The "Real Aerospace" Thread

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icekatze
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I think it is important to note that there are still quite a few countries that don't allow women to serve in the military, let alone as a fighter pilot. The United States didn't have a female fighter pilot until 1993 with Col. Jeannie Leavitt. So in that sense, their fighter craft are more antiquated than their social restrictions.

For reference: Which countries allow women in front-line combat roles

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Smithy »

It's not so clear cut...

For example it was scientific belief until recently in the Royal Navy that the higher levels of carbon dioxide in submarines over a 6 month tour was dangerous to women's health, and extremely dangerous if they were possibly pregnant (Due to the nature of RN submarine operations). It turns out that some of these fears weren't true, and as such women are now allowed to serve on RN Submarines.

When in a firefight, and when performing combat maneuvers such as pepper potting, and finally when assaulting a position, you only help the wounded after the completion of the assault. As it reduces combat effectiveness. According to the Israeli's, Men struggle to maintain this doctrine when in combat with women.
In On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman briefly mentions that female soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces have been officially prohibited from serving in close combat military operations since 1948. The reason for removing female soldiers from the front lines was due less to the performance of female soldiers, and more due to the behavior of the male infantrymen after witnessing a woman wounded. The IDF saw a complete loss of control over soldiers who apparently experienced an uncontrollable, protective, instinctual aggression, severely degrading the unit's combat effectiveness.


And finally many Commanders are unwilling to accept the risk of the capture of female combatants, their possible torture, and the likelihood of rape, or sexual assault. Such as in the case of Major Rhonda Cornum and Specialist Melissa Coleman in the First Gulf War. Not to say men can't be raped, but the occurrences appear to be rare. Especially in the context of the Gulf war were all 23 US POW were abused, but only the two servicewomen where abused sexually also.

I guess men just aren't keen to see women killed in combat. Positive discrimination I guess. But to simply say that the unease to allow women to serve in direct combat is antiquated, I think is a major simplification of the issue. It's complicated, and as such I'm not prepared to take a personal stance on the issue at this time till I can read a bit more about it.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Charlie »

I've been brought up on Men are the ones who fight. That been said my dad always used to say that if a Women fights like a Man, she is a Man. I'd have no problem with Women in front line positions if they could pass the exact same physical and mental tests.
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Nemo »

If you think about it, theres sound reason for such an instinct. Throw two cultures into war with the standard human 50/50 mix of sexes. Send a portion of each population to the battlefield with one side sending a mixed sex group while the other sends only a male group. Incur loses. Rinse wash and repeat in a generation. In another... Every iteration one side is losing some of its maximum reproductive potential. Long term success is destined to the group who better protects and utilizes that potential. Loroi circumvent this by having an overabundance of reproductive capacity that they must limit. As descendants of the successful, we get programmed to protect the future.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

My amusement was at the antiquity of the aircraft rather than the gender of the pilot.

I think there are some legitimate arguments against having women in front-line infantry units, having to do with physical, social and logistical limitations. However, as a fighter pilot, I don't really see those limitations applying. Pilots usually fly from comfortable bases with ample facilities for both genders. In the air, the pilots can't even see each other, much less the enemy. And physically, the feminine body shape is better at withstanding G-stresses than the male. As long as she can pass the same tests and demonstrate the same aptitudes, there's no reason a female pilot can't be just as good (if not better) than a male pilot.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Nemo »

To be fair, there are plenty of other 2nd and 3rd gen fighters still in service. A-4s, Mirage IIIs, F-5s, hell the J-7 derivative of the MiG 21 just stopped production. All in active service. You wont hear me singing their praises mind you. Actually, scratch that, the Skyhawk deserves a special nod. What was the line, "an engineer knows he has perfected his design not when theres nothing left to add, but when theres nothing left to take away"?

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Charlie »

Some countries just can`t afford anything better. South African Infantry for instance are not given Body Armor, just webbing and a helmet.
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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

You also only really NEED something that puts you on equal footing to your most likely opponent, or rather something that puts you and your friends on equal footing with your opponent and their friends. A place like South Africa isn't likely to be drawn into a conflict with the US, so they don't need equipment that matches ours.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

fredgiblet wrote:You also only really NEED something that puts you on equal footing to your most likely opponent, or rather something that puts you and your friends on equal footing with your opponent and their friends. A place like South Africa isn't likely to be drawn into a conflict with the US, so they don't need equipment that matches ours.
Pakistan's most likely opponent is India, which flies the Su-30, MiG-29, and Mirage 2000.

And yes, India also uses MiG-21's (real ones, not Chinese knock-offs) as interceptors, just like Pakistan does. I think it's kind of cool that the design is still viable as an interceptor against bombers. But against any of the above fighters, the F-7 is dog meat.

Vaya con Dios, Ms. Farooq.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Charlie »

fredgiblet wrote:You also only really NEED something that puts you on equal footing to your most likely opponent, or rather something that puts you and your friends on equal footing with your opponent and their friends. A place like South Africa isn't likely to be drawn into a conflict with the US, so they don't need equipment that matches ours.
Quite right, our only current roles would be, much like the US, acting like a policeman. South African has troops in almost all of the conflict zones in Africa. It`s not all bad, our blast protected vehicles are, still after all these years, the best in the world. And our air force has for the most parts Saab JAS 39 Gripens. In the African pond we're the biggest fish.

