No E-M Theory effects on fighter development.

FBKampfer

Banned
John Boyd's girlfriend gets caught shacking up with some rando Private, and the heartbroken Lieutenant sneaks a flask into his fighter and ends up digging his own grave at 800mph.

Thomas Christie is never inspired to do the calculations for the theory, and there remains no quantifiable model for fighter performance.


How does this affect future US fighter development? Perhaps the USAF continues with its lead-sled fighter designs (not to use the term disparagingly. I personally find some appeal in the concept of a brick hauling ass through sheere engine power).

Or maybe the F-4 is upgraded significantly?
 
F-14 FTW indeed. Plus equivalent of F-16/F-17/18/Mirage when it dawns on them that F-14s are too expensive to outfit all of the US fighter and fighter-bomber units, plus export.
 
You would still see a move for lightweight fighters for cost reasons, as Nato members once the FIAT G.91 gets long in the tooth, which was the '70s, and would need new Jets.
Everyone knows they wouldn't put out the coin for the big, expensive Grumman or McDonnell Douglas fighter, but needed something more than the Northrop F-5
 

SsgtC

Banned
You would still see a move for lightweight fighters for cost reasons, as Nato members once the FIAT G.91 gets long in the tooth, which was the '70s, and would need new Jets.
Everyone knows they wouldn't put out the coin for the big, expensive Grumman or McDonnell Douglas fighter, but needed something more than the Northrop F-5
Maybe the F-20 Tigershark? While it was pitched as a modified F-5, it was really a clean sheet design and could match the F-16s performance in most respects
 
The Higher Faster doctrine continues to dominate much of the thinking in the USAF until it hits the budget wall. More attention goes to stealth. & the return of guns to fighter planes is stillborn, with missiles ruling in the new generation of fighters or interceptors.
 
The Higher Faster doctrine continues to dominate much of the thinking in the USAF until it hits the budget wall. More attention goes to stealth. & the return of guns to fighter planes is stillborn, with missiles ruling in the new generation of fighters or interceptors.

that will still get re-adjusted over results from Vietnam and Israel.

Of the 260+ Arab aircraft shot down by Israel in 1973, Sparrows claimed 5 of 12 firings. between the two wars, 632 Sparrows fired, only 73 Hit and destroyed the aircraft for a kill rating of 11%. Of nearly 1,000 Sidewinder firings, 308 kills with a kill rating of 30%.

Israeli Pilots, just as USN pilots found, having a gun was handy.

But yeah, the USAF fighter Mafia will still try to go for 'Not a pound for Air to Ground'
 
The missile people were not giving up. & without the E-M application, including Boyds early demonstration as a fighter instructor & his acolytes the further possibilities of guns are less apparent. At least to the USAF & Navy.

Back around 2005 I met a USAF pilot who had gone through the fighter training during Boyds tenure as instructor. "We all hated the SOB, but he was right about air combat."
 
I don't think any wars would have been lost without E-M.

The whole point of E-M was to outmaneuvre an enemy in close combat, but the reason for the close combat was the overly restrictive RoE in Vietnam and this hasn't occurred since.

I think that if the USAF had built a heavy, swing-wing fighter rather than the F15 advances in radars, missiles, AWACS, electronics etc would mean it would still have generated the same kill-loss ratios that the F15 has.
 
Maybe the US develops dogfighting missiles with helmet mounted sights faster than Soviets. After dogfighting missiles gun and aircraft manouverability is mostly for show. Faster, harder, scooter!
 
The whole point of E-M was to outmaneuvre an enemy in close combat, but the reason for the close combat was the overly restrictive RoE in Vietnam and this hasn't occurred since.

While the USAF and USN had restrictive RoE of BVR engagements, the Israelis didn't, and the AIM-7 Sparrow still sucked just as bad per hit rates between the two conflicts
 
While the USAF and USN had restrictive RoE of BVR engagements, the Israelis didn't, and the AIM-7 Sparrow still sucked just as bad per hit rates between the two conflicts

The Sparrow is an interesting case.

In USN Vietnam service, in salt air landing on carriers and no standard maintenance or loading it bordered on worthless, although that was not entirely the fault of the missile and the Ault Report (Air-to-Air Missile System Capability Review) goes into great detail about the problems with the entire missile factory to firing process.
https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...ies/naval-aviation/aultreport/sections1-4.pdf

In USAF Vietnam service it fared a bit better, the kill rate was still pretty low but the USAF pilots deliberately fired them out-of-envelope to push the enemy into better killing envelopes and fired them in pairs so deliberately attempted to waste at least half of them, pushing the hit rate down but still well above the USN. The 3 USAF aces gained the majority of their kills with the Sparrow, but the USAF had a fair bit of electronic support with EC121s over NthV etc and doctrine to better exploit the Sparrow. Interestingly enough USAF developed Sidewinders have longer range than USN versions, reflecting this different approach.

