Newbie Corner & Military Miscellaneous

[shiv]

The extreme criticism that Indians face from other Indians seems to have made developers like the LCA team and the Arjun team ultra cautious. You can be damn sure that Arjun turret has been tested by being hit by every available projectile at every possible range. Our people are not really that stupid. Only we (the critics) think we are too clever by half.

At least some of this started when I was young. Everyone was "measured" by his "intelligence". People (including me) were praised to high heaven for doing well without studying, doing well by working hard, passing exam X, getting into college Y or going abroad. Those who did not meet the standard that I met were stupid. If I got into college Y after an entrance exam - everyone else was a moron. Only I was intelligent. If I went abroad, everyone who stayed behind was an idiot. This is how Indians are taught to relate to each other.

No wonder we are openly contemptuous towards everyone else. If I notice something that I have been taught is a fault (like idol worship before a test flight, tailplane instead of canard, blue instead of green) the Indians involved are complete idiots.

[Bala Vignesh]

Can gurulog enlighten me on how to access the image history in Google maps/Earth???

[jamwal]

Can someone please post the exact coordinates in PoK where Chinese construction is going on ? better still kmz of Google Maps?

[andy B]

Shiv sir, according to the table the Al khalid has better armor protection than the arjun. Could verify whether it is true???

Bala saan,

I had a look at the table and I am guessing your above comment is based on comparing the thickness of arjuns armour vs al pindi's

However a question that I would like to raise is, in todays world of composite sandwich armour shouldnt the question be what makes up the armour? rather than just looking at the thickness of the armour itself?

I mean the Kanchan armour as we all know now is made up of several different layers of materials that come together to form one complete layer. Now if the strength of these at a certain thickness is good enough to withstand hits from different projectiles as proved in the arjun tests, bhat is the need for the extra mm? and hence the extra width, length ityadi?

As against this do we know what sort of stuff makes up al pindi's armour? I can bet my 2 naya paisa that it wont be as radical as arjuns armour.

[shiv]

We keep on having discussions here about the number of AAMs an aircraft should carry. Of course it would be so nice if we could put aircraft carrying 8 or 10 missiles and 4 hour endurance on CAP every time. But things are not that easy.

Please note that when I say "things are not that easy" it does not mean that I am "against it" and that "shiv is an opponent of any aircraft that carries more than 2 missiles". I am not. I have stated my "How nice it would be" opinion in the first paragraph above this one. So let's not have those accusations coming after 2 weeks or one month as they tend to do.

I would like to start expressing my viewpoint by talking about what data points can be used (in science) to reach any decision. For example, in medicine it is practicable to screen a group of women of a particular range of ages for breast cancer. It is neither practicable nor desirable to do that for all women of all ages. This means that after screening tens of millions of women - some cancers will be missed - so the exercise will be at best a compromise which must be "adjusted" to be as effective as possible, even if it is not 100% effective. This adjusting is done by maintaining statistics of which women get cancers and then pinpointing the highest risk group for screening and leaving out the rest, accepting that some of the other will get cancers too and will not be detected early.

Another example is "How much ammunition should your soldier carry?" This decision is reached by having some statistics of how much ammunition is needed, versus how much the man can carry and how long his patrol will be. Naturally you cannot expect a man to carry 5,000 rounds of ammunition on an 8 hour patrol. But 10 rounds would be too little. So a compromise must be reached depending on various factors. For reaching that compromise you have to have prior knowledge of what particular patrol/combat scenarios are like so that the soldier is equipped with the best possible load for his jobs.

My Unkal Googal came up with these statistics for air combat (which is a keeper for me)
http://www.f-16.net/varia_article3.html

Since 1973, American and European (Western) made fighters have been engaged in air combat at least 154 times. Air battles have occurred from the Bekaa Valley and Gulf War to around the world during counter-guerrilla operations in Venezuela and Thailand. The Fighting Falcon has accumulated 72 air-to-air kills with no air-to-air losses except for one fratricide loss by the Pakistani Air Force when an AIM-9L switched-lock onto a wingman . Engagements and Kills were recorded throughout more than 30,000 world-wide air-to-air and air-to-ground combat sorties.

For western fighter on the overall, the 154 engagements resulted in at least 210 confirmed kills with two combat losses and four fratricides. Note that the 72 F-16 kills represents 47% of that number. The fourth fratricide just recently occurred between two Japanese F-15s when one downed his leader with an AIM-9L during a training mission. There were 23 x M-61 gun kills, 2 x 30mm gun kills, 45 x AIM-7 Sparrow kills from F-15, F-18, & F-14s, 3 x AIM-120 AMRAAM kills from the F-16 and 1 x unfortunate fratricide AIM-120 Kill by an F-15C on a Blackhawk Helicopter, and 127 x IR missile kills from all aircraft utilizing either AIM-9 Sidewinder, Magic 550, or Python missiles. There are 3 x AIM-54 Phoenix Kills recorded by the Iranian Air Fore F-14A's during the First Gulf War. There were also three kills from air-to-ground munitions (aircraft airborne) and one maneuvering suicide along with a bailout that was credited as a kill.

