German radar vendor can track F-35

[Skybird]

https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/sensors/2019/09/30/stealthy-no-more-a-german-radar-vendor-says-it-tracked-the-f-35-jet-in-2018-from-a-pony-farm/

F35 - too expensive for what it delivers. Not worth the asking price. "Unfair!" Trump will twittwer and call. Who cares. With stealth no longer meaning stealth, its even more unacceptable in its asking price.

I would prefer to take the same money - and buy more units of another plane model. In combinatioin with drones. More firepower for the buck. And own losses can be digested easier if more units are available. On the other hand: where to get the young men flying these polanes then? The Luftwaffe already now has fewer pilots than it has flyable fighters. And most of its fighters that it has now are not flyable, but grounded.

The passive radar technology behind the German system is not omnipotent though. It has limits and cannot work in all places of the globe. But that is the present. They will work on improving its sensors.

[Jimbuna]

The Luftwaffe already now has fewer pilots than it has flyable fighters. And most of its fighters that it has now are not flyable, but grounded.



Beat me to it :)

[Mike Abberton]

Interesting sort of rebuttal to the German Radar Vendor article:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30100/no-passive-radar-isnt-stealth-ending-magic-people

Summed up a lot of my thoughts on the original article.

[Skybird]

The article I linked said itself in the seocnd half that passive radar cannot work in every region of the world. It is not the death of stealth, but it reduces the value of the technology when considering the immense financial costs for it, and the limitations it means for the carrying capacity of the airframe.

The Russians claim since quite some years to have radar that can track American stealth planes. I must conclude that the germans were not the only ones going after passive radar. And considering that the Russians seem to have started first, and considering their traditional expertise in super-capable radar technology, I would not be surprised if learning that their own plassive radar is even more potent than the German version of today. I do not take this Russian lead as granted - but I would not be surprised if it were fact.

It has lead the Spaniards, French and Germans to re-evaluate the value of stealthed fighter airplanes. In Russia, stealth fighters also does not seem to be a top priority thing, althoughn they go for it in one branch of their airplane development. But that may be more a propaganda battle, to show that what the Americans can do, Russia can do as well. Or they want to understand the American planes and theior radar characteristics better by "re-engineering" them. And the Chinense may follow the same track for similiar reasons. Anyhow, the europeans have decided that stealthed airplanes like the F-22 and F-35 are not worth this lots of money, and thus plan to spend the money on other features of their new design.

Its not bad or wrong to have a low radar reflection from your planes, or to use stealth. Every modern plane uses stealth, juzst not to such degrees like the B2, F-22, F-35. The Eurofighter is quite some stealthy as well, produces a much smaller radar blip than a plane of its size usually does. Flight manouvers chosen by pilots can be more or less dstealths. Plane states and loadouts cna be kmroe or less stealthy. Mission profiles can be mroe or less steralthy. Stzealth is always a facor. The designs like the Us planes are just one specialised aspect of a complex, bigger matter. But the calculation must include what it costs - and the combat value you get in return. And I think the Americans are overestimating that. Last but not least to make the F-35 an export hit.

I am no fan of this low quantity-high-quality approach. Every boxer knows that it is not exclusively about how heavy you can deliver blows, but whether or not you can get up again if receiving blows. The Western militaries have almost no reserves, and that is one of their biggest weaknesses. They are extremely short on breath. I do not like this over-optimistic trust in super-expensive super-dooper-high-tech. I see the immense vulnerability of depending on it, and from a military POV, this is a major concern.



Its not as if potential enemies would not notice the immense dependency of US forces on such high tech networks.


Some of the claims of your srtticle are misled. The author for exmaple kmsised that the Germans said that the trenapsonders on wer enot used to findiong and tracking, but thnat the tracking was demonstrated beside the trbaspoinder signlas. Or that the installed additional reflectors that made the F35 intentionally visible for traffic radar, plays no role for the way passiv radar works, that they would have gotten similiar results without these attached reflectors. The original article explains it a bit, and better than I do here.

[Mike Abberton]

The original article's claims should also be filtered through the lens of someone who wants to sell a product as much as the US wants to export a plane. It is his contention that the reflectors do not factor into his ability to track the F-35, but that has not been proven to be the case.

