we don’t say Rafale do only low level tactics. We say the fact that he can do it is a plus for deep strike when you don’t control the sky. It could be you have to fly low even to deliver a scalp. We are just saying that in case of busy electronic warfare environment and without controlling the sky, the French developed their tactics around the low level flight and tha quality of Rafale to do it. It then after that amazing post suggest the low flight is stupide and useless because of guys wearing binocular all day long. …
I never said ability to do low level deep strike wasn’t a valid ability to maintain. Most existing fighters can do it even if odds of them doing so is close to zero these days. You may well end up somehow in in the unlikely position where that is your only choice.
And no rafale is not developed around low level penetration it is like all post gulf war fighter built around medium level with ability to stil do legacy low level penetration.
SiddarNot the same conflict, not the same threats in term of intensity.
French airborne strategic forces still rely on low level penetration to deliver ASMP-A and such tactics will most likely be employed with conventionnal weaponry in a more intense conflict.
You do understand that french ASMP-A nuclear strike is likely a one way end of the world mission? Its also a artifact of cold war.
Modern french tactics will fly medium when ever they can and us scalp cruise missiles for mission where medium is to risky. Just like everyone else.
SiddarSo, to sum it up: lukos ang mig31, you both consider theoretical abilities of SAM systems as facts while downplaying Rafale’s real life facts as irrelevant. You take 25 years old “stats” but refuse to take into account everything that moved forward in the mean time
basically, as said by others… it is not ignorance, obviously you distort fact to serve you PoV on purpose
Doesn’t real life experience with Rafale in Libya support the fact of low level manned penetration being a thing of the past?
How about Tornados in gulf going low level versus the same Tornados in Libya flying medium altitude and launching storm shadows?
Do you think also that technology of low level air defense has stood still for the past 25 years?
Siddarwhat I find absolutely hilarious is all that insistance on “plenty of shoulder mounted SAM systems” and so on, while the VLO fighters will go in “safely”..
First, when you go in at first, (first day strike) you are usually with the advantage of surprise. guys don’t walk aroung with MANPADS on their shoulder whole day long…
in that first day strikes, you can go in low level, and you’ll go for targets like communications, radars, and everything that makes an IADS viable. you won’t all of a sudden go to strike the isolated lone target completely behind the SAM curtain, without ever bothering doing anything about those SAMs.. be it in low level or from high altitude. Once you have softened the eventual threats in the first days of that hugely potent, pixie-dust powered radar network that sees anything anywhere, you’ll return to attacking from higher altitudes, using your electronic warfare suite to manage eventual remains of it, go around danger zones and so on…
Why was there pretty much no low level attacks in the last 20 years or so? Because they weren’t needed, pure and simple. Any war in which NATO and Co were engaged were against oponents whose air defense networks could be treated either through cruise missiles first, or with much more modern ECM suites than what the opposite side was using.
Mig31 fantasizes about those radars on top of the mountains.. first and foremost, if you put it there, it will be among the nicest targets in the area, and among the first to be destroyed… Any Rafale flying high, way beyond any SAM that radar may eventually be able to shoot at it will have its position pinpointed and and once the radar coordinates are passed to other allied aircraft in the area, that radar will have the appropriate weapon headed its way very soon.. unless there is a way around it so you don’t need to waste a costly cruise missile or such on it and just fly around.
What you guys are doing, to try to justify your “argument” is fly a video game… take off, fly straight to target regardless of what’s on the way, and get shot down, just to say “it’s impossible”.
Over Libya, Rafales flew high… no need to go low as they had what was needed to prevent enemy radars to get a lock and fire on them. And if one day they have to face enemies who have the ability to reach them despite their protective equipments, other ways to get the job done are used.
Someone pointed out the F-4 experience… made without the gun, they had to change that. Considering “the missiles will do it all just fine” was a mistake. Same way, considering that shape stealth if the sole answer is a mistake. It can be an aid for some things to be done in a certain way, but it’s definitely not an answer to all problems nor is it the only one to the problems it adresses
Well one S300 system will cost as much as a thousand shoulder fired sams. So it should be a given that they will be there if you are facing any air defense system capable of contesting medium and high altitude on first day.
The guys with shoulder fired sam maybe surprise by the initial attack but once you kick the hornets nest they will all be out looking for you. It comes down to what is the concept behind your air defense network. Are you trying to prevent a enemy for attacking all together or is your goal to inflict losses upon the attacking forces. If your goal is to inflict losses upon enemy then shooting them down as they are trying to leave is just as valid as shooting them down before they release bombs.
