From:	Paul J. Adam Paul@********.demon.co.uk
Subject:	Shipping (was Re: the value of education)
Date:	Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:08:47 +0100

In article <3.0.3.32.19990715205017.00913100@***.softhome.net>,
IronRaven <cyberraven@********.net> writes
>At 20.07 07-15-99 +0100, you wrote:
>>Reducing the signature of ships doesn't so much make them invisible, as
>>increase the effectiveness of their countermeasures (there's less signal and
>>just as much noise)
>
> IIRC, doesn't getting low-observability material wet make them
>less-low-observability. (Remember the broha-ha when they took the B2s
>through the drizzel and there was a congresscritter's pet tapeworm in the
>control tower last summer?)

Not quite. The problem is rain erosion (caused by flying through the rain
at ~500 miles an hour - it hits _hard_) and delamination caused by water
forcing itself into the damaged radar-absorbent material.

Radar-absorbent material (affectionately known as Flubber) has been used
on ships for a decade or more: our minesweepers in the Persian Gulf tend
to look like Chinese laundry ships, their upperworks have often been
thoroughly draped in RAM sheeting.


--
Paul J. Adam