Fighter Objectives
The article on the Blitzfighter (AW&ST June 26, p. 16) misses the point. Perhaps it was conceived by nostalgic colonels who yearn for a propless P-47.
The object of the exercise is to kill lots of tanks (artillery, etc.) when and where it hurts most. The number of tanks killed in a given time is roughly the product of four factors: T, the fraction of the time when operations are feasible; A, the number of available aircraft; S. the sortie rate per aircraft, and K, the number of tanks killed per sortie flown. Dead tanks=TASK. If, instead of A-10's, we buy twice as many half-price Blitzfighters (with half-price pilots?), A might be doubled, K would probably decrease (fewer shots per sortie) and both T and S would be about the same. Hence, the best we could hope for would be twice the tanks killed, and the cost of additional widows’ pensions would haunt us for decades.
If the Pact should choose to attack in winter. the Battle of the Bulge tactic, T, and hence the number of tanks killed, might be zero. At best, the A-10 or Blitzfighter can fly only about 15% of the time in winter. It is dark two-thirds of the time, and even in daylight the pilot frequently cannot see to fly, navigate or find the target because of low ceilings or haze. Russian smoke generators won’t make it any easier.
If, however, our short-sighted bean counters were willing to spend about 10% more per A-10, the A<10 fleet could kill several times as many tanks as a fleet of austere blind attack aircraft, The solution is to put a large-aperture bistatic thinned array radar in the now empty leading edge of the wing and to tie it to a simple inertial navigation system (INS) and gunsight. Such a radar can have a resolution of 4 milliradians, 20 ft. at gun range. It can detect and track tanks at 3-5 mi., and it can provide very good navigation and terrain-avoidance references in concert with the INS. Such a system could be added to
the A-10 for less than half a million each, less than 10% of the purchase price. A breadboard radar of this type was built and demonstrated several years ago on a $99K contract, but it did not transition to engineering development because there was no ROC to kill tanks at night. '
With such a system, and without adding pilots, bases or shelters, K would increase dramatically because of better target detection, and more accurate weapon delivery. T would increase from less than 0.15 to more than 0.95. (icing is a restraint.) The total tanks killed, TASK, when it counts, would be increased by a factor of more than 10, at an incremental cost of less than 1/10. In comparison, the Blitzfighter is not cost-effective.
If the Blitzfighter program goes forward, the pilots should be recruited from a' population of unmarried delinquents who have survived at least three knife fights in dark alleys. They should train by riding motorcycles in hand-to-hand combat with fire trucks and should be washed out of the program if they are washed out of the saddle. Frontal lobotomies would help, or training in megalomania at the Academy, because it will be essential that pilots of the Blitzfighter be convinced that their eyeballs are better than radars and that their aircraft is a better gun platform/missile launcher than a tracked vehicle.
ERIK BUCK
Edwards, Calif.
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