How would PAK-FA counter F22 in future aerial warfare

[Abingdonboy]

Geeeezzz...This again...???

Just like the rest, the PAK/FGFA have no chance against the Raptor.

Fine...I will be generous: 1% chance.

By the way, people...

The Dino Pit Fossils: Quetzalcoatlus northropi

The 'northropi' is for -- Northrop. Maker of the B-2.

How can you be so sure sir?


Yes the F-22 is an excellent product but the PAK-FA is far newer product that has been built to counter the F-22 in many ways. Couple this with the fact the PAK-FA/FGFA will be built in far greater numbers than the F-22 ever will be, I don't think any fight would be as one sided as your have us believe.

 

[satishkumarcsc]

A raptor would never allow a PAKFA to be within 40 KM. It would either shoot it down earlier. If it can't shoot it down, its because it has used up all the missiles and the raptor would turn around and go home.

Can the PAK-FA stay undetected till 40 Kms or the F-22 be seen earlier is still under scrutiny. Running our mouth before knowing the full capability of both the aircrafts is just wishful thinking. That is what I meant to say. F 22 lacks IRST and the PAK-FA has it. F 22 has all aspect stealth and PAK FA stealth is mainly focused in the frontal aspect. The F 22 was designed in the 80s and the PAK-FA was designed in the 21st century. A lot of factors have to be considered before we can actually calculate anything.

And both of them have never fought as a system. Wars are fought as a system, An individual comparison of each weapon system will only give a flawed result.

 

[faithfulguy]

Can the PAK-FA stay undetected till 40 Kms or the F-22 be seen earlier is still under scrutiny. Running our mouth before knowing the full capability of both the aircrafts is just wishful thinking. That is what I meant to say. F 22 lacks IRST and the PAK-FA has it. F 22 has all aspect stealth and PAK FA stealth is mainly focused in the frontal aspect. The F 22 was designed in the 80s and the PAK-FA was designed in the 21st century. A lot of factors have to be considered before we can actually calculate anything.

And both of them have never fought as a system. Wars are fought as a system, An individual comparison of each weapon system will only give a flawed result.

Yes, if we disregard the system, than PAKFA has a chance against F-22. But if we figure in the system and the electronics, then PAKFA has less than a Hail Mary's chance.

 

[satishkumarcsc]

Yes, if we disregard the system, than PAKFA has a chance against F-22. But if we figure in the system and the electronics, then PAKFA has less than a Hail Mary's chance.

How would you know that? We know not much about the new Tiikhmorov radar, Nor do we know the performance parameters of PAK-FA. Hell we dont even know the top speed of both the F 22 and the PAK-FA. These are closely guarded secrets. Nor have anyone seen the R-77 MD and its Kinematic performance. We dont know what the side facing L-Band Tiikhmarov APAR is capable of so in the end it all boils down to what these biased people think.

F-22 is a great platform, and I don't deny it. It set the standards for a true fifth generation aircraft. But will it be a one sided fight with the PAK-FA is yet to be seen.

 

[gambit]

So you mean to say that the F22 Raptor is God sent?

No. Lockheed will be just fine.

The R 74 has a IRST tracking range of 50 Kms as stated by Vympel.

Which is in the nose and on topside, meaning highly directional. If the Raptor approaches from below, the PAK is dead without the pilot knowing it.

 

[satishkumarcsc]

No. Lockheed will be just fine.


Which is in the nose and on topside, meaning highly directional. If the Raptor approaches from below, the PAK is dead without the pilot knowing it.

But if the F 22 approaches it above then? There are a lot of possiblities for the air war to turn in a matter of seconds. And what you say will not hold any water. Remember the F-22 also has its weakness.

Well Lockheed has always been good with marketing. They quoted a lower price to beat Northrop on the Competition of AT-X. And definitely Lockheed aint God.

 

[gambit]

How can you be so sure sir?

I am not sure. Nothing is certain. But I am confident, of which you may consider it 'faith', that we will win because not only do we have superior technology, we also have superior training, and far more institutional memory of post WW II warfare than the rest of the world combined.

Yes the F-22 is an excellent product...

Yet to be surpassed.

...but the PAK-FA is far newer product that has been built to counter the F-22 in many ways.

Sorry, but 'many ways' is meaningless. The L-band radar for the PAK is a joke. No working engineer in the field take it seriously. It is too small to be of much utility.

