Discussing stealth

[Pilotasso]

But even a Mig-29G (German/Poland) can detect an F-16 before the F-16 can detect the mig.

 

Those migs variants radar perfomance is awfull. Even the S variant is realy nothing to write home about. All recent F-16 variants enjoy advantage over them. The versions exported to malaysia and India are a different story. There arent any reliable accounts for their perfomace yet.

[D-Scythe]

It was said by the Polish guys who have both these planes in their inventory.

It was also explained before on this forum that Russian radar works different and can pickup spikes from further ranges (a lock-on is another story)

 

Haha, you're gonna have to provide more detail than that if you're gonna convince me that a MiG-29A export with a 40 year old N019 cassegrain-twist radar can achieve first look against a brand new F-16C Block 50, with RAM coatings and radar reflecting canopy, and its APG-68V9 slotted planar array.

 

It was also explained before on this forum that Russian radar works different and can pickup spikes from further ranges (a lock-on is another story)

 

Really? I'd like to see this.

[Yellonet]

So you're gonna sacrifice these perfectly fine ground-based radars and friendly fighters, offering them up for destruction so that your passive receivers on the ground can detect where that enemy F-22 flight is?

 

Sure, the receivers might be invisible to the enemy, but the point is, your radar source is not. Telling your SAMs and fighters to leave on their radars is ludicrous - you're gonna get them all killed.

No, I never said that. Of course there won't be any standing orders about having your radar on all the time, that would be suicide, but when they do use them, the information get sent to the system to automatically get back information about stealth aircraft. This would mean no extra risk for the pilots and ground crew, but at the same time giving them a much better chance of spotting stealth aircraft.

 

Doppler radars by their nature filter out almost any clutter. Your receiver array would still be receiving signals from a billion different sources that would never "appear" on the scope of a fighter or ground-based radar, simply because it has been detected, but filtered out. A very good example is chaff.

And why would the system not have the capability to filter out these things?

 

For your theory to even work on paper, all the radars in an entire military would have to in effect act as one giant radar. The whole system would have to be glued together with some insanely fast datalink, to achieve what is basically a giant AESA radar, where each radar is analagous to a a T/R tile and your receivers scattered all over the place to "catch" RF waves that might be reflected off stealth fighters.

There would be no need for an entire army to work together, unless it's over a fairly small area. The system would automatically be linked only where it is in range of its own sides radars, there would be no need to send or recieve information about something happening where the flight/AA system in question won't reach.

Oh and yeah, there are quite fast data networks available today ;)

 

And there is STILL the problem that an F-22 or F-35 would know, pinpoint and destroy any radar emitter long before it's been detected, by virtue of the 1/R^2 vs. 1/R^4 rule - that is, radar waves arriving at a stealth fighter is at 1/R^2 strength, but that same radar wave after being reflected off the stealth fighter (in whatever direction) back to a receiver would be of 1/R^4 strength. Technically, it'd be at (1/R^2)(1/R'^2) strength, where R' is distance to your receiver(s).

 

(And that assumes perfect reflectivity of the radar waves - even non-stealth fighters like an F-15 would reflect only a very tiny fraction of radar waves back at the source - in reality, it'd be closer to something like 1/(X*R^4), where X is some constant with a ridiculously high value)

 

Thus, the stealth aircraft would always know that it's being painted by an enemy radar before it will be detected.

 

Maybe, but the aircraft is often much closer to the ground (where the reciever is) than it is to the source of the RWs.

 

For example, say that an F-22 is cruising at 10km altitude is 100km away from a Su-27 having its radar switched on and aimed at the stealth fighter, on the ground there is an array of passive radar recievers spread out over the land. For example there could be one 10km off of the F-22s path recieving the deflected signal, that would mean that the reciver would be at a distance of about 14 km from the F-22, thus recieving much more energy than the Su-27, and I don't have to tell you that a ground based RR could be much larger and more sensitive than a air borne one.

