Could anti-radiation missiles be a SIGNIFICANT if PARTIAL answer to stealth? If the enemy stealth plane cannot turn on his radar, and my radar doesn't even detect him, we're at a rather even place.

Lets suppose I'm flying around with the new anti-radation missiles that are about to equip the F-18Es for the Navy. The Su-57 is incoming, but I cannot see it at this range. If he turns on his radar, I'm firing a missile. This missile will hit him if the radar stays on, and even if he turns it off the radar will go to the predicted location and search with it's (admittedly small) built in radar. If he keeps the radar off, then it's a question of who has the best infra-red tracking.

To be clear, if stealth is free then it's better to be stealthy. But could this reduce the advantage of stealth in a significant way?

This assumes the radars on stealth aircraft can be located if you get close enough, and if they are aimed right at you (which seems very reasonable to me; there is no way to completely hide so much radiated energy)

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4 ... -a-success

"This missile will hit him if the radar stays on, and even if he turns it off the radar will go to the predicted location and search with it's (admittedly small) built in radar."

This is a problem. What is the predicted location? How does your missile predict the location? (Anti-radiation missiles work well against ground targets. For obvious reasons.) And you're not going to turn on the missile's own radar, because the Su-57 has... wait for it... sensors that pick up radar signals. It will predict your missile's path better than your missile will predict the enemy fighter's path.

And the missile's own radar is not really powerful enough to get a significant radar return from a stealth plane.

What is a bit more feasible:

Illuminate an aircraft with powerful, cheap and dumb transmitters. From the ground. They're so cheap that the enemy won't spent a $400'000 anti-radiation missile on your thingy.

Semi-active radar homing is your friend.

flyingturtle wrote:

"This missile will hit him if the radar stays on, and even if he turns it off the radar will go to the predicted location and search with it's (admittedly small) built in radar."

This is a problem. What is the predicted location? How does your missile predict the location? (Anti-radiation missiles work well against ground targets. For obvious reasons.) And you're not going to turn on the missile's own radar, because the Su-57 has... wait for it... sensors that pick up radar signals. It will predict your missile's path better than your missile will predict the enemy fighter's path.

And the missile's own radar is not really powerful enough to get a significant radar return from a stealth plane.

What is a bit more feasible:

Illuminate an aircraft with powerful, cheap and dumb transmitters. From the ground. They're so cheap that the enemy won't spent a $400'000 anti-radiation missile on your thingy.

Semi-active radar homing is your friend.

I think that would work better for the Air Force than the Navy.


Forcing the enemy plane to turn off its radar and take evasive action is a good start. Whether that’s worth what a missile costs is an interesting question. My uninformed guess is that the missile costs 1 percent of a fighter (1,000,000 vs 100,000,000).

flyingturtle wrote:

"This missile will hit him if the radar stays on, and even if he turns it off the radar will go to the predicted location and search with it's (admittedly small) built in radar."

This is a problem. What is the predicted location? How does your missile predict the location? (Anti-radiation missiles work well against ground targets. For obvious reasons.) And you're not going to turn on the missile's own radar, because the Su-57 has... wait for it... sensors that pick up radar signals. It will predict your missile's path better than your missile will predict the enemy fighter's path.

And the missile's own radar is not really powerful enough to get a significant radar return from a stealth plane.

What is a bit more feasible:

Illuminate an aircraft with powerful, cheap and dumb transmitters. From the ground. They're so cheap that the enemy won't spent a $400'000 anti-radiation missile on your thingy.

Semi-active radar homing is your friend.

Won't work because aircraft self-defence suites and EW systems can distinguish between actual threat emitters and decoys. Real radars behave differently and that difference is noticeable for the operator.

ThePointblank wrote:

flyingturtle wrote:

"This missile will hit him if the radar stays on, and even if he turns it off the radar will go to the predicted location and search with it's (admittedly small) built in radar."

This is a problem. What is the predicted location? How does your missile predict the location? (Anti-radiation missiles work well against ground targets. For obvious reasons.) And you're not going to turn on the missile's own radar, because the Su-57 has... wait for it... sensors that pick up radar signals. It will predict your missile's path better than your missile will predict the enemy fighter's path.

And the missile's own radar is not really powerful enough to get a significant radar return from a stealth plane.

What is a bit more feasible:

Illuminate an aircraft with powerful, cheap and dumb transmitters. From the ground. They're so cheap that the enemy won't spent a $400'000 anti-radiation missile on your thingy.

Semi-active radar homing is your friend.

Won't work because aircraft self-defence suites and EW systems can distinguish between actual threat emitters and decoys. Real radars behave differently and that difference is noticeable for the operator.

I think he was proposing to use a real semi active radar system. One that would be an actual threat.

The decoy idea is actually clever. Emulating a real radar might be doable, especially if smart people who can access the to be emulated radar work on the decoy problem.