It’s been pretty much established that the Serbs didn’t shoot down the steath aircraft by defeating the stealth capability. They shot it down because the operators screwed up and ran the exact same flight route as they had done the prior day.
The aircraft was invisible to the Serb air defenses. But they spotted the aircraft earlier in its flight, radioed ahead, and then just fired a missile to where the aircraft was known to be headed.
This is actually why they were specifically not supposed to fly the same routes multiple times.
One aspect might be that the Air Force as a whole is controlled by the “fighter mafia,” and while the generals don’t fly fighters themselves any more, they are immersed in that culture certainly. But yeah, whether the fighter jocks want it or not they’re going to be sharing air space and institutional bandwidth more and more with drones.
I’m skeptical of arguments, though, that claim the demise of manned aircraft. The future is more likely to be a synthesis of manned and various types of autonomous, semi-autonomous, and direct controlled aircraft. There is room for low-tech stuff like the A-10 for pounding ISIS and its ilk. There is room for mid-tech stuff like the F-16, F-18, et al, for routine operations in low to mid thread arenas. And there’s a need for high end stealthy and expensive stuff like the F-22 and (theoretically, if it actually works, etc.) the F-35. But there’s also room for and a great need for drones and further development of these systems. It’s particularly important to develop command and control links that are robust, secure, and reliable. This will be the biggest challenge in my opinion, rather than anything related to AI or sensors or stealth; making sure you can control your systems is job one in the face of severe EW threats. Which is why I’d be betting on more development of autonomous and semi-autonomous systems…which have their own set of technical and ethical challenges…
Not quite. The missile they shot it down with (an SA-3) doesn’t have internal guidance; it takes radio commands from the ground station. The Serbian battery commander and his electronics boffins made some equipment modifications for longer wavelength (trading positional accuracy for stealth detection; stealth shapes are ineffective when the radar wavelength is much larger than the stealth shape), detected the F-117 at 50-60km when it opened its bomb bay doors, and detected it again at 8km to launch the missile. The lower positional accuracy didn’t matter too much, because the SA-3 missile is giant. They were able to end up on the flight path because of repeated flight plans and communications intercepts, though.
Stealth is also not a panacea. The Russians and Chinese are both rumored to be working on some fun distributed-emitters-and-receivers long-wavelength systems, which can use math which goes above my head to more accurately work out positions for stealth aircraft even given the lower positional accuracy.
Not quite. The missile they shot it down with (an SA-3) doesn’t have internal guidance; it takes radio commands from the ground station. The Serbian battery commander and his electronics boffins made some equipment modifications for longer wavelength (trading positional accuracy for stealth detection; stealth shapes are ineffective when the radar wavelength is much larger than the stealth shape), detected the F-117 at 50-60km when it opened its bomb bay doors, and detected it again at 8km to launch the missile. The lower positional accuracy didn’t matter too much, because the SA-3 missile is giant. They were able to end up on the flight path because of repeated flight plans and communications intercepts, though.
This is interesting information, and in line with what I heard, but I didn’t realize that the SA-3 had no internal guidance at all. I had assumed it had some sort of short range guidance that kicked in.
Stealth is also not a panacea. The Russians and Chinese are both rumored to be working on some fun distributed-emitters-and-receivers long-wavelength systems, which can use math which goes above my head to more accurately work out positions for stealth aircraft even given the lower positional accuracy.
Well such is the nature of warfare… but it doesn’t change the fact that while Stealth may not be some permanent “win-button” for aircraft, it doesn’t change the fact that older aircraft are going to be insta-gibbed by modern AA systems.
Nope. The earliest three Soviet long-range air defense systems (the S-25, S-75, and S-125 in Russian parlance) all used pure radio-command guidance. The S-200 and later have semi-active homing missiles, and the S-300 and S-400 have optional active radar homing missiles.
Well such is the nature of warfare… but it doesn’t change the fact that while Stealth may not be some permanent “win-button” for aircraft, it doesn’t change the fact that older aircraft are going to be insta-gibbed by modern AA systems.
