How long will STEALTH be effective?

Originally posted by Oxygen
The Eurofighter doesn't need to display it's preformance to a crowd. The F-22A just wants attention cause the Yanks know it's second best.

Hmmm, perhaps you might benefit from more research on the two aircraft.

The Typhoon has performed many aerial displays. Its the prime export fighter right now. They have to and have been showing it off. Is it more manuverable than the F-22 or the endless Su-27 variants? Who knows, but you can manuver all you want but if you cannot see your opponent in a BVR engagment you are toast anyway.

Originally posted by Dark Crystalline

laser guidance of the M1 Abrams Tank

Not sure where you got this info, but it's wrong.

I used to be an M1 turret mechanic.

Regards,
Lex

Forgive me because I know very little about aircraft, and even less about stealth. But whenever I've watched television programs or read articles about stealth planes, they would say things like "this plane has the radar signature of a small bird" or something along those lines. Now that always made me wonder... if these planes have the radar signature of a bird, then couldn't somekind of radar system be developed that distinguishes between the birds flying 500+MPH and the birds flying at normal bird speeds, thus allowing them to locate and identify stealth aircraft in their airspace?

Chances are I'm completely misunderstanding things here because I know it can't be this simple. I suppose when they say that these planes have the signature of a bird they don't mean that individual birds show up on radar, as they're probably too small. I'm sure flocks of birds show up as that's the story they give us sometimes for UFO's showing up on radar. But if a stealth aircraft has the radar signature of a bird, and a bird cannot be detected by radar, then why even say such a thing? Shouldn't they say that it has no radar detection, like I assume a bird does? I mean, it's got to be one or the other. Either it has the radar signature of a bird and cannot be seen on radar, or it has the radar section of a bird and birds can be seen individually on radar. And if that's the case, then my theory can't be that far off. It seems like such technology would be fairly easy to develop. But then again I know just as much about birds as I do about planes and radar and stealth! LOL

I think they do that to give people a easily understood reference. Radar cross section is measured in decibels and when you start throwing those around people may have a hard time understand that.

About 10 years ago, some bright person recognized that you can spot "stealth" aircraft over human occupied areas by the "hole" they leave in the mobile phone signals from cell towers.

Originally posted by sir_chancealot
About 10 years ago, some bright person recognized that you can spot "stealth" aircraft over human occupied areas by the "hole" they leave in the mobile phone signals from cell towers.

The brits are developing CELLDAR as we speak.
Do a quick search and read up.

Here is a simple answer to the question asked.

Stealth will be effective until the sorties flown become too expensive due to the aircraft being shot down, damaged, or high maintenance costs. It's all about the dollar when it comes to deciding life expectancy of an airframe regardless of what it can do.

Last time I checked only 1 stealth aircraft has ever been “shot down”. That single report has been labeled as a lucky shot by some sources, others say it was tracked. It doesn’t matter what really happened; only one was lost during a combat mission.

The numbers of stealth sorties flown is not public knowledge, but losing one aircraft in the course of 15+ years of combat operations gives me the idea that it still works.

I just list the facts that I know are public knowledge, you decide on when it becomes worthless. I just want to know what stealth's replacement will be since it should already be in the works if it isn't already flying around somewhere.

Originally posted by sir_chancealot
About 10 years ago, some bright person recognized that you can spot "stealth" aircraft over human occupied areas by the "hole" they leave in the mobile phone signals from cell towers.

That's an example of a bistatic radar.

If you do it with lots of endpoints it becomes a multistatic radar. It's better than a poke in the eye but still leaves a lot to be desired in the form of giving you precise headings, altitude data and the like.

If you make the sources coherent you can get nice images out of it though.

Originally posted by waynos
The thing is, stealth isn't that at all. What it does give is a reduced detectability which enhances the survivability of the F-22 allowing it more 'space' in which to carry out its mission. Its not unbeatable, but it does raise the probability of success and survival to hitherto unseen levels. Not Superman maybe, the F-22 is more like Robin Hood

Thank You Waynos!

Folks, Stealth aircraft are NOT Invisible and they never have been. I'm shocked how often I see someone heve on ATS referring to these planes as "invisible". What stealth technology does is shrink the aircraft's RCS making it much harder to see, so that it can hide in the clutter of the background. While not the greatest analogy, you can think of stealth as a high-tech electronic camoflage!

Putting on a camoflage suit and standing next to a bush doesn't make you invisible, does it?

Tim

Putting on a camoflage suit and standing next to a bush doesn't make you invisible, does it?

