The all purpose terrorism thread featuring plenty of allah akbar

[Rockstar]

Sorry didn't meant to imply Kuznetsov's aircraft didnt fly without munitions in Syria but the design of the launch system does severely limit the amount they can carry. I was just saying if they are as some say going to put a more capable aircraft aboard after a refit. That refit would need to include catapult system to get an aircraft with say a 15,000 pound payload of hurt off that ship. I could be wrong but I dont think a ramp launch allows such things to happen. Plus the ability to carry more gives those poor pilots a break not having to fly so many sorties.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with for a refit.

[ikalugin]

You can take off with maximum payload (to be more precise the aircraft with the maximum take off mass can take off) from the 3rd launch position.

This means that catapults do not increase the maximum take off mass, what they do is:
- allow simultaneous take offs and landings (provided your carrier is big enough).
- allow more take offs/unit of time.
While those things are usefull, they can be exploited only if you operate with a high tempo, which is not happening with Kuznetsov for various reasons.

[Rockstar]

Weight certainly does affect the speed of an aircraft. The heavier it is the longer the run needed during take off. If an aircraft cant reach that minimum speed necessary from a carrier its gonna go for swim. An F-18 Super Hornet with say 12,000 pounds of ordinance is not going anywhere with a run up distance and a jump ramp the size of the Kuznetzov. I dont know what the max load it is for Mig-29 is. If its anything like a Super Hornet I'll bet money its gonna need more than position 3 on the Kuznetsov's flight deck to get up in the air. Then again maybe the poor Mig-29 is whimpy and cant carry anything heavy like the F-18.

[eddie]

Reports coming in that the Iraqi's have retaken the east side of Mosul now, they just might pull the whole thing off!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Weight certainly does affect the speed of an aircraft. The heavier it is the longer the run needed during take off. If an aircraft cant reach that minimum speed necessary from a carrier its gonna go for swim. An F-18 Super Hornet with say 12,000 pounds of ordinance is not going anywhere with a run up distance and a jump ramp the size of the Kuznetzov. I dont know what the max load it is for Mig-29 is. If its anything like a Super Hornet I'll bet money its gonna need more than position 3 on the Kuznetsov's flight deck to get up in the air. Then again maybe the poor Mig-29 is whimpy and cant carry anything heavy like the F-18.

Mig-29

Empty weight: 11,000 kg (24,250 lb)
Loaded weight: 15,300 kg (33,730 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 20,000 kg (44,100 lb)

F-18

Empty weight: 23,000 lb (10,400 kg)
Loaded weight: 36,970 lb (16,770 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 51,900 lb (23,500 kg)

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by eddie

Reports coming in that the Iraqi's have retaken the east side of Mosul now, they just might pull the whole thing off!

Looking that way Eddie

Mosul battle: Iraqi army prepares offensive on west of city

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38664607

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Weight certainly does affect the speed of an aircraft. The heavier it is the longer the run needed during take off. If an aircraft cant reach that minimum speed necessary from a carrier its gonna go for swim. An F-18 Super Hornet with say 12,000 pounds of ordinance is not going anywhere with a run up distance and a jump ramp the size of the Kuznetzov. I dont know what the max load it is for Mig-29 is. If its anything like a Super Hornet I'll bet money its gonna need more than position 3 on the Kuznetsov's flight deck to get up in the air. Then again maybe the poor Mig-29 is whimpy and cant carry anything heavy like the F-18.

The point is that both Su33 and MiG29K/KUB can take off with their maximum take off mass from Kuznetsov's 3rd position (though assuming normal operational conditions, such as moving carrier).

