This is a completely obsolete view of what constitutes CAS. Loitering low and slow over the enemy is simply suicide against a modern adversary. Any future CAS platform can be expected to rely on various glide bombs and possibly lasers, employed from altitude with the aid of advanced sensors.

If you are flying low and slow over the battlefield stealth and ECM won’t help all that much. Similarly, aircraft like the F-35B are already designed to operate from forward operating bases, but that isn’t the only way to achieve round the clock coverage. Experience in recent wars has shown that bombers have the endurance to provide coverage even when operating from a thousand miles away.

I strongly suspect that if a new CAS platform is defined it will look a lot more like an enlarged Scorpion than an A-10. Two crew, one to manage the sensors, weapons, and possibly networked UAVs… the other to fly the plane and maintain overall situational awareness. Long endurance, the ability to carry a large and varied load of munitions, and strong networking and sensors so that it can effectively direct ever longer ranged artillery. (100 mile range railguns could provide most of the firepower if the A-X could provide the targeting.)

Maybe it can be obsolete but the other you describe is not CAS at all.
Just coming, dropping bomb on predesignate targets and going away has nothing to do with it, it is just the normal bombing that every attack plane usually do.
What CAS implies is to loiter over the designated area for long period of time, to act in strict coordination with the ground troops (and is this what USAF doesn’t want absolutely to do, low or high quote, gliding bombs or gun is absolutgely secundary) in order to provide them a constant force protection.
Certainly it doesn’t need to use the same weaponries of thirdy years ago, B-1B and UAV over Kobane acted the same in such a role.
One designated targets and the other dropped bomb for high quote but it was the ability to stay hours over the battlefield that made the difference.
Actually, the International coalition is using A-10 and their guns to support Kurds troops in N.Aleppo and Hama province and when it decided to follow russian and finally bomb oil smugglers trucks they used the same A-10 and AC-130.
So please, let’s go tell them they are obsolete.

EDIT all those said F-35 can really turn out to be a really good CAS asset: it has autonomy, excellent sensor package, high AoA and high wing loading= good low speed handling qualities, a real gun and not the usual M61 peashooter.
Problem is in the way they would be used, for what it comes to USMC and my own country air force I’ll bet 100% on it, as for USAF they would have to be forced into it.

IL-PAKFA ‘Stealthovik’ =)

Thats good, really.

He probably presumed you have some basic knowledge about how these things work. Put simply, currently the Russian ATGM missiles can engage only one target at a time and the helicopter needs to stay completely exposed to track the target with their nose mounted sights while the missile is guided towards the target leaving it open to counter fire, whether by AAA, SAM’s, tanks, IFV’s, whatever. The US was in the same situation in the 80’s so they developed a mast mounted radar and RF guided missiles which allowed their helicopters to obtain the radar picture while being virtually in cover and then to launch the missiles at them without getting exposed to counter fire. The radar also allows for all-weather engagement capability, target identification and it has a longer useful range than the optical systems, yes.

Thank, this is a good explanation made by the one that has made the original post, something I am absolutely eager to accept.
My own reply to this is already part of my previous post to MSphere, so i’ll not repeat it there.

Upon having seen the videos from Syria where the vintage Mi-24Ps are overflying combat areas as if it was a nearby schoolyard.. I just don’t think that Russians care too much about these things.. Whatever their combat doctrine is, it’s obviously much more straightforward than what we are used to in the west. Is there an opponent with modern and/or decent SHORAD? They would most likely be annihilated in a massive wave of unguided rockets and defeated by pure saturation at the cost of one/two vintage Hips..

And I agree that the Mi-28NM might have lost out to the AH-64E in terms of overall sophistication. EBAPS sensors, Longbow Hellfires, all very cool stuff. But how many India is getting? 22? Gimme a break…

Or they would better engage said systems using something at their choice between KH-25, KH-29, kh-36,KH-38,Kh-58, kh-59 etc etc.
Some of such weapons have been extensively used in Syrian conflict by both RuAF than SyAAF and the lighters of them can also been carried by Helos.
Because Russian have a lot of fire and forget tactical weaponry available, just they doesn’t see any convincing reason to apply such guidance to AT missiles instead than a beam riding one.

For a stealth plane bomb bay high drag bombs are the way to go, just look to the external dimensional difference between an Ofab 250/270 (by far their weapon of choice in Syria) and the KAB-250 (that is however great for external carring).
I would guess that they are also more precise, so ideal to be used in conjunction with the SVP-24.
Their own shortcoming is that they cannot be converted into guided weapon but given that the KAB bombs are expressely made and not a conversion kit for existing stocks (that Nato has in great part just depleted) this is not even an issue.

I think it will be improbable to ever see a russian fire & forget russian AT missile, almost in the form of actual american/western counterparts.
Their whole doctrine about this category of weapons and reject it radically.
For what it comes to the infantry/ground vehicle ones up to Kornet they have always seen them as a multiuse weapon more than a strictly AT one but also for this specific role they state almost three good reasons, beside the most obvious one of cost, to prefer beam riding over focal plane array.
Full effectiveness of Heat charge, resistance to countermeasures (both thank of the rear looking sensor) and way higher velocity attainable.
In the case of specifically helicopter vehicle things are a little different but in most cases the same doctrinary consideration applies.
Russians doesn’t ever envisaged a pop-up, pop down way to use their own birds like NATO had during the cold war, so its extremely umprobable they would ever sense the need to do it now when also their “opponent” doesn’t practically use this anymore.
It’s their own doctrine and their modus operandi, westener have another, stemming from totally different starting point: both can be valid and its only the practical experience that would settle scores.
And from what it is coming out from Syrian conflict, actually Russia is going toward a landslide victory…

Eh no. He has mentioned “new KSU” several times – it is software upgrades to the system he is talking about, not new hardware. KSU is a very general term, basically every plane ever made has KSU. Neither does it mean “vibration tests”. What they do is testing how stable the systems are working under different frequencies, basically electromagnetic shielding testing.

Meanwhile in Russia, a modern fifth generation fighter with dumb bombs from like 1946;

http://russianplanes.net/id186901

But they have to test with everything i suppose.

After an even superficial survey of the results of actual campaign in Syria when compared to the ones of the int’l coal’n I would advice you to F—N KEEP THEM ON!

Well, Kamov proposed its Ka-50-2 “Erdogan”(funny name, yeah?))) to Turkey in 1990’s. Of course it was a glass cannon(i mean, canopy) but still – there was a tandem variant in the Kamov’s pipe.

We will see when Mil’ will introduce its Mi-28NM.

What differentiate the most one from the other are flight characteristics and protection level.
So the introduction of a renewed version of any of the two would not change much their own intended actual roles.
At the contrary having the two of them working in pair would end up into an enhanched effectiveness of both IMHO.
Add also the mi-24/35 and the armed version of the Hip and you’ll see how Russia has a lot of arrows in its own quiver when it comes about AirCav operations.
Also export sales would have a benefit from such a wide offer, both by being able to fulfill vastly different requirements and by the ability to offer a whole package.