totoroso far all j16 prototypes featured the old radome seen on both j11b and j15. there was one j11 test aircraft featuring a new radome that might be sporting an el. steered array. So it does seem plausible at least j16 will get such an array at one point. perhaps j15 will get it too, but seeing how the demand for j15 might not be more than 24 or so planes for the next 7-8 years, it might be awhile until newlybuilt j15 get such an array. of course, retrofit of radar on already produced planes is always possible, but that could possibly include even j11b.
totoroAlpha Jets were indeed used almost exclusively as trainers in Belgium, thanks for the heads up. I will remove them from the list. Also, the list does include aircraft in storage, that is done on purpose. (though, shouldn’t f-4 numbers in storage for USAF be quite higher?) Perhaps i didn’t mention this so far, but the list also includes every variant of a type, even if it was not used for combat ops. Like EW and recce variants. While not realistic, it makes the whole process much easier.
new totals for Europe and whole of NATO, per type:
Europe:
588 – tornado ids
122 – tornado adv
280 -jaguar
42- sea harrier
122 – harrier II/gr
512 – F4
65 – buccaneer
168 – alpha jet
535 – F16
106 – mirage V
158 – mirage III
190ish – mirage 2000
280ish – mirage F1
200ish – F18
320ish – F5
40 – Draken
65 – Super etendard
9 – Etendard IV
27 – F8
101 – A7
430ish – F104
135 – G91
Total Europe 4495
US
f111 – 281
f15 – 794
f16 – 1476
f117 – 52
f4 – 1168
a7 – 575
a10 – 575
harrier II – 146
a4 – 275
a6 – 491
f14 – 607
f18 – 620
f5 – 34
total US: 7094
total NATO types combined:
f111 – 281
f15 – 794
f16 – 2011
f117 – 52
f4 – 1680
a7 – 676
a10 – 575
harrier II/gr – 268
a4 – 275
a6 – 491
f14 – 607
f18 – 820
f5 – 354
tornado ids – 588
tornado adv – 122
jaguar – 280
sea harrier – 42
buccaneer – 65
alpha jet – 168
mirage V – 106
mirage III – 158
mirage 2000 – 190ish
mirage F1 – 280ish
Draken – 40
Super etendard – 65
Etendard IV – 9
F8 – 27
F104 – 430ish
G91 – 135
Total NATO: around 11.590
List is quite rough, of course, and it includes stored aircraft in reserve. But one could still use it as a basis for VERY rough qualitative analysis – two more lists:
Important – “modern/old design” here does not refer to specific years but overall, *subjective* feeling of how advanced an aircraft was for its time and what capabilities it brought to the table.
fighters/interceptors
**modern design
f15 – 794
f14 – 607
tornado adv – 122
mirage 2000 – 190ish
**moderately modern design
sea harrier – 42
mirage F1 – 280ish
**old design
mirage III – 158
Draken – 40
F104 – 430ish
F8 – 27
multirole aircraft
**modern design
f16 – 2011
f18 – 820
**moderately modern design
f4 – 1680
**old design
f5 – 354
strike/attack
**modern design
f111 – 281
f117 – 52
a10 – 575
tornado ids – 588
**moderately modern design
a7 – 676
jaguar – 280
harrier II/gr – 268
mirage V – 106
Super etendard – 65
**old design
a4 – 275
a6 – 491
buccaneer – 65
alpha jet – 168
Etendard IV – 9
G91 – 135
totoroyep. if anything is a technology/concept demonstrator it’s j21/31. if we do see more of them, there might be fairly big changes present, perhaps bigger than ones seen on most recent j20 prototype. but before that happens, SAC will need to contract some customers, be they domestic or foreign. That doesn’t mean we’ll know about it, but if there are more prototypes churned out and development continued it’d be a pretty good sign there is a customer. No one makes such a plane without a firm customer at this day and age.
totorothe above list (not the one from opening post but the other one) does include figures from IISS’ military balance. (among other sources).