[Pilotasso]

1/R^n rule means litle if your talking about pulse dopler radars of whatever technology, it would only apply to continuous wave. You can pump as much noise as you can but if its not synced with the enemy radar all its going to do is to is to add background noise that the radar is already filtering out anyway and perfomance degradation is minimal. This is what ECCM is all about. Unless of course you decide to pump pure EM interference. It has been donne before but requires large aircraft.

[Yellonet]

1/R^n rule means litle if your talking about pulse dopler radars of whatever technology, it would only apply to continuous wave. You can pump as much noise as you can but if its not synced with the enemy radar all its going to do is to is to add background noise that the radar is already filtering out anyway and perfomance degradation is minimal. This is what ECCM is all about. Unless of course you decide to pump pure EM interference. It has been donne before but requires large aircraft.

Was that a response to me or...?

And wouldn't it be pretty stupid to use ECCM in a F-22?

[GGTharos]

First and foremost, you don't know WHERE the signal is being reflected to, nor WHAT it is being reflected from. You're talking about trying to catch a fleeting glance of a fleeting signal with a multi-antenna array which itself needs be spread over a pretty wide distance, process these into something useful, decide what reflections are from birds/dust/chaff/stealth fighters and/or even ground clutter, and then upload this to ... a fighter? Which still can't guide its weapons to the stealth target.

 

Meantime, the enemy just whacks your power plant and your big, expensive, complicated system that couldn't do its job well enough to stop said fighters goes down.

 

By the way, all you have to do to utterly screw this system up is put out a few decoys and stand-off jammers.

 

In other words, if you want to detect a stealth aircraft ... find a better way.

 

Even coordinated Patriot systems suffered enough EMI (from each other) to cause the friendly fire shoot downs we all heard of.

 

And no, it's not stupid to use ECCM (nor ECM) in an F-22 - you just have to know when to use ECM, it's part of the package just like stealth.

As for ECCM? It's built into that funky AESA radar already - frequency hopping, random scan patterns, varying power ...

 

There's no real counter to stealth other than nailing those things on the ground - if you want to nail'em in the air, you need WEAPONS THAT WILL GUIDE ON THEM. The rest is fluff, targets for the taking.

 

Maybe, but the aircraft is often much closer to the ground (where the reciever is) than it is to the source of the RWs.

 

For example, say that an F-22 is cruising at 10km altitude is 100km away from a Su-27 having its radar switched on and aimed at the stealth fighter, on the ground there is an array of passive radar recievers spread out over the land. For example there could be one 10km off of the F-22s path recieving the deflected signal, that would mean that the reciver would be at a distance of about 14 km from the F-22, thus recieving much more energy than the Su-27, and I don't have to tell you that a ground based RR could be much larger and more sensitive than a air borne one.

[Pilotasso]

Was that a response to me or...?

And wouldn't it be pretty stupid to use ECCM in a F-22?

 

 

To Sythes following your post. And no, its not stupid to use ECCM since its ESSENTIAL to be able to pick up contacts that are jamming. It doesnt necessariry make you more exposed, specialy if your radar is tuned on anyway. ECCM flags each radar pulse with each different signal flag, adding to internal computer routines. Thats all. ECCM is not "Ill jamm you back" revenge.

[Yellonet]

First and foremost, you don't know WHERE the signal is being reflected to, nor WHAT it is being reflected from.

That's why there are more than one radar reciever. Unless all energy is reflected upwards the signals will come down somewhere.

You're talking about trying to catch a fleeting glance of a fleeting signal with a multi-antenna array which itself needs be spread over a pretty wide distance, process these into something useful, decide what reflections are from birds/dust/chaff/stealth fighters and/or even ground clutter, and then upload this to ... a fighter? Which still can't guide its weapons to the stealth target.

I'm not saying that you should do it by hand... this is what computers are for ;)

 

Meantime, the enemy just whacks your power plant and your big, expensive, complicated system that couldn't do its job well enough to stop said fighters goes down.

The thing is that it isn't really one big system but rather an array of small fairly independible and expendable systems working together.

