paulobrito
Well-known member
The French are beating hard on active cancelation.
Can't happen because unlike armor, stealth is a gradual boon. Armor is either pierced or holds. Stealth in effect reduces detection/lock range by some factor, depending on many variables. Its great if that makes it go down to fairly impractical 5 km, but even reducing a 100 km range SAM site to 50 km effective range has some value.I've always wondered in the back of my head if electronics will get to a point where all the extra costs of of physical stealth systems won't be worth it, since any modernish radar will see through it. Like how muskets led to 90% of soldiers abandoning armor as mostly pointless.
Don't really know enough to say.
In the not so distant future - AKA maybe right now, planes can jam /spoof the two-way data-link between the firing plane and the missile, greatly reducing said missile capability. At same time they are equipped with DIRCM to play games with the seekers of IR missiles. Soon, you are reduced to return to the joys of dogfight and guns. Between advanced nations, is very possible to be a very soon reality. Today's RWR systems can detect the launch of a missile as soon as it his launched, so the stealth advantage is going smaller and smaller. And the need of maneuverability returning.
Su-57 Felon at MAKS 2021.
Very short take-off and the usual acrobatics.
Can't happen because unlike armor, stealth is a gradual boon. Armor is either pierced or holds. Stealth in effect reduces detection/lock range by some factor, depending on many variables. Its great if that makes it go down to fairly impractical 5 km, but even reducing a 100 km range SAM site to 50 km effective range has some value.
And yes, it can and probably will need to be combined with more classic EWAR capabilities for the times it does get detected anyway.
Doesn't apply to CE munitions and with KE it is usually a minor one in comparison to effective range.Not really - armour is not "either perced or holds" because any projectiles lose energy over range.
That's the thing, stealth messes not only with engagement ranges by affecting radar locks and being usually combined with exhaust IR signature suppression, but also reducing early warning radar detection range regardless of that, which in turn reduces the reaction time available to the enemy, which has its own use.Sure, there is a "pierced / holds" treshold, but there is also the "unseen / detected" treshold with stealth. So with armour and stealth both, it comes down how good protection is in terms of cutting down effective engagement range, and whether it is worth the cost.
Last I've checked, modern IR seekers are practically immune to most IR countermeasures because they've been adding UV sensors into the IR head (and have been since the Stinger, which is why in MGSV they called the Stinger the 'Bumblebee' as it had UV seeking capabilities, as bumbles can see in the UV spectrum as well as the visual), so you'll have to fool that as well and from what I've heard, that is far harder than it looks.Interesting question on stealth - how much affect the seeker of radar-guided missiles?
If enough turns the IR ones the priority - with advanced matrix sensors, they are very difficult to fool, and the reduction of IR signature of stealth fighters maybe not be enough.
Note that we've been using IR seekers with UV terminal guidance packages since the 1980s (which is the modern IR seeker setup)...Unfortunately there was only one combat use of modern IR seeker so far and even then the outdated Su-22 managed to dodge it.
I'll have to double-check but given that it didn't specify which variant...
From what I understand, they're still called IR seekers because they rely on the IR sensor for midcourse while the UV is the terminal.Advanced IR seekers (like AIM-9X and Mica IR NG) use high-resolution matrix systems, very difficult to fool.
Yes, I know they have UV tech incorporated - I call them IR seekers because is the name they have.