>tfw they made this in the 1960s.....
Rumor is that they copied an Anunnaki craft they found for the blackbird.
>>375912
Because they cost the GDP of a small country.
>>375912
Because the "money is not an issue" mentality of the cold war is over. also: Asymetrical warfare.
>implying they don't
>unless you mean exclusively aircraft
just look at this shit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMAP-ADS
uses 'directed energy' to destroy incoming missiles, tested successfully.
we're only ever seen videos of countries too poor to afford good active protection on their tanks getting hit by TOWS. apart from some lucky T-72s and Abrams, but those are rare and don't have anti-tank lasers mounted on them.
>>375912
For what purpose would a plane, capable of exceeding mach 3.2 serves in a world where information security and terrorism are the biggest threats to national security?
>>375912
Literally no use for it that can't be done cheaper and more effectively. The Pentagon would rather waste money on shit like the raptor now.
But seriously, its just not necessary anymore. The new front is cyber warfare and asymmetrical proxy wars.
>>375980
>waste money on shit like the raptor now.
And it has turned out to be the best air superiority fighter on the planet.
>>376009
Which isn't exactly useful when fighting opposition with limited to no air control to begin with.
While I love me some good technological advancement, it has done nothing that couldn't have been accomplished by the f16.
The f22 and the f35 do look good tho
Inb4 this turns into a F-35 thread
>>376053
>Which isn't exactly useful when fighting opposition with limited to no air control to begin with.
Better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it. Granted, it's leagues above anything anyone else has, but that's the entire point. Air superiority rather than kind of superior but not really; there's a lot of things designed purely to kill modern jets/tanks and if you're not consistently improving on it you're putting people at risk when eventually someone does come knocking or a sand person gets their hands on a weapon for it.
This is a dumb question and probably better suited for /k/ but I like you guys more anyway.
Modern technology has basically made it so dogfighting will never happen again, correct? At least to the point where canon on aircraft are only useful against ground or naval targets, right? I can't be completely retarded.
>>375912
>Why don't they make shit like this anymore?
they do but they keep a tight lid on it
new weapons that are being invented now:
T-14 Armata - Russian tank with interchangeable parts, meaning the main body can be equipped with anti-aircraft battery, a tank turret, a tactical bridge, etc, to be able to change roles as a battle progresses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jxwQ4K5ZI
Electromagnetic Railgun- Naval cannon that uses magnetic propulsion to launch shells at over 7-9 times the speed of sound with a range of over 300 miles. First units should be fitted on US Ships by 2020.
http://www.onr.navy.mil/media-center/fact-sheets/electromagnetic-railgun.aspx
there's plenty more pieces of new technology that's under wraps, you just have to look for it.
>>376096
The mentality that missiles made cannons obsolete was disproved in Vietnam.
I can't remember the specific dog fight, but the missiles had missed or hit chaff and the phantoms weren't equipped with cannons so they had to bug out.
From that point forward, fighter aircraft had to carry a cannon
>>376096
Yea basically. Most plans dont even have machine guns now.
>>376126
What a sad reality to live in
>>375912
>ctrl+F= Satellites
>0
Dump Biches.
Because niggers have better satellites now. No more need of a high speed high altitude infiltrator aircraft to take pictures of shit.
Also: Drones
>>376096
Yes. Modern day aircraft carry missiles that can be fired from many miles away with pinpoint accuracy. Modern 4th gen planes like the F22 or F35 have specialized targetting systems that automatically share all information of targets/lock on to all friendly aircraft in the area immediately and can lock on significantly faster and further away than previous generation air craft while also having significantly lower presence on radar and are undetectable until they're within 20~ miles or so (which is a lot considering other jets are detectable from hundreds of miles away but my number might be wrong on this as it's been awhile since I last read)
There's always a chance that modern technology makes missiles completely worthless such as with the Active Protection System on modern MBT's but we probably wont see that for a long time and people have already designed ways to bypass that as well.
