I feel like we're drifting off topic...
But I'll admit I like a good discussion, so I'll bite once more!
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You are mistaken here. Soviet designs can routinely operate from grass airfields. Grass strips were an integral part of their airbase layout and Cold War fighters were meant to disperse to grass airfields (in part sports airfields). The MiG-29 is elaborately prepared for such operation (see the extra intakes) and Su-27 can operate from grass airfields as well afaik. It's not known yet whether the PAK-FA will have that capability or not.
There are enough roads in almost all countries anyway.
I am not mistaken. The J-10 doesn't have rough field capability, and the J-11 has some of the features from the Su-27 but not all. The MiG-29 does have grass-field capability. However, you need a fairly large grass field to operate, as well as special tires and a well-prepared grass strip. Roads need to be specially constructed, especially when you are flying a heavy fighter like the Flanker. Finally, are they training to do this?
One big advantage the USSR had was that the ground is frozen for much of the year... makes it much easier since the ground is hard!
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Furthermore, the WP had almost unbelievable alert reaction times - including drills for very rapid launch of entire squadrons from bunkers into the air. They were taxiing at up to 60 km/h with little spacing. Eight minutes between alert with all fighters in protected positions till whole squadron in the air were a standard requirement, and many squadrons in central Europe were faster than that!
Agreed, but my point is who can do this now? Who trains to it?
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300 combat aircraft at once is well out of reach for the U.S. forces on Okinawa and even for a four CVN fleet, but it's not at all unrealistic for Russians or Chinese. All it takes is the intent to to it, for it is clearly possible given their aircraft quantities, the availability of (provisional) airfields and the demonstrated performance of WP fighter squadrons in East Germany.
My point is that you need to train to do something like this.
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Pulsing saturation attacks are a great counter-tactic to a 24/7 air supremacy attempt with CAPs, for it defeats the CAPs and other defences through saturation and creates local/temporary air superiority.
I agree with this, see my last post- you can swarm anyone.
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I simply consider this to be excessively optimistic and unrealistic. IIRC even the Israelis had more aircraft over Lebanon in 1982 than that, at several times.
Too many aircraft and you start getting in each other's way and start running jets together. My point is not that the Chinese cannot launch 300 aircraft, but that they can't get 300 aircraft in a 100x100 area.
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I don't, you misread my reply. The USAF has no real motivation to defeat the F-22, while others have. It's just reasonable to expect that others are more prepared to defeat it (and the USAF is accordingly not aware about the actual relative strength of the F-22).
I refer you back to my comment about the Aggressors.
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Not many. The probability of a total engine failure is almost exactly halved if you have only one instead of two engines.
A smaller quantity of fighters means on the other hand a lesser distribution of risk of other accidents (which is relevant especially for small air forces which -surprise- tend to favour single engine fighters).
Huh? This makes no sense.
Take the historical USAF engine related Class A (total loss or >$1M damage or death) mishap rates for single engine aircraft versus two engine aircraft.
If we're talking Vietnam, look at how the F-4 rate is .16... the F-105 rate is 4.56.
Still don't believe me? Let's look at F-15 PW-220 vs. F-16 PW-220 (basically same motor)... F-15 is .28, F-16 is 1.10...
I would submit that you are MUCH more likely (28x for F-4 vs. F-105, 3.92x for F-15 vs. F-16) to have a mishap due to your engine failing in a single engine aircraft.
Two engine aircraft are inherently safer than single engine jets... period.
V/R,
Cliff
Situation in which engine failure ?
Ok, single engine failure on single engine plane = aircraft failure.
A single engine failure on twin engine plane, in a non-combat situation = good chance (whatever % is) of limping home. Hey Carl, remember our Blue Goose turboprops ! :)
What about a single engine failure on a twin engine plane, in a combat situation ? What are your chances of getting home there ?
Regards
Mike
Heh that's why they have ejection seats ;)
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Originally Posted by
jmm99
Ok, single engine failure on single engine plane = aircraft failure.
Believe Cliff would tell us that pilots memorize an engine restart procedure in the event of an engine failure. Had a long-ago neighbor who had one as a USAF instructor pilot in a T-38 and he got it restarted.
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A single engine failure on twin engine plane, in a non-combat situation = good chance (whatever % is) of limping home.
Cliff probably would admit that if you have one of two engines fail, there is a good possibility the second engine also will fail.
The ones who should be worrying the most about engine failures are those flying aircraft with Russian engines.
Aviation Week said that F-35A engine costs are down to about $19 million. A current General was quoted saying he could buy 100 UAS for the price of an F-35 engine. He may have been talking about the F-35B engine which I believe costs twice what an F-35A engine costs. The F-22A has two $19 million engines and don't believe they are included in the typical $143 million F-22A cost that you often heard the USAF was paying at the end.
Plus if you buy 100 F-35As and lose just one to an engine failure, you lose a$100 million dollar aircraft and whatever it costs to rescue the pilot who bailed out. To buy two engines for a hypothetical 100 twin engine F-35A would cost an extra $1.9 billion.
