brar_w wrote:
So does he or does he not provide specific data on the said radars and their future iterations? I just want to be clear on that because I was under the impression that he did a proper evaluation of the radars with equal level of technical data on each. Data which he could have only gotten via access to the designers or operators or technical documents pertaining to these radars.
So is it now that he doesn't cite specific technical information but he infiltrated deep into both US and Russian radar manufacturers and was able to walk out with data that was classified and not only have that for his own knowledge but was able to use it in his publications. And I suppose we are jsut supposed to believe that he did all this without much proof of how much he was able to get his hands on despite even the developers of the radars not being allowed to reference technical details in their own primary definitive publications on the said radars. It must be really frustrating to not get permission to cite your life's work in your own publication on a sensor, or on the program but someone can just slip in get all those juicy details..do the same on Russian radars..and publish a blog post or article claiming to have everything required to do an objective analysis that can withstand scrutiny.
In reality however Kopp did neither. He used his knowledge and publicly available data to analyze to whatever degree he could given the limitations of what he had to play with. The publicly available data is very scant and thus he generally avoids going into hard and objective technical comparisons between very specific sensors based on real world data.
This is an interesting discussion but not even Kopp would claim to have all the information required to do an actual assessment and apples to apples comparison between various generations of Russian PESA radars and US AESA radars. Of course that comparison would subsequently move over to AESA on AESA now that the Russians will field the first Su-57 sometime later this year..but he never claimed he had the information to do a head for head.
It most certainly is especially when you do head to head comparisons which is wrapped around in a large blanket of assumptions and subjective assessments of attributed capability and how it is integrated and brought together as part of a system. That has evolved greatly from the early 1990's when the first prototypes of those sensors flew..same for both sides. But AESA radars and their capability have evolved by leaps and bounds. The F-15 AESA was demonstrating Electronic Attack on live emitters more than a decade ago. This was a capability that even the F-22/23/ATF's demonstrator radars didn't have and it was only subsequently architectured into the system after upgrading its T/R modules, processors and software. Things change and there is a lot of detail, on both sides, that you can't model unless you have access to hard data and technical details. But for the most part Kopp avoids those direct technical comparisons..
I have read almost all of his work and have even sat through a number of his presentations. None of that provides any level of technical data or even a direct sensor technical evaluation. He doesn't even claim to do that. I draw a distinction between his work that is published in peer reviewed publication and his work for the organization which basically accounted for advocacy that F-18E/F and F-35 were crap and only his modifications to F-111 and the F-22 could save Australia from a certain defeat. He even assumed in some that the Flankers could get a BVR first shot against the F-35 and that the F-35 will be " armed in an air superiority configuration with two AIM-120 Missile" (when it can carry 4 at baseline and designed for 6 in total)..of course all the while using dated and cherry picked Aviation Week sources for his radar estimates and not any official source.
Brar, at this point you are just doing the same stuff all over again.
Resorting to a ton of verbiage to account for the fact that you are yet to provide a simple parametric analysis of the AWG-71 vs APG-63. Unless you can do that, all the above is just helium. You claim his work is scant and he has scant data to go on, but you yourself can't or won't do an analysis of the kind that Kopp and his clan routinely do.
Again, if you think you know better than Kopp, please put up a parametric analysis of AWG-9/71 vs APG-63 to back up your claimed superiority of the latter vs the former, to back up or rebut what some USN guy or USAF guy said and then we can go from there.
Otherwise, its the same old same old - this guy said, he said, she said, seashells by the seashore.
This is hilarious - I am asking you to be more data driven. You keep getting more and more and more wordy in return.
Somebody asks you for a presentation which is less wordy and more numbers. You come back with a word doc converted to a PPT file.
So just say no - I can't do this parametric analysis to prove that the AWG-71 is inferior to the APG-63. Simple. Because if you could, you'd realize how absurd that initial claim of the USAF F-15 being superior to the F-14 vs fighters overall was, given the latter also went on to take considerable improvements and retained its power rating. Something a guy like Kopp can pick up right off the bat, but you didn't and missed the point.
For example. despite having better off the cuff radar range data on some of these radars, sourced from AvWeek, he continuous to attribute roughly 20% less performance to the F-22 AESA radars to what AvWeek itself has reported to have been a possibility. Even those print magazine source data are likely to have been heavily scrubbed and for public consumption, just like RCS comparisons to insects and marbles...etc... That is to say, he is using statements (as opposed to hard technical details) to attribute performance and even there he is cherry picking ones which make the point that F-18/F-35 are crap and APA's idea of a APA'ized F-111 and F-22 is the way to go. This goes on into the F-35 as well where it was assumed, by many until the mid to late 2000's, that the radar will have similar performance to the F-18E/F when the reality turned out that the sensor requirements were increased and that it sports a larger, more powerful radar. Yet his orgs analysis never updated that or reflected that new reality based on what is now publicly released information that has been corrected over time.
Forget what AvWeek said or he said, she said. Lets just go with the methodology. Use his methodology, create a parametric analysis of the AESA or MSAs and lets see what's wrong with Kopps approach.
