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Psion posted:I'm sure Boeing would be extremely happy to take a few billion to go dig up the plans and push out some more E-767s, which is (I believe) the same kit just on a 767 airframe instead of a 707. That's correct. As far as a timeframe for replacing the E-3, let's look at what has happened in that arena. In the late 90s, the fleet was upgraded to Block 30/35, which added 1960s ELINT capability, and replaced the reel-to-reel computer memory with a reel-to-reel emulator...the computer is the same, and still searches from start to end because it thinks there's still a loving tape. Around the same time, a proposed replacement called the E-10 was floated. The E-10 was supposed to combine AWACS and JSTARS on a 767. There are a lot of technical issues with that idea, and operationally it's loving stupid...these two platforms need to be in different places, for one thing. In 2011, the first of the fleet went in for the Block 40/45 upgrade, which was supposed to replace most of the 20+ radios, add dedicated data antennae, replace the 1964-designed computer processor and it's associated hardware (which takes up as much deck space as the crew/scopes), replace the scopes, etc. Well, the scopes and computer are still being replaced, everything else was cut. Oh, and 1/4 of the fleet is probably going to the boneyard to cut costs. The dollar cost we were given for air shows was $330 million in 1998, whatever that works out to now. There's no way a replacement even gets mentioned in before 2020 unless we have a legit war in the meantime or Russia invades one of the smaller NATO countries. Edit: the E-10 was cancelled in 05 or 06, and rightfully so. Godholio fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 1, 2014 17:49
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movax posted:In an ideal world, Boeing and their AESA partner should just sell a conversion "kit" (if structurally possible) where you take any given Boeing 767/777 passenger airliner, fly it into depot, and fly out a fully formed AWACS a few months later. I don't know about the 767, but at least part of the 707 frame is different from other versions...the J-compartment, where the struts pin the weight of the dome. quote:Just "borrow" one from your national flag carrier, and you too can have glorious American AWACS capability Boeing hires former controllers for this, actually. I missed the chance to train Turkey's initial cadre in Seattle by about 3 months.
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Apr 1, 2014 17:52
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And pay the consulting firm staffed by ex-USAF AWACS folks to train up your staff.
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JSTARS has (had? They pulled the signs off the building so who knows) an office nearby and the thing I remember from them is the absolutely absurdly goofy video they showed us when they came into class in the mid-90s detailing what JSTARS actually was. I'm not sure why they showed it actually (seriously, they just showed up and stuck the tape in and played it), but the one thing I remembered from it was CGI of an own scanning the ground with Christian rock playing over it. I still see JSTARs fly into Patrick very occasionally.
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Apr 1, 2014 18:15
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Bacarruda posted:So the whole "VHF can see stealth planes! omg!! wtf DoD!!!" is largely overblown, since even a VHF set can see a stealth plane, shorter-wavelength missile fire radars still won't be able to see the target? Yes and no like FrozenVent said. The biggest thing with a VHF is that you've got a wavelength of 1 to 10 meters vs 2.5 - 3.5ish cm for X band. So you've got a "stealthy" F35 which is basically 11m by 35m so you're gunna 'hit' an edge in there somewhere with VHF and it'll give the Radar operator an approximate idea where they are or at least that something is there. At VHF you'd basically need to build your control surfaces and everything 'stealthy' with-in an order or magnitude (1/2 wavelength?, I forget the math) of what you want to not be seen by. You would also need an absolutely huge array to get any really good positioning like Snowden said. So when you've got the "look that way" part you start to deploy stuff like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/TPS-80_Ground/Air_Task_Oriented_Radar Google "VHF Radar" and read the first link or two. They talk about the math a bit in one of the pdfs about how it's basically impossible to make a fighter sized jet 'stealthy' for VHF.
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Apr 1, 2014 18:36
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Has anyone tried to do anything recently with bi-static radar? From a very high-level, it seems simple of course: point a radar/RF source at a receiver, and then be very suspicious of the areas where the signal doesn't make it through. For some reason I was thinking the old OTH systems were bi-static, but perhaps I'm mis-remembering.
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Apr 1, 2014 18:41
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Also, this makes entirely too much sense, how is this happening? 
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Apr 1, 2014 18:50
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movax posted:Also, this makes entirely too much sense, how is this happening? The only reason the Army is participating now is because it's a way for them to get in on some of that sweet sweet Pacific Pivot/ASB money. There are legitimate reasons why routine maritime ops with Army helos aren't a thing (not the least of which is that their birds aren't "rust-proofed" like the Navy's are so corrosion is a HUGE issue when they operate from ships for an extended period of time.)
