-4- The Myasishchev M4/3M. Cool, but totally useless compared to the Tu-95. Given the tanker role out of mercy, like some other useless aircraft i can think of.

I used to feel this way, but apparently the aircraft does have its fans…

Stupid decisions:
-3- Like Duncan Sandy’s 1957 White Paper, the Khrushchev missile doctrine from the following year. Cancelled and/or limited a lot of interesting aviation projects in the Soviet Union.

I don’t think this was as bad an idea as everybody says. The Cuban crisis proved Krushchev correct – having lots of bombers was irrelevant, what mattered was how many missiles you had. And by the early sixties, USSR still didn’t have nearly enough, despite this doctrine, and had to back down.

Similarly, as a Canadian and a milav enthusiast, I think cancelling the Arrow was the right idea. The Soviet bombers it was designed to shoot down weren’t going to be coming anymore after Krushchev’s decision. Sure, thousands of workers lost their jobs and Canada never again became a world military power, but, when was the last time it lost a war as a result?

I don’t buy all the “the US made Diefenbaker cancel the Arrow so they could sell us their jets” stuff either. President Eisenhower, if you remember, was the man who saw the military-industrial complex taking hold of power in the US, and tried to warn the world not to let it happen. I think Diefenbaker got the message and was very careful not to let the same scaremongering institution take hold here. Hmm, maybe this belongs in the “myths” thread.

If you want a stupid Canadian cancellation, look no further than Chretien’s tearing up the EH-101 contract upon his election, and the interminable chain of disasters that followed. That political screw-up makes cancelling the Arrow look like a stroke of genius by comparison. I think he more than redeemed himself and the people who elected him though by keeping Canada out of Bush’s Iraq nonsense… You win some, you lose some.

Ultimately I think “everything happens for a reason.” Sure, it would have been nice if the AL-31F was ready in time so that the MiG-29 could have been a single-engine fighter. It would have been nice if the AL-31F was ready in time for the Su-27 too. The whole “why build the MiG-29 when you have the Su-27” would make a lot more sense if USSR had the Su-27 when they made the MiG-29… On the contrary, if not for the MiG-29, the Su-27 might be flying with the MiG-23’s radar, and Russia would still be unable to defend itself against Tornadoes.

While I put a *little* more trust in nations’ evolved procurement decision-making processes and aeronautical engineers around the world than enthusiasts whose solution to everything is always going to be just “buy more planes,” or even my own judgement, I do have my own “what were they thinking?” doubts about a few things that I’d like to share…

USSR/Russia:
– not developing a TV-guided anti-tank “Maverickski” for Su-25
– trying to turn the burnerless Su-25 into a multirole fighter
– co-axial rotors for Ka-50/52, which prohibit CAS choppers from using maneuvers learned in Afghanistan
– developing Yak-41 supersonic VTOL in parallel with a CTOL carrier construction programme
– trusting Antonov to design a “small” transport (An-70), only to re-invent the Il-76
– in the incessant race for more thrust, never developing fuel-efficient turbofans
– not putting a toilet in the A-50
– not putting a Narciss-M digital datalink into the MiG-29
– not further advertising the capabilities of R-77
– misleading about stealth, and everything else about the 1.42
– carrying, but not test-launching the Kh-41 from the Su-33
– not developing the Yakovlev carrierborne AWACS
– keeping the heavy bombers in Ukraine while Eastern Europe was collapsing
– during a fuel crisis, retiring single-engine jets and keeping twin-engine jets
– retiring the Su-17M4 and MiG-27 without an ARM-capable replacement

USA:
– letting USN and USAF have own Sidewinder variants during Vietnam War
– letting the USN have own aircraft designs after the F-111/F-14 save
– trying to replace A-10A with F-16C
– succeeding to replace F-111 with F-15E
– trying again to replace A-10A, this time with B-52
– the tanker fiasco
– spending to develop USAF further from the pinnacle way it was in 1991*
– spending to develop USN further from the pinnacle way it was in 1985*
– retiring the EF-111F
– chickening out of using AH-64s in Kosovo, then squandering them away in Iraq
– deciding to bomb Yugoslavia at all, and the delusional fallacy of “compellance” doctrine
– trying to keep both F-15 and F/A-22 production lines open at the same time

Hmm, I’m curious, does anyone detect a bias in my critique, one way or the other?

