Well they could buy/use the Sapsan. It is inferior to Damocles, but I bet it would still get the job done.
The problem is there’s no indication Sapsan is even ready, and certainly no news about them wanting to buy it. The fact is that Russia relies on France for its thermal imaging technology, because their own technology is far too costly and immature. All Russian T-90As, for example, have Thales Catherine-FC (and more advanced Catherine-XP, IIRC) thermal imagers intergrated. Before that, only a fraction of original T-90s (cast turret) had indigenous ‘Agava’ first-generation thermal imagers, which were extremely costly to make (built basically by hand). The rest had the old obsolete Buran-P/A image intensification sights.
They need Damocles, badly. Its the only way the Su-34s (and Su-35s, too- heck anything they want to drop PGMs from) will reach full ground attack potential, equivalent to what NATO forces can do with their targeting pod (like the latest American Sniper-XR).
Speaking of, does anyone know what thermal imagers the Mi-28N is equipped with? I know the Mi-24PN is equipped with indigenous Russian ‘Zarevo’ sight, which is itself an adaptation of the ‘Nocturn’ sight for tanks, but yeah, its nowhere near in the class of the third generation TIs the West has.
Platan can be used at night can’t it?
No. It has no thermal imaging channel. Its purely a TV/laser targeting system. Maybe it has an LLTV function, I don’t know, but thats hardly good enough.
Exactly what kind of capability do the on-board PLATAN FLIR designator have now?
Nothing.
Its of course not hard to see why Russia wants to produce it under licence, or why France is having issues with it – because Russia will use the technical know-how and manufacturing plant used to make Damocles to make their own pods and develop their own TI technology.
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