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Raw_Beef posted:I do not articulate well sometimes. I stared at most of the post with increasing incredulity, but this made me giggle. Tell me more about how America are the good guys. I'd love to hear your take on Iraq. 
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Apr 5, 2012 20:47
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Raw_Beef posted: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. Yeah, that's a pretty fair assessment of a lot of their actions in the cold war. Post-war french politics gets pretty deep into trying to latch onto a victorious legacy for WW2 (rather than the rather obvious legacy of defeat left around by 1940) while trying to maintain that they are still a serious power to contend with. I'm sorry if I came off sounding condescending, that's pretty much just the general tone that this board takes. I do think that you should toss any real idea of "good guys" and "bad guys" in international foreign policy, though. There are very, VERY few instances in history where that judgement doesn't rest purely on your individual background and point of view, and almost all of those involve something completely out there, like genocide.
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Apr 5, 2012 20:57
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Dont get me wrong! My country has made some horrible mistakes. It must be easy to pigeonhole someone who says they support the USA and its military as one who lacks critical thinking and votes lock step party line. Sorry, even I'm not that stupid. Iraq was %100 optional and needless. I didnt support it then and i dont support it now. Since youre asking, i also think we shouldve drawn down from Afghanistan years ago, but im just a dumb poo poo on an internet forum, surrounded by geniouses such as McNally who are surely active in solving all the world's problems and preventing horrible things from happening to innocent people. Cyrano is right, i shouldve remembered what forum i was in before using such casual terms in reguards to "rightiousness" of national foriegn policy. i come here to shoot the poo poo on a casual level, so i'll always be outsmartied by those who invest much more time than i do into researching the topics at hand. On that note, i greatly enjoy reading posts by said educated people, cyrano and grover and Iyayayayas001. etc. Theclaw, not so much there buddy. i'm going to gracefully bow out and let the thread continue about technical data on modern missile systems, since we've all exhausted the cool soviet-era stuff, and im obviously politically at odds with everyone else here. Raw_Beef fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Apr 5, 2012 |
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Apr 5, 2012 21:04
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wkarma posted: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 Now the operators don't give a poo poo about this but the griffins cost nearly twice as much as a hellfire. Now this has more to do with the fact that griffins have never and will likely never reach the kind of full rate production rates that hellfire experiences in its current configuration. Now look at a sidewinder that cost 5 times as much as a hellfire with no real advantage in range, effectiveness, or sensing capability.
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Apr 5, 2012 21:04
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Raw_Beef posted:surrounded by geniouses such as McNally who are surely active in solving all the world's problems and preventing horrible things from happening to innocent people. gently caress no, I joined the Army so I could make the world's problems worse. Mission accomplished.
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Apr 5, 2012 21:08
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Cyrano4747 posted:I do think that you should toss any real idea of "good guys" and "bad guys" in international foreign policy, though. There are very, VERY few instances in history where that judgement doesn't rest purely on your individual background and point of view, and almost all of those involve something completely out there, like genocide. To expand on this, international politics is much like tic-tac-toe in that the only winning move, morally speaking, is not to play. The only nations one could consider "good" are those that have never done anything ever due to being too small/weak/poor.
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Apr 5, 2012 21:15
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daskrolator posted:
Hmm... No I don't think so, unless 9-Xs cost half a million a piece....
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Apr 5, 2012 21:29
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thesurlyspringKAA posted:Hmm... No I don't think so, unless 9-Xs cost half a million a piece.... Well, procurement for FY2013 is supposed to be 314 of them for 178.21 million bucks, so...
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Apr 5, 2012 21:39
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Go back and dust off the prototype sketches for the F6D Missileer, reactivate the AIM-54, and make it A2G capable. The best option.  (seriously, right tool for the right job. Sidewinder's job is not plinking jeeps.) e: for Flanker, reactivate BOMARC too, use it as surface-to-surface. 
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Apr 5, 2012 21:50
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I understand why people feel that way towards those assholes. Imagine a country that's all 'rah rah Freedom and Revolution! rah rah' but clamps down on anyone else trying self govern. Also not a fan of how they whine to their allies for not getting in line with them, and then acting unilaterally the next instant anyway. Also they don't win favours by shoving their language and culture in everyone's faces either. They're also racist as gently caress and rude to tourists. But enough about America, what's this about France? Psion posted:
I hate you.
