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Space Gopher posted:Yes, you could shoot a SAM at it. Missiles like the Standard are designed to hit cruise missiles and low-flying aircraft; from the missile's perspective, a ground-effect craft is just an airplane that happens to be flying very low. And the Standard is perfectly capable of being fired in a surface-attack mode anyway. US ships flipped a half-dozen at an Iranian corvette during Praying Mantis, ripping the superstructure up really good and doing enough damage for it to eventually sink.
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Apr 3, 2012 20:33
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priznat posted:The question is, if they did detect it what could they do about it? Can standard missiles intercept stuff that low? Can harpoons hit a target moving that quickly? It was made to launch this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskit , which has a 120km range and travels at mach 3. Still, a Hawkeye I would imagine could spot one from further than 120km out, at least nowadays. Would still probably be hard to intercept one that far out though. e. The other thing is that I'm pretty sure the ekranoplane was meant more for operating in the black sea, so it probably wouldn't be tasked for attacking carrier groups, but more for smaller surface ships, and then making it enough of a threat that we wouldn't try sailing a carrier group into the black sea. Against smaller groups of ships I bet it could have been fairly effective. Dr. Despair fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Apr 3, 2012 |
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Apr 3, 2012 20:39
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The problem with this thought exercise is that if the ruskies were sending out ekranoplan's, there's gonna be a lot of other poo poo flying around, missiles of all types going off, aircraft of sorts at all altitudes etc. Figure that doctrinally the sovs wanted to have a heavy-lift ekrano design for transporting armored units quickly, and ekranoplan carried armor would be some of the most rapid deploying and mobile in the world. So if they are being used, the bear is rolling its tanks out across Europe or wherever the gently caress, and poo poo is going down. They would probably be used to place heavy armor, right at the onset of conflict with other traditional airborne or air asssault forces. Instead of your tanks taking days to get to the front, you're spearheading with heavy armor integrated to your force, a mere hours after invasion. Tanks in places tanks shouldn't be in yet. Huge force multiplyer. So yeah our guys would be kind of busy fighting ww3, maybe some would probably get through just fine, not even factoring the fact that the Russians would be protecting the gently caress out of the things. Probably preemptively bomb the poo poo out of whatever corridor they planned on transporting the ekrano-borne armor through, plus escorts.
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Apr 3, 2012 21:24
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Mr. Despair posted:It was made to launch this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskit , which has a 120km range and travels at mach 3. Still, a Hawkeye I would imagine could spot one from further than 120km out, at least nowadays. Would still probably be hard to intercept one that far out though. Interestingly enough the US bought a number of KH-31s, which are smaller variants of the moskits (but similar characteristics otherwise), in the mid 1990s and retrofitted them into aerial targets.
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Apr 3, 2012 21:41
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LavistaSays posted:They would probably be used to place heavy armor, right at the onset of conflict with other traditional airborne or air asssault forces. Instead of your tanks taking days to get to the front, you're spearheading with heavy armor integrated to your force, a mere hours after invasion. Tanks in places tanks shouldn't be in yet. Huge force multiplyer. I'm not sure what the plans were, but the Soviets also developed the world's largest hovercraft. It looks like something Cobra would use for invading. (I learned this through Wings of Russia, which has an entire episode devoted to Russian hovercraft and wing in ground effect vehicles.)
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Apr 3, 2012 22:13
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It seems like a major doctrine of Soviet military vehicle production was "find every possible niche and fill it, comrade". Truly a spectacular ecosystem of military equipment, that's for sure.
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Apr 3, 2012 22:15
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Gatac posted:Odd question: does anyone know how hard it is to detect an ekranoplan in ground effect flight? I imagine going low is good against radar im general, but I don't know poo poo about how low you'd have to be to dodge a modern naval radar setup.
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Apr 3, 2012 22:21
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priznat posted:It seems like a major doctrine of Soviet military vehicle production was "find every possible niche and fill it, comrade". Are you claiming the ZIL-2906 was a niche and not the future of non-wheeled vehicles?  
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Apr 3, 2012 22:35
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Haha, I love the video for that. I want one for the commute on snow days. Never buy another snow tire!
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Apr 3, 2012 22:39
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I think the two major roles for Soviet hovercraft and whatnot were arctic operations and the Black Sea.
