Since "dogfighting" is dead, air to air missiles easily match-up fighters' turn radius and bigger is better since you can stuff more high-tec avionics countermeasures and trinkets, why don't fighter-developers orientate towards heavy class interceptors like the past Tu-28 and the proposed Tu-160P and B-1R for front line duty and modified airliners/strategic airlifters as missile-trucks for air-policing?
Imagine a B 747-8 with a practically limitless supply of AMRAAMs, Meteors and chaff/flares, yuge jammers self-defense packages of Air Force One and strategic bombers, laser active point-defense against at least heat-seeker missiles, an interception radar for each frequency and a FLIR on every side of the airframe, the ability to stay on air for half a day, as well as secondary AWACS, EW and tanker capabilities for support of conventional fighters escorts when traditional air-combat warranted. It would probably be also be far more cost-effective than trying to miniaturize all these features for fighter-sized aircraft as the current trend is.
Because you still have to identify a target. Otherwise Malaysian Airways will end up losing a lot of planes.
Nolan Sullivan
Planes are obsolete anyway. Everything will be missiles.
Noah Smith
You can fit a freaking astronomical telescope if that was an issue.
Jeremiah Flores
Because radar profile.
Sebastian Rivera
You burgers told us the same thing when you sold us the Bomarc fifty-odd years ago.
Dylan Sullivan
Did the Turks embarrass one of your pilots again, OP
Nathan Russell
Time for your daily dose of things that never happened, mehmet?
Btw I intended to say since it's an often quoted line by burgers.
Chase Gutierrez
Never a good idea if you can avoid it. In situations where it has proven unavoidable (e.g. carriers) pretty much everything else has to be dedicated to protecting that one expensive target and you lose a lot of flexibility.
Justin Nguyen
Tell me more, Mr. McNamara.
Grayson James
Against trained pilots in similar planes missiles still miss more than they hit, this is because once the RWR goes off you can pull 9g's, get on the beam, nose down 45deg, light the burners and get an energy kill on the incoming missile, this isn't on option if you weigh 60 tons.
also high g-loading is the primary reason drone fighters are being considered
Why even include an aircraft at that point? Switch your air assets to AWACs, recon etc, to detect targets as close to the maximum range as possible; relay that data to ground based (E)LRSAM and have them engage from about a hundred times the distance to the horizon. Even with the cost of those missiles it's got to be cheaper to fire them from a truck rather than a multi-million dollar nth gen aircraft.
Because airborne missiles by definition have a significant kinetic and positional advantage over SAMs of the same weight.
Jose Wood
But if you're launching them from the ground it's not as big a deal if they're heavy
Grayson Butler
So basically the reason we don't do what Russia does is that their military is set up for cheaply defending territory or advancing on their immediate neighbors whereas ours is set up for very expensively projecting power anywhere in the world.
Dominic Hall
That might work if you replaced the extremely limited and expensive fighters with cheap drones. Otherwise you've got a good old charlie foxtrot type situation on your hands.
Lucas Evans
Well yeah. And it was already like that in the cold war, the USSR was never gear up toward force projection (neither actual wartime occupation as Afghanistan proved with most soldiers dying due to a lack of proper logistics and temporary life supporting facilities).
But don't worry the US is totally not an evil force seeking world domination (for Israel). You're totally the good guys in that story. The TV said so.
Luis Cooper
Ah but you see fellow emu man, thanks to the wonders of IR seeker heads in combination with IRST's with claimed effective ranges of up to 80kms on a sub sonic target, in future pilots might not even get an RWR proc.
John Cruz
Which is why I was suggesting a switch to much larger, faster, SAMs over AAMs that have had every 10th of a gram shaved off them in development.
I thought that most NATO armies were currently run with the specific intention of transferring taxpayers money to whichever defence contractor donated the most to the US Presidents campaign fund?
Hudson Jenkins
m8 you're absolutely retarded and your thread is shit. Kill yourself.
Landon Nelson
In that case the IRST would tie into the RWR and pick up the massive IR signature of a missile coming off the rails. Sure being the first to have effective IRST would be an advantage but just like radar it won't be long until everyone has it and is using it as a counter.
I see where you're coming from, and yes and airborne advantages become more and more negligible as SAM's size increases, but that's pretty much the point of the OP, there's not a single size advantage of autonomous mobile ground-based missile-carrying platforms compared to larger wide-body aircraft and not a single anti-air or even dedicated anti-ICBM missile that cannot be carried by them not sure if launching the biggest ones, like the ABM-3 Gazelle, would be plausible since there's not an official preceden, but at that point the missile costs more than the vast majority of targets. Choosing SAM over fighter is mostly an issue of cost, not performance.
Hey Greekanon, why don't you genocide the turks already? You'll be doing everyone a favor. While you're at it, go for the albanians and gypsies too. Goddamn do I miss Vlad Tepes. He was an inspiration to us all.
