announced DCS MiG-29A

[GGTharos]

2xF-117 for S-125, 1xF-16CJ for SA-6, IIRC, while performing CAP.  The SA-6 attack was definitely very interesting.

 

The pilot of that F-16 was reprimanded on debrief for procedural failure regarding ECM, but I really don't know any of those details and ... either way, maybe that did happen, maybe not.

 

The F-117s flew too close to the S-125s because the SAM locations were not known and well, if you're close enough and you don't even have an RWR to tell you about it or chaff to defend yourself with, well ... whatever.

[zerO_crash]

28 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

Idk about all that, but your statement that modern IFF techniques are not reliable enough to do BVR is straight up false. You don't have to agree but pretty much every modern AF does, and trains under assumption they are. Including the Russians.

 

Hence the shifting emphasis on low observables, advanced sensors, and longer ranged weapons. None of which are necessary or even desirable for dogfighting. In other words they wouldn't be building fighters the way the do today if BVR was not the dominant form of air combat. 

 

No, it is you who do not understand it. Reduced visibility is a measure to permit these planes to operate closer to SAM-areas and hostile fighter zones in order to get closer to the target. If it was all BVR, you wouldn´t need "stealth" as you would fire all your missiles from outside the range of many SAMs. Apparently you don´t know how "stealth" is used by the west. Let me crack your nut a bit more. Tell me, why does F22 and F35 have cannons if BVR is all they will do? Have you ever seen a F22 do ground attack with a cannon? I will link you a video later of a F22 IP who mentioned that F22´s gun will be one of the most used weapons, due to the nature of the modern battlefield and IFF. He states that when you use up your missiles, typically after having adhered to strict ROE, you will have to potentially use the cannon, since you will be so close anyways. Also, not to open weapon bays, in order to increase your signature.

 

Everyone is training for BVR, but IRL, it does not get used much, very very seldomly, and in case of a intruder in the airspace. That´s because the possibility of confusing targets is small. If the conflict would be of greater magnitude, forget it.

 

Remember Vietnam and F-4, when it didn´t have a cannon. Trust me, failures still occur with equipment, and trust me, IFF is still not 100% proof, it will never be. I know that military might seem crazy sometimes, nuclear weapons and all, but they are not that crazy, so as to permit a greater risk of friendly casualty.

Edited August 29, 2021 by zerO_crash

[XPACT]

5 minutes ago, GGTharos said:

2xF-117 for S-125, 1xF-16CJ for SA-6, IIRC, while performing CAP.  The SA-6 attack was definitely very interesting.

 

The pilot of that F-16 was reprimanded on debrief for procedural failure regarding ECM, but I really don't know any of those details and ... either way, maybe that did happen, maybe not.

 

The F-117s flew too close to the S-125s because the SAM locations were not known and well, if you're close enough and you don't even have an RWR to tell you about it or chaff to defend yourself with, well ... whatever.

 

Wasn't David L. Goldfein shot down on 2 May 1999 by S-125?

[Wizard_03]

13 minutes ago, zerO_crash said:

 

No, it is you who do not understand it. Reduced visibility is a measure to permit these planes to operate closer to SAM-areas and hostile fighter zones in order to get closer to the target. If it was all BVR, you wouldn´t need "stealth" as you would fire all your missiles from outside the range of many SAMs. Apparently you don´t know how "stealth" is used by the west. Let me crack your nut a bit more. Tell me, why does F22 and F35 have cannons if BVR is all they will do? Have you ever seen a F22 do ground attack with a cannon? I will link you a video later of a F22 IP who mentioned that F22s gun will be one of the most used weapons, due to the nature of the modern battlefield and IFF. He states that when you use up your missiles, typically after having adhered to strict ROE, you will have to potentially use the cannon, since you will be so close anyways. Also, not to open weapon bays, in order to not become visible again.

 

Everyone is training for BVR, but IRL, it does not get used much, very very seldomly, and in case of a intruder in the airspace. That´s because the possibility of confusing targets is small. If the conflict would be of greater magnitude, forget it.

 

Remember Vietnam and F-4, when it didn´t have a cannon. Trust me, failures still occur with equipment, and trust me, IFF is still not 100% proof, it will never be. I know that military might seem crazy sometimes, nuclear weapons and all, but they are not that crazy, so as to permit a greater risk of friendly casualty.

