tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post5373171122116251748..comments2024-03-29T13:09:31.522+01:00Comments on Defence and Freedom: The first week of a peer vs. peer air war; a dilemmaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-85848801748243818902010-07-23T17:24:05.331+02:002010-07-23T17:24:05.331+02:00It seems to be an option to mount three SDB in one...It seems to be an option to mount three SDB in one ATACMs. SDB has proved its ability to penetrate at least one type of aircraft bunker.<br /><br />It could therefore be possible to launch a few ATACMs which relese SDBs which in turn destroy flight control tower, some maintenance buildings, aircraft bunkers. Some SDBs might even dig into the runway without exploding. Such UXE under the runway would normally make the runway unacceptable for aircraft operations.<br /><br />In the end, the mere threat might suffice to devaluate all hostile airfields in up to about 400 km depth (maybe 500-600 if we talked about an Iskander-like missile).S Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03359796414832859686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-17767659043589555382010-07-23T11:32:33.051+02:002010-07-23T11:32:33.051+02:00One thing I've wondered about is how effective...One thing I've wondered about is how effective is hardening of one's infrastructure these days? SDB salvos may very well saturate defenses, but what good would they do against something like this?<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower<br />Conversely, how effective are ballistic missile attacks against airfields? Any attacks for that matter? I know that in the DS air campaign, Iraqi air shelters were knocked out by direct LGB hits. Does that mean an SDB-sized munition would have had no effect? Were Iraqi air shelters the hardest possible? Is it possible to do better now? All that I'm saying is give reinforced concrete a chance. At the very least super-hard strategic facilities should give potential agressors pause.So?noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-15265509442838284342010-07-23T10:58:13.120+02:002010-07-23T10:58:13.120+02:00You forget that the missiles would take out target...You forget that the missiles would take out targets that would otherwise require additional risky sorties. Aircraft have a rate of attrition, and that one can be quite substantial against a yet unbroken opponent.<br /><br />It may be that adding a few munitions (not prone to political debates comparable to debates about Typhoon numbers) would save more Typhoons in a hot conflict than you could afford to buy for the same money.<br />And that doesn’t even take into account that missiles have almost no operating costs in comparison with Typhoon and its well-trained (more than 165 flying hours per year) pilot (or two).S Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03359796414832859686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-83569336028793778152010-07-22T19:34:14.321+02:002010-07-22T19:34:14.321+02:00"it's clear that the blog post was only a..."it's clear that the blog post was only about the early phase when air forces are overworked."<br /><br />True, but it still needs to be funded, an uplift in early days hot war fighting would come at the loss of sustained action ability.DominicJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-18380559311319027822010-07-22T19:04:36.687+02:002010-07-22T19:04:36.687+02:00"As I said, they have a use in the early days..."As I said, they have a use in the early days of a short war, but they dont have a sustained role to play."<br /><br />I hope that after a round of typo hunting ("until" instead of "unit") it's clear that the blog post was only about the early phase when air forces are overworked.S Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03359796414832859686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-18646044878141750812010-07-22T16:17:49.524+02:002010-07-22T16:17:49.524+02:00I know Storm Shadow works out at about £1m per mis...I know Storm Shadow works out at about £1m per missile, but its a pretty specialist piece of kit (and a rip off)<br /><br />Hellfires cost more like £30,000, cant find a cost for Brimstone, but it cant be that much more, although these are of course much smaller weapons.<br /><br />Just found JDAM, now has a unit cost of $30,000 per weapon, the 500lb paveway one $19,000.<br /><br />Compared to $500k-$700k for a TT.<br /><br />As I said, they have a use in the early days of a short war, but they dont have a sustained role to play.<br /><br />"Battle damage assessment is rarely done with "attack runs". "<br />True, I was just trying to be brief, the main point was we would need to send a returnable platform, well, we could send a one way sensor package, but that would be expensive.