The future of fighters?

[Geoff13]

Reminds me of the small arms contest between the Colt M16 and the F88 that we currently have. By all sources I had in the Army ( I was Airforce) the M16 shat all over the F88. But low and behold, the F88 won, why ? Simply because it could be built under licence here in Oz where as the M16 couldn't.Luckily I joined and the SLR was currently still in service. I liked it, being 308 cal, it was accurate, the F88 was a politicians choice not the Armies.I had to qualify on the F88 a few years after I joined IMO it was a piece of crap but women could reload it and shoot it though.

Agree on the Austyer. Apart from being the second best of 2 choices it fails miserably in the Ceremonial role as well. Another classic example. I also covered both SLR as well as that latest piece of junk during my time.

 

 

[pylon500]

Thread drift;

 

As a Cadet, I used the Lee-Enfield .303, kicked like a mule (to a cadet) but was accurate.

 

Once in the RAAF, I was handed the SLR which seemed to jump all over the place, but was a bit more accurate, than a shotgun.

 

Left the PAF, but stayed with Reserves and was given the Tupper-Ware gun, about as accurate as the SLR, but I jammed that thing more than any other weapon, AND had a UID with it. Just as well they were blanks.

 

Piece of rubbish.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

...the snouts have been in the trough for a long time and not just the public trough but the graft and corruption trough as well.

...as long as defence contractors continue to grease palms. Just my humble opinion mind you. But after having sent a son to war and seeing the appalling way they were treated before they went and the worse way they were treated after coming home I have no respect left for the Brass or the Pollies that support them.

Geoff I bet Senator Jaquie Lambie would do something about this; have you sent her this info?

 

 

[Geoff13]

No I haven't Because to be quite honest I don't trust any of them anymore. As it is three years on he is just starting to get his head back in the right place after having lost his wife, his kids, his livelyhood, about 10% of his former platoon mates and most of his dignity. The last thing he needs now is to be put into the limelight when he is finally getting it together.

 

At the end of the day he knows that his mother, his sister and I think of him as a hero even if his government think of him a someone to be hidden away and kept quite. Hopefully the respect that we show him and the couple of mates that do stilll manage to stay in touch from that time will help him as he continues his recovery.

 

I honestly believe that the only thing that pulled him through were us and the fact that my own personal history permitted me in some small way to understand and reach out allowed him to trust us enough that we were able to reach him when noone else could.

 

I am probably not the right person to contact her anyway as I simply would not be be able to hide my distrust of the system she works for.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

This is the ADF, army has dud guns and dodgy armour, the navy has dud subs and the airforce about to buy $24B in dud planes.

 

then they leave the ADF and join CASA

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

No I haven't Because to be quite honest I don't trust any of them anymore. As it is three years on he is just starting to get his head back in the right place ...The last thing he needs now is to be put into the limelight when he is finally getting it together...

Sorry to bring up a painful issue, Geoff. My own trauma was small by comparison, but still devastating. By standing up for a principle I lost all I had worked for and most of my "friends". As your son no doubt found out, you learn who you can really rely on. As he comes out of the hole he will, as I have done, make new (and better) friends. The hurt will never go away completely, but good things will come into his life- and he'll have the depth of experience to appreciate life's joys all the more.

Staying in contact with people is crucial; I can honestly say that this, Ian Baker's forum, sure made my life better!

 

...I am probably not the right person to contact her anyway as I simply would not be be able to hide my distrust of the system she works for.

I disagree. I think you are exactly the person to raise this; as well as being articulate, you have the fire in the belly that politicians need to see. My own case, though far from resolved, was buried by weak bureaucrats. My workmates looked the other way while I was shafted.

Sociopaths and other nasties rely on us to stay silent.

 

I know little of Jacquie Lambie other than what the media gives us, but I bet her heart is in the right place. As a Senator she has a six year term and the current government have to listen to her. Having cut herself loose from the billionaire, she needs sensible advice and supporters. She needs to hear from you.

 

.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Geoff, I second OK's views. Initially I thought Lambie was just an inarticulate bogan silly enough to get caught up in Palmer's party. However she's honest and says what she thinks without hesitation. Saw her on Q&A a few weeks ago and she did ok. The point is that as an independent senator she has quite a bit of power with the government; if she hears stories about dodgy equipment for frontline troops, and their families shelling out thousands to ensure their son is properly equipped, I can't see her ignoring them. Once she's had a bit of experience and knows how to play the compromise game she might be able to force some improvement in return for supporting one of the LNP's dodgy policies.

 

 

[farri]

On a slightly off thread note, I've been thinking about what's going on with these ISIS retards.The problem is, we've sent some mega million dollars fighters, armed with multi thousand dollar missiles, being guided by mega dollar AWAC's, so they can find-track-arm and destroy --------- a stolen five thousand Toyota Hilux (the ute of war) and a couple of goat f****rs.

