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What does modern air warfare (fighter vs fighter) look like?
Tim Morgan, Commercial pilot (ASEL, ASES, IA), mi... (more)
Modern air combat is split into two phases: beyond visual range (BVR) and within visual range (WVR). Tactics in each arena are very different.
The BVR phase is largely defined nowadays by total information awareness and advanced datalink capabilities such as Link16. This technology allows a flight of aircraft to share sensor data with each other, and with other airborne radar platforms. No longer is each aircraft an island; instead, each pilot has the same battlefield picture as every other.
In the BVR phase, a flight locates and evaluates a threat group, and decides whether to commit. If the decision to commit is made, the threat is analyzed and an attack plan is made. This could involve "sorting" the group (giving each aircraft in the flight an individual threat to prosecute), or running a maneuver such as a bracket, intended to outflank the enemy group,
or a single-side offset, intended to isolate one aircraft of the group.
The enemy group will perform their own counter-maneuvers in turn. All of this maneuvering is intended to place the enemy in your long-range missile's weapon engagement zone (WEZ) while at an advantageous position or numerical advantage (e.g., 2v1).
Missile tactics largely depend on the relative strengths and weaknesses of your missile vs. the enemy's. Long range missiles are semi-active radar-homing, and require the aircraft to maintain a lock on the enemy until the missile's radar can pick up the target.
For example, compare the US's AIM-120C AMRAAM with Russia's R-77. The R-77 has "longer legs" than the AMRAAM, with a more powerful motor, giving it a shoot-first advantage. However, the AMRAAM has a more powerful radar, allowing its shooter to drop lock and defend against the incoming missile sooner. These capability gaps creates specific BVR tactics to use for specific missile platforms. Not all Russian aircraft can carry the R-77, but when engaging one that can, the pilot is motivated to deny the enemy his first-shoot capability (by using radar jamming, for example) so as to exploit his own missile's advantages.
Missile firing tactics involve a lot speed changes. You want your missile to have as much kinetic energy as possible, so you want to be as fast as possible when you fire the missile. However, once the missile is in the air, you have to assume that the enemy has fired a missile against you as well, and defend against it. To do this, you want to force the enemy missile to burn up as much energy as possible. You can't turn tail against the enemy missile until your missile goes active (unless you want a low-Pk [probability of kill] "cheapshot" -- which itself can be a good tactic if all you need to do is scare the enemy by setting off his missile warning), so pilots typically slow way down and put the enemy aircraft "at gimbals" (at the edge of the radar's azimuth capability), giving the incoming missile the furthest path to the target. Once the friendly missile goes active, the pilot is free to defend.
Missile defense can be purely defensive (the drag: turn 180° around, burn as hard as you can, and make continuous 90° turns to force the missile to maneuver against you) or can be a mix of defensive and offensive (the beam: put the missile on a 90° bearing from you and make climbs and dives to force the missile to maneuver against you). In either case, you're forcing the missile to bleed off its energy so that it doesn't have sufficient energy to keep up with your maneuvering in the terminal phase of its flight. The advantage of the drag is that you have a very high chance of defeating the missile; the disadvantage is that you are now 180° away from the fight and purely defensive. In addition to kinematic defenses, the pilot will drop countermeasures to spoof the enemy missile's radar.
Note that along with the basic missile tactics described above, there is a second level of tactics alluded to in the beginning. For example, in a 2v2 engagement, one fighter might fly out ahead and make two low-Pk "long shots," forcing the enemy to go to the defensive early. That fighter then falls back to defend against a potential enemy missile, while the second fighter chases down the defending enemy with higher-Pk "kill shots."
If aircraft survive to the merge, the BVR arena ends and the WVR fight begins. WVR combat is largely unchanged since WWII, and still involves the basic concepts of the angles fight and the energy fight. In the angles fight, the aircraft attempts to out-turn the enemy, to get himself on the enemy's six o-clock position so as to fire guns or heat-seeking short-range missiles. The energy fight involves using one's superior speed or altitude to make attacks on the enemy while maintaining enough energy to prevent the enemy from giving chase. Which tactics to use depends on the relative WVR capabilities of the different aircraft. An aircraft with superior turn rate but poor thrust-to-weight ratio would be better served attempting to force an angles fight.
