Russian Threats!

[PoliticalCitizen]

Yeah...okay...dream on buddy.

Have you heard of multiple passive sensor "anti-stealth" systems (also referred to as radars) Tamara and Colchuga?

[AngusThermopyle]

Have you heard of multiple passive sensor "anti-stealth" systems (also referred to as radars) Tamara and Colchuga?

Sure have, and since you mention them its obvious you don't know how they work or that matter much about how radar in general works. These are not "anti stealth" systems, it is a common misconception that they are, however that is wrong.

Here, educate yourself about them a little.

Truth about Tamara and Kolchuka Systems.

As I said, dream on.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the sale of 300 million worth of Tamara systems to Iraq in 1997 doesn't appear to have done them much good has it.

Edited August 20, 2008 by AngusThermopyle

[Wild Bill]

I'm afraid that this whole story of a Russian computer chip strikes me as bogus!

You see, I was part of that whole high tech wave! I started off selling the very first microcomputer chips. I sold the Intel 8080, the 8085, 8086, Pentiums and so on. I was there before the IBM PC was even created.

Russia was desperate to get such parts but because of the Iron Curtain trade restrictions they had to go to outlandish lengths to smuggle them into their empire.

Canada was a useful conduit for them. Many Montreal brokers made fortunes buying from franchised distributors like us and then taking them as carryon luggage on a plane to Poland or Estonia.

The big hurdle in producing them yourself is the necessary infrastructure. There is so much involved in all the myriad facets of producing ANY integrated circuit, let alone one as complicated as a supercomputer chip that Russia just couldn't do it for themselves. No room for a "mom and pop" operation. You either enter the game as a full fledged manufacturer capable of making and presumably selling in huge quantities or you just can't play at all.

It's possible Russia has some obsolete machinery and is capable of making a few older chips but this would be extremely inefficient for the cost and the payoff. It makes much more sense to take another tack.

You scrape off the markings off a useful chip and laser print your own!

This was done all the time to disguise the source of integrated circuits destined to be smuggled behind the Iron Curtain! I've actually held such "counterfeit" remarked devices in my own hands.

I suspect this Russian claim is actually such a rebranded device.

[bush_cheney2004]

I'm afraid that this whole story of a Russian computer chip strikes me as bogus!

You see, I was part of that whole high tech wave! I started off selling the very first microcomputer chips. I sold the Intel 8080, the 8085, 8086, Pentiums and so on. I was there before the IBM PC was even created.

Russia was desperate to get such parts but because of the Iron Curtain trade restrictions they had to go to outlandish lengths to smuggle them into their empire....

This is consistent with my experience among Russian ex-pats in Unix classes....they were so hard up for even the most basic microprocessors, memory, and even simple logic chips that they would smuggle in commercial product from the US and Europe and cannibalize devices. Eight bit devices from Apple IIs, Osborne I's, Timex-Sinclair, even the Commodore 64 (which was made in Canada for a spell). Their training manuals were poor translations of ripped off technical documentation and data sheets.....sometimes they even reproduced the mistakes because they forgot to steal the errata sheets !

But it wasn't all backwards for Boris....they had to be very very efficient about programming, stack usage, and memory allocation. The Americans were lazy and wasteful by comparison.

[Alta4ever]

Back to the topic:

In response to Poland signing the agreement of placing the missle-defence system on its territory, Belarus and Syria offered Russia to place Russian Iskander missle systems and / or strategic bombers on their territory.

Also Russian Tu-95 "Bear's" are flying along the northern borders of US, Canada and Norway...

The Bear has been testing western airspace since last year long before these events. Also big difference in the missle systems is the one in poland is defensive ment to knock out missles going overhead, they are not offensive and ment to stike strategic ground tragets on another countriy's soil.

Edited August 21, 2008 by Alta4ever

[PoliticalCitizen]

Sure have, and since you mention them its obvious you don't know how they work or that matter much about how radar in general works. These are not "anti stealth" systems, it is a common misconception that they are, however that is wrong.

Here, educate yourself about them a little.

Truth about Tamara and Kolchuka Systems.

As I said, dream on.

The Serbs were able to track and shoot down an F117 using a regular radar and just increasing the wavelenght.

The passive sensor is another way of detecting "Stealth".

