DarkAdapted

@realdaymon @WeaponsVault John Nash approves.

@WeaponsVault Every dude should hit on the one to the right. Sweeney will get mad and you will win either way. 🤷😆

@JonahDispatch It’s not a hard test. Unless you have dementia. And most of the time when I saw patients later diagnosed with Alzheimer-type dementia, it did not bother them that they did not pass it.

I will never stop laughing at the fact he’s so proud that he passed a rudimentary test to see if he’s got dementia. I mean it’s not a hard test.

@SARGENTSCRUFY @TimOnPoint I was thinking Mylar on the inside and camo on the outside.

@DarkAdapted @TimOnPoint Mylar is wrong, it's shiny in IR because it reflects. A common household umbrella works great.

Hot tip: if you’re on the receiving end of an attack, don’t take cover in one of the remaining undamaged structures. Drivers like seeing their handiwork. This applies less to aircraft that hunt with IR - AC-130s and helicopters.

Iran doesn’t have to make radioactive sources, they can just buy them. I can safely bet that there are plenty of radiological sources in Iran, they are commonly used in industry to check pipeline welds, and in healthcare. Cs-137 has a 30 year half-life, presuming the radiotherapy sources were purchased in the 1970s they still have about a quarter of their activity left — enough to give a really good dose to the bomber and enough to scare people who don’t understand much about radiation. Co-60 was the miracle radiation therapy source of the 1950s, the first megavoltage (1MeV) radiation therapy introduced. I would be absolutely shocked if the Shah’s Iran didn’t have at least one by 1970. Co-60 has a 57 year half-life, so those sources are still dangerous if mishandled. Same for Co-60 sources used for pipeline weld imaging. Radiological weapons are scary. They are most dangerous to the people who assemble and detonate them. But they will absolutely set off a fraction of the population who don’t know anything about them. I agree that a small nuclear weapon is highly unlikely, it practically requires Pu-239 to get the critical mass down to something easy enough to carry, which requires a working reactor on a specific cycle AND reprocessing to maximize Pu-239 and minimize Pu-240. I wouldn’t have interpreted Vance’s comment about a current-day threat as a tactical nuke in a vest. But a radiological source strapped to Semtex to contaminate an area and scare the US public is far from an unthinkable threat. There have been accidental exposures of Co-60 and Cs-137 multiple times over the last few decades around the world.

Sure. But were you worried that Iran's nuclear program was making Cs-137? Cesium-137 is primarily produced in industrial settings in countries with nuclear reactors, such as the United States, Russia, and several European nations. You could just as well worry about all the waste ponds from reactors. Nuclear waste ponds, also known as spent fuel pools, are common worldwide, with approximately 490,000 metric tons of radioactive spent fuel being temporarily stored in pools and dry casks at hundreds of sites globally.

Radiological weapon wouldn’t actually kill that many people but it would absolutely scare the hell out of tens of thousand of people. A few Cs-137 tandem & ovoid radiotherapy sources with 10-20lb of HE would make quite a mess and effectively scatter the cesium powder. Would be worse if they got a Co-60 source. Not ‘nuclear’, but you would be surprised how small you can make a fission implosion device. The W80 is a 3-stage, gas-boosted thermonuclear weapon, including the fusion package it’s 11” in diameter. Pull just the fission implosion part, now it’s the size of a basketball. Now, I doubt Iran could make one of those, if they got 2-point implosion figured out they could definitely put one in a backpack. The US had the SADM back in the 60s, a 600 ton fission implosion device that could be carried by one man.

No, there is no publicly known or documented case of an actual nuclear suicide vest—a wearable device strapped to a person's body, like a conventional explosive suicide vest, that functions as a functional nuclear weapon and is detonated by the wearer in a suicide attack. More BS from Vance.

@Osinttechnical Izzat RFNA? Because it looks like RFNA, and the cameraman better have the name and number of a good pulmonologist if it is RFNA.

Civilians film the remains of a liquid-fueled Iranian ballistic missile that fell on the West Bank tonight.

@cirnosad Completely wasted their kill streak bonus. Noobs and campers.

Iran has been bombing the crap out of US bases and their "death toll" has been stuck on like, what, 13? lol.

@JacksonBret_ @dmbkparker Very important note. You really don’t want to be digging out your credit card for the new CVV2 number you haven’t memorized yet when trying to figure out which divert airport you can reach. Bad timing indeed.

@DarkAdapted @dmbkparker You forgot, No subscription, thought I would lay that out there .

You need to know that in the year of our Lord 2026 these are still used to train pilots to calculate fuel consumption, wind drift, and ground speed.

