To clear up the roadblock - @StealthFlanker Sorry if I gave you the impression that Ka band LOS datalinks are useless. You tend to give some much gratuitous information which has no bearing on “F-35 vs Gen-4” that I admit I too must have slipped. For records, the Ka band LOS datalinks are very useful.
Since all my replies are on account of comments/rejoinders of @StealthFlanker, I am dispensing with the forum multi-quote replies because it is difficult to manage. Instead I am simply putting his comments in direct quotes. This however does not mean that the post is directed at @StealthFlanker only. My intent is to write for all because it seems like he has already made up his mind.
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Re. - https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/...g-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/
- Norwegian Air force has only F-16A & B (basically similar). F-16C was the first real change to enhance the envelop "The airframe was provided with greater structural strength, which raised the 9G capability from 26,900 pounds to 28,500 pounds. Maximum take-off weight was increased to 42,300lbs (19,187kg). - http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article7.html". This strengthening would have an effect all through the envelop not just at the edge of the flight envelop. That is why people regard F-16C is the a better optimized air to air fighter in the whole series of 16s. That is why F-16C vs. F-35 would be the one to watch for. That too after the F-16C is allowed to come with Air to Air combat loadings. The Norwegian AF pilot in his original blogpost http://nettsteder.regjeringen.no/kampfly/2015/06/30/dogfight-og-f-35/ (you will have to google translate) actually says this : "So how does this apply in the case of an engagement between the F-16 and the F-35? It depends, and it particularly depends on how the F-16 is loaded. A stripped-down F-16 is a formidable opponent to anyone in BFM. However, this changes quickly when we dress the F-16 up for combat. If we are to compare the F-16 and F-35 on an equal basis, we must assume that the F-16 will be carrying both external fuel, a «jamming pod» for electronic warfare, weapon mounts for bombs, missiles and a camera pod for target acquisition and illumination. With this loadout, the F-16´s performance is significantly reduced: The maximum angle of attack is reduced by 40% (the ability to move the nose away from the direction of travel), the roll rate is lowered, the maximum allowable airspeed is reduced and the g-limitations are stricter."
Notice the word "must assume" (else the F-35 drops dead without even giving a fight). And mind you the F-16 has been killed by Mirage-2000 which in turn has been killed by Mig-29 and which in turn has been killed by Su-30MKI.
These additional wordings are there in the English language version of the blog also :
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Re. - F-4 vs. Rafale.
- I would say both are evenly matched for air to air WVR combat. Comparison below:
F-4_Phantom_II - Empty weight of 13757 kg & the installed power is two engines each of 52.9 kN/79.4 kN with Wing area of 49.2 sq. mtr. and it held several of the records that were later beaten only by F-15
Rafale - Empty weight of 9850 to 10300 kg & the installed power is two engines each of 50.04 kN/75.62 kN with Wing area of 45.7 sq. mtr.
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Re. Sniper-XR being same as IRST and saying Sniper-XR failed to detect F-35
- No sir, had that been the case the French Areos could have been used as a Super-IRST-AWACS. But it is not. It is known that Sniper-XR is the basis of EOTS (IRST of F-35) but you can see how difficult the journey has been for EOTS. Moreover Lockheed which claims to have air-to-air capabilities in Sniper pod still is struggling with the IRST-21 on the centreline fuel tank which is supposed to be a true IRST. Luckily for F-35 it has DAS too so some part of the cross-range tracking in the WVR is handled by the staring arrays but if the same has to be done in a Zoom TWS mode for a far off part of sky, then Sniper-XR is pretty much useless as an IRST. Actually the Areos has only recently developed this capability of large format TWS (The Areos front end has a distinct zoom inset facility within the main display). Probably the best analogy to an IRST is the Theodolite while the best analogy to a strike oriented imager is the LOROP pods. One must specialize at calculating angles fast for targets that are being cooperative (in IR regime) while the other must be able to image properly in a stare mode even if the target is not cooperative or is actively camoflauging itself. While both carry zoom magnification but one is meant for fast cross range calculations while the other is meant for capturing large swathes of targeted areas with long dwell times, even if without much of angle details in it.
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Re. "This is F-35 in airshow - it finished a 180 degrees turn in 7 seconds ( From 2:44-2:51) that equal to average turn rate of 25 -26 degrees/second , and F-35 is limited to 7G at the moment…..i cant even find video of Rafale turning at 25 degrees/second"
- 25.71 degrees = 180 degrees / 7 seconds = 360/14............soon.
@Bonplan has explained adequately why this is wrong. If this type of linear comparison was true then F-35 should finish 360 degrees and 14 seconds, two turns in 28 seconds and so on .... without ever slowing down.
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Re. "but 60% more fuel ?"
- Yes Sir, 60% more fuel than F-16 and a huge 180% more fuel consumption than A-10. Consult DOT&E Michel J. Gilmour reports to House committees (I think 2015 but they are all hosted on US gov site and it is crazy to ask for links to these sites which are prominent and official. Beside the link will embarrass you even further. I don't wish to do that)
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Re. "P-42"
- All said and done nearly all high performance jets Rafale, Sukhois, F-22, Typhoons will behave similarly. But no chance in putrid burning hell for the Joint STRIKE Fighter, even if you strip it down to absolute naked.
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Re. English Electric Lightning and F-16 can both reach mach 1.1 on dry thrust alone
- Not with any useful load for English Electric Lightening which is not the case with Rafale. Marut too could super cruise in a dive and rumour is of Canberra as well. Not all supercruise are the same. For F-16XL yes it could but again the loading was never mentioned. In any case the useful load criteria is the most important even before you mention supercruise. Rafale can do it with useful load (4 AAM + Fuel tank or 6 AAM - more than enough for F-35). Some reports suggest even Su-35S will be a supercruiser.
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Re. "you are also missing heading , velocity of target"
- For jamming experienced by AWACS, which is what we are talking about in this context, these parameters for jammers are irrelevant. Only thing things that can jam an AWACS are as big as Palena-1 (static) or may be another AWACS (theoritical capability not worth discussing in operational contexts).
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Re. "ever heard about sides lobes jamming ?"
- Irrelevant. Northrop in official documentation claims all receivers working. Only transmission is stopped and only towards the the one particular subsector in a Sector search. Jammer is free to do whatever it likes. As I said before the Jammer too can be jammed without the jammer ever getting to know of it.
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Re. "Yes linked together they can use triangulation to determine the jammer (MALD-J ) location , but that it , they still dont see the F-35 that was protected by the jammer"
- Highly presumptious to think that anybody would waste their time triangulating an MALD-J. Rafale or Sukhois will just need to compare the radar returns with the IRST tracks. MALD-J will not have the same IR return as an F-35.
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Re. "No, i already explained to you the towed array have longer range because it is less affected by the ship own noise"
- Irrelevant. The Atlas Electronik illustration becomes comparable (a state they are trying to reach for reader's benefit) when the ship is stationary. You can wish that the illustration shows the ship moving, so your wishes can somehow come true but unfortunately for you, the illustration is meant to be comparative and not to hand out education. Atlas Electronik people are acting like professionals when they tried to give comparatives.
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Re. "The receiver need to be protected too ,and it needs to be linked to the transmitter"
- True and that is not difficult. Nearly the whole world today is hooked up by one form of device or another. Making these links is not difficult. Like you’re the directional Ka band datalink you yourself mention.
Here is another Off The Shelf Commercial directional datalink http://www.tecom-ind.com/files/0/536142d02811a-Web10inchTDLFixedorOntheMove.pdf .
Anybody who has, for once understood beamforming and beam sharpening will be able to make these.
But Rafale and Russians, Chinese, Indians all have access to this level of technology and will use it as they deem fit.
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Re. "It is a matter of where the spike located 30 degrees board side is a total of 60 degrees , given that it is an AWACs that fairly reasonable."