A third way I heard is to use a radar with multiple recievers, as most of the signal gets deflected another receiver may pick it up.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the sale of 300 million worth of Tamara systems to Iraq in 1997 doesn't appear to have done them much good has it.

LOL

I'm amazed Iraqis learned to use the AK47's...

They sure didn't know how to operate the old Soviet tanks properly...

[PoliticalCitizen]

I'm afraid that this whole story of a Russian computer chip strikes me as bogus!

You see, I was part of that whole high tech wave! I started off selling the very first microcomputer chips. I sold the Intel 8080, the 8085, 8086, Pentiums and so on. I was there before the IBM PC was even created.

Russia was desperate to get such parts but because of the Iron Curtain trade restrictions they had to go to outlandish lengths to smuggle them into their empire.

Canada was a useful conduit for them. Many Montreal brokers made fortunes buying from franchised distributors like us and then taking them as carryon luggage on a plane to Poland or Estonia.

The big hurdle in producing them yourself is the necessary infrastructure. There is so much involved in all the myriad facets of producing ANY integrated circuit, let alone one as complicated as a supercomputer chip that Russia just couldn't do it for themselves. No room for a "mom and pop" operation. You either enter the game as a full fledged manufacturer capable of making and presumably selling in huge quantities or you just can't play at all.

It's possible Russia has some obsolete machinery and is capable of making a few older chips but this would be extremely inefficient for the cost and the payoff. It makes much more sense to take another tack.

You scrape off the markings off a useful chip and laser print your own!

This was done all the time to disguise the source of integrated circuits destined to be smuggled behind the Iron Curtain! I've actually held such "counterfeit" remarked devices in my own hands.

I suspect this Russian claim is actually such a rebranded device.

I understand your skepticism but it doesn't appear to be a lie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus_(computer)

[PoliticalCitizen]

This is consistent with my experience among Russian ex-pats in Unix classes....they were so hard up for even the most basic microprocessors, memory, and even simple logic chips that they would smuggle in commercial product from the US and Europe and cannibalize devices. Eight bit devices from Apple IIs, Osborne I's, Timex-Sinclair, even the Commodore 64 (which was made in Canada for a spell). Their training manuals were poor translations of ripped off technical documentation and data sheets.....sometimes they even reproduced the mistakes because they forgot to steal the errata sheets !

But it wasn't all backwards for Boris....they had to be very very efficient about programming, stack usage, and memory allocation. The Americans were lazy and wasteful by comparison.

I agree, and it was pretty much as you describe...

The general population was not even aware of the existence of a "Russian CPU" - it was as secret as any nuclear missle related military hardware...

And of course, the Communist Party did not think that regular people can benefit from owning a cheaper version of it... same as tons of other cool stuff that was invented for the military... that's why I brought it up as an example.

[AngusThermopyle]

The Serbs were able to track and shoot down an F117 using a regular radar and just increasing the wavelenght.

The passive sensor is another way of detecting "Stealth".

A third way I heard is to use a radar with multiple recievers, as most of the signal gets deflected another receiver may pick it up.

I was wondering if you knew about that incident, it does raise some interesting questions. They are still undetermined as to whether it was because of the radar or pilot error. Personally I believe it was both, but thats just my opinion.

Passive sensors have been with us for many years now and are good to an extent, however the technology to circumvent passive systems has come a long way. Although there is now the Kolchuca "M" series in deployment it still remains to be seen as to how effective they are against stealth.

Both Tamara and Kolchuca systems use multiple receivers to detect. The Kolchuca requires about a sixty Kilometer spacing between receivers and C2 units in order to be effective.

What must be kept in mind is the fact that even if the system enabled an f-117 to be shot down, that is only one positive detection out of hundreds of sorties. In other words the system receives a failing grade. One should also keep in mind the fact that the 22 is magnitudes more stealthy than the 117. This is the basis for my saying "dream on"

Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention that both systems will only detect within a limited range and the aircraft must be in the node, or the "sweet spot" for them to be detected. All in all pretty specific requirements that reduce the chances of detection even further.

[Army Guy]

The Serbs were able to track and shoot down an F117 using a regular radar and just increasing the wavelenght.

The passive sensor is another way of detecting "Stealth".

A third way I heard is to use a radar with multiple recievers, as most of the signal gets deflected another receiver may pick it up.

