Surviving 5th Generation A2A missile lunch

[GScholz]

These days ID'ing and making the call to shoot is increasingly done by C3 commanders, either on the ground or in AWACS planes. F-22s and F-35s will mostly fly "blind", relying on other sensor platforms to relay target data.

[kappa]

Nice discussion..

So, are any kinetic countermeasures in the works for a/c?? I did a lot of reading on land based systems from this topic.. The Israeli Iron Dome or something capable of intercepting arty fire or medium range rockets/missiles..

You know the Russians had it years ago on that Firefox bird we stole from them.. 

[Puma44]

These days ID'ing and making the call to shoot is increasingly done by C3 commanders, either on the ground or in AWACS planes. F-22s and F-35s will mostly fly "blind", relying on other sensor platforms to relay target data.

According to who?

[artik]

Nice discussion..

So, are any kinetic countermeasures in the works for a/c?? I did a lot of reading on land based systems from this topic.. The Israeli Iron Dome or something capable of intercepting arty fire or medium range rockets/missiles..

You know the Russians had it years ago on that Firefox bird we stole from them.. 

There are very few kinetic countermeasures for tanks:

One is combat proven Rafael Trophy that is operational from 2009 and now is integrated on IDF main battle tanks.

Other systems like "Ratheon - Quick Kill" are still under development (sometime I don't understand US... spends lots of money to develop their own system when alternative system already developed, proven and actively deployed by very close allies - just not to buy non-US stuff).

And the case of the tank is much easier:

- Anti-tank missiles are much slower than AA/SA
- They much lighter and easier to destroy
- Even partial damage to the missile would do the work as tank has powerful armor.
- The tank is virtually static in comparison to missiles speed.


The only active counter measures against missiles I found:

- IRIS-T has anti AA/SA capabilities
- Python 5 has capabilities against cruise missiles and standoff-weapons it is not known if it designed with anti-AA/SA missile capabilities.

About Iron Dome - it is absolutely fantastic system (really, I know, without it 2012 would be much harder period) with ~90% kill probability based on real world statistics. It has advantage of having relatively low cost projectiles, according to internet they are ~$50,000 per missile, which is by order of magnitude cheaper than modern AA missile, but... it it seems to be designed mostly against ballistic weapons (rockets, heavy shells etc). It is unknown (at least to the public) how it would behave against maneuverable targets like missiles, also the question does it have an abilities of be fired from the air  what and kind of radar support it requires (i.e. the aircraft radar is not as powerful as ground based one).

[artik]

The Journal of Military Aviation, Vol 1, No. 1, Jan/Feb 92, by Bill Strandberg entitled "Desert Storm Shooters":


KILLS BY TYPE AIRCRAFT AND WEAPONS

<snip>

There are not statistics for last 20 years. there are statistics of 1991 Dessert storm only (that was 22 years ago) also there were conflicts
afterwards.

According to this: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/42891479/Air-Combat-Past-Present-and-Future

The post 1991 conflicts have only 20 BVR weapons A/A kills out of ~60. The rest WVR weapons, also it notes that many BVR weapon kills (like by AMRAAM) were performed actually WVR.

What is also interesting is what was the ratio between BVR and WVR kills during Operation Mole Cricket 19 in 1982 which employed: AIM-7F, AIM-9L, Python 3 missiles. Unfortunatly I can't find any documents about it.

It was not that time ago and it had full deployment of AWACS.

According to what I read it had quite strict restrictions about detection of enemy or friendly because there were around 50-80 friendly aircraft in the air and up to 100 enemy so there was great fear of friendly fire. At some point ground attacks stopped to prevent accidental friendly fire - till the sky would be clear of fighters.

[Rich46yo]

Yeah, the Gulf War was akin to shooting ducks in a barrel for the NATO fighters.   As far as as the modern data link, I'm not aware of the capability to guide another fighter's weapons remotely within the network.  

Actually what I meant was for the shooting fighter to be able to use telemetry from another airplane on the network to guide the missile in.

[bozon]

sometime I don't understand US... spends lots of money to develop their own system when alternative system already developed, proven and actively deployed by very close allies - just not to buy non-US stuff.

