"Vanishing American Air Superiority"

Ray O'Hara wrote:
"Alan Dicey" wrote in message
o.uk...
Paul Saccani wrote:
wrote:
British aerial victory claims are vastly exagerated in the BoB.
Indeed, to say the least.
*Were* exaggerated, at the time, because of confusion (even though both
sides were quite rigorous in their verification) and to help morale.

We still won.

The Germans also overclaimed - their intelligence system several times
reported that the RAF was down to its last few aircraft. It's one reason
why the appearance of the formed-up Big Wing on September 15th was such a
shock.

"Here they come again, the last 20 Spitfires..."


won? the British bombing German cities causing retaliation against London
"won" the battle.



Check your history.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Paul J. Adam wrote:

But then, Boyd's acolytes seem to have considered that to be the goal.
Guided weapons and any other electronics were useless treason, good only
for funneling money from taxpayers to greedy contractors: the perfect
fighter had an engine, a gun, a pilot and as little else as possible.
(Wasn't a commercial Fuzzbuster assessed as being all the ECM a 'real
fighter' needed?)

I know there was more to Boyd himself than that although perhaps
his "acolytes" (as is often the case) may have promoted the ideas
of their inspiration beyond what their master might have approved
of (???).

At any rate, the above sounds very much like the Japanese ideas of
a great fighter during the pre-WWII and early war years.

Build a light agile fighter that shoots down anything that tries
to dogfight it and ranges out for a thousand miles. Don't needlessly
"burden" the system with radios, armor plating, self sealing fuel
tanks or additional system or pilot saving weight that might otherwise
enhance survivability through ruggedness.

Although it produced spectacularly successful results early on, it
wasn't a war winner.

Somewhere, as in most anything, there is a "correct" balance between
stripped down and pigged out.


SMH

"Dan" wrote in message
...
Ray O'Hara wrote:
"Alan Dicey" wrote in message
o.uk...
Paul Saccani wrote:
wrote:
British aerial victory claims are vastly exagerated in the BoB.
Indeed, to say the least.
*Were* exaggerated, at the time, because of confusion (even though both
sides were quite rigorous in their verification) and to help morale.

We still won.

The Germans also overclaimed - their intelligence system several times
reported that the RAF was down to its last few aircraft. It's one
reason why the appearance of the formed-up Big Wing on September 15th
was such a shock.

"Here they come again, the last 20 Spitfires..."


won? the British bombing German cities causing retaliation against London
"won" the battle.

Check your history.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

check yours.
before the Germans misdirected their efforts they were winning.
it's all moot as the Germans had no amphiious capability and the mostlt
unpowered river barges they collected would have foundered in the channel
chop.

Ray O'Hara wrote:
"Andrew Swallow" wrote in message
...
Ray O'Hara wrote:
{snip}

you like the author are judging the future by todays standards.
do you see any war in the near {next 2 decades} future?
{snip}

Next wars -

Britain vs Argentina over Falkland Island oil fields.

USA vs oil states over insults by their leaders, including South America

West vs Muslim countries that hide and support terrorists (continuation
of the current war)

USA vs Iran - they have not forgiven each other plus all that oil

China vs African countries for African raw materials. (The West
may decide to stay out.)

Andrew Swallow

we don't need the F-22 for any of thise wars and I doubt China invading
Aftica is a likely scenario.



I suspect that it is the other way round. African governments trying
to nationalise Chinese run mines, railways and ports. This is just
repeating what their grandfathers did to the European empires.

Andrew Swallow

On Mar 7, 9:32 am, Dan wrote:
Ray O'Hara wrote:
....
UAV are the coming thing, we are working on thwem now.
what we have is better than what any potential enemy has.
we don't need something better than what we have , all we need is something
better than what they have and we do.
we can't currently afford F-22s thanks to the chimplers adventures in Iraq
and we don't currently need it.

Guess what, UAV air to air capabilities are years away, F-22 is here.
Dan

Dan, since when do they use manned AAM's?
An AAM is a UAV.
Ken

Ray O'Hara wrote:
"Andrew Swallow" wrote in message
...
William Black wrote:
"Andrew Swallow" wrote in message
...
Ray O'Hara wrote:
{snip}

you like the author are judging the future by todays standards.
do you see any war in the near {next 2 decades} future?
{snip}

Next wars -

Britain vs Argentina over Falkland Island oil fields.
Not unless Argentina buys some equipment that works...