The other important part of the rebuttal is that passive radar (as well as the various low-freq radars or bistatic radars) is generally not capable of providing a fire control solution against the stealth aircraft. As the article mentions, knowing there is an aircraft there is important, but if you can't shoot at it, it has clearly not defeated the platform (yet).

I certainly have concerns about the F-35, primarily cost related, but if they US really does buy as many as they have planned (2600+), it's not clear that it will really be a "low-quantity" option, unlike the F-22. The US will, theoretically, have more F-35's than most nations have planes. If the choice is 2600 F-35s or 2600 less-stealthy aircraft, then by all means get the F-35. But I don't think the real choice, at least for the US, is 2600 F-35s or 5200 somewhat less stealthy aircraft. If nothing else, they couldn't afford, or find/train, the extra 2600 combat pilots even if they wanted them. I'm not even sure they could afford 2600 less stealthy planes and 2600 or 5200 drones to go with them. That equation is likely different for some of the export/partner nations, of course.

One place where I feel the US is completely disingenuous about the F-35 is allowing/supporting the general idea that it will be invisible and/or invincible in some way (to increase acceptance and build sales of course). If they are ever used in combat, there will obviously losses due to enemy action, which will likely lead to a lot of second guessing of who screwed up because someone shot one down. Like you said, stealth is not, and never has been, about making a plane that can't be shot down, it is about making a plane that is significantly harder to shoot down than it otherwise would be for a given mission profile. Unfortunately that sort of realistic way of looking at things doesn't sell planes.

[Skybird]

2600 sounds like a lot, but still: the US covers practically all the globe, and this thins out the av ailability of fighters in a given region. In 2003, before the launched agaiunst Iraq, some US general or poltixan claimed that the US could wage two wars simultaneously. I already had doubts about that back then, due to logistics and distrubution of supplies. Today I think it would be considered an insane statement as long as "two wars" do not mean two lof intensity conmflicts against some cow shepareds in some god-forsaken place. Compared to that, China has all its planes in a relatively compact environment as battle ground. Russia also has to cover a long border, and as is to be expected that too pouts stress on its logistics and supplies. Its the reaosn for exmapewkl why their hueg tank forc estill does use steel-penwetrator Sabots, not Tungsten loike the gewrmans and Uran as the Americans - its cheaper, since they must provide ammo to far more tanks. I do not know however if they still maintain that ammunition design today. I wouild expect that in a huge wear, smart ammo runs quickly, too. It was also the case in the the gulf war 91. Costs have gone up since then, I cannot imagine that stockpiled ammunitioon has gone up that dramatically since then, especially expensive smart amunitions. And what is a costly stealth plane with non-smart weapons? A waste of money.


On the reflectopr things, the article I linked said: "Hensoldt argues that passive-radar detection works in a different spectrum, making the presence (or absence) of reflectors irrelevant. In layman’s terms, passive radar tracks the entire physical shape of planes, versus being triggered by smaller, angular features on the body of a jet." - This is a summary of an more thorough explanation of a German article where I read about this story first (and then looked up an english news for posting it here). Their explanation is beoiuevable, my imporerssion was. The relfectors are meant for use aganst active radar. The apssiove radar does not depend on them atm, it dpends on presenc eof passive radar emissions in the environment that react to the whole framework of a plane.



I do not deny the F35 still has some advantages by its stealth feature,ks I only douzb t that they are worth the enormnous addit9nal costs, and obviously severla defence ministries see it that way as well and instead invest the money of diferent purposes. Its a bit like with super sport cars, maybe: enormous PS and top speeds, but lousy brakes and maybe also handling. But that does not stop some people buying them, due to the PS argument. It is not practically relevant, but they like to spend money on it nevertheless.



I doubt that the US will really buy those 2600 units. I think, as so often, the ordering numbers will see cuts. But this we will know not before many, many more years have come and gone.

[Mike Abberton]

The order number of 2600 is basically intended to replace 1-for-1 all the current F-15E (Strike Eagles), A-10, F-16, F-18, and AV-8, basically all the tactical strike aircraft. Altogether, they represent something like 2500 aircraft in current numbers.

I agree that it's probably unlikely that they will ultimately order all 2600+. Some of the legacy aircraft will stick around and/or someone will propose a low option for a high/low mixture to try and save money. Possibly they move to some sort of manned/drone mixture eventually. Or the services just shrink.