You also make the argument that going low level is only a good idea in opening phase before clearing enemies medium and high air defense systems. If that is the case then why used manned systems for this when you have numerous stand off weapons that were purchased for doing this exact role?
That radar on the mountain will also have other systems defending it meaning low level attack will be a very high risk if used. That type of target will almost certainly be done by unmanned systems. Because it would be stupid to bring a manned low level system to anywhere near that type of threat. You would simply use longer range unmanned systems and send enough to get job done while expecting a certain % of those unmanned systems to lost.
Low level attack is still very much in use by half a million / million dollar cruise missiles where some of them being shot down is considered acceptable. It is dead when it comes to sending 100 million dollar fighters to do the same mission that those cruise missiles are capable of doing.
SiddarLoss on low level occurred primarily on target , using mostly dumb bombs that required overflying the target or weapons requiring popping up at very short range.A 15 km range with powered AASM may seem little but change the odds, saving from overflying a target saturated with AD, where most if not all loss were experienced. Longer range would yet be better though, but there is a limit to everything.
Depending on the context ,other approach may be considered , of course, including cruise missile which are not a privilege reserved solely to VLO equipped air force.
Every shoulder fired sam can hold a area of at least four square miles of ground as being at risk to a low level attacking fighter as a conservative estimate. One 100 million dollar fighter can buy 2000 50.000 dollar shoulder fired sams. So mass scattered deployment of those 2000 shoulder fired sams can create a low level random unsafe area for low level penetration of 8000 square miles with zero ability to detect safe and unsafe areas by inc attackers. Now increase the numbers of shoulder fired sams upwards to ten + thousand and tell me if you really want to take your chances of flying in low level into a full scale coldwar scenario.
SiddarWas VLO concept declared obsolete when the F-117 was shot down in Serbia ?
No.
Low level is still perfectly relevant with adapted tactics and material.
Low Level was declared dead not because it doesn’t work but because the estimated losses of doing so were simply to high to continue. It was allot more then one aircraft by the way in a war where those same F-117 had zero losses performing the hardest mission.
Simply saturating a area with thousands of night vision equipped shoulder fired sams along with a good communication network for spotting would be a nightmare for modern low level penetration.
The choice was made to fly above that threat or if that fails use stand off weapons where you just factor in certain % of you cruise missiles by shot down and send more.
SiddarNote even at height of the Coldwar US changed B1-A a low level penetration bomber into B1-B built to use jamming and reduced RCS as its main method of delivering airdroped nuclear weapons via aircraft.
SiddarBe a little honest, MiG-31BM.
In a Cold War gone hot scenario, would you really think a bunch of F-35 featuring LO, having a walk at high altitude will have more chances than a bunch of low level aircraft specifically designed for the task ?
Low Level as a concept died in first gulf war way back in the early 90s when to many harriers and tornado got tore up doing it.. No modern in production aircraft are built for specific mission of low level penetration but many can do so if needed.
Were actually very nearly at a point where if low level penetration was the only option for a attack then manned aircraft would not be used at all and cruise missiles would take over completely.
SiddarVery interesting youtube there.
Allot of people are still stuck in 1970 era mindset when it comes to fighters.
SiddarAre there any secondhand F18 out there that could be purchased to standardize to a all F18 fleet while they decide on what eventual replacement is?
SiddarDassault doesn’t build their own tooling any more than Lockmart. There are vendors that specialize in this. The tooling is not the problem with the price.
If cost of tooling for Rafale is considered a sunken cost for French made Rafales then yes it can be a huge problem. Meaning the cost of paying for tooling to make french Rafales is not part of price of purchasing a new build Rafale from Dassault. If that is the case then it could very well cause a price blowout on Indian built Rafale as they would have to purchase identical tooling at likely higher costs because of ten years of inflation. They would then have apply those costs to a smaller overall Indian production run of 150ish planes compared to French production run of 300ish. The costs of tooling and factory set up in India would be most likely around three times the cost on a per plane basis then it is in France. That estimate is on the lowside by the way.
There is no real way for India to sign a contract for locally built Rafale and not include those costs in the contract.
SiddarAgreed. At best they’ll sign a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ which still a long way from a contract, and there’s still plenty of room for the deal to fall apart. There’ll be new committee that will have to sit down with Dassault to hammer out the details including base cost, offsets, customization, support and so on. And the others, primarily the Eurofighter & F-35 will inevitably smell blood. This can’t be implemented like the Egypt deal even with political support from the top.
Agree the thing I would be waiting to see is what is the cost per plane Dassault will offer because if it is substantially above F35 cost per plane then deal could run into some real opposition.
There will be allot of preasure to move fast here because if they drag this out like most Indian defense contracts then F35 really has to be considered,
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