The most expensive weapon system of all times

[MH]

zSomeone please post a hud/gun cam picture of f22 targeted by f18 as prove that f22 is not awersome anymore.And the oxygen problems... yeas it must be crap.

As said above praple don't take into consideration the terms and posible rules in those exercises.

[gimpy117]

Originally Posted by Skybird

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...136312,00.html

The new dream weapon of air-based warfare? Well - mine not.

they mean "the most expensive weapon system we hope gets built"

lol that A/C is a folly. Too many features crammed into one airframe.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by MH

zSomeone please post a hud/gun cam picture of f22 targeted by f18 as prove that f22 is not awersome anymore.And the oxygen problems... yeas it must be crap.

[MH]

That apearently is Rafale vs Raptor.







F18 vs Raptor.



OK f22 is not magical but close to that n term of tech.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by MH

OK f22 is not magical but close to that n term of tech.

I wasn't trying to make a statement, just being silly.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by MH

That apearently is Rafale vs Raptor.







F18 vs Raptor.



OK f22 is not magical but close to that n term of tech.

Those images really are not an effective means to judge a given aircraft.Those are all taken from training footage.It is very common in training for the odds to be very stacked against one side or the other.the idea being train hard make the situation far more difficult than a real world situation.

If you look you will find shots of every modern fighter in the HUD of another aircraft.That must mean that every modern aircraft sucks.

The rule of weapons/warfare is once your foe creates a better weapon you create a counter.The realistic stance should be how capable is a platform in a real world situation and how skilled are the people flying the aircraft.these are factors often overlooked.

Another equally important question should be how much does this weapon cost and do we really need it?Many weapons sound great on paper but prove to be impractical.The F-22 happens to impractical there are several other 5th generation designs that can do everything that an F-22 can do except for full stealth and sooner or later thanks to ever advancing computer systems radar will be able see spot "stealth". Even stealth aircraft are "seen" by radar they just are not able to discern the small return as what it is and not something else like a flock of birds.Computers with advanced algorithms will be able to analyze a stealth aircraft radar return if there are not already some in use that can.

The F-35 simply is overly complex and should have been cancelled years ago.

[MH]

Those images really are not an effective means to judge a given aircraft.Those are all taken from training footage.It is very common in training for the odds to be very stacked against one side or the other.the idea being train hard make the situation far more difficult than a real world situation.

Yes... that what i sort of..was trying to say.

I wasn't trying to make a statement, just being silly.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by MH

Yes... that what i sort of..was trying to say.

I know the photos got my juices flowing I meant to "quote" only the photos I forgot to cut out the bottom.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

If you look you will find shots of every modern fighter in the HUD of another aircraft.That must mean that every modern aircraft sucks.

They do. That's why we need to spend the entire budget to develop one that's perfect. Maybe a cloaking device that needs more power than any system can generate.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

They do. That's why we need to spend the entire budget to develop one that's perfect. Maybe a cloaking device that needs more power than any system can generate.

I think we need just to go ahead and develop super wicked fighters that also transform into other things like the Japanese cartoon Macross.



If we had that we could simply crush every other nations pathetic military industrial complex into dust.
See it is protecting those kids from bad people with less expensive jet fighters.

[Bilge_Rat]

For anyone interested in the current state of air warfare, this article on the Kosovo 1999 operation is a very good primer on the current challenges :

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...2/lambeth.html

Evidently, the Serbs launched only a few SAMs against attacking NATO aircraft the first night. The second night, the enemy fired fewer than 10 SA-6s, none of them scoring a hit. Later during Allied Force, the Serbs frequently fired SAMs in large numbers, with dozens launched in salvo fashion on some nights but only a few launched on others. Although these ballistic launches constituted more a harassment factor than any serious challenge to NATO operations, in numerous instances allied pilots had to jettison their fuel tanks, dispense chaff, and maneuver violently to evade enemy SAMs that were guiding.

Indeed, the SAM threat to NATO's aircrews proved far more pronounced and harrowing than media coverage typically depicted, and aggressive jinking and countermaneuvering against airborne SAMs frequently became necessary whenever the Serbs sought to engage NATO aircraft. Ten or more pilots operating in a target area might report a SAM shot as ballistic while the one pilot on whose helmet the missile was figuratively guiding would be actively reacting to it. Shortly thereafter, 10 pilots would recover to widely dispersed home bases and report nonthreatening ballistic launches, while only one would return with the evidence of a guided shot. Such episodes drove an initial impression among Allied Force leaders that "most" of the observed SAM shots were ballistic. Fusion of all the pertinent information and elimination of duplicate reporting, however, indicated that a substantial number of SAM launches, perhaps as many as a third, were guided.

