Current Earth Tech

[Orin J.]

so what i've getting is plasma warheads are mostly copper that reaches MDC levels of damage through the Monroe effect?

[slade the sniper]

1. The "copper lining" is unnecessary; a shaped charge made of cast explosive will still form a jet with significant penetrating power. Many shaped-charge munitions add a liner that helps, but the liner isn't necessary for the Munroe Effect. It is required for the Misznay Schardin effect (aka explosively formed penetrator or EFP), which is a shallower hemispherical shape that always requires a liner, which is focused and formed into a slug of metal in a liquid state. My observational experience is that shaped charge munitions tend to leave cleaner holes and less fragmentation on the other side of armor, while EFP/Misznay Schardin munitions tend to have more splatter/fragmentation flying around the inside of a vehicle, as you describe. Both can cause spalling, though nowhere near as much as a HEP munition.

The copper lining is what is used as the penetrating agent for a HEAT round. You can use other things such as glass, or cardboard or molybdenum or nothing. The liner is a part of the design and is what determines the depth of penetration (along with other things like speed of detonation, distance from the object, etc.) As a general rule, when using the Munroe effect is that you have to worry about charge diameter, standoff, and depth of penetration. By using different hollow geometry, different liners, and different explosives, you can then affect all of the other variables. It isn't a "one size fits all" situation, because well, explosives are pretty variable in their effects.

An EFP requires a liner (face liner) in order for it to "work". The liner is what is formed to become a penetrator by the explosive. No face liner, no EFP.

An EFP can be made to have one large penetrator with pretty decent range, or a lot of smaller penetrators with short range, or you can just make it for short range and call it good. The short range ones can use steel and be good enough. They end up looking like an anti-tank shotgun in effect. To make a large EFP with about 100M range you need some damn good metallurgy, and that ain't cheap. Usually you will use molybdenum for the the face liner because it has a lot of density to keep its velocity, and is very ductile to form the penetrator without just sort of disintegrating into a splatter of frag. Those are generally called "off route mines."

Your comments about the internal frag/spalling are correct.

2. Shaped charge munitions aren't necessarily large, nor are their explosions necessarily large. I've seen shaped charges the size of the tip of my thumb, and I've seen them as big as a wastepaper basket

.
Very true. Again it goes back to what you need it to do. Concrete penetrators are usually 40 pound charges, while AT rounds/rockets are usually about 4 to 6 pounds, while some of the larger ones like the old school Mavericks had 100 pound plus warheads. There are also tiny little ones for fracturing rock...they look like a several foot long rod with thumb sized dimples along the sides...and each one is a small shaped charge that is used to fracture rock (and penetrate the well casing) for fracking.

Shaped charges are a category of thing, not a single object.

3. The "plasma jet" comes from my training/education in bomb disposal. This was technical training, not academic (they use non-scientific terms like "setback" and "centrifugal force" in lieu of "intertia," as they keep the science at a high school level) You may be entirely correct that the Munroe Effect's jet might not necessarily always be so energy-dense and high-temperature as to shed some electrons and form a plasma, especially for something like a copper liner, since copper has more electrons than air or the explosive gas products. That said, I wouldn't rule out that jet being a plasma either, at least not in part with the focused explosive energy and hypersonic velocity and resulting friction that happens in both forming and dissipating an explosive jet. I respect that this is a pet peeve for you, and I'm not educated enough on the topic to challenge your assertion. Whether the jet that punches through armor and kills people is a plasma or has some plasma in it is, to me, a semantic red herring, but it bugs you, so I'll try to remember not to use that term when discussing shaped charges with you in future.

Thank you. The JIEDDO guys I worked with were very adamant. I really wish I could have gone to WIT to learn more.

4. Antitank munitions are used to wound and kill people inside armored vehicles, including tanks. That may not be what many of their designers meant for them, but in practice, that's how their users tend to use them: they tend to aim at areas where the crews are. This might not be as effective as targeting fuel tanks or ammunition storage, but it can and does work, too.

Always fun to talk shop with an explosives person.

You are correct. The idea is that you kill the crew you kill the tank, which is...true to a point. Getting a crew kill is bad for that single battle. Killing the tank, however is far more effective. You kill the tank, that is millions of rubles/dollars/yuan gone. You kill a crew, you can train more people and stick them in it. You kill the tank, you are out of luck. Also, depending on how good your mechanics are...you can fix a firepower kill in a few hours or less. A mobility kill in a few hours if you have the spares. It is hard to kill an entire crew in one go, and since a lot of vehicles CAN operate with less crew (at a less effective level), and you have people in the unit that are qualified as crew but got no vehicle, you can find another crewman pretty easily.

Kill the tank, the tank is dead. Kill the crew, the tank might rise from the dead. Catastrophic kills are what you want...the others are just... temporary. Battlefield recovery is a thing, and with good mechanics, they can return sooner than expected.

-STS

[guardiandashi]

1. The "copper lining" is unnecessary; a shaped charge made of cast explosive will still form a jet with significant penetrating power. Many shaped-charge munitions add a liner that helps, but the liner isn't necessary for the Munroe Effect. It is required for the Misznay Schardin effect (aka explosively formed penetrator or EFP), which is a shallower hemispherical shape that always requires a liner, which is focused and formed into a slug of metal in a liquid state. My observational experience is that shaped charge munitions tend to leave cleaner holes and less fragmentation on the other side of armor, while EFP/Misznay Schardin munitions tend to have more splatter/fragmentation flying around the inside of a vehicle, as you describe. Both can cause spalling, though nowhere near as much as a HEP munition.

The copper lining is what is used as the penetrating agent for a HEAT round. You can use other things such as glass, or cardboard or molybdenum or nothing. The liner is a part of the design and is what determines the depth of penetration (along with other things like speed of detonation, distance from the object, etc.) As a general rule, when using the Munroe effect is that you have to worry about charge diameter, standoff, and depth of penetration. By using different hollow geometry, different liners, and different explosives, you can then affect all of the other variables. It isn't a "one size fits all" situation, because well, explosives are pretty variable in their effects.

An EFP requires a liner (face liner) in order for it to "work". The liner is what is formed to become a penetrator by the explosive. No face liner, no EFP.

An EFP can be made to have one large penetrator with pretty decent range, or a lot of smaller penetrators with short range, or you can just make it for short range and call it good. The short range ones can use steel and be good enough. They end up looking like an anti-tank shotgun in effect. To make a large EFP with about 100M range you need some damn good metallurgy, and that ain't cheap. Usually you will use molybdenum for the the face liner because it has a lot of density to keep its velocity, and is very ductile to form the penetrator without just sort of disintegrating into a splatter of frag. Those are generally called "off route mines."

Your comments about the internal frag/spalling are correct.

2. Shaped charge munitions aren't necessarily large, nor are their explosions necessarily large. I've seen shaped charges the size of the tip of my thumb, and I've seen them as big as a wastepaper basket

.
Very true. Again it goes back to what you need it to do. Concrete penetrators are usually 40 pound charges, while AT rounds/rockets are usually about 4 to 6 pounds, while some of the larger ones like the old school Mavericks had 100 pound plus warheads. There are also tiny little ones for fracturing rock...they look like a several foot long rod with thumb sized dimples along the sides...and each one is a small shaped charge that is used to fracture rock (and penetrate the well casing) for fracking.

Shaped charges are a category of thing, not a single object.

3. The "plasma jet" comes from my training/education in bomb disposal. This was technical training, not academic (they use non-scientific terms like "setback" and "centrifugal force" in lieu of "intertia," as they keep the science at a high school level) You may be entirely correct that the Munroe Effect's jet might not necessarily always be so energy-dense and high-temperature as to shed some electrons and form a plasma, especially for something like a copper liner, since copper has more electrons than air or the explosive gas products. That said, I wouldn't rule out that jet being a plasma either, at least not in part with the focused explosive energy and hypersonic velocity and resulting friction that happens in both forming and dissipating an explosive jet. I respect that this is a pet peeve for you, and I'm not educated enough on the topic to challenge your assertion. Whether the jet that punches through armor and kills people is a plasma or has some plasma in it is, to me, a semantic red herring, but it bugs you, so I'll try to remember not to use that term when discussing shaped charges with you in future.

