Are bombers obsolete?

[JBG]

People making stealth out to be a super-duper invisibility cloak that allows you to nuke people without anyone even knowing what hit them is silly. The Yugoslavians, of all people, showed that stealth isn't some kind of fancy shmancy greased lightning. That colonel who's SAM battery shot down the F-117? He retired and became a baker, and he kept a piece of the stealth fighter in his garage. How's that for an indivisible dark knifeswordfighterplane in the shadow of the black night's blackened darky shadowy blackdarkness?

Most people get what little they know about military technology from the MSM. Defence correspondents like Keegan are rare beasts so all they get are sound bites without having the background knowledge to discard crap, read between the lines etc. Heck most people think that there are such things as atomic bombs that explode!

[Ritterin Sophia]

People making stealth out to be a super-duper invisibility cloak that allows you to nuke people without anyone even knowing what hit them is silly. The Yugoslavians, of all people, showed that stealth isn't some kind of fancy shmancy greased lightning. That colonel who's SAM battery shot down the F-117? He retired and became a baker, and he kept a piece of the stealth fighter in his garage. How's that for an indivisible dark knifeswordfighterplane in the shadow of the black night's blackened darky shadowy blackdarkness?

Wasn't the reason the F-117 shot down was because it flew the exact same flight path every time, so they just set it up before hand?

[Stark]

It's not like Americans don't make that mistake again: the whole Mogadishu business occurred because they used the same plan every time and were predictable.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I thought the Yugoslavian incident was the first example of using a mobile network to shadow track stealthed aircraft by their anomalies within the telecoms coverage. It was then a case of saturating the predicted approach vector with rockets and scoring a fragmentation kill.

[Shroom Man 777]

Still it makes the notion of stealth = indivisivisible ridiculous and the notion of nuking a country with total deniability a completely laughable idea.

[Isolder74]

Also the mere act of opening the doors screams hear I am. The very act of dropping an A-Bomb from a stealth aircraft would scream USA did it anyway.

[Sea Skimmer]

It's not like Americans don't make that mistake again: the whole Mogadishu business occurred because they used the same plan every time and were predictable.

Umm,no. They not not use the same plan every time, far from it. They switched between helicopter or ground insertion and extractions at random. They also ran at least decoy missions every single day regardless as to if they had a real mission to run to keep the local militia off balance.
The reason things went bad on October 3rd 1993 was simply because it was the first mission into the Black Sea area, a place where the militia could respond quickly no matter what they did. The Ranges were just not sufficient in number or men or aircraft to tackle an area that heavily armed. But Clinton wanted a smaller cheaper force, which is why over 20,000 marines with tanks and heavy artillery and hoards or organic aircraft were replaced by less then 10,000 men from the 10th Mountain division with no armor at all, and a small Ranger-Delta task force in the first place.

I thought the Yugoslavian incident was the first example of using a mobile network to shadow track stealthed aircraft by their anomalies within the telecoms coverage. It was then a case of saturating the predicted approach vector with rockets and scoring a fragmentation kill.

I dunno who came up with that idea, but no it was hardly some kind of random barrage attack. NATO used the same penetration corridors every single night because airspace over Serbia, a small country, was absurdly congested and frankly a mid air collision was a far greater risk to NATO aircraft then Serb AA fire was. The Serbs figured this out, parked an SA-3 site right under it and nailed the first plane to come by which happened to be an F-117. The F-117 doesn't have radar warning equipment, and nothing is stealthy at point blank range

[Stuart]

I thought the Yugoslavian incident was the first example of using a mobile network to shadow track stealthed aircraft by their anomalies within the telecoms coverage. It was then a case of saturating the predicted approach vector with rockets and scoring a fragmentation kill.

That's waht the people who sell those systems say. Actually, it was a case of the USAF flying the same ingress and egress routes (which got leaked to the opposition) every time. It was fire control by stopwatch (the bombs went off then, that was x miles away so they should be overhead . . . . . . now. Come, lads, just fill the sky with bullets and missiles and hope).

Having said that, the cell phone thing can work.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I knew there was some element of luck (or arrogance, if you will), but at the time I was wary of them refining the nation's mobile network to function that well at good resolution. Throw enough metal in the sky and pray they didn't pick today to change their flight plan is far simpler. But hey, one hell of a PR win, even if not down to a revolutionary SAM or ingenious tactic.

Of course, none of that would have happened with a nice supersonic bomber at altitude.

[Sea Skimmer]

That's waht the people who sell those systems say. Actually, it was a case of the USAF flying the same ingress and egress routes (which got leaked to the opposition) every time. It was fire control by stopwatch (the bombs went off then, that was x miles away so they should be overhead . . . . . . now. Come, lads, just fill the sky with bullets and missiles and hope).

