Correct me if I'm wrong but surely the 5th (or is it 4th?) generation stealth fighter-bombers should still be more than capable of being picked up by Thermal sensors and electro-optical ones, or even laser systems?
I mean, as far as I understand the B2 has it's outlets on top of the huge plectrum shaped wing SPECIFICALLY to stop it being "seen" by thermal imaging from the ground. So....for those new generation fighers which are, no doubt, hot shit at avoiding detection by all but a few specific types of radar surely their tailpipes still stick out on, say, a LANTERN targeting pod like a pair of bulldogs bollocks?
Does this not mean that all an earlier generation fighter needs to lock them up in the target acquisition phase is one of these?
This is basically "I am ignorant about current trends in air dominance and desperately need a book recommendation about it" - the post.
Which radar type was it that could still "see" these new stealth generation fighter-bombers? Aren't they the really big, difficult to move, low frequency ones? Don't things like the Javelin missile have seekers that could easily detect even stealth planes due to them shitting out infrared, and could easily be stuck on air-to-air missiles? Does this make stealth aircraft a dumb meme, unless you can actually "hide" the engine outlet and have it enough small enough amounts of IR for it to avoid missile locks?
Optical detection for fast jets is much much harder to avoid than radar detection.
That being said, using optical alone as a detection method is a bit hit and miss, you need to search large areas of the sky to find a small target at long range, it's perfectly possible to completely miss something that is theoretically in range.
The big bennifit comes when you use an IRST in conjunction with a good ESM system. This allows you to get a bearing to target from your ESM then lets the IRST search at the maximum range on a specific bearing and possibly altitude.
having a good EO system in conjunction with radar is essential as at altitude all modern systems will be able to track a target before you enter missile range - asides from in head-on engagements.
Modern surface to air missiles use ESM's, large wavelength early warning radars and EO systems to increase their capability against low RCS targets.
Camden Bailey
....That...was difficult to follow but I think I just about got it. Surely modern computers could automate the optical detection / infrared thing though? Say china is defending against american air attack and it automate ithese camera to just scan the sky CONTINUOUSLY and report to a control room (though ground wire links) ANYTHING that looked suspicious in the sky. Also, can you tell me WHY large wavelength radar are better at detecting stealth aircraft? Also, aren't they generally much BIGGER because they need a big transmitter? Does that mean that we're maybe entering a sort of "battle of britain" type situation when it comes to defense against air attack? I.E. radar can still WORK but it can't be anywhere near as portable as it became during the cold war meaning your radar network cannot be movable and flexible? Leading to it being more vulnerable to cruise missile attack etc? You can see how many questions I have.
Look man, I might have to start tripfaggoting here under the nom "airpower fucking nublet" I know enough about airpower to know that e.g. fighter bombers barely killed tanks in WWII and AWACS was going to be super important to the massive airbattle in a WWIII in europe situation but I don't really KNOW airpower like I know land power, so to speak.
Can you recommend some solid books that actually give some indication of how modern airforces would go about trying to overcome each other, how vulnerable air defense is to air attack etc etc etc. Just any good books you can recommend rly.
Joshua Flores
>Correct me if I'm wrong but surely the 5th...? Yes. Giant after-burning low-bypass turbofans tend to have that problem.
>I mean, as far as I understand the B2...? Hot shit at avoiding all but a few types of radar? Not necessarily. Low frequency radar has the inherent ability to track objects with very low RCS - problem is, you also track every sparrow, pigeon, hawk, and dragonfly in the sky. Is it possible at short range and/or with enough computing power/experience with those kinds of RCS to filter out all the "noise"? Absolutely, but we have to "learn" how to counter stealth aircraft before we can "teach" a computer to find one.
