Future of the EU

[Thermodyne]

El_Phil said:
The Abrams has a short(ish) range and eats fuel (so does evey other tank but that ain't the point ). Also a stereotypical US designed engine will have a fuel efficiency measured in gallons per mile (that would be hundreds of litres per kilometre for European types)

So assume that as the US built the engine it would be like the cars. Not a good joke and doesn't improve with explanation. Hey ho.

When it comes to gas turbines, the US sets the standard. Gas turbines are more durable and reliable than diesel internal combustion engines, and have a much longer service life between overhauls. The US uses them in everything; many of our war ships use geared gas turbines as do many aircraft, landing craft, etc. Generators using turbines fueled by natural gas provide 40% (IIRC) of the tipping power to the US electric grid. Also, when the M1 was in development, a diesel prototype was tested, it had a huge caterpillar diesel engine and was found to be underpowered and with only marginally better fuel economy. The engine was so large that it limited the amount of space that could be used for fuel. The only prototype that met the spec for speed was the Chrysler turbine. Cooling is another factor to be considered, the M1 does not have a liquid cooling system, which is a problem area for every other tank in the world.

Comparing a mil spec engine to something that Detroit puts into mass produced cars is silly. AFAIK, the only US combat vehicle in wide deployment to use a civil production engine is the HMMWV. Of note is the fact that during GW1, the US Army was able to keep its tanks fuel in what was the largest, farthest reaching armored maneuver since WWII. Sure, they had complete freedom of manuvor because of total air superiority, but it would be assumed that in any large armored battle the same would exist. Every time US designed aircraft have gone up against their Soviet contemporaries since the end of the war in SEA, the Soviet aircraft have been swept from the sky. As to providing fuel to the tanks in Germany, there is a propositioned infrastructure that includes hardened storage as well as a system of distribution points. An M1 can be refueled as fast as it can be rearmed. Finally, the war for which the tank was built would have been a delaying action probably in the Fulda Gap. Range would not have been a big issue as the initial battle would have been a delaying action to buy time for American air power to come to bare. By plan, it would have been a shoot and scoot action, designed only to slow the Soviet advance. There was never any confidence that a counter offensive would have been successful. It would have come down to negotiations and the threat of nuclear escalation. Another problem was not knowing what the French would have done. They were/are luke warm as to their NATO responsibilities, and there was some concern that they would close their airspace and sit WW3 out.

[El_Phil]

A. Joke. I'll repeat that. Joke
B. Any comparison of US vs Soviet aircraft is silly as the pilot quality of the soviet drivers has been poor at best.
C. Not serious. Just in case A. was missed.
D. Well actually Rolls Royces sets the standard of gas turbines, it's just national bias stops the US buying them as often as they should. Take a look at the littoral combat ship engine progamme.
E. Cat engines are awful, only buying Perkins and stealing a great deal of their technology gave them a hope.
F. Lets be honest France sitting it out would have depended on the Soviets agreeing. They might of done or might not have.
G. If you are interested may I point in you in the direction of http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/npapers/np4/np4.pdf where the US tried to work out how the cold war might have panned out if it went hot. Fascinating read


To drag this back on topic, you do have to wonder why other countries are going on with referendums for the EU constitution. If the Dutch and French have said no and all countries have to ratify it does that imply that they will keep on asking Holland and France until they produce the right answer?

[Thermodyne]

Yep, I’ve seen that a few times. It was once held in high esteem, but today is just seen as the beginning of computerized war planning. Also, the gamers did not have access to the full capabilities of their assets, not having the needed clearances.

At the time of the games, US capabilities were not very good with conventional forces. The draw down from SEA and the lowering of standards needed to support that war were still having a dramatic effect on the military. All of the services were also deeply involved in a shift to electronics; this can be seen in how the games were run. Also, the damage done by one particular secretary of state had cost us a generation of fighters, strike aircraft and MBT’s. Depending on which administration was in office, we would have gone nuclear at the first opportunity, or written off SEA and Europe at the first opportunity. It was not until the Regan administration that the military was given the freedom to become the dominate organization that it is today.

Lucky for us that intentions were overestimated on both sides. We now know that the Soviets were more concerned about us invading their satellite states, and had few if any designs on Europe. During that period, the only place were we resolved to defending was the Middle East. I doubt that many of you know how close it came to happening in 73. I can remember standing on a large base here looking at thousands of blue helmets lined up on the parking lots. Fresh paint drying in the sun. At the time it never dawned in me that the men were already gone, the base was all but empty. It was a little ruse for the recon sats. I would assume that the intent was to make someone think that US forces were going somewhere with a UN mandate. Fact is, the unit in question was already gone, and if needed would have been in theater somewhat sooner than expected. I have since learned that the Soviets had an airborne division on the tarmac too. The Soviets were making blatant threats to intervene on behalf of the Syrians and Egyptians. And had the Israelis been able to exploit their crossing with an advance on Cairo, I think the Soviets would have intervened just to salve the pride of their administration. That would have been a dangerous situation. The superpowers would have been forward based on the wrong side of the front lines, and this would have been a real bad situation for Israel and Egypt.

[Thermodyne]

To get this back on topic, I been doing some digging and have come to the conclusion that the problem is freedom of movement and the right to work. The western workers fear an influx of cheap eastern labor. And well they should. They will foot the bill in the long run.
It’s already happened here, the factory jobs went to other countries, and the illegals do the manual labor that is left. Every year sees a lessening of benefits for the true working class. I don’t know the answer, but there is no way the west can raise the rest of the world to our standard of living. So I guess the global economy will pull us down closer to theirs.