My guess would be that a lot of this depends on the range at which the fighter begins its turn. Turn too early and you give the missile time to adjust. Turn too late and the missile is close enough that your lower-g turn doesn’t matter. MANPADS are dangerous particularly when targets have limited maneuverability — helicopters that are slower, planes coming in to land that have already shed energy and are committing to a straight path. They are also dangerous in large numbers, and nobody wants to fly into a known ‘thicket’ of MANPADS. Fundamentally, they are the slowest and lowest-energy anti-aircraft missile in the SAM family with the smallest warhead, and they are probably the easiest to beat for a fast-mover jet. Even a hit is not necessarily a vehicle kill, but a hit on most aircraft is a mission kill from the standpoint that the plane is highly likely to RTB immediately if they take damage. Great if you engage an incoming jet, make them pickle their bombs early and leave. Less great if you engage an exiting fighter but at least that jet is off the line until it is checked for damage and any damage repaired. ALL SAMs can be beat…in the right circumstances. All planes can be killed by SAMs…in the right circumstances. Amongst the SAMs, shoulder-fired SAMs would be the easiest to beat as they have the lowest energy budget. In general the turning circle of a slower-moving jet will be smaller than the turning circle of a faster missile. Timing the turn will determine whether the missile can compensate enough to get a hit.

@DarkAdapted @RSE_VB I tried asking Grok but answer don’t satisfy me. It focus on cracking manoeuvres and beating the manpads energy but it only works with BVR missiles. We agree manpads don’t count on TVC but still stand more Gs and are faster, also it didn’t lose look on the target

And this, kids, is why you break (turn hard) INTO a missile. You’re trying to force an overshoot, just like this.

The museum that owns that Saab Draken is going to be really pissed that someone stole it and flew it to Tehran. Now you will face the wrath of Sweden.🇸🇪 They have been neutral for ~300+ years, so that would imply they have been canning whoop-ass for a long time, and it’s time to open the lot. (Seriously, if you are this stupid it’s no wonder you think you are winning.)

🇺🇸F-16 DOWN IN🇮🇷TEHRAN

@RSE_VB “Well, honey, do you remember when we talked about compound interest?” “Yes, daddy!” “Secondaries are like compound interest, only for bombs.” “Ooooh! Wow!”

"Daddy? What are secondaries?"

Most planes don’t turn well at high speed, in fact, none really turn well at top speed, in terms of radius. This is one of the reasons rated top speeds have declined since the 1970s. Big brute that it was, the F-14 could pull 7g at Mach 2. But that still meant a turn radius larger than some countries. F-15 is still rated at Mach 2.5 F-16 Mach 2 F/A-18 at 1.6-1.4 (Super Hornets are actually a little slower than Legacy Hornets, according to official statements) F-35 Mach 1.6 F-22 Mach 2.2 (or so, not specified) Top speed used to be a bragging rights thing in the Cold War but it is considered far less important now. It’s a great way to turn fuel into CO2 but unless you are flying at max speed to catch a tanker for refueling, you will burn all your fuel in short order and be back on the ground, one way or another. The F-4 Phantom II was faster than almost all of them, but it couldn’t turn with any of those jets. It wasn’t really built to, it was a fleet defense fighter, meant to take off, go full throttle to an intercept point and shoot Sparrows at Soviet bombers carrying cruise missiles that would try to kill the carrier. The F-14 got that job next, but it could turn, too. Modern fighters after the Vietnam war are built to dogfight in the transonic speed range, somewhere between 300 and 600 mph or so. They will have optimal altitudes and speeds for turning, and the pilots will have these memorized. Part of what makes modern airframes modern is paying attention to energy management, losing as little energy as possible in turns and having the acceleration to build back energy quickly. In terms of MANPADS, they have max energy more or less when the engine burns out, and it’s not a big engine to start with. TVC on a MANPAD would likely require heroic levels of miniaturization and it would cost a LOT, for not much return. MANPADS are ambush weapons, you can do a lot with a good plan and starting with a good launch angle. Probably better to shoot more, cheaper MANPADS than go the TVC route.

@DarkAdapted @RSE_VB This situation is not a sustained turn It is also not perform at max speed but at the terminal guidance which is slower and, as you said, can’t use thrust vector control. BTW I don’t think any Misagh have this capability

Agreed, this is a break turn, not a sustained turn. Agreed, assuredly not an AIM-9X fired at a F/A-18 (Kuwaiti pilots excepted, unfortunately). Agreed, very likely a short-range SAM and almost assuredly a MANPAD. That I know of, the F/A-18’s advantages over most US fighters are tactical flexibility and maneuvering at high angles of attack. The F-16 is a legendarily good energy fighter in almost every respect but from what I have read it is limited by control laws to no more than a 25° AOA otherwise it becomes very unstable in a turn. The F/A-18 retains control authority up to something like 60° nose-up AOA, most fighter pilots say that there is no plane you want to get into a slow fight at high AOA with less than a F/A-18.

