3036

The idea of them using a-10s as trucks to haul radar jamming drone devices is interesting. Can’t get a radar lock if the sky is full of contacts

Dropping decoys all over the airspace

3037

Do want a laser pig? because this how you get a laser pig.

3038

I think the proper term here is radar hog

3039

You mean Phaserfrog?

3040

Coherent bacon?

3041

DCS is a wonderful game/tool but when it comes to present-day warfare, it’s not all that good a source for analysis. Its radar modelling is simplistic at best, though some modules (the mirage 2000 for example) have very detailed radar modelling. There’s no account for aspect afaik however, and jamming is modelled very simplistic indeed.

So when it comes to post-F-22 era air-to-air warfare, DCS is not a good source.

So what is it good at? Well, most things short of that. It models aircraft and flight dynamics very well. It has a damage model and fairly detailed modelling of IR sensors. That means it does allow you to see how an A-10C compares to a Su-25 when it comes to providing CAS over a hot frontline (spoiler: both will take hits and therefore not murder to their full potential, but the A-10 will more likely make it home)

A better game/analysis tool might be CMANO. It doesn’t have the first person experience, nor does it have those sweet, sweet graphics, but what it does have is an extensive open source database of sensors, platforms, etc. Very detailed modelling of sensors, jamming, datalinks and informational warfare. It has opened my eyes to the worth of the F-35 thoroughly.

Radar resolution is directly proportional to wavelength. A millimetre radar will make a fairly detailed picture, detailed enough to tell an APC from a schoolbus. Take it to centimeter size and you get just enough to tell a MiG-29 from a Boeing 737 when seen head-on at a certain range. But at meter lengths, you get just enough information to know something’s out there, but not enough resolution to guide a missile.

I don’t see some magical radar technology flat out “defeating” stealth tech. What will happen is that the ranges at which you can reliably consider yourself unseen will get longer. Bigger threat circles so to say. But a far smaller threat circle to you in your F-35 than yours is to major Cuntovski in his Su-27.

Now if Cuntovski by some unimaginable miracle gets his hands on a Su-57 that performs to brochure level (axaxaxa!) it’s autocannons at dawn, with dircm taking care of the heat seekers. And that’s when the fact that the F-35 is tiny and driven by a creative and scared and highly trained human being is going to tell.

3042

Has anyone tried Steel Beasts Pro?

I had a lot of fun playing War Thunder in tanks, and got very tired of the grind and arcade nature of the game. Gunner HEAT PC is fun, but I need a REAL sim.

3043

That’s why I put it in quotes and attempted to explain from memory why it doesn’t and then coupled it with something like infrared(which I believe Russia and China have also put a lot of work into). I doubt some magic radar ever comes along that can defeat stealth, but I worry more about some other combination of sensors that can get you good detection at far enough range. Putting stealth on a plane comes with all kinds of tradeoffs, at some point if you’re reasonably detectable anyway those tradeoffs are no longer worth making.

3044

That point may be quite a ways away though. No way any IR sensor can guide a missile out to a fighter sized signature from 100km or more. And as long as stealth negates that long range shot from both SAM batteries and colonel Natnek in his MiG-31, its worth a bit of a trade off. And these days that trade-off is mostly in being hella expensive and a bit harder to maintain (ie, expensive).

Modern fighter combat is very much unlike armoured land combat. It is decided quickly, perhaps in the first few engagements (think Mahan’s doctrine of decisive battle, only a little less decisive). There’s no way to have a slugging match when the machines cost hundreds of millions and are driven by people with PhD’s in air combat. Either way it goes, its over right quick, after a few machines get killed. After that, as the current experience in Ukraine shows, it changes. Becomes more of a guerilla war.

And that’s where F-35 will do (I think) very well in as well. It has these superb sensors and networking. It is small, physically small. It’s fairly slick and has big ol’ afterburner, so it can didi mau with the best of 'em. Perfect little hit and run bastard. Come at them not in a flock, but individually yet networked from all sides. Reds won’t know what hit 'em.

And if the skies are completely owned, that’s when you roll up with a couple squads of hogs and go to fucking town on those motherfuckers down there.

3045

Reading Red Storm Rising again. I enjoy these discussions very much.

3046

VAMPIRE VAMPIRE VAMPIRE

3047

I do hope that day is a long ways off, and given linear advancements in defeating stealth it will be decades away. And your point about the networking the F-35 is capable of is a good one. Even if it’s stealth were to be defeated it still has a huge leg up there that no adversary is close to matching yet either.

3048

If F-35 vs J-20 (or J-35) becomes a WVR fight, which it stands a fair chance to, the F-35 still has those sweet staring sensors in all directions. It will help the pilot maintain SA tremendously. That and being smaller than a viper should give it a fair chance of coming out on top, even if they have to do it snoopy vs the red baron style.

Of course, the preferred way would be to sneak up on the reds and smack them with an AMRAAM from a safe distance. Datalinks and good stealth help with that.

3049

Why use the A-10, when you can go “BEAST MODE” with F-35’s ?

I am sure the hog addicted people will think they should still be doing CAS, but I wanted to say the words “BEAST MODE” and point out that the F-35 can carry a SHITLOAD of ordinance, if stealth is not needed.

The future of CAS is staying above MANPAD range lobbing bombs and firing guided missiles. It is too scary down there unless you are only worrying about small arms and RPG-7s.

Or CAS ends up being switchblade drones or some other infantry launched drone system we don’t know about yet. I just think that MANPADs have ruined the idea of CAS as we know it, and the future is something else.

3050

You may be right. A ton of switchblade drones delivered from a stealth plane orbiting beyond manpad range makes sense, especially if the boys on the ground get to take control of their drone and seek out the orc they need to inconvenience.

Beast mode on the F-35 still is less than a fully loaded A model hornet, let alone a hog. It’s a tiny little jet, smaller than a viper even!

3051

I don’t think that’s correct - the F-35 is marginally longer and has a slightly larger wingspan than the F-16, but has a much larger wing area and over twice the internal fuel…

https://images.app.goo.gl/sCfLvDCTKZHGitmn7

3052

I see the F-35s all the time, as the Vermont Air National Guard has them and I’m often, usually at Costco or the beer store parking lot, right under their landing approach. So I see them with their gear down a lot. And hear them. Oh boy, do I hear them. They are LOUD taking off.

I never visually compared them to the F-16s the VT ANG used to have though.

3053

They are replacing the fleet of F-16’s that are local to me with F-35’s. There were a lot of protests about the extra noise, but nothing came of it, and they are on their way.

Secretly, I was very pumped that they are coming to town.

Not according to Lockheed Martin, though who knows how practical their sales claims are. 22,000 lbs of ordinance is more than I have seen any other fighter jet claim to carry.

3054

ORDNANCE! Sorry, pet peeve! Though the prospect of 22000 lbs of local ordinances sounds more like a real war crime… And no, I’m not seriously dinging anyone for a typo, just one of those things many years of teaching has made me care too much about.

The matter of noise for F-35s is a tough one. Lots of protests here, met with “the sound of FREEEEEEEDOM!” cries from the other side. Pretty much no one engaged in a reasonable discussion of the trade offs. In practice, they seem subjectively louder than F-16s from the perspective of those over whom they are flying, but while noticeable the difference isn’t night and day.

And they look really cool.

3055

I mean, that is what the town went through to get the F-35’s here.