The Su-57 are arriving

[Learstang]

I seem to have hit a bit of a nerve here. Good.

 

Jason

Edited July 13, 2018 by Learstang
New comment added.

[aircooled]

5 hours ago, Learstang said:

What this basically means is that the Russians get to keep the money they would have wasted on the Su-57, to spend it on more worthwhile projects, whilst the U.S. is continuing to bleed money out of all orifices trying to make the F-35 into at least a minimally reliable and effective combat aircraft. Of course the U.S. is selling it to other countries, such as the UK, but how much of that is of the 'making an offer they can't refuse' is hard to tell. And with the current American administration, such efforts may not now be so successful, as the U.S. becomes a less that reliable ally.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

LOL!

[Learstang]

4 hours ago, aircooled said:

LOL!

 

Excuse me, you'll have to explain this. What exactly are you trying to say? Are you saying my post is laughable? Or not? If so, then please collect your thoughts and tell me why it is so. Thank you.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

Edited July 14, 2018 by Learstang
Un cambio muy pequeno.

[Procopius]

6 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

So does that make you:

 

 

Because it's kind of sounding that way. 

 

I like semicolons way too much for us to be very similar.

[Learstang]

Hey aircooled, I'm still waiting for your reply.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Maybe let this one lie.....I'm sure no offence was intended Jason. 

[Learstang]

Probably so, Sarge. It's actually rather silly to get into arguments over aircraft. I should leave my arguments for my books, where I'm always right and I always get the last word!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

[Sgt.Squarehead]

That's the spirit! 

[TapChan]

I think that during tests with modern stealth they just found a way (technology) to make it next to useless. And if they know it then they can assume US know it too already. That makes the program of replacing 4th+ gen with 5th just a great waste of money. 

Russians struggle to improve the economics in opposite to US wasting billions of freshly printed dollars for weaponry and wars. Russians are not trapped by private military industry because the industry belongs to the country thus they may make such decisions to turn back from dead end and pump other, more perspective projects. Other thing worth reminding is that before WWII Soviets claimed to produce tractors in their factories, which turned out to be tanks in fact (i.e. in Stalingrad Tractor Plant, or Joseph Stalin's Tractor Plant in Chelyabinsk).

Anyway I believe that experience from developing 5th gen jet was worth running that program, because this gives up-to-date technology awareness and opportunity to go even further.

 

In my opinion stealth is an advantage but just not worth the price. It may be good for silent missions, especially against enemy who don't developed stealth yet thus is not aware of all it's characteristics and have detections systems not suitable to work against. Plus it's only good for interception/bombing, because since plane opens weapon bays it lose most of the stealth feature. From what I have read about formerly planned F-22 upgrade for USN and F-35 service for them stealth coat needs a lot of maintenance and is very fragile to salty conditions. USN already knows that it'll take a lot of effort to maintain stealth working well.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

That's my suspicion too TBH. 

 

 

[Giorgio N]

I've seen different translations of Borisov's statements and my undertstanding is not that the Su-57 will not be produced but that mass production will not be speeded-up... that can mean different things of course: can mean that the development is on track, so no need to rush things (the optimistic view) or that for some reason (technical or financial) the aircraft is not ready to be put in mass production yet (the pessimistic view). It would be interesting to read a properly translated version of the statement, maybe out Russian speaking friends can help ?

 

 

[Giorgio N]

On 7/13/2018 at 6:19 PM, Learstang said:

What this basically means is that the Russians get to keep the money they would have wasted on the Su-57, to spend it on more worthwhile projects, whilst the U.S. is continuing to bleed money out of all orifices trying to make the F-35 into at least a minimally reliable and effective combat aircraft. Of course the U.S. is selling it to other countries, such as the UK, but how much of that is of the 'making an offer they can't refuse' is hard to tell. And with the current American administration, such efforts may not now be so successful, as the U.S. becomes a less that reliable ally.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

 

On 7/14/2018 at 8:26 PM, TapChan said:

I think that during tests with modern stealth they just found a way (technology) to make it next to useless. And if they know it then they can assume US know it too already. That makes the program of replacing 4th+ gen with 5th just a great waste of money. 

