AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

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grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

LP97S posted:

Good point, but then I could just go into a cloud (those occur sometimes) where the laser fucks up and the F-35 can't chase me.

You missed the part about �These restrictions are in place because testing has not been completed to certify the aircraft for night and instrument flight,� since the F-35 was still pretty early in the certification process when that report was written (still pretty early, even today) and still going through the military's certification process. Of course, the press takes things out of context and blows it out of proportion: it's an administrative restriction, not a capability gap. These, and the other issues raised in the report are very minor and will be worked out.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 15:00

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# ? May 18, 2024 00:43

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Not cold war, but this is awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R5NI-IrUU0

# ? Jun 14, 2013 15:36

Warbadger: Jun 17, 2006

LP97S posted:

Good point, but then I could just go into a cloud (those occur sometimes) where the laser fucks up and the F-35 can't chase me.

If its anything like the THEL or any of the other lasers that have been demonstrated shooting down mortars/artillery shells/rockets you'd have a couple seconds at best before the laser either lights up your internal fuel or triggered an explosion in some ordnance (depending on what it painted). You'd be lucky if you had time to react at all, much less go anywhere.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 16:01

AlexanderCA: Jul 21, 2010; by Cyrano4747

grover posted:

Stealth and being able to detect and engage your target before he detects and engages you becomes extraordinarily important. It's why I'm so optimistic about the F-35: I see its potential to render all other aircraft (including the F-22, which cannot field a laser) obsolete.

Like mlmp08 and Insane Totoro mentioned, I really hope you're right because rumor right now is we're only going to be able to afford (likely quite a bit) less than 50 of them to replace F16s here in the Netherlands. So it better be god's gift to military aviation or we're getting boned pretty hard.

I remain very skeptical but hope to be proven wrong.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 16:06

Koesj: Aug 3, 2003

Who cares, there's no more tanks or MPAs anyway and I'd rather keep the subs. Why not give up fast jets to pay for more Navy? Might finally get those pesky B61s off of Volkel as well.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 16:29

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

As far as I've been able to tell the Navy has really screwed the pooch on CVN air complements. Now there's plenty to be said for reducing the number of types in service for reasons of logistical simplicity (I doubt we need to go back to the 80s when we had seven or eight different types of aircraft aboard a typical carrier), but at the same time you can go to far (and entire shipload of Hornets, Hawkeyes, helos, and nothing the gently caress else). I think the ideal would be four types of planes plus helicopters:

1) A fighter optimized for air defense and escort work plus a small allowance for bomb dropping. Long range essential. LEO probably desirable as well. Call it a Super-Phantom.
2) A dedicated general-purpose attack aircraft that can do naval interdiction and CAS work equally well. Do not try to add anti-air capability beyond maybe an emergency capability to carry a couple of AIM-9s on the wingtips. Basically a Super-Intruder.
3) An AEW platform. In other words the good old Hawkeye.
4) A Super-Viking ASW patrol aircraft that can also carry anti-ship missiles if needs be. Probably should have a dedicated tanker variant or an organic ability to function as one.
5) ASW helicopters.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 17:17

AlexanderCA: Jul 21, 2010; by Cyrano4747

Koesj posted:

Who cares, there's no more tanks or MPAs anyway and I'd rather keep the subs. Why not give up fast jets to pay for more Navy? Might finally get those pesky B61s off of Volkel as well.

Eh, while I certainly agree the navy is the most useful and relevant (least useless and irrelevant?) component of the Dutch military and should get a bigger portion of the shrinking defence pie (along with airlift?), I'm not convinced getting rid of fighters altogether is a good option.

You would be reliant on allies for QRA and more seriously on the Apaches for all organic air support on deployments.
Not sure if it was this thread or another that mentioned that attack helicopters are rather vulnerable to common AA threats.
Foregoing air support altogether doesn't seem viable after Srebrenica either.

Now what we should actually do concretely: gently caress if I know, can't exactly influence it, but watching the public debate on this being completely misinformed in all directions is disheartening. Maybe the new vision document next week will finally answer the underlying fundamental question what our actual foreign policy goal is with regards to the military, but I doubt it.

Can't say I give a drat about the ancient nukes in Volkel though, I imagine they'll be negotiated away in a tactical arms reduction treaty in the future.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 17:23

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Insane Totoro posted:

With drones, when have we ever needed this hypothetical ability to drop off some light attack aircraft on some dirt strip in the middle of nowhere/possible contested ground?

I'm not going to get into specifics but it has happened many MANY times, and it will continue to happen into the foreseeable future. Dead Reckoning's scenario about taking over a disused civil airstrip close to the AOR you're wanting to monitor is more or less what you want to be thinking of here.

As for the intercontinental bit, first off, look at the price difference between a Global Hawk and a Pred/Reaper. The Global Chicken is about the minimum size of an RPA that is capable of intercontinental flight with a usable payload. Big is more expensive. Additionally, if you're flying intercontinental, you need to be able to deal with weather en route (or do like the Global Chicken does and just fly above it in the stratosphere). This is expensive. Intercontinental flight also means you need to be capable of autonomous flight...GH is, Pred/Reaper aren't, and the difference is reflected in the price of the avionics on board.

mlmp08 posted:

If the F-35A does, in 15 years time, become some LO laser-murder airplane, I will laugh even harder at the F-35B than I do now.

