Iran launches new superweapon!

[Lotus49]

It must have like, hundreds of chaff canisters onboard. That way, it can fill the whole sky with that stuff, and "evade" radar -technically speaking- not by stealth per se, but by filling the scope with chaff returns & ECM jamming.

Probably has a bunch of smoke grenades, and parachute-flares as well. When it gets into trouble, it just creates it's own giant cloud of smoke, chaff, flares, and ECM and just circles around in there until the enemy gets bored and leaves.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Indeed. Looking at that picture, it looks like it the engine and propeller are the thing attached to the center-top of the fuselage. Um, hello? That alone very likely removes any claim of "stealth" from the aircraft.

No kidding. I just noticed in the picture that it has a prop engine.

Who are they trying to kid?

 

[Bugfatty300]

It must have like, hundreds of chaff canisters onboard. That way, it can fill the whole sky with that stuff, and "evade" radar -technically speaking- not by stealth per se, but by filling the scope with chaff returns & ECM jamming.

Probably has a bunch of smoke grenades, and parachute-flares as well. When it gets into trouble, it just creates it's own giant cloud of smoke, chaff, flares, and ECM and just circles around in there until the enemy gets bored and leaves.

Its looks to be about the size of my honda accord. I doubt it has any significant amount of that stuff aboard, much less fuel tanks, avionics, weapons, and a pilot.

 

[Winner]

Do Iranians have that April Fools thing too?

 

[IglooDame]

No kidding. I just noticed in the picture that it has a prop engine.

Who are they trying to kid?

The Iranian people, I'm guessing.

 

[Bugfatty300]

The Iranian people, I'm guessing.

I can imagine. Average Iranian: "This is what we are going to defeat the evil empire with?"

 

[IglooDame]

Its looks to be about the size of my honda accord. I doubt it has any significant amount of that stuff aboard, much less fuel tank, weapons, ammunition, and a pilot.

Well, the Dudemobile MkIV (my old '87 Toyota hatchback) carried a fuel tank, weapons, ammunition, and a pilot (me), along with flares, and it could smoke pretty well too.

Sadly, it was very clearly visible to radar, or so the police informed me while issuing the speeding tickets.

 

[Kozmos]

The Germans had it before anyone. YOU do a Google search - on the Horten Ho 229 (aka Gotha Go 229).

I was talkng about modern planes,not a WW2 project.

Even US stealth planes are not invisible to some modern radars.

That said, US stealth planes have more to them than the shape of their airframe. Something that no other nation has to my knowledge. Not even China has managed to steal it yet, which is a remarkable feat of secret keeping if you ask me.

So I highly doubt this cheap Iranian repro is just as good or even comparable to US stealth.

Yes its something about the materials and coatings used in the B2.

The F-117 shot down in Kosovo is suspected to be downed by a russian prototype SAM(at the time).That would explain rumours that the Russian foreign secretary Primakov came with a huge transport the very next day to Belgrade.

Apparently the shot down F-117 provided the Russian inspectors(that the Serbs called for) with data that compromised the stealth technology.How much they learned from it is unknown.Last I heard about it the data collected was used on testing the anti-stealth radars.Unfortunately all I have is rumours and hearsay on this so this may all be bogus.

I dont have any links,so feel free to call me a crazy conspiracy theorist.

 

[Lotus49]

What good is the 'boat' feature to them anyway? What are they gonna do - land that thing in the Persian Gulf and plant some mines?

I can't see any sign of retractable landing gear - looks like this thing actually has a keel, and is made exclusivley for landing on the water.

Next thing you know, Iran will be having those massively-fortified bomb-proof U-boat pens, like Germany did in WWII, along their coast, to house these weapons of doom...

That way, when our aircraft depart on strike missions from the carriers in the Gulf, and head north, they'll be intercepted by these flying boats scrambling from the coast, out of their concrete bunker/submarine pens.

I wonder what the climb rate on that thing is... man, I hope out jet fighters can out-climb, and evade...