The US never buys from Israel unless it REALLY has no other choice. They prefer to imitate the Israeli system even if the end result is inferior and more costly. Then in some cases they sell their system to Israel vis the military aid deals to block competition from the local companies.

Israel was operating drones already in 1982 that made a significant contribution to the operation you mentioned and the first Lebanon war, when the world still thought "drone" meant a male bee. A lot of custom equipment installed in IAF fighters was/is better than what is installed in the American counterparts. Other contributors to the success of operation "Arzav 19" ("Mole cricket", did not know the translation for that one ) were various Israeli-developed EW measures that worked superbly (and given recent operations, their newer version still work wonders...).

Systems similar to the Trophy (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtMgnRMIspQ) you mentioned can be installed in ships. For planes it is a bit more complicated since planes are very vulnerable and the incoming warhead must be destroyed at a safe distance, not mere meters from the plane. In addition, kinematics and ballistics is more complicated in planes. However, mini-missiles anti-missiles are technologically feasible and I am sure that it is just a matter of time, urgency and money till they will be installed. There are also other anti-missile systems already in service which we will not discuss and I cannot attest to their effectiveness.

About the (1st) Lebanon war, Israel did not deploy AWACS. Israel only had Hawkeyes ("Daya" was the IAF name, meaning Milvus which is a kind of a Kite) which were utterly useless, except for some patrols over the Mediterranean towards the west. BVR was not common then for two reasons. One is that the Aim-7 of the time were often missing. Not aways because malfunction, they were also very sensitive to EW, even relatively low-tech one. The Bigger reason is that the Lebanon and northern Israel airspace is tiny compared to how the US operates. Where the American would operate with 8 planes max, the IAF squeezes in 100 planes and this is not an exaggeration. In 2006 (so called 2nd Lebanon war) IAF had a serious air traffic difficulties with planes, drones and Helis occupying all altitudes from 7,000 to 40,000 feet. The entire width of Lebanon from East to West is less than the range of Amraams.

[artik]

The US never buys from Israel unless it REALLY has no other choice. They prefer to imitate the Israeli system even if the end result is inferior and more costly. Then in some cases they sell their system to Israel vis the military aid deals to block competition from the local companies.

So true... That is why I don't understand US.

BTW there are several Israeli technologies that US companies "merged" into their products:

- Probably the most widely known is DASH helmet that was operational in 90th in IAF evolved to JHMCS and than to F-35's HMDS. Interesting how widely JHMCS is deployed today? AFAIK even F-22 lacks it today.
- LITENING - actually it is in USAF/USN/USMC - also after cooperation with Northrop.

There some more but these are actually widely known success of "sales" to US. I think it would be better if USA would buy some Israeli products rather than provide military aid. There are many criticisms in Israel on receiving the aid because it blocks local development. The famous example is the Lavi program and there were many other cases when because it was "cheaper" to get an aid, it killed some good domestic products that were better and had good export potential - and cheaper in long term.

A lot of custom equipment installed in IAF fighters was/is better than what is installed in the American counterparts.

Israel also deployed Python 3 missile which had 35 kills during first Lebanon war and it was deployed on F-15s.

Ironically but the first F-15 kill was done with Israeli made Python 3 missile (according to this)

About the (1st) Lebanon war, Israel did not deploy AWACS. Israel only had Hawkeyes ("Daya" was the IAF name, meaning Milvus which is a kind of a Kite) which were utterly useless, except for some patrols over the Mediterranean towards the west.

According to most resources I have read the Hawkeyes played an important role in Air superiority in first Lebanon war. I assume there were not full AWACS as it means today but it proved to be an important factor in IAF air superiority.

Where the American would operate with 8 planes max, the IAF squeezes in 100 planes and this is not an exaggeration. In 2006 (so called 2nd Lebanon war) IAF had a serious air traffic difficulties with planes, drones and Helis occupying all altitudes from 7,000 to 40,000 feet. The entire width of Lebanon from East to West is less than the range of Amraams.

Yes it is quite amazing. Also this is one of the reasons that IAF WVR weapons and systems were always the state of the art: DASH helmet was first Western Head on display, the Python 4 missile was for a long time probably the best western missile, even today Python 5 considered the state of the art (but it depends who you ask).