This will smoke your shorts
http://www.softwar.net/xf117a.html
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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
http://www.softwar.net/xf117a.html
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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
Out of missles?
- Thread starter DC
- Start date
Brett Bellmore
New member
I don't know that he thinks they're cheaper than missles; It's just that he's used them all up bombing Asprin factories and empty "terrorist training camps".
swifter...
New member
well, jeeze, how d'you expect him to have a plausible reason for unconditional surrender to PRC and become "President for Life" if he doesn't waste all the missles first? Otherwise, some idiot with a mania for patriotism might shoot back and screw EVERYTHING up...
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Shoot carefully, swifter...
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Shoot carefully, swifter...
the program was cancelled when they cut military spending. so the reports are true. we will run out eventually. some military experts think that the F-117 that was downed went down because of a system failure and not an enemy missle because the wreckage shows the plane basically in one piece and a missle would have broken up the wreckage into many peices
Jason Kitta
New member
Well if we are going to pick up russian missles I vote for SS-19 shipwreaks (nato designation). 300 mile range, 2000lb warhead, mach 3 speed. Fired in a group apparently the missles datalink with each other. One of the missle flies higher than the rest giving its search radar greater range. The high missle then sends that targeting info to the lower following missles. Kind of makes our anti ship missle look a little weak.
Jeff Thomas
New member
This is one thing I find almost humorous about our (oops, I mean NATO's) involvement in the Balkans. Cost is no object, is it?
Of course, let us get into real defense of the U.S., and all of a sudden the cost, in dollars and lives, could become very dear. We are so foolish, I fear.
Of course, let us get into real defense of the U.S., and all of a sudden the cost, in dollars and lives, could become very dear. We are so foolish, I fear.
Well, two things:
1. yeah, we likely are running out of ALCMs, but thats likely not as big a deal as it might at first seem. The ALCM was created as a nuke cruise missle at first, with the 'bunker buster' option added on later. As such it is out of production, in favour of newer stuff.
This cruise missile is NOT the same thing as the Navy's Tomahawk, which does exactly the same thing (sea launched as opposed to air-launched), PLUS has many snazzy warhead options like submuntions delivery. This is important...it is a more flexible weapon. Plus, as far as I know, the T-hawk is VERY much still in production.
The worst thing an ALCM shortfall will do is spur on development of a replacement (a good thing) while moving cruise-missile duties over to the USN in the interim. Ideal? No, but not dire. The ALCM is NOT our only missile for this job, nor is it the best.
2. Cruise missiles, despite what the talking heads on TV and the Clinton administration will tell you, cannot do everything. If we plan to do more than blowing up things that do not move and are lightly defended (read: almost anything besides buildings, aircraft revettments, obvious staging areas and the like), you need to send in a pilot and a plane to take them out. So the Nighthawks, Lancers, Spirits and Eagles would be going in anyway. If anyone in the administration says otherwise, you know they're either 1. lying to you or 2. they don't mean business.
Mike
1. yeah, we likely are running out of ALCMs, but thats likely not as big a deal as it might at first seem. The ALCM was created as a nuke cruise missle at first, with the 'bunker buster' option added on later. As such it is out of production, in favour of newer stuff.
This cruise missile is NOT the same thing as the Navy's Tomahawk, which does exactly the same thing (sea launched as opposed to air-launched), PLUS has many snazzy warhead options like submuntions delivery. This is important...it is a more flexible weapon. Plus, as far as I know, the T-hawk is VERY much still in production.
The worst thing an ALCM shortfall will do is spur on development of a replacement (a good thing) while moving cruise-missile duties over to the USN in the interim. Ideal? No, but not dire. The ALCM is NOT our only missile for this job, nor is it the best.
2. Cruise missiles, despite what the talking heads on TV and the Clinton administration will tell you, cannot do everything. If we plan to do more than blowing up things that do not move and are lightly defended (read: almost anything besides buildings, aircraft revettments, obvious staging areas and the like), you need to send in a pilot and a plane to take them out. So the Nighthawks, Lancers, Spirits and Eagles would be going in anyway. If anyone in the administration says otherwise, you know they're either 1. lying to you or 2. they don't mean business.
Mike
Also,
our ASM missiles have always been shorter ranged and carried less of a warhead than the Russian's. This was due to our radically different naval strategy:
USA: use aircraft carriers with small planes as the offensive arm of the navy.
