seb92100I am not sure but maybe the different shipyard have different concept for their submarines …
For instance, german submarines were firstly conceived for the german navy, which used to see the baltic as its main fighting zone. This would lead to specific characteristics on range, endurance and usefull depth. The fuel cells are thus needed to stay underwater silent more time.
French and russian submarines are surely meant to operate far from their bases after a long journey. They are probably more adapted to open ocean. A noisier MESMA engine is not so an inconvenient because it would be used after attacking, when the submarine is fleeing retorsion at full submerged speed, like a nuclear one. Great power output is thus needed.
Can anyone explain the Stirling engine … I never understand why an engine using the striling thermodynamic cycle would be an AIP. It will also need a comburant like Oxygen …
seb92100For subsonic missiles it is just a case of lengthening the fuselage and putting in more fuel)
No it is not that easy to modify a weapon system. The structure has not been thought for that and shall be modifid. A longer missile will have different caracteristics frequencies that can interact with the controls. You can have flutter and other aerodynamics problems you did not have. The constrainsts inside the structure will change and a longer missile will need structure renforcing or could break in flight. Moreover, aerodynamic coefficient would change and thus you would have to modify the control system …
If it was so easy, every country would be capable of creating a whole range of cruise missile …
seb92100Nothing new under the sun …
Such huge bombs were employed during WWII against german sub bases. The bombs were called Tallboy and weight 12,000 lb. Bigger weapons of 22,000 lb were also used. The mass was only limited by the planes of the era.
One shall remember that the unique direct hit of a Tallboy against the hardened sub shelter in St-Nazaire was unable to penetrate half the roof, whereas half the town was reduced to rumble during the raid. German were not the only ones wrongly believing in Wunderwaffen …
seb92100Yes the hangar is not large but I am surprised by its height …
The Ka-28 is tall because of its contr-rotating rotors, but not that tall I think.
I am also surprised by the numbers of non-stealthy features everywhere. I doubt the boat will have a real stealth advantage. Maybe the stealthy caracteristics are only coming from hull commonality and because of the electronic suite and radars they don’t expect it to be stealthy.
seb92100Such a thread is totally pointless … Each AF has different objectives and strategic conceptions and thus different airplanes !
France and UK each have particular assets that are adapted to their particular needs, so comparing themselves is clueless I think. It is the same for others air force.
For instance :
France AF tries to have the capacity to fight alone and in a coalition. Thus no specific SEAD missile. They are usefull only if you want to gain air superiority in the skies of your ennemy, thus in a coalition. Alone, it wouldn’t be possible so french attack plane are all compatible with low altitude penetration including the future Rafale.
UK has more a coalition AF I think. (To support only the US of course 😉 ). They don’t think fighting alone again a potent adversary I think.
Germany has a static air force for defending its country, herited from history. For this task, it is really strong.
Greece AF is made to fight turkey and thus would lack range, etc …
seb92100Modern propellant are better but the great increase in range comes from other factors :
– the structure around the solid propellant was made of steel. Nowadays, carbon with liner is much lighter
– the electronic used to be huge. In the first sparrows missiles, the electronics took more room in the body that the propellant. So think about less state of the art russian electronic …
seb92100You don’t understand : it is a target not an attack missile !!!
==> it has to be cheap and the developpement cost must be low. It would need a lot of investment to be developped into a supersonic attack missile.
It is not crappy. It was developped according to the navy requirement and budget. Its flight is representative of a supersonic missile.
seb92100The coyote is a target, not a missile.
Its performance are really poor when compared to existing supersonic attack missile (ASMP, Kh31, …). Remenber that the coyote do not have a warhead thus avoiding something like 90 kg of unused mass !
It won’t be air-launched. This phase of the flight is difficult because you have to control the missile also at subsonic speed, and moreover under the aerodynamic influence of the launcher airplane … The Coyote will probably be uncontrollable at subsonic speeds, without its booster.
seb92100All long range missile need an update for long range shot. Their seekers have quite a short range, something between 10 to 20 km for active radar seekers. Under this range, you can shoot a locked missile, that will be totally fire-and-forget.
Between this distance and something like 40-50 km, the target won’t have enough time to move out of the scan zone of the seeker. Thus a fire-and-forget shoot is possible. But the missile will probably lose time, speed and manouvrability looking for the target and could be more easily dodged, jammed or decoyed. A datalink will assure an optimized trajectory even at those short range and is thus desirable.
At longer distance, the target can escape the missile’seeker range only by changing direction, speed, altitude. A datalink is essential except against adversary without RWR that won’t change trajectory, because they are unaware of the attack taking place. As those target are defenseless, why take the risk of a long shot with an expensive weapon ?
