INS Vikrant (IAC1) & INS Vikramaditya - News & Discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
- Start date
-
- Tags
- aircraft carrier csl iac1 mig-29k
Tracking a moving object & overlaying its position, vector & identity (friendly/foe) on the situation picture has nothing to do with what we're talking about? Okay.
Well in that case your dream of AWACS going away by 2035 isn't gonna happen because the USAF signed on to upgrade 600 of its F-16s to the Block-70 F-16V standard and began performing Service Life Extension on 300 of them to keep them flying till 2050.
F-16 Service Life Extension Program a ‘great deal’ for Department of Defense, taxpayers
An Air Force Thunderbird jet is the first of what will be roughly 300 refurbished C and D model F-16’s that will roll off the shop floor of the 573rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron here after receiving
www.afmc.af.mil
608 U.S. Air Force F-16s Are Getting The Type's Largest Combined Upgrade Package Ever
The project will add a new advanced radar, communications suite, and electronic warfare system to the best of the Air Force's fleet of aging Vipers.
www.thedrive.com
Neither E-2s nor E-7s are going away for a long, long time. Like I said, I'll be a Senior Citizen.
You can't say future of AWACS on the naval front is a PR gimmick but on the air force front its a binding fact set in stone.
There's two parts of this argument that are being needlessly clubbed into one.
1) the role of an AWACS as a C&C platform, performed by a separate aircraft with its own unique airframe optimized for its role, and this being distinct from a fighter airframe
2) the choice between a crewed or unmanned platform performing said role
The second is an issue of tech maturity. I have my doubts on how soon it will happen, but I never denied that it eventually will. The first is a necessity you can't escape from.
I don't see how AWACS (of any kind) can be a liability against powerful ground-based DEWs but somehow fighters aren't?
Surely you don't suppose the fighters of tomorrow can outmaneuver the speed of light? As it's obvious that nothing can, what should be the solution? To not fly anything at all?
Or, perhaps, to come up with solutions that allow you to pre-emptively destroy the enemies' DEWs, making the skies safe for friendly aircraft to operate? In much the same way as how modern DPSAs conduct SEAD/DEAD in the opening stages of war to eliminate SAMs and make the skies safe for the Air Superiority fighters to come and establish air dominance?
Surely, if any aircraft emitting is going to get vaporised by a DEW anyway, it ought to make more sense to put the biggest, baddest radar-carrying platform that dedicates every ounce of its power to obtain the widest, most detailed situation picture possible before it gets taken out rather than a fighter that would probably half-a$$ the process by using shorter wavelengths, lower power, and an antenna shape handicapped by aerodynamic limitations brought on by having to remain maneuverable at lower altitudes tangling with enemy fighters?
Cuz that is how this works. Whether you fly a drone or crewed aircraft, if you want a god's eye view of the battlefield, you have to take certain risks, because the information advantage it allows you to obtain is worth it. A peer or near-peer conflict of the future shall not consist of one side prevailing over the other with a cakewalk of no losses to speak of, it'll be a brutal stalemate or pyrrhic victory no different than WW1 or WW2.
Last edited:
They materialised 400kva mark? I read somewhere that its 160kva engine as on today.
theoretically same but practically not, in out put it will be 320kW, or as per power factor.
Well in that case your dream of AWACS going away by 2035 isn't gonna happen because the USAF signed on to upgrade 600 of its F-16s to the Block-70 F-16V standard and began performing Service Life Extension on 300 of them to keep them flying till 2050.
F-16 Service Life Extension Program a ‘great deal’ for Department of Defense, taxpayers
An Air Force Thunderbird jet is the first of what will be roughly 300 refurbished C and D model F-16’s that will roll off the shop floor of the 573rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron here after receivingwww.afmc.af.mil
608 U.S. Air Force F-16s Are Getting The Type's Largest Combined Upgrade Package Ever
The project will add a new advanced radar, communications suite, and electronic warfare system to the best of the Air Force's fleet of aging Vipers.
Neither E-2s nor E-7s are going away for a long, long time. Like I said, I'll be a Senior Citizen.
They won't go away. They just won't be needed to control the battlespace during war because fighters will do it by themselves, without AWACS.
But AWACS can do a lot of other things apart from combat. As I've said before, it has immense utility in peacetime and for training. It can also be used in the pre-war and post-war period, for BDA and intelligence collection, just like conventional drones.
With Vixen, the RN has already begun moving towards uncrewed AEW. IN can follow suit, same types of ships. USN will have a mixed fleet for a long time. And MN's future is unknown. Rafale can't replace AWACS and MPAs in the maritime environment. The situation is different over land because armies are not pretending to be cars and buses, whereas military ships pretend to be civilian ships.
