Syria buying MiG-31 on Paris air show

Originally posted by kilcoo316
It does have to...


Thats what I meant when I said:


"Only AEGIS can engage those (pukka ASMs - which are very different from slow moving cruise missiles) usefully. And the AEGIS system will not have a long time to react (even if the ship knows where the missiles are, until their radar sees them, they can do nothing).



The sailors can see the damn missiles using the mark 1 eyeball if they want - but until the radar attached/linked to the SM2s sees the missles, there is not a thing they can do.


So unless the AWACs can cue the missile (even through the AEGIS destroyer) - their field of fire is greatly reduced.





BTW - would the Navy not have E-2s instead of E-3s?

The Navy has E-2s but can also accept datalinks with E-3s. But the point I'm making is that when they're datalinked the data from the E-3 is essentially the radar from the AEGIS as far as the SM-2/3/4 is concerned. It's taking the steering from the data that's coming from the ship. The ship is sending the data it's receiving from the AWACS, be it E-2 or E-3 to the missile for the intercept. Once the datalink with the AWACS is established they're adding a pretty big chunk of range to their radar coverage.

Originally posted by WestPoint23

Originally posted by kilcoo316
So an AWACs can cue an SM?

I'm not sure if the SM-2 can be updated in flight via external sources (ie. non AEGIS) but the SM-6 ERAM (IOC 2010) will indeed have such a capability. And yeah, there probably will be on E-3 or two in the area.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
The Hornets will never get into range to strike at the MiGs - the MiGs have the choice whether to make the fight happen or not - they can choose to drag the hornets around on wild goose chases (trying to stay between MiGs and carrier) until they are out of fuel, then go for the throat.

Not really, the Mig's have to attack the carrier, given that the threat axis is pretty predictable and that the Mig's will be detected at extreme ranges (giving ample time for positioning) they will eventually have to come to the Hornets flying CAP at 180-200 nm out. With a buddy fuel system, constant air wing rotation, USAF tankers and multiple birds in the air (8-12) there is no need to go on "wild goose chases" (nor is there a real threat of running out of AC or fuel), just wait for the enemy to come to you. If they want to fly around burning fuel hoping to lure you out, let them, as long as the carrier stays safe.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
Just like the HARMS back then were supposed to be capable of dealing with radar sets left on.

Except that the Serbs never turned their radars on for an extended period of time. When the longest time on for a mobile radar set is several minutes even the best HARM in the world will not be effective.

in 2000 a Su-27 and Su-22 flew over the USS Kitty Hawk, 2 before U.S. planes started to get off the deck, so I wouldn't put my money on U.S. detecting Rus planes before an attack, as a matter of fact, threw out the cold war Russia has being doing this, and if you look athe answers U.S. gives it's always the same, "FANTASTIC" explainations. Here's a link of some other interesting fly overs: www.aeronautics.ru...

It was an SU-24 and an SU-27 actually, and the carrier was in the middle of an UNREP so COULDN'T launch any planes to intercept them. There is no proof whatsoever, other than them not launching planes, to show that they were undetected at any point in the flight. In fact they were detected 45 minutes to an hour before overflying the carrier. There were three incidents, and only one was an unescorted overflight. That was when the carrier was refueling.

cryptome.org...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
It was an SU-24 and an SU-27 actually, and the carrier was in the middle of an UNREP so COULDN'T launch any planes to intercept them. There is no proof whatsoever, other than them not launching planes, to show that they were undetected at any point in the flight. In fact they were detected 45 minutes to an hour before overflying the carrier. There were three incidents, and only one was an unescorted overflight. That was when the carrier was refueling.

cryptome.org...

hmm interestting article..

So they were detected almost an hour before they reached the carrier?
hmmm..
Well if that's the case then it doesn't matter if they were resupplying or not.
It seems that they didn't care if the Russian flew by, over, under or anything actually.

They could have scrambled half a dozen a/c in that time after aborting resupply operations.. but the didn't..
its sounds a bit weird to me

Originally posted by Zaphod58
It was an SU-24 and an SU-27 actually, and the carrier was in the middle of an UNREP so COULDN'T launch any planes to intercept them. There is no proof whatsoever, other than them not launching planes, to show that they were undetected at any point in the flight. In fact they were detected 45 minutes to an hour before overflying the carrier. There were three incidents, and only one was an unescorted overflight. That was when the carrier was refueling.

cryptome.org...

