Su-35 BM Testing and Evaluation Thread

Radar technology is not stagnant and is far cheaper to develop and put into service thus making playing catchup to stealth more feasible than redesigning your stealth aircraft every few years trying to wedge in a little more stealth to compensate for the stealth you lost to advancements in detection and tracking technology.

Due to the radar equation it does not really matter how powerful radars become, an asset with a significantly reduced RCS will always, without pause, have a significantly reduced detection range compared to a non-stealth asset. This is a fundamental principle in physics. Furthermore, radar absorbent material is not a stagnant technology, neither is Electronic Warfare, the sensors including radar on stealth aircraft, C4ISR, cyberspace capability, or the stand-off munitions stealth aircraft employ.

If stealth were so useless, WHY has it been so successful, and WHY it is the envy of all other nations including Russia which has LO slated for the PAK-FA? Aside all conspiracies, maybe the idea is... god forbid... stealth actually WORKS? FYI, the two biggest advantages these aircraft have is firstly, SENSOR FUSION - Fuse AESA, DAS, EOTS, and RWR so they are all working together to build one coherent image, and secondly INTEGRATION of all the intelligence gathering platforms in the theater - whether sea, air, space, land, or cyberspace.

Stealth only allows us to maximize these advantages, by helping to minimize vulnerabilities. For example, an IADS wholly designed to counter 4th generation aircraft has no hope against 5th generation aircraft, and thus has to be significantly redesigned at significant expense, as the vulnerability zones had been significantly reduced. If you think stealth was expensive wait till you see how much THAT costs. That's why they call it 5th generation - it changes the whole equation.

Also, there's always the brute force approach with AWACS or ground radar simply burning through your stealth.

Well the AWACS and furthermore ground radar become then be easily detected threats which can be neutralized in other ways. As an example in the first Gulf War we had C4ISR assets flying around the clock detecting such threats whereby we could plan to reduce our vulnerabilities by not getting too close, while neutralizing them in other ways - for example, jammers, overload the IADS, stand-off munitions, and low flying helicopters. Our C4ISR systems are far more capable today, with further integration with NCCT (and/or other networks) and UAV's like Global Hawk, and then there's the possibility utilizing space based Synthetic Aperture Radar.

It is interesting to note how helicopters which do not have stealth nor advanced kinematics managed to defeat these IADS where in a conventional view they would stand no hope. The answer is firstly, the integration of multitudes of systems, which these stealthy aircraft are wholly designed for to an even greater extent than stealth, and secondly, the fact that these aircraft were on the offensive rather than the defensive. We could PLAN how we could dismantle there IADS which has happened in the Yom Kippur War (1973), the Falklands War (1982), Operation Desert Storm (Iraq 1991), Operation Deliberate Force (Former Republic of Yugoslavia 1995), Operation Allied Force (FRY 1999), Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan 2001), and Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003), all to enormous success. It is worthy to note your IADS does not exist - therefore your view is instantly incorrect. We plan for what we project to fight and what actually exists.

In an actual fact attempting to use brute force to overcome stealth is not necessarily a good idea. All the C4ISR platforms will work together to not only I.D the emitter, but datalink its position to everyone else, which should really help build a big picture of the adversaries IADS so that it is more effectively destroyed. The most sophisticated part of the F-22 is not the stealth - it's the ALR-94 which is practically a sensor farm - IIRC, the Su-27 was still analogue until recently. Historically, the opposite of what you're saying was in fact most successful in countering stealth aircraft - in the Kosovo War, for example, the only success they had in shooting down stealth aircraft was when they only occasionally, turned on mobile radars for a few seconds at a time - as that would deny our information advantage. Honestly, that was not much more than a nuisance.

In the past, it was never the stealthy F-117 nor the fast Mach 2.5 Eagle which allowed us to dominate - it was bombs, sensors and systems. Fighter mafia? There aircraft are so bogged down with crap that it would not matter if we were flying the F-105 with better avionics, and as far as I'm concerned I'd much rather build a stealthy internal everything combat aircraft than an airshow aircraft with crap smeared all over it. Have you seen the F-16A? What about the F-16I? As someone else put it,,, it's a "freaken DRAG monster".

