Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "" video.

  1.  @DennisMerwood-xk8wp  Amazing, tell me more about these "modern missiles". Stealth is a hoax? Someone inform the Russian and the Chinese.
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  2.  @isodoublet  "Right, because such a network would be derived of precisely the right amount of radars needed for triangulation and not a single station more." - You're missing the point. If you take out one emitter, there's now a "hole" in the network where accuracy is compromised because the "third" radar necessary for triangulation isn't there anymore. Of course there's more radars available, but the point is creating the gap. IADS always employ layers. And the air force's job is peeling layer after layer. A triangulation system just makes it easier because it requires three radars to do the job of one. "lots of small, mobile stations that don't stay in the same place for long" - Oh. You do realize that the wavelengths that are optimized for stealth are larger and not really mobile, right? "Yes, you can. You're just scientifically illiterate" - Ahahaha admitting you have no argument through namecalling. ""Stealth" means that the radar return at the given wavelength is weak, but it's not zero" - There is always non-zero levels of energy that get filtered out. That is called noise. The point of stealth is making sure that from most angles, the aircraft is indistinguishable from noise. Fun fact, at Red Flag exercises some F-16s scored kills over F-35s. They detected them visually because they had nothing on radars. By sheer luck they happened to catch unaware F-35 pilots from behind. "You can defeat this by dumping more radiative power" - Hm, such a juicy target for anti radiation missiles. "We're talking mostly software changes here. " - You said "Just fire a missile anyway and put a powerful/smart enough radar head on it". A powerful radar head is heavy. There's no such thing as a free lunch and now you're backtracking to "software". Show me this software that makes radar act like larger radars. "All stealth is worthless if you're close enough to the target." - It's not worthless because now instead of a long range defense system you now have to get "close enough" which means an expansion of safe areas where stealth aircraft can operate from. Stealth is not worthless because conventional aircraft do not have these areas. "Except the F-35 turns like a truck" - Turns on a dime, brother. But regardless, a slight deflection from course will create a predicted trajectory that forces the missile to spend fuel chasing a position in space you don't intend to be at. A heavier missile will have a huge energy disadvantage at range because changing back to the original course will force a turn and a new predicted trajectory. "just about any missile gets anywhere between 30 and 50 gs" - Try to chase a fighter jet into a new predicted trajectory after doing a 50 G turn and you have seconds of fuel left. "Look at the Su-57's engines and get back to me" - Yes, it's cope. And there's 12 of them. Meanwhile there's 500 F-15s delivered.
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  3. They said the same thing about the F-16. Now everyone pretends they didn't when it's a proven airframe.
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  4.  @randommadness1021  Because they need close air support? Because the jets are essentially their artillery in certain types of operations? The Air Force needs to have their aircraft on bases. If you're conducting an amphibious raid, you can't exactly put Air Force bases on water. It makes perfect sense. Plenty of people join the Army and Marines to fly.
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  5. STOVL is practical and usable. It allows smaller and cheaper carriers to launch respectable air power without the need of a catapult or arrestor wire.
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  6. It didn't ruin the project.
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  7.  @isodoublet  1. So now one hit can take out a defense network by denying the triangulation. Well played. 2. You can't "cue" a radar that can't physically target the aircraft. A surface to air missile that has a - say - 100 km radius and due to stealth can only target said aircraft at - say - 30 km now has a severe problem. No amount of cueing can help the fact that the aircraft can simply fly 31 km away from the targeting radar and use that gap to destroy your defenses, your radars, your infrastructure or your command centers. 3. That powerful of a radar will require massive thrust, which means having a massive boost phase rocket motor and a ton of fuel for the ramjet sustain phase motor. Plus almost no turning performance. A slight nudge in the stick and you can force the missile to take a heavily ineffective intercept trajectory, and then nudge it back to your original heading and watch the missile run out of steam. The Russians had time to think. What did they think of? Making a stealth aircraft. "the Russian and Chinese designers were willing to sacrifice far less at the altar of the radar cross section" - This is cope for them simply not being as good at stealth. The US is announcing the retirement date of its first fifth gen while the Russians only have 12 Su-57s remaining and the Chinese are still using stopgap engines on their J-20.
