Hmm, that doesn’t look like “Hot Skies”… Rather page 90 from a certain 260-page book… Why do I get the feeling there’s going to be more where that came from. 🙂

1 – Permitted range according to remaining fuel
2 – Displacement from the assigned course
3 – Waypoint with ID number
4 – Assigned course line (?)
5 – Airport with ID number
6 – Radio beacon with ID number
7 – Scale: 1 cm on screen = 50 km
8 – friendly wingmen with velocity vector, altitude line, and ID number*
9 – another group of friendly aircraft with velocity vector, ID number (2), quantity of aircraft in the group (4)
* – in the “Narciss-M” system, friendly aircraft are indicated with a circle at the bottom of the symbol, and the true airspeed of each is shown in a rectangle in the lower right corner of the display screen.

-SK

Afghanistan? Sudan? Iraq?

Whoops, scratch that last one. 😀

Basically any nation needing a defence against sea-launched cruise missiles.

-SK

Kovy speaks of the real thing. Get it while it lasts:

ftp://ftp.virtualflight.ru/documentation

Freshly declassified. 😀

-SK

I am chucking away my AFM MAGS and

Before you throw these away!

Do you have the January 2002 issue, as referred to in message #22 of this thread:

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=34208

?

or the “reply” that Nixon wrote? I would be curious to read these articles.

Thanks,

-SK

Actually the Su-25TM has long range Anti radar missiles in the form of 120km range AS-11s and 100km range AS-17s. It also has radar and IR jamming systems and of course Chaff and Flares.

In this thread, I have attempted to separate the proud Su-25 from its illegitimate offspring. Nevertheless if people insist to bring the Su-25TM’s advertised “capabilities” into this, I challenge anyone to provide a cockpit photo of any Su-25T or Su-25TM with even an RWR display by which to detect emitting radars – let alone aim ARMs at them.

Actually the Su-25TM can use TV guided (ie passive) Kh-29TDs. Later models of this missile have a range of 30km and the 317kg HE shaped charge warhead would be quite potent against a ship.

True, but Su-17/22 and MiG-27K/M had TV-guided missiles long before.

Sorry but firstly I don’t believe that it could manage that. And second even if it could it had better fire 9 Mavericks at each of those airdefence vehicles because the missiles on Tor and Tunguska can engage ASMs.

Tor is radar-guided. If an A-10 detected one of those on its RWR, it would stay away and call in a HARM shooter. A Su-25 would fare no better.

Tunguska is tricker. The missiles are radar-guided but so short range that they can use short-wavelength AAA-frequency radar, so the A-10 might not know what it’s really up against. The Warthog would probably skip the cannon attacks in the presence of AAA radar and just stick to Maverick shots from out of the guns’ effective range but a Tunguska could fool it into an ambush. Nevertheless, once again in this scenario, the “added knots” of Su-25 would be no help whatsoever.

The ability to shoot down “ASMs” does not equate to the ability to shoot down Mavericks. Honestly, I would be delighted if someone could share any evidence of one of these ever being shot down by anything, even in tests.

Attacks will be coordinated with many other assets most likely including SEAD aircraft and Helos liek Apache.

It depends on how strict is your definition of “coordinated” – being airborne at the same time in the same sky, maybe. But actually taking off and sticking together throughout the sortie and responding to a CAS call as a group? Such operations would be doomed. The USAF is unable to operate even different versions of F-16 in a single package together because of different cruising speeds and fuel consumption rates. Trying to keep HARM-shooters, A-10s and helicopters moving together would be like herding cats.

Against a fixed target like a building that is holding up the advance then there might just be two or four Hogs taking turns, but against a well defended target a hog alone is dead.

Oh you mean I was suggesting ALONE alone. I thought I was quite illustrative to describe them working in a wingman pair, as normal.

(Remember that each Soviet Tank battalion had plenty of APCs with it and each of those APCs carried a gripstock and 3-4 missiles depending upon the vehicle type… Iglas… not Strelas.)

Carried internally. They have to first detect the aircraft, then stop and disembark the vehicle to use those while on the march. By that time, it’s too late for “defense” – what you’re talking about is “revenge”, which is strategically worthless.

Some might think that way, but that aircraft has just killed some of your mates… you gonna run away like a little girl or are you going to point that SA-16 and bring down a hog…

You and nuke1 can take turns giving pep talks to your troops. Mine will have orders to scatter. There is no hope for a moving convoy caught on a road by Maverick shooters. Save the Iglas for helicopters that will come hunting for survivors after dark.

