rail gun

MAD-4A wrote:Wrong - it failed because, unlike the F-5, it was up against the F-16 & YF-17/18 and wasn't up to the standard they set.

You don´t seem to be aware what was considered, nor what incentives given.
F-5 and derivatives were never meant to compete with the -16/17/18, of course they will have trouble beating them.

That only shows you missed the whole point of the F-5 family.

MAD-4A wrote:There was plenty of market. the market was taken up by the F-16 - if there was no market then how come so many F-16s were sold?

Because they were subsidised like mad.

Literally. Poland got their F-16s at something that could be called at most quarter price.
Greece got a bundle well below half price.
Pakistan and Indonesia close to half price.
Israel´s F-16s were effectively paid for by USA.
Italy leased a bunch at a cheapskate rate.

Norway and Denmark got theirs at pricetags too low for the older SAAB-37 to compete seriously with even though the F-16 is more expensive to build and operate.

MAD-4A wrote:It is? What has it "Killed" perhaps in theory but I'm not aware of anything it's actually done (though I'm not up to date on any little conflicts that have errupted in Russia lately). where has it fought & what against, MIG-23?

What has the F-22 "killed" except in theory?

Or are you so lost in the "rah rah USA" hype that you´re unable to even look at what facts does exist?

Or are you so naive as to think that no other nations test their military gear?

In part, the MiG-31 is the same kind of plane as an F-15, air domination by being able to detect and hit targets far away.

However, during design that was intermixed with the role of being able to intercept both terrain following supersonic bombers as well as cruise missiles.

This resulted in a uniquely powerful phased array radar combined with computerisation and automatic datalink integration that is still not used in ANY other plane.

In a group of MiG-31s, what the radar of one plane see, ALL pilots see.
In a group up to 16 planes, if everyone launch all their missiles, then all missiles will retain guidance(and probably hit their targets) as long as 1 plane is still alive and has radar tracking in the right direction.

Being able to touch mach 3 as a leftover of the MiG-25 lineage(even though the -31 is effectively a completely new plane) doesn´t hurt.

USA will fervently deny it, but MiG-31s have detected and tracked US stealth planes repeatedly and reliably. Including getting a reliable missile lock.
At distances where only the F-14 could have shot any missiles back, because it´s far beyond the range of the AMRAAM.

Their only real downside is that they normally carry only 4 of their standard missiles. But fired from a MiG-31, those missiles have exceptionally high kill probability against pretty much anything.
Well, they´re not exactly high on maneuverability either, but it was never meant to get up close and personal.

In the 90s when there were some arguing around the Russian border with China, Russia moved a MiG-31 regiment to nearby, and suddenly China stopped arguing instantly and there was no longer any quarrels.

All military planes have their good and bad sides, but as a stand-off fighter/interceptor, it effectively has no equal today.

viciokie wrote:I saw a article that was quickly hushed about some high school students had built a rail gun for a very low budget for a science fair. Point of the article is the students project was banned from the fair because it was dangerous. I rather think the students should have been rewarded with a science scholarship to a advanced college of their choice and slot them into R&D instead of penalizing them for inventiveness.

Railguns are actually very simple devices that have been around since 1918, high school students being able to build one on the cheap is entirely plausible.

The big problem with railguns and the reason that they are considered futuristic weapons is the power supply, conventional propellants have energy densities orders of magnitude higher than electrical sources, so they have never been practical as weapons so far.

Grashtel wrote:

viciokie wrote:I saw a article that was quickly hushed about some high school students had built a rail gun for a very low budget for a science fair. Point of the article is the students project was banned from the fair because it was dangerous. I rather think the students should have been rewarded with a science scholarship to a advanced college of their choice and slot them into R&D instead of penalizing them for inventiveness.

Railguns are actually very simple devices that have been around since 1918, high school students being able to build one on the cheap is entirely plausible.

The big problem with railguns and the reason that they are considered futuristic weapons is the power supply, conventional propellants have energy densities orders of magnitude higher than electrical sources, so they have never been practical as weapons so far.

For now that is truue but i do not think that will always be true

Tenshinai wrote:You don´t seem to be aware what was considered, nor what incentives given.
F-5 and derivatives were never meant to compete with the -16/17/18, of course they will have trouble beating them.
That only shows you missed the whole point of the F-5 family.

Well one of us isn't, the F-5 was the U.S. Air Force's light combat fighter. It was replaced by a successor for the light fighter role. The competition was between the F-20, F-16 & YF-17. the F-16 was more advanced than the F-20 with fly-by-wire advances the F-20 lacked & the YF-17 was under powered lacking Mach 2 capability. the Navy picked up a YF-17 revamp for a multi-role platform in the form of the F/A-18 but the F-16 was better preforming than either of it's competitors in the light fighter role.