 

By the way, all you have to do to utterly screw this system up is put out a few decoys and stand-off jammers.

 

In other words, if you want to detect a stealth aircraft ... find a better way.

 

Even coordinated Patriot systems suffered enough EMI (from each other) to cause the friendly fire shoot downs we all heard of.

 

And no, it's not stupid to use ECCM (nor ECM) in an F-22 - you just have to know when to use ECM, it's part of the package just like stealth.

As for ECCM? It's built into that funky AESA radar already - frequency hopping, random scan patterns, varying power ...

 

There's no real counter to stealth other than nailing those things on the ground - if you want to nail'em in the air, you need WEAPONS THAT WILL GUIDE ON THEM. The rest is fluff, targets for the taking.

When you know where the aircraft is you can get missiles guide on them. And if you pick up the reflection off of an aircraft you know where they are.

There's no magic about stealth, it just directs the incoming energy in a less than ideal direction for the enemy. However, if there is a reciever where the energy is being deflected, too bad for the stealth plane.

[Slaunyeh]

http://www.aviationtoday.com/Assets/AVIlockheed2j.pdf

 

Special Report, Avionics Magazine (20 pages, including ads :cry:)

 

Fala Brazuca.

[Yellonet]

To Sythes following your post. And no, its not stupid to use ECCM since its ESSENTIAL to be able to pick up contacts that are jamming. It doesnt necessariry make you more exposed, specialy if your radar is tuned on anyway. ECCM flags each radar pulse with each different signal flag, adding to internal computer routines. Thats all. ECCM is not "Ill jamm you back" revenge.

I was probably thinking of ECM jamming:poster_oops:

[GGTharos]

That's why there are more than one radar reciever. Unless all energy is reflected upwards the signals will come down somewhere.

I'm not saying that you should do it by hand... this is what computers are for ;)

 

I think you're ignoring reality ... you're thinking of a 'laboratory experiment' where the only echo you get is the one from the stealth aircraft. In reality, you'll receive craploads of signals which you might -not- be able to reconcile at all, and terrain here will be a big factor, as well as ECM.

 

The thing is that it isn't really one big system but rather an array of small fairly independible and expendable systems working together.

 

Right ... 'small' 'inexpensive' 'highly efficient' 'very sensitive' and 'integrated'. Good luck ;)

Where are you going to put all these systems anyway? They're not going to give you advance warning no matter much you'd like that. You have a numbers/area/terrain problem.

 

When you know where the aircraft is you can get missiles guide on them.

 

Wrong. Dead wrong. A radar guided missile will have a rather /hard/ time guiding onto a stealth aircraft. An IR missile might only fare marginally better. Stealth is there to defeat specifically those things. If a missile seeker can't pick up the target, how is it going to guide?

 

And if you pick up the reflection off of an aircraft you know where they are.

 

Nope, you don't. You don't even know it's an aircraft. Detection and tracking are stochastic events. In other words, you have to pick up a LOT of reflections.

 

There's no magic about stealth, it just directs the incoming energy in a less than ideal direction for the enemy. However, if there is a reciever where the energy is being deflected, too bad for the stealth plane.

 

No, there's no magic about it. And there's no magic that will defeat it as easily as you surmise either. ;)

And no, not too bad for the stealth plane ... because your SAMs and your aircraft still can't do anything to it ... they'll get trounced by it even if they know it's there because THEY CANNOT EMPLOY THEIR WEAPONS AGAINST IT.

 

I hope that makes things clear ;)

[tflash]

Quite unsurprisingly, the best match for an F-22 would be a fighter with similar capabilities. And that is exactly what those taking up the challenge plan to build. On existing aircraft, a race towards AESA radars has already begun. On newer derivatives of older aircraft designs, new composite materials are steadily being introduced instead of aluminium. Tests with RAM coating are being done by a lot of manufacturers.

 

The simple fact remains the advance the US has in this field over the rest of the competition. I guess a lead of at least ten years is even an understatement.

