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Stealth will always be worth it if it brings pilots back home alive. Dont forget that they cost about 1-3mil depending on their level of training. Were all just an envestment.

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snypa777 wrote:

STEALTH- is it worth it?

It really depends, what is a plane and pilot who make it through a war worth to your country..... monetarily, militarily?? How much does your air force depend upon finese as opposed to brute strength? How much extra in the expense of a weapon system, can your country handle and field a viable and potent air force?

There are a few countries that will spend so much effort getting a man home from a war as America. No other country spends $10M every year trying to locate MIA's from previous conflicts, reguardless of the time period of the conflict.

America's view is, we have the economy, we have the technical strength to pay for the extra effort and advantage stealth affords its air force. Now some other countries like the PRC or maybe India who would depend numbers or brute force to help solve their military problems, the expense of stealth might not be the way for them to go?

Stealth brings back the element of surprise in aerial combat. It greatly reduces the casualties of the attacking air forces. It will make the greatest impact in the first days of a conflict.

The only real significant conflict that has takened place with the usage of stealth is the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The usage of stealth probably saved at least one hundred aircraft from being shot down by a highly integrated air defense system. AGAIN, the question has to be asked, "what is this worth to your country in terms of equipment (lost & battle damaged aircraft), money and, the pilots (killed, wounded &, POWs).
For America, there is only one real answer, exploit the technical and economic advantage it has and push forward with stealth, to keep working on stealth and force the rest of the world to play catch up or "make do" with what ever but, realize that they are second rate in fighter technology!

snypa777 wrote:

Four other aircraft had no losses in the same conflict the F-117 flew in a higher threat enviroment, although it had radar supression support.

INCORRECT, the first night of the war, when the F-117's hit targets in Bagdad before the jamming and the first of the cruise missiles hit! It was the subsequent strkes when the F-117 had jamming support. Bagdad was covered by Soviet, French and, American radars and none of them detected the F-117. The Soviet "Tall King" air defense radar, which still guard the Russian airspace (near the borders) were the radars were the ones that covered the Iraqi borders. Around Bagdad Soviet SAM-3's, SAM-6's, French Crotales and, American I-HAWKs (stolen from Kuwait) all covered the city. None of these ever detected an F-117.

Adrian

I think the overwhelming feeling here is that stealth is a necessary measure for the future USAF.

Avon1944, on ODS, I am sure I have read that the F-117 flew with a support package on that first night.. I remember, vaguely that the Baghdad air defences were blinded first before the F-117s went in? My memory may have failed me though so I will take your word for it!

The F-117 flew far fewer sorties than other aircraft, always at night. Other aircraft that flew at night and at medium altitude suffered far fewer casualties than the day forces. It is reckoned that if any other platform flew at night exclusively and at medium altitudes, with PGM,s ie a similar profile to the F-117 with the same number of missions; the overall loss rates in such conditions tell us that these other aircraft would have suffered a loss rate of almost zero as well...

For example, the F-111, F-16, suffered no losses at night. The A-10 suffered no losses at night. These three aircraft flew similar night sortie numbers as the F-117. The F-16 shared something near 50 percent commonality of targets with the F-117( That was an eye opener!).I admit though that the F-117 did have the best target "hit" rates in Bomb damage asessment, figures released after the war by DIA. Followed by the F-16 and F-111. The F-117 did it all with PGMs though.
The overall hit rate of the F-117 was put at between 41 to 60 percent in a congressional report, a bit lower than the 80 claimed by Lockheed. The same report said that they did not achieve surprise EVERY night either. Also in the report, 40 percent of F-117 air defence targets were missed on the first night. BDA on 11 of the first night strategic air defence targets revealed that there were only 2 confirmed kills ( DIA figures). In addition, there was only a fall -off in allied air losses after day 5 of the air war, not after the first night.
Just playing devils advocate here, some still say that ODS was not a proper test of the F-117, I think they would not have said this if some had been lost though...The F-117 was not as successful as advertised by the US governments own admission, is this a way of getting more funds for future stealth? Money flooded in after ODS for stealth research...
The tech` is much more advanced now than in ODS, aircraft are more survivable, defence systems are better now than they were on the other hand...