The Israelis are a bit of a strange case. They were late adopters of AAMs, the only one they had in 1967 was the Matra R530 and not surprisingly they thought it was shit, full of tactical limitations. They adopted the AIM9D in 1969 and the Sparrow in about 1970, and had a mixture of USAF ground handling procedures, USN tactics and a very frugal attitude towards expending costly ordnance. The result being that Israel ended up with about a 33% kill rate with the Sparrow.

In 1991 PGW the Sparrow got a 39% kill rate, still pretty shit but certainly better than the bad old days of Vietnam.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
I was thinking we might end up with an F-15 that more closely resembles a Mig-31 in performance.

I could see the old school fighter mafia looking back at Vietnam through the lens of the Korean War and WWII and saying "well the zekes out turned us and we beat the shit out of them with heavier, faster, and higher-flying F4U's and F6F's, and we really started to clobber the Koreans and the migs when we got the hotter F-86F's on the line, and the F4 sure beat the older F-100's.

I think we oughta double down. Let's make this next one Mach 3+ and reach orbit if it had the air for the engines."



Which would be interesting for close range dogfighting tactics. Might see a lot more of the theory and mathematics of angles and efficiency of maneuvers pounded into pilot's heads so they can make the most of their thrust to weight ratio and vertical performance.

It would actually be pretty good in its own right if it could hold a climbing turn.
 
Which would be interesting for close range dogfighting tactics. Might see a lot more of the theory and mathematics of angles and efficiency of maneuvers pounded into pilot's heads so they can make the most of their thrust to weight ratio and vertical performance.

It would actually be pretty good in its own right if it could hold a climbing turn.

Well, the pilot might have helmet sight, agile dogfighting missiles and perhaps 360 degree tv-vision which could well mean the end for any Soviet made counterpart in quick order. Without fancy turning and burning, though.
 
I once saw modern fighter operations described as when battleships changed from firing their guns under local turret control to central director firing. I think this is pretty often the case when the like of AWACS and other support is available and set-piece battles are possible.

In that case it doesn't really matter how much E-M a fighter has, the AWACS will choreograph the tactical moves and ambushes and put the fighter with is missile battery in the right spot to get the kills.

However there are plenty of opportunity for poorly supported fighter operations in war, where the radar/SIGINT cover is patchy at best and perhaps closer to the enemy's IADS where their fighters will operate to better effect. This is where fighters must have more self-reliance and E-M really kicks in to give these in-danger fighters every advantage when in the enemy's backyard.
 
However there are plenty of opportunity for poorly supported fighter operations in war, where the radar/SIGINT cover is patchy at best and perhaps closer to the enemy's IADS where their fighters will operate to better effect. This is where fighters must have more self-reliance and E-M really kicks in to give these in-danger fighters every advantage when in the enemy's backyard.

Sure, if fancy stuff is not available. Even in Falklands the air combat was dramatically different from, say, Vietnam, due to simple fact that all-aspect Sidewinders were available. Now, when you throw helmet mounted sights, off boresight launch etc. into the playing field the manouverability loses it's magic really fast, as it's much cheaper to develop better missiles and sensors that can pull the high-G's than to develop aircraft and above all pilots who can survive high-G's.

In terms of manouverability the speed and altitude are the only meaningful aspects, as they give you the edge on whether to engage or to withdraw.
 
Sure, if fancy stuff is not available. Even in Falklands the air combat was dramatically different from, say, Vietnam, due to simple fact that all-aspect Sidewinders were available. Now, when you throw helmet mounted sights, off boresight launch etc. into the playing field the manouverability loses it's magic really fast, as it's much cheaper to develop better missiles and sensors that can pull the high-G's than to develop aircraft and above all pilots who can survive high-G's.

In terms of manouverability the speed and altitude are the only meaningful aspects, as they give you the edge on whether to engage or to withdraw.

Boyd was an ideologue, and I mistrust such people on general principles. For example he bitched about the F15 having an integral pilot ladder and steerable nose-wheel because they added weight without adding combat power as he saw it. He also didn't want the F16 to have the APG66 radar or any multi-role capability that reduced its E-M potential, so in that sense he's a very blinkered man with a very narrow view of what constitutes capability and what was then and what was becoming possible.
 
Boyd was an ideologue, and I mistrust such people on general principles. For example he bitched about the F15 having an integral pilot ladder and steerable nose-wheel because they added weight without adding combat power as he saw it. He also didn't want the F16 to have the APG66 radar or any multi-role capability that reduced its E-M potential, so in that sense he's a very blinkered man with a very narrow view of what constitutes capability and what was then and what was becoming possible.

Yup, of course the air combat has been very limited and against pariah states, but F-16 sure has got a lot of radar missile (AIM-120) kills...
 
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FBKampfer

Banned
Well I think the AWACS point should be disregarded. If we're counting AWACS, then the best fighter becomes a B1B ripple-firing Sparrows or AMRAMS.


Besides, we build the things to fight peer opponents, in which case we can reasonably expect to lose quite a few AWACS. Especially if we're talking 70's and 80's, when the relevant designs were being drawn up.

We go to war against the USSR in 83, you bet your sweet ass AWACS coverage is going to be spotty.
 
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