International Coalition for Expansion (MT signup)

[Arthurista]

A major advantage the F-22 has over, say, Su-27s or Typhoons is stealth, though, isn't it? Although most of the advanced European fighters and the F-18E have low observable designs. Just how much of a margin of superiority does that give the F-22?

A very significant one, actually. F/A-18E/F has a smaller RCS than any other non-stealth fighter, and Eurofighter's probably second on that list. However they don't come close to dedicated stealth craft; the F-22 has an RCS equivalent to that of a metal marble. F-35 roughly that of a beach ball.

You could almost consider the F-35 as a supplement to the Eurofighter since it's gonna be so widely adopted. In fact one of the reasons the Eurofighter hasn't sold as well as Britain had hoped on the international market is that 1) a dedicated stealth F-35 is coming in a couple years, 2) Rafale and Gripen are other European fighters contending with analogous American F-16E/F and F/A-18E/F and Russian Su-27 variants and MiGs in the fighter market - sorta hard to break into that. Plus its price tag is the highest of all non-5th gen fighters (with Rafale eerily close on that one as well).

Back on the F-22: by being so low-observable, it's able to straight up bypass most radar systems. It's too difficult to detect at long range and it's got a powerful AESA radar to counter. Most enemies won't even see it. In exercises pilots hate facing the F-22, since they die every time—apparently it feels like it disappears and suddenly the computer says you're dead cuz the F-22 is on your tail launching missiles. One Australian pilot said it's frustrating because you can see it clearly but you can't do anything since none of your weapons can lock onto it. The F-22 is something like 400-2 K/D in exercises, with one of the kills being, as the pilot of the attacker described, a once-in-a-million luck shot from his cannons, and the other occurred when the F-22 had "shot down" its enemy and the "enemy" had returned to action too early according to the exercise's rules iirc. The F-22 pilot hadn't expected the guy to come back so quick so he got shot in the back. All simulated, of course.

Of course, as FIn said, it's so expensive that you can't use many. It creates a "fighter gap" where you have less fighters than you need, hence why the USAF is gonna upgrade a bunch of F-15s and F-16s with the most modern avionics (developed from the F-22/35) to help cover that gap.

There's also the F-15SE. Is it possible to upgrade F-15Es and other similar legacy fighters en masse to a silent eagle type semi-stealth configuration?

[Virana]

A very significant one, actually. F/A-18E/F has a smaller RCS than any other non-stealth fighter, and Eurofighter's probably second on that list. However they don't come close to dedicated stealth craft; the F-22 has an RCS equivalent to that of a metal marble. F-35 roughly that of a beach ball.

You could almost consider the F-35 as a supplement to the Eurofighter since it's gonna be so widely adopted. In fact one of the reasons the Eurofighter hasn't sold as well as Britain had hoped on the international market is that 1) a dedicated stealth F-35 is coming in a couple years, 2) Rafale and Gripen are other European fighters contending with analogous American F-16E/F and F/A-18E/F and Russian Su-27 variants and MiGs in the fighter market - sorta hard to break into that. Plus its price tag is the highest of all non-5th gen fighters (with Rafale eerily close on that one as well).

Back on the F-22: by being so low-observable, it's able to straight up bypass most radar systems. It's too difficult to detect at long range and it's got a powerful AESA radar to counter. Most enemies won't even see it. In exercises pilots hate facing the F-22, since they die every time—apparently it feels like it disappears and suddenly the computer says you're dead cuz the F-22 is on your tail launching missiles. One Australian pilot said it's frustrating because you can see it clearly but you can't do anything since none of your weapons can lock onto it. The F-22 is something like 400-2 K/D in exercises, with one of the kills being, as the pilot of the attacker described, a once-in-a-million luck shot from his cannons, and the other occurred when the F-22 had "shot down" its enemy and the "enemy" had returned to action too early according to the exercise's rules iirc. The F-22 pilot hadn't expected the guy to come back so quick so he got shot in the back. All simulated, of course.

