Case for revival of point defense interceptors

During the early post war era there was some interest in purely point defence interceptors like Saunders Roe SR fifty three , they probably were motivated by search for a higher, faster and fast climbing interceptors and probably was dropped as better [but much more complex ] interceptors came into existence in the sixties and seventies

Was it possible to reverse this trend in the late seventies and eighties ? We saw a return to more basic fighter with the Freedom fighters and Fighting falcons but was it possible to make even more basic[or dumbed down] point defence interceptor ?

Their features would be

1 The primary requirement of speed/altitude and performance is sufficent to catch enemys low level strike planes/bombers [both WP and NATO at this time as we know relied mostly on low level tactical strike aircraft] without the need or ability to combat enemys air superiority fighters
2No provision for ANY air to ground weapons.
3 Also can the need for onboard avionics be limited as they will rely primarily on Ground radar or AWACS to help track strike planes and be postioned to fire at them.Very limited ability to search and track targets on their own.
4 Endurance can be very limited for obvious reasons

With all this hopefully size and weight can be saved drastically and probably better performance can be achieved even with cheaper engines. And to emphasize their job is STRICTLY interception not air superiority but that should not be a huge concern for NATO as WP for almost the entire cold war had minimal capability to send escort fighters with their bombers or strike planes.



Thanks
 
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No. Reaction times are too slow with high-performance strike aircraft and standoff munitions, and their niche is better filled by surface-to-air missiles. And in any case, taking on low-level strikers with any kind of efficiency requires considerable avionics in the form of a look-down/shoot-down radar and the ability for low-level supersonic speed, neither of which are cheap , easy to fit in a small aircraft, or well-suited to last-gen engines.
 
During the early post war era there was some interest in purely point defence interceptors like Saunders Roe SR fifty three , they probably were motivated by search for a higher, faster and fast climbing interceptors and probably was dropped as better [but much more complex ] interceptors came into existence in the sixties and seventies

Was it possible to reverse this trend in the late seventies and eighties ?
The main issue is speed needed, the early interceptors were going to be far faster than subsonic bombers (that could be tracked by ground radars as they were not going very low and fast), a 1980s interceptor needs to be faster than supersonic M2 aircraft or even faster missiles...... so you end up with say a F14 (or F 15 etc to a lesser extent) that's really a mobile high altitude sam site to fire much faster missiles to do the interception? The problem is the radars to do that are not small or cheap and without them, you are mostly useless?
 
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CalBear

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The SA-2 and Nike/Ajax put the point interceptor on life support. Look down/shoot down radar and BVR AAM pulled the plug.

With modern SAM systems like the Arrow, Aster, Barak 8, Patriot S-300/400 that can reach out 100+ klicks at a couple MACH numbers higher than a manned platform and can launch within five minute of target validation (i.e. faster than any point interceptor can get its wheels up) there isn't even really a question, at least in the case of top tier countries.
 
One major power which used these aircraft was PRC well into the 80s they had hundreds of J6 which are pretty close to point defense interceptors
Did they just keep them in service as they did not have anything better or was there a method to their madness ?
 
One major power which used these aircraft was PRC well into the 80s they had hundreds of J6 which are pretty close to point defense interceptors
Did they just keep them in service as they did not have anything better or was there a method to their madness ?
A combination of doctrine, industrial, and political limitations.

Doctrinally, until the early 90s the Chinese subscribed to a "People's War" model, which emphasized numbers over sophisticated heavy weaponry. This meant primarily light infantry for their Army, a focus on coastal combatants and conventional submarines at sea, and in the air numbers of simple aircraft.

While this doctrine had sound roots in Chinese experience in Korea and the Chinese Civil War, it was also in large part driven by sheer necessity. Chinese industry was not up to the task of a world-class military-industrial complex; arguably they still aren't, though they're damn close. The Cultural Revolution in particular didn't help, as it plunged the country into chaos and attacked the intellectual class that was the backbone of any attempt to provide for advanced weapons.

And unlike most other countries, China didn't have the option to buy abroad. Tensions with the Soviet Union greatly limited the technical assistance they could receive from that quarter, and despite Sino-American Detente the US and the other Western powers weren't especially keen on leaking their most advanced weapons technologies to the Chinese, though in practice quite a bit leaked over before Tianenmen Square forced the Chinese to look into other options, luckily for them right as the USSR collapsed and their military-industrial complex was suddenly scrambling for orders just to survive.

