2nd poster is right, Navair has been hyperfucked since the A-12 shit the bed. No A-6s, no Cats, no Sneaky Dorritos, just 400nm tactical radius bugs when every ASCM worth mentioning is 500nm+ range. Plus half the fucking fleet is trapped out because we went down to basically one airframe for every possible mission.
IDK about for the USAF but the Navy was hyperfucked by the collapse of the late cold war programs
While Project Pluto is unironically the coolest military project in history, it was also a bonafide Doomsday Device™, so there are two reasons to be pissed that it was cancelled.
The fucking Project Pluto at the end KEK! Anyone have that copypast of the alt history cold war gone hot from the perspective of a soviet soldier who gets razzle-dazzled by a Pluto scram missile?
Project Pluto could have fixed global warming and the vatnagger problem, but you didn't listen. Soon you won't be able to heat yourself with wood and make BBQ while the richfags will fly in private jets that polute more than a whole city BBQ output in a decade. Truly the worse timeline
with the amount of autistic security around current day nuclear stuff(at least in the west) and combine it with the same autism for aviation disaster prevention and the fact a pro-nuclear timeline would have better tech, I'd say it would be even less deadly than our current aviation
also I'd bet air-breathing nuclear engines would probably allow for some massive planes reducing the amount of plane needed or maybe using nuclear energy to have massively strong hot-air balloon
If pure fusion air-breathing exist then there would be literally be no downside
>fusion air-breathing engines
This is your brain on drugs >less deadly
How do you shield the people inside from radiation? How do you make sure you're not making contrails filled with radioactive isotopes?
>How do you shield the people inside from radiation?
Aight, fair enough. However, how do you shield the people inside from radiation without requiring 50% of the takeoff weight of your plane to be lead blocks?
1 month ago
Anonymous
nta but from the IRL proposals >However, how do you shield the people inside from radiation without requiring 50% of the takeoff weight of your plane to be lead blocks?
Make it big, unironically, was the default for two reasons. First nuclear scales well, and blended wing bodies do as well in a military context. Nuclear solves the problem of power and offers advantages in terms of being able to keep something in the air for years at a time. Second radiation falls off with the square of distance, the amount you receive 20' away from a reactor is 100x as strong as if you're 200' away. 660' and now it's dropped by a factor of 1000x, even with zero shielding. So make an aircraft big and just have the reactor far away from the crew area, and shielding requirements plummet. Remember as well you only need any shielding in a directional manner, like if the reactor is all the way at the back only the arc in front of it needs to be shielded, at 40000' above the ocean or low population areas (particularly enemy ones) it's fine to let an aircraft scale one just free radiate.
Anyway even in the 50s and 60s they thought it was technically feasible. It's just that the military and economic case was always shaky and then faded to near zero. Aircraft carriers are more useful overall than Skycarriers.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Indirect cycle engines were garbagio, you nuclear jet engine people are the electric jet people except inverted, your TWR is shit and can't propel anything even if you can fly forever
1 month ago
Anonymous
I wonder why a non-flying experimental prototype from 60 years ago has such a terrible thrust-to-weight ratio.
imagine the horror stories told by the poor sons of bitch third world freedom fighters who live to see their freinds get asymetrically vaporized by such a 1 sided piece of infantry weaponry
the constant awareness that at any point a fucking nitwit 19 yr old PVT can send a 25mm airburst to detonate in your face behind whatever form of hard cover you thought you had, just because he's on the winning team and you're on the losing team. would end wars pretty quick.
imagine the horror stories told by the poor sons of bitch third world freedom fighters who live to see their freinds get asymetrically vaporized by such a 1 sided piece of infantry weaponry
the constant awareness that at any point a fucking nitwit 19 yr old PVT can send a 25mm airburst to detonate in your face behind whatever form of hard cover you thought you had, just because he's on the winning team and you're on the losing team. would end wars pretty quick.
It was heavy as shit, it removed a rifleman from the infantry squad, there were questions over a 25mm grenade's effectiveness in general, and there were some reliability issues (which admittedly would have been fixable if the program had continued).
>It was heavy as shit
Significantly lighter than a SAW. Its asinine to expect a mag-fed grenade launcher to match weight with a carbine. >it removed a rifleman from the infantry squad
It didnt have to, any more so than an AT4 does; something which is heavier than an XM25 >there were questions over a 25mm grenade's effectiveness in general
Certainly, but concerns that never manifested in combat testing. Airborne were ending engagements before they began and only had glowing feedback to give. >there were some reliability issues
The only issue it had in terms of reliability was one failure-to-feed detonation; which was user-induced. If dumbfucks keep the cap on the grenades as instructed, they get to keep their hands.
