Stealthy Super Hornets in the pipeline?

[Klingon Admiral]

Don't forget that the US Military is retiring the proven, sturdy and comperatively cheap A-10 Thunderbolt due to cost reasons rather sooner than later. The cash-burning F-35, on the other hand, will be further developed.

With a projected cost of about 860 billion USD ver it's entire lifetime, thats an ISS and a half, right there.

[Nibb31]

The A-10 is a tank killer designed to get up close and personal. Most of what it does can be done with drones or smart bombs without risking getting too close.

Similarly, they announced today the retirement of the U-2. It will also be replaced with drones.

[H2O.]

The A-10 is a tank killer designed to get up close and personal. Most of what it does can be done with drones or smart bombs without risking getting too close.

Drones have proved themselves inefficient in every battlefields they were deployed in. "Smart" bombs are still very imprecises (the number of civilian killed by tons of dropped bombs is very comparable today as it was during WWII).

There is no A-10 replacement in the pipes.

The whole "stealth" thing is a myth. Why?

In order to be fully stealth, a plane should be:

_invisible to radars

_invisible to infrared detectors (i.e.: it should be cold)

_silent

_invisible (i.e.: very small and no smoke)

The F-35 is trying to be be invisible to radars. But it succeed at it only from the front. indeed, so-called stealth-aircraft are not 360° stealth. And none are stealth from the rear.

Beeing infrared invisible is simply impossible (as for a propulsed plane it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamic).

The F-35 is one of the loudest aircraft in the world.

It is not small at all (very fat cross-section). I have no informations on the smoke it generate.

There are other problems, like the fact that WWII radars can detect stealth aircraft (but not with precision), and the fact that stealth surfaces are a nightmare to maintain.

Conclusion : stealth is pure propaganda, and it is sucking every penny of a lot of western air forces.

Edited February 25, 2014 by H2O.

[Nibb31]

Drones have proved themselves inefficient in every battlefields they were deployed in. "Smart" bombs are still very imprecises (the number of civilian killed by tons of dropped bombs is very comparable today as it was during WWII).

That is absolute rubbish. The bombing of the single city of Dresden in 1945 killed 25000 people.

The truth is that there are no longer "battlefields" in the sense of WWII. The only sort of conflicts that industrialized nations are confronted with these days are strongly assymetrical. There is very little chance of ever entering an all-out conventional conflict between superpowers because everybody has too much to lose and because it would necessarily escalate rapidly into a nuclear exchange.

When was the last true dogfight between two fighter jets? When was the last tank vs. tank battle ?

Of course, it's probably not a great idea to completely give up on combat aircraft development, but it simply doesn't make sense for most industrialized countries to spend billions on maintaining hundreds of last generation fighter jets when the only potential conflicts will involve fighting folks with RPGs and AK-47s.

[Albert VDS]

The whole "stealth" thing is a myth. Why?

In order to be fully stealth, a plane should be:

_invisible to radars

_invisible to infrared detectors (i.e.: it should be cold)

_silent

_invisible (i.e.: very small and no smoke)

There is a difference between stealth and invisible, you are describing invisible.

Stealth is a way of being difficult to detect, not impossible but difficult.

If a plane makes people go "I thought I saw something on the radar" and "What is that sound I hear above me" then it's stealth.

If it makes people go "Where did that bomb come from?" then it's invisible.

[H2O.]

That is absolute rubbish. The bombing of the single city of Dresden in 1945 killed 25000 people.

Unfortunately, I'm factually right (numbers from wikipedia, in different languages in order to find the most relevant ones)

WWII

2,770,540 tons of bombs (allied bombing on Europe theatre only)

400,000 civilians casualties

->0.14 civilian per ton

Irak (1991)

88,000 tons of bombs

3,000 civilians casualties

->0.034 civilian per ton

Yugoslavia (1999)

6,303 tons of bombs

1,400 civilians casualties

->0.22 civilian per ton

Irak (2003)

4,600 tons of bombs

650 civilian casualties.

->0.14 civilian per ton

Strategic bombing, as theorized by Douhet, is both costly and totally useless.

