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Subject: Missile tactics versus gun tactics.
Maratabc    4/26/2013 1:07:57 PM
This will be a discussion of why the Americans and British made a serious technical error in the 1950s and 1960s.
 
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Maratabc       4/28/2013 11:28:43 PM
There is a military adage that the first one to try, is the first one to make mistakes. (The first man through the door is the one who is shot.)
 
The Americans were the first to try fighter versus fighter missile combat and they made a host of mistakes.
 
Their first mistake was not to recognize that there would be fighter versus fighter missile combat. Their assumption was that their missile armed fighters would shoot down bombers. They were not alone in this thought. The British and the Russians thought the same thing--> especially the British, but at least the Russians (and the French) thought that fighter versus fighter combat would remain, so they held on to their aircraft guns for their 'tactical aviation' as did the Swedes.
 
The Americans curiously did design one fighter to use the gun (the F-104) but when it tried to fight the Mig 21...
 
 
Not too successful... 

On December 12th at around 2 p.m. in the afternoon, observation posts near Kutch reported two PAF Starfighters cross the coastline in an apparent sneak attack on Jamnagar. The early discovery of the intruders gave time for the MiG-21s to scramble. The MiGs which take about 1 minute and 45 seconds to get airborne were immediately launched and four of them were immediately put into the air.

One section was led by Flt. Lt. Bharat Bhushan Soni (C705) who had Flt. Lt. Saigal as wingman and Vinay Kapila flew the other section. It was Soni who spotted the Starfighters first. One of them flown by Wg. Cdr. Mervyn Middlecoat SJ, PAF an experienced flight instructor in the Pakistani Air Force was diving in to attack the airfields targets.

Soni on spotting the Starfighter engaged reheat and rolled into a diving turn behind the Starfighter. Meanwhile Saigal reported that the other Starfighter had aborted its attack and flew in the general direction of Pakistan.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/History/Aircraft/Images/Middlecoat.jpg" height="249" width="200" alt="" />

Dead Pakistani pilot, Middlecoat.
 
Meanwhile Middlecoat, on noticing the MiG coming onto the tail, broke off the attack on the airfield and rolled into a turn to shake off the MiG. Soni pulled the MiG into a tighter turn well inside his opponents and launched his K-13s. However the Starfighter deflected the missiles by using flares. At this point the Starfighter broke out of the turn and engaged reheat, skimming the surface of the Arabian Sea at low level. Soni again engaging maximum reheat closed in on the Starfighter and gave a long burst with his cannon. Flashes indicated strikes and as the Starfighter wobbled out of controlled flight, Middlecoat had ejected. The Starfighter crashed into the sea. Middlecoat came down into the sea and was never found, even though rescue vessels were sent into the Arabian Sea.
 
Needed a better missile, Soni did. He did have a gun. Middlecoat had a gun, (the Vulcan, an excellent one, too), but forgot the first rule; 'Turn to fight'. Might have worked out for him, if the Starfighter was a better angle fighter and if he had the fuel reserve to try, and if bhe was a better pilot.
 
The K-13s were Indian copies of Russian copies of Sidewinder. The Americans had learned how to defeat ATOLLs. 
 
The pity was that they did not use the magnificent technical base they had so laboriously built up during the Second World War, when they were shocked to discover how outclassed they were by the Europeans, and had to spend vast treasure to catch up, to not foresee what they learned the hard way in Vietnam.
 
They were going to develop the Sparrow and they would field Sidewinder. Since the Russians were invested in beamriders (Alkali) and the British bungled their equivalent Fireflash, the Americans would field something. 
 
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Maratabc       4/29/2013 1:51:37 AM
It would have been nice if somebody had thought about how a guided missile-especially a radar signal-steered one would work when launched from a fighter against a small agile target. It was inevitable that such a missile would be used in fighter versus fighter combat.
 
The Americans would have been wise to pay LESS attention to what their own fighter pilots told them.
 
They tried to guess what was needed, but still got it wrong.
 
 
Clarence Johnson got it wrong.
 
  

Johnson had gone to Korea and talked with American fighter pilots to find out what they wanted in a successor to then first-line P-80s and F-86 Sabre Jets.

     Perhaps reflecting a romantic nostalgia for their World War II glory days more than the realities of aerial combat in the jet age, the pilots expressed a distinct preference for a very fast, fully supersonic, fast-climbing daylight air superiority fighter. They discounted both radar sights and guided missile armament,preferring instead visual contact and gun armament, although the phenomenal closing speeds of supersonic air combat would require extraordinarily rapid-firing guns, a requirement ultimately fulfilled by the revolutionary General Electric “Vulcan” rotary six-barreled 20 mm cannon.