Funny part is I don't even disagree that he shows the F/A-18 E/F and F-35 in a "bad light". What's even more amusing is what he thought was a "bad light" is also reluctantly admitted by him to be still solid performance.
You have to do it. Otherwise, its just he said, she said. And somewhere, you have to get your hands dirty bro. We can't just go on with 40,000 lines of text alone.
His journal published work and his stuff for APA are very separate things. Large elements of his organizations' work and analysis was strongly rebutted by the Australian operators who actually had access to classified data.
And the designers of those radars don't claim to provide details either in their own publications either. In fact, in their publication on the APG-77 back in the day, the designers steered well away from performance specs (wouldn't have gotten published otherwise). All they mentioned was the effort it took to get their, the concept of how the sensor was developed (CONOPS) and how they took a long hard look at the PESA vs AESA debate (as they had an advanced and functional PESA at the time of beginning this development) and chose to go all in into AESA radars instead of pushing the boundaries of PESA which would have been simpler technically and industrially. Pretty much everyone in the world did the same or plans to do the same.
And the part in bold is very very relevant. An AESA antenna flying in the early 1990's is very different to practically a clean sheet AESA radar coupled with an extensive ECS upgrade. This besides just a generational shift in T/R module tech that has occurred. The requirements shift and the demands from the sensor increase and the greater SwAP provisions allow you to do more with that sensor. How does he know what the requirements are going to be even before they are written?
Again, so many so many words.
If his work was so strongly rebutted why did the Aussie Govmt lean on him and his org so strongly to have him stop publishing his analyses? This reminds me of the hilarious "rebuttal" of the RAND study on the JSF by the two ex fighter guys by the JSF team which also coincidentally I am sure, let to both the chaps having to leave RAND. I am sure you will assure us in a 40k word post it was all legit and they were all barking up the wrong tree and LM had nothing to do with it. Nor did it have anything to do with Bill Sweetman leaving Av Week.
And why would you think somebody needs to "write requirements" to know what the state of the art is in any field and to which level it can be taken?
At this point..I can't even.. do you seriously think researchers in any field wait for "requirements" to determine competitor capabilities and lack the domain expertise to put 2+2 together in their respective fields and make informed estimates which they constantly iterate vs released data? Jeez man.
You say you sit through all fancy presentations. How can you not know this?!?
And that magically means that because it can do the mission..the USN must have put in the most capable sensor it could within the technical means of it and its industrial suppliers right? Because sensor trades, based on mission emphasis, are clearly not a thing..
Requirements matter a lot. There is a reason the F-35 packs a lot more t/r modules than the Rhino, or why the F-15 AESA packs more t/r modules than an F-16 (or pretty much anything that the west has built that is currently operational). Similarly, there is a difference in a minimally intrusive backfit (like what you see on the F-16 AESA modernization) and a substantially sensor capability enhancement like what you see on the F-15E/EX. That radar "technology" and performance is not comparable..the same between comparing an AN/APG-79 to an APG-82. One sensor is quite a bit smaller and therefore has its limitations for a given mission. Given they are of the same lineage, unless the smaller sensor somehow magically acquires a generational leap in technology it will never be optimal for that mission given the basic decision made during its design and platform. It will do the mission when asked to do but it is not a sensor that was born from some cutting edge Air to Air or OCA/DCA requirements. If it had, it would have resembled the sensor on the ATF/N-ATF because at that time that was what the bleeding edge was. Instead, the USN chose to dilute requirements, go for a smaller sensor, and provisioned requirements with affordability and cost/risk in mind. The AN/APG-79 is not the bleeding edge AESA in the US radar stable, even though by all accounts it is a fairly good performer. The AN/APG-77, AN/APG-82 and particularly the AN/APG-81 are what you will consider the top of the line in that family of radars, at least, when it comes to the relevant A2A performance and capability. And the fact that the USN has no F-22's or F-16's etc doesn't mean anything to this. They created the requirements balancing different competing priorities. The radar size, and the overall aircraft performance and capability reflects that trade off.
Again, 40000 words to basically admit that the F/A-18 E/F does OCA/DCA unlike what you originally claimed with such certitude.
And as you have rather reluctantly admitted the USN does not operate the F-15 EX or F-16 or F-22 it makes do with the F/A-18 E/F and has constantly added capabilities to it to do what the F-14 once did because till the F-35 comes it was the only game in town.
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In fact the OCA is entirely gone while DCA and fleet defense is much lower in demand given the end of the cold war. Same with its sensors and otherrequirements. It wasn't designed to be optimized for that mission. To see that "it has to be" as the USN "needs everything out if" is not very accurate. It can't replicate a larger sensor that is optimized for certain missions like those on the F-22 or F-35 or even the larger sensors on the F-15 etc. The F-18E/F is designed around a trade-space just like everything else and OCA/DCA mission-set is not very heavily weighted in that decision because the need to replace the F-14 with a similar platform was just not there.
