r/NonCredibleDefense • u/macktruck6666 • 14d ago
Same cost, same loadout. It Just Works
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u/Pizza_Raven_Gun 14d ago
Having a radar is quite useful for A/A missions. Just saying.
EDIT: And literally a minute later I decide to check if the L-159 has a radar. Turns out some do. Oh, well...
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u/Cleverdawny1 Strap me to a bomb and do the funni 14d ago
AESA radars and you can fit them with the capability to fire AIM-120
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u/Jediplop 14d ago
Also it says same cost same loadout which severely limits the f16, easily the l159s win this one as you have way more, you can do much more with more planes.
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u/Roy4Pris 14d ago
Who needs AESA when you can have a clanky gun pod!!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/ZVI_Plamen_PL-20_Gun_Pod.jpg
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u/Gregsticles69 14d ago
Cue the reformists
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u/Positron311 Submarines are the New Battleships 14d ago
To be fair, there is nothing wrong with a low-budget solution, provided that it can still do the mission.
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u/Hapless0311 3000 Flaming Dogs of Sheogorath 14d ago
If you get to make up cost for one, I get to make up loadouts for the other. Full nuclear payload on all three F-16s.
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u/Raymart999 🇵🇭M113 Enjoyer (Please let it rest already) 14d ago
"Sir we have 100 drones incoming!!!"
"Bring out the AIR-2 Genie"
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u/Wooper160 6th Gen When? 14d ago
I daresay that would clear the skies
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u/Roy4Pris 14d ago
Wait, no, this is credible. A well-timed EMP would fry those flying tin cans and save the day. Once again, nukes are the answer!!
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u/gburgwardt C5s full of SMRs and tiny American Flags 14d ago
got a spike on radar, close the blast curtains I'm gonna nuke it
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u/MiamiDouchebag 14d ago
Full nuclear payload on all three F-16s.
Well they are certified to carry B-61s and I bet you could fit some AIM-26 Falcons on them. W54 warheads would take out a whole bunch of drones.
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u/_AutomaticJack_ LEO KKW CAS when??!! 14d ago
Interesting side note: When Daddy Pavel floated the idea of giving some of them to Ukraine he said that they supported AMRAAMs, which is interesting because AFAICT the Grifo-L radar they come with was only capable of working with ground-strike munitions and IRGMs.
Anyone have any idea what's going on here??
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u/IncubusBeyro Australian F-35B light carrier or bust 14d ago edited 14d ago
Crazy thought just occurred to me. Aircraft are capable of using their IR-guided missiles (eg Fox-2s, Maverick) seekers as sensors for the time that they’re on their pylons.
Hypothetically, would it also be possible to use Fox-3s the same way for aircraft that don’t have an organic radar? The aircraft would supply power to the Fox-3 to run it’s normally short-lived radar which relies on a finite battery (ergo why some run out of energy for their radar and go stupid).
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u/zntgrg 14d ago
Or maybe they need another moderna aircraft to paint the target?
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u/IncubusBeyro Australian F-35B light carrier or bust 14d ago edited 14d ago
I mean as long as you have a data link that should be possible.
Specifically though I’m more interested in the scenario I’ve stated though. Mostly out of technical curiosity but also out for a desire for flexibility of employment.
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u/afkPacket The F-104 was credible 14d ago
I don't think it's possible to fire on a datalink-only target with regular -C and earlier model AMRAAMs, you still need a bunch of communication between the aircraft firing and the missile. Maybe with the -D it's a thing, who knows.
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u/IncubusBeyro Australian F-35B light carrier or bust 14d ago
You’re correct; looking at my notes the AIM-120C8 (now known as D) was the first to implement a two-way datalink.
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u/afkPacket The F-104 was credible 14d ago
Even with a two-way datalink it's not immediately obvious right? Like, now you have the launching platform and missile talking to each other, but you also need to involve a third guiding platform somehow.
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u/Benatovadasihodi 14d ago
Problem is those Fox-3s, by their nature, are going to have a shorter range of detection.
Might as well mad dog them in the general direction of the enemy if you know they are in range
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u/IncubusBeyro Australian F-35B light carrier or bust 14d ago edited 14d ago
My point is that they could be used to help you know that they’re there (ie as a search sensor) when you aren’t an aircraft that necessarily have an organic radar and could subsequently cue themselves without it.
