New Russian Fighter Not Up To Western Standards 354
schwit1 writes "Despite initial high expectations, the Indian Air Force appears to be souring on a joint development deal with Russia for a new fifth-generation fighter jet, according to the Business Standard, a major Indian business publication. The Russian prototype is 'unreliable, its radar inadequate, its stealth features badly engineered,' said Indian Air Force Deputy Air Marshall S Sukumar at a Jan. 15 meeting, according to minutes obtained by the Business Standard. 'They're very good at building airplanes,' Cordesman said. 'The problem that Russia, since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, has been putting out the military equivalent of show cars. They look good, but it isn't always clear how practical they are and how many of the specifications they can actually meet.'"
Hrm... (Score:5, Insightful)
From model villages to model aircraft eh?
Re:Hrm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hrm... (Score:5, Insightful)
What surprises me is the implication that this is something new. The Soviet jets seldom if ever met the specs of similar Western planes, and pretty much never met the claims made for them.
Well, historically, that has been true to a point. Originally, early jet fighters from the Soviet Union were hot stuff. The MiG-15 was the equal of the American F-86, more or less. But later, Russian fighters were later designed with the idea that they would be simpler to build and fix. The combat strategy was that they would overwhelm Western air forces in battle by sheer numbers. This theory seemed to change with the development of the MiG-29 which is a pretty good fighter when there is a good pilot sitting at the sharp end.
There is another analogue of this thinking. The German Sturmgewehr 44, the first assault rifle, was a good weapon but overly complicated. The Russian AK-47 is not as accurate but is more reliable and easier to manufacture because it has fewer parts and was designed to work when wet, dirty, muddy, etc. I dare say that jammed weapon is not much of a weapon no matter how well-engineered.
Keep in mind that the Russians can build good military equipment if they want to. The Germans in World War II learned that fact the hard way. German military equipment and vehicles was good and well-engineered but was not designed to operate in the bitter cold. Russian equipment was designed to operate in the cold and the rest is history.
Re:Hrm... (Score:4, Insightful)
" But later, Russian fighters were later designed with the idea that they would be simpler to build and fix. The combat strategy was that they would overwhelm Western air forces in battle by sheer numbers."
Yes, this is true but beside the point. Much of the Russian military equipment was intentionally designed to be lower-tech but cheaper to build and replace. I realize this was a strategic decision, but it doesn't change the fact.
And yes, I almost abandoned my reply when the MiG-29 occurred to me. Instead I modified it to say "seldom".
My main point was, though: the Soviets were prone to make lofty claims about their equipment that often did not pan out in the real world. That may have been a strategic decision, too... but again, it doesn't change the fact.
Re:Hrm... (Score:4, Informative)
Soviets were prone to make lofty claims about their equipment
True. I am an reserve officer of Serbian Army. When we learned about Soviet/Russian equipment, we always learned two values - declared value (e.g. range) and actual value proved in practice.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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If I remember correctly, it was always the plan to go after the oil fields, as the Germans were getting pretty desperate for oil (remember, the US was the #1 supplier of oil at the time, and the sole reason the Japanese declared war with the US because the US refused to supply oil to them - Germany was getting into a similar bind), but the original plan was to do it with tanks only splitting off three panzer divisions, and these tanks could then quickly reunite with the front. Hitler's blunder was he wanted
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The Su-27 was a pretty formidable plane, comparable to the F-15.
Re:Hrm...fuck off (Score:5, Insightful)
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Indeed it was a reference to the Potemkin villages (Apparently NK still has them for the tourists) -.o
Wow, never had so much hate directed at me for using a Facebook login before, good lord.
~makes a note to use his real slashdot login in future~
To be fair (Score:5, Insightful)
They haven't had quite as much opportunities to field-test their designs as the Americans.
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup, all those wars in the Mid East serve as great testing grounds. It's a pity loads of troops die in the process of testing, but hey you can't let morals get in the way of profits.
Re:To be fair (Score:4, Interesting)
Also worth noting, they dont have 35+ years of experience working with stealth technology.
The various stealth prototypes and demonstrators (Have Blue, Tacit Blue, Bird of Prey) had their share of problems too.
Yet the production birds (B2, F117, and F22) have done their jobs well.
So a good match... (Score:5, Insightful)
In all seriousness, as compromised as the F-35 has been in what's been delivered to customers so far, it sounds like it'd be a fairly even match. Compromised plane against compromised plane.
