twelveparsex
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People keep talking about how survivable the A-10 is yet forget that it was the most shot down plane during the first gulf war
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Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Is Ready For Combat
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People keep talking about how survivable the A-10 is yet forget that it was the most shot down plane during the first gulf war
Not just the released versions, the testing ones and upgrades too though. Why include those? Because it effects development costs and time. The Bradley was notable for having major multiple budget over runs and an incredibly long development time for a reason. "Excellent service" is a bit satirical at best, they pack a lot of fire power but can't transport many troops (supposed to be a troop carrier not a light tank!), they're known for being difficult to maintain and quite a lot of them got destroyed by IED's in Iraq (over 100) despite the extra armor.
The only reason fatalities weren't high is because crews were trained to bail out ASAP. Oh and they're damn expensive on top of that. Not much to be impressed about since anyone can make a expensive, under armored, and problematic light tank, er, I mean troop transport. Its a well known epitome of the 'does everything but won't do it well' design philosophy.
Hahaha that guy is a military historian, of course he will nit pick! And yes since he helped make the Bradley what it is today he deserves more than a little mocking.
Both the Bradley and F35 (F22 while we're at it) have missed major development milestones and have shot waaaaaay over budget. There is a huge amount of stuff to criticize here in their development and any attempt to downplay those issues is facetious at best.
Yup. The A10 only has good armor in a few spots. Outside of them it gets holed about as easily as any other modern-ish fighter and the proliferation of MANPADS like the SA18 means that plane has to go. Its just too slow and low flying to be able to get to safety with any reliability.
Dangman
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My previous two quotes still stand and addresses the issues you've brought up. Every IFV has to sacrifice something. I doubt there's any IFV in the world that's better than the Bradley in every way possible. Or even 90% of the ways possible.
But I will comment on the IED: It wasn't designed for that kind of threat. No one in the 1980s or even 1990s expected something like the IED to be a major threat to our forces. Overly criticising a vehicle for its ineffectiveness against a weapon it was never designed against/for in the first palce is a bit much.
Yes he is a military historian but nevertheless makes good points about the inaccuracies of the Pentagon War book and movie. As such, using the Pentagon War movie and/or book as a "source" is a flawed way of proving your point.
I absolutely agree that there is a lot to criticize in the development of the F-35. I do not see the F-35 through rose-colored lens. But any attempt to make the issues larger than they are as well as not looking at the context of those issues doesn't add anything to the discussion, is intellectually dishonest, and yes facetious as well. i.e how so many people in this thread and on the net keep harping about how the F-35 lost to a F-16 in a dogfight without actually reading what happened during the tests. Or the bullshit argument that the F-35 isn't a good CAS plane because it isn't the A-10. Or make comparisons to the F-4 Phantom debuting without a cannon while conveniently ignoring the fact that the F-35A has an internal cannon and that the other have gunpods. Would you not agree that those specific arguments are exaggerating the deficiencies of the F-35 far beyond what it can be considered "constructive criticism"? In fact, overblowing the issues?
Also, as I've said earlier, I actually have family in the training pipelines that will eventually lead them to flying the F-35. So I have very little reason to downplay issues with the F-35 that may result in my family dying or being less effective at their jobs.
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I have only finished reading the first page and i can only say that it is "cute" that certain posters think that the main defense of planes, even in dogfights, are the guns...
No, kids, no, the main defense is always whichever A-A missile they load onto it, the reason is simple, the operational range of a missile is simply an order of magnitude bigger than the best gun that you strap down onto it.
Heck, even the Phantom page shows that up!, sure if you have deployed your load then a gun is better than nothing, but only that, "better than nothing".
No, kids, no, the main defense is always whichever A-A missile they load onto it, the reason is simple, the operational range of a missile is simply an order of magnitude bigger than the best gun that you strap down onto it.
Heck, even the Phantom page shows that up!, sure if you have deployed your load then a gun is better than nothing, but only that, "better than nothing".
No they don't address what I'm saying or even really downplay the importance of the movie either since even that guy freely admits the Bradley's development was a awful mess and waste of money. Those quotes are mostly about nitpicking the movie, they're not really refutation. Russia's BMP2 and 3 have been known to be better IFV's than the Bradley for quite a while too and they've been around since the 80's (BMP2 was 1980 so similar time frame for the Bradley).
An IED is just a type of mine you know that right? Mines have been around for a long time. As have been the ways to defeat them or at least reduce the damage they cause. In the context of the discussion that would mean more armor on the vehicle and better anti spalling on the interior. There was nothing really stopping them from doing that in the 80's per se. Except all that extra weight from weapons, associated ammo, and the turret, of course.
