Stealth Fighters: Do you use them? Why/why not?

[Wladislaw]

Stealth fighters have only one of the two main uses of jet fighters, but they do it better than jet fighters. Jet fighters defend your cities with air superiority, something stealth fighters can't do for some inexplicable reason. They also defend your bombers by drawing out and engaging your enemy's defending fighters. You have a better chance of winning with a stealth fighter.

So if your enemy has an air force, you need at least four fighters in your stack of bombers to be relatively safe. Two fly air superiority to protect your city/carrier group and the other two to probe the enemy defenses. If one gets shot down, they don't have a chance to take it off air superiority and fortify it on your turn, so your second fighter will in that case get to blast a weakened enemy.

 

[Civslayer4sure]

They are great to change into UU's when creating new civs in the editor. Other than that, they serve no purpose. I just finished a game where my closest rivl had 130 jet fighters. How many stealth fighters do I need to attack with in order to draw out 130 JF's? Jeez.
If they had Superiority AND a better chance at intercepting stealth bombers...then OK. Till then they just plain suck.

 

[homan1983]

In real life (and as i think it should bei n the game), Stealth Bombers are far too big to take off/land using carriers. This is why one would build Stealth Fighters.

In essence they are not the typical "fighters" since they would have much less use for "Stealth" if they are defending.

Unfortulately the developers decided to let bombers/stealth bombers launch from carriers so Really there is absolutely no point to them whatsoever... I hope that one day they will make only fighters be able to enter carriers and that bombers can "airlift" from two cities with airports (this is to allow transport between 2 far away colonies, e.g. 2 islands).

 

[Invisible Rhino]

Anything a Stealth Fighter can do a Stealth Bomber can do better in my opinion, so no I have never built one. In fact Stealth Bombers are usually the only aircraft I ever build.

 

[gskyes]

I rarely use stealth fighters, because either my games don't last until stealth, or I just don't research it because of building the spaceship. However, when I do have stealth, I will build a few for recon missions only. They have a much better range than jet fighters so they can recon the distant city that your stealth bombers are hitting so you can see the results.

 

[Zeek]

@homan1983
Stealth Bombers dont really need to be able to land on a carrier, they can twenty tons of bombs six thousand miles without being refueled.

 

[rychan]

Originally posted by homan1983
In real life (and as i think it should bei n the game), Stealth Bombers are far too big to take off/land using carriers. This is why one would build Stealth Fighters.

In real life, NEITHER can take off from a carrier.

 

[Zeek]

yeah, but it was proposed to congress in 1997 to modify the F117 so that it would be able to do carrier missions, but instead they decided to spend alot more money and develop the Joint Strike Fighter.
see:
A/F-117X Aircraft Proposal: Background and Issues for Congress. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 1997, 97-426F. CRS Issue Brief for Congress. 6pp.

The C-130 is the largest plane to ever take off and land on a carrier successfully, and it has a wingspan of 133 feet. The B2 has a wingspan of 172 feet that makes it pretty unfeasable on any carrier that currently exists.

EDIT:
bleh, if you're really interested it'll cost you $20 apparentley, cant find a full version of the reoprt anywhere else for you.
http://www.pennyhill.com/weaponssystems/97-426f.html

 

[rychan]

Hehe.. don't worry I believe you. I never knew a C 131 had taken off from a carrier, that's crazy. Very impressive. They are certainly designed with Short takoff and landing in mind, though.

I wouldn't have guessed that the stealth fighter could do it, even with modifications, though. They have relatively delicate flight charicteristics, I thought... and no afterburners, surely. Seems dangerous flinging one off a slingshot. I guess what really matters is their stall speed... and I have no idea what that is.

 

[starrider]

Stealth fighters are great for long range pillaging. They cost half as much as stealth bombers, the same as jet fighters, and have a 6 bombardment.

Stealth fighters can't be used to "draw out" (as mentioned above) enemy fighters anymore than stealth bombers can, because stealth means only a 5% intercept chance IIRC.

Stealth fighters can safely be used to cut off reinforcement lines in an invasion. If they are intercepted...they have a good chance at destroying the interceptor.

They can be built quickly (most of my cities at that point could churn one out in 2 turns or less) and have a very nice rebasing range.

