SOCAAM-4 capability is also supposed to be a part of any F-15 upgrade in Japan.
SOCCough, cough…nuclear warheads, cough….
Actually, that’s not a bad idea. What you’d want to do for maximum effect is to detonate one underneath the CVBG. An inbound weapon might be able to be effectively knocked out by AEGIS, but an underwater weapon fired from a submarine would be startlingly effective, as US tests in the 1950s proved.
SOC1)How effective is the Soviet/Russian doctrine versus US CVBG’s, this will create a massive row here but the reality is that no one knows and the only way to find out is to have a real war………..hardly a desirable prospect.
True, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever find out, and that’s probably a good thing for our continued existance!
2)If this doctrine is capable of taking out a US CVBG (again unanswerable to us) the question is could the current Russian Armed forces do it.
I don’t see why not. If it was possible with the weapons and tactics they currently employ, then I should think they’d be able to do it if the need arose. Russians are interesting in that fashion; they may seem incapable at one juncture, but if they are motivated and pressed, they turn into highly motivated and capable fighters. Just ask Hitler.
Post communism their strategic ocean recon satellite system has fallen to a pitiful level of capability which greatly undermines the ability of the Russians to actually find a US battle group.
Do remember that they found the Kitty Hawk a while back and flew an Su-24MR right down the length of the flight deck! There are other ways to locate a CVBG than by satellite.
What is certain is that if they found one they only really have the assets to take out one or two, a loss that the USN could absorb without to much difficulty.
Dunno about that, the USN would probably be really put out if an entire CVBG disappeared. Besides, if they were able to survive and take one out, the Russians would clearly have something that was working and should be able to repeat the process, barring any out of left field changes in tactics by the USN.
So the answer to your basic question is, no one really knows. If the wider question is can a the Russians beat the USN then the answer is no.
Could the Russian NAVY take out the USN? I’d think not. But if you put the Russian MILITARY, with more aircraft and a lot more weapon systems, against just the USN, you might get a different result. I certainly wouldn’t count the Russians out in that case.
To the point, could they do it? I’d say yes, and the answer would be to saturate the target area with Tu-22M3s from multiple vectors, overwhelming the AEGIS network. Fighter support would be needed to knock out USN aircraft in the area, but with enough support it should be possible to get a few hits on the carrier and ruin the USN’s day.
SOCDoes anyone have the first shot of the F-12 or whatever. It had those exact same bogus pods under the fuse along with other prosthetics. I believe you are right and they were mostly bare metel.
I know the image you’re talking about, it was on the ground, but it was very similar to the image at the top of this page:
http://www.habu.org/yf-12/06934.html
Your image can be found here:
http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1964/1964%20-%200653.html
Also, take note that I pointed out that those pods were most definitely not bogus, examination of the inner surfaces would show the camera lens ports as they were in fact camera pods used for filming AIM-47 missile launches!
SOCTough call…if I had to name my favorites, they’d be the 1/200 Historic Aircraft Tu-160 and the Gaincorp 1/72 Su-47.
SOCOne can hardly disagree here. But I take it as the case with the A-10. Lots of pylons to hang stuff on but most of those barely used in combat.
Depends on your mission. The F-15s in DESERT STORM frequently carried a full 8 AAM load, for example. The A-10 carried what it needed. If they were AGM-65 shooting, they could only carry 6 of the things on two hardpoints. They almost always carried a dual AIM-9 launcher and an ECM pod on the outer wing stations as well.
Yes, kinda F-14 thing with four Phoenixes nicely concealed between the engines.
More like when they carried AIM-7s in there, the AIM-54s were still freaking huge!
How is this reflected in practical maintenance procedures of the F/A-22 type? Is the whole airframe constantly controlled to prevent the same from happening?
Well, first off, remember that the HAVE BLUE was a handbuilt puny thing. The manufacturing techniques used in putting it together were far from what is used in F-22A assembly, and yet the HAVE BLUE still had an obnoxiously small RCS. For what its worth the F-22A should be a far more robust aircraft. Lockheed got a lot of experience with RAM coatings on the F-117A, so the F-22A ended up as a far more robust airframe. Also consider that they park the things outside at Langley AFB, which would have been less than intelligent with the F-117!
As far as I know, the jet is examined to make sure the RAM coatings and whatnot are within tolerances on a regular basis, but like I said you don’t need as much maintenance on them as you did with the F-117 early on (remember how a lot of the jets had a very patchwork appearance due to RAM maintenance?). I’ll go out on a limb though and assume that there may be differences in peacetime and wartime tolerances though. This is one area where the F-23 should have really excelled, given that the jet was primarily just a couple of gigantoid composite skins. Makes it easier if you have to strip and re-treat an area as you can just do an entire section. Sounds like more work but it should be less intensive as there would be far less panel lines, joints, and whatnot to deal with.
SOCWhat prevents potential users of the 35 to hang on just two missiles if they feel they need to keep the RCS as low as possible?
If they do that they are nullifying one of the advantages of the FLANKER airframe, the ability to carry a large load of AAMs. AAMs aren’t 100% pK objects, and the more you can carry the better your chances of getting a kill.
Your earlier comment about inter-nacelle AAMs is interesting. While normally you’d think that AAMs in there would be great reflectors as the RF energy would bounce all over the place in that tunnel, if you coated the nacelles with RAM, you might be able to alleviate most of that effect.
I wonder why they didn’t move towards a semi-submerged R-77 carriage arrangement between the nacelles. Gets rid of the need for pylons and the RCS hit they give you at least.
Remember the story about a screw protruding 1/8″ making the difference between being detected and not being detected?