USSR: use land-based air and ship-launched missiles as the offensive arm of the navy.
As such, the russians placed HEAVY emphasis on big, heavy, long-ranged missiles. the USA placed emphasis on missiles that can be carried by 'small' aircraft. Russian missiles are monsters in every sense of the word...there only aircraft on our arsenal that could be modified to carry them would likley be the B-52, the B-2 and the B-1B.
So, on a missile-by-missile basis, yeah. our stuff seems feeble. But if you look at the 'big picture' the US system is FAR more flexible and capable.
Mike
our ASM missiles have always been shorter ranged and carried less of a warhead than the Russian's. This was due to our radically different naval strategy:
USA: use aircraft carriers with small planes as the offensive arm of the navy.
USSR: use land-based air and ship-launched missiles as the offensive arm of the navy.
As such, the russians placed HEAVY emphasis on big, heavy, long-ranged missiles. the USA placed emphasis on missiles that can be carried by 'small' aircraft. Russian missiles are monsters in every sense of the word...there only aircraft on our arsenal that could be modified to carry them would likley be the B-52, the B-2 and the B-1B.
So, on a missile-by-missile basis, yeah. our stuff seems feeble. But if you look at the 'big picture' the US system is FAR more flexible and capable.
Mike
Byron Quick
Staff In Memoriam
Just a comment on the downing of the F-117. Probability theory. If you throw enough steel into the air during an air raid sooner or later you are going to hit something even if you can't see it on radar.
Jason Kitta
New member
Coronarch,
My post about the ss-19s was somewhat tounge in cheek. I understand what you are talking about. As to aircraft carage, ss-19s are about the size of a fighter
The ALCM replacement was what the AGM -129 ?
Its a stealth cruise missle, but I don't know if it has a conventinal warhead or not [I think it does, as I thought that we fired a few at Sadam]
My post about the ss-19s was somewhat tounge in cheek. I understand what you are talking about. As to aircraft carage, ss-19s are about the size of a fighter
The ALCM replacement was what the AGM -129 ?
Its a stealth cruise missle, but I don't know if it has a conventinal warhead or not [I think it does, as I thought that we fired a few at Sadam]
Rob Pincus
New member
As of this evening I saw that the air force is asking for several million dollars and permission to revamped several (close to 100?) nuclear tipped cruise missles and turn them into regular missles. CNN reports taht their were only 150 "cruise missles" at the start of the Kosovo Crisis.
Revamping cruise missiles:
We might as well revamp them. The USAF would be asking for the loot to do it at some point, anyway. They're due to be axed under one of the nuke treaties unless they're converted to conventional use. Might as well get the money we have sunk into the missile and just swap out the warhead.
Of course, we can debate the relative benefits of blowing a bunch of these very expensive weapons on this 'crisis'...
Replacements for the ALCM:
Honestly? I can't recall. There were a number of possibilities, and without a copy of Janes on hand (dang those things are expensive!) I could not tell you. They were indeed working on a bunch of options and the Gulf War provided a useful live-fire exercise for a lot of them.
Just recall:
1. we have a lot of bombers with ALCM racks/rotary launchers...the USAF won't let them sit idle. SOMETHING will get put on them.
2. There ain't no way in **** that the USAF is going to let the USN get all the 'glory' of pimpslapping 3rd world dictators with cruise missiles. Interservice rivalry fairly demands an equivalent capability. (which in truth is a good thing...there ARE some regions of the world where the T-hawk launched from a ship cannot reach, and some times when its faster/easier to launch a strike from Kansas than it is to get a submarine or surface task force into position)
The Stealth:
Spartacus and I share an opinion on this. You hose off enough lead and someone will fly into it. the Serbs now claim they were tracking it (talk is cheap), which is also a possibility...consider:
Stealth technology does not make you invisible to radar...it merely makes you show up less well. _IF_ the pilot was flying VERY close to a REALLY good radar, they could pick him up. Since stealths are used to hit targets that other aircraft cannot reach, this fits.
Lets say you have a bridge that you don't want blown up. You park a REALLY good SAM/AAA system (or three) beside it. Something good enough to nail NATO planes and cruise missiles. You wait.
If I want to blow up that bridge, I have two options.
