What were the (RL) doctrine Tu-195/Tu-22 mission profile altitudes / launch ranges?

Since you didn't mention the 80s context (which to be fair might be implied given the thread), I was commenting from today's perspective where the new air-launched ASM's are faster and longer ranged while at the same time USN fighters have gotten slower, shorter legged, shorter armed and with less time on station than was the case back then (F-14s with AIM-54s), compounded with the lack of a proper tanker aircraft.

That's definitely true, and that's a discussion all on it's own. My thoughts on on the Phoenix and Tomcat retiring are summed up by a statement made earlier in this thread. The USN has given up on getting the launching aircraft.

Which at first glance seems like a bad move. But when you take it in the context of modern threats It actually makes reasonable sense to me. For a couple reasons.

First, The whole benefit of getting the launcher is the possibility of killing multiple missiles with one hit. I.E. If a TU-22 is carrying three missiles and we down it with one phoenix its good math obviously. However based on that document we see A) that the reality of that particular launch platform is that it real combat situations they are not going to going to carry more then one missile due to the reduction in range and speed three would bring. B) The Launcher Itself has MUCH better defensive capabilities then the missile. In other words you couldn't guarantee a single phoenix would be enough to bring it down, and if you have to use multiple missiles on one launcher then it defeats the point. Missiles are a lot easier to shoot at.

Second, the ranges the launcher and missile have will always exceed that of the interceptor especially these days. The enemy WILL get missiles in the air regardless of what you do.

So with that in mind, I understand why they are ok giving up on shooting down the launcher. But what that means is that the entire defensive effort is now focused on the missiles themselves, and in that situation, newer aircraft like Lightning and Hornet actually have a significant advantage over the Tomcat. Payload. Two elements of Tomcats at most could carry 24 Aim-54s and exceeding bring back capability at that. Two elements of Super Hornets can carry 48 Aim-120s, and the Amraam has the same or better capabilities for fleet defense as the phoenix in the ability of the E-2 and air defense comander ship providing SA and guidance to the weapons. It simply lacks the max range the 54 had. However ranges like that are not necessary or even preferable if we're just going for the missiles. High PK for shorter ranges is.

But before someone mentions the fact that 120 could have been integrated on the tomcat we have to examine the overall readiness of that aircraft. Even in its glory days the tomcat had no where near the sortie generation capacity that hornet has. It was much more maintenance intensive from the get go. Meaning that even with new weapons the tomcat is still limited by its complex and intensive design with an emphasis on capability. Whereas the hornet was designed specifically for simplicity and low Maintenance. The Lightning is another story and I'm skeptical if a stealth fighter is going to be practically as available as the hornet considering all the extra attention it will inevitably need but time will tell. But the ability to get jets in the air is critical, and the bug has the cat beat on that front for sure.

So Loosing the tomcat was definitely a blow to the groups max range interception capacity but the current generation of aircraft are not totally without their own merits, considering the situation today. Now we'll have to see what direction F/A-XX takes because ultimately your right, they do miss that range and I think we'll see something of a return to that with 6th generation. CFTs on Block 3 Rhinos, I think, demonstrate that desire.

Yes, they likely don't operate as single ships in wartime situations. Of course threat by air is taken extremely serious these days. No one doubted that.

 

Air defense? Sure, but not with each ship having a constant blanket of aircraft cover. It will be ship based defense systems in a lot of cases for many ship groups and many navies, since there simply are not enough or any aircraft at all available for every ship in blue water ops. (Most navies don't have any aircraft all, let alone long range fleet defense)

Which makes them vulnerable to air attacks.

 

Will those come at a cost? Possibly yes. And surely the defense systems will take out some of incoming stuff.

Tactics yes. But that requires the necessary ressources.

And sometimes providing air cover is not possible due missing ressources or circumstances .In a large scale peer to peer war or against a more powerful opponent this is to be expected.

 

It's not always the total dominance you're used to or thinking of, where the US Navy sails in somewhere with Carrier strike group and is able to obliterate anything in the air a few hundred miles out in advance.

There are other navies with less equipment and other adversaries on near or equal footing,.

 

So the blanket notion that air attacks on ships are outdated, well I'd reconsider that..

 

The very fact that Harpoon is still in service and LRASM was introduced should show that it is not true.

 

 

Regards,

 

Snappy

Fair enough, and That's just my opinion. The thing about Naval Warfare is its like 90 percent theoretical and it always has been, since the age of sail. Much of these systems and weapons are untested in the sense that we can only simulate those kinds of attacks. It's never actually happened yet so we won't really know till we know. It's very complex.

That's why I personally find it so interesting.