Su-57 Stealth Fighter: News #7

GarryB wrote:Considering the 40% PK rate against unaware targets for AMRAAM an unaware target is likely also to not be manouvering hard as soon as it detected a launch, which means the PK against a situationally aware target will be closer to 4%.

Given that Russia is considering designing nuclear powered engine for cruise missiles maybe a similar nuclear engine can be designed for air to air missiles as well (provided such an engine can be miniaturized ) that will increase the range of these missiles drastically and in the process increases the PK rate as well.

That is not true. MiG-35s and Su-35s and F-15s of any version is not stealthy. They have reduced their RCS in some ways in some directions, but if you could make any fighter stealth there would be no point to actual stealth aircraft... all of which were designed to be stealthy to begin with... not an added on feature.

Reduced RCS or stealth + jammer + chaffs = missile's Pk against you drops very low.

With their huge RCS su-27/30 and f-15 will have hard time against radar missiles. Mig-35, f-16 fighters will have better survivability against them.

Stealthy fighters like su-57 or f-35 won't have any problem evade such missiles. Remember their tiny radars have very short range. But there is no need to try to reach 0.00001m2, 0.1m2 is enough to give no chance to radar missiles to hit you.

With imagery infrared missiles they all have the same chance to get hit more or less.

Stealth plays in favor of russians because they have fighters with better manoeuvrability and better IR missiles.

I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

Isos wrote:

That is not true. MiG-35s and Su-35s and F-15s of any version is not stealthy. They have reduced their RCS in some ways in some directions, but if you could make any fighter stealth there would be no point to actual stealth aircraft... all of which were designed to be stealthy to begin with... not an added on feature.

Reduced RCS or stealth + jammer + chaffs = missile's Pk against you drops very low.

With their huge RCS su-27/30 and f-15 will have hard time against radar missiles. Mig-35, f-16 fighters will have better survivability against them.

Stealthy fighters like su-57 or f-35 won't have any problem evade such missiles. Remember their tiny radars have very short range. But there is no need to try to reach 0.00001m2, 0.1m2 is enough to give no chance to radar missiles to hit you.

With imagery infrared missiles they all have the same chance to get hit more or less.

Stealth plays in favor of russians because they have fighters with better manoeuvrability and better IR missiles.

Doesn't what you're saying prove that F-35s need less maneuverability and speed because ARH missiles won't be able to lock on them anyways?
I thought modern ARH missiles are completely immune to chaff.
This also proves stealth is a massive advantage because it forces the enemy to either use SARH, PRH, or IR missiles, while you're free to use ARHs against a nonstealthy opponent.

Atmosphere wrote:I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

The current DAS sounds like failure in comparison to the MIRES due to the fact that talks of DIRCM for F-35 began in 2006 and still to this day it has not been implemented which makes it look like the current situational awareness on the F-35 was not good enough to use lasers yet. DIRCM was mounted because the radars, infrared and UV vision worked well enough for the laser system to hit incoming missiles for the Su-57. The current radars are overdue for the Su-57 since 2009, so I am sure the new avionics includes new radars among other sensors for better situational awareness engagement against incoming missiles and I am sure this will be better than the next gen DAS.

Atmosphere wrote:I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

Its probably due to the retarded worship of DAS, thinking Russian IRST is highly inferior to european IRST, AESA being worshipped in the west and claiming the US is 20 years ahead of Russia because Russia has only just now put AESA into service. However the west never talks about DIRCM and the directional jammers because they know Russia stomps them in that regard

limb wrote:
Doesn't what you're saying prove that F-35s need less maneuverability and speed because ARH missiles won't be able to lock on them anyways?
I thought modern ARH missiles are completely immune to chaff.
This also proves stealth is a massive advantage because it forces the enemy to either use SARH, PRH, or IR missiles, while you're free to use ARHs against a nonstealthy opponent.

If missiles don't work then they are left with dofights. So manoeuvrability is even more important.

Chaffs create a cloud for the missile seaker. That creates a massive return of signal that needs to be processed by the missile and if it is between the missile and the target it will be like a huge wall and the missile won't see anything.

Chaffs are really effective.

Flares on the other side are almost useless against IIR. Against IR they still work.