Oh, I’m not arguing that. Absent stealth or good EW fit (see Gripen or Super Hornet with ECM), modern SAMs are very dangerous.
These are the same arguments made before every Arab-Israeli war, the Linebacker campaigns, and the first Gulf War. The future has room for manned aircraft with experienced pilots who have immediate knowledge.
Yeah, in the early 1950s, the BOMARC missile system was initially designated the XF-99 (F for Fighter) because guided missiles were going to replace manned fighters.
My favorite aircraft to control when in the deployed environment. There’s always something that prevents them from flying. Rain…lightning within 200. : P
The stories that have been running recently about the Marines cannibalizing mothballed airplanes for parts and even returning slightly outdated F-18s to service from the boneyards point out the dilemma, though. Stuff like the F-35 is problematic for a lot of reasons, including cost, mission creep, and complexity. Yet the alternatives aren’t very enticing, either. The constant deployments, the never-ending semi-wartime footing, and the expectation of zero losses and war on the cheap have eroded both the inventory and the logistical support system for airpower over the past two decades. Add to that the lingering inertia of the expected peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, toss in lackluster at best leadership in these fields from both parties and all the services, and you wind up with what we have now, which, if sources the news folks are reporting are to be believed, is an air inventory that is nowhere near robust enough to sustain what we are asking of it, and which has nowhere near enough of the right type of aircraft in the pipeline to replace the aging ones that are flying now.
It’s really not so much about whether the F-35 is good, bad, or indifferent, it’s more about is there even a coherent plan to maintain an effective and sustainable air force (broadly construed), or are we just, um, winging it?
Yeah. And for example the UK just got 24 F-35s. Even if they all worked perfectly that would be what, one squadron’s worth given the need for spares? And realistically, for the F-35 they probably won’t ever have a whole squadron capable of flying at the same time.
What is even the point of having so few planes? Wouldn’t it be better, to have, oh, I don’t know, an entire wing? Or maybe even a half-dozen of them?
And reverting to the home front, surely it’s obvious that any modern American military program will overrun costs by a factor of ten or so at least, so why don’t they plan in a way that makes more sense? Or rather, why don’t they let contracts in such a way as to ensure that costs don’t overrun so much? No, don’t tell me, just like in WWII, the contractors don’t care about anything but profits, the congresspeople don’t care about anything but contractor campaign contributions and constituency employment, and the generals don’t care about anything but their future careers as contractor consultants…
While I agree with a lot of what you are saying, I think the WWII example is misplaced. During that conflict, industry essentially worked extremely efficiently, and cost-effectively; while it made profits, they were primarily in things like government-subsidized capital improvements and the fact that the companies stayed in business paying everyone on the payroll due to war contracts. Not to mention that it was generally the businesses that took on the brunt of the engineering work and the production design for pretty much all the big-ticket items at least. It was industry that found the most efficient ways (eventually) to build stuff; look at Willow Run and B-24 production by Ford, where it was Ford that moved the government from hand-built airplanes in small batches to actual mass production of four-engined bombers.
And yeah, the rich stayed rich, but as a whole, what’s really fascinating is the way industry worked against ideas that would have unnecessarily complicated or driven up costs on war goods. It was a weird time in our history. The government refused to use coercive power to force business to support the war, and in turn, industry responded in spades. Part of the bargain–and a recognition that what we were fighting for was, indeed, the American way of (capitalist) life–was that industry would work its ass off and the government would lay off the nationalization of business stuff. It actually worked.
According to my reading, before and in the early phases of WWII contractors committed every possible manner of crime. Which is one reason (among many) why the US was so poorly equipped to fight the war. Tanks, planes, and guns were all grossly subpar to begin with, and cost overruns and contract failures were pervasive.In my opinion it wasn’t for quite a while that US contractors turned to quality design and craftsmanship. But this is a digression to an enormous can of worms of a discussion…
