[benj111]

Given the state of missile tech, is that as relevant anymore? If you strap a missile on to a Cessna that can take down a 5th gen fighter before it knows you're there. Doesn't really matter what fancy doodads the latest and greatest jet has.

Further if your 5th gen jets are relying on tech from your adversary....

[lobocinza]

The fancy doodads 5th generation has is reduced radar signature, improved sensors and data-link. The 5th generation can see and fire against a 4th gen fighter and evade before being detected and it can do that without EWACS (which are big, slow and easy to kill). That's why the US has a gap on replacing the current EWACS because it doesn't really need them.

[quantgenius]

Stealth is somewhat overrated, especially 5th gen. Sure you get a lower radar cross-section which means you are less visible to X-band radar but near-peer adversaries or even non-peer technologically advanced adversaries don't rely only on X-band radar, to say nothing of distributed array radar where the transmitter and receiver are not in the same location. More than one networked war plane in the air are essentially distributed array radar. There are other bands which admittedly as not as good as X-band in terms of how much energy you need and how accurately you can locate things. But you can send a missile in the general direction using say S-band and have the missile turn on it's seeker once it's closer. Once the missile is close enough, a stealth plan can no longer hide. This is what the Russian S-400 and S-500 do for example.

Even when Serbia was bombed during the Clinton years, American stealth bombers escaped not due to stealth but because they used decoys towed by fiber optics which transmitted what the missile seeker expected to receive from the plane while also aggressively jamming the missile seeker so the missile hit the decoy not the plane. One stealth bomber was hit anyway.

Safran and other European manufacturers arguably produce decoys that are as good as anything US planes have, arguably better because they decided not to go all in on stealth and focus on other measures instead. Stealth is certainly better to have than not but stealth also means somewhat worse aerodynamics and much less serviceability. You need to apply stealth paint and cure it any time you work on the plane. The plane needs more work and is harder to work on because of the tradeoffs made to achieve stealth. So instead of 75%+ of the planes being available at any one time, you only have about 50% of the planes available at any one time and total operational costs are much higher.

Given these disadvantages, it's not completely clear how much of a benefit 5th gen stealth is in a near-peer conflict. If the US is fighting Iraq fine. Now, if you can actually achieve what defense manufacturers say they will achieve with 6th gen stealth, where you have much lower RCS to all bands of radar from all directions, that could be a game changer but we don't actually know yet. The F-35 still doesn't do everything it was supposed to be able to do when the program started, so I would take these claims with a large grain of salt. And stealth countermeasures will continue to evolve.

[ifwinterco]

I'm not an expert by any means but my understanding is improved missiles mean this is more relevant than ever.

Non-stealthy 4th gen fighters are sitting ducks in 2026 against a peer opponent as we've seen in ukraine

[funnym0nk3y]

Yes and no, there is no easy binary answer here.

At altitude most AA is radar based, thus a lower RCS will help directly in not being seen. So you can get closer to the enemy you still can see because of the higher RCS. For BVR fights this is essential.

Those machines shouldn't be low level though. IR missles don't care about RCS. It is not their natural territory either.

Third that Cessna is not hidden either. From above (i.e. an AWACS) it can be seen very good. From the ground it can hide low and slow. But so can dedicated planes too, which is practised regularly.

[benj111]

Well yes, I'm taking an extreme example.

I'm just thinking about something like the meteor missile, if you're up against a 5th gen jet with shorter range missiles, the 5th gen jet doesn't necessarily have the advantage.

Then there's things like drones. A cheap drone with a good missile is arguably the better option than an expensive jet with poor weapons.

Yes, the best option is the good jet with the good missile, but most militaries have limited budgets, so it isn't a question of having all the the things, but one of where that money is best spent. I suppose you could argue that the military knows best, but then the US military insisted on keeping cannon around on jets just in case, so it seems to me, at least plausible that the current view is more about inertia than bang for buck.