There are nonsensical arguments against the F35 being made in the thread but not in my replies to you or my replies to others in the thread. Reminder that I've posted links to the DOTE's papers as a source earlier in thread, I'm not making stuff up when I criticize the F35 or the military procurement process in general.
You may have no personal reasons to downplay the F35's issues but statements like this:
are little more than a blanket downplay of any issues with the US's military procurement processes. You're literally saying here that all issues with all the weapons programs are 'overblown'. Never mind the F35 at that point, how about how we gave away much of our latest stealth tech to Iran when we crashed a stealth drone in their country because we rushed its development? How about the on going shitshow that is the Littoral Combat Ship which keeps facing development milestones and still has budget overrun issues and still doesn't work right because many of the weapons systems are in development hell? How about the Global Hawk still not having necessary features pioneered decades ago like de-icing making it prone to crashing in cold weather conditions?
This is just crap that is relatively well known off the top of my head. There is tons more stuff going wrong but there is so much information its hard to keep up with it. Most of the public stuff on all this is so opaquely worded you almost have to resort to tea leaf reading to suss out what the report is really saying.
You can't handwave all this away with blanket statements like 'o well its all overblown'.
Dangman
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We'll have to agree to disagree on the importance of the movie.
I'll concede that the BMP-3 is better armed but from what I've read so far, the BMP series are quite cramped inside. As for the BMP-2, it still has the fuel tanks on the rear doors itself.
So who exactly is saying the BMP-2 and BMP-3 are better IFVs than the Bradley? Any of them U.S service members? I'm not saying the Bradley is perfect but I disagree strongly that it's worse than the BMP-2 at the very least.
In any case, it looks like a turretless Bradley will be the U.S Army's next APC.
How many mines do you know of that that equal the explosive power of a 155mm artillery shell? Or three or more of them wired together? Or mines that combined explosive shaped charge designs from Iran? There are reports that the Bradley did indeed survive early IEDS hence why insurgents later resorted to using straight up artillery shells for IEDs.
You're absolutely correct. I do not disagree with you about any of that. However, it looked like you were criticizing my efforts to shoot down those nonsensical arguments against the F-35 as "facetious".
If it looks like I was trying to handwave all of the issues, then I apologize as that was not my intent. However, I should have added "unnecessarily overblowing issues". My intent was to note that one should not go above and beyond what is considered "constructive criticism" when it comes to military procurement programs and that one should not act all surprised that the military procurement is as fucked as it is considering that it's been fucked since 1774. In other words, don't bloody over-react. I think we're both in agreement about that the failures and deficiencies of the U.S military procurement system.
I agree with most of the issues you've brought up in regards to military procurement with the exception of the M2 Bradley. And that's mainly because I object the use of the Pentagon Wars as a valid source of criticism of the Bradley when there are more accurate sources of criticism of the Bradley.
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Both the BMP2 and 3 are way better armed (BMP2 has a 30mm autocannon vs Bradley's 25mm, BMP3 is even better) and have better armor plating and passive reactive armor overlays. They're also cheaper and way easier to maintain and can be used longer before maintenance is required. Bradley's need major overhaul of the drive train every 8-10K miles of use, BMP2 and 3 will just be on their 4th oil change around that time. Yea they're all cramped and they all have their design quirks but generally everything else is better on the BMP2 and 3 vs Bradley.
Various countries have trialed the Bradley and BMP2 and 3 and have commented on the differences before. The only thing you'll find that anyone says bad about the BMP2 is the fuel tank doors but that is about it.
Shaped charge explosives are also nothing new and were around in the 80's as were methods to defeat them (ie. reactive armor or you mount what is essentially big hollow metal boxes on the side). Not all IED's were 155mm shells or 3x of them wired together or else nearly every tank and MRAP hit by a IED would've been knocked out.
But that is a moot point. The Bradley's armor couldn't even stop tank mines from the era it was designed in. It was only meant to stop light weapon fire and anti personnel mines/explosives. Direct hits by almost any heavier weapon than that would pierce its armor. They've upgraded it quite a bit since then with active reactive armor (explosive type) but modern BMP2's and 3's have that too. The BMP3 has an additional up armor kit on top of that though.
Fair enough, I misread stuff occasionally too.
