Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Battle Order"
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@Flankymanga Russia used to operate under the assumption that they would have thousands of fighters and attack aircraft to spearhead an invasion, including medium bombers. When they tried to make comparable 4th Generation fighters, both of which had 2 engines, they lost the industrial capacity to mass-produce fighters like the MiG-21 and MiG-23. The MiG-29 especially ushered in the demise of large airforce power that was common to the single engine MiG designs.
It happened at a time when the Soviet Union was already collapsing and the Soviet Premiers were trying to hold the alliance together. The decline of manufacturing capacity that was shared between Belarussia, Ukraine, and Russia fragmented after that, so the decline is still in-action to this day. Ukraine was a huge factor in the allied Soviet Republic industrial infrastructure not just for missiles, Radars, fighters, and strategic bombers, but for huge naval vessels like carriers, frigates, and other wartime ships from 13 different shipyards.
Post-collapse, Russia was left with no choices as the economy continued to free-fall. The US actually offered bail-outs with billions of dollars in exchange for securing or deactivating many of the nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and manufacturing plants of these devices due to the alarming rate at which former Soviet officers were selling military equipment to any buyers than came there.
As we saw in Syria, Russian armor was nothing but a series of targets for air power and USMC precision-guided artillery pieces, with total elimination of an armored Battle Group with artillery support group in a matter of 6 hours, with zero US casualties. The counter argument to that is that the battle group didn’t have Russian Air Power, but what Air Force units would make a difference when F-22As were part of the US air component force that responded to the attacks on US and Kurdish personnel? Had Russia tried to offensively employ Su-35S and Su-30SM, those would have been eliminated within minutes of entering the air space without knowing where they were being shot from.
No air power, no ground component forces have any real meaning other than providing targets for the ATO planners. This is why Russia is trying to develop hypersonic missiles, which is far easier said than done, and the US is the pioneer of hypersonic technologies both manned and unmanned.
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@jonseilim4321 There's a big difference in Automatic Rifleman and Machinegunner.
Auto Rifleman is Rifle squad-level duty position using a magazine-fed weapon of the same cartridge as the riflemen, often equipped with a bipod.
The US BAR, M14A1, M16A1s issued with bipods and extra 30rd mags, and UK L86 LSW all fall into the Auto Rifleman weapon category.
A machinegunner would be those who carried and employed something like an MG42, MAG58, M60, PKM, or M240-usually supported by a gun team and/or other squad members carrying additional linked belts of ammunition. Depending on the Army and era, they may or may not be part of the Infantry squad.
The SAW gunner falls in between these two, in that the SAW is chambered in the same cartridge as what riflemen carry, but is belt-fed and still part of the rifle squad or section.
The QJB-95 LSW falls into the category of an Auto Rifleman duty position.
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@soulsphere9242 Tracking all that. Been dealing with combat radii calculations and theater-specific map overlays of various combat aircraft since 1982.
If I load 19,300lb of fuel, 2x 2000lb JDAM, 2x AIM-120, 2x AIM-9X, FLIR, ECM, and towed decoys on any other naval fighter, then launch for a sortie, it isn't going anywhere near an F-35C's radius regardless of the altitude band profiles.
That F-35C flight can do EW, D-SEAD, AEW&C, A2A on the way to a precision strike or interdiction mission, while doing ISR continuously.
A-6E couldn't protect itself, could only do a few mission profiles with medium attack and strike being its specialties before 1970s SAMs proliferated.
It didn't matter that it could fly a few miles farther if it was having to maneuver and evade all MEZ nodes going in. Evasive maneuvers to avoid the MEZ means range gets cut dramatically due to excess fuel consumption, so its combat radius actually retracted. This is a big problem for all prior generation fighters.
F-35s are able to ride closer to and thread the needle in the WEZ without diverting much from their routes.
A-6s would be dead or defensive prior to even making it that far, especially against S-200/300/350 IADS.
F-35C brings longer legs to the S-200/S-350 net than anything else out there. It's a capability being felt once again, but much better with Omnirole/swing-role options.
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@Flankymanga The US pioneered not only manned, but unmanned hypersonic technology in the 1960s (in the open) with the X-15 program, and later classified programs moving forward. The US has done more research and development on ramjets, scramjets, and advanced propulsion systems relevant to that class of vehicles. US Generals make statements to scare politicians into funding more programs. You can see certain atmospheric anomalies that show evidence of a continual hypersonic program in the US that still flies today, but is unacknowledged.
When you hear or read someone saying "Stealth is a myth", you then wonder if they have seen all the current fighter and drone development programs, because every single one of them employs stealth technology. That is especially true with the Sukhoi Su-57, S-70 drone, and Su-75 proposed lightweight stealth fighter. It is also true with the Chinese J-20, J-31, UK Tempest, French/German FCAS, and multiple UAS platforms in development.
DSP is Digital signals processing, a technology in-use in fighters since the 1970s and really a broad acronym to use in 2021 that has basically no meaning unless you’re giving a history of the change from vacuum tube tech to solid state at that time. This ushered in with the F-15 and APG-63 almost 50 years ago.
