Aircraft

I still think it is the most beautiful airplane ever made. 

I think I might have mentioned that there is one here in Addison, Texas at the Cavanaugh Flight Museum. I was surprised how small it was. I was perhaps even more surprised when the guide mentioned that parts for the plane had to be custom made as all industrial production had ceased years before. As I recall, he said that each aluminum rivet of the plane had to be removed from the plane's skin and replaced with a newly made rivet. All done by hand. It was worth it. 

The final 747 was recently rolled out at Boeing. The 747's first commercial flight was in January of 1970. My first trip abroad, which was in June 1971, was aboard a Lufthansa 747 to Frankfurt. In December 1979, I flew from Singapore to Dallas on what was probably the same plane, which had been sold to Braniff Airlines.

The 747 was the best plane I ever traveled on. It was well designed, spacious, comfortable, sometimes elegant and solid. On one flight, an engine went out and nobody but a stewardess and I seemed to notice. That's how good it was.

The 747 was queen of the skies during the period in which I did most of my travel, i.e. 1971 through 2000. Since that time, two engine planes such as the 777 and 787 have taken over most long-haul routes.

It has been years since I set foot on a 747, but I hope to have the opportunity one more time before I take off for the big hanger in the sky.

747

That is a lot of planes for a long time and certainly worth noting. I never had the pleasure to fly in one. I did a 727 though.

You are right. It is not a good video. The British voice narrating the thing is more than a little irritating. If someone is going to produce something like this, they should try and do a much better job. There were numerous factual errors. But the premise that an F-15 could hit all six Japanese aircraft carriers with JDAMS is likely correct. 

It made me think of a 1980s movie The Final Conflict in which the Nimitz went back to Dec. 7, 1941 through a time warp and ended up near Pearl Harbor. 

I didn't want to be so brutal, but since you went there, I will join in .    In addition to what you mentioned, the F-15 was dropping chaff. This is complete nonsense as chaff is to fool heat-seeking missiles, and no such thing existed in 1941. 

Japanese radar might pick up something 90 miles out, but it would not understand was was moving at at least double or triple the speed of 1940s era airplanes. 

It would take the Zeros at least 7 minutes to reach 20,000 feet but what would they be looking for as the F-15 would have moved along from the spot they last saw it. 

Properly leading one's moving target is something that does not come naturally for most, especially when the target is moving faster than what happens in nature, i.e. shooting deer, etc. The Zero pilots would have been trained to lead their targets on basis of something moving about 200-300 mph. At its slowest speed, the F-15 would me moving about double that rate. The Zeros would be shooting thousands of feet behind the F-15, if that. The Zeros big weapons were 2 x 20 mm cannons. These held 60 rounds each. Figure it out. 

For these, the reasons you mentioned and others, I simply think this is a bad video. The silly Brit who narrated it made it unbearable. 

I think similar computer simulations are used to calculate "Climate Change" is about to destroy the earth. 

Here's the logical follow-up: Could A Single Modern US Cruiser Have Won The 1942 Battle Of Midway?



Again, this is a cheesy production. The only reason I would have you watch it is the enjoyment of reading your blistering comments.

They choose a single (unsupported by AWACS) Ticonderoga-class cruiser with the support of five helicopters, which throws the whole thing into a joke from the get go. That class can apparently carry two helicopters, max.

With no AWACS, it has to launch it's missiles relatively closely. I forget the stand-off distance. And although the production again is quite lame, it garners over 14,000 "Oh my god, you guys are tech gods" thumbs-up. As Mr. Kung said, these are likely the same idiots who go in for the climate "models."

They equip the cruiser with what they say is a realistic assortment of missiles if you were preparing for a mission such as this. They don't have enough anti-aircraft missiles to do much more than put a dent in the Japanese fighters and bombers, so they rely on the five helicopters for defense, although it would appear the cruiser makes good use of its Phalanx CIWS Gatling gun. Again, it would have been nice if they would have done some in-simulation commentary and analysis to show the progress of the battle. What you get is a bunch of idiots playing couch soldier.

But at the end – and despite the five helicopters – the results seem believable: When the cruiser launches the giant salvo of missiles (which, if I remember correctly, they don't really tell you they're going to do that, or that the simulation has done that), it takes down a number of ships. But two carriers are left standing and undamaged. And the Zeros are too many for the cruiser to survive. This was a one-way mission.

And apparently the missiles have zero effect on the battleships, including the Yamato. So these guys do mention at some point that they think the simulation has stopped targeting the battleships because of this. Again, some kind of organized progress-of-the-battle would have been appreciated instead of the girlish screams from that British idiot.

One commenter writes:



Probably true. But the simulation allowed the Japs to throw everything at them which made it interesting.

I have not yet watched the video, but you have already pointed to the only serious question which I might have about this whole thought experiment. How much ordinance does a Ticonderoga Class cruiser carry?

I just did a quick check and one cruiser carries more than enough firepower to sink not only the aircraft carriers, but a number of other vessels as well. I suspect they could sink a Japanese Battle Wagon, but there is no doubt Japanese cruisers would go down.  The newer Ticonderoga Class cruisers have 122 vertical launch missile cells. Figure a minimum of 30-to-40 Tomahawk missiles. 

That all sounds like a quite logical solution.

Artler, I don't know if this is true or not. But one commenter said that without AWACS, there was no way to target just the carriers. I also wondered about using one of the helicopters as a spotter. I guess these guys are more gamers than they are military professionals. I give your above post 15,000 "likes." It's just that there seems to be a limit on how many it will show.

The ship doesn't need a full boat AWACS all they need is a radar uplink to a hielo at about 10,000 feet. modern radar can distinguish a row boat from an aircraft carrier and tell how many people are in them and what they are having for lunch. With that uplink they can easily have onto the second targeting info on the entire fleet. Modern ship to ship missiles have a range of up to 500 miles, some further and top speeds of just under mach 1, say 600 mph. With TOT figured in all Japaneses carriers would blow up within seconds of each other and the rest of the fleet would never have any warning. Then the BB and heavy CA and if any missiles left the DD. My guess is less than a half hour to destroy the entire invasion fleet. Then have lunch.