Doesnt the SDB 2 have a way to get around that problem ? doesnt it offer the same capability ?

It may, but I don’t know anyone willing to fess up the bandwith for this effort. Don’t know if JSTARS would like doing that given all their other workload. Maybe another platform, but JSTARS was probably just an available test bed because of the canoe and some space to put gear. The tri-sensor on SDB II certainly makes it useful too.

A-10 is the only viable CAS aircraft in theatre (though it could use a little more power, plus re-design for these high-pressure tire landing gear). But thanks to the GAU-8 it is combat effective *and* cost effective.

Using fastmovers (plus tankers) with PGM is incredibly expensive for COIN. The West would be better advised with handing over the money used for fastmover ops to those “Taliban” clansmen and tell them to go looking a nice villa plus harem in Pakistan. I’m serious.

Sounds nice. But a variety of fast fixed wings with PGMS have provided high quality CAS in Afghanistan. Saying the A-10 is the only “viable” CAS aircraft in theatre doesn’t hold water compared to recorded results.

A few things from the Sep 18 Aviation Week Re: part of the considerations that the Italians looked at:

Another reason that ITAF officials chose the KC-767 was its relatively low load-bearing demands on runways, taxiways and ramps.

“There are problems with the load bearing strength of the runways and on the deterioration of the runways”.

“One of the highest ( aircraft classification numbers – 66 ) was from the Airbus…

( would putting in an A340-200/300 center main gear ( which the A330 does not have… help spread out the ground pressure? ELP )

…The ACN is determined by the number and separation of wheels, tire pressure and weight of the aircraft. The numbers are on a scale of 0-100, with a P-3 at 44 and a C-141 at 78. THe ITAF says the 767 comes in at 48. However, the number is dependent on runway type and grade. Since many military fields have a much weaker strength than commericial international airports, a lower ACN means that an aircraft can carry a larger percentage of its maximum fuel with less risk of damaging runways and taxiways.

“In Australia, you need refueling so you can go to another part of the world. We have our operations focused mainly on the Mediterranean, North Africa and some deep in the East.”

“The A310 had the lowest cost, but it could only meet part of the freight capacity,” says Lt. Col. Fabio Nuccetelli of the ITAF general staff logistics department. “The A330 was more expensive; but more importantly, it was too big for the runway size of many NATO bases. Finally (since in 2006 EADS’s tanker program was just getting started) the maintenance and logistics support plan was not as well defined as Boeing’s in terms of performance, time and industrial offset issues.”

And in the most practical terms, the A330 footprint didn’t match facilities at the tankers home base of Practica di Mare AFB in west of Rome. The A330s wingspan is 64 meters and the hangers are 60 meters square.
“That would mean rebuilding everything. It was the wrong shape for us. We have to modify our 707 hangers to let the tail of the 767 go in, but we’re not rebuilding the whole hanger.
“Boeing was aware of the cost and political difficulty of upgrading Pratica di Mare’s infrastructure and runways, so we made the trade from KC-707s to KC-767s based on the cost of the logistics system, training, adjusting the organizations and the limiting size of the hangers … it was the most practical solution and best sized in particular to Practica di Mare.”

Well there you have it. Amateurs discuss hardware. Professionals discuss logistics.

Do you know what year it is??? By the sound of your post you think it is ’96 when there was no cash in Russian industry…you do realise a lot has changed since the collapse right?
Russia’s economy has improved dramatically, it’s soldiers, police officers, teachers and SCIENTISTS are actually getting paid regularly now. There are quite a few scientists RETURNING to Russia…geez check your calander.

Yeah… and enlisted troops still aren’t well cared for. If you can’t do that, you don’t have a force that can sustain high tech. Time hasn’t changed that.

