It's not that simple: if both sides have stealth capabilities, stealth loses its original role as a "long-range advantage" and instead becomes a prerequisite for even surviving in modern air combat. This shifts the actual BVR window to a realistic engagement range of 30 to 60 km, because only in this range can sufficient track quality be established against VLO targets.
At this distance, the nominal range of a missile is hardly relevant. The only decisive factor is endgame energy. This requires BVRAAMs with a basic range of 100+ km, but optimised for high agility in the medium-range band: weapons with dual impulse or ramjet engines that reach Mach 4.5–4.8 or more and continue to provide active thrust in the terminal stage. Only such missiles create a sufficiently large no-escape zone to reliably achieve their effect in a stealth-versus-stealth scenario.
Long ranges of 150–200 km remain relevant against genuine stealth platforms only under extremely specific conditions – for example, with multi-static sensor technology, triangulation, network hand-off between multiple radar sources, or if a target accidentally flies in a very unfavourable aspect. Without this highly networked sensor technology, such a shot loses almost all practical relevance because the target is detected too late or too inaccurately. This means that classic "150+ km" BVR missiles, which were primarily designed to counter Gen-4/4+ jets, are virtually ineffective in the new scenario.
This means that a genuine post-stealth phase is now – or will very soon – emerge. Pure signature reduction is no longer sufficient. The following factors will be decisive:
sensory superiority (AESA, IRST, ESM, LPI data links)
kinetics and endgame energy of the aircraft and the missiles used, and agile platforms with strong energy management.
In this environment, the F-35, for example, will age faster because it is not designed to compete with an equal opponent that has more power, as other stealth platforms are already designed for greater agility and superior energy management. Rather, the F-35 is a BVR shooter mainly against Gen 4+ aircraft.
Stealth remains essential – but only in combination with agility, sensor fusion and high-energy weapons will true superiority emerge in the post-stealth era.
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