124 replies to this topic

[Anjian]

More feasible than mechs are powered armor designs.

Masamune Shirow's Landmates from his Appleseed series. Originally on Appleseed, the term Landmate is also used by fans to refer to similar creations in Shirow's other series, like Ghost in the Shell.



Overwatch DVA is a good tribute to the Landmate designs.

Edited by Anjian, 16 February 2017 - 07:45 AM.

[SmokedJag]

Karl Streiger, on 16 February 2017 - 06:41 AM, said:

Aircrafts? Aircrafts would be flying coffins with adequate laser weapons. they pop over the horizon - and get zapped.

If you have BT magic tech, sure. And you're right back to the beginning of this thread where BT 'Mechs work better than they ever would subject to real limitations. The reactor, energy weapons and heat dissipation are all Sufficiently Advanced Technology.

[Anjian]

Powered suits from All You Need is Kill. This Japanese manga never had an anime adaptation, but went straight into Hollywood adaptation as The Edge of Tomorrow.

[Karl Streiger]

SmokedJag, on 16 February 2017 - 07:39 AM, said:

If you have BT magic tech, sure. And you're right back to the beginning of this thread where BT 'Mechs work better than they ever would subject to real limitations. The reactor, energy weapons and heat dissipation are all Sufficiently Advanced Technology.

Laser isn't magic tech - there are some limitation at least when used in atmosphere but usually this goes in both directions.
And the Mech could have the advantage of better cooling - duno exactly but radiators should work better in thicker atmosphere.
So your 20% light and 80% heat might be better dissipated by a mech. Radiation area is also some limiation were a mech might be better - in comparison with a tank.

and ground preasure - considering the "MWO" Mech models the ground pressure of the Atlas isn't much bigger as those of a M1A2

Of course its strange to compare mechs and "reality" considering the "celling height" of a Gauss Slug of 40km with > 120km range

Edited by Karl Streiger, 16 February 2017 - 08:30 AM.

[Zergling]

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Honestly, such a missile would be easy to build off of existing platforms, specifically the MIM-104. It's already halfway there, what with the missile already being capable of utilizing TVM guidance, and the AN/MPQ-53 and -65 radar units being pretty much exactly the phased array guidance units I had in mind. Since it has active radar, you can use that to feed information back to the launch platform, which acts as a second point of reference on the target as the missile closes in, increasing the precision of the tracking. Plus, stealth isn't perfect, and if either the launcher or missile is coming in from a high-exposure angle, the launch platform effectively gets a larger target to track with said missile feedback system. Once you close within a certain range, you can have an IR seeker activate terminal guidance phase and track the aircraft via heat signature. If it's using the original 90kg HEF warhead, it'll make a mess of things, but most of that mess will probably be shredded parts from whatever plane you just fired at.

If you wanted to be an über-d*ck about it though, you could just replace the warhead package, not bother with adding IR tracking to the primary missile, and instead use it as a carrier for a cluster of whatever short-range all aspect IR AAM tickles your fancy. Personally, I'd use a smaller, cut-down version of a RIM-116, because you could pack more of them tighter in the bay what with their lack of stabilizers.

Although if we go to the realm of absolute cutting-edge, optical tracking is an option. You can slap on all the fancy radar absorbing paint you want, but a pair of Mk-1 Eyeballs will still see that thing clear as day... As will digital eyes, as it were. IIRC, there's a few DARPA projects working on munitions utilizing optical tracking, wherein the munition can "see" the target, compare it to an uploaded image or model, and then decide if that's the target or not. It'd be impossible to defend against unless using an APS to destroy it, since standard countermeasures would now be useless.

Yeah, I forsee anti-aircraft missiles and air-defenses evolving considerably in the next few decades; the push towards low-wavelength radars (not just in Russia either; the West is doing the same) is one indication that is already happening.

As another example of improved missiles is the NCADE; it is basically the AIM-120 developed into a limited anti-ballistic missile.
The interesting part is that it is a two-stage missile; such staging technologies could be used to deliver a small and highly agile IR guided missile close to an enemy aircraft, while also having the benefit of long launch range that an AIM-120 type missile has.


Defenses, stealth and countermeasures are likely to evolve in response to developments like those too; aircraft could be fitted with systems to cool their engine exhaust (I believe the B-2 Spirit had or has such a system), and if the USA manages to mount some sort of laser weapon on tactical aircraft, I'd see that being used as a point defense system to shoot down incoming missiles.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

As for the combat history, Su-22's and MiG-39's are fighter bombers. Not really... competitive, if you get my drift.

Well, MiG-21, 23s, 25s and 29s are primarily air superiority fighters.

The 21s, 23s and 25s were definitely out-dated by the 1980s when most of those were shot down, nevermind in the 1990s against AIM-120 equipped F-16s.

The MiG-29s were export models; the Iraqi versions were in pretty bad condition in the 1991 Gulf War, and I believe the Yugoslavian planes weren't much better, although the Yugoslavian pilots were likely better quality than the Iraqi.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

The 109 had several key advantage against each of the aircraft you mentioned. Until the J/K/L variants, a 109 could simply kek its way up to altitude and watch as the P-38 sputtered out and practically died by 6km. Allisons sucked like that in Europe, but they were great for the Pacific.

The problem wasn't just unreliable engines and cooling on the earlier P-38s, but the European P-38 pilots were mostly novices with poor training on multi-engine aircraft.

Here's an article that discusses it; while that site has a rather strong 'F-35 sucks, F-22 rules' bias, it doesn't affect that article.

Surprising thing about the P-38 though; it could actually out-turn the Bf 109 at low speeds, even the earlier versions without combat flaps could do it.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

As for the P-47, the 109 could readily leverage vertical maneuvers against it; in fact, pulling straight up was a common method used by 109 pilots to evade 47's. The Jugs were just too fat to keep up, and the 109 could loop over, hook around, and engage it at will. Later 47's like the N/M were better with the paddle blades, but still couldn't keep up with the likes of the 109G's or K's in the vertical...

Yeah, any sort of sustained vertical fight would see the lighter plane win; the P-47s beat 109s by engaging with an energy advantage, then zooming away either into a climb that made use of their energy, or used their insane dive rate to simply leave them in the dust.

The P-47 gained the paddle props around the D-22 variant though, in early 1944, but by that point the USAAF had already re-equipped many fighter groups with the P-51.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

And as for P-51's? Yep, the 109's could outmaneuver them, though the 51's held a control advantage at high speeds. At the same time, the 109 could also leverage its marginally superior vertical performance against 51's, especially if they could get the pilot to bleed speed, a resource the Mustang wasn't all that great at reacquiring. Not to say they were sluggish, but they were far heavier than the 109 and a clean airframe only counts for so much.