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Apr 1, 2014 18:54
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iyaayas01 posted:The only reason the Army is participating now is because it's a way for them to get in on some of that sweet sweet Pacific Pivot/ASB money. For anyone that has little or no experience with aircraft, corrosion control is literally the biggest expenditure you will have over an aircraft's lifetime, except possibly the combined cost of engine overhauls. It is an all encompassing topic that covers prevention, maintenance, treatment, repair, etc. it's a pain in the rear end. On land. In Texas. In the summer. At sea, in bad weather, it must be a complete loving nightmare. You cannot possibly understate the impact that corrosion proofing (or a lack thereof) can have on an airframe in that environment.
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Apr 1, 2014 19:08
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Folks here seem to know their stuff about milhist and a lot f you have travel experience, so I figured I'd ask. Probably going to spend a few week in Europe sometime in mid-late May or July. My dad and I were planning on seeing the major WWI and WWII sites (he's a huge WW2 buff), but I'd also like to see any Napoleonic or Cold War or generally interesting museums. Any recommendation on places to visit, food, transportation?
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Apr 1, 2014 19:08
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Bacarruda posted:Folks here seem to know their stuff about milhist and a lot f you have travel experience, so I figured I'd ask. Jesus christ that's a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE topic. ANy chance you could narrow it down a bit? Do you have a rough itinerary of what countries you're going to be in? Just off the top of my head assuming you're going to be in France and Germany: Go to the Musée de l'Armée at Les Invalides in Paris. Ginormous as gently caress Napoleonic section (gently caress, Napoleon himself is part of it) plus all the WW1/WW2 French poo poo you can shake a stick at. You'll learn bunches about how the French Resistance won WW2. I presume you're going to be hitting the D-Day sights. THE D-Day museum in Caen is, of course, crazy and well worth a visit. There's a smaller but in many ways much cooler museum dedicated only to the Airborne located in Ste. Mere Eglise that I'd call a must-go if you're in that area. Really a trip to that town is worth it if only to see the famous church. The old stained glass got blown out during the war and they replaced it with this AMAZING depiction of the paras coming down on the town in '44. In loving stained glass. That alone is worth the trip out. There's a really neat musuem of modern German history in Bonn if you go through there. The Haus der Geschichte. It concentrates on the years of the E/W split, so it's pretty cold war by definition. For a general German history musuem, running from the Roman era through Reunification and beyond you can't beat the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Hands down my favorite German history museum. It covers every era really well. If you like Napoleonic poo poo you'll enjoy seeing his hat and sword captured among his baggage at Waterloo. If you do go to Berlin skip Checkpoint Charlie. The thing you want to see doesn't exist any more and the museum is a privately owned mess. That's a super short list. Give me some specifics and I can probably give you some more. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Apr 1, 2014 |
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Apr 1, 2014 19:22
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movax posted:Has anyone tried to do anything recently with bi-static radar? From a very high-level, it seems simple of course: point a radar/RF source at a receiver, and then be very suspicious of the areas where the signal doesn't make it through. The problem is that you have to surround your enemy to some extent movax posted:
I don't know about older systems, but ROTHR is not bi-static. Among other issues, a bi-static system would have to be highly mobile and you'd need a lot of receivers. You can't just place one trip wire in a huge 3d space and expect it to be triggered...but even if it were, you still don't know what it was or how fast it was moving. You need a way to filter out birds, kites, and whatever else AND you need at least one more data point. Assuming the adversary crosses your glorified garage door safety beam.
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Apr 1, 2014 19:43
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movax posted:Also, this makes entirely too much sense, how is this happening? Did the Army just buy enough shares in Krown Rust Control to have controlling interest? You can actually see rust forming on untreated surfaces and wiring on an hourly basis. I doubt the Apache would take kindly to 1/4" of naval-grade paint, and my understanding is that rustproofing for maritime aviation use is a little more involved than spraying a can or two of WD-40 through cracks in the hull.
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Apr 1, 2014 20:12
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Cyrano4747 posted:For a general German history musuem, running from the Roman era through Reunification and beyond you can't beat the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. Hands down my favorite German history museum. It covers every era really well. If you like Napoleonic poo poo you'll enjoy seeing his hat and sword captured among his baggage at Waterloo. If you do go to Berlin skip Checkpoint Charlie. The thing you want to see doesn't exist any more and the museum is a privately owned mess. I'll back this up. The Deutsches Historisches Museum is awesome, and Checkpoint Charlie is meh. I lived like... 5 minutes from it and the only time I went down there was because there was a good Döner stand right there that was open late. Akion fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Apr 1, 2014 |
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Apr 1, 2014 20:33
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movax posted:Also, this makes entirely too much sense, how is this happening? this is hardly the first time army helicopters have forward-staged off navy ships for marine interdiction, you just don't hear about because it's not something we advertised until now (for budget reasons).