L band - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you look carefully at the source above, you will find the L-band is centimetric just like the S-band, of which the preferred region for just about 99.999% of the airborne combat radar for the 'fighter' class. Its efficacy at increasing the detection range from the S-band will be marginal at best.

In order to truly detect the Raptor and the Lightning II, we would need to enter the meters length systems, as HF/VHF/UHF freqs, of which the antenna would be so large and ungainly that it would be ground based.

Couple this with the fact the PAK-FA/FGFA will be built in far greater numbers than the F-22 ever will be, I don't think any fight would be as one sided as your have us believe.

There is no guarantee of the production level you wish.

 

[gambit]

But if the F 22 approaches it above then?

That still does not guarantee that the PAK's IR sensor will detect it. Leading edge friction IR emissions are not concentrated and intense as engine exhaust, and if the Raptor and the PAK is facing each other, LE IR emissions are what the PAK will receive.

There are a lot of possiblities for the air war to turn in a matter of seconds.

And how does this assure even odds, let alone guarantee success, for the PAK?

And what you say will not hold any water.

Same for yours.

Remember the F-22 also has its weakness.

There is an old saying: A good boxer hides his weaknesses, but a great one USES them.

The problem here is that if the fighter is great enough, how can anyone distinguish a weakness from a strength to exploit it to advantage?

Just saying that the Raptor has weaknesses does not mean its enemy will be able to find them and exploits them. Of course the Raptor has weaknesses. What are they and how can the PAK position itself to locate them? Sorry, but the Raptor sitting on the ramp does not count.

Well Lockheed has always been good with marketing. They quoted a lower price to beat Northrop on the Competition of AT-X. And definitely Lockheed aint God.

Lower price does not mean inferior quality. Yes, you do get what you pay for. Am not denying that. But the USAF determined that the Raptor has certain qualities that are demonstrably more desirable to have in combat than the Northrop competition.

 

[satishkumarcsc]

That still does not guarantee that the PAK's IR sensor will detect it. Leading edge friction IR emissions are not concentrated and intense as engine exhaust, and if the Raptor and the PAK is facing each other, LE IR emissions are what the PAK will receive.


And how does this assure even odds, let alone guarantee success, for the PAK?


Same for yours.


There is an old saying: A good boxer hides his weaknesses, but a great one USES them.

The problem here is that if the fighter is great enough, how can anyone distinguish a weakness from a strength to exploit it to advantage?

Just saying that the Raptor has weaknesses does not mean its enemy will be able to find them and exploits them. Of course the Raptor has weaknesses. What are they and how can the PAK position itself to locate them? Sorry, but the Raptor sitting on the ramp does not count.


Lower price does not mean inferior quality. Yes, you do get what you pay for. Am not denying that. But the USAF determined that the Raptor has certain qualities that are demonstrably more desirable to have in combat than the Northrop competition.

Well the Lockheed quoted lesser price and later hiked it. This was well documented.

There is still a huge amount of hot gas expanding in the F 22s which will be seen by the IRST and isnt that fair enough to know where the aircraft is?

But if the enemy is also good enough then what will you do sir? Weakness and strength are just relative terms and the pendulum swings both ways for both the aircrafts.

In ACM the first move determines 90% of air combat. Uncertainity is what dictates a battle.And all you say is based on your 'faith' because you still dont know what the PAK-FA can actually do. You might know more than me about the F 22. But I pretty well know that you don't know anything about the PAK FA yet.

Good read on the Collocated multi-band radar systems for people to know why different bands are carried on AWACS

http://www.zmne.hu/aarms/docs/Volume6/Issue4/pdf/16bala.pdf

( definitely not for you Gambit sir)

 

[gambit]

Can the PAK-FA stay undetected till 40 Kms or the F-22 be seen earlier is still under scrutiny. Running our mouth before knowing the full capability of both the aircrafts is just wishful thinking. That is what I meant to say.

Here is the problem for the Russians and the PAK...

They do not have an actual combat proven low radar observable platform to test their radar claims. We do: F-117.

To this day, the -117's RCS is still secret. We all heard what Ben Rich said about testing the -117: That it was a bird perching on the -117's model that enabled the test range radar to detect 'something'. The radar operator recorded that his radar picked up the model when he was actually seeing a bird. And birds are naturally low radar observable to start.

