Let's draw a parallel with WWII batttleships: Battleships were made for primarly one thing: To square it off with other ships of the line. That was the idea around which they were conceived, at great expenses. And yet actual naval combat was quite rare - maybe a few hours in a 30-year career. But it was nonetheless the bench on which they were compared. Sure, battleships can fill a great other number of roles: Convoy protection, beach shelling, carrier escort, oil tanker etc. But all of these tasks can be done by lesser, much less expensive ships. However only battleships could fight other battleships (that is, before the domination of the carrier). Same thing for fighter aircrafts of today: There's no need for a near-perfect aerial platform if we just need to stick some electronics in the air. Bombers can largely suffice, and even do better as electronic platform. The other thing is how fast avionics change; just look at our discussion - we've reviewed about 3 generations of sensors just within Rafales. The true essence of a fighter, apart for the pilot (soon to be discarded anyway) is its hability to dogfight: When all else failed, that's all a fighter can count on. Here, we have an air superiority fighter, nearly twice the cost of its most expensive competitor, that has trouble dogfighting older, multi-purpose aircrafts? The US can slap all of these fancy electronics on a much better platform, IMO. And I am not just talking about dogfighting abilities here, but also operational ones.
From what I know, modern fighters have very complex wiring inside their frame. You can't just automatically slap a F-22 radar on another fighter. Or a F-35 IRST on an F-22. Each fighter has it's unique sensors, programming, and software. One of the big problems with the Raptors is it's inability to share datalinks with other 4th Generation planes without the help of Global Hawks. Software often dictates the plane's controls nowadays. One of the problems is the F-22 software is designed in 1990s and cannot fit F-35 software. Depends on the Radar cross section of the bomber. If it's too big like a B-52, a fighter may spot it long before the bomber spots the fighter. That is why US is making LRS-B. No it isn't. 2nd Generation Fighters like the F-104 and MiG-21 would turn very poorly compared to a 1st Generation fighter like MiG-15 or Sabre. 3rd Generation Fighters were also maybe even horrible turners(good climbers) and relied on missiles. They were very fast. Fighter=Ability to fight, air-air. The F-22 and Typhoon cost around the same. $130-150 million. Multi-purpose aircraft is a generic term. All modern fighters can attack air-air and air-ground. So can the F-22 now in Syria. Dogfighting depends a lot on skill. T-38s have beaten F-22s before. The Typhoon duel probably had to do mostly skill since the Typhoon has poorer sustained turn. Typhoon's instantaneous turn is only superior to the Raptor at higher altitude. According the Eurofighter website. https://typhoon.starstreak.net/Eurofighter/tech.php No they cannot. Software, wiring, fitting problems. It will require complete new upgrades, like making a new plane. F-22 is has such powerful sensors because it's so big. One of the reasons the Typhoon can turn harder at higher at high altitudes is it's canards and smaller frame. No way are you going fit a F-22 radar on a Rafale on Typhoon. A much better platform? Like what? The F-35 and F-22 are the only stealth fighters in service. Even if a Rafale/Typhoon/Su-35 had the same power as an F-22 radar, the F-22 will find it first due to it's stealth.
When an American pilot (or one from another western nation) is drawn into a dogfight it is largely considered a "mission kill" right off the bat. Because anything can happen in a dogfight. Most of it bad. Ideally, when engaging other fighters a plane like the F-22 gets lock on before they are detected, looses several Amraams, turns hard away to evade any return missile fire, kills several of the opposition and calls it a day.
All three branches of the U.S. military today use the Loose Deuce air combat tactics. First adopted by U.S. Navy and Marine fighters during WW ll. The U.S. Air Force used the "Welded Wing" but would adopt the "Loose Deuce" during the Vietnam War. Fighter Combat TACTICS AND MANEUVERING -> http://www.imagery.vnfawing.com/PDF-Archive/Fighter-Combat-Tactics-and-Maneuvering.pdf
How come no f-16 mang? OK..in lieu of that:A10 Warthog. AKA:Nothing that was listed in poll..yet the truth.
