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View Full Version : Is stealth in combat aircraft now irrelevant?


Skybird
08-05-24, 05:02 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffGQLnlXks4


I assume Lockheed would argue against this a bit. :)


The value of stealth imho is that it reduces the range at whioch the enem,y cna detect you. If you lonpow that detection range he is capable of, you can tailor your tactics and weapons to work with that range advantage of yours.



However, it costs money. A lot of money. The question is if super-expensive fights low ion numbers can hold thgeir ground - or sky, to be precise :) - against a huge numerical superiority of fighters not exactly at the same tech level. This ma ynot be true for small scnarios of limited combat action, here the technological advantage should heavily score, I woudl expect. But in huge wars, the advantage probably shifts to the side with the greater numerical reserves, and tehcnolgical advanatge is less and lesser able to compensate for that. We can see that in the attrition warfare in the Ukraine currently. If you can digets the loss of higher own numbers, you can overwhelm the enemy by simply "flooding", over-saturating his defences.

Jimbuna
08-05-24, 05:20 AM
Sheer weight of numbers is what makes China so dangerous in combat or so we are led to believe.

Aktungbby
08-06-24, 12:02 AM
:hmmm:..."beware of a hun in the sun" was the first aerial-combat $tealth, circa 1914...and improvements have been dabbled in ever since. Unfortunately 'wonder weapons' are expensive and rarely decisisive, as WWII proved. Numbers (ala the Sherman tank vs vaunted panzer)"have a cachet of their own". Control of the skys will be won with masses of aircraft, stealthy and otherwise. The next big engagement will be won with drones, massed artillary, cannon-fodder expendible masses, rape and pillage; just as WWI did and Ukraine is demonstrating now. I expect satellites in orbit will become a decisive factor as 'killer sats' create more space junk; and armed sats deliver payloads from on high incl. nukes...and that is literally "over the top"! As with all wars, there will be no real winners, only temporary victors.

Otto Harkaman
08-06-24, 12:59 AM
Unmanned Stealth: The development of unmanned stealth aircraft, such as the X-47B and the Loyal Wingman concept, indicates a trend toward combining stealth with autonomous operations to reduce risk to human pilots and expand tactical options.

https://youtu.be/jnACNy6KtH4?si=fWpOmiBBdzQY7Jhf