Stealth is an advantage for sure. Reduce RCS also. ARH are not necessarly better than SARH or IR. Their small radar is easier to jamm or distract by chaffs/fake targets.

limb wrote:

Atmosphere wrote:I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

Its probably due to the retarded worship of DAS, thinking Russian IRST is highly inferior to european IRST, AESA being worshipped in the west and claiming the US is 20 years ahead of Russia because Russia has only just now put AESA into service. However the west never talks about DIRCM  and the directional jammers because they know Russia stomps them in that regard

AESA radars with similar capability to the western radars existed a long time ago, but it was always more of a cost / mass production issue rather than a technological issue.
i remind all that in an interview , the head of phazotron said that the declared 120 km range" was a massive lowball and only represented an initial goal they set , the radar itself could actually see at 250 km in the same conditions , and later , they cut the weight to around 400 kg while keeping the same performance.
now , they have an ultra light 100 km radar (Zhuk-AmEH) with a detection range of 260 km for a 3 sqm target in TWS (not Velocity search !). 100 kg is impressive.

regarding DAS, although an impressive system , other nations also have somewhat of a similar system.
Rafale :



Su-35 : (at 9:08)

Su-57 also has it , with the 101KS-O working like an IRST , so not only it has 360 degree of coverage both in IR and TV spectrums , its also a fully fledged targetting system

thegopnik wrote:

Atmosphere wrote:I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

The current DAS sounds like failure in comparison to the MIRES due to the fact that talks of DIRCM for F-35 began in 2006 and still to this day it has not been implemented which makes it look like the current situational awareness on the F-35 was not good enough to use lasers yet. DIRCM was mounted because the radars, infrared and UV vision worked well enough for the laser system to hit incoming missiles for the Su-57. The current radars are overdue for the Su-57 since 2009, so I am sure the new avionics includes new radars among other sensors for better situational awareness engagement against incoming missiles and I am sure this will be better than the next gen DAS.

you have stated an interesting point , new radars already made it in , as the Sh121(N036) is now renamed Sh121M. Which means that very significant changes were made from 2009 to 2016/17.

GarryB wrote:Considering the 40% PK rate against unaware targets for AMRAAM an unaware target is likely also to not be manouvering hard as soon as it detected a launch, which means the PK against a situationally aware target will be closer to 4%

I don't know where do you take these data from... in fact I doubt such data actually exist, given how freakin difficult is to calculate that and how different from one situation to another.

No escape zone assumes the target is not able to jam the missiles radar or blind its IIR sensor with DIRCMS.

No escape zone means kinematically in range for the missile even if the opponent attempts to run away, countermeasures are a different topic altogether.

How about the aircraft that detects your launch and launches their own missile to intercept your missile before it deploys all its warheads...

That would not make any difference with a normal missile, but the multimissile would have way longer range and the warheads could detach much sooner, leaving 4 times as many targets to intercept. I am still to see you pointing out an actual disadvantage

A speed advantage is always an advantage, and being a jet engine you can fly as fast or as slow as you want for the terminal phase of the engagement.

I have nothing against that, but the price and complexity of such an AAM seems to be still too high and it would still be susceptible to countermeasures and interception as any other missile. Keep in mind the fastest the missile flies, the more energy it needs.

I would expect next gen missiles will combine multiple seeker types that include optical and IR seekers as well as active and passive homing radar options.

Indeed a possibility, but the serious cost increase and impact on range / warhead will need to be balance vs. the probability of being actively destroyed by coming self defence systems. Nothing of what you are saying either in terms of propulsion or guidance is incompatible with the multimissile concept if you notice, and the intrinsic flexibility of the multimissile lends itself both to down complex expensive and dangerous targets and multiple simpler ones with the same missile, so you can load it and be ready for eventualities during the mission. An air superiority fighter like the Su-57 needs to be on station for several hours and ready to react to unexpected enemy actions, that is why a multirole payload would be very valuable.

It will be part of what increases their PK potential, but thrust vectoring propulsion... whether rocket or scramjet will be critical to prevent targets out turning them...

As discussed previously, it is not the target out-turning missile that is the problem, but the progressive slowing down that defeats it. If you can keep the engine on until the endgame, then there is no outmaneuvering a missile.

Actually they didn't...