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Apr 3, 2012 22:51
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Nebakenezzer posted:I'm not sure what the plans were, but the Soviets also developed the world's largest hovercraft. It looks like something Cobra would use for invading. (I learned this through Wings of Russia, which has an entire episode devoted to Russian hovercraft and wing in ground effect vehicles.) Every cold war video should have hell march as background music. Every. Single. One.
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Apr 4, 2012 21:22
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I love Zubrs. I modeled one years ago for a BF2 modding team, unfortunately nothing came of it 
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Apr 5, 2012 01:09
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Slamburger posted:Every cold war video should have hell march as background music. Every. Single. One. Hell March is really good for May Day. Only works for the Soviets, though. Americans get this, but the videos aren't nearly as cool. e- Basically wars should be fought with wrestling entrance music. Seizure Meat fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 02:13
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The fact that certain large military powers still hold mass formation marching as an attempt to show military might is amusing. yes, you have many warm bodies who are very disciplined. Just one of those sensor fused munitions would be capable of destroying combat units of massed infantry in less than a minute. but thats ok, 10,000 people looking left and saluting at once sure does make a dictators SRBM fueled and ready for launch. That said, some of those female chinese soldiers have really pretty faces, in a mass march video i recently saw on youtube. Something more scary about a beautiful woman who probably fanatically hates what i belive in than a male soldier, which fits the archtype im used to. And im sure everyone who is a regular in this thread knows the Sovs would fly over red square, out of LOS, and circle back for a pass in the same direction as the first, to make it seem like there were endless waves of bombers. Raw_Beef fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 04:46
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Counterpoint: you guys bought those SFWs instead of, say, healthcare.
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Apr 5, 2012 04:51
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The entire thread is dedicated to the 50 year waste of money and lives that was the cold war. The original content of this post was poorly thought out and i choose to remove it. Raw_Beef fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 04:57
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Raw_Beef posted:The fact that certain large military powers still hold mass formation marching as an attempt to show military might is amusing. So in other words we should have military parades of physicists, technicians, aeronautical engineers, and nuclear scientists. A vast parade of  .I like it.
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Apr 5, 2012 04:57
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omgLerkHat! posted:So in other words we should have military parades of physicists, technicians, aeronautical engineers, and nuclear scientists. A vast parade of I was going to get into a stupid sematic derail but then this came up. This is awesome please do this tia. Also Raw_Beef you should probably sober up before posting next time.
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Apr 5, 2012 04:58
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Us "good guys" nations dont tend to hold military dickwaving parades. We do have lots of air shows with units like the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds, but ive never heard of an army unit driving its AFVs down main st and the citizens hailing our conquering legions. its all good forums terrist, i recsinded my inflamitory opinions. we can continue to discuss poor budget priorities of all nations, aka the military industrial complex.
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Apr 5, 2012 05:05
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Raw_Beef posted:And im sure everyone who is a regular in this thread knows the Sovs would fly over red square, out of LOS, and circle back for a pass in the same direction as the first, to make it seem like there were endless waves of bombers. The really amusing thing (to me, anyway) is that they knew that we knew this, so they would take that into account if they really wanted to make a point to the Western air attaches who were inevitably watching. Best example I can think of is with the Tu-4, where they knew we knew they had interned 3 B-29s during the war, so they had three fly over, figuring that the Western dudes watching would think it was just the three they had interned, but then they had a fourth one fly over right behind the first three and  AW poo poo SON THAT'S RIGHT WE COPIED YOUR BOMBER
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Apr 5, 2012 05:48
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Alaan posted:Do Sidewinders have a minimum altitude they are programmed to work with or will they just merrily go after hot things at low levels? I'd imagine a missile up your engines would not be a happy day for you. Modern Sidewinders have AGM capabilities, but then again, they now run off of super-smart "point your helmet at it and it dies" technology.
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Apr 5, 2012 08:52
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Parthenogenocide posted:Modern Sidewinders have AGM capabilities, but then again, they now run off of super-smart "point your helmet at it and it dies" technology. I'm not 100% sure this is actually the case. They've demonstrated the capability on the -9X, but as far as I know none of the end users have chosen to push that particular software upgrade out to their missile stockpile...but I could be wrong with that because I've been out of the loop for a couple years. The reason the air to ground upgrade works is that the -9X has an IIR FPA seeker, as opposed to the older seeker on the legacy Sidewinders. Here's legacy:  Here's the -9X:  And here's what the -9X sees:  Since this has turned into a -9X post, I'll link this video again. Pretty impressive compilation of what the -9X is capable of...the last Lufbery Circle shot is nuts. And thus we see why WVR fights where both sides have off-boresight missiles and helmet mounted sights rapidly devolve into a furball where everyone dies.
