US Air Force: Discussion and News

I start to suspect that this is bad servicing due to lack of funds.

Hannibal Barca wrote:I start to suspect that this is bad servicing due to lack of funds.

The irony! 

Anyway, that could be it, that or just some bad piloting...

Mike E wrote:

Hannibal Barca wrote:I start to suspect that this is bad servicing due to lack of funds.

The irony! 

Anyway, that could be it, that or just some bad piloting...

It is said that a number of recent accidents in the U.S. was caused due to the mistakes of the pilots. And as far as I know, some opinions claimed that the training and number of flying for U.S. pilots was not sufficient or was decreasing.

Therefore I stills supects it have something to do with budget cutting.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/russia-is-deploying-its-fastest-interceptors-to-the-arc-1647183496/+pgeorge

America is relying much on its supposed -it does not mean it is the reality- superiority regarding air to air missiles, and especially AMRAAM. It is usefull to mention tha during air war above the Iraq's sky, it is interresting to notice -between 1992 and 2002, the no fly zone- that several F-15, F-14, F-16 and F-18 were engaged against the old Iraqis Mig-25 PD. Several air to air shot with amraam reached a Mig 25 in 1992 causing its destruction, this was swaggered by US Media as huge victory.



However, they forgot to mention :
1-US used to engage at least 5 fighters -if not 7 or 8, reaching often 10- against 1.
2-After several missiles amraam launched, it would be infortunate to miss all the target. If so, the AMRAAM is useless. But the next will give you more interrestings stories.

In other incidents, occured between 1998-2002, few Iraqi Mig-25 penetrated deeply inside Jordan, and inside Saudi Arabia terroritory. US launched several fighters F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18 and launched several dozens of AMRAAM but all missed the iraqi Mig-25 -See Acig.org for more informations-.
This events prove several things.

1- First fo all, the US doctrin about the air battle relying on BVR does not work -as it was the case in the past-, if US are not in situation of outnumbering their ennemies. It does not work against old iraqi Mig-25, what about against the more modern Mig-31 ?
2- As we've seen before, the stealth technology concept, did not work in the past, and does not work nowadays, and won't work in the future.
3- With the new russian-chinese hardwares now, and in the near future, the west will loose definitly its supposed suprematy.
4- The future air combats will still last in dogfight, regarding this feature, Russia with its Mig-31, Mig-35, and SU--35 does not have to be afraid by any western fighters, whatever F-22, Typhoon -maybe the best western fighters-, Rafale, F-15, F-18, F-16 etc.. No use to tell more about the JSF, aka F-35.

The two key features of the F-22 are stealth and supercruising.

Stealth means that it can fly high without the risk of detection at long range, and supercruising means maximum distance covering at minimal fuel consumption. It also adds speed to any weapon it launches and means any weapon fired at it has to literally climb a hill to get there... which reduces the weapons energy level for the terminal attack phase.

Over the Arctic however the F-22 will be facing a lot of problems... for example though it flys high and fast routinely, it doesn't fly as fast as a MiG-31 on interception duty which can fly at mach 2.4 all the way out and all the way back and at similar or greater heights than the F-22 so it no longer has the high ground advantage.

A few years ago the arctic was empty so it would have been MiG vs F-22, but now that troops are being stationed north and the radar gaps are being steadily... indeed rapidly filled, the chances for the F-22 are degrading rapidly.

One of the MiG-31s little tricks is to link radars and fly in a huge formation with each aircraft 150-200km apart. With the old setup the could link 4 aircraft and scan a front of 1,000km of air space... I would expect that capability has been enhanced and improved... with 4 or more radars linked the design of the F-22 which redirects radar beams striking its surface away from the original source in other directions might lead to one aircraft painting the target with its radar, but the energy is redirected and picked up by another aircraft that is linked and just listening... which should also work for other stealthy objects including the B-2 and any stealthy weapons or UCAVs.

With the support of ground radar and each other I think the MiG-31s shouldn't have too much to worry about the F-22s... they would need external tanks to operate over the arctic anyway, and operating from Canadian bases just makes those bases targets for the first SLBMs.

nemrod wrote:
1- First fo all, the US doctrin about the air battle relying on BVR does not work -as it was the case in the past-, if US are not in situation of outnumbering their ennemies. It does not work against old iraqi Mig-25, what about against the more modern Mig-31 ?