That was in the HAVE BLUE test program. If I remember right, they were doing RCS evaluation against an E-3, probably seeing just how close it got before being detected. One day the jet was picked up at a clearly non-typical range, and when they landed the screw was discovered.
SOCName the airplane in any Scandinavian or European country’s Air Force which carries 8 PGMS and 2 BVR missiles as its standard loadout.
EF-2000 can carry a number of Brimstone missiles as well as six AAMs, four of which are BVR.
Rafale can carry 8 of their smaller LGBs I believe, using those double pylons, with two MICA on the wingtip pylons, let alone more of them under the fuselage.
All the PGM’s and BVR missiles in the world wont replace the A-10, ask anyone who has called in CAS in Afghanistan.
Correct. You can use a faast jet to drop a PGM in a CAS type role, which is what we do a lot in Iraq and Afghanistan, but to really get down in the weeds you need something like the A-10. We tried the fast jet CAS platform idea with an F-16 variant a while back, and that was a failure.
I do have to say that the B-1B has turned into something of an amusing CAS asset. They can hang around for a good bit of time waiting for a call, and in Afghanistan they were called in sometimes to do nothing more than overfly the insurgent positions at low altitude and obnoxious speed.
We do need a good CAS platform if we’re going to occupy ourselves with asinine operations like Iraq, however. The worst thing those people can do is throw MANPADS about, and the A-10 is very survivable to even a modern weapon like the SA-18 or SA-24. Plus, it has the 30mm gun, the ultimate equalizer. Really, to fight these kinds of wars, all you really need airpower-wise is an A-10 type and an AC-130 type. Everything else is overkill until some uber terrorist group along the lines of SPECTRE shows up and manages to work out how to shoot an S-300 or S-400. And even then we need’t worry, because the Brits can just send in James Bond 😀
SOCThe F-35 is a joke as a fighter. Its range is short, its payload is small, it can´t do close air support and as a heavy, single-engine, it will
have trouble dog fighting. … … …
The F-35 was designed to physically outperform the F-16. I can assume that you then consider the F-16 as a poor dogfighter as well, right?
F-35 payload? Small only when stealth is a requirement. Beyond that it can carry external weapons on six wing hardpoints as well as the internal weapons.
Range? That’s really a subjective figure. The jet can carry external fuel tanks which can be punched off to enter a combat zone where low RCS is needed, and both the USAF and USN/USMC make regular use of tanker support to extend the range and endurance of combat aircraft.
Now, on the CAS point, I agree…what we need is a new aircraft designed like the A-10 specifically for the CAS role.
SOCIt cant be threated the same way as other parts, requirements to achieve excellent vision contradicts with effective anti-radar coat or measures.
Basically the canopy is coated with something (the F-16, under HAVE GLASS, used indium tin oxide) that makes it radar reflective. There you go. It isn’t RAM treated, but it is made to be radar reflective, which might sound retarded but really isn’t. It keeps radar out of the cockpit, and instead lets you shape the canopy for a lower RCS.
SOCGiven the fact what pilot glass in F-22 is fairly open, i’m very sceptical about that figure. For example, a single metallic button/wire/tooth/medalion/whatever on pilot dress will already provide much large RCS than that. There are also some other problems, and anyone with basic understanding in physic can see why F-22 RCS cant be less than 0.01m2 even in ideal condions (frontal area, x-band, etc).
First off, I wasn’t necessarily agreeing or implying that the 0.0001m2 figure is accurate.
Secondly, the canopy glass has been treated and is not exactly radar-transparent, alleviating the effects of the internal reflectors.
SOC2. A cold war with China is impossible within the terms of the Cold War as we knew it with Russia. US and China are economically tied together, an open conflict will never occur, it will be more or less an economic tug-of-war. For defense industry, not a good sign.
That’s certainly not stopping Washington from trying to idiotically trump up some new Chinese threat!
SOCthen perhaps in the future we could see a russian testbed be it a flanker or some modified transport or whatever mounted with this radar and get as close to alaskan airspace as possible!would be interesting to see the results!
Except that the Raptors flying out on intercept sorties have been carrying external fuel tanks…I suspect that part of the reason for that is to deny accurate RCS measurement of the airframe! The jet also probably has some sort of system similar to that used by the F-117A where they can increase the RCS as well. That is primarily done for safety reasons, so that ATC radars can see the jets and deconflict civillian traffic if needbe.
SOCAlways when I see this figure I have the same thought, do Americans really know how to use metric units correctly? :rolleyes: Someone tell me please which from these pictures the F-22 RCS will be equal to a cmxcm pixel for a radar.
The problem with RCS figures is that they’re overwhelmingly subjective. When you see an RCS figure, it is typically going to be the smallest figure for the object. That is typically only going to be achieved from one angle, and in the case of the F-22A it is probably from a head-on aspect, which is what it needs being designed as a fighter anyway. Put a radar directly above an F-22, F-117, or B-2, and I’d bet you’ll get a significantly higher figure due to the much greater surface area and the more favorable aspect angle for the antenna. The F-22 is equipped with what it needs to take the most advantage of the low head-on RCS of course, all of the radar and ESM gear will tell the pilot where the targets are so he can act accordingly and put himself in the best position to get a first shot opportunity.
So yes, the F-22 could have an RCS as low as 0.0001m2, but it’s not going to be an overall, every aspect angle figure.
SOC[color=red]Ok, sealordlawrence, quit it with the “flex is racist” line already. The “Iraqis/iron fist” comments were completely logical based on more than a few reasons and not indicative of any anti-Iraqi sentiment, so let’s move on already before this devolves into something more personal and I have to start giving people a reason to find other things to do with their time![/color]
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