What is interresting in those numbers is to compare the 1991 Irak campaign with the 2003 campaign. While the 1991 campaign was mostly done by "dumb" bombs, they killed far less civilians per ton than the 2003 campaign in wich "smart" bombs account for more than 90% of the total used.

If a plane makes people go "I thought I saw something on the radar" and "What is that sound I hear above me" then it's stealth.

I agree with you, but F-35 and F-22 are marketed as being invisible. This is not the case, and since infrared detectors and large-band frequency radars are making huge progress (especially in Europe and in Russia), stealth is not possible either.

Edited February 25, 2014 by H2O.

[Klingon Admiral]

Concentrated bombing on civilian targets should have been declared a war crime decades ago. Just sayin'.

[H2O.]

Concentrated bombing on civilian targets should have been declared a war crime decades ago. Just sayin'.

That is very true.

If you add the fact that is is useless (no country ever surrender due to strategic bombing, and yes I am including nuclear bombing of Japan in it) it is more than a war crime, it is a crime against humanity.

[SFJackBauer]

Yup. Just looking at spec sheets and determining "this is best" is useless. Even more useless is "I like this one better because it looks nicer" which is extremely common as well.

Real battles are won in the supply chain, not the pilot seat.

You can have the best tank or aircraft on paper, the best trained pilots or tankers, but if they don't have bullets, fuel, and coffee they're not going anywhere.

Or that fantastic looking piece of gear turns out to be a lemon. Like the German Panther tank, which was just extremely unreliable under combat conditions.

Or you can only build so few of them that they're swarmed by cheaper models of the enemy that on paper are far inferior (and in a one on one indeed are), like the Tiger. And that's what'll happen if the F-22 ever has to go into combat against the Su-33 (for example). They'll shoot down 4 of those each, be out of missiles, and the other 20 up there for every F-22 will probably blot them out of the sky like so many gnats.

Except nobody before talked about winning a war, but only a scenario of 1v1 or 2v2 where you don't have the unnecessary burden of calculating all the variables you listed above to compare the machines performance.

Of course it is assuming the AF has trained properly its pilots, that they are well fed, supplied, had a good night of sleep and all the other basic necessities that any modern AF of any large enough country have access to.

Otherwise it's not possible to baseline the aircraft... Or would you say that the A6M Zero maneuverability and range was a factor of pilot training? It was a design of the aircraft, and the pilot training or what he ate last night is completely irrelevant when you analyze this fact alone. By the same principle you can compare an hypothetical engagement between a 4th and a 5th gen fighter and based on its design factors conclude which one has a greater potential of killl / survivability.

[DaveofDefeat]

Also, unless you have AWACS, your going to have your radar on, no fighter pilot is going to fly blind.

[H2O.]

Of course it is assuming the AF has trained properly its pilots, that they are well fed, supplied, had a good night of sleep and all the other basic necessities that any modern AF of any large enough country have access to.

That is true, but you need to design your machines in order to reach that goal.

How to ? Build simple, reliable and cheap.

You need to train your pilots, so your airplane have to flight all the time. It is not an objective that the F-35 could fulfill (due to extreme complexity induce by thrust vectoring, stealth surfaces and over-reliance on software). So the F-35 pilots will be inferior to their ennemies, and pilots are always more important that machines.

An F-35 can achieve a sortie every couple of days, a Rafale can ahieve 2 sorties per day, and a A-10 can achieve 3 sorties per day.

So you need 6 times more plane to achieve A-10 missions (i.e.: close support ; and that is only if we consider that those airplanes have the same capabilities, which is optimistic to say the least) and 4 times more airplanes to achieve Rafale missions (air-superiority, and then again the F-35 will not be a great fighter). The fixed costs of your air-force will be so high that you will need to save on the number of airplane. And that is how wunderwaffen always end up destroying capabilities.

Also, unless you have AWACS, your going to have your radar on, no fighter pilot is going to fly blind.

Nobody is having a radar on those days, because if you turn it on, you are dead. Passive radars and sensors and pilot eyes are the way to detect other airplanes.

[Seret]

The truth is that there are no longer "battlefields" in the sense of WWII. The only sort of conflicts that industrialized nations are confronted with these days are strongly assymetrical.

