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Author Topic: Tactic vs. Tactic  (Read 19813 times)

Offline Raptor

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Tactic vs. Tactic
« on: January 05, 2008, 09:29:35 AM »
We all know the various combat doctrines in the world. BVR dogfighting, ie, stand-off weapons, cheap and light aircraft. The European Typhoon with it's incredible manueverability. Electronic warfare, complete multi-task capable aircraft. Longer ranges, "stealth." etc

Now which of these tactics or types of warfare in your very biased or not opinion  ;D, is the overall winner, past, present and future. No need to mention that EW does not stretch into WWI. Give any class of combat doctrine and explain it.

Personally, i can't make up my mind. Let's use objective: the destruction Air Force One along with it's fighter escort as the scenario. ;D btw, one pilot only.
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Offline Globetrotter

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2008, 08:05:37 PM »
so which airplanes will be escorting it? I guess F-22, right?
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Offline tigershark

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2008, 10:08:01 PM »
Raptor I'm a little confused and not sure what you really want. 
If I understand you right I think stealth is much bigger then most people realized.   I think in close dog fighting is basically dead with HMS AA-11/9X etc type missiles equipment aircraft.

Is your President on board with mind when Air Force One is shot down?  javascript:void(0);
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Offline alyster

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2008, 12:44:50 AM »
Quote
Is your President on board with mind when Air Force One is shot down?

I think that would be your president not his  ;D

Only greatest military thinkers of 21st century can awnser to that question. I'm not sure yet we know who they are :)

However my thoughts: First of all air force doctrine depends on the overall doctine and the country. I mean the tasks and equipment of IRIAF and USAF are quite different. Israeli air force has to have planes that have to have capability of very accurate bombing, while they have to be able to maintain air supiriority against much larger air forces(67 war, Yom Kippur war - Israel was heavily outnumbered). Russian Air Force however has such a huge country to cover. Most of it is Siberia - a whole lot of land with nothing on it. So I dont think being invisble helps them as much as being fast in Eastern Russia. USAF has to carry out missions world wide. So range and stealth can be quite a bonus. Europe is heavily populated and well covered area. I think a crapy stealth plane can have its hard time here against good not stealth planes. So it all depends on a need of the air force.

About past, it depends on the era. In WW1 manuverability was the main goal. Winners in ww2 were the planes that had high speed and rate of climb, that means big stress per wing area meaning not as manuverable. So it is against the ideas of WW1. Alot can depend on small things. Nazi Blitzkrieg was a result of the fact that Weimar republic was allowed to have only a small 100 000 men army. H. von Seeckt's awnser to the limited army was smaller better equipted and more manuverable army. Totally oposite to french who were still thinking of the WW1 era slow position war. Nazis just improved the army - the idea remained the same. That conquered most of Europe.

I guess there is no supirior tactic. It depends on the era, tasks and also finacial status.
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Offline tigershark

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2008, 01:48:43 AM »
Hello alyster
You have some interesting views including Siberia with a whole lot of nothing. 
javascript:void(0);
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Offline Webmaster

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2008, 03:12:19 AM »
It certainly is a confusing topic you set out here Raptor. I think it's because you want to basically take tactics, weapon capabilities, strategies, and doctrines all into one?

Anyway, alyster made a good attempt here.

I think the best doctrine and/or strategies is the one that best fits your needs what Alyster explained, and then come the weapons, and then the tactics, and finally training.

But let's say your strategy is clear and basic, fight the enemy on the battlefield, both attacking. Then we can say weapons range is very important. Whether it's the spear, pike, longbow, rifle, rocket, cruise missiles, BVR, or intercontinental nuclear missiles, obviously they outperformed their enemies thanks to their superior range. Maybe even more important than fire power.

If you need to deploy more advanced strategies, because of terrain, of defensive enemy, then also the mobility of the 'weapon system' is important, e.g. expeditionary armies, paratroopers, motorized/mechanized infantry, strategic bombers, etc. Mobility depends on weight, and determines speed and range. I'm not sure how one would say they are all connected, but it's always a trade off, whether it's troops that need to carry water, food, weapons, etc. or an aircraft with fuel and weapons.

