Bring F-89 and F-94 back as Shahed killers.

[Archibald]

It happened after seeing a Rafale with SMB-2 & Mirage V SNB 68 mm rocket pods underwing. We can do better than that. We need aircraft designed from the drawing board with shit tons of rockets.

And thus, behold... Bring back the FFAR interceptors of 70 years ago: the F-94C with its rocket nose, the F-89D with its huge wing tip pods. How many FFARs is that ? a hundred ?

Give that plane modern turbofans, with its subsonic velocity it can fly circles into the sky for hours, waiting for Shahed waves. The RIO in the pack will handle the laser guidance system for the FFARs, think AKPWS II. As Cold War interceptors those planes were designed for QRA, which is perfect.

Seriously, Northrop and Lockheed are still around, they should dust off their F-94C and F-89D. THIS is the kind of firepower we need against Shaheds.

 

[Archibald]

Lockheed F-97/F-94C Starfire

The two YF-94Cs continued to be used for tests of the improved fire control system and the all-rocket armament. The all-rocket armament consisted of twenty-four 2.75-inch Folding-Fin Aircraft Rockets (FFAR) mounted in four groups surrounding the APG-40 radome in the nose.

Northrop F-89D Scorpion

The F-89D differed from the F-89C in having the armament of six 20-mm cannon replaced by an all-rocket armament. The rocket launching pods were housed in the forward edges of each of the wingtip fuel tanks. These tanks were longer and had a larger diameter than the 300-gallon tanks carried by the F-89C. The forward third of each tank contained a series of launch tubes for 52 2.75-inch Folding Fin Aircraft Rockets (FFAR). These rockets were known as Mighty Mouse, after a well-known cartoon character ("Here I come to save the day"). The outer ring of tubes had metal doors convering the rockets, while the inner honeycomb of tube were each covered with individual protective plastic caps.These rockets were unguided and had an effective range of about 2000 yards and were equipped with high-explosive warheads. The rear two thirds of the tank was taken up by 308 gallons of fuel. The pilot could select several options when firing the rocket armament. The 104 rockets could all be fired at once, all the rockets leaving the tubes in only four-tenths of a second. When fired at once, the rockets could blanket an area the size of a football field, enveloping the target in a pattern reminiscent of a shotgun blast. One hit was deemed sufficient to bring down a bomber. The rockets could also be ripple fired, the pilot being able to select two ripples (82 and 42 rockets) or three ripples (42,32, and 30 rockets).

Northrop F-89H Scorpion

So the total weapons load of the F-89H was six Falcons and 42 2.75-inch FFARs.

Thanks @Motocar
-24 rockets in a F-94D like nose
-102 rockets in the pod
-(total 126 rockets!)
-moar rockets carried in Matra JL-100 hybrid fuel tanks, underwing (2 or 4 of them)
- https://heller-forever.forumactif.c...ettes-et-reservoir-supplementaire-matra-jl100
-turbofan engines for maximum loitering
-a small radar in the nose
-a laser guidance system for all these rockets
-the RIO in the back handles the laser guidance system

- 18 FFAR per JL-100, that's 36 more rockets on top of 126, total 162 FFARs...

 

[Archibald]

And thus, all things done... with 162 rockets per interceptor, only 5 of them can decimate an entire night worth of russian Shahed waves... 810 drones.
-24 rockets in the nose
-102 rockets in tip pods
-36 underwing in two JL-100 (or 72 if four JL-100 are carried, total 198 rockets in that case !)

So you want cheap antidrone firepower ? this is firewpower lol.

 

[Archibald]

Funny to think that 70 years after the F-89D we are back to A2A rockets. Because all those AAMs painfully made to work after their Vietnam miseries... are too expensive to shoot ultra cheap drones. Which btw already existed back then: Ryan Firebees.

After 70 years spent developping workable AAMs, things have gone full circle.We are back to F-89 shooting down Firebees with their FFARs.

 

[pathology_doc]

At least these days it's not difficult to develop a cheap, quick-to-make seeker that will do an acceptable job against a drone.

 

[Dilandu]

Why bother? A typical F-16 could carry up to three 7-tube rocket pods for 70-mm Hydra's under each of his four main pylons:



It's 21 rockets per pylon - up to 84 rockets per plane, if all four main pylons are used. With added guidance modules on rockets and laser targeting pod under belly, it would work as good as old F-89D.

 

[red admiral]

After 70 years spent developping workable AAMs, things have gone full circle.We are back to F-89 shooting down Firebees with their FFARs.

We're still talking about guided AAMs today. These 70mm rockets aren't that dissimilar in performance to the early AAMs.

It's fine to carry lots of weapons, but it still takes time to fly to intercept a target, manouvre to engage, shoot, look whether its hit, maybe shoot again etc. At some point you can't actually use all those extra weapons you're carrying around.

e.g. your example of 162 rockets per aircraft. Even if you start engaging one per minute (somehow) immediately after take-off then you'll run out of fuel before running out of weapons

 

[Desertfox]

Just throw 6 rocket pods on a AT-6B... That's 42 APKWS on a cheap, in-production, airframe, that has sensors, a second crewmember, and good range.

 

[Archibald]

Duly noted. It was part tongue-in-cheek, part to compare a F-89 rocket load with present AKPWS II carriers (so thanks @Dilandu @red admiral and @Desertfox )

 

[Wotan]

A Mig-21 Lancer equiped with 2x32 rockets pods (total 64 rockets), 2 IR AA missiles (if you find Something more juicy like a cruise missile) and a recce pod, good for finding targets with low radar signature..

The F-89 and F-94 are since long time retired, but you can still find perfectly functional Mig-21s at bargain prices.

 

[Dilandu]

e.g. your example of 162 rockets per aircraft. Even if you start engaging one per minute (somehow) immediately after take-off then you'll run out of fuel before running out of weapons

Those rockets were supposed to be fired in salvoes, dozens per salvo (the exact number of rockets per salvo was set by pilot). The whole idea was to make a head-on attack on enemy bombers, with automatic fire control firing the rocket salvo when distance to the target drop to pre-calculated value. So the real suplly was basically 2-4 attacks at most.