Well, the western nations have been fighting some asymmetrical fights lately, but that doesn't make it a rule. Even for the western nations conventional wars against unexpected opponents do pop up (Falklands, 1st Gulf War).

When was the last true dogfight between two fighter jets? When was the last tank vs. tank battle ?

It can and does happen whenever two well-equipped nations fight. The largest tank battle in history? The first Gulf War. The most recent war involving both tank battles and air-to-air (even some naval) would probably have been Ossetia in 2008.

it simply doesn't make sense for most industrialized countries to spend billions on maintaining hundreds of last generation fighter jets when the only potential conflicts will involve fighting folks with RPGs and AK-47s.

It simply doesn't make sense for them to ignore aerial warfare either. It's the decisive arm in several types of warfare (deserts, naval) and is crucial in every other type of conventional war. Even in guerilla warfare the price of drones has fallen through the floor, without air superiority you're handing your enemy the opportunity to do aerial recce against you. Dominance of the air is still extremely useful in low-intensity fights.

Besides, just because your last war was brushfire, doesn't mean your next will be. Tooling up to fight the previous war is a classic mistake.

Also, unless you have AWACS, your going to have your radar on, no fighter pilot is going to fly blind.

Fighters almost always have some kind of friendly radar backup (AEW, ground, naval) but even when they don't you might be surprised how often they operate with the radar off. There are passive sensors you can use (ESM/RWR, IRST, Mk1 eyeball) and tactically it's often wiser to stay quiet. You can be spotted from a long way off if you've got your radar on, so if you don't want to give everyone your position you'll leave it off.

If they were doing something aggressive like a fighter sweep or a barrier patrol then you're quite right, they'd light up. Sometimes you want to be sneaky, sometimes you just want to go noisy and tear around smashing stuff up.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Seret

[Seret]

So the F-35 pilots will be inferior to their ennemies

I wouldn't go that far. Many of the air forces and navies that want to operate the F-35 have pretty competent aircrew. Even if they were struggling to keep their hours up they'd still have their act together better than most opponents.

An F-35 can achieve a sortie every couple of days, a Rafale can ahieve 2 sorties per day, and a A-10 can achieve 3 sorties per day.

It's not even operational, it's too early to say what sort of sortie rates it will achieve.

[H2O.]

I wouldn't go that far. Many of the air forces and navies that want to operate the F-35 have pretty competent aircrew. Even if they were struggling to keep their hours up they'd still have their act together better than most opponents.

I agree with you, the current western and russian air superiority is due to competent aircrew and ground logistic people. But I rather take the case of a fight against a competent air force, it is safer.

And my point was: aircrew are competent for a reason: they fly very often; if the machine don't allow that anymore, their competences will drop.

It's not even operational, it's too early to say what sort of sortie rates it will achieve.

I am basing the "An F-35 can achieve a sortie every couple of days" on sorties rate of existing stealth airplanes sorties capabilities. Since 30 years those airplanes have never achieve anything close to the rate of so-called "legacy" airplanes, my number is already very optimistic.

But you have a point, the F-35 is not operationnal yet, so it is speculation.

On the other hand, I have yet to see a complicate machine being more available than a simpler one.

[Red Iron Crown]

If you add the fact that is is useless (no country ever surrender due to strategic bombing, and yes I am including nuclear bombing of Japan in it) it is more than a war crime, it is a crime against humanity.

I'm not defending strategic bombing against civilians, but how do you figure that the nuclear bombing of Japan didn't hasten their surrender?

[Seret]

On the other hand, I have yet to see a complicate machine being more available than a simpler one.

Sure, but what else are you going to do? All the options for replacing an old fleet have drawbacks. You either keep thrashing your clapped out old fleet, or you choose a similar type to your previous one and risk getting leapfrogged technologically or you accept a more complicated aircraft that you buy fewer of and is more complex.

The equation is going to be different for different countries with different levels of threat and budgets. I actually quite like the idea of a stealthy version of a proven type like the Hornet, I think there would be loads of countries that it would suit. Countries like Australia that can afford a reasonably modern type, already operate F/A-18s and for whom F-22s and F-35s are probably excessive would have been interested I'm sure.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Seret

[H2O.]