<br /><br />"GLCMs and MRBMs of more than 500 km (and less than ICBM range) are de facto prohibited by treaties with Russia, though."<br />Most of my thinking was UK based, for whome ship launched makes much more sense than ground launched anyway, but for much of europe, 500kms will be quite useful.<br />Its just what do you cut to fund it.Dominicnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-33923408701808733442010-07-22T12:44:53.011+02:002010-07-22T12:44:53.011+02:00Sorry, Tactical Tomahawk is of course not a GLCM. ...Sorry, Tactical Tomahawk is of course not a GLCM. It's ship-based.S Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03359796414832859686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-57970581714080982712010-07-22T11:45:49.995+02:002010-07-22T11:45:49.995+02:00Strangely, modern air-launched cruise missiles (Ap...Strangely, modern air-launched cruise missiles (Apache, Storm Shadow ...) are in exactly the same price rangeas the cheapest GLCMs (Tactical Tomahawk).<br /><br />GLCMs and MRBMs of more than 500 km (and less than ICBM range) are de facto prohibited by treaties with Russia, though.<br /><br />Battle damage assessment is rarely done with "attack runs". A drone with a similar concept as CL-289 would be a good candidate for snap shot reconnaissance - especially against fixed and semi-mobile targets.S Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03359796414832859686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-53555253156994821602010-07-22T11:38:03.304+02:002010-07-22T11:38:03.304+02:00EN
Do you have some actual numbers to show that mi...EN<br />Do you have some actual numbers to show that missiles are cheaper than bombs?<br />A Tomahawk is listed as $500,000 on wikipedia.<br />What does a 1000lb bomb with an IR seeker cost $5,000?<br /><br />In peace time, maintaining 50,000 tomahawks is undoubtably cheaper than maintaining 500 jets and 50,000 bombs, but once the tomahawks are gone, they're gone, and they cost a lot more time and money to replace than a bombs do.<br /><br />Did Iraq and Bosnia know our airforces were there?<br />Theres plenty of footage of Iraqs air defences fireing flak at empty skies, the bombers long gone.<br />Loads of examples of extremely sophisicated air defences being blinded in the first strike, as there radars are ALARM'ed or HARM'ed as the first targets can be found.<br /><br />"The very idea that the F-35 or F-22 are survivable is ludicrous. If they can be seen they can be killed and someone working from a Radio Shack catalog will find a way to bring them down. And how would we make up those losses? We'd be lucky to ramp up F-22 production to six units a month"<br /><br />An F35 is more survivable than a LORA, ones designed to come back and one is failing pretty badly if it comes back.<br />Do you think we can replace expended SCUDs faster than we can replace lost combat aircraft and expended bombs?<br />Genuine question.<br /><br />"I like the idea of (quasi) ballistic missiles very much. Chances can be taken with them that will never be taken with manned treasury busters."<br />Dont get me wrong, I like them, but they have some massive weaknesses.<br /><br />Lets say we pick up an enemy missile launch and fire a missile of ours back, did we hit it? Probably not, it was a few minutes after launch we detected it, a few minutes to fire back, a few more to impact and the launcher has decamped and ran a mile.<br />A pilot can be given a broad area, use a MkI eyeball to find it and confirm destruction, admitadly he can also lie and missiles can use a MkVII camera eye.<br /><br />Even if its a static target like a bridge or airfield, missiles dont return to base to confirm damage done, we cant even send a second attack run the next day to check the firsts damage.<br />Do we missile an already destroyed bridge every couple of days, just in case?<br /><br />But I digress.<br />A first strike quasi ballistic missile capability, somewhere in the range of 500-1500km, with several hundred missiles could certainly disable much of your enemies airpower, either by destroying planes on the ground, the support infrastructure (Fuel, weapons, pilots, fitters) or the runways, along with destroying known enemy air defences and maybe even harrasing "ready" soldiers is a pretty awesome ability, but it doesnt replace aircraft, in either utility or sustainability.DominicJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-36075677404269109322010-07-22T03:15:50.869+02:002010-07-22T03:15:50.869+02:00Missiles are much cheaper, just as accurate and (i...Missiles are much cheaper, just as accurate and (if the first two points don't do it for you), PRODUCTION COSTS ARE EXPONENTIALLY LESS, than any air/missile combinations. It's not exactly a secret that any war against a moderately technical society, like Serbia, could be very hard on our air fleets. We overcame some of our problems by making aircraft fly at 