ps01%gte.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Paul L. Suh) (07/10/89)
From: "Paul L. Suh" <ps01%gte.com@RELAY.CS.NET> %From: Aaron David Herskowitz <aaronh@ms.uky.edu> %Has anyone seen the Newsweek that rated America's top and bottom 10 %weapons? I am not sure how recent the magazine was, just saw it the %other day at a friends and payed little attension to the date. I %was kind of surprised at some of the weapons they had rated as our %worst. I have the article. It is in US News and World Report, July 10, 1989, p.22. A constant thread from the article is that the good weapons are designed outside of the Pentagon's bureaucratic mess. My own opinion is that it's a very shallowly written article. The list of experts surveyed includes 12 congressional types and 13 others. With a ratio like that, it is very easy to put out a bad word for a weapon which is built in someone else's district. Another problem is that the list includes only one specialist in each area. If the guy has an axe to grind, his personal prejudices are going to show up very heavily. In addition, the article has just a teensy bit of text next to large pictures. It doesn't attempt to go into depth at all on any given weapons system. As a result, there are lots of criticisms which I can level at their criticisms which aren't broached in any way in the article. For people at the level of sophistication usually seen on the newsgroup, it's not worth bothering with. I only read it because I get USN&WR anyway. A longish summary follows, hit "n" now to skip it: Worst weapons: B-2 Bomber Alternatives: B-1B's, B-52's w/cruise missiles Criticisms: VERY expensive, may not be able to locate enemy mobile missiles after the outbreak of WW III in order to bomb them. Maverick missile - Alternatives: A-10 w/GAU-8 cannon Criticisms: problems identifying target, aircraft is vulnerable during the lock-on process. Bradley M2 personnel carrier - Alternatives: M113's or trucks Criticisms: Too tall, therefore a good target for AT missiles, fuel and ammo can explode. F-15E fighter-bomber Alternatives: F-16's, surface-to-surface missiles Criticisms: expensive, not useful for ground attack near the front lines. C-17 STOL transport aircraft Alternatives: C-5's, commercial planes, sealift Criticisms: too expensive to be risked ($250 M plane landing on an unimproved airstrip gives too great a chance for disaster) AEGIS missile system Alternatives: conventional radar and C3I Criticisms: shot down a commericla airliner V-22 Osprey V/STOL Alternatives: Transport helicopters Criticisms: designed to put Marines in further inland, but may also put them beyond range of naval gunfire support. AMRAAM medium-range air-to-air missile Alternatives: Sidewinder, Sparrow, cannon Criticisms: too expensive for the job. Air Force has been forced to stop purchasing Sidewinders to pay for them (I'm not sure I believe this! Can anyone confirm or discredit this report?) ADATS anti-tank/anti-air missile system Alternatives: Pedestal-mounted Stinger, good AA gun Criticisms: costs twice as much as DIVAD (aka Sergeant York), tries to place three weapons on one platform, insuring that none of them works well. Best Weapons A-10 fighter-bomber Praise: does the job well and cheaply Sidewinder missile Praise: again, cheap and effective F-16A Praise: c & e, reliance on platform rather than missiles SSN-688 Submarine Praise: quiet, fast, Lots cheaper than Seawolf. Stuff they would like to see: FOG-M Fiber Optic Guided Missile AT missile fired from artillery-like position, guided by fiber optic link to a TV camera in the nose. RPV's Israeli ones are cheap and do one thing well. US specs keep loading them down with junk until they are too expensive. Radar-seeking missile Anti-radiation missile for use against fighters rather than SAM sites Standoff missile missile with a 10+ mile range which can be locked on to a target via a data link to the launching aircraft. --Paul ps01%bunny@gte-labs.com
fiddler@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (07/12/89)
From: fiddler@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) In article <8091@cbnews.ATT.COM>, ps01%gte.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Paul L. Suh) writes: > >%From: Aaron David Herskowitz <aaronh@ms.uky.edu> > >%Has anyone seen the Newsweek that rated America's top and bottom 10 >%weapons? I am not sure how recent the magazine was, just saw it the >%other day at a friends and payed little attension to the date. I >%was kind of surprised at some of the weapons they had rated as our >%worst. > > I have the article. It is in US News and World Report, July 10, 1989, > p.22. A constant thread from the article is that the good weapons are > designed outside of the Pentagon's bureaucratic mess. Some of the example they give to support this contention are just plain wrong... Note that in the article, they list 10 "Worst" and 4 "Best". If that has any bearing on the content. > Worst weapons: > > B-2 Bomber One criticism leveled was that after a while the assertion was made that the B-2 could be used for conventional bombing missions. This "downgrading" of its' mission was an indication of failure of the concept. ? > C-17 STOL transport aircraft > Criticisms: too expensive to be risked ($250 M plane landing on an > unimproved airstrip gives too great a chance for disaster) It's worse: the assertion was made that the rough-field capability of the aircraft would never be used because nobody wuld risk crashing one. I should think that getting troops and equipment in closer to the FEBA would be desirable...losing a war could more expensive than perhaps losing some transports. > AEGIS missile system > Alternatives: conventional radar