Look at the figures carefully:
30,000 sorties, 210 kills:

• This means that the likelihood of a kill per sortie is 210/30,000 i.e 0.7 percent

The meaning of that is that there is likely to be one kill after about 150 sorties. 149 will have no kills

25 gun kills: 12%
51 BVRAAM kills: 24%
127 Sidewinder class SRAAM kills: 60%
5 fratricides!! (2.4%)

Note that over 70% of all recorded kills in several decades of air combat have come from WVR engagement and SRAAMs. Not from BVRAAMs

With this kind of history of air combat how do you make the following decisions:

• What is the optimum number of missiles to be carried per sortie?
  What mix of WVR and BVRAAMs should you carry?

[manish.rastogi]

^^^even my thought after reading the article was bvraam has quite low kill rate than wvrs...weird!!

I think i havent got what exactly your question is but from what i had understood i feel 65:35 ratio of bvr:wvr missiles would be quite effective....why??...its because in current and future aircrafts stealth is coming as an imp factor...so bvr missiles has a brighter future....also for gaining stealth nowadays maneuverability is sacrificed to some extent which is an imp factor in wvr engagements...so somewhat aircraft designers has bvr combats in their mind for future...

Conclusion-get powerful radars,good enough stealth,and bvrs and you are good to go!!

[Bala Vignesh]

Manish,
The inverse ration would be the better one.. What with stealth the effective distance of your radar is reduced significantly to engage a long range threat.. Even if not so, the closure rate between 2 opposing parties would be very high, thus leading to a merge very quickly after initiating the engagement..
So in light of this, IMVHO, its better to carry a decent amount of 2 BVRAAM's for regular sorties.. the rest being the CCM's...
JMO..

[Gurneesh]

That 30,000 figure is for both a-a and a-g sorties. Looking at the type of threats that Western Fighters have had to face (very weak) only a small fraction of that 30,000 might actually be a-a. The rest might well be the bombing runs that are so prevalent after air dominance has been achieved.

I think combat a-a sorties are only 154, which would make sense as the opposition a/f would have been defeated within a day or two.

So, the kill per sortie (when engaging a-a) might actually be 210/154 = 1.36

This is important as after air dominance has been achieved one does not require too many a-a ordinance. But in a India - Pak or India - China war air dominance might take a week or so. Thus all the sorties in that period will have a very high chance of a-a engagement and subsequently the kill per sortie will be very high (which will ultimately lead to air dominance for one of the a/f).

BVR will play a very important role in modern conflicts. Earlier US planes faced enemies that had no BVR capabilities, thus they were comfortable to get closer and use their superior WVR missiles to good efffect. Same cannot be said if you know that the dude facing you also has BVR weapons, in which case one would want to his BVR missiles and kill the enemy first. Moreover, the lesser use of BVR might also have to do with the fact they are expensive and were also introduced later.

I think in future conflicts WVR will only be used as a backup.

IIRC some time ago, i read somewhere (i think it was on BR) that USAF advises use of 4 BVR missiles to get a 99% (?) kill chance or something of that sort. People were discussing about how useful BVR is i think. I have a faint memory of reading something like that .

[shiv]

Manish,
The inverse ratio would be the better one.. What with stealth the effective distance of your radar is reduced significantly to engage a long range threat.. Even if not so, the closure rate between 2 opposing parties would be very high, thus leading to a merge very quickly after initiating the engagement..
So in light of this, IMVHO, its better to carry a decent amount of 2 BVRAAM's for regular sorties.. the rest being the CCM's...
JMO..

Absolutely right IMO. If you cannot see a stealthy aircraft at long ranges how will you kill it BVR? If both sides have stealthy aircraft they will eventually end up being close to each other before being detected and SRAAMs will be more useful.

Of course an "ideal" missile would be one that is cheap and effective from 1000 meters to 150 km . So we would not have to talk about SRAAMs, MRAAMs and BVRAAMs as separate classes No such missile exists.

I would want a missile that works from 1 km to 75 km.

[manish.rastogi]

Manish,
The inverse ration would be the better one.. What with stealth the effective distance of your radar is reduced significantly to engage a long range threat.. Even if not so, the closure rate between 2 opposing parties would be very high, thus leading to a merge very quickly after initiating the engagement..
So in light of this, IMVHO, its better to carry a decent amount of 2 BVRAAM's for regular sorties.. the rest being the CCM's...
JMO..

bala,
what i meant was that with stealth gaining an imp factor any pilot would like to have a kill as soon as radar gets the other plane(that is Why i asked for powerful radar)....and shoot as many fighters as he could before his opponent gets a chance....

Ps-newbie pooch can bvr missiles be used in wvr range??

[shiv]

Ps-newbie pooch can bvr missiles be used in wvr range??

There are some missiles that can work from something like 5 km to 80 km. The AMRAAM is one of them. There was a Vayu article on modern AAMs and a link to that article exists somewhere on the forum. I will post it here when I find it.

[manish.rastogi]

sure...thanks!!also i want to read about different bands of radars and their uses....like X band L band etc....if you could then please point to some article or anything!!

