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You 're not going to get 187 Raptors out there. I'd be very surprised to see more than, say, three squadrons of airworthy Raptors in the area at all. This is getting pretty Ace Combat-implausible though
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May 28, 2014 02:55
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mlmp08 posted:AAM math gets fuzzy fast, but when you add in dragging to defend and DRFM, it's not at all like you can count on a 1 AMRAAM 1 kill equation. At all. You said at a favorable rate and I estimated half rather than 86%, which would be the 100% hit rate. You also said with F-15s and such as a backstop, so again that would be even more missiles for the suicide charge. Snowdens Secret posted:You 're not going to get 187 Raptors out there. I'd be very surprised to see more than, say, three squadrons of airworthy Raptors in the area at all. Right, and China isn't going to mobilize their entire fleet of aircraft for a single attack. The entire scenario is ridiculous, I'm just pointing out that in actuality there really isn't some massive horde of airplanes the PLAAN can just soak up all the missiles and win via zerg rush. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:59 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 02:56
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Warbadger posted:You said at a favorable rate and I estimated half rather than 86%, which would be the 100% hit rate. You also said with F-15s and such as a backstop, so again that would be even more missiles for the suicide charge. I didn't say anything of the sort?
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May 28, 2014 02:59
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All wars are political and how many airplanes are in the pacific depends on how likely it seems that the Chinese will actually try something. They aren't going to just up and invade Taiwan one day, there would be months of deterioration in relations between them, their neighbours, and the US first.
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May 28, 2014 02:59
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mlmp08 posted:I didn't say anything of the sort? "For all the arguable oversights and points of contention contained in those RAND studies a few years back, it's hard to dispute the ultimate conclusion: there aren't enough planes carrying enough missiles. Even if you assume a generous Pk, backstopping with F-15Cs/the Navy/whoever, and invincibility cheat codes on, 187 Raptors (and fewer than that combat coded) combined with turn times and the tyranny of distance means that you eventually run out of missiles, leakers get through, your enablers like AWACS and tankers get shot down, and you've lost the air war." What else are you describing here? Either way we're talking about an opponent with less than half the combat aircraft the US has and over half of those being incredibly outdated. I'm not sure how many more airframes and missiles we'd need to "win" this theoretical fight. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 03:03 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 02:59
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Warbadger posted:"For all the arguable oversights and points of contention contained in those RAND studies a few years back, it's hard to dispute the ultimate conclusion: there aren't enough planes carrying enough missiles. Even if you assume a generous Pk, backstopping with F-15Cs/the Navy/whoever, and invincibility cheat codes on, 187 Raptors (and fewer than that combat coded) combined with turn times and the tyranny of distance means that you eventually run out of missiles, leakers get through, your enablers like AWACS and tankers get shot down, and you've lost the air war." You seem to be confusing me with someone else. Posts have a name to the top left that let you know who is talking.
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May 28, 2014 03:06
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mlmp08 posted:You seem to be confusing me with someone else. Posts have a name to the top left that let you know who is talking. You're correct, it wasn't you. Sorry about that. However, the point stands. In response to your own reply I never claimed a 1:1 AMRAAM to kill ratio or close to it. His example allowed for "a generous Pk" anyways. iyaayas01 posted:For all the arguable oversights and points of contention contained in those RAND studies a few years back, it's hard to dispute the ultimate conclusion: there aren't enough planes carrying enough missiles. Even if you assume a generous Pk, backstopping with F-15Cs/the Navy/whoever, and invincibility cheat codes on, 187 Raptors (and fewer than that combat coded) combined with turn times and the tyranny of distance means that you eventually run out of missiles, leakers get through, your enablers like AWACS and tankers get shot down, and you've lost the air war. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 03:58 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 03:08
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All this missile talk got me looking up about the Sergeant, and I found this: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvm4-ert6GU Not air power but certainly Cold War
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May 28, 2014 04:11
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simplefish posted:All this missile talk got me looking up about the Sergeant, and I found this: Speaking of 105s... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrHglvzgrEk (not for animal lovers) I'm betting it's a good thing there isn't audio of the gun crews. "Don't you drop none of these fuckin' shells." BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 04:45 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 04:42
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Fojar38 posted:Didn't the opening salvo of the Iraq War prove that American missiles are a force to be reckoned with? We haven't actually seen any of China's missiles in action and considering the fact that they're closely guarded secrets it's possible that the Chinese are BSing regarding their capabilities. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 05:16 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 05:10
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The US is obviously not going to be deploy 187 combat raptors, because they don't have that many anymore  “The F-22 inventory is 123 combat-coded, 27 training, 16 test, and 20 attrition reserve. The incident at Tyndall was a training aircraft which brought the number down from 28. There are currently 186 total.”
