Forum: General F-35 Forum

By the requirements, it sure seems like it will be the components of an F-35 stretched onto a reduced scale B-2 frame.

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mcraptor wrote:

On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, narrowly missing him by a few hours.

Imagine if we could get the missiles fast enough to the point where you miss him by only 1 or even 2 hours!! and it only cost 66 million? Bin laden drove back and forth to those camps, he didn't walk. "narrowly missing" someone who has been driving for a few hours could mean the difference of over 100 miles. "narrowly missed" thats funny.

http://www.unionleader.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... e=printart

Quote:

After the terrorist bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, the Bill Clinton administration launched cruise missiles against suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan, hoping bin Laden was there.

Hope is not a course of action, but it has been a big part of cruise missile assassination attempts. False hope in cruise missiles has had some severe consequences.

Quote:

In March 2003, in the hours before the invasion of Iraq, the George W. Bush administration, thinking it knew where Saddam Hussein was, launched a cruise missile strike against one of his compounds.

did they get him!?

There is a reason "drone strikes" are finally doing what cruise missiles always dreamed of. Its no surprise cruise missiles (and their hours old intel --at best-- that they use to try and hit highly mobile people) have been replaced by the exact opposite of a Hypersonic cruise missile --slow moving drones that can observe and then deploy relatively cheap/simple weapons immediately and accurately. 30 minutes is still forever compared to a drone strike.

If you read The Mission, The men, And Me written by a former Delta Commander who was tasked in 1998 with killing Bin Laden he outlines the problem with cruise missiles. Namely they take forever to get there, that you needed ridiculous amounts of confirmation/authorization, and you needed them to be extremely accurate in situations where that just wasn't going to be a possibility. His solution of course was a small team that would ambush him on his usual 24 hour road trip between his home and a terrorist training camp. It was denied as "too dangerous" If you guessed that multiple cruise missile strikes never got him, but Special Forces did, come collect your prize. Same for Saddam.

So whats my point? Its better to have a loaded and loitering aircraft that preferably can monitor high value targets itself (hence the ISR emphasis) and act instantly. GPS guided artillery took out Al queda's number one guy in Iraq, and like I said its all about drone warfare. The track record with cruise missiles against specific individuals is horrible, no matter how fast you get the missile going. When you have RC airplanes, 155s, and guys with shoulder weapons getting the job done better that should tell you something.

marksengineer wrote:

The B-1 had the provision for moving the bulkhead dividing the first two weapon bays forward to accomodate a rotary launcher long enough to carry cruise missiles in bay 2. Think it was tried on airframes 8 and 28 but I could be wrong.

I've just done some research and it was designed to carry 14 externally but various treaties mean that it doesn't.

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6479/rockwellb1b.jpg

1st503rdsgt wrote:

mcraptor wrote:

1st503rdsgt wrote:

mcraptor wrote:

The *war stories* are well known incidents that have been talked about time and time again in documentaries and in the consideration of supersonic and hypersonic missiles.

Ah, so now it's off to the prompt-global-strike topic now.

Well speed can be a factor in achieving a mission objective but as usual, you know best.

Maybe this'll kick-start your latest fantasy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Amer ... 0_Valkyrie Isn't she just so much cooler than another plodding flying-wing design? You should go start a thread on why speed is better than "stealth." In the meantime, let the grownups have an on-topic conversation about the boring ol' real programs.

Well as usual you're missing the point. I agree that if we go to war with Russia or China, stealth will be more important since SAMs have been more than capable of dispensing with fast aircraft since the '60s.

However, that is one very big 'IF'. Most likely, and hopefully, we'll never get involved in such a war, and 'real problems' will be more about being able to launch a prompt strike against Johnnie Jihad who doesn't even know what a SAM looks like.

Then you have the issue that if you're launching from outside the defended zone, with a terrain-hugging missile, stealth is irrelevant.

f414/euro/gripenng/sbug wrote:

So whats my point? Its better to have a loaded and loitering aircraft that preferably can monitor high value targets itself (hence the ISR emphasis) and act instantly. GPS guided artillery took out Al queda's number one guy in Iraq, and like I said its all about drone warfare. The track record with cruise missiles against specific individuals is horrible, no matter how fast you get the missile going. When you have RC airplanes, 155s, and guys with shoulder weapons getting the job done better that should tell you something.

Agree with everything you've said, but having a drone in the air in the right place at the right time implies knowing roughly where the individual is, or covering a copious amount of airspace that's either undefended or friendly.

Special forces? Sure, there's a place for them in such roles, but how do you get them there? Helicopters are kind of expensive too. The Black Hawk that crashed in Bin Laden's yard cost over $20m.

Had the time to look up the B-1B data:

Airframe No. 9, serial 84-0049, (not 8 as I previously posted) was the ALCM test aircraft. It carried the CSRL in bay 2 configured at 22 ft.

Airframe No. 28, serial 85-0068, was the ACM test aircraft. It also carried the CSRL in bay 2 configured at 22 ft along with ACM pylons under the fuselage.

Both airframes carried a dummy ALT-32H antenna painted white mounted vertically on the aircraft centerline above the wings for SALT compliance. Once the testing was done they were de-modded and antenna removed.

