One question that arises to mind is RuAF has spent billions in creating S-300 series SAMs. Why have they not thrown lots of research into MANPADs that can reach 30K feet and are pretty resistant to jamming. Currently Igla types can reach 15K feet which means once S-200s and around are taken out, then NATO has a free going (talking in perspectives of Iraq, Libya, serbia etc.). Or is it that if RF makes such MANPADs available at even $250K, then they would nullify the sales of other high ticket items like S-300s, Tor and Buk etc. One battery of Tor costs good $25M for example.
Any country having MANPADs reaching 30K feet, ofcourse mobile and tough to jamming can negate the whole air war concept of the USAF. At best it would mean 3 to 4 times prolonging the air war or at worst pretty much shut out leaving ground invasion a very early requirement, something that US does not like given higher causalities.
These MANPADs can also reduce the stealth birds involvement by a lot, if not totally throw them off the theater.
Btw, the above article also says T-50 still working on the engines. After stealth, radar, the engines tech is another area where Russia is behind.
Of course it is behind- the US did not have the horrible period of the 90s or early 2000s to suffer through! But at the end of the day, given its advanced aerodynamics, lighter weight, and higher engine power as is, the PAK-FA should already have much superior characteristics to say the Flanker (not to even bring the F-35 up here ).
If I'm correct 30.000 feet is around 10 km. No MANPAD could reach that altitude, because missile is too small. MANPAD mean SAM is man portable, so I fon't think anyone will carry around 100+ kg missile and launch it from the shoulder.
About F-22 and other stealth planes, their stealth is designed around X-band radars which is mm wavelenght. RAM coat is not meant for dm or m wavelenght, because it would be too tick and heavy for the plane. As I know Su-35 and PAK FA also have in wings additional AESA radar in dm wavelenght, so they could see with this additional radar and IRST stealth F-22 and F-35 in longer distance, than with main radar. Equipped with modern MAWS and jamming equipment, they could avoid incoming missiles from F-22 or F-35 and the battle will end with dogfight and gun fire.
The same goes with air defense, they don't use only X-band radars, so they have capabilities against stealth planes with multi band radar complexes and passive detecting systems. But the main capability of air defense is in its crews skills and how well it is integrated.
One question that arises to mind is RuAF has spent billions in creating S-300 series SAMs. Why have they not thrown lots of research into MANPADs that can reach 30K feet and are pretty resistant to jamming. Currently Igla types can reach 15K feet which means once S-200s and around are taken out, then NATO has a free going (talking in perspectives of Iraq, Libya, serbia etc.).
Victor obtain similar altitude figures for a MANPAD is very difficult (also domestic version of latest version of IGLA MANPAD don't reach similar altitude), the majority of increase is concentrated in increase flare rejection factor some type of seeker's screening from DIRCM and ,above all, increase of the aerodynamics capabilities and lethality -in partiucular against cruise missile in day/night mobile point defence operation -
If Russia would have ruined NATO operations in Iraq or Afghanistan would have been sufficient for them to let to penetrate in the theatre even only a moderate amount of export versions of relatively modern infantry weapons : like MANPADS -such as IGLA-, ATGMs -such as METIS-M1 and Kornet-E with both HE and thermobaric warheads- ,Mines -such as TM-83 - and Rocket assisted area attack - such as Shmel-M -.
Naturally those "aids" (with the obvious devastating effects of the western losses in those theatres....is sufficient to think to the effects that the presence of few Kornet-E's launchers in the hand of Hezbollah had in the 2006 Lebanon conflict) to,at best, "gray" rebel organizations would have been a criminal act ,under an International Law point of view, and an inacceptable external interference in a conflict in course .
Naturally if, on the other side, we reason on the mean "aids" by part of CIA for those same terrorist Mujahideen organizations that today cause so enormous troubles around the world only to fight against URSS in Afghanistan or ,today, the strange aids provided to the fanatical organizations behind the "starnge" insurrections in North Africa and Middle East only to gain access to better Oil exchanges and new markets or remove some old "enemy" in the theatre some doubt on the rightness of a similar operation by part of Russia could even sprout.
The Governments of some nations are very shortsighted, them never learn from history : to obtain a near term advantage them will force future generations to pay the costs fighting against the damages caused by the black organizations aided to obtain theirs goals (as in the past with Afghani Mujahideen and Pakistan-based rebel organizations.......
Average MANPAD goes to 15K but Igla-S can go to 20K feet and Stringer to 26K......all info from wikipedia. Even if it takes 2 or 3 men to carry a heavier MANPAD that reaches 30-33K feet, then it makes sense if they can keep aggressor air force away.
One Igla costs $50K and Stringer even less at $32K. One battalion of S-300 costs $600M, 1 Battery of Tor-Ms costs $25K. The maths seems to be favoring the shoulder fired surface to air. 1 JDAM costs $30K, so killing 1 Igla with 1 JDAM is not too efficient mathematics. This might not even include the aircraft operating costs which is $50K/hour in F22s case.
If I were in position of Iraq, Libya or Syria and others on the NeoCon list, then I would invest heavily into higher ceiling MANPADs. It should be not too difficult to make them if you can already make missiles like Scuds etc. S-200 of Libya was sitting duck being immobile. Even if it was mobile, I would have given it a week more at most given huge technical advantage that NATO had over the Libyans.
I also look forward to rail guns being used as anti aircraft replacing AAAs which can only reach 15K feet i.e. 5km ceiling. Rail guns can fire 100s of miles horizontally so am sure would reach good 30 miles vertically even with some late stage motor kick in. Same for direct energy and laser based point defenses. They might prove to be more cost effective with further fine tuning.