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Apr 5, 2012 22:06
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Hey now. We're not that rude to tourists. The knock on the United States I've heard from European tourists is that we all seem insincerely friendly.
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Apr 5, 2012 22:08
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Psion posted:reactivate the AIM-54, and make it A2G capable. The best option. Wouldn't this be a Maverick?
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Apr 5, 2012 22:09
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agadhahab posted:Wouldn't this be a Maverick? a Maverick is significantly smaller than a Phoenix Phoenix Weight - 1,000–1,040 lb Length - 13 ft Diameter - 15 in Maverick Weight - 462–670 lb Length - 8 feet 2 inches Diameter - 12 in
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Apr 5, 2012 22:16
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gently caress it, let's just let Avengers and Stinger teams go to down on trucks/cars/APCs with stingers. Also, while on the subject of repurposed aircraft/weapons, these things are cool, but really only for COIN: Hellfires on a KC-130J  It also can poop out 10 Griffins. 
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Apr 6, 2012 02:12
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Flanker posted:I hate you. You have to admit it'd be a better option than the F-35! e: then again so would resurrecting the Avro Arrow, and that'd be badass. .... you know, that's not such a bad plan...
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Apr 6, 2012 02:21
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The wiki on the Griffin describes it as a "low-cost modular system, using components from earlier projects," so why would it cost twice as much as a Hellfire?
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Apr 6, 2012 02:43
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Throatwarbler posted:The wiki on the Griffin describes it as a "low-cost modular system, using components from earlier projects," so why would it cost twice as much as a Hellfire? Where'd you find the unit cost for the griffin?
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Apr 6, 2012 02:47
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRSVHxT-ziM&list=FLfnLRj6FukokbkKZsYoqr7Q&index=19&feature=plpp_video Viggens spar for IKEA dominance.
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Apr 6, 2012 02:57
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mlmp08 posted:Where'd you find the unit cost for the griffin? Forums poster daskrolator a couple posts up. Although I guess it might just be a matter of spreading the development cost over a longer production run.
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Apr 6, 2012 03:04
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mlmp08 posted:Where'd you find the unit cost for the griffin?
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Apr 6, 2012 03:12
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grover posted:Griffins run roughly $100k per missile, if we divide the most recent $9.3M contract by 70 missiles & 20 test missiles. Per wiki, Hellfires run about $68k. Hellfires are cheaper, but not by 5:1, more like 3:2. Prices may come down further once as the system matures, hard to say. I was under the impression that the contract included some ground launch systems for the Griffin B's instead of just the missiles, but I could be wrong.
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Apr 6, 2012 03:16
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Forums Terrorist posted:The only nations one could consider "good" are those that have never done anything ever due to being too small/weak/poor.
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Apr 6, 2012 04:13
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Forums Terrorist posted:To expand on this, international politics is much like tic-tac-toe in that the only winning move, morally speaking, is not to play. The only nations one could consider "good" are those that have never done anything ever due to being too small/weak/poor. Pretty much. Hell, even the countries that are commonly considered largely "good" like the Scandinavian countries have some skeletons in their closet because they are well developed enough to have a high enough GDP and well enough developed manufacturing base that they have sold weapons abroad/had foreign policy entanglements/etc. The countries that are too small/weak/poor usually have better than even odds that at some point in their recent history they suffered some sort of bloody civil war or ethnic cleansing. So really the only countries that could be considered good are the ones that are well developed enough that the ruling party doesn't decide to wipe out the opposition every 5 years but not well developed enough to actually do any major trade or anything with anyone...which is a pretty small group, if it even exists. mlmp08 posted:Also, while on the subject of repurposed aircraft/weapons, these things are cool, but really only for COIN: There are issues with it (namely the bit Daskrolator brought up about the possible ineffectiveness of the Griffin depending on the target) but those pale in comparison to fact that the need was identified, the requirements drawn up, and a working system fielded in pretty short order. Contrast that with the disaster that is the USAF's LAAR program. grover posted:Griffins run roughly $100k per missile, if we divide the most recent $9.3M contract by 70 missiles & 20 test missiles. Per wiki, Hellfires run about $68k. Hellfires are cheaper, but not by 5:1, more like 3:2. Prices may come down further once as the system matures, hard to say. Yeah, Hellfires are cheaper because it's a mature system that has been produced in massive numbers for a couple decades...the Griffins should in theory be cheaper (although like daskrolator I doubt they will ever surpass the Hellfire, just due to the scales involved), being modular and smaller, and the price should come down once the system matures. In theory. In theory, concurrency and commonality should have made the JSF one of the cheapest fighters in the world, so...  .The whole discussion over using air to air missiles in an air to ground role is stupid because an annular blast-frag/continuous rod warhead is specifically designed with one purpose in mind: effectively cause fatal damage to (relatively fragile) aircraft while intercepting them at high speed...this means that the warhead maximizes even and continuous blast/frag dispersion around the warhead at the expense of penetration or a larger amount of blast and frag. JDRADM/NGM was indeed supposed to have an air to ground capability, but the way I understood it the missile was supposed to replace the HARM as well as the AMRAAM, and coincidentally enough the one other use for continuous rod warheads is targeting radar sites. Yes, an air to air missile's warhead isn't going to be completely ineffective against an unarmored ground target, but there isn't really any good reason for using it when there are so many other purpose designed air to mud alternatives that will almost certainly be available...especially when you consider that one of the targets that a continuous rod warhead would actually be effective against (radar sites) aren't exactly the sort of thing that you want to be shooting at from Sidewinder range.
