THE CASE FOR LONG-RANGE STRIKE: 21ST CENTURY SCENARIOS.

On Feb 9, 2:35 pm, frank wrote:
Put your comic books away. There hasn't been any air to air combat
with strategic bombers of any consequence since WWII. If there's any
probablity of offense, you send in tac air with the strike package. or
use standoff weapons. Much cheaper to build standoff than a goofy
ramjet FB-22.

Which has limited the strategic bombers to the reach of carrier air.

The USAF has become a bomb truck service for the USN.

It's gotten so bad that stealth strikes against active defenses
require Navy jammers or they just don't go into harm's way.

If The Force wants to go deep inside Russia and China and attack high
value fleeting targets then they need a new capability.

Otherwise the future of deep strike excludes the manned bomber.

-HJC

hcobb ha scritto:

So there is a gap in capability that the FB-22 would cover, but it
would not be a replacement for the missions currently covered by the
B-2s or B-1s. However the best mission for the Hustler II would be to
open the way for the big bombers with a hunt and destroy of air
defenses.

hm ?

As I understand the US conventional strategic bombing framework the B-2
has the role of SEAD, then the B-1 hit the major targets in the hostile
command chains (comm centers, HQ etc, and then came the "heavy punch" of
the good ol' B-52.
An excellent triad, I guess. A stealth bomber for the elimination of the
hostile's major sensors, a fast penetration bomber for disrupting the
nerve system of the enemy defense and the heavy payload carried by the
real workhorse of the bombing fleet.

In my very humble opinion in areonautical field there's no "one size
fits all"

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

*DISCLAIMER: I'm posting from sci.military.naval and I'm definitively
"black shoes"*

hcobb ha scritto:

Next generation integrated mobile air defenses.

High level terrorists.

Mobile cruise missile launchers with WMD warheads.

The targets the Hustler II hunts are mobile, low profile and high
value. The FB-22's sensors (being the next step past the B-2, F-22
and F-35) are as important as its weapons.

These are things you can't spot from space and you can't wait for an
ICBM to get to the last known GPS grid, but you probably do not want
to start a nuclear war over.

*ahem* you're now shifting the underlying logic from vectors to payloads....

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

hcobb ha scritto:
On Feb 9, 2:35 pm, frank wrote:
Put your comic books away. There hasn't been any air to air combat
with strategic bombers of any consequence since WWII. If there's any
probablity of offense, you send in tac air with the strike package. or
use standoff weapons. Much cheaper to build standoff than a goofy
ramjet FB-22.

Which has limited the strategic bombers to the reach of carrier air.

The USAF has become a bomb truck service for the USN.

*ahem* the B-52 *IS* a bomb truck; the role of the other two bombers is
paving the way for the truckload to be delivered....


If The Force wants to go deep inside Russia and China and attack high
value fleeting targets then they need a new capability.

Whose means the global thermonuclear war...

OK I have got the issue you have:

*STOP playing Fallout 3 NOW, please* :P

Dott. Piergiorgio.

On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:57:53 +0100, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote:

The targets the Hustler II hunts are mobile, low profile and high
value.

The original Hustler was still around when I was in the USAF. Delta
wing, four engines suspended below the wings in the usual fashion.
Supersonic. Had a big pod with fuel and the H-bomb. Good looking
plane. [Hard to believe the Concorde could carry enough fuel to cross
the Atlantic at mach two.] Both planes were predicated on ten cent jet
fuel. Oil was two bucks a barrel. Those days paperback books,
magazines, cigs, gas, six packs, were all a quarter. The consumer
price index has gone up a third as much as the above. Lying sacks of
****. Loaf of bread, quart of milk, a dime. I don't know what milk is
today, wife buys it, but its probably cheap since they have always
overproduced it. But I digress.

Casady

On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:02:34 +0100, "dott.Piergiorgio"
wrote:

The USAF has become a bomb truck service for the USN.

*ahem* the B-52 *IS* a bomb truck; the role of the other two bombers is
paving the way for the truckload to be delivered....

The main function of an air force is to deliver bombs and prevent the
enemy from doing so. There is gun spotting, the first military use of
planes, before they had either guns or bombs. Planes don't do
artillery spotting today, and there are the satellites for recon, but
there is no substitute for lots of bombers, and enough fighters to let
them do their job. Sometimes you can pretend to use the same planes
for both. That leads to BS like retiring the SLUF.[A-7] The A-10 has
eleven stations for bombs, to go with the gun. Get rid of it, with
it's gun that can easily kill a hundred tanks with one thousand round
ammo load. Rudel only carried ten rounds of 37mm, and he would get a
couple of tanks with them. Our Stuka II is an even hundred times
better, and they want to retire it. And the A-10s are paid for. A
proper fighter better not get in front of that gun. Don't they know
about old but good. Well sometimes. The sidewinder dates to the
fifties.

