Read the Rand Corp report that is linked to at the bottom of the link I gave.

PD

The only thing I'd question is their quality of training. And I don't have a clue how good/bad it is. I just don't want to find out the hard way.

Besides, China could beat us without firing a shot: Economic Embargo.

Bingo!


Economic is their weapon right now..

A snapping of a few fingers and we are in a depression. Then again that does nothing against our military but keeps us from flexing too much.

Overall I see nothing warranting budget cut bait of B-1R epicness.

Want missile trucks? Call in F-15s

You mean the missile bait?!! :D F-15's are fast becoming useless.

-S

Their training is excellent. Last I heard both Chinese and Indian pilots are getting 300 hr's/yr. For comparrison purposes, US pilots get 250 hr's/yr.

-S

Don't dis the F-15. Like the B-52 it still has plenty of time left.

Granted that attacking airfields in the future is not a good idea. But it is still powerful against aircraft and against other areas.

I trust they've learned their lessons from the Korean War. Their training is more than:

1. turn engine on
2. pull back on stick
3. raise gear
4. pull trigger
5. lower gear
6. lower flaps
7. turn engine off
8. repeat as needed

The F-22 pilots are laughing at you! :D

1 F-22 went up against 6 F-15's and the F-15's eventually gave up trying to fight, but to see just how long they could stay alive. Staying alive longer than 2 minutes was considered a feat. You should read the pilots accounts - the F-15 is done.

SAAB's Gripen outclasses an F-15.

Rafale outclasses an F-15.

EF2000 outclasses an F-15.

Mig-35 outclasses and F-15.

SU-30 outclsses and F-15.

Heck, even an SU-27 probably outclasses an F-15!

F-15 has seen its day. F-22 will see it's day too since its first challenge will be S-37.

-S

Yes! Allthough back then, the MiG-15 was the first swept wing jet, and very unstable in certain regimes so a student could easily get themselves in trouble.

Funny thing is, class was held in live fire exercises against highly trained American pilots! Learn to live here, and you're on your way to becoming a great pilot! Something probably makes you learn real fast when live bullets are being shot your way! :D

-S

SUBMAN,

I know that the F-15 is on its last legs structurally, and needs to be replaced soon before more disintegrate mid flight but:
You yourself gave AIM-120D a 120nm range. Give me an AESA F-15C and big motor AMRAAM (AIM-120D) and it will kill ANY of the above without trouble (not the F-22 of course).

PD

Speed works against it too. At high speeds a smaller object traveling at lower velocities causes more damage. Put up clouds of smaller objects in a narrow corrador to insure a hit in this case a hit would just be a slight transfer of momentum between both objects nudging one off course. This is one of the tactics NASA is talking about to knock an Astroid off a collision course with Earth.

Side note: Could you imagin what this scattershot would do to an aircraft or a cruise missile? Kind of like a stick of butter hitting a brink wall. Or what a couple thousand 1in projectiles traveling at mach 7 would do to an platoon of APCs filled with troops? To quote Sev Trek cartoon: "He's dead Jim, someone get me a sponge!"

BTW A land based weapon genneraly has a much larger supply of ammo avilable while a ship would need to rearm from an AOR.

Of course if you had a rail gun for defense why not just turn it on whoever is attacking you with one or is about to. Since a land based one can be larger than one mounted on a ship the defender gets a range advantage in additon to an advantage in ammo.

Against 3rd world countries rail guns will work great but against someone with equivlent technolgy its a diffrent story. New tech can cut both ways.

AN AESA version has some potential, but still, not so much. WHen India let us run up against our aircraft in their SU-30's, our pilots in their planes beat our guys up in our best aircraft each and every time. Add AESA to the other side and it gets even worse!

A little known fact about AESA radar though is that it has some secret capabilities, such as being able to destroy electronics from range, and it has jamming capabilities as well, so with all things being the same, and AESA on both sides, F-15 is once again the underdog.

The F-15's AESA is not anywhere near par with the F-22's either.

-S

Can I play devil's advocate? Does the Red Baron's rule still apply? "The crate doesn't matter, but the person sitting in the crate does." Does all of the technology negate this rule?

speaking of outclassed, what about the Zero vs Wildcat? I think the superiour training/ tactics won the day for the wildcat.

You keep on bringing up Cope India, but: 1) Neither side showed their best gear. The Su-30s which showed up were of the early batch that doesn't have all the goodies that the later ones do. Likewise, we brought Eagles that didn't have the AESA upgrade. 2) Do you really think each side was simulating the TRUE capabilities of its weapons systems? I don't, it would be silly for us to do that with a nation so technically allied with Russia. 3) Exercises are OFTEN scripted with a given ending. Especially ones that are so political as Cope India was. It would be kinda rude for us to go all the way out there, have the Indians host us, and then have us coming back saying, "Yeah, it was pretty easy." It especially wouldn't make sense to win for a USAF that is just CRYING for more Raptors (and rightfully so, IMO).

Not so secret if we're chatting about it here ;). And how exactly do you figure an F-15 comes out as underdog here? You seem to say, "Both sides being equal the AESA F-15 will lose." Well... how exactly?

I'm not trying to compare an upgraded F-15 to an F-22. The F-22 without a doubt OWNs the air right now. All I am saying is that F/A-18E/F and F-15C will STILL be viable against the likely Red air threat 10 years from now. They won't be clearly superior as the F-22 is, but there is something to be said for bigger bullets.

PD

That depends if any F-15's are still airworthy in a decades time, the way things look at the moment the USAF might be looking at a short fall in its air superiority fighter force if Congress doesn't loosen up those purse strings!

I do hope the F-15 actually gets completely replaced by purely F-22's. It would be expensive... but damn! How badass would that be!

OT - I wish they would model slammer D's in Falcon 4.0 AF lol, would kick arse against the AA-12s... they're nasty bits of kit!