Russians struggle to improve the economics in opposite to US wasting billions of freshly printed dollars for weaponry and wars. Russians are not trapped by private military industry because the industry belongs to the country thus they may make such decisions to turn back from dead end and pump other, more perspective projects. Other thing worth reminding is that before WWII Soviets claimed to produce tractors in their factories, which turned out to be tanks in fact (i.e. in Stalingrad Tractor Plant, or Joseph Stalin's Tractor Plant in Chelyabinsk).

Anyway I believe that experience from developing 5th gen jet was worth running that program, because this gives up-to-date technology awareness and opportunity to go even further.

 

In my opinion stealth is an advantage but just not worth the price. It may be good for silent missions, especially against enemy who don't developed stealth yet thus is not aware of all it's characteristics and have detections systems not suitable to work against. Plus it's only good for interception/bombing, because since plane opens weapon bays it lose most of the stealth feature. From what I have read about formerly planned F-22 upgrade for USN and F-35 service for them stealth coat needs a lot of maintenance and is very fragile to salty conditions. USN already knows that it'll take a lot of effort to maintain stealth working well.

 

On 7/13/2018 at 8:35 PM, Jure Miljevic said:

 

I agree with Jason in his assessment that Russian decided level of stealth technology today offers too little and costs too much. They rely for their safety on strategic nuclear deterrence anyway so they are probably going to keep their Su-27/-35 ... and MiG-31s as their main air defence aircraft for another decade or so. I do not think they can afford to drop stealth research altogether, though. However, another costly cold war is out of the question as it would only benefit rising superpowers like India and China. I suspect such reasoning is absent in the USA and in the rest of so called western world. Just my thoughts. Cheers

Jure

 

 

I may be wrong but it seems to me that the concept of "5th Generation Fighter" is not fully understood here....

Low Radar Cross Signature is one feature of a 5th Gen. fighter, it is the one most often discusses (as is happening here) but is only one. Even if "stealth" airframes are made useless tomorrow, all other features like sensor fusion, networking capabilities and the superior on-board systems are still there and a 5th generation fighter, even without a low RCS, will have a huge advantage against 4th Generation fighters. Low RCS is only one of the ways to give 5th Gen. fighters superior situational awareness against the enemy by making detection a bit more difficult. It is important, but not the most important.

notice how I say "low RCS" and not "stealthiness" as a stealth aircraft is more than just an aircraft with a certain shape coated with certain materials. Stealth in air combat is a concept, not an adjective, is a concept that includes reduced RCS, reduced IR emissions, less identifiable radar emissions, passive detection and tracking and a few other things.

Giving up the development of 5th generation fighters means putting ourselves in a situation where the enemy will be able to impose their way of fighting, regardless of the development of systems capable of detecting low RCS aircrafts, no sane air force commander would do that. It would be like entering WW2 with biplanes against monoplanes. The Russians know it, the Chinese know it and the US have been leading the way ahead of the others for years, like it or not. It is of course possible to try and adapt some 5th generation technologies to existing 4th generation airframes and this is done every day but the results are debateable and it's likely that such approach is more of a waste of money than "bleeding money" into proper 5th Gen. fighters.

Which brings me back to the Su-57... I don't really believe that the Russians will decide to abandon this aircraft, unless they have found problems that can't be solved. I see more likely that they will continue the development, probably start with a small production batch (the 12 announced a couple months ago) with a view to a proper mass production when all issues are ironed out. In the meantime they may try to include some equipment in the existing fleet or produce some so called "4.5 generation fighter", 4th generation airframes with some 5th generation equipment (like the most advanced Flanker derivatives).

Mind, when I say mass production I mean it in the manufacturing sense of the term, I don't expect thousands of Su-57s to be built, they may well only build 50 or 60 it would still be mass production in the sense of aircrafts assembled with proper jigs and toolings and not individually built.

[Giorgio N]

On 7/13/2018 at 8:35 PM, Jure Miljevic said:

So, Su-57 fared hardly any better than Su-47. Pity, Su-57 kit with few Syria mission markings would make an interesting model. It seems that time (and with time I mean price tag) is just not right for pure fighter aircraft. Did early 1930's make their comeback and due to economic necessity air forces are going to purchase modern equivalents of airliner/transport/bomber hybrids like Bombay, Ju 52, S.81 and similar? Or are we back over Western Front, where fighters got all the glory, but single engined two seaters were the most important type of military aircraft by far?

