Interesting Info on Migs vs. AMRAAMs

[Guest IguanaKing]

That might be true. I haven't spoken to my 140th Viper driver buddies about that specific detail though. :D

[Guest IguanaKing]

I had to check the date on that post, because I KNOW I've seen it before :p

 

Pretty much verbatim, too . . . . . . grin.

 

Sure...I've said it before, just not in THIS forum.

 

Cheers :beer:

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

However, the point about numerical superiority cannot be dismissed

 

That is exactly my point as well!

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

What that tells me is that if you're up against a force that severely out numbers you and they're using AWACS, then don't take off.. ;)

 

And you let terrorists bomb your country all they want?

[SUBS17]

And you let terrorists bomb your country all they want?

 

I can think of alot of reasons why NATO are not terrorists with regard to Bosnia and Serbia.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

fascinating thread....

[Kula66]

Bad example.

 

1) AIM-9 and stinger missiles are to be shot up close.

QUOTE]

 

Why does the range a missile is fired influence its design requirement to bring down the target? Any AAM/SAM is designed to kill the target ...

 

As to IR SAMs being accurate - I've certainly read numerous accounts where the pilot has described them fly up the jet pipe. I would agree they may be fundamentally more accurate than Active radar homers .. especially the latest generation that can 'see' their target and optimize their hit point - apparently.

[Starlight]

Lotsa missiles currently in service are "direct" hit weapons - most obvious the PAC 3. Late model AIM-120Cs also score an unusual amount of kinetic kills in comparison to older missiles like the AIM-9 and the AIM-7. Moreover, as GG stated, even if it doesn't score a direct hit, it has a fuze that senses where the target is in relation to the missile and explodes the warhead in that direction/orientation.

 

If you don't dodge it, your bird is almost definitely going to be destroyed.

 

Well, anyway we were talking about air combat, so about AAMs. Even the -120C is fitted with a warhead, so kinetic kills happen because missile controls have been improved. That is exactly what I said in my post ;)

 

Patriot PAC-3 is one of the few kinetic killers, but we don't know its PK. And AFAIK is a kinetic killer because one of its tasks is to counter weapons like ballistic missiles, which fly in a predictable path. I can't imagine a PAC-3 hitting a fighter maneuvering at high G's. I think that is the reason why even the most modern AAMs still have warhead and fuzes (-120C and -9X included). No warhead means that missing an aircraft by just one foot, you cause no damage at all. A fuzed-warhead equipped missile exploding within just one foot off the target is bound to cause catastrophic damage.

 

Sure fuzing tech has been improved, as well as ECCM and missile controls, and that results in improved probability of hit, more direct hits, and overall improved lethality. The reason why Pentagon wanted a more precise/powerful Amraam, probably is that they want to *kill* an aircraft with a $300,000 missile. One shot one kill. While you fight against Air Forces equipped with just a pair of aircraft squadrons, you can allow to use more than one missile to shoot down an aircraft, but if you're outnumbered, each missile must be treated like a silver bullet.

 

Yet each PAC-3 missile costs about $ 4 million, which IMHO is something really crazy. Even more crazy if you think that during OIF there were several engagements against friendly aircraft, resulting at least in one F-18 downed, and in a HARM-damaged Patriot battery.

[Guest ruggbutt]

And you let terrorists bomb your country all they want?

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[Cosmonaut]

And you let terrorists bomb your country all they want?

Well that is just an irrational representation of my comment .. I'll put it down to a language barrier but if you understood the nature of the thread and my reply then you should be able to deduce that I was actually sticking up for the pilots situation.. not in a political sense but as an idea that you can't win when engaging insurmountable odds. Therefore it's difficult to draw any conclusions of whether or not the pilot could have evaded an aamram in his Mig.

 

Anyway I prefer reading actual combat accounts from pilots or if its just reported .. much more interesting than the tech debate we usually get .. GGTharos, has a good thread going here, lets hope its not killed by politics.

[Alfa]

And you let terrorists bomb your country all they want?

 

Hajduk Veljko,

 

This thread(and the forum as such) is about aircraft and tactics - not politics.

 

If you feel unable to participate in this discussion without including politically charged slogans, then dont post at all.

 

- JJ.

[Kula66]

Yet each PAC-3 missile costs about $ 4 million, which IMHO is something really crazy. Even more crazy if you think that during OIF there were several engagements against friendly aircraft, resulting at least in one F-18 downed, and in a HARM-damaged Patriot battery.

 

I'm not sure that PAC-3 was used against a/c ... I thought that the batteries carrried mixed loads and used PAC-3s only against TBMs ... thats assuming it was even deployed at that time. So, whats the cost of a PAC-1 or 2 ... only $2mill ... a bargin! If I remember correctly, a British Tornado was also downed ... perhaps our accident shoot downs on HL aren't so un-realistic afterall!

[GGTharos]

Patriots are not meant to be used against aircraft - they're meant to be used against incoming ballistic missiles. In the case of such a weapon being equipped with a WMD warhead, the cost is well worth it. Even against aircraft, it isn't very likely that you'll be attacking aircraft that cost less than the missile.