- European AWACS which I think are S Band cannot triangulate anything with fighters equiped with X band receivers. And if perchance they have either put X band receivers on AWACS or S-Band receivers on Typhoons then nothing stops the rest of the world from doing the same. That is what Russians infact are doing by putting the L-Band array onto PAKFA.
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Re. "Nope , according to official information , it is simply an IFF and ECM system"
- Official information about the L-Band Array on PAKFA says nothing of the sort. It only claims that it is capable of beam control in azimuth. After that it is your presumption that it is only for ECM.
http://www.niip.ru/eng/index.php?op...cle&id=22:-l-&catid=30:esa-with-ebs&Itemid=42
That, it is not a radar, is your presumption to help you remain in your own comfort zone. Beam forming can obviously be for multiple reasons including IFF interrogations but there is no restriction being talked about by the Russians in this regard.
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Re. "F-35 only equiped with 2000 lbs JDAM instead of SDB which have much longer range. And eventhough Typhoon have IRST too , it still has to rely on AWACs being stationed on a certain angle in respect to F-35 flight path"
- Again, I would say the report has insufficient details. Eurofighter in 2010 may or may not have been capable of understanding how F-35 signatures would be in multistatic radar arrangement. Also you are missing the fact that Pirate sets were being delivered only 3 years before (August 2007 to Italian air force) compared to the simulation study by Eurofighter (reported by flightglobal in July 2010). You cannot be sure that IRST failed.
Here is a representative report of March 2010 which shows no Pirate IRST:
Even more importantly since Pirate IRST has no accompanying laser range finder so Typhoon will be using passive triangulation ranging. That shows confidence in passive triangulated ranging and a capacity to range using Captor radar.
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Re. "The only reason multistatic arrangement can sometimes see stealth aircraft from longer distance than mono static arrangement is because the receivers sometimes located at a direction where the RCS scattering is high ( or by your own words , signal is not equally weak in all direction )"
- No sir again. I mentioned that the signal is not weak in all directions in the context of thermoclines that you wanted to use to against illustrations of Atlas Electroniks for Sonars. And since thermoclines are not there in all directions equally so the range increases again moving from bistatic sonar to multistatic sonar. This is about clutter.
The spike you mention is also relevant because conformal stealth characterized by parrallel lines seeks (unlike say small faceted structure F-117) to direct most of the reflected energy in small number of particular directions where the spike will be bigger then even normals. F-117 mostly aimed to diffuse the reflections into several different areas. The former will yield a huge spike in very limited set of directions. The later F-117 will yeild detectable return in most directions but quite low. Spike you mention does not need to invoke clutter.
There is a third case of multistatic radars which off course cannot be prepositioned since F-35 will not intrude after announcement. This arrangement will yield range increase, range resolution improvements and also azimuth and elevation improvements. Improvements in this regard has nothing to do with behaviour of target RCS. This has everything to do with the return signal journey being short circuited by inexpensive passive receivers right at the border.
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Re. "because the high RCS spike is very far from the nose , your receivers and transmitters in your multi static arrangement need to be located at long distance from each others"
- This is just theorizing based on wrong premise. The baselines for triangulations can be created even by way of altitude differences. In which case the weapons range of the escorting fighters will actually increase as well as the close in merge speeds.
Be that as it may, what I have repeatedly said is that while 1 Rafale may not be enough to detect any F-35 using IRST triangulations but two are more than enough to detect and track ALL F-35 in the FOV.
Thus the reality is not one of hugely dislocated defending Rafales but that of, only one Rafale/Sukhoi, breaking up from the formation and stationing itself a few kilometers away or above mostly well behind the fourship of Rafales/Typhoons/Sukhoi.
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Re. "So what would stop the F-35 from launching missiles at the PAK-FA , Rafale in this case ?"
- Nothing does using the same tactics that Rafale/Sukhois will deploy. Stealth claim was the high ground of F-35 and IRST and multiband multistatic radars have only leveled the field. F-35 comes with IRST too and it too can passively triangulate. Unfortuntely F-35 lacks the characterstics to optimally benefit from its sensors compared to Rafales & Sukhois.
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Re. "the problem with low-frequency radar is not only their range resolution but their angular resolution , range resolution can be improved easily by using shorter pulse , angular resolution ? not so simple……….but if target is 50-100 km km aways , you need to know range ,altitude , heading and velocity otherwise your missiles will never reach target"
- What can one say about this?
Ok bhailog since @StealthFlanker has already made up his mind, I present this to you so you may kindly decide if its going to work or not for trajectory predictions and reducing error bounds. Attaching two images for your viewing pleasure.
ERROR BOX RESOLUTION FOR MULTISTATIC RADARS & IMPROVEMENTS IN PREDICTIVE ILLUMINATION DUE TO EO/IR CHANNELS - http://i.imgur.com/51coaVh.jpg
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Re. "what stop F-35 from stay at long distance and loft these JSM , JSOW-ER or SPEAR at S-400 battery ?"
- Nothing, except aircrafts and air defence techniques that are superior to the capability set of F-35 performances across parameters. Nothing really stops a dog from wishing to hump an elephant except the dog's own level of existence.
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Re. "Same problem again IRST need to rely on LRF for range and velocity measurement , and LRF isnt so high , and btw engine thrust isnot directly proportional to the heat give out"
- You are sorely mistaken about LRF being not so high ranged. Lasers are already measuring 100 km + distances on military platforms and it is not difficult at all. Its just that nobody has the time for it given easily available alternatives and additionally the fact that use of lasers is easily caught by the Laser Warners on Stealthy platforms.
Since you have again made up your mind I will go to others. Bhailog please use the benchmark set by DAS staring sensor and provided by F-35 office, to infer about the real capabilities of IRSTs and you can form an opinion as to what exactly will be the net effect of engine exhaust cooling by F-35. Remember the problem essentially is to detect F-35 sized target at 100-200 km.
FOR IR/EO INVERSE SQUARE LAW AS APPLIED TO JSF ENGINES USING DAS IMAGERY AS BENCHMARKS - http://i.imgur.com/QyIcawz.jpg
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Re. "It doesnt matter if your receiver is also Ka band , the advantage of Ka band datalink is that it is very directional and it have very high attenuation , so unless your receiver stayed between 2 F-35 communicate with each other , you wont be able to detect it, that the point."
- Agreed earlier, agreeing again. I merely go carried away on a theoretical chase.
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Re. "EA-18G and NGJ are both for standoff jamming"
- These are niche products not bulk products. Especially the EA-18G. NGJ isa as yet an unknown evolution so not much can be said about it. Bulk of jamming is moving out of the barrage jamming regimes exemplified by the EA-18G, since long and in many different areas. EA-18G Stand off jamming is basically relying on existence of legacy equipment in the AD chain which cannot be updated without substantial investments and most of the real adversaries that US has to fight against usually have these legacy systems. US would be hard pressed to employ these systems against more capable adversaries.
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Re. "The VHF sensor is always for early warning , they dont use it for FCR , main FCR for ICBM such as THAAD and SPY-1 still in high frequency instead of VHF or UHF"
- Do you want me to say that VHF is for FCR so you can feel ok. Well I never said VHF is for FCR and I hope you still get to feel better eventually with time. The absolute minimum need for VHF radars is only and only for Range and velocity estimation everything else can be passively calculated. Almost all Russian FCRs for SAMs have accompanying Optical Trackers all stationed in the forward area. Buks and Pantsirs are all fully capable of being integrated into S-400 systems.
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Re. "Yes you did challenged me when you keep on saying that MALD-J cannot jam AWACs because it look small"
- I did not challenge you on burn throughs because that theory is well understood. I am still challenging you on MALD-J which simply cannot jam any AWACS or any radar that is not working in the X and Ka band. Even this is a huge leeway allowed because the only way MALD-J will be able to jam both X and Ka bands is when it has dual band X and Ka band TR modules. This is a recent development and I strongly doubt if the Americans will part ways with it by using it in an expendable jammer.
