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How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

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Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#341

Post by [deleted] »

ansible wrote: post #317
bradleyjg wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nuclear triad always seemed a bit circular to me. We have three main means of delivering nuclear weapons, so it must be a good idea to have three different means of delivering nuclear weapons. I don't see it. With geographic diversity and at least one delivery system that is mobile and easy to hide we should be more than capable of asserting a second strike capability. What's really needed from a modern bomber is…

What's really needed from a modern bomber is a high munition capacity, a large combat radius, and long loiter times. Cheap to build and operate would be great too. Those requirements make me thing of schemes where cruise missiles are dumped out the back of a C-130J Super Hercules for air-launch.

[deleted]

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#342

Post by VladRussian2 »

vonmoltke wrote: post #194
rosser wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same reason why the Chinese ... have a ton of ballistic missile ships. And many of those ships are carrying large numbers of SS-N-22 Sunburns, only one of which can sink a carrier, and which stand reasonable odds of penetrating even the latest generation point-defense platform. Fire ten at a carrier, maybe one or two get through, no more carrier, battle over.

The Moskit is indeed a very difficult missile to shoot down. However, one is nowhere near enough to sink a carrier. With a 320kg warhead, one hit probably would not even render the ship combat ineffective. Also, only the four Sovremeny -class destroyers carry that missile.

yes, Moskit is primarily intended against smaller targets. It has too small range and too small warhead. For anti-carrier missiles look at P-500/P-1000 and P-700.

While all these missiles are very fast, they also very visible in IR because of their speed, so it makes shooting them down easier, so they expected to be fired like "wolf pack":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit :

"The missile, when fired in a swarm (group of 4-8) has a unique guidance mode. One of the weapons climbs to a higher altitude and designates targets while the others attack. The missile responsible for target designation climbs in short pop-ups, so as to be harder to intercept. The missiles are linked by data connections, forming a network. If the designating missile is destroyed the next missile will rise to assume its purpose. Missiles are able to differentiate targets, detect groups and prioritize targets automatically using information gathered during flight and types of ships and battle formations pre-programmed in an onboard computer. They will attack targets in order of priority, highest to lowest: after destroying the first target, any remaining missiles will attack the next prioritized target"

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#343

Post by ChikkaChiChi »

tsotha wrote: post #291
ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #89

200 million USD per strike fighter vs. under 17 million per Reaper. No wonder we are broke.

A Reaper has no air to air capability whatsoever and a tiny payload. You're comparing apples and oranges.

Because there has been so much air-to-air combat in the past 40 years?

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#344

Post by tsotha »

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #343
tsotha wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Reaper has no air to air capability whatsoever and a tiny payload. You're comparing apples and oranges.

Because there has been so much air-to-air combat in the past 40 years?

Which means nothing in terms of the future. With cheap guided weapons air superiority is more critical than it's ever been.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#345

Post by SEJeff »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #250
greedo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap? Hardly. A Tomahawk is far north of $1M a shot, and JASSM is above $1M as well.

Once you factor in the entire program cost and logistics footprint, the Tomahawk is the absolute cheapest way the US military has to put a bomb on a specific spot on the map.

That's why we fired 1 tomahawk (on average) every 12 seconds for the entire 48 hours of the opening to the war in Afghanistan. It is mind blowing to think how destructive that was

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#346

Post by SEJeff »

spartango wrote: post #182
s_q_b wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/olsen_raptor_case_ge... And the fact that the F-22's stealth coatings, even if they work, ablate in rain. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/f-35-gets-stealthier... And of course the ludicrous idea that the F-35 can replace the A-10 Warthog in combat. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/a-10-f-35-air-force-... The A-10 problem bugs me more than the o…

It's strange...I love the A-10, both its rugged design and its crazy anti-tank capability. Keep in mind that retirement plans for the beast are slated for 2028, and all plans to retire it sooner have been shot down. That's 52 years of service, which is a solid service lifetime. But that said, I think there's a decent argument that can be made for phasing it out given current operational needs: The A-10 was originally…

You know, I was a UAV pilot (look up shadow 200 3rd Stryker brigade combat team, second infantry division) an targeted for many A10 strike missions around Tall'Afar, Mosul, and Samarrah in Iraq around '03-04. The A10 was fantastic for taking out large weapons caches or convoys. Sure it can take out tanks and such, so why not keep them around. I speak from experience that in today's insurgent and less conventional warfare, I'd rather target for an A10 than a Harrier. Besides, it is hard to beat the sound of that main gun firing. Nothing like it in the entire us military.

Re: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane

#347

Post by jeltz »

mpyne wrote: post #141
dctoedt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if we were to face China in a war, we'd own the seas. Once their one (maybe two by now) carrier is sunk, even assuming they sink one of ours, we just bring in one of the other 12. There have been reports that the Chinese have developed and brought to initial operational status the DF-21D, a medium-range, hypersonic, anti-ship ballistic missile specifically designed to be a carrier-killer [1]. The concern is th…

Maybe there's something I'm missing about the DF-21D, but even assuming it doesn't miss the carrier while traveling at a hypersonic speed, Big Explody Things dropping on top of American carriers during wartime is not exactly a new thing in the annals of warfare. It's one of the reason that warships in general (including carriers) are designed to be compartmentalized, to have redundant backups (and backups to the back…

Quote from the linked Wikipedia article: "United States Naval Institute in 2009 stated that such a warhead would be large enough to destroy an aircraft carrier in one hit and that there was "currently ... no defense against it" if it worked as theorized.".
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