Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Nemisis on June 02, 2009, 05:03:29 PM
-
I was reading some old posts(new to me as I have been kinda busy lately) and I saw a post that said we no longer need air superiority, and that strikes are the new air superiority. I disagree (they better fighters+ours old=ours go by by=their strike aircraft(fighter-bombers?) not explodei= our tanks go ka boom=us get killed by enemy tanks and aircraft=us lose=world wide empire (China)]. please note that this is in real life not in AH2, please give me your thoughts. :salute
-
=) we always need air superiority. W/O it nothing can be done !
-
I know; if we stop making new fighters then by 2030 China will be able to drag out a couple of PROPJOBS and because our fighters will be from the eighties and around 50 yrs old and will have been in a hanger in the desert somewhere in arizona on an abandoned airfield, they will totally pown us. In fact, I am supprised washington allowed the F22 to get as far as it did. And if I remember correctly then the A-10 warthog has also had production stoped, but don't quote me as I may be wrong. :cry
-
I was reading some old posts(new to me as I have been kinda busy lately) and I saw a post that said we no longer need air superiority, and that strikes are the new air superiority. I disagree (they better fighters+ours old=ours go by by=their strike aircraft(fighter-bombers?) not explodei= our tanks go ka boom=us get killed by enemy tanks and aircraft=us lose=world wide empire (China)]. please note that this is in real life not in AH2, please give me your thoughts. :salute
Air superiority is always a must, however the type of aircraft we are designing are never going to be used for their "intended purpose." Aircraft now are being designed with "supermanuverability", where, as much as I hate to say it, the era of the dogfight is over... Rather what we should be focusing on is a more reliable missile that's able to pull more G's...
My $.02
-
Air superiority is always a must, however the type of aircraft we are designing are never going to be used for their "intended purpose." Aircraft now are being designed with "supermanuverability", where, as much as I hate to say it, the era of the dogfight is over... Rather what we should be focusing on is a more reliable missile that's able to pull more G's...
IIRC that's exactly what they were saying in the '60'sn and then we got into an actual war with an enemy that had actual fighters, and we realized that was a HUGE mistake, and started 1) adding guns back to our fighters, and 2)started teaching ACM again.
-
I believe that dogfights would probably be rare in the case that we got in a war with one of our allies who shares most of our equipment, or an equal. While we still keep banging on 2nd and 3rd world countries, there will be a dogfight somewhere.
-
I don't foresee a war with China. They make far too much money from trade agreements with us. It would not be in their best interest to start a war.
-
I believe my post is the one that started this thread. Air superiority is always necessary. I just don't think it's the cowboys and indians thing anymore. It's just done in a different way.
I'm by no means an air force general or secretary of defense, but I just don't see what there is to fear from "enemy fighters" at this point in time. I'm not suggesting fighter development is abandoned, as you never fall asleep at the wheel, but it just isn't a need like it once was. Strike is just so amazingly overpowered right now and effective. Wars are always won by who can deliver the most big booms and the most efficiently. Take WWII. They didn't just go up in fighters and dog fight for decoration for the guys on the ground. Every sortie involved either delivering a strike of some kind or preventing it. There is nobody preventing F-22's from hitting their targets. Nothing in the air anyway. Nothing even close.
In time things could change and there's enemy fighters to knock out. Whoever knows? But unless I'm just behind the times and there is anything out there in the sky preventing the air force and navy from doing their thing I'm all ears. I just don't see it. Obviously the military doesn't see it either as the F-22 has been discontinued or whatever happened with it.
-
Absolutly
-
Wondering who spends more time training than the current ACM world leaders. I also think air superiority
will be more remote in the near future.
-
I watched a doco on the game Americas Army and in it it was stated that the game was being used to amalgamate the use of a joystick with their weopons systems, this in turn would be a type of training for the kids playing Americas Army to operate the real thing. Who knows, with UAV's and such we could be quite a pool of stay home remote warriors for air superiority of the future.
-
They say alot of this equipment we have isn't designed for the wars we're fighting. But that is okay, since we can't win that sort of "war" and the sooner we realize it the better. (You can't shoot people until they turn civilized and start building shopping malls and Starbucks. You can't bribe, cajole, or "educate" them into it either.) Whereas keeping always one step ahead of those who *do* have some sort of civilization that could oppose us may prevent the sort of wars we *can* win, but really, really, really do not want to fight again.