 

Only the F-35A has an internal gun and it's an A2G weapon the same one from the harrier. And in fact they do not even have the ability to carry SRMs In stealth configurations at this time. 

 

Why is F22As and F-15s standard load out two SRMs and six MRMs if dogfighting is so important? 

 

[zerO_crash]

22 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

Only the F-35A has an internal gun and it's an A2G weapon the same one from the harrier. And in fact they do not even have the ability to carry SRMs In stealth configurations at this time. 

 

Why is F22As and F-15s standard load out two SRMs and six MRMs if dogfighting is so important? 

 

 

In case of F-35, yes, they can use it as A-G, especially since that plane doesn´t manoeuvre too well compared to some of its contemporaries. But still, it relies on not getting seen before it´s too late, and the cannon is of course dual use. As to why they carry MRM´s, it´s because at low altitude, you need much propellant in your rockets if you do high speed fights. Also, vertical launches and potentially interception, which is a low threat scenario, with high level of confidence that your target is enemy. Don´t get me wrong, it doesn´t have to be a "dogfight" per se, but rather a close fight, often dictated by visual IFF.

 

Remember that back in the day, for example Vietnam, it was US doing the war. Nowadays, everything is an international venture, where different countries have different equipment, sometimes even from the "opposite" side. Poland uses Mig29´s, I assume they have IFF, but still, if a malfunction occured, or simply an issue with the transponder on the aircraft that interrogates, you would have a serious problem, because your hornet identifies it as a Mig29 if seen from the front hemisphere. If Ukraine would join NATO, they would have both Mig29 and Su27 without transponders that cooperate in the NATO system, at least to begin with. But still, many countries even within NATO, don´t have IFF on everything they fly or operate. Those aircraft have to be IFF´ed by radio transmission. No one has time for that in a high threat, crowded scenario. What about civilian aircraft? What about drones? Etc...

 

It´s just not as easy as it seems. And in top of that, you get secret missions, which are not shared with anyone except those involved. No datalink, not even the AWACS knows about them. Imagine a B2 getting shot down due to human or equipment error...

Edited August 29, 2021 by zerO_crash

[Wizard_03]

5 minutes ago, zerO_crash said:

 

In case of F-35, yes, they can use it as A-G, especially since that plane doesn´t manoeuvre too well compared to some of its contemporaries. But still, it relies on not getting seen before it´s too late, and the cannon is of course dual use. As to why they carry MRM´s, it´s because at low altitude, you need much propellant in your rockets if you do high speed fights. Also, vertical launches and potentially interception, which is a low threat scenario, with high level of confidence that your target is enemy. Don´t get me wrong, it doesn´t have to be a "dogfight" per se, but rather a close fight, often dictated by visual IFF.

 

Remember that back in the day, for example Vietnam, it was US doing the war. Nowadays, everything is an international venture, where different countries have different equipment, sometimes even from the "opposite" side. Poland uses Mig29´s, I assume they have IFF, but still, if a malfunction occured, or simply an issue with the transponder on the aircraft that interrogates, you would have a serious problem, because your hornet identifies it as a Mig29 if seen from the front hemisphere. If Ukraine would join NATO, they would have both Mig29 and Su27 without transponders that cooperate in the NATO system, at least to begin with. But still, many countries even within NATO, don´t have IFF on everything they fly or operate. Those aircraft have to be IFF´ed by radio transmission. No one has time for that in a high threat, crowded scenario. What about civilian aircraft? What about drones? Etc...

 

It´s just not as easy as it seems. And in top of that, you get secret missions, which are not shared with anyone except those involved. Imagine a B2 getting shot down due to human or equipment error...

 

Even if IFF was totally dependant on visual IDs in all practicality like your saying which it's not, modern EO pods can see targets well into BVR ranges anyway. 

 

Also there's this new fangled thing call intelligence that helps your determine what you might run into and who it belongs too before you even get in the cockpit. That way you can make sure your friendly MiGs in this case are no where near where the bad ones are or they get told in their briefings to clearly ID themselves because they don't want to accidentally get shot down either, or cause confusion. All of which can be done with a phone conversation, or better yet ahead of time in war games. 

[zerO_crash]

30 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

Even if IFF was totally dependant on visual IDs in all practicality like your saying which it's not, modern EO pods can see targets well into BVR ranges anyway. 