Engaging an already defeated enemy that is actually in retreat that is not even in battle formation is hardly a good comparison to what the A-10 would normally do.

True enough, the A-10 is supposed to hit things going in the other direction. Best argument of the entire thread IMHO, although that’s damning with faint praise… the “highway of death” is the best evidence we have of the A-10’s uselessness?

Yeah, right. No wonder they didn’t use A-10 in Kosovo… BTW if everyone just cowers in a corner when they see an A-10 why bother with all that armour… what a waste of potential payload or fuel capacity.

Why bother building nukes? If the armour deters people from shooting because they know it’s pointless to do so, then it is as much worth having as if it had actually deflected the bullets.

A-10s weren’t used in Kosovo because there were no allied ground forces in Kosovo, and so no armor threat. The main vehicle targets were SAMs, against which A-10s and Su-25s are next to useless. Destruction was delivered at the allies’ convenience, not in response to CAS calls for help against enemy actions.

Any fighter can bring down any CAS aircraft very easily. The Speed of the Su-25 is for getting to and from the target area quickly and making itself a more difficult target to ground defences.

Agreed..

A slow target is a hit target… when it first came out the A-10 could survive hits from 23mm… the main threat to aircraft… now most modern army uses 30mm or larger and missiles capable of turning an A-10 into scrap.

Guns shooting up are shorter-ranged than guns shooting down fairly regardless of caliber, and generally need some easily-detected radar lock for aiming. The only way AAA is likely to hit a well-piloted jet is if it’s being aimed in a “stealthy” optical mode against an attacker that is flying directly towards it, in which case the jet’s speed makes little difference.

Army-deployed IRH SAMs are no less capable against the “extra knots” of Su-25 than they are against A-10. That’s why the Su-25 needed flare launchers to be installed.

Su-25TM and Su-25SM

Such “capabilities” as these aircraft (which again I am NOT talking about when I say “Su-25”, just to give my opponents a fighting chance 😉 ) are purported to have beyond those of the A-10 are totally unrelated to their speed.

Its BVR AAM weapons allow it to defend itself rather better than an A-10

And how will it target those BVR weapons? The Kopyo radar pod will look up through the Su-25TM fuselage? Or the threats against which Su-25TM will “defend itself” will be at lower altitudes? 🙂

No, no, I promised to limit myself to the Su-25, which is actually a respectable aircraft…

Rubbish. The A-10 is a tank killer… and a good one, but a bit to restricted in role.

Agreed, but… how does that make it “rubbish” that the Su-25 is “designed for exactly one mission: to respond to a call from ground forces for a directed airstrike against an unmoving target?”

The Su-25TM carrys Vikhr ATGMs and TV guided missiles and weapons that all have capability against moving targets.

Agreed..

Do Su-25s operate alone?

Who else is going to laser-illuminate a ship at sea?

There are TV and IIR guided versions of the Kh-25 and the larger Kh-29.

I get the impression you don’t share my admiration for the non-TM Su-25, which can’t use TV-guided weapons.

The Su-25TM was intended for battlefield Europe WWIII… it was designed in the mid 80s during the war in Afghanistan when export success was irrelevant.

You might be thinking of either the Su-25T or the abortive S-37. Su-25TM was a 90s child.

And if it is heading toward you I guess you can shoot instantly… no missile warmup times or seeker aquisition times at all?

Not with the guns we were talking about, nope.

Wonder why strike aircraft waste time flying so fast…

Please, read that sentence again.

The R-60MK is an all aspect IR homing missile…

…when the target is in afterburner.

We should focus on the point without all these leaps into Su-25TM fantasy-land. The argument that the A-10 is at a disadvantage to the Su-25 because of its slower speed is made by people who are not closely familiar with both the aircraft. For years, the West had no idea the Su-25 even had a laser designator, and the mission of knocking out armor convoys is something totally foreign to a Su-25 pilot (yes, even the Su-25T and Su-25TM – these are able to target individual tanks on the battlefield, not convoys in transit). To target more than one object on a single pass, slow speed is the single greatest asset a CAS aircraft can have. This is why CAS aircraft have such carefully engineered flaps and speed brakes – yes, even the A-10 has massive airbrakes! High speed is only an option if you have made a decision somewhere along the way that you are happy to limit yourself to attacking only one target per pass. It has nothing to do with being a “better design” or “more multi-role” any more than the F/A-22 is at a disadvantage to a submarine because it can’t fly under water. Being slow is an inherent part of the A-10s usefulness, but is not an advantage for the Su-25. It makes no sense to compare an imaginary “if the Su-25 were that slow” or “if the A-10 were that fast” any more than it does “if the F-22 flew underwater” – it simply has no use for such capability in its role, even if it were available. Flying fast prevents the A-10 from shooting at multiple targets, just as flying slow offers no benefit to Su-25 without fire-and-forget weapons to take advantage of it.