Depends on how good it is. If you're wearing a gilly suit that matches the terrain, then yes, you'll be pretty damn invisible. There's a few superfreaks at the paintball fields who do this, hehe... Me? I just find some good cover and snipe, that's my specialty...

Anyhoo...keep in mind that the F22 specs and stats are just what are "public". As a longtime Lockheed brat, and with my father on the Raptor project, I can say that some of the testing variants would simply blow your mind... Of course, one can never tell when dad is stretching the truth a bit...but I've gotten better at telling over the years....

As for weather...the poster was generally correct in regards to aircraft. These chopper crashes in Iraq and Afghanistan? It's due to sudden sand and wind...though you won't see the Pentagon saying as much. An absolute hellish condition to fly a chopper sometimes. I'd argue that some of the larger Russian choppers may fair a little better in such conditions, but they had such disasters as well.

Having lived in Alaska, and seen plenty of military equipment working just fine, I'd have to argue against the cold weather issues. Of course, we've already seen advanced US tanks vs soviet tanks in hot weather, and the results were not so good for the soviet equipment... Granted, we're talking a huge generation gap here....

The stealth planes were tracked largely due to stupidity (i.e. flying the same patterns, etc.). There's actually a very well documented thread right here on ATS detailing how the Russians did this using normal radar combined with listening posts and visual witnesses.

[edit on 5-6-2007 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by Lexion
Originally posted by Dark Crystalline

laser guidance of the M1 Abrams Tank

Not sure where you got this info, but it's wrong.

I used to be an M1 turret mechanic.

Regards,
Lex

Well. I heard it from a former T-72 Commander, who knows most of the tanks. I thought there for the laser rangerfinder and the other sensors (Ballistic control computer or what is it's name in overall. You surely know what about I'm talking. ). I'm not a Army tank guy, I'm trained in the Air Force. So I'm telling you here what I heard from the Army about the Abrams (I mentioned this.). But as I heard these systems have some glitch in various weather conditions and cannot work in normal efficiency, especially in cold and wet weathers (Typical European and Russian conditions.)

Originally posted by Dark Crystalline

Well. I heard it from a former T-72 Commander, who knows most of the tanks.

Sorry, you heard wrong. No biggie.

I'd go into an explanation, but I'm not sure what main gun fire control
systems are still classified.

Regards,
Lex

Don't forget that the existence of U.S. stealth aircraft such as the F-117 and B-2 wasn't revealed until years after production, imagine what the U.S. has on the drawing board now.

Originally posted by wingman77
Don't forget that the existence of U.S. stealth aircraft such as the F-117 and B-2 wasn't revealed until years after production, imagine what the U.S. has on the drawing board now.

Not that tired old chestnut.

The F-117, yes, but the B-2 (and F-22) were revealed as prototypes and publicised even before that. They are the current state of the art.

Planes on drawing boards never won a war.

Originally posted by wingman77

imagine what the U.S. has on the drawing board now.

Heh, imagine what they have flying.

Regards,
Lex

We have the state of the art because we spend the most. The U.S. has had failures in terms of weapons systems but every nation has. I believe when we develop something as critical as a mainline fighter aircraft we put our all into it. Stealth is just another facet in the effectiveness of a fighter, because nations compete militarily it may be that stealth is never 100% effective. Think ahead, we'll have visibly cloaked fighters but there will be countermeasures developed to detect that. Stealth techniques have a shelf life, cloaking your RCS is becoming exceedingly difficult.

Originally posted by Gazrok

Putting on a camoflage suit and standing next to a bush doesn't make you invisible, does it?

Depends on how good it is. If you're wearing a gilly suit that matches the terrain, then yes, you'll be pretty damn invisible.

There's a few superfreaks at the paintball fields who do this, hehe... Me? I just find some good cover and snipe, that's my specialty...
[edit on 5-6-2007 by Gazrok]

Humor me Gazrok! You know what point I was making. Flying a stealth plane does not give one a licence to be reckless and foolish. Like camoflage stealth doesn't make you unbeatable. The F-117 over Serbia proved that. Even a stealth aircraft can be shot down if you aren't careful with the tactics you are using.

Tim

DC:
This is going way off topic.
Someone can probably confirm me that the firecontrol systems in Leo2 and Abrams are pretty similar?
And i know for sure that Leo2 hits first in meeting engagement against T-72 (Heavily modernized Finnish one) about 95% of the time. This info is based on training tests with Finnish equipment.

