F/A-22: To Fly High or Get its Wings Clipped

[F-15 Eagle]

technical superiority is based on platform deliverables against a tasking profile. its got nothing to do with max operational deployment speed.

Thats why everyone moved away from building mach 2+ manned aircraft in the 80's. The quality and expectations paradigm shifted 30 years ago.

Speed is relative to requirement - and companion asset impact.

Fighter pilots will tell you that speed is life in air combat. All modern fighters have to get in and out of trouble very fast and cover a large area quickly well leaving as small of a footprint as possible and thats what they do.

Thats why people call them fast movers.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Fighter pilots will tell you that speed is life in air combat. All modern fighters have to get in and out of trouble very fast and cover a large area quickly well leaving as small of a footprint as possible and thats what they do.

Thats why people call them fast movers.

sorry that's selective rubbish. read what I said prev. pilots in the 21st century and ever since the late 1980's don't look at absolute speed as the critical capability. speed is but one element in the warfighting dimension. It was starting to be abandoned circa 1965 and lost absolute favour in the late 80's. Air combat depends on more than just fast flight, its about getting the maximum capability into the battlespace for the maximum amount of autonomous time - speed is not necessarily even part of the tasking equation.

it doesn't matter how fast a mach2 9g aircraft can turn once a mach 3-6 30g missile enters the NEZ.

its about system capability. again, look at why aircraft designers changed the build requirements in the 80's.

and I do speak to pilots....

they also call skyhawks and jet provosts fastmovers....

btw, you do realise that the faster you go the more you light up? ever wondered why western cruise missile philosophy is for subsonic missiles? it directly relates to LO tests done since Have and Tacit Blue. It's also why LO-VLO heat masking is important.

High speed telegraphs a signature footprint - it doesn't reduce it.

 

[Salty Dog]

The latest 5th Generation Fighters brochure from Lockheed Martin:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/corporate/press-kit/5th-Gen-Brochure.pdf

 

[F-15 Eagle]

sorry that's selective rubbish. read what I said prev. pilots in the 21st century and ever since the late 1980's don't look at absolute speed as the critical capability. speed is but one element in the warfighting dimension. It was starting to be abandoned circa 1965 and lost absolute favour in the late 80's. Air combat depends on more than just fast flight, its about getting the maximum capability into the battlespace for the maximum amount of autonomous time - speed is not necessarily even part of the tasking equation.

it doesn't matter how fast a mach2 9g aircraft can turn once a mach 3-6 30g missile enters the NEZ.

its about system capability. again, look at why aircraft designers changed the build requirements in the 80's.

and I do speak to pilots....

they also call skyhawks and jet provosts fastmovers....

btw, you do realise that the faster you go the more you light up? ever wondered why western cruise missile philosophy is for subsonic missiles? it directly relates to LO tests done since Have and Tacit Blue. It's also why LO-VLO heat masking is important.

High speed telegraphs a signature footprint - it doesn't reduce it.

Well their not going to get rid of supersonic fighters in favor of subsonic ones and speed really is life, its not rubbish like you said.

The latest 5th Generation Fighters brochure from Lockheed Martin:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/corporate/press-kit/5th-Gen-Brochure.pdf

Wow cool, were did you find that? Man I can't wait until the u.S. gets all of its F-22s and F-35s it needs. Those are a fighter pilots dream right there.

They should make another fighter movie like top gun but with these awesome jets in it.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Well their not going to get rid of supersonic fighters in favor of subsonic ones and speed really is life, its not rubbish like you said.

Can you at least make the effort to read and understand what I said instead of presenting ridiculous commentary which is meant to distract others from the fact that you are making comments which bear no relation to the discussion.

I have not mentioned the replacement of the absolute definition - I have indicated to you that you completely misunderstand or misrepresent fighter development priorities.

You're starting to sound like one of our prev resident experts who ended up banned for being obtuse and argumentative.

High mach speed is not the priority design element for fighters and has not been for over 30 years.

 

[kato]

Most modern fighters barely get to Mach 1.6 or Mach 1.8.

Speed beyond that is really only interesting with "classic" interceptors, which haven't been built since the 70s.

 

[Ozzy Blizzard]

What matters most in the BVR regime are radar/missile combinations and EW/EWSP suites, not to the same extent flat out sprint speed. Of couse kinematic performance is still handy, but again top sprint speed in only on element, this includes acceleration which is dominated by T/W ratio & sustained cruise/ammount of time on burner which is determined by you engines and fuel load. But in any case kinematic performce is hardly dominant. When your engageing someone at 100km's what matters most is your ability to see, shoot & kill the enemy and diminish his ability to see you and communicate (not what your top sprint speed is) all of which are determined by your radar/missile combo & EW/EWSP suite. In the WVR regime sensor missile combinations are becoming just as dominant, with the introduction of HOBS heaters that have 360 dgree engagement envilopes, IIR seekers & in some cases TVC, coupled with IR sensors that provide 360 degree coverage will mean the WVR environment is a lethal one. Of cource that not to say that sprint speed is useless, all of the fighters designed in the last 15 years are supersonic, but as GF saidit is not a dominant consideration in fighter design & capability.