And don't rule out older designs, the military used to train pilots in new planes by pitting them against experienced pilots in F4s and other older jets, and routinely the older jets would get kills against the new ones.
Re:So a good match... (Score:4, Funny)
So long as your Air Force is made up of nothing but experienced pilots, you'll do fine then.
We''l just recruit new pilots from Lake Wobegon.
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Interesting)
So long as your Air Force is made up of nothing but experienced pilots, you'll do fine then.
One (of many) reasons that the US military sucks up so much money is that our pilots train continuously. In the C17, pilots do not reach the Aircraft Commander level until 4 or 5 *years* after putting on wings. Obviously, fighters have a different training program, but clearly huge amounts of continuous training are involved. So, yes, in practical terms, the operational Air Force is made up of almost nothing but experienced pilots.
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Informative)
And if you can afford it, it really pays off. Take a good look at what the highly trained, badly outnumbered Israeli air force did to to the Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi air force during the Six Day War. The Soviet trainers of those national air forces there were explicitly prevented from providing extensive training and from keeping the aircraft fully fueled and armed. The constant concern was that educated, trained local pilots would steal the planes and fly to NATO airbases, for both economic and political reasons. The list of successful pilot defections during the time is quite long:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
It's an amazing list, and purchasers of Soviet aircraft of the era were constantly handicapped by the risk of the best trained and educated pilots defecting.
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Insightful)
One (of many) reasons that the US military sucks up so much money is that our pilots train continuously.
Yet another reason to move to pilotless planes. Drones don't need training, they just need to be programmed.
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Informative)
Yet another reason to move to pilotless planes. Drones don't need training, they just need to be programmed.
*Some* drones are pilot-less, mostly high altitude reconesonce drones. *Most* US drones in fact have qualified pilots at the controls, sitting in control rooms at places like Creech Air Force Base, outside of Las Vegas. Creech is both a training / testing base for drones, as well as a Command and Control location where actual pilots sit in rooms controlling drones in "real-time".
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Funny)
I read "defect" as "defecate" at first, and was solemnly nodding my head in agreement, as that would be difficult to cover up.
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In practical terms, no, the operational Air Force is anything *but* made up o
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Insightful)
In practical terms, no, the operational Air Force is anything *but* made up of experienced pilots. You have a significant fraction that are relatively new (less than two or three years experience). You also have a significant fraction that have (within a year or so) just returned from non-flying duties.
I disagree. But hey, I've only worked in operational flying for the USAF for around 20 years. Maybe I'm wrong.
Re:So a good match... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, there is a *grain* of truth in the post I'm objecting to. Some pilots take non-flying staff jobs later in their careers for a few years, but these are senior folks who wouldn't be doing much flying anyway. And, some younger pilots have other career issues that take them out of the "seat". But the majority of USAF pilots fly training or operational missions several times a month not counting simulator time, which is much more extensive than civilian pilots. For our airframe here at McChord, our aircrew fly 10 day missions into the AOR (shit-holes like Shank, Bagram, Kandahar, what have you) with a week or so off here at Home Station, and than out again for more of the same.
This will significantly uptick in 2014 as we pull out of Afghanistan - try to get as much of our crap out as possible - and than things should quiet down a bit unless some politician (or General Dynamics lobbyist) gets us into another war.
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One (of many) reasons that the US military sucks up so much money is that our pilots train continuously.
Off topic, but the USAF flight training budget for FY2014 represents just over 1/2 of 1 percent of the total USAF budget. In terms of money suckers, flight training is way way down the list.
Total budget = $144,425B (page 4 here [af.mil])
Flight training budget = $792M (page 1 here [af.mil])
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By the way, that 500 million works out to around 17-20K an hour for our C17.
But in any case, your numbers are not accurate in terms of training dollars spent.
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, I'm just working off of the USAF pro-formas. : )
Fuel (and other direct/indirect expenses) are booked to "Air Operations", then a portion of those costs are allocated to training for reporting purposes. So yes, the $792M figure for training doesn't represent all the costs associated with training. And you're right, $792M isn't even close to the "real" number once all the expenses are allocated.
I would however point out that even if one adds the entire 2014 USAF Air Operations budget to the $792M Flight Training budget, it still only amounts to a little over 5% of the total USAF budget for FY2014. So I think my original (clumsily made) point still stands.