 

Jure

 

No, the '30s didn't make a comeback but simply we have seen the fighter aircraft evolving over time with more and more emphasis on multirole capabilities. I often mention the Phantom as the first complete example of a fighter that, thanks to the increasing importance of avionics and guided weapons, managed to become a proper multirole platform, capable of conducting almost any mission. Today's fighters descend from that concept with the addition of features coming from the lessons learnt over the last 60 years and of some new technology.

And yes, it's a matter of economics, having a small number of types makes sense from this point of view so it's good to have one single type that can perform all missions. Only the largest and richest air forces can afford separate types and even these have been cutting down the number of types in service over time.

No, we're not going to see the equivalents of the Bombay and similar types because today's fighters are way better at attacking ground targets that any airliner will ever be.

 

[Hook]

9 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Even if "stealth" airframes are made useless tomorrow, all other features like sensor fusion, networking capabilities and the superior on-board systems are still there and a 5th generation fighter, even without a low RCS, will have a huge advantage against 4th Generation fighters.

 

The ability to supercruise is also one, and a very underestimated one at that. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre 

[Aardvark]

On 7/14/2018 at 9:26 PM, TapChan said:

Russians are not trapped by private military industry because the industry belongs to the country thus they may make such decisions to turn back from dead end and pump other, more perspective projects.

This is a wrong opinion. I believe you are in the trap of stereotypes that the Russian Federation is a small Soviet Union where instead of the Communist party Soviet -  United Russia party, which only thinks with the rest of the inhabitants, it would conquer the whole world.

In fact, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the troubled wave of the 90s pushed many dealers to the surface who are not at all interested in the future of their state, and the main task of which is to steal as much money as possible, to flee to the west and there to make themselves an opossizer to the current regime. In many respects, the echoes of the 1990s led to similar consequences:

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3271027.html

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/3706405.html

e.t.c.

Therefore, there are no significant ideological contradictions between the West and the Russian Federation in the form in which they existed between the USSR and the rest of the world. The situation now more corresponds to the period that was before the outbreak of World War I.

Therefore, all the contradictions can be described by the phrase from the fable L. Krylov: "You are guilty only of that I want to eat". 

At the same time, there is one problem that does not allow us to conduct the Cold War-2 for 40 years as it was with the Cold War. It's problem - China

who intends, according to their statements, to become a new world superpower by 20-30 years by pushing the United States. 

Such redistribution of world spheres of influence usually accompanies the world war.

If I am right in my, unfortunately pessimistic forecasts, it is quite self explanatory for the low priority of the Su-57 program. It simply does not have time for it.

 Is it possible to repeat the situation with both I-185 and Su-6 during the war years!  Good aircraft with very worthy characteristics, but to break the conveyor producing massively IL-2 and different Yak did not. So, if I'm unfortunately right, maybe there's just getting ready for a big war,
in which it is better to have 500 Su-35, Su-30, Su-27SM against 200 F-35 or J-20, than 50 Su-57.

However, there is not a frightening but more prosaic explanation. At the forum parralai in the branch on the Su-57 there is a stormy discussion of the current possibilities of artificial intelligence. As you may have guessed, opinions are divided into those who believe that it is necessary to build manned Su-57 and those who believe that the Su-57 is a useless waste of money and it is necessary to build an unmanned sixth-generation fighter at once. It is likely that similar discussions can be conducted in the Russian Ministry of Defense. And in that case, it is quite possible that the supporters of the sixth generation unmanned fighter simply won.

 

In addition, if we talk specifically about the Su-57, then there is a certain difference in the priorities of the characteristics of the 5th generation fighter in the Russian Federation and in the West.

 

First, the belief in the holy stealth-graal as in the Wunderwaffe is somewhat touching.
When you look at how in field trials the F-35 with A-10 try to prove that the F-35 is better as a battlefield plane than the A-10, it's just a mime!
The only problem is that the wide appearance on the battlefield of radar decimeter range, in combination with passive systems of detection of Kolchuga type can reduce all the achievements of stealth technologies to zero. But the belief that if in a combat aircraft there is no stealth technology, then this is not an airplane at all it's funny.

Secondly, a dog fight in the West is buried long ago, as I remember from the time of the Vietnam War. However, the modern development of the means of electronic warfare may well make all these active radars, medium-range missiles a useless temple. Do not believe me? Ask about it from Army Gen. Tony Thomas:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/04/25/adversaries-jamming-air-force-gunships-in-syria-special-ops-general-says.html

 

Thus, the advantages in stealth technologies and medium-range missiles (if any) can be simply useless.

