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kbd512

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Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,667

Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

There seems to be considerable conviction amongst those who have never flown any kind of aircraft, that a faster jet or one that can turn tighter or sustain a tighter turn, will somehow produce a superior combat platform to all other competitors.  In that very narrow context, there is a minor statement of truth regarding that singular aspect of performance determined the outcome of an aerial engagement, but it does not have any practical effect on whether or not a jet is suitable for dogfighting, interception, bombing, or any other military role.

I can sustain tighter turns in my Cessna 172 than any fighter jet ever made.  That is a statement of absolute truth, it can be easily refuted if it's not true, yet it is true- any fighter pilot who has also flown a 172 can tell you the exact same thing, and despite being true, it does not make a Cessna 172 suitable in any way, shape, or form for dogfighting against combat jets that can fly many times faster than a 172 basic trainer aircraft.  The reason is quite simple.  While I can easily turn inside their minimum turning radius every single time, no competent fighter pilot will ever try to enter into a below-or-near-stall-speed (for them) turning engagement with me, and since 100% of their jets are many times faster than my 172, they don't have to, and will never fight that way.

Similarly, F-16 pilots have been warned repeatedly to never try to enter into a turning engagement with the A-10.  Those who have not heeded that warning have found that the A-10 pilot can easily keep his / her nose pointed at that F-16 at all times.  Once again, the A-10 is still not a suitable dogfighting airframe and no competent pilot facing down the A-10 would fight it that way.  The F-16 is widely regarded as a good yardstick by which to measure the dogfighting capabilities of other aircraft, because it is so maneuverable and capable of winning dogfights against jets with lesser kinematic performance qualities.

This is why, when discussing both instantaneous and maximum sustained turn rates, any competent fighter pilot will immediately ask, "At what aircraft weight / altitude / power setting is Aircraft A supposedly superior to Aircraft B?"

So then, why is my 172 not a suitable dogfighting platform?

1. For starters, I have no other sensors to detect / track / lock / shoot down enemy aircraft, apart from my Mark I Model 0 human eyeballs.  I'm functionally limited to Day VFR engagements, despite the fact that I technically have the instruments for IFR flights.  I'm also limited in IFR flights, in that I should never fly into known icing conditions.

2. My airframe of choice for "dogfighting" lacks all-weather navigation capabilities, an IRST set (for IR imaging and tracking of targets), a modern AESA radar set (electronically steered and scanned, vs mechanically), any type of counter-measures to interfere with the tracking devices aboard incoming enemy weapons (chaff or flares or decoy devices or electronic systems used to decoy inbound missiles), pylons to mount a pair of missiles (air intercept missiles like the IR-guided AIM-9 or radar-guided AIM-120), and despite the fact that it's equipped with 4 seats inside the cabin (2 more observers than most fighter jets can carry), it's so load-limited that it cannot carry full fuel and 4 passengers at the same time (so perhaps no additional pairs of eyes will be carried).

3. The general airframe design is a superlative radar and IR target (admittedly not the best of all time, but pretty darned good), with the propeller and large right-angle metal surfaces producing strong radar reflections.  The engine exhaust is still very hot, though not nearly as hot as the exhaust from a modern turbofan or turbojet or turboprop engine.  That makes little difference to any modern IR-guided missile with a seeker so sensitive and sophisticated that it can readily use aerodynamic heating or heat absorbed into the airframe via the Sun to track the movement of my aircraft.  It was never designed to be difficult to detect, because the airframe in question was intended for general personal transport utility and basic flight training, a job which the 172 does exceptionally well.

4. While I can, as previously stated, turn inside virtually any fighter jet ever made, outside of a dive my max speed also tops out around 130 knots or so in the 172RG model (RG = Retractable Gear), while jets flying at the speeds they'd use to engage me in a dogfight are closer to 350 to 450 knots.  Some will note that all modern combat jets can fly much faster than that using afterburners, and while that's certainly true and useful for interception, if they're going to engage in a dogfight, then they will typically visually identify the target first, which means positively confirming that the target is hostile and therefore desirable to shoot down.  Potentially shooting down one of your own fellow aviators learning to fly would be seriously frowned upon by your chain of command, and likely to cause your Commanding Officer to ground you after you land.  Basically, some kind of actual threat has to be present to warrant a belligerent response.  The only exception would be an active war zone, where combat pilots are still frequently required to visually identify what they're shooting at before they take a shot.  More importantly, my lack of speed means I can never give chase and fly fast enough to either run down the target aircraft or at least fly fast enough that I can get off a shot before my intended target zips past me.