Yeah, the P-51 was quite similar to the P-47 in tactics it used, it just had bit more lee-way in turning ability.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Now for the 190's... That's a different story. If you're talking Doras, then yes, the 190D was vastly superior to any 109's beside the K's and late-G's at altitude. The A's and F's were brutal low to medium alt fighters due to their powerful radials and hefty weight, they could throw their bulk around well and it showed. But at altitude? No radial 190 could match a 109, they just weren't built for it.

It's funny though, the Germans felt the 190 was better on the Eastern Front, while the Soviets felt the 109 was better. Mainly came down to pilot preference though, Soviet pilots weren't particularly fond of heavy aircraft like the 190, while the Germans enjoyed the energy fighting advantages the 190 afforded them.

Interesting thing about the Fw 190Ds; the allied evaluation of them rated them as inferior to the radial engined A/F/Gs, due to heavier control forces at high speeds and inferior roll rate.

They basically felt like the plane had given up everything that made it special in exchange for improved high altitude performance.

I'm a bit of a radial engined Fw 190 fanboy though, so I might be a bit biased in any discussion involving the merits of that plane

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Interesting. Makes sense if it's true, only a crazy engineer would set the max G rating at theactualmax G rating of the frame.

Yeah, although high G forces drastically reduce the lifespan of the airframe, and the higher the Gs get the worse the structural wear and tear becomes.

I've heard that pushing 10Gs automatically requires a maintenance inspection, but I don't know how true that is.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Hmmm. I still don't like it, but it's impressive if what you say about its AoA capabilities are true. Hitting 110* is incredible, let alone being able to maintain control at such a high angle... Certainly be interesting to see what it can do against an F-16 and F-22. It has been a while since I've seen news on the F-35 though, has it seen trials against anything yet? Or are they still trying to work out all the horrible bugs in the design and software?

IIRC, the plane has limited combat capability so far; it can probably drop JDAMs, but not much else.
More is to come with new software versions, which has been progressing slowly but it will get there eventually.


The article that said 110 degrees achieved in testing is behind a paywall, but here's a link where someone quoted the article in full.
It doesn't say how controllable the plane was at that AoA, but just reaching it is an achievement for a plane without canards or thrust-vectoring.

Also interesting that the plane was recovering from spins so well that they removed the spin chutes from their tests.
And the article mentions that the wing drop problem has been determined to be of such minor effect to not need any fixing.


There is also this Norweigian pilot's evaluation of the plane from early 2016.
http://www.defensene...eport/81170580/
https://theaviationi...t-hand-account/

There was this article by Seapower Magazine where an adversary pilot described the F-35B as 'Raptorish', similar to that of the F-22A.
The links to the article are 404ing, so it might be a dead source, but here's a link to their facebook site with the summary: https://www.facebook...?type=3

And in recent news, F-35s participated in Red Flag exercises, performing well with a claimed 15 to 1 kill ratio, and more importantly, no avionics software problems.


I used to be a F-35 hater, but after realising the sources I was getting information from were a bit on the biased side I started taking a more critical look for better information, and it looks as though in the last 2-3 years, the F-35 program is getting past its worst problems.

The plane is by no means perfect, and the program is still deserving of criticism for inefficiencies (and the stupidity of designing a single plane to fill 3 radically different roles), but it does seem to be coming together now and it probably will be an excellent plane.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

This is true.

As for the AIM-120, an interesting and important piece of information not readily available. It's a pretty smart design choice honestly, especially for a BVR missile. Thank you for pointing that out.

To be fair, there are countermeasures already out there for such home-on-jam systems, such as towed jammer arrays.

These aren't perfect, as there is still a possibility of the plane being damaged by the missile's blast-fragmentation warhead, and the plane is going to lose a jammer that costs millions of dollars (although that is still better than a $100 million+ plane and pilot).

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

AMAP testing has shown it able to detect and, hilariously enough, reject 7.62mm projectiles as threats. Now you do have a point about them not being able to fully deflect an APFSDS penetrator though, something that can only be done by far more powerful versions meant for actual heavy armor. The light versions certainly can't, as they're meant more for anti-missile duty than anti-KEP.

I'll need to find more info, but IIRC Iron Fist is effective against both missile and KEP threats. Given their success with the Iron Curtain system, I'm inclined to believe them.

It'll certainly be interesting if APS does end up being an effective APFSDS countermeasure, as then heavy armor might end up being obsolete.

Vehicle weights would drop drastically, allowing for much more mobility (both tactical and strategic) than existing MBTs.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

If I could collate, cite, and source information from memory, I would. Seriously, that would be awesome.

Sorry, I thought you were one of the 'Russia stronk!' fanboys that are all over the place that only listen to sources like those.

You have admitted you were mistaken on a number of points, and so proven you are actually a reasonable human being (ugh, I hate fanboys of any type), so I offer my apologies.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Yeah, giving it a further look the R-27 is atrocious. If it had a wider tracking window it might not suck, but the thing performs like an AIM-7 all right... An old, crappy, Pre-M variant AIM-7.

Must have mixed it up with the R-73... Really should brush up on these things beforehand.

I would have said equal to AIM-7M, but given the R-27 was introduced at about the same time as the AIM-7M (1982), and Soviet electronics were generally inferior to Western stuff throughout the Cold War due to a less developed microprocessor industry, it certainly could be slightly inferior, assuming there hasn't been any updates to the seeker technology since the missiles entered service.

To be fair, the Eritean-Ethiopian war was closer in technological and pilot quality parity than the 1991 Gulf War or just about any other modern air conflict involving Western aircraft... but that is still an awful performance.
It makes me suspect the pilots could have just been firing their R-27s to force their opponents to use up energy and fuel evading them, allowing them to later score the kill with WVR missiles.


As for the R-73, that is a deadly AAM. In the 1980s, those missiles would have given the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces a distinct advantage in WVR combat.

The West has caught up since, with missiles like the AIM-9X, IRIS-T and Python 5, and although Russia has continued to develop the R-73, it is unlikely anybody has an advantage there anymore.


Interestingly, the British ASRAAM, while apparently inferior to the AIM-9X and IRIS-T in agility, has much longer range than other IR guided missiles (as much as 50 km has been claimed) and lock-on-after launch capability.
If that missile has datalinks, it could function well in concert with long-wavelength radar to shoot down stealth aircraft.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Perhaps, but the military being what it is, obviously the smart choice was the last choice. So we now have F-22's sitting at 150 million USD per unit, and it doesn't look to be changing any time soon (unfortunately).

The USAF is pretty much screwed if the F-35 isn't capable of at least holding its own in air combat, as only 120 of the 187 F-22As are combat coded.

Even if they were all combat coded, that still wouldn't be enough aircraft to claim air superiority.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

However, I'd argue that the point of the ECM isn't to hide you, but to force a WVR engagement. At that point both your stealth systems are moot and the clusterf**k has begun. Though reading on the F-22's radar I'm actually very impressed by exactly how advanced the electronics are on that thing. I'm beginning to doubt that ECM pods would even faze an F-22 just for the fact that it cycles its radar frequencies so damn fast...

