[HN Gopher] The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [...
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The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]
Author : cdwhite
Score : 98 points
Date : 2023-03-26 10:44 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (media.defense.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (media.defense.gov)
| Stevvo wrote:
| The "Dissent and Decision" section is fun. Reads very much as a
| battle over egos and personalities rather than the technical
| merits of a particular aircraft.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| That tends to happen because military procurement is always a
| set of compromises, so there lies a tremendous amount of room
| for basically arguing about how to weigh the different
| requirements/criteria/mission sets.
|
| Also while the article vindicates Sprey's want of having a
| lightweight fighter, the reality is that while lightweight
| fighters did come, they quickly became exactly what Sprey would
| not have wanted (once the F-16 entered service, it quickly
| gained BVR capability for example) because the mission that
| Sprey envisioned (pure within visual range air combat) wasn't
| nearly as significant in the 90s and onwards.
| VLM wrote:
| Wikipedia disagrees and claims the last BVR missile
| engagement at BVR range was 30 years ago and BVR missiles are
| usually combat ineffective.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond-visual-range_missile
|
| BVR is kind of a cold war tech; "its WW3 shoot down all the
| soviet bombers" it doesn't have another mission at this time.
| To risky to use.
| kevbin wrote:
| Indiana Jones captures the benefits of stand-off weapons
| here https://youtu.be/vdnA-ESWcPs?t=120
| mlyle wrote:
| Russia has been nibbling at and slowly attriting the
| Ukrainian air force with R-37's.
|
| BVR is a tricky technology. If your rules of engagement let
| you indiscriminately kill something without being sure of
| its identity, it's capable. But you need to not have normal
| air traffic in the area or not give a shit about the
| consequences or both.
| [deleted]
| dralley wrote:
| Wikipedia is wrong. Conflicts between two powers where both
| have fighter jets are infrequent so of course BVR
| engagements are infrequent, so saying "it hasn't happened
| in 30 years" would be misleading even if it wasn't
| incorrect.
|
| But it is incorrect, because most engagements in Ukraine
| ever since the first month of the war have been at beyond
| visual range. And should a conflict ever break out between
| China and the US, pretty much if not literally every air
| engagement would happen at beyond visual range. Just
| because it hasn't happened much doesn't mean it's an
| outdated idea, it just means that powers with significant
| air forces haven't shot at each other lately.
| hef19898 wrote:
| BVR engangements are happeneniing when the shooting side
| discovers the targeted side first. If they don't, it is
| visual range again. Obviously low observability aircraft,
| e.g. a F-35 or 22, have an advantage here. But then the
| other side can have AWACS to guide their attackers. And
| let's not forget, jets like a Rafale of Eurofighter, or
| even a F/A-18, have smaller radar signatures than a F-15.
| An once the stealth aircraft fired their BVR shots,
| everybody knows where they are. And, given that BVR kills
| are not instantly, the other side has a window to close
| in enough to shoot back.
|
| The Phantom (?) initially didn't have a cannon. Why?
| Becaise before Vietnam everybody thought dog fighting to
| be obsolete. Then the US Navy created Top Gun, becaise it
| turned out dog fighting very much did happen. Same for
| BVR, and as soon as the other side is stealthy enough to
| be only discovered up close, well, all engagements are
| going to happen at visiual range again anyway.
|
| Not to forget, a F-22 or F-35 carrying serious load outs,
| tanks l, missiles, bombs, is pretty mich non-stealthy any
| way.
| jki275 wrote:
| The F4 didn't have a cannon, but the real problem in
| Vietnam was bad missiles, not lack of a gun, and the
| massive improvements in missile technology were what made
| the Phantom effective.
|
| A gun is almost utterly useless in modern fighter
| aircraft, especially for air to air engagements,
| especially in a world where the AIM-9X and its opposing
| side equivalents exist. You will never, even WVR, even if
| you graduated TOPGUN, get into a position where you can
| use a gun against an opponent with an AIM-9X on the rail.
| dralley wrote:
| And training. There was almost no tactics developed on
| how to use missiles properly, and no training. Which
| compounded with the technical limitations of those early
| missiles.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| What is that based on?
| stametseater wrote:
| Note that although the F-4 did not _initially_ have an
| internal gun, the F-4E variant did acquire an internal
| M61 20mm gattling cannon and a few kills were made with
| this gun during the Vietnam War. Also, earlier Phantoms
| could be equipped with an M61 in a gun pod slung under
| the jet, and some kills were made with those as well.
|
| From what I understand, these guns were desired by pilots
| but the results in practice were mixed. And apparently
| ground crews hated dealing with the gun pods.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > BVR engangements are happeneniing when the shooting
| side discovers the targeted side first.
|
| Well, yes, also, most within-visual-range engagements
| probably also happen that way. Targeting the enemy first
| is kind of a big deal in air-to-air combat, and he who
| does it is probably going to be _by virtue of doing so_
| the shooting side.
|
| > Not to forget, a F-22 or F-35 carrying serious load
| outs, tanks l, missiles, bombs, is pretty mich non-
| stealthy any way.
|
| While both can carry external stores, the reason that
| they have internal weapons bays with significant capacity
| is specifically so that they can conduct combat
| operations while maintaining stealth. The tactical
| environment will determine how they are configured for
| any given mission.
| jeffdn wrote:
| Both F-22 and F-35 have internal bays for weapons. Sure,
| they can also carry external loads that blow up their
| small RCS, but in a hypothetical scenario where that low
| RCS is still valuable (i.e. contested airspace), they
| wouldn't be carrying external stores that make them
| vulnerable.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| The Boyd biography by Robert Coram tells the story of the
| battle between the Fighter Mafia and the Bomber Generals. It
| also talks about, what I'd at best call regulatory capture.