 

One interesting element is however, that while the technical problem to build AESA has to do with manufacturing the T/R modules, AESA radar and ECM/ECCM *performance* is heavily reliant on computing power.

 

I can imagine that shipborne and ground-based AESA radars could become tremendously powerful at a faster rate then airborne AESA radars can, due to size/heat/power consumption problems. This could mean next-generation patriot systems could become deadly even for very advanced stealth aircraft.

 

I wonder what the US Navy is doing in this field, now that their archrivals from the USAF field an operational stealth fighter. Is the AEGIS AN/SPY-1 radar up to spec to counter a stealth fighter threat to the fleet?

[Yellonet]

I think you're ignoring reality ... you're thinking of a 'laboratory experiment' where the only echo you get is the one from the stealth aircraft. In reality, you'll receive craploads of signals which you might -not- be able to reconcile at all, and terrain here will be a big factor, as well as ECM.

Filtering out objects that are not aircraft have been possible before...

 

Right ... 'small' 'inexpensive' 'highly efficient' 'very sensitive' and 'integrated'. Good luck ;)

Where are you going to put all these systems anyway? They're not going to give you advance warning no matter much you'd like that. You have a numbers/area/terrain problem.[/Quote]The technology to detect radar waves isn't very complicated, it's been available for around 70 years. How to interpret what you recieve is another matter, but I'm sure it could be made very effectively.

You keep saying that it's really hard. Well of course it is, it's meant to be hard for the enemy. But it's not impossible.

 

Wrong. Dead wrong. A radar guided missile will have a rather /hard/ time guiding onto a stealth aircraft. An IR missile might only fare marginally better. Stealth is there to defeat specifically those things. If a missile seeker can't pick up the target, how is it going to guide?

Data link. Doesn't really matter if the missile itself knows it's there or not, as long as it's being told where to go it will hit.

The old way to think that if you can't see it you can't hit it doesn't apply in this case. It's rather; if anyone can see it, you can hit it.

 

Nope, you don't. You don't even know it's an aircraft. Detection and tracking are stochastic events. In other words, you have to pick up a LOT of reflections.

 

No, there's no magic about it. And there's no magic that will defeat it as easily as you surmise either. ;)

And no, not too bad for the stealth plane ... because your SAMs and your aircraft still can't do anything to it ... they'll get trounced by it even if they know it's there because THEY CANNOT EMPLOY THEIR WEAPONS AGAINST IT.

 

I hope that makes things clear ;)

Never said it was easy, and never said that it would be missiles of today that would be used. If you somehow know where the aircraft is and where it is going you can hit it.

 

But alright, as you seem to have some personal thing for stealth let's just say that you win, stealth is the ultimate technology and it will reign supreme for ever and ever, it can never be defeated. Just like they once said that no human could ever fly.

[golfsierra2]

It was also explained before on this forum that Russian radar works different and can pickup spikes from further ranges (a lock-on is another story)

 

I doubt that. The way radar sets operate is the same in Russia and Western Europe/USA.

The frequency bands may be different (older systems using lower frequencies), but in the end all nations have the same knowledge and technical capabilities.

[tflash]

But alright, as you seem to have some personal thing for stealth let's just say that you win, stealth is the ultimate technology and it will reign supreme for ever and ever, it can never be defeated. Just like they once said that no human could ever fly.

 

No one is claiming that, certainly not GGTharos. What we are saying is that currently there is no answer that would deny the F-22's advantages it has due to stealth. And the odds are that it will keep sufficient edge in the coming decade. I personally am really sceptical a sudden solution would show up that effectively mothballs the F-22's stealth advantages. I do believe the edge will gradually decline, as better airborne and ground-based radars will get fielded, and the opposition will also field more stealthy aircraft.

[D-Scythe]

Filtering out objects that are not aircraft have been possible before...

 

Filtering objects have been possible and efficient before because the same radar doing the transmitting is also doing the receiving. If you just have a receiver, or an array of receivers, trying to catch radar reflections from other transmitters, you can't use the normal, effective means of filtering anymore.