[Arya Sumantra]

Look at the figures carefully:
30,000 sorties, 210 kills:

• This means that the likelihood of a kill per sortie is 210/30,000 i.e 0.7 percent

The meaning of that is that there is likely to be one kill after about 150 sorties. 149 will have no kills

That would be a misinterpretation. Any AF would continue the policing sorties even after attaining air-dominance over a territory. The number of sorties here is total number of all the sorties. As the number of sorties increase, after establishment of air-dominance, the effective sorties involving enemy engagement with any tech(bvraam here) become lesser and lesser as a proportion. Unfortunately, there is no way to segregate statistics of sorties till air-dominance is achieved from sorties post air-dominance achievement in the overall stats.

Secondly, some effect(low hostile engagement numbers) itself is achieved because of such high sorties rates by rival planes equipped with bvraams. Enemy is less prone to challenge a superior equipped rival. You cannot say that since something was less used it was less effective. On the contrary, it was probably its presence(bvraams) that worked as a deterrence reducing the number of hostile engagements. If you do not carry enough of what it takes to be taken seriously by others then why will you be taken seriously ?

If there is a watchman whose night time patrolling of streets has led to his nabbing of one thief in last 5 years and subsequently there aren’t any burglaries in that neighbourhood for next 5 years then (1) statistically his record- thieves nabbed per patrol in 10 years will deteriorate compared to that after initial 5 years !!! (2) It is perhaps because of his patrolling that no burglar ventures into the neighbourhood in next 5 years but statistics of no theft could be used to argue that watchmen is redundant and unnecessary !!!

Note that over 70% of all recorded kills in several decades of air combat have come from WVR engagement and SRAAMs. Not from BVRAAMs

With this kind of history of air combat how do you make the following decisions:

Unkil knew that enemy did not have bvr capability so it is likely that unkil’s pilots did not use their bvr because (1) they wanted to confirm better and avoid chances of friendly fire. Besides Identification Friend or Foe(IFF) may not have been fully implemented/well developed at that time (2) they wanted to improve their chances of enemy hit at closer distances perhaps due to better accuracy of wvraams as compared to bvraams during those years.

Such asymmetry of bvraams capability will not be there in any indo-bak conflict and bvraams will constitute the first interaction between the two sides' air engagement.

An issue with statistics of past will always be the underplaying of role of newer tech because at that time a particular tech might be still under evolution. But that does not mean the newer tech is less effective/necessary.

[shiv]

An issue with statistics of past will always be the underplaying of role of newer tech because at that time a particular tech might be still under evolution. But that does not mean the newer tech is less effective/necessary.

So there is a dilemma. The past hangs heavily on the future whether anyone likes it or not.

"Newer tech" is often clouded by the requirement for sales to be made and a lot of hype is associated with that. The "past" however offers definite data points about what works and what does not work. Conjuring up future scenarios that take no account of the past is pulp fiction at best, or else it is delusional.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could point me to any reference that says exactly how many missiles and of what type were carried by US F-16s in tens (or hundreds) of thousands of hours of CAP in the last 20 years?

The biggest error in my assessment above is that I have considered all air kills but have put flying hours as merely 30,000 when actually the total number of operational flying hours is in hundreds of thousands. For example the IAF will never openly say how many times fighters were scrambled in 2010 for CAP or for what seemed to be a threat. Nobody does that. We only hear scraps of news about what was done for CWG or when some aircraft overflew India without permission. How may aircraft were shot down by the IAF in 2010?

With zero kills and probably hundreds of sorties and thousands of hours of flying, using up fuel and airframe life, how many missiles would be the appropriate number to carry per CAP sortie? Nobody will give you answers. Every armchair marshal and his uncle want to see 8, 10 or 12 missiles per sortie. And mostly BVRAAMs

And I would be deeply grateful if people who read my post did not misinterpret the meaning as "shiv does not want normal peacetime armed air patrols because no aircraft are shot down"

[Dmurphy]

n00b question alert. Here's a screenshot from an upcoming movie:




I'm curious about that thing in the right corner. Does the missile blast mid way to disintegrate and create multiple projectiles before impact and form concentric circles of smoke? Which missile would it be?

[Gurneesh]

An issue with statistics of past will always be the underplaying of role of newer tech because at that time a particular tech might be still under evolution. But that does not mean the newer tech is less effective/necessary.

So there is a dilemma. The past hangs heavily on the future whether anyone likes it or not.

"Newer tech" is often clouded by the requirement for sales to be made and a lot of hype is associated with that. The "past" however offers definite data points about what works and what does not work. Conjuring up future scenarios that take no account of the past is pulp fiction at best, or else it is delusional.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could point me to any reference that says exactly how many missiles and of what type were carried by US F-16s in tens (or hundreds) of thousands of hours of CAP in the last 20 years?

The biggest error in my assessment above is that I have considered all air kills but have put flying hours as merely 30,000 when actually the total number of operational flying hours is in hundreds of thousands. For example the IAF will never openly say how many times fighters were scrambled in 2010 for CAP or for what seemed to be a threat. Nobody does that. We only hear scraps of news about what was done for CWG or when some aircraft overflew India without permission. How may aircraft were shot down by the IAF in 2010?