Stealth does not mean invisable, it means a much smaller radar signature, the signature will always be there...and can be tracked if you aware or looking for it....

The Serbs got extremily lucky, and the american pilot was most likely bored, or very relaxed....Until missle lock that is....with all the F117 sorties flown over serb territory they did only mange to shoot one down....The russians did mange to knock down a U-2 as well thought to fly well above missle range....

Once combat has begun, turning on a ground station radar, is very deadly for it's operators....just ask the Iraqis, and although Stealth by itself does give you a great advantage it is all the other systems that are deployed with it that give it it's full potential....AWAC's, once a ground station comes on line AWACs can vector friendly aircraft away from it....Then there is the wild weasel sqns dedicated to destroying ground stations and other air defense platforms....not counting Sat sweeps of the area etc etc the airforce are pretty good at getting aircraft in and out of a bombing run.... My piont is can't detect shit if the radar is not turn on, because in doing so brings down the rain....

All that being said the russians still have some of the best Air defense platforms in the world, an area the americans are lacking, but gaining ground....slowly, i think they put more effort into putting more tech into thier planes, than thier ground A/D platforms....Control the skys everything else will follow....

[M.Dancer]

The Serbs were able to track and shoot down an F117 using a regular radar and just increasing the wavelenght.

The passive sensor is another way of detecting "Stealth".

A third way I heard is to use a radar with multiple recievers, as most of the signal gets deflected another receiver may pick it up.

LOL

I'm amazed Iraqis learned to use the AK47's...

They sure didn't know how to operate the old Soviet tanks properly...

Reportedly several SA-3s were launched from approximately 8 miles out, one of which detonated in close proximity to the F-117A, forcing the pilot to eject. Though still classified, it has long been believed that the F-117 possesses no radar warning indicator, so the pilot's first indication of an incoming missile was likely seeing its flame. At this distance and combined speed the pilot had about 6 seconds to react before impact. According to an interview, Zoltán Dani was able to keep most of his missile sites intact by keeping them on the move, and had a number of spotters spread out looking for F-117s and other NATO aircraft, he also personally supervised the modification of his targeting radar to increase its wavelength. The commanders and crews of the SAMs guessed the flight paths of earlier F-117A strikes from rare radar spottings and positioned their SAM launchers and spotters accordingly. It is believed that the SA-3 crews and spotters were able to locate and track F-117A 82-806 visually, probably with the help of infra-red and night vision systems. He also claimed that his battery shot down an F-16 as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-117_Nighthawk#Combat_losses

Only ONE has ever been shot down in well over 1600 combat missions, which is to say, the Serbs got lucky.

[AngusThermopyle]

Stealth does not mean invisable,

Actually I was reading an article about the latest "stealth" developments. Researchers have been making great strides in the area of "light bending" in other words refraction. They were saying that they are very close to figuring out how to actually make objects invisible. They have even had some success with actual objects in controlled environments Of course they wouldn't be entirely invisible, as they stated in the article it would be a similar effect to the "Predator" one in those ridiculous movies.

It appears that once again science fiction has predicted things to come. Not even good science fiction at that!

So...who knows...ten years from now, invisible men and equipment, cool.

[White Doors]

similar effect to the "Predator" one in those ridiculous movies.

Aww come on, Alien vs. predator is a classic face puncher!

[Army Guy]

Hey i thought it was the klingons that invented it....

[Wild Bill]

I understand your skepticism but it doesn't appear to be a lie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus_(computer)

Sorry!

First off, "wiki" is hardly gospel!

That being said, it would appear that Erebus is just a custom chip produced with western technology by western companies like Sunn Microsystems. At least, according to your very own wiki link!

This is nothing new. The various facets of microcomputers and all the glue chips have become simple building blocks and can be etched on the same wafer of silicon. All of this is western technology. Only the specific Erebus design would be Russian.

So have the Russians built their own supercomputer chip> Yes, they have. Does this mean they have any true capacity in that field? No, it doesn't.

I have a personal friend who is an ex-pat Russian. He actually worked on their lunar probes and the like. He has confirmed to me first hand of how these things have always worked in Russian.

It goes back to WWII, when Russia accepted Allied fighter planes, re-marked them and told the peasantry they were planes developed by Russia!

