In article ,
Bob writes:
On 3 Sep 2004 20:03:42 -0700, (WaltBJ) wrote:

Yes, I understand all that - but I maintain today, as I have in the
past, that it will not be long before turning on a radar set will be
tantamount to suicide. And, yes, I know about LPI radars. But the one
thing about a long-range radar is that it has to radiate power, and
one side can detect the other's transmitter long before they
themselves are detected. Now add space elint to the equation,
GPS/Inertial guided missiles with ecm terminal homing and blithely
boring holes with the radar on will quickly go out of fashion. Even
more so, radar ground sites in known/easily pin-pointed stations.
Boats, too, for that matter. Might as well have a huge neon sign
saying "Hit me". Even in 1960 we had missiles that could switch to ecm
home; not much of a step to homing on AI radar with our progress in
micro processors. Now bring in satellite elint and direction . . .
Walt BJ

Even in 1960 we had ecm systems that would listen to check if a
missile had switched to ecm home.G

And it would know that _how_? The missiles in question don't emit
anything, they just look for a source of RF in front of them. That
source can be (In the simplest case, a CW SARH like a Sparrow III) the
reflection of the illuminator's beam, or the jillion times more
brilliant source of teh target's jammer. The missile really would
prefer to have the Illuminator doing the job - it compares thw signal
from behind (The illuminator directly) with the reflected signal to
get closure rate inforamtion - but it's also quite happy tp get its
Az-El data from the jammer, and trust its Prox Fuze to do the job.
The shooter gets a much better picture (minus range data) of teh
target's Az-El, with the much brighter signal coming from the jammer.
(Of course, you'd have to dial the receiver gain down a bit, bit that
doesn't show) So it's not too tough to keep teh target in the
illuminator's beam, which reveals nothing wrt jammer effects.
(Dang, if I'm not careful, I'll start sounding like Kurt Plummer!)
In any case, there's no different behavior from wither the missile or
the shooter that would give anything away.


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster