@gambit
I feel a kind of f16.net arrogance...
Outside of a pure engineering forum, there is practically no better resource than f-16.net for information about the F-16 in specific and military aviation in general. We -- and I am a member there -- have everyone from enlisted to officers, from maintenance crew to pilots, from engineers to admin. We even have the lady who provide the voice for the F-16's avionics warning system "Bitchin' Betty".
http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=67255#67255
I respect your claim to have been a pilot, at least don't classify me as I have said nothing about my background.
If you chose to remain anonymous, as most of us do online, then you will be judged on the
CONTENTS of your posts.
This is what Lockheed said. Ufimetsevs work was one of a collection on a topic including radars. It was just the most civil-rated work that was allowed to be published. It's a strange kind of arrogance to believe that such basic work on wave scattering would have been somehow missed by Soviet "stupids". No, they had more advanced calculation models and released this one and Lockheed skunkworks was clever enough to pick it up.
How does that make it false ? Because an American said it, that means it must be false ?
A man like Ufimtsev would have his work vetted by the government before allowance for public disclosure. Any potential application for the military will have the work be reviewed further and more in-depth. The Soviet Union had secret cities where scientists and engineers worked and for their higher intelligence, education, and productivity, these people were rewarded much more than the average citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_city
The idea that somehow the Soviet government recognized the military value of radar avoidance but allowed Ufimtsev to publish his ray scattering math -- strained credulity.
No, the Soviet missed the military application of Ufimtsev's math. The reality is that even if Lockheed did not find Ufimtsev's math, the F-117 would have been developed anyway. Maybe not as effective as with the math, but would have created problems for most radars in existence at that time. Lockheed -- and others -- were already aware of the scattering behaviors of rays and waves and they knew that there should be a way of predicting such behaviors.
In any project, the first thing to do is to find out if anyone has done something the same or at least similar. That is what Lockheed did and they found Ufimtsev's math. If they did not found it, or if Ufimtsev's math was not allowed for disclosure, Lockheed would have develop an alternate.
The US is the rightful credit holder of 'stealth'. Simple as that.
Good for you and you applied this for tactical use at a high pricetag. But this tactical extra on which the F-117 was designed made it otherwise so low performing (speed, agility, range) that it soon became unsurvivable on todays battlefield.
Soviets were fully aware of it, but not ready to sacrifice enough performance parameters for it. Just now they apply it to some extend on the PAK-FA and there they are not stupid enough to go for an all-aspect application. Americans have the money and faith to their stealth, good for them.
Now you are making excuses for their gross error.
Let us take the MIG-25, for example.
The MIG-25 is a piece of junk. But they needed an XB-70 interceptor as the US were testing, with progressive successes, in flying the XB-70. The XB-70 was built on the principle of 'compression lift' where the supersonic body essentially 'surfs' on its own shockwaves, saving fuel and extending range. The Soviets would have no defense against the XB-70 should it come to production and the Soviets could not gambled on the chance that the US would not build that bomber. They had to make the MIG-25 no matter how poorly its overall performance.
Radar is still the primary detection method. The idea that somehow the Soviets knew that they would build a limited performance aircraft but one that could bypass most radars in existence, but declined to build because of the poor flight performance -- is simply absurd.
The XB-70 was a temporary threat while the radar -- as that primary method of detection -- was a constant threat. Bombers and fighters came and gone but the radar continues and improves. The XB-70 earned a response in the form of the poor agility and range performance but fast MIG-25, but the American radar threat would not have earned a response in the form of a Soviet version of the F-117 ?
A fast American bomber got a fast Soviet interceptor. But the American radar got nothing even though there was a mean for a Soviet 'stealth' fighter/bomber and the Soviet government decline to build it because it would not be as agile as the other Soviet fighters ? Are you serious in believing this line of thinking ?
Good for you that you presented what I wrote already years ago (does not mean you know better than me, you may or may not).
Well good, you can detect Iranian VHF-radars on long range, what you want to do now? This are high power systems rated at 500km+, with magnitudes higher jamming resistance than Danis export P-18.
Good. So now we know that you know of at least the basics of radar principles, we can move on to tactics.