Of course, as FIn said, it's so expensive that you can't use many. It creates a "fighter gap" where you have less fighters than you need, hence why the USAF is gonna upgrade a bunch of F-15s and F-16s with the most modern avionics (developed from the F-22/35) to help cover that gap.

There's also the F-15SE. Is it possible to upgrade F-15Es and other similar legacy fighters en masse to a silent eagle type semi-stealth configuration?

I don't think it's an upgrade, it's just an F-15E that's had its airframe modified to be stealth. I highly doubt you can change the airframe of an F-15E to SE. The F-15SE will be a great supplement for the F-35 though, since it's got a small RCS and it's optimized for a role the F-35 can do - deep interdiction. Except, F-15E could hold more ordnance than the F-35 so I'd imagine same goes for F-15SE.

Still, I doubt USAF is gonna replace its F-15E's with SE's. I think they made it pretty clear they're keeping all the F-15E's, upgrading like 178 F-15C/Ds with modernized avionics.

[Arthurista]

I don't think it's an upgrade, it's just an F-15E that's had its airframe modified to be stealth. I highly doubt you can change the airframe of an F-15E to SE. The F-15SE will be a great supplement for the F-35 though, since it's got a small RCS and it's optimized for a role the F-35 can do - deep interdiction. Except, F-15E could hold more ordnance than the F-35 so I'd imagine same goes for F-15SE.

Still, I doubt USAF is gonna replace its F-15E's with SE's. I think they made it pretty clear they're keeping all the F-15E's, upgrading like 178 F-15C/Ds with modernized avionics.

Still, it's great for export to existing F-15E customers like ROK and Singapore. Also, while it can old more ordnance than an F-35, carrying bombs on external hardpoints could affect stealth, right? I think the SE has internal bays but I'm not sure whether it can carry as much weapons internally as the F-35. Once enemy AA has been degraded to a level safe for non-stealth planes to operate I suppose the SE could be more useful than the 35 with its greater weapons load and internal fuel range.

[Virana]

I don't think it's an upgrade, it's just an F-15E that's had its airframe modified to be stealth. I highly doubt you can change the airframe of an F-15E to SE. The F-15SE will be a great supplement for the F-35 though, since it's got a small RCS and it's optimized for a role the F-35 can do - deep interdiction. Except, F-15E could hold more ordnance than the F-35 so I'd imagine same goes for F-15SE.

Still, I doubt USAF is gonna replace its F-15E's with SE's. I think they made it pretty clear they're keeping all the F-15E's, upgrading like 178 F-15C/Ds with modernized avionics.

Still, it's great for export to existing F-15E customers like ROK and Singapore. Also, while it can old more ordnance than an F-35, carrying bombs on external hardpoints could affect stealth, right? I think the SE has internal bays but I'm not sure whether it can carry as much weapons internally as the F-35. Once enemy AA has been degraded to a level safe for non-stealth planes to operate I suppose the SE could be more useful than the 35 with its greater weapons load and internal fuel range.

That's true. F-35 was practically built for SEAD, too, so you could have internal-bay F-35s and supporting SEAD fighters (F/A-18E/F Super Hornet for Navy, F-16 variants for USAF) by suppressing enemy air defenses allowing F-15Es to dominate the ground. In fact, one statistic I saw somewhere said that 80% of modern warfare's ordnance and damage is dropped by aircraft. Pretty stunning considering air forces receive so much comparatively less funding than armies/navies. That's why airpower is so important to support a ground assault and especially a naval assault (since the main damage fleets can deal against other ships come not from cannons but from planes).

I think ROK is gonna get the F-15K iirc. Think it was an F-15E with fully completely modernized avionics, costs almost as much as a Eurofighter if I remember correctly. USAF should definitely operate some F-15SE's, using them alongside the F-15E in that role.