>>376173
I should further add onto this; they can fire the missile in any direction too so that's another reason why dogfights wont really happen. Even if the enemy sneaks up on you, you can just drop a missile and it will auto correct its self mid air before the engine ignites.
>>375912
McNamara thought it was a waste of money so he ordered Lockheed to destroy all the tooling so that no more could be made. McNamara was sort of a crusader against wasteful defense program. He was quoted as saying "I believe that the USA can afford any level of defense spending, but we still have a moral obligation to the American people to use well the money that we get." In particular, McNamara hated anything that he felt was "special snowflake" because he wanted the various branches of the US military to use standardized equipment whenever possible. He's the reason why all branches of the US military started using the M16 rifle at the same time. He's also the reason why the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines were all using the F-4 Phantom as their primary fighter plane. When NcNamara heard that the Air Force was looking for a new fighter, he stepped in and said "Look, the Navy is using the F-4 Phantom. You should just use the F-4 Phantom, too. That goes double for you, USMC." McNamara probably took one look at the SR71 and said, "this is the most special snowflake bullshit I've ever seen, cancel it NOW!"
Some of his reforms were a success, like the F-4 Phantom program. Some were good ideas, but with botched implementation, like the M16 program. Others were just bad, like the TFX program.
>>376125
EEEEK
lets acknowledge that a lot has changed in the way of missile technology from 45 years ago and chaff was the first countermeasure to heat seeking missiles. Things have markedly improved since then. I think only the F35A has a cannon, with maybe 200 rounds because it may have to do CAS at some point.
The missiles can be fired in all directions.
>>376096
Somewhat. Dogfighting like most people traditionally think of hasn't been a thing since Korea. Even the shortest-ranged first-generation AAMs far outrange any cannons, and even if they're limited to rear-aspect targeting (like early Sidewinders were), they still give the launch aircraft a much better field of fire. Think of it this way - with a gun, you have to be pointing your plane directly at the target (or where the target will be). With missiles, however, you can have the nose off by several degrees.
We saw in Vietnam that even unreliable AAMs are more useful than guns (pic related). Of course the guns aren't completely useless, but they're incredibly limited compared to AAMs. There are outliers, like the SAAF over Angola, but generally those are incidents where AAM technology was lagging very far behind.
Nowadays, we've got super-advanced AAMs like the Meteor, AIM-120, ASRAAM, IRIS-T, and AIM-9X.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g4_jzqBJnA
These modern missiles have reached the point where they're practically magic. If you threw these in a movie or game, people would be mad for it being "unrealistic." Modern AAMs have huge off-boresight ranges and incredible maneuverabilty, meaning that for the terminal stage, maneuverability of the target aircraft is pretty much meaningless.
However, at longer distances, good performance still matters. Every course change a missile has to make takes energy, and the more energy it has to use, the shorter its range gets. That's why listed ranges for AAMs are almost never right. Even a long-range missile like the AIM-120 (~180km) have a tail-chase range of only about 30km. So heavy maneuvering and a mad dash away from the missile as fast as possible still has a very good chance of succeeding.
>>375912
The SR-71 stopped being relevant because it's not immune to enemy air defenses.
It's the same reason all the super high-speed bombers like the XB-70 were dropped. Sure we can make a Mach 3 plane, but you can always make a faster missile. At least one SR-71 returned from a flight over Hanoi with SA-2 shrapnel in the tail, and we never risked the Blackbird over mainland Russia because of the air defense network. And it's not like you need a plane faster than it to intercept it - if your early warning network picks it up, you can send out fighters for a head-on intercept (something Sweden did with a Mach 2 fighter and Russia claimed to have done with the MiG-31).
High and fast can't save you anymore. It's all about reducing detection ranges now, meaning you want stealth and low-altitude approaches.
>>376352
Yup, the F-35A is the only variant with a built-in gun.
Even in Vietnam, USN F-4s had a better kill/loss ratio than the USAF despite never equipping guns on their planes. The effect of guns was negligible - superior training makes more of a difference.
