Trends in Air-to-Air Combat: Implications for Future Air Superiority | CSBA
Really interesting document, recommended if you're interested to read through it. Bit of a hard slog mind, i had to break it up into a couple of chunks
Anyway, it evaluates air-to-air combat through history.
The overriding point of the document is to demonstrate how over the last century or so, the most successful fighter conflicts in history had a number of key areas.
There's also a good chunk on fighter characteristics, there's a few paragraphs of the benefits and costs of speed and maneuverability and about how those two characteristics seemingly conflict.
Of particular interest (IMO) is found on page 38 (going by page numbers) or page 50 going by actual pages. It's a table which relates the speed of an aircraft to the leading wing temperature, relative detection range, relative detection area (due to the mach cone), relative speed and relative warning time.
Considering the proliferation of VLO/LO platforms over the next couple of decades, use of IR sensors will be more central to an aircraft's sensor loadout and hence such a table provides interesting reading.
The prediction about future air combat is interesting too.
Anyway, that's a really concise & dumbed down overview, there's so much more content and I found it extremely illuminating. It can be downloaded as a PDF for free on the above link.
I feel compelled to add, this is a report which (while not mentioning it at all) shows why the F-35 might be such a bad fighter as many seem to think. Superior SA through high sensor fusion and capability (both radar + IR) + higher performance missiles like AIM-120D/Meteor/AIM-9X/new build ASRAAM
Really interesting document, recommended if you're interested to read through it. Bit of a hard slog mind, i had to break it up into a couple of chunks
Anyway, it evaluates air-to-air combat through history.
The overriding point of the document is to demonstrate how over the last century or so, the most successful fighter conflicts in history had a number of key areas.
- Superior situational awareness - even back to WW1/WW2 the winner of a fight would typically be the aircraft which managed to get in a firing position on another aircraft through air-combat-maneuvering without the target aircraft being aware. This was done in WW1 and WW2 through approaching the target aircraft in blind spots, from the sun and a higher altitude. Damage was maximised by firing at short range for maximum damage ("Boom and Zoom")
- Superior sensor technology/ network integration - Another common trend was that the fighter who detects and identifies another aircraft gains a tactical advantage in that they have more time to prepare for the optimal attack. This used to be through the eye and later tends towards PESA/AESA/IRST. There's a number of interesting statistics from Gulf War 1 in that regard, it highlights just how potent platforms like the E-3 can be. In 82% of engagements against fixed wing aircraft, the E-3 provided target information and identification before US aircraft had detected them using onboard sensors. On average the E-3 did this when hostile aircraft were 70nm from allied fighters.
There's a bunch on this, stats on detection/identification, instances of air combat maneuvering, BVR engagements and speed. - Superior weapon technology - We all know earlier missiles used in Vietnam were rubbish, this is what lead to the F-4 being retrofitted with a gun-pod. A feeling as to the usefulness of the gun pod in aerial combat still exists, but it can be seen that as sensor technology has progressed, the ability of missile systems to take advantage of that has resulted in a highly successful ratio of hits/misses.
According to the document as an example from Op Rolling Thunder (Vietnam), 187 expended AIM-9 missiles resulted in 29 hits (16%). Compare that to later blocks in the first Gulf War while 18 were expended, there were 12 hits (67%).
While later blocks like AIM-9X might not represent such a meteoric rise in performance, it will certainly represent another increase.
There's also a good chunk on fighter characteristics, there's a few paragraphs of the benefits and costs of speed and maneuverability and about how those two characteristics seemingly conflict.
Of particular interest (IMO) is found on page 38 (going by page numbers) or page 50 going by actual pages. It's a table which relates the speed of an aircraft to the leading wing temperature, relative detection range, relative detection area (due to the mach cone), relative speed and relative warning time.
Considering the proliferation of VLO/LO platforms over the next couple of decades, use of IR sensors will be more central to an aircraft's sensor loadout and hence such a table provides interesting reading.
The prediction about future air combat is interesting too.
Anyway, that's a really concise & dumbed down overview, there's so much more content and I found it extremely illuminating. It can be downloaded as a PDF for free on the above link.
I feel compelled to add, this is a report which (while not mentioning it at all) shows why the F-35 might be such a bad fighter as many seem to think. Superior SA through high sensor fusion and capability (both radar + IR) + higher performance missiles like AIM-120D/Meteor/AIM-9X/new build ASRAAM