Let me use the 1990-91 Gulf war analogy. The US M1 Abrams tank scored more hits against the Iraqi T-72s. But that was primarily because the Iraqi T-72s did not have night fighting capabilities. The US Army did not carry out much attack during daytime. They used the cover of the night to fight the Iraqi tanks. So, it was not that the M1 Abrams was a better tank. It's just that the Americans used better tactics. Just like Iraqi insurgents used better tactics to blow away M2 Abrams during the 2nd Gulf War using just IEDs.

The same analogy applies for air-to-air combat. The Americans may choose to shoot down fighter aircraft of Iraq, Libya or any Afro-Asian country with their BVR missiles but against Russia they will not be that successful, primarily because Russia always had a BVR philosophy.

Domestic version of the MiG-31 has a service ceiling of 69,000 ft compared to the 65,000 ft service ceiling of the F-22. Therefore, during the opening phase of an engagement the MiG-31 will fire 3 to 4 round of BVR missile at the F-22, forcing the F-22 to jam, decoy and/or outmanoeuvre these 3-4 BVR missiles.

The onus is therefore on the F-22 to escape a [combined] kill probability of 75%-80% and fire at least two AIM-120D at the MiG-31 which by that time has already reached an altitude higher than the F-22 and is capable of jamming the AIM-120D with it's DRFM.

This is interesting, that AMRAAM have such difficulties with old MiG-25PD fighter. MiG-31 and Sukhois now have far more modern ECM equipment, specially in Sorbtsiya or SAP-518 ECM pods. I wonder if MiG-31BM could carry ECM pod like Talisman, which have MAWS sensor build inside and protect plane against missiles with ARH like AMRAAM or Meteor.

MiG-31BM is equipped with data link complex, which connect it with other MiGs in group as well as with A-50 AWACS and ground command post. With building radar network with big OTH radars, long range VHF radars, usual EW radars and ELINT posts and to station in region 4 A-50 AWACS planes to ensure constant presence, than F-22 and F-35 could very difficultly make a surprise to MiGs in the air. ECM pods will protect MiG against AMRAAMs and give a chance to launch R-33S or R-77 missiles on them. It will be smart for MiG crew not to come to close to F-22 as MiG-31 is not good for dogfight. I would say IR version of R-77 or R-27 would be the most suitable weapon for MiG-31BM against F-22 or F-35.

ATošić wrote:
...Let me use the 1990-91 Gulf war analogy. The US M1 Abrams tank scored more hits against the Iraqi T-72s. But that was primarily because the Iraqi T-72s did not have night fighting capabilities. The US Army did not carry out much attack during daytime. They used the cover of the night to fight the Iraqi tanks. So, it was not that the M1 Abrams was a  better tank. It's just that the Americans used better tactics. Just like Iraqi insurgents used better tactics to blow away M2 Abrams during the 2nd Gulf War using just IEDs.

The same analogy applies for air-to-air combat. The Americans may choose to shoot down fighter aircraft of Iraq, Libya or  any Afro-Asian country  with their BVR missiles but against Russia they will not be that successful, primarily because Russia always had a BVR philosophy.  

About 1990-1991 war I have not enough accurate informations about what's happened exactly.
First of all, the war was mostly aerial, than ground.
They -american's hype- told us about so-called ground battle in Kuwait, and asserted about a -supposed- easy air domination above iraqi's sky. The reality -i will post the link about a troubling document about the war in iraq- seems to be more nuanced. At first there was no real battle in Kuwait, as most of iraqi army retreated before US coalition launched ground assault.  
Secundly, they claimed having near immediatly the total control of the iraqi's sky. The reality, america's air campaign lasted nearly 45 days, untill this date, iraqi fighters continued to fly, in spite of US coaltion's domination. US have 10 more times more aircrafts than iraqis. Moreover, during this time, when US swaggered that their fighters downed easily about 40 iraqi aircrafts, during this time, it is important to mention that more than 150 iraqi aircrafts fled to Iran. Including the very agile, that could easily evade any US air air missiles the .....IL-76, and the icing on the cake the two iraqi awacs IL-76 Adnan. I've heard about friends that did war among US coalition, US lost several dozens of F-16, more than 30, adding to the official figures given by DOD, US coalition seems to have lost more than 70 aircrafts -untill now, I did not find any Internet link relating this losses-. Obviously, US will deny, nevertheless, if we backed to the air war of Vietnam, we saw exactly the same situation. If, indeed many iraqi Mig-23-25-29 were lost, but at what price ? 800 air air missiles to shoot down 20 aircrafts ? In other side, US coaltion lost at least 40-50, including a B-52, and several F-111 ?
What I mean, about Desert Storm we know nothing, other than the lies given by DOD,  and we are not ready to know something in near future. Nevertheless if a think is sure, the US casualitities seems to be far higher than they admit.