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May 28, 2014 06:04
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The discussion, by some people, seems to have occurred as if the whole thing would happen in a bubble. Not having a go at anyone about it, but am a bit curious as to why. In any event, there's always (laughably) India there to try and provide some level of resistance - I doubt India wants a repeat of 1962, so I'd suspect there'd be an arms build up there (even if the place is unbelievably corrupt).
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May 28, 2014 11:14
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It would happen in a bubble -- Taiwanese energy shield technology is way more advanced than they want the world to know.
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May 28, 2014 11:16
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KingPave posted:The discussion, by some people, seems to have occurred as if the whole thing would happen in a bubble. Not having a go at anyone about it, but am a bit curious as to why. Not saying it isn't corrupt but in India and Pakistan, it"s the go-to accusation to shove a political opponent out of office. May be exaggerated, is all.
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May 28, 2014 11:36
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I refuse to believe that any wankfest war with China wouldn't set off the Korean theater, so while the South China Sea is very exotic and pretty, China has a massive weakness on its flank and would be fighting a two front air war. With Japan militarizing, South Korea and Taiwan buying state of the art poo poo, India modernizing, Russian resurgence, and the American pivot, I don't even see where China gets into power projection, like, at all. In Africa maybe? They can have it. e- Besides, look at the urban youth in China today. Aspiring to own Western cars, listening to Western music, breaking through the Great Firewall all the time.... we won the culture war decades ago. Breaking China open is what Nixon is going to be remembered for centuries from now, not Watergate. Seizure Meat fucked around with this message at 12:33 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 12:28
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I don't feel comfortable talking in more than generalities but the Taiwan strait scenario is a very difficult nut to crack, and the air-to-air piece is only a small part of the problem. A lot of China's military R&D has been done with an eye to blunting US combat effectiveness in a variety of ways and it is exacerbated by the fact that China has a big advantage due to the proximity of the mainland to Taiwan and the geographic constraints of that area. I know if I had to fly in that scenario I'd definitely make sure I'd written all my letters to home before my first launch. That said, I don't think we'll see China push for Taiwan any time soon, if at all. I think they are more interested in being able to assert military dominance in their part of the world and posing enough of a threat to our military that they can plausibly tell us to go pound sand when they want to. Snowdens Secret posted:The Ford's electromagnetic catapult problems are bigger than they sound, as future carrier requirements have cooked in the assumption that Ford-class carriers can sortie aircraft almost twice as fast (and thus can support far more sorties per day) as their Nimitz predecessors. Right now it can't come close to a steam-catapault deck's performance, but even if it reaches parity or slightly beats it, that's still far less flights per day than planners were counting on, which could mean needing two decks instead of one for certain tasks, or just not being able to do those tasks. I haven't paid much attention to this program and was not aware they were touting such numbers. I wonder what they are basing that on because current carriers can push aircraft off the deck at a pretty high rate already. The long pole in the tent is taxiing from your parking spot to the cat. Once you taxi on to the cat its pretty darn fast. Hook up, take tension, go to mil power/burner, final checks, go. Its been a little while since I've flown off the boat but that whole process takes like 30 seconds from my recollection.