 

Also there's this new fangled thing call intelligence that helps your determine what you might run into and who it belongs too before you even get in the cockpit. That way you can make sure your friendly MiGs in this case are no where near where the bad ones are or they get told in their briefings to clearly ID themselves because they don't want to accidentally get shot down either, or cause confusion. All of which can be done with a phone conversation, or better yet ahead of time in war games. 

 

It´s not only MKI eyeball IFF, but EO, pods, etc... If not visual, then you really have to be sure that it is an enemy, before pulling the trigger. Be it info from multiple sources that interrogate the target, but still then, its typically not always easy to determine. When pilots make such basic mistakes as sometimes dropping bombs without arming them, you can imagine how much room there is for human error in all of this. And yes, it is the case.

 

Once again you are talking about perfect scenarios: "Let´s just talk this through, beside a coffee and a biscuit and then we´ll go to war". It doesn´t work this way. There is stress, excitement, there are many factors involved. There is a whole study done on the physical effects of adrenaline alone in such stressful situations. There were many cases of perfectly briefed battle plans, that still ended up with friendly casualties:

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Black_Hawk_shootdown_incident

 

Here are three examples. I mean, they did have IFF back then, and it was supposed to work. Why didn´t it?! Regardless, there are not many cases where you could fire BVR. Esp. the type of scenario we are talking about, both in magnitude and position in the world. We are not talking about a conflict in the desert where the AWACS could extrapolate which airfield the aircraft are coming from. In Sweden for example, they had the "BAS 60" airfield system. It was a system centred around dispersing Viggen-aircraft around the country by using highways as runways in the event of Soviet invasion. That is just Sweden, what about UK and US with their Harriers, taking off from all the random places around?! I say it again, war is a mess, nothing is as organised as on your exercises. This is not Red Flag, this is real. There is confusion, and over central Europe, it would be a complete mess. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by zerO_crash

[Cmptohocah]

I don't know about the Flanker, but the 29 can be fed target information directly from ground station, turning it effectively into a missile of sorts. That's why it's radar probably didn't need to be that good as it would be used to "home" in on the target that is provided externally. Pilot gets all this data displayed on the HUD.

[BlackPixxel]

On 8/29/2021 at 8:31 AM, nighthawk2174 said:

In some situation I think it could take up to 30+ sec for the radar to establish an STT lock.

 

Yeah, sure.

[Wizard_03]

7 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

How much more? I have no idea, i guess neither have you.

 

Information can be sent from a leader to his wingmans and vice versa. When flying in a group group leader can exchange information with 3 wing leaders and those wing leaders can exchange information with 3 their wingmans. 

And yes, AWACS and ground radars can share info with sukhois either.

 

Datalink is not a necessaty, it's an asset to make pilots life much easier. Try to imagine how awful it is to control 16 aircraft only by voice. Su-27s datalink allowes not only to share information between fighters, it can also distribute targets between pilots

What makes you think that Su-27 was in any was less capable in that regard than F-15C? It provided much better SA compared to the eagle.

Like i said, datalink is only one of the assets. You still have your radars, awacs and ground based radars

Yeah if it works, if it doesn't, for any reason your I'm trouble because F-15 doesn't need a data link/GCI or whatever. F-15 only has to worry about itself doesn't need a huge IADS around it to work, its nice to have but it's certainly not relying on it like 27/29. You take them out of their element and all of a sudden it's very difficult to build SA with just onboard sensors. So yeah that's what I would call an explotable tactical weakness. On their own the F-15 has all of the advantages. In the 27/29 your depending on someone, somewhere else to give you the information you need to win. Not the case with F-15. 

 

Comparing the 27 to 15 The radar is way more powerful, can do more, and is less resistant to EW, it's also got a dedicated scope instead of cramming it all on the HUD so you can actually use the radar to search. There's more but that's the big stuff. It's got onboard jamming equipment, and much better RWR gear. All of which a quite important for modern air combat. Not to mention it can do AAR and carry drop tanks. It was evidently designed to operate without a ton of support from the ground over enemy territory.

 

So maybe with GCI running 27 is comparable or may even have the advantage in some situations (of course this in assuming we're in the 80s) But certainly not on its own. Fighter to fighter, eagle has it beat in the electronics department hands down. 