For what it`s worth, I couldn`t agree more and worse than that, is the fact that they can`t even win the battle, if it wasn`t so serious it would be hilarious.

 

Frank.

 

 

[facthunter]

If your ticker goes bad It might be " Blessed are the Pacemakers". Nev

 

 

[jeffd]

well i hear that the top brass r interested in the soryu class submarine from japan. cost i think was 20 billion and the japanese said for that price they would have to build them in japan, plus they werent really to keen on giving their secrets about them away. maybe if we lost ww2 they would have been built here although all us round eyes would probably be dead.SLR great firearm even had 1 as a civilian in qld when u could own them ,arh those were the days,303 another great firearm, used the m16 but never the steyr from what i hear glad i didnt.however yes i think there will always be a place for manned fighters because at the end of the day they can decide whether to shoot or not.geoff13 tell your son to stick things out ,even though i thankfully have never had to go to war,the returned service personnel would have the majority of people in australia appreciateing what they did and are doing.

 

 

[kgwilson]

So we buy 20 billion worth of Subs, & 24 billion of overweight underperforming F35s. It's a lot of money to swan around underwater for no real reason & knock over a bunch of Hiluxes. If the west had the balls it would do another Desert Storm, & take no prisoners. Stuff the political correctness, this terrorist ISIL/ISIS/IS outfit needs to be wiped off the face of the planet.

 

 

[jeffd]

yep no matter what high system u hav it comes down to the infantry at close quarters to go in and take and hold the terrain.if u think that war can be made to look nice if u can fight it from a distance u r probably going to lose everytime, fix bayonets close with and kill the enemy.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

In the mid sixties I was running around Kapooka as an army cadet with an A510 radio and a .303. We were keen as mustard, but it didn't lead anywhere and still feels like unfinished business. Used to swap shots with our rifles with the SLR guys. And fire lots of mags off in the Bren. Seems like another world. We were so lucky that we didnt see the dark side of it all.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Only reason i stayed at school was that they gave me a 303 and a Bren Gun.

 

 

[Marty_d]

That's why I think the subs are a waste of money - if we get into a shooting war with a country that has warships, we're f*cked anyway unless the USA decides to get involved (and depending on who the war is with, that's not a given).

 

As for the other 24 billion on F-35's, my humble opinion which I've aired before - why are we spending over 100 million per aircraft when you can get a world-beating Sukhoi SU-27 for about 6 mill?

 

So ditch the submarine plan and, if they absolutely must spend $50 billion on defence, at least spend it on people, small arms, proper kit and vehicles. This government goes on and on about Labor overspending and comparing the country's budget to a household budget... well, to my mind spending that much on subs and F-35's is like buying a concrete rowboat and a gold-plated Leyland P76 while your kids are getting around in ripped clothes.

 

 

[Bennyboy320]

This would have to be one of best written articles explaining why UAv’s will not replace the manned fighter for a long time. Bennyboy320 (ex-knuck)

 

 

 

Found on the net “Defence Issues” written by picard578

 

Despite all technocrat’s dreams, aerial combat between peer opponents was always visual-ranged. Reasons for that vary; main reasons are inadvisability of using active sensors, low probability of kill for BVR missiles, and IFF problems. All of these problems are far greater against numerically and technologically comparable (or simply numerically superior) opponent than against numerically and technologically inferior opponent. Thus, WVR combat is likely to remain standard for aerial warfare, along with its large accent placed on OODA loop.

 

OODA (Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action) loop is fundamental principle of air combat. Fighter pilot first observes situation; after that, he orients based on previously-avaliable and acquired information (nationality of opponent, cultural considerations likely to affect opponent’s actions in current situation, etc.), then decides on further course of action and acts based on that decision. In the next loop, he observes opponent’s reaction to his own action so far as well as new situation, with rest of loop proceeding as in first one, though “orientation” part takes far less importance unless new information comes into play. In any case, breaking opponent’s OODA loop or going through it faster than opponent is prerequisite for victory. Opponent’s OODA loop can be broken by denying him vital information (done through usage of passive sensors, small visual and IR signature of one’s own aircraft, employment of various forms of jamming and environment-based interference), as well as by going through the loop faster than him – be it through faster observation/orientation/decision or executing action faster than opponent, which requires maneuverable aircraft capable of quick transients from one maneuver to another.

 

OODA loop of UAV operator is always imperfect, and worse than that of fighter pilot. Major problem is a delay from two to five seconds between UAV recording image and image being seen by UAV operator. Total delay between drone’s sensors recording opponent’s action and drone finally reacting to it – delay between „observe“ and „act“ part of the loop – can therefore reach ten seconds. Due to this delay, unmanned vehicles will be completely incapable of being inside human-piloted fighter’s OODA loop, which is a prerequisite for victory in a dogfight. But there are even more shortcomings than that.

 

In particular, each part of OODA loop is in itself imperfect. Observation made solely with information from mechanical sensors is never perfect as we have yet to design sensor as good as human eye. Imperfect observation means that imperfection continues to snowball through latter three parts, ending in action with some measure of disconnection from reality – and that can continue through multiple loops.