Poor Argentinian equipment may not prevent the war, just make it short.

USA vs oil states over insults by their leaders, including South America
Not unless there's a major change in US foreign policy. They usually
just forment a coup and deal with the military.
The coup in Venezuela appears to be a very long time coming.

West vs Muslim countries that hide and support terrorists (continuation
of the current war)
The US relationship with Pakistan seems to indicate that it doesn't
amtter who the government is or what they say.

Some governments fight along side the Americans others against the
Americans.

USA vs Iran - they have not forgiven each other plus all that oil
Possible. What will Iran use for weapons?

Iran has its own armaments factories. As well as IEDs Iran can now
launch satellites on its own rockets.

China vs African countries for African raw materials. (The West
may decide to stay out.)
Interesting idea.

How does China get their army there?

Guess. On civilian passenger aircraft with passports that state
security guard as occupation.

Andrew Swallow

we need F-22 to defeat the Iranian air force?


I am just listing possible wars. Choose your own planes.

Andrew Swallow

hcobb wrote:
On Mar 7, 2:58 am, Jack Linthicum wrote:
On Mar 7, 4:56 am, Andrew Swallow wrote:
The next successful fighter may be a stand-off launcher of missiles
that can be guided to their incoming target by the weapons officer.
Andrew Swallow
Tell me now what pilot would allow himself to be portrayed as the cab
driver delivering the gunman to to the target?

Sixth generation jet fighter pilots are going to be the leaders of
swarms of robotic aircraft.

Since they are already officers, this won't be much of a change for
them.

And fortunately they will grow up playing real-time strategy video
games.

-HJC

The length of satellite links can cause variable delays of the order
of 1 second. If 1 second reaction times are too slow during a dog
fight then the drone flying weapons officer needs to be within
about 100 miles of the fight. That puts him in the air.

Andrew Swallow

On Mar 6, 12:42*pm, Jack Linthicum
wrote:
On Mar 6, 1:33*pm, hcobb wrote:



On Mar 6, 8:35*am, Ed Rasimus wrote:

Today our real concern is total numbers. With the Raptor buy
apparently over, we really don't have a nucleus of a globally
effective operational fleet. 187 aircraft, minus not-in-commission
frames, minus training aircraft, minus periodic maintenance aircraft
leaves you with roughly a half-dozen squadrons.

You've got to have more airplanes and that means F-35 numbers in the
absence of F-22s. The flexibilty of the F-35 with A/G optimization and
reasonable A/A capability makes it the next iteration of F-16 paired
with F-15 air superiority.

Against which nation will the USAF require more than six squadrons of
Raptors to shoot down all of their high end fighters? *Either now or
anytime in the next two decades.

The F-16 comparison is apt. *The F-15 and the F-22 were designed for
the BVR long range high speed interceptor mission that the USAF has
never ever done. *The F-16 and the F-35 were designed for the swing
missions of dog fighting and ground support that have been very
common.

The T-50 is a stealth compromised airframe precisely in the way those
last generation engines are mounted onto that airframe. *The PAK-FA
can either go forwards with some RAM spackled onto that cow or start
from scratch and have a fifth generation fighter ready to build in two
decades.

The F-35 will not fly as high, as fast or as far as the PAK-FA. *It
won't out turn it and it won't be able to chase it down.

What will happen is that the F-35 will do its missions and when the
PAK-FA comes into range the only thing it will see are incoming
missiles mysteriously appearing from out of the blue. *Sometimes it
may even spot these in time to evade them.

-HJC

More you have to think of any mission/war in which the United States
will not be the attacking nation. The Pentagon has been looking for a
near-peer, a nation that might want to fight the U.S.. for about 20
years. There do not seem to be any. The F-22 and possibly even the
F-35 seem to be over designed for the real probable use, ground
support in a distant battlefield. Imagine the current situation in
Afghanistan with only those two aircraft for support. The FA-18 can do
that job, now.

Big problem is range. That was a problem in the Libya mission in the
80s, it was a problem in Afghanistan. Carriers are nice if you are
going against coastal nations, supporting Marines hitting a beachhead,
or islands. Start looking a huge hunks of territory, you need an Air
Force and that means bases, tankers, and a bunch of grunts to keep the
bad guys away from the air conditioned O club that is serving steaks.