Thank you. The JIEDDO guys I worked with were very adamant. I really wish I could have gone to WIT to learn more.

4. Antitank munitions are used to wound and kill people inside armored vehicles, including tanks. That may not be what many of their designers meant for them, but in practice, that's how their users tend to use them: they tend to aim at areas where the crews are. This might not be as effective as targeting fuel tanks or ammunition storage, but it can and does work, too.

Always fun to talk shop with an explosives person.

You are correct. The idea is that you kill the crew you kill the tank, which is...true to a point. Getting a crew kill is bad for that single battle. Killing the tank, however is far more effective. You kill the tank, that is millions of rubles/dollars/yuan gone. You kill a crew, you can train more people and stick them in it. You kill the tank, you are out of luck. Also, depending on how good your mechanics are...you can fix a firepower kill in a few hours or less. A mobility kill in a few hours if you have the spares. It is hard to kill an entire crew in one go, and since a lot of vehicles CAN operate with less crew (at a less effective level), and you have people in the unit that are qualified as crew but got no vehicle, you can find another crewman pretty easily.

Kill the tank, the tank is dead. Kill the crew, the tank might rise from the dead. Catastrophic kills are what you want...the others are just... temporary. Battlefield recovery is a thing, and with good mechanics, they can return sooner than expected.

-STS

there are definitely times when a "soft kill" IE crew kill is highly desired, and its when you can control the battlefield, because if your side can capture the wrecked (crew killed) unit you also deny the other side the chance to repair it, whether you repair it or not. also if you can capture soft killed units and send them back to facilities where you can examine and break them down (reverse engineer) you can use it to potentially take advantage of design weaknesses and similar.

[Hotrod]

So what I'm getting is that LAW rockets are plasma weapons, right...?

I did a little more digging on this today, because during my education and work experience, I had always heard that a shaped charge jet is a plasma. Frankly, I haven't found any clear answer.

"Plasma" has kind of a nebulous definition with a threshold that's difficult to measure, especially in the tiny fractions of a second in which high explosives go boom. By some definitions, rocket exhaust meets the definition of a plasma (albeit a weakly ionized one), and the formation of a shaped charge jet is just so fast and so violent that I would expect there to be a similar level of ionization (around 1% or so). Of course, by that definition, a chemical rocket's exhaust plume is effectively a plasma weapon too.

Plasma physics are cool; I've never played with them much, though I've sort of danced around plasma applications throughout my professional and academic careers.

[guardiandashi]

So what I'm getting is that LAW rockets are plasma weapons, right...?

I did a little more digging on this today, because during my education and work experience, I had always heard that a shaped charge jet is a plasma. Frankly, I haven't found any clear answer.

"Plasma" has kind of a nebulous definition with a threshold that's difficult to measure, especially in the tiny fractions of a second in which high explosives go boom. By some definitions, rocket exhaust meets the definition of a plasma (albeit a weakly ionized one), and the formation of a shaped charge jet is just so fast and so violent that I would expect there to be a similar level of ionization (around 1% or so). Of course, by that definition, a chemical rocket's exhaust plume is effectively a plasma weapon too.

Plasma physics are cool; I've never played with them much, though I've sort of danced around plasma applications throughout my professional and academic careers.

as I understand it there is true plasma which is electron stripped atoms (or at least the outer most electron "shell" going by the model of atoms back when I went through high school physics.)
then you have what I am going to call psudo plasma psudo plasma would be the EFP (Explosively Forged Projectiles) rocket exhaust and similar. this is when you have a material that forms a close approximation of a plasma jet where the material is superheated and directed in a specific direction similar to what water jet cutters, and or "plasma cutters" do.
as a "layman's casual understanding" my understanding is that the shaped charge takes the material, commonly copper, although other materials can be used, and rapidly melts it and causes it to "ride" the wavefront of the explosion and it hits a small area on the target and if it works correctly it hits so hard, fast, and hot that a small portion of the target momentarily acts like it is liquid and thus "flows" out of the way. I am not saying this is totally accurate, but that's how it read to me

[slade the sniper]

My personal headcanon is that "plasma" sounds cooler, and is closer in description to a layman than "Johnson-Cook viscoplasticity model."

Again for 99% of people "plasma" works just fine...it is really hot and is an explosion. Again, it was just that my team mates were really irritated by it, constantly having things things described as "melted" or "burned through" made them crabby. Oddly enough my international partners never had this sort of issue...the Spanish and Dutch never seemed to have this "heat" = HEAT problem. Meh.

-STS

[Borast]

Kill the tank, the tank is dead. Kill the crew, the tank might rise from the dead. Catastrophic kills are what you want...the others are just... temporary. Battlefield recovery is a thing, and with good mechanics, they can return sooner than expected.

-STS

Sounds like an old (battlefield) saw I can remember reading/hearing (no I'm not Military...I'm a Military Brat)...
The point is to WOUND the enemy, not kill...Kill a soldier, and his buddies will just hunker down and try to kill you.
Wound a soldier, and you take half a squad out - the wounded soldier, and 4 more to carry him back to where he can be evacced.

Complete opposites in intent, but still, it's the first thing that came to mind when I read it.

That being said, in a modern battlefield between armies, I don't mind a mobility kill. A stationary target is a sitting duck to artie or air power.

[slade the sniper]

Wounding the enemy is such a stupid thing... Here is the problem with that idea: How wounded is non-combat functional? Some people can take a hit or two and be fine, others will just cash out after taking a minor wound.

See, if you are trying to "wound" an enemy, how is that a goal when the space between being "uninjured" and "dead" is pretty variable. Also, wounding people only matters if your enemy cares about their wounded or is undisciplined. Wounding someone doesn't take a whole squad out of the fight. Without going into a lot of detail, infantry types can take care of wounded personnel when there is a huge possibility of that exact thing happening. Additionally, watch a lot of combat footage and notice that the only time a lot of people are "taken out of the fight" is when exfil time comes. Trained troops can deal with very serious casualties (those that can not fight) pretty easily until those percentages get pretty high (above 10%). Less guns is what you want to cause in a fight...so less guns translates to very serious injuries or KIA types.

Anyway, yeah that "wounding people" idea is kinda not accurate.

-STS

[Zer0 Kay]

Well apparently the first space hotel is set to be open in 2027.
UCAV drone carriers are on the horizon (yay, autonomous kill chains!)
Powered armor is sloooooowly coming along (Russia seems to be leading that race as the US scrapped the TALOS...which was less than realistic)
Tanks are about to become exceedingly difficult to kill now that reactive armor and active protection systems are getting built in. Of course, that makes infantry support of armor very dangerous, which makes for a handy-dandy real world justification for why powered armor needs to be built.
Lasers built into F-35's (which will fail, just like everything else about the F-35...now that the AF is both debating buying more F-15's and F-16's while already designing a lower tech support airframe for the F-35, AND also a 6th generation fighter to replace it.... GG Air Force).
Loyal Wingman projects which pairs a manned fighter with a few UAVs for defence, added weapons and extra capabilities (very similar to the Automated Attack Bits from Macross II).
Oh, and an old DARPA from 2008 project that was seeking to make aircraft with severe battle damage (such as one wing) be able to still be flight worthy... "Athena's Damage Tolerance and Autonomous Landing Solution adds a full flight automation and backup system that uses a plane's internal inertial navigation system and GPS systems to land safely by automatically adjusting to the new configuration -- a physics computation that a human is in no condition to deal with during such a crisis." Except that a human totally did that in 2014 https://theaviationist.com/2014/09/15/f-15-lands-with-one-wing/.
UAV's can now "outfight" humans in dogfights (still kinda iffy, considering the ROE of the tests.) https://www.engadget.com/alphadogfight-ai-f-16-pilot-025617519.html
Cyber is absolutely a domain of war that a peer competitor can use to jack you up if you are stupid (and US/NATO troops are very VERY cyber lax, even when TOLD TO NOT USE THEM).
https://www.engadget.com/2018-12-20-android-apps-kilswitch-apass-vulnerabilities-navy-report.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42853072
Of course, the US Army wants a 1,000 mile range cannon...and hypersonic missiles!