The MALD-J array simply will not be able to manage all the requirements you wish it to - jamming FCR, Seekers, AWACS. Even X-Band FCRs will be able to make out if its an MALD-J or an F-35 under certain circumstances. MALD-J for example will not be able to keep up if the FCR also begins to use its LPI modes. Just the S-Band radar in Akash battery for example is capable of listening in the X-Band even though its main transmission is in the C Band. This too will have an impact on MALD-J performace if pitted against the Mixed C-Band & X-Band FCR of Akash SAM. Then as I said the MALD-J will not even know that it is being cancelled out while all the available power is being sourced into a singular LPI beam tracking F-35. Ground/Ship based X-Band FCR will have the power needed to see even the F-35 esp. from the sides and top and bottom which keep getting exposed if the F-35 is forced to maneuver. The problems get accentuated only with the aircraft based X-Band radars with limited power at disposal and limited number of waveforms trying to track F-35 from the frontal sector (a very limited set of problem). Ship and Ground based radars don't face these limitations. Especially with Ground based FCR, even if they lose out on height advantage (like Ship based ones) they gain in terms of being much closer to the outer edge of the AD battlefield which means they can afford to engage the LO targets at least 20/30 km (high ECM deployment) into enemy territory and a similar range inside own (should the F-35 actually be able to intrude). Moreover any kind of jamming can begin to register its effectiveness only after the radar has transmitted first and with LPI sets every transmission can be the first one and in multiple ways. Now, so while MALD-J does not have the right antenna to jam the AWACS it also may end up ineffective against Ka/X-Band AESA seekers as they race ever nearer to their targets and begin to become effective at closer ranges. These AESA seekers will be made to land as close as 25 meters (Vostok radars) of the F-35. Do you think this is still effective. Now since the AESA seeker would already know what frequencies it has transmitted and MALD-J can only work as a dependent function of these transmissions do you realize that the AESA seeker could itself be cancelling out the jamming signal from the MALD-J.
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Re. "it you who keep insisting that MALD-J cant jam low frequency , but have no problem believing that Spectra can operate from 1 Hz to 100 Ghz oh and FYI , jamming at closer distance is actually harder"
- Jamming at any distance is not hard now. Its just that the jammer waves too can be cancelled so nobody really cares except for niche applications and to introduce unpredictability for the opponent, a purpose for which these are still good.
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Re. "Frequency hoping and PRF jittering are among the easiest things to change"
- Yes you can change it but only from within a fixed set of options. Once all these options have been opened up and analysed (say during wartime) by somebody analysing these there is no way to go back and fix things without some headaches involved. That is why Ground based radars have much wider choice in the waveforms to ensure redundancies, even if analysed and databased in Jammer library.
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Re. "Bigger aperture = higher gain = longer range = able to do IFF at longer distance = able to engage sooner while still obey ROE , pretty important for stealth aircraft if you ask me ( but ofcourse fan boy dont care about IFF ). A bigger IFF antenna also mean it is more directional , which mean PAK-FA will alert less targets in the area compared to normal IFF antenna Also according to Russian official information the array can also be used as jammer in L band which mean it can be used to jam certain thing like Link-16 datalink"
- PAKFA would be the first LO aircraft to announce its own presence that way. IFF howsover big cannot be made to be as clean as tracking beams. Besides any beam that will be made from such an array can only be vertical scanning one. So it is crazy to guard against IFF detections in azimuth only to lose the advantage in elevation.
With this kind of IFF around (given that it bears easily identifiable characterstics) the F-35 can easily drop the mission and have the mission escalated to next level (theater cruise/ballistic missiles). Only cost will be the fuel lost and a few extra man hours of maintenance.
With missile costs going down rapidly there is no need to fight the 'my way or no way' style. There are always options to do it better.
No doubt earlier interrogation is important but that does not mean you reveal yourself. Nearly all Russian radars have a separate secondary surveilance radar integrated with the main array. That is the one meant for very long range interrogations. For WVR ranges interrogations are not needed. A fighter will require only the interrogations for the twilight zone when the ground based secondary surveillance radars are not available for the duty.
Also I don't deny that the array will be IFF capable. It makes sense to do that. But there is absolutely no reason why the L Band array cannot be a radar.
To address this objection properly again I take the help of bhailog on here. Bhailog here are 2 COLLAGEs one meant to show what the conformal L-Band antenna meant for IFF are going to look like in the Stealth aircrafts. Another collage shows that this sort of arrangement has been used at least for 15+ years and it is not difficult to manage. The limitation is that it will give only a vertical fan shaped waveform and there cannot be any horizontal wave form associated with this sort of array. This is even more important because VHF radars when in monostatic mode will face difficulties narrowing down the aziumuth. I have left the humans in those pictures (heads and breasts
in the absence of anything better) to help bhailog understand exactly how big the array is.
COLLAGE 1 OF CONFORMAL IFF PRE-PRINTED L BAND DIPOLE ANTENNE USED BOTH IN ROTATING AND LINEAR IFF
http://i.imgur.com/RMcXmba.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/v2keQEO.jpg
COLLAGE 2 OF PHYSICAL DIMENSION OF MESA TOP HAT FRONT AND AFT COVERAGE ARRAYS VS. L BAND ARRAYS ON PAKFA
http://i.imgur.com/RqoANcG.jpg
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Re. "Because of gain , a L band of that side will have an enormous beam width compared to the X band fire control radar , a bigger beam width will not only reduce your accuracy , it will also reduce your radar range , because power is much less concentrated , you can use the formula below to see how big a difference would be for an X band and L band of equal size ( which in this case even worse because the L-band arrays is smaller.)"
- So what make you think that the beam is not shorter ranged compared to a regular L Band AWACS beam.
The purpose may be different - PAKFA is not an AWACS. All PAKFA needs is range from its own L-Band array for its own missiles, whatever the weather. For long range detection the much more powerful illumination will be provided by the AWACS and the PAKFA L-Band Array will only seek out like any ordinary Semi-Active Seeker. The range itself will be provided by the TDOA by the AWACS itself given that the AWACS knows the position of PAKFA at any given time.
Also the L-Band Array on PAKFA is not small. It is small only if you want to produce a flat horizontal beam. But if the Beam has to be horizontal and Razor sharp the array is perfect. Check out the MESA sold to Australians. Does that look debilitated in the way you think about PAKFA array. No doubt the PAKFA arrangement as well as the MESA arrangements are compromises. But these compromises plug in well to the limitations the respective airforces face or have faced:
1) Australians needed a much much bigger array for main beam (huge ocean coverage and stealth readiness) but with assured front and aft sector coverage without having to pay for a regular American made AWACS. Hence the Top Hat has those simplifed array front and aft of main array.
2) Russian needed something to bridge the gap between VHF and the X-Band/IR and they did this with L-Band arrays (GAMMA-D)on ground and L-Band arrays on PAKFA (also to be on FGFA). If you use the full 2 wing array of PAKFA you end up with bigger aperture then even the MESA.
I agree even the L-Band is not primarily for FCR as it cannot be but it is an absolute necessity as a bridge. That is why even the S-400 has an L-Band radar between the regular X-Band FCR and the VHF. That is why I said earlier the Russian kill chain is very robust with things falling into place exactly when needed even though in emergencies even a debilitated kill chain can aim to force abortion of missions on the F-35.
Even if the Russians launch the longest ranged S-400 missiles based only on VHF radar coverage (L band and X band being impared) they have one option of relying on multistatic arrangements of VHF which the Belorussians (with smaller apertures) are willing to show works till around 25 or 60 meters (for monostatics). This level of coverage can still be made to work much much better for multistatic arrangments.
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Re. "I already explained before. But let me ask you this , if stealth is so easily to be neutralised then why all the big nation (china , USA , Russian , Japan , UK , Canada , Australia , Korean , Indian ) want stealth aircraft ? are they dumb ?"
