F-22, F-16, and F-15 maintainance..durability?
Mike Thompson
Before you believe the opinions of experts around the world. Please
simply look the the operational record of the various fragile aircraft
during the Gulf War. The aircraft flew, they flew day and night, they
flew and bombed their targets and kill the enemy, they belonged to the
French, Brits, Saudis, and US. They flew off carrier decks and off
sandy airfields. What else is needed.
Mike
Yatsu wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I have heard that the F-15, the F-16, and especially the F-22 are not
> particularly durable, meaning that they require constant maintainance and
> care. For instance, is it true that the F-22 (or any other USAF jet) needs
> to be stored in an air-conditioned hangar? It seems that if we are spending
> so much on aircraft that it should not require extensive ground care. Also,
> is it true that our (US) planes require nearly perfect airfields to land
> on?
> The reason this comes to mind is that I was looking at the Swedish Gripen
> (The Gripen can refuel and re-arm in under 10 minutes!) and the Russian
> Sukhoi's, and they seemed to require little maintainance and are able to
> take off and land in very adverse conditions (even from regular roads) .
> Thanks for the information.
>
> --
> ya...@nospam.geocities.com
> If you want to send a message, you know what to do.
Yatsu
Carlo Kopp
Mike Thompson wrote:
>
> Before you believe the opinions of experts around the world. Please
> simply look the the operational record of the various fragile aircraft
> during the Gulf War. The aircraft flew, they flew day and night, they
> flew and bombed their targets and kill the enemy, they belonged to the
> French, Brits, Saudis, and US. They flew off carrier decks and off
> sandy airfields. What else is needed.
>
avionics and engines. The West sustained a very high sortie rate in the
Gulf. Nothing else needs to be said.
Cheers,
Carlo
Eric Weinkam
ya...@nospam.geocities.com made the comment...
> I have heard that the F-15, the F-16, and especially the F-22 are not
>particularly durable, meaning that they require constant maintainance and
>care. For instance, is it true that the F-22 (or any other USAF jet) needs
>to be stored in an air-conditioned hangar? It seems that if we are
spending
>so much on aircraft that it should not require extensive ground care.
Also,
>is it true that our (US) planes require nearly perfect airfields to land
>on?
> The reason this comes to mind is that I was looking at the Swedish
Gripen
>(The Gripen can refuel and re-arm in under 10 minutes!) and the Russian
>Sukhoi's, and they seemed to require little maintainance and are able to
>take off and land in very adverse conditions (even from regular roads) .
> Thanks for the information.
This is a silly question.
The bottom line is...no country in the world has ever demonstrated the
ability to match the combat pace that the USAF and USN can maintain. The
Gulf War was a brilliant example.
F-16's, for example, regularly flew 5 combat missions per day with over 90%
combat availability in a harsh hot sandy environment.
--
Eric Weinkam
ericw AT lexis-nexis DOT com
email ID characters written out to foil spam mail-bots
Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer,
my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental.
Al
As an F-16 mechanic for the last 15 years, I can personally and
professionally vouch for the durability of the F-16. Every mission that
the F-16 has been given it has a superior performer. Its best role is as
an Air Defense Fighter...its also a great little bomber. Our F-16 came
out of the Gulf war with Hundreds of flight hours, but very little wear
and tear.
Ruediger Landmann
Mike Thompson (sea...@flash.net) wrote:
: Before you believe the opinions of experts around the world. Please
: simply look the the operational record of the various fragile aircraft
: during the Gulf War. The aircraft flew, they flew day and night, they
: flew and bombed their targets and kill the enemy, they belonged to the
: French, Brits, Saudis, and US. They flew off carrier decks and off
: sandy airfields. What else is needed.
Not to forget the awesome track record of the F-15 and F-16 in Israeli
hands!
Paul F Austin
Yatsu wrote:
> Hi,
> I have heard that the F-15, the F-16, and especially the F-22 are
> not
> particularly durable, meaning that they require constant maintainance
> and
> care. For instance, is it true that the F-22 (or any other USAF jet)
> needs
> to be stored in an air-conditioned hangar? It seems that if we are
> spending
> so much on aircraft that it should not require extensive ground care.