Naval aircraft are included in all countries’ inventories, where applicable, including naval tornado IDS for germany.
i found two sources, one stating f104 was withdrawn from combat operations in germany in 1987, and another one that the remainder 2-3 dozen planes were withdrawn from special (trianing?) regiments in 1989. All that was left in 1990 was a few airframe for testing purposes.
as for f18 in spain, i found a source stating first airframes were handed over in july 1986. by the early 1987 twelve aiframes have been handed over and last aiframes were handed over in july 1990. that would suggest a pace of deliveries where ten to twelve f18 couldn’t have been operational in december 1989. so 60ish instead of total of 72.
i will look into f4 in spain’s air force, that does seem likely that most were retired. in fact, that’s what i fear, that in most countries some of the older types’ numbers are somewhat overstated and were in fact retired, but sources like mil balance and jane’s take a year or two to catch on to the retirement.
edit: upon further research, i’ll definitely remove most of f4 from spain’s inventory. but i don’t know if just 4 recce variants were flying, when as many as 8 recce variants were delivered 1989. IISS claims 9 recce variants in 1989.
totoroNot only did i forget to transcribe the US numbers on f18, i totally forgot to include a whole nation – Canada. My initial, non-adjusted for attrition figure for US hornets is 500 airframes. Canada’s numbers will be included in this list below, which is an easy-review version of the inventories given in the documents presented by FBW in this thread.
US
f111 – 281
f15 – 794
f16 – 1476
f117 – 52
f4 – 1168
a7 – 575
a10 – 575
harrier – 146
a4 – 275
a6 – 491
f14 – 607
f18 – 620
f5 – 34
total US: 7094
UK
176 tornado gr1
114 jaguar
101 harrier gr
42 sea harrier
125 f4
122 tornado f3
65 buccaneer
total UK: 745
germany
312 tornado ids
224 f4
168 alphajet
total germany: 704
belgium
136 f16
60-70ish mirage v
32 alpha jet
total belgium: 233
canada
137 f18
20ish f5 ??
total canada: 157
denmark
60 f16
40ish draken
total denmark: 100
france
100ish mirage2000 ??? (could be up to 170)
140ish mirage iii,
36 mirage v
190-240 mirage f1 (probably lower figure if m2000 figure is higher)
166 jaguar
65 super etendard
9 etendard iv
27 f8
total france: 793
greece
40 f4
55 a7
28-100 f5
40 f16
33 mirage f1
36 mirage 2000
36 f104
total greece: 300
italy
80 g91 attack
70 g91 training (combat capable? should they be included?)
140-216 f104
100 tornado ids
total italy: 355-425
netherlands
190ish f16
60ish f5
total netherlands: 250
norway
68 f16
20-40 f5
total norway: 98
portugal
55ish g91
46 a7
total portugal: 101
spain
18 mirage iii
5 mirage v
64 f18
40ish f4
60ish mirage f1
25-45 f5
21 harrier
total spain: 243
turkey
105-126 f4
41 f16
106-150 f5
200-220 f104
total turkey: 394
Total NATO: around 11.590
Now, let’s keep in mind that the list above is made up from sources like Jane’s and IISS’s publications of the time. Sometimes different sources cite wildly different figures, which i’ve shown in individual country’s inventories, but for the totals i’ve just used the average figure.
I would really appreciate it if someone with specific knowledge of situation of a specific country can contribute to this thread. For example, just how many mirage 2000 did france have in 1989? How many f5 did turkey have? How many f104 did italy operate? And so on.
When it comes to specific types not included, it’s just a matter of personal preference. List could’ve included strategic planes or maritime patrol planes, but for simplicity’s sake, i’ve chosen not to include it. After all of your comments i’ve decided not to include either A3, S3 or mirage IV. First one because it had no real combat capability in 1989, S3 because it was exclusively a maritime strike/asw plane and mirage iv because in french’s context it was a strategic, nuclear bomber only when it came to combat capability in 1989.
All these figures are to be taken not as precise figures but as rough guidelines. But they do seem to be more precise and realistic than my own figures i’ve started this thread with so for now i’ll stick with these new figures.
totoroI am interested in the source of that tennis ball claim. I know there is a video clip from some russian tv station (i assume) circulating around, where the host of some show about pakfa mentioned the tennis ball rcs. But did that host say that as a citation of some programme official? why is that tennis ball claim considered semi-official? which part of it is official? where did it originally come from?
totoroSorry for the late reply, but finally i have some time to write. First off, thank you for the additional sources and figures, the effort is very much appreciated.
