6th gen figher

[orcbuster]

IIRC reflective materials are unsuited for aircraft due to them loosing their required smoothness from wear and tear when flying.

[varis]

I think we'll be seeing soft-kill lasers (seeker-head blinding, etc) before we see lasers that can kill missiles or UAVs.

Didn't we see that in the first Gulf War over 20 years back? (I mean the first Gulf War of 1990-91.) Or am I mixing it but it's like a real no brainer. It was in the daily newspaper that potential eye damage to the opponent is a bit of an issue.

[Killertomato]

Didn't we see that in the first Gulf War over 20 years back? (I mean the first Gulf War of 1990-91.) Or am I mixing it but it's like a real no brainer. It was in the daily newspaper that potential eye damage to the opponent is a bit of an issue.

There have been (eye-safe or no) blinding weapons around for a looooooong time, but afaik no deployed examples of such a thing on a modern platform except AN/AAQ-24.

[Yakhont]

IIRC reflective materials are unsuited for aircraft due to them loosing their required smoothness from wear and tear when flying.

Actually you don't need surface smoothness for it to be reflective. Think of a white wall and how it appears white because it reflects all the light off it, but it cannot show an image because the light is reflected in all directions. For a smooth surface like a mirror you have most light reflected at a particular angle giving you an image.

[Mike]

I think we'll be seeing soft-kill lasers (seeker-head blinding, etc) before we see lasers that can kill missiles or UAVs.

Didn't we see that in the first Gulf War over 20 years back? (I mean the first Gulf War of 1990-91.) Or am I mixing it but it's like a real no brainer. It was in the daily newspaper that potential eye damage to the opponent is a bit of an issue.

Hey, they can't hit what they can't see!

[Vulcan 607]

I think we'll be seeing soft-kill lasers (seeker-head blinding, etc) before we see lasers that can kill missiles or UAVs.

Didn't we see that in the first Gulf War over 20 years back? (I mean the first Gulf War of 1990-91.) Or am I mixing it but it's like a real no brainer. It was in the daily newspaper that potential eye damage to the opponent is a bit of an issue.

daszlers were used by the RN in the Falklands

[AJE]

It looks like this could be defeated with an approach similar to that of taking out SAMs. Load up a lot of smaller, cheaper aircraft like J-10s or F-16s with decoys like the MALD-J and anti-air ARM missiles. When the RWR (or the ARM) detects the aircraft being targeted by radar, have one of the aircraft launch a MALD-J to draw off the missile, or lure the stealth fighter to fire another missile at it. In the meantime, an ARM will be launched at the stealth fighter to either kill it, or force it to shut down its radar, go evasive, and abandon the datalink to the missiles it launched, making them miss. Once this is done, the stealth fighter might go back to firing missiles at the aircraft, but they'll have launched another decoy just to make sure it gets targeted and not the aircraft themselves. If the decoy is targeted, then the stealth fighter can expect another ARM to be launched. All the while the aircraft will be closing with the stealth fighter. The process will likely repeat itself, or the stealth fighter will simply leave its radar off for fear of being targeted again, and after a few minutes the aircraft will close to WVR range. At this range IR missiles can target the stealth fighter as well as the smaller aircraft, and the stealth aircraft will be outnumbered.

[kvnrthr]

It looks like this could be defeated with an approach similar to that of taking out SAMs. Load up a lot of smaller, cheaper aircraft like J-10s or F-16s with decoys like the MALD-J and anti-air ARM missiles. When the RWR (or the ARM) detects the aircraft being targeted by radar, have one of the aircraft launch a MALD-J to draw off the missile, or lure the stealth fighter to fire another missile at it. In the meantime, an ARM will be launched at the stealth fighter to either kill it, or force it to shut down its radar, go evasive, and abandon the datalink to the missiles it launched, making them miss. Once this is done, the stealth fighter might go back to firing missiles at the aircraft, but they'll have launched another decoy just to make sure it gets targeted and not the aircraft themselves. If the decoy is targeted, then the stealth fighter can expect another ARM to be launched. All the while the aircraft will be closing with the stealth fighter. The process will likely repeat itself, or the stealth fighter will simply leave its radar off for fear of being targeted again, and after a few minutes the aircraft will close to WVR range. At this range IR missiles can target the stealth fighter as well as the smaller aircraft, and the stealth aircraft will be outnumbered.

Won't most stealth fighters be attacking passively as well? IIRC a datalink should be able to allow only one stealth fighter to actually have its radar active, the other fighters using that data to launch their missiles as well.

I believe that F&F missiles only need to be guided by the launching aircraft to a certain point, then after that can operate autonomously.

[AJE]

Won't most stealth fighters be attacking passively as well? IIRC a datalink should be able to allow only one stealth fighter to actually have its radar active, the other fighters using that data to launch their missiles as well.

I believe that F&F missiles only need to be guided by the launching aircraft to a certain point, then after that can operate autonomously.

The stealth fighters could attack passively as well, but it would only force the aircraft to turn off their radar (or maybe destroy one of them), while they could still launch decoys and anti-air ARMs. Both sides could effectively force each other to fight without radar, which would reduce the fight to infrared weapons and sensors only. In that case, the upgraded lightweight fighters would be roughly on par with the stealth aircraft, and they would be more numerous.

If the stealth fighters use a datalink, then the one that is using its radar will be targeted, and it will have to turn its radar off, with the same results as if all the fighters had guided their own missiles. This assumes the datalink itself can't be picked up by an ARM.

Of course, the missiles only operate autonomously when close to their target, and the stealth fighters would have to turn their radars off long before they could guide the missile that far.

[Darth-Lampshade]

If these lightweight fighters are firing off anti-radiation missiles in the hopes of forcing the stealth fighters to switch their radars to standby they will soon be out of missiles and helpless. Against something moving as fast as a fighter it won't take very long for such missiles to lose any chance of reacquiring the target. Such tactics would also be seriously hindered if you're dealing with two or more groups of stealth aircraft from different directions.