F-16.net

Elite Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 964 Status: Offline

hansundfranz wrote:

Quote:

True, but imagine the F/A-22 with a Ramjet missile: It's supposed to launch supersonic anyway, the range on it would give reach out and touch someone a whole new meaning.

Yeah, a pity they don´t fit in the weapons bay

Says who?

F-16.net Sponsor

This message from our sponsor will disappear if you log on as a member.

Elite Joined: Dec 16, 2003 Posts: 797 Status: Offline

Salute!

Well, well............ and any questions as to whether the Raptor has a nukular capability?

1) HARM ain't a big deal for the Raptor. Almost same form factor as the Sparrow and Slammer. SFWE not that big a deal nowadays. And remember that we had HOJ Falcons in the 60's.

2) Bi-static is neat. Making it work ain't. Ask the PLSS troops about their system. They needed a Cray-clone to do the processing of all the emitters, and sorting stuff and acting upon it in a tactical situation was, well.......

3) You guys need to read Ben Rich's war story about the Have Blue model at Sandia. The troop told Lockheed that the Sandia system wasn't working because they could not see the model on their radar. A bird lands on the model and the Sandia guy says, "Wait, the system's working now".

I can guarantee you that we have a better handle on stealth technology than we did in 1980 or so.

I can also guarantee that if the bad guys can't see me until I am 5-10 miles away, then they are toast.

4) I flew two USAF interceptors in the 60's that had a great datalink - secure, very jam-resistant. We got a display on the RIO's scope that showed a small circle of where the enemy was with respect to us. We could come in with radar in standby and use IR system to find the sucker, then WHAM!

snypa777 wrote:

Supersonic flight would present more of a problem, especially if sustained.

Hats off to the F/A-22's designers, they thought of that one too. What good is a tiny RCS if they can see you from 10's of miles away with IRST? Raptor has a Boeing-developed IR absorbing topcoat, and fuel-cooled leading edges (BTW this has been in the public domain). Guess it's been proven to work too...
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/events/a ... nts10.html

hansundfranz wrote:

Yeah, a pity they don´t fit in the weapons bay

I believe this guy is designed specifically to fit the Raptor's weapons bay...
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-3625.html

Gums - would that be the "One oh Wonder" and "Six" that you flew?
I remember one guy quoted in AF Magazine back in the '90s about using his Six's (or was it Voodoo's?) IRST to estimate range/closure rate to the target, and completing the intercept totally radar silent. Pretty impressive use of "primitive" technology! Is that what you did too?

Hi catisfit,

Quote:

As for picking up a spike on JORN, well once you know something's there, you can vector something in to intercept, radar off. If the F/A-22 is trying to be stealthy, you can be damn sure it's not spraying its radar around the sky, so you could get in close enough to light him up and launch while he's still trying to figure out who the hell you are and where you came from, after all, he's stealthy, right? His AWACS might see you if you engage too far away, so you'd need to let him come close enough to avoid that, but not close enough to take out your radar, that's where the huge range of JORN is an advantage.

The Raptor boost one of the most (the most?) impressive passive sensor suite out there, coupled with a marvelous AESA radar. IMHO, anything you send at them, radar on or off, will be lunch for the Raptors. I admit it does have its risks, therefore I don’t think the manned war would begin until such detection systems are taken out. Certainly, don’t be too sure of a successful interception. Very Happy

Quote:

cellphone towers sound interesting. As for them not lasting long in wartime, well, if your radar can see far enough, you can protect them. They're not exactly irreplacable, and they're easy to hide (they don't need to be on the towers we put them on).

Though I’m ignorant in the subject of using cell-phone towers for detection, I doubt they will let you see beyond the area of typical cell-phone coverage. Repeater signals rarely overlap to produce any type of modulation to allow for enhanced coverage. Easy to pick apart little by little… And for them to work, they have to be mounted high above ground if you want decent coverage (though not as critical as for someone on the ground trying to get reception).If you hide them, you can’t use them, at least effectively.

In general, cellular phone towers require minimal intelligence gathering to find there locations, as they are public infrastructure. As for finding systems like JORN…well, hire some interns to scour Goggle maps around probable locations. Wink

And just because they could be far inland barley makes them immune to submarine-launched halo of cruise missiles or ballistic missiles from just about anywhere.

The cellphone network idea seemed a bit "out there" to me at the time. The research by Roke Manor was "pulled" from the net at the insistance of the Men In Black though......Wonder if that was just a knee-jerk reaction because people were talking stealth beating techniques.......

As I have said, such a system would require a high degree of interdependence, taking out just a few critical junctions would be enough, like power supplies or processing centres.

Pat1 wrote:

The Raptor boost one of the most (the most?) impressive passive sensor suite out there, coupled with a marvelous AESA radar. IMHO, anything you send at them, radar on or off, will be lunch for the Raptors.