I'm interested in seeing how they upgrade the F-15C/D. I know the F-16V is gonna bring a bunch of cockpit, electronic, software, and radar improvements to around 300-350 F-16s, but the only info on F-15 upgrade has been upgrading 178 planes to an AESA radar. Navy's already got that in its Super Hornets, too bad they left out thrust vectoring - that would've been more expensive but a ton better in terms of performance and agility in a dogfight scenario. Of course Super Hornet practically pioneered the HMD and high off-boresight missiles for U.S. fighters, which are now also used with most F-15s and maybe F-16s. F-22 will be able to use them by 2018 I believe. And of course the F-35 is built for them.

EDIT: yep on the F-15K. I guess it's basically adopting the F-15E for a larger scope, multirole fighter role, as evidenced by its IR search and track, JHMCS (the HMD I was talking about), etc. Guess ROK didn't want to spend the cash on the F-35, so they upgraded the next best thing; apparently they had a competition between the F-15K, Rafale, Eurofighter, and Su-35 to choose their fighter, and the F-15K won.

I wonder how the F/A-18E/F would do in that competition as well. It's got all those things that the F-15K does.

[Arthurista]

EDIT: yep on the F-15K. I guess it's basically adopting the F-15E for a larger scope, multirole fighter role, as evidenced by its IR search and track, JHMCS (the HMD I was talking about), etc. Guess ROK didn't want to spend the cash on the F-35, so they upgraded the next best thing; apparently they had a competition between the F-15K, Rafale, Eurofighter, and Su-35 to choose their fighter, and the F-15K won.

I wonder how the F/A-18E/F would do in that competition as well. It's got all those things that the F-15K does.

I think the Singaporean version is slightly more advanced, with AESA radar etc. They chose it over the Eurofighter even though the Typhoon was the best in A2A - at one point beating three Singaporean F-16s in an exercise, because the Eurofighter company couldn't be sure when the advanced tranches with better air to ground ability will be developed.

Also, how good is the F-18E in A2A really, especially given that in terms of thrust to weight and speed it's not really top notch?

[Phonencia]

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=206232

[New Edom]

I have a question. Tyrrhenia, Ralkovia's region, uses a very good map and generally speaking the region has a tendency to be tense about regional invasions. For these reasons and for the sake of realism, it seems to me that it would be a good idea to approach a couple of the nations in the region--the ones I have in mind are Ossoria, Cukarica, Greston and Rodarion--to see if they would be willing to align with the alliance's invasion force in order to enable the alliance to build up forces for greater coordination and supply line control. If you look on the map, Greston and Rodarion are closest, though the United World Order is very close to Greston and so they may prefer to remain neutral.

[Libraria and Ausitoria]

Excellent question... except that I don't see any question mark or even question. But excellent point anyway.

For the record, who will Ralkovia be joined by?

[Volgovad]

Excellent question... except that I don't see any question mark or even question. But excellent point anyway.

For the record, who will Ralkovia be joined by?

Well, United World Order has signed up and Ralk could call in some of his other allies in Tyrrhenia.

[New Edom]

Excellent question... except that I don't see any question mark or even question. But excellent point anyway.

For the record, who will Ralkovia be joined by?

Well, United World Order has signed up and Ralk could call in some of his other allies in Tyrrhenia.

That is precisely the concern. They could, in theory, prevent the alliance from even gaining any approach to Ralkovia.

[Finorskia]

Excellent question... except that I don't see any question mark or even question. But excellent point anyway.

For the record, who will Ralkovia be joined by?

Well, United World Order has signed up and Ralk could call in some of his other allies in Tyrrhenia.

I think I will back out of this cluster fuck. I may be part of an alliance, but I don't have a death wish. Though, PWA might be able to get the Workers United Pact, and maybe those of us in the Polaris Initiative can get their support. If we can get enough allies we may be able to come out of this in one piece.

[The New Lowlands]

Well, United World Order has signed up and Ralk could call in some of his other allies in Tyrrhenia.

I think I will back out of this cluster fuck. I may be part of an alliance, but I don't have a death wish. Though, PWA might be able to get the Workers United Pact, and maybe those of us in the Polaris Initiative can get their support. If we can get enough allies we may be able to come out of this in one piece.

Or, you know, we could just blockade them and wait for them to starve to death rather than commit ourselves to a nigh-on pointless and costly invasion.