This is nthing but typical U.S. "face saving", when ever you get these "FANTASTIC" explainations, it's usually a lie, no non-U.S. plane is aloud to over fly a Carrier unless given "permission" lat I look the U.S. didn't give those Su's permission, they got overflown, with out being detected, and thats that, this explaination, is nothing but "EMBARRESED LIES" only a blind faith having person would believe that

Originally posted by Zaphod58
It was an SU-24 and an SU-27 actually, and the carrier was in the middle of an UNREP so COULDN'T launch any planes to intercept them.

But it did choose to launch planes minutes AFTER the Russian planes made a low altitude pass? Which plane did they launch to 'intercept' the Russian planes and why was it not a fighter? What about the photo's allegedly showing at least some carrier crew men running around the deck in apparent surprise/disorder? The carrier could have launched aircraft but for some reason did not and while it was a exercise with the Japanese navy there is little or no excuse for being unable to intercept and escort planes that are not part of the exercise...

There is no proof whatsoever, other than them not launching planes, to show that they were undetected at any point in the flight.

Since you and i both know that these instances were rare both during and after the cold war i wonder why you are trying to sell this as 'the truth'. Fly overs are simply NOT ALLOWED and most absolutely certainly not unescorted as in a few recent cases.

In fact they were detected 45 minutes to an hour before overflying the carrier.

Claimed by the side that had planes flying over their decks at low altitude but not born out by events on the day.

There were three incidents, and only one was an unescorted overflight. That was when the carrier was refueling.

cryptome.org...

Q: Just one parting shot here. Is it still the contention of the Navy and the Defense Department that in none of these three incidents was the Navy surprised by this? And as I remember, you said that planes were not scrambled in one of these incidents because the ship was moving too slow across wind conventionally? Is it the contention that the Russians did not surprise the Navy at all here?

Bacon: We were not surprised in that the planes were acquired by radar, I don't have the time line here, but it was half an hour to 45 minutes before they came close to the ship, is my recollection. They were acquired by radar. They were followed. On the October 17th episode, the Kitty Hawk was refueling, and there was a slower response, partially as a result of that. But planes were eventually dispatched.

Q: But when were the planes dispatched? This flyover at whatever-hundred feet it was by the Russian bombers, didn't you say earlier that they were escorted by U.S. fighters when they were -- the 17th?

Bacon: Yeah, I do not have the exact timeline. They were -- they were launched late as a result of the refueling. But I don't have the timeline.

Q: But you said -- were they or were they not escorted? (Inaudible.)

Bacon: They were -- they were cleared away from the carrier. I hesitate to answer this question, because I don't know the answer.

cryptome.org...

If you actually read the source pages you provided you might have noticed how the defense spokesmen do not in fact seem to know what happened.

If you want detailed information i suggest you search before once again trying to hide what was obviously a very embarrassing event that should never have taken place if there was a CAP to protect the carrier during this alleged 'refueling'. Why a carrier is refueling ( i suppose aircraft fuel) during a exercise is beyond me and what is even stranger is that there were no fuel left for CAP.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by Zaphod58
It was an SU-24 and an SU-27 actually, and the carrier was in the middle of an UNREP so COULDN'T launch any planes to intercept them.

But it did choose to launch planes minutes AFTER the Russian planes made a low altitude pass? Which plane did they launch to 'intercept' the Russian planes and why was it not a fighter? What about the photo's allegedly showing at least some carrier crew men running around the deck in apparent surprise/disorder? The carrier could have launched aircraft but for some reason did not and while it was a exercise with the Japanese navy there is little or no excuse for being unable to intercept and escort planes that are not part of the exercise...

There is no proof whatsoever, other than them not launching planes, to show that they were undetected at any point in the flight.

Since you and i both know that these instances were rare both during and after the cold war i wonder why you are trying to sell this as 'the truth'. Fly overs are simply NOT ALLOWED and most absolutely certainly not unescorted as in a few recent cases.

In fact they were detected 45 minutes to an hour before overflying the carrier.

Claimed by the side that had planes flying over their decks at low altitude but not born out by events on the day.

There were three incidents, and only one was an unescorted overflight. That was when the carrier was refueling.

cryptome.org...

Q: Just one parting shot here. Is it still the contention of the Navy and the Defense Department that in none of these three incidents was the Navy surprised by this? And as I remember, you said that planes were not scrambled in one of these incidents because the ship was moving too slow across wind conventionally? Is it the contention that the Russians did not surprise the Navy at all here?