1. send in a flight of aircraft...a few jammers (EF-111 Ravens or EA-6B Prowlers), some 'wild weasels' (F-16s or F-15Es loaded out with a variety of weapons used to defeat your air defenses- HARMs which home on radar, rockeye cluster bombs to obliterate your thin-skinned SAM/AAA equipment, you name it), a fighter escort and finally a few strike aircraft laden with laser guided bombs. This will almost certianly blow up the bridge and the defenses in the area, but there is a decent chance that at least one aircraft will get nailed doing it. In this political environment? Unacceptable.
2. Send in one F-117A with a few laser guided bombs. The first indication of its presence would _likely_ be the bridge blowing up. Of course, thats a gamble. IF you turn on your radar at the right time (you can still hear these things, and on a clear night you might get lucky and see one), IF his course takes him really close to the SAM/AAA site, and IF his flight path is steady enough for you to get off a shot...you might just bag one. What was the terrain here? Flat. So, this guy was not hill hopping. Hmmm....
Also, since this plane would likley be going it alone, there is less of a chance that there would be a friendly plane nearby with a HARM to stuff the SAM/AAA radar. The Serbian operator could leave his radar on for longer without risk of being wiped out.
Until proven otherwise, though, I still think they got lucky with a stream of AAA fire. If you know something is coming in, just start hosing down the sky over the target. Bullets are cleap. You might just hit something.
Mike
We might as well revamp them. The USAF would be asking for the loot to do it at some point, anyway. They're due to be axed under one of the nuke treaties unless they're converted to conventional use. Might as well get the money we have sunk into the missile and just swap out the warhead.
Of course, we can debate the relative benefits of blowing a bunch of these very expensive weapons on this 'crisis'...
Replacements for the ALCM:
Honestly? I can't recall. There were a number of possibilities, and without a copy of Janes on hand (dang those things are expensive!) I could not tell you. They were indeed working on a bunch of options and the Gulf War provided a useful live-fire exercise for a lot of them.
Just recall:
1. we have a lot of bombers with ALCM racks/rotary launchers...the USAF won't let them sit idle. SOMETHING will get put on them.
2. There ain't no way in **** that the USAF is going to let the USN get all the 'glory' of pimpslapping 3rd world dictators with cruise missiles. Interservice rivalry fairly demands an equivalent capability.
(which in truth is a good thing...there ARE some regions of the world where the T-hawk launched from a ship cannot reach, and some times when its faster/easier to launch a strike from Kansas than it is to get a submarine or surface task force into position)The Stealth:
Spartacus and I share an opinion on this. You hose off enough lead and someone will fly into it. the Serbs now claim they were tracking it (talk is cheap), which is also a possibility...consider:
Stealth technology does not make you invisible to radar...it merely makes you show up less well. _IF_ the pilot was flying VERY close to a REALLY good radar, they could pick him up. Since stealths are used to hit targets that other aircraft cannot reach, this fits.
Lets say you have a bridge that you don't want blown up. You park a REALLY good SAM/AAA system (or three) beside it. Something good enough to nail NATO planes and cruise missiles. You wait.
If I want to blow up that bridge, I have two options.
1. send in a flight of aircraft...a few jammers (EF-111 Ravens or EA-6B Prowlers), some 'wild weasels' (F-16s or F-15Es loaded out with a variety of weapons used to defeat your air defenses- HARMs which home on radar, rockeye cluster bombs to obliterate your thin-skinned SAM/AAA equipment, you name it), a fighter escort and finally a few strike aircraft laden with laser guided bombs. This will almost certianly blow up the bridge and the defenses in the area, but there is a decent chance that at least one aircraft will get nailed doing it. In this political environment? Unacceptable.
2. Send in one F-117A with a few laser guided bombs. The first indication of its presence would _likely_ be the bridge blowing up. Of course, thats a gamble. IF you turn on your radar at the right time (you can still hear these things, and on a clear night you might get lucky and see one), IF his course takes him really close to the SAM/AAA site, and IF his flight path is steady enough for you to get off a shot...you might just bag one. What was the terrain here? Flat. So, this guy was not hill hopping. Hmmm....
Also, since this plane would likley be going it alone, there is less of a chance that there would be a friendly plane nearby with a HARM to stuff the SAM/AAA radar. The Serbian operator could leave his radar on for longer without risk of being wiped out.
Until proven otherwise, though, I still think they got lucky with a stream of AAA fire. If you know something is coming in, just start hosing down the sky over the target. Bullets are cleap. You might just hit something.
Mike
Sez Jason: As to aircraft carage, ss-19s are about the size of a fighter
So fit up a C-5 with a few JATO bottles and mount the ss-19s underwing...