All of this meant that the Chinese military aviation industry badly lagged behind the rest of the world until relatively recently, and is the reason why the Chinese were still building warmed-over MiG-21s well into the 2010s. And when the backbone of your fighter fleet is MiG-21 variants, you have to use them as point interceptors, they can't really do anything else.

Notably, starting in the 1990s the Chinese eschewed any point-interception model. The 1st Gulf War scared the living daylights out of the Chinese, who saw quite a lot of their weaponry and a military eerily familiar to their own chewed up and spat out in one of the most decisive curb-stomps in modern warfare. They almost immediately began throwing money at the J-10 program and called up Sukhoi for as many Su-27s they could buy, plus knockdown kits to assemble, and the straight-up reverse-engineered the Su-27 into the J-11. They also tried to get a modern AWACS aircraft, a critical tool for modern air combat, but a deal for Beriev A-50s fell through and forced them to develop their own.

So to answer your question, a little bit of both.
 
A combination of doctrine, industrial, and political limitations.

Doctrinally, until the early 90s the Chinese subscribed to a "People's War" model, which emphasized numbers over sophisticated heavy weaponry. This meant primarily light infantry for their Army, a focus on coastal combatants and conventional submarines at sea, and in the air numbers of simple aircraft.

While this doctrine had sound roots in Chinese experience in Korea and the Chinese Civil War, it was also in large part driven by sheer necessity. Chinese industry was not up to the task of a world-class military-industrial complex; arguably they still aren't, though they're damn close. The Cultural Revolution in particular didn't help, as it plunged the country into chaos and attacked the intellectual class that was the backbone of any attempt to provide for advanced weapons.

And unlike most other countries, China didn't have the option to buy abroad. Tensions with the Soviet Union greatly limited the technical assistance they could receive from that quarter, and despite Sino-American Detente the US and the other Western powers weren't especially keen on leaking their most advanced weapons technologies to the Chinese, though in practice quite a bit leaked over before Tianenmen Square forced the Chinese to look into other options, luckily for them right as the USSR collapsed and their military-industrial complex was suddenly scrambling for orders just to survive.

All of this meant that the Chinese military aviation industry badly lagged behind the rest of the world until relatively recently, and is the reason why the Chinese were still building warmed-over MiG-21s well into the 2010s. And when the backbone of your fighter fleet is MiG-21 variants, you have to use them as point interceptors, they can't really do anything else.

Notably, starting in the 1990s the Chinese eschewed any point-interception model. The 1st Gulf War scared the living daylights out of the Chinese, who saw quite a lot of their weaponry and a military eerily familiar to their own chewed up and spat out in one of the most decisive curb-stomps in modern warfare. They almost immediately began throwing money at the J-10 program and called up Sukhoi for as many Su-27s they could buy, plus knockdown kits to assemble, and the straight-up reverse-engineered the Su-27 into the J-11. They also tried to get a modern AWACS aircraft, a critical tool for modern air combat, but a deal for Beriev A-50s fell through and forced them to develop their own.

So to answer your question, a little bit of both.
So from the standpoint of an aggressor what is the best strategy to counter hundreds of J6 point defense interceptors? In the 1980s environment?
J6 though obsolete is a somewhat decent against 80s era tactical strike planes ( given their performance limitations when carry External weapons and fuel tanks )
What would be the most efficient way to deal with them if attacker is let’s say ussr

thanks
 
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So from the standpoint of an aggressor what is the best strategy to counter hundreds of J6 point defense interceptors? In the 1980s environment?
J6 though obsolete is a somewhat decent against 80s era tactical strike planes ( given their performance limitations when carry External weapons and fuel tanks )
What would be the most efficient way to deal with them if attacker is let’s say ussr

thanks
Cruise missiles that are runway denial mission, surge them with ECM versions to blank out the radar, ground and air based, then follow on with low level fighter bombers carrying runway denial munitions and other ground attack to hit the bases hard. Without a base the short range interceptors are useless.
 
During the early post war era there was some interest in purely point defence interceptors like Saunders Roe SR fifty three , they probably were motivated by search for a higher, faster and fast climbing interceptors and probably was dropped as better [but much more complex ] interceptors came into existence in the sixties and seventies

Was it possible to reverse this trend in the late seventies and eighties ? We saw a return to more basic fighter with the Freedom fighters and Fighting falcons but was it possible to make even more basic[or dumbed down] point defence interceptor ?