Johnson’s answer to the pilots’ prayers, the F-104, weighed half as much as any other century series (F-100 plus) US fighter, and was the first production airplane in the world capable of sustained Mach 2 supersonic flight. It had a maximum speed of Mach 2.2, or 1450 m.p.h. at 36,000 feet (F-104C and F104G versions), a service ceiling of 60,000 feet, and an initial climb rate in excess of 50,000 feet per minute (F-104G).

There are interesting observations as to how Lockheed's Starfighter led to Airbus (a view I happen to share since i agree with Vincenti) but the main point is that what the F-104 was designed to do, was NOT what it needed to do.
 
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Korea actually predicted what the Russians would do. They would go for speed and maneuverability in their tactical fighters. The Mig 17 and the Mig 19 were incremental improvements of the Mig 15. Only the Mig 21 broke this Russian pattern as it was a better executed version of the fast climbing supersonic day interceptor the F-104 actually was.  
 
The American fighters would need to solve angles in turning fights with enemy fighters. Based on the need to use missiles to pursue an enemy who would go to reheat the moment the enemy pilot chose to run from a subsonic gun-fight-> the Americans had to choose how their fighter would use its missiles and what kind of missiles to use. They chose correctly the SARH missile, but they did not develop the right kind of launch platform, the right radar architecture, or mate it to the right kind of missile. 
 
The Americans needed missiles that would use lead pursuit logics,  be radar signal steered into a target with large off bore-sight ability top receive a signal and good turn agility in the missile. The missile would need a long burn rocket motor to sustain after initial acceleration.
 
The radar would be the most critical element in the design for such a SARH missile. Since the radar would be in the plane, it behooved the designers to slave the radar to the pilot's heads-up gun-sight, to cue into that gun-sight the computed signal return indices the AWG-10 received as ranging data to the defender aircraft, that would have showed minimum and maximum no-escape parameters for the selected missile and to radar CUE the pilot onto the target defender aircraft with a cursor arrow. The MAIN reason (Ault report) Sparrow failed was that the American pilots had no idea what its minimum and maximum launch criteria were, nor what limits the AN/AWG-10 radar search cone was.  
 
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Maratabc       4/29/2013 2:10:03 AM
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The second prime reason (Ault Report) was that Sparrow was not agile enough to jerk into a defender aircraft, when it jinked. Add proximity fuse and impact fuse defects and the 10% PK becomes very understandable. It should be noted that with improvements the modern Sparrow has a PK> 35% for salvo fire but that still should have been possible in a tested and proofed missile in 1962. This was the implied finding of the Ault report.
 
So...
 
The Phantom II was the best plane the Americans had when they were first to rely on air to air missiles in air war. The AWG-10 radar was the best SARH missile steer radar they had. Sparrow was the best air to air SARH missile they had. All were designed wrong, all were adapted to fight Migs, and they managed to prove successful.
 
But...
 
They didn't even know what the Sparrow could do when they sent their pilots into battle with it.
 
They didn't know what the AN/AWG 10's critical signal interference defects were, that caused Sparrow to explode short of their targets or to fall out of control.
 
They didn't know that the safety circuit feature they built into the Sparrow would cause a fail to launch or even motor ignite.
 
They didn't know how to store it properly, load it properly, test it properly, or assemble it properly (Ault report)! In short, just as with the famous American torpedo debacle of World War II where their navy failed to test the Mark 14 torpedo weapon and educate the end-users how to employ the defective weapon properly... the Americans sent their pilots into battle with a defective weapon system, that should have performed twice as well as it did, if they had just quickly fixed what they could.   
 
First man through the door, is the first one shot.
 
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45-Shooter    While most of this is right,   4/30/2013 2:08:23 PM
The report highlighted below in yellow on the "Evolution" of the F-104 is tragically flawed and incorrect! The genius of the F-104 was not in the "Normalness" of it's components and sub-systems, but in the beauty of how they were put together into a total package.
True! 
 
