J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread IV (Closed to posting)

[by78]

Because everyone make mistakes, and/or are vulnerable to pressure of rhetoric such as those you bring to bear here for sake of smoother path through the halls that control the purse strings.

Then why are the infantrymen still equipped with bayonets? Is it because the bayonet lobby made them do it?

No infantryman ever hit their targets 100% of time and never run out of bullets.

Your assumptions are that our missiles have near perfect kill rates, our jets will always carry enough of them, and that our adversaries have no credible countermeasures and kinetic maneuvering capabilities to defeat them. All of your assumptions are false.

Our decision makers, who are privy to classified technical data and who constantly war game, are not as optimistic as you are. They have concluded that guns are very much needed, which is why they've given the F-22 a cannon and gone through the trouble of adding a gun pod to the F-35.

I think you should just let this go. Let's all agree to disagree, and live and let live.

 

[chuck731]

I also think current concept of stealth, which is really stealth against a network of radars consisting of single source emitters and receivers, will be obsolete long before the G5 fighters (f-22, f-35, j-20, T-50, j-31) reach the ends of their service lives.

The current generation of radars will, i believe, be replaced by a new generation of radar that net work and share not just processed radar data, but also coordinate transmission and reception at a wave to wave level. These type of radar network can coordinate between various physical transmitting and receiving points and create virtual transmitters and receiver located at arbitrary and varying points in space. This type of radar network can readily move the locations of virtual transmitter and receivers to find reflection hot spots on any stealth platform trying to penetrate its zone of coverage.

So I think pronouncement of the death of medium or long range radar guided AAM effective against fighters are premature.

 

[Equation]

A bayonet is more than just a tool for charging and stabbing your enemy, it cuts and chops other stuff for surviving the environment too. I know because I used it before. I even use it to dig my own "cat hole" (hole to poop in) in the ground when I lend my e-tool to one of my buddy.

 

[chuck731]

Then why are the infantrymen still equipped with bayonets? Is it because the bayonet lobby made them do it?

Just let this go. Let's all agree to disagree, and live and let live.

No, because the infantrymen needs a utility knife and it cost almost nothing to stick it on a rifle. If the infantrymen really need a bayonet, it wouldn't be so short, so compact, and shaped more like a slashing blade. When armies actually took bayonet charges seriously the bayonets mostly didn't look like short steak knives. They mostly looked like very long stilletos.

A gun on a plane is a different story. The plane doesn't need it to line up for landing. It cost quite a bit of design compromise to fit it inside the plane.

 

[vesicles]

J10, j11 and j15 are all of the 1970 generation of fighters that owes their guiding light to now almost 50 year old experiences of Vietnamese and 1967 war. Even if j10 is chronologically later it was still designed to catch up to that generation.

Even the f-22 was designed in the late 1980s when the US was seriously behind the state of the art in short range AAM, didn't know it was behind, and didn't know how good latest soviet short range AAMs have gotten.

I think military services are particularly vulnerable to having a wrenching experience from the past disproportionally effect it's view of the future. The lack of a gun in Vietnam had been a gulling experience for the US, as a result it has become religious dogma that gun is vital for all time. But I think that is not so, especially when when takes into consideration the weight and design penalties of incorporating the gun.

BTW, the laser countermeasures now bing developed to counter short range IR missiles would work just as effectively against a pilot trying to point a gun. Furthermore, while the pilot firing the defeated IR missile has the options to fire another, the pilot who tried to draw a bead on the target would be blinded and effectively killed for his troubles.

So your main argument is that the missile technology back in the 60's and 70's was not advanced enough to match the maneuverability of the fighter. Since we have better missiles today, that problem no longer exists? However, the development of the stealth technology once again makes the missile technology of today obsolete. So missiles will miss their targets again, just like the Vietnam War. So your fighters without a gun is once again facing the same issues the F-4 was facing. What to do when you can't hit your target because it is a stealth fighter and you run out of missiles and your opponent is within a mile from you with guns blazing???

 

[chuck731]

So your main argument is that the missile technology back in the 60's and 70's was not advanced enough to match the maneuverability of the fighter. Since we have better missiles today, that problem no longer exists? However, the development of the stealth technology once again makes the missile technology of today obsolete. So missiles will miss their targets again, just like the Vietnam War. So your fighters without a gun is once again facing the same issues the F-4 was facing. What to do when you can't hit your target because it is a stealth fighter and you run out of missiles and your opponent is within a mile from you with guns blazing???

