Forum: F-16 versus XYZ

Replace the x adn y with whatever you wish. Which F-16 is the best in your opinion?

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Elite 1K Joined: Aug 19, 2004 - 09:19 AM Posts: 1092

In what way do you mean? Air to air combat, air to ground, SEAD, precision strike... what?

Multirole. Which is the best performer all around?

I'm sure I'll get some trash about this, but I would have to go with either the the block 40 or 50...I'm sure the 60 as well, but I don't know too much about the block 60...<b>my</b> reasoning for the 40 and 50 would be because of better range and radar capabilities...ahdunno...but it also depends on the pilot too, right?

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 19, 2004 - 09:19 AM Posts: 1092

Yeah... block 40 or 50. Can a block 50 deliver LGBs yet?

What exactly is SEAD? They don't tell us these things in fuel shop.

Quote:

What exactly is SEAD?

Suppression of Enemy Air Defences - killing radars with HARMs, launch rails, missiles and AAA with Mavericks and LGBs, lots of jamming and so on

Sounds very tactical.......aka shoot down the bad guys.

actually roaf what you described is DEAD, SEAD is simply shutting down a radar for a certain amount of time, either by putting a HARM into it or scaring the radar operator into shutting it down, either way the radar is simply suppressed not destroyed...anybody can do DEAD (destruction enemy air defences), but not everybody can do SEAD...

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 19, 2004 - 09:19 AM Posts: 1092

I thought DEAD was an extension of SEAD with the advent of new types of smart munitions. DEAD is better than SEAD, but it's also much more difficult. SEAD sometimes results in DEAD, but only recently did true DEAD-type munitions become viable. If you could do DEAD safely and efficiently instead of just SEAD, you'd do it. I always got the idea that DEAD implied the ability for an aircraft to employ a weapon that would destroy a radar (and actual weapons launchers if possible) regardless of whether it shut its radar down. So the thing pops up on radar for a second and then turns off. If the aircraft's EW suite picked that brief transmission up, it could launch a super smart weapon to seek out and destroy the threat that was classified. It would use its own onboard sensors in conjunction with the data uplinked to it by the shooter aircraft to find its target.

For example, if an SA-5 radar was classified by the shooter aircraft (even if the SA-5 site's radar was only on for a few seconds), the DEAD-type smart weapon could be fired in its general direction and have a good chance of finding both the radar and supporting hardware (command trailor, missile launchers, etc). The weapon could attack multiple targets with submunitions and make multiple passes if necessary.

dude, dead munitions have been around a long time, a 250lb bomb dropped from a B-17 is a DEAD weapon if it hits aaa, it can destroy enemy air defenses. if you know where a site is, have the block 50 in a support role as suppression while you have block 40 role in as strikers and kill it using a large variety of weapons to kill it...deads been around for a while...

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 19, 2004 - 09:19 AM Posts: 1092

Okay, but I've only recently heard the term DEAD being used along with SEAD. I used to only hear SEAD SEAD SEAD. Now it's SEAD and DEAD. How long have you been hearing the acronym DEAD? Before SEAD? After? The same time?

not long before sead, but not in conjunction with either. sure they can be used in conjunction, but they dont have to be. they can be and often are mutually exclusive missions, they have been 2 seperate terms for a while...

Forum: F-16 versus XYZ

F-16x versus F-16y?