Bacon: We were not surprised in that the planes were acquired by radar, I don't have the time line here, but it was half an hour to 45 minutes before they came close to the ship, is my recollection. They were acquired by radar. They were followed. On the October 17th episode, the Kitty Hawk was refueling, and there was a slower response, partially as a result of that. But planes were eventually dispatched.

Q: But when were the planes dispatched? This flyover at whatever-hundred feet it was by the Russian bombers, didn't you say earlier that they were escorted by U.S. fighters when they were -- the 17th?

Bacon: Yeah, I do not have the exact timeline. They were -- they were launched late as a result of the refueling. But I don't have the timeline.

Q: But you said -- were they or were they not escorted? (Inaudible.)

Bacon: They were -- they were cleared away from the carrier. I hesitate to answer this question, because I don't know the answer.

cryptome.org...

If you actually read the source pages you provided you might have noticed how the defense spokesmen do not in fact seem to know what happened.

If you want detailed information i suggest you search before once again trying to hide what was obviously a very embarrassing event that should never have taken place if there was a CAP to protect the carrier during this alleged 'refueling'. Why a carrier is refueling ( i suppose aircraft fuel) during a exercise is beyond me and what is even stranger is that there were no fuel left for CAP.

Stellar

I'm starting to think, there was NO refueling, but that in fact they were in the middile of the exersice with the Japanise, and out of nowhere the Russkies overflew them, so the U.S. just came up the "Refueling" excuse not to be embarresed

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
The Su-30MK is a package delightedly wrapped in Christmas paper. It's a surprise to anyone what will be in it.
MiG-31 being a serious threat? Sure it's fast, but is burning out it's fuel reserves in less than 5 minutes really the best tactic for an endurance battle?

Five minutes? It has Combat radius of 700 odd km at almost Mach 2.5 so i am entirely unsure how all of that happens in five minutes. If flown as subsonic interceptor it's fuel fraction of above 0.40 with external tanks and four long range missile take it out to almost 3500km ; even at supersonic speed on internal fuel/external tanks it can go 2500 km's.

www.testpilot.ru...

www.enemyforces.com...

warfare.ru...

They better hope that they get one shot and their one shot doesn't miss because if they have to come over again they'll be out of fuel before they know it.

Shattered OUT...

It can in fact carry four long range missiles and six short and medium range so this wont be a one shot affair. Given it can engage and disengage at will three HUNDRED of these aircraft are not to be sneezed a and back in the 80's there were a additional thousands or so Mig-25's which had the same general performance margins. More than a thousands planes you can barely shoot down with air defenses and can't catch without running into enemy air defense, that can shoot you down, means a great deal of destruction to your own forces.

Stellar

Originally posted by FredT
But again as I point out, its an interceptor not a fighter. That is a huge deal in regards to where the aircraft is to be deployed. For Russia (and the USSR) it made sence. They needed basically a missile truck that could intercept US bombers coming over the pole and other northern latitudes at a high rate of speed, shoot off you BVR missiles at lumbering, big as a barn on radar bombers and RTB.

They were also able to intercept low flying cruise missiles and the idea was basically that they could operate with less ground and radar support than other Russian interceptors.

Im not questioning its abilities an interceptor. Its fast, its big, and yes it does have a nice radar system. It also has data links that allows it to share data with other 31's that can be as far as 800km away. But for all that its a poor choice for the Syrians and almost any country other than say China which tried in the past to get the aircraft.

1) Training. Unless Syria want to train up its airforce to true standards, the IAF is going to be all over them like flies on stink

The IAF will win due to size and superior training but that does not mean that that a squadron of Mig-31's operating from a well defended air base can not do a great deal of damage to the IAF fighter bombers...

2) ITS AN INTERCEPTOR PERIOD: Have you seen pcitures of the thing? Notice the lack of a bubble cockpit? Its the last aircraft you want in a dog fight. How exactly would you check six? It not manuverable.

Well with that kind of radar and speed it's not going to get into WVR combat unless things go generally and horribly wrong... The Syrians have plenty of other aircraft that can protect the Mig-31's while they egress back to base just like the Germans employed Bf 109's to protect the airbases their Me 262's were operating from.

3) If it was that all powerfull why did'nt say the Indian Airforce get them? or any other nation. I tried as hard as I could and could not find a single export customer out there that was not a former Soviet State.