This is my favorite part of the whole laser JSF discussion. Marine Aviation is hosed no matter what, and it makes me so happy.

Koesj posted:

Might finally get those pesky B61s off of Volkel as well.

NATO Nuclear Sharing is the biggest joke in NATO, and that's really saying something because NATO is basically one colossal joke. They will be some of the last nukes to go because they are a "concrete sign of the U.S.'s commitment to Western Europe and NATO" or something.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 17:41

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

MrYenko posted:

Loiter.

For CAS and COIN, the ability to be low and slow, and actually look for targets, is a huge advantage. That's why, every time you hear someone say that the F-35 is going to replace the A-10, I encourage you to LAUGH IN THEIR FACES.

"Low and slow" is most definitely not an asset on the modern battlefield! It's a huge vulnerability, that's what it is. Fortunately, technology has supplanted the Mk1 eyeball and iron bombsights that drove pilots of past ages to the treetops. Modern guided munitions, communications and sensors are more effective from high altitudes today than the old tech was from low; there no reason to operate in that high-risk envelope anymore. As iyaayas has pointed out, any time you really do need "low and slow", you're better off with an RPA.

priznat posted:

Silly question but why did the navy get rid of the S-3s? Old airframes? Could no one build more? It's a proven design why not just keep it around? Or is this a "we must standardize carrier operations around 1 type of aircraft come hell or high water!!" type of thing?

The S-3 were old and just falling apart; the only reason they were kept as long as they were was because the F-18C/D didn't have the ground clearance to carrying buddy stores. Once the F-18E/F hit the fleet, the S-3s were removed, thus freeing up pilots, space and money. An F-18 tanker has two main advantages over an S-3 tanker (aside from not being an old decrepit airframe): it's still a highly capable fighter and can operate nearer to (even over) hostile airspace than bulk tankers can, as it can defend itself even while carrying buddy stores, and it can operate as a fully functioning fighter/strike craft for sorties where refueling isn't a requirement. USAF tankers are the better solution when available, as they allow a higher combat sortie rate but Navy is still fully capable of organic refueling if the mission requires it.

F-18E tanker missions are usually given to the most junior guys in the squadron, the ones who you least want flying over enemy territory. The more they fly, even just tanker missions, the more stick-time they get and the better trained and proficient they become.

No C-2/E-2 tanker variant was made, I suspect, because C-2's payload capacity is only 10,000lbs and unlike the S-3, was never designed with ordinance hardpoints you can strap buddy stores to; it's great for bulk/dry cargo, but fuel is dense and an F-18E can actually carry much more of it.

grover fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jun 14, 2013

# ? Jun 14, 2013 18:12

Scratch Monkey: Oct 25, 2010; 👰Proč bychom se netě�ili🥰kdy� n�m P�n Bůh🙌🏻zdrav� d�💪?

Next step in the air arms race: mirror covered jets

# ? Jun 14, 2013 18:16

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

If low and slow is obsolete, I guess we can throw away all those cas rotary wing assets.

Everyone knows pinned down troops prefer a Reaper to a couple of Apaches or Cobras...

Gun runs from high speed fixed wing aircraft is great too.

"Brrrrrrrrp, winchester, bingo, rtb."

# ? Jun 14, 2013 18:30

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Scratch Monkey posted:

Next step in the air arms race: mirror covered jets

This is a popular joke but lest anyone take it seriously: no. High-energy mirrors aren't something you can pick up at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Unlike your typical glass mirror which has a layer of see-through glass to protect the reflecting surface and then the reflecting surface on the back, a high-energy mirror capable of reflecting many kilowatts of concentrated laser energy has the reflective surface on the front, because there's no substrate capable of transmitting that energy to the reflective surface without exploding (and depending on the application you want a nice robust cooling system on the back side of your mirror to prevent fall-apart).

So your high-energy mirror is okay in a lab or in a controlled environment, but out in the atmosphere where poo poo like sand or dust or grease or leaked hydraulic fluid or JP-5 will contaminate the surface? Nope. Bit of dust on the mirror, laser hits mirror, bit of dust gets really hot and explodes, damaging the little bit of mirror surface it was sitting on, which now isn't very reflective and starts absorbing many kilowatts of concentrated laser energy. Boom.

With a CW laser, mirroring or polishing or painting the surface can/will increase the dwell time required for the laser to kill the target. With a pulsed laser, it won't even do that.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 18:33

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

mlmp08 posted:

If low and slow is obsolete, I guess we can throw away all those cas rotary wing assets.

Everyone knows pinned down troops prefer a Reaper to a couple of Apaches or Cobras...

Gun runs from high speed fixed wing aircraft is great too.

"Brrrrrrrrp, winchester, bingo, rtb."