To be fair, all this proves is that Russia has been notoriously poor at developing the resources and infrastructure of these high tech electronic areas. Ex-pat engineers like my friend are in great demand in the West as designers. They grew up in a system of good education but poor access to materials. They are geniuses at getting the most out of the least and make the most cost-effective designs anywhere.

[GostHacked]

I'm afraid that this whole story of a Russian computer chip strikes me as bogus!

You see, I was part of that whole high tech wave! I started off selling the very first microcomputer chips. I sold the Intel 8080, the 8085, 8086, Pentiums and so on. I was there before the IBM PC was even created.

The US built a bomb, so did the Russians. It would be enough to say they developed a computer chip as well. Kind of needed them to control the new stuff.

Russia was desperate to get such parts but because of the Iron Curtain trade restrictions they had to go to outlandish lengths to smuggle them into their empire.

Canada was a useful conduit for them. Many Montreal brokers made fortunes buying from franchised distributors like us and then taking them as carryon luggage on a plane to Poland or Estonia.

This is true.

The big hurdle in producing them yourself is the necessary infrastructure. There is so much involved in all the myriad facets of producing ANY integrated circuit, let alone one as complicated as a supercomputer chip that Russia just couldn't do it for themselves. No room for a "mom and pop" operation. You either enter the game as a full fledged manufacturer capable of making and presumably selling in huge quantities or you just can't play at all.

Were as China was just given all the technology. Most of the chips are made in Malaysia, China, Taiwan. About 90% of computer parts/peripherals have been made in China for the past decade. The US outsourced all the manufacturing. Russia could do the same thing.

You scrape off the markings off a useful chip and laser print your own!

This was done all the time to disguise the source of integrated circuits destined to be smuggled behind the Iron Curtain! I've actually held such "counterfeit" remarked devices in my own hands.

It will still say 'Intel Inside' no matter what you put on the outside.

I suspect this Russian claim is actually such a rebranded device.

All you need to prove that is to throw one of those chips in a PC, run CPUZ or something similar, and it will still say ... Intel.

AngusThermopyle

It appears that once again science fiction has predicted things to come. Not even good science fiction at that!

The first Predator movie is a testosterone masterpeice. The second ... meh.. But this brings this question. Does life imitate art? Or does art imitate life?

PoliticalCitizen

A third way I heard is to use a radar with multiple recievers, as most of the signal gets deflected another receiver may pick it up.

I thought of that concept back in high school, (1988). The amount of transmitters and receivers that would be needed for that would be mroe than you would want to handle. My concpect was sattelites and groud receivers. You can count the missing signals.

Sender .. yes. Receiver Yes

Sender ... Yes. Receiver . no.

??

Sender, yes, receiver 2, no.

It would be hard to track it ..and changing the wavelenth of the signal will still not get the results you are looking for.

The f-117 is not only very stealthy in radar signiature, the exhaust is also cooler than most planes. Rendering thermal seekeing missiles.. almost useless.

[AngusThermopyle]

The first Predator movie is a testosterone masterpeice. The second ... meh.. But this brings this question. Does life imitate art? Or does art imitate life?

Well I wouldn't go so far as to proclaim it a masterpiece but it was entertaining in its own way. By no means was it a 2001 A Space Odyssey or Alien, and most certainly didn't have the ground breaking impact of 1956's The Forbiden Planet, but it was entertaining.

In the case of science fiction I think its fair to say that life imitates art. Look at 2001 for instance. when it was released skeptics laughed and poo poohed it as being fantasy and so on. Now in 2008 just about everything it predicted has become reality. Of course one should also keep in mind that Arthur C Clark was a brilliant man. Just after WWII he predicted that the earth would be ringed with satellites by the turn of the century, he was laughed at, but the reality speaks for itself.

Edited August 21, 2008 by AngusThermopyle

[bush_cheney2004]

....All that being said the russians still have some of the best Air defense platforms in the world, an area the americans are lacking, but gaining ground....slowly, i think they put more effort into putting more tech into thier planes, than thier ground A/D platforms....Control the skys everything else will follow....

True....the Americans are all about offense and air superiority. The wild weasel concept with radiation homing missiles goes back to before the Vietnam War. Basically, you light up the enemy defense radars (search and fire control), then ram it down their throats with missiles. All while collecting data and jamming with airborne platforms. No wonder the Saudis want an AWACS!