It's just two things that popped into my mind as important factors. Again, the topic is so unstructured/broad from the outset, that it's confusing. It's a bit like asking: you have different fruits Apples, Bananas, Oranges, all fruit, they need to fit in the fruit basket. There are different fruit baskets, different colors, different sizes and shapes. Now which is the best one?
« Last Edit: January 30, 2008, 03:15:57 AM by Webmaster »
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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2008, 03:49:23 AM »
Regarding the mission you've set out for us. I think almost anything will do, depending on the situation. If the president is up in air force one in a state emergency, you might even just use EW to disable all his communications. Then he has to land (at least if he wants to control anything, Bush would be fine with it, just fly on and take a nap or something, then again his sat. TV won't work either). If you have several S-300s or even just 50 SA-6 launchers, and he is in range, you won't need any plane to take him down. But you see if are already requiring me to use one single-seat fighter, offensive mission, outnumbered/hostile environment.  So I'd use BVR missiles then, the rest doesn't really help you, i.e. is not applicable for this scenario. So what would be the aircraft with most BVR missiles? Typhoon or F-15 I guess. F-22/F-35 maybe with external pylons. If a WSO doesn't count, then a F-14D or MiG-31BM will be better with AIM-54/R-33 and AIM-120/R-77, longer range, plus I can outrun the escorts on my way back home. Stealth would be nice to sneak up, but I'd rather just launch my missiles out of their radar range and then make a run for it. I'll search for the nearby tanker track, fly a bigger/faster track around it, eventually they will show up there. That way I can attack from their rear, instead of intercepting them head-on. A 747 underneath a KC-10 or KC-135...should be a nice big target for my ancient radar and missiles... no need for AESA.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2008, 04:03:43 AM by Webmaster »
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Offline Raptor

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2008, 09:18:09 AM »
Sorry about the question. Perhaps it's more of a "which is your favorite"  :-\

I think you guys have done quite a good job answering the question. So who's favorite method of winning is blowing up a nuclear AAM in the enemy's face?   ::)
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Offline alyster

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2008, 02:30:16 PM »
I do agree with Webby, exept when we're talking about air warfare I wouldn't want to make the weapon's fireing range stand out so much. That would make BVR one of the best choices. However with long ranges there's always a question of hitting the target. It's quite hard to miss a target with a knife. With a a rifel you can already miss if you can't aim. Just today Interfax published a news that Russian artillery missed in Chechenya by 25km!!! So are these new 100+ km range BVR missiles truely the best weapons? Look at the AIM-120D - 180km range. Can that thing actually hit anything smaller than B747? How about a Viper? Can it take down something that can actually manuver? Planes which don't manuver as well as some other surely depend on such missiles so we can't discharge them either. But ofcourse we can go with Raptor's idea. Put a nuclear warhead on the Aim-120D. Massive explotion, a hit wave and EW all together. That weapon can miss by a mile and still score.
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Offline Raptor

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #9 on: January 30, 2008, 03:36:23 PM »
Well, you could compromise and make it so fast the enemy doesn't see what hit it...  ;D

I think there's a Nuke AAM somewhere... Was it the Genie? I don't think so i can't remember which it was... Help anyone?
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Offline Viggen

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #10 on: January 30, 2008, 10:19:29 PM »
I have an another solution to the problem. It acually dosent matter if its the Air Force One or a tanker. If the target is importent enough that it must be destroyed no matter what. Then you just find the fastest aircraft you can get you hands on, load it with high explosives. Place a fanatic in the front seat. Let him go kamikaze on the target. Cheap, 100% sucess and you can call it at surgical strike.

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Offline alyster

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Re: Tactic vs. Tactic
« Reply #11 on: January 30, 2008, 11:13:22 PM »
I have an another solution to the problem. It acually dosent matter if its the Air Force One or a tanker. If the target is importent enough that it must be destroyed no matter what. Then you just find the fastest aircraft you can get you hands on, load it with high explosives. Place a fanatic in the front seat. Let him go kamikaze on the target. Cheap, 100% sucess and you can call it at surgical strike.

 :)

Anyway yes well proven idea. Germans used to launch old aircraft wrecks full of explosives onto Britain. Japanese did the same thing just they had pilots actually guiding the planes. And even soviets issued an order, when Germans were advancing, to stop the bombers at all cost even if that means hitting them with your own plane. I've just never understood the people who actually did it.  ::)
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