> Also,
> is it true that our (US) planes require nearly perfect airfields to
> land
> on?
> The reason this comes to mind is that I was looking at the Swedish
> Gripen
> (The Gripen can refuel and re-arm in under 10 minutes!) and the
> Russian
> Sukhoi's, and they seemed to require little maintainance and are able
> to
> take off and land in very adverse conditions (even from regular roads)
> .
> Thanks for the information.
>
As a general thing, the maintenance required to support US fighters and
attack aircraft has dropped tremendously in the last thirty years.
Reduced maintenance requirements, logistical requirements and increased
time between maintenance action has been a major requirements of each
new block of aircraft within a particular type and with the development
of each new type.
To give a sense of scale, in the late sixties, an aircraft like an A-6E
or an F-111A required over 100 hours of maintenance per flight hour. The
maintenance load severely limited the number of sortees that a given
number of aircraft could generate on a sustained basis.
The F-15/F-16/F-18 generation had strict numerical requirements that
reduced maintenance required. As the C/Ds followed the A/Bs in each
series, maintenance was reduced some more. Maintenance requirements were
decreased by improving the time between overhauls of engines and by
increasing the mean time between failures of avionics.
I have to laugh when you mention Sukhoi aircraft as paragons of
supportability. Russian equipment has _always_ be designed with short
lived engines and avionics and supplied with derisory holdings in spares
and test equipment. They're famous for it. The Russian design philosphy
is to save the airplanes for the real war, assume no one is going to
live through 25 missions and design the airplanes accordingly.
The Gripen on the other hand has typically Swedish requirements for
supportability by the canonical recruit in mittens doing maintenance at
-40C. I don't have particular data on Gripen maintenance requirements
but the engines should have the same MTTO as the equivalent F-404s.
The test of an airplane's supportability has less to do with how fast an
aircraft can be turned around (although _nothing_ beats carrier aircraft
in that regard) but how long a reasonable fraction of aircraft can be
kept anything like close to Full Mission Capable.
Any modern aircraft can "take off and land in very adverse conditions
(even from regular roads)". They don't do it for funzies. The hardened
aircraft shelters full of powered ordinance lifts with tank farms and
munitions bunkers out back are designed to refuel, rearm and maintenize
combat aircrat and generate absolutely the maximum sortee rate possible.
If unpleasant strangers don't knock holes in them. The Swedes and
Russians design their aircraft with dispersed operations in mind because
they expect that the main operating bases may not live too long once the
shooting starts. The USAF on the other hand expects that multiple
runways and taxiways coupled with reasonable STOL performance will allow
its bases to be kept in operation even when under fire. Since we haven't
held a test war, it's only speculation who's right.
The USAF model is an industrial kind of model, designed to move lots of
ordinance out of storage and into strangers back yards as quickly as
possible. The Swedes accept a reduced sortee rate (limited as much by
small holdings of bombs and fuel at any one site as anything else) in
return for a greater confidence in generating _some_ sortees.
--
"people of means-decent folk-should be given more votes
than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists
and indecent folks-people without means."
Paul F Austin
pau...@digital.net
Dweezil Dwarftosser
Yatsu wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I have heard that the F-15, the F-16, and especially the F-22 are not
> particularly durable, meaning that they require constant maintainance and
> care.
The F-15 was the first modern fighter to ever beat the goal of "less
than
30 man-hours maintenance per flying hour". The numbers won't be known
for the F-22 until it becomes operational.
The F-16 is unmaintainable, period.
> For instance, is it true that the F-22 (or any other USAF jet) needs
> to be stored in an air-conditioned hangar?
Not true. I've never seen an air-conditioned hangar; I doubt if such a
thing exists on US soil.
> The reason this comes to mind is that I was looking at the Swedish Gripen
> (The Gripen can refuel and re-arm in under 10 minutes!) and the Russian
> Sukhoi's, and they seemed to require little maintainance and are able to
> take off and land in very adverse conditions (even from regular roads) .
1 - I think you'll find that a QUICK-TURN ( rearm/refuel ) time of about
that is standard for most USAF fighter wings.
2 - A "regular road" is a pretty good analogue of a runway's surface.