-STS

Stupid f35 best thing is the helmet and they should upgrade ALL airframes with a similar system combat and non.

[slade the sniper]

The helmet does look like pretty sweet tech. Anyone got first hand knowledge of whether it is as awesome as it appears to be?

-STS

[Hotrod]

It's not just the helmet; The system allows the pilot (using the helmet) to effectively look through the aircraft. The way the F-35 integrates and provides information to the pilot is a big part of what makes the F-35 unique. The helmet is a crucial part of that, but there's a lot more to it than the helmet.

I'm not a big fan of the F-35 for lots of reasons. I don't care for the "it can do everything" design approach, I think the stealth characteristics add a lot of unnecessary complication and expense, I think its proponents vastly oversold what the fighter can deliver with the idea that the F-35 would fully replace the F-16, F-18, F-117, and most especially the A-10 (the toxic mindset of the Air Force's senior leaders towards the A-10 program is as baffling as it is well-documented). The obscene cost overruns of that program have made the waste of The Pentagon Wars' Bradly IFV development program look trivial by comparison.

That said, the F-35 has delivered some fantastic capabilities. It is really, really good at killing other aircraft while not getting seen/killed itself, it is better at information management than just about any other plane we've ever built, and it's adequate at close air support. The people who fly it love it, and I'm skeptical that engineers could simply port the F-35's helmet and sensor/information fusion into other airframes without a lot of work/expense.

[slade the sniper]

It's not just the helmet; The system allows the pilot (using the helmet) to effectively look through the aircraft. The way the F-35 integrates and provides information to the pilot is a big part of what makes the F-35 unique. The helmet is a crucial part of that, but there's a lot more to it than the helmet.

I'm not a big fan of the F-35 for lots of reasons. I don't care for the "it can do everything" design approach, I think the stealth characteristics add a lot of unnecessary complication and expense, I think its proponents vastly oversold what the fighter can deliver with the idea that the F-35 would fully replace the F-16, F-18, F-117, and most especially the A-10 (the toxic mindset of the Air Force's senior leaders towards the A-10 program is as baffling as it is well-documented). The obscene cost overruns of that program have made the waste of The Pentagon Wars' Bradly IFV development program look trivial by comparison.

That said, the F-35 has delivered some fantastic capabilities. It is really, really good at killing other aircraft while not getting seen/killed itself, it is better at information management than just about any other plane we've ever built, and it's adequate at close air support. The people who fly it love it, and I'm skeptical that engineers could simply port the F-35's helmet and sensor/information fusion into other airframes without a lot of work/expense.

The F-35 is so awesome that they needed to buy some more F-15's, maybe some new F-16's, plan for a low cost "teen series" type of airframe AND a 6th gen replacement for the F-35. The F-35 as a complete system is...confusing. Having the Navy, Marines and Air Force dump soooo much of their cash into it... plus, all the other countries having to buy in.

I am not a fan. If I was in charge, I would have just bought more F-22's and bought new/upgraded -15's/-16's/-18's to take advantage of the new tech "spinoffs." Instead of making a new aircraft, just make new airframes of the old types with new tech. The old aircraft were doing great work, and all you need is some f-22's to ensure air to air dominance against peer competitors. The US could outproduce F-22's than either China or Russia 5th gen. aircraft.

-STS

[Hotrod]

The F-35 is so awesome that they needed to buy some more F-15's, maybe some new F-16's, plan for a low cost "teen series" type of airframe AND a 6th gen replacement for the F-35. The F-35 as a complete system is...confusing. Having the Navy, Marines and Air Force dump soooo much of their cash into it... plus, all the other countries having to buy in.

I am not a fan. If I was in charge, I would have just bought more F-22's and bought new/upgraded -15's/-16's/-18's to take advantage of the new tech "spinoffs." Instead of making a new aircraft, just make new airframes of the old types with new tech. The old aircraft were doing great work, and all you need is some f-22's to ensure air to air dominance against peer competitors. The US could outproduce F-22's than either China or Russia 5th gen. aircraft.

-STS

I'm neither a fan nor a detractor of the F-35. As I see it, the jury's still out on its overall effectiveness and whether its juice was worth the squeeze. I don't see the F-35's failure to replace the F-15, F-16, F-18, F-117, and A-10 as an indicator of the F-35 being an overall failure. Having a stealthy multirole fighter/bomber is a good thing, and having cheaper aircraft that are faster/more manueverable/more capable of carrying heavy loads/longer range/more specialized is also a good thing.

[slade the sniper]

I'm neither a fan nor a detractor of the F-35. As I see it, the jury's still out on its overall effectiveness and whether its juice was worth the squeeze. I don't see the F-35's failure to replace the F-15, F-16, F-18, F-117, and A-10 as an indicator of the F-35 being an overall failure. Having a stealthy multirole fighter/bomber is a good thing, and having cheaper aircraft that are faster/more manueverable/more capable of carrying heavy loads/longer range/more specialized is also a good thing.

But, the F-35 was touted as a solution to the multiple airframes so that this one jet could do it all is what angers me. It is like the Zumwalt, or the LCS. I get that new tech takes time to evolve into something great...but the mistakes keep getting more expensive. These projects are like expensive solutions in search of a problem. If the F-35 was going to be another airframe for stealthy multi-role operations or an anti-IADS system similar to the old wild weasel, then that is one thing and I can say "well, that is a gap" and then support development. The fact that it was sold as a system that was supposed to replace all the old aircraft and then turns out it wont is shady. I know that the DoD is part of the problem with their constantly changing requirements, political games, etc. but it is just difficult to swallow all the same.

That said, I hope it turns into an amazing aircraft with a few tweaks and does become the icon of air power.

-STS

[Borast]

Slade, as much as that would be nice...

Building a JoAT, you usually end up with a goat. The more roles you intend an unit to fulfill, the fewer it satisfactorily does. The A-10 is a perfect example. It is built to be a flying tank, designed to kill (armoured vehicles). Period.
I have heard of one flying back to base and successfully landing missing half a wing, one tail, most of it's control surfaces, large holes blown in the fuselage, and one engine gone. A couple months later, the same unit was back in the air, flying sorties.

I don't care how many hellfires you place on any other airframe, do any one of those (if I recall, the main airframe the US military was touting to replace the Warthog, had one engine), and it's a kill.

[jaymz]

Slade, as much as that would be nice...

Building a JoAT, you usually end up with a goat. The more roles you intend an unit to fulfill, the fewer it satisfactorily does. The A-10 is a perfect example. It is built to be a flying tank, designed to kill (armoured vehicles). Period.
I have heard of one flying back to base and successfully landing missing half a wing, one tail, most of it's control surfaces, large holes blown in the fuselage, and one engine gone. A couple months later, the same unit was back in the air, flying sorties.

I don't care how many hellfires you place on any other airframe, do any one of those (if I recall, the main airframe the US military was touting to replace the Warthog, had one engine), and it's a kill.

Yup iirc the A-10 incident you describe was during Desert Storm in 91.....

As for the F-35 helmet....iirc it is essentially an evolution in some degree of the helmets used by Apache pilots.

[guardiandashi]

Slade, as much as that would be nice...

Building a JoAT, you usually end up with a goat. The more roles you intend an unit to fulfill, the fewer it satisfactorily does. The A-10 is a perfect example. It is built to be a flying tank, designed to kill (armoured vehicles). Period.
I have heard of one flying back to base and successfully landing missing half a wing, one tail, most of it's control surfaces, large holes blown in the fuselage, and one engine gone. A couple months later, the same unit was back in the air, flying sorties.

I don't care how many hellfires you place on any other airframe, do any one of those (if I recall, the main airframe the US military was touting to replace the Warthog, had one engine), and it's a kill.

