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Stealth will end up as a footnote in the history of military technology just like reinforced concrete. Prior to WWI, reinforced concrete gave rise to an era whe
by cc439 12y ago
Stealth will end up as a footnote in the history of military technology just like reinforced concrete. Prior to WWI, reinforced concrete gave rise to an era where networks of large forts could hold against any attack with proper coordination. Then early formulations of "modern" high explosives combined with advances in metalworking gave rise to artillery that could easily blast any fort to pieces.
Stealth worked well against radar systems lacking the computing horsepower needed to filter an aircraft out of the noise. Military hardware lags far behind the capabilities of consumer hardware since the rate of progression has been so rapid while military projects are planned over decades but if systems from 1998 are capable of tracking the latest in stealth technology the next few years will be the bookend of the stealth era.
Personally, I think the future will be an environment where swarms of small drones are thrown against these advanced radar systems in an effort to overwhelm their tracking capability. It'll be an updated strategy along the lines of Baldwin's "the bomber will always get through" ideology. The difference is that drones don't cost lives so the weak point of WWII era bombing strategy won't be of any concern. The winning side will be the one that can afford to keep throwing 1,000 drones at every mission.
- adventured 12y agoThere will always be more weapons to shoot down each drone, at a lower cost, than there will be drones. The throw 10,000 drones at them approach will not shake the super powers. Aircraft bombing runs against high powered military nations is long since over. It will never see a return as a broad strategy method. The swarm strategy won't produce a winning side in any scenario except for ones in which a high-powered military takes on a weaker military. Nothing will fundamentally change about who dominates the global military sphere.
- andrewfong 12y agoMaybe, but you're not considering (a) the value of the target or (b) the effectiveness of drone defense. Even if defense is cheaper than offense, it will never be perfect. If all it takes is one drone to destroy the target and the target is sufficiently high-value, then the 10,000 drone strategy may be worth it. For comparison, see ICBMs and missile defense.
- pavelrub 12y agoThe future is moving towards hypersonic platforms to deliver extremely-rapid strikes that rely on speed to penetrate highly defended targets. This is the direction that the U.S. military is taking with programs such as Prompt Global Strike [1]. See DARPA Falcon Project [2], Boeing X-51 [3] and Lockheed SR-72 [4]. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_Global_Strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_Global_Strike [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project [3] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-51 [4] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72