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Chinese Researchers Reveal Active Stealthy Material (popsci.com)
hackingbear writes: Even after billions and billions of dollars spent on the stealthy skin used on F-22, F-35 and B-2, the material has weaknesses, and one of those is ultra-high-frequency (UHF) radar, which can pick up traces of the plane that other radar misses. Chinese researchers came to the rescue and created a material just 5/16 of an inch thick that can safeguard stealth planes against UHF detection. The material tunes itself to a range of detection frequencies, protecting against a large swath of radar scans. What's even more amazing? They published this seemingly top secret invention wide open in the Journal of Applied Physics .
If this thing works, how did anyone notice it?
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Are they publishing it because (1) they have something better, (2) they have figured out a way to beat it and hope we will use it, or (3) they were simply incompetent?
As with almost any tuned system, it works very well and damping a particular frequency, but very poorly off resonance. The article describes a "broad-band" anti-reflective material, which is misconstrued in the summary. In fact they made a material which can be tuned over a relatively large frequency band ("0.7-1.9GHz) by adjusting a bias voltage. In reality, at any given time the bandwidth is only ~0.2GHz. Moreover, their structure only absorbs one polarization of radiation, and was tested only at normal incidence.
The problem is we've already tapped out that skill tree. Air-Air engagements have been primarily over the horizon followed by a quick pass for a while, and we've hit the point where just going faster isn't really that useful anymore. Maneuverability is still a thing, but primarily for dealing with ground targets since again air-air is primarily a game of electronic warfare from over the horizon. The same goes for meanness... the A-10 is as ugly as a dump truck and twice as tough but that's so it can soak up lead while taking out ground targets, you can't make a jet mean enough to eat a modern anti-air missile and keep going.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Although it was hard to see from where we stood, I think that the exhaust structure had been removed. Compared to some of the pictures I have seen, I also think that they removed features like the bomb bay doors.
Even so, it was a fantastic experience to see one up close. If you ever git the chance to visit the museum, take it. There is a long waiting list, you can't just go there and get in. Planning is required.
Why is Snark Required?
Maybe they know the US already discovered it in secret, and they are thumbing their nose at us, or trying to coax us to abandon it by implying they can study it in detail.
Table-ized A.I.
No matter how fast your plane is, there will always be a missile that is faster.
Translation: 5/16 Inch = 8mm
Yeah, the key is to make planes fast and cheap. No system in existence can deal with a few tens of thousands of planes attacking a target at once. If military planes can be made to follow Moore's law of sorts then that is far better than stealth. The problem is we are taking the opposite track. Every next generation of planes is more fancy but also much more expensive than the previous one.
Yep. Better flak jacket for soldiers to survive more powerful rounds? Harder tank armor to withstand multiple hits from armor-piercing rockets? It's all a dead end.
We've developed so efficient assault capabilities - rockets, ammo, smart bombs - that they've outpaced the defensive technology so far they just won't catch up. The only way not to die currently is to either not be stopped or to kill them before they can kill you. Dodging or soaking damage is no longer really an option.
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The future of air warfare (neglecting space) is pilotless aircraft. They can pull much higher Gs and no pilot means you don't have to put up with propaganda showing captured pilots. Just about all of the U.S. military knows this except a few spaghetti splattered uniformed Air Force generals.
Dodging in the form of guerrilla warfare where you move around all the time seems to work still. It's why it was so hard to find Bin Laden and that there's still ongoing work trying to locate IS leaders.
Bunkers are outdated when it comes to serious assault stuff, but such weapons are expensive and limited in supply so if you can trick your opponent into wasting bunker busters and missiles by fake bunkers and similar then you can at least let things play in your favor.
During WWI it was not unusual to have the "disappearing guns" in fixed artillery fortress locations protecting harbors. They became obsolete with the advent of the bomber aircraft, which resulted in a ceiling on the fortresses to protect against incoming bombs, which was pretty common during WWII. When the battleships got gyro-stabilized guns with high precision and aircraft able to do precision attacks on bunkers they became obsolete too since they now were essentially death traps.
That's why most artillery units (both coastal and land) today are highly mobile. They can be operated by 1-2 men, stop and fire several rounds in under a minute and then be on their way again. (Bofors Archer)
When you look at aircraft today it's a lot of stealth, but the downside with that technology is that it limits the punch it can carry. The A10 is non-stealth, and carries over 1000 30mm rounds, carries rockets externally to the level that it looks like a porcupine while the F-35 has a few hundred 20mm rounds and have to hide every rocket inside the hull. The stealth capabilities are also constraining the aerodynamics so that maneuverability suffers.