Tyler Harris
The C-5 covers 500 miles per hour so it's around $200 per mile and the flight cost includes ground maintenance. Boeing 747-400 is around $25,000 per hour, around $40 per mile, using approximately $15,000 in fuel per hour. Air Force One, based on 747-200B, costs $180,000 per hour to operate. You can see how militarization scales up things and fuel isn't the issue, I seriously doubt a missile truck with sophisticated SAMs requiring more exotic fuel than cerosine, advanced hardware that replaces the pilot and even rudimentary sensors, assuming its interception capabilities are based on centralized early-warning radar, would not scale up the operating cost of a simple diesel-engine platform, that in its civilian use just has to roll on a straight line, way more dramatically than militarization of airliners would.
Jacob Jones
I'm afraid that contrary to frequent gyro claims exterminating the roaches on our own is simply impossible in terms of manpower and logistics, especially in times of debt. Our best bet is to keep our strong defense. inform people about the hazards of the infestation and wait for Germoney to snap and go apeshit again.
At the same time Cyprus is following a risky strategy of trying to outjew the jew and turn them against their fellow khazars for oils, we'll see how that pays out…
Even if I am dramatically overestimating the price difference there is no way that a ground based firing platform is going to be more expensive than an aerial platform.
Brayden Hill
Of course but still the aerial platforms have significant advantages, at least for economic superpowers than can afford it.
For those of us that aren't economic superpowers ground based launch would still allow our militaries to just shut down theatre airspace for far lower cost than it would take the enemy to pierce the IADS reliably. I still think that's a reasonable approach to take, and the ground based heavy SAM would allow even NoBudget countries like Belgium to make the multi-billion dollar US Airforce useless - which would be more of a disruptive shift in warfare than the introduction of machine guns.
That comes when the SAM contract goes to a company that actually offers them at a reasonable cost.
Jayden Richardson
Is someone doubting his top5 econ superpower status or just too jaded by the Tornado ADV fiasco?
Gavin Cox
The USA is the only existing superpower and has been since 1991. It's delusional to think otherwise.
James Cooper
If you can handle a supercarrier one can safely assume you can handle a couple of VC-25-tier aircraft, it would be retarded for let's say France to waste money on them but you specifically have the vast Northern Sea to defend against big formations of unescorted ebul ruskie tupolevs to they point of warranting questionable expenditures like a purely-domestic development of a long range interceptor or marginal advantages to the F-4 and inferior maneuverability, as a matter of fact I think the UK would be the most in need for such aircraft.
Samuel Baker
The only economic 'superpower' at the moment is the USA. They're probably not going to last long in that spot, but that's where they are for the moment.
In that case it could make sense to fire them from an aircraft, the cost of maintaining a 24/7 CAP over the North Sea isn't great but I doubt that keeping a large number of destroyers rotating through the the same waters would be anywhere near as effective (or possible) on the same budget.
That seems a little excessive. I can understand the sense behind Annie or Davy but what could there possibly be up in the air that would take that much power to bring down?
Why not fly a bunch of high-speed, high-G fighter drones deployed form an air carrier like in OP? Without a pilot and with an airborne controller, you could probably have near-0 latency and be able to pull as many Gs as any missile. the -G is a HUGE dogfight advantage people dont pay attention to with drones.
nose-down at ~12Gs can literally throw your guts out of your mouth.
Samuel Carter
Just enough to join the army.
Aiden Watson
How resilient would these drone need to be to punch through the target aircraft (multiple times per sortie) undamaged? While we're on the subject how fast would they have to be to be moving to maintain flight as they come out of the other side?
Experimentation has demonstrated that people can survive up to at least 40g, the issue is consciousness after 9.
Levi Watson
There isn't a plane engine in existence that would eat sheet metal and keep going let alone actually hitting the other planes jet core of solid titanium.
Wyatt Cox
It wouldn't be so much a "plane" as it would be a SLAM made out of solid osmium.
Aiden Torres
A rocket engine using liquid oxidiser rather than an air intake wouldn't need to to eat sheet metal, let alone jet core or solid titanium. That could drive the price up a bit though.
Im sayign ~12g downwards. Being accelerated downwards throws your guts upwards, and there aren't any muscles that keep your organs tied down, they sort of 'hang' from muscles on your ribcage. upwards acceleration (positive g-load) is fine, because its just a more intense feeling of gravity, and your organs are designed to deal with gravity so everythign stays in place but under more load. Downwards acceleration (negative g-load) can tear the muscles that normally hold your organs up much more easily than the other way. I think you'll also pop both your eyes from blood pressure before you actually puke guts but my point stands. Humans can take roughly 1/3d the gs when being accelerated downwards compared to any other direction, and in a dogfight between a piloted fighter and drone fighter, the drone fighter has a significant advantage because of this.
IIRC the test where the man survived 40g was a forward acceleration(not up/down) test, on a rocket sled in nevada. I could be wrong though.
Ayden Robinson
Has anyone ever tested a liquid cockpit?
