Sukhoi and her stunts

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

You are assuming a fighter or bomber without reduced IR signature. Your effective range of IRST against this thing is most like about the same time a slammer lights up your aircraft as it just turns on its radar on its final terminal guidance envelope.

I have added in the attempts at thermal suppression. You can suppress the engine some, but your frictional heating, work heating of the atmosphere as you plow into it at Mach 1.5, all that cannot be readily suppressed and IR can see quite far against those things even at subsonic.

Also, remember that the F-22 engine is actually runs hotter than most in an attempt to get better performance. To make it worse, normally a turbofan has some unheated air that's made into useful thrust in the fan portion and incidentally helps cool the plume coming out the rear somewhat. Because the F-22 is a low-bypass turbofan, that airflow is reduced, so you have more to compensate with your heat suppression system.

IRST is pointless and almost useless at 40 km too on something that travels about a mile every 2.5 seconds in Supercruise.

The supercruise speed is only about Mach 1.5. Even at sea level a Mach is only 330m/s, so we are talking 475m/s, more like 400-450 at the altitude the plane will actually be able to supercruise. That's more like a mile every 3.5 to 4 seconds.

If you have it on IRST, and it has you as its next victim, and you are probably traveling directly at it to be in the IRST cone

Not quite. The scan arc is 60 degrees out of a total possible of 120. Plus if you have a wingman, you can tell him to cover -60 to 0 and you can cover 0-60, so you can have 120 degree coverage, as good as a radar, though shorter range.

and probably at about Mach .9 in your SU, that would give you about 30 to 40 seconds warning before this thing flies right by you, and probably only about 15 seconds warning before a slammer lights you up by turning on its internal radar for its final terminal guidance.

I see you also bought into the American story that no one will actually hear the APG-77 because of its "LPI", despite the fact the darn radar is supposed to emit 20kW at peak.

LPI is only a game. In very crude terms, it turns a narrowband signal into a broadband one. The enemy's RWR is a broadband receiver. The problem is at worst one of processing, since radar vs RWR tends to have the radar at a disadvantage.

More cynically, I won't be shocked if I hear that the F-22s were detected by old SPO-15 systems, ambushed, and destroyed in thier first mission. A modern American system attempts to classify a radar by type (F-15, F-16, SA-8...etc), and the SPO-15 lacks this sophistication (there are 6 little lamps on the bottom for six broad types of radar, like "fighter" and so on), but that may also mean it'd look at the whole spectrum for a radar source instead of splitting it up. Once they do that, they'd catch on that there is really a darn bright, non-coherent, broadband source out there.

Hope you're not sleeping in that 15 seconds because you have little time to think of a game plan to live for an extra second or two, or die instantly.

Actually, the F-22 is in real trouble now. He's basking in his "stealth", but I got him. I can snapshot a mix of active radar homing and IR missiles back at him and send his position to my entire air defense network via datalink.

In air combat, 15 seconds is eternity. Not to mention if you think that's not enough time for me to do much, as I counterfire there won't be much time for the American to do much as well.

I'm probably dead (unless I evade your AMRAAM, which is still possible), but when one considers the massive cost of your F-22, it is probably worth it.

PS. The five F-15's couldn't even begin to fight only one of these things and the F-15 pilot that lived longer than 2 minutes, didn't live longer than that by much.

I'd skip "What was the setup?" and get right to it.

The problem is that they fought like Americans and "died" as predicted by American predictions formulated on American theories of air combat.

F-22 advances in high-alt BVR fight. Many American F-15s, stunningly, have no datalink, a fact that's changing only recently, and the one they do get may or may not support air-to-air work. Using American RWR, they can't hear the enemy's radar emissions. Even if they could hear it, their RWR is not designed to make any fire control solutions and they have no weapons to exploit this. If they have no datalink, even if one guy gets lucky with his radar, he can't really help anyone set up shots. F-22 fires AMRAAM, very high hit rate is assumed. All F-15s killed by second wave at most. How could it not have ended within three minutes?

Suppose we go to a low-altitude BVR fight. Sometimes that happens too. Lower alt = less range. So, effective missile range will fall <40km. If they have a IRST, they might (I'd grant you it is only a might) actually detect before missiles are launched. But no, they lack this function. Radar and visual only. F-22 gets into missile range. Fires. Kills.

Even if they assumed a WVR engagement, here's where I'd have to disagree with Riccioni - techniques for optimizing the use of the wing for creating lift have improved greatly over 30 years, so the same wing loading does not mean no edge to the F-22. So it is not too shocking it won. Especially if the F-22 was armed with a JHMCS. Even a MiG-29 with AA-11 Archers and a helmet sight can kill F-15s armed with AIM-9Ms easily, at least according to an American simulation.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not necessarily follow the same rules. This is something Riccioni noticed, but is not often mentioned.

