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NosmoKing posted:Don't forget kids, rockets that can put nuclear weapons anywhere they want on the planet, can also be re-purposed as space launch vehicles. Alternately, space launch vehicles can be repurposed into ICBMs. Iran has been playing around with that. Also, I can't believe I missed this thread for so long given that I'm an air defense nerd. The nuclear museum in Albuquerque is pretty cool, though obviously underfunded and has an aging Bomarc on display. There are all sorts of antiquated, unused Nike-Herc launch sites down by Ft. Bliss where they used to launch all the time. Now our live-fire are limited to more or less annual patriot firings (army-wide, not per unit) and THAAD testing, though that has more or less moved to the Pacific.
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Dec 24, 2010 01:29
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A semi-effort post on a late Cold War air defense system, Patriot. Patriot successfully engaged its first drone target in 1975. It was initially fielded as a highly accurate, highly maneuverable, long range, high altitude, mobile anti-aircraft system. All families of Patriot missile except the PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability) are proximity kill missiles with an approximately 200 pound warhead which spreads a cloud of steel fragments. It is extremely effective, even against maneuvering targets and high speed aircraft. The system is comprised of a radar, EPP (electric power plant), ECS (Engagement Control Station), AMG (Antenna Mast Group), and up to 16 launchers, some of which can be at a remote site if additional communications architecture is added to the system. Each launcher can hold 4 missiles of the PAC-2 or older family. Each PAC-3 launcher can hold 16 missiles. The system is a command guidance, track via missile system. The missile is flown based on an uplink/downlink between the radar and missile until it gets to its terminal phase of flight, at which point the radar will illuminate the target and the missile will home on that illumination. This means pilots do not perceive a "spike" until the very last moment, greatly decreasing their chances of evasion or masking. (This is also why that Air Force pilot who blew apart one of our radars because he was spiked is full of poo poo) The ECS is the only manned fire unit equipment directly involved in engagements during combat containing 1 officer (2LT or 1LT), 1 commo operator (E-2 to E-5), and 1 air defense soldier (typically from E-2 to E-5). Launchers are only manned in order to ready them or to reload them. It is possible to run the system in a fully automatic mode, using pre-programmed killboxes, self-defense criteria, and ID criteria to let the system fight without any operator input. This was intended not to allow crews to abandon the system, but rather to make sure all engagements were processed should the enemy attempt to saturate the battery using massed attacks. The operators would at this point only manage by exception, making sure no enemies which did not meet engagement criteria went unengaged or to stop the system from engaging any friendlies who foolishly entered a kill-box. This is being phased out because we never use it and even having the button available is begging some moron to kill a friendly. There have been many enhancements to the system since initial entry into the Army. Increased capability to engage jammers has been added to all families of Patriot missile. The best way to ensure that Patriot can hit you with ease is to try to jam it. The latest missiles have much greater capabilities against low RCS/stealthy aircraft and new fusing to allow them to better engage ballistic missiles. A few words about a some events people always seem to ask about- What was up with the terrible performance during the Gulf War? The ability to shoot down ballistic missiles had only recently been added and hadn't been properly tested. During the Gulf War, Patriot batteries had great success with mission kills, which are defined as a hit which knocks the missile off its intended trajectory. It had awful warhead kills, which would be actually destroying the warhead. A mission kill is well and good if trying to destroy a missile which is highly accurate and aimed at a small target. It is very bad if defending against inaccurate TBMs (we were) aimed at very large targets (they were). PAC-3 was around for OIF and resulted in 9 warhead kills out of 9 TBMs engaged. It also downed 2 friendlies. Incidentally, the PAC-3 is not as good against air breathing threats as the PAC-2 family and below. Why did you guys shoot down that British Tornado and the USN F-18 The Tornado didn't have its IFF on and broke away from another Tornado and dove unwittingly toward a Patriot battery. This made it look very much like ordnance fired at the Patriot unit. The system classified the Tornado as an anti-radiation missile. The officer in charge had a few seconds to decide what to do, and she ordered an engagement. The tornado was destroyed and pilot killed. Given the training and system I have now, I would never have done that. Given her training and system, it's very possible I would have. The F-18 was a poo poo-show and frankly it was almost all our fault. The pilot wasn't in his safe corridor like he should've been and his IFF was Needless to say, our training focuses HEAVILY on fratricide mitigation, to the point of sometimes irritating Marine and USAF controllers when we do joint exercises with them because we are