THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT BEING SEEN: Why Advanced Stealth is Still “Very Hard to Hit.”

“Static radar can help detect low observability aircraft, and acquire it. Now, an intercept requires a smaller aperture. When you transfer from acquisition to the weapons system you will need at long ranges, that dramatically reduces the ability for intercept. Detection is not what it is all about, you have an entire kill chain needed to eliminate a low-observable threat,” Ret. Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Warrior Maven in an interview.

Deptula explained that moving beyond a ground based radar with a roughly 10-meter aperture to a 6-inch signal from a smaller “engagement” radar presents substantial challenges for attackers.

“Even if a radar can detect, I now have to track, and when I engage I will have to shoot a missile using much smaller detection. Also, a fusing mechanism can be affected by low observability technology,” Deputla said. “At every level, low observability can help.”

Nonetheless, Air Force developers are pursuing a new generation of stealth technology with a sense of urgency, in light of rapid global modernization of new Russian and Chinese-built attack systems.

Faster, please — you want to stay far enough ahead of the Other Guy that war never looks like an attractive option to him.