>Does this not mean that all...? Yes and no. Stealth is a very broad term when you start getting specific - before english teachers shoot me for that contradiction, hear me out: stealth is not just specifically for radar. Yes, radar stealth is the more common usage of the term "stealth", but it is not the only term - the four big "stealth's" are Acoustic, Infrared, Radar/Radio, and Visual. Acoustic is not too big a thing for aircraft, as it's more for subs, so we'll skip that. Infrared, however, is important for the exact case you brought up - the B-2 Spirit. The B-2 Spirit, like you said, shields its intakes - and its exhausts, to a certain extent - from ground-based threats, keeping it safer over enemy territory.
Visual Stealth is, well... pretty self-explanatory.
That being said, as I already glossed over Radar, I wont go into detail again, but good stealth over enemy terrain involves throttle management, good relative positioning to threats, and certain "envelopes" to reduce risk and maximize effectiveness - something pilots have been doing for well over a century. The features of a "stealth" aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 just widen that margin a bit, and reduces the need for support assets to suppress, deny, and destroy SAM/EWR before a strike package moves in.
Bentley Wilson
>Surely modern computers could automate the optical detection / infrared thing though?
to a degree - thats what DAS on F35 does although it is not alone in this.
>Say china is defending against american air attack and it automate ithese camera to just scan the sky CONTINUOUSLY and report to a control room (though ground wire links) ANYTHING that looked suspicious in the sky.
Sure, but by the time a sortie comes in range of an EO sensor it's too late to scramble aircaft.
Radar will still probably detect an air aircrafts approximate position before then.
>Also, can you tell me WHY large wavelength radar are better at detecting stealth aircraft?
I'm going to give you a very basic description of how radar wavelength works.
Wavelength is the distance between the peaks and troughs of a wave form.
Radars that use a small wavelength such as I band (also known as X band) are good at pinpointing the exact location of an object because they have a high resolution, this makes them ideal for fire control
Long wavelength radars can only detect targets in rough areas, however because of the way most stealth technolgies work, it is far far harder to reduce RCS against a long wavelength radar.
However you will only get a rough direction and range, you might narrow the target down to an area of a few miles as opposed to a few meters.
The way warfare is going is that both sides will either know everything about the forces the enemy has in their forward area, and nothing about what is in the rear.
The air will also become saturated with false targets either though jamming or decoys. it'll be more of a meat grinder than we've seen in the past.
Blake Price
Even B-2's are limited to nighttime operation as current gen statalites pick up any and all aircraft in an airspace. That is the reason why we are focussing more and more on either swarm tactics or stealth like this meme commerical
I think the question you're trying to ask is a more generalized Air Warfare Doctrine one, so I'll try to answer that and we'll go from there. For simplicity, I'm going to use the United States Air Force and it's aircraft, because it's a general baseline that has a little bit - or a lot - of everything.
>F-16 Front-line multi-role and dog-fighter. Light, cheap, easy to fly and maintain, can take pilots straight out of FS and give 'em a boom and zoom. The modularity of it allows the air-frame to take on multitudes of weapons, sensors, capabilities, and missions. >F-15C For when you need to establish a certain "presence" - they're cheaper than the F-22, more readily available, can still carry quite an A2A payload and dish out death to bombers, fighters, attackers, transports - hell, just about anything that flies. However, by not being stealth, it offers a security of its own - by not being Stealth to Radar, it establishes an "I'm here and if you dont like it, deal with it" style, letting friend and foe know that they stand guard. Who wants to pull a gun at an ATF convention, right? >F-22 Want all the prowess and capabilities but NOT want to be seen? Here ya go. Is a bitch to keep up and a bitch to fly, but once you get the hang of it, she dances all night long. Roughly the same-ish weapons load as the F-15C internally, with the option to add a lot more fun on the wings, making the Raptor the kind of guy to CC a fucking Pak 8.8... and you don't even notice the bulge (OwO). >Part 1/I fucking dont know, last time I got this detailed, it was 6 parts just on evading a fucking missile.
Aiden Jackson
This is all super useful information. I had suspected that there was a reason why the swarm concept was coming up more and more.