more likely to let red air come bomb us into the ground than we are to shoot down a friendly plane. edit: feel free to ask questions. I currently work in an Information Coordination Central (ICC) which controls several patriot units at once and am qualified to be an ADAFCO, which would control a theater's worth of air defense. I have extensive experience fighting against live air via the Marine WTI course where we get to fight against Marine and USAF craft. Patriot "won" a year ago, which is a big deal considering how heavily stacked against the ground forces the whole exercise is. This year our radar broke during the last evolution, so...uh... we got murdered obviously. If it's something I can't answer, I'll let you know as much. See also, this source, which isn't 100% accurate but is a good overview. http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/patriot.htm MORE EDITS: regarding my opinion that the F-18 shoot-down was almost all our fault, the official story is different and no one was found responsible in any criminal or negligent way. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2010 02:23
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Ygolonac posted:This sounds interesting... details? Apparently there was some old software that labeled Patriot sites as SA-2 (i think, def. a Russian SAM) sites for some very weird reason. He fired a HARM into the patriot site from the rear, then claimed he was spiked. In all likelihood, he either received no Patriot emissions whatsoever or just had some backlobe or sidelobe interference hit him. In any case, he totaled a radar, but killed no one. The Army warrant officer in charge of fixing could have very nearly fixed it aside from a critical hit to a very particular piece of equipment. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Dec 24, 2010 |
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Dec 24, 2010 06:13
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iyaayas01 posted:What's the difference between PAC-3 and THAAD? I know THAAD is a completely different system, but they seem like they somewhat overlap...am I way off base and their intended use is way different? Ok, they KIND OF overlap. Both are hit to kill kinetic weapons which can score extremely accurate warhead kills. THAAD can hit higher, though and has far greater range. If you can hit a missile farther out, you can cover a greater ground area. So PAC-3 covers a smaller footprint, but each missile is probably equally lethal once they hit a warhead. A big bonus of THAAD is that it can hit warheads carrying submunitions before they would be relased. Patriot is testing the MSE (Missile Segment Enhanced) which will truly provide overlap between THAAD and PAC-3 capabilities. THAAD is reliant on Patriot because while THAAD can engage TBMs far higher and farther out than Patriot, it can't defend itself from fighters and ARMs and the like. edit: also, THAADs radar is way different. I could explain a lot more in secure format, but...yeah, sorry. edit2: THAAD uses an infra-red seeker for terminal guidance, whereas the PAC-3 uses an active Ka-band seeker for terminal guidance. This is a big departure from PAC-2 guidance, which is track-via-missile illumination. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Dec 24, 2010 |
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Dec 24, 2010 06:19
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Yeah... if it helps the THAAD radar is basically an AN/TPY-2 with different software.
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Dec 24, 2010 06:34
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TBM = Tactical Ballistic Missile. Basically, missiles with shorter ranges than an ICBM. SRBMs are short-range ballistic missiles which, depending on which service is using the term, typically means anything up to about 1,000 km. MRBMs are medium-range ballistic missiles which range between 1,000 and 3,000 km. ICBMs would be everything longer range than that. Patriot specializes in SRBMs and MRBMs. THAAD and Aegis perform better against longer range threats than Patriot, but have limited utility against short range TBMs or Long-range rockets, making an integrated defense necessary. THAAD and Patriot both have high fidelity radars which can perform awesome discrimination, though THAAD much more so because it is a monster of a system. Aegis has a very long range but less impressive radar and instead depends on very, very "smart" SM-3 interceptors like the one they used to shoot down a satellite in 2008. ARM = Anti-radiation missile. Any missile with a seeker specifically designed to lock onto radars. Typically, an ARM can be used to triangulate the position of your radar through aircraft maneuvers prior to launch and then can still home on that location even if the radar is turned off. Common ways Patriot combats ARMs include frequency hopping, which makes it harder for the ARM to lock on and requires a wide-band receiver if you're hopping through a wide spectrum while radiating. Patriot can also shoot down incoming ARMs. Other rotating radars depend on blanking wherein they just stop radiating toward the ARM carrier. Patriot doesn't do that because it isn't a rotating radar with 360 degree coverage. A quick cool note on THAAD testing. A couple of the tests have involved shooting down a TBM launched out of a C-17 Globemaster. A damned cargo plane air-dropped a ballistic missile, which then kicked off and launched into THAAD's area where THAAD destroyed it. I'm frankly more impressed that we can launch TBMs out the back of a C-17 than that THAAD can hit its targets. Unfortunately, while those tests are talked about openly, no one has put the video of a C-17 dropping a TBM out its cargo door on youtube. It's pretty awesome to see. edit: Here are 2 of the better videos demonstrating a Patriot intercept, both PAC-2 and PAC-3. At the very end of the 2nd video featuring a PAC-3, you can see all the attitude control motors popping off for last instant corrections to ensure a proper kinetic kill. PAC-2 relies on aerodynamic guidance only and is proximity kill rather than hit-to-kill. PAC-2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfOTEMGhASc&feature=related PAC-3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT6DzaG_658&feature=related Cool infra-red camera look at a THAAD intercept. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZXl75XUM2M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9079GWS0hfU&feature=related mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Dec 24, 2010 |
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Dec 24, 2010 16:12
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CAT ON THE COUCH!! posted:Can you explain this more? In what way is the uplink/downlink different from illumination? Regarding the drone, Bushman has posted his here and it is awesome. I'm sure someone has links to the thread somewhere. There are a few different ways missiles can home on a target. "Fire and forget" missiles are active guidance missiles. The missile has its own onboard radar or infra-red seeker which locks onto the target and follows it without any guidance from its launch source. This is popular for missiles carried by fighters, since you don't want a fighter aircraft to have to keep guiding its missile in to the target when it could be acquiring a new target or maneuvering. Command guidance is where the radar on the ground sees the target and gives the missile commands in order to guide it toward the target. This missile does nothing whatsoever except take commands from the fire control radar. Nike-Hercules worked this way, and actually had many radars including a surveillance radar, a target ranging radar, and a missile tracking radar which locked onto the missile while it was still on the ground and then followed it out as the missile was launched and flew to its target. Semi-active guidance is where the ground radar illuminates the target by spotlighting the target with a particular wave-form which the missile passively listens for. The missile will home on this reflected energy. PAC-2 uses a mixture of command guidance and semi-active guidance. For the vast majority of the flight, the missile is receiving commands from the radar based on the Weapons Control Computer's assessment of the best path to take to intercept the target. The missile sends down data to the radar to let it know where it was and where it will be. The radar sends up data to steer the missile. Toward the end of the flight, the missile enters the TVM (Track via Missile) phase. The target is illuminated by the ground radar and the missile homes on the reflection and the missile then decides how it will fly to intercept the target, making it more accurate than relying purely on ground guidance from a radar which could be many tens of kilometers away at this point. PAC-3 uses command guidance for most of its flight and then switches over to an active Ka-band seeker which locks onto the target and guides the missile in with no input from the ground radar. Here is a very nerdy audio clip describing how many families of missiles know where they are: http://asuwlink.uwyo.edu/~jimkirk/guidance.wav If patriot does not gain the uplink/downlink immediately to allow missile guidance, the missile will self destruct. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Dec 24, 2010 |
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Dec 24, 2010 17:00
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CAT ON THE COUCH!! posted:Thanks! So the pilot of a target aircraft isn't alerted to radar? Or the "spike" is total illumination? The spike would be the total illumination which occurs so late in the game that the pilot is effectively hosed. Also, the interceptor is very, very maneuverable and will be able to follow any emergency maneuvers by the pilot. Whereas some SAM systems have a surveillance radar and a fire control radar, and the fire control radar must spike the target prior to firing, Patriot has one radar with a firing solution on everything it sees that it can possibly engage at all times. Morbid as it is, even the US Navy pilot in his F-18 who saw the missiles launched at him from the ground and thus had more time than usual to dodge the interceptors only evaded 1 of the 2 missiles fired at him, and we fired PAC-3s which are better against TBMs but not as great against air breathing threats compared to the PAC-2.
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Dec 24, 2010 17:19
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Groda posted:I love SAMs and you should start a new thread on them, mlmp08. I don't know about a whole thread, because I don't know nearly as much as I'd like about soviet systems. I vaguely remember the illuminated targets, but that wouldn't have been THAAD. It's guidance doesn't require illumination so it wouldn't do much anyway, and what really makes THAAD accurate in the end game is its infra-red seeker combined with attitude control motors, which are miniature rockets motors that pop off in order to keep it maneuverable when it's operating in extremely thin atmosphere.
