Jets & Planes but no UAV's here.

[Suhiir]

I keep having flashbacks to the MV-22.
To expensive.
To dangerous.
To whatever ...

Or the AV-8.
No problems for years then they let nuggets fly them and crash, crash, crash.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Like Taiwan, I find that Argentina and the ongoing Falklands situation being somewhat related to the "window of opportunity" available to them and the benefit to each by making or getting if you will, that one piece of equipment that might make the difference in their current situation. For Taiwan that'll be the ABRAMS deal going through. It will cause a "pause" in China's "Sabra Rattling" when it knows it'll face even without D/U armor, a tank that'll still be a match or better to their best tank.

Argentina on the other hand, has a slightly "stronger hand" with an opportunity to reclaim the Falklands IF, they can just get the right fighter in the short term. But time is running out, at best they have 2 years before the window is shut maybe permanently. They have the "harder road" but the best opportunity to accomplish their long stated objective to recall the Falklands.

Britain's main two issues are that it has no long range bombers (Not that the VULCANS were very successful in their missions in the last Falklands War, they weren't.) or fighters (And in hindsight probably wish they'd kept a squadron of HARRIERS/or TORNADOS in active service in the Falklands. They even today would be much better then what Argentina has now.), sufficient air refueling, no carriers, surface combatants and are having issues with their fast attack submarines. In two years Britain will have it's carrier and F-35B fighters, however, only a fool would send in a carrier without it's support ships hence the term "Carrier Battlegroup", the window could possibly be closer to 5 years.

I'll be interesting what China and Russia decide to do. They might just decide to "two fingers in the eye" of two other countries and I wonder who they might be!?! Ref. 2 is provided for context only as it is two years old now. Ref. 1 is current as of today, which is why I really like "DID", relevant stories continually kept up-to-date.
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...planes-022821/
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/arg...s-e91f35fbd1ab

This could be an interesting situation worth checking on once in awhile.

Regards,
Pat

[Suhiir]

I suspect the UKs new carrier, tho obviously damn useful if they need to take independent action, is intended more for fleet defense rather then attack (even an F-35B beats no air cover at all) and it's assumed if things go seriously south it'll be operating as part of a US Carrier Battlegroup.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Well since someone has left me doing Post #500 I might as well do it, with all my THANKS for making that possible!!

First is a follow-up too the many posts I've done over the years that guarantees the A-10 will still be flying through and just beyond the "20's". The last jet has been "re-winged" with 173 A-10C jets fully operational. The wings were taking a beating due to the combination of age and OPTEMPO. Besides the obvious flight advantages, it's ability to maneuver with a full payload has been restored w/o restrictions.
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...program-03187/

What I LOVE ABOUT "DID", is that they continually update their stories and provide those refs within, end of a section etc. or at the end of the article or both. This next is so long it's everywhere in the article.

The "tagline" is in the fact the F-35 will be going to Europe to get some "exercise" in some upcoming NATO Exercises. This all well and good however, what caught my eye was within the following section of the Ref., "The F-35 Family: Controversies and Competitions" all I'll say is I feel vindicated after pointing out many of these issues over the years with the AUSA Think Tank article I posted I can't even remember how many years ago and since.

A year or two ago I posted from various sources what capabilities define a 5th GEN Fighter and I stated even before that the F-35 after one of it's last final redesigns, was not one. The F-35 is no better then on par with the F-15SE, except that the last is still with the recent upgrades done system wide in recent years a much better air superiority fighter then the F-35.

For prospective the GRIPEN NG meets the requirements more closely to being a 5th GEN Fighter/Bomber (I acknowledge it carries a smaller payload, however, the point is a Fighter/Bomber is designed to fight its way in, drop the ordnance and fight it's way home again, if necessary.)

I believe there were five points that determined what made a jet a 5th GEN capable aircraft. And their are only two known aircraft that meet ALL five and they are the F-22 and B-2 Bomber.

The F-35 misses the mark with at least two major ones as taken from the Ref. and section noted above.

"The F-35’s design is optimized for “low-observable” stealth when viewed from the front, with less stealth to radars looking at it from the sides, and less still when targeted from the rear. It also lacks the Raptor’s supercruise (sustained flight above Mach 1) and super-maneuverability thrust-vectoring options, which work with stealth to help the F-22 engage and disengage from combat at will. Lockheed Martin claims that the F-35 design is optimized for trans-sonic acceleration, but testing results question those claims, and the Raptor can cruise without afterburners at the F-35’s theoretical maximum speed. That’s important, because fuel usage skyrockets with afterburners on, limiting total supersonic time for fighters like the F-35.

The GRIPEN NG does have "supercruise" and the "super-maneuverability thrust-vectoring options" but these factors help determine and for aircraft in the game, the all important EW Level. The GRIPEN NG and possibility 1 Russian jet and some say the F-15SE (Though I'm more cautious about that.) are the only 4th GEN++{+} planes in the air.

Needless to say I'll be taking a hard look at the F-35 in EW category.
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...m-edit-037947/
https://www.ausairpower.net/research.html
https://www.ausairpower.net/raptor.html
https://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html

It's a standard I try to live up as much as possible per Ref. 2. I still make mistakes, I just do the best I can and maintain my standards, so to the rest, "Read'em and Weep".

