Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!pyramid!amdcad!military From: aws@vax3.iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Air Combat Message-ID: <27229@amdcad.AMD.COM> Date: 13 Sep 89 08:15:34 GMT References: <27188@amdcad.AMD.COM> <27210@amdcad.AMD.COM> Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow Lines: 60 Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com From: aws@vax3.iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) In article <27210@amdcad.AMD.COM> supp@tank.uchicago.edu (Steve Upp) writes: >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, >>... >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). The problem here is that using any active homing missile will cause the bandit's Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) to go off and tell him a missile may be in the air. This makes it more likely that the pilot will see the missile. If he can see it, he can evade it if he has the energy. Now, if the pilot is busy (setting up to drop bombs for example) he may not hear his RWR. In this case, you can sneak up on him and score a kill. This may not sound likely to you, but ~80% of people shot down never knew they were under attack. >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. The nose doesn't need to be pointed right at the bandit. The radar can be slewed to the pilot can make a fairly high G turn and maintain lock. >There are missles that have their own radar transmitters (Maverick for >one) Maverick is an air to ground missile guided by video or FLIR. >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 This is true. In a NATO vs WP fight we would run out of air to air missiles in a couple of weeks. > [Isn't Maverick a TV-guided air to ground missile? TV or FLIR. There is also a fire and forget version which uses a FLIR. >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. And we do the same to them. For every counter-measure there is a counter-counter-measure. Allen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Allen Sherzer | DETROIT: | | aws@iti.org | Where the weak are killed and eaten | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------