Modern air combat has been changed with the addition of "all-aspect" infrared missiles, which can be fired at targets "off boresight" -- namely, targets 90° or even 180° off your nose. This gives pilots a sharp sting even when they're not able to turn hard enough to get around "the corner" and get their nose on the enemy's six. The most advanced missiles even support "over the shoulder" shots.
Modern air combat tactics come in two levels: basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) and air combat maneuvering (ACM). BFM is the study of the maneuvers used in a 1v1 engagement. While air combat is not a chess game with a strict catalog of possible moves, understanding the basic maneuvers of WVR engagements forms a foundation on which the pilot can fluidly maneuver in offensive, defensive, and neutral dogfights. BFM includes such maneuvers as the high yo-yo
(used when an attacker has a speed advantage over the defender and wishes not to overshoot the defender but stay behind)
and the rolling scissors.
(occurs when an attacker and defender are neutral to each other and both are attempting to turn onto each other's tail)
The level of tactics above BFM is ACM. These tactics focus on mutual coordination between aircraft of a flight to isolate a bandit and kill it. The focus is on communications (ensuring that lead and wing both understand what's going on) and specific tactics designed to keep one fighter "engaged" (in the fight) and the other fighter "supporting" (clear of the fight in a good position to assist at any moment). An example is how a 2v1 can maneuver at the merge. For example, there's the break:
(puts the engaged fighter [Viper 1] inside the enemy's turn circle and puts the supporting fighter [Viper 2] outside the fight but turning in the same direction, ready to take a shot if the opportunity arises)
and the extensions:
(puts the supporting fighter turning in the opposite direction to the fight but gives a head-on shot opportunity to the supporting fighter right after the merge [time "2"])
There are further tactics for 2v2, 2v4, etc. fights with both similar and dissimilar aircraft.
Even with all of this book-learnin' around BFM and ACM though, the ultimate goal of WVR combat remains the same as it ever was: kill the enemy in as quick a time as possible. Doesn't have to be pretty, or "by the book," just has be done fast.
Written 26 Aug, 2014. 125,462 views.
Tim Morgan, Commercial pilot (ASEL, ASES, IA), mi... (more)
Modern air combat is split into two phases: beyond visual range (BVR) and within visual range (WVR). Tactics in each arena are very different.
The BVR phase is largely defined nowadays by total information awareness and advanced datalink capabilities such as Link16. This technology allows a flight of aircraft to share sensor data with each other, and with other airborne radar platforms. No longer is each aircraft an island; instead, each pilot has the same battlefield picture as every other.
In the BVR phase, a flight locates and evaluates a threat group, and decides whether to commit. If the decision to commit is made, the threat is analyzed and an attack plan is made. This could involve "sorting" the group (giving each aircraft in the flight an individual threat to prosecute), or running a maneuver such as a bracket, intended to outflank the enemy group,
or a single-side offset, intended to isolate one aircraft of the group.
The enemy group will perform their own counter-maneuvers in turn. All of this maneuvering is intended to place the enemy in your long-range missile's weapon engagement zone (WEZ) while at an advantageous position or numerical advantage (e.g., 2v1).
Missile tactics largely depend on the relative strengths and weaknesses of your missile vs. the enemy's. Long range missiles are semi-active radar-homing, and require the aircraft to maintain a lock on the enemy until the missile's radar can pick up the target.
For example, compare the US's AIM-120C AMRAAM with Russia's R-77. The R-77 has "longer legs" than the AMRAAM, with a more powerful motor, giving it a shoot-first advantage. However, the AMRAAM has a more powerful radar, allowing its shooter to drop lock and defend against the incoming missile sooner. These capability gaps creates specific BVR tactics to use for specific missile platforms. Not all Russian aircraft can carry the R-77, but when engaging one that can, the pilot is motivated to deny the enemy his first-shoot capability (by using radar jamming, for example) so as to exploit his own missile's advantages.
