In military field , anyone attempt to corrupt the information's flow of the enemy and/or attempt to sell ,to the potential opponents, as outstanding achievements the product of development's programs that had instead, produced deluding results (or also the exact opposite).
Exist a moment, in any development program where
in-work validation tests of the real object in metal
say to you if mere secondary modifications can still let the final product to respect initial requirements or if the basis design concept was utterly flawed form the beginning ( a B-1B bomber can start having a requirement for RCS reduction of 100 times in respect to B-52 and finish to deliver a final product with an RCS only 1,8 times lower .....recall something ?
).
As previously said, anyone can...or even must....attempt to negate to the enemy important data and over/under sell (at second of the military doctrine of the nation involved) the results achieved by its programs ;
what instead none at world can mask or twist are the forced choices and the conditioned measures taken to respond to the real findings about the real performances and operational capabilities of the products in its possession. The information formally portrayed, to not insiders, is that B-2 is undetectable, at operational useful ranges, by any known radar and that it was conceived to penetrate in plain URSS's air space to go to the "hunt of soviet mobile ICBM launchers"....
oh sorry ,but this comical ,harebrained idea ,sold usually around, is so utterly wronged under any POV that even repeat it cause uncontrollable bursts of laughers.
Now
let examine the completely not disguisable “hard” measures effectively taken by US military authorities in the course and after B-2's development and try to assess if those are compatible with the notion portrayed :
1) B-2 in its initial design and CONOPS was,OBVIOUSLY ,intended as an high-altitude bomber capable, in this way, to remain well outside radar detection and engagement range of mobile low altitude ,IR/optronic equipped, Air Defense Systems and ground vehicles while cruising at very high altitude ....supposedly undetectable …..to long range IAD's elements.
At the end stages of its development phase
its main flight profile was urgently shifted from high altitude to low altitude terrain-following profile , that caused ,among others
- An
increase of the development phase of about two years and half with Executive Independent Review Team tasked to validate an efficient forward looking radar integrated terrain following and terrain avoidance system.
- An
increase of the costs for the final product , accounting final number produced,
of about 350 millions (2009 US dollars)
for each single bomber !- A
lowering of the flight specifications to comply with very low altitude buffeting and turbulence action.
That change of flight profile ,with the linked enormous cost and time of development’s increases and design compromises, have the effect to cause, among others :
- This 2,1 billion dollar bomber …..supposedly undetectable….. to instead
remain well within radar detection range to even the most outdated enemy SHORAD (for not say ANY of theirs TV/IR/optronic systems or even NVG goggles of a MANPAD’s operator !!) and let almost ANY enemy battlefield element –from a simple BMP-3 to an attack helicopter to play target practice with missiles or 30mm cannons .
-
Enemy emission locating/jamming systems (some of which optimized for the task) to have the chance to
easily track and triangulate the point of origin of the close range emissions of the SAR/TF-TA radar and pass the coordinates to any other element of the IADs.- Enemy
high altitude AWACS and look-down/shot down capable interceptors and patrol aircraft to have the chance to receive radar returns from the top side of the B-2’s airframe. Anyone is perfectly capable to realize that ,under any possible rational point of view, a similar very low altitude flight profile would be not merely a wrong option for a 2,1 billion dollars bomber...
supposedly...undetectable for any enemy radar ,but even a suicide one; that
until someone envisage that, at a point during development and validation phase,
RCS measurements on real B-2 bombers and the linked models of representation of intrusion in airspaces defended by the most advanced SAM system of the time don’t had provided a picture so black for B-2 chance of survival that old fashioned low altitude intrusion had appeared even the most advantageous option .
2) Initially (taking into account the planned capabilities to be offered by B-2 “Spirit”)
US’s analysts had computed that 165 B-2 was the minimum necessary number for fight a major war .
Now the sudden choice to
terminate the program at only 21 airframes completed (moreover after the previous sudden change of its main flight profile to low altitude/terrain following)
would appear totally irrational if we want to believe to the fairy tal...cough..cough...i wanted to say the hypothesis that the B-2’s CONOPs was really to attempt to penetrate deep in URSS’s airspace to hunt mobile ICBM launchers and destroy strategic targets with.....nuclear gravity bombs, because
sensor coverage/variety and data processing capabilities of IAD ‘s elements defending Russian Federation’s airspace continued to grow exponentially since beginning of ’90 years.To the contrary
the unique real war element that really vanished with URSS’s dissolution was the chance of a massive ground invasion of Europe ,with the need to stop the high mobile fronts of Soviet advance with precision delivery of tactical nuclear bombs (strangely
just the type of missions where a relatively close range delivery of tactical nuclear bombs would be effectively required instead of safe -thousands-km-long stand-off delivery of nuclear tipped cruise missiles)
.
3) During pasted conflicts B-2 has always received support from not stealthy assets such as EA-6B "Prowlers," F-15s and F-16s.
Anyone can easily realize how a similar support from those aircraft ,moreover against enemies with antediluvian level of air defenses, should be not merely totally unnecessary, but even dangerous for the safety of a bomber as B-2....supposedly...undetectable by any enemy radar from X to VHF band ,because enemy could easily track the escort’s package and ,from that, infer the restricted area of presence of B2 bombers for scramble interceptors.
That ,obviously,
unless someone envisage that even against those enemies ,equipped with few prehistoric air defense systems US analysts had computed that B-2 was at risk to be tracked and downed. At this point someone could ask to himself what kind of advanced radar ,in possession of USA, could have caused those not-coverable measures and decisions on B-2 program to be carried-on.
The response arrive from the words of Admiral John W. Nyquist and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gerald Cann .
From the article "Aegis radar can detect stealth technology" :
When asked how a U.S. carrier battle group would defend itself against a Soviet stealth aircraft, Nyquist told Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), "...The Aegis radar can do the job ... That's why we're fielding the Aegis in our cruisers and in the Arleigh Burke class destroyers."
Bumpers, who said he formerly backed the B-2 bomber, questioned the need for building stealth planes. He said, "If it is true that the Aegis is capable of picking up stealth technology, then isn't it also true that they (the Soviets) can establish such a technology?"
Assistant Secretary of the Navy (R&D and Acquisition) Gerald Cann said that was a complicated question. However, he said that the issue in such a case is at what cost can the Soviets overcome that technology. Bumpers stated that cost was also an issue in the U.S.
Cann defended the development of stealth technologies saying, "We have to make sure our forces are survivable and stealth is something I'd like to have."
On a final personal note i could add that the quicker someone begin to leave behind the mindset, intentionally focused on some
not really central elements of the question, induced by some internet publications....the quicker it will realize that
rayleigh and resonance scattering regions represent only a very little part of the picture (and not even the most critical one ) for the particular subject in question
.
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