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As soon as someone learns to detect F35 radar signal, more than half if it's stealth advantage melts away. So far U.S. has only made air-to-ground anti-radiatio

by vlehto 11y ago

As soon as someone learns to detect F35 radar signal, more than half if it's stealth advantage melts away. So far U.S. has only made air-to-ground anti-radiation missiles, but the Russians have tried also air-to-air version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile All this has not gone unnoticed in the Pentagon, so radars like there have probably been in the works for quite some time. F35 sales pitches are probably warming up right now, so news like this are expected. The only surprise for me is that this comes from the army and not the air force or navy. They probably need to worry about enemy droids. And if they worry about those droids using radar, they need to worry about enemy anti-radiation missiles. This is probably part of larger picture of U.S. armed forces to avoid using Infra Red Search and Track (IRST). Because that makes stealth planes look bit silly, when you go past ~0,07m^2 radar cross section. At that point you would get parity with detection ranges of common radars and modern IRST sensors, which would be something like 80km for fighter jet sized object. But this would mean no operations in enemy airspace, as flight ceilings are typically around 20km. F35 has RCS 0,01 and F22 RCS 0,001 which is just great for operating in enemy airspace, if the enemy can't detect their radars and lacks IRST. Currently it seems the best USAF can do about IRST is to pretend it doesn't matter. So if there is any coordination between the branches, the army has to get their own stealth radar against enemy drones. After two decades and gazillion dollars, we probably see subsonic F40-cool-skin, with reflecting mirror finish aluminum body, that eliminates this problem. And power projection and proceed uninhibited. Why mirror finish aluminum? Current IRST sensors can detect current fighters from tens of kilometers away from sun heated surfaces radiating at IR spectrum. Having orthogonal plates means that sun glare doesn't hit the IR sensor directly, the mirror finish prevents excessive heating and smooth aluminum has very small IR emissivity naturally. Conveniently aircraft are already made from aluminum. Right now we don't hear about this aluminum shit, because U.S. is still funding some weaponized lasers. Airborne lasers smelled like "overspending" before, but it's really going to smell like bluff when reflecting surfaces increase power requirements some 400%. They already suffer from bad power/weight ratios. But once naval laser "close-in weapon system" has been fielded (because any chance is a good one when you're desperate) we can go back to airplane design. Sorry, this is bit long. I've had this autistic streak about this subject for past two weeks.

dogma1138 11y ago
Modern aircraft don't need RADAR that much, they can run the RADAR in passive mode and since they are all equipped with IRST[0] they have other sensors to compensate for the lack of active radar. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infra-red_search_and_track https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infra-red_search_and_track Missiles have their own seeker (CCD/IR/Radar) which are used to guide them to their targets, on modern jet fighters the radars usually need to be activated only for a very short period for a coarse BVR EIP and that's about it. For (W)IVR engagements the radar is not needed at all as the pilot can see it's target, the missile seeker can then be activated prior to launch and you get a lock from the missile no the on board radar (that's the actual iconic tone lock), and today you don't even need a full (or even any type of lock) as most missiles have Lock After Launch capabilities which will allow the missile to either select a target autonomously or receive a target designation from the pilot after launch. Also as far as RADAR goes then don't forget that F35's don't fly solo but rather in strike groups meaning that even if they are not accompanied by special missions aircraft that only one of them will have the radar on in active mode and the data will be shared using the combat data link (and the other passive radars can actually use the return signal from the active one to independently identify targets). But the even more common formation will be several strike groups of jets with a special missions aircraft (e.g. AWACS) flying couple of 100's of miles behind them with a much bigger radar that could lock on BVR and BHR targets and transmit the details to the strike aircraft via a datalink.
- vlehto 11y ago
  I don't think any modern fighter yet has all aspect IRST. They are usually mounted above the nose and have somewhat limited field of vision. Current USAF tactic is probably to illuminate targets with AWACS and engage them from long range with F-22. Then conduct SEAD mission with F35. Pretty much as you said. That's actually somewhat good idea against future enemy stealth fighters, if you can simply increase that AWACS radar power. (Easier said than done, you probably need couple orders of magnitude more power.) But radar guided missile ranges have been increasing recently, S400 should have 400km range. Fighters might be able to dodge that massive missiles, but AWACS plane is probably doomed. And radars tend to show on radar. Current short and medium range missiles are so good, that as long as you have lock on, the "no escape zone" is quite large. Increase in computation power and seeker resolution has rendered chaff and flares almost obsolete. (Or that's what most sources tell you. They don't get to test those systems in real life engagements too often.) This and combined to off bore-sight launch capability has led analysts to predict mutual kill in any close combat situation involving relatively modern fighters. One major problem with selling the F35 is to convince other countries that they actually need a flying platform anymore. If missiles are as good as everybody is saying and if Russia, China and India are able to launch stealthy aircraft, why not just buy trucks with IRST sensors and heat seeking SAM missiles? You can buy quite a bunch of such systems with the price of single F35. F35 flying in a pack and using their radars one at the time? Cool. But if PAK FA has the stealth they claim it will have, you are better off with just IRST, because as completely passive, it doesn't warn anybody about anything. Ditch the radar and get ~400kg more fuel on board, or equally lighter aircraft.