We already mentioned IR. Now, unlike American RWRs, modern Russian RWRs like the SPO-32 Pastel can process an attack. And we've also mentioned how LPI is really a game. So it has either already been defeated (perhaps even by accident as the result of a different design philosophy) or will be defeated. So, if the APG-77 gets detected, a valid attack can be made on the American fighter using a mix of IR and Passive Radar Homers, perhaps with some actives as a 2nd echelon. The worst part for the American is that any fighter hunting for a F-22 knows it might get ambushed in turn. The American thinks that he's definitely the ambusher.

The enemy has IR for medium-low alts so he is not a total sitting duck. He also has datalink - so for example two can act as sacrifices but link data back for shots from a 2nd echelon flying 30km back. For close he also has thrust vectoring and he has not been forced to make any aerodynamic compromises for stealth.

It doesn't mean, of course, that Su-37 is a match for a F-22. But things are not necessary as lopsided, and to that one factors in the massive cost and rarity of the F-22.

[Wim Libaers]

The F-22 would have a bigger advantage if it didn't have to use its radar. Just serving as a missile delivery platform, shooting targets linked to it by AWACS aircraft.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Wim Libaers

The F-22 would have a bigger advantage if it didn't have to use its radar. Just serving as a missile delivery platform, shooting targets linked to it by AWACS aircraft.

IIRC the Radar on the AWACS cant target with sufficient accuracy for missile launches, it needs to be handed off to another radar to localize the target.

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

More cynically, I won't be shocked if I hear that the F-22s were detected by old SPO-15 systems, ambushed, and destroyed in thier first mission. A modern American system attempts to classify a radar by type (F-15, F-16, SA-8...etc), and the SPO-15 lacks this sophistication (there are 6 little lamps on the bottom for six broad types of radar, like "fighter" and so on), but that may also mean it'd look at the whole spectrum for a radar source instead of splitting it up. Once they do that, they'd catch on that there is really a darn bright, non-coherent, broadband source out there.

What aircraft carry the SPO-15?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

IIRC the Radar on the AWACS cant target with sufficient accuracy for missile launches, it needs to be handed off to another radar to localize the target.

Its accuracy isn't too good and it has no CW linking function. Still, if you are guiding an AMRAAM shot, I see no reason why an attempt can't be made to shoot on the solution and let the missile do the work. The hit rate won't be very good, but...

Besides, it does allow the APG-77 to only be turned on at the last second before launch to verify coordinates.

The only problem being that the Russians also have long-range weapons designed to help them kill AWACS.

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

What aircraft carry the SPO-15?

Planes like the early MiG-29s, Su-27s ... basically all the 80s Soviet aircraft, maybe later MiG-23s too. The next generation switches to the fully digital SPO-32.

Before that, it was IIRC the SPO-10. If the broadband stuff I'm talking about works on the -15, it'd work on the even more primitive (thus less classification) -10, but the -10 provides only quadrant (90 degree - there are these four little lamps on the thing) warning and won't be very useful for situational awareness.

[TteFAboB]

Kazuaki Shimazaki II,

It seems you've given the enemy a wingman.

Then you added a 2nd echelon.

And always consider the enemy to fire over half or all it's load, of course, since it's a big prize.

Now, I didn't knew the F-22 was desgined to take on 2 echelons alone flying solo. Thanks for pointing that out for me, I never knew the rare and expensive plane would be sent alone to knock down an entire enemy Air Force, the plane is quite impressive indeed then, isn't it?

[TLAM Strike]

Maybe he was giving the OPFOR the equivalent number of aircraft in relation to the cost of the F-22. That’s something like 14 Su-27s to 1 F-22A.

EDIT: Hay now that would be a study to see! 1 F-22A vs. as many of another fighter that could be purchased for its cost. :hmm:

[DeepSix]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

...EDIT: Hay now that would be a study to see! 1 F-22A vs. as many of another fighter that could be purchased for its cost. :hmm:

Reminds me of a favorite joke, the punch line of which is, "It's a trick, General! There's two of 'em!"

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by DeepSix

Reminds me of a favorite joke, the punch line of which is, "It's a trick, General! There's two of 'em!"

Never heard that one. Care to recite it?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by TteFAboB

It seems you've given the enemy a wingman.

Real air forces (as in real life) use wingmen. It'd be stupid not to consider all the extra options a wingman gives you.

Then you added a 2nd echelon.

I added the 2nd echelon as a odds-improving option and a factor in real life - because real air defenses tend to have depth.

Besides, as a commander, if I can come up with tactics that can put my forces equal to a F-22 squadron with only a 2:1 (1st and 2nd echelon) numerical superiority, I'd be patting myself on my back.

And always consider the enemy to fire over half or all it's load, of course, since it's a big prize.

Depends, though expending your whole missile load ain't bad if you got the F-22. Besides, if you assume like SUBMAN1 that the plane's dead anyway - well, the weapons aren't doing any good hanging on a dead crashing plane, no?

The active weapons are optional. The passive weapons you definitely want. You want the anti-radiation weapons because it forces the American plane into a dilemma. If you force him to shut down his radar, you become a de facto stealth aircraft - he has no other sensor capable of seeing you except his eyes! You want the infrared homers too because IR suppression is not as efficient as radar suppression.