-SK

*From a favorite Ladytron CD: “You don’t have you spend, you just have to pretend.” 😉

The Shkval has both a narrow field of view for tracking targets (x23) and a wider field of view for searching for targets.

Ok, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here, I suspect we are sort of agreeing but talking around each other.

If you want to detect a tank quickly, then you need to use your eyes and be at close range.

If you want to detect a tank from a stand-off distance, then you need to use magnified optics, but this will take more time to slew the view around. In this case the slower your aircraft is, the better – it gives you more time to use the optics.

But to say that the Su-25TM can shoot at tanks from 10 km distance is a “brochure statistic”. By the time the pilot finds a tank through the Shkval at that range in a Su-25TM, in most situations he will have already closed to a shorter range simply by the aircraft moving to stay in the air. Seriously, the first use of the Maverick in the F-4 was considered “proof of the usefulness of the back-seater” because it was so much heads-down (looking at the screen instead of where the plane is going) work. The slow-moving A-10 gave the pilot enough time before the target to do it himself, but the fast-moving MiG-27K and Su-17 needed very skillful pilots and were never very popular for use with their TV-guided missiles. The single-seat F-16 can also use Maverick, but when the USAF tried to replace the A-10 with F-16 for the CAS role, the experiment was considered a failure. The official explanation was “excessive vibrations of the GAU gun pod when used on F-16,” but I suspect that poor suitability for using Mavericks on a fast-mover was also a part of it.

…the automatic navigation system can be programmed to reattack a target or to time simultanous attacks from several aircraft from different directions and to reattack targets from different directions.

It depends on the type of weapons used – crossing laser beams in different directions and firing weapons that follow them can be a dangerous idea.

What are you talking about high AOA? Are you suggesting that the Su-25TM is so underpowered that it needs to fly at 40 degrees AOA just to remain airborne? A 40 degree AOA might impair bombing capability but 2-3 degrees will have very little effect at all.

On the countrary, a typical HUD is less than 20 degrees from top to bottom. If it’s centered on the horizon, there’s typically about 10 degrees downward visibility over which a bombing pipper can be projected in the HUD. The bombing pipper is rarely near the center of the HUD, it’s almost always near the bottom edge. A few degrees AOA can be enough to drive the pipper below the edge of the HUD and force a CCRP mode. The fact that Su-25TM uses a MiG-29/Su-27-style air-to-air HUD, instead of a specialized, downward-tilted air-to-ground one like the A-10 doesn’t help.

Third party ilumination is fire and forget enough for the aircraft.

No, because fire-and-forget is not just about running away, but rather about being able to immediately shoot at something else.

Really? According to the brochures for Vikhr-M missiles can be launched at multiple targets that are relatively close together or two missiles fired at single targets.

Two per target is no problem but “multiple targets that are close together” – why do they need to be close together? I don’t know what they’re talking about but it doesn’t sound like fire-and-forget.

It has to wait but it doesn’t have to keep flying toward the target. Besides they use coded laser guidance channels for their tank gun launched anti tank missiles… why would they not be able to develop coded laser channels for their PGMs?

The laser is modulated but there is only one “code”, not multiple different ones. Variably-coded channels are good for radar missiles because they are connected electronically to the weapon system and can be tuned to the correct code or frequency before launch… AFAIK tube-launched laser missiles have no such electronic connection.

…the Shkval scans the target area automatically for tank targets.. which it identifies and locks onto. the pilot just needs to decide to fire or not. The Shkval even maintains the lock during manouver (Figures given for manouver capability during guidance of Vikhr is +-110 degrees in Yaw.)

Wow. Is all this from the same brochure? Bedretdinov gives the azimuth limits for Shkval as +-35 degrees, but the “automatic tank detection” sounds like science fiction. What does it do, draw a 3D-mesh from the TV image to see if there’s a turret?

Ahhh, yes… the Russians are crap and can’t design and make a decent optics system. The optics system of their TV guided bombs includes the capability to engage targets that are not visible or are low contrast targets but their location is known in relation to other visible landmarks, but they are rubbish too I guess.