I'm not defending strategic bombing against civilians, but how do you figure that the nuclear bombing of Japan didn't hasten their surrender?

nuclear deterrence

In a nutshell: the Russians war declaration on Japan was the real cause. The Japanese were looking for peace since 1942-1943 and hoped that Russia would back up Japan in peace negociations with USA. The Manchuria campaign made that impossible.

...

There are options.

Since primary factors of success in the sky are pilots skills and numerical advantage, we should use our technology to make the most reliable airplane possible. Imagine a plane that fly all the time, and I mean all the time : it take-off, fly is mission, land, refuel, exchange pilot and take-off again. A fleet of such airplanes will maintain constant presence in the sky and will have extremely capable pilots.

But in order to achieve that we should ditch whatever is not necessary and/or too hard to maintain : stealth, radar, beyond visual range missiles, thrust vectoring etc. And improve what is really usefull: gun ammunition, short-range missiles, passive sensors, canard, etc. (on this topic it should be noted that the B and C version of the F-35 don't even have a gun, and yes: it is crazy).

Such a plane would do very well for a fraction of the cost of a F-22 or a F-35, therefore will achieve huge numerical superiority even against Russia and China.

And you could use the spare money for schools, not for machines that kill people.

Edited February 26, 2014 by H2O.

[Red Iron Crown]

nuclear deterrence

In a nutshell: the Russians war declaration on Japan was the real cause. The Japanese were looking for peace since 1942-1943 and hoped that Russia would back up Japan in peace negociations with USA. The Manchuria campaign made that impossible.

That article is revisionist nonsense when it comes to WW2. While it makes some good points about nuclear deterrence being a poor strategy, Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't deterrence, they were actual strikes. The Soviets weren't any real threat to Japan's home islands, they lacked the transport capacity to effectively invade amphibiously. The Japanese didn't exactly have a track record of surrendering even when it was the only sensible option; see the island hopping campaign where garrisons occasionally fought to the last man and Japanese POWs were rare. The Japanese leaders even admitted that the prospect of further nuclear strikes was a critical factor in their decision to surrender, but the author handwaves that away.

Whether the strikes were justified or not, moral or not, necessary or not, is definitely debatable. But it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to contort into a position where the strikes were ineffective and had no influence on the Japanese surrender.

[H2O.]

But it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to contort into a position where the strikes were ineffective and had no influence on the Japanese surrender.

I never stated that those bombs did not have an effect, I said they were not the cause, which is really different.

The Japanese didn't exactly have a track record of surrendering even when it was the only sensible option

That does not contradict anything I said : I said that the Japanese were looking for peace since 1942-1943 (an opinion that is shared by John Toland in his Hitler biography and in his book: The Rising Sun) not looking for surrender (certainly not).

Every hope for negociation ended with the Russian campaign.

The Japanese leaders even admitted that the prospect of further nuclear strikes was a critical factor in their decision to surrender, but the author handwaves that away.

Fair point, however it assumes that leaders always give the real reasons for their defeat, which is dubious at best.

A lot of Americans high commanders were convince that those strikes where useless : Eisenhower (you can read The White House Years), McArthur, etc. (http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http://www.doug-long.com/ga1.htm&title=Decision%3A%20Part%20I)

In any case, this topic is turning into politic so if you want to keep talking about strategic bombing of Japan, you can PM me, I'de be glad to.

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm inclined to let it drop, as it's definitely off-topic. Plus I think it boils down to what was in the Japanese leaders' heads, which I don't think is conclusively provable one way or the other. Let's just agree to have differing opinions.

[Seret]

Imagine a plane that fly all the time, and I mean all the time : it take-off, fly is mission, land, refuel, exchange pilot and take-off again. A fleet of such airplanes will maintain constant presence in the sky and will have extremely capable pilots.

Practising hot swaps (ie: refuel, rearm and new pilot without shutting the engine off) is routine for operational squadrons, the ability to fly back-to-back sorties is something every aircraft can do. If you're suggesting that an aircraft could be designed that would do this normally during peacetime, then you're barking up the wrong tree. Commercial airliners (for which time on the ground is money lost) don't even spend half their time in the air. Military aircraft are thrashed much harder, so need more maintenance. In short: cannot be done.