Birds, insects, flora, and assorted hydrometeors are called 'volumetric' targets, meaning there must a lot of them in a cluster, like a flock of birds, or a swarm of insect, or a tree in full bloom, in order for most radars to pick up a target. In a flock of birds, if one bird drop out of the flock, most likely it will not be detected and the flock's overall RCS is decreased by one member. Trees in winter when without leaves are often missed by the F-111's terrain following radar, making the bomber sometimes returning to base with scratches underside and sometimes even with small branches in the panel gaps.

So if the test range radar is sensitive to pick up one bird but not the F-117's model it was sitting atop, what does that tell us about the -117's RCS?

The Russians do not have a working/flying low radar observable target in the same class as the -117 in order to prove with reasonable confidence that their radars can detect an -117 class body. We do. So not only can the Raptor detect the PAK further than vice versa, we know how low radar observable bodies look like. In other words, we already can defeat 'stealth' while the rest of the world struggles to meet the 'stealth' standards we established.

F 22 lacks IRST and the PAK-FA has it.

Does not guarantee an advantange. People should not be gullible to believe that just because a car have a feature its competitor does not have, it automatically made it the superior. Even so, what make you think we cannot add on an IR sensor to the Raptor later?

F 22 has all aspect stealth and PAK FA stealth is mainly focused in the frontal aspect. The F 22 was designed in the 80s and the PAK-FA was designed in the 21st century.

By a lot people's reasoning, anything later is supposed to be better, right? So why is it so accepted that the PAK, which is designed later, is higher to the Raptor in radar observability? Should it not be much lower?

A lot of factors have to be considered before we can actually calculate anything.

Then why do so many people willing to make declarations?

And both of them have never fought as a system. Wars are fought as a system, An individual comparison of each weapon system will only give a flawed result.

The Raptor has. At Red Flag.

Red Flag may be 'just an exercise' to a lot of people seeking to sneer at the Americans, but the reality among professionals from the world's major air forces is that Red Flag, Top Gun, and Fighter Weapons School are just two things short of real combat: altitude limit (hard deck) and live weapons.

The Russians have nothing close to any of the three. Neither does your India. And neither does the Chinese, who have something called the 'Golden Shower' for their top fighter pilot.

Anyway...The Raptor 'killed' every opponent without the victim knowing where from. Red Flag is about combat integration from different systems into a coherent unit.

 

[satishkumarcsc]

Here is the problem for the Russians and the PAK...

They do not have an actual combat proven low radar observable platform to test their radar claims. We do: F-117.

To this day, the -117's RCS is still secret. We all heard what Ben Rich said about testing the -117: That it was a bird perching on the -117's model that enabled the test range radar to detect 'something'. The radar operator recorded that his radar picked up the model when he was actually seeing a bird. And birds are naturally low radar observable to start.

Birds, insects, flora, and assorted hydrometeors are called 'volumetric' targets, meaning there must a lot of them in a cluster, like a flock of birds, or a swarm of insect, or a tree in full bloom, in order for most radars to pick up a target. In a flock of birds, if one bird drop out of the flock, most likely it will not be detected and the flock's overall RCS is decreased by one member. Trees in winter when without leaves are often missed by the F-111's terrain following radar, making the bomber sometimes returning to base with scratches underside and sometimes even with small branches in the panel gaps.

So if the test range radar is sensitive to pick up one bird but not the F-117's model it was sitting atop, what does that tell us about the -117's RCS?

The Russians do not have a working/flying low radar observable target in the same class as the -117 in order to prove with reasonable confidence that their radars can detect an -117 class body. We do. So not only can the Raptor detect the PAK further than vice versa, we know how low radar observable bodies look like. In other words, we already can defeat 'stealth' while the rest of the world struggles to meet the 'stealth' standards we established.


Does not guarantee an advantange. People should not be gullible to believe that just because a car have a feature its competitor does not have, it automatically made it the superior. Even so, what make you think we cannot add on an IR sensor to the Raptor later?


By a lot people's reasoning, anything later is supposed to be better, right? So why is it so accepted that the PAK, which is designed later, is higher to the Raptor in radar observability? Should it not be much lower?


Then why do so many people willing to make declarations?


The Raptor has. At Red Flag.

Red Flag may be 'just an exercise' to a lot of people seeking to sneer at the Americans, but the reality among professionals from the world's major air forces is that Red Flag, Top Gun, and Fighter Weapons School are just two things short of real combat: altitude limit (hard deck) and live weapons.

The Russians have nothing close to any of the three. Neither does your India. And neither does the Chinese, who have something called the 'Golden Shower' for their top fighter pilot.

Anyway...The Raptor 'killed' every opponent without the victim knowing where from. Red Flag is about combat integration from different systems into a coherent unit.

I do know what a volumetric RCS is and why mention it over here? And the F 111 terrain following radar was of the first generation which has grown leaps and bounds on the A 10 and the Longbow. So why mention it here?

And also the Raptor was taken by Growler and the Mirage 200 at the Red Flag. And it never actually came in contact with the enemy 'system' For real.

Yes you had the F 117 before the Raptor and it had finite surfaces as the computers those days could not simulate RCS reduction and hence having finite numbers of surface was much easier to design and hence that wierd shape. But the Computers became faster later and it was easier to simulate the F22's RCS on the comp and it needed fewer visits to the test range and the anechoic chamber. The same could have been done by PAK-FA. Most of the things are simulated nowadays even pilot training. But I think nothing beats the real thing...still simulation gives fairly accurate results.

You have been talking about all these things but the PAK FA has not even crossed the testing stage and without knowing what it is capable of and how it is going to be integrated into system you compare the performance of both the aircrafts? And that is what I call as being ridiculous.

Being a senior member in many forums and an ex-serviceman you still think everything will go your way in a battle field? Having confidence in one's system and weapon is good...but being overconfident is what causes failures.

 

[gambit]

There is still a huge amount of hot gas expanding in the F 22s which will be seen by the IRST and isnt that fair enough to know where the aircraft is?

The -22's rear quarter is designed so that the best infrared detection will be IF the sensor is pretty much directly aft, which is rare in combat.

The problem with this kind of discussions is that people prefers certainty when the reality is that it is about odds and how to reduce it. Can an IR sensor pick up the -22's engine exhaust from an oblique position? Yes. But against a maneuvering -22? The odds is reduced considerably. What if there are other IR sources, such as seduction/distraction flares? The odds is reduced further. What if the sensor is trying to pick up a low altitude -22 and the background contains sporadic IR sources, such as bodies of water like a lake or even a pond? The odds of the sensor being seduced/distracted is lowered even more.

But if the enemy is also good enough then what will you do sir? Weakness and strength are just relative terms and the pendulum swings both ways for both the aircrafts.

In ACM the first move determines 90% of air combat. Uncertainity is what dictates a battle.And all you say is based on your 'faith' because you still dont know what the PAK-FA can actually do. You might know more than me about the F 22. But I pretty well know that you don't know anything about the PAK FA yet.

There is another old saying about combat:

In a fight, you win not by fighting under your opponent's rules, but by forcing him to fight under yours.

Any advantage, from situational to hardware, is a rule. If one boxer have a longer arm reach, that is a rule his opponent does not have. If his opponent have superior physical strength, that is a rule he lacks and he must avoid being trapped in a corner.

So if the -22 with its superior 'stealth' characteristics know how to gain superior positions in just about 9 out of 10 situations, it will quickly win 9 out of 10 fights, and the 10th engagement will take it just a bit longer to shoot down its opponent.

People have no problems making declarations about the PAK in regards to the -22. But if an American does the same but for the -22, we hear the admonition that we know nothing about the PAK so how can we know the -22 will win?

 

[satishkumarcsc]

The -22's rear quarter is designed so that the best infrared detection will be IF the sensor is pretty much directly aft, which is rare in combat.

The problem with this kind of discussions is that people prefers certainty when the reality is that it is about odds and how to reduce it. Can an IR sensor pick up the -22's engine exhaust from an oblique position? Yes. But against a maneuvering -22? The odds is reduced considerably. What if there are other IR sources, such as seduction/distraction flares? The odds is reduced further. What if the sensor is trying to pick up a low altitude -22 and the background contains sporadic IR sources, such as bodies of water like a lake or even a pond? The odds of the sensor being seduced/distracted is lowered even more.


There is another old saying about combat:

In a fight, you win not by fighting under your opponent's rules, but by forcing him to fight under yours.

Any advantage, from situational to hardware, is a rule. If one boxer have a longer arm reach, that is a rule his opponent does not have. If his opponent have superior physical strength, that is a rule he lacks and he must avoid being trapped in a corner.

So if the -22 with its superior 'stealth' characteristics know how to gain superior positions in just about 9 out of 10 situations, it will quickly win 9 out of 10 fights, and the 10th engagement will take it just a bit longer to shoot down its opponent.

People have no problems making declarations about the PAK in regards to the -22. But if an American does the same but for the -22, we hear the admonition that we know nothing about the PAK so how can we know the -22 will win?