On land, the army hides. At sea, ships blend in with civilian traffic. So AWACS and MPAs are needed for identifying and targeting military vessels. Today's fighters are incapable of doing that. The sea is a far more networked environment than land, which is why I support the induction of the SH over Rafale for the IN. Until drones can identify each individual ships, humans are necessary.
So the environment is different.
To be a C&C platform, it needs to be able to survive first. Are you saying transports and jetliners will survive 100Km away from the S-400?
Can't see stealth fighters. Can see big, bumbling AWACS.
So you're saying Phalcon is a stealth aircraft whereas the F-35 will be visible to radars?
F-35 is at 80KVA each right now. So 160KVA in total. Other numbers are growth options.
At this moment, the Su-57, SH and F-15EX have the highest power ratings.
Gripen E and LCA Mk2 should be half the new SH with the F414, so 120KVA. The older SH is at 120KVA too.
At this moment, the Su-57, SH and F-15EX have the highest power ratings.
Gripen E and LCA Mk2 should be half the new SH with the F414, so 120KVA. The older SH is at 120KVA too.
The two statements contradict each other. Managing the battlespace is not the same as executing a particular mission (such as carrying out a deep penetration strike against a specific target).
Besides this is precisely what I've been saying - fighters can conduct C&C of their own group/swarm toward fulfilling their mission. But that mission is only a small part of everything that's going on in that theatre.
And if a fighter like F-35 or NGAD could manage the theatre on their own, then there's no reason why you keep saying older jets will need AEWs to look out for them. Why can't NGAD or F-35 do it instead? It's not difficult to fit older jets with a high bandwidth datalink allowing them to receive the data from F35/NGAD's sensors.
Interesting that the one Navy who's fighter fleet consists exclusively of F35 (which is a jet you say doesn't need AWACS) is the one that's still going toward a separate, new-build AEW platform.
Despite having the perfect rationale (as per your argument) not to. Atleast USN & MN can make the excuse that they'll have a mixed fleet of older & newer aircraft. RN can't say that.
Still going for a separate AEW? Hmm.
Okay lets look at this from your argument's standpoint. What's stopping Rafale F4 or drones from scanning those ships with radar & passive and beam the data back to the ship via SATCOM for processing?
They will if SEAD/DEAD does its job via standoff strikes. If they don't, forget the AWACS, none of your planes will survive, including the fighters. There's a reason enemy AD is the first thing you go after in a war.
Anything that blasts the airspace with radar turned to max trying to do volumn search and C&C will be located by a plethora of passive & active sensors cued by them. It's part of IADS. Goes for airliners, fighters or future drones.
There's a reason why F35 despite having the most powerful AESA FCR operational in the world chooses to use it in bursts & pings instead of continous surveillance.
So coming back, if there's a MW laser coming at you, a fighter is no more survivable than a crewed AEW or a drone AEW. You can't outmaneuver photons. So like I said, if you're gonna get vaporized anyway, put your best foot forward with something that doesn't half-a$$ the results with a puny X-band doing the scanning.
Find a way to put a SPY-7 equivalent in the air.
Its why I keep saying its useless to try to predict that far into the future where you could have nextgen active cancellation that can make a 737 disappear off radar screens, or perhaps quantum radar that makes stealth obsolete.
The currently foreseeable doctrine extends to the E-7, nothing more.
I couldn't find anything regarding the power factor for F-35. Are you sure the power factor is 0.8 for F-35?
What I'm trying to say is if there's a war with a capable enemy, AWACS will have to be grounded, alongside all these other drones like Predator.
It will find its use elsewhere, like disaster relief, act as ATC during terrorist attacks and other emergencies, protect VIPs etc. Basically in situations where it's not being shot at.
That's been exactly my point all along. The F-35 doesn't need "AWACS" support, but "AEW" is fine, because "AEW" doesn't have to be crewed. The F-35 can handle the information on its own. The source of the data is irrelevant.
Now, if a fighter can be developed to even replace the AEW, even that's fine, although it's not necessary. So "crewed AWACS" is done. Magic word: "CREWED".
A drone can be sent into a dangerous location and even lost, but a crewed AWACS being shot down with 20+ highly trained people on board will be devastating.
Drones will be the most survivable aircraft around as long as they are designed for it. The same is impossible for crewed AWACS.
This is still in its infancy. But it's the future. Say, 2030... maybe.
It's 'cause military comm systems are still in the 2G/3G era and only now stepping into the 5G/6G era. First civilians have to make a breakthrough before it can be applied to the military, and this is happening now, like the Americans are yet to introduce TTNT on fighter jets, although it has been applied to the AWACS and Growler since a few years. At this time, they still use the Link 16, which is only comparable to 2G/3G tech.