I am very skeptical that a random barrage would put two missiles within bursting distance of a single aircraft. its not like an SA-3 site has an overwhelming number of missiles to shoot, and Iraq had rather more assets and massive barrages which failed to do anything at all. Pilot interview here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmqLyn4Q ... r_embedded

Its way more likely that the Serbs did manage to detect the aircraft with radar, at least enough to get a ceiling and direction, maybe not an actual track.

[Shroom Man 777]

I read in a wiki article (LOL), or in maybe one of those articles the wikis used as a source, that the Yugoslavian officer in charge of the battery was a very clever cookie and during the air war, he kept his SAMs operating very tightly - turning on their radars for the briefest periods of time, and making sure they got the fuck out of the area after turning on their radars since he knew NATO anti-radiation missiles would paste his ass if he stayed too long. He also used scavenged MiG-21 radars and scattered them, to use them as sort of decoys so anti-radiation missiles would hit the MiG-21 radars instead of his SAMs. Basically he kept his men mobile, and always had a backup site to move to whenever it was time to move.

He also used landlines since he knew cellphone communications could be intercepted.

Anyway, I also read that he apparently did some studying or some research or some thinking on American stealth technology, and figured out that the F-117 would be vaguely detectable on low frequencies (or something). So he tuned his radars to those frequencies when looking for the Nighthawk. The article, which interviews the officer, says that there was also stormy weather in the nearby sea (wherever it was) during that time, so he guessed that the electronic warfare planes couldn't fly off their carriers. They also had spies looking at American bases in the area, to see if any other aircraft were taking off.

So he decided he had time to spare, that he had extra time to turn on his radars (in low wavelengths) just a LITTLE BIT LONGER without getting an anti-radiation missile to the face, that he had a chance of finding that F-117. He said that it went against his every instinct, since he knew that if he had his radars on too long then he'd get pasted by an anti-radiation missile or some other NATO nastiness. But he went on, found the F-117 (though it was not a precise lock, since they were using low frequencies!), and shot it down.

That's what I read. Of course, it might be total bullshit. Stuart? Skim? Is this story completely crap? The officer commanding the SAM battery is said to be retired and working as a baker now, with a piece of the F-117 in his garage!

[Shroom Man 777]

Zoltan Dani is the commander's name, and the wiki article has some details. I am unsure how true it is, since it IS wiki. But there it is, for your viewing pleasure. Stu? Skim? What say yous?!

[K. A. Pital]

Dani's account is accurate. He used low frequencies, and I believe the principble behind Nebo-SVU and other methods of combatting VLO objects are based on using frequencies on which a VLO object is visible; though more efficiently than a modified SA-3 radar could. Certainly he didn't fire in the blue - the SA-3 would be out of ordnance very soon if he were to act that way - that's basic logic.

[Shroom Man 777]

I want to hear Stuart's comments on this, and maybe Skim's too. I love it how this Eastern European military mang with crappy obsolete Soviet-era SAMs managed to ruin the shit out of the holy shit indivisible stealth bombers, and keep a piece of it in his goddamn garage while he's working as a goddamn baker since now he's retired after doing his so awesome feat of badassery. He's a hero! Da, comrades!

[Starglider]

I love it how this Eastern European military mang with crappy obsolete Soviet-era SAMs managed to ruin the shit out of the holy shit indivisible stealth bombers

The design of the F-117 was 20 years old at that point. I rather doubt the same tactics would work on a B-2, or for that matter an F-22.

[Simon_Jester]

I want to hear Stuart's comments on this, and maybe Skim's too. I love it how this Eastern European military mang with crappy obsolete Soviet-era SAMs managed to ruin the shit out of the holy shit indivisible stealth bombers, and keep a piece of it in his goddamn garage while he's working as a goddamn baker since now he's retired after doing his so awesome feat of badassery. He's a hero! Da, comrades!

The F-117 is itself an obsolete Soviet-era stealth bomber, in that all the work was done during the time of the Soviets. But yeah, assuming for the sake of argument the story's accurate, it's definitely an impressive feat of arms on his part.

[Stuart]

I am very skeptical that a random barrage would put two missiles within bursting distance of a single aircraft. its not like an SA-3 site has an overwhelming number of missiles to shoot, and Iraq had rather more assets and massive barrages which failed to do anything at all.

