Your thoughts on the future of air warfare

[PLP]

Hello all,

 

Some things struck me while reading discussions about possible future conflicts here.

 

 

1. It seems to me that people seem to neglect how conflicts are always chaotic. There seems to be this vision of a well-ordered battle between clearly identified blue and red forces going at it in good order that never seemed to have materialized in past conflicts AFAIK. Why would it be so different this time around?
   
2. Everybody talks about drones and datalinks, but I never saw a discussion about the real threat of hacking (and/or jamming?) in this context, especially against an electronically capably enemy. IFF too could be meddled with, right?
   
3. Also, again just for the sake of pitching wild ideas: it seems to me that all those Gen. 4 and above planes would be extremely vulnerable to a gamma-ray frequency EMP pulse - say from a H-bomb in the stratosphere. Wouldn't then an old school Mig21 have the advantage of still being functional? - Again just for the sake of a discussion, not saying this is going to happen.
   

 

I am not pretending to be any kind of expert, I just would appreciate your thoughs on these subjects. My basic point is that air war in the future will probably be much less different and exotic as most people seem to think: why would I be wrong?

 

Cheers,

 

PLP

[Bushmanni]

The basic intuition of amateurs thinking about tactics and strategy is to think about "choreography" ignoring the fact that the enemy has a will of his own. When you see someone fall in this trap you know he shouldn't be taken seriously. Depending on his attitude you might want to educate him but often it's pointless.

 

I think most bigger drones are operated through satellite link. In order to hack it you would need to gain entry between the drone and the satellite which would be much harder than just shooting down the drone. Then there's the possibility of encrypting the signal. The current operational drones are so easy to shoot down that there's no point in trying to hack them.

 

Electronics can be hardened against EMP and no-one would have put critical functions under computer control if they would be easily busted with a distant nuclear explosion or lightning strike on the aircraft. Nuclear weapons are going to be delivered by missiles and airplanes relying on electronics to to guide them to the target and these systems need to function even if there are already bombs going off somewhere (not too) near. You can bet on that these thing have been thought about by the designers. Of course large enough burst of gamma rays would bust just about anything but you won't be able to cover the whole enemy airspace with such radiation levels but the effect is going to be local and contained and most likely you are going to have more problems with thermal radiation and the shock wave destroying the airplane before having problems with gamma rays destroying the electronics.

[PLP]

I think most bigger drones are operated through satellite link.

 

But then again, a satellite is a very appealing target, isn't it? Probably not out of reach of a technologically capable country?

 

Again - in the very unlikely (or so it seems right now) - case of a conflict between nations with substantial air forces.

 

If you knock AWACS and satellites out, how capable is a modern air force?

 

My basic point is that sometimes it seems to me that the Air forces are over-equipped for actual conflicts (where you basically need A-10s and a couple of F-16s for Sead/CAP maybe) but at the same time maybe not that well equipped for a determined and creative foe. Military forces in times of relative peace have a horrible track record when it comes to predicting what warfare will look like.

[Kaktus29]

autonomous drones.. this trend is visible from space by now..

 

20-40 years from now, i see a network of all kind of drones, some fully autonomous, some semi-autonomous, some constantly guided by operators on the ground, maybe even operators from AWACS or other fighter-jets kind of platform..

 

high AI of the said network that will make split-second decisions of what to do and how to defeat a radar, missile and other threats.. its only inevitable.. technology is developing, and complexities of plane systems are only increasing.. already now most of the hard work is done autonomous by computers in the plane, ..

 

in our economy for better or worse AI has taken to some degree already, trading is done by machines in a particular trade that is mostly non-strategic as in day-trading milking and scooping the "change" left by the inefficient market..but doing it million of times in a second it comes to a huge money profit for those with such AI..

 

 

 

so, future air wars will be highly AI rich, and fast, super-fast in either winning or loosing the war.. it will be like, 3-5 days of intense air-war followed by capitulation of the defeated nation..or starvation of that nation since all critical infrastructure parts can be hit once the air war has been won by the "conquistador" ..

[Bushmanni]

If your enemy is capable of shooting down your satellites and AWACS A-10s and F-16s are hardly going to be of much use either but you would need something much more sophisticated like stealth planes that can actually survive the battlefield. Besides militaries around the world have been aware of this possibility since the satellites and AWACS have been invented and they definitely have put some thought on it and developed back-up plans. Obviously nobody is going to share them with us as that would make the plans useless. Some of the options that have been discussed is to have back-up satellites in storage that can be launched within a few days to replace the destroyed ones. Besides while satellites make the life easier they hardly are necessary for kicking enemy butt. Only drones are dependent on satellites but you wouldn't use them against capable foes anyway.

