How would you defeat today's stealth?

[Beowulf]

The Russian "Big-Ear" systems...

Listen for them acoustically.

Watches an F-22 destroy the "Big-Ear". Supercruise works wonders on acoustic detection. Hmm... maybe that's why that was one of the requirements.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Extremely bad idea. Totally ineffective in bad weather.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, which I totally didnt think of. See, I said I might be full of it.


Im kinda embarrased I didnt even think of cloud cover. Considering how heavy its raining here now.

[Pu-239]

Actually my first course of action in a war with the US would be to launch a terrorist action/hacking attack/whatever against the GPS nexus stations. Bring down the worldwide GPS and you have swung the tide of war AMAZINGLY in your direction as so much of the modern military tech relies on it.

Almost nothing requires GPS to work except JDAM's. Everything else uses GPS to update INS systems. Rather then render thing useless, you're just increasing the CEP's by a fair margin. A real pain, but not crippling in any respect.

Is'nt the USAF phasing out lasers in favor of JDAMs?

[MKSheppard]

Modern air attacks are becoming near impossible to defeat from the ground, both stealth and conventional. If you could assemble every air defense toy on the market your system might hold, but no one can do that. MALI will help some, but the power is still with the aircraft.

Actually, the problem right now is that a lot of ADA is fixed, meaning it
dies eventually. Expect the future to get harder as MANPADs become
more available....You might be able to knock the shit out of fixed
targets from 25,000 feet but if you want to actually WIN THE WAR,
you're going to have to go down dirty in the mud...

How many tanks did we really destroy in Yugoslavia? The Serbs made
us all look like asses as we wasted million dollar missiles and $25,000
dollar LGBs to blow up $500 dollar decoys made from scrap metal
and a burning can of gasoline...

[Sea Skimmer]

Modern air attacks are becoming near impossible to defeat from the ground, both stealth and conventional. If you could assemble every air defense toy on the market your system might hold, but no one can do that. MALI will help some, but the power is still with the aircraft.

Actually, the problem right now is that a lot of ADA is fixed, meaning it
dies eventually. Expect the future to get harder as MANPADs become
more available....You might be able to knock the shit out of fixed
targets from 25,000 feet but if you want to actually WIN THE WAR,
you're going to have to go down dirty in the mud...

How many tanks did we really destroy in Yugoslavia? The Serbs made
us all look like asses as we wasted million dollar missiles and $25,000
dollar LGBs to blow up $500 dollar decoys made from scrap metal
and a burning can of gasoline...

The Serbs had no real ground threat to worry about. In such a situation it's easy enough to hid your tanks and guns in barns. But if they had had to fight a NATO ground force they'd have been taken apart in the open or simply be destroyed in detail.

[Sea Skimmer]

Actually my first course of action in a war with the US would be to launch a terrorist action/hacking attack/whatever against the GPS nexus stations. Bring down the worldwide GPS and you have swung the tide of war AMAZINGLY in your direction as so much of the modern military tech relies on it.

Almost nothing requires GPS to work except JDAM's. Everything else uses GPS to update INS systems. Rather then render thing useless, you're just increasing the CEP's by a fair margin. A real pain, but not crippling in any respect.

Is'nt the USAF phasing out lasers in favor of JDAMs?

Not really. For the most part the GPS weapons, JSOW and JDAM are being used in situations that would have warranted a bigger load of unguided iron bombs before. Target which LGB's got used against before generally still need them.

In addition there is a new type of guided cluster bomb entering service. It doesnt have GPS but it does have a very cheep INS which allows for accuracy for high 12K+ releases that you normally would get from a dive down to half that.

Within the next 10-15's it's likely that nothing with be dropped without at least that level of guidance.

The guidance systems basically goes CCIP Iron release<INS<GPS<Laser<EO

[Sea Skimmer]

From what I've read in this thread, it seems that the best way to stop stealth aircraft is to blow them up before they take off.

Of course. That's the best way to stop any aircraft, didn't you know that?