Like i mentioned before, attrition i did not take into account. I guess i could guesstimate it, but it’d be a pretty dicey affair. I don’t know if f16 is a good yardstick but available figures (on f-16.net) suggest its initial attrition rate was as high as 2%, then it started dropping, it was little above 1% in early 90s and dropped below 1% in late 90s. Current attrition rate is claimed to be under 0.5%, with certain years dropping to 0.2%.
Since we don’t have year by year figures, the best i can hope for is using a single, very rough figure for attrition for the whole period or service, for all types. Say an average half-lifetime of an airframe in soviet service of 10 years, times a very rough 1,5% guess for yearly attrition rate for types built since 1970s and 1% for types built in 1980s. Note that the latter percentage is so low because overall airframe figures in early 1980s were low, so i am trying to compensate.
I wouldn’t say some of the figures on my list are close to totals produced, as i really tried to follow the takeoff stats as much as possible. for example, takeoff claims some 6300 mig23 and mig27 were produced in soviet union. My list has only 5200 mig23 and mig27, over a thousand less. With warsaw pact not fielding many more than 300 of those types, i think my figures could even be an understatement, as third party exports were certainly not in the 700-800 airframe range.
Anyway, if i were to apply the attrition rate losses as described above to my previous list – it could look something like this:
425-850 Mig21
1450 Su17
740 Su15
80 Tu128
200 Yak38
470 Yak28
800 Mig25
3450 Mig23 (fighter variants)
990 Mig23 bomber variants and Mig27
940 Su24
690 Su25
770 Mig29
450 Mig31
540 Su27
I will try to compare these with the naval institute’s figures you provided. as i’m interested in total figures, not just europe figures, i’ll have to use the institute’s estimate, not the numbers in paranthesis. though in cases when cfe’s figures are higher i’ll have to assume institute’s numbers are plain wrong.
my list seems to have overestimated mig21 figures if 279+15 is to be believed. Though, since that doesnt include possible/probable not euro deployed airframes totals might go over 400 airframes, which actually wouldnt be that far off from my own low end estimate. especially if training variants aren’t included in instititute’s list or CFE’s list. Are they included? My own list did include ALL variants, training ones as well.
institute claims 1320 mig23 and 670 mig27. now that is certainly a huge discrepancy. that’s 2000 planes of the mig23/27 family while my list has whopping 4440 airframes, over twice the number. while i won’t claim my list is corret, i do find the 2000 planes dubiously low, since the takeoff’s production tables suggest that in 1989. number of 23/27 aiframes produced and not older than 15 years would be around 4500. it doesn’t make sense to me that 15 year old airframes would be scrapped in such numbers. even 20 year old frames should be, in my opinion, quite abundant. when one takes away the attritioned airframes, overall totals for soviet union should still be closer to 4000 than 2000 airframes.
institute claims some 530 mig25, which is certainly higher then my own 800 guesstimate. i’ll probably adjust my figure a bit.
They claim as many as 1115 mig29. seems too high, as takeoff claims some 1300 produced by 1992. considering some of those was produced from 1990 to 1992, which doesn’t interst me, as well as the fact over 200 were exported during the 1980s outside Soviet union, plus the overall attrition, the suggested number seems easely overstated. i think i’ll stick closer to takeoff’s figures here.
they claim some 360 mig31 which seems too low, unless mig31 had a horribly high attrition rate. again, takeoff’s figures seem more realistic.
they claim 365 su15 which is half my 740 figure, but in this case, su15 being an old model, they could be right. or the truth might be somewhere in between.
They claim 540 su17, a far cry from my own estimate of 1450. but takeoff claims some 400 su17 were no older than 12 years in 1989. and over 950 were no older than 14 years. some 1200 were no older than 16 years then. and 1450 no older than 18 years. While my figures may be overstated, their 540 figure is certainly hugely understated for 1989.
They say 1060 su24. That figure rings about right for 1991, though for 1989 it may be closer to my figure.
They claim 430 su25 but that is not even half of all su25 produced by 1989, so it doesn’t really seem correct.