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  8.  @isodoublet  "The trouble is all it takes is a WWII-era radar" - Please, by all means replace all radars by WWII era ones. Please.
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  9.  @isodoublet  "Doesn't seem like the best bang for buck though when stealth systems are so expensive to build and maintain to begin with." - Putting bombs on target with impunity is worth every penny. "It's a mobile battery dude." - And it takes like 15 minutes to pack up. "Prove it." - No context. "Computers." - Thanks for admitting you have no argument. "I guess that means SAMs never worked" - Strawman argument. Thanks for admitting that yet again you can't argue. "I'm a physicist, kid." - Doesn't mean you know how energy fight. "I guess that means SAMs never worked." - At max range? The Pk is very low. Yes, SAMs never worked as magic impenetrable defenses when used to shoot as soon as a radar contact steps inside max range and there's RWR on the target aircraft to tell it that it should turn back and lose the missile. Strawman argument. "You don't even understand what the shape of the engines implies." - Yes, it implies it returns the blades from a head on aspect. "You need to look up the word "cope" in the dictionary also." - Cope, seethe, dilate.
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  10. No, there isn't. The trillion dollar figure is the entire cost of program and operation until 2070.
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  11.  @sleat  While I understand the argument that the average person is not big brained enough to understand the sticker shock, my point is that at the time the defense analysts behind the lightweight fighter program requirements didn't even want an A-A radar. When the F-16 started getting the added capabilities people complained that it would ruin the aircraft, it's gonna fail, you can't have a jack of all trades, etc. Turns out that jacks of all trades are the backbone of modern air power. And the critics only bring up the F-111 and no what they used to say about the F-16.
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  12. That's not entirely accurate. The deal was always the Marines get a STOVL and the Air Force would agree to get a conventional take off variant. It was the CALF program. The Navy had their own new fighter project going on so they joined later to become the JSF.
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  13. The fighter mafia was wrong.
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  14.  @doctorfloc  Oh god. You either remembered wrong, or someone lied to you. I believe it was the latter. The F-4 Phantom was designed as a Navy interceptor. The whole raison d'etre of the aircraft was getting to Russian bombers before they got in range to fire an anti-ship missile. If you took the time to get to the enemy, circle around and line up for a gun kill, you would no longer have an aircraft carried to land back on. In Vietnam, USAF Phantoms were being used to escort slower strike packages and going in blind. The USAF had terrible situational awareness, which allowed the North Vietnamese to go around the border, come in from behind at high speed, do a pass and then run. Hit and run ambushes. The Phantoms weren't being claimed by dogfights. They were being claimed by not knowing where the MiGs were, getting attacked and watching the MiGs flee at high speed. A gun doesn't do anything when you're too slow to give chase. This didn't happen to Navy Phantoms, which had their own ships on their back with radars to give them situational awareness. Their kill ratio was 6.4 to 1 with MIGCAP Phantoms. No gun needed. Naval variants of the Phantom did not have guns added, and the gunpods were really only ever used for ground strafing. However, if you just look at MIGCAP USAF Phantoms, their kill ratio was 5.5 to 1. Being ready for a fight meant that Phantoms crushed the MiGs. After the Navy introduced TOPGUN training their MIGCAP Phantom kill ratio became 8.7 to 1. When the USAF finally got their act together and introduced Teaball to give pilots better situational awareness, the Phantom MIGCAP fighters claimed a humiliating 15 to 1 kill ratio. The Phantom is the world's largest distributors of MiG parts. So now you know. The Phantom didn't even need a gun to swat MiGs out of the sky.
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  15.  @DennisMerwood-xk8wp  Yeah, you have no argument.