[Harlikwin]

19 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

Yeah if it works, if it doesn't, for any reason your I'm trouble because F-15 doesn't need a data link/GCI or whatever. F-15 only has to worry about itself doesn't need a huge IADS around it to work, its nice to have but it's certainly not relying on it like 27/29. You take them out of their element and all of a sudden it's very difficult to build SA with just onboard sensors. So yeah that's what I would call an explotable tactical weakness. On their own the F-15 has all of the advantages. In the 27/29 your depending on someone, somewhere else to give you the information you need to win. Not the case with F-15. 

 

Comparing the 27 to 15 The radar is way more powerful, can do more, and is less resistant to EW, it's also got a dedicated scope instead of cramming it all on the HUD so you can actually use the radar to search. There's more but that's the big stuff. It's got onboard jamming equipment, and much better RWR gear. All of which a quite important for modern air combat. Not to mention it can do AAR and carry drop tanks. It was evidently designed to operate without a ton of support from the ground over enemy territory.

 

So maybe with GCI running 27 is comparable or may even have the advantage in some situations (of course this in assuming we're in the 80s) But certainly not on its own. Fighter to fighter, eagle has it beat in the electronics department hands down. 

 

Yeah but thats the point and the problem ED has. Currently pretty much any "RED" plane is missing "half" of its systems cuz its not in the plane, but as part of the supporting IADS infrastructure. The Soviets made  conscious design choices to structure their air defenses that way. I mean a mig23/29 without Lazur or other DL's or a halfway intelligent GCI is missing a big part of the system. 

 

Getting back to a more relevant comparison though. The Mig-29 9.12 was certainly more than a match for the 80's era viper though.  You got a Fox1 shot on the way in, and you had the HMS with the R-73, and likely a short range R-27 shot too, or to nail a runner. 

 

Plus everyone likes to forget that in the early to mid 80's those mig29's would mostly be facing things like F4's or F104's or other 3rd gen aircraft from the rest of NATO. 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Harlikwin

[Wizard_03]

1 hour ago, Harlikwin said:

 

Yeah but thats the point and the problem ED has. Currently pretty much any "RED" plane is missing "half" of its systems cuz its not in the plane, but as part of the supporting IADS infrastructure. The Soviets made  conscious design choices to structure their air defenses that way. I mean a mig23/29 without Lazur or other DL's or a halfway intelligent GCI is missing a big part of the system. 

 

Getting back to a more relevant comparison though. The Mig-29 9.12 was certainly more than a match for the 80's era viper though.  You got a Fox1 shot on the way in, and you had the HMS with the R-73, and likely a short range R-27 shot too, or to nail a runner. 

 

Plus everyone likes to forget that in the early to mid 80's those mig29's would mostly be facing things like F4's or F104's or other 3rd gen aircraft from the rest of NATO. 

 

I agree and yeah definitely need GCI if we're getting a first generation MiG-29

 

I just question the entire RW tactic as a whole, and its my opinion that they choose to design their air forces like that because of a lack of parity in the electronics department not the the other way around. In other words if they had access to quality radars at that time. Things like IRST and GCI integration wouldn't be nearly as necessary as they are for those aircraft. I see those things as workarounds not advantages.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Wizard_03

[Dudikoff]

21 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

I just question the entire RW tactic as a whole, and its my opinion that they choose to design their air forces like that because of a lack of parity in the electronics department not the the other way around. In other words if they had access to quality radars at that time. Things like IRST and GCI integration wouldn't be nearly as necessary as they are for those aircraft. I see those things as workarounds not advantages.

 

It also keeps the cost down (which I guess is important if your economy is much weaker) as you don't need sophisticated (and thus expensive) radar sets and very well trained pilots if they just need to follow the assigned intercept course and attack assigned targets. Su-27s on the other hand were supposed to have a more capable radar set, but its development failed at the time so it was replaced with an enlarged set from the 29 with more Ts-100 computers added.

 

Plus, it was a system where those at the top are somewhat paranoid and distrustful of the lower echelons so they like to keep all decision making powers to themselves which then trickles out to all spheres, including the armed forces.

[Harlikwin]

5 hours ago, Wizard_03 said:

I agree and yeah definitely need GCI if we're getting a first generation MiG-29

 

I just question the entire RW tactic as a whole, and its my opinion that they choose to design their air forces like that because of a lack of parity in the electronics department not the the other way around. In other words if they had access to quality radars at that time. Things like IRST and GCI integration wouldn't be nearly as necessary as they are for those aircraft. I see those things as workarounds not advantages.