[Ea90]

Don't worry, guys:

Wait a minute; won't invading Ralkovia piss off all of Tyrrhenia (who are not people that it would be wise to mess with)?

They'll keep out of the conflict. I'm only going to bring in two guys, though GWO might pop his head in later.

[Volgovad]

Don't worry, guys:

They'll keep out of the conflict. I'm only going to bring in two guys, though GWO might pop his head in later.

Ah, good to know.

[Alexiandra]

Don't worry, guys:

Ah, good to know.

Plus me, probably.

[Libraria and Ausitoria]

I think I will back out of this cluster fuck. I may be part of an alliance, but I don't have a death wish. Though, PWA might be able to get the Workers United Pact, and maybe those of us in the Polaris Initiative can get their support. If we can get enough allies we may be able to come out of this in one piece.

Or, you know, we could just blockade them and wait for them to starve to death rather than commit ourselves to a nigh-on pointless and costly invasion.

That, plus the total destruction of all Ralkovian shipping, is the idea our Admirals are likely to suggest. Invasions are costly, and we might loose the campaign and then loose the war in the counter-attack. Unless in the process we actually do make a bit of Ralkovia's coastline indefensible, or we get the opportunity to nab a colony and claim Victory with it, Ausitoria will be strongly against any invasion plans; and will certainly not rush into an invasion that hasn't been properly considered and agreed upon.

[Arthurista]

Or, you know, we could just blockade them and wait for them to starve to death rather than commit ourselves to a nigh-on pointless and costly invasion.

That, plus the total destruction of all Ralkovian shipping, is the idea our Admirals are likely to suggest. Invasions are costly, and we might loose the campaign and then loose the war in the counter-attack. Unless in the process we actually do make a bit of Ralkovia's coastline indefensible, or we get the opportunity to nab a colony and claim Victory with it, Ausitoria will be strongly against any invasion plans; and will certainly not rush into an invasion that hasn't been properly considered and agreed upon.

We can make a political spin out of that: The ICE has completely stopped Ralkovia's ability to traffick in slaves on the high seas etc.

[Finorskia]

Anyone know an NS user (besides Lyras) where I can buy an LMG

[Premislyd]

Anyone know an NS user (besides Lyras) where I can buy an LMG

Would suggest Anemos but sadly he CTE'd

[Finorskia]

Anyone know an NS user (besides Lyras) where I can buy an LMG

Would suggest Anemos but sadly he CTE'd

Damn.

[Volgovad]

Anyone know an NS user (besides Lyras) where I can buy an LMG

here

the T3SA-12 Gen. II is the only one there got but I think it's enough

[Finorskia]

Anyone know an NS user (besides Lyras) where I can buy an LMG

here

the T3SA-12 Gen. II is the only one there got but I think it's enough

I suppose. Not a big fan of the AK look though, I was hoping for something more modern looking, but ah well. I'm going to keep searching though.

Found one.

[Finorskia]

New question. Anyone know where I can buy a little bird equivalent.

[The Free Monarchy of Daragal]

Anybody have the link to the actual invasion/battle IC thread?

[Phonencia]

Anybody have the link to the actual invasion/battle IC thread?

It don't exist yet

That, plus the total destruction of all Ralkovian shipping, is the idea our Admirals are likely to suggest. Invasions are costly, and we might loose the campaign and then loose the war in the counter-attack. Unless in the process we actually do make a bit of Ralkovia's coastline indefensible, or we get the opportunity to nab a colony and claim Victory with it, Ausitoria will be strongly against any invasion plans; and will certainly not rush into an invasion that hasn't been properly considered and agreed upon.

We can make a political spin out of that: The ICE has completely stopped Ralkovia's ability to traffick in slaves on the high seas etc.

Blockading Ralkovia sounds like a good idea. Once they're weakened a bit we can invade.

Anyone have any idea how we can shut off a few thousand of Ralk's slave collars in rapid succession? An EMP likely won't work because I'm pretty sure he insulates most of the electronics against it.