Posted on 04/04/2011 8:15:39 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
And if they are shielded from AESA radar, what amazing being is going to do that? These are essentially expendable UAVs, much like buzz bombs. They may be little more than a flying engine and fuel tank, actuator driven guidance, a 500 or 1000 lb bomb or a machine gun, a computer brain that operates only intermittently, etc. Simplicity itself.
With an air armada of thousands of aircraft flying at it, even an aircraft carrier group might have its defenses overwhelmed. Even if only 10% of 3000 aircraft get through, tens of billions of dollars of ships could be destroyed.
Such an armada could ravage a coastline or wipe out a major city.
For $150 million.
Example: Put a phased array radar in space and you can see everything. Without their operational satellite these things are useless.
This argument was made in the 60's where machines are more capable then humans. It didn't work then and will not work now.
Put it a different way. These things should be thought of as attack planes. were fighter planes and space controls the air. Without Fighters you have no attack planes. Without Attack planes your ground operations are weak.
Satellites are not the only way to do things. While the original buzz bombs just used fuel use estimates to get anywhere near their target, there are many ways to navigate that don’t use US controlled GPS.
In fact, because GPS is US controlled, lots of other countries have considered using other guidance systems. LORAN-C, while phased out in the US, still exists, but that is still quite high tech. They could even go a step down from that and just have a three point unmanned ground transponder system, if the UAV had a small calculator on board to plot triangulations at intervals.
And there are many levels below that. They only need the accuracy of a 1000lb bomb.
This is what HELPED kill Navla TacAir: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailhook_scandal
Let me get this straight. You don’t believe we should work for dominance of Air and space?
Pensacola is the home of Naval Aviation
For a truly great day, Visit the Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola. The old guys, the naval Aviators guide the fantastic tours and describe the wonderful real thing, the air planes.
Dominance is relative.
The Chinese have an ancient tale, called “The Dragon and the Rat”, in which a sickly, starving rat approaches a mighty dragon and challenges it to a fight. The dragon is both amused and scornful, and tells the rat of all the ways he could easily defeat him, as he is by far the most powerful creature on Earth.
Finally, after all his braggadocio, the dragon demands of the rat how it could possibly beat him. The rat quickly admits that by himself, he could not, but it has been a bad harvest, and all the rats are very hungry, so he summons forth his millions of relatives, who swarm the mighty dragon as a wave, and consume it until only bones remain.
This Chinese tale is a story of war, and they are fond of it.
Their current doctrine is not one of head on conflict with the US, but asymmetrical war. Right now this means efforts to shoulder other powers out of the area, and taking disputed island and ocean territory in a methodical manner. Numerically, their submarine fleet is about on a par with the USN, and though inferior, their intent is not force projection, but denial of access to the USN submarine and surface fleet, for which that fleet may be adequate.
Again, my point is that quality alone may leave us vulnerable.
In real war it has never proven to be the case. All wars has always won by quality of troops and equipment over sheer numbers. You can take this back to as far back into time as you like and it still holds true.
Hell, blame “Top Gun”. That movie did more to convince the brainless among the fighter jocks (and you know the type I am talking about) that they were elite macho little godlings than anything else I can think of.
As for the Bombcat, when I first heard the concept being bandied around (I think it was about 86), everyone laughed because they were all convinced that the strike-fighter concept was unworkable and the Hornet would soon be reworked into traditional fighter or attack squadrons, with dedicated variants, because the roles (and pilot mentalities) were just too different.
As one jock famously said “Yeah, sounds cool, but anyone driving one of those things is going to jettison his bombs the second the MiGs show up.”
So, like you said, they blew their chance. It’s too bad, really. As an air superiority fighter, the Hornet can’t compete, and as a Bombcat, the F-14 rigged the way you mention would have been beyond awesome.
I still don’t understand the reason why they retired the K-A6 though. They held onto the AE-6 until the Growler was ready, I saw one just a couple years ago at an Yokota AB airshow.
I only need to take it back to Korea. The Chinese would have won, and should have won, except for the “Korean haemorrhagic fever” (hantavirus) epidemic, that lethally decimated the Chinese side, and incapacitated far more.
As I said, it is a balance.
"Should have" isn't a win. Even know I couldn't disagree with you more.
Wars of attrition conducted by sheer numbers only continue until the other side has been worn down enough for other tactics to be used.
Another example would be the battle of Stalingrad, where the clearly superior German 6th Army was eventually encircled and overwhelmed by the greater numbers of Russians, most of whom had only small arms, if that. That defeat was the turning point, even though the Germans were far more effective in the defense, only to be again and again overwhelmed in the retreat by inferior quality, but far more numerous Russians.
Most importantly in that battle was how ill equipped the Germans were in fighting that battle in the winter and how superior the soviets were equipped in the winter.
The soviets were losing ever front until winter hit and changed the dynamics of the battlefield. If anything that battle proves my point which is superior equipment and training wins every time.
It also helps if your flanks aren't protected by ill-equipped, poorly trained and unmotivated Rumanian and Italian divisions...
Let’s just end it by my saying I could seriously dispute that. Let me cite ‘War on the Eastern Front’, by James Lucas.
Other than that, by best argument is that the Chinese military agrees with me. Whether quality alone can defeat them, well, time will tell.
Chinese I agree did agree with me but there has never been a battle that won with sheer numbers over quality and supply effectiveness. You can go all the way back to Romans, Greeks and all other times
Stalingrad numbers were 1.1 million vs .8 million which cannot be a massive number advantage no matter how you look at it.
The Chinese I agree with you that they do believe in numbers will win a battle. Doesn’t matter because there has never been a battle that won with sheer numbers over quality and supply effectiveness. You can go all the way back to Romans, Greeks and any other time.
UAV’s keep getting better and better and more and more capable. I think it is indisputable that they are going to be the weapon of the future - but I don’t think it’s a future that has arrived yet.
Yeap, I agree with that. They should be considered attack planes similar to attack helicopters and A-10’s. They have a long way to go
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