- Stealth has been part of military tactics and strategy since before the Americans re-discovered it and imagined that they have found the final answer. Stealth is off course necessary but even stealth is not the "necessary and sufficient" answer to the problems faced by military leaderships. I hate most military leaderships including Indian ones but the least that they have always recognised is that they need to make the stealth fit in. And this is something I cannot fight against. Stealth peaked at B-2 and F-22 and is now in optimization phase. Russian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese even American platforms (F-35) come at a lower stealth level as they feel they need. Only UCAVs/UAVs are coming in at higher stealth levels but then these are not aircrafts per se. There is no human limitation involved. These should ideally be treated as a whole new class and should be bracketed with automation/robotics. Stealth will become important all through the military paradigm but that has always been part of the process of military matters.
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Re. "So why havent you pointed out a valid one without an enomous barrier ? And what make you think that Rafale side is the only side that can use various tactics and extra help from ground VHF radar , AWACS , Stealth UAV ..etc ? what stop the F-35 side from having their own support ? what if the F-35 was assigned to work with an AEGIS destroyer ?"
- See I have never said that F-35 cannot take benefit of the off board sensors. You are mis-stating the problem to begin with. The problem was that Americans claimed (chamchas too) that stealth was magical and these off-board data fusions completely leveled the field and forced the once 'untouchable' assets to fight the fight as equals (in case of F-22). In case of a lesser aircraft like F-35 the Americans ended up doing a favour for the rest of the world. Choice of F-35 falls in the same bracket as Kumbhkaran asking for the boon that he ended up asking for. Some people can also term it as a strategic miss-calculation. But characterization apart it is already a fact (prarabdh karm) and soon to be unavoidable sanchit karma. I repeat I don't mind it.
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Re. "yep ,how fair , it so easy for you to believe that Spectra with it's tiny antenna can work from 1Hz to 100Ghz but of course MALD-J can only work again seeker head and X band radar because USA is studpid "
- This has nothing to do with fairness in a French vs. Americans fight. MALD-J cannot because the aperture will never support the expectations you put on it. Its like asking Jaya Bhadhuri to speak like Amitabh Bachchan or a Pomeranian to bark like a bigger dog. The X band and Ka band apertures are much much more precision engineering but very very limited in applications while VHF has been around since ages. The L-Bands and S-Bands are are somewhere in between. But they all simply require different antenna types. Spectra has the benefit of not trying to go long range and power input needs are very big reason why radars end up big while long range jamming works out small. Very short range jamming will end up in smaller formfactors. Spectra also has the benefit of the whole fuselage of Rafale being available to it (compared to restricted body of MALD-J) and they can put any number and type of antenna arrays to get the job done. In fact MALD-J is the tactical admission that VHF are too good against F-35. The size of MALD-J with length of just under 3 meters, indicates that these MALD-J are expected to give a big return in the 1.7 to 2 meter wavelength which are said to be popular with Russian VHF Radar designers. And the expectation is true from a STAND-IN jammer which is atuned to look very much like the main F-35. But this is a small hump to cross. All the VHF radar needs to do is to cross check against IRST database already made available by Rafale/PAKFA. The MALD-J simply cannot have the EO/IR signature of an F-35. The problem actually does not even arise in the first place. Because both IRST and Radars work in lock steps.
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Re. "Semi active missiles will reveal the location of the illuminator"
- Agreed and that is why the whole world is working towards cooperative targeting with the missile guidance being handed over to the next element of the kill chain. These are early times for this shift in thinking pattern but in Non-Air-Defence missilery it is already being actively pursued and will end up as spin-off in the air defence missilery too.
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Re. "The only thing you know is the bearing ( which is esencially what a RWR will tell you anyway ) , you dont know range , altitude , aspect angle , velocity of target. And you cant just said off board and be done with it , done off board how ?"
- If 90% of all fighting is logistics (hence the size of military budgets and focuses). Rest 10% comprises of building up redundancies. The RWR is only meant to give directions (sectors still have to be cleared by the fighters by confronting the problem head on). The fighters planes must coordinate and multiply their force using off board means. There would be times when the fighter planes will be forced to evade incoming missiles and this implies long outages in coverage. Off board is important it also gives much better surveillance capacities then what the figher planes can manage realistically. A fighter planes radar was traditionally meant for hunting missions and not for guard duty. The MBTFs were designed accordingly to be very low compared to gound based radars, so they could maximise the main requirement of effective hunting. But the main task of hunting requires the hunter to be fit and fast (which F-35 is not, considering the fact it is a Strike aircraft being palmed off as a Fighter aircraft)
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Re. "So J-20 , J-31 , PAK-FA , F-35 , JSM , SOM , Storm shadow , various new UCAV ..etc are not all aspect stealth then ? and that assessment based on what ? your MK1 eye ball analysis ? how do you even define stealth here ? at what dBsm value that they should be considered stealth ?"
- As I said every element of the network needs stealth and that is hardly a discovery. But to enmesh aircrafts with airborne robotics with missiles ends up complicating the real picture. And why are you focussed on dBsM. How would you like it if the aircraft you are on (developed after spending huge monies) has low radar return but has big IR signature. What would you say to the gods - hey bhagwan please mujh ko hamesha badalon sey dhak kar rakh na taki mera IR return kabhi bhi dikhe na. Is that kind of persistent cloud cover even possible in real life.
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Re. "and as stated before , you want shorter pulse for better range resolution then you will have to sacrifice pulse power , that mean less range."
- Agreed or alternatively you could station completely inexpensive VHF arrays right at the borders linked by Ka-Band datalinks or Fiber optics and still enjoy the same range as the higher powered pulses. Also the accuracy can be improved as shown earlier.
There are always gives and takes but if the relay gets established for reasonable costs, then I don't think I as a defender will have to worry.
REPRESENTATIVE VHF ARRAYS FOR RECEIVING POSTS
http://www.ausairpower.net/PLA/YLC-4-Search-Radar-1S.jpg
http://www.ausairpower.net/PLA/JY-27-Radar-3S.jpg
Would you feel confident that an antenna like this is even worth the throwing an SDB or HARM or JDAM at and also may be endangering the F-35 itself.
Linking up these disparate sets is not a problem for Putin so long as he is within his own country or his Near Abroad. Secure, low latency, high bandwidth networks to interlink exceedingly large number of these apertures are not difficult to make.
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Re. "Here is a RAM pattern from LM https://www.google.com/patents/US20100271253#v=onepage&q&f=false"
- Here is a real study of these materials which is basically readily available to everybody including Russians, French, Chinese and Indians - http://www.ijirset.com/upload/2013/december/46_Review.pdf. And most of these countries are not even harping on these things. Only people like Gen. Mike Hostage and some of the F-35 fans in third world countries would even take note of these things.
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Re. Lockheed Patent for Carbon Nano Tubes filling in Carbon Fiber Composites to achieve low RCS.
- To quote a few relevant sections from the Patent Document:
Further still its not like these materials, actually meant for shielding and not directly for RCS reduction (which is a spinoff), are not already actually used in the F-35. These have been talked about since ages which is why despite prodding by @StealthFlanker, I refuse to take the bait of frontal +-30 degrees detection. I expect the Americans to have used these in the frontal and aft sector. No point being in that region with an AWACS and no IRST or only one or two IRST. Also since these materials weighing upto 20% by weight have been used already so there really is very little room for putting these shielding materials on F-35 going forward.
Anybody who understands the problem of air defence will understand that at any given time the AD sensors will be well dispersed and hence will ensure exceedingly good volume coverage while the bandit F-35 simply must fly most times in straight lines. This allows for resolution of cloud and weather cover as well as the problem of LPI detection by F-35 AESA. In such a scenario it is useless to even postulate that the AD sensors will not get better coverage.
Since all my replies are on account of comments/rejoinders of @StealthFlanker, I am dispensing with the forum multi-quote replies because it is difficult to manage. Instead I am simply putting his comments in direct quotes. This however does not mean that the post is directed at @StealthFlanker only. My intent is to write for all because it seems like he has already made up his mind.
