Maybe you are right there, the F-117 was too expensive/advanced for the 'conventional' tactical warfare, and too weak for the strategic nuclear war. But with both parties reluctant to use nuclear weapons, it could be very strategic to have a weapon that can really penetrate Soviet airspace and disable important installations in advance of a main attack. Of course, this could also be against a country other than the Soviet union....think about a Cuba crises in 1989....I suppose it would be very handy to have precision stealth strikers at hand, that won't be shot down that easy.
Indeed, but I guess then we will be back at discussing war ethics again. Why not deploy superior technology against an insuperior force? What's wrong with that. I guess the Iraqi's surely hoped they had their fighters in the air that first night over Bagdad, but they feared the 'air dominance' and superior fighter escorts of any bombers...and they didn't have the warning to get up in the air (at least in the first nights).
Indeed the B-2 might have been a costly weapon to bomb Afghanistan, not really needed. But I guess that the B-2s did succeed their mission. The fact that Bin Laden has not been found can't be blamed on the tools or the way they were used, but on the people that decided to use these wrong tools for the job.Â
But then again, bombardments were needed, so why not employ your long range, heavy load, effective bombers with two-crew members if you have them. Surely more economical (provided that you have and fly them anyway) than getting more BUFFs for the job.
Because there was no oil and Yugoslavia did not attack the US? I don't want to get into too much political discussion here, but I think it was right someone (NATO in this case not just the US) did something against it, and it was authorised by the UN. The US/EU would also be blamed if they hadn't done anything.
Yes, something like that. How I understood it, is that the radar cross section is just much smaller, therefore the effective range of radars is reduced significantly (because it needs to detect a "smaller" object). This is also the case with fighters and bombers with the earlier radars, the bombers can be detected and tracked at longer range than smaller sized (read smaller RCS) object like fighters. So I suppose a smaller object (stealth or indeed smaller in size) will indeed be more difficult to keep track off...so yes locking on will be harder. So at close range, even stealth fighter are visible yes. But because you can't put a groundradar (considering Iraq, with insufficient airpower or willingness to engage in air combat) on every street block, the reduction in the effective range of the stations create gaps in the radar coverage. Using those gaps (through missing planning and use of RWR indicator) the F-117 can slip through those gaps.
The F-111 (and any strikers/fighter-bombers) go under the radar, which is different, but of course you can also use gaps in the network. But it's especially effective if the radar network does not work well at low altitudes or the surroundings (mountains, sea) are interfering with the radar effectiveness. But with fighter looking down (with reasonable ability to distinguish targets from ground 'clutter') and airborne radars like AWACS, flying low won't keep you safe. And then there is the non guided AAA and IR missile, but of course you should have dropped your eggs by the time they 'switch on'.
Sooner.... I think they have already low frequency radar that has less difficulty picking up stealthy planes, don't know precise story. Also an European company (I was told it was Dutch, but not sure which one, considering all the mergers, I will call it European for now) developed a radar to pick up stealth planes, went into the newspaper, but never heard about it since.... guess maybe someone paid a lot of money, or it wasn't that good anyway)
Sorry about the long post. Just waiting for reactions now, as I'm no stealth expert either.
I don't want to vote for retirement of the Nighthawks, but they should keep them in black, not grey.Â
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