But I'm becoming argumentative. I certainly defer to your experience in any case.
Cheers!
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Informative)
That barely scratches the surface. Consider the time on jets, fuel, maintenance, support operations, etc. Once you add in actual secondary costs the cost is very very high.
It's true that the line item "Flight Training" in the USAF's 2014 budget likely doesn't include any of those costs. But even if you add in the entire "Air Operations" budget of $6,730B, you still only arrive at 5.2% of the USAF total. And the total "Air Operations" budget includes a lot more than support costs for training alone.
Disclaimer: I've never worked for the USAF, but I am an accountant familiar with GAAP for government/NFP. (well, I was...I'm semi-retired)
Re:So a good match... (Score:4, Funny)
So long as your Air Force is made up of nothing but experienced pilots, you'll do fine then.
We''l just recruit new pilots from Lake Wobegon.
Yeah, all the pilots are above average there.
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As long as it costs less than 1 trillion(the f-35's current running total) it is not only a match but a good counter.
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And don't rule out older designs, the military used to train pilots in new planes by pitting them against experienced pilots in F4s and other older jets, and routinely the older jets would get kills against the new ones.
Now wait a minute... I seem to recall one of those rah-rah! documentaries on cable, where they were boasting about an exercise where the latest plane (probably an F-22) knocked out a whole squadron of F-16s before they could even detect it. I'm not sure how pilot skill comes into play there, unless "camping" is frowned upon in a real war.
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the history books, you'll also see how the F-4 was going to destroy all opposing aircraft with missiles, so it would never need a gun because they'd never get close enough.
Once it actually got into actual combat in the actual real world, there were sudden orders for a gun pod for close-in dogfights.
The F-22 may be able to hit less stealthy aircraft with missiles from well beyond visual range, but that doesn't help if the rules of engagement won't let them fire missiles at random dots on a radar screen. Also, I was reading recently about new IR trackers which can detect F-22s from well beyond radar range, making radar stealth far less useful.
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Re:So a good match... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, IIRC (probably from Wikipedia) that the Air Force insisted on using the Sparrow despite strong encouragement to use the Navy's Sidewinder, which was already well established as effective. But NIH predominated. The AF finally did accept the Sidewinder, but I think that was much later. I think the Sidewinder is still in use, on its 9th design iteration.
But from what I've read, missiles alone would still not have been a good idea in Viet Nam. Sometimes getting up close and throwing lead 'rocks' is still necessary. For example, what if all your missiles are gone? If the opponent _knows_ you don't have guns, they know you're a sitting duck. If they don't know, they have to be a little more careful, leaving you a way to either continue fighting or scoot on out of there.
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Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Interesting)
That one is actually feasible. The most distinguishing feature of Rafale is that they have a fully integrated (advertised as) revolutionary electronic warfare suite called SPECTRA. This proved itself well in Libya, where there were two kinds of NATO attack sorties. Those where aircraft were escorted by dedicated electronic warfare aircraft like Prowlers and Growlers, and those where Rafales went in without. The task of electronic warfare aircraft is to jam enemy radar guided missiles. They are the main force responsible for high survivability of NATO aircraft in recent conflicts.
F-22 is highly reliant on its radar guided missiles to do the job. It's a pretty bad dogfighter as dogfighting would put emphasis on maneuvreability and F-22 is designed for stealth first and foremost. Rafale is designed for speed and superagility, so it's meant for dogfights. If Rafale's integrated electronic warfare suite is indeed powerful enough to disrupt F-22's radar guided missiles as it's rumoured to be, F-22 is going to be boned very hard in a duel against it. If both sides are able to render radar guided missile attacks useless, guns and IR seekers come into play and that puts F-22 at a massive disadvantage.
The historic analogy here is ninja vs samurai. If a ninja could get a sneak kill, he would win. But a frontal fight against a heavily armoured and armed samurai is a suicide for a ninja.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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F-35 has external hardpoints. So does the F-22. They can carry fuel or missiles.
Re:So a good match... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doing so makes them into very expensive and very inefficient fighters. Not to even mention F-35 which has massive issues with its external hardpoints right now, ranging from not having enough thrust to function as a fighter with full external loadout to actually destroying its engine trying to achieve maneuvreability and acceleration on par with F-4, much less a modern 4th gen aircraft.
F-35 program is a complete mess right now, and honestly not a good comparison point to anything that is actually functional. Same goes for most post USSR Russian military aircraft development.
