С Днем победы!

The aviation part of the Victory Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-h8ulL8MuI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAU4LLzTnxc

Topol-M night launch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIzXI-mlJjs

I just tried – after a bit in several other forums + my own thoughts – a first summary of details (some are already mentioned here):

1. The cockpit-canopy reminds my very much (like the T-50 at all) of the YF-23 -but there seems to be a strange middle frame..

Andi

The canopy will be f-22 style, no frames. A few months ago there was some leaked documentationon the net about the bid contract. I think it should be ready by this year’s end or something.

It has landed.

They had the early Soviet version of AEGIS – the Mars-Passat phased array on the Gorshkov (it is also on Kuznetsov), but as far as I know they never had it working properly. So now it will be removed from Gorshkov and replaced with something else, probably the Fregat series?

The sonar was also removed, I think I have seen pictures showing that its dome is now empty.

Well, detecting that a submarine is on a long patrol isn’t that difficult. Besides sattellites you need just one person in the entire city, internet access, and a basic idea who is in the crew of which submarine (a rather easy task in a relatively small city and given the fact that people tend to take photos in front of their subs). You can also try to monitor internet activity of the crew and their relatives (this is even easier and cheaper). Also, submarines returning from a long patrol are welcomed by their relatives (which could be a sizeable crowd). Thus, detecting that a submarine was on a patrol is NOT a difficult task.

As far as tracking the submarine by using a Virginia/Sea Wolf/Los Angelis – I can bet that it is not easy given the fact that the russians will know much better the hydrological conditions in the area, have the support of underwater microphones, probably an ASW ship or two, an attack submarine using an active sonar to check the area in front of the base, ASW aircraft, active decoys and so on (we are not even mentioning the tactical ideas on how to get the sub out of the base – you can even send 3 SSBNs out and then have two of them return on the next day).

Keep in mind the fact that Sea Wolf may be silent, but not undetectable. A person on a russian forum who probably knows much more about their navy than any of us here stated a specific occasion when the North Fleet tracked a Sea Wolf.

I would just like to point out once again that the AMRAAM is not a magical weapon, as far as I remember they had 3 or 4 of them fired against MiG-29s in Serbia in order to bring down one airplane. And this happened given the fact that the opponent had no ECM whatsoever, no radar, almost no GCI support, and RWR that was not always functioning => no chaff. All that against an attack from multiple directions (the attackers having the advantage of high altitude and thus more energy for the missiles) with AWACS support. I can’t imagine an easier target.

In any large-scale engagement between F-35 and Su-35BM/Rafale/Typhoon on relatively equal terms, I would not rely on 4 AMRAAMs only. Given that you will probably have to fire 2 missiles per target or go for single missile/single target, the success rate won’t be high. You should consider the fact that once you are left with 1 missile or no missiles at all, you need to get out of the situation fast. This means that the BVR engagement (we assume that the F-35s will have the first shot, given better stealth) will not start at close ranges, as the F-35s would have to risk running into a dogfight with the surviving enemy planes without having anything to shoot at them. One should mind the fact that once detected, the F-35 will be chased by the enemy, and supercruising won’t help that much at short dashes when the enemy uses their afterburners and his radar is scanning the back of your aircraft (no stealth). This means that the AMRAAMs will have to fly further, which increases time for detection/reaction/countermeasures. The opponent’s airplanes will have time to try and outmanuever/bleed the energy out of the missiles. Also, complex ECM could be employed easily within a formation of aircraft. I know how great “home on JAM” sounds like, but the opposing aircaft could use a relatively loose formation while constantly changing the number and position of aircraft that are activating their ECM (could be done on automatically). For example, if you are effectively jamming the incoming AMRAAMs from the left of your formation, the missiles will turn towards it. Then you switch to employing ECM from the right of the formation, forcing the missiles to make a turn and so on. Here I do not even count the possibility that some of the enemy fighters have dedicated ECM pods or that there are dedicated aircraft trailing the fighter formation and providing additional ECM support.
Thus, I can’t see how an F-35 with 4 AMRAAMs could score more than one kill against a relatively sophisticated enemy, and this is done given the fact that the enemy airplanes are twice or four times cheaper than yours. Also, they carry more missiles, so even a few survivors with R-73/4 or ASRAAMs could mangle your F-35s when they have ran out of missiles.

I wonder if the Russians would be interested in the not-so-far future in integrating a more “ground-like” version of the S-400/500 system on their ships. It would easily rival if not exceed anything anyone would be fielding in service, especially with improvements to the current design.

They are actually designing such a system, it is called Poliment (also a ground variant which is S-400’s little brother – it can use only 9M96E1 and 9M96E2 missiles and possibly 9M100 (ground version of R-77)). It will be deployed on the Gorshkov frigates, and some elements from it will go into the 20380 (it will use the 9M96E1 missile with guidance from Furke-E, although the radar could be replaced because it is quite problematic).

As for the AShM missiles – do not uderestimate them, aside from dancing in the final phase they can also use different tactics – 2 missiles flying one after another at a distance ot 100 or so meters 5 meters from the water surface could mean that the radar will only see one of them. A larger and more sophisticted missile could include its own ECM equipment and chaff, have a RAM coating. Also, a salvo could include missiles with anti-radiation, active, home-on-jam, and heatseeking seekers. In this way the efficiency of the passive countermeasures could be reduces significantly.

Also, (an idea that just occured to me) if one fires a coordinated salvo, one missile could take the lead and explode let’s say 8 km from the target and have only chaff without a warhead. In this way it can blind the ship radar for a few seconds and get a “tunnel” for the rest of the salvo. The same could be true for a dedicated ECM missile.

All in all, it comes to the point where you have to build a ship/missile by determining the possible opponents in order to stay on budget and have the needed capabilities.