Pilots I have spoken with face-to-face using the biggest fighter AESA in the world who set up on F-22As in a vulnerable position for them (cheated in exercises) still could not detect the F-22A, and that AESA they were using in the F-15C+ has better TRM technology than any current foreign AESA. So there aren’t any fighters with the latest AESA that can negate RF stealth in a BVR setting, let alone most of the closer ranges, which is too late to have any effect on the outcome because they would have been within Raptor WEZ for minutes by that point.
Quantum Radars is only a lab stunt at this time in history, based on a theory of quantum comparisons between parallel RF signals paths. The processing technology necessary to drive a theoretical Quantum computing RADAR can also be used for a Quantum-adaptive RAM technology on the aircraft’s surfaces, letting RF energy flow through the aircraft and to the other side as if it wasn’t even there. Metamaterials will make this a possibility, if we haven’t done it already.
VLO/stealth isn’t just RF spectrum, but multiple layers of the IR spectrum as well. This was literally fundamental to SENIOR TREND, SENIOR SKY, ATB, and JSF. Look again at the IR spectrum mitigation technologies on the F-22 and JSF and you might be surprised. I’ve done the extensive mathematical analysis on various current IRST systems on both NATO, French, and Russian fighters, and the short story is you aren’t going to even get a hit in the IR spectrum much outside of visual range, as long as the fighters stay subsonic. Supersonic speeds will increase the detection range, but you won’t have PID because a PESA or AESA slaved to the IRST won’t generate enough resolution on an RCS that is .0001m2 to .001m2. The Radar can blast RF right in that direction on narrow beam, high fidelity single TGT track and not be able to get PID. That’s not including any EW at play.
F-22 and JSF use narrow beam LPI data links, not omnidirectional links that are easy to detect and jam. There will be zero evidence of their use to any air or ground platforms because none of the waveforms will cross any detection system. That’s the whole point of IFDL and MADL links, which are not reliant on AWACS. So they absolutely have high ECM environment-friendly connectivity and there isn’t anything you can do about it. EMP is another ignorant discussion because the US Mil-Std calls for EMP-hardening in all combat systems dating back to the atmospheric tests of late 1957-1963. We encountered major EMP interference of Radio relay stations, so this was noted and worked into the design considerations for bombers, ships, fighters, radios, etc. F-22 and JSF use a lot of fiber optics on top of all that, so in addition to EMP shielding, they are impervious to those types of attacks. It’s preposterous because the assumption is that small armies of engineers and program officers would just ignore these threats and make systems vulnerable to them, even after we first saw EMP effects.
"APG-77 was impressive.” F-22s and JSF don’t rely on AWACS. They have far superior battlespace situational awareness because of the sensor coverage networked with each other. In low power LPI detection and tracking modes, you aren’t even aware that they are illuminating your airframe because they don’t trigger the RWS. You can’t “predict” agile beam freq-hopping LPI Radar waveforms with processing power that is greater than even your land-based Radar networks. You can’t predict a freq hopset being pushed by a randomized waveform generator that does billions of cycles per second. The outdated and already-replaced original CIP in the F-22A Block 10 did 10.5 Billion instructions per second. That was 1997 technology and you can’t see any evidence of when the CPUs have been replaced. They are one of the main things that get incremental upgrades with the Raptor Increment improvement program. Notice that they haven’t adopted a Helmet-Cueing sight, but they have spent billions on upgrades for F-22s.
Russian point defense weapons have been serially defeated as a sport by air forces with far less capabilities than the US (Turkey, Israel). We have physical possession of so many modern Russian IADS platforms, as to not need to build training simulators for them and just populate training ranges with actual units. That includes S-300 and Pantsir S1. We got a Pantsir S1 in Libya, and Ukraine sold us an S-300 mobile Radar platform. We have every other type of Russian-built SAMs from S-75, S-125, S-200, 2k12 Kub in possession as well and have had some of them dating back to 1974.
F-22A is not only a good A2G platform, it’s an awesome one. Combat-coded Raptors regularly employ the 1000lb JDAM and SDBs from supersonic speeds at high altitude, which can’t be done by any other aircraft other than F-35s. The JSF series make excellent A2A platforms. In fact, they defeat F-22As regularly and have done so since 2017 in Large Force Exercises. JSF kill ratio in LFEs is anywhere from 78:1 on up. LFEs include scenarios that are more difficult than actual combat. Many US pilots in Desert Storm said, “Man, this is almost as hard as Red Flag.” For those who think LFEs are rigged, yeah they are-against Blue Forces normally. F-22A was the first platform in Red Flag and other LFE history to make it impossible for the Aggressors to start off dominant. Presence of F-22As or F-35s at Red Flag made it so that Red Air was made useless within the first few sorties. They now use F-22As and F-35As as aggressors to provide a challenge to Blue Air if Blue includes F-22s or F-35s.
So literally every statement you made is at odds with what I know. I’m not trying to be rude, just stating some cold facts that are what they are. FYI, I’ve been in the defense and aerospace industry since the 1970s, spent 3 years studying the NATO AeroE course materials, have deployed all over the world employing some of these systems being mentioned, and have seen the behind-the-scenes developmental side all the way to air planning and operational side. That’s where my knowledge base is coming from.