Back to topic:
Have there been any confirmed locks to steath planes with IR-detection systems? Because i know civilian systems that can detect a 3C increase in temperature from 30km away...

Originally posted by Dark Crystalline
Actually the old Russian radars are able to detect any of the stealth crafts, just they're not advertising it. It was one of our first question at our Air Force Academy. And the answer was... yes, we're able to detect them, only the U.S. doesn't know it. Now the fact is, the radars of the U.S. are scanning the territory in square-meters. The Russian radars are scanning the air in square-centimeters.

Oh please! if this isnt an example of self serving propaganda then what is? Did you really think the Russian Airforce would say anything other than this? And another thing, dont you mean the US is scanning in higher bandwidth than Russia? not the other way around as you claimed.

The stealth capability is pure propaganda, such as the next generation laser targeting systems. The only stealth capability will be if someone will be able to disguise the craft with a cloaking field. Until that moment, stealth crafts are useless (Especially in cold and some weather conditions due to their laser systems.). They're effective in hot weather (Which is in Iraq or Afghanistan), but in cold weather, various weather, both the laser guidance of the M1 Abrams Tank, the U.S. Aircrafts, Helicopters are out or their performance is reduces to 2-10 percent. The Russian technology advantage comes here, because in cold weather, various weather conditions an old T72 with it's manual targeting system will be able to take out any U.S. tanks without any problem, because in the cold or various weather conditions, the U.S. tanks will have problems with their targeting system. The Mig29 is also the same. It will be fully operational in Siberia or in Europe, where the Stealth crafts are completely useless (In Kosovo, the F117, some AH64D Apache and additional U.S. crafts are also proved this. They aren't that effective as they're advertising.).

And since when has Russia not been guilty of "pure propaganda" itself? This cold weather excuse is pure rubbish. If anything laser based systems will work better in very cold conditions due to lower ambient humidity. Water molecules attenuate laser emmisions, pure and simple. If you remove moisture and ideally dont have the refractive distortions caused by high heat, a la deserts, you have a clear laser beam path. Actually the worst conditions are either in the tropics (high humidity & high heat) or "European style" (foggy, raining or high humidity) weather. And in any case do you really think that given most of these US systems you have mentioned were designed in the cold war, that they would not have taken into account these "cold and wet" conditions"? And exactly what is "The Russian technology advantage" you speak of? Last time I checked Russia also used laser targeting systems and was actively working on aircraft stealth.

This is not to say that stealth is invincible or that it cannot be detected by any radars in Russian or other service. Of course the Americans will talk up the capabillity of their stealth technology but so will Russia make false claims about their abillity to detect it. In the end all that matters are the laws of physics, and so far propaganda hasn't beaten them.

LEE.

Originally posted by northwolf
DC:
This is going way off topic.
Someone can probably confirm me that the firecontrol systems in Leo2 and Abrams are pretty similar?

If their using a German designed gun maybe the German fire control system is similar to the native US/Canadian designed and built one's? I'm not sure but with those weight classes and resources investments the solutions might have been similar and the Abrams and Leopard 2 did start out as a joined project way back when... I am not going to look up the individual component specifics but on the face of it each country left it up to their own designers if along similar lines.

And i know for sure that Leo2 hits first in meeting engagement against T-72 (Heavily modernized Finnish one) about 95% of the time. This info is based on training tests with Finnish equipment.

What type of distances? At the longer distances ( 2-3 km') hitting is largely a academic thing as those are not realistic combat distances in Europe where post second world war statistics indicated that tanks normally acquired and engaged at 500 meters or less. Even back then Tigers and Panthers ( very high velocity guns as you probably know) could engage and hit at those distances but that was in Russia with plenty of wide open spaces. As the addition of ever more active and passive armor types proves everyone is happy fighting at those ranges but also know that it's not at all likely and that main gun fire at average ranges is and would have been devastating for all involved.

Back to topic:
Have there been any confirmed locks to steath planes with IR-detection systems? Because i know civilian systems that can detect a 3C increase in temperature from 30km away...

As i understand the Russians ( and i suppose others) have always considered that a worth approach and bargained on their massive ground radar networks to give them a accurate picture so that fighers would have been directed without any active system till the last few km's where they could aquire with FLIR/IRST or similar and engage without ever having to expose themselves to ARM type weaponry which they were preparing to use en-mass on AWACS and escorting figthers.

I am not sure about the specifications or how good these systems works head on at similar high altitude but as i understand they work quite well when you approach at low level for 'pop up' attacks.

Hope that 'helped' and do update or correct if possible.

Stellar