They claim 660 su27, which is roughly okay for 1991, even a tiny bit low, but for 1989 it should be a bit less.
I’ll stop here, to confine myself just to tactical aviation. but i do like the fact i guesstimated the tu128 figure pretty good. Also, Yak 28/38 figures are either unreported or very undereported. or Soviet union simply retired a whole bunch suddenly, which is also possible. and it may’ve happened before 1989., so my own list may overstating them quite a bit.
edit:
Here’s an updated list, taking into consideration some of the naval institute’s figures and CFE treaty disclosure figures. Plus i revised the attrition rates from 1.5% to 1%, as it seems more in line with attrition rates in the West. Biggest question i still have concerns older types, in production from 1965 onward, which may’ve also been put in storage. To have the common denominator with all types and all lists, i’ll have to take those into account.
450-600 Mig21 (does it include reserves/ ac in storage?)+1700
1500 Su17 (probably includes ac in storage)
400-780 Su15
80-90 Tu128
100-205 Yak38
200-ish Yak28 ???
600-850 Mig25+8
3650 Mig23 (fighter variants) (probably includes ac in storage)+300
1040 Mig23 bomber variants and Mig27 (probably includes ac in storage)
1000 Su24
690 Su25
770 Mig29+80
450 Mig31
540 Su27
total soviet union: 11.925
total warsaw pact: 14.440 (with AC from the opening post)
Let me try to use a very simple and rough division of capabilities here, using warsaw pact totals:
**fighter/interceptor
very capable
850 Mig29
450 Mig31
540 Su27
somewhat capable
3950 Mig23 (fighter variants)
680 Mig25
550 Su15
80 Tu128
barely capable
2300 Mig21
15 mig17
**striker/attack
very capable
1000 Su24
785 Su25
somewhat capable
1040 Mig23 bomber variants and Mig27
1720 Su17/22
barely capable
200 Yak28 ???
100 su7
**multirole ??
somewhat capable
150 Yak38 ??
totoroThank you all for your contributions. Flightglobal’s list seems quite incomplete so I’m not sure how credible that one is.
Warsaw Pact Orbat lists some 1500 combat mig-21, which could be plausible, though there’s no way of knowing how trustworthy the author is. He did mention his sources are the usual suspects like Jane’s and such, which do quite often make mistakes about these sort of things, especially the editions back from 1989.
The issue I’ve got with Soviet Union not really operating many mig-21s at the end of Cold war is this: Soviet union, as a rule, doesn’t seem to have been throwing stuff away. While the equipment is good, they retained it. They did that with tanks, ships, etc. Why not with planes too?
Mig-21bis, just to name one model, was produced in Soviet Union until 1985. List from the magazine Mack8 provided says they produced 2013 airframes since 1971.
I went through all the data available for mig-21 export users, and it would appear 1100-1200 mig21bis were produced for export. That leaves some 800-900 mig21bis for the Soviet Union. Knowing production lasted from 1971 to 1985, we know that oldest airframes had 20 years in them and newest ones less than 5 years.
I used the figure of 120 flight hours per year per pilot that seems to have been the norm back then for SU. Multiplied it with 1.3 for number of pilots per fighter plane seat (using the USAF multiplier from 1990s, as that’s the only one i could find). 20 years of service at such a pace would yield some 3100 flight hours, 12 years would yield 1900 hours and 5 years would give us 800 hours.
Airframe life for mig21 definitely seems to be over 2000 hours, with some sources claiming even 3000 hours. Some sources claim 2400, so it’s probably somewhere in between. It would appear that at least over half of those 800-900 mig21bis should have survived until the end of cold war. If we used the usually used figure of 2400 hours, it’d be enough for two thirds of the 800-900 numbers to survive until 1989. With two seat trainers (produced until 1986) the overall figure might approach 800 or so. While they may’ve not been kept in frontline units, it does seem plausible to me a certain number (certainly under 1000 it seems) was used in active duty regiments back in 1989.
edit:
here’s the ammended list, greatly helped by the table of production from the magazine link Mack8 provided. Almost all of the figures are really from there, minus the known export variants and known numbers of planes in service with other, non Soviet union countries. Only for mig-21 i approximated the figure, following the logic i explained in this topic.