If the performance is so good, why so many different optical systems developed for the same aircraft – Shkval, Merkuriy, Kinzhal, SAPSAN? I bought a Russian-made IR scope once and the picture quality was almost undescribably bad. Here’s a picture of Shkval in action:

All I see here is the boundary between earth and sky, with no ground detail at all. Does the tank need to be silhouetted against the horizon?

Laser guidance is more reliable and cheaper. It is a mature technology and you can change targets if you need to easily. Also it does not matter much what the target looks like… especially for beam riders.

This is all true, and why the Su-25 is better suited for some types of target (i.e. low-contrast, fixed) than the A-10.

Su-25T-fired Vikhr, on the other hand, requires both an optical lock AND laser guidance – with the weaknesses of both. Against what target can this be useful?

The Maverick can hardly be considered an anti tank weapon… it has a 50kg warhead it is a bit of overkill for tanks… for concrete structures it makes rather more sense and is rather more cost effective.

Concrete does not require an armor-penetrating shaped-charge warhead. The Maverick is among the most successful, proven anti-tank weapons ever devised.

-SK

Not strictly true. The Su-25 has normal takeoff and max weights of 14,520kg and 17,520kg repectively with two 4,100kg thrust engines.
The Su-25TM and SM both use a new engines with slightly more thrust and the TM weighs 16,800kg at normal takeoff and 20,500kg at max takeoff.

Ok, depends what you mean by “strictly”. R195 was already installed in late-model Su-25 and Su-25BM but if you want to compare against older R95Sh then the increase in thrust is about 5% – 4300 kg instead of 4100 kg. Sukhoi sometimes rounds off the R95Sh figure down to “4000 kg” and the R195 figure up to “4400 kg” to make the new R195 look better by comparison.

The extra weight is avionics, fuel and weapons. The extra fuel and weapons don’t need to be carried and the increase in avionics weight is not that great.

This is true – granted, good point. Extra fuel is usually “good” weight, usable weapons also. 🙂

Targets are more likely to be aquired by the Shkval-M electro-optic system than by the Mk-1 Eyeball. The Shkval can identify a tank at 10km range… I doubt an unaided human eye could do the same except in the desert.

I’m not sure what you mean here. If you mean spotting something on the ground, this really needs to be done with either the human eye in daytime or the Merkuriy LLTV pod at night. The Shkval FOV is too narrow for this type of “acquisition” so good forward visibility of the ground below is essential.

If you mean identifying, tracking and locking a target after it’s been spotted, then it’s not a question of likelihood but rather the human eye does not have the necessary electronics to guide weapons – it’s a necessary function of the Shkval regardless of forward visibility.

If you are bombing though, a high AOA makes it harder to find the CCIP pipper in the HUD – no matter how steep you dive, the bombs just fall even steeper below the HUD.

But Hermes is… it uses SALH so ground forces will mark targets. It is also possible that Pchelka UAVs might be used to mark targets too.

Third party illumination is not fire-and-forget. This is the same technology available to regular Su-25 (see below).

Sufficient to say that the tests that showed the Yak-130 to be more capable in the CAS role than the base model Su-25 was minaly because the more modern Yak-130 was able to use off platform target detection and marking to reduce exposure.

Do you have a source for this? What happened to Su-25 BOMAN illumination? :confused:

Which is because of their missions in the past of hitting one target hard and then returning to base rather than an Anti tank mission like an A-10 pilot would perform.

No, it’s because there is only one laser illumination channel. The second target cannot be illuminated until the missiles have hit the first target. By this time, the Su-25T has closed more distance than an A-10A does in the time it takes to switch to a new target after firing the first Maverick. Even if ground forces are doing the illuminating, the Su-25T has to wait before it can shoot at the next tank. The A-10A can more seriously consider making multiple passes over the same group of vehicles because it (and it’s wingman) have destroyed more of the defences during the first pass than the Su-25T can possibly accomplish. For the Su-25T to go around and make a second pass after having destroyed only one or two vehicles the first time is less advisable. And while the first Su-25T is shooting at the first laser-illuminated target, the wingman Su-25T can’t shoot LGMs at anything else nearby.

