Radar detection is not the same as weapons grade lock for anti-aircraft targeting purposes. Still helpful to know something is there, but the article doesn't provide any additional information on how actionable that information will be.

[–] naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you can detect, you can intercept. If you can detect, suddenly a whole host of interception strategies are viable.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Your second sentence is mostly accurate, your first is not.

Just because tracking radar identifies something, does not mean it's automatically vulnerable to interception, and it definitely does not guarantee that targeting radar will be able to create a missile, or weapons, lock.

But yes, the ability to track something is a critical first step in an anti-air kill chain.

[–] naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Your claim is that if I can track something to within 20m, I can't send a fighter (or multiple) up to engage with it?

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

No, my assertion is that airspace is very dynamic battlefield.

Just because you can track a possible stealth aircraft several hundred nautical miles off you're coast, does not guarantee your ability to intercept it with aircraft before it drops it's payload, or that your SAM sites will be able to get a missile targeting lock.

It's just a first step.

[–] naturalgasbad@lemmy.ca -2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And this is also true of conventional jet intercepts. Point being, the problem of stealth is basically no longer a problem.

[–] circuscritic@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago

Interceptors haven't been a thing since the cold war. BVR engagements have been the air to air norm for many years, and that requires a weapons grade targeting lock.