Yup iirc the A-10 incident you describe was during Desert Storm in 91.....

As for the F-35 helmet....iirc it is essentially an evolution in some degree of the helmets used by Apache pilots.

i'm not sure if it really happened but there was a story I heard about an A10, was coming back from a mission, and was close to bingo fuel (out of fuel) it had cleared all the ordinance except ammo for the cannon. and it couldn't land because there was a herd of camels on the runway, apparently the base personnel had been trying to clear then off with no success. so the pilot of the A 10 informed them he was landing as he was unable to circle the field any more. as the pilot came in for a landing the engines stalled on approach, because they ran out of fuel. to slow down the pilot started firing the cannon, and kept firing until the plane basically came to a stop on the runway. this also had the effect of making sure there were no more living camels on the runway.

[slade the sniper]

Well an F-15 did fly without a wing
https://taskandpurpose.com/history/1983-negev-mid-air-collision/

The A-10 has a lot of pics and data about damage and repairs:
https://www.2951clss-gulfwar.com/damagesummary.htm
https://www.quora.com/How-much-damage-can-the-A-10-Thunderbolt-endure-before-being-shot-down

As for the F-35, I agree with Borast and jaymz's comments.

-STS

[Hotrod]

The counterpoint to the A-10's toughness is that it's better not to be seen/shot at all, and it's best to kill threats in the sky and drop ordnance on enemies. Dropping bombs and shooting missiles at tanks kills them just as dead as shooting them with a 30mm gatling gun. This is the thinking behind the Air Force's preference for aircraft that aren't dedicated close air support aircraft.

Don't get me wrong, the A-10 is one of my two favorite aircraft (the other being the AC-130). It's got great loiter time, carrying capacity for ordnance, near-mythical toughness, and a look that's so darn ugly it's beautiful. It's not just the plane, either; its pilot community is used to plugging in with ground units, and they do their close air support very close. They are specialists in close air support, and they are the best in the Air Force at what they do. If I was getting close air support, I would want it to be from an A-10 or an AC-130 (or an Apache).

That said, the folks running the aviation programs of the Air Force (and the Navy and Marine Corps) have a primary goal, and that is to own the skies. They like planes that let them do that and help them do that, and if they're flying into areas that even might get contested, they want planes that can kill anything else in the sky first, can't be seen until it's too late second, find and kill any surface-to-air missile sites third, and help out the Army dudes on the ground fourth.

This is why the Air Force loves two kinds of planes: planes that let them own the skies, and planes that can get their jobs done where we don't own the skies. Everything else is either worthy of neglect or outright expendable. Cut personnel or cut their fighters? It's pink slips for 30,000 airmen. Cut the A-10 or cut their fighters? No problem, Senator, we totally do close air support with B-1's. Cut a new bomber or cut their fighters? Well now, that B-52 flew fine for your granddaddy, so it'll fly fine for you too, skippy! I'm not saying I like this mentality (I don't), but I get it. If we lose air superiority, my two favorite planes are sitting ducks for enemy fighters.

It took the entire Air Force leadership getting fired over careless treatment of their nuclear weapons platforms to give them the wake-up call that other priorities matter, too. Some of their successors got that memo and took it to heart, and I see it as an encouraging sign that they're reconsidering the "screw every platform that can do what the F-35 can" mentality of the last 20 years and reinvesting in legacy systems.

Wow, this topic got derailed.

[guardiandashi]

I know I heard things that the navy really wanted a new run of production on F-14's because it had some capabilities that none of the replacement aircraft had.
as I heard it:
it had a really good avionics/radar/targeting system, that allowed for "smart" salvo capability, with a long ? over horizon? engagement capability.
it had a nice flight envelope, from slow, to supersonic flight
the salvo/multitarget/launch means in practical terms. a F14 could essentially launch its entire payload of missiles at multiple targets at the same time.

[glitterboy2098]

I know I heard things that the navy really wanted a new run of production on F-14's because it had some capabilities that none of the replacement aircraft had.
as I heard it:
it had a really good avionics/radar/targeting system, that allowed for "smart" salvo capability, with a long ? over horizon? engagement capability.

its avionics weren't much better than most aircraft nowadays, the big thing was that it could use the AIM-54C Pheonix missile, which gave a much longer ranged interception ability over the F/A-18. this no longer became a big issue with the deployment of the AIM-120D, which offered range and speed closer to that of the AIM-54C, while having an even higher probability of intercept thanks to a more advanced seeker head, and the use of datalink systems allowing the firing platform to enhance targeting using its own more powerful radar or even guide the missile most of the way to the target using non-radar sensors to reduce target reaction time.

it had a nice flight envelope, from slow, to supersonic flight

the F/A-18E/F super hornets have similar flight envelope. they're a little shorter ranged, but in the fleet defense role that hardly matters. (and on transfer flights, you get refueled anyway)

the salvo/multitarget/launch means in practical terms. a F14 could essentially launch its entire payload of missiles at multiple targets at the same time.

modern generation 4.5 fighters are already capable of this using standard avionics.

[slade the sniper]

The counterpoint to the A-10's toughness is that it's better not to be seen/shot at all, and it's best to kill threats in the sky and drop ordnance on enemies. Dropping bombs and shooting missiles at tanks kills them just as dead as shooting them with a 30mm gatling gun. This is the thinking behind the Air Force's preference for aircraft that aren't dedicated close air support aircraft.

Don't get me wrong, the A-10 is one of my two favorite aircraft (the other being the AC-130). It's got great loiter time, carrying capacity for ordnance, near-mythical toughness, and a look that's so darn ugly it's beautiful. It's not just the plane, either; its pilot community is used to plugging in with ground units, and they do their close air support very close. They are specialists in close air support, and they are the best in the Air Force at what they do. If I was getting close air support, I would want it to be from an A-10 or an AC-130 (or an Apache).

That said, the folks running the aviation programs of the Air Force (and the Navy and Marine Corps) have a primary goal, and that is to own the skies. They like planes that let them do that and help them do that, and if they're flying into areas that even might get contested, they want planes that can kill anything else in the sky first, can't be seen until it's too late second, find and kill any surface-to-air missile sites third, and help out the Army dudes on the ground fourth.

This is why the Air Force loves two kinds of planes: planes that let them own the skies, and planes that can get their jobs done where we don't own the skies. Everything else is either worthy of neglect or outright expendable. Cut personnel or cut their fighters? It's pink slips for 30,000 airmen. Cut the A-10 or cut their fighters? No problem, Senator, we totally do close air support with B-1's. Cut a new bomber or cut their fighters? Well now, that B-52 flew fine for your granddaddy, so it'll fly fine for you too, skippy! I'm not saying I like this mentality (I don't), but I get it. If we lose air superiority, my two favorite planes are sitting ducks for enemy fighters.

It took the entire Air Force leadership getting fired over careless treatment of their nuclear weapons platforms to give them the wake-up call that other priorities matter, too. Some of their successors got that memo and took it to heart, and I see it as an encouraging sign that they're reconsidering the "screw every platform that can do what the F-35 can" mentality of the last 20 years and reinvesting in legacy systems.

Wow, this topic got derailed.

The problem with "air dominance" (or is it "air supremacy" now?) is that it is total dominance of only one thing...and a lot of countries that we would fight either don't have an air force OR will be on a defensive posture with air being only one part of their defensive posture. The AF wants to push a lot of the counter IADS fight to the Army and Navy but, that is almost what the Air Force is supposed to do. If you think you can get one airframe that can do all of that...*shrug*

Going after ground mobile IADS has the same engagement profile as ship borne IADS and counter-air fighter platforms... I mean, did the Air Force learn nothing from Vietnam? That wasn't even a peer competitor. People are going to bring up Iraq...and to that I say if you think that fighting Iraq was the same as a near peer, well...that's too bad. I get it, each war is different, but there are some things that are universal...and most countries already know that their air arm is dead when it comes to the US...so they are investing in nice anti-air capabilities.

