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发帖数: 1395 | 1 By Dragon Emperor
For those of you who say that the big size of the J-20 makes it less
manoeverable than the F-22, i say that 5th gen fighters are not supposed to
be dogfighters, so manoevrability is not an issue because BVRAAMs will
decide the fight in future wars as well as AESA radars. I have provided a
link to a site that will give more insight, perhaps.
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-311210-1.html
The latest monograph by Dr Kopp, as published in the peer reviewed APA
Analyses journal, is an in-depth and broad scientific study of what
exponential growth laws - like Moore's Law - mean for current and future
combat aircraft. It is, and intentionally so, a scientific paper, and
confines itself to the technical dimensions of this problem. What do
exponential growth laws mean for Western nations in terms of strategy and
national policy? That is the subject explored in this NOTAM1.
Let us start with a familiar situation and one for which you already know
the end-result. Suppose you are driving down a road on a dark night, not
looking in the rear-view mirror, but admiring the fancy digital display of
the dashboard, with the moving GPS map, the instruments telling you about
speed, range, altitude, engine condition, cabin temperature, while the iPod
interface slips soothing songs into your brain. The mobile phone rings and
you reach to tap the control column to take the call. This is a fatal
distraction because a sharp turn appears ahead, you miss it, and in an
instant, there is a violent disintegration of these marvellous technological
displays as the car leaves the road and rolls end-over-end down a steep
embankment.
Over the past few days, images have emerged of the new Chinese Stealth
Fighter, the J-XX or the J-20. On the 29th January 2010, the Russians first
flew the PAK-FA, and the Su-35S, which first flew on 28th February 2008, is
expected to achieve IOC in early 2011. Meanwhile, back at the US fighter-
farm, the JSF which first flew on 15th December 2006, has experienced
continuing difficulties with the STOVL version and is likely to enter a
substantial re-design programme in 2011, adding more years and even greater
costs to the already frequently-extended development phase.
By the time the F-35 makes IOC (if it ever does) it will be, to use that
well-known technical term, ‘toast’.
Even if an extensive redesign produces an aircraft that meets the March 2000
Joint Operational Requirements Document (JORD), the “Su-35S, PAK-FA, J-20
world” of 2015-2020 will be much different than the “Su-27S, MiG-29 world
” that existed when the JORD was first released. Most astonishingly, when
gross cost overruns forced a review of the program, the JORD specifications
were not updated to encompass the 2015 - 2025 air combat environment.
Instead, during the ensuing process that followed the Nunn-McCurdy Breach,
the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) re-verified and re-validated
the F-35 JSF Operational Requirements Document of March 13, 2000, as
representing a capability “essential to the national security” (refer
JROCM 078-10 dated May 20, 2010). And people wonder why some refer to the
Nunn McCurdy process as the “codification of silliness, if not mendacity
and misfeasance”?
And if the F-35 is ‘toast’ that makes the F/A-18E/F ‘cinders’ – this
1985 ‘old wine in a new bottle’ aircraft has some fancy new electronics,
but none that will save it from destruction in combat. Like the distracted
car driver, the crews of the F-35 and the F/A-18E/F can be fully informed by
watching the dancing digital displays, but they cannot avoid the inevitable
crash.
Why has this calamity fallen on the US fighter design teams? Perhaps the
answer can be found in that now infamous phrase: ‘Manoeuvre is irrelevant
– let the missiles do the turning!’. These simple words speak volumes
about what is deeply flawed in the US development of those aircraft on which
it will depend to protect its sovereignty, keep its fleets on top of the
water, and project power. The Internet source has now been censored, but the
attitude that led to this statement remains deeply ingrained.
Firstly, it assumes that the aircraft firing the missiles will have survived
to the point where they achieve a firing solution and get their missiles in
-flight. A fundamental tenet of combat is that you must be alive to enter
the fight. The superior kinematics of the Su-35S, the PAK-FA and the J-20,
the signature reduction of the latter two aircraft, and the (highly likely
– we have not seen the final list) improved sensor suites of all three,
severely reduce the F-35 and F/A-18E/F’s chance of even making it first to
a weapon release point. Each of the threat aircraft will be operating at
times more than two miles higher and 700+ knots faster, giving their ‘look-
down, shoot-down’ missiles substantial kinematic ‘shoot-first’ advantages
in the engagement.
We need to make special mention of the profound effect that signature
reduction will have on future air combat, as the stealth ‘catch-up’ by the
Russian and Chinese aircraft has grave consequences for the USA, as it has
a tactical advantage to lose and nothing to gain.The situation is best shown
by injecting ‘reasonable and representative’ figures into the
mathematically exact radar-range equations to get an indication of the
magnitude of the change to the operating environment.
AESA RADAR DETECTION RANGES – INDICATIVE VALUES
TARGETS
INTERCEPTORS
↓
Su-35S
RCS ~ 3 m2
PAK-FA / J-20
Best Case
RCS ~0.1 m2
PAK-FA / J-20
Worst Case
RCS ~0.001 m2
F-35 / APG-81 ~82.8 NMI ~35.4 NMI
~11.2 NMI
F/A18-E/F / APG-79 ~111.9 NMI ~47.8 NMI ~15.1 NMI
Aircraft such as the PAK-FA and the J-20, with ‘Low Observability’ from
the front aspects, can be guided by (say) a HF-band Skywave radar and SATCOM
system, or VHF-band GCI radar, into a merge ‘cold nose’ and passive, but
still searching on IRST and ESM. Having an aircraft first appear on the F-35
APG-81 at 20 NMI would be a very nasty surprise, demonstrated by ‘first-
look, first-shot, first-kills’ by the enemy. But back to the ‘Let the
missiles do the turning’ statement.