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Dec 24, 2010 20:36
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The A-10 fratricide derail in the Photo thread, IIRC, reminds me of something. Since patriot downed the USN F-18 and RAF Tornado, our training has gone from "trust the system" to "question everything the system tells you ever" and included a ton of software overhauls related purely to fratricide, as well as a bunch regarding ballistic missile defense planning and engagement. The result is now that when we work with the Air Force, they're mostly happy with us, aside from the odd snarky comment about going "11 for 9" in OIF (we shot down 11 targets, only 9 were legitimate). The Marines, on the other hand, are always inviting us to the big ground/air integration course, Weapons Tactics Instruction, and seem to get pretty butthurt when we don't just start shooting down anything that looks at us funny. Then they'll create self-defense criteria for Patriot that we know won't work and it gets leaked to the red force pilots by other Marines. So they fly just a hair too slow or too high or whatever for us to engage them without authority, and the game turns into us screaming for permission to shoot down the F-5 about to bomb us to hell. RIGHT AFTER it has flown by, bombed us, and strafed the command center, they tell us to engage it, but we can't because it's behind us now. Things run much better with an AWACS around. We've gotten to the point, it seems, where we'd rather see red air come blow apart a few buildings on the ground than risk having 1 or 2 pilots be killed by Patriot. Yes, all fratricide is awful, but if you applied the restrictions to CAS that they do to Patriot, you'd pretty much cease to have CAS. During my last trip to WTI, we pointed out that they hadn't given us proper self-defense allowances to let us shoot at the TV-guided missiles the enemy would be launching at us, which were simulated by this little guy splitting off from an enemy craft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR9bgiZizAA&feature=related#t=1m29s A Marine captain, intent on letting all of us other captains know he would soon be a major, called out "You're telling me you'd let something going fast right at you hit you if you didn't have express permission to shoot it?!" We let it slide during the massive brief, but when he came to berate us afterward, we asked him to go ask the British course manager how things go when Patriot just starts shooting at stuff that looks scary. He left in a huff, but acknowledged that maybe the self-defense criteria was crap. By the way, I have yet to go to a WTI where a Marine stinger team doesn't shoot down a friendly at some point. A photo for your time:  Note the attitude control motors on the nose of the PAC-3 interceptor firing immediately at launch to help steer it toward its target. Most of these motors are saved for the end-game to make precise corrections and ensure the interceptor strikes the warhead of the missile and not just the body. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Nov 20, 2012 |
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Dec 27, 2010 16:52
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AlexanderCA posted:Semi off-topic, sorry: I'll preface this by saying that my focus as traditionally been on SRBM and some MRBM and I tend only to look at ICBMs as far as how they tie into the big picture. Being a Patriot guy who also has to care some about THAAD and Short-range systems like Avenger and SLAMRAAM doesn't afford me a ton of time to worry about ICBMs, though with our new upper-tier adafco slots, maybe that will change. ADAFCO=Air Defense Artillery Fire Control Officer. First, take this little graphic from the Missile Defense Agency:  Anyway, ICBM defense and what we have now can be evaluated by a couple of metrics. First, there is the idea that nothing anyone can launch at us will hit us. That's just ludicrous. If Russia really completely lost their loving minds and decided to strike us, there's not a whole hell of a lot we could do about it. Some laymen seem to think that that's what THAAD and Patriot and Aegis are for (haha). The metric that most who understand the system go by is that we need to ensure a rogue state like North Korea or a rising state like Iran be thwarted by our missile defenses. Detection, as it stands now, is pretty good. Overhead persistent infra-red (OPIR) is a system of satellites which can detect, track, and predict flight paths of missiles as they are launched. ICBMs are the easiest to detect, as they burn longest and hot. SRBMs are harder, but can still be tracked pretty well. Lower burn time, worse atmospheric conditions, etc. can make things harder to detect. We also have forward-based AN/TPY-2 suveillance radars which are extremely powerful and have just fantastic fidelity considering the ranges at which they are working. They are also very expensive, vulnerable, and take a lot of service and support to operate. The Air Force also operates very powerful radars like Cobra Dane and others. The big hitter we'd love to have but just don't is the ability to intercept ICBMs and other missile during the boost phase. We tried the Airborne Laser, which was a big laser on a 747 frame, and we decided it was just one more high-value air asset (HVAA) to defend, very expensive, had limited range and flight time, and would be required to fly in very dangerous areas where enemy fighters or SAMs could wreck it. It has been scrapped. In mid-90s, the air force tested a kinetic kill missile that would be launched by F-15s standing by for missile launches, but it was again decided that they would be too vulnerable and would require a stupid amount of fighters on ICBM duty to get anything done, and the range wasn't fantastic. In the present and immediate future, the sensors we have and the ground-based interceptors (GBI) operated out of Mt. Cheyenne will be enough to deal with North Korea's or Iran's one-day in the future ability to launch a very limited number of ICBMs. The holy grail would be some sort of ultra-fast, highly accurate, long range ground-based interceptor or else some sort of UAV which can loiter for a very long time at very high altitude and launch an interceptor. Or pew pew lasers with extreme range. But wait, why is killing the missile in the boost phase so important?! Many reasons. Note that from here I won't be talking specifically ICBM. Using Patriot for ICBM defense is not a good idea. 1. Missiles aren't