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grover posted:F-35s with combat lasers will be capable of boost-phase missile interception. The 747/chemical-laser -based ABM was cancelled largely because a compact solid-state laser was anticipated to reach maturity virtually the same time and will be far superior in virtually every respect. I don't think the F-35 is fast enough or has the range for proper missile defense. Not to mention one advantage of the 747 is that it would have a real loiter time.
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Jan 19, 2012 16:19
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Forums Terrorist posted:I don't think the F-35 is fast enough or has the range for proper missile defense. Not to mention one advantage of the 747 is that it would have a real loiter time. I don't think those F35 ideas were supposed to be permanent shields to prevent someone from using missiles. If you're worried about that sort of thing generally there are diplomatic options that make a launch more or less a non-issue. As I understand it, the real issue is medium to small states getting theater-level missiles tipped with something nasty in the NBC family and using them as a way of guaranteeing that the US will never try to forcibly destabilize the regime. Basically the North Korea problem - we could crush them militarily, but if they have even a single crappy low-yield nuke on a glorified scud it becomes politically impossible due to no one wanting to see Seoul turned into a glowing crater. Put some anti-missle lasers on fast jets, however, and you re-gain the ability to punitively strike some rear end in a top hat dictator with a limited non-conventional arsenal. It's less about being able to defend ourselves, and more about being able to keep small countries away from the grownups table of MAD diplomacy.
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Jan 19, 2012 17:18
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Well I guess that takes the F-35 from "utterly worthless waste of money" to "A modern day Voodoo".
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Jan 19, 2012 17:22
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Forums Terrorist posted:Well I guess that takes the F-35 from "utterly worthless waste of money" to "A modern day Voodoo". Plus ça change. . .
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Jan 19, 2012 17:28
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Cyrano4747 posted:Put some anti-missle lasers on fast jets, however, and you re-gain the ability to punitively strike some rear end in a top hat dictator with a limited non-conventional arsenal. Plus, you're overlooking the most cold war-ish thing about the whole idea of putting lazers in jets and using them to shoot down boost phase ballistic missiles: it's cool as gently caress
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Jan 19, 2012 17:42
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Cyrano4747 posted:I don't think those F35 ideas were supposed to be permanent shields to prevent someone from using missiles. If you're worried about that sort of thing generally there are diplomatic options that make a launch more or less a non-issue. Wouldn't North Korea have a much easier time delivering its nuke in a shipping container? Infiltration is their game after all. Of course, the problem with secret nukes, as shown by Dr Strangelove, is that they're very poor deterrents.
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Jan 19, 2012 17:53
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wdarkk posted:Wouldn't North Korea have a much easier time delivering its nuke in a shipping container? Infiltration is their game after all. The funniest bit is that every country that's tried to develop a nuclear weapon has done it successfully on the very first try. Except North Korea. They managed to gently caress it up. *Pakistan* managed something that North Korea couldn't. vvvvvvvvvvv Cyrano4747 posted:it would probably be MUCH easier and more feasible for them to lob a short range missile at Seoul than to try and smuggle anything anywhere. NK has roughly 72 billion artillery pieces that give them a purely conventional ability to flatten Seoul. They'd probably want to use a nuclear weapon to threaten or destroy something they don't already have the capability to wipe off the map in an afternoon. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jan 19, 2012 |
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Jan 19, 2012 18:09
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wdarkk posted:Wouldn't North Korea have a much easier time delivering its nuke in a shipping container? Infiltration is their game after all. I doubt it. There's the whole issue of a mega-secured border/DMZ to deal with, plus the fact that any cargo coming out of the DPRK seems to be watched pretty carefully. Think of that boatload of small arms and scud parts they were trying to sell a few years ago as an example. As much of a pain in the rear end as getting their nuke design down from "truck bed sized" to "balistic missile nose cone sized" would be, in the long run it would probably be MUCH easier and more feasible for them to lob a short range missile at Seoul than to try and smuggle anything anywhere.