>>376053
The F-16 is garbage
>>377092
That's a funny way to say "the most successful light fighter in history"
>>376185
>you can just drop a missile and it will auto correct its self mid air before the engine ignites
No. They use the motor to do the course correction, so you lose a shit ton of delta-V that otherwise would be used for intercept. Still an amazing feature, but it's not magic.
>>377122
It's a nearly 40 years old fighter.
You're not using a 40 year old computer because it was top of the line back when are you? As time goes on technology gets invalidated and designs fail. You can modernize them with some success but sometimes you just need to tear it all down and remake from the ground up to incorporate new technologies and breakthroughs.
>>377135
Explain what you're trying to say. The F-16 is old now. That's why it is being replaced as far as NATO goes. But it has never been a bad plane, and it will still probably be in service in various places around the world for a very long time. Lockheed-Martin is still producing updated versions and people are still buying them. And LM will happily upgrade your current version F-16s for the right price.
>>375912
because it takes a shitload of fule and the engines hade a tendancy to malfunction?
>>377146
I wasn't the original anon who called the f-16 trash, I was just stating that it much like the planes before it became outdated. It's not "trash" but it's not exactly good if it can't perform it's job properly against anything but people running planes from the 80's and is easily shot down by modern anti air developments.
It's like how the germans started using experimental jet technology during the second world war and struck fear into spitfire pilots because they could shoot them down with relative ease.
>>377146
It's just a matter of cost effectiveness when compared to combat efficiency.
The f35 is a superior product and in the end is cheaper in the long, run per unit, than retrofitting f16s to be comparable.
At least that's the official word. May just be bullshit numbers to justify the f35 after spending over a trillion dollars in development.
The real issue is that its insanely overqualified for the enemy it will be facing 99% of the time.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT BRRRRRRRRTT BRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT!
brrrrt brrrrrrrrrrrt brrrrt?
>>375912
There are several aircraft in service now (or will be in service in the near future) which have more powerful engines than the SR-71 did. It shows how much engine technology has improved. A modern SR71, if they ever desired to build such a thing, would probably be able to reach Mach 4.0+ with no changes to the design except improved engines.
>>376126
False
>>377135
Modern production F16's are much better that original F16's.
They have better avionics, can use better weapons, and even have radar-absorbing paint which makes them about 1/5 as detectable as the originals were.
>>376126
You're right. Most planes don't have internal machine guns. Most fighter planes do, however. The F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, and F-22 all have internal 20mm Vulcan cannons. The F-35A has an internal 25mm GAU-22/A. The F-35B and F-35C are the only fighters that DON'T have internal cannons. Russia hasn't stopped putting guns on any of their fighters, nor has Dassault, Eurofighter, or Saab.
>>375912
ITT: People try and show who has the biggest dick when it comes to knowing useless shit about aircraft
>>377222
F35's gun won't be operational till 2019 at the earliest.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f-35-wont-fire-a-shot-until-2019-2014-12
>>377189
>>377230
>People try and show who has the biggest dick when it comes to knowing useless shit
That's literally the entire purpose of /his/. And yet for some reason you're here, complaining about it.
>>377233
That doesn't contradict anything that I said.
>>375967
>laser APS
>that actually works
And people say there haven't been many military innovations in recent years.
>>377189
ahh, speaking of obsolete planes.
>>377194
Raw thrust doesn't necessarily mean that the engine would be capable of high supersonic speeds.
There's a ton of factors that make an engine good for supersonic performance, and the kind of engine you want for Mach 3+ performance is going to be far different from a "regular" engine. Plus, you're just considering raw thrust, not thrust-to-weight ratio, which is what really matters with an engine. It's comparatively simple to just scale up an engine if all you need is more thrust.
Past Mach 3, you're looking at supersonic waveriders with dual turbojet/ramjets with very special inlet designs.