5. Lacking all the features and equipment desirable for a modern fighter jet to have, it's fairly easy to determine why a Cessna 172 is not a suitable dogfighting aircraft.  However, what if we chose something that could feasibly carry all of that gear, such as a Cessna 208B, which is in fact a military aircraft used by less well-funded air forces?  Does that make it suitable for fighting jets?  Well, no, not really.  For all the considerable payload carrying capability that the Cessna 208 has, it loses quite a bit of the 172's maneuverability, while it's cruise speed is only around 55 knots faster than my top speed in the 172RG.  It's nothing to sneeze at when armed, but a decent dogfighter it will never be.

6. So, how about an advanced turboprop trainer like the Pilatus PC-21?  Well, that's a considerably better choice, seeing as how it's equipped with a powerful turbine engine capable of pushing it to 370knots at altitude (within the maneuvering speeds typical of modern jet fighters, except that this is the PC-21's top speed in level flight, so it will start losing speed during maneuvers), it has all-weather navigation, it can be equipped with various sensors suites to assist the pilot in acquiring targets, it comes with electronic counter-measures for CAS work to draw-off enemy ground fire, has pylons capable of carrying air-to-air missiles, and is also equipped with ejection seats.

7.  Well, if even the PC-21 is pushing the envelope when it comes to an aircraft that would be roughly comparable to a modern fighter jet when all design aspects are taken into account, then what would qualify as a minimally useful amalgamation of capabilities to compete with other fighter jets?  Basically, legacy jet trainers like the T-38 / F-5 or modern jet trainers like the Aero Vodocody L-159 is about where modern fighter jet performance, for purposes of dogfighting, starts at.  We're no longer talking about any kind of "dirt cheap" (comparatively speaking) propeller-driven aircraft, but then again, we also achieve practical fighter jet speed / turn rates / fuel and weapons payloads / sensors / range using these types of airframes or something substantially similar to it.

Within the context of interception of non-maneuvering / non-maneuverable targets, pure speed is a very useful design quality, but missiles always win the "pure speed" contests, which is why all modern stealthy tactical fighters don't have as-impressive straight-line speeds as the prior generation of aircraft, which could only achieve those speeds in clean configurations (no external fuel tanks and minimal to no weapons carried), and then they were out of gas very shortly after achieving those speeds.  If you run out of gas you will probably crash and then that impressively fast fighter jet is no longer of any use to your military.  When you load up those prior generation of jets with external fuel tanks and weapons, they can never achieve paper design speeds, so it really doesn't matter how fast they are without equivalent gas and weapons.  The new generation of stealthy jets can both cruise at the same high speeds as the prior generation, still have surplus gas for brief supersonic dashes, and carry enough weapons to complete practical missions, while retaining all of the maneuverability of the prior generation of jets when both are equivalently loaded for real combat missions.

So, beware of meaningless numerical factoids when discussing jets, because without context it's a data point that likely has little to no applicability in a real fight.

If you don't see or don't know how to read a diagram that looks like this when engaging in such discussions, then speed and turn rate are not meaningful (this kind of data is also a closely guarded secret for most new fighter jet designs):

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Re: Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

Crash at an Airshow in Michigan

A collector was flying a retired MiG-23 the NATO reporting name 'Flogger' the video seems to show two pilots.

The 'Flogger' a Soviet era Aircraft Produced in 1967 and flying until the 1980s I am not sure if they are still in use and they might still be in use by India, Angola, North Korea, Sudan, Libya, Egypt, Syria, one defecting pilot once flew an aircraft in Israel,  in 2009, there were 11 privately owned MiG-23s in the United States, some foreign aircraft obtained by the USA were parked and studied at Nellis Air Force Base.

'MiG-23 Crashes During Michigan Air Show'

https://funker530.com/video/mig-23-cras … -air-show/

It's not clear what caused the crash, but the two pilots can be seen ejecting and their canopies deploying before the jet goes down. The aircraft then crashed into the parking lot of a nearby apartment building. Aftermath footage shows significant damaged to parked cars of the building's residents.