-
I watched a doco on the game Americas Army and in it it was stated that the game was being used to amalgamate the use of a joystick with their weopons systems, this in turn would be a type of training for the kids playing Americas Army to operate the real thing. Who knows, with UAV's and such we could be quite a pool of stay home remote warriors for air superiority of the future.
Sometime during late Elementary school I sold a Microsoft Sidewinder to the US Navy. They responded that it would be used to control a missile system in testing and later put to other use.
-
IIRC that's exactly what they were saying in the '60'sn and then we got into an actual war with an enemy that had actual fighters, and we realized that was a HUGE mistake, and started 1) adding guns back to our fighters, and 2)started teaching ACM again.
I agree.. but you cant really compare the 60's to now. Solid state technology and microchips have come a long way and missiles are ALOT more dependable and advanced now than they were back in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
However there are many cases (99% id say with the types of wars we see the most) where you need to get a visual ID of the plane before you shoot, so knowing ACM and having guns is still a very good idea.
-
Having air superiority and having manned fighter planes is not the same thing. Air superiority is a must, but piloted-fighters are not the only way to achieve it and as technology advances, not the best way to achieve it.
There is less and less need for a human in the cockpit. In many cases, the human only limits the weapon. Technology is not yet in a state where the human is completely redundant though. In addition, if you rely completely on AI and/or remote controls, you run the very serious risk of being annihilated by electronic warfare (EW) measures that you did not predict.
The current situation is that the bulk of airborn combat missions are shifted toward the use of drones and manned planes are pushed to "complementary" or backup status. Therefore there is not need to maintain a very large and expensive fleet of fighters, nor to develop new planes, as long as upgrades to the current fighters are sufficient to keep up with the competition (that is not clear who the intended enemy is exactly).
-
UAV's are only good for air to ground. They cannot provide the data fidelity for realtime air to air combat ops.
-
If you notice the last 3 wars we have fought all started with a air attack against things that would effect us from dominating the skies over the battlefield. In Korea the only thing stopping the North from invading is the capabilities of our Nimitz class carriers, and the air force units in Japan in South Korea.
-
IIRC that's exactly what they were saying in the '60'sn and then we got into an actual war with an enemy that had actual fighters, and we realized that was a HUGE mistake, and started 1) adding guns back to our fighters, and 2)started teaching ACM again.
I'm not saying we don't need these, and I'm aware of the 60's mistakes. ;)
What I was saying is that while we're here developing supermanuverability supercruise thrust vectoring aircraft, what would be more benificial is a new Aim-9 that's able to lock on better and pull more G's. If you look at the majority of the worlds aircraft now, you're not seeing planes like the F-86 Sabre anymore. The aircraft are designed for BVR, but are having so many 'add-ons' that it seems their purpose is to dogfight, which, as I stated, isn't going to really happen in todays world unless you get 2 REALLY unlucky pilots whos missiles just won't launch. ;)
The odds are slim of a dogfight, and I see the need to prepare, but why not prepare for something we have the ability to do? Avoid the dogfight and get them before they can even see us.
-
...The aircraft are designed for BVR, but are having so many 'add-ons' that it seems their purpose is to dogfight, which, as I stated, isn't going to really happen in todays world unless you get 2 REALLY unlucky pilots whos missiles just won't launch. ;)
The odds are slim of a dogfight, and I see the need to prepare, but why not prepare for something we have the ability to do? Avoid the dogfight and get them before they can even see us.
While this is somewhat true, dogfights still happen. Air combat is usually not two formations of 4 starting 50 miles from each other, HO at 20kft, over empty land. Some scenarios makes BVR almost impossible, before ranges are closed to IR missiles. For example, the Israel-Syrian border is about 70 km (about 50 miles) long. In the even of war, along this front there will be more than a few tens of aircrafts (fighters, attackers, photo, recon, helis, drones) possibly reaching over 100. Add to this a large amount of chaff floating in the air, electronic warfare and just accidental interference from so many radiation sources (add ground troops equipment) all crammed into this narrow volume and you can understand why a 50 miles missile will be of little use. The IAF puts the emphasis on short range IR missiles, with extreme maneuverability and launch envelope.