If a wide-enough road is straight for a generous distance,
and can support the weight of tandem-truck traffic, it can
support a 50,000 lb. airplane.
3 - Both the Americans and the Russians made "economy" fighter jets.
( e.g. - the F-5 and A-10 are good examples. ) Nimble and
capable,
these stripped down, almost "systemless" jets made for a
respectable
threat. Throw in some high-tech goodies ( a good radar, a bombing
computer, an AI computer, and missile/EW capabilities), and the
price goes up...more "bang" for the buck.
--
- John T., former MSgt, USAF, and member of the 1st, 4th, 15th,
36th, 50th, 56th, 86th, and 388th ( Korat Dive Toss )
Tactical Fighter Wings
http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/3227
Jarmo Lindberg
Yatsu wrote:
> Hi,
> I have heard that the F-15, the F-16, and especially the F-22 are not
> particularly durable, meaning that they require constant maintainance and
> care. For instance, is it true that the F-22 (or any other USAF jet) needs
> to be stored in an air-conditioned hangar? It seems that if we are spending
> so much on aircraft that it should not require extensive ground care. Also,
> is it true that our (US) planes require nearly perfect airfields to land
> on?
> The reason this comes to mind is that I was looking at the Swedish Gripen
> (The Gripen can refuel and re-arm in under 10 minutes!) and the Russian
> Sukhoi's, and they seemed to require little maintainance and are able to
> take off and land in very adverse conditions (even from regular roads) .
> Thanks for the information.
See US-made jets on the highway at: http://www.mil.fi/ftrsqn21/roadshow.htm
We briefed our experiences in the Hornet International User Conference at
Pensacola, FL last October.
--
Jarmo Lindberg
Fighter Squadron 21: http://www.mil.fi/ftrsqn21/
Fighter Tactics Academy: http://www.sci.fi/~fta/welcome.htm
Mike Kopack
As an ex F-16 mechanic (A,B,C,D, GE and P&W engines) I'd say that
the F-16 at least is quite durable - extremely easy to maintain, and
does not require any extensive maintenance. There were several times I
recall removing engines for USAF required time changes after being
installed and flown in a single acft for 1 year (rather intensive flying
at a training base - 56TTW/63TFTS -I don't believe that many Russian
developed engines will last that long) A good crew can change an engine
in about an hour.
F-16's in the past have been flown from road bases, and regularly
fly from Arctic to Desert bases (from Norway to Bahrain) the acft do
fine when kept outside - I've worked on them from -30F to close to
+130F, our acft flew better, maintenance wise, under the austere
conditions in the Gulf (401TFW/614TFS)than they did at our home base in
Spain. In wartime conditions I have seen (participated in) F-16's air to
ground combat turns in around 10 minutes - equivelent to or better than
the times from SAAB for a air to groung turn.
I agree that the Gripen is a great acft (I'm a fan) but it is also
25 years newer than the F-16 (It had better be more advanced) But
maintenance and maintainabilite wise I would but the F-16 or F-15 far
ahead of anything coming out of Russia. (Opinion from talking to Russian
and Ukrainian pilots and ground crews)
Mike Kopack
Phantom Productions
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/1115/index.html
Yatsu wrote:
> Hi,
> I have heard that the F-15, the F-16, and especially the F-22 are
> not
> particularly durable, meaning that they require constant maintainance
> and
> care. For instance, is it true that the F-22 (or any other USAF jet)
> needs
> to be stored in an air-conditioned hangar? It seems that if we are
> spending
> so much on aircraft that it should not require extensive ground care.
> Also,
> is it true that our (US) planes require nearly perfect airfields to
> land
> on?
> The reason this comes to mind is that I was looking at the Swedish
> Gripen
> (The Gripen can refuel and re-arm in under 10 minutes!) and the
> Russian
> Sukhoi's, and they seemed to require little maintainance and are able
> to
> take off and land in very adverse conditions (even from regular roads)
> .
> Thanks for the information.
