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Originally Posted by GGTharos
And it can drop its weapons on a ground target from 60nm. Nasty huh?
It's not going to fly low. THere's no point in it doing so, and there's even less point in a cruise missile doing so if its stealth.
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That will work if you have an unshakable belief in an "invulnerable" stealth missile....The best defence has been and still is, flying low. This reduces a defensive radars footprint still further.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GGTharos
What's a 'gap filling radar'? Stealth 'creates' gaps between radars that you CANNOT fill. The more stealth you are, the bigger the gap. A detection at 10nm gives you a minute's warning maybe. Not much time at all when it comes to surprise attack - in fact, you're basically hosed.
So how stealth you are DOES matter.
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Gap fillers are smaller mobile radars that are positioned to give the defender coverage that the larger, fixed surveillance radars cannot give. Think terrain issues. In valleys or mountainous areas. Any decent IADS has plenty of them.
Any detection no matter how brief sets into motion a defensive response including vectoring in AEW&C aircraft, puts the defender on an alert footing and brings all your defensive tricks to a state of readiness. Sure, some missiles get through but so will non-stealthy missiles. Anti-cruise missile defence has been well thought out by both the US and the former USSR.
Sure a stealthy missile gives you advantages, but an undetectable one flying at medium alts`? Have yet to see one of those....
Quote:
Originally Posted by GGTharos
Sure they exist. Any small missile fits the description. Heck, a maverick missile fits, and even a tomahawk fits. The AGM-129 was to take this a step further, and ... take a hint here ... all anti-cruise missile weapons are radar guided. IR is not good enough - the cruise missile is a SMALL target. And that matters - in other words, when operating an IR system, target surface area is important, as well as aspect with respect to eh exchaust. IR systems could differentiate such temperatures for a long time now, somehow that isn't detering stealth designers  |
Actually, cruise missiles can be taken down with IR missiles. A 9X, ASRAAM or the latest Python will have no trouble whatsoever with cruise missiles.
There is a video doing the rounds of an Israeli test with a Python which uses it`s LOAL feature. The shooter launches the Python way out in front of the target cruise missile, the Python does a complete 180, zooms past the target, does another 180 and vanishes up the cruise missiles tailpipe.
There is no point in designing a stealthy aircraft or missile without paying attention to IR suppression or at least paying it lipservice.
I do feel that people underestimate the capabilities of modern IR/electro-optical systems and missiles.