Hi Pat1,

I'm not so sure about that, if you vectored something in under strict emcon until it was within missile range (like Gums' 4th point), the F/A-22 wouldn't be able to pick it up, there would be nothing to pick up. No radar, IR doesn't travel that far. It can turn on its AESA radar, but that would be giving its position away, so it wouldn't do that unless it knew it was under threat. A lot of people jump to the 'lunch for the Raptors' reply, and that's kinda why I started this thread, to destroy the myth.

It is less detectable than anything around at the moment, but there's a huge difference between hardest to detect and impossible to detect. The thing that scares me the most is pilots actually believing the hype and wandering off cocksure of their a/c abilities, only to wind up on the receiving end of something nasty because it wasn't actually as invisible as they thought. Crying or Very sad

As for cellphone towers, my immediate thought was 'yeah, right!', but if they pulled the info, it means somebody must have thought about it and decided it was worth investigating. Sounds a bit far-fetched, but I guess you use everything you can to gain an advantage, however badly it works or easily it can be destroyed.

Elite Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1093

You're making the false assumption that the F-22 would be flying without its own AEW support. In most cases that wouldn't happen.

For really well defended areas, cruise missiles go in first and deliver a friendly high explosive suprise to the AA threat.

As far as cell phone towers, I've said it before, they are easy to find and easy to disrupt. 50,000' barrage balloons could also be used against stealth aircraft, its just not very practical.

Granted, a Raptor flying in without AWACS or any kind of support whatsoever would not be able to find a jet coming in under complete EMCON - but then how does the jet know the Raptor is there? JORN is a great fantasy about stopping a Raptor, but even giving fighters an approximate fix for the Raptor doesn't even come close to making it a target. The fighters have to find it first, then they have to engage it - if they use IR missiles, the Raptor has better IR masking than any plane I've heard of, and the TV it has will let it turn on anybody - so where is the argument that the Raptor can be detected and beaten?

Elite Joined: Dec 16, 2003 Posts: 797 Status: Offline

Salute!

Yeah, Fox Four, I flew about 400 hours in the VooDoo and Fig 8, case 10 winged Deuces when I went thru Perrin.

Both had the IRSTS with the "pure" IR mode and the IR-Radar Slave mode. The Deuces I flew didn't have the datalink that the 106 and VooDoo had.

Using pure IR, the deal was to close on the target at a constant speed. We knew approx how fast the Bisons and Bears were going, so we just used 50-100 knots of overtake. The IR system measured intensity of the tgt and our overtake estimate to get a crude range figure. I would not have fired off a Genie, but the AIM4D would have nailed the bastige easily as long as we didn't fire at estimated max range.

The IR-Radar Slaved mode was the real sneaky one. The IR pointed the radar, but the radar stayed in the search mode. The Bison EWO knew we were back there but would not jam us, as we had the HOJ capability. So we wait until within range, then use the IR for steering and Whammo! The Six and Deuce carried a mixed load of radar and IR Falcons, so the radar versions would have loved a nice ECM signal.

I chased a Hustlre across S. Dakota one night using the sneaky mode. My RIO was dense and kept trying to upgrade to a full radar solution. Sure enuf, the EWO would use a range gate stealer, then gradually change the delay time to move our radar off of him. Then he turns off his ECM. I told the RIO to use IR only or the slaved mode, but he wouldn't listen. He wanted the Genie shot, and I was happy to use the IR-guided Falcon. Sucker was zipping along at .95 mach, so I was in and outta burner for 100 miles. We ran outta gas. I was only a yute, but I chewed out the RIO and got the chief RIO in the squad to read the guy the riot act.

The IRSTs was super at low altitude, as we didn't have doppler radar. You could get the tgt, then use slaved mode to finally find that blip that was not moving at the same speed as the ground return. Heh heh heh.

Years later, I saw the Viper radar and went ape. Sucker would pick out Corvettes on the highway and even speeding semi's. Rest of the screen was black.

later, as I just got back from a rescue mission to Waterworld and got my 86 year-old parents to safety.

out

2sBlind wrote:

Granted, a Raptor flying in without AWACS or any kind of support whatsoever would not be able to find a jet coming in under complete EMCON - but then how does the jet know the Raptor is there? JORN is a great fantasy about stopping a Raptor, but even giving fighters an approximate fix for the Raptor doesn't even come close to making it a target.

Obviously. Point 1) AWACS aren't going to follow the F/A-22 into every engagement, they'd get too close for comfort. Sure, they'd use it to provide as much help as possible, but there's a limit.

Point 2) I'm not talking about getting a solution on the F/A-22 from JORN. As you say, if a radar like that could get an approximate location, then you can vector something in to intercept. They would be flying blind (no IR or radar sig from the F/A-22), but they know roughly where it is. The F/A-22 doesn't know squat yet. The interceptors close to within detection range, then paint and fire. That's my point. If you can see it coming, you can get something in close enough undetected. Of course, you have to be far enough away from AWACS so they can't see you.