With zero kills and probably hundreds of sorties and thousands of hours of flying, using up fuel and airframe life, how many missiles would be the appropriate number to carry per CAP sortie? Nobody will give you answers. Every armchair marshal and his uncle want to see 8, 10 or 12 missiles per sortie. And mostly BVRAAMs

And I would be deeply grateful if people who read my post did not misinterpret the meaning as "shiv does not want normal peacetime armed air patrols because no aircraft are shot down"

Well of course, during peacetime most of the threats might actually be a lone fighter trying to misbehave. So, a couple of BVR missiles would be enough. Or even without any BVR missiles just radar lock should scare such parties back to their territory (just like what happened in kargil).

So, while a majority of times the fighters would carry very small amount of ordinance but the fighters should be capable of carrying more ordinance as in a war, the scenario changes and a single plane might have to engage a number of enemy planes (specially when our planes are superior and can kill more than one in a sortie).

What i am saying is that scenarios and requirements in peacetime and war are so lopsided that one cannot have a strategy which takes into account both and we have to use the worst case scenario (i.e. war) to ensure operational readiness.

[shiv]

So, while a majority of times the fighters would carry very small amount of ordinance but the fighters should be capable of carrying more ordinance as in a war, the scenario changes and a single plane might have to engage a number of enemy planes (specially when our planes are superior and can kill more than one in a sortie).

Clearly it would be wrong to get your pilots to carry only 2 missiles in peacetime alerts and then suddenly tell them to carry 6 missiles or 8 missiles in wartime with the consequent radar, range and maneuverability penalties.

That only means that in peacetime - or at a time of no increased alert - all training is for wartime scenarios with heavier practice loads. But the real peacetime alerts could be dealt with fewer missiles per sortie (only two, for example).

That still leaves us with two questions:
1) (I have already asked this question once before): How many aircraft would be appropriate for a wartime CAP to protect an air base, and how many missiles per aircraft would be most appropriate. Heavy (more missiles) means less agile, less stealthy and less time in the air. Light means the opposite but fewer missiles.

2) What mix of BVR and SRAAMs would be appropriate?

[manish.rastogi]

Clearly it would be wrong to get your pilots to carry only 2 missiles in peacetime alerts and then suddenly tell them to carry 6 missiles or 8 missiles in wartime with the consequent radar, range and maneuverability penalties.

That only means that in peacetime - or at a time of no increased alert - all training is for wartime scenarios with heavier practice loads. But the real peacetime alerts could be dealt with fewer missiles per sortie (only two, for example).

That still leaves us with two questions:
1) (I have already asked this question once before): How many aircraft would be appropriate for a wartime CAP to protect an air base, and how many missiles per aircraft would be most appropriate. Heavy (more missiles) means less agile, less stealthy and less time in the air. Light means the opposite but fewer missiles.
a)For Peacetime:
I would just reply to the no. of missiles part that is 4!!!I am not at all sure about the no of aircrafts to be flown!!!
b)For wartime:
I would say 2 aircrafts would be good enough....each carrying on 6 or 4 pylons considering the threat at that point.....one of the aircraft should carry 3 or 5 missiles with an EW pod and the other one should have full fledged load of 4 to 6 missiles!!!

2) What mix of BVR and SRAAMs would be appropriate?

a)Peacetime:
I guess 2 BVR and 2 SRAAMs seems reasonable....or 1 BVR and 3 SRAAM....why??
for 2:2 ratio my argument would be that we are keeping things balanced...the penalties wouldnt be too much and also the pilot would be able to handle things for quite some time till other fighters could be scrambled!!!
Now for 1:3 ratio scenario my argument would be that in a normal peactime sortie.....any attack would be allowed to made most likely only after the people are sure that the intruding aircraft is a threat...so the pilot would have to get quite close....so it would be better if he has 3 SRAAMs to counter the threat when he gets close to enemy and then he attacks!!!
b)Wartime:
For 4 missiles get a 3:1 ratio of BVR:SRAAM and for 6 get a 4:2 ratio of BVR:SRAAM....argument here would be that during wartime it is most likely that they would give shootdown orders soon as they have some info....so the pilot will use his BVRs and then he could take on with his SRAAMs meanwhile other planes coulsd be scrambled according to the situation.(about this one...i am sceptic on my views)

[shiv]

Ps-newbie pooch can bvr missiles be used in wvr range??

There are some missiles that can work from something like 5 km to 80 km. The AMRAAM is one of them. There was a Vayu article on modern AAMs and a link to that article exists somewhere on the forum. I will post it here when I find it.

Here is the link
http://www.vayuaerospace.in/images1/M-M ... ssiles.pdf

[Arya Sumantra]

With zero kills and probably hundreds of sorties and thousands of hours of flying, using up fuel and airframe life, how many missiles would be the appropriate number to carry per CAP sortie?

Why use a wrong analogy? Actionless sorties were there in uncle-eeraq conflict because uncle had total air dominance. The same asymmetry between uncle and eeraq will not be present in standoff between yindia and its neighbours. Nearly one in few sorties will be action packed. You would either knock out enemy or get knocked down.

With zero kills and probably hundreds of sorties and thousands of hours of flying, using up fuel and airframe life, how many missiles would be the appropriate number to carry per CAP sortie?

The point raised here is about the maximum that you are able to carry and not how many to carry on a regular basis. You can always carry your 2 aams on a plane meant to carry 6 but not vice-versa. But your point is simply not to build the ABILITY TO carry 6 and have NO provisions for emergency ! This is unreasonable. 10 or 12 aams/plane are just extreme examples being talked to make an idea appear easily unacceptable.