 

When two capable forces slug it out there will be more casualties on both sides than if they were fighting some third world country but it doesn't mean their equipment is stupidly designed or chosen for such a battle. War is bad business in general and only the stupid or desperate (mostly dictatorships in both cases) have been willing to go to war often against superior enemy during the few last decades and that's how it'll be in the future as fighting a fair battle is just waste of lives and resources.

[Scrim]

Due to sophisticated AA missiles, dog fighters won't need cannons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

:P

[Weta43]

Due to sophisticated AA missiles, dog fighters won't need cannons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

:P

 

:)

[ENO]

That is funny- what worries me is that pilots could be the next aspect of air warfare removed from the aircraft.

[PFunk1606688187]

That is funny- what worries me is that pilots could be the next aspect of air warfare removed from the aircraft.

 

You think you're nervous? You should read the civil aviation boards and what they're saying about pilotless tubeliners.

[docfu]

ENO and Kaktus29 sum it up.

 

I don't feel as if I'm learning something new when I play DCS.

 

I feel like I'm keeping an important part of history alive...

[Vekkinho]

Due to sophisticated AA missiles, dog fighters won't need cannons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

:P

 

I remember someone thinking the same, they lost that war...

[javelina1]

I remember someone thinking the same, they lost that war...

 

exactly....

 

[GGTharos]

I remember someone thinking the same, they lost that war...

 

They didn't lose the air war.

[javelina1]

As they boost wattage, good luck avoiding this...

 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/how-the-army-s-recent-successful-laser-test-could-change-the-future-of-warfare-005259265.html

[javelina1]

They didn't lose the air war.

 

Won all the battles, but lost the War (on the home front).

 

True though, guns are still needed for A2A combat.

[danilop]

Well, when you fight goat herders or third class military / economy, technology really does look impressive.

 

But ...

 

History teaches us that those countries which could quickly mass produce more war machines and have strong will to fight, win the major wars against evenly matched or even technologically superior opponent.

 

In grand scheme of things technology is overrated, spamming opponent with huge numbers of cheap, simple and disposable units is not.

 

And there are always nukes which makes all this mega (air) war scenarios between major forces very unlikely indeed. :music_whistling:

Edited January 5, 2014 by danilop

[Bushmanni]

There are also historical examples of the opposite like Israel. The wars they fought are the historical example that the current tech and training emphasizing doctrine is based on. History is full of examples of properly trained and better equipped troops winning against seemingly more stronger and numerous opponents. Most western nations can't use Zerg rush strategy anyway because of political reasons so they need force multipliers to get results with less.

[danilop]

Partially true!

 

Israel is not overwhelmed and outnumbered by any means if you take in the account who the major ally is! More, economies and production capabilities of Israel opponents could not sustain prolonged losses inflicted by superior technology. And in the end, ongoing Middle East Crisis is very, very specific and sad one at that.

 

I didn't want to say that technology and training doesn't matter - it would be extremely silly thing to say, however, it is foolish to say that technology is the answer to all the questions as well.

 

War is chaotic by its very nature, so structured and mathematically precise thinking based solely on technological advantage doesn't work often.

Edited January 6, 2014 by danilop

[Kaktus29]

times of building your army once war starts are gone, WW2 was last such war that rebuilding your army while under severe attack was humanly possible, today with the tremendous damage modern air force that WINS the air war can inflict is soo huge that war is lost if you loose the air war.. you simply cannot put up resistance anymore after that..

 

to those who say nukes will prevent this major war to happen, well US is building ABM for exactly such reason.. to negate the nukes.. today Russia has 1200-1400 nukes, and 700 launch vehicles for them.. this number will keep droping while US ABM missiles will count in the hundreds if not thousands.. then a madmen in pentagon after playing with simulations in supercomputer world will say, "heck guys, we can take 'em, clean shot, first strike ability boys!" .. and just like that we are in a big load of trouble..

 

problem is, first strike can be soo devastating that there is no way to fight back.. Israel actually attacked first in the 1967 war and in 1973 war.. contrary to propaganda.. Israel ex-president and generals admit it themselves, Egypt was not ready and Syria was primary target, .. first strike that israel did was something akin to nazist on USSR when they demolished over 70 % of USSR airforce on the ground in one strike..

 

today, same thing... launch 10.000 cruise missiles, target airports, railroad, highway junction points, oil reserve depots, oil rigs, water purification and distribution systems, power-plants.. heck, you don't even need nukes to put out a country out of a fight.. after such a strike there is no fighting back (i'm talking in post-massive ABM installed world) ..

[PFunk1606688187]

problem is, first strike can be soo devastating that there is no way to fight back.. Israel actually attacked first in the 1967 war and in 1973 war..