employing countermeasures in the boost phase. ICBMs can deploy a bunch of decoys in midcourse while they are exo-atmospheric which can make it hard to hit the right warhead and, almost as bad, make it very hard for missile defenders to know if they hit the right warhead or not. This can be a big problem for Aegis when engaging in midcourse. Once the warhead(s) and decoys hit the atmosphere, it becomes much easier to tell what is a big heavy warhead and what is a fake, lighter decoy. This is where THAAD and, later, Patriot come in. THAAD shines in that it can hit targets right after decoys start to fail, but before submunitions are released (MRBM and SRBM, mostly. ICBMs that utilize MIRV tech while exo-atmospheric are tricky). When I talk submunitions, I mean cluster bomb warheads, chemical submunitions, runway penetrator cluster weapons, etc. Obviously, if you hit them while boosting, you don't have to worry about any of that at all, yay. 2. Each missile you track is sucking up radar resources. The longer a missile is on scope flying around the world, the more resources from multiple sensors you're using which can make it harder to detect new missile launches or maintain track of detected missiles. 3. An early intercept ought to be very easy to assess as hit/miss. Firing midcourse into a cloud of debris and decoys can be hard to assess, meaning you're tying up resources either re-engaging it or trying to figure out if you hit it. 4. It would free up other radars to search launch areas more closely. If you could be certain that you could hit, say, 90% of missile fired from a specific launch area during the boost phase, you could tell other surveillance or fire control radars not to worry about that area so that they could focus more of their energy (literally) on searching ballistic missile operations areas (BMOAs) that you can't cover, resulting in earlier detection and better probability of kill by Aegis, THAAD, or Patriot. In case that last point didn't make sense, we don't just turn on a Patriot radar or THAAD radar or Aegis radar and let it look for things. We tell the radar what assets we care most about, where we think missiles will come from, and what type of missiles we expect to see. From there, the software optimizes the best way to search for the highest threats. Given this system, it is very important to have good intel and only defend the most critical items so that you don't end up with late detection because you're overloading the radar trying to search for everything everywhere. 5. Shooting down a missile in the terminal phase can result in a pile of clutter and chaff and debris hanging out right over top your terminal defense radars, seriously degrading your ability to detect or destroy later volleys. Luckily, Patriot is pretty damned good at dealing with this, but some other sensors aren't and it's still not ideal. so, uh, wall of text.
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Dec 27, 2010 21:30
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A buddy of mine was telling me about those, and how dialing in an SA-2 is just a giant pain in the rear end. Our system takes a ton of know-how and training to create a defense design plan as far as where you'll look, what you'll defend, etc. but the actual execution of shooting at a missile or plane is pretty damned easy.
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Dec 27, 2010 21:34
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Just got back from a day trip to Albuquerque. Went here: http://www.nuclearmuseum.org/ Will post pics sometime tomorrow.
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Dec 29, 2010 05:05
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I went to the National Museum of Nuclear Science in History back in August and had plenty of time to look around, and it is awesome, if obviously new and a bit underfunded. Unfortunately, I didn't really take any pictures then. I took pictures this last time around but we arrived about 45 minutes before closing and so it was a mad dash. Anyway, pictures. Here's the cool Packard limo that ferried around the Manhattan Project scientists. .JPG) The Honset John nuclear rocket, with a 15 mile-ish range. .JPG) Here's the Lance, an SRBM with a max range of 75 miles used by the U.S. starting in 1972 and entirely pulled back by the early to mid 1990s. It carried up to 100kt nuclear warheads or convetional warheads like cluster munitions. We had some 3,000 of these guys at one point. It replaced the Honest John pictured above. .JPG) A Minuteman MK5 RV which survived reentry testing. .JPG) Just some bombs we accidentally dropped on Spain, no big deal. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash .JPG) Here's the Bomarc, a USAF SAM (kind of) which iyaayas01 described in some detail earlier. .JPG) Nuclear cruise missiles that I cannot remember the name of, and I stupidly forgot to take pictures of their placards. .JPG) The Genie iyaayas01 told us about. .JPG) Trident missile time. If you're as lucky as I was, maybe some old guy will come up and start quoting random facts and figured about it to your wife, intentionally using terms that he knows full well people who aren't in missile delivery or defense won't know! Apparently, the RVs shown aren't to scale. They seem small compared to most diagrams I can find open-source. .JPG) .JPG) It has a smiley face. A slightly taken apart Titan II. Most of the stuff they have outside is in some state of restoration and kind of just laying around. They haven't been open long, so hopefully this stuff gets fixed up and has better displays in the future. Not pictured because they can be seen all sorts of other places are a B-29, B-52, F-105, and A-7. .JPG) Engines with wife for scale. .JPG) Payload section. .JPG) edit: woops didn't mean to hit submit yet.
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Dec 29, 2010 19:45
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A nuclear landmine/demolition charge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_Atomic_Demolition_Munition Note the davy crocket round in the background. .JPG) More modern B-83 strategic nuke. Below is the parachute pack for it which can apparently slow it from 920mph to 50mph in less than 2 seconds. drat. .JPG) .JPG) Radium water, to cure all your ills! .JPG) Don't want to buy bottled water? Make your own at home! .JPG) Delicious vault-food! .JPG) .JPG) For the fallout geeks here, they seem to be playing the CONELRAD mod in the museum. It's awesome.
