Stealth technology

[Myth]

So.. How good are the stealth fighters? The bombers? Do other countries possess similar technology? How stealthy are they in practice? Can they fly over conventional SAM sites and not be blown into lego pieces?

[Sir Moody]

Its difficult to judge how good they are as everything about them is pretty secretive but as to who has them - currently the US is the only country with operational manned stealth aircraft (including Helicopters) however Russia, China, India, Sweden and Turkey are currently developing stealth aircraft - most are due to go into service between 2016 and 2020.

[Beskar]

I thought the UK has them too? I am sure BAE has produced them.

[Husar]

Well, no details are entirely official but in general, eyes can see them, ears can hear them.

The stealth is mostly a reduction to visibility by radar and usually also infrared devices.

If they fly straight over a SAM site it usually means good night. Even the F-117 and the B-2 usually plan their approach routes around SAM sites, they just consider these SAM sites to have a (much) shorter detection range than they would have against a big unstealthy plane like a B-52. When they open their bomb/weapon bays, there is also a chance that this increases their radar cross section (RCS) and thus, visibility on the radar.

The rest probably depends on the plane we are talking about, the F-117 and B-2 are very stealthy bombers which were able to penetrate e.g. Iraqi SAM sites for the most part, the F-22 is more complicated as a fighter. I'm mostly guesstimating from things I read about it but it seems rather stealthy as long as the weapon bays are closed and no external weapons are carried. That doesn't make it invisible to enemy radar but it's maybe as visible as a golf ball or so, which means that an enemy radar has to ber rather strong/good to see it at a long or even medium range. The plane itself also has a modern radar that is supposedly rather good at enemy detection without being too easy to detect by enemy airplanes although I assume it is still somewhat likely to give the plane away, which does still not mean that enemy jets can fire back as anti-radar missiles are not meant to be used against airplanes AFAIK and usually not carried by fighter airplanes. If the F-22 carries external weapons or drop tanks which are not built to be stealthy, it will be more visible to enemy radars.

What I'm not entirely sure about is the aspect, but the surfaces are all at 48° to reflect incoming radar waves away from their source. Usually the stralth is a mixture of reflecting them away and absorbing some of the energy to reflect less energy overall. Now if the waves of the enemy radar do not hit the F-22 at an optimal angle I'm not sure what will happen, but I would assume it can be detectedf from further away. Since it is built to engage unstealth enemy fighter whose position is known e.g. from AWACS air control, that's probably not a huge issue as it can fly at them more or less head on, where the RCS should be the smallest.

The F-117 and B-2 obviously look somewhat different and may be built of different materials as they also do not fly faster than the speed of sound AFAIK, they're also not meant to be able to engage in dogfights so I would assume that their "skin" material absorbs more radar waves and their form is more aligned to reflect radar waves from ground installations away from the source. Especially the F-117 seems to have hardly a surface that could reflect radar waves back to a radar below and a certain distance away, which is owed to its pyramid-like shape. The lower hull parts of an F-22 on the other hand might be entirely perpendicular to such a radar source and would, I assume, reduce the stealth level of the plane in case this happens. Then again and F-22 might also move and turn so much that it would be hard to maintain such a radar lock in order to guide a missile all the way to it, especially if that radar lock is detected and the warnings in the F-22 go off.

That's the best I can come up with without having any expert knowledge of the topic, just some physics, logic and things I read out of interest.

[Crandar]

So.. How good are the stealth fighters? The bombers? Do other countries possess similar technology? How stealthy are they in practice? Can they fly over conventional SAM sites and not be blown into lego pieces?

Well, they have some weaknesses, in what concerns the Serbo-Hungarian aspect.

[Sir Moody]

I thought the UK has them too? I am sure BAE has produced them.

BAE produced a prototype but it never went into Operation and there are no current plans to produce a manned stealth aircraft (although BAE did show off a unmanned stealth fighter a couple of weeks ago)

[Sigurd]

Horten Ho229...

[Sarmatian]

Well, they have some weaknesses, in what concerns the Serbo-Hungarian aspect.

What's a Serbo-Hungarian aspect?

[Crandar]

What's a Serbo-Hungarian aspect?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolt%C3%A1n_Dani

[a completely inoffensive name]

I don't know anything technical about them, all I know is that my country has the best and your country has the worst.

[Husar]

Well, they have some weaknesses, in what concerns the Serbo-Hungarian aspect.