As for derailed, we can rerail it by just wondering if the aircraft tech in Rifts is even comparable to modern tech. Rifts aircraft are IMO junk. It would be far more fair to pull the aircraft stats from Robotech/Macross to have those aircraft be superior to modern. What sort of junk passes for aircraft in Rifts anyway? A bunch of retooled prop jobs and the ridiculous Air Castle, the Deaths Head transport, skycycles and SAMAS?

I am going to make a supposition that a two-ship flight of F-22's could, via legit tactics destroy any or all of those aircraft (with the caveat that the weapons they carry are Mega Damage, which I personally support).

-STS

[glitterboy2098]

honestly, i tend to just treat real world technology as fodder for adaption into rifts advanced tech, and handwave that either their version is just better than ours in some subtle fashion.. or that the tech fell out of favor (for something better) in the time pre-rifts and had to be rediscovered post-rifts from the ruins, or were dusted off as a lower tech (and easier to make) alternative to pre-rifts stuff that can;t be made in sufficent numbers anymore.

[taalismn]

[
But, the F-35 was touted as a solution to the multiple airframes so that this one jet could do it all is what angers me. It is like the Zumwalt, or the LCS. I get that new tech takes time to evolve into something great...but the mistakes keep getting more expensive. These projects are like expensive solutions in search of a problem. If the F-35 was going to be another airframe for stealthy multi-role operations or an anti-IADS system similar to the old wild weasel, then that is one thing and I can say "well, that is a gap" and then support development. The fact that it was sold as a system that was supposed to replace all the old aircraft and then turns out it wont is shady. I know that the DoD is part of the problem with their constantly changing requirements, political games, etc. but it is just difficult to swallow all the same.

-STS

Great shades of the effort to use the F-111 as a common Air Force land-based plane and Navy carrier-borne fighter-bomber. They shaved as much weight as possible off the latter and still couldn't get it to work...or at least not and still carry a usable amount of fuel and payload. That, and the thing wound up having so many Navy-specific parts that the savings from using a common airframe and logistics pool were negligible.
Though the fallout gave them the incredible Tomcat.

[slade the sniper]

[
But, the F-35 was touted as a solution to the multiple airframes so that this one jet could do it all is what angers me. It is like the Zumwalt, or the LCS. I get that new tech takes time to evolve into something great...but the mistakes keep getting more expensive. These projects are like expensive solutions in search of a problem. If the F-35 was going to be another airframe for stealthy multi-role operations or an anti-IADS system similar to the old wild weasel, then that is one thing and I can say "well, that is a gap" and then support development. The fact that it was sold as a system that was supposed to replace all the old aircraft and then turns out it wont is shady. I know that the DoD is part of the problem with their constantly changing requirements, political games, etc. but it is just difficult to swallow all the same.

-STS

Great shades of the effort to use the F-111 as a common Air Force land-based plane and Navy carrier-borne fighter-bomber. They shaved as much weight as possible off the latter and still couldn't get it to work...or at least not and still carry a usable amount of fuel and payload. That, and the thing wound up having so many Navy-specific parts that the savings from using a common airframe and logistics pool were negligible.
Though the fallout gave them the incredible Tomcat.

It is almost like the Air Force and Navy have different requirements...

-STS

[jaymz]

As for derailed, we can rerail it by just wondering if the aircraft tech in Rifts is even comparable to modern tech. Rifts aircraft are IMO junk. It would be far more fair to pull the aircraft stats from Robotech/Macross to have those aircraft be superior to modern. What sort of junk passes for aircraft in Rifts anyway? A bunch of retooled prop jobs and the ridiculous Air Castle, the Deaths Head transport, skycycles and SAMAS?

I am going to make a supposition that a two-ship flight of F-22's could, via legit tactics destroy any or all of those aircraft (with the caveat that the weapons they carry are Mega Damage, which I personally support).

-STS

CS Nightwing and Grey Falcon fighters (Mercs along with the Air Castle)
Lightning, Mosquito, Dragonfly, Supersonic Transport, XM-288 jet
F-14 (ugh the stupidity of this plane being here) and 3 jets in CS Navy
New jets in Triax 2
Late 20th century refits in MercOps (ugh don't get me started on the stupidity of this as well)
Jet(s) in Sovietskii


Slade, as you have seen I have tried to update at least the systems used in the jest used today to the cataclysm in 2098. I've "extended" the life of current cutting edge planes (though iirc the F-22 and 35 and slated to serve until the 2060s at present so not really) and "borrowed" images and designs from other sources to start filling in the second half of this century. By extension this will allow me to at least put Rifts era tech on par (NG, CS, GAW and others who haven't had a significant time to evolve the tech) and make others better (Triax, New Navy, Orbitals and Sovietskii have been essentially around since the cataclysm so 300 years in which they could have improved the tech, Atlantis, Arkhons, Megaversal Legion, Phaseworld factions, etc).

oo me it is sad that this company nor it's writers have been bothered to even research such then improve it to make sense for the timeframes involved. Frankly to me, in my option, that is just being lazy.

[ShadowLogan]

CS Nightwing and Grey Falcon fighters (Mercs along with the Air Castle)
Lightning, Mosquito, Dragonfly, Supersonic Transport, XM-288 jet
F-14 (ugh the stupidity of this plane being here) and 3 jets in CS Navy
New jets in Triax 2
Late 20th century refits in MercOps (ugh don't get me started on the stupidity of this as well)
Jet(s) in Sovietskii

Don't forget the New Navy Fighters (all pre-Rifts).
IINM there are a few flying Robot platforms (Triax mostly).
Megaversal Legion, Atlantis, Arkons, Naut'll, Naurni also have "conventional" mechanized air power though these are non-human in origin
IIRC several more are mentioned with conventional platforms, but only PA/'bots get detailed if at all

As for derailed, we can rerail it by just wondering if the aircraft tech in Rifts is even comparable to modern tech. Rifts aircraft are IMO junk. It would be far more fair to pull the aircraft stats from Robotech/Macross to have those aircraft be superior to modern. What sort of junk passes for aircraft in Rifts anyway? A bunch of retooled prop jobs and the ridiculous Air Castle, the Deaths Head transport, skycycles and SAMAS?

I am going to make a supposition that a two-ship flight of F-22's could, via legit tactics destroy any or all of those aircraft (with the caveat that the weapons they carry are Mega Damage, which I personally support).

-STS

The F-22s might have a harder time, the F-22's passive stealth is expected in the course of the aircraft's life to lose its effectiveness as radar becomes more powerful/sensitive (IIRC RW Radar Tech is supposed to get that good around the 2030s). Given Radars in Rifts would post date passive stealth's demise, the F-22 might have its job cut out to the point of it being a draw (if the F-22 refuses to go to gun range, game mechanically its targets could dodge or shoot the missile down, not to mention what they go up against and the MD they can inflict, etc).

The main problem with the avionics in Rifts is that they are so cookie cutter/generic (and lacking details), unlike in the revised RT-2E (to an extent even 1E) which gives a bit more diversity. While some mecha/vehicles do get additional features with the "standard" (and some factions have almost defacto standard additions here), they usually do not amount to much more than an change in range/target number. EW is not really well handled in Palladium (be it RT or Rifts or whatever), and stealth is not either IMHO, which sort of makes sense since Rifts seems to be more "infantry" friendly than "Top Gun" friendly.

[jaymz]

Yeah I was going off quick memory

[guardiandashi]

there are definitely times when I get all grumbly about the fact that its blatantly obvious that either the writers, and or the fact checkers don't have a flipping clue how stuff actually works.

to use an example IE Robotech, and space.
so you have the Veritech fighters like the VF-1 series, speed of mach 4 and a 60 mile ceiling in fighter mode. except that it has a protoculture based reactor powerplant (dual fusion turbines in the original mainbook and could operate for 12 years ) but the "super" veritech with the boosters (top speed mach 4.8 could reach orbit on its own, also those same base veritech fighters can operate in space just fine....

also having conventional thruster vehicles have a "top speed" in space is also completely wrong.

the real top speed in space is determined by 2 things, 1 is max delta V your Delta V is your max change in velocity based on the amount of fuel you can carry, and how efficiently it translates into thrust for instance your 0 to 0 thrust envelope

[jaymz]

also having conventional thruster vehicles have a "top speed" in space is also completely wrong.

the real top speed in space is determined by 2 things, 1 is max delta V your Delta V is your max change in velocity based on the amount of fuel you can carry, and how efficiently it translates into thrust for instance your 0 to 0 thrust envelope

On this one I'll give PB a pass. Most people A ) don't know how that works, B ) don't care, C ) want simple, and D ) play like movies which rarely use real science for how things move in space.