Russian strategy relies on not ever fighting the US or NATO because of the unacceptable losses it would suffer. Russia can only conduct limited strikes against regional rivals and prefers to use asymmetric actions, while claiming innocence even as its own soldiers’ trail of geolocated selfies compromises the official lies. The problem really is that if Russia engages in conflict with a nation that has superior combat systems in even a limited space, like air power, it would expose how weak Russian military capabilities really are.
The US has a vast combined component forces structure with better Air Power, better Navy, better IADS, better armor, better anti-armor, better sensor networks, better logistics, better training, etc. Everyone likes to talk about how great Russian SAMs are, but I’m alive because of the Patriot system. All you see is critiques of how Patriot is garbage by people who don’t know the difference between the nose cone and the motor. We were shot at by multiple theater ballistic missiles in a short period, and every one of them was intercepted by Patriots. There was one sea-skimming cruise missile that got through but didn’t hit us, thankfully, so nothing is fool-proof in ground-based Air Defense.
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It hasn’t been like that in the Army for generations. Weapons Squad was always part of the Rifle Platoon when I was in. We still had M60s in Weapons Squad, which was replaced by M240Bs in the late 1990s. We also had the Anti-Armor Weapons in Weapons Squad, with the Dragon at first, then replaced by the Javelin.
I was in 3 different Battalion-level Recon Platoons, as well as Corps Long Range Surveillance. Battalion-level Recon Platoons help with training the Reconnaissance soldiers, but teams end up basically working for the different line companies often doing recon for them before they hit their objectives. Snipers would also be attached to each line Company operationally.
It’s funny because there was no MTO&E for Snipers in the Battalion, but every Light Infantry Battalion I was in had a 9-man Sniper Section in the Recon Platoon, complete with the Sniper Systems. The Army was still trying to figure out how to train and employ Snipers, and still hasn’t got it right.
They need Division-level Sniper Schools that can authorize and award the Additional Skill Identifier. The Marines have Division-level schools that award the Sniper MOS, while using Quantico as their Scout Sniper Instructor Course to manage the quality of Instructors who will run the Division-level schools.
The Army also needs a formal Designated Marksman course. That should really be taught and run in Infantry OSUT along with a Grenadier, SAW Gunner and Machinegunner Course.
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@alexandrnoskov5437 NATO Headquarters is in Brussels, not DC. The NATO partner nations have their own defenses to worry about, especially the Eastern Europeans. Many in the US thought NATO would be dissolved with the “peace dividend” once the Soviet Union collapsed, or used to de-nuclearize the region. The Eastern European nations joined quickly so they could have some type of defense pact with each other and get backing from the biggest industrial supplier of weapons, the US. They didn’t think there would be peace because they all have hundreds of years of history with Russia.
CIA works for Moscow and has done since it was started in 1947. NKVD turned at least 200 German agents into doubles during the OSS days after the war, and those assets became the core of the new CIA. The situation you describe of CIA killing people was actually used against the Eastern European nations after WWII, to bring them under control of Russia. It happened with the resistance movements left over from the partisans, who were located and ID’d by CIA assets, then they were arrested or murdered by KGB before the Airborne units landed at the airports and tanks poured across the border. Russia used the CIA as a glove to do its own business and still does to this day. That’s why JFK formed DIA, to replace the failed and treasonous CIA, but he couldn’t follow-through with that plan since he was assassinated in 1963 before the 1964 election.
Most of what you think you know about this subject is lies from both the “western media” and East.
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@Flankymanga Both F-22 and F-35 pilots have stated since 2017 that the F-22 is defeated by F-35s regularly, prevented from attacking Blue Air, and detected by the networked JSF sensor web. Thrust vectoring has nothing to do with it, not a factor. F-35A has better persistence than the F-22A, since they both carry the same internal fuel but F-35A only has one engine. Everything you’ve heard about F-35 is most likely very bad information at best. Combat radius on F-35A is better than any 4th gen fighter in USAF inventory, including the F-15E ( we used to work on the F-15E, so I’m quite familiar with it). Stealth vs stealth comes down to who has better sensors and who has better stealth, both in RF and IR spectrums.
F-16 is not better than F-35 in any metric, including BFM. F-35As have been dominating F-16C aggressors for many years now. Dutch spilled the beans on that one, described week-long BFM exercise sorties every day where they humiliated F-16Cs for sport, while carrying bombs internally in addition to everything else, then went and delivered in the Nellis test ranges. F-16C pilots couldn’t believe it. They were getting killed at a high rate by fighters carrying bombs inside that they couldn’t see. F-16s aren’t ever getting into a WVR merge with F-35s in reality. Why would they? Even if they could, they would attempt to egress away if they knew they were within JSF sensor coverage, which they can’t know. There are 3 JSF variants and any “critical issues” you see mentioned are erroneous, especially if they come from DOT&E.