by vlehto 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago

Modern aircraft don't need RADAR that much, they can run the RADAR in passive mode and since they are all equipped with IRST[0] they have other sensors to compensate for the lack of active radar. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infra-red_search_and_track https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infra-red_search_and_track Missiles have their own seeker (CCD/IR/Radar) which are used to guide them to their targets, on modern jet fighters the radars usually need to be activated only for a very short period for a coarse BVR EIP and that's about it. For (W)IVR engagements the radar is not needed at all as the pilot can see it's target, the missile seeker can then be activated prior to launch and you get a lock from the missile no the on board radar (that's the actual iconic tone lock), and today you don't even need a full (or even any type of lock) as most missiles have Lock After Launch capabilities which will allow the missile to either select a target autonomously or receive a target designation from the pilot after launch. Also as far as RADAR goes then don't forget that F35's don't fly solo but rather in strike groups meaning that even if they are not accompanied by special missions aircraft that only one of them will have the radar on in active mode and the data will be shared using the combat data link (and the other passive radars can actually use the return signal from the active one to independently identify targets). But the even more common formation will be several strike groups of jets with a special missions aircraft (e.g. AWACS) flying couple of 100's of miles behind them with a much bigger radar that could lock on BVR and BHR targets and transmit the details to the strike aircraft via a datalink.

vlehto 11y ago
I don't think any modern fighter yet has all aspect IRST. They are usually mounted above the nose and have somewhat limited field of vision. Current USAF tactic is probably to illuminate targets with AWACS and engage them from long range with F-22. Then conduct SEAD mission with F35. Pretty much as you said. That's actually somewhat good idea against future enemy stealth fighters, if you can simply increase that AWACS radar power. (Easier said than done, you probably need couple orders of magnitude more power.) But radar guided missile ranges have been increasing recently, S400 should have 400km range. Fighters might be able to dodge that massive missiles, but AWACS plane is probably doomed. And radars tend to show on radar. Current short and medium range missiles are so good, that as long as you have lock on, the "no escape zone" is quite large. Increase in computation power and seeker resolution has rendered chaff and flares almost obsolete. (Or that's what most sources tell you. They don't get to test those systems in real life engagements too often.) This and combined to off bore-sight launch capability has led analysts to predict mutual kill in any close combat situation involving relatively modern fighters. One major problem with selling the F35 is to convince other countries that they actually need a flying platform anymore. If missiles are as good as everybody is saying and if Russia, China and India are able to launch stealthy aircraft, why not just buy trucks with IRST sensors and heat seeking SAM missiles? You can buy quite a bunch of such systems with the price of single F35. F35 flying in a pack and using their radars one at the time? Cool. But if PAK FA has the stealth they claim it will have, you are better off with just IRST, because as completely passive, it doesn't warn anybody about anything. Ditch the radar and get ~400kg more fuel on board, or equally lighter aircraft.