Quintus Fabius schrieb:Hier noch ein Film zu einem Konzept zukünftiger Luftkriegsführung:

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luiz schrieb:Wozu braucht man da überhaupt noch eine F35? Die Zieleinformationen kann man auch über Satelliten geben.

Zitat:Mabus: F-35 Will Be ‘Last Manned Strike Fighter’ the Navy, Marines ‘Will Ever Buy or Fly’
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will be “almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly,” signaling key assumptions in the Navy’s aviation future as the service prepares to develop follow-ons to the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.....

Zitat:General Atomics: Third-Gen Electric Laser Weapon Now Ready

While fashions in high-energy lasers have changed as technology progresses, from gas to diode and now fiber, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) has stayed its course over more than a decade and believes its third generation of electric laser weapon is ready for prime time.....

...Davis says the Gen 3’s size enables an airborne laser module in the 150-kw range to be carried by GA-ASI’s Avenger unmanned aircraft. The UAV has sufficient onboard power to recharge the module’s batteries in flight. “That’s the utility; you don’t need to go back to reload,” Davis says.

Zitat:Lockheed not ditching agile fighter design

Lockheed Martin says it is too early to discount highly maneuverable fighter aircraft designs for future US Air Force and Navy warplanes, even as advances in long-range air-to-air missile technology makes dogfights less likely.

According to the company’s director of advanced air dominance and unmanned systems strategy, Bob Ruszkowski, the US must be prepared to fight outnumbered, and air-to-air missiles can be countered...

revan schrieb:According to the company’s director of advanced air dominance and unmanned systems strategy, Bob Ruszkowski, the US must be prepared to fight outnumbered, and air-to-air missiles can be countered...

Zitat:IRST is a sensory device which uses IR (infrared) radiation for detection and targeting purposes. IR radiation has wavelength of 0,75 to 1.000 microns (micrometers), longer than wavelengths of color red in the visible spectrum (visible spectrum ranges from 0,39 to 0,7 microns, with violet at 0,4 and red at 0,7 microns). It is given off by all objects above absolute zero, though objects that are below average temperature of their surroundings will absorb far more IR radiation than they will give out. Unlike FLIR which is a targeting device, IRST can be used for initial detection as well.

Zitat:R bands are also associated with temperatures of bodies producing radiation. Visible light is associated with temperatures above 1.000 *C. Next come IR bands: 0,7-4 microns (1.000 – 400 *C); 5-25 microns (400 – -150 *C) and 25-350 microns (this is a civilian, not military, division). Bodies at room temperature have radiation peak at around 10 microns, while 3-5 micron band is used in civilian applications for its effectiveness in tropical conditions.

In civillian purposes, astronomers use IR telescopes to penetrate dusty regions of space that block off visible light. NASA also has an airborne IR system – SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) which is flown at altitudes of over 41.000 ft, allowing 85% of the entire IR spectrum to reach it. Its service ceilling is 45.000 ft.

Zitat:Due to relatively shorter wavelength, IRST is more sensitive than radar to adverse weather conditions. Much of the infrared radiation is absorbed by water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and ozone. However, there are two wavelength “windows” in which very little infrared radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. These windows are at 3-5 and 8-12 microns. Both modern IRSTs and modern IR missile seekers typically operate in both bands. 3-5 mM band is optimized for detection of aircraft in afterburner, while 8-12 mM band is better suited for detection of subsonic or supercruising aircraft through aerodynamic heating of skin. More specifically, afterburner exhaust plume is more prominent in midwave than in logwave band, with most emissions being in 2-8 mM wavelength band, while emissions from nonafterburning plume are only useful in 4,15-4,2 mM band. Blackbody radiation from a warm object is most prominent in 10-15 mM band, and only objects above ~300 K give appreciable MWIR emissions (still inferior to to LWIR band). As a result, LWIR detectors have good sensitivity against targets at ambient temperatures.

Zitat:While IRSTs can detect even relatively cool targets through thin cloud cover, detection range is reduced (more than it is in case of radar), and thicker clouds can significantly degrade detection range. As a result, IRST is most useful for air superiority fighters, which typically operate at 30.000 ft and above – well above normal cloud cover and in relatively thin atmosphere.* ** Only clouds typically present at altitudes above 8 km (~26.000 ft) are those of cirrus variety, which are IR transparent. While dense cumulonimbus clouds can reach extreme heights (60.000-75.000 ft), it is very rare; vast majority does not reach above 20.000 ft. They are also very hazardous to aircraft (especially those of stealth variety), with frequent lightning discharges and large hailstones ranging from 0,5 to 5 cm in diameter, which can damage aircraft’s skin.

Zitat:Major advantage over the radar is that it cannot be easily jammed. As a result, actual tracking and engagement range of IRST can be expected to be greater than that of radar, even if latter has a major advantage in initial detection range.

Zitat:Being a passive sensor, IRST alone has issues with range finding. There are some workarounds. Obvious one is laser rangefinder, but being an active sensor it means that the target is warned of the impending attack (IRST still retains its passive surveillance advantage over the radar). Second one is triangulation, which can be done in several ways: datalinking two or more aircraft together, flying in a zig-zag / weaving pattern and measuring apparent target shift, or flying in straight line perpendicular to the target while doing the same. First two are usable against aircraft, while last one is only practical against ground-based targets.

