D-Scythe

Rock, paper, scissors...you just lost. To use logic, you have to recognize the limitations of various truths. Clearly you don't.

One has to wonder, where do you keep getting this "information"?

There's a 2800 x 1864 version here: http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-200701.htm

The R-77's stated 5-10% range advantage was over the non-lofting AIM-120A. Things are probably different if we start talking about the AIM-120B/C.

The Patriot umbrella kept up with U.S. armor during Iraqi Freedom.

This horse...has been beaten to death SO MUCH...that it's probably in the 8th dimension right now. If the afterlife was real, it would have 8 halos. The poor horse...

Not necessarily. While I agree that SAMs cannot offer any realistic permanent defense against fighters, they can be employed in a way to make their lives hell. If the record of SAMs against modern airpower is worth anything, it teaches us that to tie a SAM to some stationary target is NOT the way to go. A smart SA-10 skipper IMO should always be on the move from hiding place to hiding place, turn on the radar briefly to gut an entire package of strikers, then scoot. Rinse, wash and repeat.

Well, of course it was a bad joke...cause it was more like a "tease," than a joke ;) BTW, if Legolasindar really is using a translator, than that is pretty insane. Who would've thought a computer program can write better than most native English speakers?

Define "largely." Both the F-15 and the Su-27 made extensive use of titanium - I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but it was something like 30%.

...Well? You gonna leave us hanging?

Has anyone seen this one before? It's unreal. USAF F-15 Eale Fighters Intercept Two Soviet MiG-29 Fighters Going to Canada For the 1989 Abbotsford International Airshow, August 1, 1989, State of Alaska, USA

What's the point of even comparing the Su-27 with the Streak Eagle in a combat manual? Did the Soviets think that the F-15 Streak Eagle was a threat? What was it gonna do, kill bandits by zooming past them? Common sense is your friend.

F-22s or a conventional SEAD package strike (HARM shooters, jammers, M-TALD, etc.) would do the trick too.

The SA-10 showing up as a '15'? Really? And...the answer to your original question...you don't. A target defended by an SA-10 effectively denies the ability to ingress at 8 to 12 thousand feet. You can either (a) wait for SEAD to take out the site, or (b) take your chances down low and pop it with a Mav. But the one thing you CAN'T do is cruise in at 8-12 thousand ft and expect to swim your way through waves of hypersonic SAMs.

Any details about helicopter rotor blades generating doppler shifts that makes them visible on radar even in the notch?

Because anything not explicitly labelled as an R-27ER is automatically an EA.

You just said the magic words.

Doing air-to-air, I like having the missile slider at 100%. Otherwise, 50% is the most realistic.

Fine, perhaps "easy" is not the right term to use. Lemme rephrase/explain my position. Yes, A/G missions are challenging - I didn't mean to come across and say that they are not. Pilots are presented with a set of challenges unique to the A/G mission - flying a slower aircraft not only makes mud-movers more vulnerable to the radar-guided SAM threat, but also to MANPADS and AAA. I would also like to counter this point and say that fighter jocks are the first to cross the fence and encounter a "full" IADs threat, untouched by SEAD, which is also very dangerous... But more or less, the argument can be made that fighters and strikers are more or less equally as exposed to the same enemy fighter/SAM threat. Realistically then, how "challenging" an A/A or A/G mission is, is entirely dependent on the mission itself, and cannot/should not be generalized to "A/A is harder" or "A/G is more challenging." However, this ISN'T the point. The topic asked for what is most interesting, not most challenging. GGTharos and I are emphasizing the fact that enemy aircraft present a far more dynamic set of targets than ground targets. This is undeniable - an enemy fighter can travel in any 3D vector in space at supersonic speeds, whereas ground targets are limited to slow, 2D motion. Sure, both air and ground targets can shoot back at you, and both threats are existent to both fighters AND mud-movers, but the fact that fighters are assigned to kill such flexible and dynamic targets make the A/A mission more interesting to me. Furthermore, it is much more difficult for any kind of aircraft to survive an encounter with a flight of MiGs than with an SAM site - barring an ambush, its easy to survive/avoid any SAM site - the missile launchers can't pack up and chase your aircraft down. However, MiGs can both ambush you AND chase you down. And that is what makes them more interesting as targets - these targets can do whatever you can do. Personally, I think about killing air targets during an A/G mission a LOT more than killing ground targets while on an A/A mission - like in Falcon 4.0 or Jane's F/A-18, when I'm equipped with both A/G and A/A weapons. Even in A/G missions, I regard enemy aircraft as far more lucrative targets, even more so than the actual primaries I'm assigned to hit.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Firstly, the Ka-50 is a chopper - that in and of itself makes it more difficult and dangerous to fly period, let alone in combat. Secondly, if I take your argument and replace "Ka-50" with "Su-25T" (which satisfies your first premise as well - i.e. it is more difficult to fly than the F-15), the increased difficulty can be attributed to: - the Su-25T flight controls/avionics being more manually work-intensive, and rudimentary, than the F-15 - the Su-25T being modelled in much greater detail/realism (and thus, more things the pilot has to pay attention to) Either way, even fundamentally, I do not understand how you can take how "easily" a mud-mover flies and extrapolate from that a conclusion about how challenging the A/G mission is in general. As far as inductions go, that's a bad one.