-SK

It is not true that 3M was inadequate as a weapon. 3M was the best soviet heavy bomber; it was better than Tu-95 : speed, range, weights, takeoff and landing characteristics, low-level capabilities, crew, reliability. There was one weakness — Myasishev wasn’t as faithful to communist party as Tupolev was.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

It requires quite an imagination to say the U-2-like 3M planform, which was converted for use in a stratospheric research aircraft, has better “low-level capabilities” than the Tu-95 airframe, which was converted to hunt submarines.

It takes an impressive bias to say that the bicycle 3M, which achieved a 30% self-destruction rate to catastrophic accidents in the first 3 years, has better “reliability” and “takeoff and landing characteristics”.

But to say the turbojet 3M had greater range than the turboprop Tu-95 requires… a little more reading, to be polite. :rolleyes:

As for “party faithfulness…”

The true story is that when Stalin demanded a Soviet intercontinental jet bomber, Myasischev the fantasizer told the Soviet leader what he wanted to hear, while Tupolev insisted that Soviet turbojet technology was not yet sufficiently mature for such a task. Tupolev enraged Stalin, but was respected because of his proven experience, and so the two bombers 2M and Tu-95 were allowed to be developed in parallel. In the end, Tupolev was proven correct. The Tu-95 achieved the required range using turboprop engines, whereas the “more advanced” Myasischev design simply could not reach.

This pattern repeated itself with the flop M-50 and M-61. Myasischev became famous for forward-thinking but overoptimistic designs that ultimately fell far short of their design goals, whereas the more conservative Tupolev learned to co-operate with industry to get real results. It was the Myasischev bureau that could only survive as long as it did due to party connections.

This is not strictly a Myasischev or Soviet problem. For all the things it does extremely well or better than the USAF, the US Navy has also proven completely incompetent in getting results to design new aircraft since the 70s – witness the flop F-111 “fighter” and A-12. The F/A-18 was borrowed from an Air Force project and the best they can manage is to have it modified that with various questionable design tweaks, having no idea where to begin organizing a true stealth fighter design effort of their own.

The M-18 was handed to the Tupolev bureau to save it and ensure it would reach fruition. There was no chance for a luxurious fly-off competition of more than one such large and expensive design.

-SK

NO swink, i mean it’s a real dangerous to attack so many times in a single battle over a enemy quite alerted by the first. Do you have problems to imagine how many holes the A-10 could gain if it flies so many strafing attacks?

Indeed I do.

Since the Maverick is fire-and-forget, and the A-10 flies pretty slow, a single A-10 has the ability to destroy the first vehicle in the column, the last vehicle in the column, and two recognizable air defense vehicles with Mavericks, then aim the gun for a strafing run on any troops that look like they are sticking around getting ready to shoot instead of running for their lives – all in the first pass.

With the A-10’s fuel load, a second (or more) pass is possible, but I can’t imagine why it would be necessary. The pilot would only do it if there was no air defense resistance.

Even if the target starts shooting back, the A-10’s wingman can see and destroy the surviving defenders while the first A-10 is turning around for a second pass. Who in their right mind would be shooting back? Even the successful destruction of an A-10 cannot compensate for the damage that has already been done by this point. With no possibility to win anything useful, and every possibility to be killed, the defenders should run for their lives. The additional passes are conducted to disable the remaining equipment and prevent its use in the future, not to go head-to-head against a still fighting opponent.

And even if the A-10 is hit using this tactic, it stands a very good chance of survival, as multiple battle-damaged A-10s have shown.

If you feel this tactic would never work, or the scenario would never happen, how do you explain the “highway of death” in 1991? Where were the “modern AD defences” and “eventually fighters” then? The fire-and-forget, optically-guided Maverick weapon, combined with low approach speed and lots of bullets, makes the A-10 superbly designed to take advantage of this situation.