Indeed, Gen Wesley Clark, US Army, supreme allied commander, Europe (SACEUR), later reported numerous instances of near-misses involving enemy SAM launches against NATO aircraft. General Jumper added that a simple look at cockpit-display videotapes would show that "those duels were not trivial." (14) From the very start of NATO's air attacks, Serb air defenders also sought to sucker NATO aircrews down to lower altitudes to bring them within the lethal envelopes of widely proliferated man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) and AAA emplacements. A common Serb tactic involved firing on the last aircraft in a departing strike formation, perhaps on the presumption that those aircraft would be unprotected by other fighters; flown by less experienced pilots; and low on fuel, which would limit their freedom to countermaneuver.

Yugoslavia’s poorly developed road network outside urban areas also may have worked to the benefit of NATO attackers on more than a few occasions because the enemy’s SAM operators depended on road transportation for mobility, and towed AAA tended to bog down when it left prepared surfaces and moved into open terrain. NATO pilots, therefore, studiously avoided flying down roads and crossed them when necessary at 90-degree angles to minimize their exposure time. By remaining at least five kilometers from the nearest road, they often negated the AAA threat, albeit at the cost of making it harder to spot moving military vehicles

In all, more than 800 SAMs reportedly fired at NATO aircraft, both manned and unmanned, over the course of the 78-day air war, including 477 SA-6s and 124 confirmed man-portable infrared missiles. (33) A majority of the fixed SAMs were fired without any radar guidance. Despite that expenditure of assets, enemy fire downed only two NATO aircraft--the F-117 mentioned above and, later, an F-16--although another F-117 sustained light damage from a nearby SA-3 detonation and two A-10s were hit by enemy AAA fire but not downed. (34) Also, in two reported cases short-range, infrared-guided missiles hit A-10s, one of the missiles apparently striking the bottom of the aircraft, defusing itself, and bouncing off harmlessly. (35) US and NATO aircraft fired at least 743 HARMs against radars supporting these enemy SAMs. (36) Yet, enough of the Serb IADS remained intact--mainly the persistent AAA and MANPADS threat--to require NATO fighters to operate above a 15,000-foot floor throughout most of the air effort. Although al lied pilots could effectively counter the older SA-7 with flares if they saw it in time, the SA-9/13, SA-14, SA-16, and SA-18 presented a more formidable threat.

In the end, as noted above, enemy SAM fire brought down only two aircraft (both American), thanks to allied reliance on electronic jamming, towed decoys, and counter-tactics to negate enemy surface-to-air defenses. (37) However, NATO never fully succeeded in neutralizing the Serb IADS, and NATO aircraft operating over Serbia and Kosovo were always within the engagement envelopes of enemy SA-3 and SA-6 missiles--envelopes that extended as high as 50,000 feet. Because of that persistent threat, mission planners had to place such high-value surveillance-and-reconnaissance platforms as the U-2 and JSTARS in less-than-ideal orbits to keep them outside the lethal reach of enemy SAMs. Even during the operation's final week, NATO spokesmen conceded that they could confirm the destruction of only three of Serbia's approximately 25 known mobile SA-6 batteries.

In all events, by remaining dispersed and mobile, and by activating their radars only selectively, the Serb IADS operators yielded the short-term tactical initiative in order to present a longer-term operational and strategic challenge to allied combat sorties. The downside of that inactivity for NATO was that opportunities to employ the classic Wild Weasel tactic of attacking enemy SAM radars with HARMs while SAMs guided on airborne targets were "few and far between." (39) Lt Gen Michael Short, the Allied Force air commander, later indicated that his aircrews were ready for a wall-to-wall SAM threat like the one encountered over Iraq during Desert Storm but that "it just never materialized. And then it began to dawn on us that...they were going to try to survive as opposed to being willing to die to shoot down an airplane."

40.) Interview with Lt Gen Michael Short, USAF, PBS Frontline, "War in Europe," 22 February 2000. Serb IADS operators may have been able to trade short-term effectiveness for longerterm survivability because allied aircraft typically could not find and successfully attack fielded Serbian forces and other mobile ground targets. Had they been able to do so and kill enemy troops in large numbers, Use Serb army's leadership would have insisted on a more aggressive air defense effort. That would have enabled NATO to kill more SAMs but at the probable cost of losing additional friendly aircraft.

The unsettling SEAD experience of Allied Force sent a much-needed wake-up call to the Air Force’s EW community. The survival tactics used to such maddening effect against NATO’s aircrews by Serb IADS operators were first developed and tested in the no-fly zones of Iraq. Operations Northern and Southern Watch had steadily policed these zones ever since the coalition first showed the full extent of its capability against active SAM radars during the Gulf War. For that reason, they should have come as no surprise to the Air Force’s mission planners. It is reasonable to expect more of the same as potential future opponents continue to monitor US SEAD capabilities and operating procedures, adapting their countertactics accordingly.