| There was an outrageous series of events around procurement
| of the Bradley fighting vehicle. An excerpt from the
| craziness that ensued:
|
| "The Bradley was a tragedy waiting to happen. It was packed
| with ammunition, fuel, and people. The thinnest of aluminum
| armor surrounded it. So Burton sent the Army's ballistic
| research laboratory $500,000 to test the Bradley, and he
| insisted the testing use real Soviet weapons. The Army
| agreed. But the first of the "realistic" tests consisted of
| firing Rumanian-made rockets at the Bradley rather than
| Soviet-made ones. The Army buried the fact that the Rumanian
| weapons had warheads far smaller than those used by the
| Soviets. To further insure that the Bradley appeared
| impregnable, the Army filled the internal fuel tanks with
| water rather than with diesel fuel. This guaranteed that even
| if the underpowered Rumanian warheads penetrated the
| Bradley's protective armor, no explosion would result. "What
| are you going to do about this, Jim?" Boyd asked. "If you let
| them get away with this, they will try something else."
| Burton still believed his job gave him the authority to force
| the Army to live up to its word. He tried to use persuasion
| and logic with Army officials, but to no avail. When early
| tests detected large amounts of toxic gases inside the
| Bradley, the Army simply stopped measuring the gas. They
| jammed pigs and sheep inside the Bradley to test the effects
| of fumes after a direct hit. But the fumes had hardly
| dissipated before the Army slaughtered the animals without
| examining them"
|
| Really makes you wonder what procurement is actually about. I
| believe this was the basis for the movie The Pentagon Wars
| which I haven't seen.
| geenew wrote:
| There's an HBO movie about development of the Bradley
| called 'Pentagon Wars'. It's a rare bureaucratic comedy
| movie.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| While entertaining for sure, the details of the movie are
| almost entirely fictional.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| I've read that book - it was my introduction to Boyd. I
| read it as a teenager, and it really spoke to me. I believe
| that Boyd is incredibly important and has made very very
| valuable contributions.
|
| I think it is slightly suspect that basically everyone
| either becomes a whole-hearted follower of Boyd, or is some
| bullshitter out to protect their backsides and finding how
| to backstab Boyd and their followers. I also think it's
| suspect that the book never really engages with the "what-
| if" scenarios had the reformers gotten everything they
| wanted.
|
| What would have happened if the F-16 shipped with an
| airframe too small to practically retrofit a BVR capable
| radar?
|
| What would have happened if the Bradley tests went exactly
| the way Burton wanted? What were the alternatives? Would
| any alternatives provide meaningfully better outcomes than
| the Bradley in the same tests that Burton wanted? Would
| they provide meaningfully better outcomes in actual
| battlefield use?
|
| Maneuver warfare and mission command can generate
| tremendous outcomes (but they do not guarantee them... see
| Battle of France vs Barbarossa) . But what if there were
| meaningful reasons to want to hedge against going all in?
| What if synchronization of forces and actions cause a
| temporary reduction in velocity, to generate a surge in
| velocity at a later timepoint - what if this approach could
| also be beneficial to collapsing the opponent's decision
| loop? What if synchronization of forces is helpful with
| logistics?
|
| I am not saying that procurement or the military is
| perfect. I am certain there are shit shows everywhere. I
| think Boyd and the reformers did a valuable job in trying
| to keep the services publicly accountable. I think it's
| important (in fact vital) for a democracy to be able to
| explain to their citizens why they are spending money on
| specific programs, and why these tradeoffs are being made,
| and ultimately what missions/requirements these programs
| are for - and ultimately what is the purpose of the
| military.
|
| I just think also think that the reformers were not right
| about all of their technical thrusts, and certainly don't
| think we should take their recollections of events at face
| value.
| afterburner wrote:
| "Maneuver warfare and mission command can generate
| tremendous outcomes (but they do not guarantee them...
| see Battle of France vs Barbarossa)"
|
| This is a nitpick, but really maneuver warfare is proven
| effective by both of those battles. And in the same way.
| The biggest difference is just that the Soviets had much,
| much more land to retreat through to prevent collapsing
| after one month, and also had way more men. But that
| doesn't really change the conclusion about maneuver
| warfare.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| The story about the Bradley procurement as written by John
| Boyd, and made popular by the Pentagon Wars is misleading
| at best, and entirely wrong in many regards.
|
| The movie's most famous scene ( the Bradley design montage)
| is entire fictional. The Bradley was designed intentionally
| from the ground up as an Infantry Fighting Vehicle NOT, as
| the movie states, an APC whose design was fiddled by
| meddling generals. While this may seem pendantic, this
| completely invalidates the critiques leveled against the
| vehicle by the movie characters during the design montage.
| The design characteristics that would be silly for a
| vehicle operating in an APC role are perfectly reasonable
| given the role of an IFV. Also worth noting that the
| program also came in under budget, contrary to movie's
| portrayal of ridiculous cost overruns. The program was
| expensive. Much more expensive than a program for a
| slightly more modern APC should be. But completely
| reasonable for what was then a completely new class of
| vehicle.
|
| The supposed meddling with the live fire testing was John
| Boyd failing to understand what the purpose of a live fire
| test was for. The Bradley cannot take an RPG round. It was
| not designed to. John Boyd's insistence that the Pentagon
| was covering up a flaw in the Bradley's design by not
| shooting a Bradley with an RPG is just wrong. The Pentagon
| didn't want to do this test because they already knew what
| would happen and would learn nothing from doing so. A
| similar thing occured with the supposed "scandal" of
| replacing the fuel with water for the small arms fire
| testing. The objective of the test was not to hit the
| Bradley until it broke under realistic combat situations,
| but instead to learn about specific locations where the
| amour is vulnerable. If the Bradley catches fire and is
| destroyed, you lose the information you tried to gain. By
| placing water in the fuel tanks, you can identify where the
| bullets penetrated, while also ensuring the bullet pass
| through a fluid (important for a realistic sense of the
| bullet dynamics after penetration. John Boyd did not
| understand the objective of the tests, and cried
| conspiracy.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| >Really makes you wonder what procurement is actually
| about.
