this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 4 months ago (1 children)

new detection method: study

Hell yeah studying wins again

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

"I can't see anything, sir."

"...study..."

"Oh, shit, there it is! I see it like 60,000x better now."

[–] [email protected] 64 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I don't think this work is even that surprising, which is perhaps the surprising part to most people. Fusing information from a network of radars has always been the Achilles heel of stealth aircraft. It's just that radar fusion at a country-level scale hadn't really been demonstrated before.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The US is openly talking about the networking capabilities of the F-35 and other aircraft, I would expect that they simply don't/didn't want to publicize they had radar fusion. The US is hands-down the most advanced military in the world, so there's little need to brag about counter-measure capabilities. We brag about our military through offensive dick-measuring. As a result, it's a double bonus for the Chinese to brag that they've neutralized one of our offensive capabilities, because they can't directly brag about their own offensive abilities.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I’m sitting here trying to figure out where the Chinese got an F22 to test their study results on.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

The US is happy to fly an F-22 around willy nilly in air shows and whatever /s

The real answer is that the J-20's RCS is probably similar to the F-22 and they realized that the J-20 is vulnerable to this. This has been a known problem with stealth technology for forever, so it's really more of a deterrence. China really doesn't want a war, which is why their Navy is so heavily oriented towards coastal (defensive) operations rather than blue water (offensive/power projection) operations.

[–] dream_weasel 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sensor fusion is wicked hard though. At the sensor level and the track level it's a huge pain, especially on something maneuverable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Engineering problem.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Stealth becomes obsolete

Missile defenses get better

BVR combat becomes basically impossible

Everybody always knows where everybody else is

Sixth generation fighters Retvrn to being purpose-built dogfighters/interceptors

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

No. Humans in aircraft are on the way out. Drones are the future. When the drones are significantly cheaper than the missiles used to shoot them down, logistics inevitably wins.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

its gonna be factories spending all our resources and polluting the planet further just so robots can fight robots, and the robots who win get to slaughter or enslave the civilians.

ww3 is gonna be the dumbest war so far

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh I never said it would be humans piloting the sixth gen dogfighters. They're gonna be drones designed to withstand sustained 20G turns to be able to get their guns on target, commanded from something like an AWACS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

They’re gonna be drones designed to withstand sustained 20G turns to be able to get their guns on target

Full Gallente.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sadly the PLAAF has already made their statement on that... sadness

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is true of current gen air combat, but I'm speculating about a future where dogfighting once again becomes the only way to achieve air superiority.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's like in dune and other things where they have shields against guns so they have to use blades again

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

The pure "Nah bitch WE losin" energy of the shield detonation problem is beautiful to behold

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The article is stealth too. Only the first paragraph is detectable.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Xie’s team said it had overcome this long-standing engineering challenge. The researchers said their “smart resource scheduling” method allowed a centralised networking radar system to adjust beam parameters and the power of each radar based on the characteristics and real-time positional changes of stealth aircraft in the theatre.

This allowed the system to focus its limited detection resources on the most exposed azimuth, or angle of arrival, of the stealth fighter, significantly enhancing the intensity and tracking accuracy of its radar signature while ensuring it is continuously locked on to the target.

Pretty cool stuff, it's really the backend and reliability they need to implement.

US aircraft actually already do this where multiple radars from multiple aircraft can be auto coordinated to increase range and resolution, possibly via link 16.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Sounds like the solution to overcome this is to send two F22s. All their radars will be focusing on the first one it'll be easier for the second to go by undetected.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The short excerpt suggests this, yes

But spoiler alert: they too will have thought about that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

They are just able to detect an aircraft that's near end of life, it's likely they have not been able to counter two aircraft.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

All this effort to identify a stealth aircraft first developed in 1996

I don’t know which is more impressive, the tech the US military had 28 years ago, or the amount of engineering time china had spent on spotting a jet that has seen limited use and is being replaced by an even newer stealth jet.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

I mean 1996 is still reasonably new 🤷‍♂️ I wouldn't disregard this achievement as easily as you do. Especially since this is just the research that is released to the public. If they can do this it is not without doubt that they have even more capabilities they're not sharing openly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The newer jet is more or less shittier than F22

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

It's not as purpose-built, but its replacing a ton of airframes which are decidedly not as stealthy as an F22. Think of all of the F16s, F18s, and AV-8s being replaced by F35s

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

adjust beam parameters and the power of each radar based on the characteristics and real-time positional changes of stealth aircraft in the theatre.

So uh... That sounds like they have to know where it is in order to detect it on radar.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Why would they publish this information?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

probably as a future deterrent, to avoid major conflict - that they are ~~booming~~ becoming more and more formidable opponent and should not be taken lightly.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

This. The realpolitik purpose of showing your death and anti-death toys is always at least a little about "don't fuck with us" same way a cigar is usually someone's mother.

Monke brain still Monke beneath the abstractions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I learn this new term today but I don't think it fits. May be we can look at the Korean War as a case study when China intervened (around 1950) - how China changed the course of war just like that, when they were not that well equipped as compared to now.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Basically they want people to think they're stronger and that the US is weaker. It's a PR campaign. The US almost certainly has had the same capability for a while and simply had no need to advertise.

Recognize that the US would be foolish to fly a stealth fighter/bomber within range where multiple radar could lock on. They'd start their attack campaigns from far out and pick off the known ground radar installations at the perimeter, along with downing aircraft that tried to intercept them. After that, the US would have air superiority and only have to worry about mobile radar units. In any case, once they turn the radar on to look for the planes, they're broadcasting their location and the plane can just launch a missile down their throat.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Posturing and psy-ops. It's likely an inflated figure.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

"With this one simple trick, pilots hate him"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Radar detection is not the same as weapons grade lock for anti-aircraft targeting purposes. Still helpful to know something is there, but the article doesn't provide any additional information on how actionable that information will be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If you can detect, you can intercept. If you can detect, suddenly a whole host of interception strategies are viable.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Your second sentence is mostly accurate, your first is not.

Just because tracking radar identifies something, does not mean it's automatically vulnerable to interception, and it definitely does not guarantee that targeting radar will be able to create a missile, or weapons, lock.

But yes, the ability to track something is a critical first step in an anti-air kill chain.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So it's just datalink/sensor fusion? Seems pretty simple if this is all it takes to beat stealth jets.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Well, yeah? always has been

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