Stealth Necessary But Not Sufficient: Add EW, Intel, Tactics

Stealth Necessary But Not Sufficient: Add EW, Intel, Tactics
02 Aug 2017 Colin Clark

"...This morning, the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute rolled out a report on stealth [PDF below] that should put many of those criticisms to bed. The study argues simply that America’s fighters, bombers and, probably, airborne tankers need stealth to remain effective and to perform well against increasingly sophisticated ground- and air-based missile threats.

In the reasoned language of the report: “Stealth, or aircraft signature reduction, is a potent and viable military capability in modern combat, and will remain so well into the future. It is not, however, an all or nothing capability, as some critiques have suggested.”...

...In an interview I did three years ago with Gen. Mike Hostage, I wrote that what marks the F-35 as a dominant weapon is its combination of stealth, computing power, built-in targeting and databases and sensors. All of that information is fed to the pilot through his helmet with automatically-generated target, weapons and route choices. Those route choices, based on intelligence, are extremely important to an aircraft’s ability to penetrate the enemy’s defenses....

...Even with designed-in stealth (rounded edges, cooled air and masked inlets and coatings) aircraft need to manage their spectrum. AESA radar and electronic warfare tools on aircraft like the F-35 can help mask the plane further. Add in cyber warfare and electromagnetic spoofing — feeding erroneous information to enemy sensors —  and you’ve got a pretty lethal combination....

...the study’s authors pose the correct question: “Will stealth remain viable in future decades in the face of these technologies, or will its effectiveness wane? Should the United States continue to invest in stealth systems to improve them or mitigate technology that attempts to counter them, or shift its approach? Debate over these issues will increase in the coming years as spending on systems such as the F-35 and B-21 increases.”

Their conclusion is that, yes, stealth is absolutely needed but does not exist on its own. But it is important Barrett said during this morning’s presentation that he thinks recent discussion of building a stealthy airborne tanker is on the right track because of the tyrannies of distance in the Pacific theater. Of course, they’d have to figure out how to build a stealthy boom."

Report PDF: SURVIVABILITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE STEALTH: The Imperative for Stealth
http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/a2dd91_cd ... 95324d.pdf (3.5Mb)

Source: http://breakingdefense.com/2017/08/stea ... ing-intel/

I find this interesting

and fanboy like Picard and the like have claimed that PIRATE has 130 km head on detection range.

OMG - even another Raptor does not see F-22 well at all - my oh my - what will we do? NOT SELL RAPTORS to others.

Stealth technology gap narrows, but US Air Force’s experience could give it an edge
02 Aug 2017 Valerie Insinna

"WASHINGTON — Over two weeks in July, U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps F-35 joint strike fighters got the chance to fly simulated combat missions together during Red Flag 17-3, marking the first-ever time both the “A” and “B” models of the jet have been employed in the same training exercise.

Although the exercises were a new milestone in F-35 flight operations, the U.S. military has decades of practice operating stealth aircraft. That, former Air Force officials said on Wednesday, is a major reason why it will retain an edge against near-peer competitors like Russia and China, who are just now beginning to fly stealth fighters.

And it’s another reason why stealth technologies deserve continued investment and attention, they said....

...“What we found with the F-35 is it’s a very flexible platform,” said Lt. Col. Jon Snyder, commander of the 58th Fighter Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. “We are able to do a lot of different mission sets, although our primary mission is the air-to-ground focus. We can do the air-to-air escort role, but the F-22 is specifically designed in order to dominate that arena.”

While Snyder and his squadron have conducted joint training with the Navy’s F-35C, since the service has a training unit located at Eglin, they have no experience with the “B” model, he said.

“On night one, [I] met my F-35B fellow flight lead, who was in for the mission-planning process, and we basically compared notes for, like, 2 seconds, and realized we were on the exact same page, operating off the exact same TTPs because the F-35 program, for the first time, has a joint TTP that’s agreed upon between all three services and variants,” he said. “It’s amazing, it was really cool to see that all come together.”

Having stealthy fighters in the mix also increased the survivability of fourth-generation aircraft, which oftentimes can carry bigger weapons loads but have less sophisticated sensor suites, he said....

...That highly integrated experience of Red Flag was decades in the making. Barrett, a former F-22 pilot, described the difficulties the Air Force had when it began flying the Raptor.

“When we brought on the F-22 for the first time, we really didn’t understand how to operate a fifth-generation, low-observable airplane. We still flew in visual formation when we started flying,” he said.

“We didn’t know how to train with it. In the first month, everyone wanted to go fight the Raptor. After about two months, they realized it wasn’t much fun, they had better things to do and we started self-supporting each other. But the Raptor makes a really poor Red Air [adversarial aircraft] because even another Raptor doesn’t see another Raptor very well,” he said. “We had to evolve our way through this.”...

