This whole thing started with the government sniping at its own people!

They keep them in the city and then they and the Russians can say “oh well, we tried. You can’t say we didn’t try…” They will then increase the bombardment under the pretext that they gave anyone truly innocent the chance to escape.

PLEASE, instead of saying such absurdities , gave just a look on twitter, it’s full of footage of hell’s cannons targeting with no advice the green buses assembly point.
And if you doesn’t know what are such buses, it means you know absolutely nothing about the reality of Syria war.

Pak-fa is very important for the Russian industry because it allowed them to physically create features of a fifth generation fighter and experience its reality, benefits and limitations. There is much to learn from such an experience.

But we need to face realities too. its gdp is only slightly higher than Australia and growth is in the negatives, meaning it’ll become like Australia and maybe to Spain. It cannot afford the program. It may end up being like India and Tejas. It is a good experience and new knowledge gained. They need to save money now and get the su-35, and then use the knowledge of pak-fa to develop a full 5th generation fighter in the future when the economy is better. China is doing all it can to save the Russian economy. The J-31 is also an option for Russia to consider.

You still don’t get how the Russian (former Sov) procurement system work, is it not?
They don’t made overall contracts for a set number of planes through the years like the (frankly absurd) one of F-35, shackling themselves for almost two decades on a plane that can turn out to be obsolete in less than ten. They instead make order for a batch at time, ready to modify an assembly line as soon as a new product is ready and one of such contracted order is complete.
And they have different fighter planes in production/overhaul at the same time, actually.
Su-30SM, Su-35, Su-34 , Yak-130, so a production batch is usually about to be completed at any time…
So this years they have signed a contract for a first batch of 12 Pak-Fa to be done next year for OCU squadron even before state trials are complete and the last prototype is even finished. Having completed production of Su-30Mk2 they have just the required space cleared and ready to be used.

It seems Egypt will be procuring Ka-52Ks as well. “The customer is considering several helicopter squadrons” – Punchuk.

http://vpk-news.ru/news/33059

I think is just another reason of Kutnetsov cruise, isn’t it? It can also be that in the end we would see russian Ka-52K operating from the very same Mistrals hollande has refused to Russia.

Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait – they are primarily interested in Sunnis overrunning Syria so that they get rid of Assad who is ally of Shiite Iran.
Turkey – less clear but I guess that whatever party that is willing to slash Kurds is good for them..
Israel – whoever occupies attention of Assad and Hezbollah, is helping Israel to become a less likely target
USA – their motives to get rid of Assad are not entirely clear to me.. to pi$$ off Russians on losing Tartus and Latakia bases? you tell me..

American exceptionalism doctrine? Influence of Israel on politics? S.Arabia and Quatar bribing Cute Clinton Clan like hell? You choose.

Indeed; the Italian vs. French Navy comparison is really quite unfavourable to the latter when one considers the extra resources the French are working with.

My philosophy is to limit ambitions (the scope of national interest) and then ensure one can robustly execute within that limited scope. If you can’t do it well, don’t do it at all. And of course, a single carrier is incapable of doing anything well.

Both the French and British Navies today fall into the category of nations trying to write cheques they can’t cash (and hoping that nobody calls them out on it), and we all know why that is. Perhaps Italy was fortunate that its foray into empire-building was comparatively brief and disastrous — makes it easier to let go. 😉

It was not so brief, nor so disastrous, Ethiopia was just the last, Somalia, Erithrea and Lybia just another matter.
Yes, we somewhat limited our own ambition or better illusion coming back to the concept of “Enlarged Mediterranean” (i.e. + the oil route to Persian Gulf) we had during the Cold War.
Still , we do it robustly as you say, sparing nothing about quality, almost in our first rank ships, still costructed on a proprietary standard superior to the NATO one and with our trademark overload of artillery and armament precisely because we aspect to operate in some very demanding environments with simply no space to deploy a standard task force with ships covering one with the other.
Actually we have just started a massive program of naval construction, aimed to build those category of ships we somewhat lagged behind other navies (amphibious and support) + a series of a dozen and more 32+ knot “patrol ships” each armed the more or the less as a standard frigate in other ones, so almost for the navy , no complaint at all on our side…

I think you mean CATOBAR.

Yes, i’m old school, before STOBAR acronym use.

The specific mention of “invisible” aircraft was likely made to get the message right across to the murican fanboys, who bragged about the F-22s intercepting the Syrian jets without them even knowing it, that Russia has been tracking these “invisible” aircrafts all along.

https://t.co/13EViFED2H

^^ Russian spokesman had mentioned about specific knowledge about where the official western jihadi supporters are based in Syria and specifically in Aleppo. The reports had mentioned that the reason for so much effort from the western Jihadi supporters on the diplomatic front was due to the fact that there was over 200 “uniformed” jihadi supporters trapped inside eastern Aleppo. Their best bet is to sneak into the Kurdish pocket and that is where these Jihadi supporters are likely to cross over or have already crossed over. So there is a need for Syrian forces to isolate the Kurdish pocket from the moderate terrorists held locations. It would be good to have those western Jihadis supporters to be captured alive. several of them are likely to be already dead.

Few battle field reports from the front line. And all along I fail to understand the utter lack of priority from the Russian side for developing a proper armed UAV on the likes of earlier proposed Sukhoi’s Zond series.

The terrorists have kept the civilians as human shields in the eastern Aleppo region and this has now slowed down the Syrian army advance. There is only one way to get those terrorists roaming in the alleys and that is with the use of armed drones. Unfortunately Russia doesn’t have anything to offer and only guys in the game are China and Iran. There is a need to being in as many armed Chinese drone as possible to scan the eastern Aleppo and strike at these terrorists.

I’m a avid followers of all those thing but…

…this isNOT the place.
I warmy invite ALL there to open an account on twitter and look at the excellent posters mentioned in the map top angle, to which I would add the more western-oriented Aghatocle of Syracuse and Oryx blog (filo rebels are instead just rubbish hijadi propaganda)to have a great day to day, minute by minute update of the field situation before of just posting there.
Said so this is an Aviation discussion thread and such have to remain.

Haha no they aren’t. Tell me. What is the Pak Fa lagging so behind on stealth wise ?

Like any technology, stealth was never going to be the be all and end all. Besides that F 117 laying in that corn field in Serbia, every technical advantage will be met with counter technology. I don’t think the Americans understand this.

Look at the work China is doing.

The end of stealth? New Chinese radar capable of detecting ‘invisible …
http://www.scmp.com › News › China
5 days ago – In a statement posted on its website on Sunday, CETC said China’s first “single-photon quantum radar system” had “important military …

First, is absolutely not the first one. We got it . http://www.ansa.it/scienza/notizie/rubriche/tecnologie/2013/07/11/primo-radar-fotonico-_9008500.htmlhttp://www.lanazione.it/pisa/cronaca/2014/03/20/1041746-pisano_radar_cuore_fotonico.shtmlhttps://www.researchitaly.it/en/understanding/press-media/news/a-photonic-radar-for-air-and-sea-traffic-management/

For all the rest photonic radars and Software Definited Radio technologies are being researched in several countries, so at most China just joined the trend.
Said so, it’s quite strange such a promising technology has actually received so little attention.