 

You have to treat every signal as a possible stealth aircraft. And has been stated repeatedly before, for every (weak) signal you "catch" from a stealth aircraft, your receiver array would have to deal with a million different signals from other sources - like aircraft, missile, chaff, ECM, terrain, etc.

 

You keep saying that it's really hard. Well of course it is, it's meant to be hard for the enemy. But it's not impossible.

 

It's simply not practical.

 

Data link. Doesn't really matter if the missile itself knows it's there or not, as long as it's being told where to go it will hit.

The old way to think that if you can't see it you can't hit it doesn't apply in this case. It's rather; if anyone can see it, you can hit it.

 

If datalinks were accurate enough to guide AAMs to their targets by itself, the AMRAAM wouldn't need its active radar seeker. Think about it - datalinks only guide to a target's approximate location so the terminal seeker can handle the rest.

 

Never said it was easy, and never said that it would be missiles of today that would be used. If you somehow know where the aircraft is and where it is going you can hit it.

 

No. Unless you're packing a nuclear warhead.

[GGTharos]

Filtering out objects that are not aircraft have been possible before...

 

But probably nowhere near as difficult ...

 

The technology to detect radar waves isn't very complicated, it's been available for around 70 years. How to interpret what you recieve is another matter, but I'm sure it could be made very effectively.

You keep saying that it's really hard. Well of course it is, it's meant to be hard for the enemy. But it's not impossible.

 

Yeah, ok - well, it was never 'impossible'. You're going the other way and trying to claim that an un-viable, impractical solution is of any use.

 

Data link. Doesn't really matter if the missile itself knows it's there or not, as long as it's being told where to go it will hit.

 

Wrong. The missile DOES need to know, one way or the other. Datalink will only get you 'so close', and 'so close' depends heavily on your datalink update interval which can easily be quite crummy.

 

The old way to think that if you can't see it you can't hit it doesn't apply in this case. It's rather; if anyone can see it, you can hit it.

 

Yes, it does apply. Your other option is depth charges or - aerial nukes ;)

Why? Because your weapons can't see it. If your weapons can't see it, you have a big problem.

 

Never said it was easy, and never said that it would be missiles of today that would be used. If you somehow know where the aircraft is and where it is going you can hit it.

 

And some day the aircraft will be using a romulan cloaking device and you'll be back to square one.

Your system is unviable today, and in the foreseeable future.

 

But alright, as you seem to have some personal thing for stealth let's just say that you win, stealth is the ultimate technology and it will reign supreme for ever and ever, it can never be defeated. Just like they once said that no human could ever fly.

 

 

You seem to have some personal thing for promoting fantasy. Stealth as it is right now will be dealt with some day. But not today. Not tomorrow, either, and not in the next 10 years. It will be a dominant factor in the battlefield. By then, the next generation of stealth technology will be coming around.

 

You can't just go around and say your pet fantasy project will defeat whatever's around right now, and has been projected to remain dominant for the next decade or two by people in the know.

You're also not understanding how complex the system you propose is. No, computers don't solve everything - all this stuff won't just be solved for you. You don't even know what sort of system could be used to attack the stealth aircraft after it -is- detected. You've made some huge assumptions here ... so again. Fantasy.

[Pilotasso]

but in the end all nations have the same knowledge and technical capabilities.

WHat you realy wanted to say was that all technical principles are the same, not the knowelege. Because they dont.

[Yellonet]

Filtering objects have been possible and efficient before because the same radar doing the transmitting is also doing the receiving. If you just have a receiver, or an array of receivers, trying to catch radar reflections from other transmitters, you can't use the normal, effective means of filtering anymore.

 

You have to treat every signal as a possible stealth aircraft. And has been stated repeatedly before, for every (weak) signal you "catch" from a stealth aircraft, your receiver array would have to deal with a million different signals from other sources - like aircraft, missile, chaff, ECM, terrain, etc.

The system will filter out what the aircraft and ground based radars filteres out as they're communicating their respecitve information to the system.