[Kula66]

Patriots are not meant to be used against aircraft - they're meant to be used against incoming ballistic missiles

Not true GGT ... as I said, PAC-3s may be primarily anti-TBM, but the others are cetainly AA.

[GGTharos]

According to the US AD soldier I speak with, Patriots are primarily deployed to counter ballistic missile threats first, and aircraft second. The best anti-aircraft weapon is a fighter, not a SAM. They'll fire on aircraft if they must, I'm sure, but the deployments are all about shooting down incoming ballistic warheads.

[Kula66]

Is that more because the threat is currently more from TBMs than a/c ...

The original version had very limited TBM capability ... witness GW1 ...

[GGTharos]

Quite possibly ... there's no question that it's a capable AA weapon.

 

Anyway, the GW1 problems were also due to some software bugs. GW2 withnessed a very good intercept rate against TBMs, but I don't know if it was PAC2 or PAC3 that was used and in which cases.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

Patriots are not meant to be used against aircraft - they're meant to be used against incoming ballistic missiles.

 

 

please tell that to the americans who shot down a tornado in the latest gulf war. :(

[GGTharos]

please tell that to the americans who shot down a tornado in the latest gulf war. :(

 

 

According tot eh reports I got, this happened because the TOrnado was mis-identified as an incoming ballistic missile by the software.

[kam]

According tot eh reports I got, this happened because the TOrnado was mis-identified as an incoming ballistic missile by the software.

 

Are any of those online?

 

Ive heard a few different story's..electrical problem/fire, IFF not working/switched off, Id like to read something "offical".

[GGTharos]

Yes they are. There are many more factors that contributed. It was decided that the Tornado did not have its IFF on, which was /one/ of the criteria used to reject false missile contacts - EMI apparently played a significant role in causing certain aircraft to appear as if they had TBM characteristics on radar, so the software would classify them as such.

 

In addition, in one incident (not the Tornado one) apparently the Patriot crew were culpable for launching interceptors without following the procedure completely.

 

I'll get you some links if I don't forget.

[Starlight]

According to the US AD soldier I speak with, Patriots are primarily deployed to counter ballistic missile threats first, and aircraft second. The best anti-aircraft weapon is a fighter, not a SAM. They'll fire on aircraft if they must, I'm sure, but the deployments are all about shooting down incoming ballistic warheads.

 

The Patriot was designed mainly as an AA weapon. The poor results in 1991 against Scuds (*), suggested the Pentagon to fund new Patriot variants especially designed to counter ballistic missiles. The ABM treaty prohibits any development of ABM weapons, but the Soviets integrated into their SA-10 missiles (which are officially AA SAMs) a good ABM capability. I guess PAC-3 is also an answer to the ABM capability of the SA-10.

 

One of the problems while using mixes of aircraft and SAMs to counter enemy air activities is that of fratricide kills. There are new interpretations of Arab aircraft losses in the 1973 and 1982, that suggest that large numbers of aircraft were not downed by Israelis but from friendly fire coming from SAM sites. Modern tactics usually include SAM-free corridors, SAM belts, no-fly zones together with standard comms and IFF systems... but the experience with OIF (where Anglo-American forces had complete air superiority) tells that these tactics are still far from being perfect. I still can't understand why in a similar situation a SAM battery engaged friendly aircraft....

 

 

(*) In 1991 the Patriot was deployed in the Gulf as an AA defense weapon. The use against the scud was tried as a last-ditch measure, since preemptive action was unsuccessful.

The 1991 Patriot performance however were degraded by some silly software/hardware bugs: I found this article while searching some material for my numerical analysis course at University: http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/patriot.html

it's a bit frustrating to discover how a million dollar missile can malfunction and cause tens of dead just because of the improper use of a 24 bit registry.

[GGTharos]

thamuff:

 

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Investigation%20Reports/Default.asp

 

Starlight: I'm aware, but the point is that they weren't deployed as AA weapons, but as Anti-missile weapons. Their task was to blast warheads out of the sky, not aircraft. It was, at the time, the only weapon that the US fielded that was even capable of attempting to accomplish this sort of mission. AFAIK they never really had to deal with enemy A/C.

 

As for why the patriot engaged friendly aircraft: The Patriot uses cross-section, ballistic curve matching (ie. flight path) and other data, including IFF response to automatically classify a threat. The Patriot that shot down the firnedly aircraft had classified it as a TBM for a number of reasons (some here is speculation): EMI caused the aircraft to appear farther and possibly higher than where it was, as well as potentially, faster. The aircraft was the interrogated for IFF, which failed; should ANY of those criteria not meet a match, the engagement process is halted (fact from testimony) ... however since all criteria were met, the aircraft was categorized as a missile, and engaged AUTOMATICALLY. I would also like to point out that this was a data problem: Even if a human was looking at this, they couldn't have known that this wasn't a missile, so they opened fire.

[kam]

Aah great link, thanks a lot.

[Cosmonaut]

Like Starlight I thought Patriots were designed for AA but in GW1 they were used to .. well look like something was being done to counter the Skuds. In actual fact they did more damage falling to the ground than the Skuds did themselves and they never hit one single Skud according to the Israeli's . So my question is this; Is it actually feasible to expect a high success rate when trying to intercept a missile with a another missile? If so then wouldn't AA sam's be much, much more effective than they are?