Here is one of the open sources based estimates regarding the Su33:

 

Translation of the table's contents would be horizontally:
(combat load composition) ( combat load mass) (fuel mass) (mass of combat load and fuel) (take off mass) (combat radius) (take off position)

and vertically:
(2*R27ET+2*R73) (8*R27ET+4*R73) (2*R27ET+2*R73) (8*R27ET+4*R73) (28*FAB250) (26*FAB250+4*R73) (20*FAB250+4*R73) (2*3M55+6*R73)

Declaimer - even though we have not seen 3M55 being used on the Su33 we did not know about the Kh31 series integration either untill we saw it on the Kuznetsov last year.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Mig-29

Empty weight: 11,000 kg (24,250 lb)
Loaded weight: 15,300 kg (33,730 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 20,000 kg (44,100 lb)

F-18

Empty weight: 23,000 lb (10,400 kg)
Loaded weight: 36,970 lb (16,770 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 51,900 lb (23,500 kg)

I think you are misleading with your figures, as both the MiG29 and F18 have variants. MiG29K/KUB (which also had a lot of variants) was (and is) heavier than the original MiG29 (the 9-12 model).
The most obvious is the change in the fuel load - 9-12 didnt really have much in terms of fuel.

http://www.uacrussia.ru/ru/aircraft/...raft-specific/
The official website here provides the mass data:
normal take off mass - 18550kgs.
max take off mass - 24500kgs.

p.s. I can link and translate an article regarding the Kuznetsov's airgroup and it's potential if people are interested.

[ikalugin]

A topic that makes me curious is where all Tochka-U systems went. We have been rearming missile brigades from Tochka/Tochka-R/Tochka-U systems to Iskander-M systems, freeing a lot of Tochka/Tochka-R/Tochka-U systems.

However I have not seen any contracts or even programs for decomissioning the Tochkas, which is suspicious especially considering that a lot of the missiles are not beyond their use by date.

Hence I wonder - where did they go? Would we see a sudden surge in Tochka usage in some conflict around the world?

p.s. This is interesting because TBMs become increasingly common, yet we have not seen them in wars betwenn matching oponents. In my opinion it would be interesting to see that, as it may provide insight into how important tactical/operational BMD is on the modern battlefield.

Here would can see the (old, Cold War era) table for Tochka-U effects:

 

Table reads, horizontaly:
accuracy for determining target's position (for the 9M79K missile with cluster warhead and 9M79Ф missile with unitary HE FRAG per each accuracy rating)
vertically:
missile launcher on position (destruction)
Lance battery
battery of non armoured SP artillery or towed artillery
command posts (various)
more commands posts
Nike-Hercules battery
Hawk battery or Chapparel-Vulcan platoon
helicopters on pads
ammunition and fuel warehouses
manpower, unarmoured vehicles, aircraft, area of target 20 acres
area of target 40 acres
area of target 60 acres
area of target 100 acres

[August]

My guess would be either Syria or Iran or both.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by August

My guess would be either Syria or Iran or both.

Both are Tochka operators, but why not include Yemen and Donbas?

I mean we are talking here about 100-140 launchers. If you look at the above table you could see that you need 1-2 missiles per target if you can get the target's coordinates with 50m mistake or less (which is not hard with today's navigation and C&C). This can translate for example into attack against ~100 artillery battery or CP type targets in a salvo, which is a lot.

p.s. as an example (declaimer - this is very innacurate and approximate). Lets say that the enemy has a light corps type formation (this is entirely hypothetical) with 2 divisions, each with 4 manuever brigades and 1 artillery brigade. Then lets assume that you have a high power artillery battalion, helicopter and a SAM brigade under the corps command.

This gives us (for eastern patern OOB, TO&E) an approx target set of:
15 artillery battalions of 45 batteries.
16 unit CPs (brigades, detached batalions and above).
16 SAM units (8 short and 8 medium range).
Which means that with ~100 launchers that target force can be decapitated using one unit of fire (missiles on the launchers and organic transports for the missile brigade set) even if we add 1/3 certainty of aiming at the right targets.

[August]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Both are Tochka operators, but why not include Yemen and Donbas?

Indeed, or even some non state entity like Hezbollah.

[mapuc]

The Danish Parliament have earlier today increased the military mandate. The Special forces from Denmark who is currently doing some military operation of some kind in Iraq have now the right to enter Syria and engage ISIS there too.

Markus

[ikalugin]

Russia-Syria agreement went into it's legal power.

Basically we got full rights on Tartus and extraterritorial status for it.

[ikalugin]

http://diana-mihailova.livejournal.com/209276.html
Russian cargo planes and helicopters bring reinforcements to the isolated SAA pocket.

Enemy (ISIS) forces are quite close by to the airfield, I guess the institutional skills of Afghan war didn't go away after all.