The radar would be the most critical element in the design for such a SARH missile. Since the radar would be in the plane, it behooved the designers to slave the radar to the pilot's heads-up gun-sight, to cue into that gun-sight the computed signal return indices the AWG-10 received as ranging data to the defender aircraft, that would have showed minimum and maximum no-escape parameters for the selected missile and to radar CUE the pilot onto the target defender aircraft with a cursor arrow. The MAIN reason (Ault report) Sparrow failed was that the American pilots had no idea what its minimum and maximum launch criteria were, nor what limits the AN/AWG-10 radar search cone was.


 
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45-Shooter    While most of this is right,   4/30/2013 2:12:15 PM

They tried to guess what was needed, but still got it wrong.
The F-104 consortium led to Airbus!True! 
 
The radar would be the most critical element in the design for such a SARH missile. Since the radar would be in the plane, it behooved the designers to slave the radar to the pilot's heads-up gun-sight, to cue into that gun-sight the computed signal return indices the AWG-10 received as ranging data to the defender aircraft, that would have showed minimum and maximum no-escape parameters for the selected missile and to radar CUE the pilot onto the target defender aircraft with a cursor arrow. The MAIN reason (Ault report) Sparrow failed was that the American pilots had no idea what its minimum and maximum launch criteria were, nor what limits the AN/AWG-10 radar search cone was.




 
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Maratabc       4/30/2013 5:02:18 PM
1945 REDEFINE THE PROBLEM.
 
What did the USAAF and the US Navy do besides bomb everything in sight?
 
Fight enemy fighters.
 
What did they learn? 
-intruder fighters were less agile than target defense interceptors.
-thrust beats lift in an angle fight.
-their American made guns jammed.
-their American made cannons jammed.
-dead enemy pilots are more important than wrecked enemy planes.  (Nobody to teach the next generation.)
 
Add the special Navy worry that most kamikazes attacked in small single engine aircraft and that RAND concluded that the future kamikaze would be a small robot plane.
 
Plus London was blitzed with buzz bombs...
 
What could chase a small fast (agile?) jet propelled target smaller than a fighter and kill it?
 
You needed a guided rocket. Not just to kill bombers, but to kill small robot aircraft.
 
What did the USAF eventually settle on? 
 
 
Note the hit to kill feature with the first missiles. This was in early recognition that the missile would be seduced to fail by defender aircraft measures (at the time thought to be chaff), so that drive-through-the-decoy was insisted as a design feature. 
 
The missile was not agile, it did not have much of a flight time, and it was not given a large warhead.
 
It was not what the second world war experience demanded.
 
What should have been the eventual goal?
 
The Americans knew what worked in the available control guidance from their work on torpedoes and guided glide bombs. A tail-steer missile that chased  a radio signal up and down and from side to side was what worked. their navy had just proved it with their anti-ship missile, and with a sound chasing self-guided torpedo.
 
The hard part was to get that SARH guidance into a small agile missile that could stay with the defender aircraft maneuver for maneuver until it collided.
 
I'e. a Sparrow with large powered tail control and a better 2d lag pursuit logic signal chase so that missile could turn 30+ gees. Add a ten second burn boost-sustain rocket motor.  
 
Develop a through the gun-sight radar with direction to steer cue with a minimum signal acquire time capture in the missile ON THE RAIL of less than two seconds. (Test for this, not the two seconds to capture signal in flight.).  
 
And then find a generation of arrogant Steve Ritchie types who have the patience to steer the Sparrow using a plane's radar.
 
 
 
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45-Shooter       4/30/2013 8:11:46 PM

Sparrow-I/II/III through the -7M are ALL Canard control missiles, unlike the tail controlled Falcon. Cut and paste picture of Sparrow Aim-7M failed! Go look at any picture to see this for yourself.
 
Develop a through the gun-sight radar with direction to steer cue with a minimum signal acquire time capture in the missile ON THE RAIL of less than two seconds. (Test for this, not the two seconds to capture signal in flight.).  
This, "Bore sight radar" was done, and early on too. But because of Radar processes, did not work well, if at all in practice.
And then find a generation of arrogant Steve Ritchie types who have the patience to steer the Sparrow using a plane's radar.
Or, install Antenna Gimbals with a wider look angle, auto tracking and lines on the canopy to show the seeker/radar look/track angle!
 
 

 



 
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Maratabc       4/30/2013 10:20:03 PM
Let me be BLUNT.
 
One called Shooter. You know very little about airplanes. You know NOTHING about missiles and radars. Save yourself humiliation and don't repeat your lies and fantasies here. 
 
Marat.
 