I think a lot of former USSR countries may have sold these aircraft to collection. People in social media channels do tours and walk around of the 'MiG 23' some are allowed to 'experimental flight' it falls under other classification as often it would not be a certified US Airplane. Visually I think the aircraft is very narrow and thin maybe more like a flying rocket shape, it does seem to have a big radar in the nose but the two seat seems to have a radar missing because of weight and balance issues, the wing seems to have a 'nothing' feature some might call it an ECM pod it has static discharge on the tail. It appears the Soviets copied many details of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, the F4 barricade blade, the intake seems to almost be a copy of the F-4 Phantom. When East and West Germany unified after the fall of the USSR, no MiG-23s were transferred to the German Air Force, some people compare it to the French Dassault Mirage F1, Northrop F-5, or the Su-24 aircraft, MiG-23 has taken part in the Syrian Civil War or Libya Civil War and took part in the 1980s Iran–Iraq War. The Cockpit of the Mig-23 seems to have very poor visibility, the instructor seat seems to have even less visibility but there is a periscope system.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-08-14 12:57:40)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Re: Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

They will have F-16s

There were rumors Ukraine would get either F-15s the F-16 or A-10

in online gossip they say Russia might be holding back a Stealth Sukhoi Su-57 an aircraft perhaps known to the public when it featured in the new 'Top Gun' film but it seems like they only produced 10 of them, so maybe Putin is afraid his new aircraft would be shot down.

I read a lot on ships and aircraft and satellites when I was young and from what I know or think I know there are so many choice

The F-15 is a killer of the ColdWar, a long-range, high-speed without relying on escort Air to Air killer I believe looking at the old bulletin board forum days none were lost...but then again it depended who you asked because apparently a somewhat untrained elite Saudi idiot might have crashed one time long ago in a non event, but it still might count as not a loss. The Japanese and the Israelis use the F-15 for its time it had the most high tech avionics system and the most advanced radar ever seen
It even once test launched a type of anti-satellite multistage missile, the Eagle is very expensive but it seems it can not lose a fight in the air.

The F-16 would be the choice when you are look for more bang for the bucks you pay the bargain choice, the USAF upgraded older models, it has a a wide variety of air-to-ground missiles, rockets or bombs it can many roles such as fight air to air and has many electronic countermeasures the Falcon is classed as a Multirole fighter and  air superiority fighter, they will purchase a lot more F-16s.

The 'Thunderbolt' or A-10 Warthog is one of those old amazing Aircraft that brawls through the sky while supporting troops on the ground, from photos I used to see on board and forum I believe it has been shot, hit by missiles, blasted, almost ripped to bits by anti aircraft guns but it does not die it will keep getting back to home base safely, somehow this Aircraft from 1972 is still of huge importance, it provides close air support. The A-10 has a unique sound it has this weird sounding GAU-8 Avenger rotary autocannon it kind of sounds like a Dragon moaning or a giant prehistoric animal farting or some weird Burrrrrrrrrrt sound, during combat fights used to featured on video channels like 'Liveleak' and Twitter news. It would easily land intact after taking damage from ground fire however as great as it is to support fighters on the ground against a foe that try to over run troops for example a terrorist foe like the Taliban, the A-10 has limits it would be no match against more modern military with modern Air to Air Fighters.

I believe there was another aircraft looked at from the Sweden, the Saab JAS Gripen it is an impressive aircraft made by the Swedish but it seems it had some previous Accidents or a software glitch and incidents, the Swedish have a very strong home made aircraft and arms industry and are known to make impressive multi-role combat aircraft going back to the Saab 37 Viggen which I believe once kind of 'intercepted' an SR-71 Blackbird in training or 'peace time' identification.
Mach 3 is about 2223 mph = 3576.9 km/h ion one min you have traveled over 37 miles or more than 59 K in one minuet.
Young people today might recognize the shape of the Blackbird design from X-men comics or Marvel Disney movies. At one time even though it was one of the fastest aircraft it was in danger of being intercepted by Migs and sometime longer time after four Swedish pilots involved were awarded medals from the USAF https://web.archive.org/web/20181129194 … air-medal/ At a speed of Mach 3.2, the Blackbird plane was faster than anything the Soviet Union would have used, the reconnaissance aircraft SR-71 was Retired in 1998.