Maybe they just had no interest in exporting them? The Russians do not export technology they believe compromises their home defenses so it's not surprising that no version of the Mig-31 were exported or that they used to strip their third world exports of ECM and RWR and the like.

The only way that aircraft would be of any use for the Syrians is if they kept them on station over Syria and used them as mini AWACS to vector other fighters. They would need the protection of a good chunk of SAMS to keep the IAF off of them but it may be possible. The radar system can track up to 24 targets and then relay data to other a/c

The Iranians used their F-14's in the same way against Iraq and it apparently worked very well so this is certainly a option for a at least some of the Mig-31's...

However as I have pointed out upgraded or not, its a poor choice for Syria. Theya re far better off with the Su-30 which can dogfight if they want a realistic chance against the IAF. But only if the change training, doctrine and everything else. Otherwise, they are simply going to get shout out of the air in any serious conflict

The Syrians are not going to win if they are going to rely on close in fighting and in my opinion their only hope is stand off interceptors and well operated SAM defenses. In my opinion the IAF simply has too many modern planes and well trained pilots for the Syrians to stand much of a chance and i think this is the type of investment they should be making if they want any type of control of their skies....

Stellar

First off, the deal is not going through:

en.rian.ru...

Other reports show they are getting 8 MIG-31E and some MIG-29M2's. Syria always has a few MIG-29's in the air, supposedly, but didn't stop this from happening:

www.cbc.ca...

oh, and this before that:

journals.aol.com...

So those MiG-29's appear to be doing Syria a lot of good.

At most your talking 8 planes against 50 IAF F-15 and 200 F-16's. In total you are talking about 60 combined MiG-25/29/31's....hmmm, wonder who is going to win that fight?

In WVR dogfight, yeah the Russians have some darn good planes. But the trick is you've got to get in a turning WVR dogfight first.

The most targets those MiG-31's could engage is 48. So you fire 60 Cruise missiles at their air bases and make sure they don't have anywhere safe to land.

Some more of the older responses i have not yet posted:

You can take your time to respond to these WP; i am in no hurry at all.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
With net centric data links the radar picture of the AESAs, AWACs and AEGIS are all merged together giving greater range, fidelity and flexibility.

Despite lessons learned from the 1990-91 Gulf War, NATO forces participating in Yugoslavia as part of Operation 'Allied Force' have not fielded a real-time targeting capability ­ the ability to pass images of enemy installations and troop formations directly from spacecraft or airborne surveillance aircraft into the cockpit of fighter aircraft or other weapons systems.

Although significant strides have been made in data dissemination, or accelerating the time between locating targets and weapons delivery ­ demonstrated by the lone launch of a Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile early in the campaign when it was learned a Serb MiG-29 was out in the open at a Yugoslav airbase ­ officials interviewed by Jane's Defence Weekly said US and allied forces remain unable to instantaneously provide "shooters" with radar images and other intelligence gathered by the plethora of allied surveillance and reconnaissance assets and spy satellites.

Real-time targeting as well as real-time battle-damage assessment has been a top priority for Department of Defense and other military planners, particularly to deal with mobile surface-to-air missile batteries and other assets that can be moved very quickly.

www.janes.com...

It's just very strange to me that the USSR/Russia have been doing these things for decades while the US did not have that capability in even 1999. How 'integrated' they are now i do not know but it's coming about very late in the day.

Also, as you know the greater the stand off range the more effective AEGIS will be, the shorter the stand off range the lower the survivability of the attacking platform.

The attacking platform also has active and passive defenses and air defense missile still travels at a fixed speed; the system under attack will now be better defended but that does not have to translate into higher casualties for attackers. When your defense is almost entirely dependent on radar homing and the enemy employs ARM's your always going to a big target with few options if the enemy can saturate your defenses with enough munitions.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
A battle group will neutralize most attackers before they are able to launch their missiles.

How will they do that against cruise missile armed aircraft that can launch from well outside the battlegroups anti air defenses and have the performance margins to outfly the SH?

As for the Super Hornet vs. Mig-31 with greater technology and support on it's side the Rhino is nothing to laugh at.

War is not a laughing matter to start with and few are attempting to discount pilot skill ( beside Russian piloting skills for some reason), technology , unless it's Russian, and all those other important factors.