Educating myself on the F-22 has been enlightening. Normally when people toot the horn of US equipment it's just hot-air and misplaced patriotism, but the F-22 looks like the real deal.

I need to acquire further information.

The F-22's radar is a hell of a piece of electronics, and the F-35's radar is even more advanced, although likely to be less powerful due to being smaller (AN/APG-81 on the F-35 is 700mm in diameter, versus 980mm for the AN/APG-77 on the F-22).


While Russia does have some great radar technology, AESA radar seems to be an area the West has at least a 10 year lead over Russia.

IIRC, the most advanced tactical aircraft radar Russia has in service is the Su-35's Irbis-E; that is a fairly large and quite powerful radar set, but it isn't AESA but a hybrid passive electronically scanned array.
The MiG-35 prototype had an AESA radar, but the MiG-35s entering production (with service next year) are little like the prototype, instead being a development of the MiG-29K and they don't have AESA radar.

I don't know it is due to technical or financial reasons, but for whatever reason, Russia just hasn't been able to get any AESA radars into service on their tactical aircraft.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Probably the only time in this argument I'm going to ask for sources. ERA technology fascinates me, and from what I've researched on Kontakt-5 and Relikt, its operation is binary; it either destroys the KEP or it doesn't. And from what I've read, the A2 was defeated by Kontakt-5 when met in combat, prompting the development of the A3 "Silver Bullet", while Russia developed Relikt in response, which prompted development of the A4, and then Malachit was introduced for the Armata and similar future combat vehicles. And since we don't know if Malachit can stop A4, the cycle has paused for now.

As for the A4 itself, I was lead to believe it was developed in response to "HEAT-ERA", much like the Ukranian ERA either in service or testing. Hammer or something like that, and it gets more effective the longer the penetrator is, giving it more time and area to break up the penetrator.

You'll have to give me time to get the sources; I can't recall exactly where I've read it, this is knowledge I've picked up over time while engaging in the World of Tanks, Armored Warfare and War Thunder communities.

To the best of my knowledge, K-5 has never been encountered in combat by the West; I'm not sure if Kontakt-1 has ever been encountered in combat either.

There is a story about ex-East German T-72As with Kontakt-5 being invulnerable to M829A1, but it is apparently a myth and never happened; it seems to be one of those stories taken at face value and repeated many times, with nobody ever actually checking for sources.


As for how heavy-ERA works, it can shatter the penetrator entirely, but AFAIK that mostly occurs with smaller or older APFSDS projectiles; instead it damages the tip of the penetrator, degrading its penetrator performance.

There are different methods to counter heavy-ERA, like segmented penetrators or adding a light-weight steel tip to take the impact instead of the main penetrator.
There are some suggestions German DM53/63 might have a segmented penetrator, but it has never been confirmed AFAIK.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

As for ETC development, that is absolutely fantastic. Last time I heard of the XM291 is sounded like it was headed for the garbage can, because some key issues couldn't be figured out. ETC is definitely the next big step in ballistic weaponry, and certainly a far better option than any magnetic weapon, at least for small scale applications (infantry rifles, autocannons, artillery, etc).

The 'M8 Thunderbolt' demonstrator in 2003 was armed with a 120mm XM291, and the Griffin light tank demonstrator from last year was armed with a 120mm XM360.
There are also continuing suggestions the M1A2/SEPv3 might be armed with the XM360.

It is unknown of the XM360 actually does use ETC technology; there are references to it using 'precision ignition' technology, but other times there are no mentions of such.

Given the West is a little worried about the T-14, I suspect there will be a renewed push to get ETC technology into service.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

This discussion has been interesting. I must rethink certain positions on critical issues.

Again, apologies for treating you like a 'russia stronk!' fanboy. I've dealt with fanboys a lot over the years on various forums, but your ability to change your mind when presented with evidence contrary to your original opinion shows you aren't like that.

Edited by Zergling, 16 February 2017 - 10:24 AM.

[The Basilisk]

yea....robots have only downsides and do not have any potential on a real battlefield.



Thats now...and those are just dumb autonomous drones without pilots.
Want to guess what happens when the know how grows just a bit more and when those thingis grow a bit ?



Oh ups already happened.

Now you say there are more effective weaponplatforms with singular purposes...like say....drones.
Right ?
Or cruise missiles ?
AMS systems are not up to the challenge to defend from those highly mobile threads.
Or are they ?



There is also a version that can shoot down artillery rounds.

Thats btw the reason why BTMechs use multy missile LRM and SRM systems.

Yea, yea but a tank has less problems due to no joints and thicker, because more concentrated armor....
Well with reactive liquid armor thats not a problem.
Also a Tank will be most likely destroyed the moment you penetrated its hull.
A Mech isn't. Blow off an Arm...or a Legg or his turret...as long as you don't kill the pilot or his reactor a Mech stays active.
Remember, normaly you can blow of both leggs of a mech and he will still be dangerous.
Sure he becomes immobile and prone but a missile mech could just lay on his back and still fire missiles indirectly.
You realy have to be quite thorough to kill a mech. A Tank is most likely out of it after the first penetrating hit on his turret or boddy.

Edited by The Basilisk, 16 February 2017 - 10:15 AM.

[Appogee]

Is it time for this thread again already...?

That month went quickly.

[Zergling]

Ok, heavy ERA...

First there's this thing about Kontakt-5 making T-72A and T-72B tanks immune to 120mm M829A1 APFSDS.
The source is Janes... which is usually reliable, but I've been told by some pretty well informed people that the story is a myth.
I don't have any proof of it being a myth though, but there's no shortage of myths in these sorts of fields (hell, the article even mentions the 'Lion of Babylon' which is definitely a myth).


Next there's Vasiliy Fofanov's old site; its a bit outdated now, but it still has some good information on it.
The two links concerning Kontakt-5:
http://fofanov.armor...P/kontakt5.html
http://fofanov.armor...EQP/era.html#K5

There's a discussion of mathmatically equating K-5's effectiveness, and it puts it at 38% reduced APFSDS penetration.
That said, the back plate and explosive thicknesses of those estimations and equations appears to be incorrect, which throws that calculation in doubt.
The description of how the ERA degrades APFSDS penetration is informative, although it may not be correct either.


Next source is this article on ERA.
According to that article, K-5 reduces the performance of APFSDS by 20%.

This diagram is useful of Kontakt-5 is useful:


According to that diagram, the front plate is 15mm thick, and the back plate is much thinner, possibly 6mm or less.


Relikt is much harder to find information on, nevermind estimations of its effectiveness. There are garbage claims it is radar fused, and I've come across some claims it reduces penetration of APFSDS by as much as 50%, but no good sources for them.



Then onto M829; I'll just use this article, same site as the above source.

