Interesting factoid from recent Red Flag exercises

[J.D.]

Two German Eurofighters sporting F-22 kill marks (4 in total).

This only happened under WVR. In BVR, the F-22 is pretty much untouchable.

The hotheads are going ballistic about this but despite some disputed claims, the two sides agree on most things.

The Germans also acknowledged that this sort of thing is unlikely to happen because the chances of getting into WVR against an F-22 is almost impossible.

But when you're down to shootin' irons, anything goes.

[Exar Kun]

How many kills did the Raptors rack up in return?

[Duke]

O.K I'll ask the dumb ?

What is WVR & BVR?

[Exar Kun]

O.K I'll ask the dumb ?

What is WVR & BVR?

Within Visual Range and Beyond Visual Range. Very basically the difference between missiles & guns. The late 50s and 60s thinking was that everything was going to end up BVR so Americans took guns out of their planes. But then Vietnam happened and the US forces were constrained by rules that required them to get visual confirmation of a target before attacking. The outdated Russian machinery of the north was actually pretty maneuverable and also equipped with guns so the Americans got a bit of a nasty surprise when confronted with a turning fight. Top Gun came about because of this as well as planes like the F-14 to F/A-18 range - which all had guns and, to a greater or lesser extent, high maneuverability.

Despite the presence of far better identification friend or foe systems (IFF) that work at well beyond visual range, today's pilots still have to train in WVR combat and the planes must still excel in that arena. It's pretty insane how well the current generation of fighters can turn for their size.

[J.D.]

The late 50s and 60s thinking was that everything was going to end up BVR so Americans took guns out of their planes. But then Vietnam happened and the US forces were constrained by rules that required them to get visual confirmation of a target before attacking. The outdated Russian machinery of the north was actually pretty maneuverable and also equipped with guns so the Americans got a bit of a nasty surprise when confronted with a turning fight. Top Gun came about because of this as well as planes like the F-14 to F/A-18 range - which all had guns and, to a greater or lesser extent, high maneuverability.

There was also the fact that the early model AIM-7 Sparrow missiles were pitifully unreliable. They required that the targeting aircraft illuminate the target all the way to impact so it was relatively easy to break lock and even find the attacker. Later versions were SARH (Semi-Active Radar Homing) which allowed the targeting aircraft to turn away once the missile attained its own lock. Current generation BVR missiles like the AIM-120 AMRAAM are fully active, fire-and-forget weapons which are very reliable.

There is some dispute about how many the F-22s got. What is not disputed is that WVR, they did not get everything their own way. One German pilot got 3 of them.

I suppose it's not overly surprising. Stealth is not important when you get to guns range and Lead Computing Optical Sights are unaffected by any stealth measures. The Eurofighter has some advantages at close quarters because it is better in an angles fight than the F-22 and has marginally better acceleration. The F-22 is more of an energy fighter but both are very good in virtually all parts of their flight envelope.

The Germans were also very careful to point out that in a real situation, they would probably not even get to the merge because the F-22 can target them and fire a long time before the Eurofighter can even detect it.

Even then, the F-22 acquitted itself very well. It wasn't really designed for close quarters fighting.

[Montey]

One of the things that this suggests to me is that as awesome at the air superiority role that the F22 is, if the other side can put enough planes in the air they could overwhelm the F22 pilots and force them to a WVR engagement.

It kind of reminds me of the trap the Germans fell in to with their tanks in WWII. Whilst the German tanks were -far- superior to the Russian, British & American tanks at the time, the Russians and Americans could manufacture so many of them that the Germans couldn't kill them fast enough. As a result the German technical superiority was overcome by volume.

Hence, if I wanted to defeat the Americans in the air I'd not bother with attempting for a technical edge. I'd aim to get 5 to 10 times the pilots in the air for any one engagement and just overwhelm the Americans.

[J.D.]

This is the interesting point. If you can get to the merge (the transition between BVR and WVR), you have a chance. The F-22 is still lethal in a WVR fight but its best point is undoubtedly BVR. Trying to get there by weight of numbers might work but you'd lose a lot of aircraft doing it. The F-22, like most modern types, can target and engage multiple opponents simultaneously.

The Swedes - and Australia for that matter - have systems which present problems for the F-22. The JAS 39 Gripen was designed to operate in a totally coherent environment, where every radar can link with every other radar (they lead the world in datalink technology). That means you get so many pictures that you can detect the F-22 approaching. But detecting it is one thing and engaging it is another. Our JORN system presents a similar problem but in a different way. Both systems rely on the fact that the F-22, like any stealth aircraft, has aspects which are less stealthy than others. It's less stealthy in the rear hemisphere than it is in the front, for example. Directly above and below present similar problems. Flown to the correct profile, it is pretty much invisible.

I actually doubt that the F-22 will ever score an air-to-air kill. As you imply Montey, it is a victim of its own sophistication. You wouldn't risk it in a fight against Gen 3 aircraft. Not that it would be defeated but why bother when there are plenty of other types which can accomplish the job? The cost of making these things so high-tech is that they are too expensive. You have to trade off availability against capability. Lose one and that's a much higher percentage loss of your air defence capability than it should be because there are necessarily fewer of them. You end up with a very small fleet with a huge number of tasks because economies of scale don't support anything else.

[Montey]

The other point about overwhelming it is whilst it may be able to engage 20 targets at once, it can only carry a finite number of missiles. All you the need is N+1 aircraft to get the +1 in to an WVR engagement and the F22 has a good chance of losing.

I equate this to the Isreali's efforts to implement projectile based solutions to defend their armor against RPG's. If I was a Palestinian with an RPG before I fired at a target I'd throw lots of rocks (covered in aluminium foil if necessary) until the defense mechanism is depleted then I'd shoot it with my RPG.

[J.D.]

Systems like chaff and flares already exist to deal with that.