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Fly Boys - 5th Generation Fighters


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I recall reading a year or two back in an aviation magazine that the Air Force was planning on lowering F-15 and F-16 inventories, lowering procurement of the F-22 and F-35, but that all A-10s in inventory were slated for refurbishing and avionics upgrades. I will have to see if I can find the article.

 

Edit: I found an article from a recent Air Force Times indicating the Air Force wants to ground some A-10s as part of budget cuts.

Figgers. <_<

 

Reckon the administration figgers there's better uses for our money, and life will be all "Peace, Love, and Doobies." :wacko:

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Figgers. <_<

 

Reckon the administration figgers there's better uses for our money, and life will be all "Peace, Love, and Doobies." :wacko:

 

Yup

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Chantry, Guided weapons still need detailed target info, a spotter near with some form of designator or the exact location.

And the weapon changes still need to be able to support spontaneous generalized ground support that are not like missions planned for weeks to hit a fixed location mud hut. Think about rescuing a downed aviator or supporting a special ops team. The exact location and targets of enemy are unknown until they are encountered. Can the advancing technology and toys handle that one too? Can you provide anti personnel fire?

 

Since they are doing those things NOW in Afghanistan, yes they can. Aircraft can self spot with onboard laser designators if none is available on the ground or program in a GPS coordinate based off the GPS coordinates that the people on the ground have. The B-52's being used for CAS in Afghanistan don't have the weapons pre-programed, the B-52 loiters at altitude where it can't be seen or heard and when troops in contact need help, they yell for help and give their GPS coordinates and then shortly thereafter there is a very loud noise and some Taliban get to find out if the afterlife they were told about actually exists.

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We have this technology today for targeting and precision guidance. The strides made over the last ten years represent a sea change in warfare not yet fully appreciated.

 

In Vietnam, the AF and Navy sent 800+ sorties against the critical Than Hoa bridge and lost several aircraft without significantly damaging it. Fianlly, the first precision guided weapons (LGBs first, then finally the EO guided Walleye) knocked the span down with less than 8 aircraft sorties and no losses. The future was coming into focus.

 

In Operation Iraqi Freedom the precision guided weapon of choice transitioned from Laser Guided Bombs to the GPS guided JDAM during the second battle for Fallouja. We now have the "strategic" corporal or sergeant on the ground providing targeting quality coordinates to the command and control net and/or the aircraft above or the GMLRS battery on the ground, and we are focused on how small we can make the lethal radius of the precision weapon to give surgical precision and limit the collateral damage. Silent, surgical destruction of specific targets. We now had aircraft that could strike multiple "Than Hoa Bridge" type targets on a single sortie.

 

However, this has all been done in a permissive access environment, where we have complete air superiority, GPS is fully available, and we have troops on the ground. That will not long continue.

 

The future (and it is today, in reality) brings challenges to that permissive access environment for manned or unmanned aircraft, and to the continued availability of accurate GPS. The threat varies from the non or rogue state actors we have been dealing with for the last 11 years, to the near peer major states who have near equal technologies in some areas.

 

The challenge is to be ready and capable to reasonably deter and operate against both (at a cost we can afford).

 

My personal opinion (this is my day job) is that we will need to have a mix of manned and unmanned aircraft for a longer while than some predict, and we will have a mix of high and low threat capable systems needed to deal with the future - a huge challenge for the necessary balance and assign the required resources in the right mix to get it right! Our long term future depends on it.

 

Cheers,

Harvey

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[/i]

Figgers. dry.gif

 

Reckon the administration figgers there's better uses for our money, and life will be all "Peace, Love, and Doobies." :wacko:

 

Medical Doobies ;)

 

GG ~ :FlagAm:

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Since SASS is a family, would we be The Doobie Brothers???????????? :blink:

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