Air Force Wing-in-Ground Effect (WIGE) concept armed with Tomahawk missiles

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Hannyeojin@reddit

at this point just build an SSBN or an SSGN and just upgrade its radar and missile range

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It's ironic to me that the two superpowers of the late 20th century both had massive inland seas, the only place where a military ekranoplan actually makes sense, and in both cases they were unnecessary. The US doesn't need to worry about Canada, and Russia didn't need to worry about Iran.

There's no one else that could really use them, right? I guess maybe the outback is flat enough if you kept to a 40 ft altitude, but even the Mediterranean regularly had high enough seas to make large flying boats troublesome, right?

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Zengineer_83@reddit

and Russia didn't need to worry about Iran.

But they DID have to worry about temporarily nuclear-armed NATO-Member Turkey.

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Captain_Slime@reddit

You never know. Maybe the americans would drop one on the caspian and the ONLY counter to something like that would be the soviets using their own.

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xrelaht@reddit

Dropped… how? And why would we go to that trouble when a submarine can launch them without being spotted at all?

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cwajgapls@reddit

How do Americans get a submarine into the cast?

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iwannaberockstar@reddit

How do Americans get a submarine into the caspian?

From the ekranoplan of course.

TBH I think they meant launching tomahawks from a submarine from an ocean nearby, as tomahawks have a good enough range on it own.

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Dpek1234@reddit

From low earth orbit/s

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DarkArcher__@reddit

It wouldn't be all that difficult to get some Fox 2s on that thing. It's a big tanky target, but what's it gonna do against a cold war era fighter jet? Run away at 300 knots?

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KerPop42@reddit

I think the idea of the ekranoplan was that it stayed low enough that radar would have trouble picking it out of the terrain. Definitely susceptible to human-guided fire, though; due to the low altitude and air-cushion effect, it couldn't bank to turn well

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DarkArcher__@reddit

Fox 2s are IR guided, so they'll go after the big hot jet engines regardless of altitude

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KerPop42@reddit

Ah, in that case yeah losing the tail would be easy; would the water spray help at all?

For reference, the leading engines were turned off after takeoff, they were only needed to force air under the wings. At cruise it was just the tail engines.

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leostotch@reddit

The water’s surface would give the IR seeker a nice, cold, uniform surface to provide a high-contrast background to the engine exhaust.

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Dpek1234@reddit

would the water spray help at all?

Maybe if it could get in the path of the exhaust to cool it down

Although i wouldnt exacly rely on that

all aspect fox2, some later fox1s and fox3s would have no problem

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dirty_hooker@reddit

Thanks for that detail. I had wondered about the engine placement but chocked it up to Russians doing Russian things.

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Pootis_1@reddit

Still need to locate it with radar first

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ThePhukkening@reddit

Out of missiles, switching to guns.

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Captain_Slime@reddit

Nuh uh, I want to see them duke it out over the surface of the Caspian. Obviously the USAF is keeping the entire Soviet Air Force's attention.

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aliennick4812@reddit

Not taking "US Navy deploys Ekranoplanes into the Black Sea" iff my 2925 bingo card.

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francis2559@reddit

I would watch this movie.

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isaac32767@reddit

A year ago, the US didn't need to worry about Canada. Now...

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cat_prophecy@reddit

Great lakes definitely have high enough waves to fuck with with a ground effect vehicle.

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Pootis_1@reddit

Ekranoplans are weird in that the larger they are the higher they fly. So if you have a really big ekranoplan it can fly high enough to ignore really rough seas.

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KerPop42@reddit

It's not just the cruise that I'm considering, though. It also has to take off in some sea states

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Pootis_1@reddit

We have sheletered harbours

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JakobSejer@reddit

Deserts?

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window_owl@reddit

The ground effect scales linearly with wingspan, so if a large aircraft can stay in ground effect at 40 feet, then an enormous aircraft could stay in ground effect at 80 feet. I imagine there were a few strategists or designers who were dreaming of using these aircraft to prove the idea and justify the construction of monstrous ocean-going ground-effect vessels.

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vikster16@reddit

That’s the thing. Ekranoplanes the size of like a medium aircraft carrier can basically become the most lethal platform in the world. It can go anywhere in the world within a day.

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ackermann@reddit

If ground effect flight is more efficient than normal flight (I assume that’s the point of these), then why do most designs seem to have more engines than similarly sized normal airplanes?

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window_owl@reddit

They need enormous thrust to overcome the drag of the water and get into the air. Once airborne, they can throttle down, and many of the engines may be shut down altogether. The engines out front are there specifically to help blow more air past the wing (and even under it) to help get off the ground.

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xrelaht@reddit

Perhaps it will have new life: the Caribbean is pretty calm and we’ve been doing… stuff there lately.

