Budget cuts seems unavoidable for USA. So, Americans will have to eat their own medicine, but designed for third world countries. Tha plain reality is that american spending is out of control and this will have to be fixed sooner or later.

The most expensive and only mass-produced American fighter, the F-22 Raptor, may fall victim to cuts in the U.S. military budget. Lobbyists in the U.S. aerospace industry are trying to sway the new president by citing the achievements of the Russian defense industry.
John Cornyn, deputy chairman of the Senate’s Airland Subcommittee, sent a letter to Barack Obama, urging him to continue the production of F-22s (each costs $180 million), making the decision before the new financial year (which begins on March 1). The U.S. Air Force has ordered only 183 of them, while a preliminary decision to order more was postponed by the Pentagon pending approval by the new president.
According to the media, Obama has already been sent two group letters on the same subject – from 188 congressmen and 44 senators.
Cornyn writes that the order for F-22s is crucial not only for 25,000 highly skilled jobs, but also for the supremacy of the U.S. Air Force, which is particularly important when the latest Russian surface-to-air missile systems S-300, PMU-2 Favorit and S-400 Triumf, which can be effectively dealt with only by F-22s, are widespread in the world.
The high-priced Favorit and Triumf anti-aircraft systems are not widespread or expected to be: the U.S. has enough capability besides the F-22 to press its advantage over any opponent, says Konstantin Makienko, an analyst at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
The case being made by U.S. lobbyists for the F-22 is natural – the plane is an outright candidate for the axe at the time of crisis and the fate of this program must serve as an indicator of the new president’s defense policy, said Mikhail Barabanov, the science editor of the magazine Eksport Vooruzhenii. Aside from the super-fighter, cuts could affect other costly Pentagon programs as well – the missile defense shield, or some other sea and air weapons, the analyst said.
Russia’s Air Force has an annual budget of $1.5 billion to buy, upgrade or develop aircraft.

Kommersant, Vedomosti

Su 35 is a decent fighter though …

So, the Su-30MKI is less than decent ???:eek:

Its certainly looking that way.

Wishful thinking

Yeah go on Keep Pushing us and our navy…further to the atlantic, and then across…

I think, these are understandable reasons. A delay after a large accident seems logical; and certainly better than a change on the price (like in the Vikram saga :mad:). In addition, I doubt USA will agree to lease a Los Angeles SSN.

Granite is Mach 2.5 at higher altitudes only, dropping to Mach 1.5 at low altitudes.

Anyway, I doubt the Granit can be chased. MiG-31, in spite of its tremendous speed was designed with Tomahawks in mind. The only scenario I can imegine a Granit can be chased is to place the Foxound just in the same place and the same time the Granit breaks from water (and I even doubt the Foxhound can follow the missile for long time). If you consider some initial time/distance miss, the missile is gone.

Now if someone could find a video of a Mig-31 chasing a flock of SS-N-19 Shipwrecks.

The problem is that SS-N-19 fly at mach 2.5. Tomahawk do it at mach 0.9.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_Defense_Watch_Warship_sales_soar_999.html

I mostly agree with Austin’s opinions. So, in the current scenario, is of utmost importance to keep the Tu-22M3 fleet as a lethal Carrier killer as possible. You know, with a few waves of escorted Backfieres it will be impossible to any CV group to approximate to Kola.