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The F-35 is indeed very messed up, but then so was the F-18 program back in the day. Not at this level, but you know inflation and all that... :)
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F-18 was technologically fairly sound however. F-35 is not.
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I could be a victim of my own memory, but I remember it being quite under spec until they changed the spec. They didn't really remedy it until the redesign with the Super Hornet.
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That would be because original specs were closer to requirements of superagility and other features that are now considered 5th gen features.
Problem is, F-35 is performing on the level of 3rd gen according to reports when under external combat load. We're talking it being barely push mach 1.5 and it actually damages it's engine when doing this. It can barely handle 4g turns and no more. And other similar problems. F-18 was a clear improvement to the existing platforms, where F-35 is looking like a distinct
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I don't see many people mentioning AWACS here, which is a core component of US battle airspace management. Those stealth aircraft can be guided to their targets by the distant AWACS crew while retaining relative electronic silence, surprise the enemy, and at least knock their numbers down. The US did it in 1991 to enormous effect and it's only improved since then. Once air superiority is established, the hardpoints can be attached for greater payload (or older, less stealthy planes employed).
Modern air c
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And its all because of that damned stealth which cripples the HELL out of the aircraft!
They have a role. What carried more stuff and has a longer loiter time, a stealth fighter or a smoking hole in the ground? Once you have air superiority, that stark choice no longer exists. But you have to get to that point. Using a lot of gimped stealth planes is the current US approach.
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What carried more stuff and has a longer loiter time, a stealth fighter or a smoking hole in the ground?
Well, technically the hole in the ground can carry more stuff, and will loiter there for a long, long time. ;)
Re:So a good match... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wasn't it Stalin that said "Quantity has a quality all it's own" when the Allies told him USSR's equipment was inferior?
Re:So a good match... (Score:4, Insightful)
pitting them against experienced pilots in F4s and other older jets
Sometimes the older jets are quite nimble performers, but lack some other quality which renders them obsolete. Maybe they have poor loiter time, low ordinance capacity, or limited range. Maybe they simply cost too much to maintain, or are unreliable. Thus they might still make excellent dog-fighting opponents on a training course where the scenario specifically evens the playing field.
There is more to a jet's war-fighting ability than simply being good in a dogfight or the ability to go really fast.
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And don't rule out older designs, the military used to train pilots in new planes by pitting them against experienced pilots in F4s and other older jets, and routinely the older jets would get kills against the new ones.
True. In the '80s, in combat games against Vietnam era pilots flying older planes like the Phantom, hot young pilots in brand new planes were getting their asses kicked. This led to the founding of the Top Gun program - the brass realized that sophisticated missiles were not enough. Pilots still needed lots of air combat experience.
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Software is hard.
Excellent point. Some years back I learned that the total cost of the then in-development F-18 was over 50% software. There were IIRC several hundred (thousand?) VME circuit boards in the machine.
On par with F22 and F35 (Score:2, Informative)
From Pierre Spray, the lead designer of the F16 and of the A10 [youtube.com]
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The F22 is certainly impressive. A maintenance nightmare but bad ass in a fight. The F35? A single engine fighter? Just what we needed, another lawn dart to replace the F16.
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"bad ass in a fight?" The F-22? Did you see how it performed in "Pacific Rim"? Pitiful.
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Only one tech can work on a plane at at time? Blithering moron.
Re:On par with F22 and F35 (Score:5, Interesting)
Pierre Spray, the lead designer of the F16 and of the A10
Sprey was not the chief designer, despite his claims. As a member of the fighter mafia in the 1960's, he did have some influence on their design. Even the influence of the fighter mafia as a whole has been exaggerated. John Boyd's work on OODA hand E-M in the 1950's and early '60's was excellent and highly influential. However, when he created the informal fighter mafia group in the 1960's, along with Christie, Riccioni, Hillaker and Sprey, they emphasized dogfighting above all else, as though these newfangled radars and missiles would never be of any value. Their cause got a boost from the problems with the original F-4, without a gun and with poor maneuverability. However, they were far from the only people that noticed that there was a problem. These days Sprey spends his time "analyzing" military equipment as though nothing had changed in the last 40+ years, and exaggerating his own role in the past.
When an F22 can't give its pilots oxygen... (Score:2)
This is different how?
The F22 and F35 also seem like impractical boondoggles.