There's also the Russians SU-50s. I don't beleive in either stealth fighters or their utility. Stealth bombers, yes, that I can understand; get in quick with total active sensor silence, bomb and then go away the same way with none the wiser. But fighters? Fighters in intercepting mode must have their sensors turned on - thus producing electronic signature. They also got huge engines, giving up a lot of IR signature. Also, being as big as the Raptor implies an important visual signature as well. For the rest, sensor are being upgraded to detect them. IMO, a carrier-able F-22 would be preferable to a "stealthy" skin.
Which isn't in service. I think you are talking about radars. Depends how good the enemy radar warning receiver, and how good your frequency hopping, coded waveform, along with the enemy radar cross section, and the power of you radar. If you are using the F-22, which lacks IRST, it's a good idea to have a couple of F-22s turn on their radars while they use their datalinks to guide the silent F-22s to their targets. Er, I don't see how bombers are any more stealthier than fighters seeing they both use radars. If it's a passive sensors like an IRST, FLIR or TV channel, no, there is no way you can detect that sensor being turned on. Visual signature is difficult to detect in longer ranges because of the atmosphere. That is why most visual detection is during dogfights. Infrared devices like IRST usually have lower ranges than radars and often can be negated by flying in lower altitudes near the atmosphere where the air is too thick. Plus the Raptor has it's suppressed engines and infrared cooling coatings which slice off the range as well.
cont: Infrared devices like IRST usually have lower ranges than radars and often can be negated by flying in lower altitudes near the atmosphere where the air is too thick. Plus the Raptor has it's suppressed engines and infrared cooling coatings which slice off the range as well. Although German Eurofighters at Red Flag didn't use IRST, German pilots claim they can detect a Raptor target around 50 km. https://theaviationist.com/2014/09/...s-in-a-dogfight-against-4th-gen-fighter-jets/ I'll Give you this made-up a Scenario: So lets say 10 F-22s v 10 Eurofighters. The Eurofighters have Radar warning receivers and IRST. Five Raptors turn on their radars and spot all the Eurofighters at hundreds of kilometers. The Eurofighters are able to receive some of the signals and get a general idea where the enemy Squadron is. Once all the Raptors close to around 100 km and closing, a couple of Raptors fire a few AIM-120D AMRAAM missile all turned around at different frequencies, the Typhoons evade and turn on their chaff and jammers. A few Eurofighters are hit. The Eurofighter commander notices this is a stealth target since his radars cannot detect it at these distances and need to close in to use their infrared sensors. Two Eurofighters have been killed in the ripple fire so far. He orders a full supercruise charge. The Eurofighters drop their tanks and move to the general direction of the F-22s. The Raptor commander with his radar turned on, orders the non-emitting five remaing F-22s to take a different course to flank the Eurofighter formation. The five non-emitting(radar off) Raptors dive low into low altitudes, where infrared light peneterates poorly. They are guided by datalinks for coordinates of an ambush by the emititng Raptors. The main Raptor force is not faced of head-to-head with the Typhoon force. It then becomes an electronic warfare battle. Both fighters can use their receivers to spot electronmagentic energy(that includes jammers), jammers to jam radar, and missiles that can be guided via by IRST, RWR, or radar with active homing seekers. Since the Raptor has the radar advantage it can guide missiles with it's radar, while the Typhoons can't, it gives a big advantage. For example if one Typhoon turns on jammer, the Raptor can spot the signals and triangulate them and fire a missile, forcing the Typhoon to turn off his jammer, and the missile can then be guided by radar. Alternatively the Eurofighter can attempt narrower directed beam jamming at different signals where it is too hard to triangulate, but the Raptor since it's stealthier can employ tricks to flank where it is unsuspected, turning on the radar and the last second before firing. Since the Raptor's radar beam is narrow and fast, it is too hard to triangulate to take a shot. At 70 km and closing, the Five main force of Raptors run out of long range missiles. Two Raptors have been killed by the super MBDA Meteor missiles from lucky RWR shots, while three Eurofighters are killed. The rest of the missiles fail to hit their targets. The five remaining Eurofighters spot the F-22s at 50 km. The Eurofighters use the passive IRST to triangulate the F-22 and fire their Meteors. The Raptor seeing the missile incoming, turn and run. The deploy red phosphrous flares which produces smoke IR cannot penetrate. The missiles don't make it to their targets without radar guidance and their by terminal phase, their