[cabirum]

Does camouflage really helps in modern air combat? Aircrafts engage each other mostly on beyond visual range distances, and dogfighting in kinda rare now. Also, HUDs should assist in tracking of targets and highlight them, so camo will make no difference. The only use for camo I can think of is to hide the aircraft while it's stationed on the airstrip - in a relatively vulnerable position.

[pcestrada]

Rules of engagement may force the use of close-in air combat maneuvering (ACM). During the Vietnam War, the US had more advanced, long range missiles but political considerations forced the pilots to visually identify targets before firing.

Also, against a technically sophisticated adversary such as the Russians or Chinese, the initial exchange of beyond visual range (BVR) missiles will most likely leave a number of aircraft alive. The Russian have the PAK FA stealth fighter in development and the Chinese J-37 stealth fighter had it's maiden flight last year. Stealth technology only makes it more likely that more aircraft survive the first volley. At typical combined closure speeds, there will be only one BVR exchange before ACM begins.

It's also very dangerous to be flying around the battlefield with your radar turned on as everyone else will immediately detect it and mark you as a target as you broadcast your range, speed, and bearing to the world. Typically target acquisition is by other means, such as AWACs aircraft or ground control that guides you into a high Probability Kill (PK) position.

[tebbetts]

My guess is that most of the camouflage is to hide the airplane from humans on the ground. I would also guess an airplane providing support for ground troops would likely get shot at.

They would paint a fake canopy on the underside of the Warthog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arnielee/4105880397/. This was to make it hard to tell which way the airplane was turning.

[electromagnetic]

It might be for take-off and landing too when the planes without typical near-ground combat are now extremely vulnerable. The Warthogs are unbelievably built to go through hell and back, an F-15 not so much.

> They would paint a fake canopy on the underside of the Warthog

I'd just hate that someone painted my exact location on the bottom of my plane so the enemy knows exactly where I'm sitting so they know exactly where to shoot at. I mean I'm sure everyone would know where the pilot is, but this would be like the Imperials painting a massive bullseye target around the ventilation tube on the Death Star.

[hedgehog]

Premature optimization. Shooting an aircraft is kind of like shooting a duck, it's moving fast and hard to hit at all. If you can make it hard to estimate your direction and speed it helps you out a lot.

[ceejayoz]

Anti-aircraft fire isn't like a sniper rifle, it's more like a grenade launcher. You're certainly not going to be aiming for a specific location on a plane - you're going to be aiming in its general direction and throwing as much ordinance at it as possible, in the hopes that shrapnel from one of your shells pegs it.

[mikeash]

The underside of the cockpit is probably the best area to get shot at in an A-10. It's heavily armored, so the pilot is safe, and there are fewer important parts to break there as compared to being shot farther back.

[paxswill]

As support, here's some specific pictures of just the "bathtub": http://www.flickr.com/photos/25695066@N00/sets/7215762746187...

[bdunbar]

dogfighting in kinda rare now.

This is true, now. In large part because the USAF dominates the air so thoroughly that opposing air is toast the day the war starts.

This may not always be so.

[marvin]

I don't have any information about the second Iraq war, but a relative of mine works with radar systems. From what he told me, Iraq's air defense during the first Gulf war was ridiculously poor - the Iraqi air defence forces just turned on their air defense radars and waited to get a bomb dropped on top of them.

Apparently, there was a NATO exercise in Norway a couple of years ago where the US expected the same tactics to be used and hence to easily achieve air superiority. However, the opposing force moved their radar and missile systems around, used the terrain for cover, performed feinting maneuvers by giving the impression that the air defense systems were located in different locations and also obverved using mobile observers on the ground. Apparently, the US lost the air battle spectacularly.

Imagine a military conflict with an enemy that doesn't follow conventional doctrine like this. It's very hard to extrapolate from history how things are going to play out. A large-scale war with today's technology is going to look a lot different than the assymetric warfare the US currently seems to be optimizing for.

[pclark]

This has been played out in a huge war game in 2002 involving Lt General Paul Van Riper and your assumptions are correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

[marvin]

This is a very fascinating read. The exercise I mentioned probably took place after the 2002 exercise you have linked to.