Both the neighbours are building up numbers, one with jf17 bandar and other with j10 and j11s. To handle any swarm that raids an AFB, we would need the right product, Fighters x Missiles per fighter. The interplay between jaichands in AF using order quantity and jaichands in hal/babudom using production rate will ensure that total number of Tejas in service will be small when needed the most. So naturally we will have to boost missiles per fighter.

how many missiles per aircraft would be most appropriate.

Ability to carry max 6 aams perhaps upto 8 possible on MK2 (if additional 2 are sraams),we don’t know(for MK2)

Heavy (more missiles) means less agile, less stealthy and less time in the air. Light means the opposite but fewer missiles

For defensive roles the range reduction may not be a problem as you are always close by to your afb. Secondly you are not in the territory of enemy SAMs so maneuverability wise also you may not be affected as much.

2) What mix of BVR and SRAAMs would be appropriate?

Let’s agree on more aams per plane. More bvraams means you become lighter early on after disposing them and more sraams means you remain heavy till later. If the T:W is on lower side would lug more bvraams than sraams so that by the time for wvr you have already shed weight. In the offensive role due to sams you need to shed weight much before wvr but when defending you could remain heavy upto wvr.

One could always lug sraams on bvraam pylon but not vice versa. Ability to carry upto 4 bvraams in addition to 2 sraams should be fine. Actual ratios used could be left to local authority to decide based on specific local situation.

[shiv]

Let’s agree on more aams per plane.

Saar - I am not looking for compromise. I am looking for the pros and cons of options and am not wantonly ruling out anything as wrong or not feasible. You might want to do that - but that is your choice. Not mine.

A plane close to its air base but with more missiles will still have a shorter loiter time. 4 aircraft carrying 4 missiles each will be more agile and have greater ability to loiter than 2 aircraft (of the same type) carrying 8 missiles each, and those four aircraft will require more resources to shoot down than two heavily laden aircraft. To me it would seem like a far better idea to have more aircraft with fewer missiles rather than a few heavily armed aircraft that are less agile for the weight they carry and whose ability to loiter on patrol would be shorter. I can see that you disagree but I would rather agree to disagree.

I have even more reasons to disagree with your contention. Of course my reasons are irrelevant if you choose to ignore the experience and insight of history. The history of air combat kills shows that by far the greatest number of air to air kills has been achieved by pilots/aircraft getting one single kill per engagement and not Alam type multiple kills. If you look at the total number of aircraft ever shot down in air combat and the total number of aircraft shot down by people who got multiple kills, you find that by far the largest number of kills has been by single pilots getting single kills.

The probability of an individual pilot getting just one kill ever or one kill in an engagement is far higher than the probability of a pilot getting multiple kills. For this reason - equipping a pilot to take out two aircraft at most (say 4 missiles and a gun) would cover almost any conceivable air combat scenario rather than equipping a pilot to take out 6 or 8 enemy aircraft.

It was only in world war 1 and 2 that there were "swarms" of aircraft. That is a scenario out of storybooks and is a crystal clear flouting of historic fact which I am loath to do. Supersonic capable aircraft have never tangled in swarms and the possibility of tangling in swarms is remote because of the speeds. Attacking in a swarm is an invitation to be taken out BVR. Only a moronic air force would do that. We're not facing any of those. As a corollary arming a fighter with 10 or 12 missiles hoping to find a swarm to shoot down is creating a sitting duck to be taken out. And finally, if two swarms of opposing aircraft were to tangle. IFF is impossible and BVRAAMs become useless.

I think this whole idea of a "swarm" or aircraft being taken out by a few aircraft with a lot of missiles is a scene right out of cold war storybooks where it was expected that a Europe would be over run by Soviet tanks supported by a swarm of cheap Soviet jet fighters which would have to be taken down at long range by American fighters carrying loadsa missiles. Very conveniently the Chinese build up of a humongous junk air force reinforced the American story-writers idea that air forces would be stupid enough to do that. Noting in the history of air combat suggests that this scenario is in any way realistic.

[nachiket]

A plane close to its air base but with more missiles will still have a shorter loiter time. 4 aircraft carrying 4 missiles each will be more agile and have greater ability to loiter than 2 aircraft (of the same type) carrying 8 missiles each, and those four aircraft will require more resources to shoot down than two heavily laden aircraft. To me it would seem like a far better idea to have more aircraft with fewer missiles rather than a few heavily armed aircraft that are less agile for the weight they carry and whose ability to loiter on patrol would be shorter. I can see that you disagree but I would rather agree to disagree.
...

Shiv ji, unfortunately there is every chance that the IAF may be outnumbered in the northeastern theater by the PLAAF in any future war unless the IAF actually manages to reach the elusive 44 squadron figure. In this scenario, you just may not have four aircraft to spare and might have to do with two aircraft covering a particular area. In this case your logic falls flat. What Arya Sumantra is trying to say is that it is better to have the capability and not use it than not having it at all because you never know when the situation may change and those two extra missiles start looking mighty attractive.