Back to our initial subject, Iam near sure that Russia does not need the very expensive and cumbersome Su-Pak T-50. Because nowadays SU-27 familly, and Mig-29 familly are enough, and could easily inflict huge losses to any US adventures. If, indeed the F-22 have supercruise -as mentionned by Garry- feature, do not forget that this US fighter is far to be the only one to have this feature, let's mention the Mig-35, Rafale, Typhoon, and SU-35.
Moreover, the F-22 has a special feature, the vector thrust engine, yes this aircraft has vector thrust engine, but, the Mig-35, and SU-35 too. It is usefull to mention that these sophisticated engine, if indeed, are very usefull for the aircraft in combat adding in manoevrabilty, they are nevertheless too much fragile, and hence less availlable.
About the 187 F-22 with their sophisticated avionics, and engines, you can clearly say that in the best case no more 90 are ready for combat, after few days of intensive air war, this number will dramatically drop, and US will still rely on 4th generation aircrafts -as Russia, and China- like the F-15, F-16, F-18.
All this hype about the so-called superiority of the F-22 is mere intox. Now, there is a new dramatic setting  that modiffy all US calculus.
US is lack money. Dollar worth nothing, hence, they could not feed their war machine as before. Their only strong point is to outnumber, and now the danger is they could not.

nemrod wrote:


S . I've heard about friends that did war among US coalition, US lost several dozens of F-16, more than 30, adding to the official figures given by DOD, US coalition seems to have lost more than 70 aircrafts -untill now, I did not find any Internet link relating this losses-. Obviously, US will deny, nevertheless, if we backed to the air war of Vietnam, we saw exactly the same situation. If, indeed many iraqi Mig-23-25-29 were lost, but at what price ? 800 air air missiles to shoot down 20 aircrafts ? In other side, US coaltion lost at least 40-50, including a B-52, and several F-111 ?
What I mean, about Desert Storm we know nothing, other than the lies given by DOD,  and we are not ready to know something in near future. Nevertheless if a think is sure, the US casualitities seems to be far higher than they admit.

Back to our initial subject, Iam near sure that Russia does not need the very expensive and cumbersome Su-Pak T-50. Because nowadays SU-27 familly, and Mig-29 familly are enough, and could easily inflict huge losses to any US adventures.

this is without mentioning Rotary Aircraft losses endured.

the U.S and coalition lost rather a lot of F-16's and F-18's against ...again.."obsolete" ZSU-23-4 platforms. not all iraqi crew where stupid to leave their radars on for EW aircraft to find them before strike craft actually could be heard or seen. then activated and shot the shit out of both A-10's, Supercobra's, Apache's and F-16/F18's when they came into visual range.

i remember this one vid from liveleak:"A-10 saves downed airman". it was bullshit really, his buddy got blown out the sky when it got turned to swiss cheese and his wingman was just evading incomming fire from an ZSU-23-4 while still getting hit in the process. still, granted...the surviving A-10 was a tough piece of flying armour tough. it understripes a bit of the NATO reliance on high-tech warfare and their vulnerability as soon you pass that outer shell.

and, ...to show how american night vision warfare is not perfect either. some might know the story of the iraqi commander that drove his T-72's in cover and ordered then his T-72's to mingle with the advancing M1's . the american crew...or optics or both...where not enough to prevent some serious blue-on-blue fire.

that part of the movie where this with Denzel washington is just one little bit of the truth. it was not one M1 that got blown up in the confusion but they shot at least 5 M1's to shit themselves before realising what was going on. after that, the standard procedure got addopted that if you where not 100% sure you call in an mortar/artillery IR round on target. with night optics that works like an area-wide flashlight and makes things see clear as it would in daylight.

this all points a bit to what i always said here, that NATO/US cant get it trough their thick skulls that the other side just might be ahead of them with thinking and practical technology and that "next gen" warfare is all but holy on the reality of the battlefield.

granted...the surviving A-10 was a tough piece of flying armour tough.

