Noyhauser

^^^ WICKED SYSTEM

I've been buying stuff from Dp9 since like 1995. Actually, Dp9's universes, Jovian and HG along with macross are my favorite Scifi worlds. You could say that I'm a super geek there.

Sillouette is a ridiculously well designed system that should have far more exposure than its getting. ITs far more intelligent than D-20, and is simple at the same time.

::edit::  Anyone have current stats for actual in-service USAF F-15C numbers?  Production numbers are worthless.  A lot of out F-15A's are either with a few ANG squads, in the desert, or given to Israel.  As well as a significant number of F-15C's.  How many F-15C's do we actually have right now, in USAF front-line squadrons?  I'm wondering if 339 (or now 276) might actually be able to do a fairly decent job at replacing them, assuming we are talking about using 100% of the F-22's to replace F-15C's and nothing else.  (If for some reason we desperately needed more air-to-air planes quickly, late-model F-15E's with the CFT's removed would be equal if not superior to the F-15C for air-to-air)

Okay this is what I can get for you.

there are 736 F-15 Total (of all types)

520 F-15 A/B/C/D, (110 in the ANG, 11 Test, 18 in store.)

216 F-15 E (4 test)

Active squardons

11 F-15 Squadron, 6 F-15E

3 reserve F-15 squadrons(a/b only)

It looks like the 767 will be brand new models.... from what I have read. Its to continue the production lines, not a rebuild.

-22 not in service until 2006-2009? Doubt it. 27FS gets them in 2005, ready or not.

If it doesn't get in production, it means it won't get in service because a physical plane won't exist. It needs to pass its final test and eval stage or its not going to be produced at all.

Unless there's a problem to the point of "it can't fly nor shoot"

And thats the problem. I know it won't be held up if it has little niggling problems, but Its got a few big ones. Read the GVO report, Its avionics shut down on average once every 25 hours, and those are just the major ones. Also the first production batch will be limited to 155 Fighters (if it does even get into production) because Intel doesn't produce the Chips anymore.

The F/A-22 is a bird in the hand that is running off the production line NOW. Going with a substitute would be a colossal waste of 20+ years of time of the ATF program and the many billions of tax payer dollars poured into the program. It would take billions more to develop an inferior product and even years more to get it in to service. Those who don't think that the F/A-22 Raptor will provide a level of deterence and that it will see combat some time during its life are fooling themselves... these same people thought that the B-1 and B-2 were unneeded, too.

Uhh not NOW. The decision for full rate production has not even been made, neither has the final test and evaluation. The thing has major avionics problems, and it looks like, nobody will be able to service it until at least 2006 more likely 2009. The fighter probably won't even be in full rate production until then.

Last post before I go home and figure out how much I owe to pay for whatever Uncle Sam decides to buy...

Just want to provide a few relevant links, not all of which I've read thoroughly...

rec.aviation.military discussion (What to do if the F-22 is cancelled?)

R.A.M. (Report asks AF to justify F-22)

R.A.M. (More about the report)

GAO Report:TACTICAL AIRCRAFT: Changing Conditions Drive Need for New F/A-22 Business Case (PDF Format)

News Article on the Report

I just read the summary of the GAO F-22.

pretty well its arguing what I said above. Sunk costs, whatever you wasted on it before is money down the drain. From this point on is there any reason why should we be procuring this capability. Its calling for a new business case analysis... which means a whole new study at whether it should be continued to be funded. It points out that the Air to ground capability has not even been discussed financially, and that there will probably be further delays. It looks like the whole computer architecture will be replaced because the old computer chip is nolonger made. I can't "read into" this report very much. If this was a Canadian government audit, I would just brush it off because this sort of language is typical for a the Auditor General's office angsty sort of way. But Having read a few GAO audits in my day, it could go either way. It looks to me that the DOD is pushing this hard. Let me explain.

Page 20 GAO-04-391 F/A-22 Aircraft

Additionally, DOD’s response acknowledged that

this year the department is undertaking a broader set of reviews under the

Joint Capabilities Review process; the F/A-22 will be a part of this review.

The President’s budget submission to Congress will reflect the results of

these review efforts of the F/A-22 business case.

We believe that the various reviews and assessments in the budget process

along with the Joint Capabilities Review process present excellent

opportunities for DOD to conduct a business case analysis.

Translation: Bureacratic inertia.... unless a program becomes singled out for analysis, it never gets culled. Part of a "joint capabilities review process" means a sweep under the rug, and that it will be examined along with a whole host of other capabilities which inevitably will take a year or so.

Mc Cain got the KC-767 culled, because it was done on shaky grounds with limited tender. The F-22 is a different beast entirelyI don't think he'll get the F-22 because it is such a long standing program.

