no, its a sympathetic solution. sig management is about fundamental design issues for the platform mission intent, discretionary active and passive systems that compliment each other - and additionally, its about other supporting systems that companion the platform to fulfill the mission intent. its not just about physical design and hardware management on the platform, but also about assistance in that moving battlespace/sensor space bubble around the asset as well as to the target.
"stealth" is something that has conveniently been looked at as platform specific developments.
even in the publicy promoted of events in 99 (in its first real deployment in complex space) it was much more than this, but its been dumbed down out of convenience I suspect.
Its always been about a systems solution and this is in a sense about a construct of disciplines and supporting capabilities.
there's obviously a place for purposeful designs that embrace sig suppression body features, passive, active management, materials science solutions etc... but the track to the target and back is about the platform being a component and companioned with other capabilities as a system event.
people can get excited about RAM applique, treated cockpits, DSI humps. sawtoothing, canted skegs, leading edge arrays etc as much as they like - but in the end its academic as in contested and/or complex space that asset has to get there intact to complete its mission. being 5th gen alone does not do all that is needed to do the job.
the platform still needs to have a degree of design management in play irrespective of how many black boxes it carries.
if you look at what the israelis did I'd argue that there are less than a handful of countries that have the capacity to pull off similar events. Its also critical to consider the theatre and capability of red team.
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