Forum: F-16 versus XYZ

Well, elp, the original psoter asked if the Block 60 could beat the Typhoon. This is about A2A not about A2G. Basically a fantasy 1 vs 1 Typhoon vs Blck60.
it was not about which plane would be the better solution for a customer loking to buy a new jet, Because then it becomes really unanswerable. What does the customer need. how much money does the customer have. Which political block does the customer belongs to?

About the limited types of A2G weapons. Its nice to have an airplane that could use lots of different A2G weapons.
But what you need is an aircraft that can use the A2G weapons you own or plan to get.

If you don´t have any JDAMs is does not help you that the F-16 could drop them.

Typhoon will also carry enhanced Paveway and Paveway IV which is dual use. A jet today that can't do all weather cheap PGMs is a wasted mission when cloud cover is around.

Oh and BTW I think that GPS guidance will be useless in a war against modern nation. GPS can easily be jammed. The frequency is known. The signal has only low power (because its power plant is the sun collector of the satelite) and it comes from a long distance (from space). In a war between 2 modern nations (luckily highly unlikely) GPS and data link will be not very useful.
Of course the JDAMs also have gyros but the GPS reciever in the delivering plane will also be jammed so without correcting the Gyro drift by a landmark shortly before the drop you´ll get the same precission then with iron bombs. Good enough to hit a factory. Not good enough to have your PGM destory a bridge or hit a bunker door.

Not quite accurate.

1. We own the satellite infastructure.

2. The military GPS topology to support this weapon is secure and encrypted

3. Anything that emits GPS jamming will eat a Block 5 Harm or other weapon. ( one GPS jammer in Iraq was taken out by a JDAM: The very weapon it was supposed to foil.

4. Radar assisted bombing ( B2, B1, newer F-16s ( where the radar kit allows etc ) produces your INS location or update via offset bombing. ( B1 pukes swear by this method ) It is very accurate and on shorter bomb flight times, doesnt really need much if any GPS update to hit the target. ( example a bomb falling from 40k ft could be a minute fly time, from 35k ft a 50-55 second bomb fly time etc etc. time vs distance vs accuracy of the INS fix produced by the (refined radar assisted method from the host aircraft etc. ) And yes for a bridge. That is good enough. Most public consumption specs on JDAM accuaracy with and without GPS are flat out WRONG compared to the published combat results. ( i.e. when used well, it is way accurate. ) Most of the JDAM_can_be_jammed in combat fearmongering by the talking heads hasn't proven out in the test range.... or in combat.

If you try to decide which plane is the better buy for this or that airforce lots of different thoughts are needed.

Only the USA currently is willing to inverst in specialized planes (pure Fighter, pure bomber). Even the USA plans to use the F-22 as FA-22 to give the plane some use after the first 48 hours of the war.

All other nations need multi-role planes. But multi role can have different meanings for every customer. Bomb truck with the ability to self defend against lesser threats.
Air superiority fighter with the ability to do A2G work, too when the air war has been won. Or anything in between

Also for most nations it is smart to work with only a small number of different plane types to keep a certain economy of scale.

I´d say it makes sense to get a relatively small number of planes which are really the best you can afford and fill up with less quailty planes which you can afford in higher numbers.

E.g for the USAF F22 filled up with F35s and older teen fighters. (when we talk about tactical fighters)
For Great Britain Typhoons + F35s filled up with the old stuff they still have.
For smaller european air-foces quite often only one type of plane (F-16A-MLUs (Belgium, Netherlands, Norway), F18s (swiss).

For new Nato membersit could be used F-16s as their high quality machine and the numbers filled up with old mig 23s and 21s.

Quite often nations have more different types then they would like because they can not afford to replace jets in the required numbes which forces them to kepp more old types in service then they would like.

Its very well possible that the F-16 Block60 fills the need of a certain customer (as first or second rate jet) better then the Typhoon when you take everything into account.

In the most recent test, the AGTFT test vehicle was dropped into a high-power GPS-jammer environment from 44,000 feet and achieved direct military code GPS acquisition within 8 seconds. While descending through wind shears of up to 110 mph, the test vehicle continued to track GPS satellites in the jammed environment and ultimately struck within 6 meters of the target.

In an earlier test, the AGTFT test vehicle was dropped from 44,000 feet into a low-power GPS-jammer environment and achieved direct military code GPS acquisition within 12 seconds. The test vehicle descended in the jammed environment through wind shears of up to 105 mph, continuously tracking GPS satellites and striking within 3 meters of the target.

Typhoon will also carry enhanced Paveway and Paveway IV which is dual use. A jet today that can't do all weather cheap PGMs is a wasted mission when cloud cover is around

2. The military GPS topology to support this weapon is secure and encrypted

3. Anything that emits GPS jamming will eat a Block 5 Harm or other weapon. ( one GPS jammer in Iraq was taken out by a JDAM: The very weapon it was supposed to foil.

If its only the pilot and not the plane then why does the USAF does not fly only beefed up Chessna 172th?