Ok, however you should know that (according to Raptor pilots) from recent exercises the Rhino (Block II) has proven to be the most challenging of all conventional US fighters who have gone up against the F-22 (yes, better than AESA F-15's and F-16's).

Which should tell us that that these exercises are very much rigged and tells us very little if anything about real world possibilities. That has been obvious for many decades but i suppose more proof does not hurt.

And I might as well add that while exercises cannot account for the "fog of war" and all other like variables, in some cases they are more difficult than the real thing.

If your attacking third world nations which are using many of the weapon systems you built or have had time to learn to counter then that can happen. This does not show that US exercises are 'realisitic' but that they tend to fight nations who are simply 'outmatched'.

These are not third world OPFOR pilots using third world systems and flying against AC which they have no clue about.

Exactly and that's the type of assumptions that led to the far from good exchange ratios of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. If you ask me if i believe the USAF could have had the capabilities you believe they do i can can 'yes' and 'easily so' but your not asking then and instead assuming that badly maintained export models of Russian planes will always be flown by third world pilots ( and all the issues that goes along with that) against generally hopeless odds without the assistance of the extensive ground control and air defense environment the Russians designed these planes to operate in. The fact that these planes&pilots so frequently held their own against such superior numbers is in my opinion something that deserves far more discussion. In a REAL war against the original designer US and NATO forces would have had to deal with 3-4 of these , at best, not very inferior aircraft for each of their own and as some notable people have stated there never was much of a chance for that.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
We now have HARMs capable of dealing with radars that go offline, tactical VLO aircraft with great ISR capability (as well as SEAD/DEAD) and a situation which will require the radar to remain on for more than seconds and minutes at a time. The results might just be different this time around.

And as i said before if such results were achieved by a few dozen batteries of weapons dating from the 60's and early 70's it is to be expected that all these additional systems would need to be deployed to stand a reasonable chance against the defenses that Russia have been operating by the thousands since the 80's... If NATO could fail under ANY circumstances against such air defenses as were operated by Serbia one can but wonder what would have happened in the late 80's assuming a similar venture against the then primary enemy. Why are so few people comparing the acquisition and operational costs involved in such a thing as the USAF but rarely mentioning the fractions of that cost worth of AA defenses third world nations have so frequently employed with great success?

What would have happened had Serbia the budget of the USAF to spend on air defenses?
So far the USAF have won it's wars the old fashioned why ( by sending more than whoever could shoot down; which would not have been the case against the USSR) and what irritates me most is the pretense that it is still spending hundred of billions to save the lives of a few hundred or thousand pilots while tens of millions of Americans could have their lives tremendously improved. or saved, with such reduced taxation and investment. Technology is great but soldiers should not be safeguarded beyond reason while the people they are supposed to protect die from preventable disease and lack of proper investment in infrastructure.

Unless it is made clear to the American public who the American government intends to fight with all this high tech equipment the American public should demand a reduced defense budget as it's then clearly just being wasted to save the lives of people who have CHOSEN to risk their lives, supposedly in defense of their country, while the millions of American poor never had such choices to make.

Stellar

Originally posted by WestPoint23
I think you are seriously underestimating the stealth capabilities of the F-22 Raptor. I would be surprised if even a NATO AWACS could detect the F-22 at that distance, maybe an AEGIS (ship borne radar) but not anything else.

Why do you think we are underestimating the stealth capabilities when it's "public knowledge" that passive stealth can not defeat long wave ground radars AND high frequency airborne radars. Why should anyone be willing to pay such a high price for a airplane when it's only selling point is basically that it's 'stealthy' but can be relatively easily defeated by the proper integration of ground and airborne platforms? This is the type of thing you might not even get away with against third world nations ( Iraq, Panama etc) as events in Serbia proved and i can assure you that all modern air forces will win or lose a war against the US independent of the F-22 or any other passive stealth nonsense. In my opinion the US would do far better with investment in unpiloted aircraft or in active countermeasures, that if successful makes the radars blind to ANYTHING in the sky for a certain distance and axis, and that it's simply a waste to spend such massive volumes of resources on individual platforms that will need the same support as the rest of the USAF.

The AWACS would see the Mig-31 as soon as it takes off directing escorting fighters to vector.

The enemy will also deploy jammers and we don't really know how far the AWACS will see or wont see or how easy it will be to direct the F-22's to protect itself.

Given that the F-22 will not be detected by the Mig-31 (therefore the Mig does not know to change vector to avoid interception) it can get into a good position to attack (the F-22 isn't slow either).