|
| He seems clever on the surface level until you consider
| that not only did the existing M113 which the Bradley was
| to replace was worse by every single criteria that Boyd had
| selected, but so were the BMP-2's which the US Army was
| facing. If there wasn't a contemporary vehicle which could
| meet the specifications Boyd had set, and the Bradley was a
| improvement over the existing vehicles, one would think
| that it's pretty clear the requirements Boyd had set were
| wildly incorrect.
|
| The Bradley's capability was later combat proven in the
| Gulf War as an incredibly effective vehicle.
| Steltek wrote:
| My recollection is that Burton didn't understand the
| purpose of the tests nor the system he was raging against.
| If the Bradley was totally annihilated in the test, there'd
| be nothing to analyze and nothing would be learned (other
| than a Bradley is obviously not a tank, which is also why
| it was not called a tank). His objections were misplaced
| and so failed to have much influence outside of an
| entertaining film starring Cary Elwes.
| mastax wrote:
| I had some hope that this biographer wouldn't take Burton's
| claims at face value, but alas.
|
| The Bradley was designed to survive 14.5mm HMG fire. This
| is in line with IFV doctrine. The three most important
| layers of the survivability onion come before "don't get
| penetrated" and Bradley has proven to be very good at
| those.
|
| The army did not plan to perform live fire testing with an
| RPG designed to destroy tanks weighing twice as much as the
| Bradley because it would be a waste of a vehicle. The
| outcome was already known, the vehicle would be
| catastrophically destroyed. When Burton asked, they agreed
| to do it anyway. The army Ballistic Research Laboratory
| (BRL) wanted to modify the test so that they might actually
| learn something they didn't already know. Burton
| interpreted (Ed: or portrayed) this as a conspiracy against
| him to hide a fact that was a matter of public record
| before the first vehicle was built.
|
| In that test, the fuel tanks were filled with water so that
| vehicle damage assessment could be performed after the
| test. It's much easier to look at the spalling pattern of a
| projectile, or see what internal systems got damaged, when
| you're not trying to look at a burned out husk.
|
| I could go on but I'm on my phone.
|
| I'm not sure if Burton was a Luddite who didn't believe in
| statistics or the scientific method, or if he didn't care
| about learning from his tests and just wanted to blow up as
| many Bradleys as possible in order to create a hoopla to
| get the program cancelled.
|
| Source: The Bradley and how it got that way, Howarth.
| gmkiv wrote:
| > I'm not sure if Burton was a Luddite who didn't believe
| in statistics or the scientific method, or if he didn't
| care about learning from his tests.
|
| It's possible. It's also possible that he had a good
| sense of how test results are presented by program
| managers to Congress, and was trying to accurately convey
| the situation. Congress typically doesn't have time to
| delve into the details of the test, they get top-line
| results like "the Bradley did not catch fire when shot by
| an RPG" even though the footnotes would talk about the
| water in the tanks.
|
| More generally, there is a tendency even today to make
| test results look good through judicious selection of
| test conditions. Program managers will refuse to do tests
| where "we already know the answer" - but only when we
| think the system won't work. We do plenty of tests when
| we have high confidence the system will work. So you get
| headlines like "86 of 105 hit-to-kill intercept attempts
| have been successful" [1], without the context that we
| never attempted the shots that we think we would miss,
| even if those scenarios are tactically important.
|
| I'll grant that there are several motivations for testing
| like this, but let's not pretend that they are all purely
| technical.
|
| [1] https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Interactive/2018/11
| -2019-M...
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| In the case of hit-to-kill intercepts, terminal guidance
| was proven and reliable 30-40 years ago (at least), it is
| a mature capability. That is no need to test that it can
| hit the target _per se_ if the rocket can precisely
| respond to the guidance commands.
|
| What changed is that they later attached that terminal
| guidance to new high-performance rocket motors that
| pushed the materials science requirements to a point
| where it was difficult to get the rocket to respond
| precisely to guidance commands and the terminal guidance
| package itself suffered ablative damage due to extreme
| acceleration. As such, all of the tests for the last 20+
| years have been tests to determine if the missile
| components materially degrade or fail in-flight,
| regardless of what they are aimed at. The nature of the
| target and test environment are almost irrelevant to this
| question -- hitting the target is pretty strong evidence
| that the materials didn't fail.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > I'm not sure if Burton was a Luddite who didn't believe
| in statistics or the scientific method, or if he didn't
| care about learning from his tests and just wanted to
| blow up as many Bradleys as possible in order to create a
| hoopla to get the program cancelled.
|
| Burton and the rest of the "Reformers" all had pet
| projects they were pushing. IIRC Burton's was an armored
| airplane that acted as an unguided rocket truck. Burton
| didn't want radar, EO, or FLIR systems. Just iron sights
| and shitloads of unguided rockets.
|
| All the "Reformers" were hucksters advertising themselves
| as fighting "the man" and systemic corruption. The
| Pentagon has many problems with its procurement processes
| but none of the crap Burton actually addressed those
| problems.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Oh that's grim - and seems so foolish. People will die.
|
| Assuming that is a direct quote, the editor has missed
| 'insure'. It should be 'ensure'.
|
| Edit: others have posted possible reasons for the test
| method which give important context.
| dralley wrote:
| This narrative is nonsense. To point out one example
|
| >> To further insure that the Bradley appeared impregnable,
| the Army filled the internal fuel tanks with water rather
| than with diesel fuel.