[Gurneesh]

Probably a stupid question...
Hypothetically speaking, if there is a Indo-Pak conflict where our forces actually cross the border. Will PAF try and throw all it has and hope that international pressure stalls things soon enough. Or will they actually try and not loose all their fighters within the first week of war even if it means ceding air superiority over some of their area as this will enable them to provide some semblance of air cover even in the later stages of a conflict.

[shiv]

What Arya Sumantra is trying to say is that it is better to have the capability and not use it than not having it at all because you never know when the situation may change and those two extra missiles start looking mighty attractive.

Now please point out to where I have said that the capability is not required?
Frankly I see nothing in your post that makes me change my view.

All I am saying is that the capability to carry 8 or 12 missiles needs to be seen in its proper context. If one is unable to see the context in which that carrying capacity is useful - it can end up being a liability. That overloaded aircraft with multiple missiles will handle like a brick and get knocked out by the first dingdong BVRAAM from China.

The biggest utility of multiple missiles IMO will be in a scenario of mixed defenders - maybe 2 lightly armed (4 AAMs - 2 BVR - 2 SRAAM) MiG 21s or Tejas with two Su-30s with 8 missiles (4 BVR 4 SRAAM) lurking 50 to 100 km away. This can easily be rendered ineffective by trying to put 8 missiles on the MiG 21 or Tejas and 16 on the Su 30 using multiple launcher racks because the weight penalty makes both aircraft perform suboptimally both in terms of endurance and agility.

[shiv]

Probably a stupid question...
Hypothetically speaking, if there is a Indo-Pak conflict where our forces actually cross the border. Will PAF try and throw all it has and hope that international pressure stalls things soon enough. Or will they actually try and not loose all their fighters within the first week of war even if it means ceding air superiority over some of their area as this will enable them to provide some semblance of air cover even in the later stages of a conflict.

They have never thrown all they have at us in the past. But we have to assume that they will. Not preparing for that would be fatal.

[Arya Sumantra]

4 aircraft carrying 4 missiles each will be more agile and have greater ability to loiter than 2 aircraft (of the same type) carrying 8 missiles each, and those four aircraft will require more resources to shoot down than two heavily laden aircraft. To me it would seem like a far better idea to have more aircraft with fewer missiles rather than a few heavily armed aircraft that are less agile for the weight they carry and whose ability to loiter on patrol would be shorter.

Wrong analogy. The number of fighters(4) should be same in both cases because we will be using the max available with us against outnumbering enemy on 2 fronts. So it is 4 fighters with 4 aams or 4 fighters loaded with 6 aams as a last resort against superior numbers.

Ofcourse it would be better to have as many fighters as possible so that you distribute less on each to keep them nimble but once you have maxed out on fighters next you could do is put on more bvraams firing which your fighters become nimble once again

It is better to leave it to mission planner or local command to assess situation and risk and accordingly load rather than putting a restrictive upper limit

If you look at the total number of aircraft ever shot down in air combat and the total number of aircraft shot down by people who got multiple kills, you find that by far the largest number of kills has been by single pilots getting single kills.

World over the AFs must be stupid then to sport medium and heavy fighters with more pylons then ! They should all have only light fighters !

Either you accept that one can kill many and thus reason out not to join numbers game OR as you said single pilot gets single kills and match upto their numbers with your own massive numbers. Take your pick.

Very conveniently the Chinese build up of a humongous junk air force reinforced the American story-writers idea that air forces would be stupid enough to do that. Noting in the history of air combat suggests that this scenario is in any way realistic

So whatever planes they have extra over and above our strength will just sit idle and gather dust in the event of conflict ? Are we in the age of Mahabharata that one fighter must fight with one and others sit idle?

As a corollary arming a fighter with 10 or 12 missiles hoping to find a swarm to shoot down is creating a sitting duck to be taken out.

As I said before, 10 or 12 aams/plane are just extreme examples being talked to make an idea appear easily unacceptable. For the sake of discussion here can we stick to 6 aams ?

What Arya Sumantra is trying to say is that it is better to have the capability and not use it than not having it at all because you never know when the situation may change and those two extra missiles start looking mighty attractive.

Now please point out to where I have said that the capability is not required?

Of course, that’s what your suggestion is. All this “find my statement” is just legalese. When the multiple ejector pylon is being discussed here, a specific scenario or an irrelevant how you would normally carry around 2 aams is put forward when it is the maximum carrying ability that is being discussed. Since it has been dodged again and again and again, I repeat

The point raised here is about the maximum that you are able to carry and not how many to carry on a regular basis. You can always carry your 2 aams on a plane meant to carry 6 but not vice-versa. But your point is simply not to build the ability to carry 6 and have NO provisions for emergency ! This is unreasonable. 10 or 12 aams/plane are just extreme examples being talked to make an idea appear easily unacceptable.

[shiv]

It is better to leave it to mission planner or local command to assess situation and risk and accordingly load rather than putting a restrictive upper limit

agreed. That may mean less than 6 missiles. Have you managed to find out how many missiles per sortie were carried on average for NATO/US CAP? That should shut me up good and proper if you can quote from somewhere.

World over the AFs must be stupid then to sport medium and heavy fighters with more pylons then ! They should all have only light fighters !

Your words not mine. If you can quote the number on average carried by F-14s, F-15s, F-16s and F/A 18s on CAP that would give us both a better idea of what is actually being done by people whose planes can carry at least 6 missiles.

