Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!amdcad!military
From: newman@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Bill Newman)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Air Superiority B-52?
Message-ID: <1991Jun7.071940.7564@amd.com>
Date: 5 Jun 91 16:33:59 GMT
References: <1991May29.010650.5556@amd.com> <1991May31.061326.13426@amd.com> <1991Jun5.064854.26330@amd.com>
Sender: military@amd.com
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Lines: 33
Approved: military@amd.com


From: newman@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Bill Newman)


Someday, computer, sensor, and actuator technology will probably make
it practical to put missile point defense systems on vehicles (tanks
and aircraft) which are primarily intended for other chores.  Probably,
each vehicle will be able to automatically exchange data and coordinate
plans with all friendly vehicles in the vicinity, and most current
electronic countermeasures tricks will become obsolete, so that more
than air superiority procurement will be affected.

Anyway, until this kind of point defense is economical and effective,
the lifetime of a high-flying, radar-emitting, slow, large,
radar-emitting aircraft within missile range of enemy aircraft is
likely to be very short.  For this reason, I don't think the Air
Superiority B-52 makes much sense -- if you design an aircraft to fight
at long-range missile distances, you shouldn't design it to be so
vulnerable to long-range missiles.

After point defense becomes available on aircraft, high-flying, large,
subsonic aircraft may still not be a good base for air superiority.  In
particular, if you can fly faster and higher, and maneuver harder, any
given missile is less likely to be able to reach you, and by this time
flying low and slow may not be a very effective way to hide, anyway.
Therefore, even if we could build aerial battleships and mount some
sort of Super Air Phalanx on them, I suspect that speed and
maneuverability would be an important part of their defenses, so their
airframes would be probably be closer to the B-1 or SST than to the
B-52 or 747.

Bill Newman
newman@theory.tc.cornell.edu