Canada never cancelled F-35 deal. They’re one of the biggest suppliers/manufacturers of F-35 parts. It’s the only option they have for RCAF to replace Baby Hornets.
L-Band antennae arrays in the leading edges of Su-57 aren’t stealth detection systems, but for IFF and guiding the S-70 drone. It’s the same length as the antennae on the old LORAN antennae on F-4Ds used in SEA to guide drones.
AIM-9X Block II+ is a BVR-capable missile as well with Planar Array guidance, not legacy IR. R-74 is the same way from what is claimed. Nobody is trying to get within visual of each other, not even in 4th Gen fighters. Everyone is carrying Helmet-HOBS missiles nowadays, so it’s a fool’s game to even attempt to get WVR. So who sees first and can shoot first without the other knowing about it, that’s the basic game. 5th Gen networked cooperative targeting and passive TGT tracks change that game tremendously. Su-57’s IR concealment leaves much to be questioned. They are using thermal blankets over the engine cowlings, but there is more to it than that.
"Americans have not invested in serious ECM capabilities for decades.” That’s funny. There are small armies of engineers and technicians dedicated to EW that have moved into areas way beyond what Russia is capable of. The US led the way with ECM on strategic bombers back in the mid-century, while Soviet Union employed noise jammers in Bears and Badgers. A-12 had one of the first spoofing systems that demonstrated its effectiveness real-world against S-75 numerous times, as did the SR-71A. Fighters generally got RWR with attached ECM pods for jamming different coordinate vector methods from SAM radars in the 1960s-1980s. Then we integrated a lot of those capabilities into ASPJ with algorithms and faster processing speeds, better antennae, etc.
ATF and JSF are different. They have the antennae array count of a dedicated spy plane, with AESA stand-off jammer capabilities that are networked via LPI. You talk about the individual TRM waveform size without recognizing the giant array with 1656-2000 elements, as well as all the various-length advanced SC TRM arrays in the wing leading edges, vertical tailplanes, wingtips, trailing edges, belly, and spine. Russia has zero advantages in EW and is in reality far behind. Su-57 is an attempt to catch up but falls short since it uses more 4.5 Gen defensive EW suite architecture. LPI data links are easier said than done. Su-57 relies on legacy data link tech, standardized with Su-35S, Su-30SM2, and Su-27SM3 modernization program. That is easily detected and jammed. You will never see evidence of IFDL or MADL signatures.
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@jonseilim4321 Thanks for your clarification. The other terms for Snipers, Sharpshooters, and Designated Marksmen have evolved over time as well.
In the US, we used to have Sharpshooters/Snipers in WWI, WWII, and Korea. These were part of the Infantry Platoon, Section, or Squad.
In Vietnam, we started a long course Sniper Training program with 9th ID in Vietnam. Marines ran theirs Stateside out of their West Coast marksmanship unit.
The Vietnam era Snipers would be organized at the Battalion-level, tasked down to the Companies to support Infantry companies in the offense and defense.
The squad-level sharpshooter wasn't seen again until the SDM program in the big Army and Marines.
Ranger Regiment, SEALs, and SF had been developing weapons for this prior to SDM.
In the US, there's a clear distinction now between Bn-level Snipers and Squad Designated Marksmen.
The Russians had a different approach to it as well. I wrote an article for Book of the AK that details the US and Soviet Sniper Training & Empliyment Programs, after extensive interviews with former Soviet Snipers.
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@thomas_jay There are combined component forces that would require many years of study just to become familiar with how many different types of Air Dominance, Strike, Electronic Attack, Transport, Attack, Unmanned Recon and Attack, Armor, Artillery, Army EW, NBC, Light Armor, APC, IFV, etc. platforms are even in the inventory. There isn’t just one force type focused on, but Air, Land, Sea, Space, and Cyber component forces that all work together. The US especially is unparalleled in this space both qualitatively and quantitively, as well as in training and deployment experience.
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@Flankymanga The only type of fighter that can beat the F-22A are the JSF series. F-35Is, F-35As, and F-35Bs have been negating S-300, S-350, and S-400 systems throughout CENTCOM, not just in Syria, but Iran as well.
All of those types of systems have proven counters with numerical superiority on top of qualitative superiority. There is no strategic sense in launching offensive operations into Russian soil since there isn’t anything there worth attacking and holding. I’m still not sure why Napoleon did it. Russian EW capabilities are largely over-stated, though far more capable than the layman or enthusiast would understand. US and Western EW capabilities are far more advanced with the semiconductor industry to actually support them with leveraged software against high quality SC components and emitting/detecting arrays. The US has already moved away from dedicated detection arrays with AESAs and made them into multimode detection and stand-off Electronic Attack arrays, with vastly-superior TRM elements and processing power behind the waveform generators and amplifiers/exciters/filters.
The more realistic scenarios are regional conflict outside of Russian territory where Russia is bullying its neighbors again, usually for internal reasons to make the leader look strong or to protect key interests. Russia is extremely vulnerable to regional distribution of energy interruptions, hence all the projects to build pipelines away from legacy routes through Ukraine.