The IN's SH will also come with TTNT + DTP-N tech. That's like post 2025. Then it has to be applied to all surface, air and space assets, so there's a transition period. There's no way to know how long it will take. 2030?
F4 will be getting this tech too, with a new SDR and a new patrol link via SPECTRA.
Drones are also necessary to collect information that MPAs usually collect. Like the Americans are yet to introduce the Triton. There's also the RQ-180 coming up. There's also all these new fanlged underwater drones. So this is very, very new even for the Americans. Then of course, there's the software aspect. AI needs to be able to make sense of it all and do the sensor fusion on its own, autonomously, which can then be transferred to the fighter pilot for execution.
Standoff weapons are not as reliable. If they were, then nobody would have cared so much about SEAD/DEAD, deep strike, penetrative ISR etc.
Especially in a situation where your satellites have been taken out. Can't attack something you can't see after all.
True. But that's why there's stealth. A laser or microwave weapons still needs a sensor tracking the target. A stealth fighter can be called a successful design if it can evade the laser's sensor and kill it before being killed itself. Same story with missiles. But what do you think the chances of a Phalcon is in such an environment?
Er...
The E-7 is not a foreseeable future purchase, it's a current requirement. Foreseeable is the Vixen.
That's the one with 250KVA. It more than doubles what's on the Rafale F3.
The B3 sits between F3 and F4 in terms of avionics hardware with its bigger upgraded radar and GaN based EW suite. The additional power could allow for faster radar upgrades too, like switching over to more powerful GaN TRMs for the radar after a few years than what could be possible on the F4.
Said as much drones could replace manned platforms when the tech becomes viable.
The problem is, while the fighters will manage their strike groups & swarms, they won't be able to do C&C for the thousands of other combat elements in the battlefield. That has to be processed by a group of individuals collating information to & from the hundreds of individual brigade commanders, SF teams, army aviation & flight leaders on the ground & in the air reporting their status, and directly taking orders from the officer in charge of the threatre who decides who goes, who holds & who retreats.
AI can help you make better decisions faster, but it can't (and won't be allowed to) make decisions for you.
Now, this group of individuals & their CO are currently sitting in the air on E-3/E-2/E-7. In the future they may remain there if defense of large aircraft becomes more viable due to unconventional revolutions in tech, if not, they may be moved to the ground and relying on unmanned AEWs to send them the data which they then act upon.
So if the current AWACS' radar element is being moved to unmanned drones, and the theatre-level C&C element is being moved to the ground, then which of the AWACS' current roles are the fighters supposedly taking on? Answer: the tactical-level C&C of their own strike group/drone swarm.
Which is what I've been saying since the last 4 pages.
I'm not talking about now - but about 2037-38 which is when PANG comes.
If the Rafale of the time (obviously F5s and beyond) doesn't need AWACS, then where's the rationale behind saying E-2D on PANG may or may not happen depending on whether MN gets FCAS or not? Either way, the lowest common denominator here is the F5 Rafale. Even if you say only F4 will be there (assuming Dassault somehow does nothing for the next 15 years), you still can't justify the E-2D's presence using your own statements.
Most existing ARMs are 100+ km capable. Aircraft will pop out & launch, ARM heads will find the radar on its own. There's loitering ARMs now which can wait in the air for those tricky radars that turn off, shift location & on again. ARM seekers are passive, if you jam they home on jam, so there's nothing you can do about them except degrade your own situation picture trying to escape.
Upcoming ones like AARGM-ER are 200+ km with Ramjets, there's a reason they're going standoff all the way. It's suicide to get inside the IADS of an enemy when all his sensors are still functioning. Getting up close & personal with DPSAs and Drones is for targets that don't broadcast their location for everyone to see, like the actual missile launchers, hardened bunkers etc. which will be taken out AFTER the main radars illuminating the skies are done away with.
It's standard doctrine.
It's why stealth fighters have a love-hate relationship with active emissions. Earlier when LPI wasn't available, F-117s didn't even have a radar of their own cuz it would give them away & make all that stealth shaping pointless. Even after LPI came with AESAs, the detection capabilities also improved so they again have to use it sparingly. Like I said, F-35 prefers to engage targets passively whenever possible. The APG-81 uses inputs provided by offboard sensors (AWACS, ground, space) to obtain bearings on potential targets - it then pulses for fraction of a second, basically to obtain a high resolution snapshot identifying the object & to get a range. EODAS then takes over tracking passively.
Because it knows that if it uses its radar as though it were an AEW doing volume searches, it would be detected (including by those sensors guiding the DEWs) & shot at. Remember that stealth planes aren't invisible, their signatures are simply too small to pass through the clutter rejection threshold, just like birds, bees, & raindrops. But a modern AESA can probably register an F-22 at well over a 100 kms all the same. It just needs additional data points to collate (like an active transmission from that object) and boom, that small signature is now a target.