I used a combination of Radar Artillery and Stealth fighters to cut off reinforcement lines...meaning only one side of the continent could counterattack the next turn. Looking back on it...I wish I could have used more stealth fighters and used the RA's on enemy units within range

I used most of the stealth bombers to weaken the defenders so my marines could take the city. (But was extremely careful not to destroy the airport hehe).

This makes sense in a way. Stealth fighters are used for precision strikes in real life. Why not use them to help secure your foothold on a continent/island?

If you can prevent half the enemy from counterattacking the next turn, you have a better chance of getting your own re-inforcements in place.

The best part of this "strategy" is the AI's Modern Armor became ''exposed' the next turn: by attempting to move its forces to attack me, a giant stack of MA's ended up adjacent to my newly conquered city, but had to wait a turn to attack. This meant my radar artillery (brought with me on transports) and my stealth bombers could eliminate a sizable portion of the enemy. Before anyone complains about lethal bombardment, a geniune strategy in modern warfare is to draw out enemy armor then clobber it from the air.

I'm glad I finally figured out some use for this otherwise useless unit.

 

[ltischer]

I like the modern era wars, but seldon use the stealth fighters. Their inability to perform air superiority missions is a real drawback compared to the jet fighters - why don't they have this ability?

 

[starrider]

Originally posted by ltischer
I like the modern era wars, but seldon use the stealth fighters. Their inability to perform air superiority missions is a real drawback compared to the jet fighters - why don't they have this ability?

I think it's a RL thing.... F-117's only carry minimal air-to-air as a last resort. They are so wobbly to fly they need constant computer adjustment. They would not do well in a dogfight.

Stealth fighters are not really fighters, but strike aircraft. They use precision munitions to hit targets that are heavily defended, ie, baghdad before the air defense grid was destroyed.

Oh, also this is represented in the game by a "6" bombard, rather than a jet fighter's truly lousy "3".

 

[Ekmek]

I give it hidden nationality so I can bomb without declaring war and make it different from the stealth bomber

 

[starrider]

Well after experimenting some more, I now always build stealth fighters in my games. I build stealth fighters in the less productive cities late in the game. Stealth fighters cost the same as jet fighters, and have lethal bombardment. (Since I never play the Americans, I don't know if this works the same as the F-15...anyone care to enlighten me?)

Stealth Fighters complement stealth bombers well: they can finish off redlined units, damage healthy ones, and pillage improvements at very long ranges. They are best bombing exposed units; they are far less effective at bombing units inside cities.

Stealth Fighters have a long rebase range, and are therefore ideal for non-pangea maps. This is their biggest advantage over artillery, as artillery cannot be airlifted between airports. This advantage disappears with a pangea map.

One last cool thing....when playing a communist government (or any other forced labor gov't), you can use these units as build rushers in captured cities: rebase then disband them. Sometimes when you need to rush an airport or temple in a captured city with only 1 pop you have no other choice

 

[riley555]

Stealth Bombers are really powerful you can turn a city inside out in 2-6 turns with just a few of them especially with the "precision strike" ability they get. Stealth fighters arent that great they get precision strike, sometimes if i need to build up fast when im in trouble in a game i get them because they build quicker, other than that theyre not that great. But I kind of prefer them over F-15's in some cases cause they're stealth.

 

[Bluemofia]

never. lousy hunks of stealth junk. they should at least be able to perform Air superiority.

 

[Nieboh]

I build a combination of stealth fighters, stealth bombers, and conventional fighters for my carrier task forces. I usually have 6 or so carriers, each with 1 conventional fighter providing air superiority, and 2 or 3 stealth bombers for pounding. The ones that have 2 stealth bombers have 1 stealth fighter for recon duty.

Typically, I send out 1 stealth fighter to recon the area I'll be bombing, and the rest to recon the water about the task force to watch for approaching threats. If I spot any I'll send out some attack subs or destroyers, or even bomb them first if they seem a credible threat.

I just wish airplanes could spot subs.

 

[Bluemofia]

the only thing is that recon planes can't be shot down by other planes, unless if i am mistaken.

 

[planetfall]

Only value is long range recon. One or two at the most per game is about all I can see.

However, for fun add "enslave", it does work for air units and is real bizarre.

PF

 

[starrider]

Only value is long range recon. One or two at the most per game is about all I can see.

However, for fun add "enslave", it does work for air units and is real bizarre.

PF

Ever use them for long range artillery bombardment? Pilliaging etc...? Just curious