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angry_octetyesterday at 4:05 AM1 replyview on HN

That's how your imagination of 5th fighters work (because there are no 6th gen fighters in service), as if they are somehow invisible. This is a misunderstanding of RADAR.

Lower frequency RADAR will pick up F-35s, but not with enough precision to generate a target track. Pilots spend a lot of thought on the problem of signature management.

A Chinese Wedgetail would be extremely dangerous, as it could provide a very good detection, and with a close enough X-band RADAR you will get a target, and then it is up to kinetic escape/EW/decoys. That is a bad situation to be in during a large force engagement.

The PLAAF is of course working on longer range and faster AEW&C and jam resistant data link and expendable sensors. It is just a matter of time.


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wredcollyesterday at 4:05 PM

I'm not trying to say that f35s are immune to modern chinese technology, I'm trying to say they're immune to previous generation stuff. They don't need to be literally invisible, you can know where they are all you want if you can't actually hit them with a missile.

There's a lot of things that complicate actual fights, people get lucky, people get unlucky, you do clever things like predict incoming sortie directions and saturate that area, but while the f35 is not produced in the same numbers as say, the p51, it's not "the last starfighter" either, the opponent has to get lucky a whole bunch of times before their ability to resist has been removed.

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