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Re. - https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/...g-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/
- Norwegian Air force has only F-16A & B (basically similar). F-16C was the first real change to enhance the envelop "The airframe was provided with greater structural strength, which raised the 9G capability from 26,900 pounds to 28,500 pounds. Maximum take-off weight was increased to 42,300lbs (19,187kg). - http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article7.html". This strengthening would have an effect all through the envelop not just at the edge of the flight envelop. That is why people regard F-16C is the a better optimized air to air fighter in the whole series of 16s. That is why F-16C vs. F-35 would be the one to watch for. That too after the F-16C is allowed to come with Air to Air combat loadings. The Norwegian AF pilot in his original blogpost http://nettsteder.regjeringen.no/kampfly/2015/06/30/dogfight-og-f-35/ (you will have to google translate) actually says this : "So how does this apply in the case of an engagement between the F-16 and the F-35? It depends, and it particularly depends on how the F-16 is loaded. A stripped-down F-16 is a formidable opponent to anyone in BFM. However, this changes quickly when we dress the F-16 up for combat. If we are to compare the F-16 and F-35 on an equal basis, we must assume that the F-16 will be carrying both external fuel, a «jamming pod» for electronic warfare, weapon mounts for bombs, missiles and a camera pod for target acquisition and illumination. With this loadout, the F-16´s performance is significantly reduced: The maximum angle of attack is reduced by 40% (the ability to move the nose away from the direction of travel), the roll rate is lowered, the maximum allowable airspeed is reduced and the g-limitations are stricter."
Notice the word "must assume" (else the F-35 drops dead without even giving a fight). And mind you the F-16 has been killed by Mirage-2000 which in turn has been killed by Mig-29 and which in turn has been killed by Su-30MKI.
These additional wordings are there in the English language version of the blog also :
The original that was translated in Google translate as I have provided was
-http://nettsteder.regjeringen.no/kampfly/2015/06/30/dogfight-og-f-35/
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Re. - F-4 vs. Rafale.
- I would say both are evenly matched for air to air WVR combat. Comparison below:
F-4_Phantom_II - Empty weight of 13757 kg & the installed power is two engines each of 52.9 kN/79.4 kN with Wing area of 49.2 sq. mtr. and it held several of the records that were later beaten only by F-15
Rafale - Empty weight of 9850 to 10300 kg & the installed power is two engines each of 50.04 kN/75.62 kN with Wing area of 45.7 sq. mtr.
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Re. Sniper-XR being same as IRST and saying Sniper-XR failed to detect F-35
- No sir, had that been the case the French Areos could have been used as a Super-IRST-AWACS. But it is not. It is known that Sniper-XR is the basis of EOTS (IRST of F-35) but you can see how difficult the journey has been for EOTS. Moreover Lockheed which claims to have air-to-air capabilities in Sniper pod still is struggling with the IRST-21 on the centreline fuel tank which is supposed to be a true IRST. Luckily for F-35 it has DAS too so some part of the cross-range tracking in the WVR is handled by the staring arrays but if the same has to be done in a Zoom TWS mode for a far off part of sky, then Sniper-XR is pretty much useless as an IRST. Actually the Areos has only recently developed this capability of large format TWS (The Areos front end has a distinct zoom inset facility within the main display). Probably the best analogy to an IRST is the Theodolite while the best analogy to a strike oriented imager is the LOROP pods. One must specialize at calculating angles fast for targets that are being cooperative (in IR regime) while the other must be able to image properly in a stare mode even if the target is not cooperative or is actively camoflauging itself. While both carry zoom magnification but one is meant for fast cross range calculations while the other is meant for capturing large swathes of targeted areas with long dwell times, even if without much of angle details in it.
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Re. "This is F-35 in airshow - it finished a 180 degrees turn in 7 seconds ( From 2:44-2:51) that equal to average turn rate of 25 -26 degrees/second , and F-35 is limited to 7G at the moment…..i cant even find video of Rafale turning at 25 degrees/second"
- 25.71 degrees = 180 degrees / 7 seconds = 360/14............soon.
@Bonplan has explained adequately why this is wrong. If this type of linear comparison was true then F-35 should finish 360 degrees and 14 seconds, two turns in 28 seconds and so on .... without ever slowing down.
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Re. "but 60% more fuel ?"
- Yes Sir, 60% more fuel than F-16 and a huge 180% more fuel consumption than A-10. Consult DOT&E Michel J. Gilmour reports to House committees (I think 2015 but they are all hosted on US gov site and it is crazy to ask for links to these sites which are prominent and official. Beside the link will embarrass you even further. I don't wish to do that)
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Re. "P-42"
- All said and done nearly all high performance jets Rafale, Sukhois, F-22, Typhoons will behave similarly. But no chance in putrid burning hell for the Joint STRIKE Fighter, even if you strip it down to absolute naked.
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Re. English Electric Lightning and F-16 can both reach mach 1.1 on dry thrust alone
- Not with any useful load for English Electric Lightening which is not the case with Rafale. Marut too could super cruise in a dive and rumour is of Canberra as well. Not all supercruise are the same. For F-16XL yes it could but again the loading was never mentioned. In any case the useful load criteria is the most important even before you mention supercruise. Rafale can do it with useful load (4 AAM + Fuel tank or 6 AAM - more than enough for F-35). Some reports suggest even Su-35S will be a supercruiser.
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Re. "you are also missing heading , velocity of target"
- For jamming experienced by AWACS, which is what we are talking about in this context, these parameters for jammers are irrelevant. Only thing things that can jam an AWACS are as big as Palena-1 (static) or may be another AWACS (theoritical capability not worth discussing in operational contexts).
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Re. "ever heard about sides lobes jamming ?"
- Irrelevant. Northrop in official documentation claims all receivers working. Only transmission is stopped and only towards the the one particular subsector in a Sector search. Jammer is free to do whatever it likes. As I said before the Jammer too can be jammed without the jammer ever getting to know of it.
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Re. "Yes linked together they can use triangulation to determine the jammer (MALD-J ) location , but that it , they still dont see the F-35 that was protected by the jammer"
- Highly presumptious to think that anybody would waste their time triangulating an MALD-J. Rafale or Sukhois will just need to compare the radar returns with the IRST tracks. MALD-J will not have the same IR return as an F-35.
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Re. "No, i already explained to you the towed array have longer range because it is less affected by the ship own noise"
- Irrelevant. The Atlas Electronik illustration becomes comparable (a state they are trying to reach for reader's benefit) when the ship is stationary. You can wish that the illustration shows the ship moving, so your wishes can somehow come true but unfortunately for you, the illustration is meant to be comparative and not to hand out education. Atlas Electronik people are acting like professionals when they tried to give comparatives.
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Re. "The receiver need to be protected too ,and it needs to be linked to the transmitter"
- True and that is not difficult. Nearly the whole world today is hooked up by one form of device or another. Making these links is not difficult. Like you’re the directional Ka band datalink you yourself mention.
Here is another Off The Shelf Commercial directional datalink http://www.tecom-ind.com/files/0/536142d02811a-Web10inchTDLFixedorOntheMove.pdf .
Anybody who has, for once understood beamforming and beam sharpening will be able to make these.
But Rafale and Russians, Chinese, Indians all have access to this level of technology and will use it as they deem fit.
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Re. "It is a matter of where the spike located 30 degrees board side is a total of 60 degrees , given that it is an AWACs that fairly reasonable."
- European AWACS which I think are S Band cannot triangulate anything with fighters equiped with X band receivers. And if perchance they have either put X band receivers on AWACS or S-Band receivers on Typhoons then nothing stops the rest of the world from doing the same. That is what Russians infact are doing by putting the L-Band array onto PAKFA.
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Re. "Nope , according to official information , it is simply an IFF and ECM system"
- Official information about the L-Band Array on PAKFA says nothing of the sort. It only claims that it is capable of beam control in azimuth. After that it is your presumption that it is only for ECM.
http://www.niip.ru/eng/index.php?op...cle&id=22:-l-&catid=30:esa-with-ebs&Itemid=42
That, it is not a radar, is your presumption to help you remain in your own comfort zone. Beam forming can obviously be for multiple reasons including IFF interrogations but there is no restriction being talked about by the Russians in this regard.