I would seriously enjoy the opportunity to talk to all of you and get myself an education on modern air warfare - I still have dozens of questions like - So can AWACS still pick up the latest "stealth" fighters - So "stealth" fighters are still going to get IR missiles threading after them in air-to-air situations - So radar detection is still possible of them but because it's not "filtered" kind of radar (I remember reading about this shit but....gah...can't remeber it) but the old version of radar it picks up too much "clutter" as it were. -Can't jamming fucking with the swarm concept, even simple "barrage" jamming etc. -and so on -and so forth.
But we'd be here all day and I have to go to work, and I'm sure you've got shit to do. Can anyone info dump me? Like, links, recommended books. Not just on airpower but also on electronic warfare, radar. Really dummy description shit if you have it., then moving up to more complex...Cheers
William Cox
what was the point of developing stealth if we never used it to dominate the world and then just let every chink have a turn at stealing it from our poorly guarded computers. now its obsolete and how much did that cost us? quadrillions?
Brayden Green
>F-35 Now, here's the problem child... not because she is, but because people can't seem to fit her in a certain slot in life... The F-35, to this day, was built for a very specific purpose - Tactical Strike behind enemy lines in high-threat environments WITHOUT the need for massive amounts of supporting equipment, while still being able to DEFEND itself to a certain degree - hence the term JOINT. STRIKE. FIGHTER. F-35 threads would be monumentally less autistic if people understood that basic fact. It isn't a new concept - the so-called "Strike FIghter" has existed forever - aircraft like the F4U, P-47, F-100, A-7... I could go on, but that's not the point.
The point is: it is a light, single engine fighter-bomber, that can carry a decent amount of A2G ordnance and still defend itself from interceptors/point-defense fighters, to a certain extent. >A-10 As if I already didn't open a can of worms before... YES, THE A-10 IS STILL VALUABLE TODAY. Do I think we need a slower, cheaper, lighter armed and armored prop-driven attacker to fight goatfuckers? Absolutely, but there are three key points there: slower, lighter armed, and lighter armored. Let me explain.
You ever see how much ordinance an A-10 can carry? It's actually pretty fucking insane considering the engine power. Combine that with loiter time and the armor on the thing and it is still a serious beast - a true battlefield CAS machine (MAN, IT'S ALMOST AS IF IT WAS BUILT FOR THAT). Are we going to send them in straight-up shit fights in the next big world war without any cover protection? No, because that's how you get massive, grievous casualties. I'll get into more of a rant about this specific instance later but know the A-10 is best used BEHIND your aerial front line and in front of you surface front line.
Levi Edwards
A-10s would have been great to have in the korean war
Blake Gutierrez
welcome to the concept of "beyond visual range"
Anthony Wood
>So can AWACS still pick up the latest "stealth" fighters
Yes just at a shorter range than other fighters.
>- So "stealth" fighters are still going to get IR missiles threading after them in air-to-air situations
Stealth is a buzzword for reduced visibility. once you're in a close engagement, hiding goes out the window. and the aircraft is just a susceptible to IR missiles as any other.
>- So radar detection is still possible of them but because it's not "filtered" kind of radar (I remember reading about this shit but....gah...can't remeber it) but the old version of radar it picks up too much "clutter" as it were.
yes, you just need a good computer to filter out the noise. generally speaking radars will ignore everything moving at less than 100mph.
>-Can't jamming fucking with the swarm concept, even simple "barrage" jamming etc.
Ideally a strike will come from multiple directions at high and low altitude at the same time, supported by jamming, decoys, and stand off missiles.
There is a book called "strike warfare in the 21st century" it is a good starting point for how modern air/naval warfare works.
Nicholas Rivera
BVR is reference to the human eye. EO sensors will still track an aircaft at 70 miles at high altitude. well out of range of any missile unless you're flying head on - which almost never happens.
Sebastian Nguyen
You are thinking about what are known as "bi static radars". Stealth does not mean all aspect invisible, it just means LESS visible.