Quote

While the M829A1 was unable to defeat the contemporary Soviet tanks with Kontakt-5 heavy ERA, the M829A2 was designed as "brute force" solution against Kontakt-5 armed Soviet tanks. The M829A3 was the "elegant way" to defeat better armored tanks with Kontakt-5 or the follow-up ERA.

And there's this image:

If the a penetrator without the solid steel nose is supposed to lose somewhere between 20% and 38% penetration against (presumably Kontakt-5) heavy ERA, then the M829A3 is losing very little to none penetration.


M829A4 is hard to find information about. There is this brochure, which says it is similar to M829A3 in length, weight and center of gravity.
But just how similar is it? That is a rather imprecise statement.

Another intersting bit is ithere being an ammunition data link on the base of the M829A4 cartridge.
Just why would there need to be an interface between a (presumably) unguided munition and the fire control system?
Does the M829A4 actually have some sort of 'smart' guided capability?

Edited by Zergling, 16 February 2017 - 10:16 AM.

[Brenden]

I think a Quad mech would be better in combat then a regular bipedal.

[The Basilisk]

Brenden, on 16 February 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

I think a Quad mech would be better in combat then a regular bipedal.

For heavy weapons like long range ACs, arty missile systems, and Railguns yes, due to turret mounts and beeing more stable fireing platforms.

Bipeds turn faster and are more agile and "slimmer" for enclosed terrain, like woods, rocky terrain and citys.

So bipeds would be more suitable for counter infantry and counter armor duty (counter mobile foe), while quadrupeds (or more leggs) would make better mobile heavy weapons platforms. As additional males they bring some downsides of tanks.
More torso concentrated weapons and ammo --> more vulnerability for single shot kills.

[SmokedJag]

Karl Streiger, on 16 February 2017 - 08:29 AM, said:

Laser isn't magic tech - there are some limitation at least when used in atmosphere but usually this goes in both directions.
And the Mech could have the advantage of better cooling - duno exactly but radiators should work better in thicker atmosphere.
So your 20% light and 80% heat might be better dissipated by a mech. Radiation area is also some limiation were a mech might be better - in comparison with a tank.

The issue is the power and size of the BattleTech energy equipment. The lasers deliver hundreds of megajoules to the target. Besides powering that, you have to dissipate the waste heat back at your end. Somehow. To power it, BattleTech uses a micro fusion reactor that has about as much scientific grounding as Tony Stark's chestpiece. For dissipation the heatsinks are both crazy effective and work fine indefinitely while inside armor, not even cumulatively increasing the temperature of the 'Mech over more than a few seconds. That's quite a neat trick.

I haven't bothered discussing any of this because it's all arbitrary and our best scientific minds in the relevant fields have no idea how they would go about making such things. With what we know of physics, the compact, hyper output fusion reactor (that can be maintained in the field by techs!) makes the other physical objections to BattleMechs look trivial.

Quote

and ground preasure - considering the "MWO" Mech models the ground pressure of the Atlas isn't much bigger as those of a M1A2

As up-thread, things like the Atlas are severely underweight. They aren't just a few times heavier than the (comparatively plausible) light 'Mechs. Not with much better armor across far more surface area and whole light 'Mech masses worth of weapons mounted high above the waist.

[Johnny Z]

Personal bipedal locomotion devices.

[Alek Ituin]

Zergling, on 16 February 2017 - 08:55 AM, said:

Yeah, I forsee anti-aircraft missiles and air-defenses evolving considerably in the next few decades; the push towards low-wavelength radars (not just in Russia either; the West is doing the same) is one indication that is already happening.

As another example of improved missiles is the NCADE; it is basically the AIM-120 developed into a limited anti-ballistic missile.
The interesting part is that it is a two-stage missile; such staging technologies could be used to deliver a small and highly agile IR guided missile close to an enemy aircraft, while also having the benefit of long launch range that an AIM-120 type missile has.


Defenses, stealth and countermeasures are likely to evolve in response to developments like those too; aircraft could be fitted with systems to cool their engine exhaust (I believe the B-2 Spirit had or has such a system), and if the USA manages to mount some sort of laser weapon on tactical aircraft, I'd see that being used as a point defense system to shoot down incoming missiles.

Well one interesting option would be to used a closed-loop regenerative cooling system just behind the turbine section of the turbojet, like some rockets use to maintain bell integrity. Depending on how insane you are, you could even have aerodynamic slats within the exhaust stream to further lower the temperature, though you would sacrifice efficiency quite a bit in the process. I'm sure brighter minds will find some clever way to circumvent that as much as possible though.

I'd love to see some of the new prototype turbojet-ramjet hybrid engines fitted with a cooling system like that, because it would actually open up the possibility of a hypersonic-capable combat aircraft. Any cooler used on the back end could cool intake air on the front end, meaning a variable geometry shock cone could be utilized to allow high-supersonic speeds in flight. Imagine an F-22 that could supercruise at Mach 2-2.5, and hit Mach 4+ at altitude.

Quote

Well, MiG-21, 23s, 25s and 29s are primarily air superiority fighters.

The 21s, 23s and 25s were definitely out-dated by the 1980s when most of those were shot down, nevermind in the 1990s against AIM-120 equipped F-16s.

The MiG-29s were export models; the Iraqi versions were in pretty bad condition in the 1991 Gulf War, and I believe the Yugoslavian planes weren't much better, although the Yugoslavian pilots were likely better quality than the Iraqi.

Fair enough, though it's a bit of a personal thing that I don't count kills against last-gen as "valid". It's like kicking puppies, then claiming you can take a wolf with your bare hands. Perhaps that's a cop-out, but it just feels wrong to me.

Credit where it's due though, bagging a MiG-25 doesn't seem like it's easy, even with BVR missiles.

Quote

The problem wasn't just unreliable engines and cooling on the earlier P-38s, but the European P-38 pilots were mostly novices with poor training on multi-engine aircraft.

Here's an article that discusses it; while that site has a rather strong 'F-35 sucks, F-22 rules' bias, it doesn't affect that article.

Surprising thing about the P-38 though; it could actually out-turn the Bf 109 at low speeds, even the earlier versions without combat flaps could do it.

Indeed true, though once the experience from the Pacific started filtering back to the new J/K/L pilots, the Lightning was a formidable adversary to say the least. I know many German pilots had a healthy respect for it when they faced it.

And yes, the P-38 is deceptively maneuverable if you know how to handle her. A fine aircraft all in all, once they sorted the engines out.

Quote

Yeah, any sort of sustained vertical fight would see the lighter plane win; the P-47s beat 109s by engaging with an energy advantage, then zooming away either into a climb that made use of their energy, or used their insane dive rate to simply leave them in the dust.

The P-47 gained the paddle props around the D-22 variant though, in early 1944, but by that point the USAAF had already re-equipped many fighter groups with the P-51.

