Forum: Air Power

LWF wrote:

IFF is an unreliable system. Even though it's never been jammed, it sends out false signals, doesn't send the right ones, and an enemy could spoof it, making you think your enemy is your friend, or jam it making you think your friend is an enemy, and when you figure this out, you can't use BVR missiles anymore. And IFF can tell someone exactly where you are. Pilots don't even like using IFF because they know it's unreliable. The longest range that aerial combat can be conducted at is around optimal sidewinder range.

If IFF is unreliable, how do we explain away the THOUSANDS of sorties that go off without a hitch? People seem to latch onto one or two (or in this case a half dozen) situations and think they are proof positive something doesn't work, while not realizing (like I said above) the several hundred (or thousand) times that it did work. Some of the incidents we're discussing in this thread go all the way back to 1991- fourteen years ago. How many combat sorties around the world have we (and our allies using almost the exact same equipment) made in those 14 years, and we're saying because of two blackhawks, a couple patriots, and one or two other incidents the systems are crap? Don't think so. It is terrible that we've lost troops to our own guys, and I for one don't ever want to see it happen. The only way for that to be the case is to ship them all home and put them to work at walmart, because mistakes will happen in war.

As for BVR, why do you say we won't engage past sidewinder range? What happens when we go to war against a nation with a decent air force; our F/A-22's/F-15/F-16/F-35's/F/A-18's go in, knowing full well (at least in the beginning) anyone on the radar screen is going to be a bad guy, and starts tagging them 30-100 miles out (up to the max weapons range, whatever it is). Right off the bat, BVR missles have put a dent in the bad guys air force (anyone who thinks they'll all be buried next time is a fool in my opinion). Then, as the war rolls on, whatever wasn't killed in the first waves and ground strikes may try to fight. In that case, an F/A-22 that detects an aircraft taking off from a bad guys airbase 50 miles out can probably safely assume it isn't an F-16 taking off, and can pop them.

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In gulf war two the patriots locked up a tornado,f-16,and an f18 thinking they were tactical ballistic missile. the f-18 and the tornado where acutally shot down by the patriot.

The patriot also routinely picked up FALSE missile tracks. During allied force one of the biggest complaints was that the AWACs operators were not trained to us standards and made mistakes. It's because of similar incidents at the begining of Vietnam that led to the Roe concerning sparrows.

The history of IFF continuously shows that the sytems are not fullproof and that they can be defeated. Things like NTCR can help by they are not full proof either.

In the end I think that BVR shots will be taken but that they won't hit anything more than about 10-20% of the time.

cru wrote:

John Boyd was an instructor ther at the end of the Korean War (1953), so at leat by '53 the FWS at Nellis already existed

Yes, the USAF did have a fighter weapons school but, it did not teach dogfighting. It taught basically how to kill bombers or fighters at long range not fighters in a furball. The theory was missiles like the Sparrow would make dogfighting a part of history.

Teaching ACM as we know it, did not start until the Navy started Top Gun.

Adrian

Forum: Air Power

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