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Jan 19, 2012 18:34
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Cyrano4747 posted:I doubt it. There's the whole issue of a mega-secured border/DMZ to deal with, plus the fact that any cargo coming out of the DPRK seems to be watched pretty carefully. Think of that boatload of small arms and scud parts they were trying to sell a few years ago as an example. I want them to tunnel directly under Seoul from NK and detonate the nuke underground. BOOM *city collapses into hole*
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Jan 19, 2012 18:56
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NosmoKing posted:I want them to tunnel directly under Seoul from NK and detonate the nuke underground. Aren't nukes underground vastly less devastating than nukes in the air?
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Jan 19, 2012 19:16
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Forums Terrorist posted:Well I guess that takes the F-35 from "utterly worthless waste of money" to "A modern day Voodoo". One of my neighbours when I was 12 was an ex-CF-101 pilot.
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Jan 19, 2012 19:22
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Phanatic posted:NK has roughly 72 billion artillery pieces that give them a purely conventional ability to flatten Seoul. They'd probably want to use a nuclear weapon to threaten or destroy something they don't already have the capability to wipe off the map in an afternoon. Seoul is almost completely out of artillery range, except for the northern outskirts.
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Jan 19, 2012 19:34
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Armyman25 posted:Seoul is almost completely out of artillery range, except for the northern outskirts. Not exactly. Seoul is a geographically very big, sprawling city, like an Asian Atlanta. Go read Cyrano's posts on the first page of the DPRK megathread - though the center of the city isn't in artillery range, much of the northern half of the city is, including some very heavily built up portions. Throw some incendiaries in the mix and you have many, many dead civilians.
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Jan 19, 2012 19:46
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wdarkk posted:Aren't nukes underground vastly less devastating than nukes in the air? Except they throw tons and tons and tons of super radioactive dirt and debris over a massive area. Less light massive fires and air blast damage, far more radiation poisoning and shearing buildings off at the base from ground movement.
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Jan 19, 2012 19:46
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mikerock posted:One of my neighbours when I was 12 was an ex-CF-101 pilot. I remember seeing CF-101s at the Abbotsford airshow when I was pretty young, the only thing louder than them were the Harriers. Although that's probably because the harrier is hovering nearby instead of screaming past. My Dad's cousin is the rarest of breeds: a CF-104 pilot who never crashed once!
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Jan 19, 2012 19:50
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iyaayas01 posted:
It's far more than a mere 'Cactus Air Force' thing that makes STOVL appealing to the Marine Corps. In fact, I don't even think 'Henderson Field' even enters into the discussion regarding the JSF at HQMC.(nice bit of strawman there) The Marine Corps unquestionably needs new aircraft. Marine Harriers are 30ish years old and their Hornets are 20ish. They saved a couple of billion by skipping a generation and not acquiring Super Hornets. Unless we dramatically change the way the ESG and CSG deploy, that replacement must be a STOVL aircraft. For the MEU to be self-supporting, it needs organic fixed wing air. There is no doubt about it. Helos don't have the payload, range(thus, loiter time) or speed of fixed wing air. They don't carry bombs and they're not great at dealing with enemy air defenses. The Harrier has proven the value of V/STOL numerous times. No fixed wing air neuters the MEU and reduces the amount of independently deployable tools to deal with situations abroad. Saying the Marine Corps doesn't need organic fixed wing air in the MEU is pretty shortsighted when CSGs are already stretched pretty thin and the Navy is facing deep cuts. I'm not saying that Harrier replacement needs to be the F-35B but it's currently the only jet in development that meets the requirements. There isn't any other realistic option to replace Harriers and retain the MEU's flexibility in dealing with threats. Besides that, there's the whole sea control ship thing. I don't know how much merit, if any, to attach to the concept but it is a secondary mission for LHAs. While they would never replace or replicate a CVN on a ship for ship basis, not every situation calls for a CSG. See Libya; a not inconsiderable portion of the air war was carried out by Harriers off of a big deck Amphib, not Super Hornets off of a CVN. SCS configured LHAs are a poorman's CVN that holds some appeal in economically tight times. They would technically(and only technically, more like 1.3x) double the amount of capital ships in the fleet. The JSF is unquestionably the epitome of a 'horse designed by committee' but that's the result of input from 3 services and international customers. I'm as unhappy with the cost and the delays as anyone else. The whole program is a giant boondoggle that wouldn't have gotten off the ground had the upfront cost estimates been better upfront. The Navy would have bought more Super Hornets(which they want to do anyways) and the Air Force would have bought more F-22s/F-15s/F-16s. The Marine Corps would have pursued a different, cheaper aircraft that better meets their needs and everyone would be happy.