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May 28, 2014 14:45
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Dead Reckoning posted:Here's the inescapable fact: All of the countries we've teed off on in the last two (three?) decades have been equipped with the very best the Soviet Union of the 1960's had to offer. which by the way was a major factor for china to start the massive equipment upgrade program we're seeing now. they weren't exactly enthused about how easily that 60s tech (and therefore their tech) fell apart against a modern US military.
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May 28, 2014 16:18
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KingPave posted:The discussion, by some people, seems to have occurred as if the whole thing would happen in a bubble. Not having a go at anyone about it, but am a bit curious as to why. The military what-ifs are confusing enough that this discussion has to be held in a bubble. If we start bringing Chinas internal politics and international relations into it then we also have to examine Chinese culture, economics and so on, as well as that of their neighbours. We'd be here for years! Vulturesrow posted:That said, I don't think we'll see China push for Taiwan any time soon, if at all. I think they are more interested in being able to assert military dominance in their part of the world and posing enough of a threat to our military that they can plausibly tell us to go pound sand when they want to. That's the nail hit on the head right there. China doesn't want - or even need - a force which can match the US military in a one-on-one war. What they want - and feel they need - is a force capable of projecting their influence to places where their interests need protected, notably SE Asia and Africa. They have massive holdings in these areas in factories, mines and so on, and if any of these countries start doing pesky things like "nationalising" then China needs to make their finger fat enough that when they wiggle it it keeps those countries in check. It's no good having a force bigger or better than Thailands or Nigerias of course; they need to have something they can wiggle at the US (and to a lesser extent NATO and the EU) as well. Chinas buildup is almost exclusively about power projection and dick waving (seriously - status is very important in Chinese culture, even moreso than American) as opposed to preparation for WW3. The powers that be in China want nothing more than to get disgustingly rich and buy Bentleys, 50 year old bottles of wine and aircraft carriers, just to show they can. This is an old quote but it still stands today: [quote]The fact that Chinas leaders have swapped their uniforms for business suits says it all.[/url]
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May 28, 2014 16:29
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Dead Reckoning posted:Here's the inescapable fact: All of the countries we've teed off on in the last two (three?) decades have been equipped with the very best the Soviet Union of the 1960's had to offer. 70s and early 80s, actually. Soviet export gear was generally one generation behind whatever was the current Soviet Top-of-the-line, with a few exceptions in either direction. Some thing likes various SAMs were exported while they were still top of the line while other things like the T-64/T-80 series were never exported until the fall of the Soviet Union, even long after they were obsolete.
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May 28, 2014 16:47
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Warbadger posted:70s and early 80s, actually. Soviet export gear was generally one generation behind whatever was the current Soviet Top-of-the-line, with a few exceptions in either direction. Some thing likes various SAMs were exported while they were still top of the line while other things like the T-64/T-80 series were never exported until the fall of the Soviet Union, even long after they were obsolete.
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May 28, 2014 22:47
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27 years ago today, comrades! 
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May 29, 2014 00:10
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Kid in the middle should be given a medal for attempting to defend the motherland from foreign invaders 
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May 29, 2014 00:21
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Boomerjinks posted:27 years ago today, comrades! Here's an interview he did a few years back with period footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2xpQFEcumE
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May 29, 2014 00:24
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Huh, I never knew that guy tried to murder a woman for rejecting his advances.
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May 29, 2014 00:35
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Pimpmust posted:The US is obviously not going to be deploy 187 combat raptors, because they don't have that many anymore What do 'attrition reserve' jets do? Mixed among squadrons, training, test, depot? I take it the training jets are mostly made up of the initial spiral that can't be upgraded (cheaply, anyway) to combat standard?
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May 29, 2014 00:40
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mlmp08 posted:Huh, I never knew that guy tried to murder a woman for rejecting his advances. His entire "Later Life" section on Wikipedia makes him sound like a massive poo poo heel, investment banking should be right up his alley.