So was everyone including me. The most likely explanation floating around back then was that they used optical fire control, got an EO track that was accurate enough, and then fired on that to get the missiles close enough. Upgraded SA-3s had an EO tracker so it was quite plausible. Another idea was that the aircraft was damaged by fragments from conventional AA fire and that increased its radar image enough to allow it to be tracked. One of the dirty little secrets of stealth is that it only takes a minute amount of damage (like a deep scratch or a rifle bullet hole) to increase RCS dramatically.

However, it does seem that the principle fire control method was a stopwatch. We are pretty sure (read damned sure) that the aircraft wasn't tracked by radar. There are ways and means we could test that and we did. Personally I think the minor damage theory is best.

[Stuart]

Zoltan Dani is the commander's name, and the wiki article has some details. I am unsure how true it is, since it IS wiki. But there it is, for your viewing pleasure. Stu? Skim? What say yous?!

I'm very leery about that article; there's a lot in it that doesn't add up right. If he did get a paint as early as he claimed then there was something seriously wrong with the F-117 and that brings us back to the question of whether it was already damaged. Obviously, he's a smart guy and a damned good commander but I suspect he had the luck gods smiling on him that night

[Sea Skimmer]

So was everyone including me. The most likely explanation floating around back then was that they used optical fire control, got an EO track that was accurate enough, and then fired on that to get the missiles close enough. Upgraded SA-3s had an EO tracker so it was quite plausible. Another idea was that the aircraft was damaged by fragments from conventional AA fire and that increased its radar image enough to allow it to be tracked.

Back when that happened I assumed they just used optics since they've been a well known feature of commie block SAMs since 1973, but in the years since I heard several different interviews with the pilot, and he describes missiles coming up through the cloud cover in all of them. But maybe it wasn't total cover. Knowing the state of the moon for that date would be handy, a bright one would make Soviet night vision optics much more realistic of a threat.

One of the dirty little secrets of stealth is that it only takes a minute amount of damage (like a deep scratch or a rifle bullet hole) to increase RCS dramatically.

Yes I remember reading about a peacetime incident involving one of the Have Blue prototypes, in which AWACS spotted the thing over 50 miles away. It turned out a single access panel was not screwed tight enough, and the resulting 3mm lip gave the plane away. Supposedly one reason why we always keep stealth under cover is just so birds can't take craps on it and ruin the stealth that way; which raises the idea that the F-117 could merely have hit a bird at some point on the mission and had its guts smeared on a wing. All the more reason to fly high and keep above the 33,000 foot bird threat ceiling... but of course then laser guided bombs wouldn't work either.

[Count Chocula]

Hokay, earlier I opined that a fleet of (originally proposed) 244 B-1As would have creamed the Soviets in the worst case scenario. I've done some more research. The B-1A's specs were a 50,000 foot cruise at Mach 2.2, with a low level dash speed of ~ Mach 1.2, 750mph (from http://www.globalsecurity.org). I'll stick initially with the high altitude drop.

From formularium.org, a ballistic (unpowered) projectile dropped from 50,000 feet at Mach 2 would travel about 24 miles. So, we're deep into an S-400's interception envelope. Very very roughly interpolating Sea Skimmer's AGM-69 powered nuke range graph, an M2 AGM-69 launch at 50k feet could give a max standoff range of, maybe, 120 statute miles or about 50% into the S-400's detection envelope. Looks pretty bad for the Amerikanskis, we might lose half our bombers. Each of which, in this hypothetical, carries 24 AGM-69s. So only 122 get through and launch 2,928 210-kT devices. Still, ouch.

But wait! I just re-read the S-400 specs, specifically the missiles the system controls. The long range mamba-jamba, the "Big Missile," is designed to engage AWACS and jammer air-e-o-planes at up to 266.8 miles. IOW big, reflective, slow, limited maneuverability, low altitude, did I say slow? targets. The 9M96 missile, the one designed to engage cruise missiles and warplanes, has a range of 120km fuck this Frog metric system shit, I'll take the King's foot 80 statute miles! Let's assume this is over the ground, and not slant range. So a B-1A launching a gravity boomba from 50k feet and Mach 2 would be well inside the engagement envelope and attrition would be the order of the day. Sucks to be Davey Crockett. BUT, with AGM-69s as the payload, even Mach 2 B-1As as originally specified (back in the 1960s BTW) could launch out of range of 2010+ Rooskie defenses. Attrition? What attrition? Say goodbye targets.

It suddenly strikes me that we had the ability to open 10 cans of whoop-ass on the USSR if they got uppity 30 or 40 years ago, but thanks to absolute tools like R. Strange McNamara and Peanut Farmer Carter, that ability was taken from us. Goddamn.

