Why are air combat kills so rare? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are air combat kills so rare? (2017)

#81

Post by lkxijlewlf » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 7:41 PM UTC

melony wrote: post #76

lkxijlewlf wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... with a projectile the size of your thumb I have a dummy shell from an A10 at my desk. Here's an image (not mine) (the nearly 12" shell on the far left): https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-23308fca719553f998cbc4... Now, the A10 is air to ground, and these shells are made for killing tanks and not aircraft and you're not wrong in that the projectile isn't that much larger than a thumb, but just seeing the dang…

Is that a HEAT round?

That picture isn't of mine. Mine is a dummy round to test and calibrate the auto loader.

Re: Why are air combat kills so rare? (2017)

#82

Post by simonblack » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

Only "at the moment".

In my opinion, we are about to have another 'big one' within the next 5-10 years. When that happens, people will be saying "Why are there so many air combat kills?"

Re: Why are air combat kills so rare? (2017)

#83

Post by the__alchemist » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 8:32 PM UTC

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #52

the__alchemist wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More directly, am struck that the average person has yet to internalize that in modern high-intensity conflict detection roughly = mission kill if not outright destruction. Everything operationally important (air, sea, ground) that wants to survive needs to avoid emission/detection long enough to detect something else first and destroy it. Only if you're willing to go in the enemy's weapons engagement zones - wheth…

> Detection/track ranges are generally much higher. This is absolutely not true. For modern weapons, the effective range is generally limited by detection, whether you are talking about heavy SAM (like the S-400, with it's 400km range) or modern AAM (like the Meteor or R77M, with ranges ~200km). As a rule, it's relatively cheap and easy to increase missile range, so they are not limited by ability but by choice. SAM…

I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers, but your ranges are off by an OOM. Maybe if you're talking a lofted shot from high speed, high alt against a non-maneuvering target, with low PK expectations.

Re: Why are air combat kills so rare? (2017)

#84

Post by Tuna-Fish » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 10:24 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #83

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Detection/track ranges are generally much higher. This is absolutely not true. For modern weapons, the effective range is generally limited by detection, whether you are talking about heavy SAM (like the S-400, with it's 400km range) or modern AAM (like the Meteor or R77M, with ranges ~200km). As a rule, it's relatively cheap and easy to increase missile range, so they are not limited by ability but by choice. SAM…

I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers, but your ranges are off by an OOM. Maybe if you're talking a lofted shot from high speed, high alt against a non-maneuvering target, with low PK expectations.

Er, most of them are conservative if anything. The Meteor for example is advertised with a 60km nez, against a mach 2.5 plane starting from a tail chase. It's fairly easy to calculate that the pure kinematic maximum range against a stationary target will have to be way higher than 200km. R77m has been claimed to be similar, and while there might be some exaggeration there, it's not that hard to believe given that it's a ramjet missile that's quite large.

Re: Why are air combat kills so rare? (2017)

#85

Post by decafninja » Wed, Jan 19, 2022, 12:01 AM UTC

ericbarrett wrote: post #67

raducu wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could go a step further and think robot infantry soldiers, but airplanes are easier to automate. I'm sure that if the same effort was put into self-driving self-shooting tanks as in teslas, the result would be more than adequate vs humans.

Not robot infantry (we're a long way from that) nor automated tanks (too expensive and bulky) but rather small, cheap, mass-produced hunter-killer drones. Flood an area with them and you could zone out human infantry, without causing the massive damage that artillery or rocket strikes do.

I am certainly no expert in warfare nor AI, but wouldn't robot tanks (or at least semi-autonomously remotely operated) be much easier and cheaper to do than fighter drones?