Yep, The P-47 was pretty standard fare for US aircraft. Heavy airframes with powerful engines, fantastic dive attributes, and capable of sustained energy fighting; on the downside, hard to regain energy and poor vertical performance.

Still though, unless you bring the P-51H in to it, the P-47M/N variants were easily the more dangerous opponent IMO.

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Yeah, the P-51 was quite similar to the P-47 in tactics it used, it just had bit more lee-way in turning ability.

Yeah, it wasn't bad, though IMO it gets a bad rap from Allied fanboys screaming on about it. It's a solid aircraft for sure, like pretty much all US aircraft by that time, but it wasn't THAT good.

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Interesting thing about the Fw 190Ds; the allied evaluation of them rated them as inferior to the radial engined A/F/Gs, due to heavier control forces at high speeds and inferior roll rate.

They basically felt like the plane had given up everything that made it special in exchange for improved high altitude performance.

I'm a bit of a radial engined Fw 190 fanboy though, so I might be a bit biased in any discussion involving the merits of that plane

Heh, no worries there. I like the radial 190's too, though the Doras are my personal favorite.

Funny thing though. The roll rate on the 190's was so high that even at high speeds it could out-roll any other fighter by a large margin. And the controls weren't too heavy at your average combat speeds, in a 700kph dive or something it'd lock up pretty tight, but there were maybe a handful of aircraft back then that wouldn't. Then again, the Luftwaffe insisted that the pilots meet specific arm strength requirements, so the stick forces were less of an issue for them. Allied pilots were just noodle-armed...

I still feel the 190D was the logical progression of the 190 line as a whole though.

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Yeah, although high G forces drastically reduce the lifespan of the airframe, and the higher the Gs get the worse the structural wear and tear becomes.

I've heard that pushing 10Gs automatically requires a maintenance inspection, but I don't know how true that is.

Hell, I'd be iffy about letting a plane go after 9 gees without inspection... Micro-fractures are a silent killer.

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IIRC, the plane has limited combat capability so far; it can probably drop JDAMs, but not much else.
More is to come with new software versions, which has been progressing slowly but it will get there eventually.


The article that said 110 degrees achieved in testing is behind a paywall, but here's a link where someone quoted the article in full.
It doesn't say how controllable the plane was at that AoA, but just reaching it is an achievement for a plane without canards or thrust-vectoring.

Also interesting that the plane was recovering from spins so well that they removed the spin chutes from their tests.
And the article mentions that the wing drop problem has been determined to be of such minor effect to not need any fixing.


There is also this Norweigian pilot's evaluation of the plane from early 2016.
http://www.defensene...eport/81170580/
https://theaviationi...t-hand-account/

There was this article by Seapower Magazine where an adversary pilot described the F-35B as 'Raptorish', similar to that of the F-22A.
The links to the article are 404ing, so it might be a dead source, but here's a link to their facebook site with the summary: https://www.facebook...?type=3

And in recent news, F-35s participated in Red Flag exercises, performing well with a claimed 15 to 1 kill ratio, and more importantly, no avionics software problems.


I used to be a F-35 hater, but after realising the sources I was getting information from were a bit on the biased side I started taking a more critical look for better information, and it looks as though in the last 2-3 years, the F-35 program is getting past its worst problems.

The plane is by no means perfect, and the program is still deserving of criticism for inefficiencies (and the stupidity of designing a single plane to fill 3 radically different roles), but it does seem to be coming together now and it probably will be an excellent plane.

Definitely needs criticism for not just buckling down to ONE role and making sure it does that well, I agree. Though it sure does seem to be making some progress, and it's about damn time too... I'd be surprised if Lockheed gets another contract like the F-35 again for a loooooooooooooong time.

They really dropped the ball.

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To be fair, there are countermeasures already out there for such home-on-jam systems, such as towed jammer arrays.

These aren't perfect, as there is still a possibility of the plane being damaged by the missile's blast-fragmentation warhead, and the plane is going to lose a jammer that costs millions of dollars (although that is still better than a $100 million+ plane and pilot).

Valid point. The economics of war can easily justify a few million dollars down the pipe if it saves hundreds of millions in the process. Still though, 5th gen missiles are using some extremely sophisticated tracking systems, I wouldn't be surprised if soon even countermeasures like that are ineffective.

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It'll certainly be interesting if APS does end up being an effective APFSDS countermeasure, as then heavy armor might end up being obsolete.

Vehicle weights would drop drastically, allowing for much more mobility (both tactical and strategic) than existing MBTs.

Well between AMS and nanoalloy/nanoceramic armors, we may very well see MBT's clocking in at a mere 50 tons soon, with protection levels far exceeding that of current tanks. I mean some of these nanoalloys are over 3x more effective by weight than RHA, and the nanoceramics are so tough they can take multiple KEP hits before failure.

In fact, the Japanese designed their new Type 10 MBT around a fully modular nanomaterial armor scheme, where the commander can add and remove prefabbed armor bricks from locations around the tank. For transport, it can be stripper down to something like 40 tons, and loaded I don't think it goes over 50 tons. It's an impressive little machine IMO, and most likely indicative of future MBT development.

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Sorry, I thought you were one of the 'Russia stronk!' fanboys that are all over the place that only listen to sources like those.

You have admitted you were mistaken on a number of points, and so proven you are actually a reasonable human being (ugh, I hate fanboys of any type), so I offer my apologies.

Absolutely no worries there, I would have assumed the same in your position. I was working on outdated information and it showed. My thanks for setting the record straight.

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I would have said equal to AIM-7M, but given the R-27 was introduced at about the same time as the AIM-7M (1982), and Soviet electronics were generally inferior to Western stuff throughout the Cold War due to a less developed microprocessor industry, it certainly could be slightly inferior, assuming there hasn't been any updates to the seeker technology since the missiles entered service.

To be fair, the Eritean-Ethiopian war was closer in technological and pilot quality parity than the 1991 Gulf War or just about any other modern air conflict involving Western aircraft... but that is still an awful performance.
It makes me suspect the pilots could have just been firing their R-27s to force their opponents to use up energy and fuel evading them, allowing them to later score the kill with WVR missiles.


As for the R-73, that is a deadly AAM. In the 1980s, those missiles would have given the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces a distinct advantage in WVR combat.

The West has caught up since, with missiles like the AIM-9X, IRIS-T and Python 5, and although Russia has continued to develop the R-73, it is unlikely anybody has an advantage there anymore.


Interestingly, the British ASRAAM, while apparently inferior to the AIM-9X and IRIS-T in agility, has much longer range than other IR guided missiles (as much as 50 km has been claimed) and lock-on-after launch capability.
If that missile has datalinks, it could function well in concert with long-wavelength radar to shoot down stealth aircraft.

Well the AIM-7M hitrate was like 35% or something, right? That's a damn sight better than 4%, though it could have been old missiles and poor pilot training. The manual does lay out some pretty specific instructions for when and where you can fire an R-27. Still, the missile appears to be of limited tracking ability and I doubt it's been substantially improved since.

