Why is Stealth So Important?

Ed Rasimus wrote:

: In 1966, while I was flying the F-105 over N. Vietnam, we lost one
: every 65 missions. In 1991, during Desert Storm we lost one fixed wing
: aircraft every 3500 mission. In 2003 in Iraqi Freedom we lost one
: fixed wing aircraft in 16,500 mission.

However, the last two operations were characterized by
an almost total lack of opposition in the air. The
biggest threat to US combat aircraft these days seems
to come from small and IR-guided, portable missiles;
or even from machine guns. Very expensive anti-radar
stealth seems to offer little protection against these.
Reducing the IR signature seems to be more useful, but
only really effective against a primitive seeker. (But
MANPADS tend to be much smaller than AIM-9 and I suppose
that it will be difficult to equip them with an all-aspect
or imaging IR seeker.)

: Stealth aircraft are more survivable. We don't have many, because the
: military competes for $$$ against the welfare princesses and
: redistribution of wealth candidates who run for election on a platform
: of taking from "them" and giving to the masses.

AFAIK the US social security system runs with a positive balance,
i.e. money is flowing from it into other departments, not the
other way around. But that aside, the US military budget is huge,
it vastly outspends every other nation, and if it has few stealth
aircraft that is in part because until now, these have really
been prohibitively expensive both to buy and to operate in large
numbers. Besides, the numbers were not needed anyway: The B-2
and even more so the F-117 were ver^y specialized designs, and
aircraft that require special maintenance procedures and
climate-controlled hangars are of limited operational usefulness.
For stealth to be really useful, it must be made compatible
with dirt strips and pierced metal planking.

However, that was in part because the design of the F-117 and
the B-2 were willing to compromise very little stealth for
other characteristics. The F-22 and F-35 must involve an
increase in RCS as a penalty for lower cost and easier
maintenance, while relying on new materials and manufacturing
procedures to get good results.

Part of the attractiveness of a new design is that it may
actually be cheaper to buy and operate than its precedessor.
Manufacturers and officials seem to have promised this for
every weapons program since the late 1960s; I don't actually
know of a program that also achieved this goal.

For the F-22 a high degree of stealth may be worth the investment.
For the F-35 I am not so su I expect that 80% of the time,
these aircraft will be flying with large non-stealthy external
ordnance.

--
Emmanuel Gustin