Missile firing tactics involve a lot speed changes. You want your missile to have as much kinetic energy as possible, so you want to be as fast as possible when you fire the missile. However, once the missile is in the air, you have to assume that the enemy has fired a missile against you as well, and defend against it. To do this, you want to force the enemy missile to burn up as much energy as possible. You can't turn tail against the enemy missile until your missile goes active (unless you want a low-Pk [probability of kill] "cheapshot" -- which itself can be a good tactic if all you need to do is scare the enemy by setting off his missile warning), so pilots typically slow way down and put the enemy aircraft "at gimbals" (at the edge of the radar's azimuth capability), giving the incoming missile the furthest path to the target. Once the friendly missile goes active, the pilot is free to defend.
Missile defense can be purely defensive (the drag: turn 180° around, burn as hard as you can, and make continuous 90° turns to force the missile to maneuver against you) or can be a mix of defensive and offensive (the beam: put the missile on a 90° bearing from you and make climbs and dives to force the missile to maneuver against you). In either case, you're forcing the missile to bleed off its energy so that it doesn't have sufficient energy to keep up with your maneuvering in the terminal phase of its flight. The advantage of the drag is that you have a very high chance of defeating the missile; the disadvantage is that you are now 180° away from the fight and purely defensive. In addition to kinematic defenses, the pilot will drop countermeasures to spoof the enemy missile's radar.
Note that along with the basic missile tactics described above, there is a second level of tactics alluded to in the beginning. For example, in a 2v2 engagement, one fighter might fly out ahead and make two low-Pk "long shots," forcing the enemy to go to the defensive early. That fighter then falls back to defend against a potential enemy missile, while the second fighter chases down the defending enemy with higher-Pk "kill shots."
If aircraft survive to the merge, the BVR arena ends and the WVR fight begins. WVR combat is largely unchanged since WWII, and still involves the basic concepts of the angles fight and the energy fight. In the angles fight, the aircraft attempts to out-turn the enemy, to get himself on the enemy's six o-clock position so as to fire guns or heat-seeking short-range missiles. The energy fight involves using one's superior speed or altitude to make attacks on the enemy while maintaining enough energy to prevent the enemy from giving chase. Which tactics to use depends on the relative WVR capabilities of the different aircraft. An aircraft with superior turn rate but poor thrust-to-weight ratio would be better served attempting to force an angles fight.
Modern air combat has been changed with the addition of "all-aspect" infrared missiles, which can be fired at targets "off boresight" -- namely, targets 90° or even 180° off your nose. This gives pilots a sharp sting even when they're not able to turn hard enough to get around "the corner" and get their nose on the enemy's six. The most advanced missiles even support "over the shoulder" shots.
Modern air combat tactics come in two levels: basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) and air combat maneuvering (ACM). BFM is the study of the maneuvers used in a 1v1 engagement. While air combat is not a chess game with a strict catalog of possible moves, understanding the basic maneuvers of WVR engagements forms a foundation on which the pilot can fluidly maneuver in offensive, defensive, and neutral dogfights. BFM includes such maneuvers as the high yo-yo
(used when an attacker has a speed advantage over the defender and wishes not to overshoot the defender but stay behind)
and the rolling scissors.
(occurs when an attacker and defender are neutral to each other and both are attempting to turn onto each other's tail)
The level of tactics above BFM is ACM. These tactics focus on mutual coordination between aircraft of a flight to isolate a bandit and kill it. The focus is on communications (ensuring that lead and wing both understand what's going on) and specific tactics designed to keep one fighter "engaged" (in the fight) and the other fighter "supporting" (clear of the fight in a good position to assist at any moment). An example is how a 2v1 can maneuver at the merge. For example, there's the break:
(puts the engaged fighter [Viper 1] inside the enemy's turn circle and puts the supporting fighter [Viper 2] outside the fight but turning in the same direction, ready to take a shot if the opportunity arises)
and the extensions:
(puts the supporting fighter turning in the opposite direction to the fight but gives a head-on shot opportunity to the supporting fighter right after the merge [time "2"])
There are further tactics for 2v2, 2v4, etc. fights with both similar and dissimilar aircraft.
Even with all of this book-learnin' around BFM and ACM though, the ultimate goal of WVR combat remains the same as it ever was: kill the enemy in as quick a time as possible. Doesn't have to be pretty, or "by the book," just has be done fast.
Written 26 Aug, 2014. 125,462 views.