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Jan 19, 2012 20:34
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Cyrano4747 posted:Uh, you understand that when things are designed these days they generally aren't just thrown together on blueprints by an engineer and then some other engineer figures out how to put it together, right? Usually it's a whole process of basically designing the finished product and the industrial processes and tooling to build it simultaneously. Given the advances in rapid prototyping and the like, I am pretty sure creating tooling from a valid reference point like a working, in-service aircraft isn't impossible. Certainly not cheap, but gosh, considering technological advances since the 70s not impossible. You only have to look at the proliferation of computer aided design tools and skills to get some notion of how much potential is out there. A few hotshit engineers, CAD monkeys and tool makers and they should be able to turn something out.
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Jan 19, 2012 20:35
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Ok, I made a few simplifications and didn't think through a hundred problems from building from scratch. This isn't WWII and you can't just have guys who worked on washing machines assembling a plane anymore. At the same time, it just seemed like the way some people spoke of the lack of tooling as it being literally impossible to build more aircraft. And to clarify/backpeddle, I would rather see newer derivatives or upgrades like the Silent Eagle or a modernized F-16 block than just trying to half-rear end a F-15C and even less keep building a drat plane that doesn't work.
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Jan 19, 2012 20:49
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Top CAD! Iceman: You two really are cowboys. Maverick: What's your problem, Kazanski? Iceman: You're everyone's problem. That's because every time you load up Solidworks, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous. Maverick: That's right! Ice... man. I am dangerous. Maverick: IT, this is Ghost CADer requesting a dwg dump. IT Boss Johnson: Negative, Ghost CADer, the SAN is full.
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Jan 19, 2012 20:53
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Are we past the point of no return with the JSF where the shear momentum of the program carries it through to operations?
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Jan 19, 2012 20:55
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I wonder if it'll be like the F-22, a bunch are made but nowhere near the original number that was planned.
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Jan 19, 2012 20:56
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Veins McGee posted:
Why does the MEU need to be self-supporting? quote:There is no doubt about it. Helos don't have the payload, range(thus, loiter time) or speed of fixed wing air. They don't carry bombs and they're not great at dealing with enemy air defenses. The Harrier has proven the value of V/STOL numerous times. Where? quote:No fixed wing air neuters the MEU No, it doesn't. Fixed-wing, whether it be the Harrier or the F-35, won't help an MEU survive in a modern threat environment. Like I said earlier up the thread (I think, maybe it was somewhere else), if all you're doing is beating up on someone who can't fight back, or doing some non-combat role like showing the flag or disaster relief, then okay, an MEU can do that, but it doesn't need fixed-wing in order to do it. If, on the other hand, you're going up against someone who *can* fight back, with anti-ship missiles, submarines, and an actual air force, then having organic fixed wing just isn't enough, you still can't defend yourself against the threats you're going to face. So if you're going into that kind of environment, you're going to have other assets backing you up to protect you against the C-802s and Kilos, because we're not ever going to send an LHA with 2000+ guys on it into an environment where someone can shoot modern ASMs at it without also sending an Aegis boat and a carrier along with it to keep it from getting blown up. Example: At Al-Faw during OIF, the 15th MEU did an amphibious invasion of the peninsula, with heavy support from British troops. This was Iraq, mind you, which at that point really fell into the "someone who can't fight back" category, and we still had 5 frigates, an Aegis cruiser, and the USS Constellation in support. And that's a situation with no significant threat of sub attack, air attack, or ASM attack. quote:There isn't any other realistic option to replace Harriers and retain the MEU's flexibility in dealing with threats. But that's just it: The MEU doesn't really have any flexibility in dealing with threats. It can do air support for the guys its putting on the beach, but that's about it. If you want it to be flexible, you need to put it in an ESG. quote:See Libya; a not inconsiderable portion of the air war was carried out by Harriers off of a big deck Amphib, not Super Hornets off of a CVN. Again, another example of beating up on an opponent that's unable to hit back. What did the Harriers do that they were unique in their ability to accomplish? We were attacking Libya with F-15s and F-16s out of Aviano, so it's not like we didn't have non-V/STOL assets able to support, and the Brits were flying Typhoons and Tornados out of Italy; if the Harriers weren't there and the Marines were only able to use helicopters for ground attack, would it have seriously impacted the mission?
