I don’t even know, I thought that was the whole point of 22160, and focus was drawing away from the 20380 series.

Isn’t 22160 an offshore patrol vessel?

I think 2038x and 22160 are not in competition, I’m still surprised VMF didn’t induct in service a large and cheap ocean going OPV in the early 2000s, they could have served well in a lot of missione, from counter piracy up to the syrian crisis.

On the other hand, I had always the feeling the 2038x did need to evolve in more specialized subversions, plainly top much weapons and roles for such a small hull.

If the transition from 20380 to 20385 was dictated from early experiences and new equipment available, I believe more duties could be performed by more mission-specific versions will be designed.

Think of them like an home water fleet, with SF support vessels, ASW ones and so on, but still capable to perform long patrols close to own shoreline, like in the far North.

Pur in the mix a class of double hulled, western style AORs, with workshops for mechanical, electronical, ordnance and aeronautical maintenance, facilities for refrigerated food, fresh water generation, rest areas, medical facilities, spare parts and very large communication facilities and you could turn 22160s in a very long range patrol flotilla, operating even as little task forces, and the 2238x in real green water combatants operating just as a structured fleet would do.

Sorry, I do not agree with these explainations.

Point in case, Su-35 and Su-34 are both guilty only to come late.

Nowadays, if both would be FOC and in widespread service, they would be the perfect bridge to the next paradigma in serial warfare (like LO, unmanned platforms, networked operations, realtime decisionale processes).

Honestly, after all the chaos experienced in Russia during the 90s, nobody could blame them or VVS.

About other assets, it’s quite another story.

Even assuming a pressing need to subsidize every single factory and design bureau est and west of Urals, nothing forbid to pick up a single model, and share orders between several factories.

Why not to just procure Su-30SM, if valued better suited for VVS needs, and order both IAPO and KNAAPO to build it? Even if one of them would lack part of the rigging required, could still be the source of enough items to grant it a fair share of the revenues.

The same goes for Mi-8/Mi-171 and so on.

About MiG, I never understood why VMF should not have far more airframes (and crews) than the bare numbers required for training and Kuznetsov embarked wing.

Ordering three or four dozens Mig-29K more and expanding VMF’s wings, maybe recapitalizing the Black Sea Fleet air regiments, would provide MiG the same help that Mig-35 could be.

At least, VVS would not put in service a model it doesn’t need, while VMF could have a large operating base spread across its main naval bases.

All those new airframes will be around for decades, they are not diapers or ballpen!

Does that radome rotate once extended – like the one on the Ka-31 ???

Ken
??

Hardly so, it would have put a devastating stress on the airframe and likely have made the aircraft impossibile to control.

A better concept could be two aerial sets under the outermost wing pylons able to bear the load, plus maybe a centerline pod housing all of the backplane, logic and datalink required by a surveillance radar.

Still no true 360° coverage, but at least 240° are achievable and requiring only a proper redesign of cockpit and databuses on the Su27KUB.

Loitering time and range are sometimes different beasts.

I do not see any viable mean to develop the Tu-214 in a 13.000 km range aircraft and still embarking a very larve suite of sensors and weapons.

Tu-142 is a very inique platform: either VMF will drop the platform or will update and rebuild it.

No way, Il-96 apart, to replace it with a modern aircraft.

Rooivalk has been developed in the last period of the Apartheid time, specifically because no attack helicopter would have been sell to South Africa.

The opposite is true too, nobody would have procured an attack helicopter from South Africa.

Born to defeat an embargo, it had from start near zero chance to sell abroad.

A new project today could have some chance when conceived as a concertated effort between some countries sharing common requirements.

:highly_amused::highly_amused::highly_amused::highly_amused:

Improved career? Leaving one of the most respected, best equipped armed forces in the world, to go to what would shortly become a second rate home defense force?

You and some other folks are focusing yourself on the military side, I am talking about Coast Guard and SAR services, that makes pretty a differenze, doesn’t it?

Let’s use a metaphore: it could be actractive the chance to become Michael O’Leary in a new enterprise instead of the chance to become a mid level manager in an long lived and crowded enterprise.

This is it in a nutshell, and this is a somewhat typical pattern for new fighters.

In the conceptualization phase it is easy to go on and on about the wonderful new features while downplaying or ignoring weaknesses. As the aircraft moves into testing sooner or later reality imposes.

All of those fancy new avionics, etc, all drive weight, power consumption and cooling requirements higher. It would have been nice if the aviation press had been able to muster even a fraction of the skepticism they display for some programs and applied it to the Gripen, rather than simply acting as its fan club and crowning it the worlds first 6th generation fighter, but that is asking a lot isn’t it? :stupid:

Well, I suppose both the past track record of the Gripen program and being not perceived as a direct competitor to maimstream western fighters have played a role in that indulgence.

Moreover, since last decade there have been very few examples of operational sorties requiring heavy loads, instead the maximul fuel has been the preferred choice in most if not all scenarios.

Even a couple tons of ordinances today seems a pretty decent real world payload, let’s say a couple of IR AAM, a designation pod, 4x 500 lbs, either GPS or Laser guided, and a couple of AGM65 won’t be that bad in most air to ground missions.

First, I have some hard time believing that mouthballed means properly maintained.

We all had a look at the steep increase of incidents VVS experienced as soon as its average number of flight hours of legacy airframes increased past the long overdue modernization phase in early 2000s went on.

So mouthballed airframes could be decent source of spare parts, but still dangerous to fly without total overhaul, if not rebuilding.

30 airframes are not that much, large numbers being required for the northern and pacific SSBN’s fleets alone.

Actually Black Sea fleet seems to have zero Il38s, and ice melting shall only increase the need for airframes and flight hours in the far north regions.

Taking in account a full ASW platform could require a decade to be developed I cannot see a long time before such a project shall become mandatory.

Because the Tu-214 has been already developed as an ELINT platform to replace the Il-22, another sibling of Il-18, I have a strong feeling that retaining the same ESM suite, a scaled down ELINT suite and integrating some SAR/ISAR radar and an electrooptical turret would be feasible within limited timeframe and budget.

It wouldn’t serve the ASW missions apart ancillary roles, but would relieve the Il-38 fleet from LR SAR and surface surveillance missions.