Stealth technology does not make short range IR missiles obsolete. Short range IR missiles are what is making guns obsolete. It was never the medium or long range radar guided missiles that was making guns obsolete, even before stealth.

 

[by78]

No, because the infantrymen needs a utility knife and it cost almost nothing to stick it on a rifle. If the infantrymen really need a bayonet, it wouldn't be so short, so compact, and shaped more like a slashing blade. When armies actually took bayonet charges seriously the bayonets mostly didn't look like short steak knives. They mostly looked like very long stilletos.

A gun on a plane is a different story. The plane doesn't need it to line up for landing. It cost quite a bit of design compromise to fit it inside the plane.

Relax Chuck, and turn on your sarcasm radar

 

[plawolf]

Jeez, someone got out of the wrong side of the bed today...

 

[kwaigonegin]

It is dynamically nearly impossible to avoid being shot down by an late model IR missile long before one enters gun range.

It is very difficult to shoot down another fighter with a gun even when that fighter is in gun range so long as the enemy pilot knows where you are and what you are trying to do.

The kinematic performance, seeker field of view, and anti-countermeasure capabilities of modern IR missiles so far surpasses those which convinced pilots 2 generations ago of the role of the gun that their experience might as well be those of a roman legionary.

Modern air-air fighters carry guns largely to placate vocal rhetorically driven opinions like those expressed on this forum.

It is rhetorically hard to argue against experience in front of people who seek assurance rather than insight, but that doesn't mean experience really has that much validity.

You have to think outside the box. Yes generally speaking in modern air combat, the odds of gun engagement is extremely rare HOWEVER if there's anything war has thought is the unpredictability of it. You just know there is going to be one event out of say 100 where BOTH birds are out of missiles except the other guy has a 20 mm and you have nothing! or say a missile is jam etc.

Guns are also good for warning shots etc and again in rare case to take out some ground targets even if you're strictly an air superirority fighter. To use the last 30 years of history as a gauge is not honest because let's face it there has been very very few true A2A engagement since Vietnam.
In an actual war where both sides have capable and numerical air assets I think there will be likely a gun will be used. Say your wingman bail out! The rescue calvay with Apaches, A10, Chinooks etc are a good 30 minutes away and enemy troops with light skin vehicles are moving in. You can loiter a il bit, strafed them keep their heads down until the hammer of God comes down. If all your have are sidewinders and AMRAMM, all you got to see if your partner taken as POW or witness his execution from 500 ft up.

 

[Air Force Brat]

No, because the infantrymen needs a utility knife and it cost almost nothing to stick it on a rifle. If the infantrymen really need a bayonet, it wouldn't be so short, so compact, and shaped more like a slashing blade. When armies actually took bayonet charges seriously the bayonets mostly didn't look like short steak knives. They mostly looked like very long stilletos.

A gun on a plane is a different story. The plane doesn't need it to line up for landing. It cost quite a bit of design compromise to fit it inside the plane.

Kinda like the GI issue folding combat shovel that Chuck is using to dig himself a bigger, better, deeper hole, keep goin Chuck!, I will throw you a rope brother. Chuck the most succesfull G2A fighter ever built, was built "around" its GAU-8/A 30MM Gatling Gun!

On a more personal note Chuck, I am sorry, but I can't afford to pull out any more hair, but when all current front line A2A platforms come with a gun, or as a very poor second the option of a gun pod, the hard data, the money, and the aircraft stand in opposition to all of your negative statements, not ONE of your fellows here on the Sino Defense Forum had a single negative thing to say about A2A missles, nor would I. Your representation of the J-15 as a re-hashed 70s bird is totally innacurate as well, as the J-15s are just entering serial production. I am quite certain that the J-20 has been envisioned from the beginning as an air superiority fighter, I suppose we will have to see what the Air Force/Navy come up with for their sixth gen fighter aircraft, but it will likely be at least ten years before we see those aircraft begin to take shape. brat

Oh, and that is an awesome advanced, earthen, combat shelter. really Chuck, I am sorry, I don't wanna fight anymore, lets save some fun for another day, oh, and feel free to have the last word, I'm sorry, I know I'm a brat??????