Mindstorm wrote:Try with this - Alexander Davidenko - a chief scientist from the same institute where the physical principles and architecture of modern stealth has been achieved :
По его словам, ЭПР самолетов старого поколения (например, Су-27) составляет около 12 м², тогда как у F-22A Raptor она колеблется в диапазоне 0,3-0,4 м². ЭПР ПАК ФА "не будет превышать показатели F-22A, она будет к ним очень близка".
The only people who will know the actual RCS of the F-22A are Lockheed and the USAF. Just like the only people who will know the actual RCS of the PAK-FA are Sukhoi and the Russian Air Force. It's not just shaping, which is actually relatively simple nowadays to calculate a baseline RCS value from. You have to know the exact characteristics (thickness, composition, etc) of the RAM, the electrostatic properties of the entire airframe, etc. Contrary to popular belief, radar does not simply hit something and bounce off, there is far more going on that impacts the RCS of any object.
And as to the question, no, Russia has nothing to worry about regarding the F-22A. Should it be able to, for lack of a better term, slaughter a pack of FLANKERs? Well, yeah, hence the whole point of it being a FIFTH generation fighter design. But there aren't that many of them, and at the end of the day, guess what: air superiority fighters, useful that they are, cannot take and hold ground. If you're stupid enough at this point to rely on aging, static SAM sites (hello, Syria, Iran, and the DPRK), then you're going to be in trouble regardless of whether or not Raptors come out. Look at Libya. And yes, in those cases, the JDAM or SDB is a perfectly suitable SEAD/DEAD wepaon, as the system isn't going anywhere.
According to wikipedia Igla-S the most modern of Russian MANPAD has weight of roughly 30kgs include 1 missile + warhead. Increase the weight of 11kg missile to 20 kgs if it results in twice the range. Then give a small wheeled trolly like people use in airports and even 1 man can carry these around. Another man has a trolly with 2-4 other missiles + warhead. Further with some camera or preprogrammed proximity based system add a small handgun mechanism to the missile. When it is near the aircraft, then this gun fires a volley of 24 high explosive 20mm bullets that scatter at many angles. Now we are talking 24 bullets plus missile having a chance of hitting 1 plane. Missile should kill the plane but bullets might do a serious damage to throw it out of service for sometime.
All the while do not forget jamming countermeasures which are equally crucial.
It's not just shaping, which is actually relatively simple nowadays to calculate a baseline RCS value from. You have to know the exact characteristics (thickness, composition, etc) of the RAM, the electrostatic properties of the entire airframe, etc. Contrary to popular belief, radar does not simply hit something and bounce off, there is far more going on that impacts the RCS of any object.
SOM i stime you as a too intelligent and knowledgeable person to think for only one second that you would truly believe in this low level argumentation .
Body conductivity , radiated energy commutability index(material-linked ) are all surely contributing factor in deciding the final RCS of a LO/VLO aircraft ...the point ,of which i am sure you are perfectly aware, is in what measure those factors can influenciate the RCS "reduction" (and also this common idea ,like you well know is not other than a popular mistake false , the total RCS of an F-22 or a PAKFA is exactly identical to that of a classical design with similar surface area ,simply with a different spatial distriubution).
Even considering very particular air body's scattering points and "hypercritical" reradiating cones ,where effectively impressive relative RCS "reductions" are achievable -also in a measure of three or four orders of magnitude- we have that the contribution of not PTD related measure is often inferiro to a single order of magnitude and for inescapable phisical constraints linked to those elements. Therefore the not Physical Optics generated margin of error in similar highly educated assessment's models is absolutely negligible. This type of "popular" argumentation (aimed clearly at merely mantain "alive" metropolitan legends devoid of any grounding ) try to predate on the idea that the design elements not know to a external observer could "compensate" for the difference in parametrical evaluation.
Another subliminal element on which a similar argumentation found itself is that a russian scientist could be wrong in a way so incredible because probably it lack the knowledges necessaries because Russia has not produced in the past VLO vehicles. Reality is naturally very different from that: if we take into consideration applicative resulution and large scale engineerization and production of stealth-related products is reasonable to say that USA has probably accumulated more know-hows in respect to the Russians , but if we talk of the theoretical architecture and Physics models behind them we can say that likely the opposite is true .
When at Lab 108 the Physical principles behind the modern stealth technology were developed ,attentively examined for some years and a part of them allowed for publication, in the USA even only the idea of the effective phisical feasibility of similar VLO designs was practically not-existent; we can even say that a very big portion of the same American scientifical community of the sector borned just after the publication of Pyotr Ufimtsev's works and its arrive in the USA.
That is in non jamming environment, in the jamming hostile scenario it is berely 57 kms for stealth birds.
Introduce a jammer to improve the chances of the F-22s and an S-400 will shoot down the jammer. The effectiveness of jammers is determined largely by their power, which is turn is determined by their distance to the thing being jammed.
Jamming from 400km is just making yourself a target... you are emitting noise but are too far away to be effective.
Get close enough to be effective and get shot down.
Pakfa has 100 times bigger RCS so it can be detected at longer ranges. True?
In practical terms no.
An anti stealth radar optimised to see very small targets will likely see both.
It is like looking at objects in the night sky... to get a pair of binoculars to see a faint object you usually see more than one faint object... you see a lot of them.
It is a bit like tank armour, the tank armour in service doesn't need to stop things that are on your enemies drawing board, it just needs to stop stuff in general service with your enemies forces. By the time your enemy gets that new ammo that can penetrate your armour of today you will have improved it so as he introduces the new ammo you start introducing the new add on armour to counter the new anti armour ammo he has developed.
Look at Kontact... by the time the west got hold of it and tested it and realised it defeated most of their anti armour weapons and they developed and introduced into service new stuff to defeat it the Russians had already developed new ERA that was even more effective...
Regarding Pantsirs conducting the point defense, they have been compromised by BAE Suter when Israel attacked the Syrian nuke labs in 2007.