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  16.  @DennisMerwood-xk8wp  Masters of all trades are the new meta. The multirole is the workworse of modern air power.
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  17.  @isodoublet  I didn't call you Russian. I described the kind of bias you're using. At least make an attempt to read. "The contrary "- So global conflict and millions of lives are at stake just to pull a trick on the US? That's insanity. "As long as the US continues to believe stealth is an unstoppable super weapon" - You're missing the entire point of deception warfare. The real strategy would be casting doubt on stealth so that the US is forced to compromise is designs to be more detectable and thus allow weaker nations to target them. Forcing the enemy to readjust all the time is much more disruptive than allowing them to have a defined and consistent strategy. Even if you can pull a trick out of nowhere, you're fighting a trained enemy. You'd want the enemy to not be well trained because they need to keep chasing changes you've provoked. And who casts doubt on stealth? Outlets like RT. I rest my case. "Strategically, it makes much more sense to hide that sort of capability." - No, it doesn't. It makes more sense to make your defenses seem impenetrable to deter strikes. Like you said, the US has more money. This means that in the end, the US will still win although at a great cost. "that's completely irrelevant and proves nothing" - It proves that Russian IADS were humiliated and they weren't there to gather intelligence but to score kills against F-35s. If it wasn't known the Syrian and Russian systems were linked, it wouldn't expose their lack of capabilities. "You don't know that." - Ask me how I know you've never watched Dr. Strangelove.
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  18.  @isodoublet  "Just fire a missile anyway and put a powerful/smart enough radar head on it" - your comment three days ago. Power requires size.
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  19. The F-16 does more CAS than the A-10. The A-10 suffered a huge setback in 1991 with 7 A-10s and OA-10s lost. It's vulnerable and only renained relevant by cramming it with the avionics multiroles already have, meaning everything it can do is also based on the capabilities of other aircraft. It's not "compromised". The other variants have no dead weight, more fuel and a slightly larger weapons bay. Rotary with and fixed wing have very different flight evelopes.
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  20.  @misarthim6538  It shouldn't be reconsidered, the potential to launch fixed wing aircraft from LHA carriers is a great force multiplier.
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  21.  @misarthim6538  Again, if fixed wing close air support can only be launched off decks by catapults you're doing the opposite of force multiplying, you're dividing at that point. STOVL allows take off from short decks in helicopter carriers. Without STOVL there's no way to square that circle.
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  22.  @DennisMerwood-xk8wp  in one year the US government spends 4x the cost of the entire F-35 program until 2070. The F-35 is a drop in the bucket.
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  23. The Harrier was a dead end design.
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  24. How so?
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  25.  @MONARCH1985  Oh you mean the acquisition order being reduced? Okay I get it.
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  26. It's already good at wiping out aggressor squadrons out of the sky. 17 to 1 at Red Flag.
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  27. No. The CALF program was always meant to be a STOVL aircraft for the Marines and the USAF would buy a conventional takeoff variant. Then the Navy scrapped its own fighter project and decided to join, eventually becoming the JSF program.
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  28. It's not a constraint, though.
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  29.  @GhostWatcher2024  It's not hindered by the multiple branches thing. Most of the bumps in the F-35 development were unrelated to that.
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  30.  @stupidburp  "Light armor" is dead weight. You want to not get hit in the first place. The F-35 is extremely redundant with it's independent hydraulic systems ensuring you can't bleed it out.
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  31.  @stupidburp  The trick is having aircraft that don't get battle damage in the first place. The A-10 gets battle damage because it was designed to be a vulnerable, underpowered aircraft that can't stay out of trouble. Why are they most effective at low altitude? I want to hear the reasoning. The F-35 is not stuck at high altitude or long range standoff. It's like a F-16 on steroids. The Marines would get shredded and stuck with no air support if they had an A-10 equivalent. Five Harriers and 7 A-10/OA-10 were lost in Desert Storm. The F-35 already has damage mitigation. Remember how a F-15 managed to land after a collision where a wing was clipped two feet away from the root? The F-35 has even more body lift. And the control surfaces have their own independent hydraulic systems which make it even more redundant than the A-10.
