The U.S. 'Top Guns' in the Air Have a Big Weakness

[jhungary]

What i think is that Lockheed Martin has actually used F-22 as Basic Technology demonstrator for F-35 and that is why we have not seen any crashes and by this it had saved lots of money too. So Lockheed was actually already a step ahead when it started working on F-35 and that was one of main reason it won the contract of F-35 quite easily by outclassing Boeing. Had F-22 been sold to multiple allies and its production not stopped plus not kept in secret from them then i am sure its costs would have come down to a great extent.

You don't understand the dynamic of arms procurement....

The problem with F-22 is that, being the premier air superiority fighter, they would not be able to sell them to cash in the technology, that being if we would have sold the F-22, then we will need to come up with something that's better than F-22 to be over the edge of everybody. And that would have cost more money.

On the other hand, while we don't see the need to increase the number of F-22, simply because there are less than 20 other Stealth Aircraft being made today outside the US, consider this, the US F-35 fleet made up the second largest 5th gen Stealth Fighter fleet in the world. The F-22 was not needed, nor wanted to continue on with the production, simply because there are no valid challenger for it during its 18 years in service.

However, being a 18 years old design, set aside the fact that it was still a cut (rather large cut) above the rest, it was still an aging technology, and to keep it update, you would still need to put money to modernize the fleet. And when you come down to, would you rather spend money to modernize the existing 4.5 gen (F-15E/FA-18F) fleet as well as modernizing F-22 to edge the gap? Or you simply make a new class of fighter so forsake the legacy fighter and devote energy into developing 6th Gen?? That is why they make F-35 and keep F-22 at IP.

 

[Basel]

DRFM again ? I explained the basics of that a long time ago. It is also next to useless against an AESA system of the first world class fighter.

What is current counter measures available against AESA radars???

 

[shah1398]

You don't understand the dynamic of arms procurement....

The problem with F-22 is that, being the premier air superiority fighter, they would not be able to sell them to cash in the technology, that being if we would have sold the F-22, then we will need to come up with something that's better than F-22 to be over the edge of everybody. And that would have cost more money.

On the other hand, while we don't see the need to increase the number of F-22, simply because there are less than 20 other Stealth Aircraft being made today outside the US, consider this, the US F-35 fleet made up the second largest 5th gen Stealth Fighter fleet in the world. The F-22 was not needed, nor wanted to continue on with the production, simply because there are no valid challenger for it during its 18 years in service.

However, being a 18 years old design, set aside the fact that it was still a cut (rather large cut) above the rest, it was still an aging technology, and to keep it update, you would still need to put money to modernize the fleet. And when you come down to, would you rather spend money to modernize the existing 4.5 gen (F-15E/FA-18F) fleet as well as modernizing F-22 to edge the gap? Or you simply make a new class of fighter so forsake the legacy fighter and devote energy into developing 6th Gen?? That is why they make F-35 and keep F-22 at IP.

Agreed Sir.

 

[gambit]

What is current counter measures available against AESA radars???

An AESA depends greatly on its supporting software. You can have the best manufactured modules, the best cooling method, the most precise spacing, but if the software is not there to take the maximum advantage of the system, anyone, even 3rd tier adversaries, WILL beat you.

 

[Basel]

An AESA depends greatly on its supporting software. You can have the best manufactured modules, the best cooling method, the most precise spacing, but if the software is not there to take the maximum advantage of the system, anyone, even 3rd tier adversaries, WILL beat you.

But what counter measures are available for Pakistan to counter Indian acquired AESA radars specially the ones for fighter jets??

 

[gambit]

But what counter measures are available for Pakistan to counter Indian acquired AESA radars specially the ones for fighter jets??

Sorry, but I cannot help you there. No one outside of the Pakistani military establishment can. We can generalize the Indian's AESA system all day long but in the end, it will take an actual conflict between the two of you to find out who has the better gear.

But in assuming India's AESA system is of 2nd tier category, and I doubt India's technology would make it 3rd tier, it would be very tough to effectively counter the AESA radar. India is not going to say 'Our stuff is 2nd tier'. Of course, they are going to tout it as comparable to the American 1st tier hardware in the F-22 and F-35.

The current countermeasure technology and tactics are still 2 modes: blanket or frequency specific.

Blanket (or barrage) means you set your transmission to maximum output in as wide a field as your array is capable.

