Why hasnt anyone tried to make a light weight scale armor for a plane that can be easily swapped on land and is good against shrapnel.After that you just gotta stay away from direct hitd with ECMs and have the neccesary hit points to close the range with stealth fighters to dog fight them.Just gotta make it rugged enough to make the engine survive the shrapnel and you re good to shred a dozen fifth gen jets
>>65013679Because armor is heavy and more armor means less weapons at best, a significant redesign of the frame at worst
>>65013710But if it lets you completely ignore modern weapons its worth it.Why has everyone went in on stealth rather than Speed or armor
>>65013679So you want to be both heavier and faster than stealth fighters, units defined by being as light and fast as possible? While also carrying a heavy cannon and the heavy radar equipment to detect them?
>>65013724The f35 does mach 1.2 at best.Russians mig something was able to get to mach 3 durying the cold war.With modern ramjets you can reach such speeds yes, forgo radar altogheter and go for the Thermal imaging that works best like the pirate irst that has a range of 100kilometer on subsonic jets.Sure the f22 could manage in a dog fight against it but the f35 or any other country 5gen would be powerless to stop it.And also give it variable geometry wings while we are at it.
>>65013740>mach 1.2 at bestincorrect, mach 1.6.>forego radar altogetheryou're retarded>thermal imaging that works bestyou're retarded>that has a range of 100kilometerin ideal conditions, you don't know how thermal imaging is and what it's upsides and downsides arethis has to be an act, nobody is this dumb.
>>65013750>nobody is this dumbyou must be new here
>>65013750If you made a plane that needs to counter stealth fighter might has well forgo radar entirely, For the Clouds UV imagers work well enough.The idea is to close the distance before it can run away and murder it with IR missiles in visual range.The radar wont see it before the IRST does
>>65013711Because armor only serves defense while stealth serves both defense and offense. The enemy can't fight you if they don't know you're there.
being invisible and fast is better than being visible, slow and (sort of) tough.
