I think you're overstating the impact of stealth aircraft on warfare a bit:
1. There are a couple types of stealth UAVs used for reconnaissance (like the American RQ-180 and the Chinese WZ-10) but this isn't a major use of the technology, in large part because the countries capable of producing stealth aircraft mostly do their strategic reconnaissance with satellites now.
2. Stealth aircraft often can't "track enemies from far away while being 'invisible' themselves", because to do that they would have to turn on their own radars, which would give away their presence. The F-35 tries to get around this with really good infrared imaging sensors, but those still have a limited ability to precisely track enemy aircraft at long distances. Also air-to-air missiles generally aren't optimized for stealth, so once you fire those your enemies will recognize they're being engaged.
3. Reflective stealth designs are less effective against the low-frequency emissions of large ground-based radars, so it would be hard for stealth bombers to achieve complete surprise in a strategic first strike against a capable adversary. Even Yugoslavia was able to detect and shoot down an F-117 using air defense systems from the 1960s.
More generally, there just hasn't been a war yet where a country using stealth aircraft went up against a peer competitor with modern countermeasures, so it's hard to know how well they would perform in practice. It's certainly a useful technology, but it hasn't been demonstrated to revolutionize conventional warfare quite yet.
I agree that in 2025 UAVs (which are way cheaper than planes) and satellites might make recon much less based on stealth. But they really were critical for the 1980s I think.
"Stealth aircraft often can't "track enemies from far away while being 'invisible' themselves", because to do that they would have to turn on their own radars"
Can't they tell from the radar of other planes? I agree the game theory is complicated.
In general the point I didn't include as it's not worth getting into for the main article, but maybe should've alluded to more strongly, is that warfare technology is very much a Red Queen race. A technology that revolutionized warfare still might not be directly relevant in combat, because both sides have to work around it.
So I stand by stealth technologies being extremely important for warfare even though people have developed workarounds, including workarounds that do not revolve around "getting your own stealth planes"
I'm pretty sure the only real stealth plane operational in the 1980s was the F-117, which was an attack aircraft. I guess the SR-71 had some RCS-reducing features but it mainly relied on speed, not stealth.
> Can't they tell from the radar of other planes?
If you mean the active radar of other planes on their own side: yes, that's a useful tactic, but it requires a fast and reliable means of sharing tracks between planes, and it means you always have some non-stealthy aircraft the enemy can target.
If you mean the radar emission of the enemy planes: yes, but that won't give you as precise a position estimate as your own active radar would, which is important for missile targeting. And if the enemy knows you have stealth fighters, they may keep their fighters' radars off initially, and try to vector them in using ground radar or AEW&C aircraft before going active when they're close and might be able to see you.
Stealth will give you an advantage pretty much regardless of what the enemy does, but rarely will it create a situation where you know exactly where they are and they don't even know your force is in the area.
Thanks, I appreciate the corrections from an expert! Btw I have a book review of Skunk Works I’m cooking up. Would you be at all interested in being a beta reader?
Looking at that picture of a stealth plane, it just hit me that stealth plane might be the aesthetic the Cybertruck is trying to copy. I wonder if that makes them harder to clock by radar speed limit enforcement, or whether the many-flat-surfaces aesthetic is more surface level.
My guess is that there's a real effect but it's not very significant. Firstly because I think radar evasion design has to be really precise, being off by a fraction of an inch can be significant for an airplane (so I imagine it's worse for a car). I think it's very hard to build something that evades radar by accident, or via a high-level cargo-culting shape thing.
Secondly, even if the main surfaces of the car bounces away radar, either the wheels or the driver might be enough. Radar goes through glass, so it can just hit the driver and bounce back. Cars are less than an OOM bigger than a person (from either a front or side profile, and one OOM less signal is not considered a huge difference from a stealth perspective.
Some nuances I decided not to include in the main post:
1. The first stealth airplanes were mostly dominated by shape by not entirely. They also used radar absorbing materials. Maybe 3 OOMs shape, 1 OOM absorption was an estimate given by an expert. So shape gets most of the credit but not entirely.
2. Flat surfaces were the main design principle of first-gen stealth airplanes but modern software have allowed people to figure out curved surfaces that still doesn't reflect radio echoes to the sender-receiver. Still, if you look at pictures of modern stealth airplanes they still look much more angular and flat than old fighter airplanes, or passenger aircraft.
3. Modern stealth airplanes and radar detection have to adapt in a sort of Red-Queen race situation, so the simple bouncing technique doesn't fully work anymore. I didn't closely investigate why.
4. I simplified stealth as "evading radar" but of course there are other detection methods (sight, sonar, thermal detection). Eg reducing your jet planes' heat signatures is important to modern stealth as well. But I didn't think it's as relevant to the main argument.
5. My argument/analysis here works for any sender-receiver style. Eg it also works for echolocation and bats (interestingly, and sadly in my view, bats often die by killing themselves on stealth airplanes). Radar of course has structural advantages over sonar (sound waves) and light. This is why militaries use them. I didn't bother clarifying this in the main post as it is not relevant to the core of understanding stealth technology.
I think you're overstating the impact of stealth aircraft on warfare a bit:
1. There are a couple types of stealth UAVs used for reconnaissance (like the American RQ-180 and the Chinese WZ-10) but this isn't a major use of the technology, in large part because the countries capable of producing stealth aircraft mostly do their strategic reconnaissance with satellites now.