 

Uhh, unless I'm missing something I thought the whole point of the Yom Kippur war was that the Israelis didn't attack first, nor were they even thinking it would happen.

 

Maybe I missed some revelation in the reevaluation of history.

 

If anything, 1973 shows us how ineffective a technologically superior force can be with a dysfunctional C2 faced with one of the oldest tactics in all of history - surprise.

 

Your tools are only so good as their ability to be turned to face and concentrate against the enemy in the appropriate moment and fashion. The Arab first strike was itself more effective than their general capability in a more predictable stand off scenario.

[Exorcet]

 

What you're saying has something truth to it but I think the wording is a little unfair as to what technology actually is. Building a cheaper, simpler paperclip is technology. More complexity does not imply that something is better, it's all about fitting the role that will help your side the most. You need to develop that technology if you want to win, and advantages in that kind of technology is almost certainly going to be advantageous.

[ENO]

Meh- you give a spoon to a ninja and a hand held rail gun with a death bringer 1000x scope to a potato and the winner is obvious- even if the potato is a crack shot.

 

Give an f35 to a pilot with an hour of flight time a month against a (name your "inferior" plane of choice") with a pilot that flies 30 hours per month and now we start to see balance. An f35 with an inexperienced pilot against 10 cheaper planes with well trained pilots... I dare say the tides have turned.

 

I think we can all agree that tech is worthless without training- and that tech can make training prohibitively expensive.

[Vedexent]

That is funny- what worries me is that pilots could be the next aspect of air warfare removed from the aircraft.

 

Why would this worry you? As far as aircraft performance is concerned, pilots are the weak point; you can push a fighter airframe much further than a pilot can survive, these days.

 

Now - removing a Human's control and oversight, that I can see being worried about.

 

Totally autonomous aircraft with weapon payloads is a recipe for disaster given the state of Artificial Stupidity - so that leaves us with remote operations, or remote oversite and large scale control with limited autonomy. The latter is how they control probes on different planets, given the speed-of-light control lag issues; give the platform high-level goals, and let the AI handle the execution: "Go to this crater. Get samples from this rock", "Fly to this zone. Identify targets with this profile. You have kill authorization on contact #4". This is about as far as I can see pushing this envelope.

 

And, as some have already pointed out, complex communication networks can be fragile.

 

However, there's nothing "magic" about having a human pilot on the platform; it all comes down to functionality. If a system can be put it place that performs better, works consistently, and is safe enough (that is, not more collateral and friendly casulties than one sees with Human pilots), then I don't see issues. And enough money is being thrown at this that I'm pretty sure this will happen.

 

Of course - it's not nearly as fun to simulate, so I'd probably not get a hypothetical DCS: UAV and keep my mostly manual Su-25 or MiG-21bis, thank you.

[PLP]

Well, when you fight goat herders or third class

In grand scheme of things technology is overrated, spamming opponent with huge numbers of cheap, simple and disposable units is not.

 

That is a good point; a back of the envelope calculation for aircraft prices (aircraftcompare.com) means that for 5 billion USD nowadays you get about:

 

- 36 F-22

- 25 JSFs (@200mil. piece, debatable)

- 74 F/A-18E

- 71 Typhoons

- 73 Rafales

- 81 Saab Gripen

- 106 F16s

- 138 strike eagles

- 250 A-10s

 

- 185 Mig-29s

- 156 Su-27UBKs

- 76 Su-35s

 

This is a very crude estimate (no fuel or maintenance costs, which would make these figures even more extreme.)

 

Still I believe if you have 156 Su-27s or 73 Rafales operating from stretches of straight roads disseminated in the countryside you could wage a much more efficient air war than if you have 36 F-22s. The F-22s probably would have a hard time ensuring a 24-hour air patrol (except if you are covering the area of switzerland...).

 

Plus if you take a head-to-head engagement between 30 F-22 and 150 sukhois, a number ratio of 5, the F-22s need a 62% missile success rate to shoot all sukhois down, but then would have no missiles left for bombers or whatever the sukhois were escorting, thus the risk of losing F-22s on the ground.

 

In general, I get the feeling that we are in an analogous situation as just before vietnam, when military thinkers though the age of dogfights over and did not see the use for a cannon in a fighter. See how that turned out. Why should it bee so different now?

 

As for totally autonomous drones, I do not think it is possible today to have a failsafe and efficient way of distinguishing friend and foe, meaning that some kind of targeting datalink will be needed.

[PFunk1606688187]

Now - removing a Human's control and oversight, that I can see being worried about.

 

Totally autonomous aircraft with weapon payloads is a recipe for disaster given the state of Artificial Stupidity....

 

Lord, can you imagine the friendly fire cover ups you could pull off with this?