I don’t think you guys are getting the point of Occam’s Razor.

It is the problem-solving principle that the simplest solution tends to be the right one. When presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions.

On one side we have just “The Russian S-400 could not see them”.

On the other side is a whole host of mental gymnastics that have to be performed like:
–The one border that they needed to defend, was not being defended
–The Russians saw them but decided despite an integrated IADS to not do anything
–The Russians saw them, but the Syrians could not mount a defence in time so they did not even try
–The Iranians, which were there to obviously provoke the Israelis, did not have proper IADS integration
–The Earth is round and Russians & Syrians did not think of that before

Do you start to see how those things are the exact opposite of Occam’s Razor?

What was Russia’s purpose in integrating into the Syrian IADS if they could not respond to any Russian warnings?

Occam’s Razor states that Russia simply could not see the F-35s.

That’s what they have been claiming for years.

Given that Israel has used F-35s in Syria against Syrian and Iranian troops without nary a peep from the Russians in the way of a warning or a coordinated defence, I don’t put much stock in their claims of “anti-stealth” systems.

Um… What are you babbling about?

The F-35 that your link (ie from 10 days ago) talks about had it’s transponder on and was NOT detected by an air traffic radar site. The transponder “told” the radar site where it was which is different than the site “detected” it.

Your link from Defenseone is talking about a theoretical future war with China (which has nothing to do with the subject at hand) and the second talks about the transponders (which we already know exist).

You are using Total Thrust to get to that “20% more than the RM12” figure which negates super-cruise. Looking at the “Dry Thrust” numbers, the F414G only has 7% more than the RM12, not 20%.