The A-10 was kept at high altitudes in Yugoslavia specifically because it got hit so hard by MANPADs in the Gulf War. It's not really capable of operating in a modern ADN environment, no matter how much of a hard-on it gives people.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 18:42

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

mlmp08 posted:

If low and slow is obsolete, I guess we can throw away all those cas rotary wing assets.

Everyone knows pinned down troops prefer a Reaper to a couple of Apaches or Cobras...

Gun runs from high speed fixed wing aircraft is great too.

"Brrrrrrrrp, winchester, bingo, rtb."

RAH-66 Comanche was canned for that very reason; may have been an awesome piece of technology, but was rendered obsolete by drones and satellites. Gunships days are numbered, too. There's not a whole lot you can do with a Cobra or Apache that you can't do as good better with something else and with fewer losses. Cobras in particular seem particularly useless on the modern battlefield. How in the hell are they supposed to provide CAS to MV-22s that have twice the range and speed?

# ? Jun 14, 2013 18:56

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Sure but such flight profiles do fine in numerous other situations, such as oif, oef, coin, etc.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 18:58

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

mlmp08 posted:

Sure but such flight profiles do fine in numerous other situations, such as oif, oef, coin, etc.

Like... the great job they did in Karbala?

Wikipedia posted:

The 31 AH-64 Apaches of the American 11th Regiment took off from Rams Base. One crashed immediately after takeoff when its pilot became disoriented. As they turned north toward Karbala, signals intelligence picked up over 50 Iraqi cell phone calls alerting the enemy's forward units of the Apaches.

As the strike neared Karbala, the Iraqis signaled their troops to open fire by turning off and then, a few second later, on the area's lights. Ground troops, having recovered from the suppression air strike, opened up with small arms and other weapons. Lieutenant Jason King, pilot of Apache "Palerider 16", was hit by AK-47 fire in the neck and suffered a severe hemorrhage, but he never lost consciousness. He was later evacuated to Germany for surgery, but returned to his unit a few weeks later.

The Apaches were reluctant to return fire; most enemy fire was coming from houses and the risk of collateral damage was high. The helicopters scattered in search of the Medina Division, but were hampered by poor intelligence. Apache "Vampire 12", flown by Warrant Officers David S. Williams and Ronald D. Young Jr., was forced down after gunfire severed the hydraulics. The air commander's radio was also hit, preventing communication with the other helicopters. The Apaches turned for home after a half-hour of combat. Most were without functioning navigation equipment or sights. At least two narrowly avoided a mid-air collision.

Post-battle analysis indicated the American gunships were targeted in a deliberately planned ambush with cannon fire, RPGs, and small-arms all combining from multiple camouflaged fireteams.

Of the 29 returning Apaches, all but one suffered serious damage. On average, each Apache had 15-20 bullet holes; one Apache even took 29 hits. Sixteen main rotor blades, six tail blades, six engines and five drive shafts were damaged beyond repair. In one squadron only a single helicopter was deemed fit to fly. It took a month until the 11th Regiment was ready to fight again. The casualties sustained by the Apaches induced a change of tactics by placing significant restrictions on their use. Attack helicopters would now be used to reveal the location of enemy troops, allowing them to be destroyed by artillery and air strikes.

Thomas E. White, the U.S. Secretary of the Army, felt disappointed by the outcome of the battle, quipping "we were very fortunate we didn't lose more aircraft."

7 days later, two CBU-105s dropped from a B-52 destroyed a full third of an Iraqi tank column, about 2-dozen tanks (there was a video posted about it earlier in this thread). Four more CBU-105s dropped by the same B-52 later that day destroyed an entire brigade of parked Iraqi armor. The Apache gunship has never again been deployed against a hardened enemy.

grover fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jun 14, 2013

# ? Jun 14, 2013 19:10

Rodrigo Diaz: Apr 16, 2007; Knights who are at the wars eat their bread in sorrow;
their ease is weariness and sweat;
they have one good day after many bad

Phanatic posted:

So your high-energy mirror is okay in a lab or in a controlled environment, but out in the atmosphere where poo poo like sand or dust or grease or leaked hydraulic fluid or JP-5 will contaminate the surface? Nope. Bit of dust on the mirror, laser hits mirror, bit of dust gets really hot and explodes, damaging the little bit of mirror surface it was sitting on, which now isn't very reflective and starts absorbing many kilowatts of concentrated laser energy. Boom.

So how do we keep all of these contaminants from getting on the laser itself? Because that seems like it could be a problem.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 19:26

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Rodrigo Diaz posted:

So how do we keep all of these contaminants from getting on the laser itself? Because that seems like it could be a problem.

The energy density of the beam as it passes through the lens is considerably lower than the energy density of the beam where it's focused on the target, and you can keep the laser optics concealed and protected until it's time to take a shot.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 19:37

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

grover posted:

Like... the great job they did in Karbala?

7 days later, two CBU-105s dropped from a B-52 destroyed a full third of an Iraqi tank column, about 2-dozen tanks (there was a video posted about it earlier in this thread). Four more CBU-105s dropped by the same B-52 later that day destroyed an entire brigade of parked Iraqi armor. The Apache gunship has never again been deployed against a hardened enemy.

