[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by goldorak

I find it very strange that the american army-navy-air force still think in terms of cold war tactics.

They don't, really. There's been a lot of post-Cold War technologies to emerge and more will come. All of this UAV/USV/UUV stuff is post-Cold War. Things are in the process of changing.

Right now is a complicated time for all militaries globally. It's one thing to say, "you guys need to think differently," but it's another thing to say specifically how. Right now, there's a lot of debate about what ought to be different and nobody really has a single answer.

I mean many countries even if they don't have the sheer force of the american navy have non the less quite devastating conventional weapons such as the squall.

People have known this for a long time. Look at the tanker wars in the 80s. Cruise missiles weren't even as sophisticated then as they are now. Supposedly, one of the "transformative" technologies for the US navy was going to be the Littoral Combat Ship, which is slowly on it's way out. Low observable warships are going to be a big thing in a future where advanced cruise missiles are commonplace. They're also working on developing advanced anti-missile technologies.

Why aren't americans researching such a technology ?

We are.

The same thing happens with the F-22 raptor.
An extremely conventional and pricey fighter that doesn't stand up against the Eurofighter nor the Rafale.

I'm not sure that's entirely clear but that being said, so far, the USAF has been a big loser in terms of it's piece of the defense budget because they have been the slowest to rethink how they fit into the post Cold-War picture. The fastest, actually, has been the Marines and Army. They're relatively inexpensive, though. None the less, the Marines are getting a WHOLE lot of fancy new gear; MV-22s, new AH-1s, new UH-1s, new MH-53s, EFVs, upgraded LCACs, UAVs, JSFs... etc. GATORs in the Navy are also receiving a lot of corresponding attention. Just look at the LPD-17. Additionally, the LHDs are getting all kinds of upgrades. They're moving away from a relatively wimpy ARG to the much more heafty ESG. There's the DD(X) and CG(X). The DD(X) will most likely exist only on paper for some time, but it is a post-Cold War design. There's the MPF(F). There's the whole Seabasing concept, Operational Maneuver from the Sea, and Ship to Objective Maneuver.

In the ASW picture, the Navy has LFA already out, ADS is coming out, they keep trying to figure out how to get the Firescout to do ASW. There's the LCS-ASW package. There's the P-8 coming out. They're also really getting into multistatic sensors.

For the cruise missile threat, there's the RAM, a whole host of new decoys, they're looking into other advanced Star-Wars anti-missile weapons. There's also a lot of attention being paid to anti-ballistic missile defense.

For undersea warfare and special operations, there's the SSGN and TACTOM.

The french are even developping a system that would enable the Rafale to be literally invisible to radar waves without having to design the aircraft around RAM materials nor fancy airframes.
They are designing an active cancellation hardware, which the americans aren't even considering researching.

There's lots of low observable technology out there these days. The Chinese, for example, have started building low-observable missile boats. Unfortunately, once those kinds of secret weapons become public, it's only a matter of time before other nations start trying to develop comparable technology.

It will be interesting to see how every nation adjusts to the post-Cold War types of worries. Some will be faster than others, or choose to concentrate in different areas. Time will only tell who has the best ideas.