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May 29, 2014 00:53
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movax posted:What do 'attrition reserve' jets do? Polite way of saying 'crash replacements'.
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May 29, 2014 02:25
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movax posted:What do 'attrition reserve' jets do? Mixed among squadrons, training, test, depot? I take it the training jets are mostly made up of the initial spiral that can't be upgraded (cheaply, anyway) to combat standard? Yes and yes. The test/training jets are the early Block 10s that can only be upgraded to the Block 20 standard, they're pretty much stuck at Tyndall for training and Nellis or Edwards for test work. I think I made an effort post about aircraft inventory earlier in the thread, but the short version is that yes, AR jets are mixed in with the fleet. It's not like there are shrink wrapped Raptors somewhere with a "cut open in case of war" sign in front of them. You've got Primary Aircraft Authorized, which is the amount of aircraft on paper that a unit is officially authorized. This is what you get funded, manned, and equipped for. (Primary Aircraft Inventory is the amount of PAA coded aircraft that you've actually got on the ramp...your PAI will never exceed your PAA). Backup Aircraft Authorized are aircraft you are authorized to have above your PAA to account for stuff like sending birds to depot. (Backup Aircraft Inventory is the amount of aircraft you physically possess coded against your BAA...anything you possess above your PAA up to your BAA will be BAI). Finally, Attrition Reserve. AR aircraft are what the AF buys over the expected life of the aircraft above and beyond the fleetwide PAA and BAA to account for attrition, both wartime losses and peacetime crashes/write-offs. When the production line is still rolling along there isn't any AR in the system, since any attrition can be made up by buying off the line. As the production line begins to wind down they begin to buy tails that are initially "coded" AR...these jets generally aren't actually assigned to a unit as AR, they are allocated by the staff to units that currently have a shortfall in their PAI or BAI for whatever reason...jet went to depot and turned out to be completely broke-dick, put a plane in the ground, etc. AR is generally transparent to the field level, since most of the AR jets are coded as something else (PAI/BAI/etc). It's usually only apparent to folks up on the staff that are looking at the entirety of the fleet as a whole. As for the air to air math, I had an effort post teed up but my computer ate it so I'll just say that there are some serious geographic and political constraints when you're dealing with any China related scenario (whether it's the Strait, SCS, or something else), so looking at the raw numbers in a vacuum doesn't get anywhere close to the heart of the matter.
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May 29, 2014 02:32
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Propagandalf posted:Polite way of saying 'crash replacements'. Or in the case of the F-22, 'long-term replacements' for lengthy depot-level maintenance (or block upgrade) jobs. There's a reason that before an officer in a squadron generally gets selected for command duty, they're usually stuck with the unenviable job of "maintenance officer." It's like playing Tetris with multi-million dollar pieces. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 03:18 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 03:15
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Just wanted to say again that cross-strait relations are excellent at the moment. While China may be ramming fishing boats (and claiming that the fishing boat rammed a military vessel then sank, yeah right) in the South China Sea, relations with Taiwan are excellent. Plus the Chinese national media hasn't made a peep about Taiwan in years as far as I know, and I think I would know. China may have hundreds of MRBMs that could be used on Taiwan but they seem in no hurry to do so.
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May 29, 2014 03:30
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iyaayas01 posted:As for the air to air math, I had an effort post teed up but my computer ate it so I'll just say that there are some serious geographic and political constraints when you're dealing with any China related scenario (whether it's the Strait, SCS, or something else), so looking at the raw numbers in a vacuum doesn't get anywhere close to the heart of the matter. The Taiwanese air arm by itself is a quarter the size of China's and relatively modern. They've also got a decently modern layered SAM network on the island and their own AWACS. Besides that it's not as though China doesn't have its own geographical, political, and logistical issues that would make a mass air attack on the scale implied extremely difficult. The PLAAF is certainly capable, but "they'll just run everybody out of missiles because lolchina=zergrush then win the air war" isn't really a thing, particularly if the US actually had parked a fleet and a bunch of F-22/15s in the area. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 06:51 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 06:41
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The question we should all be asking ourselves are: Liaoning can into space?