At the same time, I'm now skeptical about the R-77-1's performance... Which is weird, because the Russians have the 9M96E which by all accounts is an incredibly dangerous missile with an average 90% hit rate against aircraft. I do believe it can be air launched, or there's an air launched version in the works, though it was developed for the S-400 as a SAM.

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The USAF is pretty much screwed if the F-35 isn't capable of at least holding its own in air combat, as only 120 of the 187 F-22As are combat coded.

Even if they were all combat coded, that still wouldn't be enough aircraft to claim air superiority.

If the F-35 is even half as agile as it seems to be, it should be able to put up one helluva fight up close, let alone at range. It'll probably act like a force multiplier when paired with the Raptors, which are easily the superior airframe, though the electronics of the F-35 appear to help bridge that gap. And with the US military having a huge ***** for information sharing, I don't doubt that the F-35 will be able to share its info with the F-22's and act like an infowar support unit for the heavier hitters.

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The F-22's radar is a hell of a piece of electronics, and the F-35's radar is even more advanced, although likely to be less powerful due to being smaller (AN/APG-81 on the F-35 is 700mm in diameter, versus 980mm for the AN/APG-77 on the F-22).


While Russia does have some great radar technology, AESA radar seems to be an area the West has at least a 10 year lead over Russia.

IIRC, the most advanced tactical aircraft radar Russia has in service is the Su-35's Irbis-E; that is a fairly large and quite powerful radar set, but it isn't AESA but a hybrid passive electronically scanned array.
The MiG-35 prototype had an AESA radar, but the MiG-35s entering production (with service next year) are little like the prototype, instead being a development of the MiG-29K and they don't have AESA radar.

I don't know it is due to technical or financial reasons, but for whatever reason, Russia just hasn't been able to get any AESA radars into service on their tactical aircraft.

The Raptor's radar really is amazing. I give Lockheed a lot of s**t for some of the dumb things they choose to do, but they really did a good job on that avionics package.

As for Russia, it most assuredly is economic issues. They can barely afford to produce a single T-14, let alone maintain it, so getting AESA in to the works when their current tech is still competitive is just not feasible for them. If the UN would let off on the constant embargoes, Russia might be able to build up a decent military force in the coming decades.

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You'll have to give me time to get the sources; I can't recall exactly where I've read it, this is knowledge I've picked up over time while engaging in the World of Tanks, Armored Warfare and War Thunder communities.

To the best of my knowledge, K-5 has never been encountered in combat by the West; I'm not sure if Kontakt-1 has ever been encountered in combat either.

There is a story about ex-East German T-72As with Kontakt-5 being invulnerable to M829A1, but it is apparently a myth and never happened; it seems to be one of those stories taken at face value and repeated many times, with nobody ever actually checking for sources.


As for how heavy-ERA works, it can shatter the penetrator entirely, but AFAIK that mostly occurs with smaller or older APFSDS projectiles; instead it damages the tip of the penetrator, degrading its penetrator performance.

There are different methods to counter heavy-ERA, like segmented penetrators or adding a light-weight steel tip to take the impact instead of the main penetrator.
There are some suggestions German DM53/63 might have a segmented penetrator, but it has never been confirmed AFAIK.

It's the same for me, no worries. Most of the actual info is hard to come by after all.

I do believe that there were a few Middle Eastern countries that managed to equip their homebrew T-72 variants with imported Kontakt bricks, though I'm not certain if it's 1 or 5. Most of the info is second-hand so I'm not sure how reliable it is, I can do some more digging needs be.

As for the Kontakt-5 though, I was under the impression it was fairly effective at shattering KEP's, giving Soviet tanks the advantage against NATO tanks. Mainly by virtue of letting them survive the inevitable first shot the NATO tanks would get. Pretty interesting to learn it only drops penetration by ~30% or less, though it's still something.

Interestingly, most DU penetrators actually have a flat tip, which lets them undergo that "self-sharpening" effect via rapid adiabatic shear band formation. One of my buddies helped me find some declassified info on the DU penetrators terminal ballistics, it was an interesting read. If you'd like I can probably find some of the sources and post them. But I digress, I can see causing asymmetrical forces on the penetrator via warhead deformation causing some pretty spectacular results.

Makes sense though when you see the "HEAT-rod ERA" bricks being tossed around in testing. They're designed to be kind of multi-use, with each rod charge only detonating when it can break up the penetrator some more. I'd imagine such a system would be very effective against segmented penetrators, though that remains to be seen in actual testing.

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The 'M8 Thunderbolt' demonstrator in 2003 was armed with a 120mm XM291, and the Griffin light tank demonstrator from last year was armed with a 120mm XM360.
There are also continuing suggestions the M1A2/SEPv3 might be armed with the XM360.

It is unknown of the XM360 actually does use ETC technology; there are references to it using 'precision ignition' technology, but other times there are no mentions of such.

Given the West is a little worried about the T-14, I suspect there will be a renewed push to get ETC technology into service.

Well the SEP v3 is basically just a modernization effort to keep the Abrams technologically on par with tanks like the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2. Mostly things like electronics upgrades, APS mounts, etc. Possibly some armor updates as well, maybe incorporating a nanoceramic layer in place of DU. Who knows for sure though.

To be honest though, the T-14 is a paper tiger IMO. It's got several big issues to go along with a couple of its really intriguing design choices, primarily the lack of significant turret armor on its automated turret. I get it, it doesn't need as much armor as a crew compartment, but a single hit to that mechanical monstrosity and you've declawed the super-tank. Add in its untested fixed-angle APS system, and a horde of mechanical reliability issues... I just don't see it being viable for another few years at least.

Still, very happy to see ETC technology being pursued. It's a very promising field that might hold applications and advances in other, less militarized applications. Understanding plasma ignition is pretty useful information.

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Again, apologies for treating you like a 'russia stronk!' fanboy. I've dealt with fanboys a lot over the years on various forums, but your ability to change your mind when presented with evidence contrary to your original opinion shows you aren't like that.

Like I said, no worries. I have the same instincts from my time on WWII history forums, but they also taught me the hard way when to admit you're wrong. And again, thank you for giving me this new information, I do so hate working with outdated info.

Edited by Alek Ituin, 16 February 2017 - 08:18 PM.

[Snowbluff]

F35s all really only have 1 role between them: Strike fighter. It's an attack craft that has decently strong air to air capabilities as back up. Basically, it can escort itself if needed. Another example of a strike fighter is an F15E.

The profile has a lot more to do with the huge fuel fraction, much deeper weapons bays that the F22 (which can only fit 1k bombs and clipped wing AIM120), and carrying all of that on a single engine. The major difference between the variant is that the B loses a fuel tank for the lift fan, the C is larger and reinforced for carrier landings, and hardened against corrosion.