active radar homing seekers get nothing. The non-emmiting Raptors at lower altitudes were able to completely flank the Eurofighter squadron at 30 km, where their radars were not turned on and out manuvered the Eurofighters' IRST's line of sight. The Five Raptors pop up and shoot a barrage of AMRAAMs killing all but two Eurofighters. The remaining Eurofighters stuck with only ASRAAMs turn and run. All the Raptors go supercruise. Since the Eurofighter are stuck with pylons and heat seeking missiles attached to their wings, due to their drag they fly slower. The Eurofighters know they have to fight and go for a dogfight. They shoot their ASRAAMs killing 2 Raptors before engaging with guns. Multiple Raptors now engage with their AIM-9X Sidewinders. Outnumbered, the Eurofighters are destroyed. So in this scenario I was able to illustrate the Raptor's advantage in: -Stealth-detect the enemy with radar before he can detect you. -Tactics to avoid RWR-have a few Raptors turn on their radars -AESA based jamming-Since the Raptor uses it's own AESA radar to jam, it beam is narrow and thin, difficult to triangulate(needed in order to fire with RWR) -AESA tactics-have signals moving on different flanks to make a unpredictable enemy especially against jammers -Using own RWR to detect barrage jamming in all directions -Counter IRST such as flying low or using smoke flares to block guidance data for long range missiles. -The Raptor's speed You have to realize 5th Generation Fighters have a huge advantage due to their VLO. That is why so many different nations want the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter like the UK. France also has their lightweight bomber called the NeEuron function as a stealth fighter with air-air missiles. Russia and China are not going for 4th Gens when they can go for 5th Gens. The scenario may have played out differently if the Raptor was unable to spot their targets in time before IRST spotted them flying at normal altitudes.
And let me throw in another bit into the mix. One area that the US has the advantage over the air forces of other nations is their AWAC birds. Operating as "flying command posts", they will frequently operate as the "eyes" of fighters in an area, allowing them to fly with their RADAR systems off until needed. This greatly reduces any electronic emissions by the fighters in the air, making them harder to detect. And while there are rumors and some talk about the interlinking between the systems of various systems, one rumor that has popped in and out for decades is that there is a capability for one aircraft to fire it's weapons off of the RADAR take of another. So say an F-16 can fire an AIM-120 missile with the RADAR information taken from an E-3 Sentry, without the need to fire up it's own RADAR at all. This is not really science fiction, our AEGIS system can already do that today. And I know in Air Defense the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are working hard to make all of their systems compatible for the sharing of information (not to the point of fire control yet, but enough for warning and coordination purposes). And as for IR, those are much easier to defeat then RADAR. They are very nearsighted systems, designed for short range use. They are perfect for ranges of under 10 miles, where they hope to hit before the pilot can react to their being attacked. But with sufficient warning, a pilot can change course and drop flares. An IR tracker is really a rather simple form of suicide craft, generally going after the hottest thing it can see. Throw out a flare and turn 90 degrees, and now the hottest thing it sees is not the jet exhaust, but the flare. A modern RADAR tracking missile however is a much smarter creation, larger and with more processor power. The earlier ones were still rather stupid, not unlike the IR homers. It looked for the RADAR picture it was told to track, and sent after it. And throwing things like throwing out chaffe and RFI often (about 15-35% of the time) distracted them into attacking ghosts and could be evaded. In a modern RADAR guided missile, it can even have the RADAR cross-section of an aircraft model held in it's memory and when it recognizes the target as a MiG-25, will ignore any other RADAR returns it sees, so long as that of the Foxbat is still visible. And in our more advanced systems it can be linked to a much more powerful ground based system which because of it's power and different angle may be able to continue to track the target where the missile itself looses it. I predict the biggest change in the next quarter century in Air Defense is going to be the increased interoperability of these various systems, and smarter warheads. One I have even considered is the use of some form of LASER designator linked to anti-air missiles. Linking 3-4 LASER designators on an aircraft and software to allow them to automatically track an aircraft targeted could provide a homing system that neither chaffe or IR decoys could fool. And we might finally be getting to the point where such technology would be possible.