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Apr 6, 2012 04:28
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grover posted:Griffins run roughly $100k per missile, if we divide the most recent $9.3M contract by 70 missiles & 20 test missiles. Per wiki, Hellfires run about $68k. Hellfires are cheaper, but not by 5:1, more like 3:2. Prices may come down further once as the system matures, hard to say. If you're referring to my comment about 5:1, that was in reference the a sidewinder vs a hellfire, not a hellfire vs a griffin. I doubt the price will come down that much because they're simply not buying that much volume to reap any decent economies of scale. If they don't buy a ton in these operating conditions that demand low collateral damage effects then they're surely not going to when OEF ends. It'll end up like JAASM or Excalibur where there was an expectation to produce a lot of them only to never get there. mlmp08 posted:Where'd you find the unit cost for the griffin? I'm guessing it based on the handful of contract awards they've had over the years and $100k makes sense intuitively. Most of the cost is in the seeker and guidance and its because doing a dual mode seeker (gps/ins and laser) in a package that small is expensive, especially at low volume. There's a few other Air to ground missiles out there that are a little larger (but smaller than a hellfire) and a little cheaper, but it boils down to what platform you want to put on it. Griffins are attractice not because of harvest hawk but because you can take a lower tier Group 4 UAV like a Predator and give it a deeper magazine relative to that of hellfire. The services are looking into Shadow UAV weaponization and looking for air to ground solutions that can fit within their platforms' payload restraints. daskrolator fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Apr 6, 2012 |
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Apr 6, 2012 04:41
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The Griffin may be going down the path of being so afraid of collateral damage that we end up with fires that don't produce the desired effects. There are already hellfire variants that are pretty good for just taking out one particular vehicle, and our more egregious killings of innocents have been due to crappy intel or decisions resulting in the use of big bombs on targets that weren't legitimate, as in Farah or the fueler bombings in Afghanistan as opposed to shrapnel from Hellfires.
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Apr 6, 2012 04:46
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Myoclonic Jerk posted:This B-52 just turned 50! Psion posted:Go back and dust off the prototype sketches for the F6D Missileer, reactivate the AIM-54, and make it A2G capable. The best option. mlmp08 posted:gently caress it, let's just let Avengers and Stinger teams go to down on trucks/cars/APCs with stingers. There is only one ground-attack C-130. The Griffin apparently has a 13-pound warhead? Piffle. These guys are loading a 33-pounder field gun in back of a C-130:  You want something smote in a Biblical fashion? Call in a Spooky. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him" (Rev. 6:8) 
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Apr 6, 2012 06:30
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Delivery McGee posted:The last one was built in October '62. What happened to the 14 built in FY63 and however many of the 68 1962 models that were built in late spring? The last model number ends in 61-0040; a bunch from 61-0000 onwards are either crashed or in AMARC. Three are maintenance trainers apparently, one of the maintenance trainers was the replacement for the NB-52B that used to carry the X-15s. edit: Here's what some crazy USAF serial number enthusiast has. code:Party Plane Jones fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Apr 6, 2012 |
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Apr 6, 2012 12:33
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BUFF Spotting
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Apr 6, 2012 13:51
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Party Plane Jones posted:0026 crashed Jun 24, 1994 at Fairchild AFB during rehearsal for air display. Lost control and hit ground.  I seem to remember one of the Blue Angels talking about how hot shot maverick types were not the sort they wanted and had no business flying demonstrations. I guess Bud Holland didn't get that memo, a lesson that cost four people their lives. 
