Russian Fighters for American Airforce/Navy: The only prudent solution!

Flight Journal. ^ | Robert W. Kress with Rear Adm. Paul Gillcrist, U.S. Navy (Ret

[M. T. Cicero II]

Your points are well taken. Russian equipment is not good. But what saddens me is that unlike when the F-15 and F-16 were top dogs, we don't seem to have the will to build or fund the new top dogs. I don't know much about the F-22, but it seems to me that it is a capable machine. Damn the expense! Get this aircraft on line and in numbers! Also, we need to upgrade our AAM's. When did the US lose the moxie to be number 1? The JSF? Please, what a piece of crap! We'd do better using the Israeli's upgrades and avionics to the exisitng F-16 force. We also need helicopters which work. These need to be fast and small - very small. Tell your senators to get on the stick! (so to speak).

[PokeyJoe]

Maybe we should genetically manipulate the DNA of some to pilots to a body type that can take the stress of persistant high G manuevers and then clone them.... and then put them in aircraft that can turn 30G sustained rates, and acceleration and lateral forces well beyond unmodified human endurance.

[spetznaz]

Maybe we should genetically manipulate the DNA of some to pilots to a body type that can take the stress of persistant high G manuevers and then clone them.... and then put them in aircraft that can turn 30G sustained rates, and acceleration and lateral forces well beyond unmodified human endurance.

Something tells me you were joking.... but just in case you were not there are a number of reason why that would never be the case!

1) No human system...modiefied or not....can positive G forces of 30+. Actually few aircraft can tolerate G forces above 9, not because we cannot make airframes able to sustain 9+ Gs but because no pilot would be able to take turns much higer than that without redding or blacking out! At 30+Gs i think crazy stuff like Nitrogen bubbling in the blood, centrifugal separation of blood plasma, and severe shock to body organs would occur.....and the pilot would also be mashed against the aircraft at a pressure 30 times his body weight (eg a pilot weighing 200 pounds would suddenly find that his weight has been magnified to around 6000 pounds during a 30G turn...and i am sure that would crush any being short of Superman or the hulk).

2) Even if it were possible to bio-engineer such uberMensch able to withstand such pressures (and it is not) it would still not happen due to fears of cloning and stuff. for example if doing things like Stem Cell cloning elicits such controversy, what do you think the fallout from cloning super-soldiers able to take 30+Gs would be? There would be a great cry!

3) It would be cheaper and more cost-effective to do R&D on Unmanned Combat Vehicles. They are not manned, meaning that G forces are less of a hindrance.

Anyway that is why that would not be possible.

[spetznaz]

I hear that all the time too, and have some mpegs of the Su doing a "cobra." The jet basically pitches at a 90 degree angle on top of its engines suddenly then drops back down as quick as it went up. Thats pretty cool...but could any airforce buffs tell me how moves like this would help in a real battle

Moves like the one you mentioned (called the Pugachev's Cobra maneuvre) as well as its horizontal cousin (the Hook) are really not meant for combat. A Sukhoi loaded with missiles and other ordnance would not be able to 'stand on its tail!'

The main value of these theatrics is to show the capabilities of the sukhoi (and those capabilities are impressive), as well as to advertize the SU to potential buyers. Think of the moves as glossy advertising.

However it should also be noted that the sukhoi -27, and its variants, are extremely maneuvrable due to things like avionics ,digital fly by wire controls and aerodynamic instability! It is a big plane (slightly larger than the F-14) but it is still able to maneuvre in an exemplary manner!

Thus it is an extremely agile fighter.... but do not expect to see a flanker doing the Pugachev over the Bering straits with a full load of AA and AG missiles!

[Mr Rogers]

Don't believe the F-111s dropped durandal in the Gulf War. I know the Es out of Incirlik didn't, and I strongly suspect the Fs were using PGMs to the max. No one I met in F-111s thought durandal was worth a c#$p.

[Mr Rogers]

In the 80s (when I first started in fighters), being able to move the nose like that could, in some situations, help you get a shot off - just don't miss! Given helmet mounted sights and other advances, its pretty well worthless.

The USAF is extremely interested in UCAVs, but we are decades away from anything remotely useful (bad pun intended). The pilot provides the decision making, based on all available data. There is no way currently to data link the vast sums of information needed over a jam-proof, secure data link.

Also, advances in various avionics make the F-16/F-15 much more leathal & survivable than they were 5 years ago - and those upgrades are continuing. Air combat is changing rapidly - and almost everything I was taught in the mid eighties is now as useful as knowing how to load a gun via the muzzle.

[Aaron_A]

" Hokum with Nato weapons, and a cockpit customized for the Israelis! "

This was actually done for the Turks, who eventually went with the Bell AH-1Z instead.

