Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

jeffb wrote:

Would be nice to get a blow-by-blow. The F-22 only carries two WVR weapons so one of the kills must have been with gun (unless it was a short range radar kill of course).

Good point about possible short-ranged radar kills, especially when within the modern-day 'WVR' envelope of IR/EO-aided WVR-weapon system cueing.

Now what would be interesting in a near-future Red Flag exercise, would be to give the Aggressors updated block 60s with the IRST+FLIR combo, towed decoy (for good measure) and integrated MICA-IR (in addition to wing-tip AIM-9x)... to see if such a ratio would be the norm, or raw luck?

Who knows... there might even end up being some protest in the 'Blue force' camp for the 'Red force' to tone it down a bit??

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A GOOD F-22 pilot will never have to dogfight.
Stupid question actually.

Actually the F-22 does not need to dogfight.

It is a warplane , not an air show plane.

See, destroy, Game over.

Only during training with some stupid ROE (Rules Of Engagement) would an F-22 have to turn to dogfight.

It is good to have the capability, but it is not a WAR thing.
In WAR, you see and shoot at a distance.

jeffb wrote:

Would be nice to get a blow-by-blow. The F-22 only carries two WVR weapons so one of the kills must have been with gun (unless it was a short range radar kill of course).

A gun kill is a possbility, but the AMRAAM is more than capable of engaging targets within 2km.

vilters wrote:

A GOOD F-22 pilot will never have to dogfight.
Stupid question actually.

Actually the F-22 does not need to dogfight.

It is a warplane , not an air show plane.

See, destroy, Game over.

Only during training with some stupid ROE (Rules Of Engagement) would an F-22 have to turn to dogfight.

It is good to have the capability, but it is not a WAR thing.
In WAR, you see and shoot at a distance.

But, are we at a point where "we" can consistently be sure that we are not shooting on our own forces BVR? Remember the fog of war and all that?
Just saying..

aceshigh wrote:

vilters wrote:

A GOOD F-22 pilot will never have to dogfight.
Stupid question actually.

Actually the F-22 does not need to dogfight.

It is a warplane , not an air show plane.

See, destroy, Game over.

Only during training with some stupid ROE (Rules Of Engagement) would an F-22 have to turn to dogfight.

It is good to have the capability, but it is not a WAR thing.
In WAR, you see and shoot at a distance.

But, are we at a point where "we" can consistently be sure that we are not shooting on our own forces BVR? Remember the fog of war and all that?
Just saying..

The F-22 has a pretty robust NCTR capability. Between a very high resolution radar, and the ALR-94, it should be able to take confident BVR shots(especially considering that there shouldn't be any friendlies operating in front of Raptors, till they've swept the sector.)

wrightwing wrote:

aceshigh wrote:

vilters wrote:

A GOOD F-22 pilot will never have to dogfight.
Stupid question actually.

Actually the F-22 does not need to dogfight.

It is a warplane , not an air show plane.

See, destroy, Game over.

Only during training with some stupid ROE (Rules Of Engagement) would an F-22 have to turn to dogfight.

It is good to have the capability, but it is not a WAR thing.
In WAR, you see and shoot at a distance.

But, are we at a point where "we" can consistently be sure that we are not shooting on our own forces BVR? Remember the fog of war and all that?
Just saying..

The F-22 has a pretty robust NCTR capability. Between a very high resolution radar, and the ALR-94, it should be able to take confident BVR shots(especially considering that there shouldn't be any friendlies operating in front of Raptors, till they've swept the sector.)

All very true... but of course in real-world future air-combat, a BVR can very easily become a near-BVR engagement scenario (unless your tactic is to lob shots from afar every time and then simply run), and the near-BVR scenario can in a few seconds of course become an EO-IR-cued scenario and then in a blink come into an optical WVR engagement, whether intended or unintended, either in offensive or defensive.

That's why F-22 pilots need to train for WVR and defensive/offensive and as such do train - for real combat scenarios.

vilters wrote:

A GOOD F-22 pilot will never have to dogfight.
Stupid question actually.

Actually the F-22 does not need to dogfight.

It is a warplane , not an air show plane.

See, destroy, Game over.

Only during training with some stupid ROE (Rules Of Engagement) would an F-22 have to turn to dogfight.

It is good to have the capability, but it is not a WAR thing.
In WAR, you see and shoot at a distance.

Vilters,
I think it demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of modern air combat to call somebody "stupid" for asking a very valid question, like this one. Does the lack of an HMD make the Raptor less capable? Yes, of course it does! Less capable than what? Probably only a hypothetical HMD-equipped Raptor, but the Raptor, as it is fielded right now, is not as capable as it would be if it had the capability to target high-off boresight with the AIM-9X and an HMD. It can, without an HMD, best any other HMD equipped jet, I'd bet.