Noyhauser, where can I find the best info on how well Dassault did in the Korean F-X competition? In my brief tour of the web earlier, I did see a mention that they did something like "1.3% better", but elsewhere it was said that no inside information was available (and presumably Dassault was voicing sour grapes).

Phew.. thats a tough one. I did ALOT of research on the European Union Security and Defence Policy last summer (including attempts to get a EU arms agency set up, which is called OCCAR), and I remember reading the piece and a few others on it. It may have been from a Janes Publication (Janes Defence Weekly, and others.) which I get through my research position at the University.

I'm presuming the Airbus tanker would have been based off the A300-600R or A310-300ET. That said, the engines, avionics, and gear would have come from the US. By far the highest-value parts of the plane, could be 50% of the total value. Heck, 15-foot-diameter aluminum tubes are cheap. Jet engines are not. Newer Airbuses have more European equipment, but the A300/310 have a very large percentage of US products.

ITs a 330-200 that they were proposing and its Final assembly would have been done in the Toulose, while the 767 would have been done in Kansas... which was the sponsoring senator's home state.

One BIG no no I just found out. They were going to lease the tanker from the operations and Management Budget rather than the Usual Capital accounts..... Instead of paying for it from money dedicated for building the later airforce, they were going to use money from the money earmarked for day to day operations and readiness of the military. I can't tell you how wrong that is from Defence manager's stand point. Remember what Mc Cain was talking about? Stripping money from capital accounts to pay for day to day operations? well this program would have done the exact opposite.

Ah but the question is about the Airbus contracts... what was the domestic offset program for it? I'd bet it was below 50% while the Boeing Contract was 100%. With a domestic offset your effectively recycling the money back into your economy and creating jobs in the United States, while the Airbus contract would have seen much of the money go to EADS. Effectively your just dumping money into the sea. Thats a big factor in its cost.

But we DO need more BIG tankers, and the KC-767 sure isn't that. Bigger than a -135 yes, but certainly not a -10. And a KC-11 would have added another 100,000lbs of payload over the -10. Heck, we should just make 747-400F tankers. LOTS of fuel/cargo, and a built-in cargo-loading hinged nose. And the upper deck could be used for electronics, mini-surgical suite (like a C-9), VIP's, etc. Could probably refuel 4 or 5 planes at a time, with a 213 ft wingspan

thats what the KC-X is supposed to do, however the KC-767 program is just sapping the funds from it,

In fact, I believe that South Korea considered and discarded the idea of buying Sukhois--they chose the F-15K instead. Undoubtedly there were significant economic and political considerations, but that's how it shook out. Singapore has also decided against Sukhois, though they haven't yet decided whether they will buy Eagles, Rafales, or Typhoons.

Don't even get me started about these procurements. The South Koreans were definately not on the level with that contract. These were completely based on Political motivations especially the South Korean contract, in which Dassault actually won the competition in all areas except in Interopterability, and offered more domestic offsets than Boeing.

About the Tanker aircraft, The KC-135s aren't nearly at the point where they need replacing. the 434 aircraft have a operational lifetime of 39000 hours, and today, most of them average about 300 hours per year. Estimates show that they can last until 2040. They have been excellently upgraded with new engines, avionics and skins. Its the Airforce who suddenly decided that they needed a new Tanker as a stop gap (probably by proding from Boeing), however the situation isn't nearly that bad as of yet.

Boeing is making a KILLING off of the KC-767. They are getting a 15% Military profit margin on a Plane that is mostly commercial in nature, which nominally entails a 6% profit margin (thats generally what Boeing makes off of Civillian market planes). The Plane should only get a 6% because its cheap as hell for Boeing to build them. While they are intended to be a stop gap between the KC-135s and the KC-X program, however its just diverting funds from the replacement. The KC-X isn't supposed to start funding until FY-2006 and probably more like FY-2009 if the KC-767 goes through.

I was really into battletech... until about 8 years ago when I discovered HG. The realism factors are just not comparable. You can effectively simulate anything with the Sillouette system from simple lighting a piece of paper to fleet level combat. The system encourages intelligent thinking. You can either go with high cost//fewer number of units, vs low quality high numbers, depending on your tactics. You have to intelligently design or pick your vehicles, unlike BT where its Pack as many weapons on a frame and lets go. Thats not how a vehicle is designed in real life. You've got to consider cost and role.

The tactics used in HG are very similar to the ones we use today. Combined arms teams are vital. Gears are prized for their adaptabilty and manuverabilty, not for their super armor or heavy weapons. But in different situations they are at extreme disadvantages. Infantry are the best for city scapes since they are heavily obscured, while a tank would eat a gear alive on a flat terrain.