The huge irony is that every time there is mention of saving some money by cancelling a program they look at the A-10 first while ignoring the white elephant that they might try to replace it with (F35).

Airbornewolf wrote:
...the reality of the battlefield.

Battlefield ? Well, let's talk about a little bit about it. Here is a documentary about a part -I say a part, we won't never know what's really happenned- of what's happened in Kuwait.


Untill now, I used to believe that there was a great ground battle in Kuwait, and I used to believe that US easily erased the very old fashionned iraqi army with their modern hardware as AH-64, A-10, F-15 E, M1-Abrams. Sergent Marrocco Omari confirmed what I suspected, there was no battle in Kuwait, iraqi army withdrew from Kuwait before the so-called US invasion of Kuwait.

Airbornewolf wrote:

this is without mentioning Rotary Aircraft losses endured.

the U.S and coalition lost rather a lot of F-16's and F-18's against ...again.."obsolete" ZSU-23-4 platforms. not all iraqi crew where stupid to leave their radars on for EW aircraft to find them before strike craft actually could be heard or seen. then activated and shot the shit out of both A-10's, Supercobra's, Apache's and F-16/F18's when they came into visual range.

i remember this one vid from liveleak:"A-10 saves downed airman". it was bullshit really, his buddy got blown out the sky when it got turned to swiss cheese and his wingman was just evading incomming fire from an ZSU-23-4  while still getting hit in the process. still, granted...the surviving A-10 was a tough piece of flying armour tough. it understripes a bit of the NATO reliance on high-tech warfare and their vulnerability as soon you pass that outer shell.

Not all du the ZSU-23-4, but most of the US losses were in air to air combat. And the so-called obscolescence of ZSU-23-4 is asserted only by western pseudo-specialists, often paid by either the US military complex, or even by US governement.

Airbornewolf wrote:
....that part of the movie where this with Denzel washington...

Is it a metaphore ? Indeed, most of what asserted DOD is a mere film, even their so-called state of the art weaponneries starting with their filthy stealth fighters and bombers.

Airbornewolf wrote:
and, ...to show how american night vision warfare is not perfect either. some might know the story of the iraqi commander that drove his T-72's in cover and ordered then his T-72's to mingle with the advancing M1's . the american crew...or optics or both...where not enough to prevent some serious blue-on-blue fire.
.... is just one little bit of the truth. it was not one M1 that got blown up in the confusion but they shot at least 5 M1's to shit themselves before realising what was going on...

What is perfect with US hardware ? Have they already produced something like this ? Most of the perfection is due the hype's miracle in order to convince the poor dudes like me, what I was before.

My feelings about what's happenned in -it would be the same for air war in Serbia- Desert Storm -waiting confirmation-.

The first stage of war, US undertook massive air bombing on Iraq, however with mixed results. If, indeed US coalition dominated the sky above Iraq, nevertheless, the bombings campaign was not enough accurate to have a total dominance of the sky of Iraq defended by the very efficient soviet-russian weapons. Because most of this bombing campaign was either due to cruise missiles, or high altitude bombing with zero accurate -they even used B-52-. Worse, many and the best of Iraq aircrafts withdrew into Iran -even iraqi Il 76, and their awacs -, meanwhile US coalition claimed -falsely- that they had the total dominance above Iraq.
Iraq army evacuated all its ground force from Kuwait, and most of its best fighters bombers found harbour into Iran. US waged air campaign, untill the total retreat from Iraq's army from Kuwait. If the iraqi staf and army wanted to resist -as it was the case in Serbia-, the head or the leaders of Iraq choose to negociate, and choose to make confidence to US. Once US was sure that they could not meet resistance they invaded Kuwait, but stopped just in front of Iraq's borders. Avoiding iraqi army inside Iraq.

Even with this devasting assault from US coalition, Iraq had good asset to inflict a severe blows to US coaltion, and it seems to have occured, but no enough to allow to Saddam to negociate in good position against US.