[VaBthang4]

"Again i fear you may have misconstrued some of my posts."

No...I understood what you were saying. Your clarification was just a little off base. You said this about the Hokum: " it is the 'best' when it comes to matters of cost effectiveness (the ability to perform the same or similar duties at the same level of efficacy, yet at a cheaper economical or logistical cost)."

The Hokum cannot perform the "same" mission. I pointed out a large part of the Apache mission capability in the previous post.

Similar...maybe, but definitely not the same.

We pay for the extra bang, that is how it works.

"Secondly the fact that Israel and France has been participating in the development and upgrades of the Kamov do not mean it is deficient"

I beg to differ...

I can understand the Israeli changes but the French were definitely trying to "spruce it up".

"And as for your assertion that the Ka-50 is relegated to use by bottom tier countries is not entirely correct

Yes it is correct.

"unless you consider Russia among the dregs when it comes to military power."

I do.

Their quality has never been comparable to their quantity. I understand that they have now learned this lesson and are upgrading but nevertheless...they are second rate.

"However that does not mean the Kamov, Eurocopter tiger, or even the quite impressive South African Rooivalk is suddenly null and void."

You're right it doesnt...

What it makes plain though is an assertion I made in an earlier post...we unveil a great new toy, technologically far greater then anything on scene...and then the rest of the World, especially the Russians hustle to catch up.

It doesnt make them null and void but there showing up twenty years later doesnt make them equals either.

"And the Kamov is not as 'basic' as you imply. The versions in use by the Russians can perform to the same specifications as a LongBow Apache."

No...it cannot...Russians may say it can but it cannot. Again I'd refer you back to my earlier post about the Apaches Mission capabilities.

"i guess that is why some people claim the Russians reverse engineer American military concepts....and sometimes even the actual models in a number of cases"

I'd venture a guess that many people claim the Russians do this based on the fact that they Do it.

Many of their weapon systems are catchups...the Kamov is just another one.

I understand the rumblings about the Comanche...they are the same rumblings heard everytime we are rolling into a new system...[Except stealth becaus it was kept out of sight from the naysayers]...it will be here soon enough.....and ten or fifteen years down the road.....we'll be having this same discussion about the latest Russian knockoff.

~grin~

[VaBthang4]

"This was actually done for the Turks, who eventually went with the Bell AH-1Z instead."

That is what I thought...the Israelis already employ the Apache and the Cobra.

Alright Spetz.....that is another mistep.

~grin~

[VaBthang4]

"stuff went in low-level including the B-52s on airfield attacks at 400ft level."

???

Do you have a credible link to anything about this?

I have read a bit on the Gulf War especially the intial mission in the Air campaign but I have never seen this.

Did you mean 4000 feet?

[VaBthang4]

"Your points are well taken."

Thank you.

"Russian equipment is not good."

I dont know if "not good" is the elan I would apply to it but it is definitely not on par with American lethality. I think they make stuff better then the Chinese...but they are somewhere in the South African/Israel range as far as practicality.

"But what saddens me is that unlike when the F-15 and F-16 were top dogs, we don't seem to have the will to build or fund the new top dogs. I don't know much about the F-22, but it seems to me that it is a capable machine. Damn the expense! Get this aircraft on line and in numbers!"

I agree we need to continue to put out top of the line equipement. Problem that we have now come up on is that we have reached a window that has us caught between being capable of designing & deploying the next generation of weapon systems....and....being able to discern the body of the next generation of weapon systems after that.....we are kinda in uncharted territory that has us in the goofy teenager stage....a lethal teenager that can knock you out with one punch, but still in an awkward state.

This really began to manifest during the 90's. As a result we had planners who were caught being a bit noncommittal[sp?] and they tried to fund both generations.

Now...GW and Rumsfeld have laid down the marker.....skip a generation....we are still in the "hold down the genrals and slap it into them" stage. Soon it will take...we may have to stick it out with some systems...that are lacking by our own standards but are still exremely capable by everyone elses...until we can get the second generation online.

Growing pains...keep the faith....and never vote for another DEMOCRAT...as long as those two things dominate the scene for the next ten years, we'll be fine.

"The JSF? Please, what a piece of crap!"

Tell me why you think so.

[Aaron_A]

It should also be mentioned that unless things have changed dramatically over the last few months; the helicopter gunship of choice as fielded by the Russians themselves is not the Ka-50/52 or the Mi-28, but infact the venerable Mi-24 'Hind'. The Russians have been trying hard to peddle the Ka-50/52 and Mi-28 for the last five years, but have no takers - and unless they sell some there won't be many for the Russian armed forces either. Maybe the ChiComs will come to their rescue...

[lentulusgracchus]

When did the US lose the moxie to be number 1?