Tenshinai wrote:Because they were subsidised like mad.

No the "light fighter" chosen was subsidised - that happened to be the F-16. if either of the others had been chosen they would have received the subsidies.

Tenshinai wrote:Literally. Poland got their F-16s at something that could be called at most quarter price. Greece got a bundle well below half price. Pakistan and Indonesia close to half price. Israel´s F-16s were effectively paid for by USA.
Italy leased a bunch at a cheapskate rate.

Poland didn't receive any F-16s - they were a Pact country and received Mig-23s. Not until Poland was freed were they allowed to purchase older used F-16 at "used car" prices.

Tenshinai wrote:Norway and Denmark got theirs at pricetags too low for the older SAAB-37 to compete seriously with even though the F-16 is more expensive to build and operate.

No, that's called mass production & trading 2nd hand equipment for political favor.

Tenshinai wrote:What has the F-22 "killed" except in theory?

I believe it's seen action in Iraq - though that I believe is still classified.

Tenshinai wrote:Or are you so lost in the "rah rah USA" hype that you´re unable to even look at what facts does exist?

No you seam lost in the "anti-American" propaganda.

Tenshinai wrote:In a group up to 16 planes, if everyone launch all their missiles, then all missiles will retain guidance(and probably hit their targets) as long as 1 plane is still alive and has radar tracking in the right direction....Their only real downside is that they normally carry only 4 of their standard missiles.

So yo say 1 plane can track 64 missiles simultaneously? yea ok

Tenshinai wrote:...it effectively has no equal today.

K if you say so.

MAD-4A wrote:Well one of us isn't, the F-5 was the U.S. Air Force's light combat fighter. It was replaced by a successor for the light fighter role. The competition was between the F-20, F-16 & YF-17. the F-16 was more advanced than the F-20 with fly-by-wire advances the F-20 lacked & the YF-17 was under powered lacking Mach 2 capability. the Navy picked up a YF-17 revamp for a multi-role platform in the form of the F/A-18 but the F-16 was better preforming than either of it's competitors in the light fighter role.

You´re not listening and you´re not thinking...

Shall we do a very quick and simple little comparison?
F-5, empty weight around 4400kg, MTOW just over 11000kg
F-20, empty weight just under 6000kg MTOW just over 12000kg
F-16, empty weight around 8600kg MTOW just over 19000kg.

The F-5 is a REAL light fighter, the F-20 can be squeezed into the category without too much trouble.
The F-16 however isn´t really a light fighter. You can call it that if you want, and compared to OTHER US aircraft, sure it looks "light", but it isn´t.

Oh that´s not to say the F-16 is a bad plane, heck no, it´s a very good compromise between trying to get something "light"-ish but still allow it to do heavy work.

But the thing is, in part it won because it´s a much heavier aircraft, not because it´s a better light fighter.

The F-16 mostly performed "better" by exploiting that it was a heavier aircraft.

MAD-4A wrote:Poland didn't receive any F-16s - they were a Pact country and received Mig-23s. Not until Poland was freed were they allowed to purchase older used F-16 at "used car" prices.

Did i say anything about exactly when?

MAD-4A wrote:No, that's called mass production & trading 2nd hand equipment for political favor.

And it´s also called selling below break even.
Which the F-20 people couldn´t do because they didn´t have big daddy government making up for the loss.

MAD-4A wrote:I believe it's seen action in Iraq - though that I believe is still classified.

No kills.

MAD-4A wrote:No you seam lost in the "anti-American" propaganda.

I look at facts. If you think that is propaganda, that´s your problem.

Or maybe you were under the delusion that things like the tech Hollywood or maybe Tom Clancy bragged about was for real?

MAD-4A wrote:So yo say 1 plane can track 64 missiles simultaneously? yea ok

At normal settings it can guide 16, but by jumping the guidance, it can quadruple that yes, and only loose a tiny bit of hit probability from it.

You know, exactly like what has become normal in the Honorverse? With fire control hopping between missiles...

MAD-4A wrote:K if you say so.

Yes i do say so. No joke, no hype.

F-22 is more advanced by a fair stretch(mostly), but it was messed up with stupid requirements combining to make it much less effective than it could have been, and adding to that all the crap in it that doesn´t work means that it is dangerously close to being hangar queens.

Shall we compare the pertinent parts?

Radar, F-22 got screwed over because of the stupid notion that using a weaker radar could allow the plane to radiate and still not be detected, which(predictably for anyone with a brain) turned out to be bullshit. The sad part is that the F-22 COULD have had the best fighter radar ever.

