Operational use of LR-AAMs in aerial combat - Interceptor role

Hypersonic missiles anyone? Remember how Prompt Global Strike was going spank the world for the US. Then after some test failures, they actually stopped funding the program until China's hypersonic test successes. Just because they say they can do it, doesn't make it so. Look at the hype over AI these days. It's still a long way off from what's depicted in science fiction but they advertise it like it's just around the corner. The primary reason why they advertise not-anytime-soon technology being developed is because they want money for research and development. Missile intercept is still tricky. I read under the most optimal of conditions the US would need to launch 5 interceptors per incoming warhead for a 45% hit probability against North Korean ballistic missiles. How many AAM missile interceptors will a fighter have to carry to intercept an AAM? Not enough for a fighter to carry?

@latenlazy: SM-3s have been tested successfully against Mach 10 targets; targeting a Mach 5 missile is not going to be that hard in comparison.

@Blitzo: I think for the first few years, or at least until CUDA-likes are mature, the J-20 will be viable as an interceptor, picking off AEW&C and tanker targets from long-range. Long-term, however, the J-20 needs to be able to score 2:1 KD ratios against F-35s, considering that the US will be fielding 3000 F-35s while the Chinese are targeting 700 J-20s, from media reports.

Inst said:

@latenlazy: SM-3s have been tested successfully against Mach 10 targets; targeting a Mach 5 missile is not going to be that hard in comparison.

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SM-3s have been tested successfully against Mach 10 targets that have to travel greater distances to hit their targets. You can't remove distance from the equation when figuring out lead times, and *lead time*, not speed, is what defines the difficulty of the challenge.

Inst said:

@ Iron Man: We were following the Lockheed CUDA project, which is well documented. Strangely enough, the US government decided to pick Raytheon's SACM instead.

Anyways, a picture of CUDA:

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I was asking for an actual flying missile, not a concept prop.

Inst said:

@latenlazy: SM-3s have been tested successfully against Mach 10 targets; targeting a Mach 5 missile is not going to be that hard in comparison.

@Blitzo: I think for the first few years, or at least until CUDA-likes are mature, the J-20 will be viable as an interceptor, picking off AEW&C and tanker targets from long-range. Long-term, however, the J-20 needs to be able to score 2:1 KD ratios against F-35s, considering that the US will be fielding 3000 F-35s while the Chinese are targeting 700 J-20s, from media reports.

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The actual number of F-35s available for the East Asian theater would only be a small percentage of that 3,000, so the discrepancy could be erased or even reversed when you take the tyranny of distance into account.

Inst said:

@latenlazy: SM-3s have been tested successfully against Mach 10 targets; targeting a Mach 5 missile is not going to be that hard in comparison.

@Blitzo: I think for the first few years, or at least until CUDA-likes are mature, the J-20 will be viable as an interceptor, picking off AEW&C and tanker targets from long-range. Long-term, however, the J-20 needs to be able to score 2:1 KD ratios against F-35s, considering that the US will be fielding 3000 F-35s while the Chinese are targeting 700 J-20s, from media reports.

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ALL 3000 F-35s on the Pacific theater alone?

@Equation: Which is why I'm talking 2:1 KD, not 5:1.
@Blitzo: rereading what you're saying, my point is that with anti-interception countermeasures, the AEW&C won't present opportunities, except either if the USAF has been routed in open battle, or if the US commander is especially incompetent. Once these anti-interception countermeasures come up, it makes more sense to focus on air superiority missions instead of interception.
@latenlazy: Is there something magic about having only 160 seconds to intercept? It is not like, say, 10 seconds, when the opponent basically needs a twitchy finger to get anything done, but it's more than enough time to plan an interception of interceptors. The technology should be assumed to be reliable, and to mature in the near future.

Inst said:

@Blitzo: rereading what you're saying, my point is that with anti-interception countermeasures, the AEW&C won't present opportunities, except either if the USAF has been routed in open battle, or if the US commander is especially incompetent. Once these anti-interception countermeasures come up, it makes more sense to focus on air superiority missions instead of interception.

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Don't you think that making such an extensive claim for a new concept weapon that is still in quite early stages of development is rather over-ambitious and hard to substantiate and defend?

Like, there are so many ways for you to make your argument a bit more sensible, like "if anti-missiles are successfully developed and fielded they may offer the capability to provide the ability to defend or mitigate the opfor's goal of striking at one's force multiplier platforms".
That way, you are able to point out that the anti missiles are still in development, and also acknowledge that they do not necessarily mean a complete negation of the opfor's capabilities.


but what you're doing (similar to our previous discussions on CDF) is to interpret certain capabilities to be certain to emerge, and then to extrapolate the operational consequences of those capabilities to the greatest extent of their potential. It's massively jumping the shark and means you side step some rather important points of sensible contention that would have to be considered before trying to project operational effects.

latenlazy said:

Divine eagle? Again, the PLAAF developed a VLRAAM for a reason. If you have a VLRAAM it makes more sense for your stealth fighters to hang back and interdict adversarial bogeys going after your assets.

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L band Radar cannot gage altitude only rough range and bearing not accurate enough for guidance or tracking, additionally they can be detected and killed.
L band is not a magic spell that suddenly makes everything in the sky visible. It's a straw being grasped at. Additionally The Reason I said more conventional fighters is that the older Gen 4's are being upgraded in kind And when networked they would be just as likely to detect and counter a VLRAAM as a 5th gen plus AEW birds have counter measures. So even if they are slower They can still potentially Decoy.

Equation said:

Just curious wouldn't these SACM would add weight and limited internal weapons bay space for offensive missiles for the F-22 and F-35? Especially when both of the fighters have to do evasive maneuvers (burning fuel) and than fire the SACM system (several of them) just to hit a single BVR missile.

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by the time SACM is online It's likley that A ans C models of the F35 would be Block 5 which may back 3 full sized missiles per bay. If you figure that 3 Sacm take the room of one missile then you would have 6 defencive with 4 offensive. but again down the road and B is on a Diet.

Inst said:

@latenlazy: Is there something magic about having only 160 seconds to intercept? It is not like, say, 10 seconds, when the opponent basically needs a twitchy finger to get anything done, but it's more than enough time to plan an interception of interceptors. The technology should be assumed to be reliable, and to mature in the near future.

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There *is* something magical about trying to get an intercept in 160 seconds when you don't have a good way of knowing when or if a missile is coming. Ballistic missile sites are stationary at launch and are in constant surveillance. Detection, tracking, and lock aren't nearly the problems they are for an antiballistic missile as they are for an anti-air missile. You're trying to hand wave away the lead time problem, which isn't hand-waveable.

Why should we assume the technology is reliable and mature in the future? Antiballistic missiles aren't completely reliable even today, and they only work under the very narrow set of conditions that we spend a lot of time and money ensuring at all times. That's not something you can count on in active live combat during an air to air engagement. Furthermore, you're still talking about an idea that hasn't even exited the concept phase of development. With your logic there would be any number of other weapons in their concept phases which we should assume to just to be sure thing, for both sides.

@Blitzo: Is there something wrong with that? I see something hypocritical; you're extrapolating to future Chinese capabilities and criticizing me for extrapolating to future US capabilities. For all we know, the J-20 project is a Chinese F-35 project and while it's entered LRIP, none of its systems are mature; the mots we've seen are 20/sec turns, etc...

There is no reason to assume that the SACM (actually, it should be MSDM) project will fail, given the extensive and successful research in missile defense conducted by the United States. The question is not whether it'll be successful, but under what time frame will it be successful.