Viv,
It is proven for strike that missiles are cheaper for longer ranged missions, while fighters are cheaper for medium and short ranged missions. While detailed studies are available, I’ll use the following rule of thumb calculation for supporting the above fact.
A 34500 kg Su-30MKI burns 9640 kg fuel to carry two R-27ER1 & two R-73E missiles (total 910 kg – 350 x 2 + 105 x 2), launch them at 1500 km and return home.
Source:
http://sukhoi.org/eng/planes/military/su30mk/lth/
The same payload of 900 kg can be delivered by two tomahawks weighing 1440 kg at 2500 km range. Some 1000 km more than the Sukhoi.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-109_Tomahawk
The results are evident. You burn more fuel and use expensive electronics carrying 34500 kg of aircraft than two 1440 kg missiles delivering the same amount of explosives.
The benefit of a fighter is flexibility – a plane in the air can multitask. A missile has a limited role.
That is why the entire Los Angeles, Ticonderoga with 122 VLS and Arleigh Burke class with 90 VLS were equipped with Tomahawk and the B-52 with AGM-86. They became primary strike force in the 90s rather than USAF and USN carrier based fighters that were used for medium/short ranged missions.
NRao,
I only get only this result when I use the quote button.
[quote]For heaven's sake please use the "quote' button. It is very hard reading your posts.[/quote]
Anyways, this is off topic here, I guess I need lessons - maybe in the newbie thread
it’s never too late to learn.
To close out this conversation, my PoV is that heavier munitions greatly decrease a fighter's primary advantage, namely flexibility and agility. Hence Brahmos on Sukhoi or Ra'ad on Mirage represents a risky experiment. Time will tell whether this experiment is successful or not, even though it does give some degree of strategic strike capabilities to nations like India and Pakistan that don’t have any strategic conventional strike platforms.
Lastly, Brahmos, Nirbhay, Babar or Ra'ad will never have nuclear warheads. The first one is short legged while last three are too slow for effective deterrence. In a deterrence mission, the longer it takes to strike, the more vulnerable the system is to interception. That is why aircraft based deterrence and subsonic cruise missile based deterrence is losing favour. That is why nuclear Tomahawks and AGM-129 ACM were decommissioned. Nuclear deterrence role will be handled by ballistic missiles – or hypersonic cruise missiles longer legged and with better payload than Brahmos.