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Jessie_C_2646@reddit

Not so calm this time of year though.

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Cetun@reddit

I mean planes very quickly became able to carry large anti ship missiles with the bonus that they can be deployed anywhere and also they can fly higher.

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KerPop42@reddit

So my understanding is that the flying lower was the main draw; you could avoid radar while traveling at airplane speeds. The two versions the soviets looked at was a missile carrier a la the Moskva, and a transport carrier. The US actually looked at something similar in the 90s and I think again recently, because the idea of "the capacity of a cargo ship, but the speed of a cargo plane" is pretty attractive. If you want to see how that ended up, look up the Boeing Pelican

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Cetun@reddit

I mean normal planes can fly at the same altitude. The only real advantage was you could "land" it anywhere there was water and perhaps soft ground.

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KarlBob@reddit

Iran currently operates some small ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Bavar_2

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Dpek1234@reddit

is designed to have a small radar signature, and therefore be difficult to track on radar,

Lol

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FrenchMaddy75@reddit

Wow ! Didnt know that.

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CatThe@reddit

China invading Taiwan would absolutely have a need.

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KerPop42@reddit

A need? Sure. But a capability? How often is the straight between Formosa and the mainland peaceful?

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skeptical-speculator@reddit

I wonder if someone thought that they could be used as ICBM platforms. The idea of having a bunch of those things zooming around an inland sea to preserve a second strike capability may have been tempting.

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Raguleader@reddit

What's fun is that historically the US has fought a few naval battles on the Great Lakes during the American Revolution and War of 1812 (the Battle of Valcour Island is a trip to read about, and not only because of who the American naval commander was). Also the use of Sable and Wolverine to train naval aviators during WWII.

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USSMarauder@reddit

Remember that up until the late 1970s, Iran was a major US ally. That's how they got F14 tomcats

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SuperEtenbard@reddit

It has a use as a mobile and hard to hit platform, makes the enemy have to nuke the Great Lakes or Caspian with a lot of throw weights

In theory you could hide subs in Lake Superior or deeper parts of the Caspian where enemy ASW wouldn’t be able to touch them as a second strike.

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syringistic@reddit

Baltic Sea? Not really known for rough waves, and a big border between Soviet Bloc and Western Europe. I feel like Ekranoplans launched from Kaliningrad would have made sense.

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RoebuckThirtyFour@reddit

Baltic Sea? Not really known for rough waves,

Ms Estonia would disagree

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desperatetapemeasure@reddit

Boy. Baltic can be a roller coaster. You might not get much beyond 20ft seas, but you can easily get some nasty 10ft crossswell. My worst seasickness was on the baltic.

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KerPop42@reddit

Yeah, judging by the photos I've seen 10 ft seas would've probably disabled these monsters :(

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KerPop42@reddit

Okay yeah, I could see that. Plus it meets the need of being able to quickly deploy things; the sea bases could be deeper into the baltic, deployed from safety, but quickly reach the front lines. Plus they'd be immune to mining

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TacTurtle@reddit

Mediterranean Sea

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BeardyBennett@reddit

Huh, I have somehow never heard of seen an ekranoplan before. Can somebody explain to me what exactly the plan was with these? Do they hover or constantly move around? Were they meant as mobile missile stations? Why use this and not a boat?

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Miuramir@reddit

They are much faster than a boat (~20x); significantly faster than hovercraft (~5x) and generally longer ranged; and can carry roughly three times the cargo weight compared to a similar conventional airplane.

From a military standpoint, they are immune to torpedoes and mines, move fast enough that traditional guns may have difficulty tracking them, and fly close enough to the water that traditional anti-aircraft defenses may have difficulty engaging them.

The two most likely uses, both of which have some historical justification, are as fast amphibious assault transports (much faster than hovercraft, faster and more weight than heavy lift helicopters or VTOLs), and as anti-ship missile platforms (think modernized version of the torpedo boat, but with heavy anti-ship missiles).

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zekromNLR@reddit

When a plane is flying low above the ground (altitude about half its wingspan or less), the way the downwash and the wingtip vortices interact with the ground causes a large increase in lift, this is called the ground effect.

An ekranoplan, or ground effect vehicle, uses this effect, often augmented by having nose-mounted engines blowing air under the wings, to skim just above the surface, theoretically achieving both higher speed and higher efficiency than a skirted hovercraft.

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BeardyBennett@reddit

Interesting, but still if the plan is a missile platform like this, why not just use a boat to achieve the same mission? Even if it's just a littoral craft?

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zekromNLR@reddit

Can a boat do 300 knots?

