What good are stealth fighters?

[player1]

Well, "F" in the name is not only used for interceptors, but for tactical bomber too, as far as I know.

On the other hand "B" is used for strategic bombers only.

[Dis]

Originally posted by gunkulator
The F-117 flew only 2.5% of the missions in Desert Storm but accounted for something like 40% of the hits. In all, only 36 were deployed. It's big advantage is that it can fly in unescorted, whereas regular bombers and other strike aircraft need a whole flying circus of support planes. Overall the F-117 is simply a cheaper plane to fly.

But it is curious why the plane is designated a fighter when it was never intended to be used that way. It's not even supersonic.

I take serious exception to that 40% of the hits!!

It simply does not have the bombload capacity. But one good thing it did during the war was delve deep into Iraqi territory and did account for most of the hits on the city of Bagdhad itself. So maybe that's where the 40% applies. but it doesn't apply to all of Iraq.

taken from FAS.org:

Although only 36 stealth fighters were deployed in Desert Storm and accounted for 2.5 percent of the total force of 1,900 fighters and bombers, they flew more than a third of the bombing runs on the first day of the war. In all during Desert Storm, the stealth fighter conducted more than 1,250 sorties, dropped more than 2,000 tons of bombs, and flew more than 6,900 hours. More than 3,000 antiaircraft guns and 60 surface-to-air missile batteries protected the city, but despite this seemingly impenetrable shield, the Nighthawks owned the skies over the city and, for that matter, the country. The stealth fighter, which is coated with a secret, radar-absorbent material, operated over Iraq and Kuwait with impunity, and was unscathed by enemy guns.

[gunkulator]

Not all flights are bombing runs. They are numerous support aircraft that must fly to protect and refuel other strike aircraft.

Also, the F-117s were all equipped with smart bombs, while the B-52s were not. I'll confess I don't remember the exact % of hits or how the % is even calculated but I do remember it being greatly out of proportion to the % of missions flown.

Anyways the case for the Stealth Fighter is that it is cheaper and easier to operate than other low altitude bombers while being far more accurate than carpet bombing from high altitude B52s. It most certainly is not gov't pork. There's plenty of other places to find that.

[Kuciwalker]

B-52's use precision munitions too nowadays.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by player1
Well, "F" in the name is not only used for interceptors, but for tactical bomber too, as far as I know.

On the other hand "B" is used for strategic bombers only.

The F-117 was not designated correctly, it should have been designated as an attack aircraft. It was probably an attempt at misdirection to keep the true capabilities of the aircraft hidden.

[fittstim]

back to the original question...

Stealth bombers bite the big one and should never be built unless you change their specs and make them improved jet fighters.

[spy14]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber


The F-117 was not designated correctly, it should have been designated as an attack aircraft. It was probably an attempt at misdirection to keep the true capabilities of the aircraft hidden.

It was an attempt at misdirection, in the same way as the first photographs of the aircraft concealed its true shape. Usually an aircraft has F for fighter (F-15), A for attack (A-10), F/A for both (F/A-18 or as it is now the F/A-22).

Stealth is the way forward, the F/A-22 can "gaurentee" (on paper) shooting down any other aircraft in existance every time. It would certainly be a far better UU than the F-15 for America. The increased cost of stealth aircraft in reality is balanced off by the fact that they dont need huge support wings.

[Last Conformist]

Well, there are already around various radar systems that can locate and lock on the F-117. It's far from certain that stealth tech will be able to keep ahead of detection tech.

Back to Civ, the Stealth Fighter basically sucks.

[bobbo008]

I love the stealth bombers myself. I actually mod them so they have a much farther range (I play on huge maps) have a very strong bombard rate, can conduct recon (its so cool to see an entire foreign country when youve got 40 or so of them) and make them very expensive. Oh, sometimes I allow them on aircraft carriers for the heck of it.