Cannot see the logic of smooth and rounded contours and reflecting the radar beam into different location than the emitter. Thus, I have severe doubts that F-22 can achieve the RCS of F-117.

The idea behind the smooth, flowing surfaces, which are the design philosophies behind TACIT BLUE, the B-2, and the YF-23 by the way, is that they are contoured and coated to allow the radar beam to literally “glide” over them and continue on, minimizing the amount of energy that is actually reflected to provide a return in the forward quarter as well as severely reducing the RCS in all aspects. Then, you angle the trailing edges to reduce the effect of travelling waves close to the surface reflecting back towards the emitter source.

Faceting is a different design philosophy that came about because it was easier and it was the logical step from Ufimtsev’s theories. The design tolerances you need to effectively create something like TACIT BLUE or the B-2 are severe. Surface irregularities and imperfections will raise hell with the RCS reducing measures. Remember the HAVE BLUE example, that was just one tiny screw.

Anyway, the concept of using smooth, curved surfaces lends itself to better all-around low RCS because of the nature of the design. It doesn’t want to reflect energy, it wants to slide right through it. This will likely give you a far smaller RCS than a purely faceted aircraft. The F-22A uses both design philosophies, but does lean more toward faceting. Why? Because it’s a LockMart product, for one; their area of expertise is faceting, while it was Northrop who came up with the whole surface shaping concept during the BSAX design process which resulted in TACIT BLUE. And because the F-22A primarily cares about forward hemisphere RCS. Faceting can be used to drastically reduce the RCS from one aspect, and in combat aircraft that is typically the front quarter for obvious reasons (you head towards the threat systems to kill them, after all). That doesn’t mean that faceting cannot result in reduced RCS from other aspects, though. But when you look at the F-117A, the prime example of faceting, you see that the most drastic examples of the concept are applied to affect the forward hemisphere.

I think I answered your question, but I think I may have launched onto a tangent that was unrelated. Let me know if this is confusing or if I can clear up or further explain any of it.

Thread closed, start #10.

They ask for 24 jets and 24 pairs of CFTs, so the C models will likely have them as well.

2.4 billion isn’t a lot either, read the second page of the document and note where it says they get 15 years of support, as well as a host of technical services and training. This isn’t stating that they are paying 2.4 billion for 24 jets, its saying they’re paying 2.4 billion for the jets and the support and knowledge to operate them over a period of 15 years. BIG difference there.

Go with Free Beer. Looks great on the outside of the venue 😀

Outstanding artwork, but one minor nitpick: the Kirov artwork isn’t accurate for Pyotr Veliky, as the forward TOP DOME was replaced with a TOMB STONE for supporting the 48N6 missiles of the S-300FM complex.

[color=red]Ok, I’m closing this down before it gets any further “out of hand”, so to speak. Listen, the term “porn” doesn’t imply anything sexual or explicit, it can be used as a slang term. People are getting too worked up over the context of the word, maybe it’s a cultural thing, I don’t know. Either way, just let it be, and move on.[/color]

[color=red]ARA662, congratulations, you have won a two week vacation from this forum for your continued ability to attack other forum members despite being warned![/color]

The intel that has been cited had come from unreliable Iraqi dissidents, to me it looks more like an excuse. Do you not remember how just after september 11, Bush was trying to say how al-queda was in north of Iraq and trying to link iraq into september 11.

Bush was looking for an excuse to go after Saddam and finish the job since he took office. Terrorism and WMDs were the logical excuses based on the evidence and intelligence at hand.

You talk about the antiwar movement, the fact of the matter is your government has been discredited and was clearly wrong.

Discredited would be not having found a single WMD. We look stupid for not being able to find anything beyond what we have found, and for not being able to control post-war Iraq, but I don’t think they were completely discredited. Also, consider the book I mentioned. Notice how the mass media, which is no big fan of Bush, has conveniently forgotten all of their own reporting on Iraq’s terrorism connections.

Who in their right minds apart from those who voted for them going to believe the war was to liberate iraqis, bring them democrasy and the rest of it.

The war was to ultimately rid ourselves of Saddam and attempt to provide the Middle East with a working democratic model, hopefully instilling a movement for democracy in nations such as Iran, negating the need for future conflict.

Just have a look at the post war planning, they obviously had no clue at all into what they were getting themselfs into.

Now that is something I can totally agree with, I’ve said many times before that the whole plan for post-war Iraq was asinine and didn’t take any of the ethnic or religious issues into account.

If America had such a great plan for the region why was the planning more focused on the war than the aftermath of it?. Yes i do believe these could of been other objectives in invading Iraq but the primary reason was oil, as it has been for the last 60 years in this region.

Because the aftermath wasn’t supposed to go like this, according to the admittedly asinine post-war plan.

yes I agree with you it is a logical strategy, as oil is the bread and milk for Iraq. This was not the point of my argument, it was more to do with how putting 150k men around oil fields was not feasible because you had said if it was for oil why didnt american and coalition of the willing forces not go there and leave rest of iraq.

That’s my point. Were it for oil, we wouldn’t have needed 150K men in the first place, would we?

The problem is american leaders would never come out and say “China is the single most biggest threat to world peace”.

Don’t put it past them, they aren’t all that bright.

The crux again of my point was this struggle is again for oil politics. I however dont descedit the fact that if Iran went nuclear, so would other Gulf nations which would be a bad overall scenario. However its like deja vous all over again.

One other Gulf nation is already a nuclear state, and there is nothing wrong with an Iranian deterrent in that sense. Beyond that, if we wanted to do something sensible along the lines of “oil politics”, we would have made the obvious Saudi Arabia – terrorism connection and gone after them instead. Iraq’s oil isn’t anywhere near enough to give us the influence you say we want.

You know theres nothing wrong in wanting stable prices and delivery of an important commodity in a secure manner. But you have to look at what your leaders are doing, you supply the middle eastern countries very advance and new weapons to use exactly for those purposes (to use for protecting their oil assets) yet you station thousands of troops/advisors ect and house the US 5th fleet in 4/5 of the countries littered around the persian gulf. What is that all about?.

A lot of the military forces in the Gulf are there for both OIF and OEF. The numbers during the mid to late 90s were nothign compared to what they are now that both of those operations are ongoing.

Britain, France, Russia, and others also all sell weapons to nations in the Gulf. Are they also playing oil politics, or are they taking advantage of a bunch of rich nations who want high-tech toys?

Yes an armed conflict will take casualties, but if the armed conflict is for securing oil as im claiming then it outright wrong.

And I’m claiming that you haven’t proven that the conflict is about oil…

American troops are more protected than an iraqi civilian because they live in secure bases, have body armour and weapons support. An iraqi has non of these. This was my point.

“Secure bases”? Not like you think. I’ve had mortars and rockets land within feet of where I was standing in Baghdad.

Take a little bit of time out and have a look at how your leaders from the last 60 years have conducted themself in the middle east. Then tell me how this conflict and other conflicts have not had the all too familiar theme.

Explain how supporting Israel and agitating the Muslim nations is in the interests of influencing oil. Supporting Israel, Eisenhower’s flawed legacy, had to do with countering increasing Soviet influence in Egypt during the Cold War, for one. Then there’s the UN operations after 1991 aimed at keeping Saddam down. That helped to curtail a lot of his oil exports, also not good for someone being accused of acting like a rampant, wanton oil user.