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  32. Those 4th gen would get shredded by the still active air defenses. If you want to kick doors down, stealth goes first to destroy the radars.
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  33. It didn't hijack anything. The original CALF program was always meant to be a STOVL aircraft. The B variant was the "og".
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  34. The Yak 141 was a worse platform. What would even be the point of that?
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  35.  @DennisMerwood-xk8wp  you just repeat your copy pasted message
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  36.  @DennisMerwood-xk8wp  I'm glad you're such an efficient worker for foreign agitators. You're not doing this for free, are you? Because if you were you got hoodwinked.
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  37. What? The F-35 did 17 to 1 at red flag.
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  38.  @LtColDaddy71  Wow straight for the jugular. You claimed the F-35 doesn't do well against red elements. The actual figures say otherwise. "they took an A-10 and stuck the same weapons on it, and it literally picked off several Gen 4 fighters from 50-100 clicks away, just like the F-35 can do" - How does an A-10 without A-A radar and stuck with a severe lack of thrust manage to score BVR kills against gen 4 fighters? The kinematic performance would have been horrible considering the A-10 has trouble with speed and altitude. If it had even been able to fire.
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  39.  @LtColDaddy71  So a specially custom tailored airframe that could never be used for real managed to score several kills on 4th gen drone aircraft? Why did they waste 4th gen target drones on such a useless test? "I don’t want to go for the jugular" - Yeah you did, otherwise you'd have brought up actual arguments. "their has to be something wrong with you or something" - *There "Your fixated" - *You're "give zero regard to any other facts" - You said F-35s lose on exercises, actual data says they wipe the floor with everything else even when flown by rookie pilots. I'm not fixated, I'm simply stating the facts.
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  40.  @isodoublet  "You're still assuming there's only exactly a 'third', when in reality there'd be more" - So you're now using 4-5 radars all in redundant positions to do the job of ONE radar could do against 4th gen. Seems like 5th gen is amazingly useful by forcing countries to spend all their money on redundant radars. "you fire your SAM, and then you move" - You can't pack up that quickly. "Powerful enough, and the most important part of that was 'smart'." - No you said the radar would be larger and now you're trying to backpedal. Smart? Amazing. Unexplained technology. "Please look up the word "smart" in the dictionary before continuing." - Please disclose what kind of technology you're talking about or your argument will be dismissed. "That must be why they're now thinking of retrofitting bigger AMRAAMs into the F-35." - They're not absolute telephone poles like SAMs are. AMRAAMs are fired from altitude, at speed. SAMs have to be fired from 0ft AGL and at 0 kts airspeed. To get decent range out of a SAM it's got to be a telephone pole because you need to spend a lot of energy just to get from stationary to airborne. "Not after a "slight nudge of the stick" you don't." - Please educate yourself on how energy works. When a missile is fired at the max range of a SAM, the targeting system has to point the missile to where you WILL be in the future. By changing your heading you're forcing the missile to spend its boost phase getting to speed to intercept a point you don't intend to be. That's why firing at max range doesn't work, the aircraft can simply turn back and it's suddenly outside range. The way to score a kill is to fire only when you have the aircraft inside your no escape zone, or fire multiple missiles to get the aircraft to go defensive and eventually make a mistake. "Look at the Su-57's engines and get back to me." - Again, it's a sorry excuse of a cope aircraft. I'm not sure what the lack of s-ducts have to do with your position but it sure as hell shows it's a cope.
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  41.  @isodoublet  "You need to pay attention to what's actually being said" - You first mentioned putting a larger radar on the missile. Now you're trying to backpedal by saying it just needs a smart tech upgrade, without disclosing what smart tech is going to improve radar performance.