 

 

 

While drones are much smaller and cheaper than manned fighters, it is only result of their mission. If modern drones are faced with SAMs, MANPADS or enemy fighters, engagement is a foregone conclusion – and one not in drone’s favor. Drone operators cannot detect threats to their aircraft, and if drone was to be designed to be as capable and survivable as manned jet fighter, it would be just as large and costly, if not more, due to the need for advanced computers and communication systems. Even current, relatively simple, drones have much higher operating costs than manned aircraft, and are as much as ten times as prone to crashing – and both shortcomings can only worsen with increased size and complexity required for aerial combat.

 

 

 

Gigantic data transfers required to operate drones can easily lead to communication systems being overburdened – single Global Hawk drone uses as much bandwidth as did all US forces in the invasion of Afghanistan. Bandwidth is also a hidden cost of UCAV – while UCAV itself may be cheap, it requires very expensive (on order of hundreds of millions USD) equipment for data transfers, and even with modern UCAVs performing relatively simple tasks, data transfers can take up lion’s share of 250-million-USD satellite’s bandwidth. As such, entire package (UCAV and equipment required to operate it, which is actually part of UCAV despite not being in the airframe) can rival or exceed cost of manned fighter, with latter being a certainty in any UCAV capable of air-to-air combat.

 

Further, increased bandwidth automatically means increased vulnerability to jamming and other forms of electronic countermeasures. Main way datalinks defend against jamming is by reducing data transfer speed in exchange for increased reliability; that, however, may not be an option for data-hungry UCAV. As such, UCAV’s will be incapable of executing missions in heavily jammed environment, unlike manned aircraft, especially since it is far easier to build very powerful spread-spectrum jammer than to create jam-resistant uplinks.

 

Drones are also vulnerable to computer viruses, which could take control of a drone and order it to do anything by simulating incoming traffic from its operator.

 

 

 

It is also important to realize that UCAV capable of matching or exceeding the aerodynamic performance, load carrying capability and combat radius of manned fighter would be exactly as large and heavy as fighter in question. This would mean similar production cost to manned fighter (not counting control and data transfer systems), but at far higher maintenance costs, as much as several times higher, which would make it impractical to replace manned fighters with UCAVs on one-for-one basis. Further, having UCAV brings no operating cost savings, since it actually requires more operating and maintenance personnel than manned fighter due to the greater complexity.

 

As a result of everything above, replacing a manned fighter would require a fully-functional AI with almost identical cogniscive capabilities to a human brain – a feat that is, at this point, completely beyond both our knowledge of human brain, as well as beyond our hardware capabilities, and will remain so for some time – interestingly, contrary to MIC technology advocates, computer science experts have a complete disagreement on wether true AI can be achieved by the 2040; in any case, past trends do not give any reasons for optimism in that regard. Even when that is achieved, such complex programs would present serious reliability, maintainability and implementation challenges, possibly to the point of making an AI UCAV basically unflyable.

 

Drones will, however, remain useful in intelligence gathering, a role they have been used in since Vietnam, as drone being shot down does not carry the risk of operator being captured for questioning, and is much more politically acceptable. While these advantages also exist in regards to manned combat aircraft, disadvantages are simply too large.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Australia has on average 12 days of fuel in reservoirs, it wouldn't be too hard to grind our economy to a halt with a preemptive strike on our oil infrastructure.

 

or you could take out a few of our internet connections.

 

or you could wait until we switch to nuclear power and take out the grid infrastructure it connects too.

 

So many ways a fleet of cruise missiles can cripple an economy for under $100M, conventional armed forces isn't really capable of defending a modern economy.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Australia has on average 12 days of fuel in reservoirs, it wouldn't be too hard to grind our economy to a halt with a preemptive strike on our oil infrastructure.or you could take out a few of our internet connections.

or you could wait until we switch to nuclear power and take out the grid infrastructure it connects too.

 

So many ways a fleet of cruise missiles can cripple an economy for under $100M, conventional armed forces isn't really capable of defending a modern economy.

You don't need missiles to cripple an economy, dodgy bankers did it without firing a shot in 2008.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

http://mobile.news.com.au/technology/innovation/why-dont-our-top-defence-officials-understand-what-submarines-are-on-offer/story-fnpjxnlk-1227239418825

 

Makes you laugh, god no wonder CASA is such a mess

 

 

[jeffd]

i dont think any1 in canberra would want to go to war without knowing america will be there to help out.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Unlike us, where both sides of politics say "how high" when the US says "jump", they will only act in their national interest. If their interests aligned more with the country we were at war with than us, I think they'd stay right out of it.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

How limitted a war is the ADF capable of fighting though? we seem to have a bit of a mishmash of equipment. I reckon the bottle neck is the limited numbers of helos and lack of an aircraft carrier