A few updates :

HOUSE PANEL WANTS EARLY ACCESS TO DOD PLANS FOR FUTURE AIR DOMINANCE – Inside the Pentagon – Inside Air Force/Inside Defense

The DARPA Special Project Office running the AII-X initiative (prototyping aircraft and technology) is the Aerospace Projects Office led by Harry Berman who previously led the HELLADS, Darkstar, J-UCAS, Globalhawk etc.

http://www.darpa.mil/about-us/offices/apo

http://aviationweek.com/technology/inside-lockheed-martin-s-fiber-laser-weapon

Excellent news. The only way to stay ahead is to keep moving.

It seems likely that lasers will play a big role in defining what constitutes a 6th generation fighter.

The Laser did work, its just that it is too early for another program With this laser on airframes.
The laser system is too large, Heavy and too energy costly.

So at this point it is a concept/demonstration.
The Things that worked very well is the targeting system, and i think that is what they primerely was interesting in this point of time.

IMO as time goes on and stuff get smaller, another program will araise.

When the program was kicked off it was intended to become operational. It was later scaled back to a demonstrator/research project, which has since been completed. So while it did “work,” in a sense, it proved impractical in the real world.

Sort of like having an active protection system that has a tendency to kill everyone near the tank whenever it is triggered…

Russia also developed special new ERA to replace the outdated kinds. It promptly bought none.
Herp derp!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5yV2hWXHFA

It doesn’t work, I swear!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG0ekE3zTvY

Oh no, its so ineffective! The concept is abandoned!

Again, video on the internet proves…. what? Take for instance the US’s Airborne Laser program. It was intended to defend against a critical threat. It was developed at great cost, tested successfully under certain circumstances (and there are videos!!), and then abandoned because in the real world it wasn’t workable.

Starting to get it yet?

Ugh good lord. You are wasting everyone’s time without any actual backup or evidence to your claims. This is getting pathetic. What it comes down to you is you are upset Russia made something work that you think is beyond them.

“Ok, so you assert it must work, based solely on standard Russian marketing claims. “

No, I assert it works based on PLENTY of video evidence over the years, over the fact that it was tested under Russian military conditions successfully….what evidence do you have to counter any of that? None.

“I assert that if it actually addressed probably the single most critical threat facing armored vehicles on the modern battlefield it wouldn’t have been unceremoniously abandoned in its entirety.”

There….is no logic there at all. Russia developed much better ERA that was not fielded because of the timing (financially dire times). AND IT WAS NOT ABANDONED! Good grief!
It did what it was supposed to do, which was stop RPGs. The Russian military wanted something more advanced by the time it got to buying armored vehicles (2010s and on).

“Even if we assumed Russia’s new family of vehicles actually make it into service one day with an all-new active protection system, “

No assumptions needed. They are already in large scale testing, and their APS systems are direct successors to previous systems like Arena and Drozr. Just with vastly expanded capabilities.

“the large majority of Russia’s (and the Russian export market’s) tanks and armored vehicles will continue to be upgraded Soviet models. Why no Arena for them? Nobody anywhere can find a use for it?”

Because….it is expensive? Because….they don’t consider the kind of environment where Arena is usefull (RPG threats from various angles) to be primary over straight tank vs tank combat, where Arena is of limited utility?

If that is your best argument, it is poor to say the least.

There was a video huh? On the internet?

Well I guess that settles everything. 😮

So let me get this straight. Russia found its forces were taking terrible casualties while razing Grozny. To address the vulnerability, they successfully developed an active protection system, which they then promptly did nothing at all with.

So in other words, you have absolutely no back-up for the statement that “it was a failure” or “never worked well enough”.

Got it.

It is not a wonder weapon, it is an APS system for the time that could successfully engage the targets it was meant to engage. It was never meant to take on APFSDS rounds for example, something the Russian Army wanted. Doesn’t make it a failure.
The USSR experimented successfully with APS systems since the early 80s. Effectiveness needs to be judged against cost however, and that is not just for the Russian Army. Armies all around the world (aside from Israel) have been slow to induct APS although the technology has been there for years.

Never worked on? Never finished? Come on. Just admit you don’t know much about Arena and move on.

Lets review. It spent years in R&D and testing, burned through a lot of cash, and then quietly disappeared without ever going operational anywhere.

Sounds like a smashing success right? I am sure it was hugely successful and effective but nobody really saw the point, right?

Look, you can believe what you want, clearly. I am sure Russia has a highly effective active protection system 100% ready to go just as soon as Putin says he wants it.

That is some **** poor logic.

Arena was not bought because the Russian Army was not buying much of anything during the 90s and 2000s.
There is a whole range of Russian arms production that was trialed, worked, and yet was not bought en-masse during that period.
That’s like saying Relikt ERA is a “failure”, because the Russian Army never bought it, even though it was extensively trialed and tested.

Even older Drozd was trialed in A-stan during the 80s- worked fairly decently all things considering. Then the defense budget tanked.

Nobody anywhere bought it, not even in small numbers, not even for some elite unit.

It is right there with other Russian wonder weapons that were never finished, never worked, or both.

Imagine for a moment someone actually had a fully functional and effective active protective system working. Do you think there would be a little demand for a system like that?

I have been reading the whole thing again and I think we are running around in needless circles.

There is part of a report that indicates clearly that the F35 under performs in BFM.
Some fellow members suggest that the test restrictions prevented the plane to show its full potential.

This is a paradox in my mind. It kind of defeats the purpose, and there is no “clear” indication the test setup was preventative of any better performance had that been available.

If there is, the members who think there is could perhaps tell us what exactly prevented the plane to perform better.

Then there is this dude’s interview in this thread, he doesn’t actually give a confident answer, does he?

We’ve seen the data available, interpreted by Andraxxus but the plane does not seem to give publicly available evidence to support that interpretation.

I don’t buy the “classified” bull. The programme is in such bad light, any scrap of good publicity would be welcome by LM and the MoD.

Yet we don’t seem to be getting any.

It was a test of the F-35’s handling qualities under certain specific conditions. The test report itself stated that the testers believed the F-35 had more to offer and would benefit from additional tweaks to its flight control system.

That is it. It wasn’t a test of the F-35’s combat efficacy. It wasn’t some kind of an official evaluation of its “dogfighting effectiveness.”

Russian Admiral source of rumors China has carrier in Mediterranean Sea near Syria, waiting for its air complement to deploy from mainland.

http://tass.ru/en/defense/824840

Methanol…