The ARHs are really supportive. Let's not get too optimistic about them managing to acquire the stealth aircraft. Still, the idea is to scare the F-22 into hitting burners to evade - which makes it easy for the IR to track.

So, how many weapons do you need? You don't want your attack decoyed by some stupid ALQ-50 towed Nixie, so you'd probably use two of each type of weapon. So that means at least 4, more like 6 weapons.

Now, I didn't knew the F-22 was desgined to take on 2 echelons alone flying solo. Thanks for pointing that out for me, I never knew the rare and expensive plane would be sent alone to knock down an entire enemy Air Force, the plane is quite impressive indeed then, isn't it?

It is definitely intended to fight outnumbered. At least I hope so, I'd hate to think that it costs as much as 10 other fighters and could be defeated with 4. If it can be defeated with one even semi-regularly, a purge of the USAF High Command is in order.

[DeepSix]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Never heard that one. Care to recite it?

Ok, but two disclaimers first. One, please excuse the fact that it's totally off topic. Two, "Yankees" might not like it (this can be corrected by making substitutions where appropriate). Alrighty then....

Sherman begins his famous "March to the Sea" and heads out of Atlanta. About the time he reaches Stone Mountain, a scout rides up and says that he's spotted a Reb up on the ridge. Sherman orders one of his best riflemen to go after him. After a while, when the man fails to return, he sends a team of skirmishers. Later still, when they fail to return, he sends a whole platoon. After several hours, one man, badly wounded, staggers back down and falls to the ground at Sherman's feet, gasping for air. "It's a trick, General!" he says. "There's two of 'em!"

Yeah, I know, it's not very funny (it's Lewis Grizzard's, not mine). But you asked. :P

Cheers

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by DeepSix

Ok, but two disclaimers first. One, please excuse the fact that it's totally off topic. Two, "Yankees" might not like it (this can be corrected by making substitutions where appropriate). Alrighty then....

Sherman begins his famous "March to the Sea" and heads out of Atlanta. About the time he reaches Stone Mountain, a scout rides up and says that he's spotted a Reb up on the ridge. Sherman orders one of his best riflemen to go after him. After a while, when the man fails to return, he sends a team of skirmishers. Later still, when they fail to return, he sends a whole platoon. After several hours, one man, badly wounded, staggers back down and falls to the ground at Sherman's feet, gasping for air. "It's a trick, General!" he says. "There's two of 'em!"

Yeah, I know, it's not very funny (it's Lewis Grizzard's, not mine). But you asked. :P

Cheers

hehe. I think I have heard that one before but I think it had to do with an Army ranger going aganst wave after wave of Marines... or maybe it was the other way around.

EDIT: Found them here:
http://www.military-quotes.com/jokes/index.htm

But my favorite has to be the one with the Navy Admiral, the Air Force, Army and Marine Generals on the repelling wall trying to figure out whose men are the bravest.
That one can be found here:
http://www.military-quotes.com/jokes...ry-jokes-2.htm (center of the page) incase you never heard it.

[DeepSix]

:rotfl: The marine disappearing in the cloud of grenade explosions - funny stereotypes all in that joke.

While on maneuvers, a colonel and his jeep driver got stuck along a muddy road. Two privates were lounging in the shade a few yards away. "You two - on your feet and come help free this vehicle."

"Sorry sir," said one of the grunts, suppressing a smile, "but we're dead. The umpire said we are not to take part in any more of the exercise."

"Sergeant," said the colonel to his driver, "go over there and get those two stiffs and throw them under the wheels so we can get some traction."

[sonar732]

Something else to think about is that these test pilots main job is to put the plane in "above and beyond" manuevers. The "average"...if there is an "average" fighter pilot won't be using these manuevers.

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by DeepSix

Ok, but two disclaimers first. One, please excuse the fact that it's totally off topic. Two, "Yankees" might not like it (this can be corrected by making substitutions where appropriate). Alrighty then....

Sherman begins his famous "March to the Sea" and heads out of Atlanta. About the time he reaches Stone Mountain, a scout rides up and says that he's spotted a Reb up on the ridge. Sherman orders one of his best riflemen to go after him. After a while, when the man fails to return, he sends a team of skirmishers. Later still, when they fail to return, he sends a whole platoon. After several hours, one man, badly wounded, staggers back down and falls to the ground at Sherman's feet, gasping for air. "It's a trick, General!" he says. "There's two of 'em!"

Yeah, I know, it's not very funny (it's Lewis Grizzard's, not mine). But you asked. :P

Cheers

This reminds me of another stupid joke that I somehow always remembered (don't know the source):
During the hight of the Battle of Britain a new CO takes over a depleted squadron. He goes to the mess to be introduced to the pilots but there's just a sergeant major and two pilots. The sergeant major salutes and tells the new CO: ""Sir, meet the pilots of squadron XXX, both of them!"