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Re. "F-35 only equiped with 2000 lbs JDAM instead of SDB which have much longer range. And eventhough Typhoon have IRST too , it still has to rely on AWACs being stationed on a certain angle in respect to F-35 flight path"
- Again, I would say the report has insufficient details. Eurofighter in 2010 may or may not have been capable of understanding how F-35 signatures would be in multistatic radar arrangement. Also you are missing the fact that Pirate sets were being delivered only 3 years before (August 2007 to Italian air force) compared to the simulation study by Eurofighter (reported by flightglobal in July 2010). You cannot be sure that IRST failed.
Here is a representative report of March 2010 which shows no Pirate IRST:
Even more importantly since Pirate IRST has no accompanying laser range finder so Typhoon will be using passive triangulation ranging. That shows confidence in passive triangulated ranging and a capacity to range using Captor radar.
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Re. "The only reason multistatic arrangement can sometimes see stealth aircraft from longer distance than mono static arrangement is because the receivers sometimes located at a direction where the RCS scattering is high ( or by your own words , signal is not equally weak in all direction )"
- No sir again. I mentioned that the signal is not weak in all directions in the context of thermoclines that you wanted to use to against illustrations of Atlas Electroniks for Sonars. And since thermoclines are not there in all directions equally so the range increases again moving from bistatic sonar to multistatic sonar. This is about clutter.
The spike you mention is also relevant because conformal stealth characterized by parrallel lines seeks (unlike say small faceted structure F-117) to direct most of the reflected energy in small number of particular directions where the spike will be bigger then even normals. F-117 mostly aimed to diffuse the reflections into several different areas. The former will yield a huge spike in very limited set of directions. The later F-117 will yeild detectable return in most directions but quite low. Spike you mention does not need to invoke clutter.
There is a third case of multistatic radars which off course cannot be prepositioned since F-35 will not intrude after announcement. This arrangement will yield range increase, range resolution improvements and also azimuth and elevation improvements. Improvements in this regard has nothing to do with behaviour of target RCS. This has everything to do with the return signal journey being short circuited by inexpensive passive receivers right at the border.
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Re. "because the high RCS spike is very far from the nose , your receivers and transmitters in your multi static arrangement need to be located at long distance from each others"
- This is just theorizing based on wrong premise. The baselines for triangulations can be created even by way of altitude differences. In which case the weapons range of the escorting fighters will actually increase as well as the close in merge speeds.
Be that as it may, what I have repeatedly said is that while 1 Rafale may not be enough to detect any F-35 using IRST triangulations but two are more than enough to detect and track ALL F-35 in the FOV.
Thus the reality is not one of hugely dislocated defending Rafales but that of, only one Rafale/Sukhoi, breaking up from the formation and stationing itself a few kilometers away or above mostly well behind the fourship of Rafales/Typhoons/Sukhoi.
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Re. "So what would stop the F-35 from launching missiles at the PAK-FA , Rafale in this case ?"
- Nothing does using the same tactics that Rafale/Sukhois will deploy. Stealth claim was the high ground of F-35 and IRST and multiband multistatic radars have only leveled the field. F-35 comes with IRST too and it too can passively triangulate. Unfortuntely F-35 lacks the characterstics to optimally benefit from its sensors compared to Rafales & Sukhois.
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Re. "the problem with low-frequency radar is not only their range resolution but their angular resolution , range resolution can be improved easily by using shorter pulse , angular resolution ? not so simple……….but if target is 50-100 km km aways , you need to know range ,altitude , heading and velocity otherwise your missiles will never reach target"
- What can one say about this?
Ok bhailog since @StealthFlanker has already made up his mind, I present this to you so you may kindly decide if its going to work or not for trajectory predictions and reducing error bounds. Attaching two images for your viewing pleasure.
ERROR BOX RESOLUTION FOR MULTISTATIC RADARS & IMPROVEMENTS IN PREDICTIVE ILLUMINATION DUE TO EO/IR CHANNELS - http://i.imgur.com/51coaVh.jpg
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Re. "what stop F-35 from stay at long distance and loft these JSM , JSOW-ER or SPEAR at S-400 battery ?"
- Nothing, except aircrafts and air defence techniques that are superior to the capability set of F-35 performances across parameters. Nothing really stops a dog from wishing to hump an elephant except the dog's own level of existence.
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Re. "Same problem again IRST need to rely on LRF for range and velocity measurement , and LRF isnt so high , and btw engine thrust isnot directly proportional to the heat give out"
- You are sorely mistaken about LRF being not so high ranged. Lasers are already measuring 100 km + distances on military platforms and it is not difficult at all. Its just that nobody has the time for it given easily available alternatives and additionally the fact that use of lasers is easily caught by the Laser Warners on Stealthy platforms.
Since you have again made up your mind I will go to others. Bhailog please use the benchmark set by DAS staring sensor and provided by F-35 office, to infer about the real capabilities of IRSTs and you can form an opinion as to what exactly will be the net effect of engine exhaust cooling by F-35. Remember the problem essentially is to detect F-35 sized target at 100-200 km.
FOR IR/EO INVERSE SQUARE LAW AS APPLIED TO JSF ENGINES USING DAS IMAGERY AS BENCHMARKS - http://i.imgur.com/QyIcawz.jpg
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Re. "It doesnt matter if your receiver is also Ka band , the advantage of Ka band datalink is that it is very directional and it have very high attenuation , so unless your receiver stayed between 2 F-35 communicate with each other , you wont be able to detect it, that the point."
- Agreed earlier, agreeing again. I merely go carried away on a theoretical chase.
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Re. "EA-18G and NGJ are both for standoff jamming"
- These are niche products not bulk products. Especially the EA-18G. NGJ isa as yet an unknown evolution so not much can be said about it. Bulk of jamming is moving out of the barrage jamming regimes exemplified by the EA-18G, since long and in many different areas. EA-18G Stand off jamming is basically relying on existence of legacy equipment in the AD chain which cannot be updated without substantial investments and most of the real adversaries that US has to fight against usually have these legacy systems. US would be hard pressed to employ these systems against more capable adversaries.
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Re. "The VHF sensor is always for early warning , they dont use it for FCR , main FCR for ICBM such as THAAD and SPY-1 still in high frequency instead of VHF or UHF"
- Do you want me to say that VHF is for FCR so you can feel ok. Well I never said VHF is for FCR and I hope you still get to feel better eventually with time. The absolute minimum need for VHF radars is only and only for Range and velocity estimation everything else can be passively calculated. Almost all Russian FCRs for SAMs have accompanying Optical Trackers all stationed in the forward area. Buks and Pantsirs are all fully capable of being integrated into S-400 systems.
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Re. "Yes you did challenged me when you keep on saying that MALD-J cannot jam AWACs because it look small"
- I did not challenge you on burn throughs because that theory is well understood. I am still challenging you on MALD-J which simply cannot jam any AWACS or any radar that is not working in the X and Ka band. Even this is a huge leeway allowed because the only way MALD-J will be able to jam both X and Ka bands is when it has dual band X and Ka band TR modules. This is a recent development and I strongly doubt if the Americans will part ways with it by using it in an expendable jammer.