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Jan 19, 2012 21:41
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Going back to the tunnel nuke under Seoul, there's the mentioned aspect of radioactive plume and all that fun stuff. It's the seismic activity that is the killer, as was said. Seoul is pretty well designed in that aspect, but a 7.0 at 6km down is (IIRC) preferable than a 3 or 4.0 at 500m. No one designs earthquake proofing for a massive sudden shock like that. It's ridiculous though because none of their tunnels went under Seoul proper, and at best it would be 100m deep, if not shallower, and at that point it's basically a ground burst. e- plus North Korean yields, uh, leave something to be desired. You'd need a 10KT or better, and somewhere between 500m and 1km depth for city leveling seismic power. Seizure Meat fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jan 19, 2012 |
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Jan 19, 2012 22:11
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priznat posted:I remember seeing CF-101s at the Abbotsford airshow when I was pretty young, the only thing louder than them were the Harriers. Although that's probably because the harrier is hovering nearby instead of screaming past. To be fair to the CF-104 most of the accidents on those planes were to the Luftwaffe using them inappropriately.
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Jan 19, 2012 22:18
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Those goddamn Germans!  I did hear an entertaining story about a CF-104 being lost because the pilot overflew a beach (nude beach?) in France and ingested a seagull or two. Probably not true but an entertaining story anyway.
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Jan 19, 2012 22:21
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mikerock posted:To be fair to the CF-104 most of the accidents on those planes were to the Luftwaffe using them inappropriately. 100% of CF-104 accidents were due to not buying enough Bomarcs.
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Jan 19, 2012 23:15
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BOMARCs don't do low level strike and recce though! They were going to be droppin' US nukes, something my dad's cousin did training for apparently. Then he became an airline pilot for Canadian and now Air Canada, with a sweet gig as a pilot instructor on their simulator systems.
