Look Out, America: China Can Un-Stealth U.S. Fighter Jets

[unhappycamper]

http://www.nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/look-out-america-china-can-un-stealth-us-fighter-jets-15293



Our $3 billion dollar B-2

Look Out, America: China Can Un-Stealth U.S. Fighter Jets
Dave Majumdar
February 23, 2016

China appears to be building a new high-frequency radar on an artificial feature in the Spratly Islands that could allow Beijing to track even the stealthiest American warplanes, including the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and even the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has acquired satellite evidence of the construction.

“Placement of a high frequency radar on Cuarteron Reef would significantly bolster China’s ability to monitor surface and air traffic coming north from the Malacca Straits and other strategically important channels,” reads a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Improved radar coverage is an important piece of the puzzle—along with improved air defenses and greater reach for Chinese aircraft—toward China’s goals of establishing effective control over the sea and airspace throughout the nine-dash line.”

Moreover, the Washington-based think tank has a specific reason to believe that the new radar is a high-frequency set. “Two probable radar towers have been built on the northern portion of the feature, and a number of 65-foot (20-meter) poles have been erected across a large section of the southern portion,” reads the report. “These poles could be a high-frequency radar installation, which would significantly bolster China’s ability to monitor surface and air traffic across the southern portion of the South China Sea.”

While the system is called a high-frequency (HF) radar—that’s bit of a misnomer. HF radars actually operate on low frequencies relative to the VHF, UHF, L, S, C, X and Ku bands, which are more typically used by military radars. These low frequencies have waves that are several meters long and, consequently, most stealth aircraft show up on HF radar. In order to defeat low frequency radar, a stealth aircraft has to eliminate features like fins, which is why the flying-wing shape is the best way available to avoid detection. That is because there is an omnidirectional resonance effect that occurs when a feature on an aircraft—such as a tail-fin—is less than eight times the size of a particular frequency wavelength. As a result, there is a step change in radar cross section once that threshold is exceeded. Since every stealth aircraft currently in America’s fleet exceeds that threshold—even the B-2 is not large enough to avoid most HF radars—every U.S. aircraft would show up on the Chinese radar. Indeed—all stealth aircraft will show up at some frequency. That’s just physics.

[bemildred]

1. China’s not-so-wonderful weapons

For the past 15 or 20 years, China been engaged in a concerted effort to modernize and upgrade its military. To be sure, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 2016 is a much more formidable fighting force than it was in 1996. It has — as the result of a concerted, multi-decade effort, backed up by a rapidly expanding defense budget – crafted a new military force increasingly more capable of projecting power across the modern battlespace, particularly at sea, in outer space, and in cyberspace.

But this does not make the PLA invincible, nor does it mean that the PLA is yet a 21st century force. If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, then there are still many fragile points in the PLA war machine.

Some of these weaknesses are, in fact, pretty well known. China has struggled for literally decades to develop a jet engine that is as good as those found in the West or in Russia. Its best engine, the WS-10, has been in development since the 1980s, and yet it still disappoints. It is underpowered and reportedly lasts only 30 hours before it needs replacement. Consequently, most modern aircraft in the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) are powered by foreign-supplied engines, mostly from Russia or Ukraine.

Engine trouble

China’s problems with jet engines have contributed to other setbacks in other areas of weapons development. China’s J-20 and J-31 fighter jets – both alleged 5th-generation combat aircraft, on par with the US’s F-22 and F-35 – are hobbled by the lack of powerful engines that permit them to “supercruise,” that is, go supersonic without the need for afterburners. This, in turn, compromises the stealthiness of such aircraft, which is one of their prime advantages.

http://atimes.com/2016/02/chinas-not-so-wonderful-weapons/

Edit: not trying to argue, just wish I knew who was correct.

[unhappycamper]

2. I know that you can fool with radars to see the unseeable.

And that the Chinese (and probably others) can see pretty much any stealthy type of aircraft or ship if they tune stuff correctly.

I'd be willing to bet that our $7,500,000,000 (biliion) Zumwalt-class destroyers fall into the we-can-see -you category.

[bemildred]

3. I used to know a radar engineer, she was my boss at the time, doing software battle sims.

She could do the math better than me, and I'm no slouch.

And yeah, I think it is marginal horseshit. Marginal things can make a difference in war, but most likely it's going to be a marginal difference.

And the magical tech tends to want magical pre-conditions, the more magical, the more preconditions, like it must not be dark or rainy, there must be no hostile in the area, stuff like that. Computers and fancy comms at the cost of 40 lbs of batteries and occasional outages in the midst of a firefight, etc.

This affection in DC for big expensive weapons systems is a big mistake.

[bemildred]

4. Here ya go: Revealed: How to Kill a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/revealed-how-kill-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-15296?platform=hootsuite%27

Found up in GD.

[bemildred]

5. Sort of like quantum mechanics.

Until you observe it, a particles position and momentum are not known precisely. When you make one precise, the other gets fuzzy.

So here, the position and momentum of the jet are fuzzy, but by watching it over time you can narrow it down enough that a big bomb will force it to be someplace specific and blow it up.

Well, not really, but I'm still on my first cup.

The long wave radars, like radio telescopes, need lots of aperture to provide precision, but with a big enough bomb and terminal guidance you can make it precise enough ...

This suggests that the presence of the aircraft is lots easier to detect than exactly where or what it is, sort of an out of focus image. Not invisible at all.