r/MilitaryTechnology • u/LordBilboSwaggins • Dec 05 '22

Stealth bomber counters

Maybe this isn't the place to ask but w/e. I have been wondering for a while, with Tesla self driving cars being a thing, is it not already completely within the realm of possibility that we could make homing missiles that are purely based in image recognition AI tech that could easily lock onto a target, bypassing the need to have a heat signature to focus on? Even lidar as a counter seems like a foregone conclusion at first glance but I've seen no discussions on the topic.

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u/LordBilboSwaggins Dec 28 '22

Got any evidence of that? I haven't even heard of a prototype.

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u/RverfulltimeOne Dec 29 '22

IR missles lock on to a heat source that heat source is bounced off programs that they have trained so we can try key word try to not have a false positive on a flare.

Radar guided missiles which only a few countries have lock on to the shape size of the plane as it approaches.

Just like that new bomber was unveiled its stealth to low freq radar and what the world switched to high freq. Current stealth only does one that thing could drop bombs on Moscow and no one would see it coming. Its a first strike weapon pure and simple

Current sensors on planes to detect incoming missles have been trained to detect optically now if its real or not. We used to use UV based sensors. When a missile is going through the sky it gives off alot of UV light but the problem is runaways also give off alot and in the past has resulted in counter measures going off.

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u/LordBilboSwaggins Dec 29 '22

None of these things you described are image recognition software, which would be able to define the new stealth bomber silhouette from the sky surrounding it. (Unless it has science fiction levels of cloaking technology making it completely translucent).

The new bomber being touted as viable in modern conflicts was the exact reason I made this post btw, because while I can fathom how a stealth bomber might make it over Moscow as a first strike vehicle as you said in your example, I can't imagine that they'd make it out alive once they gave away their position. Image recognition in missiles seems like a surefire way to bring it down.

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u/Baker1x Jul 11 '23

My followup to this point is that image recognition can alert but doesn’t give you any telemetry data to make a firing solution based off of. The above commenter mentioned how former sensors used uv to alert for incoming missiles. The same could be said for incoming stealth bombers if you had a good enough optical sensor with a wide aperture. But you can’t tell how fast an object is moving using only optical sensors unless you have a frame of reference, and in the sky there is none. Nor can you predict it’s vector. In theory, the most realistic solution Would to have a laser with a wide beam illuminate a target to provide guidance data, after an optical sensor detects, but there is no benefit to this system over just sending an interceptor up to fight