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@alexandrnoskov5437 I agree 100% about Congressmen and government officials of any stripe. They aren't technically-inclined, but are good at being spineless and bendable for their puppeteers.
You have to understand that the current White House is filled with traitors. Biden was co-opted by a Soviet active measures program in 1972 that funded his Senatorial campaign in Delaware. The front group is called The Council For A Livable World, acting as an environmental rights non-profit, but actually an arm of Soviet Intelligence to get as many moles into the US Congress.
These types of moles already existed dating back to the 1930s and populated the US State Department, White House, War Department, OSS, universities, and media.
This is why Biden's first action in office was to kill the Keystone pipeline and shut down as many energy projects as possible to raise the cost for barrels of oil to benefit Russia.
Both Russia and China have been bribing and extorting the Biden family for decades, so there is a tug-of-war going on right now between Putin and Xi with puppet Biden in the middle, surrounded by traitors in his cabinet who are more of the same.
China only grows economically and militarily when oil/NG is cheap, while Russia can only grow when oil /NG is higher price.
Since Russia and China have a mutual military pact, there is a hidden economic conflict that Putin has tried to diffuse by signing an energy deal with China, but China really relies heavily on Middle Eastern oil coming from the Persian Gulf.
Interested times we live in. I have a suspicion China is using the US to weaken Russia since Russia has been the main supplier of war material to India for generations.
China is adept at playing people against each other while they never have to fire a shot.
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@alexandrnoskov5437 Lend Lease was an open transfer of billions of dollars worth of military technology during WWII to several nations, including Russia. If you're a student of military history, you had to have heard of it.
One of the US Lend Lease officers wrote a book about the things he saw, including transfer of enriched Uranium and Beryllium triggers necessary for initiating atomic weapon detonations.
The Russian Ambassador's wife managed multiple moles inside the Manhatten Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. She even had one of her assets buy the local hamburger restaurant in Los Alamos that the scientists frequented.
The race for developing atomic weapons really began in England in the late 1800s, so it wasn't a new concept for the industrial powers. All of them had a classified nuke research program. The US just beat everyone to proof of concept with successful detonations.
The stories behind the scenes are very interesting. FDR's White House was a hotbed of communist sympathy, including the hosting of Ludmila Pavlechenko's "shaming campaign" where Russia wanted the US to commit millions of troops into the European Theater earlier in the war to help Russia, never mind the fact that the US was fighting Japan in the Pacific.
After the war, England gave Russia their Nene jet engine, which Russia reverse-engineered and used for the MiG-15.
Russia also recovered B-29 Superfortress intercontinental strategic bombers and copied it directly with the Tu-4. Russia got the technical data package for the B-29 using assets who worked at the Boeing Wichita plant in Kansas to help understand the physical samples, materials, and processes.
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@Flankymanga If you talk about hypersonic and ICBM in the same sentence, it reveals a fundamental unfamiliarity with the subject matter. Any vehicles put into low earth orbit are traveling well in excess of hypersonic speeds, often over Mach 23. We don't describe them as "hypersonic" because they aren't anywhere near the tropopause and have no aerodynamic drag up there. Flight profiles for ICBMs are constrained in the tropopause where they reach the aerodynamic limit from atmospheric density and wait until getting out of the tropopause to throttle-up into escape velocity.
Hypersonic vehicles travel through atmospheric resistance for much of their flight profile using ablative nose section materials. The materials science needed to overcome the coefficient of thermal expansion gradients between the frontal, mid, and tail sections of a hypersonic vehicle are daunting from an engineering perspective.
The design approach for hypersonic systems is significantly different because of the flight profile and thermal loading on the leading edge surfaces, and how those thermal loadings migrate through the body and internal systems.
DSP for fighter Radars was pioneered on the APG-63 in the F-15, not the MiG-31. MiG-31 didn't even exist. Once the F-15 with DSP was introduced, the Soviets initiated an upgrade program for the MiG-25 as MiG-25P and PD with solid state electronics attempting to mimic the F-15's processors, which allowed the first true look-down, shoot-down capability. The MiG-31 was designed to have a much longer mission radius than the short-legged MiG-25, and incorporate a Radar operator in the rear seat. The PESA Radar technology was literally acquired from the B-1 program, which a young Senator Biden was tasked with killing after the developmental work had been done in the early 1970s.
Digital Signals Processing is not exclusive to military technology in the US. One of my very old guitar effects processors uses DSP/COSM technology to emulate various amplifiers. It has 85 banks, each with 4 channels, dozens of effects, an acoustic guitar simulator, synthesizer, expression pedal, chorus, reverb, flange, phaser, compressor, harmonizer, Wah, etc. all integrated into one foot board.
There isn't an implied connection with DSP to Radar signals processing. DSP is used in automotive, medical, communications, musical, RC, and entertainment industries.
LPI Radars don't use brute force with high power output, but very high fidelity, low power emissions in billions of cycles per second frequency hopping, with limited bursts as opposed to continuous emit. No EW system is going to predict their emissions.