No, the best way would be to influence your enemies political process to get funding to the aircraft program cut before it's even built.

[SWPIGWANG]

Long wave lenght radar..... since modern stealth is designed against VHF wavelenghts....

It is not going to pinpoint the bastard, but it will tell you it is there.

[MKSheppard]

The Serbs had no real ground threat to worry about. In such a situation it's easy enough to hid your tanks and guns in barns. But if they had had to fight a NATO ground force they'd have been taken apart in the open or simply be destroyed in detail.

Uhm, they showed a lot more intelligence than the Iraqis, who used
STEEL PRACTICE ROUNDS against our M1A1s in the Gulf War I

[NecronLord]

Hyperspace sensors

That out of the way, the best way to detect the stealth is have someone reporting the battleplans beforehand. Also condider where the spy sats are pointed. That is likely somewhere that will be attacked. Radio monitoring and locating. It's unlikely that they wouldn't maintain radio scilence, but thats no reason to ignore that option. Finally it is worth remembering that the usa actually has a very limited number of stealths. Can we say sabotage anyone, after all someone cleans the things.

[tharkûn]

NL:
Actually the procedures for taking care of stupid crap on Stealth planes are HUGE. The things take special wax, glue, etc. The point is to have a perfectly FLAT surface, some dope using chemical cleaners on the wing is going to cause a VERY expensive repair job. Last I checked the only people allowed to touch the stealths had it drilled into their asses that these are ludicriously expensive and if you break it you get killed.

I could be wrong, but I think even the cleaning is done by technicians.

[Wicked Pilot]

Long wave lenght radar..... since modern stealth is designed against VHF wavelenghts....

It is not going to pinpoint the bastard, but it will tell you it is there.

Where did you hear this? I'm not sure how a lower frequency band would do any better. Besides the new active stealth technology, like that found on the Rafale, would probably do a better job against lower frequency waves.

[Sea Skimmer]

NL:
Actually the procedures for taking care of stupid crap on Stealth planes are HUGE. The things take special wax, glue, etc. The point is to have a perfectly FLAT surface, some dope using chemical cleaners on the wing is going to cause a VERY expensive repair job. Last I checked the only people allowed to touch the stealths had it drilled into their asses that these are ludicriously expensive and if you break it you get killed.

I could be wrong, but I think even the cleaning is done by technicians.

Pretty much. And that in addition to the climate controlled shealters current stealth aircraft need. Though upcoming aircraft like the F-35 and production F-22's will not need such, though leaving them outside is still to be avoided.

[Sea Skimmer]

Long wave lenght radar..... since modern stealth is designed against VHF wavelenghts....

It is not going to pinpoint the bastard, but it will tell you it is there.

Where did you hear this? I'm not sure how a lower frequency band would do any better. Besides the new active stealth technology, like that found on the Rafale, would probably do a better job against lower frequency waves.

Low freguancy does do better, but at the same time gives such piss poor resolution you'd need a barrage of Nuclear SAM's to make use of it.

[NecronLord]

NL:
Actually the procedures for taking care of stupid crap on Stealth planes are HUGE. The things take special wax, glue, etc. The point is to have a perfectly FLAT surface, some dope using chemical cleaners on the wing is going to cause a VERY expensive repair job. Last I checked the only people allowed to touch the stealths had it drilled into their asses that these are ludicriously expensive and if you break it you get killed.

I could be wrong, but I think even the cleaning is done by technicians.

Pretty much. And that in addition to the climate controlled shealters current stealth aircraft need. Though upcoming aircraft like the F-35 and production F-22's will not need such, though leaving them outside is still to be avoided.

I am aware of this.

Thus being the point, bribe the technicians, arrange for chemicals to be replaced etc. etc.

[victorhadin]

Well stealth aircraft maintain their low RCS chiefly by reflecting RADAR signals in unexpected directions. It would be quite possible to see them with an interlinked network where the recievers were offset considerably from the transmitters.