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  42.  @isodoublet  "Any technology they have to shoot down stealth aircraft will obviously be kept close to the vest" - This is optimism bias. A nation would rather make it clear they will shoot down stealth aircraft and deter a war than wait for a war to spring a trap. How would this tech even be kept secret if AA crews would have to be trained to shoot down very low observable aircraft? Eventually people finish their conscription or contracts, and after that they're private citizens. They could talk to an intelligence asset in secret. They could emigrate and be free to disclose information overseas without fear of being detained by the authorities. Or, nobody's actually being trained and thus this secret tech will not be available when it actually matters. "they're just using the Syrians to collect as much data about stealth aircraft in realistic conditions" - Didn't a Russian general get sacked because he admitted that Russian and Syrian IADS were linked and then the Israelis BTFO'd some of their batteries? "the Russians have had 40 years to figure out how to modify their radar systems to exploit known, objective, factual, and unavoidable shortcomings of stealth platforms" - And they have nothing to show for it.
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  43.  @isodoublet  "Please show where in that I said the radar needs to be so big it'll ruin the point of the missile." - I already did. You want to downplay what you said by bringing up "computers". Just admit you were wrong when talking about power and move on. "I'm explaining to you why that's absurd since there's no sense in which the possibility of Russian success would cause me optimism" - Is this some kind of joke? You have a vested interest in the failure of stealth technology and a belief that things will just go better than expected for anti-stealth tech, so that is optimism. No matter what nation you're in. "I'm calling it like I see it." - Well, I'd suggest going to the eye doctor. "I have no idea what you're on about." - Projecting strength prevents attack. Hiding strength will require a bloody conflict to be useful. You know what I'm on about, you're just playing to not have to be forced to admit you were wrong. "The contrary." - Then why do Russia-aligned outlets trash stealth? "If they can already detect them, they'd want the US to continue to compromise their designs" - But conventional designs would be even easier to detect. "more expensive" - You already said the US has more money. You've already conceded defeat in this argument. "If they're trained in a strategy you can already defeat, it doesn't matter." - What? Crews need to be trained to use this new technology. That means it becomes public. "Lol that doesn't prove anything." - It does. You just claim it doesn't because it torpedoes your narrative. Russian aligned outlets badmouth stealth and try to convince American citizens it's a waste. "It's cultural." - So it's in their culture to be suicidal enough to keep a secret that would discourage attack if made public? "Strategically, it makes more sense to hide the capability" - No, it makes more sense to do everything to deter attack. "motivate the US to waste money and overcommit to a strategy they can already counter." - Like you said, the US has more money. So they would simply increase the cost of the war, but still lose in the end. "stealth puts the adversary in a comparatively comfortable position because it's so expensive to build and operate" - Again, the US can afford it. Russia's economy can't. "That would not be the case if the US' strategy were based on overwhelming numerical superiority" - The US has the two largest air forces in the world. "It doesn't prove any of that, sorry." - Don't have to be sorry, but the F-35 still humiliated the Russian defenses. "It doesn't matter that they're linked" - It does. It means they got BTFO'd. "I did, and you still don't know that." - Then you'd know that a major plot point is that the Soviets unknowingly doomed the world by activating the doomsday device before publicly announcing it. I don't think they'd accept destruction just to score a couple of kills on stealth jets over deterring a conflict in the first place.
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  44.  @isodoublet  "Maybe that can be done against joke states like Syria" - Defended by both Syrian defenses bought from Russia and Russian forces themselves. "Prove it." - You're asking me for evidence it takes time to pack up the erected launch tubes and the raised radar dishes? "I'm asking you to prove your claims. Not that hard." - Which claim? That's why I asked for context. "You do know what a computer is, at least?" - Can you explain how a "computer" improves a missile? "English please." - Exactly, you don't know what energy fighting is. I already described it to you. It's forcing a missile to waste energy trying to chase predictive trajectories. "I guess if the probability of kill is < 1, the system is worthless and doesn't work." - Strawman argument. If Pk is 0 you don't fire.
