IAF has no BVR capability?
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The chances that it will never happen are miniscule. The chances that it will become vanishingly rare is quite high, I think.
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Didn’t people say the same thing when the AMRAAM came around but then jammers became a thing and shortened the effective range of BVR or something to that effect?
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This would be the first Id heard of it. Its possible Ive just not heard that though.
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I remember some people on the DCS forums saying something to that effect with regards to another person claiming that the DF was about to die off. Another thing to think about is what happens when two stealth aircraft come in contact? They cant very well fight each other with BVR as they cant really see each other on radar.
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VLO doesnt mean invisible to radar. It means you get detected at much shorter ranges.
With that said, Tom Clancy (among others) was fond of a cold war scenario where both sides developed stealth to the point where it was just something all fighters had - like flight computers. In that scenario, the dogfight was supreme, as long range radar missiles couldnt really track at useful BVR ranges.
For that scenario to be valid, it depends on stealth that is effective against radar. The only issue with that is that radar keeps getting better. Without having (classified) numbers to go by, its hard to say which will be the winner - airframe designers vs radar designers. Same old evolution - countermeasures improve, countercountermeasures improve.
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Yeah it’s interesting to think about. The whole leapfrogging technology thing always seems to lead me back to the conclusion that the dogfight will stay around. Someone makes some awesome BVR thing and then someone finds a way to defeat it or make it less effective and thus we cycle back to the dogfight. That’s just my thought process of course, we may very well all start shooting at each other with lasers (elite dangerous anybody? lol).
Which Tom Clancy book has both sides using stealth fighters?
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Im not sure I recall both sides using it in a specific book. I recall at least one book with the ‘F-19’ that was essentially an F-22 before they were thing. The both sides using stealth thing was from a magazine article I read some years back.
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F19 was in Clancy’s Red Storm Rising… Great book.
Dogfighting will never die, even Star Wars and Battlestar G had dogfights…
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Dogfighting in space makes about as much sense as trying to conserve sand supplies in the northern sahara. For that matter, fighters in space makes very little sense.
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The only reason that the DF could die is the advent of remotely piloted fighters…things do seem to be leaning that direction. And even then, the problem is going to be getting the amount of in the cockpit SA to a guy operating from a ground station…
…OTOH, the USMC and USN variants of F-35 don’t have an internally mounted gun…and I thought we’d learned that lesson some time ago with the F-4. Here we go again…
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Remotely piloted fighters have potential issues with comms. Specifically, the interception of, and the jamming of, the link between the pilot and the plane. If the drone can be jammed, its not particularly useful. If its controls can be hacked, its worse than useless.
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Yup…but there are a lot of people talking about how the F-35 is likely to be the last manned fighter produced. So I figure there must be some folks working the issues…
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There’s also the problem of signal latency with drones due to the distance between the operator and the drone itself which leads to some bad signal lag and would obviously be an issue when in combat. Also as Bluewolf pointed out if someone messes with communication on the drones they’re pretty much dead in the air.
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Yup…all that. But industry still seems to be heading that way.
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Havent heard lockheed claiming that the F-35 is the last fighter they make. Have heard a lot of folks on the internet claiming it. Not sure if I would classify it as the ‘industry’ going that way. I suspect its going to be far more likely that air to air drones will complement manned fighters rather than replace them. At least initially. Beyond the next 50 years though, who can say for sure?
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…of course they won’t - they want to make money by producing and selling airplanes. But if you spend a LOT of time around fighter pilots, aerospace industry people, and listen…that’s what’s being said more and more. In fact, the subject came up in a round-about way just today re: skill sets desired in future hiring in order to insure positioning for future business procurement; and what that business sector will look like - UCAV.
And the bottom line is really the bottom line - in that the F-35 has not only broken the bank, the tech is getting to the point of having the ability to exceed human limitations. And to the point in such a manner that humans in the actual craft can become unnecessary. What will be interesting to watch is if the QF-16 program adds any fuel to this argument/trend. One thing a lot of people seem to forget here is that we “playing” with a simulation of real-world kill-machines…and in the real world, effectiveness trumps “cool”. And if UCAVs can be effective, cheaper, and preserve blue force life…well, that’s what we’ll get. “Cool” to us or not.
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If it was about ‘coolness’ then the drones would win, hands down. You can’t dismiss valid effectiveness concerns by saying that they are only coolness concerns.
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Exactly. I’ve been reading a few threads containing complaints about losing the “coolness” factor in/of dog fighting, fighter design/appearance, etc. because of the rise of UCAVs of late - and they’ve been driving me nuts. Not to mention that the rise of precision munitions has also altered tactics and application drastically since I first began “playing with airplanes”, as I like to call it.
I think you and I are in violent agreement on this one, Blu3wolf.
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“The whole leapfrogging technology thing always seems to lead me back to the conclusion that the dogfight will stay around.”
Which makes the underpowered and trying-to-be-too-many-things-for-too-many-customers F35 highly problematic. Pilots have said that the plane is an energy-management nightmare in a turning fight, but the program managers keep countering with: “It doessn’t matter, it’s stealthy and takes the first shot.” The pilots don’t seem to be convinced.
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Given that turning fights are violently not a thing anymore… all too often its planned to blow through at the merge, so that friendly groups off axis can engage the group you just blew through. Even more likely is to abort if there are friendlies on axis.