Call it velocity factor if you prefer but having played jovian chronicles which uses acceleration and 3 axis vectored thrust....it seriously takes away from the game play for those who fall into the 4 letters above. I personally don't mind it and am a math guy but even for me have to constantly recalculate my thrust vectors was a turn off.

[slade the sniper]

Does anyone want to do a set of wargames between 2 F-22's and 2 Random Rifts Aircraft (tm) at a time? Do 2 engagements each...one offense, one defense? The Defense will be a CAP at 30k feet with standard AA loadout for the F-22's and whatever the book loadout is for the Rifts stuff? The offense just reverses it?

What other variables can we lock down to make this as generic as possible?

-STS

[jaymz]

Problem is sdc versus mdc....

[slade the sniper]

Problem is sdc versus mdc....

Ah, yes Magical Damage Capacity...for flying vehicles...

Just looking through Rifts Mercenaries...and for Iron Heart aircraft, standard they have a sonar system with a range of 500 miles. Sonar...on a jet aircraft...with 500 mile range....standard.

I also love how they make a point of giving all these aircraft medium and long range missiles...40 mile+ and 400+ mile ranges. Then they are all about radars out to 200 to 500 miles. Finally, they say something like "some attacks involve launching missiles from 5+ miles away" Well, I would hope so.

-STS

[jaymz]

And now you see WHY I.... A ) reqrote the missile tables a long time ago...and B ) rewrote the systems and equipment on note...among other things.

[ShadowLogan]

so you have the Veritech fighters like the VF-1 series, speed of mach 4 and a 60 mile ceiling in fighter mode. except that it has a protoculture based reactor powerplant (dual fusion turbines in the original mainbook and could operate for 12 years ) but the "super" veritech with the boosters (top speed mach 4.8 could reach orbit on its own, also those same base veritech fighters can operate in space just fine....

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that when it comes to Palladium and Space Speeds to simply convert "Mach" in space to "miles per second" and treat it as Delta-V. You run into issues from straight mph units that operate in space, but that just requires converting it to a Mach value. It doesn't solve all the problems with Palladium in Space, but it makes it more bearable.

Yeah I was going off quick memory

So was I, and I think I might have under represented the flying robot platforms as it is well clear of what constitutes a "few" and it looks more like at minimum a "dozen". (I looked later because I was curious but SB2 has 1, WB16 has 1 magical, WB2 has 2, WB32 has 2, WB5 has 1, WB6 has 1 magical, WB8 has 1, WB9 has 2, SoT series has 4 magical, WB 15 IINM has 1, DB series adds 3, and this is not a comprehensive list for a total of at least 13-19 depending if you want to count magical "robots" in the mix and what might be in books I do not have or am familiar with).

Call it velocity factor if you prefer but having played jovian chronicles which uses acceleration and 3 axis vectored thrust....it seriously takes away from the game play for those who fall into the 4 letters above. I personally don't mind it and am a math guy but even for me have to constantly recalculate my thrust vectors was a turn off.

While I would advocate for something a bit more realistic, I do not advocate for that level of math though I would hope everyone can manage a simple fuel expenditure model where (major) propulsive changes to speed (increase or decrease, I'd avoid impact of turning) are subtracted off the available amount, no different really than tracking ammunition expenditure.

Does anyone want to do a set of wargames between 2 F-22's and 2 Random Rifts Aircraft (tm) at a time? Do 2 engagements each...one offense, one defense? The Defense will be a CAP at 30k feet with standard AA loadout for the F-22's and whatever the book loadout is for the Rifts stuff? The offense just reverses it?

What other variables can we lock down to make this as generic as possible?

Given we do not have an official PB writeup (AFAIK) for the F-22 I would say no because any such fan-writeup might be slanted in terms of damage/bonuses to give a desired outcome (consciously or not). Then there is the fact that one is factoring in die rolls, some one could be having a good/bad die day, skewing things.

You'd also have to work out how visible the F-22's (to them) antiquated stealth is to the futuristic Rifts sensors, the reverse is also true (Rifts Stealth might be harder for the F-22 to detect/counter). By RAW Rifts sensors could be said to have to be good enough to target flying organic critters. This gets into the fan-writeup issues.

Pilot OCCs might be a factor to consider to, Triax Cybrog Pilots in WB32 or Juicer Pilots from WB10 get more bonuses than regular pilots, though Juicer Pilots might be ignored the Cyborg pilots use specific platforms that require them due to the open nature of the list (Triax XML Fighters require the cyborg pilot). Race might also be a factor.

Missile combat itself has several variables that will drive this (in RAW situation), you have travel time, dodging (Rifts Aircraft are likely able to fire large volley denying this to the F-22, but not vise versa), ability to shoot down incoming missiles (RAW mechanically that is an option for both, but the Rifts vehicle is likely better suited to this), the durability of respective participants (most Rifts Fighters have 300+ MDC, the F-22 likely won't even after a GAW refit, meaning the Rifts aircraft likely can take several hits from the F-22s missiles but not vise versa). Payload is another factor (assuming a standard AA config the F-22 will have 8 AA missiles, Rifts Fighters are more variable but some of them will have a superior payload allowing them to defend themselves against the missiles with missiles and still have some in reserve to launch a counter attack)

The Engine performance can also be a factor, you have straight endurance (Rifts Aircraft in theory can "wait out" the F-22 due to nuclear powered engines), but also other factors like available thrust which will drive things like acceleration and climb rates (something that Rifts doesn't cover, so would have to be worked out, but that gets into the above issue with what game mechanically the F-22 would look like). Speed wise the F-22 will be at a disadvantage to a number of Rifts Fighters (at least 6 of which can go faster and at least 9 are approx. on par, this ignores Space capable units like the Naruni Delta-Cresent).

[Borast]

i'm not sure if it really happened but there was a story I heard about an A10, was coming back from a mission, and was close to bingo fuel (out of fuel) it had cleared all the ordinance except ammo for the cannon. and it couldn't land because there was a herd of camels on the runway, apparently the base personnel had been trying to clear then off with no success. so the pilot of the A 10 informed them he was landing as he was unable to circle the field any more. as the pilot came in for a landing the engines stalled on approach, because they ran out of fuel. to slow down the pilot started firing the cannon, and kept firing until the plane basically came to a stop on the runway. this also had the effect of making sure there were no more living camels on the runway.

This is actually the reason A-10 pilots are taught to "feather" the trigger, with no more than a 1-2 second burst at most...the gun is powerful enough to stall the aircraft in flight. (i.e.: negate much of it's forward momentum.)

Hopefully, there was nothing valuable in front of the aircraft when it opened-up...like small cities, large vehicles...

[slade the sniper]

???? no no no no no

The A-10 does have...brakes on their wheels
https://www.stripes.com/does-the-a-10-s-gun-slow-the-plane-when-fired-1.152557

Spoiler:

Does the A-10's gun slow the plane when fired?
By
Stars and Stripes

Published: August 18, 2011
Affectionately known as the "Hawg," the A-10 Thunderbolt II is essentially a flying gun designed to provide close air support to troops on the ground. The aircraft features a seven-barrel 30 mm Gatling gun that fires about 65 rounds per second. In layman's terms, that's a big can of whoop-ass.

Ground-pounders love the whirring sound the A-10's cannon makes when fired -- lovingly called a "Hawg fart" by pilots -- because it announces certain death to whoever is on the receiving end. An old rumor that a reader recently asked about is the A-10's gun is so powerful that when fired the recoil slows the plane down almost to a complete stop.