Other Warsaw pact countries’ totals remain the same as in opening post. As for Soviet union, to the best of my knowledge, list should be:
500-1000 Mig21
1700 Su17
870 Su15
100 Tu128
230 Yak38
550 Yak28
950 Mig25
4050 Mig23 (fighter variants)
1150 Mig23 bomber variants and Mig27
1100 Su24
760 Su25
850 Mig29
500 Mig31
600 Su27
All of the figures are totals, including combat and non combat variants. Rough overall total is around 14100 tactical aircraft, give or take a few hundred.
totorothose look like superb resources, thank you a lot! i don’t speak russian so it’s going to be a long process until i can process it all, but thanks never the less. Unfortunently, it seems mig-21 in particular isn’t well documented, as there are only 7500 migs 21 listed, with quite a few “not available (??)” remarks. so over 2500 migs 21 produced in Soviet union aren’t accounted for precisely in those tables.
i hope i will be able to, from the subvariant designations, diferentiate between planes made for soviet union and planes made for export. hope to make an ammended list in the coming days…
totoroThank you for your input. Looking at the production tables (by yefim gordon? via wiki) it would seem a more realistic figure, including trainer versions, etc, would be “little over 3000”. Probably under 3500. That still doesn’t take into account attrition damage, which could, for a 20-something lifespan until the end of Cold war shave off another 200 or so airframes. (again, for most of the planes on my list i didn’t take into account attrition!)
Other models and their respective inventories seem plausible?
totoroIsnt that roughly the size of one internal bay on the F35 if filled completely?
A 2000lbs MK84 has a cross section of ~0,75-0,78sqm and is 3,3m giving ~2,5m^3 if it was a cylinder. And that fits.
That math is a bit wrong. jdam based on 2000 lbs mk84 has diameter of some 0.45 m. its wingspan doesnt go over 0.65 m which, when turned 45 degrees to use up as little space as possible, gives us again some 0.45 meter wide box. So basically the space for the bomb will not be over 0.5 meters wide.
0.5 times 0.5 is 0.25 m2 cross section. Internal bay on f35 is, luckily, is a bit over 4 meters long. So the space for that one bomb is going to give roughly one cubic meter of room. Additional amraam space is going to give a bit more still, around 0.13 m2 cross section, times a bit less than four meters. Overall, the whole weapons bay (one oout of total of two) in f35 gives around 1.5 cubic meters of space. Perhaps a bit more, but certainly less than 2 cubic meters.
totoroCan anyone tell me more about russian air force reserves? I am interested mainly in pilots. How does ruaf reserve command work? Who are the reservists? How does one become a reserve pilot? How long does the reserve status last? How often do reserve pilots train? In which regiments do they train? Do they have special regiments or do they use active duty regiments’ hardware?
totorosu30sm will be replacing mig29? I guess while expected, it’s still interesting to know older types are being retired. But is there some detailed list of what has been retired in the past year and what is likely to be retired in the next year or two?
Will the new planes (su30sm, su30m2, su35, su34) be replacing the existing regiments on one for one basis? If yes, is it safe to assume su35 will be replacing older su27 regiments, su34 will be replacing old su24 regiments, su30sm will be replacing old mig29 regiments? Or is the situation not so clear?
totoroIf we choose to believe the video is fairly recent, do you mean to suggest there’s no way that is the obligatory static prototype parked and, in fact, it has to be the second flying prototype?
totoro600 only for righters (and not even trainers) by 2020?
Lets see:
124 su34
96 su35
84 su30sm/m2
37 mig35
Hmmm. Pakfa is missing, of course, but will it really be produced at 50 airframes per year from 2016 onwards?
More logical comparison for pakfa production, being a whole new high tech plane project, would be su35 production, so something like a dozen or so low rate production planes by 2016/2017 and 12 or so a year onwards.
Or will su35 not only sign the second batch of 48 planes but also sign another such batch or two, while increasing production rate by 100% or more? Or there be countless more orders for su30 variants? say, another 60 or so sm and another 48 or so m2? Will mig orders be in the hundreds? 24 migs35 per year from 2015 onward?
If so, then yes, 600 by 2020 is attainable. We’ll see.
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