You can’t go wrong with Lee Marvin. Anyway, I doubted that there’s anything on cost for paper projects, but it never hurts to ask.

Thanks,

Logan Hartke

Edit: I’d forgotten that deagel had a page on it some time ago that wasn’t bad and it’s still around.

http://www.deagel.com/Frigates/MEKO-D_a000251001.aspx

That is quite expensive. General Dynamics new little Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is only supposed to be about $220 per ship at this point, to put it into perspective. Were there ever any estimates on the MEKO D?

Logan Hartke

I found that a little earlier looking for info and have yet to properly translate it. It still leaves the MEKO X a bit hazy, however, and that isn’t the original promo material that used to be out and about in English, but at least it’s very detailed and the couple of years of German is helpful in browsing. Also, it’s nice to have German friends. 🙂

Anyway, can anyone find anything equivelant on the much larger MEKO X? I know what the gist of the design is: a scaled-up MEKO D with much larger spaces, allowing an increase in a number of areas, from number of helicopters and number of weapons to the capability to install a proper air defence radar system.

Still, though, now that I’m aware of the exact weapons fit of a baseline MEKO D, I do want to compare the two and get a good idea of the additional capabilities (systems-wise) of the MEKO X.

Logan Hartke

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I’m mainly just intrigued by a lot of the weapons advertised for the Su-39. I’m largely wondering what kind of weapons a country like Venezuela might purchase for the aircraft if they chose to purchase some. Another good question is about Iran, since I believe that they are, so far, the first and only customers for the Su-25TM (Su-39). To understand what the use of that aircraft means, you have to understand the capability of the weapons it would use.

Logan Hartke

Except for the fact that it’s hanging out in optimal SAM hunting grounds and would present a huge radar blip. I’d be slapping a couple of towed decoys on that configuration before I took it into SAM country that way.

BTW, what’s that on the centerline pylon in the picture? A fuel tank or a baggage compartment (or a combi)?

Logan Hartke

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time the Russians displayed a missile on an aircraft that did not (yet) have the capability to use it in practise (the airlaunched Sunburn/Kh-41 comes to mind!). It’s my understanding that if the Kh-31 was to be used on the Su-25TM (a notoriously underpowered and draggy airframe) the required minimum launch speed for ramjet ignition would restrict the aircrafts payload to useless levels. The booster seems to be sized with a very close margin.

I’m not even sure the basic Kh-31 can, I think that capability was planned for a specialised version of the missile.

This Su-39 at MAKS 2005 was configured to take on just about any SAM site it came across since it was armed with a Kh-31 and what looked like a Kh-58 inboard of it.

Russian literature (for what it’s worth) claims that the Su-39 is capable of utilizing both weapons. Also, the Russians and Chinese claim that in service variants of the Kh-31 are capable of the “anti-AWACS” role.

Logan Hartke

The Kh-31 is simply a new model missile for the anti radiation role that has a higher speed and generates less ionised particles due to its ramjet engine rather than a solid rocket engine. ie less visible on radar.

A number of things I was reading were saying that the Kh-58 had a speed of something like Mach 3.6 while the Kh-31 had a speed of Mach 3.5. Is that incorrect, or do you know more about their flight profiles?

The Cobra and Apache are for different services (US Army and USMC), mostly. The Apache was replacing the Cobra in US Army service since its inception (which it finally has) so the two, while having nearly identical roles, weren’t meant to coexist forever. Anyway, though, let’s stay on subject.

How much of an advatage would that lower radar signature be? Most radars aren’t mobile enough to get scooting away fast enough to avoid the Mach 3.6 Kh-58’s massive 150kg warhead, so unless the enemy could shoot it down, isn’t it still mission accomplished whether the enemy shuts its radar down or not. Or is the Kh-58 too dumb to go to the last known location when it loses the radar signal? If that’s the case and the Kh-31 is mostly just a smarter missile, then that’s one thing, but that’s what I’m trying to figure out.

What can the Kh-31 do that the Kh-58 couldn’t?

Logan Hartke