That must be a very capable system because Pantsirs had not been delivered to Syria in 2007 in time for the Israeli attack.
No Pantsir-S1s in Syria
In September, the system made the headlines when Israel conducted an air strike on Syria. According to Israelis, some military targets deep in Syrian territory were hit despite being protected by Pantsirs. The media was calling the system ineffective.
The head of the construction bureau, Aleksandr Ribas, says at the moment there were no Pantsir system in Syria at the moment: “I assure you that if it was there, none of the planes would have reached the target. More than that, they simply would not even dare go there,” he says.
BTW Suter is a hacking program that allows access to an enemies air defence network. In the case of the Israeli raid they redirected radars to look where the attack force of aircraft wasn't.
A Pantsir-S1 located near the target would likely be operating autonomously and would have been able to shoot down both the aircraft used and the weapons they released.
It is likely the Israelis timed their attack because they knew the Syrians were getting Pantsir-S1 and their window of opportunity was closing.
However 15km engagement altiitude not good enough for aircrafts as AAA also reaches that level. It might be good to deal with missiles and bombs released.
Not many aircraft routinely operate above 15,000m, because it takes fuel to reach that altitude and most larger aircraft like bombers and JSTARS can't operate at that sort of altitude. The only aircraft which operate higher than that are fighters using the high ground.
Pantsir-S1 is not the only SAM a country would use, it is used together with a range of SAMs. Its main purpose is short range defence of important targets including larger SAM bases.
The altitude of the missile used by Tunguska was 3.5K m, while the first Pantsir could reach about 5km or so with its slightly longer range missiles.
The 15km operating altitude for the Pantsir-S1 was specifically because of the NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo/Serbia.
Not only the ability to reach that high it also got multiple target engagement capability (one optical guidance channel and three radar guidance channel so it can engage 4 targets at once... including while moving...
The larger SAM can deal with threats operating at higher altitudes and much longer ranges.
If all Pantsir-S1 can do is force enemy aircraft to fly above 15km then it has made ground attack much harder and also made it easier for radars to detect threats at longer ranges.
The fact that it can also engage any weapons directed at the target it is protecting is a huge bonus.
Against Russia, F22s operating without AWACS, JSTARS and Refuellers is point truly realistic. This will reduce their operation theatre to 1.5 hours I think. Big relief.
Lack of inflight refuelling will also restrict their basing options which puts the airbases they are operating from much closer to Russian ballistic and cruise missiles.
On the other hand, F22s should have some secret techs going that we do not know about. But same would be true about Pakfa as it will come out 3 years from now so more time to add goodies.
It is ongoing and both will get lots of changes and updates during their operational lifetimes.
However, the point that Russia cannot detect, track and kill F22s and F35s (to some extent) beyond the range of 60kms in a jamming hostile environment, holds as it was. Regrading triangulation radars like Kolchuga, (what i heard) is detection is possible but tracking might be an issue. Hope not.
Russia can track paint chips in space at ranges of 8,000km, the claims of 0.0000001 or whatever RCS for F-22s are peak RCS from very specific angles at very specific frequencies... and assuming proper maintainence which is not always possible during conflicts.
Take the ARH seeker off an RVV-SD and fit it with an IIR seeker with a 3D thermal image of an F-22 in its internal database and use long wave ground based radar to detect an F-22 or F-35 and launch that missile in its general direction and start closing on the target.
If claims of AESA radars defeating S-300 radars is even half to be believed that means the AESA radar in the PAK FA should have no trouble defeating the tiny radar antenna of an AMRAAM at 10km, so it becomes a fight between a Russian stealth fighter with IRST and 5 radar antennas in the X and L bands and IR guided BVR missiles and a 30mm gun and a US stealth fighter with one radar antenna and Sidewinders and a 20mm gun...
Where is this American uber superiority... it likely wont be in numbers...
Russia could just send up UCAVs armed with Iglas... The US will run out of F-22s before the Russians will run out of UCAVS..
Btw, any chance of detecting stealth via radio telescope type technologies.
Bistatic radar is the obvious choice... one S-400 radar scanning with high power and lots of other S-400 sites around the place just listening. The stealth design of the F-22 is designed to redirect the radar energy so very little returns to the source of the signal but a network of radars around the place just listening passively will get signals from the F-22.
In a proper network it should be easy to get a precise enough location to launch missiles that use optical or IR terminal guidance for the kill.
Why have they not thrown lots of research into MANPADs that can reach 30K feet and are pretty resistant to jamming.
Aircraft at 30K are not the average soldiers problem, it is the A-10s and Apaches and the odd F-16 flying at 5K feet looking for ground targets to attack that are the problem. High altitude long range threats are problems for higher level SAMs and the Russian Air Force to deal with.
Or is it that if RF makes such MANPADs available at even $250K, then they would nullify the sales of other high ticket items like S-300s, Tor and Buk etc. One battery of Tor costs good $25M for example.
The key part of MANPADs is man portable. A soldier on the ground is very unlikely to see aircraft at more than 10K most of the time so there is little point in making 40kg MANPADS that can reach places the guy operating it can't even see let alone target.
Any country having MANPADs reaching 30K feet, ofcourse mobile and tough to jamming can negate the whole air war concept of the USAF.
Why MANPADS? Surely the Pantsir-S1 is the obvious solution? Enemy aircraft trying to operate above such systems make themselves visible to radar to very long ranges.
After stealth, radar, the engines tech is another area where Russia is behind.
And don't forget arrogance and ego, and not to mention aggression in terms of regime change agendas.
I would say the US is behind in terms of air to air weapons, and IRSTs.
Average MANPAD goes to 15K but Igla-S can go to 20K feet and Stringer to 26K......all info from wikipedia. Even if it takes 2 or 3 men to carry a heavier MANPAD that reaches 30-33K feet, then it makes sense if they can keep aggressor air force away.