Hanging a ton of stuff on fighters is nice. Sometimes you just need a
damn boat load of bombs over a target. Bombers do that well. Or you
need a lot of bombs that can loiter over an area for hours and hours.
Bombers did that really well in Afghanistan for probably the first
time. Add on smart bombs to the mix, its one bomb one target.

The gomers aren't as stupid as we think they are. Get a fighter on
target they can count for a half an hour or whatever until he's out of
gas. Time on station depends on range and gas. You can rotate out and
tank but for the most part, you build lots of iddy biddy airplanes and
send them over in waves.

Thing is, we can't build them cheap anymore. And I don't think
Republic has a locomotive works. Sorry, can't see us buying Mitsubishi
for fighters.

Its as much funds as the willingness to just say we need fighters,
bombers, tankers, destroyers, carriers, subs, whatever. Block it out.
Just because we built one doesn't mean we can sit on our laurels and
say the world is fine. That way you end up with sometimes something
that doesn't work, is obsolete quickly (mother nature is a bitch, but
technology is a real mf..) or you wake up and surprise 30 year old
airframes.

Technology is nice, keep the mark I brain out of the cockpit, but
remember when in Desert Storm somebody started to tally up the cost of
each of those $2 million Tomahawks that were neat to watch on the
news. Compare that to a $500 Mk82, or even a smart bomb, and you know
what the heck all those Tea Party people are going to say, and they're
not on this list and they vote. Or at least make a lot of noise. Which
drives rationality from any congressperson.

Frankly I don't see a lot of work on either this is a defense strategy
for the uber long term, a way to cut costs, and getting what the
warfighter needs being done. Lots of contractors with slick brochures
and suits. But they've been along for decades. We used to be a lot
smarter at doing all this.

We may be getting a lot closer to that old joke about the AF spending
all its budget on one airplane.

On Mar 6, 4:24*pm, hcobb wrote:
On Mar 6, 1:55*pm, Jack Linthicum wrote:



On Mar 6, 4:35*pm, "Paul J. Adam"

wrote:
In message
,
Mike writes

The high-low mix was pioneered during WWII. Both the British and the
U.S. stumbled onto the concept without quite realizing what they were
doing. In the years before the war's outbreak, the British embarked on
a crash program to build eight-gun fighters for the defense of the
home islands. The premier model was the Supermarine Spitfire, one of
the legendary combat aircraft of the 20th century. But the Spitfire
was supplemented by the lesser-known but still capable Hawker
Hurricane. The Hurricane could take on the primary German fighter, the
Messerschmidt Bf -109, only with difficulty,

Not particularly, as the histories show... the Spitfire 1A had the edge
on the 109E, the Hurricane 1A was "merely" its equal.

As the war went on and Spitfires appeared in more substantial numbers,
the Hurricane took on the fighter-bomber role.

So did the Spitfire and Seafi aircraft that had no value once the
enemy air force was defeated, were of limited utility.

I'd look with interest at the USN aircraft of the time: the newer air
superiority fighters (Hellcats and Corsairs, then Bearcats and
Tigercats) all got good at strafing, bombing and rocketing ground
targets once they had shot down every flyable enemy aircraft.

There's also the point that RAF procurement was far less linear of "high
and low end fighter". Even during the Battle of Britain we had the
Hurricane and Spitfire as fighters... plus unfortunate concepts that
didn't work well such as the Defiant and the Blenheim IF, and a few
Whirlwinds that were held back by engine trouble from their full
potential.

Later, we had "fighters" like the Beaufighter and Mosquito VI, which
were fighters in the same way the F-105 was: powerful strike aircraft
that were ill-advised to turn with a small, agile foe but could cruelly
punish any enemy careless enough to get into their sights. We also had
the Typhoon, designed as an air-superiority fighter but highly effective
as a strike aircraft, the Tempest (was it the "high end" or "low end"
compared to the Spitfire?)

Coming into the '60s without a fighter to carry out its basic
missions, the USAF was forced to purchase the F-4 Phantom II,
developed on behalf of the enemy service, the U.S. Navy. While an
excellent aircraft, the F-4 was in many ways the apotheosis of the
fighter-bomber, too heavy and lacking the agility to fill the air-
superiority role.

During the liveliest parts of 1972, USN Phantoms killed six NVAF MiGs
for every aircraft they lost to them, while the USAF managed a 2:1
ratio. (There are many factors in play for the difference, but it's
curious how smiting two enemy for every loss is considered
inadequate...)