No, i mean that it’s not so sure that this tecnic of attack, if repeated as to fully deplete the huge drum belt, could be VERY dungerous, expecially if you consider that therse strafings are with the speed les tahn 500 kmh. Have you some problems to imagine what such plane could face if it tries to do so?

A terrified, fleeing ground force running to hide at the sides of the road?

The speed of the froogfot is atleast good to not to be heasily hitten or reached by AA and fighters, Extra knots are essentialy to do this.

Su-27 were shooting down Su-25 over Abkhazia without difficulty. The extra knots of Su-25 are for approaching and leaving the target defenses, they have nothing to do with evading fighters.

If we are talking about AA, see below:

Supersonic fighters are not so able to fly slow like teh CAS planes but the A-10 was projected with too much emphasis on these and so it isn’t a equilibrate design, usable mainly if the USAF has the total air dominiance.

I would argue that “total air dominance” is nice but not necessary. It is sufficient to have only “local air superiority” during the time of the battle. A pair of F-15s circling high over the action can detect and intercept any approaching fighters without being themselves in danger from the ground forces. Slow speed and lots of bullets is not sufficient proof that the A-10 is intended to operate in enemy-controlled airspace. The enemy will try to support its ground forces even when you control the airspace over them, and this is where the usefulness of the A-10 is seen.

Perhaps this is the reason of the lack of export of A-10??

This is a fair question. I don’t have an answer, but I do think that the Turks were as foolish as USAF to say that they have “no use for such primitive technology.”

you can deny all you want about the frogfoot capabilities,

Eh? What capabilities of Su-25 do I “deny”?

but relatively on the A-10 it can do a lot of things: it’s speed can be good enough to perform quite well in roles that none has ever thinked for the A-10.

Please, name the roles. Name the missions that the speed of Su-25 allows it to do, that the A-10 cannot. To penetrate enemy fighter-controlled airspace? Nonsense. To penetrate airspace controlled by radar SAMs? Nonsense. Landing on a carrier is not a role or mission.

this is finally a too specialized designs, and the frogfoot doesn’t.

The Frogfoot is at least as specialized a design as the A-10. It is designed for exactly one mission: to respond to a call from ground forces for a directed airstrike against an unmoving target. It needs a higher speed because its fuel load is smaller, so it will probably be starting from the runway when the call is received. The A-10 can afford to be slower because its fuel load allows it to already be somewhere in the air when the call is received.

the real equal was the pucara’ attack plane, showing a overall failure as combat.

The Pucara cannot be compared to the A-10 because it carries no fire-and-forget weapons that are good against moving targets. The primary feature of the A-10 is not its speed or damage resistance but its fire-and-forget air-to-ground missiles that can retain lock on moving surface targets. If the Pucara or any other aircraft had such weapons it would have been a stunning success in that role.

Atleast the su-25 has laser weapons and these can be a danger for a seacat defended vessel, doen’t it?

How will the moving ship stay illuminated during the missile time of flight? With the Su-25 keep itself pointed at the ship no matter where it moves? This is a problem target for a SeaCat? After missile launch, even our imaginary “Maverick-equipped Pucara” would have been able to maneuver away, regardless its slow speed.

I think that the argentians could have aprreciated these plane if they could have them in that time, perhaps with a IFR capability.

Well, a laser-guided missile is better than unguided weapons against a ship target, but an optically-guided weapon is much better.

NO you seems not understund. The F-16 could be still a multi role fighter even if hasn’t harm or harpoon. It’s the project that make the difference.

Ok, so there are two different definitions of “multi-role fighter”.

One is the kind of “multi-role fighter” like tha F-16 and F/A-18, where a single aircraft can perform different missions depending on its armament. Let’s call this “multi-role fighter definition A”.

The other is the kind of aircraft that can be modified into many different variants, with each variant performing a different task, like Su-27/Su-30/Su-33/Su-34/Su-35/Su-37/Su-27KUB. Let’s call this “multi-role fighter definition B”.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that neither the Su-25 nor the A-10A qualify as “definition A”. However, the “cost” of developing the A-10A so completely for the CAS role is that the same design cannot now be modified into other roles, like the Su-25, according to “definition B”.

In that case, we have an actual disagreement. I consider all modifications of the Su-25 for other roles to be inherently inferior aircraft. This includes the Su-25UT trainer, the Su-25UTG carrier trainer, the Su-25T anti-tank variant, the Belarussian Su-25UB antiradar upgrade, the Su-25TM/Su-39 multirole attack aircraft, the Su-25K Scorpion and everything else.

