Athena System
Athena System
Controlled by a supercomputer, or in some cases, an AI Construct, the Athena System is a powerful active stealth system. Instead of relying on stealthy design or RAM or RAD, the Athena System uses a completely new, active feedback system. The craft to be outfitted is covered in millions of tiny receptor antennae, which log any incoming radar waves. The supercomputer calculates the incoming vectors, and uses the antennae to fire back a refractive pulse, shattering the return signature and resulting in a slew of bad data. Missiles tracking with radar seeking heads will lose lock and detonate, and search radar will be scrambled.
The Athena System can be outfitted on any craft of sufficient size to hold the computer core, be it land, sea, air, or space. However, in order to be able to correctly analyze, identify, and scramble radar effectively, the computer will need a craft-specific software package, meaning that any craft seeking to utilize Athena will need to be programmed into the database through massive trials and testing for every angle of attack, and for various radar bands and powers.
Designed by New Empire and production rights given to Kaukolastan, this system is installed on almost all Kaukolastani Naval Vessels, Aircraft, some Ground Vehicles, and Wraith AISAS armor, although it is too massive for normal infantry use.
The latest version of Athena is Pallas Athena. Pallas Athena was designed by New Empire and Kotterdam and was first deployed on the F-109 Tempest Air Superiority Fighter. It has since been deployed on every combat aircraft and surface naval vessel in the arsenal of New Empire. The official writeup is as follows:
The first joint venture between the United City-States of New Empire and the Dominion of Kotterdam, the development of the Pallas Athena TSCS was a direct response to the development of radar systems designed to defeat Athena's earlier variants. Functioning on the principle of active radar cancelling, Athena was an effective active stealth system designed to allow aircraft to escape radar detection while maintaining an aerodynamically-sound architecture.
Athena was developed into three variants dubbed, apropriately enough, Athena Marks I through III. Each one added a new layer of functionality, from improved cycling rates to the ability to alter the radar return to imitate other objects - A flock of birds, or another aircraft, for instance. The Dominion, for its part, had a similar system in development. The Michael Tactical Sensor Countermeasure System was first deployed on the F-34A Perseus fighter, and included the ability to project false returns anywhere within five miles of the aircraft.
Both these systems were rendered vulnerable by a new form of radar pioneered by Sileetris. Designed specifically to defeat Active Radar Canceling sets that had progressed to the point where they return a signature of empty air rather than simply a blank space, it used that very capability against them. Immediately, the Dominion and the UCSNE met to discuss this threat. Together, they were able to design a software update that would allow Athena MkII systems and up to identify and counter such radars by producing the correct return for empty air rather than the tell-tale ARC-response.
Rather than stopping there, however, the two nations took it one step further, producing a fourth Mark of Athena Stealth System, dubbed Pallas Athena. An active radar canceling system, Pallas Athena is based around a superconducting "Cold Frame" computer of Dominion manufacture. Using primarily USCNE software, Pallas Athena cycles 600-times per second, responding to inbound radar signals with the appropriate return for the atmospheric conditions in which the aircraft is currently operating.
Pallas Athena, however, combines the RCS-modifying function of Athena MkIII, allowing it to appear to be other aircraft, or atmospheric phenomena with the radar ghost function of the Michael TSCS, allowing it to project false returns. This means that an aircraft equipped with Pallas Athena could appear to be escorting a B-52H heavy bomber into enemy territory, however, when enemy fighters, or SAM sites come into range and attempt to engage, it could return to its ARC mode, and dissapear. If facing threat-force fighters, it could then engage with a missile shot. If the targets were SAM sites, then Anti-Radiation Missiles could be employed.
This combined capability allows Pallas Athena to be used to devastating effect for feints to draw out enemy fighters, or for "Wild Weasel" air defense suppresion missions by pretending to be a worthy target to lure in its prey. Also, Pallas Athena offers capabilities that neither system had. In addition to the Michael system's ability to provide information on the range, bearing, and type of enemy radars, the Pallas Athena can function in Scatter Mode, something the Athena MkI was designed to defeat. In scatter mode, one radar transmits, and another recieves the information.
Pallas Athena can use transmitting enemy radars to recieve information on the aircraft around it, thus allowing the aircraft to operate as if it had an active radar transmitting while maintaining EMCON. As well, in close combat (within thirty statute miles) Pallas Athena can function as a Low-Probability of Intercept, or LPI all-aspect radar, giving the aircraft carrying it full 720-degree spherical radar coverage out to approximately thirty statute miles. While operating as a radar system, the aircraft is visible to other active radars.
To counter this vunlerability Pallas Athena is fully capable of operating in Snapshot Mode, where it sends out a quick pulse, giving the aircraft a "snapshot" of the area around it. This is useful when a pilot has lost visual contact with a target, in that it gives him an approximate area in which to find it. Additionally, if a pilot is using a LOAL IR-guided missile, information from the "snapshot" can tell the missile approximately where to find the target, much as it would be guided if Pallas Athena were operating in Active mode.
In Snapshot Mode, an aircraft with Pallas Athena appears on radar for a bare second, flashing into existance, then fading away again. This has led to Dominion test pilots dubbing the Perseus fighters carrying the prototype Pallas Athena systems "Fireflies" for the way their radar returns would flash on and off their screens in a mass mock dogfight.