With newer missiles some were scanning with radar for targets, but others were just heading to coordinates, and others were listening for radars to turn on to home on to...

Exactly what I say...

The NEZ is kinematic, not sensor related, and does not allow for being shot down via enemy missiles... remember some of these weapons will have significant ranges which might enter the engagement envelope of ground based SAMS which are perfectly capable of bringing down SAMs of all types.

Still hardly a disadvantage of the proposal, and aviation is used precisely because you cannot cover all the territory with SAMs and because you need offensive means on enemy territory too.

I assumed the booster would include some sort of aerodynamic fairing which would mean the weight and size of the complete missile would cruise better than the individual missile warheads. Equally the booster will burn hot to accelerate and climb, but the cruise phase of most long range missiles require low energy solid rocket burn for minutes to achieve long range... if you dump your warheads into the slip stream early they are not going to reach anything like the range of the big missile... being smaller and lighter and not burning solid fuel slowly to counter drag they will slow down and fall from the sky... and being rather small their radar aperture will be rather small too.

See the drawing, the warheads are at the front, once the booster is spent then I don't think it makes sense to carry it. You need to have L/D for each of the elements and see what makes more sense, the individual "warheads" are missiles themselves and they are not release into the slip stream but pushed forward with a charge, gaining the inertia from the booster.

That is probably because they are not expecting to make 3,500 F-15s. Operational costs for F-35 are eyewatering so it wont take long for a force of 500 F-15s to turn out to be much cheaper and much easier to support than the F-35 is pretending it can.

F-15 operational costs are very high and the EX is more complex than the ones being operated currently.

That is not true. MiG-35s and Su-35s and F-15s of any version is not stealthy. They have reduced their RCS in some ways in some directions, but if you could make any fighter stealth there would be no point to actual stealth aircraft... all of which were designed to be stealthy to begin with... not an added on feature.

Of course they are stealthy in the sense I pointed out, even those 4.5G fighters without LO shaping received RAM and other measures to reduce RCS, if they bother reducing RCS even on old designs it means it is worth the effort and the money. On a new fighter you can bet shaping would not be done without RCS considerations.

Is the red ingredient pixie dust?    

Maybe, it is classified as "others"

[/quote]

Talking about stealth, I wonder if they have something like Nakidka to cover older air raft and reduce their signature.

I remember reading on a forum they showed to indians something line that. They used their stealth technology on a mig-21 and let the indians look at a radar and they saw a big difference between the normal mig-21 and the one with a stealthy skin.

Anyone knows about something like that ?

Isos wrote:Talking about stealth, I wonder if they have something like Nakidka to cover older air raft and reduce their signature.

I remember reading on a forum they showed to indians something line that. They used their stealth technology on a mig-21 and let the indians look at a radar and they saw a big difference between the normal mig-21 and the one with a stealthy skin.

Anyone knows about something like that ?

They have been talking about that solution, there is nothing that I know preventing its use on new or old planes...

Atmosphere wrote:I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

This is a default starting point for all analysis of Russia spanning every subject area. West good, Russia bad. Russia has to
"prove" itself in every regard and when it does this information is basically censored. The lack of a neutral starting point
for analysis shows a very deep insecurity in the west. What other reason to engage in baseless assumptions a priori if
one is doing serious analysis?

Also, analysts that get exposure in the western MSM are filtered to sing the right tune. And since analysts need to work
full time in this profession, they need to be able to get jobs in think tanks and academic institutions. Think tanks require
rich sponsors and leverage media exposure, so they are biased by default. I know something about hiring in "objective"
academic institutions. A committee of profs selects new profs. Thus we have a circle jerk of self-affirmation. The fragile egos
of profs and their rabid reaction to heresy (i.e. non-conforming thought) means that nobody can be hired who does not
conform unless they pull a con. That is rather hard in research since you would have to produce fake research to produce
a fake image just to get hired. A bit too contrived.

So to sum up, the Su-57 evaluations in the west reflect cultural issues in the west and not issues with the Su-57.

