
A Cold War Legacy: The Decline of Stealth - smacktoward
http://warontherocks.com/2015/01/a-cold-war-legacy-the-decline-of-stealth/?singlepage=1
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CapitalistCartr
No one nowadays is going to make a delivery platform without considering (and
optimizing) thermal, audio, and radar signatures. Stealth isn't a "technology"
we apply; it's an accepted, fundamental part of design. That it isn't perfect,
and that other nations are working to compromise it, isn't a reason to give
up; it's the reality of any military technology. And there is always a
compromise between different desired capabilities.

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quanticle
It's always a tradeoff in aerospace, but I think what the article is arguing
is that we give up _too much_ for stealth. For example, the incompatibility of
stealth and external hardpoints on aircraft causes a significant increase in
both the unit cost of aircraft as well as a significant decrease in mission
capability. With external hardpoints, launching a missile or bomb is merely
just a matter of letting ordnance fall away from the aircraft. Without them,
you have to invest in complicated launcher mechanisms (i.e. the F-22's crazy
pneumatic system for pushing missiles outside of the plane before firing
them). In addition, the fact that all stores have to be carried internally
means that each aircraft can carry far less in the way of weapons or fuel.
This then leads to knock-on costs, like increased requirements for tankers.
And if the value of stealth is constantly being eroded by new radars and other
detection technologies, then I think the article is asking a fair question. Is
the US best served by stealth aircraft (like the F-22 and the F-35)? Or would
we be better served by a supermaneuverable "4.5 gen" fighter along the lines
of the Su-35 or Su-37 that is cheaper to build, cheaper to operate, and has
greater mission flexibility than our "next-gen" planes?

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Retric
The US air force has two very different missions.

First is to quickly crush a nations standing military. This is where the
stealth tradeoffs are less useful. Basically, just blow up anything that uses
radar and you win.

The second is to patrol territory. Here stealth can be very useful as you tend
to deal with far less capable radar and missile systems. But, they tend to be
vary mobile so while there minimal threat at a military level they are a
serious ‘let’s not show up on CNN’ issue.

Considering the actual missions flown over the last 50 years I think the Air
force’s priorities are much more reasonable.

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quanticle
>Considering the actual missions flown over the last 50 years I think the Air
force’s priorities are much more reasonable.

That is a very, very difficult point to defend. The _vast_ majority of USAF
missions over the past 50 years have been CAS missions against ground forces,
not jet-against-jet duels against other air superiority fighters. Yet, if you
look at the design priorities of not just the current state-of-the-art
fighters, but even previous-gen fighters like the the F-15, F-16 and the F-18,
you'll see that they privilege air-to-air combat capability over air-to-
ground.

IMHO, the only plane in the USAF's inventory that's actually suited for the
missions the USAF is actually flying is the A-10. And if you look at the
A-10's history, you'll see that the USAF leadership fought tooth and nail
against the program (it was essentially forced on the USAF by the Army), and
at every feasible opportunity they've tried to retire the airframe.

Stealth isn't magic. Stealth doesn't make you invisible. Stealth is, at best,
a very sophisticated camouflage that makes your plane harder to see with radar
at a distance, and its advantages end the moment your plane starts shooting.
Contra your point, stealth is actually _most_ suited for the "blitzkrieg"
style missions which are designed to crush enemy air forces in the opening
days of an engagement. That's actually what it was designed for. The F-22 (and
other stealth aircraft) were designed to wipe out Soviet aircraft and air-
defense systems in the opening days of WW3, at which point more conventional
fighters (like F-4s, F-15s and A-10s) would do the majority of the "grunt
work" of wiping out Soviet ground armor.

Stealth is far less suited for the kinds of "patrol" missions where your
planes are going to be flying the same airspace day and day out, supporting
ground troops or enforcing a no-fly zone. As the evidence from the F-117
shootdown in Yugoslavia demonstrates, all the camouflage in the world won't
help you if your enemy is able to deduce where you will be based on your past
activity. Stealth is poorly suited for close-air support missions, where
you're flying close to enemy troops, for long periods of time, and shooting at
them on a regular basis.

The Air Force's priorities have not been reasonable, by any rational measure,
nor have they been reasonable for quite some time now. The Air Force should be
investing in developing UAVs and the accompanying swarm tactics that allow for
effective use of large numbers (e.g. 100+) aircraft in a combat theater.
Instead, they're blowing billions of dollars on a "unified" combat aircraft
that can't actually perform any of the roles it's supposed take over.

EDITS: Added points and restructured for clarity.

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Retric
Drones are ideal for day to day ground support.

Cheap, high loiter time the cost is low speed so they have to already be in
country. And the Air force has been buying a lot of drones. Manned fighters
are currently much better for patrolling large areas of airspace and
maintaining air superiority.

As to swarms picture the minimum drone that can hit a target that’s traveling
at 2.5 times the speed of sound at 65,000 feet. Now how many of those do you
need to patrol say the entire US border. Don't get me wrong the swarm concept
is useful, the only problem is the minimum useful airframe vs modern fighers
is not tiny.

Ps: This is of course highly simplified. Cruise missiles are great at
dismantling vary high value targets, but there also vary pricey and can’t
loiter.

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VLM
The paper proposes a core of stealth weapons and a large number of non-stealth
weapons as a way to save money because of the high cost of stealth weapons,
unfortunately now you have two R+D programs to pay for instead of one, and
lower economies of scale and the labor and logistics costs will be higher to
maintain two separate platforms.

My guess is stealth astroturfing from the military industrial complex. Propose
something with a higher overall system/platform cost, then sell it to the
unknowing public as a cost cutting measure.

An optimized strategy for saving money while still enforcing imperial control
over the colonies would be massive automation and economy of scale via drones
for the front lines. Rather than making a survivable $500M bomber that will
only maybe a hundred combat missions, ship 5000 $100K drones/cruise missiles
that will net 5000 combat missions for the same price, even if 90% the drones
are shot down you still come out ahead.

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EdwardDiego
> unfortunately now you have two R+D programs to pay for instead of one, and
> lower economies of scale and the labor and logistics costs will be higher to
> maintain two separate platforms.

I'm pretty sure the US government is paying for a bunch of disparate R & D
projects already.

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sandworm
Stealth is not about not being seen. Once upon a time stealth was meant to
evade detection to avoid being shot down. Today, stealth is about not being
seen in order to provide deniability.

You only need to hide completely if you expect to be shot at, if you are
flying in airspace where unknowns will be immediately engaged. Such airspace
is very rare these days. Stealth today is about hiding just well enough that
they cannot prove who or what you are (the Osama raid over Pakistan). In non-
war airspace, with civilians floating around, they aren't going to shoot at an
unknown. You don't need a zero-profile, just enough of a cloak that they
cannot readily identify you. Unknown is far easier a profile than unseen.

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jcampbell1
This argument is silly. The next step after stealth is clearly unmanned. To
suggest that we need crappy piloted 4.5G fighters to save on costs is nuts.
Everyone knows the future is unmanned drones that can takeout SAM sites.

Unmanned also solves the cost problem, as about 70% of the cost is excessive
engineering, maintenance, and manufacturing techniques to keep the pilot
alive.

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acd
Stealth is false marketing. Stealth planes are visible on long wave length
radar frequencies. Secondly the planes are plain in sight visible on imaging
satellites unless they fly below the clouds if there are any. Given you have
enough computational power you will create an imaging algorithm to detect them
from satellite images. De-cloak.