IR signature reduction has been a focus of VLO platforms since the 1970s in the US. ATB, F-117A, F-22A, and all 3 JSF have significant IR reduction technologies to defeat the effectiveness of both ground and airborne IR sensors, reducing their effective ranges considerably.
A RAAF exchange pilot flying F-15Cs with an Aggressor squadron out of Nellis said when he was doing WVR exercises against F-22s, the JHMCS helmet-cueing sight and Captive Air Training Missile seeker head could not acquire the F-22 even when he put the reticle directly on the Raptor.
There isn't a merge with 5th Gen fighters, only he who dies and doesn't know why.
For ground-based platforms, take into consideration the curvature of the earth and now see what happens to your network.
2nd place is really far from 1st when you understand the applied physics of these subjects.
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@Flankymanga F-22A can carry 4 AAMs and 2x 1000lb JDAMs, or 4 AAMs and 8x Small Diameter Bombs, with 18,000lb of internal fuel. None of those bombs need LASER TGT Designator cueing. The F-22A can release any of those weapons at high supersonic speeds as well, and has demonstrated such. It’s a superb VLO strike platform, opposite of what you are saying, and has been operationally employed that way for years, putting SDBs through specific windows of buildings in Syria. The reason why the F-22A was killed was because Russia and China put pressure on traitors who were on their payroll within DoD and White Houses to cut the program before we could ever go into Full Rate Production.
Russia did not want 200 Raptors in Europe, and China didn’t want 200 Raptors in the Pacific, with 200+ reserves in the US on the coasts to rapidly plus-up the ETO and PACOM Raptor units. There were 195 built, not 150. Multiple USAF Chiefs of Staff fought and sacrificed their careers trying to keep the F-22 assembly line open, but patriotism doesn’t hold up to treason in the network of traitors that has been long built-up by Russia and China in the heads of US government. For example, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was a KGB asset dating back to the 1980s, as I have confirmed with people who worked with him. Moles within US DoD reported the initial capabilities back to Russia and China, which kick-started PAK-FA and J-20, while the “kill F-22” treason active measures were launched as well, under guise of cost-savings.
F-35 series hasn’t been going through a “myriad of developmental failures”. The opposite is true, in that JSF-A/B/C have been demonstrating a long list of developmental and operational firsts. The media campaign against JSF is primarily coming from Russia via the residue of Mockingbird and IOJ, still running same old playbook from the 1950s (because it’s effective). Canada has not cancelled its orders. Justin Trudeau was propped up by Chinese and Russian backers with a campaign platform of killing the F-35 for Canada, even though Canada had already committed to JSF as one of the upper tier partners. Russia does not want USAF Alaska connected with RCAF and USAF in Vermont via the MADL network acting as a strategic networked next generation NORAD web, which not only has airborne and low earth orbit TGT detection and PID capabilities, but surface vessel detection and tracking in the Arctic Circle. Trudeau is a traitor to Canada and has been before he ever entered office.
Pierre Sprey is a laughing stock in the defense aerospace community and has been since the 1970s. He said that the USAF ruined the F-15 by putting complicated electronic garbage in it that never works, and said the same things about the YF-16 to F-16 upgrades. He made similar silly statements about the M48 tank being better than the M-1 Abrams, so he discredited himself every time he opened his fat mouth.
RAND Corp did no such simulation. 2 idiot employees published an amateur simulation that had no relation to reality and were immediately fired for being idiots. Their baseline assumptions in that simulation are comical. Anyone who has seen an F-35 demo knows immediately that they are watching new levels in performance. All 3 have superb climb rate, very short take-offs, and superior combat configuration maneuverability to 4th Gen fighters.
Pilots around the world who fly F-35As, F-35Bs, and F-35Cs have been singing its praises for years now. Finland just ran a 7 year higher evaluation program with double-layered oversight from independent groups to monitor the fairness of the H-X competition, and the F-35A smoked all the competitors hands-down.
There aren’t any discrepancies in my statements. I’ve been in defense and aerospace since the 1970s, with 20 years spent at the USAF Flight Test Center, West German Flight Test Center, and certain Western Test Ranges in the US, in addition to 10 years of active duty deployments all over the world. You are correct in that many US technologies have foreign origins, but a lot of the aerospace tech in Europe has been seeded by the US after WWII as well. We were working on the FECA/EFA on a scientific exchange program, while other colleagues were working with the Germans and Brits on the Tornado from 1980-1982. The US-European aerospace efforts have been very collaborative since manned flight began really. The “great newspapers” in the US didn’t even believe that the Wright Brothers were really flying for years. It wasn’t until Wilbur took one of their Wright Flyers to France and demonstrated it there, that the newspapers in the US finally took notice.
Russia’s problem is being isolated from the trade routes by being almost land-locked. A map doesn’t make it seem so, but the limited number of sea ports with access to international waters severely limits Russia’s market penetration from a geographic perspective. This is why Russia has always wanted more depth into the European peninsulas, which it has gained and lost cyclically throughout history (Finland, baltics, Poland).