Back to our subject. As I've said,  Iam near sure as Russia is far to be Iraq, or Serbia, none US fighters nowadays could match with the very modern Mig-35, SU-35, and even Mig-31. No use to rely on F-22, and even less the F-35. The only thing that could save US is precisly maybe the british Typhoon, or french Rafale.

http://www.migflug.com/jetflights/united-states-air-force-looking-to-turn-on-to-supersonic-mercenaries.html

http://news.yahoo.com/stressed-shrinking-air-force-needs-more-funding-u-202313912--business.html

andalusia wrote:http://news.yahoo.com/stressed-shrinking-air-force-needs-more-funding-u-202313912--business.html

It's been shrinking for a while now. 

With the transition to "5th-gen fighters" it will shrink to a smaller force of "more capable aircraft".

andalusia wrote:http://news.yahoo.com/stressed-shrinking-air-force-needs-more-funding-u-202313912--business.html

It is the consequence of economic depression. US air force, and US Navy will shrink more in the comming years, as it was the case during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Mike E wrote:

andalusia wrote:http://news.yahoo.com/stressed-shrinking-air-force-needs-more-funding-u-202313912--business.html

It's been shrinking for a while now. 

With the transition to "5th-gen fighters" it will shrink to a smaller force of "more capable aircraft".

You haven't seen shrinking yet, the U.S. aerospace industry is heavily reliant on Russian titanium, Boeing which is the 2nd largest defense contractor in the world for example is dependent on Russia for 40% of its titanium, so a titanium embargo would wreck untold havoc on the U.S. aerospace industry. It wouldn't stop the U.S. aerospace industry from obtaining titanium, but it would drive up prices for aircraft to astronomical levels.

Who cares about them?as long as s400 radar range is 1000km and theyr f22 aesa is just 150. By the way when tracking enemy radar waves emited the doppler efect can be use?

victor1985 wrote:....f-22 aesa is just 150....

Stay away from this tale. In a war, the F-22 could not survive against Mig-35, or SU-35. If Iran now could access to 100 or 150 SU-35, never US or anyone could attack this country. If Venezuela could build up 90 Mig-35, or SU-35 US won't be able to attack them. If Syria could access at least 100 Mig-35 neither F-22, or F-35, F-15, F-18 could threat this country. The F-22 is a mere tale done in order we were feared.

What are your views on following usa new missiles and how russia will counter them   :-

a) MALD b) JSOW c) HARM

max steel wrote: What are your views on following usa new missiles and how russia will counter them   :-

a) MALD b) JSOW c) HARM

They are guided munitions, no different than amy other. Air defense systems like Tor, Buk and such would counter that if detected. No different.

TOR, BUK, Pantsir-S1, and even Verba and Igla-S can engage those weapons, and the next generation missiles will be even more efficient at taking out such weapons in much larger volumes, like S-350 and S-400.

The latter two systems will also take out the launch platforms before they can launch.

sepheronx wrote:

max steel wrote: What are your views on following usa new missiles and how russia will counter them   :-

a) MALD b) JSOW c) HARM

They are guided munitions, no different than amy other. Air defense systems like Tor, Buk and such would counter that if detected. No different.

Are they hard to detect ?


Focusing on usa battleships . They use SM-6 sam which are guided by awacs . SM-6 can destroy any incoming missile at any height . Is there any way to defeat it ?

Focusing on usa battleships . They use SM-6 sam which are guided by awacs . SM-6 can destroy any incoming missile at any height . Is there any way to defeat it ?

There is no one thing you can do to defeat a modern system, but generally a combination of: Jam them, shoot down the AWACS aircraft and launch multiple very fast missiles against the vessel carrying the SAMs and of course a good modern SSN should work wonders where even an old french design has been shown to be useful... ie

http://sputniknews.com/news/20150306/1019130173.html

GarryB wrote:

Focusing on usa battleships . They use SM-6 sam which are guided by awacs . SM-6 can destroy any incoming missile at any height . Is there any way to defeat it ?

There is no one thing you can do to defeat a modern system, but generally a combination of: Jam them, shoot down the AWACS aircraft and launch multiple very fast missiles against the vessel carrying the SAMs and of course a good modern SSN should work wonders where even an old french design has been shown to be useful... ie

http://sputniknews.com/news/20150306/1019130173.html

yeah i shared the same link in other post . Believing you are safe is more important than actually being safe... in America ..explains the ABM systems in Europe too BTW.