>Low frequency radar has the inherent ability to track objects with very low RCS - problem is, you also track every sparrow, pigeon, hawk, and dragonfly in the sky WTF did you smoke before writing that, jet fuel? The whole reason of using shorter and shorter wavelengths in radar until you hit diminishing returns because of water and oxygen molecules is precision. Sure you can detect "stealth" shit surprisingly well with lower frequencies happily refracting over the plane, but you also pay the price of very inaccurate resolution. You need precision to hit/come close with a rocket.
and BTW it's not invisible to radar, that's just a meme what lockheed jewstein has been feeding you all these years. It's LESS visible. To some of them.
Henry Wilson
>Book recommendations.
Dats it manes. Thanks - really. I was hoping to make a set of three video on youtube to highlight what the major rubrics of modern warfare are (for anyone interested, because there's nothing ON youtube that actually GIVES you an overview of it. About the closest you can come is certain episodes of binkovs battlegrounds) but, as you can tell, my air warfare knowledge is shit.
DESU my knowledge of anti-satellite warfare is fairly fucked as well but I've trespassed on your time enough.
It is my understanding that other detection methods are less effective than radar. What makes radar work is that it lits the sky in invisible light and makes planes shine against it. It's an active detection system. Optical and thermal are passive and thus have a much harder time picking targets against the background.
Noah Taylor
not quite.
the targets radar cross section might be small, but the heat it generates might make it easy to spot - imagine a B2 flying away from you. hot engine exhaust in the cold sky is easy to find, but because the aircraft is absorbing and scattering your radar you wont get a good return.
Alexander King
I know the engines were seated deeper into the B2 than you would think specifically to cut down on thermal signature.
Aaron Baker
a very good book on air power is Revolt of the majors, about how the airforce reformed after vietnam. while not specificaly about EW its very good for general understanding
Henry Nelson
(swarm guy) I agree there are no real theoretical frameworks on youtube. Most videos explain senarios through sheer statistics of individual components of an armed force. This is usefull but it lacks the complex and often overseen doctrenes, tactics and non armed variables that come in to play.
for books i suggest to start reading meme shit as ' the art of war' this really sets you up on how to think of conflict in a much broader sense.
Isaiah James
Another book rec. Thanks!
Already read it my man. But what I'm aiming at is a sort of operational and strategic level of warfare in the air with regards to the technical advances. As an example: I got all my knowledge of land warfare from reading the endless works on the technology of warfare, then on reading AAR's, generals diaries, studying maps on movements, reading manuals and reading first hand accounts. This was the only way in which I finally gained a sort of GRASP on what ground battle was like in, say, WWII. I learned how important operational pace, surprise and coordination was to achieving a "weight" of fire superiority at a weak point. Why spoiling attacks, raids and layered defense matters, WHY it was the organization of the panzer divisions and not their EQUIPMENT that made the difference etc. But I have no such handle for air forces. Certainly not modern air forces. I can just about understand WWII level "I escort the bomber plane. You attack me, I try and fuck your airfields up in retaliation, my territory is covered by radar and I use radar pulses to guide my bombers" stuff but, given the modern proliferation of cruise missiles, smart weapons, airborne radars, fire and forget, drones, different radar types etc etc I don't know what the first step, or the next step, in two major airforces fighting each other actually looks like. Does it start with stand off cruise missile? Is it ever worth try a deep penetration with jamming without almost total attrition of air defense? How the fuck does jamming work anyway? I know you can "Burn through" it...but how?
So that's why I need the book recommendations.
There's plenty of books about "MUH MACH 15 STRIKE INTERNAL DILDO RAPER FIGHTER WITH ELEVENTY HARDPOINTS" in the same way there's millions of words written about "muh german supercat tanks!!!!!" but Ive done the actual doctrinal level reading for land warfare, and am having a hard time finding it for air warfare.
Dylan Moore
couldnt agree more.
