Oops! China's 'Stealth Ships' Aren’t So Stealthy After All

Normally I would be reluctant to post anything from Popular Mechanics here, but this caught my eye because it is design related. I've often wondered just how stealthy ships such as the Arleigh Burke class really are. Even though this doesn't answer that question, it does relate to stealth design. Even though a ship may be stealthy to surface bound radar looking at the ships profile, looking at it from space presents a whole different surface to the radar, a image that may no be so stealthy.

Kyle Mizokami
Wed, October 27, 2021, 10:25 AM

• China's Type-022 missile boats have long been seen as stealthy.
  
  
• The boats feature sharp angular lines and hidden missile launchers.
  
  
• In reality, the boats show up in commercially available radar scans of the Chinese coastline.
  

Oops! China's 'Stealth Ships' Aren’t So Stealthy After All https://news.yahoo.com/oops-chinas-stealth-ships-aren-172500623.html

 

That's good news.

 

Stealth is a relative term. But, if everyone is using the same satellite tech to spot ships that are quiet and don't show up on radar, it's kind of like trading heavily armored knights for bright red coats, because everyone has a musket, so why weigh your officers down? Cheaper too.

-Will

 

I am just curious to know if our stealth ships show up on X band radar peering down from space? Of course if they do there's no way our military is going to say so, that would certainly be classified.

 

I don't know anything about this, but I would guess that any country with a satellite would already know the answer to that question. That's got to be most of them.

-Will

 

You don't even have to go to space, those flat angular shapes are supposed to reflect radar transmissions away from the transmitter, that only works if it's another boat at sea level.. if you approach by air in an AWACs that's a perfect reflector back to the AWACs .. The only way to go invisible is a good coating of RAM ( Radar Absorbent Material) but that stuff gives you all sorts of other problems..

 

Let me put this in context. Years ago (the 60's and 70's) I was a Fire Control Technician (that's control of fire of big naval guns) Our main tools were computers and radar. I know for a fact that lots and lots of advancements have been made in radar technology since then. I've tried to keep up with it even though my career went in a different direction. And I also know that stealth technology has developed right along side advances in radar. But for every way to avoid radar there are also other ways to detect objects such as ships and boats. So as Q said there is really no way to go completely invisible (not yet anyway). Our military has made a big deal out of stealth technology on aircraft and ships (and even on land vehicles) but I don't think it's as good as they say it is. Of course in the boating community one of the easiest ways, if you didn't want to be seen, was to build boats with stuff that didn't reflect well, like wood or fiberglass and very little metal. (of course, why some one wouldn't want to be seen is a whole other subject) That's why sailboaters hang radar reflectors from their rigging. I also wonder about the seaworthiness of some of these stealth ships but that's another subject too.

 

Large capital ships must put out some kind of heat signature compared to the cold ocean water around them. I would think sophisticated sensors could find them quickly today from satellites. One of the first targets in a war must be attempts to destroy the enemies intelligence and tracking capability which means hunter killer drones to blow up or otherwise disrupt communications. I am sure the US military keeps tight track of as much as they can of Chinese and Russians assets. And must be following them around so as to not loose their lock on the targets as it is a big ocean out there. Submarines are at an obvious advantage here.

 

Sonar operators as far back as WWII knew that subs and ships had a noise signature and good operators could tell you if it was a ship or sub and even maybe what class. Its been known since the sixties that all vessels put out a heat signature and a wake signature. Even submarines submerged still have a wake and heat signature as well as a magnetic signature (why sub hunters are equipped with magnetometers) These wake and heat signatures can be tracked by satellites. The US (and I suppose Russia) have deployed extensive nets of undersea listening devices that are used to track submarines. Of course designers of military vessels, especially stealth vessels, try to do design features that reduce these. Sounds carry long distances underwater. So when running silent they try to make no noise at all. Even flushing a toilet would be heard by someone listening.

 

Run silent run deep? Actually deeper they go the more stealthy they are. Come up to the surface to shoot off that nuclear missile. I dont see much future for military stealth except for subs. The real danger today is hypersonic missile tech. And it is a real problem. Such a weapon though is only good for a first strike, and counterstrikes cant be stopped if there was a nuke exchange, really it is bad all around. But some countries involved in that war will do better than others. The US will not do so well. China and Russia will do better than us. Too many people in the US are not used to hardships, and we are sicker. The 'fallout' of such a war will be with us for generations. I have read expect 90% death rate if there was a major catastrophic event in the US. Imagine the people in the cities, what happens when there is no food and no water and no medical care, most people in large cities are dead men walking then. And majority of the country lives in large cities.

 

In WWII and maybe even today, ships would be equipped with degausing equipment to remove their magnetic properties. This effectively made the ships invisible to magnetically guided torpedoes and mines.

Remember that episode of Gilligan's Island?


-Will