Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy

So the thing about radar... I thought the F-22 was specifically designed to where it could remain stealthy and have active radar on and the exact method of HOW is classified to a ridiculous degree?

Not sure where you picked that up but I suppose you could tight beam the radar to reduce detection.

Heard the announcer say it watching a documentary on the Military Channel

The properties of the AESA radars include fast changing multiple bandwidth and intensity in order to confuse onlooking receptors from pinpointing its emission source, the bandwidths used by the radar blend into the background EM radiation and the target's radar would need to be very sensitive and precise to detect the source through all the EM noise.

But if all else fails, have an AWACS or an F-15 with their radar on blast, while the F-22 passively picks up (and picks off) targets.

How much area can an AWACS cover any way?

Depends on the radar it has.

From The Other Wiki on the E-3 Sentry.

RE: Stealth and using radar. F-22's and PATRIOT both share the same idea: one can run at low power and use the emissions of a friend to look around. Via LINK-16, targets can be passed between fire units/aircraft in ways no one can eavesdrop on.

The thing about radars is that, with the right amount of power they can see far away. It's just a matter of power and frequency.

edited 29th Apr '16 11:27:35 PM by TairaMai

I wonder if they ever do some of the bounce propagation stuff that ham radio guys do, like bouncing radio waves off of the ionosphere or the moon.

I could see how that might be of limited application for radar since you have to have a receiver in a position to pick up the returns after the bounce, and I don't know if it will bounce all the way back in a readable fashion.

Over the Horizon Radar does that. It's a matter of math, physics and power.

In Patriot Land, we trained on how to aim the radar so as not to put radiation into mountains and nearby buildings. The radar makes a "map" of what it sees and we correct it and adjust it so that the radar signals don't hit a building or hill and cause clutter.

In space there is less of that. But what you can see is based on the wavelength and your power. Even banging away at 1 megawatt, the energy you get back is still very small so amplification is key.

A low frequency could tell you that it's a ship, a high freq can tell you what kind it is.

AFP: A good example of over the horizon radar would be the famous "Wood Pecker Radio Signal" Duga Radar. It was triangulated to a few locations in Ukraine back in the late 70s. The signal was so powerful and traveled so far amateur radio operators around the world could pick up the signal. It was an Early Warning Ballistic Missile Radar that was part of the Soviet ABM detection networks.

edited 30th Apr '16 6:47:17 AM by TuefelHundenIV

What about a stealth craft that flies low? Pretty much undetectable, no?

It certainly would help. Radar especially long range radar doesn't play nice with ground clutter. However if it happens to pass into any equipment looking up and out like SHORAD systems they could possibly pick them up especially if it has any sort of IR or thermal component which works pretty decently at shorter ranges or hits the side or ear aspects of the craft which tend to have larger radar cross sections then the frontal aspects.

In some ways that increases the observability because now the Mk 1 Eyeball can see it clearly as it zooms overhead. And makes it more vulnerable to IR missiles like an Igla or triple-A of any kind.

And if you're low enough you have the problem of kicking up dust from the ground. (And if you're lower than that, well let's just say trees and light poles say hi.)

Attack in such a way that cloud cover and terrain mask your approach. Do stand off and pop-up attacks, fire decoys, attack in waves to tire out defenders. Or build a flying tank that can soak up two or three missile hits and scares the hell out of ground troops. Air Defense is not for the timid or the untrained. Not every soldier is equipped with MANPADS, so those solders must travel in front of the force to guard against attack.

That puts them at risk from standoff weapons and attack from the enemy.

Vehicles that travel with the force that are ADA typically sacrifice some of their ground firepower for the ADA mission. And standoff weapons erode any protection ADA vehicles provide.

Helicopters are good at pop up attacks, hence most ADA soldiers train to spot areas that attack choppers would hover and most SHORAD ADA radars look for "hovering helo acquisition zones", the places where enemy rotary-wing aircraft wlll hide.

Flying bellow the radar often means flying only a couple hundred feet off the ground. There's a good chance that the enemy could hear your engines never mind spot your planes.

Only if those are sub sonic aircraft, but then it would still be faster to see them than hear them as due to the Doppler effect hearing them means they are right above you or past you.

But your scouts can still relay that information to other further in troops.

You still need equipment to track and target them even if you can see them. It is actually pretty hard to accurately track aircraft without the aide optical equipment and even it would be preferable if it was the kind controlled by machines.

Flying low forces means flying slow (Mach 1.2 seems to be about as fast as you can go, regardless of your absolute speed at altitude), and is rather fuel-inefficient mind you, as noted by the wikipedia article of the Nanchang Q-5, which has a combat radius of 600 km for hi-lo-hi missions, but only 400 km for lo-lo-lo ones.

edited 1st May '16 12:05:53 PM by MattII

Even sub-sonic moving at mach .8 is moving a bit fast to use eyes and ears as reliable tracking and targeting. You would need some sort of automated optical and acoustic system for that. Even then the are already existing tracking and targeting systems for low altitude stuff they just can't see very far especially if terrain is involved. To be fair though that is really true of all the tracking and targeting systems vs terrain. Satellite based systems might be able to mitigate some of that provided they know where to look in the first place.

edited 1st May '16 12:16:26 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Easier said than done in most of the world. Go on, try a low level stealth approach in eastern Colorado for example. You'll be seen from 100+ miles away. If you try and follow the few low spots like the shallow canyons south of the Arkansas River or hide behind a hill you're likely going to hit the ground just as that B-52 did on a mesa past the town of La Junta in the 1970s. There are not a lot of places you can safely hide an aircraft at low altitude there.

edited 1st May '16 1:36:46 PM by MajorTom

What point is it that you guys are arguing now?

Who's right or wrong, of course.

De Marquis: Methods other then reliance on pure stealth to reduce the efficacy of tracking and targeting equipment of various AA systems. Pros and cons there of, of the assorted options.