[bush_cheney2004]

....The f-117 is not only very stealthy in radar signiature, the exhaust is also cooler than most planes. Rendering thermal seekeing missiles.. almost useless.

True, but alas, the F-117 is old technology, subsonic, and getting harder to support. The platform is 30 years old. The theoretical concepts actually came from an obscure Russian mathematician.

Edited August 21, 2008 by bush_cheney2004

[GostHacked]

True, but alas, the F-117 is old technology, subsonic, and getting harder to support. The platform is 30 years old. The theoretical concepts actually came from an obscure Russian mathematician.

So each other has some of the other's technology then. The B-2 is subsonic as well. You don't need to be fast if you cannot be seen.

[PoliticalCitizen]

Stealth does not mean invisable, it means a much smaller radar signature, the signature will always be there...and can be tracked if you aware or looking for it....

The Serbs got extremily lucky, and the american pilot was most likely bored, or very relaxed....Until missle lock that is....with all the F117 sorties flown over serb territory they did only mange to shoot one down....The russians did mange to knock down a U-2 as well thought to fly well above missle range....

Once combat has begun, turning on a ground station radar, is very deadly for it's operators....just ask the Iraqis, and although Stealth by itself does give you a great advantage it is all the other systems that are deployed with it that give it it's full potential....AWAC's, once a ground station comes on line AWACs can vector friendly aircraft away from it....Then there is the wild weasel sqns dedicated to destroying ground stations and other air defense platforms....not counting Sat sweeps of the area etc etc the airforce are pretty good at getting aircraft in and out of a bombing run.... My piont is can't detect shit if the radar is not turn on, because in doing so brings down the rain....

All that being said the russians still have some of the best Air defense platforms in the world, an area the americans are lacking, but gaining ground....slowly, i think they put more effort into putting more tech into thier planes, than thier ground A/D platforms....Control the skys everything else will follow....

Good points. Here's what I got off of Wikipedia:

Modern AWAC systems can detect aircraft from up to 400 km (250 miles) away, well out of range of most surface-to-air missiles except the Russian SA-5 and S-400. In air-to-air combat, AWAC systems can communicate with friendly aircraft, extend their sensor range and give them added stealth, since they no longer need their own active radar to detect threats. However, by the nature of radar, AWACS aircraft can be detected by opposing forces beyond its own detection range. This is because the outgoing pulse reduces in strength the further it travels. Therefore, a signal which is intended to go out and be reflected back must be strong enough to cover twice the distance between the sender and the target.

My question to you military experts here (I have to admit I am not) is this:

When a military technology is around for almost 30 years (Stealth), does a country (USSR, Russia) who this technology can be used against do nothing to counter it? If the Soviets and Russians did not develop stealth aircraft (too expensive) do you think they did not invest into methods of detecting aircraft using such technology?

Now I don't claim I know what it would be - in addition to what I said before I could only add optical (which wouldn't work when there are clouds) and satellite.

[PoliticalCitizen]

True, but alas, the F-117 is old technology, subsonic, and getting harder to support. The platform is 30 years old. The theoretical concepts actually came from an obscure Russian mathematician.

http://www.electronicaviation.com/articles/Military/1230

"In the nineteenth century, Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell developed a series of mathematical formulas to predict how electromagnetic radiation would scatter when reflected from a specific geometric shape. His equations were later refined by the German scientist, Arnold Johannes Sommerfield. But for a long time, even after aircraft designers attempted to reduce radar signatures for aircraft like the U-2 and A-12 OXCART in the late 1950s, the biggest obstacle to success was the lack of theoretical models of how radar reflected off a surface. In the 1960s, Russian scientist Pyotr Ufimtsev began developing equations for predicting the reflection of electromagnetic waves from simple two-dimensional shapes. His work was regularly collected and translated into English and provided to U.S. scientists. By the early 1970s, a few U.S. scientists, mathematicians, and aircraft designers began to realize that it was possible to use these theories to design aircraft with substantially reduced radar signatures. Lockheed Aircraft, working under a contract to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, soon began development of the F-117 stealth fighter."

[PoliticalCitizen]

So each other has some of the other's technology then. The B-2 is subsonic as well. You don't need to be fast if you cannot be seen.

B2 @ 1.2 Bill ?

There's only 20 of them reported in service (one crashed)...

Can you imagine how painful would it be to lose one of those?