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Apr 6, 2012 16:18
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grover posted:Griffins run roughly $100k per missile, if we divide the most recent $9.3M contract by 70 missiles & 20 test missiles. Per wiki, Hellfires run about $68k. Hellfires are cheaper, but not by 5:1, more like 3:2. Prices may come down further once as the system matures, hard to say. Don't you have a mutiny in GiP that you should be paying attention to, Lt. Col. Grover? iyaayas, any more Cold War writeups in the pipeline? I'd like to find some time to do a writeup on the Kuznetsov NK-12s.
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Apr 6, 2012 17:02
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F-18 just crashed in Virginia beach, possibly into residential buildings. Both crew ejected and were taken to a hospital.
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Apr 6, 2012 18:07
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Delivery McGee posted:There is only one ground-attack C-130. The Griffin apparently has a 13-pound warhead? Piffle. These guys are loading a 33-pounder field gun in back of a C-130: I actually read some stuff circa 2005? about a proposed change of the 105 in the back of the Spooky to a 120mm mortar. At first it made no sense to me, because I was thinking "mortars? What?" but then I actually read more about it and someone did some mapping of the recoil forces (the 105 is obscene) whereas the 120 would give PGM capability and more bang per shot for less recoil. No idea how practical it is, but it had some pretty neat pictures, therefore, is probably awesome. That's how it works, right? I might be missing something but as I understand it: -mortars have more explosive for a given shot than artillery shells of the same size -a field artillery gun designed to fire a shell seven miles is probably a little bit ridiculous in an AC-130, where the firing profile is basically "down." I also read far more than I ever wanted to about what amounts to musical chairs with various 20, 25, 30, and 40mm mounts. Pick one already  (on the other hand, 105s out of an aircraft is also bad rear end. This is key.)
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Apr 6, 2012 18:16
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Delivery McGee posted:There is only one ground-attack C-130. The Griffin apparently has a 13-pound warhead? Piffle. These guys are loading a 33-pounder field gun in back of a C-130: Well, sure but the Harvest Hawks are tankers first and shooters second.
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Apr 6, 2012 19:03
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Wouldn't switching to a larger gun also increase weight? I'm talking mostly out of my rear end, but it seems to me like anything that could bump up the weight of the aircraft and make it carry less ammo and/or have a shorter loiter time could be bad.
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Apr 6, 2012 19:04
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Apr 6, 2012 19:31
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Apparently when you burn the skin off of fighters, they suddenly look like spacecraft from Star Wars Eps 4-6
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Apr 6, 2012 19:33
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Captain Novolin posted:Wouldn't switching to a larger gun also increase weight? I'm talking mostly out of my rear end, but it seems to me like anything that could bump up the weight of the aircraft and make it carry less ammo and/or have a shorter loiter time could be bad. Normally yes but mortar vs artillery isn't a 1:1 for shell weight. I actually cannot find a weight in a quick google for the HE version of the 105 shell used in the AC-130 (I assume most fired are HE, no idea for sure) but the M934 mortar rounds are ~30lbs each. I can't see 105 artillery rounds being THAT much lighter.
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Apr 6, 2012 20:52
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Psion posted:Normally yes but mortar vs artillery isn't a 1:1 for shell weight. Also, the mortar-shooting apparatus is probably a hell of a lot lighter than the 105mm gun.
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Apr 6, 2012 21:15
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Raw_Beef posted: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. Just fyi, after Desert Storm I went to a 4 hour military parade here in Newburgh NY complete with A-10 and Apache flyovers, and dozens of tanks. It was a scene that repeated everywhere across the country. We do military parades quite often, tbh.
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Apr 6, 2012 21:20
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Here's some cold war history I'd never heard before. It’s part of a secret, nuclear-powered U.S. Army base that was built under the Greenland ice cap only 800 miles from the North Pole. The base was officially built to conduct scientific research but the real reason was apparently to test out the feasibility of burying nuclear missiles below the ice under an effort known as Project Iceworm.  http://defensetech.org/2012/04/06/inside-the-armys-secret-cold-war-ice-base/
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Apr 6, 2012 23:21
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