Their features would be

1 The primary requirement of speed/altitude and performance is sufficent to catch enemys low level strike planes/bombers [both WP and NATO at this time as we know relied mostly on low level tactical strike aircraft] without the need or ability to combat enemys air superiority fighters
2No provision for ANY air to ground weapons.
3 Also can the need for onboard avionics be limited as they will rely primarily on Ground radar or AWACS to help track strike planes and be postioned to fire at them.Very limited ability to search and track targets on their own.
4 Endurance can be very limited for obvious reasons

With all this hopefully size and weight can be saved drastically and probably better performance can be achieved even with cheaper engines. And to emphasize their job is STRICTLY interception not air superiority but that should not be a huge concern for NATO as WP for almost the entire cold war had minimal capability to send escort fighters with their bombers or strike planes.



Thanks

Maybe if the Cold War had proceeded differently the U.S. and Canada might have wanted uber high performance interceptors to be able to visually intercept and ID targets (presumably high performance aircraft that were trying to harass the defenders by allowing themselves to be detected by radar but managing to avoid allowing IOTL interceptors to get within visual range) in peace time while they were still within ground based radar coverage although I suspect they would have needed significantly more range and endurance than classic point defence interceptors. All that being said I suspect the IOTL performance of interceptors from the F106 onwards was likely seen as more than adqueate.
 
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One major power which used these aircraft was PRC well into the 80s they had hundreds of J6 which are pretty close to point defense interceptors
Did they just keep them in service as they did not have anything better or was there a method to their madness ?
They didn't have access to anything better until the late 80's/early 90's. The PRC also couldn't afford anything better in the numbers required. The domestic J8 wasn't that good, Grumman (iirc) were doing an avionics upgrade for them which fell through after Tiananmen . Really speaking they didn't get a decent modern fighter until they acquired SU27's.
 
What you're describing is a SAM with a man in it: Limited range, no air to ground capacity, no real onboard ability to switch between targets or even to determine targeting locally. Under these conditions having a pilot is totally redundant and in fact makes achieving the objective more difficult by slowing launch time, and requiring a larger and costlier vehicle. The only advantage over a SAM is reusability, but this is outweighed by the other factors, especially given the increased accuracy of modern munitions means follow up raids on the thing being protected are unlikely.

As has been said, once guidance and search systems are good enough, point defence interceptors are redundant. This is only reinforced by the growing range of standoff weapons, meaning point defence itself is increasingly pointless. A pilot adds flexibility and allows a system to cope better with communication breakdowns, neither of which would be all that useful in a short range interceptor like you outline
 
What you're describing is a SAM with a man in it: Limited range, no air to ground capacity, no real onboard ability to switch between targets or even to determine targeting locally. Under these conditions having a pilot is totally redundant and in fact makes achieving the objective more difficult by slowing launch time, and requiring a larger and costlier vehicle. The only advantage over a SAM is reusability, but this is outweighed by the other factors, especially given the increased accuracy of modern munitions means follow up raids on the thing being protected are unlikely.

As has been said, once guidance and search systems are good enough, point defence interceptors are redundant. This is only reinforced by the growing range of standoff weapons, meaning point defence itself is increasingly pointless. A pilot adds flexibility and allows a system to cope better with communication breakdowns, neither of which would be all that useful in a short range interceptor like you outline

A pilot also provides the ability to (realitively easily) have a human visually ID the target and as you mention interceptors are also reusable. For peacetime interceptions these attributes may be of some interest to some nations in some circumstances.

In some circumstances there may be a political need to be able to effectively intercept and ID but not actually destroy targets.
 
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Cruise missiles that are runway denial mission, surge them with ECM versions to blank out the radar, ground and air based, then follow on with low level fighter bombers carrying runway denial munitions and other ground attack to hit the bases hard. Without a base the short range interceptors are useless.
Didn’t the J6 have “ rough field capability “
Were the J6 dependent on GCI in PLAAF?
 
