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Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth
Sorry I might have pasted the above together incorrectly. Had to do actual work and forgot where I was going to put the ... . But...see below regarding losses during Allied Force.
As for Su-30...today's 4-4.5 gen fighters are perfectly capable of dealing with these threats. Because thrust vectoring doesn't mean diddly in modern BVR. The F/A-18E/F, F-16, and F-15 all have a reach out and touch capability with AIM-120D (IOC by the end of the decade, IIRC) nearly equal to that of the Tomcat, except the AMRAAM was designed from get go to take on fighters. This is all assuming that Yemen, Syria or whoever the hell's 1-2 dozen Su-30s even manage to get into the air. Because any real war is going to start with a huge volley of cruise weapons that will SERIOUSLY degrade the enemy's anti air capability before an American fighter even enters their godforsaken airspace.
As for S-300/400 type systems, I agree. The future of SEAD will be interesting, even with F-35. Because with a VLO'd F-35 you are limited to two GPS guided PGMs on glide kits until JDRADM comes online. More with SDB I suppose. Which S-300/400 are certainly capable of shooting down. But again...this is all supposing the air defenses survive the initital volley of cruise weapons. Then our $70+ MILLION bomb trucks can carry external stores and fly airliner profiles to their targets  . |
On the AMRAAM part - AMRAAMSKI (The nickname for the Russian equivelent AA-12) has a longer range than our AIM-120C which is currently fielded. THe D model would be nice if it goes out to and effective range of 30 to 35 nmi (our AMRAAM C model only goes out to an effective range of 20 nmi against fighter type aircraft - not enough kenitic energy to keep on a high G target outside this range), but I doubt it, and this would simply be a crutch for degrading aircraft performance. The only way to achieve effective range increase is to throttle the rocket motor and to reduce weight. THis could be accomplished by changing to a more advanced radar package that uses less space and weight, but that probably gets you out to equal performance to the AA-12.
On the SU-30's - Our pilots borrowed India's SU-30's and went up against our own pilots in our own aircraft. Our pilots in the SU-30's didn't lose 1 single engagement!!! That means our F-15's, F-16's, and F-18's all bit the dust each and every time using their equipment against our own, so do not ever think that aircraft doesn't make a difference. They always got first look and first kill, and where able to close in almost every engagement against our AIM-120's, and finish off what could be killed fromm range.
EF2000 is another story. This aircraft can kick our planes butts without us even being able to do anything about it. Their low RCS and super cruise capability will kill us each and every time with first look first kill capability. Its not even a fair fight. Only an F-22 or F-35 can counter this threat. Chock up that anyone that wants to buy Eurofighter can have one and this is a reciepe for disaster.
We are flying the oldest airforce in the history of the United States Airforce and its beginning to show. We can field more planes, but they can field better ones. Thats like resorting to Russian tactics of overwhelming the enemy airforce with MiG-21's!!! Not my idea of a good fight for my countrymen.
Last is your cruise missiles - easily countered by an S-500 which is at least equal, but probably better than our own PAC-3 Patriot. THe Tomohawk is nearing end of usefulness and needs to be replaced since the future will dictate that you will need to fire 100 of them in the hopes that a few will get through.
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He does. I agree there are people out there who don't understand just because we're only fighting trash wars today, things might change tomorrow.
It's also completely fake. Written by Russians who can't accept that their equipment is absolutely worthless for the most part. The guy who wrote this (Venik) is an absolute fraud. We lost all of two aircraft during Allied Force. An F-16 and F-117, IIRC.
PD
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Dunno about that. BBC even reported that NATO was hiding its numbers. The truth may lie somewhere in the middle.
Anyway, just my two cents on the subject. We should procure more F-22's though at the expense of F-35's, though the laser equipped F-35's will be very useful in the future, so its a toss up.
One thing people forget is cost of ownership. You could porbably keep 5 F-22's or 5 F-35's flying for the same price as 1x F-15. just a thought. In the end, you will save a ton of money since equipment may be expensive, but man hours is overly overly expensive.
-S