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@Flankymanga Yes, that's the fake image. Notice the white rectangular background and the lack of clipped wingtips and stabilators that are characteristics of the F-22A planform. That looks more like a model someone made using a YF-22 toy. Amateurs would swallow the story without critical analysis, whereas those familiar with the basic shape of the Raptor immediately recognized the fake. This was posted by an amateur, not an official Russian source.
If you want to see real IR imagery of the F-22A both in burner and in dry power, the French published images of that from Rafale's OSF. Both images were extremely low contrast and at close range, with beautiful high resolution.
When speaking about civilian FLIR at RIAT watching low altitude performance demos where much of the profile is done in burner, it isn't representative of actual long range TGT detection in atmospheric contrast.
That RIAT FLIR is valuable for seeing a huge difference though, because you can watch the Su-35 demo as well. On the Flanker, you just see a huge radiating blob of fire where you can barely distinguish any shapes because the IR signature bloom is so overwhelming to the sensor.
I've been studying the applied physics of IRSTs from the collective NATO AeroE subject matter perspective since 1986, with lots of graphics and spectral analyses looking at near, mid, and long wave IR sensors and emissions.
The short story is you will not see F-22A or JSF at any BVR distances over Europe as long as they remain subsonic, if talking about OLS-35. Supersonic profiles have reduced detection range compared to 4th Gen, but the detection range is of course sooner than a subsonic profile.
Over the Middle East or North Africa at night, you can detect them just outside of visual range, but they have been watching you from 200-400km away already, so it never gets that far on a BVR timeline.
Regarding F-15 APG-63 developments: The DSP upgrade program began well before 1979. DSP APG-63(V) was the most significant upgrade from F-15A to F-15C. We were at Edwards when all this was happening in the 1970s, so I'm not talking about online sources. F-15C production began in 1978. RDT&E at Edwards and Eglin began years before that, along with AIMVAL at Nellis AFB.
Belenko didn't defect until September of 1976. The APG-63 DSP upgrade program was already well underway before it went into production and upgrades to the F-15A fleet simultaneously.
The other major upgrade was increasing the number of internal fuel tanks with the F-15C airframe, since the F-15A consumed its limited fuel quickly. The Flanker is a superior design in this regard since it has to perform long range escort without using EFTs. The MiG-29 is inferior since it has very limited fuel capacity and a short mission radius.
F-15As were rapidly transferred to Air National Guard units as F-15Cs replaced them from 1979-1985.
Another concurrent development that was driving its BVR capabilities was the push for the AIM-7M after seeing that the AIM-7F limited WEZ made the F-14A and F-15 vulnerable to all-aspect IR missiles at the end of the BVR timeline. This was due to the SARH continuous wave illumination constraint of the AIM-7 guidance architecture.
AIM-7M was the stop-gap while we went to work on the AMRAAM program.
USSR was monitoring all these developments from the extensive spy network within the US and NATO, and soon began work on the R-77, most of which took place in Ukraina SSR and just north of Moscow.
USSR also acquired technical data and subsystem samples of the Honeywell Visual Target Acquisition System for US Navy F-4J (1969) meant to provide helmet-cueing for the AIM-9G Expanded Acquisition Mode Sidewinder, and implemented that system into the MiG-29 & Su-27 in the 1980s with the R-73 all aspect IR AAM.
I have seen the materials samples of these myself, noting that the shape of the helmet tracking avionics boxes were copied exactly from the Honeywell VTAS, including the serial cards.
Russian Air Force brought MiG-29s to Edwards AFB in the early 1990s, and my father was pulled from his engineering duties on another program to act as a translator, since he speaks Russian quite well.
One of the Russian officers went on a bender one night, was late for the shuttle bus pick-up, so he tried to hitch-hike from the bachelor's quarters to the liaison buildings where everyone was meeting. It created quite a scene since he was in uniform, so they had to go pick him up quickly. They really wanted to just get trashed and go sight-seeing.
We were shocked at how crudely the MiG-29s were built, with USAF maintenance personnel noting that the APU exhaust was routed through the centerline fuel tank, and how many exposed fasteners there were on the airframe.
In hindsight, that made sense for Soviet wartime production rates assuming high attrition for the MiG-29, but it hurt the MiG-29 longevity because the fastener holes for skin panels were individually drilled by hand, following a rough template. This meant that the panels were not interchangeable from one fighter to the next. Airframe life on the MiG-29 is also very low.
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@Flankymanga Look at a top view of an F-22A. Now look at that fake image. You can see clearly for yourself that it’s a fake by looking at the trailing edges of the wings and stabilators, which are clipped on an actual F-22A. In that hoax image, the wings and stabs are not clipped. The YF-22 had wings and stabs like that, which leads one to suspect that the amateur hoaxer used an image of a toy or model YF-22 to fabricate that really bad attempt at looking like he had some inside info.
F-35 doesn’t have JHMCS, the F-15C, F-15E, F/A-18E/F, and F-16CM do. The pilot I was referencing was flying the F-15C as an aggressor. The JHMCS and Captive AIM-9 training missile could not acquire the F-22A within visual range. These WVR set-ups were arranged after BVR, where F-22s wrecked the aggressors for sport. They followed with BFM so both sets could get some BFM training in, nothing more.
