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nationalinterest.org

According to new reporting from the New York Times, a Houthi surface-to-air (SAM) missile barely missed an American F-35 fifth-generation fighter, the crown jewel of the U.S. fighter inventory. The F-35, participating in Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis, was forced to take evasive action to avoid the missile.

The incident raises questions about the survivability of one of America’s most advanced fighters, and raises concerns over how effective the relatively unsophisticated Houthi air defense system has been at hampering U.S. action.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    18·
    7 hours ago

    So… the article describes that:

    … the simplistic nature of the [Houthi Anti Air] systems also helps them to avoid earlier detection by America’s advanced equipment. “Many of the [SAMs] are also improvised, leveraging non-traditional passive infrared sensors and jury-rigged air-to-air missiles that provide little to no early warning of a threat, let alone an incoming attack,”

    and:

    but the Houthis claim that the Barq-1 and Barq-2 [Iranian AA missle systems] have maximum ranges of 31 miles and 44 miles and can engage targets at altitudes of 49,000 feet and 65,000 feet, respectively.

    with some of these missiles being:

    capable of firing Taer variants also reportedly have electro-optical and/or infrared camera to aid in target acquisition, identification, and tracking.”

    … So I find it rather odd to describe passive IR guided AA missiles as ‘non-traditional’.

    I think a better phrase would be ‘novel’ or ‘unaccounted for’.

    Passive IR missiles of different exact specifications are… pretty common through the entire history of … just missiles, in general.

    Jet engine exhaust is extremely hot, and it would seem the F35 is not actually as good at masking it as previously thought, probably when its flying away from the missile launcher and is thus showing its big hot ass… if passive IR + electro optical missiles can get this close.

    (‘electro-optical’ is a fancy term for basically a visual spectrum camera + computer tracking an identified target… you know, like a snapchat face filter…)

    • Raltoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      5 hours ago

      Yeah, it sounds like they’re trying to downplay how they disimissed the tech as “outdated” during design and construction.

    • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      6 hours ago

      Yeah the IR SAM threat is not a new thing, 25 NATO coalition aircraft were damaged or downed by IR SAMs during the Gulf war, and that was three decades ago. The IR SAM threat has been understood since the SA-7/9K32 Strela-2. This is why IR signature reduction is so important to stealth/low observability technology.

      What’s new are these frankenSAM systems in Yemen and Ukraine using advanced infrared guided air to air missiles with high off boresight capability like the R-73, ASRAAM and latest AIM-9s as SAMs, and advanced ground based infrared search and track systems that can connect to more traditional SAM, which extends the range of the IR threat considerably.

      An F-35 is not going to be as good as something like the F-117, B-2, B-21 or YF-23 prototype at hiding it’s engine exhaust from ground based sensors, it’s not even as good as the F-22 at that, nevermind those previous aircraft where the engine exhaust isn’t even visible from below. Such was likely one of the compromises in the F-35s design, to allow for mass production and fulfilling all the different roles all 3 F-35 variants carry out.