Interesting to hear that early versions of the Osa/SA-8 SAM system relied a lot on vacuum tube technology.

Another Soviet weapons systems which entered service in the early 1970s was the MiG-25, whose AI radar, as is well known, also relied upon vacuum tube tech. Now people defended this alleged technological backwardness by saying that the Soviets were only trying to make the AI radar proof against the electromagnetic pulse from nuclear explosions (without the documented evidence that that this was indeed included in the radar’s design specification). But this kind of implies that the Soviets could have used transistor tech in the radar’s design if they had wanted to, which then raises the question as to what other equipment/systems did they actually apply their transistor technology to – if they did indeed have this technology in this time frame?

Certainly not in their latest (at that time) SAM systems.

When did the Soviets begin the wide spread use of transistors in their military/non-military technology?

They already are “blowing” the I-21 airframe in the wind tunnel at the present time and all characteristics have been trued up.

So if you’re still “blowing” the airframe shape in the wind tunnel, when can you seriously expect the first flight of the first prototype and when can you then expect the date for entry into service?
How long was it after wind tunnel testing did we get to see the first flight of the F-22 or for that matter the Euro-canards?

I’d be very surprised if we Russia’s 5th generation fighter enters service before the year 2015.

Once again; General Mikhailov shows use his wonderful grasp of reality!

What kind of lunatic would actually believe that? It might get close enough to fire off ALCMs, but even THAT is a stretch.

Are you referring to the air defences of the present day Russian Federation or to the former Soviet Union, bearing in mind the Russian PVO has only 100 MiG-31s left in service (according to Mikhailov’s statement above)?

If you are referring to the SU, why do have such little hope in the USAF’s chances in penetrating Soviet airspace? Granted the large number of aircraft in the Soviet PVO, but the SU occupied 20% of the worlds land mass, are you sure there were enough interceptors to go round? Per square kilometer the air space of the Soviet Union was less defended than most countries in Western Europe in any given period.

I think in the most part the Su-34/F-15E comparison is debatable. Each has strengths over the other but in the main they’re comperable.

Yeah; the SU-34 might even be an improvement on the F-15E, but then again the F-15E has been around almost 20 years… a similar difference between the P-51 Mustang and the F-4 Phantom…

Matej

Good information on the Yak-38 and its operations at this address

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/yak38.html

Don’t worry! Here’s a translation attempt of the required paragraph…

A tempting prospect for the future deployment of the Yak-38 lay in its theoretical ability to operate from commercial cargo ships – such as container ships and dry cargo carriers, as well as from aircraft-carriers. In order to investigate the practical application of this type of deployment the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy issued an order for pilots of naval aviation to carry out the first landing of a military aircraft on a civilian ship – the Ro-Ro type ship “Agustino Neto” . The first landing was carried out on the 14th of September 1983 by senior inspector of pilots Colonel Y.N. Kozlov, who following this exploit received a memorable address from the captain of the ship, A. Latyshev. After Kozlov followed landings by Colonel G.L. Kovalev and Lieutenant Colonels V.I. Kuchuyev and V.N. Pogorelov. 20 flights were carried out until the 29th of September. Flights for state tests (18 sorties) were flown by V.V. Vasenkov and A.I. Yakovenko from the container ship “Nikolai Cherkasov”. These flights were to make it obvious, the extreme difficulty of operating on such types of ships due to the limited choice of approach angles during landing. The biggest problems were caused by the closeness of the ship’s equipment and construction features surrounding the small landing pad (18x24m) designated for VTOL operations. However the idea of using civilian ships as mini aircraft carriers was never completely rejected

from http://www.airwar.ru

GarryB

The main reason why I pointed out the USSR/Russia’s arms exports was because I hear so many times about the USA’s shipments of Stingers to Afghanistan in the 1980s as if it was the greatest act of weapons proliferation of the 20th century, while less is being said about the anti-aircraft systems that were exported by the Soviet Union and are still being exported by the Russian Federation to the numerous countries and regimes around the world for the last 50 years or so. There might be some good questions about the wisdom of sending hi-tech weaponry to the Mujahedeen, but where was the wisdom of sending large numbers of weapons systems to those numerous countries in the Middle East and West Asia whose sole contribution to world diplomacy seems to be their expressions of their desire for to wipe Israel of the map? Russia to this day continues to supply the latest weapons to those countries which continue to profess the same plans for Israel’s future.

What was wrong with supplying MANPADS to the Mujahedeen? Didn’t the Afghan people have a right to defend themselves from the massive carpet bombing/terror bombing of the Soviet air force? Did you not know that 1.3 million Afghans didn’t survive the Soviet occupation and that over 4 million were made homeless and refugee? Did you know that, largely as a result of the Soviet invasion and the aerial bombardment, almost the same percentage of Afghanistan’s population was lost, as the Soviet Union had lost during the second world war?