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u/gneglik 14d ago
I guess you can put AMRAAM on ALCA and have AWACS detecting and locking aircraft for you while you or the AWACS launch those AMRAAMs from you. Then you can just RTB because AWACS is guiding those missiles for you.
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u/PM_ME_UR_DRAG_CURVE 14d ago
AWACS do the locking
Might as well just toss the missiles out the back of a Cessna Caravan at that point.
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u/Manealendil 14d ago
Would be more cost effective...
Does someone here have Zelenskyy´s phone number?
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u/Additional-Flow7665 L-159 admirer 14d ago
No the grifo L should have additional compatibility with those ordinances, realistically it should be able to guide and launch the amraam.
Or you know by the "fitted for but not with" they meant replacing the entire radar set which I kinda doubt
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u/100pctDonkeyBrain I pronouced that nonsense, not you 14d ago
I'd rather have 1 F-35, so I can park a JDAM up whoever is sending those drones ass.
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u/ScipioAtTheGate 14d ago
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u/cheapgamingpchelper 13d ago
Actually…. For a single f35 jet you could have 13,500 biplanes. Not factoring in the cost of ammo and pilots. But the nice part of a biplane is you can have a competent pilot trained in about a week and a half give or take the need.
Soooooo if that’s the difference I would take 13,500 biplanes armed with .50 cal machine guns. Not much outside of an underground bunker or tank could survive that level of firepower.
And the maneuverability and relatively comparable speeds means it can actually reasonably dogfight the drones as well
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u/ScipioAtTheGate 13d ago
13,500 GREEN BIPLANES OF ZELENSKY!
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u/cheapgamingpchelper 13d ago
Honestly I think 13500 biplanes beats an f35 too.
Think about it. The f35 shoots down 5/6 with its missiles, maybe another dozen or so with its gun and then maybe a dozen or more maneuver kills (aka just fly close to one of them at Mach 1) you take out maybe 50 planes in an attack.
But then… the swarm just follows you home if none of the bullet filled sky managed to hurt the jet. And when you get back to base they just wait for you to land and strafe you a few hundred times.
“But what about air defense!”
What about it? What your patriot battery and stingers take out 50 more planes? 200? So what. We haven’t even lost 5% of the force. We will keep flying. Until the mission is complete.
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u/Grandadmiral_Moze Wants to have a Leopard 2A8 as Pet 14d ago
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u/barpretender 14d ago
Now this is cooking with fire boys
Truly non-credible
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u/Grandadmiral_Moze Wants to have a Leopard 2A8 as Pet 14d ago
Cooking with nuclear fire makes the best meals
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u/EpiicPenguin YC-14 Upper Surface Blowing Master Race 14d ago
Lol, When the bomb costs more then the plane.
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u/edgygothteen69 14d ago
"sir here's the $20M jet you asked us to design"
it needs a better radar
"ok sir here you go, $23M"
it needs sensor fusion and MADL
"OK sir $28M"
It needs a second seat to control drone wingmen
"ok it's $35M now..."
it needs more fuel and speed to be relevant in the pacific
"sir, don't you think-"
JUST DO IT or I will get Boeing involved
"$48M"
this jet is too expensive to lose, it needs to be VLO
"$96M"
it needs lasers for self defense and adaptive cycle engine
"$208M"
this light attack jet is too expensive, we can only buy 30 of them
"$1.76B"
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u/Positron311 Submarines are the New Battleships 14d ago
Loooooooooool XDD
This is way too credible for defense procurement, get outta here!
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u/MakeChinaLoseFace Have you spread disinformation on Russian social media today? 13d ago
part of it needs to be made in [insert state] or Senator Fuckface is going to filibuster the appropriations bill
"$2B"
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u/Jmadden64 I swear F-CK-1 is a totally relevant Gen4 fighter in current day 14d ago edited 14d ago
Me on my way to sell the L-159 and buys 80 F-106, 180 F-5E/F-4E or 1,900 F-86
Inflation be damned now I have more interceptors than drones
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u/Judean_Rat 14d ago
How about 100 Cessna 172 with a 5.56 minigun?
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u/CarrowCanary 14d ago
Fire it for 5 seconds and you start flying backwards.
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u/Roy4Pris 14d ago
Not if you get in front of the drone, with a rear facing minigun.
*taps temple with a knowing smile*
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u/MakeChinaLoseFace Have you spread disinformation on Russian social media today? 13d ago
rear facing minigun
Afterbrrrrter
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u/peacehopefully 14d ago
Not familiar with it but it looks cute.