I wanted to answer this before vacations (sorry for its delay): First, that's an impressive, fair scenario: I might have some disagreements here and there but overall, it's a solid enough basis. The main disagreement is about the Raptor's VLO/LO advantage, furthermore when in intercepting/interdiction mission. If an AWACS does the active detection job for it, it can be subjected to attack for it when facing a technological equal. The best platform for this would be a high altitude stealth bomber, who would have no combat role - strictly support. In this sense I understand VLO (which is much higher in the B2 than in the F22). And then, there's the certitude that modern sensor tech will eventually catch up even to VLO, for a fraction of the price. Already, with the SU-50's appearance, the US will have to develop theirs. There little else to differentiate the 5th generation fighters from "4th and a half" ones, apart for the price tag. Real "5th gen" Fighters shall be drones, IMO.
From what I know the B-2 bomber is not more stealthier than the F-22. The F-22 has a radar cross section of around 0.0001m2 while the B-2 has a RCS between 0.0001m2 and 0.1m2. The problem is if two fighters have high tech sensors, the one with VLO will always see first. Isn't the Su-50 a stealth fighter? What differentiate's 4.5 and 5th Gens is the stealth and internal weapons bay. With external weapons hanging on wings you cannot fly your maximum speed. The Eurofighter Tyhpoon cost more than the F-35 btw.
There are at least five variations of the F35; they all have different weights and handling characteristics, so without knowing which variations, or what the pilot's skill level is or how many hours he has in that aircraft, you can't really go by a single vid. Around here we can watch them practice carrier take-offs and landings, sometimes all day long since they build them here and get their first testing flights here, and yes some do appear unstable, while a majority look just fine, and a few now and then make everybody's butt pucker occasionally. Not many pilots out there with a lot of flight time logged in those things yet , nor have any crashed into the lake or plowed up a neighborhood, so it's all good so far.
Chinese copy of the Lightning II. http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=1024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-31 How is it American 'defense' contractors, or any other R&D developers, can't seem to keep anything secure? We already spend billions upon billions on R&D for all kinds of engineering and then it gets handed over to everybody else almost immediately by these corporations. Not that this will be a real threat to us any time soon, but any bets on how many pilots and planes the Chinese will lose trying to land on their pretend 'aircraft carrier'? ...
Because those computer servers that Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, etc. have are made in China and the chi-coms afren't stupid, they made sure there's a backdoor.
Pretty good prediction; the latest generation 'smart missiles' will have their own memory storage and target acquisition capabilities built in, and will no longer have to be 'guided' by anybody but themselves once armed, which means the can't be jammed by any ECM methods. And yes, IR is easy to defeat, but the new laser systems are operating in the much shorter frequency ranges, as in UV and even shorter, 256nm to 150nm wavelengths, with internal mirror arrays. They will give a complete 3-D image of their targets and all of its possible trajectories in fractions of a second and can even precisely determine almost exactly where they will strike it. They'll be using developments in this technique: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirp https://www.rp-photonics.com/chirp.html Laser diodes are now a 'mature' technology and much smaller than they were 20 years ago. The first diode pumped master oscillators were about the size of a shoe box, and didn't include mirror arrays, still had to pump a large water-cooled Yag laser at IR frequencies, 1040 or so, doubled to the green spectrum, 520, and in three years we were down to 256 nm and dropping, with a system about the size of a cigarette pack, still with external mirror arrays and still pumping a larger laser. Now the entire system can be 'grown' in vacuum chambers with LC tech and no need to pump up a larger laser system. The manufacturing technology roadblock is the same ones that have slowed down nearly all of electronics since the invention of the light bulb, and that is having to wait on advances in vacuum science and engineering, and it in turn having to wait on material sciences research, and back and forth again.
No weapons other then air to ground weapons following a LASER designator are guided by humans. And in every case the acquisition is always determined by a human being. There is no such thing as an "autonomous system". Ther eis always a real person behind the determining of what is to be targeted and launched against. And the resaons for this should be obvious, to prevent "blue on blue" casualties. What I am talking about is basically an airborne version of the system our ground troops have used for decades. On the ground, Infantry Battalions have LASER designators, that can be used with various air and ground based weapons (like the COPPERHEAD artillery round) to precision guide munitions onto a target. With the current generation of optical tracking and computers, it is possible to put such systems onto aircraft, and having them "visually" track the target. No more need for an easily detected IR footprint that can be tracked back to the attacking aircraft (like RADAR). One of the problems with most conventional detection and tracking systems (RADAR and SONAR) is that they emit huge amounts of their respective signals, that are detectable at ranges much farther then they can actually "see". The beauty of LASER is that it is a very small beam, with no measurable "scatter" to be detected from adversaries. The biggest problem until recently in such a system was the capability of computer systems to actively track an enemy target without a human actively guiding the trace. Something that might have been possible in the older generation twin seat fighters (like an F-14), but not really realistic in the modern single seat fighters. Only in the last several years have the optical and computer systems risen to the challenge of being able to track a target in a 3D environment and following it without loosing track. And doing so from multiple cameras and LASER designators, swapping from one to the other as required. And I know this because a few months ago I was given a demo of a new security camera system. Where an individual can be "marked", then the main display will follow that individual, as they move from one camera in an area to another. This is light-years beyond the old system, where we have to memorize where every camera in a store is located, and where the coverage of one ends and another one picks up. With this system, you just "click" on them and the computer always keeps them in "sight". And of course I immediately let my mind wander into how this could be put into place in a military system.