I dunno, must have gone down a White House sink.

Tell your senators to get on the stick! (so to speak).

I'll be careful phrasing that one to Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. She may wear Peter Pan collars and Breck hair, but she's been known to whomp people over the head with a briefing book.

[Fudd]

Well, I KNEW that line would get SOME people---my main point is elan is no substitute for better gear.

And at the START of the war,IF the Confederates had ALL had repeating rifles whilst the North had still the muskets both sides historically used in 1861,the outcome WOULD have been different.If you are outnumbered you NEED the best gear to win.

Didn't the Iraqis actually outnumber us in Desert Storm?

My point is still that our guys need/deserve the best.(And I DESPISE the people who order the tooling and plans destroyed just to enrich their buddies).

In combat, the only thing more expensive than the best equipment and training is the second-best equipment and training.

[FlyVet]

Thanks for the correction, I was going from memory of news reports, and my memory isn't too good after 12 years. I hadn't remembered 7 Tornadoes going down, that's a lot of hardware by modern standards. That's the worst losses I can remember since Linebacker II, when we lost over a dozen B-52's and over a dozen other aircraft in 12 days. I think the A-10's can still get the job done under certain conditions, as the Skyraiders did in Vietnam, when AAA and shoulder-fired missiles don't have an open shot at them constantly. I think the biggest squadron of A-10's is here in Arizona at Davis-Monthan AFB. If I remember right, there was a lot of political lobbying to retain them, to help prevent base closure.

[Tommyjo]

No, B-52G's conducted low-level missions during the first three days of the 1991 campaign. Later on they moved up to height after the Iraqi integrated air defence system was degraded. On one of these B-52G low-level missions one B-52G was shredded by an Iraqi SAM, but made it back safely to base. The crew was interviewed on a Discovery Channel programme which showed video of the G model with hundred of holes from the Iraqi SAM.

Interview with a B-52G pilot on one of those low-level missions over Iraq.

"Night One, Desert Storm, low-level," the lieutenant-colonel, now with the B-52 weapons school at Barksdale Air Force Base, says without hesitation.

They'd taken off from Diego Garcia, a British island air facility used even now by our forces, and were using night-vision goggles after flying a circuitous route over Oman and Saudi Arabia to confuse any attempts at detection. It was around 2 a.m.; they had to go in following a precise timetable of attacks, with the first designed to eliminate command and control centers, then to knock out airfields and other areas the Iraqis could use to mount any defense - or go on the offensive. In the final moments before entering enemy airspace, Gramlick took the airplane to its normal low-level altitude, 400 feet.

"I'll never forget my nav(igator) saying 'We are now in Iraq,' and I'm (thinking) Holy Mackerel!'

"With the night vision goggles you could see a lot farther ... And you could see explosions going off in different parts of the country. ... My downstairs is saying 'What do you see? What do you see?'

"And I said 'There's a war going on!'"

Gramlick rolled his airplane in, popped up to a slightly higher altitude and released his bomb load - cluster bombs, which disperse hundreds of bomblets over a wide area - on their target, an airfield.

"The most disorienting thing I've ever done is drop a full load of CBUs at night," he said. "We had never done that in training. First time I ever dropped a full load of CBUs low-level at night was in combat, and it was incredible, the amount of light and flash, and how disorienting it was."

Something else was disorienting, too, and it wasn't encountered in training: Enemy fire.

"As soon as the (bomb bay) doors shut I looked left and I thought someone was dropping flares ... and I thought 'Wouldn't flares be falling?' And then I realized it was Triple-A ... " - anti-aircraft artillery, large-caliber enemy fire. "We're breaking right to avoid Triple-A, our warning receiver kicked off a flare, a 'possible missile incoming,' we're diving for the dirt ... anyhow, it got real hectic."

[spetznaz]

bump

[Sundog]

Apparently you haven't seen this comparison between the Su-30MK and the good ol' fashioned F-15 yet.

Su-30MK Beats F-15C 'Every Time'

cheers.

[dcwusmc]

bump

[Jeff Head]

Specification	F/A-18E/F	F 14D	SU-27M	JSF (Navy)
Wingspan	44'8"	64'	47'	36'
Speed	Mach 1.8	Mach 2	Mach 2.3	Mach 1.4
Ordinance	17.5K lbs.	13K lbs.	17.6K lbs.	17K lbs
Combat Radius	400 nm	500 nm	800 nm	600+ nm

Too bad we didn't continue with, perfect and produce the A-12 IMHO, but the JSF will not be bad at all. With these specs, the ne F/A-18E/F and the JSF will suffice IMHO.

We also need a Phoenix (AIM-54) replacement, the ALRAAM to shoot off the F/A-18E/F IMHO.