The MALD-J array simply will not be able to manage all the requirements you wish it to - jamming FCR, Seekers, AWACS. Even X-Band FCRs will be able to make out if its an MALD-J or an F-35 under certain circumstances. MALD-J for example will not be able to keep up if the FCR also begins to use its LPI modes. Just the S-Band radar in Akash battery for example is capable of listening in the X-Band even though its main transmission is in the C Band. This too will have an impact on MALD-J performace if pitted against the Mixed C-Band & X-Band FCR of Akash SAM. Then as I said the MALD-J will not even know that it is being cancelled out while all the available power is being sourced into a singular LPI beam tracking F-35. Ground/Ship based X-Band FCR will have the power needed to see even the F-35 esp. from the sides and top and bottom which keep getting exposed if the F-35 is forced to maneuver. The problems get accentuated only with the aircraft based X-Band radars with limited power at disposal and limited number of waveforms trying to track F-35 from the frontal sector (a very limited set of problem). Ship and Ground based radars don't face these limitations. Especially with Ground based FCR, even if they lose out on height advantage (like Ship based ones) they gain in terms of being much closer to the outer edge of the AD battlefield which means they can afford to engage the LO targets at least 20/30 km (high ECM deployment) into enemy territory and a similar range inside own (should the F-35 actually be able to intrude). Moreover any kind of jamming can begin to register its effectiveness only after the radar has transmitted first and with LPI sets every transmission can be the first one and in multiple ways. Now, so while MALD-J does not have the right antenna to jam the AWACS it also may end up ineffective against Ka/X-Band AESA seekers as they race ever nearer to their targets and begin to become effective at closer ranges. These AESA seekers will be made to land as close as 25 meters (Vostok radars) of the F-35. Do you think this is still effective. Now since the AESA seeker would already know what frequencies it has transmitted and MALD-J can only work as a dependent function of these transmissions do you realize that the AESA seeker could itself be cancelling out the jamming signal from the MALD-J.
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Re. "it you who keep insisting that MALD-J cant jam low frequency , but have no problem believing that Spectra can operate from 1 Hz to 100 Ghz oh and FYI , jamming at closer distance is actually harder"
- Jamming at any distance is not hard now. Its just that the jammer waves too can be cancelled so nobody really cares except for niche applications and to introduce unpredictability for the opponent, a purpose for which these are still good.
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Re. "Frequency hoping and PRF jittering are among the easiest things to change"
- Yes you can change it but only from within a fixed set of options. Once all these options have been opened up and analysed (say during wartime) by somebody analysing these there is no way to go back and fix things without some headaches involved. That is why Ground based radars have much wider choice in the waveforms to ensure redundancies, even if analysed and databased in Jammer library.
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Re. "Bigger aperture = higher gain = longer range = able to do IFF at longer distance = able to engage sooner while still obey ROE , pretty important for stealth aircraft if you ask me ( but ofcourse fan boy dont care about IFF ). A bigger IFF antenna also mean it is more directional , which mean PAK-FA will alert less targets in the area compared to normal IFF antenna Also according to Russian official information the array can also be used as jammer in L band which mean it can be used to jam certain thing like Link-16 datalink"
- PAKFA would be the first LO aircraft to announce its own presence that way. IFF howsover big cannot be made to be as clean as tracking beams. Besides any beam that will be made from such an array can only be vertical scanning one. So it is crazy to guard against IFF detections in azimuth only to lose the advantage in elevation.
With this kind of IFF around (given that it bears easily identifiable characterstics) the F-35 can easily drop the mission and have the mission escalated to next level (theater cruise/ballistic missiles). Only cost will be the fuel lost and a few extra man hours of maintenance.
With missile costs going down rapidly there is no need to fight the 'my way or no way' style. There are always options to do it better.
No doubt earlier interrogation is important but that does not mean you reveal yourself. Nearly all Russian radars have a separate secondary surveilance radar integrated with the main array. That is the one meant for very long range interrogations. For WVR ranges interrogations are not needed. A fighter will require only the interrogations for the twilight zone when the ground based secondary surveillance radars are not available for the duty.
Also I don't deny that the array will be IFF capable. It makes sense to do that. But there is absolutely no reason why the L Band array cannot be a radar.
To address this objection properly again I take the help of bhailog on here. Bhailog here are 2 COLLAGEs one meant to show what the conformal L-Band antenna meant for IFF are going to look like in the Stealth aircrafts. Another collage shows that this sort of arrangement has been used at least for 15+ years and it is not difficult to manage. The limitation is that it will give only a vertical fan shaped waveform and there cannot be any horizontal wave form associated with this sort of array. This is even more important because VHF radars when in monostatic mode will face difficulties narrowing down the aziumuth. I have left the humans in those pictures (heads and breasts
in the absence of anything better) to help bhailog understand exactly how big the array is.COLLAGE 1 OF CONFORMAL IFF PRE-PRINTED L BAND DIPOLE ANTENNE USED BOTH IN ROTATING AND LINEAR IFF
http://i.imgur.com/RMcXmba.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/v2keQEO.jpg
COLLAGE 2 OF PHYSICAL DIMENSION OF MESA TOP HAT FRONT AND AFT COVERAGE ARRAYS VS. L BAND ARRAYS ON PAKFA
http://i.imgur.com/RqoANcG.jpg
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Re. "Because of gain , a L band of that side will have an enormous beam width compared to the X band fire control radar , a bigger beam width will not only reduce your accuracy , it will also reduce your radar range , because power is much less concentrated , you can use the formula below to see how big a difference would be for an X band and L band of equal size ( which in this case even worse because the L-band arrays is smaller.)"
- So what make you think that the beam is not shorter ranged compared to a regular L Band AWACS beam.
The purpose may be different - PAKFA is not an AWACS. All PAKFA needs is range from its own L-Band array for its own missiles, whatever the weather. For long range detection the much more powerful illumination will be provided by the AWACS and the PAKFA L-Band Array will only seek out like any ordinary Semi-Active Seeker. The range itself will be provided by the TDOA by the AWACS itself given that the AWACS knows the position of PAKFA at any given time.
Also the L-Band Array on PAKFA is not small. It is small only if you want to produce a flat horizontal beam. But if the Beam has to be horizontal and Razor sharp the array is perfect. Check out the MESA sold to Australians. Does that look debilitated in the way you think about PAKFA array. No doubt the PAKFA arrangement as well as the MESA arrangements are compromises. But these compromises plug in well to the limitations the respective airforces face or have faced:
1) Australians needed a much much bigger array for main beam (huge ocean coverage and stealth readiness) but with assured front and aft sector coverage without having to pay for a regular American made AWACS. Hence the Top Hat has those simplifed array front and aft of main array.
2) Russian needed something to bridge the gap between VHF and the X-Band/IR and they did this with L-Band arrays (GAMMA-D)on ground and L-Band arrays on PAKFA (also to be on FGFA). If you use the full 2 wing array of PAKFA you end up with bigger aperture then even the MESA.
I agree even the L-Band is not primarily for FCR as it cannot be but it is an absolute necessity as a bridge. That is why even the S-400 has an L-Band radar between the regular X-Band FCR and the VHF. That is why I said earlier the Russian kill chain is very robust with things falling into place exactly when needed even though in emergencies even a debilitated kill chain can aim to force abortion of missions on the F-35.
Even if the Russians launch the longest ranged S-400 missiles based only on VHF radar coverage (L band and X band being impared) they have one option of relying on multistatic arrangements of VHF which the Belorussians (with smaller apertures) are willing to show works till around 25 or 60 meters (for monostatics). This level of coverage can still be made to work much much better for multistatic arrangments.
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Re. "I already explained before. But let me ask you this , if stealth is so easily to be neutralised then why all the big nation (china , USA , Russian , Japan , UK , Canada , Australia , Korean , Indian ) want stealth aircraft ? are they dumb ?"
- Stealth has been part of military tactics and strategy since before the Americans re-discovered it and imagined that they have found the final answer. Stealth is off course necessary but even stealth is not the "necessary and sufficient" answer to the problems faced by military leaderships. I hate most military leaderships including Indian ones but the least that they have always recognised is that they need to make the stealth fit in. And this is something I cannot fight against. Stealth peaked at B-2 and F-22 and is now in optimization phase. Russian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese even American platforms (F-35) come at a lower stealth level as they feel they need. Only UCAVs/UAVs are coming in at higher stealth levels but then these are not aircrafts per se. There is no human limitation involved. These should ideally be treated as a whole new class and should be bracketed with automation/robotics. Stealth will become important all through the military paradigm but that has always been part of the process of military matters.