Re:When an F22 can't give its pilots oxygen... (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps It's A Game? (Score:4, Interesting)
Your argument is very good. But also consider the possibility that the Indians are simply manipulating Russia and the US to their advantage? It's like Company X publicly announcing they will dump their entire Microsoft IT infrastructure for Linux - until Microsoft offers them a sweet deal. Perhaps they are simply playing Russia against the US for better arms deals?
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Not really. India is a long term partner of Russia in terms of arms deals. They're not fishing for a better deal elsewhere. At most they are trying to push their prices down.
You can't just switch your military supplier. Not even US has the ability to do so. Afghanistan and Iraq made excellent examples - US military industrial complex pulled all stops it could to get those two countries' military build up to be on their tech. It failed completely. The cost and more importantly time that would be necessary to
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They never even tried to supply Iraq or Afghanistan with US weapons.
They are both being supplied with Chinese weapons and ammo. So they can pay their own way after we leave them to fight among themselves.
We could have left them better equipped. But why would we? It's not like we don't know they're not our friends or allies.
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Reap what you sow (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that long ago, the Soviets were on the leading edge of science and technology. Nowadays, a fat military contract gets lean in a hurry once all the palms are greased.
Re:Reap what you sow (Score:5, Funny)
So the Russians are learning lessons well from the decadent western capitalists.
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Because our Germans are better than their Germans.
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Because they had to tear their own system apart in 1990s and replace it with whatever we told them to replace it with.
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WTF? We told them to let the KGB take over?
Have you ever actually met a Rusky? If you wanted one to do something (especially in Russia), your best bet is to 'tell them' to do the opposite.
At the time we had a difficult time convincing them to let us pay the costs of keeping their nukes secure. We surely didn't 'tell them' much.
Funny you should mention that (Score:2)
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mostly in Washington D.C. you mean.
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> .. since most of the corruption in the US
Oh my goodness. Do you ever attend hardware purchase meetings? Or contractor bid proposals? Please believe me when I say that corruption exists in most fields. The _scale_ of it may be higher in military manufacture.
and you have to think in Russian to use it (Score:5, Funny)
and you have to think in Russian to use it
In Soviet Russia.... (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia We Show You!
In post-Soviet Russia, bank robs YOU! (Score:5, Interesting)
In one of the articles about this, I read that Russia has done the equivalent of building show cars.
Sure, the prototypes look great.
But they're not sustainable, serviceable or even functional most of the time.
And there's no way in hell they can be delivered for what the Russians are charging.
What they're REALLY doing is playing the long con. They hook you up front. Then gradually bleed more and more money out of you to deliver what you promised.
Ask India about the Admiral Gorshkov [wikipedia.org].
And since they're holding all the cards, and you've sunk all that money into it already...
They've been pulling this crap for the last 25-30 years.
The only time you get your money's worth is when you want something cheap, simple and produced in massive quantities. Essentially, disposable.
Then, the Russian defense industry can churn stuff out faster than anyone but maybe China or the US.
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They licensed it from General Dynamics.
PAKFA (Score:2)
Well to be honest, I just think the Russians ran out of money as this aircraft project would have never moved along without the Indian $. Judging from the points in this article, they had to cut corners, older engines, half assed "stealth" profile. Not surprising, as Sukhoi has built some fantastic planes, SU-35, SU-37, SU-47, but they only built a few as demonstrators for air shows (eg. annual Paris Airshow), not having the dollars to put them into active service. They built and marketed the SU-30 to a var
There is an old anecdote (Score:5, Interesting)
That the AK47 and 74 rifles that the Russians would sell to others would have a chamber that was slightly too small so that if they picked up rounds from dead Russian soldiers they would not work in the foreign soldiers rifles.
I dont know if that was true, but it could easily be the same story here. India is potentially a rising power and with their experience with China, the Russians may be uneasy about providing the Indians with a powerful weapon. In this case the Indians are smart enough to realise it and powerful enough to confront the Russians.
Of course there's still the old adage, never blame malice for what can easily be explained by stupidity. The stealth fighter had very difficult requirements and rather than admit they couldn't produce the goods, it was easier to present the Indians with a fighter that clearly didn't meet the specifications.
In either case, I dont blame the Indians for being upset.
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So, what you are saying is that some rounds might be more equal than others...?
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The Russian T-50 is less advanced than the Indian version which is getting more sophisticated, Indian-developed avionics. There can't be much if any withholding of technology for export models.