|
| No, the reason is so that you can see what got hit by
| shrapnel and where afterwards, and not have a burned out
| wreck of metal. The goal of testing is to make improvements
| to the design, not produce very expensive fireworks
| displays.
|
| Likewise it was obvious that no amount (or composition) of
| armor was going to make it survive direct hits from a tank
| or ATGM, so heavily compromising the design in a futile
| attempt to do so would be wasteful, as would blowing up
| several dozen of them with such tests as Boyd and co.
| wanted to do.
|
| We now have decades of experience with the Bradley and
| while it's not a perfect vehicle, it is pretty good.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > We now have decades of experience with the Bradley and
| while it's not a perfect vehicle, it is pretty good.
|
| We have no experience with it fighting a peer or near-
| peer enemy, is that correct? That doesn't make it bad,
| but not good either. We have little data.
| nradov wrote:
| We have data. Several Bradleys were hit during the Iraq
| wars by weapons similar to what near-peer adversaries
| use. Some shots penetrated, others did not. Overall, it
| held up about as well as can reasonably be expected. It's
| simply not physically possible to build an IFV that can
| stand up to modern guided weapons, and so the Army
| accepts that risk in order to accomplish their mission.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The 16 wouldnt exist if not for the 15. It, and the 18, were
| a direct reaction to the size and complexity of the 15. The
| 16 even shared the same engine, making it very much the
| little brother of the 15.
| knolan wrote:
| I don't think I've ever seen the competing designs to the
| McDonnell Douglas design before. Were these public at the time
| like with later aircraft competitions? I'm thinking of the YF-17,
| YF-23 and X-32.
| belter wrote:
| Looks like this is the best you are going to get, some photos
| in the answer: https://www.quora.com/Did-the-F-15-fighter-
| plane-have-any-co...
|
| Fairchild Republic F-X: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-
| qimg-5032893d14a8556ef65b4...
|
| General Dynamics F-X: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-
| qimg-725ce5a1fe83a987224ca...
|
| North American Rockwell NA-335:
| https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-aad2b19e0e947f1cc2a4a...
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| There are drawings of the Fairchild and North American ones
| in the PDF (page 60) as well.
|
| The Fairchild one looks incredibly Ace Combat (I think it's
| the super wide engine pods).
| knolan wrote:
| That's what I meant. The PDF is the first I've seen.
| tomohawk wrote:
| The F15-EX has been in the news recently. Interesting comparison
| and contrast with F35:
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/buying-just-80-f-15exs...
| chiph wrote:
| For those of you using CA Harvest Software Change Manager, it has
| it's origins with Hughes Aircraft and the software written for
| the F-15.
|
| It was sold commercially as CCC/Harvest by Softool Corp starting
| in the late 1970's. Looks like Broadcom is the newest owner. It's
| still being used - the last time I encountered it was in 2009 at
| a large bank.
| [deleted]
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I'm kind of fascinated how these deadly machines can be so good-
| looking / elegant.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > OSD, however, refused to tolerate this kind of intransigence
| and in May 1966 McNamara ordered a joint review of the
| commonality issue. Conducted over the next 18 months, the review
| confirmed that the needs of the Air Force and Navy could not be
| met by a single airframe. The two services argued that attempts
| to merge their requirements would produce, at exorbitant cost, a
| grotesque mutation with increased weight, and reduced
| performance.
|
| The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike
| Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced
| performance.
| u320 wrote:
| "F-35 is bad" is just an internet meme with little to support
| it.
| belter wrote:
| We can revisit it after it is proven in combat, something
| that still has to happen.
| jmvoodoo wrote:
| F-35s have flown over 1,000 combat sorties. When would you
| consider it "proven"?
| belter wrote:
| Bombing ISIS does not count. Here is an example of
| something that could really hurt.
|
| "...The F-35 can only tolerate supersonic speeds at high
| altitudes for short bursts before it sustains lasting
| structural damage and the loss of stealth
| capabilities..." -
| https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/five-problems-with-
| amer....
| bee_rider wrote:
| "Proven in combat" seems like a tricky concept. I mean the
| F-15 has that incredible 104:0 record, but that is because
|
| 1) it was ahead of the rest of the world when it came out
|
| 2) it spent a lot of time fighting older MIGs
|
| Which is to say, the circumstances requires to get a real
| peer fight for a US plane are quite rare. Thankfully!
| greedo wrote:
| 3) Flown by some of the best combat pilots in the world
| (at the time).
| chiph wrote:
| The Israelis have released footage of shooting down two
| drones, so they have the first kills with the F-35.
| Obviously this was not against a maneuvering human pilot,
| but still important.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSFEpqwA6Q
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| They also have multiple (unproven but everyone knows who
| did it) strikes against iranian positions in syria and
| even in iran itself, it is rumoured. The ability to be
| invisible to radar is an absolute gamechanger.
| belter wrote:
| That just make it difficult to lock on with weapons. They
| are not invisible and any radar operator would tell you
| that if they would be allowed...
|
| "...Stealth designs minimize an aircraft's radar
| signature, delaying and sometimes even preventing
| detection, but because of the physical requirements for
| tactical jets, stealth fighters can be easily spotted by
| certain low-frequency radar bands.
|
| In fact, it's not even uncommon for air traffic control
| radar to be able to spot stealth fighters on their
| scopes. And we're not just talking about when these
| aircraft are carrying external munitions or fuel tanks,
| rather, even in full-on "stealth mode," F-22s and F-35s
| aren't as sneaky as you might think."
|
| - https://www.businessinsider.com/radars-can-see-best-
| stealth-...
| nradov wrote:
| That isn't really how it works. Low observable aircraft
| flying in friendly civilian airspace generally have radar
| transponders turned on specifically to make themselves
| visible to air traffic control and prevent collisions.
| Those transponders are turned off for combat missions.