@DarkAdapted @RSE_VB Sir, I have to agree in many things, it is a very interesting post, but I also have to disagree in some of the assumptions. This should be a larger conversation but some considerations are, a F18 is as agile as an F16? AIM 9 are not a mampad(probably was a Misagh) 1/2

@dmbkparker They will be used at least until the 24th Century, according to the Historical Documents.

An AIM-9X under thrust hits Mach 4 (briefly) and thanks to thrust vectoring can turn at a reported 60g. With helmet cueing they can hit targets beside you, or even behind you. Reportedly the R-73 and its variants can do this, too. But to @RSE_VB ‘s point, even pulling 60g, at Mach 4 the AIM-9X cannot out-turn a F-16 pulling 9g at optimal turning speed for the F-16 — speed = bigger turning circle, even with the ability to turn at 6 times the g-load. Grok can do the math for you (it did for me, which is how I know :P). Now, the AIM-9X is a pretty smart missile and if it realizes it’s not going to win a turning circle fight with the target it might try one or more of the tricks higher-speed planes use when they will overshoot a lower speed target — high yo-yo, low yo-yo, whatever. The limiting factors in the engagement are the pilot’s ability to hold max g in a circle and not eat a missile from someone else, and the jet’s ability maintain energy in the turn (F-16s are REALLY good and not losing much energy in a turn, but losing a little over time is still losing), and maintain speed at max g. I’m not a combat pilot or a DCS ace, but a F-16 doing swirlies in the sky in an 800’ or whatever circle WILL run out of energy. You can put the nose down to trade altitude for KE and keep turning, but the ground will eventually win, and while you are doing a one-man Luftbury circle you aren’t building up any energy to do anything else — like GTFO of a full-defensive position. The pilot cannot sustain 9g for long without a break, and even if the pilot passes out and the avionics realize this and restore straight and level flight, the F-16 is now a non-maneuvering target until the pilot wakes up. The limitation on the missile is the energy budget, plus I don’t believe the 60g is a sustained turn rate. When the engine burns out you lose TVC and that instantaneous turn rate drops to whatever your control surfaces can manage. And trying to turn with a F-16 will eat a lot of your energy budget, that ~14+ mile range under ‘optimal conditions’ just got very non-optimal, Range after a hard, sustained turn is probably 25% of what’s on the tin, because ‘optimal’ is more like ‘come off the rail at Mach 1+ at 30,000’, climb under sustained thrust, dive without ever turning and then impact the target’.

@Gonz_NRoses @DarkAdapted True, but their turn radius at speed isn’t good.

The other option is a second stage. Why drag around an empty casing for 40-50km or more? Arguments for not staging: 1. Weight = KE if terminal attack is coming from above. It’s still weight, but the drag doesn’t increase, and building in things like strakes on the body can actually offset the weight penalty (eg, AARGM-ER) 2. More control surfaces retained = more authority in maneuvering. 3. You would have to put batteries/actuators into the segment you didn’t eject at staging, meaning you don’t save as much weight as you think. 4. Staging problems are a great way to turn a good lock and successful firing into a miss and loss of the missile. Arguments for staging: 1. Weight and aerodynamic efficiency, less mass in the kill vehicle = easier to change vector. 2. Thrust vector control in the second stage can make up for lost control surfaces. 3. Burnout of the first stage BVR and ejection with ballistic flight toward the target = little visual signal until the second stage ignites. 4. Multi-modal seeker with IR in terminal phase = low emissions, in essence you are dropping a dogfight missile on them from a plane they can’t even see, that their RWR might not have even flagged due to LPI targeting. They have a highly-maneuverable second stage on them with its own no-escape zone starting much closer to the target and they don’t even know they are in a fight. We’ll see.

@DarkAdapted @RSE_VB That’s a follow. Sat next to a Raytheon engineer on a flight a while back and discussed the pros and cons of pulse rocket motors for adding a dab of KE to the terminal phase.

@heat17248 @RSE_VB Perspective. I believe it exploded well behind the jet, where countermeasures want it to explode. Video provides little Z-axis information.

@DarkAdapted @RSE_VB Sure but every flares they’ll be some smoke discharge as it gets ejected. Maybe can’t see that here. If they did get deployed then the missile certainly wasn’t decoyed as it hit the cans exactly as designed.

The problem for the current Iranian government is that as their security apparatus is picked apart from the air, they are increasingly trapped inside those mountains with the people who want them at a minimum replaced, and more likely executed for their crimes. We aren’t coming over those mountains. Either as conquerors, or to save the regime from the consequences of their actions. But thanks for the pretty geography pictures. Amazing that people are cheering for the autocratic government that handles protesters with machine guns, midnight executions and rape-as-deterrence, but hey…you do you.

Dear Mr Trump, These are mountains you will face in Iran. No army with 20kg equipments, convoys of humvee and abrams could march through this. No Tomahawk missiles and munitions could punch a hole in this mountains. This is not a country built with fortress, this is a fortress built as a country. With all due respect, you will not win.