[Wim Libaers]

[NeonSamurai]

Ok well.. (bet ya can tell just from that that this post is gona be long)

As for the post on need for manuverability in modern aircraft when faced with modern missles, well it is actualy essential, because the only way your going to beat such a missle is to make it loose enough energy so it cant keep up (since jamming is useless as the missle will either home in on the jamming signal, or just burn through it (burning through jamming meens the missle gets close enough so its radar signal is stronger then the jamming signal). Also ir jammers and flares rarely work on modern IR missles).

So how do you force a missle to loose energy? Well remember 2 things, 1 all missle rocket moters have usualy burnt out long before it reached the target, that meens its gliding. your average rocket motor on most missles runs out of fuel in 5-20 seconds (Depending on type). 2 you need power and agility to quickly force the missle into a an intercept it cant make due to lack of energy, this meens forcing the missle to turn and climb to blead off even more energy. Also putting the missle on your beam (90/270 line) increases the chances that the missle will loose lock, and keeping it there forces it to burn even more of its very finite energy as it tries to keep its intercept course.

There never has been the perfect missle that never misses and always hits/kills, and likely never will. Currently a good pilot with a good plane, stands a very good chance of surviving most single missle shots.


As for "stealth" planes, well as other posters mentioned, there is no such thing, these planes are by no meens not the invisible killers cnn likes to portray. In daylight they can be visualy engaged (which is why the b2 and f117 never fly daylight missions). With the latest radar they can be tracked under the right circumstances, modern IR missles have no troubles tracking the vented exaust on the b2 and f117, and any modern radar missle which gets close enough will be able to lock on and hit them. The reason why more of them dont get shot down is the countries they are used against generaly dont have the very latest technology, and are hampered by poorly trained soldiers who handle what they do have. Even with not so new radar the 2 stealth bombers can be detected, which is why the pilots of these planes follow very carefully ploted paths to minimize radar reflections, also known as threading the needle.


As for the f-22 raptor, well there are some design flaws with it. First off there realy is little reason to want to have a stealthy fighter. Why? Well for one thing the 2 stealth bombers (f117 and b2) do not either carry or typicaly dont use radar when flying missons, they also dont need to (thanks to laser ground altimiters, flir and other technology). An interceptor fighter on the other hand does need to use radar if it realisticly wants to engage anything beyond 5km (which is typicaly the range of most IR missles). Currently AWACS and ground based radar are realy unable to provide accurate enough targeting (and rapid enough real time updates) to allow the F-22 to engage a target in bvr. So that meens they have to use their own internal radar, and by doing that they just threw their stealth "advantage" out the window. Nothing is a larger "here i am" sign then active radar. The moment you flick it on everyone in front of you is going to know that your there, and have a pretty good idea roughly were, you can also expect to soon have some of the latest AA missles homing in on your radar transmisions.

Plus to top it off the F-22 is only slightly stealthy, no where near as much as say the b2, or even f117. The stealth provided is suppost to allow it to get just with in bvr engagement range (about 15-20 km, which is about the outer envelope of the aim-120) before being detected, its stealth also near useless against most radar SAM's and non existant vs IR SAM platforms. It also has 2 large and rather hot super cruise engines, which meens it is just as vulnerable to ir detection and engagement as any other large 2 engine fighter. But to make matters even worse, due to the attempts to make it somewhat stealthy, they seriously sacrificed its maximum ordinance load, as all the oridinance has to be carried in internal weapons bays. which seriously limits what it can carry up (i think but dont quote me, it can carry a total of 6 aa missles, and no air to ground weapons, its a purpose built interceptor only).

So all in all this fighter design makes absolutly no sense to me, they would be far better off in my opinion removing the stealth features, putting the ordinance back on pylons (and thus increasing its ordinace load) and keeping the variable pitch engines and the rest of the technology.


As for the starting topic, im not expecialy worried about the squall missle, as was said by others, it a dumb fire weapon, exactly like a super high speed ww2 era torp. Its range is very very short compared to a us adcap torp (around 15% the max range of an adcap), and even shorter since you have to get close to have much chance of getting a hit. Even if the iranian subs can carry them, those subs would almost certainly get picked up and destroyed long before they with in suitable fireing range for that particular weapon. Now a stealthy passive sonar guided long range torpedo on the other hand is a definate threat to US carrier groups. A salvo of such torpedos could wreck havoc on a carrier group especialy if detected too late to deploy decoys and other countermeasures. Perhaps rather then decoys the US should consider reasearching miniure torpedoes to be used in an anti torpedo role, sort of like the missle defence missles used currently.

As for equiping a nuke on the squall, well i seriously doubt Iran is anywhere near far enough in its nuclear weapons program to make a nuke anywhere near small enough to fit it on a squall.

Lastly as for the Fajr-3, i some how doubt it performs quite as well as they claim. I learned a long time ago not to put any stock in claims of capability of a mentioned weapon from the country of origin. Lets just say its in their best interests to inflate effectiviness and bluff. They would certainly never be forthcoming on the actual results, successfull or not. No one ever lays their cards on the table during peace time.

Oh and dont get me started on CNN and their "experts" I could easily point to their old military expert (and expert in everything else in the universe) Wolf Blitzer (sp?). The man who consistantly got everything totaly wrong about every single piece of military hardware they ever discussed, ive dated women who have zero interest in military hardware that know more about the subject then that idiot.