In message , Ed Rasimus
writes
On Sat, 6 Mar 2010 21:35:41 +0000, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
During the liveliest parts of 1972, USN Phantoms killed six NVAF MiGs
for every aircraft they lost to them, while the USAF managed a 2:1
ratio. (There are many factors in play for the difference, but it's
curious how smiting two enemy for every loss is considered
inadequate...)

The "liveliest parts of 1972 only involved late April to mid-October
and then two weeks in December. The ratios you quote were not at all
for the period in question. Yes, USN kill ratios were vastly higher
than USAF. But sorties in Pack VI, duration of exposure in the arena,
specialization of training, and (as you acknowledge) many factors were
at play.

And the US was always ahead on kills, even when fighting a politically
circumscribed conflict where the enemy was frequently allowed
untouchable bases and GCI. It's not clear that the F-4 was a disaster
for US military procurement, nor that buying "something else" (what?)
would have produced a better result.

Also strange is describing the F-104 as an "indescribable and dangerous
oddity" when it was the 1950s/1960s epitome of John Boyd's Light Weight
Fighter designed in response to user requests post-Korea: a pared-down
airframe optimised for speed, energy and agility, with useless wasteful
boondoggles like long-ranged radar, advanced countermeasures, or
sophisticated weapon-aiming systems left out to optimise the aircraft
for high-speed dogfighting.

Whoa. While Boyd's concept of a high/low mix, his vision of
specialization for a A/A and A/G team, and his E/M calculations were
all significant contributions to extend "light weight fighter" to the
F-104 is a reach.

Doesn't it fit many of his goals? Maximised energy, stripped of tedious
irrelevances like self-protection ECM, fast and agile with guns and
basic IR-AAMs.

And for sure Boyd would have *despised* that notably useless and
ineffective aircraft from Republic, the F-105 Thunderchief: Ed, can you
shed any light on how badly it performed and how hated it was by its
pilots?

The F-104 was the product of a period of fascination with Mach 2 and
expanding the envelope of performance. It was optimized for speed but
hardly for agility. It was extremely limited in first generation
versions as a weapon system in almost any mission beyond day VFR WVR
fighter.

But then, Boyd's acolytes seem to have considered that to be the goal.
Guided weapons and any other electronics were useless treason, good only
for funneling money from taxpayers to greedy contractors: the perfect
fighter had an engine, a gun, a pilot and as little else as possible.
(Wasn't a commercial Fuzzbuster assessed as being all the ECM a 'real
fighter' needed?)

Perhaps the USAF had no clear idea what it needed? The F-104 epitomised
most of Boyd's ideals, yet its limited combat service in US hands was
less than stellar. Similarly, the US operated the F-5, another austere,
cheap, agile fighter that should have delighted Boyd, yet chose not to
field it in large numbers at the frontline.

Actually the USAF never operated the F-5 as an operational system. The
F-5A assets were support for Foreign Military Sales training of
customer air forces. The Skoshi Tiger deployment was an Operational
Training & Evaluation exercise to determine suitabilty for a purchase
of operational airframes. The F-5E aggressors were training assets and
adoption of aircraft which had been destined for VNAF when the war
ended. No operational F-5s for the USAF.

I know I'm being a smartarse, but why not? Look at the roll rate of the
F-5 family (including the T-38), look at its small size and low cost,
see its successful utility as an Aggressor aircraft, why isn't it a
contender for a Boyd war-winner? It's got guns and Sidewinders and not
much else, it's cheap and agile and small, why isn't this an airframe
the USAF should procure by the thousand and send into frontline combat?

However, getting there involved breaking most of Boyd's rules.
Curiously, as late as "The Pentagon Paradox", Boyd's supporters were
bewailing the manner in which the F-16 and F-18 were "ruined" by putting
the "useless rubbish" back on them: the same useless equipment that
allowed them to be worldbeating combat aircraft rather than manned
target drones.

Actually Boyd was gone by the time the pounds for A/G were added to
the Eagles and the radar missile capability was fitted to Vipers.

I know, but it's amusing to read "The Pentagon Paradox" with the benefit
of hindsight. And Boyd was gone by the time that the F-15 and F-16
achieved most of their successes.