5000 meters. The very fact that even countries who could not respond, like Iraq and Bosnia, knew the aircraft were there and had a great deal of warning, should give us all pause. <br /><br />This is not to say that manned aircraft are dead, just that our current methodology/aircraft will spell disaster in any kind of surprise conflict... and most conflicts are a surprise. The very idea that the F-35 or F-22 are survivable is ludicrous. If they can be seen they can be killed and someone working from a Radio Shack catalog will find a way to bring them down. And how would we make up those losses? We'd be lucky to ramp up F-22 production to six units a month. I like the idea of (quasi) ballistic missiles very much. Chances can be taken with them that will never be taken with manned treasury busters. In bad weather or against heavy AA missile complexes (not run by Arabs) ground support and deep attack simply can't happen. We need something else.ENhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12193563623321560413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-78764690979319988742010-07-21T17:02:16.758+02:002010-07-21T17:02:16.758+02:00IIRC, many if not most of the ATACMS shots in OIF ...IIRC, many if not most of the ATACMS shots in OIF were at the request of the USAF to hit known or suspected air defense sites.B.Smittyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12650152449414871058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-81983741180803967062010-07-19T14:26:39.692+02:002010-07-19T14:26:39.692+02:00IMO, it's a question of expensive munitions vs...IMO, it's a question of expensive munitions vs expensive platforms. It appears that the US prefers the latter. Rockets are expensive. This may not have mattered 30 years ago when (IMO) guidance packages dominated the cost of PGMs, but not anymore. In case of GPS, precision guidance is practically free. Stealth aircraft give you the ability to get close and strike with cheap unpowered PGMs. You basically get more explosives on target for your money. I think it fits the American war-fighting mindset: war as high-tech attrition.So?noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-7211243711361430102010-07-19T14:23:27.802+02:002010-07-19T14:23:27.802+02:00I've thought along the same lines for some tim...I've thought along the same lines for some time. NATO these days takes it's air superiority for granted. If you can take out enemy air defences and aircraft with your own aircraft without taking serious losses it's much more economical to use aircraft and bombs, but if you're fighting a near-peer opponent who has competent air-defences, the ballistic missiles look alot better. Such missiles may cost much more than bombs, but they are much less expensive than planes and pilots.<br /><br />An initial salvo of such missiles against air defences and then airfields would allow the aircraft to focus on critical infrastructure and enemy groundforces in the early stages of the conflict, at most having to clean up what the missiles missed in terms of air defences.<br /><br />For a force that has a disadvantage in the air, the ballistic missile strategy is really the only real option for neutralizing enemy airpower beyond the reach of ground based air defences. I think this is the reason the Russians focus much more on such weapons than NATO.Dr. Lunynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-386077914312449748.post-46138162925022971492010-07-19T10:58:53.541+02:002010-07-19T10:58:53.541+02:00I wouldnt limit it to "airwar" but I'...I wouldnt limit it to "airwar" but I'd say a rough order of where to devote resources would be<br />Troops in Contact<br />Enemy Aircraft in the Air<br />Enemy airbasing (although it might be acceptable to let an enemy airforce attack a dug in infantry force of yours if you can hammer most of their airfields in the meantime)<br />Enemy Air defences<br />Exposed enemy<br />Transport Bottlenecks<br />And finaly entrenched enemy.<br /><br />The biggest threat to your own airpower (and frankly everything else) is enemy airpower.<br />Even discounting direct fires, airborne intelligence has such a disproportionate effect that your enemy is effectivly deaf and blind.<br /><br />As for Quasi Ballistic Missiles.<br />I actualy like them, although not for the UK at your ranges, but I can see the appeal to Eastern Europe and Israel.<br />The US did actualy do a lot of work on them, under the Brilliant Anti Tank program, which had the USSR not collapsed, would probably have seen the formations you suggest.<br /><br />The UK is simply never going to have ground based rocketry forces 500km from important enemy airbases.<br /><br />I would however be delighted if we had a ship borne missile with a range extending to 1000kmDomohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00240964731398145995noreply@blogger.com