The Chap

Those of you familiar with ancient threads of mine may well expect where this is comming from (appologies).

The gist of this - bad puns aside - is to moot the following:

First Strike is not politically viable. The B2 may yet have a role, as intended, to hit hard and first.

If you will indulge the above, I suggest that contemporary air superiority should be initiated by air-assets with a signiature to embarass a B-52 (BUFF).

That is, deliberately reflective, pan-spectrum. Worth a ponder?

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Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on it's liver, not it's ruddy stomach.

Ironduke

I recall reading that Allied bombers dropped metal foil chaff to swamp enemy radar during their bombing missions over Germany.

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The Buck Stops Here

The Chap

Daft oversight!

However, I was really thinking of designs optimised to passively maximise the return. My scepticism with regard to stealth is a matter of archaeology on this site which brings me to a breif aside:

watching the box a programme featuring a "stealthed" assault ship made me chuckle as Ospreys lifted off. EH?

The Chap

More silly speculation from yours truly:

Dazzle and Polski cunning ...

Pre-radar naval dazzle paint was predicated upon optical confusion doing the do. The asymetry designed to confound the eye and mind way back when does not seem to be paralelled in contemporary use of the EM spectrum. In other words, are the materials under the surface of, say, a low observability airframe symetrical?

The Poles in WWII used to "whisper" enticing Nazi sparks to crank the gain...

"FICK!" followed if the entire set did not blow appart. Not as controversial as a full EMP and in modern form possibly a nice way to take out the enemy ears

Tin Man

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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Stan187

Did they (and if they didn't then why not) try to use active jammers without actually attacking? You know, actively jam but not attack one night, the next night, the next night, and etc. and by the time of the attack a month later, the active jamming looks routine. Kinda like what happened in Panama where the US military had to notify the Panamanians about exercizes and they used that as a wake up at 4am for the longest time.

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Tin Man

The active jamming was done using Prowlers and Spark-Vaark`s. A waste of resources on an empty mission. You can also give your game away very quickly, but I doubt the Iraqi`s had the analytical tools to unravel the Prowlers electronics.

The drones were used as "noise makers", to make the Iraqis think the coalition were attacking from one direction whilst they attacked form a different bearing.

The Chap

Tin Man is quite right when stating the desirability of surprise. Now comes the inevitable "yet ...".

In any tactical theatre getting the boot in first is wonderful. This supposes the belligerants are already engaged. Bear with me.

The actuality of most nation state/nation state conflict is that excluding WMD anihilation (I include WWII eastern front here) there will invariably be a threat, or period of tension accompanied by mobilisation.

Combat itself is but one aspect of war. Our old chum Tsun Tzu is para-phrased in many Hollywood script as advising that wars should be won before there is ever a need to fight.

In part I'm selling gunboat diplomacy at the hotter end of the iron. Not "shock and awe", more "we don't give a toss". Bang the drums. Deafen them.

That sort of thing. Arrogance in design, if you will. Rather than wait in terror for the stealth attack - and for the purpose of clarity of argument I'm not addressing intelligence orgs. or special forces here -the obvious assault mirrors the diplomatic imperative.

Dreadnought

Duke, From what I understand one of the very first times that was used was to drop Brit paratroopers in France with gliders towed behind other planes. "Operation Magic" was code named for the tinfoil chaff because it would create a "ghost cloud" for the planes to hide behind and somewhat blind german anti aircraft guns.

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Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Dreadnought

In part I'm selling gunboat diplomacy at the hotter end of the iron. Not "shock and awe", more "we don't give a toss". Bang the drums. Deafen them.

Chap my friend, How do?

You seem to be traveling back to Maggie and Ron's office holding days of gunboat diplomacy. Everybody knows that never worked.

The Chap

I'd respond in length, but reading the above I seem to have come over all misty-eyed.