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Jan 19, 2012 23:19
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grover posted:JSF with lasers to down missiles For me, this falls firmly into the realm of "I'll believe it when I see it." Not because lasers from planes is impossible, but because the JSF has massive issues, and shoving a laser with sufficient range and power inside one will likely create even more massive issues. Throatwarbler posted:I read that the first time you posted but missed the part about 7 warhead kills in Iraq. A lot of things. Speed The faster the inbound target, the harder it is to predict so precisely where it is that you can hit it on the nose with your own missile and the added speed eats up battlespace. RCS (radar cross section) If the warhead is harder to detect, then a poor sensor may not see it at all, an average sensor may see it too late to engage or provide enough early warning, and a good sensor may have difficulty telling the warhead from the clutter or decoys. Maneuvering Whether intentional as a way to avoid intercept or a way for a guided munition to get on target or incidental due to the airframe breaking up or being less than aerodynamically sound, a warhead pulling a large number of g's within your engagement zone is bad for your pK (probability of kill). Some missile defense systems can program in a "No Engage Zone" vs. threats they think will maneuver such that you try to intercept above or below the area where the warhead is pulling heavy g's. Additionally, a warhead could perform a late terminal maneuver such that the predicted impact point suddenly shifts dramatically. So, imagine a missile system determined the warhead was going to land 20 km from its asset and thus was not going to engage. Then the warhead pulls up, or dives down or some such and BLAM you have a new predicted impact point on your head and it's too late to fire interceptors. Clutter/Chaff Again, whether by design or just from the airframe breaking apart in the atmosphere, the amount of chaff a TBM puts into the atmosphere can have an adverse affect on the tracking radar. Decoys Decoys can attempt to fool a missile defense system causing missile wastage or warhead penetration through defensive layers. There are a few different ways to build decoys. Balloon Decoys blow up to the size of a real warhead and can be heated in order to make them look more real to an infra-red seeker. This can make tracking them in space difficult and midcourse intercepts dicey. Of course, once these hit the atmosphere, even the most basic of slowdown tests can determine which object is the real warhead. Unheated balloons are defeated by infra-red seekers on the interceptor which can fly up to the group of decoys and warhead, then see which one is real. Dense decoys. Dense decoys are built to fall through the atmosphere just as fast as the real warhead. They can also be built to match the RCS of the larger warhead by making them extra reflective and the warhead less reflective. This is where a good high range resolution or ultra high range resolution system comes in handy. You effectively shoot a bunch of tiny pencil beams at the track and measure how physically long it is (as opposed to its RCS) and then can determine that there are, for example, 3 small very reflective targets and 1 larger target, which is the real warhead. If you could build decoys which were literally just as large, dense, and reflective as the real warhead, you'd just put extra real warheads on. Jamming Some warheads attempt to jam tracking radars or frequencies used for missile guidance. ERS (early release submunitions) A TBM may deploy submunitions above a missile systems intercept altitude, thus turning one warhead into several or thousands of smaller bombs, chemical agents, etc. Also, since submunitions tend to slow down faster than whole warheads due to their drag coefficient, a warhead could appear to be overlflying a target, then disperse submunitions which land on the target. Multiple guided munitions This is kind of like ERS, but nastier. Imagine you have a missile system capable of engaging 4 separate warheads coming from one TBM. Now imagine the TBM has 6 guided munitions built into the warhead, and that it deploys above intercept altitude. Now you have a missile defense system destroying 4 of the 6 guided munitions, allowing 2 to penetrate and destroy the missile system's sensor, opening the floodgates for less advanced TBMs. Compartmentalized munitions This relates heavily to ERS, but could also apply to bulk chemical weapons. If you have a fragmentary interceptor which pockets a warhead with shrapnel, that works great against a unitary high explosive warhead or gas round. If you have a lot of tiny compartmentalized warheads or chemical weapons, then hitting the warhead with some shrapnel may only destroy a portion of the inbound munitions. This is where hit-to-kill tech really shines, because it can obliterate this kind of thing. I probably forgot thing and intentionally left a lot of stuff vague because I like not losing my clearance/job, but that should be a good basic overview. Space Gopher posted:What makes it so hard? It seems like the missile would be most vulnerable during the boost phase - less total energy while it's still burning its fuel, less chance to deploy decoys, and so forth. Is the main issue the problem of detecting, tracking, and getting to the missile before it's out of reach? It's actually quite hard to have a system which can detect, then track with fire control quality rather than just surveillance quality, a missile launch, because it would likely mean having sensors very close to the launch point. Any interceptor trying to hit the TBM during boost either has to be placed very, very close to the TBM launch area or fly stupendously fast, yet still maintain accuracy. If you end up with an interceptor which is chasing the TBM into space, you run the risk of the TBM deploying any number of countermeasures and rendering your interceptor susceptible to vacuum physics (that's a term right?  ) as far as discrimination of the warhead and maneuvering of the interceptor itself.
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Jan 20, 2012 00:03
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mlmp08 posted:For me, this falls firmly into the realm of "I'll believe it when I see it." Not because lasers from planes is impossible, but because the JSF has massive issues, and shoving a laser with sufficient range and power inside one will likely create even more massive issues. Also because the main purpose of the laser is to induce  in gullible technofetishists and not to expand the JSF's capabilities in any meaningful way.