US pilots even have their own social media channels
'F-22 vs SU-57 | Thunderbird Pilot Reacts'
'Max Afterburner'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbvOQr67FLw

Russia's new aicraft, it does look like an impressive fighter
again from feeds and online gossip I believe Russians only made ten of these new Stealthy things before sanctions and maybe they were nervous about the skies and were afraid to lose them but the pilot gives a more experienced option on next generation aircraft

As with any aircraft it might depend on experience and combat training, in times of crisis people under pressure on any side can make mistakes and fall back on trained-in reaction or instincts.

the news

Netherlands and Denmark to donate up to 61 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ … to-ukraine

F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine as Zelenskyy visits
https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/20/den … kyy-visits

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-08-20 18:23:19)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Re: Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

BA flight narrowly misses horror 250mph crash with Drone 9,600 feet in the air
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/b … r-32466802

British military dress standards

Army lifts ban on serving soldiers having beards
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68691987

'Meet the British Army’s new jet-propelled Hydra 400 drone'
https://interestingengineering.com/mili … led-drones
A pioneering new generation of heavy-lift drones using hybrid propulsion technology (rotors and jet engines), the Hydra 400 is compact and portable, can be transported on a regular pickup truck, and can be prepared for flight in six minutes.

Why is Japan changing its ban on exporting lethal weapons, and why is it so controversial?
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireSto … -108485064

Why the A-10 Warthog Retirement Is a Disaster
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ … ter-209827

Frogfoot: A Brief Guide To The Sukhoi Su-25 Close Air Support Jet
https://simpleflying.com/sukhoi-su-25-frogfoot-guide/
The Su-25 Frogfoot, designed for close air support, remains relevant in conflicts with its ballistic weapons. Soviet efforts to develop the Frogfoot began in the late 1960s

also used by the Ukrainians, the North Koreans and Peruvian Air Force not sure if Ukraine has any or many left, Iraqi ones fled the incoming US military and landed in Iran, Georgian government used Su-25s against separatists, the Ethiopian Air Force to strike Eritreans and in year 2000 Ethiopian Su-25 was shot down by an Eritrean Air Force MiG-29. Albanian jihadists attacked Macedonia and Su-25s were used by the Macedonian Air Force but flown by Ukraine born pilots, Su-25s seemed to also have been shot down in Armenian Azerbaijani fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Russians used them effectively in intervention against ISIS in Syria, they might become an old extinct ColdWar dinosaur flying machine.

but lots of them Dying in Ukraine, you see them blasted out of the sky on social media feeds

a simulation that looks like a video game physics Dogfighting, Fox 2 or Fox3 infrared heat-seeking missile such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder. the Fox 3 refers to an active radar guided missile such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM, using turns  decoy flares, Air combat manoeuvring (ACM)

'Modern Air Combat Explained'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcGjIQGzvDo

20,000 Drone Pilots & Counting: Tale Of The Drone War
https://simpleflying.com/20000-drone-pi … drone-war/

Navy fends off Houthi drone attack for second day in a row
https://www.yahoo.com/news/navy-fends-o … 32756.html

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-03-31 03:15:42)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Re: Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

Iran Might Receive Its First Su-35 Flanker Fighters From Russia Next Week
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pauliddon/ … next-week/

also used by the Chinese Airforce, China became the Su-35's first export customer

Lots of news reports, more Russians ships sinking, a bloody meat grinder war with mass deaths on both sides in Ukraine, new happening with Drone and Missile Attacks. Lots of Aircraft also making news.French have given Ukraine weapons and a coalition consisting of British military, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark announced their intention to train Ukrainian jet pilots on the F-16 ahead of possible future deliveries. Argentina bought 24 F-16s from Denmark, beating a bid to acquire JF-17s from China
https://en.mercopress.com/2024/01/29/ar … ese-jf-17s

Ukraine to welcome first F-16 fighter jet by summer— Belgian PM
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukraine-welc … 00258.html

'Ukrainian MiG-29s Pack a New Punch with French AASM Hammer Bombs'
https://frontierindia.com/briefs/ukrain … mer-bombs/

First Footage Of Ukrainian Su-27 Dropping French-supplied AASM Hammer Bomb Emerges
https://theaviationist.com/2024/04/12/u … u-27-aasm/