>
Urban Fredriksson
In article <34BD97...@usa.net>, Dweezil Dwarftosser <wc...@usa.net> wrote:
>Yatsu wrote:
>> The reason this comes to mind is that I was looking at the Swedish Gripen
>> (The Gripen can refuel and re-arm in under 10 minutes!) and the Russian
>> Sukhoi's, and they seemed to require little maintainance and are able to
>> take off and land in very adverse conditions (even from regular roads) .
>1 - I think you'll find that a QUICK-TURN ( rearm/refuel ) time of about
> that is standard for most USAF fighter wings.
"About" is a rather vague word. Please tell us what the
required never-exceed times are. (I seem to recall reading
about someone who was quite proud of one F-16 having been
turned around in only 12 min, for example.)
>2 - A "regular road" is a pretty good analogue of a runway's surface.
> If a wide-enough road is straight for a generous distance,
> and can support the weight of tandem-truck traffic, it can
> support a 50,000 lb. airplane.
Runways are also a lot flatter than roads are.
--
Urban Fredriksson gri...@kuai.se Military aviation: weekly news, Swedish
military aviation and aircraft, the rec.aviation.military FAQ
New URL Jan 12: http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/aviation/
(Dec 19): Saab Air Show 1997, (Dec 28): Airborne cannon in the Swedish AF
Urban Fredriksson
In article <34BD896C...@digital.net>,
Paul F Austin <pau...@digital.net> wrote:
>The USAF model is an industrial kind of model, designed to move lots of
>ordinance out of storage and into strangers back yards as quickly as
>possible. The Swedes accept a reduced sortee rate (limited as much by
>small holdings of bombs and fuel at any one site as anything else) in
>return for a greater confidence in generating _some_ sortees.
What do you base your belief that dispersed sites would
result in lower sortie rates on?
The only factor I can think of would be the longer
distances needed to taxi the aircraft -- not that I think
the distances necessarily are. I don't see how having more
consumables available at a site than required by the
aircraft could have any effect whatsoever on sortie rate.
Mike Tighe
On 16 Jan 1998 09:35:06 +0100, gri...@canit.se (Urban Fredriksson)
wrote:
>In article <34BD97...@usa.net>, Dweezil Dwarftosser <wc...@usa.net> wrote:
>>Yatsu wrote:
<snip>
>
>>2 - A "regular road" is a pretty good analogue of a runway's surface.
>> If a wide-enough road is straight for a generous distance,
>> and can support the weight of tandem-truck traffic, it can
>> support a 50,000 lb. airplane.
>
>Runways are also a lot flatter than roads are.
Expanding on Urban's point, the camber/crossfall on roads in the UK is
typically about 1:30, with the centre line being a 'crown' on general
purpose roads. I think motorway standard surfaces just fall one way.
How does that transverse gradient compare with a runway, and what
effect is that road gradient likely to have on keeping an aircraft
straight on the take off/landing roll?
And a really trivial question - what is the steepest gradient on a
runway currently in use for fast jet operations in Europe or N
America? Boscombe Down has a few dips and rises along it's length,
but I don't know if they are particularly steep.
Mike Tighe
Speaking from the bottom left
hand corner of the big picture.
Paul F Austin
Urban Fredriksson wrote:
> In article <34BD896C...@digital.net>,
> Paul F Austin <pau...@digital.net> wrote:
>
> >The USAF model is an industrial kind of model, designed to move lots
> of
> >ordinance out of storage and into strangers back yards as quickly as
> >possible. The Swedes accept a reduced sortee rate (limited as much by
>
> >small holdings of bombs and fuel at any one site as anything else) in
>
> >return for a greater confidence in generating _some_ sortees.
>
> What do you base your belief that dispersed sites would
> result in lower sortie rates on?
> The only factor I can think of would be the longer
> distances needed to taxi the aircraft -- not that I think
> the distances necessarily are. I don't see how having more
> consumables available at a site than required by the
> aircraft could have any effect whatsoever on sortie rate.
Because the war better last more than one day.
I have nothing against the Swedes' basing plans. I think they are on the
whole, sensible. On the other hand, Main Operating Bases have major
advantages in generating sortees over extended periods (assuming they
live) because stockpiles of large amounts of munitions and fuel can be
accumuted and guarded efficiently in central POL depots and ammo dumps.