 

It's simply not practical.

In a purely defensive role it might be practical, in an offensive role, probably not.

Then again, encountering an F-22 is most likelely in defence ;)

 

If datalinks were accurate enough to guide AAMs to their targets by itself, the AMRAAM wouldn't need its active radar seeker. Think about it - datalinks only guide to a target's approximate location so the terminal seeker can handle the rest.

Indeed that's how it works on a 10+ year old missile. On the other hand newer missiles have this too, but that's probably not because it cannot be done with datalink only but because it is easier and possibly more effective with an onboard radar. But when that doesn't work too well...

 

No. Unless you're packing a nuclear warhead.

Come on... if you know where it is, where it's going and how fast... how can you miss? Obviously you need a missile capable of homing in very accurately via data link possibly with some other means of tracking when it is very close, optical?.

 

 

Please guys, work with me not against me :)

[GGTharos]

The system will filter out what the aircraft and ground based radars filteres out as they're communicating their respecitve information to the system.

 

... yeah, and spurious contacts, countermeasures and ECM were never a problem for existing radars with less complexity etc etc :)

 

In a purely defensive role it might be practical, in an offensive role, probably not.

Then again, encountering an F-22 is most likelely in defence ;)

Not practical at all. A SEAD flight whacks your emitter and you're back to square one. The F-22's will be eating anything you throw at the SEAD mean time, or they'll whack your emitter from so far away you won't even know what hit you.

 

Indeed that's how it works on a 10+ year old missile. On the other hand newer missiles have this too, but that's probably not because it cannot be done with datalink only but because it is easier and possibly more effective with an onboard radar. But when that doesn't work too well...

ALL new AAMs intended for high-altitude, high-speed intercepts have their own seeker for terminal guidance. No datalink can pull off what the seeker itself does, save for very dedicated systems such as the TVM-enabled Patriot/S-300, but it doesn't help THEM against stealth aircraft -either-.

 

Come on... if you know where it is, where it's going and how fast... how can you miss? Obviously you need a missile capable of homing in very accurately via data link possibly with some other means of tracking when it is very close, optical?.

If you know where it is, where it's going and how fast, you can still miss due to perturbations of your flight path, the target's flight path, and precession of your gyro, as well as the INHERENT and EVER PRESENT limit on radar ranging and doppler shift accuracy in a given radar system.

 

In other words, a lot of stars need to line up. And yes, when it is 'very close' and you 'know' its there, you can do funky things with SACLOS guidance and so on ... the trouble here is, this now depends on weather, your ability to actually pinpoint the target, and the fact you'll die whether you hit or not, 'cause his wingnut will cap ya.

 

In other words, you're very much working against the odds, like it or not. You have multiple targets, you don't know what's what, everything is moving around quickly, you can't track everything at once, and there's people coming after you to kill your emitter. So you spent all this money building this system, just to see it killed by a bunch of conventional aircraft supported by a bunch of stealth aircraft because you decided that -somehow- your system would overwhelm stealth fighters, and not the other way around. Meantime, someone's sticking a HARM in your emitter.

 

What's that? You'll keep it off? How will you detect stealth aircraft then? :) You only run it periodically? How will you track anything? How can you track anything with any reasonable accuracy when the scan pattern itself will likely take time? Hitting stuff with datalinks? You can't even really get the weapon close enough with a datalink to detect its target in a lot of cases.

Even the AMRAAM - which isn't a 10+ year old missile as you say it is - the thing is updated so often it's not funny - is projected to basically suck against an F-22, and that projection comes from the USAF itself!

When you've got F-15 pilots telling you they can see a target but not lock it, you should start realizing that stealth is -very- powerful, and -very- potent, and all those ideas you have about defeating it? Don't think they didn't think of'em when they were designing those aircraft. They're not designed for /current/ threats, they are designed for future and /projected/ threats.

 

 

Please guys, work with me not against me :)

You're the one working against yourself here. ;) See the above questions? They're all very valid. There's a reason why no such system exists in operation. And why so many stealth-fighter sorties have been flown and so few casualties taken.