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May 29, 2014 08:02
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Warbadger posted:The Taiwanese air arm by itself is a quarter the size of China's and relatively modern. They've also got a decently modern layered SAM network on the island and their own AWACS. Besides that it's not as though China doesn't have its own geographical, political, and logistical issues that would make a mass air attack on the scale implied extremely difficult. The PLAAF is certainly capable, but "they'll just run everybody out of missiles because lolchina=zergrush then win the air war" isn't really a thing, particularly if the US actually had parked a fleet and a bunch of F-22/15s in the area. It's not about a zerg rush, if you think I was implying any sort of one-off Ace Combat mass air attack you were mistaken. It's about their ability to leverage their advantages and our disadvantages to regularly gain local numerical superiority while using non-completely lovely fighters. When I said "run out of missiles" I wasn't talking about China flinging hundreds of J-7s at 187 Raptors, I was talking about them putting up a 16 ship of J-11s at a couple 4 ships of Raptors....closely followed by 8xJ-10s...and another 8 ship of Flankers...and so on, while the nearest 4 ship of Eagles is a hundred miles away hitting a tanker, and the closest 4 ship of Raptors is still 2 hours out transiting from Andersen or wherever. One of the RAND studies I referenced before posited a 27:1 exchange ratio for F-22s and still had the USAF losing the air war. (Preemptive note: as I stated earlier, that study has some contentious points and some things they overlooked/they felt were outside the scope; I don't necessarily agree with all of it). I will fully admit that this is looking at one small part of a notional conflict in a vacuum, and that there are many other components that would have a bearing on this (both positively and negatively, and those other components may carry drawbacks of their own). I'm just trying to show what I was referring to is about the furthest thing from some "lol dumb barbaric commie yellow hordes zerg rush" crap. Yes, China has logistical/maintenance issues just like anyone, but they don't have political issues in this context (don't need to worry about dealing with other countries and basing rights when you're only concerned with operating from your own territory) nor do they have geographical concerns...almost every scenario, whether it's in the Strait or SCS, has Chinese bases closer to the theater of operations than any possible friendly bases (excepting Taiwan itself in a Strait scenario, which doesn't really count for reasons I lay out below). Even in something wacky like a Senkaku scenario you are dealing with approximately equal distance, and that assumes being able to utilize Okinawa. A2/AD also means you shouldn't automatically assume being able to have a CSG in the vicinity of the battlespace. The tyranny of distance is absolutely huge in the Pacific for the U.S. (not so much for the people who live there, especially countries like China who live very close to what they might be willing to fight over). If you aren't thinking about all the different ways that impacts operations (not just the air war), you're missing the boat. It's not just about the amount and quality of hardware; doing nothing but adding up numbers of aircraft/missiles and looking at relative quality misses the point. Speaking of which, 2,000+ USAF fighters is misleading. That number includes A-10s (lol), non-operational F-35s (double lol), non-operational test/training/etc tails, and aircraft like the Viper and Mud Hen that may be capable of air to air combat but would likely not be used in the counter-air mission because they have other things to be doing. The actual number of dedicated combat coded air superiority fighters is much lower than 2,000. Also if we're talking a Strait scenario the ROCAF ceases to be a combat effective entity right around H+12 because by that point every Taiwanese military base is a smoking hole in the ground...a couple PAC-3 batteries and whatever they call their indigenously developed poor man's Patriot aren't going to stop the onslaught of Chinese TBMs. But a Strait scenario isn't going to happen anytime soon, and even something in the SCS is relatively unlikely (as long as no one doing the standard ramming and dick waving gets an itchy trigger finger). Why use overt force when you can just roll in oil rigs and build runways on islands while daring someone in the region to do something about it?