Atmosphere wrote:

thegopnik wrote:

Atmosphere wrote:I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

The current DAS sounds like failure in comparison to the MIRES due to the fact that talks of DIRCM for F-35 began in 2006 and still to this day it has not been implemented which makes it look like the current situational awareness on the F-35 was not good enough to use lasers yet. DIRCM was mounted because the radars, infrared and UV vision worked well enough for the laser system to hit incoming missiles for the Su-57. The current radars are overdue for the Su-57 since 2009, so I am sure the new avionics includes new radars among other sensors for better situational awareness engagement against incoming missiles and I am sure this will be better than the next gen DAS.

you have stated an interesting point , new radars already made it in , as the Sh121(N036) is now renamed Sh121M. Which means that very significant changes were made from 2009 to 2016/17.

Jesus Christ this forum has drawn a lot of interesting users lately, thank you for that information.

limb wrote:

Isos wrote:

That is not true. MiG-35s and Su-35s and F-15s of any version is not stealthy. They have reduced their RCS in some ways in some directions, but if you could make any fighter stealth there would be no point to actual stealth aircraft... all of which were designed to be stealthy to begin with... not an added on feature.

.

Doesn't what you're saying prove that F-35s need less maneuverability and speed because ARH missiles won't be able to lock on them anyways?
I thought modern ARH missiles are completely immune to chaff.
This also proves stealth is a massive advantage because it forces the enemy to either use SARH, PRH, or IR missiles, while you're free to use ARHs against a nonstealthy opponent.

Throwing around these numbers like 0.0000032 RCS is just not objective. All stealth fighters are in the same range.There is no feature that an F-22 or F-35 has , that will make it multiple standard deviations smaller than the su 57. They are all pushed to the same limits as the math and physics allows. No fighter is 4 times faster than the other. No fighter is 4 times more stealthy than the other.

This webpage goes over each prototype su 57 and what colors and schemes they were and when they were changed.

http://www.su57.mariwoj.pl/

and this

Backman wrote:This webpage goes over each prototype su 57 and what colors and schemes they were and when they were changed.

http://www.su57.mariwoj.pl/

and this

There is another pure gold information there.

About L-band radar facing lateral and backward also, not just toward frontal arc.

marcellogo wrote:There is another pure gold information there.

About L-band radar facing lateral and backward also, not just toward frontal arc.

This is the first time I see those apertures in the wing tips being called L-band radars. It still makes more sense to me that they are ESM/ECM elements, you need to cover all aspects in a broad number of frequencies both for detection and jamming and there are simply no other apertures in the plane to take care of that / wingtips & vertical tails are the best location to place them.

Given that Russia is considering designing nuclear powered engine for cruise missiles maybe a similar nuclear engine can be designed for air to air missiles as well (provided such an engine can be miniaturized ) that will increase the range of these missiles drastically and in the process increases the PK rate as well.

A nuclear propulsion system in anything but WWIII type scenarios creates too many problems regarding pollution and handing nuclear materials to potential enemies simply because the debris might end up in enemy territory.

In a cruise missile it has the bonus of unlimited range, which for a cruise missile is a huge benefit, while the engine will be destroyed when the nuclear warhead detonates, so nuclear engine is vapourised and no longer a problem.

For use in other weapons its use would be problematic... you could probably justify it for unlimited range strategic nuclear bomber because in that case the unlimited range is useful and if it is on a nuclear armed mission you could set it up so it can either deliver its payload and return to base or if shot down in enemy territory all the nuclear weapons on board could destroy the engine and plane to prevent either falling into enemy hands...

Reduced RCS or stealth + jammer + chaffs = missile's Pk against you drops very low.

Indeed, which is why I think the cannon is critical... and the ability to manouver... big tick for Su-57 and Su-35 and MiG-35... large cross for F-35.

With their huge RCS su-27/30 and f-15 will have hard time against radar missiles. Mig-35, f-16 fighters will have better survivability against them.

I suspect towed jammers and modern digital jammer pods will keep most modern fighters relatively safe... that new Jammer pod system being developed for the Su-34M might be adapted to be put on the Su-30 too, which would make it a potent mini AWACS platform to operate with MiG-35s and electronically boost their protection...

Stealthy fighters like su-57 or f-35 won't have any problem evade such missiles. Remember their tiny radars have very short range. But there is no need to try to reach 0.00001m2, 0.1m2 is enough to give no chance to radar missiles to hit you.

Small RCS would make jamming and decoys even more effective really...

With imagery infrared missiles they all have the same chance to get hit more or less.

