Equation
Lieutenant General
When budget is not the problem of course it does exist. After all it's just tax payers money.
Russia sells S-400 systems to China
- Thread starter Dannhill
- Start date
When budget is not the problem of course it does exist. After all it's just tax payers money.
thunderchief
Senior Member
In real world, SAMs do not operate like that . You could expect decoy emitters, shoot and scoot tactics and above all fire discipline - do not expect every target to be engaged as soon as it gets into range . Finally, you need to take into account various layers of defense . Cruise missiles would likely be engaged with medium and low range SAMs unless they travel to high priority target .
Skywatcher
Captain
That assumes that such "LCCM" or drone swarms won't be have to face directed energy weapons, electronic warfare and other forms of disruption.
Simple solution is to deploy short range point defense missiles (which is cheaper than the so called low cost cruise missile) around the target -- that take away the supposedly cost advantage. Another weakness of the scheme is that both the controlling fighter and the bomb truck must loiter while the drones find the target -- which means they are vulnerable to air assets (while the controlling fighter may be stealthy, the bomb truck is less so). The attacker may try to launch the missiles on speculation to preserve the bomb truck, but that will require the missiles have the capability of loiters in the air for a long time, which will increase the cost, or accept the risk of wasting the missiles if the target is not found.
Also this scheme does not work will against bistatic radars (separate transmitters and receivers) -- it can home in on transmitters, but those can be very cheap and expendable.
Ultra
Junior Member
That's a funny little tactic. What it is basically is a system of baiting - a robotic bait in front to bait the AA to fire at it so F-35 and the flying truck behind it can fire at the AA. What is funny is when I view that video I keep thinking what is the point of F-35 acting as middleman? They don't need it there - the C-130 can basically just fire the LCCM or drones in front as bait and when the AA engage the drones or LCCM the C-130 then fires the missiles at the AA from safe distance.
Of course, understanding how it works means there are many ways to turn it against this tactic - the baits can be baited themselves - eg. a "bait" bi-static radar transmitter can be further inland while the mobile missile TELs be forward deployed - that means when the LCCM gets baited to fly further inland the trailing C-130 also flies inland too - right into the trap where the S-300/S-400 TELs are which then fire at it in optimal firing distance ensuring 100% kill.
Of course, It can be even simpler than that, the tactic will just evolve into havinig just a swarm of robotic drones that does kamikaze when engaging the target. They don't even need the C-130. Fire the swarms from ship or submarine and it will start loitering the target area engaging targets as needed; then the counter tactic would be having also swarms of drones to engage those drones and we basically have a drone war!
Blackstone
Brigadier
Golden BBs against F-35s? Not too sure about that.
Ultra
Junior Member
Shoulder fired SAMs like Stingers usually are fairly close range with usual maximum range of around 5 km (4800 m to be exact) and can hit aircraft at altitudes up to 3,800 m. That means unless the aircrafts are flying very low the chance of you hitting it with shoulder fire SAMs is extremely low.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
Because soldiers no matter how well trained need sleep, shelter, food and other 'creature comforts'. In real life situation like described not very effective. You just need to take one of those variables away and the human becomes very ineffective.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Another pointless thought exercise.
If you take a single system and pitch it against a network of systems from the OpFor's military designed specifically to counter it, of course the single system gets thrashed.
The conclusion was decided by the setting of the scenario.
But that is nothing like reality.
In any realistic scenario, the long range SAM would be backed up by friendly fighters and long range OTH radars as well as being screened and protected against attack by shorter range missiles, AAAs and point defence systems.
Against a competent adversary with an integrated air defence network and its own stealth fighter force, what would happen is the bomb truck and F35 gets picked up by long range OTH radar long before they are within the engagement area. A pair of PAKFA/J20s gets vectored in, takes out the F35 and then smokes the bomb truck.
Even if we rule out defensive air power altogether, what would happen is OTH radar detects the incomings, frontline SAMs goes dark while ones further in goes active to bait the trap.
As the F35 starts trying to locate the active radars, SAM radars light up right underneath it and blows it and the bomb truck away.
Even if we strip good strategy, OTH radar, other long range SAMs out, and just put some Tors and/or LD2000 CIWS by the long range SAMs, its swarm of low cost missile equation gets turned on its head and the odds against and costs of successfully punching through all those defences climbs exponentially.
That's all entirely ignoring ECM and jamming on the defender's side.
If the Serbs managed to spoof full spec HARMs and ALAARM ARMs using a slightly modified microwave oven, imagine what modern day dedicated jammers and decoys could do to stripped down throw away cruise missiles.
If you take a single system and pitch it against a network of systems from the OpFor's military designed specifically to counter it, of course the single system gets thrashed.
The conclusion was decided by the setting of the scenario.
But that is nothing like reality.
In any realistic scenario, the long range SAM would be backed up by friendly fighters and long range OTH radars as well as being screened and protected against attack by shorter range missiles, AAAs and point defence systems.
Against a competent adversary with an integrated air defence network and its own stealth fighter force, what would happen is the bomb truck and F35 gets picked up by long range OTH radar long before they are within the engagement area. A pair of PAKFA/J20s gets vectored in, takes out the F35 and then smokes the bomb truck.
Even if we rule out defensive air power altogether, what would happen is OTH radar detects the incomings, frontline SAMs goes dark while ones further in goes active to bait the trap.
As the F35 starts trying to locate the active radars, SAM radars light up right underneath it and blows it and the bomb truck away.
Even if we strip good strategy, OTH radar, other long range SAMs out, and just put some Tors and/or LD2000 CIWS by the long range SAMs, its swarm of low cost missile equation gets turned on its head and the odds against and costs of successfully punching through all those defences climbs exponentially.
That's all entirely ignoring ECM and jamming on the defender's side.
If the Serbs managed to spoof full spec HARMs and ALAARM ARMs using a slightly modified microwave oven, imagine what modern day dedicated jammers and decoys could do to stripped down throw away cruise missiles.