mmm wrote:Don't mean to bash it, but BAMS has been downed by Iran before. Granted it was a less than war scenario, constricted by a number of factors, including the mission itself, limiting what kind of standoff it could have achieved, taken by a suprisingly escalatory move.
I was interested to see this was one of four RQ-4s used to develop MQ-4 prototypes (as I remember another crash landed). Does the air force hand over a new RQ-4, or those with less than ideal life and cycles left in them? The fact they used one of the MQ-4 prototypes, which was probably an aging RQ-4 to begin with, suggests this was selected as the more disposable airframe to put at risk in a location where a shoot-down could occur.
mmm wrote:Yet China have a far more diverse array of options to deny ISRTA. Sitting at a 200nm range from long range SAM is far from a given, nor does it necessarily translate into survival. Sometimes to see what you really need to (what you need to hit is not always on forward edge), and to keep your eyes on (preparing a sortie then fly to target takes time), you have to penetrate. In ways China had it easier with ASBM. For whatever shortcomings it may have the time to target is undisputably short, in theory only a brief high quality track is sufficient. Thus afford them the option to employ relatively unsophiscated platforms, like rocket powered attritable UAS for the role.
You may be underestimating the distance to the radar horizon from the claimed FL560 service-ceiling of an MQ-4, it's
252 nm, or 466 km. Long-wave hydrophone triangulation plus OTHR surface correlation will give a good idea of contact search-boxes on ships and their movements. Pointing a powerful off-board-cued AESA at a large naval ship will likely get a target quality track while well outside heavy-SAM range. Increase radius and wait while B1-B launches, then close again to update location and track as B1-B reaches LRASM launch range.
If you want more MQ-4 surface scan radius add more engine-power and reduce weight (and or burn down the fuel).
Another option would be that the B1-B heads out to a long-range contact search-box, and lobs a small disposable tactical micro-satellite from a B1-B pylon, which overflies the search-box defined by the datalinked long-range sensors. As the B-1B approaches striking range the micro-sat relays precision target location and vector back to nav system in the LRASMs on the B1-B and to the wider network (this needs a passive IRST sensor with good cloud penetration performance).
Else the B1-B fires a long-range AAM on a booster (David's-Sling style) with an AESA sensor and two-way datalink at the off-board-defined search-box, and relays a PID target coordinate and vector then dives on the target ship's nerve-center for good measure to degrade SA and self-defense capabilities.
I personally think MQ-4 with the right tactics will suffice, without a need to penetrate SAM defenses. Not so much against a carrier with J-15s though.
09 Oct 2019, 18:12