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Apr 1, 2014 20:57
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brains posted:this is hardly the first time army helicopters have forward-staged off navy ships for marine interdiction, you just don't hear about because it's not something we advertised until now (for budget reasons). Right, I knew it's been done in the past, but the article makes it sound like they're trying to make it more of a normal thing, not special circumstances only.
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Apr 1, 2014 20:59
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it is a normal thing, that's more what i was trying to say. if an aviation unit is within flying distance of blue water, it's commonplace to coordinate with the navy for deck landing quals annually (or semiannually, if we can get the support), and i've personally flown missions off FFGs in the Caribbean. we do it a lot, is my point. edit: to expand a bit, the reason you didn't hear about army-navy cooperation, especially in the interdiction role, is that we didn't want congress to get the impression of overlap between army and navy rotary-wing missions when there isn't one. these days, however, it's all about the pacific and like the article says, the army is trying to stay relevant. brains fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Apr 1, 2014 |
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Apr 1, 2014 21:07
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brains posted:it is a normal thing, that's more what i was trying to say. if an aviation unit is within flying distance of blue water, it's commonplace to coordinate with the navy for deck landing quals annually (or semiannually, if we can get the support), and i've personally flown missions off FFGs in the Caribbean. we do it a lot, is my point. Ah, I see what you're saying. Do you have to pre-stage certain GSE on a given vessel, or is it generally interchangeable? (if that info can be shared). I figured the fuel is probably interchangeable as long as your stuff doesn't mind the JP-5 / whatever more stable formulation is on the ship.
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Apr 1, 2014 21:20
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movax posted:Ah, I see what you're saying. Do you have to pre-stage certain GSE on a given vessel, or is it generally interchangeable? (if that info can be shared). I figured the fuel is probably interchangeable as long as your stuff doesn't mind the JP-5 / whatever more stable formulation is on the ship. for the frigates and cruisers, they already have seahawks so there's a lot of commonality there for blackhawks. generally, the supported unit will bring their own stuff, though. obviously, an apache or kiowa unit working off an LHA needs to bring all of their own stuff.
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Apr 1, 2014 21:41
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So my question is: With regards to Army rotary units stationed on ships for longer than a few days, how do they attempt to minimize the corrosion that occurs? Do they try and pre-treat or is this a case of, "this Apache was on the stern of a frigate for a week, ship it state-side, take it completely apart, and hit every individual part with a buffing wheel?
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Apr 1, 2014 22:16
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brains posted:
I'm surprised this hasn't provoked a tantrum from the USMC helicopterists about the Army selling on their corner.
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Apr 1, 2014 22:19
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Cyrano4747 posted:Jesus christ that's a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE topic. ANy chance you could narrow it down a bit? Do you have a rough itinerary of what countries you're going to be in? Sorry about the broadness  To narrow things down a bit. London, Berlin, and Normandy are definitely on the list. In London, we'll do the IWM, Churchill War Rooms and probably do a day trip out to Duxford and/or Greenwich. In Berlin, I'd like to see the Reichstag and any of the flak towers that are left. Good to know Checkpoint Charlie a tourist trap. Normandy plans are the usual hits. Point du Hoc, Pegasus Bridge, the beaches (I'd like to see the British beaches as well as the Americans ones). I want to get into Belgium to see Bastogne (and anything else worth seeing that's Bulge related). Probably going to hit Ypres, Mons, Waterloo, and Quatre Bras, given that everything is fairly close in that area. Might spend a couple days in Holland to see Arnhem and Njimegen, if that's worth doing. Any ideas for stuff in Germany (we were thinking about going down to Nuremberg) and the France-Belgium area?
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Apr 1, 2014 23:08
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Bacarruda posted:Sorry about the broadness I visited Omaha beach a few years back which was pretty awesome. Theres tons of old Nazi fortifications scattered all around the cliff that you can get into, and just being on the beach was... humbling, I suppose. I also got to visit the cemetery nearby that houses all the American soldiers that died there, I wish I could find the pics I took of all this.
