There have been Russian special forces in Syria for many years now, including during the conflict.
Their main role has not been combat obviously.

Recently however there was footage of a new BTR-82A firing and a Russian voice over the radio. Probably small scale advisor support. Or could be Slavonic Corp 2.0 .

Either way, forget some large troop commitment. If Russia really wanted to intervene there are about 10 steps they could take first to assist Assad short of troop intervention.

Surely they would need to wait the US congress vote and a deal to be signed between the regime and almost a part of the opposition, so to have a sort of international legitimation.
IN THE VERY END they would have to made a sort of official , direct intervention even if loyalist forces would going back to a series of victory, just not to allow to the usual suspect (GSCC, Turkey and Israel) to try to turn tables on another time.
What no one would do is to send some stable garrison force, just crash ISIS/ islamist rebels/ die harder ones, handle it to SAA/Kurds/ local commitees and go away.

And just to say such a thing you posted the same initial quote also in almost other two thread.
Let me check also the one about F-35…

What are your five horrible aircraft deals in the past 30 years?

in no particular order

5. Thailand and Harriers: Why!?

For Chakrhi Naruebet, of course… Problem was about the affordability of the ship itself more than to Harrier.

AMX was a bad industrial idea: a binational program that ended into a plane too much complicated for Brasil and too simple for Italy.
Even if in the end, we found it quite ideal for asimmetrical conflict instead…

This has been my theme the whole of this year.

I’ve been dreaming up upgraded J-8s, J-7s and JH-7As. The last one is already pretty upgraded. DAS, AESA radars and precision strike gizmos would redeem the J7 for instance. The major handicap of the J7 has always been limited space for avionics such as radar. With more compact and effective systems, those handicaps are lifted.

The other idea I am exploring (on the Historic side of the forum) is a simple, single engined piston powered ground attack aircraft.

I personally feel that sysgems like the JH7, F-4, J7, etc are prematurely being abandoned.

It would be the perfect play for a third world country to buy the production rights to the J7, modernize it. Would create a defense airospace industry while creating a viable export.

The dominant themes are stealth and omnirole, which have played out in the last 30 years. The contrarian theme should be low cost, specialized aircraft that rethink the supposed supremacy of the dominant theme. Can a loaded up F16 or even F15 in the strike role really defend itself effectively? Experience from real exercises and combat says otherwise. Is the turbofan so much more better than the turbojet, all things considered (including costs)? The jury to me is still out on that… A Turkish F4 would surely cause the jury to reflect…

Let us imagine a J7 with a small aesa in the nose, good enough to lock on a bvr to about 60 kms. Data linked to an AWACS / C4ISR. Supported by UCAVs. A more radical cousin of the J7 playing with lidar / IRST combo plotting in the periphery. A JH7A providing jamming support. A few JH7As in the strike role.

This above scenario would cost pennies to the dollar compared to the dominant themed alternative and yet provide a capability not to be dismissed.

Some point are certainly right: F-15 although superior to the F-4 has sold just a section of it and some very advanced air force like the Luftwaffe has kept them until recently.
Some airplane are better than others in that regard, think about Mirages for an example.
IN every case adding some modification is something that was done extensively before but now in case of stealth planes it would be surely much more complicated.

Don’t make the mistake thinking that everything has something to do with Russian doctrine. Russian producers simply want to sell, therefore they develop what they think will be in high demand. Even today, many export Su-30s (China, Vietnam, Algeria) are seen armed with Kh-31, Kh-59 or various KAB bombs, in the meantime, photos of Russian operational planes armed with PGMs are as rare as hen’s teeth.

Thanks for the reply.
So, to conclude, in your opinion what between all those weapons, new and old would be tho ones to have a sure place on present and future russian planes and what are instead just a private initiative ?

They said before than PAK-FA would use Kh-58 as ARM because Kh-31 wouldn’t fit inside butt we have saw the latter on external pylons quite often instead and now ad MAKSthey have presented a dual seeker, box shaped Kh-58, so one can legimely wonder.

I don’t know if there is a anything such a russian extabilished PGM doctrine, western weapon evolution stemmed out quite naturally from adding new gimmicks to existing weaponry with Jdams and GPS midcourse guidance being the central features.
Seems me that there is instead a russian preference in fast missiles and not any investment in miniaturized PGMs instead.

Well, maybe they would be waiting forthe hypersonic version of it.
Actual bhramos wouldn’t fit in T-50 bays anyway.

1- Ad hoc, advanced versions of the one you mentioned for sure. Some other beautiful surprise highly probable.
2- Last post of Austin and a very good translator. Not so easy to find.Any other language you know would work better than english in this regard.
3- Variable cycle is the desired final goal. Introduction of intermediate steps almost certain.
4- Still waiting.

Tremendous contributors is what made of this thread a tremendous one , or better said XXV !!!!!

About point two, surprises arrived, X-59mk2 and X/58TP.

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1443681.html
[ATTACH=CONFIG]240056[/ATTACH]

Now we could only guess, who the secret customer is…

The customer is so secret, that his pilots and ground personal could not be seen on training… Who could hide the best between Russians?

To train on a plane you need to have the two seater version of the said plane completed…given that Russia has still not ordered them, we almost know why they have begun with the -D version.