Or it makes them wait for cloudy days... an aircraft operating at 30K is a speck that makes no noise and would be impossible for man on the ground to detect.
Pointless.
One Igla costs $50K and Stringer even less at $32K. One battalion of S-300 costs $600M, 1 Battery of Tor-Ms costs $25K. The maths seems to be favoring the shoulder fired surface to air. 1 JDAM costs $30K, so killing 1 Igla with 1 JDAM is not too efficient mathematics. This might not even include the aircraft operating costs which is $50K/hour in F22s case.
Where are you getting your figures from? There is no way a Stinger is cheaper than Igla... even in the latest S model igla. And a battery of TOR-Ms for $25K??? what are you smoking? The 3D search radar and phased array tracking radar alone would make one vehicle worth that... a single T-90AM costs over 4 million and you think a TOR battery costs 25K? You think an Igla costs twice what a TOR battery costs?
Sorry my friend but those numbers are wrong.
I also look forward to rail guns being used as anti aircraft replacing AAAs which can only reach 15K feet i.e. 5km ceiling. Rail guns can fire 100s of miles horizontally so am sure would reach good 30 miles vertically even with some late stage motor kick in. Same for direct energy and laser based point defenses. They might prove to be more cost effective with further fine tuning.
Very high velocity EM guns would be very interesting, especially if it is used to launch guided shells...
According to wikipedia Igla-S the most modern of Russian MANPAD has weight of roughly 30kgs include 1 missile + warhead.
Then Wiki is wrong. The weight of the missile is about 12kgs and the launcher is about another 6kgs or so. Total weight is about 18kgs.
Adding guns to a missile does not make sense. You are adding lots of dead weight that does nothing to damage the target, with lots of moving parts and points of potential failure.
Simple is easier... replace the gun and the ammo with a big lump of HE with metal balls and metal cubes pressed into the outside of it and put about 10 small detonators in it.
With the help of the built in proximity fuse you can determine where the target is in relation to the missile so have the detonator opposite where the target is explode which will direct the explosion towards the target and pepper it with fragments.
The purpose of MANPADS is to deal with small low flying threats. Threats high up are dealt with by larger systems higher up the food chain.
The problem of reaching higher altitude means more weight and not just double. It is also an issue with seekers... can the seeker of a Manpads actually lock on to a real target flying at high altitude?
Most will not.
Doubling the weight of the fuel does not double the performance envelope of a missile.
The extra fuel means the rocket motor can burn for longer, but it also means it has more weight to shift so its acceleration and top speed are reduced too.
Another aspect is that Manpads are small weapons and by definition will have small control surfaces. Above 10K Metres the air is thin and those small control surfaces will reduce manouvering performance to the point where it is a straight flying missile that is no danger to anything.
Garry , is this anew system ? i don't know it, any link ?
L370-5 Vitebsk or President-S is an ESM/DIRCM suite including IR Laser ball turrets seen on Ka-52s and will likely be fitted to a range of Russian aircraft as a defence suite.
Note I believe the President-S designation is for the system designed for helicopters and the President M is for fixed wing aircraft including cargo aircraft.
Aircraft at 30K are not the average soldiers problem, it is the A-10s and Apaches and the odd F-16 flying at 5K feet looking for ground targets to attack that are the problem. High altitude long range threats are problems for higher level SAMs and the Russian Air Force to deal with.
However, Libya had 10s of thousands of Sterla and Igla missiles so how come Apache's and low flying bombers had a free run. The aim is to deny the free run bombing and on the cheap. While Pantsir and Tors make sense but they are high tickect. $25K for Tor was a typo error, wikipedia prices it at $25 Million.
The key part of MANPADs is man portable. A soldier on the ground is very unlikely to see aircraft at more than 10K most of the time so there is little point in making 40kg MANPADS that can reach places the guy operating it can't even see let alone target.
That's another valid point. Would small IRST device help in locating and targeting the 5k plus fliers. Liked the idea of Igla's armed with HE detonation devices, the point is to make the hit probabilities higher in manpad's favor.
At what altitude the bombings by F16s and others takes place? I can guess it is over 15K feet and this threat has to be cancelled out and on the cheap and highly mobile. Adding IRST type devices might offer some potentials.
Btw, what is the problem in making AAA reaching more than 15K. Might need bigger this or that, but end of it all it is a pure kinetic play and on the cheap also. One 20mm AAA bullet can cause good damage atleast.
However, Libya had 10s of thousands of Sterla and Igla missiles so how come Apache's and low flying bombers had a free run. The aim is to deny the free run bombing and on the cheap. While Pantsir and Tors make sense but they are high tickect. $25K for Tor was a typo error, wikipedia prices it at $25 Million.
What low flying aircraft?
The only footage I saw was of Rafales flying at medium altitude above MANPADS height.
Why does it need to be on the cheap?
Libya was loaded.
NATO wont bother with countries that are dirt poor and have nothing they are interested in... it is the best defence of them all.
That's another valid point. Would small IRST device help in locating and targeting the 5k plus fliers. Liked the idea of Igla's armed with HE detonation devices, the point is to make the hit probabilities higher in manpad's favor.
The Igla-S is already very good and for two reasons... it has a good seeker and a proximity fuse so its guidance accuracy is good and it doesn't have to actually hit the target to damage it.
With the older model Iglas without proximity fuses if the missile missed then the warhead didn't explode so no damage was done at all.
There is a new MANPAD in development called Verba which may use an IIR seeker which would make it much harder to defeat.
Regarding the problem of hitting high altitude targets the solution is never going to be cheap and the TOR or Pantsir-S1 are currently two of the most capable solutions available.