| And ATC mostly doesn't use primary radar any more so they
| don't even get skin paints on regular aircraft.
| giantrobot wrote:
| While you're not wrong that stealthy [?] invisible, a
| proper mission design will render the aircraft
| _effectively_ invisible to air defenses.
|
| If you've got an active radar system you'll bounce
| signals off anything in the sky. Your ability to actually
| _detect_ those things is based on the strength of the
| return and sensitivity /signal processing of the system.
| Big things can be detected hundreds of miles away, small
| things only tens of miles away. To protect some high
| value target you string together multiple radar systems
| to provide overlapping coverage. With enough systems you
| can have an unbroken wall of radar directing defending
| aircraft and SAMs.
|
| Stealth lets a big thing (a jet) pretend to be a small
| thing in the view of an air defense system, essentially
| cutting the detection range of radar. This means your
| unbroken radar coverage that would work for an F-15 now
| has a bunch of holes because each radar can only detect
| an F-22 twenty miles out instead of two hundred. Your
| radar is also further compromised because the stand-off
| range of anti-radiation missiles is outside the range you
| can detect and intercept the jets carrying them.
|
| Being able to see a stealth aircraft _after_ it 's fired
| a weapon to kill you isn't super helpful. A stealth
| aircraft can also fly through the artificial holes it
| made in your radar coverage and blow up the thing you're
| protecting and you only find out about it after the fact.
| GalenErso wrote:
| The F-35 has been proven in simulations with aggressor
| squadrons. The Air Force does that all the time: real
| aircraft in the air, real pilots, real weapons, they just
| don't actually shoot them for obvious reasons. But they
| have other ways of simulating kills.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/f-22-pilot-describes-
| going-u...
|
| Here's what a F-22 pilot (!) had to say about the F-35.
|
| "It is challenging, even flying the Raptor, to have good
| [situational awareness] on where the F-35s are," he said.
|
| Bowlds said that inserting F-35 aggressors into Red Flag
| made things "more challenging because there is a little bit
| of an unknown in terms of what they are going to be able to
| do."
|
| Additionally, "red air detects are happening at further
| ranges," Bowlds explained. "It inherently poses more of a
| threat to allied blue-air forces than older aggressors,"
| such as the fourth-generation F-16s.
|
| The F-35s "have better detection capabilities kind of
| against everybody just because of their new radar and the
| avionics they have," he said. "It definitely adds a level
| of complexity."
| belter wrote:
| Proven in simulations is an oxymoron...
| [deleted]
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think this combined with the carrier capability is the
| scariest for the enemy. You'll never be sure there aren't
| F-35s around.
| enkid wrote:
| What does proven in combat even mean? Win a war against
| China?
| melling wrote:
| [flagged]
| tomohawk wrote:
| It's more like the F35 over promises and under delivers
| compared to what it is expected to replace. The F15 comes
| with a 20,000 hour airframe, while the F35 comes with a 8000
| hour airframe. The F15 can get to target much faster, much
| farther, and still have fuel to do something when it gets
| there. The F15 can carry 12 AIM-120s (or 24 depending), while
| the F35 can carry 4. The F15's a great interceptor. The F35
| is a great aircraft, but too expensive and limited to operate
| in that role.
|
| The following article analyzes the F15EX buy that is being
| debated as compared to the F35.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/buying-
| just-80-f-15exs...
| jmvoodoo wrote:
| This is why both platforms were designed to be used
| together as a team. F-35 provides sensor fusion and the
| F-15 is the missile truck. That also allows the F-35 to
| continue to evade detection, since launching attacks tends
| to get you noticed by the enemy.
|
| Modern air combat can't be measured in direct comparison
| like this, or even thought of in terms of "we should be
| using X instead of Y"
|
| The F-35 costs are also going down relative to it's peer
| group as the export market has grown significantly. The
| F-35s issue is that it's misunderstood, not that it doesn't
| meet expectations.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| It always seemed to me that F-35 is an advanced
| replacement to F-16, which excelled in networked and
| multi-role operations.
|
| Of course, by now the networked operations are in use by
| other aircraft too, just F-16 and F/A-18 operate at the
| very tip of the multi-role.
|
| Whether the networked use could remain operational in a
| conflict against technologically advanced enemy (with
| saturated ECM and comparably aggressive AA systems) is
| not yet proven. Also with addition of drones, the whole
| air-dominance becomes a tough objective to attain.
| nradov wrote:
| The F-16 never really "excelled" at multirole operations.
| It was pressed into that because there were no other
| options available. But it has always had an insufficient
| fuel fraction and is forced to depend on constant tanker
| support to accomplish anything. The tankers are becoming
| more vulnerable.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| This is why both platforms exist. There seems to be this
| strange idea that the F35 must be compared against the
| abilities of fighter in a direct 1v1 dogfight scenario,
| despite that this situation would almost never happen.
| Modern air-to-air engagements are not squads of fighters
| dueling one another, but instead entire fleets of aircraft
| with differing roles and responsibilities working together
| in a coordinated fashion. AWACs, electronic warfare planes,
| missile trucks (like the F15EX), and fighters that can get
| in close all working together. This is environment the F35
| was designed for. The fleet level data-link and sensor
| fusion capabilities of the F-35 are it's main feature, as
| they augment the capabilities of the entire fleet. Then
| fact that F15EX can act as a better standalone interceptor
| is not really relevant, since it would almost never perform
| this role unsupported. An F35 and F15EX operating in tandem
| would be much more effective than either operating alone,
| since the F35 could enter areas covered by opposing
| fighters / ground fire, and feed sensor information to the
| F15EX to take out threats outside of its own sensors range.
| avereveard wrote:
| The f15 is going to be shoot down 60km from target by
| s400s, the f35 can get close enough to drop an harm on them
| at a speed they cannot intercept, so there's that.