Not quite what I said. Who ever arms them is making the call; once armed, they will indeed be able to operate autonomously, as they will have their own ability to determine 'friend' and 'foe', and this will even be so if the real person made a mistake in identification. This gets around ECM and spoofing very effectively. The cameras will be unnecessary; multiple lasers at varied frequencies will do it all, and much quicker. Cameras are just another tech based on light themselves; they're just becoming an unnecessary step and hardware. This was all in the R&D pipeline from the early 1990's, and worked on at Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore, I helped install a civilian model spun off on the concept in Singapore recently, at their LG port facility they are upgrading and expanding; they can now monitor their large storage tanks and pipelines for stress problems in 'real' time as the LG is loaded or unloaded, and software to trigger danger points getting out of spec. Those tanks and lines expand and contract as they're used, and it's an experience to watch them doing this magnified a few times, and doing so without hauling ass. This a stationary set up, so not nearly as complicated, but it's all from the same R&D and older hologram techniques. For the present, camera systems are still vastly cheaper for civilian purposes; there are problems with throwing lasers around in places like a store, though, and in any case security guards and cameras are dirt cheap comparatively.
Actually, the missile has no ability at all to determine if a target is friendly or hostile. It can tell nothing of the sort, there is no kind of ability at all to do that, there is no need for that. This is all determined by the individual launching the weapon, as well as the hardware-software built into the launching system itself. In modern systems, this is electronically done primarily by the "Identify Friend-Foe" (IFF) system. This is essentially a transponder system in friendly aircraft, that responds with a coded pulse when interrogated by a friendly air defense system. Right answer, it is flagged as a friendly on the screen. Wrong answer, it is flagged as "unknown". And no, it is not flagged as "hostile", because it may simply be a civilian aircraft in the area and therefore a non-combatant. But the main system we use to determine air threats is the human brain. The "air space" is generally cut up into zones, and all allied aircraft are expected to stay in those zones. Say you have a ground based system aiming 90 degrees. From 80-100 may be set as a "red zone" for a distance of 100 miles, no aircraft to pass through that other then at a path going from 350-010 or 170-190 degrees across the path of the RADAR. Any aircraft in that area that is not flying at those angles is generally assumed to be potentially hostile. What I gave is largely hypothetical, but that is a layman's phrasing of how things like that are layed out. Then other things are looked at. The flight characteristics of the aircraft, it's RADAR return, speed and altitude, a great many things. These are all taken into consideration by a real human being, which then makes the decision if it is going to shoot or not. When each of the "Blue on Blue" events of the last 20 years, there are generally 2 things that happened each time. In both events (a RAF Tornado and USN Hornet) both the IFF transponder was turned off or not working properly, and the aircraft was outside of the designated safe flight zone. In another incident, a USAF Falcon fired a HARM missile at a PATRIOT site after identifying it as an Iraqi SAM site. However, the IFF in the F-16 had responded that it was a friendly so the site never fired at the F-16 (it did track it however, because it was in the wrong flight area). These decisions are all made by humans however, not the systems. The missiles have no IFF capability, and IFF is only advisory. Basically if one was to target an aircraft with a friendly identifier in the system you just get a message asking "Are you sure?". But when it comes to things like air defense, the only real positive is the identification of a friendly target. An aircraft that ATC is in contact with and identified as a friendly F-15 that is returning a friendly IFF code and following the approved flight path is 98% of the time going to be exactly what it says. A friendly and not to be engaged. But the unidentified target, who knows? You look at where it came from, where it is going, it's speed and altitude. It's RADAR cross-section, any communications passed between it and ATC, even visual identification from other assets (ground and air) to make the decision if it is a friend or not. That return you are tracking, is it a Dvin Airlines Il-76 cargo jet on a charter, or an A-50 MAINSTAY AWAC aircraft in the Russian Air Force? Because on a RADAR screen, both are the same (they are the same aircraft). If the A-50 has it's main RADAR system turned off, it is going to be impossible to tell from the Il-76. To an air defense system, ENEMY is a designation only given after looking at a great many things, all decided by real human beings. Not machines. A system can't identify a target as being enemy, it can only say it has not identified it as friendly. It however may indeed be a friendly, it may be a non-combatant. It may be enemy. It is the people that make the ultimate decision, not the system. And remember, this was my profession for years. I am simply trying to pass through some of the information I have in a way that does not violate security classifications, and in a basic form to make it more easily understandable. But there is absolutely no way we are ever going to be turning over these kinds of decisions to machines. Because if we did, expect incidents like the USS Vincennes to be happening regularly.