At what altitude the bombings by F16s and others takes place? I can guess it is over 15K feet and this threat has to be cancelled out and on the cheap and highly mobile. Adding IRST type devices might offer some potentials.
The critical solution first is anti cruise missile capability. If you can stop NATOs cruise missiles from hitting your major SAM systems and airbases and communications centres and HQs with systems like TOR and Pantsir-S1 then you can use your airforce and long range SAMs to deal with high flying threats like they were designed to.
The problem for the Libyans was that their old long range SAM only had one guidance channel so even if they detected the incoming cruise missiles at long range... say 100km you just need to launch 10 cruise missiles at the one SAM site. The SAM will start engaging straight away though it might be limited by terrain or missile performance so it might have to wait till the missiles are 50km away before it can launch its first SAM. It might launch two at the one missile to ensure a kill, but by the time their missile gets a kill the remaining 9 missiles are much closer... and as it engages the next and the next they are getting closer still, which shortens the engagement time but it doesn't matter how you cut it, there will be several missiles that will hit the SAM site and take it out, because honestly with jamming and decoys and clutter they might detect the first cruise missile at 10km and not have time to engage it before it closes within the systems minimum engagement range.
With TOR and Pantsir-S1 it wont matter if the incoming cruise missiles are not detected till they are 10km away they can still engage 3-4 separate targets at once per vehicle and a battery is normally 6 vehicles.
They took out Libya with 120 cruise missiles... that wouldn't have worked in Russia even with ten times the number of cruise missiles because of the presence of TOR and Pantsir-S1 and systems of a previous generation like that, and also because most of their large SAMsAre much more capable because they are either newer (ie S-300 or later) or the older ones have been tied into the newer ones and have multi target engagement capability. A cruise missile is a very low flying target, but it is not manouverable or particularly fast so an ancient old SAM like SA-3 is perfectly adequate for taking them out leaving newer missiles for more difficult targets.
The thing about cruise missiles is that they fly low and relatively slow so if you have a radar network and a communications network and most ground units have a range of SAMs from MANPADS right up to long range SAMs you can give a MANPADS units early warning and target information and it can actually engage cruise missiles.
I remember reading about Desert Storm where several cruise missiles were shot down with OSA (SA- which is another relatively old system that is still good enough for some jobs.
The difference again is that the Russians have an Air Force and an Army with ballistic and cruise missiles that can be used to directly target the launch platforms of all these cruise missiles... something the Libyans and indeed Serbs could not do.
Btw, what is the problem in making AAA reaching more than 15K. Might need bigger this or that, but end of it all it is a pure kinetic play and on the cheap also. One 20mm AAA bullet can cause good damage atleast.
With new EM technology very small projectiles could be accelerated to very high speeds enabling long range engagements. With relatively soft targets like aircraft it is even better. Most modern tank rounds for penetrating other tanks rely on mass and velocity for penetration. The problem there of course is as you add mass you make it much harder to get the velocity, but the mass is needed. The highest velocity we can achieve is the speed of light and that would be with a torch. The photons are travelling at the speed of light but their almost nonexistent mass means the force applied and the penetration is so close to zero we can pretty much call it zero. The problem is of course to accelerate items with tangible mass to enormous speeds require huge particle accelerators 10km across or more and enormous amounts of power.
In the case of shooting at aircraft the velocity of the projectile will be plenty, so the projectile itself would be more efficient if it was largely a light hard material like Aluminium with a small HE charge to shatter it and spread it out just before impact to spread the damage to the target rather than simply punching a small hole. A simple impact fuse that made the projectile explode inside the target would also be more effective than just a solid projectile.
An EM gun firing projectiles at 3-4km/s or faster would make very long range shots rather more effective.
The obvious problem is such weapons will not be hand held... they will require a significant power supply and fairly long barrel and lots of magnets... and will be quite expensive.
I could see such weapons entering the armoury in the Navy first for long range artillery followed by land based artillery next. Obviously because they don't use propellent and just projectiles I would think that would be attractive to tank designers as removing propellent will make the tank safer, but the problem of power generation and storage will be created. Gas turbine engines and electric armour together with electric drives and an electric gun could revolutionise the next gen tank (and Car).
Once you get it into a tank then an anti aircraft gun model is quite straight forward.
Mindstorm wrote:the total RCS of an F-22 or a PAKFA is exactly identical to that of a classical design with similar surface area
...thereby implying that things such as travelling waves, electrostatic properties of metals and composites, caustics, edge diffraction, etc. have no meaning whatsoever in the field of LO and VLO design.
Wait, yes they do.
Another subliminal element on which a similar argumentation found itself is that a russian scientist could be wrong in a way so incredible because probably it lack the knowledges necessaries because Russia has not produced in the past VLO vehicles.
Saying they can't do it because they haven't done it before is asinine. Explain things like the J-20 or T-50 otherwise. If anyone was going to have LO knowledge in Russia it was going to be Sukhoi anyway, as a result of the T.60S program. Russia did a lot of things related to LO technology prior to the T-50, people just don't focus on them because they're often just applied technology rather than representative of a purpose-built ground-up VLO design. Case in point, RAM coatings in the Tu-160's air intakes. Or RAM treatments experimentally applied to MiG-29s. Or even some of the more "out-there" concepts such as Marabou or the Keldysh device.
Just like in the USA, I'm quite certain you can find a number of things Russia isn't necessarily at the leading edge of. Physics, however, has never been one of those areas.
we can even say that a very big portion of the same American scientifical community of the sector borned just after the publication of Pyotr Ufimtsev's works and its arrive in the USA.