|
| Also the f15 has speed or range, and if you need one it
| reduces the other.
| jghn wrote:
| Isn't the F22 the successor to the F15, being air
| superiority fighters?
| stametseater wrote:
| The F-15E and F-15EX (specifically these 'E' variants,
| aka "Strike Eagles") are multirole strike fighters.
| They're derived from an air superiority fighter and
| remain capable of filling that role, but being strike
| fighters they have a new emphasis on attacking ground
| targets with precision bombs. It is very similar to the
| way the F-14, the Navy's old air superiority fighter, was
| later turned into a strike fighter with the addition of
| LANTIRN (which the F-15E also got.) In addition to
| LANTIRN, the F-15E also gained a second seat for a weapon
| systems officer. Two seat F-15s had previously existed as
| trainers, but F-15s configured for air superiority
| normally have a single seat.
|
| The F-22 is foremost an air superiority fighter and was
| _intended_ to replace all the air superiority F-15s (but
| _not_ the F-15E Strike Eagles.) However the USAF didn 't
| get enough F-22s so they still have air superiority F-15s
| and will for some years to come.
| yetanotherloss wrote:
| It was but production was scaled back so much, and the
| peer enemy aircraft it was needed to defeat still largely
| don't exist yet. As a result the production lines were
| shut down and equipment moved to permanent storage and
| other multirole fighters that are usually less expensive
| end up doing the F22's job.
|
| In the horrifying event of a US-China war or similar
| they'd be front line units along with F-35s and other
| modern fighters, but as is they'll probably end up on
| service life extension and retired without ever being
| used much in combat.
|
| The F-15 was sold to other nations and IIRC the majority
| of its air superiority engagements were with the Israeli
| air force.
| jghn wrote:
| Sure, 100% agree w/ all of that. Just pointing out that
| F15 vs F35 as a fighter isn't the right comparison, as
| they're not intended to fill the same roles. I think of
| the F22 as the ultimate expression of the old style of
| fighters, whereas the F35 is the start of a new style of
| military aircraft.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It was, but since 22 production has stopped and there are
| plenty of 15s around, the 35 is often paird up with the
| 15 for wargaming. Doctrine and training is always
| dictated by practicalities like which aircraft you have
| to play with.
| greedo wrote:
| You try flying an F-15 with 12 to 24 Slammers (and bags
| since you'll have so much drag. That's going to fly like a
| pig. Just because Boeing does some demo of it to sell more
| airframes doesn't mean it's going to be used that way.
| avereveard wrote:
| ". The first time the opponents showed up [in the training
| area] they had wing tanks along with a bunch of missiles. I
| guess they figured that being in a dirty configuration wouldn't
| really matter and that they would still easily outmaneuver us.
| By the end of the week, though, they had dropped their wing
| tanks, transitioned to a single centerline fuel tank and were
| still doing everything they could not to get gunned by us. A
| week later they stripped the jets clean of all external stores,
| which made the BFM fights interesting, to say the least"
|
| (source attached to this post
| https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54012 )
|
| F35 can hold their own quite well. Disregard the 2015 report
| with the limiting software, this is where they are at, and
| things will only improve with the new engine
| cpgxiii wrote:
| This whole "multi-service aircraft can't work" meme has been
| going for essentially a century, and has been wrong just as
| long.
|
| The F-4 Phantom, probably deserving the title of greatest
| Western multi-role aircraft of the cold war, had long
| successful service with both USAF and USN (and USMC), with
| fewer inter-service airframe differences than between the F-35A
| and F-35C. Multi-service aircraft are totally workable, the
| services just don't like having to play nice with each other.
|
| The F-35 is better thought of as a family of tightly-related
| aircraft which share as many major systems as possible
| (avionics, sensors, engine, cockpit) while having differing
| airframes. Doing exactly the kind of reusable engineering a
| major project _should be doing_. You can claim that different
| project management might have been cheaper, but the idea that
| three separate airplanes, one for each service, could have been
| engineered and produced for less is just wishful thinking.
| indymike wrote:
| > This whole "multi-service aircraft can't work" meme has
| been going for essentially a century, and has been wrong just
| as long.
|
| I'm not sure that's really the case. When we see successful
| cross-service adoption, it's because the aircraft simply was
| that so good the other branch saw a lot of value in buying
| it. So far the only program that has worked from inception is
| the F-35. The others failed to get traction in the other
| service (F-111, F-16). What all other aircraft that have
| crossed services have in common is iterative design resulting
| in a superior aircraft:
|
| Air Force to Navy
|
| - F-86 Sabre designed for Air Force, Navy adopted it as FJ2
| Fury (straight wing) and FJ3 Fury (swept wing version of
| FJ2). The FJ3 was a counter to the MIG-15 and was a navalized
| F-86. It's performance was superior at the time.
|
| Navy to Air Force
|
| - F-4 Phantom II. Naval multi-role fighter was just that
| good... better than most mission-specialized Air Force
| fighters at their own missions. Iterative design from the
| McDonnel F3H Demon that borrowed some ideas from the Douglass
| F5D Skyray.
|
| - A-7 Corsair II. Naval attack aircraft. It's primary value
| was that it was inexpensive to operate and hit a sweet spot
| for payload and range. Iterative design from F-8 Crusader
| (which was probably the best air superiority fighter of it's
| era).
| cpgxiii wrote:
| My point is that multi-service aircraft are entirely
| possible, and have been all along. That several notable
| aircraft _emerged_ as multi-service aircraft is all the
| more evidence that a multi-service aircraft (really, a
| family of tightly related aircraft) can be designed as
| such. The reason there are more USN- >USAF success stories
| is that it is much easier to design an aircraft with the
| stresses of carrier operation in mind than it is to
| navalize a entirely ground-based design, and it is much
| easier for the USN to make the case politically that a USAF
| aircraft "can't possibly meet their requirements" than the
| reverse.
