marcos

Not sure if this 5 parter has been posted.

Does it have anymore firepower than a Huey with a pintle-mount GAU-19?

The AWACS is also bigger itself too though. The case is that an AWACS, at present, probably can't see a a 4.5th gen fighter at 300+km, but the 4.5th gen fighter can see it, and does have missiles with that range capability.

And what if their escort is up front? If that theory worked we'd just fire unguided rockets and hope that the enemy shits themselves.

Typhoon magazine. http://eurofighter.com/magazin/eurofighter_world_01_13/#/1/zoomed

It wouldn't surprise me if the drug barons had a few L-39s though, or MANPADS.

No, like the people who believe the 4 Raptors against 32 F-15s training scenario victory. Care to be more specific. The stats are there is black and white telling you that you're wrong. Table 4 on page 9 is very specific. http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/11/09.pdf Rubbish.

I guess that load must be aimed at bunker busting?

Actually I never said it would, but if you think a modern IR AAM with a state of the art focal array can't tell the difference between a little ball of fire and an aircraft, think again.

Specifically it is the problem of those who have based combat strategy on test and training that statistics contradict. Go back to reading class, there has already been a thread posted on it recently. The study was done by the USAF. BVR missiles have a Pk of about 40% if you take all shots. However if you take actual BVR shots, the Pk is sweet FA. http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/11/09.pdf EO and IR systems look all round.

While one Raptor sneaks in and gets beaten to death by ASRAAMs you mean. Theory vs practice is the problem. In theory the Raptor sneaks around outside IRST and plinks planes with AMRAAMs. In practice 80-90% of them will miss based on stats (in fact current stats suggest 93.4% so I'm being generous), they nevertheless get detected and optical sensors can then track the offending aircraft following the plume of the rocket engine.

Well that's all highly theoretical. How do you propose on getting kills from outside IRST range since no kills have ever been achieved from such distances in real life combat?

With IRST, merge will really occur before visual range. You will not get within visual range of IRST without being detected.

Pah!

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2013/02/27/pentagon-f-35-program-chief-lashes-lockheed-pratt/#ixzz2M73Wyjm3 Pentagon F-35 program chief lashes out at Pratt-heed

I can't even get AI to kill AI with AMRAAMs now. They're more like sidewinders.