Rafale’s OSF was able to see F-22A on the edge of visual range and they leaked these images, since USAF and Armee de L’Air frequently train in annual exercises. French are tired of being killed all the time at BVR and BFM, so maybe someone who was upset leaked the images. Doesn’t mean anything since Rafales always die before any kind of merge. IR concealment absolutely has worthwhile returns because it negated a whole series of weapons and sensors that had billions invested into them. IR VLO requires potential adversaries to invest in newer weapons and sensors, which take a lot of time to develop, fine-tune, and then deploy operationally.
Why have you assumed F-22s will be operating with AWACS or that presence of AWACS in the airspace compromises blue forces? F-22s and F-35s don’t need AWACS. They have vastly superior situational awareness to any AWACS platform. AWACS are mostly relevant now because of their endurance. The sensor web formed by F-22s and JSF provides each individual pilot a better picture of the airspace and surface threats than if you combined all of the crew stations in the E-3D.
AMRAAMs fired at altitude from optimum separation speed and vector can be sent into a NEZ profile that isn’t within the fields of regard of either the IRBIS or OLS-35. Fighter Radars in X-Band don’t normally detect incoming BVR missiles, nor do IRSTs. The search mode you would need to use with a high fidelity IRST with the latest Western electronics and Germanium glass would need to be in extreme narrow FOV. The way that fighters detect incoming BVR missiles has normally been when their RAWS sensors detect a specific missile seeker bandwidth illuminating their airframe. There are many ways around triggering the RWR in that spectrum, primarily by keeping the active seeker off as long as possible. The latest variants of AIM-120C7 and D use 2-way data links and have been demonstrated using passive sensors on the launch aircraft, no active RF painting of the targets. There is no need to employ within IRST detection range, since that is very short against IR VLO platforms (edge of visual, short BVR distances in practice).
Air National Guards are State-controlled, not Federal. There are small States in the US who could deploy their Air National Guard assets and erase most of the air forces on the planet, as many have both Air Mobility and Tactical Air units. For example, Vermont (one of the tiniest States) has F-35As now. There are also Federal military Reserves. It goes like this:
USAF
AFRES (Air Force Reserves)
ANG (Air National Guard)
USN
USN Reserves
USMC
USMC Reserves
US Army
Army National Guard
US Army Reserves
The USMC has a larger Air Force than the UK, for example, and the USMC is the smallest US military service.
APG-63 DSP was already under development before the MiG-31 prototypes flew. I was literally there at the USAF Flight Test Center when that was happening and we later were on the F-15 CTF. APG-63 Radar development was extremely guarded, not openly discussed much at all. There were other features it and the APG-66 had that are still not able to be discussed, even though they were replaced generations ago. The F-102 and F-106 Air Defense Fighters as part of NORAD had the SAGE networked data link program in the early 1960s. Most of what is said about who did what first is entirely at odds with the history. Swedes claim they had it first as well on Viggen, but theirs came right after SAGE, and they had a lot of Hughes systems in their fighters.
CIA was co-opted by the NKVD before the CIA was even formed. It was the most aggressive, most successful counter-intelligence operation conducted that I know of in history. Russia went straight to the top and the rest of the organization was downline of that. They had 200 double agents in the OSS/CIA transition even before Congress signed the National Security Act of 1947, which created the CIA, NSA, and USAF.
CIA is not the main people who acquire foreign materials. DIA and its assets among the services are much better at that, while CIA takes credit for it and immediately leaks back to the source nations exactly what has been acquired. CIA is a double agency working for Moscow, and this has never changed.
All fighter Radars operate in X-band with similar sized antennae. That doesn’t equate to them being capable of jamming the other. ECM systems are used for that typically, until the advent of 5th Gen AESAs with certain Transmitter Receiver Modules. For example, F-35s can jam the earlier APG-77 in the F-22A, so a massive modernization effort has been undertaken to bring the APG-77(V)1 up to that capability I suspect.
Typhoon CAPTOR-E Mk.2 for the UK will have jamming capability, whereas the German Mk.1 will not have the GaN TRM elements. To save money, the UK is installing 50% of the TRMs with GaN semiconductor materials, and the other 50% with Gallium Arsenide (GaA). It isn’t openly discussed what the TRMs are made of for F-35 and F-22 upgrades. Up until a few years ago, GaN TRMs were unobtainable in quantities necessary for mass production to populate hundreds of antennae arrays with over 1600 TRM count.
The current JSF series has had stand-off jamming capability leveraged with VLO and the ability to manage their signatures deceptively, which is a new capability for fighter radars. Russian ELINT birds have already suffered from being shot by Syrian SAMs when they showed up on the Syrian IADS net as hostiles, even as Syrian IADS is managed with technical assistance and networking with Russian expeditionary forces. Russia complained to Israel, but Israel said all of their F-16I strike fighters had already landed.
Again, everyone who thinks Russia leads the way in EW is sadly mistaken. The US just doesn’t talk about it, puts out all sorts of disinformation, and distractions about “dogfighting”.
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