Well actually there is, and yes we'll see some of the newer systems coming online in the next 5 to 10 years, and the reason why is that they will be far better and much faster than humans at separating 'friend' from 'foe'; no more accidents as in the Doctors without Border hospital being mistaken, no more armor units being mis-identified on the ground during night battles, etc. These 'smart weapons' will be carrying their own databases and detection systems. Pilots are going away, and these system will dominate. Actually they will be able to identify thousands of aircraft, and ground units for those that need to have that data, all self-contained and no need for losing time communicating back and forth with some other database or human. It is absolutely the future of warfare; your profession and many other MOS's are going to be changing a lot over the next decades.
Well, the Kunduz Incident was because forces on the ground and/or intelligence stated that there were insurgents operating from the compound. Since insurgents do not carry any kind of IFF, there is nothing technology could have done to prevent this. The target was identified, the target was hit. There is no dispute that the wrong target was hit at all, simply in that it should have been a target in the first place. So your claim there would only be valid if the situation was where 1 target was identified, and a completely different target was hit. Like a cop identifying somebody coming at him as a threat and shooting them when they were not a threat, as opposed to being told to spike the tires of a blue car, when in reality it was a red car they should have spiked. And as I stated, you can not really seperate "friend from foe", simply "friend from unknown". Unknown may be a friend, a neutral, or an enemy. But without some kind of visual on them or their actions, there is no way you can identify somebody unknown as a foe. I see 10 people at night advancing on my position. II give the callsign and the response is wrong. Does that make them the enemy? No, of course not, it just means they are not friendly troops. So if I just assume they are enemies and shoot them up, then I may well have shot 2 family groups trying to leave the combat area. Of course, I could also have opened up on a group of insurgents trying to attack my position. But this should illustrate why we do not use "friend or foe", only "friend and unknown" untill we have actually identified who the unknown actually is. And for identifying targets on the ground, that is why we now have "Blue Force Tracker" (BFT). A system linking GPS and radios in all ground vehicles, identifying them to all other friendly units in the area. Similar to IFF, it will allow other forces to know where our troops are. So hopefully in the future if a flyer sees a bunch of tanks they will know if they are ours or theirs. And databases in a weapon does no good. Remember, these do not think, so what is going to be in the database? Do not attack a tank if it is an M1? Do not attack a fighter if it is an F-5/F-4/F-1? These are used by both allied and beligerant nations. It is impossible to have a computer determine if one is friendly or an enemy. And yea, I have heard the "pilotless aircraft of the future" for the last 15 years. I expect that to become a reality at about the time that atomic weapons make war impossible, and bombers make infantry obsolete. We have heard claims like that in the past, how well did any of those work out? One thing about being a fan of technology, I also see what the downsides and limitations of that technology are. And I do not see pilots being phased out any time in the next century at the shortest. In fact, I am not even convinced at this time that drones are not simply another fad, and will be phased out themselves in many ways in the next decade or so. After all, how effective can "pilotless aircraft" really be when a 3rd world nation can force one off-course and bring it down without firing a single weapon? But you miss the point. "Identifying" aircraft is nothing really. We do it all the time. The real problem is classifying said aircraft. This is where the "human element" comes into play. When I was deployed, I spent many thousands of hours watching RADAR screens. And all real-world, normally with hundreds of different RADAR tracks at the same time. Most tracks we easily recognized and dismissed. Routine commercial flights, from one civilian air field to another. Then there were the other ones, various military air flights. We could tell the difference between a fighter from Iran