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  45.  @isodoublet  I'm sick of this. My point here is that you're the alleged physicist who claims stealth doesn't work, then implies that it requires the defending nation to invest in 5x more radars to do the job of one, it requires more power on the radars mounted in active/semi-active missiles, then claims that signal processing can see stealth and expects to be taken seriously when LITERALLY EVERY ONE OF THESE MEASURES WILL MAKE 4TH GEN OBSOLETE. You make stealth visible, no 4th gen can enter contested airspace. You will not save money creating hordes of easily shot down 4th gen aircraft that will be easily targeted by defenses that defeat stealth. Not just due to the cost of dead and captured pilots, but also because capable 4th gen is as expensive as F-35s if not more. You've already admitted that stealth works by pointing out how a defending nation with less money than the US needs to invest 5x on the number of radars and crews just to be able to have enough redundancy to deal with strikes on radar sites. Not just that but your dream scenario of stealth defeating technology essentially makes stealth aircraft the new normal aircraft, while 4th gen and prior become vulnerable turkeys that cannot get anywhere close to any foreign nation implementing this Jesus tech. And somehow, despite having 5x the number of radar crews, not a single one has posted anything online while drunk late at night, been contacted by intelligence agencies or just emigrated from outside the reach of his country's intelligence and blabbed about their plans to shoot down stealth aircraft. You're also the alleged physicist who doesn't understand missiles have a limited energy budget defined by their fuel capacity and their aerodynamic efficiency when maneuvering, so you sit and type about 50G turns not understanding that SAMs do not fly like in Behind Enemy Lines. You claim that radars that need to get packed into u-hauls can move out of the way from anti radiation missiles, then come around and ask for specifics when it's your burden to explain how quickly the radar can be moved. Russian-built defenses already got BTFO'd by F-35s. Russian-built defenses already got BTFO'd by drones. You have nothing except optimism bias and a secret hope that stealth fails, and if the day comes that God forbid this gets tested for real, you will remember this conversation and realize how wrong you were.
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  46.  @isodoublet  I tracked down the information on the Russian-Syrian link. August 2017, reported by tass / defense / 962057 A unified air defense system has been set up in Syria thanks to efforts of Russian and Syrian military experts, Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces Major-General Sergey Meshcheryakov told a round table dedicated to the Syrian experience at the Army-2017 International Military-Technical Forum. "Today, a unified integrated air defense system has been set up in Syria. We have ensured the information and technical interlinkage of the Russian and Syrian air reconnaissance systems. All information on the situation in the air comes from Syrian radar stations to the control points of the Russian force grouping," he said. The Russian air defense group in the Hmeymim airfield area includes a radio engineering battalion, a battery of the Pantsir-S air defense missile and gun systems and the S-400 air defense missile systems. "These air defense missile systems are capable of destroying targets within a range of up to 400 kilometers at an altitude of up to 35 kilometers," Meshcheryakov said. In April 2018 it was reported that AGM-158B JASSM had been used to strike weapons facilities in Syria, with none being intercepted. The Syrian defenses launched forty SAMs blindly, and only by the time they realized there impacts were coming. The Russian defenses were active but they did not engage. This combined with the Israeli strikes and the drones in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict really show that Russian defensive systems are lacking.
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  47.  @isodoublet  Nope, it sounds like stealth features on munitions worked. Praising Russian-built defenses and then blaming the operators for not being able to target a B-1 and the low observable munitions is the definition of vatnik cope.