[Yellonet]

But probably nowhere near as difficult ...

 

Yeah, ok - well, it was never 'impossible'. You're going the other way and trying to claim that an un-viable, impractical solution is of any use.

 

Wrong. The missile DOES need to know, one way or the other. Datalink will only get you 'so close', and 'so close' depends heavily on your datalink update interval which can easily be quite crummy.

Well, if it depends heavily on datalink, I would assume any manufacturer of such a system would make pretty damn sure it's a fast and advanced datalink :p

I just don't see how that would be impossible given todays navigation tech available to the public being very accurate, the military should have access to something even better.

 

Yes, it does apply. Your other option is depth charges or - aerial nukes ;)

Why? Because your weapons can't see it. If your weapons can't see it, you have a big problem.

Datalink first, other means later in the flight stage if necessary. Radar/Optical/IR tracking once it is very close. Data link should be able to get within <1km

And don't make any assumptions on +10 year old tech please :D

We're talking today and future.

 

And some day the aircraft will be using a romulan cloaking device and you'll be back to square one.

Your system is unviable today, and in the foreseeable future.

Don't they give away neutrino emissions that are detectable? We'll just home in on those. Photon torpedo! FIRE!

 

You seem to have some personal thing for promoting fantasy. Stealth as it is right now will be dealt with some day. But not today. Not tomorrow, either, and not in the next 10 years. It will be a dominant factor in the battlefield. By then, the next generation of stealth technology will be coming around.

 

You can't just go around and say your pet fantasy project will defeat whatever's around right now, and has been projected to remain dominant for the next decade or two by people in the know.

You're also not understanding how complex the system you propose is. No, computers don't solve everything - all this stuff won't just be solved for you. You don't even know what sort of system could be used to attack the stealth aircraft after it -is- detected. You've made some huge assumptions here ... so again. Fantasy.

Not really a pet, thought it up in two minutes so obviously it has some, or alot of, flaws...

Sure I made some assumptions, but no one has really proved any of them wrong.

 

I believe that RW reflections from source X off of a stealth aircraft can be picked up by reciever Y on the ground.

I believe that a datalinked missile made today could be steered to a target very accurately.

I believe that filtering out decoys, birds, UFOs and younameit is possbile today when analyzing reflected RWs from a target, especially when you have multiple viewpoints (recievers).

[Yellonet]

... yeah, and spurious contacts, countermeasures and ECM were never a problem for existing radars with less complexity etc etc :)

 

Not practical at all. A SEAD flight whacks your emitter and you're back to square one. The F-22's will be eating anything you throw at the SEAD mean time, or they'll whack your emitter from so far away you won't even know what hit you.

 

ALL new AAMs intended for high-altitude, high-speed intercepts have their own seeker for terminal guidance. No datalink can pull off what the seeker itself does, save for very dedicated systems such as the TVM-enabled Patriot/S-300, but it doesn't help THEM against stealth aircraft -either-.

 

If you know where it is, where it's going and how fast, you can still miss due to perturbations of your flight path, the target's flight path, and precession of your gyro, as well as the INHERENT and EVER PRESENT limit on radar ranging and doppler shift accuracy in a given radar system.

 

In other words, a lot of stars need to line up. And yes, when it is 'very close' and you 'know' its there, you can do funky things with SACLOS guidance and so on ... the trouble here is, this now depends on weather, your ability to actually pinpoint the target, and the fact you'll die whether you hit or not, 'cause his wingnut will cap ya.

 

In other words, you're very much working against the odds, like it or not. You have multiple targets, you don't know what's what, everything is moving around quickly, you can't track everything at once, and there's people coming after you to kill your emitter. So you spent all this money building this system, just to see it killed by a bunch of conventional aircraft supported by a bunch of stealth aircraft because you decided that -somehow- your system would overwhelm stealth fighters, and not the other way around. Meantime, someone's sticking a HARM in your emitter.