Realistically, a humaniod design is a brutal design if you want to make something survivable in combat. we present huge cross section to hit and numerous shot traps. Tanks on the other hand are the best design because they are squat, low to the ground and can carry more armor where it matters. Thats why in the HG universe tanks rule all, carrying the heaviest weapons and the most armor. honestly if you wanted to make something survivable you'd make it a tank, not a lumbering walking beast,

And the missles are guided, but they are more like semiguided, more or less advanced versions of the FFAR rockets used on some helicopter gunships.

Why not fully guided? If they can design minaturized nuclear reactors that have to precicely control a magnetic Jar, I think building fully guided missiles could be a sinch. HG Guided weapons are quite common. Guided mortars are evil evil creation as are target designators. You can arm artillery shells with guidance sensors AKA copperheads. All weapon types are accurately represented.

What is so unrealistic about the universe? Other than the conceit there are huge numbers of possible human habitable planets and going into hyperspace, its all possibly doable technology.

Compared to the HG universe, it pales in comparison, This is partly due to HG dual aspect as a RPG system. I know that BT used to have a RPG aspect, but it abandoned that long ago. Dream pod 9 embraces the roleplaying aspect. Life on terranova is considered one of the best sourcebooks ever put out by any company. The City States described unbelievably detailed, and work off political and sociological models. Examine the depth of information about the Norlight Confederacy or the United Mercantile Federation. DP9 has fleshed out these world to the most minutest detail. the UMF, a corporatist state does not have any taxes, however you must purchace services from government like voting voutchers. Most of these states have varying political systems that players can interact in.

BT's 60+ novels are just pulp fiction, they can't compare to the Storybook series. Thats also one of the best things about HG, it is that the whole series is still in the hands of the original creators, the Oullette brothers. They have maintained tne metaplot behind the whole universe.

Eliot Cohen once said

Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength, in part because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment.

thought I might throw that one in there.

... no, the Minmay attack would probably be used to distract a force, then then a full barrage would be used. Its also feasable that the Grand Cannons would probably be put into place as well (nothing has been said that they wouldn't be rebuilt afterwards) and they did play a pivotal role in allowing the Macross to win.

One word.... Nukes.... LOTS AND LOTS of nukes.

I'm sure that UN Spacy would probably use something like seen in Macross II, a kind of planned culture shock strategy. What forces didn't capitualate were probably destroyed.

I think fighter design actually tells you a lot about how UN Spacy was thinking. Up until project supernova, the mainline fighters were very similar to the VF-1, which means they needed to carry out the same role as the VF-1. remember that the Zentredi can't uprgrade their weapons, so fighters similar to the VF-1 were adequate to take on a Zentredi threat. Really what the fighters are for is to mop up whats left after the use of nuclear weapons. However the Zentredi-UN Spacy peace treaty forbit their use.... but if their survival were at stake, I don't see them not using it.

What the f*ck, are you telling me they poured all this capital and effort into a fighter (not to mention hyping the sh!t out of it) just to cancel it over some ill-concived war started by some chimpanzee-looking !@#$%^^&*((*^$#@! who thinks Command and Conquer is like the real world?!

Two words, sunk costs.

You've already spent the money for the fighter, and thats all gone, that should not be a consideration. the question is now, is the money you will spend from now on worth the weapon you are going to get? IS it actually useful?

I argued why the F-35 can't be culled, it was due to 22% foreign involvement. Honestly I think that the F-22 will be the last fighter developed under the cold war model of procurement, while the F-35 is the first to be procured under the new post cold war model, that sees major foriegn involvement in all aspects of production. Both models have various advantages, but the foreign involvement has less risk involved and decreased initial production costs because you share the costs across the partner nations. Furthermore you open yourself to a wider market for selling your goods.

You've got to remember that procurement isn't money that is just lost, you get a lot of domestic offsets that the money gets recycled into society through production wages, raw materials, ect. However you then have to specialize at every part of production, when you could get cheaper parts from other partner nations that could specialize in building those parts, thats increases inefficiency.

Ya, I gotta say I am not all that unhappy (or suprised) at this.

In a time when the U.S. has a real problem with troop readiness/deployment it just makes sense to restructure priorities and funding.

I am an aviation enthusiast of the highest (ok, maybe not the highest) order, but this (if it does indeed happen) seems to be a good move.

welcome to the predicament of the Canadian Armed forces.... except that you start getting a bow wave of delayed procuerment projects and then your screwed in the long run

Great, its not canon though. Go to http://www.anime.net/macross/mecha/index.html

Just because its a picture from a magazine does not mean that its official. ITs fan fiction. And if its name is the "Black Queen" that definately isn't cannon because the only thing it could be is a Megaroad Colony ship and those are designated by numbers. These MAY be called SDFs, but they are definately Megaroads. However I don''t think that after Megaroad-1 they were ever discussed as SDF-3, SDF-4.

