Never said it was mission impossible but it is a fantasy weapon in the sense that no Bears in service today are able to carry the Kh-22.:rolleyes:

There is a least one:p

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1304767&tbl=MILITARY

So with one (centreline) drop tank, the Su-34’s ferry range would be about 4500km. With two (assuming there are wet wing points) it will be around 5000 km and with 3 tanks the range will be around 5500km.

That means with one tank and a 2000kg payload on a hi-hi-hi mission profile with no inflight refuelling and with no (or minimal) use of afterburners, the combat radius would be around 1700 – 1800 km.

If two tanks are used the combat radius will be just under 2000km.

In order to conduct missions beyond 2000 km, 3 tanks will be necessary but that will reduce the payload to next to nothing.

Edit: my calculations are based on the rule of thumb rule of dividing the ferry range by three to obtain the combat radius for a hi-lo-hi mission profile with the said bomb load. I added 200 -300 km to the combat radius because of the hi-hi-hi profile of my hypothetical mission.

I know plenty about the Club family.:rolleyes:

Good for you. Let us know if you learn anymore:rolleyes:

… constant re-evaluation is standard.

Indeed, re-evaluation is the only thing that comes standard these days;)

The Udaloys are for ASW not AAW escort.:rolleyes:

The Adm. Levshenko is Udaloy I class and is indeed more for ASW. The other ship (Adm. Chabanenko) is an Udaloy II class multipurpose vessel with the anti-sub REDUT (SSN-14) missiles replaced by anti-ship MOSKITs (SSN-22), it is more an antiship vessel than anti-sub altough it retains significant capabilities in the area too.

When the Moskva joins them in the Mediteranean, the task force will be a well balanced one.

You clearly missed the ‘in the coming years/decades’ part of my post.

I didn’t. I believe the same will hold true in the future.

There are currently quality issues with all those countries but this is now changing.

There will often be quality and all kinds of other issues all over the world. We are not living in a perfect world. Doing business (civilian or military) had, has and will always have issues, problems, headaches…

price service and quality all play a role…

Yes. I said the same thing in my above post.

…more important than politics

Here is where we disagree. Will the USA sell F-16s to Syria? would South Korea buy J-10s from China? and a gazillion other examples I can provide. Nothing to do with price, quality or service….pure political…definitly not a buyer’s market.

If Russia continues in this fantasy land where they think they can treat their customers like dirt then they will suffer.

Yet their sales have been growing steadily (check the article I posted earlier). Which means that either:

a- It is more of a seller’s market.
b- The Russians are not as bad a business partner as some posters here want to portray them.
c- both a and b.

Why do people buy American?

Do they? check the country of origin of most of the goods you buy at your Wal-Mart and other local stores. Check the competitiveness of your big 3 automakers. May I remind you the sad story of the Winchester (civilian) guns plant that closed down last year etc.etc.etc. Believe me Sealord, for the sake of your own US arms industry you don’t want a buyer’s market.

Anyways, as I mentioned earlier, we have taken this topic off track. If you wish to continue to debate this subject with me, I suggest we revert to Private Messaging.

The aircraft basically flew round Syria via the med and into turkey so they only passed through Syria only on the return flight

How do you know that? Maybe they flew back the same way they came in? Isn’t it safer that way?

Which further suggests that the dropping of the fuel tanks is a standard practice before entering hostile airspace in order to improve performance.

In other words, are you saying that the israelis still consider the old Syrian airdefenses to represent a credible threat to their aircraft?

If the tanks had been jettisoned over Syria itself it would be different but over Turkey, I think not.

Difficult to make a firm conclusion on that one. Given the distances involved. If the aircraft were egressing towards Turkish airspace, tanks jettisioned over Syria may have fallen on the Turkish side of the border.

guys,

-unfortunately-

russia has done this many times before, and will continue to do so. some of its state bureaucrats will pull tricks like these on the end customers. and which is what gives quality control a bad name.

and the less said about how pathetic mig can be in this dept, the better.

india received initial tunguska SAM systems which were already used and had bullet holes which were patched up!

when india evaluated whether to buy t-72 s (new) or t-90s, the army evaluators found the t-72 s batch “ready to be shipped to india” was used, had seen damage and had been hastily and poorly repaired.

so googeler is entitled to hold his opinion and he is correct that such things do pop up with russian exports, especially with mig.

when india tried to source spares for mig-21s from russia, they received a parts list which ahd prices 10x what was the actual list in russia.

when they attempted to ask mig to rectify design flaws in mig-21 the mig firm refused to assist initially with flimsy excuses and only did so after the indian govt made it a govt to govt issue.

some russian firms business practises leave a LOT to be desired as they tend to think the customer is a easy mark who can be looted and wont realise whats what.

the problem is that some customers get very touchy and then decide to walk out of the deal. others like india who have decades of working with russia, work around the problems and get the issues fixed.

Delays in implementation, delays in shipment, damage during shipping, cost escalations and quality problems are called “spices of business” by some businessmen.
Unfortunately, the above problems and the specific examples you mentioned in your post are common occurence in business(civilian or military) all over the world.

In most cases they are more based on perception/misinterpretation/misunderstanding rather than bad intent.