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Apr 1, 2014 23:55
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Bacarruda posted:Sorry about the broadness If you'll be nearby, there are some neat things in eastern France. There are tons of WWI era forts and monuments around Verdun, and there are several American cemeteries and monuments from both WWI and WWII that you can look up here: http://www.abmc.gov/home.php I've been to the St. Mihiel, Luxembourg, and Lorraine cemeteries, as well as some of the smaller monuments (Montfaucon, Montsec) and they were all amazing. Also seconding the Musée de l'Armée in Paris.
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Apr 2, 2014 00:21
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Bacarruda posted:Sorry about the broadness Well, I just want to double emphasize Ste. Mere Eglise. That museum is just goddamned awesome. The Berlin Flak towers really aren't much. One was totally demolished (the Zoo one) and the other two were partially demolished. You can see a few walls and such but really it isn't all that impressive. If you want to see Flak towers Hamburg or Vienna are where you need to be going. The Reichstag is what it is. The self-guided tour up the dome is honestly kind of flat on the historical stuff (mostly just a basic history of German government/democracy that you could get from Wikipedia) but the view is good. Besides that there isn't much. It's a functional government building so they're not letting tourists run wild over it. Our capital building is like loving disneyland in comparison. I can't say much about Belgium. I do know that Waterloo got kind of spoiled in the 19th century by people altering the battlefield to throw monuments up everywhere. The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is worth seeing, and the attached musuem is pretty good. That's literally right next to the Brandenburg gate so you can hit both of those at once. WHile you're in the neighborhood walk about a kilometer down the Straße des 17. Juni (the big loving boulevard that runs through the gate and turns into Unter den Linden on the other side) and you'll come across a gently caress off huge memorial to Soviet war dead on the right. That's impressive as hell and worth seeing. One ofm y favorite monuments in Berlin. THere are a pair of T34s that were salvaged from the wreckage of the Battle of Berlin out front, which is kind of neat. One of them has a pretty obvious hole in it if you look around the hull. If you want good traditional German food at a great price in Berlin hit Tiergartner Quelle. It's a bar (just google it for the exact address) which is right off the Tiergarten S-Bahn stop. S. German type food, so it's not exactly typical Berlin fodder, but delicious none the less. One of my favorite restaurants in Berlin. Nuremberg is . . . OK. It's a German city, I'm sure there's some museums or something, but it's not exactly a tourist destination. Freiburg isn't far away and is a lot more tourist friendly with it's big old cathedral etc. If you want to do the Nazi Party tour there's always Münich but a lot of that is frankly a touch touristy. It's a cool city, though, and has a lot of neat churches and museums. Frankly a lot of the Nazi poo poo isn't really emphasized for obvious reasons outside of museums. I do know that there are a few guided tours of old Nazi sights in Berlin. If you don't speak German one of those might be worthwhile. THey'll take you around and show you the buildings that are left standing from that era etc. It's pretty notable construction - once you've been there for a few months you can pick those 30s era buildings out from a block or two away. Unter den Linden in Berlin is always worth walking down. The Russian/Soviet embassy is impressive as gently caress and still has hammers and sickles everywhere. Potzdamer platz is worth swinging by if only to take a look at how they incorporated the two standing walls of the old Hotel Esplanade into the hyper-modern glass and steel Sony Center. The neat bit of that is across the street from the Ritz, so it's a bit hard to miss. Of course there's a laundry list of churches, cathedrals, and museums of all types if you're looking for that stuff. Bebelplatz is right off Unter den Linden once you hit the part where it runs through Humboldt University. That's where one of the bigger, more famous book bonfires was. THere's a small memorial to that there that's worth seeing. The square still looks like it did in the 30s, so it's not all that difficult to imagine what was going on there. I'll throw up some more as / if I think of them.
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Apr 2, 2014 02:26
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Godholio posted:That's correct. As far as a timeframe for replacing the E-3, let's look at what has happened in that arena. Boeing has something the USAF could buy off the shelf to replace the E-3... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_AEW&C 
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Apr 2, 2014 02:53
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That little bitty array looks waaay less comfy to sit in than the E-3 saucer section.
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Apr 2, 2014 02:58
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wkarma posted:Boeing has something the USAF could buy off the shelf to replace the E-3... I recall Godholio mentioning in the past that the Wedgetail doesn't have enough space for controllers onboard to meet USAF needs.
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Apr 2, 2014 03:05
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Snowdens Secret posted:That little bitty array looks waaay less comfy to sit in than the E-3 saucer section. Wait, people sit in the AWACS dish thing??? 
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Apr 2, 2014 03:43
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Drav posted:Wait, people sit in the AWACS dish thing??? How else would you separate the non-essential portions of the ship from the battle bridge?
