VHF/UHF radars and stealth

[El Savior]

Russia has announced that it's new VHF/UHF radars could detect stealth aircraft. Also China is deploying new VHF radars.

http://www.wired.com/2011/06/stealth-tech-obsolete/
http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/04/29/ ... sia-china/
http://www.csbaonline.org/wp-content/up ... fairs1.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown

Example Serbia used modified P-18 (older VHF radar) and actually managed to shot down F-117. Is it coincidence or not, but 1991 Iraq war first thing US did destroy was older VHF Early Warning Radar (Tall King). Only after this F-117 bombed Bagdad.

VHF radars are older 50's and 60's technology and they were replaced by newer X- and S-band radars (SAM missile radars). Irony or not, but stealth fighters may be more vulnerable against older radars than newer 10 cm or 1 cm radars.

I tested P-18 and older Russian radars against F-117 and F-22 Raptor. In game at least older radars were not good against stealth aircraft. Is there a way to simulate this or is this VHF/UHF radar just good marketing stunt for selling more Russian radars?

[ckfinite]

It's a weird combination of a marketing stunt and the truth. Stealth aircraft do actually have systems that reduce visibility to these radars, but it's of limited effectiveness, as demonstrated in Serbia. I think that P-18 was able to detect the aircraft, but only at the right aspect and at shorter range.

The database does actually have different categories for detectability by different radar systems, see the F-22 under the signatures tab.

[jdkbph]

Yeah, much has been made of that Serbian shoot down. From what I understand, it was more about stupidity on the part of the US mission planners (they were apparently using the same egress routes night after night) than it was any sort of unexpected vulnerability in the LO technology. LO is just that... Low Observable... not invisible. If you know exactly where to look and when, there's a good chance they will be detected.

JD

[mikmykWS]

D sent a link via email early this morning that touches on all this:

Unconventional Weapon: What we learned about stealth technology from the combat career of the F-117. By Bill Sweetman @ Smithsonian Air and Space Magazine

P-17/VHF/and the nightmare the F-117 was in the early years to generate a mission with maximum stealth.

Mike

[AlmightyTallest]

Nice article on the upgrades the F-117 went through.

Avoiding detection by systems like the P-18 required a combination of careful planning, operational security, and tactics. But Zoltan’s hyperactive battery couldn’t be pinned down. Serb agents were tracking takeoffs from the F-117s’ base in Aviano, Italy, and airspace restrictions indicated that the fighters were following very similar routes, night after night.

According to Dani, when the F-117A was head-on at 26,000 feet and eight miles out, the battery fired two missiles. Each would have closed the distance in seconds. The pilot, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Darrell Zelko, has never specified how much warning he had of the attack. One still-classified aspect of the F-117 is whether it carries any kind of radar warning receiver. If it does, even the most comprehensive studies of the aircraft have not mentioned it, nor has it been mentioned as part of any upgrade.

Even with the modified radar, it doesn't seem that it's a very practical solution to the stealth problem if they could only engage it at 8 miles. There were also about 850 sorties done by F-117's over Yugoslavia, and this was the only fully confirmed shoot down.

[Agiel]

Hpasp, the developer of SAM Simulator and himself a former SA-2 operator had relayed that the more he studies the subject matter the less he's convinced of the supposed superiority of ground-based IADS in securing a given airspace. From that I've gathered that without concurrent developments in air power (something I think the Chinese are in a lot better shape than the Russians) claims of new Wunderwaffen SAMs in making the B-2 and the like irrelevant amount to bluster, especially in the face of a complex battlespace with jammers, HARM shooters, and TALDS/MALDS filling up their radar scopes.

[Gunner98]

claims of new Wunderwaffen SAMs in making the B-2 and the like irrelevant amount to bluster

I agree - except - all they need is one and 25 years later we're still talking about it[:D]

Unless there is a full scale near-peer shootout, the headlines regurgitating the defence industries bluster about invincibility will play into a chronically ill-informed public opinion in the west: Therefore, it must be a 'wonder weapon' otherwise how could it shoot down the invisible and invincible [;)]

B