[El_Phil]

It all depends on the jobs that are being done. France, Germany and Italy to a lesser extent have large manufacturing bases, jobs that can be done a hell of alot cheaper in anywhere east, Europe or Asia. The UK doesn't. Oh sure there's bits and bobs and a few specialist firms, but that's the keyword. Specialist and requires a high level of knowledge and experience to get it done. The UK economy is now mainly services and other non-manual jobs.

I would say that's one of the reasons why average Eurozone unemployment rate is 10%+ and rising while the UK rate is less than 5% and falling. Of course there are others, but you can't lose a job you don't have.

What will happen in the future? Well prediction is a mugs game so I'm keeping my mouth shut

[Thermodyne]

El_Phil said:
A. Joke. I'll repeat that. Joke
B. Any comparison of US vs Soviet aircraft is silly as the pilot quality of the soviet drivers has been poor at best.
C. Not serious. Just in case A. was missed.
D. Well actually Rolls Royces sets the standard of gas turbines, it's just national bias stops the US buying them as often as they should. Take a look at the littoral combat ship engine progamme.
E. Cat engines are awful, only buying Perkins and stealing a great deal of their technology gave them a hope.
F. Lets be honest France sitting it out would have depended on the Soviets agreeing. They might of done or might not have.
G. If you are interested may I point in you in the direction of http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/npapers/np4/np4.pdf where the US tried to work out how the cold war might have panned out if it went hot. Fascinating read


To drag this back on topic, you do have to wonder why other countries are going on with referendums for the EU constitution. If the Dutch and French have said no and all countries have to ratify it does that imply that they will keep on asking Holland and France until they produce the right answer?

I was going to let this pass, but what the heck. I don’t think pilots are the problem with the performance of soviet aircraft. Now that we jointly train with them, they are seen as being of high quality. The problem is with their command and control structure and the lack of flexibility in their actions

[El_Phil]

As the average Russian unit gets barely enough hours to stay qualified on the jet, that's a problem. Wasn't a problem in the Cold War and of course back then the whole support and ground infrastructure also worked. They also had numbers and kit such as the AA-11. (So good that when Germany re-unified and the West German airforce got their hands on one they immediatedly started developing the IRIS-T as copy with Western electronics)

As I understood your point you were talking about US designed aircraft vs Soviet designed aircraft in combat that has happened. The only ones I can thing off all have one side with well trained pilots and decent C3I support on the ground against badly trained pilots with no backup. Always favouring the side with the US planes. So you can't judge the planes on that performance. I would also point you at the recent India-US airforce exercises where the F-15s were badly mauled by the Flankers. Now it may have been a rigged exercise (no AWACS and limited range AMRAAMS) but the Indians operated under the same restrictions (the fact they don't own any AWACS platforms is neither here nor there).

So just assuming the Soviet airforce would be swept from the sky is a tad arrogant.

[Thermodyne]

I wouldn’t call that an exorcise, more like a sales pitch for the F22. Which is what it became and may have been from the beginning. 2nd line F15’s that were not allowed to use their radars in passive mode, not to mention equipped with older radars. No Awacs support, so they just broadcast their positions until the SU’s fired on them. And with a 100km range advantage, guess who won. Had it been F14’s with AIM 54’s it would have been a little different outcome. And had the F15’s been free to use normal tactics; I would think it would have been a lot different.

AA 10 70-170km

AIM 120 50-70km

AIM 54 210+km


Much has been said about long range kills with advanced missiles, but the reality has usually been that the dirty work happens closer in.

Here is the transcript of the first AIM 120 kill. While the target was marked as hostile at long range, the closing speeds insured that combat occurred much closer in.

- 1/13/93 Aerospace Daily: Transcript of Close F-16/AWACS coordination
v Radar acqusition and lock-on of the lead MiG was almost immediately
at around 20 nm as the MiG's "turned to confront" the F-16's
v The MiG-25's were reported to have fired at least one missile
v AWACS: "Benji 41, Lock Leader, Leader Past the Line, now 18 miles, Angels 29".
Benji 41: "Roger, they're south of the line."
AWACS: "Benji 41, status trailer"
Benji 42: "I have a lock, it's tracking"
AWACS: "OK, I show 'em well south of the line, 14 miles.
Toot Sweet, try to get the trailer"
Benji 41: "Benji Burners"
AWACS: "12 miles, 12 miles"
Benji 41: "Bogey Dope"
AWACS: "Benji, I show them 8 miles"
Benji 41: "Benji, I am looking for a Clearance to Fire"
AWACS: "Benji 41, Cleared Kill, Cleared Kill"
Benji 41: "Benji, understand Cleared Kill?"
[sound of lock-on tone]
AWACS: "Cleared to Kill, Cleared to Kill, you've got .....Bandits"
[sound of launch tone]
Benji 41: "Benji Fox"
AWACS: "Benji let's come hard left"
Benji 41: "Splash" [missile running time around 8 seconds]
Benji 41: "Benji, burners, let's take it down. Go Low."
[F-16's dive from 29,000 ft to 17,000 ft, new lock]
Benji 41: "Benji, Splash One, Splash One"
AWACS: "Copy, Splash One."

By the time Benji 41 had weapons release, the range was down to 8 miles. On tape, this is about a 15 second conversation.

[El_Phil]

No AIM-54s in active service anymore. Soon to be no F-14s either. Anyway back to the point.

I'm not saying it was a realistic exercise, it clearly was designed to say 'Look the F-15s are rubbish! Buy the F-22 or we're all going to die,' However the Indians had no AWACS, and were using older model Flankers as well. Also using Indian designed radars which weren't brand spanking new either.

So without the big force multiplier of brand new radars or AWACS the comparable era Soviet/Russian planes beat the US planes. So just saying Soviet designed planes would be swept from the sky is a big statement and based on one sided fights. Even the forces/training/etc up and it becomes a fight.