But in order to achieve that we should ditch whatever is not necessary and/or too hard to maintain : stealth, radar, beyond visual range missiles, thrust vectoring etc.

Lol, how is radar either unnecessary or too hard to maintain?

And improve what is really usefull: gun ammunition, short-range missiles, passive sensors, canard, etc

As much as pilots love the gun, it isn't used a great deal. Passive sensors are already pretty good, there is a limit to how good you can get IRST for example, as it's main limits are already things like atmospheric conditions that you can't really do much about. Short range missiles are useful at short range, but they're just ballast if you find yourself in a BVR fight. Lacking long-range weapons limits the strategic and tactical usefulness of an aircraft.

Basically what you're sugesting is a 1950s-era fighter. Or maybe something like a Hawk 100 (small, simple, manoeuvrable, no radar, 30mm gun and a couple of IR missiles). It should be noted that even the Hawk variant that is sold as cheap and dirty fighter (Hawk 200) does have a radar, and there's a reason for that. Radar is actually very useful in a dogfight. It's the radar that gives the weapons system accurate target information so that it can generate HUD symbology. Without the radar on you're limited to a very basic lead-computed optical sight for gunnery, which is far less accurate (it's essentially what WW2 pilots had). Radar is also used to expand the useful envelope of your IR missiles. Without radar your missiles are limited to targets on-boresight. Early models of missiles like the Sidewinder had exactly this limitation, and it was one of the main reasons they sucked. It turns out the enemy is often reluctant to placidly sit right on your nose for you. Many were fired to no effect.

I get what you're trying to advocate: next-gen fighters have too much "gold-plating" and take too long to develop. But the answer to that is not to turn the clock back 50 years. Aircraft like the Gripen are good examples of a modern well-armed, well-designed, multirole that don't cost the Earth. It's designed to operate from rough fields, and be maintained by conscripts. It has a good radar, it's datalinked, lots of good weapons (soon to include the new Meteor ramjet BVR missile) and the sticker price is pretty reasonable. The only reason it hasn't done better in the export market is that the arms market is unbelievably crooked.

[H2O.]

Commercial airliners (for which time on the ground is money lost) don't even spend half their time in the air. [...]In short: cannot be done.

Granted, all the time is not possible. But having modern airplane not beeing able to fly more often than WWII or Vietnam era airplanes is a problem, don't you think ?

Lol, how is radar either unnecessary or too hard to maintain?

I am all for AESA radars actually. I meant to write radar-guided missiles (don't know why I did not write everything).

As much as pilots love the gun, it isn't used a great deal. Passive sensors are already pretty good, there is a limit to how good you can get IRST for example, as it's main limits are already things like atmospheric conditions that you can't really do much about. Short range missiles are useful at short range, but they're just ballast if you find yourself in a BVR fight. Lacking long-range weapons limits the strategic and tactical usefulness of an aircraft.

Yes, but using radar in an active mode is very dangerous against a competent army, because it reveals were you are.

BVR missiles are overrated, they only work if the target is not aware that a missile is coming and if the pilot fly in a straight line. And even then, they miss very often. And they are BVR only at high altitude. You can divide their range by four if you fly at less than 2,000 feets.

And even if short-range missiles are efficient, they need several seconds to lock. A gun don't need that. For every discussion I had with fighters pilots, they were all saying the same thing : "against a good pilot, gun come first and short-range missiles can work from time to time".

I get what you're trying to advocate: next-gen fighters have too much "gold-plating" and take too long to develop.

Basically yes, I think that defense compagnies (like Lockheed Martin, EADS and Dassault) are sucking a lot of money of the taxpayer for over-engeeniered swiss army knifes that looks good on air-show.

I think our armies can have better machines for far less money.

Aircraft like the Gripen are good examples of a modern well-armed, well-designed, multirole that don't cost the Earth. It's designed to operate from rough fields, and be maintained by conscripts. It has a good radar, it's datalinked, lots of good weapons (soon to include the new Meteor ramjet BVR missile) and the sticker price is pretty reasonable. The only reason it hasn't done better in the export market is that the arms market is unbelievably crooked.