That was an accident.
The plane was flying home below the radar (they are flat so they fit underneath).
A Serbian soldier who was lost fired a signal into the air that ignited the plane as their skin is obviously made of coal.
The plane then fell onto the soldier and that is why noone ever learned the truth until now.

This entire myth really shouldn't be spread anymore, especially tsince the newer generations fly below the surface to avoid radar detection.

And the Ho-229 is a myth, the Nazis never invented anything useful, that's ideologically impossible.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Stealth is very very good. Radar cross sections are ridiculously small for the size of the objects and their heat diffusion/focus minimizes infrared tracking as well. Add in the usual chaffs and flares and you have a target that is very hard to see and even harder to hit.

That said, nothing can absolutely prevent a "golden BB," nor are stealth craft invisible to mark 1a eyeballs.

[Papewaio]

Silent but violent.

[Husar]

Even tanks have their secrets. When I was in the Army, I heard rumors of Russian tanks with thermal-detection-proof paint and automatic laser-rangefinder detection suites that would lock on to any American tank trying to lock on to them. Such things should be taken with grains of salt, but it goes to demonstrate that perhaps more than anything else, military technology is about evolution and secrets.

Totally exists, even more than that.

[Husar]

Good links? I can't stand to watch most tank documentaries because they're so damned basic. Been hard to keep up.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Radar-Laser-...-/14935/i.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_warning_receiver

With more I meant that lasers can also be jammed.

also this: https://www.ll.mit.edu/HPEC/agendas/...Submission.pdf

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Silent but violent.

Sounds like you've been eating too much Tex-Mex.....

[Papewaio]

Sounds like you've been eating too much Tex-Mex.....

Nope Texans are loud and proud.
Mexicans are hot and sharp.
Tex-Mex is did I just shart?

[Fragony]

According to the designer of the F16 it's useless, uses way too much power and a radar from the 50's can still see them supposedly. He wasnt all that positive about the JSF alltogether, says it's not got good at anything. Too clumsy, too heavy, not enough airtime because of all the tech, can be outmaneuvred by just about anything because of the short wings.

Edit, make that co-designer http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-design...uch-1591828468

Why are buying these things if we can also get superior stuff from Sweden or France

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Multi-roles are always a tricky order.

Sometimes you get the Blenheim, sometimes you get the Mosquito.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

According to the designer of the F16 it's useless, uses way too much power and a radar from the 50's can still see them supposedly. He wasnt all that positive about the JSF alltogether, says it's not got good at anything. Too clumsy, too heavy, not enough airtime because of all the tech, can be outmaneuvred by just about anything because of the short wings.

Edit, make that co-designer http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-design...uch-1591828468

Why are buying these things if we can also get superior stuff from Sweden or France

Except Fa Fa says the Viggen was a fine multi-role fighter, reports are the Grippen likewise performs very well, and indeed (despite the expense) the F-15 performs well by all accounts.

That's not to say some of the things he says about the F-35 aren't true - but I don't think everything he says is by any stretch.

[Greyblades]

Why are buying these things if we can also get superior stuff from Sweden or France

Because the local arms developers would throw a fit if the precious blood money went to a dirty foreigner, good thing they have such effective lobbyists. </sardony>

[Fragony]

That's not to say some of the things he says about the F-35 aren't true - but I don't think everything he says is by any stretch.

You are not alone on that one. I actually worked on that thing when I still worked at Perot systems and the stealth is more a nano-tech based chameleon skin rather than actually deflecting anything. Didn't work on that just talked to the smart guys. That's just the skin though I know nothing more than that and am probably breaking company secrets right now. But it looks like it's a pretty bad plane regardless if you hear experts talking about it. Nobody really likes that thing it seems. No reach, half of the ability to stay in an area, no way it can outmanoevre much faster jets, pretty bad deal I'd say

[Beskar]

What I find impressive is that we could detect a lit-candle orbiting Mars with current equipment, due to how sensitive heat-detection is.

[Myth]

Nice reply from Husar. So basically it's impossible at the moment to fly any kind of manned aircraft over a SAM riddled battlefield or strategic location and expect to get away scott free. So how does the whole air superiority thing work in an actual conflict that includes more than goatherds with shoulder mounted Igla rpgs?

[Husar]

According to the designer of the F16 it's useless, uses way too much power and a radar from the 50's can still see them supposedly.