 

 

I mean we need a GCI since we have a mig15/19/21. ALL of them had it, and frankly we need it for NATO too. And more historical AWACS. Its not like the E3 was the "first" awacs... Both sides used em well before that, and the ELINT aspect of it all is simply not even modeled in DCS. Guess what, passive sensors are a thing, and have been for decades. DCS doesn't even acknowledge it.

 

As for the Soviets, "cost" and numbers were always something they thought about. Soviet doctrine was all about what worked in WW2, and that was good-enough-cheap-enough-and way more than the other guy. Wunderwaffles didn't win WW2. That very same "strategy" worked for the allies then too. And it wasn't really till the 70's that the US made the pivot to "quality" primarily because they absolutely couldn't use "quantity" after the VN debacle and the shift to a volunteer force. And TBH, the soviet stuff was probably 80% as good as what the US had for the bulk of the cold war on a peer-to-peer level. They offloaded the more "Expensive/difficult" stuff technologically because it made sense. 

 

 

5 hours ago, Dudikoff said:

 

It also keeps the cost down (which I guess is important if your economy is much weaker) as you don't need sophisticated (and thus expensive) radar sets and very well trained pilots if they just need to follow the assigned intercept course and attack assigned targets. Su-27s on the other hand were supposed to have a more capable radar set, but its development failed at the time so it was replaced with an enlarged set from the 29 with more Ts-100 computers added.

 

Plus, it was a system where those at the top are somewhat paranoid and distrustful of the lower echelons so they like to keep all decision making powers to themselves which then trickles out to all spheres, including the armed forces.

 

To be fair Zaslon was ahead of western radars at the time too.  So the SU-27 radar debacle was just a rehash of the mig23 radar debacle.

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Harlikwin

[nighthawk2174]

7 minutes ago, Gahab141 said:

If it doesn't need DL then why does it have it nawadays and why did the americans try to install datalink on their F-15 somewhere in the 80s or 90s (failed eventually, but still)? Seems like because they didn't need DL, lol

The delay on datalink implementation was due to the fact that the terminal for JTIDS couldn't fit on the F16.  So there was a delay until one small enough to fit on the jet could be developed from scratch.  Besides link 4C was being used by the navy's F14's since the late 80's and 4A had been around since the 60's iirc.

7 minutes ago, Gahab141 said:

I hate to bring it to you, but without awacs or ground support any non-ESA 4th gen fighter is half blind because of ridiculourly long scan times 

I mean its 60deg/sec if the range scale is above 20NMi (its set to something like 80 or 90deg if range scale is below 20 and there are targets being tracked).  That's not slow, 8sec for a full 4bar scan.  You can always reduce the scan width as well to increase the effective scan rate of a piece of sky.

7 minutes ago, Gahab141 said:

 

 

This is for the F-15A, the MISP program would improve upon these numbers.  Additionally your 6m^2 estimation is to high, doubling the RCS of the target improves range by ~19% not the ~33% you drew here.  Plus iirc the numbers listed here for the 27 are in lookup, the F15 is detecting head on targets with good regularity, in look down, at 60-70NMi.  If not further with one detection at 75NMi.  

Also the 3m2 target just it say for sure its 3m2 or is it against a mig21?  

7 minutes ago, Gahab141 said:

What can it do?

How exactly less? 0,1% or 1000% less?

From what we've heard from pilots significantly less.  The radar is rumored to have extremely poor ECCM in comparison to the F15.

7 minutes ago, Gahab141 said:

There are pods

The pods were always in very short supply iirc.  Every single eagle had a DECM set and OECM aircraft were in service in numbers with NATO.

7 minutes ago, Gahab141 said:

Su-27 has twice the amount of fuel, it doesn't need tanks as much as an F-15. Refueling wasn't required for implementation on Su-27, probably due to tactical and strategical reasons

Not twice the internal gas, the F15 has 13400lbs internal the su27 is 20750lbs when maxed out, with only two external pods the F15 carries more gas.  At full internal the SU-27's performance is not stellar and unlike the F15 it can't jettison that weight if it has too.  Adding the third tank to the eagle gives the eagle an additional 24.5% more gas over a fully fueled flanker.  Plus it can AAR, I would not say that the SU27 has an advantage here.