Zitat:It is a general wisdom that IRST is of limited usefulness due to its sensitivity to adverse weather conditions. However, most modern stealth fighters are intended to operate at high altitudes – above 50.000 ft – where ambient temperatures range from -30 to -60 degrees Celsius, which helps provide excellent contrast. Air at this altitude is also very dry, with 99,8% of the atmospheric water being below 45.000 ft. Combined with low air density and low aerosoil content, this means that there is very little atmospheric absorption of IR radiation.

Zitat:Stealth aircraft are designed to have certain IR signature reduction measures, but effectiveness of these is rather limited due to basic physics. To fly, aircraft has to overcome two basic forces: gravity and drag. Drag is created due to friction with air, compressibility effects and lift. To overcome gravity, aircraft needs lift. To generate lift, aircraft has to move forward and overcome drag. As a result, aircraft has to perform work – which creates heat.

Zitat:Other than the engines themselves and their exhaust, there are other sources of IR radiation. Any moving objects have to push the air out of the way. If object is fast – for example, an aircraft flying at high subsonic or supersonic speeds – air cannot move out of the way quickly enough. This leads to compression of the air in front of the aircraft, which in turn leads to heating of said air. At Mach 1,7, a supercruising fighter generates shock cones with stagnation temperature of 87 degrees Celsius. As the air moves out of the way for the aircraft, it also creates significant friction with the aircraft itself, leading to heating of the aircraft’s Skin.

Zitat:While historically IRST had major performance issues, modern IRST systems, especially Western ones, have mostly solved these issues. As a result, IRST can be expected to become a primary sensor in any air war between competent opponents, for the same reasons as those that led to night vision googles being used for night fighting in place of flashlights.

Quintus Fabius schrieb:Ein wesentlicher Unterschied aber ist, dass IRST ein passiver Sensor ist und bei den von dir angegebenenn Werten für Radar stellte sich die Frage der praktischen Relevanz, wenn man im modernen Luftkrieg in Bezug auf Radar zunehmend sensorisch passiv sein muss.

Zitat:Return Of The ABL? Missile Defense Agency Works On Laser Drone

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: Three years after the Missile Defense Agency mothballed its massive Airborne Laser, MDA is planning to reboot the concept for a new era.

The old ABL was Boeing 747 with a human crew and tanks of toxic chemicals to generate power. The new idea a high-altitude, long-endurance drone armed with a more compact electrically powered laser. But the technical and tactical challenge remains the same: building a laser-armed aircraft that can shoot down ballistic missiles at their most vulnerable, just after launch, without having to fly so close it gets shot down itself.............

Zitat:Flying Hours
•Harriers were used in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2009, when they were withdrawn from service and replaced by Tornados, which were used up to the end of Op HERRICK. Harrier and Tornado flew more than 56,000 hours in total, averaging about 500 hours per month between 2007 and 2013.
•Reaper was introduced in Afghanistan in 2007. Unlike Harrier and Tornado, Reaper is remotely piloted and is primarily tasked in an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance role, but also has an armed capability. Reaper’s annual flying hours steadily increased between its introduction in 2007 and 2011, due to a staged increase in Reaper platforms arriving in Theatre and the subsequent increase in missions flown. Reaper flew more than 71,000 hours in total, averaging just over 1,000 hours per month in 2011 and 2012. This increased in 2013 and 2014.
•All the Unmanned Aircraft Systems operated by the British Army are unarmed. Hermes aircraft flew over 85,000 hours in Afghanistan in total, and the Desert Hawks more than 18,000 hours.

Zitat:Weapons Expended
•To obtain a fair measure of weapon usage frequency, which accounts for the different types of weapon available to each aircraft, each mission report received from Theatre is retrospectively examined to determine the number of Weapon Release Events (WREs) during that mission. The number and frequency of WREs peaked in 2006. After 2006, there were downward trends in the numbers and frequencies, which were not significantly altered by the switch from Harrier to Tornado, or the introduction of Reaper. The overall WRE rate was highest for Harrier, followed by Reaper, then Tornado.
•Comparing only precision-guided munitions (PGM), and ignoring all the use of unguided weapons by Harrier and Tornado, the total number PGM used by RAF fixed-wing aircraft each year did not substantially change with the introduction of Reaper: Harrier was the only RAF fixed-wing aircraft which expended PGM until 2007, and in 2007 it expended 119. From 2008, PGM were also expended by Tornado and Reaper, and the average from 2008 to 2013 was 121 per year.
•The overall rate of PGM expended was highest for Harrier, followed by Reaper, then Tornado.

To which I would also add;
•The data does not include 27mm on Tornado, or 30mm on Apache,
•No CRV-7 for Apache or Harrier,
•No show of presence/show of force data,
•Sorties would not all be for British forces given the large area of operations and multinational nature of the air campaign,
•Different missions would be needed for different areas,
•The ‘surge’ and initial operations that heavily relied on close air support are not specifically mentioned,
•No differentiation between Close Air Support and deliberate strikes or interdiction missions,
•No mention of changing rules of engagement,
•No indication of when USMC support assets were available.

Zitat:Interesting.

There is also a curious statement about the sharp decrease in PGM release by Tornado in 2011, explained by ‘a focus on operations in Libya’

Does this mean we didn’t have enough stock of Dual Mode Brimstone and Paveway IV for simultaneous operations in two theatres and had to prioritise one over the other?

The hours flown remained fairly steady in this period and given that air support was an ISAF, not national, responsibility others would have picked up the gap..

Clearly, munition availability was an issue.

Quintus Fabius schrieb:Und selbst gegenüber so einem schwachen Gegner wurde rasch die Munition alle.