|
| The USAF and USN are just incredibly unwilling to have to
| compromise to work with each other, and for most of the
| cold war had the budgets and supplier diversity to acquire
| entirely separately.
| coredog64 wrote:
| I generally agree with your thesis, but:
|
| The F-4 was built for the Navy and the other services saw
| what a great plane it was and bought in.
|
| The F-35 is intended as a lightweight multi role aircraft, so
| it's full of compromises already.
|
| The F-111A/B as a shared USAF/USN aircraft is much harder as
| there's not as much margin for compromise in something that
| is supposed to be the pinnacle of current performance.
| cpgxiii wrote:
| I'd say the F-111 is a particularly odd case, given the
| vastly different initial requirements involved. To be
| clear, everything that made the F-111 a great long-range
| interdictor for the USAF would have have also made for a
| great long-range interceptor and strike platform for the
| USN. It wouldn't have made a good air superiority fighter,
| and the experience over Vietnam made it clear that this
| capability was still very much necessary, and there was
| nowhere near enough budget (or, more critically, carrier
| deck and hangar space) for the USN to operate both an air
| superiority fighter and a dedicated long-range interceptor.
|
| There is a very long list of could-have-been multi-service
| aircraft, though. If you look at the number of ground-based
| operators of the F-18, clearly the USAF _could_ have been
| satisfied with it as well. The USN probably could have been
| satisfied by a navalized F-22 derivative (the story of
| 1990s /early 2000s procurement is complicated), the USMC
| definitely could have been satisfied by a navalized AH-64
| rather than developing the AH-1Z, etc.
|
| The services are just very resistant to ever needing to
| compromise on procurement issues unless Congress and the
| DoD make it clear that they have to. The USN feels their
| needs are special, and that the USAF would dominate any
| shared procurement and force them to compromise too much,
| while the USAF feels like every pound added for carrier
| operation is a direct affront. Neither view is entirely
| wrong - the development delays and compromises of a
| navalized platform like the Dassault Rafale are another
| good example of the costs of shared development - but the
| simple reality of modern aircraft development costs and
| defense budgets means joint platforms are here to stay.
| greedo wrote:
| The USN didn't need an air-superiority fighter when they
| were working on the F-111B, they needed a fleet defense
| fighter capable of lifting a huge radar and missile set.
| When the terrible engines in the B model gave them an
| out, they took it and moved forward with the Tomcat
| (which used the same engines and weapons set). Little did
| they realize the TF-30 would remain a terrible engine for
| so long, and replacing it with F110s would take almost
| two decades.
|
| I'm not sure that the F-22 would have ever worked for the
| USN either. I think that its stealth coating are just too
| fragile for a marine environment. And the USMC could
| never afford the AH-64.
| cpgxiii wrote:
| The engines certainly gave the USN the out it wanted, but
| the thing that truly killed the F-111B was the need for a
| dogfight-capable fleet fighter. There was no way they
| could have afforded two separate fighter development
| programs at the time, and Grumman had just the design
| they wanted ready to jump to.
|
| The NATF program probably would have worked out fine,
| albeit expensively. There has always been speculation
| that part of the selection of the F-22 over the F-23 was
| because the F-22 was considered more suitable for a
| navalized version - and the comparatively small design
| differences between the F-35A and F-35C designed later by
| the same group suggest that a similar amount of work
| would have been involved in navalizing the F-22. Coatings
| would have been an issue in the 90s, but would largely
| have been solved by an realistic service entry date in
| the late 2000s. What killed the NATF was post-cold war
| budget reductions and shortsighted policymakers, not
| technical challenges.
|
| The story of a navalized AH-64 is an equally strange
| saga. To hear the USN and USMC tell it, you would think
| it impossible to operate the AH-64 from a ship, yet the
| RN has done so extensively with relatively minimal
| modifications to the airframe. Given the small production
| run of the AH-1Z/UH-1Y program, it's questionable if much
| was saved. Certainly if you look at foreign customers,
| the capability/price of the AH-64 has been much more
| appealing than the AH-1Z.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike
| Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced
| performance.
|
| For such a poor performer, the F-35 is sought after by almost
| every country that can afford it and that the US will sell it
| to. Sales increased even more after Russia invaded Ukraine,
| when European countries perceiving a new threat switched their
| plans to the F-35.
| YZF wrote:
| I got to see F-15s flying every day for almost three years pretty
| close up. They are amazing machines.
| mpclark wrote:
| I get to see them flying at low level pretty much daily, as I
| live on the Mach Loop in Wales where they practice. The howl as
| they go over never gets old, though I guess I'd feel very
| differently if they weren't just training.
| [deleted]
| fm2606 wrote:
| You are right the sound never gets annoying. But...
|
| In the early 90s I was a crew chief on the F15. I worked
| nights (what we called swing shift) and so slept during the
| day. Depending on which runway they were using the landing
| pattern would go right over the dorms. Some airmen in the
| dorms had car alarms with the sensitivity set so low that
| when the jets flew over the car alarms would go off. THAT got
| annoying!