Sorry for going off on a tangent, but as side note of just how good these sensors are... on 26th March, 2003, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, a JSTARS picked up an enemy convoy of over 60 vehicles, from over 200 kilometres away, all during a sandstorm. Called in B-52 which destroyed all vehicles with 400 enemies KIA. According to Gen Jumper it was "one of the turning points of the war". There are many more examples of this, for example, an F-14 pilot commented on JSTARS, it was "the greatest force multiplyer in the campaign". It's also been demonstrated that JSTARS, if further developed could actually guide in munitions onto a target, but that's not a current capability. Imagine that in a decade IF a similar capability becomes space based.


Two JSTARS guided B-52 dropped JDAM. And also a big LOL at Drowning Pool. We need Rods From God and space based Synthetic Aperture Radar, NOW.

And IRST, if you can see the raptor's arse.

If you make up enough cherry picked scenarios any aircraft could dominate the F-22. Here's some reality based questions. Why is the Su-35BM not already dead? Why is the F-22 exposing its most vulnerable part area to the Su-35BM? If it was, then the F-22 is likely saying "look at me, you can't get this you can't get this", because missile ranges are typically cut into small fractions when the target is heading away, especially at supersonic speeds.

And all you can come up with is three missiles? Including the R-33 and K-100? Downplaying much? I'm sure they'll put the R-37 in service in due time.

Well actually the R-33 cannot be fired from the Su-35BM, so that cuts the list down. In any case the notion that the F-22 is somehow inferior to the Su-35BM based on these missiles is absurd because, firstly, these missiles are not in service, and secondly, why is it a disadvantage to the F-22 when U.S military doctrine never set a requirement for it, just like they never set a requirement for IRST? Maybe, just MAYBE, the answer is that it's not needed? And honestly these missiles you speak of keep getting canceled then resurrected - it's starting to get to the point where an F-22 launched SM3 is more likely. So go ahead then, name another missile because I sure cannot think of any more.

[edit on 16/8/2009 by C0bzz]

I hold no opinion on the above debate. I am merely poking my head in and tossing some numbers and figures around.

The closest I could come up with was Carlo Kopp who conceded that it's (AL-41F) kinematic performance could not come close to the F-22.

The current engine used on the Su-35BM is the Saturn 117S which is quoted at a 142 kN while the P&W F119 is claimed at 160 kN. This is a significant though not unsurmountable difference given that the AL-41 engine will use a different core than that in the 117S, which still uses the core from the AL-31. That being the case it's not farfetched to believe that the AL-41 engines intended to serve on later BM's and PAK-FA will be capable of matching the performance on the P&W's when the new core is finished.

Because it's entirely passive? And affords great detection and tracking range when you're behind your target with the sun behind you?

It's also worth pointing out that IR tracking systems can be used to track targets from other angles as well by watching for the areas which heat at high speeds (Radome, leading edges, control surfaces). It's also worth pointing out that aircraft which supercruise are more vulnerable to this form of tracking because of the substantial increase in drag at transonic and supersonic speeds and the proportional increase in heating, and therefore IR signature. Of course, I concede that a rear view of the aircraft is still preferable with the engine plume, but I suppose if the F-22 covers its plume as cleverly as is claimed then other angles might be just as effective anyway.

If stealth were so useless, WHY has it been so successful

Can we really claim that stealth has been effective when its current incarnation has yet to be used on targets with any modern anti-air capability, be it on the surface or air?

[edit on 8/16/2009 by Darkpr0]

Originally posted by Darkpr0
but I suppose if the F-22 covers its plume as cleverly as is claimed then other angles might be just as effective anyway.

The F-22 does not cover its plume from IR at all.

I love the SU27. God damn that's a nice plane.

Incoming necro. Was poking around KNAAPO's website and found a gallery of Su-35-1 in Russian Air Force livery. Much different than the original yellow-brown-green prototype livery, and sadly not as sexy as the digitized-grey test liveries.




Source

Originally posted by Darkpr0
Incoming necro. Was poking around KNAAPO's website and found a gallery of Su-35-1 in Russian Air Force livery. Much different than the original yellow-brown-green prototype livery, and sadly not as sexy as the digitized-grey test liveries.




Source

But still a damn site better than the grey, grey, grey that US and Europeans seem to thrive on these days