Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Does anybody else see the entire world as having been on the path to unmanned air to air combat, until one man spoke up to end the insanity?

But just like Dominoes Pizza, we may yet "Avoid the Boyd", and welcome in a future of robotic fighters that lack both guts and glory.

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We're nowhere near UCAS doing air superiority and it's not going to happen suddenly but rather as a progression. The first steps will be doing limited defensive WVR. The next likely step is carrying BVR missiles, probably without an expensive radar, and being remote operated by a manned fighter as an extension of it's weapons and/or sensor envelope.

Getting a high performance air superiority UCAS designed and operational is a long term prospect. Forget about it being autonomous any decade soon as AI's are not close to there yet. Operating semi autonomous then creates communication issues that can be interfered with which is exactly why what's more likely to evolve mid term is being remote operated from a manned aircraft via data link.

There's a lot of discussion of the NGAD being optionally manned but it's not at all clear this includes full spectrum aerial combat or if the unmanned capability will be initial or later.

I think the first step will be BVR. Tack an AMRAAM on a UAV and have a F-35 command the launch. Beats air to air rearming.

hcobb wrote:

I think the first step will be BVR. Tack an AMRAAM on a UAV and have a F-35 command the launch. Beats air to air rearming.

That's not going to be especially effective. The AMRAAM will be launching from nearly a dead stop unless we're talking U(C)AVs with combat-usable flight envelopes.

southernphantom wrote:

That's not going to be especially effective. The AMRAAM will be launching from nearly a dead stop unless we're talking U(C)AVs with combat-usable flight envelopes.

Think of it as a flying minefield.

AMRAAM appears out of thin air and the enemy targets those grid coordinates, only to bag at most a UAV, while losing manned aircraft during their operations.

hcobb wrote:

southernphantom wrote:

That's not going to be especially effective. The AMRAAM will be launching from nearly a dead stop unless we're talking U(C)AVs with combat-usable flight envelopes.

Think of it as a flying minefield.

AMRAAM appears out of thin air and the enemy targets those grid coordinates, only to bag at most a UAV, while losing manned aircraft during their operations.

It seems very expensive to use a UCAV as nothing but a semi-disposable boost stage for an AMRAAM. Why not just develop an actual quick-burn booster stage for the AMRAAM and let the air dominance fighter fire it from beyond detection range? AMRAAM has a relatively low RCS from the front.

So the F-22 or F-35 finds its target and launches an AMRAAM from far enough away the launch can't be observed. Possibly it doesn't even launch so much as drop the AMRAAM, then after some delay where the missile coasts on the kinetic energy the launch aircraft gave it, the booster lights and gets the AMRAAM moving fast towards the target, then goes out and detaches to hide the IR signature. Even if the boost is observed from so far away, there's nothing there for any return shot to hit. A cold AMRAAM coasts in on kinetic energy, very little IR or radar signature for the target to notice. When the AMRAAM's integral rocket motor and radar kicks in right near the target and it suddenly shows up on the target's IRST and/or radar and/or RWS, it'll still be coming out of nowhere with no time for the target to react. All for the cost of a few thousand dollars of disposable booster; you could probably fire a thousand boosted AMRAAMs for the cost of losing a single UCAV.

The problem with launching an AMRAAM is that it is a rocket and so IRST can see it from a long ways off.

That's why I'd rather see a long range supercruising remotely directed missile that then engages an afterburner (and combo IR / active radar seeker) for the last few seconds. You get a missile that is stealthy on both radar and IR.

AMRAAM is not boosting its entire flight envelope. Its motor may cut out at extreme ranges in the endgame. Still, a MAWS might still pick it up due to kinetic heating. Also a missile without a booster would be too dependent on the initial velocity of the launch platform. The missile would never get up to speed to possess any kinematic advantage whatsoever.

hcobb wrote:

The problem with launching an AMRAAM is that it is a rocket and so IRST can see it from a long ways off.

That's why I'd rather see a long range supercruising remotely directed missile that then engages an afterburner (and combo IR / active radar seeker) for the last few seconds. You get a missile that is stealthy on both radar and IR.

It wouldn't need to be remotely-directed. This kind of link can fail. What I'd recommend instead is a two-stage guidance system relying on inertial guidance to get to the target's general location, then a radar/IR seeker head for terminal guidance. Alternatively, we could semi-resurrect the BRAZO program and have an air-to-air ARM, which would be terrifying if employed by stealth aircraft, especially if fitted with an IR seeker.

The MAWS on the SU-35 claims a detection range of ~5km for an inbound missile without a burning motor.

One of the current developments for the AMRAAM is a new motor. One of it's 4 stated goals is a duel-pulse motor (ie a boost/cruise phase and a end-game stage) that would allow for it to coast undetected for much of it's flight and then reignite the motor for max maneuverability in the endgame.

Then you add JDRADM to the mix, and the Sukhois are dead due to the immense capabilities of a 50G maneuvering TVC multi-pulse missile.

The problem becomes what happens when the Sukhois get their own JDRADM? The Russians are working on ultra long range AAMs, a pretty ingenious way of hitting tankers, and stealth is coming to the enemy. That will cause all sorts of revolutions in air warfare.

SpudmanWP - the problem for the IRST and AAMs is not the detection range when the missile in the terminal approach, instead it is the launch signature. For example, the F-35 DAS, effective less than 60 nm against fighters I think, can see a Falcon space rocket launch from 800 nm away! That should show the consequence of shooting an missile vs one that's cruising.

The IRST was to overcome the radar evading technique that the Mig used to break a lock.

When was the last time a Falcon space rocket was targeted on a jet fighter?

The point was that the DAS can detect a boost stage from a missile or rocket from extremely far away as opposed to a fighter from a much smaller distance away. The IR signatures are quite different.

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