Either you accept that one can kill many and thus reason out not to join numbers game OR as you said single pilot gets single kills and match upto their numbers with your own massive numbers. Take your pick.

Reasoning is no substitute for the hard reality that history forces down one's throat. It is mostly one kill per mission. At the most 2. Even with fighters with the capacity to carry 6 or more missiles. No sidestepping reality.

As I said before, 10 or 12 aams/plane are just extreme examples being talked to make an idea appear easily unacceptable. For the sake of discussion here can we stick to 6 aams ?

If we are going to stick to 6 AAM - what aircraft are you talking about. MiG 21? Tejas? Su-30? JF-17? J-10? F-16? Mirage 2000? F/A 18? There is no escape from power and weight restrictions.

But your point is simply not to build the ability to carry 6 and have NO provisions for emergency ! This is unreasonable.

Bogey. No point wasting time on things I have not said.

[shiv]

Here are photographs relevant to the question of missiles carried on a CAP sortie.

http://www.f-16.net/gallery_item26833.html

http://www.defense.gov/photos/newsphoto ... otoid=2097

http://www.177fw.ang.af.mil/shared/medi ... 0F-039.JPG
Image caption

A US Air Force (USAF) F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft, 177th Fighter Wing (FW), Atlantic City International Airport, New Jersey (NJ), drops away above the USA from a USAF KC-135R Stratotanker, 157th Air Refueling Wing (ARW), Pease Air National Guard Base (ANGB), New Hampshire (NH) after being refueled. This is a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) tanker mission in support of Operation NOBLE EAGLE. The F-16 is armed with AIM-120A Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) on the wingtips and AIM-9 Sidewinder Missiles on the outboard pylons. In addition, it has two 370-gallon External Fuel Tanks for long loitering flight time. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Dawn Finniss)

F-15s on CAP on this page
http://sharpshooter-maj.com/html/port02.htm

F-14 on CAP
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3252/296 ... 49de_b.jpg
caption:

underside view of a Fighter Squadron 41 (VF-41) F-14A Tomcat aircraft on a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) during Operation Desert Storm gulf war. The aircraft is carrying four AIM-7 Sparrow missiles under its fuselage and two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles on each wing pylon.

After much searching I found only a few images of aircraft on pure CAP sortie - mostly with 4 or 6 missiles - all in aircraft capable of carrying more even without multiple missile launcher pylons. I wonder why. Are the world's air forces stupid? Not really. It makes sense to carry more fuel in drop tanks and drop them for combat, keeping your plane light and agile rather than hyper arming them with AAM like what is done for propaganda photos.

Lots of photos of aircraft on strike missions carrying self defence AAMs.

[negi]

I think for a buyer's(until now) Air Force like ours the size of the inventory might be a factor as well i.e. number of missiles of a particular type, it's shelf life and the life on a pylon might govern the loadout of an AC during peacetime (anyways afaik most of the times they use training rounds).

[manish.rastogi]

Okay.....my replies might be naive but I would really appreciate if seniors reply to it....how else am I supposed to learn????

[Bala Vignesh]

Shiv Sir,
This article echoes your sentiment to some extent. It was published in the vayu some time back.
Preparing For Armageddon

[Arya Sumantra]

Have you managed to find out how many missiles per sortie were carried on average for NATO/US CAP?

What for? Let’s see the hole in the history you are deriving parallels from. Uncle and nato braced themselves for numbers game in standoff against russkie and (now)dragon fighters. BUT they end up fighting against tiny nobodies(in airpower at least) like Iraq and yugoslavia fielding even russkie fighters in small numbers and not even flying them. How many fighters did Iraq fly against khan? And faced with such diminished threat when they fly with lower aam payload for better agility in offensive role, you bring their images of usual payload and post them as history that will repeat itself on sub-continent in completely different situation !!!

Uncle prepared for but NEVER fought (russkies and dragon) playing numbers game. So all your posted images of their usual payload are inapplicable to local scenario. And, are you unable to see the asymmetry both in numbers and technology in the history you cite and our situation on 2 fronts? Does such asymmetry exist here?

History teaches us lessons PROVIDED the conditions are SAME.

As I said before, nearly one in few sorties will be action packed. You would either knock out enemy or get knocked down.

If we are going to stick to 6 AAM - what aircraft are you talking about. MiG 21? Tejas? Su-30? JF-17? J-10? F-16? Mirage 2000? F/A 18? There is no escape from power and weight restrictions.

Tejas. Take a look at max aam capability of gripen, eff-solah, Mirage 2000- similar single enginned fighters with similar restrictions in Wikipedia. For jf17 and j10 the numbers are not listed. Gripen: 6× Rb.74 (AIM-9) or Rb 98 (IRIS-T), eff-solah: 2× AIM-7 Sparrow or 6× AIM-9 Sidewinder or 6× IRIS-T or 6× AIM-120 AMRAAM or 6× Python-4, Mirage 2000: 6× MBDA MICA IR/RF, 2× Matra R550 Magic-II and 2× Matra Super 530D

Of course I would love to see far more numbers of Tejas each fielding fewer than max for better agility but I am aware that such numbers will not be allowed by vested folks to be in place in times it is needed the most due to interplay of order size and production rate.