Yes, designing stealth into aircraft (and weapons) is well worth it. The advantages it offers is to a point that we would not be continuing with it if it was not worth our time, effort, and funds.

if you want to examine even further about the stealth programs and our american society, you can look at the economic ramifications. by the government pumping all this money into the programs it pumps more money into our economy. people who design these acft make alot of money and it gets cycled back into us. its just an economic cycle to pump more money into the economy while creating a tool for our military. im just a dumb crew chief so im not too knowledgeable with it. about the F/A-22 external stores... talking to their crewchiefs they have points to put external stores on but it would take a TCTO from Lockheed Martin because there not sure how it would affect their RCS

cchief16 wrote:

if you want to examine even further about the stealth programs and our american society, you can look at the economic ramifications. by the government pumping all this money into the programs it pumps more money into our economy. people who design these acft make alot of money and it gets cycled back into us. its just an economic cycle to pump more money into the economy while creating a tool for our military. im just a dumb crew chief so im not too knowledgeable with it. about the F/A-22 external stores... talking to their crewchiefs they have points to put external stores on but it would take a TCTO from Lockheed Martin because there not sure how it would affect their RCS

The economic part is correct.

As for the external stores on the Raptor, it is widely known that if you're going to hang anything off of it, it would be when stealth is not a consideration, i.e. when enemy defenses are beaten down. Same consideration for the upcoming F-35 JSF. Lockheed Martin is working on designing stealthy weapon pods and pylons for external carriage on the proposed FB-22 and possibly retrofitted back into the F/A-22 and F-35.

Also cchief16, how did the 27th FS's F/A-22 deployment went overall? Did they DACT with your F-16s? How did the Raptor do? Did your Viper pilots never want to face Raptors again? Smile

it went pretty good. our squadron fought the 22's in tyndall 2 months ago with typical results. they pretty much did the same thing here. they dropped a few bombs on our training range which is good for an air superiority fighter. they did FOD out an engine one day. the ground safety pin for the nose landing gear got sucked up and created a firework display. we had to check our jets for shrapenl from the engine. theres a bet going around on how many cups of urine and pints of blood was takin from that crewchief.

Ouch! I bet that crewchief gave a few pints of sweat up unrequested as well! ..As well as some P@$s involuntarily!

I personally believe that stealth is definately the way to go. So do all the other western millitaries. The French and us Brits are building stealthy UCAVS. The Brits are collaborating with the US on this...Dont the French just hate that!!!!

We cant afford to build stealthy manned aircraft on our own is the excuse. I really dont belive that, the will isn`t there to spend the money on an autonomous program, no-one is willing to bite the financial bullet that`s why we waded into JSF.. If we REALLY needed to build a manned stealth aircraft, the brain power exhists if the manufacturing know-how doesn`t as yet.

Anyway....if you look at the KOSOVO campaign, JSF and F-22 would have had an easier time with SA-3 and -6 SAM batteries and their aquisition radars, their kill envelope would have been smaller than with the F-117. With better anti radar missiles than HARM the SAM radars would have been taken out wholesale. I hope the upgrades to HARM adress that problem. When radars were switched off, the HARM, harmlessly hit the ground! This may have allowed the strikers to transit dangerous areas so the HARM did its job, kind of....the threat of SAMS NEVER went away though. The BAE ALARM missile zooms up to 13km and deploys a parachute if it detects no radar emissions and waits......if a radar is switched on then off, the missile attacks the last emissions position on the ground. A JSF and ALARM type combo would have kicked a$$ in that campaign.

Most of the Serb SAM sites could have been cleaned up. Clearing the way for safe operations above 15,000 ft. Then look at what actually happened, F-16 c/js flying SEAD with HARMS, the Serbs knew the F-16s were in the air, clearly visible on radar from long range. When strikers asked for their support, by the time the SEAD aircraft got there, the Serb SAM sites simply turned off their radars, they could "see" the F-16s coming. That was one instance in the campaign when a screw up occurred, the SEAD part of a strike pakage were diverted or recalled in error. There was also a big question over the time taken to target/aquire the SAM radars before they were switched off, which thwarted some of the SEAD effort.
JSFs, with their longer range, carrying an improved HARM, would be a bitch to counter. The SAM sites just wouldnt know if there was an aircraft in range of striking them. The guy with his finger on the on/off switch in the radar truck would be P@&*^%g his pants!

With the knowledge that there MAY be F-22s in the area, which they can`t see, would you want to be a MIG or SU pilot being sent up to "LOOK" for them!

The Navy is even building stealth into their next generation warships. And you should really look at those navy programs: a gun that can shell land targets up to a hundred miles away (though it being a 5" and 6" gun mount it leaves some to be desired), The Streetfighter program.

