Sooo what Russian Naval assets are left outside Syria now. Are Peter still there?

A few days ago it was announced that the Kuznetsov group will be withdrawn (Pyotr Velikiy included).

https://www.rt.com/news/372804-syria-military-russia-kuznetsov/

I don’t think this is true.. only a mock-up of the R-27EP, right, but should be accurate enough..

Hmm, you’re right, the configuration looks exactly the same. And we probably won’t get a Russian Flanker flight manual anytime soon to see if these are mentioned.

In fact, the R 27EA had been equipped with 9B-1103K active radar homing seeker( ARH) that were almost the same like the 9B-1348E that has been used by R 77 ( RVV-AE) , so there are nothing mysterious about the R 27EA, since the R 77 has been produced and exported by Russia, then the R 27EA could have been produced and exported both from Russia and Ukraine if some customer had requested this BVR( Beyond Visual Range) missiles.

It’s not so simple. IIRC, the missiles were assembled in Ukraine (Artem), while some of the components were made in Russia (e.g. seekers) and the missile development is more than just slapping a new seeker on. Without seekers or even planes with radars capable of guiding them, it would be hard for Artem to developed them further on their own to be even able to offer them for sale. And that’s presuming that afterwards someone would opt to buy them instead of the much superior RVV-AE.

Since the R-27 missile family is limited to 8G, I would presume this is too limiting for a self-guided missile in the terminal stage and hence why it was not chosen for further development during the Soviet Union.

But the curious thing should that the MIG 31 from 1978 with its PESA N007 radar it has been capable of simultaneously engaging 4 targets with the R 33 SARH missiles, while the Su 35S from 2008 with its Irbis-E N035 radar has been capable to engage only 02 targets with SARH missiles like the R 27, but in the case of ARH missiles the number will be 08 targets.

The R-33 missiles have bigger warheads plus their targets were non-maneuvering bombers and cruise missiles so the somewhat bigger delay in target updates was probably not critical.

R-77 never got beyond the initial testing batch in Russian service.. They got widely exported, though..

Never said it did, just that it was chosen by the Soviet Air Force, leaving the competitor R-27EA project in the dustbin apparently.

RuAF didn’t have an aircraft in service capable of using them back then anyway (apart from about two dozen of 9-13S), but I guess they’re using them now as Su-35’s appeared with them IIRC.

I would presume those would be from some newly produced stock of RVV-AE? As IIRC, only about 200 of the original R-77 were produced for the Soviet Air Force before its collapse (which would be the initial testing batch you mentioned).

Come now Berkie, there are several versions of R-73 and R-27:
R-73 – Standard model with ±45° off-boresight.
R-27R: up to 80*km
R-27T: up to 70*km
R-27ER: up to 130*km
R-27ET: up to 120*km

Not really, AFAIK only these ones made it so far from the list, the others are mostly found on the Wiki pages (there is the R-27EM on the Su-33 that you missed, but it looks the same as ER and is pretty much the same thing, just that its seeker is better optimized to handle the sea clutter or something).

If you asked about the variants which I suppose you were trying to ask, nobody would raise an eyebrow, but you did ask “which missiles” with a picture showing the same old types seen on almost every Flanker photo which admittedly did seem odd coming from a frequent poster.

M-60T is also proven to be quite survivable to impacts to its front armor (no ATGM penatrations after ~20 attempts), Leopard 2 isn’t tested on that area yet (no hits to front armor as of now).

This video besides the M-60T tank getting, shows (presumably) the Cobra vehicle getting hit as well, but it does seem that the crew (or most of it) made it out alive fortunately.

I find it somewhat surprising they hung around the same spot carelessly after the tank got hit earlier, only to be hit by another missile from the same location. Can you tell if these are the FSA or Turkish troops?

I wonder what the logic is behind sending a mix of 9.12’s and 9.13’s. Why not send only 12’s or only 13’s. It is not like they are radically different in servicing but it is still odd.

If I understood correctly, they’d get upgraded (which Serbia will pay for) so perhaps to the same SMT standard in which case the initial variant doesn’t matter much (just guessing here, as I don’t think the exact scope of upgrades was published yet).

Or perhaps they don’t have that many airframes worth reconditioning left? I remember reading a few months ago that their last vanilla (9.12/13) MiG-29’s were then being withdrawn from service so I’d presume they either upgraded (or are in the process of upgrading) all the 29’s they intend to keep to SMT’s then.

Was there a number published on how many SMT’s they operate/will operate?

People learn something new every day, but i find it truly remarkable that after all these years on the forum you are still unable to id R-73 and R-27. Not like there are a million subversions of -27 either. That really takes some sort of talent. Not sure what talent, but some sort of talent.

I have to agree that it was a somewhat surprising question given the pretty much standard Flanker A2A weapons fit 🙂