There hasn't been any flames. I just didn't like his argument that "No distinction can be made between A/A and A/G because the pilot must live" and his subsequent rebuttal. I'm sure Viper's an outstanding guy. BTW, distinctions CAN be made between apples and oranges. Sure, people have different tastes and it's true, it's senseless to compare them. BUT arguably it's harder and more challenging to eat an orange because you have to peel the skin off first :harhar: Of course, then you factor in pineapples...:gun_rifle:

Then over-generalizing a set of conditions to prove one's point and just plain ignoring circumstances that are contradictory must be your "inevitability." I guess it's a good thing that the "inevitability" I provided was the one NOT logically flawed. Also, it's a sign of a weak argument to attack the how an opposing argument is presented rather than the actual argument itself. Oh wait, it now seems that the "end-effect," the goal, of my argument doesn't matter to you nearly as much as how I presented it. Strangely, for some reason, I seem to recall it was you who didn't care about the crap that led up to an end-result. Is that...hypocrisy I smell? :music_whistling: But it's great that you decided to sabotage your own argument instead of having me do it.

Pretty flawed logic. Just because two missions have the same end-goal doesn't mean they're equally dangerous. For example, both the 100-m dash and the 100-m hurdle requires the racer to cross the finish line, yet the 100-m hurdle is by far much harder and possibly more painful. Or even better - two separate F/A-18 flights taking on identical missions with identical mission objectives, and the first flight suffers a loss-rate of 75% (because they're idiots) while the other 0% (because the pilots are competent). By your faulty logic, an inference cannot be drawn of the skill of the pilots - since the end-goal is the same, then it's impossible to draw a distinction. Which is just plain wrong. Real wars don't abide by the Hess' law of thermodynamics - things aren't equal simply because their challenge/goals/end effects are the same. Limiting the threats of air combat simply to how well a pilot can evade a missile is very simplistic and not representative of the actual nature of things at all. Air combat is dynamic - only mud-movers would look at it in such a one-dimensional way :harhar:

No. You can increase your red blood cell count, but that's about it.

There's a difference between what is most important and what is most fun. Air-to-air is the most fun - I mean, you engage other supersonic enemies in a battle where all the players have all freedoms of movement. On the other hand, air-to-ground has been the primary purpose of airpower almost since its inception. When airplanes were first invented and applied for military use, they were initially as recce platforms, but then some guy saw the usefulness of using airpower as long-range artillery and that role has stuck with the military airplane ever since. However, A/G is arguably not as "fun" - you're attacking targets who are limited to movement on surfaces, with much less mobility than your own airplane, if mobile at all. There's no style or finesse required to kill the target, and a mud-mover doesn't need the golden hands of a fighter jock to become an ace at what he does. I guess metaphorically, fighter pilots are the quarterbacks, the receivers, the running backs, while strikers are the linemen. So, the question boils down to whether you wanna be the star quarterback, or the fat linemen?