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Dec 29, 2010 19:57
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while we're on requests, anything you can post on glide-bombs without getting into classified info would be awesome.
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Dec 31, 2010 05:50
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JSOW would be good. Air to Air is largely not that important to me except for predicting who/what will be a leaker during exercises like WTI or virtual flag.
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Dec 31, 2010 07:42
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MazeOfTzeentch posted:I always thought the Idiot's loop tossed the bomb on the way up the loop at a forward angle, and then the plane finished the half loop and scurried off in the other direction. I know I've seen a diagram showing this as an option for the F-111. I don't know how accurate it was.
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Jan 3, 2011 08:19
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Agustin Cienfuegos posted:SPY SATELLITES! the way it drops its film modules is pretty slick.
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Jan 6, 2011 02:23
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NosmoKing posted:Yeah, yeah, yeah... Here's a great couple of simulators. First: http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/ When you're done with that one, grab this: http://fallout.bethsoft.com/index.html
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Jan 7, 2011 04:33
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Well, there goes my morning. That F-22 video really shows off some pretty cool low-speed maneuverability. Also, those bastards look huge. Two of them flew over our motorpool and while I know in my head that they are virtually the same size as the F-15 they always strike me as just looking big.
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Jan 23, 2011 16:09
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NosmoKing posted:There were lots of studies, proposed adoptions of foreign systems, stuff like strapping podded Stingers to Bradley's and Hummers, but nothing really developed. Uh, they fielded quite a bit of this in the form of the Linebacker system (now retired but saw action in OIF) and the Avenger system, which we still have today. Linebackers were discarded not so much because they were bad, but because when you put a stinger pack on a Bradley and tell a Brigade commander to use them for air defense, he quickly realizes there's little or no air threat and uses them as just another Bradley. Avengers are still around, and are basically a HMWWV with a turret on the back and shoot on the move capability. On the turret are 8 stingers and an M3P electrically fired .50 caliber machine gun which fires 25 round bursts far faster than an M2 can. An operator may also sit in the turret. It has FLIR and can be slewed to cue using EPLRS radios and Sentinel radars, but largely depends on operators picking up targets visually in order to complete an engagement. The system can be remoted out something like 50 or 100 meters away so that the soldiers operating it can be in a foxhole or bunker instead of sitting in the obvious target of the truck itself while it fires. In reality, these tend to be used for convoy security or FOB security because they have a .50 cal and FLIR. Personnel who are supposed to operate Avengers and Sentinels are also often called upon to operate C-RAM instead, since C-RAM sees WAY more usage than Avenger. As in, C-RAM has been fired at something and an Avenger has never fired a stinger at anything but a target at the range. Their main drawback is that the Stinger missile has a much shorter range than many, many weapons which could be used to target the Avenger, and a HMWWV is harder to hide than a guy holding a MANPADS. The SLAMRAAM (Surface-Launched AMRAAM) was supposed to replace the Avenger but it was canned just a couple weeks ago. quote:The Soviets on the other hand churned out a new gun system and especially missile system seemingly every other drat month. The later variants have some neat vertical launch capability with little directional change motors towards the nose of the missile. The missile gets farted out of the tube, the motor at the nose quickly tips the missile towards the target, and then the main motor ignites, zipping off towards said aircraft. Our HIMAD systems are pretty clearly superior to Russia's, but their SHORAD systems are pretty awesome. edit: Norway got a SLAMRAAM system to work, which is called NASAMS and is used to defend Washington D.C. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Feb 10, 2011 |
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Feb 10, 2011 07:02
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You see the same thing in Air Defense TTPs, particularly post-Cold War. When Patriot was designed during the Cold War, it was intended to have automatic engagement mode available and weapons control volumes (big 3d space of air) which were at Weapons Free (shoot everything not positively identified as a friend.) The system would be set to automatic when a horde of aircraft came flooding out of the Warsaw Pact and the operators would be there to manage system faults, ensure launchers were reloaded, and to interrupt or terminate engagements against any unidentified friendly craft. Now, it will typically take a directive from an Air Force Colonel or above for USA Patriot to engage an air breathing threat.
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Feb 10, 2011 14:57
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Got to go to work now, but I can put up a big kill chain explanation later. It's not sensitive.