Yeah, that's true, the F-16 is useless and has no stealth technology. Even a radar from the 840s could see it.

Because the local arms developers would throw a fit if the precious blood money went to a dirty foreigner, good thing they have such effective lobbyists. </sardony>

Aren't most arms deals decided by who is willing to pay the higher bribes?
At least European and US military contractors are quite willing to pay bribes if national pride is not a factor in the purchasing country.

What I find impressive is that we could detect a lit-candle orbiting Mars with current equipment, due to how sensitive heat-detection is.

From where, with what and how exactly?
I can also claim that the nerves in my nose are capable of receiving the smell of a ferret farting in Australia but that still doesn't mean that I could tell you its name.

Nice reply from Husar. So basically it's impossible at the moment to fly any kind of manned aircraft over a SAM riddled battlefield or strategic location and expect to get away scott free. So how does the whole air superiority thing work in an actual conflict that includes more than goatherds with shoulder mounted Igla rpgs?

Depends on how good the balance between tracking mechanisms and countermeasures actually is today and a whole lot of other things. Just because stealth planes are not immune there is no reason to think that airplanes in general are useless.
First of all you have to consider other assets such as commando operations and suppression of air defenses in general. Apart from stealth, aircraft can also use electronic countermeasures, the good old chaff and flares and Wild Weasels can be used to supress or destroy enemy anti air assets.

It all depends on who is fighting who, how and where they are fighting and how good their strategies and tactics are. Quite a few strike aircraft can fly through valleys where they don't need stealth to escape radar SAMs unless the valey itself is riddled with air defense assets. However, if we're talking about a modern US vs Russia scenario, consider the nukes. Otherwise think of Libya, they didn't have the most modern russian AA assets but also not the worst and France and Britain didn't use stealth fighters over there although both have had some thoughts put into a reduced RCS, the Rafale more than the Eurofighter AFAIK.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The Air Force, more than any other service, is motivated by something like corporate greed rather than planning for the next real war. Any military historian with half a degree and a quarter of a brain knows that multi-role fighters are almost always a compromise--not because they are inherently a bad idea (they're not!) but because feature-creep is so tempting when you're making a multi-role fighter!

It is very typical of the Air Force that they're so busy plugging the F-35, while still trying to get rid of the A-10 whenever people aren't looking.

The acme of the USAF is the fighter pilot. Unfortunately, all of those fighter pilots are headed rapidly to obsolete in favor of thumb-warriors guiding RPV's through 15G turns....

[Pannonian]

Multi-roles are always a tricky order.

Sometimes you get the Blenheim, sometimes you get the Mosquito.

The lesson is use to use the most of a country's human resources, even using furniture makers to build fighter bombers. I expect the next Ikea prototype will put the current generation fighters to shame performance-wise.

[Husar]

The acme of the USAF is the fighter pilot. Unfortunately, all of those fighter pilots are headed rapidly to obsolete in favor of thumb-warriors guiding RPV's through 15G turns....

The same will be the case for the army, it's just a little harder to move on land than it is to move in the air.
The first steps have been taken by the army however, there were already some challenges to create drone vehicles that can race through the desert and so on.

And there will be more:

The steady stream of scientific breakthroughs, inventions and discoveries had a great influence on the daily lives of UCS citizens. Soon CPU-controls were everywhere. Automated factories needed little attention. Robots did all the household chores. There was little work to be done, and everyone lived quite comfortably. Computer systems assumed de facto control over running the country, since the human rulers by now hardly ever felt confident enough to reject their "advice", which now covered every decision imaginable.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Source: http://earthseries.wikia.com/wiki/Un...vilized_States

[Myth]

The lesson is use to use the most of a country's human resources, even using furniture makers to build fighter bombers. I expect the next Ikea prototype will put the current generation fighters to shame performance-wise.

Well you'd only need one tool to assemble them at the very least.

[Fragony]

Because the local arms developers would throw a fit if the precious blood money went to a dirty foreigner, good thing they have such effective lobbyists. </sardony>

This is where it gets hilarious, production of our JFS's has probably been outsourced to Italy, so we don't even benefit from it's production after spending a lot of money on the tech, and the company it has been outscourced it to doesn't exactly has a reputation for delivering any quality, they delivered high-speed trains that are so bad that the roof can just break of or the whatsitcalled, the weels just let go.

If it has to be outscourded let the Germans do it ffs, more expensive but Germans never screw up when enginering something.