 

[KGB]

Might not the F-22 turn out to be another "HMS Dreadnought" ?

When it came out early in 1906, it outclassed everything and made obsolete every captial ship in the world. However it was widely criticized as a strategic failure, since at that time the Royal Navy was already the most powerful fleet in the world. The introduction of the dreadnought started a costly battleship arms race. Without the Dreadnought the RN might not have had to spend so much to maintain its naval superiority.

 

[Gryphon]

Dreadnoughts?

Didn't the battle of Jutland in 1916 prove that the British Navy had invested wisely in their fleet? There was a massive arms race between the Germans and the British, but to blame the arms race and resulting war on the construction of a ship, a nuclear weapon, or a fighter ignores history. Its a chicken or the egg argument, the weapon or national intentions or insecurities?

The fact is the F-22 was born of a requirement issued in 1981, and the first production bird entered service in 2003. The Brits produced a fleet of Dreadnoughts and Super Dreadnoughts in less than half the time the US produced their first squadron of F-22's. It takes far longer, longer than it should but this is our reality, to produce a viable weapons system today.

America's qualitative advantage over the Soviets won the Cold War, leveraging our technical skills won a war without a shot. We would be foolish to fritter a winning strategy away on baseless fears,

 

[swerve]

Didn't the battle of Jutland in 1916 prove that the British Navy had invested wisely in their fleet? There was a massive arms race between the Germans and the British, but to blame the arms race and resulting war on the construction of a ship, ...,

No, you've missed the point. Before HMS Dreadnought, the RN had an unassailable superiority, having by far the largest & best fleet in the world. But Dreadnought rendered that huge fleet obsolete, & made it possible for other countries to think they had a chance of matching the RN. Instead of having to build new ships fast enough to both outmatch British new shipbuilding and the existing RN fleet, they only had to surpass new British construction.

That gave an incentive to compete which previously wasn't there. Instead of having to concede the RN a 100 metre lead in a 200 metre race, you could start close to level pegging. According to the "Dreadnought started an arms race" theory, that is what triggered it. The Germans realised her significance at once, & immediately started building similar ships. Since the elements which made her superior to all other ships of the time were visible, they could be copied - and were.

Of course, the wish to match Britain at sea had to be present already. All the theory claims is that Dreadnought provided the means.

 

[Gryphon]

Missed Point

With respect, I understood the point but disagree. You clarified the point well, but I am not certain I agree with the 'Dreadnought' syndrome. I don't believe the German pre-WW1 German naval buildup was driven by the appearance of the HMS Dreadnought, it was driven by the Imperial aspirations of the Kaiser. The Dreadnought did indeed shape the direction of naval architecture, but the Germans would have simply made more, perhaps smaller ships. Many texts codify the "Dreadnought" as the default reason for the WW1 arms race, I just don't buy it.

The only similar situation in modern times would be the American Nimitz class aircraft carriers. Our Nimitz carriers are/were certainly as superior to any potential adversary's carrier fleet or lack thereof, as the Dreadnought was to the best of the German fleet then. Why does the analogy break down here?

Returning to air power, B-2 was/is the modern bomber 'Dreadnought' and nobody is jacking up their stealth bomber fleet in response.

 

[swerve]

I think your reply shows that you haven't yet fully grasped the point. I think you're looking at it from the wrong angle.

Neither of your analogies is a good fit. Nimitz didn't render all previous aircraft carriers useless. It was not so vastly superior to its USN predecessors as to render them impotent against it, or an equivalent ship, & that was the point of Dreadnought: not its superiority over German ships, but its superiority over the Royal Navys ships. And in any case, building a copy of Nimitz would not give you its power, since that depends also on its aircraft, its communications - a whole system.

The B-2 cannot be effectively copied by any knowledgeable person who's seen one, & came at a time when nobody was attempting to (or could afford to) compete with the USA in air power. Again, different in almost all ways.

Dreadnought was a peculiar phenomenon. Everything came together at once. Certainly the Kaiser was seeking an outlet for his Imperial ambitions, & would have built up his fleet whatever the RN did, but if he hadn't built dreadnoughts, the RN would not have needed to respond at the same rate, because his build-up would not have threatened its vast numerical superiority in older-type ships. Therefore, no race. Germany could compete, because it already had the technology & shipyards needed to build such ships, & its economy could sustain the building programme. All of these things had to be in place already for Dreadnought to be the trigger.

The last time there had been such a leap in warship capability, guess what happened? The RN immediately built more than any potential rival could possibly afford. No race, because there was nobody to race with. That was in the 1860s - HMS Warrior etc. In the 1900s, there was a capable rival, so there was a race.

You see? Dreadnought was not the sole cause of the pre-WW1 naval shipbuilding race, & nobody is claiming it was. The circumstances had to be right. But they were right, & so it triggered a race. It gave the Kaisers naval dreams a hope of being realised.

