Originally Posted by
_Agrajag_
Exactly this. Getting up front and personal data from an attacking platform and weapon is the holy grail for anyone intent on countermeasures. Being able to get this in near real time and upload it to a sat link right up to the moment of impact will provide a goldmine of data. That data is now safely stored behind the Great Firewall of China. We can be 100% sure they will gain more from it than from any conventional spying programme. Got to admire them for adopting this tactic. One hell of a clever way to cheaply get data that's just about unobtainable.
That is why F-4 with basic comms and old style targeting + Vulcan is a cheap and effective answer to any such target as long as it cannot return the fire. And it is expendable - you just build a few dozens out of a thousand stored. The latest war has shown that cheaper assets in mass can do much more than a few uber drones, while having a much lower total cost and training requirements.