Come on, I specifically said cas, not terrible, arrogant attacks on hardened enemy sites.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 19:40

Rodrigo Diaz: Apr 16, 2007; Knights who are at the wars eat their bread in sorrow;
their ease is weariness and sweat;
they have one good day after many bad

Phanatic posted:

The energy density of the beam as it passes through the lens is considerably lower than the energy density of the beam where it's focused on the target, and you can keep the laser optics concealed and protected until it's time to take a shot.

The former point is far more reassuring than the latter. Especially in an environment with things like salt spray, lubricants, or fine dust I have full faith in the ability of poo poo to Get Everywhere Somehow.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 19:52

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

grover posted:

Stealth and being able to detect and engage your target before he detects and engages you becomes extraordinarily important. It's why I'm so optimistic about the F-35: I see its potential to render all other aircraft (including the F-22, which cannot field a laser) obsolete.

I've always understood your logic here, and can't criticize it. It's just whenever I hear really definite predictions about the future, I always get skeptical. I know a bit about innovation throughout history, and the best informed, smartest people are consistently making bad or wrong historical predictions. And it's not that their facts were wrong or their reasoning was bad either: it's that innovation is almost always non-linear, and thus unpredictable both in cause and effect. Example from the AI aviation thread: in the 50s and 60s, everybody who knew was convinced that super-sonic airliners would be universal by the 1980s.

e: further examples. in the 1950s, science establishment types said manned exploration of space was impossible/pointless, just use robots, and the British of course were absolutely convinced at of the importance of airships as long range airliners.

Anyway, all that certainly doesn't disprove your prediction either; for all I know, you are right.

PS> I heard about the Naval Laser's deployment on the Daily show. Are all those problems with dust/fog/water vapor more or less permanent problems with lasers?

Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jun 14, 2013

# ? Jun 14, 2013 20:47

Phanatic: Mar 13, 2007; Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Nebakenezzer posted:

PS> I heard about the Naval Laser's deployment on the Daily show. Are all those problems with dust/fog/water vapor more or less permanent problems with lasers?

They're problems *to a degree*. They are not problems like "You idiots spent all that money designing a 100kW solid-state laser and you forgot about water vapor"?

The laser's putting a certain amount of power onto the target. If you put crud like dust or fog in the path of the beam, the laser will put a smaller amount of power onto the target. If full power at a given range enough to kill the target in, say, 1 second, then 20% power is probably enough to kill the target in about 5 seconds, or if you close to a closer range you can still kill the target in 1 second.

Water vapor's not really a huge, it's just part of the atmosphere. So if you want a laser that propagates well through the atmosphere, you build one with that emits a wavelength that doesn't care about water vapor. Yes, dust, fog, water vapor, will reduce the effectiveness of a laser weapons system. Dust, fog, water vapor, already reduce the effectiveness of things like airplane engines, but we still use airplanes.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 20:58

Warbadger: Jun 17, 2006

Phanatic posted:

The energy density of the beam as it passes through the lens is considerably lower than the energy density of the beam where it's focused on the target, and you can keep the laser optics concealed and protected until it's time to take a shot.

And you only need to keep a small lens clean as opposed to an entire airplane covered with mirrors.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 21:22

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

Scratch Monkey posted:

Next step in the air arms race: mirror covered jets

The next step is doing whatever Israel's done a few times where they fly regular dumb 4th-gen planes into enemy space and the opposing radar / SAM systems don't even turn on. Not sure what parts regular ECM, human agents \ infiltrators, or ~~cyber warfare~~ is involved, but a selling point of the latest AESA radars is usability for high-power high-rate data transmission, and I'm sure there's fun to be had using penetrating strike aircraft as jumbo wi-fi hotspots with hackers behind them. It's like the opposite of LO, instead of making the planes invisible you make the defenders blind (or unconscious.)

# ? Jun 15, 2013 00:28

wdarkk: Oct 26, 2007; Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

I wouldn't be surprised if it utilized a suitcase full of hundreds.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 00:35

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Snowdens Secret posted:

The next step is doing whatever Israel's done a few times where they fly regular dumb 4th-gen planes into enemy space and the opposing radar / SAM systems don't even turn on.

Any event in particular you have in mind?

# ? Jun 15, 2013 00:44

LP97S: Apr 25, 2008

mlmp08 posted:

Any event in particular you have in mind?

My guess is the Damascus raid a few weeks ago.

Nebakenezzer posted:

I've always understood your logic here, and can't criticize it. It's just whenever I hear really definite predictions about the future, I always get skeptical. I know a bit about innovation throughout history, and the best informed, smartest people are consistently making bad or wrong historical predictions. And it's not that their facts were wrong or their reasoning was bad either: it's that innovation is almost always non-linear, and thus unpredictable both in cause and effect. Example from the AI aviation thread: in the 50s and 60s, everybody who knew was convinced that super-sonic airliners would be universal by the 1980s.

e: further examples. in the 1950s, science establishment types said manned exploration of space was impossible/pointless, just use robots, and the British of course were absolutely convinced at of the importance of airships as long range airliners.

