These occupy a place somewhere between "iron bombs" and "smart bombs" in both technology and application. It is basically a bomb casing that is designed to split open fifty or a hundred meters in the air over the target and discharge hundreds or thousands of "submunitions," basically grenades. They are extremely useful against dug-in infantry, and, with slightly larger shaped-charge submunitions, can damage or destroy even armored vehicles in the target area, as a tank's armor is generally thinnest on the roof. This idea is also OlderThanTheyThink, having first been developed by the Soviets between the World Wars, copied by the Germans during the war, then developed further by all parties in the [[ColdWar postwar era]]. Politically controversial because they sometimes litter the area with duds, which later endanger civilians in the area. A notable example of its infamous-ness was the massive drama created when Carlos Cardoen, a Chilean entrepreneur owner of Cardoen Weapons, sold this type of weapons to Saddam Hussein, though he argued that the transaction was well known for the US and it was done before the second Gulf War.

16th Dec '11 3:55:14 PM amitakartok

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The SR-71 mentioned above helped show another property. Properly made and shaped, some aircraft can look less threatening than others. This being the ColdWar USAF, a lot of money was poured into the idea. The result: 'stealth'. Various tricks like shaping, radar-absorbent materials, and other stuff that I'm not cleared for. You have to keep one thing in mind though. Stealth is low observability, not an InvisibilityCloak. In practice it drastically reduces detection range of radars which can leave huge gaps in the defense grid, through which a stealth plane can slip through. In air combat the opponent also likewise has to come a lot closer before his radar can lock on. [[CoolPlane only aircraft known to use it]], so far, are these:
* F-117 Nighthawk. Called a stealth 'fighter', it's really just a ground attack aircraft. In service since the late 1970s, it started out as a top-secret black project initiated for the specific purpose of building stealthy military aircraft. It achieved that goal, and the plane would later be revealed to the public, and take part in the various wars of the 1990s and early 2000s with great success. However, one Nighthawk was nevertheless shot down during the Kosovo War, the circumstances of the event still remaining a topic for debate.

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The SR-71 mentioned above helped show another property. Properly made and shaped, some aircraft can look less threatening than others. This being the ColdWar USAF, a lot of money was poured into the idea. The result: 'stealth'. Various tricks like shaping, radar-absorbent materials, and other stuff that I'm not cleared for. You have to keep one thing in mind though. Stealth is low observability, not an InvisibilityCloak. In practice it drastically reduces detection range of radars which can leave huge gaps in the defense grid, through which a stealth plane can slip through. In air combat the opponent also likewise has to come a lot closer before his radar can lock on. [[CoolPlane The only aircraft known to use it]], so far, are these:
* F-117 Nighthawk. Called a stealth 'fighter', it's really just a ground attack aircraft. In service since the late 1970s, it started out as a top-secret black project initiated for the specific purpose of building stealthy military aircraft. It achieved that goal, and the plane would later be revealed to the public, and take part in the various wars of the 1990s and early 2000s with great success. However, one Nighthawk was nevertheless shot down during the Kosovo War, the circumstances of the event still remaining a topic for debate. Sadly retired in the late 2000s.

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* F-22 Raptor. This one's a real stealth fighter, although it's hard to say how good it is. There aren't [[strike: m]]any that can match it yet, and the US is pretty reluctant to talk about how well it works too. Just check out its description [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/RealLife/CoolPlane here]] to get some idea of what this bird is like. Sadly, only 187 were ever built, the last of which rolled off the production line in December 2011. It however is quite literally the SuperPrototype of the...
* F-35 Lightning II. If the F-22 is the CoolPlane equivalent to EliteMooks, then this is GoddamnedBats for enemy ground forces. Not as good a dogfighter as the F-22, the F-35's hat is ground attack similar to the F-117. It's real boons however are its VTOL capability, advanced ECM suite and comparatively lower cost when compared to the F-22: the US military ordered more than '''2400 planes'''. Unfortunately, the project is plagued with delays (introduction in 2016 at the earliest) and overspending (the current projected costs of the program are '''323 billion dollars''').
* Sukhoi PAK FA T-50. It is intended as Russia's answer to the F-22 but it's still in the early prototype stage. According to the designers, it's less stealthy than the F-22 but more nimble.
* Chengdu J-20, another prototype stealth fighter design but this one's from - surprise, surprise - ''China''. It's Chinese name fittingly translates as "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Annihilator Twenty]]".

24th Oct '11 1:18:56 PM Breakerchase

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20th Oct '11 3:51:10 AM Jukkaimaru

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20th Oct '11 3:49:35 AM Jukkaimaru

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