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"Quemadmoeum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
(The sword does not kill; it is a tool in the hands of the killer.)
--Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD)
So fit up a C-5 with a few JATO bottles and mount the ss-19s underwing...
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"Quemadmoeum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
(The sword does not kill; it is a tool in the hands of the killer.)
--Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD)
More BS:
modern AAA (anti aircraft artillery...in other words, guns) is also radar guided, though I'm sure all of the systems would have an 'unguided'-fire mode. So the F-117a could have been locked up by a SAM site, a AAA site, or gotten hosed by a random stream of fire. 'Radar guided' doesn't mean missile-only. Got an emailed q about that.
Arguments abound about how it was dropped, but day by day mechanical failure seems to be less of an option...if that was the case, we would have already said something like:
"According to the pilot the wing just up and fell off his plane-" (don't laugh. this happened to a F-117 at the baltimore air show) "-and we checked out all of the other planes and they seem fine. So everything is cool."
So no...something nailed him.
Missile or gun? People commented on the 'bullet holes' in the fuselage and the realtively intact nature of the wreckage. This does lead one to believe gunfire...but don't count out missiles yet. SAMs and AAMs have proximity warheads...they often blow up VERY close to a plane and take out huge chunks of it, but not all the time. If they explode further away shrapnel from the explosion would look a lot like bullet holes and do roughly the same thing...make important stuff not work.
One way or the other, we're not gonna find out any time soon. Its _possible_ the serbs don't know themselves what hit it. No need to tell them what works.
Mike
modern AAA (anti aircraft artillery...in other words, guns) is also radar guided, though I'm sure all of the systems would have an 'unguided'-fire mode. So the F-117a could have been locked up by a SAM site, a AAA site, or gotten hosed by a random stream of fire. 'Radar guided' doesn't mean missile-only. Got an emailed q about that.
Arguments abound about how it was dropped, but day by day mechanical failure seems to be less of an option...if that was the case, we would have already said something like:
"According to the pilot the wing just up and fell off his plane-" (don't laugh. this happened to a F-117 at the baltimore air show) "-and we checked out all of the other planes and they seem fine. So everything is cool."
So no...something nailed him.
Missile or gun? People commented on the 'bullet holes' in the fuselage and the realtively intact nature of the wreckage. This does lead one to believe gunfire...but don't count out missiles yet. SAMs and AAMs have proximity warheads...they often blow up VERY close to a plane and take out huge chunks of it, but not all the time. If they explode further away shrapnel from the explosion would look a lot like bullet holes and do roughly the same thing...make important stuff not work.
One way or the other, we're not gonna find out any time soon. Its _possible_ the serbs don't know themselves what hit it. No need to tell them what works.
Mike
Rob Pincus
New member
Seemd to me that the Bullet hole that was shown on TV looked like an ENTRANCE int he top of the wing. I guess it is possible that the pilot was pulling a Top-Gun spin over Yugoslovia, or that he was snuck up on by a wiley Serbian pilot in a dive-bombing gun run from above... but it is also possible that the serbs shot the wing hours after it smashed into the ground after a mechanical failure.
Brett Bellmore
New member
Can't say that I've ever read Janes, but based on what I know of engineering electromagnetics, and having seen one of these stealth fighters, I'd say that they're NOT hard to spot on radar from ALL directions, but mainly from the front, back, and sides. They've got a nice flat belly which would probably show up clear as day to a beam coming in normal to it. Maybe the pilot just had the bad luck of being shot at from the wrong angle?
Yup yup yup to both.
Stealth works by taking the radar beam and making it bounce at the wrong angle...'wrong' from the POV of the radar receiver. Kinda like looking at a shaving mirror that is tilted funny...you don't see your face, or at least much of it. Add in the fact that most of the stuff in the plane is supposed to not give much of a return in the first place (plastics and composites vs. steel and aluminum) and then coated with that magic RAM stuff (Radar Absorbent Material) and the plane supposedly has the radar cross section of (read: it looks like) a sparrow, or some crap like that.
Right now anyone who knows anything technical about Stealth is probably having a conniption at the gross generalizations I've just made... And no, I do NOT know anything much beyond that. So the CIA can relax and stop trying to determine my whereabouts.
But yeah, if you're turned 'wrong' relative to the radar you WILL show up. So if he had just ended a bombing run and went into a bank or (also likely) knew he was under fire and thus evading wildly he may have offered a flat surface to the radar long enough to get tagged.
the plane is all facets and edges from all sides except the bottom in order to scatter radar returns...its expected to be flying low enough that it won't get hit by radar on the bottom. From on top it can get painted by airborn search radars (like the AWACS) or LDSD (look down shoot down) radars used by every decent fighter made in recent history, but again its all facets...so those beams get scattered, too, and hopefully the plane is lost in the ground return anyway.
So yeah, if he was maneuvering he might have been in a position to have 1. gotten a radar return off of him and 2. shot in a wierd place. Or that bullet hole could have been inflicted afterwards by the serbs. Or it could be from a piece of missile that went off over the wing. or it could be something else completely. Or heck. It could be we're confusing top and bottom....also, the twin tails on that aircraft are angled...could you have been seeing one of those surfaces?
I doubt there was an enemy aircraft involved. We have that area lit up like the infield at a Yankees game. Anything flying anywhere NEAR our strike planes would end up with more crap headed its way than the serb pilot could possibly handle.
Could be wrong, though. We'll probably never know. My money is still on a lucky hosedown from a serb gunner.
Mike
Stealth works by taking the radar beam and making it bounce at the wrong angle...'wrong' from the POV of the radar receiver. Kinda like looking at a shaving mirror that is tilted funny...you don't see your face, or at least much of it. Add in the fact that most of the stuff in the plane is supposed to not give much of a return in the first place (plastics and composites vs. steel and aluminum) and then coated with that magic RAM stuff (Radar Absorbent Material) and the plane supposedly has the radar cross section of (read: it looks like) a sparrow, or some crap like that.
Right now anyone who knows anything technical about Stealth is probably having a conniption at the gross generalizations I've just made...
And no, I do NOT know anything much beyond that. So the CIA can relax and stop trying to determine my whereabouts. But yeah, if you're turned 'wrong' relative to the radar you WILL show up. So if he had just ended a bombing run and went into a bank or (also likely) knew he was under fire and thus evading wildly he may have offered a flat surface to the radar long enough to get tagged.
the plane is all facets and edges from all sides except the bottom in order to scatter radar returns...its expected to be flying low enough that it won't get hit by radar on the bottom. From on top it can get painted by airborn search radars (like the AWACS) or LDSD (look down shoot down) radars used by every decent fighter made in recent history, but again its all facets...so those beams get scattered, too, and hopefully the plane is lost in the ground return anyway.
So yeah, if he was maneuvering he might have been in a position to have 1. gotten a radar return off of him and 2. shot in a wierd place. Or that bullet hole could have been inflicted afterwards by the serbs. Or it could be from a piece of missile that went off over the wing. or it could be something else completely. Or heck. It could be we're confusing top and bottom....also, the twin tails on that aircraft are angled...could you have been seeing one of those surfaces?
I doubt there was an enemy aircraft involved. We have that area lit up like the infield at a Yankees game. Anything flying anywhere NEAR our strike planes would end up with more crap headed its way than the serb pilot could possibly handle.
Could be wrong, though. We'll probably never know. My money is still on a lucky hosedown from a serb gunner.
Mike
And the latest (according to ABC news):
The F-117A was 'likely brought down by a SA-3 missile.'
Well, the SA-3 is older than I am, and it wasn't exactly considered good when it first came out. ABC is, it looks like, basing this on reports of SA-3 launches in the region of the crash. They also comment on the bullet holes in the fuselage and say that anti aircraft gunfire may be involved.
I'm still sticking with the lucky gunshot scenario. Just cause they were shooting missiles doesn't mean any hit...and the F-117A faced a LOT worse stuff than the SA-3 in downtown Baghdad, and all of them came home.
Still, stranger things have happened.
Mike
The F-117A was 'likely brought down by a SA-3 missile.'
Well, the SA-3 is older than I am, and it wasn't exactly considered good when it first came out. ABC is, it looks like, basing this on reports of SA-3 launches in the region of the crash. They also comment on the bullet holes in the fuselage and say that anti aircraft gunfire may be involved.
I'm still sticking with the lucky gunshot scenario. Just cause they were shooting missiles doesn't mean any hit...and the F-117A faced a LOT worse stuff than the SA-3 in downtown Baghdad, and all of them came home.
Still, stranger things have happened.
Mike
Jason Kitta
New member
Murphy and that Golden BB, what a wonderful combination. At least they got the pilot ok.
Jason
Jason