A Cold War Legacy: The Decline of Stealth

http://warontherocks.com/2015/01/a-cold-war-legacy-the-decline-of-stealth/?singlepage=1

by smacktoward • 12 years ago

39 26 12 years ago

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.

ObviousScience• 12 years ago

Your comment doesn't reply to his argument, which in your terms, is that we should optimize for cheaper builds that are more visible over more expensive builds than are less visible (or rather, adjust the blend of the two we produce) since the price-per-visibility-decrease is becoming very high (for a number of reasons given in the article), since this optimization gives us the most military power for a given amount of investment.

CapitalistCartr2• 12 years ago

There is no indication we are actually doing this. The US Air Force is spending ever more per airframe. My point is that his reasoning is flawed as per my prior comment. Military equipment integrates technology and moves on, playing an eternal game of leapfrog with the opponents. Stealth isn't going anywhere.

rdtsc• 12 years ago

No one nowadays is going to make a delivery platform without considering (and optimizing) thermal, audio, and radar signatures

Sure it is not an all or nothing. What the article is claiming is that investing hundreds of billions into it at this point then hundreds of millions per unit is stupid because even older Russian UHF, VHF radar can detect those. Now they can't be used for targeting as much but that has improved, even the Chinese caught on and developed their own UHF/VHF radar.

quanticle3• 12 years ago

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?

Retric2• 12 years ago

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.

mgarfias• 12 years ago

We’d be better served by a horde of highly specialized drones. Have CAS drones, fighter drones, attack drones for the anti-sam role, etc.

They won’t have to be super stealthy, and will be tons cheaper than a manned platform, which gives the ability to throw them away at a problem.

VLM2• 12 years ago

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.

EdwardDiego• 12 years ago

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.

acd• 12 years ago

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.

jcampbell1• 12 years ago

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.

sandworm• 12 years ago

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.

A Cold War Legacy: The Decline of Stealth

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