Military Reformist Logic = Hilarity

[MKSheppard]

From Pierre Spey, one of the "fathers" of the F-16.

Linka

Normally, I'd only post this in HAB, but this is funny enough.

[Vympel]

I thought I did post this in the HAB (along with another article) a while back? Or at least mentioned it. It's not new, mind.

[The Dark]

That's so hideously simplified and distorted it's not even funny. The lethality page is as objective as Coulter describing a Democrat. The reason gun lethality has declined is because of the increase in engagement speed and range, and the tougher airplanes being produced. .50cal nowadays would probably be down somewhere around the Sparrow level. The chart also proceeds only to 1980, conveniently ignoring by omission the development of AIM-9M and AIM-9X, as well as AIM-120.

Looking at his "lessons learned":

20 minutes combat cruise above Mach 1.2

- this is nice, but it's not really necessary for combat. At that speed, your turn radius will be grossly large.

Subsonic maximum g and transients near F-16 level

High maneuverability. I can understand that, if you're in a guns-only environment with no BVR engagement ability. It's even nice as a backup. It's not a "must-have" for a fighter.

Primary dependence on passive avionics/anti-radiation missile

The first is understandable. The second is fucking stupid. When your opponent goes to passive avionics, that beloved little ARM won't be able to see him. Stupid git.

Radical elimination of specifications and equipment

Yeah! Like the landing gear and the ejection...seat...what? OK, so maybe there have been some wonky changes to aircraft (F-16 as a bomb truck), but that's post-development, and it's done because it works.

Size smaller than F-5

Now you've probably eliminated the supercruise of specification #1, you've got a short-legged, light-armed aircraft due to lack of payload capacity, and your avionics bay will be tiny, limiting what you can do with passives. Half the other criteria are violated by this criterion.

Cost below $4 million (in FY79 dollars)

That's roughly 1.3 million in FY2006 dollars. Back in 1979, we were trying to sell 50 F-5's to Saudi Arabia for $525 million. Even figuring we marked up the price, we couldn't build an F-5 today for under $4 million, let alone Sprey's uber-gnat of DOOM.

More lethal gun (higher Vo, smaller caliber)

This will cost money to develop (see above), as well as reducing versatility of the aircraft, as the high V, low mass bullet is less useful in an anti-ground role.

More reliable snap-shoot IR missile (head on unnecessary)

From what I've read, AIM-9X does this and has the head-on capability. Epic fail.

Sprey also seems to feel pilots are cheap and expendable, wanting mass swarms of knife-fighter airplanes that are too small for good avionics and legs, and too lightly-armed for sustained combat. This is a great way to pull a Japanese Empire and run rampant for six months or a year, and then have a bunch of dead pilots and no air superiority.

[MKSheppard]

Linka

Here's another one!

[MKSheppard]

OK, so maybe there have been some wonky changes to aircraft (F-16 as a bomb truck), but that's post-development, and it's done because it works.

That extra 3,000 lbs of weight and $3 million of equipment turned the F-16 from a slower, more manuverable F-104A (clear weather only fighter) to an all weather fighter that actually was better than what it was replacing.

[The Dark]

OK, so maybe there have been some wonky changes to aircraft (F-16 as a bomb truck), but that's post-development, and it's done because it works.

That extra 3,000 lbs of weight and $3 million of equipment turned the F-16 from a slower, more manuverable F-104A (clear weather only fighter) to an all weather fighter that actually was better than what it was replacing.

Oh, I certainly agree with that. It's just the idea of a light fighter acting as a bomber that strikes most people a bit oddly. I still remember the big excitement over the upgrades to the Block 48 Falcons.