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May 29, 2014 09:18
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simplefish posted:Not saying it isn't corrupt but in India and Pakistan, it"s the go-to accusation to shove a political opponent out of office. May be exaggerated, is all. It is and it isnt. The place is corrupt, but I said it the way I said it because I expect that India will actually have some level of parity militarily (though, I really do think their next aircraft carrier is overly optimistic - CATOBAR and Nuclear? Really?), but it wont be a surprise. With the fact that you can buy a lot of things there if you flash enough cash, I doubt "secret" will hold much value there. Then again, it is a country that might react based on overwhelming emotion. Maybe the Chinese will take it one step too far and assassinate Sachin Tendulkar?
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May 29, 2014 09:30
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Hmm could there be any conflict of interest in RAND corporation or other defense organizations or organizations with close ties to the defense community predicting that strategic conflict with China will definitely require more resources for the defense community?
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May 29, 2014 09:37
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KingPave posted:CATOBAR and Nuclear? Really? Why not go for an actual modern carrier to learn on?
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May 29, 2014 09:46
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Arglebargle III posted:Hmm could there be any conflict of interest in RAND corporation or other defense organizations or organizations with close ties to the defense community predicting that strategic conflict with China will definitely require more resources for the defense community? Most RAND reports on the subject of a hypothetical war between the US and China that I've read have actually said that the odds are in the US's favor even with their logistical disadvantage, but it has the same problem that a potential US-Soviet war would've had but on a smaller scale. Specifically, that a quick, surprising, and massive first strike confers a huge advantage from both the Chinese and American perspectives. The difference is that the US is far more capable of fighting a prolonged conflict than the Chinese are, and any Chinese strategy is going to be about focusing on crippling American forces in the region and then accomplishing their war objectives before the full might of the US military can be brought on them. In a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan for example, the Chinese would need to seize and pacify Taiwan within a few days at most assuming their first strike crippled all local US assets, and conducting such an invasion of Taiwan would be a massive undertaking that would require both air and naval supremacy, and the Chinese have no experience in amphibious invasion. And it would have to be the largest amphibious operation in military history to boot, similar to the planned allied invasion of Japan at the end of WWII. Honestly the biggest problem and the reason that a first strike would confer so many advantages to either side is missiles and the fact that nobody has so far been able to come up with a consistent defense against them, although the Americans have put a lot of money and effort into researching and building anti-missile systems with some success. If I recall that Iron Dome anti-missile system saw a pretty high success rate during Operation Pillar of Defense but that was against lovely Hamas missiles, not advanced military grade ones. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 10:04 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 09:55
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xthetenth posted:Why not go for an actual modern carrier to learn on? Or just pay Putin a lot of money for the plans to the Ulyanovsk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_aircraft_carrier_Ulyanovsk
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May 29, 2014 10:56
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Fojar38 posted:Most RAND reports on the subject of a hypothetical war between the US and China that I've read have actually said that the odds are in the US's favor even with their logistical disadvantage, but it has the same problem that a potential US-Soviet war would've had but on a smaller scale. Specifically, that a quick, surprising, and massive first strike confers a huge advantage from both the Chinese and American perspectives. The difference is that the US is far more capable of fighting a prolonged conflict than the Chinese are, and any Chinese strategy is going to be about focusing on crippling American forces in the region and then accomplishing their war objectives before the full might of the US military can be brought on them. This seems to ignore that a surprise first strike is unlikely from both sides. I can not imagine a political situation in which an American government would opt for an unprovoked first strike against China. On the other hand, a surprise first strike against American installations is a great way for China to ensure that the war spirals out of control and becomes the sort of conflict where "unconditional surrender" starts to show up on both sides as the primary war goal. Pearl Harbour is a thing that happened.
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May 29, 2014 11:22
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xthetenth posted:Why not go for an actual modern carrier to learn on? Because last I read, they were talking about doing it on their own. Which I probably should have added to my post to justify my scepticism.
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May 29, 2014 12:51
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