Impact of Eurofighters in the Middle East

In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:
Got numbers for that one? Be interesting to see what they're using.

The only claims I see are from various Eurofighter sites, which
variously compare it to the F-16 or the Tornado. Basically, it's about
1/4 ot the frontal RCS of most standard fighters.

Too vague to be useful, then.

Over what aspects?

Over almost all aspects. You can see a lot of this just by looking at
the structure of the planes. The Eurofighter is a basic F-16/F-5
replacement, with some blending and a lot of composites, but not
anywhere near ehough of the full blending and special treatments that
you need for a real stealth plane.

Okay, there's the disagreement. You're looking for "real stealth", we're
looking for significant RCS reduction. Invisibility gets expensive fast:
there are other ways to improve your odds.

"Just looking" is often a deceptive activity. For RCS, the devil is in
the details.

No, it's usually in the gross structure.

We're reading different textbooks and using different trials results,
then.

I get paid for knowing about it.

Then why are you in such complete denial of how stealth works? I'm
serious... if you know about planes and stealth, this is
kindergarten-level stuff.

Depends if your mantra is making the aircraft invisible, or making it
harder to detect, tricky to track and a lot more difficult to hit.

With good reason. Over what aspects, at what frequency, with what
variation? (You won't get a proper RCS from public sources)

Until you come up with some of those reasons, you're just hoping that
the Raptor will be, in some unnamed way, worse than the Eurofighter.

Can you take those words out of my mouth, please?

One of the typical fallacies Raptor enthusiasts fall into is the idea
that the F-22 is going to fight the Typhoon and that those results are
significant. Might be interesting, but they're not important.

What's important is fleet performance against the expected threat, and
that's a different issue altogether.

However, life isn't that binary.

But it's certainly the way to bet.

Again, it's relevant if you're expecting the F-22 to fight Typhoons.
Performance against other threats is a more important metric.

Yes, the idea of "camouflage" is not new.

But advanced camouflage is. Once again, read up in it.

I'd be more interested in a demonstration. Which Raptors is this
"advanced camouflage" flying on?

You might want to double-check that: those engines not only have
vectoring thrust but afterburners. That's getting to be a _real_
challenge to build effective IR suppression into.

Considering that the F-22 won't need afterburners until past Mach 1.2,
that's not a big worry.

Tell that to whoever's building them. Looking at the engines in land
testing, where do you put the suppressors and where are they getting
their input air from?

Again, EMCON is not new. Meanwhile, designing for serious stealth
significantly limits your options for sensors (active and passive) and
for ECM: the aerials for the system are by nature good reflectors, so
they have to be parked and/or hidden while not in use (meaning you've
either got low RCS or working ESM, but not both: meaning also that you
have to be careful about your radar dish providing flashes)

"Dish?" The F-22 doesn't have a "dish." Does any modern fighter even
*have* a dish any more?

Dish. Aerial. Antenna. Plate. That emitter-thingy gizmo in the pointy
end. (That blasts out kilowatts of coherent microwaves)

And there are some very nice ways to make antennas to lower that sort of
problem. Remembering, of course, that the US has been working on such
tech since the Carter administration (and succeeding quite nicely, from
the results we see in the Nighthawk and B-2).

The Nighthawk doesn't have a radar (or even a threat receiver); the B-2
is a very intermittent radar user and has more structure to hide its
emitter-thingy gizmos inside.

And then a major rework to reduce RCS. We've done the "little bit of
stealth" for the Tornado fleet - Typhoon got a much more significant
reduction.

And while the makers are claiming "stealthy," they're not, by any
stretch, making a stealth plane. They really mean "somewhat stealthier."

Yep. Invisibility isn't the goal, survivability is.

Semi-submerged, actually. Sufficient for purpose.

Only for basic loadouts,

How much ordnance can the "F/A-22" carry without RCS enhancement?

Then, of course, if they want a more advanced loadout (like a couple of
bombs or extra missiles), they have to hang them off of pylons. Very
*not* stealthy.

Same as the F/A-22, then.

"A few"? You're definitely reading too many LockMart sales brochures.

Most of what you'd call "ECM" on most planes is integrated into the rest
of the avionics suite. Considering the mission, it's a fairly ECM-free
plane. Passive instead of active.

You have to remember that a lot of active ECM is *bad* for a stealthy
airframe. Small amounts, applied well.

On the other hand, good ECM is more effective on a low-RCS platform. The
goal is completing the mission and surviving: how it's done is
secondary.

Trouble is, you can buy two Typhoons for every Raptor. We looked very
seriously at trying to buy into the F-22 program back in 1995: the
trouble was even at the price quoted then (and assuming the US would
sell a full-spec Raptor in the right time frame) the individual
superiority lost out to force strength: too many Red raids got through
without interception because there just weren't enough Blue Raptors
available.

...and because you misstated the effeciveness of the American-built
planes.

You're kidding, right?

Every once in a while, one government or another tell the US
that our planes, or tanks, or whatever, just don't measure up against
other equipment.

Considering that the F-22 was found to be the most effective individual
aircraft by a significant margin, I'm finding this claim hard to
support.

Trouble was, even at 1995 prices, you couldn't buy and support enough
Raptors to match an affordable Typhoon force overall: more-than-halving
the force level meant too many gaps between superfighters. It was the
best aircraft that could be flown, it was just too expensive to be
bought in sufficient numbers.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk