One fits all. This is a great concept, on paper. Instead of developing multiple aircraft to fill multiple roles (Close Air Support, Electronic Warfare, Air Superiority) of different branches (Navy and Air Force), why not build one airframe that can be modified to do all. The first major example of this was the Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) program, which was pushed by the US Secretary of Defense at the time, Robert McNamara. At that time, both the US Air Force and the US Navy were looking for a high speed (Mach 2), heavy ground attack fighter. The services could agree on three design elements, those were the variable geometry wings, two engine, and two seater design features. However, everything else they wanted was totally different. The USN wanted a high altitude interceptor with side by side seating, while the USAF wanted a tandem seater that would server as high speed, low-level ground attack. The US Navy didn’t care too much for maneuverability at high speeds, but wanted space for a radar, but the US Air force wanted maneuverability, but didn’t care for the radar. Secretary of Defense McNamara chose to build an aircraft based on the needs of the Air Force, then convert it over the US Navy use. Both service’s needs are completely different, and this would be a rift that would plague the entire development program. Anyone who knows about carrier operations will know that it is uniquely different then ground operations. To take off, the aircraft will literally have to be pushed along by the nose wheel by a steam catapult. However, the most stressing point of carrier borne operations is the landing section. Here, aircraft, going around 207 miles per hour will have to stop within a couple hundred yards. The Pilots will have a tail hook to catch four arresting wires, that will literally pull an aircraft to stop. While today’s Air Force have fighters equipped with tail hooks, the repeated stresses of landing would cause unrepairable structural damage to the fighter. Furthermore, the is a physics limit to how heavy an aircraft can be to successfully take off and land on a carrier. Therefore, the F-111B (The Navy Variant) was excessively heavy for carrier operations, because of the Navy Requirement that there was to be a crew escape capsule. The excessive airframe weight made the aircraft underpowered. They could not make larger engines because that would increase airframe weight, but they already had too high of an airframe weight. Finally, the Navy withdrew from the program, the F-111B being a failure, and then built the successful F-14, using the same engine and radar. Now, the same mistakes are being repeated. Once again, the same aircraft (F-35) is being marketed to many different branches (Navy, Airforce, and Marine Corps), to fulfill a variety of capabilities (STOL, Air Superiority, Close Air Support, SEAD/DEAD). And yet again, the same issues are occurring. Once the second engine on the F-35 was axed, the maneuverability performance has greatly suffered, sometimes losing out to the aircraft it was designed to replace, the F-16. However it is doubtful any of the services will bail out of this project, unlike last time, as really, the F-35 is trying to be the next economic success. The first readily available Generation 5 fighter. As the F-35 Project continues to miss deadlines and run over budget, we can only hope that the end result will truly redefine air combat.
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Recently, I’ve been reading the excellent Viper Pilot by Dan Hampton. Col Dan Hampton was one of the deadliest “Wild Weasel” fighter pilots, a code name given to fighters whose main purpose was to perform SEAD or DEAD roles. SEAD, an acronym for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses was born out of a necessity during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam war was the first major engagement where SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles) were widely deployed, and coming into Vietnam, the United States had no way to defend against such threats. While today, fighter and combat aircraft have a wide array of ECMs (Electronic Counter Measure), radars, and other countermeasures like chaff to survive against lock on missiles, those who fought during the early years of the Vietnam war had no such luxury. In fact, the only way they would know that they were being locked on and a missile had been fired at them would be if they saw the missile, or if their plane just exploded. Therefore, Project “Wild Weasel” was born. Wild Weasel was a concept whose main purpose was to track down and kill enemy SAM sites. However, SAM sites were usually relatively well hidden in the forests and jungles in Vietnam, at least visually. When SAMs were locking onto an aircraft it emits a steady wave that electronics can track. Therefore, anti radiation missiles were created that home into this wave that radars emit. Early revisions of this missile could be fooled if the radar site shut off its radar, causing the missile to lose its target. However, the most dangerous part of this was that the aircraft would have to act as bait, causing a radar to lock onto it before the SAM site’s position could be positively identified. Upon hearing of the mission, Jack Donovan, a B-52 EWO (Electronic Warfare Officer) said “I'm gonna fly with you, and we're gonna shoot SAM site before it shoots us? You gotta be shittin' me!” spawning the motto “YGBSM”. Wild Weasel was a concept to provide SEAD through DEAD (Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses). These missiles usually carried little explosives, only enough to take out the radar system, which would be good enough anyway. However, today, we have different ways to perform SEAD without using DEAD. For example, we can use electronic warfare aircraft (like the EA-18G Growler) to jam radar and radio waves. However, our capability to perform DEAD has also been increased today. For example, during Operation Instant Thunder, fixed radar positions were destroyed quickly by Stealth F-117 Nighthawks. Other types of weapons, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, or JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) are effective at destroying targets, so are also effective in performing DEAD. Today’s dedicated Wild Weasel aircraft are the Block 50/52 F-16 Fighting Falcons (or are called by their pilot given nickname, the Viper). This is the first type of Wild Weasel dedicated aircraft without a dedicated EWO. One of the most popular types of movies genre is action, and one easy, sure fire way to spice up an action movie is to add gunfire and explosions. However, obviously, most of the time, people aren’t actually shooting at each other, and the actors have to act like they are shooting each other, so there might be some serious inconsistencies when compared to real life. #1: Bullets are stopped by any obstacle whatsoever. Have you ever seen a scene in the movie, the hero is running around, then suddenly, *gasp!