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Updated: Fri Jul 30 14:32:11 UTC 2010
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APA NOTAMS ISSN 1836-7135
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter vs
Russia's New Airborne Counter-Stealth Radars
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Air Power
Australia - Australia's Independent Defence Think Tank
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Air Power Australia NOTAM
14th September, 2009
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| Contacts: |
Peter
Goon
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Carlo
Kopp |
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Mob:
0419-806-476 |
Mob:
0437-478-224 |
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In the deadly pursuit of a fighter versus
fighter superiority even a small advantage can have disproportionate
effects on the cardinal air combat effectiveness measure –
loss-exchange rates (LER).
In Russia, evolution of the Sukhoi family of fighter aircraft, and in
China the revolution of
the J-10B Sinocanard, shows that their designers and strategic planners
are thinking about the
future of air combat with a clear intent to fight and win.
Faced with the capabilities of the planned ~700 F-22A (now chopped back
to 187) and over 2,000 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, they have been
exploring ways of negating the effects of low observability against
X-Band radar. The Sukhois have integrated Infra-Red Search and
Track Systems (IRST) to detect and engage radiating aircraft with
Beyond-Visual-Range (BVR) missiles, and are employing countermeasures
resistant two colour Infra-Red (IR) seekers in newer missiles.
What if a fighter aircraft was fitted with a sensor system, which
operates outside the radar frequencies where X-band stealth is most
effective?
Shaping is a critical aspect of stealth design, since the
facets and aligned edges in stealth designs bounce hostile radar
returns away from the radar producing them. A stealth design shaped to
beat X-band radars will lose effectiveness in the lower S-band, and
become even less effective in the L-band, performance becoming
progressively worse as the operating band of the radar is moved away
from the design target X-band.
If a fighter, which produces a tennis ball sized radar return in the
X-band, produces a basketball or beachball sized radar return in a
lower band, a sensor operating in that lower band nullifies the stealth
capability. The fighter built with “narrowband” X-band stealth is no
longer difficult to detect and must fight it out using its
aerodynamic
capabilities alone.
If a sensor can bypass the stealth of the F-22A Raptor, this fighter
still has sufficient aerodynamic performance to compete effectively in
both Beyond Visual Range and close combat. The same is not true for the
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, since it is an overweight and underpowered
design, incapable of competing aerodynamically against the newer
Flanker variants, and completely outclassed by the latest supercruising
Su-35S Flankers.
Dr Carlo Kopp of Air Power Australia explored low band AESAs embedded
in fighter wing leading edges in 2007 and concluded that this concept
is operationally and technically viable. Study results were not
published by APA, due to the potentially adverse impact – APA has a
long standing policy of not publishing concepts that might provide
potential adversaries with a competitive combat advantage.
However, unbeknownst to APA, Tikhomirov NIIP were already working on
this concept for two or more years, and revealed the technology at the
Russian MAKS 2009 Airshow this August.
The appearance of the first L-Band Fighter Radar is an excellent
example of focused and intelligent lateral thinking which targets
opponents' weaknesses. This is sound technological strategy and
practice on the part of Russian industry.
The new Tikhomirov NIIP L-band AESA is the first example of a
technology
which negates the intended X-band stealth advantage well before the
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter achieves even limited operational capability.
Drawing on his earlier work, and consulting with other expert
colleagues in the field, Dr Kopp has produced a detailed forensic engineering study of the new
NIIP L-band AESA and explores the growth potential in the design.
While the NIIP L-Band AESA disclosed at MAKS 2009 might be considered a
prototype, where the specific performance of this prototype might
confer only a small combat advantage, the inevitable development of
this technology confers long term and accelerating air combat
advantages, both as a counter to specialized X-Band Low
Observability and for the detection and disruption of sensors and
digital communications systems that operate in the heavily used L-Band.
No great originality is required to deploy and further evolve this
design - the back-end hardware and software from existing X-band radars
can be used with modifications, and publicly disclosed US roadmap
documents for X-band AESAs can be emulated. The size of the Flanker and
its power generation reserves make integration and cooling low risk,
easily solved, standard engineering problems.
What of China? Once the idea genie is out of the secret bottle,
everybody with similar engineering and design skills can emulate the
capability. China is now claimed to have four L-band AESA AWACS
flying and the “cloned” J-11B Flanker B+ in production. Thus, it is
entirely feasible that a Chinese equivalent L-band AESA in a J-11B
could be developed and deployed in 3-5 years. China has existing
technology and design skills to do this without great difficulty.