7 minutes ago, Gahab141 said:

They don't depend on CGI ffs, lol. Su-27s have datalink between other Su-27s and they still have their radars and EOTS

Which can be jammed and is heavily impacted by weather respectively.  Not to mention the EO can only range aircraft out to 12NMi.

[Lurker]

I hate to bring this up, but there are a lot of people here who simply don't reason very well when they are faced with facts. 

Despite being in operation for over four decades and serving in the air forces of not just the United States, but also Japan, Israel, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Qatar, no F-15 has ever been shot down by an opposing force. 

 

It has over 100 aerial victories. 

 

I bring this up in the Mig29A thread, because I hope that people will stop arguing over which aircraft is better, whether it's redfor or NATO, or whatever. It's not an argument. The facts speak for themselves. The Mig29A is a great plane, however it's mission, it's design and it's capabilities are completely different from the F15C or any other western or red-for air superiority fighter, this is not what it was designed to do. Even with the facts listed above, it doesn't mean that REDFOR planes are bad, or that the Mig29 is worthless or whatever. I'd love to see it in DCS. Just keep your expectations in check. 

[HWasp]

51 minutes ago, Lurker said:

I hate to bring this up, but there are a lot of people here who simply don't reason very well when they are faced with facts. 

Despite being in operation for over four decades and serving in the air forces of not just the United States, but also Japan, Israel, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Qatar, no F-15 has ever been shot down by an opposing force. 

 

 

Su-27 has never been shot down in air to air afaik. It is only 6:0 though. None of these planes have ever met in a symmetric conflict, where numbers, training, SA, support would be at the same level. Drawing final conclusions from asymmetric conflicts, where the result were already pre-determined makes no sense.

 

It makes absolutely no sense, but here you go : 

 

You see? The invulnerable 1999:0 F-15 can be hit by an old russian missile fired way oustide of any design limits. What does this prove? Nothing. Only thing is, that this should be kept in mind, when arguing about that radar detection range and stuff like that.

Edited August 31, 2021 by HWasp

[Dudikoff]

57 minutes ago, Lurker said:

The Mig29A is a great plane, however it's mission, it's design and it's capabilities are completely different from the F15C or any other western or red-for air superiority fighter, this is not what it was designed to do. Even with the facts listed above, it doesn't mean that REDFOR planes are bad, or that the Mig29 is worthless or whatever. I'd love to see it in DCS. Just keep your expectations in check. 

 

I'm kind of dumbfounded by some contradictions between the plane and its intended role. For one, it was designed to be a cheaper counterpart to LFI (Su-27), but with twin engines, it didn't really end up that much cheaper (IIRC, around 75% of the Su-27 price). Two engines also took a toll on the range as it didn't have enough fuel for them (coupled with those auxiliary intakes to be able to operate from unprepared runways and non-composite riveted wings which limited the amount of fuel which could fit them).

 

Two, it was designed to be very maneuverable, but at the same time, it was intended to be a replacement for MiGs 21 and 23 and used in the same way - intercept a GCI assigned target and return home). Maneuverability and high off-boresight SRMs perhaps allowed it to gain a favorable position for a second attack in the merge, but I think an updated MiG-23MLD with same weapons wouldn't have fared that much worse for less money (e.g. modified canopy, automatic wing sweep control system, outer wing pylons made moveable and SRM capable, etc.). The 23 having a single engine, had a much longer combat radius and a smaller frontal RCS, not to mention a smaller silhouette in general. I would wager it was also cheaper to make and maintain.

 

MiG-29M (9.15) would have fixed a lot of the issues with the initial variant, but it would require a doctrinal change to make use of its potential.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Dudikoff

[nighthawk2174]

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

I'm talking about facts here, not reasons. And the fact is that DL was needed on the F-15, but wasn't implemented

What's 4 bar in proper degrees? I could dig into the manual and check for Su-27 scan time.

3.5deg per bar I think i'd need to check.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

And yes, it's slow. Like i said, any non-ESA fighter has awfully slow scan time. For example, N035 scans area 120x120 degrees in about 6 seconds. With the narrowest beam.