Anyway, all that certainly doesn't disprove your prediction either; for all I know, you are right.

PS> I heard about the Naval Laser's deployment on the Daily show. Are all those problems with dust/fog/water vapor more or less permanent problems with lasers?

I understand your skepticism, occasionally this just flashes through my head while reading about super lasers on fighters not certified to fly at night.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 00:54

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

mlmp08 posted:

Any event in particular you have in mind?

Box on the Euphrates. I think recent raids have all been standoff deliberately without violating airspace, for political reasons.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 01:00

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Nebakenezzer posted:

British of course were absolutely convinced at of the importance of airships as long range airliners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-N3_plNq8

See also, every Navy in the world circa 1920 compared to every Navy in the world circa 1945.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 03:23

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

grover posted:

An F-18 tanker has two main advantages over an S-3 tanker (aside from not being an old decrepit airframe): it's still a highly capable fighter and can operate nearer to (even over) hostile airspace than bulk tankers can, as it can defend itself even while carrying buddy stores, and it can operate as a fully functioning fighter/strike craft for sorties where refueling isn't a requirement. USAF tankers are the better solution when available, as they allow a higher combat sortie rate but Navy is still fully capable of organic refueling if the mission requires it.

F-18E tanker missions are usually given to the most junior guys in the squadron, the ones who you least want flying over enemy territory. The more they fly, even just tanker missions, the more stick-time they get and the better trained and proficient they become.

No C-2/E-2 tanker variant was made, I suspect, because C-2's payload capacity is only 10,000lbs and unlike the S-3, was never designed with ordinance hardpoints you can strap buddy stores to; it's great for bulk/dry cargo, but fuel is dense and an F-18E can actually carry much more of it.

You're clearly a guy who tries to stay informed about defense issues, but occasionally you start talking assertively about poo poo entirely outside your realm of experience, and it makes it really hard to take everything else you say seriously. I explained a few pages ago why Navy organic tanking is a pipe dream, but I'm going to break down what makes it such a logistical and practical nightmare in case someone reading this thread makes the mistake of thinking you know what you're talking about.

First of all, the idea of a self-protecting F/A-18E tanker is ridiculous. In any situation where a Super Bug pilot has to "defend himself," the first thing he's going to do is clean off all that drag by jettisoning his external tanks and buddy stores system. After that, the best case situation is that your tanker is now mission abort and all the things that made it a tanker are sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Now, I'm sure someone is thinking, "Can't he just turn to the threat, shoot a missile, and then go back to his mission like all of Boeing's press materials promise?" No. Even BVR missile combat requires a pilot to maneuver into an optimum position for a missile shot. Basic physics will tell you that an aircraft firing missiles at a target below it will have greater range, and firing at a target above it will have less range. The F/A-18E is going to have to terminate any AR it's doing, vacate its assigned tanker orbit, maneuver for a shot, and then get back to station. All this combat maneuvering is going to burn fuel, and I'll explain in a second why that's something a Super Bug "tanker" can't really afford to do. In addition, if the first salvo doesn't take care of the problem, or the enemy gets in range to use his missiles, we're back to the whole "jettison stores/not a tanker anymore" issue. There isn't a pilot in the world who's going to try to defend against a missile or go to the merge with four drop tanks and an AR pod on his wings.

Tankers refuel. CAP protects tankers and other HVAA. Trying to do both with one aircraft is dumb, and that's not even addressing the issue that, if you have enemy fighters getting through the CAP and into position to shoot at your HVAA orbits, your whole plan is hosed.

Now let's look at the Super Bug's many, many shortcomings as a tanker. According to Boeing's own press materials, a tanker configured F/A-18E can carry a little more than 29,000 pounds of fuel. We'll just call it 29k, since there's probably a little bit of unusable fuel, etc and Boeing certainly would have rounded up to 30k if they could. It's worth noting that this is total fuel, not fuel available for other aircraft, so the tanker is eating into its potential offload as soon as it starts engines. This is less of an issue with large tankers, because they carry so much more fuel in proportion to their consumption. I couldn't find any open source fuel consumption numbers for the F/A-18E from a reliable source (lol ausairpower.net), but let's ballpark it at 6,500k/hr for cruise, which is reasonable to generous for a generic fighter aircraft with large external stores. If we assume a 1-hr on station time in an AR orbit 30 minutes from the carrier, the Super Bug can offload a maximum 16,000 lbs of fuel, minus start, takeoff, approach, and whatever fuel the Navy mandates they carry for reserve and emergencies. This isn't much, when you consider that a single Super Bug has 18,840lbs internal fuel capacity according to NAVAIR.

After all the math, a sortie from a tanker-configured F/A-18E can offload at best 7k of fuel to each member of a two-ship flight, which will in turn extend their flight time a little over one hour (30 minutes round-trip) at cruise. This isn't poo poo when you consider that the smallest Air Force tanker can carry 150,000lbs of fuel for receivers, with a 1,500 nm range. Real tankers can also transfer fuel faster, cruise more efficiently, and refuel multiple aircraft at once, minimizing the time they spend on the boom. In exchange for this piss-ant tanking capability, the carrier has to devote at least 1/3 of the air wing (probably more when you factor in spares, MX) to tanker duties.

