Very interesting: The Soviet Fleet’s white elephant

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20100921/160673588.html

Hmm… How much do you think it’d cost to refurbish one and return it to service?

Apparently this will be fitted on the second batch of Talwar frigates. Maybe even the 22350?
http://igorrgroup.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-universal-vls-for-clubbrahmos.html

A new universal VLS for Club/BrahMos
This are pictures of new universal VLS for Club and BrahMos missiles based on frigates:
Source: paralay.com
– Russian designation 3R-14UKSK-Kh. The fire control system is including. Provided:
– supply in modular plug and play containers, 4 or 8 missiles in each container
– installation
– maintenance
– power supply system
– computing system
– networking system
– means of loading

Kaveri Snecma JV is a joke. JV entails that Core will be junked while LP will be developed in france, which means nothing in the engine would be Indian. also Complete dumping of the core means that the basic design itself was incorrect/outdated/has failed.

Also LCA was supposed to be 5500kg. Most of the components are imported like engine, avionics, radar etc & their specifications have been known since 80s or in any case they have got lighter. It means that weight growth has happened only in the structure or parts designed in India. Estimating that bare airframe to be around 2000-3000kg, a weight increase of 1500-2000kg which is 50% to 100% weight increase, means massive failure in design and construction of airframe.

Lets see engine failure, radar basically a failure, airframe design issues, overweight, delayed by 20 years, still no major orders and no IOC/FOC

I have to say you’re a tad too harsh. Even the A400M was overweight. And the MMR only needed some Israeli processing hardware. But the self-proclaimed experts will be here to give their gyan(and insult; mostly insults) soon enough.

artisan 3d is compareable to its competitors smart-s mk2, trs-3d and el/m-2238. it might use some sampson technology for signal processing or something else but it can’t be compared to sampson. sampson is an aesa and a real mfr. it’s much more capable than artisan 3d.

Actually ARTISAN is also an AESA. Having inherited technology from the Commander radar set it has more operating modes than the Sampson(air traffic control and so on). The area where it falls short of Sampson is probably basic operating characterisitcs: range, no. of targets, target tracking capability etc. In any case it’s (reportedly) quite a bit cheaper than Sampson, and it still has the ability to track supersonic AshMs at 25km or so(hence being coupled with the CAMM SHORAD system).

On the issue of radars, something the Russians have had some past experience in and should consider:

Title: FIGHTER EW.
Date: 7/1/2000; Publication: Journal of Electronic Defense; Author: Sweetman, Bill

The APG-77 and ALR-94 are unique, high-performance sensors. The APG-77 has an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) comprising some 1,200 transmitter and receiver modules. One vital difference between an AESA and any other radar that has a single transmitter (including a passive electronically steered array) is that the AESA is capable of operating as several separate radars simultaneously. An AESA can change its beamform very readily, and its receiver segments can operate in a passive or receive-only mode. Unlike a mechanical antenna, too, its revisit rates are not constrained by the antenna drive, and it can concurrently revisit different points within its field of regard at different rates. The F-22 has space, weight and cooling provision for auxiliary side arrays on either side of the nose. If installed, these would provide radar coverage over almost 270[degrees]. The ALR-94, meanwhile, is the most effective passive system ever installed on a fighter. Tom Burbage, former head of the F-22 program at Lockheed Martin, has described it as “the most technically complex piece of equipment on the aircraft.”

The F-22 has been described as an antenna farm. Indeed, it would resemble a signals-intelligence (SIGINT) platform were it not for the fact that the 30-plus antennas are all smoothly blended into the wings and fuselage. The ALR-94 provides 360[degrees] coverage in all bands, with both azimuth and elevation coverage in the forward sector.

A target which is using radar to search for the F-22 or other friendly aircraft can be detected, tracked and identified by the ALR-94 long before its radar can see anything, at ranges of 250 nm or more. As the range closes, but still above 100 nm, the APG-77 can be cued by the ALR-94 to search for other aircraft in the hostile flight. The system uses techniques such as cued tracking: since the track file, updated by the ALR-94, can tell the radar where to look, it can detect and track the target with a very narrow beam, measuring as little as 2[degrees] by 2[degrees] in azimuth and elevation. One engineer calls it “a laser beam, not a searchlight. We want to use our resources on the high-value targets. We don’t track targets that are too far away to be a threat.”

The system also automatically increases revisit rates according to the threat posed by the targets. Another technique is “closed-loop tracking,” in which the radar constantly adjusts the power and number of pulses to retain a lock on its target while using the smallest possible amount of energy.

High-priority emitters — such as fighter aircraft at close range — can be tracked in real time by the ALR-94. In this mode, called narrowband interleaved search and track (NBILST), the radar is used only to provide precise range and velocity data to set up a missile attack. If a hostile aircraft is injudicious in its use of radar, the ALR-94 may provide nearly all the information necessary to launch an AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile (AAM) and guide it to impact, making it virtually an anti-radiation AAM.
(Obtained from f-16.net)

Here I’m referring to the idea of passive detection described in the above quote. A super-RWR type sensor working in conjunction with the PAK-FA’s 360-degree AESA arrays(wing, slat and tail) would make it a true mini-AWACS. If the beams are cued by a passive sensor having the same degree of accuracy claimed for the ALR-94, long-range ‘narrow boresight view’ becomes quite practical.:dev2:

The fact is that the LCA ended up 1.5 tons overweight. It was simply one of the slippages/design flaws that happen on such projects, no point blaming it on the IAF. Their ‘revised’ specifications in this case are for the under-development Mk.2(auxiliary air intakes, greater AoA, AESA radar etc.).

Artisan is a pretty capable radar in its own right. Technology-wise it may actually be more advanced than the SAMPSON, since it utilizes elements from a couple of other radar programmes, and it’s designed more as a multi-role radar. On the T26s it’ll serve as both air and volume search radar, and it can also perform air traffic control, useful for a carrier.
http://www.science.mod.uk/codex/issue2/news/news5.aspx

This image from some years ago shows that the initial plan was to fit Sampson on the CVFs.

What exactly are those metal cables jutting out of the sides of the deck? I’ve seen them on pretty much all modern CATOBAR and STOBAR carrier designs. I initially thought they were related to the arrested recovery system, but that probably isn’t the case.

I’m not going to take sides, but I must point out that using the abscence of legitimate technical information/evidence as a means to disprove an argument makes this entire discussion pointless. Because hardly anyone here has professional knowledge on aerospace matters, and no one here has evidence on RCS and other features on either the F-35 or the PAK-FA (beyond PR speeches and boasts). So for those blasting Kapedani for not knowing what the Russian engineers are doing, the same applies to you as well. No one can’t say for sure how stealthy or fast or heavily armed the PAK-FA will be, only make educated guesses based on facts and reasoning.