One palliative now on the horizon that portends a major boost in overall SEAD mission effectiveness is substantially reduced observability to enemy radars- an inherent design feature of the next-generation F-22 and F-35 (the latter previously known as the Joint Strike Fighter).48 Once the United States fields these new multirole combat aircraft in sufficient strength toward the end of this decade, their much-reduced radar cross sections will enhance their survivability by shrinking the effective engagement envelopes of enemy radar-directed SAMs by 95 percent or more. Provided that proper tactics and some important operating limitations are respected, that will enable the F-22 and F-35 to fly in hostile airspace and reach effective weapons-release parameters undetected.49

Granted, as we have already seen in the arresting case of the F-117 shootdown over Serbia in 1999, such low observability to enemy radars will not render the F-22 and F-35 fully invisible along the lines of the fanciful Romulan cloaking device of Star Trek fame. It will be impossible to operate these successor-generation stealth aircraft with complete abandon in a high-threat SAM environment. On the contrary, pilots will have to fly even the F-22 and F-35 in specific attitudes to threat radars to preclude their detection and susceptibility to risk. As a senior Air Force officer cautioned two years before the F-117 downing, stealthiness “significantly reduces your vulnerable area, but it does not give you the freedom to ignore the threats.”50 At some aspect angles, even the stealthiest aircraft may be at least fleetingly detectable by surface radars. Moreover, they will continue to emit infrared signatures that an enemy can exploit.

Nevertheless, such advanced low observability by radar promises to reduce substantially the range at which an enemy’s acquisition radars can detect ingressing friendly aircraft from various look angles, as well as complicate the tracking of any F-22 or F-35 momentarily detected by enemy sensors. This will have the net effect of narrowing significantly any defender’s window of opportunity for successfully engaging and downing such aircraft. Thus, the F-22 and F-35 can operate in high-threat areas with less intense concern for surface-to-air defenses and can fly on headings and at altitudes aimed at maximizing opportunities for early target acquisition.

and the Serbs were only using SA-3 and SA-6 missiles, newer SA-10 and SA-17 SAMs are even deadlier.

[MH]

Nevertheless, such advanced low observability by radar promises to reduce substantially the range at which an enemy’s acquisition radars can detect ingressing friendly aircraft from various look angles, as well as complicate the tracking of any F-22 or F-35 momentarily detected by enemy sensors. This will have the net effect of narrowing significantly any defender’s window of opportunity for successfully engaging and downing such aircraft. Thus, the F-22 and F-35 can operate in high-threat areas with less intense concern for surface-to-air defenses and can fly on headings and at altitudes aimed at maximizing opportunities for early target acquisition.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

For anyone interested in the current state of air warfare, this article on the Kosovo 1999 operation is a very good primer on the current challenges :

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...2/lambeth.html

That is an interesting article and all but it was written for this journal it is nothing more than that persons evaluation and their opinion.The author is a member of RAND there are certainly coworkers of his that have differing opinion on the same subject.

Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and you will notice a very interesting disclaimer:
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

Published in the same journal you are very likely to find papers that have an opinion that differs greatly from the one of this author.

In other words it is their opinion nothing more.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

That is an interesting article and all but it was written for this journal it is nothing more than that persons evaluation and their opinion.The author is a member of RAND there are certainly coworkers of his that have differing opinion on the same subject.

Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and you will notice a very interesting disclaimer:
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

Published in the same journal you are very likely to find papers that have an opinion that differs greatly from the one of this author.

In other words it is their opinion nothing more.

Huh? it's a fact based article. What part do you think is incorrect or his personal opinion?

[Stealhead]

No the author has taken data on the Kosovo air war which are facts and has then taken these facts and used them to formulate his opinion(an educated one) about how effective the F-22 and F-35 would be against modern air defenses.It is basically more akin to a thesis.

The article was written for Aerospace Power Journal the purpose of the publication(online) is to allow persons express their educated opinion about numerous subjects related to air power and it current and future use.It is a professional journal.

The most recent issue has an article in which a USAF officer is expressing his ideas on developing a light attack program for the USAF.This publication is meant as a means for professionals to discuss topics of importance.Someone publishes an article and other professionals discuss the ideas expressed in order to develop actual strategy.

http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/About.asp from the about page;

"The Air and Space Power Journal (ISSN 1554-2505), Air Force Recurring Publication 10-1, published quarterly, is the professional journal of the United States Air Force. It is designed to serve as an open forum for the presentation and stimulation of innovative thinking on military doctrine, strategy, force structure, readiness, and other matters of national defense. The views and opinions expressed or implied in the Journal are those of the authors and should not be construed as carrying the official sanction of the Department of Defense, Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, Air University, or other agencies or departments of the US government."

In other words anything someone publishes in it will have experts that agree and disagree with what was discussed.Another member of the Air Force officer or professional with credentials similar to the authors could easily write a counter-article to this one disagreeing with its thesis completely.