Trying to make an airframe with F22 levels of speed would have meant using 2 engines. With the deeper bay requirements the plane probably would have been larger than the F22, and more expensive.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Indeed. Hopefully the military can gets its s**t straight and put money where it's needed, and stop dumping it all on wunderwaffe projects allowed to bloat uncontrollably over their time and budget allotments... Wunderwaffe are fun and all, but you gotta keep those projects reigned in.

Also, fair enough. If they're really as ramshackle as they sound, I wouldn't trust them to stop paintballs, let alone fragments from my own APS unit. Would be painfully ironic to be injured or killed by your own APS in the process of it trying to stop you from being injured or killed.

Biggest problem with the Humvess and MTVs isn't just that they're ramshackle, but they aren't designed to be combat vehicles. The uparmor trucks (depending on level) use AR500 steel panels to only cover certain areas. Namely the crew compartment, and even then it's barely 1/2in of steel in the thickest parts and only about 1/4in in most places (some mount as much as 2in depending on the kit, but look at the poor suspension literally screaming in this pic) . The hood of a Humvee is also thin fiberglass and the radiator sits on top of the engine. An APS going off is going to demolish the tires on the side the APS went off on and could potentially knock out the engine as well as it's completely unprotected. This picture shows the engine arrangement of a Humvee and it's vulnerabilities to shrapnel

As for MTVs, the APS would likely just blow the air lines and totally render the truck inoperable. The crew would be safe as the uparmored versions of those have steel panels as thick as an inch around the crew compartment. But the truck is worthless without intact airlines.



I'm hoping the JLTV addresses those issues as the US REALLY needs a dedicated gun-truck for convoy security. Uparmor Humvees are excellent force multipliers when your biggest threat is small arms and the occasional RPG-7. But if there's anything bigger than an RPG-7 on the battlefield then uparmors are just rolling coffins.

The US needs to get back to the basics. My unit is getting too many scrubs that can't even shoot. Like literally have no idea how to use iron sights...

[Karl Streiger]

SmokedJag, on 16 February 2017 - 11:47 AM, said:

The issue is the power and size of the BattleTech energy equipment. The lasers deliver hundreds of megajoules to the target. Besides powering that, you have to dissipate the waste heat back at your end. Somehow. To power it, BattleTech uses a micro fusion reactor that has about as much scientific grounding as Tony Stark's chestpiece. For dissipation the heatsinks are both crazy effective and work fine indefinitely while inside armor, not even cumulatively increasing the temperature of the 'Mech over more than a few seconds. That's quite a neat trick.

I haven't bothered discussing any of this because it's all arbitrary and our best scientific minds in the relevant fields have no idea how they would go about making such things. With what we know of physics, the compact, hyper output fusion reactor (that can be maintained in the field by techs!) makes the other physical objections to BattleMechs look trivial.



As up-thread, things like the Atlas are severely underweight. They aren't just a few times heavier than the (comparatively plausible) light 'Mechs. Not with much better armor across far more surface area and whole light 'Mech masses worth of weapons mounted high above the waist.

i tried to create a BattleMech using the Gurps Vehicle Builder - while i did not found something for cooling the energy needs are the main issue.

Say some 3MJ Medium Laser with a tiny 10cm lense and 0.58µm wave length (using the math from this page) would have a spot size of 1cm at a target. With an beam duration of 300ms it might burn a hole into 50cm armored steel.

The main issue is cooling and of course the power input - you might need ~28MJ for the capacitor and even more energy to load this. And to power such a laser for infinite time need a much bigger engine when compared with the "movement" speed.

So a "real" BattleMech - might run on batteries or similar during combat but might have a "small" fusion to recharge the batteries.
Of course, our small fusion could not be a "pppp" fusion engine like but the more "realistic" D+T Tokamak reactor with some heavy shielding to reduce the radiation (hits on the shielding would be a grave danger for the environment though)

armor is another thing. really depends on magic material - that is not yet developed. Maybe its like scale armor, each scale might have a tiny layer of super dense material and 90% is foam that changes its physical attributes when it is targeted by high energy. But we can be sure that it would not be armored steel that will armor BattleMechs - maybe a mix of carbon an nitrides and syntetics.

[Zergling]

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Fair enough, though it's a bit of a personal thing that I don't count kills against last-gen as "valid". It's like kicking puppies, then claiming you can take a wolf with your bare hands. Perhaps that's a cop-out, but it just feels wrong to me.

Credit where it's due though, bagging a MiG-25 doesn't seem like it's easy, even with BVR missiles.

Yeah, MiG-25s would be pretty difficult to kill if they are maintaining supersonic speed.

The Netherlands F-16 kill of a MiG-29 is fairly close in generation, as that would have been a F-16A or B produced at a similar time to the MiG-29.
But of course the F-16 had obviously been upgraded if it was using AIM-120s, while the MiG-29 had not (in addition to probably being in poor condition due to arms embargo on Yugoslavia).

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Yep, The P-47 was pretty standard fare for US aircraft. Heavy airframes with powerful engines, fantastic dive attributes, and capable of sustained energy fighting; on the downside, hard to regain energy and poor vertical performance.

Still though, unless you bring the P-51H in to it, the P-47M/N variants were easily the more dangerous opponent IMO.

Yeah, just a shame the P-47M only had a limited (and troublesome) deployment in Europe, while the N was only used in the Pacific.

Also a shame the P-51H never saw combat; the performance specs on that thing looked to be insane for a pistol engine fighter.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Yeah, it wasn't bad, though IMO it gets a bad rap from Allied fanboys screaming on about it. It's a solid aircraft for sure, like pretty much all US aircraft by that time, but it wasn't THAT good.

Yeah, a lot of the Allied fanboys make it out to be some sort of superplane, same goes with the Spitfire.
They were good planes, but definitely not 'super'.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Definitely needs criticism for not just buckling down to ONE role and making sure it does that well, I agree. Though it sure does seem to be making some progress, and it's about damn time too... I'd be surprised if Lockheed gets another contract like the F-35 again for a loooooooooooooong time.

They really dropped the ball.

I think Northrop Grumman have the Next-Gen Bomber contract, while Boeing is working on the new tanker fleet.
I think the next big contract after that is successor to the F-35, but that is still at the concept stage and no contracts are likely to be awarded for at least another decade yet.

To be fair, Lockheed isn't entirely to blame for all the F-35's issues; the whole idea of making a single plane fill 3 different service roles was the idea of the Department of Defense and the Secretary of Defense, IIRC.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Valid point. The economics of war can easily justify a few million dollars down the pipe if it saves hundreds of millions in the process. Still though, 5th gen missiles are using some extremely sophisticated tracking systems, I wouldn't be surprised if soon even countermeasures like that are ineffective.

I suspect multi-mode terminal homing will appear in anti-aircraft missiles, much as is already happening in air-to-ground weapons like the Brimstone and Laser-JDAMs.