and C3I > Criticisms: shot down a commercial airliner I don't understand how human error (the proximate cause of the shoot-down) would be done away with with conventional radar and C3I. > V-22 Osprey V/STOL > Alternatives: Transport helicopters > Criticisms: designed to put Marines in further inland, but may also put > them beyond range of naval gunfire support. This is news! I didn't know that conventional transport helicopters were limited to a (roughly) 20 mile range. The V-22 is expensive, yes, but you get greatly increased range and speed, a *much* quieter aircraft (how often did Hueys sneak up on anyone in Viet Nam? We can hear UH-1s, AH-1s, and CH-46s coming from many miles away.), and expected maintainence requirements around 10% or so of roughly equivalent helicopters. (If they *have* to stay within naval gun support, then tell the pilots not to fly so far. You'll still get a greater number of sorties per day with the faster aircraft.) I suppose you could say I wasn't greatly impressed with the article. In part of the introduction, the writers claimed that the P-51 was British-developed, and almost not bought for the USAAF because it used a British engine. This is news to North American and their designers. The NA-72 was developed by NA to sell to the Brits, and almost wasn't taken because it used the Allison V-1710 engine (poor performance at high altitude). Plugging the Rolls Royce Merlin turned a good fighter into a great one. The AAF worry about depending on a foreign engine in a US fighter went away when Packard got the license right to build the Merlin in the US. They goofed in other areas as badly or worse.
dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Dave Goldblatt) (07/13/89)
From: Dave Goldblatt <dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> In article <8091@cbnews.ATT.COM> ps01%gte.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Paul L. Suh) writes: >Stuff they would like to see: >FOG-M Fiber Optic Guided Missile >AT missile fired from artillery-like position, guided by fiber optic >link to a TV camera in the nose. This is currently being tested, although I forget on which aircraft. The results so far are quite promising, and there have not been (serious) problems with trailing the cable. I think ~5 ft are hanging in flight. >Radar-seeking missile >Anti-radiation missile for use against fighters rather than SAM sites Well, Tacit Rainbow was recently tested off of an A-6, although that isn't useful against fighters. However, to me an ARM against fighters is silly; frequently you use the other guy's emissions to track him -- but if he shuts them down, and you can't recover him, you might have to go active, which just makes you a target. Since a SAM site doesn't move (quickly, if at all), this isn't a problem -- your ARM just trucks along to the last position recorded. Tacit Rainbow is impressive since it will loiter (up to two hours, from what I hear) under the radar site comes back up. Nasty! Not as impressive as the cruise missiles which follow specific landmarks (read: railroad tracks), but still a devious idea. >Standoff missile >missile with a 10+ mile range which can be locked on to a target via a >data link to the launching aircraft. F-14s can feed information to their Phoenix and Sparrows (I think both) from the data link off an E-2C -- but advantage in this in that the attacking fighter doesn't need to emit anything of its own -- "silent but deadly". Are you referring to a SAM fed by an aircraft data link? Seems dangerous; the emitter in the air is usually big and slow (E-2C, AWACS, for example), and is a fat target. If you're talking about a data link from a fighter to the ground, that seems redundant; at 10mi range you can toss a 'winder up his tailpipe. -dg- -- Internet: dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu or: dave@clutx.clarkson.edu BITNET: dave@CLUTX.Bitnet uucp: {rpics, gould}!clutx!dave Matrix: Dave Goldblatt @ 1:260/360 ICBM: 75 02 00W 44 38 12N
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (08/15/89)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >> C-17 STOL transport aircraft >...the assertion was made that the rough-field capability of >the aircraft would never be used because nobody wuld risk crashing one. > >I should think that getting troops and equipment in closer to the FEBA >would be desirable...losing a war could more expensive than perhaps >losing some transports. One would think so, yes. But this particular criticism is based on fact. The *C-5A* was supposed to have a rough-field capability for precisely that reason: to get heavy equipment to the FEBA quickly. However, in practice, (a) there are some technical problems (which the C-17 may or may not avoid), and (b) the USAF has never been willing to risk it. Unless the C-17 is bought in truly large numbers, many more than the C-5 -- which is pretty unlikely in the current financial climate -- the way to bet is that no C-17 will ever be allowed anywhere near an FEBA. It is difficult to imagine a short-term emergency that is serious enough to justify risking a significant long-term loss in already-inadequate heavy-airlift capability. Given this, you might well ask what the C-17 will do that the C-5 won't, especially when you consider the costs of C-17 development versus the cost of cranking out a few more C-5s. Very good question. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
budden@manta.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) (08/15/89)
From: budden@manta.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) You've all missed the worst weapon. It is US sealift capability which has deteriorated somewhat below critical mass. Rex Buddenberg -------