Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!amdcad!military From: supp@tank.uchicago.edu (Steve Upp) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Air Combat Message-ID: <27210@amdcad.AMD.COM> Date: 12 Sep 89 07:47:23 GMT References: <27188@amdcad.AMD.COM> Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM Organization: University of Chicago Lines: 70 Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com From: supp@tank.uchicago.edu (Steve Upp) In article <27188@amdcad.AMD.COM> randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) writes: >Why do our fighters have to be so manuverable? Given that a good >air-air missile can knock out an enemy aircraft from 20 miles away, >why do we spend all the time/energy/money on manuverability as opposed >to other things, like IFF. Vietnam proved one thing...Missles aren't enough. Radar homing missles, even with current technology, are not very accurate. I believe I heard that 1 in 10 radar homing missles fired in Vietnam hit their targets (the statistic may be far worse but not better). Also since most missles require the firing aircraft to maintain a radar lock on the target aircraft the firing aircraft has to stick around with his nose pointing at the enemy. That's bad news when there may be more bad guys buzzing around. There are missles that have their own radar transmitters (Maverick for one) but they are so expensive that in a real wartime situation we'd run out of missles long before then enemy ran out of airplanes because they're too expensive to have mass quantities produced. [Isn't Maverick a TV-guided air to ground missile? But Phoenix is a good (?) example of a missile with its own radar, and at $1M a shot its too expensive to get much practice with, and from what I hear its so complex that reliability is poor. I'm sure if I'm wrong on any of these points I'll hear about it. :-) --CDR] Radar can be fooled using the decoy mechanisms like releasing small strips of aluminum that would reflect the radar signal and decoy the approaching missle. ECM is also becoming more and more sophisticated these days. For several years Soviet pilots have been sent up against NATO forces with recorders in them so that after they have been intercepted the radar emissions from the NATO aircraft can be analyzed and a suitable counter measure found. The most accurate missles are the heat seeking variety. In Vietnam I believe it was (1 in 4) that hit their targets but this is really stretching my memory. Maybe someone else knows these stats better? These missles however, have an accurate range of 1 to 4 miles or so. At that point its likely that the enemy aircraft will see the shooting aircraft in which time evasive actions (therefore mobility) are required. All fighter aircraft in the US inventory have some sort of conventional machine gun or cannon in order to handle the close in air combat situations that did occur in Vietnam. Originally the F-4's didn't have cannons and the pilots had to try and stay out of the minimum range of the heat seeking missles in order to be effective. The result was a lot of US planes being shot down. The military learned its lesson and now ACM (Air Combat Manuevering) is an extremely important part of the design of any modern fighter (except the stealth). FLAME ON! I've heard lately though that the US is again pushing for the more sophisticated and expensive radar missles in their inventories. The poor little sidewinder that has proven so deadly (and is quite cheap) seems to be taking a backseat in development. Oh well, another Vietnam and the Pentagon Warriors will realize that high tech isn't always what its cracked up to be. FLAME OFF! [I left the last paragraph in since its not really a flame, and expresses well a question I share. Keep any responses polite and informative, please. --CDR]