Serbia on verge of closing Rafale fighter jet order from France: President Vucic
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/04/ser … ent-vucic/
An agreement would represent a significant shift in the Serbian Air Force — a move to modern Western fighters

This is why Eurofighter Typhoons have been circling Herefordshire
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/why-eurofight … 15076.html

The Mitsubishi F-2: A Closer Look at Japan's Advanced Fighter Jet
https://defensebridge.com/article/the-m … r-jet.html

Australian F/A-18Fs to operate out to 2040, receive hypersonic weapons
https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/au … 98.article

'Airborne for 15 minutes': HAL successfully completes first flight of Made in India LCA Mark 1A fighter aircraft
https://www.firstpost.com/india/airborn … 53666.html

Jacob Heilbrunn and a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., that was established by former U.S. President Richard Nixon,  Maria Butina, who was later in 2018 convicted as a Russian spy, wrote an editorial in the magazine titled "The Bear and the Elephant" stating that only by electing a president from the Republican Party could the United States and Russia improve relations,  released and deported back to Russia in October 2019. She publicly denied being a Russian spy then 2021, she was elected to the State Duma as a member of United Russia.

Russia's Su-27 Flanker Fighter Jet Can Probably Beat the F-15 in a Dogfight
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ … ted-210578

Russia's Su-57 Felon Fighter Nightmare Is Just Getting Started
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ … ted-210578

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Re: Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

'War in Ukraine: By sending Mirage fighters, France steps up support for Kyiv'
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international … 092_4.html

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,667

Re: Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

All of these super-maneuverable fifth generation fighter jets become far less impressive performers after giant fuel tanks and heavy ordnance are hung from their wings.  After you drain most of the fuel and strip out most of the avionics equipment to make the jets wow the crowds at air shows, then all of them are impressive performers in front of people who want to see tight turns and vertical maneuvers.  None perform substantially better than, nor substantially differently from, other heavily loaded aircraft of prior generations powered by the same types of engine (pistons vs turbines).  Their range, speed, and maneuverability limitations reflect the basic physics involved.  A 9g capable jet suddenly becomes 5g capable, which is not very far beyond what a lightly loaded utility category transport aircraft can do.  All are heavily restricted in terms of range, speed, or maneuverability when saddled with representative combat loads.  This includes as much fuel as the jet can feasibly take off with, plus various air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance.

The heavier the load, the less dogfighting you need worry about doing, because that is essentially out of the question.  You're flying a miniature version of an airliner with a modest load.  A Boeing 777 or 787 with no passengers and minimal fuel can perform a near-vertical takeoff.  That is not representative of how an airliner will perform with full fuel and all seats filled.  That doesn't make 777s suitable for dogfighting, but the way a military will load combat jets down leaves them in a similar position, but not quite to the same degree.

The only metric where I can point to dramatic performance improvements between successive generations of technology are sensor and communications capabilities, of both the combat aircraft and their weapons, as well as the level of situational awareness those sensors and communications networks provide to the aircrews.

If stealth truly does make most combat jets incredibly difficult to find / track / target, then a lot of combat reverts back to WWII stick-and-rudder flying with "advanced sensor networks" provided by the Mark I Model 0 human eyeball and radio callouts to friendly aircraft to determine what is or is not an enemy plane.  Firing off missiles without solid lock-ups is liable to get a lot of your own pilots killed, as the Ukraine War has already demonstrated.  There is also the small matter of combat jets and highly trained aircrews which cannot be replaced within a timeframe likely to be meaningful to the outcome of the war.

The ever-increasing weight problem has been "corrected" using "more thrust", increasing fuel burn rate to levels that mandate bi-weekly replenishment of aircraft carriers fielding a minor portion of the total air power applied.  In spite of using more fuel efficient engines, rather than making modern variants of the same combat jet lighter, our only solution seems to be adding "more of everything" to a single airframe.  Each successive generation of combat jets have become much more expensive than the prior generation, much less user-friendly, mission capable rates for all of them have declined significantly with greatly increased funding, and all of them are so horridly complex that a small standing army of highly trained and experienced specialists is required to maintain a single jet.  In a shooting war with significant losses, this will rapidly become unsustainable.