And here in the first place come out two pairs of pilot's eyes, an old good gun of a melee missile and .... and super maneuverability.

 

 

 

B.R.

Serge

 

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Aardvark

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello

I was actually talking about modern fighter's ability to remain undetected under combat condition. To a degree this has been achieved in certain regimes of flight against x-band radars. Not so against other ground radars, passive radar emission and radar reflection sensor networks or against airborne infra-red sensors. In supersonic flight, heat is being generated at wing and tail leading edges. Fifty years ago otherwise rear-hemisphere restricted Firestreak missile would lock on supersonic Lightning head-on. Theoretically, even the old F-14 D could detect supersonic F-22 with IR sensor, fire a Phoenix missile, which would have little difficulties locking on target, as its terminal phase of attack would start at 70000 to 80000 ft. F-22's RCS may be considerably reduced in front view, but it is far from small in plan view. Some time ago I read about a system not very aptly called secondary radar (it had nothing to do with radar transponders). It was described as a network of passive sensors which collects and analyzes all kinds of radio transmissions and reflections like those from commercial radio and TV stations and cell-phone towers. Twenty years ago such network was reportedly able to roughly track stealth fighters although it was not accurate enough for actual AA missile attack. How far the system advanced (if it has been developed at all) by today I have no idea.

Yes, abilities to supercruise or to act as tactical combat director for so-called legacy fighters or fighter-bombers certainly are impressive, but what do they have to do with stealthiness? Also, all these is hardly new: primitive beginnings of airborne networking can be traced to early ground data-links sixty years ago which is about the time when supercruise also appeared. Advances of the fifth generation fighters over the fourth are thus more incremental than revolutionary.

About specialized vs. multi-role aircraft ... More often than not former types end up looking for a mission and latter types are always compromises and trade-offs. Agreed, F-4 was fairly successful multi-mission aircraft. Yet her SE Asia combat experience against highly specialized North Vietnam air defences produced F-14 for US Navy and Fighter Mafia pushed through A-10 and F-16 for USAF. Early on all three types were highly specialized; today F-16 can handle almost any mission if necessary, Bombcat added some variety to otherwise narrow fleet-defence scope of F-14, but A-10 remained pure close-support aircraft until today. A cynic would remark that in piece specialized types are usually replaced by multi-role aircraft and during wars process is reversed. Finances vs. performance? I do not know. Cheers

Jure

[Giorgio N]

9 hours ago, Aardvark said:

At the same time, there is one problem that does not allow us to conduct the Cold War-2 for 40 years as it was with the Cold War. It's problem - China

who intends, according to their statements, to become a new world superpower by 20-30 years by pushing the United States. 

Such redistribution of world spheres of influence usually accompanies the world war.

If I am right in my, unfortunately pessimistic forecasts, it is quite self explanatory for the low priority of the Su-57 program. It simply does not have time for it.

 Is it possible to repeat the situation with both I-185 and Su-6 during the war years!  Good aircraft with very worthy characteristics, but to break the conveyor producing massively IL-2 and different Yak did not. So, if I'm unfortunately right, maybe there's just getting ready for a big war,
in which it is better to have 500 Su-35, Su-30, Su-27SM against 200 F-35 or J-20, than 50 Su-57.

 

 

There is however a big problem with this reasoning: during WW2 the production capability of the USSR vastly outnumbered the German's and not stopping production of large numbers of aircrafts made sense to maintain a numerical advantage over the, at least initially, technically superior Luftwaffe.

Against China, things are quite different as while today Russia has a technological advance with China stronger in numbers, tomorrow the balance may easily change. It's all good having 500 Flankers against 200 J-20s but the balance may switch from this to 500 Flankers against 500 J-20s.... giving up a technological advantage is a dangerous game if you can't guarantee numerical superiority and Russia can't do this against China and even more against the USA.

 

9 hours ago, Aardvark said:

However, there is not a frightening but more prosaic explanation. At the forum parralai in the branch on the Su-57 there is a stormy discussion of the current possibilities of artificial intelligence. As you may have guessed, opinions are divided into those who believe that it is necessary to build manned Su-57 and those who believe that the Su-57 is a useless waste of money and it is necessary to build an unmanned sixth-generation fighter at once. It is likely that similar discussions can be conducted in the Russian Ministry of Defense. And in that case, it is quite possible that the supporters of the sixth generation unmanned fighter simply won.