The Shkval-M has a FOV of +-115 degrees

Backwards? :rolleyes:

The Vikhr could be launched at maximum range of 10km and the Su-25TM could turn away and come around for another attack before it got within 6km of the target… which would keep it out of stinger range.

Treating the Vikhr as a standoff weapon due to its max range looks good on paper but in practice it’s asking a lot from the pilot – like, that we know the Stinger is located next to the tank, and that we know beforehand exactly where the tank is. In practice – how much time does it take to spot a tank from 10 km away? Through the magnified optics of the Shkval? While flying an aircraft? It’s hard enough to find the moon through a telescope. Which direction do you fly while looking for it? The Maverick has a max range of 20 nm but is always fired from much less – usually 1-3 nm.

What makes you think ramjets only work when supersonic?

Not “ramjets” but rather “Kh-31 ramjets”.

So much drag where?

There is “form” drag and “skin” drag. People usually think of frontal area “form” when they think of aerodynamic drag. In fact, the longest-range AIM-54 and R-33 missiles are quite fat for their length. The frontal area of 16xVikhr seems reasonable but the surface area between the individual missile containers is enormous and was designed with helicopters in mind. A little bit of AOA on the wing also creates a lot of drag.

Its acceleration and climb characteristics are actually rather better than some much faster jets. In fact in hot and high operations in Afghanistan Frogfoot aircraft flew on days Su-17s and Mig-27s couldn’t even take off on.

Can you provide a source for this? That’s the first I’ve heard of swing-wing aircraft being unable to take off.

With an 89kg HE warhead flying at an average of 670m/s I don’t think a shaped charge is strictly essential. Besides despite what it sounds like the anti tank role actually involves the destruction of vehicles of which the vast majority have rather less armour than a MBT.

True, but I’m also concerned about the quality of manufacture of the optical seekers on Kh-25M and Kh-29 missiles. The fact that the missile warhead is clearly designed for use against bridge & building targets makes me wonder if the TV-seeker has the performance to be used to lock up a tank. If it was, it would seem to me Russia would leap at the chance to build Maverick-like TV-guided weapons, instead of playing all these games with different types of laser guidance. An anti-tank weapon should be very clearly designed as such, not used in that role as an afterthought.

The ability to hit a fixed target in clear weather during the day can be performed by any aircraft…

You forgot “in close proximity to friendly ground troops”. Maybe true for the US today, with digital battlefield datalinks and GPS-guided weapons, but for any other country I would disagree, certain CAS aircraft are much better in this role than others.

nuke1: That’s not very nice, you ask me to share something with you just so you can mock me for sharing?

-SK

Can you give the page number that has this information? I can take a look when I get home.

-SK

Off the top of my head (no dictionary):

Evidence of a night intercept of an aerial intruder by Sergey Talanov over Khost, winter of 1988 – film from gun camera PAU-473. After takeoff from Bagram the MiG-23MLD pilot detected a target at 27 km range with the help of the “Sapfir-23ML” radar, and locked it up. At left – range scale, at right – altitude; the “A” symbol indicates “lock”, the circle marks the target to the right and above the fighter, glowing positions “2” and “4” [note: should be “3” and “4”?] indicates R-24R missiles are ready for launch (frame No. 3). During the approach to the target the target mark is aligned with the crosshairs, on the range scale is indicated minimum and maximum launch range R-24R and the command “back off” before switching to close combat mode [?] (frame No. 4). Target is located 3 km directly ahead, range scale switches to 20 km and then to 3 km more accurate display, at which time all missiles are ready for launch – glowing stations “1”, “2”, “3”, “4” and “PR” – “Launch Authorized”. The vertical “keel” in the center of the display indicates readiness to fire with the cannon (frame No. 6).
The attack was broken off by order from the ground control, fearing error in intercepting a target that was not visually identified, which could have been an Afghan or “neutral”.

-SK

Bitterest grad student on campus. 🙂

-SK

The best things in life are free. 🙂

If you like, you can express thanks to our friends in Moscow:

http://forum.lockon.ru/viewtopic.php?t=2086

…or, buy their flight sim! 😉

-SK