D-Scythe

I respect your credentials, but your reasoning is a bit...off. There's a difference between fear and respect - obviously it's a basic truth of the human condition to be afraid, but the trigger doesn't have to be an enemy plane/weapon. Speaking out of my ass here, but I believe the best trait to have when one has to get through war (alive) is not being necessarily afraid of the enemy, but rather respecting his abilities. For example, an F-15 pilot doesn't necessarily have to be afraid of a bunch of MiG-21s (at least not to the extent of a bunch of Su-27SMs), but his chances of survival in an encounter with a bunch of Fishbeds would not necessarily decrease so long as he respects the abilities of his enemies - indeed, fear might actually decrease the F-15's chances of survival as the pilot might experience emotions like fear clouding his judgement.

Why would a precision guided munition bounce off the ground? You want to hit the target directly - if your JDAM is bouncing the ground, you just missed.

Bounce off *what*?

I would. The Raptor can lob JDAMs cruising at Mach 1.8 and 50 000ft. The fact is, the F-22 can do the surgical strike mission better than the F-117 can, even if we omit all other factors and just focus on hitting a ground target. The Raptor is arguably a better bomber than the Nighthawk in terms of flexibility, speed, range/payload and survivability.

Are you sure you "heard" it? Are you sure it wasn't *nothing*? (Don't flip out, it's a Family Guy quote, but it expresses my opinion well)

Well, they have 4 SPG illumination radars as opposed to 3, so the Ticonderoga should be able to guide more SM-2s onto their targets simultaneously than the Burke's can. Both are also starting to be retrofitted with short-range RAM missile launchers in place of CIWS I think.

The higher turbulences are caused by lower wing loading, and yes, the F-15 has a much lower wing loading than either the F-111 or the Tornado (although the ride is supposedly still quite comfortable). However, the benefit of a lower wing loading is very much increased agility. The F-15E is far more agile than either the F-111 or Tornodo IDS in comparable weapon configurations.

Hmm, will check out, thanks.

Nope, I couldn't find a single source that says the R-77 can loft, nor that it received any substantial upgrade since it's IOC. Contrast that with AMRAAM.

It's not an issue of top speed - the AIM-120 should make better use of its energy/keep it better because it has a much smarter auto-pilot that optimizes its trajectory. The R-77 does not. Actually, it doesn't even loft. Add in the fact that it generates more drag, then you see how baseless the notion is that the R-77 out-ranges the AIM-120B/C.

Which missile was that? The AIM-120?

I think Chizh would know what he's talking about ;) But if you still have doubts, do a low altitude test and fire an AIM-120 and an R-77 and record their speeds 5 seconds after burn-out, 10 seconds, etc. High altitude, it's not that apparent, because all missiles retain their speeds pretty well (thus the extra speed the R-77 is retained much better).

The F-111 will crush the Tornado - it carries more, has longer range, is faster, etc. I'd rather hedge my bets on the F-15E or the Su-34. At least these aircraft have the ability to defend themselves from enemy CAPs if it comes down to it.

Oh...hmm, my bad then. Smiley next time maybe?

Um, flares don't care whether they are fired from the left, right, above or below. The F-15 only has flare dispensors on its bottom fuselage and the Su-27 only from the top - does that make them have "half" an ability to launch flares?

I was just ribbing ya ;) But seriously - look at the tail section of the Paveways - those are Paveway III tail kits, which are not found on the GBU-27 (too big to fit in the F-117's bomb bay).

It's a GBU-24, not a -27. In any case, F-15s can't carry bombs on their wing rails either.

Then you might as well return Lock On to the store because it's ground/people/vehicle FM is so bad. Makes Mario Kart feel real. Honestly, it's an infantry game. What did you expect?

IIRC, only the F/A-18E/F, some USMC F/A-18s and a handful of Navy Hornets have ASPJ jammers. No Hornet prior to the early/mid 1990s had any self-protection jammers.

Since when did fighters use noise jamming? It's always been deception ECM AFAIK.

The point is that IRL you can't macro your ECM to flip on and off a bizzilion times a second.

Like Bunny-hopping in BF2...wonder if golfsierra would consider that an exploit too.

Netherlands - can't believe I forgot. But yeah, you're absolutely right - only (some? or all?) foreign Longbows are fully equipped with flares. It seems that Army Longbows are in the process of being retrofitted with the complete ATIRCM package right now - it's possible some of them may have flares already.

AFAIK, only the WAH-64D British Apaches are fully equipped with flares. The US Army AH-64Ds are getting flares (some really good kinds too, supposedly) as part of its ATIRCM package, which includes the ALE-47 chaff/flare dispenser.

The ATIRCM includes flares, IIRC - some advanced next generation flare decoy munition or something like that. In any case, the British WAH-64D is already equipped with flares - if the U.S. Army perceives heat-seeking SAMs as a threat, I'm sure they can get their uber-lethal Apaches fitted with them ASAP (if they don't have 'em already). Excellent article about the state of Army weapons/self defense: http://www.aviationtoday.com/rw/military/attack/1534.html