[rtkwe]

All the stealth craft also included some IR avoidance as a matter of course, IR seeking missiles existed at the time these were designed. It's unclear if a more modern missile would still be sensitive enough to lock on and avoid chasing flares.

The techniques they used to decrease the IR visibility are pretty neat. The engine nozzles are over the wings and there are a lot of airflow tricks used to cool it down faster so from below there might not be enough plume to track from a surface launched missile coming, from below at least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit#In...

[baybal2]

Flares don't do much against anything besides mid and short wave infrared.

It's impossible to hide from long wave IR sensors, which detect the heat signature of the plane itself, and not its exhaust.

[yutyut]

Conventional IR countermeasures (spatial, spectral etc.) really are becoming a thing of the past.

When you’re talking about terminal IR guidance on any modern missile, generally the IRCCM will be so good that the probability of defeat with a flare cocktail is below an acceptable risk threshold. DIRCM is the current answer to this problem and—to tie this in with the parent comment—renders terminal IR guidance much less effective than MMW or other RF guidance.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directional_Infrared_Counter...