Not all good though.

South African`s main problem is that there`s no one who is trained for the highest tech weapons. Thusly, our boats Fail.

But if we wanted stuff compared able to the US, we can get it of our Big Bad Buddy China.

If the US wanted to liberate South African it wouldn`t take you long, but our largest trading partner China would likely be unimpressed. They would like to liberate our raw materials first.
No sorcery lies beyond my grasp. - Rubick, the Grand Magus

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

Arioch wrote:Pakistan's most likely opponent is India, which flies the Su-30, MiG-29, and Mirage 2000.

And yes, India also uses MiG-21's (real ones, not Chinese knock-offs) as interceptors, just like Pakistan does. I think it's kind of cool that the design is still viable as an interceptor against bombers. But against any of the above fighters, the F-7 is dog meat.

Vaya con Dios, Ms. Farooq.
Pakistan has F-16s and JF-17s, which puts them on equal footing with the Migs and Mirages, the Flankers are new and Pakistan is doubtless looking for an upgrade to counter them, but that kind of money doesn't get spent quickly.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

fredgiblet wrote:Pakistan has F-16s and JF-17s, which puts them on equal footing with the Migs and Mirages,
That's true, but not much consolation to the pilots flying F-7's. :D

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Grayhome »

I would be interested in what everyone thinks of the newest line of fighters coming out in America, the F-35.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

If they were only making the Air Force version it would probably be great, if they were only making the Air Force and Navy versions it would probably be fine. Add in the STOVL Marine version and it's a ridiculously expensive turkey.

EDIT: Also the idea of replacing the A-10 with F-35s should get whoever came up with it shot for treason.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

Arioch wrote:
fredgiblet wrote:Pakistan has F-16s and JF-17s, which puts them on equal footing with the Migs and Mirages,
That's true, but not much consolation to the pilots flying F-7's. :D
Hopefully the Pakistanis will only send them against the Mig-21s then. ;)

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'm more of an Eisenhower "every gun made," kind of person. But the colossal waste of efforts notwithstanding, the F-35 is an amazing piece of machinery. My stars, that diverter-less supersonic inlet is so sexy, I could swoon. I mean, you can put advanced avionics components on any old airframe and call it a fighter, but that is a really integral feature.

Only time will tell if they become so ubiquitous that the STVOL features get significant use in backwater landing strips.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Arioch »

I think the F-35 will be a capable F-16/F-18 replacement, but I think it was a mistake to cut short the F-22 run in favor of more F-35's. F-35 won't be that much better than what the opposition will have by the time it's operational. The F-22 is the apex predator of air superiority, and it makes me a bit uneasy that we have only 187 with no way to get more.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

Well yeah, the A variant will doubtless be fine, the C variant will probably work well as well. But the B variant is sucking money and time away from both of those. Hell if they didn't try for the B variant they may have had enough money to keep making F-22s.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by Nemo »

Its the same story as the F-111, people who dont understand air combat are in charge of procurement. It would be cheaper to buy one thing instead of two, because one is less than two. In this case, they tried doing lets see... four? different things with a single airframe if you count being exportable and high tech at the same time as a single item. I tend to shoehorn that one in because it causes compromises between wanting to make it cheap and wanting to gold plate it.

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And Im not convinced the C variant is what the Navy needs. Guided missile tech is becoming more ubiquitous, the new generations of conventional submarines can run quieter than a nuke, and war games have shown the navy is vulnerable. The Army and Marines can use a high/low mix (F-35 isnt low enough) but the Navy needs two distinct functions. Long loiter, dash capable interceptor and a bomb truck capable of ASW, something that can replace the S-3 and A-6. Navy doesn't really need a penetrating strike fighter, that can be handed off to drones or missiles. Or the Chair Force.

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Re: The "Real Aerospace" Thread

Post by fredgiblet »

It's not the same, it's FAR worse. Not only have they been down this road before and thus they should know better, they're trying to cram a STOVL plane in as well, which comes with wildly different requirements.

Conventional subs have always been able to run quieter when they're on electric power, that's not really new, they're handicapped by range, nothing else really. I do agree that the Navy needs new ASW since they've killed off the S-3 permanently, but the trend towards consolidation is powerful (see the above mention of A-10s), I think ASW might be a good role for drones though. I disagree that the Navy doesn't need the F-35, the Navy needs to be able to do everything the Air Force can do because sometimes they ARE the Air Force for a while before things get mobilized, as a result they have to able to fill any role, even if only poorly. That being said I expect that deep strike could be better served by drones, though I question what happens when we face off against someone with the ability to jam them (like Iran claims to have done).

I think that adding in the Navy was reasonable since they were both looking for similar things (light, multi-role planes) but the Marines was just dumb. They don't need a stealth plane, they need a CAS plane that can defend itself. Make a new Harrier, don't waste their money on stealth and air superiority.

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