Eg, BVR missiles that also have IR or visual homing seeker heads for when they can't acquire radar locks.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Well between AMS and nanoalloy/nanoceramic armors, we may very well see MBT's clocking in at a mere 50 tons soon, with protection levels far exceeding that of current tanks. I mean some of these nanoalloys are over 3x more effective by weight than RHA, and the nanoceramics are so tough they can take multiple KEP hits before failure.

In fact, the Japanese designed their new Type 10 MBT around a fully modular nanomaterial armor scheme, where the commander can add and remove prefabbed armor bricks from locations around the tank. For transport, it can be stripper down to something like 40 tons, and loaded I don't think it goes over 50 tons. It's an impressive little machine IMO, and most likely indicative of future MBT development.

Interestingly, the nanocrystal steel armor on the Type 10 is just a new type of high-hardness armor, but it weighs about 30% less than other types of HH armor steel.

Given composite armor modules still use significant amounts of steel, there is some significant weight savings to be had from using that stuff.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Well the AIM-7M hitrate was like 35% or something, right? That's a damn sight better than 4%, though it could have been old missiles and poor pilot training. The manual does lay out some pretty specific instructions for when and where you can fire an R-27. Still, the missile appears to be of limited tracking ability and I doubt it's been substantially improved since.

At the same time, I'm now skeptical about the R-77-1's performance... Which is weird, because the Russians have the 9M96E which by all accounts is an incredibly dangerous missile with an average 90% hit rate against aircraft. I do believe it can be air launched, or there's an air launched version in the works, though it was developed for the S-400 as a SAM.

Missile hit rates should be taken with a healthy does of scepticism, as the context for those figures tend to be rather specific.

Eg, with the AIM-7M in 1991, the 35% figure is 'total number of AIM-7s fired' versus 'total number of kills scored', not 'total number of hits scored'.
In many cases, multiple missiles were fired at a single aircraft, and because the first missile hit and shot the aircraft down, the others are treated as misses.
The actual hit rate of the AIM-7M was certainly a fair bit higher than 35% as a result, but it would require a close look at each missile shot to determine just what it was.

Such analysis also ignores the context of some shots; in many cases shots were made when there wasn't any chance of a hit being scored, simply to force enemy aircraft to keep their distance or force them to lower altitude.

I suspect the Russian mercenary pilots in the Eritean-Ethiopian war were using such tactics with their R-27s; they'd use their longer range missiles to force enemy aircraft into disadvantageous positions, then score the kill with shorter range R-60 or R-73 missiles.

R-77-1 is probably a decent missile, although it might have inferior ECCM to the AIM-120.

As for the 9M96E, that missile is comparable in weight to the extended-range versions of the R-27, but is likely considerably more capable.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

The Raptor's radar really is amazing. I give Lockheed a lot of s**t for some of the dumb things they choose to do, but they really did a good job on that avionics package.

Heh, amusing thing there: the F-22's AN/APG-77 is built by Northrop Grumman, not Lockheed, same with the F-35's AN/APG-81.

There a lot of parts on both planes that aren't actually made by Lockheed.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

I do believe that there were a few Middle Eastern countries that managed to equip their homebrew T-72 variants with imported Kontakt bricks, though I'm not certain if it's 1 or 5. Most of the info is second-hand so I'm not sure how reliable it is, I can do some more digging needs be.

Amusingly, some tanks in Syria have appeared with 'faux ERA' that is literally bricks.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Well the SEP v3 is basically just a modernization effort to keep the Abrams technologically on par with tanks like the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2. Mostly things like electronics upgrades, APS mounts, etc. Possibly some armor updates as well, maybe incorporating a nanoceramic layer in place of DU. Who knows for sure though.

A SEPv3 prototype/testbed was pictured with weight simulators on the front turret and lower glacis last year, so it looks as though they are testing for increased armor weight in those regions.

Here's the image:

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

To be honest though, the T-14 is a paper tiger IMO. It's got several big issues to go along with a couple of its really intriguing design choices, primarily the lack of significant turret armor on its automated turret. I get it, it doesn't need as much armor as a crew compartment, but a single hit to that mechanical monstrosity and you've declawed the super-tank. Add in its untested fixed-angle APS system, and a horde of mechanical reliability issues... I just don't see it being viable for another few years at least.

I think Russia has realised they won't be getting the T-14 for some years yet, as they are bringing 1000-2000 T-80Bs back into service with some basic modernisation.

Alek Ituin, on 16 February 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Like I said, no worries. I have the same instincts from my time on WWII history forums, but they also taught me the hard way when to admit you're wrong. And again, thank you for giving me this new information, I do so hate working with outdated info.

NP, and thanks for listening!

[Snowbluff]

Zergling, on 17 February 2017 - 06:55 AM, said:

Heh, amusing thing there: the F-22's AN/APG-77 is built by Northrop Grumman, not Lockheed, same with the F-35's AN/APG-81.

There a lot of parts on both planes that aren't actually made by Lockheed.

This is the norm of American aircraft.

Want an an engine? You're getting a Pratt and Whitney F100 derivative, or something from GE.
Radar? I think it's basically Northrup Grumman.
Targeting Pods is either Northrup or Lockheed.

EDIT: Here is a Lockheed test pilot talking about the the F117 was made out of Hornet parts. XD



Lockheed is responsible for the overall design of the aircraft. Their experience with stealth fighters served them well in the JSF contest.

Same with Northrup and the B21 contract.

Currently, we are in the conceptual stage for the next aircraft. The groundwork of 6th gen tech isn't there, but I think the F-X is going to be a twin engine fighter at the very least.

Edited by Snowbluff, 17 February 2017 - 08:18 AM.

[Metus regem]

Saint Scarlett Johan, on 16 February 2017 - 11:30 PM, said:

The US needs to get back to the basics. My unit is getting too many scrubs that can't even shoot. Like literally have no idea how to use iron sights...

I'd say I'm surprised by this, but I'm not.... too much CoD in the new guys I think....

When I did my basic rifle training, yes even pilots get basic rifle training.... I qualified for sharpshooter rifle as well as sharpshooter pistol... The guy that was my gunner, got a pass with both during his basics....

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Metus regem, on 17 February 2017 - 09:09 AM, said:

I'd say I'm surprised by this, but I'm not.... too much CoD in the new guys I think....

When I did my basic rifle training, yes even pilots get basic rifle training.... I qualified for sharpshooter rifle as well as sharpshooter pistol... The guy that was my gunner, got a pass with both during his basics....

Everyone in the US Army is supposed to partake in bi-annual IWQ and qualify on the M4. I'm in an artillery unit, there are lots of instances of Arty guys needing to be provisional infantry. There's no excuse for ground pounders to shoot less than sharpshooter. My entire section minus the newest guy shoots expert. And I do with iron sights because my CCO is often so beat up it barely functions.

But this has gotten embarrassing. The US Army is an embarrassment right now.