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Internet bench racing of aircraft always focuses on "dogfighting". Dogfighting has no purpose in in winning the war. Striking the enemy ground targets witho

Internet bench racing of aircraft always focuses on "dogfighting". Dogfighting has no purpose in in winning the war. Striking the enemy ground targets without engaging in dogfights is successful. Do that and pretty soon there won't be any enemy fighters in the air to worry about. Modern combat is not at all the same thing as WWI/WWII "turn and burn" stuff or what gets depicted in Star Wars. "Turn and Burn" was already out of favor with US pilots in WWII. If the F-35 enters into a turn-and-burn in a 3-1 situation the pilot has already failed.. if he gets out of the situation alive he's getting chewed out. They have all kinds of training & procedures around different scenarios and those don't involve flying straight at the enemy and then getting into a turning match. We haven't seen the deployment of a drone which can threaten manned aircraft yet. That's going to be fascinating to watch. I'd envision "kamikaze" drones being the most feasible thing to be effective first. Basically much smarter missiles. A vision of a swarm of something that looks like a DJI phantom threatening fixed wing aircraft is pretty much fantasy right now though. Too slow, not enough weight capacity, range & loitering time & service ceiling too low, etc.. the only way I seem them being useful is 1000 of them in a dense cloud around a target.. like stationary mines in the sky hoping to be struck by attackers like a bird strike.