[AngusThermopyle]

One should also keep in mind the type of flying that has to be employed with the 117, or any other aircraft for that matter. They are all at their stealthiest when flying low. Altitude equates to visibility as the aircraft is way above the horizon and any ground based cover or obstructions. The big difference between the 117 and other aircraft was that once it went above 30,000 to 35,000 feet ( I think thats the correct altitude, have to check that ) it became very stealthy again far more so than anything else in the air, and very very difficult to see. Because of these characteristics unconventional tactics were employed, in some case a low aproach to target with last minute "pop up" release or fire, dive, and dash was used. In other cases a high altitude aproach combined with high speed dive and low escape was preferable, I believe this tactic was especially good for desert type targets as there are not too many mountains, canyons or elevation changes in the desert.

BC mentioned that they are old tech, this is true, the F-22 is new tech, as I said earlier its a hell of a lot more stealthy than the 117. Not just in radar cross section or the abilities of the RAM to absorb energy but also in the entire avionics and munitions systems. As everyone knows Passive systems merely detect emitted energy so obviously the solution is to reduce the energy required to operate all systems, things like radar altimeter or navigation for instance. That was a major focus of the development team. The aircraft is amazing really, its radar cross section is minimal, I forget exactly how small it appears but its something ridiculous. As for its emitted energy, well lets just say that the toasters belonging to some posters on this site emit (or talk) 10 times more than the f-22. (Okay, so I cant prove that last statement, but you get the gist of it.)

There is no doubt that Tamara and Kolchuca are very good systems and against the majority of aircraft would be lethal, however the F-22 is an entirely different bird. Even though they are passive there are other ways to detect them and as was pointed out, they can then be removed.

Stealth is still evolving in all areas and aspects, everything from ships, aircraft and tanks to individual soldiers and rf emissions is being made more stealthy. Its actually a pretty old discipline, it used to be called camouflage or concealment and now it appears that we are about to enter a whole new stage in this evolution. As I mentioned earlier they've made ground breaking advances in "bending" light, science fiction stuff but there are researchers actually doing it with varied degrees of success. When I say bending light I dont mean just using a simple prism, although that is the basic principle behind this, these guys are manipulating it in order to control what is seen. Well why not, about three years ago they were successful in storing photons and then releasing them at a later date, also slowing them down and a newly released theory states that faster than light travel may be possible ( based on string theory, way beyond my ability and knowledge to really understand ).

Given all these factors it becomes fairly clear that systems developed ten to twenty years ago are now outclassed by the new generation of technology, thats why I originally said "dream on" when the Tamarra and Kolchuca systems were first mentioned in relation to the F-22.

And, just think, eventually a lot of these advances and developments will "trickle down" into all of our lives.

Boy! I love science and technology!

[bush_cheney2004]

When a military technology is around for almost 30 years (Stealth), does a country (USSR, Russia) who this technology can be used against do nothing to counter it? If the Soviets and Russians did not develop stealth aircraft (too expensive) do you think they did not invest into methods of detecting aircraft using such technology?

The Soviets and Russians certainly tried, but too often their countermeasures were outpaced by American technology. From Russian made tanks with simple stadimeter rangefinders sent to slaughter against M1's with a better gun and standoff range, to GPS jammers that were already defeated with multi-channel + laser guidance. The other aspect that bears repeating is that the Americans an Israelis get to use their kit far more often than the Russians....from training to real wars. Plus the Russians would often copy western designs, which is hardly an advantage (famously, the B-29 was copied by Stalin right down to defective rivets.)

Air defense systems are an open admission that the enemy will penetrate your air space, which means defense suppression will also be a reality. The Americans are very methodic about this, from destroying power grids, communications links, air bases, tankers, fuel depots, search and fire control radar, etc.

The American combination of technology, experience, and the will to use both is a winning combination for air superiority. It really isn't a fair fight anymore. Dedicated and multi-role platforms, in-flight refueling, avionics suites, GPS weapons systems, pilot training, and logistics supply to support it all can't be effectively countered by Russia.

Now I don't claim I know what it would be - in addition to what I said before I could only add optical (which wouldn't work when there are clouds) and satellite.

The entire spectrum is open for consideration.....as are countermeasures. One of the biggest problems facing stealth technology is the black hole they make in cell phone saturated areas. Shoot at the RF black hole and you might get lucky!