A US Marine Corps pilot posits in a very good new issue of Joint Forces Quarterly that the age of stealth domination in airpower is over.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the USAF has launched thousands of stealth bombing sorties against the hardest targets offered by Baghdad, Belgrade and Baghdad again, yet suffered only one recorded combat loss when an F-117 was shot down over Serbia in 1999. Perhaps no other technology in history has dominated the battlefield as long or as absolutely as the stealthy airframe.
But technology marches on. Ask any World War II battleship captain. Lt. Col. Arend G. Westra, a plans officer at the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, writes that counter-stealth technology -- namely, passive radar -- is quietly achieving parity with the likes of the B-2, the F-22 and, eventually, the F-35.
Westra makes another important point. If there is a classified counter-stealth development program underway, it's not apparent from reading Westra's article. He argues that the US military and industry needs to launch a crash technology program. If anything, the technology could be leveraged to understand the techniques potential adversaries could use to shoot down our stealth aircraft.
on September 28, 2009 9:01 PM | Reply
A few years ago, I had written a summary of counter-stealth systems and tactics alike, as part of an overall presentation on the theory & practice of stealth.
Part 1: http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_021.pdf
Part 2: http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_022.pdf
on September 28, 2009 9:02 PM | Reply
A few years ago, I had written a summary of counter-stealth systems and tactics alike, as part of an overall presentation on the theory & practice of stealth.
Part 1: http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_021.pdf
Part 2: http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_022.pdf
on September 29, 2009 7:19 AM | Reply
Yawn.
Sorry,
Nothing new there- Just a backgrounder brief for your average joe field grade reminding everyone that technology marches forward.
The author could be a CEM expert par excellence, (given some euphemistic rambling in the piece I doubt it) but noting he is a 'pilot' does nothing for his credibility in the eyes of anyone who has known more than a few meat-servos.
on September 29, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply
Dimitris --
Your references are so stealthy as to be unreadable because they are encryted -- you know, the stealthy communications system.
on September 29, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply
Dimitris --
Your references are so stealthy as to be unreadable because they are encryted -- you know, the stealthy communications system.
on September 29, 2009 9:13 PM | Reply
Thanks for the heads up, unfortunately this site attempts to auto-convert the PDFs to Scribd's whatever-format.
To read the PDFs properly, open them into a separate browser tab/window (Ctrl + LMB).
on September 30, 2009 6:28 AM | Reply
1) Kolchuga is Ukrainina, not Russian
2) F 35 has the longest range of all US (and generally Western) fighter plane.
Those 2 says a lot about the author...
on October 1, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply
I can hardly vouch for the article's accuracy, but I enjoyed it; it seemed a good overview of important issues for non-specialists (exactly what was intended, I presume).
Thanks for pointing it out!
on October 1, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply
And to illustrate that the article contains nothing new to the AF, there is a rundown on the AFs top concerns at Popular Mechanics as attributed to Lt Gen Dave Deptula, who IMHO has had the most distinguished career of any active AF leader: a true scholar-operator.
Link: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4332165.html
Put another way, Petraeus is the Army's Deptula