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Maratabc       4/30/2013 11:38:15 PM
The Americans knew what worked in the available control guidance from their work on torpedoes and guided glide bombs. A tail-steer missile that chased  a radio signal up and down and from side to side was what worked . their navy had just proved it with their anti-ship missile , and with a sound chasing self-guided torpedo.
 
The hard part was to get that S ARH guidance into a small agile missile that could stay with the defender aircraft maneuver for maneuver until it collided.
 
I'e. a Sparrow with large powered tail contro l and a better 2d lag pursuit logic signal chase so that missile could turn 30+ gees . Add a ten second burn boost-sustain rocket motor.  
 
Develop a through the gun-sight radar with direction to steer cue with a minimum signal acquire time capture in the missile ON THE RAIL of less than two seconds. (Test for this, not the two seconds to capture signal in flight.).  
 
The K-14, MK. 18 (USN version), and Ferranti (British version) gyro computing gunsights used a gyro to measure rate of turn to give a lead compensation which was applied to the reflector gunsight. The pilot preset the gunsight with the wingspan of the target. He then used a twist knob on the throttle handle which would adjust the size of a sighting ring (reflected on the sighting panel) called a recticle (this varied in layout, but usually consisted of six diamond shapes) to the target wingspan. The further away the target, the smaller the ring. Matching the ring size to the target wingspan gave the range, which was fed into the analog computer to give the required lead compensation. When the target was in the ring the guns were aimed where the target would be when the bullets got to the targeted range.

So to use the system, the pilot put the ring on the target and held it there while shooting. It eliminated guessing how much lead was required - most pilots tended to grossly underestimate the required lead.

By Korea the human element had been removed, instead of twisting a knob a radar ranging system input the distance component.

Note: when engaging in aerobatics the gyro's needed to be caged. If the pilot forgot to do so the system would be damaged and useless. When the gyros were caged, the system acted as a simple reflector gunsight. So the pilot had to be well trained to cage and uncage the gyros during combat.
 
Courtesy of a poster named "Lunatic"
 
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The point being that it was possible with 1945 technology to put a tracking cursor into a HUD that would allow a pilot to keep the elbow on the aircraft he was trying to paint with a radar, and that by Korea...
 
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Maratabc       4/30/2013 11:47:55 PM
I know a lot about the E-4 fire-control system used on the F86D Super sabre.

The system consisted of a radar covered by a black radome over the air intake in the nose of the aircraft, a flight-data computer, a fire-control computer and in the cockpit a radar scope ( E-type ) and a joystick used to control the radar antenna during lock-on to the target. The system could operate in 3 modes: Search mode, lock-on mode and attack-mode.
In the search mode the antenna searched the horizon from side to side. When the pilot got a target on the scope he would switch the system to lock-on mode by pressing a knob on the joystick. In lock-on mode the antenna was controlled horizontally and vertically by the joystick. When the pilot had aimed the antenna at the selected target, he would use a thumb-wheel on the joystick to move a marker along the sweep on the scope. When the marker was placed over the target, the system would lock-on and switch to attack-mode.
In attack-mode the radar would automatically track the target in azimuth, elevation and range (the antenna was locked to the target). The scope would now show steering information instead of radar information. This information consisted of:
1) time until firing the weapons (a big circle, the size of which indicated the remaining time)
2) the rate at which the aircraft was closing in on the target ( a gap in the big circle. 12 o'clock = 0 kts, 3 o'clock = 100 kts etc. )
3) steering information (a small circle and a little cross which had to be centered within each other) The pilot had to maneuver the aircraft in the same direction the little cross was moving on the scope.
4) Firing information. ( A big cross on the scope ). If the pilot had the trigger pulled at this time, the weapons woud be fired. If the weapons were 2,75" rockets, the rocket-pod placed in fuselage would lower automatically and the rockets would be fired.
5) Collision avoidance info. ( 2 circles forming the letter 8 ) the pilot had to break away in the direction given by the "8" to avoid colliding with debris from the target.
 
Courtesy of "NOP1"
 
 
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Again the point is that this information could have been shown through the GUNSIGHT, for by 1954 the technology for minimum and maximum range engagement envelopes for free flight rockets, gravity bombs, and guns was avaialable.
 
There was no reason that this could not be done for Falcon, Sidewinder and Sparrow. NONE. it was not done for over a decade. No need?  
 
Insane. The pilots needed the radar slaved to what they could see to shoot and they needed mechanical aids to range for them since in the sky there are no distance marker to gauge a distance marker by, except radar.
 
Except radar...
 
 
 
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