L-Band AESA technology is much cheaper to manufacture and test than
X-band AESAs. Once in volume production, retrofit packages for legacy
Flankers could be as cheap as US$1-2M. A likely configuration is a
dual-band radar arrangement with an X-band AESA retrofit and new radar
back-end, to replace legacy N001V and the N011M BARS series Flanker
radars. For the new N035 IRBIS-E radar, the hybrid ESA antenna would be
replaced by an AESA, and the back-end could control and process for
both the L- and X-Band radar antennas. With the potential export
market for many hundred units, there is a huge commercial opportunity
for Tikhomirov NIIP in the short, medium and long term, once they get
this product to market. There will be no shortage of highly interested
clientele.
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(US DoD Chart)
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Stealth - Size Matters
Shaping is the single most powerful tool a
stealth designer has to bounce hostile radar beams away in a controlled
fashion. In this game, feature size matters. The F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter (above) was shaped to defeat X-band radars and its stealth
shaping performs poorly in the 0.24 metre L-band. The larger F-22A
(below) with an aligned trapezoidal inlet design and sculpted straight
edge nozzles is much less detectable in the L-band (USAF Images).
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China already has all of the technologies
needed to emulate the Tikhomirov NIIP L-band AESA design, if the
Russians opt not to export to China. Above, J-11B SinoFlanker, below
L-band AESA on KJ-2000 AWACS (Chinese internet images).
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What does
this L-Band technology mean in tactical and strategic terms?
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter X-band
Stealth. The fundamental shaping design of this aircraft was
focused on defeating X-Band fire control radars, the most common threat
to battlefield strike fighters. The F-35 JSF in particular relies on
front-quarter Low Observabilty to gain an intended ‘first look -
first shot - first
kill’ Beyond Visual Range (BVR) advantage. If the intake leading edges
and nose are visible in
the front quarter, then this slim advantage is lost. This is much less
of an issue for the F-22A Raptor which was shaped to be effective
across a much wider band of radar frequencies than the F-35, as the
F-22A was intended from the outset to penetrate deep air defences where
L-band radars are common.
Super Hornet and Silent Eagle
X-band RCS reduction. Much has been made of the radar
cross section reduction of these aircraft, especially in the
front-sector. The value of this investment will be diminished markedly
as L-Band radar ranges increase.
Impairment of GPS, JTIDS, IFF.
These essential navigation, Network Centric communications and
fratricide avoidance systems can be adversely affected by L-Band radars
being used as interference jammers.
Geolocate on JTIDS.
Many extol the advantages bestowed by ‘Network Centricity’.
However, if passive L-Band radars in ‘sniffing’ mode detect emissions
from JTIDS nodes – or IFF – then the geolocation of these emitters can
be performed at long range. This knowledge then confers a combat
advantage to those with the L-Band sensors.
The West will find it difficult to jam fighter L-band AESA due to the
requirement to build and field L-band jammers with high gain antennas.
The NIIP design has huge growth potential in power-aperture, putting
Western jammer development into a perpetual “catch-up” mode.
APA has previously commented on the fallacy of defining air combat
requirements against 1990s threats, locking-down the specification, and
refusing to acknowledge – let alone respond to – developments
elsewhere, especially by potential adversaries.
The Joint Strike Fighter program is an example of complete detachment
from the operational reality of the world outside the closed minds of
the Joint
Strike Fighter community - this technology should have been anticipated
a decade ago given US development of L-band AESA radars for systems
such as the Wedgetail AEW&C/AWACS aircraft. The US development of
AESAs in X-band and their use as “multimode apertures” would inevitably
be emulated. The Russians are simply applying existing basic
technologies developed by the US over a decade ago in a new and lateral
application.
Systems where survivability depends almost completely on X-Band radar
signature reduction, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the
F/A-18E/F
Super Hornet, and F-15SE “Silent Eagle” will now become exposed by
fighter-borne L-Band radars, and thus become highly vulnerable to
defeat in Beyond Visual Range air combat.
Wing leading edge mounted L-band AESA radars now join the other five
demonstrated Russian technologies that, individually, challenge and
overmatch key aspects of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter designs while,
collectively, now make the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter family of aircraft
obsolete well before
they have even been operationally fielded. While recent history
suggests how the bureaucrats will react to this development, we will
have to wait and see exactly how the reality of this “game changer” is
explained away.
Simple common sense shows that
further development of weapon systems that lack a competitive edge in
future air combat cannot be justified and a fundamental ‘re-think’
of future Western air combat planning is required.
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Air
Power Australia Website - http://www.ausairpower.net/
Air Power Australia Research and
Analysis - http://www.ausairpower.net/research.html
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