Even the Swedes or the Norwegians are using stealth in a patrol boat...

johnqhitman wrote:

The Navy is even building stealth into their next generation warships.Even the Swedes or the Norwegians are using stealth in a patrol boat...

Good point, RN type 23 frigates built in the 90s got rid of all 90 degree angles above decks and around the hull to reduce radar signature and scatter radar returns. There are even experiments with stealthy armoured vehicles in the US. Modern tanks have devices which scatter laser energy to fool rangefinders and designators, not really stealth I know. Part of the total package though.

The US Navy is currently in the R&D phase of their DD-21 Zumwalt and CG-21 ship programs. Not to mention their Streetfighter program for littoral operations will be pretty low-observable.

For me the stealth concept fits the American (and generally NATO) air doctrine very well. Whether this doctrine is right or wrong is another subject.
Generally I think the Americans after the Korean war always favored BVR (Beyond Visual Range) airfights and avoided WVR (Within Visual range) fights like the plague. Given the conditions prevailing during the Cold War Era (overwhelming number superiority of the Soviet Block in aircrafts) this sounded like a very logical option since the West could exploit its technological advantage (MR missiles, radars) in BVR combat avoiding the possibly risky WVR confrontation and dogfights. Also the opposing forces were clearly delineated and on case of conflict the chance of Fratricide was lessened.
In fact, based on their assumption that technological breakthrougs could give certain vistory at BVR combat, the Americans at some point even started not fitting their aircraft with an internal cannon considering them obsolete. This proved almost disastrous in Vietnam war, where F-4 of the era without an internal cannon were frequently engaged in WVR fights and dogfights in such close distances that they couldnt even user their IR missiles. Many Phantoms were lost to the more agile Vietnamese aircraft and Possibly better trained in dogfights Vietnamese (?) pilots.
In the following years USA seems to have forgotten the lessons of the Vietnam War. Again they current trend is an overeliance on technology and less to pilot skills together with an obsession of zero casualties.Until the Kosovo war this doctrine seemed to work perfectly since the in the Gulf war the numerical superiority and training skills were vastly superior to those of the Iraquis, who also made the stupid mistake of confronting them face to face.
In Kosovo war this was another case. The American felt so confident with stealth aircraft that in fact they didn't change their flight paths daily as is common practice. Thus the Serbs using clever tactics such not exposing themeselves by opening their radar but instead using a low light TV camera for guidance they managed to shoot down one f-117 and seriously damage another using a '60s era soviet AA system.
The word "confident" epitomises in humble opinion the fallacy of the american way of thinking. The americans overely on technology and take many things for granted.
-They assume that the front will be clearly distinguised and the IFF will be 100% right all the time and thus 100% correct identification of the aircrafts will take place from a long distance avoiding
-They assume that the opponents will never find any means of detecting stealth aircraft such as F-22 from long distances
They assume that in case F-22 launches an AMRAAM (or any future MR) this will have a 100% hit success.
But could all these be true SIMULTANEOUSLY? I hardly thing so.
For example consider that a future opponent develops a very EFFECTIVE ECM/ECCM system that can fool the seeking missile most of the times. What will happen? The strealth aircraft(s) may have to come closer to achieve better chances for a kill thus increasing its RCS and consequenlty their chances for detection by enemy. Of course if an F-22 is out of AMRAAMS can always choose to flee using their supercruise capability. But what if it chooses to stay and fight? It will have to go to WVR distances to use its IR missiles.At short distances the stealth advantage dissipates quickly. The aircraft has still a very low but nevertheless substantial radar signature and more importantly an IR signature which is not so easy to conceal. At this stage airplane meneuverability and pilot skill play a critical role together with tactics. OK F-22 is superagile but will its pilots be trained enough to take advantage of it in close fights? I might sound a little heretic, but I do not think that USA pilots are the best in the world. They are of course very, very good but I do not think they are up to the level of say an Israeli, a Greek, an Indian or even a Turkish pilot. Not that this is a gene thing, but I think the American Pilots train enough in WVR and dogfight situations.
Also take into account that Stealth technology effieciency is now seriously debated. New technologies such as Silent Sentry system but also decades old ones such as bistatic and long wavelength radars threaten the stealthy cloack of aircrafts like the F-22, B-2 and F-117.
To put everything in a nutshell my opinion that -as others mentioned - for certain tasks such as strategic bombings stealth technology may be viable. But for the air dominance role you have to take more risks-as the saying goes "you have to break eggs to make an omellete".
I think relying on a small number of stealth aircrafts such as F-22 is at best risky. Should someone find an efficient and viable anti-stealth technology, I am afraid that the United States will end up with a fleet of superagile and super-modern aircraft but which will unforunately be hopelessly few in number and outrageously expensive.