But while the A-10's endurance and firepower are legendary, the myth that its cannon drastically decelerates the aircraft is pure "Hawg-wash," said retired Air Force Col. Steve Ruehl.

"I have fired as many as 500 rounds in one trigger burst, that takes just about seven, eight seconds, and [it had] no impact on the air speed of the aircraft," said Ruhel, who has logged 3,500 hours flying A-10s.

It boils down to simple physics: Force = Mass x Acceleration.

"The bullets are only about three-quarters of a pound," Ruehl said. "The airplane, in a typical combat mission, is 40,000 pounds. When you got 40,000 pounds moving at 350 knots, that's a lot more [force] than a three-quarter pound bullet moving at 2,000 feet per second."

Another myth about the A-10's cannon is pilots can only fire short bursts because if they squeeze the trigger for too long, the heat will melt the barrels.

In reality, you will not turn the A-10's gun into molten lava if you fire all 1,150 rounds the plane holds in one long burst, but you will certainly shorten the gun's life, Ruehl said.

"So every time we go out and fire, we come back and we tell the maintenance crews exactly how many rounds we fired and how many trigger pulls we fired, and they put that into a computer system that helps us determine when those barrels need to be replaced," he said.

None of this mean the A-10's cannon is less powerful than advertised. It is the ideal weapon for supporting U.S. troops in close contact with the enemy because the 30 mm rounds are much less likely to injure friendly forces than a smart bomb, Ruehl said.

"It is an awesome gun and I personally believe the most destructive gun ever mounted on an aircraft in the history of mankind," Ruehl said.

THE RUMOR DOCTOR'S DIAGNOSIS: This rumor is false, but no one doubts that the A-10's cannon packs a punch rivaled only by Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick.

-STS

[guardiandashi]

???? no no no no no

The A-10 does have...brakes on their wheels
https://www.stripes.com/does-the-a-10-s-gun-slow-the-plane-when-fired-1.152557

Spoiler:

Does the A-10's gun slow the plane when fired?
By
Stars and Stripes

Published: August 18, 2011
Affectionately known as the "Hawg," the A-10 Thunderbolt II is essentially a flying gun designed to provide close air support to troops on the ground. The aircraft features a seven-barrel 30 mm Gatling gun that fires about 65 rounds per second. In layman's terms, that's a big can of whoop-ass.

Ground-pounders love the whirring sound the A-10's cannon makes when fired -- lovingly called a "Hawg fart" by pilots -- because it announces certain death to whoever is on the receiving end. An old rumor that a reader recently asked about is the A-10's gun is so powerful that when fired the recoil slows the plane down almost to a complete stop.

But while the A-10's endurance and firepower are legendary, the myth that its cannon drastically decelerates the aircraft is pure "Hawg-wash," said retired Air Force Col. Steve Ruehl.

"I have fired as many as 500 rounds in one trigger burst, that takes just about seven, eight seconds, and [it had] no impact on the air speed of the aircraft," said Ruhel, who has logged 3,500 hours flying A-10s.

It boils down to simple physics: Force = Mass x Acceleration.

"The bullets are only about three-quarters of a pound," Ruehl said. "The airplane, in a typical combat mission, is 40,000 pounds. When you got 40,000 pounds moving at 350 knots, that's a lot more [force] than a three-quarter pound bullet moving at 2,000 feet per second."

Another myth about the A-10's cannon is pilots can only fire short bursts because if they squeeze the trigger for too long, the heat will melt the barrels.

In reality, you will not turn the A-10's gun into molten lava if you fire all 1,150 rounds the plane holds in one long burst, but you will certainly shorten the gun's life, Ruehl said.

"So every time we go out and fire, we come back and we tell the maintenance crews exactly how many rounds we fired and how many trigger pulls we fired, and they put that into a computer system that helps us determine when those barrels need to be replaced," he said.

None of this mean the A-10's cannon is less powerful than advertised. It is the ideal weapon for supporting U.S. troops in close contact with the enemy because the 30 mm rounds are much less likely to injure friendly forces than a smart bomb, Ruehl said.

"It is an awesome gun and I personally believe the most destructive gun ever mounted on an aircraft in the history of mankind," Ruehl said.

THE RUMOR DOCTOR'S DIAGNOSIS: This rumor is false, but no one doubts that the A-10's cannon packs a punch rivaled only by Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick.

-STS

in the story I heard, the cannon was used to bring the plane from flight speeds to "taxi" speeds, and or a stop on the runway it also cleared a "camel herd" blocking the runway issue allowing other planes to land safely. is it true, or a myth? no idea, but it makes for a kind of good story whether its true or not.

[slade the sniper]

Some cogitation and extrapolations...
The AIM-120 air to air missile has the following wiki stats
AIM-120D (C-8): >160 km (>86 nmi)
AIM-120C-5: WDU-41/B, 40 pounds (18.1 kg) warhead

And I dug this up
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a379702.pdf which tells us a few things like the explosive used is PBX (AF)-108, and that the warhead is a pre-fragmented AISI 4140 medium carbon-chromium steel. The fragments produced by the warhead are 14.8mm x 11.7mm x 40.1mm (due to the scoring).

There is no PBX (AF)-108 in any Palladium stuff, but there IS stats for RDX, and that pdf I linked gives us a conversion factor into RDX (1.189). Interestingly, the "warhead weight" in the wiki seems to relate to the total warhead including the pre-frag liner. The actual explosive weight is ~6783 grams. So, we can take that 6783 grams, divide it by the conversion factor of 1.189 and we get an equivalent of 5704.7 grams, and we round that up to 5705 grams of RDX.

Looking at Rifter #59, page 92, we get some damage ratings for various explosives. For RDX it is 2d10x5 for 100 grams. So we take our 5705 grams, divide that by 100 to get 57. Now take that 57 and multiply it by that damage (10 on the low end, 100 on the high end) and we get 570 to 5700 damage for our warhead.

I think we can safely round up and say that a AIM-120 AMRAAM, in Palladium does between 6 and 60 Mega-Damage. I guess that would be 6d10 MD in dice? As a short range missile warhead, it would have a blast radius of 20' from the Palladium missile chart.

As for the two AIM-9 Sidewinders they carry, doing some reverse quickie math...
The AIM-9 has a 9.4 kg (20.8 lb) WDU-17/B annular blast-fragmentation. Assuming the same weight ration between warhead and casing as the AIM-120 (total weight was 18.1 kgs, the actual explosive was 6783, that gives us a ratio of 1:2.668... Taking the 9.4 kg warhead, dividing by 2.668 gives us ~3523 grams of explosive. Assuming it is the same PBX as the -120, we already know the conversion factor, so we divide the 3523 grams by 1.189 to give us 2962 grams of RDX equivalent. Divide that by 100 to get 29.6 (round up to get 30) 100g explosive equivalents, each of which does the aforementioned 2d10x5 damage.

The minimum damage is 10 and the maximum is 100 per equivalent, so multiply that by the 30, we get 300 to 3000 damage. Translate that to dice and we get 3d10 mega-damage for the Sidewinders.

So, we would have an aircraft packing 6 AIM-120s which can do MD, and 2 AIM-9 Sidewinders for some more light MD. Granted, all together the max damage is 6 x 6 MD + 2 x 3 MD = 42 MD at the minimum for one F-22, but at the maximum, we get 6 x 60 MD + 2 x 30 MD = 420 MD. Not too shabby in the damage output with some good rolls. Figure we take the average and say they can pump out 6 x 30 MD + 2 x15 MD = 210 MD per plane.

-STS

[slade the sniper]

As for the F-22's structure, well, we can choose to use the stats out of Systems Failure (page 143) which gives us a Small Jet with and AR of 9, and an SDC of 850. Alternately, looking at Rifts Mercenaries under the Golden Age Weaponsmiths, they list pre-Rifts aircraft as having between 400 to 600 SDC.