 

 

 

Skipping one generation is a possibility and this was suggested during the F-35 program too. It is again a risky decision though as means developing technologies and doctrines without the advantage of the expertise gained through the operation of 5th generation fighters. There's then the matter of when this 6th generation fighter would be ready, if it's in 20 years this mean keeping the air force at an inferior technological level for quite many years.

 

9 hours ago, Aardvark said:

 

First, the belief in the holy stealth-graal as in the Wunderwaffe is somewhat touching.
When you look at how in field trials the F-35 with A-10 try to prove that the F-35 is better as a battlefield plane than the A-10, it's just a mime!
The only problem is that the wide appearance on the battlefield of radar decimeter range, in combination with passive systems of detection of Kolchuga type can reduce all the achievements of stealth technologies to zero. But the belief that if in a combat aircraft there is no stealth technology, then this is not an airplane at all it's funny.

Secondly, a dog fight in the West is buried long ago, as I remember from the time of the Vietnam War. However, the modern development of the means of electronic warfare may well make all these active radars, medium-range missiles a useless temple. Do not believe me? Ask about it from Army Gen. Tony Thomas:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/04/25/adversaries-jamming-air-force-gunships-in-syria-special-ops-general-says.html

 

 

Again, I see that the whole idea of Stealth is not well understood...

Low RCS is not the holy grail and it's never been seen as such in the West! Low observability is a feature that prevents the enemy to have a complete situational awareness while the friendly aircrafts can with their sensor systems have a superior situational awareness. It doesn't matter if certain radars can pick the F-22 return, the USAF have known that for years. What matters is that the reduction in RCS and IR and radar emissions delay the acquisition by a margin that allows the F-22 to engage the enemy with higher possibilities of destruction. Nobody in the USAF believes that their F-22 and F-35 will fly forever undetected over enemy airspace, what they know is that stealth characteristics will give them advantages in many situations and this is the main point. It's like saying that armour on a tank is unnecessary because can be defeated by many weapons, it's true but still tanks retain armour because gives them an advantage in many situations.

And then there's the matter than the so-called 5th generation of fighters is not about stealthiness alone !

The A-10... what's the role of the A-10 in all of this ? Do you realize that it is an aircraft that would never be used in contested airspace ? The whole mission profile of the A-10 means almost certain destruction if employed against modern mechanized forces, actually it would mean destruction even against late '80s mechanized forces... The mission profile of an F-35 during a CAS mission would be completely different to avoid as many threats as possible, it's like comparing apples and oranges.

And regarding the uselessness of radars and missiles in a future war, it's something I keep hearing since my days in the army... that was in the early '90s. Yet the development of air combat has shown very different results. Not saying that ECM systems are useless, they are very effective, but they are always countered by ECCM advances and so on.

 

9 hours ago, Aardvark said:

Thus, the advantages in stealth technologies and medium-range missiles (if any) can be simply useless.

And here in the first place come out two pairs of pilot's eyes, an old good gun of a melee missile and .... and super maneuverability.

 

 

 

The development of air combat has on the other hand shown the opposite: after an initial love affair with manouverability in the late '60s all air forces have realised that while having good manouver capabilities is important, there would have never been a return to knife-edge fights with guns only. Years of DACT training in NATO have shown that even the most manouverable aircraft can be defeated using the right tactics. Of course manouverability is good to have in any design and most aircrafts in the last 40 years have been built as manouverable as possible but the way these aircrafts conduct a dogfight is not what some people would have expected in the early '70s.

As for the so-called super manouverability, this is a concept that is probably already dead. It was initially aimed at providing acquisition capabilty at the most extreme AoA situations but the development of high off boresight systems make this capability redundant. Then there's also a very old problem: supermanouverability involves bleeding a lot of energy, even with the very powerful engines used for example by the latest Flanker variants an aircraft following this concept would find itself in situations with little energy, so being a sitting duck for a certain time, something that no pilot is happy about.

[Whitewolf]

Simply put, I believe the SU57 failed to live up to expectations, but valuable lessons will have been learned with the type having effectively served as a development aircraft for a more advanced airframe which will no doubt be unveiled in the not too distant future. 