Regards,
Pat

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Well John (Imp) if your looking in it seems our discussion concerning Taiwan is going to come true at least on the air side of things. Apparently the Trump Administration has approved the sale of F-16 Fighters to Taiwan. If approved by Congress and I believe it will, this will the largest weapons acquisition deal in about 30 years with Taiwan.

I've been reporting that I feel the version that'll be offered is the F-16V which is a "Souped Up" F-16 BLOCK 50/52.

This is not the latest version there are two newer types the F-16 Block 60 which the UAE owns and the newest platform being the F-16 Block 70 which has been ordered by Bahrain. The last will be the version the USAF is most likely to upgrade their fleet to as well in the near future.
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...ization-04250/
https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...-first-flight/
https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/...ighter-market/
http://www.f-16.net/f-16-news.html

We should know sometime in Oct./Nov. about the Jets.

The ABRAMS I would think a short time after the New Year.

Interesting times are these days we're living in!?!

Regards,
Pat

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by FASTBOAT TOUGH

"The F-35’s design is optimized for “low-observable” stealth when viewed from the front, with less stealth to radars looking at it from the sides, and less still when targeted from the rear. It also lacks the Raptor’s supercruise (sustained flight above Mach 1) and super-maneuverability thrust-vectoring options, which work with stealth to help the F-22 engage and disengage from combat at will. Lockheed Martin claims that the F-35 design is optimized for trans-sonic acceleration, but testing results question those claims, and the Raptor can cruise without afterburners at the F-35’s theoretical maximum speed. That’s important, because fuel usage skyrockets with afterburners on, limiting total supersonic time for fighters like the F-35.

In theory (always love that word ) as a ground attack aircraft F-35s should be escorted my fighters to it's flanks and above so there shouldn't be much threat to it's sides. If someone's behind you that's ALWAYS a problem, and it's not like you can outrun (unless you're in an SR-71) most air-to-air missiles or SAMs in the first place. The frontal-arc stealth is exactly what's needed to "hide" from whatever is in it's target area.

I keep trying to stress the F-35 IS NOT a "fighter" (I know most here understand that, but "Joe Average" can't quite seem to figure it out). It's a replacement for the A-10 and F-15/16 in ground attack roles.

[DRG]

There was a post someplace on these forums I cannot find now that detailed a lot of reasons why the VIKhR should be set up differently than it is now with HEAT pen and I recall talk of nose and base fuses etc etc but that's all I remember but I do recall I was in the middle of some tests then it got forgotten about until I ran the first "errors" scan for Scenarios I do before starting to assemble the patches and it gave me a high number of "error" reports and it all lead back to that forgotten experiment that had 222 for AP and Heat pen ratings for a missile loaded on an aicraft

Maybe that will shake someone elses memory but it's not critical I know who posted it but the bottom line is that cannot be done with aircraft mounted weapons ( helos yes...aircraft NO ). The only way to make HEAT pen work is give it AP ammo and AP ammo on an aircraft is CLUSTER MUNITIONS.......so the "experiment" has been reversed and VIKhR's are back to the way they need to be set up.

Just FYI.............

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Well while waiting for the Patch Releases to come out, I offer some comparative and insightful reading. If you are not comfortable in reading technical material, than beyond some of the graphs this isn't for you.

I like AUSA as these guys are mostly aviation specialists and scientists.

They use open and other sources and have the capability to wind tunnel aircraft designs to come up with data concerning radar cross sections etc. that are gleamed from such testing.

The focus here is on F-35 versus many others. What is interesting in some cases, is how viable in todays world some older aircraft still are in certain categories shown in the tables.

It is further interesting to see how what was written then still holds true to what's been posted up to now on F-35.

It is absolutely important to note that the T-50/PAF-FA is and has been DOA since India dropped out of the program about 3/4 years ago.

This is significant in that the tables were using the design capabilities for that program at that time. India specifically dropped out because Russia was trying to cut costs, which felt would (And would end up doing so.) significantly compromise it's "standing" as a 5th GEN fighter. As I've already posted numerous times, most experts now consider the T-50 as a 4th GEN ++ aircraft.

Concerning the J-20 from China, the jury is still out on it as well, however more recent data is showing that it's also closer to an advanced 4th GEN or might end up also in the 4th GEN++ category.

It's important to maintain that information in "the back of your mind" when reading this.

The "bottom-line" is from the aviation "purists" is, and I'll just use our games timeline (Though it goes beyond that.), there is only one true 5TH GEN fighter in the world and that's of course the F-22 RAPTOR.

All that being said this is a very good read and still relevant today.
http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html

And they do an excellent job with Anti-Air Missiles as well.

Regards,
Pat

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

GREAT! I'm reading a review of the 1950's "War of the Worlds" re-release by Criterion on Blu-Ray dot com and followed the link contained within the review. How I missed this I don't know!?!

Now I'm left with trying to figure out how to model this craft and to what "country" to assign them to. The best I can figure is "RED" or "GREEN" and the videos are released from the USN and DOD. Though I did see the "Hey Dude" video on national news awhile back.

I'll need to figure out if they're more Air to Air, Air to Ground or Multi-Purpose craft!?!

Just not sure at this time, in the meantime here's the ref.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/pent...vy-pilots.html

Back to my review and walk there after.



Regards,
Pat

[DRG]

The F-16V was added to the Taiwan OOB last release.......