I think we can make an assumption that we can safely put our F-22 at an AR of 9 and and SDC of 850 as a "generic" small jet.

-STS

[slade the sniper]

Looking through some of the older Palladium stuff, I dug out my RDF Manual, and there are some comparable aircraft in there.

They give some stats for the MIG-29, MIG-25 and MIG-23. The main body sdc/mdc is widely variable. The MIG-29 has 120 MDC, the -25 has 1400 SDC, and the -23 has 1100 SDC. The last two estimates are ok, and fit within acceptable parameters (especially as they have not AR, so all hits do damage). The 120 MDC is kinda crazy...

The normal amount of fact checking went into the weapons for the -25 and the -23...so I would have to assume that using real world stuff would definitely supersede the strange weapon writeups (air to air missiles with only a 3 mile range?) or only carrying SDC rockets...

I am going to guess the write-up is for the R-60 Vympel which had a 5 miles (but really only about 4 km IRL, so 2.4 miles, rounded up to 3? Sounds legit). That is cool, but I guess they didn't want to give the stats for the R-40, the R-23 or the R-73 AAMs. At least we have a baseline for a short range AAM that is 47 years old with it's 3kg warhead... so it being an SDC weapon makes total sense.

As for the MIG-23 only having SDC rocket pods (assuming they are the S-5 rockets), but they carry a lot more than 6. They can carry 6 rocket pods, and each pod can carry up to 32 rockets. I found a diagram of a MIG-23 combat loadout that has 2 pods of 16 rockets each and 2 pods of 32 rockets each.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/0psytBiQLdQXaRxAAVVy3rg2HSeFhhe8f5waOWqynC4imEDo0q67LeIj7ngnQyrsPXh14KRF8ReScsD3sRN9CelSn7Y
Quite a bit more than the 6 rockets listed.
The MIG-23 can also carry Air to Air missiles (R-60, R-73, R-23, R-77 or R-27R) on 4 of their hardpoints (some of the missiles can be carried as a pair per hardpoint, such as the R-60, R-23 and R-27R). Or it can carry 4 x 500 pound bombs, or 4 air to ground missiles.

A good description of a MIG-29 capability can be found here:
https://murtie-djokobayu.medium.com/a-rocket-in-the-sky-natos-first-impression-of-the-mig-29-fulcrum-cdb161119999

Anyway, the F-22 would have more capability than that. Oh, and the MIG-29 has 6 attacks per melee, so pretty sure the Raptor can match that.

So, there you have some official Palladium stats that you can use to lowball an F-22 in Rifts.

-STS

[jaymz]

Eh I'll use my rewrites and go from there lol

[slade the sniper]

Well, I was trying to show that the MD/SD gap isn't totally insurmountable for the -22. I succeeded IMHO.

-STS

[slade the sniper]

A rules question: When a missile hits a target like the main body, it will do full damage to the main body...BUT, does the missile do 1/2 damage to everything else, like all the limbs and antenna and stuff like that...OR...does the main body take full damage, and everything else is just fine? The rules seem to indicate that everything takes 1/2 damage, but it doesn't specify.

-STS

[Killer Cyborg]

A rules question: When a missile hits a target like the main body, it will do full damage to the main body...BUT, does the missile do 1/2 damage to everything else, like all the limbs and antenna and stuff like that...OR...does the main body take full damage, and everything else is just fine? The rules seem to indicate that everything takes 1/2 damage, but it doesn't specify.

-STS

I asked KS about that kind of thing once, and IIRC his answer was along the lines of "it depends on how deadly you want your game to be."
This indicates that he doesn't play that way.
ALSO, the books technically forbid it from working that way, because:
a) A Called Shot is required to hit any part other than the Main Body
b) You cannot make a Called Shot with a blast radius.
c) Therefore you cannot hit anything other than the Main Body with a blast radius.

This is the simplest, least lethal way of handling explosives: the blast radius damage hits each target in the area, but not each hit location on each target in the area.
Main Body only.

If you want to go the other way, though, that could be cool.
Keep in mind that the implications are that any time anybody is in Partial Armor, a grenade for even 1 MD would take off limbs and such.
I'd actually like to play that way sometime, but I'd expect explosives to be the new kind of battle in that kind of situation.
Dog Boys in partial armor, for example, would be dropped like flies by explosives.

You'd want to consider how it would work in different situations, though.
Like if you chuck a 2d6 MD grenade at a guy in full EBA, then he'd take an average of 7 damage to the main body, and 3 damage to each limb, for a total of 22 MD, which is 15 more points of damage than it would normally dish out to a single target.
If you chuck a 2d6 MD grenade at a guy in Partial MDC amor, then whatever part(s) of him is exposed would take mega-damage, killing most SDC targets in short order.
If you chuck a 2d6 MD grenade at a dragon? Well, then you have to decide how to handle it.
-You can just do 2d6 off the dragon's main body damage capacity (i.e., his only damage capacity), and ignore any damage to the limbs or other areas because they don't have any listed MDC.
-You can have the grenade do 2d6 MD, plus half damage for every body part in the blast area, and take the total damage off the dragon's MDC. So a grenade for 7 MD to dragon's torso would inflict 49 more MD for a total of 56 MD (Head + right arm + left arm + right leg + left leg +Tail + Horns)
-You can calculate the MDC per location for any creatures that don't already have it listed, and have the grenade damage those locations at 1/2 damage.

Each of these ways of doing things has its own merits and flaws, and other factors that affect the game.

[jaymz]

"Keep in mind that the implications are that any time anybody is in Partial Armor, a grenade for even 1 MD would take off limbs and such"

The way it should be imo. That's risk of wearing partial armour

[Borast]

Heheh... I agree with jaymz.

I take it a step further. Damaged weapons can fail. Damaged weapons either explode, or release all it's energy at once.

First couple of times it happened, my PCs loved it!
Then it happened to a PC... They didn't love it no more. (The only thing left of the PC was his body armour boots.)

[Killer Cyborg]

Heheh... I agree with jaymz.

I take it a step further. Damaged weapons can fail. Damaged weapons either explode, or release all it's energy at once.

First couple of times it happened, my PCs loved it!
Then it happened to a PC... They didn't love it no more. (The only thing left of the PC was his body armour boots.)

RIGHT! I forgot about weapons.
That'd be another big factor.
For that matter, where's the rest of their gear carried? Harness on the chest? That stuff's probably gone too. Did you have E-Clips there? Hope they don't blow up.
Stuff in your belt? That's hit too.
Stuff in your backpack? Well, if the blast was from the front, that might be safe.

It suddenly makes it incredibly important where you keep your gear.

Overall, I think I might like playing this way, but it'd make for a MUCH different game.

[Borast]

Heheh... I agree with jaymz.

I take it a step further. Damaged weapons can fail. Damaged weapons either explode, or release all it's energy at once.

First couple of times it happened, my PCs loved it!
Then it happened to a PC... They didn't love it no more. (The only thing left of the PC was his body armour boots.)

RIGHT! I forgot about weapons.
That'd be another big factor.
For that matter, where's the rest of their gear carried? Harness on the chest? That stuff's probably gone too. Did you have E-Clips there? Hope they don't blow up.
Stuff in your belt? That's hit too.
Stuff in your backpack? Well, if the blast was from the front, that might be safe.

It suddenly makes it incredibly important where you keep your gear.

Overall, I think I might like playing this way, but it'd make for a MUCH different game.

That it do...
The clips he was carrying were simply destroyed outright, without adding to the damage. The (almost) full e-clip in the salvaged rifle he was using was the only one that erupted. (Did about 75MD to everything within about 1.5 metres.)

[slade the sniper]

I like the idea of blast doing damage to everything that is exposed...and while it would make explosives the "king of battle" there is a reason that artillery and missile weapons are the current kings of battle...because they work. It does require that the GM take care to ensure that the blast damage is applied as a "plane" determined by the plane of the surface impacted. It does make the weapons effects more "realistic" but with an inexperienced GM, it would vastly increase the amount of time combat takes.

-STS