This particular problem with Algeria seems to be more of a political nature. I am sure we are not aware of the whole facts involved (the big picture). But, hey, what are discussion forum for? 😉

I just found this article in the Russian press:

Liquid Arms
// Arms exports hit an all-time high
Russia has exported record-high $7 billion arms in 2007, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov said on Monday. Still, it came short of $1 billion as a ship construction contract with Algeria was frozen over tensions in the bilateral relations. Russian arms sales have doubled over the past seven years when arms exports have been overseen by Rosoboronexport’s former CEO and Rostekhnologia’s new director general Sergey Chemezov.
Sergey Ivanov said on Monday “there are good reasons to say that this year the benchmark of $7 billion has been surpassed” to beat the record of $6.5 billion in 2006. Arms exports are growing on major deals signed between 2004 and 2006. During that period a number of Muslim countries were buying a lot of arms from Russia at the backdrop of U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq as they perceived Moscow if not as America’s enemy but at least a rival. In the meantime, the Russian military industry has bounced back from the 1990s slump on export contracts which built groundwork for large-scale serial supplies.

The biggest part of the contracts was executed by Rosoboronexport, the state arms exports agency which was set up in November 2000. Arms producers and designers are now allowed to export only spare parts and do repairs and modernization of the hardware they have exported. Rosoboronexport was first headed by Alexander Belyaninov but it was Sergey Chemezov who was doing preparations for all major deals. Mr. Chemezov went on to take the helm at the firm in April 2004. His old friendship with Vladimir Putin made sure that the state was very supportive of Russian arms export projects. On November 26, 2007, Mr. Chemezov became head of the state-run corporation Rostekhnologia which will merge with Rosoboronexport. Over Sergey Chemezov’s seven years in Rosoboronexport, sales of Russian arms abroad went up from $3.68 billion in 2000 to $7 billion this year.

Rosoboronexport would not comment on Mr. Ivanov’s announcement on Monday. Mikhail Dmitriev, head of the Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service, said that “aviation is still in the greatest demand – Su and MiG jets and Mi helicopters”. Russia will have exported 70 Su-30 fighters alone to India, Algeria, Venezuela and Malaysia worth $3 billion this year. “This was a record-breaking year for us,” Oleg Demchenko, president of the Irkut corporation, told Kommersant. “The plant in Irkutsk will assemble 43 Su-30MKI, Su-30MKM and Su-30MKI(A) fighters by the end of the year. We were not producing as much even in the Soviet times.”

There have also been major deals in missile defense systems. Early this year Mr. Ivanov announced a contract with Iran on the Top-M1 short-range complex to be executed. Meanwhile, Russia is still doing a contract with China on a long-range system S-300PMU-2.

Scheduled naval supplies have failed. Indian fleet officials said in September that the leasing of the Chakra nuclear submarine of the 971 Shchuka-B project was put off until June 15, 2008 after the Amursky Shipyard in Komsomolsk-on-Amur was 9 months late with the construction. Russia also insisted that the bill should grow from $650 million to $785 million. India agreed to the postponement but would not have the price reviewed.

Several contracts with Algeria which were part of an $8 billion package deal signed during Vladimir Putin’s visit to the country in March 2006 have been frozen at Algerian authorities’ initiative. The chill in the bilateral relations seems to be linked to the domestic situation in the country as well as France’s resurgence in the region.

Apparently, these reasons can account for a $1 billion drop in exports compared to estimates at the start of the year. Mikhail Dmitriev said in February: “In 2007 we may reach the level of $8 billion in military and technical cooperation.” Still the named $7 billion may be viewed as a rough estimate. For example, in 2005, results of the year’s arms trade were revised several times. In December 2005, the Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service reported the year’s exports to reach $5.1 billion, which was $700 million below 2004’s indicator. Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed later at a session of the Military and Technical Cooperation Commission revised figures of the exports of $5.3 billion. In January 2006, Sergey Ivanov was already quoting a figure of “over $6 billion”. Finally, Mikhail Dmitriev in February announced exports to stand at $6.126 billion in 2005.

In the short term, Russian arms exports are likely to keep growing, which is proved by a rise in exporters’ contract portfolios. Mr. Dmitriev said in February that the portfolio was worth $30 billion, $20 billion of which accounts for Rosoboronexport, which will make sure Russia exports are at least no less than in 2007 for two or three years to come. The head of the Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service said on Monday: “Currently the portfolio is worth over $32 billion, which allows us to be confident about military and technical cooperation in the future. The start has been launched by Rosoboronexport which will have a portfolio of orders of $24 billion.” Exports in 2008 are also expected to be dominated by air force supplies including Su and MiG fighters to India, Venezuela, Indonesia and Syria. There are also supplies of missile defense systems to China and Syria, military ships to Vietnam, and submarines to India and Algeria.

But experts say that Russian arms exports might slump in three or four years’ time. “We will reach some sort of ‘tableland’ with the $7 billion,” Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Strategy and Technology Analysis Center, told Kommersant. “Our export will be keeping at the same level in the next three to four years if the current political situation in the world persists. But this ‘tableland’ may be followed by a dramatic fall.” The expert says that the Russian military industry is desperately understaffed especially with highly-skilled workers. At the same time, inflation in the industry is higher than the national average. In 2007, prices in Russia will grow some 12 percent while the military and industrial complex will see a 20 percent jump. Mr. Pukhov also said that the industry sees a steep growth of overhead expenses as it is not using energy saving technologies. As a result, Russia may not be able to produce some specimens of arms while others will be impossible to sell at a competitive price.

Konstantin Lantratov and Alexandra Gritskova

Source : http://www.kommersant.com

At the end of the day the customer shouldn’t have to work round it. If you got shoddy service in a store you’d walk away and/or demand a refund, why should different standards apply to defence companies?

As consumers, this is the mentality that is deeply embedded in our brains.

Arms deals are as much (if not more) political than financial. Forget the retail mentality where customer is king.