I would put an F35 up against any Russian type and expect it to come out on top - pilots that have actually flown the F35 cannot praise it enough, a key NATO strength will be the sheer numbers due to enter service with Countries across Europe.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Swearing removed

[Whitewolf]

The F35 has proven extremely costly, a bit like the QE class carriers eating up most of the RN budget. But you pays your money and makes your choice. The F35 is vastly superior to the vast majority of Warplanes flying today and will only get better. The Russians are king of the SAMs, possibly because they have a greater awareness of just how effective Western Air Power can actually be, and the thinking that an advanced SAM system can be more effective than inferior manned fighters. The concept of Stealth was proven during the first Gulf War when the F117 STEALTH operated unhindered over Baghdad on the opening night despite the city being defended by the latest Soviet Air defence systems that were subsequently neutralized. Where a strong SAM threat exists we have ways of dealing with it. As for the positive comments from pilots that have flown the F35, it's got nothing to do with career prospects, it's about flying an aircraft that is actively proving to be far superior to any other they've flown before.

[Aardvark]

 

15 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Against China, things are quite different as while today Russia has a technological advance with China stronger in numbers, tomorrow the balance may easily change. It's all good having 500 Flankers against 200 J-20s but the balance may switch from this to 500 Flankers against 500 J-20s.... giving up a technological advantage is a dangerous game if you can't guarantee numerical superiority and Russia can't do this against China and even more against the USA.

Excuse me, but some of us do not understand the current and future geopolitical layout of playing cards on the global card table.

It seems to me that Russia is now engaged in trading alternately with the West, then with China trying to somehow bargain for itself the role of any significant partner, but it seems from both sides it is offered the role of cannon fodder, and nothing more. Naturally, the Kremlin does not like this, and it is for this reason that attempts are being made to show at least some technological superiority, or at least a lack of a backlog.But sooner or later the choice will be made, it will have to be done, and then the Su-57 / Su-35 e.t.c. will have either the first echelon in the second echelon of the F-35 against the J-20, or they will go against the F-35 having in the second echelon of the J- 20. But in any case in this solitaire play the RF, and not the RF player.

And if you think that I am very happy with such prospects, you are very wrong!

But pessimistic forecasts are exactly this.

15 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Skipping one generation is a possibility and this was suggested during the F-35 program too. It is again a risky decision though as means developing technologies and doctrines without the advantage of the expertise gained through the operation of 5th generation fighters. There's then the matter of when this 6th generation fighter would be ready, if it's in 20 years this mean keeping the air force at an inferior technological level for quite many years.

 

You wrote these lines at the time when BАе presented Temest, declaring him immediately a fighter of the 6th generation! Do not tell me where on the way from the 4th generation fighter Typhoon, a fifth-generation fighter lost his way at BAe, and what was  name

fifth-generation fighter BAe? 

15 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Low observability is a feature that prevents the enemy to have a complete situational awareness while the friendly aircrafts can with their sensor systems have a superior situational awareness

How do you know that the sensors of friendly aircraft will receive any information in the face of enemy ECM?

 

15 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

It's like saying that armour on a tank is unnecessary because can be defeated by many weapons, it's true but still tanks retain armour because gives them an advantage in many situations

This is not a correct example. There are wheeled tanks where armor is quite sacrificed for the sake of the ability to quickly escape, unless of course I'm not mistaken, I'm not a specialist in the tank.

But all weapons  it's  compromise, where one characteristic is always sacrificed for the sake of another, and this will always be so. Absolute weapons do not exist.

15 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

The mission profile of an F-35 during a CAS mission would be completely different to avoid as many threats as possible, it's like comparing apples and oranges

I'm with your comparison about apples and oranges completely agree and surprised no less than you, but allow your surprise to redirect to the American congress and the military which is exactly such comparisons of the F-35 and A-10 conduct.

https://afirsov.livejournal.com/359382.html

Andrei Firsov is a regular author of the aviation magazine "Aviation and Cosmonautics"

, so I do not think that this information is fake.

15 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

And regarding the uselessness of radars and missiles in a future war, it's something I keep hearing since my days in the army... that was in the early '90s.

the future war can be quite different from the one you were preparing for.

I suspect that you have not been trained for such a war, nevertheless this is a reality.

15 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Not saying that ECM systems are useless, they are very effective, but they are always countered by ECCM advances and so on.