Secondly, and perhaps more dangerously, the statement assumes that the
missiles ‘turning’ will actually achieve a terminal missile-to-aircraft
distance where the fuses detonate the warhead. Nothing is mentioned about
these missiles being kinematically defeated during the ingress, and/or being
confused by electronic countermeasures such as cross-eye-jamming, and/or
being seduced by towed or released decoys, let alone rendered blind by the
effects of the respectable stealth technology employed in the T-50 PAK-FA
and J-20.
The Sukhois' missile countermeasures are far superior to those employed in
the F-35, probably because nobody believed the stealth advantage would be
penetrated and that countermeasures, like manoeuvre, would therefore be ‘
irrelevant’. However, it is reasonable to expect these countermeasures to
be included in the large and spacious PAK-FA and J-20 airframes, both of
which will have a credible stealth capability.
The third deadly mis-assessment is that, with the missiles doing the turning
and presumably the killing, egress from the fight will be a leisurely
affair, with the pilots congratulating themselves on their kills. When the
enemy has a first-shot and first kill advantage, and our missiles miss
because of effective opposing countermeasures and genuine stealth technology
, the truth is starker. When our people fly aircraft not designed for high
Mach and with the prodigious fuel flows required to offset enormous drag at
high speed, an enemy with a 500 - 700 knot closure rate and internal fuel
reserve advantage will quickly run-down and dispatch the survivors. If the
aircraft are separated at 50 NMI when the egress is started, it only takes 6
minutes with an over-take speed of 500 KTAS for the aggressors to reach
guns-range, less for a WVR missile shot. As shown above, with signature
reduction in the PAK-FA and the J-20, the chase-distances, fuel requirements
and run-down times will, most likely, be considerably less.
So, why have these non-viable US designs been allowed to persist, and the
corollary question, why has the production of the USA’s only
aerodynamically and kinematically competitive fighter, the F-22A Raptor,
been killed?
The answers can be found in Dr Kopp’s comprehensive paper. Observing the
seemingly inexorable development of high-tech boxes, as shown by examples
such as Moore’s Law, seems to have led US military capability planners and
developers, and US air combat fighter development in particular, into a
deadly evolutionary trap:
“All we need is to employ our (temporary) technological advantage into
systems that ‘let the missiles do the turning’. Since ‘manoeuvre is
irrelevant’, we don’t need to turn our attention to designs that make our
aircraft fly faster, further, longer, higher, and in combat, able to change
energy state, attitude and location rapidly to be the first to get to a
firing position, or to avoid incoming missiles”
What turns this intellectual sloth into a toaster, is that eventually the
enemy, applying the same exponential growth laws, only this time faster and
with a much reduced learning time, catches up and then surpasses the efforts
of the USA. Even more dangerous is their use of multi-spectral sensors
employed across Infra-Red, Ku-Band, X-Band, L-Band, VHF and HF frequencies.
The other dangerous illusion is that these exponential growth laws also
apply to other elements of air combat design, such as sensor ranges, power-
aperture, engine thrust, manoeuvrability, controllability and, consequently,
agility.
They don’t, because in these areas of design, the fundamental and more
enduring Laws of Physics apply.
Over-estimation of a capability leads to an under-estimation of the likely
losses in future air combat. As Dr Kopp points out in his paper,
exponentially improving internal electronics does not result in
exponentially increasing sensor range – at best an incremental advantage is
gained. When the opponent introduces a significant stealth capability, as
seen in the T-50 PAK-FA, then that incremental advantage rapidly erodes,
driving combat from paradoxically perceived to be information dominated
Beyond Visual Range engagements to agility dominated air combat engagements,
whether in the close combat or Beyond Visual Range arenas.
The net result is that the Su-35S, the PAK-FA and the J-20 will, over their
operational life, severely reduce the relative survivability and lethality
of the F-35 and F/A-18E/F, and any other legacy fighters dressed up in new
garb. Here is a table that shows the overall effect:
COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS RELATED TO COMBAT PRODUCTIVITY LETHALITY
LOW HIGH
SURVIVABILITY HIGH MARGINALLY EFFECTIVE
LOW PRODUCTIVITY
(Lost a few, did not do much with the survivors)
HIGHLY EFFECTIVE
HIGH PRODUCTIVITY
(Lost a few, did a lot with the survivors)
LOW INEFFECTIVE
NO PRODUCTIVITY
(Lost a lot, did little with the few survivors)
MARGINALLY EFFECTIVE
LOW PRODUCTIVITY
(Lost a lot, did some with the few survivors)
Table 1: Combat Effectiveness: The ability of air combat aircraft to deliver
the intended combat result in a combat environment.
To conclude with a familiar scene, the F-35 and F/A-18E/F pilots of the
future will have exquisitely crafted digital cockpits which will give them a
crystal-clear picture of their combat environment, such that they know with
unprecedented precision the moment at which they will die – assuming that
Russian and Chinese stealth technology can be easily defeated.
And their opponents will have the same but a more enduring view, without
such high and final costs, thanks to the inexorable merging of exponential
growth laws and superior aerodynamic/kinematic design into their air combat
machines. |
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