>pic related - Mach 4 Tupolev project
>>377467
What I meant was "if they used present day knowledge to design a new engine for the SR71" not "take an existing engine and attach it to the SR71"
>>377222
Chekd.... I don't think that the cannon is intended for aerial combat, missiles are just so ridiculously superior. I would imagine that it's for ground attack.
>>377486
If by "SR-71" you just mean high-speed reconnaissance aircraft, then yeah we could definitely do better. Hell, Tupolev was working on a Mach 6 suborbital plane when the Cold War ended.
>>377491
From what I've read, the gun on the F-35B and C is going to be aimed along the axis of the plane (rather than a couple of degrees downwards like we see on dedicated ground-attack aircraft), so it's probably intended to be useful in fighter combat.
Whatever the case, guns on the current generation of fighters seem to be more of a formality than anything else. The F-35 and Yurotriangles only carry about 150 rounds for their guns, meaning you've got only one or two useful bursts.
>>377178
>The real issue is that its insanely overqualified for the enemy it will be facing 99% of the time.
That's a dangerous mindset to get in with defense procurement. A huge part of having a military is as a deterrent. Sure, we might never do anything more than bomb sand people with our space-age weapons, but if that's the case, then the weapons have done their real job - deterring a "real" adversary from going to war.
>>377512
Current missile tech has really advanced.
That shit is cray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g4_jzqBJnA
>>377538
Oh yeah I know I posted that earlier in the thread.
Now if CUDA lives up to the hype, then we'll be at Ace Combat levels of insanity.
>32 AMRAAM-range missiles on an F-35
>>377561
miniaturization of missiles is the next big thing for sure.
>>375912
They are its called the SR-72
Its unmanned can travel to Mach 6 and has scramjets
>>377222
What is interesting to me is that American fighters all use gatling cannons, whereas European fighters and Russian fighters tend to go with a single-barrel cannon that can fire 1500+ rounds per minute.
The tradeoff seems to be that the gatling gun weighs more, and has about a half-second of wind up time before it actually fires. The single-barrel cannon can fire immediately at full ROF but the gun has to be replaced much, much more often. The single-barrel cannon cannot survive very long because all the heat goes into that one barrel. The Gatling cannon can maintain a longer service life because the heat is distributed between 4-to-7 different barrels.
I don't know which system is better overall.
>>377673
Gatling because if a barrel jams/fails it's not completely useless where as the single barrel is fucked.
>>375912
Drones are the shit now and the US no longer faces a super-science adversary.
Because on tactical level you got these...
... and above us, from more money that NASA operates all its space programme, the NRO maintains a fleet of hubbles and various ELINT sats pointed on us.
>>377535
But what that creates is a spiral of spending that can't be maintained. Billions were spent on the f22. Trillions on the f35. Billions more spent on tanks that will literally never be used. More spent on aircraft carriers that have no competition.
It's the same line of reasoning every time. Like the sharks are circling and the only thing keeping them back is blank checks to the Pentagon.
And at the end of the day, if China or Russia wished to attack America there are no jets or aircraft carriers that's going to stop them. Not when they can simply crash an economy or fund terrorist cells to start shit.
There's a middle ground here that should be found.
>>378051
>that can't be maintained
literally the only reason we can have 11 CBG's is because our economy is so powerful, and the reason for having such a powerful navy and airforce and army is so our economy stays strong. look at what we're doing the pacific, with chinas "islands".
>russia
>crashing any economy that isn't their own
why do people still think they're relevant other than their nuke status?
>>378051
>Trillions on the f35
No. It's a trillion dollars over several decades for a fleet of literally thousands of aircraft. All defense programs are rising in costs, and unit costs are rising for everyone.
Look at the Eurofighter and Rafale - they're just as expensive, if not moreso, than the F-35. "Budget" options like the Gripen merely leave you hopelessly outclassed against any contemporaries.
Yes, defense programs may be outrunning inflation, but it's not unsustainable just yet. If it does get that way, literally the best we can hope for is a Washington-Naval-Treaty-like solution.
>>377189
>tfw no qtp2t A-10 Warthog gf