Russia if they were thinking, have a huge advantage. This being to get rid of anything in the military that doesn’t work toward the mission. They have a huge advantage if they would use it. Where we are still burning up cash to buy expensive gold plated toys for stupid no-value unending expeditionary warfare. Most of what Russia needs that falls into new gear for the military, is improvements on things they have that already have a proven track record. AFTER they raise and mentor a quality enlisted force, which by the way doesn’t have to be huge. This would include 3rd generation leadership methods of the kind the IDF uses ( er … except when they forgot 3rd generation armed forces leadership doctrine in the failed Lebonon campaign )…. anyway a quality enlisted force based on 3rd generation leadership of which Israel is the only other armed force to practice this. ( Sometimes our special operations forces command HQ use it when they aren’t shaking in their boots hoping the lawyers on HQ staff don’t get upset if HQ decides to actually kill a pop up target ( like that huge mistake in Afghanistan a few weeks back…. ) So anyway… Russia has some huge advantages if they put their heads together. Quality enlisted force structure, 3rd generation leadership principles, and proven equipment of which they already have. Where…. they have enough natural resources to sustain themselves for the most part, no one is going to invade them. And things like special forces, helo aviation assets, and other light ground assets are good enough. They can shead a lot of useless hardware and old methods and be pretty potent, and not have to work up a sweat to come up with funds to keep their nuke assets healthy and well trained. 4th generation fighters are good enough. Whole other varieties of their hardware are more than good enough. They are slowly increasing funding on some things, but that is like pouring water in a sieve as there is no where near the right amouht of transformation of things going on. The spending that is going on, won’t be nearly enough to get over a lack of real force shaping that is needed.

You wanna know what really p’s me off about threads like this? People like Elp and Showtime who so quickly drag down Russian and Chinese aircraft manufacturers, claiming they will be unable to really compete against such aircraft as the F/A-22 or F/A-35.
Need I remind you that the F/A-35 is a JOINT aircraft that is MAINLY AMERICAN (not British, French, Italian, German, Swedish or anybody elses except in partnership, none of these nations have YET produced a FULLY stealth combat aircraft capable of competing against the Raptor…and I state these nations because they are seen as “top” aircraft producers).
The F/A-22 is being produced by the ONLY nation that still is capable of throwing billions of dollars into such a project with the other nations such as France and the UK stepping back from the Cold War mentality of preparing for the next big war.
Need I remind the people on here that it was the Russians who often LEAD the avaiation world in such items as TVC and helmet mounted sights, producing aircraft that could make a mockery of European aircraft like the Tornado ADV in close in air combat (please don’t start babbling about the F-15/16…I didn’t mention them and they are NOT European).
So saying Russia is not capable of producing an aircraft that can compete with the F/A-22 or F/A-35…give them an American budget and they will produce an aircraft that would laugh at the Raptor.
Given the budget Sukhoi is recieving for the new fighter, a fraction of the Raptors budget, surely the fact that they can produce a fighter capable of competing with such a monster is testimony to Russian design capability??? As for China…well as they say, time will tell…let’s see ho
w well the Raptor competes with the J-XX

Budget IS policy. No money, no 5th gen aircraft for Rutech. It is a simple fact. There isn’t any money for an engineer ( those that are left ) to do much in Russian aviation. The few good ones still left are spread thin…. trying to cobble together commercial ventures like the regional jet project and some other things. The few military projects aren’t especially new. Now if you want to talk software writing that is something they need to sink funds into. Except here they will have to pay real money, as a lot of the software talent in Russia is making real money on commericial software projects of many flavors. Software talent these days requires you pay the person doing that. I don’t see the government coming up with the cash to pay someone there who is already making better money on commercial ventures…. or aerospace ventures…. for U.S. aerospace. 😉 There isn’t enough beef to for Russia by itself to get a real 5th gen fighter off of the ground. Just on funding software talent alone and not counting all the fancy materials that goes into one of these gold plated turkeys. Good luck.

Having a good and sound energy policy ( which my country doesn’t have ) makes sense.

Recyle of products makes sense.

Environmental policy that is sound, makes sense.

None of this is going to alter the earths climate cycles.

Guesstimate is as best guesstimate , The F-22 training against simulated S-300 or 400 is hardly any indication that it is 40 miles.

The reality is no one would ever know how stealthy a F-22 can be against a S-400 , or when the S-400 will pin the F-22 like a butterfly , unless and until they face each other.

Both the systems are relatively new in both the services of their respective country

Thats a Blank Statement without any evidence to backup , The S-300 has many evolution and there are export variant and the variant used by Russian Defence Forces.

Its like me saying that the Patriot PAC-2 is effectively compromised , Sounds dramatic , But that needs some credible evidence to back up.

No blanket statement. Look it up. Talk to people. Every piece of knowledge is not on the internet.
The S-300 is wargamed on our electronic ranges. They didn’t just make up the numbers for it from a public consumption spec sheet. That is one reason for the USAF freaking out and saying every new design shooter airframe has to have low observable qualities in some quantity. In their opinion, legacy jets are dead meat in a high threat environ, and a really dumb idea to go ahead, knowing this and buy new legacy jets to put in future air plans vs. a high threat. This comes with a certain level of confidence of how to safely manage and deal with an S-300 family threat.