this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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I don't think this work is even that surprising, which is perhaps the surprising part to most people. Fusing information from a network of radars has always been the Achilles heel of stealth aircraft. It's just that radar fusion at a country-level scale hadn't really been demonstrated before.
The US is openly talking about the networking capabilities of the F-35 and other aircraft, I would expect that they simply don't/didn't want to publicize they had radar fusion. The US is hands-down the most advanced military in the world, so there's little need to brag about counter-measure capabilities. We brag about our military through offensive dick-measuring. As a result, it's a double bonus for the Chinese to brag that they've neutralized one of our offensive capabilities, because they can't directly brag about their own offensive abilities.
Why would China want offensive abilities? Their only military engagements in recent history (if you exclude their embassy getting bombed in Serbia) have been fought with sticks and water guns.
Chinese policy has always been domestically-focused.
China wants offensive capabilities because what China considers domestic policy and what other countries consider domestic policy are not always the same thing. See: who is the rightful government of China, or man-made islands to expandf resource claims. Furthermore, offensive capabilities are dual-purpose and can be used to repel invasion. If all you have is defense (like passive armor), then advisories can attach without worrying about counter attack.
Sensor fusion is wicked hard though. At the sensor level and the track level it's a huge pain, especially on something maneuverable.
Engineering problem.
I’m sitting here trying to figure out where the Chinese got an F22 to test their study results on.
The US is happy to fly an F-22 around willy nilly in air shows and whatever /s
The real answer is that the J-20's RCS is probably similar to the F-22 and they realized that the J-20 is vulnerable to this. This has been a known problem with stealth technology for forever, so it's really more of a deterrence. China really doesn't want a war, which is why their Navy is so heavily oriented towards coastal (defensive) operations rather than blue water (offensive/power projection) operations.