The Grippen is in fact what I consider the best bargain for any air force right now. It's combat radius is not impressive though.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think a large war is really probable and I even consider myself as a pacifist.

[Pondafarr]

One of my concerns is that as the cost of cutting edge weaponry goes up, the risk of using it goes up as well. When you can field 5 F-16C/D's (19mil each) or 3 F-18 E's (67 mil each) for the cost of ONE F-35 (200mil each), there is a serious problem.

During Allied Force, we flew B-2 Spirits from Whiteman AFB to Kosovo for a 30 hour round trip hitting up to 16 targets per mission, because it was "too risky" to base them in a forward location closer to the fight. Not to mention the 10 tankers for the air-refuels, dozen or so F-15's and F-16s for air-cover and ground suppression, AWACS and Prowler support. The old B-52 did the SAME job from RAF Fairford with half the support. Oh, and it only cost 53 million

[Seret]

Yes, but using radar in an active mode is very dangerous against a competent army, because it reveals were you are.

Indeed. That's not a good reason not to have one though.

BVR missiles are overrated, they only work if the target is not aware that a missile is coming and if the pilot fly in a straight line.

Cobblers. I used to be an armourer, a weapon specialist. I know a thing or two about aircraft weapons. They can hit manoeuvring targets, it's what they're designed to do. Some of the early ones were almost useless (eg: early models of the AIM-7, AIM-54s fired at anything smaller than a 747) but modern ones are very effective.

And even then, they miss very often.

So do short-range missiles. So do guns. Nothing hits all the time. That's just life.

And they are BVR only at high altitude. You can divide their range by four if you fly at less than 2,000 feets.

I question that number, but a quarter of 100km is still 25km ie: outside the range of anything else.

Everything is more sluggish at low altitude. Your target won't be moving as fast either, which means he has less chance of escaping the missile. Anyway, at under 2000ft you're not likely to be in a BVR engagement, if you're down in the mud you're looking at bouncing or being bounced. Fighters looking to mix it up operate way up high.

And even if short-range missiles are efficient, they need several seconds to lock.

Not really. As I mentioned above the radar will slave the seeker onto the target and it'll get a tone straight away. It could be off the rail PDQ.

A gun don't need that. For every discussion I had with fighters pilots, they were all saying the same thing : "against a good pilot, gun come first and short-range missiles can work from time to time".

Fighter pilots lurve the gun, because it's noisy, angry and you can only use it effectively if you've outflown the other guy. The gun is difficult to get kills with, it has short range and you have to point your aircraft at exactly the right patch of sky. The like the gun because it's hard to use effectively, so getting a kill with one shows skill. Once you're in a turning fight you're probably close enough to use the gun, and the dogfighting mode on every type I've seen enables guns and IR missiles simultaneously. In reality pilots will use both, if they can get a lock with an IR missile on a dangerous enemy they'll bloody well use it instead of fannying about trying to turn it into a guns kill. Having said that there have been cases reported where pilots have declined missile shots and closed to use guns (eg: Six Day War) due to how badly their opponents were outclassed but it's only reported on because it's so unusual. War is generally pretty unforgiving to those who pass up an opportunity to stomp the other guy.

[crazyewok]

having some experience in how those "trials" are choreographed, I'm not surprised.

They're engineered to yield a politically desirable result, and Typhoon beating the living crap out of the US's vaunted Join Strike Fighter isn't going to go down well with the political leaders.

Same happened with the F-23/F-22 flyoff. It had been decided in Washington that the F-22 would be the winner, so the tests were tweaked to ensure there'd be no chance for the F-23 to prove its superiority.

For example a main factor in the decision to buy the F-22 had been that the F-23 had not demonstrated life fire capabilities. What was glossed over was that the F-23 had never been scheduled to fire life weapons by the Air Force project office in order to save some money (after all, the same systems were used in both aircraft so only one needed to be used to test if they worked...).

Seeing as the F-35 isnt a USA only craft and countrys that own the typhoon and who take part in tests like red flag are not just buying or considering buying the F-35 but also like the UK are developing it with the US there no reason why you would fix the results! In fact as they are competing on the market with typhoon they will want to make it look as good as possible to sell more and convince countrys sitting om the fence to give and buy the F-35