However the advantage with stealth is that the first strike may appear with little warning, but after that the advantage is lower - and since the carried payload is lower it takes more missions to get the job done. A war zone is also highly fluid - the weapons you brought with you at the beginning of the mission may not be the right weapons when you arrive in the strike zone.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Yes, China CLAIMED that their UHF radar could detect western stealth. However, just because they claim such a thing, does not make it so.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
first, UHF does not detect American stealth. China just claims it in hopes that fools will buy their radar.
China is giving up nothing. They have a compound that will absorb UHF, but all others are reflected. IOW, it is worthless.
So, why not publish it?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Which is why I think we need to get out of this "does everything best/only need one" mindset and get back to having a few different models of aircraft that are reliable, dominate their particular role, and are affordable enough that we can actually USE them. If we want a stealth plane make it invisible and stupid fast so it can do its job and then GTFO if it's spotted. If we want an air superiority fighter make it fast, extremely maneuverable, and give it an ECM suite that would make Ghost in the Shell jealous. If we want ground support make it tough enough to soak ground fire while wrecking people's shit. If we want a bomber for use after air superiority is established make it tough, give it the fighter's ECM suite and a wing of escorts, and give it enough carrying capacity to schlep over the entire bomb factory if it needs to.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
China alone can't maintain air superiority against the USA.
Not today but there is no reason to believe that will have to remain the case forever. However any likely direct military conflict between the US and China would take place on or close to Chinese territory where China has advantages besides their fighters that even the US military would struggle to deal with.
But after releasing it to the public, every half-civilized country will be able to make their own stealth fighters. And who has more airplanes: the USA, or the rest of the world? With the cat out of the box, USA will be facing competent opposition in any major conflict involving aerial forces, which will slow down their advance of power, giving China a chance in the race..
You think building a competent stealth fighter is merely a matter of pasting a bit of (allegedly) radar absorbing material on a jet? There's a WEE bit more to it than that. Frankly this argument is nonsense and requires far more technical competence and economic strength than much of the world possesses. Nobody is going to be competing with the US in a straight up fight any time soon and most of them couldn't even if we gave them F22s to fight us with.
China, not being nearly as expansionist as the USA has far less to lose...
China less expansionist? HAHAHAHAHA... China is exerting power all over the place these days and is pretty rapidly building up their military. They are working towards an aircraft carrier and have been for some time. They are claiming large segments of the South China Sea, exerting soft power all over Africa, etc. The only reason China isn't projecting military power more is because they haven't developed the capability yet. But they will. China is no different than any other major world power. They can and will be
Guerilla warfare is the epitome of stealth. With drones armed with infrared gone are the days of partizan groups hiding in forests - currently they hide in plain sight, among civilians, undistinguishable until it's too late. It's still stealth, but of a different kind - blending into the background in such a way that the soldier staring you in the face doesn't know you're a combatant.
Mobility is another means of stealth: if firing reveals your position and draws enemy fire, you need to relocate quickly and hide elsewhere.
Stealth air warfare allows to strike at strategical units deep inside the enemy structures - destroy the command, supply and communications. Without that, the front lines are easy pickings for conventional weaponry.
It's only when the front line falls apart and the enemy falls back to stealth tactic = guerrilla warfare - that's when things take a turn for the worse.
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I've applied this new technology to my 1975 Toyota pickup. Here's a photo of me standing next to it:
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Inter...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Radars have been wideband (wider than the absorption peak of this new material) for at least 30 years, and probably longer. Pulse compression with multi-hundred MHz bandwidth is a standard thing, and has been for a very long time. The SPY-1 on Aegis cruisers is a good example.. It's L-band (where this material seems to be designed) and the bandwidth is very wide. (hundreds of MHz). And the frequency on modern radars is agile. The air traffic radars at 5GHz that have the interference problem with WiFi are another example.
We've come a long way since the old magnetron based systems.
The other problem is that this material shows good absorption for normal incidence. As soon as the signal comes in from an angle, it doesn't work as well, because it's relying on the wavelength and the classic 1/4 wavelength thick absorber (but not actually 1/4 wavelength, just simulating it). If the signal comes in from 45 degrees, now you need an absorber that's 1.4 times thicker.
Kind of a neat idea, but it's not going to change stealth airplanes.
If anything of that nature, I'd suspect it would relate to the helicopter lost during the Bin Laden raid, which was supposedly sold to the Chinese.