DTN News - STEALTH TECHNOLOGY NEWS: Korea's Neighbors Catch Up With U.S. Stealth Technology
*DTN News has enhanced and further elaborated on the subject of the relevant topic respectively for the benefit of the readers with due respect to the author of this article.
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources The Chosunilbo
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - January 7, 2013: China's Navy deployed a new high-speed stealth vessel called DaoDanTing Type 022 during its military drill last month. The vessel is capable of carrying eight missiles with a maximum range of 200 km and traveling at 36 knots per hour while avoiding radar and infrared detection. China has 80 of the ships.
China's Type 022 stealth vessel
The Type 022 (NATO designation: Houbei class) missile boat is a ship class in the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. The first boat was launched in April 2004 by the Qiuxin Shipbuilding Factory at Shanghai. The boats incorporate stealth features and are based off an Australian-designed wave-piercing catamaran hulls that are more stable than other fast missile craft in high sea conditions. Approximately 83 of these missile boats are currently in service with three flotillas having been produced over a span of seven years.
The Houbei class fast attack craft are China's entry into a growing list of missile-armed attack craft which include Finland's Hamina class missile boat, and Norway's Skjold class patrol boat. The Australian AMD cataraman design may mean as much as a 50% reduction in vessel speed penalty in high sea conditions (in which monohulls may only perform at half or less of their maximum capability). Further, seasickness and disorientation is significantly reduced, improving the combat readiness/situational awareness of the small-craft operators during such conditions.
In addition to the stealthy polygonal-designed superstructure with its stealthy gun mount, the Houbei has an advanced C4 datalink[6] that may represent some kind of capability to allow AWACS planes or other ships to vector the Type 22's missiles. (The US Navy is as well exploring a battery ship concept.)
Russia's Sukhoi T-50 Stealth fighter jet
In January this year, Russia held its first test flight of the Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter jet in the far eastern region of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Last month, the second test flight was completed. Moscow plans to deploy the T-50 in active units from 2015 to counter the U.S. military's state-of-the-art F-22 stealth fighter jet.
The Sukhoi PAK FA is a twin-engine jet fighter being developed by Sukhoi for the Russian Air Force. The Sukhoi T-50 is the prototype for PAK FA. The PAK FA is one of only a handful of stealth jet programs globally.
The PAK FA, a fifth generation jet fighter, is intended to be the successor to the MiG-29 and Su-27 in the Russian inventory and serve as the basis of the Sukhoi/HAL FGFA being developed with India. The T-50 prototype performed its first flight 29 January 2010. By 31 August 2010, it had made 17 flights and by mid-November, 40 in total. The second T-50 was to start its flight test by the end of 2010, but this was delayed until March 2011.
The Russian Defence Ministry will purchase the first 10 evaluation example aircraft after 2012 and then 60 production standard aircraft after 2016. The first batch of fighters will be delivered with current technology engines. The PAK-FA is expected to have a service life of about 30–35 years.
U.S. dominance over stealth technology has ended, and major powers neighboring Korea already have considerable stealth technology. Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force has a large number of Hayabusa high-speed patrol boats with stealth capabilities, although not as advanced as the Type 022. Japan is also seeking to purchase F-35 stealth fighters from the U.S., and Mitsubishi is in the process of developing a stealth fighter called ATD-X.
Japan's ATD-X stealth fighter
The Mitsubishi ATD-X Shinshin is a prototype fifth-generation jet fighter that uses advanced stealth technology. It is being developed by the Japanese Ministry of Defense Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) for research purposes. The main contractor of the project is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Many consider this aircraft to be Japan's first domestically made stealth fighter. ATD-X is an acronym meaning "Advanced Technology Demonstrator – X". The aircraft's Japanese name is Shinshin (心神?, literally "mind"). The aircraft's first flight is scheduled for 2014.
The ATD-X will be used as a technology demonstrator and research prototype to determine whether domestic advanced technologies for a fifth generation fighter aircraft are viable, and is a 1/3 size model of a possible full-production aircraft. The aircraft also features 3D thrust vectoring capability. Thrust is controlled in the ATD-X by the use of 3 paddles on each engine nozzle similar to the system used on the Rockwell X-31, while an axis-symmetric thrust vectoring engine is also being developed for the full scale production model. The nozzles on the prototype appear to be uncovered and might have a slight adverse effect on the aircraft's stealth characteristics.
Among the features the ATD-X is to have is a fly-by-optics flight control system, which by substituting optical fibers for wires, allows data to be transferred faster and with immunity to electromagnetic disturbance.
Its radar will be an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar called the 'Multifunction RF Sensor', which is intended to have broad spectrum agility, capabilities for electronic countermeasures (ECM), electronic support measures (ESM), communications functions, and possibly even microwave weapon functions.
Wayne Ulman, head of the U.S. National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) told the Senate in May that China's next-generation stealth fighter J-XX will be deployed around 2018.
Some military analysts claim China already has stealth bombers. Since witnessing the formidable power of U.S. stealth fighters in the first Gulf War in 1991, Beijing has gone all out to acquire the technology. The airframe design for the B-2 stealth bomber was apparently leaked to China in 2005. The Wall Street Journal said Chinese hackers obtained classified documents related to the F-35 when they attacked the Pentagon server in April last year.
Russia has the most advanced stealth submarine in the world. Developed in 2007, it has been evaluated as having the best underwater navigation and sonar-avoiding capabilities, in addition to the "Typhoon" developed in Soviet times. China's submarine technology is not as advanced but developing rapidly. In 2006, China's Song class diesel submarine approached within 9 km of the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk without being detected by the submarines and battleships that had been escorting it, shocking American military officials. That range is within the kill zone of a torpedo.
China and Russia have been developing the technology to counter U.S. stealth fighters. A RAND Corporation study showed that U.S. air power in the Pacific would be inadequate to thwart an attack in a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan in 2020, with American stealth fighters being unable to evade China's CETC Y-27 radars. The state-of-the-art radar system, developed with Russian technology, uses VHF mode, and computer simulations showed a high chance of U.S. stealth fighters failing to attack Chinese military bases, while American air craft carriers and the airbase in Okinawa could be destroyed.
Why are China, Russia and Japan trying so hard to keep up with the U.S. stealth technology? The answer is that it is impossible to fight an invisible enemy. In 2006, the U.S. military held a mock battle in Alaska between the F-22 Raptor and the F-15, F-16 and F-18 conventional fighter jets. The result was 108 conventional fighters lost, but not a single F-22.
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*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources The Chosunilbo
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