But these things need a pretty flat ground so you can't use them in the open ocean

They are cool, but unfortunately impractical in the geographic and geopolitical realities of our world

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Hot-Science8569@reddit

I think when the Soviets built theirs, the did not know it would not work on the open ocean. Did not know how calm the waters had to be.

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Rowdyflyer1903@reddit

I see so many WW2 and other submarines movies being trapped on the bottom and or depth charges being dropped. Why didn't the submarines have a vertical firing defense system. Imagine the surface ships captains surprise if this were the case.

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Ian1231100@reddit

USA: Hey Russia, can I copy your homework?

Russia: Fuck no, do your own homework.

USA: Too late.

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neddie_nardle@reddit

Have to laugh that they couldn't bring themselves to use the existing term of ekranoplan.

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The_Ostrich_you_want@reddit

I don’t really understand the purpose of these that a boat or a seaplane don’t already have. I’ve never really gotten it. A plane that runs over the water like a hovercraft?

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alettriste@reddit

Hold my beer...

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JakobSejer@reddit

That's the manliest picture I've seen all day...

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BongwaterJoe1983@reddit

The caspian sea monster

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AerodynamicBrick@reddit

Whats the difference?

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KaiserFranzII@reddit

Lun is smaller and has a battery of sunburn anti ship missiles

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Jessie_C_2646@reddit

Missiles. The Caspian Sea Monster didn't have them; the Lun did. The Lun class was developed from the Monster, which explains the smiliarities.

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Irgendwer1607@reddit

That's not the KM, that's the Lun-class

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joe9teas@reddit

I think this was intended to be a low altitude aircraft?

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captainjack3@reddit

Ground effect vehicles are, in general, but this specific one was intended to be capable of practical and efficient conventional flight. Hence the long outboard wings.

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joe9teas@reddit

Brains from Thunderbirds on speed-dial? I very much doubt it. Was never gonna happen.

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captainjack3@reddit

Well, it was never intended to actually be built. This comes from a series of designs by Douglas looking at augmenting the ground effect air cushion by directing exhaust under the wing. They were pure paper and wind tunnel studies, not something intended to lead to a production vehicle. The Air Force was interested in ground effect and commissioned studies to basically see what could be done with it and what such a vehicle might look like.

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joe9teas@reddit

So, as Brains would have put it..

"Well, Mr Tracy I just d.d..ddon't th.th..thing it's going to www...wwww...work..."

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joe9teas@reddit

Oh like Boeing SST with some massively heavy swing-wing mechanism making it entirely impractical? Was Brains from Thunderbirds on speed-dial? I doubt it.

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ToeSniffer245@reddit (OP)

Ground-effect like the Soviet Ekranoplans.

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joe9teas@reddit

Sorry, great post. The Caspian Sea Monsters were the stuff ofnightmares. I'd no idea the Americans had toyed with the concept too. Many thanks

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joe9teas@reddit

I....was...... joking.....sighs

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Redbaron1701@reddit

An ekranoplane joke going over someone's head is the highest altitude it ever achieved.

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joe9teas@reddit

Perfect!

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wrongwayup@reddit

Very low.

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jjp82@reddit

WIG, not WIGE

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captainjack3@reddit

WIGE is correct for this specific design. It was created by Douglas as part of several studies on what were formally called PAR-WIGE (power-augmented-ram - wing-in-ground-effect) designs.

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captainjack3@reddit

This specific picture depicts a variant of Douglas’ PAR-WIGE (power augmented ram - wing in ground effect) designs. The concept was to channel the exhaust from the engines under the wing to enhance the lifting effect of the pure ground effect air cushion. This was intended to improve efficiency and shorten take off and landing distances.

The variant here has the long low aspect ratio wings coupled to the broad ground effect wing to enable conventional flight and further improve efficiency. The SAC livery and Tomahawk launching is purely flavor from the illustrators/designers; it wasn’t part of the underlying design which was intended to explore wing configurations.

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RollinThundaga@reddit

Usually the effect of having your wings in the ground is a crash....

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El_Mnopo@reddit

How low do you have to fly to not be air force? How high to not be space force?

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moodaltering@reddit

How low to be Navy?

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KerPop42@reddit

Mustard has a pretty good pair of videos describing the USSR's two ekranoplan projects, one undertaken by the navy and one by the air force. The bigger question is, is it a fast hovercraft-boat, or a low amphibious plane?

Space Force is actually straightforward; if you steer it, it's a plane. If you manage its maneuvers, it's a spacecraft

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El_Mnopo@reddit

The NF-104, X-15, Space Shuttle, etc did both?