So from the standpoint of an aggressor what is the best strategy to counter hundreds of J6 point defense interceptors? In the 1980s environment?
J6 though obsolete is a somewhat decent against 80s era tactical strike planes ( given their performance limitations when carry External weapons and fuel tanks )
What would be the most efficient way to deal with them if attacker is let’s say ussr

thanks
Besides the runway denial, bait them into flying up into a swarm of fighters backed by some AWACS. I again point to Bekaa Valley - the Israelis slaughtered the Syrians in job lots not just because they had better planes and pilots, but also airborne fighter direction giving them even more of a situational awareness advantage.

Now, VVS MiGs aren't the F-15 and F-16 - but then, Chinese J-6s are not Syrian MiGs, either. Get them in the air, have AWACS flying, and Soviet MiG-23s will demolish Chinese fighters.
 
So from the standpoint of an aggressor what is the best strategy to counter hundreds of J6 point defense interceptors? In the 1980s environment?
J6 though obsolete is a somewhat decent against 80s era tactical strike planes ( given their performance limitations when carry External weapons and fuel tanks )
What would be the most efficient way to deal with them if attacker is let’s say ussr

thanks

Jam or destroy the GCI sites and have fighter escorts avalaible to handle any J6's that some how manage to locate strike aircraft ?

Optionally attack their air bases if the attacker has enough strike aircraft to also attack other high priority targets ?
 
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Jam or destroy the GCI sites and have fighter escorts avalaible to handle any J6's that some how manage to locate strike aircraft ?
Is there a way Soviet strike planes like mig27 and su17 can deal with J6 themselves ? Like
By flares
Accompanying chaff bombers
Self defense missiles
Not sure if flying too high or too low will help against J6
This way they are not limited by range of escort fighters and can strike deeper into PRC?
 
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Besides the runway denial, bait them into flying up into a swarm of fighters backed by some AWACS. I again point to Bekaa Valley - the Israelis slaughtered the Syrians in job lots not just because they had better planes and pilots, but also airborne fighter direction giving them even more of a situational awareness advantage.

Now, VVS MiGs aren't the F-15 and F-16 - but then, Chinese J-6s are not Syrian MiGs, either. Get them in the air, have AWACS flying, and Soviet MiG-23s will demolish Chinese fighters.
Can GCI controlled Soviet fighter achieve similar results ? Esp since they have very few AWACS of limited capability
 
Is there a way Soviet strike planes like mig27 and su17 can deal with J6 themselves ? Like
By flares
Accompanying chaff bombers
Self defense missiles
Not sure if flying too high or too low will help against J6
This way they are not limited by range of escort fighters and can strike deeper into PRC?

I suspect the Soviets would want fighter escorts if possible (at least for daytime missions. )
 

Riain

Banned
Point defence interceptors were the result of a technological point in time that passed quite quickly. Once bombers got standoff (nuclear) weapons, fighters could combine climb-to-height with long range and area defence SAMs matured the time of the point defence interceptor was over.
 
A pilot also provides the ability to (realitively easily) have a human visually ID the target and as you mention interceptors are also reusable. For peacetime interceptions these attributes may be of some interest to some nations in some circumstances.

In some circumstances there may be a political need to be able to effectively intercept and ID but not actually destroy targets.
This is pretty much a peacetime requirement and I'm not sure it really calls for a point defence interceptor, most of the time you'd want to intercept when (or preferably before) they approach your airspace and then shadow them as they wander around the perimeter. The SR53 or equivalent would not be able to do this as it just wouldn't have the range to shadow.

There generally isn't the need to visually ID a plane coming in at Mach 2+, while a plane coming in more slowly (which might be a civil plane and so need visual ID) doesn't need a specialized interceptor to be intercepted,

Basically, if you had an unlimited budget then yes, you might want an unlimited number of high speed short range interceptors for peacetime interceptions because IFF is not perfect. In the real world there are better uses for limited resources, and a better air defence system is a mixture of CAP fighters and SAMs. On second thoughts, given unlimited resources it would be better to have lots more planes on CAP than lots of planes on the ground. I find it hard to think of a situation where it is better to have planes on the ground than planes already in the air, but that could just be a lack of imagination.

The ultimate target that might need a point defence fighter is the aircraft carrier as it is a single critical target that is hard to repair in situ. The USN chose the F14 over a point defence interceptor for a reason despite the smaller number of large F14s that could be carried. The RN only thought about the point defence interceptor because it couldn't afford sufficient/big enough carriers to operate a sufficiently effective CAP, As soon as technology enabled an effective CAP with fewer planes it abandoned the idea of a point defence interceptor.
 
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