Without being too deeply informed on this subject, it seems to me like the US military refuses to acknowledge the weaknesses of its doctrine in a large-scale conflict against a sufficiently skilled and advanced adversary.

[JJMalina]

Not true. Baghdad had very heavy air defenses. Dangerous enough that the U.S. lost 2 F-16s and decided to only use F-117 stealth aircraft afterwards. See: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike [2] http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/LucasStL/1180/

[learc83]

I'm sure there are some surprises that would catch the Air Force off-guard, but from all of the training exercise results I've seen (and this is just publicly available stuff, nothing from a relative on the inside or anything) the US Air Force (with F-22s) just completely dominates anything else.

The F-22s had close to 200:1 kill to death ratios in most of the training exercises I've seen. Enemy aircraft are dead before they are even aware that an F-22 is in range.

[rbanffy]

> the USAF dominates the air so thoroughly

It's more like the USAF never engages opponents that could really pose any threat. It's not very hard to achieve air supremacy against an enemy operating planes 20 years folder than yours. Which is fine in my book: you should pick your fights carefully.

[vilda]

The biggest danger in asymmetric warfare represent "stupid" weapons - ballistic or hand-launched RPG weapons.

Misleading camouflage helps you here.

[DanBC]

But aren't those ground based weapons? The camouflage is topside of the aircraft.

[AdamGibbins]

Bottom also, the aircrafts are often painted grey on the underside.

[lbotos]

I'm not sure. I read something recently that the last modern dogfight happened around 1999. I'm also confused as to how the concept of "hiding" which way a plane is flying can be achieved with this. If I'm still / have ground support and see something in the sky / radar I'm pretty sure no matter what color it is (even if it closely matches the sky) I could say which direction it was moving? What am I missing? Either way, as a art student that always wanted to fly a fighter jet, these look really sweet!

[nosse]

One of the biggest threads to a fighter is another fighter flying above it. From the upper guys perspective everything is moving and everything below is green/grey/brown or dark blue. At the same time stealth technology is rising and using your own radar might show your own position.

Fighter camo is probably not that big thing, but all things concerned it just might give a little edge in some situation.

[electromagnetic]

I think fighter camo likely has a bigger role to take off and landing when they're not in a 100% safe area. The military doesn't just plan for the current war, but for all possible wars.

Fighters aren't going to handle the small arms fire like a Warthog will. So when you can't add the extra armour, it's probably worth making it harder to see.

[tangue]

All planes I've seen in operation whether in Afghanistan or in Lybia no longer have camo (I'm french and this is valid only for Rafale but I'm curious if in other countries planes are still using camo in operations)

[maeon3]

Modern fighter jets give pilots helmets which contain a 360 degree view of the battlefield to show them where the airplanes are. The computers which acquire the location of the other airplanes use radar and visual spectrum. What other way can the human or computer find out position direction and velocity of enemy jets who jam radar and camouflage themselves?

History channel has some modern Pilots talking about dogfight speeds of mach .9, radar, and radar stealth (sending back scrambled radar messages) to enemy craft is the deciding factor in a dogfight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnUwxDhE1kU&t=9m9s

[Retric]

What other way can the human or computer find out position direction and velocity of enemy jets who jam radar and camouflage themselves?

Heat and contrail's.

Also, I suspect the best solution to deal with advancing US warplanes is simply a vary large low cost drone fleet. Picture that fight but replace the second squad with 10,000 drones each of which has a single air to air or air to ground missile. They don't even need to use radar with enough eyes you can just triangulate position's and distance.

[ceejayoz]

> Heat and contrail's.

Stealthy aircraft (i.e. virtually every fighter in development by Russia, China, or the West) are specifically designed to mask their heat signature, and contrails are solved by changing altitude.

[Retric]

Yea, that's actually a big part of why they don't go as fast. Push the mock number to high and your air frame literally starts to glow (in IR) and there is not much you can do about it.

[nosse]

That youtube video is propaganda. Note how almost every single missile fired by f-22 hits, while enemy missiles lose their target constantly. It doesn't tell why U.S. missiles would be better. Also I find the explanation why f-22 would be better in dogfight to be very lacking. Vectored thrust is not going to cancel effects of high wing loading or slow rate of roll. Or it might but then it's something more harrier style.