2. Stealth aircraft often can't "track enemies from far away while being 'invisible' themselves", because to do that they would have to turn on their own radars, which would give away their presence. The F-35 tries to get around this with really good infrared imaging sensors, but those still have a limited ability to precisely track enemy aircraft at long distances. Also air-to-air missiles generally aren't optimized for stealth, so once you fire those your enemies will recognize they're being engaged.
3. Reflective stealth designs are less effective against the low-frequency emissions of large ground-based radars, so it would be hard for stealth bombers to achieve complete surprise in a strategic first strike against a capable adversary. Even Yugoslavia was able to detect and shoot down an F-117 using air defense systems from the 1960s.
More generally, there just hasn't been a war yet where a country using stealth aircraft went up against a peer competitor with modern countermeasures, so it's hard to know how well they would perform in practice. It's certainly a useful technology, but it hasn't been demonstrated to revolutionize conventional warfare quite yet.
Appreciate the engagement!
I agree that in 2025 UAVs (which are way cheaper than planes) and satellites might make recon much less based on stealth. But they really were critical for the 1980s I think.
"Stealth aircraft often can't "track enemies from far away while being 'invisible' themselves", because to do that they would have to turn on their own radars"
Can't they tell from the radar of other planes? I agree the game theory is complicated.
In general the point I didn't include as it's not worth getting into for the main article, but maybe should've alluded to more strongly, is that warfare technology is very much a Red Queen race. A technology that revolutionized warfare still might not be directly relevant in combat, because both sides have to work around it.
So I stand by stealth technologies being extremely important for warfare even though people have developed workarounds, including workarounds that do not revolve around "getting your own stealth planes"
I'm pretty sure the only real stealth plane operational in the 1980s was the F-117, which was an attack aircraft. I guess the SR-71 had some RCS-reducing features but it mainly relied on speed, not stealth.
> Can't they tell from the radar of other planes?
If you mean the active radar of other planes on their own side: yes, that's a useful tactic, but it requires a fast and reliable means of sharing tracks between planes, and it means you always have some non-stealthy aircraft the enemy can target.
If you mean the radar emission of the enemy planes: yes, but that won't give you as precise a position estimate as your own active radar would, which is important for missile targeting. And if the enemy knows you have stealth fighters, they may keep their fighters' radars off initially, and try to vector them in using ground radar or AEW&C aircraft before going active when they're close and might be able to see you.
Stealth will give you an advantage pretty much regardless of what the enemy does, but rarely will it create a situation where you know exactly where they are and they don't even know your force is in the area.
Thanks, I appreciate the corrections from an expert! Btw I have a book review of Skunk Works I’m cooking up. Would you be at all interested in being a beta reader?
I'm flattered but I'm not really an expert, just a military history enthusiast. I'd be happy to take a look at it if you'd like though.
Oh I was thinking more of the "astronautical engineer" from your profile haha.
I just do software for satellites, serious RF stuff and air-to-air combat tactics are outside my professional expertise.
Looking at that picture of a stealth plane, it just hit me that stealth plane might be the aesthetic the Cybertruck is trying to copy. I wonder if that makes them harder to clock by radar speed limit enforcement, or whether the many-flat-surfaces aesthetic is more surface level.
My guess is that there's a real effect but it's not very significant. Firstly because I think radar evasion design has to be really precise, being off by a fraction of an inch can be significant for an airplane (so I imagine it's worse for a car). I think it's very hard to build something that evades radar by accident, or via a high-level cargo-culting shape thing.
Secondly, even if the main surfaces of the car bounces away radar, either the wheels or the driver might be enough. Radar goes through glass, so it can just hit the driver and bounce back. Cars are less than an OOM bigger than a person (from either a front or side profile, and one OOM less signal is not considered a huge difference from a stealth perspective.
Euclidean planes can certainly fly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstrom_EPB-1_Flying_Plank
(... With a few rudders)
That's so cool btw, didn't know about it!
True! Though the rudders and nose cone probably is bad for radar evasion.
Some nuances I decided not to include in the main post:
1. The first stealth airplanes were mostly dominated by shape by not entirely. They also used radar absorbing materials. Maybe 3 OOMs shape, 1 OOM absorption was an estimate given by an expert. So shape gets most of the credit but not entirely.
2. Flat surfaces were the main design principle of first-gen stealth airplanes but modern software have allowed people to figure out curved surfaces that still doesn't reflect radio echoes to the sender-receiver. Still, if you look at pictures of modern stealth airplanes they still look much more angular and flat than old fighter airplanes, or passenger aircraft.
3. Modern stealth airplanes and radar detection have to adapt in a sort of Red-Queen race situation, so the simple bouncing technique doesn't fully work anymore. I didn't closely investigate why.
4. I simplified stealth as "evading radar" but of course there are other detection methods (sight, sonar, thermal detection). Eg reducing your jet planes' heat signatures is important to modern stealth as well. But I didn't think it's as relevant to the main argument.
5. My argument/analysis here works for any sender-receiver style. Eg it also works for echolocation and bats (interestingly, and sadly in my view, bats often die by killing themselves on stealth airplanes). Radar of course has structural advantages over sonar (sound waves) and light. This is why militaries use them. I didn't bother clarifying this in the main post as it is not relevant to the core of understanding stealth technology.
awww thanks! I can't tell if you're a human or an AI, but either way, appreciate the response!
Same. Im scrolling thru their comments and jt’s all the same lol. But it did feel nice!