With DIRCMS that might be pretty low.

I am wondering why the "situational awareness" aspect is Always considered inferior for the su-57.

Russians made it clear that they aim for as much quality in sensors and Sensor fusion as lockheed , apart feom that , there's little data , and what little data there is points heavily at the su-57 being excellent in that

An important factor too is that Russian SA relies on IADS and ground based radar that looks thousands of kms out beyond its border, while HATO SA relies on JSTARS and AWACS platforms that S-400 and S-500 and R-37M and newer long range missiles will likely be targeting.

Honestly it would not surprise me if there was a version of Iskander that was designed for hitting AWACS aircraft...

Doesn't what you're saying prove that F-35s need less maneuverability and speed because ARH missiles won't be able to lock on them anyways?

When their AAMs fail they will need manouverability to have a chance in air to air combat with Russian MiG-35s or Su-35s or Su-30s or Su-57s... and I don't like their chances against any of those aircraft.

I thought modern ARH missiles are completely immune to chaff.

Depends on the chaff, and you are not allowing for creative use.... launch a chaff cloud to 500m to the right of your aircraft, then use your side facing radar to direct a jamming beam of radar at the chaff cloud.... the incoming AMRAAM detects the jamming signal and flies towards it to impact and flys right through the cloud at mach 4.... as it blows past it continues to scan... the jamming signal has gone and there is no aircraft in front of it... its engine burned out seconds ago so a 180 degree turn would drop its speed dangerously low and make it fall from the sky.

This also proves stealth is a massive advantage because it forces the enemy to either use SARH, PRH, or IR missiles, while you're free to use ARHs against a nonstealthy opponent.

Stealth does not make you invisible... it just means you need to move the antenna closer... all those missiles and ARH missiles can be used against stealthy aircraft.

Flares on the other side are almost useless against IIR. Against IR they still work.

Individual flares don't work, but volleys of flares create patterns which can fool even the smartest IR sensor because it might see an image but it does not understand. Get a child to sit at a table and put two buttons side by side and below it put a rubber band and ask them what they see and they will often say they see a face... the buttons are eyes and the rubber band is a mouth. A missile only sees patterns and doesn't distinguish between the patterns of heat spots from a dozen flares or the heat spots of the surface of an aircraft.

ARH are not necessarly better than SARH or IR. Their small radar is easier to jamm or distract by chaffs/fake targets.

Agreed... a missile can have a very small radar antenna, but using that small antenna 4km away from the target, it still might be more effective than a fighter aircrafts radar from 150km away, despite the larger antenna and more powerful processing power...

regarding DAS, although an impressive system , other nations also have somewhat of a similar system.

They also have a 360 degree thermal high res system for their attack helicopters too... Hinds and Hips as well...

No escape zone means kinematically in range for the missile even if the opponent attempts to run away, countermeasures are a different topic altogether.

I know what it means... essentially it is the powered range of the missile where the missile can manouver and follow a target without losing energy because its engine is still burning even just to counter drag. For a ramjet or scramjet powered missile this could be rather large.

That would not make any difference with a normal missile, but the multimissile would have way longer range and the warheads could detach much sooner, leaving 4 times as many targets to intercept. I am still to see you pointing out an actual disadvantage

The sooner they eject these mini missiles the sooner they will slow down and lose energy essentially undoing the whole point of using a big missile booster in the first place.

I have nothing against that, but the price and complexity of such an AAM seems to be still too high and it would still be susceptible to countermeasures and interception as any other missile. Keep in mind the fastest the missile flies, the more energy it needs.

The SA-6 Surface to air missile was a rocket ramjet powered missile whose performance was not that bad. It was replaced in service by the all rocket powered BUK family simply because solid rocket fuel improved dramatically, while ramjet propulsion was limited in top speed the solid rocket fuel could go faster.

Well now scramjet motors offer the potential to offer much higher speeds than are practical with solid rocket motors while scooping up air on the way instead of carrying it all with it like a solid rocket motor does.

Imagine the size of a solid rocket cruise missile with a 3,000km range... there are plenty of American examples BTW before ICBMs were proven to work...

If you can keep the engine on until the endgame, then there is no outmaneuvering a missile.