asdf21 8y ago
Drones + miniguns.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Machine guns on aircraft are like pistols to an infantryman. They're an emergency backup if you've used up your primary ammo or someone jumps you at close range. Modern aircraft cannons have an effective range of less than a mile; the Sidewinder, our standard short-range air-to-air missile, can hit at 22 miles.
stcredzero 8y ago
Modern combat is not at all the same thing as WWI/WWII "turn and burn" stuff..."Turn and Burn" was already out of favor with US pilots in WWII. In WWII, F4 Wildcat pilots soon learned not to get into turning contests with Mitsubishi Zeros. Instead, they maintained altitude and speed, using their advantage in a dive to execute "slashing" attacks. something that looks like a DJI phantom...the only way I seem them being useful is 1000 of them in a dense cloud around a target.. like stationary mines in the sky hoping to be struck by attackers like a bird strike. Those drones are plenty fast enough for tanks. Why not a tank equivalent of an aircraft carrier? The tank would act as a mobile charging station and command center. Most modern tanks could be severely disabled by a shaped charge placed directly onto the barrel of the main gun, or directly onto the tread mechanism. The machine guns and targeting systems are also quite vulnerable, the loss of which would also severely degrade the tank's combat power. Tanks have acquired countermeasure systems like Trophy, but those could be overwhelmed through saturation attacks and on current tanks, they are externally mounted and themselves vulnerable.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  They'd have to fly fully autonomously with just vision, which is pretty hard to do (though not impossible). It's not as easy as putting some explosives on a quadcopter and sending it out.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    They'd have to fly fully autonomously with just vision, which is pretty hard to do (though not impossible). If such a vehicle could operate without infantry support, it might be worth doing the R&D.
- pcarmichael 8y ago
  > Instead, they maintained altitude and speed, using their advantage in a dive to execute "slashing" attacks. Fun trivia that I read a while back: After getting hold of a zero, they discovered that the carburetor design would cause the engine to sputter on high speed dives. https://www.history.com/news/the-akutan-zero-how-a-captured-japanese-fighter-plane-helped-win-world-war-ii https://www.history.com/news/the-akutan-zero-how-a-captured-...
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    they discovered that the carburetor design would cause the engine to sputter on high speed dives Also, their controls could become sluggish at the right conditions near their top speeds.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Most modern tanks are vulnerable to shaped charges (and other effective penetrators) anywhere but the front and maybe turret sides, a fact exploited by smart submunitions that do top attacks, and can be delivered quickly over long ranges by artillery shells or rockets. This is probably much cheaper per charge and more tactically useful (one launcher covers a wider area with equal response time) than kamikaze quadcopter drones.
7952 8y ago
I wonder if a low cost bomber based on an airliner airframe would be useful. You could fire the super expensive rockets out of the belly, have space for a massive radar, and operate across continents without needing to refuel.
- adolph 8y ago
  Boeing has a design for you, the 747-based Cruise Missile Carrier Aircraft [1]. The marines are currently using the "Harvest Hawk" C-130 kit [2] which launches small close air support mission missiles from the cargo hold. Also, the Boeing P-8 Poseidon [3] is a 737 based Multimission Maritime Aircraft that can launch torpedoes as well as sonobuoys. See also the Kawasaki P1 launching a Maverick air to surface missile [4]. 1. https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-boeings-design-for-a-747-full-of-cruise-missiles-ma-1605150371 https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-boeings-design-for-a-7... 2. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/systems/harvest-hawk.htm https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/sys... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon 4. https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/1b5tyd/kawasaki_p1_maritime_patrol_aircraft_fires_agm65/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/1b5tyd/kawasa...
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  That's essentially what the B-52 is: an airliner-sized, subsonic jet bomber with a huge capacity and a long range. And apparently they're still in active service. (After 64 years!) The main downside that I can think of is that you really need air superiority to use them effectively, because they can't outfight, outmaneuver, or run away from any sort of enemy fighter. That's not a big deal against ISIS, but it's no good for prospective conflicts with China or Russia or whatever. Also, modern tactics tend more towards precision strikes rather than massive carpet bombing or, God forbid, nukes.
  - dba7dba 8y ago
    Pentagon is planning to keep B-52 in service for another 40(?) years. That's 100 years since it was first introduced. Grandkids of first pilots/mechanics who worked with B-52 will work on the same planes in year 2059.
squarefoot 8y ago
"I'd envision "kamikaze" drones being the most feasible thing to be effective first." Agreed, and that's what scares me the most. All drones "pilots" will safely return to their families, their families won't lose any loved ones, therefore they'll become even easier to brainwash into voting anyone who supports wars. Circle closed, war becomes a 24/7/365 business worldwide and if you happen to live in the wrong place you're pretty much screwed.
- openasocket 8y ago
  Interestingly, it could also have the opposite effect. Sure, it makes it less risky for your pilots when you escalate a conflict. But it also means that if there's some sort of border clash and a couple drones get shot down, it's not as big a deal because no one was actually killed. There's some more information here: https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/game-of-drones-what-experimental-wargames-reveal-about-drones-and-escalation/ https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/game-of-drones-what-experi... It's also important to note that in the last few decades very few US pilots have been shot down or killed, so switching to drones doesn't significantly change the equation. The majority of the dying is going to be from the infantry on the ground, which aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    See also this alt-history piece by Scott Alexander: http://web.archive.org/web/20160217174724/https://squid314.livejournal.com/338607.html http://web.archive.org/web/20160217174724/https://squid314.l... Put like this, it really makes you wonder if drone warfare is the worse alternative.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  > "kamikaze" drones and we're back to missiles. those are just missiles. next you'll invent MIRVs under the premise of saving on the cost of the "cruising" since targets tend to be clustered.
adolph 8y ago
Iirc "kamikaze" drones play a decisive final role in the novel "Ghost Fleet" [1], a fun book to read. 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22749719-ghost-fleet https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22749719-ghost-fleet
nabla9 8y ago
Medium-range air-to-air missles leave very little room for avoiding dogfight/furball. To get maximum range out of the missiles, the fighter must fly fast and high altitude towards the enemy. F-35 is not air superiority fighter, so it has no speed or acceleration to leave the chasing aircraft behind after it has launched the missiles.
- SEJeff 8y ago
  But F35s generally fly with F22s which is in fact an air superiority fighter. The F35 is often a "gun truck" for targets the F22 finds and annotates. In general, one of the things that sets the F22/F35 apart from most of the competition is their AESA phased array radar, which is allegedly the best in the world. It can find enemy aircraft long before they can find it. Also, it can allow the pilot to lock and fire missiles before the enemy is close enough to target it. The dogfighting days where men such as the Red Barron or Chuck Yaeger ruled the skies are pretty much done forever. Soon enough we'll have UCAVs which can do > 12G rolls and will win every single dogfight because turns that fast cause humans to simply lose consciousness.
  - wahern 8y ago
    The same argument is being used for the F-15X purchases, except the F-15s are the gun trucks and the F-35s provide protection. These aren't inconsistent arguments, but one wonders how far down the turtles go and how much we're willing to pay.
    - SEJeff 8y ago
      Sometimes the gun trucks are also other F35s however. The F35 has a “beast mode” where it is backing an unbelievable amount of firepower: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-beast-mode-new-video-proves-just-how-deadly-stealth-fighter-can-be-44162 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-beast-mode-new-v... I think I the balance is to use each platform for what it is amazing at and supplement the weaknesses with other platforms that are better in various areas. Combined forces hit the hardest, but the electronics / SIGINT packages in modern fighters truly does set them apart. After an F35 has expended all of its rockets it can still designate targets for other combatants to destroy. The sensor fusion going on (thanks to Moore’s law and smaller / faster compute) really is something.
nosuchthing 8y ago
I'd envision "kamikaze" drones being the most feasible thing to be effective first. Basically much smarter missiles. A vision of a swarm of something.. Reminds me of this foreboding demonstration of micro drone kamikaze assassinations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM
vladimirralev 8y ago
It's not so simple. Wide-area active-passive-rotation jammer drone swarms will disable any advantages of smart missiles, drones and stealth. You'll resort to dogfighting again. Furthermore, people always forget that in order for smart missiles to work you generally have to continuously shine a radio beam at your target for quite a while which kills any stealth advantage you have provided the adversary has the tech to detect it. And all of that is only in case you haven't already been hacked or spied on by other means. There were a few public talks on youtube from relevant engineers about other possible countermeasures but I can't find them now. But the summary is that while war planes take 20 years to build, most countermeasures can be coded and iterated in a week on some existing platform as new info becomes available. Usually in the form of coordinating a swarm in certain ways and synthesising radio signals for different purposes.

