Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

eleanordriver wrote:

SCENARIO:
I am a Marine, fighting some D-bags.
There is an F-22 with JDAMs 200 Miles away.
There is an A-10 fully loaded 150 Miles away.
An enemy tank batallion arrives and starts firing on us.

While the A-10 is more suited for the role, I'm glad the F-22 will be there in 8 minutes. In the 20 minutes it would have taken the A-10 to travel the shorter distance Marines would have died.

Air-to Air works similarly, do you want to intercept a target aircraft before or after they are in range to fire on their target?

If you have a tank battalion 20 minutes away and haven't called for air support, ICBMs, Jesus and the kitchen sink already then you've screwed the pooch big time.

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From the February issue of Air Force Magazine:

Speed Is Life

[Regarding] comments by Lt. Col. Richard F. Colarco, USAF (Ret.), Colorado Springs, Colo., in his letter on “The Sixth Generation Fighter,” p. 4 of Air Force Magazine, December 2009, the following are lessons from history, lessons from my combat experiences flying the F-4 in Vietnam, and lessons from working F-22 subjects at the Pentagon and Eglin [AFB, Fla.]. These lessons clearly indicate the continuing requirement for a speed advantage-supersonic flight capability for our fighter aircraft.

From World War II history, we know that the German Me 262’s superior speed provided a virtual sanctuary for them from which to attack B-17s and a sanctuary from attack by slower fighters like the P-51. The 262 could attack and disengage with impunity. It was only vulnerable during and shortly after takeoff and in the landing pattern—when it was slow.

An adequate supersonic speed advantage over enemy fighters allows a US air combat fighter to accelerate from a base or from an optimum patrol speed orbit to a high-energy level where the US fighter can maneuver to create the optimum attack geometry (snap-up, head-on, front quarter, flank, stern, etc.), attack, separate out, and reposition to re-engage again if necessary. Further, the option to disengage when out of weapons or at combat “bingo” fuel (time to leave) is preserved. Once engaged in a multibandit environment, a lack of superior speed can result in a “Custer’s last stand” scenario—you can’t get away and they want your scalp.

Speed, along with persistence, maneuverability, situation awareness, all aspect weapons (to include the gun with an all aspect computing sight), integrated avionics, teamwork, etc., is life. Fighting and living throughout an engagement to fight again is a requirement.

Lastly, I personally know of a number of engagements in Vietnam that involved supersonic flight to include a Mach 1.2+ snap-up attack against MiG-21s at 30,000 feet. Superior speed over an adversary is required.

Col. John Madden,
USAF (Ret.)
Mill Creek, Wash.

That's a good post and points made by the Colonel.

The attributes Madden mentions are all stuff the F-22 already possesses in spades. Whatever the planned 6th Gen Fighter might turn out to be, I feel it should have at least the same amount and levels of the basic attributes as the F-22. Of course, preferably even better. Along with incorporating planned advancements, it will allow the potential 6th Gen Fighter to have the maximum amount of tactical flexability and awareness to survive and win in a variety of scenarios.

I have read the article about the 6th Gen Fighter and I sure hope the USAF and industry haven't lost sight of those time tested attributes because I don't see some of it in the illustrations they've included in the article.

Another avenue the USAF could go is to incorporate and integrate those planned advancements onto current F-22s. Ideally, new build F-22s (Enhanced models) to accomodate the advancements as the original attributes would be retained.

Funny thing is, some friends and I have been discussing this and we feel it can be done. The F-22's performance and lethality would be "enhanced" several fold and at a fraction of the cost of developing a new build 6th Gen design.

The Custer analogy is a stretch.

Superior numbers, not lack of speed, did in the Seventh Cavalry.

(Custer's scalp was not taken and the estimated exchange rate has been quoted as about 1 for 1).

However, the confusion about speed may have resulted after Custer had been quoted earlier as saying:

“Give me older whiskey and younger women, but mainly faster horses.”

OL

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Need for speed