The thing that strains credulity is that both of you view aircraft EW/SEAD/LO methods as static since the 90’s and air defense systems having made quantum leap in capability.

Both have advanced, if not in lockstep, in increments. The aircraft (while the airframes may be the same): have received or are about to receive enhanced EW gear, EA capability, upgraded ARM missiles, new standoff munitions. The LO aircraft are 30 years newer in concept and electronics from the first generation F-117. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Btw Havaarla, I’ve no idea how old you are but the revisionist idea that the Iraqi air defense system was second rate in 1991 is a canard. It was designed by the French, included western and Soviet missiles and radar directed AAA, with hardened C3 facilities. Other than the Soviet AD system, it might have been the best integrated air defense system in the world at the time. The ease at which it was dismantled should give pause to the idea that a terrestrial anti access/air denial system can survive a concerted EW, cruise missile, SEAD/DEAD assault without a strong air based AWAC and DCA force to deny high altitude sanctuary to the attackers.

Estimed FBW, certainly both AD system than EW/SEAD as all other sectors of aeronautics technology, have a natural increment through time, so one have to expect that one would at a given time cope with other only to be surpassed again as time go by and needing so to be renovated.
So , if you look in my own post I have pointed my focus not on the increased lethality and range covered, although they wereoin their own absolutely impressive thank to the widescale introduction of active homing, ESA radars and proportional guidance systems but insead on their increased survavibility and resilience, being for myself well aware about the reason of the downfall of the apparently impressive iraqi AD system (and of the one of the Syrian ones on the Beekaa valley in 1989).
LO is not the same thing, however, as it has precise phisical limits and tend of have a more limited increment capacity over the years,actual 5 gen fighters are not in any way more stealthier of the F-117 and the B-2, just have a way greater flight envelope and A2A capacity.
so, when I talked about an house of card falling down (and I think also Haavarla about zealots) rest assured that I refer just to the initial idea of getting rid of all the specialized EW/SEAD asset through the widescale adoption of LO planes, not to the general utility of RCS tecnologies and even less, from the opposite part, to the need of new efforts in the field of the “entry by force” mode.

The latest Jag upgrade for India is slightly more capable than what the AdA have with the 2Kd (it’s true that Weapon usage will still be a problem for Fr)

India Rafale buy is oriented toward strategic deterrence and A2A. More available Mirage airframe could help secure the next deal (the 2Kd is similar to the 2kN minus some systems – the 2N is being phased-out).

Available Typhoon MkI will help secure the next IAF buy. Their lack of readily upgradable system for A2g makes then redundant to UK and Germany. I am sure both AF will see the swap as a win-win strategy. IAF could gain immediately a potent defense picket able to complete their MKI force.

My country has already put 18 of them on the market, so Germany and Uk would come late anyway.

IMHO Jaguar, although a very good plane, is together with the similarly valid Su-17, Kfir and Mirage V a category of military planes, the light supersonic striker a.k.a. zoomers, that has became IMHO completely obsolete and superseded by multirole fighters, so if it is for fighting Jihadis let’s go Su-25 /A-10 instead and for any other things Tornado or F-16.

Also because , after losing the one of maneouvereability with the f-16D with tanks, someone we know cannot risk to lose also the one of low quote speed with Jag.:dev2:

You do realize that the C models were given the same windows dressings as the E model during the retrofits. Honestly, from the sounds of things in this forum people forget that the E has operated in SAM protected environments without exactly taking a beating. You would almost guess they were RCS the size of oceanliners. It’s never been the case and their RCS may not be down to Eurofighter levels, but it’s not much worse than fighters much smaller than itself.

It was not before the stealth, planes were helpless against air defense, just they had to enter by force using ECM and ARM or adopting super low flight5 profiles.
The idea was that thank to stealth alone you can get rid of all those things and so to compensate the great cost of the new technology by getting rid of all the “trimmings”.
IMHO it has not worked this way at all and all those new ways to penetrate enemy aerospace they hare actually thinking about (swarm drones, arsenal planes, stand off weapon9 are just a way to get back to an almost partial entry by force.

The full version of the earlier posted image of Kuz.

I don’t know why the guys are so much fixated on the kalibrs. Both Western and Russia media simply doesn’t fail to mention the Kalibrs. What the Task force needs is good anti-access weapons and there is no need to waste those limited 8-cell VLS with land attack cruise missiles. Better stock all the cells available with anti-ship (& anti-sub) missiles.

Newly commissioned Admiral Gligorovich has a fearsome ground attack capability in the form of Kalibr cruise missiles

“Fixation” are due to the fact that ship based land-attack cruise missiles were considerated until now an American exclusive, hence Russian brag about the newly acquired strategical parity while american are Uber-pis.ed about it.
And given the presence of the Peter the Great and two Udalojis there is not any shortage of both anti-ship and anti-sub missiles in the task force while instead trasforming less than 1000tons corvettes into strategical (and untouchable if in Caspian sea) assets is the best way to made Americans die of rage.

NATO gives code names, especially to Soviet/Chinese and other eastern bloc aircraft..
sometimes they sound weird and random like Fishbed, and other times they are offensive like Fagot,and sometimes cool like Fulcrum.

or do you prefer local names

Soviet/Russian names: nick names based on shape of the aircraft like Cheburashka or Suitcase

Chinese names: combine action verb (crouching jumping, leaping, flying, soaring, etc) plus zodiac animal (dragon, tiger, monkey, rooster) i.e. flying dragon, leaping tiger, soaring rooster

Also this depend from language, chinese words are short often monosillabic and rendered with ideograms so they feel they sound better when coupled.

Both for a grammatical rules of my own language that ban using two times the same world in a phrase.
Given that my own is also an ipotactical one i.e. tend to form long, composite phrases full of subordinatives it became quite a need.
Sometimes when I write in english, this rule backfire great time as it instead need the constant repetition of personal pronouns, hence the obscurity of some of my posts. :apologetic:

I wonder what would be the point then? If Zhuk-AME is ready as is, then so should AM.

Not a problem of disponibility but of preferences. It’s not an automatic thing
There are also Aesa versions of legacy Flankers radars ready but they still preferred a PESA for SU-35.
Russian with all probaility give more importance to radar scan section than to the (relative) advantages an AESA can bring over a similar PESA.
A PESA antenna can be mechanically turned to enhance it, with AESA it’s much more complex.

I replied you in PM as keeping on this would there would risk to derail thread further.