Actually, let's talk about spares for a second. Using tankers inherently means that the receiver aircraft are planning to burn more fuel than they have the capacity to carry. If the tanker doesn't show up, because of a broken jet or because it decided to go be an air-to-air fighter, the receivers won't have enough gas for their mission. If this happens while they still have enough fuel to get home, the mission gets aborted. If, however, the receivers were expecting fuel after they complete their mission, they might not have enough fuel to safely recover and risk flaming out over the ocean. So the Air Wing is going to have to generate more tanker Bugs than the minimum they think they need, or risk sorties failing due to fuel starvation.

The carrier also has to launch and recover all of these sorties which are not contributing to combat power. Coordinating block out and arrival times in order to avoid congestion (because two planes on the same runway at the same time is a Bad Thing) is already an issue at large land-based airfields, and I imagine it's even more acute on a ship where they move planes around with loving elevators, trying surge sorties for a war.

Like the Marine Corps' organic fixed-wing capability, Navy organic tanking is really only useful in edge cases or Tom Clancy fantasy scenarios, or as a tiny supplement to the real show. It certainly is not "fully capable" of supporting an air operation of any respectable size.

Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Jun 15, 2013

# ? Jun 15, 2013 09:36

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

It's been brought up before, but the Brits' Operation Black Buck raids were essentially buddy tank jobs and they needed 11 tankers per two bombers. These are bigger planes and longer distances, but the principle still applies, if you want long range strike you need long range aircraft.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 10:34

vains: May 26, 2004; A Big Ten institution offering distance education catering to adult learners

Dead Reckoning posted:

Like the Marine Corps' organic fixed-wing capability,

I love how all you AF nerds get so butthurt that Marines fly airplanes.

What do you do in the AF?

# ? Jun 15, 2013 13:20

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Dead Reckoning posted:

You're clearly a guy who tries to stay informed about defense issues, but occasionally you start talking assertively about poo poo entirely outside your realm of experience, and it makes it really hard to take everything else you say seriously. I explained a few pages ago why Navy organic tanking is a pipe dream, but I'm going to break down what makes it such a logistical and practical nightmare in case someone reading this thread makes the mistake of thinking you know what you're talking about.

First of all, the idea of a self-protecting F/A-18E tanker is ridiculous. In any situation where a Super Bug pilot has to "defend himself," the first thing he's going to do is clean off all that drag by jettisoning his external tanks and buddy stores system. After that, the best case situation is that your tanker is now mission abort and all the things that made it a tanker are sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Now, I'm sure someone is thinking, "Can't he just turn to the threat, shoot a missile, and then go back to his mission like all of Boeing's press materials promise?" No. Even BVR missile combat requires a pilot to maneuver into an optimum position for a missile shot. Basic physics will tell you that an aircraft firing missiles at a target below it will have greater range, and firing at a target above it will have less range. The F/A-18E is going to have to terminate any AR it's doing, vacate its assigned tanker orbit, maneuver for a shot, and then get back to station. All this combat maneuvering is going to burn fuel, and I'll explain in a second why that's something a Super Bug "tanker" can't really afford to do. In addition, if the first salvo doesn't take care of the problem, or the enemy gets in range to use his missiles, we're back to the whole "jettison stores/not a tanker anymore" issue. There isn't a pilot in the world who's going to try to defend against a missile or go to the merge with four drop tanks and an AR pod on his wings.

Tankers refuel. CAP protects tankers and other HVAA. Trying to do both with one aircraft is dumb, and that's not even addressing the issue that, if you have enemy fighters getting through the CAP and into position to shoot at your HVAA orbits, your whole plan is hosed.

Now let's look at the Super Bug's many, many shortcomings as a tanker. According to Boeing's own press materials, a tanker configured F/A-18E can carry a little more than 29,000 pounds of fuel. We'll just call it 29k, since there's probably a little bit of unusable fuel, etc and Boeing certainly would have rounded up to 30k if they could. It's worth noting that this is total fuel, not fuel available for other aircraft, so the tanker is eating into its potential offload as soon as it starts engines. This is less of an issue with large tankers, because they carry so much more fuel in proportion to their consumption. I couldn't find any open source fuel consumption numbers for the F/A-18E from a reliable source (lol ausairpower.net), but let's ballpark it at 6,500k/hr for cruise, which is reasonable to generous for a generic fighter aircraft with large external stores. If we assume a 1-hr on station time in an AR orbit 30 minutes from the carrier, the Super Bug can offload a maximum 16,000 lbs of fuel, minus start, takeoff, approach, and whatever fuel the Navy mandates they carry for reserve and emergencies. This isn't much, when you consider that a single Super Bug has 18,840lbs internal fuel capacity according to NAVAIR.