Datalink, again the F-22 got screwed over by the idea that stealth overrode everything else, last i heard they were still arguing over wether it would get a nerfed "stealthy datalink" or have the amazing ability to turn it off/on and on passive only. Or if the beancounters won, wouldn´t get a proper datalink at all.

Computer support... This one is truly insane, because USA is so involved in computer hardware and software, but for some reason, neither hardware nor software in the F-22 works like they were meant to, and it has nothing remotely like how the -31s computers can "congregate" to achieve an optimised firing solution over the datalink.

Missiles, F-22 relies on AMRAAM, 'nuff said really. Great for shredding obsolete fighters from the 60s or 70s, not so great against anything with modern jammers.
Hence the Russian standard of launching multiple missiles with different seekers against any problematic target that has become their new norm over the last decade.

Stealth and supercruise are the advantages the F-22 has, stealth gets negated decently because the -31s radar is obscenely good, while supercruise is nice, the -31 can manage dash speeds at over mach 2.8 instead so it´s mixed results.

" "

Tenshinai wrote:You´re not listening and you´re not thinking...
Shall we do a very quick and simple little comparison?
F-5, empty weight around 4400kg, MTOW just over 11000kg
F-20, empty weight just under 6000kg MTOW just over 12000kg
F-16, empty weight around 8600kg MTOW just over 19000kg.
The F-5 is a REAL light fighter, the F-20 can be squeezed into the category without too much trouble.
The F-16 however isn´t really a light fighter. You can call it that if you want, and compared to OTHER US aircraft, sure it looks "light", but it isn´t.
The F-16 mostly performed "better" by exploiting that it was a heavier aircraft.

" "
No “You´re not listening and you´re not thinking” the F-5 is way heavier than a Sopwith Pup so I guess it’s not a "light fighter" either. The Ticonderoga-class “cruisers” are over 9,000 tons. The Russian Admiral Ushakov class battleship was 2,000 tons smaller, I guess that makes the Ticonderoga’s a “Battleship”. The exact weight doesn’t qualify a class (as anyone who reads & comprehends Honor Harrington should know) it’s the use that determines the class. Weight goes up steadily with each progressive class/model of combat vehicle. There are “medium” tanks today that outweigh a Tiger. The F-16 in fighter mode carries the same A-A armament as the F-5, is faster, has longer range and can fly circles around both it & the F-20. That’s why it was chosen. It is a “light” fighter.

Tenshinai wrote:Did i say anything about exactly when?.

You posted it as a reason why the F-20 was not chosen which implied “at the time of the awarding” and had something to do with the F-20 not getting the contract or outside sales - which was before the Iron curtain fell & Poland was still a Pact state. So yes you did by implication. " "

Have a problem with smiley infestation?

MAD-4A wrote:There are “medium” tanks today that outweigh a Tiger.

That is incorrect. Medium tank does not equate a Main Battle Tank.
Heaviest medium tank in common use today is if IIRC about 45 ton.

MAD-4A wrote:The exact weight doesn’t qualify a class

Well duh... Never would i have guessed such a thing!

MAD-4A wrote:Weight goes up steadily with each progressive class/model of combat vehicle.

That is incorrect. Weight creep is very common yes, but it is not in any way a rule or a law.

Blatant evidence to the contrary:
SAAB-37 Viggen, empty weight 9500kg, 1971.
SAAB-39 Gripen, empty weight 6800kg, 1988.

Up to that point each new aircraft had effectively been heavier than the former one.
Someone thought that was a bad development and put a stop to it. Which has made the Gripen the cheapest modern plane to operate there is.

MAD-4A wrote:it’s the use that determines the class.

And the use of the F-16? Medium weight multirole. Which is of course part of why it won, "just" a fighter with some ability to do other missions wasn´t good enough.

Even if there was nothing else, its running costs would place it solidly away from "light fighter".

MAD-4A wrote:The F-16 in fighter mode carries the same A-A armament as the F-5, is faster, has longer range and can fly circles around both it & the F-20. That’s why it was chosen. It is a “light” fighter.

That´s a funny claim considering the F-20 has better thrust to weight ratio AND lower wingloading. (ie your statement is wrong by default)

Sorry but no, wrong answer. F-20 is the better FIGHTER, or more correctly, at least WAS at the time it competed against the F-16.

At the same time as it was clearly cheaper, while it´s impossible to say exactly how much cheaper in retrospect, guesstimates suggest that you could buy 4 F-20 for every 3 F-16 and that you could operate 3 F-20 for every 2 F-16.

Possibly conservative estimates.