Again, the F-117 isn't some invisible fighter. According to Former pilots and industry experts, the F-117 almost increased its RCS by a factor of 100 in a bank. Moreover, it has been discovered that Low frequency radars are far more able to defeat stealth than high frequency radars. However their image resolution is low, making them less than ideal as a guidance radar. It is quite possilbe that the Serbians used either a newer model of Russian/Czech radar, or slaved their lower frequency search radar as a guidance radar, and detonated the missile in the proximity of the F-117.

Moreover, these missiles DO NOT need a lock on to fire. The SA-3 does not need a lock on to fire because it is a command guided missile, it is directed by the command vehicle towards targets. Thats serbians probably learned some dirty tricks to use with SA-3 that allowed it to take out the F-117. the SA-6 (which the Russians Claimed to have shot down the F-117) does not need a lock on at first, but does need mid course guidance from radar. This was done to ensure that the Radar site cannot be targeted when firing its missile.

This isn't some conspiracy to cover up the truth. I got my information from a book published by the Rand Corporation, ""NATO's Air War for Kososvo, A Strategic and operational Assessment" by Benjamin Lambeth. The US airforce did not hesitate in laying blame on other factors like the EA-6B, the mission route, and inadequate SEAD procedures.

firing missles at "best guess" trajectorys to hit planes sounds highly suspect to me.

i'm thinking something happend to compromise its stealth. i realy dont' think anyone was blindly lobbing missles where they "thought" it was going to be simply because they saw it a few other days in the same area.

weirder stuf has happend i guess. nothings perfect you know, it IS warfare, stuff gets shot down.

did you read my post? The F-117 isn't some absolutely invisible vehicle. Never did I say they were shooting blindly, however the Fighter probably gave off intermittent signals, while flying past which they used to give a best guess to fire. It has been also said that they probably staggerd the radar sites to give the best signal possible.

The Airforce Ruled out ANYTHING that may have compromised stealth... the fighter was perfectly operational.

Uhh if its not in the compendium ( and last I checked it isn''t) Its not canon. There are only two accorrding to Kawamori.

Why did the F-117 get shot down?

#1 it was a SA-3 battery that did shot it down. Three causes were ruled out…there was no hinging stuck on the Bay doors, neither a decent below 15000 meters or AAA a factor. It seems that the operational role of the F-117 had something to do with it. Due to the terrain, the F-117 had to often bank, which would increase the radar cross-section by a factor of 100 times or more.

Three errors were reported…. SEAD did not adequately sweep the area, specifically ELINT, which failed to detect three low frequency radars that could possibly detect the F-117.

Secondly the F-117 did have a Jammer nearby, but the EA-6B was too far away to provide jamming. Thirdly (as mentioned earlier) because of the Dayton accords the F-117 had to fly the same route into Serbia, outside of Bosnian airspace. This may have allowed the Position their radar emitters in the optimal position to see the fighters. The F-117 is far more easily detectable from above and the side. Its been suggested that the Serbian air defences probably had an intermitted lock on the F-117 after it passed and made a best guess from a missile downranged, utilizing a timed fuse in the proximity of the stealth aircraft's flightpath.

Personally I build most of my kits as I get them, unless Im making a diorama (1/35 scale). I think its really up to the modeler involved, however a lot of people do seem to stock up.

Well, Battletech wins on the realism front.

AHAH, you''ve got to be kidding right?

BAttle Tech is about the worst for realism. Go look at Heavy gear if you want realism, The picture of a AC-10 using a sphereical shell blew any sort of credibility for BT out from underneath it. Mechs are slow lumbering beasts that should make easy targets for airborne threats with guided missiles, but for some reason there aren't any... hmmm. Moreover, tanks and other units are completely dominated by battlemechs. In many cases its worse than Gundam for its mechafetish. And don't even get me onto the universe.

If you want a realistic system, go look at heavy gear (which derives alot from VOTOMS in style, but surpasses it on many different levels). It essentially uses technology today with some advances, to make a logical place for mecha. Gears sit right between tanks and Infantry as a weapon, and have about the same armor as a T-72 tank today. They are best for broken up, hilly terrain, rather than tanks who need a long lead time to take out units from afar, and infantry which needs cover. Employing gears needs a specific doctrine beside other arms.

BT is just plain horrible.

To my knowlegde the United Nations Spacy seems to depend on a dwindling amount of converted Zentreadi ships and a handfull of Cruisers, Stealth Frigates, Escort carriers, and other medium and light ships. My question is that are there ships (If even non-canon) that are heavier than a cruiser that aren't zentran?

macross class battleships as what is seen in Macross 7, those are intendend to be the heaviest shps in the arsenal.