After all the math, a sortie from a tanker-configured F/A-18E can offload at best 7k of fuel to each member of a two-ship flight, which will in turn extend their flight time a little over one hour (30 minutes round-trip) at cruise. This isn't poo poo when you consider that the smallest Air Force tanker can carry 150,000lbs of fuel for receivers, with a 1,500 nm range. Real tankers can also transfer fuel faster, cruise more efficiently, and refuel multiple aircraft at once, minimizing the time they spend on the boom. In exchange for this piss-ant tanking capability, the carrier has to devote at least 1/3 of the air wing (probably more when you factor in spares, MX) to tanker duties.

Actually, let's talk about spares for a second. Using tankers inherently means that the receiver aircraft are planning to burn more fuel than they have the capacity to carry. If the tanker doesn't show up, because of a broken jet or because it decided to go be an air-to-air fighter, the receivers won't have enough gas for their mission. If this happens while they still have enough fuel to get home, the mission gets aborted. If, however, the receivers were expecting fuel after they complete their mission, they might not have enough fuel to safely recover and risk flaming out over the ocean. So the Air Wing is going to have to generate more tanker Bugs than the minimum they think they need, or risk sorties failing due to fuel starvation.

The carrier also has to launch and recover all of these sorties which are not contributing to combat power. Coordinating block out and arrival times in order to avoid congestion (because two planes on the same runway at the same time is a Bad Thing) is already an issue at large land-based airfields, and I imagine it's even more acute on a ship where they move planes around with loving elevators, trying surge sorties for a war.

Like the Marine Corps' organic fixed-wing capability, Navy organic tanking is really only useful in edge cases or Tom Clancy fantasy scenarios, or as a tiny supplement to the real show. It certainly is not "fully capable" of supporting an air operation of any respectable size.

Do you take me for a fool? Because what you laid out strawmen as if I am, and then spelled out pretty much exactly what I said. Obviously if an F-18E with buddy stores is attacked, he's going to break off- same as the strike aircraft it's accompanying would. I never said (or imagined) otherwise; this isn't Hollywood. Where the refueling is done certainly depends on the threat environment, which is going to be a moving target as the campaign progresses. The big difference is that placing that buddy-stores F-18 so close to the threat environment in the first place is an option not even available to a KC-135, escorts or not. A USAF tanker will never be allowed to get so close to the battlefield as a F-18. As to the refueling itself, you talk like topping a ship off with a 30 minutes of fuel before continuing on a mission is a small thing; it's not, a half hour of fuel is absolutely huge when you're cruising at 600mph. And exactly what I'm talking about. Placing that tanker even just 15 minutes out allows that carrier to be 150 miles or so further away from that high-threat environment, or alternately allow deeper penetration missions- the two are not mutually exclusive, as unlike USAF, USN can move the airfield anywhere they want and can place it where it's optimum for specific missions, giving a lot of flexibility.

And before you point it out, no, nobody is going to be buddy-refueling over contested enemy territory, especially not if they need that fuel to avoid crashing in the sea on the trip home; any tanker scenario is going to have divert field requirements, etc, or it's not going to be flown. USN's not going to be flying Black Buck. More likely they'd just have 1/8 aircraft topping off his squadronmates as they launch and available to add a little extra safety margin as they return.

FYI, I even acknowledged USAF tanker support is superior and the better option when available. But it's not like USN needs to stop flying missions when it's not.

grover fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jun 15, 2013

# ? Jun 15, 2013 13:44

Snowdens Secret: Dec 29, 2008; Someone got you a obnoxiously racist av.

It's an extra 30 minutes, for two planes per buddy. I suspect any critical mission is going to have a lot more than two planes. With carriers the added time to launch and recover (as Dead Reckoning mentions) starts going up exponentially the more planes are involved, there's a hard limit for available airframes (don't forget maintaining CAP, keeping an E-2 up, etc this whole time), and pretty soon you get to a point where it takes so much time to launch more tankers that you're not actually adding any flight time or range to your strike aircraft. You can of course use multiple carriers, but that's even more big decks in harm's way. Still, the flaw isn't with the refueling scheme, it's the need (and the low gain) of air refueling - any way you look at it the real answer is a longer legged strike aircraft in the first place.

It actually makes me wonder if a carrier-based dedicated tanker might be a better application for a drone than whatever the UCAV is supposed to turn into. On the one hand, it doesn't need high performance, shouldn't need fast reflexes and will basically fly in circles for extended periods of time; if the airframe is available and cheap the automation should be simple. On the other hand, you're talking remote landing of a considerably more flammable aircraft than normal, unless you dump fuel each and every time.

Comedy option - pretty much every CVBG has a gator freighter or two in it, the MV-22 can hoist 20,000 lbs of cargo, ease traffic on the carrier's cats and traps by sticking a big buddy refueling module in the MV-22 bays, you're probably not landing grunts and doorknocking at the same time anyway.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 14:48

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Eh, tankers shouldn't be landing with a ton of fuel anyway. Sure, you might carry a little bit more than needed for a safety margin, but any fuel you bring up in the air is more fuel you have to burn to carry the extra fuel. Besides, if you are landing with a lot of fuel still on board, you make the landing more stressing/dangerous and in some cases can exceed reasonably cautious landing weight since many planes can take off safely at a heavier weight than they can land. That's part of why it's really lovely when an airliner making a very long flight has to land immediately after takeoff.

