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In GW1, even though the F-117 was supposed to be "invisible", the USAF took no chances and used active jamming to render Baghdad`s AAA/SAMS useless, thus advertising the imminent arrival of heavy metallic exploding pointy things! This for at least the first sorties I have been led to believe, can anyone confirm?
Sound tactics upon reflection, these being the first real missions for the Nighthawk. It would have been ugly had the F-117 gone in unaided for the crews to discover that stealth didn`t actually work.
That is the trouble with active jamming, your telling the whole world you are coming, the enemy might not be able to lock a single target up, but it will give them the opportunity to try and work a niche into the attackers armour.
If they are expecting an attack anyway, it could be prudent to use drones replicating a threat coming from one bearing, jammers blazing, whilst your striking force slip in on another. Again, tactics used in GW1. There has been some commentary, even from inside the USAF(strangely!) , that the APG-77 radar in the F-22, possibly has some nifty electronic attack tricks which can be used to overload the other guys radar processors with brute force, the F-18E/F`s new APG-79 may have the same scope. In fact, I think this came from a naval aviator gushing about the wonders of the Superbug!
Total surprise is a weapon you would want to have on every mission, not just a first strike I think. Emissions control is the buzz-phrase of the day.
Oh, and the SR-71 used a specially shaped internal structure to try and "trap/dissipate" RF energy, way back in the `50s. For the life of me, I can`t remember the name of that particular discipline!
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