SinoDefence Forum

lilzz

With the articles about China developing anti-stealth radar
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php...6066&C=asiapac

do you think plane B-2 bombers would become obsolete? I mean even if the anti-stealth radar only able to pick up some faint signals, the B-2 would be jeopardized. The season being is B-2 is very very slow moving plane, it has no defense except stealth, all the enemy need is to find out the general vincinity of the B-2, it doesn't need to locate its exact coordinate. Fighters send up and run around the general vincinity and hunt for the B2 and getting update continously from ground anti-stealth radar. I think the B-2 would be pretty defenseless in such close situation.

IDonT

It is very difficult to make an anti-stealth radar when you don't have a stealth plane to test it with.

Stealth does not make you invisible. It lowers the detection range of the enemy radar (search and fire control). Good use of tactics against the next generation of "anti-stealth" radar will make the B-2 still viable.

lilzz

For B-2 this particular case, you have to be 100% invisible, even if the slightest weakness, the fighter plane can go up hunt you down against such slow moving plane. So, pressure is on you to be 100% invisible.

IDonT

So a fighter plane has to search a 5 mile x 5 mile grid from elevations approximately 5,000 ft to 60,000 ft via eye ball at night on for an aircraft that does not want to be found. Good luck.

As I said, their are ways to fool radar, even the anti- stealth ones.

challenge

there's an article in aviation week about the anti stealth technology being conduct by USAF,the article written more than 16~17 years ago.
according to the magazine, US are deeply worry by then-soviet could field similiar stealth aircraft and missile.
technology such as ultra wide band radar ,bi-static radar,"track before-detection technique,doppler wind measureming radar,infran red detection,and passive detection location (pdl),....
israel CAEW aircraft report to be first aircraft fitted with track before detection technique.

tphuang

while you may not have a stealth plane, you can sort of simulate one using a really stealthy UAV. You might not get a 0.0001 m^2 rcs, but 0.01 is possible.

Totoro

1. Would B-2 Bombers go at it alone? Depends on a mission, i guess, but now with f-22 being in full service, it is quite possible, if not probable, most dangerous B-2 sorties would be accompanied by f22s for protection. We don't know any official figures, but lets say B2 offers less of a signature - all that would mean is the F22s would have to trail it some 30, 50 or so kms. Such a distance could be covered in tens of seconds if needed, so F22s could engage the interceptors.

2. More planes means more chances for detection. That is one of the things to consider when thinking about sending 1 or 2 B2s, with fighter cover or no fighter cover, with jammers behind them or no jammers, etc. Truth is, when we're talking about deep strikes, not just waltzing to the first line of enemy defence and surveillance systems but going over them, deeper into enemy territory - sporradic signals are a given. Depending on number and position of radar systems defense has, they are bound to get short blips on their screens as stealth planes pass them by. Signal strength will also inevitably vary, as the surfaces on the planes move, and even the plane itself, when moving, like banking or something, may add a bit more of signal to certain radars. So, against an enemy with wide enough network of radars - there will be no complete surprise. They will know 'something' is out there, and they will know the approximate trajectory. But, as we said, that something needs to be indentified, one needs to make sure its a B2 and not some kind of other stealthy drone and decoy. But the bigger problem is with engaging such targets. Radar guided SAMs would be mostly ineffective, unless the target is really close. So all that the defense would have is sending planes to search for the target.

3. Searching for a b2 in a dark of the night is hard, but not AS hard as some claims on this thread. Depending on coordination and communication between the search planes, their numbers and the IRST systems they'd rely on - a dozen of them could cover pretty much whole of vertical space while covering a 40-50 or so km wide horizontal area. More planes, naturally, could cover more. Eyeballs would not mean much in such a search, unless b2 commanders are desperate enough to fly a sortie on a moonlight lit night without much cloud cover. Even that way, an IRST would be more efficient than an eyeball. Some people will always claim 'but b2 and f22 dont emit heat', just like some will say 'they dont show up on radar' but that's false. Just like with radar, IR stealth only means reduction in detection range. Luckily for defenders, due to the fact heat can not be contained and must always escape somwhere, reduction is proportionally less than in radar. 5km detection range i used here is really ridiculously low, and in real world it would easely be more, but it was to prove a point.

4. But, it all brings us back to point number one. There would likely be fighter cover, and the interceptors searching for the b2 would likely be engaged before finding anything. Yes, f22s would most likely have a higher IR signature than a b2, but not enough to make much of a difference. In the end it would come down to number and quality of interceptors against number and quality of fighter cover planes. At best, defender might hope for a pyrrhic victory, forcing the fighter cover to flee when they run out of ammo and leaving the b2 unprotected as it also starts to flee but, due to its speed, that could easely mean its death. So, a b2 is downed, some might say that's quite a success... but if for such a 'victory' a loss of 50 or 60 or more advanced fighters is needed - i'm not sure there's a country in the world that could afford it.

5. Raptors have shorter legs than a b2. So, naturally, attacker might not be able to attack wherever he wants, but only to the point he can offer its b2 fighter cover.

6. Alternatively to this all - attacker might not pursue deep strikes at all, but be content with peeling the outer layers of defense and surveillance network, one layer at a time. It would take much more time, which sometimes in a war is a luxury, but if there IS time, it certainly is a less costly proposition.

7. Making stealth models without operating stealth planes is certainly not AS wild as it was suggested here. Problem with operating stealt planes is not designing them to have a low RCS, to an extent its not to make up a material that will absorb EM waves, the problem is to adapt those technologies to a plane that has, in additon to being stealthy, to do loads of other things. So, while operating a stealth bomber or fighter is mightly hard, measuring the RCS and IR signatures of models designed solely for such simulation is relatively speaking far easier.

aquilis182

Thats a good point. Besides SAMs battery are visible in radar and believe me The B-2 will not go to battle without escorts thouse escort (probably F-22s) can take out Chinese SAMs and fighterjets. B-2s are invissible even to infrareds (chek aerospaceweb.org)

crobato

B-2 is not invisible to infrared by the way.

I note that this thread is similar to another thread. This thread will be observed carefully if discussion is maintained on an intellectual level or whether it will deteriorate into a p*n*s contest.

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