If there could be a real achievement of those Pentagon basement
warriors known as the Fighter Mafia it would be the conversion of the
USAF from a nuclear strike force and the incorporation of leadership
which could exploit tactical conventional forces rather than heavy
massed bombers.

On this I agree: I just read about the period in question, you were
wearing the uniform and flying combat missions at the time.


What's the "low" option for the US Army's armoured forces? They have a
very definite "high end" war-winner in the M1 Abrams, so where is the
"low end" tank?

Bradley.

By that argument the AC-130 is a "fighter". Armour and IFVs are
inherently different beasts, even if from a distance they're both metal
boxes on tracks with gun turrets. (Similarly, anyone who tries to call a
British Warrior, or Scimitar or Sabre CVR(T), a "tank" is just exposing
ignorance)

It's interesting that both the US and British Armies go high-end-only
for armour, while going for a high-low (or high-middle-low, or more
recently a bizarre flexible spectrum) for infantry units.

Actually it is more organizational than equipment. Building
divisions as Armor or Mech Infantry gives you a high/lo emphasis.

If you send tank-only units into battle they die, quickly and nastily.
The question becomes whether you support them with troops in IFVs that
can keep pace on a cross-country move and fight all the way, or whether
you use troops on foot or in light vehicles that can't fight beyond
self-defence but can keep pace with the tanks and carry the infantry's
kit and first-level supplies.

(Come on, Ed, you were an ALO, you picked some of this up...)

Many of these Chinese aircraft will have trouble flying to Taiwan, let
alone menacing any US interests less proximate. Unless the US plans to
invade China, then the swarms of elderly Chinese warplanes are prisoners
of their limited endurance.

The issue isn't one of defending the US from a swarm of enemy
aircraft. It is of responding after an unconventional attack such as a
limited nuclear missile strike or similar. It is of being able to
control airspace to support your offensive operational forces.

As long as the US has a global leadership role we will face a
probability of engaging in combat operations somewhere in the world.
That will require air dominance and force projection.

The cynic in me says the short-term answer to that problem is more and
better carrier battle groups, unless you can guarantee that you have
ready access to well-prepared airbases close to every credible threat.

The key, which will probably not happen, is to recognise that it's been
a quarter-century since work started on the Advanced Tactical Fighter
and that the next aircraft type needs to start work *now* to keep that
skillbase together and have a candidate ready to buy in 2020 (if
hurried) or 2030 (if no urgent issues arise).

But simply bleating "buy more F-22s!" reads as industry lobbying rather
than rational argument.

Only on Usenet does the detailed argument for more aircraft get
reduced to irrationality.

The key is exactly what you say. It takes time to develop and tool up
for a modern aircraft. The existing flight is obsolescent. The
Raptor/JSF are available as immediate replacements and the next-gen is
over-the-horizon.

The bleating is about filling the gaps for 25 years with 1980s
airplanes like 15/16/18s even in the latest blocks.

Even the US can't afford the F-22 in numbers (I said years ago that
while the F-22 was individually superior to the Typhoon, that even the
US would end up with fewer Raptors than we're getting Typhoons...) The
F-35 is also escalating in cost at a worrying rate, which is a concern
in the UK since we're also intending to rely on it. This isn't
catastrophic for the expeditionary-warfare case since the limit always
is "where can we base them?" and even the UK has run out of ramp space
before running out of full-capability airframes in the last decade or
two.

One suggestion is to "develop a new next-generation aircraft at a
sensible price". But I recall that the "Advanced Tactical Fighter" was
absolutely, definitely, guaranteed to come in at less than fifty million
dollars per airframe so it could replace F-15s on something approaching
a one-for-one exchange. Easy to say, harder to do. (I'll make the effort
as project manager, on a consultancy basis, if you give me a waiver for
the NOFORN issues, but I can't *guarantee* success)

There is no spare cash lying around in the UK for new defence projects
and I'd hazard that the US is not too different. Is the US at a real
risk of losing air superiority over the battlespace of its choosing in
the next decade? If not, then perhaps the priority for limited funding
is to get the next-generation aircraft started *now* and maintaining the
cadre of experienced pilots and ground crews for operations, and the
industrial base while some experienced hands can be kept. It's a risk:
we take enough of them already that either one more is no big deal or
else someone needs to persuade voters to pay to cover it.






--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam