[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by Politenessman

I must admit, I've long feared that "Stealth" will become the modern equivalent of dive bombing as per the WW2 Luftwaffe, ie hugely effective initially, then as various counters come into play a massive waste of resources. Almost all German WW2 bombers were designed and built with the ability to dive bomb (even the HE177 Strategic bomber) and this imposed cost, weight, design and drag limitations on almost all German bombers.

We always seem to go through design fads like the dive bomber thing. Dive bombers were popular early on because it was the only method of accurately placing bombs on target. Even late in the war dive bombing was still highly effective for ground support, provided you controlled the skies. I always thought the Stuka was an amazing machine and beautifully designed, it was also a lethal tank killer throughout the war, but it needed to be supported by fighters.

The early medium dive bombers were not too bad a design, and in a way they were necessary for any kind of precision bombing (like targeting the British Chain Home Stations for example) as Germany did not have particularly accurate bomb sights early war. But trying to make every single bomber dive capable was indeed foolish for all the reasons you said. The biggest mistake for Germany though was its failure to develop a good heavy bomber, particularly early on, which in part was due to this Dive bombing doctrine.

We still use dive bombing to this very day in Close Air Support because it remains a very effective tactic because of its precision, and it allows pilots to get in and out of the target area fairly quickly due to the speed boost from the dive. The difference though is that we no longer build specialized dive bombers, and we don't try it with anything larger than a fighter or fighter/bomber. Also the flight profile is rather different as the dive is much shallower and a lot faster and not the near vertical dives of the Stuka using dive brakes that almost made the plane hang in the sky, and blackout inducing pullouts out of the dive.

I'm not suggesting that there isn't a place for a specialised stealth a/c, or that we shouldn't incorporate cheap and easy signature reduction features in fighter planes, but this idea we have that every a/c has to be RF invisible brings massive costs and worse still, a massive operating cost that extends through the life of the a/c.

Frankly I think the US should have a specialized stealth fighter/bomber. Something that would be a low production run, and multipurpose. It should be highly stealthy against radar and IR, carry a reasonable internal only payload (no exterior pylon capability), and have a large fuel capacity for range. Something kind of like an updated F-117 or the theoretical F-19. It would be outfitted with the focus on passive sensors, be able to carry Air to Air missiles (AIM-9 and AIM-120), HARMs, and different types of ground munitions (durandals, LGBs, JDAMs, cluster munitions, etc), and it would not carry a gun. It's primary purpose should deep penetration missions against high value air and ground targets, early SAM suppression, destroying the runways of key airports, and recon. Key targets would be enemy AWACs and other high value aircraft, CnC buildings, high value SAM sites, enemy infrastructure, etc.. This plane would also not be designed as a dogfighter, as it would not be an overly fast plane or particularly maneuverable, these things don't mix with a highly stealth plane. It would be designed to ambush and disappear.

Everything else should be more conventional. The reason for this is that stealth is very expensive, and entails a lot of sacrificing of the aircraft's performance and payload for that stealth. So it is kind of an all or nothing thing, as aircraft designed with both in mind have to make sacrifices either to stealth or capability, as is the case with the F-22 and F-35. They either have very limited stealth capability, or very limited combat capability, or some mix in between. This gets even more exaggerated when you attach external pylons to the F-22 or F-35, as now you have a very expensive plane, that still can't carry anywhere near what a comparable non stealth plane can, that is now rendered entirely non stealthy because of the pylons. I mean what is the point then? Sure you can ditch the pylons once the ordinance is expended and regain most of the stealth capability, but you would be 2/3rds of the way through the mission by then, so why bother using them in that capacity at all when you could field 5 times the number of conventional aircraft for the cost, each individually having greater capacity than the stealth aircraft.

This is precisely why politicians should not be allowed to dictate design philosophy, as they don't have a clue what they are doing (this goes for some of the upper brass too who are equally incompetent).

I'm starting to lean towards the idea of an F-22 "silver bullet" style force for the initial air to air phase and upgraded F-15/16/18 to do most of the work. add in cheap semi stealthy cruise missiles for conventional strike and you have high end fighters for high threat scenarios and very capable mid level a/c, in numbers, to handle the rest.

I think your better served going all the way when it comes to stealth, which is why I suggest the above. We should take a page from the Russian design philosophy of not completely redesigning everything. Take what we know works really well, and make it work even better using newer technology. Why do we have to keep redesigning the wheel from scratch every time?

I would imagine that a reasonable investment in something like the above would cover most scenarios, at least until either drones take over or directed energy weapons clear the skies.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the F-22 is out of production due to the F-35, and it too had problems.