The A-10 and original Su-25 were well-designed, no-compromise combat aircraft successes. The modifications of Su-25 are IMHO cheaply engineered hacks trying to be economic successes.

Thus, I don’t think at all that the “cost was too high” that the A-10 was designed for its role and nothing else. On the contrary, this is its greatest strength, and the reason why all attempts to replace and retire it are failures.

ATLEAST the froogfot was made also as naval role, the A-10 doesn’t. Not that the Su-25 are navalized, but none A-10 is navalized, so atleast as flexbility of the family versions the froogfot have a point.

As stated, IMHO this “family flexibility” is a disadvantage. The attempts to make a CAS aircraft into something else only consume resources and interfere with the creation of a more suitable alternative.

Do you have problem with me or you suffers oshortage of arguments?

No not just you. 😀

because you haven’t clue of what it means. Try if happens, to aim something ( harm, an umbrella,) to a fast jet or a trainer flyng over your head and you will understund better why the speed is a garantee. With “kids” this game could help.

If the aircraft is not moving towards me, it can’t shoot at me either. Whether it lives or dies is none of my business.

If the aircraft is moving towards me or away from me, it is easy to point at it no matter what is its speed.

-SK

well i don’t agree at all. the A-10 is indeed to be projected to fly longer in the battle area than any other aircraft.

How is that a disagreement? Are we talking about loiter time or speed? You appear to be saying that a longer endurance is somehow a combat disadvantage.

What should been the role of the avenger drum belt of 1000+ rounds, if not to make 10-15 strafe on the target? more the ext. weapons.do you think that a eventually fighter in the area was ignoring the A-10 leaving it to make what it wanted? not only in a defended area the A-10 is present for more time than the froogfoot but also it cannot nor be unseen nor escape by a fighter or even a trainer or attack -why not, by a Su-25.

Neither an A-10 nor a Su-25 is going to last very long in the face of radar SAMs or enemy fighters, extra hundred knots or no extra hundred knots. The primary function of speed on a CAS aircraft is to get to the target fast enough so that it’s still there, and then to deny a shot to MANPADs and AAA during egress.

It also seems you are saying that the ability of the A-10 to make “10-15 strafe on the target” is actually an inability to do something else. Interesting way of looking at it.

I don’t mean the advanced frogfoot only as multi-role fighter. i mean all the froogfoots.

A one-pass-haul-ass, radarless, HUDless, MFDless, ARMless, ATGMless, VFR-only, garden variety Su-25 is what you call a “multi-role fighter”? What do you call the F/A-18?

with a A-10 what can you do seriously an: emergency air defence, an strike mission (behind the enemy front), or a anti-ship mission?

So, the A-10 is not merely an inferior close air support (CAS) aircraft, now CAS doesn’t even rank as one of its missions at all. Rather, the first role that comes to mind for it is air defence?!

the Su-25 can do rougly the same things of a A-4, it’s even available in a naval version, more it’s better as air support plane. the majority of A-4s hadn’t AS missiles at all-see the argentinians against teh british, and they aren’t armoured.

Please, please. Bear with me while I see if I have this straight.
The A-4 is a “multi-role fighter,” I presume, because it can drop bombs and shoot anti-ship missiles.
Except, shooting anti-ship missiles is not a requirement to be multi-role because a majority of A-4s can’t do that.
Therefore, the Su-25 is also a “multi-role fighter”, because, it can drop bombs.

Am I understanding this so far?

It also helps that the A-4 can take off of a carrier. Apparently this, too, counts a “role”.
A garden variety Su-25 can’t take off of a carrier, but that’s ok because there is the Su-25UTG that can. Never mind that the UTG is not a garden variety Su-25, or that the UTG is an unarmed trainer lacking the targetting laser and gun and unable to actually deliver any ordnance to a target – irrelevant. What matters is that it is able to fulfill the carrier takeoff “role”, thereby making the garden variety Su-25, which cannot fulfill this “role”, regardless somehow even more “multi-role”. After all, we are not talking about advanced or modified Frogfoots but rather ALL Frogfoots.

First the existence of air as evidence of bomber stealth, then how to make a plasma out of a plasma, now this.
Lively forum…

More, as the attemps and their dangers. What do says that a single passage at low speed is less dangerous than two at high?

No argument.

-SK