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Jan 20, 2012 00:10
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Phanatic posted:words http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/08/4679496/ This guy knows more about jets than either of us. He is not a fan of the F-35, or a huge fan of STOVL, but acknowledges the importance of fixed wing aircraft operating off of amphibs in the design of the MEU. At this point, the only point that I can see being debated is the necessity of the MEU(and thus the Marine Corps as a whole). Side note: 1)The MEU is embarked on ships tasked to an ESG which also includes an Aegis cruiser, ASW capable ships and an SSN. 2)I was misinformed about the Harrier. My b.
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Jan 20, 2012 01:30
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Are there actually ballistic missiles that manoeuvres and release chaff? I would think that altering the radar cross section of a warhead would be difficult too, since they kind of have a specific shape and I don't think any radar absorbing coatings would survive the high speeds at the terminal phase.
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Jan 20, 2012 01:42
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Veins McGee posted:http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/08/4679496/ And he seems to be a big fan of the Hornet. He's got a whole section in that article, "ARGUMENTS FOR THE F/A-18F," where he's basically saying (I think) that the USMC should operate Hornets off of Navy carriers: quote:The Navy operates the F/A-18F exclusively within its carrier air wings. Continuing to employ an aircraft capable of operating in a carrier air wing would provide the Marine Corps with basing flexibility and a stake in the future of naval aviation. Flying a common tactical-air platform ensures uncomplicated interoperability should the need arise. I agree with the man. If the USMC really needs fixed-wing, then use an existing fix wing and drop the V/STOL requirement which doesn't do much for them other than vastly increase costs.
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Jan 20, 2012 01:53
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Phanatic posted:And he seems to be a big fan of the Hornet. He's got a whole section in that article, "ARGUMENTS FOR THE F/A-18F," where he's basically saying (I think) that the USMC should operate Hornets off of Navy carriers: I thought the already did that. USMC maintenance personnel deploy on CVN's anyway.
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Jan 20, 2012 03:12
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Throatwarbler posted:Are there actually ballistic missiles that manoeuvres and release chaff? I would think that altering the radar cross section of a warhead would be difficult too, since they kind of have a specific shape and I don't think any radar absorbing coatings would survive the high speeds at the terminal phase. Ha, yes, yes, and yes. they are more advanced, but maneuvering warheads covered in RAM which separate from bodies which dispense chaffe exist.
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Jan 20, 2012 03:19
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Armyman25 posted:I thought the already did that. USMC maintenance personnel deploy on CVN's anyway. The USMC is basically the military version of that 20 year old kid who talks non stop about how important it is to be independent, self-sufficient, and free while living in his parents' basement and eating all their groceries.
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Jan 20, 2012 03:19
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Cyrano4747 posted:The USMC is basically the military version of that 20 year old kid who talks non stop about how important it is to be independent, self-sufficient, and free while living in his parents' basement and eating all their groceries. I think this is the best description of the USMC I've ever seen.
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Jan 20, 2012 03:20
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Cyrano4747 posted:The USMC is basically the military version of that 20 year old kid who talks non stop about how important it is to be independent, self-sufficient, and free while living in his parents' basement and eating all their groceries. Haha that is fantastic
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Jan 20, 2012 03:39
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mlmp08 posted:Ha, yes, yes, and yes. they are more advanced, but maneuvering warheads covered in RAM which separate from bodies which dispense chaffe exist. Such as? I'm aware of maneuvering ICBMs, like Pershing II, but which ballistic missile does all of those things?
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Jan 20, 2012 03:49
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Phanatic posted:Such as? They exist, don't worry about it. edit: by the way, that means I legally cannot say.
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Jan 20, 2012 03:49
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mlmp08 posted:They exist, don't worry about it. If you're not allowed to tell us which one, then you're not allowed to tell us about its existence at all.
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Jan 20, 2012 03:51
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