Frequency specific mean exactly that. You enter an EM hostile zone, seek out the exact operating freq of a specific type of radar such as volume search or tracking, and you transmit a matching countermeasure signal.

No tactic is 'better' than the other. Each one must be well familiarized by the user and execute according to planning and sometimes adjust according to immediate needs.

Let us take an air-ground strike mission as example. A blanket EM assault could also affect the entire strike package, unless it is planned for the strike package to be EM silent and completely rely on a third party assist like AWACS. Otherwise, the tactic could be something like targeting the enemy's volume search freq to confuse his scan results. Once the battle is underway, switch to attacking the tracking radars' freqs to further confuse any tracking of your force. Then once all bombs delivered and all fighters readied to exit, blanket the entire area. It does not matter if you affect your own force. They are leaving and need as much confusion as you can sow. They know where to head for safety and refuel. That was planned. So even if you affect their radars, it would be temporary anyway. That was how we did it in Desert Storm and over Yugoslavia and the tactic worked quite well.

An AESA equipped attacking force will change ALL of that, whether the targets are ground or air. An AESA's greatest capability, and asset, is its ability to partition itself into many operating modes and execute them literally simultaneously. That mean a single attacker could be a frequency specific jammer as well as a frequency specific seeker -- at the same time. Countermeasures would be extremely difficult when there are multiple attackers capable of doing this and does it from different directions, altitudes, time, and frequencies.

Whenever a radar is 'jammed', it will require a few seconds to recover when the jamming signal ceased, whether that radar is ground or airborne is irrelevant. A pair of AESA attackers can keep that radar perpetually confused. Its operating freq will be targeted/attacked but will be brief enough for the attackers to hide themselves within that few seconds of recovery, then the attack resume and be from a different direction.

I have seen real time effects of an AESA system and if given the choice of a more powerful jet engine or the AESA radar, I will take the radar. No debating about it.

 

[OTTOMAN]

This is a basic radar pulse...

The above would also be called a 'pulse train'. A very short one of only three pulses. Today, we have systems that can generate a pulse train of millions of pulses.

In the old days, as in WW II, radar systems were pretty much consistent in form, if not operating freq, meaning whatever the operating freq, if the system is a pulsed system, not continuous wave (CW), signal components would be quite uniform for as long as the signal exist.

- Amplitude would be the same from pulse to pulse.

- Every pulse has a starting point and an end point, aka leading and trailing edges, and they would be the same from pulse to pulse.

- The PRI would be the same from pulse to pulse.

- Even if the system if frequency agile, from one jump to the next, all the major components of the entire transmission would still be the same.

The more consistent the signal, the easier it is to remember by anyone.

This is what happens if the system is sophisticated enough to manipulate all those components of a pulse AND of a pulse train...

The problem for any memorization method lies in memory capacity.

Let us return to the pulse train, say 100 pulses, for example.

If we receive 100 returns, we can say with certainty that there is 'something' out there. If we receive 90 returns, we can say that there is a high confidence that there is 'something' out there. The less the returns, the lower that degree of confidence.

For any memorization method, which is DFRM, if there is consistency from train to train, then memory capacity is not an issue. In fact, consistency reduces the need to use all the available memory. The problem is when the incoming signal changes those components. The memorization method must at least have a sampling of that incoming signal in order to create a countermeasure. Out of 100 pulses, sample of 5 pulses is too little. That is the equivalent of receiving only 5 returns, too little to declare that there is 'something' out there.

Knowledge-based signal processing for radar ESM systems


If the DRFM system samples only 5 out of 100 pulses and produce a countermeasure from that small sample, the seeking radar may dismiss that countermeasure as noise. After all, it received 50, 60, or even 80 returns. The DRFM system must sample as much as it is designed to do in order to produce a credible countermeasure signal. The higher the system memory capacity, the better the sample quantity.

But if the incoming radar signal is sophisticated enough in terms of agility of every components of the radar pulse, the DRFM system can be overwhelmed.

There are plenty of literature about the SPECTRA countermeasure system. Against 3rd or 2nd tier adversary, SPECTRA will work. Against the 1st tier adversary like the F-22 or F-35 ? Fuggetaboutit.

What if the radar of incoming a/c is kept off and is guided via airborne or ground (aviation) radar?
I also doubt that advance physics is not yet being applied in radar systems.