Naval History Forums

Stealth does not mean "invisible". It just means potential opponents may have to deploy specialized equipment to detect them, and even then they are harder to detect than something that does not employ stealth technology. In this case, being forced to employ VHF radars generates it's own set of vulnerabilities.

What are those vulnerabilities?

Dave Saxton wrote:What are those vulnerabilities?

VHF is not a good fire control frequency.

VHF antennas are larger so more of an issue installing on an aircraft. I'm not aware of a VHF electronically scanned array, for example.

There is only one Frequency band for the stealth force to jam, and VHF is less agile and has a greater required bandwidth for the same pulse size so easier to jam.

There is a reason VHF is not the preferred frequency for fire control applications.

People are just not going to go to the huge expense of changing all of their radars to VHF. It has too many disadvantages and there just aren't that many stealth aircraft out there. If VHF was the preferred frequency for military applications we would all be using it already. It is not.

I would add the vertical lobes structure and the huge antenna size required. On land such an huge antenna is not impractical but aboard ship it certainly would be.

Apparently the Russians have been building and selling advanced VHF radar for the very purpose of detecting low detectable/stealth targets. Their customer could operate both VHF and shorter wave sets.

I also agree that VHF is not that ideal for FC, but against a stealth target it is better than an X or S band system, because it can at least detect the target to begin with.

It's true that VHF is more vulnerable in a high ECM enviroment. There are just not as many frequencies to jump to if jamming is encountered. The shorter wave lengths have a much wider range of frequencies to jump to. This point was made by Dr. John Clarke of the British MOD back in the 80s when Grumman suggested the British go to UHF radar instead of S-band for aircraft detection and tracking like the USN did. UHF is better in many ways, but S-band works in a high ECM enviroment better.

Of course stealth vehicles will not switch on or use any ECM or ECCM devices until they are in contact with the enemy as they would no longer be stealth.

Dave Saxton wrote:Of course stealth vehicles will not switch on or use any ECM or ECCM devices until they are in contact with the enemy as they would no longer be stealth.

That is true, but that is what the EA-18G is for. It would follow the stealth aircraft, prepared to jam if needed. They did the same thing to protect the stealth aircraft in Bosnia after losing the F-117, but in that case the jammer was the EA-6B. Stealth is still useful, even though it hasn't made jamming aircraft obsolete.