But Pavel Felgenhauer says!

Guys, guys, before we lose our heads, we need to listen to that noted luminary on the Russian military, who always has something deep, meaningful, nuanced, unbiased, and knowledgeable to say, Pavel Felgenhauer, right?

“It’s a humbug,” said independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. “It’s just a prototype lacking new engines and a new radar. It takes new materials to build a fifth-generation fighter, and Russia lacks them.”

Idiot. When this clown ever says something remotely different from “everything the Russian military does is ****”, let me know.

NAPO begins modernization

DATELINE: MOSCOW Dec 10

Modernization of the Novosibirsk aviation plant (NAPO), a component of the Sukhoi Holding, will help enlarge the production of the Sukhoi Su-34 multifunctional jets, a source in the Russian aircraft building industry told Interfax-AVN.

“NAPO is due to make 32 Su-34 jets by 2012. Modernization will enlarge the output and cut production costs,” he said.

“The Su-34 production may grow manifold with the adoption of new machine tools and technologies,” he said.

This should assist in producing more Su-34s quicker and cheaper, obviously.

Sokol plant builds 3 more Yak-130s for the VVS

DATELINE: NIZHNY NOVGOROD Dec 8

The Nizhny Novgorod-based Sokol aircraft manufacturing plant has produced three more Yakovlev Yak- 130 jet trainers for the Russian Air Force.

Under the contract with the Russian Defense Ministry, four Yak-130 airplanes have been built in 2009, one of which was handed over to the customer in the middle of the year, Sokol plant general director Alexander Karezin told journalists on Tuesday.

“The Sokol aircraft making plant has fulfilled all of its obligations as part of the state defense order in 2009,” Karezin said, adding that three more Yak-130 plants will be handed over to the customer soon.

The eight remaining airplanes envisioned by the deal with the state are at various stages of readiness due to the lengthy cycle of their production, the plant’s general director said.

The implementation of the contract will be completed in 2010.

Under a contract signed with the Defense Ministry in 2005, the Sokol plant pledged to make 12 Yak-130 jet trainers. All airplanes were supposed to be transferred to the customer in 2008, but the contract was prolonged until 2010.

Well there are numerous iterations of the AL-41.

AL-41F: This engine designed throughout the 80s/90s for the MiG MFI was to be a 175 kN class engine. As we know the MiG MFI never entered service.

AL-41F1: A further developed/redesigned version intended for the PAKFA with ~155 kN.

AL-41F-1S: A AL-31F based engine for the Su-35 using technologies derived form the AL-41F1. Interestingly early sources stated this engine would be designated AL-41F1A, that article unveils the new designations AL-41F-1S. Albeit the change in the designation from AL-41F1 to AL-41F-1 seems not to be in accordance with previous designation philosophies. I would have expected it to be called AL-41F1S or AL-41F1-S.

I wouldn’t be too concerned with how a particular article puts the name – it probably is AL-41F1S, in reality. They get this sort of stuff wrong all the time.

Al-41 was supposed to be the 5th gen engine designation for the PAK-FA 40,000lbs engine no?

The original AL-41F for the MFI, yes – which was an extremely large, heavy aircraft. The PAK FA has never been intended to be the size of the MFI (think MiG 1.44) and as such most certainly will not have 40,000lb thrust engines. IIRC they’re more likely to be in the thrust class of the F-22A, i.e. 35,000lb thrust (~156kN).

But we are saying the cost of the upgrade, massive crews, training etc would be better spent getting a new class of more up-to-date ships in service. The fitting out of these ships is all about political tub thumping rather than economic-military sense.

This assumes that the shipyard’s building ships are actually capable, at this stage, of producing a more up to date ship and putting it in service as quickly as the refit and the upgrade of Admiral Nakhimov and Admiral Lazarev– and for the same money.

At this stage, that’s impossible- only corvettes and frigates are currently being built, plans for building destroyers hasn’t been mooted yet, and cruisers – the only ship type that could conceivably replace the Nakhimov and Lazarev – are very, very distant.

What does the Su-25SM have for a targeting system after the upgrade?

Still the Klen-PS system in the nose, like the original. The Su-25SM is more accurate than the Su-25 in its weapon delivery due to the various Su-25TM/Su-39-dervied avionics etc they’ve installed, rather than any targeting system upgrade per se.

Here’s 2 new Su-25SM 🙂

Indeed.

About the ‘digital sub-system’ mentioned in the article above, as I suspected because it mentioned Gefest & T, they merely meant the Su-24M2’s SVP-24 system, which is old news:-

http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20090928/156269949.html

Chinese use those already..

I can’t tell what that is from that pic. It could be an indigenous targeting pod.

I thought the only ungrade on the SM was the Pero Radar (which I read is a small upgrade from the N001) and Look Down Capabilities and ECM pods

Su-27SM doesn’t use the ‘Pero’ PESA antenna, it’s still twist-cassergrain. It’s upgraded with new processors and what not to increase range/ capabilities/ more modes. Designation N001VP. The SM had more improvements than just that, btw. New IRST, for one, as well as the glass cockpit, together with airframe improvements, and maybe AL-31FM1 engines.

Just one S-300VM regiment was produced. No series production. The high cost and lack of sales success terminated the system. In addition the cheaper S-400 was later provided with the capability to intercept faster ballistic targets.

Whilst the S-400 may be cheaper, it’s not a viable system for the Army to use to defend its forces – they want tracked systems for high mobility. S-400’s good for defending valuable industrial/ political/ military targets that are more static, though it’s still quite mobile as things go.

The S-300VM will be superseded by the now in development S-500 system.

As long as S-500 is offered in a tracked version it’ll do fine.

What new with the Buk-M3 compared to M1-2/M2?

We have no idea, a single article from 2007 mentioning it is all we know about it.