Casady

On Feb 10, 10:32 am, Ed Rasimus wrote:
Stealth operations don't require jammers. Larger packages might, but
not the stealth platforms.

When was the last stealth attack against active defenses made without
jammer support?

-HJC
Yeah, I could tell you, but then I'd have to shoot you so what good is
that?

hcobb wrote:
On Feb 10, 10:32 am, Ed Rasimus wrote:
Stealth operations don't require jammers. Larger packages might, but
not the stealth platforms.

When was the last stealth attack against active defenses made without
jammer support?

-HJC
Yeah, I could tell you, but then I'd have to shoot you so what good is
that?

In other words you don't have an intelligent answer. Ops normal for cobb.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

In message , Richard Casady
writes
That leads to BS like retiring the SLUF.[A-7]

One key reason the SLUF was retired was that it was short of
survivability if there was a significant threat. It could jettison
weapons (meaning, mission kill) and evade the first attack: then, it was
lower and slower and needed to light burner to get back up to... oh, no
afterburner.

Excellent aircraft if the air defences have been beaten down, but less
survivable than - say - a F-16. More haulage, but with PGMs that's
become less of an issue.

The A-10 has
eleven stations for bombs, to go with the gun. Get rid of it, with
it's gun that can easily kill a hundred tanks with one thousand round
ammo load.

You'll find that's really, really not likely. You get about ten bursts,
and you might get one tank per burst - assuming you've found real tanks,
assuming you're not shooting up already-wrecked hulks (a massive problem
in Iraq in 1991) and assuming the enemy isn't interfering with a
250-knot aircraft trundling in and out for repeated strafing passes.

(For reference, in 1982 over the Falklands, every single "second pass"
attack by RAF Harriers from 1 Squadron resulted in battle damage: from
relatively minor damage up to aircraft lost. The first pass tells them
where you are and makes them angry, the second one lets them shoot back)


Rudel only carried ten rounds of 37mm, and he would get a
couple of tanks with them.

Thirty rounds: each 37 had a fifteen-round magazine and they fired at
what was effectively a semi-automatic rate (about 160rpm cyclic).

Our Stuka II is an even hundred times
better, and they want to retire it. And the A-10s are paid for.

They're also elderly and short of energy, which makes them less
survivable against any significant threat. The A-10 is a classic case of
designing for today's problem: it was intended to stand up to
optically-aimed AAA and first-generation MANPADS, but the threat moved
on rapidly. Do not try to take A-10s for gun runs through an area
defended by something like a 2S6 or a SA-15 - you'll have a lot of "We
deeply regret..." letters to write.

A
proper fighter better not get in front of that gun.

Why would a proper fighter have any need to? And how would an A-10 ever
force one to?

Don't they know
about old but good.

Yes. "They" also know about old and "excellent for its day, but that was
a while ago".

Well sometimes. The sidewinder dates to the
fifties.

And the AIM-9A and AIM-9B were just short of useless for manoeuvring
combat against enemy fighters, even with no countermeasures at all: the
improvement process has gone on to the point that they're currently
flying with the AIM-9X. (What happens for the third iteration on from
there?)


--
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
-Thucydides


pauldotjdotadam[at]googlemail{dot}.com

On Feb 11, 2:41*pm, "Paul J. Adam" wrote:

They're also elderly and short of energy, which makes them less
survivable against any significant threat. The A-10 is a classic case of
designing for today's problem: it was intended to stand up to
optically-aimed AAA and first-generation MANPADS, but the threat moved
on rapidly.

A-10's weren't really survivable against Iraq in 1991. 144 were sent
and five were lost (another OA-10 was lost too) making it the Allied
airframe that was shot down the most in Desert Storm. 249 F-16's
deployed, and only three were lost. Oh, and the A-10 couldn't use its
gun for most of the war- USAF aircraft were for the most part ordered
to stay above 10k feet, because of the threat of Iraqi air defenses.
For a few days the USAF let up on that requirement, but extensive
losses of A-10's forced the USAF to put that requirement back in
place.

Chris Manteuffel