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Feb 10, 2011 15:30
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Space Gopher posted:So, yeah. If you can get to it, early boost phase intercept is by far the best option for shooting down a rocket. A rifle could probably get the job done if you're really good at estimating lead, although I'd say that the best way to take out an ICBM would probably involve a SAM, AAM, or something with a guidance package. Yeah, though the issue remains the requirement that you be in the immediate vicinity of an ICBM at launch. For obvious reasons, countries don't set up ICBM launching sites within close range of enemy sharpshooters and SAMs/AAA, so what seems like the best answer ends up being a very difficult one to execute. iyaayas01, in reference to your question about Patriot kill chains... On the Patriot side, from top to bottom: Air Defense Artillery Fire Control Officer (ADAFCO) - O3 or CW3/CW4 (RARELY an O4) This is a Brigade asset. then Tactical Director (TD) - O3/O2 or CW2/CW3 Battalion Headquarters element asset then Tactical Control Officer (TCO) - O1/O2 or WO1/CW2 Battery element I ignored the enlisted components, but the ADAFCO typically has 1 enlisted assistant, and TDs and TCOs each have 2 extra crew members consisting of one air defense soldier and one communications soldier. The ADAFCO is where Patriot meets the Air Force directly. The ADAFCO needs to be with the SADC or RADC or whoever is the engagement authority. My previous statement of an Air Force Colonel having to order an engagement is misleading, because if we actually were in a position to be shooting at planes, I'm sure EA would be passed down to a lower level than the CFACC. Typically, the ADAFCO is with the CRC like so:  At the ADAFCO course, I integrated with a USAF CRC team and learned the OM system, since it's fairly different from Patriot control stations. In those exercises I sat next to an SWD who had EA for exercise purposes and it went really well. I've been in other Marine exercises where they try to put the ADAFCO somewhere other than right next to the EA and it gets really messy and delays result. The Air Force seems to be the best at integrating us into their own capabilities while simultaneously explaining things we need to know, but don't know. It is possible to put an ADAFCO in an AWACS, Aegis, TAOC, C/JAOC, or TAOC depending on the RADC/SADC layout. I think the CRC is the best place to put an ADAFCO given that they have robust communications architecture, plenty of room to accommodate an ADAFCO cell, a native radar picture in case comms go down, and Air Force personnel who've worked with ADAFCOs. Aegis does a decent job of integrating us physically from what I hear, but I haven't done so personally. They also have a tougher time integrating us doctrinally, because they tend to want to run the show and ignore us. The AWACS just doesn't have all the space and resources we need to run an ADAFCO cell for an extended period of time. It can be done in a pinch and I've flown with an AWACS crew, but not for extended ops. For one thing, Patriot is up pretty much all the time and airplanes just aren't. Second, the AWACS consoles are different from the OM and most ADAFCOs don't really know how to operate them. I can do very basic commands on them, but not really what I'd need to know to be an effective engagement controller in a shooting war. They also lack some communications architecture we love to have. mIRC is fantastic, but there are very, very few mIRC-capable AWACS last I talked to an AWACS crew. The Navy works far more with Upper-Tier ADAFCOs (THAAD) than with Patriot ADAFCOs since the Navy's work with us relates much more to TBMs than to ABTs.
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Feb 10, 2011 23:50
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There's a reason the Vulcan system was called upon to "mow the grass" in Vietnam. Various retired Colonels argue that the Vulcan should have been kept around just for fun, since it was apparently a blast at the range.
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Feb 11, 2011 01:21
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Smiling Jack posted:They didn't start fielding the M6 until 1998, which is significantly after the Warsaw Pact packed up and went home. For most of the Cold War, the US fielded the previously mentioned Vulcan / Chaparral combo which were outdated almost as soon as they were fielded. US field anti-air just flat out sucked. I think you're right about the BSFV, but Patriot became a system of record int he 1970s (1976 I think?). Avenger has been in service since just about the end of the cold war, meaning it was being developed during the cold war but missed the boat. The SA-15 and the like seem more impressive in comparison. What is harder to measure without getting into classified information is the probability of kill of US vs. USSR-era systems. Also, the SGT York was a disaster, but it was never intended to replace Patriot. It has a totally different role. The SGT York was supposed to be a maneuver shorad AAA system, whereas Patriot is a mobile long range SAM which can only fire when emplaced. Maybe I'm not understanding you.
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Feb 11, 2011 05:20
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BadgerMan45 posted:That looks familiar, did they just have some 1C5s at the schoolhouse for this specific purpose or was there an ACS nearby? Just curious as I used to be stationed at one. I'm going to be honest and say I have no idea what you're talking about.
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Feb 11, 2011 05:21
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Ah, now I remember hearing ACS/Air Control Squadron, but I never heard the MOS or Air Force equivalent thereof. edit: this training is performed at the DMOC at Kirtland AFB. We worked with some folk from Tinker AFB who came to Kirtland on TDY.
