I was saying no need for an external sniper/flir pod as it has a pretty good internal one...
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Myth : The days of dog fighting is over
- Thread starter AJB37
- Start date
I was saying no need for an external sniper/flir pod as it has a pretty good internal one...
My understanding was that in large part this had to do with the fact that Sniper XR was incompatible with carrier launches... ATFLIR still has a lot left to be desired from what we were promised...
I was in the Joint Tactical Air-to-Air Missile Office (JTAAMO) USN/USAF FO/GO oversight council meeting in 1993 as the Navy lead action officer and go to hear the Air Force take a pass on opportunity to integrate AIM-9X and JHMCS on the F-22 from the start. It was interesting to watch them protect F-22 at all costs and then even try to constrain AIM-9X/JHMCS for the F-15 (F-15C was USAF lead platform). They foresaw challenges to the projected F-22 buy and did not want to improve the warfighting capability of the F-15 so that it did not need to be replaced.
Even more interesting was the USAF Studies and Analysis brief on force on force encounters between all USAF and USN projected AIM-9X/JHMCS aircraft and the Su-27. No matter what happened, after looking at tens of thousands of runs starting in BVR conditions in OCA and DCA scenarios, there were always merges no matter what BVR weapon(s) were used even by the then still very close hold cosmic F-22. In fact, loss of even a few F-22s made the Cost and Operational Effectiveness Analysis (COEA) very interesting in a not so good way for the F-22 due to its high unit cost.
The Air Force took a position that there would be no merges because improved AMRAAM was so lethal and then claimed that they didn't think the F-22 needed any type of AIM-9 at all and had already gone from a loadout of 4 internal AIM-9 to two AIM-9M as a result. Ultimately, AIM-9X and JHMCS were moving too fast (in RDT&E time sense) for F-22 to incorporate either for the first production lots (similar to Typhoon not having a "helmet" trageting system until later tranches). F-22 was already behind schedule and over budget and didn't want adding anything that would make that worse at the time so AIM-9X and JHMCS were deferred.
F-35 started its development as JAST in spring 1994 (I was at that meeting as well) and that program had sipped the F-22 Kool-aid (first JSF PEO came from USAF ACC DR and had participated in all of the JTAAMO FO/GO meetings). Interestingly, JSF was all over the "helmet", but competitors wanted to do it themselves and go beyond JHMCS (so much for "Joint" and common helmet strategy), but used same arguments as F-22 as to the end of merges due to stealth so AIM-9X was not considered a priority and a loadout of 2 AMRAAMs was selected in lieu of AIM-9X. From the start, the priority was air-to-ground so AIM-9X was shuffled to the back of pack.
So AIM-9X was integrated onto the F-15C in the USAF as the lead platform and F/A-18C for the Navy and Marine Corps. F-16C and F/A-18E/F became the next wave (Navy switched F/A-18E/F to be IOC platform for JHMCS even though it had almost completed DT on the F/A-18C, but that's another story).
Not quite, Sniper was designed from the beginning for the F/A-18, but an urban legend was seeded that it wasn't carrier compatible when in fact, LMCO committed $35M of internal funding to actually put one on the table when their competitor had not completed design work on their offering.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Doesn't the Air Farce remember the 1950's? They seem to be using the same arguements again and they are probably going to have the same results.
To quote A4's "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
I wonder what the speed and G loadings are for that external gun pod are?
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Doesn't the Air Farce remember the 1950's? They seem to be using the same arguements again and they are probably going to have the same results.
To quote A4's "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
I wonder what the speed and G loadings are for that external gun pod are?
I think you are mistaken, The Air Force version (F-35A) is the only one that has an internal gun. It's the Marine (F-35B STOVL) and Navy (F-35C) that will have the external gun pod. The Navy wants more gas, and the Marines have that huge lift fan, so there wasn't room for an internal gun in either the B or C variant.
Sorry I was referring to the Sidewinder capability on the F-22 more than anything. The Navy fouled up too when it got the Phantom without guns in the 60's.
Ahh, I misunderstood what you were getting at.
Yeah, leave it to the AF to get a really big expensive toy and not put something pretty important on it.