Moreover, even if they have some scan capacity, autonomous seekers do not have the time to scan the whole sky to find their target. If they know precisely where the target is, they can quickly enter track mode and optimize their trajectory. Don’t forget that current missile have solid propellant motors that runs for a really short time. Most of the flight is done without thrust and the energy is limited for long range manouvers. On the contrary, the engines of jets always : in a cat and mouse game, a plane as an tremendous advantage against a missile … A constant burning motor like the one of the future METEOR is incredible boost of pK !!
I think that the AMRAAM is more advanced than the MICA. I speak about the current missile, not the old ones. USAF creates a new software for its missile every 2 years and a new hardware every four years. Much less versions for the MICA. BUT the USA do not give “its” missile to allies. In fact, I heard that they have the ability to datalink the missile from another plane, but that they did not gave this capability to anyone else. Because of those type of export restriction, I think the MICA is quite comparable on the export market. The exported AMRAAM performances are surely made by looking at the MICA performance in order to be just better.
The main drawback of the MICA is that it is more expensive , which is quite normal for a smaller production rate.
But the mICA has some more capabilities.
The plane can use the seeker of the IR version of the missile in flight, in its cockpit, thus adding a long range IR seeker to the plane for passive surveillance and target identification.
Possessing thrust vectoring at launch, the missile is multi-role, being capable of long range attack and short range manouvrability. In a long range fight, you have only AMRAAM equivalent under the wings, at short range, you are equipped only with ASRAAM. This is a real tactical advantage. Moreover it is an economical one as you have to support only one type of missile in your stock.
seb92100A double tail for an F5 is an non-sense !!!
Double tail are efficient only if they are distant enough from one another. Otherwise, their effect is slighly less than a simple tail of the same surface (ie mass). The F5 is not wide enough and they had to put a significant angle to regain a bit effectiveness. I think such a configuration on a F5 is less efficient (ie heavier) than a simple tail …
seb92100Haven’t you hear of rule area ?
Your widening of the rear fuselage is an aerodynamic blasphema !!!
seb92100Rafale and Eurofighter
French retiring from the Eurofighter is not Dassault fault but mainly an british fault as usual …
Dassault always said that a fighter program shall have a leader and that a cooperation is a waste of money. The ex-tornado team transformed into the eurofighter team could not accept that.
Everyone wanted to redevelop technollogy that Dassault already possess. France did master the canard/delta configuration and the fly-by-wire system. Why paying another time for the british and german to redevelop it ??? They were right as most of the technical delay of the eurofighter comes from the fly-by-wire technology.
British wanted to use R&R engines that would mean the end of Snecma as an independant military engine maker.
France makes its own missile. The Eurofighter will use US AMRAAM. The US won’t sell cruise missile to France. Navy rafale will be able to use some. The F18 would never have been capable of that.
France did want a multirole plane. EF2000 is an interceptor. The difference in the radar and the low altitude flying capacity is representative. EF2000 has a powerfull old technollogy radar, meaning range but less felexibility. Rafale has a modern electronically passive radar, meaning flexibility and several modes at the same time, at the expense of brutal power and range. EW is much more develloped in Rafale as is the RCS reduction.
seb92100Waou, automatic moderation …
I am impressed !
seb92100Qu’est ce qu’il ne faut pas entendre parfois …
The story about a french officer is a fabulous bull****.
The american were using the same inbound roads and timing every night because of over-confidence in stealth. As stealth fighter are not invisible but impossible to lock with radar thus to shoot at, the serbian were knowing by advance the attack. They prepared a trap for the next night. The missile were shooted without radar lock on the plane. But with semi-active guidance, the nearer the missile to the target, the stronger the radar echo. As the missile were really close to the F117, it was possible for it to acquire the plane and thus destroy it. (Another theory say that it was shooted with its bay open while attacking, but I think the bay opening is really short). In Iraq, B2 were coverd by E6-Prowler so that no spot at all could be obtained on radar scopes …
Stealth technology does only give air dominance if you are smart enough not to under-estimate your adversary. It was not the first time, the “better than everyone else” americans learned this hard to be tough lesson. Nevertheless, they seem to forget it quite regurarly.
But I understand it is easier to say that the “5th column” has betrayed you than admitting your own fault and lack of intelligence …
seb92100Rafale ???
Be serious !!!
Technically, Rafale would be a logical choice, but it is IMPOSSIBLE !
UK is developping a competitor to this plane, so they can’t buy it.
Moreover, it would be too difficult to find offset work in the UK to cover such a deal, on a finished plane, without changing equipement like radar or RWR, that would kill all the economy of such an off-the-shelf buy.
Politically, just imagine it. The Sun or the Daily mirror would do such a fuss that the government would have to resign !!!
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