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The Soviets had better aircraft, then pilots defected to the US
| and Americans reverse engineered them.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't know if that is true or not, but if so, I guess it is a
| stirring endorsement of the idea of being a nice liberal
| democracy that people want to move to.
| zokier wrote:
| spoiler: its largely not true.
|
| There was single significant defection before the
| introduction of the "teen" fighters, codenamed HAVE DOUGHNUT,
| and even it was not actually Soviet (an Iraqi pilot defected
| to Israel). All the other defections (which there were
| several) happened using old/non-fighter aircraft (iirc there
| were several MiG-15/17/19 which were essentially Korean War
| era designs), or happened after the teens were designed.
| greedo wrote:
| He might be talking about Belenko's defection with a MIG-25
| to Hokkaido in the early 1970s. Though neither aircraft is
| really related to the other except in very basic visual
| sensibilities (twin engine, twin tail).
| zokier wrote:
| And F-15 had its first flight four years _before_ the
| MiG-25 defection. So unless they had time machine at hand
| its unlikely that it had major influence on F-15 design
| kevbin wrote:
| My impression is the Westerners' best guess about the
| Mig-25 contributed significantly to the design of the
| F-15 and helped to make it what it is. Getting their
| hands on it was a relief, or even a let down.
|
| The alternative scenario, where the Mig-25 really was
| generations ahead, plays out in the movie Firefox from
| 1982 where the US is so far behind they have to steal a
| Soviet Mig-31 superplane. Good for laugh today, but once
| upon a time...
|
| The rumor I heard is Soviet intelligence infiltrated
| American industry and stole what they thought were plans
| for America's next generation air superiority fighter.
| What they'd obtained were the plans for Plymouth's
| Roadrunner Superbird, thus the Mig-25's uncanny
| resemblance. Proof:
| https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/1970-plymouth-
| superbird-a...
| kevbin wrote:
| I'd be curious to know which aircraft were actually better than
| their US contemporaries and by which criteria they'd be judged
| better.
|
| The Mig-25 seems like a good example of a Soviet aircraft
| considered better than its US contemporaries, at the time.
| Misunderstanding and misinformation let the US to think they
| were far, far behind the Soviet Union. Viktor Belenko cleared
| that up! It was a plane good at just one thing, with downsides
| that would never let it through a (non-CIA-directed) US
| procurement process. On the plus side, competition, fear, and
| rivalry, drove the US to some amazing research, engineering,
| and innovation.
|
| As a child at a local military airshow, the F-15 was awesome,
| dangerously beautiful. Shamed even the X-wings and Tie fighters
| I'd just seen on the big screen. Many years later, I had a
| similar feeling watching an Su-27 at Farnborough; Sukhoi
| captured some aesthetic that Mikoyan-Gurevich never seemed to
| get right, and did it better than any western contemporary.
| zokier wrote:
| I don't think it's controversial to say that MiG-21 compared
| favorably to its contemporaries when introduced. Afaik it
| successfully fought off newer, much more expensive, American
| F-4s in Vietnam war.
| chiph wrote:
| Certain aspects were better, yes. That's because the Soviets
| made different trade-offs in the design -- variously because of
| doctrine, time constraints, availability of exotic materials
| (and the ability to use them in manufacturing), and "helpful"
| direction from Moscow.
|
| The MiG-25 "Foxbat" is a famous example. To succeed in it's
| role as an high-speed interceptor it should have been made from
| titanium. But it's a very expensive and difficult metal to work
| with, so temperature critical parts were instead made from
| stainless steel. In the west there were lots of jokes about it
| rusting in the rain and the use of vacuum tubes, but tubes
| allowed it to have a very powerful radar. Plus that's what they
| had to work with (the Soviets having great difficulties making
| high-current semiconductors).
| skeeterbug wrote:
| Megaprojects just did an episode on the F15:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgI7jDd7hww
| mulmen wrote:
| That video is loaded with inaccuracies.
|
| They make an inexplicable Top Gun/Tom Cruise reference which
| suggests they don't seem to know the difference between the
| F-15, F-14, or F-18. Or perhaps even between the US Navy and
| USAF.
|
| I'm not aware of any plans to send F-15s to Ukraine. I have
| only heard of F-16 and maybe F-35.
|
| The video thumbnail shows F-15s with a single (offset?) rudder.
|
| There's a reference to the F-11 which seems to actually mean
| the F-111.
|
| There is a reference to an F-22 Megaprojects video that doesn't
| seem to exist. They may mean F-35 here.
|
| They claim the F-15 was active in Vietnam when it didn't enter
| combat service until 1976. This may be another mistaken F-14
| reference.
|
| The video claims the F-15 C and D are no longer in service with
| the US military but they are.
|
| The gun is not in the nose, it is in the wing root.
|
| The AIM7 and AIM9 were not new for the F-15C. Both are from the
| late 1950s.
|
| F-15E weighs more than the F-15C/D.
|
| The video suggests that the F-15EX and F-15 II are different
| planes but the F-15EX _is_ the "Eagle II", the same plane.
|
| The F-15EX is not claiming to go mach 3+. It is mach 2.4
| capable, similar to the F-15C/D.
|
| Jordan didn't have Mig-25s, the Syrians did.
|
| It's so egregious I unsubscribed from the channel before my
| Gell-Mann amnesia could subject me to further incorrect
| information. It's a shame because I enjoyed these channels but
| now can't trust them.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > That video is loaded with inaccuracies.
|
| > It's so egregious I unsubscribed from the channel before my
| Gell-Mann amnesia could subject me to further incorrect
| information. It's a shame because I enjoyed these channels
| but now can't trust them.
|
| Kinda curious that a lot of people complain about "videos
| replacing text" yet these "inaccurately paraphrase Wikipedia
| out loud while playing a Powerpoint made from
| Wikipedia/Commons and other images" channels like the one you
| linked, Asianometry and so on are _huge_ and popular. And
| those at least write a (highly derivative or essentially
| plagiarized) script and read it, there 's channels that do
| the same thing but with GPT for the script and TTS for the
| voice, and even those are pretty big.
|
| edit: Funnily enough both kinds of channels have the "GPT
| issue" in that they always want to sound confident and
| authoritative, so they never point out if they are unsure
| about something. Compare this to channels like Applied
| Science or Breaking Taps where they very clearly point out
| when they don't understand something or are unsure of their
| understanding.
| [deleted]
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