Destroyers' effectiveness against Supersonic or Stealth Fighters

balance said:

I agree with PointBlank that to drop a bomb, you have to be within the distance of the destroyers' air-defence system (super high altitude will create a friction and will deviate the bomb's course).
Even if the infra-red cannot detect planes like B-2, they still leave a smoke trail in the daylight, visible to the naked eyes. This is why B-2 always conducted its mission at night (like the video you just referred)
If B-2 conducted its mission at night, the radar can still read the smoke trail left behind (though harder)
In the end, fighting a moving target is much harder than fighting a ground target.
Please advise.

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Lol. Someone is vastly underestimating what modern infrared CCD tyoe sensors can do. Infrared sensors can detect and image an object that is mere 10 or 5 degrees cooler or hotter than the background. Let's say an object 55 degrees from an ambient background as cold as 50 degrees.

The sky is a lot colder than this and any flying plane no matter what heat reductions can do, cannot lower this enough.

Schumacher said:

I guess one also has to consider the effectiveness of the destroyers' own stealth characteristics in ensuring their survival against air attacks, stealth or otherwise.
We've seen many reports on how difficult it is to detect stealth aircraft, but I think much less on the effectiveness of stealth on ships considering most new warship designs these days have stealth features of some kind.

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Let's not talk about how to track a B-2 shall we. That is another thread all to itself. The B-2 is more than just radar low observable, but also includes infrared, acoustic, electromagnetic, and visual (flying at night). These signatures make it practically impossible for defensive systems to detect, track and engage the B-2.

The JDAM has a range of 5-15 miles, depending on the altitude of weapons release. Data will be feed by a third party (usually E-3 or E-8) to the B-2 and the JDAM for mid course guidance and have its target location continuously updated. A 2,000 lb JDAM bomb will have an accuracy within 3 meters.

Stealth measures on ships, like the Arleigh Burke Class, reduce its radar signature. This means that a 9500 ton ship will look something like a 1000 ton ship on radar. Now radar range (AWACS) is directly proportional to the size of the radar signature of a tracked target. An E-3, with a radar range of over 700 miles, will have no problem tracking a PLAN destroyer at "tactical" ranged. A B-2, with a radar signature the size of a marble, cannot be detected until it is directly over the ship, if ever.

crobato said:

Lol. Someone is vastly underestimating what modern infrared CCD tyoe sensors can do. Infrared sensors can detect and image an object that is mere 10 or 5 degrees cooler or hotter than the background. Let's say an object 55 degrees from an ambient background as cold as 50 degrees.

The sky is a lot colder than this and any flying plane no matter what heat reductions can do, cannot lower this enough.

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IR detection systems also are effective to only certain ranges with lower observable signatures. You won't be able to see IR signatures out to infinity, especially when the background IR signature is very small. At or near ranges will give you more success. But something like B-2 or small UAV's, you're not going to see them until their pretty close. And the sky being such a huge volume of air makes searching for these signatures iffy at best. If the defenders launch or chase every IR signature they come across, they're going to waste alot of missiles and utilize alot of resources chasing ghosts. Did you know there are naturally occuring sources of IR signatures in the atmosphere? The limitations into IR search and track systems are a known quantity.

IDonT:

A JDAM can take out a moving ship
[...]
The U.S. Air Force is conducting naval tests of its AMSTE (Affordable Moving Surface Target Engagement) system. This is an attempt to use airborne radar to continuously track a moving surface target, then drop a JDAM that can have its target location continuously updated by radio, so that the JDAM will be able to hit and destroy the moving target. After three years of effort, the air force got this to work against a ground target last year.

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I think if the JDAM comes in close to it's target, the position update link can be jammed, and the INS doesn't help all that much then. So perhaps outfit the bomb with an additional sensor ? I mean then it could get close to the vessel via GPS and finally look for it.

I don't really see why you'd want to use a stealth fighter to drop a guided bomb on target ship, when you could use strike aircraft armed with anti-ship missiles?

But yes, it's possible for almost any aircraft to drop bombs on a target (ships or otherwise). During the Falklands war the Argentine AF even used transport planes and had people push bombs out the back.

From the ship's defensive point of view, modern CIWS system, gun or SAM based, would have to have the capability to detect and intercept guided bombs, as well as AShM's.

Also, I think these days Frigates are used for ASW and Destroyers for AD/AAW. The chance that one warship would engage another via SSM's is pretty low.

adeptitus said:

The chance that one warship would engage another via SSM's is pretty low.

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I don't think that is correct at all. There are plenty of navies that don't have aircraft carriers and have to rely on SSMs to augment land-based aircraft. A good example of confrontations where you could see vollies of SSMs exchanged would be the Greek and Turkish Navies, or the Indian and Pakistani Navies.

American officials(Col. Richard Rankin) admits that the F-22 (!) is not full stealth capable and like the F-117 can be detected by heavy/advanced sam rader coverage. the website said that like the F-117, the F-22 may also need to operate with ECM/Jammer aid. IF this is true, then it means that advanced radars like that on the type 52c could detect the F-22, however targeting it is a different matter.

Source:

the site is in chinese and sorry i cant translate the whole thing.

speculator said:

American officials(Col. Richard Rankin) admits that the F-22 (!) is not full stealth capable and like the F-117 can be detected by heavy/advanced sam rader coverage. the website said that like the F-117, the F-22 may also need to operate with ECM/Jammer aid. IF this is true, then it means that advanced radars like that on the type 52c could detect the F-22, however targeting it is a different matter.

Source:

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the site is in chinese and sorry i cant translate the whole thing.

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You need to check the source of that article. The only USAF Col named Richard Rankin I could find was one that spotted UFO's in 1947.



I checked USAF sources and found no such name.

bd popeye said:

You need to check the source of that article. The only USAF Col named Richard Rankin I could find was one that spotted UFO's in 1947.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I check USAF sources and found no such name.

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Nice work Popeye, good investigation. The F-22 is more stealthy than the F-117. However it is still detectable like any aircraft. It is just incredibly difficult to detect.

I don't really have a problem with the fact that he spotted UFOs. The thing that sets of alarm bells to me is that the sighting was in 1947 and he was a Colonel, so it is more than likely that he is dead now.

Finn McCool said:

Nice work Popeye, good investigation. The F-22 is more stealthy than the F-117. However it is still detectable like any aircraft. It is just incredibly difficult to detect.

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Explain to me how the F-22 is more "stealthy" then the F-117?
The F-22 has a radar, it's engines go supersonic which mean it creates more heat... compared to the F-117 which doesn't have a radar and it's engines doesn't go supersonic which mean way less heat than the F-22.. and also add in the overall shape of the the two aircrafts