Yes but this is true for all mech scans ESA's are a new game and not really pertinent to this discussion.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Yes you can. And that will make you even blinder if we're still talking about flying without any AWACS-ish stuff 

If you have an idea where the targets are its not an issue, plus you can always slew that volume left and right to check those areas every once and a while as well.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

By 10-20% Well, yeah, that doesn't really make much of the difference. Averagely, targets would be detected at 65-75nm, not 60-65

its not as extreme though so it does make a difference.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

I made it 1.3, meaning 30%. Make it 19 and you'll get 64NM which is still more than enough and still comparable to the F-15

Still less though as many of the aircraft on the plot are in lookdown, the F15's radar also has a bunch of other usefull modes that the su27 does not have.  RAID being an example.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

No, it's for both when higher than 1000m. It's written that LD detection capabilities are +- equal to look up at those altitudes. It's only stated that LD detection range (3m2 target) in the rear hemisphere is 40km (21 nm) when flying higher than 8500m. Look up is 55km (29,7 nm). Head on detection range is equal to medium altitudes one.

Yeah, the problem with the flight manual is that it shows average detection distances. It's defenitely possible that same further detections occured during tests but they're not really useful for pilots and thus are not included into the flight manual.

 

Rog something I've noticed is that sometimes Russian documents also make reference to the mig-21 when referencing the 3m2 value.  which its average frontal RCS over a 40deg arch is ~3m^2 but head-on its 7.4m^2.  Something to consider.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Well "significantly" is unmesuarable. 

Well its the best we got considering the topic matter.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Of that I'm unaware, maybe so. But still, it could carry them

The ability to carry them means nothing if there's like 3 sets for an entire squadron.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Fine 1,54 times more fuel

Yeah and if the "internal fuel tank" isn't being used it carries less internal fuel.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Necessity to always carry drop tanks is not an advantage, but on the contrary. Each tank greatly increases your drag and RCS. What's more. if the the jettison part was so great f-15 would probably have way less internal fuel

Even with two tanks, a common loadout, the F15 is still fully capable of reaching M1.5 at high altitude.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Okay, and what about range? And, of course, how much weapons can it carry with those 3 tanks?

With the AMRAAM up to 8 active missiles, and with Sparrow 4 radar and 4 heaters.  Same as the F4.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

I've already commented on that. There was no need in aar back then.

Maybe for Russian doctrine but that doesn't negate its advantages.  Having the ability to AAR allows you to stay on station for longer and to have your bases further back keeping them safer.

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Just like F-15s...

Except the F15 is far more capable of handling that situation than the su27.  

1 hour ago, Gahab141 said:

Range - yeah. Detect? Much further. At high altitudes it can detect afterburning targets up to a 100+ km in the rear. Yes, flanking and head on targets are detected on lesser ditances, but still

Still though one cloud in the way or on a poor visibility day such as a lot of smoke or humidity in the air would negate this system altogether.

[Exorcet]

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Yes you can. And that will make you even blinder if we're still talking about flying without any AWACS-ish stuff

 

Usually planes don't fly alone. Each aircraft in a flight can scan a specific area of sky with reduced azimuth and bars, allowing the entire flight to cover the full scan volume of the radar (or perhaps even more) while only having to spend a fraction of the time it would take one radar to do the task.

[okopanja]

7 hours ago, Lurker said:

I hate to bring this up, but there are a lot of people here who simply don't reason very well when they are faced with facts. 

Despite being in operation for over four decades and serving in the air forces of not just the United States, but also Japan, Israel, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Qatar, no F-15 has ever been shot down by an opposing force. 

 

It has over 100 aerial victories. 

 

I bring this up in the Mig29A thread, because I hope that people will stop arguing over which aircraft is better, whether it's redfor or NATO, or whatever. It's not an argument. The facts speak for themselves. The Mig29A is a great plane, however it's mission, it's design and it's capabilities are completely different from the F15C or any other western or red-for air superiority fighter, this is not what it was designed to do. Even with the facts listed above, it doesn't mean that REDFOR planes are bad, or that the Mig29 is worthless or whatever. I'd love to see it in DCS. Just keep your expectations in check. 

It did great against MIG-21s but, but it did actually get shot down by enemy forces. It also mostly fought against enemies with inferior infrastructure, or with huge numerical advantage, not to mention that every single time it had luxury of picking up the time of the fight.

 

Aside from relatively rare shotdowns, it looks like it had way more issues at staying airborne on its own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F-15_losses

 

BTW: I agree we should return to the original topic.

[nighthawk2174]

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

I wrote that to show the difference and to proove that any 4th gen with mechanical scan is half blind if it acts without long range radars or awacs

Sure in comparison to ESA's mech scans are blind.  But they are far from unusable.  Especially in a well coordinated flight where each person can be made responsible for an altitude band (low or high) and a sector.

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Didn't get this one

That doubling the RCS does not result in a 33% increase in range only a 19%.

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Like i said, there's little to none difference in detection ranges between ld and look up if Su-27 flies higher than 1000m 

 Additionally I checked the SU-27 manual again and DCS, in lookup against a 3m^2 target detection range is ~65km (not tracking range which is 10 km less) not 86km.  Lookdown is 54.5km for detection and 48km for lockup. 

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

I'm sure there are local maximums on T-33 RCS diagramm which would make its detection easier from certain angles either

yeah but head on its ~6m2 which is probably a local maximum value.

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Too speculative to take into consideration, you know...

I don't really think so as this is echoed by every pilot I ever heard talk about the subject.  Too speculative for a hyper in depth module yes but to get an idea about the radars performance not so much.

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Well, that's a speculation again. We don't know how many were delivered, but photoes with sorbtsia appear here and there.

  Reveal hidden contents

From what I've been told is that they were in extremely limited quantities especially back in the 90's.

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Eh?

whoops guess I was bit more tired than I thought while typing that.  What I ment to say was that above 59% internal volume is considered as being an "internal drop tank" by sukoi.  The jet was really designed around that 59% (~10.5k lbs) of gas.

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Sounds like a great opportunity to waste some extra fuel

?  Being able to get that fast even with external tanks indicates they may not be as draggy as you think they are, and as such aren't as much of an impediment as you thought

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Or... You could just change the patroling pair. And yes, you can have your bases further back, but that would make it harder to bring enough planes to a needed area in reasonable time

Which would require more frames and also reduces your capacity to keep cap's up for as long or to fight for as long at longer ranges.  

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

In terms of detection range? It's close. In terms of fighting when radar is jammed so badly you can see nothing? Much worse. And remember about poor F-15s SA

Sort of, and I don't think its SA is particularly bad.  Having datalink is very nice for sure but you can compensate for it with better training, AWACS, and good flight coordination.

3 hours ago, Gahab141 said:

Yeah, and still IRSTs are getting more and more spread

Yes the advances in processing power, and also the reduction in cost of said electronics, are allowing the tech to become far more practical and capable.  But it still has the same limits as the older systems in terms of weather.  Maybe not as pronounced but still there hence why the systems are still a supporting element to the main FCR.

Edited August 31, 2021 by nighthawk2174

[Cmptohocah]

1 hour ago, nighthawk2174 said:

...Additionally I checked the SU-27 manual again and DCS, in lookup against a 3m^2 target detection range is ~65km (not tracking range which is 10 km less) not 86km.  Lookdown is 54.5km for detection and 48km for lockup.

 

For heights above 1000m in HPRF mode detection range is 80-100km and tracking range is 65-80km for a 3sqm RCS target.

[BlackPixxel]

1 hour ago, Cmptohocah said:

For heights above 1000m in HPRF mode detection range is 80-100km and tracking range is 65-80km for a 3sqm RCS target.

 

And it is for the whole front hemisphere, not just for perfect head on target.

[Wizard_03]

12 hours ago, Lurker said:

I hate to bring this up, but there are a lot of people here who simply don't reason very well when they are faced with facts. 

Despite being in operation for over four decades and serving in the air forces of not just the United States, but also Japan, Israel, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Qatar, no F-15 has ever been shot down by an opposing force. 

 

It has over 100 aerial victories. 

 

I bring this up in the Mig29A thread, because I hope that people will stop arguing over which aircraft is better, whether it's redfor or NATO, or whatever. It's not an argument. The facts speak for themselves. The Mig29A is a great plane, however it's mission, it's design and it's capabilities are completely different from the F15C or any other western or red-for air superiority fighter, this is not what it was designed to do. Even with the facts listed above, it doesn't mean that REDFOR planes are bad, or that the Mig29 is worthless or whatever. I'd love to see it in DCS. Just keep your expectations in check. 

Well I wouldn't want to take the MiG up against the F-15 in BVR, amraams or no, Harli is right it's real comparison should be against early F-16s and with that in mind its actually very much the Superior aircraft. It's hands down the better daytime dogfighter. Not only can it straight up out perform the F-16 it can also out weapon it.