Ufimtsev's work on diffraction was used to *refine* the path Lockheed was already travelling down. It was not the beginning, Lockheed had been trying to design an airframe with a militarily significant low RCS since the 1950s. During the XST program in the 1970s, Lockheed was working with faceting and the HAVE BLUE configuration. Denys Overholser read Ufimtsev's work and used it to refine the already-existing ECHO 1 RCS program, a program which had validated a lot of Lockheed's concepts for making an LO aircraft out of flat panels, or facets. Although it was certainly a significant development, we can't know just how important Ufimtsev's work really was to the F-117A unless someone in Lockheed wants to give us the pre- and post-Ufimtsev HAVE BLUE RCS values.
Although it was certainly a significant development, we can't know just how important Ufimtsev's work really was to the F-117A unless someone in Lockheed wants to give us the pre- and post-Ufimtsev HAVE BLUE RCS values.
Ufimtsev invented the necessary mathematical model that can be used to calculate the RCS of a particular shape. Before his work it was trial and error and largely guess work.
His model together with very early electronic computers was the breakthrough to design stealth aircraft from scratch.
Early electronic computers were not particularly powerful so they reduced the number of polygons in the shape to make the maths and critically the production easier.
When the F-117 was produced the US had neither the computer processing power nor the ability to construct and aircraft to the level of precision for curves.
The B-2 is evidence in the improvement in computer technology in calculating curves as is the F-22 and later stealth aircraft.
Ufimstev didn't invent stealth but he invented the mathematic models to built hardware and test it via computer.
Previously even if designed by computer you could really only tell how stealthy something was by making a large scale model and hanging it in front of a real antenna.
Having a computer model tested on computer obviously makes creation much faster and easier and thousands of shapes can be tested instead of just dozens.
...thereby implying that things such as travelling waves, electrostatic properties of metals and composites, caustics, edge diffraction, etc. have no meaning whatsoever in the field of LO and VLO design.
SOC even outside a strict Physical Optic -PO- point of view ,those elements (naturally edge diffraction fields should not be a part of that sentence....but i will feign that it is not present) can obviously get an effect on the resulting diffraction field at an arbitrary source point but unfortunately, with the exception of some material-related radiated energy commutability (mostly to thermal energy) and accounting for a very very small amount of the radiated energy potential ,the effect of those measures is at most a modification in the surface polarization and ,therefore, some degree of controlled spatial "shifting" of the resulting scattering (exploited mostly to channel scattered waves toward desired reflective surfaces of their air body). Moreover has been experimentally proved that the critical so called "shadow radiation" and superficial grazing rejected rays are impossible to eliminate by RAM materials (confront: "Comments on diffraction principles and limitations of RCS reduction techniques" 1996).
Ufimtsev's work on diffraction was used to *refine* the path Lockheed was already travelling down. It was not the beginning, Lockheed had been trying to design an airframe with a militarily significant low RCS since the 1950s.
I don't agree absolutely let me split that sentence :
"Lockheed had been trying to design an airframe with a militarily significant low RCS since the 1950s." True "Ufimtsev's work on diffraction was used to *refine* the path Lockheed was already travelling down. It was not the beginning" Not true
P. Ufimtsev's "allowed" pubblications (at theirs own time only a part of the works at "Lab 108" and only a segment of the still "not open" specific field achievements by others big Soviet named such as L.A. Vainshtein ,V. Prokorov, V.A. Fock etc..) represented not merely, the most important breackthrough, by a long margin, in the American sector but even also a true turning point in the same formation of the American scientifical community of the sector.
The Pyotr Ufimtsev’s achievements (or for better say....those allowed for pubblication) was defined by Ben Rich -the father and chief of the modern American scientifical community of the sector) as "The true Rosetta Stone breakthrough for stealth technology." ,with similar effects on the US's stealth community to those that the discovery and deciphering of the Rosetta Stone had had on successive Egyptology research community's shaping and direction. Rich used also to define often Ufimtsev's mind : "Simply inhuman..."
I image that you know the famous chorus "Go Ufimtsev" on the tune of "On, Wisconsin" that Denys Overholser and Northrop's team working on B2 commonly chanted for the enthusiasm generated by the apparently incredible results them was achieving thanks to its work and patronage. If not, you can ear it by D. Overholser here -at 1:40- (but see the entire part 3 and 4 if you have a bit of time).
Refine the path ? Yes SOC, we can also define more than two and half order of magnitude of edge's RCS relative "reduction" in X band a.... refinement if you want .
Morever Ufimtsev's PTD and IPTD was exploited even more extensively in the B-2 program. Please read the works of K.M. Mitzner (the theoretical department chief of the B-2 bomber project) such as "Calculation of Radar Cross Section" to see clearly that.
As previously asserted USA has surely accumulated greater applicative and engineering know-how in the sector -it is already a field where Americans are very very good and the large scale production of similar LO vehicles has surely aided this process-, but i can assure you that in the theoretical department of the question and the Physical principle's skeleton behind it, that is not only not true but is very likely true the exact opposite.
The only footage I saw was of Rafales flying at medium altitude above MANPADS height.
Why does it need to be on the cheap?
I think the most and major of the damage done to Green Libyan Army was by NATO air power. Tanks, BMDs, Artillery etc. were all killed by NATO not the rebels. So you want to say that all the action took place above 15K feet outside the range of Igla and others. This alone is an example to make a manpad which cheap like $250K most, mobile i.e. broken into two parts and carried by two men, able to kill birds much above 15K feet. For price of one Tor there can 100 manpads of this kind. Tor and Buks are good to protect SAMs like S300s and other valuables because they need to kill the cruise missiles and JDAMs but manpads will keep hawks away from tanks and troops which will then be free to move. I believe items like CIWS Phalanx, Goalkeeper etc. that protect the ships should be developed which can engage the incoming cruise missiles and JDAMs. Unless they are hypersonic these can be slammed well by CIWS protecting an important piece of equiptment, ofcourse in addtion to point defense deals like Tors. US has a semi stealth cruise missile called SMACM, but for now these travel at subsonic (i think) because they cost only $100K each. Not like Tomahawks which cost good $1M and more. These SMACMs can saturate a S300 or S400 and then like you said, main SAM is gone and left is the business of F-18 Grolwers for SEAD and then F22 and F35s for initial at will bombing.