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Apr 2, 2014 03:50
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Drav posted:Wait, people sit in the AWACS dish thing??? It's 1960's tech, it doesn't fly itself.
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Apr 2, 2014 03:52
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I'm pretty sure that is where they churn the ice cream for the crew. Crew needs lots of ice cream.
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Apr 2, 2014 05:10
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priznat posted:I'm pretty sure that is where they churn the ice cream for the crew. I thought that was submarines?
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Apr 2, 2014 05:18
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Cyrano4747 posted:great info! Thanks, I don't know much about Germany, so it's good to get the inside scoop.
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Apr 2, 2014 05:59
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Cyrano4747 posted:The Berlin Flak towers really aren't much. One was totally demolished (the Zoo one) and the other two were partially demolished. You can see a few walls and such but really it isn't all that impressive. If you want to see Flak towers Hamburg or Vienna are where you need to be going. A small addendum: Berliner Unterwelten offers a tour of a partially demolished flak tower in Berlin. It was bombed to poo poo, but they still couldn't demolish it completely, so they just took some rubble, piled it around the ruin to make an artificial hill, and created a park on top of it. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but when you go inside with the tour, you can see just how much of the structure survives - it's basically an artificial cavern underneath the hill now. I think it's worth the time, if you can make the schedule work for you. I agree that it's not much of an insight into how the flak towers looked before they were destroyed, though. (I also did Tour 1 and found that interesting, too. Check their website, I'm sure you'll find something that tickles your fancy.)
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Apr 2, 2014 06:04
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If you go East Germany there are a handful of Cold War submarine bases you can go to and walk through a Cold War submarine. There's one in Berlin, if I remember correctly. I wouldn't call it a full day out like Duxford, but it fills a few hours on a rainy afternoon nicely. La Coupole near Saint-Omer is worth a shout too. edit: Sword Beach Grand Bunker Museum was another morning well spent when I was there, but again not a full-day thing e2: Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset was pretty good simplefish fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 06:54
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Bacarruda posted:Sorry about the broadness Don't forget the RAF Museum in London.
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Apr 2, 2014 08:10
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Bacarruda posted:To narrow things down a bit. London, Berlin, and Normandy are definitely on the list. In London, we'll do the IWM, Churchill War Rooms and probably do a day trip out to Duxford and/or Greenwich. In Berlin, I'd like to see the Reichstag and any of the flak towers that are left. Good to know Checkpoint Charlie a tourist trap. Normandy plans are the usual hits. Point du Hoc, Pegasus Bridge, the beaches (I'd like to see the British beaches as well as the Americans ones). IWM is nice in London, although kinda small. There is one Army Museum out by Chelsea, which was OK. Not so many vehicles though. I would recommend the RAF museum in Colindale, the north part of London, to where you can easily take the tube in 20-30 min from central London. http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/ Among the many exhibits, there is for example an Avro Vulcan.
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Apr 2, 2014 10:15
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It probably has less meaning to someone that isn't Canadian, but Vimy Ridge near Arras is well worth a visit. There are preserved trenchworks up there as well as the monument, war cemeteries and dozens of other things to do. It's also unearthly quiet.
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Apr 2, 2014 11:21
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wkarma posted:Boeing has something the USAF could buy off the shelf to replace the E-3... Yeah, that's been discussed, but it's not a replacement. There are standard AWACS tasks that the E-737 simply can't support. There's a lot more going on than just reading radar data and telling fighters what's going on around them. Even if all that mattered was the AEW portion, it would take multiple E-737s per E-3. Godholio fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 14:53
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Bacarruda posted:Thanks, I don't know much about Germany, so it's good to get the inside scoop. One I forgot that I really shouldn't have: Hohenschöhnhausen Stasi Prison.. It's out in kinda the suburbs of old east Berlin, so maybe half an hour on the public transit. It was one of the major Stasi prisons where they held and interrogated people, and had a history with both the NKVD (aka pre-KGB KGB) and I think the Gestapo before that. REALLY good tour, REALLY loving interesting. The German language tours are almost all given by former inmates and the English language tours are given by German grad students who have their poo poo dialed pretty tight. English language tours are 3 times a week at specific times, so check the webpage. I really, really, really can't emphasize enough how good a tour that place is. It really helps to clear the bullshit and underline why Germans are so prickly about things like state surveillance etc. today. Any kind of warm fuzzy nostalgia for communist Europe that you might have accidentally picked up walking through one too many museum exhibits of how every day life wasn't soul crushingly terrible will pretty much evaporate with a trip there.
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Apr 2, 2014 15:04
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