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Feb 11, 2011 06:41
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Smiling Jack posted:Mobile US air defense sucked. That was the original point. The Linebacker and Avenger weren't fielded until well after the cold war, while the Soviets were in love with the idea of field mobile guns'n'missiles and poo poo. Yeah, mobile US air defense did suck and still does IMO. Patriot wasn't deployed until the early 80's, but was a system of record in the 1970's. Various people try to describe Patriot as mobile when they it really is only "moveable." I wouldn't call a 1 hour tear down time, lack of shoot on the move, and 1 hour setup time "mobile" air defense. One of the few great air defense systems from the US we got to see in devastating action was the Stinger missile itself and its precursor, the Redeye. While the range is quite limited, they were key in destroying hundreds of aircraft in Afghanistan.
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Feb 11, 2011 20:45
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Flanker posted:Git yer foxbot on UNF Foxbot? 
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Feb 12, 2011 04:06
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Whenever I script in a Foxbat running a high altitude, high speed "gently caress you" recon profile like the one flown here, Patriot operators get all confused and seem to think the radar is acting up in the simulation. It's funny to see new guys who are used to seeing real radar tracks, like generic subsonic military flights or civilian flights think the recon flight Foxbats are either spurious or maybe a misclassified air-to-air missile or some such.
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Feb 12, 2011 06:21
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Sunday Punch posted:But if Sprint isn't fast enough for you, there's always HIBEX. Designed as a last-ditch ABM missile, it was intended to intercept an RV at less than 6km altitude. At that point the incoming RV is moving at around 3km a second, so HIBEX was designed to launch in under a quarter of a second and accelerate at 400G to intercept in under 2 seconds. That must have been a loving tiny footprint. We're talking extreme point defense here.
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Mar 10, 2011 03:49
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Iron Squid posted:The F111 had an escape capsule instead of ejection seats. Why did the designers go this route and what are the pros and cons of this? Pros: Looks badass. Cons: If Harrison Ford is on board, he will refuse to use it and will instead steal an MP5 and shoot people. But seriously, I'd like to know this answer as well.
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Apr 5, 2011 00:02
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Plinkey posted:I'm still not entirely clear as to how they get rid of the huge Doppler shift you'd see with the blades spinning as fast as they are. It's just harder to detect than usual. There's no way they made a RW aircraft that comes anywhere close to what low observable FW aircraft can do as far as low observability. I imagine this just allows them to bypass certain radars or get closer to other radars where they would normally be detected at longer range. I don't know, and if I did I couldn't say, but I would bet that if you put this type of aircraft close to a Sentinel radar or Patriot radar or the like, it would show up no problem. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 22:57 on May 5, 2011 |
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May 5, 2011 22:54
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Making helicopters just a bit more "stealthy" could pay off in a serious way if you will be well masked much of the time, but know there will be short windows where you are exposed. Even if you aren't out of detection range or undetectable, if you are able to increase detection time, fool radars that discriminate (by making them think you are too small a target to be a helo), or be completely discarded as clutter due to smaller RCS footprint, you can take a lot of risk out of the short periods where you may be exposed. A normal helo may be sporadically detected between masking terrain, which frequently can make helo's impossible or hard to engage, but alerts the hell out air defenses and potentially ground forces if they can figure out where you are going. One that is less observable could, in the best case, not show up in these brief non-masked periods, or could show up as clutter or a spurious track or a questionable track and not alert people in the way that an obviously dropped real helicopter would. edit: regardless, the idea of a helicopter being able to fly across open plains at modern air defenses without being detected is not so realistic. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 23:14 on May 5, 2011 |
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May 5, 2011 23:09
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NosmoKing posted:What about the drat NOISE of an approaching helicopter? Well, there are ways to make them far, far quieter and SOCOM has done this and it's not a secret, really. Also, they may be loud, but masked helicopters are very hard to hear because of the hill/mountain/whatever in the way. If you can hear a chopper, it is at VERY close range relative to air defense systems. The only chopper that comes to mind that is distinctly loving loud and has led to me hearing it before I see it is the Huey. That thing "slaps" something fierce. When choppers are flying low, even in a a non-masked environment, you'd be surprised just how close they are before you hear them. A loud two-rotor newschopper hovering overhead gives a weird impression of how far out you hear them compared to a modern military chopper at low level. This link has some info: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/mh-x.htm They're reporting a reduction of 16 dB during flyovers using different rotor designs on an otherwise identical aircraft.
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May 6, 2011 00:21
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Propagandalf posted:Also, "Pakistan" and "Modern Air Defenses" have no business in the same sentence. Ok, they're no USA or Russia, but they have reasonable and numerous air defense systems.
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May 6, 2011 00:26
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priznat posted:I know this because I lived in a bit of a "colourful" area and it would be flying over my neighbourhood fairly often. Cute.
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May 6, 2011 00:29
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 15:56 |
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Oh, ok.
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May 6, 2011 00:31
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