If you look at the empty weights, max takeoff weights, and ferry ranges of combat jets, you'll notice that they're remarkably similar to WWII era American and British strategic / heavy bombers.  They're obviously much faster than those seemingly ancient buzzards, but in terms of weight, that is what all modern tactical fighters have become- modernized variants of WWII strategic bombers.

That wasn't particularly cost-effective during WWII.  In actual practice, the much smaller WWII era fighters, when finally granted permission to freely attack targets, were devastating to the Luftwaffe, in a manner out of all proportion to the herculean strategic bombing campaigns.  The Luftwaffe lost more men and machines in a few short months, after long range escort fighters such as the Mustang were permitted to "forage for enemy aircraft and airfields", than during the several prior years of the war.  That should be a point worth remembering.  If you want to inflict crippling damage upon the enemy, that is not achieved by the "decisive battle" doctrine.  That was the losing Japanese Navy fighting doctrine, which cost them the war.  It would have been a losing doctrine for the Americans and British if Germany either had a greater industrial base, less of a fixation on murdering non-Aryans, and/or the intelligence to recognize that sheer numbers overwhelmed technically superior machines every single time.  It's "death by a thousand paper cuts" which ultimately ended the air war over Europe, far faster and with far fewer casualties than strategic bombing.

Why was that?

As powerful as a WWII strategic bomber was, it could only ever be in one place at one time and dropped its bombs from an altitude where bombing accuracy was more wishful thinking than technologically achievable at that time.  A Mustang was 1/5th the cost of a B-17, if you lost a Mustang then you lost a single pilot, rather than 2 pilots plus 8 aircrew.  For the price of 2 B-17s, you could field almost an entire squadron of Mustangs, they could attack 10 different targets during a single mission, they were about as fast and maneuverable as most any other fighter the enemy had, which meant you weren't going to leisurely attack them with near-impunity the way German fighters attacked unescorted bombers.  Fighters could execute teaming tactics to go after a single troublesome target or attack several targets at the same time.  Divide and conquer, essentially.

Fast-forward to today, and we're building comparatively small numbers of machines which are far less affordable than B-17s or Lancasters.  We're attempting to apply the same fighting doctrines that were miserable failures for both the Germans and Japanese.  We think we're going to have "super weapons" or "super pilots" (AI piloted drones) which will overcome both the environment and the "fog-of-war" (imperfect decision making based upon imperfect information).  It didn't work all the other times it was tried in the past, because the people who did it before weren't as smart as we are now, or didn't have our technology, or whatever other silly excuses the adherents to these failed ideas ascribe to their beliefs about war...  Somehow, it's going to work "this time", because we're so superior to our enemies...  Not!

After you observe enough recurrent themes play out across multiple wars, you start to get a sense for what will or won't work.  If everybody shows up to the fight with fully trained pilots, generally reliable missiles, and stealthy airframes which limit long range engagements, then the side which shows up with the greatest numbers is most likely to win the battle and, after enough repetition, the entire war.  Stealth may very well take us full circle, back to where basic flight training, mastery of air combat tactics, and excellent kinematic performance in a dogfight really does matter.  That won't render existing stealthy or non-stealthy jets obsolete, but it will further constrain when and where such aircraft can operate without a substantial firepower advantage or escort.  If a half-dozen small fighters (AI-enabled combat drones in the USAF's recurrent air combat fantasies) are required to protect each F-35, then why not operate a fleet of those much smaller aircraft, put pilots in them so they never require a F-35 "mother ship" to control them, and call it a day?

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Re: Fighter Jets and Meaningless Numerical Factoids

There might be propaganda in war...but who knows there is also truth in war.

but You know that super-super mega new Stealth Plane the Russians have, they have not used it much because its so expensive, it might be knowm to the public worldwide culturally in Hollywood entertainment as its shape appears in the recent Top Gun remake film Top Gun Maverick. That same new Russian stealth aircraft it seems to be near Ukraine so it might be in true combat and Public Commercial satellite imagery seems to show Su-57s deployed some 310+ miles or 500 km from Ukraine, the NATO reporting name 'Felon'.  Russia was getting ahead of itself saying its not 5th Generation but Russia's future sixth-generation maybe 10th generations combat system, it is never defeated totally super superior supreme...

well it might have been shot down

'Ukraine says latest-generation Russian fighter jet hit for first time'

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/uk … 024-06-09/

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-06-09 14:31:05)