...He also noted the unproven nature of China and Russia’s stealth fighter designs. “There are a lot of stuff hanging outside of these airplanes,” he said. “It’s got to stay internal. How [do] they overcome all that? All the airplane pictures I’ve seen still have stuff hanging from the wings, and that just kills your stealth.”

Source: http://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/08/ ... t-an-edge/

I find this interesting

and fanboy like Picard and the like have claimed that PIRATE has 130 km head on detection range.

Keep that chart handy

... “There are a lot of stuff hanging outside of these airplanes,” he said. “It’s got to stay internal. How [do] they overcome all that? All the airplane pictures I’ve seen still have stuff hanging from the wings, and that just kills your stealth.”..

....maybe one day the canoe club will get the picture....

It's only a matter of time before a roll-on-roll-off tanker kit gets designed and implemented for the B-21. That aircraft has me fairly excited; I believe that the USAF will wind up with more than originally intended, because the type will fill more roles than expected.

Keep that chart handy

Indeed, there are so many troll coming here recently

Keep that chart handy

Indeed, there are so many troll coming here recently

Indeed! I also noticed that.
Since you guys have far more experience here at F-16.net than I, why do you think this is happening?
I'm asking this because when I start posting here at the beginning of this year until very recently I rarely saw any trolls lurking here. But now they seem to popup like mushrooms, perhaps it's the summer heat frying the brains on the anti-US/anti-F35 crowd??

Oh, but my main point of this post was to thank Eloise for the chart. Very interesting indeed, thanks for sharing!

Indeed! I also noticed that.
Since you guys have far more experience here at F-16.net than I, why do you think this is happening?:D

Summer holiday for kids

Indeed! I also noticed that.
Since you guys have far more experience here at F-16.net than I, why do you think this is happening?:D

Summer holiday for kids

Yeah, makes sense.

Keep that chart handy

Indeed, there are so many troll coming here recently

Indeed! I also noticed that.
Since you guys have far more experience here at F-16.net than I, why do you think this is happening?

A lot of trolls entered right after MAKS 2017.

It almost looks like a nice disinformation campaign.

Yeah, makes sense.

I mean look at this top notch comment from one of those new member when he tried to argue that OLS-35 detection range is bigger than 35 km

arrows point away from a number like this, "< 35 with equal below that arrow,MEANS "is equal or greater than
basic 4th grade arithmetic you cant seem to understand

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=52962&start=90

It almost looks like a nice disinformation campaign.

Not a successful one though

Hope they didn't pay too much

That article should be required reading for anyone interested. A good summary.

I would love to see some more focus on how stealth multiplies EW capabilities. I would imagine it would graph a lot like the other things here and exponentially increase the impact of jamming.

Did not realise that the F-35 FMS should be used to 'test' scenarios but it makes sense - Israelis have it covered well today.

Stealth Is Still the Critical Secret Sauce for Combat Aircraft [Best read it all at SAUCE! ]
03 Aug 2017 John A. Tirpak

"“Stealth” technology hasn’t been rendered obsolete by new radars and detection methods, and has, if anything, become even more of a critical design consideration for future combat aircraft, according to stealth veterans and experts at an AFA Mitchell Institute program at the US Capitol Wednesday.

Presenting a new report, “Survivability in the Digital Age: The Imperative for Stealth,” authors retired Maj. Gen. Mark Barrett (AFA’s former executive vice president) and retired Col. Mace Carpenter (a senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute) said stealth designs continue to be a relatively low-cost factor in new aircraft design, and are crucial not only to the survival of individual aircraft but in making a smaller force possible....

...In air-to-air engagements, said Barrett—a career fighter pilot who commanded one of the first F-22 wings—Russian-made Su-27s and F-16s can see each other at about the same time, meaning “the one with the bigger stick,” or the faster and longer-ranged weapon, will win.

But the US “doesn’t have the biggest stick,” Barrett asserted. By contrast, a stealth aircraft can see and shoot at an Su-27 long before his opponent even knows the stealth jet is in the vicinity, and every engagement is a win for the stealth aircraft, despite its shorter-ranged missiles....

...Countries that are buying the F-35 are, for the most part “not buying the simulator,” and that’s a mistake, Barrett said. Working out the secret, unexpected capabilities of the F-22 required long hours trying things out in the simulator, and that experimental capability was fundamental to deriving the full power from the F-22, he said. Countries “that buy an F-35 to replace the F-4” but don’t invest in the corresponding development of exploiting its capabilities “have a very expensive F-4 on the ramp,” he said.

The key question to be answered by force planners, given the the “comparable” cost of stealth aircraft to non-stealth aircraft, “isn’t ‘why,’ but ‘why not,’” Barrett observed."

Source: http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pag ... craft.aspx