2sBlind wrote:

and the TV it has will let it turn on anybody - so where is the argument that the Raptor can be detected and beaten?

The F/A-22 is an awesome plane, no doubt about it, it's probably the least likely a/c to be detected on conventional radar in the world (except my r/c Piper Tomahawk II, balsa doesn't give that great a radar reflection Wink

), but it can be detected. The only question is how to detect it from far enough away to be able to do something about it.

As for the TV, well, if you believe that the F/A-22 can turn on anything... Smile

I'll say it again, Gums - Impressive! Combine that kind of tactical trickery from yesteryear with the technology of today and it oughta really kick a$$ in the next round!

Glad to know your SAR foray was successful - you didn't have to fight your way thru bandits like in the movie, did ya?! Very Happy

catisfit wrote:

Pat1 wrote:

The Raptor boost one of the most (the most?) impressive passive sensor suite out there, coupled with a marvelous AESA radar. IMHO, anything you send at them, radar on or off, will be lunch for the Raptors.

Hi Pat1,

I'm not so sure about that, if you vectored something in under strict emcon until it was within missile range (like Gums' 4th point), the F/A-22 wouldn't be able to pick it up, there would be nothing to pick up. No radar, IR doesn't travel that far. It can turn on its AESA radar, but that would be giving its position away, so it wouldn't do that unless it knew it was under threat. A lot of people jump to the 'lunch for the Raptors' reply, and that's kinda why I started this thread, to destroy the myth.

Hi Catisfit.

Thanks for the reply. You’re right, I went over the top here. However, one can devise many situation in which a Raptor can be taken down, but really, how realistic are they? I still need convincing that the scenario you proposed is realistic.

Still, a few questions for anybody, for this scenario:

1.) Is there a reason a Raptor would be completely unaware that he is being detected by a long range radar and not expect action?

2.) How well can you guide an interception under strict emcon and still be able to catch a Raptor at sustained supersonic speeds?

3.) Would IR detection be useless to defend itself (F-22)?

4.) My understanding is that the AN/APG-77 does not have to be silent to maintain stealth. Am I wrong to think it would still be effective for an unsuspecting Raptor pilot? (for an interception approaching within the field of view)?

Hi Pat1. Those are some interesting questions. I guess number 2 is the $1m question!

As for the AN/APG-77, it's a LPI radar, but I'd be very cautious about broadcasting any energy whatsoever in enemy territory unless there was a very good reason for doing so, it is a radar, after all! Wink

Was wondering.....How stealthy the Raptor will be with it`s weapons bays open? When dropping ordnance. Wonder if radars will see a blip for the time the doors are open. I know the doors are not open for long.
I guess even if they do see a blip, it hardly constitutes a "radar lock"!!! They could still "blindfire" missiles though.... If they are expecting an attack.

I am "assuming" some stealth capability is lost when bay doors are open, even with special contouring of the doors, radar can still be reflected from within the bay.......another assumption!!!!!

Knowing that the Raptor is in the neighborhood doesn't even come close to being able to shoot it down. Even the Iraqis knew when an F-117 was overhead, that's why you got the blind AAA fire from Baghdad that made cool video for CNN every night. With the doors open, they were visible to radar (and a Raptor would be as well), and then all hell would break loose hoping for a "golden BB". The problem is that that is far from a firing solution on any kind of weapon. Even if they did get off a missile at a Raptor with his doors open, either the firing airplane's radar would have to keep a lock, not something possible outside of just a few nm, or the missile would have to have a good enough IR seeker to find the F/A-22 (which isn't something that's easy), then keep a lock through the flares and defensive maneuvering of the Raptor.

Bottom line: yes, if an enemy aircraft was able to sneak up behind a Raptor based on a very loose idea of where it was from some other source (I don't even give JORN the credit that it can track a Raptor, but let's say it can), and get within visual range without the Raptor pilot seeing him (visual lookout hasn't died in the USAF), and is carrying a missile capable of locking up a jet that was designed with IRMD in mind, then maybe they'd have a chance of shooting one down. Maybe.

I'd like to postulate as well that if a Raptor is working outside of AWACS coverage, he's going to have his radar up and running, otherwise why is he there? Sure, it will spotlight him from far away (if the enemy can accurately detect and track his LPI radar), but only one jet out of a 4-ship needs to be radiating for all his wingmen to have the same information. The Raptor is going to detect an enemy before he is a major threat (I know, the Magic can home in on radar emissions, but an APG-77 can see it coming in and shut down. There's no way a missile radar has the power to detect a Raptor from any useful range if the -22 goes cold). Now the jet firing the missile is looking at a 4-ship of F/A-22s that know he's around, and he won't be for long. Until a jet comes along with the stealth, range, speed, and EM processing power of the Raptor, it's not going to face a credible A/A threat.

F-16.net

Forum: F-22A Raptor

F/A-22 radar detection