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Apr 5, 2012 09:36
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Also a 9-X is relatively expensive, and its dedicated anti-aircraft warhead would totally be wasted in an air-ground role, especially when there are cheaper and more effective weapons available.
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Apr 5, 2012 09:47
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thesurlyspringKAA posted:Also a 9-X is relatively expensive, and its dedicated anti-aircraft warhead would totally be wasted in an air-ground role, especially when there are cheaper and more effective weapons available. Which is why I don't believe any of the end users have pushed the software upgrade out...like you said the annular blast-frag/continuous rod warhead is very optimized for getting a fatal hit against relatively thin skinned aircraft, and the whole idea is just a really niche thing. Cool that the missile can do it due to the IIR FPA seeker, but not really a vital military use. Here's what an annular blast-frag warhead looks like when it low order detonates: 
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Apr 5, 2012 10:11
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Raw_Beef posted:Us "good guys" nations dont tend to hold military dickwaving parades. We do have lots of air shows with units like the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds, but ive never heard of an army unit driving its AFVs down main st and the citizens hailing our conquering legions. Well.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMNPR4X5Nqo I always liked the French prancing about their tanks yearly, regardless of the nationalistic nuttiness.
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Apr 5, 2012 10:18
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omgLerkHat! posted:So in other words we should have military parades of physicists, technicians, aeronautical engineers, and nuclear scientists. A vast parade of No. Robots.
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Apr 5, 2012 12:40
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AlexanderCA posted:Well.... Foreign Legion pioneers @ 0:31. It's a pretty cool sight watching them coming last in the parade (they always march slow for some weird reason), there's a huge gap between them and the preceding units and it's quiet for a while..until you hear them singing in the distance. Also they do not divide their ranks to get around the Triumph Arch because they shall never be divided again  The legion may be a semi-expendable army for post-colonial ventures, and extremely homophobic and violent and wood-rigid and what have you, but drat if they ain't good for a breath of refreshingly stale air in the modern age.
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Apr 5, 2012 13:20
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omgLerkHat! posted:So in other words we should have military parades of physicists, technicians, aeronautical engineers, and nuclear scientists. A vast parade of A bit late, but don't forget the accounting types who are handling the logistics. All of that hardware running around to dramatic music isn't worth poo poo if nobody can figure out how to get gas to it.  Chiming in mostly to say that I love this loving thread. Thanks to all of you for taking me back to my childhood obsession with bad "dad lit" books and plane and tank models.
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Apr 5, 2012 13:54
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You guys might like this collection of ww2 kodachrome photos. http://pavelkosenko.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/4x5-kodachromes/ 
fuf fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 14:07
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DoD has been testing Aim-9X for air to ground applications but it's more of a "like to have" capability in an otherwise highly unlikely mission scenario. They're nearly 5 times as expensive as Hellfire, which is the premiere AGM at the moment and much less effectiveness given its warhead isn't designed for ground targets. The now cancelled NGM program, which was to set to replace AMRAAMs, had similar requirements where they wanted some kind of AGM capability. Again the question of effectiveness comes into mind but if it were a soft target susceptible to any small amount of damage, such as radar installations, then it could have a mission. I don't think that's worthy enough to invest into it only because you have bigger problems if radar installations are still targets.
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Apr 5, 2012 14:36
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daskrolator posted:I don't think that's worthy enough to invest into it only because you have bigger problems if radar installations are still targets. Eh, I'm sure Iyaayas or someone else in the know will correct me if I'm wrong, but I see it more as the airplane version of something like super-rudimentary BUIS on a red dot or see through scope rings on a sniper rifle or the like. Does it work as well as the real deal? No. Is it intended to ever be used as a primary weapon system? No. Is it still a really nice tool to have available in case poo poo goes sideways and all you've got on immediate hand is a relatively specialized weapon that is now of at least minimal use? Oh hell yeah. Maybe not in Iraq 2.0 or Afghanistan or anything, but I could see that kind of situation in a war where we have enough of a credible air threat to be flying planes around with sidewinders on them - poo poo, this doesn't even have to be a war with China scenario, think the first few days of the Gulf War. Bad firefight with guys pinned down and dying and all that's on hand in a 15 minute window is some loitering air superiority asset, or something.