Well that isn't true... a missile moving at mach 4 or 5 can pull very high g turns 60 g plus are common now... but in practise that is not a 90 degree turn...

And if the missile starts looking for its target when it starts scanning with its radar it might find the target is off to its right or left.... high or low, which means the missile might be turning rather hard already to head towards the target to start with.

In combat the Israelis had serious trouble with the SA-6, but found their shallow climbs up towards them meant they could not deal with diving targets effectively... so the solution was to dive down when an SA-6 launch was detected or suspected.... which meant the climbing SA-6 could not manouver to hit them... but as a result of evading the SA-6 they flew into the range of SA-7 and ZSU-23-4 vehicles operating lower down.

See the drawing, the warheads are at the front, once the booster is spent then I don't think it makes sense to carry it. You need to have L/D for each of the elements and see what makes more sense, the individual "warheads" are missiles themselves and they are not release into the slip stream but pushed forward with a charge, gaining the inertia from the booster.

Making something shorter is not a great way of improving aerodynamic efficiency, and reducing weight is certainly not either.

F-15 operational costs are very high and the EX is more complex than the ones being operated currently.

I never expected them to make it cheap, but they would struggle to make it as expensive as the F-35... actually it would be in their interests to make sure of that.

There is an order for 3,500 F-35s they could possibly poach if they can keep costs down and not be too greedy... hard as that sounds...

Of course they are stealthy in the sense I pointed out, even those 4.5G fighters without LO shaping received RAM and other measures to reduce RCS, if they bother reducing RCS even on old designs it means it is worth the effort and the money. On a new fighter you can bet shaping would not be done without RCS considerations.

Existing designs they can only do so much... a dramatic reduction is easy on an aircraft that was designed with no consideration to RCS... a few corners changed a few hard edges added... a little bit of RAM here and there... but for a big aircraft like an Su-35 you might go from 12 square metres down to 3 or 4, but unless you don't want to carry any weapons at all it wont be stealthy, and even smaller aircraft like the MiG-35 you wont get it much better than 2-3 sq metres.

GarryB wrote:I know what it means... essentially it is the powered range of the missile where the missile can manouver and follow a target without losing energy because its engine is still burning even just to counter drag.

The missile does not follow the target, it hits it due to way higher speed. Does not need to outmaneuver the target because it follows a lead pursuit so it undercuts the movements of the plane before they even manage to create deviation between its position and the approach vector of the missile. The problem as said is when the speed delta is small, there the missile has no chance due to inferior lift and no propulsion. It is no surprise that a coasting missile with only a slight speed delta vs. the target fails, it is rather a miracle if it can hit...

For a ramjet or scramjet powered missile this could be rather large.

Of course, because they keep the speed delta very high up to the endgame. Notice the propulsion profile rather than total impulse available is critical here, since it is much better to use less thrust / speed at the beginning and spread it along the whole flight, or even spare some for highly energetic employment in the final phase.

The sooner they eject these mini missiles the sooner they will slow down and lose energy essentially undoing the whole point of using a big missile booster in the first place.

No, as said it depends on the L/D of the elements. By the moment they detach, the booster is gone and you dragging it is of no use, much less if it is an air breathing device with intakes and other high drag generating features.

Well now scramjet motors offer the potential to offer much higher speeds than are practical with solid rocket motors while scooping up air on the way instead of carrying it all with it like a solid rocket motor does.

Yes that is ok and I have nothing against that. We just need to see what is realistic for AAMs in terms of cost or complexity

Well that isn't true... a missile moving at mach 4 or 5 can pull very high g turns 60 g plus are common now... but in practise that is not a 90 degree turn...

If you fly 5 M and your target is hardly doing 1 M then there is no pursuit, is just hitting an essentially static target.

And if the missile starts looking for its target when it starts scanning with its radar it might find the target is off to its right or left.... high or low, which means the missile might be turning rather hard already to head towards the target to start with.

It will be guided so that it points in the right direction where the target is.

Making something shorter is not a great way of improving aerodynamic efficiency, and reducing weight is certainly not either.