Maybe not by one Mig-31 but those things are data linked to other Mig-31's as well as GC so odds are it will get at least some kind of warning of a likely threat axis; maybe not enough to fire on but enough for those Migs in danger to disengage and draw apart the defenders.

As for escaping an AMRAAM, it has to know one is in the air and from what vector to be able to outrun it. No doubt against such a target the missiles NEZ will be lower but if the Mig-31 is inside the AIM-120D's NEZ then no matter what it does it will be shot down.

That's a fact and the Mig-31 can and will be shot down like any other plane. I don't want anyone to get the impression that i believe Russian planes operated by Russians over Russian and with proper support wont still get shot down in large numbers in the type of world war three, with nukes flying, scenario i am always assuming as standard. Russia is not in my opinion going to win that war because it has more planes or 'better' planes but due to ABM defenses, direct energy weapons and their far more able strategic weaponry and civil defenses.

Stellar

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Figuring it out and developing systems to counter it are two different things, how many western AWACS have been shot down in operational history?

How many enemy AWACS planes have the USA shot down so far? Maybe we should wait for a 'real' war ( and i am hopefull that this issue never becomes resolved) before we judge the effectiveness of AWACS systems?

Even while operating with hostile Mig-25's in the vicinity. By the way, since when did Russian enter this discussion.

So the single Mig-25's were supposed to handily defeat that many missiles and then somehow proceed to find the AWACS and take on it's multiple escorts? Would you not want some support? Do we know what 1500 mach 2.5 capable mig-25's/Mig-31's could or would have done to AWACS support in the mid-80's in European skies?

Not really, AWACS will always be in the vicinity of friendly fighters. Given that the F-22 is the premier air to air fighter of the USAF it will be present in any conflict where the OPFOR has an AF. Regardless of whether or not the enemy has Mig-31's.

Quite true and unless the USAF are forced to fight against a enemy with similar investments in their air forces a few mig's of any description is unlikely to change anything. .

It's not 1.5 but I digress. Anyway, top speed is meaningless if you cannot see your enemy.

Well it's probably about half as fast again but then it's good bye engines and the airfields better not be too far off. Why wont the MIg-25/31 be able to see what it is about to intercept given either ground direction or the use of it's own radar?

The Mig-31 will not know where the F-22 is while the Raptor will be aware of the Mig-31's presence as soon as it gets airborne.

Assuming that stealth works as advertised it might not be able but then there are always ground search stations and mobile air defense radars that may be able to use their data links to good effect.

With that kind of advantage it is easy to dictate the terms of engagement. And to position yourself for a missile shot in such a manner that allows you to get within missiles NEZ while still remaining undetected.

Ideally if any when that advantage in fact exists.

The location of the Mig-31 will be know so will it's vector given the location of the AWACS. It has no choice but to approach for an attack,

If it acts without the proper support the Mig-31 would enjoy over or close to Russia then yes, it does not stand much of a chance.

all the F-22 has to do it wait for the moth to come to the light, figuratively speaking of course. Hmm... I wonder if using conventional fighters and even AWACS in this manner (as bait) with VLO platforms in support is something that's being considered...?

I don't see the Mig-31 used i this role as i understand it's role to be as long range bomber and cruise missile interceptor. The duty of attacking AWACS planes will fall to the Su-27 and i am sure the F-22 will be deployed far forward of AWACS or strike packets if it's to be of much use.

Welcome to 2007, and this is not Vietnam, those systems were the first of their kind and were expected to do way too much. Nothing is perfect but the systems of today are much more capable than their historic counterparts.

Which is why it's so hard to explain why such old air defense systems are still so effective...

Stellar

Originally posted by Zaphod58

Originally posted by emile
...but F-22 has no ability to take off or land down on carrier. So a new trouble to the US Navy.

Neither does the MiG-31 as far as everything I can find shows. I haven't found anything that says a MiG-31 can land on a carrier. In fact the sheer weight of it makes it a lousy carrier plane.

What difference does it make as syria has no carriers.Nor much of a navy that i know of.

I am very skeptical of the 300km Vympel R-37 AWACS killer. The AWACS could detect the Mig-31 and its launching of the missile hundreds of kilometres away so all it would need to do is dive into thicker air.

EDIT: What is the range at which the R-37 turns on its active radar?

[edit on 18-8-2007 by C0bzz]