D
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As someone who worked on fighter jets in the Air Force for 9 years, all you geniuses about military combat jets are hilarious
Because you need an up armored canopy to survive hits from AA systems that are not critical...look at most damaged A10s that came home that were hit by either regular gunfire or missiles. Some blown engines here and there but the most important part is the canopy is undamaged and the pilot is alive because he didnt get hit by debris.
F35A's armor is very thin, in fact thin enough for an AK 7.62 round to do major damage to the body/glass. The whole point of these stealth planes is to never be close to the enemy, so armor was never designed to withstand direct hits.
In middle east it was common practice to shoot at A10s that are doing attack runs because they fly low and slow. If you dont think 20-30 guys will be shooting it with their AK's and 1 or two bullets hitting it then I have bad news for you.
They do not fly CAS missions in its purest sense. Anything is CAS from your point of view it seems. As long as a bomb is dropped it can be a CAS plane? All of those planes are designed to drop something or anything, but none can fly a CAS role in its purest sense. They are simply too fast and do not have armor to survive a hit.
A10s engines are on 2 separate sides which usually guarantees 1 still functions so you could fly home or out of the enemy territory if you get hit with a seeker. F15, F16, f18 wouldn't be able to do that if a missile strikes their rear, almost always both engines will be toast.
B-1 and B2 would NEVER be close enough to be considered CAS, they are bombers in their truest sense.
Flogger23m
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I've seen them described as "death traps" by people who went up against them in combat or have experience with armor. Most Soviet era armor falls into the same category. Their new tanks have adopted a western style turret, although their latest one has a remote turret if I recall. The current BTRs have doors between the wheels. Not really a great place. I think there is a reason the future BTR is being built by the French.
While it is certainly more of a defensive/last resort weapon, actual pilots have said that merges will still happen. Missiles still don't have a 1 to 1 PK.
The simple truth is this. If given a choice where it is on the line, a pilot will choose a fixed wing US plane over any Soviet/Russian designed plane no matter how "neat" they perform in air shows. I don't think there will be any SU-2X/SU-3X/MIG envy from F-35 pilots. Ask India how all their Russian equipment is doing.
sliverjazz
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in many ways we've become a bunch of pussies that can't handle criticisms OR take personal responsibility without blamin others for our failures. we walk around on eggshells afraid to call a spade a spade...so to speak.
Dangman
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Well you could help clear up any misconceptions or myths believing the rest of us may or may not have.
Again, why does close air support absolutely requires you to fly a plane directly into AA gun or small arms range when you have missiles and bombs that lets you attack from beyond their range? And again, we still lost 4 to 7 A-10 to missiles so their armor against missiles isn't 100% successful and therefore should not be counted on.
Major misconception on your part. Yes as long as a missile, bomb, or gun is fired in close proximity to ground forces, that counts as close air support. In fact, the original close air support report that led the way to the A-10 defines close air support as:
Now, where in that definition does it say that the plane actually has to be physically close to the ground forces?
The DOD defines CAS as:
And if we look up JP 3-0, that's the designation for the Joint Chief of Staff's "Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Close Air Support" report which defines Close Air Support:
So unless you can find an official military source that supercedes what the JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF are saying that close air support MUST be done by aircraft that's physically close to the ground in order for it be considered "Close air support", your idea of close air support is inherently wrong, just like Senator McCain.
To be fair to Russia, those Su-30MKIs were assembled by Indians. As such they were shoddily put together. The actual Russian assembled equipment works fine. If there's any military procurement system worse than the U.S, it's India's.
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Are you trolling or you are just ignorant? Gulf War also had a lot of Abrahms tanks which were knocked out, what does that tell you?
Iraq used the lowest tier Russian gear during the war, so its obvious A10s are still going to shot down with MANPADs and other means. Other planes weren't shot down as much because they were well out of range. Are you still ignorant how a CAS functions or you just dont know what CAS stands for? Key word Close...which makes it vulnerable against MANPADS and AA systems much more than other planes.
Flogger23m
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Read the post above you. The A-10 will get hit by both AA and manpads more frequently because other aircraft can much more easily evade them in the first place. This is because it is slow. This is a massive disadvantage when going up against any semi modern military.
It may be able to survive some additional small arms fire, but very few fixed wing aircraft are brought down by small arms. There reason flak and unguided machine guns worked well as AA guns in WWII is because it was considerably easier to aim and actually land a hit on a slow moving target. When the jet age occurred flak faded away, and manually aimed AA got phased out. Because it wasn't effective.
An AK, PKM (insert small arm) is not a threat to a fixed wing aircraft save for some exceptionally rare occurrence. What would you rather have:
- An aircraft that has slightly better armor for the extremely rare event small arms fire would bring an aircraft down.