It makes sense to carry more fuel in drop tanks and drop them for combat, keeping your plane light and agile rather than hyper arming them with AAM like what is done for propaganda photos.

Ofcourse, but that is possible when you have more numbers of fighters each of which could carry fewer aams on and keep them agile. but once all your available fighters are busy and mission rate is max, what is the next step?
Secondly agility is not a constant but after firing bvraams your fighters become nimble once again. For defense this works fine as there are no enemy SAMs in your territory to worry about.

Either you accept that one can kill many and thus reason out not to join numbers game OR as you said single pilot gets single kills and match upto their numbers with your own massive numbers. Take your pick.

Reasoning is no substitute for the hard reality that history forces down one's throat. It is mostly one kill per mission. At the most 2. Even with fighters with the capacity to carry 6 or more missiles. No sidestepping reality.

Since you believe it is one kill per mission, are you able to execute mission rates several multiples of that of rivals in the same time frame to knock out superior numbers ? And they are going to wait and come in appropriate batch sizes and suitable arrival rate to give you time to fly down and replenish another 2 aams for next sortie !!

Numbers game you start railing out against
then
Missiles per plane we know your stand
then
Mission rates or sortie rate possible- I am assuming equal or ours may be marginally better not much. Availability should depend on maintenance, spares inventory, condition etc.

So unless you believe our sortie rates can be multiples of that of our rivals, what madarsa balance are you using ? to counterbalance the force projected on us.

Lots of photos of aircraft on strike missions carrying self defence AAMs.

Tejas is “multi-role” and will do everything that a similar config Gripen or eff-solah(if bought) as an mrca is expected to do. Don’t understand your obsession with CAP simply because it will replace Mig21s(relic from era of role specific fighters)

I think for a buyer's(until now) Air Force like ours the size of the inventory might be a factor as well i.e. number of missiles of a particular type, it's shelf life and the life on a pylon might govern the loadout of an AC during peacetime (anyways afaik most of the times they use training rounds).

Negiji, conflicts are expensive. You have to spend more on either the fighters or on aams or both. Enemy is not knocked out by simply taking to air in a plane you think superior(one on one). That’s why astra is so important and for numbers Tejas so that whatever we spend goes into our economy, creates our expertise and above all saves forex in wartime exchange rates which will be unfavourable to us. But extortionists will see to it that they deprive us of affordable homegrown options by playing the order size-production rate game.

[abhishek-nayak]

HI I AM ABHISHEK .I joined BR today

[shiv]

Since you believe it is one kill per mission, are you able to execute mission rates several multiples of that of rivals in the same time frame to knock out superior numbers ? And they are going to wait and come in appropriate batch sizes and suitable arrival rate to give you time to fly down and replenish another 2 aams for next sortie !!

Numbers game you start railing out against
then
Missiles per plane we know your stand
then
Mission rates or sortie rate possible- I am assuming equal or ours may be marginally better not much. Availability should depend on maintenance, spares inventory, condition etc.

So unless you believe our sortie rates can be multiples of that of our rivals, what madarsa balance are you using ? to counterbalance the force projected on us.

We are not going to agree. I have already stated my skepticism about your "load every aircraft with as many missiles as possible and to hell with range and agility" concept.

Since the only new information you are able to bring on board is a query about my alma mater which you believe is a madarsa, the weight and validity of your argument has not changed but its direction has veered off topic. I will stop here unless you can think of something more credible that what you have heroically managed to muster so far. Sorry sir. Feeble, but not unexpected.

[vivek_ahuja]

Just a thought...

"Victory will smile upon those who anticipate changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after changes occur."

---General Giulio Douhet
‘The Command of the Air’, 1921

[Bala Vignesh]

^^ have read that somewhere but not sure where...

[Dmurphy]

Cross posting from Indian Navy thread

the shallow green waters of andaman sea and south china sea are not really suitable for larger SSNs.

This stirs up a stupid sounding query in my mind. Say its war time, and China sends a large SSN in our waters and gets grounded in those shallow Andaman waters and our P8s detect it and ask them to surrender. If the chinkis refuse, is it wise to bomb the SSN out considering they're in our waters and it would be detrimental to our environment and populace if anything happens to the reactor inside the SSN?

I'd have a similar query about a nuclear bomber like B1 lancer flying over our territory? Would it be wise to shoot it down?

[Arya Sumantra]

Since the only new information you are able to bring on board is a query about my alma mater which you believe is a madarsa, the weight and validity of your argument has not changed but its direction has veered off topic.

Nope, not referring to your alma mater, rather a balance operating on madarsa logic.
But anyways agree to disagree.

[suryag]

A very touching video on tarmak. Great work by AVM Lamba(who is 75) and AK
http://tarmak007.blogspot.com/2011/01/b ... ms-up.html

[negi]

Dmurphy I think the navies do map the sea bed (something which submarines and other oceanographic vessels do during peacetime), also when we say not suitable for SSN I am not clear as to what it implies , for instance average depth of Bay of Bengal is over 2600 meters(wiki) which is about 5 times the depth a SSN can dive upto. Having said that yes operation in littoral waters comes with a risk of higher chances of being detected as against operating in midst of Indian ocean.