BTW, here's a thought experiment for you. Imagine the Germans had built the first dreadnought, then try to imagine what the RN would have done.

 

[Grand Danois]

A slight nuance. The wide perception (even in academia) that the UK was in an arms race with Germany is actually wrong. Or at least it requires some nuance.

The RN had to keep pace with the rapidly expanding navies of the US, Japan, France and Germany (& others) which led to the realization that the Two-Power Standard had to be discarded and a partner had to be found, to create a virtual Two-Power Standard. The Boer War also had a great influence on how UK came to the conclusion it could not stand alone, despite not being a naval war.

The natural and sought after partner at the time of the Dreadnought was actually Germany, though UK due to the twist and turns of history ended up in the Entente Cordiale.

So, RN was not in an arms race with Germany per se, but with a number of navies across the globe. This was the view and perception of the politicians and war planners of the time.

Nonetheless, many have come to the conclusion that Germany was the focus. I subscribe to that this is caused because UK ended up fighting the Germans - thus in hindsight, the German build-up was aggresive when seen with the spectacles of later times.

 

[Gryphon]

It was not so vastly superior to its USN predecessors as to render them impotent against it, or an equivalent ship, & that was the point of Dreadnought: not its superiority over German ships, but its superiority over the Royal Navys ships.

That is a decidedly different direction than I was taking it, if that is indeed the lesson of the 'Dreadnought' I have a history professor in need of a good slap. To expand the analogy for the original question then, it becomes ... The superiority of the F-22 over the F-15 will cause an arms race? this rather than ... The superiority of the F-22 over everybody else's fighters will cause an arms race?

That is a subtle, fine point.

Also, I did not mean to suggest the 'Dreadnought' was the sole, singular cause of the Pre-WW1 naval build up - of course it wasn't. Also, I don't believe my B-2 analogy is as far off as you suggest especially if measured on the new criteria mentioned above. I would say the B-2 was further ahead of the B-1 than the HMS Dreadnought was earlier RN battleships, even considering this:

"... it (HMS Dreadnought) would carry no less than twelve 12 inch guns - no other battleship (of the time) had more than four." Flawed Victory Jutland 1916, Keith Yates

The Soviets had already shown they could and would copy the B-1 with the B-1sky (Blackjack Tu-160). The B-2 appeared (1st flight 1989) before the Soviet Union collapsed (1991), they were still a viable threat, a potentially potent adversary with (at the time) seemingly endless resources.

True nobody could copy the B-2 and nobody could afford to try, isn't that the real point? The Soviets couldn't and nobody else could either, so the USA walks away with absolute superiority in Bombers until the B-2's technology is older than B-52's. Doesn't the F-22 offer the same advantages? Is any country even going to try to build a fighter in the Raptor's class?

 

[swerve]

Gryphon,

you're arguing about individual elements in a package all of which was necessary. I've said this a few times already, but I'll repeat it: for a new weapon to trigger an arms race, in the way in which it is argued Dreadnought did (& I agree with GD, it's more nuanced than the simplistic version of the theory has it), every element of the package has to be in place. Arguing that the theory is invalidated because at another time, one or two elements of the package were in place & no arms race was triggered doesn't invalidate the theory.

The USSR could & did match the B-1, but nobody was able to match the B-2, because the state which was able (with great effort) to match US military spending went away. The USSR was working on a possible counter to the F-22*, but collapsed. Since the collapse of the USSR there has been no other state or combination of states with the technology, the money, the willingness to spend the money, & the rivalry with the USA necessary for an arms race to be triggered, so it doesn't matter what the USA does, there will be no race. This differs from the situation in 1906, in which both Germany & the USA had the economic & technological ability, & (to differing degrees) the naval ambitions, to match the RN.

*Or at least, something it hoped would be greatly superior to the rest of the USAs fighter inventory.

 

[Sea Toby]

While they may be great for a while, eventually they will get old and retired. The question remains, since they cost as much as a warship to begin with, will the nation afford another 180 in another thirty years?

 

[Pro'forma]

Quote:gryphon

No-one copying superiority.
Advantages stays under that algebra. Maybe not purely maths, you shall
say thereinafter thought-provoking achievement.

Organic material and environment will require significant understanding,
dynamics to complex infrastructure.

Originality seldom is transferable.

 

[Gryphon]

swerve:
Arguing that the theory is invalidated because at another time, one or two elements of the package were in place & no arms race was triggered doesn't invalidate the theory.

Wasn't the question "if" the F-22 was about to become the current day Dreadnought? That's why I was applying modern weapons systems. No doubt the Dreadnought had a massive effect on the pre-WW1 naval race for dominance of the seas, no doubt at all - given. I don't see air forces scrambling to meet the Raptor on a qualitative measure.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Mod edit:

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The arguments back and forth about this have become entirely circular and are no longer providing the quality discussions we are seeking for this site, merely rehashing the same old ground.

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