The F-22A line is mostly closed anyway. RAND's 2010 study titled "Ending F-22A Production," paid for by the USAF, estimates that Shutdown and Restart costs for 75 more F-22s would result in average unit costs of $227 million. The total cost in then year dollars to produce 75 more would be $19.2 billion ($17 billion in FY 2008 constant dollars).
In any event, you can't fly an F-22A off a carrier. Guam will be a pretty crowded place. Japan would be a dangerous place to park an F-22A or F-35A given the missile and massed air attack threat. But those massed aircraft also need to land if they survive. The decision to move forward on a new bomber seems to make sense with its longer legs and ability to bomb airfields so that threat quantity and quality are largely irrelevant. Just can't picture a 75,000 lb J-20 or J-10/11 taking off on three points of contact on wet grass thousands of meters long and probably not all that smooth. Don't think loading heavy jet munitions or using large fuel trucks on wet grass would work too well either.
Just my opinion.
The J-20 is a big target for the F-35 Distributed Aperture System if it gets close
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Originally Posted by
carl
That is $190,000 each. It would buy you something that is completely useless against an enemy who can match your numbers and technology. Preds cost a lot more than that and Reapers cost rather more than Preds. And both of those are completely useless against an enemy who can match your technology.
Carl, it was this month's NationalDefenseMagazine and General Cartwright. He was probably referring to the F-35B STOVL engine which is $38 million according to Aviation Week. A Shadow 200, used by the Marines and Army costs around $300,000 for the air vehicle itself. The Marines are arming there's. Admittedly it's not as potent as an F-35.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...17;Drones.aspx
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Acquiring more F-22s may be costly, as may be hardening the bases to put them on, but if the only thing that will be able to stop the J-20 from killing any old thing it wants to is an F-22. Once those 187 or so are used up, so are we.
China has over a thousand tactical ballistic missiles. TBM have become the new cost-effective alternative to an effective air force. According to Wikipedia, an F-35A in 1965 dollars was $1.9 million. Adjusted for inflation that is only a bit over $13 miilion today. That tells you that the cost of a competitive fighter has risen much, much faster than the 640% inflation rate from Jan 1960 until today.
The result is that most potential adversaries cannot afford competitive fighters in great numbers. Heck, we can't afford them if they are F-22As. The F-35 is a more cost-effective compromise just as the F-16 was. The Russian and Chinese aircraft are cheaper, but not so cheap to sell many to any one rogue nation (with a sub $10 billion defense budget), and they remain unproven in actual combat. We know our pilot's are experienced. We know their's are not. We know nothing about J-20 capabilities other than that nations seldom advance decades in military know-how overnight.
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I am guessing an airbase can be hardened. Underground aircraft hangers, underground facilities, runways spread wide apart, copious amounts of engineers and repair materials; all these things might make it hard to knock out a base. You could also do what the Swedes do, use specially hardened road sections and spread your airplanes around the countryside. All these things would make it hard for a handful of new bombers to take out enough bases for long enough to make any difference. We won't have anything more than a handful of new bombers and I doubt we would get this handful prior to...oh say, 2030.
We will have many hundreds of cruise missiles and JASSM-ER, and we still have penetrating capability with B-2, F-22, F-35, and future UCAV/MC-X. At night the primary threat to these aircraft would be SAMs that we can jam or avoid. Agree that we could harden some bases further away from China, but Japan and Korea are too close. Let them pay to harden their own bases for their own aircraft.
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The Chinese will perfect the J-20 and if they build them in large numbers we will be faced with an extremely serious problem. There will be no inexpensive way around that problem and once the F-22s run out there may be no way around it at all.
Why would we go to war with China. Why would they bomb our Walmarts? We both have nukes and MAD deterrence. Taiwan is getting friendlier with the mainland everyday. The ones who should have any inkling of worry are Japan, Korea, and Australia. They can all buy F-35s (not F-22) and Patriot missiles to assume more of their own aerial defense with our back-up.
A recent Australian study claimed a lowly 6:1 loss-exchange ratio between Chinese aircraft and our own. IMHO, that is ridiculously inaccurate considering how old most Chinese aircraft still are. Did that consider F-35s? Navy and shore-based SAMs also attrite threat aircraft. It is unlikely Pak FA or J-20s will be anywhere near as stealthy as our aircraft or that S-300/400/Chinese SAMs would withstand EA-18G and next generation jammers.
The sky is not falling versus China or Russia. We still have MAD keeping both sides happy. The sky could fall on some American, European, or Israeli city if attacked by a state-supported terrorist nuke. Irrational individuals don't consider that their nation will be destroyed if they are insane, think they can hide any connection, believe they have nothing to lose, or have some religious belief creating a martyrdom complex. Focus on those more likely threats by deterring rogue states and developing TBM defenses, befriending/helping states that reject terrorism, and by killing potential terrorists where we actively find them. Rapidly deployable and forward-deployed ground and naval forces, nukes, 186 F-22s, 2000+ F-35s, new bombers, and UAS are more than adequate to preclude miscalculation by major powers.