There has to be a cheap answer to SMACMs type missiles and point defense CIWS needs to be available at half dozen or more angles on the clock to provide 360 degree defense.
I am sorry Victor, I understand what you are suggesting but you are mistaken.
If you make the modifications to a MANPAD that makes it as capable as Pantsir-S1 or TOR then your MANPAD ends up as big an heavy as a Pantsir-S1 or a TOR.
That means to move it around the battlefield you need a vehicle, and you need sensors to detect targets and guide the missiles, and you need a power supply... and you end up with a Pantsir-S1 or a TOR.
It is like the Americans and their fixation with assault rifle accuracy to 800m.
They spend a fortune on their rifles and ammo to make them accurate to that range and then find in Iraq that they never use them beyond 300m. Then they go to Afghanistan and when the enemy (which they trained in the 1980s to take long range potshots at Soviet troops because it helped them live longer) they suddenly found that their little assault rifle bullet really doesn't have the power to be lethal at anything more than 300m from the M16 or SA80, or 200m from weapons with shorter barrels like their M4 and para barreled FN Minimi.
The problem isn't their assault rifles and LMG, their problem is trying to use an assault rifle as a battle rifle and the fact that an assault rifle round in a light machinegun makes it a slightly longer range assault rifle and not a LMG.
The Russians knew that and included PKMs and SVDs in their platoons to give range (and along with RPGs) they have plenty of shorter range firepower, and significant longer reach too.
Units that operate in certain situations get different weapon choices.
I have an old photo somewhere in a french military magazine of a Russian unit moving to relieve a Russian position on some mountaintop somewhere in some Soviet republic that was fighting a civil war or something, and all the guys going up the hill had SVDs and all the guys coming down the hill except the commander had SVDs too.
What I am trying to say is that MANPADS have a role... they need to be cheap and they need to be mobile.
The fact that NATO airpower operates above 15,000 feet is not some advantage... they are afraid of MANPADS... MANPADS are doing their job.
The problem is that to make MANPADS a high altitude SAM is to make it immobile, and much much more expensive.
The purpose behind Pantsir-S1... the reason they extended its max altitude engagement to 15,000m (which is over 40,000 feet BTW) was directly in response to NATO operating above 20,000ft in Kosovo/Serbia.
Pantsir-S1 forcing NATO planes to operate at over 40,000ft would have made most of their missions pointless.
The main problem in Libya was lack of a modern fighter and lack of modern long range SAM... once these two were defeated then the rest didn't have a chance because most short range range missiles can't engage high altitude targets and are not designed for that.
Do you understand what I mean?
You can't make a few modifications to an M16 and make it a sniper rifle... well you can by changing the calibre and the barrel and everything else and making it an M24... which will cost the same price as an M16 and an M24...
It seems Pantsir provides 12 missiles and 2500 bullets/min CIWS type feature also. However, cost is $13-15 million, although that might include the support ammo vechicle and other spare parts deals.
It should be interesting to see how Syria Air Defense pans out if NATO attacks them. Basically they have everything that Russia counts on except for S400s. Syria has most advanced S-300 SAMs, Tor, Buk and Pantsirs. Do they have anything to ward off the saturation attack by the cruise missiles. Tor and Buks should help for a while and then it becomes a question of who has deeper pockets given the decoy attacks that NATO can launch also to deplete their missiles. However, once S-300s are taken out it should be an accelerating attrition. It would not be as fast as Libya was, i.e. 2 days around but it will get there. Would love to have some CIWS like Phalax try to kill off cruise missiles 1 km from the target. Cost of 1 phalax gun system without radar is $1.5M. Am sure Russian/Chinese CIWS would be slightly cheap. This is more so because cruise missiles are sub sonic and can be handled by anti aircraft guns if located in time.
Btw, UCAVs flying around armed with Iglas is a good idea. But they might need some top grade jamming resistence and sophistication to locate and lock on incoming cruise missiles. Anything that get through meets CIWS types and ofcourse T/B/Ps point defenses. No wonder US is coming out with stealth cruise missiles already.
I would also like to add that performance, training and dedication of Arab armies is really C- grade. Serbians showed a much more B+ grade performance and thus saved lots of their equipment from NATO bombs. So men behind the machines bring out different results also.
It seems Pantsir provides 12 missiles and 2500 bullets/min CIWS type feature also. However, cost is $13-15 million, although that might include the support ammo vechicle and other spare parts deals.
The 2A38M 30mm twin barrel cannon the Pantsir is fitted with fire at 2,500 rpm each, so its rate of fire is actually 5,000 rpm per vehicle.
I suspect the original figure you gave of 25 million would be for one battery, which would be 6 vehicles with guns and missiles on them ready to fire plus the support vehicles, which would include a mechanical maintainence vehicle (for engines and turrets and other mechanical issues, a repair and maintainence vehicle for electronics (radar and EO sensors), and alignment vehicle, one reload vehicle for every two armed vehicles (ie three), a test equipment vehicle for the missiles, and a mobile and fixed trainer system.
If you want to save money there is a version of the system that does not use radar and only uses the optics system for day night all weather operation which according to the makers costs 2-2.5 times less than the fully equipped model.
Would love to have some CIWS like Phalax try to kill off cruise missiles 1 km from the target. Cost of 1 phalax gun system without radar is $1.5M. Am sure Russian/Chinese CIWS would be slightly cheap. This is more so because cruise missiles are sub sonic and can be handled by anti aircraft guns if located in time.