However, the advancing missile technology that require very little maneuvering from the launching platform and very fast information and control networks will allow drones to carry air to air missiles effectively. If most of your force is made of drones, even in the case of friendly fire, you just lost some equipment. The side that will rely on human pilots will suffer the casualties. The time and cost of training a new pilots will be much longer and expensive than producing a new drone - even including the extra few that were shot down by friendly fire.
We are not there just yet, but very close.
-
While this is somewhat true, dogfights still happen. Air combat is usually not two formations of 4 starting 50 miles from each other, HO at 20kft, over empty land. Some scenarios makes BVR almost impossible, before ranges are closed to IR missiles.
I'm still skeptical that most enemy fighters would even get airborne. And if they do, they probably won't the next day. Not when the US can drop a thimble on a postage stamp in the dark anywhere on the planet.
Now if they can just see jumbo jets running around New York looking for buildings to crash into.
-
I think the question really is whether or not the USA or it's direct allies need air superiority fighters anymore. As demonstrated in all wars since Gulf war 1. The enemy aircraft simply can't or won't get airborne, or if it does it's hacked down with a BVR missile and sometimes an IR missile, thanks to oversight from the AWACs. In GW2, I think the Iraqis didn't even try. They just hid their aircraft.
Actually the original question really should be: Do we still need air superiority fighters. Because you do have air superiority thanks to all the hardware used to suppress the enemy air force. In fact the age of the pure fighter is gone. This I think is recognised in the fact that all fighters are not in effect attack aircraft first and foremost. Which I suppose makes the F15C, the last real pure fighter in the USAF. The F14 was the last pure Navy fighter but even that succumbed to the attack role in the end. Which I think means that the Crusader was in fact the last pure USN fighter. :salute
However to say that the era of the dogfight is over is a bit premature. It may be over for the US. But other countries with less sophisticated systems and no AWACs cover could easily end up in dogfights. Say if Peru and Venezuela came to blows to pick two random countries. But even then I suspect without checking their inventories, that their fighters are also attack aircraft.
The age of the pure fighter is gone forever though.
-
I don't foresee a war with China. They make far too much money from trade agreements with us. It would not be in their best interest to start a war.
drought and famine can make you do some crazy things... lets just hope it keeps raining in China
-
as much as I hate to say it, the era of the dogfight is over...
You know, they said that at the beginning of WWII. Because planes were traveling so much faster then they used to, naturally. We all know how that turned out. Then they said it at the beginning of the Vietnam war. That didn't end too well, either.
I'm just saying.
I think the question really is whether or not the USA or it's direct allies need air superiority fighters anymore.
Indeed. All of the people who claim we don't need them, because the only people we're fighting are tiny little madcap dictatorships with ancient equipment, amuse me. Simply because the war with an equally technologically capable foe that they say will never happen is much more likely to happen if we can the very weapons that currently make such an engagement untenable for the other party.
-
UAV's are only good for air to ground. They cannot provide the data fidelity for realtime air to air combat ops.
They can and have.
Drone had it's own radar and internal decision making.
Back when the F4 was king.
Scared the *crap* out of the F4 jock.
-GE (umm .. or so I heard, long ago)
-
In time things could change and there's enemy fighters to knock out. Whoever knows? But unless I'm just behind the times and there is anything out there in the sky preventing the air force and navy from doing their thing I'm all ears. I just don't see it. Obviously the military doesn't see it either as the F-22 has been discontinued or whatever happened with it.
Well as far as I can see the only real competition I can see for our F22 would be the eurofighter unless that has been scraped as well.
And Narsus the I forsee no war with china thing is coming from a guy with a with Hommer Simpson as an avatar. I can just see him saying that and then the screen flashes over to the chinese generals about to fire off a nuke at us and one says "see, I told you the avrage American is so stupid they will never know what is happening untill to late". infact didn't they do something like that where homer is in a bomb shelter and everyone in sprigfield at least is dead, but his family survives. It just gives the wrong impresion.
.
And Selino that is coming from a guy with bender as his avatar. same problem as Narsus
Narsus and Selino