and Kuwait, mostly by looking where it took off from and where it is going. But we could tell it was a fighter, because of flight characteristics I previously mentioned (RADAR return, speed, altitude). And by tracking where the aircraft go to and from, we know who they are. An Iranian fighter hoping to crater our runway was not going to try and pose itself off as a British fighter, we already know where it came from. And the same goes for missiles. I can watch a RADAR screen, and tell you if the inbound missile is a ballistic missile, or a cruise missile. If an ABT (Air Breathing Threat - cruise) I can quickly check to see what type it is, so what it's range is. If a BM (Ballistic Missile), I can look at where it came from, trajectory and speed-altitude and give a good idea what type of missle it is, and where it will impact. And those are actually easy calls to make, if it is a missile coming at you and it is going to hit something you are designated to protect, you shoot it down. If it is not going to hit anything you are assigned to protect, you ignore it. I have very little faith in the "future of warfare". Such predictions have been made for over a century now. And in reality, almost none of them have ever come true. Yes these advances have made changes, but almost never the absolute gamechanger that their promoters have promised. And the more I hear of them being passed off as the "future", the more I tend to back off and look at them even more critically. Hell, even for all the advances in Air Defense systems, this is true. Are you aware that even with all the power of a PATRIOT missile, the main (and only) defense they have against helicopters is the M2 .50 machine gun?
A realistic scenario mate..In the end, after all AMRAAM's and METEORS are fired , the AIM-9X would do the job..Raptors are not only superior in BVR, but also in WVR type of engagements..International Marketing Director of Eurofighter Consortium Mr. David Hamilton once said that the Eurofighter is not in the same league as F-22 !!!!!
I don't believe in either "stealth" fighters or even "5th generation" ones - I think it's a scam. Remember the F-117 shotdown in Serbia in 1999, or the capture of the said "stealthy" RQ 170 Sentinel drone in 2011. Now that was by Serbia and Iran, respectively: Now imagine what the bigger boys, such as France, China, the UK or Russia - and even India - can do. I'd still rather take a F-18 Super Hornet over a F-35 anyday: The F-18 is a proven, simpler and more operational platform while the f-35 is pure hype. The F-22 fares admittedly better, but it is still underwhelming when compared with what are described as "4th generation" fighters in a dogfight (basically what differentiates a fighter from a bomber), and maybe even in BVR combat - in which the F-22's supposed advantages have never been proven. For placing all of its eggs in the same BVR basket, the F-22 reminds me of the early Phantoms in Vietnam. IMO "5th generation fighters" profits much more the military industrial complex than the nations who buy them.
The F-4 Phantom was designed and originally deployed as a carrier based interceptor, no gun just air to air missiles to shoot down Soviet bombers approaching CBG's. The Navy's dog fighter at the same time was the F-8 Crusader aka (Mig Killer) it had guns and could get into a dog fight with Migs. The USAF would adopt the Navy's F-4 and add guns to it and also hard points for bombs. The Navy and Marine Corps would quickly follow suit. During the late 50's and throughout the 60's the USAF would adopt many Navy aircraft, the F-4 Phantom, A-1 Skyraider, A-7 Corsair, the Navy's A-3 that became the USAF B-66. The USN was just building better combat aircraft back then I suppose. The F-4 wasn't excellent at any mission but good at them all. Kinda like the "jack of all trades, a master at none." The F-4 was used as a interceptor replacing the F-102 in the USAF and ANG, as a air superiority fighter until replaced by the F-15. It was used as a high altitude bomber, battlefield interdiction, close air support, deep strike bombing missions, electronic warfare (Wild Weasel), reconnaissance missions. It wasn't excellent at any of them but good at them all.
You do know don't you that in air to air combat, a "dogfight" is a last resort that any competent pilot will avoid if at all possible. And in a dogfight, pilot training and ability is arguably a much more important factor than mere aircraft performance. Remember that once they were trained in how to use the F-4 in dogfighting they had a lot of success with it.