It's easy to lose sight of the sheer tonnage of consumables that
tactical aviation consumes. A single wing of 72 F-16s operating on a 5
sortee per day cycle consumes 480,000 gallons a day of JP and 1800
tonnes of ordinance each day. If the mission was flown from 10 dispersed
sites, each site would require 18 truckloads of ordinance and ten tank
truck loads a day to sustain operation. Those truck convoys are
lucrative, soft targets and guess what? They point directly at the
dispersed operating sites.
The Swedish defense establishment seems to elide these problems but
logistical considerations multiply if you have to service many, small
units rather than a few large ones.
Jarmo Lindberg
Mike Tighe wrote:
<snipped>
> Expanding on Urban's point, the camber/crossfall on roads in the UK is
> typically about 1:30, with the centre line being a 'crown' on general
> purpose roads. I think motorway standard surfaces just fall one way.
>
> How does that transverse gradient compare with a runway, and what
> effect is that road gradient likely to have on keeping an aircraft
> straight on the take off/landing roll?
<snipped>
The gradient affects of course the takeoff and landing distances. Not so much the
takeoff. If you don't have nose wheel steering and have to use differential braking
the effects are stronger especially during the landing run. Add some 15% to your
standard landing run with conventional landing techniques on that type of a road. It
gets a bit worse during night, rain and winter.
See road base operations at: http://www.mil.fi/ftrsqn21/roadbase.htm
More info at: http://www.mil.fi/ftrsqn21/Flight1.htm
Urban Fredriksson
In article <34C0044B...@digital.net>,>Urban Fredriksson wrote:
>> What do you base your belief that dispersed sites would
>> result in lower sortie rates on?
>Because the war better last more than one day.
>I have nothing against the Swedes' basing plans. I think they are on the
>whole, sensible. On the other hand, Main Operating Bases have major
>advantages in generating sortees over extended periods (assuming they
>live) because stockpiles of large amounts of munitions and fuel can be
>accumuted and guarded efficiently in central POL depots and ammo dumps.
I'd say that if nothing else, that these locations are
known in advance and not movable makes them vulnerable.
>A single wing of 72 F-16s operating on a 5
>sortee per day cycle consumes 480,000 gallons a day of JP and 1800
>tonnes of ordinance each day. If the mission was flown from 10 dispersed
>sites, each site would require 18 truckloads of ordinance and ten tank
>truck loads a day to sustain operation. Those truck convoys are
>lucrative, soft targets and guess what? They point directly at the
>dispersed operating sites.
I don't think that one fuel and one ammo truck per
aircraft, which may not even come from the same place,
constitutes a "convoy".
That it takes people and trucks I've never disputed, but
don't agree that this would reduce the sortie rate
provided these resources are available. I'll also go so
far as to claim that in many cases it's a cheaper solution
to guarantee a certain sortie rate than purchasing (and
losing on the ground) more fighters.
--
Urban Fredriksson gri...@kuai.se http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
Swedish railways -> http://www.kuai.se/%7Egriffon/railways/
There is always a yet unknown alternative.
Fubar2X
Paul F Austin <pau...@digital.net> wrote:
>A single wing of 72 F-16s operating on a 5
>sortee per day cycle consumes 480,000 gallons a day of JP and 1800
>tonnes of ordinance each day. If the mission was flown from 10 dispersed
>sites, each site would require 18 truckloads of ordinance and ten tank
>truck loads a day to sustain operation. Those truck convoys are
>lucrative, soft targets and guess what? They point directly at the
>dispersed operating sites.
In the Gulf War, 244 F-16's ( rough daily average ) flew 13,500 sorties in 42
days. This works out to 1.3 sorties per day per plane. A reasonable guess
would be that they expended 1000 gallons of JP and 3000 pounds of ordnance per
sortie ( i.e. F-16's dropped 23% of the Coalition total of 88,500 short tons of
bombs ). 72 F-16's would thus consume 95,000 gallons of JP and 143 short tons
of ordnance per day, so each of the 10 dispersed sites would need only a little
over 1 truck load of ammo and 2 tank truck loads a day to sustain the Gulf War
rate.