*, there is an evil bad guy standing right in front of the hero with a machine gun! The intrepid hero dives into cover behind an Ikea desk, the evil bad guy unloads his entire box into the desk, and all the bullets harmlessly ping off. Luckily (or unluckily) in real life, those bullets would create neat bullet holes, peppering the hero with countless bullets. While this is mostly dependent on bullet caliber, type, and speed, and on the material of the cover, most rifle bullets will zip through solid home walls and such (7.62x51 FMJ). Today’s bullets are usually very light, but very fast, designed to defeat personal body armor. While many combatants therefore complain about the lack of stopping power #2: Everyone fires fully automatic all the time This always happens in essentially every movie that involves gunfire. Two sides meet each other on the battlefield. They have rifles that are capable of going fully automatic. Both sides ignore ammo conservation or the possibility of recoil, and start pulling their triggers and bullets spray everywhere. Quite simply, the fully automatic fire mode in real life is only used for suppression, to keep the enemy in cover so other friendly forces can move on from other sides. Furthermore, controlling fully automatic fire is quite a challenge, and fully automatic fire from an untrained individual is probably as effective as not shooting at all. Larger calibers, like 7.62x51 NATO will cause even the most well trained individuals to lose a great deal of accuracy, so it's really only accurate when on a bipod #3: Everyone (Sniper) Aims for the Head Every time there is a movie scene where a sniper gets the large, bolt action rifle out, and the camera suddenly switches to a scope view, the target usually dies. However, the sniper in question usually scores a perfect shot in the head, or between the eyes, mostly for dramatic effect. However, in real life, combatants are trained to aim for center mass (Chest and abdomen) since there are multitudes of critical organs and systems in that large area when compared to a smaller head. Even though the chest may have rifle defeating body armor, the impact should drop the enemy, who would then be an easy follow up shot. Also, shooting someone in the chest may be as lethal, if not more lethal than shooting them in the head. First of all, as stated before, all the vital organs are located in the ribcage. If you don’t hit the heart, you will probably hit the lungs or the spinal cord, both of which will cause the instant incapacitation of the target. They are only protected by a ribcage, and while the ribcage is perfect for asorbing shocts, it does not have the correct coverage to stop a speeding bullet. The skull, on the other hand, is stronger than most people give credit for. While it certainly isn’t bulletproof, at extremely long ranges, the velocity of the bullet may drop enough so that the impact wouldn’t cause instant death. The front of the skull is an arch, which is the strongest natural object, and is pretty thick. After finishing my machinima made in Arma III, I realized that, as usual, it was a learning experience with many ups and downs. Along the way, I learned several important lessons. The trailer didn’t really turn out the way I wanted to, mostly because of small issues in every shot, the time limit (because this was a school project), and my general beginner’s knowledge in using the Arma III editor to set up shots. Here are a couple lessons I learned
Use the Unit Capture/Unit Play Functionality I honestly didn’t learn about this function before I finished the project. Honestly, one of the biggest irritations I have about Arma III is its god awful AI. Sure, if you script out the AI perfectly, they might do a realistic enough impression, however, the time spent scripting the AI will probably be longer than playing as the AI and replaying your actions. For example, sometimes the AI wouldn’t really do what you want for a dramatic scene. During the very first battle scene, there are a group of infantry being pounded by Main Battle Tanks shelling their position. However, when confronted with infantry, they would only use their top mounted and coaxial machine guns, so the results were less than spectacular. Furthermore, another one of the scenes requires special operations troops to insert onto the roof of a hotel using Little Birds, however the AI simply refused to land on the rooftops. They would land their helicopters right next to the buildings, on the road instead. Another issue was combat landings, quite simply, when the AI were given a land waypoint, they would slowly approach and gently touch down onto the tarmac. Given that in real life, they would be shot down doing such a maneuver, it did not have the same dramatic effect. The tactics of the AI are sometimes dumbfounding, as when I set several apache helicopters to destroy a couple of T-90 Main battle tanks, they began to mostly use their 20mm machine gun, instead of the Anti tank missiles installed on their hardpoints. Be Patient Setting up a shot will easily take thirty minutes or more, depending on the complexity of the shot. Even a simple scenario, like two opposing forces trying to take a city center with armor and air support will take quite a bit of time to set up, as a lot of tweaking will have to be done to have the scene flow well. Multiple takes are usually required, from different angles and perspectives. Sometimes, you would set up a camera, thinking that the shot would be cool, then realizing that the end result was boring and you would have to do it all over again. Small issues, like forgetting to turn off the UI, or forgetting to turn off your frame counter may destroy a good shot. Act Like you are Using a Real Camera The same basics of cinematography still apply, even when you are working inside a video game. All the same settings (except shutter speed, and compensation of exposure) can be adjusted. It is even simpler than using a camera, to create a deeper depth of field, you simply slide the “Depth of Field” slider to the right. Framing the shot is still just as important, and while I don’t think I framed my shots particularly well, there are many other, better produced Arma 3 machinimas on the internet. If you are interested, you can watch my finished machinima here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-pkTwUedq4 |
AuthorThis is a school project for English 1A for high school. Archives
February 2017
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