Ahhh, Victor... you do realise that the two twin barrel cannon on the Pantsir are 30mm cannon with 4-5 times the power of the little 20mm cannon shells the Phalanx fires? You also realise that Phalanx is useless beyond about 1.8km and fires at a max rate of 4,500rpm, while the 30mm cannon on the Pantsir-S1 fire at 5,000rpm out to 4km with HE shells rather more effective at destroying a cruise missile than a DU round that simply punches a neat little hole through... if it hits.
I would also like to add that performance, training and dedication of Arab armies is really C- grade. Serbians showed a much more B+ grade performance and thus saved lots of their equipment from NATO bombs. So men behind the machines bring out different results also.
This is critical. Even ancient equipment used professionally can evade a superior force and remain a threat despite the best efforts of the enemy.
Good equipment badly handled will not save you.
NATO intervention into Syria would be a total mess and would likely bring Iran into the conflict too.
Visit this link on Russian AD systems. Pg 6. Kill probability of Tor and Buk overs around 50 to 75% against the cruise missiles. End stage CIWS defenses like Pantsirs should be pretty handy, almost critical requirement.
If Phalax and Goalkeeper types can handle supersonic Yakhonts missiles, then cruise missiles should be easy deals and more so when they are detected much in advance, unlike Yakhont which dips down for last 15kms and gets lost to the radar detection. Stealth cruise is another game in town.
Visit this link on Russian AD systems. Pg 6. Kill probability of Tor and Buk overs around 50 to 75% against the cruise missiles. End stage CIWS defenses like Pantsirs should be pretty handy, almost critical requirement.
These are single shot kill probabilities... and the figure for TOR is 50%-99%.
The best defence against cruise missiles is a functioning air force with aircraft carrying modern R-77 and R-73 like missiles.
If Phalax and Goalkeeper types can handle supersonic Yakhonts missiles, then cruise missiles should be easy deals and more so when they are detected much in advance, unlike Yakhont which dips down for last 15kms and gets lost to the radar detection. Stealth cruise is another game in town.
If Phalanx could deal with sea skimming cruise missiles (supersonic or otherwise) they would not be replacing it with SEA RAM.
The critical factor with cruise missiles is detection. The sooner you detect a cruise missile the much greater the chance of defeating it becomes. Having radars looking out to sea to very low levels with no hills or mountain ranges to block the radars view cruise missiles can be detected fairly early.
With plenty of warning aircraft can be scrambled to engage the threats at extended ranges.
Missiles coming from nearby borders are more difficult especially if such areas have fairly rugged terrain.
The thing is that most enemies will have a range of fairly predictible targets they will want to hit and they will certainly have a fairly easy to work out order in which they will want to hit them.
Very long range cruise missiles can be sent on quite a journey that involves a fairly unpredictible route, but the point is that most targets are deep within enemy territory and sensible placement of air defence units and sensible aircraft deployment should make the flight of the cruise missile very difficult.
The greatest advantage of the cruise missile is choosing where and when to attack so that it comes as a surprise.
When the enemy knows it is coming then there is a good chance it wont make it.
Personally, if I was Iran, I would have put in an order in the early 1990s for 200 Mig-31s, but modified so that the belly positions had conformal positions for R-77 missiles. With their tail surfaces folded forward they are very long slim weapons and with a large aircraft like the Mig-31 you could probably fit up to 6 R-77s side by side under the belly of the aircraft. With two rows of 6 missiles that means each fighter could carry 12 missiles on its belly and with special triple ejector racks on each wing pylon for R-77s with their tail control surfaces folded forward you could get another 12 missiles on the 4 standard wing pylons.
In terms of weight the R-77 is a very light weight missile and drag would be little problem either.
With 24 R-77s and a 23mm cannon each Mig-31 would be very well armed to meet even a full scale US cruise missile attack, and with that powerful radar and IRST most other US aircraft would have trouble too.
By now of course I would trade one row of 6 missiles on the belly for 3 RVV-BD missiles, and the outer wing pylons might get RVV-MD (R-73s) and the inner missile pylon RVV-SD(R-77) in new digital form, and I would look to upgrade some of the radars to AESA together with Mig...
Probably look at engine upgrades as well to improve fuel efficiency and power.
The engines of the Mig-31 share a heritage with the engines of the Il-76, so the changes made to the engines in the IL-476 could be applied to the engines in the Mig-31 to increase thrust and reduce fuel consumption.
Wow! infact that's what one Russian Air Force General also said about Mig-31s defending Iraq during the Operation Desert Fox in late 90s. Do not know the details, but he surely mentioned that if Mig-31 was defending Iraq then it would have been a different game all together.
Infact RuAF is itself going for upgrades on its 31s going all the way to 2020s. 31s armed with Novator the Awacs killer missile would be a fearsome theater to hover around in.
The Mig-31 is designed to operate in groups of four with their radars linked together via a datalink.
The four aircraft would fly in an enormous formation in a line with 200km between each aircraft. Together the four aircraft covered a frontage of 1,000km across that was 200km deep where the radars could detect targets.
Their primary targets were the bombers before they released their cruise missiles with the job of chasing down any cruise missiles that might have been launched before they get anywhere near their targets.
Even without any armament modification a flight of Mig-31s can seriously deplete a cruise missile attack before it even starts.
And that is the point... layers.
No one layer will be perfect... BUK might only have a 50% change of shooting down a cruise missile, but careful concealment of its existence might mean a cruise missile attack might cross over two or three BUK batteries on its way to its target which could mean the 10 missiles fired to overwhelm a specific SAM site might result in 6 missiles arriving with the target dealing with those.
Once the enemy is alerted then the airforce suddenly comes in to play too.
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). 
which is another relatively old system that is still good enough for some jobs.