Hey, welcome to the forum. A few things I have to point out with regards to the F/A-22 and the other stealth programs right now in the US. Pick a wavelength, any wavelength, there's some sort of defense against it built into the aircraft. The long-length radars will be able to detect a that something is there, but as I've heard said a few times on this forum: You know something is there, you just don't know what and all the information on it is mostly a mystery. Now you vector a plane at it, the plane will have problems detecting it and a harder time getting a lock, or... the F/A-22 changes course and the other plane is lost. Acoustic? Well, to quote my dad (who works on bases and has heard them fly over, "That doesn't sound right." IR? The thing has a lot of IR reducing stuff on it. One has taken down an 8 ship of eagles all by its lonesome. Why didn't they get off a heater shot to kill it (only 6 AMRAAMs on a Raptor)? Well maybe they never knew the -22 was there when it came up behind them and fired a heater up the eagles butt. The plane is rewriting the entire air combat book. It is completely different from anything else out there and can easily swat down anything out there right now.

I'm pretty sure the US has the best pilot training of anyone in the world. Competition is probably had from Israel, but that's because they are completely insane about their defense. If you're going by things like COPE India, don't. You have to look at how the ROE's and other things play into it. The US doesn't assume an automatic kill if an AMRAAM is shot, but the PK for the AIM-120C-7 should be above 50% easily. There are other plans to improve the PK of these missiles as well. You shoot 2, one a little after the first so the enemy depletes his energy with the first and the second slams into him while he's got very little energy.

How many planes in history have completely rewritten the book on air combat. I can't give you an exact number, but F-86: first real US combat jet. F-4: we didn't have a choice because have a choice because of the plane. That's about all I can think of for such major changes to air combat tactics. The Raptor pilots aren't under trained or stupid; they are extremely good and are figuring out how to use an aircraft that is quite frankly ridiculous. One of the Viper pilots on this site could tell you better about training for USAF pilots, but it is by no means slack.

johnyp wrote:

I think relying on a small number of stealth aircrafts such as F-22 is at best risky. Should someone find an efficient and viable anti-stealth technology, I am afraid that the United States will end up with a fleet of superagile and super-modern aircraft but which will unforunately be hopelessly few in number and outrageously expensive.

Hi there JOHNYP.

While men in white coats are trying to figure out how to cage the Raptor, there are other scientists running the Raptor program trying to figure out how to stay ahead of the game....It`s always cat and mouse, countermeasures and CCM, CCCM.
The size of a stealthy force has no bearing on any countermeasures that can be conjured up. 24 stealth aircraft that can be seen easily will be just as disadvantaged as 240 stealth aircraft. The planned force of 180 F-22s could turn out to be just the right number as they will be doing a specific job. Legacy aircraft and UCAVs do the rest!

I hate arguments about who has the best pilots, only real combat proves that. The USAF may just about have the best training, the Israeli`s may have the most combat experience, the Samoan air force may be the best aerobatic pilots!!! Does that tell us who the best pilots are...no.

I think if you look at combat over the last 50 years, there are good, superb and mediocre pilots in every airforce.

LordOfBunnies wrote:

Pick a wavelength, any wavelength, there's some sort of defense against it built into the aircraft. .

For wavelenghts close to the aircraft's length the stealth advantage due to special shaping diminishes or even dissapears completely. At those frequencies the whole aircraft -stealthy or not- sort of "resonates" and becomes a secondary emmiter for the waves (like an antenna). Of course RAM will absorb some of the radiation bouncing back to the radar but this is simply not enough.
Of course at those wavelenght the accuracy of target tracking is very poor and cannot be used for guiding a missile. But perhaps in the (not so distant) future a battery of such radars (especially bistatic) cooperating and exchanging information together with a powerful computer could give enough tracking accuracy even for AA missile guidance.
Who knows? Maybe some countries may have already developed such an anti-stealth technology in secret and are awaiting USAF with a nasty surprise.

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STEALTH- is it worth it?