I forget the particulars, but burning fuel to carry around unused "give" was a big deal in OEF, and they found some simple way to streamline fueling schedules in a serious way in order to increase sorties, on station time, and fuel conservation. Now I wish I could remember what they changed to stop wasting millions of gallons of fuel just to carry around unused fuel.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 15:15

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Snowdens Secret posted:

Comedy option - pretty much every CVBG has a gator freighter or two in it, the MV-22 can hoist 20,000 lbs of cargo, ease traffic on the carrier's cats and traps by sticking a big buddy refueling module in the MV-22 bays, you're probably not landing grunts and doorknocking at the same time anyway.

Amphibious ready groups operate completely separately from CVSGs. Yeah, you'd probably have several CVSGs in the area if the marines were launching any large pre-planned invasions, but otherwise, the amphibs can't keep up with carriers or their escorts during regular carrier operations and would be tied to the beach to provide logistical support for the invasion and serve as an evacuation point for casualties.

Not to mention you could have just flown that MV-22 from the carrier in the first place if it made sense as a tanker. Range is quite simply difficult due to inherent limitations in the size/weight an aircraft can operate on a carrier. Maybe future drones will have better range. Or maybe effectiveness of operations over a landlocked country with a complete lack of air defenses is a poor yardstick for analyzing the efficiency of naval air operations and many of the concerns that drive that extra range are moot for what we operate these carriers for.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 15:32

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

I'd say extra range for CVSGs is pretty loving relevant to naval operations. Something about being scared due to increased proliferation of crazy long range ASCMs, ASBMs, waters potentially fraught with subs or smart mines, etc.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 15:42

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Veins McGee posted:

I love how all you AF nerds get so butthurt that Marines fly airplanes.

What do you do in the AF?

I don't get butthurt that the Marines fly airplanes, I get butthurt that they threw a temper tantrum and insisted on adding a completely worthless and pointless STOVL capability that has further complicated an already excessively complex procurement program.

Fly fixed wing fighters like Hornets all you want ( :lol:

at the USMC SLEPing their ancient legacy Hornets instead of buying Super Bugs, with a reason that basically boils down to "we don't wanna fly the same planes as the Navy"), if you insist on having the ability to have fixed wing aircraft on the gator freighters there's plenty of STOL light attack aircraft that are more than capable of operating from them without a catapult or arresting gear, but don't insist on making a jet strike fighter have pointless and worthless STOVL capability just because you're obsessed with Henderson Field.

Also Marine organic aviation operating all on its own is a joke in anything outside of a completely permissive environment but I suppose the violence of action is enough to overcome double digit IADS, so sayeth Chesty, the one True Prophet (PBUH).

# ? Jun 15, 2013 17:03

vains: May 26, 2004; A Big Ten institution offering distance education catering to adult learners

iyaayas01 posted:

I don't get butthurt that the Marines fly airplanes, I get butthurt that they threw a temper tantrum and insisted on adding a completely worthless and pointless STOVL capability that has further complicated an already excessively complex procurement program.

Fly fixed wing fighters like Hornets all you want ( at the USMC SLEPing their ancient legacy Hornets instead of buying Super Bugs, with a reason that basically boils down to "we don't wanna fly the same planes as the Navy"), if you insist on having the ability to have fixed wing aircraft on the gator freighters there's plenty of STOL light attack aircraft that are more than capable of operating from them without a catapult or arresting gear, but don't insist on making a jet strike fighter have pointless and worthless STOVL capability just because you're obsessed with Henderson Field.

Also Marine organic aviation operating all on its own is a joke in anything outside of a completely permissive environment but I suppose the violence of action is enough to overcome double digit IADS, so sayeth Chesty, the one True Prophet (PBUH).

Keep dipping into that Henderson Field well. I'm sure a 61 year old battle is the first thing that comes up when discussing Marine Air needs.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 17:19

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# ? May 18, 2024 00:43

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Veins McGee posted:

Keep dipping into that Henderson Field well. I'm sure a 61 year old battle is the first thing that comes up when discussing Marine Air needs.

It's sarcasm, but there's a grain of truth to it...because despite all the USMC rhetoric about utilizing STOVL in "forward deployed" austere bases and operating independently off of amphibs without CSG support, this has never happened in combat. Ever. In over 30 years of operating the Harrier, across 4 wars (Libya doesn't count), this has never happened...because we will never deploy a ESG to a fight without a CSG riding shotgun, and because any "forward deployed" austere base Harriers are operating out of is going to be capable of taking fixed wing aircraft because of this thing called logistics.

Which is why jet fighter STOVL is loving retarded. And that's not even getting into the issue of operating an ostensibly stealth fighter that costs $100M+ from a forward airfield where any rear end in a top hat with a mortar or some RPGs can blow it up.

iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Jun 15, 2013

# ? Jun 15, 2013 17:37

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