Aiden Rivera
Good point, rocket engines are famous for never exploding and being extremely durable.
How would that help? You are weightless floating is water because humans are basically neutrally buoyant not because liquids have some magical anti-gravity force.
Camden Jones
Not to my knowledge. They might have done some really early testing with that on the same fucking rocket sled site, but being submerged in water does basically what a g-suit does anyways. They both provide pressure all over your body to keep blood flowing to your brain and vital organs.
Eli Perry
Maybe I just play too much war thunder, but think of the amount an airforce would save on ammunition, missiles, and weapons training after adopting the rammer-drones!
Friendly reminder that the radar detection range is a function of hypercube root of radar cross section. For every 16 times RCS is reduced, detection range is reduced 2 times.
It's a dimensional fractal of the time cube you idiot
Leo Peterson
There are only 4 races, White, Black, Asian, and Irish.
Colton Hughes
The Ir*sh aren't human though.
Asher Fisher
i would like to see you get one of those up to airliner speeds, on course, in crosswinds
Charles Allen
Hypercube means x⁴ you dolt. Hypercube root is ⁴√x
David Reed
Lol stop reading sci-fi novels and pick up a physics book that isn't for high schoolers. Time cube has a mass of y^4, which can be used in the equation to triangulate an airplane in the air using integer potential value division
It's more visible than this piece of shit, which got shot down with a 60s missile back in the 90s when everyone thought stealth was science fiction and no military in the world even bothered to take it seriously.
The world powers have had 30 years to take it seriously and deploy serious countermeasures, and this piece of shit is more stealthy than an F-35.
Dumbass that missile was fired by a bunch of paramilitaries who only stole the missile truck. They literally lacked the iff, search, or tracking vehicles which a normal Buk platoon would have.
Dogfighting has been dead for decades bro, replaced by BVR air to air missiles. This thread has been about the potential value in abandoning the idea of the fighter/interceptor and to build S/AAM that can do the same job while being fired from a larger, cheaper, platform. Which part of that do you disagree with?
Sebastian Myers
this. it will be missiles armed with bombs to drop on secondary targets and smaller counter-anti-missile missiles. later models might have lasers for the counter-anti-missile system.
it will be like something out of an apocalyptic russian student cgi film.
Luis Williams
But even the bestest muhssile can and will get spooked by Terrain, so unless you're the Netherlands or Sweden I don't think it'll work out that way. I'm all for making Macross real though.
Ryder Walker
They declared dogfighting dead in the 60's and eliminated guns on fighter jets in favor of guided missiles capable of hitting beyond visual range.
Then they got their asses handed to them by planes with guns, put guns back on all their fighters, and started a special school to teach pilots how to dogfight.
And now that stealth fighters that are difficult to lock onto, particularly at long range, are a thing, you honestly think dogfighting is dead and we'll just spam missiles at each other with bombers/fucking airliners?
Jaxson Sanders
That was due to a political decision requiring 'visual identification' before engaging - and you know it.
Henry Moore
How about we just say fuck it to missiles all together. This decision alone allows to dramatically simplify your plane. Just fit an auto cannon or two of a suitable caliber, some radar, flir, and a bunch of countermeasures. Then use your supreme maneuverability and low rcs to fuck up all those meme fighters from close range.
That requires courage and not being a little bitch.
Seriously, stealth aircraft and gun attacks go together like peanut butter and chocolate… yet their ENTIRE structure is compromised by putting missile bays in it! If you want a missile truck, just fit a dozen Patriot missiles into a square shaped "fighter" with the RCS of the state of wyoming, spam them all at 400km range at the first sensor ghost you have and then run to get rearmed. Making a stealth fighter into a missile truck makes as much sense as a screen door on a submarine.
Carter Peterson
And just how exactly are you expecting to get into close range where those guns would be effective without getting shredded by missiles? Missiles and radar allow modern birds to engage an enemy beyond visual range. The age of the dogfighter is over.
Isaac Reyes
Unless you can find a way to fit a reliable CIWS system to the aircraft.
Charles Walker
Forgoing missiles allows you to carry a lot more countermeasures for starters. For IR missiles you now have DIRCM. Maybe something similar can be done for radar. Maybe you could have multiple planes jam the same missile. Or just tow a radar reflector at some distance behind your plane and call it a day.
Jace Diaz
Except before the would-be gunner gets within firing range, the IRST and other non-radar sensors on the enemy fighter have already detected you in spite of your low RCS, and have just salvo'd missiles at you.
Nathan Jones
We've decomissioned it in November and replaced it with the HMS Ocean.
Gavin Jackson
Why not make a big missile carrying Ara and have it oper8te in concert with small flat-profiled unarmed aside from guns stealth recon lolis? The lolis would lock up targets with Radar or IRST in case the enemy has a Russian IADS, send over the target data via Satellite datalink to the Ara which can then proceed to spam missiles from 200km range or greater.