asdf21 8y ago

Drones + miniguns.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Machine guns on aircraft are like pistols to an infantryman. They're an emergency backup if you've used up your primary ammo or someone jumps you at close range. Modern aircraft cannons have an effective range of less than a mile; the Sidewinder, our standard short-range air-to-air missile, can hit at 22 miles.

stcredzero 8y ago

Modern combat is not at all the same thing as WWI/WWII "turn and burn" stuff..."Turn and Burn" was already out of favor with US pilots in WWII. In WWII, F4 Wildcat pilots soon learned not to get into turning contests with Mitsubishi Zeros. Instead, they maintained altitude and speed, using their advantage in a dive to execute "slashing" attacks. something that looks like a DJI phantom...the only way I seem them being useful is 1000 of them in a dense cloud around a target.. like stationary mines in the sky hoping to be struck by attackers like a bird strike. Those drones are plenty fast enough for tanks. Why not a tank equivalent of an aircraft carrier? The tank would act as a mobile charging station and command center. Most modern tanks could be severely disabled by a shaped charge placed directly onto the barrel of the main gun, or directly onto the tread mechanism. The machine guns and targeting systems are also quite vulnerable, the loss of which would also severely degrade the tank's combat power. Tanks have acquired countermeasure systems like Trophy, but those could be overwhelmed through saturation attacks and on current tanks, they are externally mounted and themselves vulnerable.

StavrosK 8y ago
They'd have to fly fully autonomously with just vision, which is pretty hard to do (though not impossible). It's not as easy as putting some explosives on a quadcopter and sending it out.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  They'd have to fly fully autonomously with just vision, which is pretty hard to do (though not impossible). If such a vehicle could operate without infantry support, it might be worth doing the R&D.
pcarmichael 8y ago
> Instead, they maintained altitude and speed, using their advantage in a dive to execute "slashing" attacks. Fun trivia that I read a while back: After getting hold of a zero, they discovered that the carburetor design would cause the engine to sputter on high speed dives. https://www.history.com/news/the-akutan-zero-how-a-captured-japanese-fighter-plane-helped-win-world-war-ii https://www.history.com/news/the-akutan-zero-how-a-captured-...
- stcredzero 8y ago
  they discovered that the carburetor design would cause the engine to sputter on high speed dives Also, their controls could become sluggish at the right conditions near their top speeds.
dragonwriter 8y ago
Most modern tanks are vulnerable to shaped charges (and other effective penetrators) anywhere but the front and maybe turret sides, a fact exploited by smart submunitions that do top attacks, and can be delivered quickly over long ranges by artillery shells or rockets. This is probably much cheaper per charge and more tactically useful (one launcher covers a wider area with equal response time) than kamikaze quadcopter drones.

7952 8y ago

I wonder if a low cost bomber based on an airliner airframe would be useful. You could fire the super expensive rockets out of the belly, have space for a massive radar, and operate across continents without needing to refuel.

adolph 8y ago
Boeing has a design for you, the 747-based Cruise Missile Carrier Aircraft [1]. The marines are currently using the "Harvest Hawk" C-130 kit [2] which launches small close air support mission missiles from the cargo hold. Also, the Boeing P-8 Poseidon [3] is a 737 based Multimission Maritime Aircraft that can launch torpedoes as well as sonobuoys. See also the Kawasaki P1 launching a Maverick air to surface missile [4]. 1. https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-boeings-design-for-a-747-full-of-cruise-missiles-ma-1605150371 https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-boeings-design-for-a-7... 2. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/systems/harvest-hawk.htm https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/sys... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon 4. https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/1b5tyd/kawasaki_p1_maritime_patrol_aircraft_fires_agm65/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/1b5tyd/kawasa...
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
That's essentially what the B-52 is: an airliner-sized, subsonic jet bomber with a huge capacity and a long range. And apparently they're still in active service. (After 64 years!) The main downside that I can think of is that you really need air superiority to use them effectively, because they can't outfight, outmaneuver, or run away from any sort of enemy fighter. That's not a big deal against ISIS, but it's no good for prospective conflicts with China or Russia or whatever. Also, modern tactics tend more towards precision strikes rather than massive carpet bombing or, God forbid, nukes.
- dba7dba 8y ago
  Pentagon is planning to keep B-52 in service for another 40(?) years. That's 100 years since it was first introduced. Grandkids of first pilots/mechanics who worked with B-52 will work on the same planes in year 2059.