 

[carlosMM]

The shooting down of an airliner (I assume you mean the Iranian one by USS Vincennes) was an issue of target identification and I haven't seen an account that puts any blame on maneuvering.

I remember reading the official (!) NAVY report - the classified one probably is different. IIRC, it said that the manouvering significantly influenced the target identification, as the update time of the radar systems was too long (takes to long to do one sweep) to clearly show the object as significantly too fast ad far away. Also, the heeling of the ship made the contact not apparent as an air contact (they thought the radar was pointing ~horizontally due to the heel when in fact it wasn't - the pics was from BEFORE the heel started due to the turn).

No idea if this is true, and I may err in my memory of the report.

What I definately remember correctly is the conclusion that the desparate tries to engage the little speedboat contributed to the confusion that led to the accident.

I think you're underestimating the speed of aiming and firing 5"54cal guns. Also, CIWS has (at least in its variants of a few years ago) an optical targeting mode. And, virtually all US Navy ships now have a few .50cal mounts or the like mounted at various points on the ship. Aside from which, RPGs aren't going to do "serious damage to the hull" unless they're in substantial quantity. Wasn't there a recent report of RPG-armed pirates facing off against a destroyer in OT?

first, the speed of aiming: I do not know if that has changed, but it used to be that on mayn ships the guns could not fire at targets below -1° or so. Essentially, if the ship has a high board you get a blind spot. And that blind spot can extend fairly far from the ship if the target is small. Remember, CIWS is an AIR defence system at heart!

as for the RPGs: you do not want to tell me that a few RPGs can't tear a (small) hole into a hull?
If said hole is near the bow this can get a ship into enough trouble to make it unworthy for further combat without repairs. Reduced speed, water in the bow, significantly higher sonar sig. No thank you!

Certainly it will be near-impossible to sink a modern warship, but to take it out of action isn't that hard. And then there's the (scant) possibility of a 'mobility hit' - a 'good' thit at the stern may damage the screw/drivetrain/ruder enough to slow the ship down a lot (depends on what type and how deep it is in the water).

Also, how about simply going alongside and blow up a ton of TNT? Think USS Cole.....

 

[Lotus49]

I was talkng about modern planes,not a WW2 project.

Well, you mentioned I should go look up the B-2 Spirit, as if I didn't know what it was, and you said this stealth technology was invented my the Americans. I was just pointing out that the very concept, and design of the B-2 came from resurrecting the design of the old Gotha Flying Wing.

It was tested, by the way. The Germans were able to cross the Channel with it, fly over to England, and RTB w/o being detected by their radar. -Which was the idea, of course. But, too little, too late - as with all the German secret weapons.

 

[carlosMM]

Well, you mentioned I should go look up the B-2 Spirit, as if I didn't know what it was, and you said this stealth technology was invented my the Americans. I was just pointing out that the very concept, and design of the B-2 came from resurrecting the design of the old Gotha Flying Wing.

It was tested, by the way. The Germans were able to cross the Channel with it, fly over to England, and RTB w/o being detected by their radar. -Which was the idea, of course. But, too little, too late - as with all the German secret weapons.

the idea was maximum lift for minimum drag - pure aerodynamics.
the lower radar sig was a nice side effect.

 

[Bugfatty300]

The F-117 shot down in Kosovo is suspected to be downed by a russian prototype SAM(at the time).That would explain rumours that the Russian foreign secretary Primakov came with a huge transport the very next day to Belgrade.

Apparently the shot down F-117 provided the Russian inspectors(that the Serbs called for) with data that compromised the stealth technology.How much they learned from it is unknown.Last I heard about it the data collected was used on testing the anti-stealth radars.Unfortunately all I have is rumours and hearsay on this so this may all be bogus.

I dont have any links,so feel free to call me a crazy conspiracy theorist.

It sounds more likely that the F117 in question was shot down by AAA. I can't remember if it was radar guided or not.