This you now wrote to the person who lives in the conditions of the ECM war and who watches this war on his TV screen when the cable TV signal disappears in the meat weather, because the ECM interference drowns out the TV signal from the satellite! I suspect that the best means of ECCM against the ECM is Wild Weasel , artillery or MLRS.

6 hours ago, Stealthman said:

over Baghdad on the opening night despite the city being defended by the latest Soviet Air defence systems that were subsequently neutralized

latest Soviet Air defence systems in Baghdad-91?

Where from? I missed something and there were S-300s? Tor? Tunguska? Buk?

 

B.R.

Serge

Edited July 18, 2018 by Aardvark

[Giorgio N]

13 hours ago, Aardvark said:

 

Excuse me, but some of us do not understand the current and future geopolitical layout of playing cards on the global card table.

It seems to me that Russia is now engaged in trading alternately with the West, then with China trying to somehow bargain for itself the role of any significant partner, but it seems from both sides it is offered the role of cannon fodder, and nothing more. Naturally, the Kremlin does not like this, and it is for this reason that attempts are being made to show at least some technological superiority, or at least a lack of a backlog.But sooner or later the choice will be made, it will have to be done, and then the Su-57 / Su-35 e.t.c. will have either the first echelon in the second echelon of the F-35 against the J-20, or they will go against the F-35 having in the second echelon of the J- 20. But in any case in this solitaire play the RF, and not the RF player.

And if you think that I am very happy with such prospects, you are very wrong!

But pessimistic forecasts are exactly this.

 

 

Serge, I'm not sure if I understood this part correctly, if you're saying that overall Russia today has to side with either the West or China, then I'm no position to comment on this. What is undeniable is however that Russia is not anymore in the first two positions when it comes to being a superpower, although they still are in terms of nuclear arsenal. Russia's latest defence budget was approximately 70 billion dollars, China's is 3 times more even if the percentage of GDP assigned to defence is lower than Russia's. The defence budget of the US is in a different league altogether, higher than the combined of the 10 countries that follow... With these figures it's clear the Russia can't hope to compete in a global arms race and they have to choose where to best assign the resources. Not an easy task for sure, I know that there are several branches of the Russian military system that would like to replace older equipment, the budget can't be spent on aviation alone.

 

13 hours ago, Aardvark said:

You wrote these lines at the time when BАе presented Temest, declaring him immediately a fighter of the 6th generation! Do not tell me where on the way from the 4th generation fighter Typhoon, a fifth-generation fighter lost his way at BAe, and what was  name

fifth-generation fighter BAe? 

 

There is a very big difference: the UK has experience with designing and producing components for 5th generation fighters because they are a level 1 partner in the F-35 program. The RAF and FAA will also operate the aircraft and this will give them the possibility of developing the relevant operational doctrines. We should also keep in mind that at the moment it's not clear which other partners will join the program and what role they will have. The Tempest is something that at best would see the light in 15 years, it's a bit early today to tell if this announcement will really bring to a 6th generation fighter. Personally I am a bit skeptical in regard to this program, not much because of technological issues but because of economics: simply it's hard to tell today if the UK will be able to inject the kind of money required for such a program.

 

 

13 hours ago, Aardvark said:

How do you know that the sensors of friendly aircraft will receive any information in the face of enemy ECM?

 

This you now wrote to the person who lives in the conditions of the ECM war and who watches this war on his TV screen when the cable TV signal disappears in the meat weather, because the ECM interference drowns out the TV signal from the satellite! I suspect that the best means of ECCM against the ECM is Wild Weasel , artillery or MLRS.

 

 

A heavily "ECM infested" space is not like a pitch black night in which no sensor can see anything, it's more like a space with more or less foggy areas where snippet of information may be available here and there and where there are strong "spotlights" corresponding to those systems that emit the most power. One of the most important aspects of 5th generation fighters is the capability of integrating bits of information coming from a number of different sensors, some active and some passive. This fact alone makes them more suited to find their targets when heavy ECM are present compared to earlier types.

Keep in mind that ECM will be used from both sides, the Russians aren't the only ones with advanced ECM systems. In such a situation, stealth aircraft enjoy an even greater advantage as any enemy radar, be it airborne or ground based, will have to emit more power to identify the attacker, so showing clearly their position. And yes, there are stronger ways to deal with ECMs, with several missiles and projectiles capable of homing on ECM sources, we can be sure that such solutions will be used. ECM platforms have always been a primary target, this isn't going to change.