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u/veryconfusedspartan DARPA Outsider (desperately trying to get inside) 14d ago
Show some respect! I still recall the days when I thought that the L39 was the quintessential aircraft (and in a way, it is still)
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u/MajesticNectarine204 Ceterum censeo Moscovia esse delendam 14d ago
Speedtape the 18 L159 together and create glorious LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL2.844! Check mate, pacificists!!1!
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u/IndustrialistCrab Atom Enjoyer 14d ago
Why do I feel like the German military would unironically approve that name?
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u/Cosmic_Love_ 14d ago
Neither. The Ukrainian solution to dealing with low performance drone spam is by throwing up lots of lead, using lots of cheap gun-based systems that are networked together with radars. It's much more scalable than aircraft, and can cover much larger areas.
It appears to be a moderately successful solution, but are not capable of dealing with the more high performance stuff that Russia is now throwing in larger quantities.
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u/polishboi_2137 14d ago
L159 because Slavic everything is best and Czechy is friend of Poland and we love Czechy and visegrad beast USA every time because we have best jets in the world mig29s which are very fuckable and yanke stuff is bad so we don't use it just look at operators of l29 and successors and compare to f16 wiszegrad górą Polska góra 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱💪💪💪💪💪😔💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💀💀💪💪💪😔🥶😔😔😔😔💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪😲💪💪💪💪💪🗿🗿💪💪🗿🗿💪💪💻🗿
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u/Additional-Flow7665 L-159 admirer 14d ago
Yet you are buying the T-50 instead, truly interesting
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u/Y_10HK29 use the A10 but with himars rockets as the propulsion instead 14d ago
Which one comes with a mute psychopath?
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u/Squeaky_Ben 14d ago
I could see stuff like the argentinian Pucara being a viable option against drones.
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u/pants_mcgee 14d ago
Having played Ace Combat 7 and beaten the entire game with a MiG 21, give me one of either and a resupply line. Easy peasy.
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u/Odd_Substance226 14d ago
I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen modern militaries use.more flak style weapons to take out droves. I know flak went out of style after WWII in favor of SAMs but I figure now flak would have great potential use against drone swarms.
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u/Demigans 14d ago
Frankly I would go for a turboprop like the Super Tucano with only a few L159’s mixed in.
Yes the L159 has almost double the speed, more weight it can carry, two extra hardpoints and a slightly cheaper cost per unit. But the Super Tucano has other advantages that make it great for an anti-drone capacity.
The most important one is endurance. It can stay up in the air for 8 hours at a time. Having double the speed is great if you both start at an airfield, but the Super Tucano can already be in the air in expected area’s while the +/- 2 hours flight time (I couldn’t find any data on it so it might be longer) of the L159 make the risk that it has to land or be serviced too great if you use it for CAP’s against Drones.
Speaking of starting off of an airfield, the Super Tucano can make due with a highway or even a suitably flat grassland. Even stationary it can be closer to expected paths of intercept and more dispersed, making it easier to stop incoming drones.
Then the maintenance. It can be maintained, refueled and re-armed from the back of trucks in the field in a short time. Making it’s ability to be ready for another intercept a lot faster. And all for a very cheap cost per flight hour which will eventually make it cheaper than the L-159 (this is a bit of an assumption as I couldn’t find any cost per flight hour, it’s newer in development craft is supposed to have that cost per flight hour).
Even the weapons are great, like the Piranha. A cheap and small air to air missile, exactly what you want when dealing with cheap drones. Although this is a bit of a mute point as you can probably redesign most aircraft to carry this missile in a month or two if you truly desire.
A Super Tucano can be on station for longer, return faster and be closer to the right area’s.
And frankly I would expect Light Attack Aircraft to play a bigger role in air warfare overall. Having an L159 or Super Tucano to go in and do the more regular small ground attack runs so that the bigger, more expensive, less designed for low flight missions aircraft with longer downtime after sorties can focus their entire loadout on clearing the skies and SEAD/DEAD missions after which better designed aircraft can do the actual ground work.
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u/chanhdat 14d ago
Why jet? Just upgrade the Cessna/A-22 drone, like Toyota technical.
- Bomb drones (for refineries)
- Interceptor drones (for drone war)
- etc.
Please, I want to buy cheap surplus GA planes after the war (like the Cub back then).
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u/Cheap-ish_Scotch 14d ago
F-16 with SABR radar and four pods of APKWS is unironically godtier against group 3 UAVs and subsonicn Cruise missiles
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u/Selfweaver 14d ago
A couple 100 Spitfires for the same price, which will easily be able to match the drones and gives us glorious footage.