Im not disputing that those are the reasons it was cancelled, because they are, but theyre all fucking stupid.
1 month ago
Anonymous
An XM25 and M4, along with their ammunition, would weigh 51lbs.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Though to be fair, I got that number off wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt.
The BF2142 rifle rockets worked like this, very strong weapon. >The rocket's self-detonation distance can be set by holding Aim. The mouse wheel adjusts this distance in 2m increments. Aiming at an object will automatically set the distance to that object, which can be used to target an enemy's cover and adjust as needed.
The program has been restarted for a couple of years, so were going to see results soon. FN has already revealed their bid, and there are ~5 other companies expressing interest. Remains to be seen whether H&K will reuse the XM25 or offer something new.
The F-22 is honestly overkill for anything the US faces, and it's hard to maintain and has no cross compatibility, realistically what would it even fight against that would be worth the added costs? The Russian rustbuckets we are seeing flown in Ukraine would get btfo by F-16 let alone an F-22. China? All they have are inferior copies of old Russian planes.
imma be real chief, as cool as Pluto was, that 2as a good call. it's a pinnacle of horrific weapons, even more hateful and destructive than ICBMs. we made the right choice stepping back from that.
The pitfalls of weakening enemy nations. It’s the reason I’m rooting for China right now. If they keep it up, we’ll actually see push for adoption of new weapons.
Otherwise, it’ll just be stagnation since the US will be king of the hill and no enemy competition to drive funding for development. Unless you want development in anti-terrorism tech.
F-16XL 🙁
ugly
Duality of man subverted by tight digits of truth.
F-16XL-chan remains sexy.
pretty
So thicc, so hott, we were so robbed.
idk, probably israelites
They don’t. The grass is not actually greener.
Wrong
I sleep at night dreaming of a world where the Super Tomcat exists instead of the Rhino.
WE WERE FUCKING ROBBED GOD DAMNIT
2nd poster is right, Navair has been hyperfucked since the A-12 shit the bed. No A-6s, no Cats, no Sneaky Dorritos, just 400nm tactical radius bugs when every ASCM worth mentioning is 500nm+ range. Plus half the fucking fleet is trapped out because we went down to basically one airframe for every possible mission.
IDK about for the USAF but the Navy was hyperfucked by the collapse of the late cold war programs
Because "cool shit" is usually not as effective or useful as practical shit.
While Project Pluto is unironically the coolest military project in history, it was also a bonafide Doomsday Device™, so there are two reasons to be pissed that it was cancelled.
The More You Know.
The fucking Project Pluto at the end KEK! Anyone have that copypast of the alt history cold war gone hot from the perspective of a soviet soldier who gets razzle-dazzled by a Pluto scram missile?
>pluto gets cancelled because "too scary"
>russians just make it anyway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik
Project Pluto could have fixed global warming and the vatnagger problem, but you didn't listen. Soon you won't be able to heat yourself with wood and make BBQ while the richfags will fly in private jets that polute more than a whole city BBQ output in a decade. Truly the worse timeline
What happens when your nuclear powered plane crashes thoughbeit
then the poors get irradiated
you will survive since you will parachute out
Detonation, hopefully. It was a weapon, after all.
with the amount of autistic security around current day nuclear stuff(at least in the west) and combine it with the same autism for aviation disaster prevention and the fact a pro-nuclear timeline would have better tech, I'd say it would be even less deadly than our current aviation
also I'd bet air-breathing nuclear engines would probably allow for some massive planes reducing the amount of plane needed or maybe using nuclear energy to have massively strong hot-air balloon
If pure fusion air-breathing exist then there would be literally be no downside
>fusion air-breathing engines
This is your brain on drugs
>less deadly
How do you shield the people inside from radiation? How do you make sure you're not making contrails filled with radioactive isotopes?
>How do you make sure you're not making contrails filled with radioactive isotopes?
Closed-cycle engines.
>Closed-cycle engines.
I meant "indirect cycle"
>How do you shield the people inside from radiation?
Aight, fair enough. However, how do you shield the people inside from radiation without requiring 50% of the takeoff weight of your plane to be lead blocks?
nta but from the IRL proposals
>However, how do you shield the people inside from radiation without requiring 50% of the takeoff weight of your plane to be lead blocks?
Make it big, unironically, was the default for two reasons. First nuclear scales well, and blended wing bodies do as well in a military context. Nuclear solves the problem of power and offers advantages in terms of being able to keep something in the air for years at a time. Second radiation falls off with the square of distance, the amount you receive 20' away from a reactor is 100x as strong as if you're 200' away. 660' and now it's dropped by a factor of 1000x, even with zero shielding. So make an aircraft big and just have the reactor far away from the crew area, and shielding requirements plummet. Remember as well you only need any shielding in a directional manner, like if the reactor is all the way at the back only the arc in front of it needs to be shielded, at 40000' above the ocean or low population areas (particularly enemy ones) it's fine to let an aircraft scale one just free radiate.