Congressional stupidity in action again. (Score:2)
If only Congress allowed the F-22 to be purchased by allies. Even a watered down F-22 for other countries would be better than what we have now: an overbudget F-35 program and other countries buying opposing aircraft.
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There is a problem with F-22 in that it's not designed for what NATO needs aircraft for - multirole, attack focused aircraft. It's a stealth fighter first, second and third, with potential attack role being an afterthought at best.
So here lies a foreign policy issue for US in addition to stealth technology export issues. US wants its allies to have more ability to attack ground targets in NATO campaigns. Selling them F-22 would consume much of their air force budgets will effectively reducing their air forc
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So basically NATO is leaving air superiority (and it's costs) to the USA. Nice.
American bombers have similar issues (Score:2)
Entire article in summary (Score:2, Funny)
"'...unreliable, its radar inadequate, its stealth features badly engineered,' said Indian Air Force..."
Sounds like they're asking the Russians to Do The Needful.
Monkey Models (Score:5, Interesting)
The Russians have a very long history of selling inferior versions of weaponry to their allies. They call these inferior versions the "monkey models". That's all that is going on here.
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These are called "export versions". Every major weapon manufacturing country does this.
drone future? (Score:2)
How can airplanes that require human pilots remain competitive against (future) drone fighter jets that do not have human limitations of G forces?
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By having a local pilot whose not nearly as subject to hacking/jamming as current drones' up- and down-links?
Of course the hacking problems, the not-even-bothering-with-encryption problems, etc. can all be fixed, eventually, but jamming remains impossible to completely prevent with current tech.
Of course one can take measures to reduce susceptibility, but that's just an arms race with the jammers. Unless/until we invent some SF tech like quantum-entangled transceiver pairs or onboard AIs capable of autonomo
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By having a local pilot whose not nearly as subject to hacking/jamming as current drones' up- and down-links?
Of course the hacking problems, the not-even-bothering-with-encryption problems, etc. can all be fixed, eventually, but jamming remains impossible to completely prevent with current tech.
Of course one can take measures to reduce susceptibility, but that's just an arms race with the jammers. Unless/until we invent some SF tech like quantum-entangled transceiver pairs or onboard AIs capable of autonomous combat, drones will have jammable communication links, and that disadvantage may or may not outweigh the advantage of high-G maneuverability.
You're assuming a lack of autonomy. Self driving cars today, totally automated fighter jets at some point (no idea when not saying tomorrow).
Yup, predicted it (Score:3, Insightful)
T-50 is still a prototype (Score:2)
I am surprised that something life five have already been built. It's a development prototype. Now is the time to voice the concerns, introduce modifications, etc. By the way, how much is the India input in the development, besides the money?
pick your poison (Score:2)
This is not limited to Russia (see F-35) (Score:3)
U-2: I fly high and far, nothing else.
SR-71: I fly fast, nothing else (attempts we're made to add intercept capability and rejected).
F-14: I intercept, nothing else (attempts we're made to add bombing capability and rejected).
F-15: I will own the skies and do nothing else (bombing has been added on but it has not strayed from it's mission).
AV-8B: I will provide forward air base support and nothing else.
Re:not invented here. (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps because members of the Russian Air Force don't like working in labor camps in Siberia.
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Money. India is the main buyer and it wants good deals.
Also culture. Russian military culture doesn't support airing their dirty laundry in public.
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Scenario 2:
Nobody is going to put up with a long term, high intensity war similar to WW II anymore. We will go to war with the resources we have and hope to win it, or at least force a stalemate and negotiations fast. Because if we don't, someone will get desperate and escalate to nukes.
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War with some less developed enemy. No matter what it is, technology will beat it. New gear will optimize minimum losses to none.
That's what they said about Vietnam.
Fighting a real enemy, developed and armed nations fighting among themselves. Losses on both sides. ... Shouldn't there be a development of a fighter that can be produced by mostly untrained workers in barely lit caves from commodity materials in minimum time?
Einstein addressed that issue:
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
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That they are as smart as US folks who chose Russian tech for arming Afghan and Iraqi armies, because they like their American counterparts understood that switching supplier would mean tearing up most of infrastructure and starting from scratch. Even for Afghanistan, where material infrastructure was all but destroyed, the cost was deemed to be excessive, even in light of the massive budgets involved. For an intact country like India, the cost would be beyond astronomical.