Reducing weight bad for aero? Exactly the opposite, you need to increase the AoA to lift that weight. The only benefit associated with mass, momentum, is harvested as I told you by launching the warheads forward against the resistance exerted by the booster. Shorter and narrower can still have better fineness ratio, reducing dead weight (empty booster) will allow reducing the AoA and improving the balance so it can result in better overall L/D ratios and better range. The shape of each triangular "warhead" or single missile is quite probably going to lead to very high lift generation compared to a square shape, much more if it creates an intake like in the proposal. Plus the sooner the warheads detach, the further apart the attacked targets can be. Detaching the warhead increases the fiction drag but that is not the only or by far the dominant source of drag.

Existing designs they can only do so much... a dramatic reduction is easy on an aircraft that was designed with no consideration to RCS... a few corners changed a few hard edges added... a little bit of RAM here and there... but for a big aircraft like an Su-35 you might go from 12 square metres down to 3 or 4, but unless you don't want to carry any weapons at all it wont be stealthy, and even smaller aircraft like the MiG-35 you wont get it much better than 2-3 sq metres.

Maybe I don't know what you mean by "stealthy" exactly. The point I am making is that all modern fighters (that is, newly designed 5G or modernized 4.5G) include stealth elements so the argument that in your fleet some planes benefit from those elements while other don't is denied by reality. Think the example you are making before of the towed decoy and compare the effectiveness of the countermeasure, it is totally dependent on the level of return the true target produces. Internal bays do increase weigh and volume and cost, but they also greatly improve range and excess power so they are not only about RCS. Future fleets will all be composed by planes with LO shaping, you will not be designing now ignoring such principles and you will not keep older models in service forever.

If you fly 5 M and your target is hardly doing 1 M then there is no pursuit, is just hitting an essentially static target.

What pursuit? I am talking about high speed diving slash attacks like those german rocket powered interceptors for attacking US bombers in WWII.

It will be guided so that it points in the right direction where the target is.

Where the target is going to be... if the target is constantly changing direction then the intercept point is also constantly changing too...

Reducing weight bad for aero? Exactly the opposite, you need to increase the AoA to lift that weight.

You would only get body lift above mach 5.

Throw a golf ball and a balloon... which one pushes through the air most efficiently and why?

Maybe I don't know what you mean by "stealthy" exactly.

Think of it in terms of military uniform.... in the early days bright red was an acceptable colour for a military uniform... because you had muskets and cannon and they had sharpened grass and fruit. All of a sudden the enemy had the same guns you had and the same artillery and aircraft and tanks and machine guns and so it became important to not make your soldiers obvious, so their uniforms became rather drab and largely ground coloured.

Patterns were even added to break up shapes.

Very simply there are bright red uniforms... aircraft designed and built with no attention to radar cross section at all... MiG-29, Su-27, F-16, F-18, F-15,  F-14 etc etc

The ones still in use today have been modified with improved shapes and materials and RCS is considered, but they aren't stealthy. Going from 12m^2 to 3m^2 doesn't mean invisible to radar and undetectable. It is not even low observable which is what some loons were trying to call Gripen and Rafale and Typhoon in the 1990s.

Stealth means a ghillie suit for snipers, but even then external weapons means you are carrying a lit lantern with your ghillie suit which renders your stealth pointless and noisy and makes it hard to move through some types of vegetation.

A stealth aircraft needs to be designed from the start to be stealthy... Su-57, F-35, F-22, F-117, B-2.... there are plenty of aircraft with reduced RCS including the B-1B and Tu-160 as well as most current modern fighters but they are not actually stealthy.

Future fleets will all be composed by planes with LO shaping, you will not be designing now ignoring such principles and you will not keep older models in service forever.

And in 50 years when An-2s are still in use... because they do the job and are cheap...

The Russian navy has a submarine tender that was built in 1918... the rescue ship Kommuna.

It is used because it is still useful.

Atmosphere wrote:
AESA radars with similar capability to the western radars existed a long time ago, but it was always more of a cost / mass production issue rather than a technological issue.
i remind all that in an interview , the head of phazotron said that the declared 120 km range" was a massive lowball and only represented an initial goal they set , the radar itself could actually see at 250 km in the same conditions , and later , they cut the weight to around 400 kg while keeping the same performance.
now , they have an ultra light 100 km radar (Zhuk-AmEH) with a detection range of 260 km for a 3 sqm target in TWS (not Velocity search !). 100 kg is impressive.