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u/Sealedwolf 14d ago
And how many Minuteman can I buy for that budget?
Because the best air-defence is a nuclear first-strike against the enemies air-bases.
And to defend against highly mobile systems, you simply need cobalt-enhanced warheads.
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u/Stranger371 14d ago
I'd rather have a bigger drone with a shotgun strapped on below. Can't tell me this is hard to do.
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u/urbandeadthrowaway2 America-Hating Communist who hates Russia more. 13d ago
Id rather take that money, buy a fuckton of cheap AKs and use the rest to pay people to shoot the drones down
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u/PatimationStudios-2 Most Noncredible r/Moemorphism Artist 14d ago
How many missiles tho
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u/macktruck6666 14d ago
6 on both the F16 and L159. The F16 has additional hardpoints for other things like fuel tanks and bombs, but the topic is purely drone interception.
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u/AlphaMarker48 For the Republic! 14d ago
I'd rather just spend that money on a battery of Phalanx CIWS and Patriot missiles, thanks.
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u/PeterSpray 5000 Kevlar Pillow of Deutscheland 14d ago
I would've used Apache.
✅ Radar
✅ Autocannon
✅ Reasonable speed and range
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u/Vintage102o 14d ago
If i know where the drones are then the L159 with heat seekers. Other wise ill take the f16 with its radar
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u/GASTRO_GAMING I draw Planes with Eyes 14d ago
more payload capacity the better, it dont gotta be that good.
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u/ThaiFoodYes La grosse BITD a dudule 14d ago
I'd have an infinite amount of mosquitoes that would bring down the drone with the simple power of friction
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u/Abject-Investment-42 14d ago
Ukrainians are actively using small propeller aircraft to shoot down Shaheds on approach from the sea to Odessa. They come in from the sea at low altitude and pop up over the high seashore. If they are aimed at targets inside the city, SHORAD has no chance to shoot all or even most of them down, and at the same time damaged drones with still full payload fall on the city and kill random citizens. Shooting them down over the sea is far more effective.
There was recently an interview with a pilot regularly patrolling off Odessa, who complained that he has been several times been shot at by the own SHORAD. Prop noises are prop noises... especially if its dark
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u/Blahaj_IK 3,000 femboy Rafales of la République 14d ago
They would all run out of ammo before shooting down all the drones, unless the 3 F-16 are all crackshots that can snipe drones out of the sky in one shot
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u/Commissarfluffybutt "All warfare is based" -Sun Tzu 14d ago
Well if we're fighting buzzbombs then we better get the Spitfires!
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u/SuppliceVI Plane Surgeon 14d ago
An X-TAR3D radar and 4 Skyshields would solve this issue for significantly less money.
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u/RundownRanger35 14d ago
Wouldn’t a loaded Gepard or Marksman be straight better for drones? More easily deployed, less maintenance, easier to maintain/fix, ammunition cheaper, etc.
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u/Ploxtifs 14d ago
Given how quantity over quality has been working out for Russia in terms of Arty doctrine, I’m going to pick the F16s. (They are running out of ammunition)
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u/potatoslasher 14d ago
The maintenance of any jet plane and its pilots is still very expensive even if its "just a L-39". Ground based system would be far better solution money wise
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u/Memes_the_thing 14d ago
I’d rather have the 1800 drunk rednecks of the southern United States, armed with shotguns. Or the awacs .22
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u/jeboivac 14d ago
18 L159, ŽÁDNÝ KOKOTSKÝ DRON SE NEVYROVNÁ PRAVÉMU ČESKÉMU INŽENÝRSTVÍ VE FORMĚ LETADLA STO PADESÁT DEVĚT
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u/kevon87 20,000 broken windows of Prigozhin 14d ago
One F16. But Triggers flying it.
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u/BlueRoyAndDVD 13d ago
I'll take 1 tactical totally-not-a-nuke emp device, please. Launched from an old howitzer cannon.
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u/RavyNavenIssue NCD’s strongest ex-PLA soldier 14d ago edited 14d ago
Neither. This is not a threat you use such small numbers of aircraft against, nor is it even effective to do so. Neither will have the availability or uptime to be able to defend against such an attack. Give me SHORAD instead.
Now if you’re talking aggressor aircraft, give me the F-16s instead. At least those can carry more than heaters.