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Re. "So why havent you pointed out a valid one without an enomous barrier ? And what make you think that Rafale side is the only side that can use various tactics and extra help from ground VHF radar , AWACS , Stealth UAV ..etc ? what stop the F-35 side from having their own support ? what if the F-35 was assigned to work with an AEGIS destroyer ?"
- See I have never said that F-35 cannot take benefit of the off board sensors. You are mis-stating the problem to begin with. The problem was that Americans claimed (chamchas too) that stealth was magical and these off-board data fusions completely leveled the field and forced the once 'untouchable' assets to fight the fight as equals (in case of F-22). In case of a lesser aircraft like F-35 the Americans ended up doing a favour for the rest of the world. Choice of F-35 falls in the same bracket as Kumbhkaran asking for the boon that he ended up asking for. Some people can also term it as a strategic miss-calculation. But characterization apart it is already a fact (prarabdh karm) and soon to be unavoidable sanchit karma. I repeat I don't mind it.
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Re. "yep ,how fair , it so easy for you to believe that Spectra with it's tiny antenna can work from 1Hz to 100Ghz but of course MALD-J can only work again seeker head and X band radar because USA is studpid "
- This has nothing to do with fairness in a French vs. Americans fight. MALD-J cannot because the aperture will never support the expectations you put on it. Its like asking Jaya Bhadhuri to speak like Amitabh Bachchan or a Pomeranian to bark like a bigger dog. The X band and Ka band apertures are much much more precision engineering but very very limited in applications while VHF has been around since ages. The L-Bands and S-Bands are are somewhere in between. But they all simply require different antenna types. Spectra has the benefit of not trying to go long range and power input needs are very big reason why radars end up big while long range jamming works out small. Very short range jamming will end up in smaller formfactors. Spectra also has the benefit of the whole fuselage of Rafale being available to it (compared to restricted body of MALD-J) and they can put any number and type of antenna arrays to get the job done. In fact MALD-J is the tactical admission that VHF are too good against F-35. The size of MALD-J with length of just under 3 meters, indicates that these MALD-J are expected to give a big return in the 1.7 to 2 meter wavelength which are said to be popular with Russian VHF Radar designers. And the expectation is true from a STAND-IN jammer which is atuned to look very much like the main F-35. But this is a small hump to cross. All the VHF radar needs to do is to cross check against IRST database already made available by Rafale/PAKFA. The MALD-J simply cannot have the EO/IR signature of an F-35. The problem actually does not even arise in the first place. Because both IRST and Radars work in lock steps.
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Re. "Semi active missiles will reveal the location of the illuminator"
- Agreed and that is why the whole world is working towards cooperative targeting with the missile guidance being handed over to the next element of the kill chain. These are early times for this shift in thinking pattern but in Non-Air-Defence missilery it is already being actively pursued and will end up as spin-off in the air defence missilery too.
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Re. "The only thing you know is the bearing ( which is esencially what a RWR will tell you anyway ) , you dont know range , altitude , aspect angle , velocity of target. And you cant just said off board and be done with it , done off board how ?"
- If 90% of all fighting is logistics (hence the size of military budgets and focuses). Rest 10% comprises of building up redundancies. The RWR is only meant to give directions (sectors still have to be cleared by the fighters by confronting the problem head on). The fighters planes must coordinate and multiply their force using off board means. There would be times when the fighter planes will be forced to evade incoming missiles and this implies long outages in coverage. Off board is important it also gives much better surveillance capacities then what the figher planes can manage realistically. A fighter planes radar was traditionally meant for hunting missions and not for guard duty. The MBTFs were designed accordingly to be very low compared to gound based radars, so they could maximise the main requirement of effective hunting. But the main task of hunting requires the hunter to be fit and fast (which F-35 is not, considering the fact it is a Strike aircraft being palmed off as a Fighter aircraft)
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Re. "So J-20 , J-31 , PAK-FA , F-35 , JSM , SOM , Storm shadow , various new UCAV ..etc are not all aspect stealth then ? and that assessment based on what ? your MK1 eye ball analysis ? how do you even define stealth here ? at what dBsm value that they should be considered stealth ?"
- As I said every element of the network needs stealth and that is hardly a discovery. But to enmesh aircrafts with airborne robotics with missiles ends up complicating the real picture. And why are you focussed on dBsM. How would you like it if the aircraft you are on (developed after spending huge monies) has low radar return but has big IR signature. What would you say to the gods - hey bhagwan please mujh ko hamesha badalon sey dhak kar rakh na taki mera IR return kabhi bhi dikhe na. Is that kind of persistent cloud cover even possible in real life.
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Re. "and as stated before , you want shorter pulse for better range resolution then you will have to sacrifice pulse power , that mean less range."
- Agreed or alternatively you could station completely inexpensive VHF arrays right at the borders linked by Ka-Band datalinks or Fiber optics and still enjoy the same range as the higher powered pulses. Also the accuracy can be improved as shown earlier.
There are always gives and takes but if the relay gets established for reasonable costs, then I don't think I as a defender will have to worry.
REPRESENTATIVE VHF ARRAYS FOR RECEIVING POSTS
http://www.ausairpower.net/PLA/YLC-4-Search-Radar-1S.jpg
http://www.ausairpower.net/PLA/JY-27-Radar-3S.jpg
Would you feel confident that an antenna like this is even worth the throwing an SDB or HARM or JDAM at and also may be endangering the F-35 itself.
Linking up these disparate sets is not a problem for Putin so long as he is within his own country or his Near Abroad. Secure, low latency, high bandwidth networks to interlink exceedingly large number of these apertures are not difficult to make.
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Re. "Here is a RAM pattern from LM https://www.google.com/patents/US20100271253#v=onepage&q&f=false"
- Here is a real study of these materials which is basically readily available to everybody including Russians, French, Chinese and Indians - http://www.ijirset.com/upload/2013/december/46_Review.pdf. And most of these countries are not even harping on these things. Only people like Gen. Mike Hostage and some of the F-35 fans in third world countries would even take note of these things.
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Re. Lockheed Patent for Carbon Nano Tubes filling in Carbon Fiber Composites to achieve low RCS.
- To quote a few relevant sections from the Patent Document:
So the difference between the upper and lower bounds of the loadings (by weights) is 60000:1. Should the F-35 try to be stealthy to everything from Ka band seekers to OTH radars from all aspect then it must be ready to get 60% higher in empty weight compared to an LCA type CFC skin (what that does to fuel weights, payload sacrifice, engine weights and plumes can be guessed). Now how much difficult it is to push through the air an F-35 that is merely 11% over the stock version (F-35B) or 20% over (for F-35C). To understand that please refer the following:
Further consider the need for Stand-In jamming by MALD-J. The MALD-J is made in that form factor because it is expected to stand in for the F-35 and give almost the same signature even in the VHF band. However as I said it is a small problem easily resolvable by data fusing with IRST tracks and not a solution to the vunerability of F-35 to VHF radars. VHF radars in any case have to hand over the tracks to L-Bands and IRST at some point so they may even dispense with cross checking. The cross checking may be left entirely to ground based and aircraft mated IRSTs.
Further still its not like these materials, actually meant for shielding and not directly for RCS reduction (which is a spinoff), are not already actually used in the F-35. These have been talked about since ages which is why despite prodding by @StealthFlanker, I refuse to take the bait of frontal +-30 degrees detection. I expect the Americans to have used these in the frontal and aft sector. No point being in that region with an AWACS and no IRST or only one or two IRST. Also since these materials weighing upto 20% by weight have been used already so there really is very little room for putting these shielding materials on F-35 going forward.
Anybody who understands the problem of air defence will understand that at any given time the AD sensors will be well dispersed and hence will ensure exceedingly good volume coverage while the bandit F-35 simply must fly most times in straight lines. This allows for resolution of cloud and weather cover as well as the problem of LPI detection by F-35 AESA. In such a scenario it is useless to even postulate that the AD sensors will not get better coverage.