- An aircraft that has a better ability to evade threats that frequently bring down aircraft, including manpads and full size SAMs.
Also keep in mind the A-10s are likely going to have poorer situational awareness. A radar can be extremely helpful in spotting enemy threats especially in low light situations. And then keep in mind the latest fighters (F-35, Rafale) are incorporating missile detection technology. An A-10 pilot won't know if a heat seeking missile is tracking him unless he visually spots it or someone communicates it via radio. These are things which increase survivability and are areas the A-10 is further behind.
Small arms fire a big concern? That is like saying the main thing an MBT has to worry about is an AK and not anti tank missiles.
twelveparsex
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No...are you?
Tell me what CAS there was to fly during hte first Persian Gulf war since the Iraqi army was largely defeated the six weeks before the ground invasion began.
What?
Oh, almost none
Are you out of your mind? F-15Es, F-16s, F-18s, AV-8s have been flying nothing but CAS missions over Afghanistan for the past decade. For the most part JTACs don't give two shits if a GBU-38 rains down from a F-15E or an A-10. CAS is a PGM driven game these days. Secondly, Afghanistan is a country with the land area roughly the size of Texas with very rugged and mountainous territory.
The last time I was there in 2009 the average response time for a TIC was just over 7 minutes. That means when a soldier on the ground called on the radio and said we need air support it took on average 7 minutes for planes to be overhead ready to pickle. Guess which fixed wing planes never had alert duty...the A-10 and the AV-8 because if they weren't already in the air ready to respond it'd be too late by the time those planes got there. For you to accomplish this you need lots of planes overhead at any given time and you need fast planes. Oh look, an F-15E with more munitions than an A-10 can hope to carry...wave him off we'll wait for the A-10 in 10 more minutes said no JTAC ever.
Want a modern tank busted? Better hope the A-10 overhead is armed with more than just 30mm because it won't do shit to modern armor. The A-10 can only penetrate 38mm of armor at 1000 meters which is retardedly close for an aircraft.
Finally, I don't care how far apart your engines are space, when telephone pole sized missile with a 150lbs warhead comes at you from 80 miles away you better hope your missile approach warning system tells you before metal rods slice through your airplane. Once the missile's own radar goes active you have about a 3% chance of not needing to pull the eject handle.
this is very true, the US has fired 18 AMRAAMs in war since we've been using them. 8 of them hit their targets; all were soft targets with no defensive capabilities.
Flogger23m
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Ironically, for CAS planes and helicopters I think the small mobile units will probably end up killing more. Mainly because the big batteries would have been targeted already (subs, cruise missiles, ect.). Easier to spot. And I doubt any heli is going into airspace when something like that is still operational. But I could be wrong.
Dangman
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You mean that dried up washed up Pierre Sprey? The same man who loves his F-16 even though it's the biggest piece of evidence showing how wrong he is about multi-role aircraft? When a site like FoxtrotAlpha calls Pierre Sprey out on some of his bullshit, that's a clear indication you've jumped the shark:
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/pierre-spreys-anti-f-35-diatribe-is-half-brilliant-and-1592445665
Dangman
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Sarcasm on the internet is hard.
D
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That doesn't make you an expert on it, but I agree.
Since post vietnam to current times the Air combat statistics account that dogfighting happened 10% chance, that is in the last 40 years, if you narrow it down to the last 25 years that stat goes down to 5% time.
It is very safe to say that Dogfighting is the last thing that matters in A-A combat.
Flogger23m
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BVR is the primary focus, but the modern air to air conflicts in the "BVR age" have been lower scale. A lot of the planes shot down in Desert Storm were running or the pilots were very incompetent. Going up against a more modern air force won't be as easy. But as I mentioned a while back (I think I posted a link), most of Iran's kills in the Iran-Iraq war were with long range weapons. Always ideal to have a cannon as a last resort weapon though.
Parmenides
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Military expert? In stealth to stealth fights, long range radar will be taken out of the equation more often. We don't want to make the same mistake twice as we did with the F4. Combat doesn't always go as predicted.
Flogger23m
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Stealth doesn't mean undetectable, and there is always IRST which newer planes like the F-35 have.
Parmenides
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I never said undetectable. I just said that stealth reduces the average range of combat. IR range can be reduced too. I would guess that stealth increases the odds of evading a fired air to air missile, in which case the odds of closing in real close increase. IR missiles isn't that much beyond dogfighting. IR is typically a dogfighting missile.