Space Force is actually straightforward; if you steer it, it's a plane. If you manage its maneuvers, it's a spacecraft

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KerPop42@reddit

The space shuttle was a civilian craft, so being managed by the Aeronautics and Space Administration makes sense :p

The X-15 used thrusters, but never did maneuver planning the way satellites do. Same with the NF-104. I will admit that the Lunar Lander had manual control but, but I think it's clearly not a plane on its own

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Dpek1234@reddit

Also wasnt the mercury capsule described as iirc manuvering like a fighter jet or something along these lines

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KerPop42@reddit

I'm gonna need a source on that. I've heard the mercury capsule described as more like a suit than a vehicle, and that it was mostly flown by computers. The Apollo command module was designed to be slightly heavy in front of the occupants so that it would produce a little bit of lift and they could steer by rolling.

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Dpek1234@reddit

Honestly i remember hearing it somewhere and thats about it

Iirc it was said comparison to the manuverabiliy of the gemini

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freedcreativity@reddit

A civilian craft hobbled by military requirements with a list of secret missions. They never did actually snatch a soviet spy satellite out of orbit, but did plan for it https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Shuttle/shuttle_baseline_reference_missions_vol4_mission_3b.pdf

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Main_Gas_6531@reddit

I mean…the X-37 can do both

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Southern-Bandicoot@reddit

But when inside the atmosphere, the best it can achieve is falling with style. It's an orbital vehicle that makes a gliding landing to a runway as compared to a ballistic re-entry. Ergo it is a space vehicle.

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Main_Gas_6531@reddit

You're right lol I'm just being pedantic, it definitely is a space vehicle, but it can make orbit changes by going low enough into the atmosphere that it can use the lift/drag to maneuver("steering") instead of just relying on thrusters. It was the first space vehicle to attempt that, it's a really cool thing

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Southern-Bandicoot@reddit

Ah, no worries mate 🙂

Definitely a clever wee beastie for being able to manoeuvre like that.

Sometimes it's difficult to work out if the comment that one is responding to is subtly ironic ... or exposing the commentator's steadfast belief in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Have a good 'un 👍🏻

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KerPop42@reddit

Looks like it's managed in collaboration between the Air Force and Space Force, but given that its mission is largely to interact with satellites and it only uses its wings to return, I think it's more a spacecraft that can fly, rather than an aircraft that can space

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xrelaht@reddit

It gets even more complicated: the Army originally tried to argue ICBMs were just very long range artillery and thus should be their purview.

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KerPop42@reddit

That's a great example of Conway's law: the branch that's given authority over nukes defines how nukes are used. If part of the army, they'd be used like artillery. Since they were put under the air force, they're set to be used like B-17s

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xrelaht@reddit

Maybe. Nukes were originally Army Air Corps, then Air Force. This was more of an attempt to get them back from the USAF when we (mostly) switched from bombers to missiles. Also, we had nuclear artillery until 1992.

These days, the vast majority of the US's active weapons are on submarines, but they're set to be used more like bombers (Air Force) than shore bombardment cannons (Navy).

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Shank_Wedge@reddit

The USSPACECOM, albeit not space force, AOR starts at 62 miles MSL.

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ShermanMcTank@reddit

An important distinction is that unless they are designed to do both, GEVs do not « fly » like normal planes.

As their name indicates, they use the ground effect that happens when wings are close to a surface, to hover over said surface, in this case the sea.

In the case of the most famous one, the Lun class, it can only hover like that. It cannot take off and fly at any higher altitude, because if it did the ground effect would break, and it wouldn’t get the necessary lift to maintain the altitude.

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BobbyB52@reddit

How much of your aircraft’s time has to be spent on the water before it should really be a naval aircraft?

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El_Mnopo@reddit

Yes that's what I implied with the first question. Just like, why join the Navy to be infantry?

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Farfignugen42@reddit

Because you want to be a marine and eat crayons?

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Farfignugen42@reddit

Air force/space force is likely less about altitude directly, and more about your fuel. If your fuel burns oxygen from the air, then air force. If the fuel includes an oxidizer, then space.

Air force/navy seems to be more about where you land your plane. If you land on a ship, navy. Otherwise, air force. Except, the Army has a pretty big fleet of air planes, too.

I know you were joking, but there has been a lot of thought put into these questions as the various branches have had to justify their existence and budgets and carve out separate roles and responsibilities. After WWII, Eisenhower(I think, might have been Truman) wanted to ditch the Marines since there was already an Army doing basically the same thing.

Also, the US has several of the largest air forces in the top 10 of the world's largest air forces. The Air Force, the Naval Air Force, the Army Air Force, and I think even the Marine Air Force, each one separately has enough planes to be in the top 10 list.

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XFX1270@reddit

The six-engined DC-10 god had always intended for

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JaggedMetalOs@reddit

Mr. President, we must not allow an ekranoplan gap!