Anyway even in the 50s and 60s they thought it was technically feasible. It's just that the military and economic case was always shaky and then faded to near zero. Aircraft carriers are more useful overall than Skycarriers.
Indirect cycle engines were garbagio, you nuclear jet engine people are the electric jet people except inverted, your TWR is shit and can't propel anything even if you can fly forever
I wonder why a non-flying experimental prototype from 60 years ago has such a terrible thrust-to-weight ratio.
It was meant to loiter over the ocean.
What could have been...
imagine the horror stories told by the poor sons of bitch third world freedom fighters who live to see their freinds get asymetrically vaporized by such a 1 sided piece of infantry weaponry
the constant awareness that at any point a fucking nitwit 19 yr old PVT can send a 25mm airburst to detonate in your face behind whatever form of hard cover you thought you had, just because he's on the winning team and you're on the losing team. would end wars pretty quick.
What is it
The XM25 grenade launcher, which fired programmable airburst 25mm grenades.
Looks pretty cool
Why was it cancelled?
Ammo was too small, literally a war crime on the technical level
You're retarded.
It was heavy as shit, it removed a rifleman from the infantry squad, there were questions over a 25mm grenade's effectiveness in general, and there were some reliability issues (which admittedly would have been fixable if the program had continued).
i wonder if it wouldn't be better as a standalone single shot launcher with 40mm
That might be a more practical way of doing it, especially since the optics and fire control system would be two decades newer (and lighter).
Considering an airburst round for the MAAWS is already in service, I think we may have leapfrogged 40mm entirely.
Isn't the airburst round just a mechanical time fuse?
>It was heavy as shit
Significantly lighter than a SAW. Its asinine to expect a mag-fed grenade launcher to match weight with a carbine.
>it removed a rifleman from the infantry squad
It didnt have to, any more so than an AT4 does; something which is heavier than an XM25
>there were questions over a 25mm grenade's effectiveness in general
Certainly, but concerns that never manifested in combat testing. Airborne were ending engagements before they began and only had glowing feedback to give.
>there were some reliability issues
The only issue it had in terms of reliability was one failure-to-feed detonation; which was user-induced. If dumbfucks keep the cap on the grenades as instructed, they get to keep their hands.
Im not disputing that those are the reasons it was cancelled, because they are, but theyre all fucking stupid.
An XM25 and M4, along with their ammunition, would weigh 51lbs.
Though to be fair, I got that number off wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt.
The BF2142 rifle rockets worked like this, very strong weapon.
>The rocket's self-detonation distance can be set by holding Aim. The mouse wheel adjusts this distance in 2m increments. Aiming at an object will automatically set the distance to that object, which can be used to target an enemy's cover and adjust as needed.
wtf
i didnt know that
The Army really thought 25mm airburst grenades were the coming thing back in the 90s.
A shot of the controls
And it could be converted to fire .50 BMG in less than two minutes.
32lbs. lighter than the M2 btw
Kriss said they could reduce the weight of the M2 by 50% and recoil by 90%. Never happened. Oh what could have been.
>Membrane switches on high use surfaces
But why?
Some waterproofing requirement maybe?
How deep is the rubber eyepiece extension? How many centimeters of grown male's cock can it fit before one starts hitting the glass?
Why is he shooting a Brit?
1776 is the original never forget
The program has been restarted for a couple of years, so were going to see results soon. FN has already revealed their bid, and there are ~5 other companies expressing interest. Remains to be seen whether H&K will reuse the XM25 or offer something new.
The F-22 is honestly overkill for anything the US faces, and it's hard to maintain and has no cross compatibility, realistically what would it even fight against that would be worth the added costs? The Russian rustbuckets we are seeing flown in Ukraine would get btfo by F-16 let alone an F-22. China? All they have are inferior copies of old Russian planes.
imma be real chief, as cool as Pluto was, that 2as a good call. it's a pinnacle of horrific weapons, even more hateful and destructive than ICBMs. we made the right choice stepping back from that.
The pitfalls of weakening enemy nations. It’s the reason I’m rooting for China right now. If they keep it up, we’ll actually see push for adoption of new weapons.
Otherwise, it’ll just be stagnation since the US will be king of the hill and no enemy competition to drive funding for development. Unless you want development in anti-terrorism tech.
Mach 4.8 kinetic anti-tank missile on a HMMWV, yo.
UNF