Su-35 : (at 9:08)

Su-57 also has it , with the 101KS-O working like an IRST , so not only it has 360 degree of coverage both in IR and TV spectrums , its also a fully fledged targetting system

A lot of great detailed information in those 2 videos on the Su-35. Some pretty impressive radar band coverages with a library that recognizes over 1024 types of radars, wow. That's quite the capability. But what I found really amazing is the IRBIS-E having the capability of "recognizing the state of various aircraft by counting their turbine blades"! lol, that is crazy. A lot of other really incredible stuff on the Su-35 in those 2 videos.

Garry said. but for a big aircraft like an Su-35 you might go from 12 square metres down to 3 or 4,

I highly doubt that some seam work, speed tape and ram is for that much reduction in RCS. That's a 75% reduction. (I think)

Do you have any numbers on that ? I think the aforementioned treatment would be good for a 10-15% reduction max. If you could bring down the RCS by 75%, with just that, it probably wouldn't be worth building stealth aircraft.

GarryB wrote:Where the target is going to be... if the target is constantly changing direction then the intercept point is also constantly changing too...

What I mean is that relative speeds are the relevant factor for the maneuverability need of the missile.

You would only get body lift above mach 5.

No, you get lift from every airfoil depending on the AoA of the missile

Throw a golf ball and a balloon... which one pushes through the air most efficiently and why?

Let's make a missile with the shape of a balloon...

We don't need to discuss the physics of why the example does not apply do we?

Very simply there are bright red uniforms... aircraft designed and built with no attention to radar cross section at all... MiG-29, Su-27, F-16, F-18, F-15,  F-14 etc etc

The ones still in use today have been modified with improved shapes and materials and RCS is considered, but they aren't stealthy. Going from 12m^2 to 3m^2 doesn't mean invisible to radar and undetectable. It is not even low observable which is what some loons were trying to call Gripen and Rafale and Typhoon in the 1990s.

I think I understand what you mean but there are some caveats:

> Radar equation determines that the detection range changes with the fourth root of the RCS. That means that the reduction in detection range with the reduced radar return of a plane is highly non linear (10 times less RCS is just 0,56 times the detection range).
> The values given in the West for their "VLO" planes are certified BS.
> The frontal RCS of a 4.5G plane depends on some factors but may be way smaller than those 10 dBsm you mention
> Frequency dependency of the RCS means those VLO planes are perfectly visible in VHF and longer wavelengths
> ECM reduces the detection range of a radar even more effectively than lowering RCS

So those "non-stealthy" planes can have RCS values significantly lower than the original versions, enough to make a tactical difference, and the "stealthy" ones are still perfectly detectable.

What I am trying to say is that this "stealthy" vs "non stealthy" separation is not so clear as one may think and all planes benefit from lower RCS. What people call LO or VLO is not even clear or makes too much sense IMHO, because those categories are influenced by the above mentioned BS values spread by Western MIC and associated media.

A stealth aircraft needs to be designed from the start to be stealthy... Su-57, F-35, F-22, F-117, B-2.... there are plenty of aircraft with reduced RCS including the B-1B and Tu-160 as well as most current modern fighters but they are not actually stealthy.

Ok we can use that criterium

And in 50 years when An-2s are still in use... because they do the job and are cheap...

Nothing easier than wait and see...

Backman wrote:I highly doubt that some seam work, speed tape and ram is for that much reduction in RCS. That's a 75% reduction. (I think)

Do you have any numbers on that ? I think the aforementioned treatment would be good for a 10-15% reduction max. If you could bring down the RCS by 75%, with just that, it probably wouldn't be worth building stealth aircraft.

From certain angles it is not unthinkable, regardless the detection range reduction would be just a 30%

GarryB wrote:Hard to say because I actually don't know of any operational or planned satellite guided missile or weapon... except GPS/GLONASS guided bombs and missiles and they can certainly be jammed...

I am not saying that satellite guided air to air missiles exist. I am saying it's worth the effort to design such a missile.

GLONASS or GPS can be modified to provide the necessary input to such a missile.

GarryB wrote:Satellites are not an ideal way of detecting individual targets on a battlefield... if you want to track ships they are OK, but would be useless against planes and drones and things

Why not? A constellation of satellites in low orbit will be able to detect individual targets on a battlefield.