And oh by the way, yes...if ICBMs launched on the US and hit us, we'd be pretty well fucked initially, until we got back on our feet. We have very little civil defense. Of course, we beat the Krauts and Nips with a population of 123 million. Now we're at 310 million MOL. And you DON'T want to piss off the survivors. Of course, this is all hypothetical.

[Cecelia5578]

It suddenly strikes me that we had the ability to open 10 cans of whoop-ass on the USSR if they got uppity 30 or 40 years ago, but thanks to absolute tools like R. Strange McNamara and Peanut Farmer Carter, that ability was taken from us. Goddamn.

Okay, Carter may have been a fool in many things, but how come when the place was resurrected by the Reagan Administration the performance was dramatically cut back? I'd have assumed that the great Saint of Defense Spending Himself would've somehow pushed for a plane with the specs of the B-1A.

[Shroom Man 777]

CHOCLA this is why the Russkies not only have S-500 but shit like MiG-31s and stuff.

But IADS is really difficult and if push comes to shove, I don't think the US could've built anything THAT superior to what the Russians have - at least not without spending a shitload of money and ringing the entire continental USA with fuckoff expensive SAMs. Making an airtight, X/B-1/2/70 proof IADS to protect a bigass fuckoff nation really is NOT economical or practical, and so far the Russkies have the biggest and seemingly baddest IADS network and it is still not sufficiently airtight perfect even if it is fucking expensive. So, yeah, if it comes down to war then the best defense is a good offense - namely, if you want to defeat the enemy's bombers, then you're going to have to hit them when they're still on the ground. Or launch interceptors and hit them BEFORE they're right on top of you. Or something. Minimize the number of their bombers that'll make it to you, while maximizing the amount of your bombers that'll reach them. Because their bombers will be blowing up your airfields, you want to attrite their bombers enough so that you'll have enough bombers left to ruin their shit.

It's not really about defeating the Amerikanskis, or the "enemy" whoever he may be. It's just ensuring that you've got enough strikeback capability left - you don't defend yourself by stopping his attacks, you defend yourself by being able to attack the enemy even if he attacks you, thus dissuading him from attacking you in the first place by making him reconsider and think that maybe attacking you's not such a hot idea in the first place.

[adam_grif]

Isn't that what the boomers are for? And ICBM's that can launch on short notice?

[Simon_Jester]

And oh by the way, yes...if ICBMs launched on the US and hit us, we'd be pretty well fucked initially, until we got back on our feet. We have very little civil defense. Of course, we beat the Krauts and Nips with a population of 123 million. Now we're at 310 million MOL. And you DON'T want to piss off the survivors. Of course, this is all hypothetical.

Uh, Choc? I'm pretty sure that, assuming competent targeting, we'd be so long digging out from under the rubble that random opportunists would be dominating us pretty thoroughly by the time it was over.

[K. A. Pital]

But wait! I just re-read the S-400 specs, specifically the missiles the system controls. The long range mamba-jamba, the "Big Missile," is designed to engage AWACS and jammer air-e-o-planes at up to 266.8 miles. IOW big, reflective, slow, limited maneuverability, low altitude, did I say slow? targets.

The 40N6 is designed to hit any targets. The emphasis on AWACS is because they usually are deep inside enemy order, requiring extra-long range missiles.

BUT, with AGM-69s as the payload, even Mach 2 B-1As as originally specified (back in the 1960s BTW) could launch out of range of 2010+ Rooskie defenses. Attrition? What attrition? Say goodbye targets.

As if the radars would be always on to give you a lock-on. Don't be silly, Chocula. Even ~100km ranged missiles are branded dangerous by the USA, and not without very good reasons.

It suddenly strikes me that we had the ability to open 10 cans of whoop-ass on the USSR if they got uppity 30 or 40 years ago

Even if you completed the B-1 fleet according to specifications, that wouldn't have changed the general fact that the Soviet ICBM and SLBM fleet in the 1970-1980s would've utterly devastated the USA.

We have very little civil defense. Of course, we beat the Krauts and Nips with a population of 123 million. Now we're at 310 million MOL. And you DON'T want to piss off the survivors. Of course, this is all hypothetical.

Which survivors? Poor civil defence means survivors will be few. The USA and USSR had comparable manpower during the last decades of the Cold War. However, the private, purely capitalistic house construction industry of the USA favoured cheap, poorly protected housing, and urban sheltering was not even cared for.

The USA's main advantage was the warm climate, of course - the survivors (in a primitive post-war environment) would have an easier time than those in the cold post-nuclear wasteland of Russia.

However, it's fair to say that the annihilation of both nations by 1970-1980s' nuclear arsenals would be so complete and utter that there'd be no one to "stand back on it's feet" in decades, if not centuries.