 

What's that? You'll keep it off? How will you detect stealth aircraft then? :) You only run it periodically? How will you track anything? How can you track anything with any reasonable accuracy when the scan pattern itself will likely take time? Hitting stuff with datalinks? You can't even really get the weapon close enough with a datalink to detect its target in a lot of cases.

Even the AMRAAM - which isn't a 10+ year old missile as you say it is - the thing is updated so often it's not funny - is projected to basically suck against an F-22, and that projection comes from the USAF itself!

When you've got F-15 pilots telling you they can see a target but not lock it, you should start realizing that stealth is -very- powerful, and -very- potent, and all those ideas you have about defeating it? Don't think they didn't think of'em when they were designing those aircraft. They're not designed for /current/ threats, they are designed for future and /projected/ threats.

 

 

 

You're the one working against yourself here. ;) See the above questions? They're all very valid. There's a reason why no such system exists in operation. And why so many stealth-fighter sorties have been flown and so few casualties taken.

Arrrrghh... it's not one emitter, it's many, no roof upwards. In theory, every radar on the ground and every radar in every aircraft would be tied to this system via datalink.

It's just taking systems avaialable today a bit furhter, today we have radar transcievers connected with datalink, so what one aircraft sees, the other sees on their screen. This system would work the same way with the added capability that these recievers could pick up the energy from other radars, and relay that data.

The is the only thing i'm talking about is detecting the aircraft. Once you know where it is it's biggest advantage is gone. If you know where he is and he doesn't know that you know... :)

 

It might be impractical.. but it's the best I could think up just now :p

[Slaunyeh]

You know GGtharos is right, thats what i said in my post, its not practical.

The only way to counter Stealth fighter is other nations getting tech and searching a way to defeat it or reproduce it in theyr planes.

 

Why ?

 

Because if reproduced USA will have to put ut something agaisnt the can opener they have now.

And once they have it it can be stolen...

Till there....Stealth is playing alone in the sandbox.

[Yellonet]

You know GGtharos is right, thats what i said in my post, its not practical.

The only way to counter Stealth fighter is other nations getting tech and searching a way to defeat it or reproduce it in theyr planes.

 

Why ?

 

Because if reproduced USA will have to put ut something agaisnt the can opener they have now.

And once they have it it can be stolen...

Till there....Stealth is playing alone in the sandbox.

Impractical? Sure. Impossible? I'm not so sure.

[GGTharos]

Arrrrghh... it's not one emitter, it's many, no roof upwards. In theory, every radar on the ground and every radar in every aircraft would be tied to this system via datalink.

It's just taking systems avaialable today a bit furhter, today we have radar transcievers connected with datalink, so what one aircraft sees, the other sees on their screen. This system would work the same way with the added capability that these recievers could pick up the energy from other radars, and relay that data.

 

First and foremost, such systems -already- exist (See PAtriot for example, not to mention Russian IADS)

The reason why they do -not- do what you describe, is that you're asking them to process signals that would normally be considered noise. In other words ... your idea is 'asking for it'.

 

The is the only thing i'm talking about is detecting the aircraft. Once you know where it is it's biggest advantage is gone.

 

And that's where you're wrong. Detection is not tracking, and tracking a stealth aircraft is even harder than detecting it. And if your system has issues doing so because it'll be riddled with useless contacts and extremely prone to jamming (you ARE telling it to look for noise), what makes you think any missile you launch at your target will achieve anything? And what makes you think there's any reasonable positional accuracy against your target for a missile launch?

 

 

If you know where he is and he doesn't know that you know... :)

 

It might be impractical.. but it's the best I could think up just now :p

 

 

Why wouldn't he know? He can just fly in and bomb your little system from 40-60nm away where you essentially have no possibility of attacking him at all. Plus, how many HARMs can you stick on an F-16 or F-18? Each part that is suppressed, damaged or destroyed, eats away the capability of your system, and that will happen very quickly ... because while you're looking for stealth fighters and finding only decoys, countermeasures and jamming strobes - not to mention EMI - the rain is coming.