What can we do once we detect the Iranian long wavelengths radars ? How about avoiding them ? When I was active duty, the US routinely practices what we called 'sensor avoidance' training missions. Basically, we fly circuitous routes to our targets. All radar nets, even Iranian ones, have gaps. You cannot -- or should not -- overlap coverage fields lest you contaminate your stations. That is common sense and has been in play for as long as there have been radars.
You should also know there there is a difference between maximum range and maximum
USABLE range. The latter is where range ambiguity is largely eliminated.
Scientists gives us explanations and principles. Engineers takes those and gives us devices. Then tacticians -- that would be users -- figures out ways to use those devices effectively and efficiently.
So
TACTICALLY speaking, the maximum usable range is about %75 of the maximum range. Am not going to debate with you on the finer points of the math on whether it is %70 or %80 of maximum range.
If I am in the cockpit and my ECM tells me I have touched an EM wall, I do not care on whether the seeking radar's maximum usable range is %25 or %20 or even just %10 further. I will make a turn away. I know of you, but because of that maximum usable range, you will not know of me. Why should I attempt to confuse you with jamming ? I do not care how smart are Iranian scientists and engineers. You cannot defy the laws of physics. Your maximum
USABLE range will be less than your maximum range.
You want to have a professional talk, then realize that by pure I mean it has no active emitters like MTI and SAR radar such as the also quite pure B-2 (LPI or not). Its facet stealth shaping was more primitive than never "round" designs, but it degrades the aerodynamic performance, to stealth shaping performance should be at least as good as F-22/-35.
Here is the truth on how and why the F-117 was shot down...
We who knows fighters in general and the F-117 in particular laughs every time we read a journalist wrote that the F-117 was the most 'advanced' combat aircraft at that time. In using the words 'most advanced' it implies the jet was loaded with top-end avionics. Everything from radar to countermeasures. The best the US could equip.
The F-117 used the flight control system ( FLCS ) from the F-16. Landing gear components from the A-10. Engines had their afterburner removed. And the list of known sub systems and components goes on. The only thing 'advanced' about it is the shape.
So the reality is that the F-117 was the American version of the MIG-25 -- specialized. The MIG-25 was fast. The F-117 was low radar observable. And both jets sacrificed everything else for their respective high points: fast for one and 'stealthy' for the other.
The F-117 cannot carry a gun and missiles. It has no radar and no radar warning receiver ( RWR ) because back then the existing RWR antennas would have compromised the jet's low radar observability shaping. So the way we flew the F-117 was for other aircrafts to layout a path for the jet. A path that is as EM clear as possible.
Being low radar observable or 'stealthy' does not give license to be careless with radars. But if the jet was to be inside a radar beam, the intention is to be ambiguous inside that maximum range and maximum usable range. Not 'invisible' and we never claimed so, just ambiguous.
If the target is ambiguous, you cannot -- or should not -- shoot.
Over Yugoslavia, the F-117 was
NOT flown under US rules but under NATO rules. Big differences in degrees of freedom of combat tactics. If the F-117 is inside a radar beam, the pilot would not know it. So when the F-117 was forced to fly the same ingress routes mission after mission, the repeated ambiguous radar return inevitably became
UN-ambiguous. Not electrically un-ambiguous but perceptually un-ambiguous.
Most radars, including military ones, gives two primary adjustments: freq and clutter rejection threshold.
Freq adjustment affects beamwidth, specifically
USABLE beamwidth. There is an inverse relationship between beamwidth and array size/shape. Essentially, the larger the array, the finer the beamwidth. So for a mobile system, there is a limit to that freq adjustment. On the other hand, clutter rejection threshold can be from zero to maximum. Zero means reject nothing and displays everything.
What Dani did was a combination of freq and clutter rejection threshold adjustment --
OVER TIME. One combination one day on one detection of some ambiguous returns. One combination the next day on one detection of some more ambiguous returns. And so on. Over a few days, Dani came to a conclusion that he is looking at something that while ambiguous in signal strength it was consistent over time.
YOU would have come to the same conclusion.
The rest is history.
Irans chances against US stealth are quite high because Irans concentrates on a ground based IADS and it's performance is increasing at very fast pace. Let's say Americans have never faced a IADS of even a friction of power and lets hope they h´never have to do.
Does Iran have signals intelligence ( SIGINT ) flights ? We do.