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Stealthy Super Hornets in the pipeline?


MaverickSawyer

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  crazyewok said:
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

Um, yeah there is a very lucrative reason to fix it: Money. More than anything, these contractors and developers are businesses, and if they make their plane out to be more effective than the competitor or a previous model, then more military forces and countries will by their design. Greed is one of the most potent driving forces in the world. You kind of already stated this, but your lack of grammar and punctuation made it a bit hard to make out. Sorry.

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  Seret said:
I used to be an armourer, a weapon specialist

My post will perhaps sound ironic, it is not (English is not my first language).

So can you answer some questions?

About BVR weapons in general, the question of IFF (identification friend or foe) still remain crucial. For every discution I had with military, human eye is both the more reliable and the most effective way of doing it, even in a guerilla war. Some of them were even saying that in case of a war against a competant army, it is very probable that BVR combat will just not happen, or beeing very rare, ie: the fog of war is almost as thick today as it was during WWII. What is your opinion?

Perhaps BVR missiles are better today, but so are countermeasures (flares, jamming, tactics, etc. Fire-and-forgotten) Your thoughts?

BVR missiles have yet to be used against competent air force. It is actually an unproved concept. (edit: unproved is a bit strong, but you get the idea)

And I don't think a gun is magic, but I do think it is necessary (and 3 to 4 seconds of ammunition is simply not enough).

Edited by H2O.
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I dont' think that stealth features will ever been implemented on an operative F-18.

Maybe minor updates to extend their life cycle could involve stealth technologies to reduce RCS (no,not that RCS),like the gun pod they've already tested, but I tink we'll never see a stealth Hornet on a carrier.

If Boeing is going to build one, I think it's for research.

Edited by PlonioFludrasco
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  H2O. said:

About BVR weapons in general, the question of IFF (identification friend or foe) still remain crucial. For every discution I had with military, human eye is both the more reliable and the most effective way of doing it, even in a guerilla war. Some of them were even saying that in case of a war against a competant army, it is very probable that BVR combat will just not happen, or beeing very rare, ie: the fog of war is almost as thick today as it was during WWII. What is your opinion?

A lot of the time it's going to depend on your Rules of Engagement (RoE). In anything less than a hot war it's possible that the RoE might demand a visual ID before engaging. However, in a full-on war where there's an exclusion zone that civilian traffic have been notified of then the failure to squawk the right code on IFF is enough to get shot at BVR. Certainly pretty much any RoE will allow you to defend yourself, even if you weren't allowed to shoot first. This kind of thing happens enforcing no-fly zones a fair bit. NATO shot down a few Iraqi aircraft at long range while enforcing their no-fly zone over the years, including at least one I know of that was purely because a MiG-23 locked up an F-16.

  Quote
Perhaps BVR missiles are better today, but so are countermeasures (flares, jamming, tactics, etc. Fire-and-forgotten) Your thoughts?

Sure, it's always an arms race between sensors and countermeasures.

  Quote
BVR missiles have yet to be used against competent air force. It is actually an unproved concept. (edit: unproved is a bit strong, but you get the idea)

The Israelis are very competent, and they've faced plenty. Don't forget that a lot of SAMs are modified versions of radar guided air-to-air missiles, and you wouldn't dispute their effectiveness.

  Quote
And I don't think a gun is magic, but I do think it is necessary (and 3 to 4 seconds of ammunition is simply not enough).

3-4 seconds is plenty for air-to-air work. That's enough for numerous bursts, and if you get lots of chances to shoot and can't finish it then both you and your enemy should consider other lines of work IMO. In a dogfight against a manoeuvring target your opportunities to shoot are only going to be a fraction of a second. If the enemy isn't manoeuvring then a good burst of a second or so will shred them, guaranteed. The gun may have a lot firepower, but 99.99% of the time it's dead weight, so throwing in vast amounts of ammo isn't a great idea.

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