Also strange is describing the F-104 as an "indescribable and dangerous
oddity" when it was the 1950s/1960s epitome of John Boyd's Light Weight
Fighter designed in response to user requests post-Korea: a pared-down
airframe optimised for speed, energy and agility, with useless wasteful
boondoggles like long-ranged radar, advanced countermeasures, or
sophisticated weapon-aiming systems left out to optimise the aircraft
for high-speed dogfighting.

Perhaps the USAF had no clear idea what it needed? The F-104 epitomised
most of Boyd's ideals, yet its limited combat service in US hands was
less than stellar. Similarly, the US operated the F-5, another austere,
cheap, agile fighter that should have delighted Boyd, yet chose not to
field it in large numbers at the frontline.

Together, the F-15 and F-16 stand as the most effective fighter team
on record. The F-15 compiled a kill ratio of 105 kills to zero losses.
While the F-16's record was only half that, it more than effectively
filled the swing role as the primary high-speed attack aircraft in
theaters including Serbia and Iraq. Neither aircraft ever suffered a
loss in air-to-air combat.

However, getting there involved breaking most of Boyd's rules.
Curiously, as late as "The Pentagon Paradox", Boyd's supporters were
bewailing the manner in which the F-16 and F-18 were "ruined" by putting
the "useless rubbish" back on them: the same useless equipment that
allowed them to be worldbeating combat aircraft rather than manned
target drones.

It would appear that the high-low thesis is as well established as any
military concept ever gets.

What's the "low" option for the US Army's armoured forces? They have a
very definite "high end" war-winner in the M1 Abrams, so where is the
"low end" tank?

Suppose, if things get
hot, our 120 planes are facing five hundred, a thousand, or even more
fifth-generation enemy fighters? (China today fields roughly 2,000
fighter aircraft.) What happens then?

Shades of the 1980s when analysts breathlessly counted every Soviet tank
that could possibly ever be fielded, looked at the latest and best, then
pronounced that we faced "fifty thousand T-80 tanks".

In fact we faced a few hundred T-80s, with a tail of older and less
advanced vehicles, and a notional swarm of warehoused T-34s left over
from the Second World War. Similarly, China's "2,000 fighters" are
largely outdated relics - MiG-21 copies and the like - and China has at
least the same constraints on replacing them one-for-one with modern
aircraft as the US does with maintaining its 1970s numbers while
increasing individual capability.

Many of these Chinese aircraft will have trouble flying to Taiwan, let
alone menacing any US interests less proximate. Unless the US plans to
invade China, then the swarms of elderly Chinese warplanes are prisoners
of their limited endurance.

The F-22 is a ferociously expensive beast, though very capable with it.

On Mar 7, 12:06*am, "Ray O'Hara" wrote:
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in messagenews


In message , Ed Rasimus
writes
On Sat, 6 Mar 2010 21:35:41 +0000, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
During the liveliest parts of 1972, USN Phantoms killed six NVAF MiGs
for every aircraft they lost to them, while the USAF managed a 2:1
ratio. (There are many factors in play for the difference, but it's
curious how smiting two enemy for every loss is considered
inadequate...)

The "liveliest parts of 1972 only involved late April to mid-October
and then two weeks in December. The ratios you quote were not at all
for the period in question. Yes, USN kill ratios were vastly higher
than USAF. But sorties in Pack VI, duration of exposure in the arena,
specialization of training, and (as you acknowledge) many factors were
at play.

And the US was always ahead on kills, even when fighting a politically
circumscribed conflict where the enemy was frequently allowed untouchable
bases and GCI. It's not clear that the F-4 was a disaster for US military
procurement, nor that buying "something else" (what?) would have produced
a better result.

What were U.S. bases in Japan during Korea and VN but untouchable bases?
it always amazes me how our side cries the enemy was cheating by using out
of theater bases when we were doing it to a bigger degree.

and there is curious incident where 2 USAF planes from Taiwan"accidently"
shot up an airbase in China during the Korean war.

Not only that, but virtually every conflict since. Dubai in the Gulf,
Saudi Arabia. Not to mention a lot of commercial air and shipping to
move supplies and troops were never touched. Somebody gets smart and
whacks some of that and gets the insurance premiums through the roof,
we may just lose a war someday.

Lots of stuff from Taiwan haven't been put into the history books.
Which is a damn shame. Lots of spooks and sheep dipped types. Japan
also.