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  48.  @isodoublet  "there's zero evidence that's the case, sorry" - Then why didn't they fire and kill the incoming B-1s? Oh let me guess - the vatniks told you that the Russians were warned of the attack by the US and told to stand down or something. I've seen people delusional enough to claim that. "And I've been asking several times for evidence that the Russians have been committing their top shelf radar assets to this" - Special pleading. I already sourced the statements by Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces Major-General Sergey Meshcheryakov. Additionally - from oryxspioenkop / 2018 / 10 / flying under syrias radar special: "While the tasks of the aforementioned helicopters are relatively straightforward, the SyAAF also operates at least two Mi-17s airborne jamming platforms for the jamming of enemy air defence radars. First seen during a large-scale Syrian Arab Air Force exercise in July 2012, the first type was seen equipped with two oddly shaped containers installed on either side of the fuselage. While the exact purpose of these containers remain unknown, it is now believed that they are part of the North Korean TACAN electronic jamming system installed onboard at least one SyAAF Mi-17. The TACAN electronic jamming system was reportedly (quoting statements from a Syrian defector) used against a Russian crewed SyAADF Pantsir-S1 self-propelled anti-aircraft system in a series of test taking place in early 2012. This test came after Syrian complaints regarding the Pantsir-S1's ability to cope with electronic countermeasures, which are heavily employed by the Israeli Air Force during their raids against Syrian military installations. While the Soviet Union's and Russia's standard response to criticism on its military hardware has been to blame the operators and not the quality of the hardware itself, the Russians suffered a serious blow when the TACAN electronic jamming system successfully managed to jam the Pantsir-S1 during the 2012 test. Despite the Pantsir-S1's supposed ability to deal with heavy electronic countermeasures, the Russian crew's efforts to evade the jamming were in vain." Syrian-operated helicopters with North Korean-built jamming equipment can defeat Russian Pantsirs crewed by Russians. And the claims come from a Syrian defector.
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  49.  @isodoublet  "I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about stealth planes here? Lmao keep it straight." - You do realize that the B-1 is a low observable aircraft, right? Although not a pure stealth its radar cross section is similar to a small fighter and its compressor blades are hidden behind s-ducts. Either way, you do realize this makes it worse for you, doesn't it? A bomber with just enough stealth features to reduce its RCS to of a small fighter can strike with impunity by delivering standoff munitions (not even the extended range variant) that have low observable features, and you're out here claiming Jesus tech allows Russian-built defenses to target true stealth? Come on now. "coming from someone who believes the laws of physics are being held in abeyance just because his country's military told him so?" - People who question stealth are literally the ones who don't believe in physics. "Give proof or admit you can't." - I already gave proof of what I claimed. Russian defenses were linked to Syrian defenses, as claimed by a Russian officer. You're the one using special pleading to divert the conversation into something that's impossible to prove.
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  50.  @isodoublet  "So, not stealth?" - And yet it BTFOs Russian built defenses, even with Russian batteries and Russian crews linked to the Syrian ones, as claimed by the Russians themselves. "The contrary. It makes your position that these batteries were being operated by people who knew what they were doing utterly untenable." - You'd think the Russians, who were linked to the Syrian defenses, again as claimed by Russian sources, would tell them what to do? Literally what else are they doing in Syria except making their own defenses look worse? Not to mention, Turkish and Azeri drones still did a number on Russian built defenses. "Explain how a coat of paint can affect 10m+ wavelengths" - Explain how the entire spectrum of low observability features is reduced to a coat of paint.
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  51.  @isodoublet  "So what's the point of stealth?" - Weird question to ask, because stealth features were added to the B-1. What's the point? Obliterating facilities protected by enemy defenses. "Why spend a trillion dollars" - That's the projected cost until 2070. That money hasn't been spent yet. If your problem is the total cost of a project from start to retirement, you'll have to compare it to other projects. "when something not stealth gets the job done for less money" - The B-1 is a notoriously expensive aircraft and was considered a waste when it was starting out. It's impressive that you'll resort to nonsensical arguments like pretending the B-1 is the "cheap" option. "I don't think you have a point beyond "America good! Russians bad!"" - No, I have many points. You can read them all on this thread. I'm actually against American intervention in Syria. But it's hilarious to point out how embarrassing it is that Russia devoted their R&D to defenses and yet it seems like the attacker still has the advantage.
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  52. @Drew Peacock The leading edge L-band radars are tiny.
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