Vilters, before you start chucking spears at people, please do a bit of research on air warfare. As good as the Raptor is, and I think it is by a very large margin the best in the world...now or 10 years from now, it is still shooting missiles that have a finite range and can and will be defeated some of the time. If you have a max range (all weapons do) then there is a limit to how far away you can kill an enemy. If you cannot guarantee that your weapons will ALWAYS kill said enemy (and no weapon, from the sling shot to the AIM-120D and beyond will EVER have a 1.0 Pk), then you run the risk of a merge. I've flown with a lot of these modern devices and I can tell you that the training ROE are not set up articficially to make a merge happen...they don't have to be. If the guy you tried to make die at long range didn't die (because of countermeasures, a missile malfunction, pilot error, whatever), well he's not at long range anymore brother. If you're lucky he's at medium range...depending on closure he could be at short range. Guess what you have now, my arrogant friend, you have a merge. I've seen this exact scenario, in a real jet...not on my PC, HUNDREDS of times Vilters. So, please, show our fellow forum members a bit of respect...especially when your knowledge of air combat is limited to Falcon 4.0 and the military channel.

twintwinsingle wrote:

Vilters,
I think it demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of modern air combat to call somebody "stupid" for asking a very valid question, like this one. Does the lack of an HMD make the Raptor less capable? Yes, of course it does! Less capable than what? Probably only a hypothetical HMD-equipped Raptor, but the Raptor, as it is fielded right now, is not as capable as it would be if it had the capability to target high-off boresight with the AIM-9X and an HMD. It can, without an HMD, best any other HMD equipped jet, I'd bet.

Vilters, before you start chucking spears at people, please do a bit of research on air warfare. As good as the Raptor is, and I think it is by a very large margin the best in the world...now or 10 years from now, it is still shooting missiles that have a finite range and can and will be defeated some of the time. If you have a max range (all weapons do) then there is a limit to how far away you can kill an enemy. If you cannot guarantee that your weapons will ALWAYS kill said enemy (and no weapon, from the sling shot to the AIM-120D and beyond will EVER have a 1.0 Pk), then you run the risk of a merge. I've flown with a lot of these modern devices and I can tell you that the training ROE are not set up articficially to make a merge happen...they don't have to be. If the guy you tried to make die at long range didn't die (because of countermeasures, a missile malfunction, pilot error, whatever), well he's not at long range anymore brother. If you're lucky he's at medium range...depending on closure he could be at short range. Guess what you have now, my arrogant friend, you have a merge. I've seen this exact scenario, in a real jet...not on my PC, HUNDREDS of times Vilters. So, please, show our fellow forum members a bit of respect...especially when your knowledge of air combat is limited to Falcon 4.0 and the military channel.

Well put. The tactics used will put the shooter in the most advantageous position possible, but it's still not a guaranteed kill, so you train for all the contingencies.

Concur. You plan to target and kill at long range, you train to that. Most of the time, that'll work out. But there will always, always, always be things that happen that get a guy (or multiple guys) inside that BVR "bubble". If you're fighting an inept bandit, still not much of a problem even if he gets WVR. If that bandit is competent, even if he's in an old jet, he can still put a hurting on you. Flown well, the Raptor should not get killed by anyone precisely because it is great BVR AND WVR.

Exactly right, if an engagement starts with two notional legacy fighters, closure rate of 1200 mph. They both detect each other at 60 miles, detection, positioning, firing and repositioning for possible reengagement are roughly at the same time. At 60 miles separation these AC can be WVR in about 3 minutes.

With an F-22 vs. legacy engagement, closure rates could be 1600 mph and allow for the F-22 being detected at 20(?) miles. The F-22 detecting at 120 miles giving the pilot 4 more minutes to detect, position, fire and repositioning for possible reengagement , without falling into WVR dogfight. Allowing the Raptor to reengage again for a WVR fight.

A stealth on stealth engagement would probably harken back to the WW2 and post-war engagements.

strykerxo wrote:

There is a lot of speculation on what a true BVR would be like.

A stealth on stealth engagement would probably harken back to the WW2 and post-war engagements.

Yes it would and the usage of NCTRs, off-board jammers, -towed decoys, more effective flares, chaff plus, self protection jammers... all being used by competent pilots. Pilots on both sides being capable warriors -something we have not seen before. So, back to the old trusted 'gun' correct??
While the F-22 is very capable in a turning dogfight, the kill ratio will not be what the USAF would want.

At some point in the near future, IR missiles will be able to image and recognize the target better than the human eye, at which point no counter-measures short of shooting down the missile are going to work.

count_to_10 wrote:

At some point in the near future, IR missiles will be able to image and recognize the target better than the human eye, at which point no counter-measures short of shooting down the missile are going to work.

Or blinding it via DIRCM?

If you can blind an IR missile (with the necessary counter-counter measures) with a direct energy weapon, then you can blind or shoot down an entire enemy fighter with it -- which basically changes everything.

I'm pretty sure there's a big difference between blinding a missile and initiating all out structural failure of an aircraft wing via rapidly applying a heat load to the wing fuel tank.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

F-22 in dogfights