The F-20 was however a poorer multirole aircraft, capable of carrying only half the warload of the F-16.

And while the F-16 came into being as part of a "lightweight fighter program" that is irrelevant. A light fighter simply is not equipped to almost carry its own weight in weapons. Especially not with a focus on bombs.

MAD-4A wrote:You posted it as a reason why the F-20 was not chosen

I used it as an example to show how the F-16 was "sold" at a loss to undercut competitors (then and now both).
For example, F-20 had several prospective buyers very interested, and their only demand was that the plane went into USAs own service, at all.

Which it almost did with the Air National Guard, but suddenly the F-16 magically attained ability to use AIM-7s without additional R&D costs, and the guard got a heavily subsidized contract for them.

It was also up for the aggressor duty purchase made by navy and airforce, and got overrun there as well.

Let´s see what the "public" says shall we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_figh ... er_designs
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon was originally conceived under the Lightweight Fighter program as a light fighter, but developed into a highly capable medium multirole fighter.

Ooh, almost exactly what i said, el neato.

While I am on the F-20 side of the argument as the better aircraft , I would not bring up the ability to use the AIM-7 on the 16 as an example. Effectively switching out already existing missile racks and connectors is hardly something to beat your chest about... I would also not bring up how cheap the 16 is/are. The 16 never used to be cheap. Only when the USA started offing off its outdated almost end of life 16A's did prices plummet.

Anymore, it is the avionics inside an airplane that count. Not the frame itself. Effectively all the frames are identical when ignoring stealth and supersonic cruise. An adverse puff of wind will blow them all up the same. With IR multi pixel sensors, the only true defense is shooting the missile out of the sky or praying you can somehow dodge it/them. Last I checked, fighters do not spout counter missiles yet. I will bet you money, Israel will have them on their planes soon. Already working on their tanks and it is only a matter of time till they put the same system on their airplanes after a weight reduction program. The laser stuff on Helicpoters is cute against antiquated junk MANPADS, but it is simple matter of time, assuming the world is not already past, when it will be a complete race between Laser power(burning out sensors) and S/N ratio of the sensors in question.

To house said LASERS, aerodynamics are going to take an enormous hit. I suppose the entire trailing edge, belly, top, televons, etc on an aircraft could be turned into an AESA radar able to attack sensors on incoming missiles, but I doubt it.

Where tech is today and for sure where it is going tomorrow, ultimate "fighter" is probably an A-10 equivalent. Pretty much a flying tank able to deal with multiple IR equipped SAM's. Armored bomb truck. Armored missile carrier. Unless there is a giant leap in stealth tech sometime soon. I see fighters as the penultimate requirement for operational airforce as a passing fad.

Don't forget the costs involved with trying manufacture (or subcontract) components from as many congressional districts as possible.

While I am on the F-20 side of the argument as the better aircraft , I would not bring up the ability to use the AIM-7 on the 16 as an example. Effectively switching out already existing missile racks and connectors is hardly something to beat your chest about...

Eh? Yes? I frankly haven´t the faintest clue what you´re saying here.

I would also not bring up how cheap the 16 is/are. The 16 never used to be cheap. Only when the USA started offing off its outdated almost end of life 16A's did prices plummet.

That´s pretty much what i said yes...

Anymore, it is the avionics inside an airplane that count. Not the frame itself. Effectively all the frames are identical when ignoring stealth and supersonic cruise. An adverse puff of wind will blow them all up the same.

Come again?

The "frame" effectively determines what kind of plane you get, dogfighter, vertical fighter, horizontal slash fighter, missile platform etc.. It determines drag, maneuverability, fuel efficiency, stability etc..

Sure avionics are important, but if you dismiss the aerodynamics, any pilots flying your creation are going to be in for some seriously rude surprises sooner or later.

With IR multi pixel sensors, the only true defense is shooting the missile out of the sky or praying you can somehow dodge it/them. Last I checked, fighters do not spout counter missiles yet. I will bet you money, Israel will have them on their planes soon.

Russia are the ones that have done research in the area, there is an experimental R-73 model that can do it.
The IRIS-T should be able to do it in the future.
AFAIK, Israel has nothing for aircraft upcoming anytime soon.

And no, there´s also countermeasures, ECM and EW, and dodging missiles by maneuvering is not an impossible thing.

Where tech is today and for sure where it is going tomorrow, ultimate "fighter" is probably an A-10 equivalent. Pretty much a flying tank able to deal with multiple IR equipped SAM's. Armored bomb truck. Armored missile carrier. Unless there is a giant leap in stealth tech sometime soon. I see fighters as the penultimate requirement for operational airforce as a passing fad.

I think you gravely overestimate certain technologies.