I’ll try to find out however it will be tough thing to come up with some of the no.s as most books wont have all these figures..I’ll try looking at RAND reports however as a last resort if one is desperate one can go through every news report on helicopter downing at the official DOD website and come up with a number however dont think i have the time or the interest to do that 🙂

Quote Gratsch
It would be nice if there is a source where I can find all “sorties, losses, number of SAM’s fired, etc.” per anno …but I think it is still to early to get all these numbers and informations. (If I am wrong please post the source/link/document … )

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2003/uscentaf_oif_report_30apr2003.pdf

You might find this link useful if you want if you want to find out how many Iraqi SAMs were fired, number of sorties flown, munitions used, etc. during the first month of Operation Iraqi Freedom. One should not forget that while the Iraqi insurgents may well be less armed and resourced than the Afghan Mujahedeen in the 1980s, this was certainly not the case in the first month if OIF when Saddam was still in charge and there was still some sort of cohesive air defence system in place. Iraq still had a substantial number of SAMs and AAA at the Start of Operation Iraqi Freedom and you can be sure that far more SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery rounds have been fired at coalition aircraft, Iraq, since the 19th of March 2003 than were ever fired at the Soviet Air force in Afghanistan. (a figure of 1660 SAMs/rockets been launched is quoted) Also the quality and range of Saddam’s air defence equipment, missiles, AAA, etc. was also better. He had an air force to begin with, (even if it was buried underneath the ground) The largest SAM ever possessed by the Mujahedeen was the Stinger, their largest AAA was 20mm calibre.

I don’t think I have ever seen a Norwegian F-104G loaded with Penguin missiles. Are you sure they were capable of carrying there? I doubt it!

I can remember seeing pictures of the Penguin missile being carried by the the F-104, I believe this was the aircraft that the Norwegians used as the trials aircraft for carriage and launch testing of the anti-ship missile during its development. But I don’t know whether the F-104 carried it operationally in Norwegian service.

There probably wouldn’t have been much point in going through the whole certification process for carriage on the the F-104 as the Starfighter was about to be replaced by the F-16 in Norwegian service at that time.

Also: was the F-104G’s avonics /radar suitable for the anti-ship role?

When comparing aircraft losses between the Soviets in Afghanistan and Coalition forces in present day Iraq and Afghanistan one should remember that the Coalition probably fly a lot of their helicopter sorties at night – with the aid of night vision goggles and FLIR. This of course raises the accident levels by no small amount. Most western armies expect to do most of their fighting at night to take advantage of their presumed superior Night Vision technology. Interesting to see, among Coalition aircraft losses in Afghanistan and Iraq, such specialized “night fighters” as MH-53M Pave Low, MC-130H Combat Talon, AH-6M, while the night fighting abilities of the AH-64 and the AH-1 Supercobra are well known. But in fact many helicopters in the US military have NVG compatible cockpits. How many night-time missions did the Soviet military fly in Afghanistan in 1979-1989? How many Soviet helicopters were NVG compatible or were FLIR equipped at that time? What were the Soviet equivalents to the MH-53M Pave Low, MC-130H Combat Talon, AH-6M and AH-64 during their Afghan war?

probaby has something to do with the fact the CIA issnt giving them creates of stingers to the iraqis 😉

MiGMan: I think you stress the importance of the Stinger missile in the Soviets’ Afghan war too much. The first Soviet aircraft shot down by a Stinger missile wasn’t till late 1985, by which time the Soviets had realized the hopeless situation they were in and were looking for the most face-saving means of pulling out of Afghanistan. The majority of Soviet aircraft shot down in Afghanistan were not shot down by American made missiles – the SA-7 was probably more influential – as well as AAA. In fact; in all the local wars that the Soviet/Russian military has had to fight in since 1979, the vast majority of its casualties suffered (aircraft, AFVs, personnel) have been caused by weapons of Soviet/Russian origins or design. Whatever you might think of American foreign policy, at least the American military rarely has to suffer the indignity (or call it stupidity) of been fired upon by weapons with “Made in the USA” stamped on them.

Quoting GarryB
It is my understanding that the engine for the Yak-130 is a design based on the core of another engine… obviously not including AB etc. Perhaps it is the core of an AL-41, though just from memory I thought it was the core of an AL-31 model.

Sens

In fact, GarryB’s statement has in fact got a lot of substance to it. Only he may be mistaken in two small details.

A. The Russian jet trainer powerplant he has in mind is not the Motor Sich/Ivchenko-Progress AI-222-25, but the NPO Saturn AL-55I.
B. The jet trainer is not the Yak-130, but India’s HAL Hindustan HJT-36.

According to the source in front of me, the AL-55I is to a certain extent derived from the
AL-31F in so far as mathematical modeling was somehow employed to scale down the central core (is that how you translate “проточная часть”) of the Su-27 engine to produce an efficient enough propulsion unit with less than 30% the dry thrust of its big brother. Seemingly; NPO Saturn were able to save a lot of time and money using this method. Saturn also offer the AI-55I for use on the Yak-130 and the MiG-AT.

Its interesting to note just how many different types of powerplants that the Russians and Ukrainians have used, or offered for use, on their latest generation jet trainers. Not only the AL-55I and AI-222-25, but also the TMKB Soyuz RD-1700, which is been tested at the moment, the Ivchenko-Progress DV-2S (RD-35) as used on the L-39MS and L-59, along with various modernized versions of the Ivchenko-Progress AI-25TL as used on the original L-39C/ZO/ZA.

Lets also not forget about the SNECMA Lazarcs used on the early MiG-ATs,
and to to think people use to say that there was too much product duplication in Western Europe (Bae Hawk/Alpha Jet/MBB339)…