 

[Lotus49]

the idea was maximum lift for minimum drag - pure aerodynamics.
the lower radar sig was a nice side effect.

I said nothing to the contrary.

 

[carlosMM]

I said nothing to the contrary.

No, but some posts in this thread may be read to suggest that stealth was at the heart of the trials, which is totally false.

 

[Bugfatty300]

as for the RPGs: you do not want to tell me that a few RPGs can't tear a (small) hole into a hull?
If said hole is near the bow this can get a ship into enough trouble to make it unworthy for further combat without repairs. Reduced speed, water in the bow, significantly higher sonar sig. No thank you!

Pirates shot RPGs at a US navy ship a while back. CNN showed pictures of the holes they made and they seemed to be not much bigger than a golf ball.

Even if an attacker magically managed to get more than a few shots off before their boat was blown out of the water, sailors would have no problem repairing those tiny holes, and it would probably not even slow, much less disable a large ship.

Not to mention the waterline of a ship is an incredibly hard target to hit to begin with,

RPGs are anti-tank weapons. The damage those weapons make are specifically meant to disable armored vehicles by punching small holes in the armor. Using it against a massive warship, even in large numbers, is ludicrous.

 

[carlosMM]

Pirates shot RPGs at a US navy ship a while back. CNN showed pictures of the holes they made and they seemed to be not much bigger than a golf ball.

Even if an attacker magically managed to get more than a few shots off before their boat was blown out of the water, sailors would have no problem repairing those tiny holes, and it would probably not even slow, much less disable a large ship.

Not to mention the waterline of a ship is an incredibly hard target to hit to begin with,

RPGs are anti-tank weapons. The damage those weapons make are specifically meant to disable armored vehicles by punching small holes in the armor. Using it against a massive warship, even in large numbers, is ludicrous.

tsk tsk

a) 'before their boat is blown out of the water' - by the time they are in shooting distance they are also in the blind spot for most weapons on US ships.

b) why do you assume RPGs come only with penetrator warheads? Don't you think an API round would do more damage?

c) ESPECIALLY weapons with strong penetration capabilities are able to do damage INSIDE the ship - machinery, stored ammunition, weapons, fuel, people. Not much better. basically, you pretend that the exemplary scenario I developed was the ONLY possible one, which is ludicrous.

d) one example of some ship being hit by some sort of RPG means nothing - if the Newport News got hardly a scratch from the weapons it doesn't say squack about what would happen to a destroyer.

e) guess what a bunch of golf-ball sized holes can do to the sonar sig of a boat......

 

[nonconformist]

Never underestimate the power of unconventionality.

This plane could even be like the Rusian ones-what are they called, Bears I think-that project a huge radar blotch, to make a single plane look like an armada.

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I would doubt that RPGs would cause any significant damange to medium to large ships, unless a direct hit on the brige or screws happened.
Most ships are pretty well engineered below decks.
Even your classic WWII freighter or tanker could stand a surprising number of torpedos.

 

[Bugfatty300]

before their boat is blown out of the water' - by the time they are in shooting distance they are also in the blind spot for most weapons on US ships.

What blind spot? No, they are not going to shoot a missile at them. That is what the .50 caliber weapons are meant for. A .50 caliber machine gun outranges an RPG by a mile.

why do you assume RPGs come only with penetrator warheads? Don't you think an API round would do more damage?

Are there API rockets for RPGs? I don't believe so. There are HE anti personel round though.

Plus API is a type of gun ammunition. Never heard of them being used in anti-tank rocket platforms.

 

[Kozmos]

It sounds more likely that the F117 in question was shot down by AAA. I can't remember if it was radar guided or not.

Anti aircraft artillery?Doubtful,the only thing the Yugo AAA was good for is shooting down the UAVs IIRC.

I think the report said the F-117 was shot down by a SA-3 Goa.Heavily modified SA-3 though(at least thermal imaging and a laser rangefinder added).Thus my doubt that a prototype russian Radar/SAM was used.