The B-1 had the ability to carry 8 ALCM's, AGM-86B's or 4 ACM's, AGM-129's internally along with 14 ACM's externally. The diameter of the ACM was to large to carry more than 4 internally and the ALCM was not designed for the acoustic environment under the fuselage.

As far as the treaty goes the B-1B can be restored back to a nuclear configuration after giving Russia a 12 month notice. It's in the treaty in case the B-52 becomes un-flyable.

The best book on the subject was written by Don Logan. You may wish to pick up a copy.

mcraptor wrote:

Special forces? Sure, there's a place for them in such roles, but how do you get them there? Helicopters are kind of expensive too. The Black Hawk that crashed in Bin Laden's yard cost over $20m.

20M+accomplishing mission= money well spent

66M+ not accomplishing the mission/showing you haven't the guts to do what must be done/putting faith in a "safe, stand off option"= priceless

The bottom line is they don't shoot these days until they are (sometimes destressingly so) 1000 percent sure and that usually means complete confirmation. Politicians worry about collateral damage and civilian casualties as well. I mean you don't want to shoot a missile at bin laden in africa and hits an aspirin factory or something like that... How embarrassing would that be? Very Happy

So blackhawk was 20M? How much are the ships that fire the cruise missiles again?

mcraptor wrote:

Then you have the issue that if you're launching from outside the defended zone, with a terrain-hugging missile, stealth is irrelevant.

Like I said, if that's what you want to talk about, go start your own thread and leave the grownups alone.

I still like the old standby assassin... the sniper. A match grade .50 round only cost $10. Very Happy

1st503rdsgt wrote:

mcraptor wrote:

Then you have the issue that if you're launching from outside the defended zone, with a terrain-hugging missile, stealth is irrelevant.

Like I said, if that's what you want to talk about, go start your own thread and leave the grownups alone.

You can certainly tell the first semester is over and everyone is on Christmas break. That's at least what it was called 35 years ago when I was in college. Wonder what they call it now? Waitng until mid January when all internet forums go back to normal.

marksengineer wrote:

1st503rdsgt wrote:

mcraptor wrote:

Then you have the issue that if you're launching from outside the defended zone, with a terrain-hugging missile, stealth is irrelevant.

Like I said, if that's what you want to talk about, go start your own thread and leave the grownups alone.

You can certainly tell the first semester is over and everyone is on Christmas break. That's at least what it was called 35 years ago when I was in college. Wonder what they call it now? Waitng until mid January when all internet forums go back to normal.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's cerberus (don't know if you remember that guy). His posts tend to start up around the time someone in East Asia might get home from a day-job and end about the time such a person would get sleepy, so my tentative guess is he's a young professional who's using his English skills to make an extra fiddy-cents on the side (if you get my drift).

Mcraptor has a good point. In order for either special forces or drones to work, they need to be in the area when you need them. It's more than a little optimistic to assume you are already shadowing a target. Also, you are referencing an area already occupied by US forces, which is a completely different scenario.

Special forces are awesome and cool and whatever, but there's always a significant risk in putting guys in unfriendly territory. Cruise missiles may not always work, but the price of failure ("look at all these... parts!") is far lower ("look at this American body being dragged through the steets"/months of negotiations to get them released).

mcraptor wrote:

f414/euro/gripenng/sbug wrote:

So whats my point? Its better to have a loaded and loitering aircraft that preferably can monitor high value targets itself (hence the ISR emphasis) and act instantly. GPS guided artillery took out Al queda's number one guy in Iraq, and like I said its all about drone warfare. The track record with cruise missiles against specific individuals is horrible, no matter how fast you get the missile going. When you have RC airplanes, 155s, and guys with shoulder weapons getting the job done better that should tell you something.

Agree with everything you've said, but having a drone in the air in the right place at the right time implies knowing roughly where the individual is, or covering a copious amount of airspace that's either undefended or friendly.

Special forces? Sure, there's a place for them in such roles, but how do you get them there? Helicopters are kind of expensive too. The Black Hawk that crashed in Bin Laden's yard cost over $20m.

Still, this does not call for a large number of hypersonic cruise missiles. You will never build them fast enough to resolve the basic problems with striking at one moving target. It really is a coin flip on if you will get someone like Bin Laden from range like that. He could move in 3 minutes or he could move in 2 days. Who knows.

The US is far better off having a large number of reasonably priced weapons like JASSM and TLAM than it would be having fewer high speed ones that can be delivered from fewer platforms (higher speed weapons are usually bigger, or have shorter range or have a smaller warhead in some combination). Higher speed weapons don't really have any increased rate of survival in my view. I would much rather have a B-1 that can fire off two dozen JASSM's than 6 to 8 BrahMos missiles.

I think there's a role for high-speed Global Strike whatever, but I am also skeptical that it would be worth it. Then again, we pour tons of money into fairly questionable projects all the time (*cough* ABL *cough*).

High speed weapons would definitely be more effective for high value targets that tend to move around a lot. The shorter the response time, the higher the likelihood you actually hit them.

Prinz_Eugn wrote:

I think there's a role for high-speed Global Strike whatever, but I am also skeptical that it would be worth it. Then again, we pour tons of money into fairly questionable projects all the time (*cough* ABL *cough*).

High speed weapons would definitely be more effective for high value targets that tend to move around a lot. The shorter the response time, the higher the likelihood you actually hit them.

Well, it would have to be a target that moves around every half hour instead of every hour.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

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