Fubar2X
Magnus Redin
fub...@aol.com (Fubar2X) writes:
1.3 sorties per day per plane? That sounds lousy. Were they based far
behind the lines or could they not evaluate new targets quickly or
were the operations planned to be lesiurly?
I am only familiar with the Swedish dispersed BAS 90 system. Any enemy
will of course know where all the bases and runways are located. The
idea is that it is hard to know where on the base area the airplanes,
munitions, readymaking crews, etc are located. There are 2-4 runways
and a few dozen readymaking "parking lots" along about 8-15 km of
highway. The aeroplanes are somewhere in this system and there are
also mobile decoys mixed in. The readymaking personell, munitions, etc
are dispersed in about 20 km2. (The whole base area is about 100 km2)
The fuel tanks are fixed but there are a lot of them. There is a
fairly dense road network over the whole area. When a fighter is going
to land a readymaking "parking lot" is choosen pseudo-random and the
readymaking crews travels there by truck and car and sets up in about
four minutes. The aeroplanes lands, is led to the right spot by a
motorcycle and is made ready for a new flight. There is no shortage of
transportation capacity. Each readymaking group has their own tanker
truck and other trucks. There are additional tanker trucks and trucks
for fetching munitions from remote bases or ordinance caches. The
operations are intended to be intense, as manny missions as the pilots
can perform withouth falling asleep. The general mission the AF had
and has is defending Sweden from a large numerically superior enemy
attacking from the east so what is done in the first days is critical.
Regards,
--
--
Magnus Redin Lysator Academic Computer Society re...@lysator.liu.se
Mail: Magnus Redin, Rydsvägen 214B, 584 32 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine) and (0)13 214600
ch1...@earthlink.net
Hey Magnus,
The base internal fuel load of the F-16 is what? 6.5Klbs and I've seldom
seen them in D/S without 370 wingers... JP-5/8 weighs about 6.65-6.8lbs
per gallon doesn't it?
2 Mk.84's 'on average' (I think they didn't go to this until later but
the twin .82 and TER are fairly similar in overall weight/drag); an
ALQ-131 at I'd guess about 500-600lbs and twin (or at first quad)
wing'winders... 15,421lbs of expendable (takeoff) ordinance. Not
including another 400-700lbs of POL, oxygen and expendables...
A 'real war' would've costed at least a couple AIM-9's every mission and
today to takeoff into a threatened sanctuary airspace with A/G but
without AIM-120 would be suicidal. I also recall that maintaining the
ECM 'Ami Express' loadings of selfprotect jammers was not an easy task
and required a lot of switching out. Again, competitive opponent losses
would have increased this vulnerability.
Two factors I'm not sure about are the H&H and fatigue-gross effects on
the takeoff load but this is likely MORE than offset by the need for 1-2
IFR's getting to the target.
I think that these two factors (ECM and sortie-length) are probably what
skew the sortie-ordinance dropped factors in D/S stat's.
IMO, the real threat to the BAS-90 approach is as much from the
increasingly 'vanillized' nature of tactical/targeting platforms capable
of hitting the dispersed infrastructure of the base /regardless/ of
decoy options.
I know it's a very topsy turvey CM/CCM war but believe that combined
SAR/GMTI and FLIR from such readily available /non-interdiction biased/
platforms as the F-16 and F-5 currently 'lead the game' and render any
form of offbase decoy 'security' (across all the spectrums) through
dispersal unlikely.
Since Sweden herself is leading the field in some sophisticated
massing-capable forms of ISAR/UWB research; I would think she would be
'most aware' of the threat. E-8's and cruise may be restricted to a
more 'deliberate' threat-build which are both trackable
(developmentally) and uncertain (financially) in the form of your
primary-opposite across the Bothnian but still must be eventually
considered if only as airlaunchables from export-sale aggressor forces.
I'm not quite sure how this applied to the original argument but if I
had to make a fixed guess assumption; it would be to say that if you are
'serious' (and not merely hold-out 'potentializing') then you must
consider the depth of field needed to be covered; the combined loadout
dynamic of suppression/selfdefA/A/precision (as well as standoff) target
engagement; specific to it's ability to strike back at your most-own
valued forces (which to me is ANY manned platform system both in terms
of critical force mass, replacement costst-time and 'swing'; local
superiority capture importance). This almost demands an offensive
posturement in preemptive CA unless an equally cost-baseline force
capability exists in TBM area and anti-cruise point defense exists.