Yes crewed AWACS are far less survivable, but an unmanned AEW firing up its radar isn't exactly stealthy either - that's the point. They will be shot at all the same, so might as well use an aircraft with the biggest radar to get as much info as possible, from as high as possible. Using a smaller fighter with a smaller radar doesn't exactly give better returns than a separate AEW optimized for its role.
E-7 is planned to enter service 5 years from now and serve for at least 30. That's foreseeable.
Vixen's too theoretical at this point. It's a study, not a platform. They're still figuring out what they want it to do, latest is that they want it for mid-air refueling & loyal wingman as well. And judging by the weight limits specified in their request for a small EMALS, they might very well end up buying a modified MQ-25.
The US already has that platform, but doesn't plan on replacing E-2 with it. Neither does France. You have to understand where the Brits are coming from, compared to CROWSNEST, any AEW capability deliverable by a drone the size of MQ-25 is a huge leap. But from the US/French perspective, coming from the E-2D, they seem to consider this a downgrade, so would rather keep Hawkeye into the 2050s instead.
The USAF is risk averse. They continue buying old tech alongside new ones. The NGAD will likely operate alone, on its own, while the rest of the USAF assets will need some AWACS support. At the very least, the E-7 is not survivable against the Russians or the Chinese. So it won't be used against them in a war. The 40N6M's 480Km kill, specifically 480Km, was to drive home the point that they can kill at AWACS/JSTARs horizon. The rest of NATO is going next gen. At the very least, regardless of whether it's the E-3 or E-7, neither will be capable of supporting the F-35.
Vixen class drones don't need to be complex. It only needs to be more survivable than crewed AWACS, which is easily accomplished. The fighter will become the controller, so it's not necessary for Vixen to be a controller. When challenged, drones can switch off and disappear.
We don't know the French future. I don't think the Rafale will also need MPA or AWACS support after 2040. Depending on that, the French may remove the E-2D from carrier air wings. All the Rafale will need is an AEW drone, like the Vixen, perhaps a more advanced system, since we are talking about the 2040s.
In the IN's case, both Vikramaditya and Vikrant will be better served by drones like Vixen after 2030, with the TEDBF and SH/Rafale.
It cannot be corrected to 1 for obvious reasons. And in marine engineering we often take power factor 0.8 average when we do not know the actual pf. So my asumption is it can be better than 0.8 but not more than 0.95. In any case real power will be less than 400kW.
Rather than risk averse....it is more case of building up most damaging spearhead tip possible for likeliest peer-adversaries....depending on what the latter specifically have and how much of it at their highest tiers.
Legacy systems provide the most economical returns and the force bulk needed in following phases given these are tasked to deal with the sustainment of a conflict after spearhead phases.
But spearhead phases are also extremely crucial to set the contours and longer term results of the conflict that follows after them.
But do you think it qualifies as a spearhead? To me, Robert Gates broke their spearhead with the stroke of a pen and they haven't got it back since. A sobering self-assessment of the USAF says the F-22 lacks the range, the F-35 is not up to the mark, legacy systems are unusable and their actual spearhead, which is yet to be sired in the form of NGAD and B-21, is needed not to achieve air supremacy but to merely contest it. In the meantime, whistle-stoppers and pencil-pushers coerce and compel the air force to do their bidding for the sake of protecting jobs.
What the USAF really needs:
Raymond Unveils Classified Target Tracking Space Radar Effort - Breaking Defense
"The space-based GMTI system will replace a portion of the JSTARS sensing capability" and "will support all combatant commands," Space Force spokesperson Col. Catie Hague explains.
But what they are reluctantly getting:
Air Force chooses Boeing E-7 Wedgetail to replace old AWACS planes - Breaking Defense
The decision had seemed an inevitability for months, but the timing of the announcement was a surprise.
Brown: Air Force Serious About E-7 Wedgetail - Breaking Defense
Acquiring the Wedgetail "gives us a path" while the service awaits a space-based capability, Air Force Chief of Staff CQ Brown said, as "an option to be able to get the capability much faster than if we were to start a new start from scratch."
Acquiring the Wedgetail “gives us a path” while the service awaits a space-based capability, he said, as “an option to be able to get the capability much faster than if we were to start a new start from scratch.”
They have no spearhead. All they are doing is playing with a hand that rhymes with "puff", and if the Chinese call it, the Americans are gonna drop... their pants, for a nice round of butt-puffing.
To sum it up, the USAF's spearhead today is merely a bunch of abbreviations in the DoD's files. And they are just doing everything they can to buy time.
With all that going on, whistle-stoppers are happy getting votes by forcing the USAF to buy more legacy systems.