Well I never denied that the F-22 was a good platform but all I did defend was calling the fight between F 22 and PAK FA being one sided as you called it before even the PAK FA even clearing its IOC

 

[rockstarIN]

@gambit

Sir, how do you see F-35s against PAK-FAs

Since the former will be the new age f-16s will be flying all over the world, mostly Pak-Fas will be there in great numbers in the coming decades.

Since F-22 is very less in numbers and can't be deployed from air craft carrier, USAF or USN have to relay on F-35s. Even The other Nato countries also does not have access to F-22.

 

[gambit]

I do know what a volumetric RCS is and why mention it over here? And the F 111 terrain following radar was of the first generation which has grown leaps and bounds on the A 10 and the Longbow. So why mention it here?

For other people as well. Volumetric target detection is somewhat an esoteric field.

And also the Raptor was taken by Growler and the Mirage 200 at the Red Flag. And it never actually came in contact with the enemy 'system' For real.

Please...It was exposed that the -22 was EM enhanced as proved by the gun camera.

Yes you had the F 117 before the Raptor and it had finite surfaces as the computers those days could not simulate RCS reduction and hence having finite numbers of surface was much easier to design and hence that wierd shape. But the Computers became faster later and it was easier to simulate the F22's RCS on the comp and it needed fewer visits to the test range and the anechoic chamber. The same could have been done by PAK-FA. Most of the things are simulated nowadays even pilot training. But I think nothing beats the real thing...still simulation gives fairly accurate results.

The reason why no one copied the -117's method of RCS control was because the angled faceting techniques limited certain aerodynamic exploitation. Not because that technique was not effective. The -117 was agile and maneuverable more than expected, but not good enough to make it a genuine fighter-to-fighter combatant.

That forced Lockheed and pretty much everyone else to look for computational power to use curvatures to preserve agility and maneuverability as well as getting low radar observability. If Lockheed had an average gamer PC back then, not a high end gaming PC, but just an average one will do, the -117 would be quite different.

But then this begs the question of why not the Russians and the Chinese copied the -22's layout? They have supercomputers and EM test chambers. May be even as powerful as ours? Do they not have programmers as talented as ours? Perhaps not.

The answer is that an aircraft is more than just a single character trait. The -22 is shaped that way to meet the demands of BOTH aerodynamics and low radar observability and would not be possible unless Propulsion allows it. Fly-by-wire flight control systems (FBW-FLCS) demands highly sophisticated flight control laws which demands high quality avionics to execute those laws without noticeable lag that could kill the pilot in either peace time or in combat. The Russians are also seems to be very impressed with certain design philosophy proven by older fighters as the PAK have visual similarities with those older fighters. The Chinese did the same by adopting foreign sources for the J-20. The issue here is that in using older designs as basis for their 'stealth' fighters, they did risk imputing known radar signatures onto their 'stealth' fighters, no matter how much lower the new RCS values may be.

Regarding radar signatures, today's A-10 have more in common with WW II stumpy fighters than with the sleeker F-16 or F-18. But no matter how much absorbers we install on the A-10, which would help reducing overall RCS, major structures like straight wings and tail would still be recognizable. We could eliminate the cockpit and the A-10 would still be recognizable. We could install 'stealthy' pods to contain bombs and enclose the nose cannon and those straight wings and tail would still make the A-10 recognizable.

The right cube will have a lower overall RCS thanks to the rounded corners, but if we rotate both cubes, even if out of sync, today's radars, including 4th gen fighters, will tag the right cube as a cube based upon known structural signatures like the six flat sides that will fully reflect periodically as the cubes rotates.

Structural signatures that are preserved from one version to the next will be recognizable throughout the evolution of the species.

We will recognize the PAK because we have an EM record of its parentage when we bought a bunch of older Soviet fighters. We will recognize the J-20 because we know what canards look like thanks to our allies who flies with canards.

You have been talking about all these things but the PAK FA has not even crossed the testing stage and without knowing what it is capable of and how it is going to be integrated into system you compare the performance of both the aircrafts? And that is what I call as being ridiculous.

Being a senior member in many forums and an ex-serviceman you still think everything will go your way in a battle field? Having confidence in one's system and weapon is good...but being overconfident is what causes failures.

I look at these fighters mostly from a sensor specialist perspective. There is an old fighter pilot saying: Lose sight, lose fight. Meaning if you lose track of your opponent, you are dead. Sometimes literally. The corollary to that is whoever have first sight have the first advantage.