Then there's Mr Nasty and his Mortar/ATGW team.
What remains, to me, yet to be adequately argued for JAS-BAS utilization
is a /defined/ ratio of smart force employment before switchout to dumb
weapons for a GIVEN threat-X opponent force.
I see DWS-39/BK.90 and Maverick as the only extant enabler's of
point-target standoff and perhaps area-site suppression effect with
almost zero hard target or SEAD standoff optioning (before debut of the
much delayed ASOM-15; if then) afterwards. This itself is backwards to
the D/S strategy.
At what point does one then switche to 'ballisticated' (freefall vs.
powered) and even point-aimed vs. guideds (the M70 series frag bombs and
135mm rockets for you guys?).
This is further complicated for JAS by limited internals jamming and
pylon-compatibility factors such that it comes down to being a 'four
armed F-16' (vs. six) without even the tip-RAAM or semi-independence
from wingtanks that some (internal RFCM) equipped Falcon operators get.
This multiplies support mission tasking, reduces overall
base-independence (from specialist weapons user backup and 'surprise')
and generally makes a hash of 'dispersal' invulnerabilities by the very
'vanilla-everything' nature of the J/A/S concepts' non-ranged,
non-SO-weaponed, complete-system design.
To overemphasize the 'maritime prestrike' (Swedens best or at least
most-stated preference for early equalizing) is a good way to alienate
your customer market as, regardless of platform optioning, it cannot
apply to all comers.
MIND YOU, this fault exists in a LOT of foreign systems and until a
sufficiently /independent/ (seeker, motor, airframe from U.S.
base-derivative) |-range-| of weapons systems (by costs : target hits
AD-standoffs classifaction 'packaging') can be matched to local area
missioning and mission support (tanking, GLCM, drones-decoys etc.)
needs; a lot of potentially useful base-plane 'launchers' will lose out
simply because of their nonglobal doctrinal employment realizations and
'pointy end' opponent reduction (economy-of-force/attrition)
incompleteness. Again, only IMO.
We're not perfect either though... What allows the U.S. to get away
with IT'S vulnerabilities in terms of remote/undefended sudden basein is
not so much on-hand diversification or sortie-surge as the Massive
Unreachable Backup of 'this island-continent' taxable defbasing; all the
way up to nukes for any incursion force that got into REALLY DEEP
trouble.
If you've ever read _Strike Eagle_ and it's views of the earliest phases
of the U.S. commitment to the Gulf War, those initial C and then E Eagle
model's were a LONG WAY from a Kuwaiti-Saud border FEBA and would've
been in deep kimche had Saddam had the genitals to push out and
conquer-all-now rather than be 6-month-a$$-kicked-later. Poor weapons
matchups, no maps, incomplete EOB etc.
This will undoubtedly eventually cost us dear someday as another series
of withdrawal's or forward unit drawdowns based on the 'unacceptable
losses' or 'unaffordable friends' theory of inspired
newsjournalism-politicking creates the very potential to exacerbate
dirty move and/or over overaggression warfare into something more than a
simple, 'regional conflict'.
Fubar2X
fub...@aol.com (Fubar2X) writes:
>In the Gulf War, 244 F-16's ( rough daily average ) flew 13,500 sorties in 42
>days. This works out to 1.3 sorties per day per plane. A reasonable guess
>would be that they expended 1000 gallons of JP and 3000 pounds of ordnance per
>sortie < Snip >
Harriers based close to the front flew even less than the F-16's. The "Gulf
Air War Debrief" says :"The 88-strong Harrier II component of Desert Storm
contributed 3,380 sorties while dropping 5.95 million lb of ordnance. Average
mission length was just over an hour and forward basing allowed delivery of
bombs within 10 minutes of take-off."
Its not too hard to work out that this is slightly less than one sortie per day
per plane, with an average ordnance drop of 1760 pounds per sortie.
Fubar2X