squarefoot 8y ago

"I'd envision "kamikaze" drones being the most feasible thing to be effective first." Agreed, and that's what scares me the most. All drones "pilots" will safely return to their families, their families won't lose any loved ones, therefore they'll become even easier to brainwash into voting anyone who supports wars. Circle closed, war becomes a 24/7/365 business worldwide and if you happen to live in the wrong place you're pretty much screwed.

openasocket 8y ago
Interestingly, it could also have the opposite effect. Sure, it makes it less risky for your pilots when you escalate a conflict. But it also means that if there's some sort of border clash and a couple drones get shot down, it's not as big a deal because no one was actually killed. There's some more information here: https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/game-of-drones-what-experimental-wargames-reveal-about-drones-and-escalation/ https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/game-of-drones-what-experi... It's also important to note that in the last few decades very few US pilots have been shot down or killed, so switching to drones doesn't significantly change the equation. The majority of the dying is going to be from the infantry on the ground, which aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  See also this alt-history piece by Scott Alexander: http://web.archive.org/web/20160217174724/https://squid314.livejournal.com/338607.html http://web.archive.org/web/20160217174724/https://squid314.l... Put like this, it really makes you wonder if drone warfare is the worse alternative.
LoSboccacc 8y ago
> "kamikaze" drones and we're back to missiles. those are just missiles. next you'll invent MIRVs under the premise of saving on the cost of the "cruising" since targets tend to be clustered.

adolph 8y ago

Iirc "kamikaze" drones play a decisive final role in the novel "Ghost Fleet" [1], a fun book to read. 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22749719-ghost-fleet https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22749719-ghost-fleet

nabla9 8y ago

Medium-range air-to-air missles leave very little room for avoiding dogfight/furball. To get maximum range out of the missiles, the fighter must fly fast and high altitude towards the enemy. F-35 is not air superiority fighter, so it has no speed or acceleration to leave the chasing aircraft behind after it has launched the missiles.

SEJeff 8y ago
But F35s generally fly with F22s which is in fact an air superiority fighter. The F35 is often a "gun truck" for targets the F22 finds and annotates. In general, one of the things that sets the F22/F35 apart from most of the competition is their AESA phased array radar, which is allegedly the best in the world. It can find enemy aircraft long before they can find it. Also, it can allow the pilot to lock and fire missiles before the enemy is close enough to target it. The dogfighting days where men such as the Red Barron or Chuck Yaeger ruled the skies are pretty much done forever. Soon enough we'll have UCAVs which can do > 12G rolls and will win every single dogfight because turns that fast cause humans to simply lose consciousness.
- wahern 8y ago
  The same argument is being used for the F-15X purchases, except the F-15s are the gun trucks and the F-35s provide protection. These aren't inconsistent arguments, but one wonders how far down the turtles go and how much we're willing to pay.
  - SEJeff 8y ago
    Sometimes the gun trucks are also other F35s however. The F35 has a “beast mode” where it is backing an unbelievable amount of firepower: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-beast-mode-new-video-proves-just-how-deadly-stealth-fighter-can-be-44162 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-beast-mode-new-v... I think I the balance is to use each platform for what it is amazing at and supplement the weaknesses with other platforms that are better in various areas. Combined forces hit the hardest, but the electronics / SIGINT packages in modern fighters truly does set them apart. After an F35 has expended all of its rockets it can still designate targets for other combatants to destroy. The sensor fusion going on (thanks to Moore’s law and smaller / faster compute) really is something.

nosuchthing 8y ago

I'd envision "kamikaze" drones being the most feasible thing to be effective first. Basically much smarter missiles. A vision of a swarm of something.. Reminds me of this foreboding demonstration of micro drone kamikaze assassinations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM

vladimirralev 8y ago

It's not so simple. Wide-area active-passive-rotation jammer drone swarms will disable any advantages of smart missiles, drones and stealth. You'll resort to dogfighting again. Furthermore, people always forget that in order for smart missiles to work you generally have to continuously shine a radio beam at your target for quite a while which kills any stealth advantage you have provided the adversary has the tech to detect it. And all of that is only in case you haven't already been hacked or spied on by other means. There were a few public talks on youtube from relevant engineers about other possible countermeasures but I can't find them now. But the summary is that while war planes take 20 years to build, most countermeasures can be coded and iterated in a week on some existing platform as new info becomes available. Usually in the form of coordinating a swarm in certain ways and synthesising radio signals for different purposes.