By the way do you do you have a profession in these fields or is the intrest just out of sheer hobby. Personally I am working towards getting a degree in modern conflict and always wonder what people do on a day to day basis. Escpecially since on the board some know a lot of shit, even more than most of my professors do.
Liam Hill
also Every man a tiger, about the (1st) gulf war air campaing
Nathan Turner
Sadly, I graduated in History. Obviously to understand history you're going to NEED to know war, but more than this, warfighting matters are reflective of the nature of mankind, and nations - their constraints, ideologies and dispositions. A thorough knowledge of war also blows apart shitlib theories of the world.
I am a poor retail cuck in bongland. But I hope to make decent youtube videos on shit that interests me.
Christopher Bailey
IR detection range is extremely short compared to radar.
Xavier Gutierrez
>IR detection range is extremely short compared to radar.
Not when you're trying to detect a VLO aircraft.
Lucas Martin
>Absolutely, but we have to "learn" how to counter stealth aircraft before we can "teach" a computer to find one.
Different user here. Why not teach the computer what to ignore, instead? Dragonflies and butterflies tend to have similar flight characteristics, birds tend to fall into similar behavior patterns as well. Tell the computer what to ignore, so it can concentrate on the anomalies. Or does this get into the realm of unrealistic amounts of computing power? Also, isn’t it possible to get a radar return off of the trail of turbulence a plane stirs up?
Henry Gonzalez
>EO sensors will still track an aircaft at 70 miles at high altitude
under ideal conditions while looking straight up the tailpipe
Evan Rogers
Which means a VLO aircraft still has a massive advantage over conventional designs.
Gavin Jackson
This is correct. Where china got off on "QUANTUM" was that modern computers have not yet been built for purpose built stealth detection, but easily could be, and maybe now already have.
If you have a ground based observatory who's only job is to look at pixels in the sky, and it sees one pixel that is moving differently than all the other pixels, you got your problem right there.
The biiiiiiiig issue there is writing the software for that. not the fact that its impossibru.
Why 1 pixel you ask? Its probably the smallest level of detail a ground based camera, we would ignore, and could detect, and we make in this scenario.
Jayden Parker
same guy again, so that being said...
There is 100% technology being worked on for visual stealth. You still have to contend with thermal and EM emissions and increasingly sensitive sensors. However, that is the name of the game. You force your enemy to develop sensors instead of weapons. The rest of the world has spent the past 20 years trying to just catch up to US missile technology while the US has entered into the early stage of the direct energy/ charged particle game.
Why don't we hear more about it? Well, that seems to be the MO of the US. Other nations often oversell their product, the US tends to understate it.
Michael Gutierrez
it easyer to seach for the thing your looking
Jordan Watson
see
Gabriel Nelson
I'm no radar genius, but wouldn't it be a simple matter of just filtering out every bug/bird sized radar sample that WASNT travelling 500mph?
Tyler Torres
EO sensors have a theoretical ranges way beyond eyeball range, but their ability to search airspace for small objects is very restricted. It's like trying to scan the sky with a pair of binoculars -- you can do it, but you have a very narrow field of vision because you need to zoom way in to make out what you're trying to see. Generally speaking, you would need to get some intel on a target bearing to realistically find it with EO sensors.
Also, using radar in a stealth envrionment doesn't mean death -- that depends on the capabilities of your radar systems vs their sensors. A modern AESA radar set is fairly safe vs some ancient Soviet surplus junk, although any emissions is potentially enough to at least give the opposition a general bearing on you.
Chase Sullivan
EO is well and good, but the range is limited. If you can see the target, the target has already shot at whatever it wants to.
Liam Peterson
This. Even JDAMs have a slant range of 30km. That's about what you are going to get range wise out of a ground station.
Tyler Perry
Congratulations, you've discovered a completely meaningless flaw due to the fact that IR/Visible light scanning has severe atmospheric restrictions, to the point that the Stealth will start being visible on X-Band once you can use that as well.