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Apr 5, 2012 14:54
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iyaayas01 posted:Since this has turned into a -9X post, I'll link this video again. Pretty impressive compilation of what the -9X is capable of...the last Lufbery Circle shot is nuts. And thus we see why WVR fights where both sides have off-boresight missiles and helmet mounted sights rapidly devolve into a furball where everyone dies. The missile doing a complete 360 was pretty out there. 
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Apr 5, 2012 15:35
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This B-52 just turned 50!   . . . and it's the youngest airframe we have. 
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Apr 5, 2012 15:36
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We've been playing with A2G sidewinders for quite a long time. Here's a pic from 1971 of an 9L test at China Lake There's also the Sidearm antiradiation missile that swapped the seeker but otherwise was a standard sidewinder. 9x is an annuar blast frag warhead which is basically an 8pounds of plastique wrapped in shrapnel pipe bomb, so it can be effective against soft ground targets.
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Apr 5, 2012 16:43
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AlexanderCA posted:Well.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujpllo5ZDiI This is loving Ireland, one of the least imperialist countries on earth. The United States not doing the marching thing is a rarity because hey, precision guided munitions are loving expensive and dudes with Steyrs are cheap.
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Apr 5, 2012 17:02
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Speaking as an American who respects our military, i've just always found it unessicary for us to have tank parades. Most port cities have a "fleet week" or something, and like i said the Blue Angels do buzz around the skyscrapers of almost every major city at least once a year. They sail a babby carrier or sometimes a real full sized nuke in to Seattle for a week and its just so cool seeing it moored up on my way to work, all the young saliors running about trying to find pussy and booze, go get em boys. But a big massed formation march tends to be the sign of an insecure military, imo. We know the m1a2 can kick your rear end, we dont need to parade them around to convince ourselves we have a strong army. Case in point: the french are hardly "good guys" in my book, judging their actions post wwII. Theyre still trying to assert some colonyesque power over northern africa. didnt they want Nato to help them in Algiers? I'll admit we (USA) has chosen to create several needless conflicts in the past 40 years, but i blame the congress and the presidents, not the armed forces themselves. hell, the conservative media had to organize to get an iraq and afghanistan veterans appreciation parade recently. The offical government was very resistant. Forums Terrist, you keep alluding to wasteful spending on high tech weapons vs low tech forces of yesterday. What is the return on investment on a division of infantry vs the two or three SFMs it would take to render said division combat inneffective? All those men need to be trained, equipped, fed, and maintined during peace time. Theyre constantly cycling new soldiers in and out, meaning the infantry force will be requring just as much upkeep and maintenence costs. Buying a few SFMs at 400k a piece aint cheap, but they are probably designed to have a longer shelf life than your average 11b's contract, so the investment lasts longer. You seem to be advocating everyone fight at parity, because next gen weapons are a detriment to society as a whole. Raw_Beef fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 20:23
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Raw_Beef posted:Speaking as an American who respects our military, i've just always found it unessicary for us to have tank parades. get the gently caress out of the COLD WAR AIRPOWER thread with this LF poo poo no one cares what you think about parades
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Apr 5, 2012 20:27
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thank you for that well thought out reply, i shall reflect on it deeply. (youre a dick) Military parades have a direct link to the cold war. Im glad you have the ability to speak for everyone, it must be amazing to be you. Raw_Beef fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 20:31
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Raw_Beef posted:
Wait, what? So. . . . French in Vietnam/indochina and Algeria = they're the bad guys. US in Vientam, Panama, Iraq x2, Afghanistan, etc = we're the good guys. And somehow this is OK because the "french military" is what got them into their conflicts while with us it's just "lovely congress and presidents." Seriously, go read a book on the Algerian War, then read up on the French involvement in VN. If I'm reading your argument correctly you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
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Apr 5, 2012 20:36
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Since i know your rep as the ultimate tfr military historian, i will defer to your expertese. I'm not making any argument other than my own opinion which as you more constructively pointed out, is objectively wrong and uninformed. there was a time when one could post on the internet without needing to be a historian and cite sources and footnote every sentance. I think it could be defined as a "casual discussion" I dont think the french are 'bad guys', they just have blood on their hands much as the USA. Im just american so i default to my side being the good guys. Since my daily life is probably more blue collar than you Cyrano, please forgive me for not having a college education in 20th century post colonialism. Would it be innacurate to say that the french have something of a chip on their shoulder about their loss of status? That is more what i was thinking. I do not articulate well sometimes.
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Apr 5, 2012 20:44
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