In a sense the worst threat to 5 gen. fighters is not much in the jamming of radars but in the jamming of the communications among the components of the strike force, as this communication capability is a strong force multiplier and a key part in providing superior situational awareness. Russia have been developing these and the US know well this fact... and clearly they keep working to stay ahead in the game. Hard to tell what the Chinese are doing, I'd bet on them working as hard as anyone else.

 

13 hours ago, Aardvark said:

This is not a correct example. There are wheeled tanks where armor is quite sacrificed for the sake of the ability to quickly escape, unless of course I'm not mistaken, I'm not a specialist in the tank.

But all weapons  it's  compromise, where one characteristic is always sacrificed for the sake of another, and this will always be so. Absolute weapons do not exist.

 

 

 

Yes, and in the same vein there are more or less stealthy aircraft. The F-35 itself give up some stealthiness to improve other aspects (most importantly cost... I know, sounds like a joke). There are also kits designed to reduce the RCS of existing 4th generation fighters that can be considered like "add-on armour". Low RCS is an advantage, in some cases part of this can be traded with other performances, in other cases everything is thrown into making the aircraft as stealthy as possible. Same as with tanks and armour

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Aardvark said:

I'm with your comparison about apples and oranges completely agree and surprised no less than you, but allow your surprise to redirect to the American congress and the military which is exactly such comparisons of the F-35 and A-10 conduct.

https://afirsov.livejournal.com/359382.html

Andrei Firsov is a regular author of the aviation magazine "Aviation and Cosmonautics"

, so I do not think that this information is fake.

 

 

 

I could only read that article through a translator and I'm not sure this worked 100% correctly... in any case the article reminds me of similar I've seen in US websites that tend to denigrate the F-35. I'm not familiar with that test in particular but there are some things that sound weird, like the idea of the A-10 attacking aerodromes.. this is not a job for the A-10 fleet today, it's a job for the Strike Eagle or similar aircrafts.

The whole tone of the article hints at rigging the tests and so on, meaning that it's not an objective overview but rather a rehash of anti F-35 stuff appearing on US sources. There are a good few other details in the article that make little sense, so IMHO while the info it's based on may not be fake, everything is arranged to turn the original information to make the point that the author wants to make.

 

13 hours ago, Aardvark said:

the future war can be quite different from the one you were preparing for.

I suspect that you have not been trained for such a war, nevertheless this is a reality.

 

 

I can't understand a word of the video, so I don't know what war they're taking about...

An often quoted statement is the generals always prepare to fight the previous war. There have been many cases where this was undoubdtedly true. At the same time the history of warfare has shown that the best way to conduct a war is to impose your way of fighting to the enemy. This can be done through superior numbers, technology, organisation or a number of other things and combinations of all of these. In air combat, 5th generation fighters are expected to do exactly this.

 

To conclude and get back on topic, I believe that ditching the Su-57 would be a bad decision, unless the aircraft has shown deficiencies that we are not aware of. I can understand that the same money can be used for a higher number of modern Su-27 variants, at the same time I feel that "missing the boat" could potentially lead to losing the capability of developing more advanced types in the future. Even a relatively small production run, say 20-30 aircraft, could at least allow the development of doctrines and to keep up-to date in the development process. It is still not clear to me what the decision has actually been on the future of the Su-57, if the mass production is only delayed or cancelled and if the prototypes will keep working for development or the program is dead. I'd love to know more clear detail but all I can find are speculations and the repetition of the same single article that first mentioned these events in English language

[Aardvark]

Some  photo, one old  😁 Su-57:

Probably this Su-57 used in test program for cooperation in combat Su-57 with new hevy attack UAV S-70

Okhotnik-B (Охотник-Б/Hunter-B)

( @magman2 , so fast, with this news !! 😁😁)

 

Well, now we know one way (from many) in which direction the tactics of using the Su-57 will develop.

 

B.R.

Serge

 

[Aardvark]

News about Su-57.

Article "Completion of work on the creation of the engine AL-41F-1 for the Su-57"

https://diana-mihailova.livejournal.com